Congress | The Direction of Intention

It’s In Their Plan [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 31, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Wisconsin is evenly split between the parties, but when Republicans control the legislature and the supreme court, they suppress voting and heavily gerrymander the state in their favor…Currently, the state gerrymander gives Republicans 75% of the state’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives although voting in 2024 was virtually dead even.” ~ Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, March 28, 2025

Wisconsin is a perfect example, a fractal, of what literally ails our nation. In brief: republicans do not believe in democracy. If republicans actually believed in democracy, they’d spend less time suppressing the vote, gerrymandering, misinforming, fearmongering – and more time bringing relevant ideas to democratic governance. They’d earn votes rather than stifle voters.

If they were honest with what they actually represent, they’d never win an election.

The current occupant of the White House knows he cannot legislate his Project 2025 agenda. It is so wildly unpopular that he disavowed it until after he won the election. Now, in a fit of unconstitutionality, he jams it through by executive order. He wraps it in a thick veil of lie and misinformation.

If you are paying attention you’ll note that republican representatives in Congress are not showing up to their town halls. They are afraid to face their angry constituents and accept responsibility for their (in)action. And, since taking responsibility is not in their wheelhouse, they’ve invented yet another fantasy to explain the discord: the evil libs are paying people to rabble-rouse.

At least the republicans are consistent up and down the food chain. “It’s all a witch hunt”. “Not my fault.” “Never heard of it”.

The nation’s pet oligarch is coming to town. He’s trying to buy the election for the open state supreme court seat. “Musk has told voters that if Crawford wins, “then the Democrats will attempt to redraw the districts and cause Wisconsin to lose two Republican seats.” Not only has Musk said he is going to Wisconsin to speak before the election, but also he is handing out checks to voters who sign a petition against “activist judges,” a suggestion that it would not be fair to unskew the Republican gerrymander. Last night, Musk advertised a contest that would award two voters a million dollars each, with the condition that the winners had to have already voted.” ~ Heather Cox Richardson

To be clear, in the current republican world view, an “activist judge” is one that does their job, interpreting and clarifying the law, serving as a check-and-balance to the other branches of government. An “activist judge” upholds their oath to the Constitution.

Paying voters for their votes to maintain gerrymandered maps is a well-worn-page from their playbook. It’s also an act of desperation. Again, if they believed in democracy, if they actually believed in our system of governance, they would attempt to win on principle rather than with a festival of misinformation and blatant corruption.

Whoops! I forgot. Their weak man in the White House is dismantling our democracy in favor of fascism. In an authoritarian government, a judge’s job is to facilitate the criminality of the leadership so why should it be a surprise that the oligarch is buying votes for the republican candidate for the state Supreme Court?

It occurs to me that this may be our last free and fair election. Voting matters more now than ever. After Tuesday we’ll either have a court that fights corruption and attempts to preserve our democracy – or one that plays for payola. On Tuesday, we’ll either send a message to the silent republican majority in congress and prompt them to apply some brakes to the fascist takeover of our country or we’ll greenlight the gaslighters, watch as they comply with the weak man and eliminate our right to vote altogether. It is, after all, what the weak man promised: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told Christians on Friday that if they vote for him this November, “in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.” ~ Reuters, July 27, 2024

Voting is unique to a democracy. Fascism, not so much. They’re not even trying to hide it. It is, after all, in their plan.

read Kerri’s blogpost about VOTE

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, Congress, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, election, gerrymandering, governance, Heather Cox Richardson, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, responsibility, story, studio melange, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, vote | 1 Comment »

You Do Or You Don’t [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on March 22, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dear maga-nation: After the events of this week it occurs to me that, although you voted – a sign that you believe in democracy – you actually have no idea what a democracy is or how it works. You voted for dictatorship – a sign that you don’t believe in democracy. Do you see my confusion?

Start here: in our democracy there are three co-equal branches of government. Co-equal means that no branch has more power than any other branch and that is by design. Each branch is meant to serve as a check-and-balance to the other two branches. By design.

Each branch has an assigned duty relative to the law: Congress, the legislative branch, makes the laws. The executive branch, the president, enforces the laws. The judiciary interprets the laws. “Interprets” means they clarify the laws – and have the power of putting on the brakes when one of the other branches strays out of bounds. The law is central. That, too, is by design: in our democracy no man is supposed to be above the law. The creation, enactment, and interpretation of law is meant to be protection against the rise of a king. The enshrinement of the law places power in the hands of the people. That’s why it is called a democracy.

This week you puffed with indignation when a judge put the brakes on the executive when he went out of bounds. You called for the impeachment of the judge. That’s akin to being outraged that your car started when you touched the ignition. Your car did what it is supposed to do so you are infuriated?

Your friends at fox encouraged outrage that a judge would dare challenge the authority of the executive. And, rather than throw a rock through your television and swear never-again to plug into a channel promoting the dismantling of democracy – something you would do if you understood how a democracy works – you puffed up with righteous misinformation. You did as you were told. You raged for the dissolution of checks-and-balances.

Again, do you see my – our – confusion?

You either do not understand why you are puffing up – or you do. And, if you do, it makes me incredibly sad. Sad for you, since you claim in loud voices to be the champions of democracy, to be avid supporters of America’s greatness (democracy) – yet you clearly have no idea how our democracy works.

Or, you do and willingly throw it away. And that makes me sadder still.

This week a judge did his job as defined in the Constitution and you acted offended. Please understand why those of us who believe in democracy – those of us who understand how the system is designed to work – are beyond rolling our eyes. Please understand why we are running out of adjectives to describe the crevasse between your angry rhetoric and your actions. You are either the very definition of ignorant: without knowledge, unlearned – or you are corrupt.

The executive, aided by an oligarch, is circumnavigating congress in an obvious destruction of the system of checks-and-balances. Circumnavigate means “to sail around” it.

In your indignant fox-fueled-puffery, you are gleefully encouraging the circumnavigation of the Constitution. You cheer the blatant disregard for the law. Disregard means “to ignore. To overlook or forget”. Disregarding the law is called corruption. Corruption means “dishonesty, fraud, criminality”.

You either don’t understand what you support – which means someday there may be hope for us to once again meet on the common ground as defined in the Constitution. You may someday wake up, unplug from the fox-cult-of-non-sense-and-anger-exploitation. I hope so. I mean that sincerely. It’s hard to watch how willingly you participate in your own fleecing. It’s impossible to understand how easily you swallow propaganda-swill.

Or, you do understand what you support. And, in that case, you are a knowing participant in fraud, a champion of corruption, a dedicated racist*, a proponent of authoritarianism – a knowing participant in the dismantling of our democracy – and, in that case, there’s nothing more for us to discuss. There is – and never has been – common ground. And I find that terribly sad.

*As I was writing this post, the despot-wanna-be resurrected segregation from its moldy grave. This comes in the wake of a dedicated – and continuing – effort to scrub the achievements and contributions of African Americans, women, people of color, LGBTQ…from our history.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SAD

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, co-equal, Congress, corruption, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, executive, ignorant, judicial, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, law, story, studio melange, The Constitution of The United States, the law, the melange | 2 Comments »

Raise The Bar [on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 7, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I just spent a few minutes reading quotes about expectations. The overwhelming message in my brief survey of expectations is this: expect nothing and you will never be disappointed. Or, said another way: lower the bar and you’ll always be able to clear it.

Expect nothing. Lower the bar. Shield yourself from disappointment.

Context is everything in the game of meaning-making. Humorists, philosophers and poets alike recommend with great humor and good hearts the disavowing of expectation. Expect nothing. My context is January 6, 2021. To expect nothing seems profoundly sad. And, with a nod to the wisdom shared through the ages, to expect more from our leaders seems to court nothing but disappointment. What a low, low bar we witness on this day. A low bar that seems to have no bottom.

MM wrote, “I don’t know about you but I found that the monumental sadness of this largely preventable pandemic coupled with the heartless, ignorant, half-assed, sociopathic drivel from our national leader and his apologists and sycophants this last four years – but especially this last year – just too much.”

Monumental sadness. Preventable pandemic. Heartless drivel. Sycophants and apologists.

Like MM, I do not wish to shield myself from disappointment. I am not capable of dropping my expectation of my nation or those we elect to office. As of this moment 352,464 of my nation’s citizens have died, many needlessly. The simple adherence to wearing a mask would have cut this number dramatically. That is not opinion, it is science. As of this moment, many members of congress are going to knowingly and willingly support a lie that undermines the very foundation of our democracy. In a circus of sedition, they are going to betray their oath of office and the country they vowed to serve.

Why should I not expect more?

Why should we not expect more of ourselves? At this moment, thousands of angry citizens, too lazy to check a fact, too gullible to ask a few obvious questions, are amassing at our nation’s capitol. They are assembling to protest unfounded-and-repeatedly-disproven allegations of voter fraud in which they themselves create as willing participants in a bevy of lies. Why should we not expect more of them?

There is a simple reason we do not see eye to eye. Many citizens of this nation do expect more. It is precisely why we voted in record numbers. Many – including some of our leaders – can’t be bothered to expect anything at all.

read Kerri’s blog post on EYE-TO-EYE

Filed under: DR Thursday, Perspective | Tagged: Congress, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, expectations, facts, gullible, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lies, meaning making, vote, voter | Leave a comment »

Sort [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 6, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

As I type this morning, concrete barriers are being set to block off the streets downtown, fencing is going up around the courthouse, plywood panels are once again screwed into place, covering the windows of businesses. We are hunkering down for an announcement about whether or not the officer, who shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times, will be charged. Also, the little kid with the big, big gun who murdered two people blocks from our home is being arraigned. His bail was posted by the My Pillow Guy. Truly, you can’t make this stuff up.

Also as I type this morning, the party wrapped in red on Capitol Hill is choosing personal gain over principle. Despite placing their hand on a holy book and swearing to serve the Constitution above all else, they’ve chosen – they are choosing – to serve their ambition above all else. Apparently, the holy book and the Constitution are useful props for photo ops but any real dedication ran away with the fox.

As I write this I’m suddenly flush with a revelation that I blame on Horatio. He once told me that every challenge we face in these supposed-united-states is a tension between dueling philosophies: Every-Man-For-Himself vs. I-Am-My-Brother’s-Keeper. My revelation: To believe, again and again, that leaders-wrapped-in-red who are committed above all else to personal gain should honor an oath to something larger than themselves, like their holy book or The Constitution, makes us the fools. It is the natural end, the path of least resistance, for adherents of the philosophy of selfishness, to believe in nothing greater than themselves.

And, after today, why should we expect them to represent with integrity our best interests? They are demonstrating just how incapable they are at leading. Leadership, by definition, requires a concern about something other, something greater, than your self.

Why should we expect more? Red is the new yellow. To twist a bit from Forrest Gump, “Cowardice is as cowardice does.” It is nigh-on impossible to write a farce of these conflicted-united-states. Such is our dedication to the ridiculous, the mad-fantastical.

2020 was the blue ribbon winner of miserable years. Our picture was blown to bits. So, as part of our new years invocation, we did a jigsaw puzzle. 1000 pieces. We brought order and sense and, finally, a completed picture together from so much disarray. It is what we hope to do for ourselves in 2021.

The first step was to sort, to turn over the pieces and see what was really there. Find the edges. Colors. And, so it is. Today we sort.

We’ll again pack a “go bag” in case the expected violence spills into our street. We’ll witness the antics of a failed state as performed by the privileged, sacrificing the greater for the lesser. Seeing what is really there. Accepting what is really there. “The problem with you, Robinson,” Doug delighted in saying, “is that you want it all to make sense. None of it makes sense.”

Red is the new yellow. Where, oh where, will we ever find our edges?

read Kerri’s blog post about the PUZZLE