Mark Riley: The Intersection of Politics Culture

The minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009. The nationwide $15 dollar proposal is currently part of the $1.9 trillion dollar CoVid relief Bill but only as a staggered four-year roll out - can poor people afford to wait four years? Why was Katie Porter pushed out of the Financial Services Committee? And Texas - to secede or not to secede?

Marjorie Taylor Greene admits that a Jewish banking family was not responsible for the wildfires in California by way of a space laser. Are Smartphones taking over your every move? What’s the difference between honest scepticism and disinformation when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines?

Grievance culture...its apex was that ugly storming of the Capitol. It’s not enough that 75 million people decided to vote for a con man. Their problems and grievances haven’t been heard. Trump himself was the paramount practitioner of grievance culture. 

Turning the page, there's the simmering animosity between the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party. Since the Republicans are at open war with each other, why can’t the Democrats take advantage?

In the wake of the riot at the Capitol Building this past Wednesday, the denunciations of the violence by enablers of Donald Trump are hollow gestures offered by cowardly politicians. They lined up behind this grifter right up until they didn’t. The straight up liars like Kayleigh  McEnany, and those who came before her ought to be called out. How many Trumpsters in Congress were willing to publicly acknowledge their complicity in Wednesday’s siege? How many people who spoke at the rally, including Trump, marched with the rioters to the Capitol? The answer is none, not Trump, either of his sons, Rudy Giuliani, not a soul. Why was that, you ask? Because they’re punks, all of them. At the end of the day, it was all about massaging Trump’s bruised ego.

Ever the shyster…fanatical attention-grabber, Trump did a 180-degree flip and signed the Stimulus Bill just after his rounds of golf.  His time in office is getting short and America is tired of his ”I won the election" mantra.  It’s time for Democrats to exact retribution to the Trump enablers in their midst. They need to fear progressive Democrats like they feared Trump.

NEW PODCAST EPISODE: (15 Min listen). The COVID vaccine is here, but how do we roll it out? Opinion around the globe varies but which nations have learned any lessons and how are they better prepared for the future of public health? Meanwhile, Trump closes out 2020 with more of his frantic antics, grifting under the guise of authoritarian populism, and his 'rule by fear' strategy.

The recent election shows that nearly half of America buy into Trump’s delusions, bu It matters little to me if he’s scared of indictments, financial ruin, or both. He needs to go and figure out what to do with the rest of his life. The media, which has made a fortune out of covering him, won’t be doing stories on his every tweet four years from now. Meanwhile, large numbers of poor working people have become disconnected from politics, and the political process. They know how trivial fights between moderates and progressives really are -- both sides of the Democratic coin need to take a deep breath,and commit to fighting for ALL the people of the United States.

The United States in chaos

Democrats...are you really up for what has to be done or are you just going to keep posting memes? Now is the time to stop mocking Donald Trump and start laying the groundwork to beat him in the election. Must effective policing mean brutal policing? Good cops are suffering, even dying but if police in their jurisdictions can't tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys they may need to turn in their badges.

24 hours after Joe Biden's nomination for running mate, the haters have come out in full force. Sexism, racism and Birther rights take the helm while impartial opinion is not even on the radar. Meanwhile, Kanye West teamed up with Jared Kushner to discuss book publishing and we're supposed to believe that? Why did the Trump campaign choose to bootleg icono-rocker Neil Young's music when they could just use Kanye's?