One of the saddest stories I covered years ago in Texas reminds me of politics today. The local constabulary put down a man’s dog with the needle – a popular means of amusement among many in the Lone Star State and it is not limited to putting down lesser mammals. They turned off this particular dog because it had killed another in a dog fight. The sad part was the killer was on a leash, but the dog that attacked the owner and his leashed dog was not.
In defense of his owner, the leashed dog dispatched the attacking canine in less than 30 seconds – enough for a TikTok video, had TikTok been around in the 80s.
But because the leashed dog dispatched another, whatever the reason apparently, or perhaps because the guy hired someone like Alina Habba for his attorney, the dog went down.
Republicans will see themselves as the victim or the hero of that story - you decide. However, let the facts show that only one party is still on a leash and has yet to soil the Constitution. Opinions also vary on which party this is - and that depends on whether or not you adhere to facts.
So, I’m just going to come out and say it: Donald Trump’s supporters are right. Donnie Darko has changed the face of U.S. politics.
But, not the way MAGA thinks.
For years we ignored the threat staring us in our faces. Things were reasonably good in the U.S. post World War II. Then came the dark times after the Kennedy assassination. Thank God for the Beatles and great music, or many of us may not have made it through the 60s and 70s. In an infamous commercial that helped defeat Barry Goldwater, Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 campaign showed us a little girl picking daisies before the detonation of a nuclear bomb. “We must all live together or we must die,” Johnson said.
He beat Goldwater, who infamously said he didn’t want “welfare” he wanted freedom. And, “My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones.” While many see those sentiments as the root cause of the vitriol present today in the GOP, Goldwater was also the guy who gave us advanced notice of the problems we now face. He fought the far-right Christians in his own party. “Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”
We didn’t listen.
We got Nixon. His liquid bowel movement stained the fabric of our nation forever. But people defended him even as he was hounded from office.
We still didn’t listen.
We got Ronald Reagan. He destroyed unions and sold us “trickle down” economics – which his own vice president labeled “voodoo” economics. Reagan’s plan, backed by big business, gave us banks too big to fail, a small number of extremely rich people running our media, politics, entertainment, sports, religion and everything else in this country. After Reagan, congressional politics became a zero-sum game and popular music began to suck.
We became exactly what George Carlin said we were: The rich pay none of the taxes and enjoy all of the benefits. The middle class pays all of the taxes and gets none of the benefits. And the poor are there to scare the middle class.
Still, we did nothing.
We ignored it. As long as we could pay for braces, get our kids to school and be soccer moms, we were fine. We didn’t notice, at first, that our families had to go from one income source to two – and soon those two had to have side hustles and the kids were pitching in. We ignored it all. We worked harder, got less and stayed quietly asleep.
MAGA felt the pressure and listened to the GOP and Donald Trump, who blamed everyone else but those who were responsible for the mess. And it was Trump who was responsible for waking us all up. The barnyard animals crow and embrace Trump like a cock-eyed rooster on meth. The rest of us, slumbering in our cocoons, have woken up to turn off the alarm clock screaming, “what the hell is going on here?”
Here’s what’s going on here in a nutshell: A man allegedly chopped his 68-year-old father’s head off, put it in a cooking pot and went on a YouTube rant (since taken down) against Biden, the U.S. and screaming for a second revolution while claiming he’s the messiah.
Trump’s minions in Congress “have gone on a tear,” according to Biden officials and have threatened to impeach everyone from FBI Director Chris Wray to the president himself because they don’t like them. No other reason needed.
Meanwhile, Trump’s braindead sycophants, led by DNA-challenged Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, continue to blame the Democrats for problems the GOP created. That’s right, we’re talking about the U.S. southern border.
Trump doesn’t want a border deal. Newt Gingrich, once thought to be in a coma, was revived and stapled to the floor so he could appear on Fox News recently and declare the GOP had a “winning hand” in the immigration game. Not only does he consider politics a game, but all that matters is winning.
MAGA, of course, continues screaming that Biden has given up on the border. The fact is, he is in a no win situation when moronic governors like South Dakota’s Kristi Noem ride around in a grass boat on the border calling it a “war zone.” Having been to several war zones, it’s not only inaccurate, insulting and demeaning; it’s insane. The GOP screams about a “Banana Republic” while peeling the fruit.
Trump has lived his life believing that if you can’t always get what you want, then you aren’t trying hard enough. Anyone who wants to criticize Donald Trump must at least acknowledge his indefatigable energy in the face of the adversity of hard facts, legal problems, family squabbles, children, idiotic lawyers and four different criminal investigations in four jurisdictions that have so far yielded 91 felony charges.
You also have to admire the loyalty and the ability of his supporters to deflect any argument containing logic and facts that would impugn the imaginary character of their juvenile, demented, greedy captor. That is the type of loyalty you want from a friend or a relative in a bar fight. However, you have to be careful, some of those loyalists have the tendency to start a brawl at a baby shower (gender reveal parties are for commies).
Trump’s greatest success is conning millions of otherwise decent people into believing the rancid fiction manufactured between his makeup-stained ears is, in fact, reality. Trump manufactured the crisis on the border, telling his faithful to ignore any plans to work together for a bi-partisan solution before he gets re-elected – so he can take the credit. Though Mitch McConnell is among those annoyed by this tactic, he shouldn’t complain. That’s the same strategy McConnell employed to make sure Trump could stack the Supreme Court. Delay now and gamble on a better deal – benefitting your self-interests – later.
That’s also why Donald Trump wants the economy to fail this year. He doesn’t want to be remembered as the next “Herbert Hoover.” He doesn’t mind if millions suffer, he just doesn’t want to be blamed for the suffering.
President Joe Biden recently responded by saying Trump is already the next Hoover and then he called Trump a “Loser”. Some of us laughed. Those close to Trump said the insult hit home and ketchup bottles suffered. Biden, as it turns out, has more than “when they go low we go high” in his quiver of arrows, and isn’t above a little street fighting.
That kind of passionate outburst from the President is good for the Democrats who continue struggling and, according to the latest horse race analysis, are polling behind Donald Trump. How pitiful is that? The Democrats can barely crawl over the low bar left by the Republicans as millions of us fight over descending degrees of depravity.
While the border is a disingenuous problem for the Republicans, they’re certainly trying to sell it and pushing the nation to the brink of Civil War to protect Trump’s smug, flaccid ass. They have to. Trump owns the MAGA party – and no one stands against him anymore – at least not if they’re a registered Republican and they hold public office. What you see is what you get there – bitter, angry racists who are trying to convince people their peculiar brand of lunacy is actually patriotism. Please deposit all that you can in their pocket. Thank you.
How does reality counter such seditious stupidity? President Biden issued a statement Friday evening that encouraged Congress to act. “If you’re serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill and I will sign it,” the President said.
The MAGA minions took to social media to howl, while the pundits took to the airwaves to do the same. “That’s caving into the Democrats,” one said. “It’s all b.s. Do it their way or don’t do it at all. That’s what the Commie Democrats are saying.”
By Monday afternoon Biden was back on the high road. He’d done all he could, he told reporters as he headed to Marine 1 to begin his travel to a campaign stop. The Republicans were floored.
They were counting on Biden to overreact so they could step closer to the edge. Trump said it amounted to Biden blinking – like Kennedy forced Kruschev during the Cuban missile crisis. Actually, Biden might just be looking a little farther down the road than the Republicans. Looks like the ball’s in their court.
Speaking on background Friday afternoon, a Biden official said, “Generally speaking, misinformation and disinformation is a problem across the board. It’s a worldwide issue. Trying to get accurate information and countering it is the challenge that we face.”
You think?
Here’s one thing to consider: Only by a 5-4 majority did the Supreme Court defend the Constitution this week against Texas and other Republican-dominated states that believe their rights supersede the rights of the federal government in defending the U.S. border. That should have passed 9-0. Had the Supreme Court sided with Texas, that would be the actual end of the United States. We’d be a loose assortment of 50 different states and they only thing we’d have in common is how much we all enjoy watching the Dallas Cowboys implode.
Me? I still don’t think Trump will even be on the ballot in November. 20 years from now, those of us left who even remember Trump will still be wondering how such a moron ever gained a foothold – unless we cease investing in education all together.
Then, intelligent people will be an endangered species and President Comacho will be riding on a Harley while worried about toilet water.
