It comes as no surprise whatsoever that news has broken about the Trump White House calling Disney to complain about Jimmy Kimmel. He also, back in 2018, sicced his then-FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, on Stephen Colbert. Colbert had cracked wise about Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin and this incensed Trump. He lashed out at Colbert in an interview and called him a “no-talent” who uses “filthy” language.
In any event, the FCC ultimately declined to take action against the late night host, even though Trump repeatedly asked for updates, according to Rolling Stone.
Vengeance is Trump’s middle name, or should be. Just a few weeks ago, Trump announced that he was suing the Pulitzer Board, for awarding prizes to journalists who investigated Trump’s ties with Putin, because “I was a victim and everyone knows it.” Trump went on a right-wing radio show and declared his intentions of a revenge tour.
It’s still two years before the winner of the 2024 election takes office, but early reports indicate Trump would bring an iron fist into the Oval Office. Jonathan Swan of Axios reported last summer that his allies are planning to “radically reshape the federal government” if he wins, enacting an executive order known as “Schedule F” that would allow the Trump administration to purge the government and restock it with loyalists.
The report was part of a multi-part series title “Trump’s Revenge.”
Trump is likely to take particularly interest in the Justice Department given his rifts with Jeff Sessions and William Barr, his two most notable attorneys general. He told Hewitt on Thursday that he already has people in mind for the top spot in the DOJ. Trump’s own legal troubles are also a concern, and Rolling Stone reported last summer that Trump believes he needs to win the White House not just because he wants to prove everyone wrong, but to ensure he wouldn’t be subject to prosecution.
The only thing that could stand to thwart Trump’s obsession with pulling every lever of power within his reach to punish his enemies is his own incompetence. Rolling Stone alsoreported last summer that Trump’s 2024 plan includes appointing washed-up conservative media crank Lou Dobbs to a Cabinet position.
This is the kind of crazy we’re looking at if Trump gets back into the White House. I don’t think he will but at the same time, the fact that we’re even talking about revenge tours and fascist rule appalls me.
And Trump’s net is only widening. He wants to get everybody that has ever insulted him.
The following year, [2019] Trump directed his staff and attorneys to see whether the FCC and the Justice Department could retaliate against late night shows critical of him after he was incensed by the jokes about him in an SNL rerun. Trump, sources familiar with the matter said, suggested to lieutenants he believed (wrongly) that shows like Kimmel’s and SNL had violated an obscure federal rule which mandates that broadcasters provide equal time to messages from candidates.
The Trump White House’s attempts to censor critics extended to social media, as well. In 2019, Trump’s White House reached out to Twitter and demanded that the social media company remove a tweet from Chrissy Teigen calling Trump a “pussy ass bitch,” according to recent testimony from a former Twitter trust and safety official.
That must have stung, especially coming from an attractive woman. Although I dare say that Teigen has joined E. Jean Carroll and Stormy Daniels in the horse faced, not my type category.
Trump is flat out nuts. It’s a stain on our nation that the Republican party ever put him in the position that it did and they may do it again. While on the one hand, watching the 2024 election take shape is a circus, on the other hand, seeing that this thin-skinned madman, bent on destruction of his enemies, is still amongst us and actively campaigning is a very sobering thing.
I just hope sanity prevails in this country. It’s not about Republican v. Democrat, it’s literally about insane v. sane, if we’re talking about Trump on the ticket. This isn’t a regular election, it’s existential.
Counting on sanity in a country that doesn’t give an apparent rat’s ass about character, as Dr King pointed out, but worships celebrity, money, fame, comfort, and revisionist history, is a risky bet. Somehow all the sacrifices of 400,000 dead soliders to stop fascism in Europe either wasn’t learned or is forgotten. Now we have fascists in power standing with putin as he blows up children. Fact. When 99 % of us will stand for the national anthem, but won’t put on a uniform, thank God almighty putin didn’t invade us. A risky bet indeed.
Believe me, there are times when I game out scenarios for the future and I come up with some very bleak ones. It’s glad I am that I’m not of an age where I can anticipate living another 50 years. I shudder to think what this planet could be like.
I hear you and I’m closer to the end, more than likely, but the children are what ultimately matters, and that makes this a fight worth fighting.
The Republican party IS the stain on the country. Look who else they’ve given us: ‘I am not a crook’ Nixon, the ‘lovable’ but brain-addled Reagan, the power behind the throne Dick Cheney who loves him some waterboarding, now tRump. They don’t have a great record, and the more you explore the advisors and appointees in each of these administrations and how they keep coming back in subsequent ones, it’s an on-going corrupt cabal of destroyers of democracy.
If Trump wins I WILL leave this beautiful country and live elsewhere away from fascist regime
It’s sad when people start to think this way and talk this way, but I understand it.
Amend the 2 term rule.
Youse Lost Bill and Barack.
…“’To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
I wouldn’t be so sure Clinton wouldn’t have beaten Bush 43. Gore won the popular vote and Bush barely eked out an electoral college win. Clinton’s approval numbers were still surprisingly good, in part because of GOP overreach. As for Obama, he’d have fucking cleaned Trump’s clock. Bolder than Clinton he’d have done a little taunting of Trump and when it comes to charisma the two of them side by side on a debate stage? Trump would have been so far out of his league as to make the whole thing laughable. Even better, Obama could have and might well have gone for the jugular and correctly accused Trump of only running because his feelings were hurt at that dinner. He’d never been able to take a joke and being a racist piece of shit like his dad a BLACK man doing the mocking? And daring to do it again on live TV in front of a huge audience? Trump might have tried to puff himself up and pull a tough guy staredown and Obama would have really had his number. He’d have held up a hand to his protection detail and said “stand back guys – I’ve got this” – and then flat out challenged Trump. Told him to stop PLAYING tough guy and take his best shot or be seen as the gutless bully he’d been all his life. I seriously doubt Trump would have had the balls to make a move. In which case it would have been game over and an electoral landslide. IF Trump’s rage at a BLACK guy challenging him face to face and making him look like a pussy in front of the whole country (hell, the world!) and he actually went at Obama, the younger FITTER Obama would have neatly sidestepped the out of shape fat-assed Trump and as Trump went past given him a shove in the back and sent him sprawling! Again, game over. Trump’s fans in his then new MAGA world would have seen him proverbially get “pantsed” and “wedgied” and that would have been the end of Donald Trump political and TV “Star.”