With our government paralyzed by the MAGA Cult, how must we look to the world?
We can’t even approve paying our debts.
Sadly, but comically, the House Republican majority could barely elect a leader, then a second, who survives at the pleasure of a lady who says God is sending us messages with these earthquakes and eclipses.
Further, whatever our government agrees on can be scuttled instantly by the cult leader, who holds no office.
Mr. Biden, most experts, and almost all Republicans and Democrats in Congress believe that for the world’s security and ours, helping fund Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion is good. It’s costly; but Putin’s Russia invaded a sovereign country and threatens to invade its neighbors, whom we are treaty-bound to defend. Without risking U.S. soldiers’ lives, Ukraine has been weakening Russia militarily and perhaps averting invasions of its neighbors. Right or wrong, a majority of our leaders appreciate that. But the cult obeys its leader. No wonder Putin and China favor his election!
Our southern border is a problem. Reasonable minds differ on how best to solve it. A majority of Republicans and Democrats found a compromise they thought would greatly help. It included authorizing President Biden to close the border, which the Republicans (MAGA loudest) had been yammering for. They were prepared to vote, until the MAGA Cult Leader said “No!” Notably, he offers no reason that a productive compromise on this contentious issue wouldn’t be to our benefit.
He’s notorious for judging anything and anyone based on what helps him or hurts him. Allowing something good for us is bad for him because Mr. Biden, against whom the Cult Leader will run in November, might get some of the credit. That all the other leaders think it’s good for our country, and that acting like grownups might marginally increase citizens’ respect for Congress, mean nothing. (Venality is an occupational hazard in politicians; but most have conscience, ethics, or faith holding that in check.)
I’m not against dissent. I’ve strongly argued that certain wars were bad for the nation. The Cult Leader offers no serious argument that having Ukraine defend against Putin doesn’t benefit us.
Health care is notoriously abysmal here, compared to other nations. In 2010, the national government adopted a plan that would help significantly, although it would be far from solving the problem. Some Republicans opposed it, as with Social Security, but then saw that it clearly benefited people, and accepted it. But the Cult Leader remains obsessed with repealing it. It was the signature achievement of President Barack Obama, a Black man who, the Leader felt, had once insulted him at a public dinner.
We progressives poke fun at the Cult, but understandably worry. It could run this country, perhaps for the rest of our lives. The Leader has no respect for the Constitution.
Many Republicans say the Cult isn’t even conservative, and that the Leader spent wildly while in office. Since the Leader’s election in 2016, they’ve lost Senate seats, and governorships, and the Leader, lost the Presidency, as incumbents rarely do.
But inflation caused by two wars might enable the Cult to win in November. I don’t say Biden’s blameless. Since October, I’ve said that Israel’s tragically excessive response to Hamas’s terrible massacre of civilians might elect MAGA. Biden has let Netanyahu lead him by his nose, but has done much good. He’s also decent and sane.
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[The above column appeared Sunday, 14April, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and and will soon be available on the newspaper’s website and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/).]
[The MAGA Cult is not the Republican Party, although certainly it now controls the Party, and may some day destroy or evict non-MAGA Republicans.
Cult? How do you tell a cult? Blind obedience to the Leader, and subordinating not only one’s though but one’s entire well-being to his. That includes “conservatives abandoning their most cherished beliefs: republicans and military folk once believed in confronting a threat to world peace and allies’ security, so much so that they launched lunatic wars against Viet Nam and other small nations (and they honored our war dead); conservative Republicans preached respect for the whole Constitution (not just the 2nd Amendment!); Christian leaders at least purported to honor Jesus and his words (although some managed to harmonize those in their minds with human slavery) and respected men for their honesty, fortitude, loyalty to their wives, respect for Jesus’s example, humility, and care for the poor; and “fiscal conservatives” preached tightness with public funds, not corruption and a heyday for large corporations. But all beliefs fall by the wayside when following the Leader is paramount.
A handy dictionary defines “cult” as a system of religious worship or “an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers.” Admirers venerate Mr. Trump greatly. They lose their senses. They donate hard-earned cash to help him, a supposed billionaire, avoid accountability for his defaming a woman he bodily assaulted, violations of financial and election laws, violations of national security rules regarding documents, and even fomenting a small insurrection. (Jeez, he’s been busy!) They even abandon their faith and their patriotism, or twist those into unrecognizable shapes so as to pretend still to embrace them.
Protecting our young is supposedly one of our deepest instincts. Like the children of Hamelin, they will even follow him over the cliff of climate-change denial, endangering their own children’s well-being. ]
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