John Cornyn this week:

“The president is not doing cable news interviews,” Cornyn said on Twitter. “Tweets from his account are limited and, when they come, unimaginably conventional.”

That’s right – Cornyn’s not happy that Biden isn’t acting like a narcissistic screwball Trump.  I know that sounds stupid, but that criticism has gained serious traction along with the usual “Biden is feeble” and “who’s in charge?” insults.  This one, though, plays to only one demographic – Trumpists.  Trump is still the hijacker, holding the entire GOP hostage, even though his primary weapon, Twitter, has been taken away from him since January, and there are few chinks in his armor against challengers.

Also this week, the Washington Post published a report that Biden is doing exactly what he said he would do during the campaign, to not be continuously top of mind for Americans.  His calm demeanor and low key political style has calmed the waters in American political life. As measured by studies of Google searches, Trump is fading in the American consciousness and Biden has not replaced him.  Since the inauguration, the number of searches using the terms Trump and Biden have declined.

But even as the attention of the American people on the presidency has diminished, attitudes towards it are much different.  By a large margin, Trumpists and Trump leaners believe that Biden has made communication to the American people MORE negative than when Trump infested the WH.  They actually liked Trump’s loud, abusive, and confrontational style, and now criticize, like Ccornyn, that Biden is too normal and not bombastic enough.  A lot of that is the constant torrent of vitriol that they are fed by rightwing media and Republican politicians trying to keep the spotlight on themselves.  The other is that much of Trump’s base is actually attracted to over the top rhetoric along with the childish bullying and insults.  In short, Biden’s not a big enough asshole to suit them, and probably could never be.

The GOP is so subverted that just being normal is now viewed as weakness.  The Crazy Train to 2024 is already full and pulling out of the station.  It promises to be a weird trip.

This is a good one…Rick Scott who’s chairing the NRSC this cycle attempted to gain favor with Trump by inventing a new award, the Champion of Freedom.  He had it engraved on a tiny cheap bowl and rushed over to Mar a Lago to give it to him.  THEN, he stupidly tweeted out the picture.  Yes, the Twitterverse responded as you would expect, and it is glorious.

This party is so fucking pathetic that they have to bestow golden offerings (with names like "FrEeDoM aWaRd") to stay in the good graces of their one-term president.

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) April 12, 2021

 

For decades the Republican party has squawked about non-existent massive voter fraud as an excuse to pass draconian voting laws to make it harder for the “wrong people” to vote.  We all know that the “voter fraud” trope was just bullshit to cover the real reason, which was to reduce turnout of voters who typically vote for Democratic candidates.  With a few rare slip ups, the GOP has stuck to that script for years, repeating it so often that their base actually believes it.

That tactic has worked really well up until Trump took the Big Lie and turned it into the Gigantic Gargantuan Godzilla King Kong Lie.  Everyone in the US (except for Trumpists and Newsmax Morons) knows Trump lost the election because he got fewer votes than Biden.  All 50 states including the Red States certified their elections, and all of Congress with the exception of Trumpist ass lickers voted to certify the election.  Even Pence refused to interfere with the certification, and that’s really saying something.  The real problem for Republicans voter suppression efforts started a few months ago when legislatures in 43 states cited the Gigantic Gargantuan Godzilla King Kong Lie as the precise reason that it was an “urgent priority” to pass over 250 new restrictions that would do nothing to stop the massive fraud that doesn’t exist.  As many have said, the GOP came up with a solution in search of a problem.

Things went along swimmingly up until the moment Georgia passed their voter suppression bill that even criminalized giving people bottled water as they stood in hours-long lines to vote.  I believe they would have gotten away with the rest had they not made that one last overstep.  The backlash for that provision, and the law itself was so severe that big business finally had to pull its head out of the sand and take a stand.  Over the last couple of weeks, over a 100 company CEOs have condemned the laws not only in Georgia, but in many other states, and Georgia has been made an example of bad policy making which has brought out the truth of the voter suppression efforts.

Knowing that the Gigantic Gargantuan Godzilla King Kong Lie is no longer working, the GOP has taken on an entirely new tact – telling the truth.  One lawmaker, Arkansas Republican John Kavanaugh, actually came out and said it on national television, admitting that Republicans want not all votes, but just “quality” votes which translates to Republican votes.  Talking to CNN, he said:

“There’s a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans.  Democrats value as many people as possible voting, and they’re willing to risk fraud. Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don’t mind putting security measures in that won’t let everybody vote — but everybody shouldn’t be voting.”

“Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they’re totally uninformed on the issues.  Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.”

And there you have it – truth that didn’t just slip out inadvertently.  And so now this truth telling is even more obvious with the National Review now admitting that voter suppression laws really are voter suppression laws.  In one of the most tone-deaf articles (even for the National Review) was by Kevin Williamson who, in this tsunami of stupid statements posited this:

“There would be more voters if we made it easier to vote, and there would be more doctors if we didn’t require a license to practice medicine. The fact that we believe unqualified doctors to be a public menace but act as though unqualified voters were just stars in the splendid constellation of democracy indicates how little real esteem we actually have for the vote, in spite of our public pieties.”

He goes on about how we should vigorously test potential voters to weed out those “not qualified” to vote, which is simply a dog whistle for meaning those who might vote against Republican ideology.  The GOP even said it in a hearing last month in the Supreme Court when Michael Carvin, attorney for the Arizona Republican party had this exchange with Amy Coney Barrett about how Republicans want to toss ballots cast in the wrong precinct:

Coney Barrett: “What’s the interest of the Arizona RNC in keeping, say, the out-of-precinct ballot disqualification rules on the books?”

Carvin: “Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats.  Politics is a zero-sum game. And every extra vote they get through unlawful interpretation of Section 2 hurts us, it’s the difference between winning an election 50-49 and losing an election 51 to 50.”

Once again counsel for the GOP said in open court that they don’t care if a voter is qualified.  They’re trying to eliminate Democratic votes, period, end of sentence.  Since they’re now being truthful about their voter suppression, can they just PLEASE drop the Gigantic Gargantuan Godzilla King Kong Lie?  It would sure save a lot of time and a lot of column inches.

Every once in awhile you learn something new. Of course, the reality is that we rarely ever learn anything truly new. It simply is that we learn something that reinforces something we already knew in a unique way. In this case, another commentator stumbled on an idea that illustrates something we all have known for most of our lives.

I peruse a number of sites every day just to keep up with the times and to check out other writers I enjoy reading. I am a regular at John Pavlovitz’s site, I am a regular reader at Heather Cox Richardson’s site. I also go over to the Bulwark. It is a center-right blog that features a group of never Trumpers that used to be establishment conservative thinkers. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Yet, reading them has given me insight into the conservative mindset. One of their writers passed along an interesting nugget about Red Bull and Elon Musk.

Last (the author) pointed out something I didn’t know. Red Bull doesn’t actually manufacture Red Bull. In fact, the company doesn’t manufacturer anything. They outsource it to someone else and just handle the marketing. Their YouTube page and other social media are revolutionary. They are highly successful and they don’t make a damn thing.

The four largest car manufacturers sold more than 25 million cars last year alone combined. Musk’s Tesla made just over 500 thousand. Who made more? If you guessed Tesla you’d guess right. It is truly the triumph of style over substance and we are seeing the same in our politics.

This really isn’t anything new. Literature experts tell us that there are really only about 100 original stories in literature. Everything else is a riff on one of those original stories. Plato described this phenomenon in his “Allegory of a cave” in the Republic. Perception is reality and no amount of facts are really going to change that.

The book “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” described the differences between the sexes back in 1992. I haven’t read the book admittedly, but the general idea is that men and women are wired differently. Well duh. Yet, the same notion would probably best describe Republicans and Democrats. I hate to paint people with such a broad brush, but the two groups just don’t process the same way.

Progressives and conservatives by and large think differently. I could make value judgments, but suffice it to say that when you want systemic changes your mind goes to policy initiatives. Policy initiatives require facts and specific aims. When your goal is to say no to more government you don’t need the specifics. You think in generalities.

The aforementioned book is actually pretty relevant here. We mistakenly thought that relevant facts and trusted sources of information were persuasive. They certainly are to people that speak the same language, but some people honestly distrust all of that stuff. Conservatives are great at communicating simple points in quick bursts. They frame issues quickly and convincingly. Progressives usually shoot themselves in the foot when they try to frame issues.

The long and short of it is that we cannot get through to most people by citing facts and discussing policy aims. They just aren’t wired that way. Trump never had a specific policy and never made good on virtually any of his campaign promises. That didn’t seem to matter. So, pointing those things out really won’t work. We need something else. The alternative is to continue to bang our head against the wall.

“Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning Born of the one light, Eden saw play Praise with elation, praise every morning God’s recreation of the new day.” — Cat Stevens/Eleanor Farjeon

Sometimes you need the lime wedge before you take the tequila shot. Sometimes you need it before, after, and then again a few minutes later. That happened when I stumbled upon a news story that a friend stumbled on yesterday. It seems someone in the Texas state legislature really doesn’t like transgender kids.

Of course, that’s not the way they would describe it. They would say they are looking out for children. The story in question references a bill that has been proposed before the state legislature. It seems they want to remove kids from their parents if they get a gender reassignment. They consider that tantamount to child abuse. See, I told you that you needed that lime wedge.

I can’t hardly decide where to begin on all of this. Should we take this on its merits or should we address the strategy behind it? The person (I’m not dignifying them by name) knows this has no chance in passing. So, why bother? Well, they are making a political statement and a social one as well. They also want to distract us from what is really going on in the legislature. They hope we will expend our energy defeating this monstrosity of a bill and ignore the real stuff they are trying to do.

Texas has done this for years. They take real issues like education, infrastructure, and the energy crisis and throw them on the backburner for wedge issues only a few care about deeply. Most of the time it is a bill allowing a three year old to bring a semi-automatic machine gun to daycare or having women that seek abortions drawn and quartered. You’ve seen them before. They are the type of bills that make you wonder if a majority of Texans are just stupid, mean, or if they are breathing at all.

However, this gets to the heart of what is inside the typical conservative. There isn’t much going on upstairs and what lies inside the chest is black indeed. I get the discomfort. We have a few students on campus that are transgender. It can be hard to deal with how you address them or what to talk about with them. I get discomfort on that level.

However, this is where the ignorance rolls in. Transgender people don’t go down to the local Walgreens, take a pill, and then become what they want. They don’t get cut from the basketball team, put on a dress, and then try out for the girl’s team. Yet, this is how this bill and others that have actually passed state legislatures seem to think about the process of reassigning your gender.

Parents aren’t demanding their kid change genders and they aren’t buying hormones on the street corner to get it done. This involves doctors, mental health professionals, and maybe church officials and pastors if they are religious. It involves deep reflection, soul searching, and numerous intermediate steps. Parents and children willing to go through with it deserve much more than what they are getting. It takes courage for a parent to let go of what they thought they had to allow their child to become the person they feel they need to become.

So, at the end of the day it is difficult to imagine what is more detestable in this case. Is the thought process itself the most obnoxious thing? Is the ignorance about the process of becoming transgender the most obnoxious thing? Is the hypocrisy of citing a loving and benevolent God while completely ignoring the love that he taught us to show the most obnoxious thing? It could be all of those, but it could be the simple truth that they want us talking about these things while they rob us blind behind our back.

As reported in the Texas Tribune, the Texas Senate is considering a bill that would prevent cities and counties from enacting paid sick leave ordinances. Republican politicians that run on small government and local control, as usual, have no qualms about violating that “principle” of theirs when it interferes with big business. Like when Denton county decided to ban fracking, the state quickly put a stop to that type of local control. Now that Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio require paid sick leave, big government is coming to put a stop to it.

You see, they really know what’s best for us, y’all. The Tribune article quotes a “CEO” of a company that runs Auntie Anne Pretzels and Cinnabon franchises in Texas. According to her, offering her food-service workers paid sick leave would be terrible for them, because if she had to pay sick leave, she couldn’t offer them 401K’s. Which is funny, because the stores owned by her company don’t offer 401k’s at all. Or maternity leave. Or any benefits. As usual, they’re just anti-worker and full of shit. They would rather the employees serve covid pretzels than pay a part-time employee $7.25 an hour for a four-hour shift while they rest and recover.

This is all public information based on employee reviews from Glassdoor and Indeed, by the way.

Employees of these mall stands make minimum wage. They work with food. They do not have health insurance and I imagine they’d have to work 15-20 hours to afford one cash pay doctor’s visit, not including prescriptions. These people have absolutely nothing, and their boss is fighting against offering them sick pay. I hate humanity.

In a pandemic, when we are all told to stay home if we are sick, Texas Republicans want to make sure that we are not guaranteed sick leave. It’s for our own good, really.