20 XII 2023: Trump born a Nazi?

Trump is saying he has never read Mein Kampf. This comes as no surprise, for we’ve learned that everybody’s favorite insurrectionist does not like to read and prefers pictures. Maybe he has often viewed Triumph of the Will.

But just because he hasn’t read Hitler’s work does not mean that he has not been influenced by it. I’m sure that Mein Kampf is the book of every month in the darker depths of Trump World. So if Donald hasn’t read this fascist bible, many of his advisers and supporters will have summarized it for him and urged its applicability to American democracy.

Or, maybe Trump did not have to get his Nazism from Mein Kampf, maybe he is a natural born Nazi, an anima naturaliter Naziana.

16 IX 2023: Immigrants are the new Jews

Donald Trump’s recent attacks on immigrants and his promised efforts to eradicate them from the American soil, bloodstream, etc. make it quite clear that immigrants are to Trumpworld what Jews were for the Nazis. This, in turn, makes it quite clear that Trump truly is a Hitler redivivus.

And the Trump base, Trump’s Sheepstate, can’t get enough of this.

And Trump and his Sheepstate are threats to national security.

12 XII 2023: Suicidal spending

The statistics quoted by Mr. Michael O’Brien in an article in the latest number of America include the following: “About $960 billion: the record amount of U.S. spending between November and December 2023 predicted by the National Retail Federation. Consumers say they expect to spend an average of $875 on gifts and holiday purchases this year.” To this figure we should add that the average household credit card debt is over $7,000, to show that American spending is downright suicidal.

7 XII 2023: No sudden rise in ante-semitism

Some prominent figures in politics, the media, and intellectual life have been expressing their alarm at what they see as a sudden rise in anti-semitism in the United States. However, I would maintain that what we are seeing is a sudden multiplication of expressions of anti-semitism, for anti-semitism has been in America from the start and was recently stimulated when Trump entered politics.

3 XII 2023: Should anyone care what Lindsey Graham thinks?

I saw a report that on CNN Sen. Lindsey Graham said of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin: “He’s so naive, I mean I just lost all confidence in this guy.” Old Lindsey is not naive. No, he is so sophisticated that, like Henry Kissinger, he would not hesitate to slaughter innocent people in order to WIN.

Why do they invite this flip-flop, security-risk, senator-for-sale onto television. Whatever opinion he says he has will soon change.

1 XII 2023: Israel and Kissinger, birds of a feather?

We’ve learned that at the end of the cease fire Israel rushed to renew the bombardment of Gaza. We’ve also learned that Israeli intelligence knew all about the planned Hamas attack a year ago and that that Hamas’ preparations for the attack were reported more recently. We’re hearing that the big bugs in Israeli intelligence decided not to take this evidences of Hamas’ fanatic ambitions seriously, because they did not believe that Hamas could achieve what Hamas was planning and preparing to do. This excuse for the intelligence failure makes Israeli intelligence seem not negligent, but virtually criminal.

Or is there another way to view this? Could it be that Israeli intelligence knew all along about the planned attack by Hamas and chose to allow the attack to happen? The attack by Hamas provided Israel with a casus belli for a war against Gaza, a war the goal of which is to expel the Palestinian population from Gaza and annex that region to Israel. To be sure, Hamas is an irredeemably bad lot, but wiping out Hamas is not Israel’s main goal in its aggression against Gaza.

Am I being too suspicious of Israel? The death of that cynical butcher Henry Kissinger reminds of the need to be endlessly suspicious of devotees of Realpolitik.

30 XI 2023: A little bit of Ireland??

Here, from an article on Huffpost, are the words of Ireland’s Prime Minister, Mr. Leo Varadkar, about the “demonstrators” who lately went on an arson-cum-robbery-cum-terror spree in Dublin:  “These criminals did not do what they did because they love Ireland, they did not do what they did because they wanted to protect Irish people, they did not do it out of any sense of patriotism, however warped,” Varadkar told reporters on Friday morning. “They did so because they’re filled with hate, they love violence, they love chaos and they love causing pain to others.”

His description reminds me of many of the people who were participating in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on 6 January. Reminds me too of the people who are now conducting their own anti-Jewish, anti-Palestinian, anti-civilization demonstrations.

In another time and place, these sorts would be common football hooligans or college-sports enthusiasts who trash the town whether their team wins or loses. These are mindless, destruction-prone, attention-seekers who feel a sense of belonging only among similar misfits. Wherever two or three of these are gathered together, they will in no time identify an object for their hatred and go ahead and attack and riot. What the object may be is of no real importance. What matters is the opportunity for trashing people and cultural environment in company with fellow hoodlums.

18 XI 2013: Trump + Fascists  = Trascists? 

I’ve seen here and there various writers expressing there anxiety about Donald Trump misstatments, his mixing up one opponent with another, one war with another, one dictator with another, etc. As a member of the geriatric club myself, I can feel some degree of understanding, even compassion for another elder who gets his words mixed up. But Trump, and his garbleings and confusions are repulsive. He makes much of President Biden’s senior failings. This is only a variant of his usual attribution to an opponent of his own signature frailties and vices, lying, stealing, selective realities, dementia, incontinence, etc. 

I must wonder though about Trump’s now famous “vermin” pledge made to the mob in New Hampshire: “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” 

This list of vermin combines apples and oranges. Yes, communists, Marxists, and radical left thugs might, I suppose, be grouped together. But fascists is a community quite different from the other three, one that includes Trump himself and his cultists. He is thoughtlessly promising to root out those he had in mind when he said after the Charlottesville riot that there were good people on both sides.

13 XI 2023: Apotheosis of Trump?

I have been reading more and more about the forced fidelity of the Trump base. Trump, like the King in British law, can do no wrong. They’ll vote for him under indictment, vote for him convicted of crimes, they’ll vote for him in prison, they’ll vote for him after he is dead.

I am reminded of an anecdote from distant times. At one point when the aged Eisenhower was ill during his first term, some were questioning whether the Republicans could run him for president for a second term. The Republican senator William Jenner of Indiana was quoted as saying: “We’ll run him if we have to stuff him!” So I wonder if the Trump base would vote for their demi-god after his death. 

This is not as far-fetched as it seems. If Donald Trump were to die before the coming presidential election, his “base” will deify the Departed; anyone not energetically praising him and mourning him will have no hope of nomination. His place will be taken by the Republican who can pretend most convincingly to be a virtual Trump, the next-best-thing to Donald, whose first question will always be: “What would Trump do?”