For the longest time now, actually about 10 years, I’ve been waking up in the morning with an intense case of déjà vu, sensing that, once I check the news, I’m going to have to write some version of the same story all over again.  This morning, to test my mental faculties, I decided to go back 10 years to see what I was writing. Turns out I’m not imagining things.  The column reposted below was written on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, 2016. I unapologetically repost it here as proof that my memory is not failing, at least in this regard, and that we knew in 2016 what we were getting with Donald Trump and the Republican Party. And what the options were. This is why I’m always astounded when I hear people, mostly MAGAs, saying, “I didn’t know,” “I feel betrayed.” Or others saying, “What’s the use in voting, they’re all the same?” No, we knew. We knew in 2016 what Donald Trump was. And every year and election since then.  

 Most of the people in the column below are still around and many of them are still in politics. We still have choices. Complain about the war, tariffs, inflation, detention camps, if you want, even protest. Please protest. But please, spare me your surprise.  And please read the column below to see if you remember it the way I do. 

Bob

By Bob Gaydos

Bernie Sanders

Thank god for Bernie Sanders.

You can make that an uppercase God if you prefer. Or keep it lowercase. You can take that sentiment ecumenically, evangelically, spiritually, atheistically, or any manner of religiously. But know this, wherever you place your faith, you must take that sentiment seriously.

Bernie Sanders is the saving grace in what has to be the most embarrassing, humiliating, disheartening and frightening presidential campaign, possibly in our nation’s history.

Quite simply, Sanders is the only candidate in either party who is genuine. When he speaks, I believe him. Millions believe him, because he has no hidden agenda, he is beholden to no one, he has a long history of caring and working for people to whom life has not been kind and for challenging those who have always wanted more than their fair share. A mensch.

In comparison, the Republican campaign has featured a collection of liars, misfits, religious zealots, bigots, charlatans, incompetents and people who cannot spell, much less demonstrate, compassion. It has culminated in Donald Trump, one of the most dangerous, embarrassing figures to emerge in American politics. He is a fascist, racist, misogynist, bully, liar, buffoon, and con man. A reality TV show star with no idea how government works, but plenty of experience in driving businesses into bankruptcy. He is probably a certifiable narcissist. And apparently, there is no one in his life who has the guts to say any of this to his face.

His candidacy has allowed all the ugly elements in American society, many of whom reside in the Republican Party, to feel free to voice their hate publicly, to assault and threaten those they fear or those who disagree with them, and, incredibly, to believe that their candidate has any respect for them and their needs. Trump, who makes it up as he goes along, has admitted his supporters come from the least-informed element of society. His campaign, in fact, represents the culmination of decades of cynical posturing by and catering to this element, and now appears to be the demise of, the Republican Party as a responsible political party. It is long overdue.

Not one of the Republican candidates — still standing or fallen by the wayside — can hold a candle to Sanders and not one of them deserves a vote to be president of the United States of America. They are, in toto, a disgrace.

However, the real challenge to Sanders comes not from the Republicans, but from within his own party. The Democratic establishment long ago decided that Hillary Clinton should be its candidate for president this time and has done everything within its power to try to make that happen. This includes setting up a ridiculously limited and unattainable schedule of debates and lining up hundreds of superdelegates to announce their support for her even before a primary was held. This was undoubtedly done to try to overcome Clinton’s well-known handicaps: 1) The fact that she is a lousy campaigner; 2) The reality that a lot of people don’t trust her; and 3) The Clinton history of being very cozy with the people responsible for nearly ruining the nation’s economy.

Forget that, her supporters say. She gets things done. What it is she’s gotten done is never mentioned.

Still, the fact is she leads Sanders in delegates won in the primaries so far and, even with her faults, she is still head and shoulders above any of the Republicans in the race.  This means, however much I respect and prefer Sanders as a presidential candidate, if Clinton is the Democratic Party nominee, I personally have to vote for her against any Republican. It also means I cannot write in a vote for Sanders or anyone else as a protest, because I honestly fear that taking votes away from a Democratic candidate could lead to something as disastrous as a Trump presidency or a Ted Cruz presidency or anyone-else-the-Republican-Party-settles-on presidency. I fear what will happen to this country if a Republican wins the presidency this year and I think the only way to get that message across to a party that has been in denial for decades is to thoroughly defeat it in November. Then let it figure out where to go from there.

It’s not a total sellout. Mitigating my vote for Clinton would be the fact that she actually knows how government works and, as president, she would have a working, viable, responsible political party behind her, a party still on working terms with compassion and science and equality and still dedicated to governing, not merely winning. And that party would have a Bernie Sanders and an Elizabeth Warren and plenty of others in Congress reminding a President Clinton of the promises she made during her campaign to convince all those young, disaffected voters that she could deliver what Bernie Sanders was promising.

Thankfully, though, this campaign is far from over. There are many primaries in northern and western and big states where Sanders has considerable support and could easily win enough delegates to capture the nomination. Bill Clinton did it. Barack Obama did it. Bernie Sanders can do it.

But he’s got another major challenge to overcome in addition to that from within his own party. That is the disrespect shown him by much of the major news media. Despite the tens of thousands who have attended his rallies and donated to his no-Pacs campaign, many news organizations have treated him as an afterthought and a Clinton campaign for president as a foregone conclusion.

That same media also gave Trump free rein to spew his vile hatred and nonsense for months before finally wising up to him. (And it’s not just Fox News that was guilty of this.) The media will have some soul-searching to do after this campaign as well.

So, I look forward to Sanders winning some big states (Hello, California!). And I expect Trump to continue to behave as Frank Bruni put it in the New York Times recently — like an addict who only wants more and more and more attention and will do or say anything to get it. That was my impression of Trump a while back, but Bruni beat me to it in putting it in writing. I agree wholeheartedly with him.

Indeed, I think of Trump as the guy sitting next to you in a bar who turns to you and says, “Hold my beer. Watch this.” He then proceeds to wreck the joint and bloody every person in the place. He exits with a triumphant grin, claiming it was the other guy’s fault.

Clinton, of course, wouldn’t be caught dead in a bar, much less drinking beer. She would be found sipping wine or martinis in an Upper East Side penthouse with some Wall Street types who are funding her campaign. They’re talking about how to get the vote of the common folk.

Sanders? He walks into a bar and says, “Hey, let me buy you a beer. Let’s sit down. What can I do for you?”

If I were a drinking man, that’s the guy I would want in the White House.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

A b. We worh Trump’s imhw hamga from the from of the Justice Department headquarters.

  Trump is scheduled to give the State of the Union address tonight and I won’t be watching because I have no interest in listening to a demented old man talk about oatmeal or windmills or the special deal he’s offering on bitcoin.

   Besides, I have a long list of things I haven’t had the time to write about but I’m sure he won’t be talking about tonight.

   Things like the Supreme Court finally slapping him down on his tariffs, saying he had no power to impose them and his childish response to the ruling. Wonder how many justices will be in the chambers tonight.

   Or that phony baloney “Peace Board,”which costs a billion dollars to join and is largely composed of nations whose citizens have been barred from immigrating to the United States by Trump. A big grift.

  Or his image on a banner hanging from the front of the Department of Justice headquarters, as well as at Labor and Agriculture, like the ruler of some Third World country.

    Or his constant threat to attack Iran for developing nuclear weapons capacity when, in his first term, he quit the treaty with them which barred them from doing so and, in his second term said attacks on them had eliminated their nuclear capability. A diversion.

    Or his sudden decision declaring the pesticide Roundup, long declared a cancer threat, is necessary for national security, a favor to a friend.

   Or his equally dangerous and inexcusable decisions to rev up the coal industry and declare that the U.S. has no obligation to fight climate change and not pollute the air. New York MAGA Lee Zeldin, EPA head, gladly made the announcement.

    That’s a quick, short list of the true state of the union. Oh, and inflation is up and job growth is down, whatever he may say.

    Maybe Kash Patel, back from his beer blast with the gold medal-winning men’s hockey team will be in the audience with them and will provide an update on where the FBI’s investigation of all the famous people mentioned in the Epstein files stands. I’m sure some of the survivors of the sex-trafficking ring who are expected to be in the audience as guests of Democrats would appreciate it. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

   The gold-medal winning women’s hockey team rejected Trump’s invitation to the White House because of his insulting comments about them.

   That’s the state of the union.

By Bob Gaydos

The Biden team.

Sometimes the nay-sayers unintentionally help the aye-sayers.

     For example, with all the media hype on whether Joe Biden should seek re-election and questions about whether he is too old and is still capable of handling the responsibilities of the presidency, one of the strongest arguments in his favor has been his record of accomplishments in office. It  is considerable.

      He brought inflation down and employment way up. He lowered prescription drug prices and capped the cost of insulin for seniors. He got wealthy corporations to pay their fair share of taxes and got legislation through Congress to combat gun violence. He actually made a major investment in rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, something which his opponent talked about a lot but never did anything about. He revived the American chip industry. He added a new nation to NATO and solidified America’s alliances in the Pacific Rim. Oh yeah, the leading stock market indicators are at record highs.

     To which some nay-sayers reply: How do you know? There could be a cabinet of people running things on his behalf.

       Well, I sure hope so. The sign of a good leader, a good executive, a good president is having people around him capable of making his or her vision a reality.

    No president can do it alone. Whom he chooses to be part of his team and what the team accomplishes says a lot about the president. So by trying to take credit away from Biden by saying maybe a whole bunch of other people accomplished these things in his name, the critics are actually complimenting Biden for his vision, for choosing good people and for listening to what they have to say and helping them get it done.

      By comparison, many team members from Donald Trump‘s chaotic presidency have criticized him for his lack of understanding or caring about presidential responsibilities. Others are in prison. Possible members of a Trump team in 2025 have authored the notorious Project 2025, which explains in detail how they would dissemble American democracy in favor of an authoritarian Christian nation.

    Predictably, since details of that document have been made public and been widely criticized, Trump, whose name appears throughout the document, has disavowed it. That’s because Trump, a convicted felon, has no agenda other than himself and power. If it’s going to hurt his ratings, he tries to run away from it. He bragged about getting Roe v. Wade overturned by appointing Supreme Court justices who would do it. But when that decision met strong opposition, he tried to backtrack from that, too. He simply lies about everything and fires people who don’t help feed his ego.

     Suffice to say, any team of folks behind the scenes doing things in Trump’s name are going to do their best to make him happy. And he’s already told us many times that what makes him happy is being treated special (absolute immunity!) and getting even with those who don’t comply. The team wagging the dog for Trump will be ruthless and vicious because he will pick those who will do his bidding in order to further their own agenda. Not the nicest and not necessarily the best and brightest. He learned that from his first term in office. He knows more than all the generals. Sycophants and soldiers, that’s what he wants.

     So, nay-sayers, do I want all those mysterious, intelligent, caring people behind the scenes making all those decisions for old, arthritic Joe Biden or do I want all those “authoritarian, anti-democratic, rightwing Christian, post the 10 Commandments in every classroom, women’s place is in the kitchen and pregnant, cut Social Security, arrest the homeless and leave billionaires alone, don’t force us to be violent” people making decisions for Donald Trump while he goes around the world like a reality show Don Quixote, jousting at windmills?

      Thanks, I’ll stick with Joe’s team.    

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

My “smart” TV. RJ Photography

   So the very smart TV made an unscheduled stop the other night on one of those “business” news shows with a bunch of well-dressed, middle-aged men and younger women talking to each other about money. I think. 

    They were talking about the day on Wall Street and they all sounded very smart, like the TV, but, I don’t know, maybe something got lost in the translation for me.

     What I can recall of their stream of consciousness conversation that day went something like this: “Nvidia … AI … Magnificent Seven … Tesla … Earnings … Inflation … Nvidia … Kathy Wood … Tesla … Fed … Rates … AI … Microsoft … Shorts … Inflation … Techs… Bubble… AI … Nvidia … Fed … Tesla … Apple … Trillion … Inflation … Fed … Nvidia … Over-Priced … Tesla … AI … China … Apple … Nvidia … Price Target… Shorts … Rates … Inflation … Amazon … Fed … Techs… Index… AI … Dow … Tesla … Kathy Wood … Nvidia … Google … Shorts … Inflation … Earnings… Recession … Fed … AI … META … Index … Fed … Nvidia.”

     That’s pretty accurate, I think. So it sounds like something to do with money, right? But not the economy because that word was never mentioned. Well, maybe someone said “consumer” one time in a passing remark on inflation.

     The thing is, they all seemed to understand each other and mostly agreed with each other, especially about Nvidia and Tesla and AI and Kathy Wood. But after listening, I wasn’t sure how the economy was doing or even what stock I should buy or sell, if I were in the market to do so and maybe couldn’t afford Nvidia. Or maybe I couldn’t afford not to afford Nvidia.

      Confused, I looked around and heard pretty much the same conversation on every TV business show, so I figured they got paid to talk to each other about Nvidia and inflation, but weren’t interested in telling me anything useful. Certainly not about business.

       Luckily, I finally found the “I-know-every-stock-out -there” savant, Jim Cramer, whose message, as usual, was clear: “Buy! Buy! Buy!” or “Sell! Sell! Sell!” But don’t trade Apple. Still. Oh, and the economy’s doing fine.

       There’s something quietly reassuring about being talked to directly, rather than eavesdropping on some private conversation. Especially about money.

      Smart TV take note.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

     Exhale, America, you survived another election in the era of Trumpism. Apparently, some of you did learn history’s lesson on complacency enabling the spread of fascism. Not that the purported defenders of democracy — a free press — did much to help the cause.

       The “surprising” results of the 2022 midterm elections, as characterized by the mainstream media, once again demonstrated the dubious reliability of political polling and the very real risks of news agencies relying heavily on them to “predict” what is likely to occur when people give their actual opinions at the ballot box.

        The “red wave” of Republican victories predicted to occur across America failed to materialize this year, even though in midterm elections the party out of power is “supposed to” make gains because people are fed up with the current president and his policies. That’s what the political “wisdom” is and that’s the bias that goes into much of the polling and the reporting on the campaigns.

         But this year it didn’t happen. Democrats maintained control of the Senate and may have an even stronger hold depending on a runoff election in Georgia. And Republicans are likely to have only a slim margin of control in the House. And, there was no avalanche of Republican election deniers being swept into office in state elections on the strength of a Trump endorsement.

        What happened? Apparently, abortion did matter. Democracy did matter. Ukraine did matter. Inflation? Yes, it hurts. But voters obviously felt they would survive it again and, just maybe, President Joe Biden wasn’t to blame. 

        But you’d have had a hard time knowing that pre-election if you listened to the loudly opinionated “newscasts” on television and the carbon copy reporting in most newspapers, much of it based on information provided by pollsters, many of them funded by Republicans. Did anyone reporting on the polls consider that a basic Republican strategy the past several years has simply been to lie?

      Of course, by constantly repeating the polls’ supposed prediction of what was likely to happen on Election Day, the media did create a lot of anxiety among a lot of people. And maybe that got more people (especially young people) to vote who might otherwise have sat this one out. But that would only mean that the basic assumption of most polls and much reporting was incorrect to start with: that Americans were fed up with inflation and Democratic spending and eager to embrace Republican policies.

    Republican “policy” under Trump has been to divide and conquer, lie and cheat, make voting harder, restrict freedoms of non-white, non-straight, non-Christian, non-male Americans, provide tax cuts for the wealthy, dumb down the public education system, promote violence against political opponents … and blame Democrats for everything. 

      That’s a lot of alienation. It’s a lot of restriction. It’s budding fascism, in fact.

       A lot of Americans apparently noticed. Not nearly enough, but enough to prevent total chaos in Washington and to provide time to take stock of what direction this purported beacon of democracy wants to pursue.

       In its unflagging pursuit of win-or-lose, horse-race reporting based on increasingly unreliable polls (do you know anyone who actually answered a poll?), the only thing positive to say about the job of the American press on this story is that it might’ve scared enough previously unconcerned people into voting and proving the predictions of the “experts” to be wrong.

      That would mean a lot of Americans deserve credit for recognizing, for many of them perhaps the first time, the real threat to democracy represented by the Republican Party’s capitulation to Trumpism. It also means that reporters ought to be talking to more real Americans, real voters, before writing about what those Americans supposedly think. It’s important, because the threat, while weakened, has not disappeared.

       There’s a lot of arguing among Republicans today about who’s to blame for their party’s disappointing (to them) election results. (I’d say they all are.) A lot of them blame Trump himself, which is a change, and Trump himself faces several serious legal actions. But the threat is still alive and well in some elements of the Republican Party. Start talking with voters in Florida and Texas, reporters. Trumpism may or may not be fading, but fascism is always looking for another face. 

rjgaydos@gmail.com