I’d hazard a guess that few if any in this group watched the entire day of US Capital police and Washington, DC police officers testifying (Monday, 08/27) as to their recollections of the US Capital assault by Trump true believers on 6 January. You all work for a living and it’s unlikely you had the time and energy to sit around and watch TV all day. Well, I did sit around and watch it and I have some observations.

First of all, CNN played the video of Trump’s speech exhorting his “Base” to advance on the US Capital to protest the fact that the election was “stolen” from him in 2020. 

“If you don’t fight like hell you’re not 

going to have a country anymore”

He clearly knew there were people in that crowd who were ready to and intended to be violent and he certainly did nothing to discourage it. The rowdy crowd quickly proceeded to the Capital building immediately after his speech. He not only did nothing to discourage it, he strongly hinted it should happen, and BTW he did not accompany them to the Capital building. He hopped in a car and rode back to his office where he watched the carnage on TV, refusing multiple requests to defuse the riot.

After the riot cooled off, multiple congress personalities opined that Trump should have done something to quell this disaster, including Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. On January 12, 2021, McConnell supported impeaching Trump for his role in inciting the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, apparently believing doing so make it would easier for Republicans to purge the party of Trump and rebuild the party. Shortly thereafter, on May 28, 2021, McConnell voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the January 6 Capitol attack. Shortly after the riot, Kevin McCarthy visited Trump at his Mar-a-lago resort to kiss the ring and shortly thereafter released a statement that read in part, “Today, President Trump is committed to helping elect Republicans in the House and Senate in 2022.  

BTW, the two Republicans seated in the National Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney both publically named Donald Trump as a responsible progenitor for the riot. Otherwise, The GOP response has been to minimize or scoff at the occurrence. Unfortunately, the current Republican Party understands that, for whatever reason, the only person able to energize their Base is Trump, and they are now beholden to him and his whims because of his conspiracy theories embraced by a poorly informed “Base”. Instead, they are using his “Big Lie” as the reason to pass draconian laws they can use to hang on to power by instituting roadblocks for voters that don’t vote for them.

That said, the objective evidence that this was, indeed, a genuinely violent and frightening partisan mob is indisputable. There was a hastily constructed gallows erected outside the Capital building accompanied by chants to “Hang Pence” (for doing his constitutional duty instead of illegally installing Trump back into the Presidency). Once inside the building, the mob chanted “Find Pelosi” with an obvious intent to do her harm. Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence were both hustled to safety by the same platoon of officers that were beaten up by rioters. 

Police officers trying to protect the Capital were beaten unmercifully (on camera), some dragged down flights of concrete stairs by their feet with their heads banging on each stair. Others lying on the ground kicked and stomped with heavy boots, pounded with flagpoles, bats, hockey sticks, timbers, pipes and other objects. Toxic substances were sprayed in their faces. One of the uniformed officers was repeatedly crushed between two doors screaming out in severe pain.

How could this happen?  The answer directly revolves around Trumps true believer “Base” and their propensity to embrace “The Big Lie”, propagated by Trump, actually before the 2020 election, that if he lost, it would be because the election would have been rigged against him. Insurance if it actually happened. That if it were not for the illegal manipulation of votes in several battleground states, he would have won big. Of course, when all the data is examined, this is nonsense as attested by hard looks at all the votes in all 50 states (no evidence of any vote fraud) and two looks by the SCOTUS (no evidence to support any kind of fraud). In order for this conspiracy theory to be true, all 50 states and the SCOTUS would have had to actively collude and there would have to be a paper trail (impossible). 

Seems like that evidence is strong enough to put an end to the drama, but two important facts about Trumps cadre of true believers must be remembered. 

1.  The true believers are groomed to believe anything Trump says with no need of any convincing evidence to support any of it. Trump’s word transcends any other form of media. All other forms of media criticizing Trump are lies crafted by malignant left wing to unfairly discredit him.

2.  90% of the evidence implicating Trump’s intentional lies and misinformation come from CNN and MSNBC, sites that no true believer would ever watch. So the reviews of all the books portraying Trump as incompetent by virtually anyone that’s ever come in contact with him and interviews of all those people are never absorbed by any self-disrespecting true believer. The only truth is Trump’s truth (and, of course, Fox News).

Now, this inevitably brings up the “way back when” etiology of “The Big Lie”. In order to do so, I must reluctantly accede to Godwin’s Law- “The longer an internet argument goes on, the higher the probability becomes that something or someone will be compared to Adolf Hitler”. But, there is simply no other coherent way to understand “The Big Lie” than to take it all the way back to the beginning, so hold your nose, here goes.

Donald Trump and his team have accurately followed the playbook of Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist for the National Socialist German Workers Party (the Nazi party), and later the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda for Germany from 1933–1945. This is the man that expertly directed the Nazi propaganda machine, turning perfunctory fibs into grand displays of might and power, prompting the population to believe in what was then known as “The Big Lie”. 

Disinformation is a necessity for Trump as it was for Goebbels. The best description of the original “Big Lie” is comes from an OSS psychological profile of Goebbels at the peak of his prowess. Hitler’s primary rules were: 

“Never admit a fault or wrong, maintain a list of 

Enemies, (anyone who criticizes you), blame each 

For everything that goes wrong. Never accept blame. 

Never concede that there may be any good in your

Enemy. Always maximize a lie and if you repeat

It frequently enough people will sooner or later 

Believe it”.

These are the main tools of authoritarians and dictators; equally as potent for the Nazis as in our generation of malignant narcissists who would be king. Trump will loudly pontificate some outlandish quip hoping that his enemies will waste time challenging the lie. Opponents will insist on truth but in so doing will continue to repeat the big lie over and over until it becomes a part of the dialog. Once Trump can repetitively convince the populace that any opponents must be anathema to their interests, he can control the narrative, pointing out which news outlets may be speaking the truth (Friends of Trump), and which ones are enemies of the people (Enemies of Trump). 

Once his targeted audience (his Base) accepts his opinions as true without qualification, then he can move on to the concept that only he can personally fix the problems of the populace. Does any of this sound familiar?

.  

The universe is upside down. Everything is opposite of anything it should be even in an otherwise rational world. I’m choosing to dissect two of the most egregious examples occurring this week. I can’t bring myself to review the Republicans behavior re: the January 6 riot. It is what it is. There are others. Please bear with me. This is important.

The Kyle Rittenhouse trial, presented on CCM in all its glory, now with the jury. The facts of the case are brutally clear. Rittenhouse is an underage (17 y/o at the time) teenager who shot and killed two people and injured a third during a night of Black Lives Matter protests and civil unrest in Kenosha, Wis. He was underage to own an assault rifle and had a friend purchase one for him, a felony. He lived out of state. He went out of his way to Wisconsin allegedly to protect property there and offer EMT level medical aid if violence occurred during the “protest”, which was predicted. He was not an EMT and had no medical training. He wandered into the protest fray humping an AR-15 assault rifle; repeat- “assault rifle” and I can speak authoritatively on that subject having done the same in a different theater.

Rittenhouse had no demonstrable rationale for strapping this weapon (with a 30+ round clip) to the front of his body, very visible to all. He claimed he did so for his “own safety”, as if he planned to use it in a defensive manner if the was threatened by the mostly black crowd. Defensive as in shooting one that threatened him. But the underlying, but unstated foundational tenet of gun advocacy: That guns, particularly rapid-fire assault weapons are effective and necessary weapons of self-defense. Without them, lawlessness and tyranny would prevail. And in the words of the NRA, “in the hands of the “good guys”, guns promote public safety. The classic gun rights fantasy, self-defense as circular reasoning.

Rittenhouse says he carried a rifle in order to guarantee his safety during a violent protest but he was forced to shoot people when he says his life was threatened. According to his own defense, the gun posed a grave threat to Rittenhouse himself but the gun metamorphosed situations that might have ended in orthopedic trauma to death. His gun simply invited conflict. When protesters spotted Rittenhouse’s plainly visible weapon of war they immediately moved to foment conflict with him. The killing began when Rittenhouse pointed his gun at Joseph Rosenbaum, an unarmed protester, prompting Rosenbaum to advance on him presumably in an effort to stop a potential shooting. Rittenhouse claimed that Rosenbaum wanted to take the rifle and if he got it, and if he had been successful, “he would have killed me with it and maybe killed more people”. Rittenhouse fired four shots in less than one second, killing Rosenbaum. Rittenhouse then ran away, attempting to flee the scene following which he shot and killed another protester who was running after him and another protester who assaulted him after Rittenhouse had tripped and fell to the ground.

After all this turmoil and mortality, what was the value of assault weapons that night? They failed to deter attacks against those brandishing them. Rittenhouse brandishing such a weapon was the reason Rosenbaum pursued him, resulting in his death. Had it not been for the presence of weapons of war, a more moderate confrontation would have occurred, avoiding mortality associated with such weapons. Rittenhouse fired four rounds in less than one second at a person he thought was a mortal danger to him. Why not one round that might have immortalized his assailant rather than killing him instantly? Rittenhouse thought that the assault weapon very ostentatiously strapped to his chest would have embodied the pivotal NRA benchmark, helping the good guys ward off the bad guys. But if Rittenhouse was the good guy, what good did his weapon do him? What good did it do the community he was there to protect? Two people killed, and Rittenhouse life changed for the worse no matter what the jury finds.

• Update 2:00 pm today, Friday- Not guilty on all charges. It’s not for me to work all of you with my personal biases on this case but I will give you some things likely to happen as a result of this verdict.

a. In a criminal, capital murder case, the bar for conviction is set extremely high (beyond a reasonable doubt). The defendant does not need to prove his innocence; the prosecution must prove guilt by leaping over the high bar. The jury took four days to obviously find reasonable doubt and that’s the end here. However, that doesn’t mean this is over. The aggrieved families now have the option of suing Rittenhouse in civil court for wrongful death, a burden much lower than in a criminal case (preponderance of the evidence) as O.J. Simpson found out. So Rittenhouse will likely find himself in court for many more months with a much higher probability of facing money damages. His previous life as it was is pretty much over for a long time.

b. And by the way, at some point in the recent past, Rittenhouse’s mother went on TV asking for money gifts to pay attorney and court fees she estimates to US$110,000 so far. They haven’t arrived at civil trials yet and civil attorneys don’t work cheap. They’ll all present bills that’ll make his eyes water.

c. In the future, we will see many more assault weapons arriving at “protests” and “demonstrations” because the issue of “self defense” is now seemingly more legitimized. If per chance anyone is shot, the diagnosis of “self defense” will be automatic and similar court actions as this one will be as well automatic. Somewhere Wayne LaPierre is smiling.

d. Television coverage of trials will become extremely popular, especially when covered in real time by venues like CNN. There is quite a bit of chatter now that the previous prejudice against defendants testifying on their own behalf is now morphed to a better chance of sympathetic juries if/when the defendant breaks down and sprouts bitter crocodile tears on cue (and on camera).

2. The impeccably contemptible clown act involving the HOR censure of (R. Az) Paul Gosar. The House voted to censure Paul Gosar of Arizona and strip him of his two committee assignments after he posted a video to his social media accounts depicting his murder of Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and President Biden. First of all, let’s not minimize the potential for evil of “social media”. Anyone, anywhere can depict pretty much any kind of detrimental, injurious, hurtful, inimical, destructive prose or pictorial they choose and get away with it. Lord knows, Donald Trump played social media like a Stradivarius to win the Presidential nomination in 2016, without which no one would have noticed him. Secondly, chastising a member of a publicly responsible legislative body ain’t what it used to be or should be. Subsequently, Ocasio-Cortez criticized Republicans for failing to denounce Gosar’s actions and asked her fellow lawmakers, “Does anyone in this chamber find this behavior acceptable?” Well…..apparently only Democrats as all but two Republicans fully supported Gosar, who never apologized, only “self-censored” himself by removing the offending cartoon from his social media account.

In fact, violent and malevolent actions are becoming more prevalent in politics, with Republicans leading the charge, and their colleagues failing to rein in any of it. Minority HOR Leader, Kevin McCarthy was quick to divert criticism of Gosar by quoting other similar atrocities by Democrats in the past, and more importantly to assert that if (when) Republicans took control of the HOR in 2022, any consequences of Gosars censure would be quickly reversed. Speaker Nancy Pelosi remarked: “These actions demand a response. We cannot have a member joking about murdering each other or threatening the president of the United States. This is both an endangerment of our elected officials and an insult to the institution of the House of Representatives.” In response, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy remarked: “Gosars censure is ‘Pelosi burning down the House on the way out the door’ and claimed Democrats are abusing their power by removing Gosar from his committees. Not only have Republicans failed to discipline colleagues for such actions, their ilk espousing such malevolent actions have profited very ostentatiously.

The antics of (R.Ga) Marjorie Taylor Greene leap out. A supporter of Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election, Greene has repeatedly and falsely claimed that Trump won the election in a landslide victory that was “stolen” from him (no evidence to support his claim). She called for Georgia’s election results to be decertified and was among a group of Republican legislators who unsuccessfully challenged votes for Biden during the Electoral College vote count, even though federal agencies and courts overseeing the election found no evidence of electoral fraud. Greene has published numerous baseless conspiracy theories and has tried to legitimize the thoroughly discredited Qanon conspiracy. She routinely expresses racist, anti-Semitic, and Islam phobic views. Naturally, Greene is a vociferous supporter of Donald J. Trump. The House of Representatives voted to remove Greene from all committee roles in 2021 in response to her incendiary statements and endorsements of political violence. Eleven Republicans joined the unanimous Democrats in the vote, but she prospers today, continuing to amass large quantities of cash support from her voter region and minimal if any new rein from her colleagues in the HOR.

Last night, 5/30/2020, my daughter the cop was called out emergently with a bunch more cops, to join the National Guard in protecting the city (Pittsburgh) from roving bands of vicious destructors. Cars overturned and set on fire. Store window glass destroyed and stores looted. Four cops hospitalized, dozens of others treated at various sites. Traffic backed up for miles. All seemingly to raise the public’s consciousness about what amounts to 100 years of racial inequality and abuse. The first Amendment allows for peaceful demonstrations to complain about various kinds of abuse and one rarely hears much complaint about it. City dignitaries and various professional sports figures (here) frequently join such demonstrations.

Some history:  Back in the 60s Dr. King’s strategy was strictly non-violent demonstration to point out inequities in how the races were treated. There were good reasons for this. If protesters fought back in kind when physically abused by police, it might be construed that the protesters were assaulting the police, giving them a legal reason to beat them to a pulp in self-defense. These were the days before pocket size video that everyone now carries. In the 60s, creative photography made it difficult to prove one way or the other who was assaulting who.

This strategy lasted from the 50s into the late 60s when it was finally figured out that non-violent demonstrations were ineffective, if for no other reason than few cared and they were not carried to large audiences via what was then rudimentary TV. About the time Dr. King was assassinated, it was becoming clear to would-be protesters that getting routinely beat up wasn’t very effective in proffering their points. About this time, younger black leaders, Rap Brown, Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, JoAnne Byron, the, The Black Liberation Army, (BLA), Black Panthers and many others began various “push-back” strategies of getting their agenda more noticed by becoming more noticed. BLA goons assassinated white police officers walking beats.

So, somewhere in this time period, protesters figured out they get a lot more attention if they started inconveniencing those who really don’t care much about their activities, aided by the visual media (CNN) whose advertisers love anything that draws viewers to their plethora of commercials. So drawing viewer’s attention to social inequities moved from visual to violent.

It should also be noted that none of this is anything new. The white population in virtually any city traditionally had a heap of contempt for former slaves who had been legally liberated but remained their previous underdog social status. White lawmakers, administrators and politicians greatly feared that if blacks gained any amount of political power (voting), this would diminish the dominion of those ensconced in power. Various very creative schemes were created to insure “minorities” stayed minor.

For want of a better term, “Whites” as a group have never liked the black population very much and that dates all the way back to Reconstruction. They are legally mandated to legally treat them as equals but that changes nothing about their emotional feelings about them. It must also be remembered that blacks are no longer “minorities” anywhere. They’re majorities or near majority in virtually any major city except in the deepest Western States. In many cities with ingrained racial problems, the local TV stations gleefully portray them on-screen after they’re picked up for various law-breaking, subjectively suggesting that most of the ills of the city are caused by roving bands of grimacing black criminals festooned with facial metal, tattoos and bulky hair braids. Aliens. Aliens caught doing damage.

So here we are.  One would think that police officers would have enough sense to do whatever it takes to stop killing those black guys, especially the ones obviously unarmed. They’ve been doing it now pretty reliably since Fred Hampton in 1968. Killing them over and over, sometimes for the thinnest excuse, nowadays each episode filmed from multiple vantages by ubiquitous cell phone video cameras. Whenever a cop appears almost anywhere, fifty cameras appear starting with Rodney King in 1991. You would think they’d learn that every time it happens it gets videoed in high resolution, followed by multi-city riots.

Why does this keep happening?

I think it keeps happening because the experience of many police officers with black citizens is pathologic and not much is being done to rectify it. A relatively few bad interactions goes a long way. After a cop gets shot at a few times, and forced to follow would-be armed criminals up dark, dangerous alleys, they start considering them not much more than vermin and stomping them out isn’t much different than eliminating cornered rats. Videos of many of these murders don’t show much emotion on the faces of cops killing other humans.

Similarly, anyone that’s viewed the killing of Mr. Floyd will not be reminded by protests. They’re quite aware of the atrocity and it’s as unclear how to solve it as it was in 1968. Mass peaceful protests usually fall on bored motorists that avoid the traffic jams shown up on WAZE. However, once protesters start burning cars and businesses, beating up cops and doing as much damage as possible, everything changes. CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and all the local stations stop everything and photograph as much as the violence as they can- close up from helicopters. Already Beleaguered downtown business owners (from COVID shutdown) pleading with looters carrying out flat screen TVs. Protesters throwing Molotov Cocktails through broken glass windows to start damaging fires in their own community.

At this point, no one remembers the original point of the “protest”. Now it’s become a Netflix special action series, cops against the bad guys. If TV viewers glued to the tube didn’t care much about the root cause of the protest anyway, they now loathe them and the entire thrust of the protest vanishes as the police and National Guard prevail because they’re more of them and they’re better armed.

So, in essence, the events of the 60s that evolved to the violent 70s is coming around again.

DISCLAIMER: What follows is a piece I just wrote for a political blog. It is a personal opinion and nothing else. I’m sending it to you simply because I can (occasionally). I am not using a UPMC server and this is not a comprehensive list of everyone in any Department. Enjoy if you have an interest. Dump if not.

From Mike Allen of AXIOS this morning:

“Trump is at real risk of losing his party. His base voters are remaining steadfast,
but Republican senators are getting increasingly impatient and resistant.
Sen. John McCain’s surprise thumbs-down on health care is likely the beginning
of a wave of defections from establishment Republicans. It’s rarely discussed
publicly, but people in government say that a domestic attack — although unlikely
to be on the scale of 9/11 because of all the countermeasures that have been
added — is a constant possibility. And critics and skeptics worry about ways
Trump could consolidate power in the wake of such an event. We put
Bob Mueller last just because the special counsel gets so much attention.
But make no mistake: The special counsel’s investigation remains the
existential threat to this presidency. Reuters reported that Mueller just added
a 16th lawyer to his team — Greg Andres, who has experience prosecuting
illegal foreign bribery.”

“Also on the WashPost front page … “Senate GOP’s frustrations with Trump
bubbling up,” by Sean Sullivan: “Some are describing the dynamic in cold,
transactional terms, speaking of Trump as more of a supporting actor than
the marquee leader of the Republican Party.”

I say: I’ve always thought that Trump’s “base” will never desert him no matter what he does or how he does it. The point of being tipped into power by relatively dogmatic rednecks is that they obviously believe what he says (in his tweets) other than what the reality is. Several interviews with groups of his “supporters” in Kentucky and Ohio show that they simply don’t believe anything the nightly news reports and they don’t read the Grey Lady or the Washington Post. Trump says his first six months have been absolutely stellar and they hang on his every word.

However, the “base” that tipped him into this unexpected (by everyone else) victory was a relatively small number, and that number is slowly but progressively decreasing. Unclear if the same election was held tomorrow, that tip would occur. There have been defections. The base will always remain but may not be politically active in 2018, and especially 2020. The American voters may still prefer conservative politicians, but that doesn’t necessarily include Trump.

If and when Trump goes down, it won’t be because of style but substance. Few if any of his promises to his base have much chance of coming to pass. The incredibly bad health care bill is mercifully dead, hopefully forever. His promises to “drain the swamp” simply diverted the swamp to the White House. Promises to save coal are ludicrous. His disbelief of global warming is harmful. It isn’t up to him to “increase jobs”. It’s up to many factors he has no control over. The “wall” is a joke, especially the Mexicans paying for it. But some very big issues remain. Whether or not his rabid base chooses to see it, the Russian thing has now developed into a very, very big problem for Trump. The obvious Russian thing plus the intentional lying and deception Trump is caught in by Washington Post reporters who have devoted their lives and 18 hour days to ferreting out these lies shortly after he utters them. The intentional deceptions may not be noticed by the rabble, but you can be sure they are by the Republican establishment, few of whom supported Trump initially and most of whom are only paying lip service to him today.

Fewer Republicans are smiling. That John McCain and the two women Senators made a big splash of defying him in the face of personal threats would have never happened six months ago. The new book by respected Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake raggedly trashing Trump and the horse he rode in on would never have seen the light of day last December. The Republicans are decidedly as worried so much about being ravaged by Democrats in 2018 or even 2020 as they are their own party ultrastructure collapsing. Since there are no clear Democratic threats showing up, that could happen. If it does, they will lose everything pretty much by default.

The “Great Man” theory suggests that times of crisis creates a “Great Man (or Woman)” to arise and lead the population out of danger. In fact, Contrary to Trump’s tweets, our population is in crisis indeed, and great danger. We’re led by a President who makes decisions capriciously, impulsively, with little or no thought as to long range implications and sometimes according to the last “authority” that advises him. This kind of leader is a serious problem in a world where long range missiles are aimed at us from one side and malicious computer experts on the other. A world where the Middle East can explode at any time and the Chancellor of Germany publicly states that Europe has no confidence in Trump and they’re on their own. A scary place indeed, with a blundering incompetent leader of the free world at the helm.

The burning question at the moment is what, if anything, can be done to minimize the danger of Trump. There continues to be some interest in some quarters to remove him by impeachment, but that’s highly unlikely in a regime controlled by Republicans. If Clinton couldn’t be found guilty in impeachment, Charlie Manson probably wouldn’t either. Besides, if Trump were removed, a smiling, dapper Mike Pence would ascend, a man who really believes ultra conservative Republican nonsense and enthusiastically putting the country under it’s jackboot. Trump is a better deal than Pence if for no other reason than his inherent inefficiency makes it harder for his party to establish it’s black-hearted goal.

I suspect nothing can be done about Trump for the near future and we’re all going to cross our fingers and hope that ineffectualness will breed less danger than a committed charge into guaranteed danger. At Trump’s current rate, little if anything will change and little will get done. In addition, Trump doesn’t see this light yet but Robert Muller is lurking in the background with a bevy of very knowledgeable specialty lawyers and they’re digging like Robert Costa of the Wash Post does, just not reporting any of their findings yet. You can bet they have Trump’s tax forms. When Muller does come to light, and it’s likely to come before 2018, it will be a blinding flash that no one sill be capable of ignoring, not even the “base”. But the base won’t matter then. It will matter to the Republicans, and matter a lot.

I mentioned the “Great (Wo)Man Theory” a while back. Unclear if this will happen before 2020, but we might see signs of it in the Senatorial race of 2018. Will Democrats get a majority of either house, making it virtually impossible for Republicans to get anything meaningful done? Unclear yet. Despite all the pleas for bi-partisan discussions on just about everything, it isn’t happening, and few pundits suggest it ever will. Either side has more to lose than gain by doing so. It will always be a scorched earth battleground, whoever survives the carnage wins (need I mention the Toomey vs McGinty Senate race in Pennsylvania, 2016).

There are some interesting possibilities on the horizon, many of whom have guested on the Charlie Rose show (a really excellent forum). Republican Senator (R. Utah) started out life as a Tea Partier but has become more moderate. He related some good ideas on Charlie Rose a while back. A little too conservative to my taste but I think might be up and coming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Lee_(U.S._politician)

Even Jeff Flake (R. Arizona) has been a round for a long time and has emerged as pretty much a voice of reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Flake

On the Democratic side, forget Elizabeth Warren, she blew it all out for Hillary. Al Franken? Maybe, but not terribly well thought of by the power structure. Keep your eye on South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Buttigieg

He has impeccable credentials and could arise to be a force for the Democrats?

At any rate, it appears that, like it or not, we’re stuck with trying to limit incompetence for the foreseeable future, not forge ahead constructively. We will be what we are, a large group of “The Apprentice” contestants, overseen by the master who know how to get the best ratings. In the end, much drama and confusion, but ratings likely to drop as the short-span-of-attention audience gets bored, then dropped by the networks. We’ll see in 2018.

Addendum 08/0317

On the NBC News last night, the talking head mentioned that the economy is doing pretty well for the last couple of quarters, even as the White House quagmire continues unabated. I would be pretty happy about this as far as it goes, but be very wary of Wall Street in general and bull markets in particular for at least two good reasons:

1. None of this has anything to do with Trump other than he’s loosened some regulations that protect consumers. Amazon is booming because no one goes out of their house to a store anymore. That will all come tumbling down when these huge storefronts that employ millions of people come tumbling down. Apple is booming because everyone in the country continues to purchase various stripes of computers with no end in sight and the new iPhone 8 is getting a big push. None of this has anything to do with Trump who if you recall promised to get all the coal mining jobs back. Many other businesses continue to move overseas.

2. Wall Street variations are, by their nature, fickle, based on smoke, mirror and vapor. Recall that Wall Street goodies also increased after George W. Bush and Obama, larger than what’s happening under Trump. It’s all just based on expectations. Recall the “dot.com” boom a while back thought to never end. Recall the housing boom of 2006 based on lack of regulation, no one watching them. Don’t worry. Business thinks they’re getting a pass on regulations that will allow them to take risk with someone else’s money for a while. But in the end, all risky maneuvers flop and when they do, it’s the public’s money that will be lost. Recall also that not one of those that caused the recession of 2008 are in jail today. Ups always turn to downs, and now that regulations are lax, it’s only a matter of time.

Wall Street is a VERY bad proposition to hang hopes on. The Trump presidency is in VERY deep trouble, and Wall Street is a very fat red herring.

We should have all seen this coming. The favorability ratings of the entire Washington bureaucracy had been in the cellar for years and decreasing. Partisan political activities consisted of bitter hatred of each other’s side and resolve to insure nothing the other wanted ever came to fruit. Ted Cruz worked as hard as he could to completely sink the government and go down with the ship. All progress in Washington stopped dead in its tracks with no potential for moving it.

What we didn’t know was the sheer size of Trump’s support. Michael Moore predicted Trump from the beginning and he never wavered. We should have noticed that Trump won most of the primaries by big votes against all odds. We also should have noticed that none of his support ever wavered for a second despite ALL his antics. None of it mattered. I should have known watching all those Trump signs while riding out in central Pennsylvania. My friend the ICU Nurse laughed and told me he cared nothing about any of that- Trump was chosen to “shake Washington up”.

So to the surprise of all of us, especially the pollsters, all of whom were wrong, we are now witnessing a full blown REVOLUTION in which the population of the USA has spoken loudly. It’s classic democracy at work. The populace is NOT happy with what’s happening in Washington and they have chosen the individual furthest from the archetypical Washington politician, Hillary Clinton, a candidate with so much baggage it would fill a train.

It’s difficult to comprehend anyone less likely to be elected President by an intelligent, perceptive voter. She was projected to win not for her plan but because everyone with an opinion in the media thought she was the lesser evil. But the “real” voters weren’t talking on the media. The “real” voters that knew Hillary would perpetuate the exact situation in Washington they loathed and they didn’t believe a word that came out of her mouth. The pre-election activities were all a waste of time and money. Trump was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So here we are. The public has served notice that they expect the entire fabric of the Washington bureaucracy to be torn to shreds and a new order emerging, more efficient and favorable to the common man. So that’s where it is as I sit here on 11/11/16. It is a done deal so no use crying over spilt milk. It is what is, so we must now consider where this is likely to go.

Donald Trump will quickly develop some new best friends, conservative politicians, all of whom distanced themselves from him during the campaign. Don’t worry; they’re all back and planning to re-forge the country into an ultraconservative dark age. They now own both houses so there will be virtually no effective opposition to any of it.

No more Obamacare, with nothing of any consequences to replace it, leaving 22 million out in the cold. Repeal the Iran deal, leaving them to continue making a bomb as rapidly as they can. Repealing the climate accord because they choose to disbelieve 99% of the experts. Cutting taxes preferentially for the super-rich, choosing to believe that “trickle down” works (didn’t work for Reagan in 1980). Unlimited weapons of any kind on demand from anyone. Destroying Planned Parenthood and quickly repealing Roe v. Wade, following which an enormous cottage industry of abortion will develop, an underground economy impossible to stamp out. They will of course blame the victims. Getting an ultraconservative judge onto the SCOTUS, rubber-stamping all their plans. Never mind the impeccably ridiculous Mexican wall and goon squads to seek and destroy illegals.

That is EXACTLY what Trump’s new best friends have in mind and they’re all in the process of planning it.

However, there are jokers in this deck. All of Trump’s new best friends might consider that Trump really isn’t a conservative Republican at all. Never has been. He was once a Democrat. He chose to run as a Republican because it was the most expedient path He has frequently opined on policy that is not conservative at all. And it also must be remembered that Trump has an extensive history of only listening to Trump. He’s found out what works and it isn’t free advice, especially from folks he doesn’t trust. So there is no guarantee at all that Trump will blandly follow through with all the plans of his new best friends. He might just have the “right thing” in mind, and the right thing might be more “right” than we currently imagine.

Recall that in 2008, Obama ran on a very solid “change Washington” platform. When he actually arrived, he tried to gather all the Republicans together to talk out their differences and form some kind of body that worked for the best benefit. They all ignored him and vowed to insure nothing he wanted to do happened. The majority speaker opined that their job was to insure he was a one term President and this is exactly how they acted. It’s also very interesting that despite his best efforts, Obama was chewed to pieces by the bulletproof Washington establishment, not even making a dent in it. Washington changed him as it did everyone that came before him.

So there is also no guarantee that Trump will get all he wants in a system that’s preternaturally designed to NOT be changed by anyone. He is more likely to become meshed in the gears to find out that “deals” don’t work the same as in his previous career. He will have to learn an entirely different and unfamiliar “art of the deal”, especially with China and Russia.

So, I think that just like the previous predictions of the election, there is no more likelihood of predicting what Trump will do, or what he’s able to do once in office. All the claims of what he wants to do are now enmeshed in gears he really knows nothing about and when extensively evaluated, may simply not be realistic for Trump to actually accomplish. It will be VERY interesting to see how Trump explains repealing the ACA, even if he’s technically able to do so, to 22 million of those affected, many Trump supporters.

Once into the realities of the world sociopolitical situation, “bombing the Hell” out of ISIS never had any possibility of working. There are probably realities of the Middle East, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Russia that he had no idea about when he made some of his ridiculous vows. He will find out that the realities of foreign policy are extremely dangerous and he will have to tread as lightly as Obama did, with open-ended criticism from all sides.

It should also be obvious that none of the above works for his committed base that want’s it all fixed in a few months, for ISIS and Iran to go away, more money in their pockets, better jobs and unlimited milk & honey. His base in W. Virginia and Kentucky want coal to become the energy of the land. Working class white men want to make more money and promotions. It’s VERY unclear whether Trump will even have a shot at any of that in a Washington that doesn’t run as his previous career did. Making promises is cheap. Delivering them in THAT Washington is a separate issue and he, like the rest will probably learn to obfuscate those promises with great facility.

So, the bottom line of this conversation is that we really know little or nothing about how The Donald will function in the same environment that gutted Obama and others. I’ve mentioned before that like it or now, Trump is OUR President now and continuing to grouse about this or that is meaningless now. It’s time to support the President by simply being reactive to what’s going on. A lot of Republicans are NOT extremely conservative and will not necessarily rubber-stamp every program that emerges from Trump’s new best friends, or even Trump.

There is a lot of sound & fury but in the end these things have a way of settling down. The majority of the public has never supported the Sarah Palin brand of conservative politics. It’s unlikely that they will now. They want “real change”, a political body that serves them. Conservative Republicans don’t serve, they break things and the majority of the public will not allow that.

What Hillary said is correct now. Trump IS the President and he needs a chance to lead. It’s not unreasonable to give him our support while he explores that chance. Who knows, he may actually “do the right thing” to the best of his ability and surprise us all. If he can’t or doesn’t, then another voting cycle will come around in 2018 and 2020. We can then do what Trump supporters did in 2016; assertively change the order of things.

So I say lets all just watch for a while and see how things go. It doesn’t have to be a disaster. When the dust settles, it might be OK and Washington might actually become more responsive to the greater good. There’s at least as good a chance of that as the collapse of society. Society is pretty resilient. I would be inclined to see the glass as half full rather than half empty.

We’ll all see in time.