The incredible difficulty a lying demagogue presents to democracy: Bullshit Artillery

The Atlantic published an article by Tom Nichols that describes the extreme difficulty a liberal democracy with free speech has when dealing with lying authoritarian demagogues like DJT:

The Double Standard in Trump-Biden Coverage

It’s real, and it’s not going anywhere

After President Joe Biden’s disastrous recent public appearances, he and his supporters are attacking media outlets for a double standard in coverage of him and his opponent. They’re right, but that double standard is structural and, unfortunately, will not end during this campaign.

The president’s crisis is of his own making. Biden is clearly no longer up to any kind of prolonged extemporizing, but his campaign gambled first on a debate and then on a hastily arranged interview, both of which went badly. Many of Biden’s supporters are blaming members of the media for a pile-on of negative coverage, but there is no planet on which Biden’s behavior isn’t a major and continuing news story.

But critics of recent media coverage of Biden are dead right about one thing: Many outlets have for years been employing a significant double standard in covering Biden and his opponent, Donald Trump. When Biden stumbles over words, we question his state of mind; when Trump acts like a deranged street preacher, it’s … well, Tuesday. If Biden had suggested setting up migrants in a fight club, he’d be out of the race already; Trump does it, and the country (as well as many in the media) shrugs. Recognizing this inequity is the easy part, but here’s the harder realization: The double standard is a structural problem, it won’t change, and everyone in the prodemocracy coalition needs to grit their teeth and accept that reality.

The structural issue is that in an open society, almost all views may be expressed in the public square—even outright falsehoods. This principle of liberal democracy leaves Trump free to lie and propagandize, which he and his footmen do confidently and effortlessly. These tactics have been highly effective among a GOP base whose senses have been pounded into numbness by relentless propaganda, a daily barrage of Bullshit Artillery that leaves a smoking, pockmarked no-man’s-land in the mind of almost anyone subjected to it for long enough.

Media outlets cannot counter this by responding with a similar “truth barrage,” in part because there are simply not enough hours in the day. But it is also inaccurate to say that media outlets have not recently tried to cover Trump’s bizarre behavior.

The real double-standard problem is not about coverage, but about interpretation. This is not “bias” in the political sense. It is, as Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg put it, a bias toward coherence, the inability to accept—and say—that one of the presidential campaigns is completely bonkers. “Trump overwhelms us with nonsense,” Jeff notes, and so, when confronted with Trump’s obvious mental instability, we work backwards: “Trump sounds nuts, but he can’t be nuts, because he’s the presumptive nominee for president of a major party, and no major party would nominate someone who is nuts.”

The result of this bias is that the press too often continues to present what should be appalling, even horrifying information as if it is just part of the normal give-and-take of a political campaign: Trump goes to Las Vegas and rants about sharks, and the press, likely trying to appear unbiased, instead pulls out a dull nugget about Trump’s mention of not taxing tips. Trump vows to destroy the American civil service, and the headlines talk about his “plans to increase presidential power.”

Why? Because it is not in the American journalistic tradition to say: Today in Las Vegas, one of the two major candidates said things so rabidly toxic and incoherent that they raised doubts about his sanity.

Media outlets should stop embracing the bias toward coherence; this is now a struggle between a free press and a would-be dictator. But people cannot expect journalists to provide a daily flood of truths about Trump—and they are sorely needed—while also ignoring grave questions about Biden’s presidential fitness. A free and honest press committed to the truth doesn’t work that way.

I am not counseling defeatism. Rather, I am counseling focus and perseverance. Trump’s allies would love for major news outlets to call on him to drop out: They’d reprint it and fundraise off it. Instead, the media should report on Trump’s behavior and emphasize that American candidates—and normal people—do not refer to their fellow citizens as “vermin” or muse about having them prosecuted by military tribunals. A steady recounting of Trump’s ravings and his hideous plans is important—not because it is political, but because it is true, and the public needs to know about all of it.

Setting up a defensive perimeter around Biden won’t change the fact that Trump stands at the head of a cult completely sealed in its own information bubble. .... Many Americans are sophisticated enough to discuss multiple worrisome issues, but a fair number refuse to pay attention to politics at all. They don’t like hard-edged partisanship. They are also put off by relentless bombast. They are especially not interested in abstract debates over fascism. I remain convinced, however, that seeing a fascist every day, along with a reminder that this is not the American way, will have an effect on them. Indeed, understanding that Trump is an unhinged menace is what makes Biden’s future such a crucial story for all of us.

Commentary on White nationalism

A LA Times opinion opines:

Opinion: The force propping up Trump that we still don’t talk about

There are legitimate and pending questions about Biden’s ability to serve another four years. But in terms of a leadership crisis, his age and health do not begin to compare to Trump’s moral decrepitude and general unfitness. The idiotic equivalency of this election season — that both men are unfit on a similar scale, though for different reasons — is deeply, dangerously false.

And it distracts from what’s really dragging us down.

Whatever his age-related problems, Biden is not alone in the confoundment he showed on stage at the debate. Face to face with Trump, the president’s fatigue and bewilderment mirrors what so many of us feel in response to an intensifying moral MAGA mudslide that is overwhelming, not just politically but emotionally.

As usual, Democrats relied on numbers and recitations of policy successes to parry Trump. The Biden administration’s achievements are indeed important. Truth and reality do matter. Except to roughly half the country, which has settled willingly into white nationalism, which runs not on facts but on emotion, specifically resentment and entitlement. It represents the very antithesis of a multiracial democracy that Biden’s policy successes support. You can talk about the importance of low-cost insulin or student debt forgiveness until you’re blue in the face — or until you’re stumbling over your words or losing your train of thought — but that doesn’t budge white nationalists at all.

Here’s the hard truth of the last eight years: America leans at least as much toward white nationalism as it does toward democracy (and that’s being optimistic). Nobody says it out loud, on either side, which is obscuring the real shape of Showdown 2024.

The GOP cult is clearly racist and anti-equality but claims not to be, despite rapidly mounting evidence to the contrary. Trump brags about how much Black folk love him, how much he’s done for civil rights. These are absurd claims, but they stand because the party needs to keep up the pretense of “all men are created equal” fairness, however threadbare. Fairness, civil rights and democracy are still America’s brand, as everybody knows (to quote Trump).

Meanwhile, Biden can’t call out white nationalism because he’s afraid of tarnishing the positive U.S. brand, which glorifies the “heartland” and “hardworking people” and “ordinary Americans” — code terms for “white.”

The president is in a bind: He must be the publicist in chief, saying we’re all good and well-intentioned people, but the MAGA phenomenon proves him wrong in the most obvious way. He’s tried to walk a line by criticizing MAGA extremists, but if those extremists number in the tens of millions and have seized one of the major political parties, what they espouse is not extremism, it is mainstream-ism.

The problem of having to name this problem without really naming it literally makes Biden tongue-tied, which is not a good thing for a man who has dealt with a stutter his whole life. The entire Democratic Party and its white fellow travelers further to the left have stifled themselves on this matter too, subconsciously or because they think talking too directly about white nationalist rot would be self-defeating politics. As disgusted as Biden and others may be by MAGA, they do not, will not call out white people about toxic whiteness. And so the rot spreads unchecked.

There is a silver lining. The storm is bearing down only because diversity is on the rise. Diversity is who and what America is. For most of us, this is an uncontroversial fact, the fulfillment of the founders’ promise of a truly democratic nation. But for Trump and his aggrieved nation within a nation, that ascending promise is a frontal attack that must be fought for however long is necessary, with whatever means is necessary.

It’s past time for the majority of us invested in the promise to employ whatever means is necessary, too. The crisis Biden revealed to the world last week is not about age. It’s about courage.

This opinion really resonates personally. The last sentence in particular “It’s about courage” hits home. I have occasionally framed the authoritarian problem as one of a failure of moral courage. The pro-Trump MAGA radical right does not have the moral courage to face the ugly reality of the bigoted, mendacious, kleptocratic authoritarianism they support. They deny they support what they actually support because they do not have the moral courage to face actual reality. 

But the opinion here also argues that the left has also failed on moral courage grounds. That is a great point. It isn't made often enough.

The left does not have the guts to call the MAGA movement out as bigoted (White-centric, sometimes or often racist) kleptocratic authoritarianism. The mainstream media rarely calls it what it is, but seems to be slowly, reluctantly dragged by reality in that direction.  

By contrast, the MAGA media and adherents never calls MAGA what it is but instead, shamelessly slanders and insults the left, political opposition and Democrats with false accusations of anti-White racism, corruption, socialist tyranny, pedophilia, massive election fraud, massive violence, microchips in the vaccines, etc. In essence, MAGA is mostly what MAGA falsely asserts what its political opposition is.

There is no way in hell anyone can rationally debate the FTZWS tactic that DJT used in the debate with Biden. The rules allowed all lies and slanders to stand unchallenged by moderators and a minute or two for a debater to respond. It is literally impossible to have a debate with a FTZWS participant under those rules. It wasn't a debate. It was a cornucopia of crap. 

FTZWS - flood the zone with shit, the accurate name that Steve Bannon (now in jail) gave to the propaganda tactic that lying kleptocratic authoritarians routinely rely on to deceive, confuse, divide and disinform. 

FTZWS isn’t just for the media any more --

it’s for everyone all the time, including the MAGA base

Some data about corporate support for DJT

Here’s some data.

https://yale.app.box.com/s/caegd9h9titzh03h7jb3cj045vdemtyk

also cited by Axios

https://www.axios.com/2024/06/25/trump-ceo-low-support-republicans

The NYT June 23, 2024 (not paywalled):

Recent headlines suggest that our nation’s business leaders are embracing the presidential candidate Donald Trump. His campaign would have you believe that our nation’s top chief executives are returning to support Mr. Trump for president, touting declarations of support from some prominent financiers like Steve Schwarzman and David Sacks.

That is far from the truth. They didn’t flock to him before, and they certainly aren’t flocking to him now. Mr. Trump continues to suffer from the lowest level of corporate support in the history of the Republican Party.

I know this because I work with roughly 1,000 chief executives a year, running a school for them, which I started 35 years ago, and I speak with business leaders almost every day. Our surveys show that 60 to 70 percent of them are registered Republicans.

The reality is that the top corporate leaders working today, like many Americans, aren’t entirely comfortable with either Mr. Trump or President Biden. But they largely like — or at least can tolerate — one of them. They truly fear the other.

MSN: 

While Sonnenfield said that Trump has yet to get the support of Fortune 500 companies, there is also a possibility of top bankers in the country showing their support instead, including Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone.

Moreover, many CEOs still greatly oppose choosing Biden, primarily due to the administration’s antitrust policies and support for stronger capital gains taxes. However, many CEOs are still optimistic about supporting Biden in the next run.

"Nobody’s saying that the Biden policies are perfect, and there are some problems. But they are dwarfed by the pernicious threat to inflation, economic stability, and, most importantly, democracy presented by the prospective Trump presidency," Sonnenfield told Fortune in a separate interview.

Market Watch:

Not one S&P 500 CEO is donating to Donald Trump

Published: Nov. 8, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. ET

Among the 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley and Chris Christie score the most contributions from CEOs of S&P 500 companies

In my assessment, the amounts that those CEOs are donating to non-Trump candidates is piddly. Does that data really represent all the cash, e.g., dark money PACs we know nothing about? In view of their wealth, why do any of those CEOs bother with those pipsqueak donations? This data makes zero sense to me. None at all.

Despite my deep suspicions, the data above indicates that CEOs of the 500 biggest corporations do not support DJT. But what about CEOs and major executives of mainstream media? Also what about those corporations acting as legal entities called human beings? A CEO can support one candidate, while the CEO’s corporation quietly, secretly supports another. If major executives generally do not support DJT, then why does the MSM treat the less corrupt, pro-democracy Biden far worse than the far worse kleptocratic, anti-democracy candidate DJT? What the hell is going on here?

Regarding predictability

For everyone who knows that they know what they are doing, consider some commentary on research indicating that most experts, pundits, politicians, propagandists and blowhards usually do not know what they are talking about when they make predictions about how things will turn out if we do things their way:

“The core function of political belief systems is not prediction; it is to promote the comforting illusion of predictability. .... Human performance suffers because we are, deep down, deterministic thinkers with an aversion to probabilistic strategies that accept the inevitability of error. We insist on looking for order in random sequences.”

Or this:

A “defining feature of intuitive judgment is its insensitivity to the quality of the evidence on which the judgment is based. It has to be that way. System 1 can only do its job of delivering strong conclusions at lightning speed if it never pauses to wonder whether the evidence at hand is flawed or inadequate, or if there is better evidence elsewhere. . . . . we are creative confabulators hardwired to invent stories that impose coherence on the world.”[1]

Most superforecasters shared 15 traits including (i) cautiousness based on an innate knowledge that little or nothing was certain, (ii) being reflective, i.e., introspective and self-critical, (iii) being comfortable with numbers and probabilities, and (iv) being pragmatic and not wedded to any particular agenda or ideology. Unlike political ideologues, they were pragmatic and did not try to “squeeze complex problems into the preferred cause-effect templates [or treat] what did not fit as irrelevant distractions.”

What we face are two complex choices with unpredictable outcomes. Get rid of Joe, replace him with a better candidate and take our chances. Stick with Joe and take our chances. I am not a superforecaster. I do not know what the best option is.

Footnote:

1. And that is why in a debate with very limited time, when one person ignores honest debate and simply lies, slanders and crackpots, it is impossible for their opponent to formulate and deliver responses in a couple of minutes. The only way to at least partly respond well to a cheating liar in a debate like that is to plan for the lies and formulate short responses in advance.

In Biden’s debate preparation, he was not prepared to face a lying, slandering crackpot like DJT. He should have been prepared, but in my opinion he was not. If my opinion is correct, the failure is on the people who did Biden’s debate prep, maybe on Biden himself too.

A thunderbolt of truth: Why the MSM is openly hostile to Biden

NOTE: The veracity of the information in this post is contested. 

Larrymotuz posted this yesterday about the mainstream media:

John C. Varner III (@LilHulkQ) answered the following QUESTION on Threads Net:

Q: ABC,CNN,CBS,NBC,MSNBC,NEW YORK TIMES. WHY AREN'T YOU ASKING THE FELON TO DROP OUT OF THE RACE?

ANS: The media's anti-Biden noise isn't an accident:

CNN: CEO is a Trump donor
ABC: CEO Trump donor
CBS: CEO Trump donor
NBC: CEO Trump donor
MSNBC: CEO Trump donor
Washington Post: owner Jeff Bezo
Wall Street Journal: Owner: Robert Murdoch
New York Times: CEO Trump donor

***

I think THAT answers many a question.

It also answers why President Biden usually is damned with faint praise and gets zero to miniscule coverage for his major achievements as POTUS.

IMHO, that is information worth keeping in mind. It plausibly explains why the MSM is so clearly hostile to Biden and so accommodating to the authoritarian monster DJT.

Update: I am trying to verify the information about Trump donors. So far I have been unable to find the sources of that information. Open Secrets does not have this information in its major donor list.

Perplexity:

Q: What are the political affiliations of major American news executives?

A: 

1. A significant majority of top executives and CEOs of major American companies lean Republican. A study found that 57.7% of CEOs have donated to Republican causes, while only 18.6% consistently supported Democrats.
2. This trend is even more pronounced among America's top executives, with nearly 70% affiliated with the Republican Party and 31% with the Democrats.
3. The political polarization among executives has increased over time. From 2008 to 2020, partisanship in executive teams increased by 7.7 percentage points, which is twice the rate of increase in the general population.
4. This Republican leaning among executives is attributed to conservative policies often being more favorable to corporate interests, such as tax cuts and deregulation.
5. However, it's important to note that political affiliations can vary by industry. For example, the energy sector shows a stronger Republican bias, particularly in the South and Midwest.
6. When it comes to news organizations specifically, there is a mix of political leanings. Some major newspapers and news magazines are perceived to lean liberal (e.g., New York Times, Washington Post), while others are seen as more conservative (e.g., Wall Street Journal, New York Post).
7. The political affiliation of news executives can influence the editorial stance and coverage of their organizations. For instance, Fox News, which is known for its conservative leaning, is the most common source of political news for Republicans.

Some good news for democracy; Biden's letter to congressional Dems

Voters in France unexpectedly rejected the bigoted radical right authoritarian wealth and power movement there. Polling in the days before the election indicated that the authoritarian radicals would lead and would get or come close to getting an outright majority. What happened was that the left got the most votes, while Macron's centrist party came in second and the authoritarian radicals came in third. The WaPo describes it like this:

France’s left-wing New Popular Front alliance and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition thwarted a far-right victory in legislative elections on Sunday, staging one of the greatest political upsets in recent French history.

The results were a major defeat for Marine Le Pen’s populist, anti-immigrant National Rally party, which had hoped that Sunday would mark the final step in its transformation from a fringe neofascist group into a mainstream political force.  

Instead of ushering in France’s first far-right government since World War II, the French voters who turned out in high numbers on Sunday boosted the left and the center, which unexpectedly came in first and second, even appearing to stun some of their own lawmakers.

One search about the effects, if any, of the rise of America's bigoted radical right authoritarian wealth and power movement included this: 

While Donald Trump was not directly mentioned in the context of these French elections, the rejection of far-right politics and the emphasis on democratic values can be seen as part of a broader global trend of pushback against populist and authoritarian-leaning movements. The French electorate's decision to support more moderate or left-leaning parties over the far-right echoes similar concerns that have been raised about Trump's impact on democratic norms in the United States.

Two points come to mind:

• I still do not put much weight on polls because it is too far out in time from the election in November. The polling data in France was literally from just a few days before the unexpected result.

• In my opinion, this is evidence of increasing global awareness, distrust and fear of bigoted radical right authoritarian wealth and power movements. In places where average people still have some power to push back in elections, they are generally pushing back at least some. My main hope for a Democrat to win the White House in Nov. is that enough American voters will see and understand the threat and vote to reject the bigoted, kleptocratic American authoritarianism that DJT undeniably stands for.  

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

The letter reads in part:

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR

July 8, 2024

Fellow Democrats,

Now that you have returned from the July 4th recess, I want you to know that despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump.

I have had extensive conversations with the leadership of the party, elected officials, rank and file members, and most importantly, Democratic voters over these past 10 days or so. I have heard the concerns that people have - their good faith fears and worries about what is at stake in this election. I am not blind to them. Believe me, I know better than anyone the responsibility and the burden the nominee of our party carries. I carried it in 2020 when the fate of our nation was at stake. I also know these concerns come from a place of real respect for my lifetime of public service and my record as President, and I have been moved by the expressions of affection for me from so many who have known me well and suppo1ted me over the course of my public life. I've been grateful for the rock-solid, steadfast support from so many elected Democrats in Congress and all across the country and taken great strength from the resolve and determination I've seen from so many voters and grassroots supporters even in the hardest of weeks.

I can respond to all this by saying clearly and unequivocally: I wouldn't be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024.

We had a Democratic nomination process and the voters have spoken clearly and decisively. I received over 14 million votes, 87% of the votes cast across the entire nominating process. I have nearly 3,900 delegates, making me the presumptive nominee of our party by a wide margin.

This was a process open to anyone who wanted to run. Only three people chose to challenge me. One fared so badly that he left the primaries to run as an independent. Another attacked me for being too old and was soundly defeated. The voters of the Democratic Party have voted. They have chosen me to be the nominee of the party.

Do we now just say this process didn't matter? That the voters don't have a say?

I decline to do that. I feel a deep obligation to the faith and the trust the voters of the Democratic Party have placed in me to run this year. It was their decision to make. Not the press, not the pundits, not the big donors, not any selected group of individuals, no matter how well-intentioned. The voters - and the voters alone - decide the nominee of the Democratic Party.

How can we stand for democracy in our nation if we ignore it in our own party? I cannot do that. I will not do that.

I have no doubt that I - and we - can and will beat Donald Trump. We have an historic record of success to run on. From creating over 15 million jobs (including 200,000 just last month), reaching historic lows on unemployment, to revitalizing American manufacturing with 800,000 jobs, to protecting and expanding affordable health care, to rebuilding America's roads, bridges, highways, ports and airports, and water systems, ....

More importantly, we have an economic vision to run on that soundly beats Trump and the MAGA Republicans. They are siding with the wealthy and the big corporations and we are siding with the working people of America. It wasn't an isolated moment for Trump to stand at Mar-A­ Lago and tell the oil industry they should give him $1 billion and he will do whatever they want. That's whose side Trump and the MAGA Republicans are on. Trump and the MAGA Republicans want another $5 trillion in tax cuts for rich people so they can cut Social Security and Medicare. We will never let that happen. It's trickle-down economics on steroids. We know the way to build the economy is from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down. We are finally going to make the rich and big corporations pay their fair share of taxes in this country. The MAGA party is also still determined to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which could throw 45 million Americans off their coverage. ....

The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it's time for it to end. We have one job. And that is to beat Donald Trump. We have 42 days to the Democratic Convention and 119 days to the general election. Any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us. It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump.

A new kind of online attack; Biden's arrogant cluelessness; Regarding the prospects of significant civil unrest

Social media just keeps getting more toxic. The NYT reports:

Students Target Teachers in Group TikTok Attack, 

Shaking Their School

Seventh and eighth graders in Malvern, Pa., impersonating their teachers posted disparaging, lewd, racist and homophobic videos in the first known mass attack of its kind in the U.S.

In February, Patrice Motz, a veteran Spanish teacher at Great Valley Middle School in Malvern, Pa., was warned by another teacher that trouble was brewing.

Some eighth graders at her public school had set up fake TikTok accounts impersonating teachers. Ms. Motz, who had never used TikTok, created an account.

She found a fake profile for @patrice.motz, which had posted a real photo of her at the beach with her husband and their young children. “Do you like to touch kids?” a text in Spanish over the family vacation photo asked. “Answer: Sí.”

In the days that followed, some 20 educators — about one quarter of the school’s faculty — discovered they were victims of fake teacher accounts rife with pedophilia innuendo, racist memes, homophobia and made-up sexual hookups among teachers. Hundreds of students soon viewed, followed or commented on the fraudulent accounts.

The biggest fallout has been for teachers like Ms. Motz, who said she felt “kicked in the stomach” that students would so casually savage teachers’ families. The online harassment has left some teachers worried that social media platforms are helping to stunt the growth of empathy in students. Some teachers are now hesitant to call out pupils who act up in class. Others said it had been challenging to keep teaching.

“It was so deflating,” said Ms. Motz, who has taught at the school, in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb, for 14 years. “I can’t believe I still get up and do this every day.”

The Great Valley incident is the first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States. It’s a significant escalation in how middle and high school students impersonate, troll and harass educators on social media.  

“Move on. Learn to joke,” [one] student said about a teacher. “I am 13 years old,” she added, using an expletive for emphasis, “and you’re like 40 going on 50.”

Ah yes, insightful wisdom from a foul mouthed 13 year old monster. Learn how to take a joke, you dumbass adults. See what SM-DFS (social media and dark free speech) hook-ups can do to innocents? But of course, these are just children expressing their inner child. For them, SM-DFS hook-ups are fun and easy. For American society and democracy, those toxic hook-ups are harmful.

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

I have been arguing that it is probably too late to replace Joe Biden. For example, radical right authoritarians are threatening lawsuits if he is replaced. Those lawsuits and appeals cannot be settled before the election. But Joe's shockingly arrogant comments in the ABC interview got me to dislike him even more:

President Biden indicated in an interview with ABC News Friday that he would be at peace if he lost to former President Trump "as long as I gave it my all."  

"If you stay in and Trump is elected and everything you're warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in January?" Stephanopoulos asked Biden."I'll feel, as long as I gave it my all, and I did as good a job as I know I can do, that's what this is about," the president responded.

At other points in the interview, Biden repeatedly denied that his approval rating could be as low as 36%, that elected Democrats want him to step aside, and that the presidential race is anything but a "toss-up."

Apparently Joe still doesn't get it. This election isn't about him. It is about democracy, the rule of law and our civil liberties. If he loses, we lose far more than just a bump against his ego and thick skin. We lose everything if he loses. Feeling good about doing one's best and failing to Trump is a total oxymoron for normal people. Our democracy hangs by a thread and arrogant Joe still doesn't get it. 

Update: The news articles calling for Joe to step down are relentless and numerous. It is starting to look like his candidacy is no longer tenable. I'm still not sure that a candidacy by another Democrat is tenable either, but that seems to be a non-issue with the often snotty cognoscenti. The asymmetry in reporting about Biden vs DJT remains galaxy-sized. Everyone is calling for Joe to get out, but almost no one is calling for the far more unfit DJT to get out. The Hill comments:

“I wimped out in today’s column and deleted a line saying he should formulate a plan to transition the presidency to [Vice President] Harris within 30-60 days, but I’m there now,” Silver said. “Something is clearly wrong here.” .... “The most generous way to put it is that he doesn’t seem in command, and that’s an extremely hard sell when you’re Commander in Chief,” Silver said.

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

A couple of articles comment on prospects for civil unrest and violence violence. One comments:

Trump's Far-Right Army Is Threatening Bloodshed. 

Believe Them.

We must not only resist, but prevail. If we do not, it will be nearly impossible to reverse the course that America’s right-wing billionaires have set us on

Kevin Roberts, who heads the Heritage Foundation (largely responsible for Project 2025) just implicitly threatened Americans that if we don’t allow him and his hard-right movement to complete their transformation of America from a democratic republic into an authoritarian state, there will be blood in the streets.

“We’re in the process of taking this country back,” he told a TV audience, adding:

“The reason that they are apoplectic right now, the reason that so many anchors on MSNBC, for example, are losing their minds daily is because our side is winning. And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Another source points out that threats from America's authoritarian radical right wealth and power movement are completely explicit (and just as irrational and unwarranted, IMHO):

MAGA Gov Candidate’s Ugly, Hateful Rant: “Some Folks Need Killing!”

“Some folks need killing!” Mark Robinson, [North Carolina’s] lieutenant governor, shouted during a roughly half-hour-long speech in Lake Church in the tiny town of White Lake, in the southeast corner of the state. “It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!”

Robinson’s call for the “killing” of “some folks” came during an extended diatribe in which he attacked an extraordinary assortment of enemies. These ranged from “people who have evil intent” to “wicked people” to those doing things like “torturing and murdering and raping” to socialists and Communists.

Despite Robinson’s contrary claims, what he argues for clearly is a matter of murder and vengeance, and being brutal and spiteful in the process. It is not a matter of necessity.