Conservatism

Adam Kinzinger Not Running For Reelection, But Should Begin A Presidential Campaign For 2024

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This author and blogger is not in agreement with Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger on most issues, as he is a conservative in his views.

But Adam Kinzinger is an honorable man, with courage, guts, and principle, and has demonstrated it by the reality that he is one of a very small brand of Republicans in Congress who has voted to impeach Donald Trump, and has agreed to join the January 6, 2021 House Committee investigating the US Capitol Insurrection, and Donald Trump’s role in that tragedy!

His congressional district has been wiped out by reapportionment and gerrymandering in the Democratic dominated state of Illinois, but this should not stop him from running for President.

He has had 12 years in Congress by the time he retires, and has served in the US Airforce as a Lieutenant Colonel rank, and was engaged in both the Iraq War and Afghanistan War, so his credentials are top notch!

He is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, an important credential for anyone considering running for President.

Kinzinger needs to challenge Donald Trump or his lackeys, who bow to him, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, and innumerable others who kowtow to Donald Trump, and promote the “Big Lie”, that Trump won the Presidential Election of 2020.

America Is In A New “Gilded Age” Of Obscene Wealth And Monopoly Capitalism: Reform Is Essential!

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At the beginning of the 20th century, America escaped the Gilded Age period of obscene wealth and monopoly capitalism, under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Robert LaFollette Sr., George Norris, and others who promoted the Progressive Era.

The Progressive Era was far from perfect, but it gave hope of escaping the worst elements of the GIlded Age in the last third of the 19th century.

We have had ups and downs since the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the New Frontier, and Great Society, particularly with the triumph of conservatism under Ronald Reagan and the two Presidents Bush, and then made ever worse by Donald Trump.

But now, the news of billionaires having arrangements to keep their wealth from being taxed by overseas havens and even South Dakota allowing such reprehensible tactics is highly disturbing. This, along with the clear cut monopoly of Facebook promoting division, conflict, polarization, and affecting even young girls’ self image due to the toxic Instagram social media site, cries out for strong movement toward another “Progressive Era”.

The idea that concentration of wealth and power rivals and is clearly greater than the time of John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J P Morgan, and other monopolists of the late 19th and early 20th century is totally outrageous!

But is it possible in a nation with a 50-50 US Senate and a six vote margin in the House of Representatives to accomplish necessary reform?

This present, disturbing situation is a massive crisis of American democracy, with the threat of Donald Trump possibly regaining power, and destroying any possibility of reform!

Republican Governors Acting As Fascist Dictators: Ron DeSantis Of Florida, Greg Abbott Of Texas

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America is faced with a group of Republican Governors, most notably Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, but also others, who are conducting themselves as Fascist dictators, showing total recklessness in the midst of the COVID 19 Pandemic!

These two monstrous, arrogant leaders are both aiming for the possibility of being the Republican Presidential nominee in 2024, and going out of their way to play up to Donald Trump, with the hope that he will not run, or be able to run for President, and will endorse one or the other as the next candidate of a party now seen as a cult, not the traditional conservative party of the past.

The danger is that the COVID 19 Pandemic will lead to the hospitalization and death of many more Floridians and Texans, with the refusal of both governors, and others, to respect the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and federal guidelines of the Biden Administration, on vaccination and masking.

Republicans Are A Dinosaur, Only Representing White Rural Areas, Wealthy, Bigots, In Nation Rapidly Changing

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The Republican Party has become a shell of its old self, and is no longer truly representative of conservative ideology.

It no longer is concerned about deficits and increase in the national debt, except when the Democratic opposition is in power.

It no longer concerned about national defense, as many of its present officeholders have attacked the military leadership for standing up to insurrectionists who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, including General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff being criticized by the likes of Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida, and Fox News Channel talk show hosts.

It is no longer concerned about truth and facts, as it attacks science knowledge and historical knowledge, and is unconcerned about global warming and climate change.

It is no longer concerned about racial equality and fairness, part of its founding principles under Abraham Lincoln.

It no longer appeals to millions of African Americans, Hispanic-Latino Americans, college educated suburbanites, urban areas, the middle class, women voters, and the younger generation.

They are more concerned about rural areas, where most people are whites, but can wield power due to gerrymandering, and the ability to control the Electoral College and the US Senate, where democracy has been under attack, and favors fewer voters nationally.

They are more concerned about representing those who hate immigrants, and people of color, and want to control women’s reproductive choices.

They are appealing to the extremely wealthy and powerful corporations, while working to undermine workers’ rights and labor unions.

They want to promote mind control and dictate to educators how science and history are taught.

They represent a dwindling white population stirred to fear by bigots in the Republican Party, who wish to resist the rapidly changing population which in 2045, will be a majority minority, with people of color together being the majority, and particularly so with people with Hispanic-Latino heritage.

The Joe Manchin Problem

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West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is a real problem for the Democrats in the US Senate.

While he is a Democrat, and has supported all actions so far by President Joe Biden in legislative votes, he has now made it clear that he will NOT work to end or modify the Senate filibuster. This despite great disappointment that ten Republican Senators could not be found to support the creation of the January 6 Commission.

Manchin is a conservative who, if he was to retire or lose support of his voters, he would be most likely replaced by a Republican, so this creates an impossible situation in a 50-50 Senate.

This mess creates great problems for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and could do great damage to the Joe Biden agenda, in a way similar to what Barack Obama faced after the first two years of his Presidency.

The ability to have a voting rights law to overcome the actions by many Republican legislatures to limit voting rights for racial minorities will be hampered, as well as a serious infrastructure legislation, gun control legislation, immigration reform, and so much else.

“Reconciliation”, which would not require 60 votes, might be possible, but is based on some bipartisan support, which is far from guaranteed.

Saviors Of The Republican Party Past And Future: “A Call For American Renewal”

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There are a substantial number of “name” Republicans who opposed Donald Trump from the beginning, or over time, and are now allied together to be the saviors of the Republican Party past and future, and have now issued “A Call For American Renewal”.

These are not people this blogger and author would support to be elected, as they are overwhelmingly conservatives, but they are people who believe in American democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law, and want to insure that Trump and his minions do not control the future of the party, as that is the death knell of our system of government!

The purpose is to stop the continuing “Big Lie”, about the Presidential Election of 2020, and about the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021, as that is the cancer in the Republican Party right now, and there cannot be any possibility of avoiding the truth being exposed, and people needing to be prosecuted for treason and sedition.

Donald Trump is a menace, a Fascist authoritarian, who needs to be in prison, and be unable to control the future of the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush!

Donald Trump, The Republican Party, And Two “Big Lies”!

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Donald Trump lost the national popular vote twice, by massive margins, much more than George W. Bush in 2000, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and John Quincy Adams in 1824.

Together, he lost by nearly 10 million votes–2.85 million in 2016, and 7.1 million in 2020.

The “Big Lie” is that Donald Trump won EITHER time, 2016 and 2020.

It is clear that the Russians and Vladimir Putin helped to fix the election in 2016 in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, giving Trump the victory by a combined total of about 78,000 votes.

In 2020, Trump lost much more massively, even in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, along with Georgia and Arizona, but his party is perpetuating a myth that helped to provoke the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021, for which Donald Trump should be held accountable and be in prison!

Conservatism and the Republican Party are being destroyed, and the idea that nearly 70 percent of Republicans in polls believe the “Big Lie”, and refuse to acknowledge Joe Biden won the Presidency is beyond any sense of reality. This undermines American democracy, rule of law, and respect for the Constitution.

The Republican Party officeholders, with the exception of a small group, including Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, Adam Kinzinger, Lisa Murkowski, and a few others, has become a Fascist Party, a right wing Populist Party, a worshipper of Donald Trump, as if he is their Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini, unwilling or unable to accept the truth, and living in an alternate reality!

The Republican Party Heritage And Principles Are In Death Spiral after 167 Years

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The Republican Party was founded in March 1854 as a reform party, with the major principle at its founding being opposition to the expansion of slavery, and including abolitionists within its midst.

It was a Northern party which fought the Civil War and ended slavery, and for a generation, it was a party that inspired the majority of Americans.

Then, in the Gilded Age, it became corrupted by the power and influence of industrial capitalism, and conservatism reigned.

But then, Theodore Roosevelt and others who carried the name “progressive” with pride, promoted reform of the capitalistic system, but after TR’s death, while progressivism still existed in the party, it was taken over by conservatives, and the Great Depression undermined the national power of the party, as the Democrats became the majority party in the 1930s.

The battle for the future of the party was waged in the next half century liberal to moderate Republicans on one side, and hardline conservatives as their opponents, and Ronald Reagan ushered in a hard right conservatism, which became more extreme due to Newt Gingrich and other extreme conservatives since the mid 1990s.

And now we have come to a party that is in a death spiral, as we have conspiracy theorists who are taking over the party, and promoting hate, in the form of racism, nativism, Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and having wacky members who are advocating assassination of opposition Democrats.

So the Republican Party is now the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Louie Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley,and many other right wing Fascists, but at the leadership is Donald Trump, and the party represents now:

Family Values gone, with the caging of immigrant children.

Deficit Hawks gone, with added massive deficits of tax cuts to the wealthy.

Free Trade gone, with massive taxes on foreign goods and bailouts of farmers as a result, adding to the national debt and consumer prices.

Limited Federal Government gone, with claims that what state governments report as election results should be ignored by the Congress.

Limiting the Imperial Presidency gone, with obedience by right wing members of both houses of Congress to the whims and desires of Donald Trump, even continuing as this author and blogger writes.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse Of Nebraska Is A Disgrace For Only Speaking Out Now Against Donald Trump!

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Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska was one of a few Republicans in the Senate that this author had felt had a future, and had some validity.

Sasse is highly educated, with a Ph. D. in American History from Yale University, and having taught at the University of Texas, and being President of a small Lutheran university, Midland University, in his home state.

While disagreeing with Sasse on most issues, this author found him intriguing and a potential future Presidential candidate, but he has destroyed himself by refusing to criticize Donald Trump, until just now in a private conversation that was leaked.

Sasse is assured of his seat in Nebraska this November, with a splintered Democratic Party opposition, but he has lost all credibility, and this blogger is totally disillusioned that even a so called “principled conservative” has demonstrated that he has no real guts, courage, or moral and ethical beliefs!

Sasse will remain a Senator, but it seems unlikely that he has a future Presidential campaign due to his now strong criticism of Trump!

CoronaVirus Pandemic Proves Need For An Empathetic President, And Another “New Deal” And “Great Society” In Future!

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The present CoronaVirus Pandemic proves the need for an Empathetic President, and another “New Deal” And “Great Society” in the future!

“Big” Government is needed, as it was in the 1930s “New Deal” and the 1960s “Great Society”!

We need leaders such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, as with all their foibles, as all human beings have, they demonstrated empathy and understood the need for federal government action!

Yes, state governors, such as Andrew Cuomo, Gavin Newsom, and many others, have stepped up in this present crisis, but the lack of concern and competency of Donald Trump and his advisers, only concerned about politics rather than human lives, needs to be repudiated once and for all!

Conservatism and limitation of national government since the time of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich and many others has led to this debacle, and now needs to be in their death throes, as they have caused this debacle!

We need a nation where we do not have a few people having as much wealth and assets as half of the nation!

We need a nation where everyone is entitled to decent, affordable health care, and the opportunity for an education that meets their needs and abilities!

We need a nation where we do not have a wide percentage of people who are homeless, or are unable to gain enough nutrition, and where racism, nativism, and misogyny are actively prosecuted, rather than becoming government policy!

We need the kind of nation where everyone has opportunity to move forward, as was the aim and policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson!