Not a Sham Trial, but It’s Still a Sham Shame

Donald Trump speaks in Detroit, Michigan on June 15, 2024. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Gage Skidmore.

On May 30, something historic happened—a New York jury found former President Donald J. Trump guilty as charged on 34 felony charges. And yet this week, an Iowa Poll showed half of Iowa voters are still firmly loyal to Trump.

I can’t say that I’m shocked. Trump, narrowly elected president in 2016 despite losing the popular vote, has always been a unique political figure. He seemed and still seems, to me, to be wildly unqualified to be President, both by experience and temperament, and his chaotic presidency, in my mind, bore that out. A President whose pandemic response includes recommending ingesting or injecting bleach does not represent the kind of leader a democratic country should aspire to have.

Yet, a majority in my state and close to half of the national electorate are firmly in his camp. Since his nomination and election in 2016, and even after his 2020 defeat, Trump has reshaped the Republican Party until, today, the GOP seems to be a weird cult of personality. Trump famously said in 2016 that he could literally shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn’t cost him votes—the events of 2024 seems to bear out that he was not that far off the mark.

Image from web site Informed Opinion, link below.

Indeed, a local newspaper columnist, who I rarely agree with on anything, wrote that Trump’s conviction wouldn’t hurt him, while Hunter Biden’s legal troubles would be an ongoing drag for President Joe Biden.

As a logical outcome, that’s BS. But I think she has an interesting point—politics is always as much about emotions and feelings as it is about rationality, and the Trump has an amazing ability to play on the emotions of his followers. He’s a fighter who will always punches back and never acts as if a blow has landed, an attribute his supporters love. Also, as commentators Shari Gradon and Sarah Neville noted on the web site “Informed Opinion” back in 2016, Trump was and is a master at the art of selling—keeping his message simple, repeating outrageous and memorable points to draw attention, speaking directly with his audience, avoiding any complex ideas.

Fair enough, but I think he’s not just a master seller, he’s something darker.

But first, an aside. Hunter Biden is not running for any public office. He is a drug addict with a complicated, messed up life. His being a convicted felon based on gun charges related to his drug convictions doesn’t put him in the same category of crime boss as Donald Trump, who has a history of running both his companies and his political campaigns with zero regard for conventions of behavior, regular political practice or the rule of law.

And Hunter Biden’s legal entanglements, to my mind, probably do disqualify him for higher office, as Trump’s criminal convictions and indictment should disqualify him—“disqualify” in this case not being a legal status, but just how sane public opinion should work. But, again, Hunter isn’t Joe. The sins of Hunter Biden and the sins of Donald Trump are not equivalent.

On Jan. 12, 2017, President Barack Obama gave Vice President Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom. An emotional Joe walks back to his family, including his son Hunter, at the ceremony. Image from Wikimedia Commons, official White House picture by Pete Souza.

Back to my main point—which is my worry about Trump’s popularity and what it means. We are on a knife’s edge in 2024. The petulant un-penitent convicted criminal who the GOP is hell bent on renominating for the highest office in the country is running a campaign of grievance and revenge, based on many sham points.

The horse won’t just be loose in the hospital—we already have seen this show before and we shouldn’t have to suffer through a sequel.

Why is Trump so popular? Well, I don’t pretend to fully know, but I think it’s partly because his fans feel the same kinds of pain, in some ways, that fuel the Trump rage. The GOP has become the party of anti-modernity, of anti-science, of an imagined ideal past that “enemies” of “America” have destroyed. Trump skillfully manipulates and amplifies his audience’s fears.

I saw a meme in June on Facebook from a Trump fan that said something like: “Jesus was convicted in a sham trial, too, and I still follow Him.” Well, Trump was convicted in a rather dull, normal trial using regular legal checks and balances. Trump was found guilty by a jury of citizens in the city where he committed his crimes. That he would pay off a porn star and then illegally lie about the payments seems so mundane, so unsurprising, so Trumpy, that calling that conviction a “sham” is itself rather shameful (sham-ful?). The trial of Jesus didn’t have a jury, Christ didn’t hire an expensive team of lawyers. Jesus didn’t commit financial fraud and didn’t run his enterprise for years as a profit-seeking criminal cartel.

It's weird to have to say it, but Trump and Jesus are not comparable figures, nor were their trials comparable events. Saying so is even more of a sham than equating Hunter and Donald.

Yet, Trump persists and is persistently popular. He uses fear the way a rock star uses a sick bass line or catchy guitar riff. His main talent is a twisted yet effective genre of communication.

It is the style of communication that a particular kind of leader has used in the past. See what this YouTube PBS commentator says:

Dr. Erica Brozovsky never mentions Donald Trump and isn’t engaging in political commentary. And the destructive “us” vs. “them” discourse she refers to in the video isn’t the sole property of the political right. The left, too, can play on fear and create an us vs them echo chamber. But still, when I watched her video this week, I was struck at how well this analysis helps me to try to understand an aspect of Trump’s communication.

To me, clearly, he is a cult leader.

And my representative in Congress, my two senators, my governor—they’re thoroughly in the cult. Even the attorney general of Iowa shamed herself and her office by flying to New York to join the sham chorus of Trump supporters decrying Trump’s prosecution.

In an era where we want warning labels on social media for young people (because teens care so much about warnings from adults), we as a culture need a warning about our information sources and our politics.

Wake up, America. It’s not the Trump trial that was a sham. Trump himself is the sham, a wizard behind the curtain performing for the masses. We have met the enemy, and he-she is us when we allow ourselves to join the True Believers. You, half of the body politic, are in some weird fevered dream, listening to the Dear Leader, taking leave of your senses.

The weird orange wizard of wrathful words is a fake, a sham. And to those people who aren’t in it, a cult typically seems like a scary thing. I’m a bit afraid.

Is Joe Biden Your President?

Official White House images of President Joe Biden (above) and Vice President Kamala Harris (below). In 2020, they won the election. Let's acknowledge that as a fact.

What a week! Who knew the contemporary Republican party could be so weird and vindictive that Democrats would feel a little sympathy for someone named Cheney?

In some ways, the odd Republican reaction to the election of 2020 parallels the reaction of liberals in 2016.

Remember the #notmypresident trend? That was a hot hashtag in 2017 when it became obvious Trump’s odd craziness during the 2016 campaign wasn’t a publicity stunt—Donald J. Trump was every bit as awful and delusional as president as he seemed to be when he was a candidate.

The campaign bombast was not a ploy—Trump immediately began governing in chaos, occupying his time on strange obsessions like the battle over the inaugural crowd size, and his insistence that his basically average Electoral College win (coupled with a popular vote loss) somehow was a historic landslide.

There was a sense of unreality on election day in 2016, that something unexpected had happened—and indeed it had. I recall hearing an acquaintance say shortly after that at a meeting that Trump “is not my president.” At the time, I was taken aback. Our republic rests on political opponents accepting election results and agreeing to fight another day.

President Donald Trump, the man who thinks he's still President. He's not. Accept it and move on.

Trump won. Not a clean nor decisive win, but under the rules, a win. Last year, Biden won, by the same Electoral College margin as Trump, and also, unlike Trump, in the popular vote—and yet there is again a new “not my president” idea in the air.

But the 2017 #notmypresident movement was fundamentally different from what we face today.

In 2016 and 2017, neither President Barack Obama nor candidate Hillary Clinton sought to have the election of 2016 overturned. Clinton didn’t call her supporters to the streets to disrupt the normally routine task of Congress counting electoral votes. The losers in 2016 were not digging in their heels, denying reality.

And when some said in 2017 that Trump was not their president, they were mostly rejecting him symbolically—implying that he was not fit to be president and they would not consider him their leader. There was no huge movement, run by the leader of the Democratic party, to recount votes months after it was all over. There were no oddball Q Anon ninjas seeking bamboo in Arizona. There weren’t dozens of lawsuits—all based on BS and all tossed quickly by the courts—to try to overturn the election.

Today, Donald Trump still has a grip on the increasingly extreme GOP, and he’s fuming in Florida, plotting his return, sometimes even seemingly convinced he’s still “Il Duce.” Trump’s stranglehold on his party is cutting off the fact oxygen supply to the GOP brain, and the Trumpy House vote to oust conservative Liz Cheney from her leadership post because she speaks the truth this week shows how tight that grip is.

There’s a sharp contrast between today and four years ago. When Rep. Elise Stefanik was named third-in-command among House Republicans this week, her first public statement called for “unity” as she works with her party’s undisputed leader—President Trump.

She got around to mentioning President Biden after first praising the orange one—Stefanik referred to the current president in a statement about how terrible, socialist and dangerous he and his party are—so she’s not denying the election results.

Rep. Elisie Stefanik, R-NY. When was the last time we had to care who was number three in the House minority party?

At least not yet. As quickly as some in the GOP are re-writing the events of Jan. 6 into harmless tourists touring the Capitol, I wonder what the gaslighting future holds.

But still. The shout out to Trump as the current party leader by Rep. Stefanik was startling. Think what it came after. Trump attempted to overturn a lawful election in any way he could. After all else failed, he called for protests on Jan. 6 that led to the violent storming on the U.S. Capitol by a murderous crowd.

What if that crowd had found Nancy Pelosi? Or Mitt Romney? Or Mike Pence? What if they caused so much chaos—as they seemed intent on doing—that Congress was prevented from fulfilling it’s role in the election?

Some people died that day—and President Trump was impeached a second time, correctly so, because he incited that violence.

In a rational world, Trump would be retired in ignominy, a shallow, shamed figure shunned by all as the Republicans move on and seek new party leadership. Instead, Rep. Stefanik called for the GOP to retake the House, and seems to be looking forward to the second Trump administration.

It’s all about the base. And there’s the trouble.

Tweet this week by Iowa's Republican Governor, Kim Reynolds. Odd how she doesn't ask about any credible news sources in her "where do you get your news" tweet. That's part of the problem.

Trump, term 2? God helps us. Not my president again, please.

Anyway, today you can buy a “not my president” shirt today with Joe Biden’s picture on it. As some on the left rejected Trump, so many on the right reject Biden.

The current “not my president” movement, however, is tied to the Big Lie, to the sense that President Trump was somehow cheated of a victory he won.

In reality, Trump was the loser. Neither he nor his fans can face that, but public servants who have sworn a duty to the Constitution, should feel some obligation to speak truth on this point.

Biden won. You can wear the “not my president” shirt with his image all you want—that doesn’t change the fact that old Joe is president.

Sure, Trump doesn’t accept it. Yet Trump edited weather maps and would not believe crowd counts nor images. Trump not accepting something isn’t very strong evidence for the lack of veracity of the thing.

I understood the “not my president’ idea in 2017, even if I didn’t buy it. Today, if Biden is not your president—if you, like Elise, look forward to Trumps triumphant return—you make me shudder.

In 2020, The voters spoke. Get over it, get on with it, and try to live in the fact-based universe.

The Trumpverse is perverse and increasingly out of touch. As Jan. 6 showed, that perversion can even bring anti-democracy violence.

May the Don never be my president again. Rep. Cheney was right, even if she speaks from the right. Donald Trump should never again get anywhere near the White House.

Ousted in the House, but not silenced--Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming will probably face many primary challengers. Because she would not speak the Big Lie. Good for her.

Honest Joe vs. Dishonest Abe

Trump speaks, Biden and America cringes.

Donald Trump says 2.2 million people were going to die. That only 210,000 have is thus a great success.

It’s a lie. A rather vile lie, since it traduces human lives. I know, Trump is not responsible for 210,000 deaths—many would have died had the country taken adequate action against COVID-19. But the death toll could have and should have been much lower, and the spike can be lowered now, with effective, science-based action that this president can’t wrap his head around.

It was a night of lies from Donald Trump. The final presidential debate of 2020 is over, and I have to admit I am relieved.

Trump did score some points. His contention that Biden’s environmental plan spell economic disaster is going to be the point pounded on again and again in attack ads for the next 12 days. Not that it’s true. As is much of what Trump said tonight, it’s a lie.

A lie delivered coldly and calmly by a president who dismisses severed families as the fault of coyotes, COVID-19 as the fault of China and economic meltdown as—well, I’m not sure who he is blaming. Trump claimed the economy would be a disaster if Biden is elected, but who the heck was president this year when the recession kicked in?

Typical Trump. "Don’t elect him or the chaos I have caused will continue." "Elect me so that I can put out the fire that I lit in the first place."

Sigh.

Some keys in tonight’s debate:

• Biden nailed Trump on his tax returns. Trump tries to paint Biden as corrupt, but one of Trump's consistent patterns is to project his own flaws onto his foes. I don’t think Joe is pure like the October snow—but on the corruption meter, Trump has pretty much everyone trumped, yet he says Biden is corrupt. And Biden is the one who has released his tax returns, not Trump. Tell me again how Trump is more honest?

• Trump made anybody with a brain sick to their stomach with his Lincoln lines. No, Trump, you are not the “least racist” person in the room. As Biden said, his dog whistles are fog horns. In one breath, you’re the least racist, in the next, your saying immigrants who show up for hearings have low IQs. You’re blaming China, coyotes and claiming not to be racist.

• COVID-19 should be the nail in the coffin for this president. Just consider this exchange: “People are learning to die with it,” Biden on the pandemic. “I take full responsibility. It’s not my fault.” Actual comeback quote from Trump.

I do think that Trump did better tonight than the first debate, although he set a rather low bar to lumber over. Trump was still spouting insults, lies and trite campaign lines.

Biden speaks during debate.

Trump needed to change the dynamics of the election tonight. I do not think he did. I think Biden held his own, which I hope is all he had to do. And what was that about pillows and sheets? Earth to Trump: What?

Image by Gage Skidmore from wikimedia commons. Kristen Welker of NBC in Arizona in 2018.

Kristen Welker of NBC News did pretty well, I thought. She had been insulted by Trump before the debate, but was praised by him during the debate. Despite that, I think the use of the enforced time limits was good. There was some cross shouting, but not the chaos of the first debate. Her questions were decent and she stayed calm.

Well, that phase of the campaign is over. Five-thirty-eight is starting to write about a possible blue wave that could take the Senate, keep the House and win the presidency. Trump’s fantasy about taking the House rang very hollow, and I don’t think Trump built much of a flood wall against the coming blue wave.

The Dueling Town Halls In Different Universes

Trump (above) and Biden (below) with voter questioners. Both are talking about COVID-19.

Well, I watched most of both town halls Oct. 15, and I kind of regret it. I’ve voted already, and I had trouble summoning the energy to watch. I also didn’t see all of Trump's because my DVR wasn’t totally functioning—satellite TV has been a bit wonky since the derecho storm Aug. 10, which feels like yesterday and three years ago at the same time.

Anyway, I missed the thing I’ve seen lots of tweets about—the voter who told Trump he was handsome when he smiles. I am glad I missed that. I ate a lot of pizza tonight and I would rather that it proceeds through my body without making any return journeys. Eyesight, apparently, is the next coming crisis in America.

But I saw enough—more than enough. I watched Joe Biden live. His was scheduled first, and I thought it was a courtesy to let him go first. I thought he was rather subdued and I was not thrilled at his performance.

Joe Biden. Quieter, calmer, and, in a sane universe, way more presidential.

 

On the other hand, he was responsive. He was polite to questioners. He asked if he had answered the questions. He admitted he has made mistakes, and noted that if he loses, it could be because “I was a lousy candidate,” a refreshing openness to the possibility of human flaws that one would never hear from President Trump.

And old Joe suddenly looked a lot better after I viewed my recorded sample of Trump. Quiet reserve gave way to angry, crazy shouting.

Would he denounce QAnon? That famous selective Trump amnesia suddenly kicked in. QAnon? Never heard of them.

What about a retweet that alleges a fresh, new democratic murder conspiracy (totally normal). “That was a retweet,” the president said. Like that’s a defense? I use Twitter, too, and I don’t retweet something that I don’t believe in. Saying something is a retweet, coming from the president, was a very odd nondefense defense. If it was batshit bullshit (which it clearly was), why is tangerine Mussolini (thank you, niece, for that linguistic flair that I stole from you) retweeting it? And then disavowing any knowledge of it?

Trump with another voter

Mr. President, your tweets are, like it or not, communications from the most powerful head of state to the world. “It was a retweet” means that you don’t care about the truth of what BS you spread from your bully pulpit. You made the bully pulpit the bullshit pulpit, and we’re a coarser, more ignorant country thanks to your terrible presidency.

Yikes.

As TV spectacles go, both town halls lacked something. It was the other candidate. Without any response from the “other side,” the town halls lacked a lot.

Trump, I suppose, was more watchable, in the sense that a plane crashing and burning on landing is more compelling to watch than a plane safely landing.

Yet, it makes you appreciate safe landings a bit more, too. Old Joe. He didn’t set the world on fire. And that’s a small blessing.

And Trump Delivers … and Delivers … and Delivers

 I gave two of the best Trump family speakers two hours of my life Thursday, and it left me a little scared.

Because I’ll state something that might surprise you.

President Donald Trump did a pretty good job at his acceptance speech Thursday night. Oh sure, he was not as energetic as he is when he’s ranting at a huge crowd. It was “teleprompter” Trump, who is always less engaged than unplanned, rant Trump. But for Teleprompter Trump, he was pretty good.

As a speaker, he did OK—and like a dog singing “Happy Birthday,” OK was better than anybody could have expected of him. Of course, the content of his long, long speech was full of deceit and exaggerations and fear mongering. It was, after all, a lie fest from the liar-in-chief.

Anyway, after Ivanka Trump gave the best speech of the awful tribe named “Trump” at the convention, the president’s pretty much just OK speech left me a bit depressed. Because he might pull it off. Between voter suppression, riling up his base and all kinds of semi-legal shenanigans, this con man might pull off the scam one more time. In case you have more than a hour to kill or need a cure for insomnia, here it is:

 

So, I went to bed without writing up my summary of the RNC, sleeping on it to see how I felt in the morning. And I feel better today. His ratings were lower than Joe Biden's which must hurt. And on second look, Trump's speech does not grow on me.

Still, Trump hit the right, right-wing notes, calling to his base on crime, patriotism, abortion, socialism and, Heaven help us, even God, which really made me nauseous.

So, as a wrap-up on the freak show that was the sad reality TV scare fest from what was once an American political party, my wrap-up of the RNC, focusing mostly on the long speech by President Trump.

First the setting. What can I say? It was a horrible desecration of the people’s house. Trump called it a “home,” but it’s the nation’s home and a president merely borrows the White House for four years. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, had a great tweet Thursday night that sums up how I felt:

Trump, the "law-and-order" candidate, can’t be bothered to understand or follow the law.

True, a president is personally exempt, but he’s used the full machinery of government—and lots of government employees—as political props and settings. What a jerk. The low moment of his speech was his smirky reference to the setting (quote is accurate, used a transcript from NPR):

“The fact is I’m here -- what’s the name of that building? (Gestures behind him to cheers from the gathered doomed gladiators)
“But I’ll say it differently. The fact is we’re here and they’re not. To me one of the most beautiful buildings anywhere in the world, it’s not a building, it’s a home, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not even a house, it’s a home. It’s a wonderful place, with an incredible history.”

A history, you jerk, that you are ignorant of. Another low point—technically after the speech, but part of the Trump awfulness: Fireworks on the National Mall (a federal public park that includes, among other things, the Vietnam National Memorial with the names of heroes who didn’t claim bone spurs to stay home) that spelled out “Trump” and “2020.”

If that didn’t turn your stomach, see a doctor to see if you have a stomach.

The other main point of the flawed optics of the evening where the odd crowd. The fact that there were Trump MAGA-A acolytes from all over, crowded together, largely not masked during a pandemic that this horrid president has infamously not managed well. It was a Sturgis-style super spreader event, and shows that this president is so cold, so indifferent to fellow humans, that some of them may die, yet it’s a price he’ll happily pay.

We’re closing in on 200,000 dead, and this president and his followers brag about making respirators and banning travel. Well, hooray, those are two things you did right, but you completely squandered any time you bought by not listening to science, pushing quack cures and claiming the virus would disappear like “magic.”

And Trump holds an in-person party with people from all over, unmasked and undistanced.

If your ego demands accolades from a crowd so badly that you’ll force federal employees to violate federal law and potentially expose over a thousand of your misled fans to a deadly virus during a pandemic, you’re not, as our former secretary of state called you, a fucking moron.

You’re a fucking monster.

So, Trump spoke well. And displayed his full evil in full view. He and Joe Biden have both stated that this will be a campaign for the soul of America.

Not that there was any doubt before Thursday, but Thursday proved, if anybody needed proof, that one of those candidates sure doesn’t give a rat’s patootie for his own or anybody else’s soul.

His speech was preceded by Ivanka Trump. She’s a good speaker, but is part of the dark tribe trying to promote the orange demon on us. And it was odd, how “co-presidential” she seemed. Ivanka, nobody elected you to anything.

She was among the best speakers during the whole RNC, I thought, but the bar was pretty low so she didn’t have to work hard to clear that low bar. The most amusing line in her speech, to me, was this (quote from ABC news transcript):

“My father has strong convictions. He knows what he believes, and says what he thinks. Whether you agree with him or not, you always know where he stands. I recognize that my dad's communication style is not to everyone's taste. And I know his tweets can feel a bit -- unfiltered. But the results speak for themselves.”

“Unfiltered?” His tweets are the all-caps yowling of a mad man who, sadly, is president of the U.S.

For now. Shame on America if we prolong this nightmare for four more years.

And I don’t care about Joe Biden’s obvious shortcomings at this point. Get me out of here!

Other observations on Trump’s speech:

It was full of ridiculous exaggerations and distortions. For example, Trump on his record on race relations: “And I say very modestly that I have done more for the African-American community than any president since Abraham Lincoln, our first Republican president. And I have done more in three years for the Black community than Joe Biden has done in 47 years.”

Donald Trump has never in his life said anything in modesty. He’s a narcissist of the first order.

Another point that Trump bragged about was cutting regulations, thus approving oil pipelines and removing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. He promised to cut regulations more in order to promote jobs, and made this claim about Joe Biden: “Biden has promised to abolish the production of American oil, coal, shale and natural gas, laying waste to the economies of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico, destroying those states. Absolutely destroying those states, and others.”

One of the dirty little secrets of life is that any extraction economy is doomed in the long run. The wells will run dry, the vein will be played out, the drillers and miners will make money now, but not generations from now. And Biden won’t open federal lands to drilling like Trump will, but has not pledged to end production of American fossil fuels. Instead, he has called on us to transition to a sustainable green economy, which will create jobs.

Making the planet uninhabitable by just drilling and burning and devil-may-care is the road to hell.

Trump is not our ecological savior. He is the Satan of the environment.

OK, I admit I’m getting carried away. That’s the mood swings induced by the RNC. And I do have a favorite, no-shit-Sherlock chyron that I saw on MSNBC: “Fourth Night Filled with more false statements” Yes, it was. Surprise, surprise.

So now the fall campaign begins. Here is our lineup (images from Wikimedia commons, most by Gage Skidmore, except Mike Pence image which is a White House photo):

President Donald J. Trump. Check whatever he says. This man will gladly get you killed if it means he wins. Not an exaggeration. Image by Gage Skidmore.

"Sleepy" Joe Biden. I'll take sleepy over evil, any day. And why does Trump always list as flaws in others attributes that he has? Trump leaned on the lectern Thursday like a sleepy old man. Takes one to know one, I guess. Image by Gage Skidmore.

Vice President Mike Pence. In some ways, worse than Trump, because he'll spill his venom in a friendly, folksy, neighborhood preacher sort of tone. It's also not easy to find this man's image--of all four figures here, this is the oldest image, the one that is an official White House image because he doesn't get out much or draw attention when he does, and it's cropped to show Mike. Unlike the orange-skinned one, this guy has the pale skin of someone who avoids the limelight. And the sunlight. Mike Pence, mild mannered vampire? White House image (from visit by Greek officials, hence the flags).

California Sen. Kamala Harris. She's equipped to be president, probably the best of this bunch of candidates. The woman stands out as the best human for the job. Image by Gage Skidmore.

Voting for a “Joe” is going to be easy for this Joe. Well, maybe not as easy as I wanted since a judge tossed out ballot requests in my county. But I’ll crawl over hot coals to vote against the current occupant. You know that building, behind you, Don? I hope soon that it's the house where you used to live.

Final note: This is a reflection of the times we live in. Here is much of section A of The Gazette this morning. I don’t think you can read the stories, just look at the headlines. Trump is on the bottom of page 4. The county I live in setting new virus records is on page 6. And I don’t think The Gazette got it all that wrong. Many of the headlines are on the aftermath of the Aug. 10 derecho that blew this city apart, so I will concede much of the end-of-the-world tone of these pages is due to Mother Nature and not Monster Trump.

Still, the Republicans have said repeatedly this week that you should be scared to live in Biden’s America. They’ve got it wrong. The real nightmare is now, here are headlines from Trump’s America: