Author: plinyblogcom

Yesterday evening, while routinely watching the evening news, we were profoundly disturbed to be introduced to the revelation of a “new” and “advanced” institutional State program (“PragerU”) which seeks to promote the inculcation of young schoolchildren in the immovable tectonics of biased and reductive, populist ignorance. It presents a cartoonized version of Christopher Columbus telling the young student watcher that the enslavement of black human beings was beneficial and morally preferable to their being killed. The brief excerpt of this filmed program of atavistic instruction of young schoolchildren provided a uniquely distressing aperture to our distressing perception of stereotypically reductive ignorance and its atavistic promotion of dehumanizing racial bigotry.

The film snippet presented an affably smiling, plainly virtuous, and admirable Christopher Columbus, holding a spyglass while morally proclaiming that the preferable choice of black slavery was preferable to that of death. We were suddenly obliged to draw in our breath in shocked reaction to this reductive and pathological declaration, common to the substantial minions of hubristically delusional Americans, known as White Christian Evangelicals.

We were aesthetically and philosophically grateful that merely a short excerpt of this dystopian children’s animated film was presented; nevertheless, this revealing new aperture, focused on a dystopian and regressive policy employed in the instruction of schoolchildren, doubtlessly will be useful in our ongoing attempt to comprehend the MAGA-style delusions of history and its reductive attitudes.

We would begin with the presented smiling depiction of an animated Christopher Columbus as the avatar of traditional American virtue. History shows that such a purported discoverer of America never reached the American continent and brought only exotic infectious diseases as well as cultural homicidal prejudice to the “New World.” We have witnessed the traditionally restrained and conventionally dignified National Geographic, devote no less than two of its venerable issues to the subject of the ethnocentric, malign cruelty of Columbus practiced on the indigenous peoples of the Western hemisphere, Notably, our personal recognition and celebration of “Columbus Day” is exclusively a grateful recogition of the many ubiquitous contributions of Italian immigrants to our State and the Nation.

The animated image of a smiling Christopher Columbus, articulating the inane and condescending (sophomoric) message that black people were preferentially enslaved as opposed to being killed, is a nauseatingly repulsive and ignorant example of pathological hubris; and conceivably ranks as the most deplorable verbal example of pathological cruelty and hubristic ignorance. The animated version of this purported hero of American history, smilingly delimits the available, empirical choices of black human beings to slavery or death; what happened to the universally natural choice of life and self-realization?

This shocking view of the contextually reductive and arrogant program of recommended childhood education is not, to any rational degree, consistent with the history of the rectitude of the Nation’s humanistic aspirations, and must be decisively thrown into the nearest and most obnoxiously scented dumpster.

-p.

On August 2025, the world was treated to a bizarre transmogrification of William Shakespeare’s (1556) classic comedy, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The public broadcast of our contextually analogous reprise of Shakespeare’s carnivalesque offering, featuring players wearing animal heads, evokes theatrical fantasy and has been thematically matched by two official heads of State, wearing business suits as functional theatrical costumes

A notable distinction with our construed version, notably performed before the entire world and entered into recorded history, was that it was not an instance of theatrical diversion, but performed by two heads of mutually enemy states; in fact, the travesty was sufficiently unsuitable as to justify the adornment of the classic 1556 play’s animal heads. The internationally broadcast event, sadly, revealed itself as stereotypical of the systemic ignorance and monomaniacal perspective of our singular Chief Executive, Donald J. Trump, and, by contrast, the cunning and psychopathic persona of the Russian autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin.

The functional co-star in our tawdry drama, Russia’s autocratic oligarch, who hubristically orchestrated an unjust, full-scale, aggressive invasion of democratic Ukraine, February 2022, continuing his unlawful imperial drive for expansion, begun in 20i4 with its immoral conquest of Crimea. Putin’s ongoing aggressive war is, notably, the biggest European war since World War 2.

History will record a ubiquitous World response evincing shock and disapproval at Russia’s (Putin’s) unprovoked incursion into Ukraine, and responsively furnished financial and military assistance (principally by the United States, and by Europe and NATO), to the beleaguered nation. Putin’s hubristic boast that he would conquer Ukraine in three days proved to be empirically delusional; the hard-fought and bloody war has, in fact, persisted for more than three years. Among Trump’s egoistic boasts was that he would end the war in the first week of his Presidency; however, akin to the totality of his universal “snake oil” representations, he was characteristically and predictably impotent.

Donald Trump, a proclaimed and neurotically motivated future dictator, had enjoyed a long period of delusional “bromance” with the psychopathic dictator and often referred favorably to him, most especially, relative, his admirable political acumen and acquisition of unparalleled authority; not uncommonly assisted by having his detractors murdered. It is our confident perception that, sadly, by such farcical theatrical presentation, had the wileyPutin easily won the devoted admiration and high praise of the egocentric Trump by feigning praise and officious respect.

To the contrary, the television and newspaper media often reported on the unfriendly and imperial attitude towards Zelinsky, the young and admirably indefatigible democratically elected President of Ukraine, our ally, including a televised, inappropriate “dressing down, with the aid of the loyal and obnoxious persona of the exotic vice-President. This is notably and implausibly to be inexplicably compared with Trump’s many reverenced and intimately friendly interactions with the murderous and wily autocrat, Putin.

Our contextually analogous,”Midsummer Night’s Dream,” raises its curtain at the public request by Donald Trump to negotiate a peace treaty between the aggressor, Russia, and the wrongly attacked Ukraine by an official meeting with Putin, without the presence of Zelinsky, of Ukraine. The tragic comedy reaches its ultimate zenith with Trump’s exclusive invitation to Putin to meet on American soil (Alaska), again, without the presence of Ukraine’s President Zelensky.

The tragic-comedy is epitomized by the exalted view of the magnificent red carpet treatment of the autocratic wrongdoer thereby affording the villainous Putin a faux public affirmation of recognized rectitude. The reductive ignorance and lack of discernment of Donald J.Trump, consistent with his daily modus operandi, this hot, Summer August, results in a visible public victory to the tyrant, by his demonstrated affirmation and recognition by the incapable and irresponsible Trump; a comedy of national dissonance amounting to a tragic and ironic reprise of Shakjespear’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

-p.

Perhaps the benevolent reader will forgive our repetitive ruminations relative to the dystopian “Land of Oz,” to which our venerated Democratic Republic has, of late, descended. The shamefully outrageous transformation of the venerable and unique Democratic Republic, thoughtfully created by its wise Founders and successfully enduring (despite some historically anecdotal hiccups) for almost three centuries, has seen itself transmogrified into a veritable “Land of Oz, presided over by an orange-dyed-haired, malevolent Wizard.

More detailed and specific accounts of the contextual dystopia have been expressed in prior writings; however, the singular angst and repulsion, notably generated by two recent outlandish and grotesque circumstances, have personally catalyzed their unique and inexorable rumination

It is our sense that this blogspace has sufficiently articulated the panoply of the Trump-MAGA debasement and injury to our Democratic Republic. Nevertheless, a duo of notably ironic and dystopian observations has exceeded all bearable bounds of acceptably empirical reality and evinces the analogously bizarre distortions of a fun-house mirror. It is such astonishing, Wizard of Oz developments that have sorely tested our determined resolution to patiently observe the temporal travesty of the Trump Presidential rule.

Two especially ironic disturbing and factually inappropriate acts by the Nation’s orange hazmat President are, thematically, (1) the federalizing of the Washington, D.C. National Guard to serve as community police, and (2) the stated intention of the President to audit the propriety of the programmatic policies of America’s Smithsonian Institution inclusive of the acceptable nature of the latter’s Museum exhibit policies. We will attempt to briefly summarize (and simultaneously control our responsive outrage and painfully perseverated views).

(1) Policing D.C. by the federalized National Guard:

Trump’s stated motivation for this act, found in his false and tactical declaration of an increase in D.C. crime and the existing descent of the Capitol City into a state of violent barbarism. In truth, official statistics demonstrate his tactical falsity by their expert official calculations, showing a notably lowered D.C. crime rate. The most vexing consideration, however, is the criminal nature ot the act of this darling of the Christian Evangelicals; Trump has been convicted of no less than 34 felonies, indicted for a further dumpsterfull of venal criminalty, been adjudged a tax cheat, a woman abuser, a defamer, a giver of substantial bribes to avoid publication of his brisk commerce with call girls, a perpetrator of corruption, electoral as well as personal. Trump has empirically proven himself to have no respect for the Constitution, the law of the land, and has publicly and irrefutably demonstrated a complete lack of moral compass’

His purported motive in using the military for presidential purposes (and, notably, in breach of the US Posse Comitatus Act) is motivated by other intentions, viz., the deflection from the poor state of the Nation’s economy and the Epstein sex scandal.

(2) The critical oversight and correction of the policies of the Smithsonian Institution, including its museum policy.

The Smithsonian Institute is the World’s largest museum and educational research complex. It has been eternally dedicated to the beneficial protection and shaping of our future by preserving America’s heritage, as well as resourcing new knowledge and resources.. Any government political interference would be harmful to its beneficial mission. The proposition that the semi-literate, reductionist, egocentric Donald J. Trump would have the appropriate capability, even if legal and theoretically needed, is empirically delusional and dishonest.

As Dorothy said to Toto, on arriving at the Land of Oz, “We are not in Kansas anymore.”

-p.

-p.

If we were to empirically analogize, the “Nation,” the entity to which political scientists refer to as “The Body Politic,” the consternation and angst now suffered by the mainstream, traditional American citizen would be attenuated, and the salutary sense of optimism would reinstate itself.

During the natural course of Man’s life, he universally experiences anecdotal periods of discomfort, threatening, infirmity, or ill health. By fsr, the greater number and variety of such maladies, such as colds, flu, and indigestion, are temporal and are, by past similar experience, patiently and optimistically borne. Notwithstanding such confidence, pending its uncomfortable course, it is empirically productive of impatience, notably, as to the prevailing symptoms and at rare times, its sequelae.

The state of the body politic of our traditionally salubrious Nation is at present, demonstrably ill, being unfortunately beset by the dangerous, toxic, and insidious pandemic of autocratic”Trumpism,” an autocratic immune disorder, whose clinical etiology is empirically founded in a combination of demagoguery, an uninformed grievance-inclined gullible populism, financed by certain corrupt anti-regulation industrial polluters. The illness is notably systemic, presenting a ubiquitously pernicious undemocratic governmental incompetence and corruption, which has remarkably infected its systemic tri-partite architecture with democratic disability and unprecedented, shameless corruption.

It is in this contextual setting that the traditional mainstream citizen, concerned for the systemic health of his normally uniquely hearty and robust Democratic Republic, finds himself in an empirically justified state of fear and depression. It is in such an understandable and rationally justified state of mind that one is appropriately and salubriously, to be reminded of the ultimate empirically experienced and inevitable arrival of remission and restored health and vigor.

However, like many ubiquitously contagious diseases, such as strep throat, the presenting malady requires medicinal support for its amelioration and full recovery. In the contextual instance, the “penicillin” consists of a compound of faith, as opposed to a depressed resignation, and the affirmative articulation of political propriety, when possible and by whatever appropriate means present themselves; as well as the solicitous vote for candidates, local and federal.

With resolute faith and optimism, we look forward to the imminent happening of the inevitable, recovery of the American body politic, and the restoration to its primal. health. We would be extremely fortunate to find that the contextual illness has resulted in an immunative result.

-p,

A colossal tsunami, which has tragically and unprecedentedly breached the protective seawall of our Democratic Republic, carrying with it the historically rancid flotsam and jetsam of atavistic autocracy, has continued in its metastatic toxity to attain unimaginable impact.

Donald J. Trump, elected to the American Presidency, in large part, by the grievance-inclined, educationally deprived population of American populists, with the financial support of the polluting anti-regulation industrialists, has uniformly demonstrated an autocratic disregard for the Constitution and laws of the United States, as well as demonstrated to the Nation and an egoistic lack of societal moral compass.

The most egregious act of hubristic illegality is his tactical call-up of the National Guard to ameliorate a purported crime wave extant in Washington, D.C. More serious than the revealing statistical drop in the Capital City’s historic crime rate is his hubristic and autocratic disregard for the Nation’s historically contextual democratic law by tactically federalizing and deploying its National Guard, based on a fictitiously high crime rate, evidently as a public diversion from the failing economy and, most notably, the roiling Epstein obscenity.

The “Posse Comitatus” Act (1875) has eternally prohibited the President’s use of the federal military (or, relevantly, the federalized military) for domestic law enforcement purposes. Its avowed and clearly expressed legislative purpose is the prevention of the use of the military as a “police force.”

Most obscene is the autocratic pretense for this reprise of his empirical disregard for the American law, purportedly based on a fictitious burgeoning of the crime rate in Washington D.C., is the contextual consideration of the Executive law breaker who has been convicted of a plethora of felonies, is the subject of numerous felonious indictments, has been adjudged a woman molester, a defamer, a tax cheat, a inciter and supporter of an insurrection against the capitol ( then pardoning the criminal insurgergents) and relevantly a loyal customer at a ciminally under-age whorehouse.

We have eternally reiterated our earnest desire for the appropriate vetting of all presidential aspirants, which would be an existential aid to the Nation’s floodwall.

-p.

We have identified two distinct contextual uses of the noun “displacement” ubiquitously employed by xenophobes, viz., racial and cultural. The Nation and the World are best familiar with the noun concerning the widespread and biased ideation that a perceived inferior or odious species will invade and overrun a superior and singularly appropriate race of inhabitants. This species of xenophobia is the toxic mantra of all Nationalist White Militias and, as well, the neurotic ideation of many reductive thinking, grievance-driven individuals.

It is this irrational bias that has universally resulted in the cruel repression of those members of humanity who, haplessly, were born with a skin color other than white, or perhaps into an ethnos ascribing to spiritual beliefs other than Christianity. Man’s execrable history of the resultant acts of tragic inhumanity has evinced itself in wars, religious Inquisition, and a shameful plenitude of misery and human tragedy.

World history has, in notable part, been written by the universal pandemic of toxic prejudice, empirically metastasized by the perpetuation of vile, unscientific, and mythical delusions of racial and ethnic superiority. The best-known, egregious examples in history include the Spanish Inquisition, the Hundred Years’ War, the pillaging and rape of South America by rapacious Spain and Portugal, the American Civil War, the Native American Removal Act (“The Trail of Tears”) the American CivilWar, the inhuman tragedy of American, negro chattel slavery, and the monstrous tragedy of thde Holocaust.

The outlandish contextual delusion of the xenophobic racial bigot is that the iconic American will be tragically replaced by non-Christian (heathen) members of an empirically inferior race. It is demonstrably ironic and mentally dissonant to note that the apocryphal Jesus, as theologically portrayed in the New Testament, is empirically and undeniably a dark-skinned, Palestinian Jew,

The attenuation and ideal elimination of the un-American and dehumanizing institution of racial prejudice, through constitutional provision, and Congressional legislation ensuring the moral enforcement of equal rights, notably voting, are accepted expressions of the avowed American tradition of equality; but to date, have not been sufficiently successful in the effectuation of such aspirational justice.

Our readings inform us of a somewhat divergent. xenophobic fear of “replacement,” analogously biased, albeit less profoundly anthropological. It is the neurotic fear of what we have chosen to label “cultural” replacement. This ethnocrastic-cultural ideation finds itself viable among certain citizens of historically established ancient cultures, such as France and England to the effect that immigrants from foreign cultures would pollute the established culture of such a nation, possessing such a valuable and singular culture, and disasterously incorporate their less desirable folkways. in replacement of the invaluable cultural ethos of the country to which they immigrated. We would term such extreme national prejudice “cultural ethnocentricism,” or, dynamically,” as cultural replacement.” By significant example, Albert Camus, the internationally celebrated French novelist and thinker, was a proponent of such cultural hybris.

The first category of delusional “replacement’ is, in reality,” a paranoid excuse for plain and simple racial hatred. The second, cultural replacement,” would have no rational context in a Nation of immigrants, espousing, “E Pluribus Unum.”

-p.

The existential damage empirically inflicted upon our Democratic Republic by Donald Trump’s unprincipled and dystopian policies, having its etiology in his singular egoistic and neurotic perception as a “winner” or, heaven forbid, a “loser,” has tragically accomplished the dirty work of its foreign enemies. His all- pervasive divisive weakening of the American Nation, morally, economically, and sociologically (viz., demeaning education and intellectual advancement, promotion of falsity and ‘alternate facts,” tanking the Nation’s stable economy, demeaning national military service (“suckers and losers,”) attack on the Nation’s media, tactical appointment of inappropriately, incapable, albeit loyal, Cabinet Ministers, the creation of a privately loyal legal authority, as opposed to a nationally dedicated, federal legal apparatus, his irresponsibled dessimating of the Federal Civil Service and societal protective regulations, contrasted with his adamant support of polluting, big industry, his autocratic prosecution of free speech as well as citizen indivdual liberty and equality, his executive action, based upon his perverse ideation that he is above the strictures of the law, his lack of societal moral compass and plain human decency, his intimate friendship with Amedrica’s enemies and most recently his un-American, Gestapo-like war against Hispanic immigrants, inclusive of their arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and banishmednt to foreign torture prisons, without a glimmer of due process

Such egregious acts, weakening the Nation’s spirit and resolve, could never be as empirically successful if imposed by a foreign enemy, regardless of the efficiency of its insidious program of espionage.

The contextual travesty of the Trump Presidency is not the only instance of a flawed Presidency. Andrew Johnson’s shameful, forced removal of the Cherokee Nation and other indigenous tribes from their fertile ancestral home in the Southeast, to the dusty, infertile, and windy “proper Indian Territory” of Oklahoma (Indian Removal Act of 1830) was analogous to Trump’s authorization of a black-hooded assault, analogous to the nightmarish Nazi “Kristallnacht,” but arguably less sxuc dessfully genecidal. Andrew Johnson’s impeachment for illegal political appointment is, in general, factually similar to Trump’s shamefully egregious self-interested cabinet appointments of completely incapable and systemically immoral, but loyal, officials, judges, and Cabinet Officers. Nixon’s derogation of the Nation’s criminal law (“Watergate) was unprincipled and arrogant, as is Trump’s universal disrespect for the Constitution and the law of the land; however, the latter’s universality of miscreance exceeds the former in its ubiquitous universality and sustained impact.

We have witnessed the historical event in which Donald J. Trump has, at long last, indisputably, established himself as a “winner,” albeit of the perverse competition for the gold medal for human depravity.

“Mazel Tov!”

-p.

The dynamics of seasonal migration of many of the Planet’s natural inhabitants are eternal, predictable, and constitute an empirically accepted phenomenon. The filmed sight of wildebeasts kicking up clouds of dust on their ardous way to seasonal sources of water, spectacular undulating waves of blackbirds on their way to southern climes, hump-back whales traveling vast distances to find a mate, reindeer (caribou) migrating up to 3,000 miles, sockeye salmon swimming more than 1,000 miles, and an additional plethora of the planet’s natural species, predictably moving to distant climes for survival and reproduction are a “given” in the eternal planetary geometry,

By contrast, the immigration of the human species for purposes of survival or the prospect of an acceptable life is, beset with barriers imposed by plain bigotry or selfishness, empirically attributable to right-wing (MAGA) adherents of Donald Trump. The existential migration of the birds and beasts is accepted, even idolized, yet the immigration of desperate humanity, by contrast, is vehemently opposed by reductionist bigotry and perverse politics; dissonantly, in a Nation populated by former immigrants and their progeny. Like other phobias, xenophobia is not rational or, if minimally rational, amounts to selfish and immoral prejudice

Yet it is undeniable that a sizeable population of Americans, notably, inclusive of the cult-like lemmings who accord religious homage to Donald Trump, appear to be guiltless, in fact, pseudo-patriotic in their reductive lack of humanistic empathy. The welcoming tradition, admirably articulated by the totrch-holding Statue of Liberty prominently standing in New York’s East River, welcoming Emily Lazarus” huddled and frightened masses,” has been debased in a paranoidal scheme to avoid the replacement of acceptable American citizens with foreign terrorists and despicable national rejects; in fact, the contextually perverse parties are the xenophobic miscreants and not the oppressed immigrant, the latter, merely seeking an acceptable life for themdselves and therir families.

The inhuman treatment of needy and vulnerable refugees, desperately seeking the Nation’s traditional offer of compassionate refuge traditionally accorded by our Nation has, with the authorization, financial support, and the encouragement of the extant and excreble President, Donald J. Trump, been denigrated and unjustly criminalized. The Nation’s unprincipled Chief Executive has authorized and directed a dystopian, masked, Gestapo-like organization to compliantly torture, imprison, and banish to foreign torture prisons, “illegal” immigrants (officially identified by their tan -colored skin and Hispanic vocabulary) without just cause or due process. A reign of terror, amounting to a modern, Nazi-style “Kristallnacht, has been nightmarishly reprised in our Democratic Republic.

Migrating animals and birds are solicitously afforded the appropriate sympathetic protection of groups such as the ASPCA, the Wildlife Fund, and the Sierra Club. By shameful contrast, needy and vulnerable human migrants have few such dedicated champions.

-p.

Based on the confirming authority of past experience, we find ourselves in accord with William Shakespeare’s eternally famous observation, “The world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” The statement, albeit phrased in theatrical vernacular, is empirically descriptive of man’s ubiquitous “roles” in society; the prescribed roles of early childhood, teenager, young adult, and parent have their respective nuanced costume and predictable theatrical dynamics.

Our thematic concern, nevertheless, relates to the extent and quality of the “inner life” of the ubiquitous role-playing citizen, i.e., the extent to which he achieves a sense of individualized identity, personal self-image, and responsible ethics. The utilitarian function of a skilled plumber, by illustrative example, might ideally be accompanied by a personal sense of contemplative identity and mature perspective. Analogous to the pragmatic need of society for ubiquitous utilitarian skills, the individual’s attainment of a fulfilling life (and, pragmatically, the establishment of a valuable citizen) requires the positive development of a stable and referable self-image and a mature, contemplative perception.

Thematically, we have, of late, sadly been obliged to observe society’s general reluctance to strive for the personal attainment of understanding and contemplative depth, by eschewing the benefits ol advancement through, among other things,, the rewarding activities of reading, intellectual discourse, and personal contemplation, in favor of faciile and impersonal digital interaction, the search for a convenient route to financial success, supplementing the populist desire for readily available, ephemeral entertainment. The classical aspiration for intellectual growth and metaphysical understanding has regrettably declined in favor of short-sighted materialistic goals and stereotypically evinced symbols of success. Many students attend institutions of higher education as the singularly required route to good jobs, rather than the acquisition of knowledge and personal growth.

Academic professionals advise that many of today’s college-level students cannot meet the most basic requirements of higher education, viz., do not read books, cannot write effective essays (some currently hobble their educational growth by falsely employing the convenience of A-I writing), and in derogation of the appropriately contextual challenge of intellectual curiosity, seem driven by the pragmatic desire for high grades, beneficial on employment-seeking resumes.

We are deeply concerned about the reported nature of contemporary students in higher education, no longer motivated by the laudable desire to advance their personal store of knowledge and intellectual understanding.

Our bitterness is painfully exacerbated by our recollection of our long-past college attendance (accompanied by the attendance of several other first-generation Americans) at Brooklyn College, who, universally, demonstrated a hunger for enlightenment and understanding, and who relevantly worshipped their knowledgeable professors and appreciatively imbibed their imparted enlightenment. Sandwiches brought from home, to be eaten at the college lunchroom, were invariably accompanied by serious debate about Kant, Marx, Engels, and the political and social issues of the day, such as “McCarthyism.” “Academic dilemmas were hotly debated, and exotic theories were propounded and excitedly disputed over stereotypical tuna and tomato on rye. Lunch was an extension of academic activity as well as an enjoyable social experience.

We were enabled to beneficially replicate the ardent desire for the accessibility of advancement and understanding in our days of higher education, and notably, in the progress of our future lives. This dedicated and perpetual inclination has reliably continued to enrich our lives to the beneficial extent of mitigating the natural experience of disability and joint pains attributable to Man’s late period of life, notably rendering the profound pleasure of life’s potential for rich and desirably rewarding experience

By impactful contrast, the failure to avail oneself of the challenges and richness of an inner contemplative life is empirically productive of a bland, disappointing life experience; the motivation for reductive and thoughtless rebellion that ultimately results in disappointment, grievance, and the rebellious inclination to vote for a morally perverse and societally atavistic candidate such as Donald J. Trump.

-p.

One man, one vote, is the definitional dynamic at the very heart of democracy. The constitutional assurance of the voting franchise mandates that every vote shall be counted and have an equal impact. Accordingly, the Constitution mandates the taking of an official population count (“Census) every 10 years; the impactful result is determinative of the democratic allocation of seats in the House of Representatives, reflective of the population of the voting districts.

The unconstitutional tactic of manipulating or rearranging map-defined voting districts, outside the mandated census to favor a political party, is a clear perversion of the democratic process, known as “gerrymandering.” Our readings advise that such unconstitutional manipulation involves “cracking,” or deleting the voting impact of an opposing party, or “packing,” the increase of such voting power. The perverse result is an empirical dystopia in which the politicians pick their voters, rather than voters picking their politicians.

Recent media reports indicate that in response to an intended Texas Republican Party tactic to untimely and percersely gerrymander the State’s voting map, wrongfully gaining five additional Members of Congress, have taken the irregular, but procedurally effective tactic of leaving the State, thereby preventing the mandated Legislative caucus, as a roadblock to the passage of such an errant Bill.

We have experienced mixed feelings, relative to public assertions by certain State Governors, like New York and California, of an anticipated defensive response, amounting to the replication of the Texas legislature’s unconstitutional gerrymandering; consistent with the aggressive populist aphorism, “fight fire with fire.” Such tactical political response, while emotionally understandable, is inarguably dissonant with the avowed principles of the Democratic party, to uphold the tenets of the U.S. Constitution, albeit in retaliation for, and defense of, the errant tactics of the Trump Administration. Even in the event of tactical success, the victory would be pyrrhic, resulting in yet another unprincipled assault upon the presently beleaguered Constitution.

It may be necessary and would certainly be historically preferable to undertake the arduous legal procedure of amending the Constitution for the effectuation of the warranted needed rather than being complicit with the MAGA-Trump miscreants in their unprincipled disregard of our Nation’s existential Constitution.

-p.