The Trumpists’ logo, MAGA, is a coded form of their real slogan, MAOA, “Make America Ours Again.” Trump and the Trump base are the froth on the top of a nationwide regressionist movement. This regression is a delusional effort to return to a male-dominated, Christian-supremacist, white-supremacist America. At all levels of society, people are agitated by fear, resentment, and anger, as they see, or are led to see, the America they thought “belonged” to them slipping away. But what they really fear, what they resent, and what makes them furious is change, inevitable change they cannot control, change that they believe will not be to their advantage. Contributing to this fear is their consciousness of advantages unfairly seized, long enjoyed, and violently maintained. However much MAOAists, great and small, try to deny this consciousness, it remains the source of an implied fear of retribution that enhances the crippling fear of change.
7 IX 2022: On the casting couch
Will Judge Aileen Cannon be the new Amy Coney Barrett? Judge Aileen is an even more attractive candidate. She does what she is told without all that baggage of learning and experience.
5 IX 2022: Cartoons of truth
MAGA Republicans or, rather, Trump cultists, are calling on all the resources of their imaginations to denounce Biden’s criticism of their bogus movement. They, like Trump, project their own vices on to others, and so they declare that Biden is the real fascist. Rep. Ronny Jackson, from Texas, don’t you know, rants that “He had his secret police kick in Trump’s door,” turning reality into a cartoon.
Another cartoon is Federal Judge Aileen Cannon who has granted the Trump Team’s request for a special master. Was Judge Cannon guided by her deep devotion to the man who made her, Donald Trump, or by a generosity unchecked by utter lack of experience. She has proven the American Bar Association correct in its evaluation of her and given herself a shame she won’t be able to outlive.
3 IX 2022: Justice delayed in brier-patch of the law
Of course, Trump is entitled to postpone prosecution by having his “legal team” file endless documents and appeals. And it is quite legal for Lindsey Graham to keep on using the same legal dodge to avoid the grand jury. If you have enough money and are willing to lie, you can legally delay being brought to justice almost indefinitely.
However, justice delayed is justice denied. I read of the legal shenanigans of Trump, Graham, and countless other criminal fat cats. I read in the paper of two- or three-year delays between apprehension of perpetrator and trial. I read of prosecutions indefinitely suspended by screw-up district attorneys. If the law is not enforced, and promptly, the law is brought into disrepute, and criminals have no fear of getting caught because the consequences will be trivial or nil.
1 IX 2022: Decline in elementary education, already far advanced, now plummeting
The National Center for Education Statistics has reported a dramatic drop in the reading and math scores of 9-year-old students. This is not surprising.
We can surely blame this decline on school closings due to COVID19, but I am inclined to think that COVID is only a part of the problem. This Fall very many states report a virtually desperate shortage of teachers. Some states are even reducing required credentials for teaching just to get some warm bodies into their classrooms. So we have to ask why the pool of well-prepared teachers has dried up.
Who would want to be a teacher? Interference by mindless education bureaucracies and by special interest groups; the lack of cooperation and even antagonism of parents; indifferent students, undisciplined students, violent students; growing national anti-intellectualism and hostility towards learning and expertise; popular view of teachers as, to use Trump’s word, suckers and losers.
Why take on a job that society does not really want to have done, or, at least, to have done properly? Idealism, also an object of contempt in our society, can carry one only so far before constant frustration and obstruction drain away all enthusiasm.
Our society depends on two groups to fulfill two of its paramount needs, on teachers for education and on police for law enforcement. Both groups are targets of contempt, both groups are badly underpaid. Both groups contain some incompetents who cannot be removed because there is no one to take their places.
It’s time for us to provide greatly increased support, financial and moral, for teachers and policemen, or America will slide more quickly into decrepitude.
31 VIII 2022: Republicans tied to a corpse
I wonder how many Republicans are realizing that by their frightened fealty to Donald Trump their party is tied to a corpse that had begun decomposing some time ago. It only remains to be seen whether Donald Trump will be committed to a prison or to a mental institution.
29 VIII 2022: Lindsey leaks
Headline today on Huffpost: “Lindsey Graham Warns Of ‘Riots In Streets’ If Trump Is Charged Over Classified Docs.” I think Mr. Graham slipped in an interview of Fox and leaked the game plan of the Trump Gang. It will be a retry of Jan. 6.
26 VIII 2022: Trump the magician
Trump seems to be claiming that he could declassify documents by thinking they were declassified. He wants us to share his belief that by merely wanting them declassified, even retrospectively, he could declassify any number of documents, even though he might be the only one who knew that they were magically declassified.
This sort of magical thinking works well for Trump, for it is simply delusional, thus appropriate for a man who could make believe that he won the election and that all the world admires him.
21 VIII 2022: Alvin Bragg, disastrous D.A.
Been reading about the Solomonic discretion of Mr. Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney. He decided, evidently without much reflection, to shut down the investigation of Trump’s thieveries and give Donald a walk. But then, more recently, he made one bad call after another in an over-eager prosecution of Mr. Jose Alba. Mr. Bragg has a lot of explaining to do already, and he’s barely begun his term in office. Maybe early retirement is in order.
20 VIII 2022: Honor among thieves?
A report by Mary Papenfuss on Huffpost entitled “Republicans Demand to Know What Happened to Vanishing GOP Millions” reports the disappearance of very considerable funds from the budget of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The NRSC’s treasury started this election period with $173 million, but by the end of June was down to $28.4 million, and has for this reason reduced its support of some candidates just as the campaign season is entering its home stretch. Where did all the money go?
It is reported that $12 million went to American Express as credit card payments and $13 million to consultants. That’s a lot of three-martini lunches and a lot of unneeded advice, but even so, that would leave some $90 million to be accounted for. Could all that have been spent so soon on campaigns that are far from completed. Has Trumpism so pervaded the Republican Party that it is stealing from itself?