Bad bits of MAGA

It’s all bad, all the time now. My list of posts chronicling the accelerating fall of democracy and rule of law and their replacement with kleptocratic MAGA tyranny and the rule of MAGA thugs is getting longer all the time. djt didn’t drain the swamp, he franchised it.

Politico reports about some comments by chief justice John Roberts: “Rule of law is ‘endangered,’ chief justice says -- Chief Justice John Roberts described the rule of law as “endangered” and warned against “trashing the justices,” but speaking in Washington Monday he didn’t point fingers directly at President Donald Trump or his allies .... ‘The court has obviously made mistakes throughout its history, and those should be criticized, so long as it is in terms of the decision, really, and not ad hominem against the justices. I just think that doesn’t do any good.’  ”

Geez, really? Ad hominem doesn’t do any good? Mr Roberts, you numbskull, you truly are a completely clueless fracking idiot, or a cynical liar, or both. Oops, my bad. That was wee bit of ad hominem. ☹️

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Politico reports about the fine job that djt and his elite MAGA thugs are doing in foreign policy fantasy land: “US popularity collapses worldwide in wake of Trump’s return -- The 2025 Democracy Perception Index summarizes attitudes toward democracy, geopolitics and global power players, and canvassed more than 110,000 respondents across 100 countries.”

Oops, that can’t be right. China now more popular than the US? The US getting close to Russia? Welp, maybe that’s what happens when a country threatens and insults other countries. People don’t like it. What a surprise. /s

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I had a recent kerfuffle over MAGA elite’s effort to get women to quit their jobs and stay home raising  big piles of babies. The effort would be incentivized by a proposed $5,000 annual tax break. The median wage of women working full time is about $54,583/year. $5,000 seems like a feeble incentive, but I’m not a woman.  

The MAPA utopia for women

(make America procreate again)

For my convenience, The Guardian reports about this exact issue: “Give birth? In this economy? US women scoff at Trump’s meager ‘baby bonuses’ --  Trump administration is considering pronatalist policies such as awarding $5,000 for every birth – but women say they want universal healthcare and cheaper childcare. Trump officials have made no secret of their desire to make America procreate again.”

Other MAGA ideas under consideration include awarding medals to women who have six or more children. 

Attaboy, six kids!

The article also points out that these efforts come from the growing power of the pronatalist movement in US politics. This movement considers the falling US birthrate to be an existential threat to the country’s future. Those people want that the government to incentivize women to give birth.

Nobody can make this up 🤪

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Regarding the sparkly personalities that populate MAGAlandia

and their hilarious high jinks!  

NBC News reports: “Ye song glorifying Hitler gets millions of views on X while other platforms struggle to remove it -- Spotify, SoundCloud and other platforms have pulled the song, but its spread underscores the challenges tech platforms face in removing content that violate their policies. .... Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has been able to share his latest song, titled “Heil Hitler,” along with its companion title, “WW3,” which similarly glorifies Hitler, the architect of the Holocaust.”

As we all fondly recall, Ye has been a high-profile supporter of Donald Trump for years. Only the best people are allowed in with the MAGA elite cadre. And, what about that X? What a fine institution doing fine public service by spreading Ye’s fine, patriotic music! /s /s /s

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In a super-creepy power grab, djt has figured out that he has a way to at least try to poison and neuter the ability of congress to research anything it needs information about. Rolling Stone writes: “Trump Is Trying to Take Control of Congress Through Its Library -- Donald Trump’s administration is attempting a hostile takeover of the Library of Congress — an agency that is part of the legislative branch and functions as its research arm in addition to maintaining the world’s largest collection of books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and recordings. [This] is the latest effort by the president and his team to subsume the role of Congress and ensure it cannot do its job. ”

The RS article interviewed an unnamed expert on the Library of Congress. “This is a takeover of a major component of the legislative branch. There’s no reason that they’re going to stop there.” The expert also noted that the Congressional Research Service (CRS), an agency in the Library of Congress, “provides confidential advice to Congress, including confidential legal advice, and there is a database that has all the questions that every member has asked for the last 50 years and the answers. That cannot be made available [to the executive branch].”

As usual, djt and his authoritarian MAGA thug enablers claim the library is too woke and needs to be de-DEI-ified. That argument is a bald-faced lie. This is about djt wanting to neuter and disempower congress as much as possible. Blinding congress would tip this source of congressional power strongly in favor of djt. But that’s the whole point.

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Lest we forget, the NYT reports about Israel's ongoing annexation of the West Bank: “In Israel’s Demolition Path, West Bank Residents Pack Up Their Lives -- A monthslong Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank has displaced tens of thousands of people. Some are now learning they may not return. Since January, the Israeli military has conducted a large-scale military operation in three camps in the northern West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of people and causing widespread destruction. Israeli officials, who say the purpose of the campaign is to target militants and their weapons, have said the military should be prepared to remain in the camps for a year. .... Roads in the camps have been ripped up by the Israeli military, a practice that Israeli officials have said was meant to counter the threat of improvised explosive devices that they say militants bury underground.”

Remain for a year? How remain about for a century? We all know how this will play out. I attribute this human disaster mostly to djt and MAGA authoritarianism. djt has given implicit or explicit support for Israel to continue starving Palestinians and annex just about everything that is still in Palestinian control.[1]

Roads bulldozed into dirt

More bulldozed roads

Kicking 'em all out!

Raus! Raus! Schnell, schnell!!

Footnote:

1. Some examples of djt’s support for the expansion of Israel. In 2019, the Trump administration had declared that the United States no longer considered Israeli settlements in the West Bank a violation of international law, reversing four decades of established U.S. policy. In March 2019, djt officially recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967. This move was condemned by Syria as "a blatant attack on its sovereignty" but was hailed as "historic" by Netanyahu. In 2018, djt recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US embassy there. That effectively endorsed Israel’s claim to the unified city, including East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hopelessly envision as the capital of their future state. After the collapse of a ceasefire deal in March 2025, Trump gave Israel a green light to renew military operations against Hamas in Gaza.

In 2020, djt nominally endorsed a “two-state solution,” but it defined Palestinian statehood in such restrictive terms that most experts considered it unviable. For example, his vision of a “Palestinian state” is one where (i) it would lack control over its own borders, (ii) it would be subject to continuous Israeli military presence, (iii) it would be territorially fragmented into disconnected enclaves, and (iv) it could not maintain a standing military.

Hence reasonable beliefs that (1) no reasonable independent Palestinian state is possible, and (2) djt encourages Israel to take essentially full control of what is left of shrinking Palestinian lands.

Regarding our weaponized MAGA DoJ & MAGA’s anti-democracy impact

The NYT reports about the DoJ (Department of Justice) being a key player in protecting elite MAGA corruption and criminality, while attacking political opposition and federal judges who decide cases the “wrong” way: “As White House Steers Justice Dept., Bondi Embraces Role of TV Messenger -- Attorney General Pam Bondi has adopted a conspicuously performative approach, willing to execute White House directives with little fuss. That Ms. Bondi, the nation’s top law enforcement official, would prioritize a case of importance primarily to conspiracy theorists [the Jeffrey Epstein situation] was telling. .... Ms. Bondi is still finding her footing, as evidenced by her setback with the Epstein files. But she sees her role as that of a surrogate, a faithful executor and high-volume messenger, compelled to cede ground to empowered players in the West Wing, and in her own building, who exercise significant authority that rivals her own, according to interviews with 20 current and former officials. .... If there is a script, it has come in the form of prescriptive executive orders and memos from the White House.”

As far as I can tell there are three main sources of MAGA’s authoritarian and kleptocratic power. One is djt and his often illegal EOs (executive orders), another is the MAGAfied USSC which has protected djt against crimes he commits while in office. The third is the DoJ under Bondi. Bondi openly defies court orders that djt dislikes, and she also stops DoJ investigations and prosecutions of crimes by MAGA elites and supporters, prominently including Elon Musk and some of the 1/6 coup attempt traitors who were subject to prosecution for crimes they committed after djt’s 1/6 coup attempt. 

Assessing impacts on democracy so far:

Authoritarian consolidate is well underway

Overwhelming expert consensus (91%) says that the U.S. now meets criteria for an anocracy, i.e., a mixed authoritarian-democracy government. According to an electoral integrity index, the US score fell from 76/100 (2016) to 58/100 (2024), putting it below Romania and Panama. The Freedom House rating downgraded the US from 86/100 (2016) to 72/100 (2025). Anti-democracy problems like obstruction of justice and political prisoners dragged the US down. The V-Dem Liberal Democracy Index ranked the US below Argentina and Croatia, with warnings of “severe executive aggrandizement (dictatorship).” 

The current US trajectory mirrors Hungary’s descent into competitive authoritarianism under Orbán, where elections persist but opposition faces systematic disadvantage. Without unprecedented, major civic mobilization and institutional pushback, the 2024-2028 period will probably see the formal dissolution of American constitutional democracy and its replacement with a djt/MAGA elite kleptocratic autocracy, probably heavily tinged with corrupt plutocracy and corrupt Christian nationalist theocracy.

MAGA’s arrogant ignorance; MAGA’s gigantic legal war machine

Along with a slew of other bad things, a dominant trait of morally rotted djt and his also rotted wealth and power movement is aggressive arrogance. It is typically grounded in ignorance or cynical denial of inconvenient facts and truths, arguably a perverted form of ignorance. The NYT writes (not paywalled) about why arrogant, ignorant MAGA elites want to get rid of federal support for child care: “Not Just More Babies: These Republicans Want More Parents at Home -- A few months before he began his 2022 Senate campaign, JD Vance reached out to a conservative family policy group with an idea for an opinion essay. He wanted to write about why government-subsidized day care was bad — and why most young children do better when one parent stays home. Mr. Vance’s article was published less than two weeks later in The Wall Street Journal, declaring, ‘Young children are clearly happier and healthier when they spend the day at home with a parent.’”

Is there evidence to overwhelmingly support what the elite MAGA ignoranti Vance so arrogantly claims? No, there isn’t.** Social science evidence is clear. Young children in bad homes with bad parents or bad child care tend to be less happy and healthy than young children in good homes with good parents or good child care. JD Vance just dreamed up an idea of how MAGA elites want reality to be for us (not necessarily themselves), mommy stays home with a boatload of kids and daddy brings home the bacon. Vance just made shit up to support his fake reality and the morally rotted, MAGA Wall Street Journal opinion page happily published his bullshit and lies.

** Evidence: Link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5.

Mom happily living the MAGA dream

One other point needs to be mentioned here. Elite MAGA ignoranti want to give parents a $5,000 annual tax break to incentivize mommies staying home. $5,000 doesn't buy squat. Recent analyses show that the average annual cost of raising a young child in the United States is now about $29,400 to $30,000 per year. This reflects a sharp increase of roughly 36% since 2023, driven largely by rising childcare, food, and health insurance costs. What full-time job pays $5,000/year? None that I am aware of. Also, assume that mommy’s job paid her about $52,850–$56,316 as of 2024-2025. That is the median annual income for an American woman working full time  (link 6, link 7, link 8). What companies are going to increase daddy’s pay by about $54,583/year to compensate for loss of mommy’s income? None that I am aware of. 

Q: Are elite MAGA ignoranti arrogant, aggressive pricks, mostly reality-detached, rich white men, or are they well-informed, nice people doing a good job in good faith? 

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In a terrifying bit of very bad news, some sources report about free legal service pledges from big law firms. The firms caved in to djt’s threats via his corrupt, morally rotted authoritarian EOs. So far, 9 major law firms have collectively pledged almost $1 billion in free legal services to get djt off their backs. The law firms pledged free legal services to preserve their federal government contracts and security clearances for their attorneys. This is pure authoritarian corruption.

This horrifying news is stupidly focused on one of the law firms losing employees who refuse to work for MAGA corruption and dictatorship. However, employee loss is of minor importance compared to the $1 billion war chest of free legal services that 9 top notch law firms have now pledged to djt. That corrupt money will be used in both legal war offense and defense to support pro-authoritarian, pro-kleptocracy causes and lawsuits that djt wants to put money into. In addition, djt’s plan of authoritarian attack has been used by other tyrants in power to consolidate their position. They weaponize bureaucracy against critics, erode institutional checks, and create a climate of fear. That is why the 9 law firms caved in and are now on the side the dictator-kleptocrat.

After a very long series of questions and analysis about the legality of what djt has done here, Pxy comes up with the same conclusions I came up with before asking the questions. First, what he is doing is unconstitutional and illegal, as lower courts are now holding. Lower courts find violations of free speech and/or illegal violations of the Administrative Procedure Act. Second, despite the clear unconstitutionality and illegality of what he has done, the recent track record of our morally rotted MAGA USSC indicates that it probably will find that what djt has done is constitutional and legal. 

After a long analysis, Pxy concludes this about how the USSC will probably deal with this catastrophe:

Conclusion
The Supreme Court’s current trajectory indicates a strong likelihood that it would find President Trump’s actions targeting law firms constitutional and within the scope of his powers, provided those actions are presented as exercises of official executive authority. [Of course that is how they will be presented] This outcome would mark a significant expansion of presidential power, with profound implications for the separation of powers, the independence of the legal profession, and the resilience of American democracy. The Court’s decisions in recent years have laid the groundwork for such a result, and unless there is a dramatic shift in doctrine or personnel, the trend toward unchecked executive authority is likely to continue. (emphases added)

Analyzing wealth and power struggles among elites in a kleptocratic authoritarian state

My post earlier today raised the possibility of a 4th authoritarian power center among kleptocratic American authoritarians, namely single-party rule by our deeply corrupt Republican Party. I asked Pxy about scenarios when four different wealth and power centers are fighting for more wealth and power.

Q: Would a 4-way split in power by America's authoritarian radical right, Trump dictatorship, plutocracy for wealthy people and corporations, Christian nationalist theocrats and a Republican Party in single-party rule state be stable or would those 4 power centers collapse into internal warfare over the wealth and power spoils that comes with American kleptocratic authoritarianism, with one or maybe two of the four coming out on top? Analyze the most likely 2 or 3 scenarios or outcomes.

A: Drawing on comparative authoritarianism scholarship, kleptocratic regime dynamics, and ideological factionalism (Meng et al. 2023, Paine 2024, PRRI 2024), this analysis identifies three plausible trajectories for this hypothetical authoritarian coalition in the United States.

Scenario 1: Cyclical Purges and Personalized Dictatorship
Mechanism: Trump’s inner circle would exploit the inherent instability of multi-factional rule through the "threat-enhancing effect" of power sharing (Paine 2024). By appointing rival faction leaders to key positions-such as a tech billionaire as Treasury Secretary or a Christian nationalist leader as Attorney General-the regime could initially co-opt challengers while systematically purging them through legal persecution or manufactured scandals 2 16. This mirrors Putin’s consolidation strategy against oligarchs post-2014, where selective enforcement of laws and loyalty tests neutralized rivals.

Outcome: A Putin-style "managed kleptocracy" emerges, with Trump’s family and loyalists centralizing control through sequential purges. The Heritage Foundation’s 4,000-vetted Schedule F appointees[Initial Analysis] would replace purged faction members, replicating China’s nomenklatura system 2 8. Stability would depend on continuous economic extraction to fund patronage-a vulnerability given the dollar’s global reserve status and potential sanctions 7 16.

Scenario 2: Plutocrat-Theocratic Alliance Marginalizes Populists
Mechanism: Wealthy elites and Christian nationalists could form a durable pact by aligning economic deregulation with culture war agendas. This mirrors Orbán’s Hungary, where oligarchs fund evangelical projects in exchange for state contracts 4 8. Key enablers: Legal Architecture: The Supreme Court’s Citizens United framework allows corporate funding of church-led voter mobilization drives 15 16. Policy Tradeoffs: Tech giants gain regulatory leniency in exchange for platforming Christian nationalist content; fossil fuel firms secure drilling rights by bankrolling anti-LGBTQ+ legislation 7 14.

Outcome: A stable duopoly emerges, combining Saudi-style religious policing with Singaporean state capitalism. The military-industrial complex becomes the arbiter, using Section 702 surveillance powers to suppress dissident factions 7 16. This scenario depends on maintaining 3%+ GDP growth to fund both corporate tax cuts ($2T over a decade) and theocratic social programs 2 4.

Scenario 3: Military-Bureaucratic Coup Restores "Managed Autocracy"
Mechanism: As factional warfare paralyzes governance (e.g., debt ceiling standoffs, states nullifying federal laws), the "deep state" remnant stages a Pinochet-style corrective coup. This aligns with Geddes’ (1999) finding that military regimes often emerge from single-party collapse 8 12. Key drivers: Economic Crisis: Concurrent inflation and unemployment trigger food riots in urban centers, overwhelming DHS and National Guard forces 7 15. Institutional Self-Preservation: Federal judges and three-star generals invoke the Insurrection Act to "restore order," sidelining both Trumpists and theocrats 5 16.

Outcome: A 5-7 year junta transitions to Erdoğan-style "illiberal democracy," with the GOP rebranded as a nationalist-developmentalist party. The FBI and Treasury’s FinCEN would purge extremist networks using existing anti-money laundering statutes, while retaining core MAGA voters through nationalist rhetoric 8 12. Stability would hinge on avoiding Iraq-style de-Baathification overreach 5 7.

Conclusion:
The most probable path combines Scenario 1’s initial purges with Scenario 3’s military-bureaucratic intervention, producing a hybrid regime resembling modern Egypt: personalized rule tempered by institutional veto players, sustained through $500B+ annual security spending and selective welfare payouts 4 8. This outcome would require continuous external threats, real or manufactured, to justify internal repression-a precarious equilibrium vulnerable to leader health crises or commodity price shocks 7 16.

Dang, a military junta! That didn’t seem plausible. Maybe it is. 

This is a topic that deserves more thought and discussion.

Blog note; MAGA's 2026 election subversion update; Initial thoughts about single-party rule

Blog note: Since mid-March, a number of people have commented that Disqus comments are not loading well or at all. I raised this issue with the Disqus. Maybe this is something unique to this blog or maybe it is something systemic. My concern, maybe baseless paranoia, is that MAGA is out to shut me up, either through Google and Blogger or Disqus, both, or any other means of tyrant fuckery that MAGA monsters can dream up. I see no other blogs or other politics or news sites that does news like I do. From what I can tell, the content here is at least as threatening to MAGA relative to what I have seen anywhere else.

Q: Regarding my fear of MAGA interference or suppression, am I being, rationally paranoid, irrationally paranoid, just plain nutz, or something else?

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A Common Dreams opinion: “The GOP Is Already Planning to Win the Midterms... by Suppressing Your Vote! -- The party is taking no chances on the upcoming plebiscite and has hatched a plan to rig all future federal elections with the goal of transforming the United States into a one-party state. At the center of the plan is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, passed on April 10 by the House and pending before the Senate, and an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on March 25 with the Orwellian title of “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” And looming in the background, with the final word on either measure’s constitutionality, is the Supreme Court, packed with three Trump appointees and holding a long and sorry record of hostility to voting rights.”

The opinion points out that the SAVE Act requires everyone to provide a birth certificate, passport, or some other documentary proof of citizenship in person every time they register or re-register to vote. It also (1) requires each state to take steps to ensure that only US citizens are registered to vote; and (2) creates a private right of action that allows disgruntled asshats to sue election officials who register voters without obtaining proof of citizenship. That crime carries penalties of up to five years in prison for election officials who violate the act.

Data from a survey conducted by the Brennan Center indicates that more than 9% of American voting-age citizens, or 21.3 million people, don’t have a passport, birth certificate, naturalization papers, or other proof of citizenship readily available. “Voters of color, voters who change their names (most notably, married women), and younger voters would be most significantly affected,” according to the Brennan Center.

After about 17 years of fiddling, diddling, piddling and procrastinating, lots of people, are finally urgently scrambling* to get a real ID to get on an airplane. Just imagine. Voter registration procrastination is going to be far worse. Why? Because there is far less to personally lose than the cost of an airplane ticket by not voting.

* Some even have the galling gall to whine about long lines at the DMV to get their Real ID driver’s license. Un-fracking-believable. Well, it actually is fracking-believable. ☹️

Q: Now, can you see why I am a huge fan of mandatory voting in the US? 

(IMFO, it’s a last line of defense of democracy, honest, competent governance, civil liberties, the rule of law, etc.)

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Until recently, the major kleptocrat authoritarian forces at play in US politics seemed to me to be (1) kleptocratic dictatorship with djt as the tyrant, (2) big corporations and vastly wealthy people as kleptocratic plutocrats, and (3) rabid Christian nationalist fundamentalists as kleptocratic theocrats, with significant overlap among (i) those in 1 and 2, and (ii) those in 2 and 3. 

Another form of authoritarianism that seemed less likely to be seriously vying for power was kleptocratic MAGA Republicans wanting to turn the US into a single-party ruled state, which overlaps with 1, 2 and 3. Now, I’m not so sure about that. Not sure at all. Reporting like that in the Common Dreams opinion discussed above make it look like establishing the Republican Party as America's permanent, overwhelmingly dominant party. I asked Pxy about this.

Q: Analyze the threat of existing evidence of MAGA's intent to convert the US into a single-party state. Integrate evidence from Project 2025, Trump's and MAGA elite's rhetoric and policy choices, and whatever else is reliable and relevant. 

B: .... long analysis ....

Conclusion: A Crossroads for Democracy
The MAGA movement’s agenda constitutes the most severe threat to American pluralism since the Civil War. By merging Project 2025’s bureaucratic takeover, Agenda 47’s executive power grabs, and systemic voter suppression, Trump-aligned forces aim to create a de facto one-party state. This project’s success hinges on November’s election outcomes, Senate procedural rules, and the Supreme Court’s willingness to check authoritarian overreach.

Q: Is it time to add a fourth serious contender for kleptocratic American tyranny to the list, namely single party rule by the Republican Party? 

The djt kleptocracy

TNR reports about djt's shameless, deep corruption and how MAGA propagandists deal with it. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt rejected questions about whether djt uses his office for personal financial gain, particularly regarding his family's expanding business ventures in the Middle East. Reporters asked about the potential for Trump to profit personally, Leavitt cynically claimed that the suggestions is "absurd." She also said that the American people reelected Trump because they trust he puts the country's interests above his own. Sadly, that may be mostly true.

MAGA's propaganda claims are contradicted by recent financial reports and expert commentary. According to NYU professor Scott Galloway, the Trump family's wealth has grown by $3 billion in the first months of djt's second term, and Forbes reported that his net worth nearly doubled to $51 billion over the past year or so. His wealth increase has been about $1 billion per month. One expert calls the djt administration a "kleptocracy that would make Putin blush."

The TNR article notes that it is unconstitutional for presidents to profit from foreign governments. That doesn't faze him at all. As expected White House propaganda cynically says there's no conflict of interest because Trump's assets are managed by his son Eric. What an insulting lie. Experts argue that djt is likely to benefit from these deals, even if he needs to wait until after leaving office, assuming he ever leaves office.

Some other evidence of djt's corruption:

• In May 2024, he was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal $130,000 in hush money payments to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.

• He disguised reimbursements to Michael Cohen as "legal expenses" via nine monthly checks totaling $420,000, which also covered manipulated online polls.

• He made over 200 misleading property valuations, including tripling the size of his NYC penthouse and overvaluing Mar-a-Lago by 2,300%.

• Since 2023, the Trump Organization pursued $7.5 billion in foreign projects, primarily in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.