Comes The Kakistocratic Plutocracy

 

We’re past the point where dactylonomy can account for the billionaires Trump has selected for positions of authority in his impending kakistocracy. Megadonors all, it’s likely they’ll execute the offices they bought to their own benefit, not ours. From this team of benefactors, unprecedented corruption is more likely than not. Role-modeling even as he ascends to Earth’s reportedly most powerful position, Trump keeps hawking eponymous, overpriced junk. The latest is cologne. Grifters gotta grift.

Consider Stephen Feinberg, billionaire investor who’s donated tons to Trump, as Deputy Defense Secretary. He’s invested in several companies that have Defense Department contracts. Then there’s Jared Isaacman, selected as NASA administrator. Described by Trump as an “astronaut” because he bought his way onto a couple of civilian space flights on an Elon Musk Space-X capsule, he has millions in investments in Space-X. It’s a lidless cookie jar.

Topping the list, of course, is Elon himself, the world’s richest humanoid, who spent close to $300 million on the campaigns of Trump and other Republicans. His companies are, collectively, the greatest recipients of government money. We await the scrutiny he and also-billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy will apply to those corporations as they erase $2 trillion from the national budget as promised. What cuts are more likely: your Medicare or Musk’s contracts?

One thing Musk will do for sure is strong-arm any senatorial dissenters from Trump’s proposed collection of incompetents. When Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) pushed back mildly on Trump’s plan to fire FBI Director Wray in order to install subservient, revenge-promising Kash Patel, he heard from front-line right-wing icons like Charlie Kirk, who said, “Senator Rounds, you are up for reelection in 2026. If you vote against any of Trump’s nominees a primary challenge wouldn’t be hard. Just a reminder.” To which Capo di tutti capi Musk added, “Those who oppose reform will lose their primary/election. Period.” He can find another $300 million in his couch cushions. It seems to have worked on Senator Ernst (R-Iowa), too. It’s government by cement overshoes.

Not all of Trump’s picks are billionaires, but they have in common a wealth of inadequacy and/or inexperience: Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and more. Where checks are balanced, none ought to gain Senate approval. However, given the threats and intimidation Republican lawmakers are receiving, and their signature senatorial feebleness, it seems their ascendency is assured.

Also not a billionaire, but more dangerous than any to the lives of every American is Robert F. Kennedy, Junior. As a formerly practicing physician, husband, father, and grandfather, I find his positions on vaccines and other health matters profoundly disturbing. Like Trump – and maybe it’s the attraction – he’s happy to push thoroughly disproven lies. For example, on his festival of untruths and confabulations during his Meet the Press appearance this past weekend, Trump spouted off about Venezuelan gangs taking over Aurora, Colorado, despite its political leaders and police saying it’s untrue. And, because every day is Opposite Day with him, he later announced, pulled from a sunshine-free anatomic locale, that “Democrats are fighting hard to get rid of the Popular Vote in future Elections." After which minds surely achieved maximum boggle.

It’s likely Trump knows he’s lying, but because it keeps his voters happy, doesn’t care. With Junior Bobby, though, who can say? Given his years of addiction to various forms of neurophysiological abuse, not to mention his resident brain worm that dined on parts of his brain before dying, of fright, possibly, he may no longer have the brain loci in charge of separating truth from fiction, science from conspiracy.

Whatever the reason, if allowed, as Trump promised, to “go wild,” his beliefs about vaccines, fluoride, disease vectors, and more become policy, there will follow, without doubt, deaths of many Americans. Children, especially. Having Dr. Oz, a Trump-level-charlatan, quacky pusher of bogus medical “remedies,” in charge of Medicare and Medicaid won’t stanch the death flow, either.

Based on Junior’s global history, deaths are predictable. His disinformation campaign about measles vaccines led directly to children dying in Samoa. His conspiratorial insanity about Covid vaccines was equally deadly. And his intention to curtail infectious disease research, given the certainty of another pandemic, is ominous.

If his hiring criteria indicate the disconnected world in which he lives, it’ll be worse than we imagine. The reported interview questions he asks are crazier but no less portentous than Trump’s. 

From his history of business failures as well as how he mishandled Covid-19, we know Trump is a terrible manager: impulsive, distractable, uninterested in details. As long as they’ll advance his announced need for vengeance, and unless they interfere with his golf game, he’ll be letting the aforementioned appointees do as they wish. It bodes ill in more ways than one.

Pardon Me, But...

 

Because I grew up in a family of lawyers, I indicated my intention to become one on college applications. Once there, though, I found myself having more fun in science labs than in libraries. Then, returning home on Christmas break, my mom showed me letters I’d never seen, ones she’d received after my biological father died, unexpectedly, after an operation, ten days before I was born. He was a doctor. They were wonderful letters of sympathy for her and praise of him, from friends, from patients. Several noted that after he died, I was born, as if handed a baton. Also, his name was Sid. I think showing me the letters was premeditated [no pun], since Mom always introduced me to her friends as “Doctor Schwab,”. I’d tell them, “You can just call me Doctor.”

Did it make me a liar, having told colleges I planned to be a lawyer? Or was it a change of mind? Is there no difference? I ask because people are calling President Biden a liar for pardoning his son, after saying he wouldn’t. So, despite initially deciding not to, I will opine, notwithstanding that, compared to the serious significance of serially selecting sinister sycophantic simpletons by Trump, it is but a blip. (What’s not a blip was Biden’s decision to run again. That had real consequences for us all.)

I’ve been asked if, under the same circumstances, I’d have done the same. My answer was yes, if the situation were identical. If I were President of the United States, subject of years of performative, fact-free, ready-for-Fox “investigations” by hypocrites like James Comer and Jim Jordan, and evidence-lacking, no-indictment accusations that mine was a “crime family;” if my son had, after suffering the loss of his mother and siblings, struggled and eventually turned to drugs and alcohol, committed victimless crimes for which he eventually took responsibility, paid what he owed, and, defying the odds of addiction, cleaned himself up; if a plea agreement proportionate to the crimes, one that similar offenders not bearing my name would have been offered, had been reached and then retracted under pressure from a Trumpy US attorney; if it was clear that he’d be pursued endlessly as a surrogate for attacking me; then, yes, I’d have pardoned him.

In doing so, President Biden finally brought the country together. Both sides agree: what he did is indefensible. From the right, it’s unprecedented abuse of power. (I’ll eschew applicable whataboutism.) From the left, though perfectly legal, it flouts the rule of law. Now, no matter what Trump does on the road to imperial power as his heads of agencies round up everyone on his enemies list, neither President Biden nor any Democrat can ever again claim to value democracy. They say. Absent the pardon, Trump and his tools would surely have behaved admirably.

For sure.

Liberal politicians and commentators whose opinions I respect are all but unanimous in their anger at Biden for what he did. Clearly, I’m wrong. So let’s move on.

Let’s consider the implications of Russian state TV host, Vladimir Solovyov saying about Trump’s intended appointments, “What an excellent team is coming along with Trump! ... If they are allowed to get in, they will quickly dismantle America, brick by brick. They are so great!”

That, I offer, has vastly vaster implications for America’s future than pardoning Hunter Biden. More than appointing a mega-donating art collector with no military experience as Navy Secretary. More than choosing Trump-pardoned Daddy Kushner, a convicted felon who served time for tax cheating and other deplorable behavior, to the Kushiest, most food-and-wine-forward of ambassadorships. More than Putin’s favorite defender as DNI. More than a morally deficient talk-show host as SecDef, who might be on his way out, and whose nomination confirms Trump’s hasty, superficial thinking in making his choices.

Latest atop the heap of horrible is Kash Patel, graduate of a low-ranking law school with a high admission rate, as FBI director. It’s the inverse of the boy who cried wolf. Having endlessly and falsely accused President Biden of weaponizing government, in choosing Patel, Trump has erased any doubt of his intention to do just that. Kashing in on right-wing media, Patel has been everywhere, promising to go after every politician, journalist, news station, and government employee who’d not shown similarly slavish devotion to Trump.

Mr. Patel, or, if he’s rejected, the next anti-constitutional genuflector Trump would appoint, will remake Trump’s FBI into the equivalent of Putin’s KGB. Seeing nothing wrong with that, selectively redacting the First Amendment, Republicans of the sort who attend Trump’s rallies will delight, unconcerned about future ramifications.

In South Korea this week, risking arrest or worse, its people rose up to force their president to rescind his declaration of martial law. That’s courageous commitment to democracy. With half of our country clamoring for Trumpian dictatorship, while their media revel in it, it seems unlikely to happen here. That’s indescribably more ominous than a parental pardon.

Transition

 

"I strongly support LGBTQ rights and equality. No one should be discriminated against. I have friends and family that identify as LGBTQ. Understanding how they feel and how they’ve been treated is important. Having been around gay, lesbian, and transgender people has informed my opinion over my lifetime.”

That was two years ago, spoken by opportunistic, values-bereft Congressperson Nancy Mace, R-SC, before the Trump campaign spent more money on anti-trans ads than anything else. Before, in other words, concluding that to retain one’s MAGA credentials, one must join the attack on vulnerable Americans; especially trans people.

So when Sarah McBride, D-Delaware, the first trans person to be elected to Congress, showed up, Ms. Mace took it upon herself to protect female users of Capital bathrooms from whatever threat she imagines happening by allowing Sarah McBride in. She was, of course, joined by Marjorie Taylor Greene, who never misses an opportunity to screech for Fox “news.” After which Speaker Mike Johnson, who’d previously informed us that God Himself had spoken to him and anointed him the Republican Party’s modern-day Moses, declared that his (or His?) gendered bathrooms may be used only according to one’s birth gender. For a look-at-me Christian, he sure is uncharitable.

Without going into the science, gender dysphoria is real. People who transition do so out of a deep, inborn need. It’s freeing. The number who regret doing so is tiny. As is the number of trans people in general, the attacks on whom for political gain is hugely disproportionate, and is based on the ease with which Trumpists’ fears and ignorance can be manipulated. To spend time worrying about bathroom occupants is to be distracted from the real and dangerous Project 2025 agenda.

What will happen if Sarah McBride uses a women’s restroom? She’ll walk in, go into a stall, close the door, attend to necessities, exit the stall, wash her hands (one assumes) and leave. Unless Mace and Greene like to parade around naked in bathrooms, and who can say they don’t, no one will see anything. They know this. They also know that that kind of nastiness works on their voters; that it does is indescribably sad. But it’s a preview of what can be expected from Trump and the people with whom he’s surrounding himself.

Ms. McBride, admirably, has handled this performative nastiness with uncommon grace. If you were to pass her in a hall, you’d see she feels like a natural woman. Or not notice her at all. Nevertheless, trans people across the country are on notice: under the Trump administration, you’re targeted. And it’s no more about bathrooms than it was about drinking fountains in the pre-civil rights South.

But Trumpists will tell us it’s all allowed, because, according to them, he won an overwhelming victory, achieving an unprecedented mandate. In fact, his margin in the popular vote was among the most narrow in history; in fact, 51% of voters voted against him. Nevertheless, when neo-Nazis marched in Ohio after the election, condemned strongly by President Biden and Ohio’s Governor DeWine, Trump felt “mandated” to remain silent. They, after all, are his people.

And their sort of bullying will be baseline for Trump’s administration. It’s reported that a member of Team Trump warned Senate Republicans who’d consider voting against his horrifying nominees, "If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary. That is all. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it." In the phrase “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” substitute “Trump’s billionaires” for “the people.” They represent the vast majority of his proposed appointees, many of whom in the most powerful positions are the architects of that Project of which he lied he knew nothing. In whose interest will they be acting? Not yours.

Nor will Pam Bondi, second-string but equally corrupt replacement for Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. In addition to protecting Trump from prosecution for his fraudulent “foundation,” she has promised that when she’s in charge, “prosecutors will be prosecuted... the investigators will be investigated.” People like Special Counsel Jack Smith, doing his job. It’s classic authoritarian suppression of opposition, step one on the march to dictatorship.

Which explains the delight coming from the Kremlin after Trump’s victory. It’s why they’ve been supporting him since that downward-heading escalator ride: As Gorbachev adopted western governance and brought down the Soviet Union, Trump embraces Russian governance and will bring down the US.

Qualifications

 

It was predictable that Trump would select unquestioning loyalists for his cabinet and other impactful positions. People who’d carry out his demands, no matter how damaging to the republic. People who applaud and will facilitate his need for revenge against all who’ve criticized him, who’ll bend to his desire to dismantle parts of government that he can’t use to his advantage.

Their other lodestar, after submissive prostration, will be “sticking it to the libs.” Because that, above all else, is what maintains support from the base, undisturbed if their own interests are betrayed as long as they can imagine liberals shedding tears. Assuming they considered their own interests, which, it appears, they haven’t. Not the sub-millionaires, anyway.

More surprising is the level of disqualifying incompetence of most of his choices. Surely there were adequately sycophantic yes-people with at least a minimum of experience in the fields over which they’d have control. Instead, we get Matt Gaetz, universally hated in Congress, with reason, as Attorney General; weekend Fox couch-dweller Pete Hegseth, who left the National Guard after being barred from protecting the capital during President Biden’s inauguration because he was deemed a possible “insider threat”; Tulsi Gabbard, zeroly experienced in intelligence matters, referred to in Russia as “our girlfriend” for her enthusiastic support of Putin (and Syria’s murderous Assad), as Director of National Intelligence. 

As obvious as their incompetence is, they must have been chosen because of it. Knowing nothing about their prospective institutions will make it easier to tear them down; ignorance allowing unconcern for the consequences to our country. The exception could be Gabbard: until proven otherwise, she was chosen by Putin.

Presumably having alternatives within the outer confines of credibility, Trump chose deep-space outliers. It’s the final showdown, to nail closed the Constitutional coffin. Figuring they won’t, because they never have, he’s daring Republican senators to cross him; seeing their invertebrate behavior since his golden de-escalation, he’s betting none will have the courage, let alone integrity, to reject his appointees.

And he’s betting those senators’ Trumpist voters will pressure them to acquiesce. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, by all measures the Senate’s dumbest member, has stated that he’d see to it (how, he didn’t say) that any who vote no will be punished. It’s the OK Corral.

Godly Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, holiest of his holy Republican Housemates, has urged that the Ethics Committee’s report on Matt Gaetz’s unholy sexual proclivities not be made public. His reasons are made of SCOTUS-quality whole cloth. He says he looks forward to seeing Trump’s cabinet “shake up the status quo,” but there’s more than one way to do that. January 6 un-statused the quo to the good of no one. For example.

This isn’t about reforming government; it’s about burning it down. It’s not, as Trumpists were lied into believing, to help average Americans. It’s about getting it out of the way of Trump’s vengeance and his oligarchical string-pullers’ greed.

Is this confrontation with Congress a gutsy move? Since that would have required layered thought and wise counsel, it’s unlikely. Reportedly, Gaetz became his choice on the spur of an airplane moment without consulting Susie Wiles, his to-be Chief of Staff, or anyone on his transition team. Blindsided, she’s been struggling ever since to polish that thing that can’t be polished. None of his selectees, it appears, were vetted. But three (plus Elon Musk) have in common Trump’s history of sexual predation. Maybe that’s it.

If Tulsi Gabbard becomes DNI, our allies, worried that she’d reveal their secrets to Putin and other adversaries, might refuse to share intelligence, leaving us isolated. After Trump’s private meeting with Russian officials following his first inauguration, remember, a top-level US agent was extracted from Russia for fear of discovery. Later, Trump tweeted satellite images that revealed secret US spy capabilities. It’s a pattern, forward to more of which our adversaries are surely looking.

And if worm-brained conspiracist RFK, Jr becomes head of HHS, for lack of vaccination children will die. Good researchers will leave. Dr. Oz managing Medicare and Medicaid? Don’t get sick.

(Mid-article update: Well, well, well. Gaetz dropped out. Convenient: now Trump doesn't have to admit a mistake. Next???)

Between now and inauguration, senators will be subjected to nonstop pressure to approve them all; from Trump, from voters eager for authoritarianism, from round-the-clock hectoring by every member of rightwing media. Odds are, they’ll cave like Fred and Wilma. If not, his rumored fallback is an untested Constitutional way to recess Congress on his own, and appoint at will. 

Pusillanimous behavior from Congressional Republicans is a given. But if, like MSNBC’s Scarborough and Brzezinski, mainstream media roll over for Trump, there’s nothing left. After their glowing report of their meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Joe and Mika got mocked by Trump. Pay attention, media. Got guts?

Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the world’s richest and most socially awkward man, is everywhere; in on Trump’s call to Zelensky, talking to Iran’s leaders, pressuring him on policy. If memory serves, Trump campaigned with a vice presidential pick. Anyone heard of him lately?

Gloatfest

 

Since the election, I’ve received gloating emails from dislikers of my columns. They’re entitled to it, but they should acknowledge who their gloatmates are. Like anti-everyone Nick Fuentes, Trump’s honored dinner guest at Mar-a-Lago, who immediately posted “To Women”: “Your body, my choice, forever.” They must also find it gloatworthy that racist emails were sent to Black students across the country, and that neo-Nazis are rejoicing. And looking to intimidate.

They must love that Trump named white-supremacist, anti-ALL immigration, Stephen Miller as Deputy Chief of Staff, in charge of policy. (Susie Wiles, his Chief of Staff choice, previewed the extent to which she’ll keep him within the law. When Trump showed her his stolen classified documents, she stayed mum about the crime.) Okay with suspected Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard as DNI? Matt Gaetz as Attorney General???

We presume my emailers find those choices, to whom the word "deplorable" really does apply, gloatastic. Like Fox’s Jesse Waters, they must think it’s “hysterical” to imagine parents and their terrified children held in detention camps, awaiting deportation. As yet unanswered: will the people doing the rounding-up be provided jackboots or will they have to purchase them?

Gloatiizers will have about two gloatable years. If Trump imposes tariffs and deportations as promised, they might do some retrodegloatation when prices of imports skyrocket; when various imported goods become unavailable; when crops die in fields for lack of harvesters, grocery shelves offering only dust. As deficits soar and interest rates rise, they’ll either have multiple gloatasms or help liberals return Congress to Democrats. Assuming they haven’t all been arrested, as Trump has threatened about the Clintons, Obamas, Bidens, Cheneys, and Pelosis.

Based on past performance, it’s unlikely Trump will fulfill all of his campaign promises. We can hope. He’s blown past one already, namely ending the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of being elected. He did, however, call Ukraine’s President Zelensky. For unfathomably ominous reasons, he shared that call with uber-oligarch Elon Musk; tacit acknowledgment of a shadow presidency to be. Trump said he also spoke to Putin, telling him not to escalate the war. The Kremlin denies the call. Showing him how ignorable they consider him, Putin escalated immediately. Making their disrespect of Trump even clearer, Russian TV then ran nude and semi-nude photos of Melania. (NSFW)

Rather than promised millions, maybe Trump will only deport migrants who committed serious crimes. That’d be okay. Maybe he’ll never get around to those living here for years, raising families including their US-born, citizen children, working, paying taxes, going to church. It’s doubtful Jesus would find it hysterical. Nevertheless, several gloatists cited their faith as a reason for choosing Trump. That’s professional-level compartmentalization. Tested to reject cruel, oligarchical autocracy, over half of America failed. Will there be, as there were during the Holocaust, citizens brave enough to shield their migrant neighbors?

As in 2016, Trump will inherit a booming economy. It’s a pattern repeated for decades: Republicans inheriting then ruining thriving economies, Democrats revitalizing them, and Republicans, when they regain power, taking pre-ruination credit. Since Trump will be busy dictatoring on Day One, expect him to wait a while before taking credit for President Biden’s economy, as he did with Obama’s. And to blame anyone but himself when his policies ruin it, yet again.

I’m neither the betting nor conspiratorial type, but I’ll put a nickel down that, soon as Trump’s installed, big agra will lower egg prices on which the election seems to have turned, giving not just a “win” for Trump, but themselves, too, having purchased deregulation that will allow making it all back by avoiding costly consumer protection measures. Eat safe, America.

No matter how unqualified, Trump will get every appointment he wants, based on a single criterion: unquestioning, prostrate loyalty. Not to Constitution or country. To Trump, exclusively. And election denial. As Senate Republicans have pre-caved on recess appointments, he might not seek confirmation. If he does, he’ll get it. Even for Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary, a Fox “news” host with no managerial experience who’s clearly unfit. He and Trump will purge generals who’ve stood for the Constitution. If he turns our military, as demanded, on Trump’s enumerated domestic enemies, gloaters will acquiesce. Throughout history, it’s what such people do.

For now, nothing and no one can stop Trump, my words least of all. But, despite its insignificance, were I to stop writing now, I’d feel like a coward. To withdraw in silence at the dawn of dictatorship would be to abandon duty that democracy demands. So, ineffectual as it is, I’ll keep it up. You, too, gloatophiliacs. In a couple of years, maybe less, we’ll learn who’s right. If it’s me, I won’t gloat. I’ll ponder how America can keep it from happening again. If it’s you, you’ll have time to apologize to your progeny.

America Has Chosen

 

Well, that was disappointing.

Since I’ve been wrong about the essential goodness of the American people, I can only hope I’m also wrong about the consequences of a Trump presidency with all guardrails removed. Blank checks, negative balances. Elon Musk. Stephen Miller. RFK, Jr. J.D. Vance in a couple of years. Tucker Carlson. A cabinet of unqualified yes-people. Mass deportation (if your roof needs replacing, better get it done right away). Tariffs. The Department of Justice turned into a vehicle of vengeance; the military turned against protestors. America stepping away from Ukraine and, likely, Gaza and the West Bank. Handing Europe to Russia. Pulling out of NATO? The UN, too? Outlawing vaccines, or just banning mandates? Eliminating FEMA and the National Weather Service? We’ll see. If so, it won’t be only blue states that will be on their own when disasters strike. 

Pregnant women will die. So will the free press. Science and education will succumb to calculated ignorance. Kids will get cavities. Measles. And, maybe, polio. Pollution will sully the land, which will warm even faster. These things the voters want, and we must accept that.

I’d like to think it was an “in spite of” election, but I’d be wrong about that, too. It was a “because of” election. The uglier Trump’s rhetoric became, the more they cheered. Whatever happens, however dictatorial, it’s what the voting majority wants, and I’ll have to live with that. At my age, it won’t be for long. But my sweet, innocent, loving, empathetic grandchildren? I can’t think about them without wanting to cry. At least, like the rest of us, they live in the Pacific Northwest, where good-hearted people are still and so far in the majority.

Does the Democratic Party need to search its soul? Do they need to bend the arc of their message toward Trumpism? No. They need to keep standing for what’s right. Maybe, after four years of Trump, people will see and hear, and remember for what America once stood. Assuming they’re not in camps and voting is still a thing.

That's it. That's all I have to say. It can, it DID happen here. Lawrence Ferlinghetti said it best:

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”

Or maybe it's gonna be great.

Madison Square Warning

 

At Madison Square Garden, Trump abandoned all pretense. He said to those who call him a fascist, “Yes I am, and I’m so sure my voters want it that I’ve gathered the greatest collection of profane, nasty, lying authoritarianism-lovers ever assembled. I’ll ride it to November 5 and as far beyond as necessary to get what I’m owed.”

After that fascist jamboree, Trump’s mouthpieces spent the next day doing damage control: the “joke” about Puerto Rico being garbage “doesn’t represent our views,” his campaign tested. But it does. They’d seen and approved that guy’s script, removing only one word. Also, recall that Trump delayed help for two years after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. When he finally showed up, he tossed paper towels like dropping pennies into a beggar’s bucket. That’s what represents his views.

The day after the Garden’s cesspool of nonstop negativity, Trump ignored the Puerto Rico insult and called it “a lovefest.” Team Trump selected each of those speakers, including the scumlord whose profane, foul screed against Hillary Clinton (is she running?) ought to have offended at least some of the cultists in attendance. Instead, there were cheers of delight.

None of the participants disavowed the unending invective. Trump upped the pollution with his usual lies about FEMA, Kamala Harris, immigrants, and voting, adding his Hitlerian “enemies within” incitement. Plus attacks on the press and promises to prosecute anyone who disagrees with him.

It’s unimaginable that that hate-filled display attracted undecided voters. Aimed strictly at his base, it wasn’t intended to. Hopefully, it turned away not only Puerto Rican Americans but anyone with at least a thimbleful of decency.

The degrading offensiveness of that rally, not coincidentally held in the same venue as an overtly Nazi one in 1939, should have repulsed all Americans. The latter was attended by the ideological fringe, while thousands of citizens protested outside. Its swastikas were overt, not implied. Nor was it organized and promoted by a former “president” of the United States, the convicted criminal re-choice of a once-respectable, not-fringe political party.

If that celebration of rage, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and torrential lies didn’t nail, screw, and padlock the coffin of Trumpism; if he’s elected or, like last time, “elected,” the America envisioned by its Founders no longer exists, and deserves everything that will follow: an economy wrecked by Trump’s reckless tariffs, except for companies willing to pay him tribute for exceptions; inflation worse than the post-Covid era, back to normal now under President Biden; handing the world, our allies, to global adversaries; trade wars; actual -- not made-up by time-wasting, performance-preferring House Republicans -- weaponization of government; malicious mistreatment of immigrants, legal or not; abuse of minorities and women; Project 2025 theocracy; loss of healthcare for millions; unsustainable increases in wealth inequality at the cost of helping anyone below millionaire status; and the adverse effects of losing millions of long-standing, hard-working, tax-paying, community-supporting but undocumented residents.

My grandchildren don’t deserve it, though. Trumpists’ grandchildren don’t, either. Yet it’s they who’ll suffer. For Trump, as he said about the possible hanging of Mike Pence, it’d be another “So what?” That he’s the best today’s Republicans can offer ought to dishearten everyone who considers themselves conservative. Or patriotic. Not to mention Christian. Or decent.

That rally was an ineradicable stain on America. Contrast it with Vice President Harris’ positivity and inclusivity, Tuesday, on the National Mall, attended by 75-thousand people, cheering for decency, not its opposite.

Am I angry? Damn right! It’s my country, too. Republicans used to be better than this. Americans used to reject authoritarians and their lies. With Vice President Harris, we might get it back. If Trump wins, it’s over. His venomous hate-fest at MSG removed any doubt.

On the other hand, the democracy we’re trying to save might not exist anyway. Not since our McConnell-packed Supreme Court handed elections to the ultra-richest and neutered the Voting Rights Act. Not since America’s oligarchs concluded crossing Trump would be unprofitable, whereas there’d be no retaliation from a President Harris, because she honors the idea of America. And they know how to get anything they want from Trump.

To wit: we’ve learned that the billionaire owners of the LA Times and the Washington Post, the latter being Jeff Bezos, who does much business with the government, overrode their papers’ intentions to endorse Vice President Harris. It’s a window to the future, where political cowardice before a bully leads to totalitarianism. In the darkness of a cowardly press, democracy dies. Trump has been working it since before day one.

We’ve also learned that Elon Musk, whose PAC just ran an ad saying “We can’t have a ‘C-word’ in the White House,” is in regular contact with Vladimir Putin. Gifting China at Putin’s request, Elon shut down his Starlink communication satellites over Taiwan. Imagine what else he – and Putin, Xi, and Kim -- would get away with under Trump, so easily manipulated by fake flattery from more powerful men.

AdVance Warning

"I don't know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance."

Mitt Romney said that. Mean and nasty aren’t terms typically used to describe Mitt, so it’s significant, because if Trump were to win, J.D. could become president within a couple of years. Who doubts he’d be delighted to invoke the 25th Amendment?

Wrapping himself in fundamentalism and Christian nationalism, Vance is a conscience-free opportunist; and whereas that also describes Trump, with Vance, it’s intentional. Unlike Trump, J.D. is smart. Not a pathological liar like Trump, who seems unable to help himself, Vance is a silky liar who chooses to be. Witness his one-eighty on Trump’s suitability for the presidency.

A poseur willing to say anything to gain advantage, he knows exactly what he’s doing. And, also unlike Trump, he can form words into coherent sentences. Like these, when asked whether Trump lost the election: “Not by the words I would use.” Wow. To Vance, words are meaningless except as weapons aimed at the ill-informed. It’s the Humpty Dumpty theory of language. 

And these, intended to deceive gullible MAGAs: “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their minds in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation?” Excellent question, Senator. Did she? When? How? Got receipts? Just asking questions, right?

More words: “Kamala Harris, who has tried to arrest everything from pro-life activists to her political opponents … used the Department of Justice as a weapon against people.” Again: When? How? What’s the proof? (Never mind: MAGAs don’t require or even want proof. Just saying it is enough to convince.)

From Trump, such blatancy is baseline. Bizarre and disgusting, but expected, predictable. From Vance, who, it’s presumed, can tell a lie from the truth, this mountain of mendacity is even more disqualifying than Trump’s. The hands of someone knowingly pushing premeditated lies so unabashedly ought not be within reach of the levers of power. Or that red button.

Here’s an indicator of where he stands on the Constitution, asked about certifying the 2020 election, one of only two inscribed duties of a Vice President: “I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors,” he averred, contrasting himself with “an-illegal-bridge-too-far-even-for-me” hyper-sycophantic Mike Pence.

After Liz Cheney accurately described him as “unfit for office,” Vance let loose this smacker of all remaining gobs: “She’s not motivated by a love of this country. She’s a resentful, petty, small person,” (motivated) “by an obsessive hatred of the people who cost her Wyoming congressional seat.” Former Congresswoman Cheney was precisely motivated by love of country when, knowing it’d cost her her seat, she sided with the Constitution over the criminal Donald Trump. She did that long before she was voted out of office because of it. Like Trump, J.D. can’t imagine having the courage and decency to take a costly, principled stand.

And let’s not forget his weirdness. Here are his thoughts on his children. 

There’s more to say about Vance, but, with the election days away, there are other issues. Here’s one: Trump’s former Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, finally laid it all out.

Also: the most ubiquitous anti-Harris TV ad says she wants your tax dollars to pay for transgender surgery for prisoners. And here’s guidance from the Trump-appointed Board of Prisons, back in those dark days, regarding gender-affirming treatment of prisoners: “Medical care may include pharmaceutical interventions (e.g., cross-gender hormone therapy), hair removal and surgery (if individualized assessment indicates surgical intervention is applicable).” Accusing others of doing what they do? Whodda thunk, right?

Something that deserves to be widely seen, and won’t be but if it were wouldn’t penetrate a single MAGA skull is this revealing interview with the man who promoted Trump’s fake “reality” show, The Apprentice, coming clean. He confesses to creating the myth of Trump the successful businessman out of whole cloth; describes Trump’s cluelessness and nastiness, acknowledges that without that falsified show, Trump would have remained the third-rate laughing stock in New York City that he was at the time, and would never have become “president.” “I hope it’s not too late,” he said, too late.

Believing Trump’s lies about FEMA, cheering when he calls Kamala Harris a “shit vice-president,” and all the rest, is sad proof of how lost MAGAs are. Trump is explicitly running as a fascist. They don’t care. They relish it.

Hopefully not too late are Republicans joining forces to vote for the Harris/Walz ticket, Liz Cheney topping the increasingly long list. Making the case that a vote for Harris is the only conservative option, hers and Harris’ interview with former conservative talk-show host Charlie Sykes is must-see, especially for undecided voters (do they really exist?)

Let’s end with hilarity: Trump’s fry-cook-fakery at McDonald’s. The store was closed, the actions rehearsed, the “customers” hand-picked Trumpists, told what to do, which they did, knowing it was phony. If that isn’t the perfect metaphor for Trumpism, nothing is. 

And he still hasn’t done a day’s worth (or twenty minutes) of honest work. Kamala Harris, by contrast, has.

Faulty Framers

Around 250 years ago, give or take, a group of mostly young, liberally educated men, imbued with revolutionary fervor and committed never again to live under authoritarian rule, argued and compromised their way to creating a nation based on enshrined, secular law and the unprecedented notion that its citizens would have the ultimate say on how and by whom they’d be governed. Perhaps, if the Framers had included women and non-whites, it’d have been more bulletproof. (As it were.)

Those men were farsighted and preternaturally brilliant, but not enough, tragically, to have envisioned the ease with which, centuries later, through a combination of dishonest media on one side and cowardly ones on the other, plus diminished public education and increasingly militant Christian nationalism, not to mention an ideological Supreme Court removing voting protections and allowing anonymous millions of dollars to buy elections, citizens could become enthralled by a pathological liar, fake Christian, malignant narcissist seeking power for personal aggrandizement and vengeance against those who’ve seen him as he is and called him on it.

During his popular-vote-losing “presidency,” Trump appointed 44 cabinet-level people, 40 of whom are now urging us not to vote for him. His highest-ranking general has described him as “fascist to the core.” His former Secretaries of State and Defense, among others, warn of existential danger should he regain the presidency. His consistently-debunked election lies are believed by nearly half the country and are the basis for legislatures in Republican states limiting access to voting by people likely to vote against them, under the pretext of preventing fraud, which, except for the occasional Republican, is virtually nonexistent. 

Trump treats truthfulness like he did his first two wives. He’s offering nothing that promotes the general welfare, establishes justice, ensures domestic tranquility, or secures the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. It’s as if, in MAGA world, those prefatory Constitutional ideals were written in disappearing ink. Now, his utterances are mostly mephitic lies and promises to punish “migrants,” whom he describes as genetically-inferior murderers and rapists who’ll “break into your kitchen and slit your throat.”

People leaving his rallies must be doing so when he wanders away from feeding their lust for retribution or calling Kamala Harris “retarded,” and into bizarre discursions about sharks, batteries, and cannibals. Or, as just happened, standing on stage, mute, for 39 minutes. 

Lies excuse hate. Hate excuses lies. The latest instance of dangerously delusional MAGA behavior comes from North Carolina, where, following Trump’s and his smarter clone’s fulminating falsehoods about the Biden administration’s response to devastating hurricanes, FEMA removed workers from hard-hit Rutherford County because of threats of harm to them. And not just North Carolina.

Lies like that, endangering others, are the epitome of Trumpism and Trump, reflecting who he is and what he’ll do if given another chance. This time, though, there’d be no generals or Secretaries to dissuade him. Who doubts that Trump, if hearing about those FEMA incidents, would say what he did when told January 6 rioters were threatening the life of his Vice President: “So what?”

Given Trump’s obvious decline, torrential lying, and fascist foghorns (not dog whistles), that the election remains close means his supporters aren’t rationalizing his promise of wrathful dictatorship; they WELCOME it. Nearly half of America must relish imagining Trump, as he told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo last week, loosing our military on “radical left lunatics.” He mentioned Adam Schiff and, later, Nancy Pelosi; but he means all liberals. "The enemy within," he calls us, speaking fluent Fascist. 

Other than that, what does Trump offer those supporters? Few are wealthy enough to receive his tax cuts. Many are benefitting from Obamacare, which Trump has promised to end. All will suffer the consequences of unregulated pollution. They, not other countries, will pay higher prices and face the inflation his tariffs will cause. And, because Trump will ignore it, their grandchildren will have to live, if they can, with intolerable climate change.

No, it must be delighted anticipation of seeing millions of darker-skinned people rounded up and sent to detention camps awaiting deportation. And, because Trump would appoint a willing Attorney General, it’s visualizing President Biden, Vice President Harris, Governors Walz and Newsom, the Clintons, truthful reporters, Merrick Garland, and every prosecutor pursuing Trump’s crimes, arrested and tried by a military tribunal before being locked away. (Some, evidently, will vote for him because he’s lying.) 

Trump’s promise of Constitution-ignoring, punitive autocracy, his racism, misogyny, and xenophobia are increasingly obvious, though some, like Virginia’s Governor Younkin, would have you believe otherwise. Trumpists act offended when accused of sharing those views, but to vote for him is to enable and, therefore, to approve of them. It’s to reject America’s foundational ideals.

When nearly half the electorate is defenseless against malign manipulation, autocracy arrives and democracy departs. Our eighteenth-century founders believed they’d prevented it. It wasn’t the only thing they got wrong.

A Theme-a FEMA Lies

 

Okay, some things demand that one not remain silent, lest one’s unvented head explode. Specifically, it’s Trump’s and MAGA’s weapons-grade lies about Hurricane Helene and FEMA’s response that threaten to push gray matter out one’s ears. Because only the most deeply confused, brain-confiscated Foxified will believe MTG’s claims that “they” control hurricanes and direct them to Republican-populated areas, we’ll speak no further of them. Or maybe we should. But it’s Trump’s lies that bring MAGAs to him. With Helene, he’s going aller-inner.

To refute many of Trump’s prior lies, some effort has been necessary. Was Barack Obama really born in Kenya? Did he actually send “investigators” to Hawaii and were they finding “amazing things”? Is he an honest golfer? But debunking his FEMA/Helene lies requires only listening to the governors of affected states. Trump is doing the shoe thing, and his cult have removed their socks.

It’s pathetically obvious. It’s mendacious brazenness that ought to offend everyone, and finally awaken Trumpists to how they’ve been played since his golden descent. It confirms Trump’s certainty that his voters are stupid, his media shameless, and that slack-spine, lack-moral MAGA politicians will further his lies. And he’s right. It’s the perfect simulacrum of Trumpism. 

With Trump and MAGA, accusations are confessions. Trump lied that President Joe Biden is withholding aid for Republican areas, whereas until his people convinced him that there were Republicans in California, he’d withheld aid during their horrific wildfires. He lied that President Joe Biden diverted money away from FEMA to help migrants, but it was Trump who took $270 million from FEMA to pay for his border detention jails. 

It’s a window into how he’d “govern” were he to win (or, like last time, “win”) in November. Trumpists would welcome his vengeful authoritarianism like the Second Coming; between the biblical version and his re-election they’d see no difference. Contemplating the next disaster, though, everyone else should remember Trump’s promise to rid the government of FEMA and other expertise. And vote accordingly.

The comprehensive response of President Joe Biden’s team to the hurricane, including pre-positioning resources before it hit, shows Trump’s Puerto Rico towel-toss (after delaying help for weeks) for what it was. If he thinks it helps him, or if it gives his needy ego pleasure, Trump is happy to let people suffer. In the case of Helene, he’s lying to convince voters that it’s been a failure like his own. If desperate people believe FEMA is confiscating homes, or that all they’ll get is $750, and if those lies convince them to reject help, who cares? Not Trump. Not Congressional Rs, who’re refusing to allocate more funds to FEMA as President Joe Biden is requesting, because political posturing and kowtowing to Trump is what they do.

How can people still overlook Trump’s lies when they’ve become so obvious and pernicious? Even considering decades of Foxification, this amount of acceptance is shocking.

There will always be people who’d drink Jim Jones’ Kool-Aid, who’d succumb to other suicide cults, like Heaven’s Gate. People in such pain that they’re easily manipulated by narcissistic maniacs are, on some level, sadly understandable. But this is on a scale that defies explanation. Or, because it’s so destructive, sympathy. And it’s in America, where, despite Trump’s other big lie, things are going pretty well; where, at one time, people preferred truth over lies.

Putting in office such deplorables as Trump, Vance, Greene, Boebert, Jordan, Comer, Fox, Gosar, Johnson, the other Johnson, Cruz, Hawley, Tillis, Tuberville, DeSantis, Scott, Abbott, Paxton, Walters (I could go on for days) used to be the exception. Now, to be elected by Republicans, being a cruel, faux-Christian liar is a requirement. Tuberville-Greeneian stupidity helps, too.

It's possible, but unlikely, that, at this stage of his mental decline, Trump is unaware he’s lying. But not all of the aforementioned miscreants are demented. Vance knows. Cruz knows. But, because it’s the only way to maintain power over people that demand it, they repeat Trump’s lies. It’s a doom-loop, affecting all Americans. A November blowout is the last chance to break it, which is why Republican legislatures are making it harder for Democratic constituents to vote, and Lara Trump’s RNC is placing election-denying election officials all around the country.

But maybe this breaking news will engender an awakening: when Americans couldn’t get Covid testing equipment, partly because Trump thought knowing the extent of infections would harm his image, he secretly shipped kits to Putin for his personal use. And, since being flung from office, he’s maintained frequent contact with Vlad, the dictatorial idol to whom he genuflects for reasons we may never know. Ominously, he sent aides out of the room during those conversations. 

So much for “Russia, Russia, Russia” being a hoax, right MAGAs? It’s time to acknowledge your mistake and become the patriots you claim to be.

Decision Time

People still attending Trump’s rallies, albeit in diminishing numbers, who aren’t among those walking out while he’s still speaking, will love every lie, every grade-school-level personal attack on Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. History confirms that humanity includes a plentitude of terrible people; still, it’s jarring to hear the cheers and laughter when Trump says, “Joe Biden became mentally impaired. It’s sad, but lying Kamala Harris, honestly, I believe she was born that way.” That’s an unsubtle combination of racism and misogyny, which explains the joyous crowds’ reaction. And it’s projection: lying is his lifelong m.o., his raison d’etre. That it’s become the expected call and response at all Trump rallies speaks ill.

In Georgia, Trump added to his intra-galactic record of consecutive days with at least ten lies by claiming, a day after Governor Kemp had said he’d talked with President Joe Biden and received everything he’d asked for, that Kemp had been unable to reach Biden. Each of the governors of the four states most affected by the hurricane said the same: they’re getting what they need.

Trump’s visit was a photo-op to show how much he cares, in contrast to President Biden and Vice-President Harris who, by implication, don’t. That appearing amid rescue efforts distracts personnel from those efforts, and that the governors had asked them to stay away for now, mattered not to Trump and to his fluffers on Foxian media. His and their shamelessness knows no end. At least he didn’t toss paper towels this time. Nor did he mention Project Trump 2025’s intent to end FEMA and the National Hurricane Center. Funny, that.

For shamelessness, though, and evil, Trump hit an all-time low, directly accusing Kamala Harris of murder, blaming her personally for “letting in” a migrant who murdered someone. She may as well have had the gun in her hand, he said. “Lock her up,” chanted his delighted pawns. Suddenly it’s vice-presidents who make policy; who are responsible for inflation (but not its decline?), for border crossings (but not the reduction in same?), and whatever else Trump and MAGA Republicans would have us believe. Like rising crime which is falling. Puzzlingly, none of them credit Mike Pence for what Trump claims as accomplishments. He was, after all, hanging around.

The Constitution assigns one and only one job to the Vice President: breaking ties in the Senate. Which Kamala Harris did on several occasions, to the benefit of us all. Weirdly, it didn’t come up in the VP debate.

Made clear, though, is that JD Vance is a much more talented liar than Trump. He definitely won on style points, solid as a Yale padlock. And Governor Walz struck out looking as several fat, hanging curveballs floated by; a better debater would have knocked them out of the park. Like the whopping fabrication that Trump “saved” Obamacare. What saved it was the thumb heard 'round the world. 

The programmed stuff is now over. Trump not only refuses to debate Vice-President Kamala Harris again, but he just backed out of appearing on 60 Minutes. Maybe it’s because, at a speech in Wisconsin, he looked and sounded weak and defeated, speaking barely above a whisper. And the smallifying crowd was all but silent. Even his lies about “bare cupboards” when Covid hit got nothing. Not mentioned was the fact that one of his early “presidential” acts was to disband the pandemic preparedness group established by President Obama. Probably just an oversight.  

For all but the inexplicably remaining “undecideds,” minds are made up. A few “conservative” pundits are cynically demanding more “specifics” from Kamala Harris, despite the fact that she’s provided many and Trump’s have mainly been about economy-destroying, inflationary tariffs, imprisoning his enemies and, hot off the depresses, an unconstitutional day of wilding by police in which bad guys like shoplifters would be “roughly” taken out.

By now, we know who Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump are. It’s time to stop being distracted, as hoped by Team Trump, by squirrels; like almost non-existent transgenderizing of incarcerated criminals. An exception might be noting that when Trump just said that “eighteen years ago” San Francisco was the greatest city in the US, Kamala Harris was its District Attorney. History isn’t among his strong suits, evidently. Or arithmetic. Unless the curiously-timed longshore strike, led by their union president who’s a prominent pal of Trump, has an impact, there’s not much left to decide.. 

Which is another way of saying this column, written on an aging laptop by a man a month from 80 years old, sitting in a recliner with no commentary credentials, read by tens of people, is inconsequential. Maybe the best approach, for now at least, is to let things play out and remain silent. Let the cow chips fall where they may.

Leader Of The Pack

The drift of the Republican Party away from partnership in producing positive legislation began with Newt Gingrich (“a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like”), if not before. DeLay, Ailes, Limbaugh (Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump, unremembered in death), Breitbart, Jones, Carlson, Hannity. The list goes on. All of them facilitated Trump’s emergence as the personification of their party’s decline.

Rather than detriments, his lying, gaslighting, ignorance, fake Christianity, and narcissistic nastiness became vehicles for success. It released what must have been building for years among Republicans (as opposed to conservatives, of which there remain, uncloseted, but a few); namely, a preference for electing people disinterested in legislation but committed to “sticking it to the libs.” Performative outrage and constant denigration were necessary and sufficient for MAGA candidates to be elected.

A few decades ago, it was beyond imagination that the party of Dan Evans, Mark Hatfield, John McCain, Barry Goldwater, Margaret Chase Smith, Everett Dirksen, and dozens more, would nominate for governor such an awful human as North Carolina’s self-described “Black Nazi,” vile social media poster Mark Robinson. Nor would they have countenanced a presidential candidate of that party who referred to Robinson as “better than Martin Luther King” and “Martin Luther King on steroids.” To Trump, skin color defines a person.

The presence of Trump as head of the party has freed red state voters to unlock deeply-held resentments of all people unlike them, to elect people like Boebert, Greene, Gaetz, Fox, Cruz, Cotton, Hawley, et uck, who contribute nothing to the common weal, but make a living appearing on rightwing media, pleasing themselves and their voters by attacking and lying about liberals.

Trump is the template for all but a few Republicans serving in Congress. Under Trump’s influence, the Republican Party elects the worst of the worst. It’s what they want. Old-school conservatives are tossed aside like Trump’s rumored adult diapers. 

Trump’s business failings, his lies and serial adultery, his bragging about sexual predation were well-known. Millions were fine with it and voted for him. (Many millions fewer than for Hillary Clinton, let’s not forget.) To North Carolinians, Mark Robinson’s Holocaust denial, misogyny, and anti-LGBT diatribes were known, too. Nevertheless, he was elected Lieutenant Governor and is their current choice for Governor. The logical conclusion is that MAGA Republicans want their candidates to be horrible.

Placing Jim Jordan and James Comer as chairmen of important investigatory committees, successive Republican Speakers of the House stood by appreciatively as their undisguised weaponization of government became routine. Having struck out with impeaching President Joe Biden, they’re moving on to “investigating” Tim Walz and his family. Vice President Kamala Harris’ tenure at McDonald’s is surely next.

And they’re doing it out of obsequious obeisance to Trump, such an unworthy candidate that, knowing it’s false, he continues his lie that Haitian immigrants are eating their host city’s pets. But, next to his stolen election lies, all others pale in damage to our democracy. As evident senility increasingly takes hold, some are becoming simply laughable. 

His latest, but surely not final outrage is preemptively blaming “the Jews” if he loses the election. Notwithstanding how ignorant he is about nearly everything, from Bitcoin to tariffs and windmills and alliances, he knows the consequences of such a detestable statement, virtually asking for violent reprisals. Which we can be sure there will be. His flock will feel called upon to do it. Because they were.

After the second assassination attempt, which Trumpworld blamed exclusively on liberals and their truthful rhetoric, Trump and Vance and every rightwing screamer demanded liberals tone it down; by which they meant stop accurately pointing to the dangers that Project Trump 2025 represents. No one should call a political opponent a fascist, Vance hypocrisized.

Within moments, Trump and Vance (“Trance”) were back to lying about Haitian menu choices and claiming Kamala Harris is a "radical left Marxist, socialist, communist fascist." There’s been no moratorium on their inflammatory prevarication. Who’d have predicted otherwise?

Trance wants the facts about them buried while they continue to lie about Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz. Because he’s smart enough to know better, Vance’s lies are worse than Trump’s. 

If, first time around, some voters didn’t fully understand who Trump is, after four years in office and four even more horrifying years out of it (both senses of the term), there’s no excuse for pretending he’s fit for election (by the Electoral College) to a second term. Given what’s been seen from him since his ejection, it’s inconsistent with decency that a decent person could vote for him again. We know why anti-Semites do. Homophobes and racists. Xenophobes, for sure. (Prepare to be disgusted). But decent? No.

By now, remaining undecided (one bad word, but excellent link) is like having a fire in your house and demanding more information about their hoses before letting firefighters in. 

The Man Who Would Be ... President

 

One takeaway from the debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump is the annoyance of articles that promise “(insert number) takeaways from (insert event).” Here are three of mine: 1) fact-checking is a waste of time, 2) fewer people are paying attention than one would hope, and 3) focus groups confirm 1 and 2.

A worthwhile online destination is “The Bulwark,” consisting of current and former Republicans, traditional conservatives, always brilliant and, therefore, never-Trumpers. All have impressive resumés, as advisors to past Republican candidates, campaign managers, commentators, writers. Founder of The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol is one. Former RNC Chair Michael Steele is another. Unlike MAGA Republicans, they also have a sense of humor. For those seeking current information and thoughtful opinion, there’s a YouTube channel and a website. Their publisher, Sarah Longwell, is a cogent political analyst and leader of focus groups. Her post-debate sessions have been somewhere between reassuring and disconcerting.

One “undecided” voter said she hadn’t known that Trump pressured Congressional Republicans to block the tough, problem-solving, bipartisan border bill so he could continue to use immigration as his central campaign issue. That act of seditious skullduggery is perfectly revelatory of what he is (deplorable) and who he is not (a patriot).

At this late date, remaining unaware must be due to derelict disinterest in politics or getting one’s news only from Foxish sources. Which suggests, given how closely divided our country is, that November’s election could be decided by people who know approximately nothing about the candidates or what’s at stake. Whether Trump wins may depend on people who believe his lie that he’s unaware of Project 2025, for one example, or who are unfamiliar with it. For the latter, here’s a helpful primer.

Most of the participants in Longwell’s focus groups agreed Vice President Kamala Harris prevailed in the debate and were put off by Trump’s claim about Haitians in Springfield Ohio eating neighborhood pets. How many of the sixty million viewers of the debate believed it, though? Enough that there’ve been dozens of bomb threats to Springfield’s government offices and schools. True to form, Trump refused to condemn those threats. JD Vance let slip that they know the claims are groundless, but push them for political advantage. MAGA.

Denying, but knowing he got trounced in the debate, Trump now claims that V.P. Kamala Harris was given questions in advance. Trumpists are sure she received coaching through her earrings. Perennially incapable of actual governance, House Republicans plan to investigate. But the explanation is obvious: diligent preparation for anticipated questions on predictable topics. Purposeful – let’s call it presidential -- preparation. Something with which Trump, who famously refused to read his daily briefings as “president” and didn’t bother to prepare for foreign visits, is wholly unfamiliar.

Since the debate, we’ve seen other examples of who Trump is. He’s been traveling with and pawing the most deplorable of MAGA women (there’s plenty of competition, with one of whom she shares a first name): Laura Loomer. A Holocaust denier and 9/11 conspiracist, she’s a racist xenophobe whose vile rhetoric makes Ann Coulter seem like Emily Dickinson. She claims the Ohio Haitians aren’t just pet-eaters, but cannibals. Not unlike a local Republican candidate, reportedly, she calls for Democrats to be executed.

Even nasty Marjorie Taylor Greene finds Ms. Loomer offensive (jealous, Marge?), saying the lady isn’t what MAGA stands for. But MAGA is Trump and Trump loves Loomer, so it most definitely is. Also included in his current coterie is Pizzagate conspirator Jack Posobiec. Trump pushed Loomer- and Posobiec-level conspiracies long before he inner-circled them.

The man MAGAs trust with America’s future is showing us the kind of people with whom he’d surround himself if elected.

After Taylor Swift endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump posted on Truthless Sociopath, colloquially known as “Truth Social,” I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT! That’s the entire post, fourth-grader level from the man who would be president; so easily triggered by Taylor Swift and V.P. Harris that he descends into madness. Like his recent promise to deport those Ohio Haitians to – wait for it – Venezuela. But they’re here on Temporary Protected Status, making deportation illegal. Not that legality matters to a convicted felon, sex predator, and fraudster. Or his besotted believers.

Corollary to Trump’s psychic fragility is the ease with which he succumbs to flattery. If Trumpists don’t see it, the world does. Here’s a link to Australian Prime Minister Malcomb Turnbull describing Trump’s puppy-dog behavior around Putin and other dictators. All Americans should be appalled, because appalling is what it is. For America, Trump needs to lose. By a lot.

Underscoring the need, a letter has just been published by over a hundred Republicans, former members of the Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, Trump administrations and Congress, stating Trump’s absolute unfitness to be president. They expect, they wrote, to disagree with Kamala Harris on many issues, but gave full-throated support to her integrity and qualities befitting a president. If Taylor Swift’s endorsement won’t affect conservatives, maybe this will.