Tag Archives: #45

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.

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.”

“… radical-left Democrats, Marxist, communists and fascists …”

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I’m running out of words to describe the deplorable ex-president #45. Just when you think he can’t add to his steaming heap of manure called a legacy, he shovels on more. It seems like there is no limit to the falsehoods he is willing to declare in public and no limit to what his supporters are willing to accept.

In regard to his indictments, he was recorded as saying something to the effect of “They’re not after me, they’re after you … I’m just standing in their way!” He is turning his indictments into the image of him sacrificing himself on the cross for the millions of Americans. A blood sacrifice for his beloved followers. If you supposed that this vaudevillian stunt was transparently phony to everyone, you’d be wrong.

#45 has been referring to “… radical-left Democrats, Marxist, communists and fascists …” in his gimmie-all-yer-lovin’ rallies. How absurd. Leftists aren’t fascists- they are antifascists. And by the way, what is wrong with being against fascism? #45 is using his usual mirror tactic of taking accusations against him and aiming it back at his critics. He knows very well that he isn’t being held accountable for truthfulness by the people he counts on. He tells big lies and repeats them over and over. It works for him. The very boldness of his lies somehow validates them in the minds of his followers.

Marxism and socialism have been in the scrapyard of history for a decades. The Soviet experiment with using socialism to get to communism was an abject failure. Stalin’s USSR was a brutal, murderous dictatorship tarted up to appear as a people’s paradise for those outside the iron curtain.

China today is a single party communist dictatorship that practices centralized control and nationalistic state capitalism. Previously, however, under the command of Chairman Mao Zedong, it is estimated that 40 to 80 million people died as a result of starvation, persecution, prison labor and execution in order to achieve his personal dream of a communist paradise.

It is difficult to find a communist state where people have the liberties that we in the US take for granted. It seems that to compel people to hand over their belongings to the state, a good bit of muscle is needed. Stalin found this out when he tried to collectivize Ukraine in the early 1930s. He ended up causing mass starvation and sending people to the gulags. The notion that the US is under threat from communist influence is without credibility. The odd communist may pop up now and then but they are little more than a curiosity not worthy of concern.

It is hard to know what Republicans regard as radical about Democrat ideals. Could it be that anyone who disagrees with today’s GOP is a “leftist radical”? If there are actual living, breathing Marxists among liberals in the US, they are likely to be lonely. There is Richard D Wolff at UMass, Amherst. Wolff is against capitalism and makes some fair points, but the momentum of history won’t be going his way any time soon. People still remember the Soviet experiment with Marxism-Leninism which was a disaster.

So·cial·ism: noun; a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Source: Google

Will citizens of the US ever acquiesce to turning over private property to a socialist government? Clearly, there is not a chance. The accusation that US liberals harbor socialistic desires is a Republican fever dream. The same with communism. The current population of US citizens would never embrace communism. Too many past instances of communist or socialist dictatorships in the world, and besides, Americans love their private property and would defend it with the umpteen hundred million guns under their pillows.

It is a Republican fantasy that only they are the true patriots in the US. This gives them license to posture as the only “real” Americans worthy of the title. This froze out as axiomatic for them many years ago, especially since the years of Mr. “trickle-down economics” Reagan.

Having social services is not the same as having socialism. A capitalist economy that provides a social safety net through taxation is not socialism. The capitalists still own their means of production, distribution and exchange.

Ordinary citizens in the US pay taxes to support the Army, Air Force, Space Force, Marines, Navy and Coast Guard. We also pay taxes and fees for upkeep on state and national infrastructure like roads, bridges, air traffic control and many other things. All of this goes to support our capitalist means of production, distribution and exchange.

Citizens pay exorbitant tuition to educate themselves to a level where they can contribute to operating our capitalistic enterprises. Payment for the common good isn’t borne exclusively by business. Both citizens and our capitalist enterprises benefit from this arrangement.

The business side should recall that citizens contribute to their corporate existence by funding their government contracts and by purchasing products that they off-shored to China to the detriment of US workers and security.