Ramping Up

Posted on Saturday 2 November 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

It’s happening right before our eyes.

  • How Trump’s 2020 Playbook is being put into action;
  • Trump simulates oral sex in public;
  • Jonathan M. Katz on what Trump’s team will do following the election;
  • Robert Reich reminds us of 101 terrible things Trump has done;
– – –

NY Times, Jim Rutenberg and Alan Feuer, 2 Nov 2024: Trump, Preparing to Challenge the Results, Puts His 2020 Playbook Into Action, subtitled “Step by step, Donald J. Trump and his allies are following the strategies that caused chaos four years ago. Election officials say they are ready this time.” [gift link]

Former President Donald J. Trump and his allies are rolling out a late-stage campaign strategy that borrows heavily from the subversive playbook he used to challenge his loss four years ago.

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Prothero: WHY LIBERALS WIN THE CULTURE WARS…

Posted on Saturday 2 November 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

(EVEN WHEN THEY LOSE ELECTIONS), subtitled “The Battles That Define America from Jefferson’s Heresies to Gay Marriage”

(HarperOne, Oct 2016, 326pp, including 62p acknowledgements, notes, and index.)

I’ve mentioned this book a few times, the first time even before it was published (in Dec 2014), and I finally sat down to read it closely a few weeks ago. Well, a portion of it closely. The book consists of a framing argument, and five chapters of examples covering over 200 pages. I read the framing argument, and the fifth example, totaling about 100 pages. Much of the framing argument was already there from the video I linked in 2014 (though the link has changed to this.)

The gist of the book, in my own terms, begins with the recognition that change is ongoing and inescapable. (At least since the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the expansion of humanity around the globe that has brought previously isolated groups and cultures into contact with one another and so forced them to learn how to get along. This dovetails with my comments two days ago under the “what does this say about us?” article.)

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Another Trumpy Day

Posted on Friday 1 November 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump imagines Liz Cheney before a firing squad;
  • A history of Trump’s violent remarks;
  • And his “enemies list”;
  • Trumpists’ playbook for trying to overturn the election — check back next week;
  • How Trump appeals to America’s xenophobic history;
  • When leopards tell you they will eat your face, believe them;
  • Another asking of the question, Who are we, America?;
  • Trump doesn’t have the attention span for a coup;
  • And consideration of what will actually happen if Trump wins, with my own predictions.
– – –

The Atlantic, David A. Graham, 1 Nov 2024: Trump Suggests Training Guns on Liz Cheney’s Face, subtitled “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay?”

\

It’s nothing really new.

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And Now We’re Talking about Garbage

Posted on Thursday 31 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

How the mighty have fallen.

  • What does Trump being a narcissistic sociopath say about us? I have some ideas;
  • How another confrontation by a child to her Trump-voting father does not go well;
  • More about Trump’s, and Biden’s, garbage comments;
  • How Trump fans are already planning to contest the election;
  • And how Trump promises to protect women “whether they like it or not.”

Despite the “again” MAGA clearly believes the United States is the greatestest country in the whole world ever, because of Jesus and whatnot, despite all the Democrats, and the press, and the elites on coasts, and Puerto Rico. And despite the Constitution, which they flout at every turn. Cognitive dissonance indeed.

LGBTQNation, Molly Sprayregen, 31 Oct 2024: Donald Trump is a narcissistic sociopath. So what does that say about us?

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And So Here We Are

Posted on Wednesday 30 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump’s closing argument is vulgarity;
  • How Trump is unable to produce evidence of voter fraud; Similarly, how a far-right social media personality is unable to substantiate his calumny against James Carville;
  • Shorter items: How Trump pardons only those loyal to him; how a Christian pastor cherry-picks the Bible; how presidents do not actually control much of the economy; how those who support Trump’s mass deportation aren’t thinking things through; how immigration actually affects the US economy; and how a Christian pastor still believe in demons.
– – –

Washington Post, Editorial Board, 29 Oct 2024: Opinion | Donald Trump’s closing argument: Vulgarity, subtitled “Trump has made politics coarser, and somehow he’s managed to become even cruder in recent days.”

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Appropriate Terminology

Posted on Tuesday 29 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Several good items published today.

  • We’re stuck in the Trump Loop because we can’t accept that sociopaths exist;
  • Steven Pinker with data that says the country is *not* ‘dying’;
  • Another piece about psychological “blind spots” and how to counter them;
  • How Trump is better described, not as a fascist, but as a “demagogue”;
  • How Trump lacks not only empathy, but sorrow;
  • And: I predict the election will be so close that MAGA and Trump will claim Trump’s victory, and bad things will happen, worse than January 6th. I hope I’m wrong.
– – –

Beginning with yet another item about why so many people like Trump.

Slate, Steven Reisner, 29 Oct 2024: The Deep Psychological Reason We’re Stuck in This Feedback Loop With Donald Trump, subtitled “It’s been almost a decade, and yet it continues.”

To cut to the chase, Reisner’s answer is that people don’t realize that sociopaths actually exist, with an example of women who date men who turn out to be sociopaths.

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The Latest Display by the Despicables

Posted on Monday 28 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

You can’t escape it. He keeps topping himself. Items today are all about Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally yesterday. With some concluding thoughts about human nature and that famous William Gibson quote.

CNN, 28 Oct 2024: Trump unveils the most extreme closing argument in modern presidential history, subtitled “His rhetoric ranks among the most flagrant demagoguery by a major figure of any Western nation since World War II”

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Violence as a Public Health Issue, and Media Bias

Posted on Sunday 27 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Two New Yorker pieces today.

I mentioned an article a couple weeks ago about whether violence is a disease (or actually, whether MAGA is a disease like violence is taken to be). Here’s another perspective.

The New Yorker, Michael Luo, 17 Oct 2024: Should Political Violence Be Addressed Like a Threat to Public Health?, subtitled “Treating political violence as a contagion could help safeguard the future of American democracy.”

The essay begins by recalling the filth in mid-19th century New York City streets, and the rash of deaths in car crashes in the 1950s. Both were treated as matters of public health and largely fixed.

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Capitulating: Obeying in Advance

Posted on Saturday 26 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Reactions to the withheld endorsements for president by LAT and WaPo from Robert Reich, Heather Cox Richardson, and John Scalzi;
  • John Kelly’s definition of fascism;
  • How the working class is so concerned about inflation, focusing only on their own personal circumstances;
  • And how this reflects the flaw in human nature that focuses on the local and personal with lack of concern about the big picture.
– – –

 

Robert Reich considers the significance of the withheld presidential endorsements by two big papers.

Robert Reich, 25 Oct 2024: Cowardice and intimidation at The Washington Post and L.A. Times, subtitled “Their billionaire owners are Trump enablers”

He outlines the situation, and ends with the resignation of Mariel Garza, editorials editor of the Washington Post.

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Latest Shenanigans, and Others

Posted on Friday 25 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump: the media are “enemies of the people”;
  • Billionaire owners of LA Times and WaPo refuse to allow their papers to endorse Harris;
  • Trump spells out his facist intentions; NYT says, believe him;
  • Trump offered to pay for a soldier’s funeral, and didn’t; Musk’s and Fox News’ latest lies; Christian Nationalists’ poor education; Republicans no longer support the military; Yes Russia is spreading disinformation; How democracy is threatened by a global crisis in masculinity.

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