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There Are No Moderate Republican Presidential Candidates

Today's Republican Party is unrecognizable when compared to the party I left over two decades ago.  Yet much of the mainstream media continues to pretend that the GOP is still a normal political party devoid of moderates in the old sense of that term  and too often refuses to call Republican candidates the extremists they are in fact. The GOP has become a cult and is largely controlled by "Christian" extremist, white supremacist and billionaires who want to destroy the federal government so they can pay even less in taxes and/or their business need not be impacted by inconvenient safety regulations or bans on child labor. The current crop of GOP presidential candidates shows this reality writ large even as much of the media call those like Nikki Haley "moderate" when they are anything but.  All would gut the federal government, reduce programs that benefit regular Americans and shift wealth to the already extremely wealthy.  A column in the Washington Post looks at some of the extreme positions of those challenging Trump for the GOP nomination.  Here are excerpts:

It’s tempting to believe most Republican presidential candidates — including the latest media darling, former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley — are more “moderate” than front-runner Donald Trump. And if your low-bar definition of “moderate” is “unlikely to foment an insurrection,” then sure.

But when it comes to how they’d actually govern, many of their policy proposals are essentially a warmed-over Trump agenda. Among them: plans to dismantle the federal government’s basic functions and abilities to serve regular Americans.

Trump often speaks of “draining the swamp.” When Trump was president, this mostly meant draining the government of experts whose work he found inconvenient — such as those tasked with measuring the impact of his tax cuts or safeguarding the integrity of the 2020 election. He blew up a prestigious statistical agency, for instance, after it produced research he didn’t like, and on his way out the door, he laid the groundwork for a broader purge of civil servants.

Other GOP presidential hopefuls have now echoed Trump’s attacks on the “deep state” and promised purges of their own.

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, for instance, has promised to arbitrarily fire every civil servant whose Social Security number ends in an odd digit. More disturbingly, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s approach to domesticating “these deep state people” includes a pledge to “start slitting throats on Day One” — never mind that public workers at all levels of government are already at heightened risk of violent attacks.

Even Haley, who’s supposed to be the grown-up, “moderate” alternative to these histrionic boys, has offered her own more genteel-sounding version of the proposal. She has pledged to impose a “term limit” on all civil servants, so that every public worker would be fired after a maximum of five years.

This sounds like a clever idea until you think about it for, oh, two seconds. It means we’d have to purge and replace every single air traffic controller every five years. Also all the nuclear physicists working for the Energy Department and rocket scientists at NASA, whose depth of expertise can’t easily be recreated on a five-year deadline.

Add to this list food-safety inspectors, who assess sanitary conditions at slaughterhouses. Statisticians who tabulate labor-market data. Epidemiologists who track outbreaks. Arabic and Farsi speakers throughout our intelligence services.

And everyone else who has some valuable, specialized expertise, and who, because of a sense of duty and belief in their public mission, is willing to tolerate constant denigration from elected officials and lower pay than they could receive in the private sector.

Proposals like Haley’s, in short, are a good way to destroy the basic machinery of government. Not the good “creative destruction” kind of destruction, either. It’s just demolition, involving expulsion of as many subject-matter experts as possible — including those who keep our country safe and our drinking water clean and whose skills are hard to replicate at the price we pay.

Like other candidates, Haley has promised to claw back Internal Revenue Service money dedicated to upgrading customer service and catching more wealthy tax cheats.

Defunding the IRS would have two major consequences. First, it would lead to a more frustrating experience for normal taxpayers merely trying to comply with the law (so, most Americans). Second, it would mean less revenue coming in to fund everything else the federal government does — including border security, law enforcement and other functions even Republicans concede are necessary.

Another proposal: Haley wants to have Congress vote on every federal rule and regulation. Once again, this has the gloss of thoughtfulness, until you do the briefest of homework about its likely consequences.

Congress already has the right to pass new laws (obviously) and to rescind regulations it dislikes. But it can barely get its act together to keep the lights on. Do you really want to require lawmakers to vote on every bit of minutiae usually left to subject-matter experts, such as aviation safety standards or the technical specs for mammography equipment? There are thousands of these rules issued each year.

To be clear, no one claims the federal government is perfect — or even particularly efficient. But there are plenty of serious policy proposals to improve the civil service, assuming politicians genuinely want to strengthen rather than hollow out state capacity.

[M]aybe it’s easier for presidential contenders to run on a platform that government doesn’t work — and then, once in office, ensure that it never will again.

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Trump’s Aberrant Behavior is Getting Worse and More Dangerous

This past week Donald Trump suffered legal setbacks when a gag order was reinstated in the New York civil fraud case and Trump's insane claim of immunity was rejected by an appeals court in the Washington, DC, January 6th case.  Rather than being chastened the always megalomaniacal Trump again attacked the wife of the New York judge  and went on further unhinged rants on his Truth Social, which does anything but provide the truth on issues and/or Trump.   Meanwhile Trump cultists continue to rally to Trump's standard as he promises them retribution on those he/they deem as enemies and the larger public seemingly yawns and ignores the growing threat Trump poses to the nation and civil society.  Speaking with CBS News, Liz Cheney summarized the nation's sleepwalking towards a dictatorship should Trump regain the White House with the help of his GOP enablers:

“He’s told us what he will do. It’s very easy to see the steps that he will take. People who say, ‘Well, if he’s elected, it’s not that dangerous because we have all of these checks and balances,’ don’t fully understand the extent to which the Republicans in Congress today have been co-opted. One of the things that we see happening today is a sort of a sleepwalking into dictatorship in the United States. If you look at what Donald Trump is trying to do, he can’t do it by himself. He has to have collaborators. And the story of Mike Johnson is a story of, of a collaborator and of someone who knew then – and knows now – that what he’s doing and saying is wrong, but he’s willing to do it in an effort to please Donald Trump. And that’s what makes it dangerous.”  

Perhaps even more disturbing is the view of many mental health specialists who seem Trump lurching toward even deeper mental illness and insanity - something much of the mainstream media continues to ignore or perhaps even normalize through the continued pretense that Trump is merely another political candidate.  A piece at Salon looks at the frightening conclusions of mental health experts and the extreme danger Trump poses.  Here are excepts: 

In evaluating his public and private behavior, America’s leading mental health professionals have concluded that Donald Trump is mentally unwell, and likely a sociopath — if not a psychopath. In even more direct terms, Trump has shown himself to apparently have a diseased mind, which in turn amplifies his already corrupt morality and ethics, attraction to violence, and overall capacity for evil. Ultimately, if he were to become president again, such an outcome would be a disaster for both the United States and the world.

In a new essay in the New York Times, Thomas Edsall consulted with mental health professionals from some of America’s most prestigious institutions about this emergency. Their conclusion: Donald Trump’s aberrant behavior is getting worse.

Once again, the American people and their leaders have been warned about the growing danger(s) and too few of them are responding with the appropriate energy and seriousness.

Leonard Class, who is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, told Edsall that:

If Trump — in adopting language that he cannot help knowing replicates that of Hitler (especially the references to opponents as "vermin" and "poisoning the blood of our country"), we have to wonder if he has crossed into "new terrain." That terrain, driven by grandiosity and dread of exposure (e.g., at the trials) could signal the emergence of an even less constrained, more overtly vicious and remorseless Trump who, should he regain the presidency, would, indeed act like the authoritarians he praises. Absent conscientious aides who could contain him (as they barely did last time), this could lead to the literal shedding of American blood on American soil by a man who believes he is "the only one" and the one, some believe, is a purifying agent of God and in whom they see no evil nor do they doubt.

Several mental health experts whom Edsall consulted highlighted the role that Trump’s aging brain and apparent cognitive decline are playing in his pathological behavior:

"Trump is an aging malignant narcissist," Aaron L. Pincus, a professor of psychology at Penn State, wrote in an email. "As he ages, he appears to be losing impulse control and is slipping cognitively. So we are seeing a more unfiltered version of his pathology. Quite dangerous."

Craig Malkin, who is a lecturer in psychology at Harvard Medical School, emphasized what he believes is Trump’s increasingly psychopathic behavior.

If the evidence emerging proves true — that Trump knew he lost and continued to push the big lie anyway — his character problems go well beyond simple narcissism and reach troubling levels of psychopathy. And psychopaths are far more concerned with their own power than preserving truth, democracy or even lives.

I have been very vocal in my criticism of the New York Times and other agenda-setting media about their failures to consistently engage in pro-democracy journalism — a type of journalistic practice that requires that the abnormal is not normalized and that the American people are repeatedly warned about Trumpism, neofascism, and the dangers embodied by other types of anti-democratic politics.

Edsall’s new essay, and his writing more generally, is an example of the type of bold public teaching and truth-telling that the New York Times and other elite media should be doing much more of. In fact, the future of American democracy depends on it.

And given how the right-wing disinformation propaganda machine is escalating its war on reality and truth as it shapes and prepares the information space to facilitate Trump’s return to power as America’s first dictator, the New York Times and other such elite media should be even more earnest in such a commitment.

Collectively, the small group of mental health professionals who followed through on their "duty to warn" the American people about Trump and his dangerousness were marginalized, harassed (including death threats) and in at least one example suffered sanctions and loss of employment. Their warnings about Trumpism and the ascendant neofascist movement and the type of widespread harm, including violence and mass death (as seen with the Trump regime’s negligent if not outright criminal response to the Covid pandemic) have proven to be prescient. Trump’s plans to become America’s first dictator are creating a cataclysmic synergy between his diseased mind, with its megalomania and God complex, and a fascist political party and movement that is eager to rubbleize democracy with the goal of creating an American apartheid Christofascist plutocracy.

To that point, Trump and his agents have publicly announced their plans to use the United States military to occupy Democratic-led cities and other "blue" parts of the country as part of a plan to impose martial law. Dictator Trump and his enforcers will attempt to legitimate this attack on the American people’s fundamental civil and human rights by claiming that they are actually cracking down on "crime" in the name of "public safety."

None of this is new. As seen in Nazi Germany and elsewhere, history shows that sick leaders attract sick followers who in turn combine to create sick mass movements that oppress (and do worse to) their fellow citizens as they destroy society. Ignoring these lessons and precedents is a choice – one that is usually fatal.

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Russia Declares the Gay Rights Movement as "Extremist"

As his military remains bogged down in Ukraine Vladimir Putin continues to demonize and attack individuals and groups within Russia to distract the populace from his Ukrainian quagmire. Much like in some of Donald Trump's recent deranged rants, Putin seeks to paint internal groups as a threat to society and in the process criminalizes individuals and groups.   Sadly, one of Putin's favored targets is the LGBT community within Russia.  This past week, Russia's puppet supreme court in a secret hearing - no doubt to the delight of the reactionaries within the Russian Orthodox Church - labeled LGBT groups as "extremist" and further opened the door for LGBT persecution in Russia. American LGBT individuals, especially the ever delusional Log Cabin Republicans and other gay Republicans who think their whiteness and relative affluence will protect them, should take note of what a second Trump regime filled with Christofascist homophobes could usher in. Other segments of society need to realize that once a fascist ruler is in power, the list of enemies and those painted as "other" always widens and those who through complacency or otherwise stood back and did nothing later find themselves on the enemies list.  A piece in the New York Times looks at this disturbing development.  Here are excerpts: 

Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday declared the international gay rights movement an “extremist organization,” another chilling crackdown on gay and transgender people whose rights have been scaled back drastically since the start of the war in Ukraine.

The court was acting on a lawsuit filed by the Ministry of Justice requesting the designation. When it filed the case on Nov. 17, the ministry said the activities of the international L.G.B.T.Q. movement had exhibited “various signs and manifestations of an extremist orientation, including incitement of social and religious hatred.”

The ruling escalates the threat for gay communities inside Russia. Gay rights activists and other experts say the ruling will put gay people and their organizations at risk of being criminally prosecuted for something as simple as displaying symbols like the rainbow flag or for endorsing the statement “Gay rights are human rights.”

Experts said the decision would make the work of all L.G.B.T.Q. organizations, as well as any political activity, untenable.

It could be used to mete out jail sentences of six to 10 years to gay rights activists, their lawyers or others involved in any kind of public effort.

That prospect has heightened angst and alarm in the country’s already beleaguered gay communities.

“It is not the first time we are being targeted, but at the same time, it is another blow,” said Alexander Kondakov, a Russian sociologist at University College Dublin, who studies the intersection of law and security for the L.G.B.T.Q. communities. “You are already marked as foreign, as bad, as a source of propaganda, and now you are labeled an extremist — and the next step is terrorist.”

President Vladimir V. Putin has sought to portray the troubled, protracted war that he started as a fight to maintain “Russian traditional values.” To that end, the gay communities are often portrayed as a potential Trojan horse for the West.

The court decision comes months before Mr. Putin is expected to use what he calls his defense of Russian values as a pillar of his campaign in the March 2024 presidential elections.

The four-hour court session on Thursday was held behind closed doors because the case was declared secret, according to Russian press reports. Although at least one gay rights organization outside Russia sought to oppose the case in court, no countering arguments were allowed, the reports said.

The judge ruled that the decision would take effect immediately.

Under the ruling, any news organization, blogger or even an individual posting some form of public message that mentions the international L.G.B.T.Q. movement without noting the extremist designation could face a stiff fine.

Soon after the decision, the official RIA Novosti news agency began referring to the movement as an extremist organization in its reports on the ruling.

Ivan Zhdanov, the director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation . . . said the decision was the opening shot in Mr. Putin’s presidential campaign and called it an example of an increasingly isolated Russia emulating the laws of its ally Iran.

“There will be a complete distraction from real problems, the creation of mythical enemies, discrimination of the population on various grounds, this is just the beginning,” Mr. Zhdanov wrote on the social messaging app X, formerly Twitter.

The way the Ministry of Justice wrote the proposed designation was ambiguous, so it could be exploited by virtually anyone to denounce a gay person as an extremist, such as a provincial law enforcement officer hostile toward gay people or neighbors who covet a gay couple’s apartment, experts said.

[T]he Kremlin has increasingly slapped the “extremist” label on organizations that it does not like. Aside from Mr. Navalny’s opposition movement, they include the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose presence in Russia is opposed by the Russian Orthodox Church; and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which the Russian government has accused of spreading Russophobia.

In Russia, measures targeting L.G.B.T.Q. groups started in earnest after 2012, when Mr. Putin returned to the presidency. In 2013, Russia passed a law banning “gay propaganda” directed toward minors and expanded that in 2022 to prohibit anything that, it said, smacked of endorsing “nontraditional relationships and pedophilia” among all Russians.

There is a long tradition of nations at war singling out minority groups, especially gay people, for prosecution, such as Nazi Germany. The effort to build support for the war inevitably involves identifying external and internal enemies, and in Russia the generally negative attitude toward gay people dovetails with this effort, said Alexandra Arkhipova, a social anthropologist who studies the ripple effects of the war on Russian society.

Negative attitudes toward gays are especially prevalent among Russians older than 65, who are also Mr. Putin’s core supporters. They identify with his promise to return to the Russia of 1970, when the idea of gay rights and fluid sexuality did not exist publicly, she said.

Days before announcing the lawsuit, a deputy minister of justice, Andrei Loginov, testified before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva that, in Russia, “the rights of L.G.B.T. people are protected,” saying that “restraining public demonstrations of nontraditional sexual relations or preferences is not a form a censure for them.”

Be very afraid of what could happen in America should Trump with his Christofascist/white supremacists base of support regain control of the White House.