Trump likes them intimidated. They eagerly comply.
Me and my sharpie are signing a ‘zecutive order changing the name of Donald Trump to Donald Toadstool. You will henceforth use my preferred designation.
His Insecure Highness has enacted several measures since reentering the Oval Office as non-joking tests of fealty. By your bending the knee to his mighty will he shall know you either as loser or foe. It’s Toadstool’s way of getting you to blurt out, “Thank you, sir! May I have another.”
Like loyalty oaths and insisting followers publicly declaring that he won the 2020 election, it’s about getting people to submit to his dominance moves. Or as I picture it, getting littler dogs to roll over on their backs and pee in the air in submission.
Toadstool’s mind is so far gone that it’s not clear if he really gives a rat’s ass if the world accepts that with a few strokes of his sharpie he’s changed the 400-year-old name of the Gulf of Mexico. What matters is whether he can compel your obedience by uttering “Gulf of America.” For that, he doesn’t need to think. It’s all instinct.
Noah Berlatsky takes up the White House banning the Associated Press from the Press Room because the private business won’t “knuckle under” on cartographic matters:
The organization’s stand provides a model for resistance to tyranny, and a model for free speech, that much of American media needs right now.
The dispute over the name of the Gulf of Mexico seems trivial, especially compared to a range of other horrors Trump is currently perpetrating. But tyrants are tyrants in part because they insist on asserting control over even trivial matters.
Toadstool knows from trivial.
Trump wants to make the AP fall in line to show his dominance, and to show other outlets he’s willing to vindictively target them over any show of independence at all. The AP, for its part, is providing a rallying point for press freedom organizations and drawing a line in the sand for its colleagues and competitors.
If Trump is denying access to outlets that refuse to lick his boots, then any media outlet that has access is compromised. Journalists who want to be worthy of the name have a moral obligation to follow the AP’s example in enraging the toddler in chief.
What’s disturbing is just how many private businesses are obeying in advance the whims of His Royal Shroomness “out of an abundance of caution“:
The works in Gwen Henderson’s Tampa bookstore are emancipated, but organizations that want to highlight the councilwoman’s shop apparently don’t enjoy the same freedom.
This week on social media, Henderson, a retired educator, said that “a pretty prominent marketing firm” decided to take down a video showcasing her Black English Bookstore after the company received pressure from a government client.
[…]
She did not name the firm that produced the video, but a separate post on Henderson’s personal page says the “Black Moves” clip was created by PPK Advertising & Production.
The government in question among PPK’s clients seems to be the state of Florida. They seem to have done a lot of work promoting the state lottery. They are wary, therefore, about sponsoring content that might be construed as DEI-related. But Garrett Garcia, the firm’s president, pointed a finger at government more distant than Tallahassee, and at the attorney general Toadstool plucked out of Florida (emphasis mine):
“This decision was made entirely out of an abundance of caution based on articles like this one published last week in Bloomberg,” Garcia added. “We felt it was in the best interest of our business and our employees to pause these initiatives until we have time to review it in greater detail and to understand the nuances of all rapidly changing policies of the DOJ and US Attorney General.”
Forbes has also reported that Trump’s new Attorney General, Tampa-woman Pam Bondi, “directed the Justice Department to ‘investigate, eliminate, and penalize’ private companies and universities that have “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion programs.”
But a video promoting Henderson’s private bookstore is not a hiring program conceivably covered under Trump 2.0’s interpretation of federal civil rights laws. But her ad agency is running scared enough that they yanked it. And that’s just the way Toadstool and his white backlash cult like it.
“This is the bullshit that’s happening in our country right now,” says Henderson. “Even a little tiny bookstore can be impacted.”
(h/t SS)