WOKE or ASLEEP; The Choice is Yours

The opposite of WOKE is ASLEEP. If you are not WOKE, you are asleep. So, either wake up and smell the fertilizer the GOP is spreading or go back to bed and sleep until Big Business Capitalists (BBC) take over the country. Members of the BBC group like Trump, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy are trying to lull America to sleep while they try to enrich themselves even further at your expense. They abhor any capitalistic endeavor that seeks to acknowledge a need for social conscience. Their new mantra is to make WOKE a four-letter word of derision. Those who are WOKE are EVIL; lather, rinse, and repeat.

I can just hear the revised Edwin Starr chanted lyrics now:

WOKE, huh, yeah

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing, uhh

WOKE, huh, yeah

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing

The GOP’s patron saint, Ronald Reagan, wanted to allow the Big Business Capitalists to get and keep all of the money they could by cutting into the existing social safety nets of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, free public schools, etc., by removing regulations that cost businesses money, and by lowering taxes on the upper echelons. Anything that benefitted the middle and lower classes of society was a tax on the wealthy. He sold this idea as his “trickle down” philosophy where the rich get even richer, and whatever financial scraps are left over will trickle down on the middle class, drip by drip. Forget the poor.

Yes, the mantra has shifted from trying to Make America Great to STOP WOKE. In this case, WOKE is a catch-all for anything that limits big business from having a free and unregulated reign to make as much money as possible. Some of that will be at risk for the health and safety of their workers, customers, and the general population. Taxes rob big-business of some of their profits so any of those monies destined for healthcare, education, housing, food security, clean water, and clean energy are evil.

The real opposite of WOKE is a condition of closed-mindedness and ignorance. The anti-WOKE position is generally associated with a not-so-hidden agenda of racism and religious piety. In the culture wars WOKE is seen through the lens of intolerance of all views that are not your own, a preference for an authoritarian rule to enforce the “correct” views, an abhorrence of anything deemed “un-Christian,” and a xenophobic denial of previous racial discrimination.

The term WOKE appeals to a groupthink mentality and polarizes people over issues both real and imagined. It is a manufactured hysteria. The mentally frail among us love such buzzwords as they require no explanation, no sound argument, no solutions, and no rationale. It is the schoolyard bully calling someone a name with the inference that it is a derogatory term.

The G.O.A.T. bully of all time, is Donald Trump, winner of the Tamerlane* the Great Trophy. Trump has used terms like Sleepy Joe, Jeff Flakey, Lyin’ Ted, Meatball Ron, Low Energy Jeb, Pocahontas, Gretchen Half-Whitmer, Little Marco, Joe Munchkin, Nasty Kamala, Sleepy Ben Carson, Shifty Schiff, Coco Chow, Low-polling Liz, Crooked Hillary, and (Leakin’, Lyin’, Sanctimonious, Shady, Slimeball, Slippery) James Comey. I guess he really didn’t like Comey. Perhaps this simple-minded approach is part of his appeal to the simple-minded among us.

Conservative “wokeness” is not new. In Great Britain, it can be traced back to 1846 and the Sugar Duties Act that followed the emancipation of Jamaican slaves. Charles Dickens wrote Bleak House which invented the “woke” stereotype where misguided philanthropists caused the formerly enslaved to not diligently continue to work the plantations but decided instead to reunite with their families. To Dickens, this would be inconceivable as only white Britains could have such feelings of kinship. While Dickens often championed the poor in his writings, he had no such feelings for the racially inferior “others.” To Dickens, Africans, Indians, and the Irish were racially inferior people.

Fast forward from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, and we see what conservative wokeness did for Great Britain with Brexit. It has so far been a financial and social disaster. Will Americans fall for this new racial epithet of wokeness to their detriment? Will the GOP continue to excite their base with this MAGA buzzword replacement? Will WOKE Mountain be the hill upon which the new GOP fights and dies? The 2024 elections will tell. If you can find a Republican politician who hasn’t used the term WOKE as a scare tactic your research skills are to be commended because I can’t find one.

Earlier in this post, I referenced a person named Ramaswamy. If you are unfamiliar with him (as was I) perhaps I should introduce you. He is Vivek Ramaswamy who is a favorite of Tucker Carlson (what does that tell you) and he has been dubbed by the New Yorker as the “CEO of Anti-Woke Inc.” He hopes to be the new Trump, an outsider from politics, who can promote his vision for an American national identity.

He has written a book, Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam. He is against stakeholder capitalism defined as a system where corporations serve the interests of customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, and local communities. Now, how horrible is that? Ramaswamy’s view would emphasize profits at all costs and social responsibility be damned. This sounds like something the GOP would support. He is still an outsider, but so was Trump.

The recent Norfolk Southern Railway accident in East Palestine, Ohio, might be an example of where under-regulated capitalism has been at the expense of the under-protected citizenry. Should the wheel bearings of cars carrying toxic chemicals be better maintained? Would more heat sensors have allowed the conductors time to stop the train before the derailment? Were the heat sensors they had even operational? Would the braking system regulations that were enacted by Obama and removed by Trump make a difference?

Was setting the vinyl chloride cargo on fire the best way to mitigate the risks caused by the derailment, or was it just the cheapest way of disposing of a problem? Will there be a meaningful investigation or will this just be a matter of paying some settlement to the “inconvenienced” townspeople whose homes have less value than before, whose future health may be at risk, and who have suffered from a massive loss of community?

Norfolk Southern is one of the largest in North America with operating profits, according to Alan Shaw their chief executive, “at the best it’s been in more than two years.” Profits are up and accidents have risen in each of the last four years. They have lobbied against new rules that would make trains safer. They are running longer and heavier trains, have cut their workforces by nearly a third, and closed railyards where cars are inspected and maintained. This may account for the $18 billion shareholders earned through stock buybacks and dividends over the last five years.

The answers to these questions and others have no place in an Anti-Woke America. The new GOP boogeyman lurks and must be exorcised. Time to break out the torches and pitchforks to eliminate anything that stands in the way of profits. Then on the other hand, if you don’t want to be WOKE, perhaps it is time for that nap.

* Tamerlane, a successor to Genghis Khan, used misinformation and name-calling as part of his methodology, along with mass slaughter, torture, and other fun pastimes.

Keep Them Barefoot and Pregnant

So goes the chauvinistic phrase from the early 20^th century about keeping women at home and curbing the threat of divorce.  This was apparently taken from a British proverb that held, “Keep her well-shagged and poorly shod and she’ll not wander far.”  Aside from being tasteless, it has at its roots a desire for dominance by taking away choice.  A newer push from the political establishment seems to be to keep them ignorant and proud of their fate. 

How else do we explain the unbridled support of our underclasses for billionaires who flaunt the need for government austerity by cutting social programs?  Those programs often provide relief for hard-working families in times of crisis.  When man-made or natural disasters strike, it will generally be the less financially fortunate among us who suffer the greatest.  Cuts in the areas of medicine, housing, and food welfare are threatened while tax breaks that more widely help the wealthy, are promoted.

We regularly see some of our poorest states reelect leaders who wrap themselves in the flag, yell about the need to protect their right to carry weapons of war, and raise the specter of fear of disease and oppression from immigrants.  I haven’t mentioned a particular political party, but I think we can guess. 

Economic stagnation is the latest form of "barefoot and pregnant."  The 10 states with the lowest per capita income levels are Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, Louisiana, Montana, South Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama, and North Carolina.  Donald Trump carried all 10 of these states in 2016.  Then, in the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump carried all 10 states again.  After 4 years of Trump’s Republican leadership, they were still the poorest folks in the nation.  In 2022, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Kentucky all got Democratic governors, but they are still majority Republican at lower levels of government.

The flip side of this is that nine of the top ten states with the highest per capita incomes voted Democratic in the presidential elections of 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020.  The exception to this was Alaska, a traditionally red state.

Republican leaders hold an American flag, a Bible, or an AR-15 in one hand leaving the other hand free to pick the pockets of their less fortunate constituents.  Like any good magician, they distract with the pretty baubles while working their true magic of self-enrichment.  They fool the poor and reward the wealthy.  The poor continue to vote for them and the wealthy contribute a portion of their winnings back to the “dealer.” 

My favorite quote from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show was from her boss, Lou Grant, who explained his success in management saying, “I know how to delegate blame.”  The GOP uses this tactic by blaming liberals, immigrants, people of color, Jews, and certain select (liberal) wealthy individuals, for housing shortages, lackluster job opportunities, inflation, poor education, and inadequate healthcare. 

The GOP will say they are protecting your freedoms while taking them away.  Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis wants to micromanage the school system.  He has gone so far as to emulate Adolf Hitler who banned all books that were deemed “un-German” on cultural, religious, or political grounds.  In 1933 Nazi Germany, Hitler publicly burned such offensive books.  DeSantis just adopts a vague policy whereby he outlaws certain books and then threatens school administrators and teachers with loss of employment, fines, or even jail time if he finds books they didn’t remove from libraries that offend him. 

The Florida school employees are among the worst paid in the nation and now they must filter through millions of books to find any that would make white heterosexual students feel uncomfortable.  >In Florida, the terms are CRT and WOKE.  Any books that reference social conscience in terms of race (Critical Race Theory) or hint at systemic injustices that may exist in our society, must be removed.  DeSantis wants to end anti-white bigotry, at least that’s the red meat he throws out to his audience.  He wants to outdo the efforts begun by the team of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and their America First Legal group.  Just keep people ignorant of history and distract white voters with another shiny bauble.  DeSantis can then advance to the final round in the American political game show, aka his run for the presidency.

Free Speech Has Limits

As Americans, we cherish all our freedoms and perhaps none so much as our freedom of speech.  We, as a nation, will bend over backward to allow all manner of commentary, even that which offends us.  Free discourse is the backbone of our democracy.

There is however a line where such speech becomes more than speech.  When words are spoken that are fashioned to inspire or result in violence, that speech becomes criminal.  Drawing that line cannot be arbitrary but I think rational people, know it when they hear it.  This is to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart who in 1964 when asked to define obscenity made his now famous declaration, “I know it when I see it.”

When the First Amendment was written and passed on December 15, 1797, there was no telegraph or telephone to spread this news.  Forty-seven years later, in 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse had come up with the telegraph and had begun stringing a wire between Baltimore and Washington, DC.  At about that time, the Whig party nominated Henry Clay as its presidential candidate.  The news of his appointment was then telegraphed from Annapolis Junction to Washington.  There was an immediate outcry from MAGA Republicans who proclaimed it to be fake news.  This was only remarkable because the Republican Party would not be founded until 1854, ten years later.

Sam Morse and Telegraph

Yes, we’ve come a long way in delivering information (aka free speech) with a speed and magnitude that 1797 Americans could not have fathomed.  We now have the radio, television, cell phones, and the Internet.  It is today estimated that 3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared on social media daily.  These messages can travel at the speed of light around the globe.  That’s a lot of free speech.

So, where to draw the line?  For those who would argue that there should be no line, I would counter that under current case law, there already is a line.  It is merely the judging of which acts of communication violate those laws by crossing that line.  This is where a certain amount of subjectivity comes in and requires that rare commodity, common sense.

First, we have “true threats” as an exception to First Amendment protections. These are defined in Virginia v. Black 2003 Supreme Court decision as, “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.”  Such speech becomes intimidation when a speaker “directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.”  That’s when speech becomes criminal and not covered by First Amendment protection.

For example, if a president gives a speech to a crowd specifically gathered to stop the peaceful transition of power, and that person knows that some of the people in that crowd who are dressed in military attire carry deadly weapons, and then that person specifically identifies a person we will call Mike Pence for illustration, as the person who is responsible for their loss in the last election, and then he tells that crowd to march to where a government body that includes Mr. Pence are peacefully convened to formalize the will of the majority of voters, this might be viewed as a “true threat.”  His statement that, if his supporters didn’t, “fight like hell, or you’re not going to have a country anymore,” might even underscore that “true threat.”

Then, just minutes later, that group of excited individuals marched on that building and violence erupted.   The group of people inside the building collectively are forced to hide or run for their lives and are seen calling their loved ones to say their goodbyes.  A reasonable person might deduce that the speech referenced earlier, along with similar speeches from others, was indeed a “true threat,” now being played out in real-time.

Now we come to the matter of intent.  We know that the main speaker at this event should have reasonably known that his words would result in a violent riot.  Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt, we now know that he watched the resulting violence caused by his speech play out on live television. 

We also now know that people told him that he could stop the violence with a simple tweet or public announcement but that he refused to do so for several hours.  One might reasonably surmise that things were all going according to his plan.  This is what he intended all along.  It was only after someone was shot and killed that he used the power of his office and his influence to tell the mob to go home.  The mob then followed his command.  That sounds like clear intent.

 

A second exception to what is considered protected speech is termed “incitement” when it promotes violence or lawless action.  In caselaw, as referenced in the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, the court distinguished between mere advocacy and incitement likely to cause imminent lawless action. 

So, when Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks at a conference of fellow white supremacists and denies responsibility for planning the January 6^th insurrection by stating that if she had been involved, “we would have won…, we would have been armed.”  She is well within the bounds of protected speech and entitled to be rewarded by Kevin McCarthy with a seat on the Homeland Security Oversight Committee.  The FBI has identified the white supremacy movement to be one of our most significant sources of domestic terrorism.  MTG is a regular speaker at white supremacy conferences and Homeland Security oversees the FBI.  Unless MTG is an undercover agent working for the FBI to investigate white supremacy from the inside, appointing her to this oversight committee seems like a diabolical plot right out of a Tom Clancy novel.

Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks at White Supremacy Conference
in Orlando, Florida February 26, 2022

(she was the surprise speaker replacing Milo Yiannopoulos who was
disinvited because of his past comments about relationships between boys and men)

However, when Rudy Giuliani tells the rowdy January 6^th crowd carrying weapons that the folks on Capitol Hill voting to ratify the election need to see some, “trial by combat,” that may have crossed the line.  When the next Trump supporter, Mo Brooks, speaks and tells this same crowd that if they are true American patriots, they need to, “start kicking ass and taking names,” that line is now in the rear-view mirror.

Rudy, "Trial by combat"

The referenced caselaw limiting protected speech is however much harder to use when the targets are more general and the threats are not necessarily imminent.  Radical speech is protected in this instance.  Even speech that is knowingly false and likely to encourage bad behavior is protected.  The fact that elected officials knowingly promote and support these falsehoods, however, is just something we need to fix at the ballot box, provided you can find one.

Perhaps it is time to address the harm that careless speech has caused and provide recourse for those who suffer injury.  Should we treat elected officials with a stricter set of rules whereby they would risk removal from office or suffer other serious consequences should they be found to knowingly advance falsehoods that are likely to result in violence?  Could this higher standard not require imminent violence to be a factor?

By this measure you may rightly claim that an election was fraudulent, but only if you can provide proof or some sound logic behind your beliefs.  Lacking such evidence or logic all comments would be required to contain such language as, “this is all conjecture on my part, but…”  Elected officials need to be held to this higher standard.  We have too long permitted politicians to “stretch the truth” and now that rubber band of innuendo has snapped and hit us in the face. 

Just ask Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, who suffered a skull fracture when a political terrorist, David DePape, attacked him while trying to kidnap the Speaker of the House.  Just ask Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, who was the target of a group of 13 political terrorists who wanted to kidnap her to overthrow the state government.  Just ask the two county commissioners and two state legislators in New Mexico who had bullets fly into their homes at the hands of or at the direction of Solomon Pena, a Republican who lost his election by a landslide.  Mr. Pena jumped on the “fraudulent election” bandwagon just as his hero, Donald Trump had done two short years ago.  These violent actions were inspired by lies spread by people who either knew they were lies or had the resources to verify the information but negligently failed to do so.

What happened to our political system that now allows “free speech” to embrace conspiracy theories, lies, damned lies, and even THE BIG LIE, in the name of politics as usual?  In a recent article, a pundit described our once-revered government as a “clown car at a goat rodeo.”  The visual on that is great but it is not one I would want to use to describe an elected body that has sworn an oath to uphold our constitution and run our country.  Making us Great Again is not on their agenda.

Goat Rodeo

The 1958 French movie by Louis Malle titled, Les Amants (The Lovers), was judged to be hard-core pornography by the state of Illinois.  In 1964, the case against the theatre owner, Nico Jacobellis, made it to the Supreme Court.  The movie involved adultery, a female appearing to have an orgasm, and the mere hint of oral sex.  Perhaps an R rating today, or even a PG13.  While the two lower 1964 courts were shocked, the Supremes (not the music group of the same period with 12 number 1 hits), were not shocked.  Two judges had been in the military and had seen action in WWII.  Some of that action was on the battlefield and some of it was in stag-film projection rooms.  They said they had seen pornography and “this isn’t it.” 

The First Amendment and free speech triumphed.  This is the source of, “I know it when I see it.”  As subjective as that decision may sound, it was also a bit convoluted.  It included one majority opinion and four concurring opinions (none supported by more than two Justices) in which each author attempted to clarify what he believed was an appropriate characterization of how the First Amendment should apply to allegedly obscene material.

Leaving the monitoring of free speech up to the likes of Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk doesn’t seem like a particularly good idea either.  Neither of them really wants the job unless it is to filter political commentary that they find personally objectionable.     

We also have the flip side of “free speech” where we have individuals professing to be protecting freedoms while restricting them.  Case in point, we have the autocratic overreach of Ron DeSantis who claims to be protecting our children by shielding them from a history he has deemed too WOKE.  From his office as Florida’s governor, he is meddling in school curriculums at all levels including universities.  He is outlawing books in libraries.  He also wants to dictate his restrictions on speech in both public and private business.  His personal views on diversity, inclusion and equity in the workplace will be the law of the land in Florida and he will impose his will on all who reside within its borders.  His Republican view of a small government that leaves businesses to their own devices has an exception.  Private businesses must follow the DeSantis mandates of what they can and cannot say and do with their own employees.  By his direction, private businesses may not discuss race or racial discrimination.

Trying to Govern WOKE

Just as the authors of our US Constitution didn’t anticipate a “well-trained militia” to include an untrained 18-year-old using a “flintlock” capable of firing 600 rounds per minute, the free speech of their day was also quite different.  It is now possible for a 16-year-old “influencer” to sit in his parent’s basement and tweet a message to tens of thousands of “followers.”  That tweet might be accurate, partially accurate, not very accurate, or just fantasy GS.

To all of this I say, let the rodeo begin.  It’s time to release the goats and crank up the clown car.  Just don’t step in any GS, or CS for that matter.

Deregulation

Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the Republican party, left office in 1989 after his successful efforts at deregulation. Republicans champion small government with strict limits on regulations and Reagan was their hero. They currently threaten a government shutdown and risk subsequent default to get their way in budget negotiations. They want fewer regulations, smaller government, and a balanced budget; but they want the IRS hamstrung with limited staff and a limited budget. What is their motivation and what has been the result?

The underfunded FAA is using outdated software that caused a recent complete shutdown of all domestic flights. In 2019, the FAA blamed the fatal crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane on an earlier government shutdown and delays in getting out a fix of software for the Boeing 737 Max’s flight-control feature. The government shutdown referenced was overseen by Donald Trump and was the longest one on record. He caused the shutdown in a standoff over financing for his US-Mexico border wall.

Even with some government regulation and oversight, poor implementation, and limited motivation to work on the task at hand can be disastrous. The original Ponzi scheme was around decades before the use by its namesake, Charles Ponzi in the 1920s. It was later refined by Bernie Madoff to the tune of around $65 billion. The SEC had been notified numerous times of the Madoff fraud but looked the other way. People around the globe suffered. More recently, FTX collapsed in another fraud missed by the FTC.

Newly minted House Republican George Santos worked for Harbor City Capital which, according to the SEC, was a fraudulent Ponzi scheme. Harbor City raised more than $17.1 million by offering fraudulent unregistered securities to finance his business of online “customer lead generation campaigns,” in which online sales leads are created and sold to third-party businesses. They were shut down. I guess the SEC is finally, after 100 years, learning how a Ponzi scheme works.

We need good government regulation, not excessive regulation, and not a “let the chips fall where they may” philosophy that Republicans seem to want to promote. The wealthy and their pawns in Congress, want to cripple the IRS so that Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Donald Trump, and others of the billionaire class can pay no taxes while the government is financed by wage earners and the working class who can’t afford tax attorneys and accountants.

When you hear that the wealthy pay more in taxes than the rest of us, you will find that these numbers don’t address the “true tax” rate. While you and I may pay an average 13% adjusted true tax on all income, a Forbes study of the 25 richest Americans showed that they averaged around 3.4%. Warren Buffet saw his wealth grow by $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018 but paid only 0.1% in taxes. It is understandable that the wealthy would not want a healthy IRS with a staff capable of performing complex audits.

So, when a political party promotes deregulation and touts the benefits of financially unconstrained business being a boon to our economy, just remember the downside of this. Deregulation of the financial industry allowed greedy lenders to issue highly questionable mortgages and promote speculation on bundles of these mortgages. This was the primary cause of the 2008 financial crash.

Deregulation promoters will claim that small businesses will enjoy lower costs that they pass on to consumers. They will hire locals and the local economy will thrive. You don’t have to be a financial analyst to see that this just didn’t happen. Drive down Main Street America and let me know if those small businesses are thriving or if it could be that Walmart on the outskirts of town. You know the one doing the bulk of their business with underpriced imported goods who pay wages so low that many employees need food stamps. As you make that drive down Main Street keep your eyes on the road as you might just get run down by an Amazon delivery truck.

Deregulation in the form of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 eased the cap on how many radio and TV stations, including cable stations, a company could own. The FCC also eased restrictions on the ownership of TV, radio, cable, and newspapers in the same market. The result is that just a few corporations control most of the information available to you.

The Swanson “TV Dinner,” which hit grocery store cases on September 10, 1953, was an immediate success. In 1954, Swanson sold more than 10 million units, and the next year, 25 million.

Deregulation of the airline industry saw more competition, the abandonment of less profitable routes, and airline seats re-designed for the “average” American traveler. That passenger is 5’2” tall, weighs 98 pounds, and travels with a small carry-on bag. Yes, prices got cheaper, but tell yourself that as you opt for a first-class ticket so you can relax in a 1970s-size seat and eat a free meal that would compare favorably with a 1953 Swanson's TV dinner.

National TOAD Day

 National TOAD Day

As if the absurdity of American politics couldn’t get much further from the ideals set forth in our Constitution, we have allowed our standards to devolve into the chaos we see in the House of Representatives today. While we should be holding our elected leaders to higher standards than other job holders in our realm, we seem to be heading in the other direction. How would it be that a doctor after reading lab results that showed a potential problem, lied to a patient because they thought that is what they wanted to hear? What if an engineer under-designed a building foundation to save a contractor a few dollars?

We don’t tolerate such lies from other professionals, why do we tolerate them in politicians. First, we let them stretch the truth, then they fabricate the truth, then they begin creating “alternative facts” that they anoint by declaration to be reality. We gave them an inch and they went “to infinity and beyond” like Buzz Lightyear. In the balancing act of unregulated capitalism and business operating in a fair competitive marketplace, we seem to prioritize the bottom line over fairness. We have allowed our political system to be offered to the highest bidder.

The main goal of any politician today is to raise money. Unlike when they had to raise money “the old-fashioned way” from constituents, they now have the deep pockets of anyone in the world with an agenda. Congress has a For Sale sign posted where businesses can buy a position at the trough of government contracts or can get legislation passed that gives them an unfair advantage in their business. Pandora’s Box has been opened and shutting the spigot of free cash is a non-starter. Given the fact that the hand on that valve is the beneficiary of the wealth, what politician would want to want legislation that would make them poorer? It will take some catastrophic event or other external force to make any such change.

The George Santos debacle just goes to show how corrupt the motivation must be to put up with the ridicule of this fraud just because you need even his one vote to function. For part of the day of January 5th, he apparently hid out in a cloakroom in the House chamber. And here we thought he was out of the closet. Actually, being gay is the only thing on his resume that people haven’t found to be a falsehood. Perhaps that is because nobody cares.

Perhaps the House of Representatives could solve its deadlock by having George Santos use his ties with the Jewish community to get them to turn on their Space Laser of Marjorie Taylor Greene fame, to zap Kevin McCarthy to eliminate the problem. Santos would go from zero to hero and could be the new Speaker.

On this, anniversary of the attempted Trump Overthrow of American Democracy (TOAD), we can only rejoice in knowing that he lost another election and came in last. He received but one vote for the Speakership of the House. Of course, Trump will demand a recount, declare the election a fraud, and will want to “find another 217 votes.”

The Country With The Fringe On Top

 The Country With The Fringe On Top

A song in the hit musical Oklahoma (1943) by Rogers and Hammerstein with a similar title, was about a surrey with a fringed top canopy. Our country seems to like the flutter of its fringe too and gives them perhaps more exposure than they are due based on their numbers. While single groups with a common purpose that we consider “fringe” elements of our society may be small, they can still do damage. This is especially true when they are joined by other fringe groups against a common enemy such as our government. If you have ever made or eaten a fruitcake, you know it takes a lot of nuts to make a good one.

One group of special concern are the so-called White Christian Nationalists (WCN). While Christian faiths account for roughly 70% of all Americans, 29% of us follow some non-Christian religion or have no religious affiliation. Within that 70%, the Christian population holds varying degrees of enthusiasm for their chosen religion. Perhaps the most fervent of these are Evangelicals who represent about 25% of our population. With these numbers to put things in perspective, we should also realize that most people of faith do not represent the more militant views of the WCN minority.

So, what is this WCN movement and why is it potentially dangerous? As we watched the events of the January 6th insurrection unfold, we saw a motley crew of cosplay commandos, Evangelicals in Jesus caps, QAnon cultists, and well-dressed country club conservatives, march together intent on abandoning our democratic process in favor of installing an authoritarian grifter to our highest office. We had a fruitcake of Evangelical Christians, Proud Boys, Nazis, etc., that was wrapped in the cloak of White Christian Nationalism. This fruitcake was “not half-baked, it was completely baked,” to borrow a line from the movie The Graduate.

Mr. Braddock: Ben, this whole idea sounds pretty half-baked.

Benjamin: Oh, it’s not. It’s completely baked.

Their belief system is more closely aligned with the Republican party than any other political entity. They want a stronger military, no gun control, no gay marriage, no interracial marriage, no affirmative action, and a stop to non-white immigration. They believe that they are the “chosen ones” described in the scriptures who are destined to inherit the promised land, America. They see Donald Trump’s promise to take back America as a signal that they will expel the heathens and non-white immigrants so their dreams of an all-white promised land can be fulfilled.

A core tenet of their beliefs is that America was founded as a Christian nation. The only dissension among their ranks lies in whether that Christian nation is in their future or if it is already here. Contrary to historical fact, they believe that our founding fathers were all Evangelical Christians who established the United States as a Christian nation and never wanted separation of church and state. They ignore the fact that many of the founders were atheists, Unitarians, Deists, and liberal Protestants. They ignore the fact that God, Bible, and the Ten Commandments are words not found in our Constitution. To many, there was a “typo” in the Constitution that opens with “We the People..,” as it was supposed to read, “We the White People.” Ah, the perils of “spell check” and “auto-correct” in 1787 America.

The incongruity of people carrying signs that read “Jesus Saves,” carrying Bibles, while violently attacking police officers who were standing between them and the Democratic (and Republican) leaders they wanted to kill, is a sign of the true craziness and absurdity of this group. As a former altar boy with five years of Catholic religious indoctrination in his past, I can say with some authority, Jesus would be pissed with this use of his name. I somehow can’t picture the “Prince of Peace” leading a violent insurrection.

This group ignores the teaching contained throughout the Bible and focuses on the last chapter, written about a century after Christ died, Revelations. That’s the R-rated chapter with the “whore of Babylon” who is drunk with the blood of the saints. This “Great Prostitute” is essentially seen as the government controlled by Satan’s armies. The visuals in Revelations are of a white horse (of course it’s white), a robe dipped in blood, and armies from heaven wearing white linen. As in previous times, people will pick and choose what fits their cause as they move down the biblical cafeteria line with their tray of needs.

The WCN movement believes that the ends justify the means and that “turn the other cheek” is for sissies. Militant white masculinity thrives on the testosterone of false patriotism cloaked with the pretense of following the Bible and the teachings of Christ. In recent polling, WCNs were the group that agreed most enthusiastically with the statement, “true American patriots might have to resort to violence in order to save the country.” They further believe the Second Amendment was handed down by God.

While WCNs may be spread throughout the country, they do have a capital of sorts. A major portion of the American Northwest has been designated as a sanctuary. All of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, with the eastern portions of Washington and Oregon, are a haven for conservative Christians. The America Redoubt is a political migration movement. This designation was made by a WCN survivalist, James Wesley Rawles. Several thousand people have taken the bait and moved in to tip the scales of what was a conservative part of the country to make it even more conservative. Here you must be far-far to the right of center in your politics. If you see Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, and Joe Rogan sitting on a bench, you may want to place your derriere a little further to their right.

Rawles will accept Christians, Messianic Jews, or Orthodox Jews as his neighbors. I wasn’t familiar with that middle group, but it seems that they are Protestants who follow elements of Judaism and Jewish traditions and mix that with Evangelical Christianity. The idea that Evangelical Christians are a persecuted group that needs protection from its government and a place to wait for the end times tells you a great deal.

So, as our horse-drawn surrey moves through the year 2023 toward the presidential elections of 2024, just know that a group of angry white Christians with guns wants an ultra-conservative white Christian in the White House. You can either vote one into that office or face the consequences. They are working their best to restrict voting rights, appoint conservative election officials, and already have the most pro-religion Supreme Court since WWII at their disposal. There are six Christian conservative justices, mostly Catholic, who are all religiously devout. The fringe on the surrey is just decorative but this fringe wants to be taken seriously. We best pay attention.

Interesting Times

We live in interesting times. The Republican party is the dog who caught the car. They captured the House but are now having a hard time deciding who will drive it. Kevin McCarthy had the Speaker's chambers cleaned and measured for new curtains, perhaps a bit prematurely. Now he sits in the Republican circular firing squad hoping for a good outcome.

One of McCarthy's big problems is that his opposition hasn't listed anything that they want from him. He has no place to go to negotiate. I am reminded of the scene in Goldfinger when James Bond is strapped to a moving table with an industrial laser cutting metal between his legs and threatening to ruin his day. Bond, looking to negotiate, asks what Goldfinger wants to which Goldfinger replies, "I want you to die."

You know that things are bad when Marjorie Taylor Greene is the voice of reason. Trump rolled the dice one more time and declared McCarthy his guy. Nobody is sure if Trump’s endorsement is a good thing at this point, much like the so-called Chinese curse referenced in the intro, May you live in interesting times. Whatever the outcome, Margo Channing’s line, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night,” from All About Eve, seems appropriate. This congress appears headed for a dearth of meaningful legislation.

For the next two years, the House of Representatives will be run by the Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight, which features a good cast but poor implementation and direction. If released today that movie would head straight to cable. The future of this House looks like another box-office flop.

While we all await something other than black smoke coming from the Vatican, excuse me, the House chimney, we will have to put up with the talking heads on all networks discussing all the possible scenarios. I say they should just appoint George Santos as the new Speaker and call it a day.