Category: History

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The Dark Age — Once again, dear friends…

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 6th 2024

First, I want to apologize to my readers. I really blew it on my forecast on how this election was going to turn out. I’m especially sorry to those who took my forecast in good faith—I’m sure it added to the pain you are feeling now, and I deeply regret that.

I’ve been contemplating overnight and this morning over how I—and others, including the Harris campaign—so totally got it wrong.

I don’t have any real answers and indeed, more questions than I began with. How could such a large number of Hispanics support Trump? He’s made it clear that they are one of his target groups; when he says “illegal immigrants” he’s including Hispanics born here, or naturalized. They’re part of the twenty-two million people he wants to mass deport. He isn’t doing it to “save the economy.” He’s doing it because he’s a bigot, pandering to other bigots.

I don’t understand the self-professed Christians who supported him. He is the antithesis of everything they supposedly stand for.

And most of all, I don’t understand the women who voted for Trump. In seven states, freedom of reproductive choice was on the ballot, and many women in those states voted for reproductive freedom and then went ahead and voted for the man who destroyed that right in the first place!

I underestimated the power of the aggrieved anger that the right wing media—mostly run by plutocrats who wanted to use the mob to destroy the safeguards the constitution has to protect that same mob—and there was one thing I did get right; the economy is extremely strong, but it hasn’t really reached the lower middle class and the poor, even as conditions were beginning to improve.

A friend of mine once told me that revolution and revolt was most likely, not when things were at their bleakest, but when things were starting to improve. He told me that some forty years ago, and a close look at major upheavals throughout history confirms this to be true. Not always, but usually.

I have friends in the scientific community, so I was already aware of an on-going effort to save and secure date In The Event Of. Efforts will be redoubled; some of the incoming administration regard such data as either blasphemous or economically inconvenient.

America is heading for a scientific dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

The Ukraine will be on their own now, along with the states surrounding the genocidal Netanyahu. Trump wants to end NATO, which will give his buddy Putin license to invade much of eastern Europe, and he won’t stop there. The NATO nations need to start gearing up for a war footing NOW. There may be a general war in Europe within two years. The middle east will become a sea of flames, and before his mad reign ends, Netanyahu will have slaughtered millions. Other major nations currently not involved, such as Canada, Japan, India and China—may step in.

America is heading for a geopolitical dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Project 2025 is alive and well, with all its draconian plans. I was compiling data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics today for a Trump-loving client, and it occurred to me to advise him that when this annual task comes due next year, neither I nor the BLS may be around.

America is heading for a governance dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Putting tariffs on most foreign imports and deliberately destroying over half the agricultural production force isn’t going to lower costs or put food on the table. Destroying nearly all federal jobs is going to create a huge labor surplus. States attempting to fill the huge gaps left will have to double, triple, quadruple taxes.

America is heading for an economic dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Trump will pursue his mad aim to encourage profligate use of fossil fuels, dooming the already inadequate efforts to mitigate climate change. The world has already entered a catastrophic zone: America is now a major part of the problem.

America is heading for an environmental dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

With the Department of Education gone, public schools will fall prey to the same people who have already benefited from spreading misinformation, disinformation, and slowing the spread of scientific and historical knowledge. Thousands of books will be banned “for the children” and eventually, movies and other forms of communication. Literacy will fall, both by design and through sheer incompetence.

America is heading for an educational dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Rights will rapidly contract and then vanish altogether. People will be told that the era between 1865 and 2025 was an aberration in American culture, and that life under our caring despots who safeguard our morals and thoughts is what the Founders really intended.

America is heading for a humanitarian dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Here in California, and other deep blue states, talk of secession is mounting rapidly. It may, in the end, be the only way we can protect ourselves from the libertarian and fundamentalist quagmire that Trump plans. It would mean dissolution of America, and/or civil war. A peaceful way back may not be possible.

America is heading for a dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

To the rest of the world: help us where you can, but remember our leaders will be inimical, and this sort of madness can be contagious.

We’re on our own.

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Trump in the Garden — Lice on Ice

Trump in the Garden

Lice on Ice

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

October 28th 2024

Well, that whatever-the-hell-that-was at Madison Square Garden last night boiled everything down to just two possibilities: either Donald Trump completely lost the election, or America completely lost its mind.

I thought that comparing the Trump MSG rally to the 1939 German-American Bund rally was a bit over the top. Yes, I’ve been saying for some time that Trump and his followers are fascists with disturbing amounts of Nazi influence, but I figured that this would be their single biggest audience draw since the convention, and with barely a week left until election day.

And yes, it is unfair to compare the Trump movement to the German-American Bund. The Bund were far more restrained, diplomatic and less bigoted and vile.

The tone was set early, when comedian-in-waiting Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” So what’s the difference between a Puerto Rican and our Tony? Tony sank.

It wasn’t even the low point. It just set the general tone. The other speakers were the same B-listers that have worked so hard to keep audiences entertained while waiting for the always-hours-late Donald Trump: Hulk Hogan, Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, Don Junior and Rudy Giuliani. They all spewed their usual blend of bigotry and lowest-common-denominator demagoguery.

Junior claimed Trump was reclaiming his title of King of New York, which is kind of like the Chicago White Sox claiming they’ll be facing the Dodgers in this year’s World Series. Even before this debacle, Trump couldn’t get 20% of the vote in New York City. They hate him, and have for many years, and for many reasons.

I checked always-dependable Faux News for their take. They had one headline, “Trump supporters outside Madison Square Garden say deep blue New York is in play” (In their world, the Dodgers are playing the Toronto Maple Leafs) with a blurb about how “exhilarated” they were about the rally. I couldn’t help but note that that was from BEFORE the rally. I’m guessing that the ones that made it to the end of that marathon event were feeling…well, deflated.

I’m sure if you want to watch it for yourself, it’s all over You Tube by now. It’s only six hours long, and the Trump speech by itself is only an hour and twenty minutes. If it helps, think of it as cinematic history. No, not Leni Riefenstahl; I was thinking more of the role Alex played in “A Clockwork Orange,” when his eyes were taped open and he was forced to watch disgusting and vile acts of violence and depravity for hours on end while experiencing acute nausea.

Indeed, Trump’s rally makes for a good Ludovico technique of aversion therapy; watching that Trumpenorgy will give you a deep aversion to fascism, nazism, and hopefully ignorance and stupidity. Bit of a shame you won’t be able to watch a Rangers game ever again, though. Well, Alex had to give up Beethoven; the Rangers are no great loss.

The rally should have finished the Trump campaign off. If it didn’t, then it finished America off. The two cannot coexist. If there’s anyone out there who is doing the Olive Oyl bit and can’t decide between Trump and Harris, go to YouTube and watch the rally. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Seriously, if you haven’t made up your mind, watch that rally. If you STILL can’t decide, then maybe voting isn’t for you and you should go back to dithering for three hours each evening over what color socks you should wear in the morning.

Trump is ramping up the bile and nastiness at a time when he should be petting kittens and expressing approval of apple pie and baseball. Maybe kiss a few babies, only watch where you put those lips.

Instead, he’s showing America as the worst that it can be. If there is a floating island of garbage in America, then it took up residence in Madison Square Garden last night. And that island of garbage is sinking rapidly.

Last week I estimated Harris would win by ten million votes nationwide.

After last night’s spectacle, make that twelve million. A lot of people who watched that aren’t going to vote for Trump now.

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The Future History of MAGA — Operation Hummingbird

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

October 22nd 2024

Let’s suppose Trump attains the Presidency next January. It’s not out of the question. At this point, I fully expect Kamala Harris to win by some 10 million votes, but we all know the opinions of the lowly American voters may not be the determining factor, given the groups of eager little fascists who will be counting and certifying the votes, the ignorant morons in Congress who were only stopped last time by Mike Pence, and the five and dime toadies on the courts. Trump may be President again no matter what the American people want.

What Trump wants may also not be a factor. His obvious dementia is worsening by the day, and if he even knows he’s President, he may not be able to rise above the level of Rufus T. Firefly (“Medals for Everyone!”). But the sleek vicious people backing and propping up Trump know exactly what they want, and they are operating on the same game plan that brought Trump this far.

Their position is going to be very precarious. Much of America is going to be shocked, and then angry. Donald’s been threatening to send out the military and the national guard to “deal with” protesters, and I can’t feel certain that they won’t open fire on unarmed American protesters. That almost certainly will not pacify the population.

Some of Donald’s most fervent supporters, the ones in the red caps and flag-bedecked clothes, are going to start fulfilling some of their sick fantasies. They have people they want to round up and deal with. Gays, ‘immigrants’ (pretty much anyone with dark skin or an accent), Blacks, infidels and drag queens will all be at risk. Even though the party line is staunchly pro-Israel, Jews will be on the list.

The Trump cabal know it will be hard enough to quell a popular uprising without the aggravating factor of the MAGAts, who will be proudly noisy and public in the persecution of their perceived enemies. They will be seen as loose cannons, and worse than loose cannons.

We’ve been here before, in history. Just 90 years ago, in fact.

It’s been called the Röhm purge, or Operation Hummingbird, but it’s best known around the world as The Night of the Long Knives.

Adolf Hitler rose to power in part through the street violence, real and implied, of the SA, the Sturmabteilung. This was just a collection of thugs, loonies, stilyagi, and militia types, disaffected, resentful and alienated males who felt dispossessed and deprived and had long lists of villains and “types” to blame for that. Then, as now, they were fertile ground for a demagogue seeking street power. Then, as now, they were more than willing to step into a new role that made them feel empowered and part of something greater than themselves. They would cheerfully loom threateningly at political rallies of opponents, lurk armed near polling places, and just generally give Hitler street muscle.

After he became Chancellor, Hitler quickly realized that the untrained and undisciplined thugs, the Brownshirts, as they were known, would be a massively destabilizing feature of his still-precarious regime. They needed to be brought to heel.

He couldn’t just shoot the lot of them, of course. They numbered in the millions, and people would talk. But Hitler understood that the bellicosity and bluster of those people was mostly for show, and they could be brought to heel.

Hitler had two other paramilitary groups at hand—the Schutzstaffel (SS) under Himmler, and the Gestapo, under Heydrich. Both were better trained, better disciplined, and critically kept a much lower profile during Hitler’s rise to power. They were designed to be his agencies of vengeance, persecution and suppression after he attained power. Eventually, they would be the backbone of Hitler’s “Final Solution” that sent twelve million people to their deaths in his camps.

On the night of June 30, 1934, Hitler had them strike against the Brownshirts. In one of those supreme strokes of irony that only utter despots can come up with, the purge was justified on the grounds that the Brownshirts were agents of a group of immigrants intent on overthrowing the new order—about the only ‘crime’ they weren’t guilty of.

The purge was over by July 3rd, and while the official number of extrajudicial executions was only 85, the number killed is estimated at being between 700 and 1000. While the purge was aimed at the Brownshirts, a large number of other Germans wound up as collateral damage—traditional conservatives, trade unionists, members of the Reichstag, including former Chancellors and cabinet members.

It would be pretty easy to extrapolate current day equivalents, in additions to the red-capped loudmouths who hate libruls and “illegals”; people like Mike Pence, Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Mike Johnson, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Laura Loomer. Yes, some of those are staunch Trump supporters who, once he’s back in office, will no longer be of any use, but would still be loud embarassments, disappointments, and so on. His opponents will go, of course.

Most of the Brownshirts survived the Night, of course. Many wound up in the SS or the Gestapo, a sleeker, darker, disciplined and vicious army designed to kill and terrify. Those less morally and politically nimble wound up in the army, or the camps. In the end, none of them did well in Hitler’s doomed Reich.

So if you’re a member of MAGA, and you are envisioning a bright future where an avuncular Trump beams at you as you kick liberals to death in the streets or rape the daughters of immigrants or cut the beards off rabbis, read your history and ponder this:

After he takes power, Trump (or the people propping him up) is going to look at you. And he isn’t going to see a brave patriot who sacrificed for the cause. He’s going to see an uncontrolled and unkempt loudmouth who already betrayed his country once.

He won’t like you. He won’t trust you.

You might even wind up in the camps before I do.

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He Does Mean It — We know the truth behind Trump’s lies

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

October 14th 2024

The New York Times may not be a particularly good source, because it’s utterly incapable of acknowledging, let alone challenging the threat Donald Trump poses. They cling to a safe and reassuring pretense that this is just a routine election where Democrats favor the middle class and the Republicans favor the upper class. They are incapable of recognizing that one of the candidates is a violent, sociopathic fascist with Hitlerian ideations.

But they aren’t alone in this delusion. Trump supporters, the ones who don’t wholeheartedly embrace his paeans of hatred and revenge and suppression, are telling themselves that Trump doesn’t really mean those things he says.

An article by Shawn McCreesh appeared today titled “The Trump Voters Who Don’t Believe Trump.”

The subheader read: “When the former president endorses violence and proposes using the government to attack his enemies, many of his supporters assume it’s just an act.”

This appeared in today’s…[drumroll]…New York Times. I see it as a sign that even the Old Grey Lady has realized that horse-race coverage of an ordinary political contest just isn’t cutting it.

The opening line reads, “One of the more peculiar aspects of Donald J. Trump’s political appeal is this: A lot of people are happy to vote for him because they simply do not believe he will do many of the things he says he will.” He goes on to list some of the more egregious threats Trump has made, including weaponizing the Justice Department, imprisoning political opponents, purging the entire civil service and replacing it with loyalists who take office swearing loyalty, not to the United States Constitution but to himself. He notes Trump’s blood-curdling threat to have a day of violence, or his cheerful brag that deporting millions of immigrants, documented and undocumented would be “a bloody business.”

None of this is news to anyone who has been following the news. Even the Times has reported on these, and is starting to pay attention to the wilder and more deranged statements Trump has made.

But the heart of the article is this: “Many of his supporters assume it’s just an act.”

We’ve heard that before in history. Less than a century ago, in fact. In 1933 Adolf Hitler got 37% of the vote for Chancellor, and his party, the NAZI party, got a slim majority in the Reichstaag. He was able to leverage that thinnest of wins into one of the most horrific regimes in history.

After the war and Hitler’s suicide, a lot of surviving Germans murmured, “We didn’t think he meant it. We thought it was just an act.” Some of them were doubtlessly just trying to avoid culpability, but a lot were sincere. How else could you explain that Hitler got votes from 3% of German Jews in that 1933 race?

Hitler made no secret of his murderous and psychotic desires. He wanted to rid the world of Jews. He wanted to enslave and decimate “the mud races” to the East and exterminate all Asians. He regarded Americans as a weak and self-indulgent nation of shopkeepers and race-mixers.

But he also had an immense and effective propaganda machine. Historian Robert Wilde has written, “Hitler was able to present an image of himself as a superhuman, even god-like figure. He wasn’t portrayed as a politician, as Germany had had enough of them. Instead, he was seen as above politics.” It’s easy to laugh at the portraits of Trump presented as a superhero (reminding me most unpleasantly of The Boys’ Homelander) or even as a divine figure, Christ-like. But Hitler used the same tactics and imagery to promote himself as a god-savior of his nation.

Wilde goes on to say, “Hitler managed to look like someone who would unite Germany rather than push it to extremes: he was praised for stopping a left-wing revolution by crushing the socialists and communists (first in street fights and elections, then by putting them in camps).” Between “left wing lunatics” and “people with bad genes” Hitler and Trump pounded away at enemies largely of their own devisements.

Critically, there remained one other element that Hitler and Trump used to attain power: they persuaded the power elites, the rich and the industrialists, that he was a true-blue capitalist who would promote industry and weaken the roles of workers and consumers. He would stand tall against communists, socialists, and unionists. So in either iteration, business and the aristocracy supported this mad figure, convinced that once he attained unlimited power, they would be able to control or at least manipulate the erratic figure.

If this all sounds familiar, then you know a bit about history, and you’re realized that I’m not comparing Trump to Hitler just as a cheap and lazy rhetorical device, but because Trump is consciously and deliberately tracing the steps Hitler took to attain power.

You can go to Amazon to find Adolf Hitlers “My New Order” for sale. https://www.amazon.com/Order-Collection-Speeches-Adolph-Hitler/dp/4871879089

The blurb for the book reads: “My New Order has attracted the attention of the press with the rise of Donald Trump as candidate for President of the United States because his first wife Ivana Trump revealed that Donald Trump reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. It can be seen that there are clear similarities between the speeches of Trump and the speeches of Hitler. Here are examples: They repeat themselves constantly, saying the same things over and over again. They never admit they have made a mistake nor do they ever take anything back. To any criticism, they respond by insults and name calling. They use a low form of language, with simple sentences even a person with the lowest level of education or with no education at all can understand. Another contrast is the sheer volume of words. Hitler gave a thousand speeches and spoke millions of words. Hitler communicated almost entirely through his speeches. Hitler’s speeches were long, usually one and a half to two hours long. Trump made one of the longest speeches ever to accept the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States. His speech lasted one hour fifteen minutes. Trump communicates almost entirely through his speeches and through his tweets.”

Sound familiar? It should. Trump is no reader, but he read this one carefully, night after night, according to his then-wife Ivana, now buried on a Trump golf course. Nor does he deny it, justifying the fact that he had the book in the first place by claiming it was given to him by “a Jewish friend.”

My New Order is in effect a explanation by Hitler of how he rose to power. Trump took it to heart.

Stop pretending Trump is a normal candidate who wants to govern. He’s a vicious madman who learned from the ‘best’.

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Fascism versus Nazism — Both are bad; one is worse

Fascism versus Nazism

Both are bad; one is worse

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 21st, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

David Runciman has an article in today’s Guardian that is well worth reading: Is Donald Trump a Fascist? It’s a well written article and gives a balanced and considered analysis of where Trump stands and what he might do under a second term.

There is, however, one problem with Runciman’s analysis: like many politically-oriented writers, he conflates fascism, a fairly common form of government, with its more vicious and rarer offspring: Nazism.

Nazism is a horrific form of government, It meets Runciman’s analysis of why such regimes are rare: “Calling a 21st-century politician a fascist is so damning – so much worse than any other label – because actual fascist regimes are very rare. One reason for that is none of them ever lasted. They were catastrophic failures – catastrophes not only for their friends and enemies but for the wider world – undone by their own appetite for relentless crisis and confrontation.”

True Nazi regimes are short lived, but extremely vicious, usually leading to mass death through wars and systematic exterminations.

Fascism and Nazism aren’t the same thing. Much of Europe has had fascist regimes at one point or another; Franco in Spain, the early days of Mussolini in Italy, Putin in Russia, Salazar in Portugal. Nearly every central and south American country has been under fascism at one point or another, and many still are. Examples are rife in Asia, as well: Modi in India, Suharto in Indonesia, Shah Pahlavi in Iran, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Marcos in the Philippines, Chiang Kai-Shek in China, and so on.

I’m deliberately excluding authoritarian regimes that are either military juntas or religious theocracies. They are their own breed of political creatures, and while they share many characteristics with fascism, neither Trump nor the GOP are on a path that leads to either of those types.

Granted, fascist regimes don’t hesitate to use the military or religion to their ends. Both are valuable instruments of social control, after all.

Back in 2003 Lawrence Britt published The Fourteen Signs of Fascism. Trump and his MAGA movement check every box. Indeed, the right wing of the GOP have done so dating back to the early days of the John Birch Society and McCarthyism

A good bumper sticker definition of fascism is that it is the merging of corporate and/or aristocratic power with the power of the state. Church and the military are subordinate, but nonetheless vital.

So fascist regimes are actually all too common, and some might last for decades. Unlike Nazi regimes.

Like monarchies, theocracies, and military rule, fascist regimes are born with the seeds of their own destruction. They are authoritarian, and thus demand unquestioning obedience from the population. They offer relatively little in return: a promise of stability and a sense of glory, with lots of god- and flag-waving. But authoritarianism is power, and power inevitably corrupts. Most such governments rapidly become kleptocracies. with functionaries standing in front of every door with their palms out, and the justice system designed to protect them becoming more and more capricious and cruel.

No free person with a sane mind wants to live under a fascist regime. Or any authoritarian regime, for that matter. George Washington framed the role of government power perfectly when he said, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence – it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master.” Democracy works because it puts government on a leash.

Yes, a GOP triumph in November would almost certainly bring about a fascist regime with Trump as an ever-more unreliable figurehead. It would be run by the congregation of plutocrats and other power brokers in their panoply of think tanks, corporate empires and suborned media outlets that I refer to as the National Association of Zealots and Ideologues. But while it would be nasty and corrupt, it wouldn’t be the immediate horrorshow that Runciman has in mind when he uses the word “fascist.” My “association” isn’t a true conspiracy; it’s merely a large group of aligned but often competing interests with similar aims. The cohesion stems from marriages of convenience, and once the country is spread out on the table before them, the knives will come out.

Yes, it will be a mess, and unless you happen to be a billionaire or a nimble functionary, you will suffer.

For a true Nazi regime, you need one final element: a Strongman. Trump, for all his personal power and viciousness, has never really been suited to that role, no matter how big his ego. He’s never had the skills needed to assure the fealty and loyalty of people around him, or the discipline and steadfastness to control people under him. And now, he’s a demented shadow of himself.

However, you do need a Leader for a true nightmare regime: a Hitler, a Stalin, a Putin. It’s the element that blends power and control with paranoia and capriciousness.

There may be any number of people in Trump’s ranks willing to audition for the role of strongman, and no doubt dozens who would have the requisite cleverness and savagery to emerge as a truly fearsome leader.

But they would be competing with others both at their level and facing resistance from others in more subordinate levels. And if Trump is still inconveniently alive, they have to keep it totally out of the public eye. (A Trump administration will bring back the grand old Political Science sport of Kremlin Watching).

But a fascist regime, especially one that is fairly rudderless as this one would be, does contain in its brutality and weakness the seeds for a Hitler, and an elevated chance for the rise of such. A GOP win in six weeks would put us all on the cusp of that, at our own expense.

Trump isn’t the real threat: the money and power backing him is the real threat.


David Runciman’s article can be found here.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/21/is-donald-trump-a-fascist

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Harris Brought The Mop — Trump can try claiming he cleaned the floor…

Harris Brought The Mop

Trump can try claiming he cleaned the floor…

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 10th, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

That had to be the most one-sided debate I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been watching debates since 1960.

Kamala Harris took control quite literally in the first seconds by striding across the stage, past the traditional half-way mark right up to Trump’s podium and Trump himself and stuck out her hand for the traditional handshake. A very reluctant Trump returned the shake, his normal physical dominance lost to her assertive pose.

After that, the debate was along the lines of Abraham Lincoln versus a speak-n’spell toy. It was well-known that Trump did little or no debate prep, instead preferring to keep to the salesman’s patter that he uses in lieu of campaign speeches. The result was the same lies, absurdities, and utter lack of focus that has been the hallmark of his efforts to stay out of jail.

Earlier today, I had suggested that Kamala Harris mug for the camera at his responses, and she did, with a devastating effectiveness. She’s a master-class prosecutor, and knows exactly how much a lifted eyebrow or a head tilt can do during defense’s closing argument to sway a jury without getting called out by the judge or opposing lawyer.

Trump did a fantastic job of self-destroying. When challenged by the surprisingly competent moderators on his claim that the world laughed at the US under Biden (and he seemed confused about who he was running against) to name an example, he could only come up with…Victor Orbán. Ouch.

He tried claiming that John McCain voted against continuing the ACA (Obamacare) when it was his very famous thumbs-down at midnight in the Senate that scuttled Trump’s scheme to end it.

He challenged Harris to go to the White House to “fix the border crisis,” saying, “She’s been there for three-and-a-half years. They’ve had three-and-a-half years to fix the border. They’ve had three-and-a-half years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn’t she done it? She should leave right now, go down to that beautiful White House, go to the Capitol, get everyone together and do the things you want to do, but you haven’t done it and you won’t do it because you believe in things that the American people don’t believe in.”

Well, maybe he thought she was Joe Biden, or in Congress, since only Congress can pass bills, and only a President can sign a bill into law. Trump, of course, returned over and over to immigration for purposes of hate mongering. And finally, he went there: the most absurd right wing moral panic since litter boxes in school bathrooms: immigrants in Springfield eating ducks and cats.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats … they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame,” The moderators called him out on that, leaving him sputtering.

He bombed on abortion, first repeating his utterly false claim that nearly everyone wanted Roe V. Wade “returned to the states,” waffled hopelessly on his own stance on abortion, and repeated his favorite blood libel, that women were aborting babies that were already born.

He ranted about NATO, and Harris deftly laid a trap for him, saying that if he was in office, Putin would be in Kiev, eyeing the rest of Europe. Including Poland. Harris sweetly added the 800,000 Polish American voters in Pennsylvania would be interested to hear that.

Meanwhile, Harris was pitch perfect: knowledgeable, unflappable, confident. She dominated Trump from the get-go and never let up. All the shouts and all the lies couldn’t save him. “I have talked to many military leaders, many of whom worked under you, and they say you are a disgrace.” Strong words, and Trump had no response.

“I have to tell you, if it weren’t so dangerous, it reminds you of an old man yelling at the clouds. That was his thing: ‘Get off my yard,’” said Tim Walz, the vice-presidential candidate. Grandpa Simpson was definitely in the house, with Trump repeating himself obsessively and with a total lack of self-awareness.

I will say to Trump supporters that after tonight’s performance, and if you watched it, and you still support Trump, There. Is. Something. Very. Wrong. With. You. No reasonable or fair minded person could support enabling that shambling psychotic ruin of a human being to have the nuclear codes.

Moments after the debate, in an unexpected coda, Taylor Swift posted her unalloyed support for Kamala Harris, pointedly including a photo of herself holding her lovely cat. Swift is childless, of course, and I doubt she’s planning to serve her cat to the local immigrant family.

Now there’s a paragraph I didn’t envision myself writing on any of the previous debates I’ve seen. The wonder of it all.

Still a long way to election night, and many efforts to undermine and defray the vote await us. But tonight, in a no-doubt-about-it way, was Harris’ night. She has a plan. Trump, in his words, “has the concept of a plan.”

Trump utterly disgraced himself.

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Tonight’s Debate — Hero versus Zero

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 10th 2024

Tonight’s debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will probably decide who the next president will be. For Trump fans, there is hope: if he wins, you’ll never have to endure another presidential campaign again. People like Leonard Leo, Elon Musk and Jared Kushner will be deciding your rulers from now on. No more silly elections where weak and foolish nobodies can push the movers and shakers of society around.

That, in a nutshell, is what is at stake here. Do you want to keep your country, or turn it over to people who have no problem with turning Donald Trump loose on you? Plutocrats in Germany faced a similar situation in the early ‘30s. It didn’t end well. Nor would it end well here.

So here’s what Harris needs to do tonight. Don’t attack Trump personally other than to call out his lies. Start the debate by pointing out that every lie Trump tells will be listed and refuted by her campaign the following morning. Every single one. Feel free to needle him: mention his criminal convictions and policy failures.

Second: refute the right wing talking points, rather than Trump’s inevitable lies. The border is not in crisis. Immigrants aren’t creating a crime wave of any sort. Inflation has halted. Unemployment is good. The military is strong. Energy production is the highest it’s ever been, including oil. Oh, and as a personal favor, could you assure people that Canadians aren’t sneaking over the border to eat your cats? I would like to be able to order cat food online without getting a visit from the FBI.

Hammer policies, but don’t drown the viewers in details. There’s only a half dozen that really matter to voters. Tell them that on immigration, you will ask the new Congress to take up the border bill that Trump scuttled. On the economy, talk about jobs. You’re in great shape there. Mention the number of jobs—millions–created by the Inflation Reduction Act. Assure people you will submit a national reproductive freedom act to get the zealots out of our beds. Press for an end to the slaughter in Gaza. Remind people that in a situation very similar to America’s, Netanyahu stays out of prison only for as long as he is conducting his ‘war.’ Let people know that Netanyahu no more represents the spirits and ethics of Israel than Trump does America. Both are criminals willing to sacrifice country for personal gain.

Promise to move forward on global warming. It’s too late to avoid serious damage, but it’s not too late to avoid self-annihilation. Although you’ll probably want to give that a more positive framing.

Point out that much of the GOP leadership of former years have endorsed you, or at the very least refused to endorse Trump. You have people like Liz and Dick Cheney who realize that you are better than Trump. He is not a Republican, he is not a conservative. He is a fascist. Much of the GOP leadership, including a huge swath of Trump’s administration, prefer you to more of him. And no, that is not normal. It’s a sign that every responsible and patriotic conservative, no matter how different their policies, put America ahead of Trump and what he represents. The Guardian just reported that “Anthony Scaramucci, who served as Donald Trump’s White House communications director, and Olivia Troye, who was homeland security adviser to Mike Pence and a top aide on the Trump White House’s coronavirus task force, will speak out against Donald Trump and for Harris ahead of the debate, the campaign said.” Nobody has ever heard of defections like those before, ever. Trump is widely hated within his own party.

Even though your mike will be muted as he speaks, don’t be afraid to mug for the camera. He’s going to say some ridiculous things. Don’t hesitate to laugh, roll your eyes, and make “what-in-the-fuck-is-he-talking-about?” gestures. Don’t make the mistake of taking him seriously. He hasn’t earned it, and never will. Let America know you don’t see him as a worthy opponent, because he is not.

There’s a lot riding on this. You can do it.

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Biden’s Big Night — As Kamala tans the hide of Trump

Biden’s Big Night

As Kamala tans the hide of Trump

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

August 20th 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

Political conventions after the last contested convention in 1980 have tended to be yawn fests, in particular those where the nominee is already the incumbent president. Everyone marvels at the (largely imaginary) accomplishments of the administration, chant ‘four more years,’ dutifully vote, and then go back to the hotel to schmooze and get laid.

And in this century, if something does happen that’s unusual or vivid, I can just go watch the video on YouTube and get caught up.

I’ll often have a convention on the screen but in the background, since there are often people I want to listen to, either because I respect them or I’m at least curious (one young black senate hopeful in 2004 caught my attention, fellow named Barack Obama).

This year I didn’t turn on the GOP cult fest at all, figuring that Trump and his stooges gaslight, lie to and lie about me and everyone else enough as it is, and I don’t need the aggravation. I wasn’t even curious about Vance, figuring (correctly) that he was just a corrupt creep. Even if I had never heard of him before, anyone wanting the job as Trump’s mini-me had to have something seriously wrong with them. I expected a dishonest hatefest, and that’s exactly what they delivered.

With the Democratic convention, I figured to pay attention when Joe Biden spoke. I’d heard the rumors swirling around, mostly from the right, that Biden was forced out of the race very much against his will. Some of the crazier members of the GOP whispered that Biden being ousted was somehow unconstitutional. Like the GOP has any respect for the Constitution.

Certainly the Democratic Party would put on a show, mostly heartfelt, honoring Biden as a revered party elder and an unusually effective president. They wouldn’t have to fake that at all.

I’ve been watching Biden since about 1980, and my take is that he’s a good actor with an excellent poker face (both very nearly prequisites for a political career) but essentially honest. His only real scandal was the plagiarism flap in 1980, and he dealt with that by dropping out of the race and apologizing. At the time I felt it spoke well of the man; he admitted his wrong doing and atoned.

He was too centrist for me politically (a view I still held in 2020) but all in all, a decent man. I supported Sanders in 2020, but had no trouble switching to Biden, especially given the vile alternative.

So my main reason to tune in was to catch the Biden speech.

Somewhat to our surprise, we found ourselves riveted from the opening gavel. The Guardian’s Sam Levin described it thusly: “Speakers from red states gave personal accounts of the impacts of abortion bans. Hadley Duvall, from Kentucky, described how she was raped by her stepfather and became pregnant at age 12: ‘I can’t imagine not having a choice. But today, that’s the reality for many women and girls across the country because of Donald Trump’s abortion bans.’ She noted Trump’s previous remarks calling abortion bans a ‘beautiful thing’: ‘What is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parent’s child?’

“Speakers also repeatedly tied the Trump and the Republican agenda to Project 2025, the roadmap for a second Trump administration crafted by former Trump officials. Mallory McMorrow, a state senator from Michigan, held a copy of the Project 2025 document and assailed the plan to ‘turn Donald Trump into a dictator’. Congressman Jim Clyburn called Project 2025 ‘Jim Crow 2.0’. Biden noted that the project calls for the dismantling of the US department of education.”

David Smith and Kira Lerner reported, “Jamie Raskin, a representative from Maryland who served on the January 6 committee and led Trump’s second impeachment, said reelecting Trump would bring America ‘back to the days of election suppression and violent insurrection’. He suggested making Harris’ victory so large that even Trump and his allies can’t try to steal the election.

“Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky who was a vice-presidential contender, focused his speech on Harris and Tim Walz’ support for reproductive rights. Republican abortion ‘policies give rapists more rights than their victims’, he said. And Senator Raphael Warnock from Georgia spoke about the need to protect democracy, invoking his faith to denounce Trump.

“I saw him holding the Bible, and endorsing a Bible, as if it needed his endorsement. He should try reading it,” Warnock said. ‘It says, do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God. He should try reading it. It says, love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Kamala Harris showed up unexpectedly and said, “Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you will continue to do, we are forever grateful to you. Thank you, Joe!” She wore a tan suit, notoriously a red flag to the professional scandal-mongers of the GOP.

Hilary Clinton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave vivid barn-burner speeches, a women of the party’s recent past passing a torch to a woman of the party’s future and both lavishing praise on the woman of the moment, Kamala Harris.

Then it was Biden time. His daughter, Ashley, took center stage and gave a moving account of the life with her father and expressing her deep pride, leaving the place (including Joe Biden) in tears. Then first lady Doctor Jill Biden, in an amazing silver dress, orated, praising her husband and his work.

Then it was Biden’s turn. He gave the speech of his life! There was nothing of the tired and sick old man who failed to shut down the psychopathic Trump in the debate. He expressed his deep pride in his accomplishments, his faith in Kamala Harris, and his love and respect of country. There was nothing defensive in how he described his record, and his support of Harris was full-throated and enthusiasic. He seems to like the role of honored elder who is stepping back for the good of the country and feels he has left it to capable hands. He blistered the liar Trump and his cultish followers, and told America to vote or lose everything.

He may have needed persuasion to drop out of the race, but he wasn’t forced. He did it, just as he did in 1980, because it was the right thing to do and for the good of the country. It cemented his legacy of being one of the American greats.

Meanwhile, he is still president, and will be until January of next year. He negotiated a complex six way prisoner swap with Russia, and is actively involved in a possible ceasefire in the Gaza genocide, and helping Ukraine’s efforts to drive out the invading Russians. The economy, the best one in over 50 years, is running smoothly, a result of his efforts to rein in predatory capitalists and encourage domestic investment and manufacturing.

I don’t know if Republicans were thinking of digging up that 44 year old scandal about plagiarism. It would be moot now, I suppose. But Trump ruined that approach for them anyway, posting a faked video of Taylor Swift seemingly endorsing Trump. What he hoped to gain from it other than being cruel is a mystery, but it’s a far worse dishonest theft than Biden’s scandal. Swift is probably furious, and her millions of fans are ready to ride Trump out of town on a rail. In a campaign marked by endless stupid and nasty moves, this one of Trump’s hits a new low in the sewer pipes of his mind.

So: the party is united, Joe has been honored and will keep on working, and tonight should be fascinating as hell.”

It’s “Republicans for Harris” night, staring members of the Trump administration and former leaders of Congress.

This will be fun.

 

 

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The Trump Dump — No matter how high you pile garbage, it has a downhill side as well

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 31st, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

It’s truly impossible to describe how bad a month the Trump campaign has had. Oh, I’ll try anyway.

A month ago today, Trump was riding high. He had just had a debate with Joe Biden that by any reasonable metric, Trump lost badly, offering nothing in the way of policy or ideas and just offering the usual melange of lies and smears that seems to be the extent of his campaigning philosophy. But Biden, suffering a cold, faltered badly, and the press declared Trump the winner, more or less by default. The Biden campaign was crippled, and people were declaring it DOA.

As the nation obsessed over Biden’s age and health, Trump went on the road, campaigning vigorously. By mid month, polls were showing him leading in most of the battleground states.

Then on the 13th, he was grazed by a bullet. While the wound was minor, the peril was very real, and the showman Trump had enough presence of mind to strike a heroic pose and shout “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as Secret Service agents tried frantically to get him to safety.

Then on the 15th, the Republicans held their national convention. It was only here the first cracks in what was to prove a catastrophic collapse appeared. First, Trump announced the day before the convention that he had picked JD Vance as his running mate. JD himself, an unlikeable extremist, was a decision that bespoke the high level of Trump’s confidence. He felt no need to reach outside his base. Vance, unnatural offspring of Ted Cruz and Stephen Miller, was red meat for the base. Much of the rest of the country recoiled.

The timing was strange, as well. The VP choice was about the only element of suspense the convention had. Trump could have assured himself of more viewers if he had waited to the end of his acceptance speech to announce that Vance was his running mate.

The speech was the next crack. He promised a speech of unity and moderation, and that lasted about ten minutes. Then it was back to the usual fest of angry lies and sneers.

The public didn’t have time to consider these mistakes before the next windfall came for Trump.

Biden announced on July 21st that he was dropping out, and at first did not announce who he would suggest to succeed him, leaving the possibility of an open convention, a politically disastrous event.

For the first time, I felt Trump, despite everything, could win. Trump clearly felt the same way.

It’s no exaggeration to refer to the rise of the Harris campaign as the Kamala Harris Miracle. Trump had, though complete fault of his own, failed to capitalize on the good will that came from getting shot at, having a convention, naming a young newcomer his VP running mate, and driving his opponent out of the race. At at time when he should have been able to put the race away, he began to lose ground.

It was incremental. He was secretive and sneaky about his medical condition following the shooting, and simultaneously tried to capitalize on it in pure Trump style, with tacky, vastly overpriced pair of sneaks with his “heroic pose” image. His acceptance speech angered his detractors and put his supporters to sleep. Vance quickly proved to be a major political blunder, as some of his statements and flaws came out. Project 2025, basically a Mein Kampf for the 21st century, rose in the public consciousness, and despite Trump’s frantic efforts to rebrand it as Agenda 47 and then disown it altogether, dragged on him. Most of the creators of that manifesto were Trump people, past, present and future.

If he had hoped to drive Biden out in disgrace, it backfired. Biden is being treated (rightly) as an honored elder, and suddenly it’s Trump under scrutiny for his mental and physical (and psychological) fitness.

Stories about Vance, some lurid and some true, spread like wild fire. Trump compulsively babbled nonsense about Hannibal Lecter and sharks. The Harris campaign gleefully framed their race as The Prosecutor versus the Felon.

Today, however, the Trump campaign essentially collapsed. Trump elected to do a press conference / town hall with the National Association of Black Journalists. The moderators made it clear they weren’t going to throw softballs, and Trump just came apart at the seams. He told the crowd he was the best president for African Americans since Abraham Lincoln. He said that Kamala Harris was always “just Indian” and had only in the past two years started pretending to be black. When he repeated his lie about Democrats wanting abortion to be legal even after birth, he got called a liar to his face. It may have been the most disastrous campaign event in US history. Yes, it was that bad.

Then Vance, his creepy VP candidate attacked Simone Biles as “lazy” and “cowardly” on the SAME FUCKING DAY she wins a gold medal for the USA. He was attacking her for being unable to compete in the last Olympics four years ago because of a stress-related breakdown.

Simone Biles is America’s sweetheart and today was her day of redemption. There was never a good time for a sleazy attack like that, but he picked the worst day possible. He should have been filmed setting fire to live kittens in front of the American Nazi Party headquarters. It would have been a better look for him.

And yet, the day wasn’t over. There was one more moment of yin. Trump’s readers on Truth Social should have exploded over this past month  Instead, they’re falling like a rock. Visitors are down by a third from two months ago. He hasn’t just alienated people who hadn’t decided, but he’s now shedding his own true believers.

Trump is dead.

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Trump Got Shot — But his campaign took the wound

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 28th, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

This morning someone asked me if I was disappointed about the Trump assassination attempt. I would like to think he was just asking if I was disappointed because I had looked over the available evidence and concluded that Trump’s ear was in fact grazed by an AR-15 bullet and not, as previously suspected, a shard of glass from a teleprompter. Or he may have been asking if I was disappointed the assassin didn’t succeed. Like many Trump supporters, he has a very grim view of humanity, and likes to take umbrage against offenses, real and imagined. He’s still ranting about the Paris Olympic Opening Ceremonies. Something about Jesus on Mount Olympus, I don’t know.

I replied, “Not really. In fact I was thinking this morning that had Trump been assassinated, he would have quickly been replaced by a young vicious MAGA riding the wings of Trump’s ‘martyrdom.’ Against Joe Biden.

Instead, we have grumpy and deeply flawed weird old Trump up against Kamala Harris, and Trump has turned his own near death experience into a bad joke.”

We’re at a point where Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic candidate (she already has a supermajority of the delegates voting at the convention, so it is a done deal) and even more than the assassination attempt, more than Biden’s withdrawal from the race, this has turned everything upside down. She’s raised over $200 million in small donations in less than a week, and there is an estimated $160 million in Super PACs that have opened their purses for her. Still a hundred days to go before the election, but right now she is the clear front runner.

Trump managed to lose the good will with the general public that normally accrues around a politician who has been shot. Trump’s arrogance and secretiveness is part of that. He and his followers take the stance that the mental and physical health of a presidential candidate is none of the public’s goddamn business, and the public, whose lives depend on the fitness for office of said candidates, begs to differ. That stance began in 1944, when it became clear that Franklin Roosevelt’s ill health had been hidden (one picture that did get out showed that he was a very seriously ill man). Three months into his fourth term, he died of a stroke, leaving a woefully unprepared vice president to (hopefully) rise to the occasion.

Then Eisenhower had his heart attack, and the public looked at his vice president, Richard Nixon, and said, loudly and clearly, “Ike, you gotta level with us from now on.” And that’s been the norm for presidents and serious presidential contenders ever since. Except Trump.

Most of the public sense he’s hiding something because in nearly all circumstances, he is hiding something. His is a slimy trail of grift, corruption, venality and malice stretching back five decades.

Then there was his handling of the assassination attempt itself. Always a showman, he had the presence of mind to strike a rousing and heroic pose in the immediate aftermath (no, he wasn’t in shock, not for a wound that slight. If anything, it probably hadn’t even started to hurt yet). But after that, the usual tawdry venality stepped in. Politicians love to exploit such events to appear heroic and even noble, but the best Trump could manage was another set of tacky sneakers with a picture of his ‘heroic’ pose on them. And his secretiveness, always a danger sign with him. Public admiration ebbed outside of the MAGAsphere.

I wrote in that same conversation this morning, “I’m sure Trump was hoping for that, but he derailed the good will he might have gained, between his secretiveness and his avarice. All kinds of politicians have tried to exploit assassination attempts against them, but Trump is the first to sell tack[y] commemorative sneakers. He really should just move his entire campaign to the Home Shopping Network.”

Trump brayed that he drove Biden out of the race, and while the debate was an obvious factor, I think Biden simply realized that no matter what he did, the public was going to see him as an 82 year old man who wasn’t getting any younger. Time to leave with grace and dignity, and that’s just what he did. Trump’s brays that he drove Joe out fell flat with the public. I’ve said before that Biden will go down as the best one-term president in American history. And he will. His accomplishments are astounding.

Our Trump supporter made one more ploy at trying to garner sympathy for Trump, writing, “I understand it perfectly: Hate. They want to be able to make fun of him. You’ve already seen it. Making fun of the bandage, making fun of him dropping to the ground, making fun of him not holding out door events, questioning whether he was actually hit with a bullet at all… Hate. They want to make fun of him. They want to call him a liar. They want to minimize the attempt on his life. Because of hate.”

I replied, “People have very good reasons to despise Trump. He is, after all, a despicable human being by any metric you care to mention. But rather than feeling sorry for yourself, you should go out and find a better candidate. Like maybe, oh, I don’t know…Kamala Harris? She laughs, she punishes criminals, and she likes kids and cats.”

I’ve seen presidential election campaigns take sharp veers many times before: Nixon’s sabotage of the Peace Talks; the Eagleton affair; Reagan’s secret deal with Iran to keep the hostages until after the election; the Dukakis tank photo; Sarah Palin; the Comey letter. But nothing like this.

But then, we’ve never seen times quite like this before.

Prepare for a tumultuous autumn.

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