IF AMERICA IS GOING FASCIST/AUTOCRATIC - DO SOMETHING?

 

Is America going fascist? If so what is fascism?. Fascism claims that there is a superior race, has a central charismatic dictator who decides the will of the people and has total control over anything and anybody. There is no rule of law. Fascists invariably label all opposition as unpatriotic. The distinction between a dictatorship and an autocracy is to a large extent irrelevant for purposes of this discussion. The same outcome for both can be achieved by subverting the institutions that uphold democracy like the courts, the press and most importantly voting rights. America is not fascist but as Shakespeare himself once said “What’s in a name"?. If democracy is indeed on the line is its demise inevitable?

THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HUNGARY

There is no doubt that the Republican Party has morphed into the paradigm of a racist autocracy, the Trump Old Party, (TOP). The model they are pathetically basing themselves on is the Hungarian government. The latter have the same racist outlook and have made a mockery of democracy by destroying institutions and gerrymandering elections. Hungary has the population of Chicago and an economy that ranks twenty ninth in Europe and a GDP which is one quarter of that of Chicago. It survives by handouts from the European Union which it denigrates. By international standards it is a backwater but the TOP faithful aspire to their “greatness”.

Viktor Orban the current Prime Minister who has been for practical purposes a wheeler dealer since the 1990s has just been elected to his fourth term as President. The stamp of approval of the American right has been ordained on Hungary. The "whose who" in the Right wing world are holding their annual Conservative Political Action Committee Jamboree in Budapest Hungary. (Apparently they have run out of Trump Hotels). Viktor Orban gave the keynote address and informed the fellow travellers that the secret to success is to have your own media. He suggested running Tucker Carlson 24/7. He believes in a white Christian nation and is openly anti semitic. His rally cry at the Congress is the like minded should take back Washington and Brussels, (the EU capitol). 

So with Putin looking like a loser, the new role model is Viktor Orban even though he hasn’t made the fact that Trump won in 2020 a key point in his plan to unfree the world. 

The reason that you are not aware of the CPAP Congress is that all the enemy left wing media have not been credentialed and if you want to know what is going on you have to listen to Fox News. 

Notwithstanding the absurdity of Orban becoming the leader of the unfree world, the culture being spouted by the TOP, the attempts at voter suppression and the conservative bent of a key institution, the Supreme Court, has created an air of despondency over the great American democratic experiment. What the majority of American don’t understand is that the fight didn’t end in 2020 and that the 2022 midterms have become important beyond the imagination. As Barack Obama used to say, “Don’t Boo. Vote!”.

IS ALL LOST?

There is an air of inevitability and doom and gloom around those that represent the majority in America as each and every event portends to end the great big liberal democracy that America has aspired to and never quite become. As Biden organizes the world to save democracy he seems paralyzed to do the same in the good old USA. Jay H. Ell has seen this movie before in South Africa where there was no danger of it becoming a fascist state as it was one already. Leadership where politicians ultimately put country before power and the forces of good finally triumphed. (The fact that has been partially undone by the corruption that followed Mandela’s leaving the stage is another story). In fact the story of America and the world is filled with these disastrous phases. So let’s see what a state America is in and how it can get out of it. 

At the moment everyone is agreed that the majority of Americans by far are not in favor of the policies of the morphed “Republican Party” but the deck is stacked against them. The Trump Old Party”, (TOP), through gerrymandering and voter suppression are on the brink of victory. The fact that the TOP has no policy on anything other than cultural issues and the fact that Trump still insists that he won the last election has everyone shivering in their boots. 

However the TOP are divided into three camps, those that will follow their leader right or wrong whatever he says, those who will do anything to just be in power and a few who actually want to run on what a mess Biden allegedly has made of the government. The latter are in the minority and what Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy the supposed leaders of the TOP would like to focus on. However they fall into the group that will do anything for power so they will go along with Trump. Ironically the electorate will probably vote on the issues that the Trumpists are ignoring - inflation, gas prices and baby formula.

WILL TRUMP REMAIN THE LEADER OF THE TOP?

Well Donald Trump and Trumpism is the reason that most feel America is going fascist. Donald Trump who is unashamedly racist is not that much interested in the policies that swept him into power in 2016. He is just obsessed with not going down in history as being a loser. However his non incumbent anointed nominees are having poor to mixed results in the TOP Primaries. Georgia the state that has started a criminal investigation into his election subversion is where the rubber met the road. Georgia formerly a red state till Tump himself turned it blue has been a disaster for Trump’s nominees. However not one TOP contender in any constituency has openly abandoned him.  Those who refused to bend to his illegal efforts to declare the Georgian election in his favor have romped home against his candidates but although they didn't buy the Big Lie originally they subsequently enacted legislation to avoid "voter fraud" that Trump claimed lost him the election.  

The January 6 revelations are at kindest not going to do him any good. Jay H. Ell has maintained from the word go sooner or later he is going to be indicted. So the nominal leader of Trumpism is not in great shape but no one dare challenge him at this stage because he still has the majority of the base of the party behind him. The essence of every fascist/authoritarian movement is the leader is in total control. Trump would so dearly like to be up there with the Putins and the Stalins but he just doesn’t cut it. Not even in the 2022 midterms. 

For every successful revolutionary movement there has to be armed forces, muscle and or guns, behind it. The military made it quite clear even when Trump was the Commander in Chief that they were not interested. His right wing paramilitary, (some of them good people)), have been castrated by the abortive January 6 uprising and are leaking like sieves now that he has abandoned them. So there is no real muscle behind Trump and the fear of Civil War has to be unrealistic. He and the minority TOP have to rely on the fact that voter suppression and gerrymandering will carry them over the line. 

The real fight at the moment is for the control of the TOP and this is reflected in the massive battle taking place in the Primary elections of the TOP nominees for the 2022 midterms. The Democratic Party primaries are gentle by comparison with several key races not even being contested. 

Nevertheless the TOP culture, that is being fostered on the internet, by Republican Governors, the Supreme Court and the racist shootings are striking a feeling of hopelessness into all warm blooded democracy lovers. That together with the voter restriction, gerrymandering and the seeming unflinching direction of the Supreme Court leads to democracy lovers wanting to lie down and die

THE CULTURE.

The underlying culture is white fundamentalist Christian autocracy. The role model is Hungary.  TOP has been modified from the original out and out racism as a result of the flood of immigration that has rocked the twenty - first century. Trump, credit where it is due, is the standard bearer. He started off by not so subtly claiming that Obama was not an American as he was, for all the world to see, black and obviously born in Kenya. He followed it up, by calling all Mexicans rapists, murderers and drug dealers, denying Muslims visas and finally admitting that the white thugs that chanted “The Jews Will Not Replace Us”, had some good people. So out and out racism has been morphed into the “Replacement Theory” racism.

Now these purists have to see to it that the children are not educated in American history that will make them feel guilty about how the whites treated the indigenous natives and the slaves. Hence school books should be controlled. To satisfy the fundamentalists anything from fertilization onwards is at best an abortion and at worst murder. The second amendment rights are sacred regardless of whether they are the instruments of the highest death rate from guns per capita in the world. This even though they are part and parcel of racist mass murders and the slaughter of children because automatic weapons are obviously covered by the eighteenth century constitution. The recent mass murders of children in Texas and African Americans in New Yotk hasn’t changed the TOP love of the culture of guns.

The connection of culture to autocracy is clear. If the culture is God’s will why allow heathens the right to thwart it at the ballot box. 

SO WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Whatever can be done will be helped by the TOP who are currently tearing themselves apart in the Primaries. All sides believe that who ever emerges triumphant will eventually have the full backing of the faithful in 2024. Jay H. Ell believes the aftermath of the fight is more likely to produce apathy in the former GOP. In addition the revelations of the January 6 Committee are going to leave the TOP at sixes and sevens as to how far to go to protect Trump. One thing for sure is the deep base wont desert him but there will be plenty of 2024 Presidential wannabes who are going to carve their own little niches. 

It is fair to say the overwhelming number of Americans don’t believe in this culture although the Covid Pandemic has left them all on edge. They are far more likely to be impacted by the inflation, gas prices, lack of baby formula and other inconveniences resulting from the pandemic, the supply chain interruption and the Ukrainian war. Needless to say this is what the Mitch McConnells, the Kevin McCarthy’s and the Lindsey Graham’s want to run on and blame Biden for the mess. They don’t care if that means they have to accept autocracy and Replacement Theory as part the bargain as all they want is power. So Biden is central to messaging two approaches- “This is not whom we are” and “things aren’t as bad as they seem and I will make them better”.

Biden cannot command the center of the stage like Trump. It is not his style. He ran against Trump from his basement and let Trump run against himself. Like it or not that is still going to happen. It is not what the power broker TOP people want but that is what they are going to get. Nevertheless in spite of all the waling about inflation the unemployment numbers are at their lowest numbers ever and over seventy percent of the population are satisfied with their financial positions. Biden needs to tell them what they know. He also has to drop the Chinese tariffs as they are contributing to inflation as well as doing whatever it takes to increase American fossil fuel production till the Ukrainian crisis is over. Then he needs to talk about whom we are as a people. It worked last time because the majority don’t believe in the “Do not replace us” philosophy. 

Abortion is a colossal issue as are guns. The Supreme Court in spite of the recent mass shootings are about to lift restrictions on gun owning. Like with gun control a woman’s right to control her body is supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans yet the TOP’s values are the ones that count and their interpretation is supported by the Trump nominated Supreme Court. The TOP legislators refuse to legislate any gun control or support a woman’s right to chose. Both are part of the cultural agenda that the TOP power brokers don’t want discussed. Both these positions are not supported by at least eighty percent of the electorate. The Democrats need to make them front and center of their campaigns. 

In the final analysis it all has to do with getting out the vote.. Stacey Adams has already shown in Georgia that persuading everyone of the importance of the vote resulted in attendance in greater numbers in the Primaries than anyone believed possible with the voter restrictions in place.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The embattled Trump still is the controlling force in American politics. By controlling the minority of the minority he is center stage for better or worse. He has refashioned the Republican Party whose legislators are so craven that though they won’t even challenge him even though within the TOP electorate his base hasn’t been enough to consistently back his Big Lie. Those who have publicly shown disgust for his insurrection are too obsessed with hanging onto power to go against him now. There has to be a special place in hell for the Mitch McConnells, Kevin McCarthys and the Lindsey Grahams……

The sad end of the Party of Lincoln is that their elite went to hold their annual jamboree in their new model for government, Hungary, whose President offered to help them take over Washington. For America and the world’s sake one can only hope that Hungary is the TOP’s graveyard. 

The good news is for Tucker Carlson who can now run for President in Hungary as well as Russia and of course America.

In the words of Barack Obama the time has never been more urgent to prevent fascism/autocracy, “Don’t boo. Vote”.

Jay. H. Ell is getting sick and tired of getting sick and tired...

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT 

Mental health problems in other countries without unlimited access to semi automatic weapons for eighteen year olds are just mental health problems. 

The NRA Convention in Texas is scheduled to go ahead with speakers former President Trump, Senator Cruz and Governor Abbott of Texas.

WILL TRUMP BE INDICTED FOR CONSPIRACY?

As the evidence piles up that Donald Trump was front and center in a coup to retain his Presidency his response has been to remain front and center in the “Republican” party. In effect he is establishing himself as the leader of what he defines as the real America. He is the Jefferson Davis of the twenty first century. He controls the “Republican” Party and he sees himself leading his troops again to regain power which he claims was stolen from him. 

For those who have forgotten he more than hinted at violence in his 2016 election against Hillary Clinton where he claimed that if he didn’t win the election it would have been rigged. He warned that “The Second Amendment People” could respond in the event that he was robbed of victory. In the 2020 clash against against Biden to this day he states that the election was stolen from him and what was hinted at against Hillary culminated on January 6 2020. While the Judicial System dithers he is moving to consolidate his position as the leader of the America that he wants to "Make Great Again". 

To any legal mind there is more than probable cause, just with the facts out there, to initiate an investigation into Trump’s role in the attempt to thwart the result of a legitimate election. Barbara McQuade a former Federal Prosecutor has produced a “Model Prosecution Memo” that outlines the case for Trump to be tried for “Conspiracy to defraud the United States” and “Obstructing an Official Proceeding”. Federal Judge Carter in litigation where the January 6 House Committee was demanding e mails from Trump’s Lawyer, who provided the phony argument for Pence to overturn the election, stated that Trump in all probability had committed crimes. So what is stopping the Justice Department from at least seating a Grand Jury to evaluate if there is enough evidence to lay a charge?

THE DILEMMA OF WHETHER TO PROSECUTE TRUMP

The current Attorney General of the United States of America, Merrick Garland, is a pedantic cautious jurist who is also obsessional not to appear to be involved in a political prosecution. He has the thought processes of an Appellate Judge not a prosecutorial litigator. He has however vowed that without fear or favor to investigate the insurrection regardless of who was involved. So far he doesn’t appear to believe he has enough to include Trump and those around hum. The question is what will it take? Jay H. Ell is under the impression is that he needs public acceptance that this prosecution is valid and a referral from a legitimate source. It is common cause that the population were persuaded by hearings that Nixon was guilty of crimes. Only a short while earlier he had won reelection by a landslide winning forty nine of the fifty states. There is much going that might arouse awareness of criminality even for a cult like figure like Trump. But more later of what might lead the Justice Department to live up to the American mantra that no man is above the law.

 Should the "Trump Old Party”, (TOP), win the 2022 midterms, as they are favorites to do, the leader will have at least a fifty - fifty chance to become President in 2024. The dilemma is do you attempt to lock up the man who has a following of forty percent of the American voters? Would Lincoln’s Attorney General risked indicting Jefferson Davis?

The public would like to forget about January 6 and move on. So would the “Republican Party”. Their leaders are on tape following January 6 condemning Trump. Also his presence as the deliverer of abortion ensures him the support of the Evangelical base. The reason why January 6 cannot be just forgotten is not only because of the January 6 Investigation but because of Trump himself. He, who as the leader of the “Republican” Party, has as his central policy for the 2022 midterms that the 2020 election was stolen from him. So Trump is dictating the agenda for the 2022 midterms - abortion and that he is the rightful President. Furthermore every candidate craves his endorsement so he is positioned to have his followers be the winners of the "Republican" Primaries where the base is overrepresented. Trump risks setbacks by his activism but he is an always been an overconfident erratic gambler.

However while Trump maneuvers politically the mountain of legal challenges plod ominously on. In addition the January 6 House Committee are going gang busters and are about to go public with their findings. The House Committee is in a position to make a criminal referral to Merrick Garland.

LITIGATION AGAINST TRUMP

The narrative will ultimately be told by the Public Hearings of the January 6 House Committee starting in June. Meanwhile Trump is occupied legally as well as politically Besides the glut of civil cases, there are charges or investigations in several areas relating, to the insurrection itself, interference in election results, financial improprieties, sexual misconduct, abuse of power as in the cases of his former attorney Michael Cohen and Lieutenant Colonel Vindman. Almost half these cases occurred when he was President. 

Not included in this infamous list are the seven hundred charges arising out of the January 6 assault on the Capitol. Several of the defendants have stated that it was because Trump instructed him/her to go to the Capitol that they broke the law. When the defendants pleas and statements are read in the court he sounds like an unindicted co conspirator in their crimes. Not that Trump escapes litigation for the January 6 insurrection. About a dozen Congresspeople are suing him, as are a number of capitol police officers while the District of Columbia Attorney General is reviewing whether to prosecute him for inciting a riot. 

There are two cases in New York that essentially cover the same material, namely that he and his company defrauded banks and insurance companies, not paying taxes and not declaring payments to employees. The purely criminal case investigated by the Manhattan State Attorney has already charged the Trump Chief Financial Officer. However it appears that the new State attorney is hesitating to indicte Trump in spite of protestations from the prosecutors who did the research and evaluation. The Civil Case is under the aegis of the New York State Attorney and the Judge there has indicated that he is not buying Trump’s delaying tactics. He has already fined him a hundred and ten thousand dollars. Trump has unhappy associations with NY prosecutors they had him fined and made him close his Charitable Foundation which he was using as a slush fund. In addition they settled with him for twenty - five million dollars for his fake university, 

Of the two case involving election interference the one that has to be giving Trump nightmares is in Fulton County Georgia where another fearless prosecutor has already convened a Grand Jury to assess whether Trump should face charges of attempting to overturn the Georgian State election. The key recorded phone call has been broadcast to the world. Trump has put up candidates in the Georgian Primaries against the Georgian Secretary of State and Governor whom he claims refused to award the election to him. Trump has also designated a dicey Senatorial candidate in Georgia where the stakes are high.

Another probe which has to unsettle the forty fifth President is one that has been taken up by the US Justice Department. Merrick Garland accepted a referral from the National Archives to investigate whether Trump, in taking fifteen boxes containing Presidential and Governmental records to Mar - O - Lago some of which contained classified information, broke the law.

All in all not a pretty resume for a former leader of the democratic world. However if he gets a makeover in 2024 he firmly believes he will make all of this go away. 

But the big issue is whether Trump will be tried for conspiracy by the Attorney General of the United States. Jay H. Ell believes central to that depends on a referral from the January 6 House Committee.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING THE JANUARY 6 INSURRECTION. 

The January 6 investigating committee are going at it full steam. They have to be more than mindful of their responsibility but are supremely confident that they have the “goods”. Liz Cheney, one of the two Republicans on the House Committee, has claimed that the Committee has enough evidence for a referral to the Justice Department for criminal sedition. The plan is to hold public hearings beginning in June to outline the conspiracy and Trump’s role. 

James Raskin states that the hearings will contain explosive revelations that will blow the roof off the House of Representatives. Jay H. Ell believes that the unprecedented delivery of subpoenas to the five Republican Congressmen in the House is to let the world know that they were given a chance to tell their story.

The Committee have interviewed nearly a thousand witnesses and are tieing it all together. They have a plethora of documents, emails, tape recordings, tweets and the like - literally tens of thousands pieces of paper. While this investigation could go on forever and there is still more to uncover the Committee are more than aware that the midterms are coming up and if the “Republicans” take the House which they are poised to do they will disband the investigation to concentrate on the role Nancy Pelosi played in failing to prevent January 6, (for real). 

The Committee have delved expansively. They appear to be about to unveil an overwhelming conspiracy with the former President front and center. The areas they have covered include the direct involvement of Trump to persuade the State law makers to declare the election for him one way or another; the collusion directly or indirectly with the violent far right groups like the Oath Keepers and his inner circle; the repeated messaging to him that the election was valid and the assessment given by his inner circle including his up till then faithful Attorney General that there was no fraud. The infamous attempt to replace the Acting Attorney General with a lowly placed official. The latter who would write to the States that the Justice Department was investigating alleged corruption in their elections. 

The contact between him and or his Chief of Staff with the nerve center at Willard Hotel planning the insurrection, the drawing up of the list of speakers for January 6, the collusion between Republican members of Congress, his rallying speech at the Eclipse and his lie that he would go with them and the final pressure he put on Pence via the crowd has all been scrutinized in detail.

The cockamamie scheme dreamed up by his newest best lawyer, John Eastman, that Vice President Pence, claiming uncertainty as to which party of electors to accept, could single handedly change the election outcome by sending the vote there and then to the Assembly where the byzantine Constitution would give the "Republicans" the advantage. Another option was that Pence would just nominate the alternate set of "Republican" electors from the States that Biden had won. Eastman proposed yet another choice to settle the “dispute” - send the decision back to Republican State legislatures to reevaluate the results. 

Then another subject of scrutiny is the financing and planning of the rally itself which will show who else was involved in the conspiracy. 

There is one piece of evidence that they have no handle on not that it is necessary to prove their case - the details of Trump’s final one on one conversation with Pence which simply had to be a repeat of the pressure and the abuse he had directed towards him when witnesses were present. 

The limited amount of argument the Committee produced to Judge Carter was enough for him to conclude that this was a coup looking for legislation to legitimize it. So if only a fraction of the conspiracy has been revealed this should make for riveting television.

The telling of this complicated story succinctly and clearly is a task the Committee is leaving to writers with experience in such materials. Aaron Sorkin of West Wing fame must be an ideal candidate.

AMERICA’S DEMOCRACY

Those outside America must be wondering what kind of lunacy lies in the democratic workings in supposedly the leading nation of the democratic free world. Part of the problem lies in the adherence to the outdated constitution. The Senate has fifty Democrats and "Republicans" where the Democrats received forty - four million more votes. Jay H. Ell has discussed the outsize roll the Supreme Court can play which contains nine members some of whom have gained nomination by outright manipulation. Most of the Republican Court nominations have been made by Presidents who though they never had the majority of votes won the electoral College which disproportionately favors the tiny rural states. The States too set their own regulations as to voting several making it harder for minorities to vote. The latter are disproportionately Democrat.

Having explained the above there is an unbelievable reverence afforded to the Office of the President who is not elected or answerable to the Party caucus, He cannot be removed by a vote of no confidence and other than Nixon no President has been removed as a result of illegal activities. Historically there was a divide amongst the Founding Fathers whether the head of state should be a king or not. They opted instead for a Presidency which they assumed would have almost G-d appointed reverence. Indicting a President has never happened. President Ford pardoned Nixon for any possible charges and even the Watergate prosecutors today agree that his argument, “To heal a nation” was valid. This is the background to the decision that Merrick Garland has to decide.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

It appears that the January 6 Committee is going to make a referral to Merrick Garland. He should have no choice but to proceed criminally. This travesty is not going to go away. The absurdity that Trump won the election and that January 6 was no big deal is just that - absurd. Whatever the outcome of criminal proceedings the alternative not to proceed criminally is both morally and legally outrageous. The integrity of America as a democracy is at stake.

JUST IN PASSING

George Carlin: They will do anything for the unborn but once you are born your’e on your own

If Mitch McConnell cared half as much about democracy in the USA as he does about Ukraine we all would be in a better place.

ABORTION, THE SUPREME COURT, TRUMP, MCCONNELL AND THE MIDTERMS.

 .

The predictable Supreme Court reversal of abortion rights in the USA maneuvered by Trump/McConnell by the appointment of anti abortion judges is now all but a done deal. A leak of a draft  supported by five Supreme Court judges has shocked the country not only because of the adoption of sweeping restrictions which include no termination for rape, incest, fetal abnormalities and a women’s health but because the legal “reasoning” puts other privacy rights under threat.

 The issue is further complicated politically by the repeated playing on TV of the five judges supposed positions on the law known as Roe v Wade. It is fair to comment that they led everyone to believe that they wouldn’t tinker with the fifty year old right which has been reaffirmed time and again. The nonplussed Trump ensured his base that his three appointees would eliminate a woman’s right to choose and they appear to have delivered. McConnell literally stole two nominations from the Democrats by manipulating when the Senate would take up a nomination. So the pair, Trump and McConnell, who literally hate each others guts effected a “Republican”coup of the third supposedly equal branch of Government. 

The leak of the draft opinion which argued that a women’s right to privacy and control of her own body was unconstitutional ignored a half a century of precedents. The fear is that if this  argument holds then the right to contraception, LGBT equality, marriage between same sex  and mixed marriage and even the rights of individuals in criminal matters can be negated. Justice Alito who authored the draft states that this opinion has nothing to do with any other law. But who can believe him?

Is everyone aware that the Constitution states that with regard to the Supreme Court it “Permits Congress to organize it”? In fact the opposite has occurred repeatedly as the Court has reversed statutes involving voting rights and legislation limiting the amount of money spent on elections. Both actions have been promoted mainly by the Republican Party. Conversely they have refused even to take up cases of gerrymandering constitutional districts which have vastly favored the Republicans,

 This blog will concentrate more on the midterm elections and the role this decision may play in its outcome. The blogs, “Abortion, The Federalist Society and The Politicalization of The Supreme Court, December 6, 2021 and “Has The Supreme Court Become the USA’S Political Force?”, January 17, 2022  can be found by delving into the archives on the opening page of the website  and cover the abortion issues and the Supreme Court’s politicalization. 

One conclusion is for certain the Supreme Court is increasingly being perceived as a political arm of the Republican Party whether Chief Justice Roberts likes it or not, 

MIDTERM ELECTIONS IN AMERICA AND MCCONNELL

Historically midterms elections in the United States have been won by the party that is not in the WhiteHouse. One third of the Senate seats are up for election, all the House Constituencies and thirty four of the fifty Governorships. The percentage voter turn out is invariably below fifty percent. The rationale for the predicted outcome is that the President has not had the time to deliver on all of his promises and the election is a referendum on him. And that is exactly how the Machiavellian Mitch McConnell would like to play it. 

McConnell has stated that he is not putting any proposals forward he is running on the disaster that the Biden Presidency has been. He can point to the economy that although has resulted in the lowest unemployment percentage in decades, three and a half percent, and a marked increase in wages, is suffering from the worst inflation in memory. It is all perception and the two factors that influence voters are the price of gas and food. They are not persuaded that the supply chain, China’s lockdown, the Ukrainian war and the impact Covid had on production or even that they are employed and earning more. The upshot is that two thirds of those polled believe that Biden is making a hash of the economy. McConnell would add to that the catastrophe of the exit from Afghanistan and whether Biden has done too little or too much in Ukraine. McConnell will add that Biden has hindered fossil fuel production in the USA because of his misguided attention to climate change. 

However McConnell faces several challenges as to what the Republican focus should be in these elections. The bohaai has forced him to join in one other issue - abortion and even float the possibility of a national ban which is beyond just allowing each state to decide whether to ban it or not as the reversing of Roe would do.  

ALTERNATIVE REPUBLICAN NARRATIVES FOR FIGHTING THE MIDTERMS

The nearest to home that McConnell has opposition is the Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Senator Scott, who has allocated a large chunk of the re election money to his good self. He also has a tax plan which will impact the poor and legislation to end Social Security and Medicare. Needless to say McConnell with a number of colleagues have gone ballistic but Scott is in a powerful position and presumably the ads that he will produce will reflect his views.

Then there are those that want to run on cultural issues, chief among them is the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He is at present the only serious challenger to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024. He is the leader against compulsory vaccination, wearing masks, fighting Critical Race Theory, negating LGBT rights and of course axing abortion rights. He was in the national news again when he initiated punitive moves against Disney for voicing objection to his directive on banning classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. He is heavily in favor of removing school books that might create the slightest guilt in white children about the country’s discriminatory past. 

The king of the war on abortion is Governor Greg Abbott of Texas who put into place a law banning abortion after six weeks which was to be policed by vigilantes who could sue perpetrators for ten thousand dollars.The Supreme Court refused to put a restraining order on the grotesque unconstitutional law while it went through the court system. Then there are about thirteen states ready to ban all abortions once the Supreme Court axes Roe.

There is little doubt that McConnell doesn’t want culture issues to be the focus of the Republican campaign in November, although he was a lynchpin in piloting the Supreme Court decision. Another opponent of McConnell’s approach who wants the discussion around him and not Biden is Donald J Trump.

DONALD J TRUMP STILL THE DOMINANT REPUBLICAN FIGURE IN 2022

The Forty - Fifth President Donald J. Trump is still the most powerful figure in the Republican Party and the kingmaker. He delivered on what the largest section of the base, the Evangelicals, wanted - judges who would axe Roe. He is not remotely interested in the Republican Party per se. As far as he is concerned it is the Trump Old Party. He is all about culture. Make America Great Again is a racist cultural movement. 

The overwhelming majority of candidates in the Primaries are fighting for his endorsement. He is on the path of destruction similar to that which won the Democrats the Senate in 2020 by stating that Republicans should not participate in the general election if his nominee in the Primaries get defeated. 

So Trump is making the midterms about himself. The central policy his candidates must embrace is that they agree that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Equally important are those he is opposing namely anyone who voted for impeachment,  those who voted for ratification of Biden and those who voted for the bipartisan Biden bill on infrastructure, He has interposed himself in over forty Congressional races, at least seven Senate seats and endless State elections particularly and significantly in Georgia. He is going for broke. If a number of his key endorsements fail he is weakened. Even if he is successful his way out nominees cannot afford to be beaten in the midterms cause that could relegate him to being ia non starter in 2024. Several of his cabinet and administration have written tell all books which haven't moved the electorate a jot. Some potential challengers in 2024 have emerged all of who have subtly differentiated themselves from him. 

To sum up Trump is still the dominant figure in the Republican Party but his support has dwindled. He can rely on the Evangelicals because they won’t forget who won them their fifty year battle to ban abortion. Where there are only a few candidates in the primary races he is not likely to make a difference in the outcome unless he is supporting the party nominee. In the Ohio Primary where there was a large field his candidate won with just over thirty percent. He made the difference.

But whichever way you look at it he is not interested in putting up the best candidate to beat the Democrats. He only wants sycophants or to take revenge on those who have thwarted him. He has to be a massive disrupter and his position has been solidified by delivering the votes to rid the country of abortion. In short he will not help McConnell to focus on Biden when he is the savior and he should be what it is all about - not Biden. 

 ABORTION RIGHTS AND THE MIDTERMS

The most recent poll on priorities of the electorate show the economy is number one on the list of half the participants. The poll was registered prior to the leak of the draft majority opinion on Roe. If abortion is to become an issue it will take some time to register. Meanwhile there have been daily increasing protests across the country. The movement for pro choice is colossal. One in four women in the USA have had an abortion by the age of forty - five. The fact that the legal argument is that the abortion is not enshrined in the constitution and the privacy implicit in the document has been rejected means that the draft opinion increases the support groups against the potential decision. The FBI have warned that right wing groups are organizing to attack the protestors and the Supreme Court has been surrounded with a protective fence. 

No Republican legislator wants to talk about the “victory” that they have ostensibly being fighting for. (The dog has caught up with the cart and doesn't know what to do). McConnell maintains it is not the contents of the leak that should be the subject of discourse but rather the disgraceful and unprecedented leak itself. The polling on this issue is disastrous for the Republicans. Close on seventy percent of the country want Roe to stand. That includes seventy percent of the Independents. Only eight percent of Texans, ground zero for “ProLife”, agree that abortion should not be banned for rape and incest. For the first time in an election early polling shows that abortion is a far more mobilizing issue for the Democrats than the Republicans. It also effects the key voting groups more profoundly - the youth, women in the suburbs and minorities - all of whom the Democrats fear wouldn’t pitch up to vote or in the case of suburban women would pull the lever for the Republicans. 

So bearing in mind this spontaneous upswell against the potential legislation Biden has joined in and is already making it a campaign issue, The Democrats are preparing to make the subject a centerpiece of their narrative. They are forcing a vote in both chambers to retain Roe. They know full well that they will never get sixty votes in the Senate but want all the legislators on record. It is Impossible to gauge the impact of the controversy  on the midterms at this early stage but one fact is for sure it has changed the narrative.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Sooner or later the power of the nine unelected Judges have on the laws of America have to be revisited. Nowhere in the Constitution, that the “Constitutionalists” on the Supreme Court refer to, is the Court given the right to become the final arbiter on anything and everything including matters of privacy and legislation that has been passed by Congress. Another fact that disturbs Jay H. Ell is that the Court is not satisfied in being the arbiter of public morality they make observations and law on their perceptions in specialized areas. For example in the draft the five Judges make definitive findings on when a fetus can feel pain. The scientist whose work is quoted claims that it is a total misrepresentation of his findings. Then they liberally quote a seventeenth century English legislator in support who also supported burning witches, marital rape and the death penalty of fourteen year old children. 

The leaking of the Court’s draft position on abortion rights has ensured that this issue is going to be front and central in the forthcoming midterm elections. This will further muddy the efforts of Mitch McConnell to focus only on Biden’s Presidency. As matters stand at the moment he already faced opposition from the Chairman of the Republican Senate Committee who insisted that the Republicans have a policy platform, the culture warriors and Donald Trump who is ensuring that it be about the fact that he won the 2020 Presidential election.

Nevertheless the Republicans are poised to take over the House and have a fifty fifty chance of regaining the Senate - “It is the economy stupid”. But there are still six months to go and the future aint what it used to be just one short week ago. 

The Democrats need to get their act together. They need to carefully craft a bill on choice and all privacy issues. They need to take State elections far more seriously. They need not be frightened by cultural issues. Biden won the Presidency when Trump had a strong economy by claiming, “That is not who we are”.

 

THE WORLD WAKES UP - ZELENSKY CAN WIN

 

With another week having passed Putin is nowhere nearer to having a trophy to display at his May 9 Victory Parade. In frustration his rhetoric has ratcheted up more than a couple of notches with repeated threats of nuclear escalation. Concomitantly NATO, the EU and the rest have increased their support for Ukraine to the extent that Zelensky has dropped, “It’s not enough” on every occasion that he has to thank a nation for their assistance.

 The major change in Biden’s approach is that he no longer cares whether he is crossing any red lines Putin may have. This new attitude, to the extent that not only is he not holding back every time Putin mumbles about nuclear options, he hits back by scolding him for “irresponsible”oratory. The Russian Foreign Ministry has attempted to put an end to this dangerous hyperbole by announcing that talk of nuclear war must be kept to a minimum. But it still persists. As heavy weapons are added to the supply of sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine, Russia struggles to replenish the microchips for its own modern arsenal. 

Well what has exactly occurred this week in support of Ukraine, at the battlefront, the diplomatic world and what has been the Russian response? The latter still hold one key card - the European dependence on their energy and the cash this brings in. They also had going into this invasion purportedly the second strongest army in the world.

THE BATTLE FRONT

Putin having given up on tacking on the whole of Ukraine to the motherland has concentrated a massive force in the South and the East where he already has two areas which are controlled by Russian separatists. For the moment these are disconnected from Crimea which he also seized in 2014. Ostensibly the East is where Putin really should have been greeted as a liberator as it is almost a hundred percent Russian speaking. According to UK intelligence his army, which is made up of conscripts, mercenaries as well as regular troops has made “slow but uneven progress”. They are being held back by fierce Ukrainian defense,There are of course sporadic missiles and bombings all over the Ukraine occasionally hitting a military target but mostly residential areas. The most infamous of these being nearby the meeting place of the Secretary General of UNO who was holding a meeting with the Ukrainians. A fact that Zelensky is repeatedly arguing is an insult to the world body.

A key city which could provide Russia with an albeit narrow link to Crimea is Mariupol. The importance of the latter cannot be overestimated and the fighting has been intense there for over two months. Putin has proclaimed victory but in the next sentence demands that the Ukrainians surrender. There are about a thousand troops and a similar number of citizens holed up in a massive steel foundry with underground tunnels which Stalin conveniently built decades ago. Putin has refused to allow the citizens and wounded soldiers safe passage and that savagery has become a metaphor for the unashamed brutality that the Russian soldiers have demonstrated. There has to be some hope that a corridor will be established for the wounded and the citizens. Putin has agreed, to the UNO Secretary, “in principle” to their evacuation. A few hundred have since left under the aegis of UNO but the process has been inexplicably halted. 

Demonstrative of the status of the Russian offensive is what is happening in Donesk which was annexed by Putin in 2014. Men up to the age of sixty five are hiding because they don’t want to be conscripted!. Kershon is the one city in the South East that the invaders have captured. There have been almost daily protests by the locals. When Putin announced a phony referendum for the inhabitants to decide whether they wanted to be a "separatist state" there was a mass exodus of men. The latter knew that the moment that the ’independence” was declared then they would be conscripted to the Russian army. Another flop has been the ineffective impact of the much vaunted Russian cybersecurity operation. In fact they have been on the receiving end of attacks as the world of hackers have in concert reportedly wreaked havoc in various areas of Russian infrastructure. 

As the war continues in the East the Russian losses are again proportionately far higher than the Ukrainians. According to UK intelligence the Ukrainians still control the sky. Zelensky claims to have deactivated a thousand Russian tanks. If that is correct that staggering number represents half the Russian inventory and the ground war hasn’t begun in earnest in the East.The Ukrainian cavalry in the form of heavy artillery is well on its way. Already a few of the Howitzers have written three more Russian military targets within the motherland. The Russians will have to outperform their previous efforts in the North to attain their objectives. 

DIPLOMATIC FRONT - A PARADIGM SHIFT  - UKRAINE CAN WIN

This is where the Russians have received their greatest setbacks. Besides the fact that the European Union have all but ensured Ukraine membership the nation has received humanitarian, logistic, security, financial and weapon support from scores of countries. Visits from the UNO Secretary General, neighboring Baltic countries, Boris Johnson of the UK and the Secretaries of Defense, (Austin) and State, (Blinken) of the United States have all turned out to be more than photo ops. Nancy Pelosi too paid a surprise visit reassuring that America will be there till the end. The most consequential encounter has to have been from the US Secretaries of Defense and State that was followed up by a meeting of forty nations on an American Airbase in Germany to coordinate the assistance to be provided to the beleaguered country. The group chaired by Secretary Austin was entitled the Ukraine Defense Consultative Group

Secretary Austin in his opening address maintained that, “We start from a position of moral clarity. Russia is waging a war of choice to indulge the ambitions of one man. Ukraine is fighting a war of necessity to defend its democracy, its sovereignty and its citizens, But the stakes stretch beyond Ukraine - and even beyond Europe….”. Secretaries Blinken and Austin had made the USA position clear in a press conference preceding the meeting that the US wanted to see Russia’s military capabilities weakened, At that meeting six billion dollars were pledged in support. 

The United Kingdom, who from the get - go have been providing offensive weaponry, through their Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has made clear provisions for a peace talk. She added that Ukraine must get back the 2014 regions that Russia seized and there needs to be reparations. Finally she declared that there had to be no doubt that Putin had lost and that his militarily had been weakened. 

Biden also has made it quite clear that the paradigm had shifted from not risking escalation, to Russia must be stopped - “Throughout our history, we’ve learned that when dictators do not pay for their aggression, they cause more chaos and engage in more aggression,… We can’t let this happen….”. Biden never one not to put his money where his mouth is pledged to ask Congress for another thirty three billion dollars of aid in addition to the sixteen billion already allocated. 

So the tanks and heavy armor are rolling in from all and sundry including Germany which had been ambivalent due its dependence on Russian energy, However many countries pledged to wean themselves from the addiction while Poland and Bulgaria there and then stopped purchases. To add insult to injury NATO  is set to add Finland and Sweden and the EU has invited Ukraine to join. The sanctions are biting to the extent that Russia’s foreign minister Lavrov have said they have to be removed in any peace deal. 

In spite of reality staring Putin in the face he carries on in his own world unable or unwilling to change his narrative.  

THE RUSSIAN RESPONSE - NARRATIVE IS UNCHANGED  AND THE ANTE IS UPPED

As recently as April 26, Putin implied that there could be a nuclear response to any country interfering in Ukraine “… they should know the response to those strikes would be lightning fast….We have all the tools for this - ones that no one can brag about and we won’t brag. We will use them if needed. And I want everyone to know this”. Minister Lavrov followed this threat by declaring that NATO  by delivering Western weaponry to Ukraine are “in essence engaged with war against Russia and Moscow regards these weapons as legitimate targets”.

 Lavrov warned that there remains a real danger of a third world war. (Biden is no longer the one terrified of such an outcome). Lavrov said peace talks with Ukraine will continue and sanctions have to be removed. He castigated Zelensky's approach accusing of him pretending to negotiate and labelling him a good actor. Zelensky incidentally has maintained that sanctions will not be part of his dealings with the Russians. Germany backed him up opining that they will remain in place till Russian troops have retreated from Ukraine.

Perhaps the most outrageous chutzpah of the Russian establishment this week came from Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova who claimed that that Russia would respond harshly to strikes on Russian territory. "Such criminal activity cannot go unanswered. I would hope Kyviv and Western capitals take seriously...that further provocation will necessarily lead to a harsh response from Russia. We do not recommend further testing our patience. Russia is determined to set goals of the special military operation". The United Kingdom has been specifically targeted for proportional retaliation.

WHAT NEXT?

Putin has to say something dramatic on May 9 at his Victory Parade in Moscow. He could argue that they have flattened Mariupol. He could announce the Russian Democratic Republic of Kershon. However if matters proceed as they have the situation can only get worse. The world is ready to take him on. The ;latest announcement from Putin's Foreign Ministry seems to rule out nuclear weaponry and chemical weapons will just increase the boohaai and pressure. The sanctions are increasing and Russia is on its way back to the dark ages. There is no foreign investment and with Putin around it is not going to happen, The Western companies are gone, most forever. The Russians can rely on energy for only so long....

 

Putin;s big problem is body bags. Estimates of Russians dead are up to forty thousand, They can keep the numbers under wraps for so long and no longer. There is already in the Russian social media hell letting loose about what happened to the crew of the battleship Moskva. Apparently the Ministry of Defense claimed one dead Marien and twenty seven missing. The father of the deceased went ballistic and said he had been given the run around by the authorities and questioned their transparency. The ship had four hundred sailors and a photo of the survivors only showed a hundred. 

Incidentally the Ukrainians claimed (May 2) that another  two Russian warships had been downed by drones. 

Currently the atrocities are being documented. This stain can only be removed by regime change and reparations. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY 

But at the end of the day Putin is not going to give in easily and the prognostications are that this will last for months. There is still going to be rubble, needless deaths, sickening brutality and atrocities before this is over. However world involvement means that there is not going to be a stalemate. One or other side has to win. Putin has pushed his psychopathic behavior once too often and the stars are aligned against him. He has Biden instead of Trump and Zelensky instead of Yanukovych. The most humongous irony is that in the fight agains the "Neo Nazis a number of holocaust survivors have been killed, eighty have been evacuated and the holocaust memorial bombed. And Lavrov's revisionist genetics haven't helped either. 

Someone should let the GOP legislators know that the democracy that they support in Ukraine is philosophically the same as the one they are systematically obliterating for power.

 It is not surprising in this partisan milieu that all Russians dead or alive are being blamed for this atrocity. From Medvedev to Tchaikovsky from the activists to the everyday citizen they are being lumped together with the thugs. This approach is hardly helpful and is insulting particularly to those who have sacrificed so much to oppose the Stalin of the current era,