“The Democrats took the word GOD out of the Pledge of Allegiance”. I wish that they had. It’s a clear violation of the 1st Amendment. For everyone who might disagree, imagine that it said “one nation, under Allah”, or “under Shiva”, or (fill in the blank with your favorite god). The sooner we get gods out of politics, the better.
In June of 1954, the phrase 'under God' was officially added to the Pledge of Allegiance. In keeping with the 1st amendment, that probably shouldn't have happened. In my personal view, the fact that Trump finds the evangelical bloc as staunch supporters says an awful lot about the degradation of what I was taught in Sunday school.
It bothers me too, and I am very much a Christian (but from one of those atheistic left-wing liberal congregations, y'know). If I say the pledge I simply do not say "under God" as I think it is intrinsically wrong-spirited. A click to the ushistory.org site (below) explains everything about the pledge in its original incarnation from 1892, through its various versions, as well as actions regarding salutes and such. IMO, and being a picky grammarian, saying ..."one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" more readily enforces our motto of "E pluribus unum", "out of many one". Sticking another subordinate clause "under God" (between commas) into the mix almost seems to dilute the connection between "nation" and "indivisible". The position of the word "God" almost makes it sound like God is "indivisible"--this admittedly was something that occurred to me even as a child...yeah, I was weird. I just find its inclusion totally unnecessary.
In something else that has occurred that I find quite alarming. Trump and the SCOTUS have recently been making it easier for churches to very blatantly take political stands. I believe with my very soul, if a church does that they should be taxed. Period. It is wrong and a clear violation of our Constitution. There's a very fine line between allowing that and an imam being able to call for a jihad from the minbar (like our "pulpit") in a mosque. Fortunately, my church is pretty squarely against making political pronouncements from the pulpit, though we condemn violence if it takes on a political tint, no matter a left or right slant.
I would like to know what the phrase supposed to mean to the people who recite the pledge, especially those who get all bent out of shape at the suggestion that the phrase should be eliminated.
According to a friend of mine who is sort of a linguistic geek, when Abraham Lincoln used the phrase "under God" in the Gettysburg Address (almost certainly where Congress got the phrase from when they inserted it into the pledge back in 1954 to counter the official atheism of the "godless" Communists), it meant something like "God willing." I haven't checked that out, but perhaps Dr. Richardson could help us here.
If the phrase actually means "God willing," then "one nation under God" is a gesture of humility, recognizing that God's protection, blessing, etc. may be provisional. If, on the other hand, it is a statement of fact, as many people probably think (especially those evangelicals who have been the most loyal Trump supporters)--that we are indeed a nation founded by, blessed by, and/or protected by God--it becomes an unassailable assertion of American exceptionalism.
As a religious woman, I agree that putting 'under G-d' into the pledge of allegiance was wrong. It violates the 1st amendment to the Constitution. It was an earlier step on the most unfortunate path of imposing one group's religion on everyone else, which we see played out in multiple ways now, including the weaponization of religion to gather votes on behalf of a political entity that uses tear gas and batons to clear a priest and other people from a church yard for the sake of an upside down photo op.
"Never interrupt an enemy who is defeating himself." -- Napoleon Bonaparte, 1805
"I never said the conservatives are stupid. I said most stupid people are conservative. It is a fact so obvious, no gentleman may disagree." -- John Stuart Mill, 1866
"The only 'good Republicans' are pushing up daisies." -- Harry S. Truman, 1948
I go with Napoleon and John Stuart Mill but Truman is dead and buried and should remain so lest we remember some of the other things he did and why he was so unpopular and not re-elected. Happily the Rinos will back out of the woodwork once the school yard bully and his myriad lackeys are expelled from school. One may not agree with them but at least one can talk and fight with them about what is best.
Truman did not run for re-election. Because FDR died very soon after winning his fourth term, Truman served as President for more than 50% of that term. That made him ineligible to run for re-election in 1952. That campaign was between Dwight Eisenhower, the hero of the ETO in WW2, and Adlai Stevenson. Truman was thought to be a poor candidate in 1948 but he did, in fact, beat Dewey. He had numerous faults, but losing the presidential election was not one of them.
Many thanks for the info correcting my absence of knowledge. I'd just read something this morning about him being unpopular after firing McArthur (and desegregating the army i'm told) and i put that together with his okaying the dropping of "two or three bombs on Japan. I should have checked further before spouting rubbish with regard to someone i haven't studied.
No worries! I might be a medieval historian but my family (father, uncles, grandfather, great-uncles) were very much involved in the military situation in WW2 and there is no way I could ever not have learned that history! My grandfather was actually part of Eisenhower's adjutant general's office and was with him through the North Africa and Europe campaigns.
Must have made for interesting stories when you visited your grandparents. The lack of grandparents has always made me think i missed out on the family history somewhere. The experience they had on the one hand but also the family "folklore" and legends too.
Except that many WWII vets did not talk about their experiences. My father flew in B17's. I did not know he had been a ball turret gunner until I went to one of his reunions & the guys on his crew said something.
Same thing for my Viet Nam vet husband. The stories he would tell were sanitized & mostly from training or base camp.
Personally, I believe they have so soiled themselves over the last four years they do not deserve to be called Republicans – Romney excepted.
They became the “Party of Trump”’ when they endorsed his behavior and voted to keep him in office: Once a Potty always a Potty. Every last one of these men and women should be targeted by the Democrats and every resource available should be used to retire them from office.
I dream of the day when having chosen to support Trump is a career-ending decision for any politician. And I suspect that even if he loses, when the Biden team comes to work on January 21st, they'll find scores of wiped hard-drives and bushels of shredded paper.
While we pray for an overwhelming win for the Democrats up and down the ticket, they will have a terrible job ahead of them even in the best case. Their own weaknesses will be shown in high relief, and remaining Republicans, like the QAnon supporter from my own State, will happily sabotage everything within reach.
Romney lost my respect when he ran for president in 2012. He had to run as a hard-right extremist in order to win the nomination, even though he had been a moderate when he served as Massachusetts governor. Then in the general election, he had to run against the Affordable Care Act, despite the fact that the health care law he had championed as Mass. governor was a prototype. So if he became president, would he revert to his more moderate inclinations, or would he be forced to be the hard-right president that his candidacy suggested? Talk about being two-faced.
I hear you Shelly, and I am no fan of Romney. My mention was to the point of the paucity of any pushback whatsoever against Trump among Republicans, particularly when it counted most – when we had the chance to remove him from office.
It is a slim qualification to carry on as a Republican – but the others, in my opinion – do not merit even the name Republican and should carry the POT brand with them to the end of their days in office and beyond.
Shelly Bird, Sadly I must agree with you about Romney. His countering of Trump is as you said "...opportunistic, careful, and calculated." I am a little disappointed in him. I was hoping for better.
For all that Trump's support seems limited to his bloc of incorrigible loyalists, we can't underestimate the size of that bloc. For instance, I was in a hair salon last week that had upward of 10 people in it; the owner had erected a temporary barrier between the first chair, her own, and the back 3/4 of the shop where the rest of the inhabitants were working/being worked on in unadvisedly close proximity . She and I are pretty much "on the same page" regarding U.S. politics, but she had to lower her voice and whisper to discuss it. The rest of the shop was infested with Trump supporters. She is from Jamaica, while several of the other stylists are from Ukraine and other Eastern Bloc countries.
I'd love to get some feedback from other readers on the attitudes of immigrants toward the President. I haven't seen any formal studies, but I've had the impression many times that immigrants from Eastern European countries tend to be unwaveringly right wing, as if their experiences have led them to conclude that any governmental action is both socialist and corrupt. In addition, immigrants from Latin American countries that have traditionally had "strong man" governments, where it's routine for the ruling party to favor supporters and use governmental powers to punish critics, also tend to favor populist, "undemocratic" leaders. Both groups seem to support Trump in large measure. Has anyone observed or read anything confirming, denying, or explaining this maybe-phenomenon?
This is completely anecdotal, of course, but the half dozen living people I know who are immigrants from Russia are all Trump supporters. One thinks so highly of him we had to stop talking. The others admit he has faults, but are far more worried about the possible evils of a leftist government than the actual evils, including domestic terror attacks, of the current crew. The one possible exception to that is a friend's husband, who would certainly be anti Trump if he were still alive to tell us.
A former co-worker for 15 years (& former friend) is a Russian immigrant. It wasn't until 2016 that I discovered she was a tRump supporter. Now I realize she would be on some cable Russian News app while at work, soaking up who knows what propaganda Putin was feeding. (She and my bro in Mississippi are 2 ppl I have cut off all communication with since Nov. 9, 2016)
The person I mentionnned who idolizes Trump also adores Putin. One of the others - who readily agreed that the Putin's state bank backstopped large loans to DJT through Deutsche Bank - nevertheless identifies with him so much that he says things like "we were impeached' - we, not he.
Since I live in the very reddest part of one the reddest of states (GA), I am surrounded by a wealth of people whose sanity I question. Contrast that with large portion of my base of friends and colleagues being either expats living elsewhere, or being foreign nationals lining in their own countries or in the US. Pretty much ALL of them are very anti-Trump. A few I know have expressed some solidarity with Trump and the far-right and they are also almost all Slavic or live in eastern Europe. You'd think the memory of iron rule by the USSR would still be with them, but maybe that is why the pendulum has swung so far to the right? (A VERY pro-Trump couple I know are Polish (he of Polish extraction, she being native Pole) and are virulently anti-abortion Catholics, though they do tend to shy away from too much activity on social media.) I try to not tangle with Trumpanistas, as a general rule, and practice the adage of "never argue with a pig...it wastes your time and only annoys the pig." You should hear my European and expat friends talking about Trump!...suffice it to say, they simultaneously: scratch their heads trying to comprehend what's going on, laugh at us, and pity us for what we're going through. I think many apply Churchill's quote about Russia from a radio broadcast in October 1939 to the USA right now: "I cannot forecast to you the action of [America]. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key."
Since I lived for so long as a legal immigrant in Holland/EU, when I returned to this country I immediately had more of an understanding of how immigrants feel in this country. (For reference: the county I live in is now approaching 40% Hispanic/Latinx.) So many of them are here to carve out lives for themselves and have left to get away from repressive regimes, but perhaps because of these deeply instilled fears many have been afraid to officially register to vote or to be counted by the census. This IS changing, however, and they seem to be finding their collective voice, and it is decidedly anti-Trump. Oddly enough, what seems to be an exception in Latin American political demographics, so many of the Cuban refugees in south Florida and Miami are staunchly Republican. The GOP's longtime anti-Castro positions undoubtedly had an effect, but now even that seems to be changing with the younger generations. These people recognize authoritarianism, right-wing or left-wing, as well as anyone and that seems to be spurring many of them into action right now. We're getting even closer to turning GA if not "blue", then very solidly "purple"!
Yep...I'm up in Hall county, real Trump country in 2016, but that might be changing a bit too. We have a very large Latino population here (one of the world's leading poultry processing areas), and when added to the black population it means whites here are now barely a majority. We HAVE to get out and vote!!
Would you say Georgia moving toward purple is a mix of youth and immigrants? Black people voting despite all the suppression efforts? Or are some white folks moving away from Trump?
Yeah, Dan got to it before me...yes, to everything you suggested, Joan. GA is becoming a microcosm of the whole country, in a way. We have rural voters, black rural voters, who tend to vote Democratic, and white rural voters who are overwhelmingly Republican. If I remember correctly, there is only one county (maybe two?) out of our 159 counties (yes, there are WAY too many!) that has a black majority. I could be wrong. Most rural counties are white majority and most are Republican. The increasing numbers of blue voters are found in GA's cities...Savannah, Athens, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, all pockets of blue in a sea of red. Atlanta and environs (15-20 county metro area) now account for almost half of GA's population. Most are young, urban, educated transplants from all over the country, and our population still keeps growing (as the saying goes, "Y'all go home! We full up down here!"). The demographics here keep shifting but are interesting...the city of Atlanta proper is like 80% black, the central 5-county area is overwhelmingly black, except for Cobb county (which has long been the only Republican county of the 5-county area--but that is changing rapidly). Atlanta is home to the largest black middle- and upper-middle class in the country. The greater 20 county metro conurbation has around 6½ million people, with most of the white residents centered in the northern suburbs. Atlanta is a big blue island of Democratic voters that is increasingly at odds with the rest of the state. We are gaining ever so steadily and polls are already showing Biden and Trump fairly close, and one of our incumbent Republican Senators (Perdue) is running behind the Democrat Ossoff in some polls. Trump still has a solid base here, but there are some cracks showing. Even the GA state House and Senate numbers are slowly getting neck and neck...it's very encouraging. And then there's the very large immigrant population of Hispanic/Latinx scattered all over the state, who if they can register and turn out could make a big difference. I'm convinced if there is a really sizable youth/black/immigrant turnout in November, there will be some surprises. GA is changing, and I daresay, like the rest of the country, whites will soon be a minority here. And, IMO, that's kind of as it should be. I think Stacy Abrams's efforts here fighting voter suppression have had a very positive effect, and even though there were voting problems around our primary last June 9th, there is a real concerted effort to not allow that to happen again. I'm cautiously optimistic.
All of the above, I'd say. I've spoken to many more youth who did vote in the primaries and intend to vote in November than did so in 2016, when I literally couldn't find a single person under 25 who voted. The only "in" I have to the black community is through my daughter, who is active in the rap/music scene, and she reports that many of her acquaintances intend to vote for Kanye West as an "FU" vote. All of the white people I know intend to vote for Biden, but I tend to run in the academic/professional circles, so I know I'm not representative. (I don't know anyone in my circle who voted for Trump in 2016, either.)
Oy, this is why we need ranked choice voting, so the youth who need to make a statement can do that with their first rank, and then they can make an actual choice with the second.
I live in a solidly middle class neighborhood in Mérida, Yucatan, (so I am the immigrant). Most people in my neighborhood are of Maya descent, (we are very much a minority being one of the only "white" families in a colonia of several thousand). They despise Donald Trump so much so that right after the stroke of midnight new year's eve 2 separate groups of people burned him in effigy.
I was at Chichen Itza some years ago! Thanks for bringing back the memories. A relative got married in Cancun to get away from family, but a hundred people accepted their invitations.
Donald Trump knows that shortly after he becomes a private citizen, he is headed for prison thanks to the AG of New York State and the AG of NYC. While he might resign on January 19 so that Pence can pardon him for all federal crimes, his vulnerability to criminal prosecution leaves him no options other than flight to an extradition-free domicile somewhere or...as we are witnessing...the sabotage of our election to somehow, somehow, somehow remain in office for four more years. If I were him, I guess I'd be doing the same thing. But thank God I am not him...a fate worse than death.
Evil Mitch McConnell has to go! Either by losing to Amy McGrath or losing his Senate leadership role. I’m tuning in to the Evil Trump’s RNC Extravaganza this week - determined to stick it out. Thank you for your insightful review today, and kudos to Twitter! ❤️🤍💙
You must have more stamina than the average person: I cannot subject myself to listening to Trump spew his hate anymore. I mute the TV every time he comes in; I seriously cannot listen to his babble!
I am so with you on that! If I can’t stand him in small doses like the “press conferences” I would lose my sanity after 4 nights of him! Deborah, you will need to fill us all in.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, Trump is desperate to win not because he enjoys being president--I suspect that he does not enjoy it and it interrupts his golf game--but because he is terrified of all the indictments that will rain down once he is out of office. Moreover, he is so deep into his narcissism (and his meds are not working for him as stress has a tendency to wreak havoc with the combo he is allegedly taking) that he cannot emerge from the morass of lies, lies, and damn lies in which he is wallowing.
I think that the upcoming Trump televisual extravaganza for his confirmation is going to be extremely embarassing. Not only will it appear cheap and nasty in comparison to the Dems last week but it is just going to be a narcissistic fantasy glorifying the king and his hapless, cloned princelings. Does the "royal family" possess a dog who'll bark in tune to "God save our gracious Trump, God save the Trump!" while they raise the confederate flag and the audience bows down on all fours to "salute the saviour". Nothing will be base enough! This is the stuff of childish vengenge tantrums.
The most worrying aspects for McConnell etc however are the plea for journalists to be " kind" and to leave them their illusions...or just not report their inanities..., their perceived need to silence their own party members and the total absence of any external heavy hitting supporters. After all their is at least one living past-President on the GOP side who seems to have gone of into the "bush" on safari like Teddy Roosevelt so as not to see, hear or speak and ...as i don't know if Zombies can be killed... Reagan might be still with us other than in spirit! It would seem that the "smell" is getting to the point of being unbearable and possibly dangerous for the health of those near Trump.
From this, downword is the only way you can go. He'll do it with flashing lights and fake explosions...just like the "baddy" in 007 James Bond movie finales.
I suppose this will be playing in the background over dinner the next few nights, with my family cheering. Hopefully I’ll need to work late. Going to put extra love out into the universe this week to combat all of the hate.
I’ll be putting out a lot of love for you, Mel, for having to put up with that from your family. Some of my family does the same thing, but thankfully they don’t live with me!
First, I had to laugh at the "dog" comment. I am doing an online "Watch Party" with several friends this week. We watched the DNC last week. It was a lot of fun. This week I think there will be a lot of drinking and snark:)
"This raises legal questions..." The implied and sometimes actual sub-headline to nearly every move Republican-elected trump makes.
"Democrats have raised concerns..." That, alongside "find this concerning," speaks volumes to the relatively milquetoast public response by the left to All Things Trump. Where are the raging Howard Beales, Steve Schmidt notwithstanding?
To my immediate point. I had another in a long chain of AHA moments earlier this morning. This one hit home harder than most.
A progressive, politically active, and relatively fearless friend PM'd me the promo to Michael Cohen's book "Disloyal." Very scary stuff. That it came to me via a PM caught my attention. Apparently my friend was reluctant to post the promo on FB. So, I sat here, looking at it and thinking, "Well, I'm not afraid to do that." Turns out I am.
Turns out that even though I'm a mini-micro-dot on trump's radar, I'm afraid to risk anything that could possibly turn the POTUS equivalent of Eye of Sauron in my direction. Much of trump's ranting and raving has been categorized as sound and fury, signifying nothing. A device to scare the, umm, dickens out of lesser beings (that would be all the rest of us). That particular take served me/us reasonably well until we began to see/read evidence that POTUS is most truly demented man who has surrounded himself with violent, unprincipled hitmen. (Is there any other kind?) That, and his mentor who poisons people who cross him.
Mary Trump, Maryanne Trump, Michael Cohen and a passel of other apparent truth-tellers know the full, dangerous and desperate, Mob-like mentality of trump. The take-away from people who dare to speak out is that: (1) trump has no boundaries; (2) the destruction of trump's moral compass began early in his life; (3) trump's love of self supersedes everything, including his late-breaking, carney-barking proclamations that he's all in for God; (4) that he holds and magnifies slights and grudges forever and generally can be counted on to make the lives of those who do not worship his derriere a living hell. Likely he has made that manifest to Republican senators, reps, loyalists--a few of whom seem to get their jollies participating in this deadly game.
I wouldn't worry too much. Inducing feelings of fear & paranoia are the weapons the far right/Trump base are hoping to instill in those of us against him. There are FAR too many of us, just using my friend base on Facebook as an example. Almost all my friends, mostly musicians and artists, are very anti-Trump, some quite virulently so. Multiply that by several million and I think the sheer numbers would make any kind of backlash virtually impossible, whatever the results in November. Armed militias like the Boogaloo Boys and Qanon loonies are trying to cow us into silence with threats of armed resistance and terrorism. I say: "BRING IT. Just try." They are legends in their own testosterone-crazed little minds. I can't realistically see them slaughtering more than half of the country. Never fear, you're not any more "bat-sh!t crazy" than the rest of us!
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has it in the back of their mind that, should this election for some reason result in the trump regime remaining in power, that I could very well be in danger for publicly expressed opinions and comments. I have made the comment to my husband more that once that "I am on some list, somewhere" because of my anti-trump comments on social media. I have tried very hard to tone it down but I find that I am so outraged by this takeover of our government that I am inclined to retweet almost all of the tweets from the Lincoln Project, which will do me no favors unless Biden wins and is able to step into the office.
That tRump and his enablers can illegally destroy the USPS with impunity. It shows our government has flaws when the original checks & balances of power between the 3 branches can be so easily negated and an unqualified madman can take control. IT DID HAPPEN HERE!
UNBELIEVABLE
That Fake Christians (Like tRump standing in front of a church holding a Buybull for a foto op) can usurp the Constitution and make a Religious Test as part of qualification. The only comfort I get out of a lifetime of fighting against religious Paulists posing as Christians, is that they plagued Thomas Jefferson as well for not declaring himself a Christian. It is very upsetting to see these religious fanatics trying to make a theocracy out of our secular nation and the Repugnant Party is complicit. (Marco Rubio has taken to Buybull quotes in his tweets now).
I have had incredulous District Attorney’s actually question me for striking out the “so help me god” while taking an oath in deposition. I have quit serving on juries as soon as I aged out because of that same oath ending in “so help me god” which was given to us en masse and I couldn’t omit it. To presume that everyone in a supposed secular nation be required to acknowledge “under god” in a pledge or be added as a “we” “in god we trust,” is a most divisive insult.
You may have guessed this is personal with me. :) If anyone thinks I come from Demon Seed, know that I was raised and Baptized a Southern Baptist. It was the Hypocrisy that I saw even as a child that made me an Anti-Theist Agnostic by my teen years. I had an uncle, Deacon of his Southern Baptist Church in Mississippi who was also in the KKK. And he was likely not as fake as Donald tRump holding up a Buybull.
Telling that the last resolution in the Republican Platform Resolution is that any attempt to amend the 2016 platform or to introduce a new platform will be ruled out of order. The Republican Party seems incredibly brittle right now. Trump and his ego remind me so much of Captain Ahab, who cried “I’d strike the sun if it insulted me!” Where can they possibly go from here with such hubris and inflexibility?
In the news today: TN, already with the most restrictive VBM procedures among the states (no drop boxes, ballot only for stated purposes (but not Covid), no ability to take your ballot to a polling place or the election commission offices, has announced “camping” in front of the Capitol is now a FELONY. So, loss of voting right.
My guess other red states will follow with laws taking voting rights away from protesters, and after a month or two it will once again turn out that David Koch's groups helped think up the idea.
Wow! Reality keeps getting more bizarre. Does tRump really think he’s swaying other than his bloc? When you, Professor Richardson, put this down In black and white it is almost unbelievable. Almost.
I had a very awful thought. So I put as a question. If the House of Representatives and the Senate cannot agree on a budget beginning Oct. 1, 2020 and the government shuts down, can 'Trump' delay the election action because of the shut down?
Legally, no. Constitutionally, no. The states run elections, not the feds. Also, if there is no election and the rule of law has not disappeared, here is what happens: As of Jan.1, 2021, the only elected officials in the federal government will be the remaining senators whose terms had not expired. This is a group with a Democratic majority. Whoever they elect as the President Pro Tem of the Senate will become President of the United States on Jan.21 after 45's term ends. The Senate can elect whoever they want. It's usually the oldest member of the majority party, since it's normally just a courtesy position. But that is custom, not law. Under the circumstances, we can expect them to elect Joe Biden. Therefore, on Jan. 21, the federal government would consist of a new Democratic president and a democratic-majority Senate. This is not an outcome that DJT would seek.
“The Democrats took the word GOD out of the Pledge of Allegiance”. I wish that they had. It’s a clear violation of the 1st Amendment. For everyone who might disagree, imagine that it said “one nation, under Allah”, or “under Shiva”, or (fill in the blank with your favorite god). The sooner we get gods out of politics, the better.
In June of 1954, the phrase 'under God' was officially added to the Pledge of Allegiance. In keeping with the 1st amendment, that probably shouldn't have happened. In my personal view, the fact that Trump finds the evangelical bloc as staunch supporters says an awful lot about the degradation of what I was taught in Sunday school.
It bothers me too, and I am very much a Christian (but from one of those atheistic left-wing liberal congregations, y'know). If I say the pledge I simply do not say "under God" as I think it is intrinsically wrong-spirited. A click to the ushistory.org site (below) explains everything about the pledge in its original incarnation from 1892, through its various versions, as well as actions regarding salutes and such. IMO, and being a picky grammarian, saying ..."one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" more readily enforces our motto of "E pluribus unum", "out of many one". Sticking another subordinate clause "under God" (between commas) into the mix almost seems to dilute the connection between "nation" and "indivisible". The position of the word "God" almost makes it sound like God is "indivisible"--this admittedly was something that occurred to me even as a child...yeah, I was weird. I just find its inclusion totally unnecessary.
In something else that has occurred that I find quite alarming. Trump and the SCOTUS have recently been making it easier for churches to very blatantly take political stands. I believe with my very soul, if a church does that they should be taxed. Period. It is wrong and a clear violation of our Constitution. There's a very fine line between allowing that and an imam being able to call for a jihad from the minbar (like our "pulpit") in a mosque. Fortunately, my church is pretty squarely against making political pronouncements from the pulpit, though we condemn violence if it takes on a political tint, no matter a left or right slant.
Forgot: https://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm
I would like to know what the phrase supposed to mean to the people who recite the pledge, especially those who get all bent out of shape at the suggestion that the phrase should be eliminated.
According to a friend of mine who is sort of a linguistic geek, when Abraham Lincoln used the phrase "under God" in the Gettysburg Address (almost certainly where Congress got the phrase from when they inserted it into the pledge back in 1954 to counter the official atheism of the "godless" Communists), it meant something like "God willing." I haven't checked that out, but perhaps Dr. Richardson could help us here.
If the phrase actually means "God willing," then "one nation under God" is a gesture of humility, recognizing that God's protection, blessing, etc. may be provisional. If, on the other hand, it is a statement of fact, as many people probably think (especially those evangelicals who have been the most loyal Trump supporters)--that we are indeed a nation founded by, blessed by, and/or protected by God--it becomes an unassailable assertion of American exceptionalism.
As a religious woman, I agree that putting 'under G-d' into the pledge of allegiance was wrong. It violates the 1st amendment to the Constitution. It was an earlier step on the most unfortunate path of imposing one group's religion on everyone else, which we see played out in multiple ways now, including the weaponization of religion to gather votes on behalf of a political entity that uses tear gas and batons to clear a priest and other people from a church yard for the sake of an upside down photo op.
"Never interrupt an enemy who is defeating himself." -- Napoleon Bonaparte, 1805
"I never said the conservatives are stupid. I said most stupid people are conservative. It is a fact so obvious, no gentleman may disagree." -- John Stuart Mill, 1866
"The only 'good Republicans' are pushing up daisies." -- Harry S. Truman, 1948
I go with Napoleon and John Stuart Mill but Truman is dead and buried and should remain so lest we remember some of the other things he did and why he was so unpopular and not re-elected. Happily the Rinos will back out of the woodwork once the school yard bully and his myriad lackeys are expelled from school. One may not agree with them but at least one can talk and fight with them about what is best.
Truman did not run for re-election. Because FDR died very soon after winning his fourth term, Truman served as President for more than 50% of that term. That made him ineligible to run for re-election in 1952. That campaign was between Dwight Eisenhower, the hero of the ETO in WW2, and Adlai Stevenson. Truman was thought to be a poor candidate in 1948 but he did, in fact, beat Dewey. He had numerous faults, but losing the presidential election was not one of them.
Many thanks for the info correcting my absence of knowledge. I'd just read something this morning about him being unpopular after firing McArthur (and desegregating the army i'm told) and i put that together with his okaying the dropping of "two or three bombs on Japan. I should have checked further before spouting rubbish with regard to someone i haven't studied.
No worries! I might be a medieval historian but my family (father, uncles, grandfather, great-uncles) were very much involved in the military situation in WW2 and there is no way I could ever not have learned that history! My grandfather was actually part of Eisenhower's adjutant general's office and was with him through the North Africa and Europe campaigns.
Must have made for interesting stories when you visited your grandparents. The lack of grandparents has always made me think i missed out on the family history somewhere. The experience they had on the one hand but also the family "folklore" and legends too.
Except that many WWII vets did not talk about their experiences. My father flew in B17's. I did not know he had been a ball turret gunner until I went to one of his reunions & the guys on his crew said something.
Same thing for my Viet Nam vet husband. The stories he would tell were sanitized & mostly from training or base camp.
Personally, I believe they have so soiled themselves over the last four years they do not deserve to be called Republicans – Romney excepted.
They became the “Party of Trump”’ when they endorsed his behavior and voted to keep him in office: Once a Potty always a Potty. Every last one of these men and women should be targeted by the Democrats and every resource available should be used to retire them from office.
I dream of the day when having chosen to support Trump is a career-ending decision for any politician. And I suspect that even if he loses, when the Biden team comes to work on January 21st, they'll find scores of wiped hard-drives and bushels of shredded paper.
While we pray for an overwhelming win for the Democrats up and down the ticket, they will have a terrible job ahead of them even in the best case. Their own weaknesses will be shown in high relief, and remaining Republicans, like the QAnon supporter from my own State, will happily sabotage everything within reach.
I Agree: Monumental.
Romney lost my respect when he ran for president in 2012. He had to run as a hard-right extremist in order to win the nomination, even though he had been a moderate when he served as Massachusetts governor. Then in the general election, he had to run against the Affordable Care Act, despite the fact that the health care law he had championed as Mass. governor was a prototype. So if he became president, would he revert to his more moderate inclinations, or would he be forced to be the hard-right president that his candidacy suggested? Talk about being two-faced.
I hear you Shelly, and I am no fan of Romney. My mention was to the point of the paucity of any pushback whatsoever against Trump among Republicans, particularly when it counted most – when we had the chance to remove him from office.
It is a slim qualification to carry on as a Republican – but the others, in my opinion – do not merit even the name Republican and should carry the POT brand with them to the end of their days in office and beyond.
Shelly Bird, Sadly I must agree with you about Romney. His countering of Trump is as you said "...opportunistic, careful, and calculated." I am a little disappointed in him. I was hoping for better.
For all that Trump's support seems limited to his bloc of incorrigible loyalists, we can't underestimate the size of that bloc. For instance, I was in a hair salon last week that had upward of 10 people in it; the owner had erected a temporary barrier between the first chair, her own, and the back 3/4 of the shop where the rest of the inhabitants were working/being worked on in unadvisedly close proximity . She and I are pretty much "on the same page" regarding U.S. politics, but she had to lower her voice and whisper to discuss it. The rest of the shop was infested with Trump supporters. She is from Jamaica, while several of the other stylists are from Ukraine and other Eastern Bloc countries.
I'd love to get some feedback from other readers on the attitudes of immigrants toward the President. I haven't seen any formal studies, but I've had the impression many times that immigrants from Eastern European countries tend to be unwaveringly right wing, as if their experiences have led them to conclude that any governmental action is both socialist and corrupt. In addition, immigrants from Latin American countries that have traditionally had "strong man" governments, where it's routine for the ruling party to favor supporters and use governmental powers to punish critics, also tend to favor populist, "undemocratic" leaders. Both groups seem to support Trump in large measure. Has anyone observed or read anything confirming, denying, or explaining this maybe-phenomenon?
This is completely anecdotal, of course, but the half dozen living people I know who are immigrants from Russia are all Trump supporters. One thinks so highly of him we had to stop talking. The others admit he has faults, but are far more worried about the possible evils of a leftist government than the actual evils, including domestic terror attacks, of the current crew. The one possible exception to that is a friend's husband, who would certainly be anti Trump if he were still alive to tell us.
A former co-worker for 15 years (& former friend) is a Russian immigrant. It wasn't until 2016 that I discovered she was a tRump supporter. Now I realize she would be on some cable Russian News app while at work, soaking up who knows what propaganda Putin was feeding. (She and my bro in Mississippi are 2 ppl I have cut off all communication with since Nov. 9, 2016)
The person I mentionnned who idolizes Trump also adores Putin. One of the others - who readily agreed that the Putin's state bank backstopped large loans to DJT through Deutsche Bank - nevertheless identifies with him so much that he says things like "we were impeached' - we, not he.
Since I live in the very reddest part of one the reddest of states (GA), I am surrounded by a wealth of people whose sanity I question. Contrast that with large portion of my base of friends and colleagues being either expats living elsewhere, or being foreign nationals lining in their own countries or in the US. Pretty much ALL of them are very anti-Trump. A few I know have expressed some solidarity with Trump and the far-right and they are also almost all Slavic or live in eastern Europe. You'd think the memory of iron rule by the USSR would still be with them, but maybe that is why the pendulum has swung so far to the right? (A VERY pro-Trump couple I know are Polish (he of Polish extraction, she being native Pole) and are virulently anti-abortion Catholics, though they do tend to shy away from too much activity on social media.) I try to not tangle with Trumpanistas, as a general rule, and practice the adage of "never argue with a pig...it wastes your time and only annoys the pig." You should hear my European and expat friends talking about Trump!...suffice it to say, they simultaneously: scratch their heads trying to comprehend what's going on, laugh at us, and pity us for what we're going through. I think many apply Churchill's quote about Russia from a radio broadcast in October 1939 to the USA right now: "I cannot forecast to you the action of [America]. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key."
Since I lived for so long as a legal immigrant in Holland/EU, when I returned to this country I immediately had more of an understanding of how immigrants feel in this country. (For reference: the county I live in is now approaching 40% Hispanic/Latinx.) So many of them are here to carve out lives for themselves and have left to get away from repressive regimes, but perhaps because of these deeply instilled fears many have been afraid to officially register to vote or to be counted by the census. This IS changing, however, and they seem to be finding their collective voice, and it is decidedly anti-Trump. Oddly enough, what seems to be an exception in Latin American political demographics, so many of the Cuban refugees in south Florida and Miami are staunchly Republican. The GOP's longtime anti-Castro positions undoubtedly had an effect, but now even that seems to be changing with the younger generations. These people recognize authoritarianism, right-wing or left-wing, as well as anyone and that seems to be spurring many of them into action right now. We're getting even closer to turning GA if not "blue", then very solidly "purple"!
"Lining" should be "living"...I WISH we could edit our own posts!!
I suspect that we live fairly close together; I'm in DeKalb County, and I think this county is turning blue-ish purple, at least.
Yep...I'm up in Hall county, real Trump country in 2016, but that might be changing a bit too. We have a very large Latino population here (one of the world's leading poultry processing areas), and when added to the black population it means whites here are now barely a majority. We HAVE to get out and vote!!
Would you say Georgia moving toward purple is a mix of youth and immigrants? Black people voting despite all the suppression efforts? Or are some white folks moving away from Trump?
Yeah, Dan got to it before me...yes, to everything you suggested, Joan. GA is becoming a microcosm of the whole country, in a way. We have rural voters, black rural voters, who tend to vote Democratic, and white rural voters who are overwhelmingly Republican. If I remember correctly, there is only one county (maybe two?) out of our 159 counties (yes, there are WAY too many!) that has a black majority. I could be wrong. Most rural counties are white majority and most are Republican. The increasing numbers of blue voters are found in GA's cities...Savannah, Athens, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, all pockets of blue in a sea of red. Atlanta and environs (15-20 county metro area) now account for almost half of GA's population. Most are young, urban, educated transplants from all over the country, and our population still keeps growing (as the saying goes, "Y'all go home! We full up down here!"). The demographics here keep shifting but are interesting...the city of Atlanta proper is like 80% black, the central 5-county area is overwhelmingly black, except for Cobb county (which has long been the only Republican county of the 5-county area--but that is changing rapidly). Atlanta is home to the largest black middle- and upper-middle class in the country. The greater 20 county metro conurbation has around 6½ million people, with most of the white residents centered in the northern suburbs. Atlanta is a big blue island of Democratic voters that is increasingly at odds with the rest of the state. We are gaining ever so steadily and polls are already showing Biden and Trump fairly close, and one of our incumbent Republican Senators (Perdue) is running behind the Democrat Ossoff in some polls. Trump still has a solid base here, but there are some cracks showing. Even the GA state House and Senate numbers are slowly getting neck and neck...it's very encouraging. And then there's the very large immigrant population of Hispanic/Latinx scattered all over the state, who if they can register and turn out could make a big difference. I'm convinced if there is a really sizable youth/black/immigrant turnout in November, there will be some surprises. GA is changing, and I daresay, like the rest of the country, whites will soon be a minority here. And, IMO, that's kind of as it should be. I think Stacy Abrams's efforts here fighting voter suppression have had a very positive effect, and even though there were voting problems around our primary last June 9th, there is a real concerted effort to not allow that to happen again. I'm cautiously optimistic.
All of the above, I'd say. I've spoken to many more youth who did vote in the primaries and intend to vote in November than did so in 2016, when I literally couldn't find a single person under 25 who voted. The only "in" I have to the black community is through my daughter, who is active in the rap/music scene, and she reports that many of her acquaintances intend to vote for Kanye West as an "FU" vote. All of the white people I know intend to vote for Biden, but I tend to run in the academic/professional circles, so I know I'm not representative. (I don't know anyone in my circle who voted for Trump in 2016, either.)
Oy, this is why we need ranked choice voting, so the youth who need to make a statement can do that with their first rank, and then they can make an actual choice with the second.
I live in a solidly middle class neighborhood in Mérida, Yucatan, (so I am the immigrant). Most people in my neighborhood are of Maya descent, (we are very much a minority being one of the only "white" families in a colonia of several thousand). They despise Donald Trump so much so that right after the stroke of midnight new year's eve 2 separate groups of people burned him in effigy.
I have been to Merida twice. In 1974 with my partner Jim (we got kicked out of Mexico) and in 1981 with Brenda - a better tourist experience.
Rob Jim Centro America trek
https://twitter.com/roboyte/status/1291819466834284545?s=20
Rob Brenda Maya Ruins
https://twitter.com/roboyte/status/1296563935206944771?s=20
Really enjoyed your travelogue! I have a timeshare in Cancun that I haven't been back to since hubby passed. Your adventures make me want to go back.
I was at Chichen Itza some years ago! Thanks for bringing back the memories. A relative got married in Cancun to get away from family, but a hundred people accepted their invitations.
Ha! The problem with Cancun is it's inexpensive to fly to from the U.S. and accommodations tend to be very reasonable.
Rob, thank you for sharing your memories. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them. ❤
I will check these out!
Donald Trump knows that shortly after he becomes a private citizen, he is headed for prison thanks to the AG of New York State and the AG of NYC. While he might resign on January 19 so that Pence can pardon him for all federal crimes, his vulnerability to criminal prosecution leaves him no options other than flight to an extradition-free domicile somewhere or...as we are witnessing...the sabotage of our election to somehow, somehow, somehow remain in office for four more years. If I were him, I guess I'd be doing the same thing. But thank God I am not him...a fate worse than death.
Resigning on January 19...yikes, never thought of that one!
Meant to say the DA of NYC...that's what I get for reading HCR even before my first cup of coffee.
Yes, and make that remain in office the rest of his life. Everybody VOTE!
Evil Mitch McConnell has to go! Either by losing to Amy McGrath or losing his Senate leadership role. I’m tuning in to the Evil Trump’s RNC Extravaganza this week - determined to stick it out. Thank you for your insightful review today, and kudos to Twitter! ❤️🤍💙
You must have more stamina than the average person: I cannot subject myself to listening to Trump spew his hate anymore. I mute the TV every time he comes in; I seriously cannot listen to his babble!
Except through Sarah Cooper!
I am so with you on that! If I can’t stand him in small doses like the “press conferences” I would lose my sanity after 4 nights of him! Deborah, you will need to fill us all in.
If I'm clicking through social media pages and his voice comes on from someone's post or upload, I immediately find the source and turn it off.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, Trump is desperate to win not because he enjoys being president--I suspect that he does not enjoy it and it interrupts his golf game--but because he is terrified of all the indictments that will rain down once he is out of office. Moreover, he is so deep into his narcissism (and his meds are not working for him as stress has a tendency to wreak havoc with the combo he is allegedly taking) that he cannot emerge from the morass of lies, lies, and damn lies in which he is wallowing.
I think that the upcoming Trump televisual extravaganza for his confirmation is going to be extremely embarassing. Not only will it appear cheap and nasty in comparison to the Dems last week but it is just going to be a narcissistic fantasy glorifying the king and his hapless, cloned princelings. Does the "royal family" possess a dog who'll bark in tune to "God save our gracious Trump, God save the Trump!" while they raise the confederate flag and the audience bows down on all fours to "salute the saviour". Nothing will be base enough! This is the stuff of childish vengenge tantrums.
The most worrying aspects for McConnell etc however are the plea for journalists to be " kind" and to leave them their illusions...or just not report their inanities..., their perceived need to silence their own party members and the total absence of any external heavy hitting supporters. After all their is at least one living past-President on the GOP side who seems to have gone of into the "bush" on safari like Teddy Roosevelt so as not to see, hear or speak and ...as i don't know if Zombies can be killed... Reagan might be still with us other than in spirit! It would seem that the "smell" is getting to the point of being unbearable and possibly dangerous for the health of those near Trump.
From this, downword is the only way you can go. He'll do it with flashing lights and fake explosions...just like the "baddy" in 007 James Bond movie finales.
I suppose this will be playing in the background over dinner the next few nights, with my family cheering. Hopefully I’ll need to work late. Going to put extra love out into the universe this week to combat all of the hate.
I’ll be putting out a lot of love for you, Mel, for having to put up with that from your family. Some of my family does the same thing, but thankfully they don’t live with me!
First, I had to laugh at the "dog" comment. I am doing an online "Watch Party" with several friends this week. We watched the DNC last week. It was a lot of fun. This week I think there will be a lot of drinking and snark:)
Mitch McConnell is asking for kindness?? I'm surprised the word is still in his vocabulary.
Irony is such a excellent way to pierce "obliquely" without necessarily appearing to attack.
Love your analyses. For this, just tell me will this have any impact on those who would likely vote Republican?
"This raises legal questions..." The implied and sometimes actual sub-headline to nearly every move Republican-elected trump makes.
"Democrats have raised concerns..." That, alongside "find this concerning," speaks volumes to the relatively milquetoast public response by the left to All Things Trump. Where are the raging Howard Beales, Steve Schmidt notwithstanding?
To my immediate point. I had another in a long chain of AHA moments earlier this morning. This one hit home harder than most.
A progressive, politically active, and relatively fearless friend PM'd me the promo to Michael Cohen's book "Disloyal." Very scary stuff. That it came to me via a PM caught my attention. Apparently my friend was reluctant to post the promo on FB. So, I sat here, looking at it and thinking, "Well, I'm not afraid to do that." Turns out I am.
Turns out that even though I'm a mini-micro-dot on trump's radar, I'm afraid to risk anything that could possibly turn the POTUS equivalent of Eye of Sauron in my direction. Much of trump's ranting and raving has been categorized as sound and fury, signifying nothing. A device to scare the, umm, dickens out of lesser beings (that would be all the rest of us). That particular take served me/us reasonably well until we began to see/read evidence that POTUS is most truly demented man who has surrounded himself with violent, unprincipled hitmen. (Is there any other kind?) That, and his mentor who poisons people who cross him.
Mary Trump, Maryanne Trump, Michael Cohen and a passel of other apparent truth-tellers know the full, dangerous and desperate, Mob-like mentality of trump. The take-away from people who dare to speak out is that: (1) trump has no boundaries; (2) the destruction of trump's moral compass began early in his life; (3) trump's love of self supersedes everything, including his late-breaking, carney-barking proclamations that he's all in for God; (4) that he holds and magnifies slights and grudges forever and generally can be counted on to make the lives of those who do not worship his derriere a living hell. Likely he has made that manifest to Republican senators, reps, loyalists--a few of whom seem to get their jollies participating in this deadly game.
It is what it is.
I wouldn't worry too much. Inducing feelings of fear & paranoia are the weapons the far right/Trump base are hoping to instill in those of us against him. There are FAR too many of us, just using my friend base on Facebook as an example. Almost all my friends, mostly musicians and artists, are very anti-Trump, some quite virulently so. Multiply that by several million and I think the sheer numbers would make any kind of backlash virtually impossible, whatever the results in November. Armed militias like the Boogaloo Boys and Qanon loonies are trying to cow us into silence with threats of armed resistance and terrorism. I say: "BRING IT. Just try." They are legends in their own testosterone-crazed little minds. I can't realistically see them slaughtering more than half of the country. Never fear, you're not any more "bat-sh!t crazy" than the rest of us!
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has it in the back of their mind that, should this election for some reason result in the trump regime remaining in power, that I could very well be in danger for publicly expressed opinions and comments. I have made the comment to my husband more that once that "I am on some list, somewhere" because of my anti-trump comments on social media. I have tried very hard to tone it down but I find that I am so outraged by this takeover of our government that I am inclined to retweet almost all of the tweets from the Lincoln Project, which will do me no favors unless Biden wins and is able to step into the office.
My husband thinks I may be batsh*t crazy. I hope so!
UNBELIEVABLE
That tRump and his enablers can illegally destroy the USPS with impunity. It shows our government has flaws when the original checks & balances of power between the 3 branches can be so easily negated and an unqualified madman can take control. IT DID HAPPEN HERE!
UNBELIEVABLE
That Fake Christians (Like tRump standing in front of a church holding a Buybull for a foto op) can usurp the Constitution and make a Religious Test as part of qualification. The only comfort I get out of a lifetime of fighting against religious Paulists posing as Christians, is that they plagued Thomas Jefferson as well for not declaring himself a Christian. It is very upsetting to see these religious fanatics trying to make a theocracy out of our secular nation and the Repugnant Party is complicit. (Marco Rubio has taken to Buybull quotes in his tweets now).
I have had incredulous District Attorney’s actually question me for striking out the “so help me god” while taking an oath in deposition. I have quit serving on juries as soon as I aged out because of that same oath ending in “so help me god” which was given to us en masse and I couldn’t omit it. To presume that everyone in a supposed secular nation be required to acknowledge “under god” in a pledge or be added as a “we” “in god we trust,” is a most divisive insult.
You may have guessed this is personal with me. :) If anyone thinks I come from Demon Seed, know that I was raised and Baptized a Southern Baptist. It was the Hypocrisy that I saw even as a child that made me an Anti-Theist Agnostic by my teen years. I had an uncle, Deacon of his Southern Baptist Church in Mississippi who was also in the KKK. And he was likely not as fake as Donald tRump holding up a Buybull.
Absolute heretic according to the Trump party here - 100% godless my whole life. It's run me into some walls at times.
Telling that the last resolution in the Republican Platform Resolution is that any attempt to amend the 2016 platform or to introduce a new platform will be ruled out of order. The Republican Party seems incredibly brittle right now. Trump and his ego remind me so much of Captain Ahab, who cried “I’d strike the sun if it insulted me!” Where can they possibly go from here with such hubris and inflexibility?
Maybe we should start a GoFundMe page for the USPS.
Did I miss the explanation for why DeJoy said he didn't need the $25 billion? or whatever the amount was
I had no idea Trump's Kellyanne Conway and Lincoln Project's George Conway were in any way connected. How on earth is one to keep up with it all?
And their daughter is trying to emancipate herself from both! This administration is wild.
In the news today: TN, already with the most restrictive VBM procedures among the states (no drop boxes, ballot only for stated purposes (but not Covid), no ability to take your ballot to a polling place or the election commission offices, has announced “camping” in front of the Capitol is now a FELONY. So, loss of voting right.
My guess other red states will follow with laws taking voting rights away from protesters, and after a month or two it will once again turn out that David Koch's groups helped think up the idea.
Wow! Reality keeps getting more bizarre. Does tRump really think he’s swaying other than his bloc? When you, Professor Richardson, put this down In black and white it is almost unbelievable. Almost.
Wow. Just wow.
I had a very awful thought. So I put as a question. If the House of Representatives and the Senate cannot agree on a budget beginning Oct. 1, 2020 and the government shuts down, can 'Trump' delay the election action because of the shut down?
Legally, no. Constitutionally, no. The states run elections, not the feds. Also, if there is no election and the rule of law has not disappeared, here is what happens: As of Jan.1, 2021, the only elected officials in the federal government will be the remaining senators whose terms had not expired. This is a group with a Democratic majority. Whoever they elect as the President Pro Tem of the Senate will become President of the United States on Jan.21 after 45's term ends. The Senate can elect whoever they want. It's usually the oldest member of the majority party, since it's normally just a courtesy position. But that is custom, not law. Under the circumstances, we can expect them to elect Joe Biden. Therefore, on Jan. 21, the federal government would consist of a new Democratic president and a democratic-majority Senate. This is not an outcome that DJT would seek.