The Witness Chronicles, July 9, 2024

Are we dumb and dumber?

Photo by Mark Rohan on Unsplash

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The Party of Stupid

Don Trump’s moronic policy plan

Well, this brings out the cynic in me. Today the Guardian outlines the new, hastily approved Republican Party policy doc. And it appears to be designed for a mind incapable of focusing on anything for more than a minute or two.

The document started out as a 66 page spelling out of a comprehensive set of policies. But obviously that was never going to fly with the ex-President, who can barely read beyond a sentence or two. So now it is 16 pages set in 20 point type and all caps.

Excuse me but is Donald blind? And are his supporters morons? Because it sure looks like this was designed for idiots with bad eyesight who have to laboriously spell out each word.

By the way, his energy plan word for word? DRILL BABY DRILL. I’m serious, that’s what it says.

And it covers really important national issues like hating on trans people.

Not exactly a priority for most sane people. I actually do not believe Trump himself hates on trans people. The guy was a regular at Studio 54 in the eighties and that place was full of trans people (don’t tell your MAGA friends).

Let’s get serious for a minute. Why the hell would any self-respecting American voter accept this nonsense? Yes, you get to be Republican if you want, but is this what it means to you? Are a significant number of Americans really dumb?

Because a document like this appears to tell us that is what the Republicans think of their own supporters. They think you are idiots and maybe you are. I don’t happen to believe that, but sometimes willful ignorance looks a lot like idiocy.

Then we get to a real issue, women’s reproductive rights, which is boiled down to one word, abortion. It’s a toxic issue for the right. The white men want it outlawed, the women, not so much. But Trump judges killed the Roe v protections without doing much thinking about the consequences.

And now they are coming back to bite them in the ass. The white evangelical men who think this is great didn’t consider that their wives don’t have to share how they actually voted.

So the Party found a way to sort of waffle their way around this by throwing it to the states to decide. For the first time in forty years the Republican Party platform does not call for a national ban on abortion.

On a positive note, even in red states when they put this up for a vote it loses. Even Kansas voted down a statewide ban, which undoubtedly scared the crap out of the right.

I’m pretty sure Donald Trump has some experience with the topic because it’s obvious he really doesn’t care about that either. He just thought he could squeeze a few votes out of it, then realized it might be a bad idea.

So, the right sorta wants it banned but sorta doesn’t, too.

(Please do not critique me for that really weird sentence)

On the Democratic side we are embroiled in our own idiocy around Joe Biden’s age and physical condition. I’ve made my opinion clear that I believe we end the issue by him stepping away from running. But this Republican policy Doc really tells us what the actual stakes are.

Party leadership thinks we are all stupid and they can run things better than the American people as a whole. Donald Trump is merely a pawn who is easily manipulated because of his overwhelming narcissism. Keep kissing his ass and he will say and do what you want.

I told you this would be cynical, because it’s impossible to see it any other way. Republican voters are being played by a con man backed by extremely cynical politicians and billionaires who really could care less about us.

They believe, and they might be right, that we are too lazy and willfully ignorant to bother with the details. So they simply eliminated them. And then they created a stupid document no one but people like me will read.

Finally, whether Biden runs or someone else, we should be able to beat these people. They have made their bet that we are not paying attention or that we are dumb, or both. We are not any of those things and I’m betting a lot of them know that and are starting to worry. They know their guy is getting crazier by the day and they have no plan to deal with that.

But right now the Dems need to go on attack mode and Joe or whomever runs needs to forget the past and hammer Trump and his party’s weaknesses. There are a million of them and they are all out there in a document like this policy plan. And we are going to see it all in Technicolor at their convention next week.

A confederacy of dunces led by a grifter but run by cynics who only care about power and money. Quite a formula.

~ I write The Grasshopper, an occasional letter on the creative life and it’s sister, mostly daily publication The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate. They share a free and paid subscription. I also write The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. I don’t paywall any content in these, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your support with a paid subscription helps make that happen.

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