From All Enemies Foreign And Domestic

On Tuesday, election Day, I watched with some trepidation. I did not want a blue wave; I wanted a blue Tsunami. As the votes came in and the wave grew so did my anticipation. But I kept telling myself to manage my expectations and to accept whatever progress we Democrats were able to make. The results of elections for the House of Representatives looked good. The results of the gubernatorial elections and the senatorial elections in Texas, Georgia, and Florida were problematical because those elections are in dead red states. It would be unrealistic to think those red states would not remain true to form, and yet there was hope. What I was seeing was only the beginning. I knew there were too many votes that would not be counted that night, and that we would have to wait several days before the results would be known.

I went to bed cautiously optimistic even though I knew it was unlikely that Beto O'Rourke would pull off the miracle in Texas or that Georgia and/or Florida would reject the destructive Republicans supporting Trump. Now a week has gone by and Florida and Georgia are still teetering on the brink of disaster for Republicans. They, the Republicans, seem to be in a panic, and they are lashing out with absolutely absurd accusation even though the numbers reported thus far and the odds still favor them in those states.

The GOP spinmeisters are absolutely beside themselves: “No wave! No wave!” they babble much in the same manner that Trump babbles “No Collusion, No collusion!” All right, I will concede that the results of the mid terms are not a blue Tsunami, but they are one hell of a large wave. Taking over the House of Representatives by such a large margin and flipping seven governorships and six state legislative chambers is a very strong victory.  Furthermore, Beto O'Rourke came very close to beating Ted Cruise in Texas while taking mainstream Democratic Party positions on the issues rather than trying to paint himself as being Republican-lite. This is not good news for Republicans. If Beto O'Rouke and Democratic congressional candidates who won in red states without trying to out Republican their Republican opponents is not a repudiation of Trump it is at least a sign that people want him held in check. That is good, but you will not hear champagne corks popping from my direction, not yet!

The problem is that voters are driven by emotions rather than logic. All we have to do is look back a few years to see what that means. Barack Obama's election in 2008 was a reaction to the crash that was caused, at least in part, by George W. Bush's mismanagement of the economy. This reaction by the voters was understandable, and it would have been rational if it had been a rejection of the policies that caused the crash and/or exacerbated the recession that followed. But the voters are not that sophisticated or wise. The reason that we know the voters were not making a rational decision in 2008 is because in 2010 they gave the Republicans control of the House of Representatives, thus rewarding the Party that had crashed the economy and was doing every thing it could to obstruct the efforts of a president and a party that was trying to get us out of George W. Bush's recession. My point is that we cannot view a few special elections and a single general election, particularly a mid-term election, as a trend because the voters are too damn fickle to allow that.

The one thing that seems to remain fairly constant in regard to the electorate is not a good thing; it is the number of paranoid individuals who always buy the fear and loathing being peddled by shameless demagogues such as Donald Trump. Furthermore, it is exactly that group of paranoid voters that now comprises eighty percent of the Republican base. That is why the Republicans cower in fear of the angry Trump chumps, and why the elected members of the Republican Party are every bit as obsequies to Trump as they were before the elections! The remarkable thing is that while those elections may not be a trend they are at least a warning to Republicans that their base is shrinking. Continuing to practice what Richard Hofstadter described as the paranoid style in American politics is a rejection of reality that requires the practitioner to reject all inconvenient facts. This frequently results in the sort of self deception that causes the demagogues to become as delusional as the people they are exploiting. What makes this rejection of reality and self deception so dangerous now is that Trump has turned partisan politics into a life and death struggle for the rule of law by firing Attorney General Sessions.

Where are the Republicans who claim to revere our constitution and the rule of law? What happened to that red line Republicans such as Lindsey Graham drew in the sand regarding the firing of the attorney general? Why is it now alright to replace Sessions with a lackey who is more than likely to interfere with Mueller's investigation! The answer is that Lindsey Graham, like the rest of the members of his party, has lost his moral compass and has become a political eunuch serving the king of his party and the would be dictator of this country!

Make no mistake about it, Trump's appointment of Whittaker to replace Sessions as attorney general on a temporary basis is a naked attempt to end the investigation! Wake up America! This is worse than Watergate was! Trump is a clear and present danger to us as a democracy and as a nation of laws. We must once more defend the rule of law and our Constitution against the attacks of a corrupt and lawless president!

My condolences to the victims of the fires in California. My heart also goes out to the victims of the shootings at the Borderline Bar and Grill in California. I must confess that I have run out of words to express my feelings about such tragedies and horrible crimes. The best I can do in that regard is to refer you to my previous post, “Human-Kind.”