Trump Impeachment

In 1949 the German Republic got its current constitution. It was redone partly in 1990 to add East Germany. Our Constitution is from the 1700s. It has some useful amendments, but amendments have not been passed for years. It is now creaking at the seams. Thanks Mr Trump for bringing this matter to focus and our attention.

Trump is being impeached, and the separation of powers is failing. With one party in control, it will be impossible to impeach from now on. It was before, and Nixon for sure would have been impeached if he had not resigned.

We are now going through a week long show trial. The republicans are bored. It was clear from the first vote that no evidence will be presented. The kind that would have legal standing in regular court. No witnesses for sure.

The defense of the Trump legal team has been lame. None of that matters. We know the final vote: 53/47 to not remove Trump. It is going to be a small majority, but anything else would actually have an effect on Trump. Who is easily annoyed, but never in such a major way. I guess I am still pleased at all the grief it has brought him.

The other part of the current stagnation in politics has to do with the Electoral College, obviously. We may see some other parties come along, and factions pushing the Democrats in all kinds of directions. But the Republican party is losing. It is going to hang on to the Senate, possibly for a decade or more, but still just barely. The trend, whether to the left or not, is away from the Republicans. They only represent white people and a few odd groups, such as Indians, whom Trump has managed to romance for one or two elections. In any case, the Republican party was taken to where they are now by the Tea party and a final push by Trump into this racist corner. They will have a hard time coming out of there.

Democrats will veer a bit to the center, and become more business friendly. Global warming will be put aside, but things like abortion and other liberal issues with minorities will go more and more "liberal," whatever that still means.

Old Habits Not Easily Given Up

This is going to be the Greta Thunberg thing again, if you want to know where this is going. But let's start with a more local thing. We bought a car, a Toyota, for two retirees to drive.

It runs on gas. There might be some hybrid cars or plug ins that are in our price range. But we actually drive 8 hour drives at times. The plug in would not work. We need the rack on top and a trailer hitch in the back for a bike rack. And I have to be able to sit in the driver's seat. This one is just barely my size. But I have no other needs than getting to nearby state parks and nature areas. So this is what we bought. It was a down size from a bigger SUV we had for 13 years.

So we didn't change very much, though we will waste a little less gas with this. Moving on to houses:

That is not our house, but is similar. We have more lawn and trees. We live in a single family home with a heat pump. I always prefer gas heat, as it is made from propane and other gases that have less of a carbon footprint than plain old coal. We are now essentially heating with coal, as the electricity is made with that.

If we lived in a row house condo, heating costs would go down. We would give up a little privacy and would decide on common things such as roof work at condo association meetings. If we lived in an apartment condo, the carbon footprint would be even less. Underground garages give plenty of warmth for cars and any hobbies with tools you need to do.

We have a couple of million people here in a state in the prairie. I have seen the other extreme, in a developed county, South Korea. Tens of millions live in a rather small country. It still had a lot of land left for some farming, and the cities are rather crowded. Public transportation is there, but many use taxis, as they are cheap, probably subsidized. Buildings in Cheonan, a city of 500 000 just South of Seoul on the fast train line, are from three to 20 stories tall. A typical hotel was 10 stories.

Now we get to the GIVING UP part. People are reluctant to give up things. The majority of my Democrat friends have the same cars and homes that the Republicans of the same income class do. A few single people have chosen to live in apartments near the university where they work. But they would be a rather small part of the Democrats. Some more extreme green party types are around. Some live with family in run down old houses. Despite claiming all kinds of green ideas they support (veganism, various other conservation issues, wind power) they still end up paying the same for heating the house as the average republican in the middle class. We have those, about half the city are Republicans, and many are not rich.

The November Election is Coming Up

I have people close to me getting involved with candidates and primaries. I'm looking past the primaries when we have a democratic candidate. I have a simple message:

If you are a farmer, and you make a living working hard, the Democrats will give you the exact same crop insurance, flood insurance, subsidy. You are voting the wrong candidate. In a decade or so all healthcare beyond the one doctor in town and the chiropractor will have gone to the nearest city with 50 000 people.

I realize that a blog that very few read has very little effect on people voting. But you can use my arguments on your favorite Trump voting relative. If he wins and does another four years (though the whole Trump operation is likely to collapse soon after the second term starts) you can also use it as an I told you so argument. In addition, I can use the picture above on message boards, I just give the url link to it and it appears there.

The Cult of Trump

The voters, some 40% of them being his base, voted for Trump for one reason: He is standing for white working class folks (as ironic as it is for a billionaire). He represents the white conservatives clinging to power for the last time. They can hang on to power as long as there is a GOP senate, and act on it the few times they still get a president. So that much is true, and all of them will vote for him again, regardless of his achievements. Additional voters came in with their particular conservative issues (abortion, less regulation, less stuff for poor folks in cities).

The achievements are not really provable. The jobs are there, low paying jobs. 20 plus an hour manufacture jobs are long gone for most. The stock market is hanging in there. The government itself is hanging in there, sponsored by borrowing. From China. Trump's economic enemy.

There is really nothing to do at this point. Not one of them is to be converted at this point based on science (global warming) or economics (it's all hype and borrowing).

We have only to wait to November. If  trump gets re-elected, two things will happen in four years:

1 Trump presidency collapses (he will do something even more stupid)
2 a recession