Donnie Does Dallas

 

                     AI-generated image

Not long ago we agreed: Trump’s Reflecting Pool calamity was the ultimate metaphor for his “presidency.” It had it all: incompetence, cronyism, arrogance, lying, blame-avoiding, scapegoating. Now, just as it was fading from public awareness, comes the admission by his hand-picked, underqualified, overpaid purveyors of poolwater pulchritude that the failure of the coating in Trump-picked blue was entirely on them. No vandalism. Just tragic inexperience and unskilled workmanship, for which they took full responsibility. (All true.) Trump retracted his confabulation of boxcutters and razor blades, and apologized to the innocents he’d had arrested. And for lying. Offered his own money as restitution. (All false.)

But the Reflecting reflection was, applying the term Trump recently used to describe his disastrous Iran war, “small potatoes.” Last week’s Desperation in Dallas, to be known as Trumpapaloser, became the new standard, the sine qua non of metaphor. It had all the aforementioned characteristics, plus Trumpism’s trademark worshipful idolatry.

From his pulpit, Trump announced the arena was “filled to the rafters,” even as cameras showed thousands of empty seats in the upper tier. Had the ensorcelled audience turned their collective heads to see, which they didn’t because they’re believers, they’d have convinced themselves they saw it, too. He went on to prevaricate that his “convention” garnered higher TV ratings than the NFL season opener, featuring our Seahawks. Since the NFL hadn’t yet released that information, it was a pre-refuted lie. Later, data showed that his doggerel and puny show had around two million viewers, while the game garnered over twenty-five million. Whether Trump was hallucinating or lying is immaterial. Nothing he says can be believed, not a single word; yet he remains in office.

Then, with no gob left unsmacked, there came the most outrageous, reality-disconnected agglutination of words ever uttered by a Cabinet member and, likely, by any human not in a chemically-induced coma. Referring to Trump, Junior Arfkay, manager of our national institutions of health, said this: "I discovered a self-effacing man of superior intelligence, of empathy and compassion, with an encyclopedic grasp of the issues in molecular detail. And most of all … cared about transparency in government and free speech." With the possible exception of “an” and “of,” there’s not a word in that declaration that’s within a light-year of truth. It’s an aggregation of antonyms without precedent. It was like a realtor trying to sell you a house engulfed by fire, telling you it’s move-in ready.

Trump’s lies are pathological. Vance’s and those of every other Cabinet member are intentional. In Dallas, Vance out-disgusted himself. But Arfkay’s lies are so outrageous that his brainworm must have dined on the parts that kept it connected to reality; history’s most premonitory meal since The Last Supper. Trump incabinetted nothing but lying incompetents. Because democracy requires better, we are well and truly screwed.

Before addressing Trump’s even more ridiculous effluent in Dallas, let’s review the words of 18 United States Code section 597: “Whoever makes or offers to make any expenditure to any person either to vote or withhold his vote or to vote for or against any candidate, and whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure ... shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 2 years ...” Thus, we understand that besides being economically disastrous and stupidly impossible, Trump’s promise to lavish $5000 on every adult American if Rs retain control of Congress is clearly illegal. Were he to do it, he and everyone who accepted the bribe would be subject to imprisonment.

$1.3 trillion is what it would cost, so J.D. Vance, dutifully surrendering dignity as required of every Trumpsman, said it’d be covered by the trillions Trump’s tariffs are bringing in, paying down the national debt, even as the debt just passed $40 trillion. That there’s some mathematical magic. But when has breaking US law ever been an impediment to Trump? It’s bribery, impure and simple-minded. Not to worry, though: The DOJ’s Todd Blanche is our chief law enforcer.

Trump added the proviso that the money must be spent in the US. Brilliant! Cash only, one supposes, each bill embedded with RFID, for tracking. Were it not so dangerous to have such a demented and dishonest “president” it’d be hilarious. Demanding a pledge of allegiance to the self-described “greatest president in the history of the United States,” though, telling them to “cheat like hell” when they vote, and that if they don’t vote they’ll “go to hell”? Not so hilarious.

But threats and bribes are all Trump has, now that the Supreme Court, excepting the tendentious twosome, shut down his attempt to stamp out mail-in voting; an idea, he told Sean Hannity, he got from Vladimir Putin, who knows all about fair elections, which he wins by ninety percent to ten. If Democrats retake Congress, Trump will scream fraud, and Holy Mike Johnson, after discussing it with God, will refuse to seat the newly elected. Nevertheless, until we can’t, let’s savor the SCOTUS ruling and keep hope alive.

Bribocracy

 

                           ChatGPT

“Shall I compare thee to a President’s Day? Washington’s selfless leadership, Lincoln’s timeless eloquence? Thou art less lofty and more intemperate.” (Author unknown.)

America’s political divide is wider than at any time since the Civil War, but there’s one issue on which everyone should agree: Trump’s is the most corrupt and dishonest administration in our history. Rather than hiding it, they wave it like that huge American flag on I-5 north of Mount Vernon. Trump has openly regretted not enriching himself more in his first term. Unable to deny, MAGA's only options are to ignore or embrace. We see both. “At least he’s honest about his dishonesty,” they say, admiringly. Or, “ Everybody cheats.”

It’s not merely embarrassing that our great-until-Trump country twice elected an unscrupulous, bribofacient, self-promoting fraudster; the damage at home and abroad is incalculable. Perhaps MAGA-threatened future historians will elaborate. For now, all we can do is enumerate.

Following FIFA’s pandering “peace prize," Trump’s next briblical acceptance was the Washington Coal Club’s “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal” prize. It’d be hilarious, had he not, a day later ended our government’s ability to regulate climate change emissions, to which coal is the greatest lump-for-lump contributor.

As literate Americans know, “clean coal” isn’t a thing, whereas climate change most definitely is. From his kingly throne, Trump is doing everything possible to boost fossil fuels and impede sustainable, actually clean energy. The money he gets from oil tycoons confirms his bribocratic corruption. With the fingers of others filling his pockets, he raises a middle one to us.

Bribery isn’t Trumpism’s only corruption. There’s cry-wolfery, gaslighting, and “accusation is admission.” Working to rig elections, for example, while lying that every election Trump or MAGAs lost was rigged. It’s as much a part of today’s Republican agenda as climate change denial, pardoning criminals, rewriting history, and lying to our faces. “Democrats rig elections,” they cry, against all evidence, while doing it. MAGAs wolf it down.

Here’s Homeland Insecurity’s Kristi Noem, promoting the restrictive voter ID requirements in the SAVE act, bragging, “ ... when it gets to Election Day ... we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.” Confirming the anti-democracy and anti-Democrats purposes of voter ID, Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger (R-Texas) added, “The American people did not give Republicans a mandate to make excuses. They gave us one to deliver wins, and the SAVE America Act is exactly that.” (Italics mine.) Okay, well, they’re not lying about that. Ms. Noem did lie about another ICE shooting, though.

 

If states requiring it made voter ID equally accessible across all demographics, it’d be okay. In red states, it’s the opposite. They just said so. And who trusts Trump’s DOJ to protect the Georgia ballots they commandeered with no legal justification? His desire to “nationalize” elections is, of course, unconstitutional. Would it matter to his agreeable Supreme Court?

Noem. Bondi. Who can say who’s worse? In a tight race, impudent, arrogant, toadying Pam pulled ahead last week, when she broadcast her and her boss’s contempt for the Constitution; yelling, deflecting, insulting, refusing to answer legitimate, Constitutionally required oversight of her handling of the Epstein files. Why are you asking about that when the DOW is over fifty thousand, she sneered, non-sequiturally. While she scanned her staff-prepared, scripted whataboutisms to gotchify Democrats, Republicans on the Committee, living and dead, like every MAGA, couldn’t hide their glee. In a Congress containing Republicans of old, as in the Nixon era, the hearing would have adjourned immediately, to begin impeachment proceedings. But that party is as dead as climate regulation.

There are rumblings. In deep red South Texas last week, in a district Trump won by seventeen points, a Democrat soundly beat a Republican for state senate despite being outspent by millions of dollars. The same happened in very red Louisiana. Texas Republicans’ unprecedented and cynical mid-cycle gerrymandering, along with growing revulsion at Trump’s ICE brutality and, maybe, his transparent lying, have created unanticipated blue districts, while spurring blue states like California, after Trump’s Constitution-rewriting SCOTUS greenlit Texas, to do the same.

Clear-eyed voters know to assume every word uttered by Trump and his collection of collaborators is a lie; that every action is to their benefit, not ours. As scales drop from pinkish eyes, there might still be hope. But November is far enough away for plenty of Republican meddling.

Now, a mea kinda culpa. Last week, I praised the “unmitigated joy” of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance. Since then, enthusiastic critics have sent translations which, if accurately rendered, were vulgar. I was disappointed and promised to address it. Since then, though, I’ve seen sources indicating the crudités had been edited in compliance with broadcast standards.

Few words, if any, have single comparables between languages; by definition, translations are subjective. Unless those taking offense are fluent Spanish speakers and heard it directly, I’ll stick with joyful.