Relative-
Note: This was written before the attack on innocent children at the Annunciation school in Minnesota, revealing again the constitutional hypocrisy and 2nd amendment ignorance and arrogance of the right, before Florida's vow to remove vaccine mandates which threaten the herd immunity despite seventy years of successful inoculations against childhood diseases, before the business end of extra constitutional regressive tax increases (ie tariffs) are fully realized, before the Cheeto administration's deployment of troops, or agents, to any blue cities, before the dictator's attempted, (or actual) firings (at the CDC, AMA, Federal Reserve, etc.) of people more important to the country's well-being than he is, before any more grifting or lies, before the supreme court or congressional republicans abdicated their responsibilities to the American people, before the dissolution of medicare or social security, and before more red states were asked to gerrymander congressional districts so that candidates could pick voters and not be held to account for the fascism toward which the country takes steps every single day.
The odds we were going to accomplish much of anything, (aiming as high as a mutual understanding) via text, or a sanctioned conversation at a family gathering, was highly unlikely. I push the envelope and am all in, with few exceptions, on deep conversations. There are few takers who really want to dig into topics for any longer than five minutes, even when there is no promise of solving all of the world’s problems, or any of them.
The chances of a mutual understanding are zero if we don’t take the time to listen to the other generation’s concerns. I was in your boat thirty years ago- wondering about my place, concerned about where things were going, really not enjoying multiculturalism (my generation’s “woke”), having a vague sense of doom socially, politically, and economically, especially economically. Your idea of doom may be more targeted, because the country’s divisions are more pronounced now, and there are more avenues available for people to stoke dissension which is not ignorable. Both parties are to blame for that, as are all types of media, some more than others however. The divisions between political ideology are far more drastic than when I was awakened politically just as the class divisions are, if enough people were paying attention to the latter problem.
You might not read this for ten or twenty years, or you may never read it. Writing it probably will contribute more to my sanity than to your political diversification. So be it. It won’t be the first time I write something that garners less attention than I had hoped. Pretty much everything I’ve ever written falls into that category.
I realize that in the game of identity politics, which you are very much awake to, judging by the nature of your past comments, and in which both social and political sides are playing against each other, that causes another battle to be deferred- the battle for economic self-preservation. The middle class has been losing an unwaged war for about three generations, since the mid to late 1970s. It’s a little more complicated than that though, as just around then there was an energy crisis, the end of Vietnam and the societal turmoil of the late 1960s. There hasn’t been actual stability in this country since the early 60s, particularly economically. If we were going to turn back the clock to make America great again, we’d have to go back to post WWII and through the 1950s when wages, the middle class, and buying power were on the rise; even then though, how was segregation, sexism and racism for anyone who wasn’t a white male? A person asking that question shouldn’t be characterized as pro-DEI, only human.
Second half of that paragraph was a digression. I apologize. I wanted to start at economic inequality, which is a more meaningful long term problem, (the longest term really), to show you my motive here, initially, is above board and it is an issue upon which I believe we would likely agree. If Americans could have that conversation, about how our government has cost us economic opportunities we should have had, seventy percent of people would agree. The supporting arguments for an us v. them fight economically are so prevalent and convincing that it would bore most people. Agreement is boring. Winning a less important argument, on track to tear the country in two, is deemed a more worthy endeavor. That is unfortunate. We all are too easily drawn into a distraction. The top 10% of the country economically want us to have a fight about what tribe we belong to. Focusing on two things at once, which is something eyes can’t do, appears to be something brains can’t do either. Unfortunately, that lets the rich off the hook.
However, I must also address the idea of your overreliance on outside noise to ensure your identity is secure among the right wing regime. You have apparently been indoctrinated to fight on the right’s behalf. They talk over competing voices armed with better and more vetted information; the right uses non-sequiturs, false equivalents, what-about-reasoning and treats anecdotes as if they are evidence to distract you into compliance. Does the left do that? Yes. But not as much, and it's not close. The influencers do such a good job thinking for the right, you think the ideas are yours. And until you can concede something where your argument is weak, I found it was a waste of my time to keep engaging. I deleted your cell number after I concluded you had joined the Cheeto’s cult. If you can’t concede some weakness, I can’t take your side seriously. I have conceded things in the course of our exchanges because, in fairness, that is the rational thing to do in adult conversation. I don’t believe I’ve heard one specific thing you have conceded on any political thoughts we exchanged. That is the typical right-wing playbook- just attack and never back down. Your side has plenty of faults and if you can’t identify them, that is a glaring problem and one which loses you the argument by default.
I specifically sought out a Rogan podcast where covid was the prime talking point and found the ideal episode when Sanjay Gupta was his guest (fall of 2021). Rogan acted like a squirrel on amphetamines during the discussion. He brought up so many topics so quickly the conversation regressed into all kinds of accusations and attempted gotchas trying to box Gupta in. If one guy just keeps pedaling incomplete information, like a presidential administration flooding the zone to distract the people, sure he can appear to win an argument to people who aren’t paying attention. Rogan probably doesn’t think he came out looking like a child in that conversation and it was apparent that a bunch of righties thought Gupta was taken to the wood shed- so I was compelled to comment- in the name of truth, facts and fairness. You give Rogan way too much credit. I’d be setting the ground rule- you have me on your show- so, please let the adult speak.
Words mean things, truth and facts mean something and ideas mean everything. The ideas of fairness, compromise with logic, conciliation toward morality, and objectivity challenging hypocrisy need to all be in play; I will not sacrifice those pursuits and will always bend toward those ideas of justice.
There is an objective reality in life. As improbable as it might seem for a nation of people to obtain it, particularly at this time, that should be each person’s individual goal; if people don’t start out by aiming high, they are satisfied when any target is hit.
I’d be a hypocrite if I believed that younger generations shouldn’t question anything, or everything, but please let it be something that makes them uncomfortable, and not something they are convinced of reflexively because of its volume, frequency, or spokesperson. Latching onto a new media and dismissing all that came before it, seems incredibly short-sighted, and in some cases, it is pure lunacy. Only embracing the old media is also a problem- they’re too liberal; I concede. What are you willing to concede? Few arguments among adults can possibly place all of the fault on one side; this certainly is NOT one of those times. I’m a compromise kind of guy, but not in the search for truth. Two things can be true at once. Liberals and conservatives, republicans and democrats can, and have, and will, lead most of us astray; and the rich which are made up about equally from among both parties are also, most assuredly, leading us astray. Too bad you and I can’t agree to hang them both together. Ah, Ben Franklin. I do not mean that literally.
I do not wake up, turn on CNN or MSNBC and open the paper to the USA Today. I read books and have read books written by Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, etc. That’s a Mount Rushmore of radical right lunacy. These are people whom I despise because of their vitriolic and acidic delivery and hateful approach. And I wonder what they have been deprived of which causes them to speak with such an evil tone. The liberal media has not silenced them. They’ve literally been bitching about being silenced by the woke mob for the last decade. There are mobs on both sides.
I’ve tuned into Fox News and have encountered plenty of “conservatives” on Twitter and TikTok. Their mentality is to attack anything that checks their freedoms while denying those freedoms for anyone else. That kind of hypocrisy is always going to get my attention and I’m under no obligation to keep my thoughts to myself. Not being willing to uncover the other side’s viewpoint, as painful as it is sometimes, would leave me incomplete. I welcome having my opinions challenged; it strengthens rather than weakens my arguments. Shaking your head at something Anderson Cooper says before he’s finished saying it, is not giving a competing view a chance. I cringe at some of the things he says too, but I don’t move my ears until his point, or Hannity’s or Laura Ingraham’s, has been made, even if it’s wrong.
The remainder of this letter, should you ever encounter it (as it is my sister who holds the cards there) is divided into two sections. I’ve already given a preview of both of them. First, is my attempt to identify the larger problem more worthy of identification and research, the economic problem (logically). The second half of the letter is meant to show you that I can also mix it up with a moral appeal, at a lower level (us v them debate) if it comes to that. Liberals and democrats are not your enemies if only because just as many of them suffer economically in the exact same ways as conservatives and republicans (MAGA or ones who aren’t in a cult). You have much more in common with your liberal counterpart than with that president of yours, his billionaire friends, and his ridiculously unqualified cabinet, who appear to be in some competition for the title of who can act the most like a child, or a Disney movie villain, while kissing the president’s ring.
Warning: this letter contains more space devoted to the tribal war, but I’ve offered a 300-page book that’s subtitle reads: “How Washington Made the Rich Richer- And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class.” That ratio should count for something.
Gifts and wealth in the U.S.A.:
I hope you accept this gift, Winner-Take-All Politics with the spirit in which it is given. We’re at odds politically. Wiser people than me have warned that psychologically, intellectually, morally, lost souls consider an attack on Trump, and his tactics, a personal one and so they are overprotective of him as he is symbolic of their plight. Since you seem to spend a lot of time listening to the radical right’s complete strangers, sparing the time it takes to read this challenge to what you think you know, (and what a well-researched and presented economic argument on behalf of the 90% looks like courtesy of the book’s authors), via someone who has known you your entire life, is a small price to pay.
My first intention is to turn a fundamental disagreement about tribalism (us v. them, me v. not me) into a realization that the problem is much bigger than a cult worshiping a dictator v an objective search for the truth. The book, at least, does well better than this letter to not represent a republican v democrat perspective. At least, I don’t think it does. I’d have to read it again specifically looking for that. But please, at least read the book first, for the information it provides to a bi-partisan cause, as an alternative to new and old media, before dismissing it. Vegetables don’t stop being good for you just because you don’t like the way they taste.
Note: And I’m not conceding this letter represents a democratic viewpoint at all. It details a sane interpretation of the two sides, calls them both out, although one more than the other, for what I think are obvious reasons, as written about below, and on issues there isn’t space or patience to get into here.
There is an obscene amount of money in politics, on both sides; until people can limit the amount of distraction an argument about which tribe we’re with provides, we’re doomed. You can tell, I am consistently and increasingly encumbered by that distraction so that I threaten to lose good relationships with old friends and young relatives. I’m neither a democrat nor a republican. Neither side really knows what to do with people like me. I’ve had almost as many disagreements with liberals about immigration, taxation, health care and wokeness as I have with conservatives about gun control, education, the supreme court and abortion.
One thing I’ve learned through reading, dating back to sources from before the constitution was ratified, is that our country’s problems are class-based. The problems of class in America predate formal party affiliations by at least one-hundred years. I highly suspect the majority of the country’s problems are tied to money. I can’t prove that to you, because so many people are becoming proof-averse. But if you won’t take the time or energy to read the book, I can’t agree that you are thinking for yourself. In much the same way as we improve our chances of retaining information if our eyes see our hand writing the ideas we consider, or those we read. Our eyes will improve our chances of helping our brain do our own thinking than if we use only our ears. We must literally see it (being written down) with our own eyes.
This book- Winner Take All Politics, is only a representative example of much I’ve learned where this country’s problems are concerned. In it are asserted many points I have encountered dozens of times in other books and sites which are not attempting to propagate a liberal agenda, by a number of different writers, who, and I checked, aren’t all using the same source. And I’ve been thinking in this way for about three decades; writing about it for almost two. Me greenlighting this particular book doesn’t mean that I swallow all within it. You can’t swallow, or throw out, all the contents of a book, or a news agency, or the thoughts of comedians, politicians, parties, or people because much of what they do, or stand for, is highly reproachable. Pick and choose. The right holds the left to standards of accuracy in broadcasting and journalism that it doesn’t reach. CNN, The New York Post and Associated Press make mistakes, The Heritage Foundation, Fox News and Charlie Kirk are outright lying and killing objective reality and the very idea of truth. The former are extremely capable of making mistakes and giving an incomplete truth, the latter shout falsehoods from the rooftop, with a megaphone all day long with no conscience.
If your first thought is to look up the authors to find out if they’re snobbish acolytes of some liberal institution, (they may very well be) or that their book was funded by some foundation the podcasters have conditioned you to be weary of, or you put a paragraph of its text into some AI disambiguator, then you aren’t making up your own mind. And if the author’s credentials are worrisome to you, I wonder how you consider Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk, (the latter won’t debate anyone unless the kid has a current college ID), two privileged zombies in a sea of extremists on the right, who seem immune from your cross-examination. If those two aren’t your particular flavor, assume I mentioned them here (Theo Vaugn, Riley Gaines, Michael Knowles, Nick Fuentes, Gutfeld)- they’re all one to me, twenty parrots in the same cage. Imagine that “diversity”. Talk about DEI- no one in Trump’s cabinet, nor the cadre of blowhards pronouncing his idiocy is genius, are qualified for the role they’re currently playing in life.
Both parties are terrible:
The two parties want us to engage in despising, mistrusting and accusing each other of everything despicable on their behalf. They get us into wars, and arguments amongst ourselves, a type of warfare, to distract. Whether that’s an unintended, yet fruitful, (for them) consequence of the plutocracy we’re living in is immaterial. It is true historically from times and countries all over the world. That is why history matters. Marx wrote, probably in the 1850s, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Cicero may as well have said that in 40 BC.
Big Pharma’s campaign contributions:
Intermission- if you think you have learned that democrats are much more beholden to Big Pharma than republicans, I’d urge you to look it up. Don’t take Rogan’s word for it. After listening to some of his stuff, he’s one of the biggest revisionist historians masquerading as a Cassandra I’ve ever heard. Put in a search for “big pharma campaign contributions”. I clicked on the first link: https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/industry-detail/H04/2024 You should decide for yourself where the truth is, but I assure you that the difference between what democrats receive and what republicans do (in terms of financing their campaigns) is negligible. That listing of contributions for 2023-24 favors republicans with almost $9 million, democrats with just over $7; the $2 million difference is a negligible amount. That is a concession. Others might say that a difference of $2 million is a considerable difference; it isn’t. And those are just the contributions we know about. The drug companies don’t hand out money for free. They want something for that investment . . . from BOTH sides. Who do you think loses? It isn’t just twenty-something white males. I’ve been losing out for almost forty years.
You could also hit the 4th result down- https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/03/big-pharma-pac-contributions-bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-open-secrets-data/ for more perspective. Again, the fiction both sides tell can turn into “fact” the more it is repeated. You believe some of the things you do because an algorithm is teaching you to believe what you hear. All kinds of new, social and mainstream media are doing it. We’re all victims of it. Some more than others. However, if Sanders or Warren are determined to have received the most in campaign contributions from big pharma by a wider margin than anyone else, they deserve to get skewered for it (and you would skewer MAGA folks for the same right?). But that claim better be true from a reliable source- not because Sean Hannity or Jesse Waters says so. I’m not even contending Rogan is always wrong. I looked up some things he contended and he has some fair points. Have you ever done that? Questioned right leaning sources and looked for yourself? All of the mainstream media is lying? That level of paranoia is objectively disqualifying in a search for truth.
See also- pharma contributing to both parties https://www.pharmavoice.com/news/big-pharma-campaign-election-pac-donations/731124/
In my reading, both parties are heavily beholden to rich donors, acolytes and supporters and anyone in the middle class, and the poor, keep getting the shaft. That’s my experience since I started working in 1987. The richest 10, 1 and .1% keep getting all the breaks. Since the late 1970s, I’ve probably read it and heard it four dozen times from different sources, (books, articles, websites, podcasts) the income and wealth gap keeps growing and everyone else but the rich gain virtually nothing. I’m convinced, (Voltaire be damned) because of my reading and paying attention, that most of the problems with this country won’t be solved by republicans and they won’t be improved with democrats in office. Our problems aren’t restricted to black v white socially, and aren’t exclusively summarized by red v blue politically. Most of our problems are associated with the color green- economically. And both parties have perpetuated that for generations, without ever being held accountable for it. My generation hasn’t been able to hold them accountable; you’re falling into that same trap I mentioned earlier if you focus on anything other than who controls this country- the rich.
In the book, if you read nothing else, please read pages 15-40 and if you can’t stand it, then stop, although you will be doing your current and future self a disservice. I looked up Piketty and Saez myself and there are things I don’t like about some of their findings, but I’ve seen so much information from so many other sources from articles, sites and other books, and not from mainstream media, that attempting to refute that our “green”/money problem isn’t our biggest is utter nonsense at this point. Yes, black people in the lower three quintiles still have it worse than white people in those same economic ranges, but over the last fifty years, social injustice has improved well more than economic injustice, regardless of race. The copyright on the book is 2010. Do you imagine that the economic challenges the lower four quintiles face have improved or grown worse in the last 15 years?
On page 22 the featured numbers are that the richest 1% (between 1979 and 2006) saw their household after tax income rise from $337,100 a year to more than $1.2 million. That’s an increase of 260%. In the same timeframe, the middle class, that’s the class we’re in, saw their earnings rise 21-32%, which sounds great, especially if you consider that since people are having fewer children there is more green to go around, but sounds worse when you consider that many more collective hours (of married with children households) are being worked in order to obtain that “increase”. The bottom quintile (that’s the bottom 20% of workers) only increased their after tax earnings from $14,900 to $16,500, (again, as of 2006) an 11% increase spread over 27 years. And those were all inflation-adjusted numbers from the Congressional Budget Office on Historical Effective Tax Rates.
I’ve read a couple books and heard Bill Maher cite that when you factor in Transfer payments from rich to poor, the poor and middle class are doing far better than at any time in U.S. History. Take it from someone who was in your shoes thirty years ago- not true. I never got one grant, or one penny from the government; I tried but was declined because I lived at home and your grandmother had too much money in the bank because my grandmother had just died (i.e. life insurance). I’ve been working since I was 16, bought my own cars, paid for my own insurance and put myself through school. I’ve won only what I’ve worked for, but I’m one major health scare away from being financially crippled and I don’t spend unwisely. Never once carried a balance on a credit card. I lost my job twice due to corporate greed and/or government mismanagement of its citizen’s financial welfare. I’ve seen friends and excellent co-workers let go because the companies I worked for were greedy. I routinely received 2 to 2.5% wage increases when inflation was 3-4% or more. I’ve lived this crap for 30 years. I’m not alone. I have much more reason to be bitter about the economy, and my financial prospects, as you have, and I’ve got thirty more years of evidence.
The last paragraph was an assumption that given your age, gender, race, current economic situation and your anger toward the left, (which I picked up on from your texts) you believe Trump would fix things for you. I’ve seen no evidence that is ever going to be the case. Yes, this may be harsh, but no more harsh than the hate the right is feeding you, which you have been swallowing whole.
So, when someone wants to focus on tribalism and is hell-bent on fighting the wars of a political party, it is incredibly disheartening. But I’ve been sucked into it more often than I’d like. Your dad has been working for forty-five years, and I know he’s worked harder than I have. Do you think he would be any better off if he blindly believed everything one side said about the other?
I read a book written by Milton Friedman, a pretty well-known economist- Capitalism and Freedom. I disagreed plenty with a Nobel prize winner. Now, it is about as likely that I’m not smart enough to have understood his full argument as that I should feel justified for questioning his expertise. By the title alone he intends to associate freedom with capitalism- that one, practiced in the manner he prescribes, leads to the other. Sorry that association doesn’t work for me. Democracy would be working much better for America’s paupers if capitalism weren’t working so well for the prosperous.
Trump was onto something- the election was rigged, but he’s only right if he means all elections, even those he actually wins, by a much narrower margin than he thinks; a win by 2.3 million people is not a landslide and did not provide him with a mandate (it is a negligible amount in a country where 152 million people voted) and he needed a preposterous amount of money from Musk ($270 million) to get there. Elections in this country haven’t been above board since before there were any meaningful campaign finance laws in the early 20th century- but the Citizens United supreme court case (decided the same year the book I’m giving you was published) put another nail in that coffin after the court rolled back meaningful accountability where campaign finance transparency is concerned. The supreme court has been complicit in ignoring precedent and legislating from the bench on all kinds of topics, two of which I get into below.
I have to ask- you think it’s fair that a CEO of an S&P 500 company makes 268 times more than the average worker? A CEO’s compensation grew 1,085% from 1978 to 2023 (that’s roughly 185 to 344 times, depending on the methodology used), while the typical worker’s grew by 24% during that same time (that’s 45 years). Do you think a CEO works 185 times harder than the average worker? But the politicians will spend words citing that the CEO’s compensation dipped slightly in 2022 and 2023. (from the Economic Policy Institute Sep 21, 2023) Any wonder why I try to avoid focusing on my tribe v. your tribe? When members of both tribes who are not in the top 10% are subject to the whims of the market, politicians (from both parties), businesses and corporate elites will bring in people from China to learn how to do your job so they can let you go? That actually happened to people I worked with. And the people from China who came here went back to teach thousands how to do my job. Guess what happened to me.
Proof and facts please; here’s where your objections will most likely increase:
The above reveals my interest in dealing in logic, below is my willingness to cite the importance morality plays in politics and government.
Warning- you’re being fed vitriol and anger constantly from your sources- who are getting their information from WHERE? Simply repeating a falsehood three times does not make it true. The right insults the agreement two people should have when they sit down to parlay in reason. Below is the rational and moral presentation the right forsakes with impunity, but also with the edge with which you are familiar, and with which I am capable, given your taste for their diabolical behavior.
I’ve heard twice from different sources that to compare anyone to Hitler is to have ceded the argument; if it walks and talks like a duck- I’m calling it a duck. I’ve also been made aware how much denial by those suffering through the notoriously gruesome events leading up to the Holocaust and events of WWII was not considered abnormal early enough. Surely, there has never been a greater procrastination; I don’t think people should be silenced into accepting the greater risk, unless good and evil alike have an equal chance at failure. If I listed all of the amoral, illogical, unconstitutional things which Trump has authored in order to terrorize half the country just from Jan. 20th to July 20th, this computer would shut down from exhaustion. Every day, he’s saying or doing something which is inane, ridiculous, irresponsible, immature, immoral, grotesque or unconstitutional. His cabinet is in open competition for the title of who can make the most egregious or nonsensical mistakes in violation of truth, common sense or the law.
Your viewpoint, it seems to me, maybe I’m wrong, comes basically from podcasts. I asked you for what you view as legitimate proof of anything, and you sent me four or five Joe Rogan podcasts on election night. I’ve asked people in the tribe on the right I’ve known for 20-30 years for vetted information and they didn’t send me anything either. Sorry, that isn’t going to work. I’m willing and capable of conceding there are reputable outlets, authors and outcasts out there who could convince me that more of the left’s oversights should be added to the equation of who to distrust. I’d even concede there are instances where Trump has valid points about being a victim, but ultimately, he’s the wrong guy to cast in the role of a martyr. Anyone who isn’t capable of expressing some regret that they voted for him, or can’t critically think for long enough to openly disapprove of his antics- I’ve lost respect for at this point.
I’ll choose the Associated Press over Joe Rogan any day and that approach makes me reasonable; it does not make me a lemming. The AP is judged by one media watchdog as the least biased in the industry, but is judged by another as left leaning or just plain left. Is the AP perfect? No. That’s a concession. But if your first step is to only trust the right’s assessment of the Associated Press, there’s no hope. Your guard is up against anyone whispering information, and it is down if the echoes are from someone yelling unapologetic and shameless invectives you already believe. That should strike you as not quite fair. We are conditioned, as people, to believe in the repetition of a pronouncement rather than in its merit.
I will also remind you, or anyone wondering why I can be like a dog with a bone- you did text me 2-3 weeks after we discontinued the first string, with a misguided podcast that I listened to and conceded contained some fair thoughts (although nothing that hadn’t already occurred to me) about Harris’ unfitness for the office she was seeking, because I had been paying attention. I knew instantly she sacrificed the election with her unwillingness to say she would do anything differently than Biden. Though, I will say, you overrated that podcaster’s talents. You also made quite a point about commenting, multiple times, on how a drunken guy in a Trump hat at the golf course was a patriot. You wanted to see where I stood. You all but invited me to ask how you really felt about things a couple years ago. I never really need that much of an invitation.
Patriotism, Rogan v Stewart:
If I’m looking for information about the political affiliation of the initial patriot who tried to rid us of Trump, and I find that an ABC news article online confirms the shooter is/was a registered republican- you can’t blame the liberal media. Plenty on the right still do. It doesn’t matter if that patriot did so only to vote for Nikki Haley, as you contended- and who gave you that idea by the way. Rhetorical question. There are lunatics out there who think that the shooter was a liberal and believe it because of right wing conspirators. There are conspirators and people telling half-truths, and full lies, on both sides. While people are getting ridiculously feckless and curated into oblivion lies from the left, (I concede) you’re getting history-changing, extra constitutionally dangerous lies from the right. Concede!
To combat Rogan, I sent you a Jon Stewart link. You mentioned that Stewart was employed by Comedy Central who is owned by XYZ company (Pfizer?).
One thing on Stewart; he was essentially fired (or quit) from Apple because he had multiple guests on his show “The Problem” that Apple didn’t want him to talk to. He talked to them anyway. If you’re going to assess Stewart’s very meaningful contributions to raising the level of issue discussion, not to mention his selfless advocacy (on behalf of veterans and victims of 9/11), which you probably don’t know about, and conclude he’s a corporate shill, your podcasters are well out of his league; name me anyone on the right who is in his league. Stewart eviscerated a senator from Oklahoma who brought a spork to an, ahem, gun fight. Look it up; it’s almost a podcast.
I recognize that it may seem as if I’ve been picking on you and I do not want you to hate me. I see that the conclusions being made by about half this country are existential threats to morality, democracy, and American greatness. You’re old enough to have the kid gloves taken off and be challenged about your ideas- to question what you think you know.
I have taught myself how to reason with the aid of critical thinking I latched onto in college. It’s how I can question Stewart as being too liberal for me. I have questioned Madison, Hamilton and Adams on their justifications or approaches. I do not swallow everything I hear or read. Just because it is in a book, including the one I’ve given you, doesn’t mean it is gospel. If it were gospel, I’d question it more. Hell, the reason I don’t capitalize words like christmas, constitution, republican, democrat, supreme court, etc. is because of rampant hypocrisy where religion, politics and government are concerned.
I picked up a book about five years ago on intelligent design, filled with scientific attempts to fairly consider the origins of the universe as balanced against a belief in a prime mover/supreme being. I changed my opinion- from being a deist (someone who thinks a god created the universe and has been hands off since then) to an agnostic (someone who doesn’t know one way or another since the existence of a supreme being cannot be proven). That isn’t what the author was trying to do. It challenged my thinking. I was open to it. I grew up catholic (another word I refuse to capitalize) and have read the bible (King James version cover to cover), outside of any requirement of the catholic church. I’m too proud of my learning. I get it. But you credit amoral and jaded or ignorant blowhards (a number of whom I’ve already named) who have stopped short with their learning as well, because you already agree with them, because that is all you pay attention to.
I know, I know, I’ve already thrown a lot at you, assuming you are still there to duck, but discussing social, political and economic issues is quite a bit more daunting than arguing about spiritual ones. It would be easy to latch onto a party and identify with a group to belong to and cast aspersions and blame onto what appears to be the complete opposite of me/of us. The actual problem is far more complicated and it’s more work, and the solution isn’t coming exclusively from podcasts. And the truth about who to blame isn’t coming from an obese orange sociopath who exhibits a 4th grade education.
The democrats and republicans, until recently, are about equally to blame. I picture a swingset when I think of them and who is in the lead. You look at those swingers at one point and the democrats are coming forward. You look again and here come the republicans. Democrats, republicans, republicans and democrats. Republicans are in the lead now, and in two years (at the 2026 mid-terms) people will be fed up with republican ineffectiveness, or pure evil, and the democrats will likely, ineffectively, hold the house and senate, but perhaps by default, because they’re also terrible. With few exceptions that is the case in mid-terms (the party with the president suffers congressional losses). Only reason democrats lost fewer than expected in 2022 (Biden was a feckless president) is the republicans probably decided to sacrifice that election cycle so the abortion issue was out of the way for Trump. The republicans kept the immigration/border issue alive for Trump to campaign on. In 2016 the republicans killed Obama’s prospect, and constitutional right, of appointing a supreme court justice 9 months before the end of his term. That’s why Trump was allowed to fill three seats. Fact- Mitch McConell circumvented the constitution and refused to hold hearings on Obama’s nominee. If that Dobbs decision by the supreme court comes two years later, Trump probably doesn’t win, to the extent he has, without cheating.
Note: I know your side doesn’t care about the constitution, except the 2nd amendment, but conscientious adults do. You want to see a snow-flake on the right get triggered? Tell them they shouldn’t be allowed to own an AR-15. Also, since I wrote that paragraph, Trump urged Texas to revisit redistricting, something that isn’t supposed to be done but once every ten years, after a census. He’s rigging the whole game. Please tell me you aren’t ok with that. And believe me, I already know the “what-about” response you’ve heard fifteen times by now by the radical right. C’mon man- those examples aren’t the same thing and it’s an insult to pretend they are; if insults were the only things which this country might suffer because of your Cheeto, I wouldn’t have written half this material.
And now he wants to ban mail in voting (which is the state’s prerogative) because his bro/idol stroked his ego a little bit. Children don’t behave like that.
Note: if you’ve gotten this far and object below to my complaint about abortions being turned over to states, I’ll have an explanation, just trying to keep this under 20 pages.
cONSTITUTION; skip if you have read it with objectivity:
The constitution is a disaster at this point. But it's the best we got. I beg you to read it for yourself, without the aid of those people who ignore it when it doesn’t serve their purposes but genuflect before it when it does. You can’t have it both ways. That document is in dire need of a rewrite (there’ve been 27 amendments in 234 years (17 if you consider the Bill of Rights should have been included in the first place) and many of the last 17 are fairly non-substantive, much like this harangue, I imagine.
Here is what I mean. Why is it that the out of touch, radical right can completely ignore the 9th Amendment (and they aren’t the only ones), which protects any individual rights which have not already been enumerated, but embrace, with a misreading, or complete ignorance of an originalist’s interpretation, with any eyes not ogling their next AR-15 or ghost gun purchase, of the words qualified within the 2nd amendment?
The 9th amendment reads- “The enumeration in the [c]onstitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” If I remember rightly, neither Madison, nor Hamilton wanted to include a bill of rights. Madison proposed this one to protect the people from the government’s potential to grab more power. Hamilton thought that any rights not already enumerated didn’t need further attention; Hamilton was a prick. The 9th amendment should have protected us from allowing the supreme court to turn the rights of pregnant women over to the state governments. Turning that issue over to the states, in the Dobbs decision, your podcasters are ignorant, is an infringement of individual rights. Not yours, but maybe, sometime, someone’s you care about. The point is, we didn’t need it turned over to the states. We’re a country for which some universal laws are less of an infringement on individual rights than if the people’s interests are divided (where in one state the right to bodily autonomy is meaningfully protected and in another state a person’s rights are universally infringed). Consider it a form of collective bargaining. If the right wants to privatize social security, and eliminate medicare, then let’s bargain and unionize the inherent rights, both enumerated, or otherwise, in constitutional law, and not allow a dictator to circumvent them- ANY of them, let alone the ALL of them he probably dreams about violating. There’s power in numbers- that’s collective bargaining. And since restricting access to abortion is not enumerated (the word isn’t mentioned) in the constitution, which is the whole purpose of the 9th amendment, and it comes to that, the 14th as well, free people didn’t need abortion rights turned over to the states. Let me repeat, abortion should NOT have been turned over to the states. Turning it over to the states is a step backward for women. Since the 9th amendment, in effect, indicates that “certain rights”, all which weren’t listed, shall be “retained by the people.” Where in the hell does it say the rights not subject to qualification by the federal government shall be turned over to the states? It doesn’t! Just repeating that abortion laws were turned over to the states without really understanding the ramifications isn’t any proof that you know what you’re talking about. Why really is that the right decision, when abortion is never mentioned in the constitution, but an amendment, the 9th exists to stand in for anything not already enumerated. That supreme court decision was a disaster. Repeating back to me “all they did was give it to the states” isn’t critical thinking.
Let’s look at the 2nd amendment. The misreading is that radical hunyucks use it to justify their belief that they should all have AR-15s, semi-automatic guns, ghost guns, or 3D-printed guns. Scalia used the wording of the 14th amendment in his Heller decision to decide that gun ownership was a right. I don’t agree. Look at where the commas are placed- “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” I know this is an old argument so I’m not breaking any ground there. We’re both English majors though. Why did the founders include those commas? The commas make everything after them dependent on what comes before, even though everything which comes after the commas is an independent clause (ie “[t]he right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”) Are you a member of a well-regulated militia? Are your friends? Are your podcasters? No. And, the word “State” is capitalized as a formal noun, something they did back then. The founders weren’t referring to someone’s mental state; they were intending that word’s application to be to the geographical states in the union as a protection for them against the federal government, or other states (a qualification which may come in handy in the coming years). Each “State” has the right to keep and bear arms. They didn’t intend for vigilante knuckle-draggers who sign their own names with Xs in 2024 to be walking around with semi-automatic (which can fire as many as 33 rounds- more on that below), or automatic weapons which fire hundreds of bullets with one depression of the trigger. Colion Noir, a Rogan guest at some point, (I pay attention) thinks that because he’s a lawyer he can say that the right to own firearms is a constitutional right. No, no it’s not, and a careful and responsible reading of the document proves that. And if it doesn’t prove that, an originalist’s interpretation of that amendment would not concede that anything more than muskets, rifles, revolvers or pistols are legal possessions.
Also, if the 2nd amendment simply read- “The right to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed”, all of the misreading of the amendment, by the right, would not have been possible. That right there is an independent clause. It doesn’t depend on anything. But there are two things according to the 2nd amendment gun ownership does depend on- being in a well-regulated militia and free states being secure. Words mean things.
Further, if select members of the supreme court use the 14th amendment to broaden the scope of freedoms, as I mentioned Scalia did, because I looked it up in researching counter arguments to mine about 2nd amendment interpretations, then it has to be leveraged in the discussion about abortion rights, which were in no way specifically addressed in the constitution, unlike gun ownership which was a qualified right as I have just described. Only hypocrites pick and choose which constitutional tenets should be adhered to and which should be ignored. And I hold hypocrites to the same rules everyone else is operating under, even if they’re the damned president. If they don’t like it, that’s too bad, but it is too late for their current and future attempts to stop me from knowing how to know things and how to express that knowledge. What negative impacts this administration that favors extralegal, extra constitutional and score settling nonsense have on your generation remains to be seen, once the dictatorship you voted for is in full effect.
Semi-automatic weapon intermission:
Side note: when I typed into one of my texts “semi-automatic” you seemed distracted. You dismissed that I had any idea what I was talking about. Semi-automatics (which were used in the Virginia Tech shooting) are still very much a thing. One trigger pull = one round, up to 33 in a cartridge. An automatic is a stream of bullets discharged for one trigger depression. I bring this up because another person who thought I was misguided on this also mocked my naivete and so I assume there was some memo (or universal podcast) by which the radical right constituency is being taken in. I’ve read proposed legislation from congress.gov that calls out semi-automatics. They tend to want to cover their bases with all-encompassing considerations, leaving fewer loopholes, as do I.
Note: 32 people were killed and 17 were injured in that Virginia Tech shooting. And that shooter was active in multiple locations over too much time. Arming teachers and administrators with weapons over acres of school property was/is not going to work. VA Tech in 2007 and Uvalde in 2022 have at least one thing in common- the active shooter was allowed to prowl around inflicting havoc while responsible parties were nowhere to be found, or were confused about how to engage the violent offender.
So, add police and SWAT active shooter protocol improvements to the mix of things which need a review (not just better background checks for mentally questionable shooters and auto/semi-auto restrictions and bans). If trained SWAT teams and police, or police-adjacent personnel, with years of training and experience, and armed with suitable firearms, are incapable of handling an active shooter situation, what in the hell is a teacher with a handgun going to do? There are approximately 150,000 schools, colleges, universities, technical colleges, and special education schools, etc. in the United States. Do you know how much money paying one person to be on guard at each of those locations would cost? Maybe somewhere close to the amount of money being spent in both the wars the racist, misogynist, fat orange bastard was supposed to have ended by now. Remember when he said that? How’s that working out?
Concession about arms:
I would concede that since this nation’s inception, we were at one with firearms. Gun ownership, and their use, are in our DNA. We needed them to gain our liberty and keep our freedom. Still do. They should be legal, despite how the constitution reads. But that is rifles, shotguns, and pistols (with 6-8 bullets or 8 in a cartridge). In 1789, an experienced soldier could shoot three to four bullets every minute, not hundreds of bullets with a couple of cartridge replacements in one minute. I’ll grant that private citizens should have the right to own guns. It comes to that, all the people gunned down who are innocent, in churches, government buildings, mosques, theaters, concerts, schools- you just think that’s a necessary evil- how about if that happened to you, or someone you loved. Empathy, as an adult, is important when you have more to lose than an argument with your uncle. Carrying metaphorical, or rhetorical, water for republicans on this issue- gets you where economically? Gets you where logically? ‘Cause it isn’t getting you anywhere morally.
So, let’s get this straight- republicans want to make sure women have a harder, more expensive task ahead of them to travel states away risking their life and livelihood, or they, and their physician risk imprisonment by aborting (let’s say, before their 16th week) in a state which doesn’t allow it. That makes sense? Not sure what podcaster got you to believe that isn’t an infringement of someone’s rights. Wasn’t aware you were that religious. If someone told a guy he needed to go to South Carolina in order to inseminate a girl, how would that be tolerated? Empathy for others is important. Morality is under investigation here. You made quite a point about how, because we currently live in a blue state, we’re immune from such restrictions as the ignorant, partisan conservative supreme court justices decided.
There is no assurance that a liberal governor, two liberal senators and liberal state congress is in place 2 to 4 to 10 years down the road in this state, let alone in any of them (given the current landscape added in a note above about gerrymandering), to protect women from the idiot musings of men, or hypocrites, pretending to be religious or moral. Their own god would be ashamed of them, and if he’s not, he should be ashamed of himself.
I’ll anticipate the comeback on guns- let’s get all the people who are mentally unstable to not have guns. Let’s. But insane/mentally unstable people can still steal a gun from a sane person, and can still order an untraceable version from the internet, or 3D print one in their basement. You know what would happen if we eliminated the guns people don’t need (again, not all of them- not rifles, shotguns or handguns- because I’m a fair-minded guy) the insane people, along with the ones who think they are sane (like Mel Gibson or Alec Baldwin), would have to kill people with their bare hands, or a knife, or other device. Just about anything is a weapon. They’d have to think about the act more, invade someone’s personal space, taking more personal responsibility for their actions. The act itself, authored by cowards who would reflexively shoot people, would force a reckoning with their own conscience, assuming the current political climate hasn’t turned it into mush. The act of killing would be extremely visceral if they watched their own hands do it. This thinking is no different than that learning improves (which I asserted above) when a person, by their own hand, translates thoughts into words on a page. Killing people by those other means, rather than with a gun, would tax their conscience and negatively impact the murderers on a personal level- again, assuming a conscience. And better yet, they couldn’t kill 5, 10, or 30 people in a matter of seconds. They would have to think more about the prospects of success and the consequences of failure.
Two things can be true at once. We can need to look into the mental health problems from which tens of millions of Americans are suffering, get them help AND reduce the number of guns distributed in the U.S. An estimate has us at over 393-500 million guns in the U.S. (126 guns for every 100 Americans by some calculation). Come on! The tired refrain from the right which also must have come out in some kind of weekly newsletter- “then the only people who get weapons will be criminals,” and you might ask me, and what will you do when a criminal shows up at your door uncle? Well, assuming they have the word “CRIMINAL” tattooed on their forehead, so I know they aren’t trying to sell me wreaths or water softener salt when I open the door, I expect I’ll be shot by them, as will the vast majority of legal gun owners.
Misinformed people without mental health issues won’t be texted or called with a five minute warning that a criminal is coming to their house to shoot them and/or steal their stuff. Would that be enough time to get the ammunition? Any reasonable person stores the weapon and the ammunition in different locations. Is five minutes enough time to load the weapon, chamber a round and determine what entry point the criminal intends to use to get into your house?
Current disinformation yields a claim “that there are approximately 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year and that such defensive gun uses are 4-5 times more common than gun crimes.” GVPedia. Not true- reliable information, per the Gun Violence Archive has that number at “approximately 2,000 verified defensive gun uses annually.” In other words, “no academic peer-reviewed studies . . . indicate that defensive gun use is more common than criminal gun use.” I’m going to go with a site that objectively looks for facts from a trusted entity (Brady United and its respected affiliates) than a dude spending three hours with Rogan pretending they almost digested some fact they read but ultimately misremembered. Rogan can take his subpar comedy act and his ice-bath bs somewhere else. Actual comedians don’t even respect him.
Meanwhile, back to the constitution. I’m sure all of the radical right acolytes think federal reciprocity makes sense. Federally Mandated Permitless Concealed Carry Reciprocity is probably going to get more attention eventually. This would allow a person who can carry a firearm in one state (whether that is at 18, 19 or 21 years of age), without a permit, to be able to legally carry it in any state, without a permit, regardless of the other state’s existing law. Twenty-one states require a permit to carry a concealed firearm. That “would undermine concealed carry laws across the country (in the states), enacting the equivalent of National Permitless Carry.” That’s a quote from a Brady United/GVPedia fact sheet/website. That same article reveals that “[o]nly 24% of Americans support Permitless Carry.” Should we have representatives too weak to stand up to Trump, (who are threatened with republican primary competition funded by Musk), passing federal legislation that only 1/4th of the people are in favor of? This isn’t a mask-mandate, (or a Musk-mandate, if I’m at liberty to equate a republican’s lack of compliance with the Trump agenda and a threatened competitive republican primary aimed at ousting gutless republican incumbents), these are death warrants. Pretty soon 15-year-olds will be able to open carry AR-15s into someone else’s home, ignoring the castle doctrine, and shoot black transgender people in their own basements because being a homophobic, racist prick has been glorified by the ass in the white house.
And I realize that the vast majority of gun deaths in the U.S. are by suicide, in-home accidents, and that sites miscategorize mass shootings, and that plenty of homicides are gang-related and that the hopeless righties, in all manner of disguise, have trained you to stop listening to reasonable people who would challenge their assumptions that yet again, two things can be true at once. Two kids can be responsible for a messy house, and two parties can be responsible for the country’s demise, but there is a difference between a kid who doesn’t pick up their own clothes and one who purposely throws food all over the kitchen and blames the other kid.
There are a ton of things that need to be done to improve the situation, about guns, and existing laws which need to be enforced. What doesn’t need to be done is for an orange ape and the elected cult leaders, who have no clue what it is like out on city streets, or in suburban schools, or public spaces, rolling back gun control measures that have proven (PROVEN) to have improved violent crime metrics because the NRA, who almost exclusively provides campaign finance contributions to republicans (not debatable), to bring this whole topic to the problem under the larger umbrella (money in politics and government) wants it that way.
Republicans want to restrict freedoms, in violation of at least the 9th amendment, but also the 14th (not to mention the 1st related to any number of issues, oh, and the 4th and 5th), so people cannot responsibly terminate a pregnancy (after the 16th week once it is determined to be unviable) in the state in which they pay taxes AND want to enable freedom for gun owners, without a permit in hand, to be able to carry weapons in 2/5ths of the states (in which those people pay taxes) that currently don’t allow that? You don’t see the hypocrisy? Who do you think is more likely to possess their permit along with their weapon? Someone who is sane or someone who is mentally unhinged? The right just isn’t filled with critical thinkers; they’re chronically unable to recognize their own hypocrisy. They only find it in others.
The vast majority of people want both access to abortion rights and better gun control legislation. Go out on your own and research, but please don’t listen to Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Nick Fuentes or some other selfish, clueless, morally bankrupt pedant, whether they’re a self-important millennial influencer, wearing a yarmulke, or not. Not sure why you would defend any of the people with influence or money. They do not care about you; they never cared about me. They never have and never will.
All that unending diatribe above . . . I didn’t need anyone’s help. I didn’t co-opt it from CNN and I didn’t even read it in a book. I’m overproud of what I learn; just like those whose opinions you appreciate. I do not want to alienate you, but again, why should my intention to be fair-minded and aggressive be judged more harshly than outright lies complete strangers are telling you? At least I care about your future prospects. Please don’t just listen to Joe Rogan or some guy on Rogan’s show who says he’s a lawyer (thinking of Colion Noir), whose day job grants him access to information I admit I don’t have because 40+ of my hours are spent earning a living every week for the last 35+ years, unlike them. I listened to as much as I could stand (on Noir)- saying something on a podcast when he can’t remember where he heard it and passing it off as fact will never work for me, whether that is gun crime metrics or the pompous misinterpretation of the second amendment.
I have been somewhat harsh in this offering and so I doubt my sister will approve enough to not embargo this into oblivion, or redact 80% of it by crossing it out with a black marker. The right gets away with harsh treatment of anyone they are in the process of shouting down. That also doesn’t work for me. For me, in any competition the rules won’t only favor one side. Manners be damned.
Yes, some of this was a rehashing of our somewhat limited text exchanges and a lot of it is redundant, repetitive, stated multiple times, unchanging and recurring. I prefer the terms thorough and deliberate. But it provides more detail than I had contributed before and if you are subject to clambering for the constant stream of lying, thieving, ignorant musings of your “news” sources (or your new media sources), I figured I am justified in challenging you, and them, in a much more responsible, honest and fair way. I have also introduced you to a problem which is far bigger than a tribal showdown between right and left- how much money can be spent to steal elections so they can keep being wage thiefs, and keep 80-90% of Americans trapped in a rigged system the rich are only too happy to keep in effect.
Voltaire wrote two things that are important to keep in mind. Well, he wrote about fifty things which are important to keep in mind, but these two are appropriate here. One- “Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.” I don’t think I’m wrong, about the right and the left, but it is possible; what is far less likely is that I am wrong about the rich and everyone else. Too much evidence.
And the second Voltaire thought- “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Trump and the right are fascists. Look up the definition. Please read some history. If a Hitler comparison doesn’t work for you, go look up something on Caligula, Nero, Claudius and what happened to Rome. Words mean things. History and perspective is important. Most of the things this administration has done are unapologetically fascist in nature. I’ve read enough history, and listened to enough (you’ll appreciate this) history podcasts to know better. Chainsaws to tens of thousands of jobs, fascist salutes, acolytes put in positions of power to counteract the people’s will, imprisoning and deporting people without due process, willingly accepting bribes, threatening to punish judges, law firms and universities when they don’t think like the radical right, clawing back congressionally approved funding, ignoring supreme court decisions. Every step in that direction is a danger to a free country. Hopefully, eventually, you will come to see that.
I could write fifteen things that would convince a rational person I’m not a liberal, but I decided I wasn’t going to spend much space defending myself, as I had too much material ripe for an attack, neither side knows how to deal with someone like me. It would take me one second in the oval office to tell the stupid, fat, orange bastard that he’s the one who appointed the Fed chair. The mainstream media is a bunch of cowards; I’ll give you that.
One more item in the “two things can be true at the same time department,” which is also a concession. I read a book by a CIA agent handler, whistle-blower who had his life made miserable by his former superiors- “Twilight of the Shadow Government-How Transparency will Kill the Deep State.” Not getting too far into the weeds, he wrote this on page 126:
“After holding 126 full committee meetings, 40 subcommittee hearings, interviewing some 800 witnesses in public and closed sessions, and combing through 110,000 documents, the [Church] committee [determined in 1976] “that, beginning with President Roosevelt’s administration, and continuing through the early 1970s, ‘intelligence excesses, at home and abroad’ were not the ‘product of any single party, administration, or man’ “.
Emphasis on “not” is mine. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that the deep state must be dealt with. As the author of the Shadow Government book details- he has speculated, given his experience and evidence that the deep state was responsible for the assassination of John Kennedy and the collapse of the Nixon administration [i.e. Watergate] (again, a democrat and republican respectively).
So, if you’re blaming liberals for being the only ones getting campaign contributions from Big Pharma, or the only ones responsible for the deep state and thinking Trump, who didn’t have the courage to run as an Independent, (because he isn’t a republican) is going to end the deep state’s entrenched power to benefit you, you’re wrong. What will the elimination of the deep state do for you? Do you even know? I’m in favor of Comey (FBI) and Brennan (CIA) being investigated (not by anyone in this administration however), but if illegal behavior is found, how are they any more subject to justice if “found” guilty based on the rule of law, the determinations of federal or supreme court decisions, or violations of the constitution? Trump hasn’t been. Again, both things can be true- Brennan, Comey, George H. W. Bush, Allen Dulles (the latter two were noteworthy former CIA directors appointed by republicans and democrats respectively) are likely all guilty of something, but they’d merely be replaced by the whims of an evil president who thinks the offices of inspectors general, attorney general, department of justice, the curricula at major universities and lawyers for any firm who were paid to do their job to prosecute Trump for actual crimes (not witch-hunts), all would fall under his thumb. And you think that makes any sense when he’s already proven himself to be a lying, corrupt, convicted, indicted, impeached, senile, serial power abuser? Mind-boggling.
There is literally a book called “The Deep State” I read years ago. I mentioned it to you. Did you check it out? It is $6.19 at thriftbooks.com, or read it on kindle or libby. It is more work to read than it is to listen. Tell me, you aren’t too poor to pay attention. It is more sobering, specific, fact-based and telling. You can quite literally, follow the paper trail. Trump doesn’t want to eradicate the deep state for you. He wants to retaliate for legitimate investigations into his illegal behavior so he can replace them.
Money in political campaigns wins (whoever spends the most) at the rate of 93.9% and 87.9% in house and senate contests respectively in 2024. Those percentages are over 71% dating all the way back to 2000. (https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/winning-vs-spending) Since each party makes up about 50% of congress (with republicans currently enjoying slight advantages), and republicans in both chambers are allowing Trump to run roughshod over the whole country, you’ve decided to blame anyone who isn’t him in the recent past, when only he is the biggest beneficiary? Pretty naive, and, ahem, rich!
In the election cycle 2023-2024- Eli Lilly, Merck, Johnson and Johnson, Bristol-Mysers Squibb and yes, Pfizer all gave more to republicans than democrats- all told https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/industry-detail/H04/2024
https://www.crainsnewyork.com/health-pulse/pfizer-merck-and-jj-donated-millions-trumps-inauguration
https://www.citizen.org/article/big-pharma-a-big-winner-in-trumps-proposed-tax-plan/
Note: I could have included links that would make you happy as well. But all I’m really getting at is blaming one side over the other in spending, campaign contributions and citing that as the reason you can’t trust anyone but Trump is nonsense. And you should learn not to trust any of them for yourself, not because a podcaster said so.
Liberals and lesbians, transgender, black people, immigrants, progressives, democrats, and women are not your enemies; plenty of them probably aren’t even my friends (as I know a couple of the thoughts I have about them would have them trying to silence me). There is plenty of overall blame to go around though and you should look to spend most of that anxiety and anger on rich people (though not all rich people) spending tens of millions of dollars to keep your generation from reaching their goals, just like they have done to mine. The sooner you come to grips with that, the easier things will be, in a sense. When the eye focuses, so can the brain. The good news is that rich people only make up about 10% of the electorate. It is too bad the other 90% can’t get it together in this Tower of Babel that’s been constructed, again, to divide us so that we have less in common, and can’t agree or organize.
What does that guy have to do to get you to stop defending him? How can people on television, in congress and hosting podcasts sleep at night too afraid to speak out against him because they might be sued, fired, primaried or deported? Those are NOT exaggerations; those are the very telling signs of fascism based on the actions of a dictator. And I am a middle class Independent writing that, not a liberal. Because of the fat, orange, pompous, ignorant hypocrite, I do blame one side more (NOW) than the other for the monopoly the rich enjoy where politics, society, government, the economy, and the subjection of the country’s middle class, mired in economic servitude, are concerned, but I do have them both in mind.
So, that's logic and morality. Undoubtedly, I've proven nothing to you. Experienced psychologists and enlightened friends would have advised I save the effort. Surely, the length of this letter, along with its intensity and rhetoric have proven nothing to you logically, or morally. But relative, what else is there?
It is Theodore Parker (initially) and Martin Luther King Jr. (who refined it) who are credited with the line- “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” If that is true, it most definitely does not bend by itself.
