Tag: Trump

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A Tariffic Time Was Had By All — The Art of the Dealt

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

February 3rd 2025

When Donald Trump called me to tell me that if I didn’t give him what he wanted, he was going to slap tariffs on me, I was nonplussed. Weren’t the price of eggs already too high? “Please, Mister Trump,” I begged him. “What do you want, Mister Trump?”

There was a pause. I was sure Donald knew what he wanted when he picked up the phone. But you know, he’s a very important man. Important things to see, important people to do. It gets confusing.

Time to avail myself of an opportunity to fill that void.

“Do whatever you want, but please, please don’t demand I give you Mar-a-Lago. Please. Anything but that!”

“Mar-a-lago, eh?” I heard him give a sly cackle. Clearly, he thought he had be over a barrel. “OK,” he said, “Here’s my offer. I won’t slap tariffs on you if you give me Mar-a-Lago.”

I whimpered convincingly, begging him to spare me. He hung up. I looked at my phone and chuckled.

A few days later, he announced the tariffs on me. He did it on a Friday because nobody watches the news on Friday. I nearly missed it myself.

By Monday morning, the stock market people were talking openly about a market crash. Market people don’t like to talk about crashes, you know. They don’t even like to admit such things exist. Usually if a broker mentions the word ‘crash’ it means he has jumped from the plane, fallen for ten seconds, and just realized he forgot his parachute. Meanwhile, the phrase ‘trade war,’ one hated by nearly all businessmen, was being bandied about. The whole world, it seemed, was mad at Donald.

He gave me a call. “This is your last chance. Agree to giving me Mar-a-Lago and I’ll consider dropping the tariffs.”

“Sorry. Can’t do it.” I hung up.

I turned on the stock-ticker channel and watched the meltdown proceed.

The phone rang. “Give me Mar-a-Lago and I’ll drop the tariffs for two weeks.”

“No good. I’ll tariff you right back.” I reminded myself to call the stock ticker channel and make the same threat. Should put the tech stocks in a tailspin.

I watched the cartoon channel. I didn’t mean to. It’s just a bit hard to tell Looney Tunes from Fox News. Ring!

“As you know, I am a top-flight negotiator, and I’ve given this considerable thought. I want to help you here. I’ll suspend tariffs for thirty days, only by the time a month has rolled around, everyone will have forgotten them. In return, you don’t mention tariffs to anyone. You give me Mar-a-Lago, and I’ll give you $3.5 million just to sweeten the deal and make it look legit for the tax people.”

I spent thirty seconds pretending to think about it. I could almost hear him sweating over the phone. I didn’t want to think what that smelled like.

“Donald, I think we have a deal. You truly are the world’s greatest deal-maker. I tell you this, sir, with tears in my eyes.”

I wondered if any of his flunkies would work up the nerve to tell him he already owned Mar-a-Lago and I had just sold him his own property to defuse a threat he wasn’t prepared to carry out.

The money arrived the next day in the form of a bearer bond. Which was good—I wouldn’t trust a check from that guy.

Pretty good day’s work, really. Think I’ll call him tomorrow and tell him all the people at OANN are secretly woke.

But first, call Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Presidente Claudia Sheinbaum. Tell them that if they want to avoid a trade war, they should tell him their respective countries won’t swap places on the map, and that Mexico might be willing to sell him Alaska while Canada might sell him Texas.

Just my little contribution to world peace, that.

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Solstice 2024 — Expiry dates and the Cassandra Effect

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

December 21st, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

www.zeppjamiesonfiction.online

Science may not have a hard-and-fast rule that stipulates when hominids became truly human, but if it was up to me, I would say it was the first a hominid raised his fists in the air and shouted, “We are all DOOMED!” Now, granted, science may find that a bit unhelpful, since nobody can say when the first doom-shouter arose, but they have been an inextricable part of humanity since it became overcooked apes.

“The end is nigh” may be a popular pastime with us somewhat-evolved monkeys, and the real allure lies in the fact that if you shout it long enough, you’ll eventually be right. All things end. Look upon my works and despair. We are but mortal. Even the Universe has an expiry date.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with doom-shouting, of course. Oh, you won’t get invited to many parties and your kids will tell you the music in your day was also crap, but often such shouts warn of clear, present, and avoidable dangers. Things such as overpopulation, climate change, nuclear proliferation and pandemics are very real and even existential threats.

One drawback to doom-shouting is that the shouter will encounter the Cassandra effect. Cassandra was an ancient Greek soothsayer who was always right, but cursed because nobody ever believed her. Part of it is because most people are at least mildly optimistic. There are the incurable Panglossians, (aka “idiots”) who see everything through rose-coloured lenses, and the deterministic optimists (my group) who acknowledge the dangers and threats but think we can work our way through them. We’re also idiots, but a good deal less starry-eyed about it.

Most doom shouters are full of crap, of course. Humanity did not end because of cats, communists, Elvis, or rap music. Religious texts are big on “End of Days,” leading to endless trouble because of nitwits who interpret it to mean it is Divine Will they bring about the End of Days, but those texts are uniformly a load of crap, too. Too many people believe if you pile bullshit high enough, it becomes worthy of worship. Another sign of humanity, I suppose.

Which brings us to the here-and-now. America has willingly swallowed poison, and we’re all waiting to see if it was a lethal dose, or if America will end up puking it up and feeling really bad for a long time after.

For those of us currently living in the US who aren’t part of the One Percent, we’re in for hard times. There’s a very real possibility that America as we know it won’t exist by Solstice 2025. Class-based coups are always ugly, and those staged by the aristocracy tend to be even crueler and bloodier, and often throw the host nation into third-world poverty. And that, in a nutshell, is what has happened in America.

My brand of optimism doesn’t believe that the course of human events is on an inevitably downward path. If that were true, I believe history would have come to a close at the gates of Auschwitz.
No human force is truly inexorable, no matter how powerful it seems. The USSR was one of the most brutal and pervasive regimes in history, but when the government lost even the passive consensual support of the people, it collapsed relatively bloodlessly in a matter of weeks. It wasn’t a one-off. Ask Assad—his mail is being forwarded to Moscow now.

Our would-be masters, no matter how arrogant or brutal, absolutely depend upon our support. Without it, they will fall. Remember that. A national strike and millions in the streets peacefully protesting, can end them. It’s up to us. It is always up to us. Be prepared to resist.

How will the world do? We seem to be undergoing a world-wide convulsion and shifting, one that seems to happen every ninety years or so (the 1930s, the 1840s, the 1760s). Each brought about strife, loss, and bloodshed, but in the end the overall lot of humanity improved. That’s important to remember—the next decade might be fairly crappy, but history suggests a better life for the survivors.

The existential threats I mention above will still be with us. They are, after all, reiterations of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Nothing new under our sun. And while its possible that one or more of them may raise up to decimate us, I doubt any will end us. For all that we seem hell-bent on self-obliteration, there’s always some sort of built-in override that causes enough of us to dig in our heels and save us from ourselves. Overall, pollution isn’t as bad as it was fifty years ago. A lower percentage of people died in warfare in the 20th century than in any century going back to the 14th century. (Admittedly, those are low bars.)

We’ve managed to live under the nuclear threat for eighty years now. We aren’t likely to see a pandemic that will kill off a third of us like the one in the 17th century. Over-population was seen as an intractable and inevitable doom fifty years ago. But our birthrate is declining world wide. (Due, in part, to the aforementioned pollution. Details, details.)

Even climate change may encounter built-in natural governors of the sort that prevented Earth in the past from becoming another Venus, or allowed it to come back at least three times from a state of “Snowball Earth.”

How will we fare? Um, well, let’s just say the Earth is considerably more durable than we are. But existential threats mean existential reckonings. We may yet find ways to avoid the worst of the consequences we’ve laid out for ourselves.

I believe, and will always believe, that we will somehow muddle through, and even prevail.

Why would we persevere, if not for the fact that most of us believe that?

It’s Winter Solstice 2024.

The wolf didn’t eat the sun. It will return.

Don’t lose hope. Never lose hope.

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“Medals for Everyone!” — A guide to understanding Trumpenstein II

“Medals for Everyone!”

A guide to understanding Trumpenstein II

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 17th 2024

If you haven’t seen the 1933 Marx Brothers classic “Duck Soup,” now might be a good time to do so. Raucous and absurd, it’s also a fairly handy guide to what Americans might expect over this coming year.

In the movie, a rich plutocrat (Gloria Teasdale, played by Margaret Dumont) with more money than common sense makes the nation of Freedonia an offer it can’t refuse. $20 million in US dollars (worth nearly $500 million today) but there’s a catch: she gets to appoint the next leader of Freedonia. She has someone in particular in mind: Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx).

Rufus is erratic, egotistical verging on monomaniacal, impetuous and basically a force of chaos. Without the intervention of moronic money, he would never have gotten within a time zone of the levers of power.

Freedonia falls into corrupt paralysis and eventually ends up at war with its neighboring country. Freedonia collapses, and the enemy troops find Rufus and his rich sponsor, toss them in stocks and pelt them with fruit.

This being a Marx brothers movie and not the country you grew up in, it’s all very hilarious.

Thanks in large part to the power of propaganda, a majority of American voters felt liberated to be complete, vicious, selfish shits and elect a hateful nut as President. If you think of the coalition of plutocrats and corporations that promoted this (the National Association of Zealots and Ideologues, and yes, I’m going to keep right on calling them that until they throw me in the camps) as the Teasdale coalition, and Donald J. Trump as Rufus T. Firefly, then suddenly Duck Soup stops looking like an amusing, if dated parody and instead, becomes our future.

I won’t bother discussing the start of our new era. The headlines speak for themselves. Not only is it as bad a start as we can imagine, but it’s a worse start than we could imagine. Andy Borowitz caught the spirit of this new world order with a picture of Matt Gaetz and the caption: “Maybe this is what QAnon meant when they talked about bringing pedophiles to Justice.”

Our only real hope is that the new regime, like that of Rufus T. Firefly’s, will be so corrupt and incompetent that it will simply collapse before it has a chance to utterly destroy the nation. What such a collapse might entail I can’t really imagine. But it has already begun.

We’re already hearing reports of a incandescently angry Trump screaming at aides over leaks, mostly because the leaks tend to be true. We’re seeing flat-out lies already, and repression is rapidly spreading. I know that for some time the earth sciences have been moving data and access to data out of the country, a stream that has become a flood since the 5th of November. I imagine a lot of other disciplines that fall under the tent of “woke” or “bad for business” or which contradicts holy script are all doing the same thing. We’re not going to get out of this without falling into a mini-dark age at the very least.

Fortunately, most of the world’s library is on-line and safely abroad. They can ban all the books they want, but as long as people can log on overseas (magic words: Tor Browser and a virtual private network) access to knowledge and wisdom will remain.

Another reason to believe that the age of Trump might be short-lived: his policies (tariffs, deconstruction of nearly the entire federal government, deporting nearly half of the agricultural labor force) are going to be catastrophic for the economy, and no matter how much his regime tries to hide it, the same plutocrats who made Trump possible (the top ten richest Americans added $68 billion to their wealth in the DAY after Trump as elected) are going to start seeing immense losses.

Social unrest will probably rise to levels unseen since 1933. Trump wants to respond to protest violently, which is the surest path to cause discontent to blaze into full rebellion. Trump and his motley crew are probably too arrogant and too stupid to realize it, but they are creating what will become a social tsunami. It won’t be pretty.

And remember: Trump already has dementia, and is in terrible physical condition. He personally will not last, and knowing his management style, his death will create a bloodbath in every organization he heads, including the United States.

The next few years are not going to be pretty. I haven’t even discussed what America’s abdication from the world stage is going to mean, except that under the very best possible scenarios, America will no longer be the strongest nation in the world. It may not even be in the top ten.

But hang in there. History shows that things like this don’t last long unless folk like you give up. Be prepared to resist.

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Walzing to a Win — Vance dance slick, but hobbled by Trumpentruths

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

October 1st, 2024

On the surface, tonight’s vice-presidential debates harkened back to debates prior to the Trump era. Both candidates were articulate, reasonable-sounding, and civil. If you stripped the content of the debate of all context, they seemed evenly matched. Give Vance credit: he came across as human, a feature he has struggled with since he was nominated.

But he was badly crippled by the fact that he had to present the general lunacy of Trumpentruths. Thus, he had to spout utter absurdities as “Trump saved the ACA” Really? Nobody remembers Trump’s campaign to repeal it, a drive that was stymied in the final minute by a dramatic midnight thumbs-down gesture by a dying John McCain? Walz, thinking fast, immediately brought up that seven years later, Trump only has a “concept of a plan” to deal with health care.

He had to mirror Trump’s waffling on the issue of bodily autonomy. So he had to simultaneously pretend that Trump ended abortion while saying that the public wanted the states to determine a woman’s right to abortion. Walz parried it beautifully, noting that fundamental rights should not be subject to geography. It was the perfect response to the GOP pretense that it’s a states’ rights issue: the constitution supersedes states in the matter of establishing rights, and no state may suborn a national civil right.

On health care, in addition to the ACA blunder, Vance tried to argue that costs of health care needed to be distributed, and not the sole domain of government. He managed to say it in such a way that he wasn’t saying people should depend on churches for health care.

Vance had to evade answering the yes-no-no question, “Is the climate changing?” His response went, “One of the things that I’ve noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions, this idea that carbon emissions drives all the climate change … let’s just say that’s true, just for the sake of argument.” He fluffed the question, saying that the all-powerful Harris should have reduced pollution by bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US, saying (falsely) that the US has the cleanest economy in the world. He claimed, again falsely, that solar panels are all made in China, although when pressed, he muttered that the parts that go into solar panels were made there. Under Biden, of course, manufacturing jobs have been returning to the US (Harris may have supported him, doubtlessly did, but vice presidents don’t have any particular authority on this). He tried saying that Trump did not consider climate change despite the fact that Trump is on record, repeatedly, for making that very claim.

Vance had to bash immigrants since that’s the centerpiece of Trump’s Naziesque hate campaign. He tried blaming immigrants for the high cost of housing, but had to back off when Walz noted that immigration was dropping. I would have noted that few immigrants are financially able to buy a home.

Confronted with the fruits of his hate campaign against Springfield, Ohio, he tried saying that the only reason they were there was because Harris (apparently the most powerful vice president in history) let them in under a special refugee law. They did in fact enter under such a law—one signed by Donald Trump. Oh, and at the invitation of Springfield, which needed labor.

Finally, and this was where Vance successfully knocked himself out, he tried the pretense that Trump did not want to overturn the 2020 election, and wanted only a peaceful protest at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. He couldn’t handle the question that he had stated that if he had been vice president instead of Mike Pence, he would have rejected the electoral vote citing “questions” and thrown it to Congress. (In the event of a legitimate tie in the electoral college, Congress could vote on who won. And it isn’t a straight up-and-down vote: each state gets one vote, and in 2021, the outgoing Congress had a majority representation in 27 states. They might have overturned the election had Mike Pence not done his job.)

A lot of people have said that Trump made a poor choice when he selected JD Vance as his running mate. But watching him squirm and battle to toe the party line, the absurd Trumpentruths that have turned the GOP into an anti-American and savage cult, I think it wasn’t Trump who made the bad choice for a running mate. It was JD Vance who made the poor choice for a running mate.

Vice Presidential debates rarely shift votes, and it’s unlikely this one did. Walz won, both on presentation and debate points. It wasn’t the utter carnage of the first two presidential debates, and won’t get a lot of attention.

But watching Vance, and how slick and mentally agile he was, I realized how fantastically dangerous this soulless man would be if he elects to run in 2028, armed with his own Trumpentruths.

 

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Helene of Tories — Trump stumps sump dump

Helene of Tories

Trump stumps sump dump

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 30th 2024

We’re with you all the way, and if we were there, we’d be helping you,” Trump said. “You’ll be okay.”

He said that the day after Hurricane Helene, by then a tropical depression, had finished wreaking havoc over a quarter of the United States and was coming to a wet fizzley end clear up in Ontario. Helene, as forecast, was a major disaster. The known death toll is mercifully low (91 so far) but the damage will be in the tens of billions of dollars. Many parts of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee were flooded, dozens of roads and freeways washed out, and at least several dams failed.

When I first heard Trump’s latest burst of idiocy, I remembered how he famously “was there to help” in the wake of Hurricane Maria in San Yuan, Puerto Rico in 2017. He tossed paper towels to a group of survivors, an action on a par with dropping packets of chewing gun over an area suffering from famine. The BBC reported it this way: “Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz described his televised meeting with officials as a ‘PR, 17-minute meeting’. The sight of him throwing paper towels to people in the crowd was ‘terrible and abominable’, she added. Mr Trump tweeted it had been a ‘great day’ in Puerto Rico.”

He no doubt would have consoled the people hit by Helene with $10 coupons to use to buy his $500 watches. Trump, after all, is the grift that keeps on grifting.

Trump and the Republicans had waved away reports that Helene was going to be a monster. Part of it stems from their insistence that global warming is just a myth spread by liberals and communists to destroy American capitalism. Part of it is their libertarian fascist drive to convince people that government agencies such as the National Weather Service and NOAA (which runs the vital National Hurricane Center) are just propaganda organs for the left and serve no useful purpose.

As the damage became clear, Trump backtracked in his usual awkward and shameless way, saying, on Sunday, that the storm as “a big monster hurricane” that had “hit a lot harder than anyone even thought possible.” (Anyone except NWS, every reputable meteorologist in the country, and pretty much everyone with enough weather knowledge to know what ‘bombogenesis’ means.)

He criticized Harris for attending weekend “fundraising events with her radical left lunatic donors” in California while the storm hit. “She ought to be down in the area where she should be,” Trump said. I didn’t notice Trump going down there during the storm, did you? In fact, he decided Mar-A-Lago was uncomfortably close to the storm (it wasn’t) and watched from a safe distance—New York.

Per ABC News, “The White House said Harris would visit impacted areas ‘as soon as it is possible without disrupting emergency response operations.’ She also spoke with Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and she received a briefing from Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell while she was traveling.

Trump, of course, can’t be arsed with waiting until emergency response operations have ended and things shift to recovery mode. He’s going to Valdosta Georgia today to swan around. While the water supply is now safe, Valdosta is still under an emergency curfew, much of the town is still flooded, and in addition to the 17 known dead, many more are still missing. He’s going to have his security detail shut down several blocks so he can pose, even as city authorities are begging people, “Text. Don’t Call: Texting leaves lines open for emergencies.” I’m sure he’ll be a big help.

No doubt, Trump will blame Harris for the damage. You know he will. I’ll bet the mortgage he will. As far as he’s concerned, any crisis must be used to blame Harris, real or conjured, natural or caused by Republicans. In Trump World, no crisis should go to waste, and the more dead Americans he can blame on Democrats, the better.

Remember, too that under Project 2025, the Republicans want to eliminate FEMA.

But since FEMA hasn’t yet been removed as part of the GOP’s Ayn Rand’s hellscape America, it’s still massively useful. If you want to help people in the affected areas, go here: https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20240928/how-help-after-hurricane-helene

And if you’re a Trump supporter, stay true to your principles and send rolls of paper towels.

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Trump On The Ladies — Girls, he’ll show you how to be women

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 25th, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

From CNN today:

“I always thought women liked me. I never thought I had a problem. But the fake news keeps saying women don’t like me,” Trump said in Indiana, Pennsylvania. “I don’t believe it.”

The former president claimed women are “less safe,” “much poorer” and are “less healthy” now compared to when he was president and vowed to end what he described as their “national nightmare.”

“Because I am your protector. I want to be your protector. As president, I have to be your protector. I hope you don’t make too much of it. I hope the fake news doesn’t go, ‘Oh he wants to be their protector.’ Well, I am. As president, I have to be your protector,” Trump said.

Women, he added, “will be happy, healthy, confident and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion.”

Well, now, can you little darlings all just calm down now? Uncle Donald is here to protect you from the emotional and hysterical weight of being women, and is going to take care of you all just like your daddies did.

And stop fussing about abortion, for Pete’s sake. Half of you won’t have kids anyway, being over fifty, or under 10, or, you know, ugly. Especially you libbers. Never was such a pack of hairy, ugly wimmin like that. Donald’s gonna get you into the beauty parlor, get you fixed up, make you feel worth while as human beings.

OK. I get accused of having a sick sense of humor. And yeah, that’s true. That gets me in more trouble then just about any other facet of my generally lamentable character.

But in this Age of Trump, there’s a problem with having a sick sense of humor. Events have a way of topping even my darkest comic imaginings.

Trump says he will make women happy, healthy, confident and free. Whew! That’s genius, I couldn’t match that. Andy Kaufman couldn’t match it. Sam Kinnison couldn’t match it. George Carlin would be gobsmacked. I read that, and concluded that either I took far too many drugs in the seventies, or I didn’t take enough.

Even by the standards of Trump and the GOP, this is grotesque. Trump the rapist. Trump the serial adulterer. Trump, the bozo who delighted in humiliating his first wife with his much publicized affair with Marla Maples. Trump, who packed the Supreme Court with religious fascists and crowed loudly when they rescinded a woman’s right to an abortion. Trump, who boasted about being able to “grab them by the pussy.” Trump, who smears and insults nearly any woman who dares challenge him, whether as a political opponent or a reporter asking questions.

As gaslighting goes, it’s unparalleled in its sheer brazenness and scope. Of course, for Trump, it’s just another Monday. At other times, he’s proclaimed himself the great white hope for African Americans, saying he did more for them than any president including Abraham Lincoln. His top example of black people who support him is a howling nut who proclaimed himself “a Black NAZI” and referred to MLK Jr. as “Martin Lucifer Coon.”

Nobody stands for science more than Trump, you know. He had an uncle who attended MIT. Take that, Neil Degrasse Tyson! So when he talks about windmills causing cancer, sharks electrocuting boaters, and climate change being a hoax by AOC to force us all to live in caves, why, he’s speaking as the world’s greatest authority on African Americans, women, sharks, and pets who get eaten. Or something. It’s scientifical, you know.

I imagine that next he’ll address his expertise and compassion for the lives of Asian-Americans and point out he saw all the Charlie Chan movies as a kid.

It’s getting harder to tell how much of this stuff is dementia, and how much is just the same snake-oil bullshit that’s floated Trump through his entire wastrel life. But in the end, that doesn’t matter: Either way, he is totally unfit for office. If he was your grandad, you would be taking away his car keys by now, and keeping a discreet eye on his debit card purchases.

And if you still support Trump at this point, there is something very, very wrong with you.

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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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“I Hate Taylor Swift” — Don Coyote tilts at windmills

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 15th 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” – posted on Truth Social by you know who.

There are several things about Taylor Swift that Donald Trump failed to notice. She’s richer than him. She’s more popular. Her fan base is more committed. She’s better looking. And she’s a lot smarter.

So sure, Donnie, pick a fight with her. What could go wrong?

Taylor Swift was always pretty apolitical up until this year. I won’t speculate on what her private thoughts on this are except to note that she seems quite sane, which pretty much guarantees that she would take a dim view of our Donald. But just guessing, I would reckon the final straw was when Donald reposted a fake meme claiming that Taylor Swift had endorsed him. That’s damn near defamation, and I would want to set the record straight right away if I was her.

A lot of Donald’s followers are over-the-top assholes, like the person who made up the fake meme, but Donald is just big enough a fool to think that these crazy morons are working to do what’s best for Donald. You just have to look at his inner circle—Laura Loomer, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Chris LaCivita, Steven Miller…to know that these are not “the best people.” Even supporters like Ann Coulter and Marjorie Taylor-Greene are backing away in disgust now. It takes some doing to disgust Coulter and MTG, you know?

I’m guessing he’ll go right on attacking Taylor Swift because it’s perfectly normal for a presidential candidate to attack people for supporting the other candidate, right?

Horrible to say, I’m almost certain Swift is already getting bomb threats from Donald’s gestapitos already. Springfield, Ohio hospitals, the city hall, and police have been getting bomb threats for having the temerity to say there’s no evidence that any residents in that town have been eating anyones’ pets.

I had one Trumpkin on Facebook accuse me of “making democrat spin” for stating that inflation had come to an effective halt over the past three months and manufacturing jobs were on the rise. I asked him to identify anything I said that was untrue, but then added: “First let me know if you think immigrants are eating people’s pets in Springfield. I want to know if I’m wasting my time or not.”

Granted, when I respond with facts and figures, usually I just get something along the lines of “No! You’re lying!” and then I never hear from them again. So I probably won’t hear back anyway. But I’m mindful of the dictum attributed to Mark Twain: “Never argue with a fool. People might not be able to tell the difference.” Robert Heinlein said something along the lines of “Never get in a mud-slinging contest with a pig. You just get dirty and the pig enjoys it.”

The latest “eaten cats in Springfield” moral panic is part of a list of red flags that cause me to turn around and walk away from a fool. “Litter boxes in school bathrooms” is another, along with “The election was stolen” and “People have always loved Trump.” Some opinions are so incredibly stupid it’s an utter waste of time to argue them.

This is the Age of Trump where no conspiracy theory is too absurd, no lie too egregious, and no pandering to utter morons more obvious. Donald had been hooting that he WON the debate, and of course his followers are chanting it. Yeah, he won the debate in much the same way that Cumberland beat Georgia Tech (look it up). And the conspiracy theories immediately began: Harris was given the questions in advance, she had an ear device for answers from her aides, a special camera lens made Trump look older and Harris younger.

And of course, Harris did cheat, you know. Unbeknownst to Trump, she sneaked the following qualities to the podium: intelligence, experience, wit, wisdom and assertiveness. If she hadn’t brought those advantages along, she would have…well, broken even with Trump. Yeah, let’s put it that way.

She baited Trump, of course, most notably with the remark that people were leaving his rallies. Trump’s monkeys think that’s unfair. It’s nobody’s business if a future President of the United States is easily thrown off his game and manipulated. Besides, all of democracy’s enemies—Putin, Xi, Kim Jong Un, Victor Orbán and Modi—all love Trump, and would never take advantage of him, right?

Republicans Against Trump is growing into a significant segment of the Republican electorate, with some of the strongest voices against Trump coming from the politically conservative portion. While some will support Harris, most will simply not vote for Trump, and it’s important to remember that while they are our allies against Trump, they still have their own agenda. They’ll still be voting down ticket for Republicans who aren’t Trump stooges, so don’t make the mistake of believing Harris’ increasing lead in the polls translates to a blue wave.

Although even there, Trump is doing the GOP real harm. He’s gleefully accepting huge donations for his PACs from every vicious fascist plutocrat in the country (but noticeably, not from business leaders!), but he’s not sharing the wealth down-ticket. Quite a few GOP state parties, especially in swing states, are dying on the vine from lack of funding. Yes, even in states where childless cat ladies and Swifties don’t dominate, and the landscape is studded with morons who believe [whichever] immigrant group eats pets and/or drinks the blood of Christian babies.

Some day, America will look back on the Age of Trump with pity and disgust. But we aren’t there yet.

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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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Home Stretch — Putting on the afterburners

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

August 26th 2024

David McAfee at Raw Story noticed a seminal remark posted by Adam Kinzinger, former Republican Congressman that utterly captures the deep change in the political landscape that we’ve seen over the past six weeks or so.

“‘Something happened at the DNC that will be written about for years.” the ex-lawmaker said. ‘Donald Trump has given up traditional Republican ground, and the Democrats and Kamala snatched it up. Trump gave up being the defense candidate by becoming weak and panicked, and embracing Russia.’

“Kinzinger went on to say that that Harris ‘said she wants to make the most lethal military ever and stand up to dictators. Trump gave up being the proud American party. They hate America which is obvious to all but the most loyal MAGA. Kamala showed her pride in the country AS IT IS TODAY, not pining for the 1950s. Trump gave up being the border hawk. While this will take time to recognize, I believe cracks have started. Kamala reminded everyone that Trump tanked the hawkish border bill, and committed to signing it (in front of a loudly cheering crowd).

‘Trump ceded the ground of opportunity and vision. His constant whining and focus on the past. Kamala showed a forward looking vision. Trump gave up law and order. Not just on Jan 6, but attacking The FBI, questioning the CIA, and calling for violence. And now an awards ceremony for Jan 6 criminals. Kamala showed appreciation for police and stressed her role as a prosecutor. The Dems are now on their way to being the Patriotic, USA chanting, America loving party, and the Republicans look like the bitter old men who are angry that the country is vibrant and dynamic.;”

I had noticed that even with the joy and inclusiveness and cheers, a lot of what Democrats had to say reminded me of some of the speeches we would hear at RNC conventions in 2004 or 2008. It was an era where Republicans hadn’t embraced meanness, cruelty, exclusiveness and bigotry as their standards.

The horrific thing is that this is about all that the GOP have remaining. They’ve lost all the “issues” they hoped to run on: Biden’s age, the economy, inflation, national pride, abortion, crime. Everything improved under Biden except his age. And most Republicans are coming to realize that the golden apple of tearing down Roe v. Wade in fact was a poisoned apple, turning most of the country against them.

My friend Isaac Peterson of the Weasels wrote me, saying, “It doesn’t help matters that Trump is incapable of even giving the appearance of being able to accommodate anybody outside of his base. He just doesn’t give a shit about anybody else and it shows. I still believe his NABJ BS was intended to appeal to them rather than black voters.

“He can’t appeal to anybody else because he doesn’t care about anybody else and his lack of empathy means he just cannot relate to anybody else. Definitely not enough to try to communicate on their (our) terms or to even acknowledge their (our) concerns. His contempt comes through loud and clear.

“His flocks of howler monkeys can’t recognize he doesn’t even actually care about them either.”

If Trump didn’t have enough problems, a fair chunk of his base are furious because he isn’t vicious and fascistic enough. The zealots are mad because he backed away from a pledge to make abortion illegal in all states. The National Association of Zealots and Ideologues are mad because he backed away from their treasured Project 2025. And the bigots are furious because he suggested the US should allow aliens with college degrees in and even give them green cards.

Bad enough that with this lot, Trump gets up with fleas, but they all growl loudly when he tries to brush the fleas off.

As a result, Trump is floundering in a no-mans’-land between MAGA and the rest of America, and he’s bleeding support from both sides.

The DNC and Kamala Harris (her campaign has blue hats emblazoned with “ , la “) came out of the convention with a three point lead nationally over Trump, and small leads in most of the battleground states. The convention “bounce” (which Trump didn’t get) will show up in next week’s polls, and I expect to see her leading by five to seven points, and nearly all of the battleground states. That will fade as the warm glow from the convention dies.

But not fade away. We’re in the final stretch now, ten weeks left, and it’s going to be one furious fight.

There’s already speculation about “October surprises.” Which is shorthand for dirty tricks, and by no means limited to October. The allegations and rumors will get more and more lurid. I already heard one today that had Trump dumping JD Vance as his running mate and selecting Robert Kennedy Junior. That one’s so crazy I suspect it may have come from the Democrats. Trump tried snarling that Tim Walz was only an ASSISTANT coach, and in a brilliant riposte, the Dems replied, “Maybe that’s why he’s running for VICE president.”

I feel disquiet about the flag waving and bellows of “USA! USA!” Pep rally patriotism is a dark lake a thousand miles wide and an inch deep, and can turn toxic with the slightest change in the wind. I’m hoping that once clear of the convention, the flag-waving will subside to thoughtful patriotism.

In the meantime, keep an eye on Joe Biden. Yes, he’s a lame duck, but he IS still the president, and he still has the acumen and abilities that made him the most successful one-term president in American history. He may have an October surprise or two up his sleeve, and it won’t be the sort of nasty ones like sabotaging the Vietnam Paris talks or the hostage release with Iran or the email like we’ve seen in years past. Biden has a “Nuthin’ up my sleeve, Rocky” air about him. He’s up to something. Whatever it is, I suspect we’ll like it.

So. Off to the races. And may the best woman win!

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