Oh. My. God. Just when I think Felon47 has reached the bottom...

 He calls in the excavators. He's ordered the US military to invade and kidnap another country's president. And they did it. So much for the integrity of Delta Force. The US is now on par with... dear god, how far down the list do we have to go?

A short list of the damage so far...

Disempowered 165,000,000+ women in the US, and millions more around the world.

Disappeared innocents and sent them beyond the reach of the courts.

Encouraged and cheered on redistricting to keep his majority in the House.

Sent US military into the streets of D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other Democratic-led cities in the name of law and order, but leaving corrupt and far worse off communities in Republican-led cities alone and rotting.

Encouraged the further corruption of the Supreme Court and threatened to jail critics. He's even offered encouragement to anybody who'd want to take out - that means kill - those critics.

Enriched billionaires by removing health care to more than 20,000,000 Americans.

Threatened lives by allowing RFK Jr to gut the CDC, undermine science and wreak havoc on public health. 

Destroyed the East Wing of the White House for his vanity project of a ballroom. An in the e service of that, destroyed 2 historical gardens of the White House AND paved another  in a transparent attempt to wipe out the Kennedy legacy.

Built Alligator Alcatraz only to have to abandon it when it's recognized as violating all kinds of legal protections. BUT also relocating the prisoners (the disappeared) into who knows where. He's rendered them invisible by exporting them into foreign hells where they have no rights or protections at all. 

Taken over management and renamed the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for himself. So pathetic. Is he going to have the Lincoln memorial changed, adding a statue of himself lecturing to Abe?

Humiliated the US in the world by ordering extra-judicial killings, bullying allies, toadying to Putin and Xi, honoring Kim, encouraging NettanyaHOOOOO in his genocide of the Palestinian people. Destroying the good will of our neighbors by demanding to absorb a country of 4,000,000+ into a single state. Floating the idea of a Trump Gaza and turning the Gaza strip into a high end resort with no Palestinians. Threatening an invasion and take over of Greenland. 

All of this and more, all in the name of vanity and money. By a cheap, money-grubbing pedophile.

Lady Liberty rages to the skies.

Ducking the Horrors of Trump 2.0

Oddly, while his recent actions horrify me, I'm not totally freaking out. Rather, I have a desire to shout to the heavens "I told you so!!"

I won't of course. But he's actually going slower than I expected. I really did expect him to formally and officially terminate the Constitution by Day 2. And he hasn't. Granted, he's given extraordinary power to Elon, and is doing everything by fiat, but he hasn't formally trashed the Constitution. Given Citizens United, the degradation of the electoral process since Nixon, the end of the Fairness Doctrine in the 1990s, none of this is a big surprise. At least to those who haven't been imbibing in the Republican kool-aid since the 60s. Maybe doing acid and heroin was actually better than the Republican kool-aid in the long term. 

I've been a big fan of Heather Cox Richardson since I found her (only in 2023, far too late). Her analyses are spot on, and so helpful right now. And since I agree with her and she's more articulate and has a far better foundation in US history than I do, I happily defer to her. There's a reason I didn't want to even look at American history past 1947: I simply didn't have the needed objectivity. She does. I knew it infuriated me to discover the malfeasance and misdeeds of this country that I loved, and that I wouldn't be able to be calm and scholarly about it. So I am very grateful to find a scholar of such distinction right now. 

I was a full blown adult in the 1980s, and doing both undergrad and MA work, and thus developing and honing my professional skills. And I was utterly thunderstruck that people actually listened to Reagan and bought his kool-aid. His elections were hard lessons in the gullibility of the American electorate. His campaigns were, to me, so patently & obviously manipulative that I simply gaped that so many chose him.  His second term, with his ever-so-obvious cognitive decline, was another painful lesson and I started to wonder how people could so eagerly overlook the evidence of his... craziness. 

Ultimately, I recognized that the responses to cognitive dissonance are far more powerful than we'd like to think (if that isn't a tautology...).  Lord knows how many studies have looked at this - including my own dissertation and much of my professional research since. Americans are taught from the cradle to embrace magical thinking, to regard evidence as unnecessary and likely false. We're not alone in that, but what continues to bemuse me is our insistence that any evidence we don't like on nearly everything is false and being presented maliciously. We might say we did x, y or z based on solid evidence, but we certainly don't act that way. Woe to those who might question anything that challenges our magical thinking fantasies. 

So I'm oddly calm as my country is destroyed around me. I'm not reading everything I can get my hands on about the travesties of Trump 2.0. Rather, I'm idly wondering who's going to archive the evidence away from the bastards who will 'clean' up our history and disappear the evidence of atrocities we've committed in our history (and present). That they intend to rewrite history is a given - they've said it again and again, and it's been going on forever. So whoever is around 200 years from now will look back at this period, this geographical spot and hopefully find an archive of scholarly work that doesn't argue the ends justify the means. Maybe they'll recognize the kool-aid histories as travesties and wonder how we let that happen. 

Maybe they'll have air to breathe. Trees to sit under. Oceans full of life. I hope so. But if the current path humanity is on continues, I'm sure the USA won't be around. Not as a democracy - more likely another historical example of hubris, arrogance and what happens to a culture raised on bread & circuses.

Well, Howdy! Starting again. Again.

It's been a while, but as a blog offers both a comfortable space and an opportunity, my therapist suggested I try again. So!

The fabulous news of Trump's newest indictment is top of mind. I cannot believe how many Amurikans continue to believe and support that twit. His howls of purported rage are, IMHO, those of a hyper-spoiled brat who has never had to face any consequences for his stupidity and venality. The fact that it's Georgia makes it all the more surprising: Georgia is conservative and a bit backward, but they are, to date, the only state that has the people who are willing to call a crime a crime in this case. For him, Georgia used to be little more than a fly-over, a minor irritation when they didn't always dance to his fiddle. For them to charge him and insist that he surrender? Please let this be the humiliation he so richly deserves.

And the RICO elements? I swooned. 41 counts, 19 defendants... and so much evidence! Lordy, what that man and his enablers have done. I am still not sure that this country can ever recover from the damage that  the GOP has done over the past half century: Nixon's venality, Reagan's reckless anti-governing attitudes, the Tea Party's canonization of Reagan and his legend (which blithely ignored all the damage he did and further undermined the social contract),  Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, the Bush Boys back room presidencies, Dick Cheney (war criminal)... and then... OMG, the Moscow Mitch degradations. Paul Ryan. Donald Trump. Kevin McCarthy. Marjorie Taylor-Green. And the politics of fear mongering... remember how horrified we were when Bush Sr (already tarred and damaged by Iran-Contra) was running against Michael Dukakis, and used the Willie Horton case to re-invigorate his campaign? The Republicans had been encoding fear politics into their programs and platforms for years - that was, for me, the first time I personally saw an overt appeal based on racism by the Republicans (which says much about my socialization and blinders, doesn't it..?). Then the Tea Party's pettiness and the disgrace that is Newt Gingrich. It's a long and distressing litany of old white men who sought personal power at the expense of American-style democracy. And all too frequently, not only redefined those traditions, but degraded us all.

So yeah, I pleased that finally somebody called a crime a crime. And is going after the Trump Cabal. Too bad Fani Willis is such a unicorn, and no wonder that a local Republican state lawmaker is calling for her impeachment. May he rot in Trump Hell.

Beyond that...

The Ukraine war is an ongoing tragedy, which Americans would prefer to forget. No, we want to cry for the people of Lahaina in Hawaii. That is not to say that Lahaina isn't tragic, and horrific. It is simply on a totally different scale than the nightmares that Putin and his cronies are imposing on Ukraine. Americans tend to be insular and thoroughly sold on the idea of American exceptionalism, and get downright nasty and even violent when that is questioned. So yes, I feel sympathy for those who've suffered in Lahaina, as I do for those in Lytton BC. And those all over the world whose homes and livelihoods were destroyed by fire, war, greed, environmental catastrophe, climate change, etc.. I cringe when Americans focus only on the local and refuse to acknowledge the loss and humanity of those outside the geo-political constructs of Amurika.

Election Day 2022: The Mid-Terms? Or The Penultimate Chapter?

 I'm worried. Really worried. The pundits are suggesting that the GOP will retake control of Congress, and that scares the sh*t out of me. The extremists that have taken control of the Grand Old Party and made it the Party of Fear and Hatred have an extremist agenda, one they've made no effort to conceal. So yeah, I'm worried. This could very well be the last election that even approaches what passes for a free and fair process in the US.

It's not like we don't have problems with the existing process, already tattered by gerrymandering, voter suppression and the like. The Republican assault on voting rights has been constant and multi-focused. And the Democrats haven't been nearly vocal or united enough to do anything to even slow them down. After packing the judiciary with conservative judges, the Rs have largely narrowed the path to redress. Which, for them, makes sense. As I said - it's not like they've been subtle about it. They've spent decades plotting a way to reduce the power of the average voter. It's been such a long process, I think most people have now accepted those past actions as 'normal' and 'logical' rather than the insidious poisoning of the entire political and governing process. 

We'll see the results - maybe - in this election. If the GOP manages to rebound and regrasp the legislative branch, they'll have what they need to control the judicial: the power to appoint. McConnell will dance in private and show his constipated smugness in public. Again. McCarthy... well, he's never been the brightest bulb in the pack, but he's eager to manipulate and bully on behalf of his own interests. We'll face another round of deeply flawed elections after the GOP rams through 'improvements' as they purge voter roles. In 2024, we'll be stuck again with Trump and his cronies, despite the mountains of evidence of corruption and sedition. And dear God, the fear-mongering and hateful conspiracy-loving weirdos will once again be waving their guns and bullying everyone. And millions will fade into the background - again - and come to accept this as 'normal'. 

The world is, according to the New York Times, worrying about democracy in the United States. I am too. Not just about democracy in this troubled country - but about the very survival of the country. We've allowed the entire place - politics, economy, culture, people - to be poisoned. We've done that, and allowed outsiders to do it too. 

Gods willing, we might just survive. Maybe.