(The quote above is from the New York Times opinion piece by Bret Stephens on 8/3/18)
The underlying statements are nonsense intended to provoke an emotional reaction and partially made up on the spot — never reasonable assertions drawn from legitimate data or research. Most statements made during the speech given at a rally are extemporaneous in character and driven by impressions caught during the viewing of Fox News pieces.
Observers have been alarmed by the nonsensical character of the underlying statements– many describe the language as “gibberish.” Many have questioned his sanity or speculated that there is underlying progressive dementia. While this is an attractive possibility, it seems unlikely based on his long-term use of this meta-language. He is communicating with his base supporters, the population (between 30-40%) that believes every assertion, no matter how absurd, or else excuses the lies on the basis of the policies that have come out which align with their basic prejudices. In other words, they don’t care what he says as long as he continues to “dismantle the administrative state” or put laws in place that reflect their conservative prejudices.
The meta-language used is designed to provoke an emotional reaction; for example, the phrase “Crooked Hillary” is supposed to evoke an image of the former Secretary of State as a corrupt, lying schemer who was only in office due to rampant nepotism; there is no room in this image for the native brilliance, extensive education and training nor the long experience in government, only the suspicious use of a private server and the corruption attached to the Clinton Foundation. This triggering is so automatic that he need only mention “Crooked Hillary” and the rally crowd immediately begins to chant “Lock her up! Lock her up!”
By skillful and repetitive use of this meta-language, he can whip the crowd into a fine frenzy and draw in susceptible outsiders who soon are carried away by the raw emotion of his supporters. The truth or falsehood of any given statement is of no consequence to his supporters nor is it, at the end, of any importance to the speaker. Thus there is no response to complaints about inaccuracy– the catch-phrases have had their ineluctable effect already.
(image courtesy of pixabay.com and gfkDSGN)
In a piece titled “Donald Trump, the Boy President Who Cried Wolf”, Matt Lewis of the Daily Beast described a not-so-new phenomenon: Trump fatigue. People are tired of being scared by Trump tweets threatening nuclear war against North Korea and now, Iran. People are starting to ignore the threats and the fearful language. This is dangerous, not because we are suffering, but because we are not. Some day, Trump will feel that he is forced to back up his angry words with real action, and then maybe the shit will really hit the fan.
With a person who consistently lies about three-quarters of the time and who wields tremendous power (not for nothing is the President described as the most powerful man in the world, as the commander-in-chief of an army that outspends the next half-dozen largest armies in the world and who possesses sole discretion to launch over a thousand megaton-class nuclear ballistic missiles at a moment’s notice) it is difficult and yet essential to determine which statements are honest intentions with lasting effect, which are are mere bluster, and which are momentary caprices.
The example of Adolf Hitler is inescapable because, if one reads “Mein Kampf”, within it Hitler accurately describes the intentions and future policies of the Third Reich for everyone to see, twenty years before they actually took place. There is much that Trump has accurately described in his many speeches and seemingly off-the-cuff remarks, things that have been made policy and followed up by motivated adherents of the Trump philosophy (if indeed such a philosophy actually exists), things that seem unbelievably petty and vindictive, not to mention unlawful– yet they are the effective policy of the United States government because Trump has deemed it so.
Therefore, one must read and take seriously the seemingly off-the-wall and irregular statements that come from Trump’s Twitter account at all hours of the night and morning– no matter how outrageous, outlandish, and un-Constitutional those statements are. They might just come true.
So try to fight Trump fatigue– it is only a diversionary tactic meant to dull your sense of outrage and fray your compassion, and most importantly, hide the real truth of what Trump is doing to our country.
(comic image courtesy of pixabay.com and OpenClipart-Vectors)
(I would Photoshop Trump’s head in place of the girl but she’s just as funny herself.)
The only overlooked (primarily because of an absence of evidence) aspect of Vlad “the Impaler” Putin’s conversation with Don “the Con” Trump is the exact nature of the agreements that were made between the two autocrats. According to the LA Times,
Both leaders have said that their private, two-hour conversation yielded agreements in various policy areas, though by Thursday, the White House and State and Defense departments had been unable to provide details, with many officials professing to be in the dark themselves.
Even the director of national intelligence, former Sen. Dan Coats, acknowledged that he doesn’t know what took place between the two presidents, and said he opposed their meeting alone.
“That is the president’s prerogative,” Coats said in his televised interview Thursday. “If he had asked me how that ought to be conducted, I would have suggested a different way.”
Asked if Putin might have recorded the meeting, he said, “That risk is always there.”
The problem with secret agreements is the autocrat’s ability to obligate his country’s resources in the service of another country. For example, the Soviet Union sold vast quantities of raw materials to the Nazis up to the day the Germans invaded Russia in World War II– in exchange for much-needed hard currency to buy foreign-made war equipment. Was Stalin right to do this, or was he merely exercising his dictatorial power in the service of a whim?
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and klimkin)
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
A bizarre piece ran in “The Hill” yesterday that described the testimony of three anonymous witnesses who reported that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly gave high-level Republican politicians oral permission to criticize President Trump’s statements at his press conference with Vladimir Putin. In fact, some Republicans like the leaders of the House and Senate obliquely rebuked the statements as being a mistake, pointedly saying, “Russia is not our friend.” McCain, who is homebound with brain cancer, gave the most negative remarks about the president’s behavior; other retiring Republican Senators and Congressmen were also highly critical. Only the former head of the CIA, John Brennan, went so far as to describe Trump’s behavior as “treasonous.”
The remarkable thing is that John Kelly would give permission to leading Republicans to make critical remarks– it seems that Trump has disregarded Mr. Kelly’s instructions on how to behave at the meeting with Putin, and Kelly was angry about this. What is worse, Kelly reasons that Trump’s behavior might worsen the situation with the investigation headed by special counsel Robert Mueller going on right now. In other words, embracing Russia might seem like a quid-pro-quo for whatever Putin has on Trump– whether it is kompromat, details of money-laundering schemes, secret financing, or you name it.
This suggests that John Kelly is likely to resign his post soon, probably because he can’t stand it anymore. He probably feels that Trump doesn’t take his advice anyway so there is no way to influence him. Trump doesn’t respect Kelly because he’s not rich– he only listens to people who are at least multi-millionaires.
Mr. Trump’s 24-hour turnaround, from “would” to “wouldn’t” at a news conference that unfolded with an eerie blackout just after he had spoken his words of contrition makes sense if we presume that he got an earful from Mr. Kelly when he returned to the White House. Mr. Trump’s advisors would have forcefully reminded him that all the intelligence agencies are certain that Russia is the culprit in the hacking cases and that Russia is our enemy, not the European Union.
Thus unreels the destruction of American federal government by the election of a man fundamentally unfit to be president. Once this is over there must be a law enacted to prevent it ever happening again.
(photo of upside-down car in Helsinki courtesy of pixabay.com and leebest90)
Among the revelations after Michael Cohen (Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and “fixer”) had his residence and office raided recently was the news that Mr. Cohen had several contracts with American corporations in 2017 for unclear reasons. Among those companies was Novartis, maker of Clozaril (clozapine, an aytpical antipsychotic), Voltaren (diclofenac, an ibuprofen-like anti-arthritic pain drug), Tegretol (carbamazepine), Diovan (valsartan, a blood pressure drug) Gleevec ( imatinib, a new anti-cancer drug) , Neoral (an immune suppressant), Ritalin (methylphenidate, a stimulant often used in attention deficit disorder), Lamisil (terbinafine, an antifungal), and many others; Novartis is one of the biggest drug makers in the world and was third-largest Swiss-headquartered corporation of any kind for some years.
Novartis contracted for Michael Cohen’s services for $100,000 a month for a year starting in January 2017; their CEO at the time, Joe Jimenez, has said that it became apparent at their first meeting that Cohen was unsuitable for his task of providing “access to key policymakers.” Nonetheless, they did not cancel the contract despite a clause requiring “satisfactory performance”. Mr. Jimenez apparently claimed that there was only one meeting, but Senate Democrats, in a report released Friday, revealed that there were several further contacts, including at least two emails from Cohen and scheduled calls from Jimenez to Cohen.
Mr. Jimenez stated that, at their first meeting, it was apparent that “Mr. Cohen had made no effort to learn anything about Novartis, or the policy issues that were of concern to Novartis specifically, or the pharmaceutical industry generally.” Why this single meeting displaying Cohen’s ignorance and lack of interest did not prompt cancellation of the contract is a mystery to me.
One email chain of some significance included Jimenez’ wish list of government initiatives that supposedly were aimed at reducing drug prices. Parts of this wish list appeared later, in a document released by the Trump administration that they called their “drug price blueprint”.
Another email chain from Cohen touted a small drug company as an investment for Novartis. Jimenez responded to the initial email within an hour. Novartis never invested in the drug company, although they did look into the possibility.
This is how federal government works these days: corporations invest in people with access to the levers of power, personal relationships to the president and his staff. Suggestions and advice travel back and forth in this personal chain of influence, and the people with access are enriched– in this case, $1.2 million over 12 months, deposited to the same account used to pay off “Stormy Daniels” (Stephanie Clifford) for her silence prior to the election (also known as blackmail.) That the people in power are also enriched goes without saying, although their payoffs come in different forms. Naturally, this is un-Constitutional, under the so-called “Emoluments Clause”, although this clause has never yet been enforced.
Mr. Trump was plainly in violation of the emoluments clause from the day of his inauguration, through his control of an hotel in Washington DC; all the foreign dignitaries and many American VIPs stay there, especially when they have business with the government. No-one has stepped forward to enforce the Constitution against Mr. Trump, although private parties have filed civil lawsuits. With impunity, the other steps towards fascism come so much more easily. Remember that fascism is an alliance of private businesses with government which perverts democracy and leads to its destruction– the only other step needed is government violence against parties who exercise their free-speech rights to object to government misbehavior.
By these definitions, fascism is a feature of the largest national governments in the world: China, Russia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and possibly even India. We are not yet under a fascist government, but it will not be long at this rate.
(details of the Novartis–Michael Cohen story are from a report in today’s Los Angeles Times; information about Novartis’ drugs come from Wikipedia. Other details are common knowledge already.)
(image courtesy of pixabay.com and mamuki0, of a WWII-era Spanish peseta showing a pair of fasces– a bundle of sticks and an axe bound together– from which the term fascism is derived– on the sides of the coat of arms)
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and rhulk)
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
