“It was a magical evening” Trump doesn’t believe in any of this religion stuff. But he believes in MAGA and if they love him, he loves them. They can have whatever they want as long as it benefits him personally. It works out great for everyone — except the sane, decent people of this country and the world: CHRISTIAN NATIONALISTS WERE out in force at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night, once again demonstrating their proximity to MAGA power. Lance Wallnau — the chief promoter of a “Seven Mountains Mandate” for right-wing Christians to seize control over government and culture — was dressed in a tux and streaming live to his 1 million Facebook followers. The black-tie event was the America First Policy Institute gala at Trump’s Palm Beach estate, where the former president was soon to speak.
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“Unrelenting, top-to-bottom negativity” Philosopher Linus van Pelt famously lamented, “There’s no heavier burden than a great potential!” It’s a burden Democrats carry too. Supporters and leaners are easily upset. Not so with Republicans. They anger us, sure, but because we expect so lttle of them they cannot disappoint us the way our friends can. It is a dynamic David Roberts, a.k.a. Dr. Volts, wrote about in a thread on Sunday. A Washington Post profile of voters in Door County, Wisconsin (pop. 30k) finally pegged his P.K.E. meter. Roberts writes (bolding mine): This article is worth examining closely. It’s a classic “visit a swing county to hear about politics” piece, so it forces itself to be even-handed & “pox on both houses,” but if you read closely you can glimpse something else. washingtonpost.com/nation/interac… Why are they upset?
Hold fast We’ve reached “the end justifies the means” chapter of our American experiment. Peter Wehner runs down in The Atlantic a by-now familiar accounting of the fascistic things Donald Trump says and his MAGA audience applauds. Trump’s rise to the presidency began with, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best.” (The Republican Party took that as candidate recruiting advice.) He’s gone from declaring Mexicans drug dealers, rapists and criminals in 2015 to telling crowds today that immigrants from south of the border are terrorists and escapees from mental institutions who are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Wehner pointedly begins by sketching out the dehumanizing rhetoric that prededed the Rwandan genocide in 1994. I still remember just where I was when I heard that news on the radio.
I’ve been Disney fan since I donned a Davy Crockett buckskin jacket and coonskin cap when I was 3 years old, and I’ve been a fan of The Beatles since February, 1964. It’s amazing to me, though, the number of … Continue reading
It’s a political pandemic ….
Retribution For Dummies TPM reports on the latest Trump boot licking move by the House Republicans: Now that they finally have a new House speaker, some congressional Republicans are mounting an effort to question the select committee investigation into the January 6 attack that wrapped up last year. Their push is the perfect fox and the henhouse type scenario. Some of the members most loudly attempting to question the official probe — including the new speaker — played a part in elements of the conspiracy-fueled push to challenge the 2020 presidential election results that was a major focus of the investigation. The latest calls to investigate the select committee’s work gained momentum on Friday after Johnson announced a plan to release some of the security footage of the attack that involved thousands of supporters of former President Trump storming into the U.S. Capitol building as his loss was being certified on January 6, 2021. Johnson, who became speaker late last month after weeks of contentious votes and intraparty fighting, had campaigned on a promise to air out the footage.
That’s gotta be some kind of crime How will the U.S. Supreme Court take to having a lower court essentially invalidate its recent Voting Rights Act decision in Allen v. Milligan? New York Times: A federal appeals court moved on Monday to drastically weaken the Voting Rights Act, issuing a ruling that would effectively bar private citizens and civil rights groups from filing lawsuits under a central provision of the landmark civil rights law. The ruling, made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, found that only the federal government could bring a legal challenge under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a crucial part of the law that prohibits election or voting practices that discriminate against Americans based on race. The opinion is almost certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court. The court’s current conservative majority has issued several key decisions in recent years that have weakened the Voting Rights Act. But the justices have upheld the law in other instances, including in a June ruling that found Alabama had drawn a racially discriminatory congressional map. Yeah, that’s bullshit.
“We” are losing the country to “them.” Very recent comments by now-Speaker Mike Johnson brought to mind Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “God damn America” sermon for the Bulwark’s Tim Miller. Asked if America faces a time of judgment, Johnson replied: You all know the terrible state that we’re in. . . . The faith in our institutions is the lowest it’s ever been in the history of our nation. The culture is so dark and depraved that it almost seems irredeemable at this point. The church attendance in America dropped below 50 percent for the first time in our history since they began to measure the data sixty years ago. And the number of people who do not believe in absolute truth is now above the majority for the first time. One in three teen girls contemplated suicide last year. One in four high school students identify as something other than straight. We’re losing the country. The divergent right-wing outrage over Wright’s sermon and non-response to Johnson’s criticism of America reflects more than a double standard for black preachers and white politicians, Miller finds.
It takes long term repetition to penetrate the minds of the voters If Trump taught them nothing else, he should have taught them that: Here’s Mark Esper from yesterday: Mark Esper, who served as the United States secretary of defense under Donald Trump, warned the former president “is a threat to democracy” — telling CNN Trump is “not right” and can’t beat President Joe Biden in the general election. Esper on Tuesday was asked about a Washington Post article that revealed many of Trump’s former Cabinet members — including former chief of staff John Kelly — believe he’s unfit to hold office. “You have previously said that Trump ‘unprincipled’ and should not be in the position of public service,” CNN’s Poppy Harlow began. “Will you work to publicly fight the lead that he has now or are you going to stay on the sidelines?” “I have been very clear about this matter for three years since my book came out,” Esper said. “I have been on the record multiple times and I don’t think he should be president. I don’t think he is qualified.
Biden has an opening to change the script on immigration The Trump immigration plan is so extreme that if normal people actually see what it is, their hair will stand on end. But they have to be told and they have to be convinced that they are dead serious about implementing it. Which they are: As [Steven] Miller put it: “Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown…The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.” “What former President Trump and Stephen Miller are laying out has crossed a line that should set off alerts for every American.” “What former President Trump and Stephen Miller are laying out has crossed a line that should set off alerts for every American,” Vanessa Cardenas, executive director of America’s Voice, said during a recent press call with reporters. “Calling his political opponents ‘vermin,’ saying that the blood of America is being poisoned, and the continuous calls to violence, election denialism, and white nationalism cannot be normalized or go unchallenged.