The younger base is energized!

I blogged just ELEVEN DAYS AGO that, “Gen Z and younger millennials are going to become the main voting block in this country.” And we are seeing it happen already. In the week since KAMALA HARRIS became the Democrat’s presumptive nominee for U.S. President, voter registrations by this group have gone through the roof in states like New York and Michigan. Regisrations surged by 38,500 in just 48 hours according to Vote.org, and USA Today reported Friday that number had surpassed 100k.

Don’t believe me? I watch a lot of progressive political YouTubers like The Rational National, David Pakman, Adam Mockler and Luke Beasley and their audiences are energized, just watch this clip from Beasley’s channel.

 

The USA Today article says, “A number [of younger voters] described  themselves as ‘double-haters,’ or said they planned to turn to independent candidates if they'd bother to get off the couch at all.” They are tired of establishment Democrats, mainly old, white men, running the party and our nation’s politics. Harris, a middle aged, woman of color, has been a breath of fresh air to them and her team’s excellent use of social media, namely TikTok, has touched a nerve. On Saturday, The Guardian called it a “gen Z-powered wave of online ‘Kamalalove.'"

This surge in popularity is reflected in the polls. The same article states that Harris is up 18-20 points over DJT among voters under 30, depending on which poll you look at, NYT or Axios. It’s reflected in the energy you feel surrounding this fledgling campaign. With every TikTok that goes viral or the daily releases her campaign posts, you see these young progressives on YouTube get more on-board the “We Will Win” train.

And while this post might feel like an “I told you so,” IT IS! I’ve been saying this! I raised a 20 and 23-year-old daughter in this millennium. I’ve listened to their views on the world as well as their friends, several who are openly gay or live somewhere in the rainbow.🌈 They hate the patriarchy and were just waiting for someone like Harris to emerge to the forefront of American politics. As the USA Today article headline asserts, this presidential race just got a lot more interesting. Stay tuned.

White America, Simma Down!

In my March 2016 post about white angst, I wrote, "But the Trump phenomenon is beyond weird. He played upon the growing angst of white, conservative America. He served up, in true reality TV fashion, all the most inflammatory rhetoric he could muster, like a grand dragon at a KKK rally in the deep woods of Mississippi. He's yet to distance himself from that domestic terrorist organization, by the way." And I wrote this a full year and a half BEFORE the Charlottesville incident!

White angst is rooted in the real population data which shows a declining percentage of white Americans, down more than FIVE MILLION in the second decade of the 2000's. Pew Research Center found in 2021 that only FIVE PERCENT of Republicans think the dwindling of white Americans is "a good thing." And because the whites now feel marginalized--Native, Black and Brown Americans are saying "WELCOME TO THE CLUB!"--and their way of life under attack, they have lashed back. "This is why they cling to their 'traditional' and 'family' values. They want to believe that life was actually once like 'Leave It To Beaver' and their favorite black-and-white television shows of the 1950's. They'd like nothing more than to turn back the clock and relive those heydays of segregated bliss. They want prayer back in school, abortion abolished and white privilege to once again reign supreme," as I wrote way back when. That last line could be the promotional ad for Project 2025, Trump's current platform of Christian extremism. But I highlighted the segregation part of my quote because that gets to the root cause of white angst, a topic I've taken on several times on this blog page.

No longer in the majority, many whites feel like they're world is crumbling, like the people of color are taking over and their rights will be stripped away. To heighten those fears, the traditional, family and "Christian" values they've held since the 50's (when a lot of GOPer's were born) are no longer in the mainstream, widely accepted, adhered to or en vogue. In the 2020's we've seen church attendance dip below 50% for the FIRST TIME EVER in this country. More and more Americans are non-religious; and those who once were are no longer attending church nor are they requiring their children to attend Sunday school, VBS or youth services. Those were all things I was required or encouraged to do, growing up in a middle class, Christian American home.

But this country, sorry to tell you Heritage Foundation, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, WAS NOT FOUNDED on the Bible or Christianity. Morality DOES NOT depend on your scriptures or sacred texts. There were codes of morality in the Mesopotamian region LONG BEFORE your religion or the texts even existed. Morality is determined by humans who make the laws governing society--humans who are both influenced by religion, but also by humanism, atheism and lots of other ISMS! Quit ringing your hands that Jesus was taken out of government and the classroom. HE NEVER BELONGED THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE! Even HE washed his hands of government and politics. "Then he said to them, 'So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.'" Luke 20:25, Mark 12:17 and Matthew 20:21. So for those keeping count, that's ALL THREE Synoptic Gospels quoting Jesus on his views about taxation and government. He wasn't too concerned with it. His concern was "his father's heavenly kingdom," which he makes quite clear throughout the gospels (and might I insert here, he never once mentions homosexuality anywhere in the gospels).

So now that we've made clear that Jesus agreed with our Founding Fathers on one issue--that is separation of church and state--let's get back to our main point. White Christians, in particular, feel that they are under attack. Because they no longer control the narrative or censor Hollywood or the media or control the halls of justice, they feel marginalized and bullied. Guess what, TOUGH SHIT! You controlled the narrative for long enough! Ever since the Roman Empire co-opted Christianity, white Europeans have controlled the narrative, written and told the story still printed in our history textbooks today. Talk about INDOCTRINATION!?!?! When was the minority view ever considered? When were they're stories ever told?

Only since the civil rights movement of the 1960's have we even BEGUN to learn about black and brown contributions to our great country. Only in recent decades have the voices of Native Americans been heard. ALL OF THOSE MARGINALIZED PEOPLES since the beginning of Western Civilization contributed greatly to our history! Think of the Native American code breakers who assisted our war effort, the black Union soldiers (and black veterans in every war since) who left their blood on battlefields around the South and the World, the migrant workers who put half of the produce in your local Walmart, etc...they have helped to shape America into the inclusive, representative republic that it was supposed to be. Their stories are finally getting added to the history books, but not without white backlash. Take for example, Critical Race Theory and how angry that made white Christians and other conservatives. HOW DARE THEY HAVE A VOICE! DON'T 'THOSE PEOPLE' KNOW THEIR PLACE???!

Which brings us back to whites becoming the minority. When you are the minority, your stories don't get to dominate the history books, the media, the collective narrative anymore. Again, WELCOME TO THE CLUB! How does it feel to get a taste of your own medicine???

Like I wrote in March 2016, "white privilege breeds fear and it has ever since the end of slavery." Conservatives who want to roll back time and "Make America Great Again," are just perpetuating age-old stereotypes, now including brown immigrants, and preying on white people's fear, their angst. Back in the 1870's, they didn't know what to do with newly freed slaves roaming the countryside, looking for work, housing, equal rights to free white citizens, so there was a huge backlash. Enter the Jim Crow era for the next 100 years!! And now, since civil rights assured them their equality, we are seeing the same Jim Crow-like backlash. It's called Project 2025 and the new, more aggressive, more fascist Trump regime. He's preying on that white angst like a mother####er!

Those "Christian values" they hold so dear are the same ones that "put Africans in shackles, Native Americans on reservations, turned a blind eye to the mostly Jewish Holocaust, interred Japanese-Americans and now wants to deport every 'illegal' back to their homeland," I wrote in 2016. Are the whites now afraid of a new black and brown backlash? That the same oppression they perpetuated for millenia will be brought back to bear on them??? Is that their fear? "Did the African-American President ever open those FEMA camps to inter white folks? Has any minority--Latino or otherwise--ever considered putting privileged white folks in shackles and selling them into slavery? So what are they so scared of?"

We've seen how the Establishment of old, rich white dudes react every time black or brown people seek to be heard, whether it's kneeling through an anthem or marching to protest George Floyd's death. I wrote in October 2017, "It's like a sudden eruption of white-hot angst from just below the surface that bubbles over in the form of hate, outrage and bigotry." And now that a WOMAN OF COLOR will probably be the next Democratic candidate for President, watch how the right responds. We already know how the white Christian right feels, it's in their manifesto (Project '25).

Their fear is that eons of "white privilege" is slowly being eroded away due to the fact that they will SOON no longer be in the majority. The socialist redistribution of wealth is a threat to the stranglehold they've had on this country since it's foundation. This is at the heart of their angst. This is why conservatives have aligned themselves with hate groups (like in Charlottesville, 2017) who shout, "WHITE POWER!" They are not ready to give over their privilege or their power. It causes them to lash out in anger and support a neo-Fascist (but only on Day One, right?) who whips them into a frenzy, even leading them to attack our government (like on Jan 6, 2021), to deny election results and to hate their black and brown neighbors--both legal and illegal. See my post from May 2019, "White Privilege Breeds White Nationalism."

It's about to all play out again this November and probably in January, when the election results are contested by the Orange Cult Leader and his minions.

I'm just going to need the white Christian nationalists and those worried about their white privilege, to sit down and simmer down! We've heard ENOUGH out of you. Let the black and brown people speak. It's their turn now.

Millennials and the Fate of America

In this chart from TLDR, a British news YouTube channel, we see how much more liberal leaning the current generation, that is 26-41 year olds, is than the ones before it. And they aren't trending upward with age, either. Experts blame many factors. The TLDR report cites things like the Great Recession of 2008, where millennials watched wealth get stolen from their parents' and grandparents' pensions and 401(k)s at an alarming rate while the rich Wall Street Bankers got away with it scot-free. The report also cites their disenfranchisement due to financial stress, deepening political divides and unrest around the world, concluding, "This generation has grown into political maturity through a very different and difficult time."

It calls what they are experiencing collectively as the "cohort effect." Science Direct explains that "Cohort effects are variations over time, in one or more characteristics, among groups of individuals defined by some shared experience," especially among those of certain age groups. TLDR News says, "The specific situations and experiences a generation lives through are so fundamentally different than the generations that came before them." What are some of those cohort effects?

THE WEALTH GAP (POWER)

SOURCE: https://www.chartr.co/stories/2021-04-30-2-the-generation-wealth-gap

Traditionally, the expectation has been that each generation gets progressively better, as in more financially sound and economically secure. But as the June 2022 Economics Explained video, "Young Generations Are Now Poorer Than Their Parents and It's Changing Our Economics," points out, this is no longer the case. It asserts that even though the world has grown richer than it was in the previous millennia, millennials are holding less of that wealth, while their grandparents are hoarding more of it. They pose the question, "How is it that a world that is richer overall is producing generations that are poorer than the ones that preceded them?" It largely blames home ownership and what it calls "the housing divide." It's certainly a factor effecting wealth potential. It cites a 2020 Pew Research Center study that says 52% of young adults, ages 18-28, still live at home with their parents, causing them to be less socially and geographically mobile.

Scott Galloway, an NYU Professor, has become a leading proponent of changing this generational wealth gap. His TED Talk went viral two months ago on YouTube, inspiring more than 22k comments. Galloway framed his talk in this way, "America's War on the Young." He claims we're "taking away opportunity and prosperity from our youngest" generation. Further, a 30-year old today is not doing as well as his/her parent's at that age, for the first time in our history, he asserts. This causes young people to be less patriotic and he showed a 2023 graph comparing those 55+ to those 18-34, and only 18% of the latter were "extremely proud" to be American while 50% of the former were. He says this leads to anger and unrest and gave rise to movements like #MeToo and #BLM among the younger citizens of this country. I touch on this in the section, Gun Violence, below.

Galloway blames the generational wealth gap on the stagnant, federal minimum wage which sits at $9.50 when it should be about $22 if it had kept pace with productivity and inflation since the 1950's (it hasn't even doubled in those 70 years, that's nearly two generations). Meanwhile, median home prices have skyrocketed for the last two generations of Americans, resulting in an average monthly mortgage payment of $2,310 (as of Feb 2024). It's led him to ask, "Do we even love our children?"

He says, "This has resulted in an enormous transfer of wealth." A graph showing that between 1989 and 2023, the share of household wealth of those under 40 has been cut nearly in half, from 12% to 7%. Galloway also blames wages v. wealth. Like in his statistic on the minimum wage, above, he says that corporate wealth has so far outpaced income that the median income line on his graph looks flatlined, while the S&P 500's numbers are nearly off the chart (numbers from 1974-2021). This is why millennials can't get ahead. Poverty among the younger generation is way up while senior poverty is way down, which he claims has been purposeful.

The cohort known as the Silent Generation sits at the top and holds all the power--politically, socially and economically. Think about it. Rich, old white dudes have always run this country. The color of justice is green, just ask the disproportionate number of poor, black males in lockdown. How many young people are represented in town hall, the statehouse or the Capitol? This wealth gap equals a gap in power. This leads millennials to be further disenfranchised.

GUN VIOLENCE

The Washington Post reports there have been 413 school shootings since Columbine in 1999. It got even worse in the last half of the 2010's, as Security.org reports. "Since 2015, school shooting incidents in the U.S. have skyrocketed compared to previous decades." That same report says that cries of "never again" rang out in the wake of the Sandy Hook (2012) and Parkland (2018) shootings. "And yet, since the Parkland shooting in 2018 — a period of just six years — more than 200 people have died and over 550 have been injured in shootings at K-12 schools." And still, nothing was done to curb the tide of gun violence on our nation's campuses.

SOURCE: Security.org

My girls and I marched in a demonstration against gun violence in the immediate wake of the Parkland shooting. They were in high school in Tallahassee then and Parkland is just a six-hour drive down the Florida Turnpike. They became political activists that day at the state capital, but they'd always held strong opinions.

As I reported in my assassination-related blog, millennials by-and-large are sick of the status quo, namely the patriarchy. My daughters, both staunch feminists and on the LGBTQ spectrum, are vehemently against the patriarchy and the Establishment.

OUR POLITICAL FUTURE

Red states are economically struggling (legalize weed), they’re bottom in education (quit pushing Jesus and indoctrinating children), high in crime (quit marginalizing people), etc. It’s no wonder the parties have dumbed down their message to lowest common denominator, especially the GOP. A change is coming.

As the graph at the top of this post points out, millennials are by-and-large more left leaning than the generations before them. They are very socially liberal in that they support the causes mentioned above, also gender equality, transgender rights, reproductive rights and slowing climate change. Financially, they are tired of the generational wealth gap holding them down. They support socialist policies like higher taxes on the wealthy, more government spending on individuals and less on corporations. They feel slighted when banks and Wall Street CEOs get bailed out, a form of "corporate socialism," but they can't get free health care or college tuition because politicians tell them socialism is a 'failed experiment,' minus a small handful of progressives in office, like Bernie Sanders and AOC. They see the overspending on the military industrial complex and the fight to save Social Security (for the Silent Generation, who already hold most of the country's wealth). As mentioned above, they are not represented in the government, so they feel they don't matter. 

The silver lining is that those in power are elderly. Baby Boomers and their parents are dying off in great numbers, comparatively, which is going to shift both the wealth and the power in this country. Gen Z and younger millennials are going to become the main voting block in this country. And the backlash against the Establishment, the patriarchy, the ultra-conservative Supreme Court and the repeal of basic human rights is going to be swift and aggressive. Wait and see.

In many ways, America is already leaning more to the left, when it comes to women's rights, reproductive rights, cannabis use, etc. In many polls, these important issues tend to have 60% and higher approval by a more liberal America. Kids that can move out of rural areas and red states are doing so. They aren't big fans of corporate greed, raping our planet/killing our very habitat or of the Electoral College. As they become the power brokers and policy makers, we are going to see a vastly different American government in the coming years. The "land of the free" will once again start to feel that way, with the restoration of liberties to all citizens, the welcoming of foreigners and immigrants and a shift in our representative republic away from wealthy lobbyists (like the gun lobby) and the corporations who pay them. Hopefully, we'll see it return to what the framers of the Constitution intended--by the people and for the people (not special interests or Wall Street).

My daughters have been groomed to make it so. Hopefully, their contemporaries will wake up and realize that they hold the keys to our future.

The Pinnacle of American Socialism Under Four-term President FDR

Politico Magazine calls FDR's nomination for a second term in June 1936, "the pinnacle of American socialism," which I chose for the title of this post. I found their 2019 article, "What FDR Understood About Socialism That Today's Democrats Don't" after a discussion with my girlfriend about communism, socialism and democracy during the Cold War. We don't often discuss politics, but with the attempt on the 45th president's life, we were waxing more that way than usual this week.

I like what David Brooks, a New York Times Opinion Columnist, said in Dec 2019, "The best version of socialism is defined by Michael Walzer’s phrase, 'what touches all should be decided by all.' The great economic enterprises should be owned by all of us in common. Decisions should be based on what benefits all, not the maximization of profit." Full disclosure, his opinion piece was promoting capitalism, as he had become one after years of promoting socialism. Still, his former ideals are on full display in this quote, above.

If you read Brooks' piece or simply Google, "Why is Socialism Bad," as I did, you'll get a litany of conservative groups, media organizations and political think tanks that talk about the failures of socialism, like in countries that have tried it. But Canada, our neighbor to the north, is a democratic socialist country and they haven't failed. Their citizens aren't flocking to their southern border to try and escape the horrors of socialism by seeking refuge in capitalist-crazed America. No, quite the contrary, they mock us for our backwards, non-progressive politics.

Other hits will talk about how the ideals never live up to the reality and, in fact, undermine individual's motivation to learn and work hard. And yet, we can clearly see how people were VERY motivated and actually put back to work by FDR's post-Depression policies during the "pinnacle." The very short-sighted articles you'll see in the Google search don't even explore FDR and Socialist America. They only want to look at contemporary folks, who they call neosocialists, like Bernie Sanders and the "redistribution of wealth."

Well, let's think on that a minute, the actual distribution. The top one-percent gets to keep most of it, while dividing the rest of us with capitalistic rhetoric, all while their oversized Florsheims are firmly on our necks. Those "one percenters" aren't going to have to work themselves to death at age 75 or 80, nor are their children or grandchildren. We just have to keep working to support them. The way capitalism has rigged the system in this country is that the rich just keep getting richer, pass down their wealth (avoiding the high cost of estate taxes through loopholes) to their successors, who also never have to work, etc., etc., etc. That's the "American way," the status quo as it's been in this country for decades, at least since Reagan took office. Where is the "trickle down" effect, Ronnie? As Reich, who I mention below, put it succinctly, "In the mid-1980's, the bottom 90 percent of Americans together held 36 percent of the nation’s wealth. Now, they hold less than 23 percent." (Source: RobertReich.org)

Robert Reich, an American economist, wrote in 2014, "The richest Americans hold more of the nation’s wealth than they have in almost a century...the richest one-hundredth of one percent of Americans now hold over 11 percent of the nation’s total wealth. That’s a higher share than the top .01 percent held in 1929, before the Great Crash. We’re talking about 16,000 people, each worth at least $110 million." He's comparing today's uber-rich to those in FDR's time, during the "Great Crash" of 1929, aka The Great Depression.

In FDR's America, the Politico article says, "The rich were subsidizing the poor," at a tax rate of 75 percent. And by and large, people were okay with this type of socialist redistribution of wealth because the working class were starving in our streets. Those of the upper class who criticized the president, it says, "cloaked their greed in an affinity for capitalism." The same can be said today. Socialism, they claim, is a dirty word because it is anti-capitalist, meaning bad for their bottom line.

Roosevelt said back then in his famous "Rendezvous With Destiny" speech, "In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and Constitution stand for," while he stood "against dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.” The very same could be said for the flag-draped, neoconservatives today whose real allegiance is to The Almighty Dollar, and not to God, country or Constitution.

FDR's "New Deal for America" Socialism was, in fact, so popular it won him four terms as president and became the basis for today's term limits. He served from 1933 until his death in 1945. His socialist programs that encouraged unions and established Social Security and the Works Progress Administration were wildly popular. In fact, socialism got us out of the Great Depression. To argue otherwise is foolhardy and blind. Yet, still today, socialism is treated like a dirty word, and it's proponents, like Sanders and AOC, mocked. How quickly we forget. Our grandparents' generation never forgot. Many of them grew up in Depression-era America. It drove them to become what some call "America's Greatest Generation," but don't let the neoconservative rewriters of history tell you it was something else. It was FDR's socialist policies that created that generation. You can argue this all you want, but the fact remains, he was the longest serving president in our history. His brand of socialism was popular in this country. And now it's a dirty word. That's counter-intuitive and sad.

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON 45

You know I’d have something to say…

LET ME PREFACE…You knew violence was coming. You’ve been fanning the flames since BEFORE Jan 6…and when that didn’t ignite the next Civil War, as you were hoping, you just ramped up the rhetoric and turned your platform over to Christian Nationalists because you thought they’d secure enough votes from Middle America.

Oh, you thought I was gonna denounce violence???

Violence is what got us here 248 years ago! We just celebrated that bloody revolution on July 4th.

Violence eventually ended the slave trade.

Every country who experienced a change to democracy had to do so through violent takeover of the status quo—France, for example. We are headed down the same, exact road in 2024 thanks to the current oligarchy and patriarchy. Look at our choices this November—two aging, privileged white men.

NOW we arrive to the point of this post. You think you are disgruntled and disenfranchised with our government and the status quo. Let me tell you how my daughters and most of their generation feel. They have HAD ENOUGH WITH THE PATRIARCHY and wrinkly, curmudgeony OLD MEN looking at them, judging them and stripping away their rights. They have ZERO empathy with the status quo as it predates them (and us) by EONS. The establishment, with its systemic racism and sexism, has been in power FOREVER and they ain’t having it. My daughters blame me and the generations of men before me. I can’t say that I blame them.

Where is the representative government they were taught in civics class? Where are the young women—black, white, brown, ANY COLOR—in Congress, the statehouse, town hall??? In more than 100 years of suffrage, we still don’t have an Equal Rights Amendment OR any semblance of equality!

It’s not a lot better for young men. We’ve pampered and sheltered boys who don’t want to ween from the teet nor the game controller. We’ve raised a generation of unsocialized savages who take out their angst on virtual enemies and have no real grasp on reality.

WATCH and see what comes out about the young gunman who shot at DJT. I’d stake my life on the fact he fits the stereotypical profile of the bullied, anxious boy-man who shoots up schools.

AND HE’S AN ALT-RIGHT, GUN-TOTING REPUBLICAN!!!

Even those kids are so disgruntled and disenfranchised that they’d take violence to their own candidate and try to take them out. ARE YOU LISTENING RNC & DNC? As you head to meaningless conventions that only matter on Wall Street and not Main Street?

NO ONE WANTS MORE OLD, WHITE, OUT-OF-TOUCH MALE CANDIDATES! PERIOD.

As I wrote earlier this month, not even the GOP is united behind their cult leader, I mean, candidate. And all we’ve heard for DAYS from the left is that Biden needs to step aside.

The country wants change. It probably won’t happen in the most civil of ways. Yesterday was a warning shot from a disgruntled and disenfranchised young man. He’s not alone…on either side of the aisle…or gender spectrum.

PATRIARCHY, are you listening???

SYSTEMIC, STRUCTURAL SEXISM (In America)

It's funny that the European countries we were beholden to and where most of us immigrated from are so much further advanced than we are when it comes to equality and social policies. Even Mexico, to our South, and Spanish-controlled Florida in the 1800's had abolished slavery when the trade was at it's peak in our country. And ever since racial equality has been a thing and gender equality (and insert social justice or policy issue here), the Europeans, namely British and French have been way ahead of us, Great Britain's Slavery Abolition Act of 1834 following France by some 40 years. Spain, who brought slavery to this continent, signed a pact with the U.K. in 1817 to abolish the slave trade. And even though we got on board in 1865 after the Civil War tore this country apart, slaves still weren't free. After a short period of "reconstruction," the South still persisted with the "new slavery," sharecropping, and Jim Crow Laws. It took the civil unrest of the 1960's to finally end the systemic racism and oppression of African Americans, a cancer that hasn't been totally eradicated from our culture.

Women's suffrage was a popular civil rights movement some four decades earlier. Still, women don't enjoy the same freedoms, bodily autonomy or adequate compensation for similar work as men.

This is one reason we need more female representation in the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches of U.S. Government. How can we call this a "representative democracy," a republic, when our Legislative branch is dominated and controlled by old, white men? The disparity was called out in an April committee meeting on Capitol Hill by Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA).

Pool/Getty Images (Google)

In a Young Turks video from April that garnered 2.4 million views, Rep. Porter goes head-to-head with a Heritage Foundation official, Dr. Burke, at this hearing. "Only about 28% of members of Congress are women. The median age of the Senate is 65 and the median age in the House is 58...so, on average, lots of older people, lots of older men," as she points out that policies protecting women's rights, especially single mothers, are never prioritized. These policies, specifically early childhood education, "won't benefit many members, most, the average member of Congress...even when their kids were young, most members leaned most heavily on their wives, and I say wives because most members are men...Too many in Congress don't get it because they didn't have to live it," Rep. Porter said.

She calls out "the familiar policy pattern" in Congress to invest in things they understand. "The collective body of older, richer men in Congress OVER-invest in things they understand (emphasis hers)." She claims policies to benefit single mothers don't personally benefit the average member of Congress and so they don't try to understand the problem as it never affected them personally, so they don't invest public dollars to support things like early childhood education.

STRUCTURAL SEXISM
Rep. Porter continued to call out her male colleagues for ignoring the plight of women, in general, and single mothers, in particular. She identified the ongoing inequality in public policy a result of "structural sexism."

"When we say that structural sexism continues to permeate this body...and our policies, that's what we're talking about. We're not imagining it." She claims that policies to benefit women are what "always ends up on the cutting room floor in legislation." She intends to make structural sexism go away with more progressive policies. "Women can and must contribute to our economy if we're going to have a globally competitive economy." Rep. Porter hopes that her colleagues will be moved to take action by "this single mom asking them to care, on behalf of all the other parents of young children who are struggling in this country." She claims to be the only single mother in Congress. She asked the committee, "What about the 10 million single moms? Where do they fit?"

She concluded by saying, "I'm sharing my story because my story doesn't get heard in Congress...Our whole perspective here is warped by the fact that this body is so disproportionately UN-representative of the American people's experience."

Springer Link says, "Structural sexism refers to discriminatory beliefs or practices on the basis of sex and gender that are entrenched in societal frameworks and which result in fairly predictable disparities in social outcomes related to power, resources, and opportunities. [It] also functions to normalize and legitimate such beliefs, practices, and inequalities of conditions and outcomes."

An October 2022 study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports, "Structural sexism manifests via norms that constrict women’s social participation, including at work." Furthermore, "Intimate partner violence (IPV) is underpinned by structural sexism, patriarchal norms, and unequal gender power dynamics."

FSU Assistant Professor Patricia Homan developed a new structural sexism approach to the study of gender inequality and health.  Her approach, published 2019 in the American Sociological Review, goes beyond sexist mistreatment by individuals to examine how the degree of systematic gender inequality in power and resources — i.e. structural sexism — in a society can impact people’s health. This was the same focus as the above-referenced NIH study. Both point to the effects on children and society, not just women. "Structural sexism can be evident in major social institutions, such as the government and the economy, in interpersonal interactions and relationships, such as marriages and in individuals’ beliefs and identities." The effects in government were pointed out quite well by Rep. Porter. Professor Homan came to the same conclusion about more progressive policies to reduce it's impact. “The first thing we need to realize is that gender inequality in the United States is not only a human rights issue, but also a public health problem,” she said. “Therefore, gender equity policy is health policy.”

WHY DO I CARE?
You might wonder why I began with the issue of slavery and racism. Well, because one led to the other as a systemic societal issue, one that persists today. We will never eradicate racism, but we can educate. The same applies to any social issue, including gender inequality.

I have raised two daughters, one who just celebrated her 20th birthday, the other turns 23 in a few days. Both of them were adopted, my youngest daughter is African-American. That is why I liken the race and gender inequality issues. She faces them both and suffers micro-aggressions on the daily, even in progressive parts of Colorado. That's why I care deeply about these issues, but specifically the sexism that is so deeply entrenched into the fabric of our culture.

My daughters both have a problem with this patriarchal society, as do I. We finally have a woman of color in the White House, but it'll still be many, many years before one is elected to the highest office. As Rep. Porter points out, my daughters, especially my youngest, are so under-represented in Congress and at all levels of government, that it's no wonder.

Screen captured image from a YouTube video posted by Graduate School of Social Work - DU, titled "Power Privilege and Oppression," uploaded six years ago

The history of humankind, as we've been taught for eons, was pushed and pedaled by the patriarchy. They have controlled the narrative, from the time of the ancient sages until the present. We've been force fed a whitewashed, male-dominated version of human history. Why did it take until 2016's "Hidden Figures" film with Tom Hanks for most of us to learn that black women were behind our successful lunar missions at NASA??? Their stories, by and large, are untold in the history books. Harriet Tubman was one of the exceptions in history class, and not the rule. How many female heroins does the Bible exalt? Exactly, very few. The Judeo-Christian worldview for all of time has been one of patriarchy. God, the giver of life, has always been portrayed as an old, white man. Why does God possess a gender? And why would we assume his race? Jesus was born of a Virgin Middle Eastern woman OF COLOR! He was a man of color. Seems kind of silly that we've been pedaled a patriarchal view even in Sunday School.

I've fought hard against these stereotypes and have encouraged my girls, likewise. They grew up to be feminists just by their observations of the world. I merely joined them when they were old enough to make these judgments about society for themselves. And because I don't want them to suffer the inequality of old, nor for their potential daughters to grow up in a patriarchal society, I've pushed for more gender equality and been an outspoken advocate of same...for my daughters and granddaughters benefit. Men have ruled the narrative--the church, government and history--for quite long enough.

"White people are scared to death right now, particularly white males. They are scared to death they are going to lose their power in the future, and they are," says renowned race relations teacher Jane Elliott. "If you want to be treated well in the future, treat people well in the present."

NEVER EVER TRUMP!

I grew up in the Heartland of America, in a Reagan Republican household, believing unions are bad for business, Democrats are bad for the economy and that "the Commies" were our number one enemy.

Fast forward forty years and I'm looking at those ideologies a whole new way. I no longer believe any of those tenets of Republicanism. I don't think Reagan did anything good for this country. His "trickle down" economics policy is a big fat bust that I now call "trickled on," since most of us in the middle classes--upper, middle and lower middle class--got pissed on and pissed off. He was just another flip-flopper (big time Democrat and union leader in Hollywood turned rich, white Republican and union buster), who pandered to Middle America and their blue collar work ethic and Protestant virtues. He gave rise to the whole Moral Majority and politicization of the American pulpit for which we can now thank him because we have a militant alt-right movement where Neo-Nazis have found a home in the Christian Nationalist extreme neo-conservative right. It's disgusting.

Oh and enemy number one is no longer Russia. On that point, I'll bet Reagan, and all those who supported him, like my parents, are rolling over in their graves. What was the point of the Cold War and all those drills spent hiding under classroom desks??

The thing is, the Grand Ol' Party can no longer claim moral superiority when the candidate they clamor behind is a known rapist, misogynist, homophobe and xenophobe who now has 34 felony convictions to his name. His immoral behavior has racked up more criminal charges than a mob crime family. The Trump Crime Syndicate has sent countless among it's ranks to prison, most recently, their Minister of Propaganda, Steve Bannon. But the "moral majority," Christian Nationalists on the extreme right could GIVE TWO SHITS!!! They just want to see Hillary Clinton and the Bidens locked up for imagined crimes for which they have ZERO evidence.

President Joe Biden, on the other hand, quietly observes his faith and attends church every Sunday with his wife, whom he didn't cheat on. His Christian virtue and morals are on display daily--in his actions, his social media posts, his White House demeanor. You won't find ketchup stains on the wall of his White House. You won't see him throwing virtual temper tantrums on a money-losing social media platform he had to set up after getting banned from all others. You also won't see him mocking our veterans, POWs, the disabled, his political opponents (or threatening them, for that matter). Yet the "moral majority" right want to sling all the mud they can at the ACTUAL Christian, not the Bible-hawking pretend one. They'd rather prop up the immoral, orange buffoon, as their beloved cult leader.

But that's just what the alt-right has become, a cult. They DO NOT SPEAK for the entirety of the Republican party! That's where they are about to get blindsided in 2024.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post.

If I were to switch my allegiance back to the conservative right and the GOP, it would be to one of these "Never Trump" sects of the fractured (beyond repair?) Republican party.

THE LINCOLN PROJECT

Founded by "former Republican strategists, The Lincoln Project is dedicated to the preservation, protection, and defense of democracy. Since our launch in December 2019, The Lincoln Project has played a unique role in American politics. We entered the political arena with two stated objectives: first, to defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box in 2020. (Done.) The second was to ensure Trumpism failed alongside him. We understand that the real fight against Trumpism is just beginning and we’re committed to seeing it through. Our democracy depends on it." (from their website).

REPUBLICANS FOR THE RULE OF LAW

"The American experiment in self-government can only survive if we all agree to abide by the laws and rules we make together. That means everything from election outcomes to jury verdicts to court decisions. Republicans for the Rule of Law hold fast to the principle that no one is above the law, from the average citizen to the president of the United States." This is what their website says on it's homepage below a quote from John Adams, a Deist NOT a Christian, per se, though the Library of Congress website says his faith remained a mystery to most. "Republicans for the Rule of Law is a group of life-long Republicans dedicated to defending the institutions of our republic and upholding the rule of law."

REPUBLICAN ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

Their About Us page says, "On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol was attacked by radical Trump supporters who were attempting to overturn a  fair election. The attackers were directly incited by Trump and the overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress who had been falsely claiming, for months—and in the immediate moments before the attack—that the election had been stolen from Trump." They formed in May 2020 to produce a $10 million advertising campaign to ensure that Trump is not elected ever again. They vowed more recently to hold Republicans accountable for the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol.

NEVER TRUMP

The New York Times reported, "In March 2021, one survey indicated that five factions of Republican voters had emerged following Trump's presidency..." and the first listed was the Never Trump Movement, made up of moderate conservatives who do not support the previous president. And even before his bid in 2016, there had been a growing divide in the GOP between establishment old-timers and small-government Tea Party new comers. It was that growing faction of anti-establishment, conspiracy theorists with a huge distrust of government that launched sites like Q'Anon and became the base of the Trumpist or MAGA Republicans. The factions became even greater after the January 6th insurrection, a debacle of epic proportions that could have led to our second civil war.

Wikipedia has a vast list of former Trump administration officials who endorsed President Joe Biden because they, too, are now Never Trump supporters.

Newsweek reported in late March of this year, "PAC Republican Voters Against Trump spent $50 million on 100 videos recorded by anti-Trump Republicans explaining why they no longer support him." That article also reported that in the previous month, "Trump's ex-chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, published an opinion piece for The Hill pleading for a 'viable' third-party candidate in the 2024 presidential election." That's how fractured they have become. Some members of Congress have vacated seats over their disgust with their own party, like Colorado GOPer Ken Buck. He claims others will follow suit, giving their party less of a majority in the House. The Newsweek article still doesn't believe in the viability of a third party in this country, nor do I.

Groups like those listed above, who are more level-headed, non-conspiracy-supporting conservatives, grew like wildfire in the wake of what they saw as an attack on our Republic. They have actively campaigned AGAINST THEIR OWN PARTY LEADERS to ensure that Trump never gets re-elected. So yes, I would align myself with the Never Trump factions if I were ever to register again as a Republican (extremely unlikely).

My point in all this IS... that MAGA GOPer's are so drunk on the koolaid, so blind with tunnel vision and brainwashed by Fox, Newsmax and Lindell TV (and greed) that they don't even see how divided their own party is. How is a house divided ever going to stand? In more immediate terms, how do they expect to maintain control of Congress or win back the White House???

The Democrats need to grow a spine and quit calling for Biden to step down. He's their best chance at defeating a convicted criminal with only a PERCENTAGE of his own party behind him. We already know that the majority of Americans are center to left of center and would vote Democrat by a landslide if they would just vote. But the alt-right knuckleheads think they'll sweep the polls this November when their own party, a minority in America, isn't even on the same page. It'd be laughable if it just weren't so damn sad.

Democrats need to get their shit together, mobilize their base and get them to the polls, PERIOD. Get behind the nominee and incumbent President, despite how he comes across on TV or in debates. Hell, Reagan was in the early stages of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease when he was re-elected in the 1980s. Nancy propped him up in just the same way Dr. Jill Biden has her husband. We can do this, EASILY! We need to rally behind the moderate conservative Republicans and our OWN FREAKIN' PARTY and get the job done this November.

THE FUTURE OF OUR DEMOCRACY IS AT STAKE HERE!!!

Even our own Supreme Court Justices see this! Hell, Justice Sotomayor wrote in her recent dissent that she FEARS for our democracy. This isn't hyperbole, this shit is real! Do we WANT another civil war on our hands? Because that's where this country is headed.

We should make this our mantra, then:

NEVER EVER TRUMP!

***UPDATE: Here’s a great video just released to underscore this post: