IGNORANCE, JUDGEMENT AND THE MAGA BASE’S NUCLEAR OPTION

PHOTO: Change.org

Thoughtful Americans have been trying for a decade 
or more to understand the mindset of those of our compatriots responsible for bringing this noble nation—admired by the world for nearly two-and-a-half centuries for its vision, values and leadership—to its knees. 

I’m still baffled at how such betrayal is possible, but I’ve come up with new angle to consider.

VENGEANCE AT ANY PRICE
Oh I know, we’ve heard this song and dance about Donald Trump’s poor base feeling unheard and un-
appreciated by us conceited “liberal elites.” About their fear of immigrants’ and the poor’s snatching what they see as their entitlement to the American Dream. And about how their perceived suffering merits as much credibility as our own aspirations.

PHOTO: Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call

I don’t buy it. It gives way too much credit to people who somehow managed to turn off both 
their brains and hearts and hire the con man of our age to avenge their grievances for them. 
A charlatan who figures they won’t notice that he’s destroying their country in their name—while not just impoverishing them, but enriching himself and his family to the tune of more than $1,000,000,000—and that's in just the past year.* 

GRAPHIC: AmericanProgress.org

For me, a better answer—perhaps the easiest one—would be that these Trump groupies are simply thoughtless, self-obsessed, philistine, chest-beating assholes. Idiots who’ll pay any price to stick it to people not like them. But the more I think about it, the more certain I am that that’s not the whole story either. 

     Trump literally tells them what they know and don’t know.

COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE
What makes more sense is that these Trump groupies are just so ashamed of their own ignorance that they're in denial, demonizing anyone honest enough to hold their noses to it. How dare you judge, they feel. Judge not just us, but anything at all! Beauty, kindness, sophistication, style, merit. It's all "woke," not because those attributes are invalid, but because they provide a reflection of their own soullessness. 

Judgment—the process of weighing and comparing the truth of stuff—lies at the very heart of intelligence. Along with curiosity and creativity, critical judgment is a key component of acquiring and applying knowledge. And that, to folks with little education and short attention spans, poses a huge threat, because all it does is remind them just how stupid they really are.

This is why their Dear Leader’s tack has been to systematically discredit judgement—and along with it truth. Because he knows his MAGAts not only can’t judge what’s true or not, but wouldn’t buy the truth anyway if it challenged their simplistic, fear- and anger-stoked beliefs.

Playing on those beliefs, their anger, their fears—and their latent shame in their ignorance—Trump literally tells them what they know and don’t know. (Listen for those slick little inter-
jections in his unhinged ravings: “Everyone’s saying…,” “Everybody agrees…,” “People know…” and “You know that, right?” )

ALTERNATE TRUTH
The response Trump has incited in his MAGA cult is the cultural equivalent of the nuclear option: I don’t get it…so I’ll be damned if anyone’s going to get it. Instead of elevating our own aspirations, we'll drag down yours. So, yes, let’s yank the U.S. government’s investment from any program, any institution, that stands, even remotely, for intelligence, refinement…or even basic human kindness. 

PHOTO: Dave Killen/the Oregonian

Add to the bogeymen hit list anyone purporting to honor the truth. Hey, after being forced to stomach these pompous educators,' researchers,’ scientists,’ doctors’ and journalists’ fancy-pants proclamations all these years, Dear Leader has finally given me permission to claim my own, “alternative” truth…about everything.

The blindness to reality is so complete that these suckers can look right at this master manipu-
lator, this draft-dodging sexual predator who espouses not one of Jesus Christ’s teachings, and believe he’s their model of patriotism, their personal gift from God. 

    A charismatic leader steps up and shows Americans…that 
    there’s a better, healthier vision for our country than Trump’s 
    deeply negative one.

A HEALTHIER VISION
So, that’s my half-assed theory. What of it? What’s to be done? Is there hope for our faltering “shining city upon a hill” Democracy?

I still believe a spark of love and kindness glows at the core of every human being. Like so many of our best qualities, though, it’s gotten buried under layer after layer of concerns and emotions that are very good at pretending to be important. Like fear, anger, conceit…and, yes, shame.

One answer might be for an extraordinarily charismatic leader to step up and show Americans—even those of us who’ve been exploited by Trump—that there’s a better, healthier vision for our country than his deeply negative one. (I think most folks yearn deeply to reclaim hope and joy from the hate fest Tiny Hands has promoted.)

And this figurehead must do more than out-Trump Trump with charisma; she/he must, with guidance from the Democratic National Committee, craft a message that’s more appealing to folks than the simple, disciplined—and highly effective—one of grievance and vengeance that’s driven the MAGA movement. 

SNEEZIN’ ON THE HOUSE OF CARDS
Another possibility is that Trump eventually miscalculates himself right off the precipice. Takes just one too many liberties with his power. Makes one too many assumptions about his supporters’ depravity. 

We’ve already seen a few Congressional Republicans dare risk their careers for integrity. With cause, more might join. Some editorial boards in the mainstream media will draw the line. The trickle builds to a tide, and then to a tsunami of love, generosity and hope that inundates even the most willful ignorance.

And Donald Trump's fools-gold empire, wobbling on its foundation of hubris, collapses, swept away by a smarter, nobler, more joyous vision.

IMAGE: Adobe Stock

But none of this will happen without ever-more-massive public displays of defiance. We must continue to assert our hopes, raise our voices and apply our talents to The Resistance. 

We must continue to live our truth, honor our values. Call and write our representatives in Congress. Write opinion pieces. Support thoughtful, principled candidates. Stick our necks out on social media. And, finally, we must display our sheer numbers, joining with other true patriots to take our resolve to the streets.

Don’t lose sight of the vision of a kinder, gentler, renewed America. Do not lose hope.

* Trumps Take-Counter, AmericanProgress.org

THE TRUMP CARD – How Smart Tyrants Play Wannabes

Donald Trump was raised and schooled to be a manipulator. His father, his mentor Ray Cohn and any number of vile men he’s tried to emulate drilled the lessons into him: Do whatever you want. Ignore the wishes of others. Flout the law. 

Prior to committing a despicable act, accuse your intended victim of committing the same act. If anyone objects, double down. If they persist, destroy them—if slander fails, sue them out of the water. If that fails, keep appealing till you end up before a judge whom you’ve bought and paid for.  

Never, ever admit defeat.

This is how Donald Trump lives his life. One might say it’s genius. It is not. There’s not one shred of intellect, no reason here; it’s pure rote. The way any predator acts.

PHOTO: AnimalsTime.com

NUTTY PUTTY 
And the ultimate payoff for a man leading such a life? In Trump’s case, it’s as shallow and transparent as every other aspect of his raison d'être. He’s merely an emotional adolescent desperate to feed his insatiable lust for attention.

We know Donald Trump. He’s made quite sure we do. But the scarier thing is, so do men like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu. Say what you might about such tyrants, but both these men have shown themselves to possess some emotional and intellectual depth. Both are capable of insight, nuance, managing complexity and strategic thinking. 

Trump has none of these capacities, and these clever despots know it. In fact, they know Trump better than he knows himself. They know how wretchedly insecure he is, how gaudy and artificial the ruse of his power. And how easy it is to manipulate him.

  If your schmear hits eight figures—I appoint you to my cabinet. 

DOUBLE-DEALER
There are two kinds of “deals” Trump makes. First is what I’d call the kiss-my-ass deal. This is the kind he makes with the little people in his world, the Rudy Giulianis, the Mike Lindells. Oh, and also with his gutless Trumpublican lackeys in Congress: You brown-nose me and I hold off on “primarying” you or shitting all over you in the media. You’re soiled in my feces, but I let you survive.

Even if you’re a nobody like those MAGA goons he incited to desecrate the Capitol on January 6, as long as you commit your crimes in my name, you’re off the hook.

The second kind of Trump deal is the “business” deal. You give me something I desperately want—praise, campaign funding, my name on a new building, women…and, oh, I don’t know…the Nobel Prize—and I let you stand near me at the inauguration, share state secrets with you, maybe even—if your schmear hits eight figures—appoint you to my cabinet. 

PHOTO: Bloomberg

      This ninny presents no less a threat to our national security 
      than 19 radical Muslim terrorists at the controls of four 
      commercial airliners.

SACRED BUST
Donald Trump has put the sacred trust with which this country has endowed 45 presidents up for sale to the highest bidder. He’s not just hawking influence, not just feeding his ego, but monetizing national-treasures. Everything’s up for grabs: endangered wildlife and habitat, the National Parks, even the White House itself, branded with his gaudy, fools-gold veneer.

Most often, the deceit enriches him and his little tyrants-in-training, Don Junior, Eric and Ivanka. But blood bonds aren’t necessary to claim a slice of the pie; million-dollar bribes-cum-campaign donations will do just fine.

AI IMAGE: Western Standard

The evidence of Trump’s corruptibility just keeps mounting: 
  • his push to reward Putin for his aggression against Ukraine 
  • his “deal” to honor Netanyahu’s Gaza genocide in exchange for Trump’s “ownership” and commercial development of Gaza
  • his pardoning of Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman’s gruesome murder of an American journalist to keep the wheels greased for the $50 million in business deals struck by the Trump family cartel
  • his acceptance of a $400 million-dollar bribe—a Boeing 747, no less—from shrewd Qatari leader Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. 

Meanwhile, as Despot Light counts his coins and compliments, the real heavyweights laugh it up over the easiest exploitation they’ve ever wrangled. It’s like some young hotshot chess cheat taking on Garry Kasparov; they’re wiping the floor with him.

OUTRAGE TO ACTION
This ninny and his warped transactional MO presents no less a threat to our national security than 19 radical Muslim terrorists at the controls of four commercial airliners. Thoughtful Americans must unify, as we did after 9/11 and other national tragedies, in confronting the threat. He must be stopped.

CAN YOU FEAR ME NOW? – How trump Has Betrayed His Anti-Insider-Elites Pledge

Earth to trump supporters:

At the heart of donald trump’s unlikely electoral victory was his pledge to rid Washington of corruption, cronyism and insider dealing. And you bought it.

Now, before the glow of victory’s even faded, he’s already broken—no, annihilated—that promise. Intentionally, blatantly, shamelessly—right in front of your perhaps well-intentioned, but short-sighted, eyes.

        Are these the real-deal, straight-shooting, friend-of-
        the-working-class outsiders you pictured when you 
        heard trump's pledge?

Don’t buy it? You tell me. Are these the real-deal, straight-shooting, friend-of-the-working-class outsiders you pictured when you heard trump’s pledge? (List thanks to Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen, in a Jan. 10, 2017 article in the Huffington Post):

    •    MIKE PENCE, Vice President – has strong ties to Koch Industries and raked in eye-popping sums from the finance sector, construction industry, pharmaceutical industry and chemical industry

    •    REX TILLERSON, Secretary of State – spent his entire career at Exxon Mobil, which is not just among the world’s largest oil companies, but the corporation most responsible for spreading climate denial and intimidating climate activists

PHOTO: Wall Street Journal

    •    STEVEN MNUCHIN, Treasury Secretary – longtime Goldman Sachs executive who, through a hedge fund, took over the failed IndyMac, turned it into One West and went on a foreclosure rampage, engaging in robosigning and other abuses such that one judge found the bank to have engaged in practices that were “harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive”

    •    GEN. JAMES MATTIS, Secretary of Defense – has spun through the revolving door, leaving the military to serve on the board of General Dynamics, a multinational military contractor, and the scandal-ridden Theranos, a start-up company which misled investors and consumers about its blood-testing technology

    •    JEFF SESSIONS, Attorney General – has a racist record that disqualified him from a federal judgeship three decades ago, and a record of gentle treatment of the finance, tobacco and other industries

    •    BETSY DEVOS, Education Secretary – a billionaire scion whose husband is heir to the Amway fortune, who is a purveyor of extremist education privatization proposals, and who has herself invested in for-profit education companies

    •    ELAINE CHAO, Secretary of Transportation – served on the board of directors of Wells Fargo during the cross-selling scandal, as well as a half dozen other corporate boards

    •    GARY COHN, Director, National Economic Council – Led Goldman Sachs as it profited off the housing market collapse in part by misleading its own clients

       These folks are not your equals. They are not your 
       boss's equals, not your boss's boss's equals, not..well, 
       you get the idea.

PHOTO: Denver Post

    •    SCOTT PRUITT, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – believes that climate science is “far from settled,” has repeatedly sued the agency he will be tasked with leading, and as Oklahoma attorney general sent letters to federal agencies that were literally drafted by Devon Energy, one of the state’s largest oil and gas corporations

    •    STEVE BANNON, Special Adviser to the President – once ran and may maintain undisclosed business or other ties with Breitbart.com, a far-right, racist website, and is a former Goldman Sachs executive

    •    LINDA MCMAHON, Administrator, Small Business Administration – as World Wrestling Entertainment CEO helped ensure the wrestling industry remained largely unregulated, putting the health and safety of wrestlers at risk

    •    ANDY PUZDER, Secretary of Labor – the long-time mogul in charge of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. fast-food chains, companies known for being anti-worker and anti-union, and who opposed many or all of the most important recent, pro-worker initiatives of the Obama Labor Department, including a rule to ensure that workers are properly compensated for overtime

               He has financial holdings that give him a direct 
               stake in many of the matters about which he will 
               be advising the president.

    •    WILBUR ROSS, Secretary of Commerce – a billionaire whose firm has profited from buying distressed firms and cutting workers’ benefits

    •    CARL ICAHN, Special Advisor to the President on Regulatory Affairs – the emblematic corporate raider epitomizes predatory corporate capitalism, with financial holdings that give him a direct stake in many of the matters about which he will be advising the president

So there you have it. By the most conservative of the media’s estimates (Bloomberg), these “independent,” “non-elite” “friends-of-the-working-class” have a net worth of over $6 billion. And every single one of them now has a role in government that, by all appearances, could benefit them at the expense you and your family.

These folks are not your equals. They are not your boss’s equals, not your boss’s boss’s equals, not…well, you get the idea. Do you think they give a good God-damn about your working-class concerns?

If you believe that, I’ve got a chunk of land in a another swamp you might be interested in.