The Sky Is Falling
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There I was, two days
ago, blithely typing these words, “I find, rather amazingly, that I’m making a
pretty good face of non-despair at the moment,” at which point the news arrived
that Trump wanted Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States of
America. And that he wanted Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National
Intelligence. And now, that he actually wants to endanger the nation’s children
by appointing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run Health and Human Services.
Suffice to say, I have
stopped making a pretty good face of non-despair. Edvard Munch’s Scream has nothing on me: I could spare the alphabet and just launch a
page of infuriated exclamation points (!!!!…you get the picture) and dumfounded
question marks (?????….). But words are all I got. Donald Trump is laughing at
us—and he is testing the August and Supine Republican members of the Senate.
Taken together with Pete Hegseth’s intention to eviscerate the military of
anyone who ever breathed the same air as General Mark Milley, you have, rather
quickly, a national crisis. Lindsey Graham has indicated he’s okay with this. I
knew Lindsey before he became a puddle of brown sugar. He was an Air Force
veteran, a JAG in Kandahar…but he’s now a willing stooge for the dismantling of
the U.S. military. Will any Republicans stand up against this obscenity?
We know who and what
Gaetz is—and we’ll probably know a lot more when the House Ethics Committee
investigation leaks. I just heard a tape of Senator Markwayne Mullen of
Oklahoma saying that Gaetz went around the House floor showing nude photos of
his teeny-bop paramours and explaining that he would prep for party time with a
cocktail of erectile dysfunction drugs and energy drinks (a concoction that
hereafter might be known as the Viagra Bull). He could then “go all night.”
I’ll bet.
One wonders whether Gaetz
is being used as a Viagra Bull in a china shop to divert attention from the
other bizarre Trump nominees. You should read David Ignatius on the terrible national
security picks. The ever-excellent Tom Nichols has this to say, over at The
Atlantic, about Tulsi Gabbard:
Gabbard ran for president
as a Democrat in 2020, attempting to position herself as something like a peace
candidate. But she’s no peacemaker: She’s been an apologist for both the Syrian
dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Her politics, which are
otherwise incoherent, tend to be sympathetic to these two strongmen, painting
America as the problem and the dictators as misunderstood. Hawaii voters
have long been perplexed by the way she’s
positioned herself politically. But Gabbard is a classic case of “horseshoe”
politics: Her views can seem both extremely left and extremely right, which is
probably why people such as Tucker Carlson—a conservative who has turned into …
whatever pro-Russia right-wingers are called now—have taken a liking to the
former Democrat (who was previously a Republican and is now again a member of
the GOP).
Also, Gabbard meets
another Trump standard: she’s good looking. As are Pete Hegseth and Gaetz in a
hilarious Hollywood villain sort of way.
(N.B.: We have been
conditioned by feminists to ignore women’s looks. It is said to be sexist
ogling. That should come to an end now. Not when the President relies so
heavily on this annoyingly superficial factor when choosing advisors. It is
also a natural human reaction: being attractive is a force multiplier that can not be
denied and should, from time to time, be remarked upon. One lesson I shall take
from this election is that the English language has been bowdlerized in a
LatinXy way by the fems. It was never too awkward for me to call mankind
“humankind,” but other formulations like “herstory” were just silly. As were
the plural pronouns. They/them should be over now, too. The main purpose they
served was to annoy people—and annoyed people, it turned out, voted in numbers
in 2024. “Kamala is for They/Them” turned out to be a powerful punchline. (See
the item below) Tolerance should be the order of the day for any choices people
make about themselves, but not to the point of silliness…or political defeat by
a thug. The re-correction of the language should extend beyond feminists to the
legions of the politically-prissy word abusers: Recently, in a piece I wrote
for a mainstream outlet, the word “homosexuals” was edited out and replaced by
“the gay community.” I didn’t mind so much, even if it implied a political
judgment that not all people might share; in fact, I sort of like the irony
inherent in formerly oppressed people calling themselves “gay.” But I draw the
line at LGBTQ+. It is the sexual equivalent of “people of color” and
“undocumented” immigrants—a politically incorrect imposition on plain speaking.
If we are ever to seize back a majority of voters from the Trumpers, we must
speak truth to activists. We must be free to call a babe a babe.)
And Then, There Are The Democrats…
What am I? What is my
political stripe? I’ll accept liberal in the classical, free speech, free
enterprise, rule of law sense—and I considered myself a New Democrat in the
1990s, and a Never Trumper for the past decade. But when I look at the vast
wasteland that is now the Democratic Party—an amalgamation of identity
activists, post- socialists, teachers union members and deluded academics—I can
pretty safely say, I am not one of
them. I am not a Republican,
either, obviously. As long as there is a binary choice between Trumper and Not,
I’ll vote not. But it sure would be nice if Democrats took a look at reality
and reformed themselves. What is reality? Well, this post-election poll by the Democratic firm
Blueprint offers a solid glimpse:
KEY FINDINGS:
1.
The top
reasons voters gave for not supporting Harris were that inflation was too high
(+24), too many immigrants crossed the border (+23), and that Harris was too
focused on cultural issues rather than helping the middle class (+17).
2.
Other
high-testing reasons were that the debt rose too much under the Biden-Harris
Administration (+13), and that Harris would be too similar to Joe Biden
(+12).
3.
These concerns were
similar across all demographic groups, including among Black and Latino voters,
who both selected inflation as their top problem with Harris. For swing voters who eventually chose Trump, cultural
issues ranked slightly higher than inflation (+28 and +23, respectively). [Emphasis mine.]
4.
The
lowest-ranked concerns were that Harris wasn’t similar enough to Biden (-24),
was too conservative (-23), and was too pro-Israel (-22).
There was all this
blather about how Kamala had to “earn the votes” of black men, as if they were
some unique category. But she also had to earn the votes of white men and
women, and Latinos and Asians any everyone else. And going forward, the Dems
are going to have to earn my pantheist, capitalist, cosmopolitan,
internationalist, bibliophilic vote, too.
There is one
other rule of the road going forward:
As horrific as Trump’s
start has been, it is not impossible that he will inadvertently—or even
advertently—do some good stuff. I will not be a reflexive anti-trumper. That
would be boring for me and for you. And it would be irresponsible. So yes, I am
extremely worried about the state of our democracy, but that goes both ways—so
long as Democrats insist on confusing equality (of opportunity) with equity (of
results). It will not be easy for me to give credit to a man I consider a
mortal fool, but if it must be, it will be.
