It's Not About Trump-- It's About His Supporters

We keep getting told not to demean Trump because if you do, you'll be demeaning his supporters. Yeah, so? Isn't that the point? 

No one with an ability to exercise a modicum of critical thought would take Trump seriously for two seconds. Every word out of his mouth is a lie or is so twisted that its relationship to reality is approximately equivalent to the reality on reality TV-- mixed with the prescription drugs that inhabit the tiny brains of the people who drool over Trump's simple-minded nonsense. Watching him in New Hampshire yesterday (see the video above) almost had me feeling sorry for Jeb Bush, Rand Paul and the Republican Party Establishment. Almost-- they created these people and they deserve what they're getting back now.



Bruce Bartlett, a supply-side economist who worked for Ron Paul, Jack Kemp, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, nailed Trump and his supporters a few days ago:

Oh, I love Donald Trump because he exposes everything about the Republican Party that I have frankly come to hate. It is just filled with people who are crazy, and stupid, and have absolutely no idea of what they are taking about. And the candidates, no matter how intelligent they may be, just constantly have to keep pandering to this lowest common denominator in American politics.

Trump is all manipulation, bombast and bluster. And I imagine his supporters have the collective IQ of a guppy. Even when he's briefed by his advisers and he says something correct-- like Iraq being a colossal error-- he sounds like he has the communication power of an angry, egomaniacal 11-year-old. "And who's better at infrastructure than Trump?" I guess that's based on... the Central Park skating rink?

In his glorification of Douglas MacArthur he went off on a typical Trumping tangent:

I went to the greatest school. You had to be really smart to get into that school. The Wharton School of Finance. You've got to be really smart! And that was before I was Trump! You've got to be really smart. That's like the hardest one.

Forbes lists the top business schools in the country, and Wharton, part of the University of Pennsylvania, came in at #4 after Stanford, Booth (University of Chicago) and Harvard. The average GMAT score is 720, lower than the 740 at Stanford or the 730 at Harvard. So, there he was, twisting the truth again, for one purpose: self-aggrandizement... which his pathetic supporters just eat up.

Yesterday, writing for the Washington Post, Dave Weigel spent some time looking at why Trump is legitimately making sense to some voters-- including Democrats-- among hard-hit Michigan workers. Trump is, insists Weigel, "the candidate talking most directly about the loss of manufacturing jobs to foreign countries." He acknowledges that Bernie Sanders "has adopted a similar theme," not bothering to mention that Bernie's entire political career going back several decades has centered on these concerns and that Trump's concerns are ego-driven psychosis, probably because that isn't how disaffected Michigan voters he talked to see it. "Trump's appeal here," he wrote, "captured something that went beyond policy: a brew of impossible nostalgia coupled with a pledge to destroy other countries, most notably China, in negotiations."

“Back when our economy took a dump, I had to go to Afghanistan,” said Bob Parsons, 51. “I had to work there as a product relations manager, just to build our retirement back up. There were no jobs in Michigan to be had. They’re not fair to what’s coming over, as far as the trade goes. For example, 100,000 cars come over here; 5,000 go over there. I like what he says: If they don’t let us send them there, we don’t take their stuff.”

Parsons’s wife, Brenda, who’d been nodding her head, interjected to explain why she trusted Trump.

“He’s a businessman,” she said. “Being a businessman, he knows the ways around. I don’t think he’d go to Congress and ask. I think he’d just do it.”

Bob Parsons explained that Trump could ignore lobbyists. It was lobbyists, hungry to sell out America for a buck, who weakened the trade deals, he said.

“You wouldn’t believe how many young kids I met in Afghanistan who have their degrees but can’t find jobs at home,” he said. “I compare Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan. He lets people know what he’s going to do, not what to ask for.”

When he hit the stage, Trump delivered. He went after China. He played out one of his favorite scenarios, in which he works the Oval Office phones, ignoring the president of Ford-- and his lobbyists-- and wages tax war on his company for shipping jobs to Mexico.

“Ford is building a $2.5 billion plant in Mexico,” he said.

Booooo!

“I’ll actually give them a good idea. Why don’t we just let the illegals drive the cars and trucks right into our country?”

Yaaaaaay!

“I would say, the deal is not going to be approved, I won’t allow it. I want that plant in the United States, preferably here. So then I only have one question: Do they move the plant to the United States the same day or a day later?”

The crowd burst into fresh applause.

What Italian workers saw in Benito Mussolini and his Fascist Party in the early 1920s is what Michigan workers like Brenda Parsons see in Trump. Mussolini opposed class war and replaced it with nationalism and a yearning for Rome's glory days as an empire. He demonized Slavs in the same way Trump demonizes Mexicans. In a speech Mussolini gave in 1920, a year before he was first elected to parliament, he told the crowd in Pula:

When dealing with such a race as Slavic-- inferior and barbarian-- we must not pursue the carrot, but the stick policy... We should not be afraid of new victims... The Italian border should run across the Brenner Pass, Monte Nevoso and the Dinaric Alps... I would say we can easily sacrifice 500,000 barbaric Slavs for 50,000 Italians...

Mussolini pursued imperialistic policies in Africa with the same reasoning: Blacks are "inferior."

In 1922 King Victor Emmanuel III asked Mussolini to form a government in the hope of avoiding a civil war. A year later Mussolini invaded Corfu, a Greek island in the Adriatic. Italians ate up the cult of the strong man which Mussolini promoted through propaganda. He bragged about how smart he was, what a great athlete he was, a skilled musician and a gifted philosopher. I bet Brenda Parsons doesn't know squat about Mussolini-- if she's even ever heard of him.



Trump was at the Iowa State Fair Saturday-- for a few minutes. Philip Bump wrote about it for the Washington Post and summed up the press conference in a couple of lines:

Donald Trump loves Iowa. He loves children. He'll spend as much as it takes, up to a billion dollars. He'll bend Congress to his will as he bent the New York City Zoning Commission. Jeb Bush is a puppet of lobbyists and Scott Walker ran Wisconsin poorly.

All bullshit-- other than the last line.

The guy who wrote the song "Ahab the Arab" in 1962, Ray Stevens, thinks all Mexican "illegals" should be forcibly removed from this country. He didn't mention undocumented immigrants from other countries. But he's been telling anyone who will listen that he thinks Trump is the only one who can get America back on track. And speaking of tracks, this is the last one he released:

The Republican Coalition-- Crackpot City: Snakehandlers, KKK Organizers, Plutocrats, Secessionists...

When I was teaching at McGill in Montreal I'm pretty certain I was the only professor there who wasn't repulsed by students using Wikipedia for research. All the other faculty members I know there absolutely fulminated at the idea that students would turn to Wikipedia... which always appeared to be as good an idea to me as anything else that might get them interested in the subject. Friday a congressman sent me this wikipedia report on Rick Perry supporters who are much more committed to Texas independence than he has been.

The modern movement for [Texas] independence was started by the research of Richard Lance (Rick) McLaren. McLaren claimed that, in 1861, Texans had voted four-to-one to leave the Union. Despite almost universal claims of legal scholars and historians, McLaren claimed that Texas met the qualifications, under international law, of a captive nation of war, since the end of the American Civil War in 1865. McLaren engaged in a protracted series of court and actual battles.

The "Republic of Texas" is a group of individuals that claims that the annexation of Texas by the United States was illegal and that Texas remains an independent nation under occupation. Group activists draw on Tenther political thinking to advocate their ideas. The issue of the Legal status of Texas led the group to claim to reinstate a provisional government on December 13, 1995. Activists within the movement claim over 40,000 active supporters; however, there is no widespread popular support for an independent Texas. The movement split into three factions in 1996, one led by McLaren, one by David Johnson and Jesse Enloe, and the third by Archie Lowe and Daniel Miller. In 1997 McLaren and his followers kidnapped Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe, held them hostage at the Fort Davis Resort, and demanded the release of two movement members in exchange for the Rowes. McLaren's wife, Evelyn, convinced him to surrender peacefully after a week-long standoff with police and Texas Rangers. The McLarens and four other Republic of Texas members were sent to prison, which effectively destroyed the McLaren faction; the Johnson-Enloe faction was discredited after two of its members, Jack Abbot Grebe Jr. and Johnie Wise, were convicted in 1998 of threatening to assassinate several government officials, including President Bill Clinton.

In 2003 what remained of the movement consolidated into one dominant group recognizing the current "interim" government (which replaced the "provisional" government), headed by President Daniel Miller. This interim government claims authority from the original proclamations of 1995 and set up a seat of government in the town of Overton, Texas. Most of the original personalities of the movement have disappeared from public view. Finance has come from donations and the sale of some items such as a Republic of Texas passport. The Republic of Texas headquarters in Overton burned down on August 31, 2005; one person was moderately injured. A separate movement, called the "Texas Convention Pro-Continuation 1861" (TCPC) claims to be the official authority "recognized by the State of Texas and the United States Government for the contemporary effort to bring to power, by popular vote of the People of Texas, the government of the Republic of Texas."

Yet another Republic of Texas group, sometimes referred to as the 10th Congress, meets at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Many of these members have splintered from previous RoT groups. Their President is Larry Hughes, and Vice President is V. Dale Ross.

Republic of Texas President Miller and Laurence Savage published the Republic of Texas's manifesto Texan Arise in 2004. The book outlines the history of Texas, the history and philosophy of the Republic of Texas group, a road map to independence, and some spiritualistic views of Texas. A second important book for the movement is The Brief by the Republic of Texas, published in 2003, a comprehensive case against the United States and State of Texas governments. The book is laid out like a court case, and cites approximately 250 exhibits.

Rick Perry isn't talking about these folks on TV. Instead he's appealing to right-wing extremists by cozying up to anti-government nihilists like Paul Ryan, who he claims agree with him that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. The Republican Party's selection of a presidential nominee will probably be based on how many crackpots who participate in their process agree or disagree (or understand) the Ponzi Scheme argument.

It could be worse. Rachel touches on another Republican crackpot problem in the clip up top. She never mentions the touchy subject of all the GOP supporters who are part of snake handler churches in backward, deep red areas of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and southeast Ohio.



Instead, Rachel talks about the other right-wing religion: their dangerous obsession with anti-social deregulation. Watch the clip but, in short, part of the Republican "jobs bill" is to get rid of regulations-- like those regulating the importation of man-eating pythons and anacondas-- so that entrepreneurs can... create jobs. Well, of course Republicans and their wealthy donors want to create jobs... wherever the job markets are cheapest. That's why so many GOP plutocrats-- we talked about SuperCommittee member and Whirlpool heir Fred Upton a few days ago-- have exported millions of American jobs overseas. Another one like Upton, Montana rightist Steve Daines, is trying to get into Congress even though his record on job creation has been far more beneficial in cheap Asian labor markets than here in the U.S. It's essential to drive plutocrats like Upton out of Congress and to keep plutocrats like Daines out of Congress-- so they can't continue rigging our laws to strip middle-class jobs out of the country for the benefit of a few at the very top. By the way, the Republican alternative to the plutocrat in Montana is John Abarr, a Ku Klux Klan organizer. The two wings of the party are fighting it out for the nomination. Tomorrow afternoon, we'll introduce you to an excellent Democrat running for the seat, Franke Wilmer.

Question For Post-Partisans: Can We Get There By Leaving The Driving To The Same Ralph Kramdens Who Keep Running Us Off The Road?

Gene Sculatti is an old friend of mine. When I first met him he was the subversive executive inside the big scary major record label. He hired me to write articles in the Warner Bros inhouse magaizne and he flew me down to the company's redwood Burbank headquarters to introduce the company's apprehensive senior executives to DEVO. This is the first time Gene is writing for DWT. I'm over the moon.


by Gene Sculatti 
 
I probably shouldn’t be doing this. Writing in the heat of the moment, reacting to the news of Daschle removing himself from consideration for head of Secretary of Health & Human Services. But, jeez, how many times do we have to go through all this-- us, plain Americans, progressives, people of any party or none who want a long overdue turnaround? Is there an endless pool of Daschles out there, smiling pols who just darn forgot to pay a couple hundred grand in taxes, whose living expenses include $200,000 for a car and driver, who, having palmed bushels of healthcare-industry bread, are now to be entrusted with regulating that industry? Just what distinguishes these guys from the opposition party’s charlatan evangelists and Chamber of Commerce boot-lickers? Or is the real distinction not between parties but between all of their class and all of ours? We’re plebes, they’re privileged. One is reminded of Cheney’s rationale for his own right to reckless behaving: “It’s our due.”
 
And where’s Obama? I’m sitting here, like many others, without a full-time job or healthcare, desperate for the changes he and his party promised to implement, and he says he’s sorry, he “screwed up,” that “mistakes were made” in selecting-- or not properly vetting-- Daschle at this critical time. Can you beat that: he screwed up? Hey, pally, we all do, no biggie. (The Apologies of the Week feature on Harry Shearer’s Le Show radio program weekly revels in revealing this kabuki shuck for what it is: Someone’s caught with his pinkie in the Pepperidge Farm jar, he publicly begs forgiveness and it all goes away.)
 
No one’s saying Obama should be infallible in matters of faith and morals. But he did rather advertise himself that way (after one of the most corrupt administrations ever, how hard could it be to do better?). It’s just that so much is at stake now, this time, and he and his crew need to deliver, not dish us the same old slop. Daschle-- and Richardson and Geithner before that-- are black eyes that the Dems don’t need if they’re going to make good on any of their promises to fix things. Here, why not pass Mitch McConnell some fresh ammo?
 
I never thought B.O. walked on water. He made more sense than Hillary, made more of the right points than any Democratic candidate in my lifetime, so he got my vote, and I was touched and energized by his victory.
 
But then, maybe even without drinking the Kool-Aid, I fooled myself anyway.
 
When I was a kid in the early ’60s, growing up in Napa Valley, my dad and uncle used to watch TV wrestling. Sometimes they were joined by Lungo, a wop beanpole inclined toward the gullible. Each week, the villain wrestler would wind up pulling tricks behind the ref’s back and get the best of the hero wrestler. The audience would howl bloody murder. So would Lungo, jumping up and shaking his fist at the screen. Then my uncle would remind him that the whole match was staged, that nothing was really at stake and Lungo would agree, sit back down and settle in for Round Two. As soon as Ray Stevens would clobber Pepper Gomez with a hidden folding-chair, Lungo was up out of his seat, yelling, taken in all over again. 

No matter how hard we want to believe change is here and good’s about to win, we’ve got to be resolute about not being taken in-- by our own blindness or a party or a prez who says we can get there by leaving the driving to the same Ralph Kramdens who keep running us off the road.

UPDATE: Ray and Pepper? Or the real deal?