I know way too many have given up. So once again I’m going to talk about why they shouldn’t have, and why your shouldn’t either. And that you should help get them back in the fight. All during Trumpty’s first term, and ever since he was announced as President-Elect we’ve heard journalists report over and over again about elected Republicans on Capitol Hill and in statehouses too that don’t like how Trump has acted. Not just his antics but sometimes actual policies. Of course they were cowards before and seldom, almost never in fact willing to go on the record. Clearly they are MORE fearful now. Frankly, I can see how they fear some Trump inspired MAGA mob showing up outside their house, or their spouses place of work or even their kid’s schools. Maybe they should take a breath. Many who live in MAGA areas have also felt a need to be cautious in publicly criticizing Trump. However there are signs of ground tremors in MAGA Land.
If you recall there was public backlash among MAGAs, both rank and file and some with name recognition over Trumpty’s and Elon’s “tech bros” pushing a big expansion of Visas for tech workers. So much for Trump’s “American First” rhetoric. Elon and the others shut the hell up about it, at least publicly. THAT is how big the backlash was. I noted at the time there were people, both regular folks and some known at least to political junkies (like many of us here) or in think tanks that come up with GOP policy that went on the record.
Again, that whole kerfuffle didn’t actually die down so much as what in Navy submarine terms “went dark” – dove deep, restricted or completely shut down communications BUT continued with the mission. However Trump had made a whole bunch of “Day One” promises and his MAGAs by god expected him to KEEP those promises. And he hasn’t. Worse, he doesn’t seem all that interested in doing so and as this article from Raw Story tells us they are speaking up. On the record. Putting their names out there actually criticizing their Turd God Emperor! Raw Story quotes a bunch of people who spoke to the Wall Street Journal but alas, that article is hidden behind a paywall.
The linked article cites the WSJ pointing out something that’s likely to become important:
Just days before Donald Trump celebrates three weeks back in the Oval Office, his tariff threats and his decision to let Elon Musk and his DOGE staffers disrupt the flow of cash from the U.S. Treasury is having an immediate impact on voters.
And it is not a good one, reports the Wall Street Journal.
On the same day the government reported job growth was weaker than expected, the Journal’s Rachel Wolfe and Joel Pinsker are reporting that consumer confidence is “souring” as prices remain high — or are going up — meaning Trump’s honeymoon is swiftly coming to an end.
However important that standard political writing is, what grabbed my attention from the linked Raw Story piece are that people like this guy:
Case in point is Trump voter Paul Bisson, 58, who lives in San Antonio and who griped to the Journal, “I don’t like the turbulence. I don’t like the chaos in the market,” and pointed the finger at the man he just helped elect.
Admitting he was hoping to retire soon, he said those plans will now have to be put on hold over worries about threatened tariffs creating a trade war that will drive up prices even more.
“That will make the economy worse, and that’s not what we signed up for. We’ve already cut back. There’s no more cutting back to do,” he told the Journal.
Raw Story also cited others. Sanjay Dayal founded a company that charges electric vehicles fretting over his investments, and worrying “It feels like we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.” They also cited a fifty-something real estate developer named John Schinkle who unlike the typical MAGA seems to have not expected overnight miracles but still is nervous:
“I don’t blame Trump for the price of eggs right now,” he said. “No matter who’s in the White House, I’d give that person a year to get their policies established before I start blaming prices on consumer things like that.,” he suggested.
Let me remind you while I’m using a story from Raw Story which I’m sure Trump or his senior people never look at all of the material is drawn from a WALL STREET JOURNAL article. And Trump and his closest advisors DO pay attention to what Murdoch’s flagship publication in the U.S. says. Trumpty may not want to deal with it, and even if he showed up for classes back in college I doubt he paid attention to much. Or remembers any of it. However he’s been surrounded over the years by people wo DO know sales and marketing and they’ve reminded him of the old adage that for every complaint that gets received there are ten more out there from people who didn’t bother – just took their business elsewhere!
Trump made promises he couldn’t keep even if he intended to at least make some half-hearted attempts. He counted on his MAGAs, and frankly other voters too to buy his bullshit and just enough did. Grocery prices, and eggs in particular which got SO much attention aren’t going down. In fact the opposite his happening and MAGAs who looked to Trump to tell them why on “Day One” he didn’t fix it, or at least sign an Executive Order that would have provided relief by now only muttered something about grocery prices being “hard”, and also (with Musk) told MAGA Land to expect to have to deal with some pain!
Between the tech Visa thing, news about instead of ‘millions of “illegal immigrants” being deported’ by now instead mostly being release with ankle monitors there was already dissent being expressed. And now this. Trumpty counted on his MAGAs buying his “Day One” bullshit and there are clear signs they aren’t just miffed he’s not delivered. They are SPEAKING OUT. I grew up in a small southern Illinois town that’s become MAGA. Hell, a little shit a few years younger than me is a Congress Critter who’s part of the sedition caucus. People in places like that speaking out, saying ‘Trump said he’d fix this and not only hasn’t done jack but prices are going UP!’ is a big freaking deal.
It’s too much, at least at this point to hope Trump went and sowed the seeds of his own destruction. However, he’s ignoring these things, simple campaign rhetoric that so many tens of millions swallowed whole. AND he’s got Musk and others about to screw with their Medicare, Medicaid (and yep, you’d be stunned at how many working class and poor Trump voters depend on Medicaid) and other things. All while prices for everything keep going up – even BEFORE the tariffs kick in!
This is why I keep pushing and pushing you all to call and write GOP politicians and not just at the federal level. I haven’t been back to my hometown in over thirty years and sadly know I’ll never see it again. That doesn’t stop me from sometimes contacting little Mikey Bost’s Congressional office and giving the little shit a piece of my mind! IF some staffer relays a message of mine to him, or just says my name and asks ‘Do you know this guy? He says he’s a classmate of your sister Debbie’ I guarantee you he remembers me! My point though is you don’t need a personal connection to reach outside your own Congressional District or state to contact COWARD Republicans.
GET INVOLVED!!!! And if you know disgruntled MAGAs fearful of speaking up amongst their own suggest a sideways approach – telling them about folks like I’ve mentioned here as a conversation starter. Who knows where that might lead? Imagine groups of MAGAs realizing they aren’t the only ones pissed off. Who feel like they devoted so much to Trump and now that they voted for him he’s got no use for them. It might not be the idealistic ‘Ripples of Hope’ in the REAL RFK’s quote but I’ll settle for ‘Ripples of Pissed Off Betrayal’ building to wash away the mightiest Trump Tyranny.
********** And now, a message from Ursula I hope you take to heart **********
Friends, I am forced to self-promote and ask you for money. We had a bad year compared with 2023 and the end of the year has been catastrophic. Traffic died on November 5. We are a small blog and completely self-supporting by ad revenue, donations, and subscriptions. If you can afford a monthly subscription that would help us out. If you can make a small donation, likewise. Our only goal is to stay in business and give you the best content we can generate. You are the wind beneath our wings. Thank you. Ursula
The most serious attempts on Hitler’s life, as I’m sure you know Marine, was done by his military officers, who realized he wasn’t going to make Germany Great Again, but was leading it to total destruction, which he did. Let’s recall, although I’ve been accused of being an ‘armchair warrior’, which is bullshit, I haven’t been trained on weapons since the 70s. The paramilitary groups, on the left and the right, have. The sales of AR-15 weapons jumped from 3% twenty years ago, to 25%. Now, I understand NONE of us want a revolution, unless it’s done legally by the vote. That has failed all of us for the reasons elucidated here many times. No dictator allows it once in. Neither will the gop led by this fascist pig. Having been betrayed in the past, that cost me my freedom, all my assets, and my children, all based on injustice, I understand clearly the sense of outrage one has to live with. Some won’t live with it. A CEO was shot down by a smart kid willing to apply himself in a gesture of defiance and revenge. They’ll go to war. Let the Apartheid Kid phuck with enough citizens and NO ONE knows what will follow. Even JFK realized it by stating: those who make democracy impossible, make revolution inevitable. This comfortable pleasure seeking culture is in for a rude awakening. The country didn’t want to go to war in 1941. It was over the pond. Not our problem. That is until Pearl Harbor.This time it’s here, just as it was when the Civil War began. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt my friend. As a marine, YOU KNOW, what it has taken to gain and keep our Republic. This time the enemy is sitting in Washington D.C. If he loses the armed Maga crowd…well…we’ve seen that movie. January 6th.
special elections April 1st for Florida for 2 of the House seats. I’m betting they don’t put their money where their mouth is.
That’s a safe bet.
There is an app for cell phones (apple and non-apple) called
“5 CALLS: CONTACT YOUR CONGRESS”,
that lists your congressmen and also has suggestions built into it that guides you in what to say when you call.