Banana Republicanism – Page 5

Can You Sell Just Five Percent Of Your Soul To Satan?

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Duck, NC – June 2024 photo by Nate Waddell

This should be a trivial story, except it isn’t. The WaPo reported this week that two former law enforcement officers who defended the US Capitol from rioters on Jan. 6 were jeered on Wednesday by state GOP lawmakers during a visit to the Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives:

“Former US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and former sergeant Aquilino Gonell were introduced on the floor Wednesday as “heroes” by House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D) for having “bravely defended democracy in the United States Capitol against rioters and insurrection on January 6. As the two men — both of whom were injured by rioters on Jan. 6 — were introduced, the House floor descended into chaos. According to Democratic lawmakers, several GOP lawmakers hissed and booed, with a number of Republicans walking out of the chamber in protest.”

In this specific instance of MAGA misbehavior, two things are significant. First, the Pennsylvania House has 203 members split between 102 Democrats and 101 Republicans. This is very similar to the polarizing political split in the US House. Second, MAGAs acting out underscores just how polarizing the Jan. 6 insurrection has become with Republicans.

Once again, we’re seeing that MAGA Republican politicians support very few of the historical guardrails of our politics. Wrongo used to think that most Republicans were sincere in their beliefs in a certain moral standard; in fiscal responsibility, in honoring those who served in the military, and respecting police officers and other authority. But over time, every one of those supposed standards has been trampled, and while Trump has been the single biggest perpetrator, all of today’s the loudmouth grifters on the Right also share in this ignominy. It’s doubtful that any argument they make is in good faith.

The irony is that the MAGA Republicans readily abandoned their long-standing heritage of freedom, of democratic rule, of the fundamentals of law dating from the Magna Carta, and of British common law. They’ve replaced it all with the Ethos of Trump. Their patriotism, like Trump’s business prowess, is a sham. Its disposable if political advantage is on the line. See Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) opinions on Ukraine if you doubt this.

And commitment to the principle of equal justice under law? That has been replaced with the saying: “For my friends, everything, for my enemies, the law.”

It’s nothing short of amazing how otherwise principled Republican politicians have flocked to Trump’s side. Their moves started slowly, but picked up steam during his presidency. Now they’re fully espousing whatever Trump says. And since his conviction in NY for fraud, it seems revenge is what’s driving them. Their willingness to shrug off a jury’s ruling and characterize it as illegitimate isn’t a new demonstration of their disregard for the rule of law. We’ve already seen this disregard in two impeachment trials, and in their disavowing any importance to the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection.

The MAGA movement has become a full-blown fascist enterprise before our eyes. The response we’re seeing to Trump’s conviction is bringing it more out in the open. Despite all of Trump’s bankruptcies, his greatest achievement in bankruptcy is in his completing the moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party. But Republicans still hope to re-elect their convicted leader to the White House. Now a felon, Trump cannot possess a gun, but they want to hand him the US military and nuclear arsenal.

Republicans ought to know that there’s no such thing as selling five percent of your soul to Satan. More likely, the Devil is in a Rent-to-Own relationship with the GOP.

Some decent news for your Saturday. Post the Trump verdict, the NYT resurveyed the participants in its last poll of 2,000 people. They found a perceptible shift toward Biden. It was only a couple of points but what’s meaningful about it is who shifted. Nate Cohn wrote:

“Perhaps not surprisingly, the swings were relatively pronounced among young, nonwhite, less engaged and low-turnout voters. In fact, 20% of Mr. Trump’s previous supporters who are Black now say they back Mr. Biden.”

Overall, Mr. Trump retained 93% of voters who told the NYT that they backed him in a previous survey. But in a close election, losing 7% of your supporters could be decisive. More:

“A potentially crucial sliver of Mr. Trump’s former supporters — 3% — now told us they’ll back Mr. Biden, while another 4% say they’re now undecided.”

Also, Trump only leads Biden by 4 points in Florida in the latest poll of the state by Fox News:

Biden is just outside the margin of error, but both of them have slipped slightly since the 2020 election. It should give some faint hope to Democrats, since Florida also has a November ballot initiative that would restore abortion rights. If the Florida initiative passes, abortion will be legalized up to 24 weeks. If it gets anywhere near the 60% required to become law, Biden has a chance in Florida. Trump doesn’t have a path to 270 electoral votes without Florida!

All we have to do is vote.

As usual, we’re heading into the weekend with mostly bad and a smattering of good news. It’s now time for our Saturday Soother, where we unplug from the social media that’s trying to murder our brains, and instead, spend a few moments of relaxation. Here on the Fields of Wrong, we’re attempting to turn a ½ acre patch of our lawn into a meadow that will attract pollinators. So far, the grass is very tall, and there are occasional flowers in bloom. Wrongo planted a few more this week, disturbing the bluebirds in one of our nest boxes in the process.

It’s going to be sunny and warm in the Northeast, so grab a seat under a tree. Now, watch and listen to the late, great Jeff Beck perform “Nessun Dorma”, on the Fender guitar. It’s the wildly popular aria from Puccini’s opera “Turandot” played here at the Crossroads Blues festival in February 2010. Beck also performed “Nessun Dorma” on many other stages. Beck died in January 2023. At the time, a fellow musician said…”If you haven’t heard this version of Nessun Dorma you need to because it can move you to tears.” Strongly recommended:

The Pro-Abortion Political Movement

The Daily Escape:

Artichoke blossom, Imperial County, CA – June 2024 photo by Paulette Donnellon

The repealing of Roe v. Wade via the Dobbs decision has helped create a dynamic new political movement: A revolt of millions of Americans (predominantly women) who think government has no business inserting itself into a woman’s personal decisions. This is going to be an important factor in the 2024 elections as it was in 2022.

The Economist says that only:

“….ten thousand women eligible to vote in this November’s elections were born before women won the right to vote. In the century since then, American women have steadily accumulated rights. In the 1960s the contraceptive pill let women choose how many children they had. In the 1970s no-fault divorce laws and Roe v Wade gave women more choices that had been denied to their mothers. This progress seemed irreversible, and was often taken for granted.”

Then it was time for the Trump-appointed Conservative Supreme Court majority to do what it had been hired to do: Overturn a woman’s right to an abortion. More from The Economist:

“A third of American women aged 15-49 now live in states where abortion is either illegal or impossibly restricted.”

These people are leading the biggest voter rebellion since the Tea Party movement in 2009.

Surprisingly, the number of abortions in the US has risen slightly since the Court’s decision, mostly due to the availability of the drug Mifepristone, which can be prescribed by mail. Medication abortions now account for about 63 percent of pregnancy terminations nationwide. The legality of Mifepristone is also currently under review by the same six Conservative justices. That decision could come down as early as today, and certainly by early July.

What a country! Americans have grown used to the idea that every spring, we wait for 9 unelected government officials with lifetime jobs to tell us what kind of country we’re going to live in. Elections should serve this purpose, and we the people should be doing the telling.

But that revolution remains in our future. What is part of our present is an attempt by House Democrats to force a vote on codifying the right to birth control access nationwide. From the NYT: (brackets by Wrongo):

“The [Democrat’s] maneuver, through a procedural move known as a discharge petition, is all but certain to fail for lack of Republican support, but that is by design. It is part of a broad election-year push by Democrats to highlight Republicans’ record of opposing abortion rights and other reproductive health choices that voters fear will be stripped away following the fall of Roe v. Wade.”

The Senate Democrats also plan to force a vote on an identical contraceptive access bill, which once again, Republicans are expected to block. This coordinated push shows that Democrats regard access to abortion and contraception options as a key issue that will show a contrast with Republicans this fall.

We’ve seen that the Dobbs decision caused an immediate political reaction. Six states have held referendums on abortion, and in all six, the abortion rights side prevailed. A potential problem for anti-abortion Republicans is that referendums to legalize abortion could be on the ballot in up to 16 more states.

Abortion rights campaigners already have enough signatures to get on the ballot in a few states, including Florida. That state is crucial because it was the abortion destination for many women in the South until May 1st, when it outlawed most abortions after six weeks. If the Florida initiative passes, abortion will be legalized up to the point of viability, roughly 24 weeks. Democrats vainly hope the issue has put Florida in play in the presidential election, although it must pass by 60% to become law. It can easily impact the elections in Arizona and other states. More:

“In only two of the six states that have held referendums, California and Vermont, did the abortion-rights side get such a large share. When Michigan held its referendum in 2022, 57% voted in favor of protecting abortion even though 63% broadly supported the procedure, a rate similar to Floridians.”

That means we’re in the middle of a vast political battle that parallels the presidential battle. Outside groups are pouring tens of millions of dollars into competitive House districts to amplify the message. The main super PAC supporting House Democrats last month announced a new $100 million fund focusing on abortion rights in swing districts.

And the group Americans for Contraception plans to spend more than $7 million on television and digital ads, targeting Republicans in the Senate who vote against the bill and House members who do not sign the petition.

A few voters could be pulled away from the Republicans. More from The Economist: (emphasis by Wrongo):

“The midterm elections in 2022 hinted at that….Although only 14% of registered Republican voters were upset about the Dobbs ruling, a quarter of that group voted for a Democrat in their House district…. Republicans and independents who saw abortion as an important issue were more likely to vote for Democrats in 2022 than two years earlier.”

That equals 3.5% of Republicans, and may be among the reasons a predicted “red wave” lifting Republican candidates failed to appear in 2022.

Republicans are in a bind on reproductive rights. They can’t reconcile their Party’s hard-line policies on women’s health and they’re out of step with the vast majority of the country. Despite that, they continue to try to tuck anti-abortion policies into pending legislation.

However the 2024 elections pan out, the anti-Dobbs movement represents something different in US politics. Unlike the Republicans, it isn’t a group of keyboard warriors vying for attention or grift online. Instead it’s people giving up their weekends and evenings to try to persuade their neighbors about an idea they hold deeply.

And it isn’t simply a political cause about a single issue. It’s many issues: The right to live, the right to privacy for medical procedures, the right to not be forced by the state to undergo unnecessary physical or mental injury.

Like most successful revolutions, it’s participatory and local. It is how democracy in America was designed to work. Help it succeed in November!

The Gap Between Economic Statistics (good) vs. People’s Perception Of Economic Situation (terrible)

The Daily Escape:

Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Park, AZ – May, 2024 photo by Hung Ton

From The Lever:

“Americans paid roughly 25% more on groceries and dining out this March than they paid in January 2020, outpacing the rate of general inflation. Over that same period, the companies behind the country’s 10 largest grocery and restaurant brands have together returned or pledged to return more than $77 billion to shareholders.”

“In March 2024, consumers spent 95% more for a carton of eggs, 33% more for a pound of ground beef, and 22% more for a gallon of milk than they did before the pandemic.”

According to an analysis by Food and Water Watch, a corporate watchdog group, food costs for an average family of four living on a “thrifty” budget increased 50% from January 2020 to January 2024, from $654 to $976 a month.

When economists and pundits talk about the disconnect between America’s overall economic performance and how badly Americans view the economy, this unprecedented spike in food costs is at the heart of the problem.

In 2021, as food costs were skyrocketing, America’s biggest chains and grocery brands blamed the price hikes on supply chain issues and economy-wide inflation. But these same companies have expanded profits and quietly authorized billions of dollars in stock buyback programs and dividend payouts to shareholders.

Former PepsiCo CFO Hugh Johnston told Bloomberg last year that consecutive double-digit price hikes on the company’s products in recent years were “just there to cover inflation”. But in 2023, PepsiCo reported $91 billion in net revenue, a 35% increase over prepandemic income. And it used $7.7 billion of its profits to repurchase stock and issue dividends. Those buybacks increased by a whopping 843% compared to 2021.

More from The Lever: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Matt Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, a tax policy advocacy group, said buybacks boomed right before the pandemic when Trump-era tax cuts left corporations with extra cash on hand.”

Advocates for the Republican tax cuts said that companies would reinvest that tax windfall back into the economy via manufacturing and jobs (more trickle down). But many began plowing money into buybacks instead.

Tyson Foods more than doubled its profit margins between 2021 and 2022 after hiking prices for beef, pork, and chicken by 30%. The company claims it raised prices because it needed to offset increased costs in labor, transportation, and grain for animal feed. But data from earnings reports show that while increased operating costs set the company back $1.5 billion dollars in 2022, price increases expanded profits by $2 billion, meaning consumers covered Tyson’s inflation costs plus they also shelled out $500 million more. That year, Tyson repurchased $702 million of its own shares and raised dividends by 4%.

Some Americans trying to save money by eating fast foods have seen those prices increase too. A study of the country’s biggest fast food brands by Finance Buzz found that at all of them, menu prices have outpaced inflation. The Food Institute’s survey shows that: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Due to inflated costs, 78% of respondents say they now view fast-food as a luxury. The percentage increases to 80% or higher among those making less than $30,000 a year.”

These high food costs have been largely caused by the food industry increasing prices faster than their costs.

Americans are largely supportive of efforts to regulate how much companies charge for food. In a new Data for Progress poll, 69% of respondents said the government “should do more to regulate grocery stores that raise prices to maximize profits.”

Sad to say, the Democrats will not do anything meaningful to bring down the cost of food.

And the higher expense of putting food on the table may partly explain the so-called “vibecession”. There’s a great divide in the US between how people see their personal financial situation (pretty good) and their view of the overall economy (terrible). Here’s another chart:

Data: Federal Reserve Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking; Chart: Axios Visuals

In the above poll by the Federal Reserve, respondents are asked to choose from four options when it comes to how they’re doing. The top two choices were “living comfortably” and “doing OK.” 72% of Americans landed in those categories.

Respondents are also asked about the financial well-being of the national economy — the top two choices, “excellent” and “good,” were chosen by only 22% of Americans. In addition, that gap between people’s perceptions of their financial well-being and that of the national economy has nearly doubled since 2019. From Axios: (brackets by Wrongo)

“This divide is showing up in plenty of surveys. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May [2024] came in lower than 84% of readings since 1978….Just 22% of respondents to a May Gallup poll said they were satisfied with the way things were going in the US, compared to 77% dissatisfied. That’s a wider gap than three-quarters of the time since they started asking the question in the 1970s. A Harris poll last month showed that 56% of Americans think we’re in a recession.”

Brian Beutler reminds us that if Trump were in office today — presiding over full employment while Americans enjoyed more purchasing power than ever before, and inflation was hovering steadily around three percent — he and Republican politicians would claim credit for building the greatest economy in US history.

But Biden and his handlers are vacillating about how to address the economy’s perception gap. From Beutler:

“Nevertheless, the emerging Democratic consensus seems to be that Biden should continue to ‘meet people where they are’: sympathize with the plight of the struggling, implicitly concede that the economy—which would poll through the roof with Republicans stealing credit for it—is actually bad.

Within the White House…aides are pushing for a message that makes empathy toward the economic plight of certain Americans more central….Some noticed a preview…when the president described the April inflation report…‘I know many families are struggling, and that even though we’ve made progress we have a lot more to do.’”

That can’t be right if we can swap Republicans for Democrats without changing anything else, and the perception gap would somehow magically go away.

But Biden shouldn’t be speaking as though the economy is one where more people need help when the truth is that fewer people need it. That would affirm the false notion that economic suffering is broadly based and something must be done to alleviate it.

The WaPo’s answer was an editorial saying that “Nearly everything Americans believe about the economy is wrong”. The same issue also had a story saying that people can’t make ends meet.

Are both of those things simultaneously true? Politicians better figure out which is primary (great economy) and which is secondary (bad personal financial situation).

We know that people are struggling to pay rent and mortgages and now, fast food’s a luxury. This is what is making many people think that this is the worst economy ever. And if you look closely this isn’t just “anecdotal”. The statistics supplied above seem to bear it out in some detail.

Biden needs to brag about the economy but he also must call out the food industry, and show people who are struggling that he’s trying to help.

Cartoons Of The Week – June 2, 2024

Too many Trump’s guilty cartoons this week. This isn’t a cartoon, but it’s timely:

The response by Republican leaders to Trump’s guilty verdict is unnerving. In the Senate, Mike Lee (R-UT) led a total of ten Senators in a revolt against the federal government by issuing a public letter saying that they would no longer pass legislation, fund the government, or vote to confirm Biden’s appointees because “the White House has made a mockery of the rule of law”. Here’s the letter:

The Senators are Lee, J. D. Vance of Ohio, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rick Scott of Florida, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Marco Rubio of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. So these ten say they will not do the jobs they were elected to do because a private citizen, Trump, was convicted in a state court by a jury of 12 people in New York, a trial that had nothing to do with Biden and everything to do with Trump.

A number of these senators were also involved in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In a way, they’re sowing the seeds of the GOP’s destruction. Who thinks that these threats of retaliation are a winning strategy to get the votes of average Americans?

In a discussion at CNN, Trump conviction heralds a somber and volatile moment in American history, historian Timothy Naftal opines that Trump’s call to arms for a campaign against the legal system will mean that every Republican will be forced to put it at the center of their 2024 campaigns. We’ll see whether that is a winning strategy.

Will Trump be dragged off the political stage?

Trump’s Georgia plea returns, but in the opposite direction:

Trust the lawyers to look on the bright(er) side:

Trump’s first argument when sentencing comes around:

Who except the most committed MAGAs will vote for this guy?

Alito won’t recuse:

And finally:

Will The Guilty Verdict Matter?

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Cundy’s Harbor, ME – May 2024 photo by Eric Storm Photo

Everyone’s talking about it. Apparently, as with everything political, there are two sides. In real life, Trump was found guilty. For those of you who feel good about what the jury decided, Wrongo would give you all a big hug if you were nearby. In the Republican parallel universe however, he’s the victim of a Communist show trial. Wrongo hasn’t seen this many White men cry since Larry Bird retired. Don’t be surprised if the verdict caused Martha-Ann Alito to lower her “Stop the Steal” flag to half-mast.

You may not have already heard, but one of the jurors who voted to convict Trump regularly gets their news from Truth Social and Fox, meaning against all odds, they were convinced by the evidence. That was most likely the juror Trump was counting to deliver a hung jury.

At the Mansion of Wrong, we opened a bottle of good champagne.

In a nutshell, the reality facing Americans in the presidential election is that one of the two main contenders is a felon whose campaign is based on claiming the system is rigged. From Ed Luce in the Financial Times (paywalled):

“The Republican party’s nominee now joins his former campaign manager, senior political adviser, chief White House strategist, and national security adviser as a convicted criminal. The jury’s speed and unanimity leave little doubt about the watertightness of the verdict.…No matter what his lawyers advise, Trump’s court of appeal will be the US electorate.”

What happens between the guilty verdict in New York and inauguration day on January 20, 2025 will be a comprehensive stress test of American society. The decision will be made by the individual votes of the 244 million citizens who are eligible to vote, many of whom will stay home rather than vote.

November 5^th, 2024 isn’t the end point of this struggle because if the election outcome is disputed, societal forces beyond the courts and the ballot box will again come to draw up sides, as they did in the interregnum between November 2020 and January 2021.

The verdict matters. But is it enough to be decisive? The jury is, well, still out on that, and will be until November. But the verdict is a welcome outcome if you’re anti-Trump. It pierces Trump’s preferred narrative that he’s a winner and it’s plausible that it will depress some margin of potential Trump swing voters while activating the Democratic base.

Biden should seize the moment. He doesn’t need to speak about the details of the NY case, except to profess his faith in the judicial system and his respect for our fellow citizens who served on the jury. He doesn’t have to engage with the hysterical Trump defenders, except to point out their dangerous demagoguery and un-American attacks on our legal and judicial system.

Trump OTOH, can bitch and moan about unfairness all he wants, but only losers do that. And if you’re explaining, you’re losing. So while we should expect Trump’s conviction to have a very small effect on MAGA Republicans, it will be repellant to most centrists. By contrast, the verdict will be a heartening reminder to liberals and anyone invested in responsible government that the system can still work.

But first let’s take a deep breath and let this uplifting moment wash over us. Now, agree to start every conversation about him by saying: “Convicted Felon Donald Trump…”.

From Dan Pfeiffer:

“A lot of polling shows that a conviction is bad news for Trump. The highly respected Marquette University Law School poll recently did a split-sample. The first group was asked “If it turns out that Donald Trump is found guilty in his New York trial, would you vote for Joe Biden or for Donald Trump?” Biden led Trump 43-39. The other group was asked “If it turns out that Donald Trump is found not guilty in his New York trial, would you vote for Joe Biden or for Donald Trump?” In that group, Trump led 44-38.”

Other polls are similar. CNN released a poll in late April that offered some interesting details on the voters who could abandon Trump if convicted:

“They tend to be younger than other Trump supporters (64% are younger than 50 compared with 37% of those who would not reconsider), are less likely to be White (49% are people of color compared with 17% of those who would not reconsider), are more apt to report being Biden voters in 2020 (20% of them say they backed Biden in 2020 vs. 6% of those who would not reconsider) and are likelier to acknowledge that Biden legitimately won enough votes to win the presidency four years ago (63% vs. 22% among those who would not reconsider). They are also more apt to be politically independent (49% vs. 31%) and ideologically moderate (50% vs. 38%).”

These are some of the same voters who supported Biden in 2020 but who might defect in 2024. We need to remember that Trump is very good at distracting people from his problems by creating new ones, and most voters have very short attention spans.

America no longer has political guardrails. We no longer have standards which are bottom-line required in order for someone to be considered an admirable person. Apparently, a significant percentage of us are willing to elect anyone who yells the loudest or lies the most.

Still, there’s nothing but upside in believing Trump’s conviction will matter. Because if that turns out to be wrong, America will no longer be a place where it’s worth living.

Sadly, Wrongo has no plans for leaving it.

So it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where for the first time in forever, we can stay plugged into the news and talk about what’s going on with our friends and family. But we still need to take a few moments to consider the upcoming week and what it can mean for the nation. Since there’s beautiful weather in the northeast, start by grabbing a seat outdoors in the shade. Now, watch and listen to two musical performances.

First, “Song from a Secret Garden”, from an album by the Norwegian group, Secret Garden. Their music is sort of neo-classical new-age compositions. Here it is performed in 2022 by the Millennium Symphony Orchestra, a Korean group with solo Cello by Yoon Kyung Cho. It’s a lovely arrangement:

Second for levity, watch and listen to “I fought The Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four from 1966. The tune was written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets and covered by the Bobby Fuller Four. Their version of the song was ranked No. 175 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004:

Cartoons Of The Week – May 26, 2024

The Republican War against women continued as Louisiana became the first state to criminalize abortion pills. The state’s Republican governor Landry signed a bill classifying mifepristone and misoprostol, two drugs used to induce medical abortions as controlled substances.

That puts the abortion pills in same category as anti-anxiety medications Xanax and Valium. The law makes it a crime to possess them without a prescription or outside of a professional medical practice, punishable by one to five years in prison and fines of up to $5,000.

The law will also make it harder for people who need misoprostol for other conditions. The drug is used to induce labor, treat miscarriages, reduce the risk of serious bleeding from ulcers and other indications. This is yet another reason for women everywhere in America to turn Republican legislators out of office.

And we’ve ended another week of decidedly ordinary cartoons, with many about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his flags. On to cartoons.

What the future is for women in Louisiana:

Then and now, where “then” wasn’t long ago:

The Red Flags are there. What should we do?

Alito is sitting pretty:

In a not-so-unlikely future:

Haley backtracks on Trump:

Why do Republicans always minimize the Trump outrage du jour?

Is Biden Doing As Badly As The Media Says?

The Daily Escape:

Wisteria, Seattle Japanese Garden – May 2024 photo by Lisa Ketchum

(New columns may be light and variable for the rest of the week as Wrongo and Ms. Right visit family in New England)

Wrongo and Ms. Right spent Sunday celebrating the college graduation of a granddaughter-in-law. That led to some discussion about the current wave of campus demonstrations and how college students seem so lukewarm about Biden.

Wrongo asked if anyone was aware that Biden had delivered the commencement address at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA earlier that day. Morehouse is one of the HBCU’s (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). None of them knew he was even speaking at a graduation. And given the uproar on campuses across the nation and what we’re hearing about how Black people are moving away from Biden, their thought was that it wasn’t going to be a good day for Biden.

Turned out that Biden had a pretty good day at Morehouse. From Simon Rosenberg:

“Yesterday, President Biden gave what I think is one of the most important speeches of his Presidency.”

As with the presidential debates, in this election year, every Biden speech is pitched by the media as a “make or break” event for Biden as The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports “Biden delivers high-stakes commencement address at Morehouse College”. But as Xitter commenter Scary Lawyer Guy says:

“Of the many double standards employed by the media, Biden needing every speech to be some combination of Lincoln and Cicero while Trump’s public appearances are 90 minutes of word salad, non sequiturs, and dictatorial musings that get no push back, is among the worst.”

Wrongo is still looking for an explanation why every news event is somewhere between a “test” for Biden or a “danger” to his candidacy. You can watch Biden’s entire Morehouse speech here. It was a good speech and an important moment in Biden’s campaign for reelection.

There is some truth to recent polling that shows Biden in difficulty with college students. Pew has a poll showing that younger Americans think Biden favors the Israelis too much (36%), while just 12% of young adults say he’s striking the right balance in the Israel-Hamas war:

These kinds of polls are why the media are concerned about Biden’s popularity, but 41% of those same students say that they’re “not sure” how Biden is doing. That’s five points more than the number who believe he’s doing the wrong thing. And for “all adults”, the favoring the Israelis too much is only at 22%, with the “Not Sure” holding at 40%, eighteen points more than those who dislike what Biden is doing.

Time to wake up, America! As Daniel Miller said after Biden’s speech:

“The media must do better. We all must do better. We cannot allow these lies that have poisoned the minds of the American public to continue unchallenged. We must challenge these lies and we must get the American people to see the truth.”

To help you wake up on a Tuesday morning, watch and listen to “Long Distance Call” from the new album “Sam’s Place”, the first Little Feat album in 12 years. The album title is for Sam Clayton, a Little Feat original who wanted to have Little Feat do an album of blues covers. “Long Distance Call ” was written by blues legend, Muddy Waters, and it has Clayton and Bonnie Raitt on vocals. It was recorded in Memphis TN at the old Sam Philips Studios and Sam and others in the band played on the same old piano that Jerry Lee Lewis played, decades ago:

Sample Lyric:

“I might buy you a brand new Cadillac, baby
If you only speak some good words about me…”

What’s the possibility that the media will find some good words to say about Biden?

Cartoons Of The Week – May 19, 2024

(There will not be a Monday Wake Up Call this week)

This week most cartoons were either about Justice Alito’s inverted flag, Congresspeople leaving their jobs in DC to go to NYC to help Trump violate his gag order, or the presidential debate which may or may not happen.

But there wasn’t one cartoon about Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s pardon of Daniel Perry, who was convicted of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020. You may recall that he shot Garrett Foster, an Air Force veteran who was attending a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. Foster was carrying an AR-15, which is legal to do in Texas. Daniel Perry drove his car into the protesters and Foster (who was white) confronted him without raising his gun, largely to protect Whitney Mitchell, who was Foster’s fiancé. She was in a wheel-chair because she’s a quadruple amputee. Foster’s rifle was in a safe position: safety on, no round in the chamber, and pointed at the ground. Perry shot him five times. From JVL:

“The case had everything Republicans love: A peaceful protest with people exercising their First Amendment rights. A veteran lawfully exercising his Second Amendment right. And before the murder the killer had been searching the internet for young girls and sending sexually explicit texts to a minor. The only problem was the protest itself: It was a Black Lives Matter protest. And so Daniel Perry—a groomer who was convicted of murder by a jury of his peers—became a conservative cause celebré.”

Originally sentenced to 25 years in prison, Abbott pardoned him. He’s a sick, criminal piece of work who killed a man in cold blood. Abbott gave him a full pardon. Abbott’s death cult MAGA constituents are thrilled. On to cartoons.

We’re gonna have to shut down the whole Supreme Court until we figure out what’s going on:

Alito waves his flag for Armed Forces Day. It honors the Armed Forces, while Memorial Day honors members of the Armed Forces who died in war. But nothing about Alito is honorable:

What to expect from the next presidential debates:

The next GOP VP nominee will fit in the slot:

Dems are afraid of the political polls:

A Unifying National Narrative

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Paines Creek, Brewster, Cape Cod, MA – May 2024 photo by Bob Amaral Photography

Wrongo has just started reading Erik Larson’s “The Demon of Unrest”, a history of how Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC fits into the overall story of the Civil War. It has a certain currency, since Wrongo and Ms. Right took a Charleston harbor tour in April that prominently featured Fort Sumter.

Usually, Wrongo would wait until he’s finished it to talk about a book, but today is an exception. In Larson’s note to readers (pg. XI) he starts by saying:

“I was well into my research on the saga of Fort Sumter and the advent of the American Civil War when the events of January 6, 2021, took place.”

That is the only time Larson refers to Jan. 6. The book mostly covers the five+ months from Lincoln’s election in November 1860 to the shelling of Fort Sumter in April 1861. We see that during those five months, amid the building talk of secession, a pro-slavery mob attempted to stop Congress from tallying the vote to elect Lincoln.

Knowing about that should hit very close to home for Americans today.

While there’s nothing explicitly in the book about Jan. 6, the Trump years (down to today) is a kind of spectral presence, not least when Larson describes the urgent concerns of public officials that the electoral count to certify Lincoln’s election would be disrupted, or that the certifications would be stolen or destroyed, and the Capitol attacked by angry Americans.

Sound familiar? The basic question today is similar to the question in 1861: “Can America stay together?” After the Civil War, we never thought that we would have to ask that question again. Today we can add a question about whether a presidential election loser should suffer consequences if they launched a coup attempt to retain presidential power.

It seems clear at this point that to bind the country together, we need to rediscover and commit to a new national narrative, a reaffirmation of America’s Cause.

All of this came to mind when Wrongo looked at a survey completed in April by the Nationhood Lab at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. The Nationhood Lab is working to develop a new narrative of America’s purpose that can be broadly shared.

They asked registered voters what in the nature of the US they most identified with by offering statement pairs about our national purpose, American identity, and the meaning of our past. In each case, one statement was keyed off the ideals in the Declaration of Independence (Civic Ideals) while the other was rooted in characteristics like ancestry, heritage, character, and values (Heritage and Traditions).

Each was presented in a manner that made them sound as attractive as possible. The participants were then asked to choose between civic ideals and our traditional heritage/character. Interestingly, the civic statements proved far more attractive regardless of gender, age, race, education or region, except for Republicans and those who voted for Trump in 2020:

Sixty-three percent of Americans preferred the statement that we are united “not by a shared religion or ancestry or history, but by our shared commitment to a set of American founding ideals: that we all have inherent and equal rights to live, to not be tyrannized, and to pursue happiness as we each understand it”
The alternative, that we are united “by shared history, traditions, and values and by our fortitude and character as Americans, a people who value hard work, individual responsibility, and national loyalty”, was embraced by only 33% of respondents.
Fifty-six percent of respondents said they agreed more with a statement that Americans “are duty-bound to defend one another’s inherent rights” over one that said we “are duty-bound to defend our culture, interests, and way of life” which was preferred by 36% of the survey participants.
Fifty-four percent preferred the statement “Freedom, justice, and equality are ideals each generation must fight for” and that “we must pledge ourselves to make our Union more perfect.” While the alternate statement, “Security, individual liberties, and respect for our founding values are the heritage each generation must fight for” was chosen by 40% of those surveyed.

Below is a chart with the full demographic results of the survey:

These results are in some ways, an antidote to the terrible polling Biden is experiencing. Nothing in the NYT poll should cause panic. While the NYT headline is that Trump leads in 5 states, that’s not actually what their own data says. Trump leads in 3 (AZ, GA, NV) and 3 are essentially tied.

But it’s very hard to believe that a significant share of people in the Nationhood Lab polls that share an overwhelming belief in civic ideals will turn around and vote for Trump in six months.

If you want additional support for the concept that current political polling can’t be relied on, consider the just-concluded Maryland Democratic Senate primary. David Trone, a businessman who put $62 million of his own money into his primary campaign lost to Angela Alsobrooks, Prince George’s County Executive. From Charlotte Clymer:

“There were ten polls on the Maryland US Senate Democratic Primary released this year. David Trone led in seven of them, most by double digits. Angela Alsobrooks led in three, never by more than five points. Alsobrooks just beat Trone by double digits.”

Political polling is massively overrated even if there is some marginal utility to it. If you really want results, you have to get out and vote.

Status Update: Ukraine/Russia War

The Daily Escape:

Pueblo Bonito Great House, Chaco Canyon, NM – May 2024 photo by James C. Wilson

Today we return to the almost invisible war in Ukraine. Since the Oct. 7 start of the Hamas/Israel war, Ukraine has slipped out of the consciousness of Americans, and politicians in particular.

The terrible slowness of the US approval of additional funding for Ukraine also took a toll because the resulting lack of weapons forced Ukraine into a defensive posture, attempting to hold Russia at bay by conceding ground slowly throughout the past six months.

Now, Ukraine is slowly creeping back onto the front pages. There is a nervous tone about reports from Ukraine suggesting that the war has entered a new and dangerous phase. From the NYT:

“In the past three days, Russian troops, backed by fighter jets, artillery and lethal drones, have poured across Ukraine’s northeastern border and seized at least nine villages and settlements, and more square miles per day than at almost any other point in the war….In light of the Congressional vote for $61 billion in aid, this may come as a surprise.”

“Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are fleeing to Kharkiv, the nearest big city.”

Kharkiv itself may be threatened. This news brings with it tough questions: How far can Russia go this time? Is this a setback for the Ukrainians, or now that the US has approved new weapons, is it a turning point?

The Ukrainians complained for months about severe shortages of ammunition, which was exacerbated by the intransigence of Republicans in Congress. Their failure to act delayed the delivery of key air defense weapons and ammunition, possibly turning the tide of the war in favor of the Russians.

And the Ukrainian military also must replenish its fighting forces. Russia is a country with about three times Ukraine’s population, and while both have suffered heavy casualties, Ukraine’s personnel needs are becoming critical. The more than two years of fighting off the Russians has left Ukraine desperate for fresh troops. The delay in US arms shipments caused by Congressional Republicans has also been a contributing factor to undermining morale, in addition to undermining the defense of Ukraine.

In 2023 Russia increased its troop mobilization efforts. Since the summer of 2023, difficulties in raising the pace of Ukrainian mobilization and Russia’s efforts on the ground have given a decisive advantage to Putin’s forces. It is hard to see how Ukraine can overcome this difference, given its smaller population and its vastly smaller economy. Adam Tooze says that: (brackets by Wrongo)

“…at the start of the war the ratio [of Russia’s economy to Ukraine’s] was more than 10:1, it is now far worse…the likelihood is that the balance will tip further against Ukraine.”

The Wrongologist

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Category: Banana Republicanism

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Is Biden Doing As Badly As The Media Says?

Cartoons Of The Week – May 19, 2024

Status Update: Ukraine/Russia War