The Way of the Whigs

Trump's 38% support rating is far too high (it's been around that for now almost 10 years), but it enables him to be elected and maintain power because on top of that number there's a certain group of people who can't stand Trump, but hate the Democrats even more.  In his 38% there are the people who genuinely like his policies or are simply part of his cult of personality; but it's in that excess segment that we find the numbers that give him power to drag our nation through the mud.  

Earlier this year, even through all the Trump scandals, there was some reporting about approval of the Democrats being something like 20%.  I'm too lazy to go find the exact figures, but that's about right.  Many people are like my friend Glenn, who knows Trump for what he is and while he likes some of his policies, knows that he's terrible.  Yet he hates the Democrats even more, and so is, in some ways, enabling Trump.

As a casual student of history my mind is taken back to a few decades before the civil war, when the two main political entities in our fair country were the Whigs and the Democrats.  As the nation ramped up into the terrible conflict that would soon come, the Whigs faded while a new political party, the Republicans, came onto the scene.  A gap in my knowledge is the question of WHY the Whigs went away within a decade, never to return.  There was a realignment that was taking place during this time, with people changing loyalties and positions...but regardless, after a period of turmoil what once had been was no more and replaced by something new and transformative, leading the nation into finally ending slavery.  

I think about that history when I think about the Democrats.  We live in a time of changing political loyalties: the formerly blue-collar Democrat has now aligned himself with MAGA.  White-collar educated voters who were once Reagan Republicans are now firmly against Trumpism.  Both groups (and many more) have their reasons for change, but while the Republicans seem to have opened their doors to the influx of people whose sole thought is an attraction to Trump (itself a fascinating study in how far downhill our country has gone), I (and many others) have no interest in becoming Democrats.  But unlike the people who abandoned the Whigs and formed something anew, there's really nothing on the horizon for us today to turn to.  So we shake our fists, march in No Kings rallies, and yet nothing really changes.

In my lifetime there have been fringe movements like the Greens or the Constitution party, groups who likely were far too extremist to attract many people.  There was the Reformed party of Ross Perot, which claimed a few governors and a small following but eventually faded; and in the past few years there's been a group going around called 'No Labels' whose very identity is based on the idea that their openness means that they really don't represent anything of importance.  But where is our 1850s Republican party?  Where is a group of people whose ideas are so strong and principle-based that they capture the imagination of the nation?  

Of course it's easy to say, what am I doing about this?  I suppose it's not enough anymore to simply be an independent; maybe it's time to start creating something anew.  Yet maybe that's the problem...we are now a culture so stagnant, so glued to social media, so increasingly stupid that a new movement is no longer possible.  And for that, we should grieve.

Another Grand Week in the Republic

I knew it was coming...it was time to start shopping again for the healthcare marketplace plan for my wife and kids.  I had heard that rates were going up because some of the COVID era subsidies were about to expire.  But I wasn't expecting that they would go up from $376/month to $825/month, more than a doubling.  In some ways I suppose I am lucky, as it might be that the rates have gone up in part because my daughter is working full-time while she's going to school, and my son is working regularly part-time while in high school.  That extra income likely cut my subsidy, but the Big Beautiful Bill this summer that ended the extra subsidies was probably the main reason.  

It's a good thing that my second job offers health care.  For me it's almost nothing, less than a hundred dollars a month, but to add the family is going to jack it up to around $800 a month.  When you add me in, it's still less than what I am doing through the marketplace, but this will likely take out about half of my check.  Again, I am still blessed...we've always tried to think of this extra money as just that, extra.  But likely this will mean that some of the fun things we do with the extra money won't be there.  

I waited at first to go ahead and sign up for the job health plan, because along the way there was an ever-so-slight chance that perhaps the subsidies would be extended.  After all, the Democrats in Congress were refusing to vote YES on a continuing resolution to fund the government, and so said government was shut down for almost 6 weeks as the wanna-be heroes were fighting to return the subsidies to the plans.  Things were looking up for the Dems...last week they won all the hotly contested off-year elections, Trumpy's approval ratings magically slipped below 38% in some cases, and maybe, just maybe, the Republicans would give in.  Nope.  This weekend it came out that 8 of the Democrats finally gave in, giving MAGA the 60 votes they needed to fund the government.  Once again, the Democrats were running the touchdown into the end zone and instead fumbled it back to the Empire.  

Because of the shutdown 42 million Americans who depend on food stamps no longer had access to them.  And while I'm a bit skeptical that many are truly going hungry (my goodness, look at the obesity rates in this country), the gleefulness with which the GOP were ensuring that that extra money wasn't going to poor people was painful to watch.  All along as the shutdown continued, the demolition of the East Wing of the White House also ramped up so that the Trump Ballroom could be built (alongside the renovations of the bathrooms in the Trump living quarters).  Trump wasn't there much of course, because he was having a Great Gatsby-themed party at Mar-a-Lago for his rich cronies.  I mean, the same people who think of themselves as pro-life are perfectly content to watch the living suffer, but were we expecting anything different?  It's like they think of that book as aspirational rather than a cautionary tale.  

I suppose if there's one good thing coming out of the re-opening of government is that an Arizona Democratic congresswoman has now been sworn in, and she becomes the last person on the petition necessary to start releasing some of the Epstein files.  And sure enough, today they are starting to pour out.  While what's in there is going to be hard to read except for those who like that kind of stuff, at least light is finally going to be shed on just how good Trump and Epstein have gotten along over the years, and how Trump will once again have to face the revelation that he's a horrible, evil person.  

Of course for his supporters, it won't matter.  The 38% will soon come back roaring to his defense and soon we will move on to ignored scandal #852 (#2611 if you include Trump 45).  Yes, it's more Greatness than you can ever imagine in our fine nation.