Office Hours: Who’s the worst demagogue running for president?
Office Hours: Who’s the worst demagogue running for president?
DeSantis has come out against the debt-ceiling bill. That gives him an edge.
Friends,
As you know, Congress has just a few days to raise the borrowing limit before the government goes into default on its debt, which would most likely set off a global financial crisis, and potentially throw millions of Americans out of work.
I wouldn’t have negotiated with Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans if I were president. I would have relied on Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and continued to pay the nation’s bills with IOUs.
But I’m not president, and the deal worked out Saturday between Biden and McCarthy is the only deal in town. To oppose it now is to opt for chaos.
So I was alarmed by the decision by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to oppose the agreement.
“Our country was careening toward bankruptcy” before the deal was struck, DeSantis said on “Fox and Friends” on Monday, “and after this deal, our country will still be careening toward bankruptcy.”
DeSantis’s broadside comes just as McCarthy is trying to round up Republican votes to approve the deal this week. And it puts pressure on Donald Trump to come out against the bill as well. Will he?
There’s much debate about the capacity of the Republican Party to govern. As you know, I’m of the view that it’s rapidly turning into a White Christian Nationalist party, divorced from democracy. DeSantis’s opposition to the debt-ceiling deal is an example.
DeSantis comes as close to a fascist as any politician in modern American history. To my mind, he’s more dangerous than Trump because DeSantis knows exactly what he’s doing and where he wants to take the country — into tyranny, bigotry, and ultra-nationalist culture warfare — while Trump is motivated by nothing more than Donald Trump.
A test will be whether Trump follows DeSantis into opposing the debt-ceiling deal. What do you think?
What a shitshow the republican party has devolved into. It is beyond frightening, and I am applying for Irish citizenship. The hate in this country is disgraceful and we are careening towards 1933 in Germany. I have voted, and will continue to vote, but with the electoral college still in existence, we may end up with the same situation as 2016. As long as states that have the power to elect a president who are uninformed and chose to elect a president who is clearly uninformed and dangerous, we are devolving into undoing rights for women, LGBTQI individuals, anyone who is non white and not a christian, who only represent less than 40 percent of this country, we are doomed. I realize that is a run on sentence, but my brain isn't functioning, just like the republican party. WE NEED TO MOBILIZE INSTEAD OF WATCHING FROM THE SIDELINES. What has happened in Florida is a blueprint for what will happen to the United States if DeSantis is elected. He is dangerous, hateful, and is on course to end the rights of anyone in order to play to his base. Enough is enough.
I think tRump and Death Santis are tied for being the worst demagogues. They are both dangerous. One advocates the overthrow of government, the other is doing just that in his own state.