This morning, driving to work, 2 stories on NPR:
1/ North Korea has agreed to dismantle missile launching sites, nuclear facilities and move toward normalization of relations with South Korea, opening borders, co hosting Olympic games.
2/ Prolonged interview about the Roe killing Kavanaugh nomination, accusation of the man's drunken groping as a teenager.
Now, try to imagine which matters more to you, if you are John Q. Public.
How does this play?
Well, Trump & Company may be testosterone driven jerks, but he did manage to bully North Korea into cowering and behaving. If you don't care that much about abortion availability, what matters more--whether a teenage girl has to go out of state for her abortion or whether your President can intimidate one of the three big Axis-of-Evil guys into submission?
Watching images of strongmen of past, Hitler smirking after his troops rolled across the border into Czechoslovakia unopposed, Mussolini strutting, chest out, around his balcony, and the frenzied reaction of women in particular in the crowds, I thought, Uh-oh, here we go again.
Mussolini in particular loved to tell tales of how he "took" various women under stairwells, in barns, wherever and, like Berlusconi, it seemed to enhance his appeal to his crowds.
Leaders with balls.
Democrats have clung to the wisps of feminine indignation about the nasty things a judge did when he was a randy, drunken youth, completely ignoring the actual significance of the naked power play executed by Mitch McConnell and his GOP co conspirators.
This is what is going to happen. You heard it hear first.
Kavanaugh or someone equally reliably conservative will be confirmed. With Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch + Trump's next "Justice" the 5 votes to reverse Roe v Wade will be in place and the federal guarantee of abortion will be rescinded and states will decide whether or not to allow abortions. Some will continue to allow it, but from Texas to Florida and up to the Dakotas, wide swaths of the country will be no abortion zones with all the consequence.
But that will be just the beginning. Conservative rulings will flow for 30 years, no matter what direction the country takes. Corporations will buy Congressional seats; Gerrymandering will guarantee minority rule across the nation, and not just in the South, but in Pennsylvania and the rust belt and maybe even New England. Flag burning will be outlawed. Owners of private property like restaurants and bakeries will be allowed to refuse service to people who their religious beliefs tell them not to like--homosexuals, Blacks, immigrants. Public schools will become more and more segregated. Discrimination against various groups--Blacks, Jews, Hispanics--in gated communities, private clubs, schools, will be simply an expression of free speech and religious freedom.
In short, we will return to the America of 1950 and President Trump, having made good on his promise to Make America Great (i.e. 1950) Again, will be re elected, possibly more than once.
All this will happen as Chuck Schumer weeps, Adam Schiff quietly objects, Nancy Pelosi fumes, Steny Hoyer shrugs and the tired, pallid old guard which is the Democratic Party heads off to the assisted living communities they so richly deserve.
And the last not-so-best hope of this nation, the Democrats wilt under the glare of the strongman, these Dems fearful of offending, always seeking harmony and compromise will be shoved aside as Neville Chamberlain and history's victims and prey have been in the last century.
The past is coming back to get us, zombie like; it's a smoldering infection which just keeps recrudescing while the timid become the lunch of the bold.
1/ North Korea has agreed to dismantle missile launching sites, nuclear facilities and move toward normalization of relations with South Korea, opening borders, co hosting Olympic games.
2/ Prolonged interview about the Roe killing Kavanaugh nomination, accusation of the man's drunken groping as a teenager.
Now, try to imagine which matters more to you, if you are John Q. Public.
How does this play?
Well, Trump & Company may be testosterone driven jerks, but he did manage to bully North Korea into cowering and behaving. If you don't care that much about abortion availability, what matters more--whether a teenage girl has to go out of state for her abortion or whether your President can intimidate one of the three big Axis-of-Evil guys into submission?
Watching images of strongmen of past, Hitler smirking after his troops rolled across the border into Czechoslovakia unopposed, Mussolini strutting, chest out, around his balcony, and the frenzied reaction of women in particular in the crowds, I thought, Uh-oh, here we go again.
Mussolini in particular loved to tell tales of how he "took" various women under stairwells, in barns, wherever and, like Berlusconi, it seemed to enhance his appeal to his crowds.
Leaders with balls.
Democrats have clung to the wisps of feminine indignation about the nasty things a judge did when he was a randy, drunken youth, completely ignoring the actual significance of the naked power play executed by Mitch McConnell and his GOP co conspirators.
This is what is going to happen. You heard it hear first.
Kavanaugh or someone equally reliably conservative will be confirmed. With Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch + Trump's next "Justice" the 5 votes to reverse Roe v Wade will be in place and the federal guarantee of abortion will be rescinded and states will decide whether or not to allow abortions. Some will continue to allow it, but from Texas to Florida and up to the Dakotas, wide swaths of the country will be no abortion zones with all the consequence.
But that will be just the beginning. Conservative rulings will flow for 30 years, no matter what direction the country takes. Corporations will buy Congressional seats; Gerrymandering will guarantee minority rule across the nation, and not just in the South, but in Pennsylvania and the rust belt and maybe even New England. Flag burning will be outlawed. Owners of private property like restaurants and bakeries will be allowed to refuse service to people who their religious beliefs tell them not to like--homosexuals, Blacks, immigrants. Public schools will become more and more segregated. Discrimination against various groups--Blacks, Jews, Hispanics--in gated communities, private clubs, schools, will be simply an expression of free speech and religious freedom.
In short, we will return to the America of 1950 and President Trump, having made good on his promise to Make America Great (i.e. 1950) Again, will be re elected, possibly more than once.
All this will happen as Chuck Schumer weeps, Adam Schiff quietly objects, Nancy Pelosi fumes, Steny Hoyer shrugs and the tired, pallid old guard which is the Democratic Party heads off to the assisted living communities they so richly deserve.
And the last not-so-best hope of this nation, the Democrats wilt under the glare of the strongman, these Dems fearful of offending, always seeking harmony and compromise will be shoved aside as Neville Chamberlain and history's victims and prey have been in the last century.
The past is coming back to get us, zombie like; it's a smoldering infection which just keeps recrudescing while the timid become the lunch of the bold.
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