Month: November 2022

The GOP has been in the gutter for a long time. The difference between the Party of old and the GOP of today is in how well they look and sound in suits. When the Republican Party was a legitimate party people wore suits that made them look human. They were able to sound intelligent as they explained cogently ideas that some consider antithetical to American interests. Today, however, suits on Republicans are like putting lipstick on pigs. No where was that more apparent than with Donald Trump.

Trump’s ascendancy in the GOP was a trial balloon sent afloat by America’s monied interests who wanted to see just how much of a belligerent, disruptive, despicable politician the people would tolerate. Someone who could convince people to go along with the GOP’s equally objectionable agenda of consolidating wealth in the hands of an increasingly smaller percentage of the public while denying the majority of Americans access to opportunities a democratic society affords. The conventional playbook of pitting one group of people against the other, divide and conquer, has become increasingly difficult because of American diversity.

Trump was brought on board to entertain, amuse and even infuriate us while distracting from the real agenda of the GOP which is unbridled wealth acquisition among the country’s largest companies. Every member of the GOP is on board with that policy. Every last one. Republicans may not like the associates like Nick Fuentes and Kanye West Trump brings on board to keep his brand relevant but they have no doubt about his committment to their cause as long as his allies don’t diminish the base they need to stay in power.

Fuentes and Ye represent not only Trump’s friends and associates but the base of the Republican Party. The only difference between Trump and the GOP is in how palatable they can make their fecal objectives taste to the public at large and how good they can look while doing it. Republicans have looked pretty good in the past convincing the public they’re acting in the interests of the American people. However Trump reaching back to enlist the help of a 24 year old white supremacist college drop out and a 45 year old black rapper anti-Semite is enough to restrain even the most authoritarian Republican from giving Donald Trump the enthusiastic sycophantic praise he was used to receiving while holder of the most powerful office in the world.

Republicans have forgotten that Trump’s ability to withstand attack pales in his ability to give it. The base they share which consists of the likes of Fuentes and anti-semites, black and white will keep them in synch with one another. Republicans need Trump just as much as he needs their affirmation. Either they give one another what they need or as Lindsay Graham once said Trump will spell the end of the Republican Party.

Please note unlike Trump supporters who when they speak of death or acts that lead to it like ‘hand Mike Pense’ and mean it in the literal sense, the natural death I’m referring to for Trump would come from eating one too many McDonald’s combo meals and dying from obesity or the type of suffocation that comes from telling so many lies that his nose has grown long enough for him to become top heavy and fallen face first onto the ground. Remember Trump had over 30K lies attributed to him at the end of his first term in office and that number has only increased in the two years since. So then, natural death for Trump is his passing away by his own hands and because his time was up.

With that out of the way his political death was impending after the 2022 midterms. Because the GOP didn’t do as well as expected and certainly Trump’s endorsed candidates did rather poorly there were calls by Republicans to get him out of the way. Those who called for him to move forgot Trump is the ultimate narcissist and it was never about what’s good for the Party as much as what satisfies his ego so despite the poor showing of his candidates Trump chose to announce his own candidacy for president in 2024 ONE WEEK later!

That however is what one should expect from a narcissist but what was not expected comes from main stream media and the fact that 2 cable news networks covered the twice impeached, under investigation, former president’s announcement and with that resuscitated Trump’s political career. Any momentum that may have gathered to push Trump out of the way was turned on its head into pushing him back into the spotlight. This was a repeat of Trump in 2015 when he became prominent due to the extraordinary media coverage he received, almost all of it misplaced. He didn’t deserve it but captialized because of it to go on and become POTUS with disastrous results for the country.

Main stream media has to shift its focus from Trump the political newsmaker to Trump the criminal, disgraced, felonious fraud that he has always been. Media also has to stop looking at Trump as a cash cow. It was media’s coverage early on in his political campaigning that profitted greatly from ringing his bell, getting the attention of viewers and readers and generating revenue from a profane, vulgar, political neophyte. However as a former POTUS who had access to sensitive, classified information and America’s military and law enforcement arsenals at his disposal Trump has become an existential threat to American democracy and that should be the prism with which he is viewed.

In the same days before and after the mid term election and Trump’s announcement he would seek office again came news from his own mouth that he used his office to garner a win for a potential opponent for the Republican nomination for President, Ron DeSantis. Certainly newsworthy but not to be outdone by that came a report that Trump weaponized the IRS to go after political opponents and there’s still the mystery of what has happened to the investigation into documents stolen from the government and secreted at Mar-O-Lago and possibly places beyond. No doubt there are countless other stories of Trump scandal that should be written about and explored that are far more meaningful than his return to politics. How can anyone decide whether to vote for him again without answers to these questions and why would a discussion of these issues become obscured with coverage of Trump rallies and the false imagery they are meant by design to convey.

Removing the coverage of Trump’s appearance before throngs of admiring fans adorned in colorful attire from the country’s airwaves and electronic/print venues would probably be the stake in Trump’s heart. He needs that kind of attention to feed his narcissim. Don’t forget in the 90s he would call reporters of various NYC outlets in a disguised voice claiming to be someone to talk about how great “Donald Trump” was or the many utterly comical superlatives he gives himself such as ‘the world’s greatest person’, or ‘there is nobody bigger or better at the military’ than he and on and on goes the ridiculous nature of Trump when left unchallenged. Which is why he should not be allowed to dictate how he is viewed. We know the face he will portray. He is cruel, ignorant, belligerent, a liar, a fraud, a thief, and possibly a traitor but he cannot and should not be viewed ever again as an American politician or political candidate. In order for that to happen and to hasten his political demise he shouldn’t be given coverage that views him in that light ever again. Can an industry that’s built on profit afford to do that? Is American democracy that important?

Couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people. The ultimate narcissist and the American fascist party are at odds with one another over who will be the ascendant fringe of American politics.

Trump, once the darling of the GOP because of his boorish, nasty behavior towards Republican opponents paved the way in promoting the Party’s philosophy of autocratic oligarchy using schtick and bravado that attracted votes yet distracted people from the dangers of Republican politics. Now, however after a disappointing mid term the Party wants to divorce itself from a man who won’t take “no” for an answer.

What do people expect from a narcissist Donald Trump? The Party wrapped themselves up in his personality. They gave him free reign to redesign their Party anyway he wanted as long as he was winning but didn’t figure out how to install a kill switch to turn him off when needed. The Party fell, just like countless other Americans, to Trump’s ability to sell himself despite the disastrous track record he has left in his wake. Now, the debt has to be paid and it started with the mid terms.

Like so many financial lending institutions, the Party’s leadership has decided to throw Trump under the bus and not give him the credit he thinks he deserves. Calls for him to keep quiet, stay away and otherwise disengage from Party politics are being sent by all the signalers of the Party. Whether Trump listens is another matter. He has already sent signals he will announce a reelection bid in the near future. I hope that announcement means the Party will engage in this internecine fight between a suicidal Trump and an autocratic, derelict party hell bent on controlling American politics until the Party implodes. It has become an irrelevant, irreverent party that has no place in a modern, 21st century, diverse republic.

#donaldTrump #republicanRascism

I waited until the evening before the election everyone is saying will be one of the most consequential of modern American history to weigh in on its import. What will America be like 48 hours from now? Will the country be able to carry on as usual or will it have the rumblings of chaos and fear that marked other periods in our history when white nativism and privilege decided to exert itself and turned America into a violent, bloody cauldron where citizens’ rights are abrogated.

When you think about the course of American history it really is time for that kind of turmoil. There have been almost 50 years of American calm where people used their voice in peaceful ways to influence American politics. This of course was after the Civil Rights movements of the 60s which were blood baths. That struggle for civil, human rights along with the dissent against the Vietnam war turned Americans against one another in ways that echoed the internecine strife of the Civil War. Some of the same dark forces that were at work then are present today sharing some of the same goals among them the denial of the right to vote for some in free and fair elections.

When the Biden administration took over government there were three issues it should have dealt with urgently. Arresting Covid and slowing down its death toll, reviving the American economy and installing voting rights legislation that would be able to meet and beat the Republican assault on democracy. Each one of those policy initiatives was vitally important to the longevity of the Republic and all three had to be in place at the same time in order for America to be better than before and more prosperous. Unfortunately only the first two were put in place and so we are now on election eve worrying about the consequences of this election because we have no guarantee all Americans will be able to participate freely and without intimidation in the electoral process.

Jan6 is full of stories of members of the military and law enforcement participating in the insurrection. That fact begs the question can we count on a united states to meet and defeat the violence which may result from a contentious election.

Why Biden didn’t more forcefully look for a way to codify voting rights might well be a question America will ask itself for many years to come. Voting rights and access will benefit all Americans just as covid relief and shoring up the American economy and the middle class. What hurts is the belief that it only benefits a certain segment of the population. That belief is probably shared across the political spectrum otherwise why wouldn’t it be more of a priority? We failed to be persuasive enough to make the case for the relevance, necessity for full fledged voting rights in today’s America and as a result we failed this country. We might have to pay a very big price for our failure.

One has to ask themselves is that what they, the GOP, want? What comes from Republican messaging about their opponents keeps getting worse for America in general and that’s because all of their messaging is now exclusively based on lies used to generate a physical response from their supporters.

Talk enough about Hillary Clinton and her emails and surround them with lies about child pornography and sex trafficking and you get Maddison Welch a gun wielding vigilante who self-investigated the claims of a child sex ring in a Washington, DC establishment. It didn’t matter the pizza business was over 300 miles from where Welch lived, he went there armed with an AR-15 and a pistol and terrorized the community looking for something someone (it’s always a faceless, nameless person) told him existed. That thing, children held hostage in the basement of a pizzeria and used as sex slaves wasn’t there but that doesn’t matter because it’s the response that counts and it set the standard for how people on the right are expected to respond to GOP messaging. True to form for conspiracists a few days later someone attempted to terrorize Besta Pizza a few doors down for the same reason.

What matters is the response. That someone can start a lie that gets enough traction, no matter how easy it is to disprove it, see through it, gets people to resort to violence is a useful tool for unscrupulous politicians. It seems to be used extensively by today’s politicians on the Right. At the time of the “pizza gate” shootings a lot of press was being given to Trump and his demonization of Hillary Clinton and the email scandal of Trump’s demented mind. At every chance he could Trump railed about the evils of Clinton and left it to the imagination of his supporters what she is responsible for and what should be done about it. Welch considered he was doing something about it.

James T. Hodgkinson the man above went on a shooting rampage against Republicans. He vehemently and inevitably violently opposed Republican ideology. People you might have never heard of were the target of his rage. I share his dislike of today’s Republican Party but not his solution for expressing that dislike. Hodgkinson was an ardent Bernie Sanders supporter at one point and expressed his dislike for Trump on Facebook and to local newspapers but his violence was fueled by internal forces that slowly built up to the day that led him to attempt to kill Republicans. You can read about the journey that led to his violence here. What can be said is he acted out of his own inclinations, not because someone encouraged him to or because a political message was sent out that implied Republicans should be targeted in any way other than via the electoral process. No one forged conspiracies about the dangers of the Republican Party or rhetorically called for action, outside of the political process, to be taken against Democratic opponents that he listened to, bonded with and read. Hodgkinson had simply, on his own and without prompting from anyone except the deep recesses of his own mind become insane. There was no previous violent expression against Republicans he could point too for encouragement, there was only him.

Which brings us to today and the violence acted out against Nancy and David Pelosi. David Depape went to a specific residence after subscribing to an assortment of lies and conspiracies about a definite political opponent of Trump. I hope her address is a matter of public record but nonetheless he broke in looking for her and eventually assaulted her husband. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know he was inspired by GOP opposition to Pelosi’s reign as Speaker of the House. Marjorie Taylor Green has said Pelosi is a traitor and underscored the penalty for treason is death. It’s clear the line she’s drawing. Trump going as far back as 2017 has called Pelosi a nasty, vindictive, horrible person and considers her a disgrace. Kevin McCarthy who might become Speaker if Republicans take the majority in the House said it would be hard not to hit Pelosi with the speaker’s gavel should he get the position. WaPo reports on attempts as far back as 2010 by Republicans to demonize and discredit Pelosi hatched in order to make her the face of their opposition and inevitably Depape’s rage.

This then is the difference between the main American political parties. The GOP is led by a narcissist who delights in hurling invective at his opponents and encourages his supporters to do the same. A majority of them have accepted his challenge and engaged in conspiracy banter aimed at whoever Trump says deserves it. Attacks directed at GOP opponents are centered, coordinated and multifaceted. For example the Pelosi attack was not only political but personal AFTER it was exposed as a political hit job which Republicans originally discounted. Meanwhile attacks on Republicans by the left is fragmented and disparate and are not encouraged by Democratic officials and routinely denounced by them when/if they occur. There doesn’t seem to be any hope Republicans will be as forceful in their repudiation of violence as a political tool and in the absence of swift and punitive punishment for such expressions of violence towards political opposition America can only expect to see more David Depapes and Maddison Welches.