So, yesterday the leadership of the Republican and Democratic Parties cut a deal and put off any chance of a government shutdown for at least another two months.
In other words, they behaved exactly the way that people who go to D.C. to represent us always behave – they cut a deal. Which tells me that after four years of a President who claimed he was the best dealmaker of all time but never even attempted to make a deal, the government is back to running the way it has always run. Gee – what a surprise!
The really bigger surprise, however, is how the fake news media continues to cling to the idea that as long as schmuck-o Trump can waddle his fat ass around one of his golf courses, the Republic is in dire straits and might actually go under completely if Trump tries to run again in 2024.
The latest missive being hurled at the opinion ramparts can be found in the Washington Post (thank you, Steve Klitzman) which last week ran an op-ed by a guy who has a desk at Brookings and specializes in telling us how close we are to a national, indeed international collapse. This time he’s saying that “the United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves.”
And how does the author, Robert Kagan, know that the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Virginia are getting ready to do battle again? Because he knows for a fact that Trump will be the GOP Presidential candidate in 2024.
And what will happen if Trump heads the 2024 GOP ticket? Not only will he win back the Presidency, but - get this – his return to the Oval Office will mean “at least the temporary suspension of American democracy as we have known it.”
Well, at least Trump’s next Administration won’t bring about a permanent suspension of the Constitution, right?
But there are even more dark forces at work to help Trump achieve his lebensbraum (read: plan) to drain the swamp and get rid of all those messy democratic practices and ideals.
No less a fake news mainstay as The Guardian has discovered a secret organization in D.C. known as the Council for National Policy, which claims to be “leading the Conservative movement” since 1981, and brings together “elite Republicans, wealthy entrepreneurs, media proprietors and pillars of the US conservative movement” to define and implement a far-Right strategy that will cleanse this country of all those noxious, Socialist ideas once and for all.
This organization is so secret that its members aren’t supposed to even disclose belonging to the group and you can’t just apply to join and then pay what is allegedly a pretty steep initiation fee. Judging from their 2019 income-tax return plus their membership list from 2014, the annual dues are around $20,000, which may sound like a lot to you and me, but is chump change to members like Steve Forbes or the late Foster Friess.
I just went through the entire membership list of this so-called powerful and secretive group. It’s the same, old collection of right-wingers who own Christian colleges, TV and radio talk-show circuits, media hustlers that work on GOP campaigns and various so-called foundations that promote the usual anti-immigration, anti-abortion, and anti all that other liberal crap.
Know who are members? Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway and James Dobson – you’ll find this trio on the masthead of every, right-wing political group. Of course, the Heritage Foundation is also represented, ditto the Family Research Council, this church group, that church group, all the usual folks.
This is some dangerous cabal. This bunch is more fearsome than the Illuminati, or the Knights Templar, or even Skull & Bones. They’re certainly a greater danger to the future of Western Civilization than the Protocols of Zion ever were a danger to our way of life. With this group behind him, how can Trump lose? And how can he even think for one second of not running in 2024?
Which is exactly why I am hoping he does run again. Because the truth is that this so-called power circle of right-wingers is nothing more than the same bunch of old, White farts who have been hanging around together since the John Birch Society started up in 1958. Maybe they don’t have a worldwide Communist conspiracy to defend against, and maybe some of their original members like Phyllis Schlafly have departed and gone over to the other side.
But they do have to keep their eyes on the Deep State, and they’ll get plenty of help from the fake news media in that regard.
Know what? Joe has turned out to be exactly what he has always claimed to be – just a rather boring, mainstream politician who enjoys the give and take of making a deal.
What’s so bad about that?