The Ozarks and Venezuela

The regime

We often vacation in Southern Missouri — especially in the Branson area.

I grew up vacationing in places like Dog Patch and Silver Dollar City in the 1980s. I use the word “vacationing” lightly because we didn’t stay the night anywhere. It was always a day trip, but I enjoyed it just as much.

Dog Patch is long gone, and Silver Dollar City has become so expensive that we haven’t been in over a decade — I imagine it would be over $1K to visit with the family these days. The kids have taken to calling the theme park “Steal Your Dollar City.”

As we had the kids, we often returned to the Branson area. There are go-karts and bumper boats and ice cream, and we can get those old-timey photos to keep in a scrapbook. I imagine it’s like Coney Island with a dash of hillbilly.

As the kids got older, we acquired an old ski boat, and we still visit the area, but we stay on Table Rock Lake. Away from Branson and more in the mountains looking down over the lake.

The beauty of the Ozarks is absolutely breathtaking, but I can barely stand to drive on the Branson strip anymore.

The Trump stores are busy down on the strip, and a replica of the General Lee car with its Confederate flag on the roof is prominently displayed. Christian nationalism is on display almost everywhere you go. The overt overreach of religion bothers me, so I just don’t go into town much.

Growing up a Southern Baptist has left its mark, and Branson has become a caricature of what it once was. More extremist than wholesome.

These days, we have the five kids and four grandkids and boyfriends and girlfriends and a new wife and a fiancé to boot.

We also have extended family, and we all like to see each other during the holidays, but this year we decided to wait until the new year to celebrate. We did not purchase presents, and instead went in on renting a place on Table Rock to fit 20 of us.

It was the best sort of chaos and so much fun. I turned off my phone and soaked in the views and the moments. It was so warm that we were able to canoe on the lake while the kids played pickleball and basketball and sand volleyball and rode bikes.

It was pure bliss until Saturday morning when I turned my phone back on.

Hope you had fun with the kids, and guess what happened while you weren’t looking? We bombed Venezuela and kidnapped their President.

Snap back to reality. Life under the regime.

Oil and a regime change from the President who promised “America First” and “no new wars.”

I am old enough to remember this script. Narco-terrorism sounds a lot like weapons of mass destruction.

I know that not one teaspoon of blood should be shed for foreign oil, and I also know the Trump regime is not even trying to pretend that this is about anything except oil.

As a Blue Star mom, my heart sinks.

It is so peculiar to hear the President of the United States speak on Maduro as a “really bad guy” when Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies, sexual assault, and his name shows up in the Epstein Files over 1500 times.

Maduro is a bad guy, but if a bad guy can be deposed by a foreign government, shouldn’t we be expecting the same?

Not that it matters to his cult — they are bobbing and weaving. They are rebranding MAGA as we speak.

I have noticed something odd coming from the Right recently — a change in vocabulary that I’ve heard several times now. They are using the word “hemisphere” rather than America. They went from “Make America Great Again” to speaking about the Americas and the Western Hemisphere.

From Marco Rubio:

“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States.”

My own sycophantic Senator, Eric Schmitt, stated:

“We are a superpower. This is our hemisphere. And we’re going to start acting like it again.”

After reading these statements, I started reading comments on my local news stations reporting on the regime’s decision to invade Venezuela. The MAGA folks were contorting themselves into pretzels and doing all of the mental gymnastics to go from “America First” to “Americas First.” They went from isolationism to believing the United States should control the Western Hemisphere.

They have already absorbed the talking points, and most can’t even find Venezuela on a map.

I watched a Daily Show episode yesterday, highlighting the absolute ignorance of MAGA on geopolitics and geography in general.

While discussing Venezuela's strategic importance and a conflict with the United States, Newsmax host Greg Kelly said he wasn't entirely sure of Venezuela’s exact location, pointing to the "tippy top" of South America.

The tippy top…Cronkite is rolling in his grave.

But what can we do?

I am no geopolitical expert, and I’ll stay in my lane — my lane is to fund candidates in seats that often go uncontested. To find people to challenge red seats in a long-term plan to take back the country, starting in the places we can make headway: Red states. GOP-dominated spaces. Rural races.

I believe no seat should go uncontested.

I also write my Congressman and my Senators weekly. Folks often ask me why I waste my time writing, and it’s because I don’t think it is a waste of time. My elected Reps may not read my emails, but someone does, and they make a tally to inform my Reps of the pulse of their constituents.

I publish my letters to my Reps on social media for others to use as a template. And a funny thing happened several weeks ago — my Congressman started following me on Facebook. Even if he doesn’t read his work emails, he seems to be monitoring them via my social media.

Good.

We can’t avoid the news or the regime’s policies, but we can fight back. The only way any of this changes is when we change the politicians green-lighting the whims of a mad king and his handlers.

We will have to fight to make sure our elections are fair in a few months. We also have to fight to make sure every seat on every ballot in every state is contested.

It’s the only way.

~Jess