I saw this cartoon and I wanted to share:
Non
Sequitur by Wiley Miller (msn.com)
Basically it says why we need new parties better than me or
hopefully it gets through to people better than me.
Cheers
This blog has evolved into a series of rough drafts of thoughts and ideas that inhabit my brain. And if you read my blog regularly you realize an editor is worth their weight in gold, unfortunately I have neither. Also I still talk about the Dallas area and what is going on around here.
I saw this cartoon and I wanted to share:
Non
Sequitur by Wiley Miller (msn.com)
Basically it says why we need new parties better than me or
hopefully it gets through to people better than me.
Cheers
I like this title, but it probably gives off the wrong
impression and of course many apologies to the Star Trek writers and fandom.
I read The Dispatch and in it Jonah Goldberg writes
something he calls the G- Files. This is not about any of his G files, but
rather one comment made about his latest G File.
The comment was “gratitude is the opposite of victimhood”. I
upvoted the comment, yet I do not completely agree with it, yet it has quite a
bit of legs. Yet, it got me to thinking about Trump, he never really expresses
gratitude for anything and as we all know he plays the victim to a fake news academy
award winning performance.
And then I thought this must be what is going on with his
supporters. And then I realized, no that is not the problem. Sure there are
some people that are obnoxious, or despicable, but that is not the vast
majority of Trump supporters. Which makes it even harder to understand why they
are Trump supporters if generally they are decent people. And many are very
decent.
I have been to a Trump rally. It was quite an experience. Or
maybe I should say I walked through a Trump rally and stayed for a bit. The rally
crowd was so large they were broadcasting his speech on screens outside the building
he was speaking. I walked through the crowd that was outside and watched some
of his speech on the screen. Now this was one of his earlier rallies not a 2024
event.
And quite frankly they were not hate filled lunatics yelling
and screaming all sorts of madness except being boisterous and supportive of his
comments and his gloating about only he can make America great. Yes they did
give enthusiastic approval of all that, but generally they were a normal crowd
enjoying the moment.
I spoke to many of them as I walked by and they were
cordial, excited about being there, very supportive of Trump, yet most did not
try to force me into anything or say I must support Trump or go away. They were
neat. Trash was not strewn all over the place even though it was very crowded
and they had been there for hours. Many had been to local restaurants and had
brought their food there to eat. Trashcans were full and overflowing, but it
was at the trashcans, not up and down the streets.
When Trump spoke there was much noise, yet just yelling in
support of some sordid comment, laughing at his attempt’s at humor (which by
the way is one problem with Trump, he has no sense of humor, not an ounce) and
his statements on how he was going to make things great.
So what gives? How can so many decent people like such a
person as Trump? He represents everything that goes against what makes this
country great. Sure a few of the things he says sound like he is out to save
America, but in reality, they are either empty promises or nothing more than
personal bluster. There is also the so called Trump being Trump comments that
his supporters try to gloss over, but overall they buy into the idea of what they
see as him. It is like they have created an AI version of him that fits into
what they want him to be even though when the curtains are pulled back, it gets
extremely ugly.
And by no means do I think this is an original opinion. I
have read and probably you have too many versions of this same thought about him.
Yet it is his supporters that are misunderstood.
There was an article recently that I think was titled Why
the elites don’t get the Trump supporters or something close to that. The title
seriously intrigued me, but the article ran through so many LeMans S curves it
went off the track and never made the long straight away for an actual point.
You will have to excuse me, I still have a desire or hankering to see the LeMans
24 hour car race and for some reason it bounced into my head recently so I
needed to get that reference out before it drove me crazy.
Anyway anyway anway, back to the point, the elites on the
left and right don’t get the Trump supporters and they miss by a long
shot. H. Clinton infamously called them
deplorables. Probably one of the most idiotic lines ever said in a Presidential
campaign. Yet she is a compete leftist elitist that is clueless as they come.
This statement is just the crowning jewel of her cluelessness.
So what to believe about Trump supporters and I almost made
the mistake they are like the people who go to the non-denominational mega churches to feel good. They go to watch
some person on the stage who preach a variety of feel good messages, that try
to relate to being a Christian, but they are all there to get their weekly dose
of religion and then go about their lives. Yet there is no equivalency here for
what Trump supporters are looking. Sure some or many may go to these churches,
but it is not the same message. Well the prosperity gospels and Trump’s message
may have some of the same ring to it, but it is not completely the same.
So what it is it we don’t get. And that is they are just
like us, they go to work, they have families they care about, they have fears
(unfortunately amplified and creatively exasperated by Trump), and they want a
good future.
In Mr. Goldberg’s G file he talks about the difference
between the utopians and the eutopians, now the Trump supporters are neither,
they do fit closer to the eutopians as that they are working from the ground
up. I hate to say this, but many of the regular supporters are not generally
creative or large problem solving people. They are hard workers, but the rely
on complaints to deal with problems not creative solutions, yet there are many
on the left and non Trump supporting right that are the same way. And there is way more to Mr. Goldberg’s point in
his article than this reference gives a compliment to, but you have to understand
there is a similar comparison between the elitists and their view of the world
as one side versus the Trump supporters and their view of the world. The elitists
want us to believe they know what to do and we should listen to them at all
costs, while the Trump supporters are looking to find a better way for their
lives. They are just incapable like most of us of finding the solutions so they
rely on someone like Trump to become their hero to solve their problems, from
their perspective or trying to build something better from the bottom up which
is what they are looking.
After decades of the elites telling them they do not matter,
they see their top down approach as hateful, disrespectful, and unconcerned
with them so when Trump said hey guys I understand you, I am here to save you,
it sounds good. It was a breath of fresh air in their world.
Unfortunately, Trump tapped into this need for someone to
respect and understand them while all the while lying through his teeth to them
that they cannot see beyond the proverbial curtain at all.
The Trump supporters are not the enemy or deplorable, they
are tired angry and sick of being neglected by elites. So why are the elites so
shocked he has so many supporters. The elites just need to look into a mirror
and realize their visions were never Trump’s supporters visions or even needs and
listen to who they are and act accordingly.
I fear it may be too late or at best may take a long time to
bring his supporters back into the fold, but if they do come back, we will need
to do a much better job of being eutopians and create some bottom up populist
public policy to reinvigorate them into America’s greatness.
Outside of diehard Trump supporters and desperate Harris
supporters, most people in this country are starting to realize neither
candidate really doesn’t know what to do.
And political pundits to comedians are starting to call them
out on this scary fact. Most people talk about the economic policies, yet I don’t
think either has a plan for Iran except hope Israel finds a way to crawl out of
it’s quagmire.
And many people in this country really didn’t want Biden v. Trump
round 2, but that was what we were headed for until Biden stood on national TV
and had the most momentous cognitive collapse possible for someone on a public
stage. I am on record saying if either party chooses someone else over the two
old guys that person would win in a landslide, well I guess I was wrong since
Harris is barely hanging on.
People are still struggling and unfortunately Biden now
Harris gets blamed, but it isn’t all their fault, but right now neither Harris
nor Trump have a realistic plan for the mass majority of this country no matter
their party affiliation.
And an even more bonkers problem is most Americans would
vote for a Republican even though it goes completely against their interest. To
this day I have no idea why so many people in the middle class think the
Republican Party thinks positively about them. They have been wealth and big
business for decades and have made no bones about it. None! Yet so many people
wanting to be popular in the country club and PTA back their own financial downfall.
Sure a few of these people are successful, but take a way their profession and
they would be sucking eggs. The entire platform for Republicans has been to give
to the rich and let the rest figure it out. And again people would stand in
line to vote for a valid any valid Republican candidate not named Trump against
Harris. She would be swamped similar to a Nixon McGovern rematch.
And what is worse is the Democrats have been surviving on
dynamic personalities for decades, not what the public believes in going back
to Kennedy, (won by a hair), Clinton who was a big hit with the ladies for some
reason and then Obama. And to be fair to Clinton, he did sound convincing when
he told Bush the elder, it’s the economy stupid and most Americans agreed since
we were in a mild recession at the time.
Now we are teetering on some really unknown financial circumstances
that could go either way. We actually could crawl out of the inflation madness
and with interest rate cuts keep growth alive for a while. Or the middle east
war ramps up and Putin does something even crazier than attacking Ukraine and
all hades breaks loose.
And many Americans know deep down that neither candidate is
the best possible answer for another pandemic style disaster.
So you have a woman that hasn’t proven her meddle yet and Trump
who some people believe whole heartedly would solve all our problems just by
being Trump versus many other Americans who know giving Trump the keys to the
kingdom is flushing them down the toilet and into the swamp called Washington
D.C. and who knows what other septic tank is lying around.
So we are either a close race to the wire, or a mild flub by
either candidate could tilt the election so fast most of our heads would spin. Trump
is just one very public cognitive hiccup (and I don’t mean his usual vitriol)
away from sending every Republican looking for cover and Harris is just one
statement away from completely losing everyone’s confidence she can do anything.
And by the last paragraph you are realizing we are avoiding
negatives not looking to vote FOR someone. Outside of the Trump acolytes (my
apologies to Disney) who are voting for Trump even though for all the wrong
reasons, when was the last time you voted for someone with desire or purpose or
faith or confidence. Stop, be honest, you just haven’t have you. For decades
now, it has been the lesser or two evils, or towing the party line, or well we
could do worse instead of saying man I want this person. A few people will
still remember the Obama feel good moment, but he was going against H. Clinton
in the primaries who people never liked and an economic disaster attributed to
the Republicans in the general election. Our saving grace was he is intelligent
so he was able to ride the interest rate cuts the rich took and ran with since
they were the only ones with money, but it did trickle down to consumers over
time and he left an economy that Trump ran with and took full credit for even
though he did absolutely squat to get us there. The tax cuts were just gravy
for rich people, not a real economic growth generator.
And after all this time the Democrats have no strong
candidates waiting in the wings and the Republicans squandered all theirs with
the Trump obsession. How many people truly believe, Vance or DeSantis or Hawley
or Cotton is going to carry the Trump acolytes in the future? The blew Haley
away, they passed gas on L. Cheney and Kinzinger, never liked Christie to begin
with, Romney faltered too much in 2012 and all the people Trump fired that actually
were competent people now leave the Republicans with no one to actually produce
a manageable government. If Trump wins we are going to get the worst of the
worse, sorry folks no Men in Black to save us from these aliens.
One of the “X” acolytes of Trump put up a post that showed
Trump Vance Musk V. Ramaswamy and a couple of others and asked are you ready
for this team to run the country. Seriously? Could you not find a worse group
of people to run any government. People have lost their mind.
Anyway no one wants Trump or Harris, most people are voting
for or against Trump. Harris might win if she can convince enough fence sitters
that she might be able to handle the job, but that is a harder convince job than
the Harris campaign team wants you to believe.
The economic questions are bad enough, the border and immigration
need Congressional support to get anything done, but does anyone with an ounce
of sanity want either to address the potential foreign policy nightmares
brewing.
What are we doing?
And yet the duopoly keeps chugging along. And as mentioned
before House Speaker Johnson said the truth, when he said not passing the CR
forty five days before election was political malpractice, or another words
doing their job and passing a full budget was too hard, but it was better to kick
the can down the road so they could get elected. Folks that wasn’t political malpractice
that was governing malpractice, you know, their job!
No cheers tonight or in the near future, but much tequila is
needed.
This is from Speaker Johnson talking about the efforts to
fund the government after he couldn’t get the Republicans to vote for a bill
that had a moth’s chance in hell of passing.
"But, he wrote, “as history has taught and current
polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful
election would be an act of political malpractice.”"
This is the problem, shutting down the government is not
political malpractice, but governing malpractice.
The idea he or anyone thinks this is potlicital malpractice
completely misses the point they are there to govern, create law, make policy,
NOT GET ELECTED! (in my best Trump tweet voice)
We need new parties.
I am much more conservative than the public policy I offer
as an option to what the Democrats and Republicans put forward. I do also have
some serious populist tendencies.
I do believe many to most Americans are moderate to
moderately conservative. Please note I said most Americans, not all. There are
a very significant group that are extremely leftist or “progressive” and then
there is MAGA.
There is also a significant group of conservatives that are
still hanging onto a Reagan era conservatism that has probably played out it’s
usefulness as a political or conservative movement.
So quickly you can see there is going to be a huge vacuum in
the conservative ecosphere post Trump. Post Trump may or may not be this
election, however there will come a time when Trump loses his shine so to
speak. And there is the looming possibility that date maybe November 6, 2024.
Maybe not, but if he loses there could be an immediate drop in his grip on the
Republican Party. Do not get me wrong, there will still be quite a large MAGA
contingent that will be holding on and very involved in his post election loss
activities, whatever that might be.
The point I am making is there is going to be a brewing battle
to who fills the conservative leadership vacuum post Trump. And I will say
this, no one has the inside track to fill that vacuum. No one. It could have
been Nikki Haley, but once she acquiesced to Trump she lost some support from
the leftover Reagan Republicans. DeSantis just doesn’t have a personality for
people to gravitate. Christie maybe, but he won’t be the leader, but a player
that garners some attention. The Senate MAGAs such as Haley, Cotton or Cruz
will lose luster once Trump is gone. And Cruz has a slight chance of losing his
seat this year. McConnell is way past his prime. And there is no one in the
House that would generate any National interest due to their incessant madness
and internal bickering, plus the few in leadership in the House have no respect
from the general population, not just the left wing haters. Hogan from Maryland?
Is he a leader? The Lincoln Project? Or are they a one trick horse?
I am calling it now. If Trump loses there is going to be
either a complete breakdown of conservative politics in America or the right
wing MAGAsphere is going to take over and cause such a blue wave in 2026 that public
policy, our deficit, our debt, foreign policy will be in such disarray that the
chaos we are predicting for the upcoming post election will only become worse,
but in a different way. The leftover MAGA world will blame the resulting chaos they
create on the Democrats, and our general populace will have lost complete track
on anything our government is doing for them. Subsequent to 2026 too much progressive
politics will scare the middle to either complete apathy or back to the MAGAsphere.
Again the majority of our country is more moderate or moderately
conservative than this leftward lunge will accept.
So it is imperative a strong moderately conservative party
grows quickly from the ashes of Trump’s defeat if that happens on November 05, 2024.
So younger members of the Republican Party must quickly coalesce around each
other, especially those who support family oriented policies, budget oriented
candidates who will need to understand they are going to need to compromise
significantly at first to start steering budget conversations rightward, yet
all in all between this election and 2026 they will need to move fast with
rational ideas all the while fighting the leftover MAGA hatred that will
dominate social media. No easy task to say the least.
Now will this fall under the Republican name or will a new
party come to fruition I have no idea, yet to recreate a political equilibrium,
this party will need to rise quickly or the worst of right wing inclinations
will take hold of quite a large section of the populace with leaders of even
worse character than Trump.
This new party may not win a majority in 2026, but if they
can become viable enough that people see a rational alternative to MAGA and
extreme progressiveness then hope glimmers significantly.
Unfortunately we will need this this phoenix to rise from Trump’s
political ashes post haste since 2026 will come at us faster than the last off
cycle election.
And this rise will be faced with great peril. The MAGAsphere
will be fighting it tooth and nail for voters and with no dynamic or
charismatic figure to lead it, clawing a foothold onto the general populace political
psyche is challenging.
As you know I would support this being a new major party,
but helping to find the leaders for this most important endeavor is something I
fear not happening. I am not a dynamic personality on social media and I do not
know one or probably years ago my thoughts would have gained much more
traction. So I can hope that circumstances changes things or a new group of
younger dedicated Republicans regain the Party mantle and move forward.
And as always I offer quite a few ideas for public policy if
anyone is interested.
Cheers
I wonder because they might be the smartest voters.
It seems the world only pays attention to them for two
months out of every four years. They are just as important for the entire four
years as everyone else. So many of us spend the entire four years yelling and
screaming at our government and it never listens anyway even if you give the
politicians advice. You have to be careful with advice, it is like beauty is in
the eye of the beholder, while advice is either good or bad in the ear of the
listener. Anyway our politicians just don’t care about the majority of us for
four years, but for two months this fall everyone is talking about the low
propensity voter; like what does that mean.
And I am being a hypocrite here, I have written that we need
to cut down the time of our elections anyway, but I rant and rave all the time
about politics in this blog. Maybe the low propensity voter has this down to a
science, just don’t give a rat’s back end until September and bam everyone
wants your vote now. So they do what I say and that is care about elections for
only a couple of months. It would actually do this country some good to cut
down election season, but I haven’t got the fortitude not to be the angry old
man yelling at politicians to get off of my lawn.
Of course politicians will make the same empty promises to
them that they do to the rest of us, yet the low propensity voter is at least promised
irresponsibly to specifically. I don’t get that attention and again I even give
out free advice.
So let’s hail the low propensity voter, pat them on the back
for their ingenuity and more importantly their sanity for ignoring all the
hubris for over 3 and a half years and still be the group most people say will
decide this election.
Maybe I should target them to get new parties.
And I asked the question of someone specifically this
evening, but now to y’all: are you tired of hearing about another government
shutdown? I mean this issue is older than dirt, but much less important. We
need dirt for food, still trying to figure out why we need our current
political parties.
A shutdown will cause problems, but the duopoly that gets
elected every two or four years still hasn’t figured out, it is us, the voters/citizens
they are supposed to respond. And you knew this one was bad when the
Representative from Georgia Ms. Marjorie T. Greene even called out her own caucus
over it.
It is old news, bad government, bad political theatre and
incompetence all rolled into one overly dramatic stage show that accomplishes
nothing. And over the years this has pushed our budget into very dangerous territory.
And people think I waste my vote when I don’t vote for
Democrats or Republicans, please… please think about this before you waste your
vote. We are way past the lesser of two
evils consideration, this is the greater of two incompetencies thinking.
Cheers