“We struck the home trail now, and in a few hours were in that astonishing Chicago–a city where they are always rubbing a lamp, and fetching up the genii, and contriving and achieving new impossibilities.” ~ Mark Twain, “Life on the Mississippi,” 1883
Access Part One at the following link:
“Welcome to the Desert of the Real” Series – Part One
Access Part Two at the following link:
“Welcome to the Desert of the Real” Series – Part Two
“Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah…it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.” ~ Rumi
*Note: If you appreciate all the time, dedication, and hard work I have thus far and am continuing to put into researching, innovating and creating this comprehensive, unique and one of a kind website and series to educate, enlighten, benefit, and help others…
…please consider making a small donation or whatever donation you are comfortable making to support what has become my life’s mission and work at one of the following 2 links.
$5.00, $50.00, $500.00 or whatever amount you are comfortable donating would be greatly appreciated. 🙂
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” ~ Pablo Picasso
*Important: This highly unique series contains quite a bit of linked multi-media content.
This content is extremely important in addition to the content being very interesting, compelling, and highly entertaining.
For this reason, ideally this series is best accessed by a laptop or desktop computer.
If you are attempting to access it via your phone, please WAIT a few minutes before you begin scrolling each web page to ensure that each page and all it’s contents have downloaded properly.
Just relax and chill for a few minutes. I promise it will be worth your while. 🙂
Before we get started…
A Very Important Recommendation:
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Before we get started with Part Three of this one of a kind series…
…here’s yet another Chicago the Beautiful Spotlight 🙂
“You’d never think of taking a cab if you had to walk a mile down Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. But in a bad city you take a cab just to go around the corner.” ~ Helmut Jahn, legendary German-American Architect
Continuing on to Part Three…
…the modern day Republican Party = Shit Show
Question: When you vote for politicians who represent a political party that loves shit shows over actual governing…
…why be surprised when a shit show seems to be the only thing those politicians are capable of producing?
By the way, that’s called Commonsense.
*The Chicago Way says know exactly who and what you are dealing with….
….which is why the vast majority of Chicago absolutely will not vote for anyone connected with the modern day Republican Party.
One reason why I’m a very proud Chicagoan. 🙂
Seriously, it’s really not that hard to connect the dots.
That’s why the modern day Republican Party chose a Reality Show TV Host as it’s leader.
*All I can add to that is Lincoln wept.
“We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail.” ~ Anand Giridharadas
Make no mistake….
…just like President Lincoln made the Southern Confederacy and it’s pro-slavery leaders abject losers in the American Civil War…
….the 21st Century Confederacy is also comprised of both present and future losers…
….and a perfect example of this truth is the initially 14 times rejected current Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
“Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy went down to humiliating defeat in his bid to take the speaker’s gavel Tuesday. Not satisfied with that, he then went down to humiliating defeat again. And then again.
Mercifully, the House eventually adjourned, which means McCarthy will probably go down to defeat a few more times over the next couple of days. Or weeks. Or months? Who knows?” ~ Noah Berlatsky from his article titled “The Humiliation of Keven McCarthy” – January 4th. 2023
How appropriate considering the following:
Gotta love Karma 🙂
“It is pretty funny to watch a party whose whole platform is “the election was rigged!” unable to elect its own leader.” ~ Ben Wexler via Twitter
Childish Republicans even got into a fight on the Congressional floor:
Meanwhile…
Steve Schmidt, senior advisor to the late Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, former Republican strategist, and present-day Democrat said it best:
Case in point:
Let’s face it…
…being dishonest, corrupt, or criminally minded seems to be a prerequisite for being elected into the modern day Republican Party.
It’s most definitely not a deal breaker.
Case in point:
The Washington Post – January 2021 – Trump’s False or Misleading Claims Total 30,573 Over 4 Years
“When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” ~ Maya Angelou
If you value governing honestly and ethically vs having constant chaos in our government…
….don’t vote for dishonest, corrupt, disloyal, insurrectionist Chaos Agents.
It’s really that simple.
Update:
A battered and bruised Kevin McCarthy finally stumbled into the House Speaker position after losing the vote from his own party an unprecedented 14 times…
….and after giving away boatloads of concessions to the most extreme wing of the Republican Majority House.
“Now we have a different McCarthy to contend with – not so much a demagogue as a sycophant, but just as dangerous in his way as the senator.
Through his weakness, Speaker Kevin McCarthy will actually have a profound effect, enabling the more radical right-wing voices he serves, including figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene, and, of course, Donald Trump.” ~ Excerpt from Washington Press article titled “The New MCarthyism: Today’s Right-Wing Is Using An Old Playbook” – January 2023
Yes, we must brace ourselves for two years of childish and constant Congressional Republican temper tantrums….
…and lame, weak, and totally spineless Kevin McCarthy elevating the worse of the worst in Congress as payback for MAGA lunatics finally deciding to support him as House Speaker after 14 rejections.
Case in point:
Fast forward to just one day later at President Biden’s 2023 State of the Union Address:
I would say “kids will be kids” except that’s an insult to the many well behaved kids I know.
The problem is these adult-sized Republican “kids” are dangerous.
The Good News?
First and foremost, Thank God that we have a smart, sane and competent ADULT in the White House again:
Following is a PERFECT example of just how totally immoral, corrupt, and patently dishonest modern day Republicans are:
Meanwhile…
“…ever since 1980…, Republicans have tried to make deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare every time they thought there might be a political window of opportunity.” ~ NYT column by Paul Krugman titled “The G.O.P.’s Long War Against Medicare and Social Security” – February 2023
Now that I think about it…
…it may be too insulting to compare modern day Republicans to the original Southern Confederacy….
….because although it was extremely racist, patently evil, and completely immoral…
….the original Confederacy wasn’t also childish, spineless, crazy or dense:
To all voters who vote Republican…
….this YOU?
One thing is for sure….
…modern day Republicans most definitely are not the sharpest crayons in the box.
Meanwhile at Fox News:
And finally more and more notables are voicing what has always been obvious from the get go about the modern day Republican Party’s PR organization and the nation’s premier Right Wing propaganda network, Fox News:
*Interestingly, I remember when the Obama-Biden Administration made this exact same point about Fox News 14 years ago, way back in 2009…
….but the supposedly “liberal” 90% Corporate Owned Media vilified and castigated it for telling the truth.
An excerpt from a NYT article on the topic early in the Obama presidency:
“Attacking the news media is a time-honored White House tactic but to an unusual degree, the Obama administration has narrowed its sights to one specific organization, the Fox News Channel, calling it, in essence, part of the political opposition.
“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” said Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, in a telephone interview on Sunday. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.” ~ New York Times – October 2009
“… we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”
In other words…
….the No Pretend, No BS Chicago-style Obama-Biden White House saw Fox News for exactly what it was then and now to their administration and any and all Democrats…
….a dishonest and corrupt PR and propaganda network for modern day Republicans and an enemy to any and all Democrats…
….and Obama-Biden treated it as such.
That’s the Chicago Way, ladies gents.
Always know who your enemies are and always treat them accordingly if you want to defeat them.
In response…
…the supposedly “liberal” 90% Corporate Owned Media was outraged at the Obama-Biden Administration for telling the truth about Fox News and went all out to defend it, claiming Fox as a legitimate and authentic “news org.”
“After CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC balked at the (Obama administration’s) plan (to bar Fox News) Tuesday, ABC News’ Jake Tapper asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the appropriateness of the administration’s saying that Fox News, which he called “one of our sister organizations,” is “not a news organization.”
Gibbs said, “We render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.”
When Tapper asked how Fox News was different than other media organizations, Gibbs invited him to watch the network with him one evening.” ~ Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press – October 2009
“…Fox News, which he called “one of our sister organizations,”
Of course, this only supports, confirms, and proves everything I revealed about the 90% Corporate Owned Media in Part One of this series.
Moving on, here’s more Good News:
House members are elected every two years so American voters can fix this Republican train wreck next year in 2024.
So hopefully we will have less than two years of truly cringeworthy scenes like this:
In the meantime…
….thankfully sane ADULTS are still in the Congress the Republicans now hopefully temporarily lead.
“Whew. Hakeem Jeffries took the GOP to school from A to Z. Literally.” ~ Meidas Touch via Twitter
Since Republicans are antagonistic towards the notion of going “to school” or towards educating themselves….
…for the childish Republicans in the back who missed the new Democratic House Leader’s schooling:
THIS is the America that is being fought for broken down into easy ABC language that even childish Republican politicians can understand.
And with that amazing speech from the new Democratic House Leader…
….the battle lines have now been drawn just like they were drawn during the American Civil War.
What each side is *supposed to be* fighting for and what each side is *supposed to be* fighting against in 2023 and beyond has been made crystal clear…
…and not just to Republicans, but also to elected Democrats.
*I would like to note that the Democratic Party isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
The Democratic Party has many problems…
….although they in no way compare to what then President Obama called “the Republican Party’s Crack Up.”
An example of a very serious Democratic problem:
The Democratic Party isn’t free of politicians who still believe there can be compromise or what is today called “bipartisanship” with the pro-insurrection, anti-democracy, anti-women, anti-immigrant, and anti-Black/POC Republican Party.
“In the 2022 elections, New York was one of only a couple of states in which Democrats woefully underperformed. A big part of the reason for that was a brutal redistricting map, imposed by a conservative coalition of Republicans and right-leaning Democrats on the Court of Appeals (the highest court in New York state).
The collapse of New York’s Democratic delegation not only gave us Rep. George Santos, but played a big role in costing Democrats control of the US House. Given that, you’d think newly reelected New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, as a good partisan Democrat, would be eager to reshape the courts to shore up Democratic fortunes going forward. Hochul, though, has not behaved that way.” ~ Aaron Rupar and Noah Berlatsky in a must read January 2023 column for the independent newsletter Public Notice which can be read in full here.
Thankfully New York state has Democratic elected officials who are not hell bent on enabling the anti-democracy Republican Party’s backwards, punitive, and ultra-conservative agenda:
It’s time for all sane, patriotic, and Pro-Democracy Voters to recognize the Republicans in Democratic clothing.
Case in point:
It’s important to note that the modern day Republican Party has zero morals and will do anything to hold onto power…
….even if they have to lie, steal, and cheat to do it.
And for the record…
….no modern day Democrat who is truly pro-democracy and who truly supports democracy, and the goals of free and fair elections, the civil rights of all Americans, and the current Democratic platform is in bed with a Right Wing owned MAGA media outlet.
Yes, the following is Right Wing owned “news source” is what the current *Democratic* mayor of Dallas TX is lending the legitimacy of his office to:
“Between 1892 and 1970, the Dallas Express was a Black newspaper in Dallas, perhaps the largest and most influential during its existence. It notably publicized lynchings, attacked racial segregation and promoted issues like public housing.
Now, the name is being used to publish right-wing propaganda funded by a wealthy Texan Republican donor, Monty Bennett.
“…what is clear is that the recently resurrected Dallas Express is just the latest iteration of a sort of local “news” publication that is funded by wealthy individuals with clear political agendas. And certainly, a far cry from the historical legacy of the original Dallas Express.” ~ Dallas Weekly – February 2021
Question: Why is Dallas TX’s *Democratic* mayor touting a Right Wing Owned MAGA Republican propaganda news site?
On a Related Note:
Mayor Eric Johnson in Dallas TX (who has been in office since 2019) is running unopposed for re-election for mayor in 2023….
…which means the Republican Party in blood red Texas has decided to not run a mayoral candidate in that race and just keep the Dallas TX mayor’s office and government in *Democratic* hands.
“Local voters have only one choice for mayor on the general election ballot for the first time in more than half a century.” ~ The Dallas Morning News
So again, the modern day MAGA Republican Party in old Confederacy and very red TEXAS has decided to not field a candidate for mayor in Dallas TX against a *Democrat.*
In very red Texas.
The simple question is WHY?
Why is the modern day Republican Party in blood red Texas choosing to not run a mayoral candidate against a sitting Democrat for “the first time in more than half a century?”
Two words to all pro-democracy voters:
#StayWoke
That means looking very closely at the actions and supporters of even alleged or professed Democrats.
“We should stop expecting that there is a bottom to the lengths people will go to overturn legitimate election results and seize power in our country.” ~ Jocelyn Benson – Michigan Secretary of State
Also to those who are anti-MAGA and pro-democracy…
…please be very careful and ultra discerning about where you get your “local news.”
“They have titles like Antelope Valley Today, Pomona Valley News, and North O.C. Times, and appear on the surface to be start-up local sites covering extremely local news, particularly in communities that have been underserved by the small number of legitimate local news outlets that remain in regular publication. However, the New York Times reports, these sites aren’t independent neighborhood operations. Instead, the Southern California “news sites” are among some 1,300 pages put up by a single company, Metric Media, linked to conservative political operatives who use the veneer of local news to advance a political agenda.”
“The Times spoke with more than 30 sources, including current and former employees of Metric Media publications, as well as “clients” of Metric Media–the corporate P.R. departments and Republican campaigns that pay site owners for stories that puff up their products or cast their rivals in a poor light.” ~ Los Angeles Magazine – October 2020
And to state the obvious, this HUGE fake news network run by deceitful, and scamming Republican operatives isn’t just operating in California.
It’s spreading it’s fake garbage news all over America:
“The network now includes more than twice as many titles as Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper group.” ~ ~ Los Angeles Magazine – October 2020
You can learn more about this and other nation-wide fake news scams being funded by Right Wing billionaires and ran by deceptive MAGA Republican operatives at the following links:
The New York Times – October 2020 – As Local News Dies, a Pay-for-Play Network Rises in Its Place
Texas Observer – March 2023 – Dallas Has A Problem With “Zombie” Astroturf Groups
“Despite being exposed as bogus, some right-wing organizations keep coming back from the dead. No one knows who is funding them.” ~ Steven Monacelli -Texas Observer – March 2023
For anyone who doesn’t know what “Astroturf” groups are or what “astroturfing” is:
“Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants.” ~ Source: Wikipedia
And as the Texas Observer’s Steven Monacelli’s great expose on these sinister MAGA Republican fake news groups makes clear…
….in terms of who is funding this HUGE flood of MAGA Republican boosting and Democrat sliming fake news all over the country:
“No one knows who is funding them.” ~ Steven Monacelli -Texas Observer – March 2023
One more time for all anti-MAGA democracy lovers:
#StayWoke
To put it simply….
….in the same way the original Southern Confederacy was stopped by President Lincoln and his Union Army who made the Confederacy wave the white flag of failure by not allowing it to destroy and tear these united states apart in order for confederate states to continue cruelly and immorally enslaving millions of Black men, women and children….
…good, decent and truly patriotic Americans must ensure that the 21st Century Confederacy aka modern day Republicans are not allowed to ruin, destroy, or to burn this country and American Democracy down just because they’re mad that in order for this country to survive and also thrive…
…they will eventually have to share this country equally with people they consider to be enemies, people they hate, or people they don’t give a damn about.
*One important point is there was no such thing as “bipartisanship” during America’s most significant political crisis ever which was the American Civil War.
You were either for keeping the enslavement of human beings a part of America’s destiny or you were against it.
Period. End of story.
That is not to say there weren’t the same enabling politicians, armchair pundits, and newspaper shills back in the day as there are today who tried to compromise or what is now called bipartisanship in dealing with the South to try to prevent it from seceding, aka to prevent the Southern traitors from tearing the U.S. apart.
But that side lost…
…the no compromise side won…
…and the no compromise side struck down slavery and won a war which hundreds of thousands of no compromise anti-slavery soldiers gave their lives for.
In doing so, the no compromise side prevented the destruction of the UNION aka it prevented the destruction of the United States of America.
In other words…
…without the no compromise side digging in it’s heels and courageously fighting to the death against the declared Confederate enemies of the U.S. for what was right, moral, and just…
…fighting for the United States to stay united…
…none of us would be living in the United States of America today…
…and God only knows if millions of enslaved human beings would still be the law of the land today.
In too many ways to count, tough, no compromise President Lincoln and his tough, hard fighting, no compromise Union Army not only saved the United States of America…
….but in doing so, President Lincoln and his Union Army also reshaped and remade the entire global community.
Although America was still at that time extremely flawed in too many ways…
…it was still much, much better than continuing to have millions of enslaved human beings as the nation’s #1 commodity.
In fact, it can be convincingly argued that had Slavery been allowed to continue to fester in the U.S…
…it is almost certain America would have eventually become a Pariah nation in the global community…
…a nation globally avoided, disliked, and shunned much like North Korea and other pariah nations currently are.
Pariah: a country or government that is not accepted by other countries, especially because it acts in a way that other countries consider to be wrong ~ Cambridge Dictionary
With Slavery being finally abolished in America….
…it can very easily be argued that President Lincoln & his Union Army is why America eventually became a Super Power and the Leader of the Free World which it still is today…
…although that standing is currently being threatened again by yet another insurrectionist faction of the U.S.
To that point…
…we are seeing very similar dynamics which were happening during the American Civil War at play in this country today.
The problem is that in 2023…
…many modern day Democrats still have absolutely no idea who they are dealing with when it comes to the modern-day Republican Party.
Case in point:
“…we have new polling from CBS News, conducted by YouGov, which explores how members of each political party tend to think of members of the opposing party.
Most Democrats say that they tend to view Republicans as political opponents. Most Republicans say that they tend to view Democrats as enemies.” ~ The Washington Post – February 2021
Of course these sobering poll findings 100% align with the following article excerpts:
The Atlantic – October 2018 – The Cruelty Is The Point by Adam Serwer
“President Trump and his supporters find community by rejoicing in the suffering of those they hate and fear.”
“The Trump era is such a whirlwind of cruelty that it can be hard to keep track. This week alone, the news broke that the Trump administration was seeking to ethnically cleanse more than 193,000 American children of immigrants whose temporary protected status had been revoked by the administration, that the Department of Homeland Security had lied about creating a database of children that would make it possible to unite them with the families the Trump administration had arbitrarily destroyed, that the White House was considering a blanket ban on visas for Chinese students, and that it would deny visas to the same-sex partners of foreign officials.
At a rally in Mississippi, a crowd of Trump supporters cheered as the president mocked Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who has said that Brett Kavanaugh, whom Trump has nominated to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, attempted to rape her when she was a teenager. “Lock her up!” they shouted.”
“It is not just that the perpetrators of this cruelty enjoy it; it is that they enjoy it with one another. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to one another, and to Trump.”
“Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty.
It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright.
The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united.” ~ Excerpt from Adam Serwer’s must read October 2018 article for The Atlantic titled “The Cruelty Is the Point”
*Author Adam Serwer has expanded on his must read 2018 article by writing a must read NYT bestselling book titled “The Cruelty Is the Point: Why Trump’s America Endures” which you can find at this link.
Cruelty most definitely runs in the veins of a majority of modern day Republicans.
Case in point:
And before anyone tries to ridiculously claim this as an isolated incident of just one Republican politician being cruel and disrespectful towards people with disabilities…
After that fiasco, Donald Trump got tens of millions of Republican votes in 2016, and even more votes in 2020.
*They also voted for him after hearing his disgusting recorded remarks about grabbing unsuspecting women “by the pu**y”…
….so I don’t know why anyone would try to pretend like modern day Republicans don’t have a penchant for cruelty….
…or at the very least they definitely don’t find being cruel to others a deal breaker.
Going back to most Republican voters seeing Democratic voters as enemies…..
…it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that one side seeing the other as mere political opponents…
…while the other side sees them as straight up enemies…
….and the side that is for the national security, stability, solvency and maintaining the democratic ideals of said country refuses to recognize the other side as an enemy to them who has repeatedly proven to be against those very ideals….
….is a recipe for disaster for this country.
More from:
“The gap between the two parties on this question is stark. There’s a 32-point difference on net between how Democrats view Republicans and vice versa, on a question positing that members of a political party might be viewed with overt hostility. It’s grim — and it is consistent with increasingly hostile partisan views over time.” ~ The Washington Post – February 2021
“Most Republicans say that they tend to view Democrats as enemies.”
This extremely dangerous mindset is what likely led to the vicious attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi in October 2022:
“The suspect in the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appears to have been an active online participant in multiple conspiracy theories, railing against perceived censorship and government control, and engaging in hate speech and antisemitism.
San Francisco police identified the suspect as 42-year-old David Wayne DePape, a Berkeley resident. DePape allegedly assaulted Paul Pelosi with a hammer early Friday during a home invasion of the couple’s Pacific Heights residence. A source briefed on the attack told CBS News that before the assault occurred, the intruder confronted Mr. Pelosi shouting, “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?”
“In a Sept. 27 post, the writer (DePape) said any journalists who denied Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election “should be dragged straight out into the street and shot.” ~ CBS – Bay Area – October 2022
“Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?”
This deranged Trump supporter who viciously attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer was in reality looking for then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi….
….which brings back to mind the words spoken in 2021 by current Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy:
Gee, I wonder what gave David Wayne DePape the idea to show up at then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and proceed to viciously hit her husband Paul on the head with a hammer after yelling “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?”
These are the “enemies” the modern day Republican Party along with it’s mouthpieces at Fox News and elsewhere are creating in the American population.
*Important Note: If you are a registered Independent or claim to be an Independent voter yet you consistently vote for modern day Republicans….
….you’re a Republican who doesn’t want to admit to being a Republican.
Why?
Because your vote knowingly enables everything the modern day Republican Party does…
….so please own who you are.
Enemy: a person who feels hatred for, fosters harmful designs against, or engages in antagonistic activities against another; an adversary or opponent ~ Collins Dictionary
THIS is how most Republicans see Democrats or people who are unlike them…
…and when you really think about it….
….it explains a LOT.
It explains why the Republicans didn’t want America to have affordable healthcare and why they were up until 2022 still trying to sabotage and destroy tens of millions of Americans having healthcare they couldn’t previously afford via the Affordable Care Act or what they have derisively renamed Obamacare.
NBC News – October 2022 – Republicans Abandon Obamacare Repeal
“Republicans are abandoning their long crusade to repeal the Affordable Care Act, making the 2022 election the first in more than a decade that won’t be fought over whether to protect or undo President Barack Obama’s signature achievement.” ~ NBC News – Oct. 2022
**Also it’s not a mere coincidence that a majority of the remaining states that have refused the Medicaid Expansion part of Obamacare which would allow millions of poor people living in their states to have access free healthcare were once Confederate States…
…or they and/or are states where modern day Republicans are blocking Medicaid Expansion.
Associated Press – May 2021 – Wisconsin Republicans Quickly Kill Medicaid Expansion
*First, it’s important to understand what Medicaid Expansion is:
“Medicaid expansion gave states the chance to provide Medicaid coverage to people who earn up to 138% of the federal poverty level (FPL). FPL is a measure of income. It’s the cutoff to qualify for Medicaid and other government benefits. The federal government updates the FPL each year. For 2023, the FPL is $13,590 for individuals and $27,750 for a family of 4.” ~ United Health Care Community Plan website
In other words…
….Medicaid Expansion makes free health care available to individuals and families, (including children) who live below the poverty line aka to individuals, families and children who are poor.
It’s for the millions of people who work minimum wage jobs who already are not earning enough money to live and feed their families adequately, much less earning enough money to spend on a doctor when they or their child/children get sick.
It’s for college students who are working their way through school in low wage jobs that don’t offer health insurance.
It’s for unhoused and homeless people who are struggling to survive day to day just to be able to eat or find shelter for the night, many who have mental health challenges.
I could go on and on…
…and let’s not forget we are still living in the midst of a pandemic which has killed more than a million, men, women, and children in this country.
And (of course) it’s modern day Republicans in each of the remaining 12 Medicaid Expansion Hold Out States who are heartlessly denying health care to the tens to hundreds of thousands of poor people living in their states.
The following quote (which I already posted in Part One) deserves an encore:
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In fact, the reason why America is the only industrialized nation in the world without Universal Health Care or which does not consider Health Care a right for it’s citizens…
…can be predominantly blamed on American Racism and modern day Republicans not wanting all Americans to have the same or equal rights to health care.
#Receipts:
An excerpt:
“In 2010, the Affordable Care Act brought health insurance to nearly 20 million previously uninsured adults. The biggest beneficiaries of this boon were people of color, many of whom obtained coverage through the law’s Medicaid expansion. That coverage contributed to a measurable decrease in some racial health disparities, but the success was neither as enduring nor as widespread as it might have been. Several states, most of them in the former Confederacy, refused to participate in Medicaid expansion.
And several are still trying to make access to the program contingent on onerous new work requirements. The results of both policies have been unequivocal. States that expanded Medicaid saw a drop in disease-related deaths, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. But in Arkansas, the first state to implement work requirements, nearly 20,000 people were forced off the insurance plan.
One hundred and fifty years after the freed people of the South first petitioned the government for basic medical care, the United States remains the only high-income country in the world where such care is not guaranteed to every citizen. In the United States, racial health disparities have proved as foundational as democracy itself.
“There has never been any period in American history where the health of blacks was equal to that of whites,” Evelynn Hammonds, a historian of science at Harvard University, says. “Disparity is built into the system.” Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act have helped shrink those disparities. But no federal health policy yet has eradicated them.” ~ Excerpt from the New York Times Magazine article titled “Why Doesn’t the United States Have Universal Health Care? One Word: Racism”– August 2019
When you understand that racism is the #1 reason why the United States is the only industrialized nation in the world which does not guarantee health care to all of it’s citizens…
…you understand why modern day Republicans aka the 21st Century Confederacy spent more than a decade trying to repeal or get rid of the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare.
Newsweek – July 2017 – GOP Aims To Kill Obamacare Yet Again After Failing 70 Times
As a result of that habitual and persistent racism…
…the health of everyone in this country is paying a hard price for America’s outlier status aka the status of being the only industrialized nation in the world to refuse to provide Universal Health Care for all of it’s citizens.
Case in point:
“Americans—white and black—live shorter and sicker lives than people in 16 industrialized countries. The most recent Institute of Medicine report on life expectancy makes it clear that privilege isn’t a panacea:
“Americans with healthy behaviors or those who are white, insured, college-educated, or in upper-income groups appear to be in worse health than similar groups in comparison countries.” As the IOM notes, our lack of universal access to health care plays a major role in this.” ~ Excerpt from Jstor.org article titled “Why Racism Is Terrible for Everyone’s Health” – October 2015
Moving on:
*Republicans seeing Democrats or anyone unlike them as enemies explains why Republicans seem to be totally fine with cops killing so many unarmed people, particularly unarmed Black and other people of color.
It’s 2023, ladies and gents.
Things should not still be this way in America.
*Republicans seeing everyone unlike them as enemies explains why Republicans want to keep the minimum wage so ridiculously low for low wage workers.
For example, this country’s federal minimum wage is at a measly $7.25 an hour and hasn’t been raised since 2009, in more than a decade.
The Washington Post – December 2017 – The U.S. Has One of the Stingiest Minimum Wage Policies of Any Wealthy Nation
“At the federal level, the minimum wage hasn’t been raised since 2009, when it was set to $7.25. In inflation-adjusted terms, the federal minimum wage was highest in 1968, when it was equal to $11.18 in today’s dollars.”
“Among the world’s wealthy nations, the United States is an outlier on this issue: Americans have the lowest national minimum wage, relative to the median wage, of any of the wealthy nations represented in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
In France, for instance, the national minimum wage (close to 1,500 euros per month) is equal to about 61 percent of the medium national median wage. In Australia it’s 54 percent. In Canada it’s 46 percent.
In the United States, by contrast, the federal minimum wage works out to just 35 percent of the national median wage, the lowest in the OECD.” ~ The Washington Post – December 2017
The federal minimum wage for tipped workers which is $2.13 an hour is even more obscenely low, and hasn’t been raised since 1991….
…aka in more than 30 years:
WHY hasn’t the federal minimum wage been raised in 14 years or since 2009 while the cost of living has continued to rise every one of those 14 years?
Because modern day Republican politicians in DC and across the nation block any and all attempts to raise the federal, state and local minimum wage, which would help to lift millions of Americans out of poverty.
Receipts:
The Washington Post – April 2014 – Senate Republicans Block Minimum Wage Increase Bill
The New Republic – May 2017 – How Republicans Are Blocking Cities From Raising the Minimum Wage
Forbes Magazine – February 2021 – Republicans In Washington Block Biden’s Vital Minimum Wage Increase
*Shortly after assuming the presidency, President Biden tried to raise the federal minimum wage to $15.00 an hour early in 2021, which a solid majority of Americans of support:
Pew Research – April 2021 – Most Americans Support a $15 Federal Minimum Wage
“About six-in-ten U.S. adults (62%) say they favor raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, including 40% who strongly back the idea. About four-in-ten (38%) say they oppose the proposal, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 5-11.” ~ Pew Research Polling – April 2021
Yet modern day Republicans blocked it as they have blocked all attempts of minimum wage increases on the state and federal level for the past 14 years.
Modern day Republicans have consistently kept the federal minimum wage at a measly $7.25 an hour, which is more akin to paying a slave wage to millions of America’s minimum wage workers in the many states which still adhere to the federal minimum wage guideline.
Here is just one of the devastating consequences:
Chicago Tribune – June 2017 – Nowhere In America Can Full-Time Minimum Wage Worker Afford To Rent 2-Bedroom Apartment
Think about it:
The bare minimum a family with kids or a single parent with kids needs to live is a two bedroom apartment…
…yet nowhere in America can a minimum wage family afford to pay for one…
….and that was in 2017.
Rent prices in America have skyrocketed even more since then.
Receipts:
Axios – August 2022 – Why Rents Are Soaring Pretty Much Everywhere in the U.S.
And it gets even worse for single people earning America’s minimum wage.
Again the following was true in 2017, which means it’s even worse now:
“Those whose earnings put them below the federal poverty level cannot even afford the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in any state. The national average rent is $892 a month for a modest one-bedroom apartment and $1,103 for a two-bedroom.
As a result, more than 11.2 million families end up spending more than half their paychecks on housing, the report said – a trade-off with other basic needs such as food, transportation and medical care.” ~ Chicago Tribune – June 2017
Needless to say, that is INSANE…
…particularly in a country supposedly founded on the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for it’s citizens.
Bottomline…
…working people and their families deserve and have the right to be able to afford to have a decent place to live just as much as the people who live in every other industrialized country in the world who don’t have this tragic and embarrassing problem.
Only the United States aka the richest country on earth, doesn’t provide or mandate this basic human right…
…the right of an affordable place to live to it’s working citizens and their families.
Right now in 2023…
…no low wage worker working 40 hours a week who is earning any form of minimum wage can afford to live anywhere in America right now, which apparently is just the way modern day Republicans like it.
And let’s not let employers/businesses/corporations choosing to pay their workers these ridiculous wages off the hook:
Republican supporting Corporations/Big Business paying ridiculously low wages, (in addition to paying ridiculously low taxes), is why simply having a decent roof over their heads is now a faraway fantasy for tens of millions of American workers.
Which brings us to yet another tragic consequence of the cruelty of modern day Republicans:
Of course the inability to afford housing is one of the main reasons why there is an out of control Homelessness Epidemic in America.
“Have you ever heard the idea that people experiencing homelessness “don’t want to work” or they should “just get a job?”
The truth is that many do – in fact, a 2021 study from the University of Chicago estimates that 53% of people living in homeless shelters and 40% of unsheltered people were employed, either full or part-time, in the year that people were observed homeless between 2011 – 2018.”
“Life-sustaining wages are a key determinant of housing security; however, most people experiencing homelessness are not earning enough to afford rent.”
“The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s Out of Reach Report calculates that a household would need to earn an average salary of $46,967, or $23 per hour, to afford a 2-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent. This is much higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour – or in cities with a higher minimum wage. Even if people are working full time, they would not be able to afford housing earning minimum wage.” ~ EndHomelessness.org – September 2022
Siri, what is the American Dream?
And then there are the countless number of American employers who get away with not even paying workers minimum wage.
The following is a rare exception of an employer being held accountable for wage theft.
*The game is indeed rigged.
Economic Policy Institute – May 2017 – Employers Steal Billions From Workers’ Paychecks Each Year
“Survey data show millions of workers are paid less than the minimum wage, at significant cost to taxpayers and state economies.”
“Minimum wage violations, by definition, affect the lowest-wage workers—those who can least afford to lose earnings. This form of wage theft causes many families to fall below the poverty line, and it increases workers’ reliance on public assistance, costing taxpayers money.” ~ Economic Policy Institute – May 2017
Basically rich or successful businesses breaking the law and stealing from their already poor and struggling workers.
How utterly shameful.
Keeping wages ridiculously low, getting away with stealing billions of dollars from their employees via wage theft every year, etc. are some of the many reasons why Corporate America so overwhelmingly supports the modern day Republican Party.
If anyone needs further proof that the modern day Republican Party has ZERO to do with Abraham Lincoln’s founding Republican Party…
….the following quote from President Lincoln during his address to Congress in 1861 pretty decisively confirms this truth:
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.” ~ President Abraham Lincoln, in his message to the U.S. Congress on December 3rd. 1861.
(Reprinted from Land and Freedom, September-0ctober 1937)
This part:
“Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.”
“Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
Exactly.
President Lincoln knew that without workers/labor, there can be no capital/capitalism…
….and because of this truth, workers deserve to be treated with a much higher consideration and respect.
Continuing on….
*Republican hatred of Democrats and those unlike them explains why when the Biden-Harris administration’s Expanded Child Tax Credit proved to cut Child Poverty in the US nearly in HALF in 2021…
….the Republicans along with ONE Democrat blocked and refused to reinstate it.
“When the history of American hardship is written in some distant decade, two recent events may capture the whipsaw forces of the age.
Child poverty fell to a record low. And the program that did the most to reduce it vanished.
The story of that temporary program — technically, a tax-credit expansion but more plainly a series of monthly checks to most families with children — was extraordinary in every way. A guaranteed income in a country long resistant to one, the expanded child tax credit emerged from obscurity to win support from most of the Democratic Party, aided millions of low- and middle-income families during the pandemic and helped cut child poverty nearly in half.
Then it died, as President Biden’s efforts to preserve it drew unified Republican opposition and the defection of a crucial Senate Democrat.” ~The New York Times – November 2022
Apparently keeping tens of millions of American children living in abject poverty is a proudly sinister and backwards virtue of being a modern day Republican.
Here is an excerpt from a must read article from Prospect Magazine Online on this important topic titled “The Politics of the Child Tax Credit”
“While only in place for a year, the results of the expanded Child Tax Credit were—without understatement—transformative.
Harvard economist Jason Furman wrote, “The Biden plan is the most impressive and ambitious child poverty plan ever in the United States. This would not just help in the short run but have long-run mobility benefits as well.”
H. Luke Shaefer and Kathryn J. Edin, co-authors of $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, wrote, “The expanded child tax credit could effectively eliminate the kind of $2-a-day poverty that motivated our book … We have the ability to wipe away the most extreme forms of child poverty with a simple policy.” ~ Prospect Magazine Online – September 2022
*This must read Prospect Magazine article makes a very good case about how reinstating this life changing for millions Expanded Child Tax Credit, a solid and highly popular Democratic accomplishment….
…should be used by elected Democrats against Republicans during the 2024 election season and I 100% agree.
“The United States is one of the richest countries in the world, yet one in three children live in relative poverty. (In 2021, that meant a family of four living on less than $40,500.) In study after study, when comparing multiple dimensions of child poverty, more American children experience deprivation than in any other high-income nation, both in absolute numbers and in overall percentage.” ~ AshLee Smith MPP, Ph.D. Senior Analyst – ABT Associates – June 2022
And modern day Republicans are totally cool with that.
In fact, they *seem* to love it…
….which makes sense if “the cruelty is the point.”
Speaking of Cruelty….
…looks like the 21st Century Confederacy would much rather see poor and underage kids work….
….just like the original Southern Confederacy did with the millions of innocent and vulnerable kids they cruelly enslaved.
Seems to me like 21st Century Confederacy Governor of Arkansas Sarah Huckabee Sanders wants to make that state’s poor kids the 21st Century version of the enslaved.
By contrast, this is how the Democratic Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz is supporting his state’s impoverished kids:
Meanwhile…
Cruelty seems to runs through every inch of their veins.
The legendary comedian George Carlin most definitely had the 21st Century Confederacy’s number decades ago.
Now Min Jin Lee is a critically acclaimed author and journalist.
The truth of the matter is no matter the poverty level, all of our nation’s children have the *potential* to grow up and achieve their wildest dreams if our nation makes caring for them and educating them a top priority.
Yet that’s not how modern day Republicans see it.
Instead of helping to end child poverty in America, which again has the highest child poverty of any industrialized nation in the world….
…being who and what they are, many modern day Republicans would much rather make things much worse for poor people of every age by further limiting and controlling what millions of poverty-level people and their families can EAT.
Who can forget when Trump was in the White House, he called for replacing monthly SNAP/Food Stamp benefits with a box of food chosen by the government sent every month to millions of poverty-level men, women and children called “America’s Harvest Box.”
“The plan would put the U.S. government directly in charge of what goes on the dinner plates of more than 16 million low-income households.”
“All food would be grown domestically and include “shelf-stable” items such as juice, pasta, canned meat and beans.” ~ From CNBC article titled “Trump Wants to Cut Back on Food Stamps for the Poor and Substitute With Packaged Food Deliveries” – February 2018
Kind of like when slave masters decided what undesirable and subpar foods the enslaved could only eat.
One thing modern day Republicans have in common with their Confederate ancestors is through generations, their abject cruelty always remains on point.
The irony?
This ridiculous, paternalistic and patently cruel idea would have impacted many more of the Republicans main voting demo than it would have impacted the mostly Democratic voters they are targeting and have proclaimed to be their enemies.
Case in point:
Huffington Post – February 2015 – Who Gets Food Stamps? White People, Mostly
“Nationally, most of the people who receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are white. According to 2013 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program, 40.2 percent of SNAP recipients are white, 25.7 percent are black, 10.3 percent are Hispanic, 2.1 percent are Asian and 1.2 percent are Native American.” ~ The Huffington Post – February 2015
Truth be told, it’s highly questionable if modern day Republican politicians even like their own voters.
Case in point:
“If Republicans succeed in their multi-front campaign to cut back on food stamps, the burden will fall heaviest on the working-class, rural white voters on whom President Trump has staked the future of their party.”
“In the Trump era, the Republican Party has relied heavily on rural voters. And the most rural 20 percent of the population is also the most likely to live in a household that receives food stamps.”
“A similar pattern emerges in the counties with relatively large non-Hispanic white populations, many of which are also rural. The whitest 20 percent of counties is, by a narrower margin, also the most likely to receive food stamps. To be clear, this is only true of the whitest counties, not of white Americans as a whole.” ~ The Washington Post – June 2018
*This is the problem with trying to hurt the people you hate the most. Your own voters inevitably will get caught in your crossfire.
The extremely rotten and cruel “America’s Harvest Box” fiasco of an idea thankfully for all voters went down in flames once Biden became president….
….but fast forward to 2023 to evidence of the modern day Republicans still persisting with their cruel and paternalistic attempts to dictate the eating habits of millions of poverty-level Americans.
The modern day Republican Party being so hostile against education, book reading, teaching accurate American history, etc. means it is also extremely hostile towards America’s teachers.
In fact Betsy DeVos, the totally unqualified multi-millionaire Rightwing heiress that Trump appointed to be the Secretary of Education during his disastrous one term- presidency, actually called for abolishing the very department she once headed.
Abolishing the Department of Education has been a long time goal of the modern day, anti-education, anti-book reading, anti-knowledge Republican Party.
“On April 4, 2016, Fox host Sean Hannity asked Donald Trump if he would eliminate any federal departments if he were to become president. Trump responded by saying that the Department of Education “is massive and it can be largely eliminated.”
Actually, it is the smallest Cabinet-level department in terms of employees, but Republicans have opposed it ever since it began operations in 1980. It was created during the administration of President Jimmy Carter, who wanted the nation to pay more attention to education.
Trump picked an education secretary, Betsy DeVos, who has repeatedly expressed opposition to the existence of the department she heads.” ~ From Chicago Tribune article titled “Why Republicans Have Long Wanted to Shut Education Department” – June 2018
Fast Forward to 2023:
In order to cling on to power any way they can…
…the modern day Republican Party absolutely will not stop trying to make America dumber….
….even if that means that also makes America less educated, less innovative, less creative, less enterprising, less inventive, and less competitive with other nations.
Keeping Americans as uneducated and unknowledgeable as possible is the only way modern day Republicans can maintain their lies.
Modern Day Republican politicians truly only care about their own self interests, no one else’s….
….not even the best interests of their own voters.
Republicans being so anti-education is also very much connected to why America is still so segregated today…
…because the segregated communities which most White Americans of every political persuasion live in….
…lead to segregated schools which inevitably means white kids not growing up with, going to school with, or having many casual or personal experiences with other cultures.
Of course, there are consequences to that.
Washington Post – August 2014 – Three Quarters of Whites Don’t Have Any Non-White Friends
We are all the sum total of our experiences, particularly our experiences with others.
When you don’t have routine personal experiences or friendships with people who are unlike you…
…you are very prone to believe whatever stereotype, bigotry, or prejudice that is fed to you about those people….
….because you don’t know them.
And when you don’t have varied and routine personal experiences with people from diverse cultures, you’re also more prone to lack empathy or care about unfairness, injustices, or wrongs done to those same people.
Hence the reason why tens of millions could vote for a man like Trump twice and why racism keeps persisting in America from generation to generation.
“Race is about the American story, and about each of our own stories. Overcoming racism is more than an issue or a cause — it is also a story, which can be part of each of our stories, too. The story about race that was embedded into America at the founding of our nation was a lie; it is time to change the story and discover a new one.” ~ Jim Wallis in the must read book “America’s Original Sin” which you can check out here at Book Lender
Continuing on…
*Millions of Republican voters seeing tens of millions of Americans as enemies explains why just 3% of the population own half the guns in America.
Scientific American – March 2018 – Why Are White Men Stockpiling Guns?
“Since the 2008 election of President Obama, the number of firearms manufactured in the U.S. has tripled, while imports have doubled. This doesn’t mean more households have guns than ever before—that percentage has stayed fairly steady for decades. Rather, more guns are being stockpiled by a small number of individuals.”
“These are men who are anxious about their ability to protect their families, insecure about their place in the job market, and beset by racial fears. They tend to be less educated.” ~ Scientific American – March 2018
*If this insane amount of gun stockpiling happened after Barack Obama became president, I think “racial fears” can be listed as the #1 reason why.
“A 2013 paper by a team of United Kingdom researchers found that a one-point jump in the scale they used to measure racism increased the odds of owning a gun by 50 percent. A 2016 study from the University of Illinois at Chicago found that racial resentment among whites fueled opposition to gun control. This drives political affiliations: A 2017 study in the Social Studies Quarterly found that gun owners had become 50 percent more likely to vote Republican since 1972—and that gun culture had become strongly associated with explicit racism.” ~ Scientific American – March 2018
It’s beyond obvious that Republicans value guns more than people, particularly if those people are a part of political parties, demos and groups they consider to be enemies.
*Republicans seeing most Americans as enemies also explains why innocent little kids being maimed and murdered with assault weapons while they are attending school seem to be A-OK with many of them as long as there are no restrictions put on guns, military style assault weapons in particular.
“According to research compiled by the independent K-12 School Shooting Database research group, there have been 189 shootings at schools around the US since Sandy Hook that have resulted in at least one fatality.”
“Seventeen were “active shooter situations” – defined as “when the shooter killed and/or wounded victims, either targeted or random, within the school campus during a continuous episode of violence”.
While those events count for a small portion of total shooting incidents, they account for more than a third of all casualties.
In total, 279 have died from being shot on a school property during, before or after school hours, including weekends.” ~ BBC News – December 2022
Think about it:
If Republicans are A-OK with tens of millions of American kids living in poverty every year…
….it’s not too big of a stretch for them to also not give a damn if a certain number of kids get gunned down in schools every year.
*Republicans seeing Democrats or anyone unlike them as enemies explains why innocent people shopping in stores, attending religious services, partying at nightclubs, etc. being gunned down by mass shooters seems to not upset or phase Republican politicians one iota, which is why all they have to offer is thoughts and prayers.
But the Republican majority leadership currently in Congress absolutely will not do that.
In addition to the modern day Republican Party most definitely not being “The Party of Lincoln”….
…it’s no longer even close to being “The Party of Reagan.”
President Ronald Reagan on Gun Control & Assault Weapons – February 1989
“On May 3, 1994, Ronald Reagan and two other former presidents sent a letter to House members, urging them to support a controversial ban on lethal, military-style assault weapons. At the time, President Clinton was battling Republicans, conservative Democrats and the NRA to pass a bill barring many semiautomatic rifles.
Clinton needed all the help he could get it. He got it from Reagan, who still carried great weight in the Republican Party, as well as Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Their letter, in part, read:
“This is a matter of vital importance to the public safety. While we recognize that assault weapon legislation will not stop all assault weapon crime, statistics prove that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less accessible to criminals. We urge you to listen to the American public and to the law enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of these weapons.”
“In their appeal, the men (Reagan, Ford, and Carter) pointed to a 1993 CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll that found that 77 percent of Americans endorsed a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of semiautomatic assault weapons, including the AK-47.” ~ From Washington Post article titled “Before Trump’s Wild Shifts on the NRA, Ronald Reagan Took On the Gun Lobby” – March 2018
*A 2021 study by the prestigious Northwestern University in Chicago found that during the decade the federal assault weapons ban was in place…
…it worked:
WTTW – March 2021 – Northwestern Study Says 1994-2004 Federal Assault Weapons Ban Worked
“The last federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004, but a new study from Northwestern Medicine says that the ten-year ban likely prevented as many as 11 mass shootings, and had it remained in place, as many as 30 more mass shootings could have been prevented.” ~ WTTW – March 2021
**The assault weapons ban was allowed to lapse in 2004 by the GW Bush/Cheney Administration with zero efforts to try to reinstate the highly effective ban.
A decade previously, multiple prominent Republicans crossed party lines to support the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban which was passed and signed into law under President Bill Clinton.
The New York Times – September 2019 – How Congress Passed an Assault Weapons Ban in 1994
But that was then, and this is NOW:
The Hill – November 2022 – US Passes 600 Mass Shootings For Third Straight Year
*I just want to point out that although modern day Republicans are no longer even “The Party of Reagan”…
….the Reagan Administration wasn’t in any way innocent in regard to helping to create the current incarnation of “The 21st Century Confederacy.”
Receipts:
“Ronald Reagan is hailed as a transformative president and an American icon, but within his twentieth-century politics lies a racial legacy that is rarely discussed. Both political parties point to Reagan as the “right” kind of conservative but fail to acknowledge his political attacks on people of color prior to and during his presidency. Reconsidering Reagan corrects that narrative and reveals how his views, policies, and actions were devastating for Black Americans and racial minorities, and that the effects continue to resonate today.
Using research from previously untapped resources including the Black press which critically covered Reagan’s entire political career, Daniel S. Lucks traces Reagan’s gradual embrace of conservatism, his opposition to landmark civil rights legislation, his coziness with segregationists, and his skill in tapping into white anxiety about race, riding a wave of “white backlash” all the way to the Presidency. He argues that Reagan has the worst civil rights record of any President since the 1920s—including supporting South African apartheid, packing courts with conservatives, targeting laws prohibiting discrimination in education and housing, and launching the “War on Drugs”—which had cataclysmic consequences on the lives of Black and Brown people.
Linking the past to the present, Lucks expertly examines how Reagan set the blueprint for President Trump and proves that he is not an anomaly, but in fact the logical successor to bring back the racially tumultuous America that Reagan conceptualized.” ~ From the must read book from author Daniel S. Lucks titled “Reconsidering Reagan: Racism, Republicans, and the Road to Trump”
Also the Reagan years is when inequality really began to skyrocket in America.
Answer: Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980.
“The 2022 World Inequality Report demolishes the myth that tax cuts for the rich will trickle down.” ~ Business Insider
…I would like to think that he sincerely believed that the wealthy elites in this country would gladly invest their much higher and tax free profits, earnings, etc. back into helping America and back into helping American workers…
…but I guess President Reagan didn’t know that would be the last thing most of the modern day wealthy elite and the modern day wealthy corporate business owners in this country would ever do.
Update: Then again, maybe President Reagan did indeed know trickle down economics was total BS considering what has recently been revealed about how he won the presidency in 1980.
*Here is the article link to the revelation about President Reagan’s now seemingly sinister 1980 presidential “win.”
Note to modern day Republicans: If you have to cheat to win, you didn’t win fairly and you are not in office because of “the will of the people.”
But you already know that, don’t you?
Seriously, ever since Richard Nixon’s racist “Southern Strategy” which began the GOP’s devolution from “The Party of Lincoln” into the “21st Century Confederacy”…
….the modern day Republican Party has only gotten more and more corrupt and insane.
Case in point:
Back to America’s present day Gun Carnage epidemic….
The following headline is proof that modern-day Republicans are not just Gun Crazy…
…they are GUN INSANE:
Receipts:
“Republican-led legislature rejects measure to prevent minors from carrying firearms in public without adult supervision” ~ The Guardian – February 2023
Folks, it absolutely does not have to be this way…
…but it’s important to understand modern day Republicans aka the 21st Century Confederacy is the reason why it is this way.
Michigan State’s Democratic Senator Mallory McMorrow asked an important question to Republicans:
“Why are children’s lives worth less than guns?”
Thankfully some are finally pushing back against the Republican’s “Guns Everywhere” madness:
This ends Part Three of this series.
Before moving on to Part Four…
…please check out another Chicago the Beautiful Spotlight 🙂
“I’d rather be a lamppost in Chicago than a millionaire in any other city.” ~ William A. Hulbert, one of the founders of the National League, considered as baseball’s first, true major league.
Hubert was also the president of the Chicago White Stockings franchise, the first professional team in Chicago – (1832 – 1882)
A Special Spotlight:
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