inthetrunkroom

It has been a struggle of late to find a way to focus on any one single matter of  deep concern or blatant egregious violation of constitution or law  in the first one hundred plus days of this regime. Nonetheless, though there are many,  certain highlights must said.

We will stipulate that the current occupant of the oval office is the only one who tried to rig an election , has a long history of cheating, fraud, blatant bigotry, is clearly suffering from MNPD and is a convicted felon.

There was a  maxim floating around for years that stated fear and ignorance would win every election. Today, you can add arrogance, bigotry and stupidity, making for a rather dangerous cocktail. What we are now witnessing is a all out attack on our very system of government, orchestrated by a emerging dictator and a cult following that jim jones would be proud of . The agenda at this point are the dismantling of federal agencies, the alienation of allies and the destruction of the safety net for millions of people. We are witness to the  weaponizing of agencies against the very people they were instituted to help and a cadre of MAGA lunatics running those agencies into the ground, both fiscally and in terms of policy.The administration, or rather regime as it should be called, in its reckless profusion of executive orders, is clearly guilty of violating several amendments to the constitution and numerous laws, particularly the emoluments clause and blatant contempt of court.

Among the many elements come to light in this regime, some stand out as being particularly repugnant.

The first is the blatant disdain for anyone who is Middle class or of lower income. You can gauge this by the number of programs and policies that are being dismantled which directly focus on assisting or, as mentioned above,  providing a safety net to millions of people. His attacks on such programs such as Head Start, Medicaid, Social Security, USAID and FEMA, just to name a few, are a clear indication of a special type of bigotry.

Secondly, there is his constant attack on the news media – specific news media – the ones which tell the truth, criticizing him and pointing out his complete failure as a president. He cannot stand the stories in print or the pointed questions at press conferences. He runs them more like a  reality television show, complete with name calling, summary denial of facts and continually falling back on the BIG LIE about the 2020 election.

Thirdly, this total disdain for government and all those hard working GS workers  manifest itself in a most frightening way, dismissing thousands of staff on all levels without cause, as is required by law, and then allowing a mentally deranged megalomaniac named Musk and his team of college drop out coders full and unfettered access to the personal data of  millions of citizens at the IRS and Social Security.

And finally, at least for here, is his complete and deep seated disdain for the Rule of Law. 

This is the richest country in the world and yet, twenty per cent of children live in poverty and are food insecure, one in ten children will experience homelessness sometime in their lives and millions of seniors are living with a meager social security cheque as their sole source of income support. We look now then at what a lunatic cult ,not to mention those ninety million who didn’t think voting was important have put in the oval office and the cruelty he and his cadre of liars and grifters are showing , How could we allow this to happen and what MUST we do to recover from this colossal walk down the wrong path. It is time to WAKE UP PEOPLE and fix this.

In 2024, ninety million voters did not think voting was important any longer. Seventy million others would rather elect a known grifter, pathological liar and convicted felon to the  oval office than elect a highly educated, highly skilled woman, let alone a black woman.

As a direct result, we have installed a singularly unqualified imposter in the Oval Office –  a convicted felon, confirmed bigot, pathological liar , malignant narcissist and one who clearly suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. In addition, he has brought a cadre of unqualified, far right loyalist types along to dismantle our government agency structure, utilizing the infamous Project 2025 as his playbook. His allies and enablers in the senate have passed through and confirmed a chronic drunk to head Defense, an addict to head Health and Human Services, a WFTP to head Justice, a far right conspiracy devotee to head FBI, and a Russian Asset to be DNI, just to cite a few of the more notable.

His personal agenda, formulated and promulgated by a Russian dictator , was to further that dictator’s agenda of destroying democracies around the world by destroying our democracy from within and we have seen the clear evidence of this agenda .The key strategy here was to create a plutocracy where the top ten percent rule, are above the law and will bring to an end any and all public involvement in the betterment of our society

In order to accomplish this, a CULT, known as MAGA was, over time , orchestrated and developed by capitalizing on wide spread outlandish xenophobic fears  and the pervasive political ignorance  of a significant portion of the voting population . This process ,  aided by the complete and blatant failure of congress and particularly the senate , as well as the colossal failure of the DOJ and the then Attorney General, to do what should have been done, puts us now where we find ourselves, in a perilous circumstance . 

The agenda was to completely take over and then virtually eliminate our constitutional republic form of government and replace it with an authoritarian dictatorship while completely restructuring the existing world order. It will happen quickly and with no regard for the damage wrought. It is a lesson we should have learned from the 1930s in Berlin.

 Sadly, all those who could have the power to , if not stop this insanity, at  least call it in to question and slow down the damaging before both the congress and the courts, having been reluctant to step up to the task –  and that is being polite – wake up to the reality that is right before them.The Ship of State is in turbulent waters and is, indeed, in peril of sinking.  While we may disagree – in fact we may vehemently disagree – on the vote choice in the past election , we should and must agree as to what we all are seeing and what is happening inside the beltway and that it is a dangerous and  critical cause to the detriment of our very form of government. Our democracy, while it has its flaws, remains the best choice for people across the board and it is worth fighting to preserve.

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The above discussion was written a month or so ago while the outcomes of that ill fated election were still in the formative stages, so to speak and we  were as yet, in a  wait and see  frame of mind. However, in frighteningly short order, we have been witness to the near collapse of our democracy and the evidence is clear that the global agenda of the Russian dictator has become the agenda for the world’s newest fascist dictator right here inside the Washington beltway.We have a dictator in the oval office who is seriously out of touch with reality surrounded by a cadre of die hard loyalists who will lie about everything in order as long as it supports that dictator as  they join in the quest to dissemble the government and any institution which dares to countermand its cult manifesto. 

We are seeing the posture of scoff law taken to the extreme .                

Universities, the arena where free thinking and honest debate  historically are conducted, are  being attacked for who they are, whom they hire, what they teach and what  social issues they research. The regime is likewise targeting individuals who dare speak truth to power, especially law firms, educational institutions and non profit organizations. 

At least one top research scientist at he National Institutes of Health ( N I H ) has left because of hard line censorship levied against his research findings, reportedly because they do not conform to the Secretary’s warped ideas about foods and processing  – this being the Secretary cited above.

Included also is, by virtue of the whim of a brainless billionaire who has no concept of government and how it works, the wholesale firing of federal employees with the goal of  saving funds in order to pay for the expected exorbitant tax cuts benefitting the upper ten percent of the wealth spectrum.  And let us not forget the blatant attack on Social Security, and SSI with its millions and millions of beneficiaries. Millions of senior citizens, millions of children and millions of survivors will suffer under the now fascist agenda, bringing to a possible end the quest of the GOP since 1936.

And outside the beltway, persons here either legally or illegally are being rounded up and deported, without any semblance of due process, to a foreign prison with no hope of rescue. We will not even discuss the threat by this dictator of actually arresting citizens off the street or in their homes whom he might think are engaged in criminal activity, a.k.a. protesting against his agenda.

All the firewalls are down and the oval office has become the center of a fascist regime. This is what over seventy million people voted for and make no mistake,  for whatever reason or whatever twisted rationale, it is exactly for what they voted. Now they may awaken and see the reality of authoritarianism in action and perhaps come to understand that what they got is what they wanted but what they wanted, uninformed and misinformed as it is, is unfortunate, mostly illegal, certainly unconstitutional and downright  unAmerican.

Again, the war . and it is a war . is on and what is at stake is nothing less than the existence of the republic.

These are indeed the times that try men’s souls and it is likewise thee time that we, the people, must take whatever steps we can to stem the tide of this extreme lunacy and bring some level of sanity back to inside the beltway.

Whiskey Tango

Over the decades, and actually centuries, we have marked the demise of certain persons who have had significant impact in one way or another on the world in which we live. There was Socrates in 399 BC , Edgar Allan Poe in 1849, John F Kennedy in 1963, Mark Twain in 1910, Bertrand Russell in 1970, Albert Einstein in 1955 and Carl Sagan in 1996. And now, we will mark 2024 as the year that perhaps marks one of the most significant deaths – the death of democracy in the United States. While this may be a bit premature, the seeds have been sown and the proverbial die has been cast.

Sometime back in about 1974, there was an article in the American Educator written by the esteemed scholar and statesman, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The article was titled  “ Defining Deviancy Down”. Based on several theories in the world of criminology, the article lays out how, after a point, with so much criminal behavior swirling about, the behavior becomes tolerable, even for some, the norm. Can you understand how this is relevant to today and how certain elements of the fringe now have what can be described as permission for their conduct.

Moving forward, Moynihan’s observations continue to be relevant and are picked up by Yale professor, Timothy Snyder who warns, in no uncertain terms, about how movements like the Third Reich took over a country through first manipulation of and then controlling of the messaging throughout the country, all the while stifling any and all resistance to its singular way of thinking. Paired with scapegoating a specific ethnic group for all the country’s ills, the movement grew and grew and, well, the rest is history and the question remains, have we still not learned from it all . In fact, we are facing much the same scenario .

Professor Snyder updates the warnings, particularly regarding the messaging flow, by pointing out the dangers of our wholesale surrendering to social media, whether  the content is based in fact or not.

But, while the eminent Yale professor in plain talk, has presented a warning for us all regarding our politics fate, there is one whose commentary on the politics and governance of this country and its fate, is not only as compelling but reiterates a warning that many have been laying out there for decades, yes, decades. Which segues in to what’s to be, in our opinion, a discussion of what is a primary causal factor contributing to how ew ended top in this ever intensifying state of chaos.

Twelve years ago, retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter was interviewed by Margaret Warner of the PBS News Hour, the focus of the  discussion being his observations on the fate of our democracy. The interview was held at the Capital Center for the Arts in Concord, New Hampshire. The discussion went per usual but then Ms Warner, based on  comments earlier in the discussion, probably asked the Justice what keeps him awake at night. His reply was irrefutable in its compelling scope. He quoted Benjamin Franklin’s admonition about democracy struggling to survive “ too much ignorance” and then proceeded. 

To paraphrase, Justice Souter laid it out. I don’t worry about losing the republic to a foreign invasion, nor to a military coup. He continued .. and I quote here – “ What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough….some one person will come forward and say “ give me total power and I will solve this problem”.  This show the Roman republic fell. This is the way democracy dies and if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night.

Clearly, the honorable Justice was stating what many have said over the decades. Fear and ignorance will win nearly every election and will precipitate the collapse of the nation.

The MAGA cult has been given its permission slip. That one person has been put in the most powerful position in the world and  the list of possible cohorts to be joined in that power is frightening indeed . As the New York Times post election analysis noted in a two sentence paragraph that summarizes it all,  this was a conquering of a nation not by force but with a permission slip. Now America stands on the precipice of an authoritarian style of governance never before seen in its 248 year history. ( Lisa Lerner, NYT 11/06/2024 ).

A virtual crime family has secured power by capitalizing  on the widespread , mostly unfounded and baseless fears and the likewise  wide spread civic ignorance of the voting body politic.  It has happened,  as it is  and now we, assuming the citizenry will awaken to realize  the value of a democracy, must engage in a war of recovery before the inevitable damage becomes irreparable.

For those who have traveled , as they say, in my orbit over the years, it should be evident that I have been engaged in, closely followed , observed and offered observations and commentary on the politics of our surroundings. There have been involvements in  the politics of local jurisdictions, state level legislatures and, of course the goings on inside the beltway and its tributaries into the states.  We won’t even talk about the private sector and its own brand of politics, especially those organizations associated with a church. Over nearly four decades, as an advocate for those vulnerable populations who had a voice that often was  ignored, interaction with legislatures, legislative committees and politicians of  all stripes was the order of the day. It never ceased to amaze me how on the one side, matters of concern seemed all so plain and simple and on the other side of that same coin, they became so very very complicated. Dealing with so many   “ forked tongue “ people had a way of causing major migraines . You could listen as a key note speaker at a right wing group convention lists all those alleged christian principles swearing they are his guiding principle and soon thereafter be indicted for fraud or of being a sexual predator.

One can view the caliber or the lack thereof  of legislative bodies and their committees and the character or lack thereof of its members. A cursory survey of such yields interesting and sometimes scary results. While this is not about a party specifically, it must be conceded that the current edition of the GOP, fallen completely into the MAGA cult, comes across as the worst offender. For instance, one member of congress believes that Italians commandeered the voting machines  and changed the results of the 2020 election. Other  members of congress  actually joined the rioters – yes, rioters – at the Capitol on January sixth, 2021.  Another less than esteemed member of congress can boast of several DUI convictions and had to be escorted out of a theater for public intoxication and indecent actions in public. Then there are  the numerous members of congress who actually voted to throw out the results of the 2020 election, voiding the choices of millions of voters who no doubt voted on both sides of the aisle.  And we won’t go in to the members of congress who still hold that the 2020 election was rigged and that the candidate who lost the popular vote by over seven million and the electoral vote by 306 to 232 actually won. That list is far too long.

The list of such members of legislatures, on all levels,  is long, almost to the point of exhaustion. We all have been witness to such behaviors over and over, time and time again and locale is not an issue. It is pervasive. However, while this is disconcerting to say the least, what one has to look at is the underlying issue which is far more disconcerting. 

Understanding that the office that legislators hold is gained by election and therefore subject to election and reelection, the more profound question which  requires some sort of answer is, while it is difficult to understand how many of these get elected, it remains to find an answer as to how do they keep getting reelected, term after term after term. The possible responses to this question are curious as well as numerous. However, when one looks across the spectrum of those responses, it seems to be clear.

As Donnie Deutsch, television personality, commentator and marketing executive , in discussing the current GOP, notes – “ …. the problem is not with the Republican  party, It is the seventy-four million trump voters …”. The sum and substance is that the problem is with voters – the body politic, if you will and the overall mind set that drives them which is solely  and completely based in two buckets  – fear and ignorance. It all really comes down to those two and, while there are aspects of them that spread out a bit, the essential items are these two – that we have a major portion of the voting public who either are fearful of what they think will happen depending on who they elect , whether real or imagine, or they are pitifully ignorant of the reality that engulfs their  social and political environment.

We have, as many observers of the political tide have concluded, one of the  most politically ignorant voting population in the free world. It is no wonder, considering the constant flood of disinformation spewing out from seriously questionable sources and an audience that the concept of fact checking is totally foreign. Now, I accept that most  people do not follow as closely or spend much in the  way of fact checking as  many writers do, or should. But that we do not teach civics and how government does or should work lends to this lack of knowledge. Nor do we teach even fundamental skills in the art of fact checking – an absolute necessity in this day and age. So, either voters do not know how to check the sources or they simply do not care. Both are unfortunate

conditions. The ground is then fertile for the spread of misinformation, disinformation and outright lies.

The current posture of of least one political party is that it is no longer a political party but more akin to a cult and the so called red states are more akin to Berlin in 1938 than  to the United States in 2024. Even at least one candidate for congress in a swing state is  identifying himself as an America First candidate without, one has to bet, having  any understanding as to where that phrase came from. Yes, it was the mantra of the American Nazi Party in the late thirties.

So now, where are and the question at this point in time is really obvious. What do we do about it all, knowing full well that the very existence of that “ Great Experiment “ is at stake. 

It is paramount that ALL voters spend far more time learning about not only voting process and procedures so they know the how of voting but also spend far more time delving in to the candidates themselves –  for those seeking reelection, what their voting record  is and, in this writer’s opinion, what their personal character is. We should not be electing felons, traitors, fake electors and the like. It is long overdue that we become an informed voting public. It is long overdue that vetting of candidates is now paramount and serious criteria must be imposed. It is time we stop surrendering to the lunatic fringe and work diligently toward a government that actually governs.

CULT OR COUNTRY

Over the past year or so, the public discussion has looked at what can only be described as, on the one side, a declining sense of the rational and on the other side, a striving to achieve a seemingly unachievable level of balance. It is no wonder, considering the continual state of upheaval both within and without the beltway that there is so much confusion and consternation. What has added to it all is that there is a lack of focus in much of the discussion surrounding it all. Perhaps one needs to contend with this panorama of insanity by distilling it down to a manageable subject.

The politics of it all, and particularly as this is a presidential election year, appears to come down to choices. Now, one would claim that an election – any election –  is all about choices. However, this time it is more about more than just choices between candidates for public office, and specifically the office of President.

It is,  in one school of thought, a philosophical choice this country has to make in the near, if not immediate future as to what does  it want to be – remain a democracy, with all its faults or opt to leave that structure behind and move toward a authoritarian or fascist form. For most critical thinkers, this is not much of  a choice but sadly for many it remains a dilemma.

However, one might zoom in, as it were , and look at what might be the driving force behind the condition in which we find ourselves – that of the rise of a cult movement known as MAGA.

By definition, a “CULT “ is that genre of group usually convened around some cause or another where criticism or questioning of the Leader is considered by that leader to be persecution, where anything the leader does is justified, regardless of how harmful it may be and that he, or she, the leader is the only source of truth. Followers must be blindly devoted to that leader and the idea of questioning of any sort is anathema.

Now what we have at present is a distinct choice not only the obvious between democracy or fascism but also the choice between  “ regular order “, as per the late Senator John McCain, and the chaos brought about by what is clearly a movement which must now be tagged as a domestic terrorist cult. There can be no question about the nature of this movement. From the days following the 2020 Election culminating with the attack on the Capitol, to the current leaders vowing retribution and revenge, there can be no doubt of the terroristic nature of not only the Cult but the supporting republican party, which, over time, has ceased to be a political party and has morphed into a support mechanism for a terrorist movement. And this is true not only for the activities on Capital Hill but also throughout the down ballot positions in state and local politics. Election deniers, conspiracy theorists and participants in the attack on January 6th, 2021 are running for office, still maintaining that the 2020 election with rife with fraud and in their mind simply not legitimate in its outcome.

So, here we stand. The voting public will need to decide and do so decisively as to the future. One the one side of the proverbial coin there  we find, with its faults and foibles, a representative republic under which platform we can live and let live to a fairly decent degree, come and go with relative freedom and even make ridiculous mistakes, allowing for a course correction in a reasonable time.

On the other side, we find an authoritarian fascist platform where books are banned, peaceful protests are to be silenced by military action, basic rights are stripped, a free press will be terminated and freedom to express opinion, be it pro or con, ceases to exist. Cruelty against opposition will be the rule and loyalty to a single personality is an absolute.

There can be no question whatsoever that this election will be far more than a choice between candidates. The voters must choose. Will it be country or cult. Will they choose between preserving our very existence as  a nation or  bring the end to the great experiment in democracy.