- Noting the rallies held today, bigger than those last time;
- Pieces today about how MAGA is entering the ‘acceptance’ stage of death, and how there’s no way to redeem Trump’s dismal second presidency;
- Who are the 100 million people Bovino and Bo French want to deport?
- How the “great man” theory of history might actually apply to Trump, since ‘great men’ aren’t necessarily good, and how progress in the world doesn’t include moral progress;
- Philip Glass’s and Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing.
No, I didn’t attend any of the No Kings rallies today, but that’s because I’ve never attended any kind of protest or rally (I’m just not that kind of person), and now I’m old enough that I wouldn’t be able to be on my feet comfortably, especially in the hot sun, for hours and hours. But I’m following the news. From Fb:
Two pieces today.
AlterNet, Adam Lynch, today: We ‘will lose’: MAGA enters the ‘acceptance’ stage of death
As poll after miserable GOP poll continues to rack Republicans the MAGAsphere has entered a phase of existential dread, tempered with bitterness.
“MAGA will lose the midterms. MAGA will lose 2028,” wailed Bryce M. Lipscomb, a defender of President Donald Trump’s policies, on X. But not without also dropping a parting barb of contempt at his fellow opportunistic MAGA influencers he helped push Trump to victory in 2024.
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Another
The Hill, opinion contributor John Kenneth White, 23 Mar 2026: There’s no way to redeem Trump’s dismal second presidency
The Trump presidency is over. Those words seem harsh and, perhaps, overstated. But Donald Trump is governing without the consent of the governed. Most polls show Trump’s approval hovering around the 40 percent mark. But behind these numbers is a presidency in distress. On handling inflation and the cost of living and immigration — issues that matter to voters — Trump has dismal scores.
In 2024, voters elected Trump to do four things: curb inflation, restore the economic conditions that prevailed before the COVID-19 pandemic, deport individuals living in the U.S. illegally with criminal records and keep the U.S. out of any possible forever wars. He has failed on all counts. His tariffs have raised prices, inflation persists, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is deporting people indiscriminately and Trump has started a war of choice with Iran.
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Also, note how many Republican officials are declining to run again in the mid-terms. That happened in 2018 too; the number is larger now.
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Bovino said this too. Who are these 100 million people? Do they not realize that deporting them would wreck the American economy?
JMG, from Texas Tribune: MAGA Texas Candidate Calls For Deporting 100 Million
Bo French, a Republican candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner, on Friday said Republicans should more openly embrace Islamophobia and called on the U.S. to deport 100 million people, nearly a third of the country’s population.
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“I’m going to say something that’s going to make some people uncomfortable: The problem is, we call it Sharia [law], but the problem is actually Islam,” French said. “If they can infiltrate Texas and conquer Texas, then what’s going to happen? They’re going to be able to control the United States.”
Webmaster Joe reminds us that earlier French called for deporting Native Americans (!), and called Democrats “retarded unmanly homos.” That gives you some idea of this guy’s intellectual and moral maturity.
My take on this story is, of course, that this is about a representative of one fundamentalist religion anxious to deport members of a different fundamentalist religion. Pure tribalism. I still don’t know how he came with 100 million.
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Stepping out. The “great man” theory of history, that supposes major shifts in history were due to single individuals, does not mean that such people were good.
Salon, Mike Lofgren, today: How Trump fits the “great man” theory of history — sort of, subtitled “Is Donald Trump the kind of world-historical figure imagined by Hegel? In an upside-down way, yes”
He begins with this famous quote by H.L. Mencken, which I see I’ve mentioned twice before on this blog.
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
It’s from a book published in 1956.
The article delves deep into Hegel (the ‘great man’ theory was his), and then gives examples of people who’ve felt betrayed by Trump. Here’s a passage that echoes the theme of yesterday’s post:
Trump hates reading, as his spotty education and lack of general knowledge testify. That reflects his profound lack of intellectual curiosity. He attempts to disguise this deficiency with endless boasting about himself and endless denigration of others. He is obsessed with popular media and showbiz and the shabby values they embody. He’s the loudmouthed bore at a social gathering or the mean drunk at the bar who looks you in the eye with a murderous stare and announces that he doesn’t like you. He’s the chickenhawk who carefully avoids military service. He kisses up and kicks down. His awareness of culture expresses itself only in the most godawful kitsch.
Much of this squares with Mencken’s character portrait of the “booboisie,” the unthinking type of American whose numbers seem to have exploded in recent decades…
The writer finishes:
The biggest flaw in the Hegelian viewpoint about supposedly great men is that his entire hypothesis about an unfolding historical process is flat wrong. History is not a world-spirit moving inexorably towards some breezy, sunlit upland of wisdom. Nor, unfortunately, does it reflect Martin Luther King’s hopeful idea that history’s arc ultimately bends towards justice. Nor is it any other teleological scheme, whether it be Marxism or free-market capitalism.
History as we experience it at the sharp end is the aggregation of moral choices made by individual human beings. When those choices become corrupted by fear, resentment or inexcusable stupidity, and then amplified by mass suggestion, we get a creature like Trump, the reflection of a people’s image.
Still, I would say, progress exists, or we would still be living in caves, as the saying goes. But the progress in technology and science and health does not extend to morality, to a core religious fundamentalist base. Humanity will still be stuck with base human nature for the indefinite future.
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It’s true that a lot of Philip Glass’s music sounds the same, and overwhelmingly repetitive, to many people. It’s not true that all of his music is the same, and his gorgeous melodic lines for singers are anything but repetitive. As I step my way through my some 100 Glass CDs, covering operas, symphonies, film scores, and much else, I’m noticing how often some pieces do jump out as being distinctly compelling. I mentioned Monsters of Grace a few posts back. Here’s another striking piece: Book of Longing, a setting of poetry by Leonard Cohen. Here’s the first of five videos of a live performance in London, with Cohen of course, in 2007.
I will note, in passing, that Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is surely the most misunderstood song since Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.. By people who hear the title and don’t listen to the lyrics, rather project the title to whatever they wish it to represent.
