About the Normandy invasion and authoritarianism

Allied and American pro-democracy forces in WWII were antifa against fa, i.e., fascism. Literally. Today, American antifa forces in defense of democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties are arrayed against DJT, the corrupt authoritarian Repub Party and corrupt fascist Christian theocrat and corrupt capitalist authoritarian forces in America today. 

Yeah, maybe history does not repeat. But it damned well does rhyme.

So on this 80th anniversary of D-day, let us quietly think in 2024 about what the hell we are doing to our democracy, civility, and fact- and reason-based perceptions and thinking.

We owe it to the suckers and losers (as DJT puts it) who lost their lives defending what is good and decent to oppose the evil and hate of America's Republican Party radical right wealth and power movement. That legacy of their blood is left to us all who still believe that fighting for democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties was and still is worth it.

In God's infinite love, Republicans hate LGBQT; Jim Crow was better for black families; A gigantic flip-flop

The infinite love of God really does work in mysterious ways. The Hill reports:

Colorado’s Republican Party this week called for LGBTQ Pride flags to be burned, describing LGBTQ Americans as “godless groomers” in a fundraising email and multiple social media posts railing against Pride Month.

“Burn all the #pride flags this June,” the state GOP wrote Monday on the social platform X. Earlier Monday, an email sent by the party with the subject line “God Hates Pride” perpetuated the false claim that LGBTQ people are “grooming” children to abuse them.

“The month of June has arrived and, once again, the godless groomers in our society want to attack what is decent, holy, and righteous so they can ultimately harm our children,” reads the email.

The party’s message — which includes a link to a sermon led by Mark Driscoll, an evangelical pastor known for his anti-LGBTQ views — is signed by state Republican Party Chair Dave Williams, who is also a candidate for Congress.

Guess it is time to burn evil, Godless pervert groomer flags like this:

Wait, wait! Didn't Republicans condemn flag burning and try to outlaw it? 

Yup, they sure did, in their usual morally rotted, hypocrisy-based, and crackpot & lies-infused style of Godless, authoritarian politics:

President Donald Trump said Monday that he’d support laws criminalizing flag burning, saying in a call with governors that it’s time for the Supreme Court to take up the issue again as nationwide protests have intensified over the death of George Floyd.  

Trump, who as a candidate in 2016 proposed jail time or loss of citizenship for burning the American flag, called the act a “disgrace” on Monday and pledged support for an “anti-flag burning” statute.

Q: Is God is on the side of authoritarian, hater Republicans, or on the side of the political opposition? 

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The Hill reports:

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) suggested that Black families were better off during the Jim Crow era, while speaking at a campaign event for former President Trump.

Donalds, who is on the shortlist for Trump’s potential vice-presidential pick, was campaigning for the former president in Philadelphia at a “Congress, Cognac, and Cigars” event aimed at garnering Black male voters, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

During the conversation, the first-term lawmaker said he is starting to see the “reinvigoration” of Black families, adding that it is “helping to breathe the revival of a Black middle class in America.” Donalds also claimed that the nuclear family — or one with a mother, father and children living under the same roof — and its values have been eroded by Democrats and lost among Black voters after they supported the party following the Civil Rights Movement, the outlet reported.

“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more people voted conservatively,” Donalds said.

He says that things were better under Jim Crow

Q: Were things better for Nazis under Hitler because Nazi families tended to stay together? Is crackpot reasoning good or bad for democracy? 

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The WaPo reports about a gigantic Republican Party flip-flop on supporting convicted felons for president:

GOP voters have flip-flopped fast on questions about Trump and crime

A new poll follows a string of examples. It shows the percentage of Republicans who say a felon shouldn’t be president dropping from 58 percent in April to just 23 percent today

Donald Trump’s position on presidents and crimes is reliably inconsistent:

• He pushed for prosecutions of many foes — including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden — before his own legal problems led him to conclude that presidential candidates and presidents should be spared charges.

• He said in 2016 that Clinton’s being convicted would lead to a “constitutional crisis” if she were president; now he is pressing forward with his campaign despite his own felony convictions.

• He has suggested that Clinton, Obama, Ted Cruz and Vice President Harris should be disqualified from running for various reasons. But when critics tried to disqualify him under the 14th Amendment, Trump decided it was unthinkable to deprive voters of their choices.

For a brief moment this weekend, Trump seemed to acknowledge his convenient evolutions. Asked about urging the jailing of Clinton in 2016, he told Fox News, “And then this happened to me, and so I may feel differently about ...” before trailing off.

And Trump is not the only one to engage in a series of about-faces. So have large swaths of his party.

It has responded to his legal jeopardy and now his conviction by disowning its previously professed principles in a remarkable fashion.

A new YouGov poll this week is perhaps the most striking example.

Whee! A gigantic flip-flop!! MAGA!!

The good news: 

~23% still think a felon president is bad

But this is very messy. Other poll data suggests the net effect of the 34 guilty verdicts are hard to parse:

This is a fundamental component of this election and American politics in general: Many people don’t pay close attention to even objectively important developments. That tends to be more true of political independents, people who are not attached to political parties. It is also particularly true of younger Americans, who are more likely to identify as independents.

 

 

 

  

Worth noting: the top-line support for Trump and Biden (and for not voting or voting third party) didn’t budge before or after considering the verdict.

It is often the case that people, when asked, attribute existing political beliefs to new information when the opposite is the case. They will say, for example, that learning about X scandal or Y policy makes them more likely to support their candidate, even though they were going to support that candidate all along.

This poll offers something similar. According to SurveyMonkey, 1 in 10 Republicans changed their mind following the verdict. One in 20 went from undecided to Trump or from Trump to undecided. And support among Republicans for Trump went from 73 percent before hearing about the verdict to 74 percent after.

It’s possible that none of those views were particularly dependent on the verdict at all.

It is probably still too early to draw firm conclusions about what effect if any the 34 felonies will have on the outcome of the election. Let’s give it more time and reconvene in the first week or two of August to see if there is anything to be seen.

How does one become THIS numb?

I wonder at the genius of the Right, Trump, Rightwing media.

Maybe their intention was to make us numb. To bring us to the point where we are exhausted.

That is how I feel.

In my absence from here (what? you didn't notice?) I did a lot of perusing of other forums to gauge the temperature. It's nasty out there and getting nastier.

Yet, if I were to avoid American cable news and online forums, my living in Canada seems to shelter me.

I see no MAGA hats, not "F*ck You Biden" lawn signs. And no group of people clustered together prophesizing "the end of democracy."

I just know that when I consider composing a thread, I honestly don't know what to talk about any more.

Any time I suggest that the Dems are their own worst enemies or that Joe needs to step down NOW, or that the constant attacks, indictments, and convictions against Trump are actually helping him, not hurting him, I can feel the slow burn at the back of my neck.

Is this because I have become numb thanks to the tactics of the Right, or because I live in Canada, or is it just human nature? Namely, you can only allow yourself to get riled up for so long because you exhaust yourself.

Think about it. Can't get over a failed marriage? Carry the anger and frustration around like a ball and chain for years. Eventually, wouldn't you just say "F*ck it"? 

I want to hug someone. I don't mean just hug my significant other or friends or family members.

I want to hug every angry Palestinian protester, every Trump supporter, every prophesizer of doom, every member of Germaine's forum, every American now living in fear, frustration, anxiety, and bitterness. 

Would it help?

Authoritarian Republican vengeance lust; DJT’s vengeance lust; Israeli propaganda machine targeted US tax dollars

As GOP authoritarianism hardens into its full-blown revealed form, the elites lust for vengeance is not hidden. A NYT article exemplifies the seething hate and urge for payback in the wake of DJT’s 34 felony convictions that elite Republican authoritarians are now publicly expressing:

The G.O.P. Push for Post-Verdict Payback: 

‘Fight Fire With Fire’

Republican leaders in and out of government are publicly pushing to prosecute Democrats as legal retribution for Donald Trump’s felony conviction

Republican allies of Donald J. Trump are calling for revenge prosecutions and other retaliatory measures against Democrats in response to his felony conviction in New York.

Within hours of a jury finding Mr. Trump guilty last week, the anger congealed into demands for action. Since then, prominent G.O.P. leaders in and out of government have demanded that elected Republicans use every available instrument of power against Democrats, including targeted investigations and prosecutions.

The intensity of anger and open desire for using the criminal justice system against Democrats after the verdict surpasses anything seen before in Mr. Trump’s tumultuous years in national politics. What is different now is the range of Republicans who are saying retaliation is necessary and who are no longer cloaking their intent with euphemisms.

Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Mr. Trump who still helps guide his thinking on policy, blared out a directive on Fox News after a jury found Mr. Trump guilty of falsifying financial records to cover up a 2016 campaign hush-money payment to a porn actress. Mr. Miller posed a series of questions to Republicans at every level, including local district attorneys.

“Is every House committee controlled by Republicans using its subpoena power in every way it needs to right now?” he demanded. “Is every Republican D.A. starting every investigation they need to right now?”

“Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe-to-toe with Marxism and beat these Communists,” Mr. Miller said, using the catchall slurs Trump allies routinely use against Democrats.  

Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief strategist to Mr. Trump, said in a text message to The New York Times on Tuesday that now was the moment for obscure Republican prosecutors around the country to make a name for themselves by prosecuting Democrats.

Mr. Bannon was convicted in a federal prosecution for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena in the Jan. 6 investigation, and faces trial in September in a New York state court — before the same judge who oversaw Mr. Trump’s trial — in a charity fraud case.

As usual, elite authoritarian Republican rhetoric is loaded with insulting, divisive dark free speech. Blatantly false allegations Marxism and Communism are now standard lies and slanders among radicalized, anti-democracy GOP elites and propagandists. 

As I have postulated before, maybe there is a silver lining to unleashing the lawyer-dogs of political vengeance war. At the very least, it should scare essentially all Democratic Party politicians into becoming seriously law-abiding people. Not sure how Republicans would change, in any at all. regardless, Democrats should do the same to Republicans. Also, when false charges are prosecuted, those falsely accused should counter sue for false prosecution. Yes, that could get messy. But in the long run, maybe democracy and the rule of law will benefit. Or, maybe not. 

But it would be an interesting experiment in defending democracy and the rule of law. At least the lawyers would like it.😊

Authoritarian liar, thug & criminal Bannon wants

revenge prosecutions against Democrats

Fun Bannon note: Bannon himself is literally contemptuous of the rule of law as applied to himself, and presumably authoritarian Republicans generally. Reporting in May 2024, MSNBC wrote: Trump White House aide Steve Bannon loses appeal of contempt of Congress conviction -- A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of Trump White House senior advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon was convicted in connection with refusing to testify and provide documents to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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Another NYT article comments about how DJT sees the vengeance thing: Trump says he might ‘have to’ prosecute his political opponents. -- Former President Donald J. Trump again suggested his political opponents could face prosecution on Tuesday, saying in an interview with Newsmax that it might “have to happen to them” following his conviction by a jury in New York. “You know, it’s a very terrible thing. It’s a terrible precedent for our country. Does that mean the next president does it to them? That’s really the question,” Mr. Trump said in response to a question from the host, Greg Kelly, about whether the conviction could help him politically.

Good grief. DJT is such a shameless, transparent liar. He obviously would be overjoyed to enthusiastically prosecute Democrats for their real or imagined crimes.

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America’s alleged ally Israel quietly fired up its propaganda machinery in the US last year. It wanted to suck more cash out of the US for Israel to use in its apparently spreading war against everyone in the neighborhood:

Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers 

With Influence Campaign on Gaza War

Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs ordered the operation, which used fake social media accounts urging U.S. lawmakers to fund Israel’s military, according to officials and documents about the effort

Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation.

The covert campaign was commissioned by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel, four Israeli officials said. The ministry allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out, according to the officials and the documents.

Targeted US politicians included Ritchie Torres, left, 

and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries

Last week, Meta and OpenAI published reports attributing the influence campaign to Stoic. Meta said it had removed 510 Facebook accounts, 11 Facebook pages, 32 Instagram accounts and one Facebook group tied to the operation. OpenAI said Stoic had created fictional personas and biographies meant to stand in for real people on social media services used in Israel, Canada and the United States to post anti-Islamic messages. Many of the posts remain on X.

X [free speech “absolutist” Elon Musk] didn’t respond to a request for comment.  

On its LinkedIn page, Stoic has promoted its ability to run campaigns backed by A.I. “As we look ahead, it’s clear that A.I.’s role in political campaigns is set for a transformative leap, reshaping the way campaigns are strategized, executed and evaluated,” it wrote.* 

* Meaning AI will be used to lie, distract and deceive in political campaigns and corporate propaganda programs and dark free speech from AI will be evaluated for effectiveness. 

An Israeli news source commented: Report: Israeli fake social media accounts targeted US Congress for military funding -- The covert operation was allegedly commissioned by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, which allocated approximately $2 million and hired a Tel Aviv-based political marketing company [a/k/a/ professional liars] to execute it. The accounts targeted over a dozen members of Congress, with a focus on Black and Democratic representatives such as Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia. “Israel's role in this is reckless and probably ineffective,” Achiya Schatz, the executive director of FakeReporter, an Israeli misinformation watchdog, told the Times. “That Israel ran an operation that interferes in US politics is extremely irresponsible.”

Maybe extremely irresponsible, but what the heck? Who cares? There is no repercussion for Israel merely participating in the America’s pay-to-play political system. It is open to everyone to play any way they want, e.g., setting up fake social media accounts and using them to deceive and influence US politicians, as long as they pay someone. It is just constitutionally protected free speech!