This Oregon Democrat survived an anxious election night in 2022, now faces a terrifying one in 2024

 By Hal Brown

Photo of author

If you are absolutely convinced that the United States is on the brink of being destroyed by those who want to make your personal life miserable, take away your precious rights, enable people you'd prefer didn't live in the same neighborhood let alone the same country with you, you only have three choices as to who to vote for in the primaries.

If you believe in democracy you vote for Joe Biden. If you are a fascist you have to decide whether to vote for one of the two strongest GOP candidates in the primary. 

The Republicans are divided and lines have already been drawn between those who support Trump and those who support DeSantis or any other candidate GOP not named Trump. This has been clearly shown in the competing conservative gatherings. See:

Dueling CPAC and Club for Growth events highlight divide within GOP ahead of 2024 from CNN

These are some of the things that Trump said at CPAC:

• the nation is in a "communism state of mind" 
• America is a "socialist dumping ground for criminals, junkies, thugs, Marxist radicals and dangerous refugees that no other country wants." He claimed that people in the country illegally are staying in the U.S. in "beautiful hotel suites."
• traditional Republicans are "freaks, neocons, globalist open borders zealots — and fools."
• he has the "personality to keep us out of war."
• “We are never going back to a party that wants to give unlimited money to fight foreign wars that are endless wars, that are stupid.” 
• "I am your warrior. I am your justice. For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution."
  

More about the key moments from Trump's CPAC rant.

We know how Ron DeSantis has taken steps in Florida to turn his state into the sunny anti-woke fascist playground I depicted by making this illustration:

The are two basic groups of Americans:

People who want the country to be a tolerant inclusive society governed by civil servants who believe that all people deserve fair and equal treatment by those empowered to enforce the law. 

People who want the country to be an intolerant exclusive society governed by civil servants who believe that all people  not in their group deserve biased and unequal treatment by those empowered to enforce the law. 

We have no choice but to recognize that there is a significant minority of the population who fall to varying degrees into the second group above. The polls suggest that they don't represent a majority across the country but they do in some states.

The travesty of the Electoral College is that it is the least democratic form of electing leaders short of only allowing one candidate to run for each position which one can imagine. If we had each vote count equally across the states the country wouldn't be in danger of a fascist takeover. Nationwide polls show that the majority of voting age Americans are in favor of things that ought to lead them to vote for President Biden. Consider the results from this poll from prior to the 2020 election: 

National Survey Finds Bipartisan Support for Expansive View of Rights

Click below to enlarge:

There's no doubt that the next election will be the most anxiety provoking one many of us, meaning those who are reading this blog, have lived through. That is with the exception of one commenter who wrote this other day "Your ongoing fixation on Trump is quite sad. I hope you get help."

My friends in Oregon already had practice dealing with a potentially close election because a third party candidate for governor, Betsy Johnson, could have upended the chances of the Democratic Party candidate Tina Kotek and given the election to a far right candidate, Christine Drazen. 

I wonder about what it would be like to be put into an induced coma until after the election. Would I wake up to find we have a President Trump or a President DeSantis? Would I wake to find out the the GOP still controlled the House and won the Senate? Or would I wake up to be told that the Democrats won across the board? I'd be spared all these months of growing anxiety. But then I'd miss out on all the interesting discussions with my political junkie friends. Not only that, by the time I woke up nobody would be reading my blog.

I want to live my life to the fullest and at my age, approaching 80, would not want to give up the time until we know for sure the results of the 2024 elections.

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Mr. Blowhard vs. Mr. Boring

 By Hal Brown

I hope Trump doesn't pick up the nickname Ron DeSooozer. I think it is the best one yet. Fortunately I rather doubt he reads my blog.

How long will the Governor of The Sunshine State fight clean against the slinger of salacious suggestions?

Click above to enlarge

Yesterday my partner and I managed to make our way through The Banshees of Inisherin ( 97% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes):

Set on a remote island off the west coast of Ireland, THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN follows lifelong friends Pádraic and Colm, who find themselves at an impasse when Colm unexpectedly puts an end to their friendship. A stunned Pádraic, aided by his sister Siobhán and troubled young islander Dominic, endeavours to repair the relationship, refusing to take no for an answer. But Pádraic's repeated efforts only strengthen his former friend’s resolve and when Colm delivers a desperate ultimatum, events swiftly escalate, with shocking consequences.

To say the the movie is a downer is an understatement. The reason I am referring to it is because the story revolves about the reason Colm abruptly ends his friendship with Pádraic is that he's dull. Colm has concluded that he has better things to do with his life than waste time with Pádraic  Pádraic believes that boring or not there is virtue in being a nice guy. Colm isn't a blowhard like Trump, but he is a performer as he composes music which then entertains the villagers with playing on his violin at the pub to an appreciative audience. (I previously got the names reversed.)

Of course neither Donald Trump nor Ron DeSantis are nice guys but the most commonly described political deficit DeSantis has to overcome is that he comes across as boring and dull.

DeSantis makes the news by being an anti-woke warrior by promulgating policy. He stands before podiums with a plethora of cardboard signs and in his dull as dirt style announces his latest executive action.

He has yet to go on an offensive offensive directly against Donald Trump. 

DeSantis is not only dull as dirt but his delivery is as dry as the desert. 

If Trump trounces DeSantis he will do it for two reasons. One is that enough members of his cult remain loyal to him, but the other is that his schtick still sticks. Trump, from what I can tell , comes up with his insults himself. He spitballs them, now on Truth Social, and sees what sticks. 

DeSantis so far has mostly ignored them. On the accusation from Trump that he was a groomer of teenaged girls when he spent a year teaching as a private school this is how he responded:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday hit back at former President Donald Trump, a day after Trump promoted a social media post accusing DeSantis of "grooming" teenage girls.

While speaking with reporters, DeSantis was asked about Trump's decision to amplify a Truth Social post that accused DeSantis of plying teen girls with alcohol while he was a high school teacher.

After filibustering for a bit, DeSantis directly addressed Trump's efforts to falsely smear him as a sexual predator.

"I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden," the Florida governor said. "That's how I spend my time. I don't spend my time trying to smear other Republicans." Raw Story

Click above to enlarge tweet reposted by Trump

This is an attack ripe for a riposte since if anyone can be credibly accused of being ephebophiliaesque (primarily sexually attracted to mid to late adolescents) it's Donald Trump. This is evidenced by how he behaved at the Moscow Miss. Universe Pageant and other pageants he owned where contestants complained he watched them undress and harassed them.

Click above for article

DeSantis has plenty of ammunition to fire back at Trump. He has yet to utilize it. If he does so he will need help both an acting coach and a script writer because unlike Trump he is not a natural.

A knock-down drag-out slimy slugfest between these two will prove to be entertaining. The winner will go up against someone who doesn't need any coaching or script writers to help craft comebacks. Joe Biden can do this with his wry sense of humor.

Consider how he put down Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Wednesday, sarcastically asking a room full of House Democrats during their annual retreat in Baltimore “isn’t she amazing?”

“She was very specific — I shouldn’t digress, probably — I read, she was very specific recently saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl, that I killed her sons. Well, the interesting thing is, that fentanyl they took came during the last administration,” Biden said, letting out a chuckle.

He stopped himself from continuing on the topic.

“Look folks. Anyway, I don’t want to get started,” he said.

 (The Hill)

No matter who ultimately wins the GOP primary I hope that whoever runs is so battered and bruised that the swing voters who leaned Republican consider them so damaged that they'll look at all that President Biden and the Democrats accomplished for them and the country, and to promote democracy, and vote D down the line.

Addendum:

I doubt Trump has the five point plan suggested here. He is well aware that few if any of the members of his cult care, or even understand, anything on the list. He knows that they will respond viscerally (not that he can define this word) to his hurling insults at DeSantis. He knows that even if DeSantis wanted to fight back in kind he'd be inept in doing this. In effect it would be a battle between Mr. Blowhard and Mr. Boring. DeSantis might try to get Trump to drink poison but Trump won't take a swallow.

‘They will bend the knee’: Lincoln project cofounder cautions against dismissing Trump

He (Rick Wilson) adds: “Right now they’re all talking so much shit: ‘I’m not going to get with Trump. I’m going to be with the hot new number, DeSantis.’ When DeSantis gets his ass handed to him, when he gets his clock cleaned in a debate or forum or just by Trump grinding away at him, eating him alive mentally for weeks on end, and suddenly Donald Trump’s numbers start posting up again, all the conservative thinkers who are right now like, ‘We will never vote for Trump again, we have integrity!’ will find themselves some excuse. ‘Well, you know, we don’t like Trump’s tweets, but otherwise it’s pure communism!’

Recommended reading:

The media is underestimating Donald Trump — again

How many expeditions into Trumplandia will the media have to take?

By Chauncey DeVega

Comments:

 Anonymous said...

Your ongoing fixation on Trump is quite sad. I hope you get help.

March 3, 2023 at 7:09 AM

 

 Ben Kalom said...

I would offer in response to the first comment: 
We have an obligation to remain vigilant, to continue to offer up ridicule, to be hyperaware of both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis. Predators need to be paid attention to. The pair of them have only one goal - hunting down their next victim.

This is a continuation of a traumatic stretch of years in our lives.

Interesting interview with Steven Spielberg on Colbert last night.

They got into the topic of antisemitism, and Spielberg offered up that he hadn't seen the rise in antisemitism in the last 50 years or so, not until now, when marginalization made possible the returned spread of general hatred, and its bedfellow, antisemitism.

Spielberg said he was given hope through the words of Anne Frank, who offered, in her diary, people are basically good.

When you watch the interview, you will see the imaginarium of Spielberg's genius, being stretched to find that hope.

If these creepos get their way, minorities will be marched off to some as-yet undisclosed location, to be eliminated, to re-enact the horror of 1938-1945 Germany.

The ONLY thing that stops the insanity of our current foment and discord is when good people get pissed off, stand resolute, agree to defend their herds and find community with those doing the same.

Please keep bashing the shit outta these two assclowns. They have earned our contempt.

March 3, 2023 at 7:27 AM

 

I was ready to open a Truth Social account and try to post an abridged version on this which was complementary to Trump on a new free blog in an attempt to get Trump to "re-Truth" it. I thought that I might get him to start using Ron DeSnoozer and then I could take credit for it and direct people to my actual blog. I opened a new dedicated email and that worked for step one of verification but then in order to complete registering I needed a phone number which they would verify as step two. I tried some fake phone numbers I found online but none of them worked. I wasn't about to give them one of my two real phone numbers. 

If I really want to bother going through with this I can buy a $20 burner phone and see if I can register with that number.

J6 Committee top investigator lays out a provable case that Trump led a conspiracy to overturn election

 By Hal Brown

The Raw Story summary -

Trump's Jan. 6 conspiracy 'potentially broader' than final House report described: lead investigator

 - of The New York Times article -

Timothy J. Heaphy Led the House Jan. 6 Investigation. Here’s What He Learned.

The top staff investigator for the House inquiry on the Capitol attack opened up about his biggest takeaways and why proving intent is the key to a criminal charge against former President Donald J. Trump.

 - doesn't do it justice (no pun intended).

Unfortunately you have to subscribe to The New York Times to read the revealing and unnerving interview with Timothy J. Heaphy (Wiki profile), the former U.S. attorney who served as the top staff investigator for the Jan. 6th Committee. 

Asked by Luke Broadwater, author of the article (profile), when the J6 Committee realized they would be breaking new ground, Heaphy said it was when the J6 Committee saw how early the multipart plan to stop the transfer of power started to take shape:

The world had seen the violence of the Capitol and how awful it was. But how we got there, and how methodical and intentional it was — this ratcheting up of pressure that ultimately culminates in the president inciting a mob to disrupt the joint session — that was new. 

 Below, the emphasis in red is mine:

When we started to see intentional conduct, specific steps that appear to be designed to disrupt the joint session of Congress, that’s where it starts to sound criminal. The whole key for the special counsel is intent. The more evidence that we saw of the president’s intent, and others working with him, to take steps — without basis in fact or law — to prevent the transfer of power from happening, it started to feel more and more like possible criminal conduct.

Heaphy was asked by Broadwater to address the failures of law enforcement to prevent the attack on the Capitol and the workings of the J6 Committee, which he did, but the meat of interview as far as I am concerned in how former the former president is implicated in being the leader of an illegal conspiracy. This is in scattered almost wlly-nilly through the interview. 

Another excerpt: 

There’s evidence that the specific intent to disrupt the joint session extends beyond President Trump. There is a cast of characters that includes the ones you mentioned (i.e. John Easton and Jefferey Clark). I think you could look at [Rudolph W.] Giuliani, and Mark Meadows. I think that the Justice Department has to look very closely at whether there was an agreement or conspiracy.

As far as I am concerned, the only reason we need to know how far beyond Trump the conspiracy extended, besides bringing the conspirators to justice, is to make an airtight care against the leader of the conspiracy.

There is only one person who must, absolutely must, suffer the consequences for trying to treasonously sabotage our democracy. I don't care whether everyone else goes free, makes a fortune selling tell-all books and getting gigs on Fox News as long as Donald Trump gets one or more fair trials for the felonies there is enough evidence to indict him for having committed.

If he is found innocent because a jury or juries think a case hasn't been made beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed crimes and he walks free, I will have no choice but to deal with my disappointment and anger. I will have to live with my belief, my lack of having a reasonable doubt, that he really did the equivalent of committing a murder on Fifth Avenue and got away with it.

A footnote to history is that Trump is the only president to have said things about getting aways with committing felonies. Another, lest we forget, is "grabbing" line from the Access Hollywood tape. Of course there also are the "perfect" phone calls he made, to Zelensky and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

Addendum:

To understand the meaning of reasonable doubt one must grasp that such a finding does not mean that the person being tried is innocent.

Under U.S. law, a defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty. Reasonable doubt stems from insufficient evidence. If it cannot be proved without a doubt that the defendant is guilty, that person should not be convicted. Verdicts do not necessarily reflect the truth, they reflect the evidence presented. A defendant’s actual innocence or guilt may be an abstraction. (Reference)

A moment of snark:

I meant this to be a serious blog but when someone posted a cartoon on another Raw Story article I didn't resist my impulse to make an illustration to go with it.

The sheriff's badge was added to the picture of Lucy. I didn't enlarge Trump's ass though a number of people used photo manipulation to make it even bigger.

 

Ron DeSanctimonious may be Trump's best insult yet

 Ron DeSanctimonious may be Trump's best insult yet

By Hal Brown

Trump is known for coining insults to use to against his enemies. He often tries them out at his rallies to gauge audience response. Most of them are juvenile, although the mental midgets at his rallies will cheer anything. He may have applause meters to see which one's are the best.

Only kidding. He'd doesn't need an electronic gadget to discern which insulting appellations elicit the loudest and most energetic cheers and of course boos from his audience. For Trump, the louder the better. 

Today Trump referred to Ron DeSantis as Ron Desantimonious as he has been doing for several months. This got me to thinking that to give begrudging credit where it is due, this a damn good insult.

This is from 

Trump attacks “globalist” Ron DeSantis over COVID response in late-night Truth Social meltdown

 

 

 

EXCERPT: Trump lashed out at the group and DeSantis in a Truth Social post shortly before 1 am on Monday.

"The Club for No Growth is a GLOBALIST group that I have been taking to the cleaners for years," Trump wrote, adding that "Ron DeSanctimonious, who I made Governor in BOTH the Primary & the General, is also a Globalist, & so are his donors."

"Jeb 'Low Energy' Bush was next to him last week," Trump wrote, referring to his old 2016 GOP primary foe. "Check PAST!"

The name he is called Ron DeSantis may be his best yet. True, Trump throwing the term "globalist" in there is a distraction since most of his cult members don't know it means a person who advocates the interpretation or planning of economic and foreign policy in relation to events and developments throughout the world. They do know it's "bad" and believe it's anti-American.

Trump posted this on Truth Social

The Club For No Growth is a GLOBALIST group that I have been taking to the cleaners for years. We worked together for a period, but they couldn’t get away from China, Europe, Asia, and part’s unknown. They know I won’t play that game, I am America First all the way. That’s the ONLY way we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. Ron DeSanctimonious, who I made Governor in BOTH the Primary & the General, is also a Globalist, & so are his donors. Jeb “Low Energy” Bush was next to him last week. Check PAST!

Trump  writes "I am America First all the way." He could have come up with a new insult with the opposite of Make America First, that is Make America Last, and called these enemies "make America lasters" - I sure hope he never uses that since I don't want to think I may have provided him with an effective insult.

Back to the insult of the day:

This is from a web search of the name Ron Desantimonious:

There were mixed reviews for this name, for example (red arrow) NY Magazine called it low energy. This being said, his merely trying out this nickname got himself a lot of publicity.

For example Fox News:

I think this is actually one of, if not his more effective insulting nicknames for someone he thinks is an enemy. While not a word many, if most, of Trump's screamers and booers could define exactly, i.e., someone who makes a show of being morally superior to other people, they could tell you that it means someone who was obnoxious and acts superior.

Trump acts like he has the biggest brain and is superior to everyone but members of his cult believe he has every right to do so because all this is true. They never find him obnoxious.

What counts here is that, first, it is a "big word" showing how smart Trump is for using it, and equally important, it fits well enough with Ron DeSantis to make it resonate. It's almost but not quite a rhyme. 

The website The Focus took a deep dive into Trump's using this nickname.

Excerpt:

As soon as Donald Trump uttered the two words “Ron DeSanctimonious,” the nickname took over Twitter. In fact, on October 25, a Twitter user speculated over what nickname Trump would give Ron DeSantis, receiving more than 1,000 likes and hundreds of responses in the comments.

CNN senior commentator David Axelrod tweeted Trump’s play on words was “Kind of brilliant.”

Alex Salvi from Newsmax disagreed, writing: “Former Pres. Trump refers to Florida Gov. DeSantis as “Ron Desanctimonious.” Probably not the united messaging the GOP wants three days before the midterm elections. 

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is the only person to have a Wikipedia page devoted just to the nicknames he has used to insult and describe people.

In scanning the list the only one that I think comes close to Ron Desantimonious is Sleepy Joe. While it is hardly clever it does play to his base effectively as depicting President Biden as someone persistently dozing off because he's too old and lacking in the energy needed to be president as opposed to Trump, the young and vital energetic macho-man he likes to portray himself as. At present DeSantis is Trump's biggest rival for the nomination. Should he run against Biden I think he'll have to do better than "Sleepy Joe" to insult him. I have a few ideas but I am not about to share them.

Trump used the word "little" (or "Liddle' " for Adam Schiff) 23 times as insults. These include Little Marco and Little Rocket Man (for Kim Jon Un). The later is probably the best of his "little" insults since it is used with "rocket man." Otherwise he's just making fun of someone's height. Of course he never called the 5' 7" Putin Little Vlad.

Below, read more with links to articles about Trump calling DeSantis Ron DeSantimonius:

Trump's secret plan for easily ending the war in Ukraine, Santos, and other schadenfreude tidbits

 Trump's secret plan for easily ending the war in Ukraine, Santos, and other schadenfreude tidbits

By Hal Brown

A link to this was in my email this morning:

Click above to read article

The article leads with these points:

• Donald Trump appeared to criticize a decision by the US and Germany to provide tanks to Ukraine.
• "FIRST COME THE TANKS, THEN COME THE NUKES," Trump said on his social media platform.
• Trump also suggested ending the war in Ukraine would be "easy," without elaborating.

At first blush on reading this I wondered what easy plan the man with the biggest brain had for ending the war which he was withholding, perhaps figuring he could sell it to President Zelensky or his pal Putin or even the fake president, Joe Biden.

Then it occurred to me. What a dummy I was. Of course the easy way to end the war would be for Ukraine to unconditionally surrender.

This would no doubt make Marjorie Taylor Greene happy:

Her tweet led to these replies:

In case you read my blog about Greene's aspirations before I tweaked my original illustration which just depicted her inside of the presidential seal, here's the new improved photoshop.

Back to Trump:

I wrote a few days ago that Trump's having Truth Social is a gift to prosecutors. I wrote that Trump behaves like a child who has problems with impulse control who is having a temper tantrum when he doesn't get his way. Once a tantrum starts there's a point of no return where the child, or adult in people like Trump, is no longer considering the negative consequences. 

Trump can't restrain himself and perhaps with no-one around to vent to or make ridiculous self-aggrandizing claims to he takes to Truth Social where what he expresses can't be erased. From journalists tasked to monitor Truth Social to ordinary citizens there are many people making screen grabs of whatever he posts there.

Here's an example. He posted this on Truth Social:

 “Does Coco Chow have anything to do with Joe Biden’s Classified Documents being sent and stored in Chinatown?” Trump wrote. “Her husband, the Old Broken Crow, is VERY close to Biden, the Democrats, and, of course, China.”

This led to articles like this in the Murdoch owned NY Post: Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, breaks silence on Trump’s racist ‘chow chow’ nickname for her.

Excerpt:

Former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao fired back at former President Donald Trump for his racist remarks about her — insisting his attacks reveal “a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans.” 

Chao, 69 — who has frequently been referred to by the former president as “Coco Chow” — issued the rare rebuke on Tuesday.

Yesterday's National Review article referencing Truth Social was just reported on again on Morning Joe:

And then there's George, or whatever his name is:

This offers a lot of schadenfreude: 

Kevin McCarthy "stands by" George Santos: Now the MAGA caucus owns his lies

The Republican Party's illicit affair with a con man has already gone south. But Kevin McCarthy can't let go

It is unusual, if not unprecedented, for a freshman member of Congress to make the top of the Washington Post website the way Santos has.

The illustration in one of the articles is even animated with moving blackout lines over lies he told:

Here's another story from the Post:

This is breaking news Friday evening - I did add something to the photo:

I thought it was interesting that website of The New York Times (see image) didn't have a single article about Santos.

I blogged about George Santos yesterday and by this morning couldn't keep up with the new revelations about him to add to that story.

George Santos made 'offensive' past joke about Hitler and 'The Jews': report

View - Screenshots from over a decade reviewed by Patch show Rep. George Santos has what the ADL called a "deeply offensive" social media history.

George Santos was 'sweet and caring' — until he started stealing from everyone: ex-boyfriend

Posted Fri. Jan. 27:

George Santos appears to admit drag queen past in Wiki post

A user with the name Anthony Devolder wrote in 2011 that they won several drag pageants. Anthony Devolder is a Santos alias.

The last story above demonstrates how a dogged investigator with nothing more than internet access and determination can dig deeply into information available online about someone and come up with information that a person like Santos very likely forgot he posted.

Click above to read article

Excerpt:

The Wiki entry, last edited in 2011, appears to match up with biographical information currently provided by Santos, including his birth date and being born to a Brazilian family with a European background, Politico reported Friday.

It also claims “Devolder” acted in a movie starring Uma Thurman and appeared in the TV series “Hanna Montana,” an apparent misspelled reference to a Disney show that starred Miley Cyrus, noted The New York Post.

Any appearances as a drag queen by Santos could cause a meltdown within the Republican Party, whose members have very specifically attacked drag performances as part of their anti-LGBTQ hate campaign.

On Jan. 11th I wrote Santos leads the GOP in eliciting Schadenfreude, no doubt more to come. No doubt, indeed, here it is Jan. 27th and he has been a gift that keeps on giving me pleasure, or schadenfreude if you prefer: 

Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another. It is a borrowed word from German, with no direct translation, that originated in the 18th century. . Wikipedia

There's more schadenfreude eliciting news. 

While the report that John Eastman seems likely to get disbarred, and that Marjorie Taylor Greene had an amendment about releasing oil from the reserves defeated in the House 418 to 14. 

The most promising pleasure I am hesitant to let reach the level of schadenfreude is the news reported here:

Click above to read article

Also read: 

Bill Barr asked Italian officials to discredit Russia probe — they responded with evidence linking Trump to crimes

I am hesitant to let myself feel too optimistic about this. It could lead once and for all to proving that the dots are clearly connected proving Putin attempted to get Trump reelected. Ideally we may learn that the attempt to prove that the there was no effort by Putin to influence the election could prove the very opposite.

I just don't want to get my hopes up since Trump seems to have the most tenacious Teflon in the world. Not only that, whenever I indulge in schadenfreude in excess I come across articles like this: 

The quiet takeover of the Tea Party: GOP establishment is now full MAGA

Click above to read

Excerpt:

Meanwhile, the MAGA movement, under Trump, took up what was once the undercurrent of the Tea Party movement, the culture war, and brought it to center stage. No longer did anyone have to pretend that all they cared about was spending cuts. They could hate on immigrants and Black people and gays and liberals right out in the open and could do it in the crudest terms possible. Conspiracy theories were encouraged to flourish and loyalty to Trump was the only "issue" they needed to care about.

This new Congress finally brings it all to the fore. It's all come together. The anti-tax, government-slashing extremists are one with the revolutionary MAGA culture warriors. Today Speaker Kevin McCarthy embraces Freedom Caucus member and MAGA heroine Marjorie Taylor Greene while Freedom Caucus founder and MAGA leader Jim Jordan leads a crusade to "take down the deep state" and Freedom Caucus member and MAGA superstar Matt Gaetz plots ways to destroy the economy if they don't get their way. They are all one. These former gadflies and bomb throwers are the establishment now. They are the Republican Party. The metamorphosis is finally complete.

File these under semi-schadenfreude:

Trump slapped down by judge in bid to avoid Jan. 6 Capitol cop trial

'Trump has run his course': Top NH GOPer's have moved on as he prepares for Saturday speech to party

McCarthy allies scrambling after leadership fight eroded his power: report

CNN's Manu Raju turns tables on George Santos when he accuses network of 'lying to the American people'