GOP: Don’t Blame Trump, Blame Yourselves

The votes haven’t all been counted yet so that which party will control the House of Representatives remains unclear.  The Senate is officially blue, however. What is known is that the nearly unanimous expected “red wave” did not materialize. In fact, the only red seen is the color of the faces of those embarrassed pundits, right wing media, and other Republican cheerleaders who confidently predicted otherwise.

Instead of the “bloodbath” that Donnie Dipshit, Jr. declared on Twitter on election night, the Dems will likely hold the Senate and perhaps increase their position by an extra seat pending the outcome of the Georgia runoff on December 6. They have a steep climb to retain their majority in the House but the Democrats are still mathematically in it. Even if they don’t quite get there, the GOP will be in control but with the slightest of margins, which will give them political migraines for at least two years. Donald Trump, Jr.’s tweet did not age well.

But Junior was not alone. No Republican (or Democrat for that matter) predicted this shocker.  To be clear, the polls leading up to Election Day (now Week) indicated that inflation and the economy was the number one issue and that would, as well as historical precedent, gerrymandering and the unpopularity of the president, be a burden on the party in power.

It didn’t.

Rather, the Republican controlled Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case that essentially overturned Roe v. Wade angered women and young people. Democrats also realized how our democracy was on the ballot as hundreds of election deniers and conspiracy nuts were running for offices at all levels.

They voted in great numbers their fury at the SCOTUS ruling and in the need to protect democracy. Republicans incorrectly assumed that Dobbs was sufficiently distanced in the rear-view mirror, as well as the horrors of January 6 and that the energy would fade. The predicted red wave would wash over the country; just a lot of embarrassment and finger pointing resulted instead.

Then there was the Trump effect. The former president was not on the ballot, but he might as well have been. He encouraged potential candidates at all levels who were mini-Trumps and who bended their knees to him to run in primaries. To be sure, these weren’t the best candidates the Republican Party could have recruited, e.g., Herschel Walker. Cringing at this roster, party leaders crossed their fingers that the red wave would be too strong, and that inflation would trump the inexperience, incompetence and extremism that the mini-Trumps possessed.

Most lost their elections, not just in Congress but gubernatorial races, state legislatures and secretaries of state candidates were defeated. There were some victories, of course, but not enough to propel a red wave.

So, with eggs on their faces, the humbled and humiliated Republican establishment has finally begun to recognize that Donald Trump is an albatross. After all, he has been linked to Congressional losses in 2018, lost the presidential race and Senate in 2020 and now may have contributed to thwarting the red wave.

With Governor Ron DeSantis’ crushing victory in Florida, he instantly became the new darling of the party in some quarters. Seeing a replacement for Trump as the leader of the party on the horizon, some Republicans and right-wing media, such as FOX News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post have cast the loser label on Trump and are edging away from him. They are blaming him for the failure to capitalize on rising prices and an unpopular president.

Certainly, much of the blame should be leveled at Trump. He chose, endorsed and appeared at rallies on behalf of loyalists to him rather than qualified, competent candidates. Mehmet Oz’s defeat to John Fetterman in Pennsylvania that swung a former Republican seat into the Dem column was the singular most crushing example. Herschel Walker will be next come December.

However, the Republicans have themselves to blame for allowing Trump to go unfettered around the country choosing these people. Even Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, cringed at the lack of “candidate quality”. 

It started during the 2016 primaries when Trump made frequent racist and misogynous comments. He degraded John McCain and a Gold Star family, made fun of a disabled reporter and proceeded from there while president to the disgusting remarks surrounding Charlottesville where both sides including Nazis and KKK members contained “very fine people.”

Then there was the deadly violent insurrection in which Trump summoned and incited a mob to prevent the constitutionally mandated certification of votes at the Capitol on January 6.  Additionally, he participated in a fake elector scheme and in effect, tried to launch a coup.

After initial outrage by some Republicans to these events, they tried to whitewash them and hope that time would pass and that the insurrectionists were to be seen as tourists having a bad hair day. Heck, they wouldn’t even go along with a bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection.

Thus, they let Trump with his 74 million votes he garnered to run the party. At the second impeachment trial that focused on Trump, Mitch McConnell could have easily whipped votes to convict Trump (he put the blame squarely on Trump during a post-impeachment speech) so that he would be automatically disqualified to run for federal office again. He wimped out.

Image: cartoonmovement.com

Now, the new dilemma for Republicans is Trump’s impending announcement to run again for president in 2024. They don’t want him to make such a declaration at least until the December 6 runoff. But Trump needs to act fast because he knows, as well as many legal observers, that indictments will be handed down in short order. He wants the cover of being a candidate to claim the indictments are partisan. It appears that’s his only defense.

The Republicans’ empowering him because of their fear of his base and allowing Trump to run loose to hand pick his sycophants in these midterm elections is the price one pays. It’s like allowing an unrestrained dog to roam your house only to find that he chewed on the furniture. Do you blame the dog or yourself for providing him the opportunity to do what dogs do?

It’s on you, Republicans, not Trump.

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I was in the minority, but back in May, I wrote a piece describing why the doom of the Democrats may be avoided in these midterms. You can read it here.

King Insane

Full disclosure: I am not a psychiatrist or a trained psychologist, but I did fairly well in my Psych courses in college. One of those was Abnormal Psychology, and I can pretty much say that had there been a President Donald Trump then, his case studies would have appeared on many of the pages of those text books.

We are all too familiar with his pathological lying, extreme narcissism and need to command attention. Yet, Trump’s problems go beyond these character disorders. To use New York parlance, this man is sick in da head. Or using the more medical  NY term, Meshuggeneh.

Throughout his life, whether he loses a lawsuit or an election, whatever it is, it must have been rigged. He was saying this ahead of the 2016 election and, of course, the recent 2020 election. When it became clear he had indeed lost in November and Joe Biden was deemed to be the President-elect, Trump’s nuttiness when into high gear.

Breaking with traditional norms, he refused to concede the election though Biden’s Electoral College votes matched Trump’s from 2016 and won the popular vote by 7 million. (If you’re a Trump supporter and do not believe 7 million is a significant total, start counting from 1 to 7 million and when you’re finished, you may resume reading this.)

Throughout these past two months, Trump refused to accept the reality that he lost. His claims of widespread voter fraud, irregularities, voting machines tampering, ballot shredding, ballot dumping, and dead people voting were baseless and without evidence. Undaunted, his crack legal team, headed by Rudy “Colludy” Giuliani, tried to litigate these false allegations and failed miserably to make the case in court some 60 times (including the Supreme Court twice) involving 90 judges with many having been appointed by Republicans and Trump himself.

The problem is Trump actually believed his delusional alternate reality. He has convinced himself that he actually won the election in a landslide (“Everybody knows it”), and it was stolen from him.

The past several days revealed how psychotic Trump is. Using the same unfounded claims, a recorded rambling phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger revealed that Trump most likely broke the law by threatening the Republican official to conjure up additional votes to overturn the state’s already certified tallies and call it a “recalculation.”

“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state,” Trump said.  He was asking this official to come up with new totals to give him the edge and reminded him by not reporting the “voting irregularities” he was subjecting himself to criminal exposure.

Except the one who has criminal exposure for this election interference and tampering is Trump. It will be up to the District Attorney of Fulton County to pursue this.

If that wasn’t enough, Trump held a rally in D.C. on January 6 where he espoused the same falsehoods. This ego-satisfying event had been announced weeks before and he predicted it would be “wild.” Thousands listened to the likes of Trump, Rudy Colludy Giuliani, Donald, Jr. Ivanka and others as they worked the crowd up to a boiling point.

They received their marching orders. “We are going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, congressmen and women. And we are probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you will never take back our country with weakness.”

Frothing at the mouth from the Trump lies and his attacking his sycophant-in-chief VP Mike Pence for not breaking the law in his behalf, this mob of terrorists, illegally breached the U.S. Capitol, defaced and desecrated offices and statues, looted and forced the members of Congress and senators to shelter in place or be evacuated for hours until the late-arriving security squads cleaned out the buildings from these scumbags and the stain they left on America’s democracy and reputation.

What I personally found egregious was a Trump supporter replacing an American flag with a Trump flag on one of the balconies.  Taking down the American flag and replacing it with a Trump flag.  Let that sink in. These are the same people who went nuts when pro football players took a knee during the playing of the national anthem to protest social injustice.  America First? Not so much in this case. Trump First instead. What a disgrace!

And look at the way these right-wing thugs were treated so deferentially by law enforcement compared to the way Black Lives Matter protesters were handled.

Seeing that the media coverage was not too favorable to Trump for his inciting the rioters and under pressure from advisors, the smirking psycho president released a video whereby he asked the terrorists to go home but reminded them that their actions were justified because the election was stolen. One Trump supporter had been killed by gunfire inside the Capitol while three others died from health-related matters. Therefore, this horrible incident was deadly as well as disgusting.

Trump eventually issued a statement that there will be a peaceful transfer of power after Congress finally finished tabulating the electoral votes. Take that with a good dose of skepticism. The next two weeks will keep us on edge wondering what this lunatic will do next.

Unhinged would not be a sufficient characterization of his mercurial behavior. I’ll go with deranged. And so would many others. A movement albeit delayed is underway to see Trump's removal from office via impeachment or the 25th Amendment. He is unfit to continue.

How Biden Should Handle the Debate

 

We are approaching the first debate in an election that will decide whether our democracy can be saved or will our country descend further under a totalitarian regime.

Down in the polls and desperate for a game changer, Donald Trump, the premier conman, is a master of gaming the situation. After months denigrating Joe Biden’s mental acuity, Trump is now marveling over the former vice president’s 47 years of experience that presents Biden with a decided advantage in the debate in Cleveland on September 29.  Trump is also trying to psych out moderator Chris Wallace by falsely complaining that the veteran journalist Wallace is owned by the left.

Wallace announced in advance the six broad topics that will be covered: the Trump and Biden records, the Supreme Court; Covid-19, the economy, race and violence in our cities, and the integrity of the election. Fortunately for Trump, this debate will not touch on foreign policy as he won’t have to mention Thighland or his love affairs with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. #hocopolitics

As with death and taxes, two things are certain: Donald Trump will lie profusely and attack relentlessly. In that vein, Trump will talk over, shout over and interrupt Biden as he offers his responses.

The TV ratings will shoot through the roof. Virtually all the viewers are familiar with Trump, but despite Biden’s long history of public service, that level of familiarity is not there. Many will be tuning in to watch Biden in action perhaps for the first time. Of course, Trumpsters, led by the president’s two immature, trophy-hunting sons, will be hunting for any stumbles or gaffes made by Biden and will “Benghazi” them on Twitter from here to eternity.   

So, what is the best strategy for Joe Biden? He leads in several battleground state polls but not by such a large margin that he can afford to take the night off. He needs to be prepared, act presidential and minimize verbal miscues that could otherwise turn a solid performance into a calamity as the Republican attack apparatus will be in high gear.

But there’s more.

I liken this debate to a football game whereby a team is leading by 6 points with 6 minutes to play. Do you play conservatively by keeping the ball on the ground with the hopes of running out the clock? Or do you throw downfield with a risk-reward effort that could lead to a score and clinch the game?

I choose the latter. Biden must not stay back on his heels and accept incoming from Trump. He needs to go on the offense. Trump is not very convincing playing defense; in fact, he sucks at it.

At a convenient point during the debate, Biden should work in some questions to Trump based on the New York Times disclosure, such as why do you pay less in taxes than the average working man or woman in this country? What about the discrepancies between your tax returns and your financial reports? How come you pay more in taxes to foreign countries than the U.S.? To whom do you owe $ millions? There are so many others, too he could ask.

He should remind the audience by accusing Trump of disparaging our fallen war heroes, veterans and active service personnel as “losers” and “suckers.” Even Republicans have been disgusted by Trump’s comments on this matter and would prefer that the subject never surfaces again. Biden needs to make sure it does. At that point as Trump tries feebly to deny making those comments, his nose will undoubtedly itch and he will return to that familiar sniffing reaction we saw during the 2016 debates with Hillary Clinton. Don't forget Putin's bounties on U.S. troops, too. He hasn't answered to that yet.

As for the coronavirus, arguably the most important subject during this cycle, Biden has been effective so far painting Trump as not up to the job, lying to Americans with over 200,000 dead from Covid-19. Recently, he said Trump “froze.” That’s not adequate. Instead, say he “choked”—a word that Trump will equate to fingernails on a blackboard or worse. Also, throw in Trump’s absurd therapeutic idea of ingesting or injecting bleach.  The remainder of Trump’s response to the pandemic has been so ghastly and inept, Biden can reel off the other examples quite easily.

Biden should also unequivocally pin the racist label to Trump. He’s got a trove of evidence to back it up. And while at it, he can restate his opposition to arson, looting and violence.

These are just a sampling of how Biden should play this debate. You know Trump will attack, and Biden must be ready to return serve but be calm about it. Trump accuses Hunter Biden of corruption in Ukraine, Biden can bring up the “perfect call” to Ukraine’s president resulting in impeachment. He can also mention Trump’s three adult children sued by the New York Attorney General’s office for their role in the now defunct Trump Foundation. Touch my kid, I’m going after yours.

I believe that if Biden goes on the offensive and takes no crap from Trump, his supporters will be gushing with pride and Biden will have removed many of the doubts that the Republicans have planted.

If for some reason this strategy doesn’t work this time, there will be two more debates plus the vice president debate as a safety net. But I think it will.

For Biden this is a Big Fu****g Deal

Joe Biden addressing the nation on the coronavirus

Under the cloud of uncertainty stemming from COVID-19, the primary races are continuing albeit without the grandeur of big crowd rallies and other forms of interpersonal campaigning. Even the debate on Sunday between Senator Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden will take place at CNN’s Washington studio with no live audience to distract from the candidates’ ability to enunciate their points. #hocopolitics

Biden is clearly the front runner following a jaw-dropping comeback that has every pundit on earth scratching his or her head.  While Sanders is mathematically in contention, the landscape looks bleak for the Democratic Socialist with the upcoming debate the last realistic opportunity to change the trajectory of the race.

To repeat the sentence Biden uttered into a hot mic to a cringing President Obama following the signing of the Affordable Care Act, this is a big fu****g deal.  Where we stand now in the primaries and caucuses, that sentence is apropos for Biden and, of course, Sanders.

How aggressive the now underdog Sanders will go after Biden in this one-on-one matchup, the first of the primary season, is unclear. Some Sanders’ supporters along with Trump supporters led by Donald Trump, Jr. have been pushing the narrative that at a minimum, Biden is no longer on his game and at the extreme end, he suffers from dementia. They site Biden’s malapropisms, gaffes, and confusion at times as evidence. It’s sad that people would use such a personal attack, but in the age of Trump, there are no longer any rules.

Unquestionably, this debate will provide the opportunity for Biden to prove the critics wrong. The less frenetic, more casual setting should be better terrain for Biden. However, he is still prone to mistakes and in the age of social media, the slightest slip-up will be magnified and will be cycled through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and what-not. And they will be compiled into a montage for ads as the election cycle proceeds.

It is akin to attending the Indy 500 looking for a crash as opposed to the caring who the ultimate winner is after dozens of laps.  People will be scrutinizing Biden’s style and fluidity of thought more than his actual policy positions.  Bernie’s style is already baked in so he won’t be under that sort of microscope. And he is no longer the frontrunner.

There is considerable irony that Trump supporters are pushing the dementia button on Biden. This is especially so following Trump’s pathetic dumpster fire of a nationally televised speech from the Oval Office this past Wednesday in a Hail Mary attempt to quell the nervous financial markets. 

Slurring many of his words, seemingly out of it, speaking like it was a hostage video, Trump piled up lie after lie, mistake after mistake while not seriously addressing the public health measures that the coronavirus requires.

The markets responded with the futures dropping during each utterance like leaves falling from trees in November. And on Thursday, the markets rewarded Trump, who sees the coronavirus and its ensuing economic impact as a significant threat to his re-election chances, with the worst day on Wall Street since the huge crash of October 1987.

Joe Biden receiving the critical endorsement from Rep. Clyburn

By stark contrast Joe Biden, as did Bernie Sanders, showed what presidential leadership is all about. Both described the situation in calm, measured tones while articulating the correct course of action to be taken. For Biden, this was a huge moment and he delivered.

Facing this debate where Biden is only one of the two last standing is, in itself, a miracle of sorts. Left for dead along with other Democratic hopefuls after the first three contests, Biden received arguably the most consequential endorsement in modern election cycles.

Normally, endorsements have minimal effect; not this one. James Clyburn, the highly respected Congressman from South Carolina and Democratic Majority Whip gave an emotional endorsement of Biden that propelled the 77 year-old candidate to a crushing win in South Carolina. That victory, powered by African-American voters, launched this comeback, also powered by that demographic, to major victories on Super Tuesday and the primaries the following week. Other Dem hopefuls joined the post-South Carolina parade by endorsing Biden and seeing him as the best chance to defeat Trump.

#hocopolitics

For Joe Biden, who ran unsuccessfully twice before and didn’t win his first primary ever until the South Carolina game-changer, is at the precipice of finally reaching that goal. Clearly, Trump doesn’t want to face him in the general election as he was impeached for his efforts to sully Biden’s reputation.

Joe Biden needs to seal the deal this Sunday. He doesn’t have to “win” the debate as that assessment will come from the electorate who will view the debate through the lens of their candidate. But he must be able to hold his own. If he does, the finish line will be near as upcoming primaries loom favorable to Biden.

This is indeed a big f*****g deal.

Paranoia Overtaking Trumpworld

Photo: The Guardian

At a time when there is an external crisis, such as the Coronavirus, that can potentially affect an untold number of Americans and the world’s population (and already has), we need strong, competent, scientific-based leadership. Unfortunately, Donald Trump and his acolytes have not only bungled the rollout of a “plan” to combat the spread of the virus by minimizing its seriousness but are viewing the outbreak through the lens of politics.

Observing how the Stock Market dipped a whopping 12 percent in just a week making the fall the largest since the 2008 financial crisis, Trumpworld who has yet to experience a crisis not of his own making and testing the competency and leadership of an administration which has demonstrated neither, sees the threat of contagion, not to mention an economic slowdown as a result, as serious threats to the president’s re-election.

Measures, such as Trump assigning the lead to help combat the spread of the Coronavirus to Vice President Pence rather than to medical experts, did not help gain the confidence of the American people.  And making Pence the gatekeeper for messaging or spin did not help. Nor did Trump aid his cause by lying about the number of actual cases in the U.S. and portraying a cringe-worthy blasé attitude laced with false optimism.

In an effort to preempt criticism, Trump’s allies have taken to the airwaves accusing the Democrats and the media for exaggerating the scope of the crisis (the fact is, it could very well turn into a pandemic) and trying to “take down the president.”  Toadies from newly decorated  Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh to Rep. Steve Scalise have attempted to make the conversation about politics.

None other than Donald Trump, Jr. added to the “non-politicization” of the discourse with this gem on CNN:

“But for them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here, and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump’s streak of winning, is a new level of sickness. You know, I don't know if this is Coronavirus or Trump derangement syndrome, but these people are infected badly.”

Former Under Secretary of State and Managing Editor of TIME magazine Richard Stengel responded to Pence’s reaction to the Trump Jr. diatribe in this tweet:

It's appalling and, frankly, disqualifying that the sitting vice president of the US and the person designated with leading America's response to the coronavirus cannot bring himself to say that, No, Democrats do not want millions of Americans to die from the coronavirus. https://t.co/jRpjdBxr5c

— Richard Stengel (@stengel) March 1, 2020

In Trumpworld, everyone is always trying to take down the president: the Russia Hoax, the Mueller Hoax, the Impeachment Hoax, the Climate Change Hoax, the Evolution Hoax, and now the Coronavirus Hoax—all manifestations of the underlying paranoia gripping Trump and his followers. The evil Democrats led by “vicious” Nancy Pelosi and “corrupt” Adam Schiff, the media (except for FOX News, Breitbart, Drudge, Limbaugh, etc.), the “Deep State,” the leakers, the dis-loyalists, the book authors exposing the Trump White House—are  part of an effort to defeat Trump’s desperate desire to cling to power.

This paranoia surfaced back in August when there were early signs of an economic downturn, Trumpworld accused the Democrats and media for “rooting for a recession”  as a way to stop Trump in November 2020.

We are facing a serious public health crisis whose damage and effects are frighteningly unknown at this point. We should not panic but instead turn our hopes for guidance to a government effort to curtail the impact of the Coronavirus to the best of its ability. 

This is no time for politics from either side, and clearly not the time for Trumpworld to demonstrate weakness and uncertainty through their never ending paranoia.