Tag Archives: 2020 presidential election

June 14, 2025 · 4:38 PM

Reject

Karine Jean-Pierre, former White House Press Secretary under President Joe Biden, has shocked her peers and the political world by announcing recently that she’s abandoning the Democratic Party and declaring herself an independent.  And I’m happy to say, “Welcome!”

Born in Martinique, Jean-Pierre attended – among other colleges – the New York Institute of Technology (from where I earned my B.A. in English) and had been a registered Democrat her entire adult life – well, until now.  Like most people in the maelstrom of the American political arena, she had to conform to certain party ideology and maintain a specific persona.  After her brief stint as Biden’s Press Secretary, however, she apparently couldn’t tolerate the deception any longer.

I have to admire her candor.  She’s one of the few people in recent years to step forward and be so blatantly honest with her sentiments.  The truth always hurts, and Jean-Pierre has taken a sledgehammer to a migraine.

I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 because I didn’t feel she was the right leader for the nation.  I only voted for Biden in 2020 to keep Trump from winning another term, but I reverted back to the Green Party last year and voted for Jill Stein.  Trump still won, since the U.S. is not quite ready for a president with vaginal attributes – unlike many other nations in the Western Hemisphere, including our two bordering neighbors.

Jean-Pierre has notably critical of Biden’s mental and physical health – something his opponents had frequently cited from the moment he declared his candidacy.  American politics is such an ugly venture.  It’s always been nasty, but I feel it became especially toxic after the Watergate scandal.  I’ve said for years that the worst thing the Democratic Party could have done in the run-up to the 2020 elections was to stand by as Biden and Bernie Sanders announced they were seeking the U.S. presidency.

As the 2020 presidential race commenced, the Democratic Party presented the most diverse gallery of candidates of any such contest.  Then, like their Republican counterparts, they ended up with two old White men at the top.  Biden’s only saving moment was selecting Kamala Harris as his running mate.  It was an odd pairing.  Harris became the first female Vice-President in U.S. history, while Biden eventually became the nation’s first octogenarian Commander-in- Chief.

During Donald Trump’s first term, I often told people – both supporters and detractors – that I felt the U.S. was essentially leaderless.  Trump pales in comparison to many of his predecessors.  On the other hand, though, his Democratic counterparts have their own share of failures.  When the Democrat Party elected Ken Martin its new chair this past February, the news arrived with the same bravura as paint drying.  The longtime leader of the Minnesota Democratic Party, Martin hopes to lead his constituents into a future filled with greater accomplishments (wins) across the nation.

“Donald Trump, the Republican Party, this is a new DNC,” Martin told reporters after his election.  “We are not going to sit back and not take you on when you fail the American people.”

And I wish for the blind to see and the lame to walk.

*YAWN*

Wake me when something really important happens.

Like Jean-Pierre, I certainly won’t hold my breath.  The Democratic Party needs a hell of a lot more than a new chairperson.  If they’re prudent, they’ll heed Jean-Pierre’s not-so-subtle warning.

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November 8, 2024 · 8:47 PM

Self-Inflicted

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

Sinclair Lewis, 1935

I had a certain sensation deep inside of me; the same kind of feeling when I know something dramatic – either good or bad – is about to happen.  This time it was bad, and I almost felt sick.  Donald Trump has been reelected to the U.S. presidency.  He becomes only the second president in U.S. history to win a second term that didn’t immediately follow the first.  He also has the dubious distinction of being the first indicted criminal to be elected.  Little could be stranger or sadder for the American people.  I suppose, though, that too many people drank that proverbial Kool-Aid offered by the Republican despot; a man who openly admires the likes of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un; who has advocated violence against others; who has threatened to imprison anyone who disagrees with him; who incited a riot nearly four years ago; and who has demonstrated no true respect for average, working Americans.

I am embarrassed by and disgusted with many of my fellow Americans who helped put Trump into office.  The Democratic Party, however, really has no one but themselves to blame for this chaos.  Their leadership stood by as Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders ran for president in 2020.  With all due respect to those two gentlemen, their time had come and gone.  The window to run for and win the U.S. presidency is small.  I felt Biden and Sanders would have better served the country by giving speeches and writing books about the value and importance of democracy and how people like Trump pose the worst threat to our constitutional freedoms.

For the Democrats, the 2020 presidential race began with the most diverse slate of candidates – and ended with the same tired old figures that traditionally represented both parties: old White men.  Now understand I’m a mostly White male and have no qualms about it.  But this nation boasts too varied a population to rely upon the same types of people to lead us.

And it’s not that the U.S. isn’t ready for a female president.  We’re way past ready.  It’s just that the Democrats (and the Republicans for that matter) have never chosen the right women to lead them.  I’ve always said Hillary Clinton was too divisive a figure.  While I loved Bill “Who’s Your Daddy” Clinton, I personally never cared for Hillary.  And, although Kamala Harris made history by becoming the first female vice-president in U.S. history, she didn’t do enough to separate herself from Biden.

In 1993 Canada elected its first female prime minister, Kim Campbell, and highly patriarchal and staunchly Roman Catholic México just elected its first female (and Jewish) president, Claudia Scheinbaum.  Thus far, eighteen other women either have been elected or ascended to the highest office in their respective countries in the Western Hemisphere:

Jeanine Áñez, Bolivia, 2019-20

Rosalía Arteaga, Ecuador, 1997

Michelle Bachelet, Chile, 2006-10 and 2014-18

Dina Boluarte, Peru, since 2022

Sylvanie Burton, Dominica, since 2023

Xiomara Castro, Honduras, since 2022

Violeta Chamorro, Nicaragua, 1990-97

Eugenia Charles, Dominican Republic, 1980-95

Laura Chinchilla, Costa Rica, 2010-14

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina, 2007-15

Lidia Gueiler Tejadam, Bolivia, 1979-80

Mireya Moscoso, Panama, 1999-2004

Mia Mottley, Barbados, since 2018

Ertha Pascal-Trouillot, Haiti, 1990-91 (acting president)

Michèle Pierre-Louis, Haiti, 2008-09

Dilma Rousseff, Brazil, 2014-16

Portia Simpson-Miller, Jamaica, 2006-07 and 2012-16

Claudette Werleigh, Haiti, 1995-96

Trump does not represent me – never has and never will.  He has proclaimed total disrespect for people who aren’t exactly like him.  And I’m certainly not like him.  I’m not a wealthy, full-blooded Caucasian womanizer who cheated on his taxes and has disdain for the American military.  I feel that he’s a genuine threat to free speech and the right to vote, but – like most conservatives – has the full support of gun rights advocates.  This latter band of extremists has always placed the value of firearms above free speech and the right to vote – and certainly above the lives of human beings.

One of my concerns with Trump’s return to the White House is that he will implement the so-called Project 2025 – a federal policy agenda created by the Heritage Foundation, a far-right conservative outfit that is a borderline hate group.  Many officials in Trump’s first administration took part in the project’s creation, which demands a complete overhaul of the government based on staunchly conservative ideology.  That philosophy features opposition to the usual causes: abortion and reproductive freedom and queer rights, but also immigration and racial equity.  Moreover, Project 2025 calls for unwarranted surveillance on specific individuals; using force to quell protestors; and targeting journalists who they deem enemies of the state.  This might sound familiar to those schooled in global political history.  They’re the same kind of tactics the Nazis and the former Soviet Union used on its own civilians.  Argentina pursued the same agenda during its “Dirty War”, and North Korea is doing it now.

I don’t know what’s next for America, but I see nothing good on the horizon.  I’m certain my conservative friends and relatives will assume I’m being paranoid, even hysterical.  Yet I felt similar sensations of foreboding when George W. Bush became president in 2000.  And I was right.  The U.S. ended up both in war and a recession.

I’m almost certain it will happen again.

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June 29, 2024 · 10:30 PM

Slow Motion Debacle

Anyone who watched the debate last Thursday between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump surely has a variety of words to describe it.  Mine are sad, pathetic, hopeless and frightening.  And those are the highlight adjectives!

I didn’t see it.  I had to do some writing and other work on my personal computer.  Plus, my genitals needed some extra attention, and I just couldn’t ignore them to watch two cantankerous old men exchange pithy barbs.  One good feature about the debate is that the microphone for whichever of the two candidates not speaking was muted.  I know that was incorporated strictly after the fiasco of the first Trump-Biden debate in 2020 – the one where a frustrated Biden blurted to Trump, “Would you shut up, man!”

If only both men could be muted now, I think we’d all be better off.  Americans – and people across the globe – pretty much know where they stand on particular issues.  Or where they don’t stand.

I recall the questions surrounding the health of Ronald Reagan when he ran for president in 1980; he was 69 at the time, and the voting populace (along with the media) verbalized their concerns about his welfare.  For the most part, seniority is respected and appreciated in certain fields.  Politics isn’t necessarily one of them, but experience does hold a certain value.  Reagan made the most of his age, even joking about it on occasion.  He held the distinction of being the oldest president until Trump.  In November of 2022, Biden crossed a new threshold when he became the nation’s first octogenarian Chief Executive.  And here we are.

I’ve always said the Democratic Party’s biggest mistake in the 2020 election cycle was to let Biden and Bernie Sanders run for president.  After leaving the White House as vice-president in 2017, I feel that Biden should have retired into the realm of a senior statesman; giving speeches, writing books and propagating democracy every reasonable chance he had.  The Democrats began the 2020 campaign with the most diverse collection of candidates, including more women than had ever attempted to run for president at one time and an openly queer man in their ranks.  Then they ended up just like the Republican Party – with two old White men at the top, Biden and Sanders.  Of course, one of those Democratic candidates, Kamala Harris, has become the nation’s first female and non-White vice-president, and another, Pete Buttigieg, has become the first openly queer cabinet official.

Like many people, I’d often mock older individuals in my youth.  Now I’m 60 and I know how that feels.  I don’t consider myself “old” in the traditional sense; my body has definitely aged, but I won’t let my mind collapse into senility.  But even I know this nation is in trouble with the likes of Biden and Trump as the primary presidential candidates.  And yes, it is because of their age.

The U.S. is rapidly approaching the 250th anniversary of its official birth as a nation.  Right now the future just doesn’t look too bright for us.

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January 20, 2023 · 3:23 PM

What He’s Done

SWAT officers take Solomon Peña into custody in Albuquerque, New México. (Photo: Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)

Earlier this week New México police arrested a failed Republican congressional candidate and charged him with hiring some men to shoot up the homes of Democratic opponents. Solomon Peña allegedly was dissatisfied with the results of his race last year and decided to seek revenge in the worst possible way: through violence. Like his idol, former President Donald Trump, Peña is an election denier and claimed fraud in his own run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lost to his Democratic opponent by more than 3,600 votes.

In the U.S. many elected officials – mostly Democrat and liberal – have been the targets of political violence over the past 5 or 6 years; which (not surprisingly) coincides with the rise of Trump.  The animosity reached a feverish crescendo on January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump loyalists stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in a failed attempt to undermine the 2020 presidential election, as well as democracy itself.  I’m still angry at the sight of hundreds storming into the building and even angrier at those who continue to support Trump and dismiss the severity of that day.  Like most Americans, the rampage reminded me of images of developing countries in the throes of political chaos.  While various groups in the U.S. have threatened to inflict such carnage over previous decades, no one really thought it would happen.

We have Donald Trump to thank for that.

Threatening election officials and taking out opponents with bullets is what used to happen in places like Colombia and the Philippines.  Even as recently as 1995, Israel experienced political violence when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.  The act stunned the international community and roiled the only truly democratic state in the Middle East.

Americans have always had a love-hate relationship with their elected officials, whether or not they actually voted for them, or even voted at all.  But I’ve always believed the Watergate fiasco was a major turning point in our nation’s disillusionment with politicians overall.  That a sitting president would seek to gain an advantage over his adversaries by concocting a burglary scheme shocked most people.  They always sort of knew politicians weren’t necessarily the most moral of individuals, but an actual break-in?

A greater sense of partisanship began to take hold in the ensuing decade and became more pronounced in the 1990s, as Republicans did everything they could – and failed – to undermine Bill Clinton’s agenda.  The scandalous (and genuinely corrupt) 2000 presidential election widened the chasm of discontent.  The GOP’s blatant disrespect for President Barack Obama was even more egregious and appalling – but not really unexpected from conservatives, as far as I was concerned.

Then came Donald Trump, and the haters suddenly had a license to lash out with unabashed vigor.  All the social upheavals of the 1960s were the result of tensions that had been brewing for decades; people had grown tired of just waiting for change and hoping for the best.  In a similar, yet twisted manner, the right-wing extremism that exploded under Trump also had been fomenting in the souls of angry (mostly White male) conservatives for years; that is, since…well, since the 1960s.  Ronald Reagan once said he wanted to return America to the time before the 60s screwed up everything.  As a relic of his past, he naturally didn’t understand we can’t go backwards in time.  That’s science fiction.  But that’s why I call most conservatives preservatives – they want to preserve the old ways of life; ways that were good for them, of course, but not everyone else.

Trump revised that futile dream with his “Make America Great Again” mantra; claiming he wanted to “take America back”.  Back to where, those of us with more than half a brain asked, and how far?  Back to the Civil War?  Back to the Gilded Age?

Peña is just one cog in the wheel of America’s political vitriol.  Think of this for a few moments.  Acting like a drug cartel leader, Peña (who already had a felony criminal record) hired some thugs to fire gun shots into the homes of people he thought had snatched victory from him. At least one of those bullets ended up in a child’s bedroom.  Just as with drug cartels, Peña and his henchmen cared nothing about their intended victims and any collateral damage – i.e., innocent bystanders.  Drug lords only care about their profits; everyone and everything else be damned.  Peña only cared about exacting personal revenge over what he perceived to be a corrupt system.  We’re not supposed to do that in civilized societies.

But that is Trump’s legacy.  That is what he’s done to the overall concept of democracy.

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December 7, 2022 · 10:34 PM

When Three Losers Meet for Dinner

What do a failed president, a disoriented rapper and a White separatist have in common?  They’re all losers!  And, as news reports have revealed, they all met for dinner just before Thanksgiving.  Former President Donald Trump hosted hip-hop singer Kanye West (now known as Ye) and right-wing extremist media personality Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida a few weeks ago.

If I ever host a dinner party with some of the most interesting and intellectual people in the world, the three aforementioned clowns wouldn’t get past my front door.  (Disclaimer: no offense meant to professional clowns.)

We’ve all had those ‘what-were-they-thinking’ reactions to certain people’s bizarre behavior.  But Trump, West and Fuentes bring a new level of absurdity into the public forum.  It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a walking embodiment of incompetence (Trump) would invite two other dopers to his estate.

I’ve never been a fan of Trump.  When he announced his bid for the U.S. presidency in 2015, I pointed out that he’d technically been running for president for some 30 years.  In a 1980s interview with Barbara Walters, she queried Trump about whether or not he would seek the Oval Office.  Many scoffed at the notion that a New York real estate tycoon should run for the presidency simply because he was incredibly wealthy and well-known.

Those of us old enough to remember the excesses of the 1980s – especially here in the U.S. – know that wealth and fame suddenly became requisites for political office or any kind of leadership position.

Regardless of his status, Trump isn’t a realist.  Consider his relentless – and undeniably refuted – claims that the 2020 elections were fraudulent.  He still refuses to accept defeat; thus proving he’s the proverbial sore loser.  In my own analysis, the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections were blatantly fraudulent, but that’s an entirely different discussion.

But West and Fuentes are also denialists.  West denies observations that he has no real talent, and Fuentes denies the Nazi Holocaust occurred.  I’m certain they all deny other realities, but I don’t want to spend that much time on them.

Trump, West and Fuentes are perfect companions for each other.  While Trump made a name for himself in the 1980s as a successful real estate magnate, West made a name for himself in the violence-prone world of hip-hop.  I have to admit I can’t identify any of his “songs” and I wouldn’t care to either.

Fuentes’ arrival in the public arena is recent.  At barely 24 years old, he’s become an icon of right-wing extremists; a youthful vial of hate and bigotry.  He represents a new generation of Christo-fascist warriors who believe, for example, that Christopher Columbus discovered America and African slaves were actually indentured servants.

Further proving his detachment from reality, Trump denied knowing who Fuentes is.  He’d allegedly invited only West for dinner, and West invited Fuentes.  Of course that’s what happened!

No matter who invited who for dinner, Trump brought out the worst in humanity: the hatred, the putrid, the disgusting and the violent.  Along with West and Fuentes, he represents everything that’s wrong with this nation – and everything a civilized society shouldn’t be.

But let them dine together!  They deserve one another.

The rest of us deserve better.

Image: Kelli R. Grant/Yahoo News; photos: Jean-Baptiste Lacroix/AFP via Getty Images, Joe Raedle/Getty Images, Rainmaker Photos/MediaPunch /IPX via AP)

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July 30, 2022 · 10:53 PM

Political Cartoon of the Week – July 30, 2022

Jimmy Margulies

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July 23, 2022 · 3:57 AM

Tweet of the Week – July 23, 2022

Marjorie Taylor-Greene

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July 9, 2022 · 11:51 PM

Most Outrageous Quote of the Week – July 9, 2022

“Fittingly, Biden awarded his presidential medals to fellow losers, Biles and Rapinoe.”

Jenna Ellis, criticizing President Joe Biden for awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Olympic gold medalists Simone Biles and Megan Rapinoe

An attorney and right-wing news commentator, Ellis is a devout Trump supporter and 2020 election denier.

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June 25, 2022 · 2:36 AM

Video of the Week – June 25, 2022

Rep. Adam Kinzinger

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April 16, 2022 · 4:37 AM

Worst Quotes of the Week – April 16, 2022

“What we have is kids not only being indoctrinated but groomed, in a very real sense, by people who are, whether they know it or not, sexual predators.  Are they abusing the kids physically? No, I don’t think so. But they are abusing them mentally and using sex to do so.”

David Mamet, offering his views on the “Don’t Say Gay” issue in an interview with Fox News

Mamet added, “This has always been the problem with education. Teachers are inclined, particularly men because men are predators, to pedophilia.”

“I had to do something to gain his respect.”

Dustin Thompson, a January 6 rioter, during testimony about his actions

Thompson said he believed Trump sent him to attack on U.S. Capitol and thwart certification of the 2020 elections.  He also stated that he had been laid off from his job as an exterminator at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and – feeling “isolated” and “stuck at home” – eventually “fell down the rabbit hole” of online conspiracy theories.

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