Some of Trump's 'very fine' people
Bob Woodward, author of 'RAGE', wants us to bear in mind that: "There are some fine and decent people who support President Trump. These include farmers, military people, health care workers, policemen and others". This - related at the end of an interview with Chris Hayes (on his ALL In show) - some 2 weeks ago, after Hayes asked if Woodward judged any of Trump's supporters.
Sorry, Bob, but I'm not buying it. "Fine" and "decent" people do not descend on polling venues - like in Fairfax, VA recently- and seek to disrupt early voting, e.g.
These are not "fine and decent" folks but brainwashed, angry goobers. Worse, even if you are not precisely among these miscreants - if you support Trump - you still end up enabling them via their mindless backing of Trump. In the case of the preceding lot, they actually had the gall to chant "Four more years! Four more years!" at voters went to the polls, like their impoverished brains had really taken leave.
But then they inhabit an alternative universe and that is exactly the problem. A universe where masking up equals bondage and slavery, and medical professionals who recommend masks, social distancing are traitors, and governors trying to save lives using lockdowns are threatened by extremist gun nuts toting AR-15s into state houses. (Even calling for the beheading of Michigan Governor Grace Whitmer.)
This alternative universe of fantasy and crackpot conspiracy ideation has largely been created by Trump in recent years, via his endless stream of lies, misinformation, dog whistles and gaslighting. Journalists now tally more than 20,000 lies since he assumed the presidency and also chronicle accusations of sexual misconduct against him (26 so far). And yet he seems coated with Teflon, given nothing seems to stick. This is because of way too many "fine, decent" people who refuse to see through the sham. As Janice put it: "Ignorance is no excuse especially after he had infants caged and separated from parents 3 years ago. Also, now admitting on tape he deliberately lied about the virus!"
Why doesn't it "stick"? Well, because like all effective authoritarians he creates diversions and nonstop chaos with ever more outrageous claims and deranged statements almost every day. Like his ongoing barrage against voting by mail, including insisting he will not accept any peaceful transition.
In such a turbulent atmosphere, the normal mainstream media can't keep up. Hell, they are still overly deferential to this walking turd. One only had to watch his presentation of Amy Coney Barrett Saturday where all the press corps uniformly rose and clapped, like a bunch of trained seals. They ought to have booed the bastard like those marking RBG's lying in state Thursday night when he appeared.
It is this chaotic atmosphere plus Trump's tidal wave of lies and gaslighting that have helped to create his legions of zombies, and brainwashed faux "liberty" nincompoops. We cannot embrace this lot into any political comity until they return to reality, and there's no sign they will. As Maureen Dowd wrote in her Sunday column:
"The cultural ecosystem, and the fever swamps of social media that amplify Trump’s craziness, will remain. Fox News and Facebook will continue to validate the biases and conspiracy theories of a nation that’s increasingly proud of its ignorance, anti-intellectualism and denial of science."
Times' columnist Frank Bruni basically seconded this outlook with his own take:
"We’re in terrible danger. Make no mistake. This country, already uncivil, is on the precipice of being ungovernable, because its institutions are being so profoundly degraded, because its partisanship is so all-consuming, and because Trump, who rode those trends to power, is now turbocharging them to drive America into the ground. The Republican Party won’t apply the brakes"
Bruni pointed out that the riff raff and renegades trying to intimidate voters in Fairfax was "no rogue group" adding: "This was an omen and a harrowing one at that."
Indeed it is, because with every day that passes with Trump yapping about "fraud" and "mail ballots" his zombies and crazies get more and more worked up. Add in incendiary stunts like the one about "discarded Trump ballots" in Pennsylvania - and you are looking at tossing gasoline on an already lit fire. (In this case, it was later determined the allegedly "discarded ballots" were a result of Pennsylvania Republicans passing a law banning "naked' ballots, i.e. those not inserted into an outer security sleeve. So when 9 such ballots were accidentally found they were discarded by bureaucrats. There was no sinister element as claimed by Toady Barr, or Trump or their lackeys.).
Then there is the pandemic and the University of Washington model now forecasting quadruple the daily deaths from Covid by year's end. The source of 90 percent of the problem? Trump and his endless lying and minimizing the impacts while corrupting the science including at the CDC - all the time giving false hope of a vaccine- for political gain. As medical specialist and journalist Laurie Garrett said in an interview on Saturday, it is "ridiculous" any viable vaccine could be ready even by year's end given intermediary trials haven't even begun for most candidates. Meanwhile, Trump's zombies continue to attack health specialists, and defy mask orders - the most effective way to control the virus pre-vaccine.
Also derivative of pro-Trumpian insanity (some might say the core of it) is the QAnon movement, which Bloomberg columnist Andreas Kutsch has recently described as the "vilest" conspiracy ideation since the medieval slanders spread against the Jews, e.g. poisoning drinking wells and drinking the blood of Christian children. In the QAnon case, deep state "elites" (including prominent Dem politicos) are accused of child sacrifices to Satan and organizing pedophile rings. Hence, a major example of current mass insanity on the tribal conservative Right.
One Colorado Springs contact tracer - John Potterat- when interviewed by the local Indy paper three weeks ago, said:
"As I look at American society today we're simply not the people we used to be. I'm disappointed. The American population was much more society conscious 30, 40 or 50 years ago. We're not the people we should be."
We're not the people we used to be primarily because we've been fractured into two hostile tribes on account of one tribe becoming detached from objective reality. This is the tribe that's been brainwashed by Limbaugh, FOX news and that follows Trump's every word. They intimidate blue state governors with loaded rifles at state houses, attack medical personnel on social media and at their homes, mock masks - and deride virus deaths and cases with screams of "Hoax!". Never mind Covid has now felled 204,000 fellow citizens. They are also prepared, again, to try to commit "national suicide" (in the words of Keith Olbermann in his recent book 'Donald Trump Is F*cking Crazy!') and take the rest of us down with them by voting Trump back in. Make nice or judge kindly those prepared to do this, because they're too damned lazy or dense to see the scam artist con man authoritarian trying to pull us down his sinkhole? No way in hell.
My only real worry is how even at this stage Trump's Svengali-like mind control is working on likely voters as per the economy. Polling from NBC/WSJ as of Sunday showed Trump with a 53 %- 42 % edge over Biden as regards handling of the economy, which is absolutely preposterous. In fact it's insane because there's zero basis in reality for it- and that was before the NY Times bombshell expose yesterday showing this fruitcake may owe up to $421 million to unknown lenders (as MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle noted this a.m. and which personal liability he'd carry into any new term.) This is apart from his using twitchy con-man strategies to get away with paying only $750 in taxes (in 2016, 2017), when for other years he didn't pay a dime.
Leaving out his tax cons, e.g. taking tax deductions on his personal expenses - like over a million for "housing" and $70,000 for "hair styling and hair spray", we now know how his policies have hobbled the U.S. in terms of borrowing and debt - as Robert Freeman (2nd link below) notes:
"This borrowing masks profound weakness in Trump’s “best economy in the history of the world.” It amounts to $4.8 billion of borrowing every DAY since Trump took office. Yes, injecting almost $5 billion of borrowed money into the economy every day for almost 4 years can create the illusion of prosperity, at least for a while. But borrowing is not a sign of economic strength, but of weakness."
Beyond that, we know over 28 million jobs have been lost and we are in the midst of a historic recession all tied to the pandemic - which management Trump has blown, fucked up to a far thee well. Further, annualized growth under Trump ranked seventh among his 11 predecessors. And growth actually slowed during each of Trump’s three years. Handle the economy better than Biden? Only a brain-eaten imbecile would believe so.
So why is so much credit being given to Trump for his handling of the economy, which is tied to the pandemic which now has seen over 204,000 dead? Have the respondents' brains been taken over by brain-eating amoebas? It appears so.
Apart from the apparent mental regression spreading into the larger (voter) population there is the danger of overt voter suppression. We now know - thanks to reporting by Michelle Goldberg- that Republicans are planning to have tens of thousands of volunteers fan out to voting places in key states, ostensibly to guard against fraud but effectively to create a climate of menace. Trump has not merely blessed such renegade tactics but encouraged them. On Fox News last month, he bragged to Sean Hannity about all the “sheriffs” and “law enforcement” who would monitor the polls on his behalf. At a rally in North Carolina, he told supporters: “Be poll watchers when you go there. Watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing they do.”
Michelle Goldberg does, however, believe there's a way out of Trump's 'through the looking glass' world of unreality, writing in a column from 3 weeks ago:
"Trump's recordings (e.g. on the Woodward tapes) offer the prospect of breaking through his alternative reality, of nailing down this most slippery and mendacious of presidents by showing everyone who he really is."
But wisely adding: "Our politics suffers no shortage of incontrovertible proof of Trump's venality. What it lacks is accountability"
A first start in reversing this could be made at the first presidential debate tomorrow night, if moderator Chris Wallace would play at least one of the Woodward tapes and demand that Trump respond. Especially the one where he admits to deliberately playing down the virus despite knowing of its real fatality rate being worse than flu.
If Wallace and other debate moderators lack the nerve to 'take the bull by the horns' it is possible (according to Goldberg) that: "Woodward's utterly damning tapes of Trump discussing the coronavirus will fall into this same 'nothing matters' cycle." And if that happens Trump scores another 'W' thanks to the lackadaisical media.
Shortly after Trump was elected, the Russian-born journalist Masha Gessen published an important essay called “Autocracy: Rules for Survival.” Gessen laid out six such rules, each incredibly prescient. This was notably after taking Obama, Hillary, and members of the "liberal" commentariat (like Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman) to task for too quickly being willing to say we ought to close ranks behind the orange maggot and give him a chance. (At least Keith Olbermann never bought into this horse manure.)
Leaving out that brain fart and misfire at the start of Trump's reign (and note I never accepted him as a president, at least mine) I most often hear one Gessen rule repeated, i.e. on 'ALL In': “Believe the autocrat,” which says:
“Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization.”
That tendency is clearly one we must avoid as we near the home stretch of this most critical, most existential of elections. I mean, it isn't often that a suicide attempt - say by hanging - survives. (In this case, as per Keith Olbermann, a national attempt). But good god, to deliberately make a 2nd attempt and succeed? Well it's beyond the pale, in fact beyond any dystopic ideation I can imagine short of a Torino 10 asteroid strike. If it does happen to succeed this time and democracy dies under a 2nd Trump term, we can thank his "fine and decent" followers who joined ranks with the Nazis, white nationalists, KKK, extremist militias, QAnon conspiracy degenerates and others to allow Trump to complete the destruction of our nation he started with his first term.
Make common cause with them? No way in hell!
See Also:
by Bandy X. Lee | September 28, 2020 - 7:48am | permalink
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