Trump has issued the order and virtually every Republican is falling into line. They are gamblers on a losing streak. Of elections. National once like 2018, 2020, 2022 (NO “red wave) and a host of state and special elections too. Also loss after loss on a decades long hobby-horse issue of abortion where voters even in red states are rejecting GOP extremism and voting instead (when given the chance) to protect reproductive freedom. Despite that, like the out of control gambler who cleans out their bank account to place one bit bet, to go “all-in” on a hand of Texas Hold-Em they are placing yet another bet. On a guy who has an epic string of failures in his life, including running multiple casinos into bankruptcy!
Donald Trump has ordered them to do something and against all reason, all better judgement they have meekly given in. More importantly they have chosen to place a desperate bet that Americans really ARE as f**king stupid as they hope a majority of Americans are. It’s that simple.
It used to be the GOP was more subtle with evil manipulation to gain electoral advantage. Cozying up to pals in the oil industry to screw with prices to jack up the cost of a gallon of gas in an election year. Quiet phone calls to Wall Street titans to manipulate financial markets. Sometimes more visible things too, like voter suppression that was fairly obvious. Now, with Trump openly calling for them to burn the country down. Trash the economy into recession. Destroy alliances and sound foreign policy AND put our national security at risk. And now this business of rejecting a border/immigration bill they’d have once celebrated more than they did the night Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. All so that Trump can run a campaign of blaming Joe Biden/Democrats and win back the WH.
Trump is flat-out saying it openly. What he wants the GOP do to and why. No pretense. No hiding the strategy. What’s even more amazing is an increasing number of Republicans are publicly echoing Trump. Openly saying they don’t want to fix problems because they “don’t want to give Biden a win.” WHAT THE HELL? I swear, the time is coming where we’ll get so-called “hot-mic” statement of GOP officials saying “We’ve have to go along with Trump and hope Americans are stupid enough to fall for this crap.” Even money says someone will wind up saying that openly in an unguarded moment in an interview!
I haven’t trusted polling all that much for a while. However, if current polling is even in the ballpark the fact is that a majority of Americans might actually be as stupid as the GOP is betting on. Think I’m crazy? Let’s look at history. We might enjoy what the folks at Lincoln Project do these days but they used to work for the other side and they were devastatingly effective. Going back over four decades by every normal measure things like the overall economy, the deficit and the national debt have done better with a Democrat in the WH. Yet the GOP messaging machine has a strong majority of Americans convinced otherwise.
Now, those who conditioned Americans (even many Democrats!) to believe that are standing up and saying different, in effect admitting they sold a line of bullshit but it’s clear they did their jobs too well. They are trying to clean up the mess they made but it might be too little too late.
I could write about this stuff all day long but I want to focus. Trump wants everything to go to hell, for there to be as much chaos and suffering as possible. So he can blame it on President Biden (and Democrats) and get back into the WH and make his legal (and financial) problems go away. The only part he’s not saying out loud is that last part. Because they are either full-on orange Kool Aid drinking Trump/MAGA cult members or are afraid Trump will have them primaried out of office the rest of the GOP is going along.
So that’s the question this year. After decades of systemic effort to dumb down the American public have conservative leaders done so to the point where this bet they’ve chosen to place will pay off? I honestly don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see but make no mistake the odds aren’t nearly as long as too many Democrats and Independents think.
Instead of whispering the goddamn house is on fire…time to start the damn screaming and slapping the electorate around! This is a phucking war for planetary survival…and THAT’S NOT HYPERBOLE!!!
Not to be snarky or anything like that but the g.o.p. has been betting, and winning the bet, Americans are stupid for decades. We are not a nation of intellectuals so the g.o.p. might be safe in betting yet again that Americans are stupid. It might be that former guy loses in November, I am counting on it in fact, but I will not count my congressional chickens until after November 2024. Many congressional maps are still gerry-mandered to hell and back.
I don’t think you’re being snarky. You’re realistic, as I am. I was stunned in 2016 that over sixty million Americans would vote for someone so obviously unfit in every way to be President. He turned out to be even worse than those of us who saw him for what he was feared. Four years later did those who voted in such high numbers turn their backs? No. Ten million MORE Americans voted for him! WTF? So to those who read my piece and think the GOP is placing a sucker bet I say think again. Their odds of cleaning up are a helluva lot better than you think because way too many Americans ARE every bit as gullible, as STUPID as they’re betting on.
“… Effective self-government requires an intelligent and engaged public, and it seems the American electorate falls woefully short. With large segments of the population brazenly rejecting facts and science … it’s no surprise that social and political dysfunction are rampant….” [David Niose Psychology Today October 4, 2020]
certainly the ones who vote for candidates with the (r) by their names are dumber than dog-sh*t.
We aren’t just NOT a nation of intellectuals. We are steadfastly anti-intellectual. Every time I hear Trump and his marching morons rail.against the “elite,” I remind myself that the original.definition of that word meant the superior in ability, the cream of the crop. What back in the early 60s we called “the best and the brightest.” And it was considered a good thing.
Now it means the 1%, those born with inherited wealth who have more power. The funny thing is, Trumpies admire them, the ones who contribute little or nothing, while screeching about the actual elite who have more talent, greater creativity and imagination, more hard-working. The people who actually make and do things to advance knowledge and make the world a better place.
They are jealous. Only, it’s not only that–if it were they would just gnash their teeth, yell a bit, and be done. No, these fools are not only jealous but they since they will never be the best and brightest they don’t want anyone else to be that way–notice the dumbing down they’re doing to schools? Kansas did something stupid back in the ….90’s I think, maybe early 00’s-they forbade the teaching of the theory of evolution in Kansas schools. Know what happened? Kids from Kansas were no longer making it into pre-med/medical (doctor) programs. They did not have knowledge of a very important theory much of Biology uses for so many things. I’m pretty sure that was not the only subject dumbed down. It was not a bullet to the foot-it was shooting the whole damned leg off.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the American people.
P. T. Barnum got it right he said there’s a,sucker born every minute.
And I am reminded of a line from the musical 1776: Most men would prefer to protect the dream if being rich over acknowledging that they are poir .
Your article above, is a clarion call, and resonates with the idea that today’s America has become “… uniquely stupid …” [Jonathan Haidt Sunday Morning, 12 June 2022] “… It’s not just a phase … The story of Babel is the best metaphor I have found for what happened to America in the 2010s, and for the fractured country we now inhabit. Something went terribly wrong, very suddenly. We are disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off from one another and from the past…” [Jonathan Haidt. The Atlantic May 2022 Issue] and so, it continues, as alluded to above, in addition to “… ancient Greeks knew, and Muslim scholars in the 14th or 15th century, a variety of people in history have noticed that history goes in cycles of 80 to 100 years sort of four generation … The utopian vision … has turned into a nightmare … a lack of informed debate is making America’s institutions stupid … When critics go silent, the institution gets stupid … we are on a downward trajectory currently, but we may well bounce back …” [Jonathan Haidt Sunday Morning, 12 June 2022]
It didn’t happen overnight. Regan >>> Newt Gingrich >>> Trumpy
The “hate your enemies” instead of working for compromise.
The “undo all the good” of the New Deal.
It is who they ARE .
There’s more of us than there are of them, though.
VOTE Blue.