Bribocracy

 

                           ChatGPT

“Shall I compare thee to a President’s Day? Washington’s selfless leadership, Lincoln’s timeless eloquence? Thou art less lofty and more intemperate.” (Author unknown.)

America’s political divide is wider than at any time since the Civil War, but there’s one issue on which everyone should agree: Trump’s is the most corrupt and dishonest administration in our history. Rather than hiding it, they wave it like that huge American flag on I-5 north of Mount Vernon. Trump has openly regretted not enriching himself more in his first term. Unable to deny, MAGA's only options are to ignore or embrace. We see both. “At least he’s honest about his dishonesty,” they say, admiringly. Or, “ Everybody cheats.”

It’s not merely embarrassing that our great-until-Trump country twice elected an unscrupulous, bribofacient, self-promoting fraudster; the damage at home and abroad is incalculable. Perhaps MAGA-threatened future historians will elaborate. For now, all we can do is enumerate.

Following FIFA’s pandering “peace prize," Trump’s next briblical acceptance was the Washington Coal Club’s “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal” prize. It’d be hilarious, had he not, a day later ended our government’s ability to regulate climate change emissions, to which coal is the greatest lump-for-lump contributor.

As literate Americans know, “clean coal” isn’t a thing, whereas climate change most definitely is. From his kingly throne, Trump is doing everything possible to boost fossil fuels and impede sustainable, actually clean energy. The money he gets from oil tycoons confirms his bribocratic corruption. With the fingers of others filling his pockets, he raises a middle one to us.

Bribery isn’t Trumpism’s only corruption. There’s cry-wolfery, gaslighting, and “accusation is admission.” Working to rig elections, for example, while lying that every election Trump or MAGAs lost was rigged. It’s as much a part of today’s Republican agenda as climate change denial, pardoning criminals, rewriting history, and lying to our faces. “Democrats rig elections,” they cry, against all evidence, while doing it. MAGAs wolf it down.

Here’s Homeland Insecurity’s Kristi Noem, promoting the restrictive voter ID requirements in the SAVE act, bragging, “ ... when it gets to Election Day ... we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.” Confirming the anti-democracy and anti-Democrats purposes of voter ID, Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger (R-Texas) added, “The American people did not give Republicans a mandate to make excuses. They gave us one to deliver wins, and the SAVE America Act is exactly that.” (Italics mine.) Okay, well, they’re not lying about that. Ms. Noem did lie about another ICE shooting, though.

 

If states requiring it made voter ID equally accessible across all demographics, it’d be okay. In red states, it’s the opposite. They just said so. And who trusts Trump’s DOJ to protect the Georgia ballots they commandeered with no legal justification? His desire to “nationalize” elections is, of course, unconstitutional. Would it matter to his agreeable Supreme Court?

Noem. Bondi. Who can say who’s worse? In a tight race, impudent, arrogant, toadying Pam pulled ahead last week, when she broadcast her and her boss’s contempt for the Constitution; yelling, deflecting, insulting, refusing to answer legitimate, Constitutionally required oversight of her handling of the Epstein files. Why are you asking about that when the DOW is over fifty thousand, she sneered, non-sequiturally. While she scanned her staff-prepared, scripted whataboutisms to gotchify Democrats, Republicans on the Committee, living and dead, like every MAGA, couldn’t hide their glee. In a Congress containing Republicans of old, as in the Nixon era, the hearing would have adjourned immediately, to begin impeachment proceedings. But that party is as dead as climate regulation.

There are rumblings. In deep red South Texas last week, in a district Trump won by seventeen points, a Democrat soundly beat a Republican for state senate despite being outspent by millions of dollars. The same happened in very red Louisiana. Texas Republicans’ unprecedented and cynical mid-cycle gerrymandering, along with growing revulsion at Trump’s ICE brutality and, maybe, his transparent lying, have created unanticipated blue districts, while spurring blue states like California, after Trump’s Constitution-rewriting SCOTUS greenlit Texas, to do the same.

Clear-eyed voters know to assume every word uttered by Trump and his collection of collaborators is a lie; that every action is to their benefit, not ours. As scales drop from pinkish eyes, there might still be hope. But November is far enough away for plenty of Republican meddling.

Now, a mea kinda culpa. Last week, I praised the “unmitigated joy” of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance. Since then, enthusiastic critics have sent translations which, if accurately rendered, were vulgar. I was disappointed and promised to address it. Since then, though, I’ve seen sources indicating the crudités had been edited in compliance with broadcast standards.

Few words, if any, have single comparables between languages; by definition, translations are subjective. Unless those taking offense are fluent Spanish speakers and heard it directly, I’ll stick with joyful.

They'll Never Change

The more things stay the same, the more nothing changes. Isn’t that what they say? Whatever. The point is, everything that can be said about Trumpism and our democracy has been said. Written. Filmed. Sung. Satirized. Tweeted. By politicians, historians, pundits, celebrities, comedians, influencers (whatever that means). Yet Trumpists still believe. If the Republican Party won’t renounce Trump’s big lie, democracy’s death is inevitable.

They won’t, and it is. To secure unpopular policy, their leaders are squarely on the side of untruth, committed to ensuring that their minority views will continue to override those of the majority of Americans. And why not? From their politically-packed, Roe-v-Wade-threatening Supreme Court down to state legislatures and local elections, it’s working. Two-thirds of Republicans still believe Trump’s election lie; half favor continued jiggering of election laws over presenting compelling policy. We’ve run out of gobs to smack. 

Unless Republicans acknowledge the no-fraud legitimacy of President Biden’s win, election-related laws pullulating in red states should be understood as ways to maintain their policy-lower but electoral-upper hand, undisirregardless of what they say about “restoring faith.” Lost faith in democracy has been their goal all along; it’s their excuse for voter suppression. It’s as if… Nope. There’s no analogy to such an obvious ruse.

Their latest are laws designed to intimidate poll-workers and observers. By the preceding understanding, it’s to prevent their chicanery from being reported. The intimidation also applies to those watching ballot drop-boxes, while requiring 24/7 observation thereof. Fewer watchers, fewer boxes, already disproportionately lacking in red-state Democratic precincts. 

Those are only the most noticed attacks on fair elections. Less publicized are laws that could have Republican legislators, not voters, deciding who wins in their states. As the non-partisan Protect Democracy reported: “… In 2021, state legislatures across the country—through at least 148 bills filed in 36 states —are moving to muscle their way into election administration, as they attempt to dislodge or unsettle the executive branch and/or local election officials who, traditionally, have run our voting systems… American democracy relies on the losers of elections respecting the results and participating in a peaceful transition of power. If, instead, the losing party tries to override the will of the voters, that would be the death knell for our system of government…” 

Notwithstanding attempts to erase what happened, we came close in January. Fearing the truth, with whataboutist excuses and acceding to demands by the Instigator-in-Chief, Republican leaders are lining up to prevent meaningful investigation. Even without a 9/11-style inquiry, though, it’s easy to know the what, why, how, and who of the insurrection. All Trumpists need is to detox from Fox “news” and its replicants. Timely example: last week, Hannity showed a clip of President Biden being asked about the Colonial Pipeline hack, edited to make it appear he gave a “bizarre” answer. It’s the kind of lie his viewers absorb like a sunburn.

So what shall we expect from the Arizona “recount,” dark-money paid and subcontracted to a rightwing business with no relevant experience, whose owner believes the election was stolen? Whose rules are lax, methods constantly changing, workers untrained. Using UV light to find secret Trump-placed watermarks; concerned about 165-thousand incinerated chickens (not kidding); hunting, by looking for bamboo droppings, for forty-thousand forged ballots they believe were shipped (beamed?) from Asia. (Possibly off-point, your columnist won’t be repurchasing bamboo toilet paper anytime soon.)

If they uncover nothing, will the two-thirds of Republicans who believed the big lie be convinced? History says no. And, given by whom and how it’s being conducted, if the recount “finds” fraud it’ll be suspect. 

Committed to a lie and the damaged man who promotes it, today’s non-conservative, democracy-rejecting Republican leaders show no sign of reacquiring their decades-past sanity; nor do the majority of their voters. There’s money to be made, by Trump and the conmen and propaganda networks around him, in keeping the delusions alive, no matter the damage to America. Or their trusting followers. 

The only way we’ll return to a functioning, two-party Congress is if those who still believe Trump cares about them, and that he made America great (and that liberals are communists and Fox “news” is truthful), will un-scale their own eyes; unimaginable though it be. By now, it’s clear: no amount of pleading, cajoling, or Demosthenesing from without will make it happen. (Check this, if no others.)

Absent bottom-up reformation from within, no one – least of all a small-town columnist with too much love for tinyurls and creating hapax legomena – can effect the Republican awakening that America so urgently needs. Which begs the obvious question. 

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Speaking Of Neiling: Winning Is Everything

The upcoming newspaper column:

It’s clear to all but the Foxified why Mitch McConnell bested his prior Himalayan heights of hypocrisy to block President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. Women’s health, immigration, LGBT rights, same-sex marriage? Just frosting on the wedding cake; Mitch cares about them only to propitiate the basest Republican base. It was to protect the means by which his party has the presidency and both houses of Congress: egregious gerrymandering and dishonest voter suppression laws. Both issues are at or approaching the Supreme Court, where Neil Gorsuch isn’t even pretending he’s not a partisan zealot. 

You lost, they say. Get over it. Yes. We did. Everyone lost. Democracy lost. Getting over it before addressing what happened is exactly what Trump and Republicans in Congress and state legislatures want. Vladimir Putin, too.  

But it was the Electoral College, people say. Yes. Conceived when there were no political parties, no popular elections, or, for that matter, announced candidates. If we’re to keep it, let’s return to original intent: states choose electors who, on their own, sequestered from the rest of us, meet to select our president. They could wear wigs and work by the light of whale oil.  

But it empowers small states, they say. Yes. Which already have disproportionate power in the Senate. In the House, too, where gerrymandered red states’ districts unequally produce Republican winners, and where fewer citizens are represented by their elected, giving residents of small states relatively more influence over legislation. Gerrymandering turns minorities into majorities.  

If any position deserves popular election, with every vote having the same weight, it’s the president of all of us. Why should a Nebraskan have more impact on the choice of president than, say, a Washingtonian? This time, the Electoral College got us exactly what the founders wished to prevent: kakistocracy.  

But it is what it is. So let’s talk about voter suppression. Again. Because it’s as un-American and dangerous as a president threatening (non-existent) “licenses” of news networks he doesn’t like; i.e., all but one.  

Notwithstanding Trumtalitarian lies, multiple investigations have found approximately zero in-person voter fraud, the wink-wink reason for red states’ voter ID laws. In the past election, hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters were denied. The vast majority were Democrats, and the number of those denied far exceeded the numbers by which Trump narrowly won those states. If Trump’s patently phony “voter fraud” commission has its way, it’ll get worse. 

Get over it, they say. We’ll get around to caring when it’s your nominee who benefits. Besides, what’s wrong with requiring identification, they ask? Nothing, if it’s as easily obtainable for the poor, elderly, and people in minority districts as it is for white Republicans. But the requirements and locations for obtaining ID were designed specifically to make it harder. Legislators in those states admitted it. Some lower courts have recognized the fraud. Do states even have a right to deny the franchise in a federal election? Enter the Mitchdefied Supreme Court, where democracy confronts hypocrisy.  

There’s more. Russian interference: sophisticated, relentless, carefully targeted. Until Robert Mueller makes it undeniable, let’s ignore collusion: it’s bad enough without it. Clearly they wanted Trump in office. (Will we learn why?) What they did should alarm everyone. (Instead of “Jews will not replace us,” this time Nazi re-marchers in Charlottesville chanted “Russia is our friend.” Donald Trump, busy reversing rules that protect our planet, neglecting Puerto Rico, and ignoring California wildfires, said nothing.) 

The extent of Russian use of social media to plant fake news has become disturbingly clear. If it’s hard, for now, to know the effect, suffice it to note the multimillions of times those messages were shared. They attempted to corrupt voter rolls in Democratic precincts, and may have succeeded. But Trump and his airwave propagandists, dismissing the constitutional threat, insist reporting it is the real fake news. Who can wonder why? 

Donald Trump (considered a moron by his SecState), his cabinet of grifters, and many R congressdwellers are in office because of voter suppression, gerrymandering, and direct and indirect meddling by a foreign enemy. If it’s reassuring on some level that such people couldn’t have won by legitimate means, all Americans should be alarmed that illegitimacy prevailed. Because, who knows, next time it could be Democrats.  

(Some have noticed: I haven't been including hotlinks lately. For the paper version of the newspaper column, I'd added tinyURLs for readers to use if they chose to, which some people complained were distracting. And since the Foxified ignore them and the well-informed don't need them, I've stopped. For the blog version I'd been converting those URLs to direct links. I prefer to provide that documentation, but for now...)   

A Smörgåsbord Of Lies And Outrages

My forthcoming newspaper column:

Lies and outrages, coming so fast, there’s neither time nor space. Here are some surface-scratches.

From the emails “transparently” released by Don, Jr. after the NYT told him they were about to publish them: “… The Crown prosecutor of Russia … offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary … and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump…” To which Junior responded, “I love it.” 

Said Sean Spicer: “… there was nothing as far as we know that would lead anyone to believe that there was anything except for a discussion about adoption…” (“Adoption,” understand, is code for removing sanctions.) The day after the offer, Trump promised a big announcement about Hillary, which never came. But he didn’t know about the meeting. Sure. 

Questioned during Trump’s “Made in America” week about Trump family products made overseas, Spicer replied, “That’s out of bounds.”  

Trump claims 45,000 coal mining jobs. The actual number is 800. Fewer coal jobs were added in his first six months than in Obama’s last six. Related: Ford is moving jobs to China. Carrier, another Trump brag, to Mexico. Harley Davidson, touted by Trump, just announced layoffs.  

Having campaigned on canceling the “terrible” nuclear agreement with Iran on day one, Trump grudgingly recertified their compliance with it.  

Having campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare on day one, promising better, cheaper, lower-deductible coverage, saying it’d be “so easy,” after multiple embarrassing failures Trump’s now for repeal with no replacement. Which he promised he wouldn’t. Or, depending on which tweet, it’s “let it fail.” Except they can’t “let” it fail: they’ll have to make it fail, as several R governors tried by refusing its Medicaid assistance. Everywhere else, it’s working as intended.  

Trump would let millions of Americans lose healthcare coverage out of spite, an important lesson in today’s Republican governance. Repeal alone will be devastating. They don’t care. 

Trump blames everyone but himself for his healthcare failure. Remember when, referring to President Obama, he said presidents must take responsibility?  

The top government ethics overseer quit to protest Trump’s lack of it.  

DOD is renting space in Trump Tower for $130,000/month.  

The latest House budget funds Trump’s beautiful border wall for twenty-eight miles.  

While investigating imaginary voter fraud (“Find me something,” said Trump) they’re eliminating the Election Assistance Commission, which prevents it. Suppressing Democratic votes is the end game. In 2016, it worked well.  

Rachel Maddow, now leading cable news in viewership, has a PhD in political science. Hannity and Limbaugh are college dropouts. Coincidentally, a large majority of Republicans believe colleges are bad for America. Our free press, too. Since it’s only in the past couple of years, it’s pretty obvious what’s behind the switch. (I’m as disturbed by the extremes of “political correctness” on some campuses as anyone, but I also recognize what a small part of college it is.)  

It means Trump’s and his party’s attacks on education and science (and criticism) are working. On Republicans. Time was, that party understood the importance of public education; understood why America’s founders did, too. Now they consider it a threat to their agenda, and it’s no mystery why. Same with labeling news they don’t like as fake, while producing a steady stream of fake news themselves. Like pretending, despite Trump’s sons bragging that Russian money is an “outsize” part of Trump’s businesses, there’s no connection between him and Russia.  

Following the money, which Robert Mueller is doing despite Trump’s attempts to discredit him, should reveal the depth of it, and why Trump seems to favor Russian interests. The role of Russian oligarchs and criminals in his past businesses isn’t in doubt. Is it coincidence that the government’s solid case against Russian money laundering through American businesses including Trump’s was settled for a pittance, right after he took office, and after firing the US Attorney leading the prosecution? For a compelling discussion of the preceding with someone who knows, read this. Trumpists: reject it as fake while you still can. Like the continuing revelations of who was at “that” meeting, truth will out. Unknown is whether the Foxified will ever believe it.              

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Taking It Down, Piece By Piece

So, in the face of clear evidence of Russia, a global adversary, trying to discredit our electoral system and attempting to hack actual voting machines, Trump's DHS refuses to investigate the extent to which they were successful. Gee. I wonder why. Homeland security, my ass.

Meanwhile, in the face of no evidence of significant illegal voting by Americans, Trump's team of special investigators into that non-existent issue is asking for the voting records of all fifty states, including names, last four of the SSID, party affiliation, and voting history. Gee. I wonder why. Free and fair elections, my other ass.

Given the apocalyptic response from the right over the all-but-insignificant efforts of one IRS office to follow the law by screening applicants for tax-exempt status, what would that side do if it were Obama asking for those records?

We're far past the point of unbelievable, truly unbelievable, past even fucking unbelievable. This, along with constant attacks on the press as "fake news," is deliberate sabotage of the only means we have to stave off totalitarianism: voting, and a free press. With pitifully few exceptions, people on the right, patriots all, lovers of America as it once was, stand silent. Or cheering it on. Democracy, their ass.

As Trump and his overflowing basket of deplorables systematically take America apart piece by piece, weakening us from within in ways no outside enemy could, it becomes perfectly and undeniably clear why Vladimir Putin did everything he could to get Trump into the White House. The only question is whether he chose Trump because he recognized his stupidity and easy manipulative potential, or because he literally turned him. Take you pick. It really doesn't matter. Out of curiosity, I'd like to know. Kinda like a last request.

I think it's pretty clear by now that if America is to be salvaged, it won't be with the help of anyone currently in the majority in Congress or the rightwing media; and if what's gone on already hasn't awakened Trump's supporters in red states, nothing will.

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Another Reason To Reject Today's Republicans

Using the non-existent threat of voter fraud to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

Time and again, they make it obvious they're not the sort actually to believe in democracy. Or education. And to the extent that they can't suppress the one, they attempt to degrade the other, the better to have only the terminally endumbed cast ballots. For them.

A true conservative would reject these guys like mismatched blood.

It Stinks

The party of patriots, the "us" in "us against them," the party that claims a patent on the love-of-America brand, is become the party of distortion, lies, personal attacks, slime; and the party of voter suppression. One on top of another, the stories pile up: deliberate attempts to deceive voters, to challenge them, to reach into the polluted well and come up with new ways to prevent voting. It's as much as admitting that in the battle of ideas, they have none; or they have no faith that theirs might prevail in a fair fight.

Where's the outrage? Where are the voices on the right, crying "enough." Is there no one on that side to say, "We are better than that. This is America. We should battle in the arena of ideas." Silence. It's beyond shameful. It's a disgrace to them, to this country, to our future. There have been defections: many newspapers, many prominent Republicans have announced their support of Obama. And while it's good that such switches have been based on substantive issues, I've heard no one on the right speak out against this most fundamental perversion of democracy, this evidence that, for all their professed love of country, what they hate is its very foundation.

I'm not a vindictive person. But this time, I hope for a resounding rejection of the tactics, a rising up of people from every state saying, ENOUGH!! We can't afford this. This will not do. This kind of politics -- Rovian, Orwellian, Machiavellian; destructive, undemocratic, uncaring, cynical, antithetical to everything I believe -- I long to see it end resoundingly, in the only way it can: by a reaction so obvious, so monumental, so undeniable that it will never, NEVER, be used again.

No matter the outcome of the election, in this, I know, I will be disappointed.

Now We Know

Why the phony outrage over ACORN and registration fraud? (Reminder: false registrations do NOT lead to false voting!!) It's Three Card Monte. Don't watch what the other hand is doing.

All across the country, while trumping up ACORN anger, Republicans are systematically purging voters from the rolls. It's not surprising: they've been doing it for years. But the scale is increasing, the diversions now more necessary than ever. As Fox news screams about fraud of no consequence, they -- and nearly everyone else -- fails to notice the real danger to democracy.

These are the people who are pro-America? They haven't a clue what America really is.

Nutz

John McCain thinks ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) threatens "the very fabric of our democracy." It's but one of the ways he has his minions in a frenzy of indignant rage. For purposes of discussion, how about we ignore the fact that he was for it before he was against it. Let's just talk about "voter fraud," and try to distinguish it from registration fraud, which is what happened.

The most obvious point is that, to the extent fraud was perpetrated, it was against ACORN!! It's fair to criticize them for what happened, for poor organization and oversight, but the ripoff was from their funds. They paid unemployed people to register voters. Those folks, some of them anyway, turned in false forms. Free and unfettered enterprise. How Republican! And, in those cases, ACORN paid and got nothing in return.

So: phony names, in pretty small numbers percentage-wise, have turned up. Fraudulent? Yes. But here's the thing: Mickey Mouse can't vote! Nor can, in one state, the offensive line of a football team in another. This whole tempest of righteous indignation is, indeed, contained within the proverbial teapot. Phony names: no votes. Simple. Fabric unraveling? Not exactly.

On the other hand, true to form, Republicans across the country are threatening, deceiving, and suing voters off the rolls in the most outrageous ways.

To me, the most curious thing is the consistency of the difference: Democrats want to increase voting; Republicans want to prevent it. Democracy. Will of the people. USA, USA, USA!!!

Funny, huh?

[As usual, after writing something I find people out there who say it much better than I.]

Love America, Hate Its People

Since the Karl Rove era, we've seen a pretty clear pattern: Democrats like to register voters,* Republicans like to freeze them out. For the party of "country first," the ones that like to call liberals "America haters," it's sort of a dipstick into the crankcase, coming up scorched and gritty.

Here's but one of many examples. The ubiquity suggests it's not just an Abu rogue or two: in Ohio, 2004, there's reason to believe it was rampant, and successful. This tells us a lot, not the least of which is that the party which claims to love America more than Democrats, seems to hate democracy even more. Stopping people from thinking takes at least a generation. In the meantime, until we get the minds all washed up and ready for bending (sort of a slower version of what's happening to Sarah Palin behind closed doors, away from the press), it's best to keep them from voting. If the bankruptcy (literally, nowadays) of Republican ideas isn't clear by now to everyone (and it obviously isn't, according to polls), doesn't this difference really say it all?

*I'd not go so far as to claim Democrats are of pure hands. They tried, in Florida in 2000, to eliminate military overseas ballots that were not dated properly. That was stupid. But it was legal; and it wasn't carried out. In the past, of course, they were more famous for adding votes, than subtracting them. Nevertheless, I think it's fair to say the numbers are in no way close to those potentially (and actually) disenfranchised by the party of God and Country.