Yesterday's Debate Stand Back and Stand By

[lennygoran]

What a disgraceful spectacle but we watched it all last night-Biden didn't fold or gaffe-trump was an abomination! All my remote devices have a mute button-that's what I think is needed. Regards, Len

Donald Trump sidesteps call to condemn white supremacists — and the Proud Boys were 'extremely excited' about it

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol ... 583339001/

[barney]

I watched it all - nearly, I was interrupted near the end - and despaired. This is a President? A bully, thug, loudmouth, certainly. His only tactic was to shout-down Joe, continually talking over the top. And the usual parade of lies. This, of course, appealed to the lobotomised and violent, but I wonder whether it will persuade a single undecided voter to prefer Trump.

I felt for the unfortunate moderator, who did try to rein him in, but in the end he was too weak.

[Belle]

Biden was no better than Trump; "shut up man", "a clown" etc. The whole thing was an absolute disgrace and indicative of the descent from civility of the USA. The centre left now dominated by extremists (also around the world, and this is keeping the Left out of politics). You egg the people on by refusing to accept the election of the President in 2016 and this is what you get; massive disrespect for the polity and the democratic decisions of the people. The hatred is palpable. Movie stars who want to punch the President, another actor who accuses the First Lady of being an illegal immigrant. And these dogs think they're morally superior. If Abraham Lincoln was here today he'd never stop throwing up.

This is the face of progressive America!! Speakers who tear up State of the Union speeches, a President off the charts in terms of predictability, partisan and shrill media activism, zealots in control of the institutions (armed with baseball bats if you dare question the orthodoxy), thugs out on the streets destroying businesses and none of it condemned by the Left. Oh wait, they were "peaceful protests". Orwellian, to say the least.

The remaining good and decent people of middle America have our sincere sympathies.

[lennygoran]

I felt for the unfortunate moderator, who did try to rein him in, but in the end he was too weak.

Barney for me he's one of FOX's best-he needed better tools-they have to have a device that turns off the mike of anyone who interrupts or goes over his 2 minutes. Meantime we just have to know who he owes that debt to-he could be completely compromised-he could be a national security threat. Regards, Len

[jserraglio]

I didn’t watch a second of it. I read The Goldfinch instead.

Lindsay Graham of old sums up The Doughboy for me. Republicans Against Trump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5Xpwyd4aMM

[maestrob]

This is my first post here.

My wife (who grew up in a dictatorship) and I both couldn't sleep last night after watching what Dana Bash on CNN called a "sh!t show."

Trump would not denounce violence on the right, and told the Proud Boys, a violent right-wing neo-Nazi militia, to "stand back and stand by."

Biden, in contrast, denounced violence "in any form, from anybody."

I despair for American democracy. The entire Republican party has been moving towards rule by the minority for years, with their tactics of refusing to consider in the Senate Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, who was nominated 10 months before an election, etc.

I watched in horror as DJT "won" the election in 2016, in spite of receiving more than 3 million less votes than Hillary Clinton. He has been moving to undermine our democratic values ever since. Last night's debate was the culmination of that toxic presidency.

He will lose this election if voting is allowed to go forward and counting is not halted by the Supreme Court, as it was in 2000. What concerns me most is that in America, we now have an entire political party that stands against democratic values, and will back the next Republican candidate who will be smoother and far more subtle than DJT, a candidate who will undermine our democracy and establish a soft dictatorship similar to Erdogan in Turkey, ignoring and/or undermining all of the protections of human rights and dignities that have been established since FDR and Teddy Roosevelt, such as the financial safety net (Social Security, pension security (yes, pensions here are guaranteed by the Federal Government if they go bankrupt), food stamps, unemployment insurance, etc.) that guarantee human dignity if chance wrecks one's life. Republicans have stood against these programs since they were enacted, forcing FDR to defend Social Security in front of the Supreme Court, and now likewise, Obamacare, several times.

For example, 70% of the American public supports a woman's right to choose to have an abortion (including many Catholics), yet soon 6 out of 9 Supreme Court justices will not support that right, all because of Mitch McConnell's scheming in the Senate.

This is not White Supremacy in action, it's much more subtle and deeper than that. It is now becoming more brutal, because Republicans know that their policies are not supported by the majority of our population, so they are now resorting to provoking violence to intimidate those of us who are sensible people in the majority.

I live in New York, where we are testing currently at 1% for Covid-19 because our population is sensible. We wear masks, keep socially distant, and test our essential workers (police, firemen/women, hospital workers, etc.) on a regular basis. Also, I feel safe walking our streets because demonstrators are non-violent when they happen, although our police did shoot and kill two Black men in July during a march. The uptick in violence here is in poor neighborhoods where many people are out of work, out of money and cooped up together all day long, so domestic violence is on the rise, I admit that. BUT, this is happening all over the country, and is decidedly NOT a result of Democratic mis-management of our city, as charged by Republicans. So nuts to that!

As an example of Republicans moving to hold on to power just happened in the swing state of Florida this year. There are currently roughly more than 700,000 ex-felons living in Florida, most of them minorities who would vote Democratic if given the chance. In last year's election, Florida's population, in a bi-partisan moment, voted overwhelmingly to restore voting rights to ex-felons in a plebiscite, which the Republican-controlled state government had denied for ages, knowing that their rule would be threatened. What did they do in response? Suddenly, the Republican-controlled government passed a new law, stating that ex-felons had to repay all their court costs and fines before they could have the right to vote! That law is now being challenged, of course, but the issue will not be resolved until after the election this year, and will be heard by the Republican-controlled federal Supreme Court in any case. Yes, there is a movement on the left to raise funds to pay these fines and costs (Michael Bloomberg has offered, IIRC, to contribute $100 million to the effort), but the total cost is a staggering $1 billion, and the deadline for payment to be received is IIRC October 8!

Remember, most of these 700,000 ex-felons (a vast majority of whom would vote for Democrats) have already served their time and thus have paid their debt to society, but they are mostly poor and without jobs, so coming up with even $500 each is beyond their means. By contrast, when the Supreme Court halted the vote counting in Bush v. Gore in 2000, Bush was ahead in the entire state of Florida by only 534 votes. Thus, George W. Bush was installed in the White House based on 534 votes in Florida. We know what happened next.

Republicans have been hurting the American economy for 100 years, causing crisis after crisis. Here's the list:

Herbert Hoover (a businessman), caused the Great Depression and stock market crash in 1929. In 1932 FDR began to save us from that. While Republicans urged that we should stay out of the war in Europe, when we were attacked at Pearl harbor on December 7, 1941, they had no choice but to go along with FDR and declared war on Germany and Japan. During the 1930's, FDR created Social Security and the beginnings of the safety net, and along with deficit spending for WWII, we finally climbed out of that financial debacle, in spite of Republican opposition to FDR's policies.

Nixon imposed price controls during my college years in a vain attempt to stop inflation. It didn't work, especially when the oil embargo happened, causing gasoline shortages, thus laying the groundwork for the terrible stagflation of the 1970's. Then there was Watergate.....

Reagan deregulated the savings banks and, for the first time in history, taxed Social Security and unemployment payments. Thus began the savings bank crisis, where hundreds of banks around the USA were looted by their owners and CEO's and had to close, forcing enormous costs on to U. S. taxpayers. Reagan also reversed his early attempts to cut taxes as the Federal deficit ballooned, and his successor, George H. W. Bush, despite his election promise ("Read my lips....NO new taxes!), also had to raise taxes for the same reason in the middle of a mild recession, thus costing him re-election. (Remember voodoo economics?) Our banking system was in tatters by then, but Bill Clinton managed to pass new regulations and raise taxes to balance our budget despite 100% Republican opposition, so things settled down again while we had a decade of prosperity.

Enter George W. Bush, who cut taxes again and deregulated businesses. What did we get? The Great Recession, another stock market crash, frozen credit markets, and another massive bailout of both the banking and automobile industries, all again at taxpayer expense! Not to mention all the lies about Iraqi WMD, and a $2 trillion dollar war.

Again, Democratic President Obama had to step up and put our economy back in order for us.

At this point, I think I've said enough about history for one morning.

In conclusion, let me say that I am a proud WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant). Proud of my heritage (one of my family branches goes back to the mid-1600's; they founded a furniture company that was quite successful in New England.). I look on my French/Irish/British/German heritage with great respect (My French ancestors fled France in 1791 to avoid the guillotine, and settled in Philadelphia in the early 1800's after fleeing a slave rebellion in St. Thomas.). I also had an ancestor who fought in the Civil war as a colonel on the side of the North. That said, contrary to Republicans' denigrating of immigrants, frankly, immigrants have saved my life several times and, since moving to NYC, have contributed immensely to my growth as a person, making me a better human being. Immigration is good for America. Immigrants allow us to grow and prosper and improve our imperfect society, always bending the curve towards freedom and prosperity in the long run. In America, we are at our best when we allow all people to contribute to our society to the best of their ability.

Thus, I fear with the current Republican party, we may lose that ability to grow and prosper that I have experienced through my lifetime if they seize control of our government, either in this election or some time in the near future.

Republicans, through voodoo economics and intolerant social policies, have caused great damage to our society throughout my lifetime. They should not be permitted to continue as an ongoing political force in our country, and should be replaced by another, saner opposition party, with better, more constructive ideas. Among them should be the abolishment of Fox News, which has turned into a state propaganda machine that spouts irrationality, unreality and hate. Long ago, our Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal to shout "Fire!' in a crowded theater when there is no fire. Based on the same principle, Fox News has been shouting "Fire!' for decades when there is no fire, and should be closed down. Freedom of speech has its limits, especially when that speech harms our society, which Fox obviously does.

But enough. I've had my say. It's not too late. VOTE! And continue to vote for sanity, until these mad ideas fade away.

And pray for the future of the United States.

Thanks for reading.

[lennygoran]

Lindsay Graham of old sums up The Doughboy for me. Republicans Against Trump.

That's good stuff! Regards, Len

[lennygoran]

This is my first post here....Thanks for reading.

Brian thanks for your thoughts on all this-I enjoyed reading it. I was wondering about actually shutting down Fox-I decided to google and came up with this link. Regards, Len

https://www.debate.org/opinions/should- ... -shut-down

[barney]

Biden was no better than Trump; "shut up man", "a clown" etc.

You cannot possibly make that statement in good faith. You are simply trolling. Did you watch it? It's one of the stupidest statements I've seen about the debate.
Biden did succumb eventually, but on the aggression stakes he was 2 out of 10 while Trump was 12. Trump spoke over the top of Biden constantly, interjected, insulted, bullied, shouted, sneered and raised malicious lies - eg Biden's schooling and his son.
Biden didn't know what to do -should he endure in silence, as he did sometimes, or retort, as he did sometimes? If the debate descends to thuggishness, we all know who is going to win. The commentator - from Fox News after all, though he showed no bias that I could see - rebuked Trump and said he was the cause of the trouble. Perhaps you were making a cup of tea at that point.
It was clearly a deliberate tactic to unsettle Biden, and it sort of worked.

Belle, most of us here can see two sides. Why can't you?

[barney]

Len, a mute button for the candidates, operated by the moderator, is essential for the next debates. With any luck Pence-Harris will be a much higher standard, Pence being a vastly superior human being to Trump. As is almost everyone on the planet.

[barney]

Welcome to the pub, Brian - let me buy you a beer. Or a glass of wine.
Thank you for those thoughtful comments. I know you haven't a racist cell in your body, and you are right to be proud of your heritage. We all should be - it doesn't mean we think we are better than anyone else, because we are not.
Your history lesson is spot-on. Alas, I think the Democrats have gone backward since the 1970s, it's just that the retreat into naked power-grabbing has only gone one eighth of the distance the Republicans have gone.
I still think Carter was one of the most decent men to be President, and it made him one of the most ineffectual. I too would be the same - racked by anxiety into indecision - I am sure.
Finally, I would be only too delighted to vote. If only I could!

[jserraglio]

Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th.

That’s who Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani, The Donald’s debate prep coaches, told him he came across as Tuesday night in my hometown while I was blissfully immersed in Donna Tartt’s latest novel.

I had to google Jason Voorhees to find out who he was and how Creature Trump resembles him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oZ9ExQ--Rs

[Ricordanza]

This is my first post here.

Wow, Brian, you have a lot to say! Welcome to the Corner Pub. I certainly look forward to reading your future comments.

While I agree with much of what you wrote, I can't let pass your comments on Fox News. Freedom of the press is one of the foundation blocks of our democracy, so I strongly disagree with your proposal to shut down Fox News.

Hank

[lennygoran]

Len, a mute button for the candidates, operated by the moderator, is essential for the next debates. With any luck Pence-Harris will be a much higher standard, Pence being a vastly superior human being to Trump. As is almost everyone on the planet.

Barney definitely agree with you-looking forward to Oct 7th! I do hope Susan Page will ask Pence if he denounces the Proud Boys. Another important item-does he know to whom trump owes all the debt! Regards, Len

[lennygoran]

I still think Carter was one of the most decent men to be President,

Barney even more important-he had opera piped into the Oval Office! Regards, Len

[barney]

I still think Carter was one of the most decent men to be President,

Barney even more important-he had opera piped into the Oval Office! Regards, Len

Didn't know that, Len. Integrity and taste!
Mind you, I hope Mike Pence has his wife on stage with him. Otherwise he will be alone with a woman not his wife, in that no one else will be close. But I am sure he will be courteous. I hope Kamala is too. Let's not give the slimy Republicans any hope of the high ground.

[jserraglio]

I strongly disagree with your proposal to shut down Fox News.

Shut down Fox News? They can’t do that! All my entertainment shows are on there in prime time. I don’t watch network sitcoms.

Seriously. I would feel very lonely and upset without Tucker, Laura, Greg, Dana, Jesse, Juan, Martha, Sean, Jeanine, et al.

Many a nite, I came home from a hard day at school relating to a hundred teenage boys, poured myself a stiff shot of rotgut Evan Williams bourbon, and settled down to enjoy zany, nutty “The Five”.

[maestrob]

This is my first post here.

Wow, Brian, you have a lot to say! Welcome to the Corner Pub. I certainly look forward to reading your future comments.

While I agree with much of what you wrote, I can't let pass your comments on Fox News. Freedom of the press is one of the foundation blocks of our democracy, so I strongly disagree with your proposal to shut down Fox News.

Hank

Hello, Hank

Widespread intentional lies and disinformation are currently wrecking our society. People don't know what to believe or who to trust nowadays. When you & I were coming of age, we had three national networks giving us the facts of the day, and the integrity of their newsrooms was extremely high. Reality reigned supreme. Sure, we had the yellow press in our history during previous generations, but, as a country, we outgrew all that by the time you & I appeared on the scene. Now we have Fox News and lies and rumors spread on Facebook and Twitter as the modern replacement for the nonsense that newspapers used to publish 120 years ago. How many times have you heard someone say in conversation, "But it must be true, I saw it on Facebook!"? BUT, we also have the tools to fact-check and stop this cycle of nonsense, and they should be employed full steam ahead.

Intentional lies and misinformation should be ruled on by our Supreme Court as verbally violent and destructive to society and made illegal, just as physical violence is now illegal. I know I'm arguing with a former attorney on this, but I am the nephew and grandson of two very successful Philadelphia lawyers who established a very profitable firm that still continues in operation to this day, so here goes!

Fox News is like an atomic bomb going off in our society, and its political influence has been just as destructive, especially over the past 20 years or so. Such a force of negativity should be curtailed and regulated, and if they refuse to stick to reporting the facts, shut down.

Opinion is quite another matter, of course. We are still a free country, and opinions based on factual evidence are welcome still in the U. S. My beef is with the massive "opinion" machine that has sprung up around the Republican Party that invents facts and then editorializes on these made-up or "alternative" facts (See Kellyanne Conway!). I say "Nuts!" to that whole process! It should be made illegal. Lou Dobbs, as one example, was dismissed from CNN for promulgating the birther theory about Obama's citizenship after he was elected President. Dobbs was soon hired by Fox Business, and continues to be a negative force in our news media, albeit in a much more minor role. In my opinion, Fox should reform or die. It's that simple.

Freedom of the press is one thing. Deliberate lies and alternative facts meant to mislead the public destroy the very fabric of trust and loyalty to the truth that forms our democratic norms, and should be penalized in some way, based, as I said yesterday, on the ruling that it is illegal to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire.

[diegobueno]

I think Biden showed admirable restraint in merely telling Trump to shut up and calling him a clown. Trump was deliberately trying to make Biden blow up and have a melt-down. It didn't work.

Likewise I think Nancy Pelosi showed remarkable restraint in merely ripping up Trump's laughable excuse for a state of the union address. I would would have set it on fire.

[jserraglio]

I didn’t watch the debate, but from what I heard and read about it (cf. the Daily Show’s recap below), I reckon President Trump did a bang-up job; if anything, he was diffident; I think he needs to crank up the energy next time and be himself—aggressive, you know, like he was with Vladimir Putin.

Stop being so Presidential! Then white, college-educated, suburban women in Pennsylvania will swoon at your manly charms. In fact after that debate we can safely say that Penn is in the bag, as is the the entire Election.

So now I think that Mr. Trump needs to tie up the election in the courts Indefinitely, so that President Pelosi can deliver the 2021 State of the Union that HE was supposed to give.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTY_FDO2TXw

[Ricordanza]

Intentional lies and misinformation should be ruled on by our Supreme Court as verbally violent and destructive to society and made illegal, just as physical violence is now illegal. I know I'm arguing with a former attorney on this, but I am the nephew and grandson of two very successful Philadelphia lawyers who established a very profitable firm that still continues in operation to this day, so here goes!

Well, I'm still a licensed attorney, but regardless of the status of my law license, there are two major problems with your approach. First, giving the courts power to decide what is an intentional lie and misinformation would politicize the judiciary even more than it is today. Courts make this determination on a very limited basis in libel and defamation suits, but these cases comprise a tiny fraction of the courts' docket. I should also point out that the U.S. Supreme Court only hears a case after it has made its way through the lower courts, so the Supreme Court would not rule each time someone charged that Fox News (or any other media source) broadcast intentional misinformation. Second, a lie is a lie and violence is violence; they are not the same. As George Orwell pointed out, this is not merely a language issue. Changing definitions can have grave consequences for our society.

[maestrob]

Yes, Hank, I should have said former "practicing" attorney, since I believe you are retired now, so I apologize for my unclear language. If I'm mistaken about that, I apologize again.

So let's move on.

Of course lower courts would rule on this issue before it would reach the Supreme Court. I took it for granted that we're all intelligent here and that we understand that. Naturally, Congress would have to pass legislation making Fox's hate speech illegal, and that law would have to be challenged, etc. There would be a long process to go through, and I think it would be worth the struggle.

Verbal violence against individuals, as you correctly point out, has already been made illegal going back centuries. My point is that Fox epitomizes verbal violence against the ideals of our founders, the very basis for our liberal (not in a political sense, of course) society. Thus, the lies and repeated misrepresentations pounded into the brains of Fox viewers, in my view, represent the same sort of verbal violence, but aimed at society itself and the political structure that is properly elected to represent the people who make up that society.

Words have power. Look at what Hitler did to Europe with the power and violence of his words. Look at what Stalin did to Russia with the power and violence of his words. Look at what Milosevic did to the former Yugoslavia more recently with the power of his words. All of these men are understood to be war criminals. There were the Nuremburg trials. Milosevic was tried, but died of a heart attack before the verdict came in convicting him of war crimes. Even Stalin was quietly turned away from by the Communist Party after his death, and relations began to thaw between the U. S. and the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War as a result. Remember, Bernstein famously brought the N. Y. Philharmonic to Russia in 1959 and conducted Shostakovich's great Fifth Symphony for the composer to great acclaim. Also the American pianist Van Cliburn won the first Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958 and recorded with the Russian conductor Kirill Kondrashin for release here on the RCA label. But I digress.

Thus, violent speech against society has the power to cause immense damage to that society. Fox News is, IMHO, causing great damage to our American society in ways that will only be measured by historians in the future, and thus should be curtailed by law and common legal agreement before the damage, already begun, becomes irreversible. The Trump presidency is only a symptom of this toxic verbal diarrhea that is poured out into the ears of a public confused by the constant barrage of violent, unreal speech from Fox and on social media, much of originating from our current President.

IMHO, Hank, such speech against society should be made illegal and prosecutable, just as libel and slander against individuals have long been held to be illegal. Such terrible speech is libelous and slanderous against the many, many good people, both new and old citizens of many races and national origins that make up our society. It is illegal to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire.

Please read the relevant Wikipedia article on hate speech by clicking on the link posted here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_spee ... Amendment.

Thanks for reading.

[maestrob]

Just to make sure I'm clear, what I'm proposing is a new legal category of hate speech, which would be hate speech against society in general. This would require, of course, new legislation and new court contests, inspiring new rulings.

[maestrob]

Been thinking hard about what I posted here last Wednesday, and have been editing, adding and revising the text. Rather than go through the process of revising my original post, I've decided to post the revised text here complete. Here are a few additional facts that I'd like to point out before I do so.

1) The Federal minimum wage in the USA has dropped in actual purchasing power to less than 1/3 of what it was when I was going to Villanova full time in the late 1960's, especially during the last 30+ years when Republicans have (mostly) controlled Congress. In those days I was able to afford my own car and associated expenses (insurance, gas, repairs, etc.), suits to go to work (I worked at department stores up to 35 hours/week in a nearby mall, and in those days you were required to wear dress clothes both to classes in my Freshman year and on the job.). All that while I was earning $1.80/hour. That's not possible on the current paltry Federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, although many Democratic states have raised their minimum to as high as $15.00/hr. Compare that to, say, Denmark, where McDonald's workers earn $22.00/hr. and enjoy free health care from their government, paid sick leave, maternity leave, etc.

2) Union membership, again because of Republican hostility, has dropped from over 50% of the workforce during the 1950's and 60's to roughly 10% now. Not to mention the disappearance of pensions and healthcare coverage in retirement from your employer. My father enjoyed both of these benefits in retirement: not so for the vast majority of my generation (Barely 10% of current retirees now have pensions.).

3) The recent trend in corporate America (including well-known banks) has been to classify many employees as "contract workers," which makes them ineligible for many benefits, and lets the corporations involved off the hook for paying their share of Social Security taxes, unemployment insurance taxes, and providing health insurance, all of which costs suddenly become the 100% responsibility of the employee while making them ineligible for the few corporate pension plans that are still available. This has been especially prevalent since Obamacare became the law of the land. Many court challenges to this patently illegal practice have happened, most notably when the State of California sued Uber and won, prompting Uber to threaten to leave the state! AFAIK, no deal has yet been finalized as of this date.

4) DJT is the first President in our history to undermine democratic norms. Here's how one example of this works: All employees of our Federal Government swear an oath to uphold and protect our Constitution, whether in the military, elected to public office (including the President, Vice President and both branches of Congress, the Senate and House of Representatives), appointed to the Judiciary, or appointed to the many branches of the Executive, including the leaders of the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, FDA, CDC, etc., all Cabinet Members, and all those who are employed and report to them. Trump is the first President in our history to require that all these employees should be personally loyal to HIM. If you're not, you're gone! Look at what happened to FBI Director James Comey, and all those brave souls who testified against DJT in the impeachment hearings. All dismissed, careers and lives ruined, as well as all the cabinet members who stood up to him, including the great Generals Trump was so proud of in the beginning of his administration. This is how autocrats operate, such as Erdogan in Turkey, and the present-day leaders of Poland (Andrzej Duda) and Hungary (Janos Ader), all of whom are members of and at odds with the European Union Government, and are leaning towards Russia despite their recent history of oppression by that country, thus risking expulsion for their style of governing. Trump also seems to cower before Putin personally, even while our government continues to impose sanctions on Russia since Putin's illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and the continuing war in Eastern Ukraine.

Thus, I believe we are on the long road towards autocracy, a terrible first for our republic.

So, here's the revised and updated text below:

Here’s my reaction to the first “Presidential” debate.
My wife (who grew up in a dictatorship) and I both couldn't sleep last night after watching what Dana Bash on CNN called a "sh!t show."

Trump would not denounce violence on the right, and told the Proud Boys, a violent right-wing neo-Nazi militia, to "stand back and stand by."

Biden, in contrast, denounced violence "in any form, from anybody."

I despair for American democracy. The entire Republican party has been moving towards rule by the minority for years, with their tactics of refusing to consider in the Senate Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, who was nominated 10 months before an election, etc.

I watched in horror as DJT "won" the election in 2016, in spite of receiving more than 3 million less votes than Hillary Clinton. He has been moving to undermine our democratic values ever since. Last night's debate was the culmination of that toxic presidency.

He will lose this election if voting is allowed to go forward and counting is not halted by the Supreme Court, as it was in 2000. What concerns me most is that in America, we now have an entire political party that stands against democratic values, and will back the next Republican candidate who will be smoother and far more subtle than DJT, a candidate who will undermine our democracy and establish a soft dictatorship similar to Erdogan in Turkey, ignoring and/or undermining all of the protections of human rights and dignities that have been established since FDR and Teddy Roosevelt, such as the financial safety net (Social Security, pension security (yes, pensions here are guaranteed by the Federal Government if they go bankrupt), food stamps, unemployment insurance, etc.) that guarantee human dignity if chance wrecks one's life. Republicans have stood against these programs since they were enacted, forcing FDR to defend Social Security in front of the Supreme Court, and now likewise, Obamacare, several times.

For example, 70% of the American public supports a woman's right to choose to have an abortion (including many Catholics), yet soon 6 out of 9 Supreme Court justices will not support that right, all because of Mitch McConnell's scheming in the Senate.

This is not White Supremacy in action, it's much more subtle and deeper than that. It is now becoming more brutal, because Republicans know that their policies are not supported by the majority of our population, so they are now resorting to provoking violence to intimidate those of us who are sensible people in the majority.

I live in New York, where we are testing currently at 1% for Covid-19 because our population is sensible. We wear masks, keep socially distant, and test our essential workers (police, firemen/women, hospital workers, etc.) on a regular basis. Also, I feel safe walking our streets because demonstrators are non-violent when they happen, although our police did shoot and kill two Black men in July during a march. The uptick in violence here is in poor neighborhoods where many people are out of work, out of money and cooped up together all day long, so domestic violence is on the rise, I admit that. BUT, this is happening all over the country, and is decidedly NOT a result of Democratic mis-management of our city, as charged by Republicans. So nuts to that!

As an example of Republicans moving to hold on to power just happened in the swing state of Florida this year. There are currently roughly more than 700,000 ex-felons living in Florida, most of them minorities who would vote Democratic if given the chance. In last year's election, Florida's population, in a bi-partisan moment, voted overwhelmingly to restore voting rights to ex-felons in a plebiscite, which the Republican-controlled state government had denied for ages, knowing that their rule would be threatened. What did they do in response? Suddenly, the Republican-controlled government passed a new law, stating that ex-felons had to repay all their court costs and fines before they could have the right to vote! That law is now being challenged, of course, but the issue will not be resolved until after the election this year, and will be heard by the Republican-controlled federal Supreme Court in any case. Yes, there is a movement on the left to raise funds to pay these fines and costs (Michael Bloomberg has offered, IIRC, to contribute $100 million to the effort), but the total cost is a staggering $1 billion, and the deadline for payment to be received is IIRC October 8!

Remember, most of these 700,000 ex-felons (a vast majority of whom would vote for Democrats) have already served their time and thus have paid their debt to society, but they are mostly poor and without jobs, so coming up with even $500 each is beyond their means. By contrast, when the Supreme Court halted the vote counting in Bush v. Gore in 2000, Bush was ahead in the entire state of Florida by only 534 votes. Thus, George W. Bush was installed in the White House based on 534 votes in Florida. We know what happened next.

Republicans have been hurting the American economy for 100 years, causing crisis after crisis. Here's the list:

Herbert Hoover (a businessman), caused the Great Depression in 1929. When the stock market crashed that year, Hoover’s laissez-faire economic policies (He famously thought that the economy would “heal itself.”) resulted in a nearly 25% unemployment rate and millions of small business bankruptcies. In 1932 FDR began to save us from that with massive works projects and the beginnings of our modern safety net for working families. While Republicans urged that we should stay out of the war in Europe, when we were attacked at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, they had no choice but to go along with FDR and declared war on Germany and Japan. During the 1930's, FDR created Social Security, and along with deficit spending for WWII, we finally climbed out of that financial debacle, in spite of Republican opposition to FDR's policies.
The exception here was Eisenhower, who was a Democrat who ran on the Republican ticket first in 1952 because he knew he could win against Adlai Stevenson, an intellectual and a former U. N. Ambassador, who was a weak candidate. Eisenhower was the General who led the U. S. to victory in Europe in WWII, thus a national hero. There was no contest, and Eisenhower won both terms in landslide victories. He continued the post WWII prosperity begun under FDR and Harry Truman, was friendly with unions, built up our modern highway and bridge system to make transportation more efficient and ended the Korean War. He also sent in Federal troops to support the Supreme Court’s ruling on school segregation, a very brave thing to do in 1950’s America.

Nixon imposed price controls during my college years in a vain attempt to stop inflation. It didn't work, especially when the oil embargo happened, causing gasoline shortages, thus laying the groundwork for the terrible stagflation of the 1970's. Then there was Watergate.....
Nixon’s Vice President, Gerald Ford, succeeded him for the remainder of his second term when Nixon was forced to resign. Ford is known for two things. He pardoned Nixon so that he couldn’t be prosecuted for his crimes committed while in office, ostensibly to “heal” the nation and move past the Watergate scandal. That decision cost him the next election, and he was succeeded by Jimmy Carter, a Democrat who is still alive and now, at 96, our oldest living former President. Then, Ford famously told New York City, which was teetering on the verge of bankruptcy in 1975, to “Drop dead!” when we asked for Federal help. This, one year before our national bicentennial celebration! Republicans have been hostile to urban areas consistently for generations, but this open display of contempt resonated throughout the country. Luckily, local leaders and financial experts were able to work out a deal to save the situation, which would have crashed our local economy and cost the Federal government millions in lost tax revenue. New York for centuries has sent more tax revenue to Washington than we receive in Federal benefits and subsidies, but did Republicans care or acknowledge that? Not then, and they still don’t.

Reagan began to unravel the regulations that had kept our banking system stable since the 1930’s by deregulating the savings banks and, for the first time in history, taxed Social Security and unemployment payments. Thus began the savings bank crisis, where hundreds of banks around the USA were looted by their owners and CEO's and had to close, forcing enormous costs on to U. S. taxpayers by forcing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to pay off depositors. Reagan also reversed his early attempts to cut taxes as the Federal deficit ballooned, and his successor, George H. W. Bush, despite his election promise at his nominating convention ("Read my lips....NO new taxes!), also had to raise taxes for the same reason in the middle of a mild recession, thus costing him re-election. (Remember voodoo economics?) Our banking system was in tatters by then, but Bill Clinton managed to pass new regulations and raise taxes to balance our budget despite 100% Republican opposition, so things settled down again while we had a decade of prosperity. Then, Newt Gingrich happened, and Republicans took control of Congress for the first time since the 1920’s. Economic disaster again followed.

While Democrat Bill Clinton, under terrific pressure from the newly established Republican Congress under Newt Gingrich, did sign a Republican-passed bill dissolving the Glass-Steagall Act that had kept our savings and commercial banks separate and stable since the 1930’s, he also was pressured by Alan Greenspan in 1999. Clinton was the ONLY President in the past 100 years to leave us with a surplus in the Federal budget.
Enter George W. Bush, who never saw a business regulation that he liked, who then cut taxes again and deregulated businesses. What did we get? The Great Recession, frozen credit markets, another stock market crash, and another massive bailout of both the banking and automobile industries (GM & Chrysler, although not Ford, who bravely refused government money), all again at taxpayer expense! Not to mention all the lies about Iraqi WMD, and a $2 trillion dollar war.

Again, Democratic President Obama had to step up and put our economy back in order for us.

At this point, I think I've said enough about history for one morning.

In conclusion, let me say that I am a proud WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant). Proud of my heritage (one of my family branches goes back to the mid-1600's; they founded a furniture company that was quite successful in New England.). I look on my French/Irish/British/German heritage with great respect (My French ancestors fled France in 1791 to avoid the guillotine, and settled in Philadelphia in the early 1800's after fleeing a slave rebellion in St. Thomas.). I also had an ancestor who fought in the Civil war as a colonel on the side of the North. That said, contrary to Republicans' denigrating of immigrants, frankly, immigrants have saved my life several times and, since moving to NYC, have contributed immensely to my growth as a person, making me a better human being. Immigration is good for America overall. Immigrants allow us to grow and prosper and improve our imperfect society, always bending the curve towards freedom and prosperity in the long run. In America, we are at our best when we allow all people to contribute to our society to the best of their ability.

Thus, I fear with the current Republican Party, we may lose that ability to grow and prosper that I have experienced through my lifetime if they seize control of our government, either in this election or sometime in the near future.

Republicans, through voodoo economics and intolerant social policies, have caused great damage to our society throughout my lifetime. They should not be permitted to continue as an ongoing political force in our country, and should be replaced by another, saner opposition party, with better, more constructive ideas. Among them should be the abolishment of Fox News, which has turned into a state propaganda machine that spouts irrationality, unreality and hate. Long ago, our Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal to shout "Fire!' in a crowded theater when there is no fire. Based on the same principle, Fox News has been shouting "Fire!' for decades when there is no fire, and should be closed down. Freedom of speech has its limits, especially when that speech harms our society, which Fox obviously does.

But enough. I've had my say. It's not too late. VOTE! And continue to vote for sanity, until these mad ideas fade away. And please pray for the future of the United States. Thanks for reading.