When someone is true to themselves, it doesn’t automatically mean they’re a good person. You can be authentic and an asshole – just look at Donald Trump.
There’s a strange phenomenon in the MAGA world where authenticity trumps character, where how Trump talksis more important than what he’s saying.
That’s why we see Trump supporters laugh and applaud at all the crass crap spewing from that moron’s mouth – to them, it’s like sitting next to their racist buddy at their favorite bar. It speaks to how shallow and lazy a large portion of the American electorate has become – that a simplistic view of Trump’s authenticity resonates more than his utter lack of substance and character.
I can hear the twang of a Trump supporter now: “That Arnold Palmer schlong story was hilarious; that guy has my vote.”
Since the 2024 VP debate, we’ve all watched JD Vance sidestep whether Trump lost the 2020 election. Most recently, Vance was asked five separate times in the same interview but refused a yes or no answer.
Anyone with an iota of intelligence understands that JD Vance knows Trump lost but was instructed never to say it. Trump won’t allow any of his people to utter the word “loser” when talking about him—he’s too fragile. So, like the good soldier, JD refused to answer, sidestepping more than Al Jolson and Fred Astaire in a game of dodgeball.
Yesterday, Vance got a message from his boss that sidestepping wasn’t cutting it and to fall in line with the election denial. So, when asked AGAIN if Trump lost the 2020 election, he said “No,” which we all know is complete bullshit.
How do we know it’s complete bullshit? Because it’s been almost 4 years since the votes for the 2020 election were tabulated, litigated, and re-tabulated, yielding the same result – an overwhelming victory in the popular vote and electoral college by Joe Biden, with no evidence of vote rigging or cheating, in what the lead Trump election official called the fairest election in a generation and in which Trump’s attorney general called Trump’s assertions of a stolen election “total bullshit.”
Zero evidence that Trump won.
If I were a reporter, I’d follow up with JD Vance and ask why he has refused to answer the question for the last several weeks. Why didn’t he say “No” the first time he was asked? Now that JD Vance has officially joined the Election Deniers club, I would press him to explain precisely why he thinks Trump won. What evidence does he have to come to his conclusion?
It was almost comical watching JD Vance refusing to answer the question about Trump’s 2020 loss because we all understood (to an extent) the Vance Dance – He didn’t want to piss off his boss by being honest, so, sidestep shuffle-shuffle, sidestep, no answer.”
Embracing the lie is anything but comical because it shows us that JD Vance cannot be trusted with the most basic of things: facts, math, counting, and recounting.
If he denies something so clear and definitive, how can he be trusted to be truthful to the American people?
Everyone knows Donald Trump can’t be trusted—that if he loses AGAIN, he’ll refuse to accept the result. Some of us might have had an inkling of hope for Vance—that when faced with basic math that proved he and Trump came out on the short end of the election, he would man up and say, “We lost.” That hope is now gone with his one-word answer, “No,” and it’s the biggest reason to vote against this ticket.
Vance’s election denial is the latest example of the public humiliation by association that anyone close to Trump goes through. The cowardice of simply going along to get along will stick to Vance long after the stench of Trump fades.
It’s challenging to poll the minds of Republican voters in 2024.
Some are undoubtedly embarrassed their party re-nominated an incompetent, narcissistic, and megalomaniacal liar who they deeply regret voting for in 2016 and AGAIN in 2020 and will no way in hell vote for again in 2024.
Others wobble on a farcical fence of feeling that says they must vote Republican because they are Republican, even though their candidate has long abandoned Republican principles in favor of authoritarianism.
There are large sacks of numb-nuts incapable of independent and critical thought who still believe the 2020 election was stolen and will undoubtedly vote for the orange jack-wagon again.
And then all those barely closeted racists who won’t openly say they’re voting for Trump for fear of being publicly shamed, but deep down in their black hearts, have every intention of doing so.
Tough to quantify that fuck-tangled mess, even with the best polling in place.
I listened to JD Vance this morning on Meet the Press state forcefully that Donald Trump believes abortion is a state’s rights issue – not a federal issue. Vance went on to say he understands that California’s abortion laws will be different than Ohio’s – “and that’s OK.”
Either way, both Trump and Vance believe it’s appropriate for the state to decide what kinds of reproductive health options are available to women. So, suppose you’re a woman who happens to live in a state with a total abortion ban, and you’re a victim of rape. In that case, you have no right to terminate the pregnancy – and Republican lawmakers also want to criminalize crossing state lines to get an abortion.
In a Trump / Vance America, your geography determines whether or not you have rights around reproductive care.
The Republican party used to be the party of limited government and individual freedom. That changed when religious groups became players in American politics, wielding influence by promising votes and converting religious lecterns into political pulpits. As soon as Republicans saw votes in those church pews, they began crafting legislation and policies catering to religious groups (so much for individual freedom and limited government).
Harris and Walz and the democratic party believe reproductive health decisions should always be up to the woman, regardless of the fate of geography.
If you care about individual freedom and don’t want to live in a country that says your state determines what women can and cannot do in terms of abortion care, then vote blue in November.
At sixty-one, I’m not as mentally agile as I used to be, and I’m sure this natural decline will continue as I age.
I suppose what I’ve lost in mental acuity is somewhat offset by the wisdom I’ve gained through experience (personally and professionally) – but I’m not burdened by the need to prove this to anyone – Joe Biden is.
It doesn’t matter if Joe Biden believes he can be a successful President for the next four years.
In fact, it doesn’t matter if Joe Biden can objectively be a successful president—what matters is whether Democratic and independent voters believe he can—and most of them do not.
I’m one of many who think Joe Biden should bow out of the 2024 presidential race.
Does that mean I won’t vote for him?
HELL NO!
I’d vote for the moldy-unrecognizable-saran-wrapped mystery in the back of my refrigerator before I vote for that fat-orange-traitorous-fuck, Donald Trump.
That said, a second Trump Presidency is not something we should leave to chance (the stakes are too high). With Joe Biden as Trump’s opponent, there is a greater chance Trump will win than if the Democrats run a younger candidate with some vitality and vigor.
Joe Biden needs to put the country he professes to love above himself.
He needs to recognize that this race is not about whether his age is a disqualifier but whether he’s able to effectively, aggressively, and convincingly prosecute the case against a second Trump presidency. That should be a relatively easy task, given all the negatives Trump brings.
President Biden had the opportunity to prosecute the case against Trump in the debate, and he failed miserably.
There’s no shortage of capable Democrats (Kamala Harris, Gretchen Whitmer, Wes Moore, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg) who can stand toe-to-toe with Trump and cut him down to size – but the longer Joe Biden dawdles, the more logistically challenging it becomes for the party to pivot to an alternative.
Those were my sentiments after watching President Biden mumble through the first (and possibly only) presidential debate.
It was the worst debate performance I’ve ever seen.
Trump was Trump. A firehose of lies and misinformation. A verbosity atrocity.
Even though on substance, you can argue that Biden was better (or at the very least, more honest) – presentation and optics matter, and Biden looked old, confused, and unprepared.
The candidates running for President are both unqualified but for radically different reasons.
Biden is unqualified because age has diminished his ability to be an effective leader who instills confidence. Old age and its consequences have caught up to Joe Biden, and those undeniable consequences were on display for all to see in the Presidential debate. Biden’s family, closest friends, and political confidantes should be imploring him to drop out of the race.
Trump is unqualifiedbecause of fundamental ineptitude and a dangerous malevolence towards truth, integrity, democracy, and the United States Constitution. He has no redeemable qualities as a politician or person. He is a knife at the throat of our republic.
I often criticize Trump supporters for turning a blind eye to Trump’s ineptitude and utter lack of character—I’d be a hypocrite if I turned a blind eye to Biden’s age issues.
President Biden should ask himself how he wants to be remembered – as the humble public servant who derailed Trump’s naked aggression and assault on truth and integrity in 2020 or as the feeble, discombobulated, old fogey blinded by ego and deaf to public opinion who opened the door and handed the keys of our republic to a convicted felon, traitor, and rapist in 2024?
If Biden digs in his heels and refuses to step aside (which is what he appears to be doing), Americans need to ask themselves which candidate will do more harm as President. What is worse for America (Biden’s age-related degeneration or Trump’s malevolence toward democracy)?
Its army murdered civilians, raped women, and kidnapped children.
In a recent speech, Donald Trump said he would “encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries who don’t pay their fair share.
In November 2024, American voters must become Guardians of Democracy, swarm to polling places in droves, and drive a stake through the heart of the MAGA movement once and for all.
Donald Trump wants to end American Democracy and Democracy around the world.
What happens to the partnership between the Evangelical Church and the Republican party when compassionate conservatism gets replaced with MAGA mania?
How do Evangelical ministers square the teachings of Christ with their MAGA-infected flock?
What happens when ultra-MAGA Evangelicals sit fidgety in church pews and listen to sermons contradictory to the messages spewed by their political Messiah on the campaign trail?
It won’t be long before we see a sectarian split within the Evangelical church and radical versions of Evangelicalism start popping up across the country, like crack houses in the 80s.
These radical Evangelical churches will teach a MAGA-tinged Christianity, where Christ, a muscular blue-eyed-blond-messiah, wields his razor-edged cross to slice and dice woke liberals, immigrants, homosexuals, and atheists, to reestablish truth, order, and the American way.
Break-away Evangelical churches are how MAGA survives and (thrives). These churches will become radicalization factories in America like Wahhabi mosques in Saudi Arabia.
MAGA politicians are no different than any other. They understand religion is a tool for controlling and mobilizing masses – Churches plant seeds dipped in fear and bigotry to grow compliant human saplings so that future outcomes that align with religious ideology can take hold in society.
“The meek shall inherit the earth” will be replaced by a mite-is-right mentality—where the rationalization and justification of cruelty to achieve a particular end is the norm.
The transformation of the Evangelical church will correlate and coincide with criminal charges against former president Trump and his impending legal jeopardy.
Let’s keep our eyes peeled for an upstart-fire-brand Evangelical minister looking to make a name for himself by taking advantage of political chaos.
Donald Trump will be the new radical Evangelical church’s prophet of revenge and retribution.
I hope none of this comes to fruition, but I would not be surprised if it did.
bendingtheneedle 