The Red Scare
I saw an interview earlier today, in which a TV news journalist (I forget which one) predicted that the threat of communism is going to be the central theme of the Republican leading up to the midterm elections. Here’s Trump setting this up.
This makes sense, given that the target audience is largely unaware that:
In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy led this nation through a nightmarish effort to imprison anyone with any ties to communism. This is now regarded as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in U.S. history.
and
There are dozens of social democracies around the globe that offer their citizens extremely high qualities of life. The countries at the top of the World Happiness Rankings are, in order,
- Finland (Score: 7.764)
- Iceland (Score: 7.540)
- Denmark (Score: 7.539)
- Costa Rica (Score: 7.439)
- Sweden (Score: 7.255)
- Norway (Score: 7.242)
- The Netherlands (Score: 7.223)
Now, the typical MAGA guy can’t find Finland on a map of the world, but it’s that very level of ignorance that makes all this horsecrap work.
Trump is working hard to dismantle NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the largest collection of American scientists focusing on climate change. In particular, he shut down NOAA’s website, that formerly gave everyone on Earth the ability to look at key climate-related data.
If I were asked to explain the huge correlation between poorly educated people and Trump supporters, I’d point to the quote from Helen Keller at left.
Here’s a very short video on the subject of 
As a PhD colleague once told me, “If you don’t care how much you pay for electricity, I’ll get you all the renewable energy you could ever ask for.”
At left we see why Lincoln would have done well to let the Confederacy cede from the Union. He could have simply written a letter to Robert E. Lee stating:
What former labor secretary Robert Reich says at left is exactly what I believe.
I can’t see it, if he means a national office. Why? He’s an ardent and outspoken Trump supporter.
I thought the cartoon below was clever.
