Guest post: The road isn’t going to get any shorter
Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Congress is supine.
Musk warned Republican lawmakers in December that he was compiling a “naughty list” of members who buck Trump’s agenda. He also pledged shortly after Election Day that his political action committee would “play a significant role in primaries” next year.
A Republican senator told The Hill that Musk’s wealth makes primary threats “a bigger deal.”
One hopes that at some point, it will become a badge of honour to have opposed Trump. Unfortunately, that time is not now. What America needs are Republican members of Congress who realize Trump is destroying the country. They have to stop being okay with that. By supporting a man who famously refused to show his own tax return, you’ve surrendered the tax information of all Americans to his attack dog. It shouldn’t make a difference whether the billionaire digging through this information to which he should not have been given access is named Soros or Musk; trespass is trespass. Trump does not own the “property” to which he has given Musk free admission. Republicans have to learn to care for their country’s future more than their own political career. They have to stand up, and stop being cowards. I know, a tall order. But your options and opportunities are running out; the more obvious and likely ones have been all missed or wasted. We’re all clinging to hopes and dreams that become increasingly improbable with every day and every Trump transgression of tradition, norm and law. Once you’ve run out of horses, it’s perfectly natural to keep praying for unicorns. But there comes a time when you have to stop wishing and start walking. The road isn’t going to get any shorter.
These are not normal times. This is not a normal president. Republicans have made a choice, and it’s the wrong one. Trump has taken over their country. The longer they go along with him, the harder it will be for anyone to take it back. How long before it’s too late is anybody’s guess. The current batch of Republicans still thinks they’re on a pleasure cruise. They need to take a closer look the tour itinerary. Do they really want to go where it’s heading? Is this what they signed up for?* Is this what they swore to protect? They’ll think that everything is great so long as it’s their opponents who are being thrown to the sharks. They are not pampered guests and passengers, they are rubber-stamping dupes and hostages. In reality, if they get in the Captain’s way, they’re next up to be chum. They need to wake up and smell the fascism. Time to put down the cocktails and step away from the buffet. Before long you’re going to try to hide that photo of which you’re so proud, you sitting there, smiling at the Captain’s table.
It’s going to be hard, but they’re going to have to think again. They have to imagine that they’re storming the beach of a hostile, occupying power, because that’s what Trump is. Liberation won’t happen if the troops are all milling about on board the landing craft, too afraid to be the first to step and wade ashore because they might be primaried. It’s criminal that the service and sacrifice of millions of Americans who fought against tyranny is being defiled by odious cowards trying to save their pensions or book deals, all in the service of a vile monster like Trump.
*Yes, I know that for far too many of them, this is exactly what they signed up for. Trump’s malignancy was not news.
Saw this cartoon posted on Facebook:
https://www.cartoonmovement.com/cartoon/cybertruck-man
(For those not automotively inclined, the vehicles are line of Musk’s cybertrucks. I’m not a car fan, but I do recognize these ugly, wedge-shaped monstrosities.)
The frustration and fear is that the message that Trumpers are hearing is that at their base, social programs are fraudulent and wasteful. Therefore what he’s doing is completely justified and the power grab is necessary. These are the same people who still believe that the virus was lab-created so that we would all get vaccinated (I know!) Democrats talk about organizing now, and talking to people in red counties in order to convince them that the Republicans are wrong, but I don’t know how you get through that level of misperception. So, we could hope that in the general election (if there is one) in 2026 enough people swing to win the Senate and the House because people don’t like the Trumpists that Musk puts on the ballot, but it’s kind of difficult.
I think that the trans issue is a real sore spot that afflicts the image of Democrats, but the vast majority of Democrats associate being “transphobic” with MAGA and so they dig in their heels any time we try to talk about it in a rational or logical manner. Is it enough of an issue among moderate Republicans that it will prevent them from voting for Democrats against a Muskite candidate? That’s a question I can’t answer.
Unfortunately, many of them have no idea what social programs there are, what government services are, and how much they actually depend on them already. I remember during the Tea Party craze, someone holding a sign up which read “KEEP GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE!” Guess what; your Medicare is being administered to you by “government hands.” Remove them and you’ve got nothing. The alternative is no Medicare. And, personal bankruptcy in the face of catastrophic medical expenses.
Did Trump voters know they were voting for less (or no) food safety, reduced consumer protection, increased epidemic disease, poorer air traffic control, green lights for pollution, and oh yes, some battery salesman and his interns rifling through your tax records and Social Security information? Is all of this “the will of the people,” however low information they might be? The United States might not be as “socialized” as most other advanced countries, but the amount is still not zero. Well, not yet anyway. Give Trump and Musk another month or two….
Part of the problem is the news cycle; if it bleeds, it leads. We hear only about the massive failures, and not even the context for those. For instance, we heard there were a million mistakes in the Social Security database. Really? With the number of entries they make, that is better than 99% accuracy.
They hear about FEMA during Katrina. They hear about the Pentagon spending enormous amounts for hammers and toilet seats (which they probably didn’t do; those funds were probably sent to some sort of dark ops of some sort). They hear about “welfare queens”, and everyone I know tells me about some friend or neighbor who has been on ‘welfare for life’…not possible, since in 1997, welfare was restructured to limit you to five years…not five years at a time, but five years for life. And you have to look for work, and cannot turn down any job that is offered, even if it is paying less than the welfare.
Also, immigration. Few, if any, of them realize that at least as many immigrants are deported under Republicans as under Democrats. They also don’t know that Democrats are not cutting Pentagon funding; they are only increasing it by a smaller percentage than Republicans. They think the Democrats have told their kids they can’t pray in school; they’ve only told the teachers they can’t make prayer mandatory, or pray with the kids.
Fox News fires up all this resentment, and more. And it doesn’t have to be Fox anymore. I have relatives that don’t watch Fox News, but they still complain because renters are able to vote on the property taxes they don’t pay but my relatives do, and that they have to pay school taxes when they don’t have any children in the school (never mind that they had four children that went through the schools, while those of us who had fewer or none were paying as high of taxes). If only the people who use the schools pay for them, what are they? Private schools! And these relatives are opposed to private schools, partially because one of them works for the public schools.
Ignorance is not bliss; ignorance breeds anger and resentment. Ignorance breeds a Trump presidency, not to mention all the other backlash occurring in other countries.
As for trans? I hate how the trans have taken over women’s spaces, but the Republicans are going to use distaste over trans to take away rights from gays and lesbians, women, people of color, immigrants, and the poor. Thanks for nothing, MAGA. (And that’s the ‘Great America’ they want to see – no safety regs so profit is unimpeded; women knowing their place; people of color knowing their place; gays and lesbians in the closet, and the poor? Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?)
I find it hard to celebrate the little victories in the gender Identity related EO’s coming from the White House for exactly that reason. They are victories, but chained to severe consequences for women, for lesbians and gays, and for mental health. It’s based on the politics of grievance and resentment, not on protecting women from predatory men who claim to be women.