With primary season heating up ahead of the 2022 midterms, The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper traveled to Waukesha, Wisconsin this week for a “good old cheese and brat-fueled” Trump rally to interview a series of MAGA die-hards. And he quickly discovered that they are becoming even more unhinged as Donald Trump gets closer to announcing his re-election campaign.
The comedian tracked down voters who claim to believe in “election integrity” while at the same time supporting Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) who offered to bring a slate of fake electors to Mike Pence in an attempt to overturn the 2020 results—without any recognition of that cognitive dissonance.
“I’m not going to be a conspiracist or anything like that,” one woman insisted before using the fictional plot of the Robin Williams movie Man of the Year to prove that “they had election fraud back then.”
“Are there any lessons we can take from Mork & Mindy?” Klepper asked in response.
Then there was the man in the full Abraham Lincoln mask and stovepipe hat who thinks Trump is running the military from “behind the scenes” and said he tries to avoid consuming “the media” because it’s all a bunch of “theatrics.” That one was a layup for Klepper who replied, “And you’re not someone who gives in to theatrics.”
Later, Klepper received warnings from Trumpers about the “normalization” of pedophilia through pizza-related symbols online and agreement on Trump’s assertion that America has never “gotten to the bottom” of 9/11.
But no one could quite top the woman in the star-spangled flower crown who used the Gematria calculator on her phone to assign numerical meaning to everything from Trump to JFK Jr. to “Let’s Go Brandon.”
“So the Wisconsin MAGA-ites were turning the conspiracy talk up to letter K, which is 11,” Klepper said before ordering a slice of pizza that had “nothing to do with pedophilia.”
Energy has been high around elections for several years alongside escalating political polarization nationwide. Despite this, Gillespie County has been a mostly peaceful political climate. But the 2020 presidential race brought election integrity to the forefront of many American minds. With passions ignited, the political climate around elections has been a blazing fire for some election officials.
Nobody knows this more than Anissa Herrera, elections administrator for Gillespie County since 2019. She is resigning from her position as administrator largely due to the heightened, and even dangerous circumstances surrounding the voting process.
“After the 2020 (election), I was threatened, I’ve been stalked, I’ve been called out on social media,” said Herrera. “And it’s just dangerous misinformation.”
Herrera is an inaugural member of the elections office for the county and has worked for Gillespie County for nine-and-a-half years. Prior to her role as elections administrator, she worked as the elections clerk under the county clerk’s office.What had been an enjoyable job for Herrera took a different turn following the most recent presidential election.
“The year 2020 was when I got the death threats,” said Herrera. “It was enough that I reached out to our county attorney, and it was suggested that I forward it to FPD (Fredericksburg Police Department) and the sheriff’s office.”
Other resignations have occurred in the Elections Department for similar reasons. The dangers were dire enough that some members of the department hired off-duty law enforcement officers and security guards. Herrera expressed that her responsibilities in the position often required long hours while being understaffed.
The wave of resignations in the Elections Department has left county officials wondering how to successfully conduct upcoming elections. “We have some people who are pretty fanatical and radical about things,” said Gillespie County Judge Mark Stroeher. “Unfortunately, they have driven out our elections administrator, and not just her, but the staff. Everybody has resigned.”
Stroeher was sympathetic to Herrera’s frustrations in the position.“The job had been made much more difficult than probably it should be because of some individuals who are continuing to question how they are doing things,” said Stroeher. Herrera mentioned that, following the 2020 elections, Texas legislature had passed approximately 300 new laws regulating the voting process. This made her oversight overwhelming to manage. Herrera feels confident about the integrity of the county’s voting process. “Texas is very safe and secure,” said Herrera.
With Herrera’s resignation and those of other members of the department, the voting process in Gillespie County is uncertain, and those who feared a fragile election system may have inspired real difficulties. “It’s unfortunate because we have candidates that need to be elected, and we have voters who want their voices to be heard by the ballots,” said Stroeher. “I don’t know how we’re going to hold an election when everybody in the election department has resigned.”
Stroeher plans to contact the office of the Secretary of State for Texas for guidance on holding the upcoming November elections.“Elections are getting so nasty and it’s getting dangerous,” said Stroeher.
Herrera’s last day as elections administrator will be Aug. 16. She is currently uncertain what her future holds.
She said she’s been understaffed for years which speaks to another aspect of their ongoing vote suppression. It also plays into their “vote fraud” screeching because there are bound to be delays and mistakes when there isn’t enough staff which they can then point to and wail about fraud if the election doesn’t go their way.
A bunch of nuts harassing and threatening elections officials is an outrageous tactic that we’re seeing all over the country. Herrera said about her decision, “sometimes you just have to take care of yourself” and you can’t blame her. But that’s exactly what they want. They seek to make the officials’ lives miserable so they will quit and they can put Trumpists into office to “make sure” their people don’t lose.
Theda Skocpol, a Harvard sociologist and political scientist who has studied the Tea Party movement and right-wing grievances of the Obama years, draws a straight line from that era to today’s “Stop the Steal” efforts. I talked with Skocpol on Wednesday morning about that connection, and the roots of resentment in America.
Elaine Godfrey: Tell me what connection you see between the Tea Party movement that you studied and the Trump-inspired Stop the Steal effort.
Theda Skocpol: There’s a definite line. Opinion polls tell us that people who participated in or sympathized with the Tea Party—some groups are still meeting—were disproportionately angry about immigration and the loss of America as they know it. They became core supporters of Trump. I’m quite certain that some organizations that were Tea Party–labeled helped organize Stop the Steal stuff.
Trump has expanded the appeal of an angry, resentful ethno-nationalist politics to younger whites. But it’s the same outlook.
Godfrey: So how do you interpret the broader Stop the Steal movement?
Skocpol: I don’t think Stop the Steal is about ballots at all. I don’t believe a lot of people really think that the votes weren’t counted correctly in 2020. They believe that urban people, metropolitan people—disproportionately young and minorities, to be sure, but frankly liberal whites—are an illegitimate brew that’s changing America in unrecognizable ways and taking it away from them. Stop the Steal is a way of saying that. Stop the Steal is a metaphor. And remember, they declared voting fraud before the election.
Godfrey: A metaphor?
Skocpol: It’s a metaphor for the country being taken away from the people who think they should rightfully be setting the tone. Doug Mastriano said it in so many words: It’s a Christian country. That doesn’t mean we’ll throw out everybody else, but they’ve got to accept that we’re the ones setting the tone. That’s what Hungary has in mind. Viktor Orbán has been going a little further. They’re a more muscular and violence-prone version of the same thing.
People in 2016 who were otherwise quite normal would say, There’s something wrong with those votes from Milwaukee and Madison. I’d push back ever so gently and say, Those are big places; it takes a while to count the votes. I’d get a glassy-eyed stare at that point: No, something fishy is going on.
They feel disconnected from and dominated by people who have done something horrible to the country. And Trump gave voice to that. He’s a perfect resonant instrument for that—because he’s a bundle of narcissistic resentments. But he’s no longer necessary.
Godfrey: Elaborate on that for me.
Skocpol: He’s not necessary for an authoritarian movement to use the GOP to lock in minority rule. The movement to manipulate election access and counting is so far along. I think it’s too late, and we’re vulnerable to it because of how we administer local elections.
What’s happened involves an interlocking set of things. It depends not just on candidates like Trump running for president and nationalizing popular fears and resentments, but also on state legislatures, which have been captured, and the Supreme Court. The Court is a keystone in all of this because it’s going to validate perfectly legal manipulations that really are about locking in minority rule. In that sense, the turning point in American history may have happened in November 2016.
Godfrey: The turning point toward what?
Skocpol: Toward a locking-in of minority rule along ethno-nationalist lines. The objective is to disenfranchise metro people, period. I see a real chance of a long-term federal takeover by forces that are determined to maintain a fiction of a white, Christian, Trumpist version of America.
That can’t work over the long run, because the fastest-growing parts of the country are demonized in that scheme of things. But a lot of things liberals do play into it: Democrats are the party of strong government, and they’re almost as fixated on the presidency as Trumpists are. People on the left started bashing Joe Biden less than a year into his presidency. Why won’t the president just exert his will? Well, that doesn’t work.
The hour is late. This election this fall is critical.
Godfrey: Why so?
Skocpol: We’ve got about five pivotal states where election deniers—the culmination of the Tea Party–Trumpist strand of the GOP—are close to gaining control of the levers of voting access and counting the results. If that happens, in even two of those places, it could well be enough. The way courts are operating now, they will not place limits on much of anything that happens in the states.
Godfrey: So what would you say is on the ballot in 2022?
Skocpol: The locking-in of minority authoritarian rule.
People talk about it in racial terms, and of course the racial side is very powerful. We had racial change from the 1960s on, and conservative people are angry about Black political power. But I wouldn’t underestimate the gender anger that’s channeled here: Relations between men and women have changed in ways that are very unsettling to them. And conservatives are angry about family change.
This is directed at liberal whites, too. Tea Partiers talked about white people in college towns who voted Democratic the way the rulers of Iran would speak of Muslims that are liberal—as the near-devil.
Godfrey: What are the roots of that resentment?
Skocpol: The suspicion of cities and metro areas is a deep strand in America. In this period, it’s been deliberately stoked and exploited by people trying to limit the power of the federal government. They can build on the fears that conservatives have—about how their children leave for college and come back thinking differently. As soon as you get away from the places where upper-middle-class professionals are concentrated, what you see is decay. People see that. They’re resentful of it.
Anti-immigrant politics is very much at the core of this. Every time in the history of the U.S., when you reach the end of a period of immigration, you get a nativist reaction. When the newcomers come, they’re going to destroy the country. That’s an old theme in this country.
Godfrey: The 2016 election was surrounded by a lot of discussion about whether Trump’s supporters were motivated by racism or economic anxiety. What’s your view on that?
Skocpol: That whole debate tends to be conducted with opinion polls. I’m in a minority, but I don’t find them very helpful for understanding American politics. Even when well conducted, polls treat the American political system as a bunch of potatoes in a sack—so you can pull out What women think, for instance, but not which women and where. And in American politics, everything is about the where.
If you drive into a place in Iowa or Nebraska where immigration is happening, it’s changed the shops downtown, it’s changed the language, it’s changed the churches, it’s changed the schools. And people’s jobs have changed—so it’s also about economics. In our 2011 interviews, Tea Party members were angry about immigrants. I’m not saying everybody in those communities is angry at newcomers, but it creates tensions that rabble-rousing politicians can take advantage of.
We know that Trump supporters, Stop the Steal supporters, are much more likely than other Republicans and conservatives to resent immigrants and fear them. In my 2017–2019 period of research, I visited eight pro-Trump counties. Tea Party types were just furious about immigrants. Trump’s emphasis on immigration interjected the idea that the debate is about what the nature of America is.
Trumpism is nativism. It’s also profoundly resentful of independent women, and it’s resentful of Black people whom it considers out of place politically. Trump channeled that and fused it into one big, angry brew.
Godfrey: How organic have these movements been? At a certain point, we heard a lot about how the Tea Party movement became a Koch-funded operation, not a true grassroots movement.
Skocpol: The Tea Party was not created by the Koch brothers; it was taken advantage of by the Kochs. But the Kochs were not anti-immigrant. The Tea Partiers really were. The Kochs didn’t control the results. The Kochs didn’t select Donald Trump. They didn’t even like him. Marco Rubio was their guy. The Chamber of Commerce crowd wanted a Bush. Both were easily dispatched by Trump.
Republican leaders could have done something—and they still could. The real story is about Republican Party elites and their willingness to go along with what they’ve always known was over the top. That’s a mystery that’s a little hard to completely solve. A lot of the opportunists think they can ride that tiger without it devouring them, even though sometimes it does. But nobody seems to learn.
At this point, what does resistance in the party consist of? Mitch McConnell taking a day to start denouncing the FBI. That’s it. Just discernibly different from Kevin McCarthy.
There is a good argument to be made that this whole thing traces back to Gingrich but I do agree that the current mobilization of the grassroots is a function of the Tea Party organizing that started in 2009. This movement has zero ideology. It was never really about taxes or “freedom.” It’s strictly oppositional.
Government officials had worried as Trump left office that he presented what experts considered the perfect profile of a security risk: He was a disgruntled former employee, with access to sensitive government secrets, dead set on tearing down what he believed was a deep state out to get him. But Trump had spent years nurturing a growing distrust among his most fervent supporters of the agencies charged with monitoring those risks, the FBI and Justice Department.
Justice Department officials have declined to comment on the documents probe or provide details about its findings, citing general privacy protocols for ongoing investigations. Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich did not address questions for this article but shared a statement attacking “this unprecedented and unnecessary raid,” blaming the Biden administration and accusing the media of “suggestive leaks, anonymous sources and no hard facts.”
Immediately after the search, Trump seemed to believe the FBI had played into his hands. Instead of exhibiting any concern, two people who spoke to him Monday evening both reported that Trump was “upbeat,” convinced the Justice Department had overreached and would cause Republicans to rally to his cause and help him regain the presidency in 2024.
“He feels it’s a political coup for him,” said one friend, who spoke to Trump repeatedly during the week. Like many others interviewed for this article, the person spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the criminal probe.
By Friday, however, the unsealed court records showed agents had seized 11 sets of classified documents, among other things.Republicans’ howls of protest became somewhat more muted, and people around Trump said his buoyant mood at times turned dark.
So typical.
On Jan. 17 of this year, Trump relented, allowing a contractor for the Archives to load up 15 boxes at Mar-a-Lago and truck them north to a facility in Maryland. The boxes contained some of the notable items of the Trump presidency that Archives officials had sought.
But as Archives officials sifted through the recovered documents, they began to suspect some records were still missing.They also realized some of the returned material was clearly classified, including highly sensitive signals intelligence — intercepted electronic communications such as emails and phone calls of foreign leaders.
They referred the matter to the DOJ:
At first, Archives officials believed the FBI wasn’t taking the documents issue seriously and grew frustrated, according to people familiar with the document dispute.
But agents had interviewed Trump’s current and former advisers, asking them how the boxes taken to Mar-a-Lago were packed, what material was in them, who was responsible for the packing and what might still be at the Florida club, according to a person who was questioned.
“They interviewed almost everyone who worked for him,” a Trump adviser said.
[…]
This signals intelligence stuff on foreign leaders is very suspicious. I guess it depends upon what it is but you have to wonder if he doesn’t see some of that stuff asgood “negotiating leverage.” (Aka blackmail.)
A Trump adviser said the former president’s reluctance to relinquish the records stems from his belief that many items created during his term — photos, notes, even a model of Air Force One built to show off a new paint job he had commissioned — are now his personal property, despite a law dating to the 1970s that decreed otherwise.
“He gave them what he believed was theirs,” the adviser said.
“He gets his back up every time they asked him for something,”said another Trump adviser. “He didn’t give them the documents because he didn’t want to. He doesn’t like those people. He doesn’t trust those people.”
John F. Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, said the former president had long exhibited a lack of respect for the strict rules for document handling sacred to the intelligence community, which is in the business of guarding the country’s national security.
“His sense was that the people who are in the intel business are incompetent, and he knew better,” Kelly said. “He didn’t believe in the classification system.”
Former national security adviser John Bolton said“almost nothing would surprise me about what’s in the documents at Mar-a-Lago.” He recalled that Trump would at times ask to keep the highly classified visual aids, pictures, charts and graphs prepared to augment his presidential daily brief, a document presented to him each day about key pressing issues, which he did not typically read.
“People were nervous enough about his lack of concern for classification matters that the briefers typically said, ‘Well, we need to take it back,’ ” Bolton said. “He’d usually give it back — but sometimes he wouldn’t give it back.”
He really does believe the rules don’t apply to him.
A Trump adviser said the former president’s reluctance to relinquish the records stems from his belief that many items created during his term — photos, notes, even a model of Air Force One built to show off a new paint job he had commissioned — are now his personal property, despite a law dating to the 1970s that decreed otherwise.
“He gave them what he believed was theirs,” the adviser said.
“He gets his back up every time they asked him for something,”said another Trump adviser. “He didn’t give them the documents because he didn’t want to. He doesn’t like those people. He doesn’t trust those people.”
John F. Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, said the former president had long exhibited a lack of respect for the strict rules for document handling sacred to the intelligence community, which is in the business of guarding the country’s national security.
“His sense was that the people who are in the intel business are incompetent, and he knew better,” Kelly said. “He didn’t believe in the classification system.”
Former national security adviser John Bolton said“almost nothing would surprise me about what’s in the documents at Mar-a-Lago.” He recalled that Trump would at times ask to keep the highly classified visual aids, pictures, charts and graphs prepared to augment his presidential daily brief, a document presented to him each day about key pressing issues, which he did not typically read.
“People were nervous enough about his lack of concern for classification matters that the briefers typically said, ‘Well, we need to take it back,’ ” Bolton said. “He’d usually give it back — but sometimes he wouldn’t give it back.”
Advisers said they also regularly saw Trump destroy documents, both in the White House and at Mar-a-Lago.
He’s just nuts. Honestly, some of this stuff can only be attributed to some kind of mental illness. It would be one thing to be simply hiding things he found embarrassinging or incriminating. The open defiance suggests something different.
The FBI looked at Mar-a-lago and were appalled at the lack of security. Anyone could come in there. And there was a history of security breaches in the commercial property Trump used as his “home.” The decided they needed to move:
When agents arrived Monday morning, Trump’s team scrambled to respond.
“Who’s in Florida?” Corcoran, one of the president’s lawyers, asked others, explaining that the FBI was currently at the former president’s house, a person familiar with the matter said. The team quickly dispatched Bobb, who lives in the Sunshine State and had assisted Rudy Giuliani in questioning the results of the 2020 election, then spent time as a host on the pro-Trump media outlet One America News.
When she arrived, Bobb said, she asked to be allowed to observe the agents, but was refused. Instead, she said, she stood on a driveway in the swampy heat for more than eight hours as the search proceeded.
She’s a regular of “Right Side Broadcasting” which broadcasts the Trump rallies on Youtube and I don’t there’s a more sycophantic Trump follower in the world — look at him dance! the stamina! he’s the most dynamic, energetic man I’ve ever met. It’s really sickening.
In any case:
People close to Trump said the search caught them all by surprise, at a time when Trump and his lawyers had been more focused on the New York probe of Trump Organization business practices and state and federal investigations of the efforts to reverse the 2020 election.
Trump and his team quickly began speculating that the FBI had been tipped by a disloyal insider, particularly given how many of his advisers have been interviewed by authorities about the document issue. “There were two days of crazy talk in Trump world about who was the mole, who was the informant,” one adviser said. “Fingers were pointed at all sorts of people.”
Bobb became the face of Trump’s legal pushback, booking time on Fox and other conservative media outlets. But behind the scenes, Trump’s allies initiated a hunt for new attorneys who might be more experienced with the complex battle with the Justice Department they knew was about to begin.
There was a growing realization, in the words of one close adviser, that the former president could be in for a “big fight for a long time.”
It was a familiar predicament for Trump, who has changed lawyers repeatedly since 2016 and has at times had trouble finding high-powered counsel to take up his cause.
Jon Sale, a prominent Florida defense attorney who had been part of the Watergate prosecutorial team, confirmed he was asked this week to represent Trump — and declined. He called the request a “privilege” but said that because of “other professional commitments,” he did not have the time to provide the kind of lawyering he believed Trump will need.
As the week progressed, Trump grew angrier, at times screaming profanities to advisers about the FBI and how they were out to “get him,” people who were in contact with him said.
Meanwhile, back in New York:
On Wednesday, Trump sat for his deposition before New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), who is probing his pre-presidential business dealings. He cited the Mar-a-Lago search as he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 400 times.
For years, Trump had mocked others who took the Fifth, arguing it was a sign of guilt. “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” he taunted his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in 2016. But now he leaned on the FBI’s actions in Florida to change his tune, insisting he was being targeted by prosecutors and therefore should keep his mouth shut.
And it resulted in a wave of threats to law enforcement from his brainless followers.
[T]he temperature was rising on the right, with online message boards filled with Trump supporters pledging violence and even civil war over the FBI’s actions. On Thursday morning, a man in body armor was killed by police after tryingunsuccessfully to breach an FBI field office in Cincinnati. He left behind a long trail of posts supporting Trump on the former president’s social media platform, Truth Social,including a “call to arms” issued shortly after Trump revealed the Mar-a-Lago raid.
“Be ready to kill the enemy,” he posted on Tuesday. “Kill [the FBI] on sight.”
With Trump’s lawyers already talking about the search warrant, and many Republicans attacking the FBI’s motives, Garland found a way to stick to Justice Department rules and still defend the FBI and prosecutors. Justice Department lawyers filed court papers seeking to unseal the Trump search warrant. And Garland issued a rare public statement saying he personally had approved the court-authorized search and denounced threats of violence to law enforcement.
The warrant showed how serious the issue is for Trump and his manic posting on Truth Social reflected how concerned he really is, pushing out a new conspiracy theory that Barack Obama had stolen 33 million documents, including nuclear secrets when he left the White House. (Needless to say, that’s a lie — the national Archives control all the Obama documents.)
Here’s his latest scramble which is, as usual, bullshit.
I don’t know about you, but those re-tweet numbers don’t look very impressive. Not yuge at all.
I think what gets me the most about all this is that he knew they were on to him and he refused to budge. He simply does not believe that he is answerable to the law like other people. And you can sort of see why. He’s gotten away with crimes his whole life, right out in the open, bragging about it and he ended up becoming President of the United States. I’m becoming convinced that that is really what people admire about him. This ability to thumb his nose at the law and fail up over and over again truly is a special gift.
John Bolton is an ass. He is an imperialist warmonger of the worst kind. I watched him on TV the other day attacking Biden and the Democrats for their Iran policy is such florid terms I wanted to throw something at the TV.
I disagree with him about Afghanistan,of course, but he’s right about the withdrawal being Trump’s deal. And he doesn’t suffer this fool Eric Bolling (who seems to have adopted Trump’s bronze make-up habit)when he defend’s Trump:
When John Bolton says on Newsmax that we are safer under Biden then we would have been under Trump, the host loses his mind and they have an epic battle. I know people hate Bolton, but this is fantastic – he debunks every fake narrative they created about his foreign policy. pic.twitter.com/GdSr6pcfdv
“I know it in my heart. I know it in my spirit. He has never lied about anything!” Trump supporter tells CNN.
The class system of the antebellum South was so entrenched that not even civil war and economic devastation could uproot it. When the planter class launched a war to preserve the region’s lucrative, slave-based economy, the ranks of the Confederate army were not overwhelmingly filled with slaveholders. The majority fought alongside the aristocrats to preserve a system that did not benefit them so richly as their betters. But it rewarded them with a social safety net, a floor below which no white man could fall so long as black people were lower. For that, they were prepared to sacrifice the Union and their lives.
Out of the Civil War’s ashes, southerners birthed the Lost Cause myth. It would arise after Reconstruction from the reactionary Redemption movement. Southern whites acted swiftly and violently to reclaim political and economic domination of their region from the formerly enslaved — in some places, a majority population — newly empowered by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Over decades, they would erect monuments in town squares across the South in memory of heroes who fell in the “War of Northern Aggression,” also remembered in Southern revisionism as “The Recent Unpleasantness.”
Last week, court documents supporting the FBI search of the former president’s home in Palm Beach, Fla. revealed he is under investigation for illegal removal, possession, and possible destruction of Secret, Top Secret, and above-Top-Secret government documents related to national security. MAGAstan exploded in fury, denial, and a flurry of bullshit in his defense.
As I watched the video clip below of Trumpists protesting at Mar-a-Lago in support of golden-spooned Donald J. Trump, the usual bemusement gave way to profound sadness. Like Confederate soldiers before them, elite and non-elite conservatives have given over their lives to another Lost Cause. They are lost in a miasma of propaganda, misinformation, myths, and near-worship of a corrupt, emotionally damaged man for whom truth is a stranger and lies his only friends.
Protesting the removal of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago. Makes perfect sense. pic.twitter.com/QdEzRvfBj0
Why? Because Trump and his Republican allies promise to make their social safety net great again. Not the one built with tax dollars, but the social one that preserves their “right” to political dominance. Trump promises that even as a minority his believers will have a floor below which no matter their economic status they will not fall. Others who once knew their places will know them again. Believe him.
Trump has managed, as the planter class did over a century and a half ago, to enlist in his army foot soldiers who will give their time, their money, and their last full measure of devotion in that cause.
Last week, one of Trumpism’s soldiers gave his life for the new conservative Lost Cause.
Ricky Shiffer was like a lot of MAGA “patriots,” often proclaiming his willingness to die for Donald Trump. Like seemingly all Trump fans, he was outraged that the FBI served a search warrant on the ex-president’s Florida estate, eager to declare “civil war” on “the Deep State.” Shiffer was such a True Believer that on Thursday, he tried to attack the FBI office in Cincinnati, Ohio, and ended up dying next to a cornfield a few miles away.
Shiffer believed he was dying a martyr to the cause. But his only reward was for the community of terminally online Trumpists with whom he spent his time to immediately denounce him as a “crisis actor” who had performed a “false flag” operation with the sole purpose of smearing MAGA people by association.
Inflation is killing them, Republican leaders insist, and gas prices, even as they fall precipitously. But gas is not so expensive that it keeps true believers from parading in gas-guzzling trucks festooned with Trump and American flags. Inflation does not keep them from buying more tee shirts, hats, and other Trump merch. Trump will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no Trump, to borrow from the Freak Brothers.
“He has never lied about anything!” a Lost Causer insisted to CNN last week outside Mar-a-Lago.
NEW: Armed Donald Trump supporters have gathered outside the Phoenix, Arizona, FBI office after what they call the "unlawful" search of Mar-a-Lago. #azleghttps://t.co/hpG34rNBFp
Trumpists, some armed, bluster and strut about a new civil war. Even as they sow distrust, they will not hold back progress toward a more-perfect, more-inclusive union. The war they itch for is already fought and lost even if the violence is not over.
This experiment in self-government requires a minimum amount of social trust to succeed. With every tweet that spreads cynicism and lies, with every call to arms that welcomes civil conflict, Trumpist Republicans are poisoning the nation they so ostentatiously claim to love.
January 6th was their Gettysburg, the high-water mark of Trumpism. There will be no Appomattox Courthouse moment. The rebels are trudging home still skirmishing, defiant in defeat, spinning myths, deluded and unbowed in their faith in a false prophet.
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Request a copy of For The Win, 4th Edition, my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us.
Yes, I am aware that it’s only mid-August…but students are already heading back to the classroom in some parts of the country. And watching the news lately, you would think the kids are in for a Lord of the Flies scenario:
Students across the country are heading back to school. Will there be enough teachers waiting for them?
ABC’s World News Tonight claimed that there was a “teacher shortage crisis.” The Washington Post described a “catastrophic teacher shortage.” Some local school officials say hiring this summer has been particularly difficult.
But some researchers have been skeptical, saying that the data does not support these claims and that shortages are limited to certain schools and subjects.
So what do we know? Are teachers really leaving in droves? Will more classes begin the year led by substitutes? Did the pandemic exacerbate these issues?
What is this…a pop quiz? I don’t even have my pencil ready. Please…do continue.
Definitive data is limited, and school hasn’t started yet in much of the country. To date, there is little firm evidence to support claims of an unprecedented crisis. When American students return to school, the vast majority will be greeted by a classroom teacher.
But the ingredients — high levels of teacher stress, more teaching positions to fill, a long-term decline in people training to become teachers, and competition from jobs outside schools — are there for it to be a harder than normal year for recruiting teachers. High-poverty schools in particular will face familiar challenges staffing their classrooms with skilled teachers.
“Is there a national teacher shortage? I think the reality is more nuanced,” said David Rosenberg, who works with district officials across the country through the nonprofit Education Resource Strategies. “And in some places, heck yeah.”
Anyway. As great poets have said…autumn is over the long leaves that love us, yesterday is dead (but not in my memory), and it’s late September and I really should be back at school.
Well, not literally (I’m a little old for home room)…but my school days of yesteryear are not necessarily dead in my memory. I feel like I have to go to bed early now. Some habits die hard.
So here’s a back-to-school playlist that doesn’t include “The Wall” or “School’s Out” (don’t worry, you’ll get over it). Pencils down, pass your papers forward, and listen up…
“Alma Mater” – Alice Cooper
Hey, remember the time – ‘member the time We took that snake And put down little Betsy’s dress? Now I don’t think Miss Axelrod Was much impressed
Oh, Alice. You should be on the stage.
“At 17” – Janis Ian
Emo before it had a name:
To those of us who knew the pain Of valentines that never came And those whose names were never called When choosing sides for basketball
Remember, Happy Days was just a TV show.
“Cinnamon Street” – Roxette
Growing up on Cinnamon Street Everywhere you look there are lots of people to meet It’s seven o’clock, the breakfast treat Now the school bus is here, hurry up and grab a seat
Per Gessele is an underrated songwriter. A lovely sense memory from the Swedish pop-rock duo. Sadly, Marie Fredriksson passed away in 2019.
“ELO Kiddies” – Cheap Trick
So you missed some school? You know school’s for fools Today money rules And everybody steals it
That’s enough out of you, you little truants!
“Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard” – Paul Simon
More troublemakers:
The mama looked down and spit on the ground Every time my name gets mentioned The papa said, “Oy, if I get that boy I’m gonna stick him in the house of detention”
“My Old School” – Steely Dan
Another enigmatic narrative from Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, featuring some of Jeff “Skunk” Baxter’s finest fretwork.
Well, I did not think the girl Could be so cruel And I’m never going back To my old school
“Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” – The Ramones
Halfway through my list, I’m thinking: Did any of these people pay attention in class?
Well, I don’t care about history Rock, rock, rock ‘n’ roll high school ‘Cause that’s not where I wanna be Rock, rock, rock ‘n’ roll high school I just wanna have some kicks I just wanna get some chicks Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock ‘n’ roll high school
“School” – Supertramp
One of Roger Hodgson’s finer compositions. Ennio Morricone’s school days.
I can see you in the morning when you go to school Don’t forget your books, you know you’ve got to learn the golden rule, Teacher tells you stop your play and get on with your work And be like Johnnie-too-good, well don’t you know he never shirks He’s coming along
“School Days” – Chuck Berry
Hail hail to the chief. Pure rock ‘n’ roll poetry.
Up in the mornin’ and out to school The teacher is teachin’ the golden rule American history and practical math You studyin’ hard and hopin’ to pass Workin’ your fingers right down to the bone And the guy behind you won’t leave you alone
“Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room” – Brownsville Station
I miss Cub Koda.
Sitting in the classroom, thinking it’s a drag Listening to the teacher rap, just ain’t my bag The noon bells rings, you know that’s my cue I’m gonna meet the boys on floor number two!
“Status Back Baby” – Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention
I think Frank needs to go to the councilor’s office for a pep talk. Wah wah wah wah.
The other night we painted posters We played some records by the coasters Wah wah wah wah A bunch of pom-pom girls Looked down their nose at me They had painted tons of posters, I had painted three I hear the secret whispers everywhere I go My school spirit is at an all time low
“Teacher Teacher” – Rockpile
OK, it’s only analogous to the school experience. But hey…we never stop learning.
Young love, young pet Cheeks flushing, apple red Ringing you every day Begging for a word of praise I’ve put aside my foolish games I run and hide and callin’ names Miles out, the bells are ringin’ Now’s the time to teach me everything
“Thirteen” – Big Star
First crush.
Won’t you let me walk you home from school? Won’t you let me meet you at the pool? Maybe Friday I can Get tickets for the dance And I’ll take you, ooh-ooh
“To Sir, With Love” – Lulu
Ode to a mentor.
A friend who taught me right from wrong And weak from strong That’s a lot to learn What, what can I give you in return?
“Wind-up” – Jethro Tull
An English schoolboy who (I sense) has a problem with authority figures.
When I was young and they packed me off to school And taught me how not to play the game I didn’t mind if they groomed me for success Or if they said that I was just a fool So I left there in the morning With their God tucked underneath my arm Their half-assed smiles and the book of rules
The right wingers are up in arms over Biden’s “IRS Army” that’s coming to kill you in your beds but the truth is that the agency is in deep trouble from underfunding:
Inside the Internal Revenue Service, which is on the brink of a major funding infusion that Democrats and agency workers say is badly needed to boost efficiency and revenues, staffers describe bringing their own office supplies and working extensive overtime in understaffed divisions.
But outside, in Washington and online, an outcry is building among those who see the IRS as a powerful government entity hostile to taxpayers. Some of those critics are conservatives opposed to ramped-up enforcement. Others are far-right extremists sowing disinformation and calling on citizens to prepare for violence.
The sweeping climate and spending bill House Democrats passed Friday, sending it to President Biden’s desk for his signature, includes $80 billion for the IRS spread out over a decade. In interviews, agency employees say the money can help address bottlenecks, stemming partly from staffing issues, that can add complications for taxpayers and employees alike.
Will Kohler, who works as a tax examiner at the IRS office in Cincinnati, said supply shortages mean he sometimes has to use his own pens and paper clips. He has even brought in paper for the copy machine over his 10 years there, which he says is just part of the job at the chronically paperbound and technologically outdated agency.
Some of the challenges Kohler and fellow staffers recounted are familiar to workers across the economy, who in recent years have been asked to do more with less by employers plagued by labor shortfalls and tight resources.
“I mean, it’s a factory,” said Kohler. “And when there’s been no money and they’ve not been able to hire good people, it’s been bad.”
The IRS, which is overseen by the Treasury Department, has shed about 13% of its staff since 2012. With about 79,000 current employees, its headcount has receded to near-1974 levels, the agency’s director told Congress earlier this year, despite growing revenue and some 14% more taxpayers filing returns in the last 10 years. Over the same period, the IRS’s budget has dropped from $14.3 billion to $13.7 billion in the 2021 fiscal year, or around 15% when adjusted for inflation, according to the agency.
Staffing in enforcement has fallen even more sharply, by 30% since 2010, even while the tax code — and businesses’ and individuals’ maneuvers to circumvent it — have become more complex.
Natasha Sarin, a counselor for tax policy in the Treasury Department, acknowledged that the IRS has been “a hard place to work over the last decade because of budget cuts and lack of funding,” which she said has dragged down workers’ efficiency.
Echoing Kohler’s experience, she said “people have had to buy staplers, buy red pens, buy Band-Aids that come from having to deal with so much paper-processing.”
The proposed funding, which would let IRS hire some 87,000 people over the next decade, should help, employees said. That number includes replacing some 52,000 employees who are expected to leave or retire in coming years, as the workforce has aged amid budget declines. That could bring overall staffing up to more than 110,000, a level not seen since the mid-1990s. Returns, meanwhile, have been growing, from 118 million individuals in 1995 to 168 million last year.
The IRS says it will use the resources to put more focus on high net-worth individuals and businesses, with Director Charles P. Rettig, a Trump-appointee, telling Congress recently that enforcement would heed a Treasury directive not to raise audit rates for households making less than $400,000 a year.
[…]
Amy Hanauer, the executive director for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which supports efforts to recoup more tax revenue from big companies and high earners, voiced optimism about the planned funding. “My hope is that this will begin to restore trust from Americans that our tax system is fairer than it was — that corporations aren’t being allowed to pay no taxes,” she said.
In the meantime, IRS staffing shortages can make it hard for existing employees to get their jobs done. Lorie Y. McCann, a senior program analyst in Chicago and the president of the local National Treasury Employees Union chapter, said more than 90% of the complaints she hears from colleagues are related to understaffing.
“There’s not one division in the agency that doesn’t have issues with understaffing at this point,” said McCann, who has been at the IRS for 31 years. “When your co-workers have retired or resigned, the work doesn’t go away.”
Steven Eldridge, 30, a technician in Austin who has worked at the IRS for two years, said his supervisors have been offering workers as many as 76 hours of overtime every two weeks to help with backlogs.
He effectively works two jobs: His main responsibility is helping resolve errors on tax returns, an often cumbersome process of reconciling paper forms with the agency’s outdated computing system. But he also works as an “OJI” — an on-the-job instructor, training and helping new hires get up to speed with the agency’s programs.
The instructing needs now take up the bulk of his time, as the agency works to plug gaps from attrition with new hires. So Eldridge has been working long weeks — 65 hours last week, 70 hours this week — to keep up.
Like many employers grappling with a tight labor market, the IRS has been struggling to bring in and hold on to new staffers. The average agent makes about $62,000 a year, according to jobs site ZipRecruiter, but the most popular role — phone reps the IRS says it’s hungry to hire as call service has suffered — makes less than that on average.
The pay range for phone reps is about $40,000 to $55,000 a year, with some variation, in expensive cities like New York, Oakland, Washington and Denver, according to federal data.
An human resources specialist in Kansas City whose focus has been hiring for the phone lines, said that turnover remains a major problem, largely because the pay has fallen behind rising wages in the private sector.
“It’s not so much that hiring is the problem,” he said, “but retaining the people we have.”
Nobody likes paying taxes but to turn the tax collection agency into a 19th century Dickensian organization is ridiculous.
Garrett Ziegler was an aide to Peter Navarro in the Trump White House. He is the guy who let the Kracken lady and the overstock guy into the White House for that notorious meeting in which they tried to convince Trump to name Sidney Powell a special counsel and order the military to seize the voting machines. He is nuts.
Just hours after a list began circulating among right-wing media of FBI agents who signed off on the search warrant for Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, a former Trump aide tried to sic MAGA fans on the family members of the purported agents.
Garrett Ziegler, who recently went on a sexist tear against former White House colleagues, took to Telegram to post the personal information of men he identified as agents.
“This is one of the two feds who signed the ‘Receipt for Property’ form, which detailed—at a very high level—the fishing expedition that the FBI performed at Mar-a-Lago,” Ziegler said on both Truth Social and Telegram.
The former Trump administration staffer further listed out the FBI agents’ date of birth, work emails and linked to alleged family members’ social media accounts.
“Hope he doesn’t get a good night’s sleep for the rest of 2022,” Ziegler wrote on Truth Social, responding to another Truth Social user’s photos of one of the alleged FBI officials who signed off on the inventory receipts on the warrant.
The inventory receipt section of the warrant was additionally signed by Trump lawyer Christina Bobb and listed out what the FBI had taken from Trump’s home.
[…]
Shortly after Ziegler had posted what he believed to be the first FBI agent’s information to Truth Social, it was taken down.
“[Truth Social] Just took down the post for ZERO reason,” he said. “Didn’t violate 18 USC 119 or anything else.” (A Truth Social spokesperson didn’t return The Daily Beast’s request for comment.)
Speaking on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, Ziegler doubled down on his posting of information he claims to be that of the agents.
“We have to have faces,” he said. “There are people ruining America, and they have names, and emails, and addresses.”
Multiple attempts to reach Ziegler for comment were unsuccessful on Friday night.
The targeting by a former Trump administration aide follows CNN reporting that the FBI now faces “unprecedented” newfound threats against their agency.
“We work closely with our law enforcement partners to assess and respond to such threats, which are reprehensible and dangerous,” the FBI told CNN in a statement. “As always, we would like to remind members of the public that if they observe anything suspicious to report it to law enforcement immediately.”
