I wish Elon did not have to donate to both the parties.. But that is not realistic or practical for him at the moment.
That Dianne Feinstein, who flew the confederate flag over San Francisco City Hall.. 3 times .. in order to appease the dixiecrats.
1984: Confederate flag of slavery taken down from San Francisco Civic Center – 3 times!
If you dig a little deep into both parties, you will be just as disgusted as I am.
Diane Feinstein was mayor of San Francisco when the flag came down for the last time, but it flew in that plaza from 1964 to 1984. She became mayor in 1978 after the murder of the mayor and was there until 1988.
There would have been zero thought of pleasing the Dixicrats on her part. She made few, if any noises about running for higher office while mayor and California was a Union state during the Civil War. The San Joaquin Valley has a lot of transplants from the South and the Union stationed troops around the Valley during the war to ensure there was no uprising. Today the Valley has a lot of people who's families moved west from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. To this day that population are called the "Okies". The famous country singer Merle Haggard had a kit called "Okie From Muskogee". He was born and raised in Oildale, CA which is a suburb of Bakersfield.
Democrats running for state level offices in California are often from the Bay Area, sometimes from Los Angeles, but they have always tended to ignore the rural areas of the State. Rural California has over 5 million people, which is more than many US states, but the urban population is 28 million and they dominate statewide voting. One of the problems in California is Bay Area and Southern Californian politicians tend to act like the rest of the state doesn't exist outside their world.
The isolationist views are worse in Southern California than in the Bay Area, even though Southern California is probably more dependent on the rest of the state to exist. In the 1930s several projects brought water and electricity to the Los Angeles area from long distances away. The Colorado River used to empty into the Gulf of California where Baja California attaches to the rest of Mexico, but all the water was diverted to agriculture, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles in the 1930s. Hoover Dam produces a lot of electricity along the way. The Owens Valley in eastern California was flooded to make a reservoir to provide water to Los Angeles and the California Aqueduct carries water from Northern California to the South.
When I was a baby we were on a trip to Eastern California and a hose blew on the car out in the dessert. My father was able to some emergency repairs and refill the radiator by dropping a bucket on a rope into the aqueduct from Owens Valley. It was enough to limp the car to the nearest small town.
I grew up in the Los Angeles area and traveled all around the state as a kid. A friend of mine went off to college at UC Davis outside Sacramento. UC Davis has a lot more kids from the Bay Area than Southern California. One asked my friend one day if Southern Californians hated Northern Californians as much as Northern Californians hated Southern Californians. My friend thought about it for a minute and came to the realization Southern Californians never think about the rest of the state.
When I was in 3rd grade the teacher asked the class what the capital of California was. She ignored my hand because she probably knew I knew the answer. It took about 20 wrong answers before anyone got it right. It's in Northern California.
I bit more context on the story of the Confederate flag:
When a Confederate battle flag flew in front of SF City Hall
There is an initiative on the California ballot to split the state. I doubt it will pass, but it does come out of deep seated divisions within the state.
As I said early on in this thread, we need to revert to the country's original motto, e pluribus unum, from in God we trust, er, trusted. In every step of federally elected officials, they should bear in mind the preamble of the Constitution—especially "to provide for the general welfare." The founders were imbued with a civic republican morality and/or instruction from the best of the Abrahamic religions plus in many cases profound interest in science as students or contributors.
What un-humble dirt are our leaders today. It's time for women to take over. They are more likely than men to have a real connection to another. Present company the exception, of course.
"In God We Trust" was added to the money in the 1950s by the Eisenhower administration to separate the US from the Communists who were officially atheist. Some people believe it has been there since the beginning.
I've commented a number of times to my SO, there is one advantage to having a lot of female politicians: they have fewer sex scandals. I'm sure some are having affairs, but it's probably fewer and it becomes a scandal much less frequently.
I do think there are too few women in politics in the US. Though I think a balance between men and women is the best mix. I also believe a healthy balance between two near center parties willing to negotiate is critical to health of the country. We haven't had the latter in a while and we've lagged behind most developed countries in the former.
Well, he was trying to get Trump to listen to him about the dangers of climate change. Didn't work. :-( By all accounts, Trump wouldn't even listen to his own *daughter* on the topic. (Yes, she's made statements calling for action to end carbon pollution -- back in the day.)
Trump is as bad as Henry VIII or Wilhelm II.
(Citations:
Not since Henry VIII Tudor Have We Seen the Like!
What Happens When a Bad-Tempered, Distractible Doofus Runs an Empire?
)
This is dangerous and Trump really should have been removed already, by the cabinet or the Congress. I mean, even if you *actually wanted an authoritarian dictatorship* you wouldn't want this guy anywhere near power. The problem is that most of the Republican Party leadership is as stupid and short-sighted as the Prussian nobility before World War I.
The United States is on the edge of the abyss because of the instability in the Republican Party. A lot of it has it's roots going back as far as Nixon. Rodger Ailes who was the architect behind Fox News had been Communications Director for Nixon. He laid out what he wanted as early as 1973 or 1974, but he didn't get his chance until cable TV existed. Fox News is a source of one sided propaganda no democracy has ever seen.
Add to that Reagan's "11th Commandment" which was no elected Republican should ever say anything bad about another elected Republican. For a long time there has been a tendency within the parties that Republicans tend to fall in line behind their nominee, but Democrats need to fall in love. When Democrats get a dynamic candidate who energizes people, they see better turnout of their base than if they have a lackluster candidate. Hillary Clinton actually did get almost the same vote as Barack Obama did in 2012, but she fell well short of his 2008 totals because people just were not all that motivated by her. Trump was able to get votes from Republicans who despised him because they always vote and always vote Republican.
My father who has been a consistent Republican voter since 1944 was on the horns of a dilemma in 2016. I don't know how he eventually voted, he refuses to talk politics now.
The 11th Commandment reinforced the tendency for Republicans to fall in line. My SO follows Rick Wilson who was a campaign manager and Republican insider for years. He still has a lot of friends who are serving in Congress. He has said that everyone he knows despises Trump, but nobody is willing to speak up about it because they still think they can ram through some goodies like supreme court picks, and the 11th Commandment prevents them from speaking any dissent.
On the other hand, Democrats are quick to eat their own when they cross the line. I have heard some people from the right claim the Democrats are just as susceptible to a leftist takeover as the Republicans were to Trump, but I don't see it. Both parties had insurgency candidates run for the presidency in 2016. Whether anyone thinks it was good or bad, the insurgent candidate in the Democratic party lost and the insurgent won on the Republican side.
The insurgent won on the Republican side because the party is a lot weaker than it used to be. They have become obsessed with conservative purity to a point of driving off anyone who wasn't pure enough.
As far as Elon's contributions. I posted these in the Elon Musk thread yesterday:
Donor Lookup
Elon Musk’s politics are as enigmatic as his businesses
I do find it disturbing he has given much larger donations to the Republican Congressional fund than the Democrats.
