Truth Doesn’t Require An Apology

I fully support civil discourse, compassion, tolerance, kindness, etc., but there comes a time when it is necessary to call a spade a spade. President Biden did just that earlier this week … he called the far-right Republican movement a ‘threat to democracy’ and ‘semi-fascist’. Those who are angered by his words should take a long, hard look at what their hopes for the future of this nation are and how they would like to see those hopes achieved. Charles Blow’s latest OpEd in the New York Times addresses that outrage better than I could (that’s why he gets paid for his opinions and I don’t).

Biden Shouldn’t Apologize to Republicans

By Charles M. Blow

Opinion Columnist

4 September 2022

Republicans are outraged — or possibly simply pretending to be outraged — that President Biden has, in recent speeches, warned that “MAGA Republicans” are a threat to democracy and, at one point, called the philosophy fueling Trumpism “semi-fascism.”

But there is no scandal here. Biden was simply calling a thing a thing. In fact, I would prefer that he be even more pointed and not try so hard to dodge the charge that he’s casting the net too widely.

Biden first used the term “semi-fascism” two weeks ago, at a Democratic fund-raiser in Maryland, saying: “It’s not just Trump; it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say, something, it’s like semi-fascism.”

Republicans quickly demanded that he apologize for insulting half the electorate. But those Republicans who voted for Donald Trump deserve to be called out for their actions. Trump has consistently exhibited fascist tendencies and espoused racism, misogyny and white nationalism. Republicans supported him, defended him and voted for him. They’ve been actively courting this condemnation.

And yet, ever since the initial brouhaha over his fascism comments, Biden has insisted on walking back his assertion, seemingly determined to distinguish more genteel Republicans from the rest of their party. At a rally in Maryland, shortly after his fund-raiser, Biden said: “I respect conservative Republicans. I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”

Personally, I have a very hard time splitting that hair. In 2020, 92 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters backed Trump. According to a Quinnipiac University poll released last week, 73 percent of Republicans still have a favorable opinion of him, and 72 percent want him to run for re-election in 2024.

The overwhelming majority of Republicans support Trump. The pool of respectable conservatives is shallow, and that’s assuming that they can be neatly defined as those not voting for Trump.

Still, it is clear that Biden is sensitive to the criticism, even as he charges ahead with this pointed assessment.

In Biden’s speech in Philadelphia on Thursday, he returned to the idea that “MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.” But he took pains to more clearly separate them from other Republicans, saying that “not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.”

Still, he underscored that “there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans.”

Biden was twisting himself into a rhetorical knot when there was no reason to do so. When he said that not even a majority of Republicans are MAGA Republicans, it muddied the waters. What, to Joe Biden, is a MAGA Republican?

On Friday, Biden walked his comments back further still, telling reporters, “I don’t consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country.”

He went on to say, “I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it’s used, refuses to acknowledge an election has been won, insists upon changing the way in which we rule and count votes — that is a threat to democracy.”

Make no mistake: A significant portion of Republican voters have done exactly what Biden has tried to exempt them from having done. A Public Religion Research Institute poll published in November found that nearly a third of Republicans agreed with the statement “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”

Also, a later poll found that a quarter of Republicans were adherents of the internet conspiracy theory QAnon and believe that “there is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders” and that “a group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation” control America’s government, media and financial system.

As PolitiFact noted in June, citing a number of polls, roughly 70 percent of Republicans don’t see Biden as the legitimate winner of the presidency.

Furthermore, a July accounting by FiveThirtyEight found that “halfway through the primary season, we can say definitively that at least 120 election deniers have won their party’s nomination and will be on the ballot in the fall.” Republican voters delivered primary victories to those candidates.

Republicans have a knack for persuading Democrats to pull their punches. It was the same strategy they used against Barack Obama after he said some Americans were “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

He was absolutely correct, but in politics, telling the truth can be a sin.

It was the same strategy Republicans used against Hillary Clinton after she said: “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

She was absolutely right. She may have even understated the number.

Democrats have to stop falling for the line that calling out the dangers that some voters present to the country is somehow a divisive, offensive, unfair attack on the innocent. No person who voted for Trump or supports him now is above being named and shamed.

Biden doesn’t owe Republicans an apology; they owe the country an apology.

The Great Chasm

Posted on March 31, 2022 by jilldennison under Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Free Press Issues, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

A recent Quinnipiac poll came out that had me shaking and scratching my head, while muttering under my breath interspersing the muttering with … “Hmmmm …” and “Say WHAT???”

Now, before I get into the poll results that I find either confusing or unconscionable, let me pose a question for you … and this is one I would like you to ask of some of your friends who support the Republican Party …

If I am taking my trash to the curb and see your young child or grandchild playing in the street just as a large truck comes careening from the other direction, and if I run out and grab your child/grandchild out of harm’s way, what is the first thing you will say to me when I deliver your child/grandchild safely to your door? Will you ask me whether I am a Democrat or a Republican? Or will you simply thank me for saving your child/grandchild’s life? Take a minute with that one, for I pose that we are so politically divided in this nation today that we have lost sight of what is most important to us. I further pose that if you were a Republican and I said I was a Democrat, you would immediately start thinking of ways that the near miss must have somehow been my fault, rather than your own for allowing your child/grandchild to play out of your sight.

Political leanings seem to matter far too much these days. For instance, when asked if they approved or disapproved of the way President Biden is handling his job, 79% of Democrats approved, as compared to only 4% of Republicans. 92% of Republicans disapproved, and 4% were still scratching their heads and saying, “Huh? Who?”

The numbers improved ever so slightly when respondents were asked whether they approve or disapprove of Biden’s handling of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with 81% of Democrats approving, and a whopping 15% of Republicans approving. 77% of Republicans disapprove of the president’s handling of the war and 8% were scratching their heads saying, “Huh? What’s Ukraine?”

This poll included 19 questions and I found the results both predictable, but at the same time stunning (not in any good way). This nation, it seems to me, is so divided that the two sides almost represent separate nations in both their thoughts and actions. It’s as if we are not even seeing the same set of circumstances, or as if we are looking through lens of different colours and levels of distortion. And the head scratchers, those who have no opinion, puzzle me most of all. HOW IN HELL can you have ‘no opinion’ or ‘don’t know’ about such things as the most important issues facing the nation today (#4). How can one ‘not know’ if they have changed their vacation plans this year due to the rise in fuel prices??? And yet, 3% of those polled said they didn’t know. Seriously, these people must have scabs on their heads from so much head-scratching!

There were some areas where Democrats and Republicans were not that far apart, such as the question (#9) about whether they were paying more, less, or about the same amount of attention to the war in Ukraine as the crisis has deepened. The two parties were very nearly matched on that question, as well as the one (#12) about the level of concern that Russia would launch a nuclear weapon against the U.S. But for the most part, the answers were worlds apart, and that, my friends, is the problem in this nation today. We do not seem to see the world through the same lens, we do not seem to have the same goals, the same hopes for the future. We are almost as two completely different species.

Six little words say it all …

It’s an old, old quote, attributed to the ancient Greek storyteller Aesop, both directly in his fable The Four Oxen and the Lion and indirectly in The Bundle of Sticks. I think it is relevant, prophetic even, to our situation in the United States today and going forward. I don’t pretend to know what will happen in the next 20-30 years … heck, I can’t even predict what will happen in the next 20 minutes. But I can say with a great deal of certainty that our current situation is untenable. Will it lead to a new civil war, will it lead to the U.S. as we know it today breaking into two or more warring nations? How many lives will be lost, families destroyed, because the two sides cannot agree on virtually anything? This nation is headed for a cliff … can we set aside our differences and instead look for common ground? Will we before it’s too late?

On Guns … The Right Thing To Do

Posted on September 5, 2019 by jilldennison under Law and justice, Political commentary, Rants, Social commentary

Two days ago, Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon sent a letter to their employees part of which reads …

Dear Associates,

We’ve … been listening to a lot of people inside and outside our company as we think about the role we can play in helping to make the country safer. It’s clear to us that the status quo is unacceptable.

We’ve been giving a lot of thought to our sale of firearms and ammunition. We’ve previously made decisions to stop selling handguns or military-style rifles such as the AR-15, to raise the age limit to purchase a firearm or ammunition to 21, to require a “green light” on a background check while federal law only requires the absence of a “red light,” to videotape the point of sale for firearms and to only allow certain trained associates to sell firearms.

Today, we’re sharing the decisions we’ve made that go further:

After selling through our current inventory commitments, we will discontinue sales of short-barrel rifle ammunition such as the .223 caliber and 5.56 caliber that, while commonly used in some hunting rifles, can also be used in large capacity clips on military-style weapons;

We will sell through and discontinue handgun ammunition; and

We will discontinue handgun sales in Alaska, marking our complete exit from handguns. [emphasis added]

Finally, we encourage our nation’s leaders to move forward and strengthen background checks and to remove weapons from those who have been determined to pose an imminent danger. We do not sell military-style rifles, and we believe the reauthorization of the Assault Weapons ban should be debated to determine its effectiveness. We must also do more, as a country, to understand the root causes that lead to this type of violent behavior. Today, I’m sending letters to the White House and the Congressional leadership that call for action on these common sense measures.

As you all know, I am no fan of Wal-Mart, but I applaud this measure with both hands. It is too little, and too late coming, but at least the CEO of this company has, finally, shown some common sense and more concern for the people of this nation than most of our elected officials.

Within minutes after Wal-Mart making this announcement publicly, the NRA flew into a rage!

Well, if you think the NRA represents the ‘voice of the people’, if you think that most people in this nation are against any form of gun legislation, as the NRA would have you believe … explain this:

“Shares of the retailer rose more than 1% to a record high on Wednesday. The gains game after Walmart announced Tuesday that it would change its policies around gun-sales in response to two deadly shootings that killed 24 people at Walmart stores in El Paso, Texas and Southaven, Mississippi.” – Business Insider, 04 September 2019

Similarly, after Dick’s Sporting Goods announced in February 2017, in response to the devastating Parkland school shooting, that it was raising the age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21, and would no longer sell assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks in any of its 730 U.S. stores, their profits increased by 3.2%.

As a result of Wal-Mart’s announcement, some gun nuts took to Twitter, calling for a boycott of Wal-Mart, but you know what, folks? In a May Quinnipiac poll, 61% overall said they are in favour of stricter gun regulations. The breakdown here is interesting: 91% of democrats, 59% of independents, and only 32% of republicans. What a shocker, eh?

Note that women are more in favour of gun regulation than men (again, no surprise there), and blacks are overwhelmingly more in favour than whites … could be because they are most often on the receiving end of a bullet. Apparently 5% of the people polled didn’t much care one way or another. Sigh.

Wal-Mart, with its 1.5 million employees nationwide, is the single largest retailer in the nation. They may, in a very practical sense, have even more clout than the NRA when they choose to use it. But, it isn’t enough. The shooter who killed at least 7 and injured 20+ more in Odessa Texas last Saturday had failed a background check to buy a gun … twice. Yet, he had an AR-15 assault weapon in his car when police tried to stop him in a traffic stop. How? He bought it in a private sale … in Texas, private gun sales do not require a background check.

And, in spite of two mass shootings in Texas last month, the state legislature expanded gun rights … nay, I cannot even call it “rights”, for these rights infringe on others’ rights … by passing the following:

Senate Bill 535: allows Texans to carry guns in churches, synagogues and other places of worship, unless otherwise banned by those places with proper signage.
Senate Bill 741: prohibits property owners’ associations from banning storage of guns on rental properties.
House Bill 121: provides a legal defense for licensed handgun owners who unknowingly enter an establishment that bans firearms as long as they leave when asked.
House Bill 302: prohibits landlords from banning renters and their guests from carrying firearms in lease agreements.
House Bill 1387: loosens restrictions on the number of school marshals who can carry guns at public and private schools in Texas.
House Bill 1177: allows Texans to carry handguns without a license during a state of disaster.
House Bill 1143: prohibits school districts from banning licensed gun owners from storing guns and ammunition in their vehicles in parking lots.
House Bill 2363: allows certain foster homes to store guns and ammunition in a locked location.

Take a close look at these! They prohibit a landlord from banning guns in his/her rental property! How utterly stupid! They loosen gun laws in schools, churches, foster homes. What could possibly go wrong, eh? Governor Abbott signed all these bills into law in May & June, and they went into effect the day after the Odessa shooting. Irony?

C’mon people!!! Let’s get serious and make it damn clear once more that people’s lives, that our safety, the safety of our children, mean more than anybody’s so-called “right” to own and carry a gun. Get the damn guns out of the hands of civilians! At the very least, insist on background checks for every single gun sale, and ban the damn assault rifles once and for all!

Note that in his letter to his employees and his public announcement, Doug McMillon encouraged the nation’s lawmakers to act. I second that motion … time to get back into phone-calling and letter-writing mode, my friends. This madness cannot continue!

What’s In A Headline?

Posted on January 26, 2018 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

As freelancers and bloggers, we know the importance of a title, or a headline. It has to grab the reader, for there are thousands and thousands of blogs and OpEds out there, and if we don’t grab the reader with the title, the content of our writing won’t likely matter. It is the same for the mainstream media … the headline is the bait and it has to be interesting. What headlines grabbed your attention yesterday enough to make you read the attached article? Here are three that grabbed me …

The headline in The Guardian piqued my curiosity:

Reality bites: Trump’s fear of sharks leads to surge in charity donations

I did not pay much attention recently to the details of the report that Trump had paid $130,000 to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, for I have become immune to his debauchery. So I was not aware that Ms. Daniels had told the world that Trump is deathly afraid of sharks. Well, even if I had known that, it wouldn’t have likely set my meter ticking, for most of us would just as soon avoid an encounter with a shark. Apparently Trump himself had confirmed Ms. Daniels’ allegation back in 2013 when he tweeted …

“Sorry folks, I’m just not a fan of sharks – and don’t worry, they will be around long after we are gone.” – 9:26 AM – Jul 4, 2013

Ms. Daniels said that Trump used to spend time watching television shows about sharks and that “He is obsessed with sharks …Terrified of sharks.” He reportedly commented, “I donate to all these charities and I would never donate to any charity that helps sharks. I hope all the sharks die.” It turns out that after the interview with Ms. Daniels was published in a gossip rag, In Touch magazine, people started sending donations in Trump’s name to Atlantic White Shark Conservancy.

For some reason, I am finding this hysterically funny. Whatever it takes to get people helping the environment and the critters that live in it, I guess. Hey! I wonder … if I could annoy Trump badly enough for him to say he hated me and wished me dead, do you think people would start sending me money?

And then another headline, this one in The Intellectualist, came onto the trusty radar and made me literally choke on my soup …

72% Of Republicans Believe Trump Is A Good Role Model For Children

Say WHAT??? Sure, if you want your children to grow up to be profane, ignorant, bigoted, narcissistic, megalomaniacs. But what is behind this story? Are republicans really so ignorant?

“According to a recent Quinnipiac poll , a whopping 72 percent of Republicans think President Donald Trump is a good role model for children. By comparison, 67 percent of all Americans say he is not.”

Wait just a minute … TIME OUT! 73% plus 67% … tick, tap, tickety-tappity … I come up with 140%! Weren’t we taught in school something about there only being 100%? I’m only a CPA, so my math skills aren’t very good, but still …

These babies look real happy, huh?

A visit to Quinnipiac’s site clarified matters. While 72%-73% of republicans believe he is a good role model, overall, when you consider all Americans, only about 1/3 feel he is a good role model. Even that amazes me, though. Frankly, I would not let him near my dog, let alone my child or grandchild.

Some interesting tidbits from the survey …

63% of Americans say Trump does not provide the U.S. with moral leadership. (Why only 63% Where are the other 37% … drugged, sleeping, or left the country in disgust?)
As expected, the majority of Republicans disagree: 80% say he does provide moral leadership. (Yes, but look who we’re talking about here … the ones who believe a pedophile belongs in the Senate, and a sexual molestor belongs in the White House!)
27% of Americans say they are proud to have Trump as president, but 53% are downright embarrassed. (27% are proud to be white, figure everyone who isn’t white needs to be deported, and still believe in the institution of slavery. But where are the other 20%??? Still sleeping?)

And lastly, there was this one, also from The Intellectualist …

Missouri Lawmaker Seeks To Ban Marriages That Don’t Occur In Church

“State Rep. T.J. Berry put forth House Bill 1434 to put religions entirely in control of defining “marriage” and conducting those ceremonies. If you decide to get married without being a church member, you would be considered part of a “domestic union….

[Berry said] he was “tired” of the argument about the definition of the word marriage. He wanted the issue “put to rest from a government standpoint.”

I am not concerned that Berry’s bill will pass, for even in the highly unlikely event that it did, I see it working its way quickly to the U.S. Supreme Court where, in spite of Gorsuch, it would be struck down, for it is blatantly un-Constitutional. But what does concern me is that my blood pressure is now through the roof, my stomach is churning, heart rate three times the norm, and I am growling deep in my throat much like a rabid dog.

I am going to bed now. Good-night, my friends.

Da ‘Tuga

The Latest Polls …

Posted on October 3, 2017 by jilldennison under Political commentary

I had a post written for this morning. I am postponing it, for I am still debating on it. But … that left me with … nothing for this morning. So, I had in my archives a piece by Washington Post writer Jennifer Rubin from last week, titled “Americans as a whole haven’t lost their minds, but the GOP has”. I think it is well worth reading in its entirety, so I decided to share it with you this morning.

There is only abysmal news for President Trump and Republicans in the latest Quinnipiac poll. Voters say Trump is not “fit to serve as president,” by a 56 to 42 percent margin. Voters disapprove (57 to 36 percent) of his performance (so 6 percent think he is fit, just not doing a good job). It gets worse:

Voters disapprove 57 – 36 percent of the job he is doing as president. . . . American voters disapprove 62 – 32 percent of the way President Trump is handling race relations. Disapproval is 55 – 39 percent among white voters, 95 – 3 percent among black voters and 66 – 28 percent among Hispanic voters. President Trump is doing more to divide the country than to unite the country, American voters say 60 – 35 percent.

The anti-Twitter sentiment remains high as voters say 69 – 26 percent that Trump should stop tweeting. No party, gender, education, age or racial group wants to follow the Tweeter-in- Chief. Voters say 51 – 27 percent they are embarrassed to have Trump as president.

More than 55 percent of voters say he is not honest and lacks leadership skills. Some 61 percent say they do not share his values, and 67 percent say he is not level-headed. Less than 40 percent think he is doing a good job on foreign policy, immigration, the environment or health care. A plurality narrowly approves of this handling of the economy and of terrorism.

There is no good news here for Republicans in Congress either. “American voters disapprove 78 – 15 percent of the job Republicans in Congress are doing, worse than their 70 – 25 percent disapproval in a June 29 Quinnipiac University poll. . . . Voters say 47 – 38 percent, including 44 – 32 percent among independent voters, that they would like to see Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 Congressional elections.”

Americans it turns out:

Are not bamboozled by his NFL and flag histrionics;

Do not think it’s all the media’s fault;

Know he is not making America great (stressed and anxious maybe, but not great);

Have figured out he’s botching most policy matters — and is a bad person to boot; and

Don’t buy into his race-baiting act.

Americans are neither brain-dead nor moral vagrants. In voting for him many probably hated Hillary Clinton more, engaged in wishful thinking about Trump and/or figured incorrectly a rich guy and his friends must know how to do things. But they do not like him now, and that speaks very well of the American people.

The bad news is Republicans overwhelmingly like him, his policies, his distractions, his character, his racial appeals, etc. Among Republicans 79 percent approve of his performance, 79 percent think he is honest (!), 85 percent think he cares about ordinary Americans, 62 percent think he is level-headed (!!) and perhaps worst of all, 78 percent think he shares their values.

Now, it’s possible that having voted for him these Republicans don’t want to admit he is, as LeBron James eloquently put it, a bum. But it’s also possible that a declining share of voters identify as Republicans but that those who do, by and large, live in a Fox News-created political universe in which Trump is just the best. They refuse to see Trump as a bigot or an incompetent narcissist. They believe what he tells them about immigrants, the world and the “liberal elites.”

The question that many #NeverTrump Republicans or now former Republicans face is whether that GOP base has become so divorced from their own world view that they cannot consider themselves Republicans any longer. To be a Republican these days is to be at the very least an apologist for Trump and at the worst a cultist. Maybe these Trump fans were always there in the party, but now they are the dominant voice. That leaves a two-way struggle between stringent conservatives (e.g., Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz) and Trump/Bannonites. Many disaffected Republicans have no Republicans to root for anymore other than a handful of members of Congress and a small batch of governors. They may like the idea of the GOP, but they cannot abide by the actual GOP of 2017.

It doesn’t seem possible that logic or experience will change the minds of the 75 percent to 80 percent of the GOP who remain in Trump’s quarter. (Some hope that Trump is like a high fever that will pass, leaving the patient back to being his old self; I think that’s unlikely, but it’d be nice if the fever theory turns out to be correct.) You can change a president or a presidential candidate but can you change a party’s composition? I find that hard to believe. Trump’s beliefs and views are their beliefs and views.

That leaves distressed Republicans and ex-Republicans with three options — recruit new non-Trumpkins to the GOP (but which Americans would want to join?!) to out-vote Trump’s base; start a new center-right party (with an invitation out to moderate Democrats); or set up shop across the aisle as the new Blue Dog Democrats. Much depends on the direction the Democrats take (will it be the party of Sen. Bernie Sanders or the party of Truman/JFK/Bill Clinton — policy-wise, that is).

In short, the GOP that was, is no longer, and we really have no idea what if anything will take its place.

Filosofa's Word

Cogito Ergo Sum

Tag Archives: Quinnipiac poll

The Latest Polls …