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.

Not Debatable

 

Around thirty percent of voters, the kind that attend Trump’s rallies or wish they could, who cheer at everything he says no matter how dishonest, disconnected from reality, or undecipherable, will support him no matter what. No amount of fact-checking or pointing out dangers will dissuade them. They love the idea of his promised military tribunals convicting and imprisoning the Obamas, Bidens, Clintons, members of Congress’s January 6 Committee, people he falsely accuses of election fraud, including election officials, voters, and donors; even some of their neighbors. The similarity to the world’s worst dictatorships concerns them not; it’s their most fevered dream.

When Trump says rounding up undocumented migrants will be “a bloody story,” they must imagine it with delight. Unbatted eyes view his phantasm of school children heading off to school, only to return home sex-changed. Held down, castrated, given vagino- or phalloplasties, mastectomies or implants, presumably by the school nurse. Only people whose detectors have been wiped away like bugs on a windshield believe such obvious b.s.

They also buy his stunningly counterfactual claim (lie!) that tariffs are a tax on other countries and won’t cost American consumers a penny. It’s unsurprising that a “businessman” who managed to bankrupt casinos and several other projects could so thoroughly misunderstand economics; likewise his thirty percenters who lack the capacity to question it. But the ones bringing his support even with or ahead of Kamala Harris? Clueless voters, voting.

People educated beyond fourth grade ought not need explaining; but, for the record, tariffs are paid for by consumers, not the producing countries. They raise prices. They’re inflationary. To conservatives, they once were anathema. Think: a country sells a widget to importers for ten dollars. The US demands a ten percent tariff, which it collects not from the sender but from the importer, who then sells it to consumers at an increased price to cover their increased costs.

Trump’s “plan” would raise the cost to consumers of whatever imports he chooses by whatever rate he decides. He’s threatened as much as 100% on cars, and not just for China. Imports from everywhere. The money from tariffs comes from Americans. The US has no power to tax other countries. Our timid media should call him on it. 

He’d have you believe tariffs solve everything: the trillions he says other countries pay (lie!) will balance the budget, eliminate the national debt, and cover the cost of everything he’s promising, including tax cuts for the wealthy. Is he so stupid that he actually believes that, or is it just that he thinks his voters are? If, as tariffs are intended, consumers switch to buying only American-made products, there’d be a worldwide recession, and there’d be no revenue from tariffs. Until other countries’ retaliatory tariffs kicked in, American businesses would do fine; and, absent competition from abroad, raise prices. Either way, consumers lose.

Trump’s tariff lie is but one of the countless others on which mainstream media fail to push back, while Foxophilic media amplify them, because they DO think their listeners are stupid. In Tuesday’s “debate,” awakening voters to Trump’s lies, Kamala Harris did the best she could in the time allowed. With minimal pushback, debate “moderators” let Trump say whatever he wanted, rant about a horrible future that won’t happen, and ignore questions.

Asked why he forced Republicans to vote down the border bill that would have solved much of the current problems, he avoided answering and the feck-deficient “moderators” moved on. They did, however, let him melt down time and again, repeating his golden oldie lies about crime, immigration, and, yes, tariffs.

To her true statement that world leaders laugh at him, he proffered Hungary’s notorious dictator, Victor Orban, as a character reference. Comedy gold.

The thirty percent will think Trump “crushed” Vice President Harris. Notwithstanding being prevented from responding to all of his lies (or maybe she just chose to ignore them), Kamala Harris did extremely well. Real pundits, though, will tell us what to really think.

Now, Trump voters must ask themselves: his own Vice President, Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Chief of Staff, Secretary of State, National Security Adviser, and many of his Cabinet, people who’ve been with him in the Oval Office and the Situation Room, are warning of the dangers of another Trump term. What do you think you know about him that they don’t? Why is your assessment, from afar, more accurate than those who worked with him, daily, up close?

In the biggest of pictures, beyond yourself, for your country, how is it better to have as president a confabulating liar who will, despite is truthless denials, follow Project 2025’s path to autocracy, rather than a current Vice President, former senator, attorney general, prosecutor, who’ll protect your freedom and democracy and respect our laws, even if you don’t agree with every one of her policies?

Brain Drain

 

I apologize to all the veterans and their families I’ve offended. It was a very bad mistake.

Can anyone imagine Trump saying that? About anything, let alone his Arlington Cemetery desecration? One of the last honorable Republicans, John McCain did, using those final six words. Instead, after floating various excuses and lies, Trump went with “it was a setup” by the Biden administration and, yes, even Gold Star families.

Dutifully, JD Vance tried to flip it to attack Kamala Harris. “She wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up?” Vance said. “She can go to hell.” Big cheers. At the time, she’d said not a word about it. Later, she did, and remains topside.

In addition to Trump’s inability to take responsibility, there’s his lack of core values, seen as he set the 24-hour flipflop record, on Florida’s six-week abortion ban. (Advice for the Vice President: when he attacks her changed positions, she should say, “He was once a pro-choice Democrat. I changed for the better; he changed for the worse.”)

Last week, to “Moms for Liberty,” who are, more accurately, moms for the exact opposite, Trump said this: “The transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. Your kid goes to school and he comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s gonna happen to your child. And you know many of these childs (sic) say fifteen years later “What the hell happened? Who did this to me?”” OMG: It's real!

Suspecting that Kamala Harris will do the transgenderizing surgery herself, it’s unlikely the “moms” were concerned that a would-be recidivist “president” uttered something so hallucinatory, so bizarre, so weird that no brain within two standard deviations of stable could have birthed it.

There are only two possibilities for being so unloosed from reality: Either his mind is so unraveled that he actually thinks it happens, or he knows it doesn’t but assumes voters will believe and vote for him. Except within the most Foxified, uncritical, Trumpically-unbalanced minds, both should be considered disqualifying for another stint in the White House. As we witness him becoming increasingly incoherent, everywhere, option one is the more likely.

Imagine: Trump, divorced from reality even more than from his first two wives on whom he cheated, is in the Situation Room, faced with a multifactorial international crisis, demanding that he process rapidly changing, incomplete information, and evaluate advice from his confidants. As he’s made clear, those advisers will have been chosen not for competence but for obsequious willingness to do whatever Trump asks, constitutionality and rationality be damned. He’s said he’ll purge his “government” of career experts, so the advice he gets will be useless sycophancy. The prospect of him applying his dissociative thinking, unrestrained, ought to be terrifying to everyone. Likely, he’d just ask, “WWPD”?

Who but MAGAs could trust him to make well-reasoned decisions in the best interest of the US? Only those who love him for his hatefulness, finding all else irrelevant, could rationalize putting him back there, finger on the nuclear button. He’s promised to fire all general officers who refused to activate his impulsive, catastrophic ideas first time around, and replace them with ones like deranged, QAnon-adherent Michael Flynn.

If not for truthless rightwing and feckless mainstream media, the nightmare prospect of Trump again in office, babbling like he did to the “moms” while making critical decisions, should put him behind in the polls 75-25%. That he’s not confirms the anti-democracy success of post-Reagan endumbification efforts by Republicans.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to stoke and praise violence. At a rally last week, an attendee leapt into the press area and had to be tased and restrained by police. Trump said, “That’s beautiful” and "That's alright. That's OK. No, he's on our side.” The man to whom the Supreme Court gave near-absolute immunity for crimes. The man readying his mobs for another January 6. 

Who “our side” is, if not already clear, might be learned from his recent choices of rally venues: Howell, Michigan. Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Johnstown, Pennsylvania. What they have in common is that they were once known as “sundown towns,” cities in which Blacks were not allowed to be out after dark. Perhaps it’s unintended coincidence. I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but they are what they are. 

Always for conspiracy theories, Trump is now suggesting the assassination attempt was an “inside job,” coordinated by President Biden. But it balances the social media chatter that it was orchestrated by Trump, to get that money-making photo op. The evidence is that, like school shooters, the perpetrator was a solo, sick person.

There’s another sick person, too, one who endangers us all. Maybe not solo, though, as he’s the choice of a major political party. He was “president” once. Remember how it was. For the sake of all Americans, including his deluded supporters, he must never be again.

A Tale Of Two Cities

 

At last week’s Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris’ and Tim Walz’s speeches were far from the characterizations that followed from Trump and Trumpists (socialist! communist!). Her statements on foreign policy and military support were mainstream Republican until Trump. Healthcare for all? More affordable housing? Only communist ideas? She’s a mainstream liberal, is what she is. Thankfully, America has always had them.

Most of the country is ready to leave behind the grievance-fueled, insult-driven, truth-avoidance of Trump and his eponymous ism. The RNC was a festival of those things. And Trump. Sent from God Trump. Lying Trump. Weirdly-bandaged-ear Trump. Yes, Democratic delegates cheered their speakers, too; but less for who they are than for what they said.

The RNC was insular. The DNC was outsular. It was about love of country, positivity, freedom. And football. Welcoming everyone. It voiced concern even for Trump voters while encouraging them to reconsider their support. As Reverend/Senator Raphael Warnock said, a vote is a kind of prayer. For true conservatives, it ought to be for an end to the cult of Trump; for America, a plea to raise from the dead the Republican Party of old. Kamala Harris won’t end the rule of law. Trump tried once and has promised to again.

In Chicago, the DNC showcased its current and past leaders. In Milwaukee, the RNC purposefully turned to division, disparagement of all things not-Trump, and avoided mention of its former heroes. Which makes sense: the party of Trump has no respect for any of them. In part, that explains why of 44 members of Trump’s inner circle, 40 refused to attend and most are stating he should never be president again. At the DNC, we heard some of the reasons why.

Fox “news” refused to show the speech of Republican Adam Kinzinger, who urged fellow conservatives to vote for Kamala Harris; not, he said, in agreement with her policies but as an act of true conservatism: preservation of the Republic, bringing their party back to the party. Most people reading this will have seen it, but for those who haven’t and would allow themselves to think outside the Fox, here’s a link. 

If Kinzinger had become a party outsider, former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham was as inside as it gets; considered the Trumps family, spent holidays at Mar-a-Lago. Carefully taught to reject truths that threaten their cultish adoration, Trumpists will dismiss her as a liar, including her revelation that Trump refers to his supporters as “basement dwellers.” But his disrespect for them, evident from the confidence he has in their believing his lies, has been obvious for years, at least since his Obama birth certificate con. I’ve sent operatives to Hawaii, he asserted, and they’re finding “amazing” things. The first was a lie. The second never happened. But it took hold and, for many MAGAs, lives on. That’s Trumpism.

In his DNC speech, Pete Buttigieg succinctly characterized the contrast between Vice-President Kamala Harris and Trump, in what might be the most telling words heard at the convention: leaders matter, he said, “because they bring out the good or the bad.” MAGA’s intentionally cruel responses to Tim Walz’s son Gus’ tearful delight while watching his father speak made clear which leader does what. And it wasn’t only the odious Ann Coulter. As if we hadn’t already known who’s who, watching Trump’s rallies and seeing his sociopathic nastiness get the biggest cheers. MAGA cruelty comes from the top and feeds the bottom.

The Harris/Walz ticket may well win, but Trump won’t lose. He and his family have made millions from his “presidency,” and the grift continues. His latest is a video not unlike those late-night “but wait, there’s more” commercials, though delivered with decidedly less energy; selling his weird superhero “digital cards,” for the low, low price of $99. It’s an easy laugh, but it’ll collect containers of cash from the corruptly conned. Hawking goods like a carnival barker, by a person who once held the job considered the world’s most prestigious, till him. How can anyone consider that presidential? An embarrassment is what it is.

But wait: there IS more. Faker than flag-hugging, he made a look-at-me trip to Arlington Cemetery to pretend he honors the fallen. Forcing his way into an off-limits area, he got himself photographed behind a tombstone with an inappropriate, thumbs-up, s-e grin. Convinced?

Even more: Conservative Juleanna Glover, who worked for several honorable Republican politicians when there were some, spent months tracking down shady, Trump-created shell corporations to which his campaign has sent untraceable and unaccountable millions.

After seeing the two conventions, it ought to be obvious what to do. Unlike overlooking Trump’s dangers and deceptions, a vote for Vice President Harris doesn’t threaten America’s rule of law and its place in the world. If they don’t like what they see in four years, and if one shows up after the end of Trumpism, Republicans can vote for a real conservative next time.

I, Noogerer

 

Sometimes, pointing out Trump’s mental decline and undeniable unfitness for office begins to feel like piling on. With his outrageous lies, insults to those who serve, and transparently impossible promises, he confirms it without need for comment. So, for a strategic break, during which he’ll undoubtedly keep doing it, here’s an off-topic column, from eight years ago:

I think it might be about 12,000. Somewhere I've seen the number of new words people learn in medical school, and whatever the correct amount, it's impressive. Here and there on my surgery blog (surgeonsblog.blogspot.com), I've mentioned some words I enjoy just for the saying: inspissated. Neovascularization. Tachyarrhythmia. Intussusception. Radiculopathy. (Switch one letter, it applies to Trump. Oops. I did it again.) Bezoar.

It's pronounced BEE-zore. I say it like the taunting "air-ball" at a basketball game. (Digression: It's been shown that at every venue, whenever that chant is chunt, it's always in the same notes on the musical scale. F - D, matter of fact.)

In addition to the daunting medical vocabulary we learn, there’s a more esoteric lexicon: unofficial terminology that bubbled into the vernacular and have become universal within certain sub-cultures: gomer; O-sign; Q-sign; lipstick sign; flail. One such has it all: nice sound, excellent meaning, and, in my case, a connection to one of my favorite people. The word is NOOGER.

In the memoir I wrote about surgical training, I described learning to dissect through distorted, inflamed, difficult anatomy. I called the method "delicate brutality." (Too late, it occurred to me that that would have been a better title.) Central to the technique is the ability to nooger; namely, to ootz a finger into a sticky place and wiggle it, pinch it, until you find a way through without poking a hole where you don’t want it. Improper noogering can lead to death, or something similar. In certain circumstances, though, it’s safer than sharp dissection.

Noogering can be done with instruments, too: a sucker, a blunt clamp, closed scissors, often along with the finger. Indeed it requires a combination of delicacy and brutality, plus a sense of touch; of tissue turgor (another good word: turgor) and confidence of anatomy. If you can't tell exactly where a thing is, anatomically, you need to be fairly sure where it isn't.

Not all surgeons need to nooger. Orthopods and neurosurgeons don't. Bone isn't noogerable, and brain, well, God help us... But a general surgeon unfamiliar with noogering is bound for trouble. Important as it is, I can't say how I learned it, or how properly to teach it. But I did, both.

Among my favorite characters from training was the chief cardiac resident, a gangly, soft-spoken but fast-thinking Southern boy, Joe (full name: Joe) Utley. In contrast to the others populating that department, who were various combinations of volatile, egomaniacal, nasty, or, in one case, all at once, Joe was laid-back, engaging, and highly talented. He told dumb jokes, quoted lines from movies (Patton, mostly), played the flugelhorn while wearing a sombrero, and treated me -- his over-worked intern and, later, junior resident -- with respect (although, it could be argued, having an intern and his girlfriend [now wife] over and subjecting them to the horn and the hat was anything but respectful).

I loved the guy. He died recently. I sent a copy of my book, in which he played a prominent role, to his wife; she wrote back that she knew he'd have loved it, and she could imagine him laughing out loud while reading it. That felt good.

When connecting a person to the heart-lung machine, it's necessary to control blood returning to the heart via the vena cava. That requires (did then, anyway) slinging the veins with ties; to do so necessitates dissecting behind those thin-walled, delicate structures, completely encircling them, within the tight confines of the pericardium. Joe had a favorite instrument for the job, a huge clamp with a curved, rounded tip. This he referred to as the "Giant Noogerer."

In those early days in its development, open-heart surgery could be tense and, often, very lengthy. As an intern on the service, because there was always work waiting to be done, stretching into sleeplessness, time in the cardiac room was -- depending on who was in charge -- often unpleasant. With no opportunity to do anything but stand there and answer gotcha questions, the hours dragged on, pushing the day's work further into the night.

With Joe, though, it was fun. Among other reasons, I looked forward each time, as the moment approached, to hearing him ask for the tool. "Giant noogerer," he'd say, hand out, and it always arrived with no need for clarification. With his gentle accent, it sounded like "jahnt nurgrer." If I ever knew, I’ve forgotten what the real name is. In my practice, I never used one. But I noogered, more times than I’d like to count.

Who Loves Ya, Baby?

 

Raise your hand if you love America. For what it is; for what it can be. Nope, sorry, MAGA folk. You lost that claim when you gave yourselves over to Donald Trump.

The last weeks have seen what some might call a role reversal. More accurately, because the truth has always been out there, it’s a perception reversal: Democrats and liberals, it turns out, are the ones who love the real America. MAGA Republicans don’t. They resent what it is and fear what they’re told to believe its future will be if not for Trump. They resent its strength-deriving diversity. And, like Trump, they reject its laws, especially those protecting fair elections and equal rights.

Compare the Harris/Walz rallies to Trump’s and Vance’s. Who presents a positive vision of America and its potential? Whose audience is chanting, enthusiastically, “USA! USA!”? Which candidate said to a huge, happy crowd, “We trust the people, we see the people, we know the people. You know one of the things I love about our country? We are a nation of people who believe in those ideals that were foundational to what made us so special as a nation. … We love our country.” (Okay, MAGA nation doesn’t believe, but still...)

Which candidate, speaking from the darkness of Mar-a-Lago, said the US is “a very, very sick country right now”? Which voters marinate in the carefully crafted animus they feel on hearing that? “We’re not going back” is the opposite of “Make America Great Again.” It’s “Again” that says it all. MAGA is about going back to the time of straight, white, native-born, male-dominant, Christian majority, where everyone else knew their place: silent and submissive.

“Not going back” is about liberation from the oppressive heaviness of Trumpism’s doom, gloom, and dishonesty; its rejection of America’s founding ideals, the nastiness (and craziness) of a Trump rally. “Not going back” is a joyous expression of relief, hope for democracy, an end to Trump’s autocratic fantasies.

When his crowds chanted “Lock her up,” Trump stood silent, basking in the wave of fawning lawlessness. When some in a Harris/Walz crowd started shouting “Lock him up,” both Kamala and Tim shut them down. Let the courts take care of it, they said. Our job is to defeat Trump at the polls. That difference is everything.

Echoing creepy JD Vance’s desperation in facing heartland’s Tim Walz, Trumpists have sunk to attacking his military record. After 24 years in the National Guard, he retired to run for Congress, a year after which his unit was deployed to Iraq. Had the Guard thought his retirement affected mission readiness, they could have disallowed it, which they didn’t. Like the Swiftboating of John Kerry, it’s what Republicans, footstepping the invective of Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich, do to people demonstrating the decency their leadership lacks. (We pause to recall five-times-deferred Trump’s fake bone spurs and saying avoiding STDs was his “personal Vietnam.”)

JD has more: claiming the Harris/Walz campaign is resorting to name-calling and bullying, he ignores Crooked Hillary, Crazy Nancy, Birdbrain Nikki Haley, Lyin’ Ted, Ron DeSanctimonious, Sleepy Joe, whatever Kamabla is, and more. When Trump and Trumpists accuse someone of something, it’s they who are doing it. Psychiatrists call it projection.

Unless applied to Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or Fukushima, “meltdown” is an overused cliché. But what better describes Trump descending ever deeper into madness as Harris/Walz surge past him in polls, their massive crowds outnumbering his? Last weekend he claimed their Arizona crowd was faked; that there was no one there; that it was all AI. Robbed by Foxotrumpification of the ability to recognize lies, believers believed.

From a favorite troll, I received the Trump-referenced “proof-positive” picture. Since I sent him video proof of her overflow crowd and technological debunkery of Trump’s confabulation, I haven’t heard back. Distinguishing fakery requires intellectual effort that MAGAs have been taught to eschew.

On loop, Trump is also claiming the polls are fake. The only way he loses, he bleats, is by Democrats cheating, deliberately prepping the soil for another, more deadly insurrection, in which he’ll revel as before. Despite repeatedly experiencing it, he’s incapable of graceful acceptance of defeat. Nor are those who, hearing his lies and seeing his incoherence, believe him still. Even when he says (wishes) Joe Biden will retake the nomination.

So desperate are the Project 2025 masterminds to implement their power-cementing, democracy-ending agenda that they’ll continue to prop up a man whose increasingly obvious deterioration makes him unfit to preside over dinner, much less our country. Likely, they see that as a plus, making him all the more easy to convince he’s in charge, while they call the shots. Think about it.

[Edit: originally this had a paragraph about Trump not being able to land in Bozeman because of owing money. It was evidently false info, so I deleted it. Sorry.]

Tim 'n Stuff

 

Tim Walz is a good choice. So would have been any of the others from among whom VP Harris chose. Walz is a likable guy. With a shiv. It was he who started the “weird” moniker. Like Kamala, he’ll bring the fun. And dead seriousness. Appropriate as “weird” is, it applies better to R “Cubby” FK, Jr. The word for Trump and Trumpists is “creepy.” Let’s go with that from now on.

Also creepy are those who accuse Democrats of “Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS)” for speaking truth. The real TDS is exemplified by this satirical but accurate video. It’s believing his lies and loving them. It’s being expected to swallow them without chewing, as confirmed by Trump’s appearance at the NABJ, delayed by his demand that there would be no real-time fact-checking. 

The difference is stark: Lying is how Trump appeals to his base. Kamala Harris appeals to hers, and to everyone, by telling the truth. While many of the Trump/Vance lies are laughable, others are dangerously inciteful, deliberately. Examples of the former: she wants to take away your gas stoves and cars. And cows. Wants to change your kids’ gender. The latter: “they” tried to kill him. Because he’s smarter, that shameful lie makes JD Vance more deplorable than Trump.

As Trump contemplates the possibility of losing to a Black (and, yes, Indian) woman, his bitter negativity contrasts ever more with her joyful positivity. Having an unpopular and negative agenda, he can only lie, which, coincidentally, is something he’s perfected over a lifetime. Having policies approved by a majority of Americans, Kamala Harris has only to be truthful.

So he and his mouthers look for distractions: despicable Laura Ingraham stooped to deriding Kamala for hugging people. The human touch is foreign to Fox “news.” Now it’s Doug Emhoff’s affair while married to his former wife. Really? They want to go there? Three words: Trump. And Trump.

Also, Trump.

If ever there were an issue from which Trump and his apologists would like to distract, it’s last week’s revelation of ten million dollars, in cash, weighing two hundred pounds, withdrawn from an Egyptian bank, mysteriously ending up amongst Trump’s campaign funds. Accepting bribes? Unsurprising. It appears he’d already promised oil executives anything they wanted in return for a billion. 

But it’s worse: Attorney General Barr, Trump’s handyman in his weaponized DOJ, quashed investigations into the affair, as he’d done in firing US Attorneys looking into Trump’s pre-presidential crimes. The story is so important that this gifted link is useable for non-WaPo subscribers.

Having excoriated Trump as unsuitable to be president, Barr says he’ll still vote for him. Such spineless and sycophantic amorality makes him perfect to appear regularly on Fox “news” and its imitators. So he does.

Spines are similarly scarce southward. After Trump went on a Cobb salad of a rant in Georgia, about its governor Brian Kemp’s “disloyalty” for not lying for him, Kemp responded: “My focus is on ... saving our country from Kamala Harris ... not engaging in petty personal insults.” He’ll vote for him, in other words, leaving us to wonder: from what dangers of Kamala Harris does the country need saving that outweigh the clear and present ones of Trump? Not to mention his bottomless indecency, which shames us all.

It’s a question for all Republicans disliking but still planning to vote for Trump: Why? What vision of America under Kamala Harris threatens your way of life? How awful would it be for you and your families if she were able, like Governor Walz was in Minnesota, to see that hungry children are fed and homeless are housed? What do you expect from Trump that justifies overlooking his lawlessness, childish pettiness, and promises of governance by dictatorship? Tax breaks? Deregulation? You won’t get those unless you’re a billionaire or polluter. Is it rounding up undocumented aliens?

If you consider yourself conservative, how do you excuse his congratulating Putin for the deal that freed Americans imprisoned in Russia, issuing not a word to the captives or praise for the countries involved? And lying that he never gave anything for his deals? Other than, you know, releasing five hundred Taliban prisoners held by Afghanistan. And these.

Are you distracted from his promise not to “spend a penny” on schools that require vaccines, which is all of them? “For cheers at a rally,” he may as well have said, “I’ll trade children crippled or dying from polio, suffering deadly measles pneumonia, or becoming sterile from mumps.” And cheer they do. You, too? When he says he doesn’t need your votes, does it make you think he expects his certification-deniers to overturn state elections?

If you were to place country over Trump, you wouldn’t be alone. Could this help you decide?

Kamala Harris will win the popular vote massively. The undemocratic, outdated Electoral College, though? Who knows?

Also, Tim Walz is younger than Brad Pitt.

Weirdly Hopeful

 

I’m trying to measure this feeling of hope and enthusiasm against the reality that it’s an uphill battle for a woman to become president; especially one who’s not white. But there’s no denying the excitement among voters who’d been feeling a heavy sense of – can I say it, Jimmy? – malaise.

Joe Biden’s presidential accomplishments are legion. Freed now from having to promote himself, he’s diving into needed reforms of our out-of-control, Constitution-rewriting Supreme Court. But it had become clear that if he remained in the race he was likely to lose to an increasingly deranged, dangerous, and – let’s say it together -- weird man, demonstrably the greatest threat to democracy of any former or potential “president” in our history. Stepping aside only magnified President Biden’s greatness.

Contrary to Trump’s flop-sweaty attacks on Kamala Harris’ laugh, I find it refreshing. She’s having fun! After years of Trumpic nastiness and gloom, peddling fear and hate, lying, tearing down our country despite its thriving economy, record employment, burgeoning small businesses, she’s making America fun again.

Has anyone ever seen Trump do it? A full-throated, joyous laugh? Derisive sneers and mockery don’t count. How embittered must one be never to laugh? How hollowed-out, how devoid of feeling for fellow human beings; how unsuited to hold the reins of a government for the people. He doesn’t like her dancing, either. 

Observing Trump flailing for a foothold proofs the pudding. “I’m running against a low-IQ individual,” he told agreeable rally attendees. We don’t need Alan Turing to crack that code. He’s used it before, on at least one other Black woman. 

People who love his inhumanity won’t change, any more than the coming attacks on VP Harris will change minds on her side. But MAGA Republicans don’t represent all previous Trump voters, nor the re-energized young voters and marginalized communities who’d begun to despair of voting. Social media are full of former Trumpers announcing their intent to vote for Kamala Harris, including the mayor of a very red Arizona city. Have there ever been so many appointees and family members raising the alarm about reelecting a “president”? As tides rise and turn, a win by Kamala Harris begins to feel possible.

Promises of vengeance and retribution appeal to Trump’s weird cult. For some, that may suffice to distract from the lack of a positive agenda. We know what he’s against: equal access to voting, taxes on the wealthy, environmental regulations, addressing climate change, immigration. But what is he for? Banning abortion and lying about Democrats’ position on it. Gifting Putin with a weakened NATO, handing him Ukraine. Detention camps. Replacing competent government employees with unqualified, compliant loyalists. Enacting Project 2025, of which he pretends ignorance. He and the Christo-fascists behind the Project are denying they have anything to do with each other, but we know the Project is an instruction manual for constructing the autocracy Trump craves. 

It’s looking likely that Donald Ducks debating VP Harris. If he ever faces actual journalists (of which there aren’t many remaining) as opposed to Fox “news” sycophants and other mouthpiece media, someone should ask him to specify, as he’s claimed, which parts of Project 2025 he finds objectionable. And not let him quack his way out of answering.

Gaslighting, he and MAGA Republicans say theirs is the “party of freedom.” To which Pete Buttigieg recently had this to say: “If you’re talking about military tribunals for political opponents, you have no business talking about freedom. If you’re into banning books, you have no business letting a word like liberty escape your lips.” Not to mention taking away women’s healthcare autonomy or granting full immunity to a lawbreaking “president.” In his SCOTUS reform proposals, Joe Biden made it clear he’d not avail himself of that power. But Trump? Or JD Vance, his clone?

Secretary Pete is brilliant. Regularly, with razor-sharp gentleness, leaving Fox “news” hosts babbling, he’s the most gifted spokesperson for the Biden/Harris agenda and now for Harris. He speaks seven languages, including those of nearly all our allies. He’s ex-military. He has government experience at high levels. He would, in other words, be a perfect choice for Vice President. Except for... you know. Is America ready for a twofer?

Increasingly worried about facing Kamala Harris, Trump is prepping for another coup attempt. “If they don’t cheat,” he says, “We win.” Yet, around the country it’s Republicans who are readying the cheating. In swing states, they’ve installed officials who’ll refuse to certify elections if Kamala wins. Georgia’s honorable-for-a-minute Secretary of State just launched a website for voters to deregister. It’s easy to imagine malicious hacking. 

As MAGA evangelicals see Biden-endorsed Olympic Satanism or Trump promises so much electricity you’ll beg him to stop (the link is NSFW), the newly-hatched “weird” meme is accurate and fun. Indeed, they are very weird people. Thing is, they’re also horrifying. No joke.

Afterthoughts

Dang. I’d been planning to begin this week’s column with a riff on that laughably large ear bandage Trump sported at his coronation, and, having seen his cult fashioning similar ones, to note the similarity to farmers tagging the ears of their sheep. Probably, I’d have puzzled that, next day, he wore a small Band-Aid appropriate to the injury he incurred.

Maybe he realized, despite seeing his flock lower to the occasion, how ridiculous it looked to everyone else. As a former trauma surgeon, I’d never have applied that honker to such a minimally injured ear. Nevertheless, he was very lucky and that’s a good thing. I don’t minimize the seriousness of the close call; just the crazy that came after.

So I’d also have reflected on miracles. If defined as evidence of divine intervention, and if God saved Trump from death, then it’s no less miraculous that He made Mr. Comperatore die. Same for late-discovered survivors of earthquakes that kill hundreds. You can’t see saves as godly and not the killings. So, maybe there are no miracles. Were I reckless enough, I’d have proposed that to think He would choose an amoral man like Trump to lead us is disrespectful of God. Blasphemous, even.

I’m sure I’d have mentioned the similarities between Kim Jong Il’s ceremonial appearances and Trump, when he wasn’t nodding off, smiling beneficently as sycophants like Tucker Carlson and Hulk Hogan (!) praised him, deified him, one after another. Likely, I couldn’t have avoided noting that, halfway through Trump’s endless, rally-repetitive acceptance speech, the faithful were scrolling their phones or walking out.

President Joe Biden’s magnanimous decision to withdraw from contention is the reason I’d have said none of that. MAGA Republicans won’t, but present company and future historians will agree that President Joe Biden is one of the most, if not THE most effective president since FDR.

Assuming the reins of a devastated economy while a mishandled pandemic was requiring refrigerated morgue trucks outside overwhelmed hospitals, as unemployment was soaring and businesses were closing, he turned it all around, creating millions of jobs, lowering Covid-rebound inflation – never as high in the US as in other developed countries – to a third of its maximum.

Record numbers of small businesses have been created. Decaying infrastructure is being rebuilt. And, had Trump not shepherded his sheep into blocking it, President Joe Biden’s negotiated, bipartisan deal would have made significant progress on border issues.

It’s a remarkable, proud legacy, with a terribly sad ending. Compared to Trump’s venality, President Biden’s decency, placing country above self, couldn’t be more obvious.

Concerned he might not be the one to beat Trump, who, notwithstanding MAGA credulity, historians will agree was one of the if not THE worst president ever, President Biden’s decision to withdraw speaks of patriotism and selflessness. I hope he makes a barnburner of a speech at the Democratic convention.

While we await whatever mess Democrats and pundits will make of their nominating process before selecting Kamala Harris, we know for sure their convention won’t be the festival of falsehoods foisted by Trump’s fraudulent fluffers.

After Speaker-of-Sorts Mike Johnson testified that theirs is the party of law and order, and before his party nominated a convicted criminal, adjudicated rapist, defrauder of New York State of millions of dollars, and recidivist scammer, they welcomed, to delirious cheers, a convict caravan: Manafort, Stone, Navarro, J6 insurrectionists. If he weren’t still serving time, Bannon would have been similarly received.

Came then the strategic lies: Crime rates; energy production; EVs; gas prices; rampant “migrant crime,” the fakest of fakes.  And the one Trump hopes to ride to the White House: election fraud. To which he, the oldest presidential nominee ever, has added another, nearly as pernicious: that he knows nothing of Project 2025.

He knows. Praising the world’s worst dictators, to replicate whose regimes the Project aims, he knows. If elected, he’d follow its marching orders toward a government by and for its billionaire advocates, himself as figurehead, secured by permanently diluted elections.

Continuing its election interference, Russia is praising Trump and, now, his V.P. pick. The former Republican Party would have been appalled to see their nominees praised by America’s enemies and lauded at home despite – or because of -- their disqualifications. In the graves of the respectable old guard, rotations must be continuous.

Money and endorsements are flooding in for Kamala Harris, breaking records. Trump might hide from debating her, but he and his surrogates aren’t hiding their awful, desperate misogyny and racism when attacking her, with worse to come. To which I say, bring it!

Something reminiscent of optimism is nibbling at worry for our country. Too soon to say; but Trump is still Trump, an aged, diminished, fourth-grade name-caller, repeater of lies and incomprehensible digressions. If cultists can’t see it, it’s true nevertheless: he’s become even more unfit for office than he was eight years ago.