Category Archives: Trumpism

Exposed as a Bully

Abuse of Power, Trump, Trumpism

 

The author E.J. Carroll won a big award from a jury as compensation for defamatory remarks made by the former President Donald Trump. The jury awarded her $83 million after the second trial. Immediately after the first trial, Trump defamed her again, eliciting a second trial, and second multi-million-dollar award for damages. Together with her two female attorneys she was interviewed by Rachel Maddow.

 

Carroll is an 80-year-old author who had been sexually abused by Donald Trump. That was determined by the jury in a private tort trial. It was not a criminal trial. The government’s Department of Justice did not start the claim.  Teh jury reached the conclusion on the basis of a balance of probabilities. This was not a case of the “deep state” nor “started by Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice” as Trump is so quick to claim in other cases. Carroll admitted she was terrified before the trial. She was so scared she lost her voice and could not speak.  But she had been sexually abused by Donald Trump and did not want to let him get away with it. As Carroll said triumphantly on the Rachel Maddow show “We’ve planted our flag.  We’ve stood up to the man…He is not there…He is like a rhino snorting.” She emasculated the bully.

At the trial Carroll realized Trump was a bully, and like so many bullies “he was nothing. We don’t need to be afraid of him.”  Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said after the verdict had been rendered, “We can stand up to the US’s biggest bully. We are not afraid of him.” The other lawyer for Carroll, Shawn Crowley who gave the summation to the jury asked them to consider “How much does he have to pay in order to stop him.” The first verdict was $5 million in the first case.  But Trump could not keep quiet and defamed her a second time right after the first verdict. He just refused to follow the rules. Crowley said about the jury, “They just saw it with their own eyes.”

Roberta Kaplan, the other lawyer for Carroll, said,

“Our thesis in this case was that Donald Trump was a bully who is incapable of following the rules. Then during the trial he acted like a bully and showed that he was incapable of following the rules. We almost didn’t need to say anything. The jury just watched him.”

 

I wish the Trumpsters had seen him. The case exposed the former president as a weak bully!

I really don’t care about Trump. I do care about people who vote for him. I know some Americans like bullies. They want a bully as President. But I really think a majority don’t like bullies. Let’s wait and see. The election will tell the story.  This upcoming election will tell us a lot about who the electors like.  If they like Trump, you know they like bullies.

Grab her by the Pussy

Right-wing Extremism, True Believer, Trump, Trumpism

 

By and large all conservative right-wing radio broadcasters jumped on the Trump bandwagon. One of the few exceptions was Wisconsin broadcaster Charley Sykes. Sykes soon realized that he was no longer welcome in the Republican party or among Trumpsters and resigned his position as a radio host and wrote a book called, How the Right Lost its Mind.

By then Trump’s dominance of the Republican party and the right-wing was complete. As Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast The Flame Throwers, “Trump owned the Republican party. He owned right-wing radio. He owned the narrative. And it seemed like nothing could change that.”

There was an astonishing moment during the 2016 US presidential campaign where it seemed like Trump was done. This was the incident where a recording was released where Trump was bragging that he could sexually assault women and they would do nothing about it.  “You can grab them by the pussy, if you’re a star they let you do it.”

How possibly could a campaign survive that? It seemed impossible. I remember when I heard the story about this incident and I said to myself, with some comfort, at least now his campaign is over. He is dead. But I was wrong. I was dead wrong. Trump was not dead; he was alive and well.

He once claimed that he could stand in Times Square and shoot someone and he would not lose support. His followers were that staunch. And, incredibly, he was right. His fans were deliriously loyal.

 Similar incidents, each seeming to be campaign killers, occurred repeatedly, and yet Trump’s campaign lived on. He mocked handicapped people. He mocked veterans. He mocked John McCain for being a prisoner of war, and his supporters stayed by his side. They must have thought he was like Jesus who could do no wrong. It was nothing less than theological devotion by his fans.

 As Justin Ling said,

“Each time something like this would happen, Trump would be counted out by the mainstream media, but each time all of his friends on right-wing radio found ways to rationalize his behavior, and rally the base to his cause and his campaign.”

 

The only thing that made sense, was the presumption on the part of Trump’s supporters that if the mainstream media said something about Trump it must be false! When liberals cried, the Trumpsters were joyful.  That seems to be continuing. For example, his convictions for felony offences have not significantly dimmed his support. Perhaps they have even amplified it.

 Like a god, Trump can do nothing wrong as far as his supporters are concerned.

 

Never Trumpers

Right-wing Extremism, Trump, Trumpism

 

In 2016, during the Republican primaries, many members of the Republican establishment had no use for Donald Trump. Many considered him a liberal!  Others considered him a clown. Few considered him a serious candidate for the Republican nomination. Many of them said they would never support Trump. They were the ‘Never Trumpers.’

Mark Levine was one of these. This is what he said, early in the campaign: “These bully, dirty tricks, Nixonian tactics they are only going to backfire. So, count me as ‘Never Trump.’ At some point you gotta stand up to it. I do not like bullies, and I never have. So, I will not be voting for Donald Trump, and he can thank Roger Stone.” That not only sounded good, but Levine was right. Trump was a bully and did not deserve votes, but soon, like so many others Levine choked on his words and supported Trump.

Too many of the never Trumpers were never brave. This was particularly true of those politicians who believed they needed to show support for Trump because they thought they needed his support to win their primary. They caved at the first opportunity.

The Weak President versus the Lying President

Death of Truth, politics, Trump, Trumpism

 

Edward Luce of the  Wall Street Journal and David Frum of The Atlantic were interviewed by Fareed Zakaria on his show the Global Public Square.  After the recent debate between Trump and Biden, only about 25% of Americans, including about half the Democrats believe Joseph Biden is competent to be president compared to about 44 % who believe Trump is competent. Both bad numbers, but Biden is now in a much worse position. Trump is 19 points ahead on this important issue.

 

Many believe Biden performed very badly in the debate. From what little I saw I agree he performed badly. But in my view Trump performed even worse, but in a different way.  Trump released an avalanche of lies and absurd hyperbolic remarks which clearly demonstrate that Trump is entirely separated from the truth. He has been called unhinged for good reason.

 

Who is less worthy of being president of the United States?  The liar or the incompetent?  According to David Frum,

 

“What we have here is a debate between the fire brigade and the arsonists. We are in this jam because the Republican Party is rallying around somebody who tried to overthrow an election thus the constitution…Who is a proven fraudster. Who has half a billion dollars of claims against him for civil frauds and who is a convicted criminal in New York with many more trials to come.”

 

Zakaria pointed out that “even by Donald Trump’s standards it was really extraordinary how much he lied. He was totally unconstrained by even pretending to doff his cap to the truth. In the good old days, there had to be at least a kernel in there somewhere of the truth. ” CNN counted 30 major lies he made during the debate. Trump even claimed to negotiate insulin prices down for seniors when that was something Biden did, not him.

 

Luce agreed entirely. He said, “There was an unhinged unending Orwellian stream of lies from Trump, even by his standards…We have watched Mitch McConnell call Trump ‘a despicable human being there on stage.”

 

Luce said you could basically pick any one of his statements to look at if you wanted to challenge the truth. He lied from start to finish.

 

What really surprises me is how Republican supporters at least fail to take this into consideration. They know he lies, but they don’t care.

 

When 2 political candidates are considered, we must always remember such comparisons are not made in a vacuum. We must compare who is worse or who is better. This is because, as one political pundit said, “Mother Theresa is never on the ballot.”

 

No matter how competent he is, I would rather have Biden as the American president than Donald Trump.

 

 

Felon

criminal Justice, Law, Polarization, politics, Trump, Trumpism

 

I admit it. I am shocked. Earlier today, I predicted to friends that I believed Donald Trump would be acquitted of all 34 charges against him. The verdict is in. Donald Trump, the president of the United States,  is a convicted felon. I was dead wrong!  I freely admit it. The jury found him guilty on all charges.  I admit I could not be happier and believed he richly deserved this defeat. The American jury system stepped up and did its job. I underestimated it.

 

We must remember that this is Trump’s second jury trial. The first jury ruled that he was responsible for sexually abusing a woman, even though he had vigorously denied it outside of court. Though of course, he chose not to testify under oath and subject to cross examination even after promising he would testify. Effectively the jury in a civil case said he was guilty of sexual abuse! That is a very serious conclusion. That jury reached that verdict by a majority decision of jurors after hearing all of the evidence, listening and considering the cross examination of the witnesses by expert expensive lawyers, and listening to arguments from lawyers for both sides.

This second trial was different. It was a criminal trial. The first trial was decided on the basis of a preponderance of the evidence. The second trial had to be decided by a unanimous jury on each of the 34 charges. And the second jury had to believe Trump was guilty on a higher standard of proof, namely, proof beyond a reasonable doubt.  Basically, they had to decide he was undoubtedly guilty based on the evidence.  Again, the jury had to carefully listen to all of the evidence, not just statements from Trump or statements from the prosecutors or liberal commentators. The jurors listened to all the evidence and all of which was subject to cross examination by the best lawyers money can buy. That of course is the money of the Trumpsters that was donated to Trump. Reputedly that was in the millions of dollars paid by campaign contributions. Again, the jury had to listen to arguments from both lawyers for the prosecution and defence. The jury listened to instructions about the law from a judge who is trained and experienced to be impartial and fair.

This is not fake news. This is fact.  Donald J. Trump the ex-president of the United States is a convicted felon. The second jury decided that Donald Trump knowingly paid hush money to a porn star to silence her in order to keep that information from the American electors and then falsified the business records to accomplish this goal. They had to believe he intended to cover up a crime for each of the charges.

Once again Trump decided not to testify under oath subject to cross examination, contrary to his promises. Each day (or many days) at the end of the day during the trial, he chose instead to speak not under oath and not subject to rules of law about what could be said, and not subject to cross examination, but outside the courtroom to reporters. He did not present any evidence to support his claims that the trial was rigged and the judge was corrupt. None. He just made the statements. The witnesses for the prosecution on the other hand, were each cross examined, in some cases brutally and at great length, by experienced lawyers.

Again, none of this is fake news.  CNN did not make this up. It is real.

America is a badly divided country. Millions of people believed Trump’s lies and as a result the country is deeply polarized about this man, but it is time for the division to stop. It is time for Trumpsters who have supported him through thick and thin to concede defeat and admit they were wrong. We all make mistakes.  I just admitted to making a big one in this post. They should give up and support President Biden even if they sincerely believed Trump was the better option. We all make mistakes. His supporters all made a big one. They supported Trump. It is time for his supporters to end the division in America for the good of the country and admit they were mistaken and that everyone should now support Biden.

 

Republican Response to January 6th riots

2024 Trip to South West United States, American Fascism, Domestic Terrorism, Extremism, Political Violence, Trumpism, Tyranny and Fascism

 

Very surprising is what many Republicans have said since January 6th 2021. Many Trump supporters have denied the obvious truth that the events that day were a riot and Trump supporters rioted. Ryan Reilly an NBC News reporter estimated that about 3,000 people unlawfully entered the Capitol, damaged property or assaulted police officers at the Capitol that day. So far only about 1,200 have been charged and more than 900 already convicted so far. Those events reminded me of what I have seen portrayed in films as the riots in Germany in the 1930s in support of Hitler and his rabid campaign of anti-semitism.

The reactions of many Republican elected leaders has been nothing short of astonishing.  For example, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), now the Speaker of the House said he would release images of the riot, but: “We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ.” He doesn’t want the rioters to be charged and in fact will actively work to ensure as few of them as possible are charged! And he said that with a broad smile.

In addition, Trump and many of the current GOP presidential primary candidates have promised to pardon Jan 6 rioters. That to me is astounding!

Many of Trump’s supporters don’t admit that the rioters did anything wrong. Having watched hours of  television of the riot that day, that astonishes me.

How about you?

Yearning for a Strongman Government

2024 Trip to South West United States, Death of Democracy, Populism, Right-wing Extremism, Trumpism, Tyranny and Fascism

 

Recently, I watched the Rachel Maddow show on television. She is an unrelenting liberal so I don’t watch the show very often, figuring I get enough of that already. After watching the show though, I might change my mind. I just watched a small part of the show and it was very interesting.

First, she showed brief interviews with Trumpsters who had each been asked one simple question:  “If you had a choice of 4 more years of Joe Biden or 4 more years of Donald Trump as a dictator what would you choose?”

The answers were shocking. Each one chose Trump!  One said, “This country needs a dictator. I hate to say it, but it’s true.” He looked sheepish but he said it.  Another said, “Sometimes in life we need a good paddling from the principal to set our life on the right path. And this country needs a little of that.”  A young woman said, “I’d pick Trump all the way.” She also had a sheepish grin, but again, said it.  A number of them said “Trump” with enthusiasm.  They seemed to want a dictator.

Is it really true that Americans want a dictator? Dictatorship seems to have a lot of appeal in the US. Why is that?  Rachel Maddow said, many Americans want a strong man government and think that is what Trump will give them.

Absolute Presidential Immunity

2024 Trip to South West United States, Corruption, Trump, Trumpism

 

Living in the USA as we are currently doing, we quickly learn that here everything is about Donald Trump. The universe revolves around Trump. He loves that of course. There is no doubt in my mind that he is the most famous person the world has ever known. And again, he loves that too.

While we were in Arizona during our first week, former President Donald Trump, through his lawyers, and in response to a specific question from one of the Appeal Court judges, argued in court that as president he could order the assassination of his political rival and be immune from prosecution. He also argued he could sell state military secrets to a foreign power, and again, be immune from prosecution. In other words, there is nothing a president could do in his official capacity as president that would expose him to criminal prosecution, no matter how corrupt!.  This may have been the most radical proposal ever made in a court of law in the United States.  And Donald Trump took a day off from campaigning to hear his lawyers make exactly this this argument. If elected this could be very valuable to him.

I am astonished that this is even a possibility. But in the FantasyLand in which we currently live, this is a real possibility. We eagerly wait to hear what the court will decide.

This is a question I have for his millions of supporters. Is this what you are prepared to work for? This is what Trump says, but I really wonder what his supporters want. is this what they want?

Trump Calls for Insurrection (Again)

2018 Trip to Iceland, Death of Democracy, Decline of the west, Trump, Trumpism, Tyranny and Fascism

 

On September 15, 2022 Donald Trump was asked what would happen if he was indicted. This is what he said,

“I think if it happened, I think you’d have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before. I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it.”

 

Then he was asked by Mr. Hewitt, “what kind of troubles, Mr. President?” Trump responded this way: “I think they’d have big problems. I just don’t think they’d stand for it.”

Don Lemon, when he was on CNN,  asked Phillip Mudd, a CNN analyst and former counterterrorism analyst if that was a threat.  Mr. Mudd’s answer was about as direct as you can get.  His answer was “Yes.”  Yet, Mr. Mudd went further. He added this,

“I don’t know if that is a subtle enough answer, Don. That’s a yes Don. Let me be clear about what this is.  In the world of extremism which I followed for decades that is what I would refer to as validation… You don’t have to tell someone to go out there and commit an act of violence for them to say, ‘Well if we were robbed then it is my constitutional right and responsibility to go to the Congress and storm it.’ That is the president of the United States having witnessed January 6th saying, ‘Well let me have a redo of that. That redo will happen if I ever get indicted.’  To me as an extremist follower that is not a political statement, that is a statement that anybody who follows extremists can understand. That is validation…”

 

Juliette Kayyem a CNN National Security Analyst agreed completely. She said,

“It is not even hinting anymore. We used to use the word “dog whistle” when we talk about Trump. This is now directing. Don’t just listen to Trump’s words. Imagine what his supporters are hearing. They are hearing the call to action…We need to call it what it is that we have a former president who is inciting violence as an extension of his political defeat. That’s what it is now.”

 

I know Trump’s supporters don’t believe anything CNN says, but I think CNN got this right from Trump’s own words. I agree with the CNN interpretation. This was the only logical interpretation of what Trump said. This was a call to violent action without mentioning the word. The message was absolutely clear, just as his words were absolutely clear to his supporters on January 6th. They knew what to do. And Trump was threatening to do it all over again if he was charged! This was doing what Donald Trump always does when he is cornered. He does not back down. He doubles down.

In November of 2023 a Colorado judge District Judge, Sarah B. Wallace, after hearing all the evidence and arguments from lawyers for Trump, and the District Attorney, and then ruled that former President Donald Trump “engaged in insurrection” during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol but rejected an effort to keep him off the state’s primary ballot because it’s unclear. The judge rejected the claim that the constitutional amendment that bars insurrectionists from public office applies to the presidency, but that is irrelevant.  The judge clearly said Trump was an insurrectionist based only on evidence.

This was not a judgement by the libs. This was not the “failing New York Times” claiming that Trump was an insurrectionist. Nor was it “fake news” CNN.  Nor was it a “biased House of Representatives committee. This was the decision of an impartial judge after weighing all the evidence and listening to the argument of the lawyers. Is this not something Republicans, and in fact all Americans, should take seriously? That judgment makes it absolutely clear, beyond any doubt in my view, that Trump was guilty of insurrection? Yet, as far as I know, his support among Republicans in the current presidential election campaign has not dropped! How is that possible?

Millions of Americans are prepared to elect an insurrectionist as President of their country! They don’t care!

I recall Trump once said that he could shoot someone in Times Square New York City and it would not affect his support. It looks like he was absolutely right!

Americans must realize what Trump is doing. He is doing the same thing Hitler did after the German Reichstag burned down. The German people continued to support Hitler. We must always remember that Germans elected Hitler because they wanted him to make Germany great again,

Now the question is what will the American people do? Will they acquiesce with  this dangerous slide into fascism?  I know many of his supporters will do that. They will accept that with the enthusiasm they showed on January 6, 2021.

I am not sure of what the majority of Americans will do, but I am uneasy.

Deeply uneasy.

 

A Safe Place to Hate.

Conservative, Evangelical Christianity, Fear, Hate, Moral Humility, Politics & Religion, Right-wing Extremism, Trumpism, Woke

 

There had been a lot of social change just before Rush Limbaugh arrived on the scene. There was gay liberation, women’s rights, and liberalism. Many felt they could no longer say what they wanted to say. Political correctness was seen as a stifling chain. They also thought no one was speaking like them or to them. They were ignored and invisible. As Justin Ling said in his CBC. Radio series , “In the universe of right-wing media compared to the Wall Street Journal and like the later Fox News Limbaugh’s listeners were older, whiter, more conservative, and more religious. For this slice of America Limbaugh created a safe space.” He created a safe place to hate.

Surprisingly, because there was a Republican in the White House, as Ling said, “he convinced these old, white, conservative, and religious Americans that they were disenfranchised!” Even though they were in the majority! It was pure alchemy. He told them they were looked down on. He milked them for their resentment—the elixir of devils. As Ling said, “He formed a kind of counterculture; a resistance against the liberals, and the progressives, and the feminists.”

In the mid-80s he syndicated to about 50 stations across the country but by 1990 he got 450 affiliates. He was the rock star of talk radio and the conservative movement. He led a Rush to Excellence Tour to various stadiums around the country with as many as 10,000 people.  As Justin Ling said, “Limbaugh declared a culture war”. Limbaugh put it this way:

“We are in the midst of a culture war. What are rights? This culture war illustrates precisely what is going on. We in America are in the midst—it’s an exciting time to be alive—we are in the midst of a redefinition of who is going to define right and wrong, what the punishment is going to be for those who violate the limits that we place on our behavior. We are arguing about who has the right to tell us what is right and what is wrong. We’re arguing over what censorship is And to me its pretty scary.”

 

And there it is again—fear—the secret sauce of paranoia and right-wing hysteria.

Like Trump later, Limbaugh went from being a spoiled rich kid to a champion of the working class. People all over America were starting to take notice of Limbaugh. I remember at the time hearing about him from a friend of mine, a trucker. Truckers loved Limbaugh, just like they later loved Trump and basically for the same reasons. They liked to have a wrecking ball in their corner as did my friend the trucker, and much later the truckers convoy in Ottawa in 2022. They got a rush from Rush Limbaugh.

As Justin Ling said, “On his radio show he was the voice of God on a one way street. And he loved nothing better than to run over liberal women. On his radio show he said, “this is a show devoted to what I think.” On the Dave Lettermen show he said people were bugged by him because “I have almost a monopoly on the truth.” No one could ever accuse Limbaugh of humility. Humility was a liberal vice. And his fans loved it.  He also said “This is a benevolent dictatorship. I am the dictator. There is no first amendment here except for me.”

Now he was entitled to be the dictator of his own show. If we don’t like it, we don’t have to listen to it.