Trump is not a new problem

 

Trump is a new version of an old problem.

Basically I consider myself an average college educated person and I have no idea what that means. I say that though because I have a point later on to make.

First I still read and am working on one project that in actuality is a very intense study. Much more than I am sure I wanted to undertake, yet as I get older I do not want my brain to rot so I am making the effort. You can find it on Substack along with this blog. In working on that project I am reading quite a bit beyond the book I am studying. I mainly comment as a journal what I learn from the reading about the book.  Occasionally I take side trips just to discuss related thoughts and topics in general.

As part of the reading I bought the book “the Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine”. I am not going to discuss St. Augustine’s ideas in this post.

Reading through the introduction there were two paragraphs that hopefully shed some light on my frustration with trying to get people to understand why we need change in our country. Or actually may be helping me understand why no one wants to listen.

Here is part of one paragraph from the introduction to the book mentioned above written by Herbert A. Deane:

“…In quiet times men tend to take for granted the state and the order and security that it provides. After a period of stable government and security for life and property, they are tempted. To regard peace and order as “natural” and “given” and to forget that, to a great extent, they are results of elaborate, delicate contrivance.”  This is footnoted and references Thomas Hobbes “Leviathan”

Why it matters to me is that we have been in quiet times so maybe what I have been saying for the last forty years had no interest in the academic world or academia. And I say we have been in quiet times for decades probably starting with the 1950’s. Yes I know we had Vietnam, the protests, the Nixon administration and resignation, the cold war, the post cold war and more. Yet for all that happened most Americans including the working class had a sense of security of life and property. People were able to obtain a decent life for themselves. There was nothing that truly shattered their world view.

 

So let’s go to the next paragraph in the introduction:

“When, however, men face serious difficulties which the traditional political and social  system seems unable to solve, when conflicts between groups, classes, regions, or religious sects within the society become so intense that consensus evaporates, and above all, when a crisis of the most fundamental kind undermines the body politic because traditional beliefs, attitudes, and values no longer command virtually automatic assent from most members of the society, thoughtful men are once more driven to the effort to examine the bases of social and political order and to suggest new answers to the questions of politics.”

Are we at this point? Obviously you know I am going to say we are at some juncture here or I wouldn’t be writing on this topic.

And there are two situations where the body politic is no long receiving assent from most members of society or we are ascending to that point.

One of the two is the AI problem which I am not going to address in this post. It is a problem that will definitely cause us to examen where we are in our society and it is rushing at us faster than we can cope.

The other problem is the more traditional problem of economic and political endeavors. And the Trump problem is not new. He is just the updated version of this problem and that is elitism is taking over the country and the body politic. Trump himself is more the catalyst to the problem than the actual problem. Elitism has been building in this country for a few decades, but not until recently with Trump’s false promises for the working class has it been thrust into our faces with what is really going on with his grift and corruption.

The other way elitism has taken over is how our Congress is controlled by lobbyists and large donors.

Elitism that causes the elitists to try and control all aspects of our lives only for their benefit eventually creates dynamic social change. I think most people are beginning to see we are well into this dynamic playing out.

My anger rests in the fact I saw this coming.  And this goes back to me confessing the I am an average college educated person. All the academia stood in their ivory towers and few professed nothing but ignorance about what was happening starting in the 1980’s until now with the slow gradual shift to elitist self-serving policy.

I was not educated enough to ridicule the academic elitists to cut through their need to sound superior to us in what they said was wrong with our country. Their ignorance led to a social revolt of the working class buying into Trump’s nonsense. I just saw that the two parties had created a duopoly that was becoming self-serving for their own power and becoming beholden to an elite class.

And yes I know I was not the only one who saw this coming, but now that we are sitting on the cusp  of possible major social change I am mad because I screamed at people there was an easier solution twenty years ago.

I screamed we needed new parties without being able to cut through the morass of people not affected by what was coming. Again it goes back to the “quiet time” when men took for granted the social order.

We see now the hate being played out by the very people losing to the elitists that is directed by the elitist mentality of pitting democrats and republicans as two sides and each side must win. All the while the two sides are actually the same side, the American people. And again this has been pointed out for decades by more capable people. And again this fell on deaf ears by large chunks of academia and politicians because they existed in that quiet time where some semblance of prosperity existed.

And to me, I get angrier because this can be fixed. Our country can regain the quiet time (well except for the AI problem developing) by going back to educating the people what I have been saying. Lose the partisanship in our politics, take money out of our elections, either force the duopoly into developing new leadership and ideas or create new parties to do such. We are still at a point where drastic social upheaval change is not needed. This isn’t going to last much longer though.

And the irony is that the elitists upending our society would still benefit from us reclaiming our (the people’s) interests in our government, economy and society.

As long as we have a market economy there will be rich people/elitists. That isn’t the problem, it is their control of our lives that is the problem. We created a government that can hold that in check. We let the “quiet times” blind us to the need for constant vigilance.

So now I ask you do we let this wonderful country slip into moral decay due to the powerful thinking they are above us? Or do we do our diligence and reclaim the basic and fundamental aspects of our government, society and economy and continue this wonderful experiment called the United States of America?

And yes I am reading St. Augustine’s City of God, yet that did not cause this sudden understanding of our moral decay. I saw this coming in the 1980’s and have been screaming in the woods ever since. My current readings including City of God only make my anger stronger since I am seeing how easy it is to reclaim our lives and it falls on the ignorant ears of our so called intellectuals that are blindly stupid.

I hope we can reclaim it all before the elitists destroy the fabric of us as people and then have AI destroy them.

How bad is it or how bad it is (or how bad am I)

 

Yes, contradictory title on purpose.

I am stuck. I want to believe the best so much so that I was traveling home from a bookstore with a copy of “The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine: Whether that has anything to do with my mind set, well it doesn’t. I haven’t read the book yet.

I bring it up because as a good Christian we are taught, yes even required to help the poor. So it was coincidental that I had this book when I saw what I saw.

As I was driving there was a long line of cars and then I saw the sign. It was a volunteer group, looked like it was at a church giving away food. Yes big sign free food bank, they even had one of those large blow up figurines dancing in the wind. This line was off to one side on a side road of sorts. I drove by the line of cars.

What I noticed is what bothered me. Almost every car in that line was better than mine, some even much better. I have a mid size SUV a few years old. It is nothing fancy, but it is paid off so we keep it. What I saw was some pretty nice cars in this line. And sure poor people or working class people can by chance have a nice car, but not in droves.

So how bad is it that people that appear to be well off are in a food bank line. It can happen. Who knows. The markets could crash dramatically and all sorts of people are hungry. Food inflation could become so rampant that everyone needs help except the very few. I haven’t heard of anything dramatic, yet it was worrisome to see. Do I need to rush out right now?

Or could our society be so shallow that people who don’t need resources still take advantage of this opportunity and the people that need it are left out? I don’t know. The visual didn’t look good. I haven’t heard of a complete market crash. Sure the well off might be able to react quicker than the poor if the economy tanks so they would be first in line, yet even that sounds like people are getting screwed.

I could be completely wrong. There was traffic so I was going slow, but I only saw free food bank signs. Hopefully the people I saw were donating and I am way off base. I didn’t see a sign that said donation line or anything similar. Every car seemed to be in the same line. I won’t say it cannot happen, yet donation lines don’t usually queue up. Usually you see them open and people come and go through out the day. Hopefully I just missed something. Like I mentioned I want the best, but the ten to fifteen seconds I drove by seemed odd. The line was long. It circled back around the building where they were lining up. This was the middle of the day so people are out, but also people are at work and doing other things. You just don’t expect busy people to spend time in line unless something is needed or wanted.

I didn’t circle back, yet for some reason this stuck in my head and caused me some consternation so again I hope I am wrong otherwise it says too much about us right now.  The more I think about it the more I hope I am an ass for these thoughts.

People do not usually comment to these posts, but any thoughts are always appreciated.

Democrats cannot get too presumptuous

 

Sure I am an independent, yet sometimes I give advice, well sort of.

First I am writing this in the city of man blog. If you do not know why I am referencing this there is a second blog on the Substack version of this blog that has that answer. Otherwise this is just some thoughts headed into the midterms which are still much further away than the Democrats would like them to be if they really paid attention.

And yes many Democrats are going what?!?!?!?!?!

And yes Trump is falling faster than a lead weight attached to another lead weight and a couple of feathers, but that isn’t the issue right now.

I wrote previously that the Republicans in general need to have a post Trump plan. I haven’t seen that yet, but they got their advice.

The issue will be the economy and the Democrats cannot come out and say Trump screwed up the economy no matter how horrendous or not it is in November. They need to have a rational economic plan that sounds like it is a unified Democratic plan. And it cannot sound socialist or anything too far leftist. Why?

I have said this too many times, yet Democrats really want this to be false. This country is still closer to the center right than the left or barely the center left. Democrats tell me the country is closer to the left. I listen patiently and quietly as they say these arguments. And then I also hear them say they have no idea why people would vote for Trump other than him conning them.

And then they just do not hear, most people care about the economy and the best answer politically is center right ideas. People want to be rich or at least successful. They do not want their lives defined by “a state”. Sure people will accept the government helping people, it has become part of the political dialogue. Yet to say the state should be in charge of our lives, will send people in this country running.

There may be about 20% of this country and they are a loud 20% who do believe in a stronger socialist agenda, yet even many of them would draw the line at a complete state run economy. So anything that sounds close to that or sounds too much reliance on the government will chase away the majority right now even though tired of Trump.

Sure the Democrats can blame Republicans for some of the country’s current travails, but if they chirp away saying all Republicans are bad and then do not offer a rational alternative they may keep people at home. Which leaves open a strong showing by Trump supporters (and right now they are still supporting him) going to the polls and electing who he wants. It is not probable, but very possible if the Democrats chase people away. And the Democrats have a history of doing just that. Don’t believe me then explain to me why Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024. He didn’t win an outright majority in 2016, but won because the Democrats shut themselves out of the infamous old blue wall or the three to five states from Michigan to Ohio to Pennsylvania.

The Democrats, the party of the working man was snubbed by the working man and has been ever since more or less. Yes the working class should still want the Democrats in power if the Democrat traditional platform existed. It doesn’t anymore. It moved too far left, created a woke culture, which in of itself isn’t the deal breaker, it was the way it was presented to America. Elite Democrats got on their high horse and told everyone how horrible they were if they didn’t go along with what they were told to believe. This caused enough people to run to Trump. If you keep talking down to people, they stop listening much less supporting you. Simple as that, yet Democrats do not want to hear that because it takes away their supposed leadership role.

It is good some Democrats are coming out against the old guard. This needed to be done 15 years ago. Instead Obama caved too much to the vanguard of the party and let Hillary set the party back at least ten years. Well now they can climb out of this morass if they start singing a whole new song. They can still be a liberal party. They just need to realize they aren’t dragging this country to the left at the moment and rethink their messaging to show they can generate sound economic policy without taking away everything. It is more of a thin rope to walk than the Democrats usually attempt. Yet if they want to win the mid terms then in 2028 they better have a very respectful open the big tent kind of mentality and actually have policy that attracts people to that tent.

They start being partisan or elitist and lecturing, they could flub the midterms spectacularly.  Also like mentioned above November is not next month. Much can happen between now and then to give the Republicans some footing to distance from Trump and keep an economic policy that doesn’t scare people.

Now for my real feelings. Both parties still are failing this country. The partisanship anger and hate needs to go. We need new leaders and new parties. Yet for now the Democrats have a chance of keeping the duopoly alive if they make some major changes to their messaging and hopefully their actual policy.

Cheers

The media is lying to you, yes both liberal and conservative media and they know the truth.

 

I get sick and tired and more when I hear any media complain about the dysfunction in Congress. They helped to create and are part of the problem. Both sides of our partisan madness in the media have ramped up their audiences to fever pitches of hate towards the other side.

Both sides will then point to the other side and blame them for all this and we wouldn’t say what we say if it wasn’t for them. And yes they do this over and over again.

I ask you for the millionth time, get away from media and start parsing stories for the little bits of truth that do filter through. And be careful with so called independent media. They are just as partisan. They will tell you they are independent and in the next breath will tell you all the reasons one side is the problem. They will say things like I am sick of this story because both sides don’t open up to the truth and finish the sentence with and if ________ side wouldn’t do this then we wouldn’t have this problem or this example proves they aren’t serious. Nope that person has just admitted they are on a side.

Congress is dysfunctional and this did not happen overnight. It has been building for decades. I try to tell you we need new parties, yet maybe I do not hark on how bad the partisan media is to help you see the light.

People on both sides will tell you that they are not the problem, yet if you listen to one side you will hear all the problems of the other side. Get up tomorrow and change channels and you will hear all the problems of the first side. And the hate both will spew telling you how much hate is on the other side is just mind boggling maddening.

Don’t be fooled as the Who sorta once said. The song just started playing in the background of my head for some reason.

I would love to see new parties because I cannot trust either the Democrats or the Republicans to actually get something done right now. Yet if these two parties would actually change and start thinking about you then maybe I could listen. I do have to give a small group of elected Democrats some credence because they are starting to demand Schumer and is ilk retire. I do not know what they will do or if it will be the same song different verse, yet for some of the rank and file in the Party acknowledge out loud how the old Democratic guard failed them, well maybe that is a start. I won’t vote Democratic since I am an independent conservative, yet right now I will take any steps in the right direction.

And yes I am partisan since I am conservative, but I am a different breed of conservative than the old big business Republicans or what some call the Reagan Republicans. They were never really conservative. They just wrapped themselves up in conservative language and flag waving to get people to vote for them all the while turning the government over to the one percent.

And then along comes Donnie boy, who knew this yet had a better handle on the anger Fox news had generated towards the Democrats and the rest is sordid history.

Yes he is a racist misogynist and knew how to couch his language just enough to get himself understood without totally giving himself away to the working class. After all the hate of the Democratic elitists telling the working class how bad and unimportant they were, they gave Trump the Presidency in 2016. So yeah, partisan talking points are not going to help you in the long run. Trump’s time is about to run out, yet maybe a bit too late for our country.

Yet if we continue to point fingers, wag tongues, scream at the audience and perpetuate myths things are only going to get worse even when Donnie boy is gone.

We need a functional Congress. And I say that as a conservative knowing we don’t want the government doing too much, but right now we need them to reassert their place in the Constitutional framework of our government to get rid of Donnie boy, hold his administration’s lackeys accountable and pass serious budgets that begin the process of bringing our debt down. And do all this without blowing up our economy and throwing the rest of the Constitution out to the wolves.

As a conservative, I believe in the root word to conserve. Time to find people to put our values first of equal opportunity, ability to vote, and add to it by realizing billionaires don’t need anymore money, the markets work better when people are trying to be successful not when they are consolidating wealth and just in general a shared sense of a moral framework that champions people doing what is right, not what is in it for me and that goes especially for those in office. You want to screw people? Then you do it in the private sector. The public sector is for service to the whole. Those are just a few values we need to get back to so we can start rebuilding what we had going in the first place. We were never perfect, yet over 250 years we were getting a bit better decade after decade, Unfortunately the last few decades we are slipping into a partisan abyss that is destroying what we had started.

It is not about making this country great again, it is about building on the changes that made us better than the previous decade.

Many times I listed quite a bit of policy initiatives to help us along and I still believe in them. Sure some need work, but with the disaster both parties and their media cohorts have done to this country at some point I hope you realize; it is time for change and it doesn’t have to be drastic, just practical.

And on a side note, I cannot wait to find out why Melania crawled out of her drawing room to regurgitate the Epstein files. Something may be busting out soon. Or maybe she is just tired of Donnie boy and wants out. Who knows?

Happy Easter 2026

 

If you are the type of Catholic who only comes to Mass on Easter or the holidays, maybe you should change your once a year visit to Good Friday. Ironically it is the only day we do not celebrate Mass, yet if you come on that day it may inspire you to come to Mass more often. (just a planning ahead moment for you)

 

And yes Happy Easter to all no matter when or if you come to church or Mass or any celebration. You are still loved.

 

Praying for peace

We are still a country that can be great…

 

However for the time being we are a government subordinate to petty differences not lead by two parties, but by two sides. Each side determined to win.

The DHS funding situation is just the big slap in the face to the American people that our two parties cannot govern anymore because they cannot put the people and needs of this country first, only their side. They have fully judged the other side as the problem, yet won’t admit they are the other half of the problem.

We, as humans, will judge everything in our daily lives. I won’t go down the there is only one who should judge discussion instead focusing on why being judgmental as humans is a recipe for failure.

Both sides are one hundred percent sure they are right and in doing so throw insults and judgmental comments at the other side only inflaming the inability to work together to solve problems. Any rational group of people even with differing priorities could find solutions to funding DHS. We are not rational anymore.

If anyone lives in a closed mind, they will live in a prison of their own making. You cannot see solutions, you only see walls. And that is where we are right now.  Our two parties along with their media and echo chamber “bases” have built a wall between them. The irony is most democrats and republicans in the real world are not part of the wall.  Most Americans just want to get about with their lives and want our government to fix problems. They are stuck in the rut of having chosen a side they blindly follow the “leaders” because they do not perceive an alternative. They can sit in their living rooms or at the dining table and talk about how the other side fails parroting talking points that give them no answer. Yet in reality they know a failure is happening with our government.

These Americans not part of the wall are left to the side suffering the inability of the two parties to represent them. Americans want answers yet they have been conditioned to answers that do not exist, only something that has devolved into ugly rhetoric, insults, finger pointing and are left wondering what can be done better. Yet no better comes along because they are stuck trying to budget shrinking real spending paychecks and higher costs.

Many in our country probably could do a better job with what is in front of us if given the chance, but the cards are stacked against them. The system favors the duopoly because the duopoly spent decades making the system. The system is destroying this country, not the people, not even the individuals that are in the system. They are just caught not being able to give an inch because their echo chamber would castrate them politically. And cannot have that because even though they might have an answer to help the people, their power is more important.

Yes it is hard not to judge people as a person, so I try, but I fail, so I hope my arguments fall into your ear as a judgment of the system not any one individual because all the individuals to varying degrees are part of this system that is failing us.

DHS funding is much easier to resolve if both parties work to listen to the people than listen to themselves. That won’t happen at the moment and so we get headlines that tell us how frustrated Washington DC is because they cannot fix the problem. The DHS funding problem is just an example of how far out of touch DC is with America.

It goes back to the old Pogo cartoon, the problem is us. Too bad there are no metaphorical mirrors in DC right now.

I have said this before and I will say it again because I still believe in who we are, what are our stated values, what we can do as a people and what we have accomplished in our slow walk through history to get better as a people. Somehow we just need to punch through the hate, the closed mindedness, the my side is the right side and get back to who we are as a people, not a side.

The world is so insane the better half is now listening to soft jazz.

 

And that is a big switch for her.

 

And being the better half she is already concerned about if we put boots on the ground, how many of these soldiers are parents. And if so what about their children?

 

This war is so wrong on so many fronts that her concern is genuinely needed to be considered. Why should children lose their parents to satisfy the desperate needs of a failing presidency?

 

There is a very peaceful, practical, legal yet difficult path to change the course of our country and if anyone is interested I will be glad to spell it out. We need change immediately or this desperate man is going to take this whole ship down with him.

One key factor is partisanship needs to be thrown out before him so we can bring about productive change. The hate and finger pointing are part of the problem so that needs to go. We don’t have to agree on everything, but we do have to agree on three or four important pieces of legislation to get us to the midterms once change is made.

Campaign reform with limits to be given and a temporary pause on PACS and Super PACS etc being able to campaign at all. Then true long term campaign reform.

Start talks to end the war without compromising American interests which will be one hell of a tight rope to walk.

End the partial shutdown which may or may not include ICE for the moment.

Pass a budget that basically holds the fort on spending until we get to the midterms and the people can elect representatives that truly represent them.

The process is in the Constitution and Amendments and it begins with we the people.