QOTD -- Delusions And Randomness

 

"... Donald Trump was elected by swing voters, who either didn’t vote in 2020 or voted for Joe Biden. These swing voters seem on the whole to have voted to make Trump president again because they believe doing so will lower the price of eggs, or they want to pare back the 45% of the federal budget that’s spent on foreign aid, and so forth.

"What I’m saying is that, especially under current information and media technology conditions, American 'democracy' consists of total idiots deciding elections for reasons that are some combination of flat-out delusional and utterly random.

"That such people put a flagrant con man who tried to overthrow the government back in the White House isn’t surprising, really, because nothing such people do can be surprising, given the delusions and the randomness..."--  Paul Campos, LGM, on the state of American democracy (his view is somewhat more pessimistic than ours), and the misinformation forces leading our decline.  Btw, Campos is being sarcastic when he says that foreign aid is 45% the federal budget -- it's about 1% or less most years -- but then again, Trump will bring peace to Ukraine in 24 hours and cut inflation and fund the entire government through his tariffs!  All true!  We saw it on Zuck-up's Facebook!

 

QOTD -- Democracy In Peril

 

"I speak today near Capitol Hill, near the U.S. Capitol, the citadel of our democracy. I know there’s a lot at stake in these midterm elections, from our economy, to the safety of our streets, to our personal freedoms, to the future of health care and Social Security, Medicare. It’s all important. But we’ll have our differences, we’ll have our difference of opinion. And that’s what it’s supposed to be.

"But there’s something else at stake, democracy itself. I’m not the only one who sees it. Recent polls have shown an overwhelming majority of Americans believe our democracy is at risk, that our democracy is under threat. They too see that democracy is on the ballot this year, and they’re deeply concerned about it.

"So today, I appeal to all Americans, regardless of party, to meet this moment of national and generational importance. We must vote knowing what’s at stake and not just the policy of the moment, but institutions that have held us together as we’ve sought a more perfect union are also at stake. We must vote knowing who we have been, what we’re at risk of becoming." -- excerpt from President Biden's speech last night at Union Station, Washington, D.C., on the threat to democracy posed by Christofascist Republicans and their cult leader, the Malignant Loser.

Predictably, the reaction of our corporate media's puerile horse race "journalists" can be summed up in this tweet:

 

BIDEN: So, democracy: it's important, and at risk.

RIGHT-WINGERS: *show up at polling places with guns to intimidate voters, break into Pelosi's house with a hammer, intending to break her kneecaps; beat her husband.

REPORTERS: OMG Biden's gonna talk about democracy *again*

— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) November 2, 2022