Who put the "rank" in rank and file?

 Dig deep enough in Webster's dictionary under the word "rank" and you come to the sense that we often apply to dirty socks or rotting garbage.

We talk a lot about political parties as organizations with leadership structure and policy goals, but the vast majority of party members -- the massive base of the pyramid that gives them strength, are just ordinary citizens who have chosen a brand and remain unshakably loyal to it. We let analysts absolve the masses of responsibility by discussing the high crimes and misdemeanors of the party's leaders and prominent members.

There is one political party in this country, and one unstable coalition of opposition groups that sometimes manages to come together as the other party. Maybe that was less true around the middle of the twentieth century, but I had just arrived and was more concerned with the basics of learning to be human. I can say that special interests like minorities, women, and labor, presented themselves to both parties and shifted as seemed best to advance their causes. As the party leadership evolved, these minority positions gravitated to the Democrats. However, as Clarence Thomas pointed out in his supreme court confirmation hearings, and women, labor unions,  and gays voting Republican have continued to demonstrate, these are not monolithic blocs ready made to plug into the party that embraces them completely.

The power of any party comes from the rank and file voters who mass in sufficient numbers to push the marker of their chosen champion across the finish line first. "Overperforming surprisingly well" doesn't mean shit if you don't get into office. The winners won't pay attention to the issues that helped you almost beat them. They'll just revel in victory. Maybe their strategists will take note of tweaks they can add to the rhetoric, but it won't change their essential aims.

The faithful members of any party might be completely uninformed about the actual issues facing the country, or even their locality. Government is complicated and boring. Democracy fails because so few people have time or brain space to coordinate all the variables or even collect the information necessary to know a fraction of what those variables are, while also contributing to the economy through some kind of employment. Committed researchers themselves are fully occupied figuring things out and distilling their findings into some understandable form to communicate. Anyone who can blurt some quick oversimplification can take control of the story to advance a political agenda.

Humans look at their lives on a short horizon. Through recorded history we can look at a century, two centuries, five centuries, connecting dots and charting trends, but almost none of us get to live for one complete century, and the few who do might not have full use of their faculties for their last years of pulse and respiration. We look at the monthly bills, the weekly grocery and fuel costs, the growth of children and grandchildren one school year at a time. We go through school, then emerge into working adulthood. Ten years seems like a long time until you've racked up a number of decades that startles you. 

At this point, Republican leadership is undeniably odious. The bloated vulgarian occupying the White House with the blessing of the right wing majority on the Supreme Court and the unswerving devotion of the Republican congressional leadership still only got there because voters put him there. His grotesque lifestyle and abysmal architectural sense would not have been inflicted on public spaces all over the District of Columbia if millions of voters hadn't decided that he should be there. 

To the rank and file voter, the grotesque lifestyle and architectural sense don't matter. What matters to the rank and file is household expenses and team spirit.

Republican team spirit is predominantly mean-spirited. Who lines up to vote in favor of racism as free speech? Who lines up to vote in favor of making certain health procedures for women illegal? It's a rare individual who goes to both law school and med school and gets licensed to practice both simultaneously. Rarer still is such an individual in elected office. Who lines up to vote in favor of religious law applied to all citizens, as long as it's the right brand of religion? Who cops a moral stance and then champions cruelty to immigrants and refugees? Who openly states that they'll take quite a bit of pain in their own lives just for inflicting pain on their perceived social and political opponents? A really rank rank and file. I mean rotting corpses on a pile of shit rank.

If Democrats were really the antidote to this, they would have worked their magic before this. There's no magic in a vote for Democrats. Texas Paul has put out the call for independents to join up officially and swell the ranks of the Democratic Party. He acknowledges that they aren't perfect, but they're closer to perfectible. They're at least interested in evolving. Their detractors among the perennially disaffected leftists will sneer, but the perennially disaffected leftists are as much of a drag as the perennially fascistic far right. You're not going to get rid of our two-party system, in the next week, so hold your nose and vote for Democrats. Or maybe do it with some semblance of enthusiasm.

Trump won in 2016 because millions of voters embraced his caustic vulgarity as "refreshingly honest." In other words, they were just as vulgar and caustic and were thrilled to have someone famous celebrate those qualities. Yeah, that's the guy we want representing our country on the world stage! That's the guy we want running things domestically. The first time around they can be forgiven for the mistake of believing that a government should be run like a business. That bullshit gets shoved at us constantly.

Trump lost in 2020 because a compound of factors made just enough people determined to vote against him. Significantly, the dissatisfaction only led to a paper-thin Democratic margin in the senate, which was largely sabotaged by Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema. Even so, the Biden administration did an amazing job of digging us out of the hole created by Trump's incompetence and the global pandemic that had damaged the economy in every country that has one. The public could not have been less impressed. And Trump came roaring back.

Republican office holders could have joined with the Democrats to impeach and convict Trump, assuring that he would be prosecuted without delay for his crimes. The media said that those leaders were afraid of Trump, but why should they be? They were afraid of their own rank and file. Rank, rank, rank rank and file, still in thrall to the avatar of their worst impulses.

I've heard unsubstantiated tales of Republicans who actually voted against the party in each of the elections of the Trump era, but I have no solid statistics. We got that secret ballot in this country, so how can you know for sure? Mostly you have self-reporting. But if you were going to be a traitor to a party that sends Christmas pictures of the family arsenal and considers the murder of schoolchildren to be a regrettable but necessary price to pay for the freedom to carry deadly weapons everywhere, would you want to tell some loudmouth pollster or reporter about it?

Firebrands on the right and the left like to cite the principle that "when the government fears the people there is liberty," but when the government fears the people what you actually get is bad government. The rest of the line says, "When the people fear the government there is tyranny." Nice oversimplification. Who are "the people" exactly when women don't have full autonomy, systemic racism still afflicts public and private sectors alike, and a poorly trained, undisciplined legion of armed thugs is snatching people off the streets and making them disappear, sometimes permanently?

The Republicans fear their own voters. They can't control the monster they created. They're also beholden to the rich donors who don't give a crap about them personally and equally don't give a crap about the problems of the ordinary rabble, natural born or recently arrived.

It would be nice, and maybe it actually will be nice, to see the whole squirming tangle ejected from the seats of power to writhe in a rank mass on the ground below because it couldn't purge itself of the spite that it had cultivated for so long. Maybe a little time to think in the fresh air will dispel the miasma. Or maybe we just watch it dissolve into slimy goo and seep into the mud. Either way, they are not really the majority. Something has to break the spell that keeps the non-rank, non-file from joining with the putrid throng that makes up the basest of the base.

America the Failure, unless we act now

 You know how it sucks when a product you really like is still in production, but the great company that made it was bought out by some greedy corporation, so the product is a cheap copy of what once made it so desirable?

That conveys the feeling, but hardly the true threat we face since gullible voters reinstalled the worst president in our country's history at the controls of what had the makings of eventually becoming a great country.

The "sphere of influence" concept championed by greedhead Putin works by threatening neighboring countries and absorbing them into a totalitarian framework. You might decide to run your sphere differently, being generous and kind, but eventually you will have to face a militarized foe when the cruel empire decides to push its boundaries. 

Republican Saint Ronald called the USSR the evil empire. Now Republicans embrace Russia under the leadership of the current occupant of the Oval Office, who has been a Russian asset since the 1980s. Vain, greedy, and stupid, yet exalted by American media culture as a beacon for idiots, Trump was the most useful idiot the Russians had ever had. He's paying off big time now.

Proponents of the unitary executive -- an all-powerful presidency served by a subordinate Congress -- really pushed us off a cliff here. Several Supreme Court justices should be dragged off the bench and put to work cleaning latrines for that one. Dictatorship is tempting when you feel confident that your ideological position will always be on top. SCOTUS and the Heritage Foundation laid a lot of groundwork to build a system that will assure their control. Their opposition may be tempted to leave the machinery in place and use it to force a different set of reforms. That will fail because the natural human inclination is conservative: fear based and self protective.

Various fables use the device of shabby travelers seeking shelter, turned away by most, but taken in by a generous host at last. After the host provides food, shelter, and comfort, the shabby travelers reveal that they are gods and reward the hospitable mortals handsomely. This may be supposed to teach hospitality and generosity, because you never know who might be a god, but it starts from the basic human fear of strangers. Vampires can only come in if you invite them. Drifters and hobos might be serial killers. That hitchhiker might murder you. Or you might murder them.

On a very basic level, we don't trust each other. Of course we do trust each other constantly, but paranoia is never far away. It's easy to excite. It drives conservative thought. So if a self-styled progressive administration tried to strong-arm benevolence on people, it would set off the kind of quiet resistance that leads to stunning election losses and a return to institutionalized distrust. You want some assistance when you're down and out? How down and out are you really?

Trump rallies were not the norm, although the Tea Party rallies did foretell them. The norm was Republican victories just quietly grinding forward with their bold assurance that the party of killjoy fuddy-duddies knew better than those dippy kids thinking that we could have luxuries like universal health care, excellent public schools, and well-maintained infrastructure. Next they'll be saying that we should go back to taxing the wealthy! Ha ha ha, how cute. Now run along and bury yourselves in popular culture while the grownups run things.

Conservatives have been constantly pulling toward authoritarianism in the name of freedom while the other side was trying to find something for each side. The net result is that we kept getting dragged toward the situation we're in today. Freedom was always code for a very specific, vocal, violence-prone subset of the entire population. The rhetoric of the conservatives was as elastic as the founding documents themselves. It's as vague, contradictory, and modularly applicable as the Bible.

The changes in tax laws and election financing since 1980 have almost turned our elections into shareholder meetings where the wealthy actually get to outvote us. The upcoming midterms may be our last chance to assert the true power of the people by voting against the party most thoroughly responsible for empowering rich punks and gangsters.

Should the Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress, don't expect an instant miraculous recovery and get all snitty in 2028 when it hasn't happened. A depressing percentage of potential voters are persnickety and apathetic. They don't vote or vote third party, thus perpetuating the conditions that make them persnickety and apathetic.

Social media showcases cynicism and sinister conspiracy theories designed to convince you that you shouldn't waste your time trying to make anything better. These posts can appear right next to one about environmental protection, social justice, universal health care, or political action, posted by the exact same person who just told you that the medical establishment is just a money machine designed to keep you sick and paying, and that "both parties are the same." You can't exhort people to vote and then tell them that anyone who runs for office is guaranteed to be a con artist or worse. And don't get me started on the childish belief that term limits for elected officials will solve anything. Term limits is not the same thing as limited terms, as would be a good idea for supreme court justices. But in that instance, the length of a fixed term would give parties a set target to anticipate exactly when they get to appoint a successor. It would become another precise political calculation. Not a magic bullet.

What is a magic bullet is your vote. You get one shot per candidate or ballot measure. You will be part of a massed volley in one exchange of fire. At the end, we will have a winner. The bullets, fortunately, are metaphorical, but the result will affect lives for years to come. We're choosing once again what our brand and quality will be. What do we offer to each other and  the world? We failed in 2016. We barely came back in 2020. Lost our chance in 2022 and set up the epic faceplant of 2024. One more time: are we stupid and violent or are we thoughtful, brave, and faithful to the ideals of human rights?

Hunting us from the air keeps getting easier

 Americans right now can read or watch video coverage about drone warfare in distant lands while we continue our consumerist lives and wait for the economy to improve. We'll be fine. Meanwhile, companies like New Hampshire's own Sig Sauer are rolling out drones controlled by artificial intelligence and armed with machine guns, so that targets on the ground can be strafed without even bothering with a human operator. Don't worry. It's mostly being used on Palestinian civilians. Don't bitch about that or you're antisemitic.

Civilians in the United States are not allowed to own weaponized drones. But our military and law enforcement will definitely have to have them to keep up with rival military services and whatever the illegal scourge of the month is domestically.

Armed forces conduct exercises to practice fighting against the weapons they expect to face, and to develop proficiency with the ones in their own arsenal. The armed citizens who bray loudly about needing personal armament to fight off their tyrannical government do not uniformly follow this practice, partly because so many of them are posers, and partly because they can't possibly keep up in the arms race against lavishly funded government forces.

No doubt a determined citizen resistance could keep up an endless unconventional warfare campaign to stymie a truly oppressive government from exerting absolute control, but that ability dwindles with every advancement in surveillance technology and ruthless killing machinery. No need to nuke. Just hunt relentlessly from the sky and nearby space so that no one can move on the surface of the planet at any hour of the day or night without being spotted and zapped.

The weird, artificial nature of modern warfare becomes more obvious every day. Every conflict now, from the war in Ukraine to the Hamas attack that triggered the retaliatory genocide against the Palestinians by Israel, to the pesky Houthis and Iranians features drone technology guided by communication satellites. Elon and Don just turned down the power on Ukraine to favor Russia just by ordering it and having corporate and government offices far removed from the fighting implement it. Ukrainians die who might not have, at the whims of two greedy, selfish men, serving a third greedy, selfish man, Vladimir Putin. The war is real. The wounds and property destruction are real. But they can be dialed up or down at the speed of a text message.

The 2A crowd in this country needs to figure out -- and fast -- how to practice shooting down computer-controlled drones developed to anticipate their every move and deliver death from above at distances far out of range of return fire.

It might be a good idea at the same time not to scorn and sneer at efforts to direct humans away from the time-honored practice of trying to annihilate each other before we get terminally good at it. We have choices that were not available to our ancestors, who started and perfected the practice.

Peaceful coexistence may be impossible, simply because our troubled selves represent every force in the universe, both creative and destructive. We may simply be forced to act out with our flesh these abstract principles of physics in an endless clash. I'd like to think not, but I'm not placing any bets. Just do what seems right and hope for...I was going to say the best, but even that is subjective. Hope for my peaceful vision of a fun place to be human, anyway.

Yeah! Let's dominate the Americas!

 The Trump regime has made no secret of its plans to pull back from global influence and settle for regional power by dominating every other nation in the Western Hemisphere. Once we build up our stockpile of munitions again, we should be able to bomb any single country in the region for up to two weeks to make sure that the surviving population is good and fired up in the event that we have to put boots on the ground to prove that we mean business.

That's right: no more sending our young people to die in jungles in Asia when we have perfectly good jungles you can practically drive to (except for that pesky Darien Gap).

Back in the mid twentieth century we could still intimidate smaller nations with the threat that we would invade them. Then Vietnam knocked some of the shine off of that idea, but we still swung a big dick militarily. However, since the revenge campaigns following 9-11 in Afghanistan and Iraq were the opposite of quick and decisive, smaller nations probably see more inspiration in the successful resistance of Ukraine, and the ultimate victory of Hanoi when the USA starts rattling its saber. It's one thing to run a quick snatch like the Trump regime did in Venezuela. Meanwhile, in Iran, we keep wisely holding off on an actual invasion because even the blowhards running this fecal festival don't want to be saddled with the bloodbath that would ensue.

The military intimidation machine still functioned through the end of Joe Biden's presidency. One key factor is that it was just one element of a detailed foreign policy that used a lot of soft power as well. If we were ever going to wean ourselves off of our worst meddlesome ways in foreign affairs, at least we could do it from a position of strength.

That's gone now.

When the cosplay government we have now started throwing weapons around like the supply was endless, it quickly revealed the limitations of our military capability and the ignorance of our civilian leadership at this unfortunate moment. Like any armed, angry drunk, we are dangerous to be around, but, like that drunk, nowhere near as capable as we think we are. I say we because all of this truculent buffoonery is being done in our name, under the flag of our nation. Anyone who voted for this should be deeply ashamed.

I don't know where the personnel will come from to handle multiple invasions in South America even if we weren't stuck in the tar pit of Iran. I'm sure that the Trump regime remembered the song lyric, "We'll kick your ass, and take the gas, and say ayatollah-ya so!" How's that going, now that they've buggered the global distribution of petroleum? Maybe they just quietly slink away from Iran and hope that the whole thing simmers down on its own.

The tough guys starting these fights are not the ones who will take the actual return fire. Our military is legally required to refuse unlawful orders, but they have no such mechanism for refusing blatantly stupid ones. Sometimes military and civilian leadership spin each other up, as happened in Vietnam, but the institutions also learned from their mistakes. Maybe it didn't improve their ethics as much as we might like, but at least it improved their methods.

Movies and television almost never depict reality accurately. I know enough from seeing how script writers butcher what I do know about, and from listening to knowledgeable people critique depictions of activities I don't know about, to deduce that most of what we see is horseshit. It can be a tightly written narrative with enough internal consistency to carry a viewer along for a fun ride, but it isn't going to teach you how to do in real life what you're seeing on the screen. And that's if it was possible at all. Unfortunately, the United States is under the control of television characters who really don't have the faintest idea how to perform the real world duties of the offices they have been given. Rather than straighten the bozos out, the Republican elected officials who were already in government for years before Trump and MAGA fell on them like a planeload of manure have settled into poorly scripted supporting roles. Some of them were already that dumb. Others are just going along to get along, probably hoping that they cling to their seats after the Democratic Party finally comes to their rescue.

If nothing else, the past decade has shown us that we all needed to be thinking in a lot more detail about the nuts and bolts of how we want this country to run. We're all very busy trying to live our daily lives, so we succumb to the ad blitz every couple of years and choose which fears to indulge, before tuning out again. The MAGA cult runs on fear and resentment. I should also add convenience shopping. Elect one strong leader who will make life hell for the enemies of freedom both foreign and domestic. Quick as a well-placed head shot at the satisfying climax of a movie or television show. Down go the bad guys, and the hero gets the girl.