Seething MAGA

The First Amendment gives Trump and his MAGA followers the right to believe and speak ridiculous nonsense.

Be careful out there today.

I expect today's No Kings protests mostly to be feel-good events, people encouraged by seeing like-minded people. 

But that is not everyone. Today's post is a reminder that there are Americans who think we are part of a global network at war with the United States.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said:

The Democrat [sic] Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas, terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals. That’s who the Democrat [sic] Party is catering to. They don’t stand for anything except catering to the far-left base, which as I said includes anti-semites, includes far left terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals who they want to let off to freely to roam our American streets.

Trump, Fox, and MAGA people on social media have a story to sell: The opposition to Trump is a dark, foreign, often-Jewish, secret cabal, funded with taxpayer money. It conflates opposition to Trump with subversive terrorist attacks against Trump and America itself. The people attacking the Capitol on January 6, 2021 were patriots; the people on the streets today are terrorists.

Isn't this just cynical propaganda?  Isn't it just exaggerated nonsense to feed the gullible in their party, and to get "likes" and reposts?  

Possibly so. They present a curated story line that comes across as disciplined rather than organic. That does not mean it isn't effective. The find-a-scapegoat-to-demonize campaign has worked. Some Republican voters hear it and believe it -- enough of them to maintain party discipline. That group includes people who should know better.  A Trump-supporting Republican who reads this blog, a well-educated professional, sent me this letter. It is a heads up.

Antifa's Portland stronghold crumbled as police executed precise sweeps, arresting ringleaders and scattering crowds.

TikToker reports: "They thought the streets of Portland were theirs." Not anymore. Antifa's so-called stronghold just turned into their biggest defeat yet. Police swept through downtown Portland with military precision—riot squads, lasers, shields—taking down Antifa ringleaders one by one. The crowd scattered in panic. Some radicals who once ruled the streets now run from the law.

But it's not just about arrests. The Trump administration just launched a scorched-earth campaign to hunt down every single financier and dark-money donor funding this chaos. The DOJ, FBI, Treasury, and IRS are working together to trace every dollar flowing into Antifa's operation. And yes, that means billionaire donors like George Soros, Reid Hoffman, and Neville Roy Singham are officially in the crosshairs. Trump's new directive is clear: if you fund street violence, your books are getting opened. Your tax exemptions are gone.

Now the Government Accountability Institute has blown the lid off Antifa's entire operation—fake charities, bail funds, paid protesters, and propaganda networks disguised as activism. Trump's response? RICO charges, asset seizures, the IRS probes targeting every nonprofit connected to the web. The message is simple: law and order is back. This isn't just about Portland, either. It’s about ending the far-left chaos that's infected cities across America for years. The days of violent radicals burning and looting with impunity are over.

Even Soros’ own allies are sweating bullets as the crackdown expands. For the first time, the people who funded America's destruction are facing real consequences. This is Trump's America-first justice in full force. Antifa is crumbling, the far-left's street army is finished, and their billionaire puppet masters are next. 

Be careful out there on the sidewalks today. Don't let anyone pick a fight with you. There are people out there who have eaten a diet of information junk food, and believe it. Some of them are angry. 

Give them wide berth.

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No King. No Dictator.

I will be busy tomorrow at 11 a.m. 

I will be at one of the thousands of No Kings protest rallies.

No, I am not being paid by George Soros. 

I am not a Marxist. I am not a terrorist. I will have made my sign myself. I will be carrying an American flag. I will be unarmed. I will be assembling peaceably. 

I will be the opposite of everything that President Trump and his MAGA supporters claim we are. 

I have a purpose. Demonstrating will do some real good in the world. My mood will be brightened by seeing like-minded people and some will take heart from seeing me. That will increase the world's supply of happiness and hope -- a good thing.

Trump is selling the idea that anyone who opposes him hates America. He says we are part of the "radical left" and that America is “under invasion from within." He says his critics are anti-American terrorists and our military should “take them out.” 

House Speaker Mike Johnson held a press conference, with other GOP leaders surrounding him in support. These were thought-out, prepared remarks:

We call it the ‘hate America’ rally that will happen Saturday. Let’s see who shows up for that, I bet you’ll see Hamas supporters, I bet you’ll see antifa types, I bet you’ll see the Marxists on full display, the people who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic.

I have a second purpose by being on the sidewalk on Saturday. I hope to change minds, in the way that political opinions can change. I don't expect MAGA cultists to throw away their red hats and start voting for Democrats. It doesn't work that way. But ideas float out in the political atmosphere. Opinions congeal without people particularly noticing it. Often it isn't one thing; it is everything, and then people's realize they feel differently about something.

For example, many of us felt that Joe Biden went from being "old" to "too old," even in the years before the disastrous debate. His brand changed. Something flipped. We could be cautious about Biden in 2020, but OK with him. By 2024 something had crossed over. He was too old, and too stubborn to admit it.

Same with the Tesla brand. It used to imply a paradigm-changing, cutting edge, technologically savvy future.  It was creative destruction in a good way. Tesla was cool. Now Tesla implies quick-and-dirty destruction by a careless, entitled guy on drugs, making shoddily-constructed cars with overpromised features. It wasn't just Elon. It wasn't just the Cybertruck monster. It was everything. The very idea of "Tesla" changed.

Trump has a brand. I hope to be a tiny grain of sand in the gears of that brand. My hope is that my presence will demonstrate that Trump is telling a lie so obviously contradicted by plain reality that even MAGA cultists -- a few of them at least -- conclude that their idol is lying to them. They will see that Trump isn't opposed by some stigmatized dangerous group, but that he is opposed by people attempting to preserve, not destroy, American democracy. Hitler made Jews the enemy of the people of Germany and got enough buy-in to consolidate power. Trump is trying to make Saturday's protesters look like a dangerous enemy of the USA, for his own purposes. I hope to make it hard for him.

Trump has done an extraordinary job of getting thought-conformity among Republicans. Trump sold Trumpism. He controls the levers of government power.

What Trump cannot control, though, is how people think about him. Is he a brave, swashbuckling leader who fixed the immigration problem and got things done -- the kind of can-do leader America can be proud of? Or does the balance tip against him. Maybe, just maybe, Americans will see that Trump's accusations are so full of B.S. that people see through it and Trump himself. I hope, by my presence, to show that what Trump says about his opponents isn't just wrong. It is preposterous.

At some point people see that the king has no clothes. Then everything changes.

Photographed at the June rally in Medford

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Vineyard Update: Reversal of fortune

Birds wiped out my Malbec crop. 

Skip this post if you come for the politics, not the agriculture. 

"Monday morning (bah da, bah da-day da)
It was all l hoped it would be
But Monday morning, Monday morning couldn’t guarantee
That Monday evenin’ you would still be here with me. . . .

     John Phillips, "Monday, Monday" sung by the Mamas and the Papas, 1966

My Malbec crop disappeared. It was there on Sunday, October 12. Wednesday, October 15, it was gone.

The Malbecs had done so well that at the end of August I needed to drop fruit so that the vines could better ripen the remaining fruit. This August 30 photo shows grape clusters on the ground.

Malbecs normally ripen behind Pinot Noirs. The sweetness report I had two weeks ago indicated that the Pinot Noirs were ready to harvest and that we might wait a week for the Malbecs.

We picked the Pinot Noirs on October 6. There was no bird loss at all. My Malbecs looked fine on Sunday. We were waiting for a break in the rain and an available picking crew. It turns out that that wait was a fatal mistake.

Yesterday this. Sometimes picked clean: 

Sometimes half-picked: 

The bees were going crazy with the free sugar on the grapes the birds hadn't gotten to yet:

The grapes that are left aren't worth picking. 

This third year in the vineyard was intended to be a grow-healthy-vines year not a marketable-harvest year. This harvest was going to be a bonus. I chalk this up as a valuable lesson. In the future possibly I have a window of a few days after picking the Pinot Noirs when the Malbecs are ripe and pickable, but before the birds discover the vineyard. I probably could have picked the Malbecs on Saturday had a crew been available. Or maybe, by chance, the birds would have discovered the Malbecs a week earlier and the real solution is stringing up nets to protect the Malbecs and Cabernet Sauvignons. It will take work and money, but I can do that.

We will live and learn. And try to have a happy heart. 

The first popular song that came into my teenage consciousness back in 1962 was a rock instrumental by the Surfaris. It began with a three seconds of laughter and then a drum solo. It was my first glimpse into teen culture and music as a member of that generation. The title is "Wipe Out." If you are lucky enough to have been young in 1962, you will remember it. In surfing, if you are wiped out, you laugh about it and get back onto the board and try again.

https://youtu.be/p13yZAjhU0M?si=uv6Sc7GLNsHZ0-gC

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A warning. Not a prediction

"Tiny bubbles (tiny bubbles)
In the wine (in the wine)
Make me happy (make me happy)
Make me feel fine (make me feel fine)"
     Leon Pober, popularized by singer Don Ho, "Tiny Bubbles," 1966

Things could go wrong.  

I am talking about the economy and your retirement, not Trump.

It is an enormous relief not to feel responsible for the financial and emotional well-being of my investment clients. I loved my work, but I felt a relentless sense of responsibility. Ten years ago, a week after I retired, I sat at this desk and read the financial news and realized that the weight on my shoulders was gone. I had my own money to consider, but no one else's. When one retires from Morgan Stanley, as I did, one is forbidden to give investment advice for five years, lest former clients think they are getting advice from a Morgan Stanley agent when they are not. 

I am retired, a private citizen. I am free to say that the stock market isn't cheap and that it gives me the willies.

I feel like we have been in investment crazyland twice before. One crazyland was the internet boom years of the late 1990's, culminating in March of 2000. And again in 2006-2007 period in mortgage lending when TV ads advertised 110% cash-out financing on new home purchases. 

My personal experience in the financial markets is that about every decade it all goes to hell all over again. People chase opportunity and they forget. It doesn't go to hell from a starting point of discouragement and caution. It goes to hell from a starting point where people all around you got rich, quickly and easily, buying something that seemed to have perfect logic. In the 1990s we knew that the new internet thing would change everything, so buy tech stocks. In the mid 2000s banks saw that mortgage loan packages converted high-yielding mortgages into AAA-rated supposedly risk-free bonds and that they could put generous margin in them. Quick money. 

Enthusiasm and optimism worry me.

Reading John Hussman's analysis of the risks to stock investors will give you the willies. He says the stock market is at the highest, craziest valuation in history. Higher than 1929. Higher than March 2000. He anticipates the market return over the next decade to be negative. How negative? Six percent a year compounded negative. Whew!

Notice that we are far in excess of the valuations at the beginning of the chart in 1929, and higher than the 2000 peak. Notice one more thing, that big M-shaped price line toward the right, showing the price from 1994 to 2008. I lived through that one. People who bought stocks in what turns out to be the market peak in the leadup to the year-2000 top did not get even for over 15 years. It is a long time to be under water. If one was age 30 and saving through the period, it was an opportunity. For someone in her 60s, counting on investment earnings to fund a retirement lifestyle, it was life-changing.

This scattergram of historical valuations and returns puts the current status at the bottom end of expected returns. The stock market is not cheap.

But relax. John Hussman has been worrying for a long time and he has been wrong, even as markets have gone up, notwithstanding his warnings. He is a worrywart. 

In the long run, I expect the U.S. economy, and therefore the stock market, to be OK. People adjust to circumstances. People are inventive and ambitious, and life will go on. There are lots of catalysts and tripwires for the economy but eventually things will resolve themselves. Just have patience; buy and hold and keep adding money.

The problem is that no one lives a life "in the long run."  We don't get "average." We get the hand we are dealt at that moment of our life.

The "Magnificent Seven" stocks trade at some 33 times earnings -- high -- but maybe well worth it because their growth potential is so high. Investors think these stocks are special. That is what people think at points of enthusiasm. The rest of the 493 stocks are high but not crazy-high, with a PE ratio nearer 23. Average is about 16. Stock market prices embed a lot of optimism. 

Ignore me. I suspect I am just an old fart full of the worries and cautions that arise from looking backward too much. It is easier for me to see past hazards than new opportunities, because I won't be around for much of the wonderful potential world of the next half century. 

I don't know if things will go wrong. I am not predicting. But this I know: Sometimes things go wrong. 

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Can anyone say anything at all nice about coal??

"You can't understand Pennsylvania unless you understand coal."

A Washington Post article describes a modern coal mine in Western Pennsylvania coal country.

The article is eye-opening about coal and the people who mine it. It is also a heads-up about the new Washington Post.

Coal rolls by on a conveyor belt 

I am sharing the article so it bypasses the paywall. The Washington Post adds this note to the article link: "You can't understand Pennsylvania unless you understand coal." Click here: link at Washington Post

Democrats can blow off reading this, and I expect many will. Damned if they are going to read anything that makes coal look like anything but a crime against humanity and the Earth. Democrats sneer at coal, calling it 18th-century technology in a world of high-tech renewable solar and wind. God help a Democratic politician who forgets the simple truth that coal is evil.

Democrats almost certainly cannot win the White House without winning Pennsylvania. Twice Pennsylvania's coal country voters overwhelmingly voted for Trump and tipped the state's vote to him. The consequence of Democrats not understanding coal is that America elects an authoritarian president who reverses every green energy policy achievement beloved by Democrats. 

The message of the Post story is that coal is highly automated, that it grinds out and conveys thousands of tons a day of coal from deep underground to railroad cars to power plants. The people doing this work get paid some $100,000 a year. It is a "single worker" job, a coal executive explains. A man can support his family, and the wife can stay home with the children. 

The article normalizes coal. It describes safety equipment and safety procedures. It describes the elevator that brings miners 800 feet down to the worksite as similar to the large elevators one sees in modern office towers. It describes second, third, and fourth-generation coal miners. It quotes people who are happy with their work. It describes coal as an important part of the country's energy mix now and for decades to come. 

What it does not do is treat coal as a stinking embarrassment to be held at arm's length by decent people.

I note a similarity to the Portland story, but in partisan reverse. Democrats treat the coal industry the way that people in the Fox News-MAGA-Trump bubble treat Portland. They hear nothing of Portland except "Democrat run city" burdened by antifa, riots, and misery. Even Oregon Republicans who should know better are blinded by the orthodoxy. They ignore or discount any sign of a normal city functioning normally. They would be kicked off the team if they expressed a neutral view of Portland.

My sense is that Democrats generally treat the coal industry the way that Trump and MAGA voters treat Portland.

I consider The Washington Post feature article to be neutral and descriptive -- and for that reason I consider it noteworthy. I don't believe The Post would have published this article two years ago, back before Jeff Bezos re-aligned his newspaper to become more Trump-compliant. Two years ago a coal industry article would show photographs of toothless people with blackened faces on ventilators living in unpainted dilapidated houses. This is different. The article describes the coal industry the way that people living in western Pennsylvania coal country see themselves, as people making a life producing something the world wants.

I am not trying to persuade Democratic readers to remove their rooftop solar panels and install coal furnaces in their homes. I do think that Democrats need to have a better understanding of how people in red areas understand the world. A neutral article on coal country will feel weird to Democratic readers. They may resist every sentence, but it is a worthy endeavor in political empathy.

Republicans in my area complain bitterly about how Oregon has a Democratic supermajority and that Republican candidates cannot win statewide offices. How unfair! They respond by spending more money on campaign ads. They need to wise up to the fact that leaders in their party lie about Portland and express open contempt for it. Metropolitan Portland has about half the state's voters. There should be no surprise that they reject Republican candidates by four-to-one margins.

Democrats, for their own part, need to wise up, too, about Pennsylvania. Or not, and keep losing elections.

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Eyewitness: The Portland "War Zone"

"It's anarchy out there."

"A burning hellhole."

"The radical left's reign of terror."

"War-ravaged. On fire. Bombed-out."

President Trump's description of Portland matters.

It is the factual basis to justify a major constitutional showdown. Maybe all that matters is a president's claim of his state of mind. If a president says there is an emergency the courts may feel required to give deference to his determination. The executive is presumed to operate in good faith, even if he does not. 

Is pretext enough? Can a misinformed opinion or a bald-faced lie be the basis for replacing state authority with federal authority? If so, it allows a profound change in our federal system. Do facts on the ground matter at all? They mattered to a Trump-appointed district court judge. She said there was no insurrection, but she may be overruled on appeal to a Supreme Court that is inclined to give this president whatever latitude he wants.

There is also the court of public opinion. Trump may appear dishonest and silly claiming "insurrection" in the face of protesters costumed as dancing frogs and unicorns. If those troops come across as thugs it may persuade a few more voters that Trump is an out-of-control tyrant.

Stine, with finishers medal

Kevin Stine traveled to Portland to run in the Portland Marathon. While there he did workout runs from his hotel to the ICE facility. He sent me a report. Stine is a Navy veteran. He has been a member of the Medford City Council for over 10 years. He is a substitute teacher in the public schools and is currently earning his masters degree in education at Southern Oregon University. If incumbent State Senator Jeff Golden chooses not to run for re-election, I expect Stine to file for election to succeed him.

Guest Post by Kevin Stine

I was on site at the most famous Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in the United States, the one located in Portland, Oregon. I was in the city for a multi-day conference, and took the opportunity to go to the ICE building on October 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

Locals were posting up wholesome videos across Portland of the supposedly "war-ravaged" city. Even daytime photos of the ICE building showed few people protesting, and definitely not anything on fire, or chaos. A popular response to these images was that if you go at night, then you'll see how crazy it is out there. Great. I'm a night owl and I run every day. The ICE building was a nice 1.5 miles away from the hotel, a perfect distance for a daily down-and-back.

I didn't know what to expect.

What I saw when I first got there was --  not much. On Wednesday night around 8:30. I saw about 30 people at the ICE building. Are these people trying to burn down the ICE building? No. Are they blocking traffic? No. Does it seem the least bit dangerous? Also, no. What I see is a bunch of people like me, just standing around looking.

I take photos. There is graffiti and a large "Abolish ICE" banner. The banner was gone when I came back on Thursday. I saw a memorial with flowers that says "Remember the Taken." Every night I was there, a few people with megaphones were randomly shouting at the ICE personnel who were standing on the roof of the building. It's a one-sided conversation.

There are counter-protesters as well. A guy with a Charlie Kirk "Freedom" shirt and a MAGA hat was live-streaming the first two nights I was there. He was loud and was baiting others to engage with him. In the digital age this is like a sport. If the man were to be attacked in some way, he becomes an instant celebrity. For the protest side, the guy in the chicken suit was there every night. I briefly spoke with a friendly woman in a Stitch costume. She said she is friends with the guy in the chicken suit.

Thursday and Friday are mostly the same, although the Friday crowd was bigger. I posted a video of the three nights on YouTube. https://youtu.be/hoc2VXbhujU

There are news crews live-streaming. Some set up tripods with their phone attached and recording, and just left them there unattended while they walked around. I'm not saying that nothing noteworthy is ever happening, but this isn't urban mayhem. Video cameras get a few good clips, like the guy who allegedly put paint on the building and was caught, and then was videoed having some sort of breakdown. This video action is like crack for conservative news, and it keeps the story humming along. 

Finally, on Friday, I saw Portland police near the building. Two sets of police were stationed in locations outside of where the protesters were, but visible and prepared. Nobody was bothering them. Many of the comments from Trump and his supporters are about the Portland police refusing to do anything. It's a touchy subject because there aren't major crimes occurring, and over-policing matters like violating a noise ordinance by using a megaphone might make the situation worse. I don't believe giving a bunch of municipal code violation tickets would improve the situation.

The claims of Trump and others about a war-zone Portland are false. I see no reason for troops. 

My exploration of Portland included the 26.2 miles of the Portland Marathon on Sunday. I was able to escape the chaos, death, and destruction, but that hill at Mile 22 was murder.

 

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Easy Sunday: The Portland Marathon.

Portland hosted a marathon last weekend, same as ever.

Last weekend's marathon steered runners through downtown and around the neighborhoods of Portland. Police were available to block the streets for the runners. Highschool bands and street musicians played at intervals along the 26.2 miles. Aid stations supplied water and banana segments. Bystanders lined the streets shouting encouragement. Children slapped "high-five" to runners as they passed by.

Another good marathon on a good October day.

A marathon stresses a city's capacity to keep order because it consumes police resources to block off streets, redirect traffic,  and control crowds for several hours over a 26.2-mile route. Only a city with spare capacity can pull this off. 

The Portland Marathon holds a special place in my heart. It was the first of 10 marathons that I ran, starting when I turned 54 years old, 22 years ago. I was slow in that race. It took me four hours, 37 minutes to finish. Slow. And then I got slower as I aged and found other marathons to run. In those races I was toward the back of the pack, slogging away, sore and tired. We slowpokes tied up streets for five hours and more.

It is a great way to see a city, and I saw some wonderful ones as I did "marathon tourism" for a decade. I combined training for a marathon with the payoff of a run in a world class city: Paris, Athens, Rome, Barcelona, Istanbul, Hong Kong, and others. 

Medford City Council member Kevin Stine reminded me of the Portland Marathon. He sent me a report on Portland for a guest post, which I will publish tomorrow. He explained that he was in Portland to run that marathon. He finished in three hours and 23 minutes.

Kevin Stine

Sometimes the most important things happening are the hardest things to notice, and that is what does not happen. What did not happen was that Portland needed to cancel the marathon because the police are overwhelmed dealing with the chaos and mayhem caused by armies of antifa arsonists and murderers. Things are OK in Portland. Portland is managing just fine without federal troops.

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