Winter, Weather & Warnings

The weather has been dismal today, gray, rainy, dank, and dreary. Despite the Holiday lights and busy shoppers, this day’s message is not communicating Greetings of the Season. I watched a bit of news this week and heard lots of warnings about the former president making noise about what he might do should they re-elect him. Some say that, unlike Taylor Swift (Time’s Person of the Year) and her Eras Tour, if DJT gets re-elected, he will unfurl his Revenge Tour. The minions who would destroy the Civil Service are already flexing their muscles and readying their loyalty tests. Even Nikki Haley is jumping on board, claiming that no government job should last over five years. Has this woman never heard of institutional knowledge, scientific research, or the wisdom that comes from years of experience? Can you imagine what might happen if Ford operated its business with no understanding of models that were tried before and failed? Perhaps the Edsel comes to mind?

Even though people consider winter to be the cruel season, it still holds possibilities. If these dreary raindrops turn into snow, then the world seems new, sparkling, and fresh again. So, what can we do to turn this situation around? Okay, we cannot make it snow, but we can work to change attitudes, by not repeating the lies and negativity being described in right-wing media and on the trail with the Republican candidates. Each of us can call out what we see as un-American and not reflective of our values and position in the world as a multiethnic, diverse society where we believe each person has value. We can speak up when we hear racist or hateful comments. It is important to remind others that freedom of religion is in our Constitution, and Christian Nationalism is not. We are a nation of many religious communities and even those who are not religious can and should live together with respect. Remember these points and speak up. This is how we fight back, not with confrontations, but with actions and words. Isn’t this what the holiday season tries to teach?

I advise everyone reading this page today to also read an important opinion piece that recently appeared in the Washington Post by Robert Kagan “How to Stop the Trump Dictatorship”

I’ll review a bit about two candidates below since it is one month until the Iowa caucuses.

Current polls show DJT leads with 50%. That sorta says it all. His voters, his fanatics, will turn out. I can only hope that Independents, who did not break for him last time, will do so again.

Look at Ron DeSantis, today his campaign is going nowhere. A year ago, he was riding high in the polls, his PAC was well-funded, and he seemed to be in his groove. In Florida, he made moves such as threatening Disney, restructuring a progressive college, packing school boards with his candidates, challenging AP Black studies, and supporting moves against gays and trans people. He was determined to out-Maga the Maga devotees, to claim that nobody in the race could be more conservative than he.

That is where he lost his way. The Republican Party, if it exists as a true entity, no longer reflects those values. Well, I guess there are still fragments of the storied Country Club Republicans, those who had tea with Patricia Nixon during the 1950s, the suburban wives who stuffed envelopes and said We Like Ike. But, if one follows the rhetoric being broadcast these days, conservatism is out, and extremism is in. The former president is on the campaign trail throwing out verbal bombs that sound a lot like authoritarianism, or maybe fascism-lite. He seems more eager to shock than convince.

No one knows whether he is being provocative, a la Steve Bannon, or if he really means what he says. However, voters who are not fanatics, would do well to investigate his words as he quotes Nazi catchphrases, repeats his anti-immigrant rhetoric from 2016, and panders to the Christian Nationalists movements. He recently informed an interviewer that he would be a “dictator”, but only on “Day One!” He said that he would close the border and drill, baby, drill!

Remember when, right after the inauguration in 2016, he instituted the Muslim ban? It stranded families on separate continents. College students could not get back from their winter break, and foreign workers with special visas could not appear for their jobs. Chaos resulted on multiple fronts. Courts, lawyers, and regular people all stepped up to stop this.

Many pundits claim that actions such as these are again being contemplated, but now that he has learned what can work, and who can make change happen, he will double down on these excesses. When someone claims, “I was only joking,” there is often some truth concealed within that statement. Look at the people surrounding him, the Heritage Foundation, Stephen Miller (of immigrant cage and family separations infamy), and others of his ilk who are already preparing to stop immigration as we now know it, destroy the Civil Service System, gut the Justice Department and control the Military.

The Court System is standing as perhaps the last bulwark against his proposed machinations. With his appointments of federal judges such as Eileen Cannon and that Amarillo, Texas zealot, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, we see what can happen with ill-qualified appointees with agendas. Who knows how many more are out there lurking and considering their loyalties to DJT more important than their sworn oaths to uphold the Constitution?

The rains today are not washing away the rhetoric, not diluting the hateful speeches. Sadly, at least, for today, there will be no snow to cover this madness; it is now up to us to be proactive.

“Til next week-Peace!