Self-disclosure. Yes, all my yard signs are for Democrats. Republicans this year scare me too much.
Is Donald Trump a fascist? His own former chief of staff kind of did a decent analysis of this question, ticking off the criteria. Hyper nationalism? Check. Racial identity politics? Check. Treating political opponents as “the enemy” and threatening them with prison? Check. Calling for mass roundups into detention camps? Check. Admire Adolph Hitler and “Hitler’s generals?” Check.
Clearly, a fascist. But is that the key question?
Half of America doesn’t see it that way, and we’re only six days away from (knock on wood, it could take longer) seeing if America chooses fanatical fascism or traditional governmental competence. Will we choose the felon or the prosecutor? The jury is still out, and it makes me anxious.
But even the “f” word and f question isn’t the key issue, to me. Whether wanna-be Hitler wins next week or not, we’re at a strange place politically when he’s got a very good chance. And it does, partly, reflect a wholesale breakdown of the troubled relationship between the American public and America’s journalists—we don’t trust our own trustworthy voices in the news anymore.
Because, yes, the New York Times has a strong liberal bias. Yet it works a lot harder to report facts and correct its reporting mistakes than the entire weird alt universe of right-wing disinformation systems that have grown and spread and become many people’s main sources of social media lies wearing fact Halloween costumes.
Oct. 9--Visited Czech and Slovak Museum. One theme there is long-standing thirst for freedom and democracy.
The key question to me is: Is America in 2024 too much like Germany in 1924?
Germany: Had recently lost a cataclysmic war that most people thought it had won until, suddenly and shockingly, it hadn’t. Germans had thus grown cynical and untrusting of a nascent free media and the lies government told them. After all, while Germany was the cradle of the press, it was not the cradle of the free press. America: We recently experienced a collective trauma, a pandemic (which, by the way, was badly mismanaged by none other than President Donald Trump, although much of the story of that time is being badly rewritten now). We also face challenges abroad, reacting to a bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan and seeing conflict spread in the Middle East and Ukraine. But despite our challenges today, we’re not a defeated power like Germany was in the last century—we just seem to weirdly feel like one.
Germany: A century ago, a young country, around 50 years old, that had, for most of that history, weak democratic institutions, and monarchial rule. By the 1920s, a republic had been established—but it was also seen as the government that betrayed the Fatherland by signing the Treaty of Versailles.
America: The world’s oldest functioning federal democracy, with a strong history of constitutional, lawful government. That history is not perfect, and there are all kinds of issues facing our democracy, including that it seems to be for sale for the likes of shady billionaires like Elon Musk, but for all our faults we can’t validly give our own institutions the kind of side eye Germans cast on the Weimer Republic. And yet, we do. It’s sane and very American for us to be skeptical of our government, but deeply and foolishly cynical to dismiss it altogether.
Germany: In the 1920s and 1930s, riots and political violence became an increasing part of the politics of the day. America: Yeah, sort of. In 2021, a violent mob (prompted by none other than President Trump) stormed our Capitol and tried to stop the count of the 2020 election results. Granted, riots and violence aren’t exclusively the purview Trump or of the right, but despite a history of sometimes violent civil unrest in these United States, we don’t have a history like that of Germany a hundred years ago. Yet, this one is more of a tossup—our rhetoric has become rougher and more violent, and workers in our democracy such as election volunteers face unprecedented risk from delusional vote second-guessers who threaten and intimidate. So, maybe this is a criterion in which the parallels are a bit valid.
In summary: We aren’t Germany of the 1920s or 1930s. But half of our electorate is ready to give an incompetent strong-man who failed miserably at the job the first time a second chance to remake America in his own sick, twisted image. And Trump himself is quite clear that he’s running as a revenge candidate—he has no positive plans for a better future; he wants retribution for often imagined slights of the past.
And that’s what gets me. That the election is still so close and that we are flirting with decisions as wrongheaded as Germans did in the past. I hope that Trump loses in six days, but it’s even money right now.
In October, my wife and I visited the Czech and Slovak Museum in Cedar Rapids. Many of the displays recount the struggle for freedom the Czech people endured, from the Soviet crackdown in 1968 to student resistance in the 1980s to the eventual Velvet Revolution that brought democracy to that land.
Student hand-drawn protest poster of the 1980s at Czech and Slovak Museum.
Not sure why mutant Smurf is a symbol of freedom, but another student protest poster.
Not sure why the Czech fashions represent freedom, but to me, they do.
Never fear books. Even a book robot just looks friendly.
Czech out the art protesting lack of freedom in the Communist era.
We Americans constantly talk about the heroes of our past who fought for our democracy. Yet too many Americans today seem to dismiss Trump’s own words as bluster and exaggeration and resent his being classified as a fascist when he loudly and openly threatens attacks on all of the guardrails that keep our democracy functioning.
I’m ashamed of Republicans who won’t call out this anti-democratic strain in their party and its stain on our democratic ideals. Best case: Harris wins by a whisker.
And that’s a true shame. Really, America? I do hope Trump loses—but even if he does, the disfunction in our politics doesn’t go away. Our obsession with competing media universes remains. Trump and Trumpism is a symptom of something dark and enduring. We are badly in need of lots of clear-headed and effective political reforms, even given the best case, and we badly need to rebuild a more respected news media system.
Decades ago, the Czech people took to the streets in a desperate, dangerous call for freedom. We need a similar rebirth of the spirit of freedom here. To me, the election next week is not the end of the story nor the end of the danger.
I don’t have the cure, sadly. But I can see the disease.
What I see watching the Sept. 10, 2024 presidential debate.
The last time Ohio dogs got so much press was decades ago when singer John Denver rather rudely warbled about how bad his experience in Toledo, Ohio, was, ending his scathing tune with: “And here's to the dogs of Toledo, Ohio/Ladies, we bid you goodbye!”
Ouch. Mean and unfair on many levels. An odd, maybe even weird, insult, given that any town of any size, including Toledo, has a diverse range of women, none of whom deserve to be classified as canines by any shallow man.
And yet, the strange media universe was not yet done with weird men making peculiar mentions of Buckeye bowwows.
I watched the presidential debate Tuesday night. Yikes! What a difference contrasted to the first one. Then, the focus was on how confused and old Joe Biden seemed. To be honest, lost in the reaction to Biden’s poor performance was the fact that Donald Trump spent much of even that night spouting weird nonsense.
Well, how times have changed. In the wake of the first debate, President Biden decided to drop out of the presidential race, and the Democratic Party named Vice President Kamala Harris as its nominee.
And at debate two, delusional Don was back in full force with no slightly older man to hide behind and shield the crazy. Apparently, every country in the world is emptying its mental hospitals and prisons and dumping its criminal or confused people on Uncle Sam. As a result, crime worldwide is down, but dogs in Ohio are worried.
Sound plausible? Really?
ABC fact checked the dog claim—so, so surprising that this story seems to have little basis in the reality most of us inhabit on planet Earth, and yet some weird people, like GOP VP nominee JD (Just Doing the weird) Vance keep repeating the weird anecdote.
Post immigrant barbecue photo from Springfield, Ohio. Or skeleton image of Saint Bernard from a Brazilian vet college's collection, taken from Wikimedia Commons. Do your own research.
As Harris said during the debate, some of Trump’s remarks make a rational person question his ability to understand what is a fact and what isn’t.
Another example of the wacky, weird world of doddering Don: When Harris said foreign leaders don’t like him, Trump’s retort was that Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán thinks he is great. Now, I know that Viktor’s vigorous opposition to both immigration and the LGBTQ+ community have made him a bit of darling on the worst fringes of the right wing—but Orbán is an anti-democratic ruler, an authoritarian. Holding him up as your evidence that “world leaders” like you is, yup, weird.
June 2024, Giorgia Meloni, prime minister of Italy, speaks with Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary. Is V the prominent world leader that would prove you have global popularity? Image from Wikimedia Commons by the European Union.
My wife doesn’t drink, but we had some large chocolate bars, and she decided we would play a non-alcoholic version of a drinking game during the debate. Instead of a shot, we would each break off and eat a small piece of chocolate every time we clearly heard Donald Trump say something inconsistent with reality. In others, one lie equals one munch.
I don’t think the chocolate lasted 20 minutes.
It’s an odd measure of our dysfunctional current politics and the disinformation age we live in, but it’s not likely Trump will lose much of his support despite his being the confused old man in the race. More than confused, Tuesday he was petulant, racist (his anti-immigrant extreme rants are racist dog whistles), even delusional.
Still, Trump’s support is rock solid. But the candidate, despite claiming he and JD are “solid” rather than “weird,” was clearly a bit shaky and unhinged Tuesday. He was unprepared to debate. He also seemed, to those who aren’t caught in his rather shockingly large, weird bubble of popularity, unprepared and unqualified to be President.
Harris wasn’t perfect in her performance. Like many candidates in many debates, she preferred to deliver canned stump soundbites rather than actually answering the questions that were asked, a habit she started right off the bat with her first non-answer to the first question. Since starting her run, she has been correctly criticized for avoiding reporters and their nagging questions.
Still, she didn’t need to be perfect Tuesday night. The race is still close and Trump still has a clear path to victory, God helps us—but the night was a much better one for sane Kamala than crazy Donald.
Following the debate, Taylor Swift noted on Instagram that she is endorsing Kamala. Swift has endorsed Democrats in the past, and her public pronouncement wasn’t a surprise—but it was partly prompted by Trump, who had posted fake AI-generated Swift endorsements of Trump.
Most famous Instagram post in the immediate post-debate time period. A swift Swift reaction to the crazy.
Passing on those lies, and Trump's poor performance in the debate, seems to have been too much for Miss Swift.
As for me: I’m not single. I’m not childless. I’m not a lady. I have no cats. Even though I think of myself as a bit of a Swiftie in that I enjoy her songs, any political statement from any pop singer, even an intelligent, accomplished woman like Taylor Swift, isn’t going to move my political needle much.
And I concede the reality that I was already firmly in the “never Trump” camp well before Tuesday night anyway.
Still, what the heck. Viktor O’s endorsement? Fake stories of Springfield, Ohio’s endangered animals? Calling Kamala a “Marxist?” Trump is the worst. And the weirdest. The debate Tuesday just made that reality obvious.
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.
Dec. 21, 2022--President Volodymyr of Ukraine meets President Biden of the United States in White House. Image from the web site of Ukraine's president.
Did you catch the address to Congress by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the darkest day of the year? Dec. 21, 2022, long after darkness fell for our longest night, wearing his trademark green shirt with the presidential symbol on it, Zelenskyy spoke movingly of the struggle his country faces.
I thought it was a speech for the ages, one that will be quoted and studied. Zelensky put the war his country is waging to defend against a Russian invasion in the context of the larger global struggle for democracy—imploring American to remember that aid to Ukraine is not charity, but an important investment in that ongoing struggle that we are a vital part of. (C-SPAN video of speech below, skip ahead to 19:00 when Zelensky enters and then starts speaking.)
And he powerfully evoked some American cultural milestones—the U.S. Army battling the last German offensive of World War II in the Battle of the Bulge; and the battle that helped turned the tide of the American Revolution, Saratoga.
It’s fitting, somehow, that Zelensky referenced the Battle of the Bugle because that battle was raging at this time of year. On Dec. 16, the Wehrmacht used the cover of poor winter weather (to avoid Allied air superiority) to launch an attack through the Ardennes.
The German offensive failed. Just as Russian forces failed to take Kiev last year, the Germans stalled in their drive to split Allied forces by marching to Antwerp.
In that case, the German offensive was a long shot, almost certainly doomed as Germany was running out of resources, particularly fuel. In the case of Ukraine, they are fighting a defensive war against a Russian army with vastly greater resources. Still, the Battle of the Bulge echoes in the American mind, and Zelensky was reminding us of some parallels.
In some ways, I think, the analogy to Saratoga was more apt. In fall of 1777, British forces launched a three-pronged offensive to divide the Americans by splitting New York. Gen. John Burgoyne brought one of those prongs south from Canada, capturing Fort Ticonderoga and sweeping south towards American forces dug in near Saratoga.
The British attacked twice, but the Americans defenders held them off. Faced with losses and being cut off from reinforcement, British General John Burgoyne surrendered to American General Horatio Gates on Oct. 17, 1777. Partly as a result of the battle (technically, I suppose, the battles) of Saratoga, France decided it was worthwhile to support the American cause as the Yanks had demonstrated they maybe could win. And the tide of war was turned.
19th Century painting by artist John Trumbull of General John Burgoyne surrendering to General Horatio Gates on Oct. 17, 1777. Painting in collection of Yale University, image from Wikimedia Commons.
Of course, the Russian army didn’t surrender to Ukraine when their invasion forces stalled on the road to Kiev this spring, but still, just as American defenders at Saratoga produced a turning point, Ukraine’s valiant defense of Kiev and offensive to push back in the east give hope to its cause.
As President Zelensky noted, the first Russian defeat was its loss in the psychological war. Most of the world, and most of the body politic in the United Sates, recognizes Russia as the aggressor here. Zelensky reminded us that his country needs continued support as the battle against Russian aggression continues.
It is, as he stated, a key moment in a global fight for democracy. And, Zelensky predicted, a fight that Ukraine will win. That seemed faint hope when Russian tanks trundled across the border this spring—many of us, I’m sure, expected Russia to crush Ukraine. It seems, like the Revolution post Saratoga, that Ukraine’s ultimate victory now is at least a possibility, should its allies show backbone and stay the course and support Ukraine's cause.
Ironically, Zelensky is a TV entertainer turned politician who has proven, in his country’s darkest hour, to be an effective leader. He’s an FDR or Winston Churchill, a great communicator who showed his ability before Congress to sound the right notes, to clarify the issues at state, to rally support.
Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, in March 2022. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
How different from a recent U.S. President who was a TV entertainer turned politician. Indeed, President Trump was impeached for the first time for a corrupt phone call in which he tried to hold aid to Ukraine hostage for political favors. Trump is the anti-Zelensky, a divider, not a uniter, a man who this week was exposed yet again for attempting to undermine American democracy.
I felt it was very weird when the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection recommended that the former President face criminal charges, and the reaction from Iowa’s Republicans was a yawn. We’ve moved on. We don’t care about Jan. 6 anymore. We’re working on the issues Iowans care about now.
How American. How forgetful we are as a people. It’s less than two years since an American president attempted a violent coup in Washington DC, and too many want to close that chapter and forget about it.
Well, if we don’t forget the Battle of the Bulge or Saratoga, it is way too early to turn the page from Jan. 6. After all, the chief villain in that sad narrative, Donald Jerk Trump, is a leading candidate for President in 2024—the leader of an attempt to subvert our very democratic system is in the running for his party’s nomination for president, and the craven, cowardly “leaders” of his party are too scared of him to note that he’s proven himself unqualified to support and defend our Constitution. I’m one Iowan who hasn’t yet moved on and is disgusted with the gutless Iowa Republicans who claim we should. I’ll move on when the GOP renounces Trumpism and Trump, as long ago they should have.
And this week we have the opposite end of the scoundrel spectrum. A true icon of democracy, President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling on us to remember who we are—we are the victors at Saratoga and The Bugle, a people who have fought for two centuries for the cause of self-government and democracy.
Today, that fight is happening in Ukraine. But also in the hearts of Americans. The dark cancer of Trumpism is still with us. The fight for democracy isn’t just happening in eastern Europe.
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.
Image of President Trump boarding a plane. When he flies our Jan. 20, good riddance. Image from White House Facebook page.
The phone call. From a man with a history of spectacular phone calls. President Trump called the Secretary of State of Georgia to demand that the election, long since certified and over, be called back.
And he spouted a fire hose of nonsense—but many craven Republicans in the House and Senate still vow to object to Joe Biden’s win. Odd—new GOP members selected in the same election aren't objecting to their shady wins. If an election is bogus, isn't it bogus up and down the ballot? Meanwhile, Trump calls for a rally in the street.
Well, we have an interesting fortnight plus change of crazy before us, and I just hope it ends without riots or war with Iran. Avoiding either is not a sure bet.
Official White House wanted poster.
It is very interesting how the nuttiest corners of right-wing media imagine an election conspiracy, then Trump mirrors and amplifies the message, and suddenly the worst of GOP political opportunists (I’m looking at you, Ted Cruz) say a huge investigation is needed because so many millions do not trust the vote. Which the liar-in-chief has falsely told them is fake.
I’m not shocked that Trump has gone off the deep end. Nobody could drive him crazy when it’s more of a putt. No need to move to Crazy Town when you're already the mayor. But the lack of principle and spine among so many other Republicans is as depressing as the fact that, in the midst of this pathetic spectacle, our loser Prez retains the loyalty of the Trumpers.
Last year, Politifact.com, a fact check site run by the Poynter Institute, named COVID-19 denial as their lie of the year. The Denier-in-Chief was voted out of office, I think partly due to the consequences of that lie, but the orange one refuses to admit he lost.
I know it’s early in 2021, but even in January, the spectacularly fact-challenged call by Trump would seem to make election denial a strong contender for this 2021’s lie of the year.
A potential for a twofer! The same master of BS, Donald Jessica Trump (thank you, Randy Rainbow, you’re a national treasure) could win it again! Lie of the year for two years in a row—they’ll have to find a special piece of stone for that Pinocchio nose when they add him to Rushmore. Tired of all the winning yet?
Joe Biden will be president next Jan. 20—that’s not opinion, but reality. But reporting reality seems to be something that gets the media into trouble, these days. The media are not believed by close to half of the voting public, the 70 million to whom Donald Trump is speaking truth as he denies reality.
Trump being delusional, immature and incompetent are nothing new, and helps explain why he has been fired. It’s always been about Trump to Trump—working hard to govern the country was never his thing. He lazily spends his days golfing and watching TV sending out crazy rage tweets. And his refusal to see the hand writing on the wall, to so gracelessly ignore the need for an orderly transition of power—it’s all totally normal for this flawed, abnormal man.
And yet. The Daily Show’s video of the MAGA march on Washington, calling for something or other, was a bit scary to me. So many so willing to attack the news media on baseless claims emanating from that famous source of unreliable nonsense, Donald Junk-for-brains Trump. Democracy dies in darkness and darkness seems to be closing in.
And the Donald has no incentives, now, nothing to preserve except perverse fame. Republican voices calling on him to do the right thing have been few. And I can’t help but think that it’s not only his hyper-active stupid gland at work, nor just the now reflexive craven GOP fear of the far-right base that keeps this sad charade going. I think the tweet storms and dark conspiracy claims keep the Trump base riled and up and are an attempt to excite them and fund raise. It may yet fuel Trump’s next move, which no doubt will involve some sort of awful fact-starved media.
He always was a reality TV star more than he was a business tycoon. He was never a successful captain of industry, but a spoiled rich kid who played one on TV. And as ex-president, the star power of this dim man shines brighter than ever.
Others have noted that Trumpism isn’t over with the defeat of Trump. The MAGA minions march in Washington signals the start of the next campaign. (Yes, yes, violence bad, don't hurt the MAGA minions, they get to march, too--but really, now we're concerned about people attacking protesters? At least the lawless lefty loons weren't acting under the order of a would-be dictator clearing a street for a photo op).
The campaign of 2016, after all, never ended. Having been elected president with no clear idea of what the job was, Trump occupied his time reveling in his imaginary landslide and reliving the glories of victory by continuing the only thing he liked--rallies to draw adoring crowds. They are so important to him that he continued that during a pandemic--reveling in mask-less cheers as he hopped across the country, cheefully ignoring the safety and health of his MAGA-nation.
And the pandemic rages on. Our Dear Leader rage tweets, encourages street marches and does absolutely zero to battle the deadly virus that has already robbed us of more than 250,000 souls. He is not only doing nothing, but he’s preventing the future president from even making contact with the government employees who will have to play catch up and cleanup on this raging mess once the Orange One is finally rolled out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the White House bleached from top to bottom.
Trump tweet, screen shot from my phone. I agree, get the straight jacket, but why do so many still believe him and still think it's the media that are lying to them?
I’m trying to see some light. I am happy Biden won. Yet I worry about my country when the right has continued to make the media the enemy. It seems like facts are the stranger in the this strange land.
And back in Iowa, a red-hot state of COVID-19 infections, our aw-shucks ol’ boy Senator, the Chuckster, tweets that he’s got the ’vid. He is not alone. My incoming representative in the House, “recovering” journalist Ashley Hinson, who left a career of reporting facts to joining a party that ignores them, also is isolated with the virus. Both report mild symptoms.
Get well, Chuck. Thoughts and prayers. But, can you also test positive for a backbone? Like maybe what the Dear Leader is doing (really, not doing) is not so OK?
Well, good, or goodish. Except a person with mild COVID-19 can breath out droplets that still may kill. And where, one wonders, did old Chuck and young Ashley encounter this virus? And why was it suddenly after the election that our governor, COVID-Kim, decided it was time to take sort of serious and mostly symbolic ineffective action?
Months too late, the gov says, Iowans are to wear masks, sort of. In big groups. Bars are closed—after 10 p.m. No sports. Except for the most popular ones at the high school and college levels. And before Nov. 3, we had all kinds of GOP campaign rallies, visits by un-wise men from the East, unmasked Republicans going together to cheer Trump and share infections, yet not a peep from COVID Kim Reynolds.
Chuck Grassley, above (official Senate portrait) and Ashley Hinson, below (image downloaded from her campaign web site and cropped) have tested positive for COVID19. Our elder senator and young congressperson-elect report their symptoms are mild. Would that it was the same for 250,000 Americans already lost and counting.
I don’t expect Chuck or Ashley to provide any leadership on the virus. They are too busy laying low when MAGA nonsense gets pushed via social media. And recovering from journalism.
And Trump? He’ll fire enemies, play golf and ignore the needs of the country. Because the needs of Trump have always weighed more with him than the needs of the country.
Meanwhile, the student staff at the newspaper I advise did some good work this week, including being direct with the powers-that-be that they are not doing enough to protect us. The students were writing about university administration—but the message they state holds true at the highest level of the land.
We must do more:
The young journalists get it. Why can't the recovering ones? You probably can't read this image of a newspaper page--here is a link to a PDF of the page. Their opinion columns are worth a read, too.
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.
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.
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:
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