What do we want? (Not this crap!), When do we want it? (30 years ago!)

Issue polling is always useful to understand what matters enough to the public that they’d like to see their public servants address them. The following are the proposals of the leading Republican presidential candidate and what the general public thinks about each, per a YouGov poll of 1000 US adults taken in the first week of January.

20 of the 30 issues draw opposition by margins of 41% to 5%. 3 others are virtual ties, within a 3.9% range which is the stated margin of error.

Only 7 of the 30 proposals are well supported by the public, 5 of them dealing with gender/transgender or immigration issues.

As the candidate has regularly expressed the opinion that he’s above the law, immune to any prosecution, has been charged for instigating the Jan 6th insurrection, national security violations, financial fraud, rape and other law violations, has indicated he’d seek retribution against political opponents, prosecutors, judges and members of the media, wants to clear out thousands of government employees with no stated cause and has indicated a desire to wield dictatorial powers, these issues he’s proposed display the blueprint for the radical extremist changes he wants to impose.

If you find any to be troubling or things you support, it’s a good time to email or snailmail your Representatives and Senators, before campaign season heats up.

Big issues like affordable health care, infrastructure repair and immigration reform have taken 3 to 4 decades to gain decisions on and several GOP officeholders have stated their intention to block any progress on immigration reform before the next election. This has been the GOP position for decades already while they advance bogeyman fears to get elected. It’s been a long long time since they’ve resolved, solved or negotiated in good faith on any big issue beyond cutting taxes on the wealthiest individuals and corporations or starting our longest and most expensive wars

It’s time to let the foot dragging do-nothing party members know they have to get the right things done or face a historic blowout next November.

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After a spate of killings of Black citizens by police officers kicked off a summer of BLM protests that drew violent hate groups to the fore that was countered by relatively small independent groups of antifascists that Republican politicians have scapegoated repeatedly, raising the spectre of a massive beastly sinister org responsible for deadly attacks on police and peaceful citizens, razed cities turned to ash, camouflaged themselves and led the GOP insurrection, while leading a wave of pedophilia, it seemed like big changes were in store for policing with lots of extra dollars provided for better training, with more personnel and equipment.

Sadly the desired results are still not coming. A new national record of killings by police occurred in 2023. That’s not the fault of antifa, BLM, Hunter Biden, waves of immigrants or book-bearing drag queens.

This is the failure of leaders of police, of mayors and governors and the gun sellers’ lobby.

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The Fascist leading the GOP race has twice bragged about mobsters recently. First he bragged about the endorsement he got from a multiple murder hitman. Now he’s bragging that he’s facing more indictments than (his words) “the late, great Al Capone.”

Great?

Mainstream journalists are relying on old reference frames that applied to political coverage of a time that passed a decade ago. This guy is an absolute fascist. There’s been no parallel to him in US history. He’s bragged about the love between himself and most of the world’s worst dictators and the US mobsters that he’s aware of.

And no matter how many trials and convictions come his way, there’s still tens of thousands who’d readily murder ordinary US citizens for him. He’s talked about breaking ties with longstanding allies who helped bring an end to the USSR, has damaged the standing of the US in the world, conspired with a number of operatives who keep talking about ‘blowing up’ our government as it exists.

Journalists need to break the old frames of reference, stop recording what he says and countering with factchecks that accomplish nothing. Democrats and Republicans are well aware that 98% of everything he says is a lie. When I was a paid journalist no editor would permit comparisons of politicians to Hitler. Now it’s become imperative to use words like fascism, Nazi and Hitler every time he says fascist things. He’s a threat to our government, to every American and to people around the globe.

There’s several longtime reporters who are challenging their peers to create a new approach to journalism that’s up to the task of accurately and steadily criticizing this anti-Constitutional extremist criminal. Rick Perlstein, at The American Prospect, is a must read about this today.

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