Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

That seems to be what they have in mind

Trump has often told his ecstatic followers that he planned to stay in office beyond eight years. The media has always taken it as a joke. Now the ultra-MAGA website American Conservative has developed a “serious” rationale:

Lost in the Left’s endless babbling about Donald Trump’s alleged threat to democracy is a very simple but inconvenient truth: Trump’s re-emergence as the Republican presidential nominee in 2024 is a triumph of democracy.

Not only did Trump secure the nomination following his defeat in 2020—a rather incredible feat in and of itself—but did so in spite of every obstacle the mainstream media, the Republican establishment, and the lawfare apparatus have put in his way.

The primary voters and caucus-goers who chose Trump did so in spite of January 6, the prosecution of the former president, or even the popularity in some MAGA quarters of Ron DeSantis. They chose him because they damn well felt like it. 

This is democracy in action: The voters surveyed the scene, tuned out the noise, and selected the man the rest of the world loves to hate. What could be more democratic than voting for your preferred candidate against the advice—the warnings, the threats, the fear-mongering—of your betters?

Yet, even if Trump returns to the White House this November, the Twenty-second Amendment will bar him from standing for re-election in 2028. Ratified in 1951, the amendment is largely seen as a kind of constitutional course correction following the four consecutive presidential terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The amendment reads, in part: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

This sounds reasonable enough, especially in light of FDR’s hold on the office. Yet those who supported the amendment more than 70 years ago could not have foreseen the prospect of a one-term president who lost the office but who later regained it in a subsequent election. Grover Cleveland remains the only president to have successfully vaulted himself to the White House in nonconsecutive elections, in 1884 and in 1892. (Theodore Roosevelt, president from 1901 to 1909, also gave it a try by running as the Progressive Party standard-bearer in 1912.)

In modern times, it is virtually inconceivable that any of the ousted one-term presidents would have seriously thought of running anew against the same opponent (now the occupant of the White House) who had bested them four years earlier. (Think about it: George H.W. Bush running against Bill Clinton in 1996?) This is not a reflection of a weakness in their character but the reality of American public life: Voters are fickle, and by the end of the first term of any presidency, they have long forgotten the loser from four years earlier. 

As the primary season has shown us, the Republicans have not moved on from Trump—yet the Twenty-second Amendment works to constrain their enthusiasm by prohibiting them from rewarding Trump with re-election four years from now. 

This is plainly unfair. Indeed, there has long been support for axing the Twenty-second Amendment due to the artificial limits it places on voter choice. Many popular presidents have agreed. In 1985, the Washington Post reported that Ronald Reagan supported repealing the amendment, saying in private remarks that the lame-duck label being applied to his second term left him feeling “handicapped.” In 2016, Barack Obama told David Axelrod that he was sure he would have coasted to a third term if such a thing were permissible: “I am confident in this vision, because I’m confident that if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could have mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it.” 

The case of Donald Trump, however, makes an even more forceful ethical argument against the Twenty-second Amendment and for its repeal: If a man who once was president returns, after a series of years, to stand again for the office and proves so popular as to earn a second nonconsecutive term—as Trump seems bound to do—to deny him the right to run for a second consecutive term cuts against basic fair play. If, by 2028, voters feel Trump has done a poor job, they can pick another candidate; but if they feel he has delivered on his promises, why should they be denied the freedom to choose him once more?

Just let that sink in.

I wonder if they’ll be ok with the fact that Democrats are then free to run Barack Obama who will only be 67.

Good luck with that.

Apparently, they’re getting upset with Trump’s revenge obsession. Go figure:

Donald Trump’s bid to oust a Florida Republican who backed Ron DeSantis over him is reviving a long-running GOP anxiety: that he can’t be dissuaded from the grudges and inflammatory rhetoric that plagued his party’s lawmakers during his first term.

Trump’s call for a challenger to Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Fla.), the only House Republican from DeSantis’ state to endorse the Florida governor in the primary, reveals a campaign with little interest in courting his former rivals and their supporters. But as President Joe Biden makes a play for Nikki Haley voters who might be reluctant to back Trump, Republicans are starting to nudge the former president to at least try to tone it down.

They’re concerned about a rerun of the hair-pulling past — where GOP candidates in battleground races are constantly challenged to answer for their presumptive nominee’s more erratic and boisterous statements.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), another former DeSantis backer, told POLITICO that Trump’s scorched-earth approach to Lee risks turning off some voters who might otherwise favor him.

“Gratuitous attacks like these won’t help him win the presidency, and are counterproductive to building a conservative Congress eager to advance his agenda when he’s elected,” Massie said. “Fortunately, Laurel Lee will win her reelection by a comfortable margin, but in the meantime, these kind of statements alienate some of Trump’s potential voters.”

Trump is unlikely to heed such warnings to pivot to a more consistent general election message. So far this month, he has said that Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats “hate” their religion and described some migrants as “not people.”

But the fact that Hill Republicans are even attempting to refocus him, underscored by nearly 20 interviews with lawmakers and aides, illustrates their real worries about a 2024 cycle where their electoral fates are inescapably tied to the man at the top of the ticket.

The former president “needs to be sensitive to where he’s strong and where he’s weak in the electoral map,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

Atop of the list of topics some Republicans want Trump to avoid: his attempts to revise the violent history of the Capitol attack by his supporters and his description of people convicted of riot-related crimes as “patriots.”

Many GOP senators are wincing as Trump homes in on Jan. 6, 2021, rather than attempting to capitalize on Biden’s vulnerabilities. Some national polls show Biden with a potential edge on the issue of democratic values, and the president made the violent attack an early and central fixture in his State of the Union address this month.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), said that praising Capitol rioters “definitely is not my thing,” advising Trump to talk more about middle-class workers instead.

“I was there” on Jan. 6, said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D). “And the courts have clearly said that these individuals engaged in criminal activity. Not all of them, but a sizable number. And I’m most certainly not going to call them patriots.”

Still, Rounds made clear that he wants Biden out of office, launching into a fusillade of mainstream GOP criticisms of the president and congressional Democrats on inflation, energy and tax policy. Then, when asked if he agr

Behold the utter depravity of all that. They know Trump is totally unfit. They just like power more than anything.. They obviously see the danger that this freak is going to lose because of his bizarre character defects but they obviously figure they’d rather take that chance than temporarily lose power and help save the country from the man they know very well is unhinged.

Update — Speaking of unhinged:

Rep. Derrick Van Orden is done with Rep. Bob Good.

Good, the leader of the House Freedom Caucus and one of eight Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, has been at the center of internal GOP infighting that has left their party’s agenda in tatters and their conference embroiled in a bitter civil war.

Now Van Orden has joined hands with a band of House Republicans angling to knock Good off in his June primary by propping up his primary opponent, John McGuire – a tactic long viewed as a serious breach of protocol but one that underscores the bad blood within the House GOP.

“Bob Good didn’t come here to govern. He came here to be famous,” Van Orden, a Wisconsin Republican, told CNN. “Bob Good’s wearing our jersey, and he’s not on the team.”

Van Orden added: “If you look at what we have not been able to accomplish in this Congress, it’s predominantly because of Bob Good and his ilk.”

But Good is undeterred.

As he barnstormed through his district last week with fellow House GOP hardliners, such as Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Chip Roy of Texas, Good said voters in his district don’t care what his colleague from Wisconsin thinks. And he pointedly accused many of his Republican colleagues in Washington of casting votes that hurt the country and undermine the conservative cause.

So much disarray…

Nobody can stand to be in congress anymore

Staffers are sick of it too:

When it comes to job satisfaction, members of Congress aren’t the only ones considering calling it quits.

Only about one in five senior aides on Capitol Hill believe that Congress is “functioning as a democratic legislature should,” and about the same margin believe that it is “an effective forum for debate” on key issues.

Given those assessments by the people who live and breathe these issues, this particularly glum finding should not come as a surprise: Almost half of senior congressional aides are considering leaving the Hill because of “heated rhetoric from the other party.”

These are just some of the findings from an investigation by the Congressional Management Foundation, a nonprofitthat aims to improve both lawmaker effectiveness and constituent engagement. Situated seven blocks away from the Capitol in Eastern Market, the foundation conducts seminars for staff and offers research to outside groups trying to figure out the byzantine ways of the House and Senate.

Over the past seven years, the foundation has conducted three very deep dives into the lives of senior staff in Congress, understanding that these unelected officials wield tremendous clout and that their positive outlook — or lack thereof — can deeply affect the health of the institution.

They have raised the salaries and created new resources in recent years so that isn’t the problem:

What’s driving this new bout of staff departures is the overall environment on Capitol Hill. That includes pandemic fallout, ranging from partisan battles over mask mandates to the long closure of the buildings to the public. It also accounts for the ongoing toxicity since the January 2021 attack on the Capitol. These factors have added to an institution that was already pretty partisan.

Lawmakers themselves are incredibly fed up with the institution. Next month, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) will resign his seat, the seventh member of the House to quit midterm for the private sector, a historically unusual amount.

Slightly more senior Democratic staff members said they were considering leaving because of the GOP’s “heated rhetoric” than did Republican aides when considering Democratic rhetoric. But almost 6 in 10 senior Republican staffers said they were thinking about leaving their jobs because of the actions of “my party.”

Most congressional aides have gone to college and studied public policy or political science, and maybe have an advanced degree in law or some key issue area. They largely come to Washington to try to shape things toward their party’s ideological vision of things.

But now, too often, newer members of Congress show up without much concern about policy and instead focus on their communications staff and getting attention on social media and cable news.

A House Republican deputy chief of staff, granted anonymity by CMF’s staff, gave a harsh assessment of those political performance lawmakers and their ability to cause dysfunction.

“Perhaps courses on the constitutional role of Congress would help enlighten them on how representation is intended to work, and we could govern properly,” the House GOP aide said.

Threats of violence have now become a regular backdrop to the work of senior staff. Less than one in five express being “very satisfied” that lawmakers and aides “feel safe doing their jobs,” with a bit more saying they are somewhat satisfied.

GOP aides said they feel safer, but not by much. And aides from both parties find threats to be an almost regular part of their job.

Four in 10 senior aides — an identical amount in each party — reported that “direct insulting or threatening messages” occur frequently or very frequently while doing their jobs.

“The physical and psychological toll of this place cannot be understated. We are in danger as a nation,” the top Democratic aide to a House committee told the foundation’s staff.

[…]

Their collective ire also goes toward the representatives and senators themselves, who have amped up their bombast so much that it makes it harder for aides to secure the goodwill needed to do their jobs effectively. Almost half of senior aides strongly agreed that the tone taken by lawmakers “inhibits the ability of staffers to collaborate across party lines.”

With those viewpoints, it’s clear that more resources for policy expertise and a 33 percent salary boost don’t inspire senior advisers to want to stay on the job. Not when they can go to K Street and make more money, or go work at issue-oriented nonprofits to scratch their policy itch without the amount of anxiety that comes with their current jobs.

Ultimately, the CMF report’s authors found that voters themselves have to change what they value in lawmakers so that more serious, sober-minded members of Congress will take charge — and encourage their best staffers to stick around and help make that change.

“The nation can ill afford to lose them,” they wrote.

That’s very interesting but it doesn’t answer the big question, does it? Who is responsible for this change? It isn’t the Democrats, is it? And it didn’t happen overnight. The Republicans have been acting like monsters since the 1990s getting worse with each passing year. When Trump came along they just let their freak flags fly.

Sliding into the 1930s

The Silent Generation generally avoided speaking directly about anything deemed uncomfortable in polite society. TV’s Lucy and Ricky slept in separate beds, fergawdsakes. It was a thing when Lucille Ball was “expecting” (never pregnant) and they wrote it into the series. One of my old roommates had been a junkie as a teen before I knew him in college. My My Silent Generation mother was distressed that I seemed to know people with “problems.”

It’s like a throwback to the 1950s that today the news media has a problem openly discussing “problems.”

It's been four years since I was asked for three or four changes in political journalism that might begin to right this ship. (Emphasis on "begin to…") Here is what I came up with. pic.twitter.com/m462CLeEAt

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) March 31, 2024

Digby on Sunday referenced the Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn dealing plainly with uncomfortable truths about the immediate past president. Jay Rosen took note as well.

A newspaper editor — Chris Quinn of the Cleveland Plain Dealer — says it as clearly as he can:

"Our Trump reporting upsets some readers, but there aren’t two sides to facts." https://t.co/2nYQx8adj6

Quinn writes of a different kind of access. Access to our own eyes and ears: pic.twitter.com/rAeDjXmOpY

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) March 30, 2024

Rosen has been particularly vocal about reporting that dances around the objective facts.

My comments to the @AP on NBC's adventure with Ronna McDaniel. https://t.co/v9in684HmJ pic.twitter.com/kaDBDE23yd

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) March 29, 2024

Michael Tomasky takes on the double standard the news uses in covering the immediate past president, citing the response to Trump posting an image of Joe Biden tied up in the back of a pickup truck:

The Biden campaign issued a denunciation, and Trump spokesman Steven Cheung, always handy with hall-of-mirrors projection, snapped back: “Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”

Take note of two points. First, the way Cheung equates “Democrats and crazed lunatics” with Trump; that is, if it’s okay for “crazed lunatics” to post irresponsible things about Trump, then it’s fine for Trump himself—the standard bearer of the Republican Party to hold the most powerful office in the world—to post irresponsible things about Biden.

Bothsidesism normalizes MAGA deviancy:

This is a long-standing right-wing sleight of hand—to take things said by random angry liberals on social media and prattle on as if “the Democrat Party” said them. When Barack Obama was president, we endured years of Republicans—in Congress and state legislatures, along with numerous state party officials—making watermelon jokes and being slippery about whether Obama was born in America. It happened incessantly. And then, every so often, a few online liberals would get some nasty and perhaps tasteless meme about Mitch McConnell trending, which would give Republicans the excuse to say, “Aha, see? Both sides do it!”

Republicans have gotten away with this for ages. The mainstream media has come to expect and tolerate this state of affairs for two reasons. It’s simple human nature: If a parent has a well-behaved kid and an unruly kid, the parent naturally over time expects more of the former and lowers the bar for the latter. And once something has happened a thousand times, it isn’t really news anymore.

But there’s more to this than bothsidesism and capitalist news enterprises soft-peddling MAGA deviancy to keep from losing readership.

The water in this pot is getting hotter while the press ignores it. Anat Shenker-Osorio remarked on NBC’s Kristin Welker’s euphemistically chalking up Trump attacking a judge’s family to us being a “deeply divided nation.”

“We aren’t merely unwitting frogs in the boiling water, the forecasters keep assuring us it’s merely a pleasant little hot tub,” Shenker-Osorio tweets.

I get the everyone is burnishing their credentials to work at TrumpTV but perhaps, I dunno, we could try to first stave off the total seizure of speech and freedoms?

— Anat Shenker-Osorio 🟧 (@anatosaurus) April 1, 2024

“This whole, the news is what the public thinks the news is, isn’t merely an abdication of responsibility. It’s a pre-capitulation to fascism,” she continues.

I told my roommate about my mother generically referring to uncomfortable topics as problems. He smiled, grew animated, and spoke wildly with his hands.

“Problems? Problems? The guy’s a junkie! He has a two-bag-a-day habit! You could say he has problems!”

Our problem is a mainstream press that treats budding fascism as the 1950s treated Lucy’s pregnancy.

Quinn wrote:

Our nation does seem to be slipping down the same slide that Germany did in the 1930s. Maybe the collapse of government in the hands of a madman is inevitable, given how the media landscape has been corrupted by partisans, as it was in 1930s Germany.

I hope not.

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You are better off now than four years ago

I took a cue ten days ago from the Bulwark and every morning began posting the New York Times front page from four years ago. Remember those grim headlines?

The GOP’s idiotic attempt at campaigning in 2024 on “Are you better off?” relies on Americans having short memories and on our collective PTSD from the COVID-19 pandemic. We’d rather blot out images of empty store shelves, 6-ft distancing stickers, bodies in refrigeration trucks, mass graves, daily infection and death plots, etc. At one point, I was tracking how many preachers who claimed they were protected by the blood of Jesus had died of COVID. I stopped counting at 50 about this time four years ago. Donald Trump and the GOP want to play “Are you better off”? I’m happy to oblige.

On this April Fools’ Day, the Associated Press is running a series of articles highlighting the miriad ways Americans can be fooled.

Secret history: Even before the revolution, America was a nation of conspiracy theorists

WASHINGTON (AP) — A brutal conflict in Europe was fresh in people’s minds and the race for the White House turned ugly as talk of secret societies and corruption roiled the United States.

It was 1800, and conspiracy theories were flourishing across America. Partisan newspapers spread tales of European elites seeking to seize control of the young democracy. Preachers in New England warned of plots to abolish Christianity in favor of godlessness and depravity.

This bogeyman of the early republic was the Illuminati, a secret organization founded in Germany dedicated to free thinking and opposed to religious dogma. Despite the Illuminati’s lack of real influence in America, conspiracy theorists imagined the group’s fingerprints were everywhere. They said Illuminati manipulation had caused France’s Reign of Terror, the wave of executions and persecutions the followed the French Revolution. They feared something similar in America.

Election disinformation takes a big leap with AI being used to deceive worldwide

LONDON (AP) — Artificial intelligence is supercharging the threat of election disinformation worldwide, making it easy for anyone with a smartphone and a devious imagination to create fake – but convincing – content aimed at fooling voters.

It marks a quantum leap from a few years ago, when creating phony photos, videos or audio clips required teams of people with time, technical skill and money. Now, using free and low-cost generative artificial intelligence services from companies like Google and OpenAI, anyone can create high-quality “deepfakes” with just a simple text prompt.

One Tech Tip: How to spot AI-generated deepfake images

LONDON (AP) — AI fakery is quickly becoming one of the biggest problems confronting us online. Deceptive pictures, videos and audio are proliferating as a result of the rise and misuse of generative artificial intelligence tools.

With AI deepfakes cropping up almost every day, depicting everyone from Taylor Swift to Donald Trump, it’s getting harder to tell what’s real from what’s not. Video and image generators like DALL-E, Midjourney and OpenAI’s Sora make it easy for people without any technical skills to create deepfakes — just type a request and the system spits it out.

These fake images might seem harmless. But they can be used to carry out scams and identity theft or propaganda and election manipulation.

Almost makes me nostalgic for false-flag robocalls.

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“Get it over with quick”

Via the Daily Beast:

REP. TIM WALBERG (R-Mich.) said during a town hall meeting last week that the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza “should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” in reference to the United States using atomic bombs on Japan, which happened at the end of World War II.

Walberg said: “Get it over quick.” According to The Detroit News, Walberg’s office said that his comments about nuclear strikes were a metaphor to “support Israel’s swift elimination of Hamas.”

The town hall took place in Dundee Village Hall on Monday, with video footage from the event posted on YouTube and X, formerly Twitter, as HuffPost points out. Some of his comments can be heard on the social media footage while he is not seen on camera.

Walberg made the remarks after dismissing the idea of delivering more humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Palestinian territory, where half of the population is at “imminent” risk of famine. “We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,” he said.

His office said he was just responding to the idea that Americans would be helping to build a bridge to deliver humanitarian aid. They seem to think that excuses his grotesque suggestion.

I saw some footage of protesters saying “enjoy Trump, I’m never voting for Biden.” Trum,p has always been interested in using “tactical” nuclear weapons so I’m going to guess there’s an excellent chance that it won’t be privileged white Democrats who’ll really be “enjoying” Trump.

Mark Esper says he won’t vote for Trump and every crazy thing he does make it more likely he’ll vote for Biden:

Donald Trump’s former Secretary of Defense revealed on Friday that he will not be voting for his former boss, who announced he had fired him in a tweet.

On Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the host asked Mark Esper whether he would be voting for Joe Biden in the 2024 election.

“I’m definitely not voting for Trump, but I’m not there yet,” he replied. When Maher pressed him, Esper doubled-down.

“There’s no way I’ll vote for Trump, but every day that Trump does something crazy, the door to voting for Biden opens a little bit more, and that’s where I’m at,” Esper said. Shortly after the 2020 presidential elections, Trump tweeted that Esper had been “terminated,” and would be replaced by Christopher C. Miller.

Esper’s on-air comment came just after Esper had explained his fears about Trump being a “threat to democracy.”

“The first year of a second Trump term will look like the last year of the first Trump term, in other words, with all the craziness,” Esper explained, adding that Trump will be looking to hire people who are loyal above all else.

In June, Esper said that if the allegations that Trump shared classified information were proven true, then he could not be trusted with the nation’s secrets.

I’m not sure what more Trump can do to make Esper vote for Biden but I would think that being a threat to democracy and stealing classified documents is as crazy as it gets. But the campaign is young …

Sadly, it’s been a poor day for the media. On Face the nation today Mike Turner spewed the right’s propaganda that the Biden administration banned religious symbols on the Easter eggs for the White House egg roll, proclaiming that it was denying the religious freedom of the children. In fact:

This came up with McCaul when he was asked if Trump selling Bibles for profit was appropriate and he claimed he hasn’t seen it so he didn’t have anything to say about it. Then he started in on the Easter eggs. Insane.

This one isn’t getting much push back either:

Does this all seem just a little bit desperate to you? I think so. But if the media doesn’t point out that these people are blaming Biden for being sacrilegious when these policies were in place under every administration, including under their God Trump, then a fair number of normie voters will think it’s true. They need to inform people when these Republicans lie. I know that’s a tall order but it’s their job.

A bracing response to right wing critics

From the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

A more-than-occasional arrival in the email these days is a question expressed two ways, one with dripping condescension and the other with courtesy:

Why don’t our opinion platforms treat Donald Trump and other politicians exactly the same way. Some phrase it differently, asking why we demean the former president’s supporters in describing his behavior as monstrous, insurrectionist and authoritarian.

I feel for those who write. They believe in Trump and want their local news source to recognize what they see in him.

The angry writers denounce me for ignoring what they call the Biden family crime syndicate and criminality far beyond that of Trump. They quote news sources of no credibility as proof the mainstream media ignores evidence that Biden, not Trump, is the criminal dictator.

The courteous writers don’t go down that road. They politely ask how we can discount the passions and beliefs of the many people who believe in Trump.

This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people.

The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.

The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.

This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.

The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.

As for those who equate Trump and Joe Biden, that’s false equivalency. Biden has done nothing remotely close to the egregious, anti-American acts of Trump. We can debate the success and mindset of our current president, as we have about most presidents in our lifetimes, but Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is. He is unique among all American presidents for his efforts to keep power at any cost.

Personally, I find it hard to understand how Americans who take pride in our system of government support Trump. All those soldiers who died in World War II were fighting against the kind of regime Trump wants to create on our soil. How do they not see it?

The March 25 edition of the New Yorker magazine offers some insight. It includes a detailed review of a new book about Adolf Hitler, focused on the year 1932. It’s called “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” and is by historian Timothy W. Ryback. It explains how German leaders – including some in the media — thought they could use Hitler as a means to get power for themselves and were willing to look past his obvious deficiencies to get where they wanted. In tolerating and using Hitler as a means to an end, they helped create the monstrous dictator responsible for millions of deaths.

How are those German leaders different from people in Congress saying the election was stolen or that Jan. 6 was not an insurrection aimed at destroying our government? They know the truth, but they deny it. They see Trump as a means to an end – power for themselves and their “team” – even if it means repeatedly telling lies.

Sadly, many believe the lies. They trust people in authority, without questioning the obvious discrepancies or relying on their own eyes. These are the people who take offense to the truths we tell about Trump. No one in our newsroom gets up in the morning wanting to make a segment of readers feel bad. No one seeks to demean anyone. We understand what a privilege it is to be welcomed into the lives of the millions of people who visit our platforms each month for news, sports and entertainment. But our duty is to the truth.

Our nation does seem to be slipping down the same slide that Germany did in the 1930s. Maybe the collapse of government in the hands of a madman is inevitable, given how the media landscape has been corrupted by partisans, as it was in 1930s Germany.

I hope not.

In our newsroom, we’ll do our part. Much as it offends some who read us, we will continue to tell the truth about Trump.

I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com

Thanks for reading.

I would like to think that the editors of every paper (or, at least, the most important ones) and the cable news producers agree with this but there isn’t a lot of evidence that they see it this clearly, at least most of the time. In fairness, the press is much better than they used to be but then the Republicans are also much worse than they used to be, and they were bad before.

This is the only truthful, authentic, factual way to see the situation we’re confronting with Donald Trump and the Republicans having become unmoored from reality. There’s not a whole lot we can do beyond voting and supporting politicians who are still living in the real world. But the most important thing we can do is hold on to the truth. And what this man writes is the truth.

But then there was this so:

Remember this?

By far,… the most idiotic Easter Message in the past 2,000 years.

Seriously,… What the f***? 😆pic.twitter.com/kyobgI1PF0

— Roshan Rinaldi (@Roshan_Rinaldi) March 30, 2024