It’s a Red and Blue ping pong game – and we’re their ball.

..Or maybe it’s Good Cop/Bad Cop. Whatever it is, is tearing us apart.

Freedom, IN – A little over half my friends and family are loyal Republicans, so I try my best to understand why they’re so faithful to a party that continuously stabs them in the back in lost rights, more violation of constitutional limitations, more authoritarianism, more bad science and corruption from Big Pharma and Big Ag, more spending, more debt, more spying, lying and militarization both foreign, and domestic. You can follow the campaign dollars and see why. As long as they get reelected no matter what, they’ll happily take the money and run…all over us.

But I was asked to listen to Donald Trump’s speech at CPAC, since, especially after the FBI raid, he’s once again idolized as the savior of our nation. So I listened. Since I agree that the current leaders of the Democratic Party are barking-at-the-moon nuts, I too am hoping for miracles…other a Libertarian Sweep of our federal government, of course.

Here are my observations (excluding any mention of extreme narcissism and self-aggrandizement):

1. Much of what Trump said of his accomplishments is not true. For example, the spending and debt by his signature ($4.2 trillion spending is worst-ever), as well as the Fed “stimulus” he supported, is more than half the cause of our current inflationary spike. And “the economy” was not even close to our best-ever; even excluding the COVID-19 madness over which he presided. Also, the supposed drop in unemployment was well under way with Obama before Trump took the helm.
2. While he was only partly wrong about the elimination of drug problems in Singapore, his insinuation that we should add death penalties and harsher enforcement of our already unconstitutional “War On Drugs” is tragically wrong-headed.
3. He spoke of “draining the Swamp” as if he hadn’t already had the reason, authority, power and duty to do that already. All Executive Agencies, for example operate and indeed exist under his direct constitutional authority; he should have stopped their anti-constitutional powers and operations, or eliminated the corrupt agencies completely, with one of the few correct uses of Executive Orders.
4. My faithful Republicans believe that ex-POTUS Trump has learned from his past errors, will drain the swamp at last, repair foreign policy, and turn domestic policy and action over to VPOTUS DeSantis… which of course can’t happen.
5. Yet another “red wave” can’t possibly fix anything. If Republican voters once again vote red, the kingmakers, puppet masters, unelected bureaucrats, permanent partisan staffers, National Security State, Mainstream and New Media that comprise “the Deep State” will still be in charge. In fact that crony network would be even more empowered, since Trump said he’d have to ask Congress to do his job of governing the executive agencies. Too few in the GOP have ever read the constitution to which they pledge their support; even fewer understand what it says.
6. Voters can of course clean up this mess, but only by tearing down the Two Party System that is, like it or not, as wholly and irredeemably corrupt as Trump admitted, it is. That swamp is quite able to suppress any attempts to clean house from inside the system that the swamp owns and controls anyway. Only voters can tear away the partisan firewall, expose the puppetmasters, and clean up this destructive madness.

I am not unsympathetic. I understand the need to turn from national self-immolation. But the partisan seesaw we’ve played with two parties who’ve acquired increasingly unfair, corrupt and anti-constitutional power since before we got D/R-only Primary Elections in the 1970’s has been increasingly divisive, increasingly corrupt, and increasingly destructive.

“When you see that your horse is dead, dismount” is a fine saying, but it doesn’t go far enough. “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” also fails to capture the absurdity of the mess that we keep reelecting. This mess is the direct reflection of We The People. Our government is our avatar. Nothing gets better until we do.

We need a cultural epiphany and reconsideration of who we are, and what the abstraction we call “The United States of America” is all about. We need a revolution that starts in our collective hearts and minds. And we need it fast.

Fortunately, that’s what elections are for. Our vote is not a poker chip. This is no game. We have in our voting arm the power of peaceful revolution. And we certainly need that. Right now.

Each of us also has a voice, people to talk to, and at least a little money to offer to those who really are trying to fight this two-headed monstrosity on our behalf.

We are not powerless. But the historical clock of societal collapse is ticking…