The Mason Missile, November 28, 2002

Greetings, Americans! This past election, November 8, I served on my division’s election board, helping people work with the voting machines, so that they could elect the candidates of their choice. It was a long day of getting up early and staying up late, but it was well worth it. Ever since the end of the 2020 election, election officials, from election board workers to county-level officials, had faced terroristic threats to their lives, simply because they did their jobs honorably, and the neo-fascist right (particularly the trumpst MAGA wing) hated the reality of losing. Their interest isn’t in democracy, but taking and holding power over the rest of us. That’s been how fascist movements have operated over the decades; they utilize the democratic process as far as they can go, but undermine it when finally attaining state power. They have also played the victim, complaining about being oppressed and discriminated against when they’re challenged, but their agenda is to oppress their opponents. Don’t be fooled when they whine about “losing their Second Amendment rights.” I’m proud to have done my part to elect Josh Shapiro as our next Governor of Pennsylvania, and John Fetterman as our next US Senator. The Republican Party, still under the trumpist grip, selected Doug Mastriano for Governor—a white Christian Nationalist who worked with Andrew Torba, who heads the far-right social-media platform Gab, is and a notorious anti-Semite (https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/28/politics/doug-mastriano-gab-pennsylvania-republican/index.html); the Mastriano campaign paid Gab $5,000 for “campaign consulting,” utilizing the site for advertising (https://forward.com/fast-forward/514364/josh-shapiro-doug-mastriano-gab-antisemitism/). While a professor at the Army War College in Carlisle, Mastriano posed in a group photo with other faculty members—wearing a Confederate Army uniform, the same Confederate Army that sought to destroy the Union for the sake of its precious slave system! (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-pennsylvania-candidate-mastriano-posed-confederate-uniform-army-war-2022-08-26/) For the Senate, under the trump influence, the Republicans selected Doctor Mehmet Oz. Once a respected cardiothoracic surgeon, then a TV health-and-fitness host, Oz ruined his reputation by selling dietary supplements on his show, supplements that supposedly could burn away fat, but cuaed serious health problems. (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/dr-oz-senate-campaign-tv-show) (https://apnews.com/article/dr-mehmet-oz-political-career-2022-midterm-f6ecd9ac9f0e95cda41193adc13c8437). Along with that, Oz only just recently established a home in the Philadelphia suburb of Bryn Athyn, while his real residence is in New Jersey, along with owning 10 other residences around the world. (https://www.inquirer.com/news/mehmet-oz-new-jersey-cliffside-heights-pennsylvania-senate-20221031.html) (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/crudits-snooki-john-fetterman-voters-remember-dr-ozs/story?id=87765213). The Fetterman campaign had fun—as did I—with the video of Oz grocery shopping at “Wegner’s” (a mashup of the Wegman’s and Redner’s grocery chains) for “crudités,” otherwise known as a “veggie tray,” showing Oz as an out-of-touch rich guy playing plain folks—as did Donald whatshisface. This is what the Republican Party has sunk to; but it’s been sinking this way since the Goldwater campaign. Can it sink any further? The results of the election were not the “Red Wave” that the news media hyped all year. Why did they talk so much about the alleged “Red Wave?” An attempt to raise the number of viewers and therefore advertising dollars? A way to discourage people from voting, saying “Your guy’s not going to win, so don’t bother voting”? That I call irresponsible. Along with the aforementioned victories in Pennsylvania, the Democrats managed to hang on to the Senate, but the Republicans held a tiny majority in the House, with the help of gerrymandering of congressional districts—supposedly, the opposition party attains several dozen new seats in a midterm election. Kevin McCarthy, now the House Minority Leader, is supposed to become speaker, his dream job—but he has to work with the trump-loving element in the party, and he has restored Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia to her committee assignments, while trying to remove Democrats from their own committee positions. (https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/kevin-mccarthy-2658736247/) McCarthy, like I said, has to deal with the pro-trump “Freedom Caucus” in the House, We can expect nothing but a freak-show from the House, as it ignores such real issues as the economy, Russia warring on Ukraine, health insurance, jobs and job safety, and fatal gun violence, and get hysterical about their favorite scapegoat, President Biden’s son Hunter and his laptop. What more needs to be said about it? (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/kevin-mccarthy-face-floor-fight-speaker-hasnt-happened-century-rcna58391?link_id=13&can_id=c6b214524e142a4cda41a3e4163755a6&source=email-trump-team-panics-over-fcking-nightmare-meeting-2&email_referrer=email_1750175&email_subject=trump-in-freefall-after-antisemitism-summit) The Republican “leadership”—McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, all of them—could have done the statesman thing and denounce trump, with his coddling of domestic terrorists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists, along with his misogynistic behavior of women—as evidenced by the Charlottesville neo-Nazi rally (“very fine people on both sides”), his embrace of the Q-Anon cult because “they like me,” his encouraging his followers to riot in the Capitol on January 6 and threaten the lives of elected officials in both parties (“Hang Mike Pence!”), his refusal to take seriously the dangers of COVID-19, his wining and dining of two notorious anti-Semites at Mar-A-Largo, and his “grab ‘em by the pussy” talk in the Access Hollywood tape—that’s just scratching the surface. Instead, for the sake of the tax breaks for billionaires and corporations that don’t need them, and for the sake of the votes trump’s disciples have, the GOP elite tolerated it all, even after their lives were threatened. Behold the gutless, brainless, characterless specimens leading the Republican Party! For this, they don’t deserve to be anywhere near office! Now, as we enter the December holiday season, let us enjoy our rest and our times with our loved ones, and celebrates or wins; then, let’s get back to the business of standing up for our rights and the rights of others. That’s what a true American does. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together! Slava Ukraini! America will be free! Bye!