We’re All Mad Here

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Okay, so it’s fall, y’all! It is my favorite season – sweater weather,  leaves falling,  and college football. And in Virginia, it’s also an election year. Today we’re going to talk about a couple of different things today. We’re going to talk about carnival rides, Colin Powell, and litmus tests, Space Cowboys, and the one and only Liz Cheney. I’ll give you some definitions and also give you an update or two. As always, there’s a lot of trippy stuff going on out there, so take my hand, and let’s go down the rabbit hole. 

You know that ride at the county fair that looks like a pirate ship and it goes back and forth and back and forth…? It starts small –  it’s kind of fun for a while, right? But then it gets further and further until it feels like you’re gonna get flung out of your seat and go crashing across the parking lot to the funnel cake stand. 

That kind of feels like our political climate right now.  I know that I pick on the Republicans, because it’s what I know – it’s where I’m from. But today I’m going to pick on both sides because there is plenty of crazy to go around.  And it appears that there is no vaccine for crazy. 

It just feels like things are getting more and more extreme. You may have heard this described as the Horseshoe Effect.  The two ends of the of the horseshoe have been pushed so far that they almost meet in the middle. Take Colin Powell ,for example. The bitter criticisms in the days following his death last week were equally ugly from the extreme left and the extreme right. The fringe on both ends is so far out of whack they actually are beginning to hate some of the same people. 

You probably read the disgusting statement that Trump released after Powell’s death last week…(yhis was so bad a friend of mine down in North Carolina texted to ask me if it was real, or if it was from like, Saturday Night Live or something. ) I mean, WHAT is his deal? 

When political giants pass away, Trump cannot resist the urge to spit on their graves. I mean, think about it… John McCain has been gone for three years now and Trump still trashes him every time he gets a chance. I mean, who does that? Who actually trash talks people – American heroes, actually – who just died? It speaks volumes about him and it’s kind of pitiful.  You could almost feel sorry for him. Almost. 

Anyway, Colin Powell was one of the most highly respected military figures in our nation’s history, and also one of the most distinguished members of our party ever. But after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, he no longer considered himself a Republican. Turns out he was not alone. 

There’s new Pew Research polling out there that shows that people are beginning to self identify more and more as Independents. Since 2016, and certainly since January 6th, the Republican Party has lost hundreds of thousands of people from their rolls.   A lot of my friends right now are disgusted with Republicans, but they don’t want to be a Democrat either. And that’s kind of how I feel. The Republican Party and the Democrat Party have been so dominant that the Independent party has basically just been squeezed out.  It barely exists, so if you vote for an independent candidate, you’ve pretty much just thrown your vote away… but not if these trends continue. 

For one week earlier this year, that self ID Independent number hit 50%. It’s pulling from both sides – the left and the right. Its super interesting.  Honestly, it’ll probably self correct, but if it doesn’t, it could change everything. 

Alright, so I promised some definitions, so definition number one is Litmus Test.  The traditional application of that phrase is actually scientific, but for purposes of politics, it means “A test in which a single factor is decisive. ” So, you’ve heard in order to be a good Republican, someone must be pro-life or in order to be a good Democrat, one must favor for marriage equality.  It’s not unusual for policy positions to be used as litmus tests for either party –  but the new litmus test for the Republican Party has nothing to do with policy. It’s not about being conservative. It’s not about lower taxes or being pro life. Wanna take a guess?  Its okay… ill wait. 

AUDIO:  Hold music

Okay, I bet you guessed it. Today’s litmus test for being a good Republican is nothing more than embracing Trump’s lie about a rigged election. That’s it. The thing is,  this blind loyalty, fealty stuff is new. It’s not supposed to be that way in this country. No American president has ever had this much control over his party, even when he was in the White House – not Reagan, neither Bush, not Clinton, Obama, none of them. This is really, really bad news for the Republican Party, and for any would-be 2024 presidential candidate and also for normal people everywhere who just wish that Trump would wander off into a Florida swamp someplace and just disappear. 

AUDIO:  Splash

But it’s clear he’s not going anywhere, anytime soon. He spent nearly every day of the the entire last year telling the same lie over and over, and over again. Which brings me to definition number two. Definition number two is  a sticky wicket. But if you don’t understand the history of it, you should, because it’s used, practically 500 times a day.  What is the big lie? 

Is it  when your kid says he did his homework, and later you discover that he really didnt? (Ouch, little close to home.).  It’s actually a lot more sinister than that. 

The Republicans hate the fact that this phrase is used for good reason, because it’s roots are in Nazi Germany. Here’s the gist:  barrage the people with constant propaganda, never admit fault, Never accept blame, tell the same lie over and over.  The bigger the lie, the more likely people will be to believe it. 

It almost sounds too simple to work. But the truth is, people like simple and they like certain. They want someone to take charge and tell him what they want to hear  – that nothing is their fault, that everything is someone else’s fault. 

Looking back, we can see exactly how dangerous those lies were. But here’s a question: do you think it was obvious for people back then? Its really easy for us to sit around in judgment of people in Germany now in knowing what we know, from our perch in the future. But would we have done better?  would we have known that going along with seemingly harmless lies, or at least ignoring them and playing nice with the people in power… would we have known that our actions (or inaction)  would have such dire consequences? I’m not so sure. I think it’s worth thinking about.

 And I’m not saying that we’re damn Nazis, yall so please don’t freak out on me… All I am saying is that history can teach us a lot if we will listen.  Anyone who cares about rehabbing the party or protecting democracy has got to be willing to admit that truth matters, and lies have consequences.  The consequence of Trump’s Big Lie, is that a whole lot of people who affiliate with the Republican party – to the tune of about 75%  – actually believe the elections were stolen, and that Donald Trump was the legitimate winner. 

Alright, so this brings me to Liz Cheney and the January 6 committee. In the interest of time I had to cut this down a bit, but I’ll put the entire recording on my website. So if I were producing a movie of this hearing, I would have Liz Cheney flying low over Mar-a-Lago and then soaring up to the Capitol, riding some big ass dragons…. I mean, you can kind of see it right?

AUDIO: Game of Thrones theme song

Access Liz Cheney full testimony audio here.

So Liz is one of two Republicans on this committee, and she’s trying to get to the bottom of what exactly happened on January 6.  The House Republican leadership is not at all happy with her, in fact, a lobbyist speaking on behalf of the Republican leader (Yes, you heard that right… A lobbyist speaking on behalf of the Republican leader) issued a warning that every consultant working for Liz Cheney must either quit working for her or forfeit all other Republican business. I believe the exact quote was, “You cannot serve two masters, “ which is further abuse by the GOP of  the Good Book.   But you know, I doubt he read it – probably because it wasn’t in Two Corinthians. 

Anyway, there’s just so much wrong with this. But rule number one is you don’t go after people’s staff. And just so happens that some of the consultants for Ms Cheney are friends of mine, so I take it super personally. Secondly, everybody knows that Liz Cheney is a solid conservative, WAY more conservative, frankly, than most Republicans I know. And she’s really, really smart.  By bay of background, for in case any of y’all were,  I don’t know, smoking pot all the way through the 2000s.… Dick Cheney was George Bush’s vice president, and Dick Cheney is her dad. 

So to put in Wyoming terms, this ain’t her first rodeo. 

Anyway, Trumpworld,  which evidently now includes the House leadership, is coming at her with everything they’ve got.  They stripped her of her leadership post, they’re challenging her re-election in her home state, and they’re even threatening her staff…and yet she stands is one of the only profiles in courage in the whole dang party, at least for the moment. 

For what it’s worth,  my money’s on Liz.  History’s on her side,  the truth is on her side, 

If you’d like to donate to Liz Cheney, here’s a link to her campaign website. I know she’d appreciate it. 

So yeah, it’s just gotten weirder and weirder and weirder. It seems we no longer have a tolerance for boring in the United States.  Like political Oxycontin, we’re addicted to the crazy. We got hooked in the 2016 campaign, and we’ve had the monkey on our back ever since. Everything in this country is getting more and more extreme, our weather,  our vacations,  thanks to reality TV  – extreme makeovers, extreme renovations… and now we have extreme politics. Welcome to the era of the celebrity politician. 

(I can thank my friend Emily for coining that little phrase.) It’s kind of like the Kardashians… these folks are just famous for being famous. 

In this particular Congress right now, crazy rules the day.  The more outrageous and extreme and idiotic you are, the more attention you get and the more money you can rake into your campaign coffers. So how… one might ask… does one go from being a low ranking nobody in the House of Representatives to being a right wing rock star with bad shoes? 

Well, you can pack heat on the floor of the Capitol, you could get your COVID “vaccine” from the local livestock feed store, or you could claim the election was stolen… and then scream down your colleagues in the halls of Congress like a wild eyed stringy haired lunatic on Jerry Springer. 

In today’s GOP, I swear on an upside down Bible, Honey Boo Boo could throw on a MAGA hat and get elected to Congress quicker than you can pledge allegiance to the insurrection flag.

But hold the phone, Democrats. You guys are no better. Y’all paint “tax the rich” on the back of your ball gowns and talk about “defunding the police,” (which is arguably the stupidest political move in history. ) And then here comes the the COVID stimulus …. Which makes sense… but you structure it so that people make more money sitting in the basement playing with their ferrets than they do by going back to work. What kind of stimulus is that? (I mean, I guess it’s good for the ferrets.) It just seems like every other headline from your side looks like it came straight out of The Onion. 

What’s next, a $10 million study on pronouns for cats? ( I’m sorry, I mean, feline mammals.) Meow.  

Republicans cry foul when they’ve lost an election like dirty-faced nose-pickers at a little league game. And Democrats want to increase funding for infrastructure to include -not just bridges and roads- but things like safe spaces and fidget spinners and tattoos. We’ve clearly all lost our damn minds. (I’m just kidding about the tattoos and fidget spinners, I think.) 

Anyway, the Democrats expectations for Biden are just way out of whack. Both FDR and LBJ enacted sweeping change in the country, back in the day. But they had this thing called – definition #3 – a Supermajority.  In other words, they had so many Democrats in the House in the Senate that they really didn’t need Republican support. Obama barely passed his health care program, and he had 10 fold more Senate votes than Biden has. It’s like the whole Democrat party’s being held by that spoiled little girl from Willy Wonka. You remember Veruca don’t you?

AUDIO:  I Want it ALL!

The truth is that Biden just does not have the votes to do big things. And the cautionary tale for the Democrats is if they don’t get it together, they won’t be able to do anything at all. By the way, if you’re a Republican, that’s not good for you either,  because you drive on roads and bridges, too. We need to stop wishing the other side would fail…that’s part of the reason that we’re in this mess. 

Same to you, Democrats.  Dammit! 

Okay, we’re about this. I feel like we’ve got this whole tax thing wrong. We tax cops and teachers and people that work really hard way too much. And then we also take people that are these terrible, awful millionaires – many of whom actually have small businesses and are supporting a lot of people, and we’re taxing them too much. 

Meanwhile, we have some Americans who have so much goddang money that they just shoot themselves into space for kicks. Think about that for a minute… 

A recent study on food scarcity reports that just 2% of Elon Musk’s net worth could solve world hunger. Now, I’m no Robin Hood, and I like for people to make money, but it seems like things are getting a little bit out of control. So here’s an idea… Since we can’t pass any taxes. Why don’t we turn the I 95 corridor into the Jeff Bezos highway. Or maybe we take all those big, expensive, super dilapidated bridges all over the country and just name them after Elon Musk. I don’t know. I just think we should take advantage of the BSD contest that’s going on because all this space travel is just getting obnoxious. Especially because we have a lot of stuff that we need to get done down here on Earth, you know… down here we live.  

And this is why I don’t do policy. 

Last up, is the Virginia governor’s race which is next week. So Joe Biden won Virginia by 10 points. So this race really shouldn’t be close but it is a squeaker. So the Republican is a guy named Glenn Youngkin,  and he’s a seemingly normal businessman, pretty successful (I mean, legit successful, not I’ve had 25 Bankruptcies “successful”.) Anyway, he seems capable enough. 

The Democrat has been governor before and he did a fine job. Virginia is a purple state, so as long as somebody doesn’t go full blown Greg Abbott and really mess things up,  it is not likely to matter all that much who gets elected.  I’ve got a lot of friends who don’t like Trump, but are supporting Youngkin – they say that he’s really not that extreme, and even though he enjoys the backing of Trump and he’s attended Stop the Steal rallies in the southern part of the state, he has to walk both sides of the line  – he has no choice but both to play it both ways.  

 They believe that Youngkin winning is the first step toward restoring normalcy to the GOP… but that’s what I’m worried about.    Is this our new normal?

 I happen to believe that two things can be true at once. On one hand, Youngkin can be a mostly normal, pro-business Republican who knows full well that the election was free and fair, and at the same time also be willing to thread the needle and play footsie with insurrectionists and right wing extremists and people who want to ban books, just in order to get across the finish line. 

This race matters because this is the part of the story where the Republicans decide who they want to be. Do they want to stay as a party of Trump or do they want to break free? You can’t bob and weave your way through the question of whether our elections are fair and free. And you don’t get out of the hole the Republican Party is in by continuing to dig. 

Look, y’all know this is nothing new. As for whether or not it’s our new normal…