Smerconish Really Killed it -Open mindedness from the Middle Right- A good place to be;
Because no one on the right is going to be listening anyone on the left. The right has to reel in the mushy middle of politics to restore some form of balance from the extremes. Michael Smerconish host of a very good CNN Saturday morning current events/commentary program hit some very strong points, he added some facts to back up impressions and observations about the direction of US politics in the last few years.
Smerconish has an open minded approach using the once admired skills of critical thinking to look a problems from different angles and not encumbered nor entangled by political bias.(Smerconish CNN Jan.30 2021)
His first segment dealt with the election from northwest Georgia (GA 14) of avid and controversial Trump supporter, Marjorie Taylor Green to the congress. She is Q... follower, and believes the false claim that the Sandy Hook and Parkland mass shootings were faked to gain support for anti gun legislation. She also harassed a victim of one of the mass shootings. She also believes treason should be punishable by death and supported, repeating a death threat of a high ranking Democrat. She has made some outlandish claims both during and after being elected.
Smerconish wondered if the Georgia 14 district did not have a better candidate. It turns out it did (8 total) with a local doctor and Republican Dr. John Cowan, his wife also a doctor. Dr. Cowan grew up in the area, is a gun owner and supporter of Donald Trump. He appears to be a normal person compared to Taylor Green. She would win the party nomination with a 5.1% to Cowan's 42.9%.
Marjorie Taylor Green would reveal her true self before the election and after in the same way Donald Trump did in both 2016 and during his presidency. The voters had accepted her and her outlandish views.
What was baffling to me is Donald Trump seemed to do everything he could to not get elected in 2016 and the same in 2020. As they say, he revealed his true self to voters and they voted for him in record numbers anyway,twice. In 2020 if he only recommended using masks to the public to fight the spread of Covid-19 he would still be president, turning the electoral votes in states he previously won.
Revealing ones true self in predominantly negative way, was a sea change, in the way politics had previously been run.
Dr. Cowan would say, there were people who did not want to lose their doctor to politics and that I think is a very real down side. The voters instead would elect what he called someone who was “outspoken ,” and a “grenade.” He would also say, “we have seen two decades of social media , cable news, news tv ..... people and media have to understand they can influence the group psychology of this country in a very bad way...” He talks about reprogramming both people and media, the divisiveness is scaring people in a way, they feel they are being threatened. He calls it a wake up call. He is saying what a lot of people have been saying , the same warning is coming from many angles now, after the DC insurrection proved the worst fears.
The second segment involves using video from the Capitol insurrection showing a group of protesters in combat gear working their way up the crowded stairs of the Capitol Building in single file, hands on each other shoulders in what was called a “Ranger file,” a technique used by elite military units to breech a building....It turns out 20% of those arrested at the Capitol insurrection were former military and law enforcement. There was also reference to story 2009 Homeland Security annalist report by Daryl Johnson warning of recruitment by extremist groups of returning US military veterans from recent war zones with battlefield experience suffering from PTSD, family problems and not re-acclimating to society, because of the poor economy and the polarization of the public as well as missing the adrenalin rush of combat to make use of their violent skills. It was also something observed after the first Gulf War also. The report was met with backlash from one veteran groups but not from others ,the report was rewritten and said to be sanitized with the question of political correctness in not degrading returning veterans. Johnson's report was never meant to be released to the public and only meant for law enforcement .He objects to sanitation of intelligence reports.
The report was initiated by the George H. Bush administration but came out during the Obama presidency , noting the election of a black president and the bad economy (the mortgage/credit crisis)was uniquely driving polarization and extremism.
I am sure many intelligence reports are written outlying all manner of threats, and at some point in the future some may come true,but a 2021warning did talk about vulnerabilities during presidential transitions. Anyway the political correctness reference jumps out once again in a very different context with regard to over reach.
Everyone has core values but it cannot let them be swayed without good cause,that is a basic freedom.
Be it left or right,people can be swayed back to a common sensibility. Smerconish employs the tools of television images along with newspaper sensibility in a convincing argument for revealing truths not yet fully accepted for various reasons. Funny thing, political correctness comes back into play.
The usual brand of Teflon coated politicians speaking to talking points but not saying anything became acceptable to voters is slipping. The bubble surrounded past candidates creating electable narratives. The voter would the buy hope and promise and eventually be disappointed, because politics would only go so far at a slowest of pace ,influenced by too many outside swampy forces.Nothing ever really changed has pushed an unhealthy phenomena with some voters. Politicians in bubbles, media in bubbles,lots of bubbles in places they don't belong.
My unsubstantiated, and unproven guess (not Smerconish) in 2016 was, the candidate was compromised by a foreign government and forced submit to a deal with the devil and run for president in return for future considerations.(as they say in sports) So he did what any patriot would do, run with no intention of winning and do everything he could to lose. That is the only explanation why he behaved in that manner. That really made sense and self funding his campaign would be a big tax write-off. The tax issue is still a unresolved sore point left over from the five year ordeal.
Who would guess in 2020 the far right base would find outlandish candidates as a refreshing change and elect candidates with known serious flaws over a more sense-able and upstanding candidates .
They chose known flaws, and those who fallowed would come next would be even more flawed. Politics is becoming a game of high stakes of chicken with an unknown outcome. This seems like an unlikely strategy but more like an unexpected outcome.
The logical explanation in the haze and fever of the 2020 campaign would be steroids and other drugs fueling the really crazy,in the months after the presidents treatment for Covid. This is not an apology for Trump, but it really got crazy after his Covid-19 treatment and the base fringe were empowered to storm the Capitol fueled by a president on drug side effects. A perfect storm.
Personally I had a steroid injection for my hip and felt the “superman effect,” my doctor would confirm for some recipients. The superman effect was real and relived pain for a couple more injections over that year and the effect lasted lasted for over a month. A month without pain was worth it. The next year it had an opposite effect with depression instead of euphoric strength. It was real for me.
The question still remains, did Trump actually have Covid-19? I don't really know if that has been answered along with his treatment and remarkable recovery?
Just an unfounded theory with no basis but a time-line. Again just an observation, about mysterious actions all the same during a volatile time. The mental state has been in question from the very beginning. Several presidents had mental issues, JFK and pain killers , Lincoln , Jackson, Garfield and Teddy Roosevelt may have had Asbergers and Nixon's alcohol.
The second part of the show dealt with broken soldiers of the many wars American wars. In Canada the large number of soldiers coming back from Afghanistan and past peace keeping rolls especially Bosnia shows that the true cost of war is carried by those who come back different and damaged both physically and emotionally. The warning was they were vulnerable to be recruited by domestic, home grown terrorists. Good mental health is at a premium at the best of times with out of control drug and alcohol abuse, depression, PTSD and Covid -19 has added with fear and isolation.
America had been in a constant state of war since the 1950's Korean then Vietnam conflicts then adding , Panama, Granada and the many conflicts of the Middle East and smaller actions in Africa. The numbers of damaged soldiers coming back crippled by the things they saw and experienced must be staggering. It turns out they are. Broken soldiers were said to have founded motorcycle gangs after WW2.
More help for mental illness , addiction and sanitation of hands and not information. Opinion and two unsubstantiated conspiracy theories by Ken Gigliotti
Topic: Smerconish Really Killed It-Open Mindedness (Read 1146 times)