by Steven B. Orkin
Welcome to Part II!
Getting back to the MAGA Trult and conservative ideology, there are certain ideas generally associated with ‘Republican’ thought that I agree with. I would love to have the opportunity to vote for a moderate Republican in a race where the Democratic candidate was weak. I can’t and I won’t. Whenever I have voted in the last few years, I have felt compelled to literally check off every Democrat running without even looking at the Republican slate. The reason why is because what used to be the GOP has gone so far off the rails of integrity, decency, and responsibility, due to their continued transformation into the Trult, I cannot in good conscience give them the slightest consideration. They don’t deserve it.
If the Trult represented the majority, I’d be forced to acknowledge that fact, though I’d continue to try to change it, but allow me to convey a hard (for some) truth: Conservatism is a fringe ideology. Let me explain why. If we were to take a poll of every citizen of this country about the major issues of the day, 75% or more would fall along a bell curve. The Trult routinely operates at the extremist bottom of that curve. What this means is that their political ideology and goals do not reflect the actual will of the vast majority of American citizens, including their own constituents.
It also means that given a level playing field, the Trult (and you’ll notice that as this essay progresses, my distinction between ‘the Trult’ and ‘the GOP’ has become negligible), cannot win elections because they don’t have the votes. Therefore, they cheat. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, propaganda, pandering to lowest common denominator fears, misdirection, manipulation, the blame game.
Despite the Trult’s rabid insistence that there is “rampant voter fraud”, that elections have been “stolen” or “rigged”, they have yet to produce any substantive proof that this is actually the case. DOZENS of lawsuits were filed after the 2020 election. Several substantive investigations were conducted. Nothing. No evidence of substantive voter fraud. No evidence of substantive election tampering. No evidence that voting machines suck. No evidence that mail-in voting, early voting, drop-off voting, or any other such process substantively and adversely affects the integrity of elections to any appreciable degree.
What we do have are deadly-serious and substantive allegations about the conduct and behavior of ex-President Gangster and several of his underlings with regard to attempted subversion of the 2020 election process and inciting a riot at the US Capitol to prevent the results of that election from being ratified. We have Fox News being prosecuted for spreading baseless, libelous conspiracy theories about the integrity of a major voting machine company. We have substantive lawsuits against various Trultist political figures for election-related offenses. We have a major investigation in Georgia regarding serious election tampering efforts by various Trult politicians, as well as the gangster-king himself. And if we were to examine 100 cases of documented gerrymandering and voter fraud through the years, we would find that 80%-90% of them have been perpetrated by the GOP. Their machinations have absolutely NOTHING to do with the ‘sanctity of our elections’. Their goal is to make it more difficult for the general population (particularly all those pesky brown people) to vote. It’s about doing everything they can to ensure that they win. They don’t have the votes. Therefore, they cheat.
The Trult is not at all interested in the ‘will of the people’ or ‘what’s best for the country’. They’re interested in winning by any means necessary and they’ve made excellent progress in accomplishing that.
Here are the essential differences between Conservatism and Progressivism.
Conservatism (especially now) thrives on rigidity. It’s single-minded. Consider how many Congressional votes have come up in recent years in which EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN voted no. Every. Single. One. Outside of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who have both severely damaged, if not sacrificed their political careers to do what’s morally right by serving on the Jan 6 Committee and otherwise turning away from the Trult, the GOP has fallen into lockstep, thanks to the obscene power of near-satanic Mitch McConnell, arguably the most powerful man in this country, and the continued influence of the man Trevor Noah has referred to as ‘Cinnamon Hitler’. At this point, the Trult may as well be goose-stepping and sig-heiling out on the National Mall.
To continue, Conservatism does not employ creativity. It employs brute force. It doesn’t adapt. It doesn’t compromise. It’s intolerant. It does not unify; it divides. If it doesn’t get its way, it strong-arms and/or manipulates everything around it to achieve its ends, regardless of whether those ends are what the country needs or what the people of this country want, or for that matter, whether they have any moral foundation whatsoever. Twisted as it has been by the misanthropic depravity of the Trult, it now follows archetypal, Machiavellian ideology: The ends justify the means. In some cases, employing that philosophy is understandable, though not at all excusable. In the Trult’s case, the ‘end’ is simply to win. Nothing more, nothing less. They have been enabled by their gangster-king to engage in blatant, power-hungry corruption. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s shocking and terrifying, and it’s got to be stopped.
Conservatism is a sledgehammer. It leaves nothing but destruction in its wake. It endeavors to control everyone and everything around it, particularly those it doesn’t agree with.
Progressivism is flexible. It takes in new information from multiple sources, considers it, and employs it moving forward. It adapts. It evolves. It compromises. It endeavors to unify rather than divide. Progressivism utilizes creativity of thought to determine the best path forward. It evaluates conditions and makes decisions based on those conditions.
Progressivism is a Swiss Army Knife. It’s inventive and resourceful. It endeavors to determine the best, broad-based solution and make things better. It invites discussion and provides disparate perspectives with a voice.
Which leads me to another part of the problem I have with the Trult, which is, as noted above, there is a disconnect between what they believe and what a very large percentage their constituents believe. Though there are absolutely extremist adherents to Trult ideology, they do not reflect the majority of American citizens. Consider the following:
· A large majority (upwards of 70%) of citizens in most any broad-cohort poll taken across the political spectrum believe that abortion should be available to women, at least under certain circumstances. Why is the Trult trying (and succeeding) to ban abortion? Aren’t they supposed to represent the will of the people? Aren’t their constituents supposed to drive their political activities?
· A large majority of citizens want mail-in and/or early voting options. Why does the Trult want to eliminate mail-in and early voting? Why do they frequently engage in ‘redistricting’ (aka gerrymandering) to maximize the voting power of people they like and minimize the voting power of people they don’t like (usually communities containing a high percentage of people of color)?
- Side note: Though I firmly believe that the volume of voter fraud occurring in this country is close to insignificant, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that all voters have some sort of identification that they are required to show when voting. However, that standard should not and cannot be used as a weapon of persecution to prevent people from voting. There’s no reason to require people to show three forms of ID to vote. A driver’s license or DMV-issued non-driver ID should be sufficient. You can get a standard non-driver ID for about $15.00, which doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
· A large majority of citizens are happy with and believe that the Affordable Care Act, while not perfect, works. Why does the Trult want to eliminate it (particularly given that they have no alternative)?
· A large majority of citizens believe that Social Security should be protected and enhanced for the future. Why does the Trult want to slash Social Security and monetize it for their own purposes?
· A large majority of citizens believe that corporations should pay their fair share of taxes. Why does the Trult consistently not only refuse to hold them accountable, but continue giving them tax breaks?
· A large majority of citizens support the basic concept of gay marriage and other rights for the LGBTQ+ community. Why does the Trult want to repeal and restrict LGBTQ+ rights?
Why? POWER & CONTROL. The Trult does not care about the American people or the Unites States of America! As typified by the behavior of their gangster-king, the Trult considers this nation as alternately a treasure chest and toilet bowl, depending on what they want and where they get it. Though Democrats are far from blameless in optimizing the needs of corporate America over the needs of the American people, they don’t engage in this behavior with the same frequency and to the same fanatical degree that the Trult does.
Here’s another thought to consider. Some Democratic initiatives are created and enacted not so much because they’re good policy but because they address the comprehensive wrongness of GOP policy.
The student loan forgiveness program is a perfect example of this. The student loan process is conducted in a predatory, greedy, merciless fashion that has proven devastating to many, many people whose only agenda was wanting to get an education and build a better life for themselves. Student loan companies have been allowed to operate in this fashion for decades because ‘it’s good for business’ and ‘let the buyer beware’. On the other hand, giving multibillion dollar companies tax loopholes and great (or no) interest rates is apparently also ‘good for business’. Why can’t we give college grads the same (or at least similar) terms we give multibillion dollar companies? The answer is, “We can and we should”. Given that tens of thousands of college grads have been financially enslaved by the current merci-LESS system, it’s consequently merci-FUL to help them. In fact, there’s no reason why we can’t offset some of the perks we give to big business to help debt-ridden college grads even more. It would be a drop in the bucket of the money big business makes based on all the perks we give them. And do me a favor. Spare me the “I had to work hard to pay off my student loans! Why are we giving ‘handouts’ to them!?” drivel. If you walked across the street and got hit by a car, do you think everyone around you should get hit by a car because of what you suffered? I don’t think you do. It’s the same thing. The fact that you suffered a wrong doesn’t mean we shouldn’t correct that wrong for those still suffering from that wrong! Is it fair to say that some people who took out student loans have been irresponsible and didn’t really deserve the benefit of having those loans paid off? Yes, you can. But they don’t represent the majority of victims of the predatory student loan industry. From another angle, could you make a case for the idea that people who have already paid off their student loans under the predatory system, people who ended up paying 150 thousand dollars on a 50-thousand-dollar student loan should be compensated? Yes, you absolutely can. Let’s have big business foot that bill, too. They have benefited enormously from all those college grads, many of whom are now working for them. Let them actually invest in the welfare of our nation rather than lining their pockets with their own stock options. Let them make 70 billion dollars a year instead of 100 billion. I’m very confident they’ll do just fine.
Here’s another one: the IRS. The government just expanded the ranks of IRS agents by thousands. In Big Business / GOP Spin-Land, those IRS agents were hired to ‘hunt down decent, hardworking people and take their hard-earned money!’ They were not, by any stretch of the imagination, hired for that purpose. They were hired for one reason only: to mount an offensive against Big Business, which uses all kinds of colorful tax loopholes to effectively steal billions of dollars from the American people every single year. Because they are very creative in how they do this, the IRS did not have the manpower or resources to conduct thorough audit investigations into such practices and make these companies pay their fair share. Now, they have at least a chance of getting some of that money back where it belongs: in the hands of the American people. If we were to collect all the money that Big Business has hidden through ‘creative accounting’, it would quickly amount to TRILLIONS of dollars! That money could substantially improve the quality of life of every single citizen of this country.
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Thus
ends Part II. In Part III, the conclusion of this three-part post, we'll talk about immigration, the hypocrisy of the Trult, what the GOP needs to do to get their party back, and in the meantime, what the rest of us need to do to stop the Trult.
Thank you for reading.
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