I say, do us all a favor… “Eat up!”

Other than one too many McDonald’s Big Mac Meals, I’m wondering what will finally put a stop to Trump’s negative political influence?

Barring his bad eating habits, or being sent off to prison (not gonna happen for many reasons), I believe the only other thing that will finally get rid of him is a landslide victory for the Democrats in 2022, followed up by another landslide in 2024 (granted, tough to do with all the latest voter suppression laws being enacted). 

Until Trump is a “losing” influence, he, like the Energizer Bunny, will keep going and going, keep getting more national media attention, and keep disrupting any kind of possible compromise between the two major political parties.

So, what do you think is the magic bullet (no pun intended 😉) to get rid of the current Trumpian influence?  I can’t think of anything else that will do it.  Can you?

Thanks for posting and recommending.

What rank and file Republicans are thinking

An intense personal interest is in observing how the human mind sees and thinks about reality, especially reality related to politics. By now, it is clear from cognitive and social science that the human mind is an amazingly fast and effective reality-distorting machine. Humans can make all kinds of stuff up on the fly and not even know it. Most don't have an even a tiny inkling of what their minds are doing. The human mind evolved to make us as psychologically comfortable as possible by simplifying the world and justifying the beliefs and behaviors of self and tribe.

Attendees at the “Festival of Truth” listened to speakers spout 

election and coronavirus conspiracy theories in Vermontville, Mich.

Along these lines, a New York Times article today, In Michigan, Pro-Impeachment Republicans Face Voters’ Wrath, discusses what is going on in rank and file Republican minds. It is a reason and reality-detached festival of fearful and angry fantasy wrapped in a comforting “illusion of truth.” At the least, it looks like there is going to be some more RINO hunting in the FGOP (fascist GOP) pretty soon. The NYT writes:

Representative Peter Meijer, a Republican who voted to impeach Donald J. Trump, seeks “decency and humility” in Western Michigan, but has found anger, fear and misinformation.

“Sometimes when you’re surrounded by cacophony, it helps to have someone sitting there who isn’t adding another screaming voice onto the pile,” Mr. Meijer added.

Six months after the Capitol attack and 53 miles southeast of Grand Rapids, on John Parish’s farm in the hamlet of Vermontville, Mr. Meijer’s problems sat on folding chairs on the Fourth of July. They ate hot dogs, listened to bellicose speakers and espoused their own beliefs that reflected how, even at age 33, Mr. Meijer may represent the Republican Party’s past more than its future.

The stars of the “Festival of Truth” on Sunday were adding their screaming voices onto the pile, and the 100 or so West Michiganders in the audience were enthusiastically soaking it up. Many of them inhabited an alternative reality in which Mr. Trump was re-elected, their votes were stolen, the deadly Jan. 6 mob was peaceful, coronavirus vaccines were dangerous and conservatives were oppressed.

“God is forgiving, and — I don’t know — we’re forgiving people,” Geri Nichols, 79, of nearby Hastings, said as she spoke of her disappointment in Mr. Meijer. “But he did wrong. He didn’t support our president like he should have.”

Under an unseasonably warm sun, her boyfriend, Gary Munson, 80, shook his head, agreeing: “He doesn’t appear to be what he says he is.”

Well, there you have it. God is forgiving but we're gonna scorch Meijer right out of elected office because he done us and the president wrong. And, it is not just Meijer who is going to get scorched by voters. The fascist ex-president and his FGOP are fixin' to scorch all congressional Republicans who voted to impeach. 

The NYT goes on to assert that all Republicans who voted to impeach face a backlash from Republican voters. The rank and file are enraged by what they believe are multiple outrages. They include (i) an FBI that is ruthlessly hunting down the “peaceful” 1/6 coup attempters, (ii) a vicious radical liberal news media that silences conservatives, (iii) a Democratic governor who took away their livelihoods with tyrannical pandemic restrictions, and (iv) a Democratic secretary of state who stole their votes and laughs in their faces about it. The false claims the ex-president constantly spewed on the American people have well and truly “taken root with voters who now look past him,” as the NYT puts it.

In other words, if this is competent evidence of rank and file Republican reality and anger, and I believe it is, American-style fascist rot has spread from the ex-president and the FGOP leadership. The rot has now become entrenched in tens of millions of adult American minds. 

Poor Mr. Meijer confesses that he is in a pickle. He comments: “The challenge is if you believe that Nov. 3 was a landslide victory for Donald Trump that was stolen, and Jan. 6 was the day to stop that steal. I can’t come to an understanding with somebody when we’re dealing with completely separate sets of facts and realities. People are willing to kill and die over these alternative realities.” One woman told Meijer that he would soon be arrested for treason and hauled before a military tribunal, presumably to be shot.

Right, there is no basis for mutual understanding when facts, realities and reasoning are completely different. That evinces the raw power of dark free speech in real time, right now. That power can overthrow a democracy and the rule of law. 

The urgency and severity of the FGOP threat to democracy and the rule of law is about as clear as it can get without a successful coup. But, just to gently reinforce some of these unsettling thoughts, consider this from the NYT article:

Pro-Trump activist Audra Johnson is one of the challengers to 

Meijer in next year’s Republican primary 

She comments: “People are terrified. We’re heading toward a civil war, 

if we’re not already in a cold civil war.”

That irrational fear, anger and distrust is mainstream Republican reality and thinking. This is what is on the minds of most rank and file Republicans. By now, it is arguably reasonable to see most or all of these citizens as fascists who are, knowingly or not, opposed to democracy and the rule of law. Ms. Johnson is dead serious about acting on her emotions. Those emotional responses are either more reality than illusion or vice versa. 

Questions: In view of all the evidence now in the public record, e.g., a massive FGOP nationwide voter suppression effort, is it now reasonable to see most or all rank and file Republicans as more fascist and rule of demagogue-dictator driven than democratic and rule of law driven? 

If not, why not? What else would be needed to constitute an American fascism, e.g., an actual, large scale shooting civil war with blood flowing in the streets? An actual overthrow of the government and its replacement with a single party (the FGOP) and an above the law demagogic dictator as supreme ruler? 

Or, are rank and file Republican fears justified by the horrors of the Democratic Party and its evil critical race theory, its openness to minority participation in government and its other anti-Christian and/or pro-tyranny beliefs and behaviors? Who are the tyrant wannabes here, dems, repubs, both or neither, and how do you define tyranny?

THE PEOPLE'S PARTY

 Ok, gonna preface the following by saying - who the hell came up with the bright idea to call a potential new party in the U.S. "The People's Party?"

While well intentioned, maybe, the name alone will invoke images of Communism. 

AND I thought we had alternative parties already, like the Green Party, at least their title doesn't invoke images of Communism.

BUT HEY - for those who are curious:

https://peoplesparty.org/

THE PEOPLE’S PARTY: Our vision is a major new progressive populist party that will deliver what regular people take for granted in so many other countries: single-payer health care, free public college, money out of politics, an infrastructure jobs program, a $15 minimum wage, financial regulations, and more.

We need actual representation in our government. A majority of people in the US don’t feel represented by either the Democratic or Republican parties. We’ve watched these parties turn their backs on us to answer every call of the billionaires and donors. Overwhelming numbers of Americans understand these parties cannot be salvaged. Polls show that almost two out of three Americans are now calling for a major new party. It’s time to build the party we’re looking for — one that brings us all together.

WELL FOLKS, WHATCHA THINK?

They could have picked a better name?

Sounds too far left?

Who should lead their cause? I vote AOC.

Would you vote for such a party?

AND FOR ME: Will they end up dividing the left and make it even easier for Republicans to keep winning elections?

Republican hostility to government and democracy intensifies

The fascist Republican Party hates any government function that does not protect rich people and powerful special interests. They want to get rid of most or all of public schools, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, the Departments of Education, Energy, Environment, Housing and Transportation, and etc. The powerful Republican Christian nationalist movement very much wants to see heterosexual White people at the center of and dominating federal, state and local governments, commerce, society and whatever else there is. The fascist Republican Party also hates and wants to eliminate democracy, the rule of law (except laws that protect them and their friends), labor unions and civil liberties.

The fascist Republican Party also hates, hates, hates the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), the accounts receivable department of the federal government. Fascist Republican anti-IRS hate is now crystallizing into opposition in congress. The Washington Post writes in an article, Conservative groups mount opposition to increase in IRS budget, threatening White House infrastructure plan:

Conservative political groups are mobilizing against a key element of a bipartisan infrastructure deal, and their opposition could make it harder for the U.S. government to collect unpaid taxes.

Congressional Democrats and Republicans have agreed to increase funding for the Internal Revenue Service so that the agency can bring in more tax revenue, hoping the money can help pay down some of the infrastructure package’s expected price tag. The early contours of the infrastructure blueprint have won the White House’s support, but the IRS provision in particular is drawing opposition from well-funded conservative groups, which are strongly opposed to expanding the reach of a tax-collection agency that they long have alleged is politically motivated.

Among the conservative groups spearheading the opposition are the Committee to Unleash Prosperity (~the Trickle Up Committee), FreedomWorks (~the Tyranny Fascist  Movement), the Conservative Action Project (~the Raging Ideologue & Conspiracy Cult), and the Leadership Institute (~the Fascist Indoctrination and Tax Evasion Promotion Committee). They are preparing a letter that warns Republicans should not negotiate with the White House unless they agree to “no additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service.”

The letter, obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its release, is expected to gain support from at least a dozen other conservative groups this week, with plans to send it soon to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Senate GOP leaders. 

“Republicans are going to double the IRS budget? That’s crazy. There’s very strong opposition to this,” said Stephen Moore, a former outside economic adviser to Trump who is leading the effort. An op-ed on the measure that Moore wrote with Steve Forbes also has circulated in Congressional Republican offices.

The bipartisan infrastructure deal reached last month by the White House and a group of Democratic and Republican senators proposes $40 billion for heightened IRS enforcement, with an expectation that it would result in around $140 billion in new revenue. In theory, at least, the idea has broad support among Democrats and Republicans alike, who in recent years have pointed to weaker IRS enforcement and estimates of the nation’s persistent “tax gap,” or the difference between what taxes are owed to the government and what is actually paid.  

Over the past decade, persistent budget cuts have hurt the IRS’s ability to conduct audits, including those targeting wealthy and large corporations. Tax experts have expressed alarm that the weakening of the IRS has helped fuel the increase in U.S. income inequality, in part because the rich have more tools to dodge the increasingly weak tax collection agency.

 

Why does the fascist GOP hate the IRS so much?

Because the fascist GOP hates government and democracy, both of which require money to operate, it also hates the IRS. The amount of money the IRS is losing to tax cheats each year is astonishing. Increasing the IRS budget to enforce tax law would increase tax revenue the government has to spend and decrease the tax cheat theft. Although tax evasion is a significantly bipartisan sport, a lot of tax cheats are wealthy Republicans who donate to the GOP. Their donations include a demand to keep their freedom to cheat on their taxes and not get caught. 

The latest estimate of the tax gap that I am aware of puts it at ~$1.4 trillion/year. As discussed here repeatedly, the tax gap has been huge for years, starting at least as early as 2001, when it was only ~$295 billion/year. And, as the IRS budget has been cut repeatedly by Republicans, the annual amount that tax cheats keep from paying increases. In this case, there is a good basis to argue that the low IRS budget correlation with increased tax evasion has a non-trivial amount of causation buried in it somewhere.

Question: Are average, honest tax paying Americans screwed, or should the IRS be eliminated and most or all government privatized of, by and for rich people and major special interests, which is the GOP's fondest dream?

Hint: Regular people are screwed.