Random Blogging – Page 3

Why Does Anyone Support This Buffoon?

I don’t get it.

Read a recent, snarky Dana Milbank column in the Washington Post. It began with a visit to Trump-speak–a language bearing less and less relationship to American English.

The Very Stable Genius is glitching again.

This week, he announced that he is not — repeat, NOT — planning to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He apparently forgot that he had vowed over and over again to do exactly that, saying as recently as a few months ago that Republicans “should never give up” on efforts to “terminate” Obamacare.

“I’m not running to terminate the ACA, AS CROOKED JOE BUDEN DISINFORMATES AND MISINFORMATES ALL THE TIME,” the Republican nominee wrote this week on his Truth Social platform. Rather, he said, he wants to make Obamacare better for “OUR GREST AMERICAN CITIZENS.”

Joe Buden disinformates and misinformates? For a guy trying to make an issue of his opponent’s mental acuity, this was not, shall we say, a grest look.

Milbank offered some additional examples of Trump-speak: “We’ll bring crime back to law and order,” “We just had Super Tuesday, and we had a Tuesday after a Tuesday already,” and “You can’t have an election in the middle of a political season.”

Whenever I am reminded of Trump’s intellectual lapses and/or his inability to use the English language, I marvel that this is the guy MAGA folks think should control the nuclear codes….

Much of Milbank’s column was focused on Trump’s selective memory. When he recently recited the time-honored political question “are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Milbank theorized that he’d “forgotten all about the economic collapse and his administration’s catastrophic bungling of the pandemic.”

As the Supreme Court was hearing arguments about banning the abortion pill, Trump also conveniently “forgot” his previous emphatic support for that ban, and his proposal to ban it fortuitously disappeared from his web site. Given that polling shows some 7 in 10 Americans opposed to such a ban, the Heritage Foundation also experienced a website “glitch” that conveniently obscured that part of the Foundation’s Plan for 2025.

As Milbank wrote,

The Heritage Foundation-run Project 2025, to which Trump has unofficially outsourced policymaking for a second term, said that a “glitch” had caused its policies — including those embracing a mifepristone ban — to disappear from its website. The Biden campaign said it was “calling BS on Trump and his allies’ shameless attempt to hide their agenda,” and the missing documents returned — including the language calling abortion pills “the single greatest threat to unborn children” and vowing to withdraw regulatory approval for the drugs.

Evidently, the House Republicans didn’t get the polling memo.

The extremism isn’t just at Project 2025, stocked with former Trump advisers. The House Republican Study Committee, which counts 80 percent of House Republicans as members, put out a budget last week that would rescind approval of mifepristone, dismantle the “failed Obamacare experiment” and embrace a nationwide abortion ban from the moment of conception.

Sometimes its a convenient loss of memory; other times, it’s obvious mental illness compounded by jaw-dropping ignorance. Take Trump’s “explanation” of why Truth Social’s stock wasn’t listed on the New York Stock Exchange:

He said he didn’t list the company on the New York Stock Exchange because it would be “treated too badly in New York” by Democratic officeholders. So he instead listed the company on Nasdaq, which is based in … New York. Trump said the “top person” at the NYSE “is mortified. … He said, ‘I’m losing business.’ ” As CNN pointed out, neither the president nor the chair of the exchange is a “he.”

Then there’s the most recent grift: selling bibles.

Trump is getting kickbacks for selling the Gospel — marketing God the same way he sold Trump-branded “Never Surrender High-Tops” sneakers last month for $399 a pair and, before that, digital trading cards showing Trump as a superhero.

“All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump said in the video promoting his new bible hustle.

Trump’s campaign shows a video at rallies announcing that “God Gave us Trump,” and he has called himself “the chosen one.” He’s shared a post calling him “the second greatest” after Jesus. And Milbank reports that Trump recently posted a verse from Psalms, topped by a message likening Trump’s suffering in the fraud case to the Crucifixion.

There’s much, much more–but it all begs the question: who in their right mind looks at this pathetic sociopath with his limited (and rapidly declining) intellect and his God complex and says “yes, that’s my guy!”? Is giving his supporters permission to express their racism and hostility to “elitists” really enough to outweigh the daily evidence of his manifest unfitness?

I don’t get it.

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Saving The World

I sometimes wonder what historians living a hundred years from now–assuming there’s still a planet populated with humans a hundred years hence–will dub these times? The Age of Chosen Stupidity? The Age of Tribal Reversion? Or perhaps The Age of Angst? (I think the Age of Anxiety has been taken…at least in poetry..)

It sometimes seems as if Americans who engage in or follow politics are divided into two camps. One is angry, resentful and acting-out (shorthand: MAGA), and the other is reacting to them with worry and anxiety. I know that I fall into that second group, and assuming my Facebook feed is representative, there are a lot of other people who are equally concerned about the threats to democracy, civility and the rule of law, and depressed by the seeming inability of individual action to counter those threats.

People who are “control freaks” (I plead guilty) are particularly affected by perceptions of powerlessness: tell me the only way to solve a problem is to climb that mountain, and I’ll put on my hiking boots. Tell me there is little or nothing I can do to solve that problem–that my small, local efforts really can’t make much of a difference– and I get depressed.

In the run-up to what will be an enormously consequential election, a lot of us feel pretty helpless.

But I recently came across a message that I found helpful.

The “Spark of Genius” newsletter highlights good news–progress on saving the environment, medical breakthroughs that save lives, government innovations addressing persistent problems. The linked issue addresses the anxieties of people frustrated by limits to our individual effectiveness; it was titled “Stop Trying To Save the World.”

When we try to be the hero, we act as if one person alone must do something great and heroic to enact change. We give ourselves too much importance.

When we employ a “yes, and” approach, we pile so many roles and responsibilities on ourselves that we can’t focus on what matters most. We give ourselves too many priorities.

But there’s a third way we can try to do too much. We try to take on the whole wide world and all its problems. Our scope is too broad. We forget that simply tending to our own lives and making authentic human connections is almost always the most impactful thing we can ever do.

The author acknowledges the multiple challenges we face:

the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, economic inequality, diseases of despair, pandemics, growing authoritarianism, terrorism, gun violence, runaway technological advancement, the erosion of shared knowledge and meaning, and much more. Together, these individual crises all complicate, exacerbate, and deepen one another, creating a knot of crises.

On top of all that, our experience of these crises is a crisis itself. Living with the troubling challenges of our world so often elicits anxiety, despair, and existential dread within us. This existential crisis then erodes our capacity to address the world’s more tangible challenges. As our capacity erodes, the problems intensify, and our existential crises deepen even further, and on and on. It’s the ultimate “wicked problem.”

As the article notes, caring people see the immensity and complexity of these challenges, which leads to a growing existential dread about the likely outcome and especially about one’s complicity in that outcome. Good people “yearn to do something meaningful that truly contends with this immensity and complexity.” But most of us are not in a position to save the world.

Because of that, perhaps the most strategic, elegant, all-encompassing contribution to the meta-crisis any of us can offer is simply showing up in our actual lives with more vulnerability, kindness, compassion, and courage. It’s making authentic human connections the very foundation of our lives and careers. It’s showing up to life with more heart…

Don’t overthink it. To get straight to the heart of the meta-crisis, you can just go straight to your own heart. It really can be as simple as that, if you let it.

The author is certainly not suggesting that the major innovations and breakthroughs that the newsletter reports are unimportant. The point is that most of us can only do what we can do– and that when we do whatever it is we are able to do with more kindness and courage, it really does make a difference.

If millions of Americans were to take that advice to heart, if millions of us model civility and helpfulness while we do the “small stuff”–registering voters, writing postcards, donating to campaigns, etc.– it really would make a difference. Maybe we can’t save the world, but we can improve our little corners of it.

And if enough people did it, maybe it could save the world.

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The 50-State Strategy

Remember Howard Dean’s introduction of the 50-state strategy? Dean insisted that Democrats needed to contest seats in every single state–even in states like Indiana, where gerrymandering has given the GOP a vise-like, if arguably illegitimate, hold on governance.

Dean was right.

In a recent Substack newsletter, Robert Hubbell quoted a woman named Jess Piper, who had taken that advice to heart, and had run in a Missouri state legislative race. In 2022, approximately 44% of the Missouri state legislative races had been uncontested, i.e., no Democratic candidate. Jess decided to run for the state’s legislature in District 22 .

Hubbell quoted Piper’s analysis about that experience.

I did not win. I got my butt kicked by a man who is very nice, but who ran on two issues: making sure his grandkids had access to guns and making sure they didn’t have to eat plant-based, meat-substitute burgers. I’m not kidding…here is an article.

But Piper definitely did not consider the experience to have been a waste of time and money. Far from it.

So what did happen? I made the GOP nominee spend money. I made him show up to town halls and forums to debate me. I made him knock doors. I made him call voters. I made him talk about abortion and school funding and roads and hospitals when all he wanted to talk about was Hunter Biden’s laptop and COVID masking.

I knew my chances, but by God I knew I was going to make my opponent work for the seat rather than just handing him an uncontested victory and a trip to Jefferson City. I didn’t relent and he couldn’t avoid talking about the things that matter.

And there’s this: what happens when you make the GOP spend money in a mostly Republican voting district? They can’t spend it chipping away at mostly Democratic voting districts. The GOP has to drop money into rural races that they haven’t had to think about for decades.

As Hubbell went on to point out, Jess’s run for office was equal parts offense and defense. “Her chances of success were long, but the fact that she put up a fight may have helped a Democrat in another district win. The importance of that fact cannot be overstated.”

What too many Democrats in Red states overlook is that the absence of a contest–for city council, for the state legislature, for other local races–is an incredibly effective vote suppressor. I have previously shared a conversation I had with a graduate student a few years ago; an election was coming up, and I did my usual “sermonizing” about the importance of voting. I asked for a show of hands–how many of you are registered? How many of you will definitely vote? Then one of my better students raised his hand. “Professor, I’ve always voted, but I now live in Noblesville. I went online to confirm that my polling place hadn’t changed, and then I looked at the ballot. There are no contested races. Why should I vote?”

In his small, Red town, no one had bothered to be a Jess Piper, so there was no incentive for Democrats–or for that matter, Republicans– to turn out.

An analysis of Indiana’s politics suggests that if turnout increased substantially in supposedly “safe” districts, some number of those districts wouldn’t be safe. The process of gerrymandering, after all, relies on previous turnout figures. Add to that the fact that rural areas–at least in Indiana–are rapidly losing population, and many progressive urban folks are moving to small towns that are effectively suburbs of Indianapolis, like Danville and Noblesville.

For too many years, Indiana’s Democrats–like those in Missouri– have given up in advance. Legislative districts are left uncontested, and Democratic campaign contributions are sent to candidates in other states, where the donor thinks there’s a better chance of that candidate winning.

It’s a self-defeating attitude and it creates a reinforcing cycle of negativity.

In his newsletter, Hubbell also gave a shout-out to a group called Every State Blue. The organization’s website underscores the message:

When we don’t run and support Democrats, the people living in those districts feel abandoned, ignored… forgotten. Meanwhile, GOP nominees get free passes.

Every State Blue knows there’s a better way. Working together, we can show up, make sure no Democrat is left behind … no voter is left without a choice … and no Republican gets a free ride.

When the only races being contested are the ones the party pooh-bas think there’s a chance of winning, Democrats have already lost. Worse, they’ve defeated themselves.

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About Those “Outsiders”

In Indiana, Republican candidates for Governor and Congress are spending megabucks on increasingly horrifying political ads. (Forget “dog whistles”–the ads for Governor, especially, are blatantly racist). Although it’s difficult to choose the very worst, a candidate for Congress in Indiana’s Fifth District probably wins that close vote: he faults the incumbent for sending tax dollars to Ukraine when we have an enormous problem in the U.S.– trans women competing in women’s sports.

Glad he has a sense of proportion…

Interestingly, the gubernatorial candidates’ attacks on each other have been for taking the few positions with which I actually agree, a tactic that certainly shows what they believe their base Republican voters think. If they’re correct, those voters are “base” in both senses of the word.

If there is a “through line” in these awful ads, however, it is the repeated claims to be “outsiders” rather than “career politicians.” It’s a laughable label for most of them: Braun has been a Senator for six years (granted, an undistinguished one, but it’s been six years) and he was a state legislator before that; Crouch was a County Auditor, served nine years in Indiana’s legislature and is currently Lieutenant Governor; Brad Chambers–who has really leaned on his “outsider” status–was Indiana’s Secretary of Commerce. Etc.

Not only are these claims to outsider status bogus, they’re stupid. Would you hire a job applicant who proudly proclaimed ignorance of your business and emphasized a prior lack of experience?

James Briggs recently addressed this issue, somewhat tangentially, in a column for the Indianapolis Star. Briggs was talking about his opposition to term limits–an opposition I share–but his reasoning is pertinent to the posturing of these “outsider” candidates. As he wrote:

State Rep. Chuck Goodrich, a Republican running in Indiana’s 5th District primary against Rep. Victoria Spartz, recently bragged about signing a term limits pledge, adding, “It’s time to break the grip of career politicians & ensure elected officials serve the people, not their own interests!”

That’s completely wrong.

A 2006 National Conference of State Legislatures report looked at states with legislative term limits and concluded “high turnover and relative inexperience create a steep learning curve for committee chairs and members, who are often less knowledgeable than their predecessors,” which “can result in increased influence by staff, bureaucrats and lobbyists.”

Essentially, term limits take power from the career politicians and hand it over to people who are less accountable to the public.

In Congress, the “newbies” are inevitably dependent upon and influenced by Congressional staff, who are familiar with the arcane rules of that body– and unelected by and unknown to the voting public.

Much like term limits, it’s popular to say the government should run like a business. I can’t think of any other economic sector where you’d find strong agreement for the statement, “The more experience you have, the worse you must be at your job.” We have a lot of job openings at IndyStar and I can assure you no one is running around yelling, “Find me some journalism outsiders!”

Briggs points out what most of us know: a professional body is more effective when it’s run by people who know what they’re doing.

The longer lawmakers serve in those jobs, the more they can learn how to navigate complex webs of rules and systems. They can also gain policy expertise, which is helpful for creating laws affecting virtually every part of people’s lives. They can develop relationships to help advance their goals.

The problems we face with government, especially in Indiana, aren’t a result of legislative longevity: they are a result of gerrymandering and low voter turnout. Briggs is dead-on with this paragraph:

Obviously, some elected officials don’t deserve to stay in office forever. The ills attributed to unlimited elected terms can more appropriately be linked to partisan gerrymandering, which creates safe spaces for ineffective, lazy and corrupt officials to win election after election. Yes, term limits would eventually knock those people out. So would competitive elections.

Let me repeat that last sentence: So would competitive elections.

I miss “career politicians” like Dick Lugar and Lee Hamilton. Joe Biden has been able to pass transformative legislation because he is a “career politician” who understands how government works, and how to get things done. I don’t know which of Indiana’s “know-nothing” Republicans will wind up on the general election ballot, but this year, for once, the Democrats have an unusually strong state ticket featuring experienced public servants who actually know how government works and what the positions they’re running for entail. They are also right on the issues.

Vote Blue, and make the GOP candidates actual outsiders.

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The “Great Replacement” Fixation

I first encountered the “Great Replacement” theory when I read about the neo-Nazi, “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville. The marchers–bearing tiki torches–reportedly chanted “Jews will not replace us.” (Those chanting were subsequently called “very fine people” by then-President Donald Trump.)

Since I never watch Fox News, I’d missed Tucker Carlson’s full-throated endorsement of that particular conspiracy theory, but as time as passed, I’ve come to understand its roots, and the reason it appeals to White Americans terrified by the prospect of losing cultural dominance. America’s demographics are changing, and it is probable that Whites will be a minority population within a few years. Meanwhile, legal and cultural changes have allowed women and minority folks–Blacks, Jews, Latinos, LGBTQ+ citizens–to become more prominent. Television anchors, elected officials, movie stars and various other celebrities increasingly come from groups that have been previously marginalized.

It’s no longer possible to ignore these changes.

The result is a palpable panic on the part of those Whites–mostly men, but also some women–who believe that their rightful place in society has been usurped. And that fear of replacement, that realization that they will need to share status with people they disparage, requires a villain. It can’t simply be an accident that “those people” are gaining in numbers and influence. It must be a plot!!

Jamelle Bouie recently wrote about Elon Musk’s obvious fascination with and belief in the “Great Replacement Theory.” Musk recently elevated a slick propaganda film pushing the theory on X (formerly Twitter), confirming the devolution of that site into a cesspool of far-Right anti-Semitism and racism.

Musk is especially preoccupied with the racial makeup of the country and the alleged deficiency of nonwhites in important positions. He blames the recent problems at Boeing, for example, on its efforts to diversify its work force, despite easily accessible and widely publicized accounts of a dangerous culture of cost-cutting and profit-seeking at the company….

Is diversity the problem at Boeing, or is it a shortsighted obsession with maximizing shareholder value at the expense of quality and safety? Musk, a wealthy shareholder in various companies — including his own, Tesla, which is being sued by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly allowing racist abuse of some of its Black employees — says it’s diversity.

Bouie goes on to discuss Musk’s “current obsession” with the “great replacement,” the far-right accusation that liberal elites are “deliberately opening the southern border to nonwhite immigration from Mexico, South and Central America in order to replace the nation’s white majority and secure permanent control of its political institutions.”

The “great replacement” was part of the centerpiece of Tucker Carlson’s message to viewers during his time on Fox News. It is touted by a number of anti-immigrant, white nationalist and white supremacist groups. It was featured prominently at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, where neo-Nazis chanted “Jews will not replace us.” And it has inspired at least four separate mass shootings, including the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh (11 killed), the 2019 Christchurch shootings in New Zealand (51 killed), the El Paso shooting the same year (23 killed) and the 2022 supermarket shooting in Buffalo (10 killed).

It should go without saying that the “great replacement” is idiotic. There is no “open border.” There is no effort to “replace” the white population of the United States. Racial diversity is not a plot against the nation’s political institutions. And the underlying assumption of the “great replacement” — that, until recently, the United States was a racially and culturally homogenous nation — is nonsense.

Not only does acceptance of the theory require people to ignore inconvenient facts, it rests–as Bouie points out–on a fundamental fallacy: that racial and ethnic identity also and inevitably translates into political identity. In other words, it assumes that Blacks and Latinos will always vote for Democrats.

I think Bouie has identified the most consequential flaw of today’s GOP.

Republicans used to understand that politics is the art of addition–that winning a political contest requires reaching out to independents and others–including minorities– who haven’t previously voted for you. Instead, MAGA Republicans are doubling down on subtraction; not only do they fail to reach out to members of minorities who might consider supporting their candidates (the Black community, for example, is overall fairly socially conservative), they are even doing their best to expel “RINOs” –including anyone who dares to criticize Trump– from what has become a defensive cult.

The irony is that the GOP is hastening the day when a replacement will actually occur–the replacement of the GOP with a sane center-Right political party.

A large enough defeat in November will speed that process.

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