Make no mistake: Trump is a symptom and not a cause. He became a cause also when he achieved power, but it was and is his audience that creates him, and if we defeat him and make him go away, the disease in the American electorate will just come up with another malignant narcisistic sociopath who will ride to power on this disease. We have to attack the cause by showing Trump's lost supporters that there is another way forward besides tearing down democracy.
A comment? You must be joking. Like explaining the theory of relativity in one sentence! I mean, Jack Smith pretty well left that comment in 150+ pages. And you know there is so so much more. MAGA is a cult, by definition. Project 2025 is a roadmap to authoritarianism and descent to undying loyalty to Trumpism and not to America, representative government and the Constitution.
His hero’s are not Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., but to Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin. This is serious stuff folks. What befuddles me is how almost half of Americans are stepping up to take a big swallow of the purple koolaid!! Sad 😔 that so many of our neighbors, our fellow Americans, are so oblivious to the truth.
I agree and I cannot understand why his cult believes in him, they hang on every word he says. How can people be so ignorant. I’m hoping for the best with the election but I am nervous about the coming days and what his followers will do when he loses. 🤦♀️
We can hope for a decisive, crushing defeat for the MAGAts. But even if this improbability came to pass it ain’t over. The culture wars will surely continue until the happy time comes when the MAGAts own up to the moron’s lies and bad leadership.
It will never end, while people are working 3 jobs and living homeless, while US housing is a commodity traded in foreign markets with ever-increasing pricing, while people need college or trade school to earn a not-living and will be in ridiculous debt their entire lifetimes, where there is not job security, where if you get direly ill you will lose everything and possibly even be homeless, where you know your kids won't likely do as well as you managed working so many long hours because you live in a country with downward mobility because of the greed of the 1%. It will never end: another malignant narcissist like Vance will be backed by high tech billionaires and do it again.
What if GOP-Trump tricksters succeed in printing too few ballots in Swing State precincts? This would mean voters arrive at precincts and no ballots are available to vote! Yet another way for MAGA to limit the honest vote. Texas Attny General just prosecuted an election denier in Harris County, TX, for fraudulently printing too few ballots to skew the vote!
Can't happen. I work at the registrar of voters. Ballots are ordered in packets which hold 100 ballots each. You know how many registered voters you've got, from prior years obviously, but since more people traditionally vote in the general a certain number over is always on hand. Ballots are counted excruciatingly carefully, so each ballot clerk knows how many he or she is working with per shift. Each voter, after being checked in with photo ID, yes, and address that matches ,gets a single obviously blank ballot. They go to the booth, which is private, and after they have filled out their ballot they walk to The ballot box and only the voter insert the ballot into The ballot box. Nobody else touches it. If a voter makes a mistake on the ballot they return it to the valet clerk who marks it void in a way where it can never be recognized by the machine as a proper ballot to be counted. We then give the voter a new ballot so that each clerk ends up at the end of a shift with two , hopefully small piles of ballots. One pile are the ballots from the last opened package of 100 that did not get used, the second pile are the voided ballots, and I have never had more than maybe three or four in a shift
Seriously, the people who do this all day all year every year have their individual systems down and most of them are extremely similar. The same would go to ballots that were mailed out from each precinct. It's my numbingly exacting~which of course, is as it should be and is 100% a good thing.
Texas Attorney General just prosecuted a 2022 GOP election denier official in Harris County, TX,
for fraudulently printing too few ballots. Yes, in honest precincts, your protocol works. GOP has stacked precincts with election deniers in all Swing States. Ask Georgia about their board! This GOP scheme has happened and can happen again!
Can’t happen in an honest precinct like yours! Did happen when the Texas Attorney General recently prosecuted a 2022 Election official in Harris County, TX. Could happen again in dishonest GOP stacked precincts in Swing States!
I just saw where Rudy's daughter is endorsing and voting for Kamala-Walz. I think it's rather "interesting" (cute, in a way) that so many folks in the mainstream media (i.e. television) appear to be treating this like a normal Republican/Democratic political campaign. You may not agree with all of her policies---or even have a clear understanding, yet, where she stands on things. But one thing is crystal clear: If Trump/Maga get their way with Project 2025, our country (and this very planet) will never be the same again. And not in a good way!
>> If Trump/Maga get their way with Project 2025, our country (and this very planet) will never be the same again
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that ship has already sailed. I don't know what the new "normal" will be, but I'm pretty sure it will never again be the old normal.
I agree completely. I too dream that Trump will be crushed by an overwhelming landslide. But, it's more likely to be a closer result. I pray amd it does look like Harris will win, but how trump reacts is the big question. Of course he will throw a tantrum, like the big baby he is, but the Democrats will have won the popular vote by a large margin, but of course it's the electoral college that determines the outcome, and a narrow Harris victory will have trump crying it was rigged, stolen and the same tired lies as last time, however he is not president this time round, so if there are riots the national guard can be ordered to restore order, and the capitol building will not be breached again, his attempts in the courts are likely to produce the same results as last time, ie nothing, as there was no evidence of any impropriety or anything untoward occurring. So, it is most probable that despite trump trying to incite riots and acts of political violence (as he did last time) and has Jack Smith has so devastatingly described in his recent report. It is possible that trump will be arrested for such acts, of course this would be contentious, but no one is above the law, amd if there is clear evidence that trump is trying to incite chaos, he should be bought to account for his actions before the courts.
There is no such thing as lawfare, there have been no witch-hunts, only trump committing crimes and seemingly getting away with it. But at some point enough is enough, and actions need to be taken in response to his anti-democraric, anti-American antics. The rule of law, must be maintained and those that break it need to face the consequences.
Yet to be understood is how such a huge number of people in this country could have become enamored of this contemptible character. It defies the mind how any but degenerates could find anything remotely interesting, or attractive in Trump, much less make a god of him. That we are suffering from an acute attack of mass insanity, is obvious. First, win or lose, we must find a means of unity for our future. Civil war seems to loom large. There is more potential calamity than can be imagined or dealt with in a quick analysis. First, vote him way, way out!
I truly believe that trump has largely been able to rise to his role as cult leader primarily due to the right wing propaganda machine and especially, Rupert Murdoch's Fox News. Rupert Murdoch is the most dangerous man in the English speaking world. The power he holds, being able to sway public opinion as he pleases is a real danger to societies around the world.
The right wing propaganda machine has been able to brainwash large sections of the American public into believing that trump is not just a failed businessman, civily liable sexual offender and civily liable rapist and fraudster as well as a convicted felon guilty of business fraud associated with election interference (x34) and still facing charges relating to his personal role in inciting violence on Jan 6th, and putting the lives of numerous officials and law and order officers at risk, as he was too childishly churlish to accept the results that he knew were unquestionably reliable, but went against the trump brand, (in trump's eyes he's a winner, and losing an election was an unacceptable blow to his ego)
After the last election Murdoch's fox news had to pay huge settlements to the 2 major companies that operated the voting machines, after spreading unproven rumours about their role in assisting the Democrats 'steal' the election.
Indeed without the right wing propaganda machine 'the big lie' would have been a fringe conspiracy theory and not gone mainstream and trump would not have been able to come so close to pulling off his attempted coup d'etat.
It is unlikely that Fox or other major arms of the right wing propaganda machine will repeat such costly follys. And sure Trump will again lie that the election was stolen again, but not being president and likely without the unwavering support of Fox and its accomplices in peddling 'alternative facts', it is likely that trump's call to arms will not be as effective as last time round.
Having said that, trump is more desperate than last time as he knows that if he doesn't win this election it is more than likely that he will serve some jail time.
In my opinion he deserves to spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars, denied access to social media, cut off from his supporters. After all there are 100,000's of Americans who are serving long prison sentences for fae less consequential crimes.
20 years ago there was legislation media was very different. Legislation like, the truth in broadcasting media and the fairness doctrine ensured that news was factual and that if an opinion was put forward, then a counter argument was also required to be put forward. But republicans made sure that such regulations lapsed.
If similar legislation could be enacted then a great deal of the misinformation spread by the right wing propaganda machine would cease to be as damaging. But until changes are made to regulations governing media, we will continue to have large sections of the population brainwashed by lies and misinformation. If such laws had not been taken of the books 20 years ago, it is likely we wouldn't have had the trump era/ error.
Let us hope that the right wing media loses its sway and control over the gullible masses who it has brainwashed to believe every absurdity and lie that trump and other right wing lunatics utter.
But in the meantime make sure u get out and vote blue all down the line.
When I was young I heard many horror stories from my Dutch relatives about the war. Stories were always abundant when we walked through the bombed out parts of Rotterdam. I always wondered how an evil man such as Hitler could ever have come to power. How did a seemingly civilized people allow it? Now I see it happening here. This is what happened in Germany. There are plenty of things to be dissatisfied about here. Same in Germany in the 1930s. People put hope in demagogues. They rationalize away all the lies and they are easily convinced that all their problems are due to *them* (be it Jews or immigrants). I hope enough of us see the threat that Trumpism is and vote blue.
Well-written article. A predictable authoritarian playbook is in play. Anyone paying attention can fill in the blanks: 1-Define an easily recognized population segment as the enemy. 2-Take over a political party. 3-Purge the party of opponents. 4-Create trusted propaganda channels. 5-Build an army of thugs to intimidate and eliminate opposition. 6-Attack critical thinking institutions: the media, education and universities, science, and scholars. 7-Change the constitution to perpetuate power. 8-Purge the military and para-military groups of non-loyalists. 9-Ban organizations that might rise against the regime. 10-Rule with an iron fist. 11-Rewrite history and contain opposition.
Many among us are knowing and willing participants in this divisive takeover of America. No matter the outcome of this election, we are generations away from being made whole.
I'd be thrilled if Harris netted 306 EC Votes this year---Biden's exact count in 2020.
Would Trump grudgingly accept his defeat or--again--recklessly and falsely deny and oppose it. Or would he drift slowly back into the muck he emerged from?
Likely the first response--which fits the man.
I do believe any attempted insurrection would be snuffed out quickly this time--but that'd be a bad and tragic blemish on the country.
I have no idea what happens if Trump loses. It doesn’t seem like MAGA is sustainable, but the Reagan/Bush-type brand doesn’t seem too popular, either. There are a lot of people who are empty inside and the system is broken, but there’s not really anything that can fill that void for them. I’m very worried. Things are changing so fast and the old paradigms seem to no longer work. The only thing we can do is just show up and vote whenever possible. There are no elections we can afford to skip. There are no “transformative” elections.
If Trump wins there won’t be an election in 2028, at least as we have come to know them. States w Republican legislatures will simply give their electoral votes to him again. Or maybe they will say Vance is the president and Trump is relegated to VP (wink wink).
I find the thought of Trump winning depressing in the extreme. Seeing him soundly defeated is my dream. Vote Blue Always!!!!
Make no mistake: Trump is a symptom and not a cause. He became a cause also when he achieved power, but it was and is his audience that creates him, and if we defeat him and make him go away, the disease in the American electorate will just come up with another malignant narcisistic sociopath who will ride to power on this disease. We have to attack the cause by showing Trump's lost supporters that there is another way forward besides tearing down democracy.
A comment? You must be joking. Like explaining the theory of relativity in one sentence! I mean, Jack Smith pretty well left that comment in 150+ pages. And you know there is so so much more. MAGA is a cult, by definition. Project 2025 is a roadmap to authoritarianism and descent to undying loyalty to Trumpism and not to America, representative government and the Constitution.
His hero’s are not Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., but to Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin. This is serious stuff folks. What befuddles me is how almost half of Americans are stepping up to take a big swallow of the purple koolaid!! Sad 😔 that so many of our neighbors, our fellow Americans, are so oblivious to the truth.
I agree and I cannot understand why his cult believes in him, they hang on every word he says. How can people be so ignorant. I’m hoping for the best with the election but I am nervous about the coming days and what his followers will do when he loses. 🤦♀️
I'm banking on a solid win for Kamala and Tim. Trump and his minions can go to hell.
We can hope for a decisive, crushing defeat for the MAGAts. But even if this improbability came to pass it ain’t over. The culture wars will surely continue until the happy time comes when the MAGAts own up to the moron’s lies and bad leadership.
It will never end, while people are working 3 jobs and living homeless, while US housing is a commodity traded in foreign markets with ever-increasing pricing, while people need college or trade school to earn a not-living and will be in ridiculous debt their entire lifetimes, where there is not job security, where if you get direly ill you will lose everything and possibly even be homeless, where you know your kids won't likely do as well as you managed working so many long hours because you live in a country with downward mobility because of the greed of the 1%. It will never end: another malignant narcissist like Vance will be backed by high tech billionaires and do it again.
What if GOP-Trump tricksters succeed in printing too few ballots in Swing State precincts? This would mean voters arrive at precincts and no ballots are available to vote! Yet another way for MAGA to limit the honest vote. Texas Attny General just prosecuted an election denier in Harris County, TX, for fraudulently printing too few ballots to skew the vote!
Can't happen. I work at the registrar of voters. Ballots are ordered in packets which hold 100 ballots each. You know how many registered voters you've got, from prior years obviously, but since more people traditionally vote in the general a certain number over is always on hand. Ballots are counted excruciatingly carefully, so each ballot clerk knows how many he or she is working with per shift. Each voter, after being checked in with photo ID, yes, and address that matches ,gets a single obviously blank ballot. They go to the booth, which is private, and after they have filled out their ballot they walk to The ballot box and only the voter insert the ballot into The ballot box. Nobody else touches it. If a voter makes a mistake on the ballot they return it to the valet clerk who marks it void in a way where it can never be recognized by the machine as a proper ballot to be counted. We then give the voter a new ballot so that each clerk ends up at the end of a shift with two , hopefully small piles of ballots. One pile are the ballots from the last opened package of 100 that did not get used, the second pile are the voided ballots, and I have never had more than maybe three or four in a shift
Seriously, the people who do this all day all year every year have their individual systems down and most of them are extremely similar. The same would go to ballots that were mailed out from each precinct. It's my numbingly exacting~which of course, is as it should be and is 100% a good thing.
Texas Attorney General just prosecuted a 2022 GOP election denier official in Harris County, TX,
for fraudulently printing too few ballots. Yes, in honest precincts, your protocol works. GOP has stacked precincts with election deniers in all Swing States. Ask Georgia about their board! This GOP scheme has happened and can happen again!
Can’t happen in an honest precinct like yours! Did happen when the Texas Attorney General recently prosecuted a 2022 Election official in Harris County, TX. Could happen again in dishonest GOP stacked precincts in Swing States!
Oh brother! That’s one I hadn’t heard of.
hello , even I am not a American, for me is it clear that this man should never get a possibility
to come in the White House. He is a complet idiot and is only thinking about his self.
eli. eli.sillius@gmail.com
I just saw where Rudy's daughter is endorsing and voting for Kamala-Walz. I think it's rather "interesting" (cute, in a way) that so many folks in the mainstream media (i.e. television) appear to be treating this like a normal Republican/Democratic political campaign. You may not agree with all of her policies---or even have a clear understanding, yet, where she stands on things. But one thing is crystal clear: If Trump/Maga get their way with Project 2025, our country (and this very planet) will never be the same again. And not in a good way!
>> If Trump/Maga get their way with Project 2025, our country (and this very planet) will never be the same again
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that ship has already sailed. I don't know what the new "normal" will be, but I'm pretty sure it will never again be the old normal.
I agree completely. I too dream that Trump will be crushed by an overwhelming landslide. But, it's more likely to be a closer result. I pray amd it does look like Harris will win, but how trump reacts is the big question. Of course he will throw a tantrum, like the big baby he is, but the Democrats will have won the popular vote by a large margin, but of course it's the electoral college that determines the outcome, and a narrow Harris victory will have trump crying it was rigged, stolen and the same tired lies as last time, however he is not president this time round, so if there are riots the national guard can be ordered to restore order, and the capitol building will not be breached again, his attempts in the courts are likely to produce the same results as last time, ie nothing, as there was no evidence of any impropriety or anything untoward occurring. So, it is most probable that despite trump trying to incite riots and acts of political violence (as he did last time) and has Jack Smith has so devastatingly described in his recent report. It is possible that trump will be arrested for such acts, of course this would be contentious, but no one is above the law, amd if there is clear evidence that trump is trying to incite chaos, he should be bought to account for his actions before the courts.
There is no such thing as lawfare, there have been no witch-hunts, only trump committing crimes and seemingly getting away with it. But at some point enough is enough, and actions need to be taken in response to his anti-democraric, anti-American antics. The rule of law, must be maintained and those that break it need to face the consequences.
And this may be the time that the 6 not-so-supreme wankers throw the WH to Trump without any shame or reasoning. Even if he loses bigly.
Yet to be understood is how such a huge number of people in this country could have become enamored of this contemptible character. It defies the mind how any but degenerates could find anything remotely interesting, or attractive in Trump, much less make a god of him. That we are suffering from an acute attack of mass insanity, is obvious. First, win or lose, we must find a means of unity for our future. Civil war seems to loom large. There is more potential calamity than can be imagined or dealt with in a quick analysis. First, vote him way, way out!
I truly believe that trump has largely been able to rise to his role as cult leader primarily due to the right wing propaganda machine and especially, Rupert Murdoch's Fox News. Rupert Murdoch is the most dangerous man in the English speaking world. The power he holds, being able to sway public opinion as he pleases is a real danger to societies around the world.
The right wing propaganda machine has been able to brainwash large sections of the American public into believing that trump is not just a failed businessman, civily liable sexual offender and civily liable rapist and fraudster as well as a convicted felon guilty of business fraud associated with election interference (x34) and still facing charges relating to his personal role in inciting violence on Jan 6th, and putting the lives of numerous officials and law and order officers at risk, as he was too childishly churlish to accept the results that he knew were unquestionably reliable, but went against the trump brand, (in trump's eyes he's a winner, and losing an election was an unacceptable blow to his ego)
After the last election Murdoch's fox news had to pay huge settlements to the 2 major companies that operated the voting machines, after spreading unproven rumours about their role in assisting the Democrats 'steal' the election.
Indeed without the right wing propaganda machine 'the big lie' would have been a fringe conspiracy theory and not gone mainstream and trump would not have been able to come so close to pulling off his attempted coup d'etat.
It is unlikely that Fox or other major arms of the right wing propaganda machine will repeat such costly follys. And sure Trump will again lie that the election was stolen again, but not being president and likely without the unwavering support of Fox and its accomplices in peddling 'alternative facts', it is likely that trump's call to arms will not be as effective as last time round.
Having said that, trump is more desperate than last time as he knows that if he doesn't win this election it is more than likely that he will serve some jail time.
In my opinion he deserves to spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars, denied access to social media, cut off from his supporters. After all there are 100,000's of Americans who are serving long prison sentences for fae less consequential crimes.
20 years ago there was legislation media was very different. Legislation like, the truth in broadcasting media and the fairness doctrine ensured that news was factual and that if an opinion was put forward, then a counter argument was also required to be put forward. But republicans made sure that such regulations lapsed.
If similar legislation could be enacted then a great deal of the misinformation spread by the right wing propaganda machine would cease to be as damaging. But until changes are made to regulations governing media, we will continue to have large sections of the population brainwashed by lies and misinformation. If such laws had not been taken of the books 20 years ago, it is likely we wouldn't have had the trump era/ error.
Let us hope that the right wing media loses its sway and control over the gullible masses who it has brainwashed to believe every absurdity and lie that trump and other right wing lunatics utter.
But in the meantime make sure u get out and vote blue all down the line.
Vance is NOT a more palatable candidate as a successor to Trump. Listen to this:
https://youtu.be/uUBQK9wlNMw
(Seriously bad dude)
When I was young I heard many horror stories from my Dutch relatives about the war. Stories were always abundant when we walked through the bombed out parts of Rotterdam. I always wondered how an evil man such as Hitler could ever have come to power. How did a seemingly civilized people allow it? Now I see it happening here. This is what happened in Germany. There are plenty of things to be dissatisfied about here. Same in Germany in the 1930s. People put hope in demagogues. They rationalize away all the lies and they are easily convinced that all their problems are due to *them* (be it Jews or immigrants). I hope enough of us see the threat that Trumpism is and vote blue.
Well-written article. A predictable authoritarian playbook is in play. Anyone paying attention can fill in the blanks: 1-Define an easily recognized population segment as the enemy. 2-Take over a political party. 3-Purge the party of opponents. 4-Create trusted propaganda channels. 5-Build an army of thugs to intimidate and eliminate opposition. 6-Attack critical thinking institutions: the media, education and universities, science, and scholars. 7-Change the constitution to perpetuate power. 8-Purge the military and para-military groups of non-loyalists. 9-Ban organizations that might rise against the regime. 10-Rule with an iron fist. 11-Rewrite history and contain opposition.
Many among us are knowing and willing participants in this divisive takeover of America. No matter the outcome of this election, we are generations away from being made whole.
I'd be thrilled if Harris netted 306 EC Votes this year---Biden's exact count in 2020.
Would Trump grudgingly accept his defeat or--again--recklessly and falsely deny and oppose it. Or would he drift slowly back into the muck he emerged from?
Likely the first response--which fits the man.
I do believe any attempted insurrection would be snuffed out quickly this time--but that'd be a bad and tragic blemish on the country.
I pray we don't see such a spectacle...again.
The world begs you please vote blue...and win like 80-20... :) that might shut them up...
I have no idea what happens if Trump loses. It doesn’t seem like MAGA is sustainable, but the Reagan/Bush-type brand doesn’t seem too popular, either. There are a lot of people who are empty inside and the system is broken, but there’s not really anything that can fill that void for them. I’m very worried. Things are changing so fast and the old paradigms seem to no longer work. The only thing we can do is just show up and vote whenever possible. There are no elections we can afford to skip. There are no “transformative” elections.
If Trump wins there won’t be an election in 2028, at least as we have come to know them. States w Republican legislatures will simply give their electoral votes to him again. Or maybe they will say Vance is the president and Trump is relegated to VP (wink wink).