“It gets bleaker and bleaker. He’s eviscerating environmental protections. He accuses Obama of treason. He’s ripping up labor protections. He wants to privatize Social Security. He fires the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he doesn’t like the job numbers. He forces the Smithsonian to take down an exhibit that includes his two impeachments. The European Union, Japan, Columbia University, and CBS are all surrendering to him.” – Robert Reich, Is There Any Hope?
“Cruelty is not a bug in Trumpism; it is the central operating system. And it has become the organizing principle of today’s Republican Party as you can see from the glee with which Republican members of Congress strip rights and supports from vulnerable people, and rightwing media stars brag about ICE’s brutal tactics....Trump’s cruelty is designed not only to consolidate power but to distort our collective sense of right and wrong. For today’s Republicans, empathy is now considered weakness. Kindness is called “wokeness.” Helping your neighbor is labeled “socialism.”” - Thom Hartmann, ‘The Cruelty Machine – Inside Trump’s America
“The country was warned of Trump’s diseased psyche, yet an
undercurrent of naiveté and the contracting world view of many of his voters
caused our worst fears to be realized. The voters had to a large extent, the
welfare of the world in their hands and they showed themselves to be utterly
unqualified to shoulder such a responsibility”.- NY Times comment
The 3-fold increase in human numbers (since 1950) has already stretched food, water and energy supplies to their limits. But could that increase also have diminished the rule of law along with regression of basic human rights? That was definitely implied in the top story of Project Censored 2019: 'Global Decline in the Rule of Law as Basic Human Rights Diminish'.
Specifically, the report noted an enhanced regression in fundamental human rights, including: absence of discrimination, right to life and security, due process, freedom of expression and religion, right to privacy, freedom of association and labor rights. Most notable in the findings:
Constraints on government powers - which measures the extent to which those who govern are bound by law - saw the second greatest declines (64 nations receded out of 113 named). And most distressing, "The U.S. saw the greatest deterioration."
That was in 2018-19 and could easily have been a definite harbinger of what was to come: Namely Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, then inciting an insurrection to do so - on January 6th 2021. Then grabbing power again three years later to commence an authoritarian reign which has included: firing 20 inspectors general, gutting numerous federal agencies (via DOGE), mounting attacks on universities and independent media outlets via extortion, hobbling scientific research via massive funding cuts as well as targeting foreign students, sending masked thugs to round up innocent immigrants doing jobs Americans won't, e.g.
So If All The Undocumented Are Deported WHO Is Going To Do Their Jobs? Just Asking!
as well as attacking civil rights under the ruse of "anti-DEI". This has all been wrought by the ignorance, stupidity and self-interest of 77 million American voters in the 2024 general election. Described thusly by Substack contributor John Pavlovitz:
"They shunned their responsibility as Americans, they rejected the teachings of their faith tradition, and they abandoned any kind of moral footing by enabling the ascension of a felon-rapist-scumbag mobster who lacks a single noble impulse. Through whatever combination of racism, misogyny, prejudice, intellectual ignorance, and plain old hatred, they willfully coronated him."
But one must ask: What provoked such a mass mental voting regression to give 0ur democracy away to a convicted felon and demonstrated traitor? A guy who, by one WaPo assay - already had multiple degeneracies under his belt, including:
34 Felony Convictions.
91 Criminal Charges.
26 Sexual Assault Allegations.
6 Bankruptcies.
5 Draft Deferments.
4 Indictments.
2 Impeachments.
2 Convicted Companies.
1 Fake University Shut Down.
1 Fake Charity Shut Down.
$25 Million Fraud Settlement.
$5 Million Sexual Abuse Verdict.
$2 Million Fake Charity Abuse Judgment.
$93 Million Sexual Abuse Judgements.
$400 Million Fraud Judgment.
True, much of the basis for the misbegotten Nov. 5 vote can be traced to voter gullibility but the ease of cognitive ingestion also factors in. Especially why so many millions were rendered so susceptible to the lies, disinformation and hate rhetoric. Taking in a shitload of lies including that the re-elected "orange" doofus would: stop the Ukraine war on his first day, stop inflation the same day, round up all the illegal migrants and send them away, oh - or lock 'em up if need be.
The aims were then amplified as he enlisted Musk's DOGE teams to scuttle and lawlessly cut numerous agencies including: USAID, Social Security, VOA, Dept. of Education, EPA, FEMA - while planting bootlickers in others, i.e. FBI, DOJ and letting a confirmed boozer (Hegseth) run the most powerful defense agency on the planet.
Oh and now accusing Barack Obama of "treason" (talk about the pot calling the kettle black) in an effort to distract from his associations with child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, e.g.
Bombshell WSJ Story Leaves Dotard Hanging In Wind With Only A Fruitless "Lawsuit" As An Option
In a way, all of this could be seen years earlier in the Project Censored Report of its top story. And we'd already seen in that first Trump term the extent of what he could do including trivializing a global pandemic that likely added over 200,000 dead to the U.S. toll. So what drove it?
One recent book has attempted to outline at least part of the basis for the U.S. decline in human rights. Titled Malevolent vs. Benevolent Dispositions and Conservative Political Ideology in the Trump Era and published last fall in The Journal of Research in Personality, the authors looked at the personality factors that showed up consistently among Trump supporters versus the rest of the American population. In one review one reads:
What they found is both shocking and absolutely consistent with the observations and suspicions of those of us who have to regularly interact with Trump followers: they’re sick, at least by the standards of liberal democracy. They lack empathy and even get pleasure out of watching other people in pain..
I expatiated on this in terms of the degraded premoral minds of most autocrats in a 2016 blog post,
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/10/narcissism-pre-moral-mind-and-donald-j.html
and how their cruelty and animus stoked grievance and retribution, especially in the white working class. This then fueled their alliance with Trump as a de facto avatar to redress all their wrongs and secure their own retribution against the 'woke liberals', their associated elites and the migrants i.e.
"They identify with fellow Trumpies by their hatred of political correctness (which is also the manifestation of a form of social moral capacity) and the "establishment elites" Their narcissistic hungers also compel them to identify with Trump and when he says "punch 'em out" then they feel enabled to act on it."
Carrying with them all the grievances Trump himself has harbored since his adolescence when he was dispatched to a NY military school for practicing his self-made switchblades on alley cats in Queens.
This paved the way for more imperious degradation and cruelty as well as using lies to bend the truth and facts toward an alter reality of his own making. Such as Friday's firing the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because of being displeased with the jobs report. See e.g.
With even the WSJ (Aug.2-3, p. A2) noting:
"Trump's move throws the quality of America's statistical apparatus into question"
But even more worrying:
"The firing comes as Trump and his allies have made the case that independent agencies should be under the purview of the White House - part of a broader effort to consolidate power."
As we see, this tyrant and his Reep enablers have already succeeded in kneecapping the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (WSJ, p. A4), as well as revising the Smithsonian's historical display of impeachments of presidents - removing Trump's.
Ushering in a warning Prof. Timothy Snyder once gave in his book, On Tyranny. In effect using gradual accumulations of lies and associated strongman actions (like firing those who disagree with him or who present facts - like the BLS did - contradicting his self-made fantasies.) Thereby imposing an incremental retreat of reason and reality. All of which marks authoritarianisms gradual advance. After all, without independent agencies - and oversight- what do we have? Well, nada. Bupkis. We are basically locked into the fever dreams of a madman tyrant and wannabe Hitler.
Thus, the aggressive defense of objective facts becomes revolutionary in a post -truth landscape such as Trump and his minions have created. where demagogues like Trump have claimed - by their actions - the right to define reality itself.
The emergent authoritarianism is consolidated when too many supporters are willing to accept lies and actions that would have been unthinkable just two years ago. But they're now ok, for example, with ICE agents chasing down a 6-year-old Honduran boy battling leukemia in hospital and ripped from his fragile medical routine then locked away from his family for a month interrupting his medical treatment. This is cruelty as policy, eliciting fear and is now part of the misbegotten Trump playbook.
What paved the way for such callous treatment and attitudes? The bursting global population sending literally millions of migrants across borders, seeking security. Nigel Rappaport's recent essay in Philosophy Now (April/May, pp. 20-21) perspective is illuminating, i.e. in pointing out earlier insights into the human condition and how it can advance:
"We are all human and should treat each other decently a with respect.. Don't take more specific classifications (ethnicity, nationality, race, etc.) seriously" (Ernest Geller)
Or this from Bertrand Russell:
"Remember your humanity and forget the rest."
But as Rappaport points out:
"Sadly, more usually, we assess others according to a class or group to which they belong. In light of the Holocaust this is a situation Primo Levi seemed unconscionable. Not to be tolerated."
Alas, as Isaac Asimov noted in his 1976 Barbados lecture, these aspirations dissolve under increasing population pressure - especially when it is perceived one's country is being "overrun by foreigners". This then has set the stage for the horrors we're seeing with the masked ICE thugs now, fueled by Trump's own edicts and plans, i.e. to allot more power to ICE (under his Megabill) than to all other federal law enforcement agencies together. In fact, as Peggy Noonan writes (WSJ, p. A13) 'Stop the ICE Work Raids', there is no longer any need for ICE agents rousting hard migrant workers - whether in meat packing plants, or strawberry fields. As she write:
"The American people won't approve these raids. It is wicked to remove a man or woman from an honest job and we are not a wicked people."
But that generalization remains to be confirmed. So far, too many are enamored of the ICE takedowns, and the disgusting displays of inhumanity. Will they revolt against them? We don't know yet, but Trump - by his actions- is betting most will be okay with whatever he does. No surprise then that the shamelessness of authoritarians like Trump hinges on accepting a fake, fantasy world that encourages these misfits to do whatever they want then deny it - without worrying about lies or contradictions.
According to UN analytics global population will balloon to nearly 10 billion by the middle of the century. This is insane and as the late science author Isaac Asimov has put it, "human dignity cannot survive overpopulation" - which is why we need to do all we reasonably can to halt it now. Not later. (Not at all helped when the Trumpies destroyed nearly $10 million in contraceptives - rather than allow them to go to poor, overpopulated 3rd world nation.)
It is also clear that as this population 'bomb goes off we will see a further regression of human rights. Why? Asimov's point was that the sheer pressure of human numbers, forcing extraordinary competition for scarce resources, incepts callous behavior to subdue or punish the 'other'. The 'other' being any regarded by the state (wherever it is) as subhuman or non-human and in any case an entity to be repressed, deported, or detained in some god-forsaken prison.
At the core of Trump's authoritarian excesses is a kink in his feral, felon brain wherein he regards all political opponents and critics as inherently evil. (WSJ, For the President, His Critics and Rivals Are Not Just Wrong But 'Evil', p. A13, July 11). Noting this aberration, distinct in American history, "has driven him to prosecuting perceived enemies, purging career employees deemed disloyal and destroying what he calls the deep state."
Adding: "More than any recent predecessor, Trump has encouraged the notion that his presidency is a battle oof good versus evil, embracing images of himself as a king, and even a pope. Those who question him then must be on the other side of the binary equation."
This in itself shows why this elected felon is so dangerous, and explains why he sees his power as unlimited. Doubtless, these delusions manifesting in force after he survived last year's assassination attempt by a lucky twitch of his head at the right time. But the yen to regard opponents as evil was likely there from his earliest years. As psychotherapist Harvey Hornstein noted in his book Cruelty & Kindness: A New Look At Altruism and Aggression' (p. 41):
"The baggage of their youth is filled with inescapable hates and fears. Mistrusting their own impulses, they are wary of others and the impulses they might possess. Their world becomes a jungle which must be carefully scrutinized because it is filled with human beings who harbor the 'evil' that they painfully learned to deny in themselves."
In other words, Trump is basically projecting the innate evil that he denies in himself onto others - thereby becoming his existential enemies.
What specifically unleashes it? Well, a numbing and degradation of the moral compass and in particular the ability to discern when laws and norms are being violated. Ethics professor Cheryl Mendelson in her book The Good Life, explains the genesis (p. 71):
"In the premoral mind, in place of moral individualism - the individual's capacity to think and act according to conscience - there is mere egoism: the demand or wish, to be allowed to do and have what one wants..
Because of his sense of entitlement, his greed and his demand for superiority feel right to him and are not internally moderated as they are in moral minds. Moral restraints may provoke him to outright rage and hatred."
And there you have what's driving Trump's autocratic binge to punish, subdue as well as use the drivers of power to extort from those he regards as obstacles (Law firms, universities.)
The total consequences amount to abominations when cruelty practiced by a criminal administration is accepted - as well as its efforts to consolidate dictatorial power. In the meantime the world's eyes will be on the American populace to see whether it can break free of Trump's hold on reality. To put it bluntly, failure is not an option.
See Also:
by Jeffrey C. Isaac | July 24, 2025 - 5:07am | permalink
“Immigrants at Florida Detention Facilities Faced Life-Threatening Delays, Report Says,” reports the HuffPost.
“Report Finds ‘Dehumanizing’ Conditions in Florida Immigration Centers,” reports the Miami Herald.
“Migrants at ICE Jail in Miami Made to Kneel to ‘Eat Like Dogs,’ Report Alleges,” reports The Guardian.
Pick your headline from yesterday’s news. The story is the same. Every day, the Trump administration is transforming the U.S. government into more and more of a police state. And Human Rights Watch, a long-respected NGO that monitors the most egregious human rights violations throughout the world, from Darfur to Teheran to Gaza to Florida, has just published a carefully documented and judiciously written 98-page report, ’You Feel Like Your Life Is Over’: Abusive Practices at Three Florida Immigration Detention Centers Since January 2025. The report’s summary is worth quoting:
And:
Excerpt:
And:
by Thom Hartmann | August 1, 2025 - 5:16am | permalink
Early this month, ICE agents detained a 6‑year‑old Honduran boy battling leukemia as he left an immigration court in Los Angeles with his mother and sister.
A child fighting for his life was ripped from his fragile medical routine and locked away for over a month, interrupting his treatment, crying himself to sleep night after night in a concrete cell instead of a hospital bed.
This wasn’t a mistake. It was cruelty by design: an intentional act of terror by a government that now treats compassion as weakness and suffering as a political weapon.
— ProPublica this morning published a report titled “Bloodied faces, sobbing children: Immigration officers smash car windows to speed up arrests,” documenting massive use of physical violence, including over 50 occasions where car windows were smashed and examples of people who were beaten up by masked, anonymous ICE thugs. The reporters call this level of police brutality “unprecedented,” pointing out that no police agency had ever behaved like this prior to the Trump administration.
And:
Trump Fires Official Over Jobs Report, Echoing an Authoritarian Playbook - The New York Times
Excerpt:
An old rule in Washington holds that you are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts. President Trump seems determined to prove that wrong.
Don’t like an intelligence report that contradicts your view? Go after the analysts. Don’t like cost estimates for your tax plan? Invent your own. Don’t like a predecessor’s climate policies? Scrub government websites of underlying data. Don’t like a museum exhibit that cites your impeachments? Delete any mention of them.
Mr. Trump’s war on facts reached new heights on Friday when he angrily fired the Labor Department official in charge of compiling statistics on employment in America because he did not like the latest jobs report showing that the economy isn’t doing as well as he claims it is. Mr. Trump declared that her numbers were “phony.” His proof? It was “my opinion.”
And:
by Tom Engelhardt | August 2, 2025 - 4:49am | permalink
Once upon a time, nothing in this world could have convinced me that I would be living through this moment in this America on this planet. As a start, once upon an increasingly distant time, Donald J. Trump as president of the United States would have been inconceivable. Literally beyond conception, even in some wildly dystopian satiric novel about an all-too(un)-American future.
I mean, forget anything else, a man who in private life bankrupted six (yes, six!) companies has now been elected president of the United States not just once but twice. You know, the fellow who thinks of those he considers his domestic enemies (and that’s not too strong a word for it), whether Democrats, Republicans, or journalists as nothing short of—and this is the word he uses—“evil.” Once upon a time, this would have been inconceivable even in your wildest all-(un)-American dreams! Not a shot in hell of a chance! Never!
Until, of course, it happened (yes, twice).
And:
"To Breed Or Not To Breed?" The Answer Ought To Be Obvious By Now!
And:
by Stan Cox | June 16, 2023 - 5:34am | permalink
And:
Prof. Albert Bartlett Skewers The Trope That "The Total Global Population Is A Meaningless Number"
And:
Mass Global Migration Will Never Be Stopped By Laws - Because It's Fueled By Overpopulation
And:
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