Andrew: "But Trump remains dispositionally incapable of such a tactical retreat."
That's because he's a malignant narcissist, and therefore incapable of admitting error. Doing so would cause an psychic injury from which he'll never recover.
The GOP congress surely knows this and has known it for years. Yet they don't move to remove him from office (and from his handle of our nuclear arsenal).
100% spot on. The toxic stew of Trump’s dementia and his malignant narcissism is a perfect storm. of personality disorder and organic decay.
I think it would be helpful if people understood this more fully. When most people think of dementia, they think of Alzheimer’s which mainly affects the areas of the brain associated with memory, like the hippocampus. They don’t immediately associate Trump‘s erratic, disinhibited behavior with dementia. Trump‘s dementia is different, likely frontal temporal dementia which affects behavioral inhibition, speech, and other executive functions.
If only more people could make this distinction, the dementia diagnosis I think would begin to stick more.
I did, Linda. I'd say we're stuck in the middle of a malignant narcissist's tantrum against his approaching end. A two-year-old!s tantrum is a pale version of this, all over in a half-hour or so. This is — exhausting.
Quote from the Trump figure: ”Just remember this,” he said in a deep voice that cut neatly through the confusion. “Whatever I’ve done, you’ve let me do.”
Good recommendations Ladies, thank you! If we ever get off this hell-ride in one piece I'll read the books. Living under his idiocracy is enough of a nightmare.
I don’t know about horrified, but it would seem to track with what we’re seeing now and how his behaviors will track. Seeing it more academically helps me cope.
That sounded much like what I got from Google. (We should be so lucky to get social withdrawal from Trump, I get so tired of his constant presence.) Even though his dreams of a spectacular, bookless library/hotel makes it seem like he’s plotting his next act, and he’s got that “Board of Peace” gig lined up, I fully expect him to pull some kind of last-minute stunt to remain in office, some perhaps now-unconscious ploy; we really didn’t anticipate Jan.6, & it almost worked.
It also seems that frontal temporal dementia can be diagnosed from brain scans. I’m not usually conspiracy minded, but I know there’s a 0% chance that if such evidence existed it would be shared with the public.
I see it, every time now, trump is all washed up, has been for at least 2.5 months, spacey, low focus. humor - off/gone, was unlikable anyway, humor was oddly nasty, now it is more twisted, stick the knife in, we win
The Bottom Line: A narcissistic collapse in a high-stakes office isn't a quiet exit; it's a scorched-earth event. The individual would rather see the system fail than see it succeed under someone else.
I think it's starting to feel like the weight of the self-contradictions, corruption, constant lying ect...ect...ect... and their real-world effects are adding up. It's not fun anymore, even for a lot of the true believers. That's eventually where the narcissism leads for everyone else.
Well, the "true believers" chose this even after the events of January 6, 2021. They gave what was left of their souls up for nothing accept humiliation. Your median Bulwark subscriber is not surprised by any of this insanity and incompetence. The only question that has yet to be answered is at what point does the cognitive dissonance become too intense for the true believers to handle.
I've seen documentaries about Germany in 1946. The answer is never. Those Germans were still 100% convinced they had done nothing wrong as they crawled through the wreckage.
Yeah, I've read similar tales about post-war Germany. People are irrational. Even with their cities bombed to shit and a death count on the order of 5 million, a fair number of Germans thought national socialism was a good idea but executed poorly.
To me, the simplest answer remains the right one; R congressional representatives will only abandon Trump when he becomes less popular with the electorate than they are. Trumps current poll numbers are very (historically) low, but every time individual R members of the house or the senate consult with their favorite polling organization, they confirm that they remain less popular with their constituency than Trump is. They’ll abandon the good ship lollipop when Trump polls lower than they do, and not one moment sooner.
Yeah, my dad fought from Utah beach until they met the Russians and he said that the majority of germans thought that they were in the right even though they were the aggressors and the country was in ruins. Very few thank yous from them for the food we gave them to keep them from starving. The women were better especially the ones with kids. My father said all you saw on the faces of the men was hate.
My father did not have that type of experience with the Germans he encountered. Many in the 5th Division ♦️ had German soldiers surrendering to them in Europe.
That part is true too I have a German officers P 38 in my dresser drawer. The officer came out of a building and yelled yankee I surrender ! He then handed my father the pistol. After a night of mulling this over my father found him in the stockade and asked him why he didn't shoot him . The officer told my father " the war has been over for 6 months my friend ".
They became friendly and spoke often . My father had no problem with German soldiers except for the SS . He described war as chaos and the complete breakdown of everything.
My grandfather , WWI did alright, was grateful to be back home, was decorated, is in a good spot in Snelling ( mil. cem, MN ) he said there were only a few Germans ( krauts ) that he thought had balance.
told me he felt some sorrow for everyone, WWII was different..
I have a couple stories a little the other way, from my grandfather in France, He was so sick of marching with no socks, he feet were damaged beyond foot rot. there was some ' hate ' goin' on alright. and some mixed views ( From U S soldiers )
I wonder if there is there a point where most of the R's in congress will believe that they serve their own interests more by ditching DJT. The right populists in Europe seem to be at or near that point now.
"According to Miller, in the real world, it’s power—not justice—that matters. The 'iron laws of the world since the beginning of time' rule, and the essence of those iron laws is that might makes right."
Yet even a teenager knows that what sets us apart from all other life forms is our ability to use reasoning and employ logic to solve problems and forge a peaceful coexistence with each other and other life forms. I get it that Miller, among others in this administration, is most impressed with himself every time that he looks in the mirror -- usually the starting point for very bad decision-making. But the disconnect between the way he sees the world around him and the way that it actually works is childlike at best. Miller's "we are in the jungle" approach to problem solving all but concedes that those leading our nation are unwilling and/or unable to outthink our opponents, something that produces a losing hand almost every time it happens. It also ensures a governmental approach of making things up as you go along more than adapting a well-established plan of action in which goals and outcomes are closely aligned and strategically assessed as something more than whims of the moment. It has not worked for us in the past, and it is not working now. What are the odds that it suddenly will start working in the future?
It is discomforting at best to feel like our political leadership is thinking and acting more like tigers and even giraffes than actual human beings. Yet here we are. I don't know how much we paid to ride on this train, but I do know that the price of staying on it is becoming steeper by the day.
"I don't know how much we paid to ride on this train, but I do know that the price of staying on it is becoming steeper by the day."
Great line! Besides not actually knowing the final price...we also don't know exactly when it's coming due either. Unfortunately, I think it's going to be a sudden and very dark day when it does.
PS - Your post reminded of the song Eye of the Tiger which is probably what Hegseth imagines playing every time he steps up to the podium to denigrate the press...and then provide a few details about the Iranian debacle.
Yeah, he may be the only Secretary of Defense in our history who has a walk-up song in mind as he goes to the podium and tries so hard to impress us with how much of a tough guy he is. Though, given today's thread, I'd nominate Guns N' Roses with "Welcome to the Jungle" to be the track in play.
That's exactly the line I had in mind, of him citing it at a press conference. But I do like Jeff's idea too, of "Eye of the Tiger" -- I could see him stomping up to the podium to that song, in rhythm with the beat, as if stalking an enemy for show.
It's a dumb, zero-sum world view to reify power purely into military strength. NATO countries are demonstrating power right now in NOT helping Trump in his dumb war. Oil markets are demonstrating their power by making it very painful for Trump to continue it. China showed its power by retaliating on Trump's tariff threats.
The idea of "making things up as you go along" isn't repugnant to a lot of people. That's how they live their lives now and they see no problem with the government doing it that way too, even when it involves war.
True dat. And, unfortunately, our enemies are gleeful at our childlike approach to governance and national defense, playing the long game as they do and recognizing that having so many amateurs in charge here works strongly to their advantage. Intellectual laziness never has been a good strategy in international politics, though, as you note, it does seem to be a pretty acceptable approach to too many voters who do not want to be challenged to think and analyze. Hmm ... what could go wrong?
Right is not made without might. Which does not mean all forms of might generate right effectively.
Miller, for example, is actually demonstrating 'the pen is mightier than the sword," by propagandizing for sabrerattling. Oh, the irony...
Actually, it's more useful to imagine might and right as different but potentially fungible forms of the same thing, like matter and energy. I refer here more or less to Foucault's concept of "power-knowledge". Which, once you take it past the "huh?" reaction, leads to examinations of the specific conditions under which that produces different kinds of results - when it 'works' or 'doesn't work', from one perspective or another. (The better question is always 'what work does it do' fwiw).
So the problem with the yes VERY 'problematic' Steven Miller is his grossly blindered notion of might, e.g. absent all the forms of soft power that articulate with right that have been eschewed for a hard-bodied roid-rage might that yields a right that may well turn out to be very wrong, even ultimately to the wielder of power.
As I type Pete Hegseth is on TV 'telling Iran' that the US Military is "Locked and loaded... and ready to go at the push of a button". Yeah, he actually said "push of a button."
I’d argue Miller looks in the mirror and hates himself. It takes a deeply pathetic and insecure person to act this way and say these things. That or a completely amoral pitch man. Miller is certainly amoral, but he has beliefs, hardened by self-loathing and hatred that has existed since he was a teenager during the Iraq war.
This is classic nationalist populism at work: we’re the best, if anyone doubts it we will fuck you up! The world obeys our command because we’re superior! Reality can be bent to heel because of our might.
When all you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail. It never works long-term, but you can certainly smash a lot of things along the way.
"Either Tillis will have to blink, or Trump will. Until then, Powell’s not going anywhere."
And what in the world would make Tillis blink? He is not worried about losing his job; he is already ROAD, as the military says of armchair 0-4s or 0-5s just riding out until 20 years are up, Retired On Active Duty.
The real issue is whether this pathological "idee fixe" is just another sign of the onset of blinding adult dementia. I am not a mental health expert, but I am not sure one has to be to have seen the steady decline in whatever mental faculties were there in the first place since the ride down the golden escalator.
It’s funny. A total blockade is not only an act of war requiring congressional approval, but it is also a clear violation of the “cease-fire.” All the while we are doing nothing to actually help the people of Iran if that was even our objective.
He doesn't even care about the people of the US, beyond those who line his pockets in some way, and then only until they stop shoveling money and accolades his way.
I accept that profound psychological forces are at play within all of us, and—although I don't understand how anyone could support Trump—I know that my own understanding is not the limit of reality. And yet... I just can't accept that anyone could listen to Trump talk for more than 5 minutes and not conclude that he's either a pathological liar or the stupidest motherfucker to ever be elected to anything. Our brains work in mysterious ways.
Yes! There's definitely a group think aspect to it too. I've had a number of MAGAs use the 70+ million of US citizens voted for him...with the implication that Trump must be good or he wouldn't have received that many votes.
I remember watching Trump during the 2024 campaign, go in front of a UniVision hispanic audience and take questions. As Trump would do his doublespeak crazy stuff with his answers...I could see many in his audience nodding their heads up and down approvingly and I was like "What???? Don't they understand that Trump will be the worst enemy they've ever had if elected?"
I guess we've all learned some heartbreaking lessons about our country with Trump. Most people are politically ignorant, many hear what they want to hear when a conman speaks and decades of political propaganda from networks like Fox News is very effective and hard to break through even when armed with indisputable facts.
I have siblings that are fans of the orange man and I really want to ask them after listening to him ramble, do they think that is speech of an intelligent president? But I don't engage them because it would be a pathetic show of whataboutism and name calling.
We saw what a sorry-butt business man and thief he's always been from long ago. The only thing keeping his tail out of jail was money and lawyers. They are like Rocky the Flying Squirrel waiting for Bullwinkle to finally pull that rabbit out of his hat.
It's hard for me to describe how frustrating it is when people say I just have TDS and/or that I'm just echoing the Left's talking points when the truth is that I was a GOP guy when Trump came upon the scene and I was having issues with him regardless of what anyone else was saying or doing.
You know what I mean? Using a poker analogy would be to say that no matter how much they would claim...my hand will always be a stronger one because I'm the one who actually watched both sides of the news...right and left...and came to the conclusion that I could no longer be supportive of the right or (DEFINITELY NOT) Trump!
I was so naive at the beginning thinking my story and sharing it would change hearts and minds. Now I pretty much do it simply to "be on the record" with my opinion and to remind them that not everyone thinks the way they do.
Denying “indisputable facts” is common (fake news; you read it in a leftist rag; if by any chance there’s any truth to your assertion, well Biden was even worse, etc)
"Trump is a ratchet that turns only one way—toward further threats and more intimidation." This is also his problem in Iran. He will not send competent negotiators, only his real estate buddies, who just keep trying to negotiate a real estate deal and failing. Ratchet go up...
The Tim Miller interview with Alistair Campbell is a good one. Alistair worked for Tony Blair for many years and he was describing that their efforts to negotiate peace deals in the Middle East took many months, and in some cases, years. This is with experts who know how to negotiate and codify the agreements.
I think we all know that what's probably coming out of the Trump peace accords is a "framework" for peace (never to be actually realized) that will be touted as the 9th peace deal that's being immediately added to Trump's Nobel prize package.
I think at this time, the only thing coming out of negotiations is hot air and blather. They give up after less than a day because it's too hard and they've got some other grift to move on to.
He will absolutely attempt to harass the Nobel committee for a peace prize (after threatening genocide and war crimes) if they get a deal that sticks.
Trump's inability to do a tactical retreat, or even bide his time, was what scared me the most about his genocidal threats from before the ceasefire. But that was always in tension with Trumps ability to spin any defeat as a win.
The man who managed to bankrupt multiple casinos (4 of 'em! A business where famously the house always wins) somehow managed to convince millions of Americans that he is a successful businessman. And he managed to jawbone his way out of so many previous troubles. And mark it down, he might just manage to jawbone and taco his way out of Iran (and if so, thank God).
So... I don't know. He could drop the probe into Powell the second he figures out how to declare victory in dropping the probe, and he will use the flimsiest of pretexts to claim victory. That he hasn't dropped it means he wants the probe still. The minute he doesn't want it, he'll declare victory and move on. Don't underestimate his ability to spin any capitulation as a win.
I think Powell is making the right choice. I don't think he has anything to lose. His term is up in May so I assume he already has plans set for afterwards (career or personal) so this really doesn't hurt him. I hope he is doing this primarily to vex Trump.
His term as Chairman is up in May, but can stay in the role until the new Chairman is approved. He is also a Fed Governor. That term is not up until 2028, I believe. I hope he stays until the end of that term.
Tim, that ship already sailed with Judge Boasberg's decision. Powell would not move an inch from the desk, knowing that the Felon would be relying on the old legal tactic; If the law is on your side, pound the law, if the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If neither is on your side, pound the table.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the Fed Chair, by himself, doesn't set the interest rate. IIRC, the Fed Open Market Committee votes on the rates. If Warsh is in favor of lowering rates, but the majority of the Committee is in favor of *raising* them, the rates go up. And at that, they don't set the Prime Rate that everyone sees, that's set by the bond market.
I wonder if Warsh is really aware of this? It's obvious Trump isn't.
(Thanks to Kai Ryssdal and Marketplace for educating me on the FOMC and interest rates.)
Trump acts as if anyone who is the titular "head" of any organization can issue decrees like he used to in the Trump organization and everyone will just say, "Yes, sir!" and scurry off and do it (or pretend to do it.), damn the laws or rules. Everyone from his cabinet members to foreign leaders are treated as if they can just do this too. Bondi can't get indictments of his enemies or keep the Epstein files under wraps so he fires her. He says Volodymyr Zelenskyy should just surrender and agree to cede territory to Russia but the Ukraine constitution doesn't allow him to do that. Even if he is told that Powell or Warsh can't lower interest rates unilaterally, he seems to think they are just not properly using their power and they really could if they just bullied their people enough. That's what makes him strong and them weak (even though his decrees and threats don't work either).
I think P2025 is counting on the pressure from Trump/Warsh to push any objectors to get in line. Right now all those members know that Powell has their backs for data-based decision-making. On Bloomberg Radio the interviews with various governors sound reasonable with references to data.
You know who ended the biggest war ever? Hitler, by shooting himself.
Whatever, I have run out of patience for describing our narcissist. He's been a one-way ratchet toward violence for my entire life. Nobody should be surprised.
I'm more interested in the connection between the shuttering of USAID and how much money it made and the "feud" between Trump and the Church, which seems to really be Trump going after the Pope and the Pope ignoring him. And the media breathlessly recounting it as if it's a wrestling promo. All very weird, except for this:
"The U.S. Catholic Church receives billions in federal funds, primarily through contracts and grants for social services, with over $3 billion in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans reported during the pandemic. Annual federal funding for services like refugee resettlement often exceeds $100 million."
Compare and contrast with Russell Vought in Congress yesterday, who said cancelling USAID should've gone farther.
Trump wants this money, like he wanted the USAID money. And he's going to get it.
I think you’re right. I used to work adjacent to Catholic Charities, but I think they’ll be ok. I mean, the only refugees now are South African whites! Otherwise, Catholics will step up donations as many of us have done for our favorite causes (like NPR). And it’s only 2.6 more years, right? Right?!?
Harry C. Boyte: Our passive society needs some new Nehemiahs
Democracy is a way of life, not just a trip to the ballot box. We can find inspiration in a figure from ancient Jerusalem.
Working for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the civil-rights movement as a young man, I saw again and again leaders like Martin Luther King and Andrew Young use stories from the Bible to animate and inform the larger public conversation. I've been reminded of this history as the presidential election unfolds.
"It's a lot better to be with David than Goliath," Mike Huckabee told the Values Voters Forum on Oct. 18, to illustrate his identification with the little guy. Barack Obama, in a March 4 speech at Selma, Ala., commemorating the famous 1965 civil-rights march, described himself as part of the "Joshua generation," picking up where the "Moses" generation left off.
But for our time Nehemiah is more helpful than either David or Joshua.
Remembering Nehemiah could put active citizenship at the center of an election campaign that so far has treated it as a secondary question.
Nehemiah, a skillful politician, gained permission from the king of Persia in 446 B.C. to return to Jerusalem in order to lead the Jews in rebuilding the city walls. "You see the trouble we are in; Jerusalem is in ruins, its gates have been burned down," he told the assembled crowd.
But Nehemiah did not present himself as a Moses-like rescuer. Rather, he called people to hard work. "Come, let us rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and suffer this indignity no longer." The people responded. "Let us start! Let us build." The Bible recounts that "with willing hands they set about the good work" (Nehemiah 2:17-18).
Physical parallels with the first "Nehemiah generation" are not hard to see from Minneapolis, after the Interstate 35W bridge disaster last summer. The 2005 Infrastructure Report Card of the American Society of Civil Engineers, evaluating the condition of the nation's roads, bridges, drinking water systems, and other public works, gave a grade of D. For practical purposes it was no improvement since the D+ of 2001.
Citizen participation on issues like road design and water usage is a good idea, and New Deal-style public-works programs, which built much of the nation's park system and public infrastructure, are worth considering. But the cultural aspects of Nehemiah hold the most important lessons.
During the Babylonian captivity, enemies of the Jews had multiplied. Jews persevered in the face of ridicule and posted guards against plots.
More subtly, rebuilding the walls required civic restoration. A culture of greed and instant gratification had produced fragmentation and a decline in morale in the community. Nehemiah held together a motley crew -- 40 different groups are named, including merchants, priests, governors, nobles, members of the perfume and goldsmiths' guilds, and women. At one point he organized a great assembly to call to account nobles making excessive profit from the poor. As the Jewish people rebuilt their walls, they regained a sense of their purpose and identity.
In today's America, as we have come to look to others -- experts, great leaders, celebrities -- to save us from our problems, we have similarly become afflicted by civic illness. Our bitter divisions along lines of partisanship, income, race, religion and geography are fed by devaluation of the talents and intelligence of people without credentials, degrees and celebrity status. Our citizenship declines while we are entertained as spectators, pacified as clients and pandered to as customers.
We need new Nehemiahs who call forth America's democratic genius of a self-reliant, productive, future-oriented citizenry, leaders who tackle tough issues in a collaborative way and reject the rescuer role. Such leaders would tap the talents of citizens to address public problems on which government is necessary but not sufficient, from climate change to school reform. They would challenge us to create healthy communities, not simply provide access to health care. They would recall that democracy is a way of life, not simply a trip to the ballot box.
The great leaders in our history -- from Abraham Lincoln to Jane Addams, Franklin Roosevelt to Martin Luther King Jr. -- have always called upon citizens to address common challenges, and in the process helped the nation remember its democratic soul. Things are likely to get worse until we have such leaders again, leaders who call us all to the ongoing work of citizenship.
Harry C. Boyte is a senior fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College.
I find this intriguing. So many small towns - probably thousands across the country - have been hollowed out. Few small businesses - except maybe Dollar General - boarded up buildings, hospitals closed, not even a sufficient grocery store. I believe this decay may have contributed to the rise in distrust or disdain of our government. And maybe rightly so. But why can’t communities pick themselves up? Where does that impetus come from? It has to arise within each community.
Thanks Jenna. This view of leaders "calling people to consequential work" came out of my experiences in the civil rights movement (wonderfully expressed in MLK's "DIgnity of Labor" speech in 1968).
It took shape in the theory of citizenship, democracy, and civic and political leadership we developed over years at the UMN's Center for Democracy and Citizenship.
I'm finding the depolarization organization Braver Angels and our new Civic Scholars Council to be fertile ground for discussion and action on these themes. Here's an early call for papers. Well soon have a site on BA.
The arrogance and ignorance of President Trump now affect every corner of the globe. He sits in the most powerful office in the world, and he immediately began using that power to destroy the US government with DOGE, Hegseth, Noem, Bondi, and RFK. With his impulsive and failing attack on Iran, he is crippling the world’s economy. If he manages to get control of the FED he will destroy the banking system that the world had trusted for 80 years.
One man who is leaving office is the only Republican who is doing anything to contain Trump’s grandiose delusions. All of us must do everything we can to can to remove Trump from office as soon as possible.
The "twisting of the knife" aspect of this entire scenario is that Trump's power comes almost entirely by his ability to get people to support him. You know what I mean? The sailboat ain't going anywhere without the wind blowing into the sails propelling it forward.
He should have ZERO power based upon reality....but it's those people who create their own reality and thus power his boat.
Racism attracks many, but he is funded by some very rich greedy few who feel that corruption works better for them then democracy. I guess that the destruction of the world's economy, with the worldwide suffering it will bring, will impak their lives.
They can afford to fill their yachts with $11 a gallon fuel, but I wouldn't be too upset if the more intense storms due to the destruction of our planet capsizes their boats.
Andrew: "But Trump remains dispositionally incapable of such a tactical retreat."
That's because he's a malignant narcissist, and therefore incapable of admitting error. Doing so would cause an psychic injury from which he'll never recover.
The GOP congress surely knows this and has known it for years. Yet they don't move to remove him from office (and from his handle of our nuclear arsenal).
Unfortunately for all of us, Trump's dementia is not only magnifying his narcissism, but also his sadism.
Yup. And just think, Colleen: today is the best he'll ever be for the rest of his life.
I try not to think about that.
I look at it with more than a dash of dark humor.
Dark humor in spray on tan bronzer
It is all down hill from here, to Hell.
I just don’t want to be dragged down with him. It seems like our country gets closer to hell every day—even more for some than others.
They don't miraculously improve.
Nope, they don't. And decline is nonlinear.
100% spot on. The toxic stew of Trump’s dementia and his malignant narcissism is a perfect storm. of personality disorder and organic decay.
I think it would be helpful if people understood this more fully. When most people think of dementia, they think of Alzheimer’s which mainly affects the areas of the brain associated with memory, like the hippocampus. They don’t immediately associate Trump‘s erratic, disinhibited behavior with dementia. Trump‘s dementia is different, likely frontal temporal dementia which affects behavioral inhibition, speech, and other executive functions.
If only more people could make this distinction, the dementia diagnosis I think would begin to stick more.
Yesterday I Googled, “What would the finale of the leader of the free world look like if he really did go into narcissistic collapse?”
Try it, it’s instructive.
I did, Linda. I'd say we're stuck in the middle of a malignant narcissist's tantrum against his approaching end. A two-year-old!s tantrum is a pale version of this, all over in a half-hour or so. This is — exhausting.
Yes, we are watching this shit in real time (I did google it).
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle with you.
I am oh so tired of the orange things B S . 😖
I'll have to see if it compares to the novel The Auctioneer, which I've been using as my guide to how this all ends.
The Auctioneer? Never heard of it. The story I’ve mainly seen with Trump is Mark Twain’s “The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg “.
Oooh, it's a good one. The author died young so she's not well known, but this is a horror classic.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/923832.The_Auctioneer
Quote from the Trump figure: ”Just remember this,” he said in a deep voice that cut neatly through the confusion. “Whatever I’ve done, you’ve let me do.”
Good recommendations Ladies, thank you! If we ever get off this hell-ride in one piece I'll read the books. Living under his idiocracy is enough of a nightmare.
I'm with you on that Jeri.
That quote would work well as a pithy Democratic message by paraphrasing as "Whatever Trump has done, Republicans let him do it".
A horror classic is apt for the Trump era. Thanks for the recommendation.
Holy smokes!
How horrified would I be, Linda?
I don’t know about horrified, but it would seem to track with what we’re seeing now and how his behaviors will track. Seeing it more academically helps me cope.
I asked Gemini that question and here is the response. It is indeed instructive and not very pretty.
https://g.co/gemini/share/6998c50273a6
That sounded much like what I got from Google. (We should be so lucky to get social withdrawal from Trump, I get so tired of his constant presence.) Even though his dreams of a spectacular, bookless library/hotel makes it seem like he’s plotting his next act, and he’s got that “Board of Peace” gig lined up, I fully expect him to pull some kind of last-minute stunt to remain in office, some perhaps now-unconscious ploy; we really didn’t anticipate Jan.6, & it almost worked.
It also seems that frontal temporal dementia can be diagnosed from brain scans. I’m not usually conspiracy minded, but I know there’s a 0% chance that if such evidence existed it would be shared with the public.
Even if it were it would be written off as “Trump Derangement Syndrome”. And even borderline personality disorder is notoriously difficult to treat.
I see it, every time now, trump is all washed up, has been for at least 2.5 months, spacey, low focus. humor - off/gone, was unlikable anyway, humor was oddly nasty, now it is more twisted, stick the knife in, we win
all that crap
The Bottom Line: A narcissistic collapse in a high-stakes office isn't a quiet exit; it's a scorched-earth event. The individual would rather see the system fail than see it succeed under someone else.
was worth a read, thanks
Claude gave me a similar overview. It then asked if I wanted it to explore any particular angle.
I think it's starting to feel like the weight of the self-contradictions, corruption, constant lying ect...ect...ect... and their real-world effects are adding up. It's not fun anymore, even for a lot of the true believers. That's eventually where the narcissism leads for everyone else.
Well, the "true believers" chose this even after the events of January 6, 2021. They gave what was left of their souls up for nothing accept humiliation. Your median Bulwark subscriber is not surprised by any of this insanity and incompetence. The only question that has yet to be answered is at what point does the cognitive dissonance become too intense for the true believers to handle.
I've seen documentaries about Germany in 1946. The answer is never. Those Germans were still 100% convinced they had done nothing wrong as they crawled through the wreckage.
Yeah, I've read similar tales about post-war Germany. People are irrational. Even with their cities bombed to shit and a death count on the order of 5 million, a fair number of Germans thought national socialism was a good idea but executed poorly.
To me, the simplest answer remains the right one; R congressional representatives will only abandon Trump when he becomes less popular with the electorate than they are. Trumps current poll numbers are very (historically) low, but every time individual R members of the house or the senate consult with their favorite polling organization, they confirm that they remain less popular with their constituency than Trump is. They’ll abandon the good ship lollipop when Trump polls lower than they do, and not one moment sooner.
Yeah, my dad fought from Utah beach until they met the Russians and he said that the majority of germans thought that they were in the right even though they were the aggressors and the country was in ruins. Very few thank yous from them for the food we gave them to keep them from starving. The women were better especially the ones with kids. My father said all you saw on the faces of the men was hate.
My father did not have that type of experience with the Germans he encountered. Many in the 5th Division ♦️ had German soldiers surrendering to them in Europe.
That part is true too I have a German officers P 38 in my dresser drawer. The officer came out of a building and yelled yankee I surrender ! He then handed my father the pistol. After a night of mulling this over my father found him in the stockade and asked him why he didn't shoot him . The officer told my father " the war has been over for 6 months my friend ".
They became friendly and spoke often . My father had no problem with German soldiers except for the SS . He described war as chaos and the complete breakdown of everything.
My grandfather , WWI did alright, was grateful to be back home, was decorated, is in a good spot in Snelling ( mil. cem, MN ) he said there were only a few Germans ( krauts ) that he thought had balance.
told me he felt some sorrow for everyone, WWII was different..
I have a couple stories a little the other way, from my grandfather in France, He was so sick of marching with no socks, he feet were damaged beyond foot rot. there was some ' hate ' goin' on alright. and some mixed views ( From U S soldiers )
I wonder if there is there a point where most of the R's in congress will believe that they serve their own interests more by ditching DJT. The right populists in Europe seem to be at or near that point now.
Maybe the break point is when Thune and his advisors realize the Senate will be lost this fall. There's where "self interest" will assert itself.
Sorry but they will go to their graves convinced that the orange thing is a persecuted saint .
Probably. And when they awaken in Our Father Below's house, they'll at long last realize how wrong they were.
Pitch fork tines ? OW ! ! 😈
true, it's so sickening
The R Congress has an infinite number of std deviations (for Trump that's deviants) bell-shaped curve of the acceptable.
σ -> ∞
Let's discuss "Toy Story" over a cup of Coffey.
That is why they will get defeated decisively come November. They decided to hang their hat on a lunatic. You get what you pay for GOP.
"According to Miller, in the real world, it’s power—not justice—that matters. The 'iron laws of the world since the beginning of time' rule, and the essence of those iron laws is that might makes right."
Yet even a teenager knows that what sets us apart from all other life forms is our ability to use reasoning and employ logic to solve problems and forge a peaceful coexistence with each other and other life forms. I get it that Miller, among others in this administration, is most impressed with himself every time that he looks in the mirror -- usually the starting point for very bad decision-making. But the disconnect between the way he sees the world around him and the way that it actually works is childlike at best. Miller's "we are in the jungle" approach to problem solving all but concedes that those leading our nation are unwilling and/or unable to outthink our opponents, something that produces a losing hand almost every time it happens. It also ensures a governmental approach of making things up as you go along more than adapting a well-established plan of action in which goals and outcomes are closely aligned and strategically assessed as something more than whims of the moment. It has not worked for us in the past, and it is not working now. What are the odds that it suddenly will start working in the future?
It is discomforting at best to feel like our political leadership is thinking and acting more like tigers and even giraffes than actual human beings. Yet here we are. I don't know how much we paid to ride on this train, but I do know that the price of staying on it is becoming steeper by the day.
"I don't know how much we paid to ride on this train, but I do know that the price of staying on it is becoming steeper by the day."
Great line! Besides not actually knowing the final price...we also don't know exactly when it's coming due either. Unfortunately, I think it's going to be a sudden and very dark day when it does.
PS - Your post reminded of the song Eye of the Tiger which is probably what Hegseth imagines playing every time he steps up to the podium to denigrate the press...and then provide a few details about the Iranian debacle.
Yeah, he may be the only Secretary of Defense in our history who has a walk-up song in mind as he goes to the podium and tries so hard to impress us with how much of a tough guy he is. Though, given today's thread, I'd nominate Guns N' Roses with "Welcome to the Jungle" to be the track in play.
You're in the jungle baby. You're going to die!
That's exactly the line I had in mind, of him citing it at a press conference. But I do like Jeff's idea too, of "Eye of the Tiger" -- I could see him stomping up to the podium to that song, in rhythm with the beat, as if stalking an enemy for show.
Lou Reeds " walk on the wild side " for headset and his makeup chair.
It's a dumb, zero-sum world view to reify power purely into military strength. NATO countries are demonstrating power right now in NOT helping Trump in his dumb war. Oil markets are demonstrating their power by making it very painful for Trump to continue it. China showed its power by retaliating on Trump's tariff threats.
The idea of "making things up as you go along" isn't repugnant to a lot of people. That's how they live their lives now and they see no problem with the government doing it that way too, even when it involves war.
True dat. And, unfortunately, our enemies are gleeful at our childlike approach to governance and national defense, playing the long game as they do and recognizing that having so many amateurs in charge here works strongly to their advantage. Intellectual laziness never has been a good strategy in international politics, though, as you note, it does seem to be a pretty acceptable approach to too many voters who do not want to be challenged to think and analyze. Hmm ... what could go wrong?
This is one of the pathologies of populism, left or right.
Whoever picked on Miller in school didn't go far enough.
He should have been made to lick out the grease trap in the cafeteria.
Right is not made without might. Which does not mean all forms of might generate right effectively.
Miller, for example, is actually demonstrating 'the pen is mightier than the sword," by propagandizing for sabrerattling. Oh, the irony...
Actually, it's more useful to imagine might and right as different but potentially fungible forms of the same thing, like matter and energy. I refer here more or less to Foucault's concept of "power-knowledge". Which, once you take it past the "huh?" reaction, leads to examinations of the specific conditions under which that produces different kinds of results - when it 'works' or 'doesn't work', from one perspective or another. (The better question is always 'what work does it do' fwiw).
So the problem with the yes VERY 'problematic' Steven Miller is his grossly blindered notion of might, e.g. absent all the forms of soft power that articulate with right that have been eschewed for a hard-bodied roid-rage might that yields a right that may well turn out to be very wrong, even ultimately to the wielder of power.
As I type Pete Hegseth is on TV 'telling Iran' that the US Military is "Locked and loaded... and ready to go at the push of a button". Yeah, he actually said "push of a button."
Now, what Might go Wrong with that, eh?
I’d argue Miller looks in the mirror and hates himself. It takes a deeply pathetic and insecure person to act this way and say these things. That or a completely amoral pitch man. Miller is certainly amoral, but he has beliefs, hardened by self-loathing and hatred that has existed since he was a teenager during the Iraq war.
This is classic nationalist populism at work: we’re the best, if anyone doubts it we will fuck you up! The world obeys our command because we’re superior! Reality can be bent to heel because of our might.
When all you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail. It never works long-term, but you can certainly smash a lot of things along the way.
"Either Tillis will have to blink, or Trump will. Until then, Powell’s not going anywhere."
And what in the world would make Tillis blink? He is not worried about losing his job; he is already ROAD, as the military says of armchair 0-4s or 0-5s just riding out until 20 years are up, Retired On Active Duty.
The real issue is whether this pathological "idee fixe" is just another sign of the onset of blinding adult dementia. I am not a mental health expert, but I am not sure one has to be to have seen the steady decline in whatever mental faculties were there in the first place since the ride down the golden escalator.
Occasionally, i wonder if his team is trying to convince him to let things go and it just doesn't work anymore,
1. b/c of his mental disorders and the dementia or
2. if nobody is trying to convince him for various reasons
If I were drinking coffee, footnote #1 would have made me spit it out.
I would not have needed that long; the statement that generated the footnote would have been enough.
It’s funny. A total blockade is not only an act of war requiring congressional approval, but it is also a clear violation of the “cease-fire.” All the while we are doing nothing to actually help the people of Iran if that was even our objective.
"All the while we are doing nothing to actually help the people of Iran if that was even our objective."
It was never the objective, just the initial excuse.
Trump doesn’t care about the people of Iran. But you already know that.
He doesn't even care about the people of the US, beyond those who line his pockets in some way, and then only until they stop shoveling money and accolades his way.
True!
I accept that profound psychological forces are at play within all of us, and—although I don't understand how anyone could support Trump—I know that my own understanding is not the limit of reality. And yet... I just can't accept that anyone could listen to Trump talk for more than 5 minutes and not conclude that he's either a pathological liar or the stupidest motherfucker to ever be elected to anything. Our brains work in mysterious ways.
Yes! There's definitely a group think aspect to it too. I've had a number of MAGAs use the 70+ million of US citizens voted for him...with the implication that Trump must be good or he wouldn't have received that many votes.
I remember watching Trump during the 2024 campaign, go in front of a UniVision hispanic audience and take questions. As Trump would do his doublespeak crazy stuff with his answers...I could see many in his audience nodding their heads up and down approvingly and I was like "What???? Don't they understand that Trump will be the worst enemy they've ever had if elected?"
I guess we've all learned some heartbreaking lessons about our country with Trump. Most people are politically ignorant, many hear what they want to hear when a conman speaks and decades of political propaganda from networks like Fox News is very effective and hard to break through even when armed with indisputable facts.
I have siblings that are fans of the orange man and I really want to ask them after listening to him ramble, do they think that is speech of an intelligent president? But I don't engage them because it would be a pathetic show of whataboutism and name calling.
We saw what a sorry-butt business man and thief he's always been from long ago. The only thing keeping his tail out of jail was money and lawyers. They are like Rocky the Flying Squirrel waiting for Bullwinkle to finally pull that rabbit out of his hat.
Yep.
It's hard for me to describe how frustrating it is when people say I just have TDS and/or that I'm just echoing the Left's talking points when the truth is that I was a GOP guy when Trump came upon the scene and I was having issues with him regardless of what anyone else was saying or doing.
You know what I mean? Using a poker analogy would be to say that no matter how much they would claim...my hand will always be a stronger one because I'm the one who actually watched both sides of the news...right and left...and came to the conclusion that I could no longer be supportive of the right or (DEFINITELY NOT) Trump!
I was so naive at the beginning thinking my story and sharing it would change hearts and minds. Now I pretty much do it simply to "be on the record" with my opinion and to remind them that not everyone thinks the way they do.
Sorry...a bit of a personal rant there...
Now for my next trick...... 😁
Denying “indisputable facts” is common (fake news; you read it in a leftist rag; if by any chance there’s any truth to your assertion, well Biden was even worse, etc)
OK, that title is transcendent. Bravo to whoever came up with it.
"Trump is a ratchet that turns only one way—toward further threats and more intimidation." This is also his problem in Iran. He will not send competent negotiators, only his real estate buddies, who just keep trying to negotiate a real estate deal and failing. Ratchet go up...
The Tim Miller interview with Alistair Campbell is a good one. Alistair worked for Tony Blair for many years and he was describing that their efforts to negotiate peace deals in the Middle East took many months, and in some cases, years. This is with experts who know how to negotiate and codify the agreements.
I think we all know that what's probably coming out of the Trump peace accords is a "framework" for peace (never to be actually realized) that will be touted as the 9th peace deal that's being immediately added to Trump's Nobel prize package.
I think at this time, the only thing coming out of negotiations is hot air and blather. They give up after less than a day because it's too hard and they've got some other grift to move on to.
He will absolutely attempt to harass the Nobel committee for a peace prize (after threatening genocide and war crimes) if they get a deal that sticks.
His real estate buddy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. He doesn’t trust anyone else. They’re both ignorant and incompetent.
...and corrupt, and conflicted...
It's a requirement.
Of course!
Trump's inability to do a tactical retreat, or even bide his time, was what scared me the most about his genocidal threats from before the ceasefire. But that was always in tension with Trumps ability to spin any defeat as a win.
The man who managed to bankrupt multiple casinos (4 of 'em! A business where famously the house always wins) somehow managed to convince millions of Americans that he is a successful businessman. And he managed to jawbone his way out of so many previous troubles. And mark it down, he might just manage to jawbone and taco his way out of Iran (and if so, thank God).
So... I don't know. He could drop the probe into Powell the second he figures out how to declare victory in dropping the probe, and he will use the flimsiest of pretexts to claim victory. That he hasn't dropped it means he wants the probe still. The minute he doesn't want it, he'll declare victory and move on. Don't underestimate his ability to spin any capitulation as a win.
I think Trump underestimated Powell's resolve. If Trump thought he could simply fire him, he'd just do it instead of threatening to do it.
I think Powell is making the right choice. I don't think he has anything to lose. His term is up in May so I assume he already has plans set for afterwards (career or personal) so this really doesn't hurt him. I hope he is doing this primarily to vex Trump.
The irony is Powell is saving Trump from himself and his worst impulses. Not that Trump will thank him for it.
His term as Chairman is up in May, but can stay in the role until the new Chairman is approved. He is also a Fed Governor. That term is not up until 2028, I believe. I hope he stays until the end of that term.
I think he might just out of stubbornness. He doesn’t strike me as someone you can push around, bless him.
And I am here for it.
Tim, that ship already sailed with Judge Boasberg's decision. Powell would not move an inch from the desk, knowing that the Felon would be relying on the old legal tactic; If the law is on your side, pound the law, if the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If neither is on your side, pound the table.
Agreed, David. I think this is yet another example of Trump's impotence.
Impatient impotence is definitely debilitating.
Sympatico with Blockhead Chronicles. " ...I hate to be controversial. "
That should gag a maggot. But obviously, it doesn't gag 🍊 MAGAts.
Love how "maggot" and "MAGAt" look different in print, but sound exactly the same when said out loud.
Homonyms
Headset wouldn't approve he doesn't want homonyms in the military.
Made me 😃
Another thing to keep in mind is that the Fed Chair, by himself, doesn't set the interest rate. IIRC, the Fed Open Market Committee votes on the rates. If Warsh is in favor of lowering rates, but the majority of the Committee is in favor of *raising* them, the rates go up. And at that, they don't set the Prime Rate that everyone sees, that's set by the bond market.
I wonder if Warsh is really aware of this? It's obvious Trump isn't.
(Thanks to Kai Ryssdal and Marketplace for educating me on the FOMC and interest rates.)
Trump acts as if anyone who is the titular "head" of any organization can issue decrees like he used to in the Trump organization and everyone will just say, "Yes, sir!" and scurry off and do it (or pretend to do it.), damn the laws or rules. Everyone from his cabinet members to foreign leaders are treated as if they can just do this too. Bondi can't get indictments of his enemies or keep the Epstein files under wraps so he fires her. He says Volodymyr Zelenskyy should just surrender and agree to cede territory to Russia but the Ukraine constitution doesn't allow him to do that. Even if he is told that Powell or Warsh can't lower interest rates unilaterally, he seems to think they are just not properly using their power and they really could if they just bullied their people enough. That's what makes him strong and them weak (even though his decrees and threats don't work either).
I think P2025 is counting on the pressure from Trump/Warsh to push any objectors to get in line. Right now all those members know that Powell has their backs for data-based decision-making. On Bloomberg Radio the interviews with various governors sound reasonable with references to data.
Second shout out to Kai and Marketplace. Great reporting/program!
Oh that pesky public radio educating the masses...
You know who ended the biggest war ever? Hitler, by shooting himself.
Whatever, I have run out of patience for describing our narcissist. He's been a one-way ratchet toward violence for my entire life. Nobody should be surprised.
I'm more interested in the connection between the shuttering of USAID and how much money it made and the "feud" between Trump and the Church, which seems to really be Trump going after the Pope and the Pope ignoring him. And the media breathlessly recounting it as if it's a wrestling promo. All very weird, except for this:
"The U.S. Catholic Church receives billions in federal funds, primarily through contracts and grants for social services, with over $3 billion in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans reported during the pandemic. Annual federal funding for services like refugee resettlement often exceeds $100 million."
Compare and contrast with Russell Vought in Congress yesterday, who said cancelling USAID should've gone farther.
Trump wants this money, like he wanted the USAID money. And he's going to get it.
I’m looking forward to seeing who besides CPAC was receiving payments from Orbán’s government.
I think you’re right. I used to work adjacent to Catholic Charities, but I think they’ll be ok. I mean, the only refugees now are South African whites! Otherwise, Catholics will step up donations as many of us have done for our favorite causes (like NPR). And it’s only 2.6 more years, right? Right?!?
Trump cancelled a contract for dealing with refugees with Catholic Charities, in a rage at the Pope. Oh well, there’s no refugees anymore… ☹️
Pope Leo is catalytic
Star Tribune November 16, 2007
Harry C. Boyte: Our passive society needs some new Nehemiahs
Democracy is a way of life, not just a trip to the ballot box. We can find inspiration in a figure from ancient Jerusalem.
Working for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the civil-rights movement as a young man, I saw again and again leaders like Martin Luther King and Andrew Young use stories from the Bible to animate and inform the larger public conversation. I've been reminded of this history as the presidential election unfolds.
"It's a lot better to be with David than Goliath," Mike Huckabee told the Values Voters Forum on Oct. 18, to illustrate his identification with the little guy. Barack Obama, in a March 4 speech at Selma, Ala., commemorating the famous 1965 civil-rights march, described himself as part of the "Joshua generation," picking up where the "Moses" generation left off.
But for our time Nehemiah is more helpful than either David or Joshua.
Remembering Nehemiah could put active citizenship at the center of an election campaign that so far has treated it as a secondary question.
Nehemiah, a skillful politician, gained permission from the king of Persia in 446 B.C. to return to Jerusalem in order to lead the Jews in rebuilding the city walls. "You see the trouble we are in; Jerusalem is in ruins, its gates have been burned down," he told the assembled crowd.
But Nehemiah did not present himself as a Moses-like rescuer. Rather, he called people to hard work. "Come, let us rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and suffer this indignity no longer." The people responded. "Let us start! Let us build." The Bible recounts that "with willing hands they set about the good work" (Nehemiah 2:17-18).
Physical parallels with the first "Nehemiah generation" are not hard to see from Minneapolis, after the Interstate 35W bridge disaster last summer. The 2005 Infrastructure Report Card of the American Society of Civil Engineers, evaluating the condition of the nation's roads, bridges, drinking water systems, and other public works, gave a grade of D. For practical purposes it was no improvement since the D+ of 2001.
Citizen participation on issues like road design and water usage is a good idea, and New Deal-style public-works programs, which built much of the nation's park system and public infrastructure, are worth considering. But the cultural aspects of Nehemiah hold the most important lessons.
During the Babylonian captivity, enemies of the Jews had multiplied. Jews persevered in the face of ridicule and posted guards against plots.
More subtly, rebuilding the walls required civic restoration. A culture of greed and instant gratification had produced fragmentation and a decline in morale in the community. Nehemiah held together a motley crew -- 40 different groups are named, including merchants, priests, governors, nobles, members of the perfume and goldsmiths' guilds, and women. At one point he organized a great assembly to call to account nobles making excessive profit from the poor. As the Jewish people rebuilt their walls, they regained a sense of their purpose and identity.
In today's America, as we have come to look to others -- experts, great leaders, celebrities -- to save us from our problems, we have similarly become afflicted by civic illness. Our bitter divisions along lines of partisanship, income, race, religion and geography are fed by devaluation of the talents and intelligence of people without credentials, degrees and celebrity status. Our citizenship declines while we are entertained as spectators, pacified as clients and pandered to as customers.
We need new Nehemiahs who call forth America's democratic genius of a self-reliant, productive, future-oriented citizenry, leaders who tackle tough issues in a collaborative way and reject the rescuer role. Such leaders would tap the talents of citizens to address public problems on which government is necessary but not sufficient, from climate change to school reform. They would challenge us to create healthy communities, not simply provide access to health care. They would recall that democracy is a way of life, not simply a trip to the ballot box.
The great leaders in our history -- from Abraham Lincoln to Jane Addams, Franklin Roosevelt to Martin Luther King Jr. -- have always called upon citizens to address common challenges, and in the process helped the nation remember its democratic soul. Things are likely to get worse until we have such leaders again, leaders who call us all to the ongoing work of citizenship.
Harry C. Boyte is a senior fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College.
Well sourced and argued, sir. New Nehemiahs. I love it, and you don’t have to be a believer to see the power of the story.
thanks
I find this intriguing. So many small towns - probably thousands across the country - have been hollowed out. Few small businesses - except maybe Dollar General - boarded up buildings, hospitals closed, not even a sufficient grocery store. I believe this decay may have contributed to the rise in distrust or disdain of our government. And maybe rightly so. But why can’t communities pick themselves up? Where does that impetus come from? It has to arise within each community.
Thanks Jenna. This view of leaders "calling people to consequential work" came out of my experiences in the civil rights movement (wonderfully expressed in MLK's "DIgnity of Labor" speech in 1968).
It took shape in the theory of citizenship, democracy, and civic and political leadership we developed over years at the UMN's Center for Democracy and Citizenship.
For more, see "Revitalizing the American Commonwealth" https://www.nationalcivicleague.org/ncr-article/revitalizing-the-american-commonwealth/
And more theoretically, "Reinventing Citizenship as Public Work"
https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/slceciviceng/31/
I'm finding the depolarization organization Braver Angels and our new Civic Scholars Council to be fertile ground for discussion and action on these themes. Here's an early call for papers. Well soon have a site on BA.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/coalition-of-urban-and-metropolitan-universities_braver-angels-civic-scholars-council-2026-activity-7424948689468719104-XdZ4/
Harry
The arrogance and ignorance of President Trump now affect every corner of the globe. He sits in the most powerful office in the world, and he immediately began using that power to destroy the US government with DOGE, Hegseth, Noem, Bondi, and RFK. With his impulsive and failing attack on Iran, he is crippling the world’s economy. If he manages to get control of the FED he will destroy the banking system that the world had trusted for 80 years.
One man who is leaving office is the only Republican who is doing anything to contain Trump’s grandiose delusions. All of us must do everything we can to can to remove Trump from office as soon as possible.
The "twisting of the knife" aspect of this entire scenario is that Trump's power comes almost entirely by his ability to get people to support him. You know what I mean? The sailboat ain't going anywhere without the wind blowing into the sails propelling it forward.
He should have ZERO power based upon reality....but it's those people who create their own reality and thus power his boat.
Racism attracks many, but he is funded by some very rich greedy few who feel that corruption works better for them then democracy. I guess that the destruction of the world's economy, with the worldwide suffering it will bring, will impak their lives.
They can afford to fill their yachts with $11 a gallon fuel, but I wouldn't be too upset if the more intense storms due to the destruction of our planet capsizes their boats.
Want to make the Pope more popular? Send JD Vance out to explain how the Pope doesn't understand the teachings of Catholicism.
Yep, sending the 5 minutes ago Catholic to pope-splain to the Pope how to pope is almost cruel. I mean look, the man can't even order donuts.
But let's do it anyway. (-;
Perfection, Jeri
Seems like Vance is already doing that in interviews. Acting like he knows more about Catholicism than the Pope.
Of course the Pope is soft on crime. His whole job is propagating the ideas of a criminal.