- Trump’s basic strategy is “deny deny deny”;
- Why young men turn to Nick Fuentes’ neo-Nazi movement;
- How Trump is dragging the White House press corps, and perhaps all modern civilization, down into his gutter;
- How Trump is reviving rules about immigration based on nationality;
- Short takes on Dan Bongino admitting he has lied for money; and a religious zealot claiming Democrats are full of the devil.
All Trump news can be filtered through one basic strategy, that he admits to.
Salon, Sophia Tesfaye, 4 Dec 2025: Boat strikes: War crime or “fake news” hoax?, subtitle “Even as some Republicans turn on the ghastly Pete Hegseth, right-wing media can’t handle the truth”
Bob Woodward reported in “Fear” that Donald Trump once offered a friend accused of sexual harassment a simple strategy: “You’ve got to deny, deny, deny and push back… if you admit to anything, you’re dead.”
That has since become the ethos of his MAGA movement. Today, anything that threatens Trump’s power, reputation or fragile ego is instantly alchemized into a hoax. “Every scandal you hear about Trump is a media hoax designed to destroy him,” Charlie Kirk told his MAGA audience. Right-wing media simply refuses to tolerate any and all facts that disrupt the narrative ecosystem they’ve built around Trump. And now this machinery of denial is being used to excuse war crimes.
(Which, incidentally, impugns Charlie Kirk, too.) As I said two days ago, everything that counters Trump’s whims is dismissed as a scam or a hoax or a fraud or fake news. A previously admitted strategy (I wrote principle at first but that’s the wrong word): never admit you were wrong, never apologize. As it says now, deny deny deny. And that works for so many people!
The article here goes on to give examples of the many things Trump dismisses as hoaxes. Up to the current issue with Pete Hegseth and the supposed drug-smuggling boats near Venezuela. The piece concludes:
But as his coalition continues to crumble, right-wing media is sticking to the core message: If Trump or his allies do it, it’s good. If the media reports it, it’s fake. If critics object, it’s a hoax.
Theirs is a fantasy world that cannot survive contact with reality forever.
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More on that struggle.
Slate, Molly Olmstead, 5 Dec 2025: Can You Save a Groyper From Himself?, subtitled “Too many young men are turning to Nick Fuentes’ neo-Nazi movement. Their loved ones are fighting to bring them back.”
As I’ve said many times, there are elements of human nature that will always be with us. And as Pinker said, in the notes I just posted today: “Yet these intuitions of community, authority, sacredness, and taboo are part of human nature and will always be with us.” Our modern world has been built by forces that tried to counteract these intuitive, tribal intuitions, else the modern global world would not have become possible. But base human nature is never going away.
The article is about two brothers, one of whom began sending
Instagram memes with medieval Crusader imagery: Reject modernity, embrace tradition.
I’ve noted before that while conservatives claim they want to preserve the best traditions of the past, when you look closely it seems they want to preserve per-Enlightenment values. Base human nature.
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Same theme. He wants to drag all of modern civilization down into his swamp.
Salon, Brian Karem, 5 Dec 2025: Trump is dragging the White House press corps into the gutter, subtitled “I guess the barrage of lies and insults aren’t enough. Now Trump wants the media’s complete submission”
Never forget: Each and every week, Donald Trump gets worse.
His regime is a ladder into a bottomless pit, a place that, as Hunter S. Thompson once said of journalism, is “a cruel and shallow money trench … a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.”
In the latest round of professional malfeasance, the president’s sycophants in the communications office have launched a “Media Bias Portal” on the official White House website. They are encouraging people to give them “tips” when the public believes a member of the press has produced “Fake News.” Naturally, I took the opportunity to fill out the page and offered the White House a tip that its own communication staff is publishing “fake news.” I wonder how long I’ll be waiting for a response.
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The big issue, perhaps, is that the US is retreating from its once global leadership in human rights and science. We are becoming no better than any other nation.
NY Times, guest essay by Amanda Frost (a law professor at the University of Virginia who specializes in immigration law), 5 Dec 2025: We Rejected This Practice 60 Years Ago. We Must Do So Again Today.
Sixty years ago, the United States abolished immigration restrictions based on nationality alone. By 1965, such discrimination had become an embarrassment. In an emotional ceremony by the Statue of Liberty, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared that the legislation he was signing “corrects a cruel and enduring wrong” and makes Americans “truer to ourselves both as a country and as a people.”
Now the Trump administration is reviving nationality-based discrimination. After an Afghan refugee was arrested in the Nov. 26 shooting of two National Guard members, the Trump administration “indefinitely” stopped processing immigration-related applications for all Afghans — even those who have lived legally in the United States for years. The administration extended that suspension to immigrants from 18 other countries, including those on the verge of receiving green cards or citizenship. President Trump declared that Somalis are “garbage” on Tuesday, adding that they should “go back to where they came from,” and has threatened to denaturalize citizens. Meanwhile, his administration claims it can classify undocumented 14-year-old Venezuelans as “alien enemies” and deport them without judicial review.
The piece goes on with history, e.g. about the Chinese Exclusion Act, which relied on stereotypes. As Trump does about Somalis. Again, it exhibit a base human nature which is hard to overcome.
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Short takes:
- JMG, 5 Dec 2025 (from Daily Beast): Bongino: “I Was Paid” To Spread Pipe Bomber Lies
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“I was paid in the past for my opinions, that’s clear, and one day I’ll be back in that space,” Bongino declared. “But that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”
- He admits that he lied.
- Right Wing Watch, Kyle Mantyla, 4 Dec 2025: Mario Murillo Says ‘You Are Full Of The Devil If You Vote For Any Democrat’
- What are the words here? Insane? Religion-addled? There must be some clinical term for someone living in a fantasy world of their own, divorced from reality. It would apply to so many.
