Pat’s Polemics

Years ago back in 2015 lots of us were pointing to Trump’s successes as evidence of the GOP’s dog-whistle politics coming home to roost. By early 2016 we were wallowing in self-congratulations, look how the Party has the tiger by the tail now and can’t let go. This is really enjoyable. This summer we were seriously devoted to reminding Republicans that they had brought this on themselves with their support of immigrant-bashing, voter restrictions, racism, misogyny and patriarchal domination, religious intolerance and so much more.
After the GOP convention elected Trump as their Party’s nominee, we sat back and gathered our thoughts. A twinge of panic that Trump could win, as Michael Moore trumpeted, was eclipsed by something else as HRC zoomed past him this past week: this country has come close to electing a severe personality disorder who would command the nuclear arsenal.
Moreover, he will leave in his wake the wreckage of millions of bitter, angry supporters who will know in their hearts that the only reason he lost was the “rigged system”.
And whose responsibility was this? You can’t blame it all on Republicans or conservatives, although the first evil glance will surely fall on them. Democrats has also played the game, the rigged game. They too vote for the tax code and regulations that have allowed corporations to suck the wealth out of this country.
Here’s my hope: Barack Obama turned things around and got them going in the right direction, but just barely, thanks to a GOP opposition that barely hung on to sanity. I just heard that Steve LaTourette of the Mainstreet Partnership, an organization of moderate Republicans, has died. Will Kasich and Ryan and others, people I oppose in my core but who I can see as reasonable and honorable, pick up the baton? Then that HRC will do a good job in reducing the worst abuses in every area of American life and give people a sense of belonging and forward movement. Hint: go back to public schools and drop the Reformistas.
Just tonight I heard reports that Kansas Rightists have lost big-time, replaced not by Democrats but by moderate Republicans. Then we can survey the damage and compare Kansas and California.