Three more weeks to the election and this thing is still "close"?

 

Now who would know what a fascist is better than the Germans?

 

Certainly not Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who we are told is courting Muslim voters in Michigan by claiming to be “anti-Israel “ despite the fact that she was at least born Jewish. I guess she neglected to mention that. She is probably a bigger threat to Kamala Harris in swing states than RFK Jr. ever could be; even AOC has criticized her as being a self-serving egoist, who has failed to advance the goals of the Green Party both practically and politically.

So why is she running again this time? Because, she says, she wants Donald Trump to win, in so many words (apparently out of the kind of pure vindictiveness no one but she can understand), and in a state with a significant Muslim population, she thinks she can “swing” it in favor of a candidate who had previously instituted a Muslim ban, had abandoned the Kurds in northern Syria, and asserted he does not support a “ceasefire” in Gaza, but that Israel and its own far-right prime minister be allowed to level the place as quickly as possible (i.e. “end the war quickly”). While Stein promises nothing but empty words (the U.S. will never be “anti-Israel”), Trump—well, he’s just Trump.

What else? The rogue far-right Fifth Circuit Court based in Texas had the mendacity to accuse a judge of “disrespect” for state officials in a decade-long lawsuit over abuse of children in state care for simply expressing her opinion about the state’s disregard for the well-being of those state-fostered children, which we would expect from a state run by a couple of inhuman beasts like Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Republican state AG Ken Paxton. 

The court, in overturning U.S. District Judge Janis Jacks’ contempt ruling and $100,000-per-day fine, asserted that she exhibited “a sustained pattern, over the course of months and numerous hearings, of disrespect for the defendants and their counsel, but no such attitude toward the plaintiffs’ counsel” and exhibiting “a high degree of antagonism.”

As the Texas Tribune reported earlier this year after more than a decade overseeing the case with little positive action, Judge Jacks’ patience with the state had been wearing thin, which places the children in “unregulated, unlicensed, and poorly supervised homes” and

In one instance, according to the report, staffers at a school where children with intellectual disabilities from one unlicensed facility attended told DFPS officials they were showing up unbathed, with unbrushed teeth and dried feces on their clothes. They were bruised and scratched, they’d show up with skull fractures, other injuries, many untreated, the report said. They included elementary and high school students with autism and other issues, the report said.

The Fifth Circuit’s decision pointed to one of her comments to Texas state attorneys, “I don’t know how the state sleeps at night with this. I really don’t” as being particularly "egregious." That’s really rich coming from the court most contemptuous of the human rights of people in this country that it finds such a comment “problematic.” Obviously judges on the Fifth Circuit—six of them appointed by Trump—who removed Judge Jacks from the case, are perhaps reacting to the possibility that she was also talking about them as well, and they just can't stand the heat.

Of course the “Lone Star State” has been getting away with violations of the Constitution for a long time, including the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

But on Friday a federal judge finally decided that a century old statute in the Texas “constitution” was unconstitutional. According to Bloomberg Law

A federal magistrate judge has struck down a 100-plus year old Texas statute authorizing the state’s attorney general to investigate certain businesses and organizations for violating state laws. Judge Mark Lane of the Western District of Texas said his decision “wasn’t that hard” because Texas’ Request to Examine statute doesn’t expressly allow a served party to pursue pre-compliance judicial review before producing requested records.

Paxton, of course, has been using this law to harass immigrant and voting rights groups, but it took a Boeing contractor with some extra money to spend for legal expenses to bring the case to court. Bloomberg observes that this ruling will place all the cases that Paxton and his Gestapo agents have been engaged in doubt in their legality.

Oh, and what else? While a Second Amendment fanatic was arrested for bringing his firearms to a Trump rally (I wonder how many brought theirs in their vehicles who were not “caught”), Trump continues to have his rallies out of doors, still haranguing his audience with the usual violent rhetoric, including calling on the military to “handle the radical left lunatics” on election day, and “suggest” the “appropriate” punishment for anyone expressing their freedom of speech rights. The AP reports that

Former President Donald Trump called for a protester at one of his rallies to “go back home to Mommy” to “get the hell knocked out of her,” his latest instance of using violent language when confronted by demonstrators. The protester was ejected from Trump’s Saturday evening rally in Coachella, California. As the crowd jeered her, Trump said “Back home to Mommy. She goes back home to Mommy.” Trump continued, imitating the imagined mother: “‘Was that you, darling?’ And she gets the hell knocked out of her.”

We don’t expect a bully with mental health issues to learn anything, but what does that say about people still willing to vote for this supposed "human being" without a shred of decency or respect for the office he is running for? Hell, even leaving the rally in a state of "chaos" with attendees left without the promised shuttle bus ride back to their cars in a parking lot two miles away in 100-degree heat only indicates what all Trump thinks his supporters are good for.

While Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham continue to fritter away whatever credibility they have left “explaining”—and failing to—Trump’s lies, and the Trump campaign is deathly afraid of the release of more evidence of his 2020 election crimes,  the thin-skinned bully/coward Marjorie Taylor Greene is seen walking out of a committee hearing after being called out to her face for being a “back the blue” hypocrite, supporting the January 6 insurrectionists while disparaging Capitol police…

 

…and here we see that Republicans obviously don’t think they can win a fair election or one according to the rules, so they “cheat.” Here we see the Wausau, Wisconsin mayor Doug Diny personally removing a ballot drop box—the only one in the city—from in front of city hall:

 

Like a typical crackpot conspiracy-mongering Republican, he says he didn’t do “anything wrong”—except make himself look like a complete jerk. It’s a felony to interfere with or impede voters’ lawful right to vote, in this case with absentee ballots that the drop box is for. But Diny doesn’t care about any of that; he’s opposed to drop boxes because it makes it too convenient for people to vote, and some of them might be Democrats, even though the county voted 60 percent Trump in 2020. 

Apparently to some, this election is where every vote “counts”—except that some should count more—or less—than others. Especially Hispanic votes in Texas, where we see Texas’ pen-stealing AG, Ken Paxton, still busy harassing and threatening Hispanic voters, with El Paso the current stop on his crusade to disenfranchise voters in the name of stopping "fraudulent voters." This is the reaction one would expect from someone who keeps kicking the dog and is afraid it will eventually come around to "biting back" in a state that is less than 40 percent non-Hispanic white.

In Alabama, another deeply red state with unusually paranoid politicians, the secretary state pulled a few thousand voter registrants out of a hat, claiming that they were “non-citizens.” Obviously people for whom there is any “question”—say, having a Spanish name—are automatically taken out of the hat on nothing more than an assumption. The DOJ has filed suit, finding that upon closer inspection “questionable” registrations were found to be by US-born or naturalized citizens. 

It is already a federal crime for non-citizens to vote, but in a state like Alabama, it is just a cheap political stunt for which there is no penalty in the public mind for lying, since the Trump lie machine has become old hat, and things are just "bad" anyways, and it doesn't matter why people think that, it just "is." It is all to aid the national Republican propaganda machine, even if has zero bearing on elections in states like Alabama, which still function socially in the Stone Age. Lies are just a way to “confuse” ignorant people who are not just easily “confused,” but are trained to be. 

By the way, because the library is closed on Columbus (or is it Indigenous) Day, I am working on this at the Seattle Center's Armory, where I am listening to the local news show going on and on with any reports of murder, assaults, robberies, and car crashes it can find, and throwing in Trump's claim that if Harris is elected, the U.S. will become a "migrant camp." This being a "blue" city with educated people, this is just typical corporate news propaganda that goes in one ear and out the other, but it is typical of the paranoia and fear-mongering that the media is responsible for that enables a fascist agenda.

It would seem too obvious to thinking people why Trump should not be allowed in the White House again, but for many people—even those who don’t like Trump, “thinking” is less important than “feelings,” such as those of extreme negativity (about, say, the "others"). Truth, facts, and the reality that everyone in the world thinks they have “rights” that are just as important never enter the minds of the far-right fanatic since the dawn of time:

 

Even those who may have legitimate concerns have a tendency to get their information from the wrong people. But we have to make allowances for "well-intentioned" people who are willfully ill-informed, don't we? 

Take for example Democratic mayor Amer Ghalib  of Hamtramck, Michigan, who says that while he “disagrees” with Trump on “many issues,” he will still for vote for him because he is “a man of principle” (add laugh track). If he was actually listening, there are always caveats to what Trump says he supports. Ending the war in Gaza? Who doesn’t? But as noted, Trump said that he does not support a ceasefire holding back Israel—he wants to allow Israel to bomb Gaza into a parking lot if necessary to “win” the war quicker. 

How many civilians (including children) are killed is something Trump only cares about if it is a "big" number; if there are "millions," it is "better" propaganda for him than mere "thousands." The truth—who cares about that in the age of Trump. This mayor can’t even be honest with himself or us: he is Muslim and 60 percent of the town is supposedly Muslim. We can speculate what the reporter didn’t think to find out: is it in their “culture” not vote for a female as president?Well, there is Jill Stein, but she has no shot except to be a "spoiler," or you would think people are aware of that.

Meanwhile in Utah, the state Supreme Court, all Republicans, surprisingly ruled that constitutional Amendment D, passed by a Republican supermajority in the state house, called this language to alter the initiative process in the state deceptive and misleading, and thus unconstitutional:

Should the Utah Constitution be changed to strengthen the initiative process by: Prohibiting foreign influence on ballot initiatives and referendums. Clarifying the voters and legislative bodies’ ability to amend laws.

If approved, state law would also be changed to: Allow Utah citizens 50% more time to gather signatures for a statewide referendum. Establish requirements for the legislature to follow the intent of a ballot initiative.

 

The use of “ballot candy” to disguise the true intent of the amendment is something we here in the state of Washington should be familiar with. The anti-affirmative action I-200 was passed with language that suggested it was actually against racial discrimination—but only against whites and Asian groups, who with their own self-obsessions strongly backed it, not under-represented minorities. Of course white people still lost when it came to college enrollment, even more so. 

 

But what I recall most about that is the signature drive for the initiative, which employed blacks as signature gatherers who put “guilt trips” on “liberal” types to sign it—not realizing what the initiative was really about, meaning to authorize discrimination against people like themselves. My suspicion that many of those who voted for it also allowed themselves to be “conned,” but knowingly for their own benefit.

The sordid history of the Utah amendment, as detailed by the Alliance for a Better Utah, began when people angered by the dilution of their votes through partisan gerrymandering, as shown here how more Democratic Salt Lake City was cut into four pieces to dilute the Democratic vote with Republican rural voters (much as such gerrymandering diluted the Nashville vote in Tennessee):

 

Proposition 4 was thus born, and was passed, banning partisan gerrymandering and creating an independent redistricting commission whose maps the legislature was forced to recognize unless it had “good cause.” 

Not surprisingly, corrupt, power-mad Republican lawmakers immediately sought to undermine the law by passing S.B. 200, which repealed it and “replaced” it with language that removed the prohibiting of partisan gerrymandering and allowed the legislature to ignore maps drawn by the “independent” commission. But after it was ruled that this law violated the power of voters to craft law as allowed in the state constitution, Republicans went back to work on Amendment D, which unlike what was stated in public announcements and on the ballot, was much more succinct about its intentions:

 

A district court ruled that the amendment as represented in both public announcements and on the ballot misrepresented itself to voters who were being deliberately manipulated into voting for something whose true intent was being concealed with peripheral issues, and ruled that any votes on the amendment (it was not removed from the ballot) would not be counted. 

The state Supreme Court followed-up by upholding that decision. This decision, of course, had implications beyond that involving gerrymandering, but the Republican legislature having the power to ignore the will of the people in various the culture war issues, freedom of speech, abortion and voting rights, etc.

Naturally, you can count on gullible people like Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, who still has a job despite being the prime propagandist who peddled the Dominion hoax that cost Fox nearly $800 million in damages, being back at it again with election conspiracies, posting  on X that a “friend of mine’s wife” claimed to have encountered in Weatherford, TX “a massive line of immigrants getting licenses and had a tent and table outside the front door of the DMV registering them to vote!” This prompted responses from the usual Neanderthals who assumed they were “illegals,”

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram,

Bartiromo’s statement was “simply false,” according to Sgt. William Lockridge, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety.  Contrary to Bartiromo’s friend’s wife’s account, there is no office for the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles in Weatherford. Folks there get their licenses at a DPS Driver License office. “None of it is true,” Lockridge said, adding that the assumption that non-white Texans lined up to get their driver licenses are immigrants or illegal is “kind of racist. Just because these people aren’t white, that doesn’t mean they’re illegal,” he said.

When contacted, Fox News not only refused to back down on the false claim, but insinuated that it was protecting Bartiromo from being forced to explain herself, claiming “that the methods used to attempt to contact Bartiromo — an old email address and a Facebook message — were insufficient.” It was also noted that Fox News “defended” itself from these false claims by noting that Republican politicians in Texas had made “similar statements” as if those were not false as well.

The ADL published a report that Texas leads the nation in white supremacist activity, which Gov. Abbott has done everything he can to promote. AG Paxton, one of the most racist and corrupt politicians in the country, is vowing to disregard a judge’s order that invalidated most of a Republican-backed law deemed unconstitutional and in violation of the First Amendment that essentially made it a “crime” punishable by a prison sentence for canvassers to talk to voters about voting for people who don’t speak of or treat them like “vermin.”

Oh, but that's all a snore for the media and Trump supporters. What about those great "plans" they have for the country, besides mass deportations? Well, JD Vance has been helping Trump “flesh out” his “concept of a plan” on replacing the Affordable Care Act, which 60 percent of Americans—including a majority of Republicans—have a “positive” view of. 

Vance’s “plan” is the same one “advanced” by Trump before, which is to allow people the “freedom” to pick no plans at all, which they are allowed to do anyways since during Trump’s first term Republicans passed a law banning a penalty payment for not getting health insurance. Under the ACA there is “risk sharing” to keep costs down for older people, but the Trump and Vance “plan” is to provide two separate “plans”—a “risk” plan and a “no risk” plan that would essentially that would allow insurers who don't want to cover those with preexisting conditions, to simply price them out, as was done before the ACA.   

That's a "plan" that has no shot of passing even a Republican-majority Congress (or so we "hope"). But people jump up and down with "whataboutisms." Here MSNBC talks about “false equivalency” some are making between the Trump and Kamala Harris, claiming that she has no “planw” either, when that is clearly not true—especially when compared to Trump’s ramblings about nothing:

 

I was watching a local news program when a guest spoke about why “negative” viewpoints seem to prevail over “positive” viewpoints, especially on social media. Well, that’s easy: it’s the “feeling good about feeling bad” thing. Most people—whether they are poor or super rich (like Elon Musk)—have a need to complain about something. What passes as “positive” is usually just a “negative” if the response to it is "positive."  Thus while it is true that algorithms on search engines don’t necessarily take you where you want to go, only where they “think” you want to go; even if you are looking for “positive” viewpoints or stories on political issues, there are slim pickings, and easy to be "misinterpreted." 

"Positive" stories, of course, are not necessarily "true." Take for instance the new “biography” Reagan, which according to the website ScreenRant—which frankly as a film buff is the last place I look for useful information about films—tells the “true story” about Ronald Reagan, and has a 98 percent approval rating by viewers on Rotten Tomatoes. 

But does such a “positive” response actually mean it is “true”? Not if the people who are motivated to see this film made by a first-time director with a "libertarian" political slant are already Reagan "fans" eager to overlook his faults. The film has received an almost unanimous “negative” response from film critics who say it is far from truthful, but sanitizes and whitewashes away the reasons how we got to the point where the Republican Party—after having once rejected the corruption of Richard Nixon—now embraces political corruption, lies, income inequality, environment destruction and the meddlings in Central America that is in large part the cause of escape to the U.S. border.

But at least Reagan had "plans," even if we are still paying for them to this day. David Graham in The Atlantic wrote after the debate between Harris and Trump that if Trump thought he had an “edge” on Harris because, after all, she wasn’t technically president for the past three-and-half years, she couldn’t actually do anything. “They’ve had three and a half years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn’t she done it?” Well, you know, 16 million or so jobs were created after Trump left office, but whose counting? Certainly not Trump who can't even make up that kind of number. Graham goes on to say that

The only problem with this attack is that it applies to another unpopular president as well: Trump himself. Time and again during the 2024 campaign, he’s promised to do something that he failed to do in his first term, that he didn’t bother to do during his first term, or is the opposite of what he did during his first term. Whenever he makes these claims, it’s worth remembering that Trump was president once—a fact he seems to hope you’ll forget. Maybe he doesn’t remember himself.

Robert Reich pointed out here 1  that “The president talks a good game—but it’s just talk”—and went on to tally 40 “promises” he made that were left broken on a sea of lies. Number 40 on the list was

He promised to be the voice of the common people. He’s made his rich friends richer, increased the political power of big corporations and the wealthy, and harmed working Americans. Don’t let the liar-in-chief break any more promises. Vote him out in November.

That was in 2020. What has changed since then? Trump a convicted fraudster and sexual abuser. But hey, if Don Blankenship, who lost a primary race for the U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia, releases campaign ads that rewrite history and blames Barack Obama for giving the "false impression" that he was responsible for the deaths of 29 miners in one of his coal mines, the deadliest mining accident in four decades, after which he was convicted of conspiring to violate safety standards and served just one year (it was only a “misdemeanor”), well heck, if it works for Trump, why not him?

Trump attacks on Harris naturally bring up the question of what exactly is his “plan” for the country besides mass deporting, tariffs and drilling. OK, so we know he is short on “plans,” and Vance is no help every time he opens his mouth, so Trump goes to Georgia and reveals what “adviser” Kellyanne Conway called a very “granular” plan of action for the country. Does she mean like sand slipping through one’s fingers, falling pointlessly to the ground? On Fox News, Juan Williams pointed out the obvious, that it was a typical Trump rally with a lot of hot air about making things “better,” as if the economy hasn’t been near full employment and the stock markets at record highs since Biden became president:

You know, Kellyanne said he got granular. I’m still waiting for the grain here, the granular pieces, because, to me, this was a speech in which he’s trying to set out a new policy, I guess […] but all I heard from him was attacks on Harris, ‘Comrade Kamala.’ For an hour and a half, ‘Kamala is a communist.’

That is what Trump is, just a juvenile, name-calling psychologically deficient buffoon with no actual “plans” that he wants you to know about, since as in his first administration, he’s all about helping himself and his rich friends with tax cuts and deregulation making this country a less safe place to live, declaring any healthcare at all (let alone affordable) a "privilege" and not a right, while he throws those anti-immigrant “grains” of coal into the Christmas stockings of foolish people. What? You can’t t least eat coal? But you can sure eat the crops the raise for you though, can't you?

But wait a minute, you say. The Biden-Harris administration didn’t have a “plan” either, right? I mean, we have to be "fair" about this, right? Oh yes, remember the infrastructure “plan” Trump promised you? Well, sure, but that tax cut for the rich was more important than fixing broken down infrastructure and creating jobs. The Biden administration had no "plan" either, except, well, a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package was passed that invested in bridges, roads, airports, public transport and national broadband internet, and other items to keep the country from falling down.

What else? The Inflation Reduction Act, which created manufacturing jobs that were a net loss during the Trump administration, reduced healthcare costs by putting a cap on out-of-pocket expenses for Medicare recipients, made permanent a monthly cap of $35 for insulin, which during the Trump administration was allowed for a select few and only temporarily, and invested nearly $400 billion in job-creating green energy projects.

Then there was the American Rescue Plan which jump started the economy instead of just trying the tread water “plan” that Trump was "persuaded" to approve at the beginning of the pandemic.  Those were the “big” things, since as usual, American voters only allow the party in power two years to do things like that, and Biden was obliged to use his executive authority to promulgate other regulations which aided American workers.

Yet polls incomprehensible suggest that a majority of Americans, including in swing states, think that Trump is more “capable” than Harris in handling the economy (I mean, who actually "handles" it anyways, save the Federal Reserve), and foreign policy. I've already pointed out in a whole post that Trump was a foreign policy incompetent, but to recap, in 2020 Serge Schmemann in the New York Times pointed out that Trump’s level of foreign policy incompetence and irresponsibility was such that

This month, with no warning to the Pentagon, President Trump’s national security adviser abruptly announced that the United States would reduce its troops in Afghanistan to 2,500 by early next year, rather than 4,500 as previously decided. Hours later, the president tweeted that no, he wanted them all back by Christmas. Caught by surprise, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, declared that he would proceed based on conditions and existing plans, and the Department of Defense noted — again — that it does not respond to commands over Twitter.It was a shockingly irresponsible exercise of executive power, especially as military officials have consistently warned that a quick withdrawal would put frontline soldiers’ lives at risk and undermine the peace deal being discussed with the Taliban. But after nearly four years, Washington and the world have learned to their dismay that this is the way Donald Trump does business.

Well, at least that is not as bad  as revealing the identity of our only “deep cover” agent in the Kremlin to Putin, as the CIA suspected he did, causing the agency to remove the agent from Russia for his own safety. And we're not supposed to "wonder" what Trump was doing with all those classified documents stacked up in his bathroom. I mean, what did Trump expect as a "reward" from Putin for such information, if true? A "flattering" love letter, like he got from Kim Jong Un?

 But what all those "bad" things that have been happening the past four years? You know, strengthening our natural alliances (with Sweden and Finland joining NATO), upholding democracy against authoritarian aggression in Ukraine, and how many war zones are American combat troops fighting in right now? None? Didn’t Trump tell you he was going to end—what?

Mitch McConnell even felt compelled to call out the “cult of personality” surrounding Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban among many of his colleagues, for no better reason that he is a “friend” of Trump’s and has “visited” his “good friend” at Mar-a-Lago and other locations. McConnell noted that “I’ve spoken before about Hungary’s decade-long drift into the orbit of the West’s most determined adversaries,” but to no avail. McConnell said on the Senate floor. “It’s an alarming trend. And nobody—certainly not the American conservatives who increasingly form a cult of personality around Prime Minister Viktor Orbán—can pretend not to see it.”

Trump’s embrace of Orban not only shows his utter contempt for the principles this country allegedly has stood for since 1776, but it shows that he is a supreme hypocrite and has no foreign policy acumen whatever. He attacks China and Iran, and yet as McConnell notes that not only does Orban have close relations with Russia and Iran, but he has thumbed his nose at pressure form the EU and NATO to fall into line as a legitimate democracy, and has instead obtained loans from China, and is doing Russia’s bidding by running “interference for Moscow, gumming up European and transatlantic efforts to combat Russia’s unlawful aggression at every turn.”

Hungary, it seems, takes its cue from "red states" in this country. András Bozóki, a Hungarian historian, published an article called “Free and Unfair: The Hungarian Elections,” in which he pointed out that Hungarian elections have low turnout because voters believe they have few choices, especially since Orban’s party has borrowed from U.S. partisan gerrymandering by splitting voting districts into those favoring right-wing voters in low-population districts, while cramming left-wing voters into high-population districts, thus diluting their voting power. Bozóki also observed that the media has aided the creation of a one-party state, consisting of Orban's Fidesz Party:

The majority of television channels broadcast reports that are biased towards Fidesz. Together, these factors grant the government significant and unfair advantages and restrict citizens’ access to proper information. The result has been a loss of public confidence in the electoral system. Fidesz not only campaigned as a party, as is usual in any multi-party democracy, but the Fidesz-controlled state administration also “campaigned” by using taxpayers’ money and creating an uneven playing field. The boundaries between party and the state became blurred…The majority of the public has been convinced by the media that, despite permanent economic stagnation, “Hungary has been performing better” over Fidesz’s four-year term.

Yes this is what Trump admires about Orban: he has created a country where lies have become truth, because there are few outlets of factual reporting. Trump also takes his propaganda cues from his friend Orban, as Bozóki  would suggest here, although not all are "buying" it:

Today, the Hungarian public is constantly reminded by its political leaders of the importance of national pride. Individual rights and the democratic institutions that protect them have taken a backseat to constitutionally endorsed policies of collective identity and cultural uniformity. With government propaganda about “order”, “home”, “fatherland” and “family” drowning out all other voices, many are voting with their feet: In the past four years, half a million people have left the country.

Thom Hartmann recently posted about the fascism that is regurgitated as “libertarianism,” or at least in a version that multi-multi-billionaire Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg can "safely" embrace as his “political ideology” for the ideologically ignorant. Of course “libertarianism” in red states is not actually practiced, because “culture war” policies and laws are not compatible with the idea of unfettered “freedom,” but that doesn’t mean that some aspects of “libertarian” economic anti-federal government policy is not:

That’s what Texas did when they split their grid away from the rest of America to avoid regulation of their power industry. The lie of libertarian policies was on vivid display when Texans died from hypothermia while Ted Cruz fled to Cancun. And then Texas families who survived the bitter cold got $3,000 to $17,000 power bills after the freeze left, because of magical deregulated “free markets” for power in that state.

When the power went down, the Republican mayor of Colorado City at the time, Tim Boyd, posted this on Facebook:

“No one owes you are (sic) your family anything; nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!

“If you don’t have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe. If you have no water you deal with out and think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family.

“If you are sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your (sic) lazy is direct result of your raising! Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish (sic).”  

Yet for some people in Texas, even this view typical of Republican polticians was too much. Outrage over his comments led to his resignation from office. 

Texas, we are now learning, has "agreed" to a limited attachment to the national grid, meaning it can get all it needs without abiding by the federal regulations that other states in the national grid must conform to; it's a matter of "pride."

Of course when far-white culture war activists get their way, even hair style can be a matter of "war." The lawsuit of  a black student in Texas who was suspended indefinitely from a high school for his hair style was dismissed recently, despite the school district in clear violation of the Crown Act which stated a student cannot be discriminate against or punish for their hair style. But a court ruling found that  the public school district was perfectly within its "rights" to view managing hairstyle as a way to "teach grooming and hygiene, instill discipline, prevent disruption, avoid safety hazards and teach respect for authority."  Sorry, it still sounds like discrimination and denial of civil rights to me.

And of course Texas gave us the anti-DEI SB 17 law, which—let’s be honest for just one second—violates the first amendment rights of those who choose to speak out against racism, discrimination or the history of such in this country (let alone in the state). Every University of Texas course syllabi includes a note that it “complies” with SB 17, meaning that no white person will be “offended” by anything said or read in the course—but no mention about anything that might offend minorities, who will not be allowed to say anything about it. You know, back to the good old Jim Crow days.

Yes, states like Florida and Texas are the wave of “future” for the entire country if an increasingly unhinged Trump with his Reichsministers and Fifth Circuit Court waiting in the wings to please Der Fuhrer if he is elected.  We know what can happen, so why do we want to "chance" it that it won't be all that "bad," only for people being rounded up by the millions, which won't just look "bad" to the rest of the world, but will tank the economy, for which people will still be dumb enough to wonder "why?"

We already see what is happening when fascist politicians who run states, and we want this for the whole country? Well, maybe “liberal” or centrist white people care in the sense they want to be seen as “fair,” but will they really lose something too if Trump wins the election? The answer of course is yes, since what the far-right wants is to end democracy as we once knew it, and take away your freedom of speech rights if you come to your senses too little, too late. A vote for Trump will remove just more speed bumps on the road to de facto dictatorship.