The Widdershins

This clip explains where we are. The media – print, television, e-media, Twitter, you name it – are galloping off at breakneck warp speed on a contrived snipe hunt. Dolt 45 is setting the media agenda and the networks, led by accountants sporting green eyeshades, are more than happy to oblige.

But for today’s installment of prolixous prognostication, I’d like to keep the “external initial dampner” engaged and take a slower, more nuanced view of the deconstruction of democracy.

Trump on his way to latest dumpster fire…

The media chases squirrels because there are squirrels to chase. They are genetically predisposed to chase squirrels. What is vastly more important are the issues affecting real people’s lives. These issues will rid us of the toxic orange fungus faster than media posses chasing shape-shifting political squirrels.

Just look at where we are – somewhere between 22 million and 32 million people losing health care. Deductibles exploding to $13,000 for someone making $26,000 a year. No longer requiring banks to adequately capitalize. Allowing credit card companies to reinstitute modern forms of indentured servitude. Companies polluting without consequence. Record corporate profits without ze-effing-ro paid in taxes. Give the poor $40 in tax cuts and the ultra rich $940,000. Halting lawsuits of those who have been cheated, maimed, or killed by those more powerful. In short, restructuring policy to resemble the golden gilded age of robber barons.

Who would profit? The Mercers of Breitbart, Kellyanne Conjob, and Steve “Pickled” Bannon fame are fighting a tax bill of $6.0 Billion. Where I come from that’s plenty of money to incentivize Cambridge Analytica and its data mining operation to target angry white guys in the Midwest to vote for someone with the intellect of orange toe jam. Or how about the half-trillion dollar oil deal between Russia and Exxon? Something more redistributive perhaps? How about a trillion dollars being wrenched from the poorest Americans so the wealthiest can wallow in obscene tax cuts? If that doesn’t conjure enough grotesque fuckery, try thinking about two-thirds of the nursing home elderly being turned out on the streets because of draconian cuts to Medicaid.

I tend to see the similarities in people and not the differences, but for the life of me, I can’t see much difference between McTurtle and Mr. Burns — both cartoonish greedmeisters.

You will hear OMB Dick(head) Mulvaney or HHS Tom “insider trader” Price talk about “sustainability through reordering priorities”. There is no reordering of priorities. There has been and will continue to be only one priority of the Republican Party. It is greed. Greed first, last, and always. There is nothing else to understand about the GOP platform – it’s the “Greed Only Party”!

Let’s depart from the usual analysis. Calling the modern Republican Party greedy and ending there is like saying water continues to be wet. Why would someone place a price tag on their soul?

Why are people greedy? Psychologically and unsurprisingly, greed goes hand-in-hand with narcissism.

Both narcissism and greed have their roots in profound self-doubt. Narcissism is self-aggrandizement of the emotional kind, while greed is self-aggrandizement of the materialistic kind.

Narcissism and greed have other aspects in common. They both arise as disorders in people who, in their unconscious mind, are aligned with the conviction that they’re lacking in importance, significance, or value. Such people have difficulty feeling or accessing their own essential value. Instead, a deep negative sense of “self” contaminates their emotional life, and they resonate or identify with this inner default position.

Here’s the kicker. You don’t have to be wealthy to be greedy. Greed is an aspirational characteristic of the Horatio Alger set. You can be thread-bare, broke, and still be greedy. According to one study, the feeling of grandiose entitlement has grown since the 1980s. Who would have thought that Raygun would usher in a “me first” generation?

What does this mean for the country? This “I’ve got mine, sorry about your luck” philosophy means there is no interdependence among the classes unless it is to fight the wars of economic convenience. Put another way, if you can helicopter to work, you don’t need roads traveled by the little people.

A common refrain by Republicans is that our country is weakened by the moochers and the hangers-on, you know, the lazy people. Here’s something to stick up the arse of the next person who says that to you.

By large measure, the wealthy behave less ethically than those of modest means. In reality, the lazy takers are the tax avoiders who are getting away with $2.2 Trillion without having to work for it. They are simply avoiding taxes and sticking it into their pockets. The entire social safety net for children, the elderly, the disabled, and the poor costs us $370 Billion or six times less than the tax avoiding takers.

One last thought about narcissism and greed:

Narcissists deny or cover up inner truth by believing, as they shower themselves in self-admiration, that they truly want admiration from others. Greedy individuals, meanwhile, believe they really want to feel value and worthiness, yet they go chasing after an illusion of value—materialistic self-aggrandizement—that can only deepen self-alienation.

The greedy are unhappy, angry people. Their souls are empty chasms where self-worth should be. Here’s the not so hidden truth – Dolt 45 isn’t an aberration. That orange blob of disgust and perpetual ego masturbation is the perfect Republican totem. His need for self-esteem and validation are symbolic of the Republican Party.

Big hat, no cattle…

The Republicans have been designing the perfect ticket for almost forty years. Unfortunately for the country with help from the Russians, this banausic, predacious, crowd of angry greedy wannabes got their perfect ticket and punched it.

Sorry this isn’t the good stuff Fredster usually posts on the weekend. Please don’t let my self-indulgence deter you. Post anything you might desire – videos, strange weird news, self-preservation meditations, whatever you want – it is free range at the Widdershin’s.

Have a great weekend.