The spouse the other day blurted out (re: the MAGA cult), “What are they so angry about? What about their lives in this country is so terrible?”
It’s a fair question.
These MAGA people’s lives look pretty un-terrible. What does a rig like that truck at the top cost? How oppressed are you if you can afford to own and operate vehicles like that (and these below), accessorized as they are?
Trump boat parade, Charleston harbor, Aug. 3, 2020.
“Fully 83% of the arrestees resided in areas with an average annual per capita income between $20K and $50K,” reports one study of January 6 arrestees.
Just a guess, but the boat parade and truck parade people are not likely to have family incomes as low as $50k. Nor the Texas women who chartered a private jet to attend the Stop the Steal rally on January 6, 2021.
Miles-long MAGA parade snakes through through Montauk on Long Island (October 2020). Many vehicles including this one had their license plates taped over.
They aren’t that worried about the price of gas.
You can call them many things, but just don’t call these adults weird.
Wondering what the Trucker Convoy is protesting? We talked to a woman and she explained EVERYTHING. pic.twitter.com/PrQSPnNrDh
The clip below speaks for itself, as does the former celebrity.
MAGA Weird actor Clip 4 is Roseanne. At Kari Lake’s fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, she shot this PSA telling students to drop out of college because they were filled with devil worshippers who drink babies’ blood. pic.twitter.com/2AW6nxr7Ri
None of these people worry about jobs or the cost to travel the country like Deadheads to multiple Trump rallies.
What these weird people are angry about is not the economy or LED light bulbs or electric cars or the price of gas or immigration. What these weird people are pissed off about is their feeling of no longer being firmly in control of the country. Their country. To which they are entitled. By virtue of their birth and skin color. So long as lessers know their places and stay in them, they are good. Sharing power, as democracy demands, is unacceptable. It’s why these All-Americans reject it.
These weirdest of the weird are easy to poke fun at. But one caution.
An old friend who carried an M60 in the 82nd Airborne once reflected on what happens when the shooting starts. There are plenty of less well-heeled, less-educated, misinformed people in this country who will line up to be cannon fodder for the rich when asked, and march into massed gunfire when ordered. That’s how the first Civil War worked. It could happen again.
This piece in Axios suggests that the Harris campaign sees some opportunities beyond the big upper midwest as their route to victory. Whether that’s real or just a feint, it’s probably a good sign that they’re able to spend money and deploy resources even if it’s just to force the Republicans to do the same:
Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina — which had looked to be trending toward former President Trump — are suddenly crackling battlegrounds online, on the airwaves and on the ground.
Pennsylvania is still the most important state where both campaigns are going all-in. But the Harris campaign is fielding an army of enthused volunteers and piles of cash as it eyes a broader field of play.In the past two weeks, the Harris campaign has added 370,000 new volunteers — including 15,500 in Georgia, 21,000 in Arizona, and 10,500 in North Carolina — three states with diverse or changing electorate.
In Georgia,100,000 votes are up for grabs, former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R) told Axios in an interview. “Kamala Harris puts all of those votes back in play,” Duncan said. “The Number 1 excuse that I heard [about Biden] was: ‘My gosh, he’s just so old. I just can’t imagine him governing for four years.’ She takes that risk of physical and mental failure off the table.”
In Arizona,the campaign has trotted out border mayors who have endorsed Harris. And Republican Mayor John Giles of Mesa has also endorsed her.
In North Carolina,whichhas voted for a Democratic president just twice in the past 50 years, Harris has an uphill battle.But her momentumhas forced the Trump campaign to spend on ads in North Carolina for the first time.
[…]
Vice President Harris and her soon-to-be-announced running mate will launch a five-day, seven-city tour of battleground states, starting in Philadelphia. From there, the new ticket heads to Eau Claire, Wis.; Detroit; Durham, N.C.; Savannah, Ga.; Phoenix; and Las Vegas.
A campaign previewsays that besides rallies at venues ranging from arenas to college campuses, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, the pair will meet with voters in smaller settings, including union halls, family-owned restaurants and campaign field offices. They’ll be joined by union members, faith leaders, local officials and more.
I’m fairly sure they’re going all out in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania because they assure the 270. They won’t take their eyes off that ball like they did in 2016. But if Harris can open up one or two of these other states it gives them some breathing room especially if there ends up being trouble with some of the white mid-western suburbs.
All those volunteers and all that money makes a big difference here. Let’s hope it keeps coming.
The more people see that decrepit Liberace clone the Republicans are running for president up against Kamala Harris, the worse he looks:
A Morning Consult poll published Monday revealed that voters are suddenly viewing Trump as the decrepit candidate after Biden dropped his campaign. Americans are apparently far more likely to describe Vice President Kamala Harris as healthy, mentally fit, and a strong leader than the 78-year-old Republican presidential nominee.
According to the poll, 71 percent of respondents agreed that Harris was “in good health,” while 52 percent said the same about Trump—6 percent fewer than believed the same about Trump when Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee.
The number of respondents who thought that Trump was “mentally fit” for the job also dropped. Roughly 64 percent of respondents believed that Harris was mentally fit, while just 48 percent believed the same about Trump—a 5 percent drop from before Biden withdrew.
Meanwhile, the number of respondents who believed that Trump is too old for the job rose. Whereas just 12 percent of polled Americans believed that the 59-year-old vice president was too old to be president, 51 percent thought that Trump had aged out of the position—7 percent more than had previously felt the same when Biden was Trump’s opponent.
Voters also said they were more concerned about Trump’s erratic behavior worsening with age should he retake the White House in November. Roughly 82 percent of polled voters said that Trump’s “poor decision making” and “erratic behavior” was a major concern, while roughly three-quarters of polled respondents listed his inability to communicate effectively with the American public, U.S. officials, and foreign officials, as well as a weakened perception of strength on the international stage, as other points of “major concern.” Another 49 percent and 44 percent of polled Americans described the potential onset of illness and death as major concerns, respectively.
The worm has turned, hasn’t it Trump? Let’s see how he likes his own crude ageism thrown back in his shiny orange face.
2018 was a record-setting year for stocks, but it’s one investors would rather forget. The Dow fell 5.6%.The S&P 500 was down 6.2% and the Nasdaq fell 4%. It was the worst year for stocks since 2008 and only the second year the Dow and S&P 500 fell in the past decade.Dec 31, 2018
While MAGA tries to convince people that a 2.3% drop in the DOW today is a "Kamala Crash," even though she's not President, they completely have amnesia about the multiple "Trump crashes" that we saw when Trump WAS President.
I just thought it was worth pointing this out when you hear the Trumpers screeching about the “Kamala crash” over the next few days. I have no idea what the market’s are going to do but I know that they will be saying that they never went down with Trump. They did, even beyond COVID.
I felt that all the choices were pretty good and Walz is one of the best. He’s a progressive who knows how to talk about progressive issues in ways that sound very accessible to middle Americans. He’s an American archetype — a football coach. I think he makes a very good pair with Harris.
BREAKING: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will be the Democratic VP candidate, alongside Kamala Harris.
Walz forged a reputation as a Governor who makes good policy happen.
Last year he signed a law guaranteeing free breakfast and lunch for all Minnesota students. And that's not all 🧵 pic.twitter.com/i1GEzfmI6r
“The real threat to democracy is a failure to imagine the worst-case scenario,” Tony Gerber, co-director with Jesse Moss, told NPR Monday in an interview about their new documentary War Game. The film simulates U.S. officials responding to a post-election coup after a disputed election. “Insurgents take capitals, questioning the president’s military control,” says IMDB. Officials must counter a “Red Cell” radical faction coordinated by a fictional “Order of Columbus.”
Gerber is wrong here. The real threat to democracy is the flagged-bedecked Americans in diapers who have rejected democracy, the Constitution, and America’s founding vision for strongman rule. (And Supreme Court justices prepared to prop it up.)
Republicans plan to open a second front after November 5. The election they expect to lose at the ballot box they plan to win, or at least thwart, in court. Georgia is just one battlefield.
But the threat of violence War Game postulates is real. For those not paying attention, right-wing riots broke out over the weekend across England and in Ireland. Police arrested hundreds. Several officers were injured.
Violent protests gripped the #UK in the wake of a knife attack at a dance class. Violence erupted in several English cities on Saturday as crowds of anti-immigrant protesters faced off against police and counter-protesters. "Civil war is inevitable", says @elonmusk#UKRiotspic.twitter.com/TqvUA792nT
Far-right riots swept Britain over the weekend, with outbreaks of anti-immigrant violence in a number of cities and towns, leaving the new UK government scrambling to control the worst disorder in more than a decade.
Crowds of far-right agitators set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers, leaving those inside trapped and terrified, while throngs of rioters in other cities damaged public buildings and clashed with police, throwing objects at officers and smashing their vehicles.
Protests first broke out late last month, after an anti-immigrant misinformation campaign stoked outrage over a stabbing attack that left three children dead in Southport, northern England.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer chaired his first COBRA session on Monday morning – an emergency meeting of national agencies and branches of government – to discuss the response to the disorder. “This is not protest,” he said on Sunday, adding: “It is organized, violent thuggery and it has no place on our streets, or online.”
🚨 BREAKING: Prime Minister Keir Starmer's full address to the nation about the riots on Britain's streets pic.twitter.com/kluETspjXT
This is what actual unarmed resistance to fascism looks like. Not a hashtag. Not a black square pfp. Not a post on social media. Forming a human chain and putting your bodies on the line to protect the innocent. Breaking the noses of these Nazi freaks and making them afraid. https://t.co/yuz8RP5Js8
What provoked the riots? Disinformation spread widely on social media falsely blaming a Muslim immigrant for the stabbings. Rioters then set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers,
The gatherings ostensibly started as anti-immigration marches, organized on social media platforms like X and on WhatsApp and Telegram groups. They quickly turned disorderly and violent.
Protesters set ablaze two Holiday Inn hotels, in the town of Rotherham, northern England, and in Tamworth, in the Midlands, central England, that were believed to be housing asylum seekers awaiting a decision on their claims.
The Rotherham hotel at the time was “full of terrified residents and staff,” according to a statement by South Yorkshire Police Assistant Chief Constable Lindsey Butterfield.
The false reports are reportedly coordinated by foreign agents looking to destabilize western democracies.
Starmer added:
“People in this country have a right to be safe and yet, we’ve seen Muslim communities targeted, attacks on mosques, other minority communities singled out, Nazi salutes in the street, attacks on the police, wanton violence alongside racist rhetoric,” Starmer said at Downing Street.
“So no, I won’t shy away from calling it what it is: Far-right thuggery,” he added.
Knowledgeable friends on the ground say these thugs are simply itching for a fight, looking for an excuse. They know the social media reports are false. Some accounts promoting disinformation were opened in July 2024, one obviously from China, says a former counter-terrorism officer, but others hail from Russia and elsewhere. These English riots are a trial run for how events might play out in the U.S. after Trump loses in November, just what War Game considers.
It’s so clear that there is a coalition of some sort between the authoritarian petrostates, a number of US billionaires & various international oligarchs, authoritarian leaders like Putin & Orban, American & international right-wing movements — to attack and destabilize Western democracies. They are sick and tired of regular people being able to band together, implementing rule of law, taxes, unions, regulations and the rest of that stuff that gets in their way.
The Playbook
The playbook is to stir up racial, religious & nationalist division. Use social media & media outlets they own to spread victimization disinformation. Demand “free speech” rights to do it. You see the same stuff in countries around the world now. It’s like they are reading scripts prepared in “best practices” seminars. Use anti-refugee disinformation (“illegals”) to incite hatred, and “other” these vulnerable people who have nowhere to go. India’s authoritarian ruler is using anti-Muslim Hindu nationalism. Orban using Jews & other “others.” Etc etc around the world.
This is modern warfare for Russia, China, and others opposed to the democracies.
Many Americans opposed to democracy stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. We’re looking at how they might reprise that effort between November and January if GOP efforts to monkey-wrench the elections in court fail. But then they’ve monkey-wrenched the courts too.
“It’s OK to vote against Donald Trump,” Mesa, Arizona’s Republican mayor, John Giles told a press conference on Monday. Giles remains a registered Republican but is stumping for Kamala Harris. He hopes to see the GOP “get away from the personality cult our party has become.”
“I think the time has come for us as Arizona Republicans to admit the obvious,” Giles told reporters, “which is that our party’s nominee is not qualified for office and that we need to vote for the adult in the room, and that is Kamala Harris.”
“Character matters,” said former GOP state Rep. Robin Shaw.
The Harris campaign days ago named Giles and Shaw to head up a task force to do outreach to Arizona Republicans:
“As a lifelong Arizonan and longtime Republican, I strongly believe in defending democracy and standing up for our personal freedoms. Donald Trump and JD Vance represent the greatest threat to American values and institutions that I have seen in my lifetime – and that’s why I am committed to defeating him in November,” Giles said in a written statement.
Republican Mayor of Mesa, AZ John Giles:
“I think the time has come for us as AZ Republicans to admit the obvious…which is that our party’s nominee is not qualified for office and that we need to vote for the adult in the room, and that is Kamala Harris.” pic.twitter.com/ZV7F2KTGIE
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) August 5, 2024
Giles authored a July 29 guest column in The Arizona Republic asking fellow Republicans to “put country over party.” Not unlike President Joe Biden putting country over personal ambition.
Since 2014, I have had the honor of being mayor of Mesa, the nation’s 36th-largest city and one of the most conservative. Under Trump, American cities didn’t get the support they deserved. Infrastructure week was made into a joke.
But under the Biden-Harris administration, Mesa has seen historic federal funding for the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, along with investments to make sure our streets and public transit systems benefit from modern technology.
With the CHIPS Act, Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden are delivering thousands of new jobs to Arizonans and helping us grow critical industries.
Many of the Republicans backing Harris are also supporting Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in his Senate race against Republican Kari Lake.
Peggy Neely, the former vice mayor of Phoenix, tied her support for Harris to reproductive rights and the fall of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case. Additional supporters from city government are former Scottsdale City Council member Virginia Korte, former Mesa Vice Mayor Claudia Reeder Walters and former Paradise Valley Vice Mayor Dan Schweiker.
“Donald Trump’s radical and regressive agenda poses the biggest threat to women’s rights in decades, not just in Arizona, but across the entire country. Donald Trump must be unequivocally defeated at the ballot box to safeguard our future,” Neely said in a written statement.
Others in the advisory group include former Maricopa County Clerk of the Superior Court Judith Allen, former Arizona state Republican Party executive director Jane Lynch and finance director Todd Bradford, and former First Assistant Arizona Attorney General Robert Carey.
Someone recently warned that those attached to MAGA and fascism-curious movements around the world risk being recorded along with history’s villains. It’s too late for most of the Trump administration, for the Trump family, and for the “toxic” Trump Organization. But for Republicans who kept silent during the reign of Trump hoping he would just go away, time is running out.
The time to get on the right side of history is now.
On Friday, the Washington Post broke a bombshell story about a credible allegation of bribery involving the 2016 election of Donald Trump, Egypt’s dictator Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and a mysterious $10 million all-cash withdrawal from an Egyptian state-run bank just five days before Trump became president — and adopted a more friendly aid policy toward the Middle Eastern nation.
The rumors of such an investigation have kicked around for years — most famously in the latter days of Trump’s term when part of a federal courthouse was closed off while prosecutors pushed for records from the Egyptian bank, although few details were known at the time. The new Post investigation revealed a stunning detail — that the Cairo bank had received a note from an agency believed to be Egyptian intelligence to “kindly withdraw” nearly $10 million in two, 100-pound bags full of U.S. $100 bills, five days before Trump became 45th president.
The case, which kicked off with a tip from a credible U.S. intelligence asset of a $10 million bribe from the Sisi regime to Trump to pay for a last-minute ad blitz in the 2016 campaign, remains a circumstantial one, lacking the smoking gun that could lie in Trump’s unexamined bank records. But what remarkable circumstances these are.
We know that Trump — reluctantly, at the urging of aides — did inject $10 million into his campaign in its final days. The Post said a Trump campaign official later told the FBI the money was structured as a loan which could be repaid to Trump. We now know about the Egyptian withdrawal of nearly $10 million in American cash, in line with the intelligence tip. And we know that Trump cozied up to Sisi — largely a U.S. pariah during the Obama administration — and even called him “my favorite dictator” before releasing nearly $1.4 billion in military aid to Egypt that had been held up because of its human-rights abuses.
The missing link in the probe was Trump’s bank records that might have shown receipt of $10 million. But, as the Post chronicled in great detail, the case was handed off in 2019 from the former special counsel, Robert Mueller, who’d chased the tip aggressively, to political appointees in then-Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department, including Barr himself. The Trump appointees refused to go after Trump’s bank records from 2017 as he became president — even after the evidence of the Egyptian withdrawal that January. And President Joe Biden’s AG Merrick Garland, whose tenure has been marked by his political cowardice, didn’t restart the case before the statute of limitations expired in January 2022.
In many ways, the failed bribery probe is not an isolated incident. This is the third major case — in addition to the allegations of a Trump cover-up in Mueller’s probe of 2016 Russian election interference, and the 2016 hush money to Stormy Daniels that eventually led to Trump’s conviction on 34 state felony counts — in which Barr is alleged to have put his finger on the scales of justice in a case involving the president who appointed him. That alone is worthy of a congressional investigation.
Yes it is.
The Justice Department has not interfered in the investigation of Hunter Biden who may very well end up doing time for a minor crime that is rarely prosecuted under the circumstances. And the DOJ prosecuted Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez who will almost certainly will go to jail for accepting bribes from …. Egypt! NO thumbs on the scale for their own. If anything, at least in the Hunter Biden case, it’s the opposite. He would almost certainly not have been prosecuted if he weren’t the son of the president. But Trump has gotten away with corruption on an unprecedented scale and there seems to be little appetite for even the Senate to take it up for transparency purposes. (We know he can’t be prosecuted for this, unfortunately, since the high court will almost certainly define this as part of his official duties.)
I suspect that everyone is just holding their breath hoping that Trump will lose and they’ll finally be rid of him without inciting the right wing again. But giving him a pass or delaying justice combined with the Supremes putting their thumbs on the scale has resulted in even more cynicism about the judicial system. The Democratic Senate has been completely asleep at the wheel.
Trump and his cronies have taken a wrecking ball to the rule of law and the Department of Justice and I’m not sure if or when it can be rebuilt. I’m afraid that the negative consequences of this era are profound and long lasting and I’m not sure that anyone’s going to even attempt to do anything about it.
