Category Archives: Politics

If Q=7k, then y=mx + b

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US Senator, retired college football coach and conservative brainwave from Alabama Thomas Tuberville (R-AL) has dropped his blockade of US military promotions. He held up this ordinary staffing operation in order to protest the use of military funds for reimbursement of travel expenses to obtain abortions by military personnel.

This was a 4th down Hail Mary pass effort by a Bible Belt Republican Senator to move the needle on his conservative bona fides for conservative single-issue voters. Other similes may apply here, like the value of surprise plays.

It’s much like if y = mx +b, then Q must = 7k. Could be true depending on undisclosed information about the variables, but sometimes things are just as they appear- f**king stupid. This was a wrench-in-the-gears tactic designed to rattle his colleagues into submission. Nobody really wants to inhibit military readiness.

The idiot Tuberville was playing games with US military top-level staff and readiness but lost the game. This was a major league display of US political disfunction put on by a former college football coach who, as a group, are otherwise deified. More attention must be paid to resumes and credentials. Like other countries, in America, idiots elect idiots to office. After all, it was widely believed that a rich real estate developer with a long history of bankruptcies, fraud, law-suit harassment and sexual aggression was deemed inherently qualified to be US President based on his business experience. This particular idiocy has not fully played out yet.

Hamas-Israel War Update

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The news media are devoting virtually all of their bandwidth to the savage Hamas-Israeli sh*t storm in Gaza and especially on the status of the Israeli hostages. After some digging, it is possible to learn that many Islamic militia groups in the region have been attempting to strike at Israel from far outside of the Israeli border. This is being coordinated by Iran.

Iran Update, November 26, 2023 | Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org)

The thing that I’m learning is that the historical facts aren’t so hard to understand, it’s just a large hairball of intertwined details. The emotional depths, however, are deep and abiding. It long ago morphed into a battle between certain Islamic fundamentalists and the “invaders”. The momentum to begin the State of Israel began well before 1948. The formation and settlement of Israel, Zionism, was a planned movement to first colonize the area of present-day Israel and gradually push out the residing Palestinian Arabs. There are early references to the settlement of European Jews of the First Aliyah between 1881 and 1903 to Ottoman Syria. These people were traditional Jews not necessarily interested in Zionism. It’s important to note that Zionism and Judaism are not equivalent.

According to Wikipedia, the Zionist movement is thought to have originated with Theodor Hertzl in 1897. Even before, there were Jewish villages established in Palestine, ibid. He was an Austro-Hungarian journalist and Jew who promoted immigration to Palestine for the purpose of establishing a homeland. The link gives some good background.

The formal establishment of the Israeli state from the Israeli side is well documented and is left for the reader to access. Palestinians refer to this as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”.

It seems well documented that the establishment of the state of Israel was a systematic movement to form a Jewish homeland- Zionism. This process inevitably involved the forced displacement of Palestinian Arabs from what was greater Palestine and into smaller reservations for the displaced- Gaza and the West Bank. The West Bank is being slowly but vigorously absorbed by Israeli settlers.

It will be impossible for the Palestinians to just roll over and forgive and forget. Much has to heal. Gaza has been called an apartheid concentration camp to contain and control the Palestinians and I cannot see why this is an exaggeration. The brutal Israeli reprisal on Hamas and civilian Gazans after the October 7th attack by Hamas will extend the conflict. This is driven by the Netanyahu political movement.

How can I, an American with no interest in any of the Abrahamic religions possibly know about this? Hey man, I’m tryin’. Obviously this thing has to settle down and casualties on both sides stop, just nobody knows how to make it happen. The incessant and violent meddling by Iran is inflammatory and has to be suppressed. Their interest is in sowing chaos is unrelenting and dangerous.

The state of Israel will not shut down for any reason and leave the Levant. They are there for good. To Islamic extremists, this means that all they can do is kill all of the Israelis and share the misery. It’s like two guys standing in gasoline and each threatening to light a match. This will take some realpolitik over decades on both sides to solve. Pure ideology will lead nowhere.

Unwavering American government allegiance to the state of Israel, in public at least, and the influence of AIPAC must be pushed aside to provide effective, balanced and trusted leadership in the region. Many US states have already passed laws banning the criticism of Israel or its businesses. This type of statutory tribalism is not helpful and must stop. Reflexive opposition to the Palestinians leads only to the next 100 year’s war.

Biased US leadership in the Middle East only fuels continuous conflict and strengthens the proxy war of Iran against the US. Our steadfast bias should be for a negotiated peace. There is substantial support for Israel by American Evangelical Protestant Christian nationalists whose religious beliefs require strong support for the state of Israel. It is a part of their Calvinistic dominionism theology and the return of the Messiah. This is the third leg of a serious religious conflict. Israelis understand this interference by the pesky Christian chicken coop across the Atlantic, but they need the eggs.

MAGA Movement as a Peasant Uprising

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Back in graduate school we had a postdoc in the group who was a chemistry professor on a 1-year sabbatical from the Beijing Normal School in China. He was a great guy, but like most professors, a bit rusty in the lab. One day a few of us were exchanging our respective backgrounds. When my turn came around I mentioned that as a child I grew up on an Iowa farm where we raised the usual spectrum of crops and livestock- Corn, soybeans, hogs, cattle, sheep, a couple of horses and 5 kids. He looked at me for a moment and then said with a grin “Ah, peasant!”

I was startled for a moment because I had never considered this description before. I had always thought of peasant as mildly derisive, but as I thought about it, he was exactly right. Our income was low and we subsisted on what we could grow and sell. We always had home grown beef and pork in the meat locker in town and apples, walnuts and canned veggies in the cellar. Summer evenings we would go to the lake, eat fresh watermelon while swatting the mosquitos and do a bit of fishing for bullheads. It was ordinary rural life like millions of others had. I was a young peasant boy.

Well, so what? As I watch Trump’s festering MAGA movement infect its way across the US and begin to spread and flex its muscles, I’ve been looking for the right words to describe it. For me, finding the right words for something has always been at the entrance to the path of understanding. Last night I finally found the right description- Peasant Uprising.

The electronic media tends to focus on MAGA people wearing their uber-patriotic apparel. My inner snark keeps whispering that they may not be on the higher end of the bell curve as far as smarts go. Many are attracted to QAnon and its bulging pantry of wacky conspiracy theories. It is easy to be lazy and make sweeping generalizations about idiocy, ignorance or stupidity. To be sure, there are highly educated people who are also aligned with Trump’s MAGA handwaving. Some may actually believe the conspiracy theories but others are just surfing the populist wave.

Throughout European history there are instances of peasant folk, serfs and artisans rallying together to put an end to the rigid control of landlords and upper echelons of society that keep them in poverty. Violence would often erupt and the rebellion would be put down or some compromise would arise. It didn’t always end well for the peasant class.

1573 Peasant Revolt reenactment in Croatia. A contemporary revolt in the US wouldn’t be as squalid and it will be televised unlike those of centuries past. Hacking and stabbing wounds will be replaced with gunshot wounds. January 6 was a prelude.

I’m not suggesting that what has evolved in the US since WWII is the same. But what has happened in the US is that the opportunity to accumulate wealth today remains out of reach for a large fraction of citizens. Tens of millions of citizens are living paycheck to paycheck with debt piled high, assuming they could get the credit to get that way. Inflation has pushed up prices across the board irrespective of whether or not business expenses actually rose in proportion to the inflation rate. An inflationary period is a great opportunity to raise prices because customers will go along with it. Prices are always what the customer is willing to pay.

What I am suggesting is that there is a large fraction of the population in the US who have been passed by as ever advancing technology is improving our way of life. This has created previously unheard-of job opportunities but only for those with the right education. Organizations have required 4-year degrees or 2-5 years of experience in the field. A degree may or may not have educated the applicant in the particular field, but it does provide a credible credential that an applicant can start a challenging task and complete it over set timespan. I would say that this credential is nearly as important as the knowledge gained in college in judging the fortitude and character of an applicant. Obviously there are exceptions.

Many people find themselves stranded in modernity without sufficiently strong credentials to advance with the times. Anyone over 25 might face the prospect of enrolling in college to get the right credentials for a new profession or just to advance. This is difficult for most people to pull off. Children and debt can totally shut down this option for them. My guess is that a great many of Trump’s MAGA followers fit this description. Thus the comparison with a peasant uprising.

The MAGA movement may remain mostly bloodless or not. They represent a large group of angry and dissatisfied people who have an extremely varied level of understanding of civics. Many hold unfounded beliefs that are nothing more than boat anchors holding them back.

Libertarian utopianism suggests that everyone has the option of starting their own business. Some can do this, but most will find themselves under-capitalized and with no properly zoned facility in which to work. Yes, some people do get by making burritos and cupcakes in their kitchens or doing handyman work. But the market is limited for these services. The reality of rent/mortgages and health insurance make the cash flow requirements difficult to meet.

As a former peasant boy, this is what I’m observing.

Breaking the Spell of Apocalyptic Politics

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Former president #45 has proclaimed on his Truth Social post of 11/18/23 that 2024 will be” the final battle.” Below is a quote from him while in Iowa-

“2024 is our final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the Deep State, we will expel the warmongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our Country, we will rout the Fake News Media, we will evict Joe Biden from the White House, and we will FINISH THE JOB ONCE AND FOR ALL! ia.donaldjtrump.com/,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday.

Many questions come to mind. Who is this political class that hates America? He continues to infer that liberals hate America, but where are these people? The people who hate the US are mostly elsewhere in the world.

What about his claim that he will cast out the Communists, Marxists and Fascists. Communism is practiced by China in some despotic form, but most of the world is free from the threat of communism. Marxism? Oh please. C’mon Donald, name 5 American Marxists. Marxism is long dead. The Soviets abandoned it and communism when the USSR collapsed in the early 1990’s. And fascism? Does he understand what fascism is? It doesn’t sound like it. Fascism is ultranationalism and who arms themselves to the teeth and parades around draped in the stars & stripes or the Confederate battle flag? It ain’t liberals.

The “Fake News Media”? #45 should be nicer to these people. They’ve given him half a billion dollars in free publicity since 2016. It’s helped the Democrats somewhat, but the media has been quite uncritical in their decisions on televising his rolling freakshow. His bombastic bellowing and verbal assaults make him a sure bet for good viewer numbers. He is a completely noxious human being but that makes him worth televising for ratings. The continuous reporting of his words and actions simply validates to his followers that he’s the right man to make Washington, DC, work right.

Many American conservatives are under the spell of #45 and are probably irretrievable. These people will have to live out their natural lives and go to the grave as Trump supporters. If you listen to them they are cock sure that Trump speaks the truth. But the fact is that the Republican party gets the most donations and most support from the people who have the money. And, right now that money is funneling into groups that support Trump because he has the numbers.

What doesn’t help America is that most of the fundamentalist, protestant Christian nationalists in the US can support Trump for religious reasons. They believe that somehow, despite his worldly troubles, he is the one who will spur on the prophesied return of Christ- the Second Coming. They believe that “the apocalypse” will happen in Israel and soon. Christian nationalists are eager to support Israel for reasons like this. Their end-of-the-world theology involves support for Israel.

The problem with Christian nationalism is that it stems from an apocalyptic religion. Why should anyone entrust them to govern America when they believe that the end is near? I’ve been watching this develop since the late 1970’s and especially into the 1980’s during the Reagan years and the rise of the Moral Majority. It was a chimera of orthodox Republicanism and protestant conservative evangelical organizations. The Southern Baptist Convention, in particular. This is a political force having its way in America presently. They are eating the elephant one bite at a time.

For myself, the fundamental theorem of Americanism is democracy, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Conservatives are beginning to discount the practice of democracy because they find it does not seem to provide a path to their utopian vision for America. Democracy is messy and allows for a broad spectrum of ideas and practices. A theocratic and libertarian world is a place where the control of civilization and power belongs to the wealthy and righteous. It is theocratic and controlled by a few. This is a regression to the closing decades of the American 19th century when industrial barons held sway.

In conclusion, this Republican Christian nationalism must be defeated or encouraged to die on the vine. Christianity or any other religion are not about democracy. The Republican party is showing little interest in democracy. They have learned that they cannot have their way just through elections. They are at work chipping away at our democratic institutions. Democracy must be preserved. The airwaves, churches and congress are full of doomsayers claiming that America is in a crisis and that only conservative Christian values can make it better. The spell of apocalyptic politics must be broken.

Those Wacky Republicans!

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Yet again, very serious and doctrinaire House Republicans apply their skills in the art of clusterf**kery. The act of legislating and otherwise steering the big federal boat is secondary to their acquisition of power. A core of ultraorthodox conservatives called the Freedom Caucus is tangled in an internecine battle for control and don’t seem to care much about collateral damage. The roots of this group go back to the delightful Tea Party in 2015.

What the Freedom Caucus may be doing is laying the groundwork for Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project. This plan, organized by The Heritage Foundation, seeks to deconstruct or reorganize the administrative branch of the federal government and populate it with vetted, politically reliable staff. Winning seats in Congress or the Whitehouse is now deemed insufficient.

House Republicans leading the way.

This plan from The Heritage Foundation is the result of a very extensive collaboration of groups from all over the right-wing. I don’t think that anyone will deny that the federal bureaucracy is too big and too slow. But what Project 2025 plans to do is to apply a conservative foundation of politically reliable personnel. There would be a political test to pass prior to getting a government job. The effect will be to polarize the government in a way that would be quite difficult to change. They want a Republican America set in stone and they plan on starting the first day of the next Republican administration. We know this because they have written a book on how they plan to do it.

“The project is the effort of a broad coalition of conservative organizations that have come together to ensure a successful administration begins in January 2025. With the right conservative policy recommendations and properly vetted and trained personnel to implement them, we will take back our government.”

Source: The Heritage Foundation.

Meanwhile, Emperor Trumpus Maximus continues to blunder forward with promises of MAGA, all the while trampling over the garden of civilization. It’s like watching Godzilla destroying 1950’s Tokyo while a jabbering and ineffectual media makes sure to capture and replay every delicious morsel of bad adult behavior.

As always, Trump continues to rack up hours of free TV coverage. They call it news, but it’s really a nonstop freak show. The headliner, DJT, is a genius at attracting big-media coverage. Trump’s legacy is now totally out of his control. He has fumbled his business empire to the edge of extinction and his political career is disintegrating. What a dangerous idiot.

The Russians are gleefully watching our Republican House of Representatives implosion. It validates Putin’s (and China’s) claim that the US is a declining empire in moral disarray and that democracy can’t be made to work. The upcoming 2024 elections offer the hope of declining US and NATO backing of Ukraine. All Putin has to do is outlive Ukraine’s ability to wage war.

The Politics of Due Process

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We’ve been treated to unceasing wails of unfairness by #45 in relation to his mounting legal woes. It’s all politics, he proclaims, meant to disrupt his presidential campaign. I have to agree that politics are definitely involved- the politics of democracy and due process.

Democracy does not derive from some natural physical law. It is something that we allot to ourselves by consensus and the axiom of certain inalienable rights. In its purest form, democracy is a type of political structure focused on the will of the majority and the inherent rights of the individual. In our democracy, elected representatives put laws into place by consensus. Admittedly, it is sort of janky and prone to abuse. But, in the end, it always manages to right itself after a storm. In truth, our system of laws is inherently political by the definition below.

Politics, noun

pol·​i·​tics ˈpä-lə-ˌtiks 

plural in form but singular or plural in construction

1a: the art or science of government

b: the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy

c: the art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government

Source: Merriam Webster

Our system of laws is subdivided into many areas. One of them specifies the layers of fair treatment by the judicial system. We call it “due process.” All of us are entitled to due process under the law, even ex-presidents.

In the course of due process, #45 has been indicted 4 times resulting in 91 felony counts. Did this result from political action? Yes indeed- the politics of democracy under the lawful guidelines of due process. Evidence of wrong-doing was presented to a grand jury of citizens 4 times and 4 times indictments were issued from 4 jurisdictions. “Mr. ex-President, this is what due process looks like. Yes, it is the politics of democracy you idiot.”

Conspiracy Mongering

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My list of friends on Facebook includes several MAGA conspiracy fans. The big issue for many of them presently is Joe Biden and Hunter, the evil son. My observation has been that they use similar language in regard to their allegations about the “Biden Crime Syndicate.” This suggests to me that they are getting their “news” feed from the same types of sources. I’ve noticed that Faux News viewers tend to use vocabulary and ideas that they pick up on that miserable channel or one like it.

Close behind the hatred for Biden is considerable anger about the border and immigration.

My experience with conspiracy-minded folk has been that when you challenge them to cite evidence, they will just rearrange the words and say the same thing, only louder. I remember conversations with such people way back into the 1970’s. In 1975 I ran into a group at the county fair where the John Birch Society had a booth. They were an ultraconservative libertarian group and were, at the time, predicting the impending collapse of the dollar, carping about the demise of the gold standard and the wrong-headedness of liberalism. There was very much a survivalist tenor to the group. Beneath their calm exteriors they were rabidly anti-government and had a stack of doctrines and literature to back it up.

The recent Tea Party quickly gave way to the MAGA movement and was lubricated by the slippery QAnon … thing. Before, internet conspiracy enthusiasts could only recruit followers by phone calls, pamphleteering, talk shows after midnight from low power AM stations and local demonstrations. Day-to-day, the attention of big media is curated by editors and producers who monitor their broadcast news content. Some media organizations like Fox News make no effort to hide their political stripe. Generally, public events like marches or a gathering of a dozen extremists at the state capital were given minimal if any media coverage. Little coverage was given because few seemed to care, advertisers in particular. Media is all about attracting eyeballs.

The popularity of Trump with a great many Americans may be that he appeals to certain features of their inner dark sides. He hates the same people that they do. Distrust of foreigners, the need for retribution and vigorous disapproval of the gradual trend towards broader interpretations of civil rights. There is a notion that someone must pay dearly for their unlucky lot in life or their discomfort. Some fraction of people are by nature bitter and paranoid. Trump and his ilk validate their hatreds and fears.

The politicization of protestant Christianity has certainly fed into the belief that any variation from their supernatural world views are worse than out of line, they’re evil. The staunch belief in their own righteousness renewed weekly by dramatic performances of preachers in Sunday services leads such people to take a world view that they are backed by supernatural forces leading to the inevitable onset of prophesied and apocalyptic events. Many express the view that Trump is in place to bring on the end-times. Catch that? The supernatural realm penetrates space and time from somewhere else through the person of DJT. He’s part of the plan, man.

Trump could actually bring on something like end-times, only everywhere but the Levant and with no chance of a rapture.

In the last several decades, the rise of the internet and social media has given fringe-dwellers a powerful platform from which to broadcast their messages all over the world. This has been a step-change in political influence. Far-flung individuals and groups can now collaborate instantaneously with like-minded wierdos. This subsurface activity has changed how world politics is conducted. Whereas before, many people were not privy to political information because of income, location or social circle and thus were not involved. Now communications are limited only by the speed of the internet and anyone with a computer or phone can have a presence. We of the internet are like a nest of baby birds, all with open mouths pointed straight up clamoring for the worm of attention.

The internet step-change in communications is an improvement overall in democracy in the broad sense. More voices in play to contribute to democracy. But what has come along with it is the volume of shrill demagoguery and hysteria as well as new forms of criminal enterprise. We’re watching the effects of extremists frightening wide swaths of the public with exaggerated or fabricated troubles. Pre-internet this was done with organized rallies- a well-established technique of fascist dictators both as they rose to power and as they maintained power. Such rallies are popular today as well. Look at all of the rallies Trump held before, during and after his presidency. While he was anxiously lapping up the love and adoration from his crowds, he was also keeping the Trump enthusiasm in play. Trump may truly be an awful human being, but he is quite good at working a crowd anxious for his kind of message.

The Runner Stumbles

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Colorado’s very own congressperson, the twice elected Rep. (R) Lauren Boebert of the 3rd Congressional District, was caught misbehaving during a theater presentation of Beetlejuice at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts the other day. Besides vaping and some very mild hooliganism, she was caught on surveillance video making out with her date. Like many others who have attended Beetlejuice, they couldn’t resist the urgent pull of their tingly bits. You may recall that Pee Wee Herman had a similar problem as well.

Let me emphasize that there is nothing wrong with making out, mind you. I know many who claim to have done this. After all, this was the true purpose of the drive-in movie theater in years past. Heaven only knows how many solid citizens walking around today were conceived at a drive-in. I think that the move away from bench seating in the automobile had a negative effect in this. But I digress.

Colorado’s 3rd District covers quite a bit of turf as you can see. Most of it is desiccated and somewhat vertical so the overall population density is low, thus the large size. A lot like Wyoming. There is a bit of agriculture but no real corn and soybean acreage like a proper farm state.

Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. Source: Wikipedia.

As with other western states, Colorado has a mix of folks of polar opposite politics who find themselves concentrated in separate zones. Running down the middle of the state is the majority of the population stretching from Ft. Collins to Colorado Springs. Nobody can decide if Pueblo is part of this corridor despite being on I-25. This is the urban corridor along interstate highway I-25 and west to the start of the Rocky Mountains. This band of settlement has for the last few election cycles voted majority Democrat and has driven state politics in the legislature and the governor’s office. Oh, and the House of Representatives and the Senate too. This includes the I-70 corridor running west halfway to Utah. There are scattered islands of liberalism like Durango smack in the middle of Boebert country. I feel for them- really, I do.

Some have tried to explain away Boebert’s behavior as being not uncommon for a refugee from that Fertile Crescent of sweaty redneck-ism, Florida. She is after all a pistol packin’ grandma at age 36 and close to being properly “deevorced.” Regardless of her background, she has lifted herself from the obscurity of the swamps to become a full-throated Centurion of MAGAstan. It is a real accomplishment.

America is now a place where audio and video tapes of titillating content starring national politicians will not lead to their downfall. Instead, they get an uptick in their popularity by rabid apologists who will make urgent whataboutism style counter-claims about Hunter’s laptop. MAGA folk cheer their politicians like people do at a professional wrestling match- with vigor and encouragement of more violence.

East of the I-25 corridor you soon encounter another conservative swatch of the state, border-to-border between two state panhandles- Nebraska and Oklahoma. This area has much more pivot irrigated farmland than in the western side of the state. Corn, wheat, and sugar beets are popular crops east of the interstate. Through what I suspect were underhanded dealings in the past, Oklahoma is said to have been paid to be a buffer between Colorado and Texas. Many will say that this was a smart move. (Relax- it’s a joke)

In Colorado we have two bookend corridor cities that are well known for their politics. Boulder, northwest of Denver, is to Colorado what San Francisco is to California, but without Silicon Valley or a suspension bridge. It is liberal progressive and a bit on the exotic side. The Hippie movement arrived in the 60’s and never faded away completely. In the 70’s and 80’s you could see ex-hippies with thinning gray ponytails tooling around town in their Beamers. No one bats an eye when weird news sprays out of there. It’s expected. Every state should have a Boulder. Look at Texas of all places- they have Austin.

Colorado Springs, on the other hand, is deeply entangled with far-right conservative Christian evangelicals. Add to this mix a large population of very conservative retired military and you have something very special. The city plays host to Fort Carson and the North American Air Defense Command, NORAD, deep within Cheyenne Mountain southwest of town. You can bet that the Russian and Chinese strategic commands have the exact coordinates of this facility. The US Air Force Academy resides in the forest north of town with its unique chapel jutting proudly above the landscape.

Located at the base of Pikes Peak, “The Springs” enjoys considerable scenic splendor and a conservative upper middle-class tenor. None of my liberal friends contemplate moving there no matter how splendiferous the place may be. It’s a cryin’ shame. This is the city where the wedding cake bakery went to the Supreme Court to protect their right to decline to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. They won. If I were a bakery owner who didn’t want to do business with someone, I would have given an outrageous price or a 12-month lead time or both with payment up front. There are easy yet subtle ways to poison an awkward business deal.

It will be interesting to see if Lauren gets reelected in 2024 given her antics. I have a nauseating feeling that she will be reelected given the demographics of her district. It’s one of those “she may be an idiot, but she’s OUR idiot” things that MAGAstan people can relate to. We’ll see.

What Does “Greatness” Really Mean?

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I am going to bring up some observations that may be uncomfortable to many of my fellow citizens of the US. It has to do with the idea of “Greatness” that is frequently bandied about.

Definition: Bandied about

Phrasal verb; to mention something often, without considering it carefully. Source: Cambridge Dictionary.

Commonly, the word “greatness” is carefully chosen to swell the patriotic pride of American citizens. Swinging around the idea of greatness in public is often used as a rhetorical device to align people to a particular point of view. We are raised to see ourselves as the good guys. The use of “greatness” is a favorite buzzword of far-right conservatives to rub people’s noses into.

The conglomeration of US ultranationalist groups- a different name for homegrown fascism- along with Christian dominion ideology has produced a vocal a far-right political group who, on one hand demand libertarian-type free market dominance in lieu of government, while on the other sees protestant Christian reconstructionism providing guidance for a leading role in national and world affairs. The motivation is two-fold: first is to bring humanity under close Biblical law and the second is to prepare for the prophesied apocalypse and second coming of Christ. Many believed that Trump was to have a role in this. Imagine, the guy who invented DNA and set the galaxies spinning picking a bloviating wealthy-narcissistic-real estate developer-shyster-philanderer from Manhattan. Seriously? Something is wrong with this picture. For a preview of Biblical law, have a look at the bronze-age Book of Deuteronomy. Interesting as ancient history but, as a foundation for modern legal procedure, we can do a lot better going forward.

At the present time it is in vogue for the far right to parade around signaling their disapproval of US support of Ukraine in their battle against Russian invaders. Their grasp of history and judgement is sadly lacking.

  • Some Republicans have stated that the funds and war materiel sent to Ukraine could be better used at home.
  • Who believes that the Republican leadership would actually direct these savings to issues at home? Directing these funds internally for aid would be dismissed as “socialism” and ignored. Some insist that money that can be spent on Ukraine’s defense can also be cut altogether.

The US has seen much cultural achievement since our inception but sadly we have not been a universal force for good. Like everyone else, we have strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes we’ve been on the wrong side of history. Our treatment of native Americans from the very beginning was simply criminal. As if that wasn’t enough, an estimated 620,000 people died in a bloody civil war to shut down slavery, then we failed miserably at promised reconstruction. Women have long been denied equality and have received it only grudgingly. African Americans had long labored under the Jim Crow laws until only recently. Our government has meddled in the affairs of many nations in the Americas and elsewhere, with some of it blowing up in our faces (e.g., Cuba and Iran). We invaded Iraq in Gulf War II resulting in the violent death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens based on deception from the Bush administration.

On the other side, we’ve pushed medical advances like drug development and vaccination, brought food to the starving and saved millions of lives around the world. America has been generous with its growing base of scientific knowledge by publishing results obtainable from open sources. The American University-Industrial-Governmental research complex has produced wonders especially from WWII to this very day in everything from aerospace, electronics, pharmaceuticals and agriculture. The explosive growth of knowledge and technology in the 20th century is unparalleled in human history and the US has had a big part in that.

However, as comfortable as it may be, the theory of American exceptionalism has a few holes in it. Our practical capitalistic economics has some blind spots. Innovation usually moves forward only if a development has the possibility of creating profit and only if a small group of money people can be convinced of it. So, you say, this is just good sense. Why is that a blind spot?

Basic research is a hard sell to businesses. Stockholders must be convinced of a rapid payoff from the investment in discovery. It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. This proverb traces back to Plato. If a business is plugging along making a satisfactory profit at maximum output, what is the motivation to rock the boat for a possible improvement? The answer is the prospect of even more profit via some improvement. But, what if that improvement would require something entirely new outside the capability of current technology and in-house resources? There is necessity but invention is out of reach.

While American industry has produced a tremendous range of innovations with in-house resources, it has done so greatly aided by the contributions of our university and government institutions. Universities provide industry with an educated R&D workforce, largely as a result of the application of government funding. Indeed, my graduate and postdoctoral work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. I have been applying my business, chemistry and synthetic skills to the operation of private business for decades. And so does everyone else in industrial chemical R&D.

Here is the thing. The government funds the research universities which produces R&D results and an educated workforce. Most of the published academic R&D is of a fundamental nature and in the public domain. Chemical companies make good use of this information as a basis for their own R&D for product development. Sometimes the process Development part is begun quicker because the Research groundwork is mostly done by academia. With this, business gets invention quicker and cheaper with less risk because someone else initiated the necessity (the investigator/professor) and government funding paid for it. This represents industry getting a refund on some of their taxes.

In the military aerospace business, the US military provides the necessity by offering contracts for equipment under stringent specifications. Meeting the specs usually requires that materials and processes be developed to meet them. This is an example of the government providing necessity so industry will provide the invention.

  • A favorite notion in the US that persists is the “Greatness” of what has been a long period of leading financial and military power since WWII. Obviously, we in the US have a potent military and economy. The federal government plays a big role in these areas by supporting industrial and military readiness.
  • The US was not the first to put a satellite or man in orbit or land a craft on the moon. It was Russia. The US entered into the “space race” to primarily to match the threat of USSR’s space program. The USSR and communism were perceived as an existential threat to the US. Advances in rocketry could carry people, satellites or nuclear payloads. Did we win the race to the moon just because the USSR failed midway?
  • The US reacted vigorously to Albert Einstein’s warning of the possibility of a Nazi nuclear weapon. The Nazi secret program was under the guidance of Professor Werner Heisenberg. Rattled, the US put together a massive effort to beat the Nazis to the nuclear punch. Later, it was found that they were unable to produce a working nuclear reactor or weapon.
  • After the fall of Nazi Germany, the US scooped up a few of their best scientific minds, certainly more than the Russians did. The US benefitted greatly in rocketry and aerospace as well as engineering and physics.
  • The 1930’s was a decade of much advancement in the area of turbojet engines everywhere in the world but the US. We were late comers into turbojet engines. But post WWII we seized on the idea and did well.

US politics has been soured by a few extraordinarily awful people. I’m thinking of #45 in particular but many like-minded citizens have glommed on to his flying circus of bad ideas. Many people conflated business success with aptitude for governance. What they failed to consider was that a business is a type of dictatorship. It is not a democracy. It is run strictly from the top down. There is no bill of rights in business or first amendment. Trying to directly apply business experience to being chief executive of a democratic nuclear state is a fool’s errand. But, people still hold out hope for him.

  • Trump sailed into office in 2016 partly on his credentials as a “successful” businessman and television personality. For many voters, he was “famous for being famous.” Voters made the extrapolation that if he is a billionaire property developer in New York City then he was “obviously” qualified to be a president.

What nobody considered was that #45 was the CEO and major shareholder of his many private businesses. Not having experience leading a publicly owned corporation, he enjoyed zero transparency in his business activities. As CEO of his private companies, he never had fiduciary responsibilities to public stockholders. A private company is a dictatorship where he thrived.

The allies won the Second World War for many reasons. What made the US stand out in that effort was the fact that North America was geographically isolated and was harder to bomb or invade at that time. The wealth of natural resources and industrial capacity in the US certainly enabled our ability to carry the war to the enemies. The notion of some kind of intrinsic moral superiority held by some is just a fantasy. The US had talented leadership and a workforce willing and able to stand up and be counted. This was not a uniquely American quality. Most nations can and will do this if resources and their leadership will allow it. Being rich in lumber, petroleum, steel and uranium gave the US a distinct advantage.

The US is an amazing country among other amazing countries, but there is much yet to do. My goal is to help sustain basic liberal democratic ideals and one of the pillars is simple kindness. Let’s back off on the self-congratulation and cultish adulation of a despicable billionaire and focus on the basics of operating a democratic republic under the rule of law and with equal protection for all of its citizens.

The Stupid in All of Us

3 Replies

I’ve been struggling to find the words to accurately and succinctly describe MAGA followers in the US with their silly contrarianism and shallow theories of patriotism. I do this because there is something truly peculiar about the shape of conservatism today. I’ve been avoiding the word “stupid” because I didn’t want to hurl the accusation towards people with genuine cognitive disabilities. After all, intelligence is a multilegged attribute that encompasses too many diverse abilities with a single word. But of late I’ve decided that the word is fine to use if you don’t associate it with cognitively disabled people. Online you can find a definition defining it as “behavior or actions that show a lack of good sense or good judgement.” If it isn’t a clean detachment from the cognitively disabled, then at least it is only a superficial scratch.

Ex-president #45 took a sharp swerve from the “norms” of American politics and examples are too numerous to list here. His angry movement didn’t fall out of thin air. In the 2016 election he attracted followers by his audacity and with the propaganda engines of Twitter, conservative radio and television news. They were already out there primed by the nascent Tea Party, but along comes #45 giving them a charismatic and bellicose populist leader with a knack for getting on the news. His rhetorical skills are unmatched and he knows instinctively how to attract and excite a crowd. Importantly, he is a master of social media muckraking. He is not in the least inhibited by social norms for civil discourse.

The big hammer that American conservatism wields is the view of the “good us vs the bad them.” Somehow, the “bad them” always involves liberalism. “Them” can be the flavor of the day- immigrants, abortion, Muslims, NATO etc. This is guaranteed to frighten a certain fraction of the electorate. Throw in the eschatology of conservative Christians claiming that American politics will lead to or accelerate the end times and you have potent brew of dread fear.

Just to be clear, in US history there have never been long stretches of time when citizens frolicked innocently in green pastures of civility and peace was upon the land. There has always been turmoil and hardship somewhere for someone. We’ve always had murderers and thieves preying on the innocent and unwary. Yet the US experiment with democracy and capitalism overall has thrived, dipped and recovered over time. Somehow, Americans have avoided fascism. Until now.

There have always been exceptional people in the world who were able to rally groups for an epic cause, whether it was for military, political or religious purposes. It is the story of history. Today is no different, although the means and speed of persuasive communication has advanced considerably. After the invention of the printing press, there was opposition by religious leaders claiming that easy and rapid availability of information or propaganda would destabilize their personal view of how the social order should be. Since then, ideas of all sorts have found their way into the minds of the masses at increasing speed to this very day. Today, populist rhetoric and opinion can travel internationally at speeds limited only by the clock speed of computers and the speed of light.

There has always been a fraction of any population that gets agitated or frightens easily. Fright can come from direct experience or persuasion. Anything that threatens perceived safety, stability or income will unnerve people to some extent and some much more than others. It is called economic disenfranchisement and it is widespread in the US. Money equals power and lacking it means that one is not invited to the party.

The feeling of being cheated also agitates people. And this is where #45 excels. Unfortunately, in the US there is a large group of people that have not been able to fully enjoy the fruits of our civilization. For many reasons they have been passed over in terms of opportunities to advance or just keep up with the times.

One effect of technological advance is the obsolescence of labor-intensive jobs. Labor costs are always a target for innovators and businesspeople in the eternal march towards greater efficiency. This has been happening since the invention of the wheel. Any given task can be the target of cost reduction by lowering of the headcount. It may seem coldhearted but, in society, it is as ever-present as gravity.

People who lack valuable skill sets or those made obsolete by technology or corporate maneuvering are at a serious disadvantage in American society. People who chose life paths that did not include educational enrichment such a trade school or college have long been at a disadvantage. A comfortable retirement after a lifetime of low wages is difficult or impossible. Some people manage to excel but most don’t. Some start businesses that take off. Most don’t because they don’t know how or lack startup capital. The market can only sustain so many nail salons or restaurants in a given location.

Indicted ex-president #45 discovered his knack for anger politics at some point and jumped on it at a time when conservative electronic media was blossoming. He couldn’t help himself. His authoritarian impulse found a venue in politics and wide acceptance.

The acceptance of authoritarian leadership is particularly stupid for a citizen in a democracy. Our democracy is extremely unusual in human history. Many of us fail to appreciate that.

All of us exhibit stupidity now and then. We all commit “behavior or actions that show a lack of good sense or good judgement.” I do, that much is certain. We live in a time when a great many fellow citizens assent to a movement that, in the end, is not to their best interests. Not all stupid behaviors are equal in magnitude or in the kind of harm produced. It seems to me that gladly accepting authoritarian leadership in anger is especially stupid. Democracy once forfeited is not easily retrieved.

Trading away many of the benefits of democracy for some perceived guarantee of social order is a prelude to dictatorial government. Democracy is inherently chaotic to some extent. This is at the core of the American experiment. In exchange a notch of social order we trade some measure of freedom and liberty. Voting for authoritarian governance is the final act of a democracy.