Tag: Conservatives

Time To Redefine!

As we get closer to the election in 2020 the MSM will continue to define the candidates as Left or Right and in some cases Centrists…l.all this defining is just a ploy to drive the conversation and to define the country politically as they see fit.

I am what use to be called a “Hard Leftist” and some people call Trump a Rightist and people like Biden as a “Centrist”…..all this needs a redefining program….none of the old definitions are accurate in these troubling times.

One of the most persistent—and destructive—myths in politics is that America is a center right country politically.  It is reinforced by both parties, the press, and pundits and it has become generally accepted by much of the public.  This myth explains why folks warn against going too far to the left; about the dangers of embracing—gasp—”socialism,” and why most attempts to divine the “electability” of the multitude of candidates in the Democratic race are misguided at best.

For example, from the center right, New York Times columnist and NPR commentator David Brooks said:

According to a recent Gallup poll, 35 percent of Americans call themselves conservative, 35 percent call themselves moderate and 26 percent call themselves liberal. The candidates at the debates this week fall mostly within the 26 percent. The party seems to think it can win without any of the 35 percent of us in the moderate camp, the ones who actually delivered the 2018 midterm win.

First of all, any objective analysis of the 2018 midterms shows it was progressive candidates and voters who delivered the win.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/07/03/its-time-redefine-left-right-and-especially-center-us-politics

I agree this redefining is needed….I hate that moderates are calling themselves progressive these days and fascists are calling themselves conservative.

As a lifelong “Leftist” I despise the comparisons the media and ill-informed bloggers makes these days……they are defining who YOU are and you are allowing them to do so.

NOT ME!

Time to stand up for who you are!

“lego ergo scribo”

Covid-19 And The Cult Of Death

This is a subject that I have been saying for many many years…..I have analyzed the issues of this group over those years and see that they would prefer death of some to promote a healthier (meaning more profits) health care sector.

The group I am talking about is the GOP.

For decades the GOP has labelled itself the “party for life”….and promoted a “culture of life” for the nation……usually only because of its opposition to abortion….but how accurate is that title?

To be honest I think that the whole “life” thing is just plain noise and bluster.

Why?

A decade ago, in my first public writing since leaving Capitol Hill, I warned that the Republican Party, in its evolution towards an extremist conservative movement allied with extremist Christian fundamentalism, was becoming like “one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe.” After Donald Trump’s enthronement as the decider of our fate, I analyzed the GOP’s descent into a nihilism that belied every one of its supposed “values.” They value only absolute power or ruin.

It is now long past time to cast off highfalutin’ Latinisms and simply call the Republicans and their religious and secular conservative allies what they are, and in unadorned English: a death cult. As the country reels from the coronavirus pandemic, our national government might just as well be run by the infamous People’s Temple of Jonestown.

By now we are benumbed by the all-pervasive arguments over relaxing workplace shutdowns and stay-at-home orders due to coronavirus. In any sane society, the issue would be how to institute the most efficient measures to defeat the pandemic in the shortest time and with the lowest loss of life. Instead, Trump and his merry band of lunatics have hijacked the national debate into a faux-serious discussion of when, oh, please, how soon, can we “reopen the economy?” Naturally, the media gamely continue to play along with this calculated bit of dezinformatsiya.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/17/gop-has-become-death-cult

The GOP says they are “pro-life”…..and yet nothing about their issues confirm that in analysis……basically all I can tell is that they are “anti-abortion”….or better yet “anti-choice”

This pandemic is showing just how much of a “cult of death” the GOP really has become.

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Are You “Never Trump”?

This is another of those slogans and insults that I find offensive and totally pathetic.  It is nothing more than mental midgets insulting because they are not sharp enough to argue the point.

I have been told that I am a “Never Trump” person and to that I just tell them to visit IST and see what I have written about the president.

For those lazy people and you know who you are I will summarize for your merger mind…..I have been criticizing the president on many issues…immigration, environment, governing style, taxes but I have also come down on his side on several other issues like ending our endless wars…..Trump has made an effort but he needs to go much further but for the most part his foreign policy needs some work and some people that will care for the country and not worry about massaging the genitals of the man.

So to call me a “Never Trump” person is just flat out wrong……I prefer to label myself as “America First” person….everything a president does should be to move this country forward not to the lap of luxury…..

I am not alone there are many GOPers that have left the GOP behind because of the twisting of the conservative faith into a pretzel that benefits NO one but the man at the top (The Man In The High Castle)…..

The phrase “Never Trump” doesn’t do justice to Republicans, or former Republicans, or any non-Democrat who speaks out against the lies, immorality, and nefarious activities of Trump’s Republican Party. It’s an intellectually lazy label born of the clickbait media culture. I guess that’s the reason why the Trump cult loves it, and maybe partially why journalists use it.

But you ask, why is it intellectually lazy?

Because every time Trump, or his sycophants use the term Never Trump, they imply that those Republicans who oppose Trump are corrupt and those who are apolitical are part of some sort of conspiracy. And the truth is, there’s nothing of the sort. David Frum and George Will and Rick Wilson all come to their antipathy toward Trump for different reasons, none of which was for self-gain. The unifying thread is that these people and others, believe that Trump represents such a danger to the Republic that it is important to sublimate their careers, their policy preferences, their tribal identities, in an effort to oppose him.

It’s Not “Never Trump.” It’s “Country First.”

I would never vote for Trump I have better things in mind for my country than what Trump offers.

Plus his reaction and response to the Covid-19 pandemic is just another reason I could not vote for Trump….even though he is trying to buy votes with the peon stim plan…..

WAIT!  I guess I am a “Never Trumper”……who knew?

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

You Cannot Embarrass Apathy

I have been telling anyone that would listen that the GOP as well as the Dems care little about anything but their small path to re-election.

I will give Morning Joe a “gold star” for his effort to call out the GOP for their enabling policies…..

Joe Scarborough lit into conservative media Friday morning for what he sees as behavior for which history will forever see as humiliating for columnists, writers and cable news figures who have shown sycophancy for the Trump administration, in particular, Attorney General William Barr.

The Morning Joe co-host went off on his erstwhile ideologues during a segment pegged to the recent admission made by Rudy Giuliani to the NY Times about “meddling” into an investigation into Joe Biden’s son’s dealings with Ukraine. Scarborough said “Donald Trump has always had no respect for constitutional norms,” to which co-host Mika Brzezinski responded, “He plays very dirty.”

Scarborough then pivoted to the conservative media saying “all of these conservative writers that wanted to maintain their dignity thought they could do that by being ‘anti-anti Trump’ are now all going in on William Barr,” adding, “for instance, the Attorney General commits perjury nobody Trump world lifts an eyebrow, no Republicans care.”

He finished with “You’re defending the most corrupt Attorney General, I mean, since John Mitchell. Like it’s bad. The article is going to look extraordinarily stupid and you’re going to look like — well, the sycophant. It’s really embarrassing. I hope you’ll protect yourself from that because you’ve really humiliated yourself over the past couple of weeks.”

Scarborough is a former Republican House Representative from Florida, and still claims conservative bona fides, however, he has formally announced his leaving of the Republican party, as he has said, “the Republican party left” him.

Nice try but there is NO way to make these sycophants embarrassed over their apathy……these care little for what the voter wants for they feel they know better and will not bend in their thinking.

This is not a new trend….it has been around as long as I have been voting but yet the American people care not….they will vote for someone that hits all the check points of their supporters and then do what they wanted all along…..and the voter will vote for them yet again to do NOTHING they want them to do…..and the cycle never ends.

“They Are Coming For Your Hamburgers”!

Closing Thought–05Mar19

Today we celebrate Mardi Gras and the beginning of Lent tomorrow……I use to give up watermelon for it was out of season anyway….but globalization crapped on that excuse….so now I give up liver for I refuse to eat it anyway.

Now onto more important stuff!

CPAC was last week and not a better SNL sketch than the president’s 2 hour ramble that some call a speech……he was unhinged and babbling like a demented toad……but that was not the best part of the CPAC gathering…….that’s right someone was more moronic than the president……

It was when that slug of a pundit Seb Gorka of FOX News fame compared the Green New Deal as some sort of Stalinist dream…..and he got thunderous applause from the mental midgets that attended his talk…….

Threatening to take away a Californian’s In-N-Out burger? That’s the kind of thing that could change minds, sway elections and maybe even turn a blue state red.

Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump aide, is well aware of America’s bipartisan passion for ground beef, and he played into that love affair during his fiery speech on Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference:

‘They want to take your pickup truck, they want to rebuild your home, they want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved.’ Sebastian Gorka

Fact-check: Joseph Stalin, according to Russiapedia, once sent a top Russian official to America to study the development of the U.S. economy. Inspired by hamburgers, he came back and launched the mass production of meat patties.

Oh there is more……

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ocasio-cortez-like-stalin-is-coming-for-your-hamburger-warns-former-trump-aide-gorka-2019-02-28

Want more?

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yw8xdg/posts-conservatives-are-bizarrely-claiming-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-wants-to-take-your-burger-away

The conservs wasted NO time attacking AOC and her station…..

The right-wing media pounced, bleating that Ocasio-Cortez wanted to rip hamburgers from Americans’ hands. Then, last week, it seemed she was caught red meat–handed: Republican strategist Caleb Hull tweeted a picture of Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, eating a hamburger. The hypocrisy was supposedly self-evident.

Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director, Corbin Trent, calls this claim “absurd,” noting that the Green New Deal doesn’t call for banning meat. “We want to restart America’s industrial capacity, revitalize economic growth, and ensure America’s leading in the development of new, bourgeoning green energy industries,” he told me. “That’s what the focus of the Green New Deal is. Not to take way anyone’s right to eat cheeseburgers.” Ocasio-Cortez, speaking to The New Yorker’s David Remnick last week, argued that “it’s hard for the Republicans to refute the actual policy on its substance. They resort to mythologizing it on a ludicrous level.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/153187/potency-republicans-hamburger-lie

I get it…the conservs are scared of AOC and the Green New Deal…..they are in opposition….but what do they offer as an alternative?

They have NOTHING!

All they can offer is stale old fearmongering from the 1950s….and yet 40% of the population will say they support Trump and as batcrap crazy people over actual ideas to solve some of our problems.

As you have read Stalin never wanted your hamburgers and neither does AOC……it is morons spreading manure…it is what they do best.

CPAC–2019

Yep it is that time of the year again….the annual CPAC meeting…the meeting of the conserv minds (not now but in the past….it was where big political ideas were hashed out)…….now it is a collection to dolts, buffoons, misogynists, bigots and total mental midgets…..in other words cheerleaders of the Trump presidency.

I have waited for some of my conserv friends to post on the meeting….so far any true conserv is avoiding this group of slugs at all costs.

I guess it will fall on me to give my analysis……I am a progressive, a radical in some eyes, so my analysis may be a bit skewed….

The “Big Ideas” this time around is abortions and creeping socialism……in other words those ideas from the 1980s and Reaganite ideas and policies…..this is the best mental midgets can do.

Plus where are the Big Idea conservatives?  Gone to podcasts everyone……most true conservs will not come to help justify the stupid that is the Trump policies…..conservs like Rick Wilson, Bill Kristol, Steve Schmidt, etc……people that still think in conserv ideas and not the manure that Trump and his enablers push…..

Opening day of CPAC gave us a step back into conserv history……

Starving people eating dog food. Parents aborting babies after taking them home from the hospital. That was the dark vision — of creeping socialism and of abortion unrestrained — that marked the opening day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the annual gathering of conservatives that offers an untrammeled view of Republican perspectives, and a sign of where the party is headed politically. President Trump is expected to speak at the conference on Saturday morning.

https://news.yahoo.com/infanticide-and-socialism-mark-dark-tone-in-conservative-175854123.html

Reason.com has an op-ed that sums up what most true conservs are feeling about CPAC……..

This is what I’m thinking as I work up the courage to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held annually just outside of Washington, D.C. The event, sponsored by the American Conservative Union, officially started today and thousands of conservatives are out in force. CPAC started in 1974 and there was a time in the Aughts when it routinely reached out to libertarians and even groups such as the ACLU. Over the years, Reason people, including myself, have spoken on panels there. But that was then and this is…a weird political moment where the Republican president is chumming it up with a North Korean dictator while his former personal lawyer and fixer is testifying about his boss’s alleged high crimes and misdemeanors before Congress. And the House is rejecting the president’s emergency declaration about a Southern border crisis. These are not normal times, so is there any reason to expect CPAC to be an island of normalcy? Probably not, especially given some relatively recent highlights of the conference.

https://reason.com/blog/2019/02/28/is-cpac-still-whack

As a progressive I like a good debate with my conserv opponents and friends….but what the GOP has now is NOTHING like the conservatism that many were proud to embrace……now all they have is hate, bigotry and falsehoods…..

I hope the conservs can reclaim their mantle for I miss them in the public discourse….but they cannot do it with the collection of slugs at this year’s CPAC….look at the agenda and the people that are talking……SLUGS!

http://cpac.conservative.org/agenda/

Our Beloved Supreme Leader had his day in the sun of CPAC…..his speech was a rehash of the 2016 election, the size of his inauguration crowd and finally he said that anyone that does not kiss his flabby ass hates America.

Two hours of rambling, babbling lies and bullsh*t (his word not mine)……was boring with NOTHING new…not even the use of bullsh*t was new……He gave yawns instead of ideas…..

President Donald Trump told an appreciative audience of conservatives Saturday that he will win re-election in 2020 and by a bigger margin than his 2016 victory, the AP reports. He mocked Democrats for their framework to combat climate change and said House lawmakers pushing to expand their investigations of him are “sick.” In a wide-ranging speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump rehashed his outsider campaign that overcame long odds and a crowded field of established politicians to claim the White House over Democrat Hillary Clinton. When he made his prediction of a second term, the crowd responded with chants of “USA, USA, USA.” Trump praised the conservative movement, saying “Our movement and our future in our country is unlimited.”

As he looked back to 2016, the president described himself as “probably more of a conservative than a Republican,” but says people just didn’t understand that. Trump also called the Mueller probe “this phony thing” and took aim at the Democrats’ Green New Deal, a policy proposal floated by some liberal Democrats in Congress and backed to varying degrees by several of the party’s 2020 presidential candidates. “I think the New Green Deal or whatever the hell they call it—the Green New Deal—I encourage it,” he said before mocking the notion of a world with “no planes, no energy.” The Democratic plan calls for a drastic drop in greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas, but in no way grounds airplanes or pivots the country to renewable energy only.

All in all CPAC has become an enabler of a worthless ineffective president…..the GOP is truly lost and as some have said…it is dead…..

Appearing on MSNBC with host Alex Witt, GOP strategist Rick Tyler was visibly upset at what he heard from Donald Trump during his speech at CPAC, and even more so by the enthusiastic reception the president was receiving.

Asked by host Witt, “What can be done to resurrect the Republican Party as it was — or is that gone?” Tyler said the party is dead.

“Rest in peace,” he lamented. “No, it’s over. The problem is that the Republican Party has no grounding governing philosophy anymore because they’ve signed on to all these things as I just mentioned that were antithetical to the conservative movement.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/gop-strategist-stunned-reception-trumps-unhinged-cpac-speech-republican-party-dead/amp/

DEAD…Dead…dead!

All in all CPAC is degrading to the conservs, degrading to American politics, degrading to the office of president and finally degrading to the sense of good taste…..

Turn The Page!

Its That Darn Pesky Constitution

There has been an uproar toward something Our Dear Supreme Leader has made….14th amendment has been in the news and there has been a wealth of  opinions if he can actually change the Constitution with and Executive Order (EO)…..

My opinion is NO he cannot…..(but that has not stopped those from foaming at the mouth to end some of our protections)….and like always there are those opinions in contrary to the EO thing……

President Trump said this week that he is preparing an executive order to try to take away the citizenship guarantee in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says that people born in the United States are United States citizens. On Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham announced that he would introduce legislation with the same aim.

But the president cannot repeal part of the Constitution by executive order. And Congress cannot repeal it by simply passing a new bill. Amending the Constitution would require a two-thirds vote in both House and Senate, and also ratification by three-quarters of the states. The effort to erase the citizenship guarantee will never clear those hurdles — for very good reasons.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/10/31/no-mr-president-you-cant-change-constitution-executive-order

This below is an open letter sent to our Troops by veterans……

To All Active Duty Soldiers:

Your Commander-in-chief is lying to you. You should refuse his orders to deploy to the southern U.S. border should you be called to do so. Despite what Trump and his administration are saying, the migrants moving North towards the U.S. are not a threat. These small numbers of people are escaping intense violence. In fact, much of the reason these men and women—with families just like yours and ours—are fleeing their homes is because of the US meddling in their country’s elections. Look no further than Honduras, where the Obama administration supported the overthrow of a democratically elected president who was then replaced by a repressive dictator.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/11/01/your-commander-chief-lying-you-veterans-issue-open-letter-active-duty-us-soldiers

Not to worry like always there is more……

“The Trump administration asked, and the Pentagon said no—to using troops on the southern border for law-enforcement purposes, CNN reports. Two defense officials say the Department of Homeland Security wanted US troops to provide “crowd and traffic control” and protect Customs and Border Protection officers from the so-called “caravan” of Central American migrants heading for the US border. But on Oct. 26, the Pentagon denied that request, while agreeing to provide engineers, medical personnel, and air and logistics support. Why the refusal? Because the Department of Defense apparently argued that active-duty troops don’t have the authority.

Indeed, the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits US troops from enforcing domestic law unless authorized by Congress or the US Constitution. “Limiting military involvement in civilian affairs is basic to our system of government and the protection of individual constitutional rights,” the 1878 act reads. A DHS official denied that Trump’s request constituted “law enforcement activities,” while military analysts said Trump could just use US Marshals, ICE, or the National Guard for such activities. Meanwhile, Trump is easing off his remark that US troops can “consider it a rifle” if migrants throw rocks, per Fox 13 Now. If soldiers or agents “are going to be hit in the face with rocks, we’re going to arrest those people,” he said Friday. “That doesn’t mean shoot them.

I realize the hard core Righties do not want to here it and they may soon have a chance to change things…..

But not to worry there are those that are working for a convention to change things….maybe just not the things that you have in mind.

Stay tuned!

Where Did The GOP Go?

It is less than one week before the Mid-Terms are the big news of the day…..alright it has been news for a year now….but it will be balls to the walls very soon.

So I decided that I would do a series of posts on what is happening in this country as we approach the vote.

Many of us political obsevers have noticed the the GOP is a pale reflection of its past when it was a party of principles and few slogans….1950s, 60s and 70s and then the 80s and 90s arrived and the party started withering of the political vine…..

Republicans keep calling every national program – Socialism. They had been told to blame Democrats for social security, Medicaid and Medicare – all popular programs that they use and need. The inconvenient truth is that the entire world economy, controlled by the elite [aka SWAMP], is a Financial Socialist Order. The new Democrat Elite Financial Socialism has caused this global destruction, destroyed the old parties, made it so clouded with infiltration you couldn’t tell the difference between left and right – and failed to let their own party folks know – the good ol’ days are gone for the hypocrites too.

I was blessed to have known Congresswoman Marjorie Holt (1920 – 2007), a Maryland Congressional representative and a good friend of our family. Now more than ever, 40+ years later, I am proud to have been exposed to her awesome integrity. She stood up for what she believed in without caving to political pressures. Many times over the years, after I found her lone dove speech to Congress, I have mentioned that her sense of consequence was powerful.

https://deadlyclear.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/republicans-reflect-where-did-your-gop-go/

A good study of what has happened and is happening to the GOP….

Personally, I think that it has nothing to offer but big business policies and big money solutions.

But if you want to send the GOP a message then boycott the Party…..

A few days after the Democratic electoral sweep this past November in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere, The Washington Post asked a random Virginia man to explain his vote. The man, a marketing executive named Toren Beasley, replied that his calculus was simply to refuse to calculate. “It could have been Dr. Seuss or the Berenstain Bears on the ballot and I would have voted for them if they were a Democrat,” he said. “I might do more analyses in other years. But in this case, no. No one else gets any consideration because what’s going on with the Republicans—I’m talking about Trump and his cast of characters—is stupid, stupid, stupid. I can’t say stupid enough times.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/boycott-the-gop/550907/

Makes sense to me.

Make the election about principles Not slogans!

Ten Paces Turn and Fire

There is a duel being fought in the media between Our Dear Leader and the uber rich Koch Brothers……for now it is a war of words….but things could spiral into a full fledged political war…….

Amid a morning flurry of tweets, President Trump took aim at two powerful figures on the right: brothers David and Charles Koch. “The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade,” the president tweeted. “I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas,” he continued, adding, “Their network is highly overrated.” His comments, however, come after the Kochs lobbed an attack of their own at a weekend forum in Colorado. Coverage:

  • Kochs’ criticism: At a Koch network gathering in Colorado Springs, Charles Koch criticized Trump’s tariffs and protectionist trade policies and suggested he’s open to supporting Democratic candidates who are more in line with the Kochs’ free-trade and libertarian views, reports the National Review. “I don’t care what initials are in front or after somebody’s name,” he told the group.
  • Turning point? A video during the forum showed businesses supposedly shuttered because of retaliatory tariffs, notes Politico, which says “the open hostilities at this weekend’s conference came as something of a surprise.” At Vanity Fair, Tina Nguyen sounds a familiar note: “The Kochs’ hostility toward Trump isn’t new, though their rhetoric seems to mark a turning point.”
  • Another shot: The president of the Charles Koch Foundation was even more cutting over the weekend: “The divisiveness of this White House is causing long-term damage,” said Brian Hooks, per CNN. “When in order to win on an issue someone else has to lose, it makes it very difficult to unite people and solve the problems in this country. You see that on trade: In order to get to a good place on trade, convince the American people that trade is bad.”
  • Telltale race: The Koch network also has defied the White House in the Senate race in North Dakota pitting vulnerable Democratic incumbent Heidi Heitkamp against GOP challenger Kevin Cramer, reports the Washington Post. Trump has personally campaigned for Cramer, but the Kochs say they can’t support him because he’s not fiscally conservative enough, citing, for example, his support of Trump’s trillion-dollar spending package, per the Hill.
  • Familiar face: The Kochs’ criticism of the White House and their reticence to back the entire GOP ballot caused former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to lash out. “What they have to do is shut up and get with the program, OK?” Bannon told Politico. “And here’s the program: Ground game to support Trump’s presidency and program, [and] victory on Nov. 6.” Trump’s tweets, however, suggest he doesn’t want their help now.
  • The choice: In an analysis at the Atlantic, Reihan Salam susses all this out and frames it in general terms with this question: “Will the GOP be the party of Donald Trump or the party of Charles Koch?” The Kochs helped shape the GOP agenda during the Obama years, but the party’s populist turn under Trump has them worried, he writes. However, this new split with the GOP may ultimately backfire for the brothers, he warns.

Under normal circumstances I would be delighted to see the GOP in disarray…..but this president is destroying a once proud political party piece by piece and the elected reps from this party are enabling the party’s demise.

Liberals…….

Liberals!  You know who they are according to most so-called conservs….they are anyone who does not meet what they consider a conserv ideology.

I would try to have an academic debate on this situation but that would be a waste of time and would end up with the so-called conserv saying “whatever” or their favorite retort “moving on”.

If there is half a brain out there then they will realize that we are witnessing the demise of democracy….but then few will see it for it is happening all around them slowly with a barrage of slogans……it is as if the world has lost all confidence in democracy…..

Democracy across the world is under siege. This according to the latest Freedom House report documenting that for 2017, “democracy faced its most serous crisis in decades” as seventy-one countries experienced declines in freedom or fair government, including the United States, and only thirty-five an improvement. This was the twelfth consecutive year of decline in democracy world-wide.

The question is why? Why has confidence in democracy retreated? Freedom House does not provide an answer, but there is a reason. It is democracy’s marriage to neo-liberal capitalism has fostered the conditions leading to its own undoing, similar to the way Karl Marx once described in the Communist Manifesto the “gravedigger thesis” (What the Bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers”) where capitalism would produce the conditions that would undermine its own existence.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/28/neo-liberalism-and-the-retreat-of-democracy/

Back in the early days of this republic a young Frenchman came to observe the founding of a new nation…..his name was Tocqueville and his book “Democracy In America” is required reading for a political scientist…..could this Frenchman save the US from itself?

The modern world differs from antiquity and the Middle Ages, a disjuncture Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835, 1840) proposes to explain and illustrate. In the past, societies were organized on the assumption that men were naturally unequal. However, the Christian idea of human equality provided the impetus for a “democratic revolution,” or a gradual reordering of the world based on the equality principle. Democracy in America shows what a difference equality makes by constantly contrasting modern, democratic forms of politics, work, family life, and the arts and sciences with their old, aristocratic counterparts.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-would-tocqueville-do/

This country needs all the assistance it can get….if it can be saved from itself…..I mean there are still those old farts that see a socialist behind every Democrat…..as always these people are afraid of something they cannot identify.