“There Is Nothing Uplifting About American Politics Today.”

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There is nothing uplifting about American politics today.

Here are just a few examples.

Sen. Tuberville’s Enormous Damage To Our Military

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) never spent a single day in military service and yet in his short career as a Senator he has done unprecedented damage to our military and national security.

Tuberville has disrupted the lives of hundreds of top military officers and their families and put our nation’s global security at risk at a dangerous time by preventing Senate confirmation of promotions for these military officers. He is holding the nation’s military leaders hostage in order to impose his views on an abortion issue that he cannot get passed by normal procedures in the Senate.

Last night, five Republican Senators – Dan Sullivan (AK), Joni Ernst (IA), Lindsey Graham (SC), Todd Young (IN), and Mitt Romney (UT) – spent hours on the Senate floor angrily confronting Tuberville as they attempted to get individual military officers confirmed, one by one. Tuberville blocked every one.

The “world’s greatest deliberative body” needs to figure out immediately how to “deliberate” here, bust through Tuberville’s political blackmail, and stop the enormous damage he is doing to the country.

Election 2024: A Broken System & Trump’s Legal Storm Clouds

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump seem headed for a 2024 rematch – a choice that American voters don’t seem to want.

According to a recent CBS News poll, 64% of voters say a Trump-Biden rematch would make them feel the political system is broken. A Fox News poll found that 63% of voters say they would look forward to an election between any two candidates other than Biden and Trump. And, an NBC News poll found that 74% of voters are concerned about Biden’s age and mental fitness and 62% are concerned about Trump’s indictments.

And speaking of Trump’s four indictments and the 91 criminal charges facing him, Trump’s lawyers are doing everything they can to delay all of these cases from coming to trial until after the 2024 election. Voters, however, are entitled to know the outcome of these indictments before they vote in 2024, particularly the outcomes of the Special Counsel’s Jan. 6 case and the 2020 election interference case in Georgia.

Trump’s MAGA Power Grows In The House

New House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is the guy no one seemed to know before being elected Speaker last week following three weeks of rancorous infighting by House Republicans.

Now, everyone is getting to know who Mike Johnson is and what he stands for.

Johnson represents the extremist MAGA wing of the House and prides himself on being a Christian nationalist – a believer that the United States was created as a Christian nation and conservative Christian social values should be imposed. But what’s left unsaid by Johnson is what this means for the tens of millions of non-Christians in our nation. Are they second-class citizens in Johnson’s world?

Johnson was a key leader of the election denier movement in Congress following the 2020 election, worked to overturn the election, helped spread lies about voter fraud, and last week, despite all the facts, declined to comment when asked whether he still believed the 2020 election was stolen.

If it becomes necessary, we can expect Johnson will support efforts by Trump to steal the 2024 presidential election. Only this time he will be in a much more powerful position to help.

Reports indicate that the House, under the leadership of Speaker Johnson and his mentor Rep.  Jim Jordan (R-OH), is preparing to bring impeachment proceedings against President Biden to the House floor for a vote. There is zero evidence and no basis whatsoever for impeaching Biden. These two MAGA acolytes are making an offering to their leader Trump who has been demanding a Biden impeachment.

Lessons Of History

Next Tuesday’s off-year elections in several states will give some indication of what lies ahead in 2024.

Whatever the results, however, citizens are preparing for battle to ensure that any attempts to steal the 2024 election will be repelled again.

We should remain vigilant. But, we should also believe in our nation’s ability to protect and preserve our democracy and constitutional system of government. History provides good lessons in that regard.

Our nation overcame the Civil War. We overcame World War I. We overcame the Depression. We overcame World War II.

Given the enormous challenges we as a nation have overcome in the past, we can – and we will – overcome the troubled times facing our country today.

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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s and other recent newsletters here. And, subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.