If you haven't been paying attention — God, I envy you — then the past week has been a particularly grim news cycle. Publications such as the Economist and the New York Times outlined the meticulous efforts of Trump supporters to prepare for his second administration, a careful program of hobbling the government and concentrating power in Donald Trump's hands.
You can read the Economist piece, "The meticulous, ruthless preparations for a second Trump term," here. And the NYT here (and stop whining about paywalls. Go the 7-Eleven and try to walk out with a can of Coke. Pay for stuff).
The bad news is that the 2024 election is scarier than 2016 or 2020. Nobody expected Trump to win in 2016, least of all Trump, and he wasn't prepared to dismantle the institutional guardrails that kept him from going full-on totalitarian. Next time he will be. He had trouble attracting talent to help him, as many Republican operatives took a wait-and-see approach. Not this time — power not only corrupts, it attracts, and one of the most sickening aspects of the Trump experience is realizing just how many people are fine with him, if it means they get a slice of pie. They're busy preparing recipes to take full advantage of the next opportunity.
The good news is the situation is clear as day. Trump is a fascist. He is opposed to democracy because a majority of Americans are against him and the narrow religious bigotry he represents. So he must try to win by gaming the system — claiming a corrupt election, leading a coup against the Capitol, and dismantling the "Deep State" of institutional knowledge and democratic standards. Anyone who supports him is, knowingly or not, betraying the core values of American life. Period.
Don't forget that Bannon is the behind the candidacy of that batshit crazy anti-vax, anti-Asian & just like his rotten grandfather, an anti-Semite, RFK Jr. He got him into the race as a fake Democrat to try to screw Biden.
ReplyDeleteI did not know that about Bannon's role in RFK, Jr's candidacy but it doesn't surprise me. Bannon is more alarming than even Trump because Bannon has a brain while Trump's brain is totally overridden by his narcissism. Has this total disregard for democratic principles always been residing in America, with the Civil War resolving nothing? It seems like electing Barack Obama as president unhinged this group and then Trump ignited them! I know we have more to do to become a true democracy in which all humans matter and everyone is included in the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, Accessibility initiatives that are so prominent in our workplaces, but really, if Trump is elected to a second term in 2024, any possibility for our Democracy is dead! It seems voting for Biden in 2024 is our only hope!
DeleteTruth!
DeleteWell said.
ReplyDeleteTo stop Trump, we have to vote. We have to get out in streets in a show of support for everything Not Trump and vote. Democracy cannot stand a second administration headed by Trump and his followers. Democracy doesn't exist if we don't vote.
ReplyDeleteLess than 50% of eligible voters have been voting in presidential elections for decades. We managed to get through it but yes voting is important. It just doesn't assure you of anything. People who disagree with you can win and they won by voting. So why do we lose our s*** when people that disagree with us prevail? That's the social contract
DeleteNot quite true:
Deletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections
Time for me to re-read "It Can't Happen Here", by Sinclair Lewis because it is.
ReplyDeleteI read that last year. Truly apt and scary.
DeleteDoes 7-Eleven make you remember a password to walk into their store? I thought not.
ReplyDeleteI go to 7-Eleven every morning for my Sun-Times. I'm the only one who pays in cash. Everyone else has to remember their password to validate their credit card and get their 2 or 3 cent discount on pop or coffee.
Deletejohn
Get delivery, Tate. It's convenient and saves $.
DeleteThis is indeed a frightening scenario. Let's hope the Moderate Repubs at least, wake up.
DeleteIf this comes to pass, we'll have a new axis of evil: Moscow-Budapest-Washington, DC
ReplyDeleteYes, it's time to call Trump supporters for what they are, "fascists."
ReplyDeleteWell I'm afraid. As always, your right again.
ReplyDeleteThere's no hope short of moving to a red/ purple state to vote there. Living in Illinois, our votes are meaningless
I'm just terrified on the verge of suicide. Can this really happen to this wonderful country that I love so much? That's perfect in every way?
Tell me Mr. Steinberg what does fear mongering accomplish and preaching to the choir because all your readers are anti-trump so who do you hope to be affecting?
It must be delightful to vent to so many worshipers.
I'm busy putting on my knee pads so that i2 can genuflect to the genius of Neil Steinberg
To quote the Who from "Tommy" "And put in your ear plugs, put on your eye shades
DeleteYou know where to put the cork"
I don't normally post the garbage comments from assholes, but today they seem germane, so I thought I'd share a few. Some days I get 50.
DeleteDo you really need pads? Haven't you knees been toughend and calloused from worshipping your hero and savior?
DeleteYou write some good stuff from time to time and then there's this garbage.
ReplyDeleteOkay Trump's going to be the president again. So what who cares?
Who cares? People who believe in rule of law, checks and balances, a the ideals of a democracy.
DeleteAs great a country is America is part of the problem of living. Here is you have to put up with some crap that you don't like or you don't agree with. Everybody does. That's just how the democratic system works. You try to get as much in your favor as possible but it's never going to be just exactly how you want it get used to it.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't spell out the end of the country. It's been this way since the beginning
Scared to death. Looking longingly to Canada. Closest city to us—Windsor, Ontario. Less than 400 miles
ReplyDeleteThey don't want you. You would just be an undocumented immigrant in Canada or an illegal
DeleteI'm even closer. A 55-mile boat ride across Lake Erie. They'd incarcerate you and then ship you back on a crowded refugee bus, via Windsor or Buffalo. After that, once you're back in these Untied Snakes, who the hell knows?
DeleteNope. Canada only wants rich young entremanures with money...business owners who can bring jobs and wealth to Canadian citizens. They damn well don't want anyone seeking political asylum from America and its new brand of Christian Fascism. Especially poor, useless, life-long Democrat geezers. Like me.
My wife has said that she has no intention of fleeing...that she will stay and fight for the America she grew up in (and campaigned for JFK in, at 13). I agree with her. I'm third generation antifa, from a long line of pinkos. My grandma was one of the original Bolsheviks, and my father was a WWII veteran. And I did a few antifa things in the 60s and 70s, but those are other stories for other times.
What does stay and fight mean, exactly? Strapping on a suicide belt? The very idea, horrible as it sounds, does hold some grisly appeal at this stage of the game. Picking up a rifle and going up into the hills of Pennsylvania? At my age, I'd last maybe a week. Probably more like a day. But if such grim scenarios as these are really in the Trump cards...well...I've had a good run. Better than sitting at this desk and waiting for the sound of the Jew-hunting jackboots on the front porch.
It's time for the goddamn NYT, WAPO and other oh-so-responsible media outlets to stop the "objective" treatment of what is objectively a threat to their, and our, free discourse. Immediately defauting to Godwin's Law, the major media outlets remind me of Jewish leaders who thought they could reason with Hitler.
ReplyDeleteHow'd that work out for ya?
I think "Anti-Fa" needs a better name. It didn't sound like an abbreviation of "Anti-Fascists."
ReplyDeleteThe original Antifa destroyed the Nazis & the Japanese fascists in under four years.
DeleteIt seems it's gonna take a lot longer to destroy out home grown ones!
The fact that perhaps the least religious, and/or ethical president ever is ostensibly leading this right-wing religious crusade is remarkable. It would be hard to believe, if one hadn't witnessed it unfold. The most openly anti-democratic, criminal, sexually promiscuous politician one could conjure inspiring the unimaginably cynical support of the supposed "Moral Majority," "Law and Order" party. Not just the minions wearing "Fuck your Feelings" t-shirts at rallies, but half of the entire Congress, including the, ahem, "greatest deliberative body in the world."
ReplyDeleteAnd why have so many climbed aboard this extremely transparent charlatan's bandwagon? Wanting "a slice of pie," as NS writes, is crucial for many. Then, there are the beloved tax cuts, to be sure, as well as efforts to dismantle regulations, environmental and otherwise, that have helped save a huge number of lives. But if you had to pick the one thing that's enabled this theocratic movement, it would be the fanatical desire to insist that every fertilized egg become a person. In a world that's already way over-stressed by the 8 billion people who are already here. And, if necessary, at the cost of the lives of women unfortunate enough to need abortions for medical reasons. "Do unto others...," don't you know. 50 years of precedents overturned, for legally unsupportable reasons, by a Supreme Court stocked with conservative Catholics. In a country in which the majority is in favor of allowing women to make reproductive choices for themselves. (It's 2023 and women determining their own destinies still doesn't cut it with the party that, in a different age, elected the first woman to Congress in this benighted nation.) They believe that "The Lord works in strange ways," so assembling a third of this revanchist Supreme Court via the election of the pussy-grabber is par for the course, alas.
It's not that big a step from deciding to go all-in with a fascist because he'll appoint anti-abortion judges to deciding that fascism itself is okay by you.
There's a meme going around that pretty well sums up what needs to be said about the Right's decades-long religious project, which is moving on from abortion to ever-more-blatantly including contraception: "Your religion does not prohibit me from anything. It prohibits you. Learn the difference."
Bingo. You nailed it. Denial of abortion rights is the crux (sorry) of the Christian Fascist cause.. And thanks to the Soo-preems, abortion is now to this century as slavery was to the 19th. Will it lead, once again, to armed conflict? As I stated just yesterday: "If our increasing discord culminates in Version 2.0, among its root causes will be the ultimate expression of self-determination...the struggle for bodily autonomy."
DeleteIt's the money. They don't want to pay taxes to help the least among us, but they want us to pay the taxes the uberwealthy avoid. The Christians forget Jesus' second commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. Raised a Catholic, lapsed in 7th grade but I only dropped the religion not the message, which is the basis of Society.
DeleteYour comment is certainly valid, JP, but I'd love to see an alternate universe where the Right had not latched onto abortion as an inflammatory issue for firing up the conservative base after Roe v. Wade made abortion legal.
DeleteI don't believe Evangelicals, who form a disproportionate chunk of the number of voters who show up on election day, and single-issue traditional Catholics would have been motivated to vote for the rest of the right-wing agenda quite as easily if they hadn't been determined to vote for whoever would stop the "murders."
Assuming that Anonymous here is the same person, Republicans do not believe in democracy. They have been waging a war against the majority since before Reagan drank the KoolAid. I've heard it said since the Kennedy years that all politicians are liars, so who cares which party rules. But making false campaign promises is insignificant compared to lying about an election that you know was legitimate and then weaponizing that lie to overthrow an elected government. If todays post reaches one Drumpf disciple it was worth the effort. I would call out the SunTimes for missing the boat and also all legitimate newspapers for not calling out Trumps lies on their front page every day they publish. Trump is not just another lying politician. He is an immoral and mendacious thief with no shame and no remorse whose only service to the Country has been exposing the depth and extent of American depravity in his minions.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on your thoughts. Americans need to remember that they have to vote. One request. I could do without a picture of that walking talking bowl movement.
ReplyDeleteThank you. A picture of that yam is unnecessary. Everyone knows what he looks like.
DeleteMaybe your readers are different, but a lot of people would be hesitant to read both of thoy se articles. Even if they could access them like I can. There's an abbreviation on the internet TLDR . That people use even though they admit that they hadn't read the article they're commenting on because they know nothing is going to change their entrenched belief so why bother . They already have an opinion and they are more than happy to share it but they're really not trying to inform themselves or get new information that's what we're up against in this country and it ain't great
ReplyDelete1) there's nothing to "inform" oneself about Drumpfy or the right-wing children's crusade. We've seen The Orange Turd, and Rethuglikkers, in action for the last 45 years (since they were rightly and properly pummeled in 1976, and had to resort to sophisticated cheating and gerrymandering schemes to win). "Two sides to every issue" is a recipe for false equivalency of the basest sort. There's NO other side to "you have rights". And there's no sense in getting "educated" about the "benefits" of the RethugliKKKan platform. They're bereft of ideas that don't include getting a bigger slice of the pie for themselves only.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the Dumbocrats have only themselves to blame. They're insipid, spineless and lack any sort of vision that might inspire the 60% of people who routinely don't vote to actually come out and save their democratic asses (like young people, who are completely not inspired). Both parties are content to play the "51% game", but what the Dumbs don't realize is that when the Rethugs win, they take over and make it even more difficult to conduct a fair election.
And finally, "Anonymous", here's what Pete Townshend has to say to you and all the ones wearing blinders:
"You've been told many times before;
Messiahs pointed to the door.
No one had the guts to leave the temple."
Send us a picture of you wearing the cork, baby.
And now it turns out T**** has stolen Israeli antiquities that were intended to be displayed at the White House for a short time. There' no end to his criminality!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/18/treasures-lent-by-israel-for-white-house-event-stranded-at-mar-a-lago-donald-trump
Well yeah , sort of.
ReplyDelete