QOTD-- "L’état C'est Trump"

"...With his own survival on the line, Trump has now embraced a Presidential-campaign platform of do-or-die-ism. There is a chilling urgency to his words as he calls on his followers to show up for 'the final battle,' a phrase I first noticed him using earlier this year. 'We will get reëlected,' he said in his speech this week. 'We have no choice.'

"Trump’s 2024 campaign is turning out to be a master class in fear, his own and that which he seeks to inspire in his supporters. His doom-casting is designed not only to provoke their emotions but to lead his audience to the inescapable conclusion that radical action is required. 'Republicans all, you must finally get tough,' Trump said on Tuesday night. 'You’ve got to get tough and you’ve got to show them, when you arrest your leading political opponent, we no longer have a democracy.' He concluded with a promise to 'obliterate' his enemies in the 'deep state,' and to appoint a 'real' special prosecutor to go after Biden, 'the most corrupt President in the history of the United States of America,' and Biden’s family, too—the very politicization of justice of which Trump claims to be a victim.

"The speech ended on the dictatorial note that has become the chilling, messianic signature of his 2024 campaign: 'I am the only one that can save this nation,' he said. L’état, c’est Trump." -- Susan B. Glasser, in The New Yorker, on the dark turn the increasingly threatened fascist Malignant Loser is taking.  A master, too, of gaslighting and projection, rather than the nation's savior, he's uniquely positioned to destroy it. He's even more of an existential threat now with indictments and convictions looming than he was when he came down his golden escalator 8 years ago to this day, June 16, 2015, to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination.

(Photo:  The Malignant Loser rides his golden escalator, June 16, 2015/ Christopher Gregory, Getty Images)

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.

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“... '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.