The GOP is Running on Nothing At All. So Why Vote for Them?

Robert Reich: Republican Talking Points are Dead Wrong 

In debates and campaign ads, the Republican themes have been fairly consistent.  They've been shocked with the response to the Supreme Court's overturning Roe v. Wade, which energized the Democratic party, boosted voter registration to the point where it caught up, and then passed, Republican numbers and it neutralized what all the pundits and press and political experts had conceded would be another midterm in which the party in power lost seats in Congress.  

To be honest, Republicans have almost nothing to offer.  They have the "Big lie," which does nothing to excite or motivate the kind of voters they need to win battleground elections.  The January 6th committee, which wasn't really much of a factor last spring, is now registering as one of the main reasons motivating voters to cast their ballots this fall.  And while both the President and Vice-President have struggled with job approval ratings, Trump's insertion of himself into the midterms, endorsement of extremists and gathering attention have driven his disapproval up to the 60% threshold, far higher than the Biden Administration's negatives.  His disapproval is increasing, theirs is declining.  

On Crime and Violence

How can a candidate who belongs to a political party that supported a mob which essentially beat up, threatened, injured and murdered one Capitol police officer in a riot that was intended to stop the constitutional peaceful transfer of power and install a lawless dictatorship?  How can they claim that the Democrats are responsible for the increase in the crime rate when the ex-president they support is a criminal who brags about his ability to get away with breaking the law and openly states that getting around it is the key to business success?  

What, exactly, do they plan to do that will cause the crime rate to go down and fix the problem?  They're attacking the FBI, clamoring for "defunding" federal law enforcement.  That's not taking a stand against crime, that's promoting it.  

The most effective means of fighting crime and lowering the violent crime rate, as Democrats in states and cities where they have had some success in doing this proves, is to pass meaningful and effective gun control legislation.  The GOP is in the pocket of the radical, extremist NRA, whose political stances and advocacy for unregulated gun ownership is directly responsible for the rise in violent crime in this country.  

That the Republican party is hapless and helpless and has absolutely no plan at all for reducing violent crime, in spite of whining about it, came from Marco Rubio earlier this week, in his debate with Congresswoman Val Demings.  Rubio had absolutely no answers and no valid response to questions about his lack of support for legislation that would control gun violence, as a senator representing a state where some of the worst mass shootings have occurred, including Stoneman-Douglass high school and the nightclub in Orlando.  

"That happened on your watch, Senator Rubio.  And what was your response to that?"  

The silence from the Senator was deafening.  His deflection was embarrassing. 

On Inflation

It hasn't been hard to notice, at least not if some attention has been paid to what's been going on in Congress, that the Republicans have opposed every attempted move by the Biden Administration to deal with inflation.  Every bill that has been passed, representing commonly held practices of government in handling inflation, has been opposed by the GOP members.  

They're way off base in their accusations that COVID relief and government spending is responsible for inflation.  Even conservative economists acknowledge that supply chain issues, China's "no tolerance" COVID policy that prevents consumer goods from leaving their country and arriving here, and Russia's war on Ukraine are the major drivers of inflation.  That's probably why inflation is happening everywhere in the world, and it's worse in most places than it is here because our government, led by the President, is doing something to make things better for our people.  

Gas prices have fallen $1.40 in the past two months, due to all kinds of help from the Biden Administration and many Democratic governors.  The myth that America was energy independent under Trump has crumbled in the wake of the Ukraine invasion.  The Trump administration was dependent on Russian and Saudi Arabian oil for its supply and for what was not much of a break on the prices.  Even now, it's clear that the price of a gallon of gasoline is inflated for profiteering purposes. The previous administration counted for nothing on this issue, their bombast was all a big, empty bluff. 

And, over the past two months, inflation has levelled off.  So what the Biden Administration is doing has worked.  I'll repeat that.  What the Biden administration is doing about inflation is working. And it's hard to ignore the fact that job growth is still setting records and in spite of inflation, the stock market is still expanding and the dire predictions of a recession are not materializing. 

On Immigration

I'm a progressive American and I believe that this country was formed with the intention of being a refuge and a haven for the oppressed.  Far more than the legalistic, authoritarian, racist approach of white, Christian nationalism, if there was a Christian influence in this nation's founding, it was in the open, generous, welcoming attitude that developed among those who were grateful to be here and who enjoyed and prospered in this atmosphere of freedom.  

I'm glad to see that the governor of Texas is sending refugees from the border, seeking asylum in the United States, north to the "sanctuary cities."  It has given me the opportunity to volunteer to help collect resources, including food and clothing, for some 2,000 hopeful, future Americans who have fled the terror and violence now happening in Venezuela.  Sorry, Texans, you missed out on the chance to help, serve and demonstrate the patriotism you claim to have.  They're welcome here in the Chicago area and we are taking care of them as they wait to find out if they will be given asylum and the opportunity to find a job and eventually become an American citizen.  

They are so grateful and thankful for the help.  Most of them want to work to support themselves and many of them are college graduates and professionals.  And they are glad to be away from what's happening where they lived.  It would be cruel and inhumane to turn these people away, especially after what most of them have been through in order to get here.  

For I was hungry and you gave me food.  I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.  Matthew 25:35-36, NRSV

We are the most prosperous nation on the face of the earth.  There is no reason we cannot help those who make it to our border.  

Empty Promises from the GOP

Actually, all we're getting from Republicans now is complaints and spreading the blame.  They're not offering solutions, especially not for inflation, which is benefitting many of their constituents.  They're depending on the trends, that "the party in power in the White House loses seats in the mid-terms".  But their plans are the same as they have always been.  Do nothing.  There's nothing to see in their campaign ads, their stump speeches or their rhetoric that resembles doing anything to benefit people.  

As the polls suggest, inflation and the economy are both high ranking issues for me, politically.  I'm concerned about inflation and I'm concerned about the economy, and that's why I'm voting straight ticket Democrat.  I remember the roaring economy we had under President Clinton and I remember the massive recovery from the Bush Recession that we had under President Obama.  If I want a party in power that knows how to resolve economic problems and deal with inflation, I will vote for Democrats, who have a proven track record of doing exactly that.  

Pat Ryan, Mary Peltola and Kansas are all names that stand for bucking the "party in power" trend, and for making the pollsters look bad.  With all of the "factoring" and running models based on it, Ryan was as much as a 7 point underdog in New York's 19th district.  But he won by more than 3 percent, 10 points ahead of where the polls put him, boosted by turnout in the wake of the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court.  Peltola beat two of Alaska's most well-known Republicans for a house seat, outdoing both of them in first choice ballots in a ranked-choice election, while polls predicted a third-place finish for her.  But she's now Alaska's first Democratic congresswoman in a generation. 

Kansas is in a class all by itself.  Voters in a red state showed just how effective turnout and motivation can be, and how wrong the pollsters can be with their factors and trends.  They also showed that the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court is going to have far-reaching effects in this mid-term election.  And I don't mind going out on a limb in saying that I don't think the Democrats will lose control of Congress on November 8th.  My speculation will not keep me from voting, I will make sure that I cast my ballot, for every Democrat who is on it.  It will be a vote for preserving democracy, supporting law and order and for an America that is a refuge for the oppressed.  It will be straight ticket Democrat.

Preserving Liberal Democracy is the Only Guarantee for the Protection of Religious Liberty

It's been a byword for quite some time that being a white, Evangelical Christian is the equivalent of being a Republican. And while support for Republican candidates for office, regardless of their religious beliefs, moral character and integrity, and their actual support for the issues that Evangelicals consider important, has been strong among white, Evangelicals, it's not as widespread as the impression leaves one to think it is.  

I'm a white, male, past 60.  I was raised in a Southern Baptist church, in a home with two parents who grew up in West Virginia as working class, 100% pro-union Roosevelt Democrats.  My Father was a naval veteran of World War 2, who was aboard the the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese government signed the surrender.  I can only remember one time, in 1968, when he broke from the Democratic party to "hold his nose and vote for George Wallace" as he said at the time, then regretted doing so.  He was a chemistry major in college, but trained as an air conditioning mechanic in the Navy and worked in civil service in the headquarters building of a military base, keeping their air conditioning equipment running.  My mother was the housekeeper at a 16 unit motel in my hometown until she got into the child care business as my sister and I got a little older.  She never voted for a Republican, that I recall.

It was these two individuals who passed their Christian faith to me, by example.  They never did a lot of talking about it, or preaching at anyone, they just lived by those values and, as the Apostle Peter said, "So they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God," which were words my Father frequently quoted to me.  As a result of their influence, the faith that I have is one that focuses on living according to values, more on doing, less on telling.  It's not the kind of faith that those who have rejected Christianity or who rely solely on intellect criticize as some kind of imaginary fairy tale with a magic book and the land of pie in the sky by and by.  In fact, some of the most progressive thinkers, educators and politicians whom I encounter, because I put myself in position to be encountered, find discussion and dialogue with me helpful and inspiring. 

It's been this manner of living out my Christian faith that has brought me to the conclusion that liberal, progressive politics are most compatible with the way I live my life.  I'm free to do this specifically because the founders of the country, flawed and imperfect as they were, used the efforts and sacrifice of their life and labor to endow me, and all other Americans, with religious liberty and freedom of speech and expression.  It's in that establishment clause in the first amendment.  And one of the virtues that is an integral and essential part of the Christian faith is the care and respect that is shown to other people.  It's not exclusive to other Christians, Jesus made it very clear that one's neighbor can be someone from a different cultural, religious, social, ethnic and racial background.  He drew a line under his emphasis of this point by declaring it to be one of the two greatest commandments given by God, to "love your neighbor as you love yourself."  

All of the Evangelical Branch of the GOP's Eggs are in One Basket

If you ask any Evangelical Republican why they vote the way they do and support the candidates they do, it will come down to their position on abortion. That, and the mythological "grooming" of students in school by a non-existent LGBTQ "conspiracy" is justification, in their mind, for jettisoning their Christian values, the character and virtue that Jesus made the very essence and substance of Christian faith and practice, for a hard-line political stance that doesn't do anything to lead people to the salvation experience that Christians claim is the whole aim of the preaching of the gospel.  

It has turned the Christian gospel into hard-line political rhetoric and toward giving in to the temptation to use worldly power to achieve ends that are not consistent with those in Jesus' message.  And it has led to Christians either sharing their loyalty to Jesus with politicians, or abandoning Jesus altogether in favor of the politician and his power.  

"God sometimes uses evil people to achieve his ends," is the cry of some apologists for the most corrupt, evil man ever to serve as President of the United States.  Yes, on a few occasions, during the Old Covenant with Israel, he did use evil rulers of foreign nations as a means of punishment and judgement.  But he never demanded that his followers share their personal loyalty to him with an evil ruler.  That statement is heresy, and the fact that most Evangelical church leaders won't call it out is a sign that politics has put most Evangelical Christians into a serious and dangerous state of apostasy. 

There are those among Evangelicals who use the idea that God will judge the United States by removing its prosperity and destroying the country if politicians continue to allow abortion to remain legal.  There's absolutely no biblical support for that and no Christian doctrine which teaches that a nation can collectively commit a sin, under the covenant put in place by Jesus Christ.  Neither the United States, nor any other nation, has been offered a covenant relationship with God along the lines of the Old Testament covenant which established Israel as a theocracy.  There's no Christian doctrine which extends privilege or prosperity to any country on the basis of the number of Christians it has within its borders, or its cultural morality and the values that its citizens hold.  

No One is Preventing Ministry From Taking Place

There were plenty of opportunities for Christians who wanted to see the abortion numbers drop to take steps to make that happen, even while the Roe decision was in place.  Churches and denominations have set up hundreds of crisis pregnancy centers, a good thing as long as they do the right thing.  But most of them are grossly underfunded when it comes to the work they need to perform, and most of them are not much more than places which hand out a few bags of groceries, a few clothing items, perform a free ultrasound and then direct the women who come into "counseling" that turns out to be little more than preaching on why abortion is wrong. 

Real care and concern would go beyond that.  I seriously doubt that preaching about why abortion is wrong, and labelling someone who decides to go through with it a "baby killer" is effective in bringing down abortion numbers.  What might really work, because there are a few places that do this and it does work for them, is to provide some pre-natal medical care, support for housing, or actual temporary housing, job skills training, other life necessities like a good diet, help with the birth process and support for as long as necessary afterward, including with adoption or keeping the baby.  None of that is easy, and there's no guarantee of success.  But if sanctity of life is that important, then who is going to help?  Christians shouldn't expect the government to do what they're not willing to do themselves. 

There's nothing preventing Christian churches or denominations from doing this.  Christians literally spend billions of dollars each year on religious entertainment and on the interest on loans to build buildings that sit empty most of the time.  Why could they not engage in a ministry that helps women who are in desperate need of help, and who, if their circumstances were different, might make a different decision?  Maybe then they would be able to see that this decision is not something that the government can make or should make.  

Both the Clinton and Obama administrations provided this kind of support for those who chose it, and it did lead to a drop in the abortion numbers.  But Republicans cut and kill those kinds of programs.  So it's not about the sanctity of human life, it's about the politics, getting the votes and having the power.  

Why This is a Religious Liberty Issue 

Believing that a fetus in the womb has the same rights as an infant who has been born is an inherently religious principle.  And while Christianity is not the only religion which believes that human life begins in the womb, or at conception, that is a conviction and belief that is almost exclusively religious in nature.  The constitution guarantees a woman the right to carry a pregnancy to full term regardless of the circumstances, if she chooses to do so.  

There are those who believe that the right moral choice is to always carry a baby to full term, regardless of the circumstances of its conception.  But even among Christians, there would be differences of opinion about what is the right thing to do in circumstances such as a ten year old becoming pregnant as the result of a rape or incest.  Ultimately, I'm not the one who must live with the circumstances of making that choice.  That's between the woman who faces the circumstances and the choices and God, if she believes in him.  And in a liberal democracy, people have the right to choose not to believe in him, and to make life choices based on what they believe.  

On the other side of that issue is the fact that in a liberal democracy, the right to complete religious freedom is guaranteed.  That means I can practice my Christian faith in the way that I feel is pleasing to God and in accordance with his will, I can associate with other Christians in a church which shares common beliefs and practices related to the Christian faith, and no church, denomination or group is required to be licensed or have a permit from a government entity in order to gather together and worship.  It means that I do not have to accept specific beliefs or participate in specific religious practices in order to participate as a citizen, either in choosing who serves in the government, or if I decide I want to serve in it.  

As long as I don't cross the boundaries of interfering with the rights of any other citizen, I am free to speak of my faith publicly, including with the intention of informing others of my beliefs and benefits and to evangelize them, with their permission.  I also have the right to make my own decisions, influenced by my faith, and as a citizen to bring the influence of my faith into the public square, to influence and persuade government to respond and to be respectful of my rights.  

Christianity has existed, and prospered, under a wide variety of political systems.  It has suffered and been diminished under others.  But under the protection of the American constitution, the Christian church, and more specifically, the Protestant Christian church, flourished and expanded as it had not done anywhere else in the world up to that point.  It was able to do so under the same liberal democracy that gave people the right to be atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses.  

Why would I ever want to cast a ballot for a politician who is committed to taking that away?  

Sometimes, it's Hard to Keep a Straight Face

Pastor Accused of Abuse, Admitted to a "Consensual Affair', Still Holding Conferences and Collecting Money

The Southern Baptist Convention, which bills itself as "the Nation's Largest Protestant Denomination," and which is the largest denomination among Evangelical Christians, is still reeling from revelations of a clergy sexual abuse scandal that rivals that of the Catholic church to the extent that it has affected local churches and denominational entities.  One of the revelations of the investigation and report commissioned by the convention at its 2021 meeting in Nashville involved a former denominational President and suburban Atlanta megachurch pastor.  

The pastor is very well known, both inside and outside the SBC.  Like many of his ilk, he has used his position as a pastor to establish his reputation, promote his media ministry, and feather his own nest, so to speak.  I don't know the financial details, either of his pastorate or of his other ministry enterprises, but I will note that everything he's involved with has a price tag on it.  And in spite of the fact that his name, and the details of his behavior, were revealed in the Guidepost report given to the Southern Baptist Convention in Anaheim this past June, his ministry is still planning events and collecting money.  

This pastor--and I'm not mentioning his name on purpose, you can find it in the link--claimed, as they all do, that he didn't commit any sexual abuse.  But he did admit that the incident that was uncovered and reported in the investigation was "consensual".  And business goes on as usual.  He's holding some kind of conference.  For a fee, of course.  

I'm a personal accountability kind of guy.  I'm not going to register for a conference, regardless of the topic, conducted by a pastor who admitted to "inappropriate" behavior with a woman who wasn't his wife.  Sorry, that's just the way I am.  Personally, these "conferences" and meetings and gatherings aren't something I'd bother with anyway, because they are designed to sell books and make money peddling Christianity in a way that dishonors and cheapens the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And frankly, I wouldn't normally waste the time or cyber space discussing it here, either.  If someone I knew mentioned it to me, I'd have trouble keeping a straight face, but there's something going on here that is worth mentioning.  

This is a Characteristic Attitude of the Religious and Political Right Wing 

There will be people who register and attend this pastor's "conference," whatever he's pushing or promoting.  And the fact that he continues to plan to do this, and the denominational leadership either doesn't speak up, or refuses to, is the best evidence I can point to to illustrate this attitude that exists in segments of Evangelical Christianity that are connected to right wing politics, where it spills over.  From a Biblical perspective, this pastor is disqualified to continue serving in a church office.  And while that should include continuing to give conferences, the Southern Baptist Convention hides behind the fact that its churches are "independent and autonomous" in denominational matters, and if people sign on to this stuff, it's their business, not the convention's. 

That's how they've deflected any responsibility for the sexual abuse crisis that they now face.  This is the kind of thing that has led to turning a worldly, pagan, adulterous, lying, con artist into an Evangelical hero.  The gospel of Jesus Christ and the church are just tools to use in the acquisition of the kind of worldly power that Jesus was tempted to display before he started his public ministry, but turned down in favor of what he described as God's will.  

Trump, Bannon, Stone and their cronies act as if the people in their base of support are the most ignorant, uneducated, easily duped fools anywhere in the world.  And they are, because they buy into the misogyny and the lies.  And when I see something like this, involving a megachurch pastor who was, and may very well still be, a big-shot, good-ole-boy insider elite in the Southern Baptist Convention turn up as a perpetrator in an investigation into sexual abuse among Southern Baptist ministers, admit to the impropriety as consensual rather than abuse, and keep his regular ministry schedule going, I see moral bankruptcy and selfish ambition on a major scale.  

There may have been a time when the Southern Baptist Convention was made up of sincere Christians who were loyal followers of Jesus Christ, but the infiltration of secular politics started eating away at that, and the embrace of Donald Trump, clearly not because of his faith, but because of his power, is evidence of apostasy.  Along with other Evangelicals, this alliance of the religious right and the extreme side of the GOP has turned Christians into heretics and divided the country in a manner that it has not seen since the years before the Civil War.  

How Do We fix This? 

I'm not writing to promote books, but those who are most familiar with Evangelical Christianity and all of its quirks, including the common elements with extremist right wing politics, it takes an insider to understand all of what's involved, expose it, and provide solutions to weaken the influence of the political side of the movement.  There's no "fix," this is ingrained ideology.  And one of the best references on the subject is Jesus and John Wayne, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez.  She's an Evangelical insider who knows, and has done a lot of research, on what we see happening on the right and the phony, imaginative world they've created around them.  

There are some things we can do to mute the influence and minimize the damage to the country that these people now pose.  These are my recommendations based on my reading, so they come from experience, not from someone with a sociology degree, who probably wouldn't help much anyway.  

• Defeat as many far right and Republican candidates as is possible during every election cycle.  
• Take their threats of violence seriously and encourage government and law enforcement to handle this the same way they handled January 6th, not in the over-running of the Capitol, but in arresting the leaders and hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law, in jail where they belong.
• Get familiar with all of the talking points and the whole scope of white Christian nationalism.  Know who its leaders are and what any local group might say.  
• Fight the intrusion of this ideology in your church, if you have one.  If it has already overwhelmed the pulpit and ministry, make a public exit.  
• Did I say make a plan and put it into action so that you will go show up at the polls and vote straight Democrat?  

BTW, Maggie Haberman's new book is out:  Confidence Man

 

Democrats Better be on Guard for Widespread Cheating and Voter Suppression on November 8th

Hurricane Ian may have done the January 6th committee a huge favor, moving its final public hearing to October 13.  That put it a couple of weeks closer to the midterm elections, where the powerful impact of the information that was revealed will have maximum effect as it settles in, for those who have an open mind and a grip on reality.  We've managed to get past a real attempt to overthrow the government by the most corrupt presidential administration in the history of the nation.  That's good, but it's not over.  

The depth and the extent to which these people were willing to go, to set up what is essentially a copy of the Russian oligarchy, and making themselves oligarchs with our money and resources, is beyond frightening.  It ranks right up there with the twentieth century takeovers of Germany, Italy and Russia by totalitarian dictatorships.  I've read commentary that equates their methodology and even quotes some of the Trump conspirators who cited the European dictators and expressed admiration for them.  

Watching that hearing, and then the coverage of it afterward, it should be crystal clear to anyone who sees this for what it is that there are already plenty of people at work to try and subvert the results of the mid-term election.  Trump isn't just enjoying his mic time at rallies.  All of this whole gang of thugs, even those under indictment like Steve Bannon, are actively engaged in activity that is aimed at stealing the midterm election.  

The scope of the committee investigation has convinced me that there are plenty of capable people who already know this and are already making preparations against it.  It's pretty easy to gather from the media and from the way the campaigns are being handled in my state, that there is a high level of awareness of potential fraud and cheating on the part of Republican candidates.  The attempts at intimidation of election officials, specifically those with a reputation for integrity and sticking to the election law, is clear evidence that the Republicans are going to make a try at stealing as many of the elections as they can get their hands on.  The preparations to prevent this should have already been going on long before now.  

The Republicans know that many Democrats will use the mail-in option.  There are now reports that in heavily Democratic areas in some states, thugs are attacking mail carriers and stealing their mailbox master keys.  Mail-in ballots contained the margins of victory for Democratic candidates in a number of states during the last election, Pennsylvania being a prime example, but because it is a convenient, easy, and virtually fool-proof option, you can bet that the mailbox key thieves are working for Trump.  

It wouldn't hurt to contact your elected representatives, regardless of their party affiliation, and express your concern about the potential of Trumpie interference with your right to vote.  If they're Republican, they just need to hear it and know that people don't trust them because the man to whom they have given their loyalty is a liar and a con artist who tried to steal a national election  If they're Democrats, a nice reminder that they need to make sure cheating doesn't happen might also be a word of encouragement and support. 

What's on the Republican Side of the Ballot in the Midterms

There's not ever been a time that I can remember, since I cast my first ballot in a Presidential election in 1976, for Jimmy Carter, that so many other people and issues were on the ballot with the candidates of one of the political parties.  Nor has it ever seemed that so many people were either so clueless, or so separated from reality in a world of conspiracy theories, fear and paranoia.  So when voters go into the booth, or step up to the screen and cast a ballot, there will be many things lying underneath the candidate's names on the Republican side.  

Everything Donald Trump

From the false claim of election denial to the dishonesty in every aspect of the way the man does business, to his misogyny, his Fascist world view and his white supremacist perspective, Donald Trump is on the ballot.  That means casting a vote for a Republican is casting a vote in support of an insurrection aimed at overthrowing the government and nullifying the Constitution.  It means denying every founding principle of American democracy in favor of someone who has advocated for dictatorship, determined that his best friends among world leaders are the dictators, not the Democrats, and who attempted to subvert the Constitution to stay in office after being rejected by the voters in a clean, fair, legitimate election.  

Voting Republican means voting for a pathological liar and basing your vote on lies.  It means voting against law and order, and against every man and woman in this country who wears a law enforcement officer's uniform.  It's not possible for Trump to support "law and order" when everything in his entire life and in his business dealings has involved cheating the law, getting around the law or just breaking the law for his own profit.  This is the guy who said he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it.  That's not a "law and order" kind of guy, that's a dictator.  

It means casting a vote against any interests associated with people who are not Caucasians of European descent.  And he says this, frequently, in plain language.  Latinos, African-Americans, Asians, it doesn't matter, in Trump world these people are not real Americans and they are here to serve, not to participate as equals.  There are several compilations of his anti-Latino, anti-black, anti-Asian, anti-Jewish rants at his rallies and in speeches he's made since he first started running for President.  There are also plenty of statements from his lips about the second class status for women in which he also believes. 

He is also anti-Christian.  Marching across Lafayette Park, holding a Bible upside down in front of a church doesn't make him a Christian any more than walking into a garage makes one a car.  Trump's public statements about his religious beliefs categorize him as, at best, an agnostic, and at worst, an anti-Christ by biblical definition of the term.  No one, not even God, comes before Donald Trump in his own eyes, and he does not tolerate loyalty to anyone, including God, except himself.  

Election denying, which is one of the issues associated with him, is a serious charge.  In making this reckless claim, because his ego can't take defeat, he is baselessly accusing a large number of patriotic Americans of both political parties, who work hard to ensure the absolute integrity of every election from the local level to the national level, of cheating him out of a victory he clearly did not achieve.  That is a serious accusation against the integrity of this country, and against the patriotism and loyalty of millions of Americans.  It is also one of the most blatantly ignorant statements ever to come from a former President of the United States.  It is a hard and realistic demonstration of the fact that this man is not a patriotic, loyal American, but a selfish psychopath with a fragile ego and demented intelligence.

That was enough to convince a record 80 million people to vote against him in 2020.  Nothing has changed since then.  So there's no reason for those same 80 million people to vote in November and cast the same ballot.  

Who Else is Running on the Republican Side of the Ballot? 

Well, there's Alex Jones, who just got his rear end handed to him by a judge who intends to hand out almost a billion of his ill-gotten gain to the parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  This disgusting pig decided to ridicule and laugh at those parents as the jury verdict was read to them in the court room.  Vowing that they would not see a penny of the settlement, he apparently did not learn anything at all from this slam dunk victory for the parents, with even more to come.  

What kind of human values does that kind of behavior represent?  It's reprehensible to have to share space on this planet with an evil person like that.  Alex Jones, and everything he represents, is on the ballot in the form of every Republican running for elected office in 2022.  

Then there's Steve Bannon.  Another disgusting, human-hating being, Bannon is dangerously divisive and hateful.  He holds no value for the sanctity of human life beyond the limited capacity of his narrow-minded worldview and he is also a staunch opponent of law and order.  Any Republican who insists that crime is a problem in this country is completely missing the point by supporting someone who picks and chooses laws to obey or disobey based on his own opinion or on his own experience.  Bannon is cut from the same cloth as the Fascist dictators of Europe prior to World War 2.  Yeah, I know it's bad form to compare these inhumane monsters by name, but that's really exactly what we are looking at here.  

Herschel Walker is also on the ballot.  Yes, he really is on the Georgia ballot, an embarrassment to any Georgia Republican who supports him based on party loyalty.  He played football, not exactly the kind of achievement that is a qualification for serving in the United States Senate.  In all other matters, he is a zero.  He flunked out of college, his lifestyle contradicts almost every word he speaks about it.  He's condemned absentee fathers among African-American men, but he himself is an absentee father, and the actual number of his biological children is not known.  That makes him a hypocrite and as far as I am concern, is a disqualifying factor for a run for any public office.  He claims to be pro-life, but has paid for one abortion, and offer to pay for at least one other one.  There may be multiple others, since it doesn't seem that he knows much about how children are conceived, or how to use birth control. 

It's hard to tell what he really stands for, since he seems unable to string enough words together to make a coherent sentence and he has an extremely limited vocabulary.  His name might not be on the ballot in your state, but the support he continues to receive, especially from Senators who willfully support all of this, knowing exactly what they're doing, like Cotton and Scott, mean that this kind of ridiculous assault on the integrity of the senate, which is what his candidacy represents, is something of which Republicans approve.  

The Verdict Delivered by the Ballot Box

We have a responsibility to our country to defend it against all enemies, foreign or domestic.  Every Republican running for office represents a domestic enemy, whether they think they do or not, if they support Donald J. Trump.  The evidence of Trump's crimes against the people of the United States is piling up as high as a mountain and involves everything from an attempt to overturn an election and undermine the Constitution and government, to stealing classified documents with the intention of delivering some of them in exchange for money to foreign countries, some of whom are designated as enemies of the United States.  

The will of the people to render a verdict on this is shaping up.  Democrats are battling inflation and high energy and gasoline prices, and a supply chain issue that has a political price tag, too.  But, in a midterm year when the election, by indications of past history, should not be close, it appears that Democrats will retain control of the Senate, and are competitive enough to lead the generic ballot and actually have a shot at holding the house, too.  All of this stuff on the Republican side of the ballot is responsible for that, mainly the result of Trump's involvement and continued interference.  There are Republicans who have dreaded this for a long time, but if they won't stand up and say what they think, then they deserve to go down with the rest of the ship.  

So while we patiently wait for our Justice Department to assemble its facts, indict the criminal and bring him to justice, we, the people, have an opportunity to render a verdict on November 8th.  I will be voting for "guilty" as I cast a straight ticket ballot for all of the Democratic candidates.  To the 80 million Americans who turned out to send Trump home in 2020, I strongly urge and encourage you to do the same, wherever you are.  You cannot stay home and expect that the right thing will be done without your help.  Your vote for Democrats across the board will save our democratic government.  

What's Trending, Less Than a Month Before the Midterms?

 538 Polls October 11 Showing Biden Job Approval Within One Point of Disapproval

For reference, in the link above, there are three polls from YouGov/The Economist which are worthy of note.  All three were taken from October 8-11, so they are the most recent.  They have a B rating, which isn't great, but which is equal to the other two polls on the same subject from Rasmussen and Ipsos, which put factors in place that make the data skew to the right.  The poll of 1,030 "likely voters" has President Biden's job approval rating at 48%, a 5 point jump from the last similar poll, and disapproval at 51%.  The poll of 1,330 registered voters has approval at 48% and disapproval at 49%, and the poll of 1,500 adults has approval at 45% and disapproval at 46%.  

That's a 10% to as much as 12% swing from similar polls in mid-September, what some pollsters call "trending."  I'm not a pollster, but I'd call it that.  I'm not sure of the factoring they do on job approval ratings, but that much of a shift should generate some interest in finding out what it is that has caused this.  The President made a major campaign speech in Philadelphia, which blasted the GOP for its extremism and which silenced a lot of the whispering and speculation about his mental sharpness.  He's actually been out a lot more, because candidates seem to want him to appear with them on stage.  It's pretty obvious, at least to those who aren't politically biased toward the right, that he's actively engaged in trying all of the steps economists say are necessary to curb inflation.  Combined with the shock of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the revelations that Trump took top secret documents to Mar-a-Lago and there are some reasons to support the trend.  

And, reasons to be optimistic about the mid-terms. 

Further down the page is the results of the generic ballot poll.  That's been trending, too.  Last spring, Republicans had a seven point advantage and there was lots of talk about the party in power always losing the mid-terms, blah, blah, blah.  But the Democrats now lead in all of those generic polls, by as much as 4 points, and by an average of just over 3, which is a 10 point swing.  

Herschel Walker:  A Poster Child for GOP Extremism

Herschel Walker isn't just turning off Georgia voters.  He's becoming a poster child for GOP extremism.  Not only is this guy pathetic when it comes to the ability to put words together and form a coherent, intelligible sentence, but his see-through lies and denials just make it so much worse.  It's not going to move political die hards, of course, but in a state like Georgia, where the Republicans need independents to win elections, this is not playing well.  But it also underlines the fact that there are other extremists running on the GOP ticket elsewhere, and it's not helping those candidates, either. 

Ultimately, I think a combination of Walker, Trump and his boxes of documents, and the last public January 6th hearing will be the demise of any chance the Republicans might once have had to take control of at least one house of Congress.  All of this has a long term effect when it comes to trending, because it takes people a little while to absorb the information, evaluate it and respond to it.  Election day looks like it will come at the exact time when the negative vibes are peaking and people will be in a mood to vote the extremists out. 

Trump Raising Money for Democratic Senate Candidates

Oh, I knew that headline would get your attention.  Trump has been holding rallies, of course, it's his full time job to put his pinched lips behind a microphone and blow hard for hours.  After years of this, people have learned to not show up.  Attendance hasn't been filling even small venues.  And after he visited Nevada, the Democratic Senator, who is running for re-election, Catherine Cortez-Masto, raised over a million campaign dollars in just two days.  She appears to be locked in a dead heat, according to the polls, but Nevada has seen what many states have seen since the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court, and that is long lines of young women registering to vote.  That's never good news for the GOP, especially in a state like Nevada. 

Trump's rally in Arizona, which was also not well attended, had the same effect there for both Katie Hobbs, Democratic candidate for Governor, and Mark Kelly, running for re-election to his senate seat.  A mountain of small contributions flooded into the Arizona Democratic Party, which has also been boosted by a wave of new voter registrations.  And while it is another issue that bears discussing, the fact that so many unregistered voters are lining up to promise to cast a ballot is another one of those "trends" we've been talking about.  

Nothing Surprises Me Any More

Midterm elections are won by turnout.  That's true of most elections, but it is particularly true of the midterms.  That's how Doug Jones won a partial term in the senate from Alabama.  It's also how Republicans won control of Congress and state legislatures in 2010 and gerrymandered their way into close competition.  It will take a while to undo all of that, but Democrats have the best chance at winning a midterm election as the party in power as they ever have had.  

I'm pretty optimistic, looking at the trends.  The best news that we could have received was the surprise initiative in Kansas, and the fact that Mary Peltola, in Alaska, outpolled two once-popular Republicans to gain a house seat, and will likely be re-elected again in November.  The trends have been moving in the direction of the Democratic candidates virtually across the board.  The economy, which was once the big issue for over half of all voters is still big, but its dropped to below 45% while abortion rights, which were single digit, have morphed to almost 30%.  That's quite a trend and it indicates that turnout among pro-choice Democrats is likely to be high, and more than that, likely to be the decisive factor in this election.  

And Biden's job approval rating, while not great, has seen quite an improvement, a trend, if you will, while Trump's unfavorability is also showing a trend in a negative direction.  We have less than a month to go, plenty of time for Walker to be revealed as even more of a hypocrite than he already is, and for Trump to open mouth and insert foot again and again.  It's reliable, folks.  It will happen.  

Make sure you register and vote.  

I Used to Love Watching the Polling Data...

Don't get me wrong, I still do.  But there's an element of unpredictability in polls, and it's been there since at least 2012, when President Obama won a solid, convincing re-election bid over Mitt Romney.  Republicans were sincerely expecting that Romney would eke out a narrow electoral college win, based on polling data from Ohio and Florida that gave him a slight edge.  But he didn't carry either state, in fact, he lost Ohio outside the margin of error of the poll, though Florida was much closer, Obama still carried the state. As it turned out, with Ohio, he didn't need it.  

Then there was 2016, when Hillary Clinton was given better than a 70% chance to win the Presidency.  But the polls were off in the blue wall states, notwithstanding a little Russian interference.  And again, in 2020, state by state, they were off again.  And while there are plenty of theories about what went wrong, I don't believe any of the pollsters has yet figured out why the composite numbers are out of balance, and the margins of error seem skewed.  

But in Spite of All of That...

Democrats have a lot of reasons to be optimistic about their chances of keeping control of Congress, and expanding their control of the Senate.  When I first started looking at the composites back in February or March, we were down by nine points in the generic ballot, and Pennsylvania was the only really bright spot in the senate races.  But looking at the 538 polling composites today, Democrats lead the generic ballot, it's close, one point, but that's a ten point improvement since the low point last winter. The numbers in the senate races, if the election were held tomorrow, would yield a gain of three for the Democrats, with Nevada being the closest thing Republicans have to a possible flip, and I wouldn't bet on that.  Beasley and Demings, in North Carolina and Florida, have moved the needle to well within the margins in their races within the past two weeks, and if they can pull it off, that's a net gain of five for the Democrats.  

Florida may prove to be interesting, with a large number of displaced voters from heavily Republican areas of the state.  And what has really fascinated the poll watchers there, among other things, is that neither of the candidates at the top of the ballot have crossed the 50% mark in the polls.  That's DeSantis and Rubio, by the way.  And that's a drop in the support that both of them had the last time they ran for election.  

Then there's this, from Michael Moore: Michael Moore Predicts Democrats Will Win Big in the Midterms

Being one of those who didn't listen to Moore when he predicted Trump would win in 2016, noting that he pointed directly at what he saw as flaws in the polling data, which is the same sort of thing he's pointing to now.  Abortion rights have gone from near zero in priority for voters to double digits, which represents a significant shift in what voters are thinking, and as a motivating factor, it's 5 to 1 odds, Democrat to Republican, as far as those in polls have expressed themselves.  There were polls on the ballot issue in Kansas, perhaps not in the same class with Quinnipiac, Marist, YouGov or Morning Consult, though the latter leans toward Democrats maintaining control of congress and making a few gains in senate seats, but no one saw that coming.  

And when it comes down to it, it does take a little time for people to see extremists for what they are.  But once they do, it's hard not to see it and harder still to cast a ballot for it.  The Democrats drawing even in a mid-term year when they control the White House and Congress is a good sign.  The extremists have another month to pull another Herschel Walker or two.  I'm looking forward to seeing who the next one will be to open their mouth and insert their foot.