The 33% Dissolution

The WP is sad to report she has lost her BFF. Without a yard to mow, it seemed silly to keep Mr. Deere idle in my new garage; so off he went to the Junior Son's new house. I knew this might happen, and to tell the truth, I felt better about it than using him as a carrot to dangle in front of a potential buyer for the family manse. I’m sure Ziggy and FIL were smiling down as the Junior Son mowed his yard for the first time. And for the record, the JS said I could come over and mow any time I want. I just may take him up on that. 

On a lighter note, today, June 6th, happens to be the 72nd anniversary of D-Day. Talk about doomed to repeat history.

Only this time, We, the People, may not be on the right side...as in humanity's side. Clinton and Sanders can battle it out all they want, but the real danger lies in Donald Trump. This is not news. This is olds. Instead of speaking out and presenting a viable alternative to running a misogynistic, neo-Nazi for President of the United States, the GOP has chosen to endorse this lunatic.  So has Kim Jung Un.  Really?  Yep.

This past weekend, Trump doubled down on his less-than-veiled threats against Indiana-born Federal judge Gonzalo Curiel. He referred to the gentleman as "that Mexican judge," and called him, "a hater," and insisted he recuse himself from sitting on the bench for the Trump University fraud suits. Why? Judge Curiel is of Mexican descent and therefore cannot render a fair decision because Trump wants to build a wall between the US and Mexico. The double down part? Trump said he would insist a Muslim judge also be recused because as a Muslim, he would be automatically prejudiced against him because the Donald wants to ban all Muslims from entering the country.

Translation: "I think, therefore I am prejudiced against Donald Trump."

Trump’s bellicosity aside, let’s look at the real issue: the ramifications of this nascent shift in policy.

If Judge Curiel is unfit to hear this case, does it mean that only certain surnames can hear certain cases? Is this to be a new litmus test for the courts? By extension, must the five Catholic justices of the Supreme Court recuse themselves from hearing any case on abortion rights or pedophilia, since both issues are considered “Catholic” issues? Can a black judge hear a criminal drug case with a black defendant? Or, if  Jews control both the media and banking, can a judge with a Jewish-sounding surname sit on the bench for a case involving one of those?

What if we just dump the entire judiciary and repopulate it with old white guys?

You're probably all thinking that can't happen in a government structured on a system of checks and balances; the odds of any one group dominating the judiciary is highly unlikely. Guess again. Get a Congress elected on the shirttails of the Demagogue du Jour, and all bets are off...and suddenly you have a Congress that will support whatever cockamamie position is out there, when not so suddenly it's a giant power play for all the participants/sycophants on the voting floor.

If you're not worried yet, let's take a quick peek at Paul "Oh, I Can Never Be Your Speaker" Ryan. He became the speaker, all right, and then was Paul "Oh, I Can Never Support Trump For President" Ryan until he came to a point where I suspect in those sit down meetings he thought he explained to The Donald that POTUS is pretty much toothless without Congressional backing, and figured he would ultimately pull some of the strings, possibly those around Trump's mouth. And he became, Paul "Oh, I'm Doing This For The Good Of The Party And To Keep Hillary Out" Ryan...and Trump opened his mouth about Judge Curiel. Just a scant day after he swore his oath of allegiance Ryan said:

Look, the comment about the judge, just was out of left field for my mind…It's reasoning I don't relate to, I completely disagree with the thinking behind that....So he clearly says and does things I don't agree with and I've had to speak up on time to time when that has occurred and I'll continue to do that if that's necessary -- I hope it's not

Trump had gone too far and not one of his recent new BFs came out to say this is okay.

That's because it's not okay, even in LoonyLand. It's not okay to use Mexican as a pejorative. It's not okay to say someone's ethnicity disqualifies her/him from performing one's job. It's not okay to allow your supporters to target individuals and entire ethnic groups with hate speech, hate mail, and Jew-tracker apps. And it is not okay to say you know nothing about it. (By the way, Mr. Trump, did you happen to notice they were targeting your son-in-law?)

Trump supporters are scary for all those reasons, and We, the People, have every right to be worried about the depth and breadth of their numbers. This relatively small group has hijacked the GOP in a way not dissimilar to what the Tea Party did in the last two rounds of presidential elections...but with more violence and viciousness.

But the operative thought is to remember how small their support base it. Sure, it may be a statistically significant part of the GOP, but the GOP is not the entire voting population of this country. 

The radical right took its toll on the central voters in the party. Lord knows who or what they voted for, but it sure wasn't the GOP slate. That slate was put there by a bunch of loud-mouthed Know-Very-Littles. The party machine had no idea what was happening in the middle, and chose to ignore lots and lots of warning signs. Twice. And now, they are headed for the trifecta.

Three doomed-to-repeat scenarios come to mind at this juncture:

1) John McCain's selection Sarah Palin as his running mate: The GOP didn't quite figure this one out, but a whole lot of the rest of the country did - radical, hateful speech does not play well in America. Senator McCain was an excellent candidate, but he shot his own plane outta the sky with that moronic governor of Alaska. She wasn't merely stupid; she was ignorant and ultimately her own mouth did her and Senator McCain in. The GOP still hasn't psyched out stupid....and I'm not talking about their presumptive nominee. I'm talking about the Clown Cavalcade. Draw your own conclusions on that one. 

2) Mitt Romney and Paul "Oh, No, I Can't" Ryan: Romney was a loaf of overpriced, fancy-schmancy white bread with Eddie Munster as his sidekick. They did a fine job of alienating women AND minorities. You would think the GOP might have taken away one lesson or another after that debacle, but nooooo; Mitt tried to offer himself up as possible antidote (or was that anecdote) to Trump's growing horde. The sad part was it almost sounded like a good idea. At least he seems to have maintained his refusal to support the guy. Paul Ryan, however, has morphed from Eddie Munster into Eddie Haskell.

3) From the United States Holocaust Museum webpage: 

Hitler was a powerful and spellbinding speaker who attracted a wide following of Germans desperate for change. He promised the disenchanted a better life and a new and glorious Germany. The Nazis appealed especially to the unemployed, young people, and members of the lower middle class (small store owners, office employees, craftsmen, and farmers).... 

In the Reichstag (German parliament) elections of November 1932, the Nazis lose almost two million votes from the previous elections of July. They win only 33 percent of the vote. It seems clear that the Nazis will not gain a majority in democratic elections, and Adolf Hitler agrees to a coalition with conservatives. After months of negotiations, the president of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg, will appoint Hitler chancellor of Germany in a government seemingly dominated by conservatives on January 30, 1933.

33% of the vote. That's not that much. It's a third. A third of the electorate scared von Hindenburg enough to bring the wretched little paper-hanger into the top echelon of government. And that was when the dominos really started to fall. Hindenburg's mistake would plunge Europe into a darkness no one could fathom. Hitler's henchmen didn't start as monsters; they were created by their feckless leader and their surroundings. They had mothers who loved them, friends they played with, lovers and wives and children. None of that mattered. What they became under the tutelage of Adolph Hitler changed the world in the worst possible way. 

Which brings me all the way back to Judge Curiel of the District Court. He is now a lynch-pin, a coal-mine canary, a potential first domino in this twisted reality show we're all watching. By singling out Judge Curiel, Donald Trump has changed the game. 

33% of the vote was all it took to bring Hitler to power. 

Just sayin', folks. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Always be prepared to discuss what kind of oil you put in the car.