Ruth, you’ve really hit the nail squarely on the head! Trump has & will use his presidency as a tool to screen himself from taking any responsibility! My hope is that Jack Smith will be ultra successful in holding him accountable! Holding his feet to the fire won’t affect his bone spurs! Thank you for this post!
It's what's happening. Every time the organic being opens his mouth or moves his fingers, he's lying for a reason. He told Mary L. he embellishes his stories because no one would be interested in it if he didn't. It's amazing what my aging brain remembers and forgets (and getting old under fascism makes it all harder on purpose).
Every thing they do (the inner circle) is an obvious test about what he can get away with and that includes his early statement about shooting someone on 5th Avenue and not lose a vote (except he'd use a cult member to do it). He has done the killing and gotten away with it - through covid for starters.
So right!! Laughing out loud. Thanks for adding the HQ to a new trifeca of sorts. You couldn't make this stuff up.... fun and funny, helps keep our frayed sanity for 1 more day!
I really wish it wasn't. I agree with you sort of that you can't make this stuff up exceptttt for one thing - the movie, "The Manchurian Candidate," that I've watched twice but decades ago. I recorded it within the last few years but since we're watching it play out, we both opted to skip watching it :) .
I have contended all along that Trump is “running for cover”, and Biden is running because Trump is running for the Presidency. Most normal people, if under indictment (even several) would acknowledge their compromised position, “apologize” for not being able to run for office while fighting legal battles, and then bow-out of the election (which even Spiro Agnew did, although he promised that he would still run if convicted). Not Trump. He’ll hang on for dear life outside prison. My question Ruth is WHO do you think is writing Trump’s speeches for him now? No doubt, Trump wouldn’t say what he doesn’t believe, - but I still wonder if it’s Steve Bannon, Steven Miller, or whoever else is writing these ‘scripts’ for Trump and fueling history authoritarian agenda “behind the scenes”. It’s incredibly scary how Trump’s efforts continue to earn him such a following from his sycophants.
I suspect all the aforementioned criminals are writing his speeches. I also think military grade AI chatbot type tools are being employed as well. There's always a dash of Game/ Chaos theory in these spectacles =/I I would love to get a Linguists breakdown on his speech patterns. It seems like he's reading exactly what has been written for him, and then he drizzles on his trumpisms with his own special brand of inaticulation. And if any professors out there have one of those computer programs that checks for plagiarisms, we will find who their sources are. It would probably be rather damning.
The answer is unsolved, I believe. I know he said he kept hitler's book by his bedside and I suspect Mary L. Trump can add her 2 cents to this. Mary told us he embellishes his stories otherwise people would be bored and not listen to him.
You said he's not book smart. We know he certainly doesn't sound educated (is that the reason Michael Cohen told Wharton at Penn State) not to release release his records with a connoted "or else"?
These days, I use mediabiascheck frequently. Here's the result of running it against the inquisitr. I find them pretty accurate (through my filter, of course).
Maybe the most transparent aspect of Trump, or Orange Mussolini as this reader calls him, is the extent to which his malignant narcissism and megalomania drive him so obsessively – well beyond merely the demagogue stage – to become the first American dictator. Think back to January 6, 2021.
Given the fact that the popular vote is not in itself determinative in our presidential elections and the cultish Trumpublican Party is busily working to game the system at the state and local levels to create overrides to the majority will of We the People, this remains a realistic – and frightening – possibility.
Maureen Dowd's latest column in The New York Times contains a quote from Mitt Romney regarding Trump's brazenly felonious hoarding of Top Secret national security documents in which the Utah senator, speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill, asks rhetorically, "He held onto them. Why?"
For the answer, consider an article by Fintan O'Toole titled "The Ultimate Deal" in The New York Review. It begins this way and is consistent with everything we've ever learned about Donald Trump:
"Secrets are a kind of currency. They can be hoarded, but if kept for too long they lose their value. Like all currencies, they must, sooner or later, be used in a transaction — sold to the highest bidder or bartered as a favor for which another favor will be returned. To see the full scale of Donald Trump’s betrayal of his country, it is necessary to start with this reality. He kept intelligence documents because, at some point, those secrets could be used in a transaction. What he was stockpiling were the materials of treason. He may not have known how and when he would cash in this currency, but there can be little doubt that he was determined to retain the ability to do just that."
Make of it what you wish, but its dark, "Art of the Deal" ugliness is nothing if not perfectly Trumpian.
Wow, that sounds like a paranoid xxx and it is everything we're seeing. A piece of torn paper in a toilet could become valuable too (after all these years, I'm serious). Flashback to the old campaigning where it (not misspelled :) ), brought rump vodka and stakes to sell.
"The Art of the Deal" was the beginning memory of the massive flood of books and continuing insanity that would continue and follow. Oy. We knew something really bad was going on but what? We quickly found out.
I am greatly heartened that Ruth’s clarion, prophetic voice, unlike previous Cassandra’s who were silenced during the rise of Mussolini, Hitler, Putin and Orban .... still has a nationally visible platform to warn our nation of the great threat that Trump and his many imitators and allies pose to our nation and democratic governance.
Ruth, you nailed it when you stated "The purpose of holding office, for strongmen like Trump, is not governance, but having the power to get away with crime." Now it's up to us to ensure that he doesn't return to office.
It is clear that Trump is "using" the fact of his candidacy (which he deliberately announced FAR earlier than any person has ever declared a candidacy for the presidency) in order to try to fend off indictments, convictions and sentences. And that his main (though by no means sole) goal of becoming president again is to shield himself from ongoing and potential future legal issues if he can get elected before currently expected trials are over (or even set) and charges become sentences.
You say, "Yet Trump is in the middle of the strongman's worst nightmare —an indictment that could lead to a conviction and jail sentence— and his rhetoric has accordingly escalated." In doing so, you imply, but don't overtly state, something that needs to be taken into consideration.
We know what "cornered animals" do. And like a cornered animal, Trump is lashing out in an even fiercer way, and will likely continue to do so. On the one hand, this has had the effect of giving Jack Smith and others more fodder for their legal cannons, since Trump cannot help himself in continuing to implicate himself in his crimes. On the other hand, those of us on the left (and in the middle) MUST keep in mind that, the more "cornered" he is, the more "aggrieved" he feels, the more he seeks to undermine the "deep state" and even the basic institutions of a democracy, the STRONGER his base becomes, and the MORE they adore and support him.
Consider that, in a poll taken just days after the Alvin Bragg indictment, a dozen fence-sitting center-right independents crossed that fence to DEFEND and SUPPORT him.
THAT is the scariest aspect of what is happening. Although his base is eroding (slowly, but surely), his overall SUPPORT seems to be growing (at least a little) among those fence-sitting independents. WHY they would want a twice-impeached, twice-indicted, civilly-guilty-of-rape, misogynist, racist, lying, xenophobic malignant narcissist with clearly stated authoritarian tendencies to be president is not the issue. The issue is that all too many of them DO. And rather than decreasing, that number may be increasing.
It is therefore MOST critical that we "catch" and "capture" those independents before they willingly slide into authoritarianism and proto-fascism. If we don't, we could easily see a replay of 2016. And given the ways in which the GOP (particularly at the State level) are seeking to make sure that, once they HAVE power, they can KEEP it, perhaps indefinitely - this is NOT a "boy who cried wolf" situation: we really do have only this one election to determine the fate of our democracy. If Trump wins, and more MAGAs get into the House (and possibly the Senate), and State election apparatuses are able to permanently maintain GOP control of the electoral process, then it's game over.
Biden MUST win, the Dems MUST take back seats in the House (and hopefully control of it), and the Dems MUST increase their number in the Senate. As they say: this is not a drill. Anything other than that may very well lead to a prolonged period of authoritarian rule in Amerikkka, and "minority rule" for a long time to come.
And I haven't even gotten to what is likely to happen if Biden is given the shot at another SCOTUS seat, particularly prior to the 2024 election. We can assume that McConnell, despite not being Majority Leader, will do everything he can to derail a Biden nominee. And, of course, if Trump wins in 2024, and gets more shots at SCOTUS, it will signal the end of even the pretense of fairness or judicial constraint.
Trump has done everything in his power to attack every pillar that upholds our Democracy: : Independent Judiciary, Free Press, Public Education- all with their unique ability to hold him accountable!
One of the biggest lessons from Trump & Trump-like are how vehemently they despise Democracy.
They don’t want Human, Civil Rights or a Habitable Planet- it gets in their way of their ability to control & feed their insatiable desires for greed & power.
The current cry from Trump’s coconspirators that our government is weaponizing the government against them.
The reality is they do not want to be accountable to anything: Rule of Law, or we the people for the destruction they have inflicted upon all of us.
Pre-Trump, this whole discussion would have been surrealistic -- abstract, at best. Now it is realistic, concrete. The damage this individual is doing merely by looming over all our futures this way is immense -- and that is even if he fails to achieve his monstrous goals.
You mentioned Kari Lake in your essay. She tried and failed to become governor in my state, so I've seen many of her speeches. She is a full blooded fascist that has totally given up on democracy and truth. She has her own truth that runs parallel to the real truth. She's in serious need of a psychiatric evaluation. She acts like a sociopath. Sociopathy and fascist leadership go hand in hand.
Trump is not an authoritarian and his supporters do not seek authoritarianism. Trump and his supporters are fascists, pure and simple. See Robert Reich's excellent Substack essay on the subject.
Authoritarianism and fascism are not mutually exclusive; they have similarities. Ruth would be a better judge of this subject than Robert Reich. I did read his piece on this subject.
Agree that fascism best describes Trump's politics and agenda.
Ruth, you so powerfully wrote of the emotional trump stranglehold on some part of America. However ....
I have to remind you of the equally powerful hold liberals and progressives have on the future ... of democracy. In two words, Georgia and Arizona. But let me say more ....
Since 2020, Dems have strengthened our Electoral College advantage. We can now include AZ to the surely winnable state of NV along with certain Western wins in WA, OR, CA, HA, NM and CO.
We have every Northeastern state north of VA, with only NH a potential outlier.
We've solidified our Mid Western "wall" of WI, MN, MI, IL AND PA. We've won the last five of six statewide races in GA (2020 pres, Warnock in 20,21 AND 22, and Ossoff in 20; lost Gov race in 22)
Lastly. Since 2020, the conservative brand has only sunk lower, and lower. Even KS defeated an anti-choice referendum in 2022.
The extreme nature of trump, and his followers, which you have described, have so soiled the conservative movement, that not even a heavy dose of bleach can kill this dangerous trump virus.
Yes, AZ is turning the corner from a solid red state to a purple state. Our state house and senate are saturated with MAGA nut jobs but the governor is a Dem. The red Phoenix area constiuents are quite angry with those in the Tucson area, which have been liberal for many years now. The state is very divided politically. I feel that the future of the state will be liberal but the polarization will remain.
Your words are so "spot on" and clearly articulate the dangers of this maniac. I wonder how you can get your message onto other news platforms, such as ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. While I love listening to you on MSNBC, we all know the dangers but we need to expand this insight to others who may not tune in to progressive media.
Agree! Trump has normalized fascism and his secondary psychopathy. His people have been sucked into the vortex.
Ruth, you’ve really hit the nail squarely on the head! Trump has & will use his presidency as a tool to screen himself from taking any responsibility! My hope is that Jack Smith will be ultra successful in holding him accountable! Holding his feet to the fire won’t affect his bone spurs! Thank you for this post!
It's what's happening. Every time the organic being opens his mouth or moves his fingers, he's lying for a reason. He told Mary L. he embellishes his stories because no one would be interested in it if he didn't. It's amazing what my aging brain remembers and forgets (and getting old under fascism makes it all harder on purpose).
Every thing they do (the inner circle) is an obvious test about what he can get away with and that includes his early statement about shooting someone on 5th Avenue and not lose a vote (except he'd use a cult member to do it). He has done the killing and gotten away with it - through covid for starters.
Ironically, I believe Bergdorf Goodman is on Fifth Avenue ... so if it's not one it's the other.
Hahaha! You are right. Yuck. Ironically, I found the headquarters for pre-planning.
Trump Tower/725 5th Ave, New York, NY 10022 This is a 3'fer. That was oddly funny and fun.
So right!! Laughing out loud. Thanks for adding the HQ to a new trifeca of sorts. You couldn't make this stuff up.... fun and funny, helps keep our frayed sanity for 1 more day!
Indeed. One day at a time, sigh...
so true
I really wish it wasn't. I agree with you sort of that you can't make this stuff up exceptttt for one thing - the movie, "The Manchurian Candidate," that I've watched twice but decades ago. I recorded it within the last few years but since we're watching it play out, we both opted to skip watching it :) .
I have contended all along that Trump is “running for cover”, and Biden is running because Trump is running for the Presidency. Most normal people, if under indictment (even several) would acknowledge their compromised position, “apologize” for not being able to run for office while fighting legal battles, and then bow-out of the election (which even Spiro Agnew did, although he promised that he would still run if convicted). Not Trump. He’ll hang on for dear life outside prison. My question Ruth is WHO do you think is writing Trump’s speeches for him now? No doubt, Trump wouldn’t say what he doesn’t believe, - but I still wonder if it’s Steve Bannon, Steven Miller, or whoever else is writing these ‘scripts’ for Trump and fueling history authoritarian agenda “behind the scenes”. It’s incredibly scary how Trump’s efforts continue to earn him such a following from his sycophants.
I suspect all the aforementioned criminals are writing his speeches. I also think military grade AI chatbot type tools are being employed as well. There's always a dash of Game/ Chaos theory in these spectacles =/I I would love to get a Linguists breakdown on his speech patterns. It seems like he's reading exactly what has been written for him, and then he drizzles on his trumpisms with his own special brand of inaticulation. And if any professors out there have one of those computer programs that checks for plagiarisms, we will find who their sources are. It would probably be rather damning.
@HET999 - "WHO do you think is writing Trump's speeches for him now?" Trump is probably writing his own speeches. Trump has studied Hitler's propaganda techniques. https://www.inquisitr.com/2900659/donald-trumps-ex-wife-says-he-studied-hitler-speeches-claims-anonymous-video . Trump is not book smart, but he is very street smart. I think it is likely that he is writing his own propaganda laced speeches.
The answer is unsolved, I believe. I know he said he kept hitler's book by his bedside and I suspect Mary L. Trump can add her 2 cents to this. Mary told us he embellishes his stories otherwise people would be bored and not listen to him.
You said he's not book smart. We know he certainly doesn't sound educated (is that the reason Michael Cohen told Wharton at Penn State) not to release release his records with a connoted "or else"?
These days, I use mediabiascheck frequently. Here's the result of running it against the inquisitr. I find them pretty accurate (through my filter, of course).
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/inquisitr/
Thank you, I added MediaBiasFactCheck to my browser favorites!
(Sorry about the typo....it’s fueling “HIS” authoritarian agenda....
Maybe the most transparent aspect of Trump, or Orange Mussolini as this reader calls him, is the extent to which his malignant narcissism and megalomania drive him so obsessively – well beyond merely the demagogue stage – to become the first American dictator. Think back to January 6, 2021.
Given the fact that the popular vote is not in itself determinative in our presidential elections and the cultish Trumpublican Party is busily working to game the system at the state and local levels to create overrides to the majority will of We the People, this remains a realistic – and frightening – possibility.
Maureen Dowd's latest column in The New York Times contains a quote from Mitt Romney regarding Trump's brazenly felonious hoarding of Top Secret national security documents in which the Utah senator, speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill, asks rhetorically, "He held onto them. Why?"
For the answer, consider an article by Fintan O'Toole titled "The Ultimate Deal" in The New York Review. It begins this way and is consistent with everything we've ever learned about Donald Trump:
"Secrets are a kind of currency. They can be hoarded, but if kept for too long they lose their value. Like all currencies, they must, sooner or later, be used in a transaction — sold to the highest bidder or bartered as a favor for which another favor will be returned. To see the full scale of Donald Trump’s betrayal of his country, it is necessary to start with this reality. He kept intelligence documents because, at some point, those secrets could be used in a transaction. What he was stockpiling were the materials of treason. He may not have known how and when he would cash in this currency, but there can be little doubt that he was determined to retain the ability to do just that."
Make of it what you wish, but its dark, "Art of the Deal" ugliness is nothing if not perfectly Trumpian.
Wow, that sounds like a paranoid xxx and it is everything we're seeing. A piece of torn paper in a toilet could become valuable too (after all these years, I'm serious). Flashback to the old campaigning where it (not misspelled :) ), brought rump vodka and stakes to sell.
"The Art of the Deal" was the beginning memory of the massive flood of books and continuing insanity that would continue and follow. Oy. We knew something really bad was going on but what? We quickly found out.
This is a masterpiece , Ruth , this is the concise weave of past authoritarians AND a present wanna be playing the field of followers .
A very dangerously dark professional card shark, con man extrodinaire, and the success of a Fascist playbook his guideline.
💙VOTE THE BLUE TSUNAMI FOLKS💙🙏☮️❤️
💙VOTE THE BLUE TSUNAMI💙
I am greatly heartened that Ruth’s clarion, prophetic voice, unlike previous Cassandra’s who were silenced during the rise of Mussolini, Hitler, Putin and Orban .... still has a nationally visible platform to warn our nation of the great threat that Trump and his many imitators and allies pose to our nation and democratic governance.
Ruth, you nailed it when you stated "The purpose of holding office, for strongmen like Trump, is not governance, but having the power to get away with crime." Now it's up to us to ensure that he doesn't return to office.
That phrase alone would make an excellent meme or even a bumpersticker.
Or get away with it!!!
Criminality must become unfashionable again.
God save us! The Demos cant seem to do it
The Dems need to get rid of all their worthless political consultants. Hire ones with DOG in them.
It is clear that Trump is "using" the fact of his candidacy (which he deliberately announced FAR earlier than any person has ever declared a candidacy for the presidency) in order to try to fend off indictments, convictions and sentences. And that his main (though by no means sole) goal of becoming president again is to shield himself from ongoing and potential future legal issues if he can get elected before currently expected trials are over (or even set) and charges become sentences.
You say, "Yet Trump is in the middle of the strongman's worst nightmare —an indictment that could lead to a conviction and jail sentence— and his rhetoric has accordingly escalated." In doing so, you imply, but don't overtly state, something that needs to be taken into consideration.
We know what "cornered animals" do. And like a cornered animal, Trump is lashing out in an even fiercer way, and will likely continue to do so. On the one hand, this has had the effect of giving Jack Smith and others more fodder for their legal cannons, since Trump cannot help himself in continuing to implicate himself in his crimes. On the other hand, those of us on the left (and in the middle) MUST keep in mind that, the more "cornered" he is, the more "aggrieved" he feels, the more he seeks to undermine the "deep state" and even the basic institutions of a democracy, the STRONGER his base becomes, and the MORE they adore and support him.
Consider that, in a poll taken just days after the Alvin Bragg indictment, a dozen fence-sitting center-right independents crossed that fence to DEFEND and SUPPORT him.
THAT is the scariest aspect of what is happening. Although his base is eroding (slowly, but surely), his overall SUPPORT seems to be growing (at least a little) among those fence-sitting independents. WHY they would want a twice-impeached, twice-indicted, civilly-guilty-of-rape, misogynist, racist, lying, xenophobic malignant narcissist with clearly stated authoritarian tendencies to be president is not the issue. The issue is that all too many of them DO. And rather than decreasing, that number may be increasing.
It is therefore MOST critical that we "catch" and "capture" those independents before they willingly slide into authoritarianism and proto-fascism. If we don't, we could easily see a replay of 2016. And given the ways in which the GOP (particularly at the State level) are seeking to make sure that, once they HAVE power, they can KEEP it, perhaps indefinitely - this is NOT a "boy who cried wolf" situation: we really do have only this one election to determine the fate of our democracy. If Trump wins, and more MAGAs get into the House (and possibly the Senate), and State election apparatuses are able to permanently maintain GOP control of the electoral process, then it's game over.
Biden MUST win, the Dems MUST take back seats in the House (and hopefully control of it), and the Dems MUST increase their number in the Senate. As they say: this is not a drill. Anything other than that may very well lead to a prolonged period of authoritarian rule in Amerikkka, and "minority rule" for a long time to come.
And I haven't even gotten to what is likely to happen if Biden is given the shot at another SCOTUS seat, particularly prior to the 2024 election. We can assume that McConnell, despite not being Majority Leader, will do everything he can to derail a Biden nominee. And, of course, if Trump wins in 2024, and gets more shots at SCOTUS, it will signal the end of even the pretense of fairness or judicial constraint.
I know...the specter of this causes my stomach to tighten up. I can easily be gripped by the same fears as you're expressing, Ian. :(
I empathize. :-(
Trump has done everything in his power to attack every pillar that upholds our Democracy: : Independent Judiciary, Free Press, Public Education- all with their unique ability to hold him accountable!
One of the biggest lessons from Trump & Trump-like are how vehemently they despise Democracy.
They don’t want Human, Civil Rights or a Habitable Planet- it gets in their way of their ability to control & feed their insatiable desires for greed & power.
The current cry from Trump’s coconspirators that our government is weaponizing the government against them.
The reality is they do not want to be accountable to anything: Rule of Law, or we the people for the destruction they have inflicted upon all of us.
It's such a sloppy way of living -- without guard rails or regulations. People / children/ toddlers all need.
Pre-Trump, this whole discussion would have been surrealistic -- abstract, at best. Now it is realistic, concrete. The damage this individual is doing merely by looming over all our futures this way is immense -- and that is even if he fails to achieve his monstrous goals.
Here's my own contribution, my attempt to raise the wool from the MAGA eyes: https://whowhatwhy.org/justice/theyre-coming-after-you-the-war-song-of-donald-j-trump/. Thank you for seeing and communicating the danger.
Thank you for sharing this essay. It was blood-curdling to hear trump say those words over and over. Thank you for speaking truth to power.
You mentioned Kari Lake in your essay. She tried and failed to become governor in my state, so I've seen many of her speeches. She is a full blooded fascist that has totally given up on democracy and truth. She has her own truth that runs parallel to the real truth. She's in serious need of a psychiatric evaluation. She acts like a sociopath. Sociopathy and fascist leadership go hand in hand.
Trump is not an authoritarian and his supporters do not seek authoritarianism. Trump and his supporters are fascists, pure and simple. See Robert Reich's excellent Substack essay on the subject.
Sorry ... here's the link:
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-five-elements-of-fascism
Authoritarianism and fascism are not mutually exclusive; they have similarities. Ruth would be a better judge of this subject than Robert Reich. I did read his piece on this subject.
Agree that fascism best describes Trump's politics and agenda.
Ruth, you so powerfully wrote of the emotional trump stranglehold on some part of America. However ....
I have to remind you of the equally powerful hold liberals and progressives have on the future ... of democracy. In two words, Georgia and Arizona. But let me say more ....
Since 2020, Dems have strengthened our Electoral College advantage. We can now include AZ to the surely winnable state of NV along with certain Western wins in WA, OR, CA, HA, NM and CO.
We have every Northeastern state north of VA, with only NH a potential outlier.
We've solidified our Mid Western "wall" of WI, MN, MI, IL AND PA. We've won the last five of six statewide races in GA (2020 pres, Warnock in 20,21 AND 22, and Ossoff in 20; lost Gov race in 22)
Lastly. Since 2020, the conservative brand has only sunk lower, and lower. Even KS defeated an anti-choice referendum in 2022.
The extreme nature of trump, and his followers, which you have described, have so soiled the conservative movement, that not even a heavy dose of bleach can kill this dangerous trump virus.
As we have seen, our electoral advantage does kill this trump virus.
Fellow Americans working every day @ this...
Yes, AZ is turning the corner from a solid red state to a purple state. Our state house and senate are saturated with MAGA nut jobs but the governor is a Dem. The red Phoenix area constiuents are quite angry with those in the Tucson area, which have been liberal for many years now. The state is very divided politically. I feel that the future of the state will be liberal but the polarization will remain.
Your words are so "spot on" and clearly articulate the dangers of this maniac. I wonder how you can get your message onto other news platforms, such as ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. While I love listening to you on MSNBC, we all know the dangers but we need to expand this insight to others who may not tune in to progressive media.