A Chat With My Doctor About the State of Medical Care in the United States

"Younger people in this country aren't entering the medical field because insurance companies have made the competent practice of medicine in this country virtually impossible."  

This discussion came after the doctor told me that he was going to refer me to another physician to treat an underlying condition they had discovered after some tests were run.  My wife has had some major difficulty with back pain, and has waited more than three months for an appointment with a pain management physician.  We have also both experienced long waits to see our general practice physician and this is happening in a large, metropolitan health care system that operates three hospitals, and is directly connected to a university medical school.  

The condition I'm being treated for requires immediate attention, and so I was concerned, when he mentioned the referral, of how long it would take to get in to see the doctor.  He assured me that I would be on a priority list, and would be able to bypass the normal six to eight week wait to get in.  That prompted my question of why, in a large hospital system connected to a medical school, does it take so long to get in to see a doctor.  

His response was that there is now a shortage of doctors because the number of younger people entering the medical profession, and specifically to become physicians, is waning.  He entered private practice himself just three years ago, and in the medical school he attended, numbers were down.  And he said, specifically, that one of the primary reasons for this is the way insurance companies now dominate and control the practice of medicine in the United States, including what they choose to pay for, what they deny, and even down to what treatments they will allow doctors to prescribe for patients, based solely on the cost factor  

Training doctors to care for patients and make their needs a priority doesn't fit well with either corporate profit goals of insurance companies, or with the profit required by the major corporate ownership of most hospitals in the United States, including the one where he is affiliated.  The end result is that the number of students entering medical school is dwindling, and at the other end, a lot of doctors are retiring in their fifties, rather than continuing to do battle with the insurance companies who control the practice of medicine. 

As an educator, I added my own opinion that the quality of American education was an obstacle because many American students don't have the academic skills to meet the admission standards of medical school.  He completely agreed with that, noting that more than half of the doctors in the hospital system in which he works are foreign born and foreign educated, mostly Asians, including himself.  

I have been going to the doctor in this particular health care network for eight years.  It was a nonprofit system, originally operated by an order of the Catholic church.  Three years ago, they were bought out by a large corporation that owns multiple hospital systems in several midwestern states and since then, I have noticed the increased wait times to see doctors, even our general practice physician, who is in a practice that once had four physicians and now is down to two, with one nurse practitioner.  

The delays to get in to see doctors is partly the result of an exodus of physicians that took place shortly after the corporation bought the system.  They haven't replaced many of those who decided that was their signal to retire, or to leave, whether they can't find enough applicants, or whether there aren't enough out there to fill the vacancies.  Three months is a pretty standard wait time to get an appointment, and in some areas, like oncology or cardiology, it can be as long as five months.  

So what is the point?  

The point is that the overall practice of medicine in the United States, like just about everything else, has become more about making profits than caring for people.  And the end result of that is a major decrease in the quality of medical care and a major increase in its cost.  That's what capitalism has done to medicine.  And it means that half of the money Americans spend on their health care doesn't go to their care, it goes to the profits of the 1% who now control 99% of the country's wealth.  

And it means that we are long past the time when major reforms, overhauls and changes need to be made in American health care.  

What We Learned About the Republican Party From the Fauci Hearings

When COVID hit the United States, a crisis equal to others in American history like 9-11, Pearl Harbor, and the Great Depression, we were able to observe, first hand, what most of us knew all along about Trump.  The fact that this man was a pathetic, egotistical, bigoted loser was already out in the gross incompetence he displayed while serving his first term as President.  His inability to handle the pandemic with the kind of skill displayed by other Presidents facing similar crises came out almost immediately.  

He was unable to deal with facts, and attempted to manipulate public opinion by lying about everything, making outrageous claims and behaving like a genuine, certifiable idiot.  If Franklin Roosevelt had demonstrated this kind of gross incompetence and total lack of character in the face of the Pearl Harbor attack, we'd be speaking Japanese today.  

Dr. Fauci's expertise and response made Trump look like a stupid idiot.  I know, that's not difficult to do, but armed with facts based on science, Fauci was the clear expert, and Trump, whose ego wouldn't allow him to acknowledge someone else's success, made it clear that he was the single most incompetent leader of the world's nations when it came to dealing with COVID.  We are fortunate in this country to have had governors like Gavin Newsom, J. B. Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro, among others, to deal with the crisis in spite of the Trump administration being a total zero.  

Embarassed by his incompetence and stupidity, the only way that Republicans now have to cover up their President's monumental ineptness and gross incompetence is to call for some kind of an investigation, hold a hearing and spew out endless syllables of meaningless, inaccurate, "alternative facts" to point to in creating the other side of an issue which didn't exist before.  This is to try and control the massive damage that has been done by all of Trump's lies to their party.  

Fauci got the last word.  Pleading the Fifth, repeatedly, after his lawyer was illegally forbidden from entering the room, his silence spoke volumes about the complete and total incompetence of the Trump administration's actions on COVID.  

Yes, we already knew this.  This is just more confirmation of Trump's incompetence and inability to serve the people of this country in a manner which they deserve.

 

Martin Under Increasing Pressure at "Dysfunctional" DNC: Carville Suggests Replacing Him With David Hogg

 Carville Names His Choice for New Democratic Leader

The midterms are approaching, the Democratic National Committee, under Ken Martin's leadership, is a non-factor and two million dollars in debt.  I'm not a big fan of James Carville, by any means, but I agree wholeheartedly with his suggestion that Martin be replaced with David Hogg, the founder of Leaders We Deserve.  

"If David Hogg wants to take it over, then, I ain't stopping you--go ahead man," Carville said, from a hospital bed where he is recovering from surgery.  

Well, why not?  He certainly could not do any worse.  

What's Gone Wrong With the DNC? 

Frankly, I cannot answer that question.  It seems that none of its recent leadership has been able to resurrect the moribund institution.  Could that be because leadership is given to individuals as a consolation prize?  Is it institutional politics, where those who have been standing in line waiting for power finally get something to reward them for their patience?  I've never been able to understand why Democrats can't make this committee work to their political advantage.  

We are in a time now where the opposition to Trump is coalescing around individuals who are actually bypassing institutional, traditional, old-school politics and many of the long standing traditions within partisan politics no longer work either inside or outside the party.  The DNC wasn't effective before Jaime Harrison became its chair.  And the current leadership of Ken Martin hasn't fixed it.  I know there were high hopes expressed by some Democrats that Martin would be different, and would provide the kind of leadership necessary to right the ship and make it an effective tool against the GOP, but that just hasn't happened. 

Can David Hogg Fix It? 

I get what Carville is thinking.  And while Hogg's short tenure at the DNC and then subsequent departure and formation of Leaders We Deserve is not seen as some kind of breakthrough success by the party's old guard leadership, noting what he has accomplished, starting from scratch, is significant, given the cash they have to operate and the scale of their operation.  At last count, the candidates they support have won something like 21 elections so far, on a shoestring budget.  

I don't know how many Democratic party leaders listen to Carville, but I know he does have some influence.  Hogg would not fit at the DNC unless he is given the freedom to completely reform it.  The old version won't be missed, Democrats have become used to raising all of the support they need without much DNC help.  

Let's be honest.  The fundraising being done by Democratic candidates for Congress in this midterm election is working because Trump has become so unpopular, and people are worn out by his incompetence.  Democrats are going to take back both houses of Congress, and I'm pretty sure about that, not because they have come up with a solid campaign theme and are running on it, but because a clear majority of voters are willing to put Trump out on the street to get a President who cares about the American people and their needs.  Then the pressure will be on the Democrats to come up with a plan to bring affordability back and make government reforms that can't be undone in order to prevent another demagogue from getting control of the government.  

The kind of politics that is now appealing to the age group Hogg is targeting isn't a fit for a traditional fundraising approach and the "old school" tradition under which the DNC operates.  He was already there once, and didn't fit.  So he'd need the kind of latitude to do politics how he knows to do it, which has been more successful than the DNC has been.  And that would mean abandoning the "way we've always done things" in favor of what appears to be working among younger voters who are the party's future.  

Maybe that's exactly what it needs to fix it.  Then again, saddling someone like David Hogg with the DNC's debt problem and the other problems it has experienced might slow him down and take away the effectiveness he has put together so far.  It would hold back one of the party's up and coming younger leaders.  

Something does need to change at the DNC.  It is especially difficult to see what is happening there while Democrats have the ability to cash in as a result of Trump's monumental disappointment.  

So who else does James Carville have in mind?  Frankly, I don't really care.

Dissatisfaction With Trump's Incompetence Reaching All Time Highs: But We Don't Appear to Be Dissatisfied With What Counts the Most

Newsweek: Republicans Get Bad Midterm News in Two Recent Polls

The polling data that keeps coming out, pointing to massive dissatisfaction with every move Trump makes, should be very encouraging to Democrats for the November midterms, especially for those who are just now getting involved in the process.  For more than a year now, two thirds of the voters in this country have been telling pollsters they think the sitting President is an incompetent boob, who lies through his teeth and who is anything but an effective President.  On every issue, from his ridiculous startup of a war in Iran to his handling of the economy, to the manner in which he has botched immigration enforcement, to the lies he can't seem to stop telling about non-existent election fraud, it's clear that he's lost almost all of the soft support he got to eke out his win in 2024, and that most of the country is not being fooled by his demagoguery.  

I will point out that this information comes from Newsweek, a source with a Trump bias that rarely publishes anything making him look bad.  They try to couch his incompetence, weakness, incessant lying and inability to meet the challenges of the oval office as just a political perspective.  So when they publish bad news, it's worse than they are making it out to be.  

In fact, a lot of his hard core base has lost faith, at least, those who are agenda driven.  He seems to forget that there are some among those who have been his most faithful supporters, who can read, write, and are not as bottomlessly naive or stupid as he thinks they are.  His addled mind doesn't seem to remember he made promises specifically to them and now is completely ignoring them.  To be sure, most of his MAGA base is bottomlessly naive and stupid, but there are some people who have crawled out from under the rock, and are, to use a favorite phrase of mine, have "woke up".  

As one of the dissatisfied voters, and in Trump's case, to be fair, I've never been satisfied with his being nominated or elected, and I have always known that for his entire adult life he's been a sexual predator, a rapist, a con artist, grifter, womanizing adulterer and business cheat.  The problem I have with him goes well beyond his handling of political issues.  It's his total lack of character.  He is, without a doubt, one of the most immoral, corrupted, deviant individuals ever to occupy the White House, and that is saying a lot, given the character of many of the men who have previously served.  Being worse than Richard Nixon takes some deliberate effort.  And I think Trump has used Nixon as a personal example. 

It's the lack of character, and the willingness of so many voters to ignore it, that bothers me the most.  

But that doesn't show up in the polling data.

The Support System Which Undergirds American Democracy Has Eroded

For a country which still claims the democratic values on which it was founded, and which its white, Christian-influenced majority claims it has some kind of superior moral foundation that is included in patriotic expression, to have elected a demagogue like Trump, who shows no evidence of having any of those values in his business dealings or personal life, is very disturbing.  Having that many people who are either completely blind to this man's character, or completely ignorant of the values the country was founded on, or totally willing to compromise their Christian convictions and character to vote for him is, in fact, a sign of weakness.  Somewhere, the support system for the politics of undergirding national values and protecting the Constitution and the democratic republic it established has failed.  t 

What is so disturbing about this is that these social and political institutions have broken down, and there doesn't appear to be anything to fix them.  What is to prevent this same segment of the electorate, and the "low propensity voters" who are reactionary and generally driven by misinformation, conspiracy theories, distrust of anything "government", and the influence of white, Christian Nationalism from the pulpit, from putting someone worse than Trump in the White House at some point down the road?  

Worse than Trump?  

Yes.  Look at some of the Republicans who are in leadership now, and have influence, and see that they are not suffering from the dementia that is evident in Trump, and they are learning how the commander in chief is abusing power without consequence.  Voters in Ohio, unbelievably, elected J. D. Vance as their Senator, and then he crawled onto the ticket with Trump in a transactional exchange of rank stupidity.  Somehow, a sycophantic racist like Mike Johnson wormed his way in to get elected as Speaker of the House.  And then there's Marco Rubio, who, though he's generally a whiny-baby and also very much a sycophant, is intelligent enough to learn from Trump's mistakes in order to manipulate political power to force Christian nationalism on this country.  

Democrats Are Not Immune to This Problem

We have had our share of politicians tempted by money and tempted to abuse power.  Trump has succeeded in getting away with a criminal presidency largely because the opposition doesn't quite seem to be willing to cross some protocol boundaries in American politics and take some risks.  The Democrats had the power of government for the first two years of the Biden Administration, knowing what potentially could come about with a second Trump term.  They had the evidence and they got the indictments for the crimes he committed in his first term and then dragged their feet, claiming that prosecuting him would "look too political."  

Of course it would have.  But it would have also saved this country from four years of destruction and dismantling of its Constitution, or at least two years of that if we do wind up winning the midterms.  But the way that Democrats have acted in the past, with that power, is hardly convincing evidence that anything of significance to put a stop to what's going on is going to happen after the November elections.  There's been a whole lot of "tsk, tsk, tsk," but when it comes to taking the necessary risks that might look political, but would be effective benefits for the American people and in stopping the Trump menace, most Democratic politicians seem content to sit back behind their fundraising operations.  The few exceptions to that are being taken by the Democrats who are leading in the Presidential polling, including Mark Kelly, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pete Buttigieg.  

That should tell us something about what the voters opposed to Trump want to see. 

The Danger of Demagoguery Will Exist Until We Do Something About It

We, as a country, have tolerated far more from Trump than we ever should have allowed.  I hear all the arguments about constitutional protections and balanes working both ways, limits which were established to protect the government from the political back and forth that was inevitable.  But when we had a chance to do something, we didn't.  We had the power, during the first two years of Biden's term, to take steps to prevent a second Trump Presidency, as well as to prosecute him for the indictments handed down for his criminal acts during his first term, and we let that slip right out of our hands.  

Are there any regrets about that now?  I sure have them.  And the equivocating, pearl-clutching, fear that Democrats exhibited when they had the power to stop this from happening doesn't re-assure me about what we are in for once we win the mid-terms.  It is, frankly, appalling that Trump has been able to get away with as much as he has without someone getting serious about stopping him.  

If the Democrats don't shed their old-school politics mentality now, and give us a "take no prisoners" performance after November of 2026, then we'll never find a way to get rid of the demagogue and restore our democratic republic.  No foot-dragging, delberate delays or compromise, it better be full steam ahead.  If we don't push ahead with prosecutions, and lay the groundwork to amend the Judiciary act and neutralize the six conservative-appointed justices from the Supreme Court, then this will never get fixed.  

Beyond that, we need to figure out how to stop producing generations of kids graduating from school with few reading interpretation skills, no ability to reason or to think critically, and who believe every conspiracy theory that happens to blow by.  This is exactly why the GOP is attacking and attempting to destroy the U.S. Department of Education.  Education is one of the institutions which makes it possible to preserve democracy.  Requirements in government and American History need to be extremely reformed into something that works to protect the American democracy rather than undermine it.  

This is a government of, by and for the people.  It belongs to us, not to the politicians who fill the office chairs.  Very little is being done, in spite of voter dissatisfaction, because the politicians have insulated themselves against accountability.  Marches, ralles and protests do have an effect, and the ballot box is an effective means of communication, but only if the politicians who are elected do their job instead of going into immediate fundraising, "How do I get re-elected?" mode.  

This is more than just incompetence in office.  The man now occupying the White House lacks the kind of humanity and moral character that is an essential part of leadership, and that's why he's failing so badly.  We need to hold our politicians accountable to do for us what is necessary to fix this problem.  

We're in Deeper Trouble Than the Founders Ever Envisioned

The worst case scenario that the founding fathers imagined when they were writing the constitution and thinking about the balance of powers and limitations on the power of the executive branch was the potential tyranny of monarchy.  That was something they had experienced themselves, and it was the worst thing they could imagine, that someone in the Presidency would take advantage of the influence of monarchy, which was still strongly influenced by the idea that God gave monarchs their power.  

They did not imagine that a deranged, demented, mentally incapacitated, immoral, grifting womanizer and criminal, would ever gain enough trust from the electorate to get into the White House.  But here we are.  

That's one of the reasons they instituted the electoral college to elect the President rather than allow election by the popular vote.  Unfortunately, the electoral college wound up empowering ignorance, which, by 2016, was a factor affecting the votes of far too many Americans, simply because of the chaos and confusion that has been created by corporate takeover of the free press.  And that's actually far too simple of an analysis of what has gone wrong with this country.  Religion is once again causing a distorted and corrupted perspective of the truth.  And that's why authoritarianism has gained a foothold.  Democracy offers freedom, but distorted and twisted religion is rejected by the majority, and requires authoritarian government to hold it up.  

Lies and Conspiracy Theories

Trump has relied almost exclusively on made-up statistics and conspiracy theories that have no factual basis or support to get where he is.  In all fairness, after doing a significant amount of research, I cannot point to one statement Trump has made with regard to either his campaign to be elected, or in his time in office, that is based on an actual fact.  Most of the corporate media, with few exceptions, reports his statements as fact without bothering to check their veracity, something I've never actually observed at any time among the mainstream media in this country, with the exception of outlets like Fox, Newsmax and Breitbart.  

The biggest lie, the perpetual one that he keeps repeating in the face of facts that contradict every sentence, word, and period that comes out of his mouth, is that there was massive fraud in the 2020 election which he lost to Joe Biden.  

There wasn't.  

Multiple audits, including some real shenanigans from people like Doug Logan and the "Cyber Ninjas" hired to "audit" the votes in Maricopa County, Arizona, showed that the number of fraudulent ballots included in the count to be a fraction of a single digit percentage.  We're talking fewer than a thousand ballots nationwide, including all 50 states.  There was a lot of hullaballoo in Arizona when Logan and his "Cyber Ninjas" inexpertly attempted to audit the ballots in Maricopa County, but hardly any coverage at all when he had to report to the state legislature that the actual certified count submitted by the clerk to the Secretary of State was, in his words, "100 percent accurate."  

Every other Republican-prompted audit of ballot counts, including Georgia, which tipped blue for the first time in a while, and Pennsylvania, where Trump got angry because the mail-in ballot count turned the totals around completely, concluded exactly the same thing.  That's why things were so silent.  There was no fraud, every ballot, in almost every case, was accounted for, and the totals were impeccably accurate.  Of course, instead of putting that in big headlines, it got buried.  

I did see a long commentary on the waste and ridiculous nature of the "Cyber Ninja" conspiracies, including one claim they've made that bamboo fibers can be detected in ballots proving they come from China, produced by one of the Phoenix television stations.  They called out the ridiculousness of ballot fraud charges, demonstrated how exactly accurate the Maricopa County count was, with virtually no ballot in the county that could not be identified.  

So when he made the ridiculous charge, a couple of days ago, that there are over 250,000 foreign nationals registered to vote in just five states, it fell flat on its face for being the lie that it is.  And of course, the evidence supports the fact that states are doing an excellent job of keeping this from happening, the number of mistaken registrations of non-citizens being less than a hundred nationwide.  

Translated, Trump's rambling, demented, word-salad speech on election integrity actually said, "We know we are losing the midterms badly, and so we have to figure out a way to even the playing field, since people are going to vote Democratic in droves."  

But it is a danger to the country to have a President who constantly lies, never tells the truth, and feeds conspiracy theories that keep people politically divided.  I'm not sure whether he actually believes the lies and conspiracy theories, or he knows that those who follow him are so stupid and ignorant that he uses them for his own advantage.  Either way, this has undermined the trust that is required in the executive office in order for the government to function in a way that protects this nation.  Because the founders did not put a faster, more effective means of removing a chief executive into the Constitution, we not only have to live with the consequences, but we have to live in fear of a national catastrophe that has the potential to bring down massive destruction on us.  

The founders also did not envision the formation of a political party in opposition to the use of the Constitution, which is why we are where we are.  At this point, there is so much dark money and corporate money floating around that I am not sure this can ever be fixed.  I know the Republicans will never get enough support to oust him, but I also wonder if there's enough risk taking and boldness among the Democrats to not only get rid of him, but make sure we never have to go through this again.  

We've Kicked Off a War We Now Can't Seem to Win

The attitude displayed by the Iranian government tells us a lot about this war that Trump and Hegseth, both pathological liars and egomaniacs, are not telling us.  Their rejection of the most recent peace "memorandum of understanding" displays the confidence of a country that hasn't experienced anything like Trump and Hegseth claim they are doing. 

And again, where's the evidence?  All of the big talk from them sounds like they're in a video game parlor.  The reality is that the United States military, under their leadership, has been unable to stop Iran from closing the Straits of Hormuz, from launching multiple drone attacks on United States bases and interests in virtually every country on the Arabian peninsula, and on Israel, where the destruction is mounting as the "iron dome" weakens.  And as their resources, which mostly are the things we given them for nothing, dwindle, and they are tied down with Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Gaza War, they are seeing the limits of their military power. 

And the danger from this mounts.  We've had incompetent leaders deliberately chosen to head national security agencies and who knows what has come into this country while they have been bootlicking Trump and collecting their taxpayer funded government salary?  I sure hope there are people, Democrats on congressional committees who get briefed on security issues, who are keeping an eye on this.  We got caught on 9-11 for the same reasons, an incompetent President who had incompetent leaders in his department of defense and in the intelligence services, and who had started an unneccessary war in the Middle East. 

What Should We Expect? 

Major damage has been done, and a lot of that won't be cleaned up with just Democratic party control of the House and Senate after the midterms, and I believe the election results will be significant enough to give Democrats both houses, including a couple of surprises.  There is long term damage control that must be done, which means that Democrats, who represent the organized side of the opposition, need to win the Presidency.  

I consider myself a pretty typical American voter.  I spent 20 years in school administration, on top of 15 years in the classroom, and I'm a working class guy.  My Dad was a union man, an air conditioning mechanic and a naval vet.  My wife taught in the classroom for 40 years.  Her mother was a lab technician.  We all knew exactly what it meant to earn a living.  

It will take too long to undo all of the terrible legislation that the Supreme Court has allowed over the past decade.  Citizens United has got to go, so do the immunity rulings giving the President almost dictatorial power.  And there are six justices on the court who also must go.  Since that won't happen quickly, the judiciary act needs to be amended and the number of justices increased by at least six.  Get Bernie Sanderrs and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to find judges qualified, young and willing to uphold pure democracy.  Yes, there are risks in doing this, but I think they outweigh any thought of not packing that damn court. 

There should not be any leniency when it comes to the criminal activities of this President and those around him.  Oh goodness, yes, indicting and arresting them is going to look "political."  Get over that pretty fast.  Of course it is.  But if they get away with it, then there's no consequence for this kind of behavior and someone will inevitably try it again if and when the GOP gets back into power.  

The Department of Education needs a complete overhaul, and every bad aspect of the Trump administration--every lie, every stupid conspiracy theory, every deviation from democracy--needs to be exposed in the social studies curriculum at every grade level.  Republican state legislatures have dumbed down the social studies curriculum, reduced the number of courses required, and then cut school budgets as a way of promoting their ignorance and stupidity.  That stops now. 

The Democrats cannot tolerate, excuse, or hide any inkling of participation in the corporate money game.  They must be fully committed to getting corporate wealth out of politics, limiting campaign contributions and enforcing it with a hard line penalty.  And they can't be dipping their hands in the same pot.  Getting rid of the corrpution means getting the money out.  And there can't be any delay in imposing fair taxes, with an equal burden for all Americans.  

In the meantime, I hope, every day, that someone somewhere is at work protecting our nation and its people, because the government isn't.  

"Democratic Socialism" isn't the Problem. Trump is.

It's not like we didn't know what we were getting.  When I saw Trump's name rising in the polls prior to the 2016 election, I thought, "He'll do something and blow it, and he'll never get elected."  

Boy, was I wrong about that.  I had too much confidence in the voters, especially conservatives.  I'm not conservative, never have been for that matter, but I taught American History and Civics for almost 20 years at the high school level and I thought that even conservatives could see the phony veneer and the lack of substance and the mental dysfunction and the lack of any kind of moral compass in Trump.  I thought more people were paying attention, when they weren't.  

What fascinates me about this whole political era we've entered is just how ignorant and stupid people can be.  Trump created a phony image of himself, and when he said, "I could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and nothing would be done about it," he knew his audience well.  The people I have seen since he's been elected who get interviewed at his rallies and at other MAGA gatherings are bottomlessly naive and pathetically stupid.  They have absolutely no idea who this guy is or what he has done.  They worship an image.  

It's hard for those who work in the news media to avoid the charge of bias when it comes to the Trump supporters they choose to interview at his rallies. Most of those who get picked to do interviews are pathetic in their ignorance and stupidity.  They have no idea what Trump is doing or what he really stands for, and they are unwilling to accept the truth, claiming that it is "made up by the liberals."  It's hard to find someone in the MAGA crowd who actually pays attention to what is happening and knows the truth.  The two issues around which they focus are both based on lies.  

One is that Trump has ended the Democratic party policy of "open borders."  While it is true that under Democratic administrations, more immigrants have been admitted to the United States, a country with vast resources and wealth that can easily accommodate them, "open borders" has never been the policy or practice of Democrats.  In fact, it took the policy and practice of the Obama Administration to stop the flow of illegal border crossings that were going on because the Bush Administration cut the Border Patrol and immigration enforcement abilities of the government and gave the cut money to billionaires.  Look it up, stupid. 

The other is that there is massive voter fraud in elections.  This easily provable lie has prompted the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars chasing fraud that just doesn't exist.  Every investigative effort they have put forward has ended with the same conclusion:  Ballot counts in the United States are impeccably accurate and Trump lost the 2020 election.  Every audit of ballots either ordered or forced by right wing extremists turned up exactly the same results, that the ballot counts were accurate, down to the last vote and in every instance, including the embarassingly ridiculous "Cyber Ninja" conspiracy theorists in Arizona, the conclusion was the same, that there not only was no "massive voter fraud," but that when a state certifies its vote total, it is accurate to within a single ballot, and that the most secure and fraud-free way to vote is by mail. 

Many of them built their personal loyalty to and opinion of Trump because they heard it from their pastor in the pulpit at church.  There is some deliberate deception going on there.  I've learned from experience, growing up in a Southern Baptist church, that it is a fact that 90% of the men in those pulpits are power-hungry sycophants who love to exercize authority and control, and aspire to being big shots like the loudmouthed Al Mohler, a typical Southern Baptist opportunist.  They want to control everything, including telling their church members how to vote, based on their own perspective, and they are able to do so by distorting and deliberately misinterpreting the Biblical text to their own benefit politically.  

So when Trump tries to equate Democratic Socialism with Communism, it is one of two possible things.   Either he is stupid, ignorant and doesn't know what he is talking about, or he is counting on his followers to be ignorant, stupid and uninformed so they'll buy his lies.  No politician in American history has ever believed his own supporters to be as ignorant and stupid as Trump believes his MAGA supporters to be.  

So Exactly What is Democratic Socialism and What Does it Do? 

Anyone who willingly participates in Social Security and Medicare is taking advantage of a program established by Democratic socialism.  Are you opposed to Democratic Socialism?  Then why don't you voluntarily give up your participation in these two programs which are socialist to the core? And if you want an example of just how well Democratic Socialism works, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Americans who reach retirement age are dependent on Social Security for their retirement income, rather than on a private pension plan purchased through their employer.  

Private enterprise in capitalism sees pension benefits as a "cost" that hinders profit margins.  And private insurance, which is one of the most profitable businesses in the country, won't cut into its profit margin to pay the additional medical expenses that occur as people get older.  Medicare is proof that a single-payer, government administered insurance plan will work well, because Medicare works well.

Do you fly when you travel?  Do you realize that your personal safety on that plane is the direct result of Democratic Socialism?  From the air traffic controllers who keep the plane safe and help avoid deadly collisions to the people who clean the bathrooms in the airport, to the management and operation of the airport itself, right down to the land purchase and construction, is an example of socialism at work?  

Millions of Americans board a bus or train to get to work each day.  Public transportation systems are heavily subsidized, for reasons which benefit all of the people.  And every time you get in your car, you are participating in the Democratic Socialism that constructed the roads, highways and bridges you drive on.  If you don't believe in Democratic Socialism, then why don't you walk to work? 

Over 90% of Americans send their children out the door to school nine months out of the year and participate in one of the largest Democratic Socialist programs in the country, known as the public education system.  That's right.  And in spite of all of the complaining and caterwauling that goes on from the far right over the content of the curriculum and instruction, the fact of the matter is that, state by state, those which invest more money in public education have far better schools than those in conservative states who see public education as the place to cut budgets to give tax breaks to the wealthy.  And the overall prosperity of the citizens of that state is better, because if the education system works, so does capitalism and private enterprise which benefits from employees who have better basic skills. 

If you've ever walked through the historic district of places like Alexandria, Virginia, you would notice a plaque on the front of many of the houses with the symbol of the local fire department.  At one time, if you wanted the fire department to respond to a fire at your house, you paid them a monthly fee to be available.  If your house caught fire, and you didn't make this payment, they would respond, but only to keep the flames from spreading to the houses of those who subscribed to their service.  Of course, Democratic Socialism finally interfered, and public funding of police protection and fire protection turned out to be a much better way to prevent crime and private property.  

In places where private business has determined that it cannot make a profit, unless the government picks up the slack, people wind up having to bear the cost and inconvenience that is caused.  For example, there are places in the urban neighborhoods of cities all across the country that have become "grocery deserts" because the cost of infrastructure combined with populations that are, for the most part living in poverty, make it unprofitable to operate.  I say this with a note of sarcasm, because it's not so much the lack of profit, but the lack of sizeable profit, and the almost total ownership of the grocery business by a few large monopolies that causes this problem.  

So, a couple of "socialist" ideas are popping up to make it possible for people who live in some of these places not to have to travel long distances to buy food for their families.  One is that municipal government is providing infrastructure for a grocery store to operate in a facility where the cost is taken care of by the city, to reduce the overhead and lower grocery costs.  Some municipalities operate the stores on a non-profit basis, so that the prices are reasonable, and cover costs of operation without generating a profit.  And of course, subsidies to purchase food, in the form of food stamps or vouchers, which are the main reason 25% of the school aged children in this prosperous country where food is abundant, are not starving.  School subsidized meals are also a Democratic Socialist initiative to prevent malnutrition and starvation in a country that wastes more food than some countries consume. 

The Affordable Care Act, passed under the Obama Adminstration with much caterwauling and complaining by Republicans who want nothing more than to subsidize billionares and redistribute wealth into their pockets, not only allowed millions of Americans to purchase health insurance that they could not afford before, but also saved programs like medicaid billions of dollars.  This is basically insurance "at cost," allowing people access to basic medical care they did not have before, because of the high cost of insurance on the profit and commercial market.  

Democratic Socialism Makes Life Better for All Americans

You'd think that, in a society in which some Americans claim is "Christian," the church would be the great equalizer.  Christianity's core doctrines include the belief that greed is sinful, and it values a simplicity over extravagance.  The rich and wealthy were frequent targets of Jesus' wrath and disdain, because of the oppression they used to make themselves rich at the expense of others.  And I think it is quite possible, in the United States today, to consider it as fact that oppression, in the form of overcharging for goods and services to make a buck, is the direct result of almost unregulated capitalism. 

But it's not the churches that stand against greed.  The only weapon the average American has is the various levels of government.  And in the hands of conservative Republicans, the government is an agent for the redistribution of wealth, from the hands of those whose labor builds corporations into success, and into the pockets of the wealthiest 1%.  It's the Democratic Socialists who see the government protecting the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness found as a core America value in the Declaration of Independence.  

I agree with the conservative grievance that those who work for a living should keep more of what they earn.  But what needs to be understood is that the taxes you pay now provide the budgets for things that you could not afford if they didn't.  If tax dollars didn't provide an education, what American could afford an additional $16,000 a year per child to pay for it?  If the cost of airport operations and air traffic security was included in your plane ticket, most Americans couldn't afford to fly.  Nor could you afford the tolls on the roads, since you would have to pay them for every stretch of street and road that you covered.  

For example, the amount of tax you pay that goes to education is far less than the cost per individual student, because everyone shares in it.  Likewise, what Democratic Socialists are proposing is not an overhaul of the capitalist system that we've had for the whole of our existence, just overhauling those things where profiteering is rampant, greed governs the prices rather than supply and demand, and profit is the motivation for leaving communities without goods and services. 

Democratic socialism is, in fact, the diametric opposite of communism, though Trump throws around the term like he knows what he is talking about.  Clearly, he doesn't.  He doesn't know enough about anything, in fact, to be a competent President.  He has helped transfer wealth out of your pocket and into those of the wealthiest Americans, while grifting money for himself, which is a violation of the law that Republicans, who despise the law, are allowing.  

He's the problem, not Democratic Socialism.

Let's Put These Political Terms in Plain English

For 18 years, as a classroom teacher of secondary social studies, mostly upper level American History and government, Economics and World Civilization, I included objectives in my lesson plans which led to students being able to identify political ideologies by name.  Terms like "Communism," "Socialism," "Democracy," and "Fascism," are part of an eighth grade class in Constitution.  Since that's a required class, and most Americans have at least an eighth grade education, at least I hope they do, these are terms we should know, and be able to use by now.  

Don't trust politicians, especially conservative politicians who think their constituents are the most stupid and ignorant people on the planet, to define these terms correctly.  In some cases, I'm not sure they know what they mean, and if they do, they don't care about the real meaning.  Let's take, for example, the term "Democratic socialist."  This is often referred to, by those who either forgot everything they learned in social studies, or who are deliberately engaged in duping their constituents, as a "left wing" political ideology that supports both political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy.  

That's a very broad definition but it works for the sake of discussion.  Let's observe a couple of specific points about it.  

First, the presence of political democracy is essential to democratic socialism.  A government of, by and for the people is the core essential element necessary for this ideology to work.  So it is, in this aspect of governing philosophy, impossible for a Democratic Socialist to be a Communist.  Communism imposes the will of one class over the other.  And that's not democratic.  So let's make this clear.  Democratic Socialism is not Communism, it is the opposite of Communism.  

Whether or not it is a left wing political philosophy is another issue.  Frankly, I don't really care if it is.  

The Socialist part of Democratic Socialism is a bit more complicated, and it has a long history.  Basically, the American economy, while it has overwhelmingly capitalist characteristics, is socialist by definition.  There are businesses which the society at large, through the government of the republic, has placed under public ownership and control or regulation.  For example, one of the biggest socialist projects in American history is the Tennessee Valley Authority, a series of dams constructed for the purpose of preserving water resources and providing electricity to an impoverished part of the country.  

The railroads are another example.  No need for every rail company to build rails, the infrastructure was a socialist development.  

In Canada, for example, the national health care system is an example of the most beneficial kind of Democratic Socialism.  Canadians have a national health care system that pretty much covers everything, right down to prescription drugs.  Conservatives in America love to bash the system, claiming that if it was so great, why do so many Canadians cross the border to get health care in the United States?  

I know the answer to that question.  They don't.  Oh, to be sure, there are some Canadians who live in places close to the US border where certain kinds of specialty services are much closer in the United States than they are in Canada.  But the truth is that relatively few Canadians seek medical care in the United States.  I have a step-brother whose family lives in Port Erie, Ontario, right across the river from Buffalo.  If they need a specialist to which they don't have access in their local clinic, they go to Toronto, which is a little further than Buffalo.  

And let's talk about the waits to see specialists and get specific treatments.  My own spouse has waited for more than two months to see a pain management specialist in Illinois, in one of the most well-equipped hospital systems in the state, attached to medical, nursing and medical tech schools.  The wait to see her PCP is three months.  The wait in Canada, in Toronto, for a cardiologist specializing in electrophysiology is two whole weeks.  Two weeks.  

Well, let's cut to the chase.  It frustrates conservatives that Canadians generally like their socialized medicine because it works for them.  Statistically, the overall quality of their care is better than that received by the vast majority of Americans.  And the fact that they pay slightly less than half of what Americans pay for private insurance is a bonus.  It is, in fact, the way most citizens of countries in the world that have some form of socialized medicine feel about the care they get.  

In a society and in a government that conservatives love to claim is based on Christian principles, how is it possible to consider human pain and suffering in terms of the profit that it can generate?  

And that is the essence of Democratic Socialism.  There is not anything Communist about it.  It is about the power, invested in the governed, determining exactly how the government can contribute to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of its people.  We have proof all around us that a national system of health care, and the ability to finance it by either cutting insurance premiums in a private, competitive market, or by removing private paid premiums altogether, in favor of a single-payer health care system.  

Getting Rid of Citizens United

Oligarchy is a less frequently defined objective in social studies courses at the eighth grade level, but it actually does exist in current constitutional studies objectives.  Oligarchy, which is the concentration of political power in the hands of a small group of people who are united by common political interests, is now the primary means of government in Russia.  That's not completely surprising, given its modern history of government, from a Czarist monarchy primarily based on feudalism, to a short-lived provisional government intending to restore legislative power to the Duma, to Marxist Communism, to a short-lived sort of democracy that could never break out of internal corruption, to the current oligarchy that has come out of the economic instability several banking and industrial tycoons have imposed on the country in the form of Vladimir Putin. 

The one element missing from Russian socialism, in those periods of time where it actually happened, was democracy.  I wouldn't venture to say that Russia ever got very close to real Democracy, even in the years when Boris Yeltsin was President.  There are too many divisive elements vying for power in the Russian regime to allow the voice of the people to be heard.  

But the United States was never a feudal monarchy, nor have we ever, at least until now, experienced a government that was anywhere close to as authoritarian as what we have now.  One of the reasons for it is that we have been moving in the direction of allowing the 1% of the population who control 99% of the money to buy the government.  All it took was a Supreme Court that had already been corrupted by the presence of billionaire dollars in their pockets.  Bribery of judges is going to be called "pulling a Clarence" given the kind of money it has taken to buy his decisions.  And so we have corporations considered equal with citizens of the United States.  

Democratic Socialism would be the kind of government philosophy that would lead to the overturning of the Citizens United court decision that made this possible in the first place.  The first people to raise this possibility, back in 2020, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, were individuals labelled as Democratic Socialists, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  They suggested breaking the filibuster in order to create five more Supreme Court seats by amending the Judiciary Act, allowing President Biden to appoint liberal, Democratic Socialist justices who would have overturned Citizens United on day 1, along with  restoring Roe, nullifying Presidential immunity and expiditing the intermiable foot dragging and delaying and obfuscating of Merrick Garland, making sure Trump got tried and convicted for the insurrection on January 6th, and for stealing classified documents.

Just for Clarification

Democratic Socialism would not, in any way, ruin the current free market economy we have in the United States, because we don't have a completely free market economy, and we already have a measure of socialism in our economy.  There aren't a lot of places in the economy, beyond health care, public utility regularion, and maybe down the road in energy resources, where Democratic Socialism needs to intervene, health care reform being the major priority.  

I see some things that Mayor Mamdami is doing in New York, under this label, that are necessary and reflect the will of the people, such as the rent freeze, and the establishment of city operated grocery stores in parts of the city that are considered grocery "deserts."  I've seen the same thing happen here in Chicago, with local people working to establish cooperatives in areas of the city where there's no grocery store, or pharmacy, nearby.  Chain stores put the local grocers and pharmacies out of business, then, when they discovered that they can't make the same kind of profits they do elsewhere, they close down and leave the neighborhood without a grocery store or a pharmacy.  Democratic Socialism either makes sure that stores don't shut down, or they lead the community to provide the infrastructure for a local investor to be able to operate, and compete, to provide goods and services. 

And let's say it one more time for effect.  Democratic Socialism is NOT Communism, it is the polar opposite of Communism.