Vote Independent or third party, why?

 

From MSN article by Andrew Lisa: “Even so, the rich get richer with every presidential cycle while the middle class continues shrinking.”

This may seem like it could be taken out of context. It wasn’t, this is from an article talking about what Trump will do for the middle class, by the way, the article goes on to say:

“A second Trump presidency could affect middle-class finances through potential tax policy changes,” Pace said. “During Trump’s first term, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 offered limited benefits to middle-income earners and more extensive benefits to the wealthy and corporations. Similar future policies could result in minimal tax relief for the middle class and possibly larger budget deficits, raising concerns about future tax increases or cuts in essential services.”

In assessing the impact of the TCJA, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Brookings Institute wrote, “The 2017 tax law doesn’t help the middle class. The benefits of the law tilt toward the well-off both now and in the future, according to the distributional analysis of the Tax Policy Center. By 2027, benefits of the tax law flow entirely to the rich.”

Yet don’t think I am supporting Harris. Go back to the opening sentence… the rich get richer in every presidential cycle…  the author may tend towards Harris, but the reality is for the last forty years or more the wealth gap has been shrinking, yet the stock market has gone up. So why does the gap shrink;  because no one in either party actually fights for the middle class. Sure every now and then a bill gets passed that sounds good, but overall the working and middle class have absolutely no representation in Congress.

Why? Because the Democrat and Republican party has only one goal, getting elected and re-elected. So you hear quite a bit of talk every election cycle, but by the next cycle you need to hear the same promises again because nothing was done for you.

Tired of it yet? Obviously I have been for quite some time which is one reason I keep beating the same ole horse all the time, but hopefully one day people’s eyes and ears will open.

And Trump will raise your taxes indirectly with tariffs and Harris will do what all Democrats do raise your taxes to pay for benefits our government can no longer afford.

To me our government could afford the benefits by making the distribution more efficient, but don’t expect a Democrat to figure that out. Oh by the way, Musk’s efficiency idea though is not what I am talking about. He will just shut down the government and shift all benefits to a few billionaires and you will be holding one giant bag of nothing costing you a fortune.

People will say you are wasting your vote if you vote third party or independent. Ask them when wasn’t my vote wasted. Everything is getting worse, wealth gap, quality of education, social security needs work (fixable, but nobody in Congress wants to do what is best for you) and so on.

A republican or democrat will tell you some inkling of an idea or fact that sounds like they did something, but again the slow deterioration is still happening. If either was actually doing something, then things would change. And then they will say, it is not us, it is the other side. That should tell you right away, that the blame game is part of the problem. If people really wanted to do something they would overcome the other side and do better.

So be bold, be strong and vote for your interests. Find a third party or independent candidate and vote for them. Sure they probably won’t win, but once you make the first step it is easier to start looking for something better. And once we get out of the mindset we must vote for the duopoly or the lesser of two evils others will see it can be done. Just think if third parties receive larger numbers then other people will notice and eventually people with viable ideas will feel that might have a chance to make changes.

I will be writing in a name for President and the Senate race in Texas. And both are approved write in candidates so my votes should be counted. I am going to go over my precinct results to make sure at least one for each and possibly two since the better half has come over to the force and no longer votes for the dark side. Research all your available options in your area and see which of those come closest to your values. No one may be perfect, but seriously if you are holding your nose and voting for someone you don’t like because you feel you have to, start researching.

And don’t let people say the other side is so bad you have to vote for my side, stop right there, wish them well and go back to researching. The hyperbole is insane and not real and this election is going to be close so voting outside the duopoly will make a bigger impact because both parties will realize you have learned they don’t care a damn about you, but themselves.

VOTE!  And check your precinct results, because you would have a very real and serious case if you know who you voted for and nothing shows.

Cheers

Finally someone gets it

 

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

The latest podcast is live

 https://youtu.be/JXEDxV1lKWQ

Hope you enjoy

The Trouble with Tribbles or Trump supporters

 

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.

I don’t know. I don’t know. What are we doing?

 

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.

I keep beating a dead horse, but my goodness they keep giving me reasons.

 

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.

Let’s talk about next steps.

 

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