Subscribe to the IHARE Blog

Coronavirus

Critical Thinking and the Stacey Abrams for Governor Endorsement

September 28, 2021
by Peter Feinman

Tucker Carlson calls for the banning of peanuts since someone died from eating them.

Tucker Carlson calls for the banning of sex since someone had a heart attack while having it.

Tucker Carlson calls for the banning of drinking water since someone had a stroke after drinking some.

Most likely such pronouncements would not pass muster not even on Carlson’s cable show. However, we are now experiencing case studies not in Critical Race Theory but in critical thinking. In a democracy everyone has the right to vote. We no longer can test people to determine if they have the mental necessity to vote, that is, to be informed voters capable of making critical thinking decisions about the candidates. But what we are learning, is that not all people have such skills regardless of their age and their decision making reflects that shortcoming.

CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

Critical thinking skills are not the ability to memorize people, places, and dates. I mention those three examples because typically they are the way people define history in the public schools. It is all about the boring need to remember people, places, and dates, information that is readily available online should one actually have any use of it. To some extent such a characterization of history as it is taught in the public schools is true. Supposedly, the situation changes in history classes in college. The emphasis shifts from memorization and regurgitation to analysis and thinking about questions posed by the teachers and raised by the students themselves.

As a general rule, there are no child prodigies in history. On average, the public school mind is not capable of the same level of thinking as the college mind. The college mind is less capable of thinking than the adult mind in part due to the absence of experiences. The ability to incorporate real world experiences into one’s thinking changes the critical thinking skills of the individual. Ideas can become more grounded in reality.

The brain changes as one matures.  It does not happen at the exact same age for everyone, it does not develop at the same rate once it does start, and it does not end at the same place for everyone one the process starts. There is a bell curve to critical thinking skills just as there is for most things in life. There are Anthony Faucis and there are Marjorie Taylor-Greenes. Bluntly put, there are people who never will be able to think as well as others. In a democracy the issue is the ability to think well enough to be an informed voter. One problem challenging the ability of a democracy to survive is that suppose not enough people have the critical thinking skills to be an informed voter.

Let’s look at some case studies now affecting the country.

STACEY ABRAMS FOR GOVERNOR

We have just witnessed an example of the seventh-grade smart-aleck-dumb-aleck mind at work. When such a person wakes up in the morning, he does not know what smart-ass remark he will blurt out during the day. The material is not planned. It just happens. Yes, there may be some standard nasty comments but the original remarks are unanticipated. They depend on what the teacher says, how the students respond, and the individual skill of the smart-aleck-dumb-aleck to improvise based on the moment.

In other words, there was no plan to endorse Stacey Abrams for governor of Georgia over Brian Kemp. Instead the speaker was in the flow. He was grooving on insulting the person who had defied him and not helped me steal the Georgia vote and win the state. As he was speaking, the nastiest insult he could think of popped into his head. He would say a Democrat is better than a RINO. He would say that a woman is better than a man. He would say that a black person is better than a white person. He would say a loser (in 2018) is better than the winner. And he would do so in one perfectly calibrated insult: Stacey Abrams would be a better governor than you are. And it felt good saying it.

Did he think through the consequences of his insult? Of course not. The seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck simply blurted what felt good for the moment. He never gave a thought to the consequences because he was incapable of thinking of the consequences. The insult felt good at the moment so he said it. Sometimes he can show minimal thinking skills: going public with getting a colonoscopy would make him the butt of jokes. He knows what cracks he would make as seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck about a colonoscopy so he understood what would happen if he was the target instead of the attacker.

Unfortunately for him, there still are some Republican adults in Georgia. They understood the significance of his wisecrack. Stacey Abrams does too. One can anticipate seeing and hearing that endorsement multiple times during the campaign in the event she does run for governor.

But what about the audience? In general, the audience responds to the utterings of the seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck. They laugh along with his insults. If he tries some adult stuff like “get vaccinated” they respond by booing. But nobody seemed to boo at the Stacey Abrams endorsement. The question must be asked why didn’t the Trumpicans boo him after his endorsement of the number one enemy of the Georgian Trumpicans? Didn’t they understand the implications of what he was saying? Didn’t they recognize the consequences? Apparently not. Maybe now they realize the impact of what he said. But at the moment of utterance, they did not have the mental necessities to boo him for that remark.

CORONAVIRUS AND RED-STATE DEATHS

The inability to make an intelligent informed decision is most visible now in the deaths from the coronavirus. Initially White House Trumpicans did not care about a virus hoax that seemingly targeted AOC people. They did not understand that the virus strikes based on opportunity and vulnerability and not on politics and race. True we had to learn about the virus, but once we did as a nation we understood that politics does matter: adult human beings in a democratic society are making informed decisions not to be vaccinated. After all it is a hoax, it is no worse than the flu, I am healthy, the vaccination is more deadly than the virus, shortcuts were used to develop the vaccine. I have done my research on the web and have made an intelligent informed decision. Don’t bother me the facts that unvaccinated people in red states are now the ones being killed. What lie are you going to tell me next? That the election wasn’t stolen? That the forensic audit in Arizona proved the election was not stolen?

The coronavirus vaccines illustrate the absence of critical thinking skills in huge portions of the population. In the September/October 2021 issue of The Pennsylvanian Gazette, Penn President Amy Gutmann, nominated to be ambassador to Germany wrote:

For decades prior, Penn medical researchers Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó had been investigating synthetic messenger RNA as a new and completely different way to prompt specific antibodies to fight against a targeted disease. Quietly in their laboratories, without fanfare, they created the breakthrough technologies that underly (sic) two of the most effective vaccines being employed to battle the pandemic: the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech shots.

Shortly afterwards, the Lasker awards for 2021 for excellence in medicine was awarded to these two research scientists, a potential precursor to winning a Nobel Prize. In the meantime, the scientists have won the $3 million Breakthrough Prize and the $1 million dollar Albany Prize.

By coincidence, an enthusiastic Penn alum wrote a letter published in the same issue as the Presidential column above on these individuals. Her concern was:

What I fail to understand is why Penn is not screaming it from the rafters. Call CNN, PBS, specifically Fox, targeting the unvaccinated audience. Get on the news so people who think the vaccines were developed too quickly can be reassured that researchers have been working on them for decades.

One can feel the emotional urgency in this letter. The writer genuinely believes that this information can save lives. The Penn alum implicitly believes that the unvaccinated people exposed to this information possess the critical thinking skills to see the light, change their minds, and become vaccinated. The evidence suggests otherwise.  Such hopes are wishful thinking. Forget about mandates. Even death doesn’t change the unvaccinated peoples’ minds.  There has been a lot of discussion about achieving herd immunity. There has been very little discussion about culling the herd of the most vulnerable people, the unvaccinated, to attain it. The American gospel of “come let us reason together” presupposes that people have the critical thinking skills to reason together. No provision has been made for situations where they don’t.

Do Tucker/Trump Oppose the Socialist Chlorination of Water?

August 2, 2021
by Peter Feinman

Do Tucker/Trump oppose the socialist chlorination of water? That action seems to match all the criteria deployed in the current opposition to vaccinations. It is based on science. It is a central government action. Individuals have no choice unless they are not connected to the municipal water system. For that matter, what do Tucker/Trump think about the mandatory requirement to use seat belts? Do they applaud the heroic individuals who decline to buckle up? Is the use of seat belts for children an example of child abuse?

What is going on here? Why is Tucker embarrassed to admit that he was vaccinated? Why is Trump not pounding the pavement in support of the Trump vaccine? This situation highlights that other considerations are involved besides “just the facts” or the merits of the case. Yes, vaccinations have been weaponized in the culture wars as masks were before it. Who knows if the chlorination of water be allowed if it were invented today.

LEADERSHIP

Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump are not leaders. They are channellers. They feel your pain to exploit their gain. They do not cause your grievance but they are skilled enough to sense its existence. Then they can amplify it, use it, profit from it. However, they do not cause the grievance or pain in the first place. The subtitle in the recent article in Time about Tucker tells it all: “By stoking the culture wars and peddling white grievance, TUCKER CARLSON has become the standard-bearer of the right.” Notice, he stokes the existing grievance. As the article suggests, Tucker provides excuses for people to express beliefs that they otherwise might feel uncomfortable with but already had.

And if Tucker/Trump disappear from cable TV or politics, the grievance and pain do not disappear with them. Then the people simply seek or require another mouthpiece to speak for them.

In some ways, these con artists remind me of some of the figures I see in science fiction shows (Star Trek). From time to time there will be aliens with telepathic powers of some kind. They may simply read your thoughts. They may seek to manipulate them for various reasons. But they do no create them. They may tap into the deepest parts of your brain to bring to the surface memories you suppress or ignore. Then those memories provide the alien with the opportunity to exploit you.

Con artists like Tucker/Trump work the same way. They are not leaders in the sense of being able to get you to do something you do not already want to do. An example of a channeller versus a leader was just displayed by Sean Hannity. Out of nowhere, he decided to tell the truth about the coronavirus and the need to be vaccinated. Perhaps someone he knew had died or been hospitalized. He couched his plea in the standard Foxhub rhetoric: talk with your doctor, your decision is confidential, you have freedom of choice. Still the thrust of the message was clear: YOU NEED TO BE VACCINATED NOW!

His message led to an immediate blowback. Viewers could see through his attempt to sugarcoat it that he was asking people to listen to Fauci and do what they already had decided not to do. In other words, he was trying to lead them. The effort failed. The result was he did a Kevin-McCarthy on 1/6. He walked back his failed try to be a leader. He should have known that. Remember when after the election Foxhub lost viewers to other media outlets fully dedicated to the alternate universe. Then Foxhub responded by doubling down on the partisan hype. Most likely Hannity will never again make the mistake of trying to lead his viewers. Instead; he will amplify their fears, insecurities, and need to believe in their view of the world regardless of what is really happening.

One observes the absolute refusal to abandon beliefs in the actions that otherwise defy commonsense. People on death bed exclaim how could they be dying from the coronavirus hoax. Even the hospitalization and looming death of child is not enough to sway true believers from their course. Their minds have been so manipulated and exploited over the years by Tucker/Trump and others that they have lost the capacity to think straight. The increase in vaccinations over the past week show that some people finally are getting the message that the virus is for real. Unfortunately it also reveals how many people cannot be reached.

One might think that the former President would be campaigning full-stop to have his followers be vaccinated. After all, he sometimes like to take credit for the development of the vaccines under his Warp Speed program. Sometimes the vaccine even is called the Trump vaccine so as not to give Biden any credit. And he was vaccinated himself. So why hasn’t he been championing the use of the vaccine?

Here we see that he is not a leader. He knows what Hannity learned by exposing himself to his viewers in his failed leadership initiative. He knows that if he tells his followers to be vaccinated they will not listen to him. Being a warrior in the culture wars trumps everything.

RONALD REAGAN

Consider the contrast with Ronald Reagan. Suppose something comparable had happened during his eight years as a two-term president. Would Reagan have worn a mask? Of course he would have. Wearing a mask did not threatened his masculinity and make him a wimp. It is simply what needed to be done to protect him and his fellow Americans from a threat. He would have made jokes about wearing a mask. He would have told stories about his days in Hollywood making westerns and wearing a mask. We are talking about someone who could make jokes even after he was shot in an attempted assassination. He would have worn a mask and so would the people who heroically refuse to today.

When the former President yanked off his mask on the White House balcony after having been released from the hospital, he was catering to his followers, not leading. The hope of some staff people that now he had seen the light and would be a leader were dashed. He remained true to himself as an insecure weeny con artist who failed to even try to be the leader the country needed. He is not going to jeopardize his extremely successful funding con by taking a leadership position.

In an earlier blog, I suggested that President Biden invite the former President to the White House to promote vaccination in a show of strength. A few days later, Frank Luntz, on CNN Andersen Cooper, made the same suggestion. Such pleas are for naught. Put aside all the comments made above and keep in mind that with our loser ex-President it is always about him.

The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. Think of how he condemned all the Republicans who voted on behalf of a bipartisan infrastructure bill. How could he appear at the White House with the person who stole the election, who is almost senile, and who is one-step from death’s door? He can only appear at the White House if it is to remove the present occupant as will happen on August 13. Otherwise the hitman would be legitimating Biden’s steal and undermining his own re-election chances.

So, no, Tucker/Trump will not call for ending the socialist chlorination of water based on science. They will not because at present, there is no grievance about chlorination of water for Tucker/Trump to exploit. But if the coronavirus vaccine was distributed through the public water system, then all bets are off. Just as all vaccines are questioned now, so would the chlorination of water. And remember, in Dr. Strangelove, the purity of water was enough to blow up the world.

 

Dueling Anniversaries: July 4 and China 100th

July 6, 2021
by Peter Feinman
Tiananmen Square Rehersal ( Roman Pelipey/EPA via Shuttlecock)
Trump Organization CFO (Jefferson Siegel for the New York Times)

The battle between the Borg and the Disunited Federation of Countries is engaged. The dueling images on the front page of The New York Times print edition on July 2 tell the story. If you only saw the website you would have missed the message delivered by the juxtaposition of these two images and articles. A picture is worth a thousand words so these pictures alone are sufficient for a battle report from the frontlines between the Middle Kingdom and the one-time City on a Hill.

CORONAVIRUS

The first item of note is that in the American picture the people are wearing masks while in the Chinese picture they are not. In so doing the images contrast the records of the two countries in the handling of the coronavirus. In general terms, regardless of the origin of the virus, the Chinese handling of it proved successful. The country went through some drastic steps which would not have been possible in a free country but which were eminently doable in a country devoid of both freedom and the desire to be free (outside of Hong Kong and those who lie back). The result was a country which snapped back to normalcy far quicker and far more successfully than anyone else. That record enabled China to assert the supremacy of its way of life and government over the democracies who failed abysmally in their responses.

As always, one must keep in the mind that the world does not watch Foxhub. What the world saw in the United States was country with a leader who was out of his league. His simple-minded and silly prognostications and recommendations guaranteed him a place of honor in the Hall of Ineptitude and Incompetence. He will be joined there by his counterparts in Brazil and India. In the years to come, people will not know whether to laugh at his stupidity and dishonesty or cringe in recognition at the hundreds of thousands of people who needlessly died as a direct result of the shortcomings of the greatest mass murderer of Americans in history. In time, more and more White House people will tell the tale of what really happened. In the battle for world leadership, score one for China over the United States due to the catastrophe of having an immature child as president during a crisis.

There are two caveats to this that can put America back in the game despite China’s success and America’s failure. First, China is a HAT country (Honest as Trump). That means China cannot tell the truth about the origin of the coronavirus. That failure undermines its position in the world. Second the American vaccines are superior. While the United States is not yet geared up to save the world, the rest of the world still is more willing to accept America’s role as the rescuer if we want the job. So at this point, China is ahead on the coronavirus, but as the American economy roars back, travel resumes, and vaccines are distributed, the United States can regain some of the status it lost under the previous administration provided there is no return.

“Audacious” TAX FRAUD versus THIRD TERM

The leaders of both countries want a third term and to rule for life. The image from China article shows Chinese people rehearsing for an event where the Chinese leader would all but announce his intention to govern for a third term, breaking the two term convention. There should be no doubt that he intends to govern for life and should be expected to do so.

The American photograph tells a different story. It shows the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization being escorted to court. He stands accused of multiple accounts of audacious tax fraud over a fifteen-year period. So far the only defense offered by the Chief Executive of the organization is that such perks are standing operating procedure. Everybody does it. His acknowledgment that other people in the organization indulged in similar activities guarantees additional charges against addition people.

So far his preference to preside for life has not worked out. As least legally it has not. He no longer lives in the White House. The issue of how he would arrange for a third term has been replaced by a different consideration. He remains the real but-powerless President in his second term to tens of millions of Americans who yearn to return him to Office on January 20 or March 4 or in August or January 1, 2023 as Speaker of the House or back in White House in January 2025. The same people who think the coronavirus was a hoax, who would not wear a mask, who will not be vaccinated, and who vilify America’s health leaders, are eager for their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, to be restored to power since only he can save them.

The contrast between a united China under one-man rule for life and a divided country could not be more stark. The Chinese leader speaks from a position of strength ruling a united country. By contrast the United States is a divided country experiencing a civil war. Local rulers are deploying military forces outside their jurisdiction in support of the policy they believe is the correct. I did not know that governors could deploy their military forces outside their state without federal authorization. Apparently they can and with private money funding these militias as well.

These actions guarantee a reciprocal action by state forces on the other side of the civil war in the event they deem it necessary.  One can anticipate such deployments at the two upcoming critical moments – the elections of 2022 and 2024. The forces assembled in the nation’s capital may there to remove Joe Biden from the White House or to keep him there or both. Either way, the ratcheting up of the level of confrontation in the United States will show to the world that we are not united, not a democracy, and not governed by the rule of law (except when the winning side changes the law to support its entrenchment in power). The global coverage of the American civil war in 2022 and/or 2024 will undermine any effort by the United States to maintain a leadership position in the battle with China.

After all the talk about the previous President being a Russian asset, his “Stop the Steal” dividing of America turns out to be the greatest gift he could have given the Chinese.

WAVING THE FLAG

A third image from the two front-page articles is of the Chinese waving their flags. True, the contrast between the masks in the American photograph and the flags in the Chinese photograph could be equalized. There are plenty of pictures of American’s waving flags at the nation’s capital. Take January 6, for instance. The difference between the two countries is that flags are a symbol of unity in China and division in the United States. Flags are becoming like masks, a weaponized symbol in the American Civil War. If you think “defund the police” was an incredibly stupid political slogan for Democrats, then their abandoning the flag and the claim of being patriots to the Trumpicans is an even bigger blunder.

The more Democrats cede the American flag and national anthem to the Trumpicans, the more they jeopardize their slim majorities in Congress. The more the Democrats cede the American Revolution 250th to the Trumpicans, the more they jeopardize both their slim majorities and the presidency. Between now and the elections in 2022 and 2024, the Woke will have numerous opportunities to enable Foxhub to characterize the Democratic Party as a party of traitors even though it was Trumpicans who lead the assault on America on January 6.

There are signs of hope, that all is not lost. Consider this example from an article “On July Fourth, Stars and Stripes and Division,” (July 4, 2021, NYT), an article that does have a picture of an American flag. It is a story about a farmer who displays a flag on his truck and the assumptions people make about his political views as a result. The article concludes with three vignettes about people who are neither Trumpican nor Woke and need someone to champion them.

The first example is from a white male Republican who sometimes votes Democrat. He flies the American flag and said:

There is a lot of history with this country, some that maybe people don’t like today, and some that people are being judged for today for what they did 300 years ago. It’s still our country, and very good and bad thing made it our country. And that’s what that [the flag] represents.

The second example is from a female El Salvadoran immigrant who wore an American flag T-shirt and intended to do so on July 4. She said in Spanish:

This symbolizes this country and I live in this country. This flag is for all.

The third example is an African American Democrat who used to display the flag regularly until recently. When she just saw a forest of flags not at a political rally but as a peaceful “field of honor” installed by the local rotary club in honor of people who had helped the community. It led her to say:

I’ve always loved the American flag so much, and now seeing it by the carousel I felt happy again. And I haven’t felt that way about the flag in such a long time.”   

These are the people on whom America must build its future if it wants to win the war against China for world leadership. The American Revolution 250th provides the opportunity to forge a We the People identity that we can showcase to the world. All we need is the leadership.

Where Will Mitt Romney Caucus in 2021?

January 5, 2021
by Peter Feinman
Will He Hold the Balance of Power? (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

The title of my blog last February 17, 2020, was “Where Will Mitt Romney Caucus in 2021?” Now we are almost one year later and the time has come to revisit the question. Please note, I am not suggesting Romney could leave the Republican Party either to be an Independent yet alone a Democrat. I am raising the question strictly for caucus’s purpose. That means how he would vote for Majority Leader in the Senate.

When I wrote the blog last year, I used the following breakdown for the Senate just after the vote not to remove the impeached President from office:

52 Trumpicans
1 Republican
45 Democrats
1 Socialist
1 Independent.

As of now as Georgians are voting to elect two Senators the breakdown is:

51 Trumpicans
1 Republican
46 Democrats
1 Socialist
1 Independent.

However the Trumpican contingent is not quite the unified bloc it once was. The recent override on the military spending bill, the failure to support the $2000 Covid relief, and the paltry 13 or so Senators who support the coup, suggest a weakened hold on the Trumpican Senators. Some of them may have been closet Republicans all along now more willing to be outed for what they are.

Still, Romney may be the critical Senator. In order for him to be in a position to negotiate, his vote needs to be critical.

If the Democrats lose both Senate races today, then Romney’s position is weakened and he has no negotiating strength. The exception would be if he could sway one or more Trumpican Senators to be outed as Republicans. That is only likely if the Senator has no concerns about future elections either for the presidency or the Senate. The available pool that meets this criteria is fairly small.

If the Democrats win only one Senate race today and are one vote short of 50, then Romney would have leverage all by himself.

Even if the Democrats win both Senate races today, Romney would have some leverage. The practically of governing with a split Senate where the Vice President is needed to break the tie is doable but awkward. Life would be simpler given the current Senate rules if one party has the majority.

What are the items which could be negotiated in a settlement to determine majority control?

1. The Senate will vote in one month on all nominees by Joe Biden to the Cabinet, the courts, and all other positions. There will be no “Garlands” or shutdowns, or delays. Senators could vote yea or nay, but it is agreed that they will vote in a timely manner.

2. Establish a commission to examine the 2020 election. The areas of investigation include:

Was the election rigged through day of voting actions such as people voting twice, dead people voting, out-of-state people voting, voting machine tampering, multiple counting of ballots and any other action that would affect the vote totals?

Was the election rigged prior to Election Day through voter suppression, gerrymandering, changed Postal regulations and procedures?

Were any attempts made after the election to rig the votes including the calls by the loser not just to Georgia but to other state officials as well?

The American people deserve to know that a fair election was held. The American people deserve to know if people who wanted to vote were prevented from doing so as part of a conscious effort to rig the vote. The American people deserve to know if people who voted improperly regardless of for which candidate did so as part of a systematic program to rig the results, by innocent mistake, or from personal hostility to one of the candidates. The American people deserve to know if the machines used to tally the votes were accurate. Some of that information may come out in the lawsuits by the election machine vendors against the people in the media and their organizations who accused them of fraud solely because they did not like the results.

Millions of Americans are concerned that the vote was not fair, that they have been disenfranchised because their side did not win. A bipartisan commission will go a long way to alleviating fears about the validity of the election results and the legitimacy of the Joe Biden presidency.

Here is an example of why the commission is needed.

Texas GOP official suggests guillotine for Mitt Romney but calls it bad metaphor, not a call for beheading
SREC member from Seguin was angered by Utahan’s criticism of Ted Cruz plan to object when Congress reviews Joe Biden’s win in the Electoral College.
By Todd J. Gillman, The Dallas Morning News, January 3, 2021

“Romney should be introduced to our friend Mr Guillotine.”

The uproar caught the eye of a major French news outlet, News 24, which reported that a “‘Seditious’ Texas GOP official suggests Mitt Romney should be GUILLOTINED for not supporting voter certification challenge.”

The eyes of the world are still upon us including in France where they know about the guillotine as Gillman wrote about in the article. He went on to write:

Echoing Trump’s unproven claims, Harper asserted that “irrefutable” irregularities occurred in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. About 60 state and federal courts have rejected such claims..

“We are proud that Senator Ted Cruz is leading the charge, but the Texas GOP expects all those who represent Texas or the rule of law to be standing with him, whether they are in the US House or Senate. This is no time for Sunshine Patriots,” Harper wrote.

Harper is why soul-sellers like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz should be part of the commission.

3. There should be a straight-up vote on the proposed $2000 relief aid. Undoubtedly, the new President will be proposing his own bill to deal the with coronavirus crisis.

4. There should be a commission to study the management and operation of the Federal response to the coronavirus. Suggestion areas of investigation include

The failed management of testing
The failed management of providing PPE
The failed management of vaccine distribution
The abuse of power in silencing, transferring, or firing the medical and science personnel in the Federal government responsible for handling the response to the coronavirus.

These commissions and actions will go a long way to allying the fears and concerns of Americans about the election, the coronavirus, and the future of the country. It will show that it is possible to make America great again.

Depending on how the vote in Georgia plays out, Mitt Romney may potentially have the opportunity to take a leadership role in healing the country. Of course, even if that opportunity presents itself, he may not rise to the occasion to take such a leadership position. Of course, if he doesn’t, who will?

America’s Third Civil War: An Update

December 13, 2020
by Peter Feinman
America's Third Civil War (The Atlantic)

America’s Third Civil War is unfolding in unexpected ways. Previously I had blogged that the 2020 Presidential election would be our Battle of Gettysburg (He Really Could Stand in the Middle of 5th Avenue, Shoot Somebody, and Not Lose Voters 4/1/20) . It would be the moment when the conflict between the two sides of the Culture Wars burst forth with some violence over which side had triumphed in the showdown at high November. In many ways, such a showdown has occurred but without the violence…yet.

In the more than one month since Joe Biden won, although the results were not immediately known, the fighting has transpired primarily in the court room. In these clashes, the hero of 9/11 has made a dripping fool of himself time and time again without having any awareness of his predicament… except that he knows enough that he will need a pardon.

One surprising absence from the war has been the current Attorney General. After months and years of doing the biding of the criminal in-chief, when the final showdown came he was missing in action. In fact, he gave aid to the patriots who were defending the country from the assault on democracy by denying that the election was rigged or that fraud had occurred.

With these thoughts in mind, I am taking a trip down memory lane to one year ago: the December 2019 issue of The Atlantic with the cover title “How to top a Civil War.” Since the war is not yet over and 2021 promises to be even worse as the new President struggles to assert himself as THE President of the United States, it is worth taking a look back on what was written.  In a preview to the next blog, I note the article in this time capsule on Texas and secession could just have easily been written in December 2020 as December 2019. I am waiting to see what happens before writing about it.

A NATION COMING APART BY JEFFREY GOLDBERG

Goldberg tactfully opens his “Editor’s Note” with:

The 45th president of the United States of America is uniquely unfit for the office and poses a multifaceted threat to our country’s democratic institutions.

Truer words were never written, but I suspect they understate the problem. I doubt that Goldberg anticipated a frontal assault on the democratic process including an attempted coup to steal the election with the support of the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives and 125 accomplices. To imagine an attempted coup by this particular President requires no stretch of the imagination. To see how widespread the support was and is would have been unimaginable. These 126 traitors are from the present House of Representatives. It is quite likely that in the new House where the Democrats will have only the slimmest of margins, that the number of representatives who support the President in-exile will be even greater. There is no margin of error.

Goldberg went on to write:

The structural failures in our democratic system that allowed a grifter into the White House in the first place⸺this might be our greatest challenge.

I strongly doubt that Goldberg anticipated that the con artist only needed to ask for money to receive over $200 million from his Trumpican base. That is an astonishing achievement in the history of scam annals. He has perfected the ability to raise enormous sums of money in small amounts without having to fleece few bigtime marks.

Finally, Goldberg announced as the editor, the purpose for the special issue.

Out of our conversations, and others like it, emerged the idea for the special issue you are now reading, what we have called “How to Stop a Civil War.” … (W)e worry that the ties that bind us are fraying at alarming speed⸺we are becoming contemptuous of each other in ways that are both dire and possibly irreversible.

If these words reflect Goldberg’s assessment of the situation in December 2019, then one can only imagine what he must think in December 2020. For now the coup to steal the election temporarily has been stopped by the Supreme Court. One should expect the final stand where the last ditch effort to overturn the election will be undertaken will be when the new House convenes to ratify the vote of the Electoral College. He still thinks he can overturn the election and has roughly 126 people who will help him. The fat lady still hasn’t sung yet.

“WHEN TRUMP GOES” BY DAVID FRUM

The opening article in the war issue appropriately enough was called “Dispatches.” It was listed as the “Opening Argument.” The question raised was “Somehow, sometime, he will leave office. Will our politics get better or worse?”

Frum opened his argument with the well-known examples of the current occupant’s preference to remain in office beyond the two-term limit. By now you would have to be dumb beyond belief not to realize that is his desire. I am not suggesting he has a plan to do it, only that he would like to. Plan B I would guess is to run in 2024 and then to be succeeded by a child, probably Ivanka as the first female president. It would follow her stint as Senator from Florida beginning in 2022 where she is now relocating. For all we know, she will be the preferred Trump in 2024. Whether all that happens or not remains to be seen. What is clear is that the Trumps will be with us for years to come with a strong base in the House that will do whatever he wants.

In his Argument, Frum presents two scenarios: a narrow Democratic victory or a big Democratic victory. We know now that the latter did not occur. It did not occur in the House. It did not occur in the Senate even if they win the two runoff elections. It did not occur at the state level. Even though Joe Biden won with the same landslide Electoral College vote as in 2016 only with the parties reversed and by over 7 million votes, the Democrats’ hopes were not fulfilled.

Frum’s analysis in 2019 misses two key considerations, one of which he could not have known about.

First, the coronavirus changed all political calculations. Without the coronavirus it is quite possible there would have been another election where the Democrats won the popular vote but lost the election. Without the coronavirus there really could have been a second term.  Even with the virus, what would have happened if the vaccine had been discovered sooner? What would have happened if the coronavirus had happened a year earlier? We will never know the answer to these different scenarios, but there is one chilling fact that will haunt historians for years to come:

Did 200,000 Americans have to die in 2020 for him to be defeated that same year?

Try and imagine what it would be like to participate in that debate.  Are those deaths the price America had to pay to make him a one-term president?

Second, Joe Biden probably is the only Democratic candidate who could have won. In a previous blog, I asked the question if Elizabeth Warren could have won. We will never know but the odds are she easily might have lost despite the coronavirus. Even more so for the other potential Democratic candidates.

Frum couldn’t possibly have known any of this when he wrote his Dispatch from the battlefield last December. In hindsight we can see how the stars had to be aligned to produce the Democratic presidential victory in 2020 and there is no guarantee that they will be so aligned in 2024.

So what will happen now?

As in America’s Second Civil War, we will have two Presidents: one in Washington and one in the South. The parallel is not the same. This time the President in the south commands no armies and the only revenue he raises will be for himself. During the Second Civil War, the Confederates removed themselves from the political process. They did not remain in Congress or vote in the 1864 elections. This time Trump’s traitors will remain in Congress without suffering any punitive actions for their attempted coup to steal the election. Their loyalty will be to the rightful President in Florida and not to the Constitution or the illegitimate President in Washington.

The ongoing war then is more likely to resemble World War I than the Second Civil War but without the violence. By that I mean, everything in Congress will be trench warfare with neither side budging. Trumpicans will not accept Joe Biden as the President of their country.  They will call upon their governors to do the same … unless the state needs federal aid due to a disaster.  Care to guess to whom the Governor of South Dakota will pledge her loyalty?

America’s Third Civil War is far from over. It will continue as long as the two houses live together in one political entity. Texas has a solution for that.

 

Murderers’ Row: The Trump Hall of Fame

October 27, 2020
by Peter Feinman
He touched Mark Meadows (and the Republican Party)

Murderers’ Row was the name for the New York Yankees in the 1920s. It was the decade dominated by the baseball team even more than the way THE DONALD dominated Lafayette Square. It was the time when Babe Ruth was at his prime and transforming the game. He led a team of all stars, some of whom, like Lou Gehrig, joined him in the baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown.

A decade later, Murder, Inc. came to the fore. It was an organized crime group in the 1930s and into the 1940s. Murder, Inc. was centered in New York but was not limited to it. The members were acted as an enforcement arm of the mainly Italian and Jewish mobs.

The Memorial Wall at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters is dedicated to the CIA agents who died in the line of service, meaning they often were murdered in a targeted kill by others. We know now thanks to our Commander in-chief that these people were losers. They were suckers. We should never admire someone who was captured by others from Nathan Hale to John McCain to Jesus Christ. When Bonespur Boy made his comment, we had the opportunity to see in his flippancy the simplemindedness of the seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck. He lacks the mental necessities and cognitive skills to think through what he impulsively blurts out. This comment is one of the ones that will define his presidency as “Four score and seven years ago” defines another one.

MARK MEADOWS

When Marked Down was appointed Chief of Staff, I was very happy. “Why?” you might wonder. In the House of Representatives, Marked Down was one of the fiercest Trumpicans. He was loyal to core. For him, Russia and the Ukraine were hoaxes. He attacked Fake News. He was one of the chief Flying Monkeys defending the Wicked Witch of the White House from any and all witch hunters in any and all witch hunts.

So why was I happy when he became Chief of Staff? Because I knew what would happen to him. Remember what happens in Murder, She Wrote with Angela Lansbury? Everywhere she went someone died. She went on a cruise. Someone died. She went to a wedding. Someone died. She went to a reunion or anniversary. Someone died. Truly Angela Lansbury was the kiss of death long before Rick Wilson declared that “everything Trump touches dies.”

I knew that sooner or later Marked Down would be touched and die. I didn’t know when. I didn’t know how. But I did know it would happen. And there was nothing anyone could do about it. When he dared to speak the truth about the hospitalization due to the coronavirus, I knew the handwriting was on the wall. Time was running out for Marked Down.

“WE ARE NOT GOING TO CONTROL THE PANDEMIC”

Then it happened. “We are not going to control the pandemic.” Live on national TV and on a Fake News show, Marked Down uttered the words that will appear on his tombstone. Regardless of the biological cause of his physical death, we now know the words of his political death. It was only a matter of time before Marked Down was on the Trump List and now that moment had arrived. The countdown to his departure has begun. It may not happen the day after the election as it did for Jeff Sessions because it may take a few days for the results to become official. Still it is only a matter of time now.

THE MURDERER’S HALL OF FAME AT THE UNPRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

The Unpresidential Library is the library We the People will build in honor of the worst President in American history (see The Unpresidential Library: The Adolescent Room and Fox & Friends and the Unpresidential Library). It will be separate from the official library built as part of the National Archives and Records Administration. The library should be built in New York. It will have The Adolescent Room displaying the remarks of the seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck in his finest juvenile moments. It will have the statues of him ripping off his mask, standing tall with an upside down Bible at Lafayette Square, holding a bottle of disinfectant, and being swatted with a Forbes magazine by an immortalized porn star.

Naturally, the Unpresidential Library will have an entire wing dedicated to the complete mismanagement, incompetence, and dishonesty of America’s wartime president during the coronavirus crisis. However, he alone is not responsible for the deaths to Americans due to it. He had help in becoming the greatest killer of Americans in American history. He could not have succeeded in this effort all by himself.

The Murderers’ Hall of Fame at the Unpresidential Library will consist of all the people who assisted in the quest to let Americans die so the economy could be reopened and the incumbent could be re-elected. As with the baseball Hall of Fame and similar facilities, there will be a nomination, election, and inauguration for all the individuals who are directly responsible for the deaths of Americans due to the coronavirus.

There are many people who contributed to the greatest loss of life under any wartime President save for Lincoln himself…but the current total is still rising. As America capitulates and throws in the towel, herd immunity is the official policy. The adoption of this policy is easy and requires no skill or intelligent thought: just let everyone do what they want just as they used to do. Bugaloo for everyone. With this policy, the total of deaths from the Civil War, which often was due to disease as well as bullets, can be surpassed. Even the original prediction of 2.2 million deaths over time if nothing is done is in sight.

These numbers mean many have been called to the battle and few have risen to the occasion. There will have be guidelines developed to control the nomination and election process to Murderers’ Hall of Fame in the Unpresidential Library. Candidates may be drawn from:

1. the White House including all cabinet positions
2. the Congressional enablers and supporters of the virus hoax
3. Fox and related media outlets
4. Governors
5. Municipal officials.

A lot of people had to work very hard to maximize the number of Americans who died and who will die as a result of the coronavirus. They all deserve to be recognized for their efforts in killing Americans at an unprecedented levels.

Time is urgent. Remember come November 4, the Fake News hoax of the socialist anarchist Democrats will cease.

“By the way, on November 4 you won’t hear about it anymore,” THE DONALD in North Carolina.

“You watch, they’ll milk it every single day between now and November 3. And guess what, after November 3, coronavirus will magically all of a sudden go away and disappear and everybody will be able to reopen,” a son of THE DONALD last May on Fox.

No masks will be worn at the Inauguration ceremony for the Murderers’ Hall of Fame.

TRUMP ADMITS HE IS NOT A VERY STABLE GENIUS – FOR ONE DAY

October 6, 2020
by Peter Feinman

“Trump’s Corona – False Claims and expectations”: Palestinian Authority editorial:

What if the claim that US President Donald Trump was infected with the corona virus is fabricated? Some say President Trump fabricated this news to win sympathy, and to avoid future debates with his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden…

The Washington Post counted 3,000 lies by Trump, a thousand of them on Corona virus… so the fabrication of infection remains possible. Perhaps the thing that most reinforces this is the fact that Trump’s infection with the Coronavirus was published a few days after his first debate with his Democratic opponent Joe Biden, which Trump turned into the worst debate in history!
Of course there remains [the possibility] that the Corona virus has indeed managed to reach the American president, and that there is no fabrication in that regard. If this is the case, and without malicious joy, perhaps we can aspire that the suffering caused by this disease will cause the American president to re-examine the erroneous and aggressive policies towards humanity and its just causes, which he represents while he fuels racist extremist ideas, and sides with falsehood against truth, and with occupation against liberation and freedom…

Whether or not the U.S. president has caught Coronavirus, we will not analyze this news based on wishful thinking. Coronavirus is a disease that we do not wish for the creatures of Allah wherever they are, and we pray for the speedy recovery of all those infected.
[Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Oct. 4, 2020]

In stunning development Donald Trump openly admitted that he was not a very stable genius, he is not the smartest person in the room. This extraordinary admission occurred when he was hospitalized for the coronavirus. At that time, he announced that now he “gets” it.” And it only took eight months! What a remarkable example of mental acuity. He very well may receive a Nobel Prize in medicine for his discovery to go with his Peace prizes.

This learning experience has a pedagogical significance.

“I learned a lot about Covid. I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school. This isn’t the let’s read-the-books school. And I get it. And I understand it. And it’s a very interesting thing and I’m going to be letting you know about it.”

Now we now why he doesn’t read the briefing books. He doesn’t learn from writing. He doesn’t learn from reading. He doesn’t learn from adult presentations. He learns from real world experience. Sure, he could say to Bob Woodward that he realize how dangerous he was but he didn’t really. He didn’t learn until he had the disease itself.

Some people took the Susan Collins approach like the Palestinian Authority. Remember how being impeached and then tried was a learning experience too. Maybe this time, he would now realize the seriousness of the virus and be the leader the country we need.

Ben Rhodes said, “They are acting like they can defy gravity. The reality has finally come home.”

On the CNN website, the view was expressed:

For much of this year, Trump has spun an alternate reality about the dangers of coronavirus — disputing science and the efficacy of masks, downplaying the risks to the American people, and making false statements about how 99% of coronavirus cases in America are “totally harmless” or that the virus “affects virtually nobody.
He encouraged his aides and advisers to live in that dangerous fantasy land, pushing his luck to the limits as late as this past week when he again recklessly gathered thousands of unmasked Americans at his political rallies and packed the top officials in government into a Rose Garden ceremony for his Supreme Court nominee. All the while, White House officials embraced the fallacy that administering rapid coronavirus tests frequently at the White House could provide a shield of immunity.
The President’s construct crumbled Friday when he was airlifted to Walter Reed after contracting the virus, while many aides, advisers and allies were testing positive for Covid-19 after interacting with him over the past week.

WHAT! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? He already is the leader the country needs. He rates himself a 10, an A, and A+, he would change a thing that he did. His construct didn’t crumble. He is more sure than ever that he is on the right course.

Nothing has changed. He said he was going to let us know what he learned and he has.

“Don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it. We have the best medical equipment, we have the best medicines.”

“Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!”

DON’T LET IT DOMINATE YOUR LIFE!

Remember that word “dominate”? Remember how he dominated Lafayette Square as no President in American history ever has dominated a battleground? Remember how he told the governors to “dominate” their cities or else he would do it for them. Remember how he dominated the first debate scarcely allowing the basement-dweller an opportunity to speak, the greatest Presidential debate in American history. Now he has dominated the virus.

What has he learned?

Real men don’t get Covid-19. Only weak people get sick.
Real men don’t go to hospitals. Only weak people do.
Real men don’t get oxygen. Only weak people do.
Real men don’t wear masks. Only weak people do.
Real men don’t have doctors who tell the truth.
Real men don’t have a chief of staff who tells the truth.

He’s back, stronger than ever, stronger than he has been in 20 years. He is raring to go full-steam ahead to put the virus behind us where it belongs. Let’s get America moving again.

Is followers are ready. Over at Fox, Clueless Jim Jordan mocked Joe Biden about when he learned about the positive test result:

He wakes up, has a cup of coffee, and calls it a day.
He closes his campaign at 9:30 in the morning.

Hannity was gracious enough to give Biden a 10:00 AM end of the day. Business as usual.

In fact, Hannity tonight launched an all-out assault on the perpetrators of the greatest political crime in American history, the Russia hoax. It’s time for the Deep State to be hauled off in handcuffs and be locked up. Soon the cry will heard again at Trump rallies: “LOCK HER UP!” and the rest of them, too

There will be no change in policies and procedures on the virus.

There will be no stimulus package until after the election, if then. The stimulus package is not as important as a Supreme Court judge anyway. And since he is going to win, there isn’t going to be a relief package.

This infection has been a learning experience for America too. We now know how important it is for him not to appear weak. Yes, his base wants a warrior leader and he is pretending to be one with his rip-the-mask-off production. But we should keep in mind that it is always about him. He had the opportunity to exhibit sympathy and empathy and he didn’t take it. He had the chance to reach out to the female voters whom he has lost in droves and he didn’t take it. He could have tried to get back into the game as his polls plummeted. But he didn’t even try. Why not? It is more important to him that he not appear weak. He would risk his health and his reelection rather than appear weak. Let that realization sink in: he would jeopardize his reelection, his stay of jail for four years card, rather than appear weak. He dominated the first debate and was not weak when infected. And he trails by 14-16%. What a deal.

A Catcher’s Mask Is Not a Coronavirus Mask – Does He Know That?

October 2, 2020
by Peter Feinman
"Then the catcher makes an error, not a bit like Yogi Berra." From a 6th grade poem by the future Coronavirus President (picture by Sam Falk/The New York Times)

A catcher’s mask is not a coronavirus mask. Does our Coronavirus President know that?

When he was in 6th grade he was a catcher. He even wrote a poem including Yogi Berra, who was then a star catcher for the New York Yankees. They were probably his favorite team since they were winners.

He knows what a football helmet is.

He probably knows what a goalie mask is.

He probably knows what a helmet on a knight in shining armor is.

What do all these objects have in common?

What they have in common is that they are designed to protect the wearer. That function is significant. It means that it was imprinted on him at a young age that masks were designed to protect the wearer. They had nothing to do with anyone else. He has known that for over 60 years.

It is important to recognize that the idea is fixed in his mind.

No matter what Fauci says to him about masks, he knows that masks are to protect the wearer.

No matter what Birx says to him about masks, he knows that masks are to protect the wearer.

Try telling a teenager not to text and drive. You can say the words all you want. The teenager can even repeat them back to you. The teenager can even take a test from the Motor Vehicles Bureau and demonstrate knowledge of these words and their meaning. So what. What does mean for the teenager’s behavior?

The same applies to any advice about drugs, drinking and driving, smoking, or any other behavior you don’t want the teenager to do. “OK, Mom. I hear you. OK, Dad, I won’t do it.”
And then guess what happens?

Telling Woodward the words of recognizing the danger of the coronavirus is not the same as understanding them. If you think with your gut and not your brain, the words never sink in. He is still the sixth grader who knows that masks are designed to protect the wearer. Nothing will ever change that.

You think I am nuts, spinning absurd interpretations worthy of a conspiracy website or Fox. Listen to what he actually said to Hannity when he learned that Hope Hicks had the coronavirus. He was surprised.

“She is a hard worker, a lot of masks, she wears masks a lot. But she tested positive.”

How could she test positive? She wore a mask! What do you mean “BUT SHE TESTED POSITIVE”? Wearing a mask doesn’t protect the wearer from getting the virus, it prevents the wearer from spreading the virus. Hope Hicks wore a mask, therefore she should have been protected from the virus. For over 60 years, he has known that masks protect people.

Now consider what he said about Joe Biden during the debate.

“I don’t wear a mask like him. Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from them and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”

Yes, masks protect people, but real men don’t wear masks because real men don’t need to wear masks. Wimps the weak Joe Biden need to wear a mask even when they are 200 feet away from anyone. What a loser. He finally crawls out of his basement and is so terrified of the real world around him that he has to wear a mask. And you think he has the right stuff to be President!

This is how his mind works.

Look at what he did before the debate. He attended a superspreader fundraiser in New Jersey maskless. Why should be wear mask? He didn’t need protection. Hanks to the coverup, we still don’t know the sequence of how he and Hope caught the virus in the first place.

For an adult to wear a mask is to admit weakness. The alpha male wannabee will never admit to being weak. He didn’t retreat to the bunker for security purposes, he was on an inspection tour. And then he dominated Lafayette Square as no other President in American history had ever dominated a space before. And if those governors couldn’t dominate their cities, he would dominate them for them. Never show weakness. Dominate.

Look at how he dominated the two presidential debates in 2016 and 2020. Here is what I wrote about the 2016 debate as a variation of the 1960 debate. This time instead of a radio versus a TV winner, there was a verbal versus a physical winner (Predator in Chief, Our Lady of Perpetual Victimhood: A Presidential Election Retrospective).

During the high school debate while one candidate jabber jabbered, the other candidate was unleashed. He did not remain bound to his lectern. He did not remain a prisoner of the rules of debate. Instead he roamed the arena stalking his prey. A known predator who felt and feels free to grab females whenever and wherever he chooses [and get away with it because he is a celebrity] was now stalking his newest victim. A physically-larger person was circling the smaller victim. What would she do?

It wasn’t as if she didn’t know she was being stalked by a known predator. She knew she was and she knew she had a decision to make. She was now in the arena. She now needed to show if she had the right stuff or not. As she later would write:

Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space. Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly: ‘Back up, you creep, get away from me! I know you love to intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.’

Perhaps she remembered when a candidate in a Senate debate had violated her space and it had reverberated to her advantage. Not this time.

As she acknowledges, she chose Option A. Now with hindsight she realizes maybe she would have been better off if she had chosen Option B. On radio, no one would have noticed the dilemma she faced. On TV, many people did. Regardless of who won the high school debate, they knew who had won the game of Survivor. When asked in an interview in 1987 whether he would rather be appointed president or run for office, he replied:

“It’s the hunt that I believe I love.”

When he stalked her, he knew what he was doing. When he prowled the arena, he knew what he was doing. When he circled around her, he knew what he was doing.

The same scenario played out earlier this week. This time the opponent was a male plus there was the coronavirus. The option to dominate by physically stalking the foe had been removed. Instead he would dominate through words and bluster. He would bully his opponent into submission by not allowing him the opportunity to get a word in edgewise. And he succeeded. He declared the debate to be the greatest presidential debate in American history. He was the dominant one, not the weak one.

Previously I had predicted two possible moments when he might be forced to live in the real world (The Trump Doctrine versus the Truman (Jim Carrey) Doctrine Update).

1. When he left the White House on January 20, 2021.
2. When he would be investigated under oath with no immunity and the prospect of jail or prison.

No tweets or phone-ins on Hannity would save him then.

It turns out, there may be a third way in which he comes face to face with the real world. It is in a way the flippant President expected. Now that he is in the hospital. Now he is being given experimental medications under special consideration. This is for real. He knows he can’t tweet or bully his way out of this virus. He knows he might die. Will he learn anything if he lives?

Will he change his behavior now that he knows coronavirus that no curve has been rounded and that no miracle has occurred?
Will he decide to pay taxes since they are what pay for him to get the medical care he needs?
Will he stop trying to take away people’s health care and instead promote genuine health care plan?
Will he wear a mask and require everyone else to do so too?
Will he tell the truth about his own health from his mysterious hospital visit last year to his hospital visit this year?
Will he inform his followers that the coronavirus is not a hoax, not the flu, and that people should knock of the masks-are-slavery nonsense and listen to the scientists?
Will he apologize to the country?

Or will he claim that no president in American history ever overcame a greater medical threat than he has and go back to his normal? Unfortunately for him, “back to his normal” won’t work and if he is unable to grow from this experience to become a better person than he was then the country will continue to pay the price.

If ISIS Attacked NYC Would Rick Scott Care?

September 3, 2020
by Peter Feinman
This time, will Robert E. Lee win and destroy the Union?

With about one week to go before the 19th anniversary of the Al-Qaeda assault on the United States, it is worth pondering what has happened in America since then. At that time, despite the turmoil of presidential politics with impeachment and Florida, when the nation was attacked it was possible for Democrats and Republicans to stand together on the steps of the Capitol and sing God Bless America. No such unity is possible today between Democrats and Trumpicans. America consists of two peoples still bound in a single political entity but no longer functioning as one. Whether we separate into separate political entities or remain as one is what the current war is all about.

The coronavirus is different than Pearl Harbor or 9/11. The earlier two events were recognized as attacks on America, all America, the entire nation. The country responded as one. By contrast, the coronavirus never was perceived as a national threat. Health officials understood that the virus represented a national threat. Sometimes they even said so especially if they did not work for the Federal government. Those employees were often muzzled and/or undermined.

From the onset, the White House including an assortment of Trumpicans in various positions, viewed the coronavirus as a Democratic problem and not an American one. In the beginning, this was an easy decision for the scientifically-challenged to make. The virus hit hard in New York. Day after day, Americans watched a city under assault in painful gut-wrenching scenes. No other location in America was experiencing that horror. But for Trumpicans it was as if the Germans were bombing London alone so why should the entire country care.

This scenario played out for weeks if not longer. The disease infected cities, especially cities governed by Democratic mayors in states governed by Democratic governors. And the people dying weren’t even people the Trumpicans cared about anyway. But the economic decline was hurting Trumpicans. So did stock market decline. But now the stock market has recovered. The President dedicated to making rich people richer gleefully noted when it had returned to its former heights. The coronavirus problem was over, it had been solved.

Since the problem was a Democratic one, no national leadership was required. Trumpican governors in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Texas had everything under control. There would be no repeat of what had happened in New York City. Even though under Article 2, a non-Democratic President had the powers of a king, the world’s worst manager and career business failure knew better than to put himself in charge of the response to the virus. Let others carry the ball and bear the blame while he took the credit.

In the months to come, nothing altered this perception of the coronavirus as a Democratic problem. That view remains prevalent with Trumpicans. One thousand deaths per day over an entire country of 330 million is barely noticeable compared to one thousand per day in Queens or New York City as a whole. Despite all the talk about superspreader events, Trumpicans attending those events at an Arkansas Memorial Day pool party, Tulsa political rally, or South Dakota motorcycle gathering have not died in droves or barely at all. Maybe if it had been Tom Brady and not Tom Seaver who had died with Covid-19, Trumpicans would get the message that the virus is a threat to the country. So far it hasn’t happened. It’s not going to happen. The only news that might affect the vote is the coming announcement of a vaccine…not that Trumpicans would be vaccinated anyway. In the meantime, Trumpicans have discounted the virus as a threat to them beyond the flu and remain loyal to the person who kept real Americans outside the cities safe.

This attitude carried over into the aid packages. Once relief had been passed to help rich people get richer or at least maintain their wealth, the enthusiasm for aid relief dissipated. If people received $600 instead of $300, what would be their incentive to work? If Democratic states were bailed out, that would be rewarding states for being expensive, ineffective, and overstaffed. Why should people in Florida bail out those loser states like New York? It’s not like anything had been done to help New York during the past three years anyway. That will teach that other Queens boy who is really the boss.

Now the antipathy has been openly expressed. The war has been declared. The line in the sand has been drawn. President of the United States has said to the Governor of New York: DROP DEAD! There is no need here to repeat the vituperative exchanges which followed between the two Queens combatants. Suffice, it to say, it was a no holds-barred clash involving even relatives of the fighters.

Two points stand out so far.

1. The Governor has yet to call for the defunding of the Confederacy for the over $20 billion surplus in tax monies the state sends annually to the federal government.

2. The contrasting images of the one person are really remarkable to behold. Based on his real estate years in New York City, Little Donnee Waney is pond-scum slime. He was a successful clown but a failed businessman and human being. He never was accepted by the New York elite try as he might to be accepted. Even after being a long-time Democrat and Clinton supporter, he realized that he had no future in politics or business in the city and would always be a pariah. He was cruel, mean, nasty, and incapable of telling the truth besides being a simpleminded, ignorant, narcissistic bigot.

On the other hand, as THE DONALD, he is God’s gift to America. America should be thanking him for the sacrifices he made of his own free will to help his country by becoming America’s greatest president ever and at great personal cost. He is America’s Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name and he will lead America to victory over the new ISIS, the socialist Democrats who aren’t even real Americans anyway.

The battlelines have been drawn and the war is underway. In the next two months, Americans will scarcely know the world outside America exists. All attention will be on America’s Third Civil War. Even before Election Day, the hostilities are underway. Cuomo may be called back to television frontlines to give daily updates on the ongoing war with the Trumpicans. In fact, maybe even two Cuomos will be speaking daily on the war just as they did when one was infected and the other struggled to stop the spread…unless, of course, Chris becomes a casualty of this war.

In a way, the open declaration to defund Democratic cities does America a favor. Perhaps now we will stop pretending that it is politics as usual or just another presidential election. The coronavirus is not the existential threat to the continued existence of the United States as a single political entity. The current salvo against the Democrats is just one example of the scorched earth war that will only get worse. Tom Friedman, the longtime reporter on Lebanese civil war politics, wrote back on August 19 (print):

Here is a sentence I never in a million years thought that I would ever write or read: This November, for the first time in our history, the United States of America may not be able to conduct a free and fair election…[T]hat would not result in just a disputed election…that would be the end of American democracy as we know it. It also isn’t hyperbole to say it could sow the seeds of another Civil War.

The threat is real.

Yes, it is. The battle is engaged. Militias will be on the march when called. This president genuinely could succeed in accomplishing what Benedict Arnold and Robert E. Lee could not. Is Joe Biden up for the fight of his country’s life?

America Can Still Win World War IV: Harris Helps

August 12, 2020
by Peter Feinman
It Looks Like the Borg Will Win but in the End the Federation Triumphs

America can still win World War IV.

America was on the winning side in World War I which may have ended due to the flu pandemic of 1917 causing no soldiers being able to fight according to the most ignorant President in American history.

America was on the winning side in World War II which may have ended after the flu pandemic of 1917 according to the most ignorant President in American history and who actually participated in a D-Day commemoration.

America was on the winning side of World War III (the Cold War) although Putin considers that loss to be the worst day in Russian history.

America could win World War III.02 if it had an adult President who was not an alpha male wannabee subordinate to alpha male Putin.

World War IV is different. China may not have the nuclear arsenal of the Soviet Union or Russia but it does have formidable economic power. It is quite focused on becoming the leader of the world befitting its heritage as the Middle Kingdom.

KOBE AND CORONAVIRUS: MEANING FOR WORLD WAR IV (February 4, 2020)

This blog was the first one I wrote this year on this topic. At that time, China seemed to be on a roll in its quest for world leadership…just as it is now. The blog cited various articles written about this quest and noted some problems:

1. demographics
2. world reaction to its treatment of Moslem Uighurs
3. Hong Kong’s desire to be free
4. the coronavirus.

China also was aided by the United States. It had wreak havoc with its alliances, abandoned being the City on a Hill and had no interest in being the last best hope of humanity.

The one positive note from an American point of view was soft power. The global reaction to the unexpected death of Kobe Bryant was a dramatic if tragic example that the eyes of the world still were on the United States.  The world pays attention to what is happening in America more so than it does in China.

What has happened since then?

HONG KONG

Last August, I wrote a blog, When Will the Borg Assimilate Hong Kong?: Is Resistance Futile? At that point in time, the situation seemed fluid and it was possible to imagine a positive outcome. By this year, that optimism was silly.  Instead, the new circumstances were Borg to Hong Kong: Resistance Is Futile (Not in America), June 2, 2020. The situation now is more bleak. China is rounding up dissidents in Hong Kong the way the American authoritarian leader would love to be able to do in the United States.

CORONAVIRUS

What can you say about the Chinese and American handling of the coronavirus? Despite the horrid start back in February, China successfully has controlled the spread of the virus. The example of the United States is an embarrassment by contrast. America has shown the world that it is led by a simple-minded incompetent person who is out of his league in coping with the disease. For the first time in American history, other countries pity us. Yet 41% of the American public still accept the American President as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name. After all, there is no coronavirus on Fox. Problem solved. Meanwhile, the world laughs at us as it quarantines us.

GEORGE FLOYD

At first glance, one might think the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent demonstrations reflect poorly on America in the global arena. There is no doubt that Floyd and Corvid-19 have exposed an ugly underbelly of the American Dream and way of life. Nothing is hidden. Everything is revealed. The shortcomings and problems of the country are there for all the world to see.

That is exactly the point. This ugly America is also an example of America’s soft power. The ugliness is not hidden now but shown on American media and the internet which has no government firewall to prohibit it. It has sparked events in other countries as well. People in other countries would like the opportunity to protest freely. People in other countries also have issues with statues, monuments, memorials, and race. So while China is busy showing the world that it is just another authoritarian thug (with a lot of power), America has shown the world the right of the people to express themselves, rights which people in many countries do not have. America does not only mean the President of the United States, it also means the people throughout the country.

KAMALA HARRIS   

 Joe Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris to be his Vice Presidential candidate and possible successor as President is another example of America’s soft power. There is more to the country than the white racist in the White House. This is not to deny his strong support for being a bigot, but to point out for all the world to see that he does not dominate the country as if it was limited to Lafayette Square. Harris immediately connects the presidential election to two other countries: India and Jamaica. Those ancestral ties link America to the world in a way that could never happen in China. She shows that immigrants to the United States really can live the American dream. From this point forward, her very existence becomes a continually shining soft power symbol of America that China cannot match.

AUTHORITARIAN LEADERS

There is one final example of soft power that can propel the United States into a position of world leadership if the country wants it. We have the opportunity to remove our authoritarian leader. We can do what China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and others cannot do. Furthermore we have the opportunity to do so comparatively peacefully through the democratic process. It is a shock that the United States actually has an authoritarian leader in the first place. There is no doubt that American democracy has taken a beating in the last 3+ years. There also is no doubt that the American authoritarian leader will do everything he can like any dictator in a Trumphole country to preserve his power. He may even be successful. I have written before about my doubts on whether or not the United States will celebrate its 250th birthday and with the same political boundaries it has today. Regardless of what the current polls say, it’s not over until the fat lady counts every contested ballot.

Even Steven Calabresi, co-founder of the Federalist Society, has written that the American authoritarian leader’s tweet on postponing the election “is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal by the Senate” (“Trump Wants to Postpone the Election. He Can’t,” NYT, August 1, 2020, print).  The day the Flying Monkey Attorney General indicts the Deep State should be the same day the Democrats begin the second impeachment and the removal of the Attorney General. This is not a time for the weak.

Wicked Witch of the White House Dispatching His Flying Monkeys to Secure the Election

So what does all this mean for World War IV? Right now this is the sweet spot for China just as it is for Russia. True the United States is fighting back against China but it has made no effort to regain its position as world leader. It has made no effort to mend its relationship with its nominal allies as it continues to do Putin’s bidding. All that can change in a few months. Vice Presidents are known for traveling the world although generally for funerals. Look for this one to travel the world to help Make American Great Again and regain for the United States the Number #1 position in the world.