Tag: #politics

  • Still Dealing with the Capital Riot

    I can’t seem to get my head in the game today. The kid’s schooling is going fine, and the wife is off and working.

    Me? I feel like there is this looming storm outside that is about to hit.

    Yes, this is a day of Covid fatigue, but also everything that has happened at The Capital, Trump, Biden, and all the other shit involved with it.

    I thought I was linked to the news before, but now, it’s like I can’t go five minutes to see if there was an update. It’s sickening. I feel like I am in a knot. This weekend was a loss for me, as I didn’t accomplish anything, just dealing with the anxiety of the moment.

    What I feel like is right after 9/11. Such as everything had changed, but at the same time, everyone was trying to go about their normal routines. Now, it seems even stranger as nothing was normal before 1/6, and today everything feels even weirder. The mere fact that people can’t even agree if the attack and its repercussion are worth dealing with. One side is, “Let’s Deal with This!” while to other is “Move on and heal.” The answer is both, but I don’t see that happening.

    The kid has asked a few questions about it, and I know she is trying to figure out what happened, and whether she should have an opinion. Clearly, the wife and I are very angry at Trump and want him removed immediately. But when I hear my kid parrots the same sentiment, that makes me uncomfortable. I know she can’t grasp all the details other than bad guys broke into an important building, so I feel like she should say those things. Yet, bad guys did break into an important building, and if we don’t stand up and defend this country from those bad guys, then what future am I leaving for my daughter.

    We have to show my kid how Americans deal with a situation like this. Protest peacefully. Vote. Get involved. Call and write your representatives on the local, state and federal level. Stay open minded and curious. Fight the fiery emotion of hate, with the cool logic of reason. And remember, always, that all Americans have a place at the table of Democracy.

  • Who’s to Blame For the 2020 Election?

    This seems to be the big question that is going around liberal and Democrat circles; whose fault is it that they didn’t win more? Democrats won the White house, but didn’t take any State legislatures, lost seats in the House, and at best will have 50 seats in the Senate. The Blue Wave never showed up, and 70 million people voted for Trump. Someone has to be blamed for this! What Democrat fucked this up?

    Republicans are to blame, but not the way you think.

    Here’s the thing; Biden won by 5 million votes, and Biden also got enough votes in the swing states, just like Trump did four years ago, to win the Presidency. What that says to me is that very few minds were changed in the past four years, and those who did change their minds were Republicans. I would argue that those Republicans who voted for Biden, made a point of splitting their ticket to keep Biden in check.

    But doesn’t that reinforce the idea that Democrats failed to do a good job at selling their platform to Americans?

    No, because that platform wasn’t the reason people were voting. Democrats voted to remove Trump, and Republicans voted to keep him. That’s it. It doesn’t get anymore complicated than that.

    2020 was not an issue election, and it wasn’t a traditional change election. It was a referemdum on Trump.

    It wasn’t about BLM, or Defunding the Police, in the sense that those two issues are being pointed to as why there wasn’t a Blue Wave, but that’s all horse shit. BLM and Defund didn’t turn off Trump voters. That logic is like saying the racists and white supremacists were going to vote for Biden/Harris, but damn it, The Squad said “defund the police,” and now all those Trump voters went back to Trump?!?! Like I said, it’s a horse shit argument. Trump voters were always going to vote for Trump, no matter what.

    Remember the 5th Avenue comment? Trump killed 250,000+ people, and he still got 70 million votes. They weren’t voting out of a logical selfinetrest.

    Where Democrats get it wrong is that they keep bringing logic to the emotion fight, and that’s why they don’t do better.

  • The GOP is Afraid of Their Base

    Yesterday, Reuters/Ipsos released a national opinion survey that found 79% of Americans believe that Biden won the election, with 13% saying the election hadn’t been decided, 5% said they did not know who had won, while 3% said Trump had won. (Remember, more people didn’t know who won, than believe that Trump won. Just, think about that for a second.) In detail, six in ten Republicans surveyed believe Biden won, as compared to all Democrats who believed Biden won. (There is some more interesting information if you want to read more here.)

    It’s pretty clear that most Americans see the election as being over, and Biden won. I even feel that this survey also confirms my belief, which I wrote about yesterday, that 70 million Trump voters are not all hardcore Trumpers. (Here’s my blog if you need a refresher.)

    So, what gives with all the National Republican/Conservatives sticking up for Trump’s election fraud lies? (If you made it this far, then you know the answer, as you must have read the title of this blog.)

    The GOP is still afraid of their base, which is only getting whiter, more conservative, smaller, and this might be the last election where they could possibly win without having to change their ideology. America is getting more diverse, progressive, and people are moving from strong Democrat states (California, and Illinois) into deep Red states; Texas, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina. If the GOP base is still hardcore loyal to Trump, (that 3% from the Reuters poll, remember) and if that group makes up of 51%+ of the voters who take part in primaries, then don’t make them angry! Republicans have had 10 years of being primaried, and they have learned their lesson if they want to stay in power within their party. Sadly, this situation has killed off all of the Republican moderates, but I’m not the first to point that out.

    The worst part about all of this is that the National Republican/Conservative leaders are playing a very dangerous game with the integrity of all elections in the future. The longer they support or stay silent about false claims of stolen ballots from Trump, they will be giving more oxygen to it, the harder it will be to walk it back.

  • Trump v Biden: The Debate Battle Royale!

    Maybe I should talk about Trump’s income taxes? That seems to be a big deal right now.

    The debate between Biden and Trump is tonight. I will be watching it alone, as anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth makes my wife very angry, and pretty much puts her in a bad mood for the rest of the night…

    And into the morning…

    And all the next day…

    And for the whole week…

    So, I will be watching the debate on my computer with headphones, while also live tweeting (@mlgroff) my reactions to whatever crazy shit that is said. My goal is to make my friends laugh, but it is also to keep my sanity.

    I was extremely nervous four years ago when Clinton and Trump met for their debates. Hilary won all the face offs, as Trump come across as disrespectful and unprepared, but we all know that in the end, it didn’t really mean anything.

    There is a good chance again, that these debates won’t mean anything. And honestly, I agree with that conclusion. Trump and Biden’s polling numbers really haven’t changed that much in two months, which for me says that most people are locked in on who they are voting for.

    But honestly, who is that 3-5% of the voting population that are still undecided? With everything that has happened in this year alone, how has that not influenced you to make a decision?

    I need to laugh, and I need to laugh and the big orange bully in the room.

  • New Lease on Social Media Life

    I think I’m detoxing from FaceBook right now.

    As the handful of you know, I got it an online argument with a friend on FaceBook about voting and the Postal Service. I posted on here what I had said to the guy, and I knew full well that after the last post I was done with it, but he would post something trying to egg me on in some way. But I was done, I had said my peace, and I didn’t want to play anymore. To hold to that commitment, I couldn’t go back on FaceBook, read his response, and then, basically, state the vicious cycle all over again.

    So, I haven’t been on FaceBook for two days now.

    I have no idea what is going on in people’s lives, and I think I am okay with that. The pandemic has given me too much free time, and I have wasted a great deal of it looking online to see how other people were using their time, and most of them appeared to be very productive. (I know everyone lies on the internet.) It created a feeling in me that I wasn’t doing enough, which wasn’t helpful, and in and return, I let myself get discouraged making it more difficult to motivate myself. But I know fully that I was letting this happen, and choosing to be discouraged.

    And also, in strange way, getting my dander up about an issue, taking time to think out my response, and being honest that I am passionate about something that affects others, did make me feel more connected to the world. I’m not saying that I’m about to turn into a social media activist, because action in the real world is needed, not posting on a feed, but I need to get off my ass and help out in this world again.