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Peter  V's avatar

I spent the last few hours on my tractor moving the snow out of our big horseshoe driveway, built back when I still needed to get big trucks in and out. Now, It's like plowing a parking lot with a dinky toy.

As I went back and forth I considered my reading of the Trump pardon ploy and wondered whether this was a good or a bad move on his part.  I gave a lot of thought to his supporters who, in my mind are largely blue collar, high school educated people who already had the feeling that they had gotten a rotten deal out of life.  You could pile up the reasons, they all have variations, but they are for the most part things that wound up separating them into classes that met in bars to have four or five beers. The other aspect of the MAGA crown is the politicians who feed off of discontent or the wealthy who see opportunity to become wealthier.

The wealthy used to be the backbone of the party. The blue-collar bunch, perhaps what were called Reagan Democrats were lulled into the culture wars and those wars have been expanded in the public eye and now say the quiet part said out loud.  Those MAGA guys really do feel  that their lack of status is because of Blacks, Hispanics,  and Asians. If those guys weren't around, things would be really great!. Then the income disparities would disappear, and they could feel at home with the wealthy republicans. 1932-38 Germany really said the same thing to a disaffected populace that had been experiencing the great depression. They needed a scapegoat and those Damn Jews had snuck up and stolen the show. The populace looked the other way, -kind of ,as Hitler exterminated them. 

I don't think I need to go further in the comparison really. What is discouraging for me is watching the Jeff Flakes, the Bob Corkers, the Jeb Bushes see that the fascist tide was high and they put out to sea. The resistance in the GOP is hard to find. Bulwark, the Lincoln project and a few others have waved objections but no where near enough to change much.

The ones who have to change are before us. Not the MAGA hat crowd, you'll never change them. It's the independents- the ones with a conscience who have to turn their backs on the planned move into authoritarianism. I really don't know if they will at this point. What Trump does is to pre-poison the well letting the red hats run wild. I do hope that the Jan 6th committee and the DOJ can act quickly enough to secure prosecution for Trump.  No one else can do quite what he does, really a perfect grifter mafia figure who is pretty sure he has figured out how to game the system. Hopefully, like Eugene McCarthy, he will be ultimately puked out of the public view. I don't think amateurs like DeSantis will ever replace him. Weak Tea. These people want blood. 

Pete VanderLaan

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Rita Parker's avatar

Last week we had International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Along with the gut wrenching documentaries were newspapers from that time. One that struck me was a front page from 1933 where Hitler was running for election again. It reminded me of Donald Trump. This weekend Trump called for violence against anyone who might indict him. His unhinged rants and lies were meant to stoke hate and violence. We had a taste of this on January 6. In essence Trump has his own stormtroopers who will menace and carry out violence. We minimize this at our own risk. He is the Republican party, supported by the GOP and spawning people like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Green.

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