Tag Archives: America first

A Group of Election Pundits Walked Into a Bar ….

Leave a reply

And they began to debate the Republican debate and, just like the real debate, they agreed on almost nothing of importance.

After reading several “expert” analyses of the debate, it’s clear the “experts” are as uncertain as the candidates. Not surprising, I suppose, given that this was the first debate and Trump, the most prominent criminal in American political history, decided to debate from another location where he could not be called to account for his endless lies, incompetence, and criminality.

Speaking of which, most of the Republican “contenders” did agree on one thing: if Trump wins the nomination, they’ll support him against Joe Biden. There is little doubt that if George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were to rise from their graves and run as a Democratic ticket, the Republican contenders would support Trump for president over them. Trump’s hold on these people tells you all you need to know about this collection of losers. They will say nothing to offend the MAGA crowd that, perfectly happy with a fascist criminal like Trump, will determine the Republican nomination. Even Mike Pence, who has “boldly” observed the obvious – that Trump had demanded he raise Trump’s ambition over the Constitution — raised his hand when asked if he would support Trump as the nominee.

Profiles in courage, these are not.

One of the more substantive treatments of the debate was produced by Vox.com, seen in full at https://tinyurl.com/2bw44t8y. The author noted that the early part of the debate was a simulacrum of a Republican-style debate from yesteryear in which issues like abortion bans (they all want to control women’s bodies and health decisions, the reality of climate change (they all agree with Trump that it’s a hoax), urban crime (we need more guns), K-12 education (education is for libtards – ban the books!), immigration (furriners, keep ‘em out), the Russia-Ukraine war (appease Putin with Ukraine’s territory – communism bad, Putin OK), and the rise of China (COVID, the gift that keeps on giving).

The Vox view was that an absent Donald Trump still won the debate. The moderators, despite their Fox “News” credentials, also came in as losers (they always lose control of “debates,” apparently even when Trump is absent–remarkable).

How any of these folks expect to win much support from the MAGA crowd, or indeed any remaining “Republicans,” if they’re not willing to say anything bad about the MAGA love child remains a complete mystery. Is this just some kind of “show” designed to fool people into thinking the Republican Party is legitimate and has real options in its ranks to the fascism promoted by Trump? It’s a mystery. Seriously, why bother going through the motions when anyone there with a plausible case to make (?) is terrified of speaking ill of the poll leader?

As noted in the USAToday report, https://tinyurl.com/34bt8suy, Vivek Ramaswamy, the other billionaire candidate (do we need another billionaire president??), called Trump “the best president of the 21st century.” One positive thought about Ramaswamy: if he became president, the aliens hanging out at Area 51 would break out and immediately head back into outer space, never to return to what will remain of Earth after its habitable phase ends at the hands of climate change (I know, I know, climate change is the Democrats new hoax – Trump said so and therefore it must be true, nothing to worry about, move along).

A clear example of what we could expect in the way of logical thinking from a President Ramaswamy may be found in this quote:

Your claim that Donald Trump is motivated by vengeance and grievance would be a lot more credible if your entire campaign were not based on vengeance and grievance against Donald Trump.

Think about that for a moment: Trump can’t be “motivated by vengeance and grievance” because their campaigns are based on “vengeance and grievance against him.”

But then, of course, the great moralist Mike Pence scolded the only woman on the stage regarding a national abortion ban by offering this beauty: “consensus is the opposite of leadership.” What he meant to say was “when I’m president, I won’t care what people think; I’ll tell you female hussies what to do and you’ll do it or else.”

All in all, it was a rough night for rationality. And history, as always in Republican circles, took a back seat to ideology. While there was minority support for continuing to help Ukraine resist Russian aggression, there was much sentiment for the old “America First” claptrap: appease Russia with a big piece of Ukraine and hope the Russian Bear’s appetite for conquest is sated. Isolationism in another wrapper. It has never worked but, hey, Republicans need to have something to say, so ….

What’s left of the Republican Party thus has only this to offer: a multiply-indicted criminal lunatic or one of a cast of confused, ignorant wannabes who haven’t got the courage of their, or anyone’s, convictions to challenge the lunatic. Elect one of these beauties and it’s game over.

Trump Administration Starts by Degrading the Nation’s Water Supply

Leave a reply

Donald Trump, the man-child, has finally been inaugurated 45th President of United States. Given everything that led to the moment, it was surprising that Donald Trump, having been sworn in, did not push every on the podium aside, thrust his hands into the air screaming, in the words made famous by Muhammed Ali, “I AM THE GREATEST!!!!!”

Instead, he angrily redelivered the core elements of his campaign speeches, the essence of which was that “American First” is going to be the watchword for our government going forward. Playing fast and loose with many of the facts about the state of the economy and the country, as is his norm, he elevated nationalistic and religious themes to a new extreme.

It all has a familiar and, in some sense, pleasing ring to it. Us first and all that. We heard a variation of that during the Vietnam War era: “my country right or wrong” and “if you don’t like it here, leave.”  Despite staggering sacrifices by our military, in a hopeless quest, and the fear of communism and “otherness,” we lost that war. The divisions it created still are alive for many. A gross failure of self-examination, among other things, led to horrific mistakes of policy and actions, causing unnecessary sacrifices for millions and damage to U.S. standing around the world.

Trump’s call for “America First” must surely ring hollow in countries around the world who are tired of hearing about American exceptionalism and that America sees itself as superior to the rest of the world, culturally, politically and  otherwise. Trump has made some big promises. He did not mention bringing back coal and steel jobs specifically, talking instead about roads, tunnels and such. But coal is in evidence on the White House website priority list.

Reality will now show its itself as Trump launches his promised attack on the decisions and policies of the past eight years. He remains a minority president by popular vote and the sparse crowd for the inauguration was a stark reminder of that.  I know, I know, his infatuants believe that Clinton’s significant popular vote margin was due to illegal voting in California. Sadly for them, there is no evidence of that but, of course, Trump’s true-believers don’t care about the truth, only what fits their narrative.

In any case, Trump’s facile words will soon meet the complexities of real life and we will see how much disruption Americans are willing to tolerate as Trump and as his ideologue Republican sycophants run rough-shod over health care and a multitude of other established benefits and practices on which tens of millions of Americans rely every day.

A case in point is the just posted new White House determination to cancel “harmful and unnecessary policies” governing the nation’s clean water supply. https://www.whitehouse.gov/america-first-energy.  You can read here the Climate Plan that has Trump so worked up:           https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/image/president27sclimateactionplan.pdf.  Here you can read the Clean Water Rule that has so offended Trump: http://bit.ly/2iKyyIL. More information is here, at least until it is erased by the incoming administration. https://www.epa.gov/cleanwaterrule.

It appears in these early days that Trump intends to take the United States back in time many decades to the point where employers were permitted to exploit the country’s natural and often irreplaceable resources at will in the interest of making money and, yes, employing people. Of course, many of those people were dying of Black Lung Disease and were killed or maimed in industrial accidents that were preventable. The very people to whom Trump is appealing are going to be the most direct victims of these policies while the rest of us suffer the longer and broader impacts of the degradation of the environment that will inevitably follow. This apparently is the price to be paid for “American First” under Donald Trump. Jingoism never solves anything.