Tag: politics

We need societal collapse

Today I’m going to write to my representatives in Congress and tell them to vote for the Big Beautiful Bill.

Why? Because the MAGA voter is hard-headed, and nothing but complete disaster is going to wake them up from their Trump-loving fever dream.

If economists and the CBO are to be believed, the Big Beautiful Bill will be devastating for the very people who voted Republicans into office. People will lose their healthcare. They’ll lose their jobs. Mortgage rates will go up. Prices for everyday items will rise. Rural hospitals will close. People will die.

A little bit of pain isn’t going to be enough. The MAGA base is really good at giving Trump a pass on every nutty thing he says and does. No, it needs to be total devastation, which, given enough time, the provisions of this bill should accomplish.

The Big Beautiful Bill probably won’t be enough to make them reconsider their membership in the MAGA cult, though. Therefore, I think it’s important for Republicans to retain control of the House and Senate in 2026.

We need four full years of unfettered GOP control and all the insanity that goes along with it. Maybe then MAGA voters will finally wake up and realize that voting for a monumentally corrupt TV personality and a bunch of corporate billionaires wasn’t the best move.

With that in mind, I’m thinking of voting for Republicans in 2026 — at least for all of the federal offices on the ballot.

Four full years of GOP control might be enough to wake people up. (I’m not counting on it. We seem to be a nation of complete idiots.)

Of course, after four years of Trump and the Heritage Foundation doing everything they can to turn America into an oppressive white supremacist theocracy, America as a democratic republic will be well and truly over.

But maybe you need to lose something in order to learn how much you value it.

What do I value?

The more social media I consume, the more confused I become.

Democrats seem to be all over the board these days. Liberal voters around the country are criticizing Democratic politicians for being ineffectual and/or too mainstream establishment. Traditional left-leaning media is criticizing politicians and voters alike for being either too extreme or flat-out wrong. And liberals on social media are fighting amongst themselves over the best ways to resist creeping authoritarianism.

I finally realized that I was in danger of becoming a leftist sheeple — in other words, someone who emotionally reacts to every outrage du jour even when it conflicts with a previous outrage du jour, simply because one of “my people” said it.

In an effort to ground myself, I decided that I needed to determine what I actually believe in and articulate it to myself at the very least.

It turned out not to be all that hard.

First of all, I believe in freedom. I believe that every person should be free to live their lives in whatever way they choose without interference from me or the government, as long as their choices aren’t harmful to others and don’t impinge on someone else’s freedom.

And second, I believe in equity.

Not all of us are created equal. Some of us have significantly greater challenges in life than others, and I don’t think those challenges should prevent people from having an opportunity to lead successful lives. Equity occurs when everyone gets whatever support they need from the government so that they can have an equal chance at success as everybody else.

Third, I believe in equal justice. Laws should be fair. They shouldn’t discriminate against one group of people or benefit another. And they should be evenly enforced.

And finally, I believe everyone deserves due process. If you are in the United States and are accused of a crime, regardless of your citizenship status, you should have the right to legal representation and to defend yourself in court (or the equivalent).

These are the principles I believe in. Would you add or change anything?

P.S. I also believe that I need to rely on facts when determining whether our government is violating any of the above four principles.

What is wrong with us?

There is something about the current political situation in America that is baffling me. Everyone knows that Trump and his goons are planning a complete takeover of the government, and we all know that he doesn’t care how many laws he tramples to accomplish it.

So why is everyone sitting around watching it happen as if we are all helpless bystanders? (Yes, there have been protests. Heck, I’ve even participated in some of them and will continue to do so. But protests are pathetically easy for these guys to ignore.)

What puzzles me is why the guys with real power aren’t doing more. For example, when Trump kicked Reuters and the AP out of White House press briefings, why did the other news organizations do nothing? They could have banded together and refused to attend any more press briefing until the AP and Reuters were reinstated. It’s not as if attendance at White House press briefings are necessary in order to cover this administration.

When Trump went after Columbia University, why didn’t other universities stand with Columbia? After all, Columbia is a private university. The federal government has no legal basis to tell it how to operate.

And now that Trump is attacking specific law firms, why isn’t the American Bar Association doing something — anything — to fight back? Start disbarring Trump administration lawyers for their bogus lawsuits, if nothing else!

There are large organizations in this country with lots of power. National associations representing thousands of businesses and industries. Why aren’t they using that power to save us?

I can make one guess. They are focused on their bottom line and hoping to survive the next four years. You’d think they would have learned something from history. There is no surviving this kind of assault on democracy and the rule of law. If you don’t defy it, you lose.