With Joe Biden trailing in the polls against the major GOP challengers, exactly what are those challengers offering? Under indictment for hush money payments, his corporate holdings having already produced a criminal conviction of his CFO for falsified tax filings (also the subject of NY state civil litigation, adding many in his family as defendants), having a judicial verdict designating him as a sexual assailant and under serious investigation for possible Georgia and federal crimes varying from obstruction of justice, sedition and election fraud to illegally holding classified documents, Donald John Trump is raising campaign financing at record levels. His rabid followers, probably at least 30 million, believe that all of this is part of a deep state conspiracy of falsehoods against their legitimately elected president.
The other major (undeclared) GOP presidential candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has taken his personal vendetta against Disney World through his controlled legislature to slam the Mouse House for defending its employees against “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, is watching teachers and professors resign in droves as his “cultural revolution”…. ooops that was China’s Mao… I mean “culture war”… against “woke” (still an undefined term that seems to delight White supremacists) liberals… decimates accurate historical school texts and lesson plans. I might add that DeSantis’ campaign coffers are also brimming with cash.
Both these GOP candidates are pledging retribution against those who have disagreed with them. They both pledge top line economic goals without a scintilla of exactly what their plan is to achieve them. As Trump rails against high interest, he seems to forget that he was the first president to appoint Fed Chair Jerome Powell, the man who has led the interest rate rise. Trump’s strategy, as evidenced in his May 10th New Hampshire GOP Town Hall, televised on CNN (pictured with host Kaitlin Collins above), is mired in the past – still claiming without any proof that he won the 2020 “stolen” presidential election and glorifying his presidential tenure, taking credit for successes that he clearly did not architect.
“Trump similarly made false and unsubstantiated claims about the violence on January 6, 2021, the economy and his handling of records after leaving the White House. It was his first appearance on CNN since 2016, but analysts say it was also a display that his combativeness, election denialism and untamed fury remain much the same since his time in office.” CNN, May 11th, RSS News Feed. Emphasizing his plan to inflict “retribution” and decimate the “deep state” federal bureaucracy of “out-of-touch” elites, Trump’s overall vectors suggest that anyone outside his MAGA extremism would find themselves without a voice in his vision of America.
Indeed, as DeSantis tells the world his vision for America would remake the entire country into what DeSantis has created in Florida, where his hold over the state legislature and his state administrative agencies is in his strangling iron grip. While challenges against his censorship and heavy-handed legislation against most anything he disagrees with are wending their way through the courts, his rules are still being enforced. For example, textbook censorship:
“Florida has rejected dozens of social studies textbooks in K-12 schools that mention social justice, taking a knee and other content of ‘concern.’ Several book publishers recently submitted materials to the state's Department of Education, but nearly 35% were rejected due to ‘inaccurate material, errors and other information that was not aligned with Florida Law,’ the department said this week, citing the state's ‘rigorous standards.’ The move by the Florida Department of Education comes as Republican lawmakers, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, have made widespread efforts to restrict how racism and history are taught in schools. It also comes amid a contentious national debate on the issue.” CNN. White Christian nationalists are cheering. Truth and social justice have left the building.
As Trump bragged about how his Supreme Court appointments have taken away the rights of liberals literally to kill babies right up to the moment of birth (an amazing falsehood). Ron DeSantis was so fearful of his voter’s backlash that, unlike his normal grandstanding with cameras everywhere on his anti-“woke” legislation (pictured above), he signed Florida’s highly restrictive anti-abortion statute alone in his office late at night.
Despite the videos conclusively proving otherwise, the official GOP position on the January 6, 2021, that the individuals who openly invaded the Capitol and attacked the police on station, were nothing more than “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” For those convicted of misdemeanors and felonies resulting from that event, they are being assured by Mr Trump that most if not all of them will be pardoned if he is reelected President.
What is making Democrat’s wince even more is that polls are showing that while Americans are wanting to look forwards and stop harping on the past, those same polls blame Democrats and Republicans equally for what’s wrong with America and for the inability to get the federal debt ceiling approved. No party has ever failed to approve the debt ceiling limit, even while the opposition party controlled the presidency… But with one Dem in the mix (Joe “I’m a Dem running for my life in a very red state” Manchin), so far, the blockage of that debt ceiling is all GOP. Should that debt ceiling not be raised, the US economy would be plunged into chaos… and there would probably be permanent damage. Since Congress approved all the expenditures that pushed the debt ceiling to where it is, this gridlock is simply a desire not to pay our approved legal obligations when due.
In the end, both of the front-runners for the GOP nomination are following the playbook of every autocrat who has ever sought or held strongman power, starting with the most basic premise: there is “right thinking” that must govern all… and those who do not tow that “right thinking” paradigm must be marginalized, subjugated and punished. Exactly where are the John McCain Republicans these days? Clearly not in elected federal office or among the GOP frontrunners for the highest office in the land.
I’m Peter Dekom, and all you have to do is listen to either of these proselytizing GOP frontrunners to know that democracy just might be forced to leaving our American building, forever.
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