OPINION: Political burnout is hurting our generation

 

Written By Julianna Rittenberg

Julianna Rittenberg is a freshman studying political science and an opinion writer for The New Political.

https://www.thenewpolitical.com/opinion/w8fn6i8ojr573o4zgvd6qgrlx1y4zx

Political burnout, or politics fatigue syndrome, has been an issue in America for years.

In 2011, former President Barack Obama remarked that people are tired of politics. In 2014, 15 of the 25 states that held primaries reported record low turnout. This flipped during the 2020 election, when there was record high voter turnout because people were outraged by Donald Trump’s presidency and therefore paying attention. Those in the field of politics are anxiously awaiting to see if 2022 will have a drop in turnout. (Clearly this OP is a bit dated, BUT is it still relevant?)

In 2018, a Pew Research Center study found that 68% of Americans felt worn out by the amount of news content there was and much fewer, 30%, felt that they liked the amount of news they received. When the study was reconducted in 2019, these numbers stayed roughly the same; 32% liked the amount of news while 66% felt burnt out.

Broken down by political parties, Republicans tended to feel more burnt out at 75%, and 59% of Democrats felt burnt out. Across all parties, burnout was more common in those who pay less attention to the news. 

Conservative political strategist and lobbyist Diana Banister sees four main causes of political burnout: widespread uneasiness with the government, media becoming more sensationalized and polarized, frustration with the political process, and disillusionment with politicians. 

Activists in particular feel a certain brand of political burnout. Activism work can be agonizing because so much of it is being told “no” or “not now,” working long hours and dealing with defeat after defeat. Activists are attempting to dismantle systems, and with that comes exhaustion, stress and many disappointments. As a result, roughly 50% of activists end up leaving their professions entirely. 

This is a problem. We need people to continue fighting for reforms, dismantlement and change. 

College students also deal with political burnout in a unique way. For a generation marked with rising mental health issues and the COVID-19 pandemic, changing media styles, and all of the other political issues on top of that stress, is a lot to manage and work through. 

In 2020, a study found that 75% of college students were stressed out by the election. Factors such as race, gender, class and sexual orientation also played into this. Those in minority and marginalized groups also felt more stressed out by politics because the stakes were higher. Minorities and other marginalized groups are more affected by the decisions politicians make about their lives, as they tend to target groups that are less able to defend themselves in the court system. 

For example, there are currently dozens of bills targeting transgender people across the country. Transgender people are a minority group in this country and have a harder time finding and affording a lawyer to represent them. Additionally, there is much debate over whether or not the constitution applies to their rights. 

There are systemic factors built against minorities in the political process. Black people and people of color have been barred from voting for as long as this country has existed.

Minorities’ way of life can be determined by those voted into office, people who do not believe they deserve the same rights and deny their existence. Of course this leads to higher stress and more frustration and disillusionment with our political system. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic, society has seen a positive shift towards prioritizing self-care. If self-care can invade our workplaces and continue to be prioritized by employers, then self-care and mental health may help combat political burnout.

Colleges should be doing more to help college students who are experiencing political burnout. Classes could be canceled on Election Day to make it easier for students to participate in the political process. 

Inside the classroom, particularly in politically aligned courses, professors should discuss political burnout and offer strategies to combat it. They can play an active role in prioritizing positive mental health practices. 

There is a lot of guilt that comes with experiencing political burnout. People feel the need to always pay attention, especially with the rise of social media activism. There is always something to be outraged about, fighting against and fighting for. Many of my friends and I feel guilty for taking social media breaks because we know how much is at risk.

However, not everything is on the shoulders of each individual. Taking periodic breaks from social media and the news can be healthy. Rest will allow yourself to reset; you will not make the change you are looking for if you are exhausted and burnt out. 

Activism is important. Paying attention to politics is important. Taking care of your mental health is important. These pieces fit together, and as a society, as well as college students, we need to do a better job at finding the balance — our future depends on it. 

News & science: Deepfake political non-profits; Immigration gridlock - some history

The NYT writes about some of those annoying robocalls we all get bombarded with from The people claiming to be working for American Police Officer's Alliance, the National Police Support Fund and other groups allegedly supporting firefighters and veterans: 

A group of conservative operatives using sophisticated robocalls raised millions of dollars from donors using pro-police and pro-veteran messages. But instead of using the money to promote issues and candidates, an analysis by The New York Times shows, nearly all the money went to pay the firms making the calls and the operatives themselves, highlighting a flaw in the regulation of political nonprofits. 

Amount raised and spent since 2014

The target who picks up the phone hears this sincere sounding robocall:

“This is Frank Wallace calling for the American Police Officers Alliance. Very quickly, we’re mailing out the envelopes to help fight for our officers who protect our nation’s citizens, just like yourself. Once you receive your card in the mail, you can send back whatever you think is fair this time. That’s all.”

This is not a policeman. This is not even a human. This is a computer, making thousands of robocalls with the same folksy voice.

About 90 percent of the money the groups raised was simply sent back to their fund-raising contractors, to feed a self-consuming loop where donations went to find more donors to give money to find more donors. They had no significant operations other than fund-raising, and along the way became one of America’s biggest sources of robocalls.

Killing robocalls is an issue that congress should be working on, but it can't because it is broken as intended by Republican government and regulations haters. Caveat emptor people!

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The NYT writes about why American immigration law and policy is a mess and has been for years:

For nearly a quarter century, as successive waves of migrants have tried to enter and work in the United States, presidents have appealed to Congress to address gaps in an immigration system nearly everyone agrees is broken.

Yet year after year, congressional efforts to strike a wide-ranging bipartisan deal — one that would strengthen border security measures while expanding avenues for people to immigrate to the United States in an orderly and lawful way — have fractured under the strain of political forces.

Immigration has proved to be a potent political messaging tool, particularly for Republicans, who have rallied voters behind campaigns to close the border with Mexico — and denounced anything other than stringent security proposals as amnesty. And Democrats have long resisted border security initiatives without measures to grant legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants residing in the United States and to expand immigration in the future.

While many lawmakers have tried to bridge the gap, not once in the 21st century has Congress managed to send a comprehensive immigration bill to the president’s desk.

The NYT points out that in 2006 the McCain-Kennedy bill passed the Senate, but died in the Republican House. In 2007 after congressional Republicans suffered defeats in the 2006 midterms, new Democratic majorities in the Senate and House tried to fix immigration again. The 2007 bill failed to clear procedural hurdles in the Senate in June 2007 and never received a final vote in either chamber. In December of 2010, Democratic congressional leaders held votes on the DREAM Act that provided an opportunity to gain legal status for immigrant children who grew up here and stayed out of legal trouble. Not surprisingly, Democrat-led Senate fell five votes short of breaking a filibuster blocking it from a vote. Again in 2013, the Democrats managed to get a filibuster-proof bill passed in the Senate, but House Republicans blocked it and the bill died. In 2018 another bill died in congress because Republicans and some Democrats opposed it. (the Dems opposed because of harsh measures in the bill)

So there we have it. Again and again, bigoted and racist Republican politicians refuse to reasonably compromise and that's the end of it. All we get is finger pointing and toxic dark free speech. This issue plays into the Republican hands. They demagogue the hell out if it and foment fear of the Great Replacement and rage at messes at the border. The GOP is incentivized to leave immigration a stinking mess so they can whine and complain about immigration being a stinking mess. 

Q: Should Democrats compromise by caving in to what the bigots and racists want, such as no citizenship pathway, or is that not a meaningful compromise?

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Science: Researchers have discovered that in addition to electrical imbalances across cell membranes, electrical imbalances are present in and around cell structures called biological condensates (BCs). A BC is akin to a drop of vegetable oil floating on water. BCs form spontaneously inside cells. 

Cell membranes are used maintain an electrical charge imbalance to   

drive chemical reactions -- neurons use this to communicate information

with other neurons

Science Daily writes:

The human body relies heavily on electrical charges. Lightning-like pulses of energy fly through the brain and nerves and most biological processes depend on electrical ions traveling across the membranes of each cell in our body.

These electrical signals are possible, in part, because of an imbalance in electrical charges that exists on either side of a cellular membrane. Until recently, researchers believed the membrane was an essential component to creating this imbalance. .... Like oil droplets floating in water, these structures [biological condensates] exist because of differences in density. They form compartments inside the cell without needing the physical boundary of a membrane.  

"In a prebiotic environment without enzymes to catalyze reactions, where would the energy come from?" asked Yifan Dai, a Duke postdoctoral researcher working in the laboratory of Ashutosh Chilkoti, the Alan L. Kaganov Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Lingchong You, the James L. Meriam Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering.

"This discovery provides a plausible explanation of where the reaction energy could have come from, just as the potential energy that is imparted on a point charge placed in an electric field," Dai said.  

After combining the right formula of building blocks to create minuscule condensates .... they added a dye to the system that glows in the presence of reactive oxygen species.

Their hunch was right. When the environmental conditions were right, a solid glow started from the edges of the condensates, confirming that a previously unknown phenomenon was at work. Dai next talked with Richard Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Chemistry at Stanford, whose group established the electric behavior of water droplets. Zare was excited to hear about the new behavior in biological systems, and started to work with the group on the underlying mechanism.

"Inspired by previous work on water droplets, my graduate student, Christian Chamberlayne, and I thought that the same physical principles might apply and promote redox chemistry, such as the formation of hydrogen peroxide molecules," Zare said. "These findings suggest why condensates are so important in the functioning of cells."

"Most previous work on biomolecular condensates has focused on their innards," Chilkoti said. "Yifan's discovery that biomolecular condensates appear to be universally redox-active suggests that condensates did not simply evolve to carry out specific biological functions as is commonly understood, but that they are also endowed with a critical chemical function that is essential to cells."

One of the mysteries, arguably a God of the Gaps thing, is how life could arise and evolve without cell membranes and the electrical imbalance needed to drive chemical reactions needed to create and sustain life. The energy needed to run biological chemistry requires energy. Despite lightening bolts, thermal hots springs and etc., until now there was no plausible source of that energy for life and cells to arise. 

These BCs could be the answer to the energy problem. If that turns out to be the case, this knowledge could close a major gap in our understanding of how life on Earth as we know it evolved from non-life either here on Earth or anywhere else.

Biological condensates include self-assembling structures 

called stress granules, Balbani bodies, paraspeckles, etc.

Green dots-blobs are paraspeckles in the

nucleus of a HeLa cell

From the Killing Democracy Files: The Viktor Orban redux

CONTEXT

After he was elected to power in Hungary in 2010, Viktor Orban moved quickly to kill democracy and neuter political and institutional opposition and dissent. Within a couple of years, he and his party were in firm control and voters could not dislodge them. Hungary ceased to be a democracy. A key tactic that Orban used to neuter pro-democracy government institutions was to purge the central government of competent professional bureaucrats. They were replaced by thugs chosen based on their loyalty to Orban, not their experience, competence or loyalty to democracy or the rule of law. 

I have pointed out here many times now that Republican Party elites greatly admire what Orban did to democracy and the rule of law in Hungary. Their actions are clearly aimed at doing the same to democracy and the rule of law in America. 

This 5 minute interview with Orban expert Kim Scheppele explains the American radical right's love affair with Orban.

THE AMERICAN ORBAN REDUX

Government Executive writes:

Feds Could Be Fired at Any Time for Any Reason 

Under a Bill That Was Just Reintroduced

The bill also would abolish the Merit Systems Protection Board and threatens to reduce former federal employees’ retirement benefits if they file “frivolous” appeals of adverse personnel actions

A group of 14 conservative lawmakers in both chambers of Congress last week reintroduced legislation that would make the federal government an at-will employer and abolish the Merit Systems Protection Board, effectively eviscerating federal workers’ civil service protections and chilling whistleblowing.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., are the lead sponsors of the Public Service Reform Act (H.R. 3115), which would make career federal workers at-will employees and get rid of most of the avenues currently available to appeal adverse personnel decisions. It also would abolish the MSPB and send most appeals directly to federal appellate courts, although it preserves a 14-day window for whistleblowers to allege retaliation before the Office of Special Counsel.

“It is far past time to reinstate accountability to the people for the federal bureaucracy by requiring that like any private sector employee, federal workers can be removed from their positions,” Roy said in a statement. “Notwithstanding the majority of federal workers who faithfully serve, especially our law enforcement personnel, we should not allow a wall of red tape to shield those engaged in noncompliance with the law and brazen political partisanship. Federal employees should keep their jobs based on merit, just like the people they serve.”  

The bill also allows for federal workers to appeal adverse personnel actions they believe were discriminatory to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, although the legislation requires EEOC to scrap its policies relating to the federal workforce and apply private sector rules to the proceedings.

And it creates a disincentive to federal workers filing appeals of their firings through a provision that says that if a court finds a complaint to be “frivolous” or otherwise “brought in bad faith,” the employee’s defined benefit annuity is automatically reduced by 25%.

“It’s clear that the bureaucracy of the federal government is both a waste of taxpayer dollars and inefficient,” Scott said in a statement. “Red tape and bloated federal agencies constantly slow down progress and hamper American innovation. It’s time to change Washington so it actually works for the American people. The public Service Reform Act will boost accountability and responsiveness across the federal government by making all executive branch employees at-will.”

Note the lack of good will here. Also note the hatred of the deep state that the radical right has been howling about for decades. The Republican fascist definition of a frivolous appeal is one that inconveniences their democracy and transparency killing agenda. The Republican Party clearly intends to do to American democracy the same as what Orban did to democracy in Hungary. There is no significant difference here. If the American radical right gets its way, America too will cease to be a democracy.

Commentary and a warning about the state of American politics

An opinion in The Guardian expresses grave concerns about the radicalized Republican Party and its cult leader: 

There is a clear and present danger of a new Trump presidency 

Democrats must act now to prevent it

We may come to remember this period as the interlude: the inter-Trump years. After the sigh of relief heard around the world when Donald Trump was defeated in November 2020, a grim realization should be dawning: the threat of a Trump return to the White House is growing.

His first task is to win the Republican party’s presidential nomination, but that hurdle is shrinking daily. Trump’s grip on his party remains firm, with none of his putative rivals coming close. Of course, the first round of primary voting is months away and much could change, but the shape of the race is already clear – and Trump is dominant. [cites E. Jean Carroll verdict as evidence of his unshakable political power]

That “makes me want to vote for him twice”, said Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama of the jury’s decision, articulating the view held by many millions of Republicans that this judgment – and any other legal finding against the former president – proves only that the elites are out to get him.

It means Democrats and those who wish to see Trump finished need to let go of the hope that the courts will dispatch him once and for all. .... on the current evidence, a slew of guilty verdicts would barely dent his standing with his own party. As Trump intuited back in 2016, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and Republicans would still vote for him.

Plenty of Democrats concede that Trump is likely to win his party’s nomination. Indeed, many want him to win, so sure are they that he will lose to Biden in a rematch of 2020. And he may. But that contest will be far too close for comfort, at least in the electoral college that decides the outcome. In 2020, just 44,000 votes in three states stood between a Biden victory and an electoral college tie. Now the polls look much worse for him. .... Put simply, it was a photo finish last time and Trump’s prospects are better now than then.

What would a Trump restoration entail? He himself has promised “retribution”, and those who served under him warn that a returned Trump would be less chaotic, more focused, than he was first time around.

[Attacking the courts] has become a pattern, casting the justice system as merely another theatre in the partisan culture wars. Not content with destroying Republicans’ faith in electoral democracy in order to divert attention from the fact he lost an election, Trump is now doing the same to his followers’ trust in the law, this time to distract from the fact that he is a sexual predator.

A second-term Trump would set about finishing what he started, breaking any institution that might stand in his way, whether that be the ballot box or the courts. As Senator Mitt Romney, a rare Republican voice of dissent, put it after the CNN show: “You see what you’re going to get, which is a presidency untethered to the truth and untethered to the constitutional order.”

Democrats need to snap out of the complacency brought by victory in 2020 and work as if they are in a race against the devil and lagging behind – because they are. They need to address the Biden age issue fast: several party veterans urge the president to get out more, recommending the kind of closeup encounters with the public at which he thrives. They need to sell their achievements, not least a strong record on jobs. And they have to sound the alarm every day, warning of the danger Trump poses. Because it is clear and it is present.

Is Trump really trying to attract new voters or prepare his cult for violence in 2024?

At the recent mass shooting

at the Texas mall

I see a lot of people are discussing the possibility that Trump will win the general election. However, based on his campaign so far--and in particular what we saw on CNN earlier this week-- Trump does not seem all that interested in expanding his base, or appealing to any voters that might be "sitting on the fence," if there are any such voters anymore. No, he seems squarely focused on riling up his cult, preparing them for their roles in the coming "retribution" he promised when he announced his run. 

If you cut right to the chase, Trump is running on the following message (I'll support it with quotations in a minute).

1) I am the rightful president of the USA.  This country is under "deep state" occupation with a fake president who ran, lost to me, but manipulated the system somehow and now sits in the oval office. One way or another, I will take the power back that belongs to me by right.

2) My people know that this is true and the other people that don't know that this is true are stupid. My people are also losing patience, and if you don't set things straight again and make me president somehow they will unleash violence death and destruction on the streets of our country. Don't say I didn't warn you.

3) Either I become the President again, or I will drag this country through a violent conflict the likes of which you have never seen in modern America.

4) So get ready, because the gloves are coming off. If  I am not declared the winner there will be hell to pay.

Of course, he didn't say it in just those words, but let me offer a translation of some key statements made in recent weeks, beginning with a statement just prior to the trial in NYC and others from this week's CNN Town Hall program.

1) "I'm going to be arrested next Tuesday." He then called on his followers writing "PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!" He went on to warn that if charged we might see "potential death and destruction...that could be catastrophic for our Country." (i.e. When I don't get my way, people kill and destroy for me, either because I suggest it or because they love me that much, and I won't tell them to cool down-- so watch out!)

(From CNN Town Hall)

Asked if the 2020 election was rigged:

 

2) "I think that, when you look at that result and when you look at what happened during that election, unless you’re a very stupid person, you see what happens.

A lot of the people – a lot of the people in this audience and perhaps maybe a couple that don’t, but most people understand what happened.

That was a rigged election."

(i.e. I'm the "real president" now, since I won. Biden is a mere pretender in the WH)

Asked if he would accept the outcome of an election in 2024:

3) "I If I think it’s an honest election, I would be honored to." [trans: I will not accept a loss under any circumstance] 

Trump continued and made what to me sounds very much like a threat-- perhaps the scariest line of the night.

4) "And, right now, we are so far ahead of both Democrat and Republican. And you know what? If I don’t win, this country is going to be in big trouble."( of course this can be understood as the claim that without his leadership America will plummet, but in light of all the other quotes, the emphasis on "retribution" and the lion's share of the time that night being spent on his insistence that he won in 2020, his view that insurrectionists in prison should be pardoned and are "beautiful people," etc.; in light of all that this is my  translation of what he means by "big trouble"-- " If I don't win, I'll trash the country; that's what I'm planning to do if I lose. I'm here for revenge one way or the other." That statement is a threat.)

When asked why he did not call off the attack on the Capitol on 1/6/21, K Collins added, "You know those people [i.e. the rioters/insurrectionists] listen to you like nobody else." This is worth quoting in full:

COLLINS: When it was clear they weren’t being peaceful, why did you wait three hours to tell them to leave the Capitol? They listen to you like no one else.

TRUMP: Yes.

COLLINS: You know that.

TRUMP: They do. I agree with that.

 

Then he nonsensically blamed Pelosi, and Schumer for the violence.  BUT his admission that "they do listen to me like nobody else"  is clear evidence of "intent" to see more violence (if more is needed to meet a legal threshold). He is aware that he has the power to unleash violence in real time, and he knew there were militia members and insurrectionists  that hang on his every word. (The Proud Boys had even made T-shirts out of Trump's famous line "Stand back and stand by").

When you add these up, you have a person who can watch people die on TV knowing he could stop it going on to now warn Americans on CNN (3.1 mil. viewers and many more who read about it) that if he is not "restored" to power, he will do everything in his power to unleash violence, perhaps causing domestic terror to spike the way it did in Ireland during the "Troubles"-- i.e. a civil war of sorts. The CNN audience that clapped at his every cruel word is but a drop in the ocean of like-minded Trump devotees out there. With 43% of Republicans claiming they would endorse violence against the gov't if things "go badly," we better think long and hard about how to make sure our leaders fully understand this looming  threat.  I don't think they do.

If they did Biden would not view Trump's despotic behavior as something to use to scare people into voting for him. That's what he's been doing. Team Biden announced this week that they are already editing select portions of the CNN Town Hall footage for campaign ads. Indeed, the only time he seems to talk about Trump or Maga or 1/6 is when he and or other democrats are up for elections. He made a melodramatic speech about Maga and Trump on the eve of last year's midterms, and after the town hall meeting has indicated this will be a big part of his ad campaign. He also launched his official campaign with a video that kicks off with footage of 1/6 in which he talks about Trump and Maga threatening our way of life and our democracy. If only he had taken any action at all consistent with such a serious threat. No. Instead Biden is busy exploiting Trump as the bad monster he can run against (knowing that his ratings are pretty low, and so safer to run against someone scary than to run for his own ideas and personality). CNN is busy exploiting Trump for ratings and money. Frankly, most of what I read in our media outlets is repetitive criticism of Trump written by and for people who already agree with everything they repeat. They do not advance a cause, but merely argue over just how bad he is, just how realistic the threat of Maga GOP is regarding democratic backslide and so on; but as Snowflake has said recently, they offer no vision, only critique. Stale, warmed over dinners from 2019 and 2020. Hell, make that 2015 and 2016. We've not only seen this movie before, but it's been running over and over like a loop in our media outlets for years now, in one form or another since Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his bid in 2015. The only noticeable effect of all the 24/7 Trump denunciations has been to please Trump and his fans who thrive on the chaos and panic, while irritating and angering the rest. Pragmatically, it accomplishes nothing for those who would resist Trump, and the GOP he has thoroughly refashioned.

How is it that this threat goes unchecked? Something like 1/3 of the country doesn't believe our president is legitimate. Biden's inauguration occurred in what looked like a military barracks with razor wire fencing and up to 25,000 National Guard troops with weapons, in order to protect politicians from potential terrorists. And yet the promised reforms in domestic terrorism that Biden discussed at the time never came through. Why should we have another election with groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers alive and well (even if their leaders have been sent to prison, which can only anger those members left free). Even Canada outlawed these groups immediately after 1/6. These are potential death squads that wear patches that read RWDS (Right Wing Death Squad), and mean it. Why aren't Donald Trump, Roger Stone, Rudolph Giuliani and the other thuggish architects of 1/6 in prison just like Enrique Tarrio and Stuart Rhodes? How is it that with all the evidence available, Trump was not indicted in 2022 for intentionally attempting to overturn a legitimate election and unleashing insurrectionist violence aimed at preventing a peaceful transfer of power on 1/6? 

Obviously a Trump victory in 2024 would be a devastating blow to this country. But I have yet to hear an intelligent discussion about what to do if Trump loses and incites violence that could lead to, say, the equivalent of Oklahoma bombings in multiple cities after a Trump loss,  and possibly for a length of time [Note: Imperator Machinarum has correctly pointed out that this scenario of multiple Oklahoma type bombings is not realistic. On re-reading it, I plead guilty of hyperbole. However, significantly less severe bombing plots are plausible, as the continuing search for the 1/6 pipe bomber illustrates. ] BTW, Oklahoma City was not "lone wolf" but White Nationalist, as Kathleen Belew has documented in her book Bring The War Home, among other authors and journalists. Warnings from her and many others-- both in academia and law enforcement-- went unheeded after Congress held hearings on the problem of domestic terror after 1/6 in 2021. 

I hope I'm wrong, but hope is not a strategy. Forewarned is forearmed. We have no time left to waste. This message should have reached the authorities by now. I hope it has. This is what the press should discuss when the name Trump comes up rather than treating him as a legitimate candidate who must be stopped the old fashioned way-- by votes. Why do they think another election result can settle this thing, when Trump has only gone on to turn 2020 and 1/6/21 into the basis for his moronic but millions-strong authoritarian cult? It's the closest thing to an "ideology" Trump has-- this myth of the "stolen election" and the coming "retribution." I think the way our leaders and media outlets respond to Trump's candidacy is naive and dangerous.

White supremacist and neo-Nazi bling

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Full CNN Town Hall Transcript: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/11/politics/transcript-cnn-town-hall-trump/index.html

Also, The LA Times published an editorial in November 2022 which takes much the same view that I do here. It is entitled "Trump doesn't want your vote in 2024. Just your obedience while he trashes the US again." It's worth reading: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-11-15/trumps-dangerous-declaration

What are your thoughts?

News bits: Supreme Court and political party moral rot; An endless defamation redux?: A Christian cataclysm?

MSN reports about a report by Business Insider:

2 Supreme Court justices failed to recuse themselves from cases involving their publisher after receiving large amounts in book advances and royalties

• Both Sotomayor and Gorsuch have reported earning large paychecks from Penguin Random House for publishing books.

• Gorsuch failed to recuse himself from one of the cases. Sotomayor didn't recuse herself from both [either?]. 

According to Sotomayor's financial disclosures, as CNN reported, she's made approximately $3.6 million in royalties and advances for the several books she's published under Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, which is part of Penguin Random House. 

As for Gorsuch, his financial disclosures note he's made at least $655,000 from Penguin Random House over the past few years from his book, "A Republic, If You Can Keep It."

Oh wonderful. The moral rot is bipartisan, not monopartisan. I recall when Nancy Pelosi reluctantly agreed to make insider trading illegal by politicians in congress and their staffs and family. That is when I really understood how morally rotted and corrupt both parties had become. They can't even recognize their own major corruption. They are truly morally bankrupt.*

* Yes, not all elite politicians are corrupt like that. Unfortunately, the few who do understand the concept of corruption are a minority, maybe ~20% of Dems and ~5% of Repubs.

Unlike Clarence Thomas,** who tried to hide his corruption, Sotomayor and Gorsuch did not try to hide their loot and reported all the money they received. Sotomayor and Gorsuch actually believed there was no conflict of interest going on. Which is worse, Thomas intentionally hiding his corruption or Sotomayor and Gorsuch not recognizing when it applied to themselves? Both are worse, in my opinion. Either way, this stinks quite a lot.

** Business insider reports: Clarence Thomas, who accepted lavish gifts from a billionaire, argued that a law prohibiting taking bribes is too vague to be fairly enforced. Aw, we all want fairness for poor, beleaguered Clarence, right? Opacity and not reporting income or conflicts of interest should afford adequate protection for the innocent, long-suffering patriot. Right? /s

Snark alert: A Republic, If You Can Keep It?? Anyone see any irony in that, or is it just me hallucinating?

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The NYT reports that E. Jean Carroll is considering a new defamation lawsuit against Trump for his slandering comments about her during his recent town hall. The ex-prez said that Carroll was a “wack job” and her civil trial was “a rigged deal.” One can see it now. Carroll wins another defamation lawsuit and immediately afterwards, he goes out and slanders her in public again, so she sues again. That could go on until one of the two drops dead because, as we all know, the ex-prez just can't stop publicly slandering people. Well, at least he is consistent.

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Rut roh, one can feel the wrath of an enraged, vengeful God starting to bubble up from the black cauldron of poisonous Christian nationalist politics. What could trigger such a cataclysm? Money.

The WaPo reports that the IRS has imposed a new rule that will tax private jets. But the horror of this evil, deep state, socialist pedophile aggression is that the new tax will apply to, GASP!, Pastors!! The horror, the horror. One can sense the self-righteous wrath rising among the Christian nationalist elites and their loyal flocks. The WaPo writes:

The IRS just hiked taxes on private jet flights. Pastors are not excluded.

In 2017, Texas-based televangelist Kenneth Copeland told his followers he received a very specific message from the Holy Spirit: The Lord had set aside a luxury Gulfstream V jet for his ministry’s use.

Copeland purchased the jet — in cash — from filmmaker Tyler Perry in November of that year and soon released a celebratory video, along with a request for another $2.5 million for upgrades.

“Let’s be aggressive in our faith, in our giving and in our harvesting!” the Jan. 12, 2018, post said.

Copeland is one of a handful of prosperity gospel pastors who insist that jets are essential to their ministry. “If I flew commercial, I’d have to stop 65% of what I’m doing,” Copeland told Inside Edition in 2019.

The burden on Christianity from this evil deep state pedophile attack will lead to the collapse of Christianity in America and the rise of evil deep state pedophilic atheism. Innocent Christians will be rounded up, put in re-education camps and brainwashed into mindless atheists. Bibles will be burned. Dogs will sleep with cats. Churches will be converted from tax sheltered scams into shelters for homeless people. Other horrors will happen.

So, let’s be aggressive in our faith, in our giving and in our harvesting of mucho cash for the valiant Christian nationalist elites who own luxury jets and struggle tirelessly to save us all from secular perdition and fornication. /s

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From the Daggers in the Night Files: The NYT writes about a radical right, middle of the night sneak attack on federal regulations:

Little-Noticed Part of G.O.P. Bill Could ‘Make It Impossible to Regulate’

House Republicans want every major rule to come up for a vote. That could be a recipe for no regulations at all

Under a little-noticed provision in a House bill that passed this month, all of [recently proposed new] regulations would need to come before Congress for a vote before they could go into effect.

“It may seem like it’s in the weeds, but it really affects all of us,” said Susan Dudley, the director of the regulatory studies center at George Washington University, who was the top regulatory official in the George W. Bush administration. She was one of several leading experts who were unaware that the bill contained this provision.

The Republican legislation, which is not expected to become law in its current form, has mostly attracted attention for its part in the debate about raising the country’s borrowing limit, and for its proposals to reduce federal deficits over the next decade. But its effort to reshape the federal regulatory process could arguably have a deeper impact on the future functioning of government.

Presumably, this attack on regulations comes primarily from the fascist brass knuckles capitalist wing of the radical right Republican Party. However, as time passes and the central dogmas of Christian nationalism sink in and internalize, it is more likely than not that most of the Christofascist Christian nationalist elites who control the GOP together with the fascist capitalists are on board with killing federal regulations. 

The two ideologies have significantly overlapping agendas and elite players. Both want to neuter federal government power. The fascist Christians hate civil liberties, while the fascist capitalists hate business regulations. The elites in both ideological camps want power shifted from the federal government to themselves. It seems likely that most GOP Christian nationalist elites are also radical capitalist elites. In my assessment, this attack on government power comes ~55% from radical capitalist elites and ~45% from radical Christian nationalist elites.

This proposed law will not pass congress or a Democratic Party president. But if the GOP get control of everything in 2024, this is exactly the kind of thing the fascist Republican Party will try to do. Radical Republican elite intention here is clear and undeniable -- kill government, regulations and civil liberties, and then take control of power and wealth.

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The NYT writes about intentions of radical right Republican Party elites:

Trump’s Second-Term Goal: Shattering the Norms He Didn’t Already Break

The former president made it clearer than ever this week that on issues including Ukraine, the economy and the rule of law, his return to office would lead to a sharp departure from core American values

In little over an hour, DJT suggested the United States should default on its debts for the first time in history, injected doubt over the country’s commitment to defending Ukraine from Russia’s invasion, dangled pardons for most of the Capitol rioters convicted of crimes, and refused to say he would abide by the results of the next presidential election.

The second-term vision Mr. Trump sketched out at a CNN town-hall event on Wednesday would represent a sharp departure from core American values that have been at the bedrock of the nation for decades: its creditworthiness, its credibility with international allies and its adherence to the rule of law at home.

No wonder the US has lost a lot of international prestige and respect among our allies. The fascist Republican Party clearly wants this country to be just like itself, i.e., a morally bankrupt, corrupt, brutal, tin pot dictatorship, not a pluralistic democracy.