Lincoln said "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." That was, of course, long before Fox News and the broader right wing media universe, before Twitter (X) and Facebook, before TikTok and Instagram and MAGA. Now, you can fool all of the people some of the time, all of MAGA all of the time, and at least 30% of the people won’t notice any of the time.
I think Bill, God bless him, aligns with Sarah Longwell's view of the American people and he's reluctant to criticize them for leading us to this moment. My view is where are where we are because the people want us to be here.
I do not like the Cleti like most on this site. But I wonder how much of them are truly to blame?
We have had old laws on the books that have never been updated to modern times. We have not changed anything regarding the Electoral College or a fairer way of distributing power. We have not taken enough steps to keep money out of our politics. We have not pushed corporations and business away from elections (in fact they have become more entwined).
I point this out not as an excuse for the average Cletus. Their decision to support Trump, to troll liberals, to not want to grow personally? Yeah you can't defend that. Ignorance and arrogance need to be fought against. It isn't just "elites" who can be "arrogant". Dumb people can be too.
But how many of Cletus have truly had the power or ability to make a change? It sucks that Cletus can vote in a threat like Trump. But it also sucks even MORE that we have a system that allows a person like that on a ballot. I would hazard a guess that there are less Cleti than there are apathetic voters combined with "intellectuals excusing Trump". And I would bet the ones excusing Trump's actions and the apathetic ones outnumber the Cleti. And I wonder how many of the rich Trump excusers keep backing others who won't change the system cuz "F it, whoever is in charge I get paid cuz I own the system"?
I do NOT like Cletus. But I also hate the ones who pretend to be a good citizen but fleece everyone for their own selfish interests. Cletus sucks. But Cletus can't put THAT many people in power and keep them in power. It's easy to rip on Cletus, but less easy to rip on your neighbor down the street who holds down a lucrative job, pays his taxes, is involved in the community, but also thinks poor people and minorities are beneath him. Rural areas do NOT vote 100% Trump. There are still easily a third who see him for what he is. On the flip side the suburbs are NOT 100% liberal. There are still easily 40% in most suburbs that WANT Trump. So don't forget about Cletus' educated cousin out in the burbs who still thinks poorly of his fellow man.
From one blue state engineer to another, I agree with you on this. How many people in 2024 said there is no difference between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump? Or more to the point, how many people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 stayed home in 2024? My favorite group of people is those who know Trump is a piece of shit but voted for him anyway because they "liked his policies", and then they shrug their shoulders when Trump's secret police gun people down in the streets.
David Rothkopf had a Substack piece the other day called "A Time of Moral Reckoning" that gave me chills after I was done reading it. It was in part about how people make moral compromises all the time and justify them by saying stuff like "to err is human". There is a difference between right and wrong, and just because we tend to live in the grey area between right and wrong does not relieve us of our responsibility to stop people like Trump from gaining power. On that front, we failed miserably, and now we're paying the price.
Respectfully disagree. Most of us who follow politics are broken-hearted about the damage being done to America. People who follow right wing media are brainwashed. People who do not follow politics at all are blind. I think the best we can say is that most of Americans are negligent in their support of their own country, to the detriment of us all. If the blind and the brainwashed were forced to be educated with the truth of what is happening, I do not believe most of them would want that picture. Freedom has it's benefits, but it also has it's downfalls, and the freedom of citizens to be oblivious and stupid is one of them. The fact that one party overwhelmingly supports this ignorance, because it suits their purpose, is what is destroying America.
A significant minority of the American population wants this; they enjoy the cruelty. Many conservatives don’t care what happens to other people, but only change their minds when it happens to them.
The problem with Lincoln’s statement is that it ignores the point that often all that’s necessary is to fool enough of the people enough of the time.
Once a state goes authoritarian even that’s not necessary. Everyone has to at least pretend to be fooled all of the time or the secret police would like a word and it’s off to the camps for you and your family.
GW Bush said, "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
I have to agree. Thanks to Bill for trying to give us hope, but we, the people of the United States of America, or at least enough of us, are the reason this guy is in a position to destroy our country in his pursuit of wealth and power.
Actually, I think Bill says he hopes our country is better than our government. But he also says it's a representative government. "And so we have to say that we as a nation aren’t behaving admirably either." I think we would all agree with that. You are so right that we're failing to be better so far. But maybe there's still a chance our country will be better than our government. Maybe.
A brief verbal exchange that purportedly took place between an American colonel and a North Vietnamese colonel in 1975 during the negotiations that ended the Vietnam War illustrates the importance of good military strategy. The American colonel, Harry G. Summers Jr., said: “You know you never defeated us on the battlefield.” His North Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Tu, paused a moment, then replied: “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”
Ho Chi Min went to Paris for the Treaty at Versailles to implore help from President Wilson for his country Vietnam Nam. Wilson ignored him. He spoke with FDR during WWII for help, FDR had a plan, but died, and Truman did not know of it, and did not help. Ho Chi Min then took matters into his own hand and threw out the French, and stalled the Americans until he won, and Vietnam Nam was independent. We underestimate the will of people, we loose. Bombing them actually makes that will stronger. Then you never win.
That is a great quote from COL Summers. You can lose battles and still win wars. You can even lose campaigns and still win wars. But it is very hard to win wars when you make serious errors at the strategic level.
'But she didn’t actually dissolve the deal by which Trump effectively granted himself immunity from IRS investigations. “Whether executive branch actors can privately agree to give themselves and their former clients blanket immunities and billions of dollars in tax moneys for legally undefined grievances was never an issue advanced to this court,” she explained.'
Huh? Now what?
Donald Trump is the ultimate embodiment of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome. He goes through life convinced of his own brilliance, which causes him to think anything he attempts he will succeed at, and do so easily, despite all the nay-sayers who have actual expertise. He thought he would attack Iran and it would just be a matter of hours before the regime was toppled, the Iranian people revolted and replaced their oppressors with a democracy, and the Middle East would be a harmonious paradise and the world would be grateful. How could the Nobel Committee resist an achievement like that! And, he thought it would be so easy.
Despite reality demonstrating time and time again that trade agreements are hard, nuclear arms agreements are hard, lowering inflation is hard, wars are hard, Trump has learned nothing, and is still convinced that nothing can possibly outwit his inestimable genius. He still thinks that the most intractable geopolitical challenges that have defeated the best minds in the world can be solved by him, and easily. If stupidity is measured by how little someone learns, Donald Trump is the stupidest person in the world.
Donald Trump is the world's worst stategist. He is closely followed by the world's second worst strategist - Putin. The United States used to have worldclass strategists and negotiators in the NSC, Department of Defense and State Department. Unfortunately, Trump fired most of them. We then sent the "F" team to negotiate with the Iranian "A" team. It looks to me as though Trump believes, "we don't need anyone who knows what he's doing in my administration. "
Are you certain you can ascribe such benign motives to toddler Trump, who likes to see things go boom? I believe his briefings consist of what could be called war porn and then there is always potential profit.
Don, Judges can only rule on issues specifically brought before them. She was saying that the specific question was not one she was asked to resolve, so she could not since the ruling would be overturned on appeal, certainly by SCROTUS (Republican) and she would rather that her words remain untouched as lodestars than extinguished by an overruling.
I suppose one just has to wait until the Felon or some other named entity tries to make use of the specific carte blanche for him and his spawn to file a suit against it. I have great hope that various individuals and organizations are, or will be, keeping an eye on that possibility.
Dunning Kruger specimens surrounded by more DK specimens. All of them belong on the street corner yelling inanities at passerbys rather than being amplified by all forms of the media. How the major networks have agreed to broadcast what is widely reported to be yet another POTUS address of lies, distortions, and exhaustively litigated events is beyond comprehension.
We are not a lovely country because our people aren't lovely. At least not lovely enough, often enough. I grew up at a time when the "Ugly American" was the widely accepted view of Americans around the world, and we earned that title. We are there again. Trump didn't change America, he revealed America. Everyone can see.
The old ugly American was basically harmless, culturally ignorant and not willing to learn. The new ugly American is a threat to everything and everyone s/he touches or turns his/her attention to.
Americans have never been harmless. The old ugly American certainly was a threat to Southeast Asians. "The Ugly American" was the title of a book by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick published in 1958. It was a novel based on the history of American meddling in SE Asia, and the title specifically referred to arrogant and ignorant ambassadors and politicians who didn't understand and just didn't care about the wreckage they caused to the countries where they worked. (Looking at you, Jared, Steve, and JD.) The extent of the damage was later exposed by the Vietnam War. This book was required reading in high schools in the 60s.
The term later became broader and referred to a wide range of boorish behaviors exhibited by Americans abroad, politicians, business people, and tourists alike. Sixty years ago, Americans pretended to be Canadian while traveling because we were so hated. This is once again a useful skill.
I had friends traveling to Europe and they were worried how they'd be welcomed. I told them to buy little Canadian flag patches and sew them onto a backpack, jacket, etc.
I am of course referring to that broader usage which has largely been my experience in Western Europe, parts of Africa and on a more limited basis, Asia (mostly Hong Kong).
More recently I have had the odd but understandable experience of needing to be vouched for by European friends before friends of those friends would relax around me and my wife and engage in conversation beyond pleasantries.
Most people knew that Trump, with Miller hiding in a dark alley, were going to be cruel to all immigrants & Americans with darker pigment. The “just the criminals” rhetoric was the rallying cry to excuse the hate & provide cover. Yes, some were naive enough to believe the BS. Most Trumpers knew & were happy with Trump going after all immigrants with harassment at the center, they knew by Fox News (invasion, all immigrants are criminals, etc. gas lighting) that it will be the immigrants Miller stated he hated. Now that they let loose the goon squad the bar is lowered to beating, lawlessness, and cruel treatment of any immigrant they want. The Supreme Court ruled that if they are brown you can take em down, citizen or not. The murders by ICE on behalf of America are A) Immediately lied about to give cover to ICE & talking points to magats to push in our ever shrinking news cycle. B)block & delay any real investigation while stating a “thorough” investigation is under way which helps the trumpers & low info folks feel better & quickly move on. So Ugly has now come home to America in many different roads. How much ugly will the Trump magats excuse? That is a dark answer. How much ugly will we the majority of Americans accept before we stop the downward slide? We can all clearly see magats are trying to put our voting rights on the chopping block in real time. There is no shame that will stop their efforts. It has to be US to stop them.
I see your point. I had forgotten all the people holding "Mass Deportation" signs at Trump rallies. They cannot be excused as not knowing what was coming.
Trump pulled off the mask of respectability that Reagan and the Bushes created. Whether it was Reagan’s racism and negotiating with Iran before the election or Jeb Bush removing 50,000 minorities from the voting rolls before the 2000 election, Republicans have been the criminal party. Electing a felon just officially certified it.
It makes me wonder whether there is a deal going on with these new Trump gas stations offering lower prices - are they getting the oil Trump steals from Venezuela?
I am going to echo the very intelligent and lovely Tim Coffey here. We are absolutely not better than our government. 77 million people voted for this exact regime. They absolutely do not care one iota about corruption or violence of any sort, so long as it does not affect them and they can rest assured that the regime is hurting the "right" people.
JVL said it recently: "We are firmly out of the realm of policy here. Or reality, even. So long as there is a trans activist in San Francisco posting on BlueSky, these people will be aggrieved. Even if their preferred political party holds the presidency, controls Congress, and has an openly corrupt majority in the Supreme Court. Domination of the political system is not enough; they want the people who disgust them to disappear."
This is UGLY.
I've never been an American exceptionalist, or anything. Most of my life, I'd always considered my country to be a perfectly fine place to live, but I've never been "proud to be an American" in the way some folks expect us to be. That said, over the last ten years, I have become downright embarrassed to be an American. I have come to loathe that appellation because now, to me, it implies a cadre of narrow-minded, bigoted supremacists who would squash me and most of the people I love like bugs if they could. I have always been a "live-and-let-live" kind of person, but since 2015 I have gone from "oh well, they're a fringe minority" to "well maybe we should give them a couple of flyover states and they can have their all-white-Christian-nationalist country and leave the rest of us alone" to "if you hate Earth and literally everyone on it so much, then YOU leave and quit wasting good oxygen".
We have become permanently disfigured as a country. Trump will eventually go, the authoritarian movement may eventually lose steam and die off, but this will be a scar we will always have to wear. 77 million of us have pretty much cut off our nose to spite our face.
Richard, wild horses couldn't drag me back, even for a visit, not as long as the Felon and his sycophants and his spawn have anything to say about what happens in God's Own Country, soon to be WCNT heaven on earth.
The one voter restriction law that might be beneficial is to pass a competency test on the Constitution before one is allowed to vote, to be repeated every 10 years. Certainly all politicians running for office, who have to swear an oath to it, should be required to do so.
I've heard NO MENTION anywhere, of Susan Collins' CONCERN over an innocent man being killed by ICE in Biddeford, Maine, and again, no mention of it here(?). Will she attempt to ask trump for special favor for Maine, to show how her being so "plugged in" and supportive is GOOD for Maine, but SOL for her fellow Americans living in other states. Or, will she condemn the use of ICE in American cities everywhere, wearing masks but no body cams, trampling on the rights of citizens and law-abiding immigrants alike? /s on that last one - will never happen, which is why Maine has to put aside its differences to carefully choose a new candidate to beat her in November. A hopeful nation is watching!
Venezuela, ICE, Iraq, drug boats, the White House, the Kennedy Center, DOGE, Tariffs, the Reflecting Pool, the MMA demonstration, the Epstein Files, RFK, Jr., and many more are all irrational ideas that Trump believed would bring him power, adoration, and glory, both nationally and internationally.
Once he thinks of it, he almost immediately acts on it because he has learned, if he is quick, no one can stop him. Then, almost as quickly, Trump acts as if what he said he would do has been accomplished, and anyone who points out that his actions have always made things worse is a danger to our nation, a nasty person, and a radical left-wing terrorist.
Trump continues to act as if he can make something real just by saying it. So far, the Republicans in Congress act as if they believe him. We will see how they deal with Todd Blanche, who has become the personification of the support for all of Trump’s lies, corruption, greed, racism, fraud, pedophilia, and cruelty.
Don’t get me started on the parallels between late Imperial Russia and the current US. It’s been something of an obsession of mine since Trump’s first term.
Continental scale (mostly) contiguous land empires with vastly different levels of economic development and living standards between regions with divergent and incompatible regional cultures all contributing to intra-regional resentment and the internal instability that brings.
A rural-urban divide (more like a chasm) that could easily turn to bloodshed with the right spark.
Public discourse dominated by conspiracy theories, propaganda and arguments over who constitutes a ‘real’ Russian/American.
The growth of weird cults and rural folk religions loosely based on Christianity.
The loss of wars both countries were absolutely convinced they’d easily win.
An over mighty executive completely controlled by one extremely flawed and intellectually limited individual (though not even the greatest genius in human history would have the skills and knowledge necessary to make all the decisions necessary to govern a modern nation effectively - however smarter men might delegate) together with a useless legislature. All while conservatives zealots run around screaming that this was exactly way the Founders/the Assembly of the Land that elected the Romanovs as Tsars intended things be and that any alternative arrangements would be illegitimate to the point of blasphemy.
A massively corrupt ruling oligarchy who barely see their fellow citizens as people and have virtually no knowledge of the country they control beyond the wealthy areas of the larger cities.
Extreme ambient levels of violence both state sponsored and carried out by private individuals contributing to general feelings of insecurity.
Rapid technological change exacerbating the stresses in society and amplifying the centrifugal forces pushing it apart.
I could go on like this for some time.
I’d recommend reading A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 by Orlando Figges. All of it’s worth reading but the most relevant sections for these purposes are the first two parts which set out what Russian society was like in the period leading up to the Revolution. It was first published in 1996 so Figges wasn’t deliberately trying to make comparisons between the Imperial Russia of the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the America of the 2020s. At least the US hasn’t had any full scale pogroms so far. But how long that will remain the case with ICE rampaging the way they are is anyone’s guess.
Trump keeps busy. But it boils down to just a few basic things that keep him focused: keeping his power, enriching himself, and punishing his perceived enemies. The first two explain the Iran war, the reconstruction of DC, and his push for the SAVE act. He wants the Epstein files buried once and for all so he can win in November. The rest is distraction.
His problem is that there has been enough repetition of this tactic that even a 3 year old could see through it. Even the most uneducated can watch gas prices soar and know that nothing this WH says is true.
Dems need clearer and louder messaging. Trump is trying to enrich himself as we get poorer. He is trying to take away our right to vote so he can continue to do so. It’s just not that hard.
If the Senate confirms Blanche it just proves the GOP wants this democracy to end and only MAGA deserve any justice.....make that preferential treatment, because it's not justice.
"Military superiority matters less when the adversary believes it can outlast the stronger power politically."
There was an Atlantic article from a couple of years talking about American reconnaissance who had bugged various guerrilla Taliban forces during the War in Afghanistan. Some of the interactions were hilarious: revolutionaries bickering with each other like married couples ("Muhammed we must Jihad!" "Ugh it's early in the morning and I'm tired can we do it later?").
The article spoke about American forces winning battles against the guerrilla forces (heavier casualties sustained, etc.) but the Taliban forces weren't trying to win battles. They were merely trying to continue recruiting people into the effort and make sure that, even though they lost, American forces sustained some damage in the process. Eventually America left the country, so in a sense the Taliban won.
The United States does not want to feel economic pain in its plan for Iranian domination, and that means Iran is holding the leverage.
In addition, Donald Trump is displaying the same military sense of a Fox News watching armchair general who has never served, which is probably why he is popular with the Fox News watching armchair general voters who have never served.
Bill: "But, you say: Our country is better than our government."
If this were true, Donald Trump would have been blown out in 2024.
Lincoln said "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." That was, of course, long before Fox News and the broader right wing media universe, before Twitter (X) and Facebook, before TikTok and Instagram and MAGA. Now, you can fool all of the people some of the time, all of MAGA all of the time, and at least 30% of the people won’t notice any of the time.
I think Bill, God bless him, aligns with Sarah Longwell's view of the American people and he's reluctant to criticize them for leading us to this moment. My view is where are where we are because the people want us to be here.
💯 Looking at you, Biden-to-Trump voters.
I do not like the Cleti like most on this site. But I wonder how much of them are truly to blame?
We have had old laws on the books that have never been updated to modern times. We have not changed anything regarding the Electoral College or a fairer way of distributing power. We have not taken enough steps to keep money out of our politics. We have not pushed corporations and business away from elections (in fact they have become more entwined).
I point this out not as an excuse for the average Cletus. Their decision to support Trump, to troll liberals, to not want to grow personally? Yeah you can't defend that. Ignorance and arrogance need to be fought against. It isn't just "elites" who can be "arrogant". Dumb people can be too.
But how many of Cletus have truly had the power or ability to make a change? It sucks that Cletus can vote in a threat like Trump. But it also sucks even MORE that we have a system that allows a person like that on a ballot. I would hazard a guess that there are less Cleti than there are apathetic voters combined with "intellectuals excusing Trump". And I would bet the ones excusing Trump's actions and the apathetic ones outnumber the Cleti. And I wonder how many of the rich Trump excusers keep backing others who won't change the system cuz "F it, whoever is in charge I get paid cuz I own the system"?
I do NOT like Cletus. But I also hate the ones who pretend to be a good citizen but fleece everyone for their own selfish interests. Cletus sucks. But Cletus can't put THAT many people in power and keep them in power. It's easy to rip on Cletus, but less easy to rip on your neighbor down the street who holds down a lucrative job, pays his taxes, is involved in the community, but also thinks poor people and minorities are beneath him. Rural areas do NOT vote 100% Trump. There are still easily a third who see him for what he is. On the flip side the suburbs are NOT 100% liberal. There are still easily 40% in most suburbs that WANT Trump. So don't forget about Cletus' educated cousin out in the burbs who still thinks poorly of his fellow man.
From one blue state engineer to another, I agree with you on this. How many people in 2024 said there is no difference between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump? Or more to the point, how many people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 stayed home in 2024? My favorite group of people is those who know Trump is a piece of shit but voted for him anyway because they "liked his policies", and then they shrug their shoulders when Trump's secret police gun people down in the streets.
David Rothkopf had a Substack piece the other day called "A Time of Moral Reckoning" that gave me chills after I was done reading it. It was in part about how people make moral compromises all the time and justify them by saying stuff like "to err is human". There is a difference between right and wrong, and just because we tend to live in the grey area between right and wrong does not relieve us of our responsibility to stop people like Trump from gaining power. On that front, we failed miserably, and now we're paying the price.
A very clear assessment, Tim. I can agree with this.
Well said
Sadly I agree.
Indeed, this is truly "who we are"
Agreed!
Respectfully disagree. Most of us who follow politics are broken-hearted about the damage being done to America. People who follow right wing media are brainwashed. People who do not follow politics at all are blind. I think the best we can say is that most of Americans are negligent in their support of their own country, to the detriment of us all. If the blind and the brainwashed were forced to be educated with the truth of what is happening, I do not believe most of them would want that picture. Freedom has it's benefits, but it also has it's downfalls, and the freedom of citizens to be oblivious and stupid is one of them. The fact that one party overwhelmingly supports this ignorance, because it suits their purpose, is what is destroying America.
A significant minority of the American population wants this; they enjoy the cruelty. Many conservatives don’t care what happens to other people, but only change their minds when it happens to them.
The problem with Lincoln’s statement is that it ignores the point that often all that’s necessary is to fool enough of the people enough of the time.
Once a state goes authoritarian even that’s not necessary. Everyone has to at least pretend to be fooled all of the time or the secret police would like a word and it’s off to the camps for you and your family.
Correct. Once all the immigrants are deported, those camps will be used for those of us who do not capitulate.
GW Bush said, "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
"Repetition is the mother of Retention" I keep repeating....
Well said.
I have to agree. Thanks to Bill for trying to give us hope, but we, the people of the United States of America, or at least enough of us, are the reason this guy is in a position to destroy our country in his pursuit of wealth and power.
Actually, I think Bill says he hopes our country is better than our government. But he also says it's a representative government. "And so we have to say that we as a nation aren’t behaving admirably either." I think we would all agree with that. You are so right that we're failing to be better so far. But maybe there's still a chance our country will be better than our government. Maybe.
How lucky we and the Bulwark are to have the General making sense and keeping us informed. Worth the subscription right there!
The Bulwark has "all the best people."
A brief verbal exchange that purportedly took place between an American colonel and a North Vietnamese colonel in 1975 during the negotiations that ended the Vietnam War illustrates the importance of good military strategy. The American colonel, Harry G. Summers Jr., said: “You know you never defeated us on the battlefield.” His North Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Tu, paused a moment, then replied: “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”
Ho Chi Min went to Paris for the Treaty at Versailles to implore help from President Wilson for his country Vietnam Nam. Wilson ignored him. He spoke with FDR during WWII for help, FDR had a plan, but died, and Truman did not know of it, and did not help. Ho Chi Min then took matters into his own hand and threw out the French, and stalled the Americans until he won, and Vietnam Nam was independent. We underestimate the will of people, we loose. Bombing them actually makes that will stronger. Then you never win.
That is a great quote from COL Summers. You can lose battles and still win wars. You can even lose campaigns and still win wars. But it is very hard to win wars when you make serious errors at the strategic level.
'But she didn’t actually dissolve the deal by which Trump effectively granted himself immunity from IRS investigations. “Whether executive branch actors can privately agree to give themselves and their former clients blanket immunities and billions of dollars in tax moneys for legally undefined grievances was never an issue advanced to this court,” she explained.'
Huh? Now what?
Donald Trump is the ultimate embodiment of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome. He goes through life convinced of his own brilliance, which causes him to think anything he attempts he will succeed at, and do so easily, despite all the nay-sayers who have actual expertise. He thought he would attack Iran and it would just be a matter of hours before the regime was toppled, the Iranian people revolted and replaced their oppressors with a democracy, and the Middle East would be a harmonious paradise and the world would be grateful. How could the Nobel Committee resist an achievement like that! And, he thought it would be so easy.
Despite reality demonstrating time and time again that trade agreements are hard, nuclear arms agreements are hard, lowering inflation is hard, wars are hard, Trump has learned nothing, and is still convinced that nothing can possibly outwit his inestimable genius. He still thinks that the most intractable geopolitical challenges that have defeated the best minds in the world can be solved by him, and easily. If stupidity is measured by how little someone learns, Donald Trump is the stupidest person in the world.
Donald Trump is the world's worst stategist. He is closely followed by the world's second worst strategist - Putin. The United States used to have worldclass strategists and negotiators in the NSC, Department of Defense and State Department. Unfortunately, Trump fired most of them. We then sent the "F" team to negotiate with the Iranian "A" team. It looks to me as though Trump believes, "we don't need anyone who knows what he's doing in my administration. "
Of course that is his motto. Look at the Cabinet.
Or maybe it’s just we don’t need anyone who knows more than I do.
Are you certain you can ascribe such benign motives to toddler Trump, who likes to see things go boom? I believe his briefings consist of what could be called war porn and then there is always potential profit.
Trump claimed that “nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated”
Someday it might be funny how delighted he was to discover well-known facts, like there is a b on the end of the word dumb.
Don, Judges can only rule on issues specifically brought before them. She was saying that the specific question was not one she was asked to resolve, so she could not since the ruling would be overturned on appeal, certainly by SCROTUS (Republican) and she would rather that her words remain untouched as lodestars than extinguished by an overruling.
Agreed, her hands were tied by what she was asked to rule on.
I appreciate the clarification, David. As to my second question, now what?
I suppose one just has to wait until the Felon or some other named entity tries to make use of the specific carte blanche for him and his spawn to file a suit against it. I have great hope that various individuals and organizations are, or will be, keeping an eye on that possibility.
Dunning Kruger specimens surrounded by more DK specimens. All of them belong on the street corner yelling inanities at passerbys rather than being amplified by all forms of the media. How the major networks have agreed to broadcast what is widely reported to be yet another POTUS address of lies, distortions, and exhaustively litigated events is beyond comprehension.
This Administration is total affirmative action for the DK afflicted, especially to the extent they overlap with white guys.
We are not a lovely country because our people aren't lovely. At least not lovely enough, often enough. I grew up at a time when the "Ugly American" was the widely accepted view of Americans around the world, and we earned that title. We are there again. Trump didn't change America, he revealed America. Everyone can see.
The old ugly American was basically harmless, culturally ignorant and not willing to learn. The new ugly American is a threat to everything and everyone s/he touches or turns his/her attention to.
Americans have never been harmless. The old ugly American certainly was a threat to Southeast Asians. "The Ugly American" was the title of a book by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick published in 1958. It was a novel based on the history of American meddling in SE Asia, and the title specifically referred to arrogant and ignorant ambassadors and politicians who didn't understand and just didn't care about the wreckage they caused to the countries where they worked. (Looking at you, Jared, Steve, and JD.) The extent of the damage was later exposed by the Vietnam War. This book was required reading in high schools in the 60s.
The term later became broader and referred to a wide range of boorish behaviors exhibited by Americans abroad, politicians, business people, and tourists alike. Sixty years ago, Americans pretended to be Canadian while traveling because we were so hated. This is once again a useful skill.
I had friends traveling to Europe and they were worried how they'd be welcomed. I told them to buy little Canadian flag patches and sew them onto a backpack, jacket, etc.
Or a cap: WE HATE HIM, TOO
YES! Love that!
A comb-over blond swoosh would help identify the subject, but hard to find in a cap store or even order from a local cap maker....
I am of course referring to that broader usage which has largely been my experience in Western Europe, parts of Africa and on a more limited basis, Asia (mostly Hong Kong).
More recently I have had the odd but understandable experience of needing to be vouched for by European friends before friends of those friends would relax around me and my wife and engage in conversation beyond pleasantries.
Most people knew that Trump, with Miller hiding in a dark alley, were going to be cruel to all immigrants & Americans with darker pigment. The “just the criminals” rhetoric was the rallying cry to excuse the hate & provide cover. Yes, some were naive enough to believe the BS. Most Trumpers knew & were happy with Trump going after all immigrants with harassment at the center, they knew by Fox News (invasion, all immigrants are criminals, etc. gas lighting) that it will be the immigrants Miller stated he hated. Now that they let loose the goon squad the bar is lowered to beating, lawlessness, and cruel treatment of any immigrant they want. The Supreme Court ruled that if they are brown you can take em down, citizen or not. The murders by ICE on behalf of America are A) Immediately lied about to give cover to ICE & talking points to magats to push in our ever shrinking news cycle. B)block & delay any real investigation while stating a “thorough” investigation is under way which helps the trumpers & low info folks feel better & quickly move on. So Ugly has now come home to America in many different roads. How much ugly will the Trump magats excuse? That is a dark answer. How much ugly will we the majority of Americans accept before we stop the downward slide? We can all clearly see magats are trying to put our voting rights on the chopping block in real time. There is no shame that will stop their efforts. It has to be US to stop them.
I see your point. I had forgotten all the people holding "Mass Deportation" signs at Trump rallies. They cannot be excused as not knowing what was coming.
He pulled the mask off.
Trump pulled off the mask of respectability that Reagan and the Bushes created. Whether it was Reagan’s racism and negotiating with Iran before the election or Jeb Bush removing 50,000 minorities from the voting rolls before the 2000 election, Republicans have been the criminal party. Electing a felon just officially certified it.
Am I correct in thinking that the 20% toll is paid directly to the President?
Now, America has joined with Somalia as a pirate nation, robbing ships on the high seas.
Yeah, but if it means that the President has a new personal revenue source, it's all worth it! /s
Even if it wasn’t, it still against international law. Next up: splitting the tolls with Iran.
Yes, you are. He'll know what to do with it.
It makes me wonder whether there is a deal going on with these new Trump gas stations offering lower prices - are they getting the oil Trump steals from Venezuela?
I am going to echo the very intelligent and lovely Tim Coffey here. We are absolutely not better than our government. 77 million people voted for this exact regime. They absolutely do not care one iota about corruption or violence of any sort, so long as it does not affect them and they can rest assured that the regime is hurting the "right" people.
JVL said it recently: "We are firmly out of the realm of policy here. Or reality, even. So long as there is a trans activist in San Francisco posting on BlueSky, these people will be aggrieved. Even if their preferred political party holds the presidency, controls Congress, and has an openly corrupt majority in the Supreme Court. Domination of the political system is not enough; they want the people who disgust them to disappear."
This is UGLY.
I've never been an American exceptionalist, or anything. Most of my life, I'd always considered my country to be a perfectly fine place to live, but I've never been "proud to be an American" in the way some folks expect us to be. That said, over the last ten years, I have become downright embarrassed to be an American. I have come to loathe that appellation because now, to me, it implies a cadre of narrow-minded, bigoted supremacists who would squash me and most of the people I love like bugs if they could. I have always been a "live-and-let-live" kind of person, but since 2015 I have gone from "oh well, they're a fringe minority" to "well maybe we should give them a couple of flyover states and they can have their all-white-Christian-nationalist country and leave the rest of us alone" to "if you hate Earth and literally everyone on it so much, then YOU leave and quit wasting good oxygen".
We have become permanently disfigured as a country. Trump will eventually go, the authoritarian movement may eventually lose steam and die off, but this will be a scar we will always have to wear. 77 million of us have pretty much cut off our nose to spite our face.
Well said! I totally agree! I wish I had the financial ability to leave this country that I no longer feel welcome in.
Richard, wild horses couldn't drag me back, even for a visit, not as long as the Felon and his sycophants and his spawn have anything to say about what happens in God's Own Country, soon to be WCNT heaven on earth.
The one voter restriction law that might be beneficial is to pass a competency test on the Constitution before one is allowed to vote, to be repeated every 10 years. Certainly all politicians running for office, who have to swear an oath to it, should be required to do so.
I've heard NO MENTION anywhere, of Susan Collins' CONCERN over an innocent man being killed by ICE in Biddeford, Maine, and again, no mention of it here(?). Will she attempt to ask trump for special favor for Maine, to show how her being so "plugged in" and supportive is GOOD for Maine, but SOL for her fellow Americans living in other states. Or, will she condemn the use of ICE in American cities everywhere, wearing masks but no body cams, trampling on the rights of citizens and law-abiding immigrants alike? /s on that last one - will never happen, which is why Maine has to put aside its differences to carefully choose a new candidate to beat her in November. A hopeful nation is watching!
She'll clutch her pearls and express her disappointment.
And say she hopes someone, anyone has learned a lesson.
NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING
Venezuela, ICE, Iraq, drug boats, the White House, the Kennedy Center, DOGE, Tariffs, the Reflecting Pool, the MMA demonstration, the Epstein Files, RFK, Jr., and many more are all irrational ideas that Trump believed would bring him power, adoration, and glory, both nationally and internationally.
Once he thinks of it, he almost immediately acts on it because he has learned, if he is quick, no one can stop him. Then, almost as quickly, Trump acts as if what he said he would do has been accomplished, and anyone who points out that his actions have always made things worse is a danger to our nation, a nasty person, and a radical left-wing terrorist.
Trump continues to act as if he can make something real just by saying it. So far, the Republicans in Congress act as if they believe him. We will see how they deal with Todd Blanche, who has become the personification of the support for all of Trump’s lies, corruption, greed, racism, fraud, pedophilia, and cruelty.
Yes, the Blanche hearings will be most "interesting"* and instructive. I do not have high hopes.
*In the Chinese curse sense of the word.
LG is dead. Good.
When push came to shove, he put his shoulder in the wrong direction. Gone. Move on.
The ways things are going, it sure feels similar to late stage Russian empire. It lost the Russo-Japanese war and the rest is history.
Don’t get me started on the parallels between late Imperial Russia and the current US. It’s been something of an obsession of mine since Trump’s first term.
Continental scale (mostly) contiguous land empires with vastly different levels of economic development and living standards between regions with divergent and incompatible regional cultures all contributing to intra-regional resentment and the internal instability that brings.
A rural-urban divide (more like a chasm) that could easily turn to bloodshed with the right spark.
Public discourse dominated by conspiracy theories, propaganda and arguments over who constitutes a ‘real’ Russian/American.
The growth of weird cults and rural folk religions loosely based on Christianity.
The loss of wars both countries were absolutely convinced they’d easily win.
An over mighty executive completely controlled by one extremely flawed and intellectually limited individual (though not even the greatest genius in human history would have the skills and knowledge necessary to make all the decisions necessary to govern a modern nation effectively - however smarter men might delegate) together with a useless legislature. All while conservatives zealots run around screaming that this was exactly way the Founders/the Assembly of the Land that elected the Romanovs as Tsars intended things be and that any alternative arrangements would be illegitimate to the point of blasphemy.
A massively corrupt ruling oligarchy who barely see their fellow citizens as people and have virtually no knowledge of the country they control beyond the wealthy areas of the larger cities.
Extreme ambient levels of violence both state sponsored and carried out by private individuals contributing to general feelings of insecurity.
Rapid technological change exacerbating the stresses in society and amplifying the centrifugal forces pushing it apart.
I could go on like this for some time.
I’d recommend reading A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 by Orlando Figges. All of it’s worth reading but the most relevant sections for these purposes are the first two parts which set out what Russian society was like in the period leading up to the Revolution. It was first published in 1996 so Figges wasn’t deliberately trying to make comparisons between the Imperial Russia of the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the America of the 2020s. At least the US hasn’t had any full scale pogroms so far. But how long that will remain the case with ICE rampaging the way they are is anyone’s guess.
Trump keeps busy. But it boils down to just a few basic things that keep him focused: keeping his power, enriching himself, and punishing his perceived enemies. The first two explain the Iran war, the reconstruction of DC, and his push for the SAVE act. He wants the Epstein files buried once and for all so he can win in November. The rest is distraction.
His problem is that there has been enough repetition of this tactic that even a 3 year old could see through it. Even the most uneducated can watch gas prices soar and know that nothing this WH says is true.
Dems need clearer and louder messaging. Trump is trying to enrich himself as we get poorer. He is trying to take away our right to vote so he can continue to do so. It’s just not that hard.
Yet just enough of those uneducated magats will still vote for him.
Sam, you out did yourself with that tweet. LMAO
If the Senate confirms Blanche it just proves the GOP wants this democracy to end and only MAGA deserve any justice.....make that preferential treatment, because it's not justice.
Magats aren't going to get justice, even though they think they will. They're kinda stupid that way. "Justice" is only for the Epstein Class.
"Military superiority matters less when the adversary believes it can outlast the stronger power politically."
There was an Atlantic article from a couple of years talking about American reconnaissance who had bugged various guerrilla Taliban forces during the War in Afghanistan. Some of the interactions were hilarious: revolutionaries bickering with each other like married couples ("Muhammed we must Jihad!" "Ugh it's early in the morning and I'm tired can we do it later?").
The article spoke about American forces winning battles against the guerrilla forces (heavier casualties sustained, etc.) but the Taliban forces weren't trying to win battles. They were merely trying to continue recruiting people into the effort and make sure that, even though they lost, American forces sustained some damage in the process. Eventually America left the country, so in a sense the Taliban won.
The United States does not want to feel economic pain in its plan for Iranian domination, and that means Iran is holding the leverage.
In addition, Donald Trump is displaying the same military sense of a Fox News watching armchair general who has never served, which is probably why he is popular with the Fox News watching armchair general voters who have never served.
Bombing won't win. Threatening won't win. Pouting no one helps him won't win. What is left?
THE FELON'S EPITAPH
FOR THE WAR
HE STUPIDLY STARTED
WITHOUT A PLAN
OR AN END GAME
IN SIGHT?
NOT "I WON"
BUT
"I RAN"
You win the Internet for today, good sir.
Thank you, kind lady. That is the sign that I will be carrying Thursday morning in front of the US Consulate in Frankfurt.