Democracy on Hammer Time Thoughts

Cowards Curtain Call

Thu, 21 May 2026 10:02:45 -0700

One of the most predictable and frustrating aspects of politics is when a politician suddenly discovers a conscience when they are no longer up for reelection. The most recent example of this is Senator Bill Cassidy, who lost a primary in his home state of Louisiana.

Senator Cassidy, who is a doctor, voted for anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead HHS after being pressured by other Republicans. But his cardinal mistake was voting to impeach Donald Trump, and as a result, he’s now looking for work.

And this week what did Cassidy do? He voted to advance a resolution to end the Iran War. He flipped.

And this isn’t unique, it’s happened several times during the Trump era.

Thom Tillis voted against Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” but then a day later he announced he wasn’t running for reelection.

Jeff Flake announced his retirement in 2017 then proceeded to vote against his party. He voted against judicial nominees and broke with the party on a number of votes.

“I wonder — could you have done this if you were running for re-election?" Pelley asked.

“Not a chance," Flake responded.

Politics in this country are fundamentally broken. If an elected official feels like they can’t vote their conscience, or more importantly what their constituents are asking for - then what is the point?

In today’s Republican Party, there’s no room for anything but blind loyalty to President Trump. The current Congress has abdicated its role in government, leaving no room for anything but fealty to the executive branch.

Fascism on the Ballot

Wed, 24 May 2023 13:00:00 -0700

Now that Ron DeSantis has officially filed paperwork to run for president over the past several days I put together a list of things he and his fellow Republicans have done in Florida. Unlike Donald Trump in 2016, we have an exact blueprint of what he intends to do on a national scale. He has said his plan plan is to “Make America Florida” let’s be honest about what he really represents. Fascism. Merriam Webster defines fascism as:

a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

And a bit more color from Encyclopedia Britannica

Fascist propagandists also attacked cultural liberalism, claiming that it encouraged moral relativism, godless materialism, and selfish individualism and thereby undermined traditional morality. Anti-Semitic fascists associated liberalism with Jews in particular—indeed, one precursor of Nazism, the political theorist Theodor Fritsch, claimed that to succumb to a liberal idea was to succumb to the Jew within oneself.

Lets not forget that Nazis targeted many groups even prior to The Holocaust in Germany including black people, disabled people, political opponents and of course gay and transgendered people. As I’ll illustrate, it’s not too hard to draw some frightening comparisons.

It’s gone so far that just this past week the NAACP issued travel advisory for Florida, saying the state “has become hostile to Black Americans” and the League of United Latin American Citizens and LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Florida have done the same.

With some of that background in mind here’s a list of things going on in Florida with relevant bills that have been proposed, already gone into effect, or have been signed and will go into effect soon. I’ve come with receipts, offering relevant sources and direct links to bills where possible.

Republicans Gift to Democrats

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 13:30:00 -0800

As President Biden prepares to deliver his first State of the Union address tonight and Republicans begin to investigate parents of transgender children for child abuse, I figured it would be a good time to ask - what exactly is Republican’s plan for America should they take back control in 2022 or 2024? So lets dig in to their recently announced plans.

Last week Senator Rick Scott released the Republicans 11 Point Plan to “Rescue” America. This document is a gift to Democrats for the mid term elections, and it’s quite frankly a laundry list of culture war wedge issues that are hugely popular with the far right echo chamber of Fox News and the Republican Party. It’s a manifesto of classic Republican ideas mixed in with some Christian and White Nationalism. Importantly given this recent poll - people seem to think Republicans are better for the economy. So what do they plan to do?

In an attempt to keep this on the shorter side I will not be covering every point, and there’s some off the wall stuff in it I won’t touch on. You can read the actual document here (mirrored here), as well as some additional coverage here.

To be quite frank this is an 11 point plan of fascism, bigotry, racism, transphobia, isolationism, xenophobia, and the list goes on. Let’s go into some of the finer points…

Speaking Out

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 13:00:00 -0800

I’ve followed politics most of my adult life, and I actually enjoy the inner workings of the US government and how it functions. I used to stay fairly quiet about it and my views on issues. I was an informed observer. But over the past six years that’s changed drastically for me. I wanted to write a post and explore why that is and my reasoning behind it.

In my view of todays politics, it is not about liberal vs conservative, democrat vs republican, or left vs right.

It is about right vs wrong, it is about truth and lies, it is about decency and outright filth.

For the most part, I am not speaking out on Republicans anymore. I am speaking out on people who got behind the cult of personality, and believe literally everything he says. I am speaking out on the the absolutely authoritarian tendencies of todays Republican Party. I am speaking out against a party who considers a violent insurrection, and beating first responders with thin blue line flags to be “legitimate political discourse”

Donald Trump brought out the absolute worst in people. He’s divided this nation more than it’s been in generations and on top of that, we’re dealing with multiple realities today. I am speaking out on the lies and blatant misinformation whether it be people STILL claiming Trump won in 2020 or that critical race theory is even something taught in public school.

Democracy Requires Compromise*

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 15:32:03 -0800

As we enter a new era in US politics there’s a tendency for an all out battle of us vs them. And rightfully so, the last four years have felt like four decades for many of us. In a democracy, compromise is needed to accomplish almost anything. But on the flip side, there are some things that there should be absolutely ZERO compromise on.

Until we as a country can get to the point when we agree on a set of shared values and most importantly truth compromise will not be possible. The last decade or so the Republican party has adopted a platform of division and obstruction. Their entire goal is to block anything Democrats do and as a result block any social or democratic progress forward. Their goal, is to further the hierarchy where the rich are at the top and the bottom should just deal with it and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. The Republican party isn’t really even conservative, they are reactionary - their entire platform doesn’t even consist of any real ideas or policies anymore. Everything they do is us vs them, giving immigrants citizenship? They’re taking “our” jobs! They don’t want opportunity to be equal.

In order to proceed forward in pursuit of the more perfect union our founders envisioned our citizenry must have equal rights and without this, we exclude our fellow citizens. This most certainly isn’t an all inclusive list but some of the ones I feel are most important.