This Is Who They Are

 

Featured guest at last week’s pro-Trump, “Stop the Steal,” Proud Boils rally in D.C., Reich-wing radio hero Alex Jones had this to say: “We will never back down to the satanic pedophile globalist new world order and their walking-dead reanimated corpse Joe Biden. And we will never recognize him. So I don’t know who’s going to the White House in 38 days, but I sure know this: Joe Biden is a globalist, and Joe Biden will be removed one way or another.”

“One way or another.” Subtle as an NDA for a prostitute. And the armed and strutting delusionists cheered. After hearing much the same from Mike “I beg your pardon” Flynn, Trump’s first-born National Security Adviser and current Qanon acolyte (only the best people), the engorged deplorables roved through D.C., burning BLM flags and other displays from Black churches. “Very fine people,” Trump once called them. “Stand back and stand by,” he’d signaled. For this moment, evidently.

It’d be wrong to suggest that everyone who buys into or remains silent about Trump’s flagrant election-fraud mendacity approves of those dishonorable, democracy-hating discards. But their acquiescence empowers and allows what’s left of the Republican Party to become synonymous with them. And if acquiescence is empowering, what of the majority of House Republicans, including Kevin “no relation but you’d never know it” McCarthy, who signed onto Texas A.G. Paxton’s seditious attempt to overturn the results of a free and fair election? They may as well have been wearing “Make America Colonial Again” hats.

Under investigation for various crimes, Paxton justified his pardon-pandering performance, thus: “[there] are legitimately good constitutional arguments that don't depend on actually proving every little instance of fraud." Right. “Every little instance.” No need to prove it. Say it enough, and they’ll believe. In fact, sixty-some lawsuits later, not a single instance has been proved. Irrelevant. (Okay, there was one: a Republican submitted a ballot from his dead mother.)

Undead lies notwithstanding, Biden’s win is now official. Not because of the Electoral College, mind you, but because Moscow Mitch McConnell, who congratulated Trump one day after the 2016 election but waited six weeks this time around, finally did so for President-Elect Biden, incurring Trump’s wrath. Mitch waited for Vladimir Putin, whose man in Washington lost, but who’s happy, at least, that Trump “burned the US” on his way out. 

Swindled Trumpists continue plying him with millions upon millions for his personal use. And because it’s who he is and what he does, he’s keeping the money he’s “raising” for the Georgia runoff, too. Grifters gotta grift. Suckers gotta suck. 

History reminds us that when Trump lost the popular vote by three million in 2016, he empaneled a commission, headed by world-class vote-suppressor Chris Kobach, to prove there were that many fraudulent votes. Many months and much money later, they found nothing. And we recall how, during the impeachment, Republicans’ mantra was “Let the voters decide in November.” Had too much faith in their ability to suppress opposition voters, evidently, or to carry out their own fraud. In any case, it should be obvious by now that voter fraud, massive enough to turn an election, no longer exists in the US, if it ever did. Even Bill “I’ll sign it, don’t fire me” Barr said so. 

Seeing how uninformed the average American is about how our government works, or about science, or how to separate fact from fiction, one may wonder what is the level of such ignorance at which an open society fails. Put another way, what’s the minimum number of smart people required to keep it afloat? And since it’s immigrant kids who seem to be winning the prizes lately, how much less likely does Trumpic xenophobia make it?

The flipside is this: how many of the aforementioned, hate-infused, reality-denying marauders does it take to destroy a democracy? They get the headlines, but how many are there, really? Not enough, surely, to threaten a literal coup. But between them and the millions who still believe the election was stolen, the system is on the brink. Absent trust in the process, there is no process. Evidently, Trump and his enablers and excusers believe eliminating that trust is in their personal interest. Robbing us of a viable future, though, it’s in the interest of no one else.

Soon we’ll learn if it’s possible to reestablish trust and, more critically, whether the Republican Party will divest itself of anti-democratic, reality-rejecting Trumpism and return to the table where they once belonged. So far, it’s not looking good.

It's Not Antifa

After eighteen-thousand documented false statements from our “president,” you’d think everyone would assume he’s lying until proven otherwise. You’d be wrong, of course.  

Repeated endlessly, amplified by a carefully-crafted network of media propagandists, Trump’s lies are gobbled like manna, leading para-Trumpists to conclude there’s no downside to lying. “My attitude was get it done, but I didn’t say, ‘Go do it,” said William Barr, about the attack on peaceful protestors at Lafayette Square. Pepper spray isn’t a chemical, he added. Like Mueller found no crimes. From Trump and adjacent, lying is Plan A. Here’s the perfect example: “Antifa.”  

Short for anti-fascist, the term described various groups in post-war Germany dedicated to preventing fascism from rising again. Connected loosely, if at all, they were, in essence, detectives, looking for leftovers from the Reich. People who wanted to preserve freedom and democracy from fascism. The idea naturally spread to America, where, until Trump, Nazis were disliked.  

Raise your hand if you know what Antifa is here; its headquarters, its command structure, its membership requirements and how many it has. Do you know how to pronounce it? Are you sure all demonstration disrupters are Antifa? Keep your hand up if you believe it’s more dangerous to democracy than white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Proud Boys, Boogaloo Boys, the KKK. Have you seen Antifa members recruiting here, like Proud Boys are? Are you okay with the use of military spy-planes over American citizens? 

Omitting the aforementioned rightwing gangs of “very fine people” who actually do have structure, recruitment, funding, and nationwide reach, Trump has described only Antifa as terrorists. Based on a report by a Russian operative working for a Russian propaganda network and carried on more-Trumpist-than-Fox OANN, (which looks a lot like “ONAN”) he even suggested the old man (my age) who was pushed by police is “possible Antifa,” and implied his skull-cracking fall was a gravity-enhancing “setup.” Not the first of Trump’s Russia-sourced conspiracies.  

As Trump lurches ever further from his rocker, his confabulations are exploited online by entities posing as Antifa, announcing non-existent plans for violent invasions into white neighborhoods. One such deceiver has been identified as the white nationalist cabal “Identity Evropa.” In Snohomish, Klamath Falls, across the nation, the deceived show up, armed and drinking, which isn’t dangerous. When the fabricated invasion doesn’t happen, what so proudly they prance.  

Contrary to Trump’s and Barr’s assertions, no one arrested in the current chaos has been identified as Antifa, whereas the presence of white supremacists and other rightwing agitators has been confirmed. The consequences of these “presidential” lies are grave. Inflamed by Trump, Barr, fascist-flirt Senator Tom Cotton, and Fox “news” saying the appropriate response to peaceful protest is sending in the troops, citizens are driving into crowds, grabbing long guns from their trucks and threatening to shoot. Doing it, in some cases. Even here, on Capitol Hill.  

It’s not hard to believe this is exactly what Trump intends. Accustomed to lying or cheating or blaming his way out of personal responsibility for his entire life, he’s becoming increasingly desperate for something, anything, by which to regain traction. To help you ignore his serial failures and the flood of generals and admirals finally calling him out; even stirrings among Republicans.  

From his depleted trick-bag, Trump chose the worst, which is to say the most Trumpian, option: turn citizens exercising their First Amendment right of assembly, petitioning equal justice from their government, into the enemy; get Trumpo-Americans exercising their Second Amendments rights to believe, and unleash the hounds of Hell. Seeding the civil war he has all but called for, should he be unable to suppress enough votes in November.  

After Trump’s third-world-dictator attack on peaceful protesters, sending his message of “domination,” Americans are fighting each other. Convinced all demonstrators are “Antifa,” which, it’s been shown, comprises virtually none of the protestors we’re seeing, Trumpists feel empowered to threaten their lives, spewing Trump-endorsed rage at fellow Americans advocating liberty and justice for all. This may be his most dangerous, anti-American lie of all.  

Meanwhile, as he pretends Antifa is our foremost enemy, Trump is precipitously and without consultation reducing our troops in Germany. This pleases Putin, who’s moving forces to his western border. What election help, and more, one wonders, has Putin has promised in return?  

To salvage our democracy, it’s November or never.  

For those interested in discovering what Antifa is and is not, these links are a start.

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