Boys in Waiting

As the former president continues to fret and fume, trying to stir up his decreasing but still rabid followers, there are many “wanna bes” waiting in the wings. Each of these characters is vying for the crown prince title, but sadly are stumbling around so much that no one really wears the mantle of the next in line to the MAGA throne. In reality, one seems worse than the next if you really look closely at their words and actions. At the top of the heap, one would find Governors Abbott of Texas and DeSantis of Florida. DeSantis has the edge because he is not up for re-election this year and Abbott is. Then one finds Senator Cruz, a poor example of a Senator (remember his trip to Cancun during the ice storm?) and one who tried to make his mark in the hearings for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Jackson as did Senator Josh (see Josh run) Hawley, who went on and on about sex offenders. (In an egregious attempt at scoring press coverage, Senator Cruz recently mused at an event about whether Senator Elizabeth Warren had male genitalia! Poor taste indeed! Picking on women again, Ted?)

Senator Tom Cotton tried to stand out by speaking out against the 1619 project and the concept of enslaving people. Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Senator Rick Scott of Florida is floating the idea of making Medicare and Social Security subject to a renewal vote every five years. He defended this move by falsely claiming that Medicare will go bankrupt in four years, a claim debunked by Factcheck.org. He has also proposed increasing taxes on low-income Americans under the premise that all Americans need to pay taxes. Tell that to the corporations, Senator Scott. (This is from a multi-millionaire who made many of his millions by cheating on Hospital Corporation Medicare claims.)

Abbott has come increasingly under fire from the parents of the students killed in the Uvalde school massacre. First, his authorities made untrue statements about the incident, then tried to hide the truth from the families involved. Later, when it became known that scores of armed officials waited in the corridors of that school even as children were dying, the families accused his administration and others of cover-ups. Their pleas for him to enact a ban on semi-automatic rifle purchases for those under 21 fell on deaf ears even as Texas hosted the NRA convention and his administration promoted no license open-carry for weapons.

And, not the least of his transgressions was the enactment of the 6-week pregnancy restriction on abortion for Texas residents using a bizarre law that promoted vigilantism, frightened medical providers, and terrified women. Enacted before the Dobbs’ decision by the Supreme Court, the same court upheld this provision. Abbott is being challenged by Democrat Beto O’Rourke, a former Congressman, who almost took down Ted Cruz in this red state a few years ago, then ran for president in a principled, but not successful, campaign in 2020. Now is the time for Abbott to be beaten, I think. Will it happen in this super-red state? One can dream.

But probably the worst examples of the unprincipled posturing common to this group are the promotion of Christian Nationalism and pandering to the fundamentalist right wing of the Republican Party. He has referred to Democrats as devils and condemned the “wokeness of the left”. (The Cambridge online dictionary defines wokeness: as “a state of being aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality:”) Despite not having the authority to do so, he fired a duly elected states’ attorney who had criticized his moves. That attorney is now suing him. His state had high numbers of COVID cases since he refused to promote vaccines or mask mandates and even punished counties where schools kept the mandates. He threatened cruise lines and even Disney World because it criticized his proclamations against gays and promotion of the so-called “don’t say gay” law; teachers could not address LGBTQIA issues lest they be accused of “grooming”. DeSantis supported aberrant school boards that spoke out against critical race theory and ones that banned books and came up with his own list. He has created a culture of fear among educators in his state and promoted a curriculum that denies separation of church and state and promotes constitutional “originalism”.

Additionally, he even supported banning the Diary of Anne Frank, but backed down when he received significant pushback. While Florida has a significant Jewish population of about 4.6 percent, making it the fourth most populous U.S. state concentration of Jewish residents, it is not significant considering the total population of 21, 538,187 according to the 2020 census. 21% of the population is over 63 years old, while overall the racial breakdown is 52.7% white, 17% black, and 26% Hispanic or Latino, with mixed race or others making up the rest. He has done most of this in the three years he has been governor because he has a compliant legislature. Recently, he has been restricting press coverage of his events. Does this sound like America to you?

The punditry seems to think that while DeSantis is a MAGA follower; he is trying to differentiate himself as DJT goes further off the rails after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. This weekend he was stumping for the floundering MAGA-endorsed candidates in Ohio, (J.D. Vance), and in Pennsylvania (Mastriano) and trying to gain some national exposure for himself. In PA he supported Mastriano’s support of Christian Nationalism and railed against schools that were indoctrinating children, supporting “woke ideology” and addressing questions of gender identity.

These candidates, such as DeSantis, are finding audiences who listen and may or may not agree with what they are hearing. But I believe that this is so foreign to the mainstream that most do not understand how to respond to it. However, if America does not wake up, we will not have a democracy but will be subjected to the overreach of despots who will accept no rebuttals or questions in their quest for authoritarianism.

The Washington Post reporter, Issac Arnsdorf, compiled a list of proposals compiled recently from speeches by our former president that outline steps he will take “when re-elected”. They seem more appropriate to the world of Viktor Orban than to our country. I have summarized them below with his justifications and my comments:

1.    Execute drug dealers (his administration executed 6 people after he lost the election-here - no distinction between neighbor-to-neighbor sales or drug cartels?).

2.    Move homeless people to outlying tent cities (to reclaim our cities-breaks all kinds of laws).

3.    Deploy federal force against crime, unrest, and protests (he tried to use military forces when he was president, and wanted to nationalize the use of the National Guard, but was rebuffed by the Pentagon).

4.    Strip Federal workers of Civil Service protections (he actually put his Schedule F in place before the election and would have started this separate track, but he was defeated and President Biden overturned his actions). Claims this is part of ‘draining the swamp’.

5.    Eliminate the Education Department (issues such as CRT {which is untrue,} gender identity, etc., and prohibit teaching of ‘inappropriate’ racial, sexual and political material). Conservatives such as Betsy DeVos (a former DOE cabinet secretary) and Rick Perry have both supported this-although Perry forgot for a while!

6.    Restrict voting to a single day and require paper ballots (an impossible task to realize with over 160 million or more voters but borne out of his grievances at losing in 2020 and distrusting mail-in votes and voting machines).

Once again, I ask-is this the America you want?

Polls recently show that Democrats are favored more than earlier now that some significant legislation has passed, gas prices are coming down, inflation is no longer rising and President Biden’s numbers are moving up. We shall see. Even Mitch McConnell is no longer sure of claiming the Senate for Republicans. He sorta mumbled something about the quality of the candidates. Currently, Republicans Vance in Ohio, Oz in Pennsylvania, and Walker in Georgia are running behind their Democratic opponents. But there are 78 days until the election. Who knows what October surprises are ahead? Republicans currently hold two of those seats and a change could be huge, as it would no longer mean a 50-50 Senate. Democrats would have more committee controls and McConnell would be a full minority leader.

As the drama about the FBI seizure of incorrectly held documents at Mar-a Lago continues, the court hearings on what portions of the warrant can be released, threats on Federal offices continue, whipped up by the out of-control-former president who is now claiming that an “out-of-control, politically, motivated FBI can come after you next.” There are reports that these rants are bringing in a million dollars a day to his unrestricted fund. Others on the right are screaming out against the 87,000 IRS agents authorized in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Meanwhile, some interesting notes in a New York Times special editorial today. The editors write about political courage being in short supply in America today and lament those legislators who voted for impeachment, that are now being defeated. They single out two courageous women who faced primaries this week. Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Liz Cheney. Murkowski advance, Chaney did not. She has been an obvious leader in the January 6^th investigations and does not apologize for her stated mission of keeping the former president forever out of office. Murkowski voted for the second presidential impeachment and for the confirmation of Judge Jackson. Her primary win was helped by the priority voting system Alaska uses. As the Times notes:

“While Ms. Cheney voted in line with Mr. Trump nearly 93 percent of the time, her commitment is to the rule of law, and her resolve to put country above party is clearly more important to her than blind loyalty. History will remember Ms. Cheney for her principles just as it will Mr. Trump for his lack of them.” And–“Ms. Cheney is not sounding any regrets. “If the cost of standing up for the Constitution is losing the House seat,” she recently told The Times, “then that’s a price I’m willing to pay.” Democracy needs more profiles in courage like that.”

While I would never vote for Liz Cheney, I certainly applaud her principled stance. I hope she can build a robust second party so that we can escape the MAGA cultism and return us to an America that appreciates differences of many types and shuns authoritarianism and religious nationalism.

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On a fresh note, the Washington Commanders football team, aka WFT, has now played and lost two pre-season games. Guess the team needs more than a name change; or am I a “Dooley doubter” too soon?

“Til next week-Peace!