Jim Hightower's Lowdown Jim Hightower

Remember Donald Trump, the “swamp drainer”? In 2016, candidate Trump promised to end the grubby money corruption of American politics. “The special interests, lobbyists, donors,” he rightly and righteously noted “make large contributions to politicians and they have total control of those politicians.” Asserting that he knows the political rot better than anyone, he said he’d “fix that system, because that system is wrong.”

One group of oppressed Americans has become especially outspoken this election year, contending that top government officials (Democrats in particular) are ignoring their community’s basic needs and stifling their pursuit of economic advancement.

If you’re wondering whatever happened to Ron DeSantis, he’s now re-ensconced in Florida… goofier than ever. Last year, backed by a covey of billionaires, Governor Ron was all set to be our next president until national voters discovered he has the personality of a dirt clod and the political sensibility of a tin-pot totalitarian.

A Republican senator once tried excusing the egomaniacal right-wing nastiness of his colleague, Ted Cruz declaring, “sometimes Ted is his own worst enemy.” I said to myself: “Not while I’m alive he’s not.”

Let me be clear that I mean no disrespect to reptiles when I note that Jonathan Mitchell is a snake. An extremist right-wing Texas lawyer, Mitchell is actually creepier and all-together more diabolical that your average serpent could think of being. Jonathan slithers around the country as a self-appointed anti-abortion vigilante, terrorizing women’s advocates, health clinics, and doctors. And now (turning truly creepy), he’s singling-out

Every religion prioritizes care for the needy. Christianity’s Benedictine Rule, for example, puts care of the sick atop the moral order, “above and before every other duty.” Really – even above the holy Wall Street mandate that medical and insurance conglomerates must squeeze every last penny of profits out of America’s corporate-care system? Well, gosh, they say, let’s not go crazy with this religious stuff! There’s morality… and then there’s business.