This is what I'm thinking about this morning in my typically disorganized way.
Research shows Trump's supporters have an authoritarian mindset; they want to be told what to do, to maintain order and be kept safe. But they're also the same people who constantly spout off about liberty. This makes no sense to me.
The St. Paul police sergeant who quite literally urged drivers to run over protesters who block traffic and schooled them in how to avoid prosecution now says he "would never intentionally encourage someone to commit a crime." Except he quite obviously did just that. His apologies are hollow until he acknowledges that fact. Oh, and this same guy's personnel file has seven reprimands or suspensions, including creepy peeking at the driver's license picture of a former St. Paul cop (a woman) who has sued the city for the widespread breach of her records by her fellow officers.
Dave Roberts went on a Twitter binge yesterday that I found depressing. It started out with this tweet (referring to the current flame war between Sanders and Clinton): "Blech. Feels like the entire left is involved in an intense debate over fan fiction." He points out that no matter what happens with Bernie or Hillary, and even if the Senate flips back to being a majority Democratic, there's not a lot of structural reason to hope for change in Congress. The Senate's allocation of seats to small-population states vastly overcounts the thoughts of those states' rural residents (which was part of the reason Obama couldn't get more done in that brief period when the Democrats held majorities in both houses in 2009). Meanwhile, the House will be reapportioned in 2020 based largely on state legislative races in 2018 (an off-year election... we know what that means). And the country's population continues to shift to the South and Southwest, taking House seats with it. Aaaauuugh. I admit, I usually try not to think about all of this, but he made me.
Enough.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Random Thoughts
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2 comments:
That St. Paul police officer has me seeing red. I mean, pul-leeze! I suppose he expects people to believe his apology? That's like the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar saying with all seriousness that it wasn't him.
I think if I were a political junkie right now, I'd be sliding down that steep slope into madness. That's what I hate about the American system. We have months upon months of craziness and we expect the population to be able to make sense out of it.
I know what you mean about the election, since I am obviously one of those political junkies. Wish it could be compressed into something like three or maybe six months. That would be plenty. But the media's interest is in dragging it out as long as possible.
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