May 9, 2025
Let DJT be the catalyst for the obvious reforms our experiment with democracy needs. The abhorrent truth is, not so much what he brought. Rather it is the fact he was able to do it at all. The problem is not Trump. There is a very full stable of Trumps, perhaps not as good at embellished marketing absolutes like “You know, I know and everybody knows” marketing. In fact, some of them push the envelope even further like DeSantis. The problem is embedded in the system and I’ll give you one guess what it is.
MO Money MO Corruption. MO Money MO Blatant Lies. MO Money MO divided Government. MO MO MO $ even more divided voters. If that should continue, it would last until one group took enough of a large, perhaps super majority control. Without reforms that would be the path we would continue on in a zero-sum game.
The religious fundamentalists / Ayn Rand raw capitalists / Gun Nuts and Anti Immigration people provide a very formidable coalition. Enough to Be Scary!
We had many of these problems solved following FDR and WWII. However, they have been buying our government for some time now and have been changing the rules. Dismantling the ‘New Deal’. Meet the new rule, same as the old rule, what some consider the real ‘Golden Rule’.
“He who owns the gold makes the rules”
That is what they are trying to enhance from whatever level they have achieved so far. Legislators try to decide elections when they don’t like the outcome. While they call themselves free market kind of guys, they support monopolies, one big source their power comes from. How different is that, would an enhancement of the system be much different than Russian Oligopolies characterized by mutual interdependence? We own the gold, we make rules, you execute them.
On the surface, it appears democratic but when you peel the onion back it reeks of influence from donors. You know, the people who own the gold. You don’t need to look far these days to see this in action. It has been reported Kirsten Sinema could not raise enough money online like some other progressive candidates. She may have thought she still lives in a strong Republican state so she could pick an issue or two she could get away with.
So perhaps she drank the Kool-Aid and used the support to send out large colorful postcards defending Big Pharma’s ability to continue to make life-saving drugs. Then she did her John McCain squat show vote in the Senate. She may be drunk with her position. She is not that popular. She barely beat lying Martha McSally. She had to change from a Democrat to an Independent. It was not the first time she angered her base with her Senate votes.
So clearly the Democrats have not been vaccinated from the money-drunk virus our experiment in democracy is having. However, while the virus is clearly spreading the Democratic party is the only party wanting to reform the election system with more guardrails. Some are just in keeping what we have rather than the Republican party wanting to decide elections over the voter’s choice. They have a hard time winning majorities, especially in national elections where gerrymandering is mute. I see academic articles documenting how the political parties change policy positions over time. Perhaps, but since the GOP inherited the Dixiecrat’s I have not seen overwhelming olive branches to the African American and LGBTQ community. The numbers have clearly shown it.
I am not sure the choice has ever been more obvious. I find it difficult to believe in the Ayn Rand philosophy that the economy would have recovered faster without FDR’s reforms. How would that have happened when nobody had enough faith in the banks to deposit money in them?
There is nothing democratic about the Heritage Foundation’s latest proposal ‘All power to the President’. It is the separation of powers in our Federalist system that saved us from a Trump Oligarchy the first term. They have a very ambitious dream of returning our government to the size it was prior to the New Deal. You know, the government is for the defense of the country only. The Ayn Rand’s like a volatile boom and bust economy. An important element to understand here is ‘Traders’ like volatility. Volatility is their friend. If an asset does not go up or down, it’s hard to make fast money on it. That is also true for the overall economy.
If you return us to that kind of government, small for defense only and with few regulations, you will return us to a volatile economy. Boom and Bust with the busts often being depressions. Something we have not experienced since 1929. If you remove all the guardrails that prevented depressions, they will come back. The Ayn Rand dreamers don’t care; they can make more money in those types of economies more than the average person.
Late in the Reagan administration, Reaganomics was not able to cut social welfare programs. He did over his eight years create a slow recovery by building up the military-industrial complex. Almost anyone can do that just like Hitler did. Reagan fought inflation for almost his entire presidency even having to raise taxes more than once. As such we got the first $1.4 trillion budget deficit from the fiscal conservatives. After that the GOP decided the only way we would ever cut social welfare programs like Social Security was if we spent so much money there was no more to be spent. We would then have to cut welfare programs for sure.
If they ever were, they are no longer ‘Fiscal Conservatives’!
Pay attention to what they do. They are not fiscal conservatives any longer. The large amount of red ink from GOP administrations since Eisenhower just might make one believe the Republican intent is to bankrupt the United States in order to get rid of those social welfare programs. Then they can say we just cannot afford that kind of thing anymore. You hear it when they say cutting spending has to start with entitlements. When I have told a tribal republican this they simply say that it is not true or they don’t care. Tribalism does not require a look at the track record.
That is when I point out the $8 trillion hole in the Trump budget. Trump is like a blow heart Texan; he does everything big and great. So certainly it could not be because he did not know if he cut taxes a lot and spent the same he would be big in the red. Trump would see it as OPM ‘Other peoples money’. Trump is just smart enough to be dangerous even if he did pay someone to take his college entrance exam! Why would you support and vote for someone who paid someone else to take his college entrance exam?
I see what they are doing so I’m not writing it off. I’m not voting for any Republicans either. While Democrats also sell influence, they are not owned by the Religious Fundamentalists, Gun Lobby, and Ayn Rand’s in the percentage of GOP representatives. If they were allowed to vote their conscience, you would have had more Republican votes for impeachment. They could not do that like they did in the Nixon era and the difference is:
MO$ MO$ Every election is MO$ and more legislators are bought off in whole or in part. Some of the biggest problems we now face are because of the rule changes that were promoted by MO$. It was lobby influence that produced Fox News or News-corp. It was reported Reagan gave Murdoch everything he wanted. Buying influence on legislators accomplished that and the further monopolization of the media. The Scripps Corporation is reported to own 80% of the local TV stations in the country. They are using them for political purposes with subliminal advertising Joe Biden is too old and providing identical word-for-word Op Ed’s across all their TV stations. Local news is ugly. Watching it regularly would make you believe it is too dangerous to leave your home. Kari Lake is the kind of people it can produce.
If you take a hatchet to the budget and cut only social welfare programs without reforming, you will create an economic collapse. You could reform Social Security but you could not get rid of it without replacing it with something better. Better meaning less costly and just as or more effective even if that is such a thing as means test. The 1929 100 year cycle is approaching. We don’t have to have a depression.
Tom Flash