Annual political rhetorical questions
At least once a year I break routine expressing political ponderings using rhetorical questions. Here are some election year questions in time for the primaries.
I was picturing a chance meeting in the afterlife with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Ron DeSantis. DeSantis was elated to encounter them and rather than asking them questions he began bragging about his failed run for president, filling them in on the details. He was part way through his war on WOKE when they stopped him and asked incredulously, really – you banned dictionaries from schools? – and walked away.
Trump was busy posting on his Truth Social (what an oxymoron that name is) after his Iowa victory. He mentioned E. Jean Carroll 32 times in 40 minutes. In one of them he wrote (lied), “After a historic win in
Iowa, I am going for the Biden encouraged witch hunt in Lower Manhattan to fight against a FAKE case from a woman I have never met, seen or touched.”
He made a court appearance the next day. A week later, the day before another scheduled appearance he posted, as some describe them, unhinged tirades, 42 more times in one hour. And, a few days later he posted 37 more attacks on Carroll between midnight and 2 a.m.
His posts suggest that due to his out-of-scale narcissism he might be incapable of ceasing his defamatory comments about Carroll, or the many others he attacks daily. If he became president again, what happens to our national security if this unrestrained misogynist attacks the leaders, especially women, of allied countries? Will women work for him if it is not possible for them to inform him when he puts our country in danger?
Listening to the Republican presidential debate, candidates referenced the party soundbite, over and over, inflation. Commentators talk about it often too. All use eggs as the criteria. It is not a good indicator because the large and rapid price rise was caused by the avian flu. 58.8 million poultry had to be killed in 2022 and into the spring of 2023. There certainly hasn’t been a commentator asking, what will you do to eradicate avian flu?
The price of gasoline has also been a major election item. Nikki Haley, like the other candidates, brings up the subject and gives only the vague “energy independent” line, and offers no solutions to bringing down the price of gas. Irony of ironies, Haley instead blasts electric cars, saying, “Americans don’t all want electric cars; quit telling them how to live,” and on several occasions saying directly the falsehood that Biden will require them to buy an electric car in 2033. Put gasoline and electric cars together and wonder, does Haley understand that if you have an electric car, you will not be buying gasoline so the cost of gas going up or down wouldn’t matter?
You may have forgotten that prior to the
2016 election America put severe sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine (Crimea), something that caused Putin major problems and ended a joint project that Rex Tillerson and Exon Mobil were working on with Putin, drilling for oil in the Artic.
You might also remember that it came out that Putin made many overtures to Trump, all expecting him to remove sanctions if elected including a major deal on financing his Moscow Trump Tower project, lobbying through Paul Manafort and the deal to release dirt on Clinton before the election.
In his first week in office, he instructed
State Department staff to come up with a way to end Russian sanctions. Word got out and Congress reacted swiftly – by a 98-2 Senate vote and a 419-3 House vote, they shut it down.
Now that Putin has, again, invaded Ukraine, Trump has been telling his congressional followers to not fund our help to Ukraine. Russia has lost over 300,000 of its soldiers, having to replace them with barely trained troops to deal with the stalemate. There is speculation that Putin is trying to stall long enough for Trump to be reelected believing he would have America walk away from our NATO/Ukraine commitment.
Should our congressional representative Kevin Kiley make an Eastern Sierra primary election campaign appearance you should ask him, are you siding with Putin and Trump on Ukraine? Can you stand up for America, Ukraine and the world against Trump if he should be reelected?
(Tim Willoughby moved to the Eastern Sierra more than 10 years ago after a 30-year career as a teacher and principal. He was the Democratic candidate for the 25th Congressional District in 2004. Willoughby also pens a weekly local history column for the Aspen Times.)