General Discussion

The text reads:
This manifestation of his deep psychological issues reflects a major resentment that fuels the larger MAGA movement: anger at the larger culture for not dumbing itself down to placate their own pedestrian tastes and bigoted blind spots.

Let's pull that apart and look at the way the MAGA movement arose in the first place. First, I will state that I am a 'member in good standing' of the so-called professional-managerial class, whose job it has been, heretofore, to prop up the wealth creation machine of the Pax Americana - the American empire.

The problem is the MAGA people:
a) Watch Fox 'news' in their leisure time.
b) Listen to right-wing talk radio any time they aren't watching Fox.

This is where the culture wars came from - they are wedges pounded in with the specific purpose to create polarization, because they are couched in such a way as to brainwash listeners with things that don't matter. So as a result, the MAGA people have begun to really dislike the professional-managerial class because they perceive that we:
a) talk down to them.
b) make fun of them.
c) do not address or even care about their issues, which include a deck that is stacked by Wall Street against EVERY WORKING AMERICAN, but the MAGATs have instead been manipulated to pick the wrong enemy. This is why they say things like, "I live to drink lib-rul tears!" Seriously. I have heard that time and again.
d) when racism enters the mix, then we see a perception on the part of the MAGAts that white men are an endangered species and that brown skinned people are getting preferential treatment, filling quotas, destroying opportunities that rightfully should go to supposedly better qualified white guys.
e) when homophobia and transphobia enters the mix, we see a big hue and cry about women's sports.
f) when xenophobia enters the mix, we see a similar hue and cry about immigrants, and the narrative equates them to brown-skinned people. So they get rounded up.

Why? Because these people got their lives ripped out from underneath them when NAFTA came along in the 1990s with third way Democrats and Republicans towing the Wall Street line. We arguably lost >800K jobs, mostly across what is now called the Rust Belt of the US. It began earlier, of course, in the 1980s when Wall Street fund managers began pressuring C-Suite officers of publicly traded companies to generate higher profits by laying off workers because Wall Street considers labor a liability.

So now, some of the most fervent Trump supporters are from areas in this country that have been economically depressed for decades. There is a book that talks about this called Dying of Whiteness, in which the author says that these people are quite willing now to forego affordable healthcare themselves as long as it hurts brown-skinned people and lib-ruls. Seriously.

Why? I'm sorry because I fear some may disagree with me here, but the Democratic Party's institutionalists have long acted to prop this system up while the right-wing propaganda machine brainwashes its listeners and viewers to believe that no one, and I mean no one cares about them in a system they correctly perceive (as do I and many of my economist colleagues) as being stacked against working people.

Because our system IS stacked against working people. I have been experiencing a deepening disappointment with the Democratic party because it talks about rights all the time, but is focusing on things that have little to do with MIDDLE CLASS kitchen table issues. I mean, I have to be honest. I spent the four years of Biden's administration being told (and amplifying that message for my own data customers) about how absolutely GREAT the economy is doing.

In the meantime, I was squeezed by inflation, especially pernicious with health care COSTS, and the result is that I spent that period carrying $10K in HEALTH CARE DEBT. I just spoke at length with a guy who wants me to caucus for a retired rear admiral who has raised $7million to run against Lauren Bobert. When I mentioned Medicare for all Americans, he said she, "Agrees that healthcare should be affordable." I said, "Wait a minute, the ACA was SUPPOSED to make my healthcare more affordable but why then did I get a 19.2% PREMIUM INCREASE this year, along with HIGHER COPAYS? And why do I have HEALTH CARE DEBT???"

So you know what? I'm fucking TIRED of the party telling me we have to get rid of the Republican MAGATs, making fun of them, telling each other how superior we are, because BOTH parties have been so corrupted by big dollar super-pac donors that no one really seems to care about MIDDLE CLASS KITCHEN TABLE ISSUES:
1) Healthcare.
2) Safe Social Security.
3) Better low- and no-cost childcare solutions.
4) Free or debt-free college for kids and grandkids.

Because THOSE ARE THE THINGS, IF ANY DEMOCRAT WANTS ANY MONEY FROM ME, THAT THEY HAD BETTER BE POUNDING ON. Right now, that ain't happening.

And what about the fucking Epstein files? Because I have daughters and granddaughters and I don't fucking care one little teeny tiny bit about WHO is on that list. They ALL need to be held accountable. So here is my question for my party's leaders:

Merrick Garland and Biden knew about these files that entire four years. Why in the hell weren't they much, much more aggressive about getting it out in the open??? Because Epstein demonstrably worked with Vladimir Putin to set up Trump with compromat, and to ship Eastern European girls over into this sex trafficking ring to obtain compromat on billionaires, politicians, and others.

And the Russian troll farms are working in overdrive to keep pounding the wedge on social media. See? I am honestly afraid that both parties, at the national level, have become so corrupted by these libertarian billionaires who want America to have a CEO (Thiel, Musk, Zuck, Bezos and others) because they know any kind of democracy is inimical to oligarchy and certainly Christian nationalism.

That's where we ARE right now, and it very much bothers me. I have been a public servant for nearly 40 years - it is all I have ever wanted to be, and I have been watching everything we should stand for being undermined for decades as Wall Street financiers and billionaires have steadily eroded our moral compass to the point where this society is so profoundly materialistic that we are literally destroying the habitability of our sacred earth.

We need to wake up to the urgent need for humanity to live in harmony with the earth, each other and God - and you don't have to agree with me about God. I'm not asking you to. But we sure as heck need to be living in harmony with the earth and each other and we need to impose just a basic moral compass - treat others the way you want to be treated. Because that is NOT how we've been operating.

One last thought. We are all now members of a 'Political-Industrial Complex.' I get dozens of texts and emails daily asking me to donate. They go something like: Here is an issue that should cause you outrage! We want to fight for you! Give us money!

Sorry, but I'm done giving anyone money. The middle class in this country has now been virtually squeezed to death by Wall Street greed, which is insatiable, and until I have universal healthcare, have cleared my HEALTHCARE DEBT, and can be confident the government gives enough of a shit about whether I live or die to FIX the fucking Social Security program so it doesn't run out of money, I'm done.