Because Republicans have such a long history of “voter-phobia”, they were particularly susceptible to claims of “voter fraud”. Since that claim has been popular among Republican spokespeople for decades, Republican voters were easy pickings in 2020.
What do we resist? We resist job losses. We resist wage stagnation. We resist corporate welfare. We resist corruption. We resist cruelty. We resist dictators.
We resist Republicans.
A favorite quotation from American founding documents is this partial quote: “We, the people.” Taken from the Preamble (and thus the first words) of the U.S. Constitution, “We, the people” is meant to illustrate the primacy of the people of the United States over other powers, especially the powers of the government formed by that same Constitution.
But this reading misses the mark. I take those opening words to reflect that the people and the government are one and the same.
This seems like an important point in the discussion of 2nd Amendment rights. It is also an important point in many other aspects of how the people and the government relate to one another. And understanding that point drives many of the policies we operate under, and advocate for or against, today.
If we hold that “the government” is some entity that exists outside of, separate from, and in enmity against, the people, then many of the policies of the Republican party follow quite naturally.
In the wake of a bipartisan agreement to establish new spending levels through fiscal year 2019, the Republican Administration sent out an official White House statement: …we were forced to increase spending on things we do not like or want in order to finally, after many years of depletion, take care of our Military… Discretionary…
As if on cue, a defender of the White House rushed to respond…. Yes, Benghazi. Still. Clearly, and unsurprisingly, this passionate defender missed my point (and, by doing so, reinforced my point).
Nothing that is going on now is about President Obama or Secretary Clinton. What is going on now, and in the future, is about Trump – no one else is making the decision about what we do next.
Yet he could not resist. He cannot speak unless he is attacking someone – he must always attack, always denigrate, always demean, and always cast himself as a victim of that other person’s failings.
A wall is a nightmare. A wall is the opposite of what America offers the world. A wall says:
America is Closed
America must never be closed.
But guns have long signaled something different in rural places than in urban ones. Just as significant, guns now signify something radically different than they did a few decades ago. In short, guns have become highly politicized, both a cause and a symbol of our nation’s accelerating polarization
I remember Nixon’s “enemies list” – a list of people and organizations that Nixon considered to be major political opponents. So I expect the new president – being far more paranoid and more sensitive to any criticism – to have an enemies list as well. And it would, of course, include anyone who is effective…
was Trump Jr. lying when he denied having a meeting or is he lying now when he claims he did have a meeting?
If you were Trump, Sr., how would you discredit all of your critics? How would you prove that the press is lying? Here’s what I would do…
perhaps these months away from the job have allowed workers to think about the work they were doing, the pay, the benefits, the responsibilities, the supervision, the hours. Perhaps they took the time to examine the path they were on – to re-imagine the career path that they had once dreamed of, the one they were now too busy – too exhausted – to pursue at the end of the day.
