Like most of us here, I tend to get fixated on the very personal aspects of this government shutdown and the scandalous “government” we have now. I know DACA young people wondering if they should apply for college, families juggling next week’s bills (including my son), and relatives with handicapped dependents wondering about health care. But the implications of what is going on in our nation right now are so much bigger. For a minute today, take time to “meta.”
Anyone who reads any source other than Faux or Sinclair knows that Trump has been a pawn of Russian oligarchs for years, and that they have had amazing success in moving to destroy our government. But the results today are so much more significant.
The 20 year history of Trump’s financial ineptitude and Russian support for his bad judgment is not generally available. Americans excel at innovation. Russians excel at kompramat. They have been at this for decades AND THEY WON.
But there is another layer: The money moving from the oligarchs through the NRA to Republican senators and reps is scandalous. “Follow the money.” If you make a simple excel chart of the No votes on today’s “Pelosi” bill and then look at their NRA ratings, there is an AHA.
We tend to focus on our individual senators, but the entire scheme is bigger than that. We also aim at the wrong targets. Our efforts this week should be aimed at the advertisers of Limbaugh, Hannity and Coulter. We can do this.
In the meantime, the old guard of the GOP are succeeding in feeding the crazy base. They had absolutely no regard for government employees. They are abusing them on a daily basis. A very few folks are realizing they need government, but in general this is an effort to demean them.
There are many long term results of this scandal. One is that it will be far, far harder to recruit federal employees moving forward. Like teacher jobs, they will be filled with the least capable moving forward. Even those who go back to work have the challenge of catching up on paperwork. Estimates say that will take a year.
We need to acknowledge the meta and long term goals of the GOP and how we can defeat them.