An Uncivil War

I follow several Never Trumpers on Blue Sky and I like to alternately support and scold them for their posts. They are getting it, some of them. Bill Bartlett was an early convert, but he admitted his marriage had changed his views. Bill Kristol in particular has amazed me with his conversion to his seemingly more liberal values. Joe Walsh was always the biggest gadfly on social media, and he actually registered as a Democrat, though I think it's more political theater. He says good things about Democracy and Equality but then he supports Netanyahu’s apartheid government. And, he wants Democrats to ‘fight fight fight.' This is what Adam Kinzinger wants too - they are asking the Democrats to use Republican tactics. This isn’t being received well, and for good reason. 

Democrats are currently a governing party. GOVERNING. They want to pass laws, do the work, help the machinery of the nation into the new century and make it better.  They are really the traditionalists here, not the Republicans who are obviously trying to tear the government down, and have since Reagan. Republicans are the Reactionaries, the Anarchists, the party of constant hissy fits over every advancement made in equality, because they are the party of OBSTRUCTION.  McConnell admitted this out loud when Obama was elected. 

But really, that is a static description. For the last several decades, they have been the BULLY party. They fight every initiative, unless it benefits the White Corporate Patriarchy, using the ugliest tactics available. And now they have descended into actual state-sponsored violence, not content to hide their hatreds any longer.  ICE is their id, the avatar of their primal urge to dominate and destroy. 

In the Republican world, there is a binary of power; the powerful and the powerless. The good or evil, man or woman, Christian or pagan, black or white, rural or urban, us or them mentalities all come into play. If you are the party of VIOLENCE, then you need a target. And that’s where the Democrats come in. 

The Democrat Party is a workers’ party in its best moments; it’s the party of everyone, and anyone who believes in government being a force for good. We are many and diverse but individually powerless.  The Republicans represent the owner class, small in number but wealthy.  They have used violence to get their way over the centuries, no matter what party in that era carried their influence. These days, actual CEOs and financiers are trying their hand at country-running and it’s like a pack of kids in a candy store; every repressed urge is coming out now, every frog murdered, every nerd shaken down,  and every sand castle smashed, replayed in macro. 

This is a war Democrats don’t want. We just want to do the job at hand. But MAGA, as Republicans have remade themselves, are forcing it on us. They want us to fight back, so bad it hurts them when we don’t. So we don’t. It’s that simple. It’s that logical. They want a hot war, and Trump is baiting us every day.  Democrats have always been the only adults in the Congressional room, and that is not emphasized enough in the media.  But they have made it into a wrestling match, us vs them, and the media has bought in to the fabrication. 

MAGA has taken over the media and with the billionaires’ help, will broadcast  their side. Every ugly tactic we try to use will be used against us. That leaves the courts and MAGA is slowly corrupting that avenue right now. We have few other legal weapons to fight a fascist takeover.  But that is a problem that legislators can’t solve til the legal process of winning more seats in the country’s legislatures works its way out.  They are doing what is legally prescribed for them to do. 

Legislatures and government officials can’t be the vehicle of our resistance. The constant criticisms and calls for violent tactics only adds to the burden the Democratic Party is carrying. They need to hold the institution of the Congress together so we have it to rebuild our Democracy when the fascists are overcome and run out. The Resistance has to find its leadership elsewhere. 

This does not conflict with my statements that the DC Dem leadership is too old and too timid to hold the line. They have a job to do, and they need to defend their Constitutional rights. Using procedure to obstruct anti-Constitutional laws is within their purview. Texas Legislators are showing the way. 

If Joe and Andy want to really make a difference:  stop beating up the Democrats and become a leader, create the resistance you guys want and lay claim to your own tactics. If those tactics work, great, but don’t expect the political party to acknowledge you. This may be a Mission Impossible moment. 

And I don’t mind saying this - violent tactics may be needed. But no part of the government should undertake them when the current administration is already committing those crimes.  

We need to preserve the laws, even while our President is breaking them. Those who took that oath, to preserve the Constitution, need to be judged for how well they did that. Leave them all to their own impossible tasks. 

We need everybody else to be on the streets, including Joe, Andy and the rest of the country that sees the incredible danger we’re in if MAGA gets its war. Protesting, Postering. Canvassing, Flash Mobs, Shows of force, even. And yes, inspiring people to fight back on social media. 

And finally,  we need more white men out on the street, risking their ass. Go get 'em boys! 

Stuck in the Sludge

We are stuck. It looks bad. Every day brings news of more destruction but a flabby response is all we are hearing from our institutions. Some days it feels like no one is fighting for us, the real Americans. The ones who actually believe in a working government and laws that apply to everyone. Where are the institutions to stand up to the fascists? How can they let 250 years of work slip through their fingers?

This seems like mass dereliction, if not incompetence.  Every institution that could possibly mount a resistance - government, higher ed, media, military and corporate - is giving in to Trump’s extortions.  Everything has become politicized, and every precious right and endeavor is destroyed to please the obscenely wealthy, our leaders are turning to us apologetically and shrugging. They probably think it will be over in 4 years, and can just hold their breath until then.  They point to us, and say ‘do something! It’s on you, not us.’

That strikes me as a childish response, if genuine, and malign if not. More than anything, massively, hugely selfish. Selfish, I’ll say it again. Self-satisfied, and self-serving. Everyone in Congress has the income to survive the next four years, and the connections to make personal crises go away. Corporate leadership, Institutional leaders, media owners, all are in the top 10% who are actually going to benefit from Trump’s policies. So are their friends, their fellow board members and their donors. They are all beholden to wealth, so the short term goal of protecting the wealthy in their aggressive bid to recast America in Robber Baron style is being greenlit by people we trusted. 

And who are these leaders, these titans who feel that fascism is tolerable for us and profitable for them? And what percentage of them are white men with family money? 

~~~~~

During my first real career, I was included in a business retreat weekend at the ad agency I worked for. I remember sitting through the conversations and listening, not really involved because I was one of the “creatives.”  The Account Reps and Directors drove the conversations, but I still had thoughts. And when, repeatedly, my thoughts showed up 15, 20 minutes down the road but voiced by the white guys (everybody but me and the Director’s secretary) I realized that I was pretty much as sharp as they were and a bit quicker. I started speaking up. Was I listened to? Not really. Even male creatives were thought of as less than intelligent, so I was patronized quickly and ignored. But I never again believed that I wasn’t as smart as a guy. 

Now I wonder if the mass hypnosis of the Patriarchy isn’t keeping us all from seeing the truth - white men are not all that in the brains department, nor much use in the spine department either. The kind of short-term policy making I see in male leaders is doomed to failure because they won't do the work to make a better policy, when donors have cash ready for those who will slow walk or disappear that policy. 

In past tweets and posts, I’ve suggested that Never Trumpers form a third party and run against Trump (both in 2020 and 2024)  in order to split his vote and make him lose to the Democrats. Basically, fall on their swords for Democracy while rebuilding the reputation of their party. Now it’s too late, MAGA has devoured the party apparatus and the government itself. 

And speaking to that, I posted in January 2017 that the departing Obama administration should form a shadow government in exile, to monitor and protect important relationships and intelligence while Trump was in office. That didn’t happen in either Obama's or Biden's administration, even though it was OBVIOUS what was going to happen in Trump's second term. Maybe just obvious to me. 

Honestly, I am not in government, and have no analyst training as such, but even I foresaw the dangers. Why didn't the white guys?

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I am not the only one seeing the danger. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is aware, but powerless to overcome both the MAGA lies AND the undermining by their old and entrenched Dem leaders. And it’s mostly the Black women and Muslims who are making the most sense, while getting the most public abuse from their own institutions. 

So we are now seeing sexism, racism and religious profiling in our own leadership. Not surprising, when the majority at that level of power are wealthy white men. 

Maybe it’s the vast acceptance of the ‘Men are Smarter than Women’ idea, even among liberal men, that is hampering the punishment of the Trump administration. It’s the not-so-secret sexism and racism of the mediocre white men who feel threatened by each accomplishment women and minorities make. In fact, if MAGA is the very model of a modern white man, they are comparatively slower, lazier and less accomplished than women, and especially black women. This just twists their knickers because aren’t they supposed to be In Charge of Things, no matter how incompetently? And isn't that the story the whole Trump administration tells daily?

~~~~

 It’s the Strict Father* framing that Western religions promote as godly, and want to indoctrinate us back to that 19th century model. The modern iteration includes armament and other military cosplay,  emphasizing physical domination as a male right. This article by Samantha Hancox-Li makes a compelling argument that the natural result of these teachings is pedophilia. 

Preying on children is not a social good. Not only are there biological consequences, but also lasting psychological harm that continues to reverberate through the generations. Pedophilia does not make our society better. We are about to see a campaign that makes the opposite case, to shield Trump and his fellow rapists. There is no logic to condoning this obvious social taboo other than that there are a lot of rich white men who want to be allowed to break it. And Trump is their poster boy. (Musk too).

The selfishness, the unearned privilege, the arrogance of the white men** in this society has to be blunted and put into the correct perspective - they are preventing progress, and actually destroying or selling our common assets. They are rejecting new ideas, better policies, more broadly supportive efforts, rather than allow women and minorities into the power centers of our institutions.  We are entering the Dark Ages of America, where life is cheap for the powerless and gilded for the rich. This can’t be continued without the whole nation broken up and sold off to wealthy and immoral men, and the women who aid and abet them. 

Accountability is the first step. Stop voting for the white guy with the glib answers. Bring the women, the black women, the young and diverse activists into power and they will start to turn the fascist machine around. Stop listening to the wall of white male media - they are only committed to returning the Patriarchy to its former invisibility. 

* The strict father model is discussed by George Lakoff in his books, including Moral Politics,Don't Think of an Elephant, The Political Mind, and Whose Freedom?. In these books, the strict father model is contrasted with the nurturant parent model. Lakoff argues that if the metaphor of nation as family and government as parent is used, then conservative politics correspond to the strict father model. For example, conservatives think that adults should refrain from looking to the government for assistance lest they become dependent.

** Wealth and power makes men in minority groups feel similarly empowered to exploit, lie and cheat to get more and more wealth. It is ultimately Capitalism that is the virus in our society;  it's just that white men are the most vulnerable to it. 

Party Requirements

Trump in 1987, in his early 40s.

Our current administration is full of the children of inherited wealth. 

Nepo babies rarely experience consequences. There is very little that wealth and connections can’t fix, erase, or NDA away.  Rich kids make plenty of mistakes but very few of them show up in the news, or inconvenience them in any way. So they don’t plan for consequences. They can’t imagine how bad things can get when something goes wrong. They have never lived through being one paycheck away from catastrophe. Or one illness away from bankruptcy.   

You will find a tragedy in any backstory of a rich kid who thinks of other people, of how dire life might be without the protection of inherited wealth. Some loss or lesson that brings a wider awareness. FDR’s polio and JFK’s injury in military service are experiences of those presidents who learned to see the lives of the working class. You will find rich h kids running for office in local and state elections,  trying to connect with their poorer constituents. 

Or you might want the person who has spent a year or more making a living in a restaurant job. 

There is no environment that will have you experience the whole human condition as a server in a restaurant. Making a living on tips is its own class in the psychology of money. Any retail job that has you interact with the public will give you a similar experience, but the restaurant setting is where people are encouraged to relax.  Everything comes out of that, good and bad.  I imagine that service as employment has been that way all the way back to the great families visiting each others’ castles, with the servants taking the brunt. ‘The customer is always right’ goes back to medieval days.  Rich kids are always the customer, and therefore always right. 

So I ask, if you have never served other people - and I include the military here - how can you successfully serve the People?  How can billionaires, and the children of billionaires, ever make good policy for the citizens who invisibly do all the work? The wealthy just don’t have the understanding of consequences that makes for sensible policy. Rich kids do not belong in government.  Of course, because they feel entitled to government assets, but more importantly, they are remarkably stupid when it comes to planning. That’s why the incompetence. They just assume that throwing money and power around will cover up their mistakes. And medievally, it often does.  

If you want stupid government, give it to a rich kid. If you want successful government, give it to someone who has worked for the public. I would love to see a requirement for elected office that they have spent at least one year waiting tables and lived on it. I think the Democratic Party would be better for it. And it would show the Republican Party up for the clueless rich kids they have always been. 

The Vacuum

That loud sucking sound that is the background music to the dumpster fire going on now in DC, and across the nation is the obvious lack of leadership in the only functioning political party left. Everybody has noticed and criticized the geriatric figureheads of the Democratic party, but it seems they still can’t act to save our lives. 

We are so desperate for a leader that yet another white male opportunist who cosplays as a progressive but moonlights with MAGAts will likely take over the race in 2028. Gavin Newsom is just the type of self-promoter we already have too many of in  Washington. 

Meanwhile, the party ignores the firebrands that are doing the most to confront Mump/Trusk. Most of them are black women!!! These are the leaders we need, but they are not listened to by their party.  Why is it that the lesson the DNC learned from Kamala’s loss was to turn back to white men. 

I see Bernie and Tim Walz being platformed in the aftermath, and wonder where is the incredible depth of talent we saw on the stage at the DNC - women, black women, Muslims, Latinos, Asians, gays and Native Democrats. But again, we are going to revert to a white guy? 

Why is it that America just can’t get over it’s Patriarchy fetish?  

Corporations are stupid

Once more we are getting gaslit by Elon that a corporation is more efficient and a better model for government, than… government. Of course, this is bullshit. 

I have been working for a living since 1974, and I have seen the economy turn several times. I have been both employed by and vendor to Fortune 500 corporations and to survive, I came up with several observations. Here they are, from then and now, to refer to when things are bumpy with our corporate overlords. 

• Corporations are stupid. They make stupid decisions, usually Cover Your Ass decisions. This has many causes, but putting shiny new MBAs ( now it’s techbros) into headquarters and giving them policy power back in the 80s started a downward trend. A top-down decision tree always wastes everyone’s time. The only knowledgeable people in an industry are those on the ground. So inevitably, when workers are ignored or laid off, and consequences ensue, it’s CYA time. Lower level folks are fired, but everyone in the C suite fails upwards. Corporate America is run by those who continually cost the company more money but never pay the price for their incompetence. In fact, the true currency in business is loyalty to whoever holds their strings. 

• And so, the corporate world, your job description is usually not your job. Your job is actually making your boss look good to his boss, whatever that takes. It might be finishing your weekly workload, but it might easily be errands, manual labor or procurement. It might be just laughing at his ugly jokes or he might require you do his work, stand in for his family, or to volunteer for his causes. You are always required to give him the glory. You are his creature. That’s the job.

• Corporate business in the US is primarily a game white middle class men play every day to pal around and compete with other men. Picture that fedora’d clean-cut  man walking out the door with his briefcase every morning, intoning, “Off to the wars!” That’s why they like it.  The product or service is secondary. “Office Space” could be set in any industry - the game is played exactly the same. 

• The well known “office politics” and “corporate culture” euphemisms are there to hide the constant undermining of women and minorities. That harassment costs time and money, not to mention the talent wasted. The fact that women and minorities can’t get representative numbers of corporate positions is because they are not seen as legitimate opponents in the game. No white man wants to waste his time competing with one of them; it’s easier to force them out with abuse. How much better the company might do if the management wasn’t always paying off its victims is irrelevant.. Corporations must preserve the illusion of white male competence, in spite of its losses. 

• Truly, hasn’t remote work made obvious how wasteful in-office work has become? At this point, corporate demands that employees show up are just naked grabs for the control they lost during the pandemic. 

• Now that corporations’ only real products are stock dividends, and unnecessary costs like quality materials or trained labor can be cut from the P&L, their products or services are shoddy and product lines have shrunk. Once proud US companies turn out slop and often, there’s a private equity firm behind them. Like techbros, and the clueless MBAs of past decades. PE firms don’t know how to run a company, other than into the ground. They think their money is proof of competence, a mistake Elon makes, and that their meddling is actually smart  leadership. 

• Really, the final straw for me is the contempt these companies show for their customers, those still able to afford the inflated prices. No customer service, extra fees for things that used to be included, and when it breaks, too bad, buy another. Or just F*O*. Because they don’t really need your business.  Wall Street is where their customers live.

I have stories, actual interaction with top corporate C-suites and upper-level management - Pillsbury, IBM, Georgia Pacific and more - so this is experience talking. But the current situation is the natural end to the gaslighting that corporate entities have maintained since the 80s. 

If these points don’t convince you to stop investing these corporate golems with credibility, then the future looks to be even worse. Just because Elon feels fine with abusing his position and lying to manipulate us, doesn’t mean we have buy his shit. In fact, we should stop buying all corporate shit because they all lie to us constantly to preserve their stock prices. 

I think the current array of incompetents - all nurtured by corporate capitalism -  in the administration should prove my point for me. Who is really the DEI hire now?

Musk as anti-hero

People wonder what Musk’s endgame is, the actual reason he leapt at the opportunity to do a takeover of the government. After all, how could it be different from taking over Tesla and SpaceX? And the obvious reasons are, lucrative contracts and the ability to command policy that favors him. Sure, and those are short term goals that have been realized already. But that doesn’t really explain his glee in destroying whole agencies with no thought. It’s not just the destructive impulses of the teenage boy he is emotionally. He’s after something. 

And the answer is, AI, filled with government data. And the purpose? Sure, more money and dominance in the AI field. But really? He wants to run the entire government, all its services and bodies, with xAI. If he can’t ever be president, he can always be Big Brother. 

AI is a system without empathy, which he claims is “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization.” Making all decisions, collecting and granting all monies, directing armies of dog robots with guns to solve meat puppet problems. Basically, civilization on autopilot, with him holding the code. He doesn’t need money. He just wants ultimate control. 

It’s no coincidence that his other baby company, Neurolink, has sci-fi overtones of mind control. This teenage man might have had Lex Luthor and the other evil geniuses of comics in mind, if not the Bond villains complete with volcano, hairless cat and rocket ship pointed at world capitals. He named his satellite company “Starlink,” with shades of The Terminator’s creator, the AI system Skynet which caused near extinction of humanity in that movie series. But he thinks of himself as the hero. Musk has already appeared in a Marvel movie as himself, buddies with the fictional billionaire inventor, Tony Stark. He will tell you he is working for the good of humanity, although he is clueless as to what that might actually be. 

Whatever condition you want to apply to him, be it narcissism, drug addiction, megalomania or something else, Elon Musk is determined to make dystopia real, with him at the controls. He probably won’t make it to Mars himself. But he can make sure that our lives are just as empty, dangerous and soulless as that barren planet, to make his comic-book dreams of galactic power come true.

But I was not…any of those things

This administration is salting the earth for all inhabitants of this country; Where is the Million Man March that will get the attention of  these avatars of the Patriarchy? 

We are running quickly through Pastor Martin Niemöller’s stark description of apathy in the face of fascism. In the space of a month, they came for the trans people first, but we aren’t trans, so… and then came Military veterans, Federal employees and Medicaid recipients. The disabled, the elderly and the poor are easy targets. Women lose big in every group, and Project 2025 promises to disadvantage single mothers, even while they require more births. They are starting with those who have the least power and working their way up. The only ones standing at the end will be White, Straight Men, if we are to believe JD Vance’s pronouncements.  Men like you, no doubt, doing it right, following the rules. 

But will any WSMs be standing at all? There were plenty of them fired from the federal workforce this week. Most of the military veterans, and a big chunk of the disabled and poor are WSMs. If they succeed at dismantling Social Security and Medicare, we are talking about 30+ million of them. 

What about WSM with wives and children? She suddenly can’t be employed, without contraception available. She can’t bring in income if she’s constantly pregnant. And I bet most men are not so happy about new mouths to feed and doctor bills to pay. No free school, so any education will be a new cost. Men will be saddled with the entire responsibility for keeping up with expenses. Many men will just leave, and the women and kids will be punished for it. The wanton destruction underway in Washington will affect everyone, except the very wealthy. 

This administration is salting the earth for all inhabitants of this country; everyone who can’t jet away to their own tropical island (or Mars? )will be left in a dustbowl. I mean that both literally and economically - they are forcing a breakdown of the climate, the government, the economy and the entire world order,  just so they can loot the resources. This is smash and grab on a megalomaniacal level. And it is all out in the open, and they are laughing in our faces. 

All you WSMs out there, and really, men in general, are the ones who have to get off your asses and stop that Niemöller quote from its denouement. Women have organized and protested. Black people have organized, protested and died for their rights. All the minorities and groups this administration is targeting are fighting back. Where is the Million Man March that will get the attention of  these avatars of the Patriarchy? 

When are you going to use your precious entitlement for the good of this country?   Why you? Because there will be no one else to stand up for you in the end.