QOTD -- The MAGA Crack-up Has Begun

 

"Here we are, Black Friday, officially Christmastime now. America is in a sour mood. Grocery prices are up, and so are energy prices. Donald Trump lies incessantly about both. The American people are onto him. They’re pessimistic about the future. 

"The distrust goes way beyond the economy. Over these last few weeks, ever since the government shutdown, it’s finally begun to sink in on people that Trump and his entire administration are a bunch of raging ideologues or incompetents or both, peddling a fantasy version of their strength that people no longer buy. There’s no longer any doubt about it: The MAGA crack-up has begun..." -- Michael Tomasky, TNR, before enumerating last week's telltale signs of the Malignant Fascist's MAGA movement fracturing.  It's something to be really thankful for.

 

Trump's Sinking Polls Explained

 

In a great article, which we're excerpting at length, the New Republic's Michael Tomasky gives the sociopath Malignant Fascist reasons why he's at 37% in the polls: his "accomplishments" are very unpopular, and he's a sleazeball, as evidenced by his greed and his perverse friendship and more with Jeffrey Epstein:

"The recent polls have told us over and over and over. The big, ugly bill—unpopular. Rounding up poor guys hanging out at Home Depot looking for work—unpopular. Putting people in, yes, concentration camps—unpopular. Cutting his Palm Beach pals’ taxes—unpopular. Imposing these absurd tariffs—unpopular. I could go on. There is literally not a single important item on the Trump domestic agenda that polls well.

Then there are the promises he’s broken. He said he’d lower prices on day one. Which, you’ll recall, was the same day on which he was going to end Russia’s war on Ukraine. And bring peace to the Middle East. It’s a pleasant surprise here lately that he’s talking smack about Putin and Netanyahu because they’re gumming up his glide path to the Nobel Peace Prize. [snip]

He’s a sleazeball, and more and more people are finally coming to realize it. The Jeffrey Epstein matter is Exhibit A, of course, but there is much more. The way he and his family are getting rich from the presidency is just obscene. Have you ever gone to TrumpStore.com? If not, have a look. It’s relentlessly garish, of course, but more than that, it’s relentlessly and proudly, defiantly overpriced. Yet these idiots buy this crap by the millions.

But it’s Epstein that is catching up with him. And that story is a long, long way from being over. We cannot of course at this point state that Trump is guilty of anything. But allegations are out there. Have you read the testimony of “Katie Johnson”? You might want to familiarize yourself with it. Obviously, I have no idea whether it’s true. If a third of it is, and it’s ever corroborated, it will be by far the biggest presidential scandal of all time.

And even if none of it is true, we’re still dealing with a president of the United States whose best friend for 15 years was a serial child rapist. Let that sink in." (our emphasis)

Tomasky laments that the Dems fell short of driving these points home during last year's election campaign, and worries that Dems haven't learned how to capitalize on these points the way the MF would if the situation were reversed.  Please read his entire article.

 

QOTD -- Fight

 

"... Naturally, we should have realistic expectations about what a minority party can achieve as far as parliamentary maneuvers. But you know what happens as soon as I type a sentence like that? I imagine too many elected congressional Democrats just nodding in agreement and exhaling in relief. The truth is simple: Far too many Democrats don’t want to think of themselves as fighters. This is a self-conception that has some deep historical roots; but far more importantly, it’s a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy of passivity that will have grave consequences for tens of millions of Americans, and for the Constitution and the republic, if they don’t get over this fast and come to terms with the reality they are in..."-- Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, in his article "Democrats: This Is War. Isn't It Time You Acted Like It?  It's not "doomerism" to prod our party leaders to recognize and live up to the moment.  They still have power they can use to disrupt the Malignant Loser and President Musk in their efforts to further destroy the rule of law and American democracy.  We keep saying just shy of 75 million of us (48.3%) voted for the Harris-Walz ticket;  we're within a few votes of a House majority, and Senate rules make it possible to derail or slow down the momentum the MAGAts are trying to build with their "shock and awe" firehose of fascism... if Democrats fight and fight hard.

(Photo:  Again, not a great look / AP)

QOTD -- Ridicule Him!

 

"... Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: 'In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences—but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.… Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.'

"But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s 'weird' comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?"  -- Michael Tomasky, in The New Republic, on the Malignant Loser's Achilles heel -- ridicule.  As lowly bloggers, we have always felt free to ridicule the Malignant Loser (see!?), and will continue to do so.  And, don't forget RFK, Jr.!  When the corporate media clutches its pearls at the Harris-Walz campaign doing the same, including "fact checking" the ludicrous, it's simply more proof that, rather than being "guardians of democracy," they're willing collaborators in the Malignant Loser's attack on it.

Quotes Of The Day -- Lies Plus Impunity

 

"... The record would seem to indicate that Fox executives and anchors had no ideological motivation, because said record suggests that they knew Donald Trump was lying about the 2020 election. But their choice to go along with the Big Lie was partly an ideological choice too, and for this reason: They understood the stakes of going along with the lie. They knew very well that if Trump got his way, and states tried to put in substitute slates of electors or Mike Pence refused to certify the electoral votes on January 6, 2021, that would have been the end of more than 240 consecutive years of democratic rule in the U.S. The end! And they went along. It was driven by ratings in the first instance—which is hardly an excuse, by the way—but it was also revealing of the ideology of the place, where democracy takes a distant second to power..." -- Michael Tomasky in The New Republic on the lies and lying liars of Fox "News" and the right- wing media in general.

____________________ 

“... 'We need experienced and proven leadership back in the White House,'” Representative Michael Waltz said in a statement endorsing Trump on Thursday. Waltz, one of several Florida members of Congress to back Trump this week over Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, specifically cited Trump’s ability to restore American 'credibility.'

"Lies alone perhaps cannot ruin a democracy, but lies plus impunity are another thing entirely. Where is the word that can fully capture the cynicism of endorsing a man who was arguably the biggest liar in the history of the American Presidency because of the credibility he would bring to the office?..." -- Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker on the damage to our democracy because "Fox News Doesn't Do Apologies." 

There's a broad and deep evil in this country that's being sustained by these lies and impunity.  The longer we wait to deal with it as the existential threat to democracy that it is, the more destructive the reckoning.

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Vox's Dara Lind writes about the very specific, odd reference demagogue racist Donald "Rump" Trump has been making about women being smuggled into the US:

Donald Trump’s rhetoric about the border is built on a lie: the idea that the US-Mexico border is a lawless place where American citizens are constantly in grave danger, and where criminals are able to smuggle drugs and people without any risk of apprehension. That big picture — as Vox and the rest of the media has made clear again and again — bears very little resemblance to the truth. 

But the claim about women gagged with tape and packed into vans has attracted particular attention because it’s quickly become a centerpiece of Trump’s rhetoric — according to the Post, as of Friday he’d made 10 references to it in 22 days — without anyone knowing exactly where Trump got it from. 

Border experts have told the Post and other reporters that they’ve never heard anything like what Trump’s talking about.

The Border Patrol has now been on a mission to find out what Rump is talking about, hustling to find "evidence" to back up the moron's fever dream.

(Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog has a plausible explanation as to how this particular bug entered the big brain of the Very Stable Genius:  "I wonder if someone at the White House is showing Trump stock footage and insisting to Trump that it's real."  Steve provides a clip that could've been used to fool the fool.)

Michael Tomasky writes about the prospect of "Nancy and Chuck" owning Rump for the duration, and looks back briefly on the Rump manhood wall debacle:

It’s worth chortling again for a few paragraphs over how ridiculous and weak they made Trump look. Remember, this is a man who spent years, going way back before he started campaigning in 2015, saying over and over and over how easy being president would be. Bring the Chinese to heel? Very easy. Make Middle East peace? Please. Get Mexico to pay for the wall? Piece of cake. He’s been saying these things in books and television appearances for years. 

I can’t imagine who believed him—and if anyone out there was a big enough idiot to do so, that’s their problem. But the point is that he believed it. He actually thought being president would be easy (and the way he does it, watching TV for hours a day and calling Sean Hannity and ignoring 95 percent of what the government under him does, it sort of is, but that’s another matter). 

For two years, it was kind of easy. But in January, he met reality.

And as we all know, reality bites (if you're Rump).

Steve Benen wonders if Republicans have learned anything about Rump as a result of the Trump shutdown fiasco:

[W]hat’s of interest at this point is what, if anything, Republicans have learned from their recent experience. Both Senate Republicans offered specific and unambiguous predictions based on what they assumed to be true about the president, his plans, and his capacity for following through. 

Do they now know better? Shouldn’t they?

With that in mind, consider some of what Trump’s GOP should understand now, even if they were unclear before the president’s surrender on Friday afternoon.

Benen goes on to list 5 things about Rump that they should realize by now. "Should."

Meanwhile, on the keeping- Putin- happy front:

The U.S. Treasury Department on Sunday officially lifted sanctions on businesses tied to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. 

The department said in a news release that the Office of Foreign Assets Control lifted sanctions on EN+ Group Plc and EuroSibEnergo JSC, noting that each company has reduced Deripaska's "direct and indirect shareholding stake in these companies and severed his control." [snip]

Democrats in Congress attempted to block the move. But Senate Republicans were able to defeat the measure and prevent it from advancing to a floor vote earlier this month.  

The agreement the Treasury Department reached with Deripaska included having him cut his direct and indirect share ownership for each company below 50 percent.  

But The New York Times reported last week that Deripaska and his allies are set to retain majority ownership the energy company EN+. 

There is no way -- none -- that this is not a cave to Putin, fully supported by the rotted out Republican Party.

Finally, please do yourselves a favor and check out Infidel 753's link round- up for much more than we have the energy to dig up here.  It's the best round up of "interesting stuff" on the planet.

Dems: Curse The Darkness For Once

As potential Dem candidates start to emergy for 2020, the questions remain how will they deal strategically with sociopath and demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump (assuming the monster is still around) and what issues will have broad appeal with the electorate. One of the showcases for progressives is the annual Center for American Progress conference, which Michael Tomasky covered yesterday. His report lays out the problems for Dems, not the least of which is "where's the passion?" among the presumed front-runners.

In contrast to right-wing confabs like the odious CPAC mud wallow, the progressive confab was tame, with nary a mention of Rump, as if they feared a tweet storm from the would-be autocrat:

"I heard many interesting things. But one word I didn’t hear much at all surprised me. 'Trump.'

I sat there, about an hour in, realizing: This is just a huge difference these days between Democrats and Republicans. I thought back to the similar conservative gatherings I’d covered over the years. The annual CPAC conference mostly, although that’s not quite fair because it goes on for days and is much larger than this CAP event. But other smaller ones, too. [snip] A Democratic one, by contrast, is a college colloquium. Elizabeth Warren was the keynoter, speaking on the need to repair our democracy; she was fine, all her proposals were laudable, and unlike all the others she actually did jab at Trump a couple times ...  [snip]

It was billed as an 'ideas festival,' so maybe the idea, so to speak, was to accentuate the positive and not make it too down-and-dirty political. Maybe that’s fine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Democrats should be just like Republicans. The Republicans have zero ideas, if you don’t consider turning a blind eye to the daily offenses of a con man and grifter an idea. [snip]

The Democrats have ideas, and they should be true to their DNA. But surely they can do that and get in a few jabs. God knows, liberals need some laughs at Trump’s expense. And they need some anger, too. [snip] ....Trump is liberals’ daily reality. Democratic voters will nominate the person who combines that positive message with a frank assessment of the grim truth--and who demonstrates that he or she can stand up to the bully." (emphasis added)

It's early in the 2020 cycle, and politicians are testing out messages and positions on different issues, but Rump remains the most polarizing figure in Presidential politics in modern times. Surely, as Tomasky suggests, the Dem political class (which often suffers from timidity and accommodation) can muster a "a few jabs" can't they? A little less Marquis of Queensbury rules and a little more street fighting. Some Harry Truman role-playing might work with the right candidate.

Trumpesque Tournament Tweets

Michael Tomasky adopts a "Trump Twitter voice" in amusing tweets about the ongoing NCAA basketball tournament.  Here's a sample:

Duke. So overrated!! They get terrible ratings!!! And what's with Shushefski's (?!) head?!  #trumpmarchmadness

— Michael Tomasky (@mtomasky) March 17, 2016

Purdue doesn't want to win!! I hate chokers!! Sad! #trumpmarchmadness

— Michael Tomasky (@mtomasky) March 17, 2016

The Dems' Question Quote of the Day

"Democrats must keep their eyes on the prize. 'Who cares more about increasing the wages of working Americans?' is a debate question the Republicans can never win. The Democrats have to make sure the election is about that question." -- (emphasis added) Michael Tomasky, explaining in detail how this will be a winning argument for Dems -- if they'll only run on it in 2016. The ballooning gap between the shrinking middle class and the economic elites since 1979 is something that threatens our democracy.  Rethuglicans know who pulls their strings: plutocrat money is already polluting the political process through massive infusions of dark money, which buys deceitful political ads and armies of political hacks and lobbyists to maintain the status quo.

The Unraveling Lies About "Obamacare"

Michael Tomasky has a comprehensive article on the right wing's five lies about the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") that are being disproven as the implementation of the law proceeds.  "Government takeover," "death panels," "skyrocketing health insurance costs," were some of the falsehoods spread in  an effort to stop health insurance reform in its tracks.

Now that the ACA has had time to successfully offer uninsured Americans affordable care, either through competitive, private insurance policies offered through the HHS or state exchanges or through expanded Medicaid coverage, the apocalyptic warnings and waving of arms on the right have diminished.  Insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions, and no lifetime caps on coverage are extremely popular.  It's become harder for the right wing to argue for taking affordable health insurance away from people now that they have it.  Not that they won't try again;  after all, they've been trying to eliminate Medicare for nearly 50 years, and Social Security for 75 years.

Time to Play Offense Quote of the Day

"Politicians might panic. But winning football teams just buckle down, slowly take control,  and—above all else—fight. And that’s what the White House needs to do starting right now; not to save its own political neck, but for the millions of people the Affordable Care Act will help and the other millions who have spent years in their various ways organizing for health-care reform." -- Michael Tomasky, writing in The Daily Beast, urging the President, and weak-kneed Dems, to remind us of why affordable health insurance is needed for tens of millions of Americans, including people qualifying for Medicaid under expanded funding (much of which is being turned back by Rethug Governors).

Virginia Election Preview Quote

"I know some Republicans are griping on background that Cooch is losing a winnable race, and they attribute the expected loss to some tactical errors. But he's losing because he's an extremist. He has alienated most swing voters, especially women. The gender gap in this contest is going to be 20 points. Indeed it was 25 in one recent poll. McAuliffe might even win outright among white women.... This isn't because of anything tactical. It's because Cuccinelli wanted to stick probes up women's vaginas in the name of some medieval morality crusade." --  The Daily Beast /Newsweek's Michael Tomasky, on why Virginia Rethuglican extremist Ken "Cooch" Cuccinelli is very likely to lose big in the Virginia gubenatorial race tomorrow.

Historic Turning Point Quote of the Day

"This is one of those turning points in American political history, the kind you’ll tell your grandkids you were around to see: a once-respectable party that finally was eaten alive by the cultural rage it had so long used to its advantage but held in check in order to win elections. It was a long time coming and it’s a grand thing to watch, provided they don’t wreck the country along with themselves."  --  Michael Tomasky, writing in the Daily Beast, describing the unfolding collapse of the Rethug extortion strategy that drove it to the bottom of the polls.  The "mad dogs," as Tomasky describes them, are still holding forth today at the ironically-named "Value Voters Summit" (key speakers:  Glenn "Boo Hoo" Beck and Michele "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann), their words reverberating in an echo chamber of their own making.

Rethug Hypocrisy on Mental Health

Michael Tomasky nails it in his piece on Rethuglican hypocrisy on funding mental health in the wake of the Washington Navy Yard massacre last Monday:

"So now we’re being treated to the charming spectacle of Republicans, or a few of them anyway, purporting to care about mental-health treatment in the wake of the Washington Navy Yard shooting. How touching. This doesn’t mean, of course, that they care about mental health. They’re just coming up with something to say in the wake of the tragedy that sounds to the willfully credulous like action and that won’t offend the National Rifle Association. Meanwhile, they have devastated mental-health funding since you-know-who became president. And more important than that, they voted against, and are now preparing to vote en bloc to defund or delay, the law that will do more to address mental health and give society at least a chance that future Aaron Alexises will get treatment that could prevent them going on shooting sprees since ... well, pretty much since ever."

They're also not above wrecking the economy over a Government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis, then blaming Obama and the Dems for a bad economy.  We can't afford to give them the keys to Government again.

Quote of the Day

"With no accomplishments, no remotely popular vision of the country, on the cusp of possibly killing immigration reform, and perhaps admitting (at least to themselves) that Benghazi and the IRS are not going to be Barack Obama’s undoing after all, Republicans have been reduced to grasping at their final straw: frightening people about health-care reform. The sad thing is, they stand a decent chance of succeeding." -- Michael Tomasky, covering the imminent onslaught of far-right propaganda ads from the Koch brothers' front organization "Americans for (Koch's) Prosperity" on health care reform.

As Tomasky notes, the right sees the undermining of the President's signature achievement as their way back to power, public interest be damned.  Will Dems and health care advocates push back?  We'll see.

Sunday Reading

Newsweek / The Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky has some advice for President Obama's next debate:

"I hope that someone can say to him, 'Mr. President, 70 million or more Americans are counting on you. They voted for you, they’re planning on voting for you again, and they want you to fight for them. If you lose, you let them down horribly—and you damage their lives. They’re 47 percenters, a lot of these folks. They need you. If the other side gets in, you’ll be fine, but they’re screwed.'

Obama put himself in the position of being the one person in the country all these people depend on. So he has to be their defender. And this is how I’d hope he spends his preparation time—not thinking about how he can look smarter than Romney or score this or that point, but how he can communicate to middle-class people that he’s eager to fight to protect their interests, and why his ideas will do that and his opponent’s won’t."

He can't afford to look either detached or angry, just passionate about defending the middle class against the predators that are backing Willard "Corporations Are People, My Friend" Romney, and their army of the religious Talibangelists who will take social and women's issues back to the '90s -- the 1890s, that is.

Quote of the Day

"What earthly power can make Mitt Romney release his tax returns? None whatsoever. Incredible as it may seem, it’s true: He can go all the way to November 6 without giving an inch, and there’s not one thing anyone can do about it. He pretty obviously thinks that the heat he’s taking for sitting on the returns is more bearable than the heat he’d have to endure by releasing them. And that calculation says something astonishing about the man, and ultimately, that is the issue here—this is far more about Romney’s character than it is about the money per se. And character is very quickly becoming the issue that the Obama camp hadn’t even planned on exploiting but now must, because Romney’s lack of it has become so obvious." -- the always readable Michael Tomasky. His article is well worth a read.