There was no Super Glue for Trump's fascistic "I'll only be dictator on the first day" boast to make it happen, so he's slowly adding fixative to Dictator Epoxy. Some glues are made for special purposes like for fabric, glass, and metal. None are made for metaphors.

I was inspired to write this after I read Jennifer Rubin’s Substack on The Contrarian this morning and added this comment:

Combine the White House demolitiion with everything else Trump has done and it is akin to adding fixative to the epoxy of fascistic control and we see it hardening before our eyes. That is MY metaphor. For more examples of the way I think, and how if differs from the relentless attempts at optimism from The Contrarians like Jennifer and Norm who I admire see my Substacks. I hoped for reality and less wishful thinking when I shelled out $500 to be a founding member. Please don’t dismiss me as a cranky 81 year old from the besieged city of Portland,

Epoxy glue works by mixing two components: an epoxy resin and a hardener. When combined, they undergo a chemical reaction that causes the mixture to cure and harden, forming a strong bond that can withstand heavy loads and resist environmental degradation. (From AI)

If Trump could have pulled off his dictatorship in the one day which he promised it would have been like him using Super glue. There are lots of them on the market:

This was the original and is still the best known:

Some are made for special purposes like for fabric, glass, and metal. None are made for metaphors. 

They work by using a chemical called cyanoacrylate, which rapidly forms strong bonds when it comes into contact with moisture. This process, known as polymerization, creates long chains of molecules that effectively hold surfaces together almost instantly. (More AI)

(The two videos on the top of the page were made using Grok.)

Related: Thom Hartmann also wrote about Trump’s ballroom:

He notes that Trump and his minions Peewee German Miller and ICE Barbie Noem are helping turn our Democracy into a fascist state. He doesn't mention Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, Steve Bannon, and Russ Vought. The later is often referred to as the key “toady” in Project 2025. He serves as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget though seems to be as much of an influential Trump whisperer as Miller.

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The Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley story isn’t just about Portland, but it makes Portland proud. He has been speaking before the Senate without a break so far for 16 hours. (It doesn’t matter if he breaks Cory Booker’s record of 22 ½ hrs.)The sign below should be sending a powerful message. Those alarm bells should be so powerful they clear all the clogged ears. Alas, too many people in the country either don’t give a shit or actually want authoritarian rule.

Portland Media:

KOIN

KGW

OPB

KATU (Sinclair)

..

I'm not the only one harping on Hitler, Hartmann is too.

 

This is the third Substack I've posts about Hitler and Trump. I wasn’t going to write on this subject, but then I read Thom Hartmann’s “The Brutality is the message…” Substack.

In it he refers to Hitler five times and the Nazi’s seven times. Below I highlighted most of the references.

Of course, Trump referred to “nuclear” as the “N-word” during that cringeworthy speech to military leaders. He said “there are two N-words, and you can’t use either of them.” He was discussing U.S. nuclear capabilities. The generals sat in stunned silence. In fact, the other n-word which should send chills up and down our spines when applied to Trump and MAGA that people like Thom Hartmann (our number one progressive radio host) is starting to use is Nazi.

Below is the comment I posted on Hartmann’s Substack:

The subtitle “Every raid, every body slammed to the pavement, is a public ritual meant to teach us obedience. The goal isn’t enforcement — it’s submission...” is so true and should be incredibly terrifying. It is, as you say, without using the word “Hitlerian” right out of Hitler’s playbook. I haven’t read that this was spelled out in Project 2025. I don’t think there’s a chapter on the use of systematic sadistic terror as a major tactic in their overrall strategy. What has been transpiring with this use of brutality as major modus operandi to instill obediance through fear has led me to do my own rebranding for No Kings day. I hate to throw shade on the original intention and coining of the label, but King George III was not Adolph Hitler.

Trump is not Hitler either, but he is much closer in his actions and personality than he is to King George. This is why I compared Trump and Hitler in yesterday’s Substack.

I give huge credit to the “No Kings” protest organizers and recognize that when they selected the label for their first and hugely successful protest on June 14th (Trump’s birthday) the president hadn’t yet emerged as an Americanized and somewhat sanitized version of Alolph Hitler. 

I don’t advocate for a name change. “No Kings” is too well established. There is also a risk in going overboard with what can be seen as hyperbole and this plays right into the hand of Trump and MAGA accusing critics of having Trump derangement syndrome. 

Not to dwell on naming protests too much, but “No Kings” was a much better name than the “Workers over Billionaires” protests held on Labor Day. I had to look that up.

Having an American oligarchy is far less of a concern than the country turning into a facsist autocracy ruled by a brutal dictator. 

What I dread is looking back at the “No Kings” and other national protests, regardless of what they were called, and seeing that any protests had been made illegal, labeled acts of treason, with attempts to organize them punishable by imprisonment or worse.

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Previous Substacks:

The horror of a second Trump presidency

A Washington Post Magazine article excerpted by Hal Brown

If you don't subscribe to the WaPo here are the bullet points from this article:

What Will Happen to America if Trump Wins Again? Experts Helped Us Game It Out.

The scenarios are ... grim.

By David Montgomery (scroll down to see author's profile)

October 10, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. 

From the article:

To help game out the consequences of another Trump administration, I turned to 21 experts in the presidency, political science, public administration, the military, intelligence, foreign affairs, economics and civil rights. They sketched chillingly plausible chains of potential actions and reactions that could unravel the nation (if Trump is reelected).

Based on what these experts described, here are the three phases described in the article:

Phase 1: Trump seizes control of the government

… He installs super loyalists.

... He governs without Senate advice and consent.

... He creates a MAGA civil service.

Phase 2: Trump deploys the military aggressively at home, while retreating abroad.

... He uses the military to promote his own political power.

In such a scenario, the response of other elements of the federal government and federal law enforcement could be unpredictable. “What that order does is that it fractures the American federal government, because you give an order like that to fire on American civilians and then maybe some agencies will pick it up and some won’t,” says Timothy Snyder, a historian at Yale University who writes about freedom and tyranny. “There’s a very real possibility that giving an order like that leads not to protest being put down, but it leads to some Americans in uniform firing on other Americans in uniform, with the people on both sides being convinced that they are doing the lawful and correct thing.

... American global leadership is finished — much to Putin’s delight.

... Intelligence work is harmed.

Phase 3: Political violence and democratic collapse? It’s possible.

... Ideological, racial and ethnic tensions ramp up.

... The bonds that bind the Union loosen.

... The chances of civil war increase.

That’s when the potential for violent conflict is real. For those studying the implications of these trends, “there’s no scenario that worries us more than that the wheels just come off completely from the restraints against violence in the United States,” says Diamond, of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute. “My biggest concern is what citizens would do to citizens, and what citizens might do to legitimately constituted government authority.”

... 

Could it happen here? Would it be that bad? The message of prophets of democratic doom can sound over-the-top — “crackpot, practically,” acknowledges Wilentz, the Princeton historian. But to dismiss it, they say, would be naive — and they urge vigilance and civic engagement to prevent the nightmare from coming true. 

The article concludes:

After four more years of nihilistic energy like that, the experience of being American could well have been transformed into something unrecognizable. “If Trump wins, I don’t imagine some kind of normal inauguration in ’29,” (Timothy) Snyder says. “If we want a normal inauguration in ’29, we need one in ’25 which involves somebody else.”

Author profile, David Montgomery

Washington, D.C.

Staff writer for the Washington Post Magazine

Education: Princeton University; University of Michigan

David Montgomery was a reporter at the Buffalo News before joining The Washington Post in 1993. He covered Prince George’s County, politics in Maryland and life in D.C., then became a feature writer in the Style section. Now he writes features and profiles for the Washington Post Magazine.

Honors and Awards: 2022 Climate Narratives Prize, 2nd Place, Arizona State University, for "The Search for Environmental Hope" ; 2018 Excellence-in-Features, 2nd Place, Society for Features Journalism, for "After the Fall," the story of a Confederate statue in Demopolis, AL 

Languages spoken in addition to English: Spanish

Afterword: 

Michael Cohen isn't an expert in any of the fields that would provide the type of bonafides that the author of the Post article sought to ask their predictions about the consequences of another Trump presidency. However, he is the only one who knew Trump up close and personal, who was very familiar with his modus operandi and, significantly, helped him implement his nefarious schemes. With this in mind it is worthwhile to consider what he predicts in this article: 

Keep up with news of interest to progressives as it breaks with coverage from all over the Internet on RawStory

They also cross-publish with Salon, and summarize article published on websites which you need to subscribe to in order toe read them, The New York Times and Washington Post for example. They have an active c0mment section.