We should have returned Texas to Mexico, from whom it was stolen more than 170 years ago. Now it's too late.
What we need to do is set up a special fund for Climate Change Deniers and most Republicans. The fund will pay all expenses to relocate Republicans and Climate Change Deniers to East Texas, southern Florida and coastal Louisiana. In fact we might consider building a "beautiful" wall (something like Hadrian's wall) to keep them penned in.
That will be voluntary of course. On the other hand Nazis would be dumped on the other side of the New Hadrian Wall. Conversely, those who wish to flee those flood-ravaged parts can do so. Maybe we can set up a one-for-one exchange program.
Doing this will vastly improve the political situation in the rest of the United States and leave us all to experience satisfying levels of Schadenfreude.
Impeachment is off the menu unless his support amongst registered Republicans reaches very low poll numbers...such as under 35%. Then Republican legislators will feel threatened enough to impeach him. Phone calls are meaningless and useless. Disgustingly, his support among Republicans remains very high. So Trump can survive overall poll numbers as low as 20-25% as long as his support with Republican voters remains above 45-50%. When his numbers get that low, however, it will be time for a nice little terrorist attack that requires a response of martial law, suspension of civil liberties and the cancellation of the next election.
I've noticed that some progressive groups have moved from calling Trump's supporters Alt-Right, or white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis to just plain Nazis. That's the correct term, in my opinion.
And Trump has let his true colors show, for sure. He is a Nazi. And we know what Nazis do, don't we? It's only going to get worse before it gets better. There will be a Trump version of the Reichstag fire, Kristallnacht and of course bands of Nazi militia groups beating and killing African Americans, Jews, Muslims and "liberals".
May be a good time for all of us to see it, again. There are good guys and bad guys, likeable Nazis and unlikable Nazis in the film. The whole thing seems so...ordinary.
That's how it's done. That's how we commit the most appalling crimes as a society. We normalize it.
All this media speculation and gossip about Trump's appointees and the whole White House soap opera is just a form of entertainment that is preparing us for future crimes against humanity of the most appalling sort. We are the normalizees. For what will be truly unspeakable crimes. Soon. Very soon.
Yes. The Republicans are Social Darwinists, no question about that. A kind of drawing room, pre-Nazi philosophy. And Romney expresses that viewpoint very well. Trump, on the other hand, is the kind of low-class sadist that Republican neo-Nazi dog-whistling is supposed to appeal to. But the Republicans were quite shocked when one of those creatures actually got elected President! That wasn't part of the game plan. It makes the shameful, homicidal nature of their policies too obvious.
Trump, in a way, is doing us all a big favor by moving from dog-whistling to overt hate mongering. The Emperor has announced that he is stripping in public.
Absolutely correct. This is a Pyrrhic victory, at best. They are not going to give up so easily. They'll be back and will keep coming back until Medicare and Medicaid are completely destroyed and eliminated. Social Security, as well. Exterminated. That's the goal. Pissing on Obama Care is just a diversionary tactic. And Trump is just a freak show on the edge of the circus.
All of Trump's policies are intended to destroy the United States completely (in reality, extreme right-wing, neo-Nazi Republicanism - Trump is too stupid to create anything himself). We are just witnessing the very first "flush". There's certainly a lot more to come in just about every area of economic, social and foreign policy.
It seems to me that the only thing that needs to be addressed by any intelligent American is whether to stay and fight a losing battle, which is a dignified and noble thing to do; or leave a sinking ship and emigrate. That's the smart move. Which would also help speed up the swirling decline.
Leave the whole mess to Trump supporters and the corrupt Democratic establishment.
Has a certain schadenfreude appeal, doesn't it?
Regardless, one thing is certain: Brezhnev and Khrushchev et al are smiling from their graves.
Thanks Juan. What's truly upsetting is that writers need to be writing articles like yours in the first place.
Recently, I've taken to referring to Republicans as neo-Nazi Republicans. Pretty much every time I refer to the Republican Party, either in print or speaking with others, I append the two terms together. Some people may think I am exaggerating to make a point. I don't think so.
And I recommend that we all do it. It's the truth. The policies and attitudes of Trump, Bannon, Spicer, etc. are in fact no different than those of Mitchell, Ryan , etc. They just express it differently. The end result will still be the same.
Are we right to doubt that Trump is a genuine human being? His closest advisers? And Congressional Republicans as well. That is the question we need to contemplate.
That's really the whole issue isn't it? All those Trump supporters. Maybe not a majority of US adults, but perhaps 40% or so. That's enough to keep the whole neo-Nazi project alive and well until Reichstag Fire time comes.
And yes, they are not just an amorphous group or stupid people or deplorables. In fact, as far as I can tell there weren't too many "working class" voters for Trump despite all that media stuff about it. They seem to be professionals and business owners. I know a few and they are in pretty good financial shape, for the moment anyway.
So the question is: will events and decency and reason move them from their support of Trump? And I think the answer is a big NO.
Here's why...it's an anecdote. From today. The short version.
So I live in a small town in the Southwest. Votes Democratic, mostly. And so does the county. But get a little further out and there are plenty of solid Republican areas. There are ranchers, university professors, artists and retirees.
I was talking with someone I know slightly. He's a successful small business owner. Makes a decent living in town. I like him and we were discussing an idea that we share for a business. Maybe. He was complaining about how unreliable his low-paid help was. I suggested he pay them more. He didn't respond and instead went on about how people had been living off the government for generations and it was time to end all of that. He didn't want to be paying for lazy people's bills. Cut off the supply of free money and maybe they'd do something useful. And so on. You've probably heard it all before.
So here's the shocker. I told him that really implementing a complete elimination of all those government programs would amount to Social Darwinism. He knew exactly what I was talking about. He didn't quite smile, but gave me a look that I understood very well.
Do you understand? There are a significant minority of Americans who believe that ALL government programs need to be eliminated. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps. Subsidies for art and science. Free school lunches...all of it. Unions. Labor laws. Environmental laws. Etc. All completely eliminated. And they know very well that it will impoverish and kill million upon millions of people. It’s what they want, without saying it directly.
They know very well what the result of the most extreme Trump/Republican agenda will be.
Excellent article, Juan. However, I don't need to be as thoughtful, thorough and reasonable since I'm expressing an opinion in the comment section. My view: Trump knew all along and very likely encouraged Flynn's contacts with the Russians. The only reason Flynn was fired was because he made Pence look bad. Not because he did something unethical and illegal. Far from it; Trump and the Republicans are basically corrupt, neo-Nazi criminals and justify anything and everything that suits them. They have no morality.
Impeachment would be on the table for any other president, but I am certain the Republicans in congress will do absolutely nothing.
If it really gets to that point then the Reichstag type "incident" that many of us have predicted will certainly happen before impeachment.
It's not a matter of stumbling..that implies "accidental". Trump, Bannon and the Republicans WANT a war in the Middle East. Iran, specifically. And they want to nuke the Iranians. What's the point of having a powerful weapon if you can't use it, so they think and say aloud? Well, they will use it on those terrorist Muslims in Iran. Let that be a warning to any nation that dares challenge American hegemony. Tens of millions of dead, innocent Iranians? Doesn't matter what the world thinks, all that counts is that enough Americans at home support the war.
And they will after the propaganda machine gets fired up. We all know how that works. Everyone knows. The Romans and Greeks knew; just read Polybius.
And that's just an appetizer. There's Mexico to invade. China and North Korea to nuke as well; Canada needs occupying; and someone in Europe probably needs a big lesson.
Trump, Bannon and their Republican cronies will undoubtedly murder, torture and maim more people than Genghis Khan and Hitler combined.
I'm probably going to start sounding tedious. But unfortunately the article above is true.
There is genuine method to Trump's madness. Each outrageous statement and /or action is preparing the ground for what comes next. And groups like ISIS/ISIL know that another attack in the US will destroy the country via internal oppression and external wars. So they have a very strong motive to create an incident.
Or Bannon and Trump will just make it up, as others have suggested.
Soon. Very Soon. Certainly before the summer and perhaps in the next few weeks. They can't wait too long because Trump is so unpopular and many of the people who voted him might realize that he is screwing them.
I've been writing and speaking this for nearly a year. Trump is a bona-fide, honest to God Fascist/Neo-Nazi and he has every intention of creating a totalitarian regime.
Some people that I know have already accepted the reality that many of us will die in concentration camps.
Will it come to that? The truth is yes and probably much, much worse.
I'm really sorry that my prognostications will turn out to be correct. But all of this has been predictable, in a sense.
One of the truisms that I have uncovered during a longish life is that right-wing types are generally stupid and uncreative. Not only don't they learn from history, but their repeat mistakes are very unoriginal. They simply lack any kind of creativity. It partly explains why they hate actors, musicians, writers and journalists so much.
So, Putin thinks that Trump will make a good ally that he can manipulate and betray later. Stalin thought the same of Hitler. And that didn't work out too well, did it?
I have no doubt that the neo-Nazis who now run the US government will need to start wars to rally and distract their neo-Nazi supporters back home.
We are on track for the Republicans (neo-Nazis) to destroy the economy with their "enrich the rich" policies so that an overseas war adventure will become necessary to distract everyone as well create an ongoing condition for domestic oppression. Pretty standard right-wing stuff.
All of this is to get to the point of who to invade: Iran? Russia? North Korea? China?
I have a better prediction.
Mexico.
Sort of Trump's boyhood dream to incorporate all of North America into a giant , expanded United States of North America. Of course the Canadians and Mexicans won't like it and will fight back. So we will need to kill a lot of them and oppress and enslave the survivors.
It's pretty clear that discriminating against Muslims is a way of opening the gates towards more discrimination of other groups. Call it an ice-breaker. The REAL targets are journalists,intellectuals, artists and musicians, creative thinkers, progressives and liberals...and of course Blacks and Jews. Especially Jews. It's happening again and really, really fast. Our democracy is dead and there will be a very nasty American version of a Reichstag Fire and Kristallnacht. This year. You'll see.
We should have returned Texas to Mexico, from whom it was stolen more than 170 years ago. Now it's too late.
What we need to do is set up a special fund for Climate Change Deniers and most Republicans. The fund will pay all expenses to relocate Republicans and Climate Change Deniers to East Texas, southern Florida and coastal Louisiana. In fact we might consider building a "beautiful" wall (something like Hadrian's wall) to keep them penned in.
That will be voluntary of course. On the other hand Nazis would be dumped on the other side of the New Hadrian Wall. Conversely, those who wish to flee those flood-ravaged parts can do so. Maybe we can set up a one-for-one exchange program.
Doing this will vastly improve the political situation in the rest of the United States and leave us all to experience satisfying levels of Schadenfreude.
Impeachment is off the menu unless his support amongst registered Republicans reaches very low poll numbers...such as under 35%. Then Republican legislators will feel threatened enough to impeach him. Phone calls are meaningless and useless. Disgustingly, his support among Republicans remains very high. So Trump can survive overall poll numbers as low as 20-25% as long as his support with Republican voters remains above 45-50%. When his numbers get that low, however, it will be time for a nice little terrorist attack that requires a response of martial law, suspension of civil liberties and the cancellation of the next election.
I've noticed that some progressive groups have moved from calling Trump's supporters Alt-Right, or white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis to just plain Nazis. That's the correct term, in my opinion.
And Trump has let his true colors show, for sure. He is a Nazi. And we know what Nazis do, don't we? It's only going to get worse before it gets better. There will be a Trump version of the Reichstag fire, Kristallnacht and of course bands of Nazi militia groups beating and killing African Americans, Jews, Muslims and "liberals".
Count on it.
Those who haven't already ought to see the film, "Conspiracy".
link to imdb.com
May be a good time for all of us to see it, again. There are good guys and bad guys, likeable Nazis and unlikable Nazis in the film. The whole thing seems so...ordinary.
That's how it's done. That's how we commit the most appalling crimes as a society. We normalize it.
All this media speculation and gossip about Trump's appointees and the whole White House soap opera is just a form of entertainment that is preparing us for future crimes against humanity of the most appalling sort. We are the normalizees. For what will be truly unspeakable crimes. Soon. Very soon.
Yes. The Republicans are Social Darwinists, no question about that. A kind of drawing room, pre-Nazi philosophy. And Romney expresses that viewpoint very well. Trump, on the other hand, is the kind of low-class sadist that Republican neo-Nazi dog-whistling is supposed to appeal to. But the Republicans were quite shocked when one of those creatures actually got elected President! That wasn't part of the game plan. It makes the shameful, homicidal nature of their policies too obvious.
Trump, in a way, is doing us all a big favor by moving from dog-whistling to overt hate mongering. The Emperor has announced that he is stripping in public.
Absolutely correct. This is a Pyrrhic victory, at best. They are not going to give up so easily. They'll be back and will keep coming back until Medicare and Medicaid are completely destroyed and eliminated. Social Security, as well. Exterminated. That's the goal. Pissing on Obama Care is just a diversionary tactic. And Trump is just a freak show on the edge of the circus.
All of Trump's policies are intended to destroy the United States completely (in reality, extreme right-wing, neo-Nazi Republicanism - Trump is too stupid to create anything himself). We are just witnessing the very first "flush". There's certainly a lot more to come in just about every area of economic, social and foreign policy.
It seems to me that the only thing that needs to be addressed by any intelligent American is whether to stay and fight a losing battle, which is a dignified and noble thing to do; or leave a sinking ship and emigrate. That's the smart move. Which would also help speed up the swirling decline.
Leave the whole mess to Trump supporters and the corrupt Democratic establishment.
Has a certain schadenfreude appeal, doesn't it?
Regardless, one thing is certain: Brezhnev and Khrushchev et al are smiling from their graves.
Thanks Juan. What's truly upsetting is that writers need to be writing articles like yours in the first place.
Recently, I've taken to referring to Republicans as neo-Nazi Republicans. Pretty much every time I refer to the Republican Party, either in print or speaking with others, I append the two terms together. Some people may think I am exaggerating to make a point. I don't think so.
And I recommend that we all do it. It's the truth. The policies and attitudes of Trump, Bannon, Spicer, etc. are in fact no different than those of Mitchell, Ryan , etc. They just express it differently. The end result will still be the same.
Are we right to doubt that Trump is a genuine human being? His closest advisers? And Congressional Republicans as well. That is the question we need to contemplate.
That's really the whole issue isn't it? All those Trump supporters. Maybe not a majority of US adults, but perhaps 40% or so. That's enough to keep the whole neo-Nazi project alive and well until Reichstag Fire time comes.
And yes, they are not just an amorphous group or stupid people or deplorables. In fact, as far as I can tell there weren't too many "working class" voters for Trump despite all that media stuff about it. They seem to be professionals and business owners. I know a few and they are in pretty good financial shape, for the moment anyway.
So the question is: will events and decency and reason move them from their support of Trump? And I think the answer is a big NO.
Here's why...it's an anecdote. From today. The short version.
So I live in a small town in the Southwest. Votes Democratic, mostly. And so does the county. But get a little further out and there are plenty of solid Republican areas. There are ranchers, university professors, artists and retirees.
I was talking with someone I know slightly. He's a successful small business owner. Makes a decent living in town. I like him and we were discussing an idea that we share for a business. Maybe. He was complaining about how unreliable his low-paid help was. I suggested he pay them more. He didn't respond and instead went on about how people had been living off the government for generations and it was time to end all of that. He didn't want to be paying for lazy people's bills. Cut off the supply of free money and maybe they'd do something useful. And so on. You've probably heard it all before.
So here's the shocker. I told him that really implementing a complete elimination of all those government programs would amount to Social Darwinism. He knew exactly what I was talking about. He didn't quite smile, but gave me a look that I understood very well.
Do you understand? There are a significant minority of Americans who believe that ALL government programs need to be eliminated. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps. Subsidies for art and science. Free school lunches...all of it. Unions. Labor laws. Environmental laws. Etc. All completely eliminated. And they know very well that it will impoverish and kill million upon millions of people. It’s what they want, without saying it directly.
They know very well what the result of the most extreme Trump/Republican agenda will be.
A day's worth of more news releases and informed comments including Glen Greenwald's article leads to the following conclusions:
1. Trump and his closest advisers and associates have been communicating (illegally) with Russian officials for many, many months.
2. US spy agencies are well aware of this and have a fair amount of data that can prove all this.
3. Various American intelligence agencies are leaking this info in an effort (for their own reasons) to undermine Trump.
4. The Republican hierarchy knows all this and are biding their time.
5.Trump's opponents, such as Ryan and McCain would like to see him replaced by Pence ASAP.
6. Impeachment proceedings are inevitable. Senior Republicans will advise Trump to resign at that point.
7. A President Pence is nearly as terrible as SCROTUS Trump.
8. However, people such as Bannon, will advise Trump NOT to give in and we then face the Reichstag Fire scenario.
9. If that happens, we also face the danger of a military coup at some point as Trump/Bannon's dangerous and incompetent polices threaten the world.
We will see....
Excellent article, Juan. However, I don't need to be as thoughtful, thorough and reasonable since I'm expressing an opinion in the comment section. My view: Trump knew all along and very likely encouraged Flynn's contacts with the Russians. The only reason Flynn was fired was because he made Pence look bad. Not because he did something unethical and illegal. Far from it; Trump and the Republicans are basically corrupt, neo-Nazi criminals and justify anything and everything that suits them. They have no morality.
Impeachment would be on the table for any other president, but I am certain the Republicans in congress will do absolutely nothing.
If it really gets to that point then the Reichstag type "incident" that many of us have predicted will certainly happen before impeachment.
Great acronym. I'm going to use from here on. Is it your inspiration?
It's not a matter of stumbling..that implies "accidental". Trump, Bannon and the Republicans WANT a war in the Middle East. Iran, specifically. And they want to nuke the Iranians. What's the point of having a powerful weapon if you can't use it, so they think and say aloud? Well, they will use it on those terrorist Muslims in Iran. Let that be a warning to any nation that dares challenge American hegemony. Tens of millions of dead, innocent Iranians? Doesn't matter what the world thinks, all that counts is that enough Americans at home support the war.
And they will after the propaganda machine gets fired up. We all know how that works. Everyone knows. The Romans and Greeks knew; just read Polybius.
And that's just an appetizer. There's Mexico to invade. China and North Korea to nuke as well; Canada needs occupying; and someone in Europe probably needs a big lesson.
Trump, Bannon and their Republican cronies will undoubtedly murder, torture and maim more people than Genghis Khan and Hitler combined.
Count on it.
I'm probably going to start sounding tedious. But unfortunately the article above is true.
There is genuine method to Trump's madness. Each outrageous statement and /or action is preparing the ground for what comes next. And groups like ISIS/ISIL know that another attack in the US will destroy the country via internal oppression and external wars. So they have a very strong motive to create an incident.
Or Bannon and Trump will just make it up, as others have suggested.
Soon. Very Soon. Certainly before the summer and perhaps in the next few weeks. They can't wait too long because Trump is so unpopular and many of the people who voted him might realize that he is screwing them.
I've been writing and speaking this for nearly a year. Trump is a bona-fide, honest to God Fascist/Neo-Nazi and he has every intention of creating a totalitarian regime.
Some people that I know have already accepted the reality that many of us will die in concentration camps.
Will it come to that? The truth is yes and probably much, much worse.
I'm really sorry that my prognostications will turn out to be correct. But all of this has been predictable, in a sense.
One of the truisms that I have uncovered during a longish life is that right-wing types are generally stupid and uncreative. Not only don't they learn from history, but their repeat mistakes are very unoriginal. They simply lack any kind of creativity. It partly explains why they hate actors, musicians, writers and journalists so much.
So, Putin thinks that Trump will make a good ally that he can manipulate and betray later. Stalin thought the same of Hitler. And that didn't work out too well, did it?
I have no doubt that the neo-Nazis who now run the US government will need to start wars to rally and distract their neo-Nazi supporters back home.
We are on track for the Republicans (neo-Nazis) to destroy the economy with their "enrich the rich" policies so that an overseas war adventure will become necessary to distract everyone as well create an ongoing condition for domestic oppression. Pretty standard right-wing stuff.
All of this is to get to the point of who to invade: Iran? Russia? North Korea? China?
I have a better prediction.
Mexico.
Sort of Trump's boyhood dream to incorporate all of North America into a giant , expanded United States of North America. Of course the Canadians and Mexicans won't like it and will fight back. So we will need to kill a lot of them and oppress and enslave the survivors.
Which is really the point.
Sounds like real right wing fun, doesn't it?
I just can't wait!!
It's pretty clear that discriminating against Muslims is a way of opening the gates towards more discrimination of other groups. Call it an ice-breaker. The REAL targets are journalists,intellectuals, artists and musicians, creative thinkers, progressives and liberals...and of course Blacks and Jews. Especially Jews. It's happening again and really, really fast. Our democracy is dead and there will be a very nasty American version of a Reichstag Fire and Kristallnacht. This year. You'll see.