Cynicism in the Time of Covid-19

The cynicism on display during this crisis has been truly illuminating, and horrifying, to observe. Not only from Trump himself, seemingly more interested in campaigning and touting his ratings, settling some grudges, providing false information and a sunnier picture than reality - but across his administration, the conservative media and far too much of the Republican Party in general. To wit:

1. Texas, Arkansas and Ohio, among others, have tried to use the Covid-19 crisis to make abortions practically illegal: The Guardian
2. And these states and others run by a GOP Governor ignored the crisis or actively fought against doing what was necessary, killing 100s, or maybe ultimately 1000s, including in Mississippi (The New Yorker).
3. The Trump administration, without any real justification, is further gutting environmental regulations during the crisis: Reuters. 
4. In a similar vein, they are pushing to get the Keystone Pipeline XL started again while protesters are stuck inside: NPR. 
5. Speaking of protesters in general, legislation continues to be pushed to make protesting itself illegal - a trend that started before the Coronavirus crisis. And many in the GOP are trying to use it to further suppress the vote, as in Wisconsin, with the absurd choice now facing citizens of the state - vote and risk my life or let others decide my fate: TNR. 
6. Betty Devos decided now is a great time to try to again push school privatization, underly the newly minted micrograms program (aka vouchers): NPR.
7. The Trump administration plans to pull out of the Open Skies Treaty, one safeguard to avoid war between the West and Russia: The Guardian.
8. Businesses, who had their biggest tax cut ever less than three years ago, were given more by Republicans who also get oversight of the huge amounts of money they gave to big corporations during the Coronavirus stimulus, should not be overseen by Congress. And, as one could have predicted, Wall Street is again sucking at the government teat they otherwise hate so much (The Nation). 
9. Many individuals and businesses have shown community spirit by going out of their way to help those in need. At the same time, price gouging on online sales sites has been so bad eBay eliminates the sale of anything with Coronavirus in the title and Amazon has had to suspend tons of seller accounts and items. There are also ongoing investigations across the country about scammers claiming cures: The Guardian. Of course, Trump himself could very well end up on the list. 
10. Some Republicans, capitalizing on their penchant for rewriting history to serve their interests, actually used the narrative that “Democrats were impeaching Trump when the Coronavirus was spreading” to do some heavy fundraising: TNYRB. 
11. The right-wing media, who has been pretty consistently horrible throughout the crisis, now seems to have a target aimed at the back of the only voice of reason in the administration at present: The New Yorker. 
12. Maybe most troubling of all, the Supreme Court today voted 5 to 4 to allow Wisconsin to overrule their own governor and a Circuit Court and allow the election to go forward , essentially asking people to risk their lives if they want to vote (The New Yorker). As the Nation argues, this could be the latest parry in the Republican plan to essentially steal the election later this year by suppressing the vote as much as possible, as they did four years ago and have been doing for at least 50 years: The Nation. 
13. But to make it a baker’s dozen, it has just been revealed that Trump has a business interest in the company that produces hydroxychloroquine, the unproven “miracle drug” he’s been pushing on the American people: Salon.

These are just 13 examples of the endemic cynicism and corruption at the heart of the conservative movement and corporate culture today and really a signal to anyone paying attention that there is a better way forward for the country, its political institutions, healthcare, economic structure and general collective conscious. Will we heed the call to change? 

Trump's Changing Tune on Covid-19

I know the memory of many Americans is short. This video should remind you that the President's tune on the novel coronavirus has changed pretty rapidly, and that a different initial response might have helped mitigate against our current circumstance ...

To the Clintons - Please Leave the Country Alone!

Everything the Clinton’s touch turns to shit. First we had the Bill Clinton Presidency, which started brightly but ultimately ended up as the spark for the far-right movement that has now mainstreamed. It is ironic, in retrospect, when you consider how aligned Clinton’s interests were with most of those arguing against him, but that is of little consequence. The Republicans knew triangulation could be the end of their hold on power and decided to ramp up the cultural wars to heretofore unseen levels that have only grown in magnitude over the past decade.

To solidify the disaster, Hillary Clinton decided, after losing the primary in 2008 to a relatively unknown, first-term Senator from Illinois, that 2016 was her year to shine. After making that decision, she forgot to stop listening to the idiots that had lost two elections to Bush (okay, maybe 1 and 1/2), forgot to actually run a full campaign, and assumed the presidency was hers by fiat alone. She ignored the most prophetic prognostications of astute pollsters, the de rigeur requirements of actually campaigning everywhere, fully bought into the mainstream media’s pre-election coronation and, worst of all, didn’t really stake out a claim to standing for anything beside not being Trump (which, one should point out, should have been enough). 

At that point, one assumed the Clintons would wither away into the background and out of the spotlight, having sent the country into the toilet and potentially put the final death knell in our collective future, given the current administrations dedication to billionaires and destroying the planet as quickly as they possibly can. 

But Hillary kept showing up, here and there, to intervene in the world she’s wrought, acting as if she had nothing to do with its creation. And then the Clinton clan decided they should get involved in improving the Iowa Caucus process with their particularly inept brand of politicking. The effect? An utter disaster that helps feed the Trump cynical worldview and again shows the party as utterly inept on the eve of the latest “most important election” in our lifetimes.  

Do they apologize? Do they say anything at all? Of course not. Lest us forget that the Clintons gave us welfare reform that increased poverty rates, telecommunications deregulation that saw the increased conglomeration of media into fewer and fewer hands, the dramatic increase in black men in prison for minor drug offenses (by instituting mandatory federal imprisonment guidelines), the turning away from the Democratic Party by many Christians because of a blowjob, and, the coup de gras, Wall Street deregulation that indirectly spurred the 2008 financial crisis. On top of that, Hillary Clinton was the Senator from New York who ignored the people and voted for the Iraq War.

To put it simply and with all due respect, please, please, I implore you, leave us alone!

Democracy in Retreat

Trump and the Republican Congress continue to abrogate their responsibility to actually represent the people who elected them by passing, or trying to pass, extremely unpopular legislation. This was true of the Obamacare overhaul that fell only one vote short, the tax cut for the wealthy that passed last month and now the attempt to dismantle the Dream Act, that has caused the government shutdown we are currently mired in ...

To be fair, the majority of Americans are not supportive of either Trump or the Republican-led Congress, but that is little salve for the majority of Americans suffering through the first year of this dysfunctional, Russian-sponsored, administration. 

Fake News Hits the Holocaust

Fake News, as I argued in an article here last year, is not a new phenomenon, as many in the media (and Trump) seem to imply. And yet the acceleration of “counternarratives” (aka lies) accelerate and proliferate across our fiber optic and airwaves, the truth has become more tenuous than at any time since science came along to challenge the hegemony of religion, mythology and old world traditions. The latest parry in this ongoing war on knowledge, beyond the daily barrage by the Trump administration, comes thanks to one its former members, Anthony Scaramucci.

In an online poll on his twitter account, the Scar (my nickname), asked the following question:

How many Jews were killed in the Holocaust?
o Less than 1 million
o Between 1-2 million
o Between 2-3 million
o More than 5 million

Holocaust deniers are not new, either, of course, but is this really a question we have to continue to debate in the mainstream of American politics – or at least the new “mainstream?” Beyond the absurd response that they were simply “testing people’s knowledge” of the tragedy is the fact that it was 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust, which is substantially more than “more than 5 million.”

If you’re wondering, the results as of the time of the Washington Post story was 69 percent for the theoretically “correct” answer, 7 percent who thought it was 2-3 million, 4 percent who believed 1 to 2 million and an astounding 20 percent who claimed “less than a million.”

With global warming, past presidential phone calls, Iranian nuclear weapon activities, the real beneficiaries of tax cuts and Russian interference in our election all up for debate just the past week, is it any wonder we return to perpetuating one of the ugliest lies repeated over the past 60 years? Not with our current Commander and Thief in charge of the public dialogue …

The Absurdity of Our Insularity

One of the biggest problems facing America today is the insularity that appears to spread across the political spectrum, or at least outward from the center with increasing magnitude as it nears the dual poles. There are arguably many reasons to explain this insularity from the echo chamber offered on digital and traditional media platforms that allow one to only receive news and perspectives that reinforce what you already believe to the increasing segregation in society in general. Both conservatives and liberals are both guilty of abiding this new paradigm, existing in blissful ignorance of arguments that might differ with their own.

The costs of this insularity are profound, from the inability to engage in political discussion and debate across ideological lines to the very real and deleterious ways it has created an uber-partisan environment in DC that undermines compromise and forward movement on issues that affect our lives. It has led to increased violence, though predominantly from the right-leaning end of the political continuum, and an inability to even consider confounding evidence or arguments. Maybe most troubling to our long-term prospects, is the ways it has cut off the critical thinking facilities essential to the effective functioning of democracy.

One way in which we see this new political insularity is exposed is, of course, through those who continue to support President Trump, and those who blindly reject everything conservatives do from one day to the next (though one has to admit that has become more reasonable in recent years). Another way is the reactionary fervor that seems to sprout out from every corner of our cultural landscape, often more fervent and fiery than an Evangelical sermon.

The latest example emerged just yesterday, on the heals of the absurd imbroglio started by Trump himself, as he tweeted a video of him body slamming and punching CNN, followed by claims that CNN blackmailed the adult reddit user that made that video. The latest event to cause an Internet uproar? Well, that most offensive of American documents, The Declaration of Independence.

That’s right. A group of Trump supporters thought that NPR was tweeting propaganda, as it used 113 consecutive posts over a 20-minute period to convey the entire 1776 document to its followers, a tradition, one might mention, that has been going on for 29 years now. Some just thought it was spam, but others figured lines like “He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary power” and “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people” were a reference to our current Commander in Thief. And they were not going to take those remarks from the very media outlet they are hoping to defund as soon as possible.

While this is a minor example, and some even took the time to apologize for the reactionary posts, it does show how quick many are to apoplectic frenzy any time anyone writes, says or posts something they disagree with. It is a troubling trend that only seems to worsen with each passing year. On the left, activists seek to silence anyone who says anything offensive to their social justice agenda, which I do largely ascribe to I should admit, while on the right confounding perspectives are attacked like the words of Beelzebub himself.

I don’t believe the answer is simply more civility in the public sphere, as many have argued, as there is nothing wrong with being impassioned about your positions and arguing for them vigorously. In fact, one could argue the Democrats tendency to try to stand above the fray of political disagreement has cost them dearly, maybe none as clearly as Hillary Clinton. Others call for increased tolerance, but as Zizek so cleverly points out it too has its limits. Maybe the answer instead resides in finding ways to cross ideological boundaries, to talk to one another without the generally held notion that whatever your beliefs, those who disagree with you are just less intelligent, and to seek to stem the inflamed passions that have stoked the insularity toward silos of identity that are immune to all outside influence.

More than anything, we need to return to public spaces that are diverse, whether in our schools, our media or our daily interactions with others. We need to learn to actively listen, rather than simply wait for our turn to talk. We need content producers to stop feeding the flame of partisanship and violence. Ultimately, we need to find ways for those with different values, beliefs and cultural traditions to live harmoniously together. Easier said than done, one must admit, when one of the two founding documents of our country sends those who claim to love it most into a fury, on the very day we are celebrating its birth … 

Trump and GOP to America: Democracy is Overrated!

You might have heard that Republicans voted to break 200 years of Senate tradition a couple of weeks ago and changed the rules that uphold our democratic process—simply because Trump’s right-wing Supreme Court Nomination Neil Gorsuch was unable to meet the 60-vote threshold necessary to confirm him. That same Neil Gorsuch, a friend of business and enemy of the vast majority of Americans, used his first act in his new position to allow Arkansas to go forward with an 11-day killing spree in a state that hasn’t executed anyone since 2005; against the advice of advocates across the political spectrum.

It was just the latest example of Republicans placing party over country and Trump over the American people. Apparently, Trump and the GOP are unmoved by the 7 in 10 Americans who opposed a rule change, the over one million citizens who signed petitions to block Gorsuch and the thousands of letters and calls poured into Republican offices (Vox). It didn't matter to them that their constituents took to the streets and passionately rallied in opposition to a Supreme Court nominee that is a threat to our rights.

The most damning example of the GOP’s aversion to the central tenets of democracy is a strategy they have employed since the 1990s, blocking as much of the Democratic agenda as possible when they are out of power, using that gridlock to then win midterm elections (where the GOP generally outperforms its returns in presidential-year elections) and then pushes through their agenda whenever they have the majority. This was true with much of what George Bush did after “winning” the 2000 election, aided by 9/11, and is starting to happen with Trump, though his general

Equally troubling to the future of the country is the advanced gerrymandering the GOP has engaged in for the past couple of decades, seeking to gain dramatic advantages in the electoral map while undermining the minority vote and, by extension, the general will of the people. This effort has only accelerated in recent years and even with some judicial setbacks, they continue to dominate state government and will use that power to skew the political map as much as possible. The simple reality is that Republicans can’t win in a lot of places unless they stack the decks to help them do so, and they are increasingly good at stacking those decks.

A third major area where our democracy is being challenged relates back to Thomas Jefferson and his contention that democracy fails if the populace is not both educated and informed. The “fake news” trend, while not new, has accelerated to the point that the entire Trump administration feels little compunction about lying as the major mode of communication. A new Salon article, in fact, argues they take great pleasure in their constant stream of lies to the media and have no plans to slow down. In an interview just last week, Trump again felt the inconvenient truths are best combatted with outright lies, delivered without even a scintilla of compunction. Of course, most troubling of all is the Russian story that just won’t go away, as hard as some conservative representatives try to quash it.  

Fourth is the continued efforts to undermine the minority vote, with Trump’s fallacious claims of millions of illegal votes tallied in the election emboldening Republicans across the country to institute new voter ID and other requirements that will suppress the democratic vote (as with Iowa  just last week). Republicans have known for some time that they can only win elections if they stop enough people from voting and that was again true this year, when the Democrats won more votes in the Senate, House of Representatives and, of course, Presidential races only to lose all three. Beyond the growing critiques of the Electoral College, which has allowed Republicans to win two races where they lost the popular vote in the past 16 years (and win the popular vote only once since 1988), and the gerrymandering discussed above, is the ways the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been undermined by recent Supreme Court decisions that appear to have < suppressed minority votes > beyond what the popular press reports. As to those claims of illegal voting, North Carolina might serve as a great example of how absurd the charges are, as the State Board of Elections did an extensive, objective audit of the 2016 Election. What did they find? Of the 4.8 million votes counted, exactly one would have been dismissed with the voter ID law State Republicans have been pushing for years (and only failed because it was overturned by a federal appeals court, who said it targeted black voters with “almost surgical precision.”).

And this leads to the final major way that Republicans have undermined popular sovereignty and the will of the people, very effectively utilizing the judiciary to push and solidify their agenda. The seeds of this strategy go back over a century, when the corporation first gained citizen rights. Yet is the 2010 Citizen United decision that has served them so well, their only loss since its inception being the 2012 victory for Obama. In every other election at the local, state and national level, they have made gains, including the victory of a jackass over a flawed, but much more capable alternative. Spending on elections has skyrocketed in the wake of that absurd decision and the super rich like the Koch brothers are not only starting grassroots movements like the Tea Party, but spending big in local races that all but guarantee victory. The record of the two Supreme Court Justices of George Bush and of Gorsuch indicate a turn toward corporate interests that is terrifying to the general public and includes consummate efforts to undermine democracy and labor power at every turn.

As Masha Green warned before Trump even took office, the seeds of autocracy are already present in the U.S. and, most clearly, in the movement Trump leads. The playbook we have seen in the past includes the following elements, which we see beginning to take shape in just the first 100 or so days of the Trump Administration: 1. Use racial/religious animus to cultivate a scapegoat mentality that defers responsibility from those causing economic decline (namely corporations and the one percent our president is an ardent member of), 2. Create a corporate state where the differentiation between government and corporate interests become almost indiscernible (see his cabinet selections so far), 3. Discredit the mainstream media, allowing propaganda to build a mythological reality that serves the leadership and that same corporate state (just check out Trump’s twitter account, or read the news on any given day), 4. Cultivate militarism as ideology, picking fights everywhere to build up a massive military and then use it whenever possible (see the hotspots that could very well lead to World War III under Trump’s watch), and 5. Build a government that serves your interests more than those of the people (too many to mention here, but here are two examples from just today: Emoluments and Gift to Kids).

The Trump presidency has been a disaster and sideshow of missteps and failures so far, but that neither means that he has not had some success in pushing his radical agenda   or that more will not follow. Dramatic tax reform could be on the way, Obamacare is still not safe, the environment is in real trouble at a time when we might be approaching the tipping point to global destruction, war seems more likely with each passing day, corporate interests are trumping the publics in multivariate ways and Trump and his family appear to be enriching themselves on our tab while doing little to keep the promises they made during the campaign (thank god, with many).

In considering the future of our democracy and the long, arduous task to save it from the iniquitous grasp of the GOP and corporate forces that would like to replace it, Green’s six points seem particularly important. To reiterate them here: 1. Believe the autocrat (a point the mainstream media has failed to do from the beginning of his political ascendancy), 2. Do not be taken in by small signs of normality (again, the mainstream media is guilty of this on several occasions since November already), 3. Institutions will not save you (see #1 and #2 above), 4. Be outraged (the good news in this story so far, as the people are making sure their voices are being heard and it’s having an effect), 5. Don’t make compromises (so far the rather craven Democratic Party has largely followed this advice, even as they fail to acknowledge the failings of their leadership and the DLC/Neoliberal model), and 6. Remember the future. We should be emboldened by the resistance so far, but must be vigilant for the entire four years of what one hopes is a one-term president. But we must be equally vigilant against a party who has abandoned any real dedication to the central tenets of democracy and their role in preserving both it and the will of the people. Democracy only works when people fight for it and the threat of its demise is currently staring us in the face.

Trump Budget a Big FU to His Supporters

Trump continues to prove the pundits right from one day to the next, failing to live up to even the low expectations most sane Americans had for him from the start. Suffice it say that this is shaping up as the worst start to a presidency in history, even surpassing the short William Henry Harrison stay in the highest office (WP). Another Muslim ban shot down before it was ever adopted (LA Times), a healthcare plan that appears to be little more than a tax cut for the wealthy (The Nation), with a dramatic reduction in benefits and subsidies for everyone else, also shot down (NYT)  and a budget that will hurt the working class and poor while enriching business and the wealthy (WP). Trump also continues to manipulate the truth and data with reckless abandon. The good news is people might be starting to pay attention, as Trump’s approval rating hit a new low, of 37%, in the latest Gallop Poll. Let’s briefly take a look at the latest lowlights, each in turn.

Trumpcare is dead for now, the victim of infighting among conservatives and a startling backlash from constituents (NYT), alongside a general inability to rule in the wake of their disingenuous opposition to everything Obama tried to do the past six years. The bill would have cut 24 million Americans from the health insurance rolls over a decade, partially to fund a $600 million tax cut for the wealthy. Of course, that pales in comparison to the next item on the agenda, a $6 trillion tax cut that is three times the amount of the Bush cut that helped push us toward the financial crisis (NYT). How will Trump pay for this massive gift to the rich and powerful? By destroying many benefits and services that make our families and communities safe and secure, of course. He'll try to voucherize Medicare to shift costs to retirees, and slash Medicaid, whose biggest costs are for low-income seniors and people with disabilities. He'll starve our schools and low-income kids who get their meals at school, and slash funding for research on medical breakthroughs and climate change.

As the Washington Post argues, if you are a poor person in America, the Trump budget is not for you. But you are not alone in being disappointed by a plan that appears to go against everything Trump purported to support on the campaign trail. Sure there is the nod to Reagan and a building up of our military while cutting funding to the social safety net for those most in need (USA Today). There is continued deregulation and further attacks on public broadcasting and the arts (WP). And there is the expected cuts to plenty of elements of the social safety net (Yet there is plenty of disappointment for a wide array of Americans. Those doing medical and scientific research, or those who think it might be a pretty good thing for the government to support, are among them (WP). There is also Mother Nature, who I increasingly envision as Iron Eyes Cody in full sob mode. And even those working class voters who thought Trump might bring back their jobs are starting to realize the mythology at the heart of that promise (The Guardian), while rewarding those he slammed in almost every stump speech (TNR). Even Republicans seem less than enamored with the plan, for a variety of reasons (WP).

Getting back to healthcare for a moment, Trump has refused, as is his penchant, to blame himself for the failure, instead blaming anyone and everyone else he can think of (The Guardian), including the Democrats, who might thank him come November ’18. The danger is that he could still essentially kill Obamacare through the backdoor, using a series of executive orders and other mechanisms to undermine key components of the plan. Trump appears to live in a world of his own rendering, where he never makes a mistake, knows more than just about anyone else on the planet (save his own family and Steve Bannon) and is as popular as Charlie Chaplin at the height of his fame.  

This leads us to the third big story of the past week or so, in case you haven’t been paying attention – which is understandable in attempting to keep your sanity intact – namely, that the Russia connections just won’t go away. FBI Director James Comey said the investigation is ongoing and pressure is building for an independent commission to oversee it.  Sean Spicer, in his usual feckless way, seemed to indicate that Trump’s campaign manager for several months last year, Paul Manafort, implicated as a key figure in a conspiracy that would put Watergate to shame, didn’t actually have much to do with the campaign. The fact he resigned because of the Russian links, of course, shouldn’t really bother us. Nothing to see here, back to the absurd Trump claims about Obama bugging Trump Towers, which he quadruple-downed on with a recent Time Magazine interview. The problem of the moment appears to be serious fears that the investigation is being undermined by its own House Intelligence Chair (The Guardian, Slate), disappearing from an Uber ride after running to the White House with potential “proof” of the absurd bugging claim. But the evidence is piling up and there is certainly more to hear on a story that could mean a foreign government not only manipulated an election but are now expecting payback (Daily Mail, 538, Vox). No one I know of is using the word “treason” yet, but aren’t we skating around it, particularly as policies within the administration so far seem to favor the Russian perspective and they are working so hard to undermine the investigation?

Putting it altogether, we have a president who has no compunction about lying, in fact, one who thinks lying is part of a healthy, balanced daily diet. He has tried and failed to ban Muslims from countries who have never engaged in terrorist activity here. He has tried and failed to abolish Obamacare, at least for now. He has hired a bunch of radicals to his cabinet, many firmly behind Steve Bannon’s dream to dismantle the American government full stop. He has ostracized our allies, drummed up violence against every oppressed group imaginable, shown an unwillingness to help those who voted for him and continues to take credit for things he hasn’t done. The level of cruelty in his budget and Trumpcare initiatives is almost nonpareil in recent American politics and there is growing evidence for the conspiracy theory that he is essentially a Russian agent doing the bidding of one of our greatest enemies for most of the past 70 years. It’s a hell of a record for a guy that might be lucky to even make it through his first term, much less win a second.