sonora2sonoma

Listening to Zurlina Maxwell say on MSNBC that the country will soon witness a demographic change in which the Whites will no longer be the majority, I thought, man, I bet that will make Mitch McConnell squirm. Perhaps that (or something else like it), is why the Republicans are so frighteningly and fiercely determined to prevail-at-any-cost over their challengers. It begs the question, just how far are they prepared to go in their quest for dominance?

I’ve long thought that, if Mitch McConnell cared about the Constitution, he would not have made some of the key decisions he has made in the past decade or so. To the extent that behavior denotes character, McConnell’s is shady at best.

What if, however, Mitch’s behavior was not lacking in integrity but rather true to his character? In that case, it might be explainable as behavior typical of a sociopath. Or, perhaps his actions are truly aligned, but toward a different cause entirely. We have been presuming up until now, or at least I have, that Mitch cares about the Constitution. Suppose that were not so. Allow for the possibility that Mitch has given up on the Constitution—that he’s graduated to a mindset in which authoritarianism is not only acceptable (so long as it’s called something else) but that its methods may be justifiably applied as deemed necessary in order to retain power and control over the government.

Then think about McConnell’s record of “achievements” since he’s been Speaker. If the pieces now seem to fit better, that’s no coincidence.

“Today,” writes Michael Gordon in the Business Insider, “representative democracy is on the brink as our government demonstrates an unprecedented disconnect from public opinion. We see time and time again that even overwhelmingly popular public views don’t translate to policy.” Gordon continues, “all three branches of the federal government are now in the hands of a group of politicians pushing distorted views to the mainstream.”

Seen through this light, Mitch’s behavior is in line with the current views of quite a few prominent Republicans. “The GOP,” Gordon notes, “consistently pushes the envelope to cement control, especially as it reads the tea leaves and sees an electoral future that looks grim for their party.” This “desperation to lock in unpopular Republican policies,” says Gordon, “is the basis for their embrace of trump, their efforts to pack the federal courts, their embrace of the Electoral College system, and their gerrymandering.”

In other words, get the fix in while we still can.

I wish and hope that this explanation was nothing more than a paranoid ramble and that Mitch and his gang will all turn out to be true patriots who, in the end, will remove their partisan hats and join with the growing majority of the public slowly waking up to the realization that their president is a fan of neither the Bill of Rights nor the Rule of Law, but rather is someone who views, in his unmatched wisdom, such documents merely as obstructions preventing him from acting as he pleases while he labors, when he isn’t busy either tweeting or playing golf, to un-make America greater, or whatever the Hell it is he’s trying to do, as if he actually knows.

I suspect, however, that we will sooner see thoughts and prayers succeed in reforming America’s gun laws.

I’ll close with a final musing about our esteemed senior senator from Kentucky: If one’s actions are true to one’s beliefs, but one’s beliefs are rotten, what does that say about one’s character?

Tim Konrad

2019.12.26

By narrowing the focus of the articles of impeachment being prepared for submission, the House is all but ensuring their defeat in the Senate.

What Schiff and others don’t apparently understand is that what they consider to be prima face evidence does not seem to be selling well, at least so far, in the court of public opinion. If the goal of Schiff & Co. in pursuing a speedy impeachment is, as they say it is, to limit the ongoing damage to the Constitution and the rule of law being perpetrated by the president, they should realize that articles of impeachment that fail to become sustained in the Senate would have no effect in mitigating the president’s behavior and, more likely, would serve to exacerbate it.

Currently, the Democrats are losing in the court of public opinion. Besides bringing forth articles of impeachment, the Democratic Party should also be conducting a simultaneous publicity campaign aimed at helping the public understand why the impeachment should be sustained. Between Fox Propaganda and Sinclair Broadcasting, there are an awful lot of folks laboring under arguably false notions about their president and the reasons behind his current circumstances. The Dems have a chance to change this, through campaigns appealing, like the Repuglicans, to emotions more than facts, but the window of opportunity in which to do it is closing fast.

Tim Konrad

My thumb is suffering pain from overuse due to making excessive volume adjustments on my remote to protect my psyche from the shrill and grating drone emanating from the mouths of the reality-challenged, privilege-defending, trump-fearing, post-credibility rapscallions representing the Republican enterprise in this impeachment business.

These congressional hearings might be more properly termed the “Schizophrenia Sessions.”  I am hard-pressed to imagine anything crazier than listening to the cognitively-dissonant Republicans blather their revisionist denials of the reality staring directly back at them, while exhibiting no evidence of embarrassment or shame, as if they were patriots defending the Constitution instead of partisans conspiring to undermine it.

While these legislators might look like normal people, their actions assure us they are not. How they can follow, repeating their propagandistic drivel with straight faces as, one by one, Democrats, operating under the rules set by objective reality, honestly speak truth to power, is quite frankly, unbelievable! And yet, there it was, on television for all the world to see.

What this illustrates is that, unburdened by shame, his defenders, just like trump himself, are not bound by any moral code that might otherwise limit the depths to which they will sink toward the furtherance of their goals.

To witness Republicans’ behavior in the hearings is akin to attending a seminar highlighting the science behind propaganda dissemination, media manipulation, behavioral programming, subliminal messaging and other forms of mind control. To see such mass lying orchestrated so smoothly lends an ugly aura over the proceedings reminiscent of the one that surrounds Stephen Miller wherever he appears.

The Reptilicans, in their endeavor to defend the defiler-in-chief, are all complicit in a scheme to pervert the Constitution—an undertaking with long-term consequences—to suit their short-term political goals. Their mantra, as evidenced by their legislative record, is “the end justifies the means, whatever the cost (so long as it doesn’t affect us).”

Their self-righteous indignation is stunning! Let me repeat that—their self-righteous indignation is stunning! How can they not see, in their heart of hearts, the full implications of the Faustian bargains they have made?

I’ve seldom, if ever, quoted scripture in my writing, but the relevance of Mark 8:36 to this situation  rings loudly in my ears: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

Tim Konrad

2019.12.18

Call it trump fatigue, impeachment anxiety, existential terror or all three at once. Whatever it is, I’m feeling it. And my usual means of dealing with things that aren’t going well isn’t working anymore, because this sense of malaise is unlike anything I’ve experienced. And, judging by various signals from multiple sources, I’m not alone.

Trying to make sense of it all, here’s where I’ve gotten so far:

Based on what I can see, it comes down to this: what to some is an impeachable act is to others a “perfect phone call.” And no amount of persuading appears capable of breaching that divide, no matter how unambiguous the circumstances nor clear the reasoning—the president is guilty as hell and yet, at the same time, completely innocent. One would assume that the facts would speak for themselves; were it not for the proliferation of “alternative facts” asserted by the president’s defenders, that would be a reasonable assumption. But reason departed the station shortly after the president’s inaugural spectacle, the scale of which surpassed anything he’d imagined before, and what remains is a landscape in which baseless assertions assume relevance via sheer repetition while actual, empirical evidence is derided as nothing more than the product of “deep state” conspiracy-minded trump-haters bent on overturning the 2016 election. Meanwhile, with no sense of irony, trump routinely accuses others of misdeeds that bear a striking resemblance to things of which he himself is suspect. But rest assured—Mitch McConnell has announced that the impeachment-that-shouldn’t-be-an-impeachment will receive a speedy trial- that-won’t-be-a-trial in the senate.

“It can feel, especially lately,” writes Rex Huppke in the Chicago ‘tribune, “as if reality has been bent sideways and backward, like facts are meaningless and, quite frankly, like many of us are losing our minds.”

“What’s going on in the government is so extreme, that people who have no history of overwhelming psychological trauma still feel crazed by this, said Stephanie Engel, a psychiatrist in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“It’s a psychic tax on the population, who must parse an avalanche of untruths to understand current events,” notes Michelle Goldberg in the NYT.

Up, it seems, has become down, wrong is now right and chaos rules the day. I cannot begin to imagine how this must play out at the George/Kelly Anne Conway dinner table, but that scenario at least reassures me that, as crazy as this has all become, and I mean REALLY CRAZY, it could be worse!

When confronted with such madness, what is one supposed to do?

My initial response, weary as I am of the onslaught of disconnected-from-reality drivel virtually oozing from the pores of all but the meager handful of Republicans who still exhibit evidence of being actual members of the vertebrate class, is to unplug the tv, radio and computer and seek any distractions I can find to assuage my existential terror. But that would be as damaging to the republic as the apathy of those too busy to bother themselves with all this “partisan BS,” as many have apparently chosen to do. The fall of the Roman Empire is instructive in this regard: Its lesson–non-participation, for whatever reason, will accomplish one thing only—the furtherance of the status quo, which in this instance is the trump regime. And that is unacceptable, by any conceivable standard.

So, what to do when tuning out becomes ruled out as a matter of conscience?

When “up is down, dogs are cats (and) the world is flat as a pancake,” to borrow again from Rex Huppke of the Chicago Tribune, “you are not losing your mind. Hold fast to the truth. The disinformation and dishonesty of Trump and his mendacious lemmings isn’t your burden. It’s theirs. And the weight of it, as sure as up is up, will inevitably pull them down.”

“When something terrible happens, our natural reaction is to fight against it,” said Robin Chancer, writing in the blog ‘Politics Means Politics’ in 2017. “Fighting won’t change it,” Chancer adds. “Rather than paralyzing ourselves with shock and outrage, we are better served by accepting what happened, allowing it to change us, and working with what is left.”

Admittedly the kind of acceptance Chancer espouses may put us into “a state of grief as we come to terms with hard realities. If so, allow time to feel and honor it.”

Of crucial importance, says Chancer, “Don’t allow (trump’s) Tweets to play over and over in your mind. If you read them, register them as insane, and move on to the next moment. Even better, pay little attention to his stunts. Don’t waste your energy getting riled up. Once we fully accept that Trump does evil, unhinged things (strategic lying, degrading/exploiting people) because he is evil and unhinged, we can get beyond his antics, anticipate them, and have a clear mind to plan our next move.”

Despair, left to fester, can lead to apathy and withdrawal. By approaching evolving developments with acceptance, we can inoculate ourselves against falling into despair, yet it is worth discussing, because when it’s effectively channeled, despair can drive an uprising. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) echoed the point: “I call on every person in this country to demand that their U.S. senator demands an actual trial with the facts on the table.”

But uprisings seldom if ever take place without direction and coordination.

One would think, given all that’s happened so far, there would be more coordinated efforts at resistance taking place around the nation. Their absence speaks volumes about the misplaced priorities of our National Democratic leadership. What’s needed is a campaign dedicated to persuading the public of the merits of ending the trump regime’s hold on power in the country.

Contrary to what Adam Schiff might think, the crucial battle to be won will not be waged in the Senate or, at least for now, in the Courts, but rather in the court of public opinion, as is clear to anyone paying attention to the polling data.  Without public support, the evidence presented thus far, damning as it might seem to those of us who can’t wait to see him go, is not winning the argument to persuade his supporters that trump is doing harm to the country.

Jennifer Rubin put it succinctly in today’s Washington Post: “While the House makes clear that impeachment is urgent, there is no remedy for a clear and present danger in a farcical non-trial.”

A more sensible approach would be, in Rubin’s words, to “decline to send over the articles (to the Senate) until such rules for a real trial can be agreed upon,” or, if that fails, “to never send over the articles,” thereby denying McConnell his “sham trial.”  Carrying the matter over into 2020 unresolved would also allow time for the various court challenges brought forth by those issued subpoenas to play out, possibly yielding more evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

The cynic in me doubts the House will follow Rubin’s advice, and that’s a pity. I hope I’m wrong!

Tim Konrad

12/16/19

MAGA hat upgrade; Make America Livable Again

I no longer recognize my country. I used to feel I could take pride in the knowledge I lived in a country that was the envy of the world, a place with an equal enough playing field that those bold enough to dream big stood a better than even chance, with hard work, that their dreams could be realized. In that world, no one ever heard tales of people having to hold down two, or even three jobs in order to pay their rent. Homelessness, on the scale experienced today, was nonexistent.

Back then, people might not have always agreed with whoever the president was at the moment, but they nonetheless viewed him with the admiration and respect befitting the office. Oh, how far we have descended in such a short time! Our forefathers would bow their heads in shame were they here today to witness the spectacle our infantile “commander in chief” has made of the office. They would also have little good to say about his defenders who pervert the meaning of the constitution on an hourly basis in defense of the indefensible.

Not only do the trumpublicans seem to have lost all touch with any remaining vestiges of the values they once professed to possess; they have also parted ways with reason as evidenced by their hollow and insubstantial protestations and pleadings in the face of mounting evidence of their “leader’s” wrongdoing.

It would be nice if, instead of ignoring the obvious—that their boss is a crook– they were to behave responsibly and acknowledge the level of corruption staring them in the face, so that we could all have a real discussion about how to get things back on course: It would be equally nice if we could have universal healthcare and world peace. But what would be really nice is if we could all agree that none of this other stuff is going to matter a whit if we don’t address the real wolf at our door—climate change.

I don’t profess to understand what passions animate these people on the climate denial bus to throng like lemmings toward the cliffs of environmental apocalypse, yet there’s no denying the zeal with which they are pressing forward with the dismantling of all the hard-won regulations designed to protect the air we all breathe and the water we all drink. Perhaps they believe their money will save them, but even that belies a shocking degree of narcissism.

History will not look kindly upon the role played by mr trump and his supporters in the demolishment of life as we know it that is currently underway. In that context, the decline of American influence in the world will be seen as a factor contributing to the environmental catastrophe that will surely follow if we don’t come to our collective senses very soon.

Tim Konrad

November 16, 2019

It is admirable to see members of our community actively engaged in efforts to improve conditions for the less fortunate among us. Without such dedicated public servants, the gap between the affluent and the destitute would doubtless be far wider.

And yes, it is tempting to take a break from the “daily barrage of trump . . and our political morass.”

But taking a break from trump is just what trump and his supporters want his detractors to do. With his tweets and other public pronouncements, mr trump is seeking to normalize behavior that no society should ever find acceptable.

His statement this morning comparing himself to the victim of a lynching betrays a staggering insensitivity to the issue of racial equality in America. The remark, while utterly disgusting and totally without merit, stands as a clear indication of the deeply-ingrained racism present in this man.

This behavior is anything but normal, and the alarm bells should be sounding far and wide.  We should all be acting like our house is on fire, because, in a very real sense, it is.

After posting this today, I received the above photo from a friend in a rural part of the country who wanted to share with me how some of his neighbors in the hinterlands view trump’s impeachment. He said the symbol in the lower left “links to a second amendment bunch of radicals with over 2.7k posts.” He added “just the right twitter post from trump and there will be bloodshed.”

Can you smell the smoke yet?

Tim Konrad

Petaluma, CA

October 20, 2019

“The idea of donald trump, as president, has always hinged on the suspension of disbelief.” So wrote Lucas Mann in this morning’s Washington Post. But perhaps never in his administration’s history has this discipline been more necessary than in the last few days, where, between the “confession” of his press secretary, Mick Mulvaney, coupled with the second worst strategic blunder* in our country’s history—the pullout from Syria—with his lawless decision, later rescinded, to host next year’s G7 at his Doral resort, the bindings piecing that construct together have been frayed to the breaking point.

Stretched to the max, the question for many of us now becomes, how much longer can those bonds hold before they part ways entirely? For his republican enablers in the houses of Congress, that question should be keeping them up at night, pondering their future prospects much as the leaders of the Vichy government in France must have in the waning days of WWII. I say “should be” because, so far, they have shown little resistance to the increasingly erratic bumbling of the toddler-in-chief.

So, listen up, Republicans: For those of us who remain unscourged by the taint of Fox Views and Sinclair Broadcasting, it’s past time you provided us a little clarity on a few issues–

Does it bother you that your boy withdrew our forces from Syria without consulting anyone who has a stake in the matter, save Erdogan?

Do you believe that, minus guardrails, he might do something similar in the future?

If the answer to either of these questions is “no,” then what on earth are you thinking? If the answer is “yes,” then what in the world is keeping you from speaking out?

Perhaps a better question, judging by your silence thus far, would be what do you think you have to gain by not speaking up? You must realize by now that your boy remains unchecked because your continued silence allows him to be so.  What you should be thinking about is what you have to lose if you continue to allow this travesty to stand.

The leader of the Vichy Government during WWII, Marshall Pétain, proclaimed a national hero for his valor and leadership in the first World War, nonetheless spent his waning days in imprisonment as punishment for collaborating with the Nazis. Please explain to us, Republicans, how your misplaced fealty to mr trump should be rewarded any differently once our country is finally rid of this menace.

We all know you folks want desperately for your party to retain control of the White House; what you don’t seem to realize is, with this loose tool in the Oval Office, that bus departed the station some time ago; your dreams of controlling him are just that—dreams!

The normal and prudent response to behavior such as that evinced by the current occupant of the White House is to reprimand the child and send him to his room until he calms down and behaves appropriately. The Constitution provides an equivalent solution to apply when that behavior manifests in a Chief Executive. It’s called impeachment!

Tim Konrad

Petaluma, CA

October 20, 2019

*the worst being Bush’s invasion of Iraq.