Tag: Trump

Why Is Trump-Speak So Successful?

Now here is a subject that we could talk and discuss about for days even weeks and there would probably no consensus.

Was Trump’s rise to power a fluke or did he actually do some research and found his niche?

He was so unpopular in 2016 and yet he found a hidden well of votes that put him over the top from Clinton….and ever since people have been trying to find out what his secret was that lead him to victory…..and the question is today can he replicate his 2016 win?

Mid-America is the ‘forgotten’ demographic…..and this is where all our problems with our political system has originated.

If you’ve been watching television or tracking trending topics over the last few weeks, you’ve probably seen or read something about “white rural rage.” This is owed to the publication of a new book, White Rural Rage, by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, whose thesis is that white rural Americans, despite representing just 16 percent of the American electorate, are a “threat to the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.”

In an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Schaller gave this unvarnished assessment of the rage he sees overflowing in the heartland. Rural whites, he said, are “the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay geo-demographic group in the country.” He called them, “the most conspiracist group,” “anti-democratic,” “white nationalist and white Christian nationalists.” On top of that, rural whites are also “most likely to excuse or justify violence as an acceptable alternative to peaceful public discourse.”

This premise has triggered a backlash towards rural voters from some on the left. Amanda Marcotte, writing for Salon, said she’s tired of handling rural voters “with kid gloves,” and time has come to pop the “racist, homophobic, sexist bubble” they all live in. Daily Beast columnist Michael Cohen agreed, writing that “these aren’t hurtful, elitist stereotypes by Acela Corridor denizens and bubble-dwelling liberals… they’re facts.” David Corn, the D.C. bureau chief at Mother Jones, piled on, agreeing that “white rural voters [are] the slice of the public that endangers the constitutional future of the republic.”

This latest obsession with rural rage is nothing new. After 2016, when rural voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania put former President Donald Trump over the top, Democrats tried to figure out why they had gone so sour on the Democratic Party. Some liberal thinkers called out the left’s reflexive condescension and dismissal of rural voters that escalated during the George W. Bush administration and peaked with Hillary Clinton’s campaign and her dismissal of Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” Some said the party should increase attention to rural issues and nearby rural communities.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/05/white-rural-rage-myth-00150395

Trump has tapped into the hatred, biases, and concerns of this sector….Dems have lost this sector even though the programs that are keeping rural America afloat were created by Dems.

Trump keeps feeding the concerns and biases of rural America and that could be very disastrous for this country in the coming election.

Tapping into the rage has made Trump an attractive candidate…..and a ugly candidate at the same time.

Hate-speak is a powerful political tool these days.

But can that attractiveness win over the majority?

What say you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Good That Was Trump

This post ought to get those hostility juices flowing…..but I would like to state here that this post is NOT what the title implies….as the reader will see upon completion of the link included.

Irony being inherently ironic, it would be easy to dismiss as delusional or harebrained any argument to the effect that Donald Trump’s totalistically execrable behavior over time may have had positive effects on the American public. But let us not blind ourselves to the validity of this counterintuitive notion. By the same token, let us concede that Trump speaks and acts in many ways like other segments of the larger political class – only more extremely, dogmatically and unceasingly. While his hard-wired true believers may see him as a political and ideological Man on Horseback, to those outside his insular, tribal cohort, he is an apocalyptic horseman worthy only of scorn. 

Here are 20 examples of how Trump may have benefited America, or at least where Trumpian maleficence, malfeasance and malpractice have alerted us anew or reawakened us to ideas and practices we once cherished but perhaps have grown complacent about. (In some instances, we may find upon reflection that America’s founders left us holding the bag in the face of the regnant tyranny Trump represents today.) In this newfound “knowing,” the reasoned and reasonable among us may have unwittingly benefited in this Era of Trump.

1. Voting. The late Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, longtime president of the University of Notre Dame, characterized voting as a “civic sacrament,” a rite conferring divine grace on those who fulfill their obligation as citizens to register their choices for public office. Too many of us, let us admit, have come to take voting for granted as a free good that costs nothing, whether we exercise it or not. Thus do we account for America’s consistently low voter turnout rates over time. Trump has weaponized votes, voting and the electoral process in every conceivable way: by manipulating and attempting to negate vote counts; suppressing and disenfranchising voters; shamelessly perpetuating the Big Lie that his 2020 election loss was rigged and stolen; and, most recently, threatening blood in the streets if he loses in 2024. If this hasn’t reminded us of the sanctity of the vote, nothing will.

https://www.salon.com/2024/04/21/20-reasons-why-donald-has-been-good-for-america-no-seriously/

Anything anyone would like to add?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trump Has An Answer For The Ukraine Situation

Everybody has an opinion on how to end the stalemate in Ukraine…..even the once and future king, Trump….

Donald Trump has a plan to stop the war in Ukraine, though Ukraine won’t like it. The former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee has spoken privately about his plan to pressure Ukraine to cede territory to Russia—specifically Crimea and the Donbas border region—in order to bring the two-year-old war to an end, the Washington Post reports. Trump has reportedly said both sides “want a way out” and people in parts of Ukraine wouldn’t mind joining Russia. He’s apparently so confident in his ideas he’s claimed he could negotiate a “very easy” peace deal within 24 hours of his election, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will not surrender any land.

A Trump campaign rep wouldn’t answer questions about his plan, but said “President Trump is the only one talking about stopping the killing.” Campaign adviser Jason Miller later claimed the whole report was “fake news,” per the New York Post. The proposed scenario outlined by sources would mark a dramatic departure from President Biden’s long-term plan to continue military support for Ukraine, and some foreign policy experts say it would only reward Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading his neighbor. Even people close to Trump share this view. “He has to pay a price. He can’t win at the end of this,” says Sen. Lindsey Graham, who claims to have “been spending 100% of my time talking to Trump about Ukraine.”

Graham says he wants Trump to embrace the idea of Ukraine joining NATO. But “he doesn’t say much about that. I don’t know if he’s thought too much about it,” Graham tells the Post. Former Trump White House aide Michael Anton has reportedly described Trump’s plan as focused on the ceding of Ukrainian territory in Crimea and Donbas to Russia, limiting NATO expansion, and encouraging Putin to lessen his reliance on China. That last point might take sanctions relief and European cooperation. But Ukraine and its European allies are likely to resist any deal with Moscow. For Zelensky, it would “constitute domestic political suicide,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace analyst Michael Kofman tells the Post.

I have said since about 1995 that since the collapse of the USSR that NATO should be dissolved and let Europe deal with the consequences of a defunct Soviet Union.

Ukraine….if there is a peace deal that keeps boundaries the way they are today then there will always be problems in Eastern Ukraine as there were before the invasion.

Is Trump’s plan a sound plan?

Will this plan hurt Trump’s chances?

In reality do any of his supporters really care?

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Have Candidates Ever Been Disliked More?

College of Political Knowledge

2024 Election Series

2024 is an election that has two candidates that few voters seem to like and in some cases hate.

I will admit that I would not vote for Trump on threat of death and Biden to me is just a spineless tool of big business….I will not vote for either of these candidates and will most likely look elsewhere to put my vote…..just so I can get the endless trash talk about my choice.

All this said has there ever been two more disliked candidates in recent memory?

No there has not and ABC covers the subject…..

Shocking news: Americans are not jazzed about their choices in the 2024 presidential election. According to 538’s averages,* only 43 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of former President Donald Trump, while 53 percent have an unfavorable opinion. And only 40 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of President Joe Biden; 55 percent have an unfavorable one.

It’s historically unusual for any major-party nominee to be this unpopular — let alone both of them. Using 538’s current polling-average methodology, we went back and calculated retroactive favorability averages for every Democratic and Republican presidential nominee since 1980.** By late October before the election, only seven of the 22 candidates had negative net favorability ratings.

If Trump’s and Biden’s net favorability ratings remain underwater through Election Day, 2024 will be only the second presidential election since at least 1980 in which Americans had a negative view of both candidates. The first was in 2016 — which also happens to be the only recent presidential election in which the two candidates were, on average, more disliked than Trump and Biden are now.

It’s possible that, with most Americans entrenched in their partisan camps and believing that the country is on the wrong track, we’ve entered an era of perpetually unpopular presidential candidates. Before 2016, no presidential nominee in at least 36 years was more than 9 percentage points underwater; since then, five of the six have been.

https://abcnews.go.com/538/americans-hated-candidates-biden-trump/story

I also read that another batch of ‘people’ are calling it quits for 2024 because their popularity was not there….I am talking about the ‘centrist’ attempt to field candidates “No Labels’……

After running up a series of high-profile rejections from potential candidates, No Labels is abandoning its efforts to field a 2024 presidential ticket, reports the Wall Street Journal. The centrist group announced the decision on Thursday after being rebuffed by contenders including Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Joe Manchin, and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. The group had raised $60 million with the intention of fielding a candidate should Donald Trump and President Biden end up as their parties’ nominees, per the New York Times.

“Today, No Labels is ending our effort to put forth a Unity ticket in the 2024 presidential election,” Nancy Jacobson, the group’s leader, said in a statement. “Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run and hungrier for unifying national leadership than ever before. But No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House. No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.” The move also comes after the death of the group’s founding chair, Joe Lieberman.

That gets rid of one group of ‘centrists’ now if we can keep this flow going then this country may have a chance.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Cash In–Crap Out

It is 2024 and election looms so by crap I mean idle promises, trash talk, insulting garbage and hate speak….now to the meat of this post….

Over the weekend Biden had a good run with donations to his campaign….

President Biden’s campaign reported Saturday that it raised $90 million in March, widening his financial lead over Donald Trump. For the quarter, that lifted Biden to a total of $187 million, per the Hill. His campaign now has $192 million in cash on hand, which it said is a record high for a Democratic candidate at this point of the presidential race. Two days last month stood out: a New York City appearance with former Presidents Obama and Clinton brought in $26 million, and $10 million poured in during the 24 hours after Biden delivered his State of the Union address.

The cash gap between the Biden and Trump campaigns widened. Trump’s collected about $66 million in March and reported now having $93.1 million in cash. Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez described the fundraising as historic, Politico reports, calling it “a stark contrast to Trump’s cash-strapped operation that is funneling the limited and billionaire-reliant funds it has to pay off his various legal fees.” For the quarter, the Democratic campaign said, 96% of the donations made were less than $200.

Then there was the fundraiser that Trump held overt the weekend….

ormer President Trump’s campaign said it raised $50.5 million on Saturday, reports the AP, a staggering reported haul as his campaign works to catch up to the fundraising juggernaut of President Biden and the Democratic Party. The reported haul from the event with major donors at the home in Palm Beach, Florida, of billionaire investor John Paulson sets a new single-event fundraising record and is almost double the $26 million that Biden’s campaign raised recently at a gathering with former Presidents Clinton and Obama at Radio City Music Hall. “This has been some incredible evening before it even starts because people—they wanted to contribute to a cause of making America great again, and that’s what’s happened,” Trump said to reporters as he arrived with wife Melania.

The event, billed as the “Inaugural Leadership Dinner,” sends a signal of a resurgence of Trump and the Republican Party’s fundraising, which has lagged behind Biden. Trump and the GOP announced earlier in the week that they raised more than $65.6 million in March and closed out the month with $93.1 million. Biden and the Democrats announced Saturday that they took in more than $90 million last month and had $192 million-plus on hand. Trump initially struggled to attract big donors in particular when he launched his campaign and some lined up to support the other Republicans in the primary. But as Trump racked up easy wins and became the party’s presumptive nominee, the GOP has solidified behind him.

Saturday’s high-dollar event hosted about 100 guests, including more than a few billionaires. Contributions to the event will go toward the Trump 47 Committee, a joint fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee, state Republican parties, and Save America, a PAC that pays the bulk of Trump’s legal bills. In an unusual arrangement, the fundraising agreement directs donations to first pay the maximum allowed under law to his campaign and Save America before the RNC or state parties get a cut.

It is a shame that these high dollar slugs will not use their extra cash to help the nation’s struggling population.

So after these begging session for money nothing will change and we will get the same crap that we have been plagued with of decades.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Will I Be Deported?

That is probably the main question on immigrants minds these days.

But should it be on the minds of citizens?

It appears that Trump made a comment about deporting American citizens during one of his recent campaign stops…..

Donald Trump hosted back-to-back rallies in two states on Tuesday, using his time to attack President Joe Biden’s immigration policies and make some extreme promises in regard to his own agenda for the U.S.-Mexico border. That included claiming he’d deport U.S. citizens if undocumented migrants were found “invading” their homes.

“If your constitutional rights have been violated, we will defend you. If you have illegal aliens invading your home, we will deport you,” Trump said during an event in Wisconsin, his second stop of the night.

The claim, which is alarmingly similar to the policies of another far-right leader who punished civilians for hiding Jews in their homes, could be a direct attack on a controversial program announced last month by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s administration. Whitmer’s new policy offers $500 subsidies for households that volunteered to shelter refugees.

Or, if the phrasing was just another verbal gaffe, it would add to a mountain of evidence that Trump is losing his grip. Over the last several months, Trump has claimed that there were “millions of people” arriving from “places unknown” speaking no language and that he would stop banks from “debanking” Americans; he has mixed up former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and described his plan for America’s missile defense system by going, “Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.… Boom. OK. Missile launch. Woosh. Boom.”

https://newrepublic.com/post/180380/trump-immigration-threat-wonder-all-there

I think Trump had a brain fart but knowing his attitude and hard core BS I would put nothing past this ‘person’ if he were to be elected president.

Would you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Which Economy Is Better?

It is election time and most voters will most likely vote with the wallets or what they perceive is a better economy.

Will it be the Biden economy? Or will Trump take the prize?

The facts are clear: Biden has overseen a stronger economy than Trump did. That reality should dominate his reelection campaign.

I’m going to tell you something that I’m pretty sure you don’t know—and that you probably won’t even believe. Ready? Real wages are now growing in the United States at a pace faster than the spike in the cost of living since the pandemic. More than that: For the first time in decades, wage growth is consistently stronger in the middle and at the bottom than at the top.

See, I told you that you wouldn’t believe it. But it’s right there in a recent study by David Autor, Arindrajit Dube, and Annie McGrew, three well-known economists. Dube just wrote up the results at Project Syndicate, emphasizing: “Importantly, the real wages of the middle quintile are not only higher today than they were before the pandemic, but slightly higher than we would expect based on 2015-19 trends. In other words, the typical American worker’s purchasing power has grown at least as much as it likely would have in the absence of the global challenges posed by the pandemic and geopolitical conflicts.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/180093/biden-trump-economy-election-not-even-close

So if you are voting with your wallet then the Biden economy should be your choice….

The real truth is the economy does much better under a Dem president…..

A study published by the Economic Policy Institute on Tuesday finds that the U.S. economy does better when a Democrat is in the White House than when a Republican is in charge.

The study looked at GDP growth, job growth, inflation-adjusted wage growth, the unemployment rate, and more. It found that Democrats have had an economic advantage since at least 1949.

“This Democratic advantage is across the board in all variables we measure but strongest in private-sector outcomes—notably, business investment, job growth, and the growth of market-based incomes,” it says.

The study shows there is a “pronounced Democratic advantage in nearly every measure of macroeconomic performance.” Despite this, the study notes that Republicans are typically seen as better at managing the economy in opinion polls.

“It is difficult to tell what respondents to opinion polls have in mind when they are asked about ‘the economy.’ For example, respondents often rate the Republican party higher as economic managers yet rate the Democratic party more highly on issues related to healthcare,” the study says. “But healthcare is, by far, the single largest sector of the U.S. economy, affecting economic outcomes of households, businesses, and governments in significant ways.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-economy-better-democrats

If your criteria for voting is your wallet then the obvious choice is the Democrats….but we know how successful misinformation is at getting voters to cast their vote against their best interests….so this post will probably mean nothing to the unwashed stupid.

The best thing to do is “pay attention”!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Billionaire To The Rescue

The big story for a few weeks now has been Trump (of course) and the judgment against him…..will he be able to come up with the bond money….many people thought he could squirm out of this predicament one way or the other.

And as accurate as always Trump managed to find a benefactor to put up the cash and save his assets from being grabbed.

So who was the knight in shining armor for Trump?

Don Hankey, the chairman and majority shareholder of Knight Specialty Insurance, told CNN on Tuesday that the deal to underwrite former President Donald Trump’s $175 million bond in New York came together quickly and that Trump posted all cash as collateral.

“It’s what we do. I’m happy to do it. We would have done it for anybody else,” Hankey said in a phone interview. “It was an easy transaction. It was put together very quickly.”

Based in California, Knight Specialty Insurance is known for providing subprime auto loans to car buyers with weaker credit scores.

Hankey, who has supported Trump’s presidential campaigns, said initially he reached out to the Trump Organization last month when the former president was having trouble putting together a bond of $464 million. Hankey has amassed a fortune that Forbes values at $7.4 billion.

(cnn.com)

Now ask what did he have to promise this obscenely wealthy leech to get his money?

But one billionaire is not the problem for this country….it is a mass of billionaires that are bankrolling the shyster Trump.

Donald Trump’s allies have put together a sprawling political operation that continually collects money from major donors, many of whom have interests before the Trump administration.

Six groups funded by dozens of ultra-wealthy donors have raised more than $50 million to support President Donald Trump and his agenda since his inauguration, a sharp reversal from his three-year-old pledge to be independent from moneyed interests, a Public Citizen analysis (PDF) has found.

It’s a sharp contrast with Trump’s first run for office, which was famously dysfunctional. Our analysis of Federal Election Commission data found that since the start of 2017, the six pro-Trump groups had raised $54.4 million from 136 megacontributors who donated at least $100,000 each, with an average contribution of nearly $400,000.

The money has been used to promote Trump’s agenda through ads and support Republican candidates.

These six groups, including America First Action and Trump Victory, are fueled with contributions from corporate CEOs, largely from the gambling, finance, real estate and energy sectors, as well as from dark money groups that do not disclose their donors.

The Super-Rich People Backing the Trump Agenda

All this mundane stuff just to get to the meat of this post….sorry about that….

Did you know that behind every authoritarian person stands at least one billionaire?

The problem is not just the far right, but the fact that there is an alliance between the super-rich and the far right… It’s true. Behind every fascist movement, there is a billionaire who discreetly supports it. The far-right scapegoats minorities: public anger is not directed where it should be, at the very rich who are destroying our means of survival.

George Monbiot: “Behind Every Fascist Movement There Is a Billionaire”

While article is mostly commenting on the environment his words could be translated into stopping the billionaires and Trump.

We can beat this marriage of far right and billionaires but that would mean that the people need to take voting seriously or lose everything in the aftermath.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“There Will Be A Bloodbath”

Over the weekend I read about the prediction from Donald the Orange if he is not re-elected.

But for those that were not paying attention because we know basketball is the most important thing happening in this country….

At a rally today in Dayton, Ohio, former president Donald Trump, while rambling on the subject of automobile tarriffs, suddenly veered into discussion of November’s election and issued a promise: there’ll be a “bloodbath” if he doesn’t win.

“If I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath for the whole…that’s gonna be the least of it,” he told the audience, to no applause or cheers. “It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country, that’ll be the least of it.”

(boingboing.net)

WTF?

What kind of low life turd says something like that when running to lead this country?

What does it mean?

Will there be a political bloodbath or something more sinister?

The line: While talking about the economy, Trump promised to raise tariffs on foreign-made cars. He added: “Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole—that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” per NBC News.

  • Two meanings: The Biden campaign accused Trump of doubling down on “threats of political violence,” per the AP. “He wants another January 6.” But the Trump campaign said the former president was still talking about cars. “If you actually watch and listen to the section, he was talking about the auto industry and tariffs,” spokesman Steven Cheung wrote to the Washington Post. Cheung added that “Biden’s policies will create an economic bloodbath for the auto industry and autoworkers.” Watch video of Trump’s comments here.
  • Election warning: Trump also said that if he loses, “I don’t think you’re going to have another election, or certainly not an election that’s meaningful,” per the New York Times.
  • Migrants: Trump continued a theme of making “dehumanizing” remarks about migrants entering the US in his speech, per the Post. “I don’t know if you call them ‘people,’ in some cases,” he said. “They’re not people, in my opinion.” He also referred to them as “animals” and asserted that some nations were sending “young people” from their prisons over the border, per the Times. Trump didn’t offer any evidence on that or name the nations.
  • The rally: Ohio votes Tuesday, and Trump made his appearance to back his favored GOP candidate, Bernie Moreno, in the Senate primary race.

Was this some shadowy warning of things to come?  Maybe of political upheaval or something more sinister.

What do you think he meant?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

We Have Our Candidates!

Why am I not surprised?

It’s official after yesterday’s primaries the positions for presidential candidates has been filled.

There has not a lot of drama in the recent primaries….not a surprise at all….

First as expected Trump won big yesterday.

Donald Trump on Tuesday won enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination for president for the third straight time, winning Republican primaries in Georgia, Mississippi, and Washington state, the AP reports. Before Tuesday’s votes, the president was 126 delegates short of the 1,215 needed. Hawaii’s Republican caucuses are also Tuesday and will finish at 2am Eastern. President Biden secured the Democratic nomination with a win in Georgia but the math was a little more complicated for Trump. From the AP:

  • In Georgia and Washington, a candidate can win all of a district’s delegates by winning a vote majority in that district. In Mississippi, a candidate can win all 12 district delegates by winning a statewide vote majority. In all three states, if a candidate doesn’t meet the required vote-majority threshold, the district delegates are allocated in proportion to the vote in that district. Hawaii allocates its six district delegates proportionally according to caucus results, regardless of whether a candidate receives a vote majority.
  • Georgia, Mississippi, and Washington account for 142 delegates. Trump needed to, and did, win all but five of them in order to clinch the nomination before Hawaii finished caucusing.
  • Nikki Haley, meanwhile, had as of this writing won 22% of the vote in Washington state and 13% in Georgia, despite having ended her presidential campaign.

Then there are those pesky Dem primaries with very little drama there as well….

President Biden, facing no serious opposition, clinched the Democratic nomination Tuesday with a victory in Georgia’s primary. The AP called the race for Biden soon after polls closed at 7pm Eastern. CBS News projects that the state’s delegates will give the president the 1,968 delegates needed to make him the presumptive nominee. Biden also won the primaries in Mississippi and Washington state later Tuesday. In a statement, Biden celebrated clinching the nomination and described Donald Trump, who secured the GOP nomination later Tuesday, as a threat to democracy.

Trump is “running a campaign of resentment, revenge, and retribution that threatens the very idea of America,” Biden said, per the AP. “I am honored that the broad coalition of voters representing the rich diversity of the Democratic Party across the country have put their faith in me once again to lead our party—and our country—in a moment when the threat Trump poses is greater than ever.” As of this writing, “uncommitted” had 7.5% of the Democratic vote in Washington state.

If these are the nominees then blow off the rest of the primary BS and go straight into the conventions and get this silliness done with as soon as possible.

One bit of good news….one of the Freedom Caucus will not be around in the next session of Congress.

Republican Rep. Ken Buck announced Tuesday that he’s leaving Congress at the end of next week, further narrowing the GOP’s slender House majority. Buck, a member of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus, said in November that he wouldn’t seek re-election in Colorado’s 4th District but the Tuesday announcement surprised colleagues including House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Washington Post reports. In recent months, Buck bucked his party on issues including efforts to impeach President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

  • Narrowed majority. After Buck’s departure next week, there will be 218 Republicans and 213 Democrats in the House, with four vacancies, meaning that Johnson can only afford to lose two GOP votes in party-line votes if all members are present, the Hill reports.
  • Why he’s leaving early. “It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress and having talked to former members, it’s the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress,” he told CNN. “This place has just devolved into this bickering and nonsense and not really doing the job for the American people.”
  • Next steps. Buck, who has repeatedly criticized his party’s handling of Donald Trump, said the system of choosing candidates is “broken” and he hears from a lot of people who aren’t happy with Trump or President Biden. “I am going to find the right organization to join and I’m going to start working on that issue. We have to have better candidates up and down the ballot.”
  • Special election. A special election will be held to replace Buck for the rest of his term, but it’s not clear whether it will happen before the June 25 Republican primary, the AP reports. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who currently represents Colorado’s 3rd District, is among several candidates in the 4th District GOP primary.

I find it humorous his reason for leaving….the Freedom Caucus is one of the major thorns in democracy’s side….but somehow he cannot take the heat.

I will say good-bye to him with a smile.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”