It's All Part of the Plan

Our Clown-in-Chief said more stupid things last week, most of which occurred at his Big Texas Circle Jerk. One of the more terrifying tidbits was that he expects The War That Isn’t a War to end after the elections.

There are a couple of angles to this.

First off, you could say he knows he can’t end the war before then. So then, any other time will be, by definition, “after the war.” But that’s just the literal aspect.

The second point, the one that scares me, is that the means by which he intends to end the war will be so distasteful that he needs it to be after the elections, or else it will negatively affect the vote. As if there aren’t a dozen other atrocities that weigh on the scale right now.

The first thing that comes to mind is the use of nukes, which will roil the oil market and send gas prices into the stratosphere for decades, and probably dam up the Strait for good. After that, oil will seem like a quaint idea when we can’t get enough fertilizer to grow nation-sustaining crops.

And, of course, there is the horrific, massive loss of innocent life that happens any time a nuclear bomb is used. Of course, to this Administration, the fact that these will be brown people with weird names mitigates the damage.

Then there is the possibility of in-kind retaliation, either by a foreign state or an independent terrorist with a suitcase nuke. After a national tragedy like 9/11, the nation came together. If such an emergency happens again, I don’t think we’ll see such a unified front. The race to blame political opponents and exact revenge will short-circuit everything else. And it’s exactly the kind of thing TFG would use to declare martial law and assert power indefinitely.

It’s funny that in the best possible outcome, he’s just blowing his usual torrent of lies and exaggerations. But you never really know with this guy.

 

The other big item was his $5,000 bribe to vote Republican in November. The fact that he continually proposes handing out cash, without it ever happening, practically guarantees that zero cash will ever be forthcoming. No one is taking this “offer” seriously, except maybe a few MAGAs who are still waiting for their special NFTs to turn a profit, or their gold shoes to show up.

The national Republican apparatus was quick to cast doubt on the prospect, but they may not be in on the possible endgame.

Consider the fact that Republicans can be relied on to do two things:

·         Spike the deficit when they’re in power by slashing taxes for the rich.

·         Demand a balanced budget when the Democrats are in power.

It seems to be their most effective weapon, even though anyone who’s been paying attention for the last 45 years can see the pattern. We Americans have the national attention span of a flea.

So if this giveaway spikes the deficit even more, it only adds to the case Republicans are sure to bring in the future: that spending needs to be slashed because of the deficit. (Assuming we can ever actually remove the current occupant.)

What’s one of any future Democratic administration’s priorities? It had better be de-Trumpifying the government, via un-naming things he smeared his logo on or built in his own honor, restoring the governmental departments that have been gutted, and rehiring tens of thousands of government workers to staff them. That’s going to take a lot of money, and we won’t have it. And no matter how the Congressional makeup turns out, the fat cats will buy off just enough Democrats to guarantee that no substantial changes are made to the tax code that require that the rich kick in more.

So, spiraling the deficit is the Republicans’ insurance policy to keep the government the way they just made it: built by and for the Rich. Doing it via handout makes it seem like they’re trying to help the little guy.

But tell me, in what way is robbing every citizen of $10,000* and then giving them back $5,000 considered “help?”

*Or whatever the number comes to that we’ve overpaid for tariffed goods, medical services brought on by getting sick via our uninspected food or unvaccinated virus carriers.

They’re counting on us to forget about all that, just like we forget who contributes the most to the annual deficit. I vote that we remember this ploy in this and every November.

 

Blogging Note

If you have a blog using Blogger/Blogspot, have you noticed if your blogroll has stopped updating? As of today, mine has been stuck at what it showed five days ago. I’ve seen at least one other blog with the same problem, so I know it’s not just me. Any ideas as to the cause, or what to do about it?