Donnies apologists often seek to explain away his stupid actions and remarks, which are endless by saying" he is a different kind of Pres.". They are of course correct. We have never had such an ignorant, incompetent, lying and probably delusional president. In the past few days he has reached new heights of stupidity and incompetence by announcing a troop withdrawal from Syria and probably Afghanistan and petulantly refusing to sign a continuing budget resolution. With respect to the latter, he obviously told House and Senate Republicans he would sign it but abruptly changed mind when criticized by Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingram and the leaders of the so-called House" freedom Caucus".
This was an opportunity for the traditional leaders of the Republican Party to reclaim ownership of the House and Senate and probably the party as well. They needed to pass what Trump had previously agreed to, send it to the White House and tell Donnie that should he veto it it would be passed over his veto. They also should've told him that if he continued to act in such a deranged manner he was going to have nothing but problems with Congress, including the republican Senate majority and would never be reelected.. Of course they did nothing of the kind but meekly rolled over. Luckily, the Democrats in the Senate refused to do so. Had they, Donnie would continue to believe he can do anything he wants.
Perhaps our major problem is that the president has wide-ranging, often unfettered power in foreign affairs. Lord only knows what will do next. It seems from reporting that his Syrian decision was largely influenced by his phone call with Erdogen, certainly a person who wishes the US well.
So the current situation is that trumps domestic follies are largely controlled by the radical right and his foreign-policy is largely influenced by our enemies, whom he appears to think are his best buddies, to the detriment of the US and our traditional allies.
Merry Christmas.
Monday, December 24, 2018
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
More dangerous than Trump
Many decades ago George Orwell wrote a great essay called olitics and the English language. It demonstrated how politicians use language to obfuscate and mistate their strategies and intentions. He later wrote the novel 1984 showing what happens when leaders in control simply mistate fax and lie. Now we have of course Donald Trump who seems incapable of not lying. But with him it seems obvious so why does he have a acceptance and approval of Republicans in general. Well some or die hard Republicans and would support him in all cases. Others have been called low information voters referring to a tendency of many to not dig into facts. But what we clearly have now is misinformation voters. These are voters who get their "facts and information" from duplicitous sources. One is of course trump but another is FOXNews, our current version of Pravda, and probably the worst is the Internet in which invented facts cascade through blogs and websites gaining currency has a ricochet through cyberspace. There becomes an exists an alternative reality that is obviously quite persuasive period
One of the great purveyors of deception is the radical libertarian right exemplified by the Koch brothers and their organizations and those aligned with them such as the Club for Growth which should be more accurately named the Club for Greed. They promote and sponsor organizations with highly deceptive names such as the" Americans for Prosperity". Now that sounds pretty good but what are their real aims? If they truly disclosed their goals it would be called Plutocrats and Kleptocrats seeking to eliminate social security, Medicaid ,Medicare ,operation Headstart, SNAP and any other social welfare program. Ultimately, they wish to reduce the federal government to an organization that focuses almost entirely on national defense and privatize everything else including such organizations as the Center for Disease Control, the national Institute of Health, The highway fund or any other program that could be privatized which in their mind is practically everything. They preached the notion that the best thing a voter could do for the nation is pay less taxes. This is a pretty easy sell. They have embarked on an ambitious program backed by enormous wealth and resources to achieve this. Part of this is controlling large parts of universities to spread the gospel. The best description I know of of this program is" Democracy in Chains" by Nancy McLean. Because of the vast resources they have in their deceptive programs they are much more dangerous then Donald Trump who is a transparent buffoon and whose presence on the stage is transitory. The republican party is pretty much in thrall to this movement. Traditional conservatives such as George will, Rick Scott, Steven Schmidt and others have left the party. The Republican Party is no longer conservative in the traditional sense. It is merely a group of professional politicians willing to work for the highest bidder. These things, not Donald Trump, are the real dangers to the republic.
One of the great purveyors of deception is the radical libertarian right exemplified by the Koch brothers and their organizations and those aligned with them such as the Club for Growth which should be more accurately named the Club for Greed. They promote and sponsor organizations with highly deceptive names such as the" Americans for Prosperity". Now that sounds pretty good but what are their real aims? If they truly disclosed their goals it would be called Plutocrats and Kleptocrats seeking to eliminate social security, Medicaid ,Medicare ,operation Headstart, SNAP and any other social welfare program. Ultimately, they wish to reduce the federal government to an organization that focuses almost entirely on national defense and privatize everything else including such organizations as the Center for Disease Control, the national Institute of Health, The highway fund or any other program that could be privatized which in their mind is practically everything. They preached the notion that the best thing a voter could do for the nation is pay less taxes. This is a pretty easy sell. They have embarked on an ambitious program backed by enormous wealth and resources to achieve this. Part of this is controlling large parts of universities to spread the gospel. The best description I know of of this program is" Democracy in Chains" by Nancy McLean. Because of the vast resources they have in their deceptive programs they are much more dangerous then Donald Trump who is a transparent buffoon and whose presence on the stage is transitory. The republican party is pretty much in thrall to this movement. Traditional conservatives such as George will, Rick Scott, Steven Schmidt and others have left the party. The Republican Party is no longer conservative in the traditional sense. It is merely a group of professional politicians willing to work for the highest bidder. These things, not Donald Trump, are the real dangers to the republic.