Posts by: Jack Altschuler

Our Problem


POST 1132

This Piece is Entirely One-Sided

Here’s why.

No Democrat is threatening violence on anyone. No Democrat is in a militia practicing to assault the Capitol Building on January 6, 2025 or is preparing to send Christmas cards with pictures of themselves brandishing an AR-15 and lusting over the blood of patriots. No Democrat is making death threats to poll workers or to Republicans who support Trump. No Democrat went to an election rally and applauded hateful and racist slurs or chanted about death to anyone.

And no Democratic leader is inciting anger and hatred or promising to terminate our Constitution and crush our institutions that protect us and make the trains run on time.

That’s why.

We’re Running Out of Time
It isn’t over until it’s over.

– Yogi Berra – also Lenny Kravitz

You might like this version better:

The opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings.

– Dan Cook, writing for the San Antonio News-Express, Texas, ~ 1976

And the fat lady ain’t sung – yet. The burning issue for us now and for the foreseeable future (that means always) is to keep the savages at bay, to prevent the Huns from sacking our country.

We have truths that we proclaim to be self-evident but which some abandon as soon as there’s profit to it. There’s great profit to be made right now by abandoning those truths. That’s what Trump, Musk and the Republicans are doing.

Be clear that we are at terrible risk. This is a fight to the political death, where, in the end, either democracy or fascism will lie dead on the floor. At issue here is how we fight for what is right, the patriotic fight, the fight for truth, justice and the American way, so that democracy prevails.

Can You Spot What’s Missing From This Picture?
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That’s right: In this fight for the heart and soul of America, the Democrats are MIA. They’ve self-neutered. Customarily the Republicans/MAGAs bring automatic weapons to a fight and Democrats bring bean bags. Now the Democrats aren’t even showing up.

The Republicans are “flooding the zone with shit,” as the daddy-issue-encumbered and hateful Steve Bannon calls it. It’s the same thing Trump has always done – spew one outrage after another, whether in actions or lies, such that responding is an overwhelming task.

Far worse, now he has all MAGAs doing it, lying, making up shit, claiming victories that aren’t theirs, demonizing everyone not MAGA, promising whatever they can think of but will never deliver – like lowering food prices. As they do that, the Democrats self-disable. What happened to that “protect and defend” thing in the oath they swore to? Why aren’t they rising to the occasion bare knuckled?

Democrats don’t seem able to understand going on offense. Enough of the cute golden retriever puppies. We need an army of pit bulls and they’re nowhere to be seen.

We need to employ political savagery. No genius is necessary to see this, because the nice guy Dems get the snot beat out of them over and over. We consistently need something far more visceral and aggressive than standard wimpy Democratic Party patty cake.

Consider the presidential debate. Trump declared that Haitians in Ohio are illegals in our country (false) and that they’re eating the dogs and cats of the local residents (false). Kamala laughed derisively at him. That would have been an appropriate come back at a cocktail party, but not in a street fight.

She should have told him, “No! Either you’re a big enough fool that you believe whatever crap you’re told by conspiracy idiots or you’re lying right now. I will not let you get away with lying to the American people!”

But she didn’t say that. No one else in the Democratic Party is fighting like that, either. They look like lap dogs.

Voters couldn’t be more clear about wanting a strong leader, a tough guy, but Dems consistently show them they’re amiable guys, polite guys who smile derisively when they should be throwing a knock out punch.

I love Jamie Raskin, but he sounds like the law professor that he is. That doesn’t reach working people.

I love Mallory McMorrow, but she’s a Michigan legislator and doesn’t have a national platform.

Hakeem Jeffries occasionally shows signs of life. AOC does that all the time, but the Dems muzzle her.

Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer both died years ago and nobody told them.

We don’t need Romney-esque, “Oh, golly, that’s unfortunate” pablum. The American people are primed and ready for an attack by Democrats, but the Dems continue to refuse to fight.

Where are the snarling dogs with ripped flesh and blood dripping from their teeth? Where is the chorus singing the same song over and over, the one that actually reaches voters? Oh, right: that’s the Republicans.
The MAGAs are submarining our economy, our institutions and our Constitution and they aren’t even sworn in yet. Meanwhile, the Dems are silent or inept. Harris and Walz are nowhere to be seen, even though over 75 million people voted for them and want to hear from them. They want them to punch back, to attack over and over, but they aren’t even in the ring, much less taking a swing at the anti-patriots.
  • Thom Hartmann dove into this last week, in part detailing what happened at a fancy DC restaurant the night of President Obama’s first inauguration. The Republican movers and shakers and power brokers in attendance focused on throwing Obama’s presidency into a dumpster. From Hartmann:

After the meeting, Kevin McCarthy famously said of their commitment to obstruction:

“If you act like you’re the minority, you’re going to stay in the minority. We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.” [He was right. JA]

And, sure enough, they did. And continue to do so to this day. And the voters rewarded them, “shellacking” Obama’s Democrats in the next election.

Where are the Democrats today with that kind of spine? Where is our resolve to fight, rather than enable, fascists? What happened to our principles and commitment to democracy? [emphasis original]

Following that meeting these Republican snakes announced that job number one was ensuring that Obama would be a one-term president.

That was their notion of their sacred duty in Congress: focus on trashing the opponent in order to help themselves. They had no concern for growing American jobs, the welfare of our vets, dealing with George W. Bush’s disastrous wars, healthcare – nothing. They were all about slash and burn, jam up the gears so that nothing would get done, this in order to make Obama look bad. That’s what Republicans did and it’s what they still do.

And Democrats can’t even call out blatant Republican lies.

That is our problem.

.

The fat lady hasn’t sung yet, but she’s waiting in the wings, as Elon Musk asserts the power of the presidency.

  • Democrats: You’re way late. Show up and attack. Indeed,

  • ***** WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? *****

Required Reading

Jamelle Bouie’s brilliant piece, Don’t Surrender and Call It Compromise.

Rahm Emanuel’s wake up call, The Road Back to Power For Democrats.

  • _____________________________
  • PS: Feel free to thank me for omitting all the anger-dripping sarcasm I did not print here.
  • NOTE: No post this Wednesday.

Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Just A Little Insanity


POST 1131

Spend just one hour at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, AL and then tell me if that’s the Great America we should make again. Consider the brutal slow murder of George Floyd or the self-appointed neighborhood guard George Zimmerman who murdered Trayvon Martin and got away with it, as did the murderers in the Tulsa massacre. Explain if that’s the Make America Great Again model we should emulate.

Explain 20 kids and 6 teachers murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School or the dozens shot at that Las Vegas concert. Explain how great America was then, that mythical America to which our red hatted citizens want to return.

Click me

We are steeped in violence and proved it yet again on Monday as a shooter first killed 2, injured 6 and then murdered herself, leaving two of the injured with life-threatening injuries. This happened at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, WI. That event was our 83rd school shooting (one every 4 days) and our 656th mass shooting (almost two every day) this year, with almost 19,000 shot dead and over 38,000 shot and injured. Those aren’t statistics. Those are people.

What’s your bet about what the Founders who wrote the Second Amendment would think about semi-automatic assault weapons being used to kill kids in schools? What’s your bet about whether they considered it a right to own large capacity magazines or telescopic sights or bump stocks?

Read the Second Amendment – all 27 words:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

I wrote “all 27 words” because our gun crazies and our Second Amendment lovers commonly ignore the first 13 words.

You can plainly see that the Amendment says that the only reason for the people to be allowed to keep and bear arms is to have a militia. But that job is taken and well done by our National Guard. They are the militias that are well regulated. The weekend, skulking-through-the-woods tough guy wannabes are not well regulated. We have no need for Rambo-at-home, so we have no need for private citizens to have a home arsenal.

I’m betting that the family and friends of the grannies who were shot to death at the Topps Supermarket in Buffalo wish that before that awful day there had been a bunch of infringement of the right to own guns. Same for the survivors and next of kin of Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.

It is way past the point when we should have figured out that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed,” should be infringed.

Read this book – click it

We all understand the slavish obeisance of our elected officials to the firearms industry because of the financial largess bestowed upon these politicians who do the industry’s bidding. That has allowed the distribution of over 20 million very profitable AR-15s into coat closets and car trunks in America and over 150 million hand guns, many carried openly or concealed. It seems that enough of our legislators think that children being murdered in school is a small enough price to pay for the money they get for their campaigns.

Get this: If you have guns and don’t keep them unloaded and locked up, do not tell me how much you love your kids or any other kids because you just wouldn’t be believable.

All of this craziness has several names: Insanity; Immorality; Stupidity; Cruelty; Hypocrisy.

Make America Great Again is a useful campaign slogan, a jaunt in Jingo-land, but we don’t have a model for when America was great when it comes to citizen gun safety. It is insane that we haven’t even a history book memory of a time in America when we weren’t murdering one another. Guns make those murders so very easy. They don’t make America great.

I used to think those calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment were over-reaching, but no longer. I have grand kids in schools who have always had to do active shooter drills. Every kid in your town does, too. They think those drills are normal, but it’s insane that they have to do them.

And it’s insane that we are leaving our children and grandchildren a country awash in citizen blood.

So, one more time:

Click me

From Kirk Bangstat of Minoqua Brewing Company:

Our 2nd taproom in Madison is a mile away from the Abundant Life school shooting that occurred yesterday, and I spent a few hours last night with our customers endlessly going in circles about why it’s impossible for America to end gun violence in this country when most other developed countries have figured it out. [emphasis mine – JA]

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

U-Turn


POST 1130

From Wikipedia:

A kakistocracy (/kækɪˈstɒkrəsi/, /kækɪsˈtɒ-/) is a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens.[1]: 54 [2][3] The word was coined as early as the seventeenth century.[4] [emphasis JA]

That term was coined then, but we’re reviving that dreadful threat right now.

Paul Newman

Paul Newman

With obviously predictive value, here are two variations of Paul Newman’s Second Law:

Just when things look darkest, they go black.

– or –

It’s always darkest before it turns absolutely pitch black. (Might be from John McCain or Mao Zedong.)

CLICK AND READ THIS. Many thanks to JHA for the link.

This is going to be really bad. We are about to have a government run by the worst, least qualified, hateful, rule-of-law destroying, most unscrupulous citizens. That’s baked into this bitter cake, unless .  .  .

.  .  .  we ditch the hand-wringing, the hopelessness and the rest. Because it will be far worse unless we get to work to stop our headlong plunge into self-destruction. Here are two actions for you to take.

1. Drown Your Republican Senator in Snail Mail, Email and Phone Calls

Demand that s/he VOTE NO on every one of Trump’s anti-competent, anti-qualified, anti-democracy nominees. Look up when your senator’s term ends and tell them that you vow on your children’s lives that if they vote to approve even a single one one of Trump’s democracy destroying picks that you will do everything you can to defeat them next election because your children’s lives would be imperiled by those nominees.

Extend your influence by recruiting your family and friends, neighbors and people you meet when you fill your gas tank and the granny who you help by reaching something on the top shelf for her at the supermarket. Post on whatever social media you use. Do it all repeatedly. Put up a yard sign that reads, “Friends don’t let friends ruin our children’s future.” Tell them all to drown your senator with promises of firing him/her.

Got a connection to someone with a podcast, a pundit with a broadcast email following, someone with connections? Get them to promote the downfall of Trump’s attempt to be führer of the Fourth Reich by directing their audience to pressure their Republican senators to reach around back where their spine is supposed to be an VOTE NO on all those hateful, un-American candidates.

2. Focus on Your State

Focus on the states to kick out the gerrymandering perps, the voter registration cancelling manipulators, the operatives who closed so many polling places and eliminated ballot drop boxes making it harder for many people to vote. How ’bout we encourage everything we can to re-invigorate voting rights. All we have to do is campaign to send Republican state officials packing.

Plus, you need to send a check to The States Project, because they are all about getting all 50 states to actually practice democracy. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

Need Motivation?

From Heather Cox Richardson:

If Trump has now abandoned the performance he used to win the election, Trump’s planned appointments to office reveal that the actual pillars of his presidency will be personal revenge, the destruction of American institutions, and the use of political office for gain, also known as graft.

We’ll be upside down and without brakes if we don’t start the U-Turn now.*

REBEL!

_________________________________________

* Newman’s First Law: “It is useless to put on your brakes when you’re upside down.”

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Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

What It Looks Like


POST 1129

Rebels in Damascus celebrate the downfall of Bashar al-Assad. Click me

We begin with a quotation from Anne Applebaum, writing in The Atlantic about the conditions that precipitated the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

“There is nothing worse than hopelessness, nothing more soul-destroying than pessimism, grief, and despair.”

We shed no tears for this brutal dictator and murderer, but don’t imagine that because this is not Syria, but is the democracy that is the United States of America, that we are somehow immune. We are just as vulnerable to the cruelty and brutality that arrive on the same train as lofty nationalist, chest-pounding rhetoric, exactly as happened in Syria, Russia, Germany, Italy and many more countries. Indeed, the soul crushing hopelessness always starts with the arrival of that jingo train.

Steve Schmidt describes what’s coming to us as the new administration rams its train of destruction into America.

” .  .  . the furies will be let loose by wicked and arrogant people who think they have been picked by the hand of god to lead their people into a storm of their own making.”

That is what has been promised to millions of ears that insisted upon remaining deaf to the real danger. That is what we’ll get unless we put the brakes to the locomotive of our political and cultural destruction.

That is the reason we must rebel, but most of us don’t know what that can look like or how to go about it. Several action opportunities can be found at the end of some of my recent posts (here and here), and now there is a wonderful overview available to you from a source from which you would not expect to find the action items for the rebelling we need right now.

President Barack Obama delivered his remarks at the 2024 Obama Foundation Democracy Forum a few days ago. This is a must read for clarity, context and specifics about what we must do.

Don’t look for an angry diatribe about the horrid, anti-Constitutional fascist poison sprayed maniacally from the inbound train of the incoming administration. Although that’s an accurate descriptor of what is facing us, look instead for what needs to be done to save our democracy, actions for both the short term (2026 and 2028) and for the long term.

We are at an inflection point only hinted at since the Civil War and it is going to take us generations – the long term – to make the changes necessary for us to have a country that includes all of us – like the Pledge of Allegiance, “with liberty and justice for all.” But the thing about the long term is that it’s made up of tens of thousands of short term actions.

The rebelling we need to do doesn’t include demonizing those with whom we’re sure we have nothing in common. Indeed, a slight scratch beneath the surface of most of us will most certainly reveal things about which we agree – like the thing that moves strangers to help tornado and hurricane victims without first checking their political, racial or religious credentials. That’s where we must focus.

Your assignment today is to read President Obama’s remarks. It’s a long piece, but even in this age that trains us to have a short attention span, I believe you’re up to the challenge. Read it, then sit back and think about how his message applies to you.

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

How We Fell Off the Sled – v 2.0


POST 1128

A short while back I wrote that We’ve Fallen Off The Sled because we really have been dumped from our metaphorical transportation to a more perfect union. I had a perfectly serviceable 9-point post detailing how we did that, but I’m quite sick of election postmortems (likely, you are, too), especially when all they do is point fingers and wring hands. So, I did the humane thing and shredded that post.

Still, having read analyses from pundits proved useful because it brought me to a blinding flash of the obvious:

The Democrats have been resting on their laurels for over 80 years!
.

There have been a few bright flashes during that long interregnum of idea famine, like Medicare and Medicaid, but those happened nearly 60 years ago. Biden did some FDR-worthy things with infrastructure, bringing back manufacturing and more. Then he proceeded to allow fellow Democrats to fail to wave their Party flag. They sat on their hands and let Republicans beat the snot out of them and their policies.

Where the hell is the Democrats’ fight? Where the hell are the Democrats at all? I believe you can find them with their butts on their laurels, basking in the glow of how right and good they are. But,

“Some American men feel the sun setting on them while reckoning others enjoy the warmth on their faces. And Democrats have left those people alone in the darkening shadows for a very long time.” Ira Leavitt, The Sound and Fury of American Antipathy

Why should those folks vote for Democrats?

The Republicans have been fighting against all of FDR’s programs and all other programs designed for the welfare of the American people for all this time. They’ve had a 50-year plan to eliminate all these policies at least since Saint Ronnie. The Democrats have no plan, not a 50-year plan nor a 50-state plan. They are nowhere. The Democrats quit trying 80 years ago. That is how we got Trump and his billionaire fascists and

That is how we fell off the sled!
.

We dumped ourselves off it.

What We’re Facing

A few years ago I was riding in the back seat of my favorite Uber driver’s car, engaged in a lively conversation, when he made a most stunning statement. I don’t remember his precise wording, but he invoked conspiracy craziness, saying that the Earth is flat, not round.  I asked where that came from, to which he replied that there was no proof that the Earth is round, or some such gibberish, and besides, it looked flat to him.

I casually mentioned orbital space flights, during which humans and machines have traveled around Earth in a circular pattern, not in a straight line or in a tight rectangular trajectory. He challenged that by saying that those flights could have been faked or that the astronauts were lying.

Let’s think for a moment about some the things that our science and reality deniers claim didn’t happen/were faked:

The moon landings

The assassination of President Kennedy

Elvis lives!

The Holocaust

The Sandy Hook murders

And, of course, there are the things that the deniers claim happened but actually didn’t, like the Pizzagate non-event. You may recall that in 2016 conspiracy loonies claimed that high level Democratic officials associated with the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign were running a sex trafficking operation from the basement beneath a pizza shop in DC. An especially excitable idiot came from North Carolina with his firearms to put an end to that operation. He fired several bullets through the floor of the pizza shop. The only problems were:

  1. That building has no basement, so there never was a pedophilia operation or anything else going on below the pizza shop.
  2. Had there been a basement occupied by young girls, the North Carolina vigilante idiot likely would have wounded or killed some of them.

Some conspiracy zealots still hold that there was a sex trafficking operation there. It’s the same perversion of reality – belief in what has been shown to be false – as my Uber guy who, when confronted with the observed fact of a round Earth, simply claims that the observations are lies. That is the perversion such people believe. Think: space lasers.

All of which brings us to the main questions (really just one stated in two ways):

  1. How did we get to the point of denying facts, science, learning and intelligence?
  2. How did we get to the point where it’s okay to defend absurdities with reality-free claims – sometimes called “alternative facts” – and insist that actual evidence is a pack of lies? (No, Trump did not have the largest inauguration crowd ever. PERIOD!)

John Kennedy declared that “College is America’s best friend,” which you can reasonably interpret to mean that education is a good thing. It appears that we’ve slipped away from that best friend and now seem to be embracing vacuous ignorance as a virtue. Some of us have decided to refuse to learn what has been known for hundreds of years, that the Earth is round.

That is what we’re facing: Denial of reality. And it shoves us off the sled time and again.

Such people are obstacles on the path to a better America. Democrats, often their favorite targets, are going to have to get their butts off their laurels and get in the game, the one challenging the notion of America, if things are to get better.

Finally

We’ve had a few weeks since the election of continuing shock, battling dizziness, hand-wringing, hopelessness, confusion, thinking about where to emigrate to, and collective self-pity. It’s time to do as the low cost psychotherapists advise: GET OVER IT!

In fact, it’s time to pick a path to support truth, justice and the American way. Being self-congratulatory nice guys will not help in the battle to overcome the manipulation, hatred and cruelty of the MAGAs. Patting ourselves on our purity-infused backs won’t defeat the cowardly Republicans peddling the destruction of our Constitution and our democracy.

Right now Trump and his band of marauding Mongols are planning the destruction of our republic (see: Project 2025), but thus far don’t have any power, so their only marching orders are (to paraphrase segregationist George Wallace), “Chaos today, chaos tomorrow, chaos forever.”

Once in office, if Trump can go after those he thinks said mean things about him, how long do you think it will be before he muzzles Dorothy, the small and meek – or you?

Now we’re facing a possible Secretary of Defense – i.e., the person in charge of keeping us safe in a very dangerous world – who, according to multiple reports, can’t keep his d**k in his pants, can’t keep a drink out of his mouth and can’t keep his hand out of the cash box.  That such a person is a serious candidate tells us plainly that we’ve fallen very, very far from the sled.

Right now is the time to show America a better path. Roll up your shirtsleeves and get to work, because the battle to save America is underway. Get back on the sled and

Rebel!

In fact, step up, like Messman Doris Miller.

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

A Thought Experiment and Explanation


POST 1127
A Balancing Act

Everyone believes in freedom. Everyone wants it.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

You can read Jefferson’s “Liberty” (yes,he capitalized it) as “freedom.”

Let’s make the assumption that we believe in Jefferson’s declaration of equality and freedom and we endorse the expansion of his declaration from “all men” to include, at long last, all women, people of all races, religions, sexual orientation, economic condition – everyone. That claim contains a conflict that is a fundamental of our country.

All men may be created equal in some respects, as in their value as a human being, but neither Jefferson nor we believe that we all were all born with the same innate talents and abilities. Some have great physical talents like athletes and dancers, talents that the rest of us cannot match. Some have the capacity for great intelligence, like surgeons, physicists and philosophers. And some have an impressive talent for amassing money.

We are mimicking Les Miserables with our astounding level of wealth inequality. It is greater than in France in 1789 and greater than just before the Great Depression, as our great rich have amassed more wealth for themselves than the total wealth of over 90% of us. They have and are embracing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but many are left to suffer, some in Dickensian poverty.

In other words, some have the great freedom that comes of great wealth and some have the greatly constricted freedom of just getting by or of abject poverty. Our system is based on an unequal distribution of freedom, this in spite of us all being “created equal” and having “unalienable Rights,” including “Liberty.”

What are we to do with this desire for both freedom and our claim of equality of all? We can level the playing field somewhat by taxing the wealthy and directing the proceeds to the common good, to things which will benefit everyone, including the poor, but that necessarily curtails the freedom of the rich. It’s a challenge that in this country goes back at least to post-Civil War times, when wealthy landowners objected to paying taxes designed to benefit the now-free former slaves with roads and schools. Set aside the moral implications of that statement and just recognize the very real conflict in the balance of equality and freedom.

Generally speaking, Democrats believe that the best thing is to do is to take some money from wealthy people and direct it to the common good, like education, healthcare, infrastructure, national defense and more. Republicans believe in freedom above all and they understandably decry government hands reaching for their wallets for anything other than national defense. Who’s right?

Of course, there’s more to consider in this thought experiment. Thom Hartmann has a fine piece explaining that crime isn’t caused so much by poverty as by wealth inequality. When people feel they’re being treated unfairly by a system that allows such extreme wealth and poverty at the same time, they react quite negatively. Were we to change the rules to achieve a more equitable economy, the logic goes, we would have less crime. It is unavoidable that such a modification would result in less freedom for some. Would we still be the “land of the free” if some were less free than before?

Trump and his coming Fourth Reich are way off the edge of the continuum in favor of ever-greater wealth for themselves and, of course, domination of everyone else. If you think the balance between freedom and equality (call it “equity” or “fairness’) belongs at a place other than off the freedom edge of the continuum, you have a problem.

Those coming into power soon have no interest in you having the freedom/equitable balance you believe is right. They only have interest in what serves themselves, which is ever-greater wealth and power. If you are to nudge that balance away from that far edge and toward something more equitable, wishing for that isn’t going help. You’re going to have to do something.

What’s this Rebel! Stuff?

It’s the verb form of the word, with the accent on the second syllable. It’s about you taking action against the usurpers, the thieves of our freedom, our democracy and what is good about America. Resisting is blandly insufficient. If we are to restore anything resembling the intentions of the Founders we will have to do what they did: Rebel!

To be clear, the Founders made war and I intend nothing of the sort. This is about non-violent rebellion. I advocate fiercely against any civil war that the MAGA violent ones seem to be gleefully anticipating.

This rebellion is about leaning heavily on elected officials to do the patriotic thing, rather than some “don’t primary me” selfishness. It’s about working hard to get liberal democracy candidates elected. It’s about protesting in the streets loudly and often, demanding the America we have been promised, which doesn’t include grift or graft and which doesn’t over-balance in favor of the grossly rich,

THAT kind of Rebel!

If we really want what we say we want, we’re going to do more than we’ve ever done. The promise of the destruction of our Constitution is in the air, made by men and women being put into positions of power by billionaire bullies. The longer we wait to take action, the steeper and more arduous the climb from the coming depravity will be.

Thomas Paine

From Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, The American Crisis, words which he declared to be Common Sense:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman”

The time for disorientation, apathy and the wringing hands is past. This is the time for action.

Rebel!

Here’s How

From Simon Rosenberg:

Call your Senators and Representative to let them know your dissatisfaction with the rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon’s pick of Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy; and to inform them of your expectation that they will leave it all out there on the playing field to block these profoundly dangerous nominations whether they have a vote on them or not.

Contact the White House and ask President Biden to order the FBI to begin background checks into Trump’s nominees immediately and before Trump installs Patel to disable the process.

Further, it’s as obvious as it can be: the inept DNC needs new leadership.

One of the most effective Democratic state chairmen, Ben Wikler (WI), is running to become the DNC chairman. He’s done amazing things, like flipping the state Supreme Court to be more liberal, getting Democratic Gov. Tony Evers reelected, picking up 14 congressional seats and more. Check him out at BenWikler.com. And don’t miss Thom Hartmann’s endorsement of Wikler and explainer, America’s Future Hangs on a Democratic Party Decision .

Need motivation? Read Thom Hartmann’s How to Stop the Billionaire Takeover: Democrats Must Declare Class Warfare. He’s right. It’s time to

REBEL!

NOTE: See Michael Shaw’s comment below. Please add your ideas for action in reply to his excellent question.

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

We Do Know What’s Coming – A Sampler


POST 1126

Today we take a quiet Sunday to club Republicans over the head for their excellently done sellout of America and the American people and the world class hypocrisy of so many. Sadly, we do know what’s coming.

  1. As soon as Trump began his awful run for the White House in 2015 it was obvious what we were in for.  Recall his demonizing of Hispanics coming to this country, whom he described as drug carriers, rapists and criminal transmitters of disease. He said this to a small group of paid actors in the lobby of his building, recruited to cheer for him wildly. As soon as he got off the escalator he claimed there were thousands there. That was just his first official lie and a harbinger of his fraud to come. Republicans began to debase themselves before Trump almost immediately. We should have known what was coming.
  2. Then there were the impeachments. It was clear to everyone that he was guilty of those high crimes and misdemeanors, but Republicans in the House refused to vote against him. Only a small handful of Republicans in the Senate had the integrity to vote him guilty. The rest decided that they didn’t want to get primaried. Worse, they knew that a guilty decision would have prevented Trump from ever again holding any “office of trust” – we would have been rid of him. They chickened out. We wouldn’t be facing the frontal assault on our Constitution and our democracy now, had there been 10 more Republicans with a spine. Translation: The Republicans’ careers in Congress were more important to them than the fate of the United States of America or the oath they swore. Where have the patriots gone, you ask? They’ve been replaced by cowards and hypocrites. We should have known what was coming.
  3. Matt Gaetz was the most hated man in the House, mirroring Ted Cruz, the most hated man in the Senate who isn’t named Josh Hawley. Gaetz, a reasonably accused sex trafficker, high school girl schtuper, Ecstacy aficionado, Justice Department know-nothing and more, has removed himself from consideration for the job of A.G., a position for which he is profoundly unqualified. Perhaps now he can be prosecuted and get the cell of his pal Jeffrey Epstein. He’s being replaced by Trump’s defense lawyer and suck up (but looks good on TV – very important to Trump) Pam Bondi. We did know what was coming.
  4. Speaking of the Department of Justice, somebody please tell us what “weaponization of the Department of Justice” is. It sounds terrible, so it’s a great campaign slogan for Republicans to use to accuse Democrats of something bad. Isn’t the Department of Justice supposed to be weaponized against wrongdoing, like insurrection and theft of classified documents? Whatever evil “weaponization” means, I’m certain the Trump administration will do exactly that. They’ll prosecute everyone on Trump’s hit list and more just to harass them and drain them of money. We do know what’s coming.
  5. Sure, we believe Trump when he says he knows nothing about Project 2025 and will have nothing to do with its implementation. I mean, he said so, right? We do know what’s coming.
  6. Even if you follow news and politics only a little you likely saw that Jack Smith has dropped his indictments against Donald Trump for inciting insurrection, election interference, fraud, possession of stolen classified documents and more. That absurd Office of Legal Counsel memo (NOT law) from 1973 that says that a sitting president cannot be indicted and prosecuted is a justice killer, a rule-of-law violator, as is the 2024 Supreme Court issued “get out of jail free” decision. Combined with Merrick Garland’s unconscionable two years of foot dragging and Trump’s defense attorneys’ masterful manipulation of the courts to delay, delay, delay, Trump will have gotten away with his heinous crimes. Had you done any of the things Trump did, you would already have been rotting in a prison cell for a couple of years. It sure looks like a prime case of two sets of laws, one for rich, powerful people and another for the rest of us. We did know what was coming.
  7. Are you a woman or do you know and care about a woman? Coming are a national abortion ban, bans on contraception, prosecutions of OB/GYNs and a constant Christian Nationalist (which actually isn’t Christian at all) drum beat of reducing women to nothing more than sex toys, incubators and house slaves. We do know what’s coming.
Quote Adjustment Following the Election

From Salon.com, November 14:

In the most basic sense, the 2024 election can be understood as a referendum on the direction of America and the future of pluralistic multiracial democracy.

True, but that soft peddles the fundamental point. Let me help.

In the most basic sense, the 2024 election can be understood as a referendum on whether this is or ever will be America.

You Can Get Anything You Want at Alice’s Restaurant.

There is hypocrisy masquerading as justice and even as popular will, just as there was when Arlo Guthrie told his tale. Watch over the next few years – could be even faster if the MAGA barbarians are able to shred the entire Constitution sooner. Watch the MAGA faithful, the willfully ignorant, the dupes, the “I could never vote for a Democrat” non-thinkers, the “I want a strongman, not one of those woke types and for sure no woman” chest pounders and even those too lazy to get off the couch and vote.

Watch what happens as the hatred spreads and their freedom evaporates. They may cheer as the freedom of others disappears, but not when it clobbers them. Then, o’ golly, that won’t be fair.

Watch as they realize that the nice guy down the block has been ripped from his family and thrown into a concentration camp, his children left weeping. Watch as the cost of food and everything else skyrockets but wages are stagnant. Watch their eyes as diseases like measles, polio and smallpox make a big comeback, when the kid across the street is struggling just to breathe and the elderly lady next door has died with horrible sores all over her body and they realize that they might have been infected.

Listen to the hypocritical excuses, the lame, “It’s not my fault” exculpations. Watch as the testosterone overfilled, Bible thumping crowd begins to feel the pain of women dying in pregnancy, a threat that exists only because of their actions.

Yale Professor of History Timothy Snyder knows what’s coming. He lays it out for you here.

Oh yes, we do know what’s coming.

Bide your time. And

REBEL!

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Campaign Cash Suck Game


POST 1125

NOTE:

Read to the end for critical time sensitive information.

The Final Money Grubber Tallies

Instead of rejecting them immediately when I began to receive large numbers of emails soliciting donations to the Biden campaign in April, 2023, I began to collect them. Then I collected the emails sent from other candidates, too, all as a game to see what this would become. Here’s the impressive tally. This list doesn’t include the great many candidates who grabbed for my wallet only a few dozen times each..

Sherrod Brown – 225

Collin Allred – 277

AOC – 379

Adam Schiff – 442

Biden/Harris – The winner by far with 1,752. I’m still receiving solicitations from them, now for the Harris Fight Fund, specifically for $50.

The total was 3,753 grabs for my wallet. That is a lot of money grubbing.

This is part of the system created by John “stare decisis” Roberts and his pillaging posse. They overturned centuries of law and common sense in declaring that corporations have all the same rights that you have, especially the right to jam billions of dollars into our politics and political campaigns to contort them into something that serves only the rich.

The story of the Citizens United decision that disempowered all of we non-super rich citizens who are actual flesh and blood, sentient beings, is dirty, annoying, fundamentally undemocratic, un-American and a fraud. But there it stands, allowing so much money from the big bucks boys and girls to pollute our politics that constant solicitations for small contributions is necessary just for an opposing candidate to be in the game.

A Partial List of Ploys Used to Suck Cash From You

Here’s a double baker’s dozen of crass manipulation:

  1. I don’t take money from corporate lobbyists, so you should send me money.
  2. We’re reaching out because we’re approaching our next big fundraising deadline of 2024, and we need to make sure we hit our goal. Wait: I should care about their goal?
  3. We need to keep our ads on the air.
  4. Is there anything I can say to convince you to chip in $25?
  5. Is there ANYTHING (caps original) we can say to convince you to donate before midnight tonight?
  6. I’m fighting a rich MAGA extremist, so you should send me money.
  7. If you’ve been waiting for the right time to step off the sidelines and help us reach as many voters as possible, this is it. (You cheapskate!)
  8. It’s now or never. (Fear and doom unless you send money now.)
  9. I’m only down a point, so contribute now. (That’s why I should send cash?)
  10. The other guy has so many millions of dollars, so I need more of your money.
  11. I need you to chip in $.
  12. We’re falling short on donations and time is running out.
  13. We’re short of our goal and our fundraising deadline is almost here.
  14. You don’t want to wake up the morning after the election, seeing an outcome that was avoidable and wishing you had done more. (O’ the pressure!)
  15. I have nowhere else to turn. (O’ the desperate neediness we’re supposed to salve with our dollars!)
  16. Please rush a contribution because I need it.
  17. We need all hands on deck.
  18. Right now, we’re 71% to our goal, but we’re running out of time to close the gap.
  19. There’s only one way to win this race – together. That means, “I run and you pay for it.
  20. Our records show you haven’t pitched in yet. Can you donate before it’s too late? (Guilt and fear all at once!)
  21. We’re worried. Donations were starting to slow down, and it looked like we would fall short of our critical pre-election fundraising goal. (I guess you and I are supposed to care about their goals.)
  22. Imagine the Oval Office in January. It could be Donald Trump sitting at the Resolute Desk, stewing over his enemies list. (Apparently, I’ll be solely responsible for the unthinkable.)
  23. What will it take to get you to make your first contribution? (Guilt! Mom would be so proud!)
  24. We can’t do this without you. (“Don’t let us down.”)
  25. Everything goes to shit unless you send money right now. There were lots of variations on this theme.

Adam Schiff and Jon Tester sent the best emails – intelligent, compassionate and, oddly, they both seemed to be actual human beings. Sherrod Brown’s appeals were “We’re in this together” and about the dignity of work. These are all about what is important to We The People. Sadly, they were in a small minority and Tester and Brown lost.

90% of the solicitations were festooned with first person pronouns – theirs, not yours. We need; we’re worried; we’re falling short, and so many more ways to focus on what the candidate and/or campaign staff wants/needs. There was very little focus on what We The People want and need. Bear with me just a second as I scream, “I don’t give a damn what YOU, the candidate or campaign staff, need.” And it’s worse than that.

For years most communication I’ve received from the DNC has been like that – focused on what the DNC wants or needs. Check that: ALL of it. It is devoid of any professed care for we ordinary people and what’s important to us. I’ve written to them several times about this and offered to help, but never received so much as an acknowledgement that they were contacted, nor has their messaging improved. And oddly, with their entire emphasis on themselves, they think I should support them. Would you give yourself to a relationship that is never about you?

Craft an email to the DNC. Tell them you’re sick of hearing about what’s important to them and what they want. Tell them that if they want your vote and what’s in your wallet that they better start focusing on you. Here’s a link to reach them online.

REBEL Update

Last Sunday I promised you actions you can take to rebel against the coming fascist, Trumpocalypse. Here’s something from Simon Rosenberg and his Hopium Chronicles:

[C]all [your] Senators and Representative to let them know your dissatisfaction with the rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon’s picks of Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy; and to inform them of your expectation that they will leave it all out there on the playing field to block these profoundly dangerous nominations whether they have a vote on them or not.

Contact the White House and ask President Biden to order the FBI to begin background checks into Trump’s nominees immediately.

This is extremely time sensitive stuff. Do it today.
.
  • Wishing you a fine Thanksgiving and hoping that in this age of threatening hopelessness you can remember the things you’re grateful for. There are family, friends, the gift of love, the beauty of the seasons and you still have the power to

  • REBEL NOW!

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Rebel: To Resist or Defy


POST 1124

I often listen to Jon Meacham’s marvelous podcast, Reflections of History, which I was doing recently while walking the dog. He presented the speech given by then-Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy on St. Patrick’s Day in 1954. Kennedy’s words have relevance today, so here is a small portion of Meacham’s presentation.

Kennedy said,

“Here is a challenge to the United States, whom we salute tonight as the torchbearer of liberty. Let us inscribe on the inner wall of the Iron Curtain for all to read, oppressor and oppressed, the words of the Irish martyrs. Let those partisans of freedom behind the Iron Curtain, who see little hope for their generation and little more for the next, hear these words spoken by Sir Roger Casement to the jury which had convicted him of high treason for his part in the Organization of the Irish in 1914.

“’If it be treason,’ said Sir Roger, ‘to fight against such an unnatural fate as this, then I am proud to be a rebel and shall cling to my rebellion with the last drop of my blood. If there be no right of rebellion against the state of things that no savage tribe would endure without resistance, then I am sure that it is better for men to fight and die without right than to live in such a state of right, as this.’”

There is no longer an Iron Curtain and we no longer face a Cold War, but we face an enemy perhaps more dangerous now than the communists were then and the fascists were before them. It is now the threat from Americans who wish to and are striving with all their might to take down our democracy, to burn our Constitution and replace it all with fascism, with dictatorship, subjugation and the elimination of our freedom.

Their tools are much the same as those used by the communists and the fascists to fool people and cow them into mindless obedience. They use lies, absurd propaganda, intimidation, bullying, appeals to our basest instincts, pitting us against one another, contorting the law for selfish gain of power and money and making everyone afraid all the time. That is the threat we face today from our home grown enemies of democracy and freedom. The threat will grow more dire with each passing day, unless . . .

. . .  unless we heed the words of Sir Roger “to fight against such an unnatural fate as this . . .” and “be proud to be a rebel.”

In these times of profound discouragement, dismay and confusion over the way forward, withdrawal from the fight is actually ongoing support for defeat. Rather, it is time like never before for us to rebel against the darkness as instructed by Sir Roger, because that duty falls to us today. There is no one else.

Succumbing to fear ensures that fear will never leave us. Courage is taking action in the face of fear. Sir Roger knew that and we know that, too. This is a time for courage.

I go through periods wondering what I’m doing in a country where half the people vote for their own downfall. Is this country so bamboozled by anger, hatred and fear that there is nothing left that is redeemable?

Then the dawn comes and I realize that I’m no quitter, that I won’t allow the barbarians to destroy what we hold dear. There is a whole civilization that has been buried behind lies, hatred and bigotry, all so that the angry ones can flick their middle fingers, scream into the night and turn over our country to the self-aggrandizing thieves.

Well, they can’t have it. I won’t stand for it. I will not allow them to bully me.

Dick Altschuler, 1943

One year my dad and I were at the Oshkosh airshow standing near a B-24. Perhaps he escorted that very bomber into harms way over Germany on one of his 69 missions in his P-47. I looked at a waist gunner’s window on that bomber. His only protection was a thin sheet of aluminum easily pierced by enemy bullets. Still, that gunner went into battle and did what had to be done. My dad did the same, as did 16 million other Greatest Generation Americans. 416,800 of them never came home. You can find them in huge cemeteries like those in Normandy and on Iwo Jima, all graves facing home.

Those people faced the greatest brutality the world had ever known. They did that to keep the promise of America for you and me. I’ll be damned if I’ll let the grifters and the liars, the cheats and the willfully ignorant take it away. I’ll be damned if I’ll let the haters and the selfish ones sully the memory and slander the courage of our brave ones. It’s our duty to stand and fight where we can.

This is going to take a long time and it’s going to hurt more often than it will feel good. But this is the contest – the fight of our lives. When we fail, we’ll have to get up and fight once again. We’ll have to keep getting up as many times as it takes to cure our country of this awful disease.

As Shakespeare wrote, King Henry V, holding his sword high, said to his troops at the terrible battle of Harfleur “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. . .” And so we march into the breach as many times as it will take to secure the promise that is America. It’s just behind the wall that the barbarians made out of fear, anger and hatred.

We can do no less to honor our brave ones.  We can do no less to “Secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Listen: You’ll hear your children and grandchildren and the grandchildren after them calling you. They’re counting  on you.

From Terry Real in his wonderful post:

Facing this alone may well feel overwhelming. But we are not alone. There are millions of us. The greatest political resource left standing is the beating hearts of one another.

Join with others in this fight. Our hearts beat together and we stand strong together.

Once more, dear friends. Once more,

Rebel!

.

Coming soon: Specific actions you can take. Example:

Block unqualified or criminal or just idiotic Cabinet appointments.

______________________________________________________

Many thanks to SC for pointing me to the Terry Real piece.

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

How We Fell Off The Sled v 1.0


POST 1123

I had this nifty 11-point list of the many ways Democrats lost the election. It wasn’t pretty, but it was factual. Then, in a blinding flash of the obvious, I realized that only one of them was a root cause issue, a progenitor of all the rest. Indeed, it took only one of them to make Trump and MAGA, the Freedom Caucus and the rest of the reactionary, angry people possible.

The Democrats, once the party of working people (think: FDR being elected President 4 times), have ignored working people for decades. Other than the “big tent” talking points and Biden’s consistent support of unions, the Democratic Party became a haven for the college educated, with little to no outreach to working people, our term for those who don’t work in offices.

Reagan is the one most responsible for the beginning of the destruction of unions, with his firing of all of the air traffic controllers who went on strike in 1981. Back then controllers were dying from heart attacks and strokes due to stress and over-work. Their pleas went ignored and the strike was a last ditch effort for survival. They were completely disregarded, disrespected and were fired. Where was the Democratic cavalry? It never came over the hill.

The Democrats hardly fought back for unions or for working people, instead battling Republicans for the college educated. Most recently, Harris counted far too heavily on suburban, college educated women for votes and ignored the plumbers, landscapers and construction workers who keep those suburban women comfortable. Those working people don’t like being ignored.

On-Point Quotes

“Democrats increasingly are the party of university educated elites, and they have an unfortunate knack for coming across as remote and patronizing scolds.” – Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, November 17, 2024

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.” – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

“My needs go ignored and I feel disrespected.”

When people are blown off there is a direct and instantaneous reaction of anger – even of hatred.

Example: Democrats stuck their fingers in their ears, failing to listen to Gen Zers who were furious over Netanyahu’s death machine in Gaza. That machine was armed with 2,000 bombs supplied by the U.S. That pissed off a whole generation. You can pile on the hopelessness of Z’s prospects for housing, food, relationships and more. Sure, we can point to the pluses of a historically low level of unemployment and increasing wages in some sectors of the economy, but Zs continue to feel blown off.

People from various generations have been knee-jerking in reaction to feeling blown off by people in power – by the “coastal elites” and the obscenely rich. We have an unspoken dictum from our financially comfortable, “I got mine. Too bad for you.”

16 years ago we got Obama. He was supposed to make a big difference. Check with those who most closely identified with him. Ask whether things got better for them and specifically if they feel they were heard. We can point to the Republicans who stopped every train with Obama’s name on it, but the rich guys and coastal elites blew off everyone who is not them and then pointed at the Democrats as the source of the blow off. And the Democrats went all radio silence.

4 years ago we got Biden and he was supposed to make a big difference. And he did. You know about the enormous improvement in employment, wages and new businesses started. You know that it’s finally infrastructure week and much more. Price increases have slowed. All that is great except for three things.

1. The Biden administration has done a world class job of crappy communication about the victories and what they mean to ordinary Americans.

2. Regular Americans can’t afford to feed their families because food is way too expensive and that continues to get worse. Nobody cares that we’re better off than other first world countries because we live here, not there.

3. The failures at the southern border continue and finger pointing, however accurate – or not – doesn’t help working people who feel at risk. Ditto the world class crappy job of communication over the dramatic slowing of illegal entries.

The “I’d rather be us than them” election crowd finally put a sock in it because everything they hoped for was lost. Let’s see what some vote totals can tell us.

2020                        2024

Biden/Harris                                  81,283,098               73,981,301

Trump                                             74,222,958               76,587,122

Winner’s Margin                              7,060,140                 2,605,821

Eligible voters who didn’t vote ~ 80,000,000                80,870,000

Notions about this

1. 7.3 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 did not vote for Harris in 2024. Where did they go?

2. Trump picked up a couple of million more votes in this election over the prior one. Seems likely that a good portion of those votes were from blown off pissy people who switched from voting for the Democrat and this time voted for the Republican. Likely, they saw Trump as the less crappy of two crappy candidates.

3. About 80 million people won’t get off their lazy asses to show up and vote. Nobody knows what the outcomes of our elections would be if they did. I just hope no eligible voter who didn’t bother to vote complains to me about what happens to them following this election and how awful life has become for them. They won’t like what I have to say.

Finally

Whatever the issue, and we have plenty of them, having voted for Trump won’t fix them. His win will only have accomplished a proud double middle finger in the air from every working person and their very loud FUCK YOU! to members of “the establishment” or the imaginary “swamp” and those perceived as the privileged, the elite, the ones who disrespect their inferiors.

But nothing will get better for angry working class folks. More tax breaks for the rich will not help them. Cancelling Obamacare won’t help them. Massive tariffs not only won’t help them, they will hurt those people terribly. Deporting 11 million (or is it 20 million?) undocumented immigrants won’t help because, for example, our FUCK YOU! crowd won’t do the jobs those undocumented people have been doing. That will result in higher food prices for everyone and small business bankruptcies and the resultant loss of jobs. Elon Musk pulling the rug out from under our social services will imperil our elderly especially, and poor children will go hungry. Trump having his lick-spittle AG persecute and prosecute Trump’s opponents won’t help anything but Trump’s ego. Destroying the Department of Education will badly affect the children of our middle finger deploying citizens.

All these Trump voting people will have is the satisfaction of screaming into the night and feeling powerful only for the duration of the echoes of their screams. Their lives will not get better.

Don’t think for even a minute that Donald Trump will be recognized as a source of their ennui, and that’s fitting because we all did this. I’m as guilty as anyone for calling those supporting Trump stupid, self-defeating and a bunch of other unflattering, disrespectful names.

The true source of their suffering and anger is those of us who have blown them off for decades – for half a century. It turns out that people don’t like to be disrespected.

And that is how We The People fell off the sled.

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