October 13, 2024

If Trump wins Trumpism will be like Naziism but have it's own unique chilling definition , by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

Trump spoke in Aurora, CO where he says Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs while standing in front of signs that said "Occupied America" showing photos of purported gang members. He not only wants to deport criminals, he wants to deport legal immigrants. As if this isn't fascistic enough, he wants to prosecute his political enemies. This may sound like Naziism but while it may be similar it is a new brutal authoritarianism. It won't be fully defined as Trumpism unless he wins the election.

Here's how a Colorado newspaper covered what he calls "Operation Aurora":

In speech, Trump paints violent picture of immigration in Colorado, says he’ll call his mass deportation efforts ‘Operation Aurora’


Excerpt:

In his remarks, Trump declared, “I love this state. This state has to flip Republican,” to raucous cheers. 

He said he could be spending time on the most beautiful beaches in the world but instead, he came to Colorado to figure out what “the hell happened to Aurora.” 

He blasted Gov. Jared Polis, referring to him as a coward, a fraud and pathetic. He also blamed Vice-President Kamala Harris for the surge in new immigrants arriving in the country in the past two years. 

“Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world,” said Trump. “And she has had them resettled, beautifully, into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens, that’s what they’re doing. And no place is it more evident than right here.”

He has also claimed numerous times that illegal immigrants take jobs from Blacks and Hispanics. The term "illegal" is irrelevant because to his base even legal immigrants aren't real Americans and should be deported. Of course this is a ploy to get votes but it isn't true. Consider the following:

Data shows migrants aren’t taking jobs from Black or Hispanic people, despite what Trump says (read AP article)


Excerpt:

What has Trump said?

Trump, who often uses anti-immigrant rhetoric, has referred during his campaign to immigrants he says are taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.”

At a recent rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump said, “You have an invasion of people into our country.”

“They’re going to be attacking — and they already are — Black population jobs, the Hispanic population jobs, and they’re attacking union jobs too,” Trump said. “So when you see the border, it’s not just the crime. Your jobs are being taken away too.”

Trump's rhetoric about jobs has been widely condemned by Democrats and Black leaders who have called it a racist and insulting way of implying that Black and Hispanic Americans take menial jobs.

Janiyah Thomas, the director of Team Trump Black Media, told The Associated Press that Democrats “continue to prioritize the interests of illegal immigrants over our own Black Americans who were born in this country” and that Biden-era job gains in the labor market were primarily due to illegal immigration.

None of what Trump says is true. This doesn't matter to him. Whether or not he knows this only matters when you want to make a differential diagnosis of him to determine whether he is mentally challenged, a manipulative psychopath, or clincially delusional. I'd go primarily with manipulative psychopath since demonizing a segment of nation's population is chapter one in the dictator's handbook.

Here's a glimpse of how our European allies view this. It is from the English version of France 24. Of course France was occupied by the Nazis during World War II and of the 340,000 Jews living in metropolitan/ continental France in 1940, more than 75,000 were deported to death camps, where about 72,500 were murdered. (Wikipedia)




If Trump wins it doesn't take any imagination to think about how our allies will react as they watch the United States turned from a democracy into a ruthless dictatorship where "undesirables" are rounded up and deported, or in the case of political rivals, imprisioned. 

Just yestereday Gen. Michael Flynn, who may very well end up with a high position in a Trump administration said some chilling things. He recently escalated violent rhetoric against Vice President Kamala Harris by calling her "an enemy of America" and saying we're at "war," was reportedly asked if he would consider "executing the swamp." 

"General Michael Flynn was asked at the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival Friday night if he'd 'sit at the head of a military tribunal to not only drain the swamp, but imprison the swamp, and on a few occasions, execute the swamp.' General Flynn says 'What your sentiment is about is accountability' and that 'I definitely believe we need accountability,'" he reported Saturday.

"There's a way to get after this, but we have to win first," Flynn further said, according to the weekend report. "These people are already up to no good, so we gotta win first. We win, and then [Katy] Bar the door. Believe me, the gates of hell, my hell will be unleashed." (reference)

This is what another general said, only this was about Trump:

“He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.”

These are the words of Gen. Mark Milley who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Trump and Biden. Read article.

From demonizing and getting rid of undesirables to taking away women's right to chose with the consequenses of climate change denial to making up "facts" to suit a political agenda it is Scream inducing to think what Trump will turn this country into if he wins. 



He will have his own noun, Trumpism. We won't know exactly how it will be defined years from now, but we do know it will be horrific.


The article concludes as follows:

Vivid imagery, such as telling crowds of rally attendees that migrants will “cut your throat,” are now a staple of Trump’s speeches. He cites cases of U.S. women and girls allegedly murdered by immigrants in the country illegally, even as studies have shown that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans.

But Trump says they are — because they are inherently worse people. He’s told nearly all-white crowds in the past that they have “good genes,” even before his explicit suggestion this week that non-white immigrants are genetically inferior — when he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that migrants have “bad genes.”

“What is so jarring to me is these are not just Nazi-like statements. These are actual Nazi sentiments,” said Robert Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute, the author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy” and a vocal critic of Trump’s rhetoric. “Hitler used the word vermin and rats multiple times in Mein Kampf to talk about Jews. These are not accidental or coincidental references. We have clear, 20th century historical precedent with this kind of political language, and we see where it leads.”

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October 12, 2024

My name tags, from Dali's melting clocks to Munch's The Scream, By Hal M. Brown, MSW

I live in a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) which has about 450 residents. Almost all of them are liberal and although there are a few who are never-Trump Republicans nobody who is pro-Trump has made this known. 

A few residents, most of whom have recently moved in, wear lanyards which also have a key card chip in them with their names on them. 

Hey, we're old and sometimes we don't always remember the names of people we don't know that well. It also helps start conversations when we meet people for the first time.

Not too long ago a resident got the idea of helping residents order plastic name tags which, if they like, can be personalized with symbols. Here's an example.


I decided to order my own name badge from Zazzle which was even more personalized. I uploaded an image which had as its background a portion of Dali's well known painting The Persistence of Memory, often referred to as his melting clock painting. I felt this expressed my existential view of memory as an 80 year old. Here's how it looks on me:


It has been something of a conversation starter.

I got to thinking about another feeling I have much of the time and how I used another very famous painting to illustrate this blog:


 It is of course "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. 

My badge is due to arrive on October. 25th.  This means that by the time I recieve it the election will be two weeks away. 

I won't be screaming on the outside during this period. This will come if Trump wins. However, I will be screaming on the inside whenever I think of the possiblity that he will win. 

I am wondering what kind of conversations my wearing this badge will prompt.

Yesterday's blog:


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Watch Kamala's "60 Minutes" interview here and see why Trump wants to say it was incoherent and illegal



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October 11, 2024

A message to good people, those who are caring, moral, and ethical, and who believe in democracy, and still are voting for Trump, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

Everyone voting for Trump isn't a believer in white nationalism, isn't a racist, and certainly not a violence prone sadist who thinks it's a good idea to separate migrant children from their parents and lock them in cages let alone put alligators in the Rio Grande or shoot those attempting to cross it in the legs.

They aren't in what Hillary Clinton, much to her detriment, called the "basket of deplorables" (a phrase that has it's own Wikipedia entry).

"Basket of deplorables" is a phrase from a 2016 US presidential election campaign speech delivered by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on September 9, 2016, at a campaign fundraising event. She used the phrase to describe "half" of the supporters of her opponent, Republicannominee Donald Trump, saying they're "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic".[1] The next day, she expressed regret for "saying half", while insisting that Trump had deplorably amplified "hateful views and voices".[2]

The Trump campaign repeatedly used the phrase against Clinton during and after the 2016 presidential election. Many Trump supporters adopted the "deplorable" moniker for themselves in reappropriation. Some journalists and political analysts questioned whether this speech played a role in the election's outcome. In her 2017 book What Happened, Clinton herself said that her comments on the "basket of deplorables" were a factor in her electoral loss.[3]

Here's some of what I think they believe.

First and foremost they believe that a Trump presidency will be good for them, their families, and for the country. Second, they believe that Kalama Harris will not be good for them, their families, and for the country. Many of them say that they just don't trust Kamala Harris but they are unable to explain why. 

When confronted with all the reasons not  to vote for Trump they either counter by saying this is fake news or dismissing these reasons by saying that his various strengths as a leader outweigh his shortcomings. They don't think children are being sent to school where, against their parents will, they will have their gender changed. They don't think Kamala Harris will turn the country into a communist or Marxist state.

I ask myself whether they even listen to some of what Trump has been saying and do they believe him? For example:

Trump falsely claimed that there are “over 13,000 illegal alien convicted murderers roaming free in our country … that were released from jail from all over the world,” particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Illegal immigrants, he said, “have equipment that our military doesn’t have” and are “taking over apartment buildings” in Colorado. It’s all part of a “mass migrant invasion of murderers and child predators and gang members, terrorists, drug dealers and thugs.” He told the audience that if “this crazy, incompetent” Harris wins, “this same group is going to meet in Caracas, Venezuela, because it’ll be much safer than your particular state.” (From Dana Milbank in The Washington Post )

Are they aware of the following and do they approve of it? 

Mark Milley, the retired U.S. Army general and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, worries that Donald Trump will order a military trial against him if re-elected, according to a new book.

Veteran journalist Bob Woodward reveals in his new book, "War," that Milley recently “warned former colleagues that Trump intends to recall and then court martial retired senior officers who have criticized him as part of a wide-ranging revenge campaign he has pledged to carry out in a possible second term as president, according to excerpts published by The Guardian.

I am convinced that most of these voters would change their minds if they opened them, their minds that is, to the truth about who Donald Trump is and to how he plans to govern if he's elected again. They need to learn about what Project 2025 says (Snopes has a good piece about it here) and ask themselves whether if Trump manages to implement half of it the following question: is this the kind of country they want to live in?

He is a self-centered liar (he lied 40 times yesterday) incapable of empathy who enjoys inflicting pain on those who challenge him and who believes the world should bend to his needs whether they are at the most basic sexual level to his need to be seen as the real life incarnation of of Rambo or Superman. That Trump actually seeing himself as someone who both is so sexually attractive  that women should be grateful for his grabbing them by the private parts to someone who thinks he's a manly man because he can get in a professional wrestling ring and shave Vince McMahanon's head should preclude him from ever being president.


Trump shared this on Truth Social:

This image includes Elon Musk, the pro-Trump megabillionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who owns X (formerly Twitter), as the part-human/part-robot Cyborg, and entrepreneur, investor and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy as the Flash. Former U.S. congressional representative Tulsi Gabbard is suited up as Wonder Woman, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently dropped his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Trump, seems to be Aquaman.

Nobody over the age of 12 who has such fantasies should be president. Yet there are those who dismiss this aspect of him and it doesn't bother them that if elected he holds the nuclear codes and he'd be the Commander in Chief of the most powerful military in the world which he's said he might use to go after his domestic enemies. See: Donald Trump threatens to imprison Biden, Harris, Pelosi, and others. Experts are worried. USA Today

(Addition) My life partner, in proofreading this for me, just said with dismay and incredulity "who would even think of trying to inprison their political enemies?" adding "this is not who we are."

People who say they don't think Kamala Harris has the experience or strength to be president discount the incontrovertible facts about her career going from an assistant prosecutor in the San Francisco DA's office to being elected as District Attorney of San Francisco to being elected as Attorney General of California to being elected as a Calfornia Senator to being Vice President.

They may not have heard that she said in her "60 Minutes" that  she's been a gun owner since she was a senator. (See USA Today article.)

Vice President Kamala Harris revealed that she owns a Glock gun during the Democratic ticket's interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" Monday night.

Harris told Bill Whitaker that she has fired the gun at a gun range and has had it for "quite some time."

“I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do — for personal safety,” Harris said at the time. An aide at the time said Harris purchased a handgun years before her statement and that it was locked up.

I wonder if this part of her interview was the final straw it leading to him say CBS should lose its license over the "60 MInutes" interview (Reference) because showed her as a woman not afraid to own and learn to shoot the a Glock, the  handgun carried by most police officers (reference).

There's one thing you can be sure of. It's that Kamala Harris won't be using AI (as I did) to make an image of herself firing a pistol. She doesn't have a psychological need to do this and she wouldn't insult voters by portraying herself this way.


Update:

Today Trump spread lies about Aurora, Colorado, the town where there was a lie he supported about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs, while he was in Aurora. 

When he was in Wisconsin over the weekend in Prairie du Chien he said “If Kamala is reelected, your town, and every town just like it, all across Wisconsin and all across our country — the heartland, the coast, it doesn’t matter — will be transformed into a third-world hellhole.” He also said “Today I make you this promise: I will liberate Wisconsin and our entire nation from this mass migration invasion of murderers, child predators, drug dealers, gang members and thugs. It’ll be liberated,” Trump said before a crowd of thousands at a rally in Juneau, Wis., over the weekend. 

The tragedy is that people in these Wisconsin towns, and in towns across the country, believe these lies. If they opened their eyes and looked around they would be hallucinating if they saw what he says is happening in their towns.


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Cats

Watch Kamala's "60 Minutes" interview here and see why Trump wants to say it was incoherent and illegal




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October 10, 2024

Cats. By Hal M. Brown, MSW

  



Above: The left image was made by Perchance Photo AI, the right image by Google's Gemini Imagin AI. 

These cat images are intended to show how the county will be if Kamala wins and the cool cats can celebrate, hop on their Harleys, and head to a dress ball, and if Trump wins his ordering the military to hunt down people like us. I decided to ask AI to put the cats on motorcycles because they often symbolize male power and cats generally are a feminine symbol.

I expect you may wonder why I used the cat illustrations at all. One is because while my partner likes the AI generated images of Trump I use to illustrate some of my blogs, yesterday my best friend where I live said she's sick and tired of seeing any image of him.

Another reason I used the cats should be obvous since they have become a meme in this election what with Vance distainfully calling women who don't have children childless cat ladies, to he and Trump saying Haitians are eating them. Also yesterday, a close friend's daughter was wearing the t-shirt shown above. (Another version is below).


Of course we also have Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris in an Instagram post signed Childless Cat Lady.


Here's an article from the UK Independent.



He both wants to be seen as the savior of cute cats from hungry Haitians and as supporting armed and dangerous MAGA cats, the later being what I depicted in my illustration.


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Watch Kamala's "60 Minutes" interview here and see why Trump wants to say it was incoherent and illegal




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October 9, 2024

Watch Kamala's "60 Minutes" interview here and see why Trump wants to say it was incoherent and illegal, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

Click to watch interview.

Perhaps the biggest news about this is that Trump actually watched the Kamala Harris "60 Minutes" interview.

Why else are we seeing stories about his reaction like this?


This is what he posted on Truth Social.


I’ve never seen this before, but the producers of 60 Minutes sliced and diced (“cut and pasted”) Lyin’ Kamala’s answers to questions, which were virtually incoherent, over and over again, some by as many as four times in a single sentence or thought, all in an effort, possibly illegal as part of the “News Division,” which must be licensed, to make her look “more Presidential,” or a least, better. It may also be a major Campaign Finance Violation. This is a stain on the reputation of 60 Minutes that is not recoverable - It will always remain with this once storied brand. I have never heard of such a thing being done in “News.” It is the very definition of FAKE NEWS! The public is owed a MAJOR AND IMMEDIATE APOLOGY! This is an open and shut case, and must be investigated, starting today!

Note that this was posted at 4:16 AM.

I missed watching the interview when it was broadcast but thanks to RawStory I easily found the link to the YouTube. From RawStory:

It is difficult to understand what the former president is talking about given that the full interview is available on YouTube and Harris speaks cogently over long periods of time without any apparent edits.

I can imagine Trump fulminating for hours after watching the interview until before dawn he came up with a way to attack Kamala's performance. If anyone ever writes a book about his classic outrageous delusional Truth Social posts this should be near the top of the list.

Nobody is going to hold Trump's feet to the fire and demand he give one example of an incoherent sentence which he accuses her of doing in what any English teacher would call an incoherent run-on sentence:

I’ve never seen this before, but the producers of 60 Minutes sliced and diced (“cut and pasted”) Lyin’ Kamala’s answers to questions, which were virtually incoherent, over and over again, some by as many as four times in a single sentence or thought, all in an effort, possibly illegal as part of the “News Division,” which must be licensed, to make her look “more Presidential,” or a least, better.

He accuses her of being incoherent four times!

I wonder whether Trump has a mini-Trump on his shoulder trying to get through to him with the truth telling him that Kamala did a far better job in the interview than he ever could do.


Image by Perchance Photo AI


I doubt it. On a 1-10 scale of how consciously self-aware and self-critical a person is Trump wouldn't even rate a 1. However, Trump is like every other human being, and it is my expert opinion that while he considers himself to have the best genes and the biggest brain there's no such species of Homo superior-sapiens. All people are Homo sapiens and all have an unconscious mind. Somewhere buried in Trump's unconscious are feelings of inferiority that he has spent his entire adult life compensating for.

Trump can't stand to see incontrovertible evidence that he is being bested by an opponent, and by a woman at that. He has convinced himself that he is the exemplar of masculinity who women should worship.




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If you can't taste the Democracy killing poison in Trump's Kool-Aid there's something wrong with you.

  Sabrina Haake wrote  Governance by deception  and this prompted me to respond with the comment below. Drinking the Kool-Aid, indeed, but t...