Only Two More Days

I’ve always been the person who walks into the room and then forgets why I went there in the first place, sometimes requiring a trip back to where I came from to jog my memory. Recently, it has gotten so much worse that I was actually starting to worry that I might have early-onset dementia. I was getting myself set to bring up my concerns during my next visit with my PCP when I read an article in The Washington Post about election stress disorder, something that wasn’t even a thing until Trump.

A therapist based in Washington, DC coined the term during the 2016 election, describing those with the disorder as having “continual worry and obsession with the election that spills over into all areas of your life.” Based on that, I suspect that there are millions of us in the US who have been suffering from the disorder continuously since Trump won the 2016 election.

Two days before the end of voting, record numbers of votes have already been cast all over the country, and it is reasonable to believe that many of these early votes are for Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket. The Republicans, who have based their electoral strategy since the Nixon administration on voter suppression and disenfranchisement, continue to file lawsuits in battleground states in order to stop the counting of legitimately cast ballots because they believe those votes will be for their opponent. Within those states with Republican legislatures and governors, it is not inconceivable that they could fraudulently interfere with the counting of ballots and appoint electors based on their own personal preference rather than on the will of the people of their states.

What is wrong with the Republicans as fellow Americans? How is it acceptable to them that the leader of their party has been using the bully pulpit of the presidency to spread disinformation about the security of our elections with his claims about vote rigging if he loses? The answer to that question, as has been the case for most such questions over the last four years, is that they don’t care how much damage they do to the foundations of our democracy if the end result is their continued hold on the reins of power. Not only have they placed their party over the country, they have placed themselves as a minority over us all as sole arbiter of how our country should run for decades to come, regardless of the will of the majority.

The Republicans have taken core principles of our democracy and twisted them into a means of oppressing those with whom they disagree. Freedom of religion does not mean you can use your religious belief to discriminate against someone who doesn’t follow those beliefs, it means we are each free to choose whether or not to have a religious belief at all. Your freedom of religion ends where it begins to infringe on my freedom to not follow any religion.

Religion, specificially christianity, has gotten entirely too enmeshed within our government, and we have under Trump (likely the most godless hypocrite to hold the office) watched helplessly as his appointees have boldly admitted that their faith is a huge factor in their policy and decision making. Mike Pompeo and William Barr proudly profess their catholic faith as if the bible doesn’t instruct them to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ and to be a good samaritan and help those in need. They, like many who profess to be devout are actually using their supposed ‘faith’ as a way of diverting the attention from their naked desire for power, not the most ‘christian’ way to lead.

Not in my lifetime had I ever been forced to worry every day about what awful thing the president and his administration was going to do, until this incompetent, malignant narcissist was inaugurated in January, 2017. I don’t want to have to waste any more of my life freaked out over something over which I have absolutely no control on my own, because all it does is create a constant level of anxiety 24/7 which gets elevated every time Trump does something no other president would have ever considered doing.

When is the last time a president used his the power of the presidency to spread lies about mail in ballots? What president in modern history has promoted conspiracy theories that have led some to take up weapons in defense of fabricated children? What other president has refused to denounce white supremacists? Which of the previous 44 claimed that all media is ‘fake news’? How many others have used their presidency to line the pockets of their personal company with millions of dollars in taxpayer funds? Who are the others who tried to extort an ally in need for disinformation against his political opponent by withholding military assistance? Which of the former White House residents have used the pardon power to reward their friends and to keep them silent? And find me another president who did done nothing while more than a quarter million Americans died over eight months from any cause.

Donald Trump is the absolute worst person ever to hold the office of the president in the history of our country, period. While some of the ones early on were just terrible, they had much less power and were therefore able to hurt a smaller number of humans overall. Trump has had much more of an opportunity to spread his awfulness all over the world. Millions fleeing wars, famines, climate degradation and despots have been further tortured by this administration’s clamping shut the gates to the country. Not only is this in and of itself unamerican (given that we non-indigenous Americans are the result of our ancestors coming from somewhere else), it is cruel, short-sighted and xenophobic. Now with this pandemic, instead of the United States working with the world to find a vaccine and treatment, he’s decided to go it alone out of his selfish world-view that it’s all about him. His inability to understand that the United States isn’t the same as a sole proprietorship company and therefore cannot be treated as if it is his personal fiefdom.

I’ve mailed postcards and letters to voters in Florida, hoping to encourage them to vote, only to find out that my daughter’s boyfriend hasn’t even bothered to register to vote in Florida! I’m tired of hearing young people complain about the government they have while they refuse to participate and vote in order to change things. Don’t leave the voting to old people and then complain about what the old people voted for. The only way for us to get a more progressive government is to vote more progressive people into office, and you cannot count on old people to do that (full disclosure – I am 62 and have voted Democratic my entire life). Young people, who have more to lose, need to quit complaining and start doing something – find others who feel like you and get them to run for something. It’s past time for you to act like adults and do the hard work – get us old folks out of office and show us what we should have done years ago.

I know Joe Biden isn’t the one you wanted to vote for in 2020, but you have only two choices this election. You can vote for democracy and choose the Democratic ticket, or you can choose authoritarianism and vote for Trump. The two-party system sucks, but it is what it is; wasting your vote on a third-party candidate only benefits Trump. There is no excuse for anyone who truly believes that we can do better as a society and as a country to do anything other than vote for Joe Biden for President.

They Deserve Whatever Happens

I’ll admit it, without pretending to be remorseful.

When I heard that the Trumps and many in their circle are now positive for Covid-19, I cheered out loud. I know that this will offend some out there, and I couldn’t care less. The people who are offended by the schadenfreude are those who cheered while Trump pretended everything was fine, mocking the scientists and professionals who had the good sense to update their recommendations as more information became available, suggesting the widespread use of masks early on in this pandemic.

These are the same people who were encouraged by Trump as they stormed unmasked into various state governments armed with automatic weapons, complaining that their ‘rights’ were being violated by the Democratic governors in their states who had the audacity to issue orders specifically intended to keep the majority of citizens safe from the virus. This happened in large part because of the lies Trump continued to spew into the ether until his reckless behavior brought the virus home to roost. The Trump supporters who have steadfastly refused to wear masks in public, based in no small part on the Fox Spews circle jerk of disinformation that provides the majority of their ‘facts’, are now at the heart of a new superspreader event that apparently originated at The White House.

I know that those in the media who have reported on this all insert the caveat about hoping for the complete recovery, blah, blah, blah. I suspect that most of them do so because it’s what they’re expected to do, given that Trump is still president; maybe some of them truly feel that way. I, however, am under no external requirement to say the ‘right thing’, given my lack of corporate, or actually any, sponsorship and admit that I hope Trump and those around him have long-term problems as a result of his rejection of science and facts. Karma happens, and his irresponsible and selfish behavior is the number one reason he is now infected with this highly contagious virus.

Trump has never been held accountable for anything he’s ever done through his entire life, from childhood up to and including his old age. He was never required to follow instructions or do an actual job ever, using his father’s wealth to disguise his massive failures while he used the court system to wear down those who opposed him until they gave up, out of money or time to continue their fight in court.

Trump has consistently used misdirection and hyperbole to distract everyone – media, tax assessors, insurance brokers, local politicians, television viewers – from the obvious truth of his complete and total lack of talent, intelligence, business acumen, or basic human kindness and compassion. While that may work if you’re selling a condo or convincing someone down on their luck to enroll in Trump University, it is ineffective in the face of a highly contagious virus. In fact, Trump’s lies about Covid-19 have been shown to be the biggest source of Covid-19 misinformation in the world!

His cult followers seem undisturbed by this, continuing to gather in large, maskless, non-socially distanced campaign rallies to ‘own the libs’, as if their gathering in these huge, foolish crowds will in some way make us on the left sorry? For what? That we don’t have an idiot like Trump at the top of our ticket, too? That we’re smart enough to follow the science behind viral transmission in order to stay safe? Or that we can’t gather together in equally idiotic groups to create our own superspreader events? Please, give me a break!

Those of us who lean left, who believe that government run right is a good thing and regulations are in place to keep the people safe, are not going to be intimidated by the fools on the right into tossing out our masks. Most of us understand that the only way out of this pandemic is for everyone to do what has been proven to be most effective – both now, before there is a vaccine as well as after one is available – and follow the recommendations of healthcare professionals and epidemiologists to stop the spread. Social distancing, correctly wearing masks to cover both the nose and mouth and effective hand washing are still our best options for stopping this pandemic from taking another 200,000 lives, and it will only work if we do it all over the country, in red and blue states, cities, suburbs, small towns, and farmlands everywhere.

I know it’s annoying and can be a hassle to wear a mask. I was an RN for over 20 years, and I hated having to don masks and gowns whenever I had to enter an isolation room, but I also knew that the whole point was to avoid spreading the infection from patient to patient. I tend to perspire a lot, and I firmly believe that my profuse sweating has had the added benefit of keeping my skin clear and less wrinkly as I’ve entered my 60’s. Regardless of my subjective skin observations, I know how one can become uncomfortable when wearing a mask for long periods of time, and I don’t envy those who are working and required to keep a mask on for hours every day (I am retired). However, in order to keep everyone safe, the only thing we have to work with right now (thanks to Trump and his minions inability to do anything that remotely benefits the country as a while) are physical barriers to keep our respiratory secretions apart.

I’m unconcerned about the feelings of those who have believe that their right to spew respiratory secretions unhindered by any facial coverings overshadows the rights of the rest of us leave our homes without fear of inhaling their wayward exhalations. Since when in this country does the desire of individuals take precedence over the public good? Or, as Spock said, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” The needs of the many requires everyone to do the responsible thing and cover their nose and mouth when in public, maintain physical distancing, and avoid crowds, indoors and out. Period.

Trump and his followers have been forced to admit that their fantasy about Covid-19 is a farce, as the virus runs through many of those who participated in yet another large gathering at The White House and in campaign rallies in states with large numbers of Covid-19 cases. That has not made a whit of difference in Moscow Mitch’s plan to force through another young, unqualified, extreme right wing judge on the Supreme Court, nor has it changed his opinion about extending additional financial assistance to the millions of Americans who have been so screwed over as a result of the continued malfeasance of the Republican Party during this once-in-a-century disaster. It has done nothing to swing the Republican’s views on systemic racism or the disproportionate killing of Black people by police across the country, nor about the importance of allowing extensive use of vote-by-mail in November.

Trump continues to lie about the security of our election, when the biggest threat to the integrity of our election is in fact Trump himself. The complicity of the Republicans in this is mind-numbing, as they do everything they can to remain in power by preventing everyone else from voting. This is not new, but it has become so much worse during Covid-19 as those of us who have facts and science to guide us try to use mail-in ballots to have our voices heard while remaining safe at home. The Republicans have succeeded in convincing their own followers to vote in person on election day, exposing all of them to Covid-19 in doing so. This again reveals their callous disregard for the lives of anyone outside their own elite circle of wealthy donors and their peers in power.

Trump was never the person who could ‘grow into the office of the president’ and magically develop empathy and concern for others. As someone only interested is himself, there was no possibility of a Trump administration developing any policy or plan that provided a benefit that didn’t first and foremost benefit Trump. The acquiescence of the Republican Party to this self-centered and dictatorial direction Trump took them in is the culmination of decades of Republican planning. Gerrymandering, voter disfranchisement, voter suppression were always part of their playbook. Moscow Mitch’s plays during Barack Obama’s eight years in office – preventing his appeals court nominees from being brought votes, refusing to do his job and hold hearings when Merrick Garland was nominated in early 2016 – has allowed the Federalist Society/Leonard Leo to funnel hundreds of right-wing extremist and often unqualified judges to lifetime appointments throughout the federal judiciary along with two (possibly three) Supreme Court Justices who will have decades to force their minority opinions on the rest of us.

Trump and those around him deserve no sympathy now that their foolish, irresponsible and selfish refusal to listen to the professionals and follow the best and most scientifically sound advice has led to the most likely outcome – catching the virus. They could not keep the country safe because of their complicity. Trump could not even keep himself and those closest to him safe, despite having what was thought to be the premier infectious disease agency in the world on speed dial.

How anyone, anywhere in the country, can look at the mess we are now in and believe that any of them deserve another minute in office defies logic. All of them need to be drummed out of public life, forced to live in hovels alongside of their foolish followers. Unmasked, without any social distancing.

The Media Has to Call a Spade a Damn Shovel!

Owner of Rode’s Camera Shop for the last 8 years, Tom Gram refused to participate in the maskless Trump-staged photo-op, accusing Trump of exploiting his destroyed store for political gain…
So instead they got the former owner (holding sign, above) who supports Trump to pretend he still owns the place.

About twenty years ago, my best friend convinced me to go with her to a nude beach in northern New Jersey (the only legal one in the state). Since it was actually “Clothing Optional”, I knew that I wasn’t required to get naked and agreed to go but that my clothing wasn’t optional. I was in my 40’s and the mother of two children, and my modesty had left the building long before that first trip to Sandy Hook and I was at least game to see what she was so excited about. Besides, I was a nurse, and body parts are body parts.

We had a long ride and crowds to deal with, so we got there early enough to be able to park close to the beach access. Gunnison Beach is one of several located in The Gateway National Recreation Area, a piece of federal property with the only nude recreation area along the coast in New Jersey. It was very popular among the nudist community and was always crowded most weekends from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

We schlepped our gear to a place near the high-tide mark to spread out our blankets and stake in our umbrellas, and I realized that I had made a mistake when I’d decided to remain in my bathing suit. What was that mistake? I’d made it all about me.

I was worried about what these people I had never seen before and likely never would again thought about my imperfect body – as if it could affect my life. It took only a few minutes to realize I had no reason to worry, because no one else was thinking about me at all. With thousands of other naked bodies everywhere, the only ones attracting attention were those at the extremes – either being extraordinarily beautiful/stacked/hung or the not – rather than being one of mostly imperfect but basically average folks all over the beach. That realization allowed me to join my friend for my first nude beach experience without feeling self-conscious, leading to my first ‘everything that never saw the sun before severe sunburn” that was equally memorable.

Clearly, Donald Trump has never had an experience like that – one in which he realizes that he’s the only one paying attention to him, that the world and it’s people don’t revolve around “The Donald”. In fact, Trump insists on forcing those who have dared to point out his lack of importance in their lives to focus directly on him by forcing himself into their cities, as he did in Kenosha despite requests from the mayor and Wisconsin’s governor to say away. Trump didn’t go to Kenosha to spread peace, love and butterflies; he went specifically to encourage further right-wing violence against protestors and continue his ridiculous denial of the systemic racism built into every aspect of American life.

Trump’s incompetence and incoherence for anything that doesn’t affect himself has now cost the lives of more than 180,000 American lost to Covid-19. His bias against the WHO has now led to the US refusing to participate with 170 countries around the world to develop and distribute a world-wide vaccine for Covid-19! Sure, it makes so much more sense for the US to work all alone while almost the entire rest of the planet works together towards a viable, effective vaccine. How can the people around him support such an irrational decision?

Why is it okay that Fox News pundits are making many of the decisions that Trump then issues as dictates ten minutes later? Fox, the ‘news’ outlet least likely to verify a wingnut’s story before broadcasting it to their viewers, has more control over our national security policy right now than all our intelligence agencies combined? Seriously? How can the idiots on Fox & Friends have more influence on the way we’re (not) dealing with Covid-19 than the experts from the CDC?

Why is some crackpot radiologist from Fox now advising Trump on how to ‘manage’ Covid-19? Because Trump only keeps people around him who tell him what he wants to hear, and he’s been waiting for some incompetent physician without any interest in “first, do no harm” to support his fantasy that the virus will just go away and to push back on Dr. Fauci’s science and facts. Of course Trump would bring in this idiot who believes that everyone should just be exposed to gain ‘herd immunity’ no matter that some 2 millions people will die as a result while Dr. Fauci is on medical leave. Trump and those around him get to use rapid testing to clear anyone coming into contact with them and therefore have no fear that they will be infected by an asymptomatic infected person, so why give a damn about the rest of us, right?

Herd immunity is supposed to refer to the percentage of a given population that are successfully vaccinated and gain immunity in order to prevent the disease from spreading throughout the population. It is not meant to indicate the free-spread of a disease vector throughout the entire populace, killing millions and leaving (maybe) the rest immune for life. We don’t know enough about Covid-19 and future immunity to even know if we can get to a vaccine, so going down this path is not only stupid, it’s outright dangerous. Of course, Trump’s disregard for the value of those citizens unlikely to vote for him, especially those of color, makes this decision that much easier for him to make. Having a physician without a clue whispering in his ear is not a good idea under the best circumstances – under the current ones, it’s criminally negligent.

How is it acceptable to the Republican Party that the CDC, FDA and NIH are now being forced to heel by Trump, making statements in defiance of facts and science? Trump’s insistence “over the last six months that “it will go away like a miracle” or that it’s “no worse than catching the flu” fits neatly into his plan towards attaining ‘herd immunity’ by forcing the citizens of the United States to catch Covid-19, spread it to everyone they come into contact with before getting sick and possibly dying or having long-term negative health issues as a result of the virus is further proof of his malicious indifference to the lives of everyone outside of himself.

Here’s the thing, though… listening to Joe Biden’s speeches over the past few months has reminded the country as a whole what a President is supposed to sound and act like. Trump now realizes that everything he’s been trying to throw up to see if it sticks on Joe has been for naught, because we know who Joe Biden is, just like we know who Donald Trump is, and most of us don’t want Donald Trump in charge of anything, ever again. Trump brazenly and in full public view does only those things that offer a clear, personal benefit to himself, his cronies or his reelection; if there is anything that somehow benefits the country or its citizens, that is more coincidental than intentional. Trump’s continued conflation of positive tests with infected people defies logic and reveals that he clearly lacks the mental capacity to continue as president. No matter how many people are tested, those who are passing this virus around are still going to do so, we just won’t know where they are or who they’re spreading it to, helpful in attempts to slow the spread but useless if you want to claim fewer people have been exposed on your watch. What is most disconcerting is that the people most at risk from his calculations are his cult followers, because they believe what he’s telling them.

Trump spreads conspiracy theories, using his Twitter account to push all sorts of crazy stuff to his cult followers, and the far-right gangs showing up at BLM protests proves how effective they are at firing up the most extreme of his base. Trump won’t do the ‘presidential’ thing and denounce these gangs and their long guns because he knows he will be offending his own base, again placing his hopes for reelection above the need to deescalate the situation and call off his minions. He’s emboldening these people to arm themselves and show up at mostly peaceful protests where they initiate violence that has resulted in more than a few people being injured or killed. Who in any position of real authority would foment such insurrection? Since when does the president offer bogus excuses for a vigilante killing peaceful protestors?

We have to do everything we can to ensure that in January, 2021, President Biden is sworn into office and Trump’s misdeeds and crimes are brought into the light. Everything we can.

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Volunteer to help

Write and mail postcards to voters https://postcardstovoters.org/volunteer/
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Call voters https://swingleft.org/

Donate if you can, as much as you can comfortably afford.

Act Blue

Talk to your friends and family to make sure that they are registered to vote, have requested a vote-by-mail ballot or plan to vote early, and intend to vote for the Democratic ticket.

I have found the last one to be both the one I have the most chance of making a difference with AND the most frustrating to do successfully. My son, who turned 40 this past May, seems to be getting a good bit of his ‘information’ from people just like me – bloggers with opinions versus actual news media with facts to share, and I have been hard pressed to disabuse him of the things he’s been hearing. He and his wife kindly agreed to let a couple and their 5 year old daughter move in when they were at risk of being homeless, and it seems that the male of this couple also believes the things my son and I have been arguing over recently, judging by his loud and uninvited interjections into my phone conversations with my son.

On my last conversation with Christopher about the upcoming Presidential election, I felt as if I’d made just a little bit of headway, after he agreed that making the perfect the enemy of the good does not benefit anyone except the Republicans. I also told him that it’s up to him and his cohorts to do something if they want things to change in big ways, including by running for office, or supporting progressive candidates who support their interests in elections locally and nationally. Bitching about what came before or what is happening now without putting in some work to get to where you want things to be is just whining and blame-shifting.

Get off your ass and DO SOMETHING!

Why Do The Republicans Hate Us?

It’s apparent to most of us that the Republicans feel nothing but disdain towards anyone in the country other than their donors and corporate overlords. Their refusal to address the ongoing and catastrophic hair-on-fire financial and healthcare emergencies raging through the country because they’ve suddenly remembered that deficit spending creates a deficit in the federal budget – something that only matters to the Republicans when there is a Democratic President (or the likelihood of one in the near future) – is the latest affront. They were mum in 2017 as they passed that $3 trillion dollar tax cut that not only gives the majority of the benefits to the top 1% over the next ten years, it also serves to enrich those who passed the legislation.

The Republicans enacted tax breaks on seven classes of assets held by many of the wealthier members at the time, saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes while their corporate holdings value increased because of the corporate tax breaks. The ten richest Republicans in Congress who voted for the tax bill held more than $731 million in assets, almost 2/3 in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other instruments, assets they included in their tax cut. In fact, only one of the Republicans on the three committees that wrote the tax bill did not own stocks and mutual funds. Those Republicans also benefited by the ‘repatriation’ of corporate funds from outside the country, since the result was to increase the value of their stocks and dividends from companies like Apple.

All these Republicans reaped the rewards of their tax legislation, increasing their wealth along with the federal deficit. This deficit increase was just fine and dandy, since the benefits from their legislation lined their own and their corporate handlers’ pockets. Besides, later they can use the deficit they created with their self-enriching tax cuts to further erode the social safety net programs of Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, Welfare and Social Security that benefits those of us who were not fortunate enough to be in millionaires in Congress.

Now, we are in the throes of these converging disasters caused by the Republicans abdication of legislating and governing for anyone other than themselves. Led by Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, the Republicans in both chambers have dropped any pretext of giving a damn about their own constituents, let alone those whose votes they know they have no chance of getting. In Texas, they are fighting tooth and nail to make it neigh on impossible for people to register to vote, and those who are registered are limited in their ability to vote by mail (unless they are over the age of 64, a demographic that is historically slanted towards Republicans), because they are fully aware that they have a choice to make – either become more inclusive or limit the ability of Democrats to cast votes against them. Of course, they have chosen to impede free and fair elections, including by Trump naming a Republican donor with $75 million invested in shipping companies and postal service contractors as Postmaster General, where he has already worked to slow down the mail, gut management, and try to raise the rates municipalities may have to pay to bulk mail ballots to voters (from $0.20 to $0.55). The rate increase may not be enacted, but the threat of it may be enough for some municipalities to not even try to send out ballots, which may be all it takes to give Trump the electoral college win he so needs to avoid all sorts of legal repercussions if he leaves the White House in January 2021 instead of 2025.

Those Republicans who have used their ability to legislate to remain in power in order to enrich themselves continue to reveal that they care only about doing more of the same. How ironic that they can say out loud that the $600 weekly unemployment enhancement has led to the unemployed bringing home more than they were paid to do actual work while it doesn’t occur to them that the problem with this is that those workers are not being paid a living wage in the first place, not that finally they’re able to buy food and pay rent without having to choose one over the other. Their assertion that the additional unemployment payment is what is keeping people from returning to work is ludicrous – people aren’t returning to work because businesses aren’t reopening with the virus running rampant throughout the country. The fact that many of those who are making this ridiculous statement are millionaires makes it even more infuriating.

They refuse to do anything to benefit the citizens of this country who have been systemically and systematically stripped of what little they may have managed to squirrel away for a rainy day with regressive taxes, onerous regulations for safety net programs that punish those most in need for bogus offenses and withholding desperately needed financial and nutritional assistance that actually serves to prop up the economy at large by providing a lifeline that will be redistributed by those who cannot otherwise remain fed and housed in these perilous times. The refuse to address this because it isn’t a factor in their own lives, or the lives of those around them. Few if any have ever needed to apply for any kind of assistance from the government, and they refuse to consider what that really feels like to those of us who have been required by circumstances out of our control to do so.

Citizens have for decades fallen for the Republican’s lies and voted against their own best interests by putting them into office, in large part because they believed that the ‘other’ (the ‘welfare queen’, for example) was robbing them of benefits rightly theirs. The right-wing media bubble has successfully stuffed their heads with the bullshit Republicans have spewed for decades, and without taking any time to consider whether those things were actually true, they let their own prejudices and pain drive them to re-elect these scumbags who then use their elected positions to continue their assault on our democracy and our ability to make an actual living wage.

How many more must die, whether by Covid-19 or despair, before those still willing to vote for Trump realize they’ve been duped for generations? How many must be made homeless by the Republicans refusal to authorize real financial support required because their leader and his administration have so incompetently refused to deal with the pandemic before the 38% who still believe that Trump is doing a good job at anything other than enriching himself see how wrong they’ve been?

Sadly, I think that the answer is going to prove to be all 38% of them.

Trump is the Tyrant the Republicans Always Wanted

It’s hard to believe that it’s been under four years since Donald Trump, the least-qualified of all the candidates who ran for President in 2016, took over the office from Barack Obama; it feels more like forty because of the amount of constant, unrelenting stress his presidency has caused us all. Trump continues to use his reality show platform, trying to always leave us hanging with a “we’ll have to see” or “I can’t say yet”, as though he isn’t holding the highest office in the country, making his words matter exponentially more than they ever would have had he not been elected.

Trump and Barr appear to have decided that they can do anything they want until the election, aware that even the Democrats in the House cannot take the time to impeach Trump again; between now and November 3^rdit’s more appropriate for the House to perform investigations that can provide further information about the criminality of this lawless administration. The entire electorate needs to be spurred to vote them all out by outrage, and that’s only going to happen by forcing this out into the media every day until then.

Why would anyone be surprised to find out that there was an appropriation inserted into the Senate Republicans HEALS Act to provide $1.75 billion to rebuild The J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in downtown Washington. In a bill purported to be providing desperately needed financial help to Americans being pummeled by the dysfunctional Trump administration, Trump’s own financial future of course had to rear it’s ugly head. Trump scuttled a plan ten years in the making to relocate the FBI headquarters to the suburbs outside the city a year into his tenure, because he knew that the current location, a block from his own hotel, would likely provide a competitor with a location that would negatively affect his own bottom line. Since everything Trump does from the Oval Office is intentionally designed to benefit him and his wallet, his attempt to push this project forward is just another of his schemes to see how much money he can make from the Presidency.

This is banana republic, tin pot dictatorship shit. Everything is paid for by the taxpayers, while the benefits go into the dear leader’s bank account. The family members of the dear leader get to run stuff they have no experience or knowledge to run, making a salary paid by taxpayers, for a job they are unable to perform under the best of circumstances. The only thing Jared Kushner is qualified to do is being Mr. Ivanka Trump.

The closer we get to the election, the more desperate and despotic Trump becomes. It seems that even his ‘positive thinking’ isn’t doing enough to convince him that all the polls showing Biden ahead by double digits in a majority of states and actually competitive in formerly reliable red states. Now, it seems Trump has decided that his next best option is to use the office of the president and its bully pulpit to trash talk mail-in ballots as significantly flawed and likely to be fraudulent. He continues to use diversion to deflect the media from bad news, and there’s so much bad news and diversions flying through the diaspora that it’s impossible to remember what we were outraged over just a few weeks ago.

Remember the leaked report from the intelligence agencies that Russia was paying bounties to the Taliban in Afghanistan for dead coalition fighters? What about the children still being detained in Covid-19 infested privately-run detention facilities? Or the ‘very fine people on both sides’ in Charlottesville? It’s impossible to maintain the level of outrage that each individual outrageous act by the Republican Party and this administration without it negatively affecting ourselves and those around us, but that doesn’t mean we can just brush it aside and move on. We have only one chance to try to get this thing under control before this entire experiment in our democratic republic comes crashing down around us.

The Republican Party has for decades been looking for someone to use for their own nefarious purposes, and Trump, who lacks the insight, intelligence, comprehension, compassion and a decency to see what a tool he’s been for the Republicans. They, on the other hand, so craven in their greed for money and power, didn’t mind at all that they were pushing this malignant narcissist into the most powerful position in the world (at least in was in 2016) because they somehow thought they could control him and tamp down his worst tendencies. They thought that Trump would become ‘presidential’ once in office; magical thinking of the highest order. They still think that their own political narrative is the ‘true way’ for the country to be run, and continue to do everything in their power to force their religious beliefs down the throats of the rest of us, despite the “freedom of religion” (or freedom FROM religion) written into the Constitution.

Now that the Republicans have the tyrant they always wanted, they’ve discovered to their chagrin that this puppy has been shitting in their closets the entire time he’s been in office. Trump has been so ‘positive in the negative direction’ that he is now dragging down the reelection chances of Senators who thought their future political careers were assured. Susan Collins, so ‘concerned’ and certain that Trump ‘learned his lesson’ after being impeached and is now the least liked person in the Senate, Lindsay Graham, Corey Gardner, David Perdue, Joni Ernst, Steve Daines and Thom Tillis, all of them Trump sycophants and bootlickers, now finds their seats jeopardized by their attachment to Trump. It’s sad that those are the only ones, but the 34% of those polled who still live in the right-wing media bubble and believe Trump is doing a good job with Covid-19 live somewhere, and I guess they live where the other Senate Republican seats are safe.

Change can only happen if we vote them all out, up and down the ballot. The Republican Party must be crushed out of existence, never to get their greedy hands on the reins of power again. We have to reform elections (requiring presidential candidates to release ten years of taxes in order to be on the ballot), election financing (to level the playing field remove the influence of the wealthy and corporations), norms previously honored by those in power that have been shown by Trump to be easily ignored by the unscrupulous and so many other things I can’t even think anymore. The only way any of those things will get done is to remove Republicans from the picture.

We have no time left to waste.

If You Plan a Viable Future – VOTE

There are multiple reasons for the embarrassingly low percentage of those eligible to vote who actually vote regularly in elections in the United States. There are things the federal government could do to encourage those who have chosen not to vote to exercise their franchise short of mandating that everyone vote in every election, but that won’t be considered until Republicans no longer have control in Washington.

Why is in necessary for us to register to vote in the first place? We have already given the federal government all the information they need (except for party choice) by applying for a Social Security card, something every parent has had to do for their children since at least 1980. There is no logical reason not to have national automatic voter registration in this country. The right to vote is written into the constitution. The federal government certainly knows enough about everyone in the country in order to add everyone eligible to vote onto the voter rolls on their eighteenth birthday and then share those registrations with the states where the individuals reside. The only ‘reason’ there appears to be for requiring individuals to register separately to vote is to put another roadblock in the way of those trying to vote.

In countries like Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Iraq (yes, Iraq!), voting participation increased between 76% and 81% once automated registration took effect. In a liberal (vs illiberal) democracy, the goal should be to get as many eligible voters as possible to get involved and cast an informed vote; automatic registration is the first step towards higher voter participation and engagement.

The Republicans, however, know that the demographic group that has been most likely to register and vote with them is aging and leaving this mortal coil. Polls show that only 25% of eligible voters align with the Republicans, 31% with the Democrats, and 40% with Independents. Therefore, from the point of view of the Republican Party, encouraging a larger percentage of the eligible voter pool to cast a vote is demographically counter to their purposes. This is a major factor in the Republicans continued hold on power despite having a minority throughout the country as a whole, since fewer voters overall (of which 71% would NOT be Republicans) gives them a disproportionate share of votes cast.

This leads to the outrageous lies being made by the President of the United States spewing conspiracy theories about the security of mail-in ballots. Trump continues to claim for no reason except to scare his own base away from using mail-in ballots that there will be wide-spread fraud. First of all, there was a recent report from the conservative Heritage Foundation that found just 14 instances out of 15.5 million votes. Secondly, the most recent and egregious case of someone using mail-in ballots to commit voter fraud involved a Republican campaign operative in North Carolina. Third and most disturbing, there are actually thousands of mail-in ballots that are deemed ineligible compared with a minimum of in-person ballots, often for mistakes made by the voter or because of a questionable signature match. In order to have fewer legitimate votes disallowed, rules and regulations about verification of these ballots should be standardized across the country.

After Joe Biden is sworn into office in January, 2021, it would behoove all of us to do whatever we can to push for making it easier to participate in the electoral process throughout the country, in addition to all the other things needed to undo voter suppression and gerrymandering Republicans have used since the Nixon administration to keep those not voting for them from exercising their franchise.

The media has to step up, too. Media outlets not specifically designed to propagate right-wing disinformation and talking points must get off of their ‘both-sides’ soapbox. There is nothing consistent with fair coverage that requires any news outlet to give on-air time to anyone from either side when what they are saying isn’t even true. The opinions of party sycophants are of no importance, nor is their outrage at perceived offenses outside of the right-wing media bubble. If those on the ‘conservative’ side of the aisle cannot provide actual subject matter experts who have serious, fact-based information to bring to the discussion, they should not be provided with a platform from which to spread their crap. Climate change, for instance, isn’t a matter of opinion – it is happening, and it is man-made, and anyone who claims anything different without providing science-based hard evidence for their conclusion should no longer be offered the chance to speak. Ditto for those who want to argue about systemic racism, Covid-19, or any other subject which has been scientifically investigated and understood.

I think it should be mandatory for everyone eligible to vote to do so, but in order for that to be an accepted demand, it is also necessary for every obstacle currently placed between the eligible and the ballot be torn down. Automatic voter registration, Election Day as a national holiday and country-wide mail-in ballots would go a long way towards giving more of our fellow citizens the chance to vote without losing time from work, finding a babysitter, looking for a ride, or any one of thousands other reasons why everyone who can do so does not cast a vote.

The presidency and administration of Donald Trump should have opened the eyes of everyone, whether they have previously voted or not, of the importance for everyone to get informed and cast their vote. Everyone has something that they care about, whether it’s climate change, taxes, election security, money in politics, etc., and the only way to make sure that your government knows how you feel about those things is to vote. Social media could be a force for good, but not as it is currently configured. Print media has suffered mightily in this digital age, and broadcast media has been maligned for real and imagined offenses, making it the individual responsibility of every American to find actual facts about candidates, issues and policies from reputable sources upon which to base political choices.

This country has so much potential to life up to (sort of like both of my former husbands). It’s up to each and every one of us to put our big person pants on and do that which is required of every citizen – learn about the issues, decide which side of the issue you agree with, and vote in every election for candidates whose platforms and plans are what you hope to see going forward.

Vote as if your very future depends on the outcome of every election. Vote as if the life your children and grandchildren will be living will be determined by the election winner. Vote as if the continued existence of the very planet we all live on will be controlled by the next office holder.

It should be painfully obvious by now how very true that is.

What if Trump was YOUR DAD?

I know – the thought is so awful it’s really hard to get past the horror of the actual idea to consider what you would do if your father were acting in public and often on camera the way Trump has since taking office, most especially in the past six months. As a life-long American, how would you square up your duty to your country to protect and preserve the Constitution with sitting by and doing nothing to intercede while one of your parents does things unconstitutional and deleterious to our fundamental democratic values, again in public and often on camera?

Further, I still want to know how people who most would expect would love and care for their husband/father/brother/grandfather not do everything in their power to convince him to resign and go hide at one or another of his properties? I think Trump’s own need for self-preservation could make him choose this option, given that the only way that Trump can be pardoned for the crimes he’s committed since taking office is to be pardoned by a President Pence. The only way Mike Pence would ever be president is for Trump to resign, so Trump better make up his mind in a hurry if he hopes to have a chance to avoid federal prison for what he’s done while at the White House.

I can’t imagine saying nothing while watching someone I truly loved destroy not just himself, but much of the foundation of our federal government and global reputation. I would hate to have my father be known for all future time as the most corrupt, incompetent, narcissistic, unteachable, self-dealing, traitorous and uninformed president ever. Period. In order to feel that way, however, I had to love my Dad, which I did and still do despite losing him in 2008, two years after my Mom lost her twenty-three year battle with breast cancer. I hope I would feel the same about anyone I love, in that I wouldn’t want to see them as President of the United States, spreading bogus conspiracy theories, lying about voting by mail, or just being a huge asshole like Trump is on a daily basis. If Trump’s wife, sons, daughters, or others to whom he is related actually care about him, why do they not stop him?

The answer to this has always been obvious, while the concept is anathema to most of us: Trump’s inability to have or express feelings for anyone other than himself has resulted in him being surrounded by a family that is connected transactionally instead of emotionally. They will stay silent so long as they have something to gain by doing so. They will continue their complicity because they still think there is a benefit in it for themselves. As for the rest of us, including Trump himself, they have no shits left to give.

This behavior is short-sighted, as has much of what the Trump Administration has done. Little consideration has ever been given to what will happen later, after they can no longer prevent the Justice Department from doing Justice, or the Attorney General from being the “People’s Attorney” rather than Trump’s ‘fixer’, and their short-sightedness will be their downfall. The rest of the Trump cabal will be forced to reckon with what they did and did not do, and I have to believe that at least some of them will rue the day the jumped on the bandwagon to line their pockets.

If I can’t hold onto that hope, then what the hell is the point of all this? No more can we let ‘bygones be bygones’.

Laws have been broken, alliances have been damaged, and our democracy is in serious trouble because Trump and his lackeys were allowed to run rampant by the Republican Party that created them for that very purpose. It is not enough just to remove Trump and Republicans from office…

The Republican Party itself must be put out of our misery. If conservatives want to have their own party, they need to start again from scratch. No political party that exists in whole or in part to oppress everyone not with them does not have the right to exist in a liberal democracy. No political party that uses voter suppression in any form has a place in our dialogue. And no political party that continues to force minority rule against the wishes of the majority of the citizens is welcome to share power in our democracy.

No one around Trump gives a damn about him.

What are the People Around Trump Thinking?

I spent twenty-three years as a registered nurse and had occasion to administer the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) to patients who were residents in the long-term care facility where I was employed. The various tasks assigned to the patient are part of a very rudimentary screening tool designed to determine if there is a need for more specialized evaluations and scans for diagnosis and treatment. The questions are therefore not meant to be ‘hard’, as they do not require any actual knowledge of anything, only the ability to follow directions and remember things someone just told you to remember.

Trump challenged Fox’s Chris Wallace to take the MoCA, particularly the last 5 questions. Wallace recalled the one calling for “counting backwards by 7 from 100”, and Trump repeated his claims that the person administering the test was impressed by Trump’s ability to answer those questions correctly. Wallace is heard saying “93…” while Trump speaks over him as he usually does. The point is the last portion of the test after the animal drawing identification section are:

Memory (No points here, see below)
- Read subject list of 5 words (face, velvet, church, daisy, red), have subject repeat list twice to reinforce retention. Do recall test in 5 minutes (see Delayed Recall below)
Attention (6 points total)
- Read list of digits at 1 per second (0-2/2)
  - (2 1 8 5 4) – subject to repeat in forward order (0-1/1)
  - (7 4 2) – subject to repeat in reverse order (0-1/1)
Read list of letters. Subject must tap hand at each letter “A”. (0-1/1, no points for ≥ 2 errors)
F B A C M N A A J K L B A F A K D E A A A A J A M O F A A B
Serial 7 subtraction (4 or 5 subtractions) starting at 100 (4 or 5 correct = 3/3, 2 or 3 correct = 2/3, 1 correct = 1/3, 0 correct = 0/3)
93 86 79 72 65
Language (3 points total)
- Repeat the following: “I only know that John is the one to help today.” (0-1/2) “The cat always hid under the couch when dogs were in the room.” (0-1/2)
- Name maximum number of words in one minute that begin with the letter “F”. (1 – 10 words = 0/1, ≥ 11 words = 1/1)
Abstraction (2 points total)
- Identify the similarity between two words (i.e., broccoli – asparagus = vegetable):
  - train – bicycle (0-1/1)
  - watch – ruler (0-1/1)
Delayed Recall (5 points total)
- Recall words from Memory above (face-velvet-church-daisy-red)
  - With no cue (0-1/5)
  - With category cue (0/5)
  - With multiple-choice cue (0/5)
Orientation (6 points total)
- Date (0-1/1)
- Month (0-1/1)
- Year (0-1/1)
- Day (0-1/1)
- Place (0-1/1)
- City (0-1/1)

I’ve had issues with the day and date since I stopped working; after all, if you don’t have to be anywhere in particular ever, what difference is it what day or date it is? I have an iPhone that reminds me when I do have somewhere to be, and I’ve gotten lazy about actually knowing without looking at my phone the day or date. It’s the same with phone numbers – I can still recite from heart ALL of my previous telephone numbers, and I used to be able to call anyone I knew simply by dialing their numbers from memory, but not anymore. In fact, the only telephone number besides my own that I can dial without looking it up first is my daughter’s cell which I had to dial into the phones I used at work. Now, I only use my cellphone and so never actually punch in the numbers anymore, and I know that it’s no longer necessary for me to remember them, so that information is now lost to me. It seems that the information I no longer keep top of mind is that which is easiest to outsource to my technology, and I think that makes sense. Also, anytime I’m being checked by medical professionals for my cognitive status, I’m there because I have an appointment, so have had the present day/date information brought to my attention and have no trouble remembering it if asked.

Anyway, my point in bringing all this up is, once again…

What is wrong with the people around Trump who are willing to let him display his rank incompetence and questionable cognitive status on camera? Are they also delusional? Doesn’t anyone in Trump’s circle of suck-ups have the insight to acknowledge that this ship is going down in a big hurry, taking all of them with it? Or are they so craven in their greed that they intend to hold on to power until they are forced out in January when Biden is inaugurated? How can any of these cult followers claim to care at all about the country, its citizens, or our democracy? Each new breach of the Constitution Trump and Barr perform in full view of the world takes our reputation further into the gutter and our ability to right this mess harder. Apparently, no one in the Republican Party has any shits left to give about any of the rest of us, especially their own constituents, as they refuse to do what’s best for us all to stop this pandemic. I’ve said before that thinning the herd of cultists may not be so bad, especially when it’s due to their own stupidity.

Someone who has to keep ‘boasting’ about how well they did on a screening for dementia isn’t showing how smart or cognitively intact they are – they are revealing their massive insecurities in their own mental abilities. Trump has used misdirection, hyperbole and repetition since he was a child under Fred’s tutelage to force those around him to treat him like the successful real estate tycoon he was convinced by his father he was, despite having copious proof to the contrary. His tactics are ineffective and outright dangerous, to us as individuals and as a collective democracy, when faced with a pandemic and his own upcoming election. Trump cannot lie or perseverate away more than 144,000 dead Americans, and his refusal to recognize that nothing he has done while in the White House has earned him another four years of destroying our government and our place in the world at large is yet another example of his inability to function within the reality that face everyone else on the planet.

Trump’s behavior since he was inaugurated, facilitated by his cadre of sycophants and lackeys, has caused so much damage throughout not just our country, but the entire world, will take generations to roll back. During his tenure, he has wasted TRILLIONS OF OUR TAX DOLLARS on vanity projects and lawsuits, defense of his own illiberal and illogical ‘executive orders’ and of course, by paying outrageous sums of money to his own company by visiting them at every possible chance on our dime.

Everyone who has in any way supported this lawless administration and executive should find no doors open to them when they are removed from office in January. No corporate offices should be welcoming any of them into the suites; no institutions of higher education should provide them with the platform to spread their propaganda to impressionable young minds. The Republican Party as a whole must be firmly and effectively frozen out of all possible opportunities to do anything except make a middle-class income for the rest of their lives, since they have proven themselves completely lacking in the qualities necessary to actually run anything meant to benefit others beyond themselves.

I have to believe that this is the administration that will finally put to rest the practice of ‘moving on’ and refusing to address the illegal actions of the preceding administration, often one of the opposite political party. This is not meant to encourage specious, illegitimate ‘investigations’ like those now being sought in the Senate and Barr’s ‘Justice’ Department; rather, it is to hope that those who were responsible for so much of the corruption during the Trump administration will be investigated, tried and convicted of their misdeeds, especially Trump and his family.

Biden Doesn’t Have to Overcome Misogyny

Why is it so surprising to anyone how well Joe Biden is doing pretty much every legitimate poll there is? We all know that the reason Hillary isn’t President of the United States right now had nothing to do with her ability to do the job and everything to do with her lack of male genitalia. That’s the reason why so many people hated her, since there was actually no logical reason for those who never met her to be so vehemently opposed to her being in the highest office in the land. Consequently, Joe Biden’s white male persona doesn’t elicit the same intensely negative feelings, and Trump finds it difficult to trash talk Biden the way he still does Hillary. Trump believes men belong in charge, specifically white men, so he’s now limited himself to a dangerous comparison – Biden’s cognitive and linguistic abilities compared to his own. Somehow, Trump still believes his own bullshit; that he has the capacity to debate Joe Biden on camera and somehow come out looking like he has one functioning brain cell. Seriously, how can his family (excluding his cousin Mary, whose new book I’m halfway through) who are purported to love him not convince him to resign instead of continuing to make a fool of himself live on camera every time he opens his mouth to speak?

For all those old white people, particularly men, who just couldn’t hold their noses in 2016 to vote for Hillary to keep Trump from winning are now perfectly content voting for white, male Joe Biden. This is unsurprising and yet still so sad. How can it be that in the 21^st century there are still men too insecure in their own masculinity to find it palatable to have a woman as commander-in-chief?

I’m happy to have all of them vote for Joe Biden in November; anyone with the common sense to recognize that the most important thing in this election is to remove Trump from the White House is welcome onto our bandwagon, but there is one caveat to that welcome. If you want me to be excited because you finally realized what’s happening in the real world, outside the Fox media bubble, then I need to hear you acknowledge that this is exactly where the Republican Party has been heading since the Reagan years, that Trumpism was the only next step the GOP could take given it’s trajectory. I need to hear you admit that none of the awful things Trump has done since being turned loose in the Oval Office in 2017 were a surprise, that they really didn’t bother you all that month, because the main concern of your Republican Party was always to keep all the goodies for yourselves while essentially starving all the rest of us out of the country. I insist that each of you look me in the eye and tell me that your party, so focused on maintaining male white supremacy without regard for the consequences of your actions, has participated without fear of reprisals or a scintilla of empathy for all those you’ve hurt with your regressive policies for decades because it benefited you and helped you maintain your grasp on the power at the highest levels. I don’t want to listen to your false claims that Trump was an aberration, or that your party’s refusal to actually govern since the Reagan administration has been anything other than what it so clearly has been – outright greed, both for money and for power.

Nothing the Republican Party has done during it’s time in power over the last forty years has been on behalf of the actual people of this country – the tax breaks, regulation roll backs, judicial nominations were all done to benefit themselves and their donors while simultaneously hurting everyone else, including their own voters who for reasons I will never understand continued to support these greedy bastards. They have touted their supposed ‘faith’ as a reason to withhold reproductive healthcare from more than half the citizens of this country, because of course women lack the ability to decide what to do with their own bodies and for sure the continued existence of a parasitic being not yet born is ALWAYS more important to them than actual living, breathing beings. That has been brought home to roost during the raging Covid-19 pandemic that Trump and his cronies have so successfully allowed to spread without check throughout much of their voting base.

Brian Kemp, the scumbag who as the Georgia secretary of state oversaw his own election for governor and stole said election from Stacey Abrams, has passed a rule preventing all local officials in his state from mandating the use of face masks to help mitigate the spread of the virus. Greg Abbott, governor of Texas and fellow Trump sycophant, refuses to mandate masks in his state or allow local leaders to put out their own mitigation efforts as well while the largest hospital system in the world is overwhelmed by coronavirus patients. And then there’s Ron DeSantis, another Trump ass leach whose stupidity is on display every day as he continues to refuse to address the pandemic raging through his state that may have the highest percentage of white elderly people in the country. They and they ilk clearly have no interest in preserving the lives of those already born, many of them in their twilight years and a disproportionate number of whom are black and brown skinned, since they, like Trump, don’t believe that most of those people are ‘their voters’. This is what the Republican Party has come to, after decades of public policy almost laser focused on their white supremacist ideals. Trump’s birtherism during the Obama presidency fit right in with their plans; Mitch McConnell’s complete obstruction of anything to benefit the public proposed by the Obama administration only served to further their cause, and Trump determined to do everything he could to erase the legacy that Obama and his scandal-free eight years in office accomplished for the good of the people.

For his entire life, Donald Trump has been able to repeat his lies over and over until everyone else accepted them as the truth, even when they knew it wasn’t. Because he never had to get a real job anywhere other than at his daddy’s company, Donny was never required to follow rules or listen to anyone outside his own head. Thus, we are living in a pandemic as though we were a third-world country. Because he was deprived of love or affection by his father’s sociopathy, he lacks any ability to feel empathy for anyone. He has never been able to care about anyone except himself, despite his three marriages and numerous children. Trump recognized that a beautiful woman and children on his arm and trailing behind him made him look more successful, so he made sure to find women equally interested in his money. Not that I blame them for being mercenary – Trump is just a complete asshole to be around, self-absorbed and selfish, and would never have had a wife or any kids if he’d been broke. I can say that with confidence even though I’ve never met him in person; beauty may be skin deep, but assholery goes all the way through to the bone!

Trump has caused so much destruction, both intentionally and through his ignorant negligence of the way the federal government works, that it will likely require more than two continuous terms of Democratic administrations to put things not just back to the way they were, but more importantly, better in ways that help bring financial, social and legal equality to all the marginalized communities while also enshrining into law requirements for those holding higher office in this country to prevent someone like Trump, whether on the right or the left, from ever taking advantage of our system of norms again. It should not be possible to allow a clearly lawless individual like Trump to continue to break the law simply by virtue of winning an election – no one should be above the law, especially the person in the most powerful position in the country!!! It should not be acceptable for the Attorney General to politicize the workings of the Justice Department to benefit a lawless president without fear of recriminations. And the time has come to put into place requirements for some realistic prerequisites for everyone who wants to run for president in this country, including comprehensive psychological evaluations and cognitive testing that verifies that everyone trying to get the job has the ability to handle the responsibilities and evaluate the information necessary using written words (not just pictures) to make actual informed decisions versus our current straits with an ignoramus who consults with his own brain. No one who lacks the basic ability to express empathy for others should be able to throw their hat into the electoral ring regardless of their political leaning; ditto for those without compassion or who have a known history of repressive behavior towards minorities, people of color or women.

My son, who turned forty this past May (I know – I was an infant when I had him!) has fallen into some kind of cynical hole that has convinced him that almost everyone involved in politics does so for personal financial gain. He is still unable to even lie to me by assuring me that of course he’ll be voting for Joe Biden in November. He continues to insist that Hillary as president would have done a better job handling the pandemic only because it would have helped to get her elected to a second term, not because it was the right thing to do, and I can’t figure out what to say to him that will help change his mind. A few weeks ago, I asked him to forward to me his ‘news sources’, since last I’d heard he was listening to some guy on YouTube, which honestly is no different than reading this blog and assuming everything I opine about is true. Yes, I try to fact check the things I can, but much of what I’m writing here is my opinion, which, like assholes, everyone has. He sent me a couple of links, which I found were commentary and not fact-based, and I disputed his sources by advising he seek out those with actual journalism. After that first attempt, I’ve received no new links and still he insists that his skewed perceptions are reality. It’s disturbing, to say the least.

I don’t know if I’ll succeed in convincing my son to cast his single vote in Pennsylvania for Joe Biden, and I think it’s unlikely to matter by then as Trump continues to be ignore that hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens are dead because of his sociopathic incompetence and millions are infected with Covid-19 and may have lifelong health problems as a consequence. Even Trump’s repeated lies cannot outpace the virus, and his own followers have found themselves forced to make an existential choice….

Is sticking your thumb in the Democrats eye worth risking your life?

Don’t Read Bolton’s Book

Donald Trump’s deep-seated and irredeemable racism, on full display for his entire life, is going to help pull him kicking and screaming out of the White House on January 20, 2021. It is becoming more apparent every day that Trump is likely to drag enough Republicans down ballot out of office along with him, even as the party writ large continues their silence despite the growing list of lies and outrage that spews from Trump’s Twitter feed, to give power to the Democrats in ways that really matter.

Joe Biden is going to have his work cut out for him when he enters office (just undoing Trump’s executive orders will take days!), considering the hollowing-out of the executive branch Trump has managed during his time in office, but Biden has an advantage Trump never did – the experience necessary to know who to bring in with him to get things done for the American people and the desire to do what’s best for all of us. Trump only knows how to do what he thinks is best for Trump.

The past week has been a shit show, as Trump’s ineptitude is made even more apparent while he pretends that Covid-19 is “dying out” while simultaneously forcing the cult to sign liability waivers in order to attend his narcissistic rally in Tulsa. I am sorry that the non-cult citizens of Oklahoma are going to be exposed to these fools, who have been proud to tell reporters who were sensibly and thoughtfully wearing facemasks to protect those around them that they would not wear facemasks while at the rally unless they were required to do so. Since Trump and his sycophants have managed to make protecting our fellow citizens political instead of normal, of course his cult refuses to wear masks. The silver lining to this idiocy is that by doing so, they will be culling their own herd.

The CDC was previously seen as the top of the heap when a contagious disease appeared anywhere in the world. Trump and the Republicans have succeeded in just 3 ½ years to destroy the reputation of this and every other well-known and respected agency in our federal government. Trump, in his infinite lack of wisdom and competence, sees the entire federal government as his own empire, a larger and much more powerful version of his personal organization, and he has used the levers of presidential power solely and completely as a means of lining his own pockets and maintaining his hold on The White House. His inability to see beyond his own selfish needs has revealed in stark terms the huge lift that will be necessary to enshrine into law those ‘norms’ previous residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have upheld during their own times in office. The expectation that presidential candidates will reveal their taxes, put their assets into a blind trust, or any of the other myriad things all previous presidents have done to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest – none of these mattered to Trump, because Trump didn’t have a conflict of interest. Trump’s interest has only ever been for himself and his money, so no conflict exists! Holding a crowded rally indoors without social distancing or facemasks during a pandemic? Not a problem, since Trump and his cronies get rapid tests on a daily basis. Who cares if the people in the audience are the beginning of a super spreader event, so long as Trump gets his ego soothed by the cheering crowd.

Trump is trying to run his 2020 election as a do-over of the one in 2016 – he doesn’t even have the wherewithal to come up with a new platform, preferring to recycle the previous one that was centered on how awful the president in office was performing. The thing is Trump’s refusal to hear anything from outside his media bubble makes him blind to how angry the majority of the country is at his rank incompetence and inability to perform even the most basic job of uniting the country during this time of social upheaval. This is denial of the most obvious outcome of his behavior during these 3 ½ years, and it is going to result in what is possibly the largest repudiation of a sitting president in recent history. At least, I hope it will, barring Republican voter suppression tactics and Republicans forcing their own citizens to vote in person.

Then there is the book John Bolton wrote while he was Trump’s national security advisor, taking notes on yellow legal pads under Trump’s nose, now pending release next week. Trump told his lawyer William Barr to sue to keep the Bolton book from being published after it was printed and shipped all over the country (and likely the world), and was of course thwarted by a judge in his attempt. I refuse to buy Bolton’s book – had Bolton testified during the House’s impeachment inquiry, maybe (although highly unlikely) he could have swayed some of the Republicans to do the right thing and remove this dangerous malignant narcissist from office. At the very least, Bolton’s knowledge that Trump is incompetent to be president and incapable of performing the duties required for the position made public could have provided the Republicans in the Senate with a little cover to vote to impeach. Surely a president Pence would have been less dangerous to the country and the world than this giant boy child now in office has been, right? Certainly, he would not have been worse.

Now, Trump is having a temper tantrum as another book, this one by his niece Mary Trump, is set to be released in July. Titled “How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” it is clearly not going to wax poetic about how wonderful it’s been being related to The Donald. Trump is of course looking into suing his niece for violating an NDA, not that this is a surprise from the most litigious man to hold the office. Another book released this month about Melania reports that her delay in moving to the White House was a result of her renegotiating the terms of her prenuptial agreement, while showing that in fact she supports the awful things Trump has done while in office (although not to her parents, who were brought here under ‘chain migration’ from Slovenia).

Never Trumpers continue to wave their bullshit flag, pretending that the world began in 2016. Republicans outraged by Trump are gleefully telling us how the Democrats are screwing up their chances to vote Trump out in November, while pretending that they have no culpability for where the Republican Party has gone under their stewardship!!! Listening to Bill Kristol on MSNBC telling us that John Bolton was ‘truthful’ despite his lack of patriotism and refusal to uphold his oath of office was infuriating, since Kristol and Bolton were friends for years. Many of the senior Republican Senators were also friends with John Bolton and were likely privy to the same information Bolton withheld from the House in order to line his pockets with a $2 million book deal, yet still they voted to let Trump remain in office. The Republicans have only one thing they care about, and they place that about all else – maintain their grip on the reins of power.

This is obvious in all the ways that Republicans work to keep those with whom they disagree from having a seat at the table. They have used their time in office to prevent Democrats from voting, gerrymandered districts, purged voter rolls, and literally stolen votes (by forging mail-in ballots), all while pretending that they gave a damn about the people who voted them into office. Using racial dog whistles, they’ve played on the systemic and pervasive racism they have continued to endorse in order to inflame their base, all the while knowing that the only people likely to benefit from their tenure in office are themselves and their donors. They’ve lied to their constituents about their plans for improving their lives, fully aware that their regressive taxation puts those at the bottom of the income bracket at a significant disadvantage. In fact, they continue to work to eliminate the social safety net in order to benefit the wealthiest among us, further exacerbating the wealth inequality to their own benefit.

Big changes are a-coming, and the first has to be a complete repudiation of the Republican Party and all who have supported it. The Never Trumpers cannot be allowed to erase their own histories, and must be called to account for their part in getting their party to where it is – because they were and are part of the problem. They are welcome to continue to produce and air their anti-Trump ads – since right now, getting Trump out of office has to take precedence – but that does not mean liberals should be embracing them as allies, as in “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”? No – not when these political consultants did their jobs that guided the Republican Party to its present iteration – the party of Trump. No, these people need to dig a hole, jump in, and pull the hole in on top of them.

I’m tired of hearing ‘Never Trumpers’, who did such a wonderful job of screwing up their own party, tell liberals what they should be doing. They may have ‘left’ the Republican Party, but they are still deeply conservative and their beliefs about their conservatism are ingrained. These folks have not shifted to the left, supportive of anti-racism, addressing climate change, real policing reform, and all the other things liberals hold high on their lists. They are still devoted to their belief in small government and gutting the social safety nets, while giving tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy. Unless and until they acknowledge their own responsibility in getting us to where we are now, they should be ostracized from any access to mainstream media outlets. Their continued ability to use these outlets to pretend they are outraged by the party they have created only makes their ouster more unlikely, thereby leaving the door open for them to reclaim their places in the party after Trump has left office.

They cannot have it both ways – either they take responsibility and work to undo the damage they have done to the body politic or they just go quietly into the ether. They should not be given any platform to use to re-configure their culpability and pretend the past didn’t happen. If these ‘never Trumpers’ really want to help, they should shut up and listen – to everyone their previous work has hurt, held back, criminalized, or locked in prison – until they finally understand the real damage their policies and support has wrought on the populace writ large… and small.

No one should provide any financial incentive for any of Trump’s former officials to write tell-all books when none of them were patriotic enough to stand up under oath and reveal the things we all knew were going on when there was the slimmest chance their testimony could have made a difference. It’s ironic that, today, my daughter texted me a link to Bolton’s book (now apparently no longer working!) that had been leaked, providing access to his words without lining his pockets. Even for free; reading Bolton’s tome is not worth the time it takes to do so. Life is too short. I’ll wait for Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow to tell me the worst of it on Monday.