- The lack of conservative humor;
- How fake police wear uniforms, and secret police (ICE) wears face masks;
- Robert Reich on the most regressive bill in history;
- Becoming aware of Rebecca Solnit;
- And short items about how Trump cut the suicide prevention hotline for gay people; how support for Israel, no matter what it does, it justified as “Biblical”; and how “deeply religious” is an alarm bell.
Marta Randall on Facebook today (friends-only post, so I can’t link it):
Thinking about the No Kings marches of last weekend. I was struck, as always, by the happy number of clever signs, everything from poetry to puns — but I don’t remember seeing anything comparable from right-wing gatherings.
Am I missing something here?
I’ll quote (anonymously) two of the comments:
It strikes me that right-wing people have both (1) little creative ability at the level of protest signs and activities, and (2) absolutely ZERO sense of humor. All I ever see when driving past right-wing demos or seeing them on TV is just hate, hate, hate.
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I think conservatives are driven more by fear and emotion than by logic and intelligence. It’s awfully hard to be witty when you’re scared and angry. Their humor tends towards insults and slurs as a result.
I’ve noted the parts about lack of sense of humor before. Trump, e.g., only smiles when he’s smirking or sneering. He’s never actually happy or joyful.
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So last week a man dressed up as a policeman shot several Minnesota Democrats and killed two of them. Meanwhile, ICE goes around nabbing people off the street while wearing no uniforms at all, providing no credentials of being law enforcement, and masking their faces. The situation is getting worse. Trumps fans, not paying close attention, presumably think this is what they voted for.
Slate, Sam Adams, 17 Jun 2025: Does America Have Secret Police Now?, subtitled “Of all the things this Trump term, the rapid normalization of masked law enforcement disturbs me the most.”
This is partly about yet another arrest of a politician.
…I watched the video of federal agents handcuffing New York City Comptroller Brad Lander inside an immigration courthouse in lower Manhattan after he demanded to see a judicial warrant for the migrant man they were attempting to arrest. Lander, who is also running for mayor in New York’s Democratic primary, is a familiar face around the courthouse. The agents knew exactly whom they were taking into custody: Minutes beforehand, a reporter heard one asking another, “Do you want to arrest the comptroller?” But who those agents were, or even who they worked for, is more difficult to pin down. Because, in what has become a familiar—and, if you spend enough time on the internet, practically daily—sight, they were hiding their faces behind masks. Even as the New York Times’ story on the situation carried the headline that Lander had been “arrested by ICE,” in the body of the article, the reporter hedged his bets, identifying the individuals only as “several men who appear to be law enforcement officers.”
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Similarly, is this what Trump fans voted for? I continue to think that conservative voters are being snookered into supporting Republican politicians who pander to their religious priorities, while the priorities of the politicians is to get elected and cut taxes for the wealthy, who are their biggest supporters.
Robert Reich, 16 Jun 2025: The Most Regressive Bill in, well, History, subtitled “Trump Republicans want to take from the poor and working class and give to the rich”
Friends,
The giant Trump Republican bill now before the Senate — Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” — cuts taxes for high earners and reduces benefits for the poor and working class.
This would make it more regressive — harming low-income Americans while benefiting high-income Americans — than any major tax or entitlement law in many decades, if not in history, according to new estimates by the Congressional Budget Office.
Now, when you look at this graph, it looks alarming. Such high and low spikes. But the height of the spikes may be an artifact of graph software (like that on my Apple Watch that adjusts the scale of steps watched whenever the range includes an unusually high number of steps on a given day) and not malicious intent.
So, Reich has a point. Republicans manage to advantage the rich and disadvantage the poor, every single time. But when you think about it, 2.3% or even 3.9% will probably get lost in the noise. People won’t notice.
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I am gradually becoming aware of Rebecca Solnit, whose posts I now see on Facebook. She’s a writer of a couple dozen books; Wikipedia says “She has written on a variety of subjects, including feminism, the environment, politics, place, and art.”
She’s just started a new newsletter at Meditations in an Emergency (not at Substack, for what that’s worth).
She was interviewed on KQED’s Forum this morning: Rebecca Solnit on Approaching These Times with Hope, Imagination and Perseverance.
I mention this because in the radio interview she discusses her distinction between “isolationists” and “interconnectionists.” And said many profound things. The former aligns with conservatives who think they can live alone and don’t need government. The latter align with those who see the world globally and understand that global problems cannot be solved locally. It’s another perspective on the great divide in the expression of human nature. I’ll check back to see if KQED posts a transcript, and/or figure out which of her many books might discuss this topic.
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Salon, Garrett Owen, 18 Jun 2025: “Devastated and heartbroken”: Trump cuts LGBTQ+ youth services on 988 suicide hotline, subtitled “The Trump administration ends the option for LGBTQ callers to speak with specialists in LGBTQ mental health”
They removed the Press 3 option. Conservatives seems not to mind if gays commit suicide.
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Once again, support for Israel is rooted in Biblical theology — despite any atrocities the modern state of Israel might be committing.
JMG, 18 Jun 2025: GOP Rep: US Must Defend Israel Because “It’s Biblical”
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And this situation rings true.
The Bulwark, Mona Charen, 18 Jun 2025: The Growing Threat of Homegrown Religious Extremism, subtitled “The alleged Minnesota assassin was known as a ‘deeply religious’ Christian man. That should be an alarm bell for all of us.”
Because “deeply religious” means irrational. And deeply tribal, and antagonistic
