What Is Really Behind Donald Trump?

We all know the bluster and the seemingly absurd “everyman” language he uses that endears him to many Americans, even the blue-collar set.  Much of it is unclear, vague, and often contradictory.  Each of us thinks we understand what he means.  Perhaps that’s the point.  Speak with “fill-in-the-blanks” vagueness and let the listener hear what they want.  He is the carnival barker of our time.  He can whip an audience into a frenzy and they will do his bidding.

Some might ask, how is it that a wealthy tycoon is relatable to such a wide audience?  He has easily carved out a solid base of hard-core followers estimated to be about one-third of the Republican party. 

He promises simple “magic bullet” solutions to complex problems.  Paint a picture of immigrants as drug-crazed pedophiles and rapists coming to take your jobs, then promise to “build a 2,000-mile steel wall on our southern border and have Mexico pay for it.”  The crowd will cheer.  The crowd won’t see the lunacy in this, or the fact that it still doesn’t solve the problem of immigration.  They just see a simple “solution.”  People understand walls and fences.  People don’t understand that others, facing death and starvation, are highly motivated.  Immigrants will see such a barrier as just another obstacle in a long line of hazards they have already faced.

Trump’s appeal is further enhanced by citizens feeling their government is in chaos and unresponsive to their needs. Who can blame them, it’s true.  You don’t have to be a political scientist to see the dysfunction of our government.  Politicians fight, not just with the opposition, but among themselves. It’s not a pretty picture.  Trump is still seen as an outsider and he is now an “outsider” with four years of experience.

This part of the Trump equation is easy to understand.  What worked for Il Duce (Benito Mussolini) in the 1930s is working for Donald Trump.  Mussolini too was originally a socialist who promised the working class a better life before making a hard turn to the right.  We must remember that Donald Trump was originally a Democrat before his hard right turn.  Mussolini asked to be allowed to ignore existing laws and to be allowed to become a dictator for just one year.  Trump, in recent speeches, promises that his dictatorship will only last one day.  If you believe that, he has some classified documents he will sell you along with pieces of the suit he wore for his mug shot.

The term fascist was created to describe Mussolini’s paramilitary groups which were called “fasci di combattimento” or fascismo.  The word is from the Latin word fasces which is described as a bundle of wooden sticks topped with an ax head used by Roman authority figures to express their rank.  This symbol has been adopted by the alt-right as a favorite icon.  The Charlottesville killer who drove his car into protestors used this symbol.  In ancient Rome, the ax was to be used for punishment when needed.

Mussolini supporters wore black shirts at rallies, not red MAGA hats.  Il Duce spoke theatrically, often in a repetitive manner, expressing opinions that were contradictory and not based on facts.  He was malicious and often used metaphors emphasized with vigorous repetitive gestures.  He inspired the creation of independent militias who terrorized those who might oppose his agenda.  Does any of this sound familiar?

While this perhaps explains a little about Trump and his appeal with some of his hard-core group, it doesn’t explain why he is even in politics beyond his own ego, which is another topic altogether.  What’s in it for him and, more importantly, for others in his class?  What motivates big business and other extremely wealthy people to support the likes of Trump?  What are their motivations and goals?  Using the current chaos in government as cover, and using popular empty rhetoric about lowering the national debt, this group wants to overhaul the constitution, install an authoritarian government that they control, and add to their coffers on the backs of those unaware of their tactics.

ALEC, or the American Legislative Exchange Council, formerly called the Conservative Caucus of State Legislators, was founded in 1973.  The newly anointed Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, was their keynote speaker this year.  Their current initiative is to use Article V of the Constitution to amend that document to benefit businesses.  It all sounds rather innocuous on the surface but their call for an Article V Convention has an agenda that may benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.  This financial shift would be paid for by those who aren’t owners of private Boeing 757s like “Trump Force One.”  [aside-Trump’s jet was formerly a Mexican airliner based in Mexico City]

To invoke Article V, they need 2/3 of the 50 states to support a constitutional convention.  Those living in the conspiracy netherworld should note that 2/3 is point 666.  They need 34 states to call the convention and 38 to ratify any amendments.

The overall objective seems to be to enforce a conservative agenda by changing the balance of power from the federal government back to the states where they feel they can make changes.  Such changes would be more difficult at the national level.  Currently, 25 states have a conservative advantage with 19 of those having a significant advantage.  At the national level, voter registrations showed Democrats outnumbering Republicans in 2020 by around 12 million.  The count in October of that year was 48.5M Democrats, 36.1M Republicans, and 34.8M fence-sitters.

So, if ALEC can get enough states to back their call for a convention, they can then amend our Constitution to suit their needs.  This can be done through the individual state legislatures and Congress has no say.  They currently have petitions circulating with innocuous language that few could find egregious.  Terms like, “impose restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and calling for term limits for members of Congress,” all sound like the only question should be, “Where do I sign?”  If you expand the details of their petition, you will see that it also calls for the elimination of “crushing regulation.”

American Legislative Exchange Council

If you go further into their plans and read their brochure, you will see that they feel businesses are being forced to comply with onerous regulations enacted by agencies that are not directly accountable to citizens.  While I would agree that this is the case, I would question the sanity of having everyday people voting on how much E. coli O157:H7 is safe in our ground beef. 

Some might argue that, if you cook all your hamburgers well and make them look like charcoal briquettes, it is not much of a problem.  Certainly, the meat packing industry would like those regulations to go away.  It costs them money to comply with these rules.  They could make larger profits without regulations.  In fact, most businesses could see larger profits if government regulations went away.  Let me pollute that stream with my industrial runoff because everyone can switch to bottled water.

This group also sees Social Security and other so-called “entitlement” programs as part of a problem that they need to fix.  I’ll leave it up to you to figure out how billionaires would decide to fix Social Security.  I seriously doubt that they would like to eliminate or raise the current $160,200 cap beyond which income is no longer subject to that FICA tax.  The current tax rate is 6.2% for employees and a similar amount for the employer.  Big business, and the very wealthy, don’t see much benefit from Social Security and view it as a government intrusion into their ability to make maximum profits.

The “Article V Convention of States Pocket Guide” further identifies their goal as shifting more control to the states.  The 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision would be an example of such a shift.  The conservative SCOTUS ruled that since the Constitution did not specifically list abortion as a right, that issue must be decided individually by each state.  It apparently did not matter that, until the mid-19^th century, abortion was legal as established by common law.

ALEC supports the NRA and the expansion of “stand-your-ground” laws.  They want voter ID voting requirements to limit access to the polls, laws that require all immigrants over 18 to “carry their papers” of alien registration with them at all times, and laws that would outlaw the filming of livestock farms by animal rights activists where violators would be placed in a terrorist registry. 

ALEC wants to privatize prisons as profit centers for the penal-industrial complex.  They want to limit EPA restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and limit access to environmental agencies’ right to track fracking contaminants that may leak into drinking water.  They want to penalize homeowners who install private solar panels and want to sell electricity back on the grid.  They support the total privatization of education.  They would outlaw public broadband services in favor of big business control by the likes of ATT and Verizon.  They want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act.  They promote the idea that homosexuality leads to pedophilia and recruitment.  [Russia just outlawed gay]

ALEC supports all these things and actively writes the legislation and bills that participating officials can sponsor.  Their model legislation comes with training and assistance as a “resource” made available to legislators.  Their authorship is not disclosed, and ALEC membership is a guarded secret.  In one instance, however, a Florida-sponsored bill (by Rep. Rachel Burgin) was introduced that mistakenly included the “boilerplate” mission statement of ALEC.  This group has been called “a dating agency for Republican legislators and big corporations.”

If you are still in doubt as to the goal of ALEC, just know that it is fully endorsed by Ron DeSantis, Sean Hannity, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Greg Abbott, Andrew Napolitano, Mark Meadows, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, and Bobby Jindal.  While I support their call for term limits for members of Congress and SCOTUS, I doubt that such limits would make the final cut.

Trump’s broad appeal to the uber-wealthy and the blue-collar set, who would not seem to have similar goals, comes from his careful crafting of his pliable positions on the issues.  He has garnered support from ultra-conservatives and the religious right with his anti-abortion stance.  He has paired this with his desire to be an authoritarian strongman who could force-feed their agenda against the will of most Americans.  His anti-regulation, anti-tax, and small government posture gets the support of big business and the uber-wealthy.  His racism and xenophobia win votes from others who share those views.

There are many seemingly willing to overlook his lack of integrity and morals in the hope that their little slice of the pie will get bigger.  They are also willing to put our democratic way of life on hold to give authoritarianism a chance.  They seem to think that the examples of other countries where authoritarian rule is the norm couldn’t happen in America.  Russia, China, North Korea, Hungary, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are somehow different.  Authoritarian rule in America would be different.  Trump would only govern by fiat on “day one,” and after that, he would follow the Constitution.

Captain Edward J. Smith
RMS Titanic

I will be the first to admit that the system is broken.  Our government seems to be suffering from “locked-in syndrome” where we are conscious and aware of what is happening but are paralyzed to act on anything.  There are solutions to our problems but electing “Capt. Edward Smith,” disguised as Donald Trump, to right the ship and move full speed ahead, means it is time to start counting the lifeboats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

American Democracy, Do You Miss It Yet?

A true democracy is like a good marriage where major decisions are discussed, and each partner gets a vote. If this is a truly good marriage, the husband’s decision will triumph. This is because a good wife will know how to make him think that what she wanted was his idea in the first place. In government, democracy is like a food fight in a kindergarten.

Kindergarten Food Fight

We think of ourselves as a democracy here in the United States but, more accurately, we are a federal democratic republic formed under a constitution. We are a representative democracy with officials elected to govern. We “govern ourselves” indirectly by electing those who will act on our behalf, or so we think.

As declared democratic objectives go, those stated in our Constitution are laudable. In practice, however, slaves, indigenous peoples, and women were excluded from voting. Women were eventually allowed to vote (1919), and indigenous Native Americans got the right to vote with the passage of the Snyder Act of 1924, but we are not a true democracy. While most Americans can vote, some are still restricted from voting. Our political parties use legislative tactics to place a “thumb on the scale” of our electoral processes. We still must constantly fight against gerrymandering, polling location placement, polling times, voter disenfranchisement, and voter disqualification schemes meant to seek political party advantages.

As George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” This is even more evident today than when George Orwell wrote his satirical fable loosely covering the Russian Revolution and Stalinist Russia. We have our own political versions of the Animal Farm pig characters Snowball and Napolean who would like to enforce their version of the “Seven Commandments of Animalism.” In Orwell’s fable, a disagreement over a new modernization plan that involved building a windmill, proposed by Snowball, has Napolean use his dogs to chase Snowball away as he declares himself supreme commander.

Napolean as Supreme Commander of 
Animal Farm

Anyone who reads this refresher excerpt of the Animal Farm plot who doesn’t see parallels in today’s political food fight may want to pay closer attention to what’s happening in the congressional sandbox. Perhaps it would be clearer if I mentioned that after defeating Snowball and taking command, Napolean takes credit for the windmill idea. When the new windmill is blown down in a storm, Napolean blames Snowball for the disaster and begins a purge of those he distrusts. Where have we seen such shenanigans lately?

Orwell published Animal Farm just a few weeks before I was born, but not much has changed in the ensuing 78 years. Corruption of power, the manipulation of information, the emergence of an exploitive elite class, and the erosion of our democratic principles are as much a part of our modern landscape as they were on the Manor Farm run by the alcoholic farmer, Mr. Jones.

The freedoms enjoyed in our hybrid democracy are now at risk. Our tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free are rightfully distrustful and outraged at the poor helmsmanship being provided by our elected officials. We all see the icebergs ahead and the bickering in the wheelhouse of government.

I am reminded of a flight I took some years ago aboard a small commuter jet. Sue and I were the only passengers until one late arrival managed to make it to a seat across the aisle. The cockpit curtain was open, and we could see the two pilots at the controls. Once in the air, we went through a bad thunderstorm. Imagine how our comfort level plummeted as we watched the two pilots bickering. One was pointing to an open manual and the other was arguing and pointing at and tapping some gauges. I didn’t need to know the specifics of their discussion to know that this shouldn’t be happening as the storm was having its way with our airborne cocoon.

The problem today is that, in a blatant fight for power and control, our bickering government is causing people to rethink our commitment to democracy. Some have even expressed an openness to a more authoritarian approach. They too must see the obvious erosion of democratic norms, challenges to the rule of law, attacks on our independent judiciary, and an abandonment of support for a free press. A strongman ruler might seem like a simple solution to the chaos but much of this chaos is being orchestrated. It is being done to make the path easier for them to grab the reins of power. Cause the problem and then offer the solution that creates your advantage.

Some conservatives would point to Viktor Orbán of Hungary with envy. Hungary, like the US, is rated as a “Deficient Democracy.” They have a ceremonial President and Orbán is the head of government with the title of Prime Minister. On August 5, 2022, Orbán spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas.

Viktor Orbán of Hungary at CPAC in Texas

Some US conservatives likely see parallels between Orbán’s history and that of Donald Trump. Orbán first ruled in Hungary from 1998 to 2002 when he lost his reelection bid. Then, he used a rising distrust and dissatisfaction with politicians to sweep the 2010 elections. He also got a two-thirds majority in their parliament which allowed him to make multiple changes to their constitution. He has held his current position since the 2010 election.

With his new powers, he hijacked public institutions, attacked the courts, and destroyed most independent media. He encouraged the abuse of migrants and refugees and criminally attacked any who helped them. He has banned same-sex marriages and has attacked the rights of the LGBTQ community. He has wrapped himself in a “pro-family” rhetoric while turning back the clock on the equality between men and women. He fully supports the activities of white supremacists and their “great replacement” theory. Some US conservatives envy his ability to fix elections, crush any dissent, and advance a nationalism rooted in racism.

In the US there is a trend toward a concentration of power in both national and state governments. We see governors who have already corrupted their state judiciaries and, using a party majority in their legislatures, were able to enact laws that make their power more absolute. The recent attempted coup to overthrow a national election and the subsequent campaign rhetoric that promises a major power grab if reelected, provides a clear roadmap to authoritarian rule in America.

Overthrowing our democracy, flawed as it is, would be like paving over our national forests because we sometimes have fires. Once an authoritarian takeover is allowed, any return to democracy would be doomed. These individuals are using the appeal of nationalism and populism to seize power.

An authoritarian government will quickly see an erosion of civil liberties. Free speech? Sure, if it doesn't contradict the ideology of the current leader. Tolerance of dissenting voices would be met with increased surveillance and restrictions. Opposition would be met with marginalization. With executive control of the courts, legal actions against political rivals would be too easy to resist.

This shift toward authoritarian rule has already seen an erosion of international alliances. International fences have been damaged and the current administration has been hampered by the actions of the previous one. The move toward isolationism as a political rallying point under the guise of nationalism and misplaced patriotism has been destructive. Isolation at a time when the global economy is even more important is a self-inflicted wound we should avoid.

In one ranking of democracies by quality, the United States placed 36th. The top five democracies in this analysis were Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Germany. At the bottom of their list were China, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, North Korea, and Eritrea who were all labeled, “Hard Autocracy.” The United States, in its 36th position, was described as a “Deficient Democracy.”

I, for one, would rather see us struggle as a deficient democracy than be forced to endure the rigors of living under an American version of Kim Jong Un. Quick and simple solutions may look attractive if one doesn’t assess the potential risks and consequences of the one-way street to authoritarian rule. I say, not only does Comrade Trump not deserve a second bite at the apple, but that he should also probably end up in jail. This should happen only when he is convicted of a crime under the rules of our deficient democracy. He’s lucky in this regard that we are still a democracy because an authoritarian president might have had his head on a pike on Pennsylvania Avenue by now.

At the conclusion of Animal Farm, the human farmer Jones is dead, and the leaders of the rebellion are aging. The pigs who advocated that four-legged animals are better than two-legged humans, now walk upright. Napolean holds a dinner party and invites the local human farmers to form a new alliance. During a card game, both Napolean and a human farmer play the Ace of Spades and an argument breaks out about who cheated. Animals on the outside looking at the mayhem inside the farmhouse can’t distinguish between humans and pigs. Flip on C-SPAN and see if you can see the difference.

[Postscript]

Orwell’s original manuscript was nearly destroyed in 1944 when a German V-1 flying bomb hit his London home. He luckily managed to retrieve it from the rubble.

A United Ireland?

I recently read an article regarding the possibility of a United Ireland.  As someone of Irish descent, I will have to admit that I understood little of the politics of Irish history and the reason there was a division of Northern Ireland from the rest of the country.  My month-long trip to Ireland in 2012 was travel restricted to the southern portions as I was using a rental car that prohibited driving into the northern portions of the island nation.

A Kerry Couple
Photo by William Lawrence 1895
(from my grandmother's collection)

I knew of The Troubles as they are called and found that, even after getting to know B&B owners during an extended stay, few were willing to discuss that period beyond saying that I should do my own research.  One nice couple told me that few outside Ireland really understood how the Irish were treated by the British.  It was suggested that I go back to that distant past to begin my understanding.

St Colman's Cathedral, Cobh, Ireland
(southeast of Cork City, 2012)

After that vacation, I did manage to learn that, unlike the stories I had heard of the backward shanty-town Irish who were stupid to try to survive on a limited crop of mostly potatoes and who were driven to starvation in the mid-1800s, I found that history to be flawed.  The potato blight that attacked the potato crops was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Blarney Castle

Years of absentee landlord control from Great Britain had forced the Irish to farm only the worst land while British aristocrats grew and exported crops from the better Irish farmland.  Irish Catholics were prohibited from entering professions and were not allowed to own land.  They were forced to rent small plots.  Potatoes were one of the few crops that could be grown on the land left to the Irish.  When that crop was hit by the fungus-like microorganism that turns the potatoes into a foul-smelling mush, that limited food source disappeared and millions of Irish died of starvation under the watchful eyes of their British occupiers.  Millions of the survivors emigrated in the largest migration from an island nation in history.

Turf Cart (wheelless) 1906

By 1919, the Irish nationalist party, Sinn Féin declared an Irish republic.  To head off a civil war, Britain portioned the island in 1920 into a Protestant-dominated northeast and a predominantly Catholic south and northwest (Republic of Ireland).  Those left behind as religious minorities in their section of the island were then the subject of continued discrimination.

King Street (now MacCurtain), Cork City, 1906
(from my grandmother's collection from her birthplace)

The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s in America went far beyond our borders and the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland demanded an end to the discrimination.  Protestant Unionists owned and controlled most Northern Ireland businesses that refused to hire or promote Catholics.  Irish segregation was along religious lines for employment, housing, and education.  Gerrymandering of electoral boundaries split Catholic voting power.  Even the right to vote in local elections was restricted to property ownership.  If you owned six houses, you got six votes.  If you rented, you could not vote at all.  This meant that Protestants, who had the better-paying jobs, controlled the vote.

By the late 60s, a recession hit Northern Ireland’s industries hard and unemployment was felt by all, but was particularly worse for Catholics.  In 1967, NICRA (Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association) was formed to end discrimination and obtain equal rights (one vote per person) to participate in government.  NICRA was infiltrated by the IRA (Irish Republican Army) who wanted to use the group for its own ends.  This was the beginning of The Troubles or Na Trioblóidí as it is called in the Irish, that lasted for 30 years ending with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.  It was not so much a religious conflict as it involved the status of Northern Ireland as either part of Great Britain or part of a United Ireland.  The death toll stands at around 3,500 for this period.

Enter Brexit, the oxymoron.  Britain’s bitter divorce from the European Union that paradoxically isolated Northern Ireland with trade laws, customs declarations, tariffs, and goods inspections, may provide some incentive to reunite Ireland as part of the EU.  Currently, the trade barriers are not along the north-south border of Ireland as one might assume, but between the UK and Northern Ireland.  One would assume this would be the lesser of the two evils.

Part of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 was that the six counties of Northern Ireland could sever ties to the UK if the majority of the people voted to do so.  There are currently more Catholics in Northern Ireland than Protestants according to a 2021 census.  There may also be a financial incentive as Ireland has a budget surplus and the UK is dealing with high inflation, a somewhat sluggish economy, and higher interest rates.  Northern Ireland is also dealing with a dysfunctional government after the Democratic Unionist Party walked out over trade and border policies.  Forty percent of the drinking water in the north comes from a single lake that is currently suffering from a blue-green algae bloom.

With Brexit as a guide as to what not to do, a plan for unification is being approached with caution.  Now that there is a majority Catholic population in the north, the original 1921 UK plan to ensure Protestant domination of the six counties, may be at an end.  Can a unified Ireland be that far off?

Revenge, Retaliation, Let the Violence Continue

A famous American feud involved the Hatfields and the McCoys.* These two extended families lived on either side of a border stream called Tug Fork that separated West Virginia and Kentucky.

Nobody could remember what started the feud. Some said it had to do with the American Civil War where the McCoys were Unionists and the Hatfields were Confederates. Others said the fight started when Rand’l McCoy accused a Hatfield of stealing one of his hogs in 1878. Whatever the original sin, the first killings didn’t happen until 1882. The fighting went on to the end of the 19th century and finally ended sometime early in the second decade of the twentieth.

Like many long-term disagreements, the origins aren’t always clear but continue to be fueled by ongoing incidents. On a much larger scale, we have seen historical “feuds” that last for centuries. Many are founded on religious disagreements which can go beyond factual reasoning. It is not usually a disagreement of fundamental beliefs, although such factors may be used as an excuse, but most are about power and control.

If we look at the two main Islamic sects, the Sunni and Shia, their split goes back 14 centuries when there was disagreement as to who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad as leader of their faith. The resulting split went 85-15 with 85 percent becoming Sunni. While the split was initially peaceful, by the late 20th century extremists in each sect began a fight for religious and political supremacy. The minority Shia faction is prominent in Iran, Iraq, and a few other countries. The Sunni Muslims are primarily in Central Asia (including China), Europe (including Russia and the Balkans), South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Arab World, Turkey, and among Muslims in the United States.

It was the fight for political power advanced by Muslim religious fundamentalists of both sects that widened the chasm that was made worse following the two Persian Gulf Wars, the US ouster of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni regime in Iraq, and the regional uprisings known now as the Arab Spring that started in 2011.

That last reference to the Arab Spring was a drive for increased democracy and cultural freedoms among Muslims that started with a single incident in December 2010. It seems that a Tunisian street vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest of the seizing of his vegetable stand by the police for a permit violation. With his sacrifice, protests erupted and led to the overthrow of the authoritarian president who had ruled for over 20 years. The success of this initial protest fueled other grassroots movements elsewhere.

In another Arab Spring moment in Libya, Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011 and was dragged through the streets, tortured, and executed. In Syria, things were different, and Bashar al-Assad remains in power.

All of this is to say that, while the excuse may be religious doctrine, the real motivation is political power. It is like what we have here in the US. We have a Christian extremist minority making serious inroads into our democracy using religious doctrine as their excuse. While they don’t have the numbers to win in a democratic fashion, they do have a strong will and a fanaticism that seems to motivate even the non-religious among us to action.

No one could mistake Donald Trump or his MAGA movement as one founded in religious piety, but their willingness to act in concert with this Christian minority has been meaningful. The overthrow of Roe v. Wade with his trifecta of appointments to the US Supreme Court is just the beginning of another grab for the reigns of our government and the power it wields. While we know that Donald Trump is not a religious person, we also know he is an opportunistic grifter who will use support where he finds it. If the religious right votes for him, he will support their actions to federally ban all abortions.

In recent surveys, Americans are so distrustful of our public institutions that many are now willing to accept that a violent overthrow may be their only way to “right the ship.” More people are willing to abandon democracy in favor of authoritarian rule. The violence in Portland Oregon in 2020, and Trump’s deployment of federal law-enforcement agents in tactical gear against the wishes of the government of Oregon (mayor of Portland and governor of Oregon) was to be a harbinger of Trump’s efforts that culminated in the violence of January 6th. The difference in Washington D.C. was that Trump was the insurrectionist.

Trump’s actions in Portland in 2020 and later in Chicago were clearly in violation of our constitution. While a president has the power granted under the Insurrection Act of 1807 to quell an insurrection, he is also required to do so AFTER a formal proclamation and only when state laws cannot be enforced to protect the constitutional rights of its citizens. Eisenhower did this in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1958 and George H.W. Bush did it during the L.A. riots of 1992. Trump issued no formal proclamation and neither Portland nor Chicago citizens were having their constitutional rights threatened. This mention here has nothing to do with using religion as a weapon only that, once democratic norms are trampled, all other rights can suffer a similar fate.

Pitting the left and right against one another under a banner of Christian righteousness seems to be a page out of the history books being wielded by a man who doesn’t know history. Perhaps he knows someone who knows history. If our democracy is overturned under the guise of some convoluted religious logic, misinformation, and an existing political system that has been twisted by interested parties for financial gain, the outcome will have us questioning how we got here.

Whatever the result, there will always be someone willing to take advantage of a disgruntled populace through any means necessary. For many the cause will be the advancement of some religious ideology but there should be no mistaking the true motivation is just a lust for power and the financial rewards that follow.

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*Postscript: One theory regarding the Hatfield v. McCoy feud that I ran across mentioned the possibility of a genetic predisposition for adrenal tumors known as von Hippel-Lindau disease, which may explain why the McCoy family members were so violent. Such tumors ran in the McCoy family and are known to cause surges in adrenaline that can lead to violent behavior. Eleven-year-old Winnter Reynolds is a descendant of the McCoy line and she and other family members have the disease. In 2002 a symbolic peace treaty was signed by Hatfield and McCoy descendants. Members of Winnter Reynolds’ family have attended Hatfield-McCoy reunions for years and have been swapping stories about their distant cousins all their lives.

Veterans Day Has Passed

 

Veterans Day has once again passed for another year. We posted our flags and patriotic memes honoring our veterans. Now we can go about our daily routines and ignore the true cost of freedom.

Wars, preparing for wars, and taking care of those who have suffered loss in that effort is an expensive proposition. We have long lived beyond our means with a callous disregard for some of the not-so-hidden costs of protecting our freedoms. We will drop over $400 billion developing an F-35 and spend over $600 billion for our four military branches to function for a year. The Department of Defense budget for 2023 was $1.8 trillion. This represents almost half of our discretionary spending.

Calls for budget cuts are regularly in the news and amount to a political hot potato that becomes hotter with elections on the horizon. Budget cuts are important but only when the other party is in office. We seem to always be heading for another election that is more important than the last. Most of us also know that the US spends more money on defense than the combined spending of the next ten countries.

Most countries in this top ten are our allies. Could or should we cut our military spending in deference to reducing our national debt or perhaps spend that money on other needs like infrastructure, improving the healthcare system for the non-billionaire classes, improving education for all, or finding solutions to climate change. Perhaps we would think twice about military solutions when diplomacy might work.

Did we need the F-35? I’m certainly not able to make that determination. I just know that it is a very expensive system at $75M a copy with an operating cost of over $7M each year per plane. Their promotional brochure states: “The F-35 strengthens national security, enhances global partnerships, and powers economic growth. It is the most lethal, survivable, and connected fighter aircraft in the world, giving pilots an advantage against any adversary and enabling them to execute their mission and come home safe.” Who can argue with that? Perhaps someone should.

What the brochure didn’t mention was that, like many things within the confines of our dysfunctional military-industrial complex, its development was ten years behind schedule and more than 80% over budget. Could we have saved a few bucks if we settled for Mach 1.5 instead of Mach 1.6 speeds? If you can only fly at 1,227.63 mph and hypersonic missiles can exceed 3,800 mph, that extra decimal point might buy you an extra nanosecond of life expectancy.

None of these decisions is in my wheelhouse, they are just cause for reflection so we might consider how our nation might be better served with a little belt-tightening and maybe consider a different distribution of our precious tax dollars. It’s either that or we start taxing the very wealthy with percentages like what you and I pay. Oh, the horror. Since the very wealthy own the politicians and the courts, a fair taxing of the yachting-private jet set is not in our foreseeable future. For the record, the wealthiest 400 families pay about 8.2 percent in taxes on their incomes while the average American taxpayer pays 13 percent.

The very expensive and stealthy F-35 only came up after I read an article that discussed our war effort of 2016 in Syria and Iraq as we had a ground war with the Islamic State. That was the very first time the F-35 flew in actual combat. It was flown by Israel’s IAF. To minimize American casualties and shorten the war, it was decided that bombardment with heavy artillery would be used by our forces. American artillery crews launched hundred-pound shells at targets over fifteen miles away. They did this nonstop, twenty-four-seven. Over 10,000 times gun crews did this in a matter of months. Those on the receiving end were put out of commission, but the gun crews were also suffering a stealthy injury, unaware of the future consequences.

Much like the repeated shocks received by boxers and NFL players over time, the loud explosions that launched our artillery shells also did damage to the crews. They started having problems with nausea, memory and balance, irritability, sleeplessness, and fatigue like symptoms of someone suffering a concussion. They were all screened with normal tests designed for people suffering a single large explosion, and those tests found nothing out of the ordinary. The tests were not designed for repeated smaller blast waves. These crews had been subjected to shock waves that repeatedly reverberated through bones, tissue, organs, and the brain.

Complaints from the crews were diagnosed as ADD, depression, or PTSD, and some were given psychotropic drugs for relief. When job performance was affected, some were punished for misconduct and a few with punitive discharges which cut them off from veterans’ health care. As civilians, their marriages failed, jobs were lost, and some became homeless. Some committed suicide.

Even Heavy Hand-held Weapons
Provide Shock Waves For The Operator

Recent studies now suggest minute scarring of the brain. This has now been found in those who have been subjected to multiple shock waves as might come from cannons, mortars, RPGs, or even heavy machine guns. This microscopic tissue damage in the brain may only be found at autopsy so diagnosis is difficult. There was a limited 2016 DOD-funded study of postmortem subjects. That study compared a control group to others with chronic blast exposure (similar to the heavy artillery crews), acute blast exposure, and those with opiate exposure.

The results showed that all the chronic blast exposure subjects had unique and prominent scarring of “the subpial glial plate, penetrating cortical blood vessels, grey-white matter junctions, and structures lining the ventricles.” All subjects of acute blast exposure showed these same results. I won’t suggest that I know what this technical description means but brain damage comes to mind, no pun intended.

When I heard that such damage suffered by the heavy artillery crews could also be seen in repeated exposure to even heavy machine gun fire, I thought of Robert Card, the US Army Reserve firearms instructor who killed 18 people in Maine recently. He certainly had been around explosive gunfire. He had been previously discharged from a mental health facility after complaining of hallucinations. Would a postmortem brain analysis provide any insight?

The cost of our nation’s defense goes beyond the cost overruns of the F-35 program. There is a human cost. Our veterans deserve the best care we can provide. One way to support our troops would be to call on their services as a last resort and not as a quick solution.

Those Were The Days

My early television viewing involved popular sitcoms. In the 50s, The Honeymooners featured blue-collar bus driver Ralph Kramden whose neighbor, Ed Norton, worked in a sewer. Ralph was the sad sack and Ed provided comic relief. Most of their antics were staged in the Kramden apartment. Years later, (1989-1998) in another similar sitcom, Jerry Seinfeld lived in a small apartment and had Kramer as his crazy neighbor.

Sandwiched between these two comic gems was All in the Family whose eight-year run started in 1971. The two main characters who played against one another were Archie Bunker and Michael Stivic, aka Meathead. Archie was a right-wing bigot and Meathead was a Polish-American hippie. The show was inspired by the successful British sitcom, Till Death Do Us Part, featuring a white working-class racist with anti-socialist views.

Archie and Edith

Oddly, all three of these American classics were set in New York. While all of these comedies are ranked at the top of their genre, All in the Family is regarded as one of the greatest television comedy series of all time. Archie Bunker represented the conservative “Greatest Generation” and Meathead was from the liberal “Baby Boomers.” Archie was the loveable bigot whose racism and various prejudices were less hateful and more his reaction to societal changes that made him uncomfortable.

All in the Family made its television debut on CBS which was trying to diversify its rural comedy programming featuring Mayberry RFD (Andy Griffith), The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres. All in the Family was the first major American series to be videotaped in front of a live studio audience as most sitcoms prior to AITF were single-camera shows with a laugh track and no live audience. Often compared to The Honeymooners filmed before a live television audience, AITF had a similar look and feel. Ralph Kramden and Archie Bunker were both loveable flawed characters.

While most of us couldn’t fathom anyone other than Carroll O’Conner in the role of Archie, the first offer to play Archie went to Mickey Rooney who turned it down as too controversial. A Black family, the Jeffersons, moves in next door and we meet George Jefferson who is a Black version of Archie.

All in the Family seems like a lifetime ago. It was popular back when we could still find humor in the absurdity of bigotry. Today such bigotry is very much mainstream, and I fear too few would find the humor in any similar updated offering. Hateful rhetoric now dominates the news. Who could have foreseen back then that we would elect a slightly more educated but certainly no more intelligent person to lead our country. For those of you now picturing Joe Biden in that position, that is your right. For those of you who correctly realize that we are talking about Donald J. Trump, consider yourselves lucky to be functioning on a higher plane than our former president.

For those of you longing for a time when we could comfortably laugh at a bigoted racist who was in the minority, just realize,

Those Were The Days.

Boy, the way Glenn Miller played

songs that made the hit parade

Guys like me we had it made

Those were the days

Didn't need no welfare state

ev'rybody pulled his weight

gee our old LaSalle ran great

Those were the days

And you knew who you were then

girls were girls and men were men

Mister we could use a man

like Herbert Hoover again

People seemed to be content

fifty dollars paid the rent

freaks were in a circus tent

Those were the days

Take a little Sunday spin

go to watch the Dodgers win

Have yourself a dandy day

that cost you under a fin

Hair was short and skirts were long

Kate Smith really sold a song

I don't know just what went wrong

those were the days

Hero to Zero

In the Kingdom of Trump, a mythical nation-state governed by a maniacal potentate of continual ill will, the distance between being a Grand Duke and a pariah can only be measured with a micrometer.  The time it takes to go from hero to zero is measured in nanoseconds.  One perceived slight and it's off with his head.  One day you are a favorite son and the next you're a decoration on a pike near the drawbridge entrance to Mar a Lago serving as a warning to others.

The MAGA World lives in fear.  They cower, deflect, and stammer when asked if their emperor knows he isn’t wearing clothes.  If truly forced to respond they will swear that their pompous leader is wearing the finest garments ever made and that no one owns anything more elegant.  Like the brainwashed American troops who had been POWs in the movie classic, The Manchurian Candidate, “Donald Trump (Raymond Shaw) is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.”

Getting voted off MAGA island is easy.  Just hint at the fact that Trump lost the 2020 election.  Vote to impeach Trump for the insurrection.  Challenge a draft-dodging Trump military decision even though you are a former four-star general with over 50 years of military experience.  Respond truthfully to a question about the appropriateness of a president soliciting a foreign government to interfere in a US political process.  Yes, there are any number of ways to piss off the pope.

It works.  With a rabid cult following of GOP voters, your political career is over if you anger the “exalted one.”  Even those who may secretly loathe Trump will never denounce him in public for fear of becoming the next person to be burned at the stake.  According to one former close special assistant to Trump, he maintains an enemies list and he will throw anyone on this list under the proverbial bus given the opportunity.

The political chameleon who is Trump burned through some of his own faithful when he decided to challenge the 2020 election with violence on January 6^th.  Betsy DeVos, Elaine Chao, Mick Mulvaney, Matthey Pottinger, John Costello, Tyler Goodspeed, Stephanie Grisham, Rickie Niceta, Sarah Matthews, Elinore McCance-Katz, Eric Dreiband, and five National Security Council officials all submitted resignations.  These were all faithful Trump devotees, but January 6^th was a “bridge too far.”

You don't have to read the next paragraph, a quick scan will do.  It is included to show that Donald Trump had the highest administrative staff turnover of any president in American history.  Perhaps he longed for his years on The Apprentice where his tagline was, "You're Fired!"    In his first year, Trump had an 85% turnover rate of his A-Team of advisors and cabinet members.  For someone who claimed that he only hired the very best, his foresight reminds me of Mr. Magoo.  His entire presidency was a series of forced resignations, multiple firings, and public humiliations of staff.  His numbers could have been higher but he failed to even fill many of the vacancies left from the carnage.  He would leave "acting" heads in place whose leadership would always be hampered by their tenuous status.  He didn't seem to understand that you were not cleaning the swamp when all you were doing was dumping the alligators you brought with you.

Comparison of Presidential Cabinet Secretaries

Also among the heads on pikes outside Mar a Lago are Former Defense Secretary James Mattis, Former Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer, Former White House national security adviser John Bolton, Former White House chief of staff John Kelly, Former White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Former Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert, Cliff Sims, former special assistant to the President and director of White House Message Strategy, Omarosa Manigault Newman, former director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison, Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, Gary Cohn, former National Economic Council director, Former White House counsel Ty Cobb, Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Former US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker, Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Former Attorney General Bill Barr, Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, Rep. Liz Cheney, Rep. Tom Rice, Rep Dan Newhouse, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, Rep. Fred Upton, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, Rep. Peter Meijer, Rep. John Katko, Rep. David Valadao, Sydney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesbro, and Scott Hall.  (the final four are included in the pike graphic)

The list above is certainly not complete but was what I could quickly find in articles.  I almost forgot National Security Advisor, Mike Flynn who only lasted a couple of weeks after the inauguration.  It seems he had lied about his collusion and associations with high-ranking Russians.  He was replaced by Lt. Gen. Joseph Kellog Jr.  Of course Kellog's position was only "acting."

Republicans live in perilous times.  A guy with no experience in politics but with a penchant for hoodwinking people has too easily taken over their party.  The right wing of the GOP has taken a hard right turn and extremism is now the norm.  Party moderates and those willing to govern through compromise and negotiation will be too afraid to speak for fear of retribution.  Donald Trump, a currently unelected leader, now controls half of our government in absentia.

Welcome the newest fast food franchise MAGA King where his motto is, “Have it my way.”