A Dispatch From the Other Coast

I thought once I got out of my comfy San Diego silo, I’d be exposed to a different political landscape. It’s too easy to sit back in blue la-la land and assume others see the world the same as you do.

What I didn’t expect was to witness a shift in the zeitgeist with so many implications for the future. And I don’t think it has anything to do with where I am. I’m not going to claim to understand where all this is leading, just that a new course for domestic politics seems inevitable.

I’m taking an afternoon off from the heat, and have suspended my quest for the Ultimate Crab Cake due to the fact that at $25 each, I’m over it. I warned readers that I might drop a post or two during my vacation, and here we are. 

I may as well start with the former President. He’s openly running as the Bad Guy, no longer responding to cascading evidence and (soon-to-be) indictments with protestations of innocence and claims of victimization. Now his campaign is building on what it’s hoping will be an inauguration featuring pitchforks wielded by a mob looking for vengeance.

He reposted a black and white video of himself with a threat from Mobster 101 as the countdown to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s takedown is underway.

•  "If you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before."

Meanwhile, out in the hinterlands, there’s a reactionary circus of angry clowns underway, determined to convince people that the age of Aquarius is over and Deimos (the personification of dread and terror) is now supreme.

They’re not even waiting for MAGA to overthrow the deep state. Pain and suffering in the name of vengeance is popping up everywhere. Ignorance is being heralded as a virtue, and accepted as the “other side” by milquetoast media.

In Texas (now considered the worst state to live in), the Governor ordered his personal militia to string barbed wire under water along the Rio Grande, and made it clear that those caught up in the trap were not to be rescued. 

From USA Today:

• The Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas state guard have been uncoiling miles of concertina wire along the banks of the Rio Grande since 2021 as part of Operation Lone Star, Abbott’s multi-billion initiative to use state resources to curtail unauthorized border crossings. More than 90 miles of the sharp-edged wire has been unfurled throughout South Texas, according to DPS.

• The dangers of the razor wire entered the spotlight, though, when a recent email by a Texas DPS trooper to his superiors was made public. The July 3 email by trooper and paramedic Nicholas Wingate, first reported by the Houston Chronicle, describes how he and fellow troopers came across large groups of men, women and children along the banks of the Rio Grande and were ordered by commanders to push people "back into the water” toward Mexico.

Thus far, the Department of Justice has responded with a threat of legal action. As much as I know it’s impractical and wrong, I harbor a deep seated urge to see Texas Gov. Abbott led away in handcuffs and held in a detention center with wounded migrants.

Texas is also the place where authorities are saying that women who lose their fertility as a result of giving birth to dying babies or are unable to be treated due to pregnancy complications  have no standing to sue the state over its abortion law because they’re no longer capable of reproducing. 

Although so-called pro-life groups have maintained their goal wasn’t to see women who had abortions prosecuted, Republican State Attorney Generals are seeking access to medical records in states where abortion is legal along with information about gender affirming care.

Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Florida this past week to make a statement decrying new state standards for history holding that enslaved people acquired skills "for their personal benefit" through slavery.

Via NPR:

• Meanwhile, high school students will be taught that some racially motivated massacres — like the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in which dozens of African Americans in Florida were killed for attempting to vote — were "perpetrated against and by African Americans."

• "That's blaming the victim when in fact, it was other individuals who came into the Black community and killed individuals, burned homes and schools and lodges," state Sen. Geraldine Thompson said at a board meeting on Wednesday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was ready to attack, adding the lie about sexualizing children to the mix:

• "Democrats like Kamala Harris have to lie about Florida's educational standards to cover for their agenda of indoctrinating students and pushing sexual topics onto children," DeSantis wrote on Facebook prior to her speech.

Alabama’s state legislature has defied a US Supreme Court order concerning redistricting in a manner fairer to Black voters. They’re even proud of a new map having the same results as the one deemed unconstitutional. Remember, this is the very conservative Supreme Court that took offense at Alabama’s gerrymandering. This is just another indication that the rule of law is considered an inconvenience by the right.

I’m not sure what all the heinous acts are expected to accomplish for Republicans other than reinforcing the idea that their only agenda is inflicting pain on “otherized” humans. 

Saying the quiet part out loud… Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene made a speech where she listed all the Biden administration’s initiatives and compared them to FDR and LBJ’s legislative accomplishments as if that were a bad thing. The Biden administration used her accusations as an endorsement in a social media post drawing tens of millions of impressions.

All of this brings me to an article in Politico, suggesting that GOP attempts to get their base voters fired up are backfiring: ‘This Is a Really Big Deal’: How College Towns Are Decimating the GOP

• There’s no single factor driving the college town trend. In some places, it’s an influx of left-leaning, highly educated newcomers, drawn to growing, cutting-edge industries advanced by university research or the vibrant quality of life. In others, it’s rising levels of student engagement on growing campuses. Often, it’s a combination of both.

• What’s clear is that these places are altering the political calculus across the national map. Combine university counties with heavily Democratic big cities and increasingly blue suburbs, and pretty soon you have a state that’s out of the Republican Party’s reach.

Those who are deluding themselves by blaming liberal educators are missing the bigger generational picture. Younger and college educated voters are voting in higher numbers, even in off year elections. They’re not turned on by the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz complaining about the Barbie movie. In fact, it’s safe to say the whole culture wars campaign from the right has nothing to offer to these voters. 

Watch what happens in Ohio in August when the church-lady/GOP coalition tries to raise the percentage needed to win on ballot measures. There’s an abortion measure coming up in November that Republicans know they’re going to lose if they can’t change the rules. Advance polling suggests this ploy will get crushed next month.

From the Washington Post:

• Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters.

• Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die. So in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters.

• Which means that between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2024 election, the number of Gen Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) voters will have advanced by a net 52 million against older people. That’s about 20 percent of the total 2020 eligible electorate of 258 million Americans.

There’s a reason for all this performative nonsense coming from these MAGA-minded politicos, namely that the larger picture isn’t looking all that good. The usual under-the-bed monsters Republicans and their ilk like to invoke aren’t playing nice.

Here’s Axios’ GOP's crumbling case against Biden on crime, immigration and inflation:

• Republicans are hammering “Joe Biden’s America” as a land of rising violent crime, surging immigration and out of control inflation, but there’s just one problem: the numbers are starting to move in the opposite direction.

• The big picture: With 2024 around the corner, the U.S. is making measurable progress in the areas where Biden has been most vulnerable to GOP attacks.

Crime is down, generally speaking. Homicides have fallen by 9% in a study of 37 major cities from the Council on Criminal Justice. Illegal border crossings dropped to the lowest level in over two years in June (Though a court decision could change that situation). Inflation is falling, and consumer sentiment is the highest in two years,

There’s a lot of time between now and the 2024 elections, and anything could happen to change the current metrics, but for now, GOP whining about bread and butter issues is going to be limited. Of course that won’t stop them from lying.

Wait! There’s more. 

People back East talk about the weather a lot more than Californians, probably because they have things like seasons, snowstorms and hurricanes.   

This year’s Heat Domes have got everybody’s attention. Even podunk KUSI wannabes are having to admit that something’s amiss. It may take a while for this anxiety to reach up the electoral chain, but the fact is people’s livelihoods and their “pursuit of freedom” are being infringed upon.

The Florida official who blamed insurance companies for being “woke” as they refused to gamble with properties in line for climate-related destruction won’t be a hero, even for the MAGA crowd as the planet cranks up its response to our civilization’s reckless behavior.

Change is a comin’.

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(Lead photo is Camden Yards. I’ll officially be back from vacation on August 3)