American politics in a nutshell

     There's this joke that I read a long while back. I've refined and refurbished it to make it more accurate.

"A black man, a Latino, a white social democrat, a poor white Republican, and a billionaire were sitting at a table.
The waitress comes up to the table with a platter of 100 cookies.
The billionaire grabs the platter before it's set on the table and scoops 99 cookies into a large doggy bag. He then puts the platter with the remaining cookie in the middle of the table, turns to the poor white Republican, and says 'My friend, you better watch out. Those three are after your cookie.'"

     That punchline brings home the disingenuous lie that the plutocrats have been spinning since the rise of Reagan. It's been swallowed over and over, and now the problem has come to a head with the rise of Trumpolini.

     I like quotable people because, as a lover of language, it is a reflection of their way with words and thought processes. This is why it's so hard to reason with words and nuanced thinking with the "Git R Dun" crowd. I know I used an old catchphrase, but it goes to show that true words of wisdom never go out of style. To further prove my point, maybe "Happy Happy Happy" would be a more fitting reference.
     Though he was a former racist, really a product of his upbringing pre-politics, I've come to respect Lyndon Johnson the more and more I read quotes from him. If a person like him can get it, anyone can.
     Let's take a look at the quote that hits the nail on the head, from an off-the-cuff conversation with Bill Moyers.
     "I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it," he said. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." He said it directly, and he said it in the vernacular of his upbringing.
     To anyone who reads this, what do we do?

Where to begin? Processing the rise of Trumpolini.

     It's hard to process all this. I would like to copy and paste what is, so far, the best summation of many people's reaction. This is from political analyst Van Jones:

"You tell your kids don't be a bully, you tell your kids don't be a bigot, you tell your kids do your homework and be prepared, and then you have this outcome. You have people putting children to bed tonight and they are afraid of breakfast. They're afraid of 'How do I explain this to my children?'... This was a whitelash against a changing country. It was whitelash against a black president in part. And that's the part where the pain comes."

     Trump isn't qualified to be president. I know people on the Right have said that so many times about President Obama. But I'm calling Trump out for being unqualified because he's racist, he's sexist, he's not a friend to the LGBT community. He's not a leader, but rather a divider. He's a combination of Zapp Brannigan ('Futurama') and BP Richfield ('Dinosaurs').
     The only reason the Right called Obama unqualified was because he's black; they try to deny their racism, but it's there. "The zoo has an African lion; the White House has a lyin' African" one Tea Party sign read. "Let's make the White House white again" one man had on his T-shirt. And the birther movement was definitely rooted in racism.

     I, myself, was disappointed and disheartened by this election season from the get-go. In the primary, I voted for Bernie Sanders. He was heavily favored, but Debbie Wasserman Schultz pulled strings and gave the Democratic nomination to Clinton.
     Being in a red state, I knew that Trump would win. So, I used my vote to voice my ideals, instead of just voting for Clinton for the sake of voting against Trump. I took my vote further left, and voted for the Socialist candidate, Emidio "Mimi" Soltysik.

     I feel that having Trump in the White House will make the worst of society more socially acceptable. Racially motivated murders will be more commonplace, as will the cover-ups. Same for the LGBT community.
     We, on the left, need to stand strong. We need to stand strong against the onslaught of hate and anti-intellectualism. Whoever reads this, please heed my rallying call.

So, yeah, this is happening.

     I haven't blogged about religion, history, or politics lately, so here it is. Trump's rallies are getting scarier. People are being thrown out of his gatherings for no real reason, other than looking different (stereotylically Muslim or racially Latino) or photographing things they shouldn't photograph. It's not reasonable to think that he or his henchmen would behave differently if he got elected. I mean, if he casts people aside using a private security force now, what will he do with "undesirables" later?

     I've noticed that poor and middle class people who are neo-conservatives have been sold on a bill of goods. They're told that the tax cuts would create jobs, but they haven't recognized that "trickle down" economics hasn't worked for 30 years, and has been nothing but an upward redistribution of wealth. They're told that the liberals want to tax everyone, not just remove the tax cuts for the wealthy. They're told that concern over the environment is just "big government interfering with businesses," like they've forgotten that the abolition of slavery, child labor laws, and workplace safety laws came from the government. They have been told that supporting the troops is the same thing as supporting the corporate-driven reason they're overseas in the first place. They believe that gun control will lead to a jack-booted take-over and FEMA camps, without realizing that they're already out-gunned, and never thinking that the take-over would be done by the troops they claim to support in the first place. They're all hypnotized and running a contradictory maze.

     I was at work when I found out that Justice Antonin Scalia died. I didn't, and still am not, mourning at all. He was a major cog in the corporate take-over of our government. But I knew that there would be a political shit-fight in DC between Obama's camp wanting to replace him, and the obstructionist conservative faction grinding their heels. I know that he won't be replaced by someone who's less than right-of-center. It's not going to be pretty.