The Fight for our Democracy

If you’re from the left you know  President Donald Trump stirred up his ultra MAGA loonies to storm the Capitol Building on 1/6/21.  He deserves to be impeached, indicted, tried, and convicted.  No sentence is too harsh for this treasonist act.

If you’re from the right you know that the Feds and Nancy Pelosi were heavily involved in staging J6 from the jump.  She refused National Guard help offered by Trump the night prior. This is all a part of a bigger plot to discredit Trump and keep him occupied so that he may never occupy the White House again.

It’s ping pong.

Turn on your favorite news channel and they’ll repeatedly show you evidence and put on “experts” 24/7 to validate what they want you to believe and what you want to believe.

Twitter knows you better than you do.  Every time you open a tweet, retweet a tweet, copy and paste a tweet, or open a video Twitter knows you even better than it did prior.  It, too, feeds you more of what you want to see, hear, and believe.

Objective, logical, balanced, and clear discussions are gone.  Any debate really means you hate.  Disinformation is slang for “I disagree with what you are saying.”

“The fight for our democracy” is a catchphrase now applied daily every single time one side wants to hysterically rile up its base.

There is no doubt that Hunter Biden, his friends, business associates, and hookers helped him show Chinese and Ukrainian businesses the benefits to have him on their board.  Or, better yet, they could “do some business” with his company and access to the then VP was theirs for the taking.

Don’t forget 10% for the big guy.  It’s all there on his laptop the right side howls.  Joe Biden says he never met one of Hunter’s business associates.  Ever.  Pictures of the same be damned.

Ironically, he’s never met his seventh grandchild either, but we digress.

The left says in spite of testimony under oath, emails, video of Joe bragging about getting the Ukrainian prosecutor fired, and Hunter’s repair shop laptop, there is no real evidence to connect any of these dots.

We could go on and on.  In ping pong, you have to win by two.

Meanwhile, we have a sitting president, whom the DNC shut down any competition to his renomination, who has the highest disfavorable ratings since Jimmy Carter ordered helicopters to land in Iran.  Bidenomics anyone?

On the flip side we have a twice impeached former president, now indicted for about the fourth time for god knows what, with a rabid base that has much fervor.  But beyond that 32% of the country, how much support does he have or can he garner?

One is an old 80, the other a spry 77.  Regardless, age is just a number.

Maybe it’s high time that some new blood and open thinking enter the arena to at least freshen the dialogue and reduce the diatribe.

That actually might make the media do its job.  Doubtful, but one can hope.

Give Robert Kennedy Jr a listen.  How about Vivek Ramaswamy?

Maybe you won’t agree with all of what they have to say.

But, maybe that’s better than believing everything that you hear from the same network or Twitter feed that you put on wash, rinse, and repeat daily.

It’s your serve.

 

 

Like Father, Like Son

Coincidences?  Plenty.  Deja vu?  All over again.  Reality?  Sinking in.

Netflix is very good at docuseries.  They released a solid one in 2018 called Bobby Kennedy for President.  It has more viewers now than it did then.  It chronicles the then New York Senator Robert Kennedy’s life and philosophies prior to him running, running, the tragic ending, and its aftermath in the tumultuous mid-60s.

One-half of a century has passed.  One of his sons, Robert Kennedy Jr, was 14 then.  He’s 69 now.  Last evening he participated in a town hall setting on Fox’s Hannity show discussing his philosophies and beliefs as he is a candidate for President in 2024.

Senior traveled to California to support Cesar Chavez, an American labor leader and civil rights activist.  He walked the streets of very rural East Kentucky, the backwoods of Mississippi, and the streets of LA post-Watts riots.  In short, he connected with the people in the street who felt disconnected.

Those were very divided times.  His brother President John was killed in Dallas.  Malcolm X was assassinated in New York.  Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis.  America was spending a fortune in lives and dollars in a war that it could not win in the jungles of Vietnam.

Junior lamented last evening about how divided we are today, exclaiming that, while a bit more civil, we are every bit as divided today.  He went on to question why we are in a war (by proxy including plenty of $) with Russia when we need so many wrongs made right here at home.

Senior built a nationally organized grassroots campaign in a sense.  Junior is forced into a similar route as the DNC decided to shut down its nomination process to protect one Joesph Biden.

Bobby had plenty of momentum, winning the California Primary moments before walking into a hotel kitchen that he would not walk out of.  He very likely would have faced Nixon.

Robert Jr. seems like he is gaining momentum by the day.  He’s direct, studied, and wants “to tell America the truth.”  He has many beliefs that are conservative as well.  His dad had a few, too.

Both father and son were/are Democrats.  But, you sense that they decide to take stances on issues one by one through careful consideration, not just following party lines and espousing careless rhetoric.

Both decided to run against sitting presidents in their own party running for reelection.   Senior v Lyndon Baines Johnson and Junior v Biden.

In the summer of 1968, the war seemed more futile than ever. Johnson’s approval rating fell into the mid-30s, the approval for his handling of Vietnam even lower.  He was battling significant, though some undisclosed, health problems as well.

LBJ shocked the globe in 1968. He ended a Sunday night TV speech with, “Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

Will Biden actually run in 2024?  His approval ratings are woeful as well.  His handling of Ukraine v Russia isn’t good either.  His health?  Most would agree that physically he’s better off than he is mentally, but that says little.  And little is what his handlers continue to try to get him to say.

The DNC, try as it might, did not close the door.  The RNC should be shown the door.

Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016 came from almost nowhere.

History might be our best teacher.

Deja vu?