WHERE DO ELEPHANTS GO TO DIE? THE I.C.U.?

It is now Kristol clear to some long-time Republicans that their political party is not only unblushingly sadistic and nihilistic (even old-fashioned McConnell will use all his tools to keep the Biden Admin from doing anything positive that voters might welcome), but may be both suicidal and masochistic. Read on…

Bill Kristol here. I’d like to share with you why I’m helping lead the Republican Accountability Project after a long career in Republican and conservative politics.  I’ve seen a lot in my time in Washington. From high-level positions in the Reagan and Bush administrations to co-founding The Weekly Standard, I’ve spent more than 4 decades making the case for conservative principles.  Then something changed.  When Donald Trump became the Republican nominee in 2016, the principles I had spent my career championing suddenly were thrown overboard. The Republican Party became subservient to the whims of one man.  I’ve been in Washington long enough to know that Trump and his enablers represent something different. Something dangerous.  We’re committed to making sure no Republican escapes the choices they make in this moment. For example, we created the GOP Democracy Report Card to track every Republican legislator, and to see who chose to defend our democracy, and who chose cowardice.  I’m glad to have you with us as we hold everyone in the Republican Party accountable, and defend those who did the right thing.  Bill Kristol Co-founder, Republican Accountability Project

For a long time American political conservatism was dominated by those who were born wealthy or envied those who were, those who believed in few regulations on businesses, had faith in economic growth as a source of happiness and were champions of rugged individualism. The Sixties loosened public restrictions on sex, clothing, hair length, rock music, censorship and many other areas of behavior long narrowed under WASP-dominated American culture. That fostered a right-wing, religion-tinged reaction (see W Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Trump and other Vietnam chicken hawks). Reagan was the mouthpiece for that set of beliefs in recent decades though many of these beliefs go back to the beginning of the U.S. The original sin of protecting slavery.  The two senators  per state, regardless of population represented; Wyoming=California. The Jeffersonian faith in a white, male yeomanry who owned land and was therefore deemed to be dependable and responsible, no matter that the land was wrested from Native Americans by violent genocide.  Racism was baked in.  A black was equal to 3/5 of a white man in writing in the sacred constitution.  The patriarchy didn’t deign to mention women of whom there were zero in Constitution Hall as voting delegates. Jefferson, the ideal founding father, didn’t dare publicly reveal his black mistress and their bi-racial children. In general conservatism came to be the heart of the Republican Party, especially after Civil Rights legislation under LBJ drove the Confederacy away from the Democrats who, until then, had been the most racist, pro-slavery party since the early 1800s. Let us not kid ourselves, those civil rights laws were to quell the city protests and riots so LBJ could focus the National Guard and all American military might on his idiotic crusade in Vietnam.  Going back to FDR, who did almost nothing about racism and locked up Japanese-Americans, all the social welfare legislation was done largely to prevent socialist revolt, done out of noblesse oblige.  Just as his uncle, TR, was a ground-breaking conservationist so there’d be plenty of ducks and game for the wealthy to shoot. 

Reagan was fed the lines and he delivered every one with Hollywood sincerity. Acting like a President was a pretty easy role, plenty of lackeys to do anything that needed doing.

When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.  [A pompous love note to free market economics that hates government regulation.]

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.  [From a man who did nothing to support jobs in America during eight years of rampant off-shoring.  And he certainly never opposed the heavy subsidies of U.S. oil and gas companies, or Big Ag.]

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

No government voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see.

 Reagan did make mistrust of the federal government a cornerstone of American conservatism.  Racists had long clung to states’ rights to prevent spread of civil rights, but Reagan put anti-government emotion in the center of the faith.  Right-wing political behavior is a faith, just like any religion.  There is no proof of any deity and there is no proof of trickle-down economics, or businesses deliberately creating jobs or corporations acting for the good of the nation or the planet.  There is no evidence that a roomful of MBAs will not cheat, lie and rig any system to get more money.  That any oil company or chemical manufacturer will be careful with its waste.  Deregulation is as faith-based as anything to do with a WASP’s Holy Trinity.

So now we have the Trumped version of American right-wing beliefs, more like those of 100 years ago—isolationist, racist (KKK reborn in 1920s), based in many deep fears (much of the Twenties here in the US was cursed by a belief that Bolsheviks were taking over thus the FBI and J. Edgar), the rich getting richer while the laborers ate shit, near total corruption at the corporate level (1929, 2008. …next?), idiotic tendency to compare the stock market to anything like the real economy, WASP self-righteousness (Prohibition!).  Trump played to all the modern versions of that like Reagan had in his time.  Beneath every B-grade actor is a fantasist and bullshit artist.  But today’s conservatism depends on faith and stopping history.  Very hard to maintain.  Hey, racists: without immigration the US population will stop growing (see Italy, Japan).  Hey CEOs: climate change can be neither ignored nor postponed.  When Exxon needs federal aid to move its Texas operations from the coast where will the hands-off, anti-government crowd find their hideout?  The demographics are fate.  The fastest growing segment of the US population comes from racially mixed families—the quaint idea of some kind of racial barrier or purity is so passe.  We have a blond nephew whose wife is Hispanic and they have two kids.  Our youngest son’s wife is Chinese.  They have two English-born sons.  That’s our future. Not some boondocks redneck who won’t eat foreign food or drive a “foreign” car even if it was assembled in Alabama where there are no unions.

I do expect some level of violence,  mostly isolated cases.  The right-wingers are cowards (see chicken-hawk above).  Old patriarchal systems get most violent when they are losing any of the control they took on faith.  Examples: today’s Muslim fundies who don’t want women using cell phones or being free…the Catholic Church’s violent Counter-Reformation…China’s repeated attempts to squash freedom, religion or dilute central control…the Confederacy’s repeated violence against blacks…the crime syndicates that use violence to run some Central American areas—El Salvador, Guatemala, etc.  Demographics are not in McConnell’s control.  Republicans are now the slenderest of the three avowed political positions in America (besides D and I), sharply down from when 9-11 fooled some into hoping W could be an effective President.  W’s 80% favorability did not last as long as it took him to invade Iraq. The U. S. numbers are going against the Republican Party and I can only hope covid keeps recycling those anti-vaxxers who think Trump ever told a single truth.  And it was reassuring to hear Gen. Mark Milley report that he and the Pentagon were not going to back a Trump coup.

Even the dependably anti-givernment, pro-business Murdoch property, “Wall Sreet Journal,” worries about no poplation growth. Of course, they could never admit that economic ad pop[ulation growth are destroying our only planet.

The elepahnts do seem to have herd immunity–to facts. Take Florida…please. With less than 10% of all U.S. population it now has 20% of new covid cases. Hey, Repubs, covid is not good for most of the economy. So a scared Gov. De Santis, long-time Trump suck-up, is now openly admitting that vaccination can save lives. Oh boy, do his faith-driven voters NOT like that. A true believer would never believe in medicine or science or vaccine, right?

COULD THERE BE A TRUMP-UPRISING?

LATE MONDAY UPDATE: We are living in a country where Tammany Hall merges with “The Godfather”. Here is one clear-eyed view of where our nation stands with laws that are leaky and traditions that cannot be enforced in the face of scams and lies. After his call to the Georgia Secretary of State, Trump’s “mental” condition is clear–only his brand matters. To lose, he fears, is to be a loser. There is no good or honest loss. Only fraud and hoax and scam and cheating could over-turn such a stable genius. Now there is support for another impeachment, all you need to do is listen to the recorded phone call. End of investigation, when you have an hour-long confession of desire to overturn an election. Could be a committee vote within hours of hearing that recording, What will Biden’s Attorney General do with this? Did Barr know these calls were being made to state officials and so left early? Were there other calls, not recorded or…?

As I have long expected, he is preparing to run away. Scotland is ideal place to hide from any possible criminal charges. Look how well Assange has done, and he just got another positive court ruling to prevent extradition to the US–this one based on testimony that Assange is a depressed suicidal. What shrink would not testify thus about a pathological former President? In Scotland a man could play golf every day, rain or shine, for free on his own course. Self-exile may be his only safe move. And we get to pay for the flight and the security thereafter, oh joy divine.

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Going back to Goldwater in this land, conservatives have been attacking even the idea of government, not directly always…even now, as Trump tries to enhance his crime syndicate to include elected state officials, one conservative actually said that his fellow conservatives can’t really want Congress to overturn the 2020 election results because that would be more power to Congress which conservatives are supposed to oppose because all national government is bad…he did not go on to explain that federal law often prevents redneck states from banning blacks, closing social welfare programs and even killing public education, but that is the fact…that’s why right-wingers hate federal government, it does things they despise–taxes, medicare, environmental rules (before Trump). So conservatives here openly advocate the destruction and dismembering of national government. They even oppose some powers on the state level…you can’t make me wear a mask during the pandemic just to protect other people from infection–I demand my personal freedoms, along with my forty rifles and unlimited ammo…what if I need to go to the park and shoot a lot of people?  I need that ammo, also when antifa invades my suburb or ranch how can I kill them all with only 500 rounds?

LATE MONDAY: The National Guard will be on the streets of D.C. Tuesday through Thursday. At this hour the D.C. cops have already arrested the leader of the Proud Boys on charges from previous protests in which he participated.

This Colorado Congresswoman exemplifies how central gun-carrying is to right wing politics in this country. Liberals don’t like guns so let’s carry them openly to bully those snowflakes.

The anti-government activism goes all the way back to Gingrichdom when one of his lackeys said the government should be drowned like a baby in the bath-tub.  Government incompetence when run by government haters is to be expected.  Hurricane Katrina.  Invasion of Iraq.  Trump has merely made it worse because of his own pathologies which clearly include self-destruction.  In his warped mind he may imagine that if he destroys the nation, the militia will rise up, name all the military bases after him and his family and make him dictator for life, with one of his sons to inherit thereafter.  A friend mine who served his time in the military and CIA assures me that the militia here can cause trouble and woe, kill people, blow up stuff, but they cannot mount any serious threat against a  well-paid military with drones and planes.  The minute twenty rebels gather together anywhere in the US they get blown up if the Pentagon feels it is a serious threat.

Part of this blog was in response to a friend in London sending me this article on the political split that nation is now experiencing with Brexit, a classic outcome of anti-government right wing propaganda. Brexit campaigning was helped along by money from Putin’s fiefdom and anti-government American billionaires and corporations who donated to the pro-Brexit movement. The newspaper piece posits that less conservative government is more effective in dealing with covid…also–I must add–conservatives become vehemently anti-science when it starts to cut into profits. Facts are trivial when money is involved–tobacco companies, opioid manufacturers, the 2008 market crash, Boeing’s deadly jets, Round-Up, D-Con, Enron–the examples of corporate cover-up for profit is nearly endless.

Covid death rate and rising infection rate just led to national lockdown in Britain.