October 13, 2020

Historian Timothy Snyder "Not a Normal Election"

Excellent piece--
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/not-normal-election

During a normal campaign, both candidates take for granted that they will walk free after the election. One will be in the Oval Office; the other will go home. This year is different. One candidate, Donald Trump, knows that, should he not remain in power, he will descend into poverty, go to prison, or both. He can hold the ongoing criminal investigations at bay so long as he is president, but not thereafter. Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars to his creditors and has no visible means to pay them back. As president he can expect his creditors to wait; as a private citizen he cannot.

If someone can maintain wealth and freedom only by holding onto power, that person will fight to hold onto power. Behind the ideologies and the propaganda, this is the core history of tyranny: government becomes the bodyguard of a gangster. Modern authoritarians such as Vladimir Putin have much to say about why they must remain in power, but the real issue is that they wish to die wealthy and in their own beds rather than poor and in prison. In authoritarian countries, the anxiety of the tyrant can be allayed by a promise not to prosecute the leader and his family, and to leave their bank accounts in peace. Because the rule of law still (more or less) prevails in the United States, no one can offer Trump such a deal. He is therefore in a fight for his life; from his point of view, he needs to spend the rest of it in the White House. His predicament might not be obvious to Americans, but people in authoritarian countries see it right away.

(snip)

If we take Trump at his word and begin from the premise that he cannot win the election, then his actions make sense. The plan is not to win the popular (or even the electoral) vote, but rather to stay in power in some other way. We don’t even really have to guess about this, since Trump has spelled it out himself: he will declare victory regardless of what happens, expect state governments to act contrary to vote counts, claim fraud from postal ballots, court chaos from white nationalists (and perhaps the Department of Homeland Security), and expect the Supreme Court to install him. In general, the idea behind these scenarios is to create as much chaos as possible, and then fall back upon personal ruthlessness and an artificial state of emergency to stay in power. If Trump creates a constitutional crisis while his supporters commit acts of violence, the Supreme Court might be intimidated.

In this transition from democracy to authoritarianism, otherwise known as a coup d’état, the actual number of people who vote for Trump matters less than it would in an ordinary election. In this scenario, it matters more how angry they are, and how willing some of them are to endorse extraordinary actions by Trump, or to take such actions themselves. Since he is treating election day as the occasion for a coup, Trump has good reason not to soften his message to reach more voters. In doing so he would risk losing some of the emotion he needs when he tries to stay in power by non-democratic means. He only has to stay within about ten points of Joe Biden to avoid the demoralization that arises when even core supporters realize they have been deceived by their leader and overwhelmed by their fellow citizens at the polls.

Read the rest:
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/not-normal-election

October 11, 2020

Trump's presidency is the biggest corruption scandal in US history

The Swamp That Trump Built

"A businessman-president transplanted favor-seeking in Washington to his family’s hotels and resorts — and earned millions as a gatekeeper to his own administration."

Long, exhaustively researched and detailed piece:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/10/us/trump-properties-swamp.html

This is without a doubt the most blatant and largest case of Presidential corruption in US history. Absolutely sickening. Republicans need to wake the fuck up.

The President's jawdropping corruption exposed by the NYTimes today is really clarifying. It clears away a lot of the fog around this creepy man and just shows he is deeply corrupt-- basically shows he is taking bribes in exchange for granting favors with US government policy decisions. It's OUTRAGEOUS AND CRIMINAL AND HE NEEDS TO GO

October 3, 2020

Tough-- Joe Biden For President

OMG, this is so moving. Biden is highly under-rated as a narrator.

October 1, 2020

For my own sanity, I'm avoiding interviews with undecided voters like the plague.

I ...just... can't...

Why would anyone waste time listening to the views of such malignantly clueless people?

September 28, 2020

Huge Cambridge Analytica scheme to deter the black vote in 2016 uncovered

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1310584937356103686

September 25, 2020

Trump is stealing $7 billion from taxpayers to buy votes

breathtaking corruption
https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1309259096609173510

https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/24/seniors-200-gift-certificates-prescription-drug/

September 21, 2020

Out of Handmaid's Tale, Trump's top SCOTUS pick

😬😬😬
"Amy Coney Barrett reportedly belongs to People of Praise, a group to which members must swear a lifelong loyalty oath."

"Members of the group swear a lifelong oath of loyalty, called a covenant, to one another, and are assigned and are accountable to a personal adviser, called a “head” for men and a “handmaid” for women."

https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/trump-s-leading-pick-to-replace-rbg-believes-husbands-should-rule-over-wives-93462IjaBkKkd-p7tXZVCQ?fbclid=IwAR2fNDdtTIZLXLdd1R_N7pZ7Gv3ixGOFs-JXjx26Fe3N79l7M4dQNvq_7cg

August 30, 2020

How to beat an autocrat--- interesting article with advice how to beat Trump

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-weird-shit-is-rotting-our-democracy

"That’s why those seeking to defeat Trumpism have to turn to an opposition playbook outside of the American paradigm. Yes, there has been no dearth of compelling and cathartic anti-Trump ads. But there is also a real concern that voters are increasingly desensitized to the negativity and need to imagine not just overthrowing Trump but what the future will look like without him.

There is a useful anti-authoritarian playbook to employ, tracking the phrase “Vamos a decir que no… la alegría ya viene” (or “We’re going to say no… happiness is coming”). The “No” campaign to oust Augusto Pinochet in the 1988 Chilean national plebiscite models how to expose the monstrous cruelty of an autocratic regime and then project an uplifting image for happier days ahead.

Their successful television ad campaign, documented in the 2012 film No, was a one-two punch. They first decried the inhumanity of the Pinochet regime—the authoritarian rhetoric, the chilling and killing of the opposition, and the body bags —and then beamed the sunny faces free of Pinochet. The compelling ad campaign helped galvanize a record-setting voter registration campaign and a coalescing of opposition leaders, much like Democrats saw this year in Bernie Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warren’s full-throated support for the Biden-Harris ticket.

The Chilean lesson—as the plebiscite successfully unseated the dictator and set the groundwork for a return to liberal democracy—is clear: On the campaign trail, Democrats must remind the American people that Donald Trump, through his governance, has proven to be the most anti- and un-American president in our history. Biden and Harris should not be afraid to reiterate why he is an exception to American democracy: A president impeached for corruption, and whose continued corruption denied our country protection against the virus.

Then they must embody in these closing days of the campaign what exactly American democracy looks like, that would make America once again move toward a more perfect union, and how a vote for them will be a vote to let America be America once again. "

August 26, 2020

What Katie Porter taught us at the DeJoy hearing

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/25/what-katie-porter-taught-us/

Good piece. The conclusion--

"Porter’s questioning was instructive in several respects.

First, grilling administration witnesses about whether they explicitly received direction from President Trump is a waste of time. These appointees get their jobs because they understand what Trump wants. If there is any confusion, they read the president’s daily tweets.

Second, asking witnesses to confess to corrupt motives is also futile. The best you can do is establish the lack of qualifications and any donations the appointees made to Trump. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, for example, to figure out that Gordon Sondland, a former ambassador to the European Union who had no diplomatic experience, got the job because he donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee.

Finally, she has aptly underscored the degree to which the Trump administration cares not one wit about good governance. It is a government designed to serve Trump’s grudges and conspiratorial paranoia while allowing cronies to feather their own nests. After failing so miserably at his job and revealing how little qualified he is for the job, DeJoy, one might hope, would resign out of shame. But this, remember, is an administration without apologies or regrets. Just lots of scandals."

August 25, 2020

they call us the "Democrat party"

I think every speaker at the RNC was required to use the improper pejorative "Democrat party" when referring to the party but better yet, call us socialists and Marxists. I lost count of how time they said it. They are such gross childish bullies.