Brane Space: Had The Electoral College Done Its Job The "Anonymous Resistance" Thwarting Dotard Would Not Be Needed Now

One of the Deplorable mutts that helped shoe horn the misfit traitor Trump into power. Right: Alexander Hamilton who held that the Electoral College had responsibility to ensure integrity of the office, and that may have been at odds with what a minority voted for.

"This is where we stand right now, as we've come closer and closer to seeing the brain and belly of this administration - and we've come upon what Donald Trump has wrought. An American government forged of resentment, Driven by a child-like hunger for attention. Ignorant of important American history, incompetently and meanly led. Bereft of those values that - at our best - have taken us forward." - Chris Matthews on 'Hardball' last night.

"The people closest to the president of the United States are sending flashing red warning signals to the American people about the danger this man poses to the nation." - Chris Hayes, on 'All In' last night.

Chris Matthews on his 'Hardball' show last night didn't mince words in asserting we now know the current occupant of the White House "lacks the basic competence and basic morality to run the country." Prior to that, quoting an anonymous op-ed writer in the Times, who asserted:

"We believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.  That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office."

This WH insider (described as a senior official) also repeatedly refers to "we" and then details how he and other associates in an inner White House "resistance" have sought to protect the nation from the Swine-in-chief's worst inclinations and vile nature. See e.g. the whole Times op-ed here:

Opinion | I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration ...

After the op-ed appeared, the infernal maggot masquerading as a president actually had the nerve to bark: "Treason?" and demand the Times turn over the anonymous writer to his Gestapo. The asswipe failed to note that making known the means by which a tyrant is thwarted in his dereliction of duty constitutes patriotism of the highest order. And he - like Bob Woodward- author of Fear: Trump in the White House , merits a medal of honor for exposing this malignancy on the presidency. As I've made it clear before, this POS fouling the highest office ought to have been hung or discharged from office long ago. He is a blight on the nation and the world at large - more so with every breath he takes, and every expulsion of verbal sewage he emits via Twitter. He is an unstable megalomaniac no less smitten now with his power, holding the nuclear codes, than Stalin at the height of his power before unleashing the Gulag and mass slaughter.

Having said that, I do acknowledge that many - even of the more or less liberal persuasion (e.g. Ben Wittes of 'Lawfare') - have referred to Mr. Anonymous as "gutless" or lacking in his own moral principles for not just signing off and allowing his op-ed to be a kind of final resignation missive. Were that so easy ! But we know Donnie Dotard is a malignantly evil fuck who bullies relentlessly and subjects his targets to vicious retribution. So as guest Maya Wiley put it on 'All In' : Why subject yourself to that, or worse? Given Trump's trained rats in the media (FOX) and GOP will come after you, smear you. And indeed, it is easy for those of us watching from the sidelines to mutate into self-righteous high dudgeon and become judgmental - assuming that we would have been more forthright. But it still took a degree of courage to pen that op-ed, knowing the scumball -in- chief is now turning over every corner of the White House to ferret him (and his associates) out. .

Further, before we pile on Mr. Anonymous as gutless, let's take a step back and grasp WHO the real gutless people were that unleashed this over-ripe orange human fungus upon us all. The ones charged with protecting the country from mischief of faction, defined in Federalist #10  by James Madison as that condition whereby:

"citizens - whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole - are united and actuated by a common impulse of passion (to cast their votes) adverse to the rights of other citizens or the permanent and aggregate interests of the community".

This is exactly what the Trump voters ('the minority") did, motivated by passion and recklessness via Trump's often violent rallies to give a middle finger salute to the rest of the country - thereby militating against the majority's interests. They knew just as well as anyone the degenerate and destructive nature of this filth, but cast ballots for him anyway. Enough, namely 77,000 in three key states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan) , to put him over the top in electoral votes.

But it then fell to the state Electors to correct the anomaly. To do their sworn duty, i.e. not to rubber stamp a malicious choice, but to set it right and prevent an unhinged, authoritarian demagogue from attaining the highest office. Alexander Hamilton, for his part, held that the same electors could ensure the integrity of the office through their own discretion which may diverge from what the people themselves voted for (particularly if motivated by passion as opposed to reason).

Thus we read in Federalist # 78:

"The process of election (by state electors) affords a moral certainty that the office of President shall never fall to the lot of any man who is not to an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications...."

Read that last sentence again: The office of the President shall never fall to the lot of any man who is not to an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.

And no one on God's green Earth can tell me with a straight face that Trump, aka Dotard, is "endowed with the requisite qualifications". No, this malignant menace isn't qualified to be a dog catcher in Gaskin Switch, Arkansas. His display of rank passion alone - as in his unhinged tweets- would disqualify him. His very campaigning mode in encouraging violence ("punch 'em in the face"), would leave all the Founders gasping for air, foundering at the spectacle of a madman's approach to power - as well as the very passions inflamed in his followers to push him there-- that they so feared.

On querying wifey, however, she still reserves her greatest animus (indeed hatred) for the species known as the Trump voter. As she framed it: "If not for these vermin the vote in those key states wouldn't have been so close or given the electoral votes to Trump. The electors then wouldn't have had to have made that choice to rescind those electoral votes."

Yes, true, but they did face that choice - to trump the minority's misguided votes OR to put a scumbag into office, thereby allowing a minority faction to give a middle finger to the rest of us. So ultimately, given all other impediments to a Trump reign crashed and burned, they blew it. They did not fulfill the Founders' original intent for the electors' responsibility.

She also had misgivings about an "unelected clique" de facto running things in the People's house. But I told her I am quite ok with any such folks, so long as they keep the Orange Turd's mitts off the nuclear codes. Eliciting also the usual question: What in hell were the Trumpies thinking putting such a buffoon and deranged ignoramus in office?

In this respect, I must say I have had to generally concur with a recent writer ("beerfinger") who expressed the following sentiments (in The Daily Kos) regarding why he reviles Trump voters:

"It’s obvious that for most Trump voters he‘s a reflection of themselves. His narcissism, his entitlement, his resentment, his intransigence, and the juvenile way in which he conveys all of that. These human traits which are typically reviled, for a Trump voter are his assets because in him they see themselves and they get a kick out of imposing themselves on the rest of the world, regardless of the consequences to themselves or anyone else. In other words, it’s not just that they have no compunction pulling the lever for a supremely unqualified and undeserving con man, it’s the fact that this is precisely WHY they pulled the lever in the first place. History and future be damned. Like some pre-pubescent way at getting back at everyone else who dares to try to make the world a better place.

The satisfaction they obviously get out of burning it all to the ground. The glee with which they’re perfectly willing to set a match to something that millions of people died building and protecting. The ease with which they’re willing to betray their fellow citizens without a shred of self-reflection and then turn around and question the patriotism of others. That’s what gets to me.

My 2-year old behaves this way sometimes. The only difference is I expect he will grow out of it one day and develop some emotional maturity, something which I have no hope for when it comes to an adult-in-size-only wearing a MAGA hat."\

But maybe this is a tad too harsh, e.g. wifey's "I HATE them all!" - and instead we the sentient and sane citizens must look at Trump voters as having a strain of mental illness that requires treatment. Why else extol a certified lunatic, traitor and Russkie stooge who in fact mocks their Southern accents when he sees fit?. See e.g.

Coastal Snob Trump Mocks Sessions' Alabama Accent, Degree

The most generous interpretation is the Trump supporters suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, that is the mental dysfunction where a kidnapped victim suddenly becomes submissive and servile to his/her captors. But this is likely only the tip of the iceberg and the truth is that many of them suffer from schizotypal personalities - leaving them with psychological illnesses that involve paranoia and delusions. In other words, as I tried to explain to Janice, if they are deplorable they are this way for a reason, maybe beyond their control.

"I don't give a damn what the reason is! I hate all of these vermin that put this trash into the White House!"

Ouch. But consider, the diagnosis (ok, admittedly distal) from one neuorologist that these forlorn souls suffer from social-emotional and cognitive deficits that pale beside most of our temporary issues - say like mild depression after a loved one's death. The link between schizotypy and belief in conspiracy ideation is also well-established, and has been since Pat Bannister's previously cited work. But a recent study published in the journal Psychiatry Research has demonstrated that it is still very prevalent in the population. The researchers found that those who were more likely to believe in outlandish conspiracies, such as the idea that the U.S. government created the AIDs epidemic, consistently scored high on measures of “odd beliefs and magical thinking.” (One feature of magical thinking is a tendency to make connections between things that are actually unrelated in reality.)

While it is estimated that over one percent of the United States population has clinical schizophrenia, many times that have schizotypy or similar psychological profiles that involve difficulty distinguishing between delusion and reality. To further complicate things, there is a thriving subculture that has emerged on the Internet in recent years composed of people calling themselves “Targeted Individuals,” who believe they are the targets of a complex harassment campaign by people who want to ruin their lives and drive them insane. These people also believe that they are the victims of mind control and mental attacks from secret government technologies. Granted this might sound amusing on the surface but one must not forget that these folks are struggling with nightmarish delusions and intense paranoia.

In that case, maybe instead of our vitriol they need our compassion and care. They certainly do not need to be strategically manipulated with propaganda that further deteriorates their mental health. But that is what Trump, Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Q Anon et al have been doing - relentlessly. Indeed, let's be clear this kind of targeting is what Steve Bannon and the Trump campaign did when they used data from Cambridge Analytica, which the company had gotten from Facebook, to create psychographic profiles of vulnerable voters. And all one has to do is visit alt-right media outlets and discussion boards to see that such manipulation is still going on and is worse than ever.

The effect of this targeted psychological manipulation has been a colossal mind fuck on a subset of voters, the 'minority pro-Trump faction". To them, Trump has manifested as their latter day saint and savior, e.g.

Thereby, these forlorn fools now see their whole existence as a battle between good and evil, with Trump in the former category and his political opponents ensconced in the latter. As evidence, like the Q followers and pizzagate crazies, they cite involvement of assorted left figures in insidious affairs like pedophilia rings and the “deep state.” These political flat earthers have essentially become “radicalized,” and hence spend much of their time spreading the gospel of Trump and Q to anyone in cyberspace who will pay attention. This is also why Janice detests them with a passion. Indeed, she explodes if even a tiny (3 second) clip of them appears in a Trump rally. Special venom is reserved for any blacks or women spotted attending such rallies who should "damned well know better!" ("What's with these stupid white women? They enjoy having their pussies grabbed?")

So maybe, just maybe, we need to back away from outrage about Mr. Anonymous and his resistance fifth column in the Trump White House. Also, tone down the furious Trump reactions - at least until we control one House of congress and can achieve concrete actions, like multiple investigations. Instead we ought to consider the plight of the collapsing mental health of Trumpsters. Given poor mental health is already a major problem in America (5% of people are psychotic or schizoid) and 1 in 10 suffer from some form of depression we clearly don't need politicians and their media allies stirring up the paranoid ideations of those who are mentally at risk.

So perhaps we need to extend some compassion to our fellow citizens who've taken the Trump kool aid.