By comparison, 1861 seemed so easy.
The nation was neatly divided sectionally and politically, with compromises over expansion of slavery run out. No large standing army existed. Most Americans saw themselves first as residents of their sovereign states, with the United States of America often taking a plural verb. No wonder Robert E. Lee turned down Lincoln's offer of top command of the Union armies — his "country," Virginia, had seceded.
The break up wasn't that neat. Outside of the fire-breathing secessionists in South Carolina and the Deep South, the decision to leave the Union was agonizing for most states. Virginia lost its northwestern counties which became a state. North Carolina was always ambivalent. Sam Houston opposed it eloquently in Texas. The future Stonewall Jackson, then professor Thomas J. Jackson at Virginia Military Institute, was against it and prayed it would not come. But it did.
We've been in a Cold Civil War for some time — I'd place the start date as the Supreme Court unconstitutionally giving the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000. But as with the hot Civil War, the embers had been crackling for decades. This might be the most important election in American history. But the presidential race should not be this close, given Trump's abundant corruption, incompetence, lies, and treason. We may look back and see that 2016 was our last chance.
I bring this up because...what happens if Biden loses? Or Trump steals the election. Or is defeated and refuses to leave office? These have been the subject of many articles. Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote by 3 million in 2016 but was deprived of the Electoral College by 80,000 votes in three states, said "Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances because I think this is going to drag out..."
We've been in constitutional crises of varying severity since Trump was elected but November could usher in one of much greater consequence. Barring a Biden landslide and Democrats gaining significant majorities in the House and Senate, neither side is likely to accept the outcome as legitimate.
Democrats, who won popular vote majorities in 2000 and 2016 only to lose the Electoral College, are likely to face tectonic changes if that history repeats. But Trump administration official Michael Caputo only said out loud what his co-religionists believe when he rambled about left-wing insurrection awaiting.
The right has most of the guns. But the looting, arson, and other destruction by antifa members embedded in "peaceful protests" in many cities show the far left is not without violent means. Months of protests in Portland finally capped by the murder of a Trump supporter is more than a whiff of Weimar.
It's not far fetched to see losing Democrats fracture into a social democratic party and a rump Democratic Party. Many Rogue readers will hold to their belief that Bernie could have won (he would have done worse). But this schism would ensure that liberalism would never win another national election against a lock-step GOP.
Today we have a large standing army. We have a huge federal government providing, for now, Social Security and Medicare. With only one exception (Texas), the red states are net takers. So they need the economic power of the blue states however much they hate them. So Washington has the means to crush, say, the dream of secession by California, Oregon, and Washington state. Unless, that is, the military were to come apart and support different factions. The ballistic submarine base at Bangor, Wash., hosts one of the largest nuclear weapons stockpiles in the world.
This time we also lack the strong sectionalism of the first Civil War. I can point to a New Confederacy. But blue cities exist within many red states.
Which brings me back to 1861. Secession then was done to preserve the abomination of slavery, Lincoln's assurances notwithstanding. But it raised a legitimate constitutional question. Could "sovereign" states that had voluntarily joined the union in 1789 leave it? The Constitution is silent on the matter.
Until now, one could say confidently that the 618,222 deaths in the Civil War had answered it in blood. But the Constitution still remains silent (although the Supreme Court held in 1869’s Texas v White case that a state can’t unilaterally secede from the union). I don't see how much longer the republic can endure with a dozen or so very populous blue states permanently disenfranchised by an Electoral College and Senate (and federal courts).
I don’t think it will come to that. Stepping back and looking at the overall situation, Trump is in a world of trouble. He pulled ads from Ohio after doing that in Arizona. Who does that in battleground states? You can't say it’s because he has Twitter, because 95% or more of the country doesn’t bother with it. He hasn’t expanded his base, he has shrunk it. Many people who voted for him in 2016 won’t do so this time, and I have yet to encounter the reverse. Biden’s lead has held steady, and the person making it worse for Trump is Trump himself. He can’t keep his mouth shut, and he has no idea how to be a leader.
Posted by: Greg Hilliard | September 15, 2020 at 04:27 PM
your probably correct Greg.
Hope it plays out that way.
I do see a lot of kooks losing their seats
but The GOP or as it is currently called the Rump party. Oops the Party of Trump will do anything to not lose the presidency. Including lie cheat and steal.
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 15, 2020 at 04:56 PM
Why Trump cannot lose
His jump suit will match his face and hair.
Putin will have lost his puppet.
Oligarchs will blame Putin.
Bill Barr will go down in disgrace.
Mitch McConnell will retire and blame everyone but his wife.
His father in law will fund a library and museum named the McConnell-Chao memorial and it will be in the shape of a ship.
Lindsay Graham will consider suicide.
A number of Tea party kooks will go down in flames.
The GOP will not get to pick catholic zealots as judges.
National Parks will not be sold off to mining companies.
Maybe they will finally get the Bundy’s to pay their bill.
The Dudes with beards, no masks and huge guns will cry and
some will go off the deep end and pull the triggers
There will be blood.
Bernie: Historians can only speculate.
Future generations will never know if Sanders could have won.
He never got a chance as the current Democratic Party is the GOP of the 50’s.
Bernie is Jewish and per right wing websites, insane.
Socialism is a dirty word. Whereas Capitalism is as to god as
25 evangelists preaching God intended
for me to get rich.
Bernie advocated a “Political revolution”
He probably wouldn’t have won but he is a better human being all day long than the Orange Alien named Donald Trump.
Lock N Load
Let's Rock and Roll
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 15, 2020 at 04:59 PM
You always pose such cheerful scenarios, Jon. I am not so pessimistic, but then it is my nature to try not to borrow trouble until it comes. I only hope that is not naivety showing. Even if the Orange One gets away with the Electoral College, if Congress goes solidly blue all may not be lost. Will it?
Posted by: Donis Casey | September 15, 2020 at 05:26 PM
I must continue my thoughts that Trump will attempt to impose martial law and not have an election. The Civil War scenario fits this very nicely.
I am looking forward to election day for the cessation of ads. I am thoroughly insulted by how stupid the creators of these abominations think I am.
A reasonably intelligent 8th grader should be able to see through them.
It has been said to never underestimate the stupidity of the American Public. A recent affirmation is the apparent fact that 58,000 Arizonans signed petitions to put Kanye West on the presidential ballot in Arizona. The State Supreme Court in an unbelievably split vote actually read the law and applied it.
Never forget that the orange one is a charlatan and master of deception. You must watch my left hand so you don't see what I am doing with my right hand.
His "product" is like Dr. Mystero's Healing Potion.
It cures, colds, moles, an sore assholes. It is alright if you like it and won't hurt you if you don't swallow it!!
Hopefully better days are coming.
Posted by: Ramjet | September 15, 2020 at 05:56 PM
At all levels of government, we need to elect persons of character, not a bunch of looney characters. Choose based on the person , not the party. Otherwise, the blame lies with us.
Posted by: Ruben | September 15, 2020 at 06:00 PM
Will there be another election?
As politicians play Russian Roulette with our lives the planet has something to say to the almost Eight (8) billions of us here. The planets on fire. We ran out of names for Hurricanes. The Temperatures keep rising. Glaciers are breaking apart. New Orleans will eventually be under water and the ocean will fill the subway tunnels of New York. Meanwhile we kill each other over something as simple as wearing a mask. But you know “real men” don’t wear masks. Say what Batman? The Lone Ranger? He quit as we kept killing his Tontos. My friend Chuck died an optimist I was born to be a pessimist. Someone has to do it.
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 15, 2020 at 06:09 PM
The first Civil War was about one substantial issue, slavery. Our current low-boil civil war isn't about anything real. Yes, it's about owning the libs and mocking their values (science, empiricism, democracy, et al), but those heresies are more abstract than actual issues. That said, what can the right do that it already hasn't done? Enrich the rich even more than they already have?
For Donald Trump, the real value is staying out of prison. He can do that by getting reelected. But this still doesn't explain why his cult feels both so embattled and righteous for what amounts to his personal interest. Fox News fills their ravenous noggins daily with fresh outrages, such as Nancy Pelosi not wearing a mask in a beauty salon. But they can't otherwise motivate the GOP's low-information base to care anything real. Outlawing abortion? Meh, it's their one surefire wedge issue (along with complete firearms freedom) and they'd be crazy to give it up.
The war is taking place not on some faraway battlefield but in the minds of the lonely and disconnected searching for a community lost in our headlong rush to prosperity and comfort. If they can't bring back Mayberry they can, at least, create a sense of beleaguered comradeship with one another. Ultimately, this struggle comes down to a war of moods: whose reality is it anyway?
At the risk of sounding unkind to our brethren on the right, this is insane. Politics can't repair your loneliness. It won't make sense of a nation marooned in a free-market frenzy of overconsumption. It won't bring back the hometowns and cities of your youth. All it can do is bargain about real things in a spirit of compromise and good faith. That's it.
We are verging on the edge of a national breakdown because the right's braying patriotism isn't about anything real or negotiable. It's about feeling validated in one's distemper. As someone who dislikes much of America's current "culture", I completely get their contempt for political correctness, wokeness, and reverse bigotry. Still, we shouldn't lose sight of the grandeur of our national experiment. Countless thousands died to keep this dream real and vibrant. Let's not kill it just because it's good for Fox News' ratings. Real patriotism is not about cultivating the phantoms of cultural discontent. It's about making America's promise current, functional, and obvious.
Posted by: soleri | September 15, 2020 at 07:17 PM
This is a failed state, political system, and economy.. Whether it’s Trump or Biden the end will come to the “American” experiment quick or slo. Wealth will continue to be vacuumed upwards ($47T over the last 45 years according to the Rand people). We will be stuck with the tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb two party system with a sprinkle of smaller parties to hide the foul taste of our gerrymandered, monied system of government for the rich and their elected Lackeys. Our religions will continue to worship power and money rather than charity and friendship. The left will continue to be a boogeyman filled w/ snarling antifa and BLM activists to blame for the rioting and violence the police and boogaloo boys do (even in this column). This election is just kicking the can down the road, leaving it up to the new generation to fix or flee the coming storms. But where will they run?
Posted by: eclecticdog | September 15, 2020 at 11:02 PM
Given the proclivity of Trump supporters to attend political (and motorcycle) rallies to cuddle, maskless, the process of natural selection is bound to contribute to the reduction of his base. That, and the passing of time, as his base seems to skew towards the more elderly and risk non-averse.
Posted by: Dave H | September 16, 2020 at 09:09 AM
I used to think the electoral college was a brilliant solution to the tyranny of the majority, avoiding the tendency to spiteful fracture that Canada and the UK cycle through every decade or so.
But it has now become the tyranny of the minority, and I quite frankly chafe under a system driven by rubes in backward, redneck, willfully ignorant locales.
Posted by: DoggieCombover | September 16, 2020 at 09:26 AM
First, the idea that in general liberals do not own firearms may be a misapprehension. We may not brag about it, but neither do we sit around defenseless.
Second, the US military is not Donald Trump's or the GOP's tool. The military has a specific constitutional mandate to defend the Republic against tyranny and illegal take-overs. And you may have noted how much Mr. Trump has ingratiated himself with the generals. /s/
Third, Mr. Trump is a raving fool and his followers tend to be fools. People who are not fools -- i.e., the very voters and citizens and military leaders who will resist a civil war -- tend not to shoot their mouths off in the way the Trumpeters do. Thus we can't really be sure either how many people would march into the streets to keep the Orange One in the White House or how many would arise to prevent such a thing. But it's a fair bet that this country has more patriots with brains than Trumpeters with air between the ears.
Be prepared, sure: absolutely. But have no fear.
Posted by: vh | September 16, 2020 at 10:53 AM
Did anyone notice? The planet is called.
Posted by: Redhead | September 16, 2020 at 12:14 PM
A Question?
Jon said “But the looting, arson, and other destruction by antifa members embedded in peaceful protests"
Anti-fascists (plural noun) a person who is opposed to fascism or to extreme right-wing authoritarianism.
Famous Antifascists- Eisenhower and Churchill.
OAB (Occupy Now, Antifascists, Black Lives Matter) My grouping.
“Some contend that the looting and violence in the early days of the street protests were done by Antifa.” With a couple of notable exceptions (Michael Reinoehl,) “there is little evidence for that beyond Trump's BS. They were criminals, not Antifascists.”
Antifascists numbers are most likely about the same as was Occupy Now in 2011.)
Are we confusing drug addicts and opportunistic criminal thugs with Antifascists?
Jon, Please correct me. In our past I sensed that your emphasis was that Homelessness people were bad. Not that being without a home was bad. That street beggars were bad. Not that needing to beg to survive was bad. World history historians may not cover those subjects often but both have been with us since a talking snake conned a naked woman into trying some fruit. Inequality is at an all-time high just open any fashion magazine.
The 1 percent own us.
We have been commoditized.
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 17, 2020 at 09:33 AM
Seattle:
"In late June my children made cardboard signs to carry at a silent BLM march that drew an estimated 60,000. Not a single scratch was reported. The march did not show up on TV screens nation-wide."
https://lithub.com/letter-from-seattle-a-season-of-peaceful-protest/
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 17, 2020 at 10:55 AM
Cal, I'm not sure if your question was directed at me...or if it was a question.
The Associated Press defines Antifa as, "Shorthand for anti-fascists, an umbrella description for the far-left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations and other events. Until the term becomes better known, include a definition in close proximity to first use of the word."
This is not the same as Eisenhower and Churchill, who lived in a different era and were involved in nation-state conflict between the Western Democracies, allied with Stalin's Soviet Union, against the Axis powers, primarily NSDAP ("Nazi") Germany and Fascist (proper name for the political party) Italy.
The Antifa movement today hasn't been deeply researched by the "woke" mainstream press. But it appears to have both national elements that travel to protest sites and local cells in many cities and college towns. Antifa is associated with violent resistance against the alt-right.
As for the "homeless," I don't hate them. As an EMT-paramedic, I was among their primary care-givers. As a Christian, I believe that each are individually precious in the eyes of the Lord.
The explosion in the numbers of the distinct different conditions lumped under the term "homeless" has complex causes.
For example, the social-safety net has been frayed and middle-wage jobs have been hollowed out since the 1980s.
At the same time, both conservatives and liberals for different reasons caused the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill.
Also, cities eliminated their skid rows with SRO hotels, while courts struck down vagrancy laws.
Societal norms changed, so that many more people live (flaunt) anti-social behavior. And families have drifted apart.
So much for the major causes. But it leaves the discrete "homeless" population composed of everyone from a person evicted after losing a job — who can be easily helped — to a mentally ill drug addict who requires a spectrum of approaches.
The unsheltered population was going down under GW Bush and Obama, thanks to some focused federal policies. It has risen under Trump.
West Coast cities with compassionate liberal populations and decent weather attract very large numbers of chronic street people, many addicted and mentally ill.
With stood-down police, legal pot, no prosecution for shoplifting or small amounts of narcotics, and generous social-service handouts, Seattle is a magnet. The vagrants, with whom I interact daily, call it "Freeattle."
Here's the thing: We're not helping these people. Hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money has been thrown at the problem in Seattle — and it's worse than ever.
As for the protests here, some have been peaceful, some involved arson, vandalism, looting and attacks on the police (I've personally seen some).
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | September 17, 2020 at 11:45 AM
Thanks Jon. Good comments.
Posted by: cal Lash | September 17, 2020 at 12:10 PM
Jon, Somewhere in there was a question or two. And it was directed at you. However I anticipated getting schooled by others.
So your use of Antifa is, "The Associated Press defines Antifa as, "Shorthand for anti-fascists, an umbrella description for the far-left-leaning militant groups."
Whereas the dictionary version is
Anti-fascists (plural noun) a person who is opposed to fascism or to extreme right-wing authoritarianism.
Since the AP is considered the gold standard in news reporting, I’ll go with that for now. "the far-left leaning militant" is todays standard.
Little attention comes to the Canadian published magazine ADBUSTERS considered by some to be driving a revolution involving Occupy Now, Antifa and BLM (OAB). Maybe we should blame Bernie as he had these Bernie Bros thinking a political revolution was necessary to correct the malignancy of the current US political swamp.
Revolutions. The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution
The French Revolution was a period of social and political upheaval in France and at war with its colonies.
Shouldn't we expect the peoples of today’s world to commit to a revolution. Brazil on the brink?
So will a Biden win pacify or embolden the OAB folks? Will the Boogaloos rise up and if so who will there be street warfare and will the OAB take up arms?
Seven (7) billion humans at war. What more could we ask for?
A peaceful Natchez?
Ha! Your local Sonoran desert rat in a tin can. A low 105 predicted for today.
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 17, 2020 at 12:55 PM
Cal, below is a Seattle Times story from today about what can go wrong with the abandonment of social norms and a portion of the "homeless." I'll quote at length:
King County prosecutors say two Seattle police officers witnessed a high-speed wreck early Friday in South Seattle that instantly killed a woman and mortally wounded her husband after their car was hit broadside by an 18-year-old man driving a stolen vehicle.
Alande Gachette, who arrived in Seattle in July and was living on the streets, was initially booked Friday into the King County jail on investigation of vehicular homicide, with bail set at $500,000, jail and court records show. But on Tuesday, he was charged with two counts of second-degree murder in connection with the couple’s deaths and one count of vehicular assault for allegedly injuring his passenger, a 26-year-old woman who suffered a broken arm, according to charging papers. His bail was increased to $1 million.
Gachette, who has been arrested four times since his arrival in Seattle, is also facing second- and third-degree assault charges, accused of attacking a man with a homemade machete and spitting in a Seattle police officer’s eye days before his 18th birthday on July 25
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/man-charged-with-two-counts-of-murder-in-connection-with-high-speed-wreck-in-south-seattle/
Meanwhile, law-abiding tax-paying citizens can't use city parks because of the "homeless encampments" there. Which of course attract crime.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-police-investigating-death-in-cal-anderson-park/
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | September 17, 2020 at 02:02 PM
Thanks Jon. Violence in the city? I have no solutions but,
Ed Abbey used to say, that if a man can’t piss off his own front porch he’s living too close to town."
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 17, 2020 at 02:18 PM
It wouldn't surprise me to see legal challenges and possible shenanigans after the election if the result is at all close. I'm more optimistic than some that the country would survive it.
For one thing, I don't think the military would support any attempt to hijack the election. Most of the higher-ups are sincerely devoted to our system.
I also don't think the Supreme Court would let it happen. Although I usually disagree with their votes, Roberts and Gorsuch are committed to the rule of law. I doubt that either is really a fan of Trump. If they were presented with a plain-vanilla partisan dispute, they might well act as partisans, but I don't think they'd tolerate anyone who tries to undermine the result of the elections.
Events could prove me naive.
Posted by: El Kabong | September 17, 2020 at 02:20 PM
EL Que? "but I don't think they'd tolerate anyone who tries to undermine the result of the elections."
The catholic radical helping Stack the courts.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-secrets-of-leonard-leo-the-man-behind-trumps-supreme-court-pick
Current Supreme court, five (5) Republicans, Six (6) Catholics.
Call me Pessimistic.
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 17, 2020 at 02:47 PM
Speaking of elections. If it takes two or three or six days to CORRECTLY tally the ballots for the upcoming election, then let it take whatever it takes to tally the ballots. As long as it is correct, I'm guessing 99.9% of the population would be OK with that.
Who would be the .1% who would be unhappy? Oh ya !! The bat-shit crazy tabloid media that operates by the slogan, "We don't give a flying F#*K if it's accurate as long as we get it out first".
If the polls open at 7am on the east coast, the disgusting media won't be happy unless they can call the election at 7:01am east coast time.
Posted by: AzRebel | September 18, 2020 at 11:55 AM
“It is very bitter to have fought so hard for the vote, only to enter the system and realize there is nothing to vote for,”
James Baldwin
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 18, 2020 at 04:04 PM
Hope Hicks, Supreme Court Justice
Posted by: AzRebel | September 18, 2020 at 05:34 PM
Two things:
1.Ruth Bader Ginsberg is dead;
2. Read Jessica Bruder’s “Nomadland” for an understanding of the growing number of senior RV dwellers who work as itinerant labor in the US today.
Posted by: Redhead | September 18, 2020 at 06:37 PM
Redhead. I have a signed copy.
And i exchanged emails last with her last night. I moved out of the big house on the Mountain in 2005 into my motorhome. Probably the smartest thing i ever did. Bruder has a new book out called Snowden's Box. She writes well.
And if you like you can have a go at Richard Grant's "American Nomad."
I discovered Grant when i read his book "The Middle Finger of God."
They are not not novels.
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 18, 2020 at 07:51 PM
I dont believe in gods but we could use one with the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. What a great loss to this nation and the peoples of the planet earth.
A god thats a "never Trump"!
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 18, 2020 at 07:57 PM
A warning
I have dealt with attorneys for 52 years.
Following is an email from an attorney and a friend.
(Note I appreciate the warning but at 80 and not in physical marathoning shape, I'm not backing down at this stage of the planet crisis.)
From my friend
"Watch out, here comes civil war. And I don’t mean rhetorically speaking.
The replacement of RGB is the catalyst. Each side views the other as malicious and evil. The sides don’t talk to each other and, moreover, there is no compromise with evil. As a result, no deal can be made. If Trump replaces RBG and the Democrats subsequently pack the court, it will become illegitimate in the eyes of half the country. Biden, Schumer and Pelosi ramming through “transformative change” won’t be respected by half the country. Laws upheld by a packed court will be disobeyed since the court itself is illegitimate.
We don’t need a god that’s “Never Trump.” We need a god to get the factions to start compromising with each other again. To see that the other side actually has legitimate arguments and concerns. Without that it’s naïve to think all will be back on track with a Biden win. That won’t end anything. Someone needs to be the first to extend the olive branch before the catastrophe happens. It will take people on both sides - Who will it be in the Democratic Party? I see no one.
I hope your RV is gassed up so you can get out of dodge when the shooting starts"
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 20, 2020 at 09:55 AM
Came here to harvest salt from the passing of RBG. A little disappointed. Please... more replies as my salt stores are a bit bare.
Cal - the left already extended an olive branch. The brownshirts walking "peacefully" down the street - a parade or rather, a carnival of the deformed. Proudly announcing their unyielding demands. Fanatical adherence to the newly conceived leftist political and societal secular religion. All the damnation of the original, but with none of the forgiveness - truly compelling...
I won't yield. I won't kneel. I won't hold a finger in solidarity. Not for a moment. Not ever.
Anyone on the right or middle would gain much from reading this blog. A blog where seemingly intelligent leftists still believe in the "dossier", are convinced that 2 years of Mueller wasn't enough, and that our POTUS committed "treason". Ridiculous. Facts and truth don't matter - the fact that the author works in MSM is illustrative of this fact.
Leftists condemn religion. The sweetest of ironies once one realizes that the left believes in the most fanciful fantasies.
Posted by: ὀστρακισμός aka PepeLeGreek | September 20, 2020 at 10:35 AM
Really peepee? "Leftists condemn religion." Just for shits and giggles, let's recap. The right has trump the heathen and the left has Biden the Catholic. Praise the lord for all those devout christians who love the one man in the race who doesn't have an ounce of humanity or empathy in his humongous carcass.
Lies have become the main staple for the party on the right who have abandoned everything they ever stood for or believed in. Sadly it's the price you have all paid to worship at the altar of the orange guy.
Is the left free of freaks? Nope, but on a sliding scale, our freaks are normal compared to your q-anon psycho's. Thanks for stopping by and making my day. I'm trying to stay above the fray, but idiot comments force me from the shadows.
Posted by: Bill Pearson | September 20, 2020 at 01:08 PM
What a unique sliding scale you have, Bill! Why don't you bring that on down to the whitehouse, we'll put it next to that great clock Muhammed (peace be upon his soul - i don't want to offend the leftists...) made!
A sliding scale that condemns rando internet conspiracy theories more harshly than actual riots! Amazing.
Keep that salt coming Boomer. Almost enough to season my burgers - pool season is almost over!
Posted by: ὀστρακισμός aka PepeLeGreek | September 20, 2020 at 01:25 PM
Pepe would have a bit more credibility in the ongoing "reality" debate if he didn't support a man so pathologically mendacious that he claims to support pre-existing conditions insurance coverage while seeking to overturn the ACA. If facts matter, why does the right routinely deny atmospheric physics (see: climate change)? If right-wingers are such truth-tellers, why do they discount public-health professionals while believing a con artist who tells them to ingest bleach and forgo mask-wearing? Why do right-wingers and the president himself traffic in unhinged conspiracy theories propagated by QAnon? If the truth matters, why does McConnell brazenly decide that one president cannot nominate a justice to the USSC eight months before the election while a president of his own party is allowed this privilege with only six weeks remaining?
A party composed of cranks who are largely unread, uneducated, and devoid of such humanizing traits as humility and doubt will believe in hobgoblins like Pizzagate, Joe Biden's "pedophilia", and Barack Obama's "Kenyan birth. They do this because the epistemological style on the right has been debased to the habits of mind that you might find among supermarket tabloid readers. This explains how the right has lost its best intellectuals, from George Will and David Brooks to Bill Kristol and Max Boot.
Pepe has a valid point about how the "woke" left has become more or less equivalent to his own tribe's belief-based narcosis. Cal's letter from his attorney friend is a timely warning: we need a god to get the factions to start compromising with each other again to see that the other side actually has legitimate arguments and concerns. Without that it’s naïve to think all will be back on track with a Biden win. . There is really only one sane political contingent left in America public life: centrist Democrats. I'm a bit puzzled how Cal somehow missed this given the frequent number of times commenters such as myself (and, indeed, Rogue himself) have made this point. There is no political process possible without compromise and incrementalism. The Bernie-AOC left, in this vein, is really little more than the mirror-image of those right-wing zealots like Pepe trying to impose their vision and will at the expense of the majority. Either way, democracy fails because it requires a strong and sufficient center to midwife necessary change. When we discount this necessity, we create a crisis that will divide, weaken, sicken, and ultimately destroy America itself.
Posted by: soleri | September 20, 2020 at 01:46 PM
- Soleri claims any person who supports POTUS lacks credibility. Good start for a "centrist".
- Soleri proclaims himself an educated and well read elite - so conceited Soleri! I give you Kudos for your PhD level understanding of White Fragility. Please educate me!
- Soleri positions himself as a centrist. Humorous that you don't even understand your own position. You're a commissar leading your army of the deformed. This is your creation - a product of the left.
- Soleri claims that the right-wing wants to impose their vision on the country. Incorrect. The right wants all the bullshit SCOTUS rulings to go back to the states. The left wants to impose their mandatory castration, self-flagellation, critical race ideology over 300MM people.
Soleri - you're quite confused for being so well-educated.
Rogue - can you cite for your readers your source for the claim of "treason"?
Posted by: ὀστρακισμός aka PepeLeGreek | September 20, 2020 at 02:21 PM
Why do you even bother jousting with our very own "Greek Freak"?
Comity? Outreach to one of Trump's MAGAts? An attempt to reason with the "other"?
It seems pointless to argue with someone so obviously deranged.
And by deranged, I mean someone who has witnessed the last few years and sees absolutely nothing wrong with his Orange Pig God's behavior.
He desperately wants attention. He's very happy to chirp. Let him chirp to himself and the voices in his head.
Posted by: B. Franklin | September 20, 2020 at 02:39 PM
53% approval rating. You're going to have a very difficult time the next 4 years.
Cheers - and thanks for all the salt!
Posted by: ὀστρακισμός aka PepeLeGreek | September 20, 2020 at 02:50 PM
200,000 dead and counting peepee. No matter how many lies he spews, those numbers just don't go away like the virus is going to when it gets warm. How did that work out for ya BTW?
It is fascinating the only poll you cite is Rasmussen when all the others have him upside down in ratings. When we get back to a two party system, centrism has a chance. Unfortunately with trump leading the right around by their nose rings there is no room for compromise.
What's so fun the orange one has told us no one will ever see him again when Biden beats him. Let me guess, the biggest lie yet. How can he sell all his suckers the new premium trump cable network if he isn't on there 24/7?
You do make me smile though peepee, you trying to insult soleri is like trump trying to convince us what a stable genius he is. Impossible.
Posted by: Bill Pearson | September 20, 2020 at 04:24 PM
Bill, "come on, man!" Follow the science, right?! As a leftist, you love science- ology! Neil Ferguson promised 2.2 million American deaths! Seems like a good KPI! So far 2MM lives saved. What's your metric - what measurement has the media told you to use?
Leftists and your worship for science-ology. Today's science is tomorrow's alchemy and a faulty foundation of a secular religion. Was Neil's science wrong - how can science ever be wrong?
And nose rings? Which hospice has your family place you in? Nose rings are only a status symbol of the affluent white female liberal (AWFLs). That and masks.
Don't think I'm trying to insult nor impress. We're all here for a good time!
Cheers!
Posted by: ὀστρακισμός aka PepeLeGreek | September 20, 2020 at 08:33 PM
Glad to see Pepe is chilling out. Yes, we're all here for a good time!
BTW, who's Neil Ferguson? Apparently, somebody who made a wrong prediction, somewhat in the manner of Pepe's cult leader. Back in February he lied, according to himself, about the severity and very nature of the pandemic. He patted himself on the back for not creating a panic, which is what happens when a government and citizenry take proper precautions against a tangible threat. Instead, he massaged us with promises of it soon disappearing, "just like a miracle". He reminded us yet again that he's very smart and had an uncle who was a renowned professor at MIT.
I don't mean to disparage the cognitive quirks of America's know-nothing tribe, but there's something cheeky about an orange sleazeball telling us to ignore science and trust him instead.
Undercutting a public-health response to a pandemic with bad information, all in the personal political interest of the aforesaid cult leader, is what you might find in third-world nations (aka, "shithole countries"). But it's all good! An all-white party living in constant anxiety about dusky-skinned hordes invading "our beautiful suburbs" can be forgiven its near-constant hysteria. As the AG reminded us, being forced to wear a mask is worse than slavery. And we all know what color that was.
Posted by: soleri | September 21, 2020 at 03:57 AM
Pepe, help us (me) out. Who is Neil Ferguson? Sure, I could look the name up, but I would like to know your sources.
Posted by: IA_Ed | September 21, 2020 at 06:54 AM
It is indeed fun chatting with trump zealots. They love finding the outliers and hanging their worn out hats on nonsense and false assumptions.
What else should we expect from q-anon addicts who see the world through conspiracy theories? Ferguson and Rasmussen are standing alone with their statistics and rather than looking at the majority of other sources who got it right, they cling to the oddballs in the bunch. Why is that not surprising.
Then consider the incredible number of idiot comments from our commander in chief regarding covid19 and it all makes perfect sense. Hell, who can forget; "only 15 cases and in a matter of days they'll be gone." 200,000 lives later, here we are.
He should be held accountable for the way he fumbled the pandemic, everything else is secondary.
Posted by: Bill Pearson | September 21, 2020 at 01:01 PM
Uh, Bill, the CDC reported less than 10,000 confirmed primary Hunanflu deaths.
Posted by: toughterry | September 21, 2020 at 04:27 PM
I was reading writings from the Roman/Greek era of 400AD.
I was also reading headlines and articles from 1918 during that pandemic.
The Romans and Greeks were complaining that the rich held too much of the wealth.
The pandemic headlines complained about the mask argument of their time. Split 50/50 to wear or not wear.
I'm afraid if you folks are waiting for mankind to evolve to a higher level, you have a long wait ahead of you.
It would appear that over the past 1600 years, you dems and repubs have barely evolved past your neanderthal ancestors.
Thankfully, us Independents are on a faster track than you.
Posted by: AzRebel | September 21, 2020 at 04:46 PM
AzRebel - Perhaps you Indies are indeed wiser. But no matter where you stand (or kneel) politically, what's coming will affect us all. Best grab hold of something and hold on.
Posted by: JAC | September 21, 2020 at 04:58 PM
Previous i mentioned that Tiny a Brookshires waitress at 16th street and McDowell ended up at a Brookshires restaurant at what would be approximately 51 West Van Buren. However it might have been a Helsings resturant?
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 21, 2020 at 09:03 PM
The coffee shops were on the NE and SE corners of Van Buren and Central. Jay’s was on the north side. The one torn down for Valley Center didn’t have a name. Both 24 hours.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | September 21, 2020 at 09:28 PM
Bill, over the years Rogue has had three (3) Gholas. I recall that one got axed off.
However I'm ok with tolerating such posting as what they post defines what they are.
A Boogaloo in need of a bugaboo,
An apparition maybe?
Although the previous two Gholas appeared to have a little more rational thought processes.
Aside I an concerned about the election. Here is an essay that somewhat talks about such.
But first I'm going to post and opener from my silly brain.
What you say, Bernie?
I couldn't hear you for the SCREAM.
The essay:https://unherd.com/2020/09/why-trump-will-win/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 22, 2020 at 02:17 PM
Damn Cal, even after looking up the term "Gholas" I'm still confused. I got your meaning, but the word was unfamiliar to me. Kind of like reading the old John D McDonald Travis McGee series. He truly was a wordsmith.
I enjoy dissenting opinions. What's hard to take is some of the stupid that comes from the mouths of trump supporters. I get it, making crap up is their last refuge and why not? Trump has made a career from bullshitting the rubes and them eating it up...and then asking for more.
Thanks for nonsense tough terry...200,000 dead and trying to pass it off as 12,000. Lord help us all. Why don't you go try and tell that to the families of the other 188,000 dead, i'm sure that will make it all better.
Posted by: Bill Pearson | September 23, 2020 at 12:31 PM
The only thing dumber than trump saying he may not leave the office is the idiot reporter who asked the question.
You don't ask the question. It's a two century old given, he loses, he leaves.
Sometimes it's like an orange orangutan being questioned by a bunch of chimps.
They all deserve each other.
Posted by: Ruben | September 23, 2020 at 09:01 PM
Ruben, I think Trump will get at least 308 electoral college votes.
He will then explain that Biden got 7 million more votes due to 3 million illegal Mexicans voting and 4 million mail in ballots from China.
Trump won't leave as the "Leader" until Billy Barr and McConnell are satisfied he is of no more use. Then Pompeo led by his wife will be the Leader and Supreme Court Justice Thomas will become VP.
Ha! Such a deal.
Cal at 80. I'll not live to see Bernie be president and AOC as his VP. I wish i had got to drink at her bar.
Ah shucks.well back to my Bukowski reader.
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 23, 2020 at 10:36 PM
Something that has mystified and troubled me for some time.
How can a young person obtain a medical degree, then upon becoming a republican, they disengage their brains.
When an MD becomes a republican, do they erase all knowledge from their brain like we used to erase VCR tapes with a strong magnet?
The tape is still intact, but it is empty.
You see it at the state level and surely at the national level. The most outrageous, anti-knowledge, anti-science statements come from republican MDs.
Does anyone have a theory about this?
I use Gosar and Rand Paul as the poster children of this strange phenomena.
Posted by: Ruben | September 24, 2020 at 02:29 PM
Wife goes on Medicare next month, so we just sent in our last $1,000 monthly premium for our Obamacare plan which basically covered nothing. I have to admit, that Chicago lawyer sure go the last laugh.
Thanks Obama !!
Posted by: AzRebel | September 25, 2020 at 11:12 AM
Wow. Ruben When the affordable care act went into effect my insurance costs dropped by 60 percent. They have crept up but its still 30 pecent less than before the ACA. But then I am not wealthy!
Posted by: Cal Lash | September 25, 2020 at 11:53 AM
All the years I spent waiting in line at the grocery store, I never thought the National Inquirer would become the template for all media in America. Print, tv, cable, internet. It’s as if chicken little is the editor of all media in the USA.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Posted by: AzReb | October 01, 2020 at 10:38 AM
Governor Doofy has sent a crack Arizona medical team to DC to care for Trump.
Dr. Any Biggs MD (Mentally Deranged)
Dr. Paul Gosar DMD (Definnitely Mental Deranged)
Dr. Kellie Ward OD (Obviously Deranged)
All three are currently being considered for Arizona's Political Idiot Hall of Fame.
Posted by: AzRebel | October 03, 2020 at 01:14 PM
The more you over-think the worse it gets. Give yourselves a break.
Posted by: Kurt | October 04, 2020 at 10:00 PM
They were in the minority in 1865. They were in the minority in 1964. They were in the minority in 2016. They are still in the minority.
Posted by: SteveM | October 10, 2020 at 09:03 AM
@Ruben - Those MD's began to earn a paycheck and make money. Science becomes subordinate to my personal profit motives
Big money loves the partisan divisiveness.
They win every time someone lays a claim at "left" or "right" or "conservative" or "liberal" or "Qanon" or "Antifa".
Obama prosecuted no one in the aftermath of the credit default swap debacle. Trump put these same criminals into key positions in his administration.
Partisan politics is the bright shiny object with which big money keeps the masses divided.
Posted by: stevem | October 10, 2020 at 09:12 AM
What a POS Liberal site this is...I came here to read something hopefully interesting and I found a pile of garbage. Un-real. A bunch of cry-baby liberal, communist idiots here, raving about how Trump has destroyed America. I am sick to my stomach. Go elsewhere, if you don't want to live in the U.S. Please, GOD help us.
Posted by: Aaron | October 16, 2020 at 12:13 AM