He's Called "Cheeto Benito" For A Reason

In reading this story about neo-fascist demagogue and mental case Donald "The Chosen One" Trump retweeting a symbol used by white supremacists, we noted this tweet from 2016 that was included in the story:

"@ilduce2016: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” – @realDonaldTrump #MakeAmericaGreatAgain"

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2016

That Trump echoed the thoughts of Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini (Il Duce), Hitler's WWII ally, shouldn't surprise anyone, since his admiration of dictators is well known. He knows his right-wing, red cap cult longs for an authoritarian leader who will bulldoze democratic institutions and political norms to establish their warped, racist policies. He's happy to oblige.

Stormtrumpers Fight Over Nazi Salute At Inauguration Ball

It seems some of the brownshirt cockroaches celebrating neo- fascist white nationalist Donald "Rump" Trump's inauguration have been having quite a time putting on their "DeploraBall" (Get it? Hur hur).

First, a ballroom in Northern Virginia decided they hadn't actually agreed to host it and told the little stormtrumpers to f*ck off.  Now, having found a new venue (the National Press Club!), they've found something else to get their pure white tighty whities in a knot about:

A major fight has broken out among Trump’s white nationalist fans over whether they should celebrate Trump’s pending inauguration by showering him with Nazi salutes. 

Alt-right leader Mike Cernovich, who is organizing the Deploraball, started a massive fight this week after he told popular alt-right Twitter personality @bakedalaska that he couldn’t attend the party if he was going to do Nazi salutes of the kind that white nationalist Richard Spencer encouraged during his talk at the National Policy Institute conference earlier this month. [snip] 

The neo-Nazis at The Daily Stormer quickly got involved and declared that Cernovich was a member of the “cuck/kike contingent of the Trump movement” who had “banned… heroes such as Richard Spencer and Sam Hyde” from attending the inauguration ball, while still inviting “Alt-Light figures attempting to kike-over the Alt-Right by making it non-racist and accepting of Jews.”  (our emphasis)

(Aside: "@bakedalaska?"  Shouldn't that be "@half-bakedalaska?" Also, Cernovich is a real piece of work.)

Apparently, trolling people on the internet and conducting armed anti- Semitic marches doesn't occupy enough of their time, so some are engaged in bitter warfare over whether Rump's already betrayed their shit wit "cause," especially regarding "The Jews."  Rest easy, dimwits, and be assured Rump has your interests at heart; he'd just like you to keep the profile down for now.

BONUS:  Wonkette has it covered.

(Photo: neo-Nazis at Richard Spencer's konklave in Washington, DC, after the election.)

Trump's Vote Fraud Lie Is The Opening Gambit In Voter Suppression Drive

The adoption by neo- fascist loser Donald "Rump" Trump of far- right claims of massive voter fraud in the recent election (see Rump's tweet in the post below) is being seen as not only the wounded reaction of a narcissistic sociopath who sees himself as a "winner" in all things, but the opening shot in an aggressive voter suppression drive by his forming administration.  Instituting restrictive voter ID laws, which do nothing to prevent (non-existent) voter fraud but do everything to keep Democratic- leaning constituencies away from the polls, will likely be the first step. Here are the tells:

-- The involvement in the transition of Kansas Secretary of State Kris "Starts And Ends With Koch" Kobach.  Kobach is the nation's number one voter suppression expert, who's been out encouraging fellow right- wing election officials to adopt Kansas' methods of keeping right- wing office holders in place.  The Koch brothers' darling has been advising Rump on matters involving establishing a database of Muslims as well.

-- The involvement of the "True the Vote" racist voter suppression goons in ginning up the false claims.  As the "True the Vote" cranks say in a press release (via Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog, who has more on how the vote fraud conspiracy theory originated):

“True the Vote absolutely supports President-elect Trump’s recent comment about the impact of illegal voting, as reflected in the national popular vote. We are still collecting data and will be for several months, but our intent is to publish a comprehensive study on the significant impact of illegal voting in all of its many forms and begin a national discussion on how voters, states, and the Trump Administration can best address this growing problem.”

"... begin a national discussion..." on the non- existent voter fraud threat.  Yeah, we see where that's going.

-- Racist Attorney General- designate Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, soon to be in charge of what's left of Voting Rights Act "enforcement" -- 'nuff said.

When fascists come to power (and if you don't see nascent fascism here, you're not paying attention) they don't like to give it up through such messy niceties like democratic elections.  What we are beginning to see are the first steps in consolidating white nationalist/ fascist power in America;  there will be more as power is handed over to these knuckle- draggers. We've been warned.

BONUS: What Gene says.

BONUS II:  Ezra Klein on what is really scary about Rump's detachment from reality.

BONUS III:  Greg Sargent has more along the same lines.

(Photo:  The picture of Rump that he objected to as "unflattering" in his meeting with the New York Effing Times one week ago today - please disseminate far and wide.)

Even If Trump Paid No Taxes For 18 Years, Stormtrumpers Won't Care

The latest from the New York Times this morning:

Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show. 

The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. 

Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period. 

Although Mr. Trump’s taxable income in subsequent years is as yet unknown, a $916 million loss in 1995 would have been large enough to wipe out more than $50 million a year in taxable income over 18 years.

So, no taxes to support infrastructure, education, health, veterans, the military, etc., etc. in 18 years? Taxes the rest of us have had to make up for while he gilts his toilets. Sure does sound like a sociopathic narcissist who said he thinks he's smart not to pay taxes.

The kicker?  There's a mole close to Rump:

The three documents arrived by mail at The Times with a postmark indicating they had been sent from New York City. The return address claimed the envelope had been sent from Trump Tower.  (our emphasis)

Hmmm. Who oh who could it be?

Here's the reaction on Twitter to #LastTimeTrumpPaidTaxes.

Now here's why it won't affect his standing one bit with his legions of  deplorables Stormtrumpers:

In a living room in western Pennsylvania, the Republican National Convention was on TV, and Melanie Austin was getting impatient. 

“Who’s that guy?” she said, watching some billionaire talk about prosperity and tolerance. “Prosperity and tolerance? Forget that sh--.” 

She lit a cigarette. Her boyfriend, Kevin Lisovich, was next to her on the couch, drifting to sleep, a pillow over his head. On the ottoman was her cellphone, her notes on the speakers so far — “LOCK HER UP!!” she had written — and the anti-anxiety pills she kept in a silver vial on her keychain. 

She was a 52-year-old woman who had worked 20 years for the railroad, had once been a Democrat and was now a Republican, and counted herself among the growing swath of people who occupied the fringes of American politics but were increasingly becoming part of the mainstream. Like millions of others, she believed that President Obama was a Muslim. And like so many she had gotten to know online through social media, she also believed that he was likely gay, that Michelle Obama could be a man, and that the Obama children were possibly kidnapped from a family now searching for them. [snip] 

The first time she had seen him, at a rally in June, she was just beginning to realize how many people saw the world the way she did, that she was one among millions. At the time, her hips were still sore from a series of injections intended to calm her. She had gotten them in February, during a difficult time in her life, when she had been involuntarily hospitalized for several weeks after what she called a “rant,” a series of online postings that included one saying that Obama should be hanged and the White House fumigated and burned to the ground. On her discharge papers, in a box labeled “medical problem,” a doctor had typed “homicidal ideation.”

(There's a lot of "economic anxiety" there, can you tell?) Of course, Stormtrumpers like this deplorable creature are motivated by a deep, irrational well of racism and xenophobia that's been nurtured and encouraged for decades, not just through "social media" but by a network of crackpot right- wingers, including Fox "News", hate radio, and online hate outlets like Breitbart and Infowars.  They're being mainstreamed in a manner unlike at any other time in recent history by neo- fascist demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump. That's why this election is a test of American democracy: if, when the menace to it has been made abundantly clear, how hard do we fight to stop it?

Quote Of The Day

A substantial portion of this country wants someone not to govern, but to rule, to defeat the imaginary enemies they have concocted so as not to bestir themselves to resist the forces that actually are working against their interest. For the balance of this election cycle, and largely due to the presence in it of this ridiculous man and his ridiculous campaign, the American people have proven themselves profoundly unworthy of being called citizens.  -- Charles P. Pierce, despairing that too many of us have given up on the duties of citizenship in the rise of neo- fascist demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump.  Good read.

Today's Cartoon And Reading - An Evil Fool And Fraud

(click on image to enlarge)


(Tom Toles, once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle)

We needn't go further than the op/ ed pages of the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle for today's cartoon and fusillade of truth concerning neo- fascist ignoramus Donald "Rump" Trump.  These deep dives give you the flavor of the pieces, but please go to the links for the full effect.

Eugene Robinson on Trump's self- inflated myth- making:

Donald Trump looked like a fool and a fraud on Sunday. But what else is new?

Even the most ardent Trumpistas would have to admit that Trump’s appearance at the annual Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally was, as spectacles go, pretty pathetic. It was supposed to be a vast, multitudinous gathering on the plaza in front of the Lincoln Memorial, one of the greatest and most historic public spaces in the nation. Instead, Trump drew a paltry crowd estimated by organizers at perhaps 5,000.

As Trump might say in a late-night tweet: “Sad!”

The presumptive Republican nominee cut a ridiculous figure, sporting a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap to guard against rogue breezes that might unhinge his comb-over. He lamented the attendance: “I thought this would be like Dr. Martin Luther King, where the people would be lined up from here all the way to the Washington Monument, right?”

He claimed that the anticipated throng was out there, but “unfortunately, they don’t allow ’em to come in.” That was a lie; there were no hordes outside the security perimeter, pleading for admittance. Since everyone present could easily discern the truth, Trump must have been lying to himself — perhaps to ease the sting of what can only be seen as an awful week for his campaign.

As Trump showed the world, it is relatively easy to run for president if you are willing to say or do anything to get attention and you believe in nothing except your own self-inflated myth. His reality-television-style campaign overwhelmed a badly fractured Republican Party. But the act is getting harder to pull off because now his words, often chosen for their shock value, have real consequences.

Former Dumbya speechwriter Michael "Mushroom Cloud" Gerson, whose world does not include mirrors, still points the finger... away:

Some Republicans keep expecting Trump to finally remove the mask of misogyny, prejudice and cruelty and act in a more presidential manner. But it is not a mask. It is his true face. Good Republican leaders making the decision to support Trump will end up either humiliated by the association, or betrayed and attacked for criticizing the great leader. Trump leaves no other options.

Here is the problem in sum: Republicans have not been given the option of choosing the lesser of two evils. The GOP has selected someone who is unfit to be president, lacking the temperament, stability, judgment and compassion to occupy the office. This is a terrible error, which has probably cost conservatives a majority on the Supreme Court. But the mistake was made by Republican primary voters in choosing Trump — not by those who can’t, in good conscience, support him.  

Frequent blind squirrel Richard Cohen comes out of a decades- long coma and is surprised (!) by the capitulation of the amoral, shitsack Republican "establishment" and fears the easy- come fascism of a broad swath of Americans:

When I see these Trump supporters on television — the commentators, the Politician’s Puttanesca (a dish to poison the body politic) — I have to wonder where they would draw the line. The answer seems to be: nowhere. They want to win. They want to beat Hillary Clinton, a calling so imperative that sheer morality must give way. Muslims and Mexicans are merely collateral damage in a war that must be fought. What about blacks or Jews? Not yet.

Maybe the talking heads on TV would draw the line at some mild version of fascism, but would the American people do the same? Here, I must hesitate. The easy yes of yesteryear has given way to awful doubt. Trump could win. He could become president, commander in chief, ruler of the Justice Department and head of the IRS. In other words, the American people could elect someone who has not the slightest appreciation for the Constitution or American tradition. When Trump insisted that he could compel a military officer to obey an illegal order, I heard the echo of jackboots on cobblestone.  [snip]

History nags. It admonishes. “American exceptionalism” is a phrase that refers to the past, not necessarily the future. Nothing is guaranteed. I’d like to think that Americans really are exceptional, that we have an exceptional faith in democracy and the rule of law. I now have some doubt. I always knew who Trump was. It’s the American people who have come as a surprise.

"The Good Old Days" Featuring Donald Trump And The Stormtrumpers (UPDATED)

UPDATE:  There may not be a more despicable pantload in the country today than Donald "Rump" Trump.

Today's Recommended Reads (UPDATED)

Here are some teasers for recommended reading for today!

The Los Angeles Times tells Californians "anybody but Trump":

Democrats are still choosing between two candidates with specific, policy-heavy pitches — Sanders and his promise of sweeping, even utopian change and Hillary Clinton with her more incremental agenda of building on President Obama’s legacy. Meanwhile, millions of Republicans have fallen under the spell of a snake-oil salesman. That’s an indictment of the Republican Party, but it also is a judgment on politics and political discourse more generally.

Robert Kagan tells us "how fascism comes to America":

... In addition to all that comes from being the leader of a mass following, he would also have the immense powers of the American presidency at his command: the Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence services, the military. Who would dare to oppose him then? Certainly not a Republican Party that lay down before him even when he was comparatively weak. And is a man like Trump, with infinitely greater power in his hands, likely to become more humble, more judicious, more generous, less vengeful than he is today, than he has been his whole life? Does vast power un-corrupt? 

This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac “tapping into” popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him.

Is Kagan a progressive?  Hardly.  Is he a founding member of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party?  Yes.  In fact, the op/ ed is clearly written with fellow Republicans in mind, and while he calls the party Trump's "incubator," he fails to indict the conservative movement for the Trump phenomenon.  Here's Jeet Heer's correction of Kagan's history:

... Kagan has good reason to want to gloss over the historical roots of Trumpism. Although he will vote for Hillary Clinton this year, Kagan is a neoconservative whose hawkish foreign policy ideas were immensely influential during the presidency of George W. Bush. If we wanted to boil down Trumpism to two historical precedents, they would be the Southern Strategy (which made the Republican Party amenable to Trump’s racism) and Bush’s war on terror (which primed the party to respond to fear-mongering, threat inflation, and bluster).

Both recommended reads.*

Finally, via Lawyers, Guns and Money, this potential Area 51 landing zone for Koch megabucks and #NeverTrump far right- wing purists:

Billionaire businessman and philanthropist David Koch has pledged “tens of millions of dollars” to help bankroll the campaign of Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, according to a source within Johnson’s campaign.

Koch’s money will be made available should Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, secure his second consecutive Libertarian Party presidential nomination, the source said.

A swamp of cranks, black helicopter spotters and preppers if there ever was one, the Libertarian Party has attracted the fawning attention of uber nut Glenn "Boo Hoo" Beck, which tells you all you need to know.  But, hey, take those votes away from Rump!

*UPDATE:   Then there were less temperate reactions =cough= filthy fascists =cough= to all this.

Not Hitler! Tweets Of The Day

Somebody alert the KKK and Stormfront;  they'll be deeply disappointed:

Melania Trump: My husband is 'not Hitler' https://t.co/bEeVd64ugY pic.twitter.com/ry0OfGZXm4

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) May 17, 2016

Congratulations @GOP in just 36 years you've gone from
"Shining city on a hill"
to
"Not Hitler"

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) May 17, 2016

Today's Cartoon - Trump's Bully Pulpit

(click on image to enlarge)



(Darrin Bell, via gocomics.com)

Any wonder why more and more Americans are seeing fascist undertones in the campaign of Donald "Rump" Trump?

Eine kleine faschistische Musik

When you've got the music critics noticing...

Chris Richards, music critic at the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle notices something about the music at Nuremberg rallies for neo- fascist buffoon Donald "Rump" Trump:

The first thing resembling music at Saturday’s Donald Trump rally comes from the crowd waiting outside of Cleveland’s I-X Center, barking their man’s name in vicious staccato. The sound rips clear across the parking lot, where six cops on horseback patrol the blacktop, expecting the worst.

That’s because Trump’s rallies have become malignant assemblies where violence is not only tolerated, but encouraged without shame and practiced without remorse. The Republican presidential front-runner recently described the flying fists of his constituency as “a beautiful thing,” only to backpedal after being asked whether paying the legal fees of his sucker-punchiest supporters might sanctify their violence.

Trump has provided this toxic American moment with its own distinct soundtrack — his rallies feature a variety of benign rock songs played at unforgiving volumes. And while the pundits have enjoyed some high-quality giggles over the quirkiness of Trump’s song selection, what matters far more is how this music shakes the air, how it shapes the psychology of the room. [snip]

Nobody’s singing along to any of these tunes. Nobody’s bobbing their head. Nobody’s even chewing their Doublemint to the backbeat. Nothing. Instead of energizing this crowd, Trump’s playlist simply replaces silence with a different kind of emptiness. It creates an absence of mood, an anti-mood — authoritarian hold music.  [snip]

In addition to agitating audiences, the cranked volumes also stifle direct human conversation. Reporters say they’ve had trouble interviewing folks at these rallies, which casts an ominous little prophecy: If you’d like to be heard in Donald Trump’s America, your options will be to shout or to be Donald Trump. (our emphasis)

The psychological and physical brutalism that's playing out at these Rump anger fests should be strong signals to anyone who still thinks Rump and his Stormrumpers can be "controlled" or "civilized" through the election season.  Authoritarian narcissists like Rump aren't going to (pardon the expression) change their tune.  They're just going to turn up the volume.

Today's Cartoon - The Latest Trump Threat

(click on image to enlarge)



(Jim Morin, Miami Herald)

The latest warning threat from neo- fascist misdirected- rage- channeler Donald "Rump" Trump this morning:

Trump warned Wednesday morning that there would be widespread unrest if he does not "automatically" get the nomination as the candidate with the greatest number of delegates. 

"I think you would have riots," Trump said during an interview with CNN, adding that he represents "many, many millions of people," including several first-time voters.  [snip]

"If you disenfranchise those people, and you say, 'Well, I’m sorry, but you’re 100 votes short, even though the next one is 500 votes short,' I think you would have problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen," Trump continued. "I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen."

Nice democracy you have there.  Be a shame if anything happened to it.

Trump And The "Group Mentality" He's Inciting (UPDATED)

People are noticing the mood change that comes over a crowd when neo- fascist thug Donald "Rump" Trump appears and his gauleiters crank things up:

The New York Times

The other striking aspect of these rallies is how affable the crowd is — until the Trump campaign cranks up the intolerance. Waiting hours for their candidate to arrive, supporters snapped photos of one another, chatted and cooed at babies in their parents’ arms. But when Mr. Trump and his warm-up crew, led Sunday by an aide, Stephen Miller, had the stage, a different undercurrent could be felt. There was an onstage tribute to people “murdered by illegal immigrants.” As a few protesters were ejected, Mr. Miller ranted into the mike: “You just heard a mother whose child was murdered and you want to sow chaos? What kind of person are you?”  [Ed. note:  No, what kind of person are you?]

Dana Milbank

It was a festive afternoon at the Sunset Cove Amphitheater. Families rolled out blankets on the lawn beside a man-made lake. Vendors sold foot-long hot dogs. Organizers tossed T-shirts from the stage.

Then, at nightfall, Donald Trump took the stage — and things turned dark.

And finally,

Hitler and the Nazis recognized that if the German people had a group mentality they would be much more receptive to Nazi ideology and propaganda. To reinforce this mindset in the German people, or Volk, the Nazis held events that required mass participation and did not invite individuality, such as “parades, mass meetings, semi-religious rituals, [and] festivals” (Boasmajian 70). Anyone who did not openly participate or share the emotion of the rest of the crowd was easily identified and dealt with by either the crowd itself or by security personnel. One did not even have to be resistant or cause a disturbance to be viewed as subversive; indifference alone was enough to infuriate the crowd (Bosamajian 69-70).  (our emphasis)

Oops, how did that last quote get in there?!

By the way, the crowds are "affable" and "festive" after profiling potential protesters, who are then "removed" by police or Rump's security thugs.   Kind of like, um...

UPDATE:  Hey, look!  He even has his own SA!

They'll wear the best, highest quality, brown shirts, and they’re gonna look amazing folks. https://t.co/RwGMX69msp pic.twitter.com/cV98rCq1xC

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) March 15, 2016

The Next Generation Of Stormtrumpers Is Being Taught To Hate

One of the most disturbing things about the racist and xenophobic virus that neo- fascist Republican front- runner Donald "Rump" Trump is spreading in the country is how it's presenting itself in our children.  It seems "Trump!" is becoming a taunt and a threat that's hurled at anyone who's deemed to be "them" by white students in an increasing number of instances.  This virus has been mostly dormant, alive but under the surface, but Rump and his enablers in the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Shooter's party have allowed it to come out in the open where it is infecting a potential next generation of Stormtrumpers.

Paula Dvorak sees the contamination in elementary school children, even in diverse Fairfax County, Virginia, and Annapolis, Maryland:

“Get ’em out!” is what Trump screams at every rally when he sees Black Lives Matter and other protesters, even silent ones. This is not far off from what some third-graders allegedly said to two brown-skinned classmates in their Northern Virginia classroom. The mother of one of the children, Evelyn Momplaisir, posted an account on Facebook:

“I just got a call from my son’s teacher giving me a heads up that two of his classmates decided to point out the ‘immigrants’ in the class who would be sent ‘home’ when Trump becomes president. They singled him out and were pointing and laughing at him as one who would have to leave because of the color of his skin. In third grade . . . in Fairfax County . . . in 2016!”

Dvorak then catalogs Rump's many affronts to decency and tolerance in the guise of not being "politically correct" and asks,

You think kids aren’t going to play this out in the schoolyard?

Even if they’re not taking their phrases directly from Trump’s playbook, his guided free-for-all has unleashed a growing atmosphere of hate.

I don’t know whether Trump was the inspiration for the kids on an all-white Annapolis-area hockey team who singled out the black players on my son’s team, calling them the N-word and harassing them throughout the game. But they heard those words somewhere. They learned that cruelty somewhere. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to blame their behavior on the nation’s growing tolerance of open displays of bigotry.

Dave Zirin sketches two recent examples of the contagion at the high school level:

At a recent game between Perry [Iowa] and a rival team from Dallas Center-Grimes high school, opposing fans chanted “Trump” and racial slurs, and threatened to build a wall and kick the Perry players out of the country. After the incident, Perry student Kevin Lopez told reporters, “We are all aware of racism; it’s alive and well in small portions, but it’s alive and well, and it’s just hurtful to see that’s what they resort to.” By the way, Perry won that game 57–50.

That was a public school matchup. In Merrillville, Indiana, two Catholic schools—both part of the Gary, Indiana, Diocese—Bishop Noll and Andrean, faced off. The Bishop Noll team is majority Latino and had to face a large Donald Trump head being held up in the Andrean student section. Andrean students, according to numerous reports, also chanted “Build a wall!” and “Speak English!”

Note that these are just some of the incidents being reported;  we have no doubt whatsoever that there are many young minds being influenced by the hate speech emanating primarily from Rump, but also from his Neanderthal competitors, "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz and Marco "Roboto" Rubio.  After all, it's what a large segment of the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Shooter's party now demands in its candidates:  open, raw racism and xenophobia.  "Telling it like it is."  "Saying what's on people's minds."  "Not politically correct."  All of that is leading to an even more un- civil society, with seeds being planted for the next generation of haters.

The ugliness you've been seeing in their campaigns and "debates" is now playing out on playgrounds and gyms all over the country, and it's perhaps the most despicable legacy of this despicable cast of characters and their party.

"Voters For Trump"

Saturday Night Live nails every lame excuse, rationalization and lazy Stormtrumper narrative:



BONUS:  Here's a good read on the intellectual laziness of the simplistic, sound- bite television/ consumer culture that Rump voters live in.

BONUS II:  Here's more on the link between racism and Republicans.

Nuremberg Comes To Las Vegas

Neo- fascist bag o' slime Donald "Rump" Trump was at a rally in Nuremberg Las Vegas speaking to a crowd of Stormtrumpers, showing that (as the old saying goes) "it takes one to know one:"

At his rally in Las Vegas, Trump said of the Texan senator: “This guy Cruz has lied more than any human being. He holds up the Bible, and he lies.”

Trump went on to complain about a “phony” Cruz ad airing in Nevada that accuses Trump of wanting to leave the state’s federal lands in the hands of the government. “This guy is sick, there’s something wrong with this guy,” Trump said.

We wouldn't argue with you so far, Rump.

Then, feeling empowered by the collective anger and hate from his knuckle- dragging audience, this happened:

When one of two hecklers interrupted the businessman, the property magnate openly talked of violence. “You know what they used to do with guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks,” he said.

Noting the protester was smiling as he was escorted out, Trump quipped: “I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell you that.”  [crowd erupting in cheers]

There's your Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Shooter's Party front- runner, folks!  Is that not Presidential material!?  Lincolnesque!

In related news, the editorial board of the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle weighed in on Republican National Chairstain Reince "Prepuce" Priebus' answer to a question concerning the Party's support should Rump win the nomination:

ON SUNDAY, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus whether the party would back Donald Trump should he win the GOP nomination. “Yes, we will support the nominee,” the Republican chairman replied. “To me, it’s a no-brainer.” Mr. Stephanopoulos asked if a Trump nomination would split the party. “Winning is the antidote to a lot of things,” Mr. Priebus responded.

Winning can quiet many complaints, it is true. But it cannot and will not be an antidote to the moral poison of Mr. Trump’s campaign. Party leaders who support and celebrate his victory will be accomplices to an attack on the fundamental values of American democracy. Winning will not wash away the stain.

Judging from the legions of flotsam showing up at Rump rallies, not to mention the followers of the "sick" extremist "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz and empty suit crank Sen. Marco "Roboto" Rubio, the "moral poison" about in the land is broad and deep and endangers us all.   Rump is the main symptom and channeling agent, but he's by no means the only one.

Trump And Re-Learning Lessons Of The Holocaust

Yesterday, many countries held Holocaust Memorial Days, commemorating the victims of Nazi genocide in World War II.  Dana Milbank spoke with some Holocaust survivors and writes about lessons of the Holocaust that need to be re- learned today in light of a certain neo- fascist bag o' farts and his imitators:

This year’s Holocaust remembrance comes at a time when Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, retweets to his nearly 6 million followers a message from @WhiteGenocideTM based in “Jewmerica,” and a time when his nearest challenger, Ted Cruz, brandishes the endorsement of a minister who says Hitler was a “hunter” sent after the Jews by God. There has never been a more important time for Americans to heed the moral authority of the Holocaust survivors still among us.

“It’s really frightening,” said Al Munzer, hidden as an infant in the Netherlands with a Dutch family and their Muslim nanny. “When you see these mass rallies that Trump is able to attract, you really wonder: How are they buying into this message of hate?”  [snip]

Now an American presidential candidate has made scapegoats of immigrants, Muslims, Latinos, African Americans, the disabled, women. And for the first time, Martin Weiss hears echoes of his youth. “The guy scares me,” he said after listening to the ambassador’s tribute. “I don’t want to make any comparison to Hitler, but believe it or not his delivery and the way he conducts himself is very similar to Hitler’s way of doing things. He discredits everybody who disagrees with him. He’s insulting. He discriminates against everybody.”  (our emphasis)

Despite the media's soft- focus on the person many of them continue to call "The Donald," and attempts to patronize him as just a buffoon who eventually will be exposed, the truth is Donald "Rump" Trump is a dangerous man with dangerous motivations appealing to the lizard brain of an authoritarian- loving base.  He enthralls the clueless, supine media (today's print edition of the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle has a full page and a half just about Rump and his "falling out" with Fox "News"!) and looks increasingly likely to be the Presidential candidate of one of our two major parties.  More and more "establishment" Republicans are seemingly resigning themselves to him as their nominee, or as Milbank put it in an earlier op/ ed, "That soft flapping sound you hear is the Grand Old Party waving the flag of surrender to Trump."

When we look at the Stormtrumpers at Rump rallies, we see the mindless hate, the scapegoating, the mis- directed anger, the latent (and real) violence -- and an authoritarian demagogue stoking and leading the mob, animated by his narcissistic ego and a sense of victimhood (see Kelly, Megyn).  It sounds familiar to us, too, Mr. Weiss.

Nuremberg Comes To Burlington

Neo-fascist fartbag Donald "Rump" Trump has about had it with protesters at his rallies:

“Did you get him out of here? Did you get them out?” Trump repeatedly said. “Pretty soon they’re [his security] going to get so nasty, that we will not have any protests.”

And

“The first night when I had these characters, I said I don’t want anybody to get hurt,” he said, adding that he has since learned another approach. “I was wrong. I said get him out of here now… They were swinging… Rough guy, very loud… Next time, I said please remove them. My guys said don’t hurt them… But I got killed the next day. They said Trump was weak.” 

And 

"Throw them out into the cold,” Trump ordered security, as protesters shouted “Bernie! Bernie!” during his rally Thursday night in Burlington, Vt.

“Don’t give them their coats,” Trump added. “No coats! Confiscate their coats.”

“It’s about 10 degrees below zero outside… You can keep his coat; tell him we’ll send it to him in a couple of weeks,” Trump told security.

 "Mmmm.  Trump not weak!  Trump strong!  Trump strongman!  Trump security and Stormtrumpers must beat up protesters!  Confiscate coats!  Mmmmm. Good!"

Nuremberg Comes To Phoenix

They come to these American- style Nuremberg rallies for Donald "Rump" Trump to see "what's gonna happen."  That usually involves an assault on an anti- Trump protester, like one that occurred Wednesday in Phoenix:

Jack Owen, 70, a retired auto dealer and Vietnam veteran, walked behind the podium to take a look at Trump’s plane. He had come, he said, “because I read two stories in the Arizona Republic telling people not to come out — ‘Don’t spread the hate.’ Then I said, ‘Well, now I’ve got to go for sure.’ ”

Asked about punching the protester, Owen said almost casually, “Yeah, I sucker-punched the guy; the guy had a ring in his nose.”

Asked what had pushed him that far, he shrugged.

“Just a reaction — we’ve got to go now,” he said, and then he took his wife’s hand and they joined others exiting the hangar, where Trump was still speaking, his voice rising.

"Just a reaction."  Spoken like a true reactionary!

The assaults were not limited to sucker punches from septuagenarian wanna- be jackboots.  There were plenty of verbal assaults, too. The now- familiar "Motherf*cking tacos!" epithet was heard at this rally, as it or a variation has been heard at other Trump rallies.

They're not there to hear what Trump has to say, but more to bathe in the raw anger, victimhood and bigotry.  As one Trump supporter said,

“I don’t expect to hear anything I haven’t heard before,” said Tammy Edwards, 56, a medical assistant. “But it feels good to be around people who think the same as you, who are fed up.”

Hmmm.  A she's a "medical assistant."  We wouldn't want to be "helped" by Tammy if we were Hispanic or otherwise non- pure Aryan.

Does this definition of "fascism" from emeritus professor Robert Paxton set off any alarm bells?

"[Fascism is] a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

As fellow blogger Grung_e_Gene once aptly put it, "When fascism comes to America it'll be wearing a day- glo orange toupee and be yuuuge and classy."

Morning Long Read: Right- Wing Populism, Fascism and Trump

If you want a detailed examination of the nexus of right-wing populism, home grown fascism and Donald "Rump" Trump, look no further than this excellent deep- dive by David Neiwert (this is only an excerpt;  the full analysis is well worth your time):

The populism whipped up by [Sarah] Palin’s candidacy became manifest as a national movement in short order with the rise of the Tea Party in 2009. Indeed, not only was the Tea Party overtly a right-wing populist movement, it soon became a major conduit for a revival of the 1990s version of this populism, the “Patriot”/militia movement. Many of these Tea Partiers are now the same Oath Keepers and “III Percenters” whose members widely support Trump’s candidacy.

Of course, most of these extremists are only one step removed, ideologically speaking, from the neo-Nazis and other white supremacists of the racist right, and both of those segments of the right lean heavily on nativist and authoritarian rhetoric. And there really is no other good word for Trump’s rhetoric, and the behavior of many of his followers, than “fascistic.” So it’s only somewhat natural that Trump’s right-wing populism would be mistaken for fascism – they are, after all, not just kissing cousins, but more akin to siblings. Not every right-wing populist is a fascist, but every fascist is a right-wing populist.

All of which underscores the central fact: Donald Trump may not be a fascist, but his vicious brand of right-wing populism is not just empowering the latent fascist elements in America, he is leading a whole nation of followers merrily down a path that leads directly to fascism.  [snip]

... He may not himself lack any real ideological footing, but he has laid the groundwork for a fascist groundswell that could someday be ridden to power by a similarly charismatic successor who is himself more in the mold of an ideological fascist. And it doesn’t take a very long look down the roll of 2016 Republican candidates to find a couple of candidates who might fit that mold.  [Ed. note:  we like Cruz, Carson and Paul in that role, for starters.]

Trump may not be fascist, but he is empowering their existing elements in American society; even more dangerously, his Tea Party brand of right-wing populism is helping them grow their ranks, along with their potential to recruit, by leaps and bounds. Not only that, he is making all this thuggery and ugliness seem normal. And that IS a serious problem.  (our emphasis)

We should note Neiwert's piece was written at the end of November, well before his most recent "ban all Muslims from the U.S." demagoguery;  it's possible, with that recent evidence, Neiwert might recalibrate his judgement of Trump as "maybe not a fascist" to "yeah, he just crossed the line."

You're seeing a lot written about Trump's thuggery, some of it by those who've chosen up until now to overlook or pooh- pooh the signs of this creeping, faux "populism," imagining that the Trump bubble would burst and a more palatable Republican (most of whom are just as bad as Trump but are careful with their words) would emerge with the nomination.   But as his support continues to hold or grows, it's become panic time for those gatekeepers of conventional wisdom.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) lays out the root problem that the pundits and Very Serious People in and around the Beltway have until recently chosen to ignore, and thus are due their fair share of the blame for the horror show that is Trump and the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Shooters Party:

Donald Trump is standing on a platform of hate that the Republican Party built for him.

— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) December 8, 2015

That's right;  they built this.  With a yooge assist from these people.