For sometime now I’ve been intending to put my two cents in on what has been happening in many many “Red” (GOP controlled) states over the past year. I shan’t bother with the “Great Lie” about the 2020 election being stolen as that is a whole nother post. What ‘m gong to talk about is just what the people in the GOP hope for with all their “protect the vote” laws.
The first thing to remember is that, to date, no one, left-right-or center, has show any significant degree of voter fraud in the 2020 election(s). By significant I simply mean the amount of voter fraud is so small it would have not effected the results of even the tightest of races anywhere in the United States. So to say you want to change the laws on how/when/where/who participates in an election is simple a ‘Red Harring’ and I hope to show what they really are after here.
My view is that the MAGA hats that currently control the Republican Party, National, State, and Local, are actually after the control of who actually counts the votes. Partisan control of the vote count has a long and dubious history in this country. One of the most famous, or infamous, was “Boss Tweed” of New York City. Others though history, even dictators, have sought to control the power by controlling the vote count. It is the perfect way to keep the shiny veneer of legitimacy to those in power with the risk of actually loosing an election.
Don’t believe me, just look at the elections held in places like North Korea, Russia, or Iran. The control of the vote count is kept carefully in the hands of those who control the power. Some like “Boss Tweed” did not hold public/elective office, others did. So am I saying all of these laws, both proposed and pasted, have the control of the vote count as there true goal? No, I don’t. What I do say is that they are attempting to control who/where/and how we vote and much of it obfuscates the actual counting of the vote. Many laws also, whether intended of not, have the effect of limiting the vote.
That’s all for now. No proposed solutions. No call to action. Just a warning of what I see on the horizon. An just like a twister of on the horizon I have no idea if it is going to hit me. But I’m sure going to take precautions just in case.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there will not be a political party known as the Republicans. Not at all. What I’m saying is the political party we know as the Republican Party will be no more. It will go the way of the Federalists, the Wigs, and the Know Nothings to name just a few. What do these all have in common? They all have gone the way for good.
No to say the political ideals the stood for, an fought for have all gone away. In some cases, like the Federalists, many of their ideal the stood for have become totally institutionalized in the American political landscape. Something every American takes as a given and is proud of. In other cases like the Know Nothings, while their ideals also became a part of the American Political landscape they are not something we can take pride in. But in all cases’ the political movements these parties represented have faded away in history. And this is what is facing the Republican Party from Lincoln to Eisenhower.
From the late 1960’s the the Republican Party has been an ill advised wedding of the Economic Conservatives and the Social Conservatives. On the surface it would look like a match made in heaven. But it was not. All too often Social Conservatives were not Economic Conservative votives and Economic Conservative were not Social Conservatives. All they agreed upon was their knee jerk reaction to the label ‘Liberal’. They were told by their leaders that “liberals’ were a monolithic block. If you were ‘liberal’ on economics you had to be ‘liberal’ on social issues too. An for many years this worked. Thru the Regan/Bush administrations the Economic Conservatives could depend on the whole ‘conservative’ base to vote Republican. An this base grew.
But not only did it grow, it ossified. At the turn of the century the base became more and more under the control of the leaders of the Social Conservatives. They gave bear the to the ‘Religious Right’. People who said ’No need to think or examine critically, just ‘Believe’ us and you will be in the right. When the leaders of the Republicans saw how well this worked with the ‘Religious Right’ they took it one step further and told all their followers “Accept what we tell you. The ‘Liberals’ are lying to you. Don’t accept all that scientific mumbo-jumbo they spout, it will just confuse you”. An when they did, the base did exactly what it’s leaders wanted. It ossified into a sold base that would do what the leaders wanted, in mass. Unfortunately it had one or two faults.
The first fault to be seen was that it was unruly. It wanted to think it was choosing it’s leaders. An so the “Tea Party” movement was born. Followed quickly by the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives. The next fault happened in the Republican leadership. They became committed to “winning”. They accepted the old half-time idea that “Wining isn’t everything. It is the only Thing!” That power, and the un-restrained use of power became their only political principle. This meant that if the leaders wanted to keep their power they had to lead where ever the monolithic base decided to go.
An that leaders us to the age of Donald John Trump. A man who had spent his entire adult life selling the same people who made up the Republican Base and many of the Republican Leadership ‘Snake-Oil’. In 2015/16 he saw that the Democratic Party was going to make one of the biggest mistakes in it’s long history. Maybe as big, if not bigger, as the mistake(s) it made in 1860. They were going to nominate someone who was either personally distrusted or not like by lots of the electorate and someone who could and would motivate many of the undecided away from the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton. In 2016 there were very few people who had not heard of her and did not have an opinion of her. It was the perfect time for someone who had great name recognition but almost no-one really knew. So Donald J. Trump jumped in and won.
He not only won the nomination, he, against everything, won the election. Not that he really either want’ed the job or knew what to do with it once he had it. An along the way he convinced the Republican Base that they were no longer the Republican Base, they were the Trump Base. That only he knew, truly, what they wanted. That only he knew how to get it for them. That anyone, anywhere, who attacked him was attacking them. He started with the ‘Deplorables’ and moved on from there. An the Republican leadership quaked in their boots every time he roared and his crowds roared back.
An so here we are, 2020. They year that everything started to come apart. The election is over and it is looking more and more likely that Joe Biden has won. But while it is totally understandable that Pres. Trump can not bring himself to accept the lost, it it not so understandable why the Republican leadership is following his lead. We will have to wait and see after the Senate run-offs in Georgia to see if they will follow Donald J. Trump down the rabbit hole. Only time will tell us that.
After the first full day of the R/TNC (Republican/Trumpian National Convention) I think it is time to talk about the Elephant in the ICU room. The GOP is now on life support caused not only by the Covid-19 Pandemic but also by its pre-existing morbid condition(s), of which selecting Donald J Trump as its “Leader” is just one symptom. And just what symptoms am I talking about? Well let’s just start with the latest and work backwards.
Monday, the first day of the R/TNC, instead of having the Nomination of Trump as their candidate and the ‘roll call of the states’ to elect him, the R/TNC did it in the middle of the day. They also passed what they, the R/TNC called their “platform” which just said “What ever Donald Wants, Donald Gets” (With apologies to “Damn Yankees”) until 2024. To my knowledge this is the first time a major American political party has ever not had a platform. So what does this mean for the “Old” GOP?
Just this, what we saw last night in prime time is what the R/TNC wants every Republican candidate to run on. You get to pick your speech and run on that. You get to run on hate, or you can run on fear, or you can run on “Those Were the Good Old Days” (again with apologies to “Damn Yankees”) or you can run on any combination you wish. You will probably be able to run on anything that comes up for the next three days as long as you throw in “Trump” every now and then. The one thing you will not be able to do is run on anything that used to be core Republican principles. Those are things are of the past and not allowed in the GTP (Grand Trump Party).
There is one other thing you will not be allowed to run on, the new guiding principle of the GTP. You can’t mention that it is all about one thing . “POWER”. Who has it. Who doesn’t have it. Using it as you will, without any restraint. As once was written by George Orwell “The purpose of Power is Power”. An yes I’m talking about “1984” but what most people forget is Orwell was an anti-communist Socialist, as strange as that might seem in this day and age. What most people don’t know is that an unrestrained authoritarian state is the same whether it calls itself “Communist” or “Fascist”. An what MAGA is selling is an authoritarian state dressed up in “Free” enterprise lipstick.
And now here we are on Thursday waiting for the closing act. It is as a shame that the R/TNC doesn’t seem to have a director like Leni Riefenstahl to create a masterful production like “Triumph of the Will“. Instead we have gotten something more like a four day “infomercial”. An once again we see what the dreadful effect of abandoning their principles has had on the Republican Party. I cannot think of any single speaker who was able to sound a hopeful Theme. The GOP media masters seem to not have studied what is considered by those who study propaganda to be one of the greatest works of the art.
So just remember this the current Republican Party has only hate, fear, and loathing to campaign on, not a principle one.
While we are only three days into the Impeachment Trial of Donald John Trump I think it is time to start thinking about were we, as a nation, will be when it is over. This is going to be more questions that answers so Please jump in with an answers you have.
My first question is just how is the GOP going to convince most Americans that our elections are open, fair, and honest. That is, how can we trust our elections to really be the will of the people? Why didn’t I include the Democrats? It is because it is the Republicans who are being shown to not be willing to do anything to prevent foreign intervention. It is the GOP who seem to be more concerned with unlawful voters than hacked/stuffed voting systems.
Given the documented (look at Senates own website for all bills passed by the Senate in the current Congress) poor work performance of the GOP controlled Senate? Yes, I know this is wonkie, but I am a bit of a wonk. It is true that the Current Senate has confirmed more federal judges than almost ever before. It is also true that this class of new judges has one of the largest number of person who are considered “Unqualified” to hold the office by their peers.
Given the above, just how will the GOP get the majority of Americans to believe that we are all equal before the law. Be with MAGA, RINO, Democrat or undeclared. If the judge is hearing the case is just a political hack appointed because he/she is “right” on abortion and immigration what faith can we give him/her we will get a hearing?
Given the lackluster effort to even address the issue of incorrect information floating around the internet by the GOP/MAGA what faith can anyone give to any News? Will not the next four years be the age of All News is Fake News if I don’t agree with it? Is there nothing we, as individuals, can do? Is there nothing we techno-geeks do? (More on this soon.)
That’s all for now. I look forward to getting lots of comments with answers to my question. The best will be shared!
The time is coming when America will find out who are the Conservatives and who are the MAGA. MAGA? I hear you say. ‘Isn’t’ that just short for “Make America Great Again”? Well, yes it started out that way but I am now using it just the way the world used Nazi in the 1930’s. (Note: the term Nazi was never used in Germany till after the war.) It denotes a political ideology and it’s followers. It also denotes the members of a political ‘cult’. In this case I’m using it to denote the supporters/followers of Donald J. Trump. It doesn’t not mean Republicans nor conservatives. Although if things keep going the way it is MAGA may become synonymous with Republicans.
I expect that by this time next year Conservatives will have to face the bitter truth of just what has become of the Republican Party in the hands of MAGA. I expect to see a great housecleaning of the party by the conservatives. Of course I could be wrong and while there can be many many paths to follow after the 2020 election I think there are only three with high probability. The first, as I indicated, is a great Blue Wave across the nation and the conservatives will have to pick up the pieces of the shattered Republican Party. It will not be easy.
The Issue facing the conservatives still in the Republican Party currently dominated by MAGA is simply put “Where are the Conservatives, here?” Students of the history of the USSR will recognize where I got my inspiration from. But it is still true. It is a question that needs to be asked now and then in any political movement if it is not to succumb to those who will corrupt it. This is the issue now facing the Republicans, MAGA has no philosophical ideology. MAGA is all about the power and the money.
The MAGA leaders can and will do anything for the power. An MAGA like good cultist will believe it. An why they will believe it is because they want to. To not believe would force them to look at world as it is, not as they wish it to be. Let me be very clear now. MAGA is not conservative, it is not liberal, nor is it Fascist, not is it Communist. It is about power and the promise of power. It is about “I get to do what I want to do because I’m powerful.”
Don’t believe me then just look at the way MAGAs act. Not just the politicians, but the everyday Joe MAGA. You just might be surprise.
I have a question for you….Do you remember the political party called The Federalists? Drawing a blank? Then let’s try something closer in time, how about The Wigs? Still nothing?
To start with The Federalists Political Party is not the POC or Think Tank known as the Federalist Society, it was “faction” (there were no political parties yet) that supported both Pres. Washington and Adams. (Follow the link provided if you want more details.) What is important about the Federalists is that after the 1800 election they knew they were going to be out of power so the both created a slew of judgeships and then appointed loyal Federalists to the judgeships. It was said by the Democratic-Republicans that John Adams stayed up all night of the last day of his presidency signing the papers for the judges.
So what does this have to do with today? Well…..for most of the last administration (Pres. Obama) the GOP has done to keep open as many federal judgeships as it can open (What was done to Merrick Garland was the most famous of these acts.) in hope that they would win in 2016. Well they did, and they got someone, Donald Trump, who could careless about getting good jurists. So now they have been filling all of these open judgeships as fast as they can. More often than not along straight party line votes. So what does this mean to us? Well the Federalists never won a major election again and by 1824 was no more. Strangely enough, that was just about the same time as all the Federalists judges had left office.
Hypothesis
Is a political party appointing large numbers of judgeships symptomatic of it eminent dissolution?
Now lets look at the Wigs. As shown in the link this is one of the political parties listed as succeeding The Federalists party. You may remember hearing about them when you studied the American Civil War and the rise of the Republican Party. So what does the Wigs have to do with todays Republicans? Simply that before they finally collapsed in 1860 their membership was shrinking for many many years in the decade of the 1850’s. Also they had a great deal trouble with extreme organizations like the “Nativist, or American Party, or Know Nothings. (To get a Hollywood view of Native party members see the Gangs of New York. Pay particular attention to Bill “The Butcher”.) The GOP seems to be having the same problem with things like the Libertarian party or the Freedom Caucus. So we have a political party with a shrinking and fracturing membership. How long can it stay a major player.
Hypothesis
Is the election of Donald Trump symptomatic of a moribund political party?
So we have two interesting hypothesis’ that are actually the same. Is the GOP moribund? How can we tell? What are symptomatic what are diagnostic? Any ideas for set or two of good tests or do we just need to sit and watch what happens.
