This Saturday, June 14, 2025, Washington, D.C. the capital of the United States, will witness an insulting parade of military machinery not unlike the displays seen from the Union of Soviet

Pathe

Socialist Republics to flatter and fluff the ego of a malignant narcissist. Oh, officially, this is a celebration of the United States Army, established on this date in 1775. (Well, actually that was the Continental Army, which was disbanded, and the U.S. Army was established June 2, 1784.) This unseemly projection of power which actually signals a deep and crippling weakness is all about the most unfit man to ever serve in any post of the United States, Trump, as that date is also his birthday.

How do I know this, beyond the simple fact that this man’s desperate neediness makes it manifestly clear to any objective observer?

We had no parade on March 27th in celebration of the founding of the U.S. Navy, nor is one planned or even discussed for October 13th the anniversary of the founding of the Continental navy. The same is true for July 11th or November 10th, the founding dates for the Marine Corps. No party for those services which do not share a date with the weak man’s birthday.

The office of president is currently occupied by a greed, vain, immoral man who has surrounded himself with grifter, kooks, and bootlickers, and our nation and the entire world will suffer for years to come because of it.

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It’s not uncommon when a relationship has become terribly strained and stressed for one of the parties involved to suggest that they ‘start over’ but such a step, short of a fantastical memory wipe, is impossible. We carry our histories inside us and the weight of all the past words and actions press us inevitably forward. This is also true outside of the romantic realm.

There are some current and former members of the Republican Party who long for a return to the party that they remember, often this is from a very distinct and fenced off recollection of the party, usually centered on the ‘Reagan Revolution’ discarding the party before that time. Such dreams are pure fantasy. The population, both inside and outside the party, carries the history of all the words and actions and hurt that has been visited upon this nation and this world by the GOP of the last quarter century. You cannot unwind history. This is not a malfunctioning iPhone that can be restored to factory settings and reloaded with fresh applications.

The people killed and injured by handing the nation’s health systems over to a conspiratorial nutjob cannot be made whole again. The international relations cannot be mended with mere words. The brilliant minds denied entry or chased away will remember their treatment for decades and will remain wary.

A startling fact I learned this morning is the number of physicians looking to leave this country. Over the same period in 2024, 71 doctors applied to become licensed in Canada, for 2025 that number rose to 615! Now we are the subject of a global ‘brain drain’.

If a massive health event were to take the principal instigator of our nation’s pains from this mortal coil the damage will have already been done. The dark period of rebuilding and constructing of a new Republican Party would be shortened but not eliminated. There are terrible times ahead and the next century may not be America’s.

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There is a tendency in the Anti-Trump resistance for some people to deploy the rather obvious charge of ‘hypocrisy’ when Trump, his administration, and his allies perform crude and obvious actions that they have deeply and loudly criticized among their political opponents.

The list is nearly endless and stretches back decades to the Clintons, through Obama and Biden. Money donated to the Clinton Foundation, was in reality monies going directly to them, proof of their ‘corruption,’ however billions washed through Trump’s various crypto schemes are unworthy of any thought. Still images of Obama nose in the air peering down at someone solid proof of the man’s narcissism, egotism, and arrogance. Trump’s display of nearly clinical malignant narcissism, merely proof of his opponents ‘derangement.’

The reason the charges of hypocrisy are pointless is that they miss a fundamental truth, every single attack is not launched in anything approximating ‘good faith.’ These people care not one iota for the truth of the matter but only for the effectiveness of their attacks. The point isn’t about what really happened but only to win the ‘news cycle’ and drive down their opponents’ support. The moment a particular tool or weapon ceases to be effective it is discarded.

It is a waste of time and resources to answer any of it with ‘hypocrisy.’ That merely invigorates the charges, often patently false, providing Trump and his allies with even more opportunities for attack.

Weakly bound voters I think are more likely to be swayed with attacks that simply go directly at the man and his administration’s criminal and authoritarian actions without reference to any hypocrisy. His solidly committed voters, motivated by racism, or self-interest and simply the delusion that a Democratic politician is always the wrong choice cannot be dislodged with this charge.

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Throughout its long history humanity has tried many systems of government. Evolution molded us for hunterpgatherer bands that function on interpersonal relationship and knowledge. Agriculture and creative intelligence exploded our populations well beyond that scope and ever since we’ve grappled with creating systems that work efficiently but also with a freedom that at very least sates individuality to the point that people are satisfied enough to not burn it all to the ground.

History is replete with Kings, Emperors, God-Kings, Oligarchs, and religious domination. For the last several centuries the newest and boldest experiment has been democracy.

Amid the various forms and systems, the essence of democratic governance is the concept that in some method the populace, rarely the entire populace, is polled and their preference in party or person is elevated to government. The assumption being that a widely distributed method of selection will tend to marginalize extremism in favor of moderation in rule. There have been spectacular failures, NAZI Germany for example, where the populace selected quite poorly and that points to the flaw of democracy that looks to be uncorrectable.

Self-selection.

The men and women who put themselves forward to be chosen have self-selected. Only those who want to be in power are options for the populace to elect from. While the nobility of service is real and there have always been and always will be people for whom service is their goal they never have and never will be the only ones in that pool.

Power attracts those who want to abuse it for their own selfish needs or twisted ideologies. The pool from which the populace can select will always be tainted by the greedy, the corrupt, and the evil. As such the possibility that the greedy, corrupt, and the evil secure power for themselves is unavoidable.

I am not advocating abandoning democracy, it’s a flawed system that has far fewer flaws than the rest but it is not perfect and your franchise is a terrible power you must always use wisely.

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When Reagan ascended to the Presidency in 1980, he often described the Republican party as a stool with three legs to describe the major divisions of the movement as: Family Values, Fiscal Conservatism, and Anti-Communism.

One can argue with aspects of any one or all three elements, but I do think that description pretty much told you who and what made up the GOP at that time. There are some deluded fools who think it still has bearing but the legs of that stool have long since been replaced with three new ones.

Cruelty to the Queer, Looting Public Funds, and Isolationism marbled with a rich vein of white supremacy are the new legs.

What little compassion for others in the old ‘Family Valuers’ crowd, and there hadn’t been much to begin with, has boiled away with its concentration in the homophobic transphobic, and woman-hating stew it has become.

Fiscal conservatism, however, it may may have erred with ‘supply side’, now makes no pretense at sane or rational monetary policies or decisions. The last Republican president, who is also the current one, ran the debt and deficit to insane amounts and now wants to add trillions more to it with additional tax cuts for the very wealthy.

The isolationism of the new GOP is unmistakable, democracies are derided and left to suffer invasions from militaristic and expansionist neighbors while the deep and binding commitments of the post war era are abandoned. The white nationalism is plain when books about racism are removed from the Naval academy, but Mein Kampf is left for the cadets to read.

From 1980 through about 2003 I was a registered Republican, but the mark of true wisdom is not being free of mistakes but recognizing when you have made them.v

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Before I start let me state without qualification or evasion that Elon Musk, unelected and unaccountable, should get the fuck out of our government.

A recent spate of vandalism against Tesla dealerships and charging stations has erupted on the news cycle prompting the President to declare the acts as ‘domestic terrorism’ with promises of persecution. This is turn has caused some corners of the left to insist that it is ‘just vandalism’ and not terrorism.

I would maintain that acts of violence, against people or property with the goal of effecting political change, in this case driving Musk from his position of power, is pretty much the definition of terrorism. It occurred within our national jurisdiction and presumably from American nationals making it thoroughly domestic. Simple logic renders the inescapable conclusion that these acts are indeed ‘domestic terrorism.’

That’s not the real fuck issue.

The real issue is that this administration will in no way or in no manner treat all acts of domestic terrorism equally. The pardoning of the violent insurrectionist who attempted to overthrow a fair, free, and legitimate election is proof of this. Further evidence is the legal action against the man who organized pro-Palestinian protests.

When Trump promises to use law enforcement against some persons but not others, he is employing the fascist credo ‘For my friends, everything; for my enemies the law.’