Sunday, October 23, 2022
I heard a thing on the radio the other day that the woman who helped Nixon in one of his early campaigns said you want voters to go into the voting booth with three things in mind, all of them bad and all of them about your opponent.
Seems the Republican playbook hasn’t changed.
The Republicans running in this election are stressing the economy and crime. Their basic pitch is their opponent hasn’t done enough. They don’t mention that they don’t have a plan and that when they were last in power they did nothing: nothing on crime, nothing on the economy, nothing on anything. Or as Bill Clinton put it, “their biggest complaint is we didn’t clean up their mess fast enough.”
I should amend the above to say “nothing positive or helpful.” Crime? Blame immigrants and build a wall. This despite statistics that show immigrants commit less crimes than others or that building a wall would not stop illegal immigration or that under Obama more illegal immigrants were deported than any other time and that under Trump it was the worst.
If we want to stop or slow the flow of people desperate to get into our country we should look at what we can do to make where they are coming from better for them to stay. This was an idea brought up decades ago by Henry Kissinger when he went to Latin America for Nixon. If people felt safe in the place where they were living, if they could make a living, if they could live freely they wouldn’t be coming here. It’s not that hard to understand.
Republican whine about Democrats spending too much and taxing too much, yet it is those Republicans that always outspend Democrats and don’t pay for it. Biden has reduced our deficit by over a trillion dollars, under Trump it ballooned and now those Republicans running for office are saying they’ll cut taxes, making the deficit worse. Remember the last time? They didn’t cut your taxes. They cut corporate and ultra-rich taxes. Well, wait a minute that’s not entirely true. Wunderkind, Paul Ryan pointed out that their tax cuts allowed some woman to be able to afford a membership at Sam’s Club or some such thing, to which I say, “BFD!”
The problem as I see it is also that the politicians who grab headlines are the ones who do the most outrageous things. None of those politicians have done anything legislatively. Some rarely show up for work. People who do the real work, who get things done, aren’t flashy and the news doesn’t cover them.
When Biden went to a manufacturing plant in Maryland the only thing that made headlines was his opening comment of two words “Made in America.” Ha ha, funny. None of the follow up mentioned his running through a list of all he had accomplished to create more jobs in America, how he was bringing manufacturing back to America. How we could do anything if we set our mind to it.
They didn’t cover him in Minnesota where a bride collapsed and because of his infrastructure bill they have the money ready immediately to repair it and are doing so. Biden said he’ll be back to walk across that bridge when it’s finished.
Instead the media is covering stunt politicians doing mean and outrageous things to make headlines.
The Law and Order party. That is how they bill themselves. The two candidates here in Washington state must be getting a huge some of money from the RNC. Their ads are sooooo full of lies. I am trying to stay away from the news but I find it really difficult. At least I am playing more music and that seems to help.
The other thing is these same people seem to be so Christians. Yet they send death threats to poll workers. Some of the ones I have heard on NPR are so cruel and calculated. It seems as though the Crusades are back in power. I am just sick of the whole thing. I should say it all is making me sick.