A teacher I greatly respected made an off-handed comment about how intelligence is the ability to recognize patterns. Whether or not it’s true, it’s stuck with me. I am always making associations out of things I hear and see.
Today’s pattern-recognition was prompted by something Heather Cox Richardson wrote in her Letter From an American last night.
So. DOTUS cut the State And Local Tax deduction. He did this to appease his wealthy donor base, but the upshot was it hurt middle class people in mostly “blue” States. Now he’s trying to con voters who may have been hurt by pulling the mortgage-interest and state-tax write-off. He’s basically trying to get credit for advocating that the tax cut he himself eliminated be restored.
This reminded me of something: Oh yeah! Ronald Reagan. In the 80s, Reagan pushed hard for the production and deployment of little nuclear weapons, weapons that could be suitable for – you know – a tactical nuclear war in Europe. It was insane. (Literally I got arrested twice as part of non-violent civil disobedience direct actions, where we blocked people from going to work at the Livermore Nuclear Lab, to raise awareness to how ridiculously dangerous building more and more nukes would be.) But then, years later, Reagan negotiated an end to the weapons build-up. He built the weapons so that he would be able to claim he was a good guy for later putting an end to the weapons-build up.
Is this a Republican thing?
This also reminds me of a rageaholic former boss. She’d come into the office and rant and badmouth all of us. Then she’d take us all on shopping trips and buy our forgiveness with gifts. I did get a nice pashmina and some expensive make-up out of it.
This also reminds me of Lucy and the football. Shit. I bet Lucy’s from a Republican family.
We have longer memories now. DOTUS we see you.
Deadheads for Democracy 