The Benjamin Button Presidency
No offense to real "Benjamin Button" sufferers.
It is clear we have a toddler sitting in the Oval Office - theoretically - within reach of the nuclear “football”.
I’m not worried about him nuking anybody actually. I’m far more concerned about his child-like attention span, his infantile vindictiveness and his three-year old un-willingness to own up to any kind of responsibility.
For, literally, anything.
Couple his infantilism with his nasty auto-reflex to spread Mean Girl-like meanness as easy as most of us spread jam on bread and you have to wonder if this person could ever have survived the real world on his own, pulling on his own boot straps and making a name for himself. The answer is a resounding, “No!”
His is the ‘Benjamin Button’ presidency.
But it doesn’t mean he’s not a danger to everything we hold dear, even as we watch him in real-time devolve into a temper tantrum throwing infant with the instincts of an abuser extraordinaire. Quite the opposite. People who have eyes, listen to his words and read about his actions know he is a ‘clear and present danger’ to democracy. I’ve never witnessed so many conservatives vowing to disown the leader of their party. (Well, at least since 2016.)
A few members of the Texas GOP reportedly are urging Texans to vote our bairn-in-chief out. This from the San Antonio Current:
Former GOP consultant Pierre Dubois said Cornyn's "hollow" about face on Trump comes months too late. Voting straight Democrat ticket this cycle is the only way to send a wakeup call to the GOP to right the party, he added.
"There needs to be a straight repudiation of this Republican Party in 2020," Dubois said.
Encouraging but, in the meantime, the whiny brat is packing the lower courts, the Supreme Court and federal agencies with whatever is the opposite of a public servant. It is the equivalent of Sherman’s March to the Sea at the conclusion of the Civil War, but it’s through the federal system. It will take a tremendous effort to roll back this tide and it will only be possible if those who don’t want authoritarian rule to vote the GOP out of every branch of government. And then, it will take a sustained effort over multiple presidential terms to maintain that majority and enact the changes Americans purportedly say they want to see.
For instance, from Julie Oliver’s article in Data for Progress (she’s running to represent Texas-25 in the House of Representatives):
Recent studies found that more than 75% of Americans want to limit campaign spending.
A majority of Americans of all political stripes support a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. That number included 66% of Republican voters.
A recent Reuters poll found that 64% of Americans support Medicare-for-All.
Surprisingly enough for a nation supposedly composed of ignorant climate deniers, a whopping 80% of registered voters support a Green New Deal. Not only did 92 percent of Democrats support the plan in the Yale/GMU study, 64 percent - again, a majority - of Republicans did!
Issues like legalizing marijuana aren’t just favored by a majority of voters in all 50 states, they’re favored by a majority of Tr*mp supporters in 49 of the 50 states. (Yep, Mississippi was the lone state where only 48% of those polled favored legalizing weed. My birth state, lagging behind, as per usual.)
Due to all kinds of reasons, reasons that can only be fixed if we get like-minded people in office at every stage of the game, our voices are not fairly represented in government. As a country, we are more progressive than we’d ever know when we gaze out across a political landscape that has been rejiggered to serve a minority’s viewpoint.
This is a bit of a non sequitur but I have to put it out there. When I was in Tasmania, more than one person complained to me, or engaged me in conversation, about the curse of having Rupert Murdoch’s media empire dominating news cycles. They’d come up to me, and they’d say, “Sir.” (I’m kidding.)
Murdoch, of course, is the founder of Fox News and his origins were in Australia. So, they have had to put up with the bullshit much longer than we have. But, here’s a fun fact - Murdoch’s empire has no presence in New Zealand!
Another fun fact you might have missed in the spate of disorienting, disgusting, disturbing, distasteful or dishonest news is that recently the person everyone wants to lead their country, Jacinda Ardern, won her reelection bid in New Zealand as well as strengthened her government. That is welcome news. Few leaders deserve it as much as she did. She deserves it merely for her handling of the pandemic, if nothing else.
Unfortunately, for the U.S. of A., we are besieged by the Rupert Murdoch empire, the Robert Mercer empire (Breitbart News, Cambridge Analytica), the Koch empire and the Smith family empire (Sinclair Broadcasting).
The amount of stupid being broadcast is incalculable.
Which reminds me of the George Orwell comment that has never been more poignant.
We are all capable of believing things that we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts as to show we were right.
But another Orwell quote is also salient.
The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
The evidence my eyes and ears have witnessed over the past four years is overwhelming and I am so hoping that the mishmash of baby food this administration is throwing against the wall is seen for what it is and the electorate does the exact opposite of that dictum.
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My siblings are some of my most faithful AARs - this is from my brother, Mike, and it is brilliant satire and scathing humor - titled “If Tr*mp wins everyone is going to have a lot of feelings including us”. First Dog on the Moon cartoon.
My brother, Bill, sent along this novel idea for giving people one less reason to not vote. It’s called FeedThePolls.org. Long lines on November 3rd will mean low, blood sugar for a lot of earnest folks.
Have a wonderful day! I was going to say, “the end is near”, but that didn’t sound right. - JLM