“Let’s stop for a second and appreciate the gravity of this moment,” suggested Matt Lewis. “The Jan. 6 Capitol riot occurred three years ago, and the first chance the Republican Party had to rebuke this atrocity in a presidential election resulted in their endorsing it, via nominating the man responsible for inciting said riot. Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Trump was also the first president to ever attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power. (And don’t get me started about the indictments, or his being found liable for sexual assault, or all the dictator talk, etc.)… It stands to reason that the kind of people we choose to lead us says something about who we are, too. And what does Trump’s success suggest? We are not a serious country. We love entertainment. We are tribalistic, and we crave an exciting strongman.”
He noted what many of us have been reluctant to admit: “Republican voters aren’t merely settling for Trump. For many, his chaotic behavior is a feature, not a bug. Perhaps it’s no surprise that, according to CNN exit polls, ‘about eight in ten of Trump’s voters denied the legitimacy of Biden’s election win in 2020…’ It is telling that the biggest moment of the 2024 GOP primary campaign came, not after Trump did something heroic or said something inspiring, but rather, the moment he was indicted. What does it say about a political party when being indicted boosts you in the polls? The Party of Lincoln has metastasized into a decadent and perverse cult of personality that calls evil good and good evil. This metamorphosis is sometimes rationalized by a victimhood complex that sees America as fundamentally evil and her institutions (the justice system, the media, the FBI, the establishment, etc.) as out to get them.”
Let’s move from wretched and putrid to something more uplifting. “Who,” asked UAW president Shawn Fain, is going to put up and who is going to shut up?... Who’s going to stand up with us? Who’s going to sit in the most powerful seat in the world and help us win as a united working class?”
The NY Times reported that “Fain, a vocal critic of Trump, did not mince words. He recalled the 2008 financial crisis, highlighting Trump’s anti-union rhetoric then and as a presidential candidate in 2015. Then he recalled Biden’s comments, as vice president, that the ‘nation bet on American autoworkers and won.’ At this, attendees yelled out obscenities about Trump. ‘Love the energy,’ Fain replied. After the event, Fain told reporters that the U.A.W.’s board had unanimously approved the endorsement. He said that Biden’s economic message was breaking through to rank-and-file members, but added that the union would ‘have to do better’ to combat what he said was misinformation about Biden’s achievements.”
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