The Enemy of My Enemy is Still My Enemy, Dana

Southern California puts out some kooky congressmen and congresswomen, but none as kooky as Dana Rohrabacher (apologies to Darrell Issa and Duncan Hunter, Jr.).

Regarding a recent terrorist attack in Iran that left at least 17 dead, Rohrabacher stated:

...isn’t it a good thing for us to have the United States finally backing up Sunnis who will attack Hezbollah and the Shiite threat to us? Isn’t that a good thing? And if so, maybe this is a Trump — maybe it’s a Trump strategy of actually supporting one group against another, considering that you have two terrorist organizations.

I shouldn't have to tell you that the Sunnis he is refering to are ISIS. This is not the result of a confusion, or a faux pas, Rohrabacher very is saying exactly what he means:

So that’s like Joe Stalin was a horrible guy, we must never associate with horrible guys like that, even against Hitler...

Or associating with the mujaheddin (who he claims he fought with) against the Soviet Union, right? That turned out swell.

Look, Iran has all sorts of problems and there are a million reasons why we shouldn't ignore them. But their sins are certainly no worse than Saudi Arabia's, who are currently playing Trump and getting everything they want from him  just by stroking his ego. Supporting ISIS against Iran may be the most ridiculous thing I've heard all week, and that is a very high bar to reach.

Follow the Leader

Why can't the fact that Trump has shown that Republicans and conservatives, despite their reputation and public bravado, do not actually possess the courage of their convictions ever work to the advantage of Democrats and progressives? 

For conservative Christians, "character" is what mattered. Until it didn't. 

For Republican hawks, Russia was the enemy, until it wasn't.

For almost all of them, Wikileaks was traitorous, until they weren't.  

It goes on and on. 

So if Trump were come out and say, "I think Universal Health Care makes the most economic sense. Let's let GM focus on making cars, not on healthcare," who's to say that his base wouldn't just follow along? 

They'll follow Trump anywhere, so why can't it be somewhere good? 

Oh yeah...

 

Business On Parade

When I first heard Trump was into funding infrastructure, I thought "Great, at least there is one thing we agree on." But when details of Trump's vision started to come out and I realized that it could very well simply be a giveaway to private companies, I started to worry. Then I read this New Yorker piece on Putin's control of infrastructure projects in Russia, and how he uses them as a patronage system to control oligarchs, I started to get anxious.  This week's roll out of plans to privatize key portions of the FAA (a giveaway to airlines) under the guise of infrastructure made it clear that I'm right to be worried.

I'm not saying that Trump = Putin. But I am saying that this is this is yet another clear-cut example that the next four years is going to be one massive transfer of wealth from the poor and the public sector to the wealthy, coal miners be damned. Trickle-down is the zombie that never dies.