Rather Effective

 ...don't you think?

Eugenics 101

 While this is shocking, it is somehow not surprising:

Trump's nephew Fred Trump III alleges that when his disabled son's medical fund was running low Donald Trump said to him:

“Your son doesn't recognize you. Let him die and move to Florida....But that is what he has become. It's sad.”

For The Sake Of My Sanity

I have been avoiding most American news these days, given how the media are fixated both on the  attempt against Trump's life and his coronation via the Republican National Convention. 

However, Trump's VP running mate, J.D. Vance, merits closer scrutiny. The Independent offers the perspective of one of his former roommates at Yale law school, and it is hardly complimentary.

Ohio junior senator and vice-presidential nominee JD Vance is a “hypocrite” who “sold his soul” and will unquestioningly help advance twice-impeached former president Donald Trump’s hard-right agenda if the pair manage to take the White House in November.

That’s according to attorney Josh McLaurin, who spoke to The Independent about his former Yale Law School roommate, now vying for the number two spot in American politics.

It only took a few years for the 39-year-old Vance to go from a so-called Never Trumper to be “not just a cheerleader for Trump, but to be arguably the nation’s biggest cheerleader for Trump,” McLaurin said on Wednesday. “There aren’t even really words.”

“I believe that he has adopted the MAGA mindset wholesale,” McLaurin said. “I think that he personally wants to see a lot more destruction of institutions and norms than your average elected Republican does. And I think that he’s allowing his deep-seated anger—and who cares where that anger is from—to motivate him to make this complete ideological conversion.”

As a student, McLaurin initially found  Vance to be a companionable roommate, but that quickly changed as

he found Vance becoming more and more contemptuous of their privileged peers. Still, Vance knew “it didn’t pay, professionally, to unleash” those feelings openly, McLaurin continued.

“Trump has changed that,” said McLaurin. “He’s created a permission structure for politicians, and for everyday Americans… to be bullies. To try out contempt [and] see how it works. And I think it has really worked for JD.”

That Vance could go from holding deep contempt for Trump, at one time comparing him to Hitler, to fawning admiration for the demagogue suggests a man with no moral centre.

 As McLaurin “progressively watched [Vance] get Trumpier over the years,” he found himself feeling “dismayed,” then “utterly disappointed” upon Trump’s endorsement of Vance for U.S. Senate in 2022. He had saved the text conversation he’d had with Vance about Trump’s similarities to Hitler, and struggled with the notion of exposing the exchange.

Ultimately, McLaurin explained, Vance’s glowing acceptance of the endorsement from Trump was what prompted him to release the texts. 

By accepting a key role “in the Trump moment,” according to McLaurin, Vance “has chosen a very destructive path.”

“Just because he’s capable of insight and thoughtfulness doesn’t mean that he can be trusted to exercise it,” McLaurin said. “... What good are your thoughtfulness and your principles if you’ve created enough of a monster through your rhetoric that those principles don’t matter anymore?”

The issues raised by McLaurin are ones the American public would do well to consider before casting their vote in November. Given the appalling history of that country, however, I expect his warning to have very little impact on the electorate.

On This Eclipse Day

The crazed populist and evangelical set is trumpeting today's eclipse as yet another indicator of the end times.  Marjorie Taylor Greene, never one to pass up an opportunity to display her moronic mentality, had this to say:

... the firebrand Republican congresswoman raised eyebrows with a tweet: "God is sending America strong signs to repent," she warned ominously, in a post alternately praised and mocked. "Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come."

However, here is a more realistic apocalyptic warning that all should heed:

Stupidity: The Followup

And continuing with the theme of stupidity, here is an AI-generated video that speaks much truth.

WARNING: Do not watch if you are offended by crude language.

If you want more stupid, how about this?

In closing, here's a joke a friend of mine sent me, perhaps reflecting a unified theory of stupidity and ignorance?

A QAnon conspiracy theorist, a racist, and an anti-Semite walk into a bar.

Bartender says, "What'll you have, Congresswoman Greene?"

"God Made Trump"

I 'm sorry to report that the American race to the bottom continues. The above is not a satire, but rather a post by Trump on his social media platform and will no doubt find an eager and receptive audience. 

Sadly, the deity does not come off well here. Perhaps a celestial defamation lawsuit is in order? I imagine the punitive damages would be severe.

To The American Voter

In the movie, Forrest Gump famously replied when asked if he was stupid, "Stupid is as stupid does."

It is advice American voters should ponder in 2024:

The Sickness Unto Death

 

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening

In these fraught times, what are critical thinkers to do, other than to muse and despair? It is a question I often ask myself as I watch the United States implode, and worry that the sickness that has besieged its people is having an undeniable influence on politics in Canada. One needs only examine our crazed right-wing for evidence of that.

But the problem seems much worse south of the border, largely due to the cowardice of those seeking the Republican presidential nomination or currying other political favour. With few exceptions, they would rather see the American Republic fall than reduce their own competitive chances. They have freely given themselves over to the darkest of human impulses.

Some Republicans in Congress are still willing to criticise Trump on certain issues and a few, such as Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, are outspoken in their conviction that he is unfit for office. Others, such as Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, have either retired or been ousted.

But most party leaders have stayed silent and fallen into line, apparently terrified of alienating Trump’s fervent support base in what critics describe as political cowardice. Even his main opponents in the party’s presidential primary race have dodged the issue or endorsed his claim of a Democratic witch-hunt and “deep state” conspiracy.

And the sad truth is that with each indictment, Trump's popularity amongst his unhinged base increases. Without principled opposition, that cannot change.

Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist and co-founder of The Lincoln Project, which is merciless in its denunciation of Trump, makes some observations worth noting. 

“Not one of the serious candidates – there aren’t many in the primary field – are making any kind of argument other than this is illegitimate, this is wrong, [special counsel] Jack Smith’s the real criminal, all these crazy things. Not one of the serious ones is saying this guy should be in prison, not in the White House.

“I don’t think this is a moment where Trump has been harmed in the primary; it’s solidified it. He’s going to be on TV every minute of every day for weeks and weeks and weeks and every time that happens the fundraising for the other Republicans dries up, their ability to communicate a messaging stops, none of it works. The whole thing is set of perverse incentives and it’s an almost inescapable trap for the rest of the field.”

A different set of rules seems to apply to the orange demagogue. Seemingly without consequences, he openly mocks, slanders and threatens those who stand in his way.

At a court hearing in Manhattan in April, Justice Juan M. Merchan, who is overseeing Mr. Trump’s state prosecution on charges stemming from a hush payment to a porn actress, warned the former president to refrain from making comments that were “likely to incite violence or civil unrest.”

Justice Merchan’s admonition came after Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social saying that “death and destruction” could follow if he were charged in the case in Manhattan.

That same month, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who was presiding over a federal rape and defamation lawsuit filed against Mr. Trump by the writer E. Jean Carroll, warned the former president to stop posting messages about the case. The ones he had already written were “entirely inappropriate,” the judge said.

Mr. Trump had derided the case on social media as a “scam” and personally mocked Ms. Carroll. 

 After the hearing in front of Justice Merchan, Mr. Trump returned to Florida and to his customary practice, calling the district attorney who brought the New York charges against him, Alvin L. Bragg, a “criminal,” and Justice Merchan himself “a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family.”

Days after Judge Kaplan issued his warning, Mr. Trump attacked him too, saying on a trip to one of his golf courses in Ireland that the judge was “extremely hostile.”

We live in dystopian times, times when selling one's soul for political gain has become commonplace; those who should be protecting their democracy with every fiber of their being have abandoned their responsibilities as they jockey for personal gain.

Sadly, there appears to be few who are willing to save the people from themselves.

 

 

God's Second Gift To Humanity

 But, as Jesus said, "A prophet hath no honour is his own country."

Gullible White Male Trump Voters

Although I am not a big fan of his novels, Don Winslow has been releasing some really interesting videos on Twitter. This is one of them:

Who Invited This Guy?

For those planning their nuptials, here is a word of advice: make sure Donald Trump isn't there to offer a toast.

Eulogizing a Fallen Extreme Right-Wing Icon

And if your name is Donald Trump, you also take the opportunity to talk once again about how a corrupt system screwed you out of a second term.

An Alternative To Impeachment

 

The chance of Donald Trump being convicted in his upcoming Senate trial is remote. There are far too many Republicans happy to forgive and forget (read that as fear of losing support of the Trump hordes). 

There is, however, a quite valid alternative to Senate conviction, as Jennifer Rubin writes:

A criminal trial, both on the former president’s attempt to strong-arm Georgia election officials to change the state’s vote totals and his incitement before the Jan. 6 violent insurrection (coupled with his refusal to immediately and definitively call a halt to the uprising), would serve multiple purposes. If the Senate will not ban him from holding office, a criminal conviction — should Trump be found guilty — would almost certainly do the trick (or at least, we should hope it would in the era of right-wing conspiracy theories).

A criminal conviction would guarantee that Trump cannot run for future office, but it would serve perhaps an even more important function:

[A] criminal trial could provide a severe deterrent for future presidents who attempt to retain power through violence. It is not enough to mouth the empty platitude that the ex-president’s behavior was “unacceptable” if there are no adverse consequences. Without punishment, his failed coup would remain an open invitation to future presidents to try the same sort of power grab. Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe observes, “Impeachment is about getting rid of officeholders who endanger the republic by abusing their powers, not about punishing them for their crimes. Punishment still must be meted out if the rule of law is to be respected and wrongdoers are to be held accountable.”

Moreover, as long as the hardcore MAGA crowd keeps repeating the Big Lie that the election was stolen, the need for a full factual airing of the white supremacist plot and the ex-president’s own attempt to induce Georgia to commit voter fraud remains. “If Trump is still maintaining the big lie after January 6, knowing his words have the power to incite violence, then it seems to me it’s potentially indicative of both his intent on the 6th and continued intent to engage in sedition,” says former prosecutor Joyce White Vance. “It’s certainly an interesting piece of evidence for prosecutors to have.” 

Donald Trump has made a life and career out of evading consequences for his behaviour and actions. A criminal trial and conviction would go a long way toward rectifying that longstanding injustice.

 

Nothing Seems To Deter Him

 The him here, of course, would be Donald Trump who, true to form, will never accept the fact that he has been voted out of office. Despite failed efforts at promoting outrageous claims of voter fraud and bogus lawsuits being filed and rejected, the Orange Ogre is still clinging to the delusion that he can remain president.

As reported in News and Guts, the Washing Post writes of an extraordinary call Trump made to Georgia's Secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger:

In the call, Trump urges the fellow Republican to “find” 11,780 votes to overturn the president’s defeat in the state. The Post writes:

The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”

Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected his assertions, explaining that Trump is relying on debunked conspiracy theories and that President-elect Joe Biden’s 12,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.

You can listen to excerpts of that call below:

It would seem you can take the Donald out of the White House, but you can't take the Don out of the Donald.

 

.

Let's Give Him A Classy Sendoff

 I think the following fits the bill:

What Manner Of Man Is This?

The short answer is that he is not a man at all. A man, as opposed to a raging narcissist/sociopath, would never do what Donald Trump is planning as he gets ready to put tens of thousands of his loyalists at risk at his upcoming Tulsa ego-fest.

Note the series of lies and boasts that issue from the demented one's mouth in the following:



None of this is surprising, but I still find myself puzzled over how Trump's disciples steadfastly refuse to take the true measure of this monster.

Barbra Streisand's Searingly Accurate Assessment Of Trump

My friend Steve sent me this.

God Or Trump? You Decide

Your Sunday afternoon (rueful) smile.

God only brought one guy back from the dead on Easter. Trump is here to bring back the whole economy on Easter 2020. Enjoy this clip (possibly, like, the best ever), share and be sure to subscribe to Making Podcasts Great Again (@TrumpPod) - new every week! pic.twitter.com/aUifVWRzfh

— J-L Cauvin (@JLCauvin) March 24, 2020

Does This Make Me A National Security Risk?

I think this is worth the risk:

via GIPHY

On Demagogues Debasing Language

“[The English language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts... if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

― George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

The language sins of politicians are many, but there is surely a special place in hell for those whose distortions, lies and hyperbole ultimately render words meaningless. Such are the sins of demagogues like Donald Trump and Doug Ford.

While a single post cannot hope to address all the complexities of language abuse, I'd like to offer a very limited exploration of why language is so regularly debased today, especially by the aforementioned culprits:

1 - Neither Donald Trump nor Doug Ford is very bright. As Orwell said, our language becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish. The truth of this is readily apparent if, for example, one notes the fondness with which Donald Trump abuses the mother tongue.

Trump uses a pretty small working vocabulary. This doesn’t seem to be a conscious strategy, though it works as well as if it had been. Much was made during primary season of the way in which reading-level algorithms (unreliable though they are) found his speeches pitched at fourth-grade level, ie the comprehension of an average nine-year-old.

The workhorses of his rhetoric are charged but empty adjectives and adverbs. Things are “great”, “wonderful”, “amazing”, “the best”, or they’re “crooked”, “fake”, “unfair”, “failing”. He sprinkles intensifiers liberally: “a very, very, very amazing man, a great, great developer”.

Concisely put, the simple language mirrors a simple mind or, as the NYT succinctly put it, Trump has the intellectual depth of a coat of paint.

Like Donald Trump, Doug Ford's language reveals a paucity of intellectual heft, a fact reflected in his use of hyperboles, absolutes and superlatives. Consider his statement about chum Ron Taverner (found at the two-minute mark on the linked video):

"There's never been a more popular police officer in this province than Ron Taverner..."

"The front-line police officers, the OPP, are more excited than anyone. They're looking forward to actually having a commissioner that actually cares about the front-line people."

He will be the best commissioner that the OPP has ever seen."

And then there is this whopper:

He also praised Taverner as “a cop’s cop” and insisted OPP officers have been ringing his phone off the hook.

Sadly, people like Ford and Trump, as I wrote in a recent post, are oblivious to their limitations, instead fancying themselves to be the smartest person in the room. This delusion prompts them to make the kinds of statements that invite only ridicule and dismissal from discerning minds, while having a totally different effect on their base of supporters.

2 - A coincident fact is that supporters of demagogues tend to like language that is simple and direct. It helps to solidify their world as one of absolutes, either good or bad, black or white. Real thinking entails hard work, but because we tend to be a rather lazy species, when a politician offers the 'answers' without requiring any cerebration, many will readily swallow the Kool-Aid. A world of absolutes can be very comforting, and helps to demonstrate that the demagogue is 'a man of the people.'

Consider the above examples in this light: "great",“amazing”, “the best”. "He will be the best commissioner that the OPP has ever seen." There is no room for doubt in such language, is there?

And unfortunately, it can be very effective. In his 2016 book, “Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics?”, Mark Thompson examined effect of Donald Trump's fractured pronouncements:

“Trump’s appeal as a presidential candidate depends significantly on the belief that he is a truth-teller who will have nothing to do with the conventional language of politics,” warning that:

“We shouldn’t confuse anti-rhetorical ‘truth telling’ with actually telling the truth. One of the advantages of this positioning is that once listeners are convinced that you’re not trying to deceive them in the manner of a regular politician, they may switch off the critical faculties they usually apply to political speech and forgive you any amount of exaggeration, contradiction, or offensiveness. And if establishment rivals or the media criticize you, your supporters may dismiss that as spin.”

Without doubt, this analysis is equally applicable to Mr. Ford's acolytes, who show cult-like to their man, despite his manifest incompetence, an incompetence that Martin Regg Cohn addresses at some length in his column today:

Our embattled premier is uniquely accursed because he is so often the author of his own misfortune. At year-end, Ford keeps running the ball into his own end zone — colliding with allies, trampling on teammates, fumbling at every turn, blinded by hubris.

Unquestionably, my post barely scratches the surface of how demagogues abuse language. Clearly, however, an informed awareness is the best defence against such debasement succeeding, but that awareness can only come with an engaged and thinking electorate, the greatest enemy of people like Doug Ford and Donald Trump.