Something you may have missed this week was that an increasing number of hospitals were held hostage by attacks on their IT departments. The attackers were looking for ransom. It started last month with Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.
Last week there were three more, and this week, a whole hospital chain was attacked by ransomware, this time affecting the servers of 10 related MedStar facilities in Maryland and Washington DC.
Apparently most hospitals have paid the ransom.
Is this extortion or terrorism? Patients probably donât care which. Letâs hope no patients were harmed by the IT outages. The biggest question these attacks on hospitals raises is: Why arenât hospitals better prepared against ransomware? Hospitals are considered critical infrastructure, but unless patient data is impacted, there is no requirement to even disclose that a hacking occurred, even if operations are disrupted.
Computer security in the hospital industry is generally regarded as poor, and the federal Department of Health and Human Services regularly publishes a list of health care providers that have been hacked with patient information stolen.
Onward to the rest of our silly season. Donald Trump had a bad week on the abortion issue:
On the other hand, Trump said out loud what the GOP really thinks:
When Obama and family got off AF One in Cuba, he was met by the Cuban Foreign Minister (FM):
That led to comments like this:
Obama doesn’t really take his responsibility as POTUS seriously. He obviously doesn’t respect the office and thus is indifferent to insults to the office.
And Trump tweeted:
Calm down Foxtards! Hereâs what you need to know:
In the US, a foreign head of state or head of government is formally welcomed by the president on the South Lawn of the White House. You can check out our State Department’s process here.
In Cuba it is similar:
President Putin was greeted at the airport, by the Cuban FM.
President Chavez of Venezuela was greeted at the airport, by the Cuban FM.
President Ortega of Nicaragua was greeted at the airport, by the Cuban FM.
President Xi of China was greeted at the airport, by the Cuban FM.
Back in the day, President Khrushchev of Russia was greeted at the airport by, you guessed it, the Cuban FM.
So, how is Obama being greeted at the airport by the Cuban FM, an “insult”?
BTW, both Obama in DC and Castro in Cuba greeted Pope Francis at the airport when he visited, so Trump was half-right. Castro did go to the airport once.
America has never seen a presidential candidate like this before. Detractors point to his lack of political experience, his poor grasp of policy, his alleged autocratic leanings and his shady past. They believe this man without much of a political platform (but with interesting hair) has neither the qualifications nor the temperament to be president. Yet in defiance of conventional wisdom, he is leading his three main rivals in the race for the White House, and party bigwigs are at a loss how to respond.
No, itâs not Donald Trump. Itâs Andrew Jackson, and the year is 1824.
We think of Jackson as the quintessential American populist, a president who took on the banks (well, one bank, the Second National Bank, yesteryearâs Fed). Jackson was a general in the Army, the guy who won the Battle of New Orleans against the British. He was a lawyer, elected into the House of Representatives, and a Senator from Tennessee, all before he was a two-term President.
Jackson was born in the backwoods of the South, his father died before he was born, and his mother raised him with the collective support of her family. He was the first member of his family to be born in the New World. He lost one brother in combat during the Revolution; another died as a POW. His mother died while nursing American prisoners. Jackson was, by todayâs standards, a child soldier.
He was also the greatest war hero of his generation. And he once took a musket ball in the chest before killing a rival in a duel.
Can you picture Mr. Foul-Mouthed Comb-Over participating in a duel?
Jackson ran for president three times, winning a least a plurality of the popular vote each time. But in his first try in 1824, the election was decided in the House of Representatives, and the presidency went to John Quincy Adams.
Jackson was a fabulous campaigner. Tens of thousands flocked to see this charismatic outsider who positioned himself as a steadfast defender of the Republic. Jacksonâs rallies dwarfed those of his rivals, yet he had plenty of baggage.
Jackson was, his rivals believed, more of a celebrity than a serious candidate. They learned a tough lesson, as are Trumpâs Republican rivals today.
The dominant political party in 1824 were the Democratic-Republicans. It was the party of Thomas Jefferson. Founded in the 1790s, it believed in an agrarian-based, decentralized, democratic government. The party opposed the Federalists who had authored and ratified the US Constitution. By 1830, the Democratic-Republican Party had been split in two. Adams, in league with Henry Clay, favored modernization, banks, and federal spending for roads, which the Andrew Jackson faction (the Democrats) opposed.
We see a similar party split looming on both sides today. And there are other parallels. The 1820âs were a time of discontent, financial panics, threats of rebellion, and outbursts of violence. Both the agrarian and new industrial classes felt that the central government was either hostile, or indifferent to their needs. They felt that equal rights for all had been replaced by a plutocratic class who kept most of the benefits to itself.
Today, Jackson is less likely to be portrayed as the champion of the working class than as a big-time slaveholder and Indian fighter. His infamous policy of Indian Removal supported the confiscation of Native American lands and their eviction west of the Mississippi. This led to the âTrail of Tearsâ the forced removal of nearly 125,000 Native Americans from Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida.
There is a similarity between Jacksonâs Indian Relocation act and Trump’s proposed âdeport all illegal Hispanicsâ policy. A big difference between Trump and Jackson is that Jackson was pro-immigrant; he enjoyed political support in the cities of the North, particularly among the Irish immigrants who had recently arrived in the US.
Jackson started out with very limited resources, whereas Trump has inherited wealth. Jackson took on the greatest army in the world at the time, and won. Trump led pranks at his military high school.
Jackson worked his way up the political ladder and had considerable experience in government at local, state and national levels, while Trump ran one losing campaign, and is now embarked on a second.
Jackson was opposed to big banks, whereas Trump owes his success to the big banks.
2016 shapes up as a change election, like 1932, 1860 or Jacksonâs in 1828. As in 1828, the Establishment Republicans may finally see what 40 years of promising their base one thing, and then doing exactly the opposite reaps.
The quote above is from âCity on Fireâ (Knopf, 2015) a novel by Garth Risk Hallberg that describes NYC in the 1970s when it was both dangerous and in decay. And it aptly describes the current phase of American politics. What we are seeing with Trump, and to a lesser extent with Sanders, is that angry white working class people have decided to overturn our election process.
Maybe not in 2016, but certainly by 2020.
It shouldnât be difficult to understand, since wages for working class white males peaked in 1968, 48 years ago. For their entire working lives, conditions for working class males have been getting worse. Here is a chart from the WSJ:
For white working-class men in their 30s and 40s, in what should be the prime decades for working and raising a family, participation in the labor force dropped from 96% in 1968 to 79% in 2015. Over that same period, the portion of these men who were married dropped from 86% to 52%. (The numbers for nonwhite working-class males show declines as well, though not as steep, and not as continuous.)
More from the WSJ:
In todayâs average white working-class neighborhood, about one out of five men in the prime of life isnât even looking for work; they are living off girlfriends, siblings or parents, on disability, or else subsisting on off-the-books or criminal income. Almost half arenât married, with all the collateral social problems that go with large numbers of unattached males.
In these communities, about half the children are born to unmarried women, with all the problems that go with growing up without fathers. Drugs also have become a major problem outside of urban areas, in small towns and in the suburbs.
During the same half-century, American corporations exported millions of manufacturing jobs, which were among the best-paying working-class jobs. They were (and are today) predominantly menâs jobs.
The share of the total income of the bottom 80% of US households vs the top 20% of households also peaked in 1968: 57.4% vs 42.6%. As of 2014, the share of total household income of the top 20% has increased from 42.6% to 51.2%, while that of the bottom 80% has declined to 48.8%.
So in 1968, the combined share of the bottom 80% of household income was 14.8% greater than that of the top 20%. In 2014, it was only 2.4% less. That is a 17.2% negative swing. So, the quality of life for the average white male peaked in 1968.
And itâs not just men. Poor women are angry too. One thing everyone in the lower rungs of the ladder (the bottom 50% of the household income scale) have in common is that most of them now realize they are getting screwed. The numbers of white working-class voters will dip to just 30% of all voters by 2020. This is a dramatic decline from 1988, when white working-class voters were 54% of all voters.
Trump supporters want to use political power to restore their economic position. As any aware citizen knows, you never get power exactly the way you want it. Therefore, Trumpâs supporters think they need to overturn our established politics to make change, and that can only happen if they follow an authoritarian like The Donald. A good current example of this is the Congressâs Freedom Caucus, who with just 40 members, have thrown out a Speaker of the House, and plan to drive the federal legislative process.
Contrast this with the American Civil Rights movement, which was ideologically diverse, incompletely successful, but mainstreamed in our politics. It negotiated a better life for African-Americans. But todayâs white underclass are through playing the long game. They do not plan to struggle for as long as the black underclass did, and they are believe that working within the system is futile.
Remember, most of them are armed. Our concern meter should be dialed up to 11.
America is starting to look like a pre-revolutionary society. Life today shouldnât be âblack ties matter.â Unregulated capitalism makes for a mean culture, and today, it is dominating us.
So, the oven is preheating. There is still time to avoid cooking our goose, but we have had a president who called himself a âuniter, not a dividerâ and failed. We then had a president who promised to be post-partisan, but deepened our political divisions.
And there is no political leader on the horizon who possesses the skills and message to unite us.
While we are busy obsessing about the Donald and Hillary, the Congress is supposed to be governing in the background. They aren’t.
After Paul Ryan (R-WI) replaced John Boehner as House Speaker, the idea was that Republicans would have more of a united front. And specifically, when it came to Ryanâs specialty, the federal budget, the idea was that Republicans would have an âah-haâ moment, craft a budget, and then put pressure on Obama to go along.
But the change in leadership changed nothing for those divided House Republicans. Despite months of budget negotiations, the House Freedom Caucus, the 40 Republicans that ousted Boehner as Speaker, have now rejected Paul Ryanâs budget, probably leaving the Republicans with no budget to pass this year. More from HuffPo: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
The budget, a non-binding resolution laying out spending priorities for the next 10 years, is little more than a press release, except in one key area: It sets the spending limits for the next fiscal year. And without those individual allocations, thereâs little point in Republicans trying to go through appropriations process.
If there is no budget, there wonât be appropriations bills. A return to the regular legislative process for appropriations was a key tenet of Ryanâs program for the Speakership. Republicans overwhelmingly support the process of sending up individual spending bills so that they can add policy riders to legislation, putting the squeeze on Mr. Obama to choose between funding parts of the government, or keeping the Democratâs social policies intact.
The Freedom Caucus essentially wants to control government from a base of 40 members of the House, with only a few allies in the Senate and no president willing to agree to their demands. They want to…balance the budget through massive spending cuts, dismantle government healthcare programs, and overturn every executive order of the past eight years…
For months, Ryan has attempted to broker a deal on a budget resolution, which sets topline numbers for the appropriations committees to use to fund government operations. A bipartisan deal with the White House had set those numbers in stone, at $1.07 trillion for the next fiscal year. But the Freedom Caucus wants to cut that by $30 billion, back to the level mandated by Sequestration, the automatic spending cuts implemented in 2011.
Nevertheless, the Freedom Caucus formally opposed the deal, unable to stomach the nominal $30 billion spending increase (all of which was offset by cuts elsewhere). While Ryan had offered them votes on individual elements on the budget, members dismissed the additional votes as meaningless, because the Senate was unlikely to take them up.
Because Democrats donât usually agree to budget resolutions from the other side, losing a 40-member bloc is enough to ensure that Ryanâs budget wonât have enough votes. That means itâs likely the government will be funded with a Continuing Resolution (CR) at current levels for the near future. And Democrats will have to supply most of the votes for the CR to pass.
And the lack of a budget is just a sidelight to the continuing irreconcilable differences between GOP factions. The GOP cannot fix this. Only a purge of one side of the Party, or the other, will do it.
If Paul Ryan cannot mediate this intra-party dispute, who can? Is Trump believable as a mediator?
If they canât agree on something as simple as a topline budget number, what can they agree on?
The Trump phenomenon may succeed, or it may not. But the Freedom Caucus phenomenon seems far more consequential to the GOP and the country than Trump. And itâs hard to figure out how Republicans will get to where they are trying to go with the Tea Party or with Trump.
So, hereâs a Wake Up Call for the GOP: Your âBig Tentâ strategy with the Tea Party has failed. You gotta split up with the Teahadists and return to your roots, the roots that allowed you to govern back in the day. Then you can begin working to take back the seats you have lost to the Freedom Caucus.
To help the GOP wake up, here is a song by Girlyman, a group that broke up in 2013 at the height of their powers. Girlyman called their musical style “harmony-driven gender pop.” They had a strong following in the gay community. Here is âJoyful Signâ recorded in NYC at City Winery on April 16, 2011. And, its a break up song:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Theyâre worse than the brown shirts and the communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes. Weâre going to eradicate the problem, weâre not going to treat the symptoms.
Onward to the GOP and SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland. Mitch McConnell, our #1 Constipational scholar, says ânoâ to a previously appointed Constitutional scholar:
Judge Garland should take his cue from namesake Judy Garland in Wizard of Oz and say to the Senate, find a heart, find a brain. But mostly, find some courage:
Or as the cartoon shows, all the seats on the Court could well be vacant. Never before has the Senate insisted that it can simply ignore the presidentâs nominee and refuse to participate in the process required by the Constitution. They should not start now.
The GOP has trouble squaring the circle about the peopleâs voice being heard:
The general election shapes up as who can use the Force more effectively:
One explanation for Putinâs pull-out from Syria:
Anger at Wall Street. Anger at Muslims. Anger at trade deals. Anger at Washington. Anger at police shootings of young black men. Anger at President Obama. Anger at Republican obstructionists. Anger about political correctness. Anger about the role of big money in campaigns. Anger about the poisoned water of Flint, Mich. Anger about deportations. Anger about undocumented immigrants. Anger about a career that didn’t go as expected. Anger about a lost way of life. Mob anger at groups of protesters in their midst. Specific anger and undefined anger and even anger about anger.
And more:
In this season of discontent, there were still as many expressions of hope as of fear. On a larger level, there were as many communities enjoying a sense of revival as there were fighting against deterioration and despair.
We do not really know which party will pay the piper in November; the results are not even close to being knowable. Right now, the middle ground between the two parties has become more permeable than ever before in living memory, in large part due to failed expectations by both parties.
The Democratic Party has a deep fault line between its FDR-inspired branch, and its corporatist branch, represented these days by Hillary Clinton, which uses a surface fealty to social issues to differentiate it from the Republicans.
The country lucked out with FDR. He was a pragmatist, with no love of theory, and a willingness to entertain any idea on the basis of whether it would “work” or not. He was better than most other pols because, more than any other president after Lincoln, he was willing to look objectively at the ideas proposed by the left. Here is FDR on October 31, 1936, reflecting on his first term:
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.
FDR was also willing to look at right wing ideas. In fact, he campaigned in 1932 on the promise of balancing the budget, an idea that could have been catastrophic. He revived the idea in his second term, almost sinking the New Deal, but the better ideas won out.
By contrast, the Republican Party is a collection of “high-minded” people, each with an obsession from which she/he cannot be dissuaded; like believing that tax cuts create massive GNP growth, or as Donald Trump believes, America can have tax cuts, undertake a huge military buildup and balance the budget without any cuts in benefits to Americans over 55.
Republicans continue to think the US is a “Christianâ nation, they think only English should be spoken, and that all immigrants should be deported, and some believe that the 16th Amendment (allowing the federal government to levy taxes) should be repealed.
By contrast, the Democratic Party is a coalition of broad-minded people, trying always to stitch together interest groups and their needs with a leader of consequence to deliver change.
There are two schools of political thought when it comes to elections:
Vote for the person, not the party
Vote for the party, not the person
Democrats believe in #1, while Republicans believe in #2. This is why Râs will accept Trump as a presidential candidate, and it is why Dems think that is a crazy idea.
But Republicans didnât count on Donald Trump, or his hostile takeover of their Party.
The question for the rest of 2016 is whether all of the manifest anger expressed by Americans will be put to good use, or if it will be used to give voice to thuggery and racism (Trump) or religious extremism (Cruz).
Public service is a duty and the calling doesn’t come quickly or easily. And that high-mindedness is absent in those that go into politics to gain personal wealth and power, like The Donald, or most of those in Congress.
After Super Tuesday, Part Three, it is hard to see how anyone but Trump wins the GOP nomination. But given that there are still powerful forces who stand against him being the Republican presidential candidate, the fight will continue, particularly if he doesnât win enough delegates in the primary season to win on the first ballot.
On the Democratic side, Hillary won big. As of this writing, all of the delegates have not yet been awarded, but so far, Clinton has won the race 326/220 (60%/40%). As primary night wore on, Wrongo heard many Dems saying how happy they would be to run against Donald Trump in the general election.
Dems should be careful what they wish for. It isnât a completely new phenomenon for Dems to root for a Republican presidential candidate that they perceived to be an easy target, and be wrong.
Think back to 1968. This wasnât a great year for Dems, considering that the convention was held in Chicago during a year of riots in more than 100 cities following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Both Kennedy and Sen. Eugene McCarthy had been running against the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey. There was violence on the convention floor, outside the convention center and at Grand Park.
With all that going on, it is doubtful that Dems paid much attention to the GOP primary contest, but they were relieved when Nixon was nominated. After all, a Democrat had beaten him in 1960 (JFK) and 1962, when Nixon lost the California gubernatorial election to Pat Brown, and famously said: âYou wonât have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.â
But, in 1968, Nixon won the popular vote by the very narrow margin of 0.7 of a percentage point, while easily winning the Electoral College, 301-191.
In 1976, Dems probably were unhappy to be running against Gerald Ford, who had replaced Nixon when he resigned in 1974, since incumbents have a strong advantage. Ford defeated Ronald Reagan by a narrow margin on the first ballot, but Jimmy Carter won the general, pitching himself as a reformer.
In 1980, Dems probably were happy to run against Ronald Reagan instead of George HW Bush, but they lost in a three-way contest.
By 1988, Dems thought George HW Bush couldn’t possibly win. But the Dems ran Michael Dukakis, and Bush won.
In 2000, Dems were delighted to be running against George W. Bush instead of John McCain, and proceeded to lose to him twice.
In 2008, no GOP candidate had a chance to win unless they repudiated the 8 years of the Bush/Cheney administration. So McCain was no longer feared by Dems.
In 2012, none of the GOP candidates came anywhere near close to being strong enough to deprive Obama of a second term.
Therefore, Democrats who want to run against the person they believe to be the weakest GOP candidate have a poor track record, one that blinds them to the weaknesses of their own candidates during the Democratic primaries.
Trump vs. Clinton is the general election race that the establishment Dems want, but it seems risky to Wrongo. Hillary isn’t an inspiring candidate, rather, sheâs probably about on par with John Kerry, another career politician.
OTOH, Trumpâs campaign style is almost tailor-made to defeat an elitist associated with practically every economic and political failure of the past 30 years. He now has months to refine how to go after her, and years of material to use.
The Bernie Sanders win in Michigan is chalked up to his attacks on trade agreements, in particular, the Trans Pacific Partnership that resonated with a broader audience than his attacks on Wall Street. Along the way, Donald Trump has been plowing the same ground, talking about how America is losing jobs to Mexico and Asia.
So the question is, are we seeing a political backlash against trade? Can Sanders or Trump gain sufficient political traction to win with this issue? And can we blame trade for losing jobs to China and elsewhere?
Jared Bernstein in Mondayâs New York Times made an excellent point: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
The economic populism of the presidential campaign has forced the recognition that expanded trade is a double-edged sword. The defense of globalization rests on viewing Americans primarily as consumers, not workers, based on the assumption that we care more about low prices than about low wages.
When you hear politicians speak about free trade, they talk about cheaper products. They sidestep the terrible impact on American jobs, they sidestep the concern that many, many jobs have been lost through free trade agreements. The free trade deals have also exacerbated the loss of union power, which means fewer (and lower paying) jobs, fewer hours, and poorer benefits, including pensions.
The trade topic is obviously a huge driver of Trumpâs and Sandersâs appeal. It is a problem for Hillary, since she was for the Trans-Pacific Partnership before she was against it.
Despite being on opposite ends of the political spectrum, the two populists are using the same message: The government, both political parties, and business are working at cross-purposes with the needs of the American people. In a democracy, populism is a warning sign that government has been disconnected from its citizens. Consider that while Americans lost at least 4 million jobs, corporate profits are up, and the 1% has gotten much wealthier.
It’s true that off-shoring is good for the global economy. Chinese people working to make iPads are richer than they were, but it’s not a win-win situation. It’s more of a win-lose, where Chinese workers win relatively big, while American workers lose medium.
Another problem is that workers directly impacted by trade have little power or influence in their firms or the country as a whole. In the US, exports only make up about 13.5% of GDP. But in Sweden, Denmark or Germany, exports are north of 40% percent of GDP. And these countries, with far fewer natural resources, have robust social safety nets in addition to high wages. And as Bernstein says:
The real wage for blue-collar manufacturing workers in the United States is essentially unchanged over the past 35 years, while productivity in the sector is up more than 200%.
Why? Because governments in these other countries stress building high-skill industries that compete based on producing high value-added products, while low-skill industries that compete based on exploiting their employees are discouraged. This is called having an industrial policy, which encourages business to meet government priorities. In America, we are against having industrial policies, because it sounds like socialism.
Bernstein points out that the free trade negotiation process has been captured by investors and corporate interests:
According to the Washington Post, 85% of the members of the outside committees advising the administration on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership were from private businesses and trade associations (the rest were from labor unions, NGOs, academics and other levels of government).
And thatâs the world we live in. Business is driving most of the decisions that our politicians make, ensuring that whatever is enacted is primarily good for business, and secondarily, if at all, for We, the People.
And in the world we live in, free trade has significantly boosted wages and quality of life for overseas workers and has helped lift millions of Chinese and other Asian citizens out of poverty, while our middle class, a prerequisite for our stable society, has been hollowed out.
Yet, Americaâs plutocrats and politicians push for even MORE free trade.
The current election cycle may horrify the “political establishment,” of both parties, but it was preordained by their bought-and-paid-for politics.
Americans have a real gripe. They don’t see, or care about the benefits to Chinese and other third world workers that lower or stagnant wages at home help to provide. The Bernie win in Michigan and Trumpâs success in the GOP primaries show people are super pissed off.
Our political parties better start coming up with ways to mitigate the trade and wage problem before someone like DonDon actually succeeds in becoming president.
Todayâs wake-up call is for the Republican Party.
Beginning with Barry Goldwater in 1964, the Republican Party began its deal with the Devil by starting their catering to those on the farthest Right edge of the political spectrum, inviting people who traffic in anger, hatred, religious zealotry, and fearmongering of those not like them, inside the GOP tent.
The election of Ronald Reagan helped bring these zealots some legitimacy, not because he was one of them, but because he had courted them in his first run for the White House.
We forget that in 1976, an evangelical Christian who taught Sunday school, and who endeavored to follow Christ in his daily life ran for President and won. But, despite Jimmy Carterâs strong Christian beliefs, Evangelicals went heavily for Ronald Reagan in 1980. Because they admired his Christian faith? No, his faith seemed situational. But he projected what they perceived as strength and leadership.
Evangelicals ignored one of their own in favor of a secular Republican who talked tough and affected an air of someone who could talk tough when events called for toughness. Turns out that for Evangelicals, like many groups, are primarily concerned with political power; their need for a theologically-sound candidate takes a back seat whenever it has to.
Thatâs the reality today, as it was back then. Trump is barely Christian, and Cruz is solidly Christian, but the politics of the Christian Right demands fealty to a political agenda that tolerates hatred, exclusion, and intolerance. Therefore, Trump and Cruz quality.
The contrast between the Democratic and Republican parties couldnât be more sharply defined.
Since the late 1800s, when businesses were undertaking tremendous consolidation, leading to the formation of trusts, Republicans supported business, despite the fact that business was beginning to prey on people and overshadow the government.
After the brief Republican Progressive period from 1890-1917, in which Republicans were the force behind âtrust-bustingâ, they have advanced an increasingly exclusionary and discriminatory agenda, denying a collective responsibility to care for our fellow human beings in favor of elevating corporate interests along with their view of individual liberties above all else. Government is an instrument designed to show strength, project American power, and enforce a neo-liberal, dog-eat-dog economic worldview, one that will take the social contract back to where it was in the early 1900âs.
Democrats understood that government needs to be more than a police and fire department. One of the most important roles assumed by government was ensuring that we create a level playing field for all citizens, that corporations were not first among equals in America. They also believed that we must look after those who are down on their luck by providing a social safety net.
Government was not to be primarily an instrument for projecting power and protecting the influential, but rather one of ensuring the American social contract, while protecting our citizens from the abuses of big business.
After years of courting the Radical Right, thinking that they could be kept under control, Establishment Republicans now understand that, not only do they no longer have control, the inmates are now running the asylum â poorly. Faced with the reality that the bill for their deal with the Devil has come due, Republicans trotted out Mitt Romney to make the case against The Donald, who responded with crude personal insults and inappropriate sexual innuendo:
Congratulations, Republicans, you have only yourselves to blame. Now, you desperately need a Wrongo Wake up Call. To help you wake up, letâs return to the âsmall handsâ innuendo of the last GOP debate.
Here are the Talking Heads doing âBorn Under Punchesâ live in Rome in 1980, from their great album, âRemain in Lightâ. This 8-minute live version is worth your time, since it includes spectacular guest guitar work by Adrian Belew, who played with Frank Zappa and King Crimson.
Some think the guitar that Belew is playing was originally jimmy Hendrixâs (the one he burned at the Monterey Pop festival). Frank Zappa repaired it, and loaned it to Adrian Belew, whose main influence was Hendrix.
The bassist in the white dress is Tina Weymouth who is (still) married to Chris Franz, the Talking Heads guitarist. Here are some sample lyrics:
Take a look at these hands Take a look at these hands The hand speaks, the hand of a government man Well I’m a tumbler born under punches, I’m so thin
Hmmm. Is Trump a government man?
Those who view the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Ted and Don enter the Rut:
The GOPs self-fulfilling prophecy:
