Our intrepid geniuses are hard at work devising a plan to keep us safe in this dangerous world. If it weren’t for these deep thinkers, we wouldn’t stand a chance. Let’s all celebrate the fact that we’re lucky enough to have such amazing people calling the shots.
Today’s red meat loving right-wing base doesn’t mind hearing terrible things about Muslims, immigrants and anyone else they decided they don’t like. But when outrageous talk provokes outrageous action, , they won’t bother looking in the mirror or at their leaders for answers. Instead violence only provokes more violence and their leaders will be the ones clamoring to bring it to them.
Engagement has always been the way to quiet the angry rumblings of international animosity. Winning hearts and minds was never accomplished through violence. But most in the grassroots right-wing conservative movement don’t even know the difference between Sikhs and Muslims and often mistake them for one another. How can they be expected to vote for leaders who claim to understand the nuanced way to deal with a culturally different and population? They just want to vote for people who preach violence and intolerance.
The reason we have freedom of religious is not only to protect the religious group, but to prevent discord within the population in general. Antagonizing an entire group of people, especially religious fanatics, is a great way to provoke a response and we need to collectively come to that realization.
In the last decade, it seems that terror attacks just prior to elections have become all the rage. It’s almost becoming a regular expectation even when it doesn’t happen. As a population of intelligent and calm-minded people, we need to learn to expect such atrocities in today’s environment and not over-react to even the most terrible of provocations. If we can’t do that, then the bad guys win – the war mongers among us who would rather steal power through antagonistic methodologies and violence, and those who perpetrate the violence by provoking the reactions they set out to provoke.
Chris Christie accidentally misses his plane returning from a mandatory Trump rally.
The GOP rank-and-file just love to call Obama an emperor, insinuating that he’s left the constitution behind and become a lawless president. They accuse him of abusing his executive authority and label him accordingly. But President Obama has done much more to get his way than sign a few executive orders. At nearly every alpha-item turn, the President has outfoxed the entire Republican congress even after they took control of both houses in 2012.
The president has a handful of foreign policy accomplishments like the historic Iran deal, the historic Cuba re-engagement, and historic climate deals. And there’s more. The president won every shutdown or near shutdown fight over spending and the debt limit, passed him signature healthcare reform bill, and managed to preside over same-sex marriage’s court win as icing on the cake. The Republicans have been powerless to stop him, and yet have managed to become known as ‘the party of no’ even as they attempt to stifle his every initiative.
Now comes the death of Antonin Scalia, noted conservative jurist and scourge of the left, and the subsequent nomination of Merrick Garland. Almost predictably the reaction on the right was nakedly political. ‘Obama gets to name another justice, replacing a conservative?! Over my dead body!’ Many of them, even before the end of the day, had publicly come out as saying they would never confirm a justice nominated by President Obama, even though nearly a year remained before the end of his term.
Let me now take a moment to mention that Republicans have become amazing adept at these kinds of knee jerk reactions, and this is probably the most notable to date. It’s even more damazing than their last major political failure when, led by Senator Ted Cruz, they shut down the government over the federal budget in October of 2013. In this case, and in an astonishing display of political malpractice, they have tied their deliberate intransigence to an unpopular issue directly connected to the presidential election.
In picking this issue to make a stand, the Republicans have given several great political tools to their adversaries and have left themselves no way out of their own box.
First, this knee-jerk display of partisanship will be seen as obstructionism by objective people. Most people feel that this popular president has a right to select the replacement. Also, the constitution is clear on presidential and congressional responsibilities. The Republican’s primary rationale – that the American people should have their say thereby delaying consideration of a replacement – rings hollow, given that it’s only March. And those who say Obama ignores the constitution are now forced to eat their own words as they ignore their own party’s political departure from any kind of strict adherence to the letter of the law. Many will be hammered for months as hypocrites.
Secondly, vulnerable Republicans and those who aren’t plain crazy will understand that this posture of denying Garland a vote will not play well with moderate voters. The President’s approval rating is high right now, and varound surveys reportedly agree with the President that the nominee should be considered by congress and given a vote. These Republicans will put pressure on their own party to move past the issue, and in so doing, squeeze Mitch McConnell between their own vulnerable candidates and their immovable base.
Finally, this issue isn’t going away and is tied existentially to the election. This means that voters will, in part, make decisions based on the optics associated with this event. Democrats will no doubt work tirelessly to keep this partisan blockade of this nomination on the minds of voters right up until election day. The Republicans are acting unfairly and Some voters will probably punish them for it.
So Republicans, led by Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell, have once again built themselves a nice box to sit in. If they hold firm on their position not to grant a vote to the nominee, they will suffer repeated attacks all the way through election day. On the other hand, if they relent, they will be seen as weak and ineffective by their unrelentingly extreme voter base. They really have nowhere to go on this issue.
Recently our intrepid hero was quoted saying, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain”.
For months now people on both sides of the political spectrum have been handwringing about how to beat Donald, or whether he might beat himself. The Republicans will be the first to fall by virtue of the fact that they meet Donald head-on in primary season but make no mistake – the Democrats will have to face him soon enough.
To just about everyone in the media, the circus turned serious contender has been nothing short of a jaw gaping mystery. You mean a total outsider with a loud mouth and ridiculous policy positions hasn’t been laughed out of the race? What about Michelle Bachmann, Todd Akin and Sarah Palin? That’s what’s supposed to happen to these kinds of people!
But lo, Trump has managed to elude the grip of death that has doomed so many before him leaving the media in their collective confusion to wonder about their own relevancy in this new, bizarre world. How does this end? And if I can’t predict the future with any reasonable degree of accuracy on this roller coaster, what good am I to anyone as a pundit?
But there is a simple answer, and that answer is to ignore the 3 Bs (bullying, bloviating and bombast) and forcefully return the conversation to one focused exclusively on policy. Donald can be beaten on policy, but if he’s allowed to run his entire campaign using the 3 Bs, he’ll control the news and the election.
Imagine for a moment a match-up in a general election between President Obama and Donald Trump. How would President Obama handle Trump and his 3 Bs? Obama wouldn’t get caught up in Donald’s web of nonsense. He would stick to the policy discussion, ignore personal attacks, and beat Trump by discussing his positions. The problem we’ve had this election cycle is that Trump has figured out that if he talks about waterboarding, carpet bombing, Losers and Megyn Kelly, he doesn’t have to talk about healthcare, minimum wage, gay marriage, or how he’s really going to handle Putin in the Ukraine, or North Korea, or Iran. Pulling back the curtain is the way to expose Trump to the middle of the road voters who decide every election.
At the end of the day, Trump is a showman who has relied on smoke and mirrors to drown out his competition. But his co-campaigners have also allowed Trump to control the dialog, flailing away with various tactics in their attempts to dodge the steam roller. Cruz tried by killing Trump with kindness – at least at first. But you can’t win playing a willing second fiddle. Bush tried feebly to stand up to the campus bully with predicable results. He was verbally wedgied out of the race. Rubio is finally putting up a stronger fight, but even if it wasn’t too little too late, it wouldn’t work anyway. You can’t out-3B Donald Trump. You simply need to change the rules back to the default. Get campaigns talking about campaign issues, and not Donald’s latest foray into his beloved mine field of taboos.
But Trump has used the Bs to great advantage and obscured from the public his lack of policy sophistication as his Achilles heel.
Recently Donald mentioned that he’s a fan of Planned Parenthood. This is policy kryptonite that not even Donald can overcome with some of his prospective supporters. If Hillary can find enough policy positions that are untenable to his RINO hating base, he’ll prove himself the closet liberal they are all afraid of, and he’ll lose vital support. Policy, and nothing else will sleigh this dragon, but we need to steer the conversation back from the brink of darkness. If Donald continues to be allowed to control the news cycle with the 3 Bs, he’ll control the election.
I finally had a chance to see the video where Christy was told over a hot mic to go home by Donald Trump. The link is below.
This clip is great for 500 reasons but most importantly, it shows Donald Trump for who he really is. A guy who doesn’t want to share the spotlight, even for a moment. A rude man who treats his people like errand boys. And a man used to having people say yes, no matter what.
Donald Trump is a showman, and he’s putting on a show for people. Christy was nothing more than a prop who made a terrible, horrible, life changing mistake by selling his soul to the Donvil.
Goodbye sweet Christy. You’ve been sent home.