reflectivepundit

Can the Midterm Election Results Derail the Trump Train?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Although the GOP will likely become the majority party in the House of Representatives and perhaps in the US Senate as well, the results of this week’s midterm election were the first signs of hope that the leader of the MAGA movement is not invincible. That there are limits to contemporary extremism and pure craziness in American politics. That enough Americans have not succumbed to rhetorical and actual political violence.

Of course, hope is not reality. Perhaps signal changes to come.

Donald Trump and his minions were not the only ones to predict a landslide victory for the Republican Party and their hand-picked line-up of far-right candidates. Pollsters and pundits and reporters in the field confirmed the coming shellacking of the Democratic Party and their candidates.

They all were wrong. Again.

Their predictions were far removed from what actually happened and still unfolds in undecided races in three states and two dozen congressional districts.

Democrats won clear victories in a number of swing states, among them Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire. And they won against GOP candidates who were so extreme that they were rejected by enough Independents and even some Republicans. The Democrats’ unexpected good showing included gubernatorial victories and majorities in state legislatures matched finally previous sweeps of the GOP in state-wide elections.

If the senatorial races in Arizona and Nevada are ultimately won by the Democratic candidates, the Democrats would remain in the driver's seat in the US Senate because Vice President Harris would break likely 50-50 ties. If the Republicans end up winning the senatorial seats in those two western states, they will be in charge in the upper chamber of the Congress. In either case, a win in the run-off in Georgia on December 6 between the sitting Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and the Trump-handpicked former football star Hershel Walker would be gravy for either Democrats or Republicans.

Today, the big question is this:  Can this week’s mid-term election results finally derail the Trump MAGA train?  

Rupert Murdoch’s far-right New York Post celebrated Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on the front page of its Wednesday edition calling him “young GOP star” and “DeFuture”—a slap in Donald Trump’s face and plan to announce his third run for the presidency next week. Worse yet, on Thursday, the New York Post’s front page showed “TRUMPTY DUMPTY” and the following verse:

"Don (who couldn’t build a wall)

Had a great fall—

Can all the GOP’s men

Put the party back together again?"

 

Perhaps it does not take “all the GOP’s men” but only some courageous GOP men and women a la Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to “put the party back together.”

Performance Artist Trump and his Big Helpers in the Mainstream Media

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In the United States of America, the loyal opposition is dead.

Instead of debating political differences with opponents in rational debate that differentiates democracies from autocracies, the leader of the Republican Party continues to up the ante of his usual crude rhetorical insults and degradation.

At a campaign rally in Ohio on the eve of the midterm elections, former President Trump called the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, “an animal.” And, as he has done many times before, he also labeled her “Crazy Nancy.”  

Shortly after the attack on Paul Pelosi, the former and would-be next president Trump contributed to instantly circulating right-extreme conspiracy theories, according to which the assault on the 82-year old husband of the Speaker was staged by the liberal cabal or the result of a gay relationship gone bad—all contrary to the police version supported by video footage of the break-in.

Trump did not condemn the attacker’s political violence; probably, because the perpetrator’s posts revealed the same violent far-right extremism that is at home in the MAGA cult and the community of QAnon conspiracy theorists—both Trump’s staunchest supporters.

The Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election is merely one big whopper among the ex-president's daily spoken and written lies.

Lies or not, the ex-president consumes more mainstream media news oxygen than most other politicians—on many days more than the sitting president.

The legacy news media, involved in sharp competition with each other and social media platforms, attract the largest audiences to their political reporting, when their infotainment stars unorthodox political performance artists—like Donald Trump. That’s appreciated by news organizations’ managements and stock owners. After all, higher audience ratings rake in higher profits.  

The key to Trump’s nomination and election victories in 2016 was not FOX News, the army of Far-Right radio hosts, his tweets, or his rallies during which he preached anger, hate, division, and—yes—violence. Instead, Trump’s biggest helpers during the decisive pre-primary and primary seasons were mainstream media organizations. The huge volume of coverage devoted to his rude speech during his performances and the attention to outrageous tweets he or his team posted gave him unprecedented free propaganda that was not available to his opponents.

After Trump announces his next presidential candidacy, we will get an idea whether the mainstream media will repeat their mistakes of Donald Trump’s first presidential run.

I am not optimistic that a self-correction is in the cards.

Violent Speech begets Violent Deeds

By Brigitte L. Nacos

If you watched the horrific scenes of the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol by organized militia groups, enraged members of the MAGA movement, and delusional QAnon conspiracy cultists, you must have heard their bloodthirsty screams, “Na-a-a-n-cy, Na-a-n-cy” as they searched for the Speaker of the House. Had they gotten hold of her… If there was any doubt about her fate, the perpetrator told the police his kidnapping and torture plans. He left plenty of evidence of his Far-Right violent extremist views and his belief in bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory propaganda.

Nancy Pelosi has been demonized by GOP right wing extremists for many years. And she was high on Donald Trump’s and supporters’ list of vilified women. The leader of the Oath Keepers, now tried for seditious conspiracy, threatened to hang her on a lamp post. She surely was the supreme target of their vile rhetorical attacks because the line-up of powerful men can’t stand women in influential positions. Pelosi has received more death threats than any other member of Congress. But she is far from the only one in the two congressional chambers. Instead, the number of such threats against public officials in all branches and on all levels of government, federal, state, and local, have catapulted to unprecedented levels.

 

Number of Serious Threats against Members of Congress:

2016:      902

2017:   3,939

2018:   5,206

2019:   6,955

2020:   8,613

2021:   9,600

If you take a look at the numbers above about the dramatic increase in threats against Congress members, you see that the significant increase began in the first year of Trump’s presidency and did not end with the changing of the guards in Washington because the former president has not changed his tune.

How did we get to this unprecedented political hate and division, this hyper political polarization?

My take is that there are strong correlations between the hate speech that Donald Trump brought into the political discourse and the huge rise of political threats against public office holders. What in the past was the hate speech of fringe figures and groups, has become normal political discourse that is either practiced or condoned by silence in the highest circles of the once normal GOP.  

Violent speech begets violent deeds. And political violence begets more political violence.

I hope, the next weeks and months prove me wrong.

Stopping Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia Is Not Enough

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After stopping at a gas station to fill up my car this morning I knew that the next refill would cost still more than what I paid today. But I also thought about what Washington decisionmakers, President Biden and the Congress, should do in reaction to Saudi Arabia’s and Russia’s decision to cut OPEC’s oil output and thereby hurt US-led efforts to bring the harmful inflation under control and prevent a deep recession.  

US Senator Tim Murphy (D-Conn.) suggested on ABC News, “we” should “rethink” arms sales to Saudi Arabia, following the kingdom’s support for Russia in the war against Ukraine.” Others agreed with the curtailment of military shipments to the kingdom. But even if this would happen, it would not be enough and no recipe to secure enough oil and gas for the West in the near future.

I agree with Tom Friedman’s who wrote the other day in his New York Times column,

"Putin and Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are also probably hoping that the soaring energy inflation unleashed since Russia’s invasion helps the Donald Trump-led Republicans to regain control of at least the House of Representatives in next month’s elections. That would be icing on the cake for both, who view Trump as a president who still loves black crude over green solar and knows how to look the other way when bad things happen to good people."

It is not cynical at all to conclude that M.B.S. (Mohammed bin Salman) and Vladimir Putin are pushing their unholy agenda in support of a socio-economic crisis as the best scenario in view of the 2024 presidential election—regardless of whether the former president or one of his clones runs under the Trump movement banner.

It is high time for Joe Biden and his administration to look for new sources of oil and gas that the West needs for the foreseeable future. Both Saudi Arabia and Russia are led by despotic men and both countries are known for horrific human rights violations. Yet, that did not limit their energy sales to western democracies.

So, why not look to countries that could pump more oil and sell it to the West, especially Europe?

I am glad that the White House thinks along these lines now.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the Biden administration “is preparing to scale down sanctions on Venezuela’s authoritarian regime to allow Chevron Corp. to resume pumping oil there…” Yes, Venezuela, too, has a record of human rights violations, but have they been worse than those in Russia and Saudi Arabia?

Perhaps, Washington should go a step further and resume—along with the EU—negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s arch enemy Iran. About the nuclear agreement that Trump withdrew from and about loosening some sanctions in return for oil exports to the West. I know, this is a very unpopular idea in view of dissident protesters being killed and maimed by the regime.  

But, again, human rights violations have never stopped the sale of gas and oil to the United States and Europe. That can only occur when we speed-up the establishment of renewable energy sources and become energy self-sufficient.    

The Horror of Putin’s Nuclear Threat and Biden’s Armageddon Warning

By Brigitte L. Nacos

While many parts of the world suffer deadly or life-changing effects of all kinds of natural disasters--lethal storms, floods, draughts, and pandemics, there are plenty of man-made catastrophes—civil wars, deadly oppression of political dissenters, senseless mass shootings. But the probably most horrific threat today was described by President Joe Biden the other day as the most serious “prospect of Armageddon” since the Cuban Missile Crisis six decades ago. Biden’s assessment of President Vladimir Putin’s repeated warnings of using the nuclear option in Russia’s war against Ukraine should be taken as seriously as Putin’s nuclear threats.

This, then, is the time to remember that John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev found a way to end an existential crisis. Faced with an ultimatum and a blockade of Cuba by the U.S., the Soviet Union blinked. But Khrushchev’s agreement to remove the missiles from the island came with Kennedy’s promise to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey. Obviously, Kennedy and his advisers understood that the Kremlin needed a face-saving give-and-take deal. Never mind that the missiles in Turkey were considered close to obsolete at the time.

Whether Putin’s nuclear threat is understood as the use of tactical weapons of mass destruction in the Ukrainian theater of war or as all-out nuclear confrontation between Russia and the West does not matter now. The potential of the deployment of any nuclear weapons calls for all sides—Russian, Ukrainian, and American leaders--to think and talk about ways to end the disastrous war for both the Russian and Ukrainian people.

It would be naïve to believe this to be an easy task. The Ukrainians, on a roll in the Eastern provinces that Russia forcefully annexed and progressing even in the South, are not in the mood for a cease fire and peace negotiations. Washington’s revelation that Ukraine was responsible for the recent assassination of the daughter of one of President Putin’s allies was probably meant to warn President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly to refrain from further hostile actions on Russian territory.

Putin, increasingly criticized openly by war hawks among his longtime allies because of the failure of the Russian military, cannot and will not accept defeat. Therefore, his nuclear threat cannot be ignored.

For all the support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, the Ukrainian people, and Ukrainian leaders, Washington, along with European allies, must take the lead in getting Russians and Ukrainians to the negotiating table.

If there is any chance for an agreement, the peaceful end of the Cuban Missile Crisis provides an example that President Zelensky must understand: Without a face-saving deal for Putin—perhaps Russia keeping the long-disputed Crimean Peninsula and access to the Black Sea—there will not be peace but more suffering on both sides.