It looks to me like Donald Trump has only three issues he can campaign on - "Law and Order" and the "China Flu" and "socialism!!!". Pretty weak.
Given the persistent demonstrations about Black Lives Matter our president has decided that the only way to respond is to dominate the "blue cities" with para-military force. Hey, it worked for Nixon in 1968, so what the heck? Well 1968 had assassinations, massive anti-war demonstrations, civil rights demonstrations, Weather Underground bombings, violent anti-war demonstrations at the Democratic convention in Chicago, etc. It was a violent time. And the "silent majority" was afraid of the violence and responded to Nixon's appeal to the fear in the middle class. 2020 does not have that kind of violence from today's left. Indeed, today's heavily armed intimidators and killers are the radical white supremacists who have actually been killing people.
So, trying to whip up fear about a violent left falls way short in the face of a profound multi-racial and primarily peaceful support of anti-racism being demonstrated for by both left and right today.
The next issue is what he insists on calling the "Chinese Flu". Good grief. First he calls it a flu as if it is no more deadly than what we are familiar with - the flu. COVID-19 is more deadly, spreads much easier since people can carry the virus for 14 days without symptoms, and can cause heart, organ, and brain damage in those who do not die.
Second, and even worse, is by calling it the "Chinese flu" he gets to do the only thing he is good at - blaming others for his failures. Sure, it started in China. And sure, the Chinese reacted poorly at the start. But the one who refused to see and act on how terrible the pandemic was to become is Trump - he dismissed it, downplayed it, bragged about how great he was responding to it, etc. etc. He caused it to become much, much worse in America than any other prosperous democracy. He did not use emergency powers to mandate manufacture and use of masks and other Personal Protective Equipment, or tests, or vaccines. There is NO national response to the pandemic other than a national collapse of the economy as it spreads throughout our country. Astonishing level of presidential failure.
Third, is his pathetic warning about himself being the last defense against tyrannical socialism. The Democratic voters spoke very loud and clear - they went against the left wingers of Sanders and Warren. They looked at the field and chose Biden as the moderate to support. And they did so decisively and very quickly. Biden is not a fire breathing leftie no matter how much Trump and Fox News wants people to think he is. He is a moderate, stable, sane politician with decades of experience and history that prove he is not about to nationalize the oil industry.
So, Trump has no issue to run on other than those that excite the hard core right wing who are lost in the media bubbles of Fox News and talk radio shouters.
His desperation to keep from going down in history as one of the biggest losers of all time becomes increasingly evident as he hysterically grabs headlines with more and more outlandish statements and threats. He is a very wounded man, psychologically, and increasingly, a very wounded man politically as well.
Thank the dear Lord.
Friday, July 31, 2020
Friday, July 24, 2020
Trump's ideological support
Trump's support is eroding, but he still shows an approval rating of 41% of likely or registered voters per fivethirtyeight.com. This despite his deep and pervasive corruption, cruelty, stupidity, and delusions. Why?
Mugambi Jouet of the New Republic says it is because he has support of those too dedicated to their ideologies to turn against him.
There are four ideological underpinning of the Republican Party - anti-intellectualism, Christian Fundamentalism, market fundamentalism, and racial "resentment".
Anti-intellectualism. We see this in a terrible way today as Trump and the right wing media bubble attacks the expertise of the country's top immunologist, Dr. Fauci. The tragic result is conservatives refusing to protect themselves and the rest of us, and America is the only democratic country that has not dramatically reduced the number of infections and deaths from COVID-19. It goes way beyond the virus, of course, since Trump and the Republicans have driven scientists and experts from every branch of government.
Christian Fundamentalism. Fundamentalists have essentially sold their souls to Trump to get their Christian judges. Well, mission accomplished - the U.S. now has a bunch of Christian judges and fundamentalists have lost connection with their consciences and their souls.
Market Fundamentalism. I used to be a conservative and thought that the market was so much smarter than any central planning. There is some truth to that, but when you take that idea too far, the results are catastrophic. The market will never address Climate Change, or environmental destruction, or massive income inequality, or public services that only government can provide like roads, fire and police protection, libraries, nuclear waste protection, a judicial system, food and drug safety, etc. - there are thousands of services that only the government can provide. This disregard of government services goes hand in hand with anti-intellectualism.
Racial resentment. "Resentment" spans the range from white people who feel left out of the efforts of government assistance (despite programs of health, unemployment, disability, education, etc that mostly benefit whites), to those who are simply racist and believe in white supremacy. The Republican Party became the party playing upon white resentment ever since Nixon's Southern Strategy switched the Confederate States from Democrat to Republican.
But, many conservatives and Republicans have broken away from the extraordinarily dangerous child in the White House, and have led the attack on him and his sycophants - from George Will to the Lincoln Project. Good for them.
It is just a question of waking up and smelling the disease.
Mugambi Jouet of the New Republic says it is because he has support of those too dedicated to their ideologies to turn against him.
There are four ideological underpinning of the Republican Party - anti-intellectualism, Christian Fundamentalism, market fundamentalism, and racial "resentment".
Anti-intellectualism. We see this in a terrible way today as Trump and the right wing media bubble attacks the expertise of the country's top immunologist, Dr. Fauci. The tragic result is conservatives refusing to protect themselves and the rest of us, and America is the only democratic country that has not dramatically reduced the number of infections and deaths from COVID-19. It goes way beyond the virus, of course, since Trump and the Republicans have driven scientists and experts from every branch of government.
Christian Fundamentalism. Fundamentalists have essentially sold their souls to Trump to get their Christian judges. Well, mission accomplished - the U.S. now has a bunch of Christian judges and fundamentalists have lost connection with their consciences and their souls.
Market Fundamentalism. I used to be a conservative and thought that the market was so much smarter than any central planning. There is some truth to that, but when you take that idea too far, the results are catastrophic. The market will never address Climate Change, or environmental destruction, or massive income inequality, or public services that only government can provide like roads, fire and police protection, libraries, nuclear waste protection, a judicial system, food and drug safety, etc. - there are thousands of services that only the government can provide. This disregard of government services goes hand in hand with anti-intellectualism.
Racial resentment. "Resentment" spans the range from white people who feel left out of the efforts of government assistance (despite programs of health, unemployment, disability, education, etc that mostly benefit whites), to those who are simply racist and believe in white supremacy. The Republican Party became the party playing upon white resentment ever since Nixon's Southern Strategy switched the Confederate States from Democrat to Republican.
But, many conservatives and Republicans have broken away from the extraordinarily dangerous child in the White House, and have led the attack on him and his sycophants - from George Will to the Lincoln Project. Good for them.
It is just a question of waking up and smelling the disease.
Sunday, July 5, 2020
Tear down the statues?
Across the land, symbols of white supremacy are being gotten rid of. Mississippi just removed the symbol of the Confederacy from its state flag - the last state to do so. Richmond VA, the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War, removed statues of Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Statues commemorating the Confederacy are coming down. Should they? Absolutely.
The argument against the removal of the statues is that to do so is somehow to eliminate history. Well, if you want to depict the history of the Confederate Generals, the best way would be to place another statue next to the statue of the general - only this one would be a statue of the whipping and raping of slaves. That is the actual history of what the Confederate generals were fighting to save - slavery.
There are no statues in Germany honoring the history of noble Nazi soldiers and generals who fought in WWII. Why? Because enough of the Germans had the decency of being deeply ashamed of the inhumanity of the Nazis to tear down all symbols of that ideology of hatred - the ideology of white supremacy. It didn't happen overnight and the process is never done, but nobody is erecting statues to Goering or Hitler, and they never will.
I know that the South has been on a 150 year propaganda campaign to convince themselves and the rest of us that they seceded from the United States of America for some kind of noble reason to do with taxation, or agricultural policy, or some ridiculous abstraction about State's Rights, but is was just to save their economic way of life, slavery, and to preserve their most intensely held belief - the supremacy or the white race.
This 4th of July weekend has been a tough one for me. I usually enthusiastically celebrate the ideals of America on the 4th, but this 4th has a U.S. president openly praising and encouraging racism and hatred. America has become a place to be ashamed of because of its president, and because of too much of the Republican Party who are racist themselves or at least still supporting this appalling and racist "man".
It is a dark time in America. It is time for a renewal of the decency and integrity of this once great country. We can become great again, but it will have to be by loudly saying "NO" of the cruelty, stupidity, and racism of this president and far too many of his Republican Party.
Vote.
The argument against the removal of the statues is that to do so is somehow to eliminate history. Well, if you want to depict the history of the Confederate Generals, the best way would be to place another statue next to the statue of the general - only this one would be a statue of the whipping and raping of slaves. That is the actual history of what the Confederate generals were fighting to save - slavery.
There are no statues in Germany honoring the history of noble Nazi soldiers and generals who fought in WWII. Why? Because enough of the Germans had the decency of being deeply ashamed of the inhumanity of the Nazis to tear down all symbols of that ideology of hatred - the ideology of white supremacy. It didn't happen overnight and the process is never done, but nobody is erecting statues to Goering or Hitler, and they never will.
I know that the South has been on a 150 year propaganda campaign to convince themselves and the rest of us that they seceded from the United States of America for some kind of noble reason to do with taxation, or agricultural policy, or some ridiculous abstraction about State's Rights, but is was just to save their economic way of life, slavery, and to preserve their most intensely held belief - the supremacy or the white race.
This 4th of July weekend has been a tough one for me. I usually enthusiastically celebrate the ideals of America on the 4th, but this 4th has a U.S. president openly praising and encouraging racism and hatred. America has become a place to be ashamed of because of its president, and because of too much of the Republican Party who are racist themselves or at least still supporting this appalling and racist "man".
It is a dark time in America. It is time for a renewal of the decency and integrity of this once great country. We can become great again, but it will have to be by loudly saying "NO" of the cruelty, stupidity, and racism of this president and far too many of his Republican Party.
Vote.
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