Should we imagine Rod Serling's voice intoning?

"Twilight Zone" image from "TV insider"

Are we living in an episode of the old "Twilight Zone?" Am I surrounded by people who have been afflicted with something? And somehow I escaped that? So I am left having to circulate and try to survive among such folks? The old Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, who had her marriage severed because of her peculiarities or fixation, is in the news this morning saying Nikki Haley is an "election denier" because she won't concede to Trump. 

Every day such stories bounce around. And we in Morris are surely in "red territory" where we'll find apologists everywhere for Trump. I'm sure certain area churches keep people in line. Just threaten them with punishment in the hereafter. Threaten them with being accessories to murder or some such thing if they don't keep pushing for the "nationwide abortion ban." Lindsey Graham will get emotionally angry at those with a more flexible view of the issue. He's from South Carolina. 

Shouldn't it be dawning on a lot of you now that a part of what is going on here, possibly a big part, is the push by states of the "old Confederacy." They want to upset the apple cart of the United States of America. Commentator John Harwood is a rare voice who is direct about this. Study your history. Know the peculiarities of Southern people. They are impulsive, lack patience. Maybe that's why the South did so well early in the Civil War. 

I found this interpretation of history once: it was easy for the South to get overconfident as the war started. People in the North are not so impulsive. They are more deliberate and take more time to plan. Hence the South could have been warned early-on that once the North made up its mind and truly mobilized with the considerable resources needed to win the war, well look out. That's exactly what happened. 

At present look at the emotions in the moment shown by Marjorie Taylor Greene and some others. Truly maniacal stuff, emotional and impulsive. Greene is from Georgia. We have the truly weird Matt Gaetz of Florida. 

 

Eye on Dakotas

It is true that Republicans have owned the Dakotas in recent years. But people over to the west of us are not the same, not the same type of human beings as Southerners. I often wonder how people in the Dakotas react to the Deep South brand of conservatism and the Republican Party there - there is a cultural contrast. 

I cross my fingers for a resurgence by Democrats in North and South Dakota. Maybe people will realize that Democrats will fight so much harder for property tax relief. People will realize that this issue affects them more than whether the government should ban books, the way the current "red" crowd advocates for. Can the notorious AM Radio just change its spots a little? I mean, such a totally predictable tone to all the comments day to day around the radio dial? 

Hardly magnanimous

Why do people listen when it's so predictable? Bash Biden in total disrespectful terms, mock him etc. But talk up Trump almost to the point where he's deified. Trump unquestionably shows cognitive issues. Probably beyond any that Biden has shown. 

I think what's gong on with Nikki Haley is the same as for Mitt Romney: they have fundamentally conservative values, yes, but more than anything they would be capable managers. Steady managers, true executives seeking a steady course with leadership, taking care of the people. And this isn't consistent with the ideological and emotional tenor of "conservative media" or the "conservative entertainment complex." David Frum was worried about this way back in 2012. 

Looking back, I think Romney lost because he felt he had to kow-tow some to the inflammatory voices of conservative media. He did not have to go on the Mike Huckabee TV show. He wasn't the kind of guy who was going to win a lot of praise from extreme conservatives. But by kow-towing, saying for example he was in favor of the Human Life Amendment, he alienated moderate folks who were tepid about such stuff. Romney could have become a president much like Ronald Reagan. He needed more of a spine to stay way from the Fox News crowd. 

And hey, many of the strident voices in conservative media don't even believe their own pronouncements, I assure you. They are self-interested opportunists. Example: Tucker Carlson was once known to speak for the "moderate" element in the Republican Party. Well if he did that, it was because he sensed that it worked for him at the time. I assure you that this is the compass of such people. They are professionals. Carlson later became unhinged from the extreme right or let's just say MAGA. So he became a huge proponent of Russia's aims. Trump and Putin have tight affinity with each other, of course. And Putin now hints that his country might want Alaska back. He suggests that the agreement for the U.S. purchase was illegal. 

Illegal? Has this complication ever stopped Trump from at least fighting like hell, even against a poor woman like E. Jean Carroll? What about chivalry? What about men wanting to be gentle with women, not wanting to insult them all over the place, or to "objectify" them in a way that makes Trump want to have sex with a curvy porn star? And then to try to pay her off? And this is a man put on a pedestal, practically if not literally deified by conservative churches like those in our Morris area? 

I have tried having conversations with some of these people. I have had friends drift away from me. I get put down for having "Trump derangement syndrome." Can a person not just finally get angry at what you see sometimes from the political right? And from our right-leaning churches like those with the LCMC out here in Western Minnesota?

 

New Hampshire news

My God, Trump won yesterday in New Hampshire. But he's talking anything like a winner on the day after. Magnanimous toward an opponent? A woman? Simple courtesy? Chivalry? These arguments fall on deaf ears with my MAGA acquaintances. 

What happens when Trump descends on the White House again and we start hearing about people disappearing? It sounds outlandish now like so many things with Trump. At first we say "oh that's ridiculous." Like overturning Roe vs. Wade. 50 years of precedent. Kavanaugh made a pledge to the pathetic Susan Collins of Maine. And just see what happens as the dominoes fall. 

We are headed there again: the nightmare of Donald Trump holding the highest office in the land. Mitt Romney and Nikki Haley are left in a cloud of dust. 

New Hampshire is a northern state with a reputation of independent thinking., Now that this state has "fallen," it's all over, I fear. I might imagine Rod Serling's voice in the back of my mind (from "The Twilight Zone").

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com