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Abbott, DeSantis, Johnson, and Scott: The Race to the Bottom

August 24, 2021
by Peter Feinman
The Race for the 2024 Republican Presidential Nomination Heats Up

The race is on. It seems like every day another contestant in the race to the bottom is making some outlandish claim. One day it is the Covid Governor of Texas. Another day it is the Covid Governor of Florida. Then it is the former governor of Florida and current Senator who thinks New York is not part of America. Meanwhile the will-he-or-won’t-he run Senator from Wisconsin has become the comic gift that gives continuously. What is going on?

THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Even as the fight over the 2020 election continues to energize the Trumpican Party, the jockeying for position for the 2024 nomination is underway. While it might seem a tad early to be engaged in this competition, smarter people than me evidently have decided that it is never to soon. We are witnessing the pre-starting gate maneuvers of racing yachts angling for the best position for when the race officially begins in 2023.

Each contestant constantly surveys the field to see what the others a doing. If someone in Florida has an early lead in some polls, then someone in Texas must rush to build a wall to counter that popularity. Everybody knows how popular the slogan of build a wall is to Trumpicans. And if you can wrangle some donations/contributions out of it, so much the better.

Let’s not forget the 25th! It seems like only yesterday when people seriously considered invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the immature simpleminded in-over-his-head-person from the position of President. Think of how many more Americans would be alive today if that effort had any traction and was more than wishful thinking. Since Pillow Head’s cyber symposium was a nothingburger and the Cyber Ninjas remain a now-Covid joke who do not know when to leave the stage, perhaps the 25th Amendment will succeed where all other efforts to “Stop the Steal” have failed. Not likely. The obvious counter is, “So Trumpicans want Kamala Harris to be President.” Obviously that is not true. It demonstrates that the ploy is a stunt to get airtime on Foxhub and to have some fun.

How else to make sense in the perpetual nonsense from Wisconsin. It serves no purpose there. Joe Biden won the state and the governor is a Democrat. Being a laughingstock does not help in a re-election campaign. Senate is a state election and not a gerrymandered one. The national grandstanding serves no constructive purpose in a Wisconsin state election. Plus if he loses a re-election campaign, then it is the end of the political line for him. So he must be thinking about 2024, too.

These alpha males are not stupid people; they just act like ones for Foxhub. Seriously, they do know what they are doing. Their stars are aligned for 2024. Their moment will have passed by 2028. It is now or never if they want to be elected President. They have made calculated decisions that to win the nomination requires them to win the race to the bottom. They are all in right now.

THE 2024 VICE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

So far, the smarter play is for the vice-presidential slot in 2024. A female candidate opposite the Democratic one provides a better opportunity to regain the white suburban Republican women who preferred Biden to a “Cuomo.” The Vice-Presidential position in 2024 with a presidential slot in 2028 offers a reasonable path to becoming the historic first female President of the United States. There is no upside to going out on limb now to wrest the presidential nomination in 2024 when that position already is taken.

In the meantime Kristi Noem is having some fun at the expense of Ron DeSantis and Gregg Abbott.

“Now, I’m not picking fights with Republican governors. All I’m saying is that we need leaders with grit. That their first instinct is the right instinct.”

Gosh, I wonder what she means when she mocks these would-be alpha males for not having “grit.”

However, one action of the South Dakota Governor is puzzling. She concluded one of her Trumpican-style rallies with a song. Not a pre-recorded standard at such a rally, but a song she actually sung. Strangely the song was the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The song is a stirring anthem much beloved by Abraham Lincoln during America’s second civil war. It was memorably sung in 1963 by Judy Garland in honor of the recently-assassinated John Fitzgerald Kennedy. While it is quite possible that South Dakotans fought on the Union side, that is a strange position to showcase in a party that prefers Lee to Lincoln.

2024 NOW

These maneuverings for 2024 overlook the stark political reality. There are two problems with the energetic effort to win the race to the Trumpican bottom. The gusto of Abbot, DeSantis, Johnson, and Scott is misplaced. The bottom already is occupied. Secondly, there is no opening in 2024, that is a wishful thinking, a mirage. The occupier of the bottom has his course laid out. He is pursuing the three V’s: Victimization leading to victory leading to vengeance.

Strangely enough, the main Trumpican threat comes from the Trumpicans themselves. A long time ago on August 2, I wrote that

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.

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? Do Tucker/Trump Oppose the Socialist Chlorination of Water?

Lo and behold, look what then happened a few days later in Alabama. He called on his followers to be vaccinated, they booed him, and he retreated as Hannity had after he called on his viewers to be vaccinated. One wonders after this brief foray into leadership, if he will ever try that again.

The question then is “Who is driving the Trumpican train?” He is not the leader. He is not steering the people. They are telling him where they want to go and he amplifies it. That has been the pattern from when he switched from being a fake Democrat and Clinton supporter to being a fake Republican.

Think of what his favorite candidate for the Senate in Alabama has said.

Although this terrorist’s motivation is not yet publicly known, and generally speaking, I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial Socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of society. The way to stop Socialism’s march is for patriotic Americans to fight back in the 2022 and 2024 elections. (Mo Brooks on a recent Washington terrorist event)

Trump does not control the crazies, the crazies control him. Where they go all, he goes one right behind them. The Marjorie Taylor Airheads, the right-wing radio talk show hosts, the lone wolf insurrectionists/terrorists, and the “No mask, No Vaccine, No Slavery” people drive the conversation. The challenge for Donald Trump will be to keep up with how extreme and combative his followers have and will become. If he fails to follow them, then they will dump him for someone else. It’s Looney Tunes time.

 

“Stupid Is What Stupid Does”: The Donald Awards

February 9, 2018
by Peter Feinman

In this time of awards and medals, it is only appropriate to name the nominees for the first Donald.

In 2013, Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal warned the GOP to “stop being the stupid party.” Jindal said Republican candidates should “stop insulting the intelligence of voters… with offensive and bizarre statements.” However, Jindal didn’t listen to his own advice; on May 10th, 2016, Jindal endorsed Donald Trump. Stupid is as stupid does.

Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough said that he’s tired of the GOP being the “stupid party.”  He made the comments while discussing Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, who won the state’s Republican primary in a runoff that week.

With this background in mind, let’s look at the nominees for the Donald.

LATE BREAKING NEWS LATE BREAKING NEWS

“A good chief of staff advises the president against doing things that will make the administration look stupid or crazy (Gail Collins, NYT 2/8/18)

Ron Johnson, Republican Senator, Wisconsin

Johnson eagerly leapt into the fray on the Bull Trump network breathlessly asserting that he had proof of not just bias but of corruption at the highest levels of the F.B.I.  He knew there was a secret society. He knew there were secret meetings offsite. He knew the missing emails was deliberate. There was something rotten in the Beltway and he had uncovered it.

What he didn’t know ended up making him look an unrepentant fool. He didn’t know about the gag-gift Putin-theme calendar that was the basis for the email joke. He didn’t know that there had been a multidepartment installation of a new system and that the emails were recovered the next day. And he didn’t know that Peter Strzok, who replaced murdered Democratic staffer Seth Rich as the Bull Trump network’s favorite whipping boy, was the one who had initiated reopening the email investigation just before the election, the very event some Democrats, like the loser, blame for the loss. Johnson revealed that he lacks the intelligence for critical thinking that one would think is a prerequisite for serving as chair of the Senate Homeland Security committee. Apparently not.

It seems clear that Johnson learned nothing from his escapade into stupidity. He eagerly rushed into a second one only a few days later. Once again he had to step back once the silliness of his claim had been exposed but the damage has been done. The people who get their news from the Bull Trump network and websites will never know or understand that Johnson didn’t know what he was talking about. Stupid is as stupid does.

Matt Gaetz, Republican Representative, Florida

Rarely is someone, yet alone an elected official, captured live on camera revealing him/herself to be a blithering ignorant idiot when it comes to the matter of one’s own personal faith. It is perfectly understandable why a non-Moslem, might not know that there were Sunni and Shiite Moslems and what the difference is. There is no excuse for a patriotic American not to know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address four-score and seven years apart. Similarly there is no excuse for a self-professed and proud Christian not to know the difference between the birth of a mother and the birth of her child a mere one-score and a few years apart.

Nonetheless the smugly arrogant Representative exposed not only his ignorance but how irrelevant to his own thinking his ignorance was and undoubtedly still is. The unanticipated event occurred lived on national cable TV on the CNN show hosted by Chris Cuomo.

Cuomo: What do you mean by the Immaculate Conception?

Gaetz: Look, I was making a point that this is an absurd coincidence. [Echoing Johnson’s preferred metaphor of where there’ smoke….]

Cuomo: By what? What do you think happened with the Immaculate Conception?

Gaetz: The Immaculate Conception, it’s obviously a religious doctrine that deals with the Christian faith.

Cuomo: I know. Where is the analogy? That’s what I don’t understand. What do you think happened with the Immaculate Conception?

Gaetz: Look, did you really bring me on to discuss my religious views, Chris? I’m a Christian and I believe the Immaculate Conception was how Jesus was born.

Cuomo: I’m saying you made the analogy, and I don’t understand. The Immaculate Conception is not how Jesus was born.

Gaetz: It was the conception. That’s the nature of the Immaculate Conception.

Cuomo: No, it wasn’t. It was Mary’s conception. It was the mother’s conception without original sin. It was not the conception of Jesus. Facts matter, congressman. If you’re going to make an analogy, at least know what you’re talking about because you’ve got to have a basis for these things. You only know what you show. You’ve got to release that memo. It’s got to have the facts and you better figure out what this ‘secret society’ is before you say there’s a shadow organization within the FBI.

Gaetz: We intend to. We intend to, absolutely. We intend to find out what it is. That’s why the American people have been learning more and more about the intractable bias in this investigation.

Cuomo: They need facts to back it up and when they get them, you know where you’re welcome to come on and make the case. Right here. Appreciate you taking the opportunity.

Gaetz: Thank you.

I can understand someone confusing the Immaculate Conception with the Immaculate Reception. I can understand someone confusing the Hail Mary with the birth of Mary. But there are limits as to how much compassion one should have for the boastfully ignorant. One must presume that Gaetz’s ignorance of the difference between the Virgin Birth and the Immaculate Conception extends to his ignorance of the Constitution and to his lack of critical thinking skills. It is unlikely that he learned anything except to only appear on the Bull Trump channel where he never will be exposed for his ignorance. Stupid is as stupid does.

Devin Nunes, Republican Representative, California

In the entire history of the United States probably no document enjoyed as much hype as the Nunes Nothingburger. From all the pregame hype, one might have thought that he possessed a document that would show that Jesus had been married (an recent hyped forgery also amounting to nothing). The Bull Trump network went into full overdrive touting the pending release of the document that would expose the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the United States. Trump’s Brain was in his glory connecting the dots (Hannity versus Mueller: Who Is the Better Dot Connector?) of the momentous scandal now to be revealed to the American public.

And then Toto tore back the curtain and it turned out to be all smoke and mirrors with no there there. Never has a document landed with such a thud. One moment the President of the United States was singing in his child-like voice about having snagged the guilty ones. After all Trump’s Brain had told him that the Nunes Nothingburger exposed the greatest corruption scandal ever. Not just any old corruption case but the greatest one in American history. According to Trump’s Brain, the Nunes Nothingburger made it inevitable that Rod Rosenstein was on the way out and the days of the Mueller investigation were numbered.

And then on Monday, it was as if the events on Friday had never occurred. Even Republicans mocked the pretension of the alleged smoking gun. No stained blue dress had been found and everything was continuing just as it had been. In fact, the new topic was whether there would be an interview or a cross-examination as part of the Mueller investigation. The big joke was that even the lawyers recognized their client couldn’t tell the truth and shouldn’t be questioned. But nothing stops Nunes or the Bull Trump network. More Nothingburgers are promised and one wonders if the Congressional Republican leadership will ever stop Nunes from exposing himself as a brown-nosed bumpkin … or are they hoping the voters in his district will grow weary of Trump’s stooge and want to replace him? Stupid is as stupid does.

 

The candidates listed above might cause you to think that the Republican Party, the Bull Trump Network and websites, and, of course, the Donald himself, have a monopoly on being stupid. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The lamestream media including CNN, MSNBC, and their talking head guests continue to analyze our immature child President as if he were adult. They continue discuss adult concepts like separation of powers, oaths to the Constitutions, and truth as if these words have any meaning to him. There is no need to make a federal case out of an immature male child wanting to play with his toys and have a tea party…, I mean a parade. After all, Little Rocket Man gets to play with his toys and ours are bigger. If you are serious about wanting to understand what he is going to do, then ask the people in best position to know: seventh-grade teachers, middle-school guidance counselors, and child psychologists. Stupid is as stupid does.

Regardless of who the winners of the Donald are we know who the loser is: WE THE PEOPLE.