Will Extremism Haunt The Republican Party To Self-Destruction?

New York Times columnist, Charles M. Blow, says, "Extremism Is on the Rise … Again." And here I thought it had never abated. But Blow, being the excellent journalist he is, qualifies his headline, written before the Nov. 8 elections, citing one startling fact...

"There are 291 election deniers on the ballot."

You can see the 291 deniers in the "on the ballot" link, above, with names you will recognize like Kevin McCarthy, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ron DeSantis, Kari Lake, Herschel Walker; you get the idea. But Blow reports...

In a major speech Wednesday night, President Biden described election denial as “the path to chaos in America.” “It’s unprecedented,” he said. “It’s unlawful. And it’s un-American.” But in truth, the extremism, racism and white nationalism are neither un-American nor unfamiliar.

There are comparisons with the William Howard Taft administration in 1908, later Woodrow Wilson, who campaigned on an “America First” platform, which soon became "associated not just with isolationism, but also with the Ku Klux Klan, xenophobia and fascism." Wilson was a racist from the South and is measured against Donald Trump who Blow says...

"is one of the worst presidents — if not the worst — that this country has ever had."

More matching between Wilson and Trump...

It was Wilson who screened “The Birth of a Nation” at the White House, a film that pushed the “Lost Cause” narrative and fueled the rebirth of the Klan.

 Assessing threats of political violence and rising extremism on the far-right...

Trump hosted a screening of “2,000 Mules” — a fact-checker-debunked documentary that purported to show widespread voter fraud carried out by “mules” who stuffed ballot boxes with harvested ballots during the last presidential election — at Mar-a-Lago, which Trump has called the Southern White House. That film has helped boost his followers’ belief in his lie about the 2020 election.

Civil war has been talked up by Republicans and now they are targeting their own with in-fighting over the upcoming Dec. 6, runoff between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. This is a must win for the GOP and it all boiled over recently between Mitch McConnell and Rick Scott of Florida...

"A long-simmering, mostly private tension between the two men and their allies came to a head this week as their respective political consultants resorted to publicly insulting each other, particularly over how each was approaching the upcoming Georgia election."

Democrats would welcome Republicans keeping their extremism internally as long

as there is no spillover to the rest of the country. Annihilating each other could be the answer to saving our democracy. Neither Trump nor Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has offered Walker help, and some say the GOP big guns are not so enthusiastic about Herschel Walker because his win will not give them control of the Senate. And finally, more talk of civil war, this time between Republicans...

"Marjorie Taylor Greene says she is ready [to] unleash a civil war in the Republican Party after its poor showing in the midterms.

"The Georgia congresswoman also indicated she would throw her support behind House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in an interview with Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast."

Have you heard the talk recently from a past GOP congressman who said Kevin McCarthy will be Speaker of the House in name only? He said Marjorie Taylor Greene will be the actual Speaker.

Did anyone see that coming? 

Donald Trump vs. Ron DeSantis...Duel Of The Dictators

 

The Guardian thinks there will be "blood on the floor" because Republicans can't decide between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis for 2024. Trump has suffered from the much-promised red wave in this month's election that didn't happen. GOP officials across the country are also finally getting tired of Trump's continued...

"conspiracy theories, the investigations into his businesses and political actions, and his attacks on his most threatening challenger, DeSantis."

The Guardian reports there is concern his divisiveness is worse than in the 2020 election making him unelectable. On the other hand there is the fear that Trump's loyal followers will stick with him to the end and upend the 2024 Primary. Here's what rural Iowa chair of the Howard County Republican party, Neil Shaffer, said...

“Honestly, Trump’s got a lot of baggage, self-inflicted. Had he taken the loss gracefully, and held his tongue, and didn’t further these conspiracy theories, he probably could have been a president again, with an interim of Biden.”

RawStory believes Florida Gov. Ron (the despot) DeSantis can "weaken and wear down Trump by essentially ignoring him until the primary campaign begins in earnest," In my book, there is nothing worse than being ignored; the way Donald Trump craves attention he would go berzerk in no time. But, also in my book, there is only one person as ruthless and corrupt, possibly more, than Trump and that is DeSantis. He has shown his colors as Florida's autocrat-in-chief.

DeSantis vs, Trump: The battle for the 2024 Republican nomination has already begun...

But Neil Shaffer says...

“I honestly am a big fan of Governor DeSantis and have been for several months just following through this last campaign. Fresh face. Has the same kind of agenda as Trump without all the baggage.”

If Shaffer thinks DeSantis isn't carrying baggage, he's been under a rock. How about his fascist moves in Florida to control what teachers can teach?; Only what DeSantis thinks is right. And the migrant flight to Martha's Vineyard for which there is a large sum of money still in question. And here's the biggie; DeSantis now thinks he is God. The New York Times says, "Ron DeSantis’s God Complex" with the following scenario...

"Tweeted by his wife, Casey, with the apparent expectation that it would draw notice and go viral, it casts DeSantis not merely as a model and promoter of selected (and selective) religious principles — that’s commonplace for Republican leaders — but as a divine instrument, a holy messenger, fashioned precisely into his current form and set specifically on his present mission by God."

This is not only baggage, it's like a trunk full of transgressions. With DeSantis in

the White House you can say goodbye to democracy and the rights you normally enjoy on a daily basis. Back to Donald Trump, Terri Burl was an early member of Women for Trump. As chair of her local Republican party branch in northern Wisconsin, but as avid a supporter as she was then, she is no longer a Trump follower. Here's her take...

Burl is not so sure that Trump would win the primaries but she predicts a bitter fight that could further damage the Republican party.

“If these two guys are the ones that are left, going back and forth, I think it’s gonna be brutal. There will be a lot of blood on the floor,” she said.

One can only hope there will be two distinct puddles. 

Clips From Nasty Jack Buzz: Gun Violence

 

The night of Nov. 13, 2022, three people were shot and killed on the campus of the University of Virginia. Two others were injured. The three dead were football players. The shooter, Christopher Darnell Jones, is in custody. Yahoo!News says...

"A former student athlete accused of fatally shooting three University of Virginia football players was able to legally buy two guns after failing a background check last year and trying to get a handgun while underage four years ago, according to the gun shop that sold him the firearms."

And then only hours later, four University of Idaho students were found dead in an

off-campus house. CNN reports...

Moscow [Idaho] police said they are investigating the deaths as homicides, but did not provide any other information about what happened. As of midday Monday, no suspect was in custody. Anyone with information about the case has been asked to contact police.

Two gun violence murder scenes so close together, it was hard for the media to decide which to concentrate on. It is no doubt the Idaho killings that will receive the most focus until the shooter is caught. Authorities called it senseless killings but did not get into the basics that lead to this kind of brutality resulting in unlimited bloodshed. I looked at the Gun Violence Archive and this is the gun violence activity in only the last 72 hours. The list is almost endless with 10 pages.

The hard numbers are 39,005 gun violence deaths so far this year. There were 34,706 injuries from gun violence. Of these 285 children (age 0-11) were killed, 627 injured. Added to this teens (age 12-17), 1,194 dead, 3,354 injured. There are 390 million guns out on U.S. streets with a population of 329 million people. America rules the world as the Czar of guns and gun violence. This is not a reputation most citizens of this country want, but are comatose when it comes to action. 

I have selected a few posts done on gun violence, as follows:

This one actually came to pass in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection of the U.S. Capitol, "Gun violence bloodshed threatened if 2020 goes to Democrats." Here's an excerpt...

You would expect no less from Fox News and other conservative news outlets than to suggest gun violence bloodshed should the Democrats win big in 2020. It's looking likely that they will so these anarchistic terrorists are "threatening mass violence and a bloody people’s revolt in the streets."

And turning back to 2018, "American Medical Association asks for ban on assault weapons." It's about time the people who witness gun violence firsthand get in the act. Here's a startling clip...

The ban of assault weapons in the U.S. today should be a given based on the number of school children killed by one of these weapons in 2018 alone. Kids all over the country are expressing their fear of going to school because they are afraid they will be the next victim. Just a couple of years ago some youngsters were scared to face the school bully. That bully has now decided to arm himself and wipe out as many as 44 students.

Are COVID-19 deaths more relevant than gun deaths? Comparing gun deaths

to Covid deaths, I cite Donald Trump, then in the Oval Office, because of his reluctance to acknowledge the pandemic, as leading the American public into a state of apathy similar to the gun violence problem. Here's a selection from that post...

And here we go again says Charlie Warzel in the New York Times...

"The coronavirus scenario I can’t stop thinking about is the one where we simply get used to all the dying."

And therein rests the problem. The American public was tricked into indifference over the deaths from gun violence by Wayne LaPierre, the NRA head, and his minions. and once again when Donald Trump refused to address the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately both gun violence and the Covid virus continue to spread. 

Here are all my gun violence posts to read...

 

 

Joe Biden's Approval Rating Is A Sham

 

A sham is something that is not what it purports to be; a spurious imitation; fraud or hoax, according to Thesaurus.com. In other words, you have to look deeper to find out just what is going on here. In January of this year U.S. News published the post, "Why Is Joe Biden So Unpopular? Here's a quote from the piece...

"If there were an avatar to accompany the [Joe Biden] PR campaign, it would be an image of the baffled president, lifting America up by its collective lapels and screaming, 'What is wrong with you people? Why don't you LIKE ME!?'"

So, my question is, 'What is wrong with you people? Why don't you like Joe Biden?' And I don't really include Republicans in this question, although there must be some who are on his side but won't admit it. I'm talking about those who should like him, like some Democrats and Independents. Biden supports the left's agenda and has only been hampered by Republicans like Moscow Mitch and Kevin McCarthy and Democrats like Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema.

So what's the problem? Newsweek has this to say...

"While the Democrats performed strongly in last week's midterm elections, recent polling shows that President Joe Biden still remains unpopular with the American public.

Following the vote, a Big Village survey, conducted on November 9th and 10th, gave the president a net approval rating of minus 10.5.

So how, then, do you explain this conclusive record from U.S. News?...

"The frustration is understandable. On paper, the Biden administration has racked up some impressive achievements: more than 6 million new jobs were created, a single-year record. Unemployment dropped from 6.2% to 3.9%, another single-year first. Childhood poverty and hunger are down while average wages went up. Biden has the first majority non-white Cabinet in history and presides over the most diverse administration in history. He passed a massive COVID-19 relief bill and an expansive infrastructure package many previous presidents tried and failed to achieve."

Biden touts accomplishments at Cabinet meeting...

I know the people have spoken but, in this case, could the American public be way off base? Is there some kind of unknown grudge against Biden? I mean, the President and First Lady Jill Biden are very nice people. So what the hell is the problem? Robert Reich says in The Guardian...

"America is overflowing with good news. Unemployment is down, wages are up, consumer confidence is rebounding, and consumers are spending more (retail sales jumped 1.7% in October, the third monthly increase). Covid seems to be in retreat, at least among those who have been vaccinated. And two big parts of Biden’s legislative agenda – last spring’s $1.9tn American Rescue Plan, and his recent $1.2tn infrastructure plan – have been enacted."

The above article published on Nov. 18, 2021, goes on to talk about the upcoming midterm elections with Reich asking the question, "what’s not to be happy about?" Apparently plenty since Biden's approval at the time was 12 points lower than when he took office, then at 41%. It should be noted here that this is around where Trump’s was for most of his presidency. Current thinking in this Nov. 2021 time period...

Most registered voters say that if the midterm elections were today, they’d support the Republican candidate. Even Trump beats Biden in hypothetical matchups. More than 60% of Americans say the Democrats are out of touch with the concerns of most Americans. And Republican congressional candidates now hold their largest lead in midterm election vote preferences dating back 40 years.

Well, all this proved to be bullshit when the Republican red wave circled for a while and then went down the drain. The Democrats retained control of the Senate, added several governors wins and if the GOP does win the House, it will be on a razor-thin margin.

So, I ask once more, 'What is wrong with you people? Why don't you like Joe Biden?' The American public should think hard about this and if you don't come to a positive conclusion on Biden, you just aren't listening.

 

 

Kari Lake, You Lost...Now Please Go Away

 

Kari Lake didn't run a good campaign and Katie Hobbs ran a lousy campaign but she won because the people of Arizona realized Lake is a lunatic with a maniacal agenda. She is a Donald Trump avid supporter and most important an election denier who ranted through her campaign with a string of lies that would make Trump proud. Here is Salon's scenario...

"Lake, a former news anchor who was backed by former President Donald Trump, became one of the most prominent election deniers in the country but ultimately lost like so many other election deniers that the former president backed in key battleground states. Fellow Arizona election deniers Blake Masters and Mark Finchem also lost the U.S. Senate and secretary of state races, respectively."

Last Monday, Kari Lake tweeted, "Arizonans know BS when they see it." And they did by electing Democrat Katie Hobbs and sending Lake to the showers, or worse. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., agreed, tweeting, "As it turns out, yes, yes they did," in response to the beaten candidate's comment. Another, "Totally true, as the vote shows," jabbed Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo...

shared a letter Lake sent to her in October thanking her for an "in-kind contribution" to her campaign by campaigning against her. "You're welcome," Cheney wrote. 

Do you believe this?...

"Kari Lake told a legion of John McCain supporters across Arizona that they could go to hell. Tonight, [election nite] they returned the favor," an anonymous GOP strategist told CNN.

Even the dumbest of Arizona Republicans knows that you do not attack John McCain in this state. And, Arizona gun nuts came out in force...

Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to the Maricopa County Election Center over the [past] weekend after dozens of GOP supporters, including some that were armed and wearing ballistic vests, staged a protest and carried signs claiming "Kari Lake Won" and "Hobbs is a Cheat." But there was no repeat of the aggressive 2020 election protests at the vote-counting center, said Sheriff Paul Penzone, and the protest cleared out after about an hour.

"Former Republican strategist Tim Miller said Lake's tweet that 'Arizonans know BS when they see it' was 'unintentionally' right." Miller wonders now just how far Kari Lake might go, since she is so Trump-indoctrinated; could she continue this battle about the Arizona governor's race into the future? The state is full of MAGA Republicans capable of a statehouse insurrection and with some of the loosest gun laws in the country, it could be a bloodbath.

 Katie Hobbs Defeats Kari Lake To Win Arizona Governor’s Race...

The HuffPost came up with a long line of tweets mocking Kari Lake's tweet, "Arizonans know BS when they see it." One of my favorites is Rick Wilson, co-founder of The Lincoln Project, a Republican who has established himself as anti-Trump, who said, "Clearly. That's why they rejected you." While Trump cries election fraud, we have this from the New York Post...

"She [Kari Lake] is the latest Trump-endorsed MAGA candidate to be rejected by voters in the midterm elections, which failed to unleash the “red wave” of GOP victories that Republicans had predicted.

"From Pennsylvania to Nevada, a parade of Trump’s handpicked candidates vying to become senators or governors faltered, among them Dr. Mehmet Oz, Blake Masters and Doug Mastriano.

"Likewise, all the Trump-backed hopefuls running for secretaries of state in key battleground states met the same fate."

Trump's purpose in winning Sec. State offices is because they control elections, thus, would be under his thumb. You might remember that in the 2020 election, Trump demanded the Georgia secretary of state 'find' enough votes to hand him win. Here's the scenario...

"In an hour-long phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Saturday, [Jan. 2, 2021]President Donald Trump falsely claimed it was "not possible" for him to have lost in The Peach State, and asked the secretary to "find" the exact number of votes he would need -- just one vote over the margin that he trailed President-elect Joe Biden by -- so he could be declared the winner of an election that three separate counts confirmed he lost."

And...

Raffensperger, a Republican who supported the president's reelection but has maintained Georgia's election was legitimate and accurate, rebuffed the president's allegations, saying the data the president is citing to claim tens of thousands of illegal votes, "is wrong."

You may also remember the Georgia's AG investigation of Trump's interference covered in Newsweek...

"It wouldn't surprise me for Georgia to become the first jurisdiction to indict a former president on felony charges. I doubt it'll be the last. And I think the charges will stick," Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard University.

Tribe's remarks came as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis ramps up her investigation into Trump's alleged efforts to overturn Georgia's vote in the 2020 presidential election. Trump lost the state by a narrow margin of 0.23 points.

So, it's over for Kari Lake and Donald Trump. Now, if we can only get rid of Moscow Mitch and Kevin McCarthy. Any ideas? 

With 2022 Almost In The Books, What's Next

 

Some of the most undone work is the Arizona governor's race between Democrat Katie Hobbs and Republican Kari Lake. Hobbs leads the Trump lunatic Lake by only one point and Arizona is taking forever for the final vote count. This race has national ramifications in that a Lake win could boost her into the national picture. Rather than document the insanity of her campaign, you can see a compilation of my posts here. It is astonishing to me Lake has gotten this far.

Now, back to the national scene with a tug of war between Donald Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis for 2024. The Daily Beast says, "Trump Would Easily Crush DeSantis in Battle Today." That's today but in two years this country could be in a new civil war if the hate-mongers don't back off their rhetoric. 

Majority Of Trump Voters Say Civil War ‘Likely’ In Next Decade...

I recently finished The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche and it is frightening. One of the author's findings describes how the next one won't be fought on the battlefield, rather it will be neighbor against neighbor, depending on your political stand. Just think of the consequences especially if you live in a radically right area and you are on the liberal left. I urge you to read my post and if you really want a scare, read Marche's The Next Civil War.

And right in the middle of all this altercation is a war between Donald Trump and

Ron DeSantis that might just surpass 'winner takes all' to a conclusion of 'self annihilation.' It is an unfortunate fact but with the current situation in America this may be the happy ending. If this could take down the Republican Party to a point where they have to negotiate, we have saved our democracy. A recent Mother Jones headline: "The Party of Don’t Say 'Democracy'” says it all...

"Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) sent out a campaign with a solemn, all-caps heading: PARTICIPATING IN OUR CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.

"As I read the email, I noticed that Boebert’s campaign uses a lot of words here to describe our form of government. It’s a “constitutional process.” It’s “representative.” But one word is glaringly absent: “democracy.”

Of course, Lauren Boebert is an idiot but her words reflect the position of the Republican Party. There's more...

Indeed, Republicans across the country are removing the word “democracy” from their lexicon. My colleague Pema Levy reported today that in Arizona, Senate candidate Blake Masters argued that the United States is not a democracy but a republic. “It sounds like a nerdy takedown,” she writes, “but it’s being bandied with frequency by Republicans who also support minority rule and supported overturning President Biden’s 2020 victory.”

Robert Reich says, and I agree, Democrats Can No Longer Compromise with “Authoritarian” Republicans. Republicans no longer understand or condone the word "compromise." From the right, no one since Everett Dirksen, U.S. Senator from Illinois, has mastered his ability to negotiate and compromise for the good of the U.S. Reich says...

President Biden must “push back as hard as he can” if Republicans take control of even one chamber in Congress following Tuesday’s midterm elections. He says the administration needs to be clear there is no compromise on the debt ceiling, which he expects a Republican-controlled Congress would challenge, potentially triggering a repeat of the political crisis in 2011 under former President Obama.

Well, the Democrats still hold the Senate and that position could strengthen if Warnock wins in Georgia. The House is still up for grabs but, at best, Republicans will end up with a small majority. The focus is then on 2023, then 2024 with plenty of time for the left to build momentum.

Major Threats to Democracy: Kari Lake and Ron DeSantis

 

What can one say about Ron (the despot) DeSantis? Well, he thinks he is God, as expressed in a 90-minute campaign ad released just before the midterms. This alone should have turned off the numb nuts in Florida who support him. But it didn't; he had a significant win. These people are just like the Trump minions who were trounced in the recent election and could likely return to violence for vindication. DeSantis is an offshoot of Trump, perhaps, even more depraved and dangerous. Here's the ad...

God made a liar Ron DeSantis Campaign ad...

And then there is the unbelievably sick and stupid Ron DeSantis campaign ad (above) that everyone, including the former Republican Nat'l Committee chair, says is the worst ever in the field of politics. Only a complete idiot would believe this crap! But right after the ad ran, DeSantis won the governor's election from Charlie Crist by almost 20 points. Go figure? If this bullshit swayed the voters in Florida, it is definitely a mandate of the low level of their intelligence.

Frank Bruni of the New York Times calls it, "Ron DeSantis’s God Complex." When you think about it, you not only hear this in what DeSantis says, but it is also portrayed in the smug look he expresses in public. This is Bruni's scenario on the ad...

"In little more than 90 seconds, its unseen narrator mentions “God” 10 times, beginning with the assertion that “on the eighth day” God gazed at a newly created world and decided that it needed a protector. “So God made a fighter,” the narrator says — sonorously, somberly. That’s the ad’s refrain, intoned again and again, and accompanied each time by a shining, commanding image of DeSantis."

MSNBC says...

"The ad is so ham-handed that one could imagine DeSantis later claiming it was tongue-in-cheek. He has not, so far. But even if it is just a tease, like many far right and authoritarian “jokes,” DeSantis is not kidding around. The ad is dangerous and anti-democratic, and was meant that way."

The dialogue from the ad could have been lifted from "a well-known speech, “So God Made a Farmer,” that the radio personality Paul Harvey delivered in 1978 to what was then known as the Future Farmers of America." And here is more examination from Bruni...

"To me, DeSantis doesn’t seem quite so levelheaded. (As exclaimed by 

Bruni's colleague Ross Douthat) He picks and hypes battles designed to cast him as some conservative superhero. In that regard he’s histrionic and hyperbolic, and I could easily see him overplaying his hand, especially in regard to religion. The “God” ad signals that any presidential bid by DeSantis, who is clearly plotting one, will aggressively court Christian nationalists and, in the process, empower them. "More from MSNBC's Sarah Posner...

"DeSantis’ premise — that just as God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to bring salvation to a sinful world, he has sent DeSantis to save an immoral America — seems so over the top that it’s hard to believe the campaign would use it."

Trump has just commented that he will 'scorched-earth humiliate' Ron DeSantis if he tries to take him on." He did say recently he had "dirt" on the Florida governor. And, I almost hesitate to say this but, could Donald Trump's war with Ron DeSantis set the stage for a huge win by the left in 2024? What the hell, it's worth a try.