Enduring all of the nonsense, the cringeworthy headlines which seem to assault us collectively on a daily basis is truly exhausting. It is enough to make me actually stay away from the news more and more. As a result, for the first time in my adult life these days, I often find myself being the only one, or one of the few, who has not heard this or that latest news story.
But when you have Donald Trump as the president, it feels that this is almost an expected side effect. You just do not want to bother following the news anymore, because you know it's not going to be good. In fact, it's going to be incredibly depressing, a constant, nagging reminder that the country - and indeed the world - seems to be in freefall at the moment.
Now, while I no longer identify as a Democrat - the Clinton years pretty much took care of that - I have never been a Republican. Hell, I am one of the few people I know who has never voted Republican on any level, and again, I am not even a loyal supporter of the Democrats. In fact, both parties tend to make me sick, and I approach both with extreme skepticism and caution.
However, it seemed to me that in the past, the Republicans, when in power, felt almost like a well-oiled machine. I was not really old enough to follow or fully understand politics back during the Reagan years, but the perception was that the controlled public perception very effectively. Remember, Reagan won the popular vote in the 1984 election with something like 59% of the popular vote, and won 49 of the 50 states. No election night suspense back then, I can tell you. And whether or not you agreed with them - and my family rarely did - it felt like they were a unified force, and always on message. Little to no deviation from the official viewpoint.
It largely remained like that immediately after Reagan, through the Bush years. At least until the very end, when it seemed like they began to lose the narrative just a little bit. Bush (Senior, that is) seemed reluctant to admit that we were in a recession, and the whole "Read my lips" thing killed his credibility. Also, the Republican National Convention in 1992 seemed to veer off topic a bit. In fact, it was a prelude of what was to come with the Republicans, a glimpse of their fixation on the culture wars. That was particularly true regarding Pat Buchanan. Back then, this country had enough sense and limitations that it cost the Republicans the election.
Then a couple of years later, the Republicans were back. Not in the White House, but Newt Gingrich swept into Congressional power with his "Contract With America," although I still remember Erin Brockovich suggesting that it was actually a "Contract On America." That seemed more accurate. Yet, Clinton had turned the Democrats considerably to the right, so that they took the position that Republicans had formerly held, while the Republicans moved farther and farther to the right - a problem that would continue to plague them right to the present day. Ultimately, even though the 1994 election seemed disastrous at the time to Clinton, he was able to reverse that and win the '96 election handily.
When Bush Junior came to power, the Republicans still had some of that old "well-oiled machine" feel, in terms of generally sticking to the message and towing the party line. That said, Bush and company seemed to be such buffoons that they kept making a mockery of themselves consistently, so that it was difficult to view them overly seriously, despite holding all the power. Everything seemed to go wrong, form corporate scandals (Enron, Blackwater, Haliburton, the the scandals that largely both contributed and underscored why we hit some tough economic times during the "Great Recession." There was even some - not much, but some - criticism of the Bush administration towards the end. Nevertheless, the Republicans did not implode or lose their unity.
With Trump, however, all of that changed. Yes, he keeps winning. But it is difficult not to chalk that up to some strange dark charisma that he holds over just enough people to come to and retain power. In fact, Trump is off-putting to even more people, and that is why he still never reached majority support, either in elections or in polls (although he came close, officially, in the 2024 election). But the sheer buffoonery undoes any perceptions of them as a well-oiled machine.
And while it was bad during the first four years - it should have been enough to discredit him permanently and to assure that Trump would never rise again - this second term has been so much worse. If the consequences were not so deadly serious, it might feel like a comedy of errors. Everything that they try seems to fail miserably, from the on again/off again tariffs, to his weak, half-baked explanations for why he could not lower the price of groceries, or how gas is $1.99 in some parts of the country, supposedly, or how he had to abandon his promise to stop the war in Ukraine, or now, how he and his administration have completely mishandled the war in Iran - a war he promised not to get us involved with in the first place. And let's not even get into the ever changing rationales regarding the release of the Epstein Files.
Naturally, since these people are snakes, they are bound to turn on each other. When the going gets bad, the bad bring out the worst in themselves and each other. They are all corrupt, but it seems that they are also in a hurry to deflect blame from themselves, and so show a willingness to point the finger of blame at one another instead. Witness Trump, one moments praising his own hand-picked team and claiming that they are the best, then turning around and claiming that they are failure and losers when, inevitably, they fail.
Again, not exactly a well-oiled machine.
Below is a link to an article showing a wonderful example of this. Kristi Noem fired someone during her time as head of the Department of Homeland Security, and this same guy just got promoted within the same department, which seems like a not so subtle dig at her.
It's almost comforting to see the snakes turn their venom on one another, instead of on the rest of the country, or on the whole world, for that matter.
Take a look by clicking on the link below:
Kristi Noem's fresh humiliation as Trump reverses DHS firing Story by Yelena Mandenberg • 20h •
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kristi-noem-s-fresh-humiliation-as-trump-reverses-dhs-firing/ar-AA218AS5?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=69e36440f7854fed90dfe18298fe1d99&ei=14
Kristi Noem's fresh humiliation as Trump reverses DHS firing
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