Are We Ever Going to Get Him to Shut Up?

I’m not talking about Trump. If he didn’t shoot his mouth off every day, there would be massive layoffs from all the alt-left media because what else would they have to put on their websites and get all those clicks?

I’m talking about a so-called expert on politics from the alt-left side of the aisle who sent me (and everyone else who subscribes to his Substack blog) an email this morning which hits the lowest level of journalistic nonsense that I have ever seen.

And I’ve been following and reading political journalists now for more than fifty or maybe even sixty years, okay?

Reich starts off by saying that he’s been going around the country peddling (his word not mine) his new book and he keeps meeting people who don’t seem to understand how neo-fascism can take over the United States so fast, even though I don’t understand what the term ‘neo-fascist’ actually means.

To which Reich is telling them that the whole problem began before Trump who is just taking advantage of things that have been happening over the years.

And what, according to Reich, is the real cause of our present mess? I quote: “I explain that it actually occurred slowly and incrementally over many years until our entire political-economic system became so fragile that a sociopathic demagogue could bring much of it down.”

Becoming so fragile? Our ‘entire political-economic system’ is about to collapse?

To show you how full of shit this so-called ‘expert’ happens to be and why we should be concerned when one of our most influential political spielers is even more willing to bend the truth than the guy he’s spieling against, I’d just like to mention a few facts about our ‘entire political-economic system’ which Reich doesn’t appear to understand.

Fact #1. The S&P 500, which is a pretty good measure for the overall performance of the national economy, has never been as high as it is right now.

Fact #2. The unemployment rate, notwithstanding last month’s negative job report, is still under 5% which is considered the baseline number for full employment.

Fact #3. Another federal judge just ruled that Trump’s entire tariff strategy is based on a legal claim which he can’t use.

Fact #4. The big concentration camp which Trump opened up in the Florida Everglades is in the process of being shut down.

And by the way, when I go down to my local convenience store this morning for my coffee, I will be paying $2.79 a gallon for gas and the kid who brings the gasoline from the depot to the store is being paid $110,000 a year plus bennies to do his job.

If I decided instead to treat myself to a latte at the Starbucks which just opened in the middle of my town, I would be paying $6 bucks for the large size, and I don’t notice that the drive-thru line has gotten any shorter since this coffee shop opened up.

My town, incidentally, has been holding a town meeting every single, fucking month since 1763. The meeting is run by three freeholders who are elected every two years. Think that at next month’s meeting a couple of those ICE jerks in their camo outfits will show up and demand that the meeting be shut down? Yea, right.

Other than a few tax havens overseas, there is no country which has an economy as large or as strong as this country’s national economy, and I’m willing to bet you that even if the price of the million dollars of soy sauce we bring in from China goes up, some company over here will change over some of the machinery it uses to make ketchup or mustard and begin bottling soy.

Yesterday, the wife and I wanted to go into the local Costco to eat some of the food they give out as free samples for our lunch, and we couldn’t find a single space to park our car in a parking lot which is the size of Rhode Island out front.

What was everyone doing at Costco in the middle of a working day? Buying all the crap they will cook and consume on the bar-b-q they will be having in their backyards on Labor Day.

Those are just a few facts and impressions to demonstrate how fragile and threatened this country has become under Donald Trump.

Know what’s really fragile and threatened? The beliefs and values of liberalism being attacked by self-sanctified promoters like Robert Reich.

Because the one thing more than anything else that has always made me a liberal is a basic commitment to truth which is the only way we can figure out what needs to be changed and what needs to be left alone.

Or as Grandpa would say in response to Robert Reich ‘zei mir gezint,’ (read: enough is enough.)