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Republican Party

The Three Party House: Are We Europe?

October 17, 2023
by Peter Feinman
Should the Republican Party split into MAGAs and Real Republicans? (CNN)

Decades ago, President Lyndon Baines Johnson famously declared there goes the South following the passage of the Civil Rights and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He correctly anticipated that Confederates would abandon the Democratic Party. That process began in the 1968 presidential elections with the 46 electoral votes in five states won by George Wallace. Those votes were not enough to swing the election. However his 13.5% of the vote totaling nearly 10 million votes were more than enough to cover the roughly 500,000 and .7% vote spread between Nixon and Humphrey.

A process had begun whereby Confederates would become an increasing significant bloc within the former party of Lincoln. As we see in the gerrymandering, the voter suppression, the removal of elected state legislators, and the seizure of powers from Democratic governors and cities, the Confederates are still fighting the last civil war. Trump did not cause this development to occur but he has excellently exploited to his own advantage.

Johnson did not anticipate what would happen once the Confederates became Republicans. Just because there was no room for Confederates in the Democratic Party did not automatically mean they would be welcomed in the party of Lincoln. After all, that party included people like Nelson Rockefeller then and had a lock on elected officials in New England. It took time but people died, people switched parties, and people lost. The MAGA Party is a pale shadow of what the Republican Party once had been in the northeast.

The Tea Party added a new wrinkle to the political demographics. The call for states’ rights echoed the Confederate mantra of the last civil war being about that issue and not slavery. Years ago, even before I started writing blogs, I expected the saying of “a house divided cannot stand” to apply to the Republican Party. I anticipated that in the 2012 presidential election, the Republican Party would split into its constituent elements.

In the House, that would mean Democrats held a plurality but not a majority. The Republicans would be second and the Freedom Party third. The passage of any legislation would require the cooperation of two of the three parties, most likely the Democrats and the Republicans. I did not anticipate that the Tea Party renamed the Freedom Caucus and now MAGAs would take over the Republican Party instead.

We now stand on the brink of the triumph of the Freedom Caucus in the House. One of its members may be elected Speaker of the House by the time you read this blog [in Round Two]. The situation is a fluid one. One thing we do know is that Real Republicans have no backbone. The same people who did not stand up to Donald Trump will not stand up to Jim Jordan, the leading Congressional insurrectionist who has yet to testify and be indicted. None of the 20 who opposed him in Round One did so because of his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election save perhaps one who drew a line in the sand and said the buck stops here.

THE MARKERS

Regardless of the results in Round Two or whether an interim speaker for 30 days is agreed to with bipartisan support, the Republicans will still be in the majority if the House. There are some key voting markers in the next few weeks which will show whether or not Real Republicans have the intestinal fortitude to put their vote where their mouth is and vote with the Democrats. These votes are:

Aid to Israel
Aid to Ukraine
Budget.

In addition such issues as impeaching the President, Hunter Biden, and the supposed stolen election may affect the behavior of the House. In each instance there will be an opportunity to learn if the takeover of the Republican Party in the House by MAGA is complete or not. The actual vote by the Republicans will be more important than any protestations about never supporting the Freedom Caucus and its agenda for America.

Will the Real Republicans work with Democrats to provide national leadership or will they succumb to the brow-beating by the MAGAs to become one of them? Look what happened to Nancy Mace compared to Liz Cheney. Cassidy Hutchinson is out. Mitt Romney is retired. The stable of Real Republicans out of power continues to grow. We will know in less than 45 days about the House.

The signs of division already are playing out at the state level. It’s fairly easy to tell in any statewide election or even Congressional election, which candidate is MAGA and which is Real Republican. In many states the political infrastructure has been taken over by MAGAs making more difficult for Real Republicans to run at the federal, state, or Congressional level. If the recent experience of the Senate is any guide, Real Republicans may choose to retire. Such actions will only create more opportunities for MAGAs to take control.

CREATING A THIRD PARTY

Lately, there has been a lot of discussion about a third party candidate for the office of President in 2024. Polls have been taken on the impact on the national level of Robert Kennedy, Jr. Both parties have expressed concern over which party will lose the most from his candidacy.

Here is where our winner-take-all policy kicks in. Right now, a candidate only needs a plurality of the vote to be declared the winner and take all the electoral votes. Suppose a majority was required. Remember Georgia in 2020 at the Senate level. Suppose that policy applied at the presidential level in all 50 states. Such a policy would make it impossible for a Jill Stein or Ralph Nader or Robert Kennedy to play a spoiler role. Obviously it is too late to implement such a policy for the 2024 elections. Plus it would have to be done at the state level. Still, it shows that we are not inevitably trapped with the present system.

Unfortunately for 2024 we are. But if there are Real Republicans with spines and enough of them, they could work with Democrats so the country would not be trapped by the Confederate/Freedom Caucus agenda. I realize that is asking a lot of Real Republicans. They have always bowed down before Donald Trump. They voted on January 6 to void the election results. They declined to impeach him. They declined to support to House Select Committee. While there are some exceptions, some of them were gone after January 20, 2021. Maybe if enough of them in the new Congress live in Congressional districts Joe Biden won or intend to retire so they cannot be primaried or who are loyal to the Constitution first, they can make a difference in the House this term.

The State of the Republican Party

August 24, 2023
by Peter Feinman
Defining historical images for our era (NBC News)

One of the critical developments in the Republican debate was the admission by the longtime Democrat, Clinton supporter, and Cuomo bro was that he was not a Republican either … nor does he need to become one to get the nomination of the Republican Party.

One can understand why for tactical reasons, the front-runner chose not to participate in the Republican debate. There he would be simply one of nine. Instead he should be the center of attention. Therefore he chose to record an interview with former Fox opinion host Tucker Carlson and present it simultaneously on another media outlet in direct completion with the Republican debate. It is that extra in-your-face step that signifies that it is all about him and not the Republican Party. He does not need it anymore. He is not really a Republican anyway.

IT’S NOT 2016 ANYMORE

Who can forget way back in 2016, the rhythmic chant of “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!” about someone who had not even been indicted for anything … despite many, many, many hours of trying to so? Flash forward to 2023. Compare to the response by the candidates and the audience about supporting an indicted and convicted candidate. Now the mantra was hands raised (or almost raised), that of, of course, and impeached, indicted and convicted candidate would have their support.

What does this transformation mean for the Republic Party? Now it has been unleashed to defund the special counsel, remove the Fulton County district attorney, weaponize the Department of Justice to seek retribution after victory in 2024. In the meantime it will use all the power of the legislative bodies in the state and House on behalf of the longtime Democrat, Clinton supporter, and Cuomo bro.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY COMPOSITION

According to The New York Times, the Republican Party can be divided into six groups. One is the Moderate Establishment consisting of 14% of a party (that represents about 25% of the voting population). This group is home to the anti-Trumpers, Republicans who would not vote for Trump.

Think back to Georgia in 2020. Over 30,000 people voted for Republican candidates but left the presidential line blank So if one is looking for 11,780 votes, all one has to do is reach out to Republicans who will never vote for Trump. They would not necessarily vote for Joe Biden either. They are more likely to stay home or not vote for a presidential candidate if the nominee is an impeached, indicted, convicted, criminal dedicated on retribution (shades of Putin!) for 2020 and the subsequent criminal cases. It is unlikely that anything that happened in the debate or the recording is likely to cause them to reverse course and become MAGA.

To some degree, this group also represents the independent voters, especially the famous female suburban voter that the Republican Party has lost in recent elections. Again, what if anything that was said on Wednesday is likely to cause them to vote Republican. The Ohio voters rejected amending the Constitution which would have made it harder to end the abortion restrictions in the upcoming November election. That vote suggests that reddish states may go Democratic on this issue. Here is where abortion bans issue could be pivotal in 2024.

The second group identified in the analysis is traditional conservatives (26%) meaning pre-Trump Republicans. This group got their Supreme Court judges who now are wreaking havoc at the grassroots level over abortion. They got their tax cut to help rich people get richer. They support Ukraine and not Putin, immigration reform and not demonization, and morning in America over carnage. So while they were not MAGAs in the past, they are even less likely to be so in the future.

Again this is a group which might leave the presidential line blank in 2024 or stay at home. Here is where Bidenomics and a positive message about America’s future by the Democrats could produce positive results. After all, these people survived four years with Joe Biden and all the House Republicans have to show for their relentless war is Hunter Biden. Plus Trump could be knee deep in trials and convictions due to the testimony of actual Republicans by then. This group is even less likely to support Trump than in the past.

The third group powers the Party. The rightwing represents 26% of the Republicans. It consists of Fox, Newsmax, rightwing radio, the Freedom Caucus. With winner-take-all primaries, this group guarantees a Trump victory. They are loyal to him. They believe all his lies. They cough up money for all his scams. The election was stolen. The trials are just a witch hunt. They are happy to tithe so the billionaire does not have to spend his own money on elitist lawyers.

But there are limits. There are limits as to how much money they will actually fork over. And as is abundantly clear, there is a limit as to how many will man the barricades on behalf of their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his name. They have seen what happened and is happening to the January 6 insurrectionists. They did not turn out at all at any of the four arrests in response to the calls for them to do exactly that in cataclysmic terms. They will, however, still  vote for Trump.

There is no way to get through to this group. They believe in apocalypse now. It is a religious belief. In the Scopes Trial, they prefer William Jennings Bryan. The challenge for the country will be what will these people do if Joe Biden wins again despite being practically dead? Even though they have worked themselves into such a lather, the call for rigged elections in 2024 will ring hollow given all voter suppression laws which have been enacted since 2020.

Still, this group is the base that nominates the candidate and which produces the lone wolfs, mentally ill or not, who make the threatening phone calls and occasionally do act violently.

The fourth group, the Blue Collar Populists (12%) is the one that paid the price for the hollowing out of the American manufacturing base. These were the overlooked flyover people the coastal elites disdained even as their communities disintegrated. On paper, this group could come back from the dark side provided the solid blue collar communities returned. If  those industrial jobs with their strong sense of community, of belonging, of benefits, and security could be brought back the votes could follow, but that will take time. Here one would really need to hammer home the message that it is still morning in America and not carnage with our best days behind us. That would probably require a more dynamic and forceful leadership than the Democrats can provide.

The fifth group is the libertarian group (14%). Mainly what they want is to be left alone. They are not prime candidates to enlist in the MAGA insurrectionist army unless they feel threatened. As long as right wing media can cast any action by the Democrats as socialist, they are unreachable. Here is where it is important to provide them a choice instead of making something compulsory like masks. Ask them what compulsory program they would like to see ended, at least for them. Start with social security.

The sixth and final group is the newcomers (8%). One characteristic is their youth. They may have loans and feel overwhelmed by their prospects of living the American Dream. They are anti-woke.

How reflective of the Republican Party was the Fox audience for the debate? Of these six groups, which ones are the most likely to attend such an event? Gone are the days of three national networks dominating the news. Instead we have slice and dice audiences reaching a smaller and smaller percentage of the voting population. But it is one where one segment of the Republican Party makes the choice for the whole party while Team Normal remains trapped in Trumpland unable to return to the real world.

Republicans Are Losing, But Is the Tea Party Winning?

December 16, 2022
by Peter Feinman
The GOP is losing; the Tea Party isn't

The Morning Joe Show with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist has established certain routines. The hosts and their circle of guests in this morning talk show on MSNBC each in their turn, tell a tale of woe for the Republican Party. They bad mouth it as a party of losers that hasn’t learned anything from its defeats. Round and round they go belittling the Party for its repeated election loses. Each one wonders what it will take to get through to the adults in the room that they are on the wrong path if they want to win in the United States today. How many election loses will it take to get to through to them before they wise up and chart a new course?

On a recent show, I witnessed some pushback to this daily denunciation … and from a Republican no less! He commented that these supposed losers think they are winning. Therein lies the tale. There is no constructive purpose in belittling the Republican Party for not being the Party of Lincoln, Reagan, Bush, and McCain, and then faulting it for not changing course. The Republican Party today is not the Party the host left, it is not the Party of Lincoln, Reagan, Bush, and McCain. It has no desire to be the Party of Lincoln, Reagan, Bush, and McCain. Therefore to judge the party on traditional Republican standards is a waste of time.

TEA PARTY/FREEDOM CAUCUS

The Tea Party now Freedom Caucus has been around since prior to the 2010 election. Then the combination of midterm election for the party out of power, the new census districts, and, Obamacare, the Tea Party exploded onto the national political arena. The Tea Party won bigtime at the state and federal level. These victories enabled it to carry forward into the 2020 census and to perpetuate voter suppression. There have been long term consequences to the 2010 victories that reverberate to this very day even with some rather strange Senate candidates in subsequent elections.

My expectation back then was that the Tea Party would form its own party and selected its own presidential candidate in 2012. In effect, it would become a third party feasting on the remains on the second party. I was wrong. Instead it remained within the Republican Party feasting on its carcass. It succeeded in forcing two Republican Speakers of the House to take early retirement. Now it has a third one tied up in knots even before he becomes the Speaker. Marjorie Taylor Greene vigorously supports Kevin McCarthy for Speaker because she knows she can dominate him. The Tea Party/Freedom Caucus is prepared to move forward aggressively in 2023 through its control of committees. It will launch attack after attack against the Democrats. So on what basis is it correct to say the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus is losing?

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

The Republican Party, however, continues to wither on vine. Its members retire because they are old and have had enough. Its members are primaried. Real Republicans have been bullied and cowed into submission. When Republicans do support bipartisan actions it often times is because they are retiring and can’t be punished.

It was bad enough that Real Republicans had to submit to every criminal act committed by the twice-impeached loser President.

It was bad enough that Real Republicans had to acquiesce to a failed insurrection.

Now the new mouthpiece for the Freedom Caucus has openly supported the January 6 insurrection. Her only objection to it is that it failed. If she and Steve Bannon, who have yet to testify under oath about it, had been in charge the results would have been different. No more pretense about Antifa. No more pretense about BLM. No more pretense about FBI plants and false flag operations. No more “normal tourist visit.” No more “legitimate political discourse.” The curtain has been pulled back. The truth has been revealed.

We want to cross the Rubicon. We want total war. We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets (Gavin Wax, Young Republican).

This Party has not lost. If anything it is getting stronger within the Republican carcass. The proof is clear: Real Republicans do not denounce it. They remain silent. They acquiesce. Instead, the leaders of the Freedom Caucus are to be rewarded with positions of power in the new House.

THE DOUBLE CIVIL WAR

The Civil War so eagerly anticipated by the Freedom Caucus first will be fought within the Republican Party. Lines have already been drawn in the sand. The wrangling over the Speaker position is underway. Even with the Loser in-chief on the phones, getting to the magic 218 number remains problematic. This battling is merely a harbinger of things to come even if it is resolved.

The same applies to the debt limit. The emphatic “Hell, no!” from McCarthy is part of the political performance he needs to do to secure the votes that will put him over the top. He does not want to start his time in office with a Republican-initiated shut down of the government.

Again, all these maneuverings are even before the new Republican Speaker would take office.

THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN

Lost amidst all this discussion about the Speaker position, is the triumph of the Confederacy. LBJ famously predicted the Democratic loss of white southern voters following the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965). That prediction came to pass. Over the years, the Confederates migrated to the Republican Party.

But something has been lost in the focus on race. Confederates did not like damn Yankees telling them what to do. Confederates despised the Yankee elitists dictating to them how to live their lives. Those Confederate values live on with the Freedom Caucus today. That attitude may be seen in the derisive treatment of Anthony Fauci and the resistance to wearing masks. It attests that there was more to the opposition to abolition back during the Civil War.

Confederate confrontation with the Federal Government during the COVID crisis expresses the continuation of the Civil War fought under different means. We have already seen on January 6, the Confederate flag waved in the Capitol, an action not achieved in the Civil War. Now the Confederates and their allies are poised to take over control of one of the two Houses of government. Don’t tell them that they are losing and need to change.

The Morning Joe Show needs to stand back and examine the larger picture. The Republican Party they miss also was the Union Party. Lincoln, Reagan, Bush, and McCain were all Unionists. The Freedom Caucus despises all those who support the Union cause. Their heroes are those who fought for the Confederacy. They have not lost in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022. Quite the contrary. They stand on the brink of power in one House. They are gunning for reducing/eliminating programs that help all Americans and support those that only help real Americans. Better not to build a municipal swimming pool than to waste taxpayer money on one that even, you know, those people can use. So instead of continually reprimanding the Republican Party for being a Party of losers, one should step back and realize the South has risen again.

Krakatoa Kansas versus the Red Wave

August 7, 2022
by Peter Feinman
(MGM Studio)

In 2018, the President of the United States predicted a Congressional red wave. He was wrong.

In 2020, the President of the United States predicted a Congressional red wave. He was partially right but not enough to save him from the House Select Committee and DOJ indictment.

In 2022, everyone in the political chattering class predicts a midterm first term Congressional red wave for the out-of-power party.

Then came Krakatoa Kansas.

Now everything is jumbled. There is uncertainty (fear). What happens if the Republican Supreme Court victory negates the Republican Congressional victory?

Politics is not only local, it is personal. By that I mean, as individual human beings we respond most strongly to actions or events that directly affect us as individuals. Most recently, the price of gas an example. Back from when the draft was rare and we were not fighting a war, the draft was no big deal. Elvis being drafted could even be made into a movie. With the war in Vietnam, suddenly the draft affected every home. It became a big deal. That has not happened in any war fought by America since then.

With these thoughts in mind, let’s turn to the recent, surprising, and cataclysmic vote in Kansas about abortion.

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? (2004)

Here is what I wrote about Kansas on September 17, 2020:

The book What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by Thomas Frank was another exercise in false expertise. The thrust of the book was to resolve the dilemma of why so many Americans vote against their economic and social interests. There had to be something wrong with these people since culture war issues trumped their economic and social concerns. It would be like supporting candidates who consistently favored tax cuts for the rich while giving you nothing. How could people be so dumb as to be shafted again and again while cheering the very people who exploited them? What’s the matter with these people?

The publication date of 2004 is most revealing. That election year was the last time and only time in the Baby Boomer Era a Republican presidential candidate won a majority vote. If it was written say a year before the publication date, then it was five years before Sarah Palin called for taking back the country and 13 years before the then long-time Democrat and Clinton supporter conned Republicans into thinking he cared about the little people the elitists fly over. To put those years in perspective, it means the Democrats had 13-year notice on the 2016 election and learned nothing during the interim except to pour more oil on the fire. Still it is questionable whether or not the Democrats have learned that there is nothing wrong with the people of Kansas except the way they have been treated by the elitists.

The issue raised in by the book was that condescending arrogant self-righteous Democratic elitists knew what was best for the little people of Kansas. The real problem is that those people are too dumb to know what is in their best interest otherwise they would vote Democratic. The harm that this elitist Democratic view has caused this country is not the subject of this blog. The issue is what was left unspoken then: what about when the know-it-all was Republican?

THE TEA PARTY AND SAM BROWNBACK

Sam Brownback (Federalist Society)

Enter Sam Brownback and the Tea Party now the Freedom Caucus of Insurrectionists Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan. Back then, the Tea Party had the words, it had the slogans, and it had the plans that would solve the problems of America. All it needed was the chance to put its money where its mouth was. Then everyone would see that they could not only talk the talk, they could walk the walk.

So Kansas Senator Sam Brownback decided that instead of running for reelection during the Tea Party tidal wave of 2010, he would run for governor. He won and immediately launched his Tea Party program through dramatic cuts in income taxes. Every Tea Party person knows that income taxes are the problem and cutting them if not eliminating them was the answer. Brownback was true to his word. His “red-state experiment” put into action the very slogans the Kansas voters had cheered during his campaign.

Unfortunately for Brownback, his tax cutting occurred in the real world and not in the political professional wrestling arena. The results in the real world were exactly as expected. The Kansas experiment resulted in a corresponding massive cut in state revenue. There was no economic boom to generate sufficient revenues to compensate for the lost revenue. In fact, the result was a financial disaster for the state.

Plunging revenues meant plunging funding available for government spending. Kansas budget shortfalls led to deficits which led to cuts in spending in areas that directly affected individual people. Schools figured prominently in the cutbacks. The thing about schools is that they are in every neighborhood. You do not need to listen to radio talk shows, watch cable talk shows, or listen to politicians to know when you very own neighborhood school is under attack.

It took time, but eventually Brownback’s Tea Party experiment was declared a failure. Tax cuts were reversed, vetoes were overridden, and taxes were increased. More or less there was peace in shire once again. There also was Democratic Party governor elected in 20218 in this Republican state.

Governors are different than Senators and talk show hosts. They have to put up or they are shut up. Governors have direct responsibilities. They act. They do things. Or sometimes they choose not to do things. Whatever the case, they directly impact the lives of the people in their state. They can’t get away with the airhead slogans of Representatives or Senators. Brownback showed he was not doing the job and the people could see and feel it. They may have been conned by the Tea Party slogans but now they had been burnt by the Tea Party actions. Time for a change. Time to vote a Democrat into office.

ABORTION AND KANSAS

The national media are very good at reporting on the words of the national bloviators. There is no doubt that professional political wrestling makes for great sport. If it bleeds, it leads. And that carries over into the political coverage as well.

Then Brownback occurs and all hell breaks loose. For years Republicans talked the talk of overthrowing Roe v. Wade. Republicans sold their soul to a candidate who promised to appoint the judges who would make it happen. The only Republicans who did not talk about reversing Roe v. Wade were the Supreme Court candidates themselves when they were speaking to the Senators individually or in committee. Then at last they had the opportunity to do what Republicans had talked about for decades. They did the Brownback and have reaped the whirlwind. The abortion tornado has ripped through the country, now first seen in Kansas.

ABORTION ARMAGEDDON: THE POST-ALITO APOCALYPSE

Way back on May 8, 2022, I conclude the blog with the above title with:

Remember what happened the last time the wishes of the Evangelicals were fulfilled? For decades, Protestant evangelicals had rallied for the prohibition of alcohol on a national level. It was not enough that alcohol sometimes was prohibited locally or on Sunday. It needed to be banned everywhere for all times … except for medicinal purposes, of course. Those efforts eventually paid off. That time it was not through the Supreme Court but in an amendment to the Constitution. Welcome to the Roaring Twenties. The amendment soon was reversed in abrupt fashion. The fervor of the religious could not overcome the wishes of the majority of the Americans. Once the law went into effect, everybody was confronted with its meaning and impact and eventually the majority prevailed.

Little did I know it would start to happen so quickly with abortion. Abortion isn’t whether or not Pelosi should go to Taiwan. It is not whether or not we should kill the Al-Qaeda leader or what should we do in Ukraine. Like Prohibition in the 1920s and the draft in the 1960s, it is national issue brought home on the local level, on the personal level. You do not need radio and TV talk show bloviators to see the impact of the abortion decision.

We know that primary turnout usually is small. This enables the extreme crazies more easily to be nominated. But sometimes, just sometimes, there are issues which touch individual people directly. So much so that it causes them to act. Alito cannot suffer the same fate as Brownback, but those who cheered him on can. Who knew that Kansas would become a cutting edge state in the 2022 elections?

RUSH TO LEGISLATE WITHOUT THINKING

Democrats now have a template that can be used against every Republican candidate at the state and federal level in the country. The question to be posed to Republican candidates is a simple one:

WHAT ABOUT THIS …?

In the rush to legislate, the Republicans never took the time to debate the different situations which may occur. Every day another one surfaces. The Republicans stand naked shorn of their slogans. States now are constantly reacting on the fly to the myriad of human circumstances which can arise given the absence of legal abortions in a state. There is no point in listing all the questions raised since the ruling. We are witnessing the live experience of how rabbis created the Talmud as they tried to relate biblical laws to the lives actually led.

The Republican state legislators abandoned their obligation to conduct such debates prior to the passage of the abortion ban legislators. Instead they are being confronted with what their decision devoid of intelligent thought means in the real world. If the Democrats are smart, those Republican legislators and candidates will be confronted every day of the campaign with “What about this ….”

“If we are going to ban abortion, there are things we’ve got to do to make sure the need for abortion is reduced, and that women are not endangered,” said Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina.

“What are you going to do to reduce the need?”

Ask every Republican candidate. Every day.

Mace supports expanding access to gynecological and obstetrics care, contraception, including emergency contraception, and the right of women to travel to other states to get an abortion without fear of prosecution. Do you?

Ask every Republican candidate. Every day.

Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen learned he needed to clarify and elaborate his position. Suddenly he supports family and maternity leave program, a $2,500-per-child adoption tax credit, and improving access to birth control. Do you support that?

Ask every Republican candidate. Every day.

For years Republicans were able to get away with calling for the reversal of Obamacare without having an alternate. They do not have that option with state-level abortion.

If you doubt the power of Krakatoa Kansas consider this headline about insurrectionist Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano:

The Republican nominee for governor once called abortion his “No. 1 issue.” Now he says the next governor won’t control abortion policy (Philadelphia Inquirer, 7/28/22).

2022 will be remembered in part for the showdown between Krakatoa Kansas and the Red Wave.        

Will the Constitutional Republic Survive America’s Third Civil War?

January 26, 2021
by Peter Feinman
For want of wearing a mask, the presidency was lost. (https://nailstip.blogspot.com/2019/08/for-want-of-horseshoe-nail.html)

The fate of the constitutional republic of the United States of America remains unknown. Will it survive to celebrate its 250th anniversary? Will it dissolve into its constituent parts? Will it simply muddle along under constant strain because the alternative is too scary?

No one knows the answer to these questions. Before beginning a series of history blogs on the subject, I would like to note how easy it would have been for the constitutional republic already to have ended. A lot of things had to work out for us to get even this far and anyone one of them could have turned out differently.

THERE COULD HAVE BEEN A BIGGER TURNOUT ON 1/6

Approximately 8000 people showed up on January 6, not all of them armed. When I first wrote Seven Days in January: This Time It Is Not a Movie on January 3, I asked what would happen if different combinations of heavily-armed right wing militias had stormed the Capitol. I wondered if there were sufficient ground forces to stop them. Now we know. Even with the lower number of insurrectionists the defensive forces were inadequate to do the job.

1. Why weren’t there adequate forces to defend the Capitol?
2. Why was the turnout for the insurrection so low?
3. Despite the low numbers, what would the response have been if Mike Pence had been hanged and Nancy Pelosi had been killed?

SUPPOSE THE TRUMPICANS HAD BEEN AS WELL ORGANIZED AS THE WOKE

The Woke were prepared for the post-election attempt by the Trumpicans to steal the election; the Trumpicans were not. The Woke correctly anticipated the Trumpican attempt to steal the election. They had planning sessions as to what to do. More importantly, they had planning sessions on what not to do: No cries to “Defund the Police.” No toppling of statues. No burning of flags. They conducted training sessions. They planned for contingencies. They coordinated. They vowed not to provide Trumpicans with the slogans and photo-ops that would undermine their cause. They were organized, disciplined, ready and successful.

By contrast, the Trumpican side was true to their leader. He bought a lifetime of incompetence and ineptitude to managing his post-election attempt to steal the election. He was not prepared at all. He had no planning sessions. He developed no strategies. He organized nothing. When your legal effort is being led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, you know you have a weak case. Everything was ad hoc, impulsive, on the fly. The DOJ wasn’t ready; in the end a nobody from left field attempted to stage a coup within the department that went nowhere. In the end the corporations that were being accused of criminal activity based on wishful thinking decided to strike back through legal action.

The planning for the insurrection itself consisted of a call to show up, attend a rally, and walk to the Capitol – it will be wild. There was no planning about what the people should do once they got inside the Capitol. As Mary Trump said about her uncle, a child in the body of an adult with the emotional maturity of a three-year old, he “enjoyed every second…He is a physical coward but he’s perfectly happy when other people commit violence on his behalf.” Even the rightwing groups mocked the effort for being unorganized and inadequately planned. Once inside, the insurrectionists were busy taking selfies and souvenirs. Skilled revolutionaries they were not.

1. Suppose next time the insurrection leader is an adult?
2. Suppose next time the insurrectionists turn out in force and do have a plan?
3. Suppose next time the Woke aren’t as well organized and prepared to stop the steal?

WHAT IF THE CORONAVIRUS HAD OCCURRED EARLIER IN HIS TERM?  

On numerous occasions during the pandemic, various people in the administration have made fools of themselves for their ineptitude, incompetence, and ignorance. They did not understand the science nor did they want do. One of the questions historians will ask, if they aren’t already, is why did the eventual loser throw away the opportunity to be a winner.

1. Imagine if he had worn a mask.
2. Imagine if had pretended to be sympathetic.
3. Imagine if he had put Mike Pence in charge.

Of course, he couldn’t change who he was even though it cost him the election. He simply was too simple-minded, narcissistic and lacking in mental necessities to transform the virus into a leadership challenge as a wartime president. Instead all he cared about was the Dow Jones and once that crisis was solved he lost interest.

But if the virus had struck earlier and if the vaccine had been ready earlier and if the vaccine had been distributed earlier and America was looking back on the virus on election day the way China is, he would have been re-elected. He will never understand that.

WHAT IF THE DEMOCRATS HAD NOT NOMINATED JOE BIDEN?

While 7 million votes is a lot numerically, in percentage terms, it is not that great. A small shift of votes in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and one congressional district and there would have been no need to try to steal the election. All things considered, that is not a lot of votes. It also shows how thin the Democratic bench is and how Democrats may need Biden to run again in 2024 to prevent a Trumpican victory.

Our next presidential election is the bicentennial of the election of 1824. That presidential election was one of the ugliest in American history. There were five candidates. American was transitioning from the First Party system of Federalists and Anti-Federalists/Republicans of Adams and Jefferson to the Second Party system of Whigs and Democrats with Clay/Webster and Jackson. I first wrote about it in September 2016 The Presidential Election of 1824: Lessons for Today and tried to resume the discussion in December 2020 Biden and Cuomo: The End of an Era. In that blog I wrote about the Diversity Party and the Democratic Party as two of the parties. The question was how long the two factions could remain united in one party. The answer is still unknown but I think it is safe to say both groups understand the stakes if they don’t.

In that blog, I deferred writing about the corresponding division of the other party between the Republicans and the Trumpicans. In a little more than a month since then, that division has become obvious to everyone. The actions of the state parties such as in Arizona and really-off-the-rails Oregon, the votes in the House on the electors and the impeachment, the vote in the Senate on constitutionality of the impeachment all show that there is no civil war in the Republican Party. The Trumpicans have won. The Republicans are retiring from the battlefield. The Lincoln Project Republicans aren’t welcome anymore and they know it. There is no place for them.

Mitch McConnell is four years too late to battle to save the Republican Party from the Trumpicans. He got his tax cut to help rich people get richer and he got his judges. If the price is the destruction of the Republican Party for the Trumpican Party, then he will have to decide if it was worth it. The people who need to set up a third party are the Republicans and not the Trumpicans. There is no Republican Party left to take back.

That is why the fate of the constitutional republic remains unknown and precarious. The United States of America now has one national party that is dedicated not to the rule of law under the Constitution but to the wishes of one immature individual with no conscience, no ethics, and no morals. For now at least, he is in complete control of his party. The vaunted Biden working relationships with members across the aisle means nothing. Those are the Republicans on their way out. He has no Senate experience with Trumpicans. He has no House experience with Trumpicans. They do not consider him legitimate.

The Democrats still control the House…by a little and the in-power Party tends to lose seats in the non-Presidential election. The Democrats barely control the Senate but there still are some Republicans left there so some legislation may be possible. The Democrats have no margin for error. The continued existence of the United States of America as a constitutional republic depends on them not making one.

Captain Queeg and the Republican Party: Is the Party Iraq?

January 8, 2021
by Peter Feinman
Has he lost his marbles? Did he ever have them? (Wikipedia)

Whither the Republican Party? To some extent merely to ask that question implies that a Republican Party still exists. It is important to keep in mind that the Republican Party had ceased to be the party of Lincoln even before the 2016 elections [R.I.P. Party of Lincoln (1856-2016) March 12, 2016]. While individual admirers of Lincoln still exist within the Republican Party, they did not define the Party on a national level. It had become a weenie party of stupid (see Bobby Jindal, remember when he was a rising star in the Republican Party?).

The idea that the Republican Party would face the truth about its leader has been a pipe dream for years. Starting particularly with the Access Hollywood, there has been a constant sense that there was a line to be crossed and he had just crossed it. I plead guilty to having thought there would be a moment of truth, there would be some action where Republicans would stare into the ugliness of the person with no conscience, no morals, and no ethics and say, “Enough is enough.” Despite Lindsay Graham’s pro forma protestation, that moment still has not arrived collectively for the Party.

Take the Georgia phone call as an example. On one side there was an immediate hue and cry about an illegal act and an impeachable offense. Meanwhile the Impeached-only-once-so-far President said people liked the call. By “people,” of course, he meant his people, the real Americans, and not We the People. But the fact is, he was right. Trumpicans loved seeing him fighting for what is rightfully his. After all, he not only won Georgia, he won the election and did so in a landslide.

The same applies to the January 6, 2021 occupation of the Capitol. For weeks if not months the Impeached-only-once-so-far President had been inciting Trumpicans to gather at the Nation’s capital for an apocalyptic showdown with forces of evil. On the day of the assault, he and his son had incited Trumpicans to storm the Bastille as it were, to force the weak RINOs to do the right thing. As with the Georgia phone call, there was an immediate hue and cry about an illegal act an impeachable offense with the additional option of invoking the 25th Amendment. But the same Mike Pence who stood by his man after the Access Hollywood tape is standing by his man after the failed coup attempt.

True, the outcry among Republicans is greater now. They know even when Congressional Trumpican lives were on the line inside the Capitol, he would not lift a finger to help them or denounce those who threatened them. After, for the longtime-fake-Democrat-and-Clinton supporter, it is all about him. Don’t expect any sympathy or empathy for collateral damage in the Capitol. As the days dwindle for the Impeached-only-once-so-far President, there are some Republican voices being heard saying enough is enough. In the House, the Trumpicans still dominate but their vote is not needed for impeachment. In the Senate, the Republicans seem to outnumber the Trumpicans and the opportunity to deny him the right to run for President again has an appeal even to Senators who had sold their soul.

It would appear now that the Republican Party has gone as far as it can along those lines. While it was able to defeat the Democratic Party of the Politically Corrected People and its terrible candidate in 2016 despite losing the popular vote, it has reached the limits of what it can achieve unless aided by the Woke.

As things stand now,

1. it has lost the House, the White House and the Senate
2. the three male Trumps have vowed to “primary” the weak disloyal RINOs who did not come to the aid of the failed coup to reverse the election
3. the Georgia Trumpicans have lost three statewide elections in short order and the current Republican office holders have been vilified, denounced, and even taken into hiding for their safekeeping from Trumpicans – do you really think a Trumpican can first primary the current governor and then win the state election?
4. the Arizona Republican Party is now chaired by a perennial loser who has become a permanent resident of an alternate reality – after also losing three statewide elections – two Senate seats and the presidency – do you really think a Trumpican can first primary the current governor and then win a state election?
5. the initial attempt to primary the South Dakota who placed loyalty to the Constitution over loyalty to an individual has failed
6. a Trumpican could not win statewide elections in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Vermont, Republicans could and have
7. Trumpican outbreaks have occurred in multiple states throughout the country and most likely will continue as the battle is engaged – they even have a t-shirt to mark the launch of the civil war.

For Trumpicans Lincoln, Roosevelt (T.), Bush, McCain, and Romney are RINOs and Romney is to be vilified as a traitor as he just was in an airport. No place is safe from Trumpicans. The Rubicon has now been crossed. The moment of truth has arrived. The Trumpican goal to win primaries trumps the Republican goal to win elections. America’s Third Civil War is really two civil wars: one between Republicans and Trumpicans and one between Trumpicans and the Woke.

I conclude with a blog from 2016 that unfortunately represent a long-standing and false hope (Star Trek Anticipated the Trump Meltdown October 9) and (Empire State Presidential Elections (2016): A Day in Infamy, August 6). As the monster became uglier and uglier in the real world, I thought the disgusting ugly incarnation of evil that he is would be exposed for all to see. I thought he would suffer the same fate as the alien in the Star Trek episode. I even wrote:

What happens if the party of Lincoln seeks to take back its party from ugliness? What happens if non-elite heterosexual white males who love their country and are in pain catch on that they are being slicked, conned, hustled, flim-flammed, bamboozled and lied to by a staggeringly ignorant narcissist who just as easily would rip them off at his phony university for their desire to live the American Dream as he would for their vote?

I was wrong then and I would be wrong now if I thought Trumpicans would see the truth. Rather, they do see the truth. He is not an alien monster. He is their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name. How can Lincoln compete with that!

White House Down: There Is No Republican Profile in Courage

December 24, 2020
by Peter Feinman
This time the assault is real and led by the President

“White House Down” is a movie about a physical assault on America.

“Tantrum Trump” is about a political and social media assault on America that could become a physical assault on January 6, 2021.

“White House Down” had people who rose to the occasion and became heroes.

“Tantrum Trump” has no profiles in courage, no heroes, no Howard Bakers. The Sore Loser is acting to cement his legacy as the biggest baby in American history, a whining, weenie with no morals, no ethics, and no conscience, who has no objection to destroying the United States even without being actually on the Putin payroll.

Despite this, what’s left of the Republican Party will not act to stop him.

All the way back in October 2019, I wrote a blog Will Mike Pence Become a Profile in Courage? My conclusion then as now is NO!!!!!!!!!!! No matter what he will never invoke the 25th Amendment. He will certify the election of Joe Biden on January 6. But he will do nothing to prevent the savage chaos which will engulf the United States during the last four weeks of his term in office.

Back in June 2020, I wrote a blog Mitch McConnell: Howard Baker (Time to Go) vs Stay the Course (Go Down with the Ship). My conclusion then was that he would stay the course even if it meant going down with the ship. That did not happen on Election Day but it could happen on January 5. Still he will not rise to the occasion no matter what harm the Sore Loser inflicts on the country, the Republican Party, or the Republican Senate Majority.

Remember the talk about his creating an alternate TV network (or show)? What he is really doing is creating an alternate party. He has always been a Trumpican first, last, and only. Now he is not only unhinged, he is unleashed. He sees January 6, 2021, looming before him. He knows the Democrats will support the election of Biden. He knows the Republicans will support the election of Biden. He knows he needs to make sure the number of Republicans left in Congress are too few to override the Trumpicans. He needs Vice President Brown Nose to continue to be for him what he is to Putin.

At long last, some Republicans are finally seeing that the long-time-Democrat-and-Clinton-supporter doesn’t care about the Republican Party. It was only a vehicle which he could hijack for his own needs as he was unable to do with the Democratic Party. His exultation of the loss of Republican Mia Love in the 2018 elections was simply a prelude to what is occurring now. Tom Friedman asks “Will Trump Force Principled Conservatives to Start Their Own Party?” (NYT 12/23/20 print). His answer was, “I Hope So.” Friedman thinks at some point, “some Republicans will say ‘enough.’”  He wrote that before “Krakatoa, East of Java” on the night of 12/23. It still isn’t enough.

We are facing the extraordinary situation of a sitting President openly attacking his “own” party. He is actively undermining his own party. He is doing this now even before he leaves office and relocates to Mar-a-Lago where he can’t legally live anyway. His desire for revenge against still-Senate-Majority-Leader Mitch McConnell trumps any concern for the Georgia Senate elections. He couldn’t care less about those Republican incumbents having to explain why they supported a disgraceful bill. He couldn’t care less about those Republican incumbents having to explain why they oppose a $2000 relief check. He couldn’t care less if those Republican incumbents lose. In fact, when he had his hissy fit, he never even thought about them.

His throwing the Republicans under the bus has produced strange moments in American history. Consider the situation of his chief of staff. A lifetime ago in October, I wrote:

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.

Now he is in meetings with criminals, traitors, and nutcases talking about martial law. If there is one thing Confederates prize above all else it’s the sending of Federal troops into states to seize stuff. It’s like a dream come true for every Confederate and right-wing militia.

Speaking of right-wing militia’s, their moment of truth will soon be upon us. They have been called to action. They have been called to Washington, DC. They have been called to “Stop the Steal.” Back in September, I wrote the blog Will the Militias March on Washington November 4? Obviously I was wrong on the date. I was not thinking about January 6 or all the post-election actions which have transpired. So while the question raised has been answered in an immediate sense, the true issue raised in the blog about the actions the private militias will take has not.

What will they do when all the legal maneuvering comes to an end? For months they incessantly heard about a rigged election. They have heard about the end of the world as they know it if their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, is removed from office. They have seen it on Twitter. They have seen it on Foxhub and other stations.  Now the moment of truth has arrived. The clarion call of Sarah Palin to take back the country rings true. Now is the moment. Now is time to act. If not now, when?

Suppose a few hundred armed militia decide to march on Washington. What will the response be?

Suppose a few thousand armed militia decide to march on Washington. What will the response be?

Suppose 250,000 armed militia with motorcycles and trailers packed with provisions pour forth in caravans from around the country and descend on Washington as they did in South Dakota. What will the response be?

Suppose there is a million man march in support of the one person who can save the country. What will the response be?

I have no idea. Who even has the authority to stop an insurrection led by the Commander in Chief? The local police forces could be overwhelmed. Who could stop the private militias from entering the Capitol? The previous actions in the Michigan statehouse are small-scale compared to what potentially could occur. I don’t even begin to know how you map out a defense against caravans of heavily armed private militias descending on Washington especially if they are violating no laws in traveling there. Oh, you say, they don’t have a parade permit as if that would stop thousands of people bent on saving their Savior.

At this point, no one knows what will happen. We don’t know how many will show up?  We don’t know what the impact will be on Representatives and Senators trying to reach the Capitol amidst maybe thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands heavily armed private militias screaming “Stop the Steal! We know where you live.” There is a lot of uncertainty still with two weeks to go and four weeks to go. It’s hard to imagine the situation not getting meaner, uglier, and deadlier as the Sore Loser becomes more and more desperate, more and more unhinged, more and more unchecked since there are no profiles in courage in the Republican Party and no one will rise to the occasion.

 

P.S. Finally, there is the burning question all Americans are asking: When will Rudy get his Christmas pardon?

Kamala Harris and Marjorie Taylor Greene: A/The Preview of the Future

August 13, 2020
by Peter Feinman
The Monsters Are Everywhere (https://www.123rf.com)

The unsung August 11, 2020, has unexpectedly become a preview into America’s future. On that day, Jamaican-Indian female heterosexual Kamala Harris became the Vice Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party and possible next President of the United States of America after Joe Biden. Also on that day QAnon Marjorie Taylor Greene won the Republican Congressional primary runoff in the safely Republican 14th Congressional District in Georgia to the acclaim of the current President of the United States. In this blog I wish to address the role of monsters in American politics.

MONSTER UNDER THE BED  

When you are a child, there are monsters under the bed. There are monsters in the closet. There are monsters in the bathtub drain. There are monsters that rattle windows, shake doors, and walk in attics. They are everywhere. Eventually, the child grows up. Eventually the child gains the maturity and cognitive skills to recognize that those monsters don’t exist except in the child’s mind. They are real in the world of the child, they are not real in the world of the adult. At least, not normally.

All children do not grow up. Some people remain children all their lives. Little Donnee Waney is one such example. The media persists in analyzing his actions and decisions as if he were an adult. It is as if Mary Trump never wrote anything or doesn’t know what she is talking about. If you accept that she is correct about his being a child in the body of an adult with the emotional maturity of a three-year old, then his fixation on conspiracies should be analyzed on that basis.

Now in the eighth decade of his life, he still lives in his child-world of monsters all around him. He calls them conspiracies. Sometimes he call them MS-13. On August 11, while these other events were unfolding, our Scared Child in Chief was on Hannity describing how he had saved America from monsters. His big beautiful completed wall that the media doesn’t talk about had proved itself already. “Thousands” of MS-13 had been stopped, returned to their home country, or imprisoned. The wall was working to keep America safe from the monsters that were ever threatening to invade the country. Naturally, Fox didn’t perform any fact-checking. One presumes the Trumpicans watching believed that their President and Commander in Chief was successfully hard at work protecting them. He had their loyalty, their devotion, and their vote. Hence the immovable 41% in the polls.

HOW THE POLITICALLY-CORRECTED PEOPLE TERRORIZED THE PARTY OF STUPID  

 Simply because he is a scared little child doesn’t automatically equate to his fears resonating with Republicans. After all, the Republicans of Reagan were not scared. Back then, which isn’t that long ago, Republicans were a Party of optimists about Morning in America, about defeating the Evil Empire, about America being a City on a Hill. Some of those Republicans are still alive today. Yet the Party now is one of Mourning in America, carnage at home, withdrawal from abroad, and no desire to be a City on a Hill or advocate of American Exceptionalism.

Something happened to intimidate them into being the scared party of stupid. That something was the Politically Correct. Year after year they preached the gospel of the invasion of the alien other who were going to take the country away from native-born whites. A minority/majority people would be become the new dominant political and cultural power in the United States. White privilege would end. White people would be sent to the back of the bus unless they were Woke in which case they would be tolerated and forgiven their trespasses of being white. If you tried with all your might, all your soul, and all your heart to deliver a message better calculated to terrorizing white people into thinking they had had no future in America, or at least, no future they would want, you could not have done a better job than the PCPs did. They were absolutely relentless in telling white people that in the years to come they would confined to the dump heap of history, powerless strangers in their own land.

The party of stupid responded by cowering in fear. The whining party of stupid desperately sought a savior who would rescue them and their country from a fate worse than death. At no point did the party of stupid fact-check the claims of the PCPs. At no point did the party of stupid challenge the prognostications of the PCPs. Instead it fell for the PCP scam hook line and sinker, curling up into a scared ball of fear. The monsters are coming. Help us take back our country. Save us.

I was reminded of this con in a recent article on the census in my local paper via the Associated Press. It stated that non-whites and Hispanic were a majority of people under the age of 16 now. The death rate non-Hispanic whites surpasses their birth rate. The number of non-Hispanic whites is declining. In 25 years, non-Hispanic whites would be a minority. On and on the article went about non-Hispanic whites as a diminishing people in the country.

What about Hispanic whites? At no point did the article mention Hispanic whites. You would think that such people didn’t exist. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t Latin America settled by many people from Europe just as the United States was. Don’t people in Latin America know if a person is of European, African, local Indian, or mixed descent? Aren’t countries in Latin America culturally and politically organized based on those distinctions? Yet somehow when the people come to the United States they are all lumped together.

That tactic has worked wonders in terrorizing native-born white people. Once upon a time Germans weren’t considered to be white people and then they were. Once upon a time Irish weren’t considered to be white people and then they were. Once upon a time Italians weren’t considered to be white people and then they were. If Germans, Italians, and Irish still weren’t considered white people, think how small the percentage of white people in America would be today. Now if a German, Irish, Italian, Spanish, Cornish, etc. first goes to Latin America and their descendants come to the United States, suddenly they are no longer white again. We probably are the only country in the world where the descendants of Nazis can be classified as Hispanic.

But the party of stupid is content to let PCPs define Caucasians from outside Europe as brown people. You only have to listen or watch PCP’s gleefully forecast the impending minority status of white people to realize what the response might be. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction to the persistent PCP prophecies of decline for white people is exactly what you should expect it to have been: a desire to be saved from the PCP monster.

QAnon  

QAnon represents the most extreme example of the terror that has overwhelmed Republicans as  they contemplate their future. They accept as true the con the PCPs have inflicted upon them. The ultimate response is to invoke the monsters of monsters, Satan her/himself. Divine assistance is needed to thwart the nefarious plans of the hated PCP Socialists. Fortunately our Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, is here to do precisely that. Therefore he must be re-elected despite the rigged election against by the Deep State. He must be able to continue the fight however long it takes.

WHITHER THE REPUBLICAN PARTY  

 The Republican Party as the party of Lincoln has been dead for years [R.I.P. Party of Lincoln (1856-2016) March 12, 2016]. Right now it is dedicated to becoming a third party in a two-party system where it is as irrelevant on the national level as it is on the state level in California.

Even a repeat of 2018 in 2020 would not be enough to change the trajectory. It would only leave more QAnon and Tea Party in Congress and fewer Republicans. There was no Howard Baker during the impeachment. There is no Howard Baker during the campaign. There will be no Howard Baker after the elections. It is not only that no one in White House can tell Putin’s Pence what Russia is up to; no one in the White House can tell him that the flu epidemic was in 1918/1919.

JOE BIDEN CHALLNGES TUBBY WUBBY TO A BIKE RACE FROM YO! SEMITES TO THIGHLAND.

He’s not leaving the stage if when he will be thrown in prison.

As long as Lincoln remains persona non grata in the Republican Party it has no future. When Lincoln said, “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers…,” he knew that his audience included immigrants with no biological ties to 1776. Yet he included them as Americans. When George Bush the son, spoke of compassionate conservatism and received 44% of the Hispanic vote, he showed that the Lincoln option still worked. When Jeb Bush with his Mexican-American wife ran in 2016 he showed that the Republican post mortem from the 2012 election might still work. But the low-energy candidate was no match for the party that had abandoned not only Lincoln but Reagan. It wanted a candidate who played to their fears generated by the PCPs and not one who offered hope. The PCPs more than Putin were responsible for 2016 election results and now over 165,000-and-counting Americans are dead. And still the Republican Party remains the whiny party of stupid.

“The Party of Stupid,” Norman Vincent Peale, and the Coronavirus

July 30, 2020
by Peter Feinman

Back in January 2013, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, then a rising Republican star, issued a stark and brutal warning to the Republican Party: it “must stop being the stupid party.” His issued this ringing admonition in the wake of the presidential election defeat in 2012 by Mitt Romney to Barack Obama. It was an election Republicans really thought they could win. When defeat ensued, the Republican National Committee’s Winter Meeting was convened to determine what the Party should do now. Jindal said to “stop insulting the intelligence of voters” would be a good start. Now here we are over seven years later and approaching another presidential election. So how is the Party of Stupid doing?

THE YO-YO INCIDENTS

Let’s consider some very recent events to measure whether Jindal’s advice was taken.

1. Representative Ted Yoho
In this now-viral example, Yoho put a different face to the nasty and mean Party other than the normal ones. This mostly obscure representative committed a double faux pas. He uttered what should not be uttered and he did so in the presence of the press. He also directed his nasty meaness against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a target more than capable of fighting back. In fact, his foe was far more skilled in the use of the media, including social media, than he was. This very incident may be the one that solidified her position as the replacement of Chuck Schumer once he steps down from the Senate.

Yoho branded himself not only as a mean and nasty person who used derogatory language, he went on record as being a coward. His pathetic attempt at an apology only demonstrated that he would have been better off saying nothing rather than exposing himself as gutless. Hiding behind a wife and daughters does not project an image of strength or having the courage of one’s convictions. It shows that the Republican Party which rallied around him is still the Party of Stupid.

2. Representative Louie Gohmert
What can you say about a person who is superb at putting his foot in his mouth and who would be better served if he never opened it again? There is no need to waste space repeating his nonsense about masks before he became infected, his nonsense about masks after he became infected, his lunacy in how he informed his staff, and his decision to take hydroxychloroquine. As Forest Gump used to say, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Gohmert definitely is in the running for the Stupidest Representative of the Year award for 2020 and his year is not yet over. Clearly he is a card-carrying member of the Party of Stupid.

3. A Trump Voter on CNN
CNN interviewed a group of Trump voters from 2016 to determine where they stood in the upcoming election. One of them made Kellyanne Conway seem like a resident of the real world. Statistics were being thrown around on the basis that people have the right to their own facts. Why should the economy have been shut down when 99.99% of the people infected recover with no problem? After all we don’t close down the Interstate Highway System because of deaths from car accidents. Right you are. Thank you for showing why elected officials who exemplify being stupid have no problem retaining the support of their constituents. What Jindal meant to say was to “stop insulting the intelligence of general public voters if you want to be elected but keep on insulting the intelligence of our own party voters if you want to be nominated.”

NORMAN VINCENT PEALE
Besides Roy Cohn, Norman Vincent Peale seems to be non-family member who greatly affected our current wartime leader. I became aware of this connection from “The religious roots of Trump’s magical thinking on coronavirus,” by Daniel Burke, CNN Religious Editor (May 21, 2020). Burke sought to understand the frequent references to a “miracle” as the solution to the pandemic. “It’s going to go away.”

It didn’t yet over and over again America seeking leadership heard this refrain instead. Burke wrote:

Invoking a miracle is an understandable response during a pandemic, but to some, the President’s insistence that the coronavirus will simply vanish sounds dangerously like magical thinking — the popular but baffling idea that we can mold the world to our liking, reality be damned.

In an attempt to trace the origin of this wishful thinking, Burke turned to biographers who had written about the influences:

But long ago, his biographers say, Trump learned how to craft his own version of reality, a lesson he learned in an unlikely place: a church. It’s called the “power of positive thinking,” and Trump heard it from the master himself: the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale… “He thought I was his greatest student of all time,” Trump has said. AND HE THOUGHT I WAS AN ADULT!

Back in 2009, in an interview with Psychology Today entitled Donald Trump on Failure, he said following:

In the early 1990s, I owed billions of dollars and many people thought I was finished. I refused to give in to the negative circumstances and I never lost faith in myself. I didn’t believe I was finished even when the [FAKE NEWS] newspapers were saying so. I refused to give up. Defeat is not in my vocabulary. Defeat is not in my vocabulary personally or professionally, which I think served me well in my comeback.

My father was friends with Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, and I had read his famous book, [HE READ A BOOK! HE READ A BOOK! HE READ A BOOK!] The Power of Positive Thinking. I’m a cautious optimist but also a firm believer in the power of being positive. I think that helped. I refused to be sucked into negative thinking on any level, even when the indications weren’t great. That was a good lesson because I emerged on a very victorious level. It’s a good way to go.

He did become President after all so the philosophy of the power of positive thinking seems to be working.

Burke concludes:

Peale’s teachings can explain why Trump won’t accept criticism
You can hear echoes of Peale’s no-fail philosophy in Trump’s angry response to reporters’ questions about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, said Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio. “Nothing is an exchange of ideas or discussion of facts,” D’Antonio said. “Everything is a life or death struggle for the definition of reality. For him, being wrong feels like being obliterated.”

Maybe in his next interview Jonathan Swan will ask if the wartime leader still rates himself a “10” and still wouldn’t have changed anything.

Peale returned to the headlines in a frontpage article in The New York Times “Trump Family Legacy: Empathy Is for the Weak” (print July 29, 2020). The article focused on the funeral for Fred Trump at which Peale officiated. After Peale delivered a normal eulogy, everything switched to the son. The eulogy for the dead father became praise for the living son. It’s always about him.

CORONAVIRUS

The coronavirus, the Party of Stupid, and the child in the body of man with the emotional maturity of a three-year old are a match made in hell. They are a perfect storm for maximizing the death toll in America. It’s a concatenation of dumb, dumber, and dumbest. If you tried with all your might, with all your heart, and with all your soul to create a worse combination you couldn’t do better than these three.

Let’s put things in perspective. The Party of Stupid already existed prior to the 2016 election by its own admission. It didn’t choose to stop being that. It just looked around for someone to carry it over the finish line as the Party of Stupid. The longtime faux Democrat and Clinton-supporter knew he had no future faking it as Democrat. He had the gut instincts to realize he could exploit the Party of Stupid for his own needs. And it worked. Now it accepts him as its Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name. Furthermore, the cornonavirus is killing people they didn’t care about even before 2016. Unless Trumpicans start dying in droves even wearing a mask is a sign of weakness and selling out to scientists with all that global warming talk. They won’t do it. They believe in their leader who copes with reality through the power of positive thinking by claiming a miracle will occur.

                                           The Presidential Plan for the Coronavirus

Who knew all those chants of “We’re No. 1″ meant in deaths from Corvid-19?

Battle Report from America’s Third Civil War: Trumpicans versus Democrats Since July 14, 2019

July 23, 2019
by Peter Feinman
007 Teaching the Field of Dreams American the Facts of Life about a Knife at a Gun Fight (https://www.youtube.com)

Note: From Thursday to Sunday, I attended the annual conference of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR) held in Cambridge, MA. One of the most popular sessions at the conference was “Going Public: History and Humanities beyond the Academy.” The subject was how to introduce history into the reporting of the news. The attendees were eager to bring their expertise on the past into the discussions in and about the present.

What has happened since the President of the United States formally launched America’s third civil war on July 14, 2019? Like the first two civil wars, this one was a long time coming. But there is a difference. When the American Revolution began, no one knew Saratoga was to occur. Similarly when the Civil War began, no one knew about Gettysburg. This time around everyone is anticipating the 2020 elections. So let us see what has been going on during the first ten days of official hostilities between the Democrats and the Trumpicans.

TRUMPICANS

For the Trumpicans the actions since the commencement of the engagement have been unified and consistent. What we are observing it is completion of the trumpification of the Republican Party. It is being transformed at the lower levels to be the expression of the 7th grade smart-aleck-dumb-aleck whose behavior dominates the party.

Consider this exchange.

Tom Rooney, former five-time Congressional representative from Florida said:

To devolve into childish name-calling usually doesn’t win the argument. I think we can do better.

When the National Republican Congressional Committee referred to Little Max Rose, the five feet six inches Democratic incumbent from New York, Rooney reacted to this juvenile disparagement of the Purple Heart recipient:

Maybe there’s a better conservative argument to counter his support of this legislation than calling him “little.” At least that would be my advice to my 13 year-old.

Exactly, 13 is the age level at which the Trumpican Party operates because that is the age at which its leader functions (Tom Hanks versus Our Immature Child-President).

Former representative Rooney represents the past, the Republican Party which no longer exists. By contrast, the National Republican Congressional Committee represents the Trumpican Party, what the former Republican Party has become. It has adopted the Trumpican playbook lock, stock, and barrel. It will be non-stop taunts, name-calling, and demeaning words for weeks and months to come. It is juvenile. It is childish. It is immature. It is the party of Donald Trump. The weapon he unleashed on July 14 is in the process of becoming the norm throughout the party at all levels.

Now consider the historians of the future. They will be studying the language of the Republican Party. They will as they have been doing for decades examine the language of the first Republican president. They will note that although Abraham Lincoln did not receive much formal schooling, he mastered the language of the Bible and Shakespeare. He incorporated those rhythms and vocabulary into his own speeches. He produced masterpieces which have been carved in stone and have been memorized and recited until this very day.

Then there is the language of last Republican president before he created the Trumpican Party. It is simpleminded, coarse, and crude. It does not soar, it demeans. It does not uplift, it degrades. It does not inspire, it hates. It is the language of the playground bully. It is the language of war unleashed on July 14 and now spreading throughout the party to all levels.

DEMOCRATS

The Democrats offer a much different approach. They employ a different strategy. On one level is legalistic. It is the language of subpoenas and lawsuits. All every dignified and refined exciting no one. Perhaps the language of the slow and plodding turtle will end up being the winning strategy but it is hard to imagine it. Instead it just drags on and on while people have moved on. Still hope springs eternal and maybe the performance of the extraordinarily dry and somber Mueller will provide the spark the Democrats so desperately want and need. In the meantime, since July 14, while the Trumpicans have been energized, vocal, and invigorated in their racism, the Democrats barely register on the Richter scale. They may be woke but will they ever wake up?

They are also inept. Consider the census question. Obviously the Trumpican ploy was to diminish the Democratic vote. Trumpicans have no expectations of ever winning the national popular vote but that does not mean they cannot win the presidency anyway. In response, Democrats took the high road befitting their moral superiority. And, yes, it worked in the Supreme Court. But they lost as well. They gave the Trumpicans an issue they can and will use right to Election Day. The Trumpican leader was quick to pounce.

Are you a citizen of the United States of America? “Oh, gee. I’m sorry. I just can’t answer that question.”

There used to be a time when you could proudly declare: “I am a citizen of the United States.” Now, they’re trying to erase the very existence of a very important word and a very important thing, citizenship.

I’m proud to be a citizen. You’re proud to be a citizen. The only people who are not proud to be citizens are the ones who are fighting us all the way about the word citizen.

Did the Democrats really win this battle? Given all the publicity, how many people are now scared to be counted in the Census anyway? How easy will it be for Trumpicans to ridicule the Democrats for their position on the citizenship question?

Suppose instead of taking the moral high road and being legalistic, the Democrats had taken the low road and fought politically. Suppose the Democrats had gone to the world’s greatest dealmaker and said, “We have a deal for you. We will support the citizenship question in the Census if in return:

1. You eliminate gerrymandering in the following states (and name them)
2. You have sufficient voting locations in the following districts (and name them)
3. You have sufficient voting machines in the following voting locations (and name them).

Let’s make a deal.”

But that’s not the Democratic style. They are too busy morally superior. They are tactically inept.

Not convinced? Now consider the split-screen images of the Liar in-chief explaining how he responded to the chant of “Send her back.” On one side of the screen, one hears him defend himself with trump after trump and not a word of truth; on the other side, the clock ticks off 13 seconds and every trump he told is exposed. One can see this vivid portrayal of his dishonesty on the Fake News networks but what about on Fox? Remember, Trumpicans like the Chinese get their news only from the government approved propaganda network. Here Democrats had an easy way to expose the dishonesty and stupidity of the Very Stable Genius. So where was the Democratic commercial on Fox showing the falsity of his words with the tagline: “Donald Trump. He never tells the truth except by accident? How come you don’t care?”

There is a saying about not bringing a knife to a gun fight, but in the Democrats case, they are not even showing up. If Nancy Pelosi thinks

This coming election, it is really an election that the fate of this country is riding on. This presidency is an existential threat to our democracy and our country as we know it.

Then fight like it. Democrats used to. Consider this exchange.

“If we want to talk about inciting violence, where is the interview when [Democratic presidential front-runner] Hillary Clinton and [President] Barack Obama when they’re talking about ‘bringing a gun to a knife fight?’” Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson asked host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “The Lead.”

“Obama invoked the phrase ‘bringing a knife to a gun fight’ during his 2008 presidential campaign against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), that year’s Republican nominee.

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” he said of countering GOP attacks against him during a fundraiser in Philadelphia in June 2008.  “Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl.  I’ve seen Eagles fans.”

It’s not only the Republican Party which has changed; so has the Democratic Party.

Now it is Mueller time and the next round of Democratic presidential debates. Let’s see if the Democrats can do any better or if Trumpicans continue to wipe the floor with them.