‘Donald Trump is Nothing!’ - A Melting Iceberg
There are at
least two sides to most political and economic issues ... and Republicans and
Democrats usually have opposing positions.
I believe that the positions of Democrats are more in the best interests
of the American public than those of the Republicans. But that is not what I am about to address.
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Democrats have a
tougher job presenting their ideas because before getting through to the nuts
and bolts of their arguments, and hopefully reaching a bi-partisan compromise,
they must first expend their energies working through the layers of lies and
plotting which the Republican Party, led by the defeated and indicted
forty-fifth ex-president, wrap around their arguments, which sometimes, when finally revealed, turn
out to be nothing more than just opposition,
without anything constructive about them.
Democrats in
Congress and elsewhere, before even getting to the real issues, have been
forced to wade through this morass, wasting their resources, challenging lies
and fighting MAGA intrigues. Leaving it
to the courts to resolve, that in our system of justice always tries to be
fair to defendants, often benefits Donald Trump and his acolytes. Just look how
they have used the courts to slow down the wheels of justice. For example, it
will be years before litigation stemming from Trump’s theft of government
documents is resolved.
The answer: At this point, Democrats must concentrate on tearing down
Trump's image. Doing that is more
important than the political and economic issues on the table, which tend to hold
people’s attention only momentarily.
A day should not go by without Democrats pointing out that he is a scoundrel, thief, liar, philanderer, and who is presently under indictment by grand juries for numerous crimes committed against the laws of the United States and of several States. He must be demonized so that his lies and MAGA intrigues are shattered in the eyes of those who still believe in him.
Only
then will Democrats be able to return to arguing about issues with their
Republican opponents, who would no longer be able to hide behind a shattered
Donald Trump.
This may not be
as enormous a task as it seems because Trump is very successful at demonizing
himself with his own words and actions, increasingly illustrating how unhinged
from reality he has become. That must be
hammered home to those who still support him.
Confusing Nikki
Haley with Nancy Pelosi and fulminating about her choice of dresses were only hints at his dementia, the top of the
melting iceberg that is Donald
Trump. Rather than wasting energy
contradicting his lies and trickery in regard to individual issues, Democrats
should ‘go for the jugular’ and totally shatter his image first. Then the
dying Republican Party would have no place to hide.
Trump’s ‘melting’ continued this past week with E. Jean Carroll winning her sexual assault lawsuit against
Trump in which a jury awarded her $83,000,000. Ms.
Carroll, an author and magazine columnist, drove home the importance, not only
of her lawsuit and its significance to all women, but of its shattering Trump’s
image and reputation as well.
To the world (on
Rachel Maddow’s TV show), as a successful litigant, she proudly announced that ‘Donald Trump is nothing. We need not be afraid of him.’ The
sooner America realizes this, the better off the nation will be, leaving
it to historians to document the damage
to democracy this ‘big nothing’ did bring about.
‘Donald Trump is nothing. We need not be afraid of him.’
JL
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In 1838, Lincoln
Saw the Problem
The other day, Heather Cox Richardson (in her ‘Letters From an American’ daily posting) wrote about a young Abraham Lincoln’s ‘Lyceum’ address in 1838, more than two decades before the Civil War. Lincoln felt that the passions of Americans that had fueled the nation’s independence and growth were no longer needed in those roles and seemed to be turning in less noble directions, criticizing our own government, with the English no longer available as a target. Basically, he said it was time to ‘cool it,’ using the phrase ‘sober reason.’ These were his words, referring to what was that period’s MAGA movement. (They called themselves ‘Know-Nothings.) These words are still pertinent today:
“The Founders
had used their passions to create a system of laws, but the time for passion
had passed, lest it tear the nation apart. The next generation must support
democracy through “sober reason,” he said. He called for Americans to exercise
‘general intelligence, sound
morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws.”
Makes sense, and
he became president 21 years later, but those passions still tore the nation
apart then, as it threatens to do again today. We cannot let that happen, as a
glance back at history teaches us.
In 1861, the
South's slave owners rallied the passions of the residents of what became the Confederacy by
stoking their fears of the Federal government's disturbing the expansion of the
basis of their economy, slavery.
Similarly,
today's Republican Party stokes the passions of Americans with fears that out-of-control
immigration will disturb their way of life. That is why, as ordered by their
likely presidential candidate, they oppose the Senate's and President Biden's
initially bi-partisan efforts to finally control immigration. They prefer a
crisis over immigration as the only campaign issue left to them, since they've
already lost the battle over abortion in the minds of the nation's voters. I suspect that after November, what remains of
the G.O.P. will just be a part of a new Whig party, along with the fascists and
libertarians.
But crucial to this all happening is the shattering of the already melting image of Donald Trump that Ms. Carroll correctly characterized by saying :
‘Donald
Trump is nothing. We need not be afraid
of him.’
JL
* * *
How Do We
Educate the Uneducatable?
If you read
‘real’ newspapers, you should know the score regarding what is going on in the
world around us. The identity of the troublemakers, internationally and
domestically, is no secret.
I believe that if
we were to come up with solutions for the war in Ukraine, for the Palestinians,
for the immigrants on our Southern border, and most other problems that we
face, doing so would remove weapons currently used by those who want to perpetuate
these crises to gain supporters for their own nefarious aims. Real solutions
would leave them weaponless.
The
’Uneducatable’ - Yet there are many millions of Americans who absolutely refuse
to connect the dots which lead to today's Russia, Iran, their non-state
followers like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, as well as to the present
leadership of the Republican Party, right here in the United States, that
shamelessly play politics with the future of democracy.
As a result, too
many Americans are functionally ‘uneducatable.’ That is because they have one
thing in common. They view everything
through a rear-view mirror, afraid to think about any changes the future might
bring. Thus, they end up supporting
those whose aims are to perpetuate, not resolve, crises.
But they cannot
be ignored because in many States, they are a majority, whose votes affect the
Electoral College and enable gerrymandering of congressional districts. That is
the problem we face.
And guess who the
chief purveyor of those rear-view mirrors is! Must we just wait for the iceberg referred to earlier in this posting to melt
down to a puddle?
Do you have an
answer? Let’s hear it! E. Jean Carroll, as cited above had one. ‘Donald Trump is nothing. We need not be afraid of him.’ Time to spread that truth!
‘Donald Trump is nothing. We need not be afraid of him.’
JL
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Joe Biden’s
Accomplishments
Don’t take my
word for them. Check out Simon
Rosenberg’s ‘Hopium Chronicles’ (especially the Jan. 29 posting) to be
enlightened! Find them at https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/ or just CLICK HERE.
JL
* * *
Boycott Targets?
If any ‘captains
of industry’ (or just plain consumers) who might follow this blog object to the
ridiculous 'State's Rights' crap coming out of Texas governor Abbott’s mouth, they
might consider boycotting some of the businesses headquartered in the Lone Star
State. Some have competitors elsewhere who
understand that immigration law is a federal, and not a State, area of
governance. For a list of the top 25 Texas-based Fortune 500 companies, check out
https://www.concordia.edu/blog/top-25-fortune-500-companies-headquartered-in-texas.html or just CLICK HERE.
Obviously,
consumers or local entities don’t deal directly with most of them but they
still might find other, non-Texas-based competitors of these companies where
they can spend their money. Numbers
1,2,3,7,10,12,19, and 23 on the list might fit in this category.
JL
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There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you. Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.
Either way will work, sending
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Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it, particularly if they are a registered voter.
JL
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