Category: Trump

What Did We Talk About Before 2015?

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Again and again, the national discourse is being hijacked by an unworthy person. The gift of rotting fish just won’t go away. He obviously is incapable of taking a hint, or even 80+ million hints as of the last presidential election. No, what he insists is that he is incapable of making a mistake, and all of the past times when he was captured, in video or on calls violating the laws of the nation, those were just perfect human interactions. Perfectly normal for someone to insist they received five figure vote totals higher than he actually did. I am sorry he feels so persecuted and put upon by the citizens of this nation who were repulsed by this overweight hulk of a man who is nearly incapable of walking down an inclined plane. Surely people should have gotten the message (carefully crafted by his cabinet lackeys) that he was not guilty of collusion with Russia during his original political campaign. Maybe not guilty of legal collusion, but certainly he was intertwined with his Russian counterpart through less formal means of obtaining foreign assistance to help in his initial election.

It continues to amaze me so many still rush to defend this toddler. So many are caught up in his cult of personality, vulgar as it is. I guess that is his appeal. He does not avoid vulgarities, in fact, his entire adult life has been a series of vulgarities and they continue to this day. How can you stand to support someone who is the antithesis of all things patriotic. The image of him literally embracing the flag at some convention of losers was obscene on so many different levels. Perhaps the most obscene was that the person who wanted to claim the literal image for himself (hugging the flag) is the same individual who denigrated and denounced those who had actually sacrificed for this nation. When his generation’s opportunity for military service came about, he manipulated a physician to provide a diagnosis of bone spurs. That has to be the 20th century equivalent of paying someone to take their place, something wealthy New Yorkers were accustomed to back in the civil war.

I still subscribe to the quaint belief that a President should be a moral example to those he or she leads. As in so many cases, that belief was shattered when we elected a moral klutz, incapable of behaving in a consistent, upright manner. Looking at that perspective, it is not necessarily the recipient of the votes who we should be denouncing, but those who so willingly gave their votes. So we will call out those who are determined to be Old Testament and Letters of Paul Christians. They seem to love the tones of vengeance prevalent in the Old Testament, along with the homophobia and misogyny evident in Paul’s letters. The Jesus of the Gospels? Never heard of him. All of this woke, touchy-feely stuff about loving your enemies, and welcoming the stranger is not meant to apply in this day and age. No, if you can’t demand a good smiting of those you disagree with, what good is it to belong to an Evangelical congregation?

Unfortunately, those who feel ill-suited to exist in this nation in the 21st century have shown an ability to project their voices stridently and to shout over those who disagree with them. Since they found a hero who gave voice to their sublimated desires to express their racism, you hear expressions of racism spoken proudly in our public spaces. Those of us who are opposed to these cretins are dependent upon people being reasonable and thoughtful to sway them back to a shared reality. We keep running up against the vitriol of those who insist upon terrorizing anyone who deigns to disagree with the mob who denigrates wokeism. If their leader insists the election was stolen, then by gum, and by golly, it must have been stolen. Anyone who says otherwise is itching for a fight.

I consider myself to be a fighter in this war for the conscience of this nation. I pay for my own platform in the form of this blog to put my own thoughts into the public sphere. I realize I am influencing almost no one, since I have a small readership, and those who disagree with me often will not bother to read anything requiring an attention span greater than a typical Tik-Tok video. Still, I am able to express my thoughts and am willing to put myself out there for hearing opposing points of view.

We are in grave danger of totally losing this experiment in representative democracy. If those individuals who demonstrate antipathy to morality manage to find their way back into power, we will soon find ourselves in a dystopian world where Orwell’s creatures would be totally comfortable. “Who controls the past, controls the future”. “War is peace”. And “The best books … are those that tell you what you know already”. All of these are sentiments just waiting for reemergence in a new administration. After all, we’ve already suffered through alternative facts. We see the extreme efforts aimed at erasing the past, so that we can all read the books that only tell us what we already know. Once we have a totally ignorant generation brought up in these beliefs, it will be nigh unto impossible to reverse the downward spiral we seem determined to impose upon ourselves.

Thus Endeth This Cycle

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 So the mid-term elections are over. We hear all of the pundits now either crowing about their prescience on their absolute knowledge of the coming lack of a red wave, or bemoaning the fact that the electorate did not wish to continue the trek towards authoritarianism represented by the MAGA wing of the Republican party.

Some trends continued. In North Carolina, which voted 50% Republican to 49% Democrat in the 2020 election for state legislators, but had a 69-51 margin in legislative seats, continued their trend of unrepresentative selections. Republicans won 71 seats in the North Carolina house in this election, although the actual votes for the two parties is not yet available. In my state of West Virginia, almost a complete wipeout of Democratic legislators occurred. 16 of the 17 Senate seats in this state went to Republicans.

But for those of us who like to live in a democratic republic, the national election results did provide some hope. We saw what happened when a drop of Trumpism was placed in a peach tree dish, causing the Republicans in the dish to flee. All Secretary of State candidates who pledged to overturn election results if they were not to their liking, ended up on the scrap heap of electoral losers. We shall see if the Democratic lead holds up for Arizona, where Katie Hobbs is holding on to a razor-thin margin over everyone’s favorite Trump toady, Kari Lake.

In the US House, Kevin McCarthy (or whoever takes the speakership) will find out how difficult it is to herd cats. The House under Democratic control was a messy place, but the Progressive Caucus at least found it possible to hold their noses and vote for policies which they disagreed with. Somehow, the Freedom Caucus does not seem inclined to follow the lead of the Progressives, and have pledged always and every time to put ideology over governing. Good luck on holding a majority together. Expect to see one or two changes in party over the next several months as it becomes evident how difficult it is to govern the rowdy crowd of Republican legislators.

It was in the US Senate where the most interesting results were recorded. Not only did the Republicans fail to take over control, they actually have the potential to lose one seat due to the “quality” of their candidates. It certainly appears that the only ability Herschel Walker possesses is his ability to hit the hole. We will find out in early December whether the Republican denunciation of intellect and ability will overcome the erudition of Rafael Warnock. I’ve had just about enough of the Republican’s overt campaign against people on the right hand of the intelligence bell curve. Republicans do believe in affirmative action. They gather as many as possible who lack mental capabilities. Witness Ron Johnson, Tommy Tuberville, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Matt Gaetz as poster children for needing affirmative action. It is only due to fortune that they will not have to share the stage with Louie Gohmert, and Madison Cawthorn.

So we will end up with nearly the status quo on the national level. Yes, the Republicans will likely have the ability to stuff the House agenda full of nonsense legislation and pointless investigations, but the flame of Trumpism does seem like it is flickering, threatening extinguishment. Just remember. The embers will stay hot for a long while, and it is very possible for flames to reignite from the remains.

It Was A Perfect Raid

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So, it is possible that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were correct back in 2016. Donald, for his infamous claim about being able to shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any followers. And Hillary, for her astute observation about the nature of many Trump followers – that they were truly deplorable people. Of course, being as that statement came from the enemy, it was adopted as a badge of honor. I still remember middle-aged women wearing Adorable Deplorable t-shirts to announce their affiliation. In the end, it was a statement that undoubtedly contributed to her defeat. It doesn’t detract from the veracity of the observation.

If nothing else, the events of this past month show that Donald truly does not care about anything but himself. No one else would take the issues about secret files and weave them into a conspiracy blanket of victimhood for himself. As Maya Angelou said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Donald Trump has shown himself to a national audience since the 1970’s. The prime example of someone who has failed upwards, he never has had to face consequences for his actions. His multitude of business failures occurred upon piles of borrowed money, so once the debt was restructured, Donald ended up in a nominally better position than when he started. That the epitome of his success is a private club in a soon-to-be submarine barrier island is fitting. He doesn’t even realize his peril in the future. Of course, for him the future is irrelevant.

What we see in his frenzied communications is a refusal to accept responsibility for any problem he faces. In fact, he seems bound and determined to deny he has transgressed at all. And his quislings are more than happy to provide ever more fantastic justifications for his actions. No, there is no problem with storing top secret information next to a country club ballroom. What could go wrong? And in legal filings, we see that we should consider the entire matter as nothing more serious as overdue library books. Gaah!

Of course, the world view of the cult leader and his followers is totally consistent. When you look back at the pitched battle to gain access to the Capitol Building on January 6 as normal political discourse, then seeing top secret information stored at a country club is nothing more than an overdue book. At least he is consistent, although many view him as a self-caricature He thinks he is an alpha male, and his strutting and preening emphasizes his manliness to his fallen admirers. They are the ones with the Rambo images, that head affixed to an assault-weapon wielding savior of the race.

All of these admirers are so far beyond the pale that they perceive any criticism as “divisive”. As if his words and actions brought people together. No, these people not only do not accept criticism, they have convinced themselves that criticism is blasphemy. How do you reason with people who share no elements of rationality with you? You can’t, that’s how. The only way this cult will go away is through repeated repudiation at the ballot box, though the stage has been set for the cult members to reject any such repudiation as just another stolen election.

Indictment is coming. Like it or not, the event that can draw his followers into forming an army of brown shirts with MAGA lettering is just ahead. We know what actions his deluded followers will take, they’ve announced their intentions on all media forums where they hold sway. Those in charge at a Federal or State level must hold firm to their convictions so that we can finally get a conviction for the egregious behavior we’ve seen over the past 7 years. His true followers? They are so far gone it may take a generation for the damage wrought by the orange one to disappear. After all, we have a world full of real problems to face as a nation.  We’ve lost far too much time worrying about the actions of the unhinged. It is time to move on.