It came to me, about a week ago, that all the political gossip: Trump, Kavanaugh, rampant corruption, who’s in, who’s out; why it’s felt sort of familiar. I studied Russian history in college. All the intrigue, the backbiting, the lying, the pettiness and the sheer incompetence and recklessness: it’s like the last years of Tsar Nicholas II, with Rasputin and all the other knaves and incompetents, who made the Communist revolution almost inevitable. The major difference, however, is that our people are more middle class, too few are economically desperate, like the workers, peasants and military conscripts, before Russia’s revolution. The elite are at least as socially distant, however, as the Russian aristocracy was in 1917.
But the incompetence is certainly equaled by Trump, his recklessness may be even worse, as is the lying, both by him and by his acolytes, er staff. And the damage he can do, is far worse than the blind idiocy of the last Tsar. So far, he’s only gotten started, and there is no world war, yet.
BTW: Trump did commit the military to an indefinite extension of deployment in Syria. So, maybe we will have another world war. Don’t put that past Donald Trump. It could win him re-election.
We have elections, and if they’re stolen, again, we could well be heading for 1917, or a Fascist totalitarian dictatorship, or one after the other.
Yes, the 2016 election was stolen, in a number of ways, the most important being gerrymandering, voter suppression and the Electoral College. And Bannon was wise to all three, ergo Trump. I don’t think Russian interference was major, except as possible treason.
Unless the Democrats, as the opposition, can overcome those obstacles, in other words win in a “blue wave,” Republicans will have done it again: won elections with fewer voters.
Given Trump and the GOP’s tendency to favor only the very wealthy and powerful, they could be setting us up for a violent, radical revolution—sometime in the future.
On the other hand, if there is a “blue wave,” well, maybe you and I will see a brighter future. Meaning, a truly progressive Congress, a Trump in panicky retreat, and then an enlightened new leader, a fresh start.
Would even that kind of change make a great difference in our greatest long-term crisis—global warming?
The latest bombshell from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) states that climate change will get radically worse by 2040, unless there is an extreme reduction in CO2 emissions worldwide by 2030. The world needs the US to lead, not run away to pump oil.
Trump and the Republicans can only think about all the money they and their friends, or funders will make, in the last scramble for oil, coal and gas, before climate disaster.
Cash up while you can boys! As the old French King said, prophetically: Apres Moi le Deluge. The French Revolution.
So responsible: Taking care of the American People.
More like: Taking the American People.
Grifters in charge.
With even one house of Congress, Democrats might prevent widening war, fascist takeover and the most brazen corruption an administration has ever permitted, let alone modeled.
Democrats won’t be able to respond to the call for radical emissions reductions, until 2020, if Democrats win the White House and both houses of Congress.
So, in simple terms: our—and the world’s—people depend on our voting Democrat, if humans are going to survive on Planet Earth. Republicans have been bought by the petro-billionaires; they aren’t going to give up all that money!