"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." Orwell
"“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
Plato
"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant" Robespierre
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Weirdly Hopeful
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Afterthoughts
Dang. I’d been planning to begin this week’s column with a riff on that laughably large ear bandage Trump sported at his coronation, and, having seen his cult fashioning similar ones, to note the similarity to farmers tagging the ears of their sheep. Probably, I’d have puzzled that, next day, he wore a small Band-Aid appropriate to the injury he incurred.
Maybe he realized, despite seeing his flock lower to the occasion, how ridiculous it looked to everyone else. As a former trauma surgeon, I’d never have applied that honker to such a minimally injured ear. Nevertheless, he was very lucky and that’s a good thing. I don’t minimize the seriousness of the close call; just the crazy that came after.
So I’d also have reflected on miracles. If defined as evidence of divine intervention, and if God saved Trump from death, then it’s no less miraculous that He made Mr. Comperatore die. Same for late-discovered survivors of earthquakes that kill hundreds. You can’t see saves as godly and not the killings. So, maybe there are no miracles. Were I reckless enough, I’d have proposed that to think He would choose an amoral man like Trump to lead us is disrespectful of God. Blasphemous, even.
I’m sure I’d have mentioned the similarities between Kim Jong Il’s ceremonial appearances and Trump, when he wasn’t nodding off, smiling beneficently as sycophants like Tucker Carlson and Hulk Hogan (!) praised him, deified him, one after another. Likely, I couldn’t have avoided noting that, halfway through Trump’s endless, rally-repetitive acceptance speech, the faithful were scrolling their phones or walking out.
President Joe Biden’s magnanimous decision to withdraw from contention is the reason I’d have said none of that. MAGA Republicans won’t, but present company and future historians will agree that President Joe Biden is one of the most, if not THE most effective president since FDR.
Assuming the reins of a devastated economy while a mishandled pandemic was requiring refrigerated morgue trucks outside overwhelmed hospitals, as unemployment was soaring and businesses were closing, he turned it all around, creating millions of jobs, lowering Covid-rebound inflation – never as high in the US as in other developed countries – to a third of its maximum.
Record numbers of small businesses have been created. Decaying infrastructure is being rebuilt. And, had Trump not shepherded his sheep into blocking it, President Joe Biden’s negotiated, bipartisan deal would have made significant progress on border issues.
It’s a remarkable, proud legacy, with a terribly sad ending. Compared to Trump’s venality, President Biden’s decency, placing country above self, couldn’t be more obvious.
Concerned he might not be the one to beat Trump, who, notwithstanding MAGA credulity, historians will agree was one of the if not THE worst president ever, President Biden’s decision to withdraw speaks of patriotism and selflessness. I hope he makes a barnburner of a speech at the Democratic convention.
While we await whatever mess Democrats and pundits will make of their nominating process before selecting Kamala Harris, we know for sure their convention won’t be the festival of falsehoods foisted by Trump’s fraudulent fluffers.
After Speaker-of-Sorts Mike Johnson testified that theirs is the party of law and order, and before his party nominated a convicted criminal, adjudicated rapist, defrauder of New York State of millions of dollars, and recidivist scammer, they welcomed, to delirious cheers, a convict caravan: Manafort, Stone, Navarro, J6 insurrectionists. If he weren’t still serving time, Bannon would have been similarly received.
Came then the strategic lies: Crime rates; energy production; EVs; gas prices; rampant “migrant crime,” the fakest of fakes. And the one Trump hopes to ride to the White House: election fraud. To which he, the oldest presidential nominee ever, has added another, nearly as pernicious: that he knows nothing of Project 2025.
He knows. Praising the world’s worst dictators, to replicate whose regimes the Project aims, he knows. If elected, he’d follow its marching orders toward a government by and for its billionaire advocates, himself as figurehead, secured by permanently diluted elections.
Continuing its election interference, Russia is praising Trump and, now, his V.P. pick. The former Republican Party would have been appalled to see their nominees praised by America’s enemies and lauded at home despite – or because of -- their disqualifications. In the graves of the respectable old guard, rotations must be continuous.
Money and endorsements are flooding in for Kamala Harris, breaking records. Trump might hide from debating her, but he and his surrogates aren’t hiding their awful, desperate misogyny and racism when attacking her, with worse to come. To which I say, bring it!
Something reminiscent of optimism is nibbling at worry for our country. Too soon to say; but Trump is still Trump, an aged, diminished, fourth-grade name-caller, repeater of lies and incomprehensible digressions. If cultists can’t see it, it’s true nevertheless: he’s become even more unfit for office than he was eight years ago.
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
It Changes Nothing
The assassination attempt and reactions to it are deeply depressing, foretelling a grim future. The most disgusting responses from politicians and media have come from the MAGA-aligned. Rep. Mike Collins, R-GA, for example, said Biden ordered it. (Which, according to the Supreme Court, would be perfectly legal.) J.D. Vance, R-OH, who once called Trump America’s Hitler among other now-inoperative truths, VP pick unimaginable as president, election denier, pro-Russia, anti-abortion and anti-LGBT zealot, Alex Jones proponent, blamed it on left-wing rhetoric.
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Trump 2025
Trump, who lies, denies knowledge of Project 2025, the conservative plan to Make America Bleak. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” he avowed. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal...”
If he stops speaking only to his mouthpiece media, he should be asked to specify with which abysmal parts he disagrees. And how he can disagree but "know nothing." But “journalists” are too busy ignoring the issues and calling for President Biden to withdraw, when, given his status as a convicted criminal, liar, star of the Epstein tapes, and day-one dictator, it’s Trump who should.
He can’t be unaware; attempting to distance himself from it proves the point. Several members of his inner circle are behind the Project. He and his policies are mentioned in it numerous times. Incurious, unwilling to work hard, he’ll do whatever they tell him. Because it’s over 900 pages, dense, and irreducible to cartoons, we’ll accept that he hasn’t read it.
I have. Some is anodyne proposals for streamlining government agencies. But even those are littered with Trumpic references to “Marxism,” and “wokeism.” Enormous defense spending is called for: more ships, nukes, planes, drones, missiles. No mention of paying for it. Fire transgender troops; reinstate, with back pay, those discharged for refusing vaccinations. “Eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs...” Religious indoctrination, though: Yankee-Doodle-dandy.
“Require completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Department of Defense —the military entrance examination—by all students in schools that receive federal funding.” It’s reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s “Young Pioneer” schoolchildren, whom I saw during language study there.
Student loans would be privatized; forgiveness would be disallowed. The Department of Education would be dispersed and eliminated. All departments would be filled with political appointees answering directly to “the next conservative president.” To deploy the agenda quickly, Senate approval for high-level appointees would be delayed by naming “acting” leaders.
Particularly the State Department, where “large swaths of [its] workforce are left-wing... The next Administration ... should both accept the resignations of all political ambassadors and quickly reassess all career ambassadors... No one in a leadership position on the morning of January 20 should hold that position at the end of the day.” Sweep away experience. Uncritical fealty to the president is the prime directive.
NPR and PBS would be defunded, because incurious MAGAs don’t tune in. “... [E]ducation is publicly funded but education decisions are made by families.” Monies should go directly to states, with tax dollars spent on private and charter schools, “Empowering families to choose among a diverse set of education options...” Goodbye fact- and history-based public education.
At all levels, “gender” will refer only to that assigned at birth. References to “sexual orientation and gender identity,” along with equity rules, should be expunged. “The next Administration,” it says, should note “how radical gender ideology is having a devastating effect on school-aged children today—especially young girls.” How, they don’t say. Documentation, they don’t provide. “Ideology.”
As to children of low-income families, “Over a 10-year period, federal spending should be phased out and states should assume decision-making control over how to provide a quality education to [them].” Also, eliminate Head Start. Good luck, poor kids in poor red states.
The next president should “stop the war on oil and natural gas,” which isn’t a war. As with the majority of their proposals, many of which are akin to “clean air is nice,” specifics are lacking. Per its main spokesperson, that’s deliberate. Hide the darkest details before the election.
Many related regulations are to be abolished. Gone, too, are energy efficiency standards. Electric grid improvements are defunded. Climate- and energy-related initiatives are called “partisan” and “political.” Enabling red state efforts to disenfranchise Democratic constituencies, the FEC’s power would be diluted. Likewise, the EPA’s. The CDC is “the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government,” it says, and the FBI is a “bloated, arrogant, increasingly lawless organization.” Also, it must stop fighting the spread of disinformation and lies. Arrogant! That there’s some ironical irony.
P2025 would gut labor protections overseen by the DOL, other than, because “God ordained the Sabbath as a day of rest,” requiring time-and-a-half pay for working on that day. (Which one?) Christianity would be prioritized everywhere. Accreditation requirements for religious colleges would be removed. “Abortion is not healthcare.” No Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood. Ban abortifacient drugs.
The surface here is barely skimmed. There’s plenty more. The best summary of Project 2025 comes from its prime mover, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who’d previously said its purpose is to institutionalize Trumpism. "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Trump’s America: Submit or bleed. Voting against it is incalculably important, no matter the Democrats’ nominee.
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
Debatable
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