Donald Trump persists in his claim that the election was stolen from him. His claim may become comic, for I think investigation into the Trump Organization will show that it has usually been Trump that did all the stealing. Trump’s big lie campaign will continue to be enfeebled and soon members of the Cult and lying politicians will be the only one’s keeping the Grand Old Pretense alive. So I’m wondering if we are going to see “Stop the steal” transformed into another “Lost Cause.” We’ll see statues of Trump erected in the courthouse squares of all the most backward counties. These will be paid for by a new women’s organization, The Daughters of the Chicanery. And racists, misogynists, homophobes, and well-to-do preachers will, in their cups, shed a tear for their lost cause.
Trump
28 V 2021: COVID19 a test of patriotism
COVID 19 has given us a litmus test for patriotism. I usually avoid the terms patriot, patriotic, and patriotism. As they are commonly used in the United States, these words are meaningless, and when used by neo-nazi factions and political figures they are toxic.
Even so, I will make use of these terms to argue that COVID19 has shown that Trump and his followers, contrary to their abundant pretensions, are not patriots. COVID19 was the greatest danger to the security of the American people. Though Trump knew the danger, he kept knowledge of it secret through the time when he should have been preparing the government and the country to deal with it. Once the gravity of the threat of the plague became obvious, he kept on making light of COVID19 and tried to ridicule and subvert the authority of competent people. His unpresidential, unpatriotic behavior made our country far more vulnerable to the disease and contributed significantly to the deaths of some 589,000 and the infection of 33.1 million Americans.
Of course, Trump’s attitude and behavior instantly became the model for his devotees among the people. Hence came the anti-maskers who considered refusal to wear a mask to be a sign of solidarity with Trump. Prudent closure by public health authorities of places where people gather and spend money was greeted with outrage, indignation, and contempt for law by ordinary people and by business people and by pandering politicians who would put their fellow citizens’ health and lives at risk to protect the cashflow. Citizens who refuse to protect themselves and their countrymen, who set their own convenience before the general welfare, and place profit before citizenship are not patriots.
Next, when an effective vaccine became available, the lack of urgency and the dismissive attitude of Trump and his spokespersons towards the vaccine made refusal to receive the vaccine another pro-Trump gesture. To Trump’s base we must add the many others who are refusing the vaccine, some because of eccentric reservations, some because of fears that no one thought to allay, some because they are simply too idle to go and receive the vaccine. The delusions and selfishness of these people are preventing or, at least, postponing their country’s recovery from COVID19.
The struggle against COVID19 would have been far more successful if the President had not chosen to make light of the country’s peril and ridicule efforts to contain it. If he had stepped up as a model and advocate for all the public health measures against the disease, the damage done our country by COVID19 would have been dramatically reduced. But he chose to minimize and dismiss the disaster caused by his own grievous irresponsibility and became a major obstacle to the containing of COVID19. Trump’s unwillingness to do his duty as President put our country at serious risk. His example gave rise to mindless resistance to efforts to contain the disease. He and his followers are one of the main causes of the medical disaster we are witnessing.
And the medical disaster is not the only harm done to America by the behavior and demeanor of Trump and his followers. Americans’ vulnerability to demagoguery, their inability to communicate and collaborate, and their stubborn refusal to comply with government regulation and counsel have exposed to friends and foes the immaturity, selfishness, lack of civic values, and even rebelliousness of a large part of the American people. We are living with the consequences of stupid, self-righteous individualism, willful ignorance, and the almost universal assumption that liberty means license. These have corrupted our character and made us enemies of one another.
9 XI 2020: Oh no, I was in the Resistance!
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has asked in a Tweet a very important question: “Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future?” and predicted: “I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future.” I agree. I believe we are going to see a phenomenon here such as occurred in France after the Nazi occupation during WWII. All kinds of people who favored and supported the Vichy regime claimed they only appeared to support Petain, that they never really liked the Nazis, and that they were in fact secret members of the Resistance.
My reference to Vichy France is not outlandish. Support for the Vichy government and the Nazis was not a political point-of-view, but was, rather, a collaboration with evil. That is how I view Trump’s minions and collaborators, like Rudy Giulliani, William Barr, Lindsey Graham, Matt Gaetz, and Ron Johnson., how I view the Republicans in the Senate and the Boys in the House. Those immediately involved in the Vichy Government would be analogous to Trump’s atrocious “political appointees,” figures chosen not for any competence they have, but only for their willingness to collaborate in the subversion of the government of the United States. Trumpism is not a political movement, but a pathology.
Some Frenchmen supported Petain because he promised to “make France great again.” Others backed Petain and the Nazis because they were vigorously anti-communist. They endured willingly the elimination of their civil liberties, rejection of France’s republican past, and alliance with a patently evil regime, an alliance that made them complicit in the slaughter of many patriotic French men and women and the extermination of the Jews. But agreement with the Nazis on one issue, the Bolshevik threat, somehow enabled them to overlook atrocities of every kind.
This too sounds quite familiar. Trump claimed to be “pro-life,” presented himself as a stalwart defender of “religious liberty,” and vowed to be a resolute defender of “gun rights.” Various groups, the myopic Right-to-Lifers, the pseudo-evangelicals who want to be the state religion, and the half-mad throng of gun nuts, were driven by their passion about these single issues to ignore Trump’s ignorance, his amorality, his and his family’s corruption, the corruption of all around him and of the Republican Party. All these American Trumpers, from senators down to people in the street, are responsible for the near destruction of the United States’ democracy. Continuing antagonism would prolong the Trump Era, but the American people must not be allowed to forget the irresponsibility, gullibility, and lack of a civic conscience of these people.
14 VIII 2020: Doesn’t have to be Mt. Rushmore
Mr. Trump’s bid to have his face carved on Mt. Rushmore has encountered a lot of opposition. I’ve made my views on the matter known, so there’s no need to say more about it.
However, a brilliant idea has come to me. Let’s put Trump on Stone Mountain in Georgia along with Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and their horses. That monument was supported by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and by the newly-revived Ku Klux Klan. The Klan had its inaugural meeting on the top of Stone Mountain with flag, Bible, and 16-foot burning cross.
What a good fit! The Stone Mountain monument is said to be the largest bas-relief sculpture in the world, the perfect site for megalomaniac Trump. It displays the constellation of segregationist heroes, so it would be fitting to put Trump, who ran on a segregationist platform, up there as well. Problem is, think what you may of them, Lee, Jackson, and Davis were men of education and refinement, and I reckon they would be unrecoverably embarrassed to have Trump in their midst.
But if we cannot manage to get Trump onto Stone Mountain, I think we should have a look at some of the ancient bas-reliefs that display the savagery of Assyria’s kings, and see if there is a way to squeeze Trump onto one of them. The museums that preserve these sculptures might object, but we can’t please everyone. Indeed, even Trump will be unhappy at not having centerstage on the relief, but think how he will be thrilled to be in the company of those strongmen of absolute power and cruelty.
24 VII 2020: Trump’s support of the pandemic; Law [sic] and Order [sic]; Never let ethics stand in your way.
1) Trump is not wholly to blame for Americans’ refusing to wear face masks, but he can and must be held responsible for the damage he has done by refusing to wear a mask and belittling the threat posed by COVID19. It occurred to me that his behavior is like that of a senior fraternity boy telling the freshmen “Real studs never use condoms.”
2) I find it paradoxical that our outlaw President, a number of whose close associates are in the clink or ought to be, and his shyster Attorney General are calling for law and order. I’m sure Trump and Barr have their fingers crossed behind their backs when they speak of law and order.
3) We read today that Trump’s ambassador to the U.K., Woody Johnson, has been caught out using abusive speech and trying, as requested by Trump, to persuade Britain to hold the British Open at one of Trump’s resorts. This is hardly surprising. I expect that most of Trump’s nominees use race- or gender-charged abusive language in private and that most of them are only too ready to work a deal for Donald. Anyone Trump selects is very likely to be a crook like him.
22 VII 2020: Trump wishes Ghislaine Maxwell well
To a question about Ghislaine Maxwell and possible involvement of Prince Andrew in Epstein’s misdeeds Pres. Trump replied: “I don’t know. I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly. I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach. I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well. Whatever it is. I don’t know the situation with Prince Andrew. Just don’t know. Not aware of it.”
This is all very curious. A claim of “don’t know nuttin'” from a man who spends much of his time watching television. Trump has, of course, tried to distance himself from Epstein, but it’s obvious that they were best buds if not partners in crime.
And he wishes Maxwell well, she who ran Epstein’s string of victims. Well, he says he met her “numerous times,” so why shouldn’t he wish an acquaintance well? “I guess they lived in Palm Beach,” so he used to run into her sometimes at the supermarket and liquor store, in the better restaurants and bars. I think a little digging would reveal a much closer relationship than this.
Even if they were close friends, why should Trump make the impolitic statement that he wishes her well? Birds of a feather again! Trump, Epstein, Maxwell, and Roger Stone are all members of the semi-criminal sleaze community for whom the law is a mere inconvenience and the only real crime is getting caught.
20 VII 2020: Trump, the torturer John Yoo, and the return of Nazi rule
It has come out that Trump has been consulting John Yoo, the greatest disgrace to the legal profession in the United States. Why was he not disbarred because of his facilitation of torture in the last Bush administration? Why was he allowed to continue teaching law? He should have sought work with ISIS and others who love torture. But Yoo is probably on his way to becoming Trump’s “Roy Cohn.”
There is also a rumor that Trump is looking into ruling the country by decree. Of course that was the power given to Hitler after the Reichstag fire. That was his real start, and of course, he never gave up ruling by decree until he shot himself in his Bunker. And they say that Trump is unlikely to accept his defeat in the coming election, so I suppose he’ll want to go on ruling by decrees from his Bunker.
11 VII 2020: Long live death??
Fascists took over a celebratory meeting at the University of Salamanca on 12 – X – 1936. A conspicuous presence among them was General Millán Astray, founder of the Spanish Foreign Legion. The General, with his supporters, was shouting the Spanish Legion’s motto: Viva la muerte! i.e., “Long live death!” He was vigorously rebuked by the meeting’s chair, Miguel de Unamuno, Rector of the University. Astray then shouted in reply “Death to intelligence!” (or, in other versions, “Death to traitor intellectuality!”), “Long live death!”
Trump’s Department of Justice has been given the go-ahead to resume administration of the death penalty, and the Trumpists are salivating at the prospect of killing criminals. A series of executions is sure to boost Trump’s popularity with the barbarians in his base. As for intelligence, it, along with truth, has been under unrelenting attack since Trump’s nomination, an attack that has intensified lately in the Trumpist response to the pandemic, so “Death to intelligence! Death to truth!’
Is it, or is it not a coincidence that the while the Department of Justice is itching to kill criminals Trump is giving a pardon to Roger Stone, his friend and fellow criminal. I find it hard to believe that Trump was motivated solely by friendship. Trump doesn’t do friendship. I think Trump was motivated by a desire to show his dictatorial power, to undo the results of the Mueller investigation, and to ease his nervousness at seeing someone like himself go to prison just for lying. People for whom lying is their way of life are, of course, appalled at the injustice of punishing someone for lying under oath, so “Death to truth!”
1 VII 2020: Rant vs. reason, lies vs. truths
Sen Rand Paul of Tennessee sometimes chews on his feet in public. I watched a news reel of his harangue addressed at Dr. Fauci. Sen Paul is confused about COVID19 and he’s not going to take it anymore. He wants simple answers and he wants them right away. Dr. Fauci confronted Sen Paul’s passion with his usual genial rationality, explained the realities to him, and refused to try to predict the future.
I see that Trump’s younger brother was plucked out of the psychiatric ward to obtain a temporary restraining order to block publication of Mary Trump’s memoir. Of course, Robert Trump is a cat’s-paw for the President. I suppose Donald feels he has over-burdened his personal law firm, the former Justice Department, and decided to let the private sector handle this one. This case shows dramatically how our legal system is riddled with inconsistencies: the law allows Trump to block publication of the truth but cannot keep him from publishing an inexhaustible gush of lies.
29 VI 2020: Miscellanea
I just watched newsreel footage of a couple on Portland Place, one of St. Louis’ ritziest and closely guarded residential areas, waving firearms at demonstrators passing their house. Observations: It is a waste of a beautiful house in a beautiful neighborhood to have it inhabited by a couple of rednecks who would be more at home in a double-wide. She kept brandishing a pistol while he cradled an assault rifle, occasionally aiming it at the demonstrators passing by. Waving deadly firearms around in public has somehow become one of the inalienable rights of Americans, even if they are as obviously unhinged as these two. How pathetic! These people are emblematic of American gun culture.
Who knew?!!! So the Russians put a bounty on the lives of U.S. soldiers, and some Afghans have already collected it. Trump denies knowing anything about this crisis of national security. He is trying to shift blame by saying “Nobody ever tells me anything.” But if he really was not informed about this crisis, it would be more accurate to claim “Nobody ever tells me anything that I don’t want to hear.” Another excuse might be “If they told me, I don’t remember, because the deaths of G.I.s in a distant place are a lot less deserving of my attention than plans for campaign rallys.” Or, again, Trump might claim “Putin wouldn’t ever do anything like that. It must be the work of Obama people sent over there to make me look bad.” Trump is wholly egocentric and knows little and cares less about national security.
[ It occurs to me that in the Hitler Rants parodies on youtube Hitler could represent Trump and Obama could be Fegelein. ]