Republicans at the Democrat National Convention

If you watched the final night of the DNC—and earlier too—you would have seen members of the Republican Party, supporting Kamala Harris.  Their main point is that the post-Trump GOP has developed (or regressed) into a personality cult.  The last straw was when they shut down a bi-partisan immigration and migrant control bill, at the orders of Trump.  It had not been an easy bill to put together, but it had somehow been gotten ready in December; but Trump did not want there to be any political victories for the Democrats, or for Biden.  So he called for that bill to be abandoned.

It was a foolish mistake, that few people would have made.  What did Trump think would have been the response of the Democrats to being denied the opportunity to pass the bill, and put it into action?  Of course, the Dems are mad as hell.  But the MAGA faithful in The House are content to take their cues from The Savior.  ("He knows what he's doing," they're thinking, against the evidence of four years.)

And, that action has given the leadership of the Dems so much ammunition to attack Trump!  Did he think they would be decent, and pull their punches?  Did he think the Dems would say: it was all our fault?  What an idiot. 

Of course, when the Dems are a minority in the House, they had to do a lot of compromising.  But this elections, there must be lots of Republicans coming up for reelection.  What are they to say when their electorate asks them what they did about the border?  They'll have to invent some fiction such as: "The Dems came up with a bill, but it was rubbish.  So Trump advised that we should not push it forward.  So that's what we did."

The main engine of the MAGA faithful and Trump is: dislike of foreigners.  If you remember, Trump signaled this by insulting the parents of an immigrant, a marine who was killed in battle.  Trump got a thorough scolding by the father, during the 2016 debate against Hillary Clinton.  This gives us a clue about how big this border control issue is, for both Trump, and the MAGA/Tea Party people.  It's almost as though there are only one issue for them.  Well, an issue and a half: how to fix the border, and prevent the wrong sorts of people from voting.

What a sad thing. 

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Sophistry from MAGA

An interesting thing I have observed is that Mr Vance replies to questions a lot more intelligibly than Trump.

If Vance is asked about some action of Trump's that is not in line with what is expected of a presidential candidate, Vance has a response.   One time he said that the reason Trump entertained some Nazi sympathizer at his home, is that Trump is always willing to talk to anyone.  This  is actually an excellent response; probably a better answer that anyone could have got out of Trump himself.

Bogeyman?

One of the things I'm hearing from political commentators is that perhaps Harris should not have picked someone "so far to the Left" to be her running-mate.

This is silly.  The initiatives that Tim Walz has supported in Minnesota are barely significant: breakfast and lunch for school kids?  Access to tampons?  Availability of health care and reproductive care for women?

These are more notable as being irritants to die-hard far right individuals, than matters to be noted by centrist Democrats.  They need hardly any budget. 

Of course, setting the ACA into law, and encoding Abortion rights will make the testosterone-infused religious, misogynistic, right-to-"Life", MAGA morons get colon cancer, but that's fine; they're a minority within MAGA anyway. They will, of course, have costs, which the Federal Government will subsidize.

I don't know whether Walz encouraged any legislation about library censorship.  I don't have strong feelings about that; it simply underscores the general anti- intellectual culture of the Trump camp.  But from those who resent having their freedom curtailed, censorship looks like hypocrisy.  Hypocrisy is real, you can't gaslight it away.

Nigel Farage and Brexit

British politicians had been feeling sidelined by European politics for a long time, when they were a part of the European Union.  In particular, Nigel Farage, and Boris Johnson, and a few other members of Parliament, whose fortes were local politics, were eager to remove Britain from the big pond of Europe.  They pushed for a referendum on the question of breaking with the Europeans in 2016.  David Cameron, the British prime minister at the time, eventually resigned, probably sensing that complete withdrawal from the European union would be painful for Britain. 

The referendum indicated 'Leave', much to Farage's satisfaction.  Boris Johnson became the prime minister, and by 2020, Britain was out of the Union, and there began a painful sequence of economic hardships for the island nation, only vaguely anticipated, or not at all.  British governments since then have struggled to cut taxes—a priority for the conservative government left behind by Cameron, headed by Johnson, and a sequence of other prime ministers—and handle the economic chaos brought on from the separation of the British economy. 

I assumed that Farage and the other leaders of the Leave wave would be remorseful, once the full impact of Brexit became clear, but following the political developments in Britain was so annoying (not any more annoying than following American politics must be for Brits, I'm sure) that I'm not aware of what Farage has said about his role in the fiasco.  I get the impression that it was a 'miscalculation' on his part, and lack of information on the part of the population.

In calling for a referendum on Brexit, or anything even remotely as complex, a thorough information initiative would be a no-brainer.  The people could never anticipate the huge repercussions of Brexit without a great deal of help.  But the detailed anticipation of the disaster would have looked like propaganda.  Cameron, and other intellectuals who were leading the conservatives, cautiously distanced themselves from the analyses of the situation, and allowed Johnson to soak himself in the clown show. 

Big decisions, like Brexit, supported by marginal politicians, are almost certain to have unintended consequences.  That's why incremental change is advisable.  Excited, relatively thoughtless Congressmen espouse dramatic legislation, for the way in which it gets them notoriety.  It's left to voters to discern whether it's glamour that the proponents crave, or genuine, positive, life-improving change. 

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New Insights

Feelings—resentments, excitements, humor, pleasure—quietly add up, sort themselves into big piles, and, after a while, put us in political groups. 

One of the biggest causes of frustration, and bad feelings, is the changes in the way we have to do things.  In the old days, if you got sick, you knew what to do.  If you got into an accident.  If a new couple moved in next door.  But these days, a lot of us aren't sure what to do!  Everything seems different; even taking a picture at an anniversary celebration.  It used to be that a guy from a studio would stand us all out in a nice array, get out this huge camera, and a picture would be ready in about a week, ready for framing.  These days, anyone can take a picture, and ... email it to everybody. 

The immediate reaction is to long for the old days.  Take me back, to an older, simple time!  (To Constantinople!  No, it's Istanbul...)  All of us want this (except for our youngest relatives, who have just figured out how everything works); and some people think of the old times as the good old days, when America was great. 

'Great' might not be the best word to use.  What the MAGA crowd means is that it was great for them; not necessarily that great in the view from, say Japan (or even from the homes of the poor in any large city).  Take me back to the time before UPS!  Before cell phones!  Before traffic lights in every intersection!  Before the Democrats had set it up so that you had to do a ton of paperwork to apply for a permit to get a new fence around your property!  Prevention is better than cure, you know.  But prevention goes with a lot of paperwork. 

The gun lobby, especially, is all about reducing paperwork.  We should be able to stroll into Walmart, say, pay for a gun, and walk out with it, just like that.  But then so can any resentful psycho who wants to kill everybody. 

Fortunately, I still have a sense of humor—which many of my friends identify as my biggest liability—and I can laugh at myself.  And I can adapt to the times without hurting myself too much.  My daughter forced me to get a smart phone around 2005, when she got her first Droid, and she wanted to be able to send me photographs, and music, and all that sort of thing, and I was forced to learn the ins and outs of life in the 21st century.   Who knows, but if not for that, I might still be thinking in MAGA terms. 

The baffling thing is: how ľoyal the Republican base is, to Don Trump.  I guess I'm more comfortable with rejecting anyone who isn't up to their job pretty quickly.  Times change fast, that's true,  and we have to cut people a bit of a break, give them time to figure things out.  But if you want to be a political leader, you just have to be competent right from the word go. 

Trump, though, was a terrible manager.  The only way he survived, as a businessman, was to hire competent managers.  Even then, he didn't pay them properly; he was becoming notorious for being hard on his underlings, and his business associates not being able to rely on his word.  I think the only reason he has lasted this long is that his followers are too embarrassed to confess that he wasn't even trying, and wasn't as bright as he said he was. 

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Election Talk

First off, as the election draws closer, some politicians don't say what they mean.  For instance, JD Vance has said that he's a never Trumper.  He was being careless, and didn't realize that some people would remember those words.  He must have thought that, since 'nobody' seems to remember what nonsense Trump spouted, he could pretty much shoot off his mouth, too.  (Of course, Democrats remember!  But we can cut them a few breaks, because at election time ...)

All this talk vilifiying 'Socialism' has been carefully implanted by major businesses.  They do not want poor, unemployed people helping each other, or the government helping them.   They do not want Healthcare that comes directly from the government (single player plans), they want health care that comes through regular insurance companies, which helps to support the millions of people who work for insurance companies (which is why health care is so expensive).  Also, health insurance stocks have done well on the stock market, and a lot of these oil billionaires have stocks.  Bear in mind that Congressmen and senators have fantastic Healthcare.  I believe they have that even if they get voted out; I'm not sure.  

There are various sorts of Socialism.  In America, we only have very limited socialism.  Anyone who thinks that Tim Walz's socialism is destroying Minnesota business should just head over to that state and take a look.  It's completely harmless, and businesses should quit portraying socialism as a horrible evil. 

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is being labeled a leftist, or a progressive, and Tim Walz, say the Trumpees, and Fox News, is worse.  But all he has done is made a Minnesota law that makes abortion safe and available, made school lunches and breakfasts available to all kids, and a few basic things like that, which only die-hard antisocialists are really unhappy about.  And the fossil fuel lobby.  I had a few more points which I have forgotten ....

Trump is an Entertainer

Jonah Goldberg, a conservative columnist writing in The Greenville Post, has explained the Trump phenomenon in a way that I understand.

Republican politics have (has) always been a serious thing; their ideas have usually been serious, Ted Cruz notwithstanding.  Trump,  however—Goldberg says—is primarily an entertainer.  A freaky set of circumstances, and some chaotic ideas, most of them in Trump's head, came together, and Trump found himself President.  The GOP played along, and on the way, a different set of people took control of the party. 

But, says Jonah, in time, Trump and his policies have become unpopular, a fact that has a difficult time penetrating into his Trump's) awareness.  He lost the 2020 election, which he could not accept.  And, Jonah Goldberg says, J. D. Vance was a way Trump sought to balance his candidacy.  But Vance is serious, not an entertainer, and things are not going well for them.  In fact—if Goldberg is right, and I think he is—a soon as the mainstream of the GOP realizes that being led by an entertainer is a liability, things are going to soon get a lot worse.

Furthermore, he says, there is a thing he has called the Greenland effect: when Trump adopts even a reasonable conservative idea, he poisons it with his unpopularity.

Closing Down the Garcia Library, Corpus Christi

So this is the first notice of the closing of a public library that I have noted.  Corpus Christi is a famous town in Texas.  But it appears the town is finding it hard to balance their budget, so this idea to close down the library was thrown out.  The mayor was quick to say that they're still discussing it. 

In the modern world, there are both those who say that libraries are outmoded, and no longer useful; and those for whom the town library is a cultural nucleus, which cannot be sacrificed for any reason. 

What does a library have?  First of all a library has a great number of books.  Some gifted, perhaps by the library founder, some given to it over the years, some bought by the Library, from the suggestions of library users.  Some of these books circulate; that is, you can take them home and return them later.

Others are for reference only; usually bigger, more expensive books that library users cannot afford to actually own; such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, directories, indexes.  Compilations of official information sent out by the government. 

Then there are indexes: the catalog of all the library holdings, usually in the form of index cards. 

Magazines, some of them in bound form, journals, and catalog entries for them. 

There is archival data; that is rarely requested documents in tiny, tiny prints on transparency especially.

LPS, CDs, tapes, videos on videotape and DVD disc's.

Computers that link to other libraries all over the world, that often can find a book or other resource that isn't available at the library. 

Last, but not least, there are the librarians, who care for the materials, inspect them for wear, help patrons find what they're seeking, receive books which have been sent for from other libraries, and see that whoever asked for them gets them; and send out any books the library has which have been requested from another library. 

Ït will be clear that the library building contains lots of materials but also lots of people working.  All these people must be paid; they're specialists, and ideally are paid at a rate higher than minimum wage. 

Much of these resources can be obtained by anyone who has access to the internet.  Bit it's also true that ordinary people often do not have the training to Find this information for themselves.  But the fact remains that salaries are a major ongoing expense of any library. 

Books, long regarded as the only material holding of a library, are potentially the most easily sacrificed resource.  There's nothing to prevent the library acquiring new books in electronic form.  (This will probably require extra staff, to help users get the books they want.)  Borrowing books in digital form is more complicated, and vendors usually want a given e-book to be restricted, so that only a specified number of people can borrow a particular e-book at the same time. 

What if the number of days the library is open is reduced to just Monday, Wednesday and Friday?  Library workers could be told that they will be paid less, and they can save money that way.  Librarians will hate that plan. 

What if the library only lends books out for a fee?  Libraries,  in the past, charged penalties for everyone who were late with their returns.

Professional librarians hate the thought of charging fees at all.  A librarian is only happy if all their books are out on loan!

Clearly, if a library is shut down, the town loses a great deal.  People have nowhere to go, to find job listings.  How do you repair your car?  How do you sew an apron?  How do you cook a meatloaf?  The library was the place you went to, to find out.  If the library were to be shut down, you'd have to go buy a book to find out.