The Divider In Chief

Annie shares a post about Trump and the GOP’s approach to budgeting and the government shutdown. “As Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is calling this shutdown (Trump’s third as president) the Epstein Shutdown.”

Despite his weak win in the 2024 election, the GOP’s route under Trump’s leadership is, “Screw the nation, screw the Constitution, screw the economy, and screw the Democrats. It’s our way or no way.”

But, as Annie notes,

“Trump’s actions, called impoundment and rescission, are unconstitutional, and the fight to redress these wrongs is currently being waged in multiple courts. Why, the Democrats have asked, should we agree to any budget that does not put guardrails around Trump’s abusing the funds Congress votes for, in defiance of the separation of powers our Constitution mandates?

I stand with the Democrats. This is the Epstein Shutdown. Release the files. Let’s see what it holds on these smirkers.

Wednesday’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I should just stay away from the news because it’s just pissing me off.

AOC set out to be the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. Gerry Connolly, 74, with cancer, won. Because one obvious takeaway from the 2024 elections is ‘old is good’. Seriously, Connolly won because money talks and he brought in more, another lesson gleaned from the 2024 elections: yes, stay the same old, same old. That’s what the voters signalled they wanted, isn’t it?

There’s a load of extra-spicy morning snark in that paragraph. But it’s this kind of shit that torpedoes my faith in the Democratic Party and their future. They continue making the same tone-deaf decisions that led to the Blue Wave in 2024. Yes, that was more snark. All they’ve done is cemented the impression that they haven’t changed and won’t change.

Turning to Crooks & Liars, they provided a happy spark by pointing out what a fucking idiot Trump is by citing what he says about groceries. First, they quoted him from an interview about his promise to lower prices.

“Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard,” Trump told Time, admitting to what many of us knew months ago.

Then they offered this:

On Thursday, Trump offered up a perplexing story about “an old woman” buying three apples at a grocery store and taking “one of the apples back to the refrigerator” because the price was too high. (Apples are not usually stocked in refrigerators.)

snip

This past Sunday, during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump said, “I won on groceries. Very simple word, groceries. Like almost—you know, who uses the word? I started using the word—the groceries. … I won an election based on that.”

My gag reflex kicked in. “I started using the word — the groceries.” Like, oh my cat, this is what stirred people to vote for Trump? Such a wise people they are, following such a wise man. They should have voted for me. I’ve been using the word groceries since like the 1960s.

I’m trying to be a more positive person and look forward. Get through this winter and reach a new spring for democracy in the U.S. But I’m used to reading the news, trying to make sense of the world. It ain’t working for me.

Think I’ll just shut down and go read a book and drink coffee.

The Full Agenda

Project 2025 has been on display enough that the gist has been assimilated.  Led by wealthy individuals and the Heritage Foundation, they pursue a theocracy dominated by white men. Women’s rights will be diminished, if not outright stripped. Black men will be tolerated as long as they toe the white line. If you think you’re something other than male or female as it says on your paperwork when born, forget about it. Your shall be male or female, as their god intended.

Under Project 2025, remember, too, that work is good. As they sit in homes and offices fantasizing about the American world, they want children back in the factories. Women, however, should be at home, giving birth, sexually gratifying their man, keeping the house clean and cooking and baking up a storm, cuz that’s what Jesus wanted.

Because, besides being about money, power, and their rights, it’s about forwarding their religion, even if they don’t practice it. They’ve gone from practicing what would Jesus do to what would Donald Trump do?

That’s what they pursue if Donald J. Trump is elected as POTUS this year.

What’s interesting about this is the cosmic political background.

On a Quora post, someone answered the question about whether Trump will win by pointing out that the conservative base is elderly, and they’re dying. The conservative base is also rural, and the rural population is shrinking. The young are leaving those small towns and agribusiness zones because the future is less than bright. They want adventure, education, or more meaningful jobs than what’s being offered in those little towns.

Bottom line for the conservatives, i.e., the GOP, that their potential base is getting smaller.

They’ve recognized this. They’ve countered by first, gerrymandering to favor conservative voters. Second, by making it harder to vote. Like Musk and Trump, they push the fallacy that mail-in voting is fraught with fraud. They insist the only safe solution is paper ballots with in-person voting with people presenting their government issued identification.

In doing so, Trump, Musk, and the GOP ignore the facts. That’s nothing new for them. They loathe facts. Facts often show how backward their thinking is.

But going on now, took, are several pincer movements to make Project 2025 feasible. The GOP has been attacking public education for some time. They’ve been doing this mostly through voucher programs but also by making it more difficult for teachers to teach. They challenge them wherever and whenever possible. Back in the early Tea Party days, the GOP went after the history and science textbooks. Advances and positive contributions by anyone but conservative whites, mostly men, was systemically removed from what was being taught.

See, the GOP knew their elderly, rural, uneducated base was shrinking. The answer, of course, is to re-establish that base. To do that, they politically divide the country. That’s what keeps Trump propped up in the current movement: he is really good at spewing hate and threatening the Democrats. It’s been taken to the point where MAGAts have been quoted as trusting a Russian more than they trust a Democrat. Shit is made up and thrown on liberals, progressives, and Democrats. If something sticks, than that becomes the attack mode.

We’ve seen this in action before. “Shows us the birth certificate.” “Lock her up.” “Biden is too old and feeble.” Now Trump et al is hunting for the handle to attack Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party nominee for POTUS, and her running mate, Governor Tim Walz. They’re trying everything, hoping to find something that sticks.

Meanwhile, the GOP is also working hard to get books removed from schools and libraries, along with any curriculum that teaches anything negative about white people or the history of the United States. Their goal is clear.

When young people currently graduate, they tend to be liberal. So, while the conservative base is declining – death, rural population shrinking, people growing more educated and capable – the liberal base is growing.

Therefore, the GOP must undercut education in order to stop young people from learning. Their goal is to increase young conservative voters, people who will reliably toe the conservative line.

Conservative leadership, abetted by a conservative base, are an insidious group. They do not care about the concept of the United States as a bastion of freedom, justice, and equality. That’s just for the propaganda brochures and videos. They want a power base with themselves in charge, encouraging ‘good old-fashioned hard work’ for slave labor wages while the wealthy grows wealthier. That’s how they see the United States: a grand revenue stream with low taxes for the wealthy.

It’s an old, old story. They’re just adding fiendish twists to it. Just as they knew they couldn’t legitimately overturn Roe v. Wade, with Mitch McConnell’s ‘leadership’, they denied President Obama’s SCOTUS nominees and packed the court with Trump conservative appointees. The greatest issue with that is how those nominees danced around what they would do with Roe v. Wade and then overturned it with the flimsiest possible reasoning as soon as the opportunity arose.

I didn’t provide any links to my claims, but I can find them if needed. Cheers

Political Winds

Look out! The GOP has gone full Playground Mode.

Donald Trump calls Vice President Harris ‘Kamabla’. The GOP denigrates Gov. Walz as Tampon Tim.

It’s like they don’t have any policies to address. Sure, they scream about the border but it’s well-known outside of the MAGA world that Donald Trump and the GOP torpedoed the GOP-approved border plan. Yes, Trump screams about inflation but economists are pushing back and explaining, no, it’s not historic inflation.

As anyone paying attention realizes, Trump is using recycled ideas. These are the ideas that took him to the White House in 2016 and hasn’t gotten him anywhere else since then. Worse, as he attempts to deliver his insults and besmirch others, he sounds inept, incompetent, and incoherent. He appears befuddled. Old. Out of touch.

In comparison, Kamala Harris is vigorous, alert, sharp, awake. So is her chosen running mate, Tim Walz. Meanwhile, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, comes across as sneering and misogynistic.

The change from Biden to Harris brought a powerful pivot from how the Harris-Walz campaign responds to Trump. Whereas Joe Biden was from a different era and tried to remain above Trump’s insults, Harris and Walz boldly clap back. Trump and the GOP flail to find smart responses that reverberate with anyone. Hence, he calls her Kamabla.

Weak.

The differences between the two parties and their political candidates now are striking. That difference is galvanizing the Democratic Party while the GOP sinks like an old man trying to settle onto a lumpy sofa. There’s anecdotal evidence that Trump signs are disappearing from Trump country. They’re just not out there as much. It’s like Trump supporters realize that he’s a tired act, vaudeville in an era of Marvel movies. He’s peaked, and now he’s falling. My wife even theorizes that Evangelicals are quietly moving away from Trump. They achieved what they wanted from him for now: with Mitch McConnell’s help, Trump delivered a right-wing Supreme Court and they overturned established precedence, Roe v. Wade. She thinks they got what they want from Trump and now recognize him for the filth he is and are washing their hands of him.

What the right-wing SCOTUS delivered was a fundamental change that is disastrous. Conservative states dominated by men are running amok with anti-abortion laws that have fast lost appeal for the majority of the political body. Instead of attracting new voters, the GOP overreach is repelling voters. Further, after Kamala Harris was put forward by Joe Biden as the next POTUS, young voter registration surged.

I don’t have numbers and hard facts for all of this; it’s just a gut feeling. But my sense is that Harris-Walz is moving toward victory, and the GOP is in retreat. I mean, look how they have reacted to Project 2025 criticisms by trying to hide under rocks in parallel to Trump trying to deny he knows anything about it.

The MAGA GOP’s brand has been revealed to be reactionary, racist, and sexist. All their new ideas are old ideas. They offer leadership that wants to do the same things that failed before. Frankly, much of what they’re suggesting now, such as doing away with separation of church and state, or providing immunity to the POTUS, putting them above the rule of law, and curtailing voters’ rights and the opportunities to vote, is un-American. It might have been part of a past America, but we are now a modern America. Or we’re trying to be. Young voters at least are awakening to this, and it will show in November.

At least, this is what I hope.

What To Do

Annie’s post is loaded with info about actions being taken sharpen people’s Project 2025 awarness.

Annie provides links to a substack newsletter by Jessica Craven, author of Chop Wood, Carry Water, where she is providing tips to help carry Democrats to victory while advancing a progressive agenda.

There is also a link to Red Wine and Blue, an organization which sponsored a Heather Cox Richardson Zoom call about Project 2025. The call had over 42,000 callers on it. There’s also a link to an excellent Robert Hubell piece, Adam Schiff and the “Three-Body Problem” of Democratic Politics.

As Annie finishes, “Don’t Mope — Hope.” Read her post. You’ll be a helluva lot better for it.

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