Heirloom tomatoes from our garden, before and after overnighting in a dehydrator.
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
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Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
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Politics:
Trump sways and bops to music for 39 minutes in bizarre town hall episode
Doomsday and Democracy: Former Trump Aides Warn of Secret Presidential Crisis Powers
Trump escalates anti-immigrant rhetoric ahead of election
After the former president describes American citizens as “the enemy within,” Glenn Youngkin shows he is complicit.
At least cowards run away. The GOP elected officials who cross the street against the light just to get away from the reporters are at least showing a tiny, molecular awareness of shame. Youngkin, however, smiled and dissembled and excused Trump’s hideousness with a kind of folksy shamelessness that made cowardice seem noble by comparison.
Trump’s behavior is Authoritarianism 101. In a 1951 book called The True Believer, political philosopher Eric Hoffer noted that demagogues appeal to a disaffected population whose members feel they have lost the power they previously held, that they have been displaced either religiously, economically, culturally, or politically. Such people are willing to follow a leader who promises to return them to their former positions of prominence and thus to make the nation great again.
But to cement their loyalty, the leader has to give them someone to hate. Who that is doesn’t really matter: the group simply has to be blamed for all the troubles the leader’s supporters are suffering. Trump has kept his base firmly behind him by demonizing immigrants, the media, and, increasingly, Democrats, deflecting his own shortcomings by blaming these groups for undermining him.
Trump Is Running a Disinformation Campaign
The rough and tumble of American politics often includes false statements and lies—what once was called spin. Unfortunately, there has always been a degree of tolerance for campaign dissembling. Trump is no stranger to this mundane practice. He freely tosses falsehoods at the electorate. The economy when he was president was the best ever. He did a great job on Covid. The current rate of inflation is the worst in US history. The US has provided more aid to Ukraine than Europe. Every Democrat and legal scholar wanted Roe v. Wade overturned. He was the smartest and most accomplished president the country has ever seen. And so on. It’s absurd braggadocio and a firehose of supposed but untrue facts—spewed to a degree far beyond what previous presidential candidates attempted to get away with.
Yet Trump’s dishonesty goes further than the usual campaign lying. He concocts and promotes utterly false narratives to shape voters’ perceptions of fundamental realities. His campaign is a full-fledged project to pervert how Americans view the nation and the world, an extensive propaganda campaign designed to fire up fears and intensify anxieties that Trump can then exploit to collect votes. And the political media world has yet to come to terms with the fact that Trump is heading a disinformation crusade more likely to be found in an authoritarian state than a vibrant democracy.
The Two Minutes Hate was a famous feature of Orwell’s portrayal of Oceania in 1984. The Two Months of Hate is now a notable feature of the 2024 U.S. presidential contest. Donald Trump and his allies are closing this campaign with two months of hate in a way we’ve never seen before. And it could work.
The September 10 presidential debate taught Trump and his campaign that they could not win if the campaign were… a debate. So Trump is refusing to participate in a second debate, or for that matter in any interview that might be a simulacrum of a debate. More fundamentally, Trump has abandoned any pretense of having to debate real issues or having to put forth any serious programs. Of course, Trump’s heart has always been in authoritarian demagoguery, not in democratic and civic debate. But in the closing weeks of this campaign, any mask of democratic normalcy and civic decency has been tossed aside.
Ted Cruz in Jeopardy in Texas, Republican Internal Poll Suggests
Trump’s Agenda Looks a Lot Like Project 2025
Donald Trump insists that Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page blueprint for a hard-right turn in American government and society, does not reflect his priorities for a White House encore.
Said Trump: “I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it — purposefully.”
Yet from economics, immigration and education policy to civil rights and foreign affairs, there are common ideas and shared ideology between Project 2025 and Trump’s outline for another term — from his official ‘Agenda 47’ slate, the Republican platform he personally approved and his other statements.
Serendipity:
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