The Vances and Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch met last week. Was it about publishing the other evidence they claim to have? I wonder if JD and Usha went to beg or threaten them. TRump's $10 BILLION lawsuit was filed on Friday.
OR was it about Vance stepping in when it all comes crashing down? One thing is for certain, the Murdochs will be handing over much of what they own if something doesn't stop the bullshit from the White House and the people on FOX repeating it.
The Murdochs paid Dominion $787 million, and now Gov. Newsom is suing them for the same amount. Let's Go Gavin!
Too much Hopium. Getting rid of the Murdochs and TRump at the same time---the best two-fer in the history of the world!. If TRump's gone within two years, Vance gets to try for two terms. Ugh! Tick-tock JD, Peter Thiel, Elon, and Murdochs.
Thanks for the analysis and history, Thom. See you in the streets.
Sense indeed. One way or another Trump needs to go before he does any more damage. He has devastated America already and is hell bent on devastating the rest of the world. You can almost feel the animosity and embarrassment in his cabinet which he displays for all to see.
When individuals use their secret codes to annihilate a person, or group of people, rather than come out transparent they are using the system to deny - a person a voice in their own defense to protect their civil rights - then one should understand the Trump Cult. Time-stamp 7:45 is code.
I was in one of the most toxic, still in existence cults for almost 50 years. Scientology. Thank you Thom for stating what I saw in 2016 with Trump. So similar to the dictatorial system created by L.Ron Hubbard. No surprise that most Scientologists love Trump. He embodies the same traits as their beloved cult leader. The way to bring down a cult is to expose the crimes of the leader and the group members. So we need to demand all the facts. Hard core cult members are sometimes unwilling to give up their belief. And in that case they often go down with the ship.
As usual, Thom ratifies my worldview. When he said, "Hitler wanted Germany destroyed by the Allies because the German people, he believed, had 'let him down.” It was hard for me to read. Trump is in a position to start a nuclear WWIII, or restart a conventional one with his ignorant tariffs. His initial TACO tariffs were an economic declaration of war on the entire world. We were saved because his impulsive attack had no strategy or organization behind it.
Today, Trump's toady facilitators might just be stupid and reckless enough to carry out some future activities that could dwarf the fallout of Trump's botched COVID policies. To make things even worse, Trump has hamstrung our government to such an extent, that it might be very hard to recover from a Hitlerian act of murder suicide.
Right now, our SECDEF is a failed reserve major separated for loss of his security clearance, whose first major act was to create a giant security scandal, then fire all Black and female flag officers, creating some level of chain-of-command chaos. Aside from our weakened military leadership, the USA has no/zero allies. Trump has alienated every single one with his serial extortions. Russia and China both must be analyzing their options in the event that a Trump Jonestown might enable them to expand their empires. At least the EU is unified (almost) against Putin. But Taiwan? We get the government we deserve. BTW, somebody wanna go over and wake up the geezer Democrats and demand that they man their political walkers?
Nance and several more, including former KGB agents, come to the same conclusion: Trump is either an agent or a willing idiot for Putin. They probably had his mental profile and effectuated psy ops.
Trump apparently married a Czech agent in 1977. His trip to the Soviet Union in 1987 was do do an illegal deal. Trump first visited Moscow in 1987 to explore potential real estate deals, even meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
He saw the Soviet Union as an "untapped market" and praised Gorbachev's "opening up the country" through reforms like perestroika.
No significant deals materialized from these early endeavors.
Reports suggest that Soviet intelligence may have taken an interest in Trump around this time, and his 1987 Moscow visit might have involved assistance from the KGB, though the extent and nature of this remain uncertain based on publicly available information.
Post-Soviet business and political ties
Over the years, Trump has had various business dealings with individuals and entities connected to Russia, including a sale of a Palm Beach mansion to a Russian billionaire in 2008 for a significant profit.
Some of his business ventures, like the Trump SoHo project, reportedly involved partners with ties to the former Soviet Union and raised questions about the origins of some funding, according to Foreign Policy.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump adopted a friendly stance towards Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin.
US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia actively interfered in the 2016 election to favor Trump's campaign, which Trump has often dismissed as a "Russia Hoax".
Trump himself publicly called on Russia to find emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign, an act that was followed by Russian attempts to spearphish email accounts used by Clinton's office, according to CNN.
Trump's presidency and relations with Russia
During his presidency, Trump continued to express a desire for better relations with Russia but also faced criticism for actions that seemed to align with Russian interests or undermine alliances, according to CNN.
His administration withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a Cold War-era pact with Russia aimed at limiting nuclear arms, citing Russian violations.
In the context of the war in Ukraine, Trump's stance on Russia and Putin has evolved, with recent statements shifting towards a more critical perspective and even issuing ultimatums for peace negotiations.
According to many sources Trump was identified as a candidate to be manipulated early on. Ivana's father reported to the Czech KGB. Google: Ivana Trump's father, Miloš Zelníček, was a "conspiratorial" informer for Czechoslovakia's communist intelligence service, the Státní bezpečnost (StB), which was often referred to as the Czech KGB. He provided information to the StB about his daughter and her then-husband, Donald Trump, specifically regarding Ivana's visits from the U.S. and Donald Trump's burgeoning career in New York. His relationship with the StB continued until the end of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. While the StB spied on Donald and Ivana Trump, they would have funneled any significant intelligence gathered to the KGB, according to NPR.
The FBI “recommended a preliminary inquiry... on Ivana Trump” based on information received from a confidential source in 1989, according to 190 pages of classified documents. George I was president at the time. "Czechoslovakia ramped up spying on Trump in late 1980s, seeking US intel." Exclusive: aided by Ivana Trump’s father, intelligence service with KGB ties targeted high-level government information, files show. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/29/trump-czechoslovakia-communism-spying
My intel is that Putin kept Trump solvent by using his real-estate holdings to launder oligarch money in exchange for kickbacks to them both. It involved Deutschebank, according to an old friend on CEO staff before FSB agents blew up his limo to keep him from unmasking their little scam. If true, after so long, Trump is up to his ears in making money off Putin, so of course, Trump is Vlad's toady. But being smarter than Donny, Vald helped him get elected. The irony is that the MAGA cult put him back in the WH. How dumb is that? as Jimmy Kimmel might ask.
Irrelevant footnote, I actually sat at Putin's KGB desk in Dresden after the wall came down. A student at one of my lectures at Dresden TU took me there. I think they turned it into a nightclub. It has a view of the Elbe.
I'm sure that we only have the tip of the iceberg.
Michael Cohen was convicted on the basis that he underestimated the number of attempts he made to establish a Trump Moscow, which would have been verboten at the time.
Deutchesbank was supposedly the only lender who would loan Trump money....and they were tied to Russian money -- fined by UK and US regulators, including the FCA in the UK, for its role in a Russian money laundering scheme involving "mirror trades" carried out through its Moscow, London, and New York branches between 2012 and 2015, resulting in fines totaling over $600 million for the bank, while the bank has also been winding down its operations in Russia and relocating its IT centers..
When I studied in the former OST Deutchland (Berlin) in 1991 we were invited to the office for a lecture where the final solution was hammered out in Dresden. I think it is notable you can say you sat at Putin’s old desk! What were you teaching?
Organizational Psychology. I was a guest lecturer. I was later part of a team of US Management experts helping Saxony retool for capitalist democracy. Most of my career I conducted studies of government agencies to identify problems and suggest policy changes starting with Navy, then JCS, then the Mall, and eventually the Clinton WH (NSA and REGO) - until becoming an NIH official.
And then there is the Steele dossier, supposedly debunked (by the Trump cult),and of course the pee tapes. Shortly after the tapes came out, a photo appeared on the net, then disappeared it showed a female straddled over a bed,pissing on it and between her legs in the background Trump grinning and giving two thumbs up.
Trump deflected with the help of some who heard the pee tapes and said Trump was getting a golden shower., maybe even the deflection came from within the cult itself, as Trump then rightfully claimed that he was a germaphobe
The bed peed on was the bed Obama slept on, and Trump is childishly vengeful and petty. He is still smoldering that a black man can be beloved and win the Nobel Peace Prize
Your information Daniel is super interesting. I just read that psy ops is illegal for the military to use on individuals within the US. Is that correct? Or just like Trump do whatever it takes?
There is one problem Tom. Faciliators, not ours, but country leaders. Instead of standing up to Trump, calling his bluff and retaliating, they humilate themselves and their countries, by prostrating themselves at the foot of his throne.
If they had backbone, they would stand together and starve America, it would hurt for awhile, but the way to cure gangrene is chop off the diseased member.
That is not my sense here in Europe for the summer. My German pals say that EU is already planning on retribution if Trump does not back off. Also, Germany is in the lead providing support to Ukraine. Most NATO countries are already ponying up defense spending increases - which - ironically benefit the US MIC bigly.
I hope so, I am betting against Trump, which at the moment is betting against the US which I guess makes me a traitor. being anti Trump is in his eyes, treason.
The only way to save America and Democracy is to burn down the house and rebuild it from scratch, hoping that we have learned lessons of the past, such as no unfettered 2nd Amendment.
Ironic isn't that the MIC is the hope of Ukraine and the west. It was once thought that Russia was it's equal, but Russian corruption, oligarchs, and authoritarian, top down "leadership" has resulted in an antiquated, ineffective,MIC, that can only do one thing, and is struggling at that, and that is building artillery shells.
I subscribe to medium.com and there is a lot of first hand reporting on Ukraine and Russia. It doesn't look good for Putin, the current sanctions on oil, are really squeezing him, and his ghost fleet of fake foreign flagged oil tankers are now being tracked and stopped by England and the EU.
He is in such bad shape that North Korea has to provide soldiers for his meat attacks, 10,000 at first, now 30,000 more and even China is chipping in, but not for his meat attacks, specialists I presume.
This indeed was a rough read...I'm afraid that if trump is cornered and facing his demise he won't stop by destroying just his own base. If deranged vengeance takes over, much like a spurned love who enters the if-I-can't-have-her-no one-can zone, what's to stop him from pushing the nuclear button?
Thom, I understand the role and power of Rupert Murdoch and Faux News. But, what about Voight and Project 2025? The Heritage Society and Federalist Society, led by Leonard Leo and Voight, spent decades priming the pump for a fascist takeover of America. And, it appears thing are moving along just as they envisioned.
So, do these two entities - Murdoch and Project 2025 - help or hurt each other? Will they merge into one powerful union or will they both falter at the alter, so to speak? In the meantime, Murdoch and Project 2025 will keep on moving the goal posts until they have created their own utopia at the expense of the American people.
All that you mentioned have common denominators with each other. In the new organized crime “family” loose allies are formed for temporary, common purposes only later to be dumped when they become too vocal, too popular, veer off the other’s track too much, cause embarrassment, etc., vis-a-vis the DT and Musk association.
I doubt very much that MTM would be mentioning any of Trump’s various faux pas and downward spiral, that anyone with a brain have been noticing for a long time, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s getting downright inconvenient, therefore, on the way out.
I think the drivers of project 2025 will be strong and don’t need Murdoch. They are strong in many established colleges and entities like the Heritage foundation. Look at Hillsdale College in upper Michigan.
That concerns me too. They appear to be well organized, have an agenda that has moved forward very fast. They have over 100 organizations and plenty of millionaires behind them... They needed someone like trump to win an election and gain actual power. Maybe they don't need him anymore...
You did not comment on how the totally corrupt, toxic and tainted SCOTUS can lean or push anything in any direction, with or without Bozo. Or what to do about them.
If nothing changes about SCOTUS it could take decades before THEY can be replaced through attrition.
I am still seething when it comes to SCOTUS when Ruth Bader Ginsburg deciding not to resign would have allowed Obama a chance to replace her with a liberal. At the time I remember thinking she was selfish.
AI. Justices on the Supreme Court, while part of the federal government, are not directly part of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHB) managed by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in the same way as typical federal employees, though they may be eligible for the FEHB program or choose other coverage options, such as those available through the Health Insurance Marketplace or a spouse's plan.
Medicare automatically kicks in when you are 65 and on Social Security. My wife had to apply for Medicare and give them her banking account info so they could automatically deduct the premium. She retired on a Social Security replacement program and PERS
I had a secondary, medigap, from CalPers. It wasn't medigap at first, it was
full coverage group health through CalPers contract with Regence Blue shield, but when I turned 65, it automatically reverted to a Medicap, and my services decreased. Under group health I had two annual physicals, under Medicare on Wellness, but not at first, that was added later.
I am sure that the Justices have their own carve out,their own benefits and their own programs.
Anyway, let's say that they don't have a special program and get Medicare Parts A, B and D like everyone else, they need a Medigap program, and that is where the Cadillac program comes in. not all Medicgap products are the same. There are co pays, and limits. And if you pay the premium, you can even get elective surgery covered.
And here is the motivation to hang on to your government job. Not only a Cadillac Medigap program, but the government pays for your Medigap policy as a benefit.
As a shop steward with SEIU, the year I retired from the County, I had sat on the contract negotiating team, and I wouldn't go home until the county had agreed to provide health care coverage for retirees the same as for employees, and they did for two years, then a subsequent team, failed to renegotiate the same terms, and let that provision get watered down.
I am quite sure that the Supreme Court has their own special health insurance contract And RBG, herself in ill health, was looking out for herself and her family by hanging on
Feldman, there is another way to bring a subject into a conversation, without an implication that the author was deficient, which is what you did when you said "You did not comment:..."
Just introduce, sans fanfare, your own thoughts. I think that Thom did a yeoman's job, and he was addressing the Cult of Trump, not that of Opus Dei, Heritage Foundation and Federalist Societ.
Dr. Loren Eisley, the sentient paleontologist, mused long ago that humanity is like slime mold, once it devours all hosts, it just eats itself. Watching this gaggle of parasites play out their lusts of sadistic perversion reminds me of that reflection. Eisley loved caves, and once crawled into one in SE New Mexico. It was so tiny and jet black dark that he ultimately could go no further and, on his back, just drifted off into a dream state. He awakened to the slightest of sounds, so muted as to be almost phantom, coming from just above his face. Then a few light touches on his cheeks revealed he was in a chamber filled with thousands of grand daddy long legged spiders, whose bite is venomous to its prey. But Eisley knew humans did not taste good, so he slowly wiggled his way to the outer world. This is the tomb of the nihilists, whose disregard for the small and beautiful makes them prey for those they have attacked with blatant indifference. The perverse can and do eat each other, and then themselves. That is the 'secret' that TFG so unconsciously scribbled via his signature on the bush, now in print for all to see. All those millions of tiny spiders now smell their prey.
We have forgotten or never learned the vital lessons of the natural world we come from and are obligated to honor and respect. The greatest of many failures of Homo sapiens. The second would be hubris, believing we are something we are not.
I started a reply that I can’t find now. However I don’t know where your second category - the second greatest failure of Homo sapiens comes from - because I face hubris everyday in people and lt never occurred to me it would be among the greatest.
If you research the origins of that behavior, as far back as the Greeks, you will see that it is at the core of indifference that leads to violence. Violence is implicit in all the literary references I read, starting when I used to act in Greeks plays in school. It is the major fuel of narcissists and psychopaths.
I suspect there is a fourth category of cult members. I believe there are many on the periphery who are the lowest information of low-information voters or non-voters who only get bits and pieces and who have accepted some of the propaganda as believable because they are very gullible or prefer conspiracy delusions and who lack the discretion or information to see through the fog and confusion. They may be reachable or are likely to go along with the mass mood if it really turns against Trump. But they are too self-absorbed or too busy hanging on to become active or useful. We can hope they will help in some small way at a critical juncture. The good news is that there is no one to replace Trump and the R's will be floundering indefinitely.
At this point, I want a powerful new Democratic Party to (gasp) come up with an agenda as detailed as the GOP's. That way, a lot of voters will have a place to go. I feel the Dems won the last elecction for the GOP because they were just not lifelike. What on earth were they going to do once in office? We never really found out. I live in NYC, and yes I'm aware that nyc isn't America, but a candidate like Mamdani who put his ideas out there, was easy for me to vote for because although he can't do it all, he's thinking on the right lines. He is what he thinks, he isnt a damned focus group with safe (Schumer, Pelosi, make your own list) ideas. Harris couldn't come out against the genocide in Gaza. And a lot of people old and young either didn't vote for her, or didn't vote at all just because of that total lack of moral substance.. The dems have to pick up sides and go with it, and stop hiding from real life.
The Dems need to go totally progressive. Bernie and AOC platform, a detailed vision for a better America. And oppose the Genocides in Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine.
The problem with Bernie is over the years he didn’t share leadership - he is a one man show. Everything he has spoken for is the right thing for America.
Carol, I think he tried. He worked to establish a "revolution"... stating that he could not do what needed to be done, that is needed to be "we" rather than him. He is now mentoring youthful leadership.
Absolutely they need to do this. However, from what i read they are stuck in their ways and have no intention of making the reforms needed to move forward with a progressive agenda. it is very sad. I think the DNC has responsibility for allowing the "alternate universe" to become established by NOT developing a counter messaging system I personally felt abandoned by the party when they did not tell us about Project 2025 early enough to make a difference.
The Dems are always on the defensive because the R's have lots of trained attack dogs and a media that has no respect for them and has a strong rightward bias. The Dems are sclerotic because they play by rules, they are establishment because they are playing it safe, and they are almost as terrified of true progress and innovation or revolutionary tactics as the R's. The Dems also have found it necessary to appeal to big money to compete and most of them actually harbor religious beliefs or doubts and a core of conservative beliefs or irrational fears. But, as always, those low information people have been mollified, conditioned, myopic, apathetic, cynical, and ignorant after 12 years, give or take, of obedience training, behavioral modification, and dumbing down in anti-intellectual schools that they are flying blind and indifferent about their own future or the future of the country. Awareness, including self-awareness requires direct experience with controversy and quiet contemplation, autonomy, and vital issues in a secure setting. Our schools do not provide any of that.
You are talking a bout the lazy, stupid, ignorant like those that Jimmy Kimmel has Guillermo interview on the sidewalks, or Stephen Colbert has interviewed in front of Rockefeller building. Low or no information voters who believe anything that they hear from an authority.
My poor departed mother was one such, she was so awed by authority that she bragged about being friends with a school crossing guard, who eventually robbed her of her gold coins
That was my mother too. In many ways my mother was refined but years of living in a terrible situation made her prey to others. I think William in your family stories k have heard so far there is a book!
Everyone has a book Carol. It is surprising when one listens to other peoples
stories.
My mother was a typical tragedy of the depression. Her father jumped out of a window, when it was being raided, fell into a construction ditch, broke his hip, no insurance he was bed ridden. Mom was Daddy's little girl, and fed her father, then after two years bed ridden he died, she was 15, she stopped growing then. her mother had already put her other two daughters to work, at age 16, then it was Mom's turn. Grandmother took in laundry and cooked pies, to feed the family. The girls turned over their wages to their mother.
Growing up in poverty like that, stuck with her, also losing her Dad at such an early age, when she was Daddy's little girl, left her stunted.
I understood Mom, forgave her, my sisters ( younger than I and self absorbed) never could.
I will not go into the family dynamics, but I decided that I will never be like Mom, but just the opposite. My sisters carried the legacy forward,.
Mom worked for Beechnut chewing gum, dressed in a ridiculous majorette uniform (long dress) and an empty drum that held the chewing gum.
The family legacy wasn't just being poor, but my great grandmother was the daughter of a German (Rhinelander) Catholic and a German Jewess, he never learned English, and didn't try, she grew up in a potters field, of which he was the caretaker. Constantly harangued by his wife, for being on the wrong side of a civil war om Germany.
Such dysfunction and poverty was carried around like precious jewels, passed mother to daughter, the sons escaped and went their own way, when it was actually garbage. Not for me. I broke with tradition, and have been so much better off, my sisters carried it with them all of the days of their life. They have found peace finally.
I love stories. Non fiction especially. Thanks for sharing.
My mother even carried her trauma over to blaming me as the eldest for stuff I didn’t do (and stuff I did) as a teenager.
Her claims about me became lore in the community that is difficult to change. While I escaped from the situation I never really blamed my problems on my family because it was so tragic ; my father was schizophrenic and at that time to leave the situation meant he might kill her as he threatened to do. I forgave my father years after he committed suicide, and my mother despite how she treated me differently publically than the other five siblings even into my sixties.
Wow we have so much in common. I too was eldest, single mother, she worked as soon as I was old enough to watch my younger sisters, held me responsible for everything they did, and they defied me, when I tried to make them comply, they would rush to the bus stop and when Mom came home, tell them that I mistreated them, and she would come in the house rip roaring mad, and I ran out the back door, giving her a chance to cool down.
A couple more repeats and I stopped worrying, didn't care what they did, went off and had fun with my friends, exploring the woods along Tookany Creek in Fairmount Park.
Yes my siblings continued into their fifties to punish me for trying to help them behave and have goals. The ridiculous lies they said to my parents seemed to stick with my parents and I got the brunt end of the my mother’s misery.
She seemed to get her act together about the time I left home when my brother was killed in an accident it wasn’t sudden; but anytime it looked like I was doing well mentally and otherwise she would knock me down behind my back and said to me when I was fifty five -I know how to hurt you and make you mad. She tried but twenty years before in counseling I had recovered from her abuse. I was astonished she said this to me. Of course she discovered it didn’t work any longer.
I kept returning home as my children grew and preach college, finally my one sister ten years younger said when are you going to finish (life had gotten in the way)she said we are sick of hearing about college. I did finish when I finally got rid of some problems.
When I remarried I made it clear that I was in college; getting married meant I had to give up my government grants, and my husband of forty years (an educator) said go for it. Yes ,we had four children and our home to care for but not having an actual job made it possible to do what I loved - study.
As awful as the prospect of a Vance presidency is - and it truly is - I welcome trump's removal which, if nothing else, will remove his nihilistic hand from the nuclear button. Vance and the capitalists understand that nuclear war is bad for the continuing flow of profits. Anything else trump or Vance could inflict on the country / world is at least survivable.
I think the prominent Trump enablers Frank Bruni wrote about today represent those in your third category. I wrote about this in "Even with regrets MAGA leaders suffering stomach cramps from dining on the Trumpian feast will find that meal options are all still tainted with the same noxious samonella" today ( link: https://halbrown.substack.com/p/even-with-regrets-maga-leaders-suffering )
Trump forgot the primary rule for making change as Thom has pointed out- do it slowly, step by little step. All of this has happened way too suddenly and the blowback is showing.
Hitler's 1945 "Nero Order" to destroy everything usable in Germany was not carried out because by that point even his close followers realized the war was lost and more destruction was pointless. Perhaps Trump's minions will also abandon ship when the nosedive starts in earnest.
But in Australia the wartime feelings towards Americans was more nuanced than just one angry man stirring things up. Most of the men were either fighting in North Africa or rotting in Japanese POW camps, and apparently a lot of women saw the "rich" Americans come in and did everything they could to get close to them. So there was tremendous national resentment against these brash newcomers. Something similar happened in Britain, where my mother-in-law (who briefly married a GI) said that a lot of the soldiers talked about "having a mansion when they lived in a shack" and swept women off their feet. As the saying went at the time, the Yanks were "Overpaid, oversexed and over here". Murdoch clearly parlayed this anger into helping his enterprise, but it is unlikely that he started it.
Thom leaves us a lot to unpack here. And I would offer an important difference in one of the critical points he makes.
Yes, the dark side is made up of a large mass of un-, and mis-informed Americans; many who are willfully ignorant and willingly led as this choice serves (feeds?) and satisfies inner sicknesses like heroin offers an artificial, temporary euphoria.
And, yes, this mass has been called out from under rocks, misled and and subverted away from perhaps better natures by the BILLIONS spent via media like FOX and a well organized echo chamber.
And, yes, there is a small number of wealthy men -- and it is almost always men -- who orchestrated this mesmerizing of America to achieve there own ends. This began in earnest 60 years ago with the GOP adopting Kevin Phillips SOUTHERN STRATEGY that put Nixon in the White House. The goal: Primarily, to undo what FDR and the NEW DEAL Democrats put in motion 90 years ago.
These men are the users. They sit beside Donnie as he drives the MAGA bus trying to make sure he take the proper turns that support their interests. Some succeed, some do not (Musk?)
However, I warn against assuming that FOX giveth and FOX taketh away. The monster could not be controlled by Dr. Frankenstein. And I doubt Murdock et. al. can corral Trump.
I call your attention to the weeks following Jan 06 2021 when the FOX iluminati stood up, briefly, to Donnie's treason, trying to turn him away the path he was taking, and reason with him to stop.
FOX lost millions of viewers in a matter of weeks. They simply went somewhere else where they could hear what they wanted to hear.
At some point, if you create addicts dependent upon a specific brand of heroin, if you stop offering the drug they need, they will seek out the dealer who gives them the drug that they crave.
The tail is wagging the dog, now.
It will be the unknowable "mind" of the MAGA minions that determines whom they will worship next.
So the users, their agents in the GOP and the corporate Dem Party, are all chasing after Donnie as he takes the MAGA minions this way and that. Of course, they would love to get a step ahead of him; or maybe even regain control of what this mass wants and will do.
However, I have little faith that old man Murdock and his essentially elitist neo-con mouth pieces are up to the task.
As such, there may be as much danger in Donnie losing control of the mass as his keeping it.
And our vision of solutions to this mess must consider this.
No wonder Reagan embraced Murdoch. Meanwhile, water on the brain appears to have drenched donvict’s mental magnets and obscured for him the ability to see what’s coming.
That this cult will collapse, and probably quite soon, brings up the need to address two pertinent questions. !) How is it going to leave the stage — Will it go gentle into that good night or rage, rage against the dying of the light? Synanon, after spurts of violence, pretty much faded away, while what happened with The People's Temple is burnt into the American psyche — even people who know nothing about Jim Jones know what drinking the Kool-Aid metaphorically means.
My concern is that MAGA isn't going to fade away with the dawn because it ultimately is a death cult, it is apocalyptic, and it sees itself as a near-angelic component of the War Between God and Satan: they are primed to go down fighting. Violence isn't necessarily the outcome but while the People's Temple became increasingly armored against the outer world (they didn't move to Guyana for the Hell of it), MAGA is evangelical, it sees its sacred mission as the spreading of The Word and the Purification of the Temple. They are armed to the teeth, have fostered paramilitary groups, and use the rhetoric of violence. They are locked and loaded, with their fingers on the trigger.
2) In the hope that this will end without first going through a civil war, reintegration is not going to be facilitated with rancor or" I–Told–You–So's" but through a non-accusatory reconciliation process. Following the (first?) Civil War, we did exactly that, with mixed results, some of which still haunt us today: In certain ways, we are witnessing the South, 160 years after the fact, winning the war. Although Elon would strongly disagree, South Africa's model would serve us better. Regardless, the country needs to become United again. That is, if we want to remain the United States. Perhaps we don't, at which time this would be the best opportunity to go our own separate ways.
MAGA will not disappear, because it wasn't created by Trump. It has been lying, not even dormant, for over a 100 years, seething with rage, feeliing victimized because their power to victimize women, gays, non whites had been stifled by DEI policies.
No, it won't disappear, but it can certainly go forward diminished. There is a core group that will remain unshakeable but they do not constitute the majority (and no, I don't have the stats). A fair number currently under MAGA's umbrella are not ideologically hog-died; at most, they're fellow travelers — they'll waver in their allegiance. And then there are the disaffected, the people who want to belong to something (since they don't believe anything). They have been burnt often enough by the Dems and so they turn away from the Dems and run into the waiting arms of the Grifter-In-Chief, who promises them visions of greatness, of belonging to an organization that will reign triumphant, where their fervent prayers are heard. They find their comfort in false promises. While Trump embraces them with his left arm, he is picking their pockets with his right. These people will wake up with a massive political headache. So yes, MAGA will remain but it will be diminished.
Dimished it was before Trump appeared and the creature simply will await the next time someone unleashes the genie.(The word is a derivative of the Arabic djinn, for an evil spirit)
Half a century ago, I learned that all it takes is 17% of a population for there to be a culture shift. 17%. The African American population is only 13% and they have awakened and created a major culture shift (no complaints here, just saying)
Now consider that the hardest of the hard core MAGAts are at least 30% and by my reckoning almost 40%.
MAGATism is not going anywhere.
It lay festering for over 150 years, pissed at being held down by the likes of political correctness, DEI, affirmative action and along comes Trump down the escalator saying things that they have been mumbling under their breath.
And then there is the religious aspect. Religion has been on the decline with the education of the masses and the growth of critical reasoning
In Trump, an antiChrist figure if ever there was one, a non believer, yet someone who grabbed a hold of their cause and elevated them, thus elevated their social status and their collection plates, they found their lord and savior.
That creature has been around for millennia and isn't likely to go away, perhaps for at least as long as this current iterations of homo exists. I don't suppose there is a dark genetic core that turns us to evil but we do have an aspect that struggles with differences and is innately suspicious, an aspect that can predispose one to conservatism. We're back to nature versus nurture; I believe that it is both, with culture ultimately determining how the matter will resolve. Smaller groupings, tribes if you will, often have different outcomes.
Tribes are broken up into sub groups called clans. Clans have different practices and even slight differences in cultures from tribes. Consider Christianity to be a tribe, within it are many, hundreds of clans.
Survival of the individual necessitates wariness and suspicion of the other, magnify that with a clan, magnify that with a tribe. Humans are tribal, there is the Russian tribe,the Chinese tribe,the American tribe, the American tribe is the most fractuous of all, with the different clans bound together by economics and an ideology called the rule of law.
The MAGA mentality has fractured and discarded the rule of law, to recast it in their own image which is "the law is what I said it is and everyone else has to submit". Which was pretty much Germany after 1933, and Italy after 1922, and China after 1949
What I am thinking about is preagricultural societies or ones where agriculture isn't the main means of sustenance. It leads to hierarchical social structures, the unequal amassing of wealth, the rise of cities, and slavery as an advantageous way to produce and process crops.
Yes William, quite so. The fear of 'the other' is especially huge when it comes to sexual differences, whether it be LGBTQ+, the different sexual rituals of different cultures/ethnicities, the self-empowerment of females in general, or the perverted belief system of christian glamorizing of women as fecund saints made for male cleansing of any and all sins. Wetiko is raging inside the brains of all these maga-t types, this deluded sense of grandeur being threatened by femininity of any type.
Interesting response Mick, and if I could elaborate, because I agree.
Underlying this fear and anxiety about LGBT, and the anti abortion drive are male insecurities and the need to dominate, especially to complete the sex act.
I've had over 3/4's of a century of locker room and bar room talk, and one thing I have found is that many men get aroused over talking about or watching women on women sex, but are repulsed, so they claim, by man on man sex.
They are comfortable around lesbians, even have lesbian friends, but uncomfortable around gays.
The popular image of people seem to be that gay males are all swishes, flamers, effeminate, but the truth is just the opposite, most are indistinguishable from hetero males, and even tend towards the macho, even more than hetero normative males. and there are effeminate build, even acting males, that are as straight as an arrow.
The reason that gay males raise anxiety and revulsion is that females are considered inferior, less than a male, especially since they willingly permit a man to violate her sacred person with the male sex organ. Thus any man who would have sex with another man is considered less than a man a woe man.
I had a handyman who did some odd jobs that I can't do anymore.. We had interesting conversations. In one he mentioned that he had no problem with lesbians,but was uncomfortable around gays.
I know why, he doesn't. You see men when they encounter a female, first assess her for sexual compatibility, is she something they would fuck, if so then he mentally undresses her and even copulates with her,mentally.
Thus he thinks that he is so attractive (male narcissism) that a gay man would do he same to him, thus emasculating him. Mental rape goes on all of the time, that's why men bought magazines like Playboy and Hustler.
Abortion is the rejection of the male, the male and his seed, The real basis of the movement or drive has nothing to do with unborn children, well in the minds of the female camp followers who do the hard work, picketing clinics, it does, but just like MAGAts they get suckered in by emotions.
I was concerned that the murder & attempted murder of the Democratic legislators might have been the beginning of the 'Night of the Long Knives'! I'm grateful the thus far that has not occurred but I can't be sure it will not emerge as things get worse & worse.
I'm also very concerned about a US version of the "Enabling Act". The Republicans have the votes jelly fish spines to do just that! Wow are we.
Some possibilities
The Vances and Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch met last week. Was it about publishing the other evidence they claim to have? I wonder if JD and Usha went to beg or threaten them. TRump's $10 BILLION lawsuit was filed on Friday.
OR was it about Vance stepping in when it all comes crashing down? One thing is for certain, the Murdochs will be handing over much of what they own if something doesn't stop the bullshit from the White House and the people on FOX repeating it.
The Murdochs paid Dominion $787 million, and now Gov. Newsom is suing them for the same amount. Let's Go Gavin!
Too much Hopium. Getting rid of the Murdochs and TRump at the same time---the best two-fer in the history of the world!. If TRump's gone within two years, Vance gets to try for two terms. Ugh! Tick-tock JD, Peter Thiel, Elon, and Murdochs.
Thanks for the analysis and history, Thom. See you in the streets.
Certainly makes a lot of sense. Popcorn, soda and candy, please. And a life preserver
Sense indeed. One way or another Trump needs to go before he does any more damage. He has devastated America already and is hell bent on devastating the rest of the world. You can almost feel the animosity and embarrassment in his cabinet which he displays for all to see.
Arlene,
When individuals use their secret codes to annihilate a person, or group of people, rather than come out transparent they are using the system to deny - a person a voice in their own defense to protect their civil rights - then one should understand the Trump Cult. Time-stamp 7:45 is code.
How do we square that JD is much worse?
Who is going to make him go?
Better add an IceBlock app to our phones too. Readers of progressive sites may already be selected for sale in Libya.
The last time I looked, it was only available for iPhones.
Popcorn? How about gobs of gin straight up....
I really had hope that in the Murdoch Corp shuffle one of his son’s would turn the tide of evil that Rupert created.
One did.
One son did? I think you are correct.
I like your word Hopium! I’m going to confiscate it.
Pretty popular if you watch IHIP podcast on YouTube, Carol. I borrowed it from them.
Jennifer and Angie live in Oklahoma---they are not fond of the Bible-thumpers. Fair warning, they do like to swear about some MAGA folks.
I was in one of the most toxic, still in existence cults for almost 50 years. Scientology. Thank you Thom for stating what I saw in 2016 with Trump. So similar to the dictatorial system created by L.Ron Hubbard. No surprise that most Scientologists love Trump. He embodies the same traits as their beloved cult leader. The way to bring down a cult is to expose the crimes of the leader and the group members. So we need to demand all the facts. Hard core cult members are sometimes unwilling to give up their belief. And in that case they often go down with the ship.
We need to make sure Trump does not survive this.
Yes, we have to thank the FBI for removing Hubbard, although there are members of his cult still around.
I don't think they actually got Hubbard, but they convicted his wife. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard
Major operations in LA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_in_the_United_States
Notable celebrity members
Kirstie Alley, actress (deceased)
Anne Archer, actress.
Catherine Bell, actress.
Nancy Cartwright, actress.
Chick Corea, musician (deceased)
Erika Christensen, actress.
Tom Cruise, actor.
Jason Dohring, actor.
Thanks - we had a couple of scientalogist in my wife's family - Her strong Catholic aunt removed them from her will...
Smart aunt.
Add John Travolta
Yes, I was friendly with most the celebrities except Tom Cruz.
Thank you for your honesty, Geoff.
Your welcome. Being in a cult does not end well unless you get out and deprogram.
That’s a story. I made a documentary about my experience. It will be out first of next year.
As usual, Thom ratifies my worldview. When he said, "Hitler wanted Germany destroyed by the Allies because the German people, he believed, had 'let him down.” It was hard for me to read. Trump is in a position to start a nuclear WWIII, or restart a conventional one with his ignorant tariffs. His initial TACO tariffs were an economic declaration of war on the entire world. We were saved because his impulsive attack had no strategy or organization behind it.
Today, Trump's toady facilitators might just be stupid and reckless enough to carry out some future activities that could dwarf the fallout of Trump's botched COVID policies. To make things even worse, Trump has hamstrung our government to such an extent, that it might be very hard to recover from a Hitlerian act of murder suicide.
Right now, our SECDEF is a failed reserve major separated for loss of his security clearance, whose first major act was to create a giant security scandal, then fire all Black and female flag officers, creating some level of chain-of-command chaos. Aside from our weakened military leadership, the USA has no/zero allies. Trump has alienated every single one with his serial extortions. Russia and China both must be analyzing their options in the event that a Trump Jonestown might enable them to expand their empires. At least the EU is unified (almost) against Putin. But Taiwan? We get the government we deserve. BTW, somebody wanna go over and wake up the geezer Democrats and demand that they man their political walkers?
Don't need psychoanalysis.
Isn't this what Putin wanted? Shades of the cold war.
We've been reading, watching Malcolm Nance, Black Spy, author of several NYT best sellers. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Malcolm-Vance/author/B001KMFU2U?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=c22ef9b5-474b-47e2-8111-89291e629086
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MalcolmNanceMedia
Nance and several more, including former KGB agents, come to the same conclusion: Trump is either an agent or a willing idiot for Putin. They probably had his mental profile and effectuated psy ops.
Trump apparently married a Czech agent in 1977. His trip to the Soviet Union in 1987 was do do an illegal deal. Trump first visited Moscow in 1987 to explore potential real estate deals, even meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
He saw the Soviet Union as an "untapped market" and praised Gorbachev's "opening up the country" through reforms like perestroika.
No significant deals materialized from these early endeavors.
Reports suggest that Soviet intelligence may have taken an interest in Trump around this time, and his 1987 Moscow visit might have involved assistance from the KGB, though the extent and nature of this remain uncertain based on publicly available information.
Post-Soviet business and political ties
Over the years, Trump has had various business dealings with individuals and entities connected to Russia, including a sale of a Palm Beach mansion to a Russian billionaire in 2008 for a significant profit.
Some of his business ventures, like the Trump SoHo project, reportedly involved partners with ties to the former Soviet Union and raised questions about the origins of some funding, according to Foreign Policy.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump adopted a friendly stance towards Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin.
US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia actively interfered in the 2016 election to favor Trump's campaign, which Trump has often dismissed as a "Russia Hoax".
Trump himself publicly called on Russia to find emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign, an act that was followed by Russian attempts to spearphish email accounts used by Clinton's office, according to CNN.
Trump's presidency and relations with Russia
During his presidency, Trump continued to express a desire for better relations with Russia but also faced criticism for actions that seemed to align with Russian interests or undermine alliances, according to CNN.
His administration withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a Cold War-era pact with Russia aimed at limiting nuclear arms, citing Russian violations.
In the context of the war in Ukraine, Trump's stance on Russia and Putin has evolved, with recent statements shifting towards a more critical perspective and even issuing ultimatums for peace negotiations.
Despite his protestations, Mueller found that Russia acted to get him elected in 2016. He said "OK Russia if you're listening..." to undermine HRC. In 2024, the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2024_United_States_elections
According to many sources Trump was identified as a candidate to be manipulated early on. Ivana's father reported to the Czech KGB. Google: Ivana Trump's father, Miloš Zelníček, was a "conspiratorial" informer for Czechoslovakia's communist intelligence service, the Státní bezpečnost (StB), which was often referred to as the Czech KGB. He provided information to the StB about his daughter and her then-husband, Donald Trump, specifically regarding Ivana's visits from the U.S. and Donald Trump's burgeoning career in New York. His relationship with the StB continued until the end of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. While the StB spied on Donald and Ivana Trump, they would have funneled any significant intelligence gathered to the KGB, according to NPR.
The FBI “recommended a preliminary inquiry... on Ivana Trump” based on information received from a confidential source in 1989, according to 190 pages of classified documents. George I was president at the time. "Czechoslovakia ramped up spying on Trump in late 1980s, seeking US intel." Exclusive: aided by Ivana Trump’s father, intelligence service with KGB ties targeted high-level government information, files show. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/29/trump-czechoslovakia-communism-spying
My intel is that Putin kept Trump solvent by using his real-estate holdings to launder oligarch money in exchange for kickbacks to them both. It involved Deutschebank, according to an old friend on CEO staff before FSB agents blew up his limo to keep him from unmasking their little scam. If true, after so long, Trump is up to his ears in making money off Putin, so of course, Trump is Vlad's toady. But being smarter than Donny, Vald helped him get elected. The irony is that the MAGA cult put him back in the WH. How dumb is that? as Jimmy Kimmel might ask.
Irrelevant footnote, I actually sat at Putin's KGB desk in Dresden after the wall came down. A student at one of my lectures at Dresden TU took me there. I think they turned it into a nightclub. It has a view of the Elbe.
I'm sure that we only have the tip of the iceberg.
Michael Cohen was convicted on the basis that he underestimated the number of attempts he made to establish a Trump Moscow, which would have been verboten at the time.
Deutchesbank was supposedly the only lender who would loan Trump money....and they were tied to Russian money -- fined by UK and US regulators, including the FCA in the UK, for its role in a Russian money laundering scheme involving "mirror trades" carried out through its Moscow, London, and New York branches between 2012 and 2015, resulting in fines totaling over $600 million for the bank, while the bank has also been winding down its operations in Russia and relocating its IT centers..
Was he in the limo?
When I studied in the former OST Deutchland (Berlin) in 1991 we were invited to the office for a lecture where the final solution was hammered out in Dresden. I think it is notable you can say you sat at Putin’s old desk! What were you teaching?
Organizational Psychology. I was a guest lecturer. I was later part of a team of US Management experts helping Saxony retool for capitalist democracy. Most of my career I conducted studies of government agencies to identify problems and suggest policy changes starting with Navy, then JCS, then the Mall, and eventually the Clinton WH (NSA and REGO) - until becoming an NIH official.
And then there is the Steele dossier, supposedly debunked (by the Trump cult),and of course the pee tapes. Shortly after the tapes came out, a photo appeared on the net, then disappeared it showed a female straddled over a bed,pissing on it and between her legs in the background Trump grinning and giving two thumbs up.
Trump deflected with the help of some who heard the pee tapes and said Trump was getting a golden shower., maybe even the deflection came from within the cult itself, as Trump then rightfully claimed that he was a germaphobe
The bed peed on was the bed Obama slept on, and Trump is childishly vengeful and petty. He is still smoldering that a black man can be beloved and win the Nobel Peace Prize
So this pee video is real? I have to say that Trump’s interests are not any different than 13-14 year old boys I raised. Unbelievable.
Your information Daniel is super interesting. I just read that psy ops is illegal for the military to use on individuals within the US. Is that correct? Or just like Trump do whatever it takes?
Don't know.
How does psyops work early on regarding Trump. How do they do it and what information do they glean?
We teach it. We did it to the Soviets -- and they do it to us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(United_States)
This is the Army school: https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/special-ops/psychological-operations
Trump had the kind of mental profile that is suceptible.
There is one problem Tom. Faciliators, not ours, but country leaders. Instead of standing up to Trump, calling his bluff and retaliating, they humilate themselves and their countries, by prostrating themselves at the foot of his throne.
If they had backbone, they would stand together and starve America, it would hurt for awhile, but the way to cure gangrene is chop off the diseased member.
That is not my sense here in Europe for the summer. My German pals say that EU is already planning on retribution if Trump does not back off. Also, Germany is in the lead providing support to Ukraine. Most NATO countries are already ponying up defense spending increases - which - ironically benefit the US MIC bigly.
I hope so, I am betting against Trump, which at the moment is betting against the US which I guess makes me a traitor. being anti Trump is in his eyes, treason.
The only way to save America and Democracy is to burn down the house and rebuild it from scratch, hoping that we have learned lessons of the past, such as no unfettered 2nd Amendment.
Ironic isn't that the MIC is the hope of Ukraine and the west. It was once thought that Russia was it's equal, but Russian corruption, oligarchs, and authoritarian, top down "leadership" has resulted in an antiquated, ineffective,MIC, that can only do one thing, and is struggling at that, and that is building artillery shells.
I subscribe to medium.com and there is a lot of first hand reporting on Ukraine and Russia. It doesn't look good for Putin, the current sanctions on oil, are really squeezing him, and his ghost fleet of fake foreign flagged oil tankers are now being tracked and stopped by England and the EU.
He is in such bad shape that North Korea has to provide soldiers for his meat attacks, 10,000 at first, now 30,000 more and even China is chipping in, but not for his meat attacks, specialists I presume.
MIC?
Military Industrial Complex (MIC)
This indeed was a rough read...I'm afraid that if trump is cornered and facing his demise he won't stop by destroying just his own base. If deranged vengeance takes over, much like a spurned love who enters the if-I-can't-have-her-no one-can zone, what's to stop him from pushing the nuclear button?
Thom, I understand the role and power of Rupert Murdoch and Faux News. But, what about Voight and Project 2025? The Heritage Society and Federalist Society, led by Leonard Leo and Voight, spent decades priming the pump for a fascist takeover of America. And, it appears thing are moving along just as they envisioned.
So, do these two entities - Murdoch and Project 2025 - help or hurt each other? Will they merge into one powerful union or will they both falter at the alter, so to speak? In the meantime, Murdoch and Project 2025 will keep on moving the goal posts until they have created their own utopia at the expense of the American people.
All that you mentioned have common denominators with each other. In the new organized crime “family” loose allies are formed for temporary, common purposes only later to be dumped when they become too vocal, too popular, veer off the other’s track too much, cause embarrassment, etc., vis-a-vis the DT and Musk association.
I doubt very much that MTM would be mentioning any of Trump’s various faux pas and downward spiral, that anyone with a brain have been noticing for a long time, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s getting downright inconvenient, therefore, on the way out.
I think the drivers of project 2025 will be strong and don’t need Murdoch. They are strong in many established colleges and entities like the Heritage foundation. Look at Hillsdale College in upper Michigan.
That concerns me too. They appear to be well organized, have an agenda that has moved forward very fast. They have over 100 organizations and plenty of millionaires behind them... They needed someone like trump to win an election and gain actual power. Maybe they don't need him anymore...
You did not comment on how the totally corrupt, toxic and tainted SCOTUS can lean or push anything in any direction, with or without Bozo. Or what to do about them.
If nothing changes about SCOTUS it could take decades before THEY can be replaced through attrition.
I am still seething when it comes to SCOTUS when Ruth Bader Ginsburg deciding not to resign would have allowed Obama a chance to replace her with a liberal. At the time I remember thinking she was selfish.
She would have lost her tax payer paid, Cadillac health insurance policy. The same thing that keeps Congress critters hanging on till they die.
I don't think so.....
They have the same insurance that I have...automaic Medicare part A, have to buy Part B. and my wife an I buy Fedreral BC/BS. https://www.uscourts.gov/careers/benefits/your-federal-insurance-programs
AI. Justices on the Supreme Court, while part of the federal government, are not directly part of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHB) managed by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in the same way as typical federal employees, though they may be eligible for the FEHB program or choose other coverage options, such as those available through the Health Insurance Marketplace or a spouse's plan.
Medicare automatically kicks in when you are 65 and on Social Security. My wife had to apply for Medicare and give them her banking account info so they could automatically deduct the premium. She retired on a Social Security replacement program and PERS
I had a secondary, medigap, from CalPers. It wasn't medigap at first, it was
full coverage group health through CalPers contract with Regence Blue shield, but when I turned 65, it automatically reverted to a Medicap, and my services decreased. Under group health I had two annual physicals, under Medicare on Wellness, but not at first, that was added later.
I am sure that the Justices have their own carve out,their own benefits and their own programs.
Anyway, let's say that they don't have a special program and get Medicare Parts A, B and D like everyone else, they need a Medigap program, and that is where the Cadillac program comes in. not all Medicgap products are the same. There are co pays, and limits. And if you pay the premium, you can even get elective surgery covered.
And here is the motivation to hang on to your government job. Not only a Cadillac Medigap program, but the government pays for your Medigap policy as a benefit.
As a shop steward with SEIU, the year I retired from the County, I had sat on the contract negotiating team, and I wouldn't go home until the county had agreed to provide health care coverage for retirees the same as for employees, and they did for two years, then a subsequent team, failed to renegotiate the same terms, and let that provision get watered down.
I am quite sure that the Supreme Court has their own special health insurance contract And RBG, herself in ill health, was looking out for herself and her family by hanging on
YOU DON"T KNOW. WTF.
Why so angry Daniel?
Feldman, there is another way to bring a subject into a conversation, without an implication that the author was deficient, which is what you did when you said "You did not comment:..."
Just introduce, sans fanfare, your own thoughts. I think that Thom did a yeoman's job, and he was addressing the Cult of Trump, not that of Opus Dei, Heritage Foundation and Federalist Societ.
Yer correct in my view, Feldman.
Dr. Loren Eisley, the sentient paleontologist, mused long ago that humanity is like slime mold, once it devours all hosts, it just eats itself. Watching this gaggle of parasites play out their lusts of sadistic perversion reminds me of that reflection. Eisley loved caves, and once crawled into one in SE New Mexico. It was so tiny and jet black dark that he ultimately could go no further and, on his back, just drifted off into a dream state. He awakened to the slightest of sounds, so muted as to be almost phantom, coming from just above his face. Then a few light touches on his cheeks revealed he was in a chamber filled with thousands of grand daddy long legged spiders, whose bite is venomous to its prey. But Eisley knew humans did not taste good, so he slowly wiggled his way to the outer world. This is the tomb of the nihilists, whose disregard for the small and beautiful makes them prey for those they have attacked with blatant indifference. The perverse can and do eat each other, and then themselves. That is the 'secret' that TFG so unconsciously scribbled via his signature on the bush, now in print for all to see. All those millions of tiny spiders now smell their prey.
This is a very good analogy Mick.
We have forgotten or never learned the vital lessons of the natural world we come from and are obligated to honor and respect. The greatest of many failures of Homo sapiens. The second would be hubris, believing we are something we are not.
I started a reply that I can’t find now. However I don’t know where your second category - the second greatest failure of Homo sapiens comes from - because I face hubris everyday in people and lt never occurred to me it would be among the greatest.
If you research the origins of that behavior, as far back as the Greeks, you will see that it is at the core of indifference that leads to violence. Violence is implicit in all the literary references I read, starting when I used to act in Greeks plays in school. It is the major fuel of narcissists and psychopaths.
Wow! Glad he survived.. Yes, Trump is a poisonous long-legged spider, but with a short life..
I suspect there is a fourth category of cult members. I believe there are many on the periphery who are the lowest information of low-information voters or non-voters who only get bits and pieces and who have accepted some of the propaganda as believable because they are very gullible or prefer conspiracy delusions and who lack the discretion or information to see through the fog and confusion. They may be reachable or are likely to go along with the mass mood if it really turns against Trump. But they are too self-absorbed or too busy hanging on to become active or useful. We can hope they will help in some small way at a critical juncture. The good news is that there is no one to replace Trump and the R's will be floundering indefinitely.
At this point, I want a powerful new Democratic Party to (gasp) come up with an agenda as detailed as the GOP's. That way, a lot of voters will have a place to go. I feel the Dems won the last elecction for the GOP because they were just not lifelike. What on earth were they going to do once in office? We never really found out. I live in NYC, and yes I'm aware that nyc isn't America, but a candidate like Mamdani who put his ideas out there, was easy for me to vote for because although he can't do it all, he's thinking on the right lines. He is what he thinks, he isnt a damned focus group with safe (Schumer, Pelosi, make your own list) ideas. Harris couldn't come out against the genocide in Gaza. And a lot of people old and young either didn't vote for her, or didn't vote at all just because of that total lack of moral substance.. The dems have to pick up sides and go with it, and stop hiding from real life.
The Dems need to go totally progressive. Bernie and AOC platform, a detailed vision for a better America. And oppose the Genocides in Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine.
The problem with Bernie is over the years he didn’t share leadership - he is a one man show. Everything he has spoken for is the right thing for America.
Carol, I think he tried. He worked to establish a "revolution"... stating that he could not do what needed to be done, that is needed to be "we" rather than him. He is now mentoring youthful leadership.
Absolutely they need to do this. However, from what i read they are stuck in their ways and have no intention of making the reforms needed to move forward with a progressive agenda. it is very sad. I think the DNC has responsibility for allowing the "alternate universe" to become established by NOT developing a counter messaging system I personally felt abandoned by the party when they did not tell us about Project 2025 early enough to make a difference.
Actually we wuz robbed. Psy ops.
Did Trump admit Musk stole Pennsylvania?
How did post ops rob us?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2024_United_States_elections
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-disrupts-covert-russian-government-sponsored-foreign-malign-influence
https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/
https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-shadow-war-against-west
If one person was intimidated by Russian interference, it was a crime. IMHO millions were intimidated.
The Dems are always on the defensive because the R's have lots of trained attack dogs and a media that has no respect for them and has a strong rightward bias. The Dems are sclerotic because they play by rules, they are establishment because they are playing it safe, and they are almost as terrified of true progress and innovation or revolutionary tactics as the R's. The Dems also have found it necessary to appeal to big money to compete and most of them actually harbor religious beliefs or doubts and a core of conservative beliefs or irrational fears. But, as always, those low information people have been mollified, conditioned, myopic, apathetic, cynical, and ignorant after 12 years, give or take, of obedience training, behavioral modification, and dumbing down in anti-intellectual schools that they are flying blind and indifferent about their own future or the future of the country. Awareness, including self-awareness requires direct experience with controversy and quiet contemplation, autonomy, and vital issues in a secure setting. Our schools do not provide any of that.
You are talking a bout the lazy, stupid, ignorant like those that Jimmy Kimmel has Guillermo interview on the sidewalks, or Stephen Colbert has interviewed in front of Rockefeller building. Low or no information voters who believe anything that they hear from an authority.
My poor departed mother was one such, she was so awed by authority that she bragged about being friends with a school crossing guard, who eventually robbed her of her gold coins
That was my mother too. In many ways my mother was refined but years of living in a terrible situation made her prey to others. I think William in your family stories k have heard so far there is a book!
Everyone has a book Carol. It is surprising when one listens to other peoples
stories.
My mother was a typical tragedy of the depression. Her father jumped out of a window, when it was being raided, fell into a construction ditch, broke his hip, no insurance he was bed ridden. Mom was Daddy's little girl, and fed her father, then after two years bed ridden he died, she was 15, she stopped growing then. her mother had already put her other two daughters to work, at age 16, then it was Mom's turn. Grandmother took in laundry and cooked pies, to feed the family. The girls turned over their wages to their mother.
Growing up in poverty like that, stuck with her, also losing her Dad at such an early age, when she was Daddy's little girl, left her stunted.
I understood Mom, forgave her, my sisters ( younger than I and self absorbed) never could.
I will not go into the family dynamics, but I decided that I will never be like Mom, but just the opposite. My sisters carried the legacy forward,.
Mom worked for Beechnut chewing gum, dressed in a ridiculous majorette uniform (long dress) and an empty drum that held the chewing gum.
The family legacy wasn't just being poor, but my great grandmother was the daughter of a German (Rhinelander) Catholic and a German Jewess, he never learned English, and didn't try, she grew up in a potters field, of which he was the caretaker. Constantly harangued by his wife, for being on the wrong side of a civil war om Germany.
Such dysfunction and poverty was carried around like precious jewels, passed mother to daughter, the sons escaped and went their own way, when it was actually garbage. Not for me. I broke with tradition, and have been so much better off, my sisters carried it with them all of the days of their life. They have found peace finally.
I love stories. Non fiction especially. Thanks for sharing.
My mother even carried her trauma over to blaming me as the eldest for stuff I didn’t do (and stuff I did) as a teenager.
Her claims about me became lore in the community that is difficult to change. While I escaped from the situation I never really blamed my problems on my family because it was so tragic ; my father was schizophrenic and at that time to leave the situation meant he might kill her as he threatened to do. I forgave my father years after he committed suicide, and my mother despite how she treated me differently publically than the other five siblings even into my sixties.
Wow we have so much in common. I too was eldest, single mother, she worked as soon as I was old enough to watch my younger sisters, held me responsible for everything they did, and they defied me, when I tried to make them comply, they would rush to the bus stop and when Mom came home, tell them that I mistreated them, and she would come in the house rip roaring mad, and I ran out the back door, giving her a chance to cool down.
A couple more repeats and I stopped worrying, didn't care what they did, went off and had fun with my friends, exploring the woods along Tookany Creek in Fairmount Park.
Yes my siblings continued into their fifties to punish me for trying to help them behave and have goals. The ridiculous lies they said to my parents seemed to stick with my parents and I got the brunt end of the my mother’s misery.
She seemed to get her act together about the time I left home when my brother was killed in an accident it wasn’t sudden; but anytime it looked like I was doing well mentally and otherwise she would knock me down behind my back and said to me when I was fifty five -I know how to hurt you and make you mad. She tried but twenty years before in counseling I had recovered from her abuse. I was astonished she said this to me. Of course she discovered it didn’t work any longer.
I kept returning home as my children grew and preach college, finally my one sister ten years younger said when are you going to finish (life had gotten in the way)she said we are sick of hearing about college. I did finish when I finally got rid of some problems.
When I remarried I made it clear that I was in college; getting married meant I had to give up my government grants, and my husband of forty years (an educator) said go for it. Yes ,we had four children and our home to care for but not having an actual job made it possible to do what I loved - study.
As awful as the prospect of a Vance presidency is - and it truly is - I welcome trump's removal which, if nothing else, will remove his nihilistic hand from the nuclear button. Vance and the capitalists understand that nuclear war is bad for the continuing flow of profits. Anything else trump or Vance could inflict on the country / world is at least survivable.
I think the prominent Trump enablers Frank Bruni wrote about today represent those in your third category. I wrote about this in "Even with regrets MAGA leaders suffering stomach cramps from dining on the Trumpian feast will find that meal options are all still tainted with the same noxious samonella" today ( link: https://halbrown.substack.com/p/even-with-regrets-maga-leaders-suffering )
Trump forgot the primary rule for making change as Thom has pointed out- do it slowly, step by little step. All of this has happened way too suddenly and the blowback is showing.
Hitler's 1945 "Nero Order" to destroy everything usable in Germany was not carried out because by that point even his close followers realized the war was lost and more destruction was pointless. Perhaps Trump's minions will also abandon ship when the nosedive starts in earnest.
But in Australia the wartime feelings towards Americans was more nuanced than just one angry man stirring things up. Most of the men were either fighting in North Africa or rotting in Japanese POW camps, and apparently a lot of women saw the "rich" Americans come in and did everything they could to get close to them. So there was tremendous national resentment against these brash newcomers. Something similar happened in Britain, where my mother-in-law (who briefly married a GI) said that a lot of the soldiers talked about "having a mansion when they lived in a shack" and swept women off their feet. As the saying went at the time, the Yanks were "Overpaid, oversexed and over here". Murdoch clearly parlayed this anger into helping his enterprise, but it is unlikely that he started it.
Brilliant.
Thom leaves us a lot to unpack here. And I would offer an important difference in one of the critical points he makes.
Yes, the dark side is made up of a large mass of un-, and mis-informed Americans; many who are willfully ignorant and willingly led as this choice serves (feeds?) and satisfies inner sicknesses like heroin offers an artificial, temporary euphoria.
And, yes, this mass has been called out from under rocks, misled and and subverted away from perhaps better natures by the BILLIONS spent via media like FOX and a well organized echo chamber.
And, yes, there is a small number of wealthy men -- and it is almost always men -- who orchestrated this mesmerizing of America to achieve there own ends. This began in earnest 60 years ago with the GOP adopting Kevin Phillips SOUTHERN STRATEGY that put Nixon in the White House. The goal: Primarily, to undo what FDR and the NEW DEAL Democrats put in motion 90 years ago.
These men are the users. They sit beside Donnie as he drives the MAGA bus trying to make sure he take the proper turns that support their interests. Some succeed, some do not (Musk?)
However, I warn against assuming that FOX giveth and FOX taketh away. The monster could not be controlled by Dr. Frankenstein. And I doubt Murdock et. al. can corral Trump.
I call your attention to the weeks following Jan 06 2021 when the FOX iluminati stood up, briefly, to Donnie's treason, trying to turn him away the path he was taking, and reason with him to stop.
FOX lost millions of viewers in a matter of weeks. They simply went somewhere else where they could hear what they wanted to hear.
At some point, if you create addicts dependent upon a specific brand of heroin, if you stop offering the drug they need, they will seek out the dealer who gives them the drug that they crave.
The tail is wagging the dog, now.
It will be the unknowable "mind" of the MAGA minions that determines whom they will worship next.
So the users, their agents in the GOP and the corporate Dem Party, are all chasing after Donnie as he takes the MAGA minions this way and that. Of course, they would love to get a step ahead of him; or maybe even regain control of what this mass wants and will do.
However, I have little faith that old man Murdock and his essentially elitist neo-con mouth pieces are up to the task.
As such, there may be as much danger in Donnie losing control of the mass as his keeping it.
And our vision of solutions to this mess must consider this.
D. Laghezza
No wonder Reagan embraced Murdoch. Meanwhile, water on the brain appears to have drenched donvict’s mental magnets and obscured for him the ability to see what’s coming.
That this cult will collapse, and probably quite soon, brings up the need to address two pertinent questions. !) How is it going to leave the stage — Will it go gentle into that good night or rage, rage against the dying of the light? Synanon, after spurts of violence, pretty much faded away, while what happened with The People's Temple is burnt into the American psyche — even people who know nothing about Jim Jones know what drinking the Kool-Aid metaphorically means.
My concern is that MAGA isn't going to fade away with the dawn because it ultimately is a death cult, it is apocalyptic, and it sees itself as a near-angelic component of the War Between God and Satan: they are primed to go down fighting. Violence isn't necessarily the outcome but while the People's Temple became increasingly armored against the outer world (they didn't move to Guyana for the Hell of it), MAGA is evangelical, it sees its sacred mission as the spreading of The Word and the Purification of the Temple. They are armed to the teeth, have fostered paramilitary groups, and use the rhetoric of violence. They are locked and loaded, with their fingers on the trigger.
2) In the hope that this will end without first going through a civil war, reintegration is not going to be facilitated with rancor or" I–Told–You–So's" but through a non-accusatory reconciliation process. Following the (first?) Civil War, we did exactly that, with mixed results, some of which still haunt us today: In certain ways, we are witnessing the South, 160 years after the fact, winning the war. Although Elon would strongly disagree, South Africa's model would serve us better. Regardless, the country needs to become United again. That is, if we want to remain the United States. Perhaps we don't, at which time this would be the best opportunity to go our own separate ways.
MAGA will not disappear, because it wasn't created by Trump. It has been lying, not even dormant, for over a 100 years, seething with rage, feeliing victimized because their power to victimize women, gays, non whites had been stifled by DEI policies.
No, it won't disappear, but it can certainly go forward diminished. There is a core group that will remain unshakeable but they do not constitute the majority (and no, I don't have the stats). A fair number currently under MAGA's umbrella are not ideologically hog-died; at most, they're fellow travelers — they'll waver in their allegiance. And then there are the disaffected, the people who want to belong to something (since they don't believe anything). They have been burnt often enough by the Dems and so they turn away from the Dems and run into the waiting arms of the Grifter-In-Chief, who promises them visions of greatness, of belonging to an organization that will reign triumphant, where their fervent prayers are heard. They find their comfort in false promises. While Trump embraces them with his left arm, he is picking their pockets with his right. These people will wake up with a massive political headache. So yes, MAGA will remain but it will be diminished.
Dimished it was before Trump appeared and the creature simply will await the next time someone unleashes the genie.(The word is a derivative of the Arabic djinn, for an evil spirit)
Half a century ago, I learned that all it takes is 17% of a population for there to be a culture shift. 17%. The African American population is only 13% and they have awakened and created a major culture shift (no complaints here, just saying)
Now consider that the hardest of the hard core MAGAts are at least 30% and by my reckoning almost 40%.
MAGATism is not going anywhere.
It lay festering for over 150 years, pissed at being held down by the likes of political correctness, DEI, affirmative action and along comes Trump down the escalator saying things that they have been mumbling under their breath.
And then there is the religious aspect. Religion has been on the decline with the education of the masses and the growth of critical reasoning
In Trump, an antiChrist figure if ever there was one, a non believer, yet someone who grabbed a hold of their cause and elevated them, thus elevated their social status and their collection plates, they found their lord and savior.
That creature has been around for millennia and isn't likely to go away, perhaps for at least as long as this current iterations of homo exists. I don't suppose there is a dark genetic core that turns us to evil but we do have an aspect that struggles with differences and is innately suspicious, an aspect that can predispose one to conservatism. We're back to nature versus nurture; I believe that it is both, with culture ultimately determining how the matter will resolve. Smaller groupings, tribes if you will, often have different outcomes.
Tribes are broken up into sub groups called clans. Clans have different practices and even slight differences in cultures from tribes. Consider Christianity to be a tribe, within it are many, hundreds of clans.
Survival of the individual necessitates wariness and suspicion of the other, magnify that with a clan, magnify that with a tribe. Humans are tribal, there is the Russian tribe,the Chinese tribe,the American tribe, the American tribe is the most fractuous of all, with the different clans bound together by economics and an ideology called the rule of law.
The MAGA mentality has fractured and discarded the rule of law, to recast it in their own image which is "the law is what I said it is and everyone else has to submit". Which was pretty much Germany after 1933, and Italy after 1922, and China after 1949
What I am thinking about is preagricultural societies or ones where agriculture isn't the main means of sustenance. It leads to hierarchical social structures, the unequal amassing of wealth, the rise of cities, and slavery as an advantageous way to produce and process crops.
Yes William, quite so. The fear of 'the other' is especially huge when it comes to sexual differences, whether it be LGBTQ+, the different sexual rituals of different cultures/ethnicities, the self-empowerment of females in general, or the perverted belief system of christian glamorizing of women as fecund saints made for male cleansing of any and all sins. Wetiko is raging inside the brains of all these maga-t types, this deluded sense of grandeur being threatened by femininity of any type.
Interesting response Mick, and if I could elaborate, because I agree.
Underlying this fear and anxiety about LGBT, and the anti abortion drive are male insecurities and the need to dominate, especially to complete the sex act.
I've had over 3/4's of a century of locker room and bar room talk, and one thing I have found is that many men get aroused over talking about or watching women on women sex, but are repulsed, so they claim, by man on man sex.
They are comfortable around lesbians, even have lesbian friends, but uncomfortable around gays.
The popular image of people seem to be that gay males are all swishes, flamers, effeminate, but the truth is just the opposite, most are indistinguishable from hetero males, and even tend towards the macho, even more than hetero normative males. and there are effeminate build, even acting males, that are as straight as an arrow.
The reason that gay males raise anxiety and revulsion is that females are considered inferior, less than a male, especially since they willingly permit a man to violate her sacred person with the male sex organ. Thus any man who would have sex with another man is considered less than a man a woe man.
I had a handyman who did some odd jobs that I can't do anymore.. We had interesting conversations. In one he mentioned that he had no problem with lesbians,but was uncomfortable around gays.
I know why, he doesn't. You see men when they encounter a female, first assess her for sexual compatibility, is she something they would fuck, if so then he mentally undresses her and even copulates with her,mentally.
Thus he thinks that he is so attractive (male narcissism) that a gay man would do he same to him, thus emasculating him. Mental rape goes on all of the time, that's why men bought magazines like Playboy and Hustler.
Abortion is the rejection of the male, the male and his seed, The real basis of the movement or drive has nothing to do with unborn children, well in the minds of the female camp followers who do the hard work, picketing clinics, it does, but just like MAGAts they get suckered in by emotions.
I was concerned that the murder & attempted murder of the Democratic legislators might have been the beginning of the 'Night of the Long Knives'! I'm grateful the thus far that has not occurred but I can't be sure it will not emerge as things get worse & worse.
I'm also very concerned about a US version of the "Enabling Act". The Republicans have the votes jelly fish spines to do just that! Wow are we.