The Way It Is

"Waaaa . . . waaaa . . . the world is mean to me".  

"And it’s all the fault of those bad people in Congress, especially that Mr. Obama, who wasn’t even born here, and who’s a Muslim. That nice man Mr. Trump says he is going to make everything all better for me. And if I feel like killing somebody because I’m feeling angry, or just bad, then I can, and he will defend me in court. And he says that he is going to make everything all better for the country . . . and we will be great again. So, I’m going to vote for Mr. Trump . . . waaaa . . . waaaa."

I wonder whether that isn’t the same thing Mr. Hitler said to his countrymen after WW I.  Then, it was all the fault of those Jews. And I assume that clown Benito told his Italian countrymen the same tragic tale, so that he too would be elected by his people.

And those lovely ISIS recruiters say much the same thing to their recruits, except that they promise that things will be ever so much better in the next life. Yeah, the guys will get their 72 virgins there, but whatever do they promise the girls?

And so the games begin here, built around the same model as was used in those earlier models. Mr. Trump is even suggesting to his followers that, if he fails to get nominated, they have a “second amendment” remedy, which of course means, "break out the guns guys, we are going to War."

There really isn’t much in the way of information being communicated between Mr. Trump and his followers. Mainly, Mr. Trump keeps assuring his followers that everything is total crap right now, but America will be great again after he gets elected.  But, to be fair, there really isn’t much information being communicated among any of the various political groups. What seems to be happening is something like, “The Great Unraveling”.  Our country used to be divided into a fairly large middle-left political grouping, a middle-right political grouping, a much smaller far left political group, and a far right political group, with the latter two groups being relatively inconsequential in terms of political clout.  The Middle Left and the Middle Right collaborated whenever the future of the country was actually at risk. The far righties and lefties just yelled a lot, but rarely contributed anything useful. Over the past couple of decades, since Mr. Reagan actually, the two power groups have been pulling farther and farther apart, and those groups have been themselves splintering into subgroups. The big bloc of righties has subdivided into a Christian Taliban, an NRA- gun lobby, an anti-LGBT group (sometimes the Christian Taliban), an anti-government group—mainly this group is anti-regulation, and is the primary purpose behind the Koch brothers’ attempt to buy the US government. The anti-regulation group is also opposed to climate change initiatives, either regulatory in nature or developmental in terms of non-fossil fuel systems of energy development/consumption.  Again, the Koch’s are in this group, since they are fossil fuel producers, when they are not acting as Nazi supporters.

The power structure has also changed considerably. Especially since Citizens United, which unleashed massive funding from the right wing, the right wing has been busily buying government, by buying politicians.   Picture this . . . Mitch McConnell just announced that the NRA must approve the next Supreme Court nominee.  I assume then that, instead of a conventional panel of US Senators, Mitch intends to convene, before the conventional Senate Judiciary Committee meets, a panel consisting of the NRA, the Christian Taliban, the Climate Deniers, the Faux News Network, and . . . oh but you get the idea. That group will first puts its stamp of approval on the nominee, and then that person will go before the official committee to gain their (automatic) stamp of approval. I can picture this kind of process being used for most pieces of legislation, including the regular US Government budget. What is not clear to me is the extent to which the Koch’s and others of their ilk will formalize this process into a kind of shadow government that will henceforth dictate the operating rules for the formal government. Maybe the shadow government will meet somewhere in Utah and then send their dictates to the sordid little town of Washington, DC to be put into practice.

And so, communications will change formally again.

It’s interesting on this point of non-communications. Carol and I were watching a Bill Mahrer show the other night. On it, he had invited his usual panel, including someone from the Huffington Post, Irving';s little boy Billy Krystol from the Weekly Standard, and a woman manager of some financial group.  This panel construct is an increasingly common form adopted in today’s world of television.  Many of the comedians employ this structure, the Faux News and other news networks employ it, all in an attempt to make believe that these disparate political groups can still communicate. But all Mr. Mahrer demonstrated was that the panel idea is an abysmal failure. In fact, no communication takes place at all. Mr. Mahrer contributes his snarky commentary on some event or political personage, and his panel then contributes their “through clenched teeth” comments, resulting in zero intelligent speech.  Just to watch Krystol listening to and trying to respond to Bill Mahrer, with his fake smile and clenched teeth, mouthing some equally snarky comment is to reveal the emptiness of this panel process.  In fact, these people are so far apart that they are virtually alien creatures from different planets making believe they could actually communicate.

But, what do I make of all this disintegrative picture of America crumbling before our very eyes?  I guess I have no useful suggestions. Were I 30, I actually think I would be planning an outmigration, probably to Canada, but we can’t all move to Canada can we? Canada would then simply turn into America and we would have lost a refuge.

No, outmigration is not a terribly useful solution. I guess, voting is the last refuge. But the Koch’s and others of their ilk may eventually shut down this process—republicans have been very active in their zeal to eliminate the ability of democrats to vote via their Voter ID laws, and their gerrymandering.  It will be interesting to see how successful they have been in this regard when we have the final election 2016.  So, if you can, kindly vote this November.  

Perhaps, “Vote . . . while you still can” might be added to that old adage, “Think . . . while you still can”.