Give It Up For Maestro Joe

The poll numbers that you see regarding President Biden’s favorability ratings and his administration’s accomplishments do not reflect the fact that we are a different country post-Trump; we are in an ‘alternative facts’ era, coupled with the mainstreaming of QAnon conspiracy theories into GOP rhetoric.

Yet the polls are reported by media outlets like January 6th never happened.

MSM is covering Biden’s job approval ratings like it’s the same old horse race-politics, yet failing to mention that one of the horses is wearing full body armor, QAnon flags and a feed bag full of vitriol, racism and methamphetamine.

President Biden has so far presided over record-high job creation, record-low unemployment and solid economic growth.

That is a fact, not an opinion or slogan being thrown around in a fundraising email designed to fleece followers in the name of some sort of white supremacist culture war.

We are past the point that most GOP voters will ever act like rational adults again.

At least in the near term; the stink of Trumpism will take at least a few generations to wash out.

Nowhere is this plainer to see than in the right’s reaction to the Chinese spy balloon that drifted into American airspace last week.

It was, of course, shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Biden’s orders (once it was safely over water and not over land where it posed a threat to life and property).

It also had the added benefit of providing valuable intel to our federal agencies once the military recovered the debris from the relatively shallow waters of the Carolina coast.

A perfectly sober yet forceful response that displayed President Biden’s decisive leadership: the polar opposite of the GOP politicians who took to their social media accounts and posed with guns pointed towards the sky.

Any opportunity to mock the Commander-in-Chief proves irresistible to many MAGA members in the Republican House and Senate.

This one also provided the bonus points of allowing them to pose with their long guns.

Toxically masculine gun culture is the guiding principle of the burgeoning fascist movement. The silhouette of an AR15 has replaced the American flag as the lapel pin of choice for the Republican office holder. It’s a snarky f*ck you to the ‘libs’ and anyone else who finds things like school shootings offensive.

The ignorance and lack of humanity is staggering by when you look at the character of it’s members - but not at all surprising.

Does anyone expect anything different from a party led by Kevin McCarthy, made up of goons and grifters like MTG and George Santos.

These folks also act as a feeder system to get MAGA talking points out into the white Christian ecosphere that passes for discourse the modern GOP.

When confronted with the fact that China had also flown balloons over American airspace three times during Trump’s time in office, they fell silent.

I posted in my timeline that Trump had rented an entire floor of Trump Tower to China’s largest state owned bank during his time in office (and netted himself $5.4 million doing so).

MAGA zealots did calisthenics to justify the fact Trump had so many business relationships with China - including a Beijing bank account and paying more to a communist country in taxes than he paid to the United States.

Any factual statement made about Trump’s ties and obsequiousness to foreign dictators or governments is often met with outlandish conspiracies about members of Biden’s family.

Even the House GOP twitter account (which is run by the execrable Jim Jordan) got in on the act with an idiotic comment asking if the Chinese balloon saw the classified documents in Biden’s garage.

Revisionist snark - that omits Trump culpability in stealing classified documents, lying about them and ignoring subpoenas to the point that the FBI had to retrieve the documents.

The anti-Biden conspiracies are recited like some bizarre Biblical chapter and verse at this point; completely without the irony inherent in defending Trump, whose own children profited immensely while their father was in office.

Republican voters will no longer hear the truth or face facts in American life - even when it pertains to the safety of the nation they claim to love.

Real love and real patriotism require honesty and a willingness to not only look at but accept hard truths.

True love of country requires an idealism that allows for adjustments and acceptance of other opinions when it comes to the hard work of keeping a vast nation on a steady course towards its better angels - even when demons seem to be at its doorstep.

We’ve always been a barbaric nation in many ways but now that barbarism has made it’s way into every aspect of our political discourse.

Compassion and rationality, to say nothing of truth, no longer have a place in the toxic reactionary politics of the party that has glued itself to the posterior of a portly orange conman who spends his days on a Palm Beach golf course whilst sending out grifting emails to fleece folks who he would never even speak to in real life.

This incivility is funded by men much smarter and wealthier than Trump or most of his followers: men willing to exploit his brand of trailer park treason to get their hands on the levers of power - to codify their ability to exploit workers and accrue vast amounts of wealth.

All this of course while bucking and berating the growing worldwide need to address climate change. Not to mention the myriad social issues facing the US from criminal justice reform to healthcare.

There is no shortage of inequality at the institutional level - any attempt to address these injustices is met with immediate slap back by the snark- bro-pols in the GOP.

Men like Matt Gaetz, who rose to prominence by belittling those on public assistance and now wants to introduce work requirements for those on Medicaid.

Cruelty being the only point, beyond that of pleasing their wealthy benefactors; men like Charles Koch who are well on their way towards pursuing their dream of bringing a modern sort of feudalism to the USA.

The tax cuts that the Republicans are once again attempting to foist on Americans to benefit only the wealthiest among us, if passed, could create a permanent underclass.

Globally, the wealthiest 1% have made more money in the last two years than the rest of the world combined.

This is not sustainable - nor is it a recipe for anything other than mass suffering on a scale this world has not seen before. Its as if the GOP wanted to give more money to Bernie Madoff after his Ponzi scheme was discovered.

Their allegiance is solely to the criminal and not the shareholder or the citizen. This is not how functional political parties operate.

The attacks on Biden are part of a misinformation ecosphere that has become increasingly effective in the same way the GOP is attempting to rewrite the history of January 6th.

The scary part is that it is working in certain quarters and much of the mainstream media seems to be willing to go along with it.

There aren’t any other explanations for why the historic legislation passed by the Biden administration isn’t part of the daily political discourse. The punditry class can become addicted to the concept of ‘both sides-ism’ and miss the forest for the trees.

We are not living in normal times - adjustments must be made to navigate this age of disinformation in our media landscape. I’m not suggesting the average American becomes some sort of policy wonk able to recite economic statistics at the drop of a hat. However, the accomplishments of this administration in the first two years of office are, in fact, historic and will provide positive benefits for all Americans.

I view President Biden as a conductor. Nobody ever complained about Leonard Bernstein’s age when he was leading the New York Philharmonic.

If you were lucky enough to see and hear the maestro perform you would immediately realize that experience and temperament were assets that helped a symphony reach its full potential and play together in harmony, performing at its best.

What is a president if not a conductor, working with his various cabinet secretaries, setting the tempo, making sure everyone is working in concert and most importantly knowing the score?

When we all work together we can make beautiful music.

We need a president that understands this at his core.

I say, play on Joe.