AMERICAN AMNESIA

 I'll never forget what happened in England when divisive former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died in 2013.  While there were some public displays of mourning, her political opponents openly celebrated, with the song "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" becoming one of the most popular songs in the country.  Contrast that with how America  dealt with the passing of former disgraced President Richard Nixon in 1991, with the man who had embarassed the country with his criminal behavior recast as a merely controversial figure.  Of course, the rehabilitation of Nixon's reign began the moment that Gerald Ford pardoned him, with Nixon writing books and columns acting as an elder statesmen and not a criminal.  And it seemed to mostly work for him, because Americans seem to forget about former presidents the second they leave office.  Look at George W Bush, who's now just seen as soft spoken guy who paints (lousy) pictures and not a man who stumbled the country into a disastrous invasion of Iraq. 

I think this phenomenon happens because our 24/7 news cycle puts so much emphasis on who the president is and what his regime is doing at every given moment, that former presidents are forgotten almost immediately.   The lack of white hot media attention causes the approval ratings of former presidents to rise the second they leave office, as the bad parts of their reign seem to be  forgotten, causing many Americans to get nostalgic for the old days, forgetting all the bad parts.

This amnesia could have disastrous effects in the coming election, with all the terrible things that Donald Trump did while in office somehow being forgotten by the public, who are still slightly favoring him in the polls.  And to make things even more depressing, remember that Trump outperformed the polls in 2016 and 2020, and that these are the best presidential poll numbers that he has ever had in his political career, and the stage may be set for a twice impeached man facing multiple felony charges to somehow wind up the White House again!

But there is some hope: for months, polls showed that most Americans couldn't believe that Trump was going to be the Republican party's nomination again.  Now that nightmare has become a reality, with Trump barnstorming his way into the nomination.  Since there is no question of his candidacy, voters who don't follow politics that much will start paying attention again, which will hopefully result in a remembrance of what a deeply divisive and awful man he is.  For the past four years Trump has mostly been communicating to members of his cult through right wing media, but now the public will be subjected to his obsession with how the 2020 election was "stolen" from him, along with his usual stream of bigoted, misogynistic and downright bizarre ramblings (what is it with this man and low flow sinks and showers?).  Add to that his criminal troubles and the court cases that he's already lost to the tune of almost half a billion dollars in penalties, and it's possible that the public's memory will suddenly return to the wildly chaotic, incompetent and corrupt regime that ran this country from 2016 to 2020 and they will come to their senses and vote for the slightly older man who's actually capable of caring about other human beings.  I really hope they do.

MITCH MCONNELL'S LEGACY

 Recently, 82 year old Repulican Senate leader Mitch McConnell announced that he soon will be retiring from the Senate.  McConnell was first elected in 1985 and has been the Republican leader of the Senate for 17 years. He said in an exit speech that he has realized that some of his political opinions have recently fallen out of favor with his party.  Accolades from Democrats who claimed to admire his old school pragmatism and willingness to compromise were made.

Personally, I can't imagine why any Democrat would say anything positive about a man who's cold, naked quest for political power saw him bend the Senate rules repeatedly.  And while it's true that he supports the Senate bill calling for funding for border security and aid to Ukraine that other Republicans have opposed, McConnell's history in the Senate is one of almost blind partisanship.  Remember how, after the violence of January 6th, McConnell gave a strong speech pinning the blame for the violence on Donald Trump, and then completely chickened out by failing to vote to remove Trump from office?  Even though he clearly thought that Trump was criminally liable for the violence of that day, he was too gutless to cast a vote that would have rightly prevented Trump from ever running again.

While that vote was shameful, McConnell's worst legacy will be the ultra conservative Supreme Court majority that he brought about entirely through his Senate actions as majority leader.  First, he denied President Barack Obama the chance to fill a vacant seat on the court for ten months before the 2016 election, and then he later  jammed through justice Amy Coney Barrett with less than a month to go before the 2020 election.  By doing this,  McConnell allowed a one term president who lost the popular vote by millions to pick three Supreme Court Judges instead of just the one he should have gotten in 2018.

And that conservative court has been busy, from overturning Roe Vs Wade to a brazenly partisan recent ruling that allowed Donald Trump to delay his upcoming legal trials by months, saving him the possible humiliation of being found guilty of a crime while on the campaign trail, and perhaps giving him the chance to dismiss the charges by winning the White House again.  And that overturning of Roe Vs Wade  has lead to an inevitable case of overreach, with the Alabama Supreme Court recently ruling that the frozen embryos used for in vitro fertilization were actually living beings, essentially ending IVF in that stare, a process used by millions of Americans that need help conceiving a child.  Although a bill to nationalize a right to IVF was put forth in the Senate, it was shot down by Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith,  who called the bill " a vast overreach".  Even while that was happening. many other Republicans have tried to say that they support the process, understandably not wanting to look like the oppose something that has led to the birth of more children. 

Along with these recent extremist rulings, there have also been stories of blatant corruption coming out of the court: first, it has been revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas's wife Ginny was involved in Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election, even as Thomas refused to recuse himself from rulings the court was making about that election.  And then there's the huge favors that billionaire conservative Harlan Crow has been making for Thomas, from treating him to a half million dollar vacation to paying for his step son's education.  Thomas never declared this favors.  And he isn't the only one, with Justice Samual Alito not reporting a luxury private flight that he took and Neil Gorsuch selling property to a law firm that had a case before the court.  Given all this, it's no surprise that court now has a record low approval rating. 

Because Supreme Court judges have lifetime appointments, there's little that can be done to stop the current court's reckless and reactionary rulings.  But there is one solution: now, more than ever, it's time for Democrats to support packing the court.  While such a thing has never been done before (FDR considered it) I think that, given the hypocritical lengths that McConnell went to get a conservative majority, the Democrats should do it while they still have a majority in the Senate.  Oh sure, the Republicans would scream bloody murder,  but there's no legal way to block it.  And if Republicans run on adding more seats to the court themselves, so be it.  No matter how much they may deny it, the Supreme Court is not above politics, so why not treat picking more Supreme Court judges as just another platform for presidential candidates to run on?  Anything to prevent this current court from poisoning our political process for decades to come.

TRUMP'S FOLLOWERS BREAK ANOTHER PRECEDENT

 

Yesterday the US House of Representatives disgraced themselves by following the lead of a one term former president who's currently under indictment on over 90 separate felony charges.  Yes, by a margin of just one vote, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, was impeached by the House.  Never before in American history has a serving cabinet secretary ever been impeached like this, and to make matters worse, no actual constitutionally mandated charges of high crimes and misdemeanors have been proven against him.  

 Oh sure, the Republicans say they have their reasons, but this is really just a symbolic gesture.  For Mayorkas to be properly impeached, there would have to be a two thirds vote against him in the Senate,  and  there's no way that the Democratically controlled Senate would do that.  But none of that matters, this is, as I said before, just a case of Donald Trump's lackeys bowing to his orders.  Put simply, the twice impeached former president wants revenge, and since the House's impeachment investigation of President Joe Biden has provided no charges, why not take it out on Mayorkas?  And along with revenge, the impeachment also throws red meat to the Republican base by letting house members go after a Biden administration official who's position has him dealing with Trump's signature issue, our Western border.  

It shows how hypocritical the Republican party has become that, after voting against a conservative border bill that Biden would have signed, and that would have done something about our border crisis, the party is going after Mayrokas for, you guessed it, not doing enough about the border!  But this is where we are: conservatives are  saying that the border crisis is both an immediate threat and something that can't be dealt with before the election.  Trump feels that dealing with the issue would be seen as a win for Biden, so he would prefer that the problem remain unsolved until he's back in the White House.  He's also said that he hopes that the economy crumbles soon,  because he puts America first.

Once again, Trump has lowered the standards of this country, and now impeachment, which was one seen as a last resort against corruption, has become just another political tool to be used against a rival party.  Honestly, I often wonder if America will ever be the same even after Trump is long gone.  The crimes he's been accused of, the despicable racist things he's said publicly, and the level of corruption and ineptitude he had as president has hurt the future of our country, maybe for good.

HALEY CAN'T WIN, BUT SHE CAN HELP

 Like any woman that doesn't worship him like the god he thinks he is, Nikki Haley has gotten under Donald Trump's skin.  Trump, after winning the New Hampshire presidential primary over Haley by double digits, instead of giving a magnanimous speech as he had a few days earlier after winning Iowa, spent most of his victory speech ripping into her.  Previously he had childishly called her "birdbrain", in this speech he decided to insult her outfit ("I watched her in that fancy dress, that probably wasn't so fancy").  But in his usual morass of lies and boasts, he also stumbled on a truth when he said that Haley was"doing like a speech like she won,” though “she didn’t win, she lost.”

The thing that obviously needles Trump the most is that Haley did not immediately endorse him after losing.  Ron DeSantis, who for over a year had been seen as Trump's biggest possible challenger for the Republican Presidential nomination, immediately endorsed him after losing in Iowa.  But Haley, even though she came in third behind Trump and DeSantis, decided to continue her campaign, saying that she was polling well in New Hampshire.  And she continued her campaign after New Hampshire, even though the path ahead looks impossible for her.  Let's face it, the majority of the Republican party faithful still adore Trump, think that he won in 2020 and that he can't lose in 2024.  The idea that a woman, particularly one of color, would take Trump's place, even if she's doing better in polls agains Biden than Trump is, is crazy.

In the past few years, Haley has acted like a lot of  Republicans since Trump arrived.  At one point in 2016 she said of him, “I will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the KKK. That is not a part of our party, that is not who we want as president. We we allow not allow that in our country.”  And like so  many other Republicans (like say Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham) she quickly forgot all her criticisms of him once he won and eventually she accepted a job in his regime  as US ambassador to the United Nations.  But unlike so many people who worked in the Trump administration, she was not forced out, found guilty of  a crime, or left because she couldn't stand him. (Perhaps because as UN ambassador, I doubt she dealt with Trump a lot directly).  Really, she's one of the few people to encounter Trump and emerge unscathed and relatively complimentary of him.

At first as a candidate, Haley was reluctant to openly criticize Trump, only making a few mild jabs at his age.  But now with DeSantis gone,  it seems like the gloves are off: she recently referred to him as "totally unhinged", and attacked his mental acuity.  Given that there's no way that Trump will ever forgive her for staying in the race and going after him, it seems possible that Haley has now thrown herself into the "never Trump" camp, even if she won's admit it.  While she has no chance of winning, her words (which will inevitably wind up in numerous attack ads against Trump), may hurt Trump with those crucial suburban women voters that can turn an election, especially, if Trump continues to make usual misogynistic comments about her.  The important question is, after she loses, will Haley support Trump, or will she just offer no endorsement of either candidate? Is it possible that she could even endorse Joe Biden?  I doubt it, but then, fellow Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie has already, so it's not impossible.  Whatever happens, given how close the 2024 election appears that it will be,  Haley may help turn the tide against Trump.

DISQULIFYING TRUMP?

 No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. -Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution

As we all know, around 2 weeks ago the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution disqualifies Donald Trump from holding the office of president of the United States.  Now, this amendment states that no one who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and then "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof" can hold office.  The Colorado court ruled that, by inspiring the riot of January 6th.  Trump disqualified himself from holding the office of the presidency in the future, because the riot counted as an insurrection.  Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court has said that they will take this case up soon, settling the matter for good in Colorado and other states that have challenged Trump's placement on the ballot.  And while this ruling has been cheered by many progressives, it should be pointed out some of the first people to make the case for Trump being disqualified under this amendment were   law professors William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, both members of the conservative Federalist Society.

Personally, I am of two minds on this issue.  On the one hand, I am certainly sympathetic to the argument that Trump's behavior not only on January 6th but also beforehand invalidates his right to be president.  His refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election, leading somewhat inevitably to violence, was a despicable stain on American history and on democracy itself.

On the other hand, the 14th Amendment was written in the wake of the Civil War to prevent any Confederacy leaders from holding office.  Was what Trump did, as horrible as it was, rise to the level of an insurrection?  Can it be compared to the Confederate states leaving the union?  It's hard to say. And I am sympathetic to the idea that Trump's fate should be chosen by voters and not the courts.

One interesting point here is that  the amendment itself never mentions the Confederacy specifically, just using the words "insurrection or rebellion", which would seem to me  that the Colorado Court was reasonable to use the broadness of the amendment's wording to disqualify Trump.  So, again I'm torn. A big part of the question is whether what happened on January 6th was a genuine insurrection, or whether it just a an angry mob venting its frustration at the outcome of an election.

Sadly, this ruling plays into Trump's constant narrative that he is always a victim of "the deep state".  Already he has used the court's ruling to fund raise for his campaign and polls of Republicans show them naturally rallying around him over the ruling. Even worse, the judges making the ruling have been flooded with violent threats, and if the Supreme Court does rule that Trump can be stripped from the ballot, those threats could very well become actions.  One thing that January 6th taught us is that Trump's strongest followers aren't afraid of using violence, and disqualifying Trump could push some of them over the edge.  Of course, no judges or politicians in a democracy should ever live in fear of making a controversial ruling or vote, but that is where the ascendency of Trump since 2015 has lead us.

In any event, the question of whether or not Trump can be disqualified is soon going to be decided by the Supreme Court, and I can't imagine that they will rule against Trump on this issue. Even though this court has ruled against him in the past, this issue will be seen as too important to take out of the hands of the voters.

WILL THE SOFT LANDING EVEN BE NOTICED?

 

A year ago, when inflation seemed out of control and the economy was overheating, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome H. Powell started slowly but surely raising interest rates to slow down economic growth and reduce inflation.  Many economists feared that this would inevitably lead to a recession, just as it did back in the 1980's, the last time inflation was out of control.

But recent numbers have revealed that country may be in for what's called a soft landing, that just right mixture when higher interest rates reduce inflation without causing the country to fall into an outright recession.  Powell recent comments show that he believes inflation, which has fallen from 9.1 percent in 2022 to 3.1 percent, is now under control and that no further raising of interest rates will be needed anytime soon.  Those rates may even be lowered sometime next year.  All of this is happening while the country's unemployment rate remained at a historically low 3.7 percent.  The good news saw the stock market rally to new heights. 

But will this good news sink in with the American people?  Recent polls that show Donald Trump defeating Joe Biden in next year's election show not only Republicans but also independents and a significant number of Democrats trusting Trump over Biden on economic issues.  Some polls give Trump a whopping ten percent edge on economic matters.  The Biden administration has tried in vain to push Bidenomics as a good thing, but the country's sour mood on the economy doesn't seem to be shaking.

The reason seems to be clear: increased job and gross domestic product  growth are not things that the average American can really see in their lives.   But inflation?  It's always there, at the gas station and the grocery store.  And it's human nature to blame that inflation on the Biden administration, even though its roots lie in the days of the pandemic lockdown when Americans stayed home and bought goods online, driving up  demand while supply lines were often compromised by covid.  

The hope here is that by the time the election roles around, the public will get used to the higher prices (which won't be increasing at an alarming rate anymore), and Biden will start getting some credit for the economy.  This was the same winning formula that Ronald Reagan had back in the 1980's, when the recession ended just in time for him to win reecletion in a landslide.  That combined with Trump's legal troubles and the backlash against Republicans since the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade may be enough to win Biden a second term.  Considering Trump's dangerous rhetoric about his desire to be a dictator, I certainly hope that that will be the case.  Biden may be old, but I would vote for Methuselah before I vote for Trump.

IT'S GETTING HARDER AND HARDER TO DEFEND ELON MUSK

 Two days ago marked the one year anniversary of my getting a Tesla.  I was planning to blog about this by saying how much I loved the car, with all its high tech doo dads like auto steering and doggy mode.  And how I was able to easily travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles and Las Vegas  without a problem thanks to the many readily available high speed charging stations there are.  Plus I also wanted to mention how much I don't miss stopping at gas stations.  (I never knew how much I hated the smell of gasoline until I didn't have to inhale it anymore!)

Yes, I was ready to talk about all of that.  And then Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to a tweet a few days ago.  Now I've already blogged about my feelings about Musk way back in 2021 (you can read that here), but at that time he seemed just another unlikeable billionaire.  But then in October of 2022, just a month before I got the Tesla that I ordered, Musk bought the social media site Twitter and his extreme views started trickling out as the company floundered under his erratic control.  From changing its name to X, to going back and forth on charging for blue verification boxes, his unruly leadership may have reduced the company's value by as much as 90% according to Fortune magazine.

This all came to a head when a November 15th post from some fool named The Artist Formerly Known as Eric said:  "Okay.  Jewish communties(sic.) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.   I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much. You want truth said to your face, there it is."  Musk responded the same day with "You have said the actual truth."  With that one simple phrase, Musk is endorsing one of the most insidious anti Semitic conspiracy theories out there, known as The Great Replacement Theory.  It claims that a wealthy Jewish cabal support replacing white people with minorities all over the Western world.  This wasn't the first time that Musk seemed to flirt with anti Semitism, as he has defended the surge in anti Semitic posts that have appeared on X since he took over by criticizing the  human rights group the Anti-Defamation League for mentioning that surge.  He's even threatened to sue them.

But this time he has gone too far, and the fallout out from his offensive endorsement has been swift, with companies like IBM and Apple pulling their advertising from the already reeling X.  But the sad fact of the matter is that, in the long run, none of this will really matter to Musk.  Oh sure, he may be humiliated if X goes bankrupt, as it appears it may, but he will always be one of the richest men on the planet, and his other companies will always generate revenue for him.  Just look at Space X: as the New York Times has pointed out, even as the Joe Biden administration has condemned  Musk's views, the government has just confirmed that they will give over a billion dollars to Space X for launching Pentagon satellites next year.  The sad fact of the  matter is that Space X has a virtual monopoly on valuable satellites and is a privately held company, giving Musk a stranglehold on space exploration that the government won't be able to break anytime soon. So no matter how offensive Musk's views are, he will never face any real fall out from them.

In a way, Musk represents the problem with raw capitalism: here is a man who holds no political office but, through the sheer power of wealth, holds sway over every American citizen (and pretty much everyone in the world).  He's the living embodiment of our need for a wealth tax, but that's a pipe dream.  And shaming him doesn't seem likely to phase him.   Dustin Moskovitz, a co founder of Facebook, has called for him to resign "from everything", a sentiment that I agree with, but what good will it do?

Which brings us back to me and my Tesla. Is it wrong for me to keep it given what Musk has endorsed? Trading my car in for a different model would be a hassle, and I do love it. So I've decided to keep it for now, hoping that the Tesla company, (which unlike Space X is not privately owned) might be able to force Musk out.  (The possible belly flop that the upcoming Tesla Cybertruck could take might also do the trick).  If I could get in a time machine, I'd go back and buy a Polestar instead of a Tesla, but for now, I seem to be stuck  in the odd position of loving my car and hating the leader of the company that makes it.