Just another nutty day in Trump world where up is down and black is white. The stock market rallied slightly today, but don’t get too excited: Trump has made it clear that he’s going to raise tariffs on China tomorrow unless they accede to his ludicrous demands. The Chinese are calling this “a typical, unilateral bullying practice.” Most people are viewing that comment as a sign that China isn’t going to roll over and so Trump will do his worst. Meanwhile, back in Congress, a senator and a congressman are attempting to get both chambers of Congress to do their jobs. Their thanks? Suggestions that they both be arrested. This is America on Trump, folks.

Did you know that Oversight now equals Shadow Government? Shadow Government is trending away on Twit/X as we speak. The tape I heard said that the GOP-led House and Senate was little more than a rubber stamp. That’s merely stating the obvious. The spin on this is rather incredible, that a committee, operating in broad daylight, is being spun as a shadow government.

And calling for the arrests of Schiff and Raskin would be laughable, but so many of the far right-wingnuts are lining up behind it. Get the tiki torches and the guns ready, Rhonda Jean. And hey, throw in a few pitchforks too.

Nobody is talking about overthrowing the government. Not in that clip of Schiff’s and not anywhere else, I feel confident in saying. I share these comments with you so that you see how extreme The Cult is. Evidently asking both chambers of Congress to do the checks and balances job that they were duly elected to perform is some kind of a massive threat. That means that following the Constitution is a massive threat as well. And upholding the rule of law is a massive threat. What isn’t a massive threat? Rubber stamping whatever Trumpty Dumpty wants to do, as he throws not only himself but the country off of an economic wall.

I’ll be amazed if I hear back from this guy. What I have found on Twitter is that the minute you get off of raving hysteria and actually try to discuss a fact or two, the conversations dry up. I don’t know how many of these people are paid by Elon to jump into the thread and gin up the lunatic fringe, or how much of this is sincere. But the pattern I have observed is that there is no room for facts and the minute you present any, or ask for any, you find yourself out in the weeds listening to crickets.

This is normal when one half of the country is listening to propaganda. But there is a ray of sunshine. This you will like. This is from Charlie Sykes’ newsletter yesterday.

[Lord, give me strength. Really.]

Here’s what Hanania wrote:

When I said I would vote Trump in 2024, I was clear eyed about the human capital problem on the right. I just thought that the basic ideological basis of conservatism – free markets, individual rights, tough on crime and foreign adversaries – was sound and enough of it was left over to make even a Republican president this personally flawed a better option.

Yet I was expecting something of a repeat of the first administration, with Trump restrained by traditional conservative ideas, personnel, and institutions. As it turned out, the old Reagan coalition was becoming increasingly hollow, replaced by Trump worship, online edgelordism, and late arriving scammers like crypto bros and MAHA. The signs were there, and I talked extensively about how Trump was becoming something of a cult leader with few checks on his whims and desires. But I must’ve thought that maybe Jared Kushner would just wait until he fell asleep around noon and then start making all the right calls. Or that it would be Elon, but that Elon was a smart guy with libertarian views instead of someone whose brain had been completely melted by right-wing internet slop.

FFS does not seem to do this justice.

“I don’t want to be too harsh on Hanania here — his public admission that he was wrong is commendable,” the British writer Ben Cohen wrote. “But ‘nobody knew how bad’ this would get? Really?”

There are hundreds of publications, thousands of public figures, and an entire political party that has spent almost a decade trying to tell America how insane Donald Trump is, and why voting him into power could very well precipitate the end of democracy in America. The man tried to overthrow the goddamn government when he lost a free and fair election.

Seriously. I’m, taking a deep breath here.

That sainted first term was, in fact a feculent dumpster fire and a million people ended up dying of COVID. But I understand that some people voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 because they lived in an epistemic bubble — one of the alternative reality silos that has grown up on the right — the kind that would take someone like Dan Bongino, Charlie Kirk, or Howard Lutnick seriously. I get that millions of folks simply didn’t know all of the details — the frauds, the bigotry, the corruption, the toxic narcissism. I can even get my head around the fact that there were deplorables who rationalized the malfeasance or even got a kick out of his performative menace.

But how do you explain a quasi-smart guy like Hanania, who watched the whole 2024 campaign in real time? What bizarre turn in the intellect could make somewhat watch Trump in Full— a convicted felon, who pledged to pardon the J6 rioters; a sexual abuser who threatened a regime of retaliation; a serial liar, grifter, and fraudster who had incited a mob to attack the capitol based on his own Big Lie — and think “maybe it won’t be so bad?”

We told them so and there’s not a lot of satisfaction in that. Not while we’re watching the things that do make this country legitimately great being unraveled by the lunatic in the White House. But at least it is a ray of sunshine, a little bit of hope. Some people are waking up. Too little, too late, but at least it’s real.

****************

Zoomers, thank you to all who have contributed. If you can make a donation, it would be very appreciated. We’re committed to keep going through thick and thin. It’s not an easy task with half the country depressed and all of the country looking at the stock market. But we intend to hang in there. Thank you for coming here to read. Ursula

 

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6 COMMENTS

  1. Another dose of really sick reality is reading comments over on the FUX news website. Truly scary stuff. For example, the firing of the NATO admiral, who just happens to be a GASP! woman. The commenters are all up in arms about DEI and “how dare she actually give a speech about inclusion!?!”

    I believe it is critical for those of us who still have our brains left, and those of us who turned out on Saturday, to at least read what the other half is thinking and saying. It may not be healthy to do it too often, but we can’t allow ourselves to just stay in our bubble, either. It’s kinda important to know what the enemy is thinking. Or in this case, not thinking at all.

    Just wait until you read their thoughts on tariffs!!!

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    • I’ve seen some of their thoughts on tariffs, and they are nothing if not inventive. Clueless would be another good description. Videos of people lauding these tariffs aren’t hard to find on YouTube, and they are bizarre! They run the gamut from confidently wrong to complete and utter bullshit, but all posters have a starry look in their eyes.

  2. On election night in 2008, that very night Mitch McConnell huddled with a group of hard-core conservatives both in and out of government and vowed to make Obama a “One term President” and it wasn’t just some asshole “in his cups” (drunk) talking shit. He kept up the mantra and worked with others to create more than just opposition. Coordination with the Koch Brothers led to the creation of the Tea Party, a bold and effective redistricting plan and a whole bunch of legislators to help usurp Obama’s power. He got re-elected anyway but by then the Tea Party and supportive non-members continued their efforts, including and especially the remaking of the courts and SCOTUS in particular. And RWNJ judges (Kacsmyrick in Texas for example, and that last minute appointment of Cannon in FL) along with refusal to even consider a replacement when Scalia died created an actual shadow government. To put an exclamation point on it when RBG died AFTER EARLY VOTING WAS ALREADY UNDERWAY McConnell rammed though a third “Trump” (actually Leonard Leo and The Federalist Society) appointment to SCOTUS during Trump’s lame duck time after losing giving SCOTUS a truly solid, working RWNJ majority. We’ve seen what they’ve done with it.

    THAT my friends was the creation of a shadow government. Not opposition, but an ability to override the actual government if it did things conservatives don’t like. Or, if a conservative government wasn’t being conservative enough make up their own shit. Like giving Presidents unlimited power even when they commit crimes, something that would NEVER have been done had it been a Democrat on the legal hot seat. From where I sit that’s actual sedition, the overthrow of the rule of law to suit whatever conservatives want at a given moment. Overthrowing the system of checks and balances the framers of our Constitution put in place SPECIFICALLY to prevent a single person from holding virtually unchecked power.

    If people are going to be tried and jailed for sedition I’ve got a list of folks and every goddamned one of them is Republican! We’ve seen strong opposition to the government in the past. Whether one agreed with it or not people had the right to oppose via legal, CONSTITUTIONAL means what the government was doing. It’s made for many a mess but we made it through. It’s made it harder to form the “more perfect union” referred to in the Preamble of our Constitution but bit by bit we’ve inched towards that laudable goal.

    One last thing. I’ll guarantee you if Harris (or Biden) was in the WH and Republicans in Congress were voicing strong opposition these ASSHATS calling for Raskin and Schiff to be thrown in prison would HOWL if there were suggestions some of the GOP crazies we so often hear from were doing their typical performance jackassery!

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  3. Hey you nazi bastards who’ve REFUSED for a decade to acknowledge the TRUTH of the nazi/rapist/grifter/traitor/trust fund toddler/ LIAR…GO TAKE A FLYING PHUCK AT A ROLLING DOUGHNUT. YOU ARE NAZI LIARS AND FOOLS!

  4. I’ve heard that police would rather have forensic evidence in hand when they go to arrest someone for a crime rather than an eyewitness account because people don’t always see what they see. This clip of Schiff is a testament to the truth of that. I saw nothing lawless or seditious in the clip, just an attempt to spur colleagues into reasserting the power of Congress into the political landscape that republicans have abdicated.

    Silly me, I may have forgotten to get my super-duper cult booster shot so I could hear Schiff correctly!

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