Though to be completely fair Trump did get elected long before the pandemic began, being able to play well on fear. But I think another factor is that many Americans know little about science or history. (The Donald himself seems to be illiterate in both fields.) Magical thinking, the idea that “we’re different” and that pandemics are not a routine part of human history all came into play. (Probably growing up on fantasy movies and television shows where everything was neatly wrapped up in an hour were conditioning factors as well.) Thus the anger against Fauci and other scientists who changed their recommendations as they learned more about the virus showed a widespread lack of understanding about how science works. Like other claims of hoaxes (the moon landings, climate change, etc.) it was an easy turn for someone who didn’t want to admit they didn’t know more to following somebody who said they did. And believing that The Leader has all the answers and if you do what you are told then everything will be okay is definitely a cult. Even if one learned how to critically think for themselves practicing this is toxic to being in the group. So the worst are not the credulous but those who know better but join in for profit and power. We see that here, we see that in every dictatorship.
Trump’s first term came about in large part because he was a TV celebrity supposedly brilliant at business. He came off the administration of the first Black president, picking up on fears of The Great Replacement. He ran against a woman — and she was not considered “likeable” since she first came on the scene, no matter that she’s incredibly intelligent and had experience through the roof. AND another very popular outsider — Bernie — had been pushed aside for her, which put a lot of people against her …
Trump got the Electoral College by a fluke of the way things are structured — at the END of his campaign, the people who realized how they could use him got involved, and they’ll even tell you that they rescued and revived his campaign and put him over the top … It was a sad, sad, and cynical thing they did. They created a monster.
Vote Blue to take the wind out of the monster’s sails and see him float off into the sunset, never more to darken our political scene.
I agree - my first thought was, the one flaw in Thom's thesis is that Trump was elected before the pandemic (albeit without the popular vote - and with a little help from his friends). Quite possibly, even without the trauma aspect of pandemic Covid, all the extra exposure Trump got with his (to many of us embarrassing) televised Covid update sessions and his lies and constant presence in the the media worked it's magic. Advertising is all about exposure and repetition - think brainwashing. Trump's overconfidence in uncertain times had impact too in cult development. Assuredly putting down everyone who disagrees with him helps to elevate him in many people's eyes, even now. Trump continues to repeat lies over and over again because he knows the power of repetition! And he has Vance and Congressional Republicans amplifying and extending the repetition. (The effectiveness is starting to cause me to develop PTSD!)
Studies don't solve problems, at best they uncover root causes. For instance a Stanford Study on homophobia, showed that the more homophobic one was, the more arroused one was by homo porno. Conclusion: Intensity of homophobia is positively correlated with repressed homosexuality.
The cause of, the origin of hate, is fear. Rational and irrational fear.
The next question is what is the cause of irrational fear.?
And what fears are rational and irrational.
Why are some people afraid of heights and some not.
When standing in the door of an aircraft with a parachute on my back, I have no fear, just filled with eager
excitement anticipating the leap. But climbing a ladder to the roof of a house, that is another story. Perhaps it is because I fell off the side of a smokestack, when I was 15 and broke my arm (the fall was about 40 or 50 ft, how I got there is another story.
Most if not all fears are learned, either from authorities or be experience. "Once burned".
Why then hate? Well fear? Fear of what? Fear of loss of power, control, status, ego, identity? Those fears are learned, taught by respected authorities, parents, religious, educational, social. Fear of the other.
Interestingly an infant can recognize and respond to a smiling face, a neutral face, and a threatening, scowling or angry face, and so can cats and dogs.
Correct Pat, then we have to be able to distinguish between a problem and a difficulty.
Problems have solutions. Identify the problem, then enact the solution.
Difficulties, on the other hand, have no solutions. In fact when you try to solve a difficulty you only exacerbate it and create another problem, the best you can do with a difficulty is to mitigate it's harmful effects.
For instance sanctions are a means of mitigating a difficulty. If, say Iran, is a problem then the only solution is a war, and all that brings. Not ideal.
Inequality has been treated as a problem, to solve the problem, affirmative action and quotas were used, however they created more problems, as their was a rebellion by people who would not otherwise have sided with the right wing.
Kids with high SATS were not admitted to college because they weren't a protected class, so they became conservative, now Trump humpers.
People found themselves passed over for jobs and promotions because they weren't a protected class, and they turned rightward in disgust.
Then you have affirmative action hires, like Clarence Thomas, and tell me how that has worked out.
Racism, inequality are difficulties, not problems. Because there is no solution for racism and inequality, not one that is palatable and humane.
That doesn't mean that you don't address the issue, but a discussion, a serious discussion is needed as to how to mitigate the difficulty.
For instance where ever differences occur there will always be tension and discrimination.
The Rwanda genocide is an example. The Hutu's consider the Tutsi's to be another race, that can be distinguished by stature and physiognomy..
There is still tension in Rwanda, that could erupt again.
The Japanese consider the Chinese and Koreans to be another race.
The Chinese consider the Uyghers to be another race, and peoples.
Same in Myanmar, with the Rohinyas, compounded with the fact that they are also Muslim in a Buddhist land.
And if one thinks that all is peaceful in a racially homogeneous land, then think of Shia Yemeni's (Houthi's) and even the 2nd class citizens of Saudi Arabia, the Shia who work the oil fields.
Mr. Farrar, Shortly before he died Bertrand Russell was asked: what does the world need most? His answer: tolerance. He did not suggest solutions, he simply said: tolerance. A response to difficulties, perhaps?
Correct Daniel. Fear stimulates the amygdala, and in humans most fear is learned.
Homophobia is an irrational reaction to exposures to queers, mostly a condition found in men, the reaction, one of which is violence and anger,is indeed produced in the amygdala.
Of course, we've been traumatized by COVID-19, but Trump was already President. I agree with Thom that the trauma of COVID-19 likely made it worse, especially for those looking for a Strongman leader. But I learned something else in the past week that makes me even more certain that our form of government, a Capitalist Republic, must be drastically overhauled. The system itself is killing us.
I was denied a continuous glucose monitor because I can't prove that my blood glucose ever went lower than 54 mg/dL, and I am not on insulin, although I have type 2 diabetes and had a very high A1C last winter. Medicare rules say it is not medically necessary to have a CGM without that proof. The problem is, you can't prove it without a CGM, a catch-22. CMS claims they must conserve CMS sensors for those who can benefit the most. But getting around to the astounding medical research I found this past week to defend my position that it is medically necessary for me, I found that type 2 diabetes is in large part caused by stressors, both physical and predominantly psychosocial. The stressors include bereavement, unemployment, stressful employment, fear of debt or homelessness, etc.
I haven't taught pathophysiology since the mid-1980s and haven't taken an update course since the late 1990s. I knew stress affected the body but did not know how badly it affected it. Furthermore, research shows that many people testing their blood glucose with finger sticks are missing low blood glucose and hypoglycemia, especially while sleeping. Hypoglycemia damages the heart and nervous system.
CMS hires private contractors to make the rules and enforce them for Medicare and Medicare Advantage. I think they know better, but either don't care if we die prematurely or hope we do to save the Medicare Trust Fund for plundering and to prevent the wealthy from having their taxes raised to cover Social Security and Medicaid. If that sounds paranoid and is evidence that I no longer trust the system, so be it. I have been traumatized. Even more reason I cast my vote for Harris.
The rule that Medicare Advantage is following is a Medicare rule. I'm not defending Medicare Advantage. That was my husband's, a retired accountant's idea, although I was skeptical after hearing what you said on your show. If we return to Medicare, the rule will still apply, and the co-pay will probably be higher now. I'm doing medical research to support that Medicare's rule is unreasonable and dangerous. Could you please research the MACs, how they get their contracts, and the part politics plays? The voters need to understand how it works.
Gloria — There’s lots of evidence here that Medicare does pay for the monitors — but your caveat, that one must JUSTIFY the use of a monitor, remains to be clarified. It does sound like something of a Catch 22, if it is nationwide, and not a caveat only where you are.
Frustrating, but definitely something to know more about — for people who DO have insulin issues and Diabetes Type 2 issues, this is no small thing.
I do want to know if this is hit-or-miss or a system problem.
I have it in writing that this is Medicare's rule that the advantage plan is following. I don't know if the administrative law judge only applies the fact to the rule or has room to say it's unreasonable.
I don’t know how such a “rule” gets changed or modified to work better, but it needs changing .. It’s not like any old person can just demand a monitor on a whim, but someone dealing with Type 2 and clearly managing it with their doc needs to have tools and resources to handle STAYING healthy, not just responding to declining status.
Sorry it’s sucky, Gloria. I guess we need better people in charge — Hoping we get them.
If you return to Medicare, during Open Enrollment which I believe is on right now, Medicare rules will apply. You will not be stuck with the private insurers rules.
Medicare suscriptions are filled either via a local pharmacy, and each pharmacy or chain, has it's own contracts or through Express Scripts, which has it's own contracts.
For instance I started blood glucose monitoring using Rite Aid, which had a contract with Free Style and never paid for my monitor or strips, but I moved and there is only one pharmacy and it is local, not part of a chain, and does not have a contract, so they use the cheapest Medicare approved provider, and that is Metric, even Express Scripts has their own contract.
Who is your Medicare Advantage company?United Health Care?
Unlike Medicare, Medicare Advantage programs deny reimbursement for procedures they don't approve.
As you know Medicare covers 80% and I have never had to pay a co pay. The 20% can be covered by Medigap, either private or group,
AARP has a Medigap plan.
I'm fortunate in that I have Tricare. I did have a secondary through CalPers but they upped their premium for my Plan (out of state) by 30.74% so I quit.
Correct Thom. See my response to Gloria. I am on Medicare and have no problem at all,other than my local pharmacy does not have a contract with Free Style and have to use Metric,.
I'm not talking about glucometers and finger sticks. This is an arm patch with a sensor that measures blood glucose in real time and sends the info to the phone every 5 minutes 24/7.
AND anyone actively managing Type 2 or Pre-diabetes should have access to this kind of monitoring to establish a baseline and/or catch a situation in the process of building … Limiting access is JUST WRONG. And, sure, lobbying by the folks who have to pay for health services — since they collect payments to enroll in the insurance programs — is probably the crux of the issue … They want to collect the premiums and NOT pay for care.
We need BETTER people setting policies and making rules.
{Bernie would have been better — but this pre-dates Bernie. When Obamacare was originated, the R’s insisted on keeping insurance companies at the heart of it, convincing us that we needed them, and they put these obstacles in place, and then the R’s wouldn’t vote for the system ANYWAY. We got the system we got, an improvement over the way it worked before, but seriously flawed, still …
We need BETTER people making the rules, and better people in the Senate and Congress.
Gloria. I am insulin resistant and thus classified as Type 2 Diabetic, it is genetic (Mothers side, mtDNA inherited)
I have a BGC. and been monitoring my BG since 2006, Medicare paid for it and pays for the strips. I watch my diet, eat twice a day, don't prick the finger and test until at least 10:00 a.m.
my BG ranges from 95 to 106, ocassionally as high as 110 mm/dl.
Iwould be delighted if my blood glucose went down to 54 mm/dl below 99 is normal, 100 -125 is rediabetic
I get my A1C tested every three months (lately) and it has been 6.0 mmol/l
Since my local pharmacy doesn't have a contract with Free Style, which was the GCM I was using, and I exhausted my store of strips. I got a scrip from my PCP for Glucose Strips, but the only monitor they carry is Metric, so now I am using a new monitor. The strips would cost ,me $12 if I paid for them, Freestyle Strips are $35 through Amazon. I use both now and record readings daily on a spreadsheet.
Medicare considers Glucose monitors and strips as Medical Equipment and covered by part B.
I do not understand why you have a problem if your BG ever wemt below 54 mm/dl.
I "pray" for such a reading, nothing I can do, not even 24 hr fasting will deliver a reading below 85 mm/dl.
Not only that there is a relationship between insulin resistance and weight. I went on a two meal a day low carb diet and lost 43 lbs, down to 177. plateaued and though I have stayed on my diet and regimen, I am gaining weight again now 190, and frustrated, The solution is seems is to stop eating period.
My pharmaceutical insurance has nothing to do with Medicare and CMS. I rejected Medicare part D. I have Federal BS/BC (Florida Blue) and they have a deal with a continuous monitor company. If you have a prescription, they honor it. https://mcgs.bcbsfl.com/MCG?mcgId=01-99000-03&pv=false
BTW I WAS part of the system and that's why I have double coverage.
Certainly, I am voting & if the Harris team gets the required number of votes, she will be president. I believe that but I also believe that there will be violence, especially in those swing states & districts. That is something that I am preparing for mentally. I'm an old woman of 76 so I am not going to run out & buy a gun, I don't think the vast majority of folks that have guns need them, especially if they don't hunt. By the same token if people want a gun for protection within their home, that is fine as long as the background checks etc are completed. I don't believe ANYONE should own a long gun or a bump stock & I certainly don't believe that people need more than one gun or an appropriate type of rifle for hunting but AR-15s are not for hunting they are meant for killing. So what concerns me the most about this election & the afterwards is that we'll have hundreds, perhaps thousands of heavily armed trump supporters roaming the streets with their long guns at the ready. Will our police, some of whom are trump supporters, protect those of us that do not support a dictator, my guess is they won't & I can foresee in some places that the local sheriff will deputize the mob rather than protect the innocent.
Trying times indeed. Over the years I've lived through the Golden Age of the US, the years after WWII when the US was considered a leader in the world & a leader for democracy. As time progressed I felt that the US was losing some or much of that 'golden' glow that comes with a Golden Age. I thought that perhaps the US would cede some of its supremacy to China in economic development & certainly an equality with the US in military might. But I never in a million years did I think we would lose our democracy!!!! That never crossed my mind until trump came on the scene letting loose the hate & vitriol that has built up over the century & a half since the end of the Civil War. We are still fighting that war emotionally & people of color or the latest influx of immigrants bear the brunt of that hate & blame for problems brought about by corporate greed. It's the greed & lust for power that fuels all this hate & I don't know how we end that. Another Civil War, well, look at what is happening in the Middle East, so Gaza is leveled & Hamas has lost its number of leaders but not its message. Do the Israelis really think that by eliminating Hamas or Hezbollah that the hatred of the Isreal will end? The same is true here, if we beat the Magats at the polls will it make them or their influence disappear? I don't think so.
We are faced with a generation of hard work to try to right this ship of state. And if the legal system gets all those extreme conservative judges & justices it will be many more than one generation to get back what we will lose.
Warren G. Harding, "normalcy" president, girlfriend in White House, murdered by his wife, the Duchess? What we need is criminal law. Penalize insurrectionists.
Normalcy there is only one rational, logical and effective weapon for self defense and that is a shotgun, and the shorter the barrel the better, and a load of buckshot is best.
Pistols are short range, 25 ft at best, and it takes time to sight, and calmness to pull the trigger, any closer and a belly gun will do the job (Short barrel handgun)
Rifles are effective only for assault and distance shots. Hunters lay on the ground or in stands, and have to calm themselves, slow the heart rate and hold the breath for a trigger squeeze at distance,
Anyone who has gone through basic military training, at a minimum, knows what I mean.
With a shotgun, the scatter means that sighting and accuracy don't matter. Unless you are a warrior and a very skillled sharpshooter, then a rifle will do you no good, onthe other hand a rapid fire weapon, like an AR 15 with a bump stock would.
What weapon you need depends on the role. I am assuming defense, If offence then yes, a rifle with automatic fire, then you are going to need a hell of a lot of ammo. With an M-16 and a 20 round magazine, burned it all up in a couple of bursts.
I have a story or two about claymores, and a VC booby trap.
There is also a grenade launher that can be attached to an M-16. I've fired the M-79. pretty good with it.
Trouble is that the equipment and ammo is not generally available, but none of it violates the rules as I know them, then again I am not mliitia minded so don't keep up.
I think global warming is going to take care of all of our problems? If we were to attempt to fix the problems first we would have to treat everyone equally, end poverty, end the family unit, end religious indoctrination of children, install a maximum wage for the rich, limit all campaign contributions to $100, build self supporting penal colonies and poor farms. Lots of luck. All that Amygdala thinkers can think of is lying and stealing. Their preferental cortex was castrated from their reptilian part of the brain, by religion at a young age, IMHO!
Much to unpack here, and my Psych classes were few and long ago. But this is something that needs discussion: "Although the economy right now is doing better than at any time since the 1960s, polls show a majority of Americans would rather believe Trump’s lies...." The premise is based on the mistaken notion that 'people' are motivated by macroeconomic numbers. They may or may not read them and feel good for a moment, but then they go to the supermarket. Broccoli having to be on sale to be had for under $2/lb. Fish, what used to be the cheapest animal protein, can hardly be found for under $7. Chicken $1 a pound more than we remember. And that's just foods. Although gas prices are down to around $3 from their recent highs, we can all remember (and it wasn't that long ago) when gas was under $2. There's lots more in the macro - micro divide, but best not to become tedious.
IMHO, Musk, Thiel, Vance, Trump are culture warriors despite their wealth. Trump is more grifter than culture warrior, but his conduct has led to financial ruin. In terms of risk analysis all four have contingent liabilities beyond measure. Trump's immediate risk is jail.
True William Politt, but a Trump presidency will not bring those numbers down, nothing will, short of a depression and over supply. Once prices go up, save for gas and eggs, then never go down, they haven't in my 85 years and the price of gas and eggs, may go down in the short term in response to supply and demand, but the trend is upwards.
The first gallon of gas I bought was $.29 when It hit $1 I was outraged.
The price of a gallon of gas was the same in Riverside, CA as it was in Pt Neches, TX at the gas station a block away from Texaco.. Personal experience 1964.
If anything prices will go up under Trump,especially for food, as he follows through on his deportation promise., and his culture war promises, will so demoralize the country, that commerce will be disrupted.
I’ve been talking about National PTSD for some time. I see it in the quickness of people to overreact, get angry and combative over insignificant things, the unsociable behaviors of folks I witness everyday.
As a retired MHP, so glad to learn that Thom has a mental health background…now it all makes perfect sense! I bought the book “Walking Your Blues Away,” and I’m a believer and former practitioner of EMDR in one form or another. Thanks for your ongoing enlightenment Thom!
Obviously this whole MAGA / Trump saga has provided the media with juicy spin bits to entertain the masses and sell crap to them. However, for every MAGA cult loyalist there are TEN others who are actually sane. We don't wear out sanity on our sleeve like the MAGA people. We live simply and sanely in a quiet tribute to the love of the Creator / God. Most often we aren't even that sociable or trending towards peer group associations. We like walking our dogs, jogging early in the morning, sipping coffee in quiet meditation, taking care of our plants, and living a wholesome / healthy life. We have no need to verify ourselves by associating with those who struggle to define themselves and get verification that they are somehow OK. We will go to the voter booth early and mark the ballot for sanity. This will be a landslide of verification for the wholesome goodness of this country and a validation of the goodness of our community spirit. There is nothing to prove here. It just is. We will go back home and do what we enjoy doing while the pundits try to figure out how they could have been so wrong. Maybe....walk a dog.
It’s been building for a century - Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Joe McCarthy, John Birch Society (and the Koch brothers), Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Tucker Carlson, FOX News, Newt Gingrich, NewsMax - drumming fear and doubt like a Chinese torture drill.
But I do know that everything you cite is true. [Glad you survived the plane incident.]
All of those symptoms of PTSD are also recognizable, some closer to home than I’d like to admit. I’m trying to keep a measure of critical thinking in the mix {I can hear the MAGA telling us WE are ‘drinking the KoolAid’ by putting our trust in vaccines and mainstream medicine and liberal government ideology … I’m reluctant to tell people that I had a allergic reaction to a pneumonia vaccine, huge hives and itchy, but it went away, for fear of feeding an anti-vax reaction … Simple life experiences take on oversized implications, and everything is suddenly so FRAUGHT!
I want to see the election as a hopeful event that MIGHT get that awful man out of our lives.
I am still at a loss to understand HOW and WHY such a blatant clown has arisen to such heights. Too many people give HIM the credit for getting himself there. I don’t think so. He’s too much of a jerk to have managed his own rise and time-at-the-top.
In much the same way his father put a net under him when he started out in the family business—rescuing him time and again—other entities have elevated the Celebrity Trump that people believed in, based on his faux-reputation as a mogul built by reality TV. Gad, to trace the trajectory of people’s ideas about that man from the idiot who stuck his name in giant letters on everything he touched, to the clown who made such an ass of himself talking to Howard Stern on the radio, to the guy The Apprentice pretended had a nose for business…
Then he got the bright idea he might run for office, and the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society knew they had an excellent foil on which to project their ideas of taking the country back to some mythical Golden Age that Trump’s Make America Great Again alludes to.
A Golden Age — right. Like the century before the New Deal, for example. It’s not a Golden Age they genuflect before. It’s the Golden Calf that their own Christian Religion reviles, but the cultists still kneel.
Social media is likely a big influence on this election. Everyone is welcome to re-post the following or make it better and post, included are excepts from The Hartmann Report:
Please, vote for Democracy. Vote for Harris.
This election is bigger than the individual issues. Trump lost the 2020 election. He went to court numerous times to contest the election; he lost every time. He tried to overthrow the election results. He still says he won and will prosecute those who he says cheated. Trump says he will fire government workers and replace them with people loyal to him.
Instead of having him on trial to overthrow the 2020 election before this election, the Supreme Court has delayed his trial and has given him more presidential immunity. Most of the media is owned by big money and favors big money interest like more tax cuts for the wealthy. If Trump wins, there is not much, if anything, to stop him from becoming a dictator. He admires Putin and the dictator of Hungary Viktor Orban. He has the will and the skill to be a dictator.
As Ben Franklin told a woman: You have a Republic, if you can keep it. Let’s keep our Republic, please vote for Harris.
Excepts from The Hartmann Report:
In the few short years after he was elected, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, now fabulously wealthy by Hungarian standards and an oligarch himself, succeeded in transforming his nation’s government from a functioning European democracy into an autocratic and oligarchic regime of single-party neofascist rule.
Orbán took over the Fidesz Party, once a conventional “conservative” political party like the GOP, with the slogans “Restore Christian purity” and “Make Hungary great again.” His rallies regularly drew tens of thousands.
He altered his nation’s Constitution to enable what we’d call gerrymandering and voter suppression in much the same way Republicans are now doing across Red State America, ensuring that his party, Fidesz, would win control in pretty much every election well into the future.
Orbán has handed government contracts to his favored few, elevating an entire group of pro-Orbán businessmen (it appears all are men) who have now seized complete control of the nation’s economy. Those who opposed him have lost their businesses, been forced to sell their companies, and often fled the country. Some are in prison.
Virtually all of Hungary’s press is now in the hands of oligarchs and corporations loyal to Orbán, with hard-right talk radio and television across the country singing his praises daily. Progressive media is functionally banned. Billboards and social media proclaim Orbán’s patriotism.
If you want to see Trump’s and the GOP’s vision of America’s future, just look at what Orbán’s done to Hungary.
Forewarned is forearmed. Spread the word. Feel free to re post.
Donald Trump is the single most dangerous person in our world . He has destroyed peoples mental health in many ways .
He is a Demonic figure who should never have been allowed to run again for the presidency or any office.
You can thank John Robert’s and his six dirty (Justices?)for all of this twisted information to be allowed to circulate .
They’ve completely failed as “ Justices” because of their rancid attempts to delete our Constitutions great value for guidance .
For this they should be held up and removed from the Court for their traitorous actions .
We have been slow to recognize the true Devastation of our Government at the hands of Trump, supported by the plainly crooked Heritage Foundation , the Federalist Society , the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court & MAGA .
Their actions , intended to destroy our free and fair elections and their handbook for the destruction of 2025 , in our culture along with their allegiance to Putin , all pure evil.
We need to vote in numbers that will quash their putrid plan .
Patricia, we have been slow to recognize that borrowing money and cutting taxes for the rich would end in an economic catastrophe also. I think this was all planned going back to when Nixon normalized relations with China and China will be the new world reserve currency. The new world order globalist that the cult love, will abandon them. I think it will be their revenge for World war II ?
Yours is an insightful analysis,but I believe there is another critical element that you do not factor in: the climate emergency which is careening our planet towards an uninhabitable state. Whether people consciously, intellectually are willing to process this or not, I suspect we are unconsciously aware of the catastrophe and a deep level of unexamined dread prevails.
The COVID pandemic and other emerging new pathogens are also a symptom of the same derangement of the climate that I am referencing.
And Hurricane Milton barrels down for landfall in Florida on Wednesday, as a category 4 or 5 storm, right on the heels of historically destructive Helene.
It's fair to opine that Trump (née Drumpf) is the figurative 20th Saudi.
He learned to fly awfully, but not how to land. He steered his aircraft through the thunderstorm that was / is COVID. He lost nearly 1,300,000 souls inflight.
Thank God co-pilot Mike Pence knew how to land.
So, Donald lost his license to fly. Quite understandably. Indeed, he should have been indicted for mass manslaughter. Not to mention, for trying to flip America into a vassal state of Russia.
Now he's trying to get back in the cockpit. And there are still 74,200,000 willfully blind cultists who want to hand him back his pilot's license, as well as the nuke-button.
How many souls will you lose, if there is a next time, Donnie Boy?
June 16, 2015, is America's — and the world's — second 9/11 . . . 6/16. The day Don Don descended on his gold colored escalator, and America descended down to the 4th through 9th rings of hell. To wit:
Greed - 4th
Wrath
Heresy
Violence
Fraud
Treachery - 9th
All that's missing? Replace that one (in 6-16) w/ a six, as in 666.
U.S. immigration records from October 1885 list his name as Friedr. Trumpf.[24][25] An early recorded appearance of the name "Trump" appears 25 years later in the 1910 United States census records.[26][25] In her book The Trumps, biographer Gwenda Blair mentions a Hanns Drumpf who settled in Kallstadt in 1608 and whose descendants changed their name from Drumpf to Trump during the Thirty Years' War.[27][28] A 2015 Deutsche Welle article claims Blair said in an interview that Trump's grandfather was named Friedrich Drumpf,[29]; this contradicts the statement in Blair's earlier book. According to Kallstadt's transportation association, "Drumpf" was the original spelling of the family's surname but that it had already been changed to "Trump" before this spelling was recorded in the population register produced by the French annexation of the Left Bank of the Rhine (from 1798 to 1814).[30] The fact-checking website Snopes presents sources showing the family name was once "Drumpf" and showing the aforementioned contradictory reporting of Blair's opinion on whether Frederick Trump first used "Drumpf" but also showing that neither Donald Trump nor his father ever had the surname Drumpf.[31]
Donald can call himself Dr. Pepper, Steppin' Fetchit, or, even, No Coke Pepsi.
I don't care. You know, 1st Amendment, and all that. Be that as it may, Donnie T. is a counterfeit Trump. He's no more a "real" Trump than an indigenous person is a real Indian. Just because Christopher was confused in 1492, does not make those people into Indians. Who is Colombus, anyway. His & Her Majesties' Gofer.
Trump is a concocted stage name, at best. 100% ersatz in much the way "The Apprentice" made up a stage persona for a broke, Queens ass. One who squandered his dad's gift of 413,000,000 USD into an ongoing series of boneheaded bankruptcies. Who in the world loses money, OWNING a casino. Hint: A moron is who.
Trump is an inherited stage-name.
A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers, such as actors, musicians, and comedians, instead of their real name. This name is often chosen for various reasons, such as making it easier to remember, creating a distinct persona, or avoiding confusion with other performers, e.g. Michael Keaton's real surname is Douglas.
The singer Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, and Lady Gaga was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.
Trump is a facade, an illusion of unearned, hence unwarranted prestige.
Though to be completely fair Trump did get elected long before the pandemic began, being able to play well on fear. But I think another factor is that many Americans know little about science or history. (The Donald himself seems to be illiterate in both fields.) Magical thinking, the idea that “we’re different” and that pandemics are not a routine part of human history all came into play. (Probably growing up on fantasy movies and television shows where everything was neatly wrapped up in an hour were conditioning factors as well.) Thus the anger against Fauci and other scientists who changed their recommendations as they learned more about the virus showed a widespread lack of understanding about how science works. Like other claims of hoaxes (the moon landings, climate change, etc.) it was an easy turn for someone who didn’t want to admit they didn’t know more to following somebody who said they did. And believing that The Leader has all the answers and if you do what you are told then everything will be okay is definitely a cult. Even if one learned how to critically think for themselves practicing this is toxic to being in the group. So the worst are not the credulous but those who know better but join in for profit and power. We see that here, we see that in every dictatorship.
Trump’s first term came about in large part because he was a TV celebrity supposedly brilliant at business. He came off the administration of the first Black president, picking up on fears of The Great Replacement. He ran against a woman — and she was not considered “likeable” since she first came on the scene, no matter that she’s incredibly intelligent and had experience through the roof. AND another very popular outsider — Bernie — had been pushed aside for her, which put a lot of people against her …
Trump got the Electoral College by a fluke of the way things are structured — at the END of his campaign, the people who realized how they could use him got involved, and they’ll even tell you that they rescued and revived his campaign and put him over the top … It was a sad, sad, and cynical thing they did. They created a monster.
Vote Blue to take the wind out of the monster’s sails and see him float off into the sunset, never more to darken our political scene.
I agree - my first thought was, the one flaw in Thom's thesis is that Trump was elected before the pandemic (albeit without the popular vote - and with a little help from his friends). Quite possibly, even without the trauma aspect of pandemic Covid, all the extra exposure Trump got with his (to many of us embarrassing) televised Covid update sessions and his lies and constant presence in the the media worked it's magic. Advertising is all about exposure and repetition - think brainwashing. Trump's overconfidence in uncertain times had impact too in cult development. Assuredly putting down everyone who disagrees with him helps to elevate him in many people's eyes, even now. Trump continues to repeat lies over and over again because he knows the power of repetition! And he has Vance and Congressional Republicans amplifying and extending the repetition. (The effectiveness is starting to cause me to develop PTSD!)
Despite Descartes, "odi ergo ego sum" is the result of demagoguery
. https://studyofhate.ucla.edu/
Studies don't solve problems, at best they uncover root causes. For instance a Stanford Study on homophobia, showed that the more homophobic one was, the more arroused one was by homo porno. Conclusion: Intensity of homophobia is positively correlated with repressed homosexuality.
The cause of, the origin of hate, is fear. Rational and irrational fear.
The next question is what is the cause of irrational fear.?
And what fears are rational and irrational.
Why are some people afraid of heights and some not.
When standing in the door of an aircraft with a parachute on my back, I have no fear, just filled with eager
excitement anticipating the leap. But climbing a ladder to the roof of a house, that is another story. Perhaps it is because I fell off the side of a smokestack, when I was 15 and broke my arm (the fall was about 40 or 50 ft, how I got there is another story.
Most if not all fears are learned, either from authorities or be experience. "Once burned".
Why then hate? Well fear? Fear of what? Fear of loss of power, control, status, ego, identity? Those fears are learned, taught by respected authorities, parents, religious, educational, social. Fear of the other.
Interestingly an infant can recognize and respond to a smiling face, a neutral face, and a threatening, scowling or angry face, and so can cats and dogs.
Organically, it's a function of the amygdala.
That Stanford study is not analogous. As Thom said somewhere, the defeat of a cult leader can evaporate blind faith.
Of course, W. F. is right — studies don’t solve problems. They help us to UNDERSTAND problems so we CAN solve them.
And understanding human and group psychology helps, too.
Thom’s info is so valuable.
Correct Pat, then we have to be able to distinguish between a problem and a difficulty.
Problems have solutions. Identify the problem, then enact the solution.
Difficulties, on the other hand, have no solutions. In fact when you try to solve a difficulty you only exacerbate it and create another problem, the best you can do with a difficulty is to mitigate it's harmful effects.
For instance sanctions are a means of mitigating a difficulty. If, say Iran, is a problem then the only solution is a war, and all that brings. Not ideal.
Inequality has been treated as a problem, to solve the problem, affirmative action and quotas were used, however they created more problems, as their was a rebellion by people who would not otherwise have sided with the right wing.
Kids with high SATS were not admitted to college because they weren't a protected class, so they became conservative, now Trump humpers.
People found themselves passed over for jobs and promotions because they weren't a protected class, and they turned rightward in disgust.
Then you have affirmative action hires, like Clarence Thomas, and tell me how that has worked out.
Racism, inequality are difficulties, not problems. Because there is no solution for racism and inequality, not one that is palatable and humane.
That doesn't mean that you don't address the issue, but a discussion, a serious discussion is needed as to how to mitigate the difficulty.
For instance where ever differences occur there will always be tension and discrimination.
The Rwanda genocide is an example. The Hutu's consider the Tutsi's to be another race, that can be distinguished by stature and physiognomy..
There is still tension in Rwanda, that could erupt again.
The Japanese consider the Chinese and Koreans to be another race.
The Chinese consider the Uyghers to be another race, and peoples.
Same in Myanmar, with the Rohinyas, compounded with the fact that they are also Muslim in a Buddhist land.
And if one thinks that all is peaceful in a racially homogeneous land, then think of Shia Yemeni's (Houthi's) and even the 2nd class citizens of Saudi Arabia, the Shia who work the oil fields.
Mr. Farrar, Shortly before he died Bertrand Russell was asked: what does the world need most? His answer: tolerance. He did not suggest solutions, he simply said: tolerance. A response to difficulties, perhaps?
Correct Daniel. Fear stimulates the amygdala, and in humans most fear is learned.
Homophobia is an irrational reaction to exposures to queers, mostly a condition found in men, the reaction, one of which is violence and anger,is indeed produced in the amygdala.
Of course, we've been traumatized by COVID-19, but Trump was already President. I agree with Thom that the trauma of COVID-19 likely made it worse, especially for those looking for a Strongman leader. But I learned something else in the past week that makes me even more certain that our form of government, a Capitalist Republic, must be drastically overhauled. The system itself is killing us.
I was denied a continuous glucose monitor because I can't prove that my blood glucose ever went lower than 54 mg/dL, and I am not on insulin, although I have type 2 diabetes and had a very high A1C last winter. Medicare rules say it is not medically necessary to have a CGM without that proof. The problem is, you can't prove it without a CGM, a catch-22. CMS claims they must conserve CMS sensors for those who can benefit the most. But getting around to the astounding medical research I found this past week to defend my position that it is medically necessary for me, I found that type 2 diabetes is in large part caused by stressors, both physical and predominantly psychosocial. The stressors include bereavement, unemployment, stressful employment, fear of debt or homelessness, etc.
I haven't taught pathophysiology since the mid-1980s and haven't taken an update course since the late 1990s. I knew stress affected the body but did not know how badly it affected it. Furthermore, research shows that many people testing their blood glucose with finger sticks are missing low blood glucose and hypoglycemia, especially while sleeping. Hypoglycemia damages the heart and nervous system.
CMS hires private contractors to make the rules and enforce them for Medicare and Medicare Advantage. I think they know better, but either don't care if we die prematurely or hope we do to save the Medicare Trust Fund for plundering and to prevent the wealthy from having their taxes raised to cover Social Security and Medicaid. If that sounds paranoid and is evidence that I no longer trust the system, so be it. I have been traumatized. Even more reason I cast my vote for Harris.
Sounds like you have Medicare Advantage rather than real Medicare?
The rule that Medicare Advantage is following is a Medicare rule. I'm not defending Medicare Advantage. That was my husband's, a retired accountant's idea, although I was skeptical after hearing what you said on your show. If we return to Medicare, the rule will still apply, and the co-pay will probably be higher now. I'm doing medical research to support that Medicare's rule is unreasonable and dangerous. Could you please research the MACs, how they get their contracts, and the part politics plays? The voters need to understand how it works.
Gloria — There’s lots of evidence here that Medicare does pay for the monitors — but your caveat, that one must JUSTIFY the use of a monitor, remains to be clarified. It does sound like something of a Catch 22, if it is nationwide, and not a caveat only where you are.
Frustrating, but definitely something to know more about — for people who DO have insulin issues and Diabetes Type 2 issues, this is no small thing.
I do want to know if this is hit-or-miss or a system problem.
Good thoughts to you, Gloria
I have it in writing that this is Medicare's rule that the advantage plan is following. I don't know if the administrative law judge only applies the fact to the rule or has room to say it's unreasonable.
I don’t know how such a “rule” gets changed or modified to work better, but it needs changing .. It’s not like any old person can just demand a monitor on a whim, but someone dealing with Type 2 and clearly managing it with their doc needs to have tools and resources to handle STAYING healthy, not just responding to declining status.
Sorry it’s sucky, Gloria. I guess we need better people in charge — Hoping we get them.
If you return to Medicare, during Open Enrollment which I believe is on right now, Medicare rules will apply. You will not be stuck with the private insurers rules.
Medicare suscriptions are filled either via a local pharmacy, and each pharmacy or chain, has it's own contracts or through Express Scripts, which has it's own contracts.
For instance I started blood glucose monitoring using Rite Aid, which had a contract with Free Style and never paid for my monitor or strips, but I moved and there is only one pharmacy and it is local, not part of a chain, and does not have a contract, so they use the cheapest Medicare approved provider, and that is Metric, even Express Scripts has their own contract.
Who is your Medicare Advantage company?United Health Care?
Unlike Medicare, Medicare Advantage programs deny reimbursement for procedures they don't approve.
As you know Medicare covers 80% and I have never had to pay a co pay. The 20% can be covered by Medigap, either private or group,
AARP has a Medigap plan.
I'm fortunate in that I have Tricare. I did have a secondary through CalPers but they upped their premium for my Plan (out of state) by 30.74% so I quit.
It is MEDICARE's rule.
Do you mean that when you rejoin Medicare from MA you will suffer under the same rules as your MA plan?
Yes for this rule.
Correct Thom. See my response to Gloria. I am on Medicare and have no problem at all,other than my local pharmacy does not have a contract with Free Style and have to use Metric,.
I'm not talking about glucometers and finger sticks. This is an arm patch with a sensor that measures blood glucose in real time and sends the info to the phone every 5 minutes 24/7.
AND anyone actively managing Type 2 or Pre-diabetes should have access to this kind of monitoring to establish a baseline and/or catch a situation in the process of building … Limiting access is JUST WRONG. And, sure, lobbying by the folks who have to pay for health services — since they collect payments to enroll in the insurance programs — is probably the crux of the issue … They want to collect the premiums and NOT pay for care.
We need BETTER people setting policies and making rules.
{Bernie would have been better — but this pre-dates Bernie. When Obamacare was originated, the R’s insisted on keeping insurance companies at the heart of it, convincing us that we needed them, and they put these obstacles in place, and then the R’s wouldn’t vote for the system ANYWAY. We got the system we got, an improvement over the way it worked before, but seriously flawed, still …
We need BETTER people making the rules, and better people in the Senate and Congress.
Gee, I wonder how we make that happen.
Gloria. I am insulin resistant and thus classified as Type 2 Diabetic, it is genetic (Mothers side, mtDNA inherited)
I have a BGC. and been monitoring my BG since 2006, Medicare paid for it and pays for the strips. I watch my diet, eat twice a day, don't prick the finger and test until at least 10:00 a.m.
my BG ranges from 95 to 106, ocassionally as high as 110 mm/dl.
Iwould be delighted if my blood glucose went down to 54 mm/dl below 99 is normal, 100 -125 is rediabetic
I get my A1C tested every three months (lately) and it has been 6.0 mmol/l
Since my local pharmacy doesn't have a contract with Free Style, which was the GCM I was using, and I exhausted my store of strips. I got a scrip from my PCP for Glucose Strips, but the only monitor they carry is Metric, so now I am using a new monitor. The strips would cost ,me $12 if I paid for them, Freestyle Strips are $35 through Amazon. I use both now and record readings daily on a spreadsheet.
Medicare considers Glucose monitors and strips as Medical Equipment and covered by part B.
I do not understand why you have a problem if your BG ever wemt below 54 mm/dl.
I "pray" for such a reading, nothing I can do, not even 24 hr fasting will deliver a reading below 85 mm/dl.
Not only that there is a relationship between insulin resistance and weight. I went on a two meal a day low carb diet and lost 43 lbs, down to 177. plateaued and though I have stayed on my diet and regimen, I am gaining weight again now 190, and frustrated, The solution is seems is to stop eating period.
Too low is very dangerous for your heart and nervous system.
My pharmaceutical insurance has nothing to do with Medicare and CMS. I rejected Medicare part D. I have Federal BS/BC (Florida Blue) and they have a deal with a continuous monitor company. If you have a prescription, they honor it. https://mcgs.bcbsfl.com/MCG?mcgId=01-99000-03&pv=false
BTW I WAS part of the system and that's why I have double coverage.
Diabetes equipment and supplies are under Part B, not Part D. Daniel.
I also have BC/BS.
So did I,until Oct 1st. It was group through Anthem BC, via CalPers and since I am out of state, it was the Platinum plan for Medicare supplement.
The cost was raised 30.74 % , and my previus employer paid a portion of it, but the raise was too much, so I canceled and fall back on Tricare.
Certainly, I am voting & if the Harris team gets the required number of votes, she will be president. I believe that but I also believe that there will be violence, especially in those swing states & districts. That is something that I am preparing for mentally. I'm an old woman of 76 so I am not going to run out & buy a gun, I don't think the vast majority of folks that have guns need them, especially if they don't hunt. By the same token if people want a gun for protection within their home, that is fine as long as the background checks etc are completed. I don't believe ANYONE should own a long gun or a bump stock & I certainly don't believe that people need more than one gun or an appropriate type of rifle for hunting but AR-15s are not for hunting they are meant for killing. So what concerns me the most about this election & the afterwards is that we'll have hundreds, perhaps thousands of heavily armed trump supporters roaming the streets with their long guns at the ready. Will our police, some of whom are trump supporters, protect those of us that do not support a dictator, my guess is they won't & I can foresee in some places that the local sheriff will deputize the mob rather than protect the innocent.
Trying times indeed. Over the years I've lived through the Golden Age of the US, the years after WWII when the US was considered a leader in the world & a leader for democracy. As time progressed I felt that the US was losing some or much of that 'golden' glow that comes with a Golden Age. I thought that perhaps the US would cede some of its supremacy to China in economic development & certainly an equality with the US in military might. But I never in a million years did I think we would lose our democracy!!!! That never crossed my mind until trump came on the scene letting loose the hate & vitriol that has built up over the century & a half since the end of the Civil War. We are still fighting that war emotionally & people of color or the latest influx of immigrants bear the brunt of that hate & blame for problems brought about by corporate greed. It's the greed & lust for power that fuels all this hate & I don't know how we end that. Another Civil War, well, look at what is happening in the Middle East, so Gaza is leveled & Hamas has lost its number of leaders but not its message. Do the Israelis really think that by eliminating Hamas or Hezbollah that the hatred of the Isreal will end? The same is true here, if we beat the Magats at the polls will it make them or their influence disappear? I don't think so.
We are faced with a generation of hard work to try to right this ship of state. And if the legal system gets all those extreme conservative judges & justices it will be many more than one generation to get back what we will lose.
If we beat the Magats at the polls will it make them or their influence disappear?
We have no other recourse. BEAT MAGATs. DO SOMETHING.
https://priorities.org/victory-in-2024/
Well said "return to normalcy!"
Warren G. Harding, "normalcy" president, girlfriend in White House, murdered by his wife, the Duchess? What we need is criminal law. Penalize insurrectionists.
Normalcy there is only one rational, logical and effective weapon for self defense and that is a shotgun, and the shorter the barrel the better, and a load of buckshot is best.
Pistols are short range, 25 ft at best, and it takes time to sight, and calmness to pull the trigger, any closer and a belly gun will do the job (Short barrel handgun)
Rifles are effective only for assault and distance shots. Hunters lay on the ground or in stands, and have to calm themselves, slow the heart rate and hold the breath for a trigger squeeze at distance,
Anyone who has gone through basic military training, at a minimum, knows what I mean.
With a shotgun, the scatter means that sighting and accuracy don't matter. Unless you are a warrior and a very skillled sharpshooter, then a rifle will do you no good, onthe other hand a rapid fire weapon, like an AR 15 with a bump stock would.
What weapon you need depends on the role. I am assuming defense, If offence then yes, a rifle with automatic fire, then you are going to need a hell of a lot of ammo. With an M-16 and a 20 round magazine, burned it all up in a couple of bursts.
For offense, hand held M 79 grenade launcher.
For defense, daisy chain several M18a1 Claymores. Command detonated.
Look ma, no hands.
I have a story or two about claymores, and a VC booby trap.
There is also a grenade launher that can be attached to an M-16. I've fired the M-79. pretty good with it.
Trouble is that the equipment and ammo is not generally available, but none of it violates the rules as I know them, then again I am not mliitia minded so don't keep up.
I think global warming is going to take care of all of our problems? If we were to attempt to fix the problems first we would have to treat everyone equally, end poverty, end the family unit, end religious indoctrination of children, install a maximum wage for the rich, limit all campaign contributions to $100, build self supporting penal colonies and poor farms. Lots of luck. All that Amygdala thinkers can think of is lying and stealing. Their preferental cortex was castrated from their reptilian part of the brain, by religion at a young age, IMHO!
An AMA study looked at deaths in both Florida and Ohio during the first 22 months of the pandemic and found the overall excess death rate of Republican voters was 15% higher than that of Democrats. The gap widened further once COVID-19 vaccines were introduced. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/political-party-affiliation-linked-excess-covid-deaths
I just got another shot. https://www.floridahealth.gov/newsroom/2024/09/20210912-UpdatedGuidanceCOVID-19.html
Much to unpack here, and my Psych classes were few and long ago. But this is something that needs discussion: "Although the economy right now is doing better than at any time since the 1960s, polls show a majority of Americans would rather believe Trump’s lies...." The premise is based on the mistaken notion that 'people' are motivated by macroeconomic numbers. They may or may not read them and feel good for a moment, but then they go to the supermarket. Broccoli having to be on sale to be had for under $2/lb. Fish, what used to be the cheapest animal protein, can hardly be found for under $7. Chicken $1 a pound more than we remember. And that's just foods. Although gas prices are down to around $3 from their recent highs, we can all remember (and it wasn't that long ago) when gas was under $2. There's lots more in the macro - micro divide, but best not to become tedious.
I still think economics are secondary to culture.
It depends on how poor you are.
IMHO, Musk, Thiel, Vance, Trump are culture warriors despite their wealth. Trump is more grifter than culture warrior, but his conduct has led to financial ruin. In terms of risk analysis all four have contingent liabilities beyond measure. Trump's immediate risk is jail.
True William Politt, but a Trump presidency will not bring those numbers down, nothing will, short of a depression and over supply. Once prices go up, save for gas and eggs, then never go down, they haven't in my 85 years and the price of gas and eggs, may go down in the short term in response to supply and demand, but the trend is upwards.
The first gallon of gas I bought was $.29 when It hit $1 I was outraged.
The price of a gallon of gas was the same in Riverside, CA as it was in Pt Neches, TX at the gas station a block away from Texaco.. Personal experience 1964.
If anything prices will go up under Trump,especially for food, as he follows through on his deportation promise., and his culture war promises, will so demoralize the country, that commerce will be disrupted.
I’ve been talking about National PTSD for some time. I see it in the quickness of people to overreact, get angry and combative over insignificant things, the unsociable behaviors of folks I witness everyday.
I agree with you.
I’ve maintained this all along!
As a retired MHP, so glad to learn that Thom has a mental health background…now it all makes perfect sense! I bought the book “Walking Your Blues Away,” and I’m a believer and former practitioner of EMDR in one form or another. Thanks for your ongoing enlightenment Thom!
Obviously this whole MAGA / Trump saga has provided the media with juicy spin bits to entertain the masses and sell crap to them. However, for every MAGA cult loyalist there are TEN others who are actually sane. We don't wear out sanity on our sleeve like the MAGA people. We live simply and sanely in a quiet tribute to the love of the Creator / God. Most often we aren't even that sociable or trending towards peer group associations. We like walking our dogs, jogging early in the morning, sipping coffee in quiet meditation, taking care of our plants, and living a wholesome / healthy life. We have no need to verify ourselves by associating with those who struggle to define themselves and get verification that they are somehow OK. We will go to the voter booth early and mark the ballot for sanity. This will be a landslide of verification for the wholesome goodness of this country and a validation of the goodness of our community spirit. There is nothing to prove here. It just is. We will go back home and do what we enjoy doing while the pundits try to figure out how they could have been so wrong. Maybe....walk a dog.
It’s been building for a century - Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Joe McCarthy, John Birch Society (and the Koch brothers), Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Tucker Carlson, FOX News, Newt Gingrich, NewsMax - drumming fear and doubt like a Chinese torture drill.
Cut hydra’s head pdq! The ones that will grow after will be of smaller size and much less dangerous for sure.
Thom!!! You’re scaring me …
But I do know that everything you cite is true. [Glad you survived the plane incident.]
All of those symptoms of PTSD are also recognizable, some closer to home than I’d like to admit. I’m trying to keep a measure of critical thinking in the mix {I can hear the MAGA telling us WE are ‘drinking the KoolAid’ by putting our trust in vaccines and mainstream medicine and liberal government ideology … I’m reluctant to tell people that I had a allergic reaction to a pneumonia vaccine, huge hives and itchy, but it went away, for fear of feeding an anti-vax reaction … Simple life experiences take on oversized implications, and everything is suddenly so FRAUGHT!
I want to see the election as a hopeful event that MIGHT get that awful man out of our lives.
I am still at a loss to understand HOW and WHY such a blatant clown has arisen to such heights. Too many people give HIM the credit for getting himself there. I don’t think so. He’s too much of a jerk to have managed his own rise and time-at-the-top.
In much the same way his father put a net under him when he started out in the family business—rescuing him time and again—other entities have elevated the Celebrity Trump that people believed in, based on his faux-reputation as a mogul built by reality TV. Gad, to trace the trajectory of people’s ideas about that man from the idiot who stuck his name in giant letters on everything he touched, to the clown who made such an ass of himself talking to Howard Stern on the radio, to the guy The Apprentice pretended had a nose for business…
Then he got the bright idea he might run for office, and the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society knew they had an excellent foil on which to project their ideas of taking the country back to some mythical Golden Age that Trump’s Make America Great Again alludes to.
A Golden Age — right. Like the century before the New Deal, for example. It’s not a Golden Age they genuflect before. It’s the Golden Calf that their own Christian Religion reviles, but the cultists still kneel.
Gad. Now I’m scaring me.
Vote. Vote. Vote.
BLUE
Social media is likely a big influence on this election. Everyone is welcome to re-post the following or make it better and post, included are excepts from The Hartmann Report:
Please, vote for Democracy. Vote for Harris.
This election is bigger than the individual issues. Trump lost the 2020 election. He went to court numerous times to contest the election; he lost every time. He tried to overthrow the election results. He still says he won and will prosecute those who he says cheated. Trump says he will fire government workers and replace them with people loyal to him.
Instead of having him on trial to overthrow the 2020 election before this election, the Supreme Court has delayed his trial and has given him more presidential immunity. Most of the media is owned by big money and favors big money interest like more tax cuts for the wealthy. If Trump wins, there is not much, if anything, to stop him from becoming a dictator. He admires Putin and the dictator of Hungary Viktor Orban. He has the will and the skill to be a dictator.
As Ben Franklin told a woman: You have a Republic, if you can keep it. Let’s keep our Republic, please vote for Harris.
Excepts from The Hartmann Report:
In the few short years after he was elected, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, now fabulously wealthy by Hungarian standards and an oligarch himself, succeeded in transforming his nation’s government from a functioning European democracy into an autocratic and oligarchic regime of single-party neofascist rule.
Orbán took over the Fidesz Party, once a conventional “conservative” political party like the GOP, with the slogans “Restore Christian purity” and “Make Hungary great again.” His rallies regularly drew tens of thousands.
He altered his nation’s Constitution to enable what we’d call gerrymandering and voter suppression in much the same way Republicans are now doing across Red State America, ensuring that his party, Fidesz, would win control in pretty much every election well into the future.
Orbán has handed government contracts to his favored few, elevating an entire group of pro-Orbán businessmen (it appears all are men) who have now seized complete control of the nation’s economy. Those who opposed him have lost their businesses, been forced to sell their companies, and often fled the country. Some are in prison.
Virtually all of Hungary’s press is now in the hands of oligarchs and corporations loyal to Orbán, with hard-right talk radio and television across the country singing his praises daily. Progressive media is functionally banned. Billboards and social media proclaim Orbán’s patriotism.
If you want to see Trump’s and the GOP’s vision of America’s future, just look at what Orbán’s done to Hungary.
Forewarned is forearmed. Spread the word. Feel free to re post.
Donald Trump is the single most dangerous person in our world . He has destroyed peoples mental health in many ways .
He is a Demonic figure who should never have been allowed to run again for the presidency or any office.
You can thank John Robert’s and his six dirty (Justices?)for all of this twisted information to be allowed to circulate .
They’ve completely failed as “ Justices” because of their rancid attempts to delete our Constitutions great value for guidance .
For this they should be held up and removed from the Court for their traitorous actions .
We have been slow to recognize the true Devastation of our Government at the hands of Trump, supported by the plainly crooked Heritage Foundation , the Federalist Society , the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court & MAGA .
Their actions , intended to destroy our free and fair elections and their handbook for the destruction of 2025 , in our culture along with their allegiance to Putin , all pure evil.
We need to vote in numbers that will quash their putrid plan .
Patricia, we have been slow to recognize that borrowing money and cutting taxes for the rich would end in an economic catastrophe also. I think this was all planned going back to when Nixon normalized relations with China and China will be the new world reserve currency. The new world order globalist that the cult love, will abandon them. I think it will be their revenge for World war II ?
Yours is an insightful analysis,but I believe there is another critical element that you do not factor in: the climate emergency which is careening our planet towards an uninhabitable state. Whether people consciously, intellectually are willing to process this or not, I suspect we are unconsciously aware of the catastrophe and a deep level of unexamined dread prevails.
https://www.rawstory.com/un-warns-world-s-water-cycle-becoming-ever-more-erratic/
The COVID pandemic and other emerging new pathogens are also a symptom of the same derangement of the climate that I am referencing.
And Hurricane Milton barrels down for landfall in Florida on Wednesday, as a category 4 or 5 storm, right on the heels of historically destructive Helene.
I agree. It’s getting pretty hard to ignore, even for diehard deniers.
It's fair to opine that Trump (née Drumpf) is the figurative 20th Saudi.
He learned to fly awfully, but not how to land. He steered his aircraft through the thunderstorm that was / is COVID. He lost nearly 1,300,000 souls inflight.
Thank God co-pilot Mike Pence knew how to land.
So, Donald lost his license to fly. Quite understandably. Indeed, he should have been indicted for mass manslaughter. Not to mention, for trying to flip America into a vassal state of Russia.
Now he's trying to get back in the cockpit. And there are still 74,200,000 willfully blind cultists who want to hand him back his pilot's license, as well as the nuke-button.
How many souls will you lose, if there is a next time, Donnie Boy?
June 16, 2015, is America's — and the world's — second 9/11 . . . 6/16. The day Don Don descended on his gold colored escalator, and America descended down to the 4th through 9th rings of hell. To wit:
Greed - 4th
Wrath
Heresy
Violence
Fraud
Treachery - 9th
All that's missing? Replace that one (in 6-16) w/ a six, as in 666.
U.S. immigration records from October 1885 list his name as Friedr. Trumpf.[24][25] An early recorded appearance of the name "Trump" appears 25 years later in the 1910 United States census records.[26][25] In her book The Trumps, biographer Gwenda Blair mentions a Hanns Drumpf who settled in Kallstadt in 1608 and whose descendants changed their name from Drumpf to Trump during the Thirty Years' War.[27][28] A 2015 Deutsche Welle article claims Blair said in an interview that Trump's grandfather was named Friedrich Drumpf,[29]; this contradicts the statement in Blair's earlier book. According to Kallstadt's transportation association, "Drumpf" was the original spelling of the family's surname but that it had already been changed to "Trump" before this spelling was recorded in the population register produced by the French annexation of the Left Bank of the Rhine (from 1798 to 1814).[30] The fact-checking website Snopes presents sources showing the family name was once "Drumpf" and showing the aforementioned contradictory reporting of Blair's opinion on whether Frederick Trump first used "Drumpf" but also showing that neither Donald Trump nor his father ever had the surname Drumpf.[31]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Trump#:~:text=name%20as%20Friedr.-,Trumpf.,during%20the%20Thirty%20Years'%20War.
Fools' names and fools' faces:
Donald can call himself Dr. Pepper, Steppin' Fetchit, or, even, No Coke Pepsi.
I don't care. You know, 1st Amendment, and all that. Be that as it may, Donnie T. is a counterfeit Trump. He's no more a "real" Trump than an indigenous person is a real Indian. Just because Christopher was confused in 1492, does not make those people into Indians. Who is Colombus, anyway. His & Her Majesties' Gofer.
Trump is a concocted stage name, at best. 100% ersatz in much the way "The Apprentice" made up a stage persona for a broke, Queens ass. One who squandered his dad's gift of 413,000,000 USD into an ongoing series of boneheaded bankruptcies. Who in the world loses money, OWNING a casino. Hint: A moron is who.
Trump is an inherited stage-name.
A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers, such as actors, musicians, and comedians, instead of their real name. This name is often chosen for various reasons, such as making it easier to remember, creating a distinct persona, or avoiding confusion with other performers, e.g. Michael Keaton's real surname is Douglas.
The singer Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, and Lady Gaga was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.
Trump is a facade, an illusion of unearned, hence unwarranted prestige.
I've gotta run. [Good talk.]
True, but consider this all names are concocted fictions, all identities are constructs.
The fact that you have a name is a happenstance that someone at your birth bestowed one on you.
The Dutch didn't have surnames until Napoleon required them, and some of them chose outrages names like Vries which means Freeze.
Serendipity: Heather Cox Richardson covered the same ground in todays newsletter
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-6-2024