AND THE BULLYING GOES ON!

By Ruth A. Sheets

Recently, I read a piece online about Republican bullying.  I have considered this theme in the past, but still, few in power have been willing to do anything to stop the Republican attempts to bully our government, its officials, and anyone in the way, and their Project 2025 is a 900+-page guide to bullying the American people. 

I like the bullying analogy because it certainly feels like we all are being bullied by a group of people in power and/or with a whole lot of money, through the various media.  While addressing us,  they pretend to be our friends, to be working for us, to give us just what we want, while having no intention of taking us into account at all.

In addition to their media and social media presence, The bullies show up at rallies, gatherings of groups of the discontented, and wherever they can tap into the frustration people are feeling and redirect those negative feelings onto groups the bully does not like:  LGBTQ+ persons, women, teens, people of color, unions, teachers, etc.  The bullies select those seen as weak and ripe for attack, then bully their friends in power into passing laws that will harm those people.

There are numerous political bullies active in the United States today, mostly, but not entirely white men.  Among the most active: 

-             the super-rich like Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch, and many others who bully through their massive donations to political dark money groups and campaigns for candidates who are only running on the Republican ticket because they are easily manipulated, inexperienced, and often ignorant of what it means to serve in the role they are seeking (or rather to serve at all – they prefer to be served).  I guess they are after the power and money the job provides, not salary, of course, but the prominence, insider trading, and other  “perks” that will come their way (plus jobs with hedge funds and other huge money-making operations) when they leave office. 

-             Then there are the Supreme Court conservative6, the “cons.”  They need to be rightly called the bullies they are.  They hide behind something they and their predecessor, Justice Scalia called “originalism.”  It is nonsense, and just a way to bully the American people into believing the only way to understand Supreme Court rulings is to see the issue as the founders would have 237 years ago.  They make up things as they go along, cite 17th century witch-hunters and consider a 2,000 year old possible confrontation between Jesus and Roman Governor Pilate to justify their warped rulings against women’s right to bodily autonomy, and Trump’s right to immunity for whatever he does that the SC 6 agree is “official.”  The bullying in this case is near absolute because We the People have no say related to 6 justices nominated by Republican presidents for specific religious purposes that are not about the American people, probably their “salvation” or something.  

-             There are the scared mostly old white men in red state legislatures who choose to take away the rights of citizens of the state, to please themselves or someone else.  Like the Supreme 6, they make it up as they go along or find themselves bowing to their governor or Donald Trump, and not to the citizens who employ them.

-             Religious bullies have raised their heads trying to get privileges for their religious entity over others in a nation that can have no established religion, NONE!  They tell vulnerable Christians that Donald Trump is a messenger from god so they must support him and whatever he does because it is god’s will (then donate, of course).   Utter nonsense!

 

For the sake of all of us, these bullies need to be stopped.  Together, we could stand up and figure out who needs a moderate "punch in the nose" to make them stop bullying. That might include:

-             a serious "luck tax" on the very rich, say, with an income from all sources of over $3 million a year, Hmmm, 10%

-             pass 18-year term limits on SC justices as well as a strict code of ethics supervised by an independent board with real consequences, (, and expand the SC to cover all 13 district courts.

-             vote out those old state legislature  and governor white bullies and send them home to retire.

-             Remove tax-exempt status from churches that specifically promote the candidacy of people in particular political parties.

-             Begin regulating social media and heavily fining the owners and CEOs that use harmful deep fakes and destructive posts as reported by the media users and independent reviewers.   

-             Demand more of our mainstream media, better coverage of both campaigns, honesty when dealing with candidates who are not functioning, not just in one party, in short understand that their idea of “fair and balances” may be neither depending how it is covered.

-             We can stop the bullying and I believe Harris and Walz can get the process started or rather continue what has been attempted in the past 3 years or so. The bullying must stop!  We the People must demand it!  We do that at the ballot box in November.  Tell the world we will not be bullied anymore by a pack of unscrupulous actors who care nothing for anyone but their votes, as Trump told his followers.  The bullying will not stop by itself because the bullies benefit financially and politically from it, so it’s up to us.

PRESIDENT BULLY

by Ruth A. Sheets

The American founders could not  have anticipated  the New Bully.  He has at his disposal resources they could not have imagined:  Twitter, teleprompters, instant communication, a gigantic military stationed all over the world, an enormous economy run by massive corporations:  banks, conglomerates with financial holdings larger than most countries of the world. 

They did understand hatred and distrust of immigrants, ignorant followers, bullying, bombast, lying about one’s opponents, insults and name calling. 

They did not anticipate a president who would cozy up to foreign leaders who had proven themselves anti-American while dismissing long-time allies.  They could not anticipate a president who dropped out of world-wide negotiated deals made under a previous administration because that president wasn’t white.     

The founders lived in a world ruled by kings and small-time leaders.  Conquering or defending with national armies is how one scored points and gained or lost territory.  The common people were pawns in this military show.  Companies and individuals traded with whomever they wanted to with an occasional nod from the leader.  

Two-and-a-half centuries on, Royalty has little power, though some influence.  Armies usually march off with some kind of cause, no matter that it is often a cause trumped up and usually has a bad outcome.  Most people today don’t  expect to be used as pawns or appreciate it either. 

In this new world, a bully can easily arise since he (nearly always he) can bluster and blow his stuff to huge audiences on television, radio, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, giant venues, and so many other places.  The new bully can target his message and attacks to just the right people, those who are angry, frustrated, afraid, feel ignored, but who don’t really understand exactly what they are experiencing.  They want to blame someone.  The new bully can give them people to blame and hate.  Who cares if his targets are not the actual source of their troubles.     No problem, create the lie and jam it home.

Another tactic is to shout a lot.  It is no longer necessary to shout with the new sound systems, but it works for the bully.  He can yell at the audience telling them in so many ways there is something wrong with them if they don’t see the world the way he does.  He gets live audiences chanting 3 or 4-word slogans that everyone can get into, even if they don’t make sense.  Of course, legal or not, the bully can keep people he does not like from his rallies, so the chants go on uninterrupted.
The new bully avoids the press when possible, stands in front of a noisy helicopter to make himself seem more powerful while being “interviewed,” even calls the work of excellent journalists “fake news” and blames them for keeping him from doing the “wonderful” things he wants to do for the people.

The new bully lies almost all the time, about almost everything, with no check.  His followers, like a religious cult, are totally OK with it, or they say “I wish he wouldn’t do that, but it’s for a good cause.”  Besides, the other side is doing it too. (usually not true, but, who’s counting?)
The new bully in power surrounds himself only with people who are totally loyal to him.  He will regularly test their loyalty.  He will make them do things for him that are on the edge of legality, sometimes going over the line.  They will lie for him, affirm anything he says and defend anything he does.  They will insult those he needs insulted.  In short, if they had any integrity they are expected to jettison it before coming into service, and they do.  If they are caught showing any, they are fired.  So, after a short time, no one around the new bully has an independent thought. 

As if that were not bad enough, he puts into positions of government authority, people who are completely incompetent, at least for the positions they are to enter.  The confirming body (Senate(, approves everyone even when they know the person should not have been nominated.  This means the bully will not be challenged over any of the undermining actions he takes to destroy the department, agency, or program they work for.

Threats are his best weapon.  He threatens duly elected officials either having incriminating information on them, obtained from whatever nefarious source he can get, or by primarying them.  That effectively removes them from among those who could challenge his actions or position in the future. 

There’s more!  The new bully uses his economic and military power to threaten anyone who gets in the way of his efforts.  It works best to bully poorer nations whose economies depend on trading with his country.  Order that country to do whatever you want, and usually, they will comply out of desperation.  When that is successful, the threats move to larger countries who are not as dependent.  When they don’t immediately comply, he moves ships and troops in with the obvious intent to do some military damage to their country:  their infrastructure, their economy, or create some other havoc. 

Anyone in his own country who dares to oppose him is treated to verbal abuse, sometimes interference by law enforcement and other organizations under the bully’s thumb.  The bully is usually racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and xenophobic.  He uses these stances to court other bullies, while he claims to be none of these.

The new bully calls opposition leaders names, gets his rally crowds to malign them, lies about them and their positions, even disparaging the cities they come from.  The bully will threaten to take away citizenship of true citizens and otherwise arbitrarily change the nation’s Constitution.

OK, you get it, I am talking about Donald Trump, however, he is not the only one.  The leaders of The Philippines, Russia, Brazil, India, Hungary, China, and Poland are also new bullies.  I suspect there are a bunch of others too.  They each were “elected” even if the popular vote was not with them.  They have enough of a following that they can do pretty much anything they want with impunity.  For example, in The Philippines, Mr. Duterte has been responsible for thousands of extra-judicial killings under the guise of controlling drugs.  Mr. Xi of China has imprisoned at least a million of its citizens in concentration “reeducation camps.” (A rose by any other name . .)  

It is clear that Mr. Trump and his cronies love the role he is playing and would like to extend it into the next decade.  In fact, they would like it if Mr. Trump never had to leave office at all, a bully they can control forever.

If there were a kid at a school with the children of any of Mr. Trump’s followers who demanded unconditional loyalty, asked the kids to lie for him, took their money and gave it to the well-off kids on the playground, lied to them all the time, pushed struggling kids out of the way, those parents would be at the school screaming and yelling that the bully be stopped.

Well, why aren’t they yelling now to stop Mr. Trump’s bullying?  Inquiring minds want to know.

HE COULD HAVE BEEN A NAZI LEADER

by Ruth A. Sheets

Donald Trump could have been a Nazi leader, you know, the ones that commanded sections of concentration camps or were in charge of removing the "enemies of the state" to those camps. He does not have the abilities of a military or political leader of the regime, but, his gifts for resentment, vengeance, self-righteousness, and hatred for anyone he believes inferior (just about everyone else) would have made him a perfect man for such a post.

His charismatic bullying style and bent for cruelty would have endeared him to those in power. They would have given him free hand to do whatever he liked to those under his control and I have no doubt he would have used that power. The objects of his wrath would have suffered tremendously as long as Mr. Trump received good food and a beautiful place to live. 

Having no moral compass, I suspect nothing would have been off-limits to him. That, is, if he didn't have to actually perform the cruel acts himself and could blame it on his underlings or the victims. "They did it" or "They made me do it." 

Mr. Trump's ability to be manipulated by anyone in his circle would be of great benefit to the other Nazi leaders.  They would be certain that he would do what was "necessary" to get the last drop of life out of the powerless he supervised.  Those pathetic souls would declare how much they loved him and wanted to serve in their pathetic inadequate way, under threat of death, of course.

It is impossible to have watched Mr. Trump for the past few years and not notice his cruelty, his inability to accept responsibility for anything he says or does, his inability to judge people on anything beyond their loyalty to himself.  His racist statements, even about the President of the United States show there are no limits to what he will say or do to promote whiteness as the superior attribute of a human being, a perfect Nazi leadership stance. 

And, Mr. Trump's got the lying knack down pat.  His ability for stirring up a crowd while spewing insults and lies to their faces is astounding.  Then, he repeats the lies and false claims over and over to make them true.   

For example, his idea of deportation is telling poor people of color they would be going back to a place where they will be with people of their own kind who will appreciate them, while sending them to a gang-torn impoverished land where their lives will be at risk from the moment they step off the plane.  There are definite similarities with the holocaust boxcar stories, if not the actual horrific conditions of the journey.  Death often comes at the end of both, though.   

This man was elected president of the United States by an outdated, racist structure, the Electoral College.  He has no mandate to be doing the things he is doing to the people of this country just as Hitler and his cronies had no mandate in 1933 when they took power.  As with the German government in 1933, the Republicans and other conservatives are bowing to Mr. Trump's wishes for the win, even if they have only a slight inkling what he is demanding.  If Mr. Trump could, I suspect he would order all kinds of despicable actions on behalf of his racist, sexist, homophobic agenda.  He already started the process by ordering Muslim bans, deporting undocumented parents of American children, ending the "Dream Act," and trying to ban transgender people from the military.

At least this is still America and we have laws to stop him, but the bowers and scrapers reside in our Congress and could make some of his cruelties law, and how likely is it that our highest court would stop them?  We really haven't seen the Court in action yet to have any real sense of it.

Having read Michael Wolff's book, Fire and Fury, you may note that Mr. Trump surrounds himself with family members and sycophants who either don't know or don't care what America stands for.  It's about power and who has it.  We already know Mr. Trump agrees with the last person who spoke to him, unless they disagree with his basic beliefs of white male superiority. 

Mr. Trump surrounds himself with people who know how to get him to do and say what matters to them, so, the next steps could be dangerous to many people in this country.  As long as the lower level Nazi leaders produced the desired outcomes, their superiors didn't care much how it happened.  What a scary thought that the far right haters could get their "leader," Mr. Trump, to do their bidding.  Their goal is a hierarchy of white men on top and everyone else to serve them.  Too many women or people of color around?  Get rid  of them! put them in their place! 

The parallels are strong with this one.

BULLIES – Let's End Our Love Affair With Them

by Ruth A. Sheets

The subject of bullying has arisen again with events in New Jersey.  Everyone knows that Chris Christi is a bully.  He pushes people around, insults people who don’t agree with him, and allows an atmosphere of bullying in his office.  Yet, he won a second term as governor and wants to run for President of the US.  He has high ratings among Republicans and some Democrats.  So what if his people closed entrances to a bridge or held up funds to gain concessions.  We love his “straight shooting.”

Roger Ayles of FOX News is also a bully according to Gabriel Sherman’s new book THE LOUDEST VOICE IN THE ROOM.  He has a huge following and his on-air team is extremely loyal despite knowing they could be fired at any time if they “step out of line.”  He has plenty of sponsors for his network’s hate-mongering.

Tea Party members of Congress use bullying too.  They force their opinions on America and back them up with threats of government shut-downs, sequesters, and defaults on the US debt.  Most of them will be re-elected in November 2014 and beyond.

President Lyndon Johnson was a well-known bully who was highly respected by the bullied.  He managed to get all sorts of important legislation through with his skill and is remembered fondly by many for it.

Bullying used to be (and maybe still is) a way of life in the military academies, upper classmen bullying the lower classmen, supposedly to build character and leadership.  Is it possible that the bullying does not continue to be filtered down through the ranks?

In the school district where I work, we are told that there is a ZERO TOLERANCE FOR BULLYING!  Of course, when that is enforced at all, it is limited to the students bullying one another.  Administrators regularly bully teachers and staff while sometimes, teachers and staff bully students.  Parents also get away with bullying whoever they feel is not making their child #1.

Police bully suspects into confessions.  Conservatives bully women into keeping pregnancies they can’t afford for health, financial, or other personal reasons.  Loud talk-show hosts bully their listeners into silence or support of positions against their own self-interest.

As a society, we tolerate the rape of our young men and women in the military.  We condone bank foreclosures even to the destruction of whole neighborhoods.  We allow organizations like the National Rifle Association to dictate who should have guns  and under what circumstances.  In the guise of freedom of religion, we permit religious institutions to threaten members in a variety of ways if they do not tow the line on their particular doctrine.   Governors can take over cities and refuse to help their most vulnerable citizens.  These are all bullying no matter what term we use.

We could stop this if we wanted to.  The problem is, we admire the bullies.  We regularly say things like “ I don’t like his/her position, but I admire how it was done.” or the old cliché “The ends justify the means.”  It is almost as though bullying is the American way. of doing just about everything.  Bullies are strong and have power.  We want to be in their shadow so we can share a little of their power.

Bully lovers have bought into a series of lies.  Wealth trumps common sense, personal greed trumps others’ needs, hate is stronger than caring, fear cannot be faced, change  is more frightening than the status quo. 

Those of us who are disgusted with bullies and their bullying need to get the truth out.  Without their groupies the bully’s power would be gone.  Being in someone’s shadow is generally not a good thing.  No one deserves to have so much money that they corrupt our Democracy.  Every TV has a channel changer and an on/off button when the hate speech begins.  There was no “Golden Age” when everything was perfect.  Today is what we have and tomorrow is what we can build together. 

The Message We are Sending

by Ruth A. Sheets

The election process keeps rolling on.  It seems we have been at it for years.  Oh wait, we have.  What’s the message we are sending to the world, our children, and future generations, running is more important than governing.

One of our candidates, Mitt Romney has no trouble lying on a regular basis.  Whenever he faces an audience, he says whatever he thinks that audience wants to hear.  No one really knows what he stands for and what kind of president he might be, but the election is really close.  What is the message sent forth? Lying works and if you say it loud enough and you act as though you truly believe your lies, people will believe them too and vote for you.  Mitt Romney has this one down.

Mitt Romney talked over President Obama in the first debate, showed him a lot of disrespect, even to the point of bullying.  The President was advised that if he were too strenuous in his debate style, he would be seen as “THE ANGRY BLACK MAN” AND WOULD SCARE FOLKS OFF.  Romney had no such directive or stereotype, so he could open fire, even though most of what he said was untrue.  What is the message? Bullying works and our racism is actually OK because it can get you what you want.

Mitt Romney supports denying women most of the rights they’ve earned in the past 40 years or so, and yet a large number of women are supporting him.  What is the message? Women’s needs aren’t even important to women, despite the effect of losing those rights on more than half the population.

The wealthy are buying the 2012 election with the blessing of the Supreme Court, and Americans go on as though this doesn’t matter.  They complain about the number of ads, especially the negative ones, yet they allow those ads and that money to persuade them.  What is the message? Money can buy anything and everything, even our democracy.

Conservatives claim to spend a lot of time trying to channel our founders, trying to figure out how those guys would have handled the situations we are facing today.  It is hard to imagine that our founders would have been pleased by this campaign.  Their message? Decide what kind of society you want, one ruled by the wealthy for the interest of the wealthy, or something that is more balanced and fair for the country as a whole. 

One would be hard put to see that Mitt Romney can possibly bring us to the latter.