Stephen Altschuler

thoughts on environment, politics, health, life issues

2024 election

The “All About Me” Years

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The 1920s were the Roaring 20s. The 30s were the We’re all in this together years. The 40s were the Uncle Sam Needs You Years. The 50s were the I Like Ike Years. The 60s, after JFK’s murder, were the Ask What Your Country Did to You Years. The 70s were the Me Decade. And now, jumping to the 2020s, it’s the “All About Me” Years, on steroids via social media and Donald Trumpoids. As the rollicking and over the top vodka commercial says, “Sometimes you just gotta give the people what they want!” And what about half the population wants is no masks, no vaccines, no shutdowns, no facts, no science, no reality, and well, apparently, no democracy, which includes very little government intervention even when faced with a worldwide pandemic. What’s next? No traffic lights, smoking allowed everywhere, cell phones and video games allowed when driving, relieving oneself anywhere and anytime, resisting police guarding our government buildings like our U.S Capitol, and, yelling fire in a movie theater even when there is no fire, and many other examples of a no holds barred freedom of speech that some 1/6 rioters are using as their absurd defense. No restrictions. Total freedom to do anything an individual wants and chooses to do. No mandates and…well, no laws because aren’t laws just more mandates? Guns? Sure, anytime, anywhere. Even kids can bring them into schools because well, to forbid it would be a mandate that would restrict a kid’s freedom. Kids could also curse out their teachers, bully other kids, and spout out lies and falsehoods when answering questions, just as they hear their country’s leader, Donald Trump, do on Truth, his social media platform, where anything but Truth will be presented. And rampant death threats on anyone and anytime? Sure. Why not. There are no consequences. Politicians rarely speak out against them. So good people resign from important job to save them themselves and their family against this tyranny. It’s all despicable and unconscionable.

Democracy? “We don’t need no stinkin’ democracy!” Trump and the All About Me-rs, scream. That’s just something the Democrats invented to steal elections and keep Trump out of power. Voting? Just more government bullshit! We don’t need no stinkin’ voting. And one party, the Republican one, will do just fine. In the All About Me years, people do what they damn well want to do, fuc*k the consequences because there are no consequences. White power? Sounds good, like in the old days, say the Trumpsters on the street, in the bars, in the stadiums, in the diners, and on the roads.

That’s the America we saw on January 6, 2021 at our nation’s Capitol building, with its writing continuing to be on the wall, as the saying goes. Trump, Carlson, Hannity, McConnell, Cruz, Taylor Greene, and the cult followers have continued to lay the groundwork of their own fascist infrastructure since the reign of Donald the Small. Battleground states have established new voting procedures where traditional Democrat voters–Blacks, urban poor, students, youth–will have a harder time casting their ballots; voting districts have been gerrymandered to rig elections in favor of Republican candidates; and those tallying and approving vote counts will be partisans loyal to Donald Trump and company. All signed, sealed, collected and delivered, to the governors of 19 states controlled by their Republican legislatures. Merrick Garland says there’s really nothing much he can do about it until the Congress enacts the two voting rights bills. But Congress is stymied because no Republican senators will have the courage and wisdom to vote for the bills, including Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski, and two Democratic senators, Manchin from West Virginia and Sinema from Arizona refuse to back a carving out of the filibuster to get those bills to the floor (as McConnell did to push through three ultra-conservative Trump nominees to the Supreme Court).

So there you have it, America. The GOP, after years of searching, has finally found its Viking leader who will figuratively rape and pillage the U.S. Constitution to drop this pesky Democracy and opt for a Trumpian strongman government where White Christian super rich men rule, where lies are labeled truths, profit is holy, and the climate crisis is a hoax fading into the fog of memory. The American experiment with “all men are created equal” will be over, along with one person, one vote, due process, and “give me your tired, your poor.”

If you want a model for how it will all pan out, that’s easy: Just look at Xi Jinping and China today; and Putin’s Russia; and Belarus, Hungry, Syria, Turkey, and other authoritarian one-party regimes. Is this what we want for our country?

So you choose, America. In 1861, a war was fought to save our Union. Lincoln and many Americans stood up to Southern slaveholding secessionists and the duped country boys who fought for them. Democracy won that time, at great cost to human life and limb. What now? Will we stand up to Trump and his “All About Me” Viking hordes as we did in the 1860s and 1960s for civil rights and the principles of equality this country stood, and still stands, for?

I hope so. I truly hope so.

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For a break with politics, pandemics, and pets on FB, check out my latest book, The Valley Spirit: Living a Tao-inspired Life, available at Amazon. It gives some vital guidance on finding balance in life during these troubled times. Thank you.

The 14th and 15th Amendments: As relevant today as yesteryear

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The 14th Amendment authorizes the federal government to punish states that violated or abridged their citizens’ right to vote by proportionally reducing the states’ representation in Congress, and mandates that anyone who “engaged in insurrection” against the United States could not hold civil, military or elected office (without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate).

The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, also part of the Bill of Rights, reads as follows:

Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2
The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Excuse my lack of legal expertise, but it seems these amendments, passed in 1868 and 1870 respectively, accomplished several things to protect our democracy which are still in place. First, they would seem to make the voter suppression laws enacted by 19 GOP-dominated state legislatures illegal and unconstitutional. If that is true, then why is the Department of Justice (DOJ), formed in 1870 to fight voter suppression and the newly formed Ku Klux Klan, not actively pursuing injunctions against these states to stop enactment of these scurrilous laws until their legality can be more thoroughly questioned in court? Why indeed! This would perhaps delay the implementation of these laws until after the 2022 election thus making that election more fair and free to all instead of it now seriously more favoring a GOP strategy resulting in a return to GOP majorities in both houses of Congress.

But Attorney General Merrick Garland, to date, has taken action only against Texas, and no other state. President Joe Biden has also been lax in more actively pushing for the passage of two federal voting rights bills that will help the DOJ to make its case against these GOP state legislatures that are trying to bring back a time that existed before the Civil War when Black folks were denied the same rights as White folks. Mr. Biden, who I think has done a great job otherwise, needs to borrow a page from Lyndon Johnson’s play book when a President could get what he wanted by making quid pro quo deals and twisting arms when appropriate. Even Sen. Mitch McConnell changed the filibuster to get his ultra-conservative Trump Supreme Court in place. Certainly President Biden can do the same to save our democracy from a Republican avalanche of illegal Trump Big Lie-inspired voter suppression laws.

If both he and Garland don’t do what needs to be done, then they are helping the GOP take several giant steps backwards (and certainly not bothering to say, “May I?”) in the fight to make equal all citizens of this country, regardless of race, creed, religion, or political persuasion. It takes us back to when Reconstruction, which did bring equality to all, was abandoned by another President who, after Lincoln’s murder by a Southern white supremacist, paved the way for racists and their allies to rise again, and continue rising again for another 150 years.

That lands us right here in 2022, believe it or not, still fighting for a basic right of democracy: one citizen–regardless of race or creed–one vote, allowing that this nation “shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” as our beloved President Lincoln so eloquently put it.

The Republican Party, which once was the party of Lincoln, is now steeped in the lies of Donald Trump and his cronies. They are saturated with the idea that an endorsement from Trump will gain them election. But that endorsement may well be a figurative deal with the devil, and we all know where those deals often lead. So the answer to all this is that a coalition of voters needs to see the danger and rise up as Lincoln arose during a time of great risk to himself and country. That coalition needs to lean on their current legislators and push to end the filibuster and get those voting rights bills passed so Garland and Biden can do their work to save this democracy. That coalition needs to vote for Democrats at every level in 2022 and show the Trump GOP they cannot bully this country into submission and authoritarianism.

It would also seem to me that the 14th Amendment would effectively block Donald Trump from ever again running for any public office in America. He instigated an insurrection against our government, as the House Commission will soon show with undeniable evidence (and which I saw, along with many of us on TV, as vividly as some of us saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald in a Texas police basement in 1963 on national TV!). This probably won’t lock Teflon Don up, but, according to this Amendment to our Constitution, should conclusively prevent him from ever seeking public office again. I realize the amendment was aimed at Southern secessionists at the time, but it does not limit it to them, opening it up to any future insurrectionists like Trump.

That, dear readers, is all I have to say on these matters…at least for now. Thanks for your attention.

How to Handle Trump (and other) Bullies

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In responding to a Trump bully on FB, I replied, “Ah, another Trump bully looking for a fight.” That, so far, has shut this bully up. But who knows. They do have a tendency to simmer for a while then raise their ugly heads again in toxic reply. Most of these Trump followers are either hardened cult members who’ve swallowed the Kool Aid and would effectively die for their fascist leader. Or perhaps they are politicians in the fetid mold of Marjorie Taylor Greene who back Trump as they would a deal with the devil that they bargain will get them reelected or at least prevent death threats to them or their families as never-Trump folks have experienced. Or perhaps they are Fox “News” viewers who are longing to be noticed and acknowledged in a society that is changing faster than you can say Jack Robinson, and, in fact, are increasingly looking like Jackie Robinson. They’re scared for their future and voted for Trump in an attempt to stem the rising tide of reality, the tide that raises even their resistant ships.

Whoever they are, their minds tend to harden and calcify over time, particularly as Trump doubles and triples down on his election and Joe Biden presidency lies. They are not necessarily white supremacists who are merely riding on Trump’s coattails with their own nefarious agenda, but they are also not necessarily those on the streets or in their Trump trucks carrying Trump placards. But many are ardent Facebookers who seem to be constantly monitoring the news feed for posts criticizing their heavyweight (or is it overweight?)champion. It’s almost like they hover over their computers in endless vigil like East German soldiers used to do at the Berlin Wall ready to shoot those trying to escape. Ultimately, like any bully, their aim is to perpetrate a fight, a virulent diatribe that devolves into a deeper and deeper rabbit hole of vitriol. So their initial foray is a direct spit in the eye, wanting to be sure to get the kind of response they are looking for.

It is, of course, tempting to spit back, thinking that will shut this bully up, but it doesn’t work that way. For that revs up the bully and gets his inner juices to acidify even more. He then gets even more personal, for he knows from experience that the more personal his attacks the more he will inflict an injury not on the body but on the ego which is even more apt to get a personal response. Once that response is accomplished, he’s off to the races knowing he’s enticed a probable liberal into the kind of confrontation he’s looking for. On the other hand, such a Trump bully would probably make a good ad man, getting people to buy products that they don’t particularly need or even want. But that’s another post.

So I would suggest to take a breath and not respond to the Trump bully’s first volley. This is after all a kind of cold war not a hot one. Check to see how their bullying comments makes you feel, both intellectually and viscerally. What’s your first reaction and what would you say back if you responded immediately. Would it be “an eye for an eye”? Would it be a “never again”? Would it be a “love thine enemy?” It’s always good to just observe that first reaction before any actual action. That’s puts the situation under your control and not the bully’s who expects you will act on your first reaction immediately. Bullies love gut reactions as they often lead to the fights they crave.

After that first wave hits the shore, see if you can come up with something that conveys your feelings without getting personal. That’s key, for as soon as you get into personal territory you bring out the bully’s claws. From the 8th grade through high school it was often obnoxious reference to one’s mother that got the cock fight going. But in adulthood it’s words like “insane” or “stupid” or “idiot” or “cult” or now, “Trump” that revs up the engines. One word of caution: bullies are quite adept at turning a dialogue into an out and out fight. Any reaction on your part is, in part, a victory for a bully, particularly a Trump bully. So remember, in a flight or fight scenario, flight is as good a reaction as any. That translates as instead of responding, forget and continue to scroll the news feed. That turns the boil to a simmer to an outright turning the flame off. But if you must respond, read on.

Whatever you come up with (and I do think you should consider my suggestion at the beginning of this piece), you’ll need to go back to the bully’s comment that got you to this point in the proceeding. Do you actually know what he is saying and why he is saying it (btw, the bully is almost always male!)? Is your comeback addressing what he is saying? If you were him, what would your reaction be to your return comment? That effectively passes your comment through a few filters, which offers no guarantees of success but at least more thoroughness on your part).

And what is success? For me, it would be what I experienced in my most recent skirmish: no response at all. Silence from the bully indicates that none of his criteria have been met for further battles. I submit you will never convince a Trump bully to acquiesce to your argument. He will never agree with you or even concede you have a point. His belief is ironclad, rigid, inflexible, and as hardened as an anvil, just like his leader Donald Trump. And as that attitudinal approach will be Trump’s downfall, as it has already led to his defeat in the 2020 election, it will ultimately and eventually lead to the bully giving up his campaign, much like the kid in the 8th grade who bullied me for a time back in the day, or this guy in FB who failed to return my “Ah, another Trump bully looking for fight.”

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A Happy, healthy, peaceful New Year, y’all!

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Three books of mine, all published in 2021, await your inspection and, perhaps, purchase on Amazon. They are The Valley Spirit: Living a Tao-inspired Life, Into the Woods…and Beyond, and Golf 360: For Current Players and Those Considering the Game. Thank you.

The Truth

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I understand Trump’s new social media network will be called Truth. This guy’s operating manual is the novel 1984. If you haven’t read it, please do. This is our future if Trump takes over again. In the novel, the authoritarian government develops a new language called Newspeak where everything gets twisted and skewed according the government’s interpretation of what is true. And if you don’t speak it, you’re labeled a subsersive and taken in, without due process, for violation of the norm. People are routinely spied upon by their neighbors and cameras are everywhere to monitor people’s movements and intentions. Privacy is gone. Conformity is the rule and the ruler. You must be careful what you do or say every waking minute. And fealty to the leader is essential. Totally essential.

Sound familiar? It’s Trump’s modus operandi. “Fuck him!” Trump said to former Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for committing the cardinal sin of congratulating Joe Biden just a day after his victory. Disloyalty is the worst crime anyone can commit according to Trump. He acts like a cult leader. He acts like a mafia boss. He acts like a totalitarian dictator. And he could very well be reelected President of the United States again in 2024.

If this happens, contrary to making America great again, he will send this country down a rabbit hole of chaos, disharmony, despair, and violent white supremacists. He will send this planet down a final road to perdition, deriding climate change as fake news. Through his Supreme Court, he will elide our Constitution into a mockery, and throw our Bill of Rights into the rubbish with it. America, as we have known it, will go the way of the Holy Roman Empire, gutted from inside out even more than outside in.

How to stop him? Ironically, watch Liz Cheney, an arch-conservative, and daughter of once equally conservative de facto President Dick Cheney. She’s a U.S. Representative who votes against Biden and formerly for Trump policies every step of the way, who I submit should supplant Elon Musk as Time’s Person of the Year. Liz Cheney may be a Republican ultra-conservative but she knows how to speak truth to abusive power. She is the only Congressperson, Republican or Democrat, who has the courage to stand up to Donald Trump and say it like it is, as we used to put it.

“For multiple hours,” she said publicly, “President Trump chose not to take the specific and immediate action many urged – as the violent mob besieged & invaded the Capitol, attacked & injured scores of Capitol Police, & obstructed Congress’s count of electoral votes,” she reiterated. “This was a supreme dereliction of the President’s duty.” And later, under her co-leadership of the House Committee to Investigate the Jan.6 insurrection, she continued her powerful scrutiny of the ex-President, asking a question no other congressperson, to my knowledge, has dared to ask: “Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress’s proceedings?”

Such a charge, if proven, could land Trump in jail for many years and, importantly, prevent him from ever again holding public office of any kind in the United States.

Republican Liz Cheney leads the assault on Trump, but it will take the Department of Justice under the leadership of Attorney General Merrick Garland, to arrest, charge, try, and convict him. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that he must do this now, but my dear astute wife intervened, reminding me that, more than likely, AG Garland is waiting for the House Committee to finish amassing all its evidence so he can then use that evidence in an open-and-shut court case against Trump. I hope she’s right.

For if the case against Trump is swept under the rug, or unreasonably delayed, by the DOJ, our country is in dire trouble. We’re facing a political monster who will not cease his destructive ways if not stopped by definitive legal action.

And that’s… The Truth.

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DINO Joe Manchin announced on Fox News (that’s right, Fox–so called–News) that he will not be voting for Biden’s signature Build Back Better bill that will cover social and domestic programs. I’m beginning to see that when the Senate became a 50-50 deal, Manchin saw that as a golden opportunity to become a power broker–a very rich power broker. I expect fossil “fool” magnates, as well as Trump Repubs, saw him as a viable cog in Biden’s agenda to set this country on the right track. Money began to pour into Manchin’s coffers from Republican sources as they increasingly saw him as an ally in their obstructionist schemes.

So between the fascist Trump and the DINO Manchin, we are in quite a pickle for I would also surmise that the voting rights bills are also off the table. Without Manchin’s support for modification, the filibuster continues to give the Republicans a powerful arrow in their quiver of treasonous hypocrisy.

The only solution I can see is a colossal Democratic victory in the 2022 midterm election in both the House and the Senate that would politically vaporize Trump, Manchin, and Sinema. How about it, y’all? Let’s shock, and essentially save, the world and get out there and make such a surprise landslide happen. Otherwise, it’s curtains, my friends.