Substitute manhood - fear

I believe so much of the damage that Trump and MAGA are doing comes from not knowing what makes a man. One much wiser than I said some years ago that for some who want to be a man, a “real man”, and don’t know how to be a man seize upon a substitute - the way to be a man is to make people fear you. And millions of males wanting to be “real men” latch on to this pretend manliness, and we all suffer the consequences.  

Here is the quote from one of Bob Woodward’s interviews with Trump:

“Asked about power, what is power, and he [Trump] said ‘Real power is … I even don’t like to use the word … but real power is fear,’” Woodward recalled to CNN’s Laura Coates.

Trump has been making people submit to him all of his long, ugly life. And now he will have “his own” Attorney General. And “his own” IRS. And “his own” FBI. And “his own” military. And “his own” nukes. 

Oh boy…

How Trump’s racism will cause inflation and food shortages

 The president elect seems to be hell bent on delivering his economically suicidal campaign promises.

First, he is committed to massive tariffs everywhere (except where Musk and the Trump supporting billionaires don't approve).  This raises prices of imports dramatically, and of course it also raises prices of competing domestic goods as well to almost as high but not quite as high as the imports.  Boom, inflation - bigly bigly bigly.

Second, he just announced that he is going to declare a "national emergency" (bullshit) and use the MILITARY as well as immigration officials to round up and deport millions of brown skinned workers in America. This, in addition to being cruel, is stupid.  Who brings food to our markets and food processing plants? You will be hard pressed to find any other than brown skinned folks in the fields.  This is just old, old, old racism all over again. This is just an autocrat finding someone to blame and promising to punish. It was his number one attraction to get votes.  It is not a stretch to imagine that the round up will not be focused and fair. It seems pretty certain, to me at least, that racists will be involved in the purging of America of all who are not White Christians. There will be naturalized citizens and born in America citizens with latin names and brown skin who will be disappeared from our neighborhoods.  Welcome to empty shelves in our supermarkets.  And higher food prices - bigly bigly bigly.

Disgusting.

But, you say, if he causes such economic calamity he and MAGA will just be voted out in 2028.  Are you joking?  The whole plan of Trump, Vance, Heritage Foundation, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, White Christian Nationalists, Opus Dei Catholics, New Apostolic Reformation Christians, etc. etc. etc. is to end democracy and go into Russian and Venezuelan make believe elections. They gave up on democracy. 

But, you say, they won't be able to because the Courts will stop them. Are you kidding?  This Roberts Supreme Court has proven again and again that it is out to end democracy and establish a theocratic and oligarchic autocracy - from gutting the Voting Rights laws of the ‘60s to granting Trump full immunity from any action he takes while in office that he declares to be an "official act"

These folks think that they have succeeded in creating an autocracy.  Trump thinks has has been crowned king (maybe we see him in a professional wrestling ring setting being crowned "king of WWE” to the uproarious cheers of MAGAs)

 

BUT...this is America, with a quarter of a millennium of democracy and rule of law behind us.  We are not going to let this pass. The world turns, and times change, and the future is what is coming, not a return to some non-existent  America of MAGA fantasies.

America voted to end the Constitution

 Donald J Trump ran as an autocrat – that is as a fascist, authoritarian, tyrant.  Which means that, like autocrats around the world, from Putin to Maduro to Xi, the tyrant “gets to do whatever the hell he wants”  So, what does that mean about America now?  How about the Constitution?
 
Trump is choosing cabinet members now. And all are pretty bad choices but some are horrible beyond imagination. 
 
Tulsi Gabbard is to be the DNI – Director of National Intelligence.  Which means she is above the CIA and the FBI, etc.  So she gets all the intelligence of America.  She is “connected” to Russian tyrant Putin and Syrian tyrant Assad.  As far as I can tell, she is an actual agent for Putin.  So, we can expect her to feed U.S. Intelligence to Putin. Which Putin will find invaluable. Which means that all of our allies know that they can no longer share military and diplomatic intelligence with America.  Which means American intelligence will be fatally crippled and will never fully recover, regardless of who future presidents are. So Putin wins.  Oh boy…
 
Pete Hegseth is to be the head of the Department of Defense.  This is unbelievable.  The DOD is the largest organization in America with over three million people that he is supposed to manage.  He has no managerial experience. He was in combat, I believe as a Captain.  Not a General. He has not led a military organization as a one star, two star, or three star General or as an Admiral.  To say he is unqualified is to be overly polite.  His only “virtue” to Trump is that he wants to fire all women, all blacks, all gays, all “woke” hires in the military.  Goodbye American military excellence.  Putin is sooooooo pleased.
 
Matt Gaetz is a pariah in the House of Representative, under investigation for sex trafficking a minor, and infamous for showing lewd videos on his phone to House members of the young “women” that he had sex with after taking drugs to enhance his disgusting exploits.  They were supposed to be impressed by this for some reason.  To say he is a disgusting pig is to be overly polite.  He is to be the head of the Department of Justice.  His only “virtue” to Trump is that he will illegally attack and destroy all the people who Trump wants to attack and destroy – all who criticized the hyper-sensitive and pathetically fragile little Donnie.  Putin is ecstatic.
 
But, you say, the Constitution says that Cabinet picks have to be approved by the Senate (Advise and Consent clause) and these despicable choices are not likely to be confirmed.  Are you kidding?  What confirmation process?  Why is there a Confirmation Process in the Senate? Oh, the Constitution says there is to be a Confirmation Process.  Who cares?  Trump will just use his Constitutional power to adjourn the Congress and have his nominees be appointed as Recess Appointments, and that will be the end of it.  
 
Constitution?  Trump doesn’t need no stinking Constitution (paraphrase from the great Humphrey Bogart “Sierra Nevada film as he was about to be shot by Mexican bandits to steal his gold)
 
Oh well.  The Constitution was nice while we had it.  
 
BUT – damn it, this is still America and we have nearly a quarter of a millennium of Democracy and the Constitutional rule of law. I firmly believe that America is going to wake up and come out of the hypnotic trance that this TV celebrity has induced on his cult.  I believe America will prevail over these autocrats. But, meanwhile, watch out, America. 

American democracy mortally wounded - by Americans

 Donald J Trump has been re-elected President of the United States. 

He won by promising to end the rule of law and use “his” Justice Department to punish those who dared criticize or demean him. Bye bye Rule OF Law. Hello Rule BY Law. The signature feature of corrupt autocracies to use the legal system to crush all opposition. 

He won by promising to end democracy in America by promising to serve a third term in 2028, reason to be made up and approved by the revolutionary theocratic Supreme Court sometime in the next four years (unless he dies and Opus Dei Catholic extremist nut case JD Vance “wins” the pretend election- see Maduro’s Venezuelan “victory”)

He won by promising to raise tariffs causing skyrocket inflation with a possible outcome of a Great Depression. 

He won by promising to forcibly round up ten to fifteen million illegal immigrants (and some legal brown skinned folks “by accident”), put them in detention camps and throw them out of the country. My suggestion to my friends with Hispanic last names is to have proof of citizenship papers on you at all times. 

He won by promising radical theocratic extremists full control over everyone’s bedrooms - no abortion, no birth control, no gay marriage, no porn, no no-fault divorce (and eventually no obstetricians)

He won by promising white supremacist men to force “their” women to be legally subservient to the all powerful Man of the House. 

He won by promising white supremacists to be able to dominate all other races. 

He won by promising young, uncertain young males that the way to be a man is to be dominating and cruel and make people afraid of you.

Trump is not a politician, he is a fascist tyrant. The Republican Party is not a political party, it is an anti-democracy theocratic and oligarchic revolutionary movement. His Supreme Court is not a court of law, it is a revolutionary court of rule BY law. 

His first act is to violate the law by forcing the Senate to approve recess appointments - ignoring the mandate for Senate confirmation of appointments - crushing this vital check and balance of presidential tyranny. Of course. This is but the first in many, many, many violations of the Constitutional order to come. 

I think the theocrats and oligarchs and proudly racists knew exactly what they were voting for and will applaud all of these atrocities. 

But I think millions who voted for him have no idea what is coming.  And it is coming for them as well as for women, and gays, and trans, and browns, and blacks, and reds, and yellows, and schools, and libraries, and newspapers, and TV networks, and magazines, and….you, dear Republican voter…

But I believe the purpose of this terrible American choice is to shock America awake to finally see that tyranny is not what manhood is about, that theocratic dogmatic dictates is not what spirituality is about, that crushing women’s choices and careers is not what love and marriage is about, that eliminating the news is not what enlightened voting is about, that crushing the institutions of democracy is not what democracy is about. 

Tough times ahead…I guess this is what we need to see and live through in order to stand up and say no.  And give birth to a new America, but not to this autocratic, corrupt, heartless nightmare of America. An America that can indeed become a Light on a Hill. A light of goodness, of personal freedom, of caring and compassion, not of threats, not of violence, not of fear. 

Economic benchmarks

 I just want to make a record of current, Democratic Administration, economic numbers, as of November 11, 2024:

• Inflation - 2.4% per the U.S. Bureau of Statistics 
• Unemployment - 4.1% per the Bureau of Economic Analysis (U.S Govt)
• GDP Increase last 12 months - 2.8% per the Bureau of Economic Analysis (U.S. Govt) 
• Deficit - $1.83 trillion per U.S. Treasury

I expect Trump’s idiotic economic ignorance to make all of these numbers much worse. 

Let’s check in one year, two years, three years, four years ….

Times that try men’s souls

What will Trump do, or try to do, immediately? Here is what he threatened and promised: 

Pardon the violent insurrectionists who followed his orders on January 6, 2021. 

Dismiss all federal charges against himself. Start massive roundups of “illegal immigrants”, plus a few brown skinned men, women, and children citizens along the way, too bad for all of them. 

Start his assault on all of those who he considers his enemies - those like General Milley and General Kelly who worked for him and accurately called him a fascist, and like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who were Republicans investigating his insurrection in the House. 

Attack legitimate mainstream news organizations that have the temerity to report the news rather than the Trump propaganda. 

Impose massive tariffs on imports guaranteed to spike inflation and trigger a tariff war. 

Fire 50,000 lifelong experts in all the government agencies and replace them with pre-vetted MAGA fanatics who qualified by agreeing that Biden stole the 2020 election. Who will then destroy the agencies. 

Start implementing the 900 pages of Christian theocratic and oligarchic tyrannies of Project 2025, implemented by these 50,000 pre-vetted MAGA loyalists and extremist Schedule F employees. 

Withdraw aid to Ukraine and abandon NATO, thereby green-lighting Putin’s assault on Europe, and kicking off a massive war. 

In short, Donald Trump will immediately begin to start ruling like an autocratic dictator, just like autocrats all around the world who helped him win, and will help him eliminate American democracy and the rule of law.  He will do what autocrats do, rule BY law - use the law to crush all opposition. Donald Trump, and many of his cult, are clear that he has been elevated to be the king of America. 

And like autocracies around the world from Maduro to Putin, future elections will just be pretenses. But, you say, he can only serve this last term because the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment says no one can serve more than two terms as president. Are you joking? The Constitution also says an insurrectionist cannot hold public office. So what? The revolutionary Supreme Court said so what? They wrote a bunch of claptrap words ending with the declaration that he could be president, 14th amendment be damned. Next up - "blah blah blah … he can serve as many terms as he wants". Please know that this Supreme Court has shown that it is opposed to democratic elections and “inferior” people being allowed to choose their government - starting with the gutting of the Voting Rights laws of the 1960s. 

All of these things will be cheered by the theocrats, the oligarchs, the proudly overt racists, and the MAGA Cult. But it is going to be a shock to many millions of Americans who thought they were voting for a Republican politician. They weren’t. They were voting to put a dictator in to rule over everyone, including them. 

But…. Americans will not be passively submissive to these assaults. America is in for a rude awakening. And America is going to wake up. 

”. 

Putin wins the American presidency

 Putin won. China won. Iran won. Venezuela won. Hungary won. Autocracies around the world won. 

America lost. Americans lost. Democracy in America and around the world lost. 

Pax Americana is coming to an end. After WWII the world benefited from America The Good - dedicated, imperfectly, to keeping the peace, promoting democracy and personal freedom. 

Fuck that, said the autocrats. We don’t want no stinking democracy and personal freedoms, said the autocrats. 

So they used their considerable disinformation and propaganda skills to split America into many disparate and angry opposing factions along any fault lines that they could discover and exploit - from race, to gender, to religion, to health care, to sexual expression, to…..boom…boom…boom goes America into shattered, hostile pieces. 

The Russian Soviet Union was defeated, but Putin’s Russia just won. Russia calls Trump “America’s Gorbachev” - i.e Gorbachev lost the Soviet empire and Trump will lose the American empire. 

As Lincoln told us long ago, a house divided cannot stand, so our enemies from without divided us, and enemies from within divided us, and we became enemies. And the American House is shattered and collapsing. 

Too bad for Ukraine. Too bad for NATO. Too bad for a peaceful Europe freed from world war. No longer…

Too bad. 

Women, you don’t have to tell anyone

 Women, voting is private. You don’t have to tell anyone. You don’t have to tell your husband. You don’t have to tell your father. You don’t have to tell your church. You don’t have to tell your pastor or your priest. You don’t have to tell your PTA meetings. You don’t have to tell your family. Lie if you have to. 

You get to vote privately. This is America  

Roe Roe Roe your vote. For you. For your daughters. For your granddaughters. For your nieces. For your neighbors. 

Don’t let them steal your power. Don’t let them steal your freedom. Don’t let them steal your own decisions and choices. 

Vote…take your power back…

Where is Batman when we need him?

Donald J Trump, insane candidate for president, beloved by the MAGA “Republican” Party, just promised to EXECUTE his Republican critic, Liz Cheney. I feel like we are in a Batman movie, and the villain (The Joker? The Penguin?) is running for president. 

Always believe the threats of fascist autocratic psychopaths

But there is no Batman to save the day. Batman is us, the voters. This man is insane, literally, a psychopath. 

VOTE