Class and Crass

The contrast between the outgoing and incoming Presidents was on full display last night and it could not have been more stark.  President Obama took a well deserved victory lap, noting achievements of his administration, exhorting Americans to take their duties as citizens seriously and finally giving a shout out to his wife, the VP and all those who worked tirelessly for eight years to better the lives of their fellow countrymen.  By contrast, a new dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent purports to reveal contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives as well as salacious material collected by the Russians with the goal of compromising the man they helped elect.  Besides being possibly the least qualified candidate to ever win the presidency it may be that Trump is now a virtual puppet of Vladimir Putin due to personal indiscretions and business ties with Russian oligarchs and organized crime.   If even a tiny bit of this intelligence information is true, Trump is a lame duck before his inauguration and may very well face impeachment soon after taking the oath of office.   I rest my case.

The Majority Report

A facebook troll annoyed the Divine Mrs. M the other day.  Commenting on the distress of democrats during the period leading up to the inauguration of Cheeto Jesus, he basically said "The election is over, Trump won, get over it".   As my better half did also, I beg to differ with said troll.  Trump won after a relentlessly ugly negative campaign of insults and lies regarding his opponent.  He won due in part to Russian hacking of Democratic National Committee e-mails which were leaked by wikileaks in a steady stream to maximum effect.  He won because the FBI director issued a highly partisan letter insinuating there was a continuing investigation of Hillary Clinton's e-mails.  He won because less than 80,000 voters in three swing states chose to vote against their own best interests.  He won despite losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes.  I could go on, but you get the general idea.  A significant percentage of the American public will never acknowledge the presidency of the Tangering Nightmare, so Mr. Troll, enjoy the fruits of your vote in solitude.  It's not going to be a fun 4 years.

They were not Giants

Most of the time, this blog comments on vegetable gardening, politics and the goings on of various members of the Monzeglio clan, not necessarily in that order.  Today, I will break with this agenda and write about an obsession which has cost me much psychic peace over the years.  I have to admit I am a New York Giants football fan.  I am not fanatical about it, but have followed the team's fortunes for over 50 years.  I still remember Sunday afternoons as a college freshman watching pathetic losses under Allie Sherman and wondering if the wealthy Mara family would ever cough up the resources to bring back the glory years of the early 50s which I had inconveniently missed by being to young to appreciate Charlie Connerly and Sam Huff.  Flash forward to the Bill Parcells era and a couple of Super Bowls brought to the team by Lawrence Taylor and Phil Simms.  Fans got used to winning again and the teams Eli Manning brought to the big game and humbled the Patriots seemed like the start of something really big.  Unfortunately it looks like Eli is on the back side of his career and the Giants lay down in front of a Green Bay Packer's bulldozer yesterday.  Some soul searching must be done in the aftermath of yesterday's massacre, because this iteration of the G-Men is not likely to win much without a makeover.  Nuff said.

Here Come the Russians

As a kid, I remember the movie "The Russians are Coming", with Alan Arkin.   As I remember, he played a bumbling commander of a Russian submarine crew stranded off the American coast.  The plot was mostly about the crew's misadventures and their interaction with the Americans they encountered, all in a comic vein, albeit with a slightly hysterical take on the American subconscious.  A remake of the same movie today would have to be a much darker comedy or a downright sinister tale of American bumbling and Russian interference in our affairs.  The Senate hearings on Russian hacking of the recent elections were a revelation and I'm sure the classified portion was even more alarming.  Meanwhile, according to the Washington Post, they partied in the Kremlin when the popular vote loser was declared the winner of the Presidency.  Putin got his useful idiot installed as the supposedly most powerful person in the world.  Who will be pulling the strings that make The Donald dance?  I think we need the answer to that and other troubling questions.

The new racism

As the election post mortems continue, it is becoming more and more obvious that the simplest explanation is the most correct.   Many white Americans are racist and sexist and are willing to vote for someone who promises to reverse the multicultural society we are becoming and somehow restore white supremacy.  What about all the white voters who voted for Obama, but not Clinton?  As Jamaal Bouie at Slate explains it, when the choice is between a bog standard republican such as John McCain or the plutocrat Mitt Romney, they could vote for a black man who championed the interests of the bottom 99%.  When, however, Donald Trump promised the return of the halcyon days of the 1940s and 50s when white men were the bosses and women and niggers knew their places they were able to switch to the GOP.  Of course, outside of Breitbart fans and the KKK, these rural white voters would never admit the validity of the proposition, but a new study which teases out the racism and sexism factors shows that those were decisive at both conscious and unconscious levels in many white voters.  As long as the democrats remain the multiracial party, they will have to deal with the possibility that republicans will from now on become more explicit in their appeals to the dark side of their base. 

To Govern or not to govern

That is the question republicans will have to answer for at least the next two years.   After 10 years of being the opposition party with little or no skin in the game, the GOP now controls all the levers of power in the federal government.  The problem is many representatives and not a few senators have  made a career of obstruction and demonizing government.  They claimed the government was the problem and have steadily tried to starve it of resources and credibility.  Now they are expected to make it work.  We have a crumbling infrastructure, a rube Goldberg health care system and a top heavy military system which has funneled pork projects to conservative representatives' districts regardless of their utility.  If they approach governance in the same way they have during Obama's two terms in office, we could be facing crises in a number of different areas in short order.  Add the lack of experience and ability of Cheeto Jesus at the head of the federal bureaucracy and it is a recipe for disaster.  Rural America votes overwhelmingly for republicans and gets a far greater share of federal resources than the wealthier, democratic cities.  Now these god-fearing and democratic hating rubes will finally get what they think they voted for.  And don't they wish they will like it.  For the rest of it, when the revelation comes to them it will be cold comfort to the rest of us.

New Year's first thoughts

My first new year's resolution is  to try to ignore the tweets of Cheeto Jesus and concentrate on the actual policies his administration is implementing.  Unfortunately, it seems the MSM can't see the forest for the trees and keeps chasing the shiny objects Trump keeps throwing out.  No, people, house republicans did not reverse course and stop themselves from gutting the ethics office.  They merely put it off until the furor dies down.  No, Ford did not cancel a plant in Mexico due to pressure from the incoming administration.  Sales of the company's small cars are tanking due to low fuel prices, so the new plant has been shelved.  No new jobs in the US.  Executives of US companies feel obliged to suck up to The Donald on the off chance he may direct his follower's ire in their direction.    I have a feeling most of the media will not realize they are still being played until it is time for the next election, if then.