F is for Failure and Fascism

Instead, award booby prizes for dishonesty, vanity, subterfuge, theft, corruption, immorality, racism, broken promises and autocratic control manias

MAGA Trump is so blatantly incapable of rational, let alone moral governance – glorifying showboating, greed and power-mongering – that its mounting, catastrophic flaws make nightly headlines. Self-evident (for knowledge-driven adults) are what this deviant movement does badly, indeed inexcusably, to advance its predatory agenda, listed in my subtitle. It is a mark of profound tunnel vision that one-third still cannot tie cult propaganda to the systemic deterioration that degrades universal living conditions (kicked off by DOGE destruction). What happened to the discarded ideal of equal rights, equal opportunity, equal justice, even the equal right to live a long life (numbers now in reverse)? If stunted lifespans with less health care and high inflation don’t attract bipartisan attention, what will?

By defaulting to now slavish (or intimidated) big business, captivated with its latest tech toys (and not just AI), the notion of a sovereign government independent from profit- and power-mania centers is withering in the overheated winds. That explains the coordinated war against humanism (people displaced by machines), democracy (and fair elections), against essential social support for the needy (from food to pharmacies), even the livability of our home planet (pushing exploitation over sustainability). How telling is it, that despite a demolition deluge, scoffing Trumpism no longer bothers to pretend its mission is to improve how the majority lives, day by day.

The myth of progress is exposed by those too arrogant to go through the motions of throwing crumbs to the groundlings. Name one MAGA legislative achievement in 18 months that improves life for the bottom 80%. The commandeering elite is fully empowered with infinite funds, high media dominance, and inadequate restraints from laws, courts, or what were stated, civilized goals, say, “life, liberty and the pursuit of (collective) happiness.” The “general welfare” departed with elections accepted as legitimate.

The two pressing, unavoidable questions are 1) how much more damage to American prosperity can MAGA do, and 2) how much is reparable and how long will it take to reverse? All other tacky gimcracks pale in comparison to this reality: demolition forces remain in charge, upping its war against reason, science and the Constitution, if not diversity, tolerance and (Christian) compassion. Because there’s not one major positive Trump gain, it’s a slam-dunk to show the MAGA Decade of Destruction doing its worst – still without serious checks or balances on its rampage. Offering a $5K bribe per person (if Rethugs win the midterm) is only the latest folly – a guaranteed lie because 1) the right looks to get trashed; and 2) there’s no extra money untargeted or pocketed by oligarchs. This shame come-on exemplifies how little Trumpism cares about anything but saving itself, its version of selfish crony capitalism and so far its successful control machinations.

It’s not enough that billionaires (foreign and domestic) manipulate elections via limitless, covert donations: now immoral MAGA Trumpism wants to break the law and bribe voters oblivious to those who exile innate rights and privileges. Desperation by hoodwinked suckers, caused with no small irony by MAGA Trump itself, may entice some to swallow this latest, impossible absurdity. But it implodes out of the gate. After all, who’s still waiting with bated breath for the promised “dividends” from DOGE or tariff “winnings,” as inflation wipes out tax relief crumbs?

Can defectives survive their own blunders?

So what’s worse than a greedy, unfeeling, deranged oligarchy? A blinkered, inept elite with delusions of grandeur and hypersensitivity to NOT being appreciated for their “genius.” Never has it been clearer that we can’t have a functional democracy and an insatiable cadre of autocratic, gargantuan “influencers” who demand control of politics or they destroy everything. Actually, big destruction comes either way. The worst of the control freaks, on daily display with this monumentally tin-ear White House, are those with infinitely more money than competence, judgment or empathy for those with less. Who needs “common sense” judgment when commoners are precisely the enemy, especially those who don’t buy the brave new world of techo-dominance? Who worries about the health of the planet when resources exist only to be plundered and subsequent pollution plagues disempowered “labor units” (or even worse, the unemployed, the parasitic, or the compromised).

All the empowered progressive Democrats in the world will take years to address what’s already broken or being broken, unchecked by institutional correctives. One concedes billionaire neofascists are willing to put their treasure on the line, overtly pushing a post-democratic dystopia where a few dozen (or hundreds) of fat cats survive the tumult against the sovereignty of the populace. Of course, the opening gambit must be the banishment of undocumented immigrants nervy enough to seek their fortune here, just like Puritans, Pilgrims and pre-Civil War newcomers who just showed up, securing travel and yearning for land in the new world. To blast apart a nation of immigrants (for what else truly defines America?), simply assault both immigrants and the idea of immigration as what built national prosperity – notwithstanding workers enslaved, indentured or corralled with the honor to make America the world’s richest powerhouse.

By the way, to understand who (and when) populated the American experiment, read Colin Woodard’s brilliant surveys of what original groups pioneered where and how immensely it matters, American Nations and American Character. Woodard fleshes in the diverse, even contradictory dozen geographic entities that define America, namely Yankeedom (New England, upper midwest), New Netherland (NY metro), Tidewater (Chesapeake Bay area, eastern VA and NC), the Deep South (hardcore Confederacy), The Midlands (NJ/Penn moves westward to the lower midwest), Greater Appalachia (everything west of Tidewater), the Far West (everything west of the midwest and greaterAppalachia up to the Left Coast (the strip of coast from mid-CA north to Canada) and El Norte (the northern extension of Spanish/ Mexican penetration). What Woodard brilliantly does is link the assumptions of the original populace per area and how their values and goals determine reigning ideas (and mammoth divisions) about freedom, innate rights, family life, community, religion, economics, politics, and governance – and who gets to decide what matters.

Resistance means putting valuables at risk

No one can say the predatory psychopaths favoring profits and dominance over people and legal rights don’t put their money where their loudmouth is. They also no longer hide their disdain for vulgar democracy, or judicial fairness (thanks to getting the best shysters money can buy), or human empathy to friends and strangers alike (a particular bugaboo for odious Musk, among others). A strongman (rarely a woman) on top is a known and controllable entity, responsive to payola, vanity, flattery and the golden trappings befitting a figurehead, even stooge. Fat cats know how to “invest” in government by owning as much of it as possible, thus “earning” billions on deregulation, monopolies, less food/housing/healthcare coverage, less retirement distributions, less for research, education, or job training for skills unrelated to computers, AI and technology.

The rich make a single assumption unchallenged by our materialistic-pumped culture: those who have more should have more – and devil take the hindmost for any not addicted to life as accumulation of things, equating the quality of an individual person with the amount of treasure they control (the direct result of not paying fair taxes). Money “can’t buy you love” but this midterm election poses the ultimate test of whether big money can buy status quo power. If money truly makes the world go round, doesn’t America have a duty to restrain the most pernicious side of our crony capitalism, say by returning to 1950’s taxation rates (adjusted for inflation)? The earth is just as vulnerable as human life as tech bros squander irreplaceable, collective resources (like clean water and breathable air). Of course, if you’re a Musk type, look to Mars or outer space for “clean air” as the plundered earth looks used up, ready for a 2027 model.

That is the ultimate and daily confrontation that America willfully ignores: whether the earth is our permanent home, deserving respect, even homage, or whether all resources – plus subsequent degradation and pollution – were made for transient human usage, downsides be damned. If money dictates power and elections are just another “consumable” the rich can buy, then it’s Mother Earth, not just America, that pays the price when retribution intrudes. The payment could be inestimable and human life is fragile compared to the molten center of the planet, the billion plus year old rocks, even a few feet of arable topsoil on which life depends. We squander at our own, highly predictable risks. The outcomes could be far more dire than any of us common earthlings care to imagine.