History fortunately has a way of filtering out some of the most outrageous things that elected officials state publicly. That is probably for the best, as we’re left with and tend to remember things like, “A house divided cannot stand.” And “Give me liberty or give me death.”, and “Ask not what your country can do . . . .” In the twenty-second century, we can only hope that some of the lunatic ideas from our current time will recede from collective memory, leaving us with the words of Patrick Henry, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and John F. Kennedy.
So, what, you may ask, are they saying, or tweeting these days? Well, this recently from Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert: “The Constitution is not evolving. To say that is to spit in the face of every single one of our founders.” Now there’s an interesting interpretation. Has she even read the Constitution, with its provisions for change – or as we like to call them, “amendments”? Had this mighty document not been “amended”, she wouldn’t have been standing in the House, nor would she even be allowed to vote. She might, however, be allowed to own slaves. In a similar vein, we have former Rep. Michelle Backman back in 2011, weighing in on the Constitution. “…the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.” So, apparently the founding fathers were working on this issue right up to the Civil War. Thank you, Michelle, for that clear understanding of historic time and place. Where do we get these folks, and more deeply troubling, how do they get elected?
While “talking stupid” crosses the aisle, Republicans seem to be the current the front runners by sheer volume of political waste water on everything from the COVID vaccine to voter suppression and redistricting, making what appears to be a valiant effort to turn the clock back 100 years or two. The recent Republican National Committee’s announcement / spin that the January 6th attack on Capitol Hill was “legitimate political discourse” is a bit like saying the Bolshevik Revolution in Russian was “merely reining in the Tsar”. Again, I ask, are you serious, and do you expect us to believe that? If elections don’t go your way, you dress up like Vikings, paint your face and storm the castle with pitchforks – ok in this case, fire extinguishers? As recently as last September, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) called the jailed attackers “political prisoners”. Ah, like Gandhi and Mandela. That spin hasn’t so far stood up in court, possibly because we haven’t taken that approach to political decision-making since the Boston Tea Party. One would like to think that we’ve progressed.
And speaking of elections, let’s take a minute to discuss Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican Committee, who told her political network last November that “we need to stop counting votes.” Yes, great solution when you’re losing and it’s getting worse by the ballot. The House select committee investigating has issued a subpoena for her and her husband’s phone records. This is rather like a scene from VEEP, and would be hilarious if it weren’t so appalling. What does it say about the election process? It tells us for one thing that many Americans believe that millions of us shouldn’t be allowed to vote. If they can’t get to the polls on voting day, a Tuesday, by the way, then their votes shouldn’t count. In an interesting historical note, Tuesday was chosen in colonial times because it was harder for rural folks to get in off the farms to cast their ballots. We’re still doing it centuries later. Representative Boebert might be interested to know that, as our original democracy was envisioned, citizens voted only for local legislators, who then chose members of Congress and Senators. The legislators also chose the President and Vice President, and the Electoral College was conceived to keep the general population from making mistakes or going too far afield. How ironic that Donald Trump lost the popular vote not once but twice, and historians wouldn’t have had the opportunity to analyze the second Bush Administration if the popular vote was the determining factor. And speaking of . . . . .
I’ll bet if he could take back that “Mission Accomplished” photo op on the deck of a destroyer, he indeed would. That has become his “Four Score and Seven Years Ago” moment. In his own words, he was “misunderestimated.” As was Dan Quayle’s “potato” moment. He’ll be forever remembered as “ no John Kennedy.”
When we talk about things politicians say, there is our former President’s famous utterance, “I could stand in the middle Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” That should have told us something not only about his views on gun violence, but of more importance, his assessments of the American voter. Perhaps it would make a difference who he shot. But as the Black Lives Matter movement has swept the nation, perhaps he’s “misunderestimating” voters in the United States. We know he thought there were at least another 12,000 voters in Georgia that voted for him. “I got to get — I have to find 12,000 votes. . .” – stated President Trump, in excerpts from his phone conversation with Georgia’s Secretary of State. I thought it rather amusing that, and this isn’t the amusing part, after Hurricane Maria devasted Puerto Rico, he was quoted as telling Puerto Ricans that “we can’t take care of you forever”. We can’t be certain, but it’s likely that someone in the Oval Office had to tell him that Puerto Rico is part of the US. Right below that utterance, some sharp newspaper editor had a picture of the Trump family surrounded by about twenty of their servants a Mar A Lago. Many of them looked, well, not necessarily native white Americans. In the same vein, there were pictures of the First Daughter telling Americans to “Buy American”. Again, right below it, an enterprising editor placed a picture of her line of boots being manufactured in an Asian factory.
In other less than stellar moments, let’s not forget Senator Ted Cruz fleeing power outages in his home state by saying he’d “promised the Mexican trip to my daughter”. Yes, this is the same Ted Cruz that publicly maligned the Affordable Care Act, and then promptly signed up his family for coverage. Of course, he’s stated repeatedly that any politician pandering to public opinion was less than honest. But, here’s another of his public statements: “Climate change is the perfect pseudoscientific theory for a big government politician who wants more power. Why? Because it is a theory that can never be disproven.” Do these once-in-a-lifetime storms crossing your state every five years tell you anything at all, Ted? That “pseudoscientific theory” doesn’t sound like pander to the alt right or big business, does it? One of my favorite quotes is from Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican representing the 6th District. “Wind is a finite resource and harnessing it would slow the winds down which would cause the temperature to go up.” I doubt you’d find that nugget in a fifth grade science textbook. That comment should make every scientist in North America shake their heads. Mercifully, Rep. Barton left the House in 2019, but not before he’d served for 34 years and presumably contributed a lot of wind to the atmosphere. And, under the heading, “unclear on the concept”, we have another juicy bit from Michelle Backman. “Literally, if we took away the minimum wage—if conceivably it was gone—we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.” Brilliant! We just have to rename slavery as “entry level”. A Nobel prize in Economics, if ever one was deserved. It’s definitely a runner up to Marie Antoinette’s famous “Let them eat cake.” This from the Lady that was preaching “smaller government” at the time her husband was collecting government grants. I am surprised that her presidential campaign never really took off.
So, in closing, and definitely in keeping with Donald Trump’s quest for 11,000 Georgia votes and his political vision overall, here is full disclosure to clear up any misunderstandings, from former President George W. Bush. “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.” Thank you, Mr. President.
I'm Thinking...No! 