The Witness Chronicles April 21, 2023
The downfall of Florida, the GOP Trump problem, and 100 days in, we got nothing
The Witness Chronicles was created to showcase some of the writing I do on Medium.com covering politics, global events, and climate change. This week I’m sharing three articles that hit these topics. Trigger warning: I am a liberal Democrat and proud of it. You don’t have to agree with me but I hope you’ll read with an open mind.
This newsletter is produced by The Grasshopper.
A note about the next piece. As I write this it has gone viral, but not on Medium. It’s doing ok there but the majority of the volume is from external reads so it must have been indexed. The stats don’t make it clear where that external traffic is coming from. Sometimes when this occurs, the virality extends to Medium after it picks up externally. I can only hope.
I don’t get paid by Medium for external views.
Living in Florida Is No Longer Viable
The Ft. Lauderdale area got 25 inches of rain in 7 hours, with more on the way
Hurricanes, tornados, and now torrential rains and flooding. A tropical depression appeared in the Atlantic a week ago, something that has never occurred since records have been kept. Hurricane season doesn’t start until June.
Gulf surface temps are at a record level for this early in the year, saturating the air with warm moisture. That’s not a surprise with what we know about warming. But 25” in a few hours? The rain fell so hard and fast that people were trapped in their cars.
South Florida’s water table is made of porous limestone and it is saturated. In places the water table is now saline, rendering it unsafe as a water supply for consumption. This saturation means flooding can remain in place for days or even weeks.
Hurricane Ian stalled over central Florida last year and dumped high amounts of rain, creating flooding that in some areas did not clear for weeks. There is increasing evidence that the foundations of several high rise condo buildings are compromised enough to require that they be abandoned, sometimes overnight.
Rising ocean levels don’t simply mean the water below a dock goes up by an inch. The oceans are not flat, in fact they have bulge areas where sea level can be much higher. Florida’s coast is one of those areas, so sea level rise there starts to have serious effects on all kinds of flooding issues.
25” of rain, saturated water tables, rising ocean levels, increased hurricane activity with bigger, longer lived, and more powerful storms are all related to changing weather patterns globally. Low lying Florida is ground zero for climate change in the US.
It’s also a state with one of the fastest growing populations in the country, despite these increasing threats. The state has done a very effective job of selling itself as a kind of paradise on earth for year round living. It doesn’t help that the Republican governor and state government avoids acknowledging climate change even as its effects are killing its citizens and destroying dreams of a warm, sunny retirement.
All the denial is coming up against reality. Home insurers are abandoning the state, putting home ownership out of the reach of many as banks won’t issue mortgages without the protections of insurance. The insurers don’t base their decisions on politics, and their actuarial tables tell them the risk isn’t worth it.
Somehow many in this country see these changes and dangers and simply shrug them off, believing bad things cannot happen in their town. There is evidence that Tornado Alley is moving east and south from its traditional home in the plains states. So northern Florida in particular is seeing more of these highly destructive storms.
And surprise, they’re getting bigger and longer lasting.
Marketing and politicians in denial can only do so much to hide this new reality. Warming is here to stay and conditions will not get better over the long run. At some point the government is going to be unable to justify rebuilding in areas most susceptible to changes in the climate.
Florida leads that list.
Without Trump There is No Republican Party
They let this happen, so tough luck
There has to be a lot of quiet desperation in the GOP mainstream politicians, those who acknowledge the power of MAGA but don’t like it much. They made a choice which already looks like it is going to bite them in the ass.
Even under multiple indictments, while undergoing trials, Trump can still campaign and run, but he is going to have to constantly choose between defending himself and keeping the campaign moving. The problem he faces is that the campaign is not moving beyond his hardcore MAGA base.
There’s no fallback candidate.
Trump seems to have neutered Ron DeSantis, his only current viable competition. It’s possible that as his problems pile up a dark horse could gain momentum, but they better be ready for an onslaught of Trumpian insults and false accusations. He always goes for the jugular at the first sign of a rival.
Asa Hutchinson, former Governor of Arkansas, who announced his candidacy last week, is the lone voice of reason on the right side of the aisle. But his down to earth attitude and call for Trump to step down doesn’t offer the bombastic thrills Trump feeds his rabid followers.
It may be that the unending series of troubles create a pent-up desire for sanity, but I wouldn’t count on it. Trump’s hold on a base of around 30% of GOP voters is locked in and looks more like a religious cult than a political party. They’re true believers in the gospel of Trump.
De Santis sought an inroad with this base, and was getting some traction, but then came the ridicule and attacks. Combine that with his dead fish personality and the fact that with every dictatorial decision he makes in Florida, his numbers go down, and he doesn’t look like he can sustain it.
And he turns out to be a whiner. Trump is too, but his delivery is much stronger and being a constant victim is a theme he owns.
Trump lite isn’t much of a strategy for DeSantis. But Trump doesn’t believe in things like policies and strategies. He has unending confidence in his ability to bust through any logjam through sheer force of bluster.
What Republican in their right mind would expose themselves to that, voluntarily? Not many from what I can see. One theory making the rounds is that they have essentially given up on 2024 and then will rebuild without the Orange One. This goes along with another theory which says they hope Trump will drop dead.
What a pair of options to choose from. I’m open to any theories that have the party finding a way to neutralize Trump, especially because quite a few party elected members are fervent supporters, verging on fanaticism.
Biden has a simple response to this mess. He is ignoring it and not getting sucked into the day to day stuff, giving the Republicans no ammunition to attack him with other than age and health. If those issues become a problem I think Biden would consider stepping down from the campaign. At least I hope so.
So, the Dem strategy is to let the Republicans stew in their own juices, which are pretty toxic these days. So far, it looks like the right move.
100 Days in, the GOP House Has Done Nothing
Other than dumb investigations led by dumb guys
They’ve passed a few bills that had no chance of getting through the Senate. Their ‘investigations’ and manufactured outrage have drawn ridicule. They have offered no proposed budget and don’t appear to even be close to making one. And they are creeping towards failing to vote on the debt ceiling and bankrupting the country.
If that happens, say goodbye to Republican power and legitimacy.
They don’t appear to care about any of it. McCarthy has started fighting with his own members because they won’t follow his lead. Big surprise there. It’s looking like his Speakership is heading for the rocks. He sold his soul to get it, but the bill is coming due.
One of his most powerful members, Marjorie Taylor Greene, went on Sixty Minutes and claimed Biden was a pedophile. Several grandstanding members conducting those investigations are just revealing themselves as incompetent and willfully ignorant, making things up as they go to get press coverage.
Meanwhile, a Trump judge has decided he can overrule the Food and Drug Administration and reverse safety rulings for an abortion drug that has been used safely for twenty years.
His logic would enable any federal judge to overturn science and politicize virtually any drug. The Republicans have been notably silent on the issue, after their anti-Roe celebrations turned into a dud election. There is no effective leadership in the party.
While I take some morbid pleasure in watching this mess, the reality is that we need a functioning government and we don’t have one. The lack of any kind of budget will shut much of the government down. And a bunch of these people want exactly that.
What do they think will fill that void, a Trump dictatorship? Give us a break. That guy is political toast and they know it, but he is their guy, like it or not.
There is a shameful lack of gravitas in this Congress, a seriousness that is needed to get things done. Ethical standards went out the window when the Party refused to condemn a member who lied about everything and appears to have some kind of mental illness. They need his vote.
Politicians can push back against many of the challenges we face including climate change, but they can’t ignore something like the debt ceiling and it’s going to hit us in weeks.
Do they really believe we elected them to fill seats, fight amongst themselves, and obstruct any progress or efforts to govern? Apparently the answer is yes.
This political disease isn’t just affecting the Party at the federal level. The actions of the Republican majority in Tennessee show us they are perfectly happy to practice their racism in public and on the record. GOP state politicians are doing stuff like this all over the country.
And they’re alienating huge blocks of voters in the process. Women. The LGBTQ community. People of color. Anyone not born in this country. The concept of demographics is lost on them because they believe in something called the Base, a mythological minority of voters with no loyalty to the party, only to an indicted loser.
It’s classic hear no evil, see no evil stuff, also known as denial, cowardice, incompetence, and just plain stupidity. As Americans we should be ashamed and outraged by this stuff. I know I am.
Politics and climate change are things I write about because they represent a massive failure of our system, a system that is now breaking down with the help of these men and women. They think marginalizing things like trans people and drag queens is governing, while the weather and guns are killing people.
As we near the next Presidential election, all of this insanity is accelerating. Part of that acceleration represents the chaos that Donald Trump uses to cover his tracks and commit crimes against our democracy. But all the blame does not lie with the ex-president.
Trump merely took what the Republican Party was at its core and magnified and legitimized it. And now Party members are running with it, but they’re not running towards the future. They’re just running in circles.
Putin’s Russia is a chaotic mess and he seems to be getting more desperate. It looks like a power struggle is emerging and the rumors are flying in all directions. It’s hard to write about this because the truth is fluid and sources are unreliable. This is something I write about when I can see a thread of truth emerging.
The enigma that is Russia fascinates me, but the crackdowns on journalists are out of control. A sure sign of pending collapse in similar situations in the past..
Sometimes the news changes so fast that you can barely catch it while it still means something. The big US story last week was about abortion but I don’t write about the topic because I believe the pro-choice movement must be determined by women, not old white guys like me.
If you disagree with my politics, please be human about it. The violence in American political rhetoric reflects poorly on all of us. Be nice.
Did you write today?
Martin Edic
A paid subscription or upgrade gets you access to a year’s worth of my writing on writing, a growing archive of over one hundred stories and ideas. Please consider supporting this work financially. A few dollars a month is all it takes. Thank you.
Every bit of the sad truth. We now have a non-functioning government. I am sad to see our country "normalize" such disgusting behavior and actions from our elected officials. You nailed it all.
As an aged Brit I flounder in trying to understand the GOP, I worked for a great American company in the 80s from Boston so I feel hurt for the majority of Americans from what amounts to stupidity. I quote the following:-
"Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than evil," wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian. Penning this sentence ten years after the accession of Adolf Hitler to supreme power, these words reflected tough lessons soaked in blood. Bonhoeffer formed part of a small circle of resistance to the dictator in Germany, risking his life for an ideal."
"Against stupidity we have no defence. Neither protests nor force can touch it. Reasoning is of no use. Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved - indeed, the fool can counter by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions. So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-satisfied. In fact, they can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make them aggressive. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Nazis killed him, but his insight lives on and is more than valid in many of today's situations.
Adrian