Worthless Poll

There's something happening here. But what it is ain't exactly clear, wrote Stephen Stills in 1966.

Joe Walsh, former GOP member of the House of Representatives who has since become a Democrat, believes he knows what's happening here.

Hey Democrats, this isn’t good. I love this country, and I’m super proud to be an American, no matter who’s in the White House. I’m proud to be an American even tho we have a fascist in the White House. Hey Dems, if you wanna win, you better stop this unpatriotic shit. Now.👇 pic.twitter.com/d7aeVWekzA

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) July 5, 2026

It's clear only that Republicans feel more of what they believe is "pride" than do Democrats. It's a little difficult to understand when Republicans are led by, and idolize, a guy who in the first minutes of his first presidential term, targeted "American carnage" and whose words since reflect that view of this country. America as "rigged, corrupt, and evil" (10/22) and its people as "bloated, fat, and disgusting" (2/25).  In between, presidential candidate Trump

publicly urged Republicans to oppose a bipartisan border and immigration bill in early 2024, framing its passage as a political win for Democrats and inviting blame if it failed; multiple contemporaneous reports cite his speeches and social‑media posts urging GOP lawmakers to reject the deal […

News reporting from February 2024 documents that Mr. Trump used public remarks and social posts to tell Republicans not to support the bipartisan border bill, describing the legislation as a “great gift to the Democrats” and a “Death Wish for The Republican Party,” and urging GOP senators to oppose it so he could run on immigration in 2024, which led to Republican opposition and the bill’s collapse. These accounts record both direct public statements—remarks at rallies and posts on his platform—and the observed voting behavior of GOP lawmakers who rejected the measure after his pronouncements. The contemporaneous narrative frames the instruction as strategically motivated: Trump presented opposition to the bill as a campaign asset designed to keep border policy a central 2024 talking point, and he later publicly celebrated the bill’s failure, saying “I think it’s dead!”. The coverage treats his comments as influential on legislative outcomes, citing both public appeals and reported private directives that aligned GOP votes with his position.

      

Donald believed that President Biden's bill would help secure the border, hence national security. Nonetheless, for political advantage, he urged GOP members of Congress to oppose the legislation, thus dooming it.

Just kidding- the idea that it would help the USA was a bonus, the cherry on top.  Democrats and the media pretend that the one issue which doomed Kamala Harris was inflation, yet immigration- Biden's inability or unwillingness to seal the border- played roughly an equal role.

Democrats, for whatever reason(s), have chosen for years to ignore Donald Trump's evident disdain for this nation, and the media therefore has, also.  Casting Democrats as the doom and gloom party and Republicans as the party of patriots is a long and fruitful tactic of the GOP, from at least the "Democrats always blame America first" of 1984.

So in June someone at Gallup must have come up with the idea of asking respondents whether they are "extremely" or "very" "proud to be an American". The polling organizatio then summarized the results as "Democrat's Pride Swings with the President- Republicans' Doesn't."

The results, however, swing with how the respondents characterize "proud" because Gallup chose not to define or clarify the term.  Being proud is to have pride, "a feeling of pleasure and satisfactaction that you get because you or people connected with you have done or got something good."

So, this: Republicans may typically be proud of their country because they believe that they themselves (or their children or parents) are responsible for the greatness of the country. Democrats may- and probably- more often attribute the country's greatness to others- soldiers, health care or day careworkers, scientists or engineers doing important work for the nation, or others acting in the public interest. 

That's only speculation, of course, but reasonable, and more than Gallup chose to do. Similarly, the latter could have followed up with the obvious question as to what makes the individual extremely or very proud to be an American. In December, 2024 72% of Republicans supported President-elect Trump "pardoning those who forced their way into the Capitol," an attempted coup. That could have been a clue. 

The reasons individuals would have cited probably would have been enlightening. At the Great American State Fair celebration of King Donald in Washington, D.C.  

Crowds were building in the area several hours before the evacuation. Tina Hale, 58, of Cohoes, New York, watched three of her grandchildren children dip their hands into a pool of water near a museum. Hale pointed toward the sky and urged them to look up as three military jets roared above the crowd.

"If that doesn't make you proud to be an American," she said.

Kaboom! There you have it. Proud to be an American because we're the biggest, baddest badasses on the block. No one going to mess with us! And she speaks for a lot of Republicans. 

And many of them answered that poll, without Gallup asking what it means to be proud of were  Steve Stills understood what Gallup, Joe Walsh, or the Republicans exploiting the survey results don't: what it is ain't exactly clear. 

Share |

"The People that Hate America"

This man is what in the old days we called "a piece of work."

Fentanyl kills 25,000 more ppl than gun-related and 39 of 54 of the @MichiganDems voted in favor of fentanyl #MIGOP #MILEG

— Matt Maddock (@matthewmaddock) April 23, 2025

An investigation by CBS News" 60 Minutes in 2024 revealed

When a gun is recovered at a crime scene, it's the job of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to trace it. Tim Sloan was ATF's attaché in Mexico from 2019-2022. As attaché he ran the ATF's four field offices in Mexico. In 2019, an incident at a cartel ranch near Guadalajara made a lasting impression on him.

"There was dead bodies everywhere...There were 55 gallon drums with body parts in 'em," said Sloan. "And all the weapons in that house came from the United States. All of them."

Sloan says most of the guns the ATF traced in Mexico were sold directly to traffickers or to so-called "straw purchasers," someone who buys a firearm on behalf of another person

"You're offering a 23-year-old girl in Arizona $4,000, $5,000 just to go into a store and buy a gun for you," Sloan said. "She's going to do that. A lot of people are going to do that, especially if they have any addiction problems, but no criminal record."

If buyers do not have a criminal history, in certain states, they can buy as many guns as they want. After that comes the easy part, "just drive across the border, " explained Sloan.

The ATF traced 50,000 American guns recovered in Mexico from 2015 to 2022 to gun dealers across the United States…

State Representative Maddock: It's the guns, stupid. And they come from the USA. Michigan Democrats have nothing to do with it. State legislators who wallow in their absolutist interpretation of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution do.

But this isn't about guns or  drugs. It's about this piece of work remarking

We're not doing this for the retired Communist professor. We're doing this for the families and the kids who gaze upon their great Gulf of America and put their toes in the water. "Look, mom," I'm in the Gulf of America."  

This guy doesn't understand that being in the Gulf of Mexico- a different country- would more impress a child living in America than being in the Gulf of America. That should make a difference if one believes that the major factor in naming major bodies of water should be to bolster a child's self-esteem. (I'm guessing Maddock is not a child psychologist by profession.) He continues

Exciting things- like, uh, make people proud of our country, the most loved President in American history wants people to be proud of their country. The left want people to be ashamed of their country. And I don't think it's any coincidence that the people opposed to that are the same people that hate America. This is a way to show kids that our great faith that they should be proud of their country.

Michigan State Rep. Matt Maddock (R-Milford) says anyone that opposes his bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico hates America.

"I don't think it's any coincidence that the people opposed to this are the same people that hate America." pic.twitter.com/HS8FqxB1a6

— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) April 24, 2025

Now the "kids" should be proud of their country when they go into history or social studies class and learn that the body of water called the Gulf of Mexico throughout the world is called the Gulf of America here. 

No reason to take pride in Thomas Jefferson's line in the Declaration of Independence "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. Immaterial is pride in freedom of religion, of speech and the press, from armed police arbitrarily barging into your home, from not having to raise $10,000 bail for a shoplifting charge, even to own a firearm within reason. 

And don't even think about pride in the Armed Forces, because the "Gulf of America" is our great inheritance as Americans.

Yet, most extraordinary in these times is a Republican state legislator holding a straight face while maintaining "that the people opposed to (a fentanyl bill) are the same people that hate America." The bill recently approved by the Michigan House of Representatives increases prison sentences for manufacturing and selling fetanyl, carfentanil, and heroin. 

Some Democrats, wisely or unwisely, voted against the bill because of the disproportionately harsh impact they believe it would have on marginalized communities. This seems a little less hatred of country than

The Witch Hunt continues, and after 6 years and millions of pages of documents, they’ve got nothing. If I had what Hunter and Joe had, it would be the Electric Chair. Our Country is Rigged, Crooked, and Evil — We must bring it back, and FAST. Next stop, Communism!

Or of federal workers directed to give detail their workweek 

And it's possible that a lot of those people will be actually fired. And if that happened, that's okay, because that's what we're trying to do. This country has gotten bloated and fat and disgusting and incompetently run.

Incompetently run is possible, because it was already 36 days after he took office that Donald Trump denigrated this country and its citizens, enough time for him to begin to sabotage the vibrant representative democracy he was handed. And on October 30 of 2022 he did inadvertently warn us, slyly and indirectly, of his upcoming crooked leadership. Maybe that's what his supporters mean when they say that Donald Trump has kept his promises.

Yet, it seems it should be of more than passing interest that the President of the country and leader of the (still, barely) Free World thinks its people are evil and disgusting; or more exactly, that the nation is evil and its citizens, disgusting. And significant it would be if anyone took notice.. 

That's less the fault of the media, which can barely be held responsible for something Donald Trump's critics care about, than of his critics. But that would mean the Democratic Party has noticed this and cares about it. It must do both, and at least one is absent.

Share |

Peculiar Perspective for a President

President Donald Trump is an authoritarian- that we all can see. Yet, aside from acknowledging the obvious, we would benefit from pinpointing his underlying motive (s).

Donald Trump's guiding philosophy is zero-sum. In his approach to tariffs, to Ukraine, personal financial dealings, and to other matters, it is clear that he believes that he, his family, or his fellow plutocrats benefit only to the extent that an individual or a group suffers.

But to what end does Trump apply this philosophy? There probably are two and, fortunately for Democrats contemplating a strategy to checkmate or neuter this man of evil, they are in harmony and compatible with each other.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy has been promoting one dominant feature of the Trump presidency, here posted on Reddit in graphic form:

A week ago today

Democratic strategist James Carville ripped into President Trump’s recent moves on Ukraine and tariffs, accusing the president of deliberately hurting the country. 

“He’s actually trying to harm the United States,” Carville charged in a video released Tuesday, pointing to the president’s 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico as well as his explosive Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week. 

Carville, a longtime vocal critic of Trump’s, compared the president’s actions to that of other past Republican leaders he has strongly criticized, such as George W. Bush during the Iraq War. 

“However, I never would for one minute thought George W. Bush wanted to harm the United States,” Carville said. “I don’t think Trump likes the United States. I honestly believe that the most compelling answer to all of this is he doesn’t like this country.” 

The Democratic strategist ticked through his various criticisms of Trump, asserting the GOP president “doesn’t like the Constitution,” international alliances that have existed for decades or the separation of powers within the U.S. federal government.  

Carville may have been referring in part to Trump's Truth Social post of December 3, 2022 when the then ex-President (his emphasis, obviously) wrote

Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great 'Founders' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!

Additionally, Carville noted

We know he believes that we’re a terrible country, we’re terrible people … we know that. We know, like many people, he didn’t want to serve in armed forces, but we know that. We know that he is trying to destroy the military by getting rid of every competent person he could find, we know that. We know today that he doesn’t care about high prices. 

“What could explain all that?” he continued. “I think the simplest and most direct explanation is the president of the United States hates the United States.” 

On December 3, 2022

“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote in a post on the social network Truth Social and accused “Big Tech” of working closely with Democrats. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

KISS: Keep it Simple, Stupid. Sometimes (though not usually) the simplest explanation is most accurate. I hate to be repetitive, but not enough to avoid being repetitive. And this simply must mean something: That was over two years ago, when Joe Biden was President, and so it is even more telling that at his first Cabinet meeting, on February 26, the once and current President stated "this country has gotten bloated, fat, and disgusting. I think we had the worst President in the history of our country. He just left office."

Well, no, he's still in office. With contempt for the country and unparalleled corruption, Donald Trump is an easy target. Some may take the low road and mock and lampoon him, a la Tim Walz. Others, such as Senator Murphy, can use social media and pictorial representations to make it clear to the country that the man is a crook and con man. By all means draw a line from hatred of the country to looting the country. All the evidence is available- only willingness, effort, and a little creativity are necessary.

Share |

The Evil One

President Musk held his first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday and Donald Trump was asked 

a question about widely reported cuts to the federal workforce. An unidentified reporter said “You mentioned you’re interested in doing another round of this email. When would you like to see that? What would be the deadline? And this time would it be mandatory?”

“I think Elon wants to and I think it’s a good idea because, you know, those people, as I said before, they’re on the bubble,” Trump replied.”You got a lot of people that have not responded. So we’re trying to figure out  — Do they exist? Who are they? And it’s possible that a lot of those people will be actually fired. And if that happened, that’s okay, because that’s what we’re trying to do.”

“This country has gotten bloated, fat, disgusting, and incompetently run,” Trump added, before insulting Biden. “I think we had the worst president in the history of our country. He just left office. I think he’s a disgrace what he’s done to our country by allowing millions of people to come into our country like that and all of the other things he inflation, which he caused because of energy and stupid spending to spend hundreds of millions, trillions and trillions of dollars on the green new scam, a total scam.” 

"Bloated, fat, (and) disgusting?" One is tempted to suggest that Trump has reached a new low, but he's always reaching a new low, and we've been down this road before. As outlined in The Guardian during the President's first term, Trump's contempt for the USA has been on display for years.

It seems to have begun early in the last decade but became more evident when in his inaugural address in 2016, he referred to "American carnage."  Asked by Bill O'Reilly in 2017 whether Vladimir Putin is "a killer," the President replied "There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?" (On a positive note, Trump likes Putin's ruthlessness, so there is that.)

                 

This reporter, having been written in 2019, omits Donald Trump's Truth Social post on October 30, 2022, when he characterized "Our Country" as "Rigged, Crooked, and Evil." (Five weeks later, he would call for the "termination" of the Constitution- but absolutely not a fascist.)

In January, 2023, after being arraigned for what is euphemistically referred to as "mishandling" classified documents, he complained "we have a rigged country, we have a country that is corrupt." Not a corrupt President or a rigged Justice Department or justice system- a rigged country, the USA.

President Trump claims to love his country. So someone needs to ask President Trump why, in light of his frequently negative depictions of the United States of America, he hates this country- or at least, why he believes we are "evil."  Failing that, he could at least be asked whether he believes that "evil" or "corrupt" or "rigged" is actually a bad thing.

This blog will be on hiatus for a few days. (Or maybe it's that I will be.) Anyway, please return next week.

Share |

"Conservatives Love Their Country"

This guy is very conservative. He is not being sarcastic.

Democrats are expressing the lowest patriotic sentiment this fourth of July. They hate the country. Most liberals hate the countries they live in. Conservatives love their country. This makes me hopeful that conservatives, if they take power, can steer the US back on course.

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 4, 2023

Perhaps the conservative he pines for is Donald J. Trump, who a few months ago in Waco described the USA as

We are a failing nation.... a nation that is hostile to liberty, freedom, and faith. We are a nation whose economy has collapsed.. that no longer has a free and fair press... a nation that lost its confidence, willpower, and strength.

Delivering his inaugural address on January 20, 2017,  President Trump referred to an "American carnage (which) stops right here and stops right now.

  " 

Trump’s go-to insult for the USA is “Third World.” In the Oval Office in December, 2020, it was a “Third World Country” and in a Labor Day (9/5/22) tweet we were “rapidly becoming a Third World nation." In April of this year, hours before being arraigned in NYC, NY for the Stormy Daniels hush money case, it was an email asserting “our nation is becoming a Marxist Third World country" and at the infamous CNN town hall the following month, “in many ways, we’ve become a Third World nation.” For bonus points, he charged also “our country has gone to hell.”

Eight months ago, in the clearest indication of the “love” Cheong claims conservatives have for the USA, Trump on his social media platform wrote

The Witch Hunt continues, and after 6 years and millions of pages of documents, they’ve got nothing. If I had what Hunter and Joe had, it would be the Electric Chair. Our Country is Rigged, Crooked, and Evil — We must bring it back, and FAST. Next stop, Communism!

An "evil" country. The only thing which can beat that is if a conservative were to call explicitly for breaking up the country. Oh, wait- we have that. In her own words:

We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government.

Everyone I talk to says this.

From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are…

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) February 20, 2023

Nothing says "patriotism" like "secession."  Sarcasm aside, there is nothing like a tweeter boasting of his patriotism by substituting "fourth of July" for the name of the holiday, Independence Day.

Share |

Tim Scott Accidentally Calls Out Hero

On November 2, 2002, Steve Benen, editor of MaddowBlog, wrote

In December 2015, then-candidate Trump was asked about Putin’s habit of invading countries and killing critics. “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader,” Trump replied, “unlike what we have in this country.” Reminded that Putin has been accused of ordering the murder of critics and journalists, Trump added, “Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also.”

In a July 2016 interview with The New York Times, the Republican went on to argue that the United States lacks the moral authority to lead, because we’re just not a good enough country to command respect abroad. “When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a very good messenger,” he said.

There’s never been a president, from either party, who’s been so cavalier about America lacking in credibility. Sentiments such as “When the world looks at how bad the United States is...” are usually heard from America’s opponents, not America’s president. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg noted during the 2016 campaign that Barack Obama “has never spoken as negatively about America as Donald Trump has....

That's not because it would be risky for a black man to be as critical of the USA as has Donald Trump. No Democrat would be allowed to question the nation's moral authority to lead or to draw a moral equivalence between our nation and Putin's Russia.

Benen had written in response to Trump's Truth Social post in which the former President exclaimed

The Witch Hunt continues, and after 6 years and millions of pages of documents, they’ve got nothing. If I had what Hunter and Joe had, it would be the Electric Chair. Our Country is Rigged, Crooked, and Evil — We must bring it back, and FAST. Next stop, Communism!

Writing six days before the November election, Benen noted that the media had not been so rude as to ask Republican candidates their opinion of Trump's assessment of our nation as "evil."

The price for this abject failure may now be coming due.  Previewing the "Faith in America" tour of South Carolina Republican senator Tim Scott leading up to the announcement of his presidential candidacy, Politico Playbook wrote

“Pretend you were our nation’s greatest enemy,” he’ll say, per the prepared remarks. “Say you wanted a blueprint to ruin America. What would you put in it? First, you’d take aim at our patriotism. [Y]ou’d amplify attention-seekers who say America is an evil country. Make it easy to get rich and famous by feeding the empty calories of anger to people who are starving for hope. In other words … you’d keep doing exactly what JOE BIDEN has let the far left do to our country for the last two years.”

First, you'd take aim at our patriotism. He could have been speaking of Joe Biden if Biden were the President who said of his own State of the Union Address

You're up there, you've got half the room going totally crazy, wild -- they loved everything, they want to do something great for our country. And you have the other side, even on positive news -- really positive news, like that -- they were like death and un-American. Un-American. "Somebody said, 'treasonous.' I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn't seem to love our country very much.

Take away the last sentence of the quote in Politico, and you'd figure that Senator Scott was talking about the man who in July of 2019 tweeted

I don’t believe the four Congresswomen are capable of loving our Country. They should apologize to America (and Israel) for the horrible (hateful) things they have said. They are destroying the Democrat Party, but are weak & insecure people who can never destroy our great Nation!

Not only the squad but also center-left Adam Schiff:

No one- except for Marjorie Taylor Greene- has sought attention as has Donald J. Trump. No known Democrat has referred to the USA as "evil," as has Donald J. Trump. No Democrat has as consistently run down this country- his own country- as has Donald J. Trump.

Scott delivered the GOP rebuttal  to President Biden's State of the Union message in April, 2021. He stated that he had "experienced the pain of discrimination," including being "pulled over for no reason; "followed around a store while I'm shopping;" and "called 'Uncle Tom' and the n-word by progressives, by liberals."   Having thus described a racist country, he then declared "hear me clearly: America is not a racist country."

Aside from observing that the Senator is fond of embracing victimhood, I pulled my punches and acknowledged merely that "he is not being candid."  Scott, a faithful supporter of Donald Trump, remains a supporter even now that he evidently has decided that he wants to be President of the United States of America. If either man developed an ounce of integrity, it would be an ounce more than he has.

Share |

Won't Work

When President Biden in May concluded a speech, delivered at a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, touting manufacture in the USA of electric vehicles, he concluded with "May God bless you.  And may God protect our troops.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you."

This was not atypical. President Obama would conclude his speeches with the likes of "God bless you and God bless the United Statesof America;"' "Thank you and God Bless you;"  "Thank you, Illinois. God bless. God bless this country we love. Thank you." Still, birtherism- which makes this notion a little odd:

Here is how to win some damn elections.https://t.co/WOrMX5s6YM pic.twitter.com/IvqrJLLWEn

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) November 15, 2021

 

One tweeter responded "Wasn't that basically what the Clinton campaign was in 2016? If If you go back and rewatch the speeches from the convention, it's wall-to-wall patriotism. For that matter, it's not too different from the Kerry 2004 playbook." Another noted "Aren't both parties constantly appealing to patriotism? This premise makes no sense," and still another that both Biden and Hillary Clinton won a greater share of the two-party presidential vote than did John F. Kennedy

The premise not make sense. If looking for a patriotic President, look no further than

But I also wanted to put the world on notice: America is back.  America is back.  In the competition for the 21st century, the future will be built right here in America.

Look at this plant.  We’re moving.  We’re working again.  We’re dreaming again.  We’re discovering again.  We’re leading the world again.

We have shown each other and the world that there’s no quit in America.  There’s simply no quit in America. And that’s never, ever — it’s — every time I have these, sometimes knock-down, drag-them-outs with heads of state in private — they’ll say something, and I’ll say, “Look, it’s never been a good bet to bet against America.  Never, never, never.”

This patriotic rhetoric in Dearborn was linked to a policy objective:

Bottom line: The American Jobs Plan is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America — a blue-collar blueprint to build America.  (Applause.)  And we need automakers and other companies to keep investing here in America and not take the benefits of our public investments and expand electric vehicles and battery manufacturing production abroad.

Whether genuine or contrived, the image the "middle class Joe" (maybe his own characterization, but still) of "Scranton values" has cultivated is one of old-fashioned, can-do patriotism. It hasn't done much good.

On May 12, 2001, six days before Joe Biden vowed "there's no quit in America" and proposed a "blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America," 56% of respondents were reported as approving of President Biden and only38% disapproving. Nine months later, 45% disapprove of the President while merely 49% approve of him.

Nevertheless, "someone needs to try patriotism soon," argues Noah Smith, who is "on the progressive side of things myself."

But Democrats are associated with tolerance of racial and sexual minorities, immigrants, and (somewhat less) the underprivileged. They are not associated with nationalistic fervor, which Americans often misinterpret as patriotism. If a "patriotism first" Democratic Party arose, voters probably would not recognize and acknowledge it, let alone find it authentic.

 

Share |

Schiff May Be On To Something

In his opening statement yesterday as chairperson of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff (D-Ca.) noted the greed, corruption, and dishonesty which the Special Counsel uncovered in the Trump Administration. However, he emphasized a different problem when he told Robert Mueller

Your investigation determined that the Trump campaign, including Donald Trump himself, knew that a foreign power was intervening in our election and welcomed it, built Russian meddling into their strategy and used it.

Disloyalty to country. Those are strong words, but how else are we to describe a presidential campaign which did not inform the authorities of a foreign offer of dirt on their opponent, which did not publicly shun it or turn it away, but which instead invited it, encouraged it and made full use of it?

That disloyalty may not have been criminal. Constrained by uncooperative witnesses, the destruction of documents and the use of encrypted communications, your team was not able to establish each of the elements of the crime of conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt, so not a provable crime in any event.

But I think maybe something worse: The crime is the violation of law written by Congress. But disloyalty to country violates the very oath of citizenship, our devotion to a core principle on which our nation was founded that we, the people and not some foreign power that wishes us ill, we decide who governs us.

Charlie Pierce noted "Schiff's argument about disloyalty is what established the mood." Pierce maintained

Instead of Gohmert's bellowing that Mueller's investigation was "un-American," we had the Democratic members of the committee explaining the actual un-Americanism of allowing foreign ratfckers to help pick a president. And, if there was a moment that drove this all the way home, it came when Mueller told the committee that foreign ratfcking was not merely something out of recent history.

And why not? It worked the first time and six weeks ago

During an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, Trump was asked whether his campaign would accept information from foreign governments in this upcoming election or turn it over to the FBI.

"I think maybe you do both," Trump said, adding that if Norway had information on an opponent, he thinks he would want to hear it. "I think you might want to listen, there's nothing wrong with listening."

When asked whether he would want that type of interference in the 2020 election, Trump said: "It's not an interference."

"They have information. I think I'd take it," Trump continued. "If I thought there was something wrong, I'd go maybe to the FBI."

That's "maybe" as in "if it will benefit me financially." 

President Trump will try to paint this election as his kind of people against the Democratic kind, "us" vs. "them," patriots vs. traitors, the latter as he has tried to portray Representatives Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Tlaib, and Omar. 

Democrats can embrace being the party of openness, diversity, and inclusiveness, as those four congresswomen represent. But they already are largely perceived as that. And give voters the choice being a party which has embraced those values and one which has embraced the flag.... we don't want to  know the outcome.

Fortunately (though unfortunately because he actually is the President), Donald Trump has given Democrats an opening, one wide enough march an army through, one implied by chairperson Schiff. Donald Trump is disloyal- and barely tries to hide it.  He is disloyal, unpatriotic, and flat-out does not like this country. 

Embrace that, Democrats.  Put the President on the defensive about loyalty to the country. It's not enough to point out that Trump committed obstruction of justice, which is an abstraction to most people. Few voters are going to rush out to vote against someone because they've been convinced he has committed a crime they may suspect (inaccurately) other politicians have committed.

This is not John McCain, George Herbert Walker Bush, or even George W. Bush the Democratic Party is running against. It is Donald J. Trump, who a while back sold out this nation to the highest bidder.  A Garry Trudeau character knows what to call him. Try it.

Share |

Avoiding The Bait

I'm going to take Jeffrey Lurie's advice.

pic.twitter.com/2HUoFhVc33

— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) June 5, 2018

To be sure, the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles should have (as Dave Zangaro of NBC Sports Philadelphia pointed out) issued a statement which would have argued the Eagles' players "are true patriots." While noting the team is "disappointed some chose to hijack the spotlight," he could have emphasized added that the players "have so much respect for our nation they have used their celebrity and platform to fight for important causes, like social and racial injustice, poverty and educational inequality." 

By contrast, Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News columnist Mike Sielski argued the organization "did the right thing by sending out that milquetoast quote from owner Jeffrey Lurie and not commenting further, by declining to have Trump bait them into a longer war of words, by ignoring the whole thing, because the whole thing was relatively harmless..."

On the same day Sielski wrote, Ken Belson of The New York Times described the October, 2017 meeting in which NFL commissioner Roger Goodell discussed with team owners the league's possible response to criticism by the President of owners for not having "fired" protesting players.  Belson explained

Jeffrey Lurie, owner of the Eagles, took a different view. Don’t pander to the president, he said, by clamping down on the players. Work with the players and tune out the noise. The president will do what he does regardless.

“We’ve got to be careful not to be baited by Trump or whomever else,” he said at the meeting. “We have to find a way to not be divided and not get baited.”

Most of the owners took the bait anyway.

And so, I will not take the bait. 

The President of the United States of America on Tuesday was viewed- as he undoubtedly knew he would be- evidently failing to remember the words of "God Bless America."

Arguably, Trump should have recalled the lyrics. Inarguably, any normal human being who doesn't know all the words, realizing the camera would lock in on him, would have taken the 2-3 minutes beforehand to memorize them.

And now you're thinking: but Donald J. Trump is not a normal human being. That, too, is inarguably true; but as a first-term President, he wants to curry favor with the public, at least his base, which at least pretends it is patriotic.

Yet, there were words Trump failed to sing or mouth .Had he respectfully stood at attention or stood with his hand (insincerely) over his heart, it would not be so clear that he did not know the words. Instead, he evidently sang a few words and then made it clear that he did not know the rest.

Or did he? Donald Trump has been- and continues to be- an actor, one who significantly in fame by pretending on The Apprentice to be a tough guy who could fire individuals willy-nilly. Nonetheless, he did not pretend to know the words, which he could have done by simply standing with solemnity and dignity as the US Marine Band and Army Chorus eloquently sang.

The three possible explanations are that Trump: a) thought he knew the words and discovered too late that he didn't; b) reprising his campaign strategy of demonstrating he has only contempt for Christianity, was trying to send the same message about the country; or c) recognizing the power of social media, realized his failure to remember the words of an oft-sung patriotic tune would become the next day's hit on Twitter and elsewhere.

Option (a) is incomprehensible because no one is that stupid. Option (b) probably played a role as Trump continues trolling the American public, wondering when it will recognize him as a fake, a phony, and fraud. (He'd still be President and would still stand a chance at re-election.)

But I'm guessing option (c) is most valid.  Today (Wednesday) the video is being played over and over, with Trump as usual being the main attraction, as he must be. Further, he is surrounded by heart-warming symbols, the American flag and the Marine Band, the latter giving a stirring rendition of the patriotic and faith-based God Bless America while, as always, impressively standing at attention.

And have I mentioned how great the weather looked? As portrayed, the scene is a winner, and President Trump is in it, which likely delights him further. 

Jeffrey Lurie is concerned about individuals being baited by the President and therefore I will not add the obvious video to this post which, admittedly, will not be seen by Donald Trump, Colin Kaepernick, or the Eagles' Malcolm Jenkins.   However, the song below, which the latter two might appreciate, surely would thoroughly annoy the President, in either depiction.

Share |