Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Descent into madness

Two of my friends (barely a couple of years older) had polio as children. One still walks with a limp. The other told me just yesterday that she spent time in an iron lung as a kid. I was shocked.

Remember when medical ventilators were in super-high demand during the COVID-19 pandemic? Before ventilators there were iron lungs. Obsolete now (save for extremely rare cases), iron lungs fell out of use in the 1950s when positive pressure ventilators came along. Coincidentally, vaccines that ended the polio outbreaks of the 1940s and 1950s arrived about the same time. My parents put me in line at a Chicago park one night to get the Salk vaccine by injection gun. Getting vaccinated against polio back then was a community event.

You can imagine what my friends think of RFK Jr.’s proposal for having the FDA decertify the polio vaccine. The one with iron lung experience used spicier language yesterday than used by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, 82, himself a polio survivor (CBS News):

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell issued an apparent warning Friday to Robert F. Kennedy, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Health and Human Services Department, after The New York Times reported that one of Kennedy’s top advisers had filed petitions to revoke the approval of a polio vaccine and several other shots. 

“Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts,” McConnell said in a statement.

McConnell, a polio survivor, denounced efforts “to undermine public confidence in proven cures” like the polio vaccine.

“The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous,” McConnell said.

McConnell credited the “miraculous combination of modern medicine and a mother’s love” with saving him from paralysis when he contracted the disease at two years of age, and he praised  the “miracle” of “the saving power of the polio vaccine” for the millions of children who came after him.

Do me a favor. Spread around the link to the 2015 WSJ page, “Battling Infectious Diseases in the 20th Century: The Impact of Vaccines.” It’s where I found that polio heat map above. Measles, hepatitis A, mumps, rubella and other diseases look like this after vaccines were approved. I don’t need to show you again what a case of smallpox look like.

RFK Jr. is out of his freaking, worm-eaten mind. And Trump is just as insane for entertaining his conspiracy-mongering. God help us.

Happy Hollandaise everyone!

Splitting sculpted hairs

Don’t use the R-word.

The extremely litigous future former president actually won one in court this week. ABC News agreed to pay Donald J. Trump $15 million dollars in a defamation lawsuit brought against network anchor George Stephanopoulos and his employer, plus $1 million in legal fees. That’s a lot of Eau de Trump.

The network agreed to make a $15 million contribution to a “Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff.” [Read on once you’ve stopped laughing about where that money will actually wind up.] The network will also issue a statement of “regret” over comments made by Stephanopoulos in a March 10 interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.).

As NBC News tells the tale:

In the initial complaint, Trump’s lawyers alleged that Stephanopoulos “knowingly or recklessly made multiple false and disparaging statements regarding Plaintiff during ABC broadcasts.”

Mace, who has publicly discussed being [R-worded] as a teenager, was asked during the March interview with Stephanopoulos about Trump’s treatment of women and the E. Jean Carroll case.

Stephanopoulos said during the interview that Trump “has been found liable for [R-word] by a jury.” Trump, however, was found liable in a civil case for sexually abusing Carroll, not liable for her alleged {R-word] . The nine-member jury in that case checked the box marked “no” when asked whether Carroll had proven “by a preponderance of the evidence” that “Mr. Trump [R-worded] Ms. Carroll.”

The judge in the civil case elaborated that what Trump did to Carroll in that Bergdorf Goodman dressing room did not fit New York’s “far narrower” definition of [R-word] (Washington Post):

“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘[R-worded]’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘[R-worded]’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘[R-word],’” Judge Lewis A. Kaplan wrote. “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

I’m surprised that Trump doesn’t make the Frost-Nixon defense that when the future president does it … that means that it is not [R-word].

Happy Hollandaise everyone!

I’ve been wondering about the problem of young people growing up in a time when Donald Trump is ubiquitous and seen as a normal political leader. The youngest voters were only 6 years old the last time we had a presidential election in which he wasn’t the candidate. He might as well be FDR to them. It became particularly worrisome to me when I heard about all those text messages being sent to Black kids and girls right after the election saying they were going back to the plantation or “your body my choice” and processions in the halls of high schools waving Trump flags. It’s just so ugly.

This piece by a high school senior says it all:

After Trump’s victory, it became okay to be young and a Trump supporter and anti-woke. It became okay to make offensive jokes, which in many cases were not jokes but just crude and rude insults. It became okay to support the oppression of marginalized groups.

I attend a school that fits well into Middle American Republicanism in the Northeast. I won’t repeat the many things I’ve heard in class and the halls that would be classified as hate. But this isn’t limited to my school, my region, or even the deep red states where racism has always been front and center.

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that “pro-Trump students at Beverly Hills High School held two days of what the [school] district termed “spirited demonstrations” to celebrate the election results. Boisterous students chanted pro-Trump slogans and carried flags mounted on poles throughout the school — but some Black students said racial slurs and racist rhetoric were used. The rallying students knocked on and tried to open the door of the classroom where the Black Students Union was meeting, which caused some of the teens and the teacher in the room to fear for their safety.”

The LATimes continued, referring to a student-run mock election that Trump narrowly won:

“Trump supporters at the school rallied rowdily in courtyards and hallways, shouting pro-Trump slogans as they rushed around the school. The rallies made many students who don’t support the former president feel uncomfortable.

“Students were seen screaming profanity throughout the two rallies and were aggressive to those with opposing views. Everyone has the right to express their political views, but countless students and teachers felt unsafe with the crowd’s mob-like behavior,” wrote the editors of Highlights, the high school’s student-run publication.

[…]

Miss Universe was crowned on November 16th. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed Danish woman, Victoria Kjaer Theilvig, who is now Miss Universe, unwittingly became conservative’s Miss Everything as they tweeted racist and transphobic things against other beauty queens with darker hair and skin.

Among these conservatives was Donald Trump Jr. He wrote on X, “Biologically & objectively attractive women are allowed to win beauty pageants again. WE ARE SO BACK!!!”

Other conservatives took his statement, copied and pasted it, and flooded X with it.

She also talks about a new casual racism and sexism among her peers. There’s no defense for such behavior, of course. But can we be surprised by it? Look at the leadership of the winning political party. Look at the voters who support them. Look at all these important media figures and business leaders rushing to cater to Donald Trump, the most openly crude person to ever win the presidency, ushering in a whole new era of hate and bigotry into our politics. Why would kids not think this isn’t acceptable in our society, celebrated, even? It clearly is!

We had the chance to repudiate this grotesque public behavior and we failed. So now we will have 12 straight years of it. If we are to assume that most people become slightly politically sentient at about 12, that means when Trump finally ends his tenure (if he does) nobody in this country under the age of 24 will have ever been aware of a world in which the president and his followers behaved any differently. The next presidential election the youngest voters will have been born the year Obama became president.

Trump’s legacy is more that border walls and tax cuts I’m afraid,.

The NY Times is reporting that Trump is conducting most of his business at Mar-a-Lago these days after dark, often over dinner with whichever CEO or dignitary has traveled to offer fealty and tribute that day.

Of the more than 80 personnel announcements Mr. Trump has made since Election Day, 45 have been announced in social media posts and emails that he has sent after 6 p.m. Many have come after 10 p.m., prompting a wave of social media chatter and television coverage that sometimes continues throughout the night and into the early morning hours.

One of his veteran staff members said Mr. Trump was known to leave voice mail messages in the middle of the night saying: “This is your favorite president.” He sometimes follows up the next day, suggesting the person might want to share the audio with his friends and family.

Trump’s lovely spokesman Stephen Cheung says that Trump’s working night and day which is obviously bullshit.

But several people close to Mr. Trump — along with aides who have come to expect emails, texts and phone calls to arrive well after bedtime — say he is often just getting started around dinnertime.

That is usually when Mr. Trump walks out to the outdoor dining patio, always met with boisterous applause from people in the room — usually some mix of members, aides and advisers, cabinet picks, business executives, consultants and others eager for a presidential sighting.

So many people are just yearning to be subjects, aren’t they? It’s just stunning how eager they all are to treat him like some kind of potentate, maybe even a demi-God. I would say that I can’t imagine how anyone could do that but I worked in Hollywood where ass-kissing is a fine art and there are so many people who just love to fawn over the rich and famous. I suppose if you add in the power of the presidency they just drool at the prospect of prostrating themselves before him.

Here’s the lowdown on the Trudeau dinner where Trump “joked” that Canada could become a state if they don’t like him treating them like an enemy:

The dinner was an example of the ways in which Mr. Trump mixes business with pleasure at his club, particularly during dinners.

One Canadian official briefed on the dinner with Mr. Trudeau said the president-elect drank Diet Coke throughout the meal (it was repeatedly refilled) and used an iPad to control the music on the patio. (Among Mr. Trump’s musical choices: two renditions of “Hallelujah” by the Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen, as well as a selection from Pavarotti and the musical “Cats.”)

At the end of the evening, Mr. Trump gave Mr. Trudeau a copy of Mar-a-Lago’s magazine, which included details about membership, as well as ads for plastic surgery and other products and services, according to the Canadian official, who was not authorized to speak with the press and asked for anonymity.

There’s a Mar-a-Lago magazine and he sells ads in it? Is there no end to the grift? It is nice of him to recommend the right plastic surgeons to achieve that Mar-a-Lago look though. Very convenient.

What is the Mar-a-Lago look?

It’s all the rage down there. If you do it right you might even become an ambassador.

Many, many thanks to all of you who have contributed so far this year. I can’t tell you what it means to me, especially now when everything has been feeling a little bit bleak. It reminds me that none of us are alone in all this and gives me hope that we’ll be able to regroup and push back on what Trump and his henchmen have planned for us.

Everybody with a blog or a substack is quoting Professor Timothy Snyder these days, especially his admonition not to “obey in advance.” Sadly, we’re watching so many do exactly that right now. Media figures, government officials, world leaders and CEOs are making the pilgrimage down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring (even, in some cases, holding their hands over their hearts to strains of the January 6th choir singing the national anthem!) Democrats are starting to signal that Trump is someone they can work with. It’s enough to make you crazy. It feels as if they’ve all completely given in to his noxious authoritarianism before he’s even started to implement his plans.

Snyder’s advice not to obey in advance, as all these people are doing, was just one piece of advice from his pamphlet “On Tyranny” which was a best seller during Trump’s first term. Back in November of 2016, before he published it, as we were all still reeling from the shock, I published his list of 20 lessons in a post called Survival Advice For This New Reality when I saw it on his Facebook page. Sadly, it’s even more necessary today than it was then:

Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You’ve already done this, haven’t you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.

2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don’t protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.

3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.

4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of “terrorism” and “extremism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “exception” and “emergency.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don’t fall for it.

6. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don’t use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps “The Power of the Powerless” by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.

7. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

8. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Bookmark PropOrNot or other sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.

10. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.

11. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

12. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

13. Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.

14. Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.

15. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.

16. Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.

17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.

18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)

19. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom. 

20. Be a patriot. The incoming president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.

I’m going to keep all of that in mind as we go forward and I hope that you do too. Here at Hullabaloo we’ll keep documenting the atrocities and trying our hardest to keep a clear head as we work our way through this next year. If you have the means and the inclination to help us keep doing that by throwing some change into the old holiday stocking I’d be most grateful.

Hang in there. Remember, Donald Trump is an imbecile. A dangerous imbecile but an imbecile nonetheless. That’s gotta count for something, right?

cheers,

digby

And Happy Hollandaise everyone. We’ll get through this!

*Keep scrolling for new stuff. 🙂

You can’t really blame them. Most voters made it pretty clear that they don’t give a damn about female equality or even autonomy. So why pretend? The GOP knows which way the wind is blowing and it’s not into a future where female leadership is considered important or, frankly, even acceptable.

We need to concentrate on coddling young men and reassuring white males that they still run the world. All this women stuff only hurts the ball team.

“Drones the size of cars”

Yes, that’s your next Commander in Chief. “And that’s how MAGAts started shooting down small private airplanes all over America,” a friend quips.

Forbes:

For weeks, citizens across New Jersey — as well as New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut — have reported seeing clusters of drone-like objects flying low in the sky at night, yet information remains scarce, even as state officials now say they’ve seen the drones firsthand, received mixed information from federal agencies and pushed the FBI for answers.

Citizens report seeing “drones the size of cars” overhead.

With those red and green lights, I suspect we’re simply seeing those giant flying cats The Weekly World News told us years ago were terrorizing New Jersey. The flying kitties are just showing off their Christmas spirit.

Donald Trump has none. And he hates pets. Especially oversized flying ones.

Guess what he’ll do there?

Election rigging has been Republican SOP at least since their REDMAP project in 2010. The gerrymandered districts they drew in 2011 continue to pay dividends a decade and a half later.

Republicans are now so brazen about their intentions to seek power above all else that they’ve said so into microphones in state after state. Thomas Mills of Politics NC that the latest comes from (you guessed it) North Carolina:

On Wednesday, the state house overrode Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the bill that strips power from the in-coming Democrats elected to executive branch offices. Out-going Speaker and Congressman-elect Tim Moore told Steve Bannon, “This action item today is going to be critical to making sure North Carolina continues to be able to do what it can to deliver victories for Republicans up and down the ticket.”

Yes, you read that right. The bill was not about disaster relief. It was not about good government. It was not about the people of North Carolina. It was about consolidating power and rigging elections for Republicans.

Bolts reminds us that Moore is headed to Congress from the district he gerrymandered for himself. I’ll remind you that it was Moore who brought the independent state legislature theory, “probably the most intractable constitutional con in history,” before the U.S Supreme Court.

Mills again:

Republicans have rigged the state by subverting democracy. They used extreme gerrymandering to give themselves almost veto-proof majorities in both houses of the legislature. With a partisan and complicit state Supreme Court, they have few restraints on their power. Now, they are trying eliminate the checks and balances of the executive branch to further consolidate their power. As one friend wrote, “They’re now using all three branches to guarantee their hold on power.”

What do you think will be Job One for a guy like Tim Moore in his new Capitol Hill job?

Watch this guy closely. You’ll be hearing his name moore soon.