You can probably guess by the above image for whom I probably voted. Hint: He/She is not a resident of Mar-a-Lardo.
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Tomorrow’s Mug Shots
Trump “Rally” in Grand Rapids, MI
As we head toward the culmination of another anxious election season, I suddenly had an inkling of what could happen. Donald Trump has always relied on rallies where he speaks with a bigly group of mostly young supporters with posters and MAGA hats at his back.
These rallies vaguely resemble the rallies that Trump’s hero, Adolph Hitler, staged in the 1930s. Of course, they couldn’t hold a candle to the giant 1935 rally in Nuremberg which was filmed by Leni Riefenstahl and released under the title Triumph of the Will. Now that was a real rally, with over 700,000 supporters in attendance.
Hitler Rally in Nuremberg 1935
The thought came to me that the whole Trump moment in American history will end badly. The electorate is largely made up of two groups:
- People who hate Trump with a passion
- People who idolize Trump with a passion (but who will come to hate him when they wake up and find out they have been used)
What I think will happen at some future date is that those faces at MAGA rallies will become a mark of shame, and that people will scan photographs of the rallies with magnifying glasses to find neighbors they could blame for their predicament, which will probably get worse over time. (Even if it doesn’t, the voters will think that.)
I look at cars that bear political bumper stickers and think, “What happens if they park their car in a neighborhood which is strongly ‘anti-’ their candidate?” That’s one of the reasons my car is devoid of bumper stickers and decals.
The blame game will only get worse.
Standing Tall at the Podium
Height Is the Only Advantage for This Mental Midget
Today I watched the debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and her opponent. There couldn’t possibly be two candidates who were more different from each other.
Trump’s only advantage is that he is almost a foot taller than Harris, and America is a country which tends to over-reward candidates who are tall. I myself am of medium height (5 feet 8 inches, or 1.75 meters), though because of a pituitary tumor I had from an early age, I was the shortest male in class throughout my elementary school years. It was only after the tumor was removed at age 21 that I grew to my present height.
There have been statistics to the effect that greater than average height is a clear advantage in politics, business, and wooing. My own thinking is that the height advantage, while real, is no guarantee of success.
At today’s presidential debate, it was Kamala Harris who stood tall. She was quick to react, made frequent eye contact, and even began by going to Trump’s podium and shaking his hand, which no doubt surprised the ex-president to no end. Trump, on the other hand, looked like the grumpy old man that he is, wanting to chase all the darned kids off his lawn, and speaking with a cold, constipated rage that made me think we probably wouldn’t live out his term if elected.
Somebody Sez
To begin with, I am not a great lover of the news media. In fact, I believe that if somebody wants to have a good night’s sleep, they should not watch or listen to the news after dinner. And certainly not the eleven o’clock news just before bedtime. It’s just not healthy, because those news outlets are peddling fear or outrage as their primary product.
One example is what I call the “Somebody Sez” news story. Just to give you an example, here are a number of headlines I just gleaned from the Cable News Network (CNN) website tonight:
- Biden could face obstacle getting on Ohio’s ballot, secretary of state’s office says
- Retired judge says statute cited in Trump’s motion raises concerns about NY judge
- Republican lawmaker says Russian propaganda has ‘infected a good chunk’ of GOP base
- Retired US general predicts Israel’s withdrawal won’t prevent an invasion
- Republican strategist says Trump has made a critical mistake in the campaign
CNN apparently relies on an army of “experts” who “say” certain things or “predict” certain outcomes. It is possible that none of these things come true, but they can certainly succeed in riling up the consumers of the news.
Let’s take a more biased news medium, the Salon.Com website. Its readership obviously does not wish Trump well. (Neither do I, for that matter.) But its page today bristles with chatty “experts”:
- “Punk”: Don Winslow on Donald Trump
- “This is a big deal”: Experts say Judge Cannon’s order signals “bad news” for fate of Trump case
- “Things just got very real”: Legal experts say Jack Smith appeal threat “puts Cannon on notice”
- “Trump is running scared”: Legal experts slam “harebrained” scheme to get NY judge to recuse
- Profs: Trump ruling unlocks key evidence
- Experts “very worried” at Cannon’s order
People, it’s not news until it actually happens.
It is possible for editors to avoid this type of rampant supposition. For example, I could find no examples of blabbing experts in the NBC or CBS news sites. Apparently, they are more interested in reporting the news rather than creating it.
What a Coincidence!
I’m Sure Orange Jesus Knew This
I was watching the National Geographic Channel last night when suddenly I sat bolt upright. On her show entitled “Trafficked,” Mariana van Zeller investigates a man who flew to Mozambique to claim an inheritance, only to find himself in jail for attempting to travel with heroin in his luggage—heroin disguised as candy that was given to him by a man from South Africa to give to someone in Nigeria.
Nigeria? Oh oh! Can anything legitimate have anything to do with Nigeria? Apparently, there is a term in Nigerian Pidgin describing the types who are so imprudent as to turn up in Africa for their “inheritance”: that term is maga, which means “easily fooled idiot.” On the show, Van Zeller interviews a masked Nigerian baddy (no doubt a Prince) who points out that the man imprisoned in Mozambique is nothing more than a maga for actually showing up to claim his non-existent inheritance.
Ha ha, it is to laugh!
So when all those flyover country chuckleheads show up at Trump rallies wearing their MAGA hats, is it merely a case of self-identification? “I’m an easily fooled idiot. Lie to me!”
Which Path?
Aaron Rogers: Quarterback, Trumper, Anti-Vaxxer, and All-Around Dickhead
I had a choice of two ways to go for today’s blog. Instead I took a third way. The first way was to continue writing about poet and printmaker William Blake, one of my all-time favorites. Then I was thinking about Aaron Rogers implying of ESPN that late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel was a pederast in Jeffrey Epstein’s circle of sexual deviants.
The third way turned out to analyze why I am triggered by the bad behavior of Trump and his followers. To the very core of my being, I despise what Trump and the Trumpites are doing to this country. But my political opinions are of no great interest to anyone. So many Americans, so many raw wounds that won’t heal, that keep on being re-infected!
It strikes me that my blogs about things that interest me make for better reading than blogs about my political opinions, especially when they involve the culture wars of the 21st century.
So tomorrow I return to writing about William Blake, a great artist and poet. Tomorrow, I’ll post some of his poetry. If you’d rather read about Aaron Rogers, trust me: It’s just too depressing for words. Even when I write them.
The Parts of 2023 I’d Gladly Jettison
In the Biz Bag With Him and His Followers!
Looking back over the past year, there are a lot of persons, places, and phenomena I would gladly not have to confront in 2024—indeed, ever again.
First and foremost is America’s mumbling incompetent dictator-in-waiting. Currently, he is attempting to turn the death of a thousand cuts in court into victories. They aren’t and never will be. That goes for all his minions, those drooling red-hatted loons seated behind him at his rallies.
Mega-Billionaires, especially those in the tech sector, who want to enrich themselves by making everyone else miserable with their social media or artificial intelligence.
Time to shitcan crypto-currency once and for all. A form of anonymous, unregulated currency, it is of use only to evil dark web goons.
Quasi-celebrity influencers who foment flash mobs and twonky fashions. Like Paris Hilton, who in today’s issue of the Los Angeles Times is quoted as saying: “I also like butter and strawberry jelly on toast, then sometimes toasted bagels with strawberry cream cheese, which I’m like obsessed with.” If you come across something of that ilk in this blog, you are justified in disemboweling me.
And that’s only the beginning, but space is limited and I want to get to bed before midnight. I wish for you and yours a tolerable New Year. (Let’s not kid ourselves.)
America’s Love Affair With Billionaires
Elon Musk
Why do Americans shower their billionaires with a level of adoration normally reserved for deities and saints? I think back to the Medicis and the Borgias during the Italian Renaissance. As J. H. Plumb wrote, “Commercial capitalism, struggling the the framework of feudalism, learned, through Italy, not only how to express itself in art and learning, but also how to make an art of life itself.”
Not so today, however! Donald Trump has given us golden toilet bowls, ornate golf courses, and tried to take away our democracy. Elon Musk managed to convince thousands of Americans that he was a genius—until he spent $44 billion buying Twitter and running it into the ground. After his latest anti-Semitic tirade, I think even most Tesla owners are rethinking their allegiances.
I cannot think of a billionaire today who has done anything but engage in self-aggrandizement. Instead of a Renaissance, we are now in a period that can only be described as Anti-Renaissance.
What ever happened to patronage of the arts? Oh, it still exists at the millionaire level; but not among the Trumps, Musks, and Bezoses of this world. The think the last billionaire to show any moves in this direction was Bill Gates of Microsoft fame.
Hiding from the Gazpacho Police
The Infamous Mug Shot of a Notorious Felon
Donald J. Trump is not the only problem we face. Its not even the biggest problem we face. The voters who support the ex-president are the major problem. Over the last several decades, the American people have grown progressively more stupid, aided and abetted by the lies of social media content providers. It’s gotten to the point that voters take a position (without thinking it through) and prepare to defend it against all comers, even if it’s as stupid as Jewish space lasers and the “gazpacho police.”
At present, the Republican Party controls the House of Representatives. I have no idea what is going to happen in 2024 with Congress. Will an increasing number of voters wake up after their drunken decades-long reactionary orgy and vote for representatives whose minds are not in the Asteroid Belt? Who knows?
I just know what I’m going to do. As always, I will vote for candidates whom I think will continue the American tradition of democracy. I have nothing in common with people who like to wave the flag at the same time they are ripping the guts out of what it stands for.
Not a Nice Guy
Representative Jim Jordan (R, Ohio)
Ever since Donald Trump came down that escalator at the Trump Tower to announce his run for the presidency on June 16, 2015, American politics has changed from bad to nightmarish. The ongoing travails of the House of Representative beginning with the ouster of Kevin McCarthy and the failed attempts by Jim Jordan to become Speaker of the House resemble nothing so much as the early days of Nazi Germany.
It seems the Republican Party is crawling with Brown Shirts Are we are heading toward some ghastly Night of the Long Knives in which the extreme MAGA Republicans with their totalitarian tendencies will be violently repudiated?
Jordan thought it a nifty idea to authorize threatening phone calls to the wives (?!) of Republican Congressmen who didn’t vote his way. It’s a long way from the America of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson or the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln. At the same time we are sanctioning Venezuela, we are becoming more like them.
Double ugh!
Tarnmoor 
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