Getting mean and dirty only helps Trump
I read more than I usually do yesterday, and the truth is that I read a lot.
First, the good news. Pete Hegseth will never deliver an opening statement at his nomination. He will withdraw sometime between soon and very soon.
Fox News staffers have euthanized his nomination, and they did it on NBC.
Tick tock goes the clock.
All that is left for the Hegseth nomination to do is bleed out. He’s done.
My suggestion to him would be to have a drink or 35, call up Gaetz, make a Cameo, call your mother, and thank her for trying to help. Then, get ready for the next reject to join what will be recalled as laughable trivia from a spot deeper into the crisis.
According to
of , there is horse-trading going on that will put Ron DeSantis at the Pentagon and Lara Trump in the United States Senate to rubber-stamp her father-in-law’s every whim.This actually works out for Democrats, who could, theoretically, find a competent candidate that hasn’t lost by the end of day one.
At any rate, American defense ministers do not wear uniforms by custom and tradition, but this new era means new possibilities.
I’m not sure what DeSantis should be wearing boots up, but the beret has to be orange.
It looks like Trump is going to get his military parade after all.
When thinking about the new metrics at hand this is what winning looks like for Democrats — at least for a while. It looks like Ron DeSantis in the Pentagon
The country is in deep trouble. Deep.
Giving up the high ground is the gravest mistake the weaker force can make in the situation in which Democrats find themselves.
Every Democrat should think carefully about the answer they want to give about Hunter Biden, so that they don’t get tangled in moral equivalencies regarding the coming January 6th pardons and the worst of Trump’s nominations.
The growing calls demanding that the Democrats adopt a politics of malicious cruelty as the answer to Trump, or abandon all or any standards, are asinine.
Adopting a politics of authentic morality that places a premium on service and people would be a start. It is time to start imagining the future.
Progressives should appreciate their liberation from the defense of 20th century
government programs and departments that Republicans have long attacked as unnecessary, bureaucratic and wasteful. Everything will be gone within four years, and mostly gone in two.
After Trump comes a massive era of reform and renewal. What does it look like? What comes next? Every problem this country currently has will be far worse when the next Democrat swears the presidential oath. The last four years are going to be completely irrelevant within six months at most, and have zero utility for imagining the next 20 years. More than anything else, what comes next must be different.
The “let’s get mean” camp of Democrats represents the next dogma of super duper stupid. Stupid can’t be fixed, but losing enough elections usually does the trick.
One thing that could manifest in the months ahead is a radical, left-wing version of the 2010 Tea Party that cost Republicans three Senate seats. Of course, ultimately, it swallowed the Republican Party, destroyed the integrity of most of the news media and flattened the Democratic Party. The difference is America could easily trip into fascism, but the people’s revolution isn’t in the national character.
In the near-term this would be great for Trump — and terrible for the sustainment of any serious opposition. He will crush it because he is tougher, harder and meaner.
Over the last 125 years the incumbent presidential party has lost congressional seats in all, but two elections
1902, 1934 and 2002.
The Democratic Party cannot survive what is coming if it chooses to embrace MAGA morality as necessitous towards defeating it.
Becoming what you fought in order to win is not victory. It is a twisted form of madness. All this will ever leave behind is MAGA, whether Trump is defeated or not.
The party must offer better as the remedy to Trump and MAGA.
It cannot discard values like integrity, honesty and respect, and expect to win for a very simple reason.
Unless the Democratic Party is fueled by idealism, opportunity and fighting to be on the side of ordinary Americans, it defaults into being the extremely unappealing party: weak, elitist and out-of-touch.
The weak party never wins. Ever.
The six principles of non-violent resistance are carved on the wall at MLK’s grave site.
They are going to be called upon soon.
South Korea is a pristine example of what is coming to America. The form will be different, but the audacity will be the same.
Time is running out to get ready.
Two nominees are down.
It will be hard for Tulsi Gabbard to navigate the Intelligence Committee hearings intellectually. It’s not a Fox News interview. I don’t believe she will make it, and Patel is a non-starter.
After that, Trump is going to get his team, including RFK.
Democrats are going to have to demonstrate patience. The American people are going to have an experiential learning that cannot be stopped.
For the record, I think it’s great that our NATO allies are going to spend more on defense. Trump deserves 100 percent of the credit.
In the main though, it changes nothing, and will not avert the catastrophe coming that will be terrible whatever form it may take.
The MAGA gloating will be over by July.
Until then the lack of real power in Washington, DC, means that Trump is unchained. There is a maximum of 15 human beings, most of them GOP senators, who have any ability to put any check on him.
If they don’t, then the American people are the last resort. When they take to the streets it will be American soldiers facing off against them.
Until then, the country waits.
In the meantime, Democrats in Washington, DC, should be looking in one — and only one — direction.
FORWARD.
Politically, there is a long uphill march ahead, through the snow, rain and all manner of inclement bullshit. It will be brutal.
My advice is to pack lightly, and carry only what is necessary for survival.
At the beginning of a long journey, people like to hold on to the past. I get it.
It’s why the boats must be burned.
The United States of America isn’t going to be the same in two years.
The debates of the last 20 years are over.
We are at NEXT now. Unchartered territory.
From this mess, a leader will emerge.
Aren’t you curious who it will be?
It does sound like Ron DeSatan will be nominated in place of Hegseth. A Governor with military experience is better than Hegseth, but any of the first 50,000 names in the North Jersey phone book would have been better than Hegseth.
What say you, Tommy Tuberville? You were one of Hegseth’s biggest poodles. My advice is to stay focused on completing your High School Equivalency Diploma.
Hegseth's ultimate withdrawal is living proof of the value of a free press. Events in Monterey that were brought to light by numerous investigative reporters, to Jane Mayer's work in the New Yorker, and the folks at Fox News (which is mind blowing), are examples of the free press in action and how lazy Trump's team was to scratch below the surface.