M*A*S*H’s Major Frank Burns captured today’s Rightwing, Trumpian mindset:

“The way I see it, if we don’t all march in step, if we don’t do as we’re told, if we don’t follow our leaders blindly, there’s no hope of saving our freedom.”

To avoid the frustration and anguish of political argument, we each might recall a bit of Mark Twain‘s wisdom,

“Don’t try to teach a pig to sing. It’s a waste of your time, and it annoys the pig.” 

 January 9, in “Five Truths” I wrote, “Happiness is our default.  Suffering is a choice.”  Today, I see Ukrainians massacred and fleeing Vladimir Putin’s missiles; I see Americans living on sidewalk and in tents.  My cavalier claim about suffering demands serious scrutiny.

People denied food, shelter, and healthcare, victims of war, famine, earthquake, tsunami, suffer!  In hindsight, I’m chagrined to realize the “choice” I had in mind is a luxury a fortunate few, like me, can afforded, what someone—Albert Camus?—labeled “existential angst.” 

I remain convinced happiness is our birthright.  Genes and life screw it up.

If you’re puzzled by Donald Trump’s fawning over and obvious envy of Vladimir Putin, it’s simple.  The wannabe American and real-life Russian Dictator are alter-egos, matched, sociopathic, narcissistic, Sixth Grade Bullies!  Incarnations of Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler.

Will it never end?

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Today, it is important to keep our life in perspective.

While we Americans fret over $5 for a pound hamburger or gallon of gasoline, Ukrainians crowd onto railcars, or walk into Poland, carrying their worldly possessions in a plastic bag, leaving daughters, sons, spouses, mothers, and fathers amid the smoldering remains of homes and apartments demolished by Vladimir Putin’s missiles.

Since his ham-fisted assault on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s grows increasingly isolated.  From Australia to Switzerland countries put the economic squeeze on Russia.  Global protests erupt.  In Russian streets, Vladimir’s people rally against his savagery.       

It is ironic and astonishing that vociferous praise for Russia’s Dictator comes from Americans!  Donald Trump calls the Russian dictator a “genius  .  .  .  How smart is that?”  At a Florida weekend conference, the Americans First Political Action Committee’s Nick Fuentes called for, “a round of applause for Russia!”  His audience responded, “Putin, Putin, Putin!”

How, in the country of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, where “all men are created equal,” where millions sacrificed, suffered, and died protecting our country from a demagogue like Vladimir Putin and wannabe demagogue Donald Trump, could this happen?  What in the names of God and common sense are these people thinking‽ 

Many Americans were puzzled by Donald’s fawning over Vladimir.  We know that Putin worked to get Trump elected and reelected.  We recognize his subversion behind reactionary right-wing efforts to commandeer America’s government.  With “genius  .  .  .  How smart is that,”  “a round of applause for Russia,” “Putin, Putin, Putin!”, this evil force rears its ugly head.

A psychopathic, narcissistic, Vladimir Putin is Russia’s dictator.  Cheered on by mindless MAGA Minions, a psychopathic narcissistic, Donald Trump yearns to become America’s dictator.

Feb. 21, 2022, Vladimir Putin recognized two regions of Ukraine as independent.  The following day, on the right-wing Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, Donald Trump was asked, “What went wrong, what has the current occupant of the Oval Office done that he could have done differently?”  Trump’s answer, “What went wrong was a rigged election.  What went wrong is a candidate that shouldn’t be there.  .  .  . I went in and there was a television screen and I said ‘this is genius  .  .  .  How smart is that?’  .  .  .  and he’s going to go in and he’s going to be a peacekeeper.  This is a guy who’s very savvy.  .  .  .  By the way, had I been in office this would never have happened, not even think of it.”

The evening of Feb. 23, Trump called Fox News to advise Laura Ingram that, “(Putin) was going to be satisfied with peace, and now he sees the weakness and the incompetence and the stupidity of this administration, and, as an American, I’m angry about it, and I’m saddened by it  .  .  .  And it all happened because of a rigged election.  This (Putin’s threat to invade Ukraine) would have never happened.” 

The next morning Russian forces invaded Ukraine.  After five days, Putin’s “peace keepers” continue slugging and slugging their way into Ukraine, destroying infrastructure, demolishing apartment buildings, slaughtering a sovereign nation’s defenseless citizens!  

Recalling, “had I been in office this would never have happened,” by what irresistible force might Donald have persuaded his ‘ol Pal in Moscow not to invade an effectively defenseless neighbor?  (1) Friendly persuasion: “Hey Good Buddy, I don’t give a damn about Ukraine, but I’d have to cover for you in American?  Don’t make me look bad.”  (2) Threaten to send the 1^st Cav., the 82nd Airborne.  Start World War III‽  Go figure.  I can’t.

What Donald Trump calls, “weakness .  .  .  incompetence .  .  .  stupidity” is rational, civilized people’s refusal to fall back on the ignorance and bestiality of war!  NATO’s economic and physical isolation of Russian are sane responses to the acts of an insane mind.    

As always, sixth-grade bully Donald J. Trump boasts big but, as with his “rigged election,” details and facts to support the big bluff are nonexistent. 

Beneath the bravado there’s nothing.  But, the hazard is, while Donald personifies Macbeth’s “sound and fury,” his mindless, irresponsible babble and acts could “signify” the end of American democracy.  

Caricatured as a salamander and codified by Governor Eldridge Gerry, the March 12, 1812 Boston Gazette labeled Massachusetts’s South Essex electoral district a “Gerry-mander.”  Over ensuing two centuries, legislators, politicians, and wheeler-dealers of every stripe have Gerrymandered districts to their advantage and opponent’s disadvantage.

On “lostdebate.com,” February 11, Cory Bradford critiqued Alabama’s electoral districts map.  District Seven is a stunning example of the level to which some southerners will stoop in continuing to fight the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Civil Rights.  Noting that Alabama’s State Amphibian is, curiously, the Red Hills salamander and its governor Republican Kay Ivey, I label Alabama’s electoral district Seven a “Red Hills Ivey-mander!” 

Alabama’s district Seven corrals a majority of its black citizens, 31% of the population, in one electoral district.  To appreciate the impact of this, imagine dividing Alabamians into three equal-size but racially unequally groups, the two more-non-black thirds each get three United States Congressional Representatives, while the lone more-black third gets one!  Today, Alabama has six white males and one black female Representative!

My Red Hills Ivey-mander extends southwest from Birmingham to the confluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers, 200 miles, sixty percent of the state’s north-south length.  Fairly to distribute the ethnicity of Alabamans, the Ivey-mander’s thirty-mile long neck should be lopped in the narrows between districts Four and Six, its arched back slightly lowered, and its southern boundary extended east from the Choctaw/Washington county line.  Thus districted, it’s anyone’s guess how the voting would go, but, clearly, Birmingham belongs in the District Six, Tuscaloosa in District Four, and Ivey-mander’s tail in District One.   

In Merrill v. Milligan, Feb. 7, 2022, the United States Supreme Court stayed a district court’s injunction barring Alabama from using its newly redistricted map in the 2022 election.  While SCOTUS has yet to rule.  If it were to overturn the district court, as memory serves, quoting Sancho Panza’s wisdom regarding some arcane legal point, “If the Law believes that, the Law is a ass.”

If the United States Supreme Court upholds Alabama’s new electoral districting, the United States Supreme Court is a ass!

As Mazars’s mechanics jump ship, erstwhile loyal seamen scramble for lifeboats, waves lap the gunnels, and litigious sharks circle ever closer, from the bridge of his foundering flagship Cap’n Don may, on the horizon, take heart in a lone ray of hope:  A prison jumpsuit could coordinate well with the Fabled Orange Mane.