That Warm And Fuzzy Feelings.

Many people don’t want change, change gives them headaches, change makes them have to think, they want the same old, same old. Then have a ton of contradictions they want the government out of their lives but at the same time they want the government to tell them what to read, what they can say, what they can do with their bodies, and who they can love.

This article was just posted on Yahoo even through it is ten months old.

Large numbers of Americans want a strong, rough, anti-democratic leader
The Conversation
ByTarah Williams, Andrew Bloeser, and Brian Harward
February 7, 2023

It might be comforting to think that American democracy has made it past the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. But our research shows that a wide range of the American people, of all political stripes, seek leaders who are fundamentally anti-democratic.

It’s true that many who participated in the insurrection are facing consequences, including prison time. Many candidates for state office who falsely claimed that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election lost their races. And the congressional committee investigating the insurrection voted to refer Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal charges.

But more than 100 members of Congress who objected to the results of a free and fair election won their reelection campaigns. And at least seven people who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 have been elected to state legislatures and two have been elected to Congress.

This is happening not only here but around the world, people want fascists, people want authoritarians, people want dictators.

Across the political spectrum, Americans seek 'tough leaders who will crack down'
Majorities of every political stripe agree or strongly agree with the idea that solving the nation's problems depends on strong leaders who will take action against those who would undermine American values. The exception is those who "lean Democratic" – but still, 49% of them support that idea too.

Support for anti-democratic leaders
About two decades ago, an important study found that roughly 1 in 4 Americans supported leaders who are uncompromising and take decisive action. These people said they would also prefer nonelected experts to make decisions. Our study replicates this finding nearly 20 years later but sheds light on a troubling reason for this preference.

As I said, this is happening around the world...

In Venezuela, for instance, democratic decline happened gradually. Early on, Venezuela’s former president Hugo Chavez was known for using nationalist language and calling opponents epithets like “rancid oligarchs” and “squealing pigs.” Later, he blacklisted those who sought his removal from office through a democratically conducted referendum. Eventually, he went further, arresting and exiling his political opponents.

These types of tactics have also been used in other nations, such as Turkey and Hungary, by leaders who rose to power through democratic elections.

Do you know of a candidate here who is doing and saying the same thing?

Across the political spectrum
Anti-democratic statements are embraced by members of both U.S. parties, but more commonly by Republicans.

For example, around 90% of Republicans would support tough leaders who crack down on groups that “undermine American values” – however the survey respondents define those values. More than half of Democrats take the same position. Perhaps even more notably, nearly half of citizens who strongly support the Republican Party and over a third of those who strongly support the Democratic Party endorse the view that it is acceptable to “bend the rules” for people like themselves to achieve political goals.

They want to feel safe and don’t care how it is done to make them feel safe, even if they’re innocent. The Republicans keep pushing the lie about rampant crime under the Democratics even though it is a lie, crime has been dropping in the Blue states while the crime rate is much higher in Republican states.

The latest crime data is from 2021 (Firearm Injury Death Rate from the CDC)...

#1 Massachusetts: 3.4
#2 Hawaii: 4.8
#3 New Jersey: 5.2
#4 New York: 5.4
#5 Rhode Island: 5.6
#6 Connecticut: 6.7
#7 New Hampshire: 8.3
.
.
.
#45 Alaska: 25.2
#46 Wyoming: 26.1
#47 Alabama: 26.4
#48 New Mexico: 27.8
#49 Louisiana: 29.1
#50 Mississippi: 33.9

Notice anything? Like the Blue Northeast has the lowest killing by guns? And the states with the highest gun deaths are Republican states except for New Mexico.

But with seeing all the violence on the evening news, and in the media the public has a warped view of the violence and they only see the local crime and don’t realize that Connecticut’s violent crime rate dropped from 1991 and 2020 by 66%!

 

From USA Facts:
Connecticut: 2021 property crime rate: 1,510; 2021 violent crime rate: 162; 2020 property crime rate: 1,580; 2020 violent crime rate: 170.
Texas:     2021 property crime rate: 2,192; 2021 violent crime rate: 455; 2020 property crime rate:    2,396; 2020 violent crime rate: 494.

But the public thinks crime is out of control! The Conversation goes on to write...

Many citizens prefer leaders who are willing to undermine democracy if it means protecting people like themselves from groups that threaten their values or status. Although most Americans do not subscribe to these beliefs, a substantial portion of the country does.

We are the boogeymen, we trans people, those who skin color is different from theirs, those who speak with an accent, and those who worship a different god, the conservatives fear what is different, and they fear change. They get a warm fuzzy feeling when in familiar surrounding.

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And talk about living in the 50s… a Republican judge appoint by President Bush is an”originalist” and want to go back to the olden days of “cruel and unusual” punishment.

Federal Judge Questions 'Evolving Standards' Test for Cruel and Unusual Punishment
The Supreme Court judges Eighth Amendment cases with "evolving standards of decency." Some conservative jurists don't like it.
Reason
By C.J. CIARAMELLA
FROM THE FEBRUARY 2024 ISSUE

A federal circuit judge wants the Supreme Court to scrap a longstanding test for determining what is cruel and unusual punishment. In an October speech to the Federalist Society, Reuters reported, Judge Thomas Hardiman, appointed by President George W. Bush to the Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, advocated a "return to the text and original meaning of the Eighth Amendment" and an end to the "evolving standards of decency" test created by the Supreme Court in the 1950s.

In 1958, the Supreme Court ruled that stripping someone's citizenship for committing a crime violated the Eighth Amendment. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that, to determine what constitutes cruel or unusual, the Court "must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." That test has since been used by liberal Supreme Court majorities to strike down death penalty protocols, ban capital sentences for crimes that did not result in death, and outlaw death sentences for offenses committed as a minor.

Hardiman called the test a "contrived ratchet" that has fueled a "runaway train of elastic constitutionalism."

"Its inscrutable standards require judges to ignore the law as written in favor of their own moral sentiments," he said. "The only constant is that more and more laws adopted by the people's representatives have been nullified."

As I mention above, harsh justice doesn’t work, Texas has the highest execution rates in the nation and as I wrote also some of the highest crime figures and they believe in “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” justice. Is this what the Republicans and the judge want to bring back?

Americans were disgusted with England's despotic criminal code, which by the end of the 18th century included over 200 capital offenses. But the early republic was inconsistent in practice. Virginia still allowed whipping, branding, and ear cropping.

History has shown that the rich and afford the best lawyer while the Blacks and minorities face the harshness punishment.

This is what the Republicans want to go back to when the cite all of this “Originalist” legal stuff. They want to go back to the 1950s when Blacks knew their place, gays were persecuted, we didn’t exist, and abortions were illegal! Now they are dreaming of a fascist country.

 

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It seems like the vindictive Republicans just don't like any Republican but it has to be their Republican.

The party machine is in full swing chopping up and spitting out those Republicans who don’t do what the party machines wants them to do.

Chief Justice Newby removes Judge Stroud as chief of Appeals Court
NC Newline
By: Kelan Lyons
January 2, 2024

State Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby removed Donna Stroud as chief of the North Carolina Court of Appeals Tuesday, replacing her with Chris Dillon.

Typically the chief judge of the Court of Appeals is the one who has been on that court the longest. Stroud was first elected to Court of Appeals in 2006, six years before Dillon won a seat there.

Newby, Stroud and Dillon are all Republicans, but Stroud has been criticized by Newby’s colleague, Supreme Court Justice Phil Berger, Jr., who supported Stroud’s primary challenger in 2022.

According to an article in North Carolina Lawyers Weekly, Berger was frustrated with Stroud for not supporting one of his former law clerk’s bid to be a clerk on the Court of Appeals. Despite Republicans having a 10-5 majority on the Court of Appeals at the time, a former Democrat was awarded the clerk position after Stroud and another Republican joined Democrats and voted for him. Berger accused Stroud of whipping votes so “the dems got their clerk of court,” according to the North Carolina Lawyers Weekly article.

It is our way or the highway!

WRAL News writes that,

“Chief Justice Newby informed me on Dec. 19 that we would have a new chief judge, effective Jan. 1,” Stroud said. “He had stated, as a reason for that, that some courts — federal courts for example, and some state courts — do rotate chief judges since there’s an administrative burden on the chief judge.”

[…]

When the North Carolina Court of Appeals was created in 1967, the Supreme Court’s chief justice was given the power to name the chief judge of the Court of Appeals. The leadership role has traditionally gone to the judge with the most seniority on the bench, Stroud said. Dillon is her junior by six years.

I don’t know how he can say that with a straight face because according to NC Newline…

“The North Carolina Supreme Court Historical Society indicates all prior Chief Judges have left the position on account of retiring from the bench or passing away. Neither happened here as Judge Stroud continues to serve on the Court of Appeals,” Brook wrote. “So replacing Chief Judge Stroud with Chief Judge Dillon is an unprecedented step from Chief Justice Newby.”

That is what you are voting for when you vote Republican a vindictive party machine that chops up anything and anybody that gets in its way... an elephant never forgets.