"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
Mao Tse-tung, "On Protracted War," 1938
"Politics ain't bean-bag."
Finley Peter Dunne's "Mr. Dooley," 1895
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| Under Stalin, one-third of Communist Party members were executed. |
"[T]he November 5 election was a monumental victory for President Trump in both the Electoral College and the Popular Vote, an overwhelming mandate for his America First principles, and the consignment of the radical socialist agenda to the dustbin of history."
Trump and the GOP-led House are turning their attention to Liz Cheney. She condemned Trump's behavior, agreeing with the description by Mitch McConnell, that the Capitol invaders "had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth – because he was angry he’d lost an election." Cheney is one of the Republicans who said Trump attacked our democracy. Trump is not merely disagreeing with her. That is beanbag. He is turning the power of the government on her.
The American public chose this. Trump said he was willing to use hard force to get his way. Trump sold himself for what he is, a decisive, cruel, brutal, get-things-done leader, who would cut through the niceties and formalities of checks-and-balances democracy. Marginal voters may have thought that meant he would "get tough" with China, with shoplifters, with criminal gangs, and with immigrants here illegally. Trump and his MAGA supporters have a wider sweep in mind. Get Democrats. Get the media. Get RINOs. Get people who stop short of full support.
He does not need to bayonet every survivor on the political battlefield. He just needs survivors to see what he has done and know that he is willing to bayonet more. He just needs a Justice Department staffed with people with an enemies list and the credible threat of saying everyone on it is guilty of treason. He has made those nominations.
Trump is center stage. Biden has quietly quit. Trump is narrating the story of what is happening in America. Mexico capitulated on immigration. The economy has already recovered, thanks to his election. He won a monumental election victory. He never coordinated his campaign with Russia in 2016. Biden runs a crime family. Kamala Harris is stupid. Trump saved Israel.
It is time for a Democratic narrator to emerge. He or she will get attacked by Trump. A worthy narrator will parry the attacks reverse them and create a credible and popular alternative story. I am waiting.
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12 comments:
He promised retribution and it’s already begun, with the full craven complicity of a once-respectable political party.
Historians and psychiatrists will be analyzing the Trump phenomenon for generations to come. People blame it on a variety of things from “wokeness” to inflation, but there’s one factor that trumps all the others: we have the most badly informed electorate in modern American history. Trump was the overwhelming favorite among voters who wallow in the toxic misinformation that circulates on social media. It’s said that ignorance is bliss. Our nation is about to find out.
Trump nominated Kash Patel to be the head of the FBI, and not his AG. Pam Bondi is the incoming AG. Trump was unfairly maligned by the media his first term, when the media pushed the false "Russia Narrative", while social media companies like Facebook and Twitter censored him. He's letting them know this time around that he won't be tolerating their crap. He's telling rogue Democrat politicians that they'll be prosecuted if they violate federal immigration laws. Trump isn't going to go after average citizens like Peter Sage.
"...we have the most badly informed electorate in modern American history."
No disagreement from me. Where do we start as to the cause?
K-12 Education?
Social Media?
Downfall of the printed newspaper industry?
Politicians in general?
The list is almost endless.
Yes, there are still successful people here in the US, but many, many more who aren't.
And heck, even more people are attending colleges and universities. Some are even graduating.
Young children are using social media. As I've said before, how to discriminate between reliable sources and BS should be required courses in grade school and high school, along with civics. The problem is that Republicans would never go along with that since misinformation is one of their most important products.
What he's going after are those who tried to hold him accountable for his many crimes - stealing national secrets, trying to illegally overturn the 2020 election, etc. Of course, that's only true if you believe in facts.
"...we have the most badly informed electorate in modern American history."
Previously, the mainstream media had no competition, and so the American electorate was much more unified in what they thought was going on.
In the Vietnam War, for instance, the Tet Offensive was a major military victory for the United States. But the mainstream media, led by the execrable Walter Cronkite (leader at that time of the Ministry Of Truth), portrayed it as a defeat and as proof that we could not win the war. This propaganda led the country to give up.
I would submit that back then, the country was just as badly informed as it might be now, it’s just that the bad information back then was coming from the mainstream media, and now it’s coming from the Internet. At least now, we have a multitude of news sources to choose from.
I was opposed to the Vietnam War at the time. But then I saw what happened after we allowed the communists to take over, which produced an immense wave of “boat people“ refugees, and horrible persecution of those who couldn’t escape. Seeing that turned to my opinion of the war around.
The electorate that voted for Trump was unaware of his lies and crimes, aware and didn’t care or voted for him because of them. Any way you cut it, that’s an unprecedented level of ignorance.
PS: Walter Cronkite never stated the Tet Offensive was a loss.
The Tet Offensive was a TACTICAL victory for us, i.e. we literally won the battle on the field, but it was an even bigger STRATEGIC LOSS because it clearly demonstrated that the tremendous bombing campaign had in fact NOT brought the Viet Cong to the brink of surrender. Prior to it nearly all us leaders, both military and political claimed they were close to collapse etc. and Tet single handedly blew up that narrative. Which is why in hindsight, most people rightly view it as a net loss. Eben though we technically "won" on the battlefield.
In the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, WC told the American people that the war could not be won.
As the facts show, he was right.
Michael always tries to rewrite history.
Putin owns Donald and the GOP.
FIFY.
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