Truth in America-Battle Lines are Drawn

 

        The more perfect Union, Justice, domestic Tranquility, the common defense, the general Welfare and the blessings of liberty, the very raison d'etre enshrined in the Constitution, are in doubt and the people of these states are not United. 

    All is at risk, in danger and under attack because of lies. In January 2021, the US Capitol is a fortress, on defensive footing after four years of assault.

    As power transitions, the future of the Republic demands a full investigation of the insurrection. A national commission, such as those that investigated  9/11, the Kennedy Assassination, the Roberts Commission on the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, and other national trauma should be instituted. There is much to learn.

    The deadly insurrection appears to have had inside help from republican house members and/or staff. Capitol Hill police officers appear to have been complicit. Federal investigators have already identified police and sheriff department officers from across the US as being active in the assault. The truth of these insinuations needs to be learned.

    Aside from prosecutorial and national security threads to be followed, the commission would document the enabling social, political and cultural influences that undergird and created the foundation for the most heinous attack in US history.

    As the people who inherit the constitution and who are now responsible to maintain the democratic republic we must act forcefully against all bad actors, no matter where the trail leads.

    One of my heroes is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who died for his role in trying to end the rise of the fascism and authoritarianism that spawned the Holocaust. Generations of Germans have confessed and lamented how Hitler's Nazi movement could and should have been stopped by German citizens, rather than enabling a mad narcissist to turn a full nation to evil. They believed the lie. The risk of not seeking the truth is grave. 

    Those Americans who believe the false claims of a desperate and demonstratively insane Donald Trump must understand it is about more than politics. They need to know the depth and expanse of the Trump deception, distortion and anti American behavior. For the well being of the nation and themselves, they must come to accept the truth.

     Trump's supporters on Capitol Hill must acknowledge they were wrong. It would be an affirmation of the sanctity of the separation of powers and the Constitution for those in the House and Senate to be removed and charged as insurrectionists and seditionists. It appears such a movement may be mounted in both chambers.  

    There are calls for remembering the January 6th attack on the capitol and attempted coup as we remember 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. The more we learn of the violent orgy of the Trump mob, the more egregious it becomes.

    The republican party is presently infested with cowards. As William Saletan wrote, "Republicans who were in a multi year frenzy over Benghazi are now downplaying insurrection at the Capitol." You saw that evidenced in the Impeachment debate.

    There's a mitigating circumstance, and while it is not a pass for their continued support of Trump, it speaks to the vile influence and toll he has spawned. People, politicians and state officials targeted by Trump now need security. Some republican House members say they feared for their lives if they voted for impeachment. Family members of the incoming administration are under protection from Trump supporters. State capitols and state officials have been threatened by republicans. 

    Since the day of his announcement Donald Trump filled America with lies, hate and fueled division. The republican party sold its soul to the only president to be impeached twice,  a man who has done the bidding, willingly or otherwise of the wily Vladimir Putin. Trump has presided over brining America to an all time low.

    The tide has changed, but millions are brainwashed. They will be resistant. When members of congress were hidden away, sequestered in tight quarters as the blood thirsty mob rampaged the Capitol, republicans in the group refused to wear masks, turning the terrifying experience of hiding for safety into a super spreader event. Members of the republican caucus have been seen shoving and blowing through the newly installed metal detectors. That is ignorant and abusive.

    The republicans are at war. Will Trump fascism and mindless loyalty dominate, or will those of reason, principle and belief in America wrestle control of the party their way.

    Democrats will continue to walk the tension line between their progressive wing and the centrist position of Joe Biden and the predominant caucus.

    Other things are changing. Corporate donors have blacklisted republicans who supported Trump. Trump's brand is on the way to being worthless. Josh Hawley, who thought he was an heir to Trump nation lost a book contract, and is being sued by Hallmark for funds they contributed.

    Mike Pence, who I knew when he was an unsuccessful congressional candidate and small market radio host missed an opportunity to be heroic and to be forever remembered that way.

    His refusal to activate the 25th Amendment, because his ambitions lead him to reason he can absorb the MAGA millions for his own presidential aspirations is delusional. The Pence tragedy speaks to ill placed faith of Trump nation and the broken republican party.

 

    These not no so United States must work its way back to a place where governance, and public good supersede political advantage, ideology, vanity and the souless opportunism of people like Trump, Cruz and Hawley. 

    There may soon be legislative punishment for Trump minions like McCarthy, Gosart, Gaetz, Jordan and 140 others.      To some their actions were sedition.  

    Most of us live far from the levers of power but US citizens are participants never-the-less. This history making era will be  infamous. It has been a time of division and pain. There is time for family members, friends or associates who have been on the low road, believing the big lie, to wake up, to see the truth.                      

    Society, generations hence, will study this time of infamy. Descendants will see photos or video clips of those who were part of a movement that worshipped a lie and were ignorantly part of an effort to destroy the United States. These Trump lovers and Republicans were played for suckers by a fraudster lunatic. History will have the last word. 

    There is a saying in several idioms and of various "origin," Jeremiah, Jesus, John Heywood in 1546,  and Jonathan Swift in 1713. It speaks to us in 2021.

    "There are none so blind as those who will not see."

     See you down the trail.

 

INSURRECTION IN AMERICA

     The television coverage brought tears to eyes and a strange emptiness to my core. My five year old granddaughter wondered into the room, sensed I was upset, looked at the television and asked "Are those real people Poppy?"

    

    Joe Biden demonstrated Presidential leadership and character. He vented and shared the horror most US citizens feel. He affirmed the scenes on TV is not the real America.  That is a moral victory of the day.

     Our collective history struck a new low. There is this to take away from the insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol-thousands of faces were captured on security cameras, by the media and on phones. Prosecutions will follow. Members of the House and Senate are resolved to finish the process of the republic to assure the dark night of the last four years will end.

    World leaders have stated their shock. I use this space to tell my friends abroad, we are sickened, but we are resolved as well.

    Five years ago I warned that Donald Trump was evil. I have said he is at least a Russian stooge. We are damaged because of him, but he is not alone in the attempt to undermine our republic.

    Senators Hawley and Cruz are seditionists. They should be tossed out of the senate and face charges. They were instigators of the violence we witnessed. Both of them, deplorable men to begin with, undertook their roles in the insurrection simply for their own political gain, trying to lay claim to some of the Trump loyal. There were others who gave shelter to the enemy with their support; Johnson, Loeffler, Lankford, Perdue Daines, Kennedy, Blackburn, Braun, Lummis, Marshall, Hagerty, and Tuberville. They should at the least be censured and stripped of rank. I would prefer to seem them tossed from the Senate.

     The fools in the House should be simply tossed out prosecuted. 

    What they all did was unAmerican, and encouraged the domestic terrorism we witnessed. 

    The Republican Party that condoned and encouraged the Trump outrages of the last 4 years will stand in shame. History will note they encouraged the lunacy that has grown under Trump.

    Trump is a traitor. He is unfit to continue in office, even in these late hours. Congressional leadership, the Chief Justice and Vice President Pence should move to preempt any more Trump madness. There are ways to move him out power and they should be executed. 

    That we can say those MAGA hatted, Trump flag waving rioters and insurrectionists acted in an illegal, and crazy manner does not undo the fact they BELIEVE the lies. They think, no, they know in their heart, that Donald Trump won the election. 

    This is the greatest poison that Trump pumped into the republic. The lies, the attack on media credibility, the dog whistles, the nod and wink to racists, the endorsement of the absolute lunacy of the Q conspiracies and his attempt to overturn the eletion were part of this evil man's game plan.

    The brain washed need action. First law enforcement and security need to find, arrest and prosecute those involved in the Capitol breech and it's planning and/or any further insurrectionist activity. They should be pursued with the full force of the law. They are domestic terrorists, even if they are brainwashed. Their actions are a threat.

    Harder to handle will be how to deal with friends, family members and those among us who believe the lies. That will take lots of attention, careful execution, prayers, love, and finding a civil way to simply no longer suffer fools easily. 

    It will take a massive public education effort.

    When my granddaughter looked at the TV, I explained quickly the people were behaving badly because they had been lied to, did not use their brains, had no respect for other people and were violating the law. Hard concepts for a 5 year old. I told her that the very bad man Trump was responsible for it, but there were more good people in America than there are like those on TV. It was then time for a walk with Nana who was also shaken by the horror of this day. 

    Stay strong. There is a democratic republic to support and rebuild. There is lunacy to expunge. There is honor, dignity and civility to lift up. We have to walk the talk.

    See you down the trail.

    

American Beliefs at War

 

A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.                                                                             Robert Heinlein                                                                        writer, aeronautical engineer  

    The norm shattering of the last four years, as much of an assault on American values as it has been, is coming now to its dark maturity. 

    Beginning with his inauguration he worked to divide America. Now Donald Trump prepares to take America to war.

    The examination ahead will be frank, and difficult to abide so before we begin with a few scenes from a recent walk on the shore. May they be pleasing and soothe our troubled hearts.

History is the only register of crimes and misfortunes.                                             Voltaire

    Trump's behavior since being rejected by a record number of Americans has been to sabotage the nation. People were shocked to learn he explored options for a war against Iraq after replacing top military command officials.

    He continues to violate the Presidential Records Act by destroying files and papers. Some staff have surreptitiously tried to tape and stash documents.

    His delay in transition will only worsen the pandemic he ignored and lied about. It puts our national security on uneven ground.

    Trying to leverage his bent for an authoritarian control of the government he's signaled his supporters to refuse to accept the legitimacy of the new government. His supporters march and violence follows. It is the type of thing we see in some nations and we have seen it in history. 

    The "Brown Shirts" and the Storm Division paramilitary supporters of populist demagogue and madman Adolf Hitler began with demonstrations and street fights in 1924. 

     They were "militias," supporters of a movement leader who demanded loyalty. The appeal was based on grievances, anger  and division.

    Fix in your mind how Trump took over the Republican party by bullying and grievance. Adolph Hitler went from outsider and built a non conventional base of the disaffected. His Nazi movement, a fringe element, gained enough power in the Conservative coalition,  that it could not rule without him. That was in 1932. By 1933 Hitler was elected Chancellor and he dismissed the Parliment.

        The Nazi Party established control of the courts and controlled the judges. Those who spoke against him were run through a mock judicial process. The free press was attacked, opposition groups were run over by Nazi paramilitary. The Dachau concentration camp was built in 1933, others followed and we know the history. The regime lied, repeatedly. 

    The Nazis were specialists at propaganda and image with the intent of brainwashing. They didn't need a Fox News they had Joesph Goebbels a government minister of propaganda.

     Most Fox News viewers fail to know its founder was also a propagandist. Roger Ailes was Richard Nixon's television producer and advisor. Later he worked for Ronald Reagan, to help with spin and party line. He advised the Bush campaigns. 

    Most news organizations evolved from a role of public service. Fox News began with a mission to spin, and to tilt right. That is to be a propaganda mill.

    A document found in the Richard Nixon library outlines the first draft of Fox News. Ailes authored "A Plan for Putting the GOP on Television." The idea was to put party doctrine over fair and balanced reporting over what Ailes said was the "bias" of journalism. Years later it was a cruel irony then,  when Ailes launched the conservative to right wing news network using "fair and balanced" as their moniker. I suspect his karma is still in deficit. 

    Ailes and Trump were a match. Ailes like Trump was thrice married and like Trump a sexual predator. In fact allegations of sexual harrassment by 23 women forced his resignation in disgrace. But he created a monster in America, a "news by flavor" outlet that in truth functions as a mouth piece, a propagandist for right wing Republican politics. But no more. Most traditional conservatives and Republicans have left the party to fight back with their own words and pictures. Fox News helped to kill the Republican party, helping turn it into a Trumpist party.

    Trump, an egoist, learned early he could use TV by breaking norms. People who have studied him, see similarities in his speaking manner to another "right wing crack pot."

    Trump often strikes poses similar to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. 

    Mussolini was also a narcissist. The pouting face, jutting jaw

   crossed arms and fist making hand gestures are frequent 

     Trump moves. History is always revealing.

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

Mark Twain

    

    The scene above, of a Nazi rally should be particularly chilling, especially to those who say it can't happen here.

    That image is Madison Square Garden, 1939.

     "Americanism" and America First were catch phrases of a far right wing to conservative sentiment.

    20 Thousand Americans filled the Garden that night to celebrate George Washington's birthday.

    At the next "Stop the Steal" or "Four More Years" rally, as people clearly ignore the facts, certified even by Trump apointees in government, you may feel a quick retraction of time.

    Street violence is a tool. Another attack on our belief in our system.

      History may indeed repeat, if we are ignorant of it. Ignorance is a fuel for populists. Ignorance is rampant in America now.

       Trump's refusal to cooperate with a transition is a belligerent personal act of narcissistic defiance, but it is also dangerous and undermining.

    He has been a divider for four years. He has worked since 2016 to erode the credibility of our electoral process and our American traditions and norms, which have been a standard for the world, a beacon of democracy. 

    It appears he plans to stay vocal. That serves him personally as he can continue to fund raise. It serves him to have a pulpit from which to spew, to prance and dance and bathe in the adoration of the ignorant. But it also divides this nation. It drives hatred into the heart of the body politic. It is a cancer to the sinews and muscle of the Republic that has held, except for the civil war. And there again the eyes of history are on us.

And so are other eyes.

    Generations of our children and grand children deserve better than what they see in us now. A democratic republic is hard work. But for most of two and half centuries we have observed norms, traditions, respected honesty, searched for fact and truth. Donald Trump does none of that and each day  he remains the toxic being he is, he moves us closer to the battle lines, in our own nation, and unless he is checked, perhaps in some war making effort abroad. 

    We've had our fill of mistaken foreign wars. We've survived a a civil war. Donald Trump is a fuse.

    There is no longer any decent explanation for supporting him, as a citizen or as a member of the Senate. He lost, fair and square. His law suites are without a cause. There is another reason he deserves no support, he is evil.

    Authoritarianism is growing. Trumpism is likely to survive, for a while at least. Fighting that is in our interest, but it will be a detailed process and it involves fellow citizens, abused humans. We'll look at that fight in future posts. 

    The past should be remembered, and the future should be honored. 

    Stay safe. Stay well. Be vigilant.

    See you down the trail.

Debate America

 

presidential debate: a foggy forecast

   The big winner are the vendors providing the coffee and snacks for the meetings underway at the networks, newspapers, campaign leadership and the debate commission offices or zoom meetings. 

    There's a lot of thrashing to do before another debate goes up. Once again American cultural norms have been savaged by the spurious mongrel called Trump.

Photo by Doug Mills New York Times

    We'll see if suggestions the next two debates be scrapped gains any traction. The Florida Town Hall format doesn't assure a better result. If Trump can't abide by rules, we cannot expect his supporters to behave as though they have been house broken either. 

scoring

• Biden did not hurt himself. Trump did not help himself. 
• Republicans have tried to distance themselves, a signal          Trump pooped on his efforts to get swing voters. One of Frank Luntz's focus group, Ruthie from PA said she was undecided going into the debate, but will vote for Biden becasue Trump behaved like a "crackhead."
• Biden answered any questions about his agility. He was able to hold focus and communicate with voters despite having Trump yammering away. Biden can handle any crisis or critical decision to be made in the Oval Office and there will be no bully clown in the room.
• There was a significant tune out as the melee continued meaning a lot of people are fed up with Trump and his  fouling of America. 

     now what

     One of the Murdoch's had Champaign waiting for Chris Wallace when he arrived home from Cleveland. He said he did not feel like celebrating.

     He was off balance and flustered, but in fairness he had no tool to use but reason and a louder voice and those would fail against Trump in his best "Il Duce" drag.

     In 42 years of journalism and broadcasting I moderated many debates, but never encountered anyone as ignorantly belligerent as Trump. The mic kill switch was something I always wanted and I practiced in a more sane and genteel time.

    Something needs to be done, if the institution of a Presidential Debate is to have meaning, significance and benefit to the electorate. I'd counsel for clowns waiting off stage with seltzer bottles, dispatched when needed. That arrangement of color and hair that rides atop Il Duce's head  would respond in interesting ways to a good soaking. Maybe that could keep him in check. After all that coiffure was expensed for some $70 thousand in his tax returns. If I were Wallace I would have asked about that. Is that hair style worth 

that much?

in closing

   This from historian Jon Meacham:

"No hyperbole: The incumbent's behavior...is the lowest moment in the history of the Presidency since Andrew Johnson's racist state papers."

    From David Brooks   New York Times

"I'm the most horrified I've been in my career as a political journalist and the most relieved. This election won't be close. Have faith in the American people."

   To my friends abroad, I am again embarassed for this nation. I'm not alone. There are millions of us. One of the most forwarded pieces today has been an article about where and how people can leave if Trump is re-elected. 

    On additional reflection, I suggest the debate commission provide the next two hosts, Steve Scully of C-SPAN and Kristen Welker of NBC with cattle prods-turned to high.

    Stay well. Take care of each other.

    See you down the trail.

 

America Convoluted

shades of gray

    If anyone knows how the next couple of months of political drama/trauma will resolve, they are a seer. We are in a perfect storm of political discord. It would not be so serious if the President was not a rogue, and delusional.

    No one can say with certainty where this is headed. These days are full of intrigue, consequence, and intricate to the degree everything is a shade of gray. We are convoluted.

   It is not unlike the central California shoreline. Time and natural forces record the combination of elements that make reality. The closer you look, the more you see. 

    Clean lines do not exist. Nothing is smooth. There is no purity of single element. What we have is a composite, a forced assimilation of geology, an amalgamation of time, nature, and material. Is that not so in 2020?

    Where in nature we can read the forces and effect of  pressure in the lines, it is the same for this nation.

     As founder Benjamin Franklin said after the arduous and combative work of creating the Constitution when he was asked "what kind of government have you given us?" "A republic if you can keep it."

     For the last 233 years we have kept it. We have played by rules. We have seen generations of leaders come and go and abide by defining principles and transitions of power. Compromise and the common good rose above strident party loyalty, or worse, personal avarice, desire and ego. The song lines are in our history. 

   Even if Donald Trump was a great man, a person of the majority, in favor with most Americans, still his behavior would be sordid and unAmerican. That he is the deplorable reprobate tin horn dictator he is, makes his behavior dangerous. 

do we deserve trump?

       It is a hard and unpopular question. But we must ask if we have so abused our system of government and politics with money and greed, and have we so failed at education to teach civics, government and critical reasoning and have we become such a self indulgent consumer society that we have failed to keep a Republic?

rebellion

    You can't look at the aftermath of earth making and not see the presence of storms of force, uplift, shifts and breaking away and more.

    As founder and third President Thomas Jefferson wrote to founder and fourth President James Madison "...a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

the death rattle

   The under representation of the majority and the over representation of the minority is, unless it is fixed, a death rattle for this democratic republic. It is a rebellion past due.

    I come down on the side that we respect the bones of the constitution, but we adjust to make it viable in our age. We have done this from the origin, first Bill of Rights, and later only after struggle, by extending full citizenship to African Americans, to women, to ending repression and oppression, and even to hemming in the indulgent excesses of the money classes. We have evolved and shifted.

    Traditionally Republicans have been all about protecting property value, wealth and individual rights. Democrats have opted for the common good, extending rights and protection against the abuse of corporations and government and using government power to fix social wrongs. But Trump has lobotomized  the Republican ethic and disemboweled its previously vigorous policy on national security. 

      Democrats gave the Republicans in Congress a chance to rid themselves of the Trump menace, but they failed to seize the moment and made their alliance with the fraudulent. They could be smug about giving the wealthy another tax break, and filling the courts with conservatives, some who are zealots and inexperienced. They sold their soul, such as it was.

     The Supreme Court appointment replacing RGB will come back to haunt the Republicans, should Biden win and should the Democrats flip the Senate.   

what about the trump nation?

     Excluding the courts, most of the Trump damage can be amended and changed. Environmental roll backs, dozens of regulations, rejoining climate pacts, reasserting traditional international leadership and dignity in diplomacy, putting professionals back to work at the State Department and in national security, even reestablishing national healthcare, should the conservative court strike it down. Some in the Democrat party push for use of muscle, perhaps even to increase the size of the Supreme Court to make up for the shameful Republican packing. A legislative tough love, an eye for an eye.

    But what about those most belligerent Trump supporters, who sadly congregate largely in ignorance of truth. Trump does not speak it, and Fox News is a propaganda mill, by acknowledgement of those who work there and even some of the ownership.

nests attached to bluffs along the pacific coast near cayucos

   The US is divided, some say as bad as it has been since the 1860s, the verge of the Civil War. Here are some facts:

•     Trump is alone among all Presidents since polling began 80 years ago to have never received approval from a majority of voters.

•  Pew Research finds that 9 in 10 Trump supporters are White-Democrats; 6 in 10 are White
•  3 out of 5 Biden supporters say Whites have an advantage---only 5% of Trump supporters think that.
•   Biden supporters think Fox News, OANN and evangelical pastors have duped or "brain washed" Trump supporters.
•  Trump supporters think Biden supporters have been duped by mainstream media, newspapers, professors and Hollywood

     Previous research has found that conservatives in general and Trump supporters even more so, live with more fear, dislike outsiders, and are believers of conspiracy theories no matter how absurd or fictionalized.

      America is indeed divided. There are wide gaps on race, gender, and immigration. Trump has fanned fears, and refused to be a President for all people. As they say, he plays to the base, only. 

      His base is a minority, mostly white, with less education, and increasingly inclined to give credibility to the belief that Trump is doing battle with occult worshiping, pedophiles who are embedded deep in the government. They also believe that John F. Kennedy is still alive and living in Pittsburgh. How is a nation supposed to deal with people like that?

     It is as though we've gone insane. 4 years of Trump's insanity has made this a sick and divided nation. For years Bill Maher has been asking what will we do when he refuses to leave office. Now it is a serious national discussion. It's a shame no sitting Republicans will do what droves of those who have left the party have done, and that is to say aloud, Trump is a maniac, let alone unfit and unqualified and he is now a clear and present danger to the nation.

     Though it appears there is nothing that can persuade the Trump base to consider the truth, history and to be objective.

The more I study the Trump base and see and hear them the more I am reminded of people I saw when doing investigative reporting on cults. Sadly this only affirms my fears, noted here 4 years ago, that Trump's core is reminiscent of the 1922 brownshirts of Hitler. Then their street politics helped Hitler build an occult based police state and party that was one of the most diabolical in human history. We have been watching a slow moving coup and systematic dismantling of American excellence and respect. 

      Those marginal voters who tilt conservative and appreciate the court packing, or who benefit from tax breaks, business loans, or who applaud less government oversight of water, air and business practices are accomplices as much as the racists, xenophobes, one issue zealots and belligerent ignorant who are the minority presidents, minority base. Unless and until the republic fixes the problem of under representation of the majority and over representation of the minority, all we can tell Dr. Franklin is, we couldn't keep it.

     The first step of rebellion is flip the senate and win the White House. It is time to change the American political landscape with seismic shifts and a relentless pursuit of the thugs who mugged, raped and tried to kill our republic.  

            Vigilance in every step of the voting and vote count.

An historic get out the vote effort and response. And we must be prepared to rise up to demand honesty, fairness and a lawful process and hopefully transition of power. We may have to put our bodies in the street. We may have to be willing to sacrifice to preserve and keep the Republic.

        Stay well.

         See you down the trail.