The death of American Exceptionalism: what other country sent "undesirables" outside of their country to meet their dire fate? By Hal M. Brown (Many people don't know where Auschwitz was. )

 

Buchenwald and Dachau were in Germany. Many people may not know that Auschwitz and Treblinka were in Poland.

Here are excerpts from two websites:

Throughout German-occupied Europe, the Germans arrested those who resisted their domination and those they judged to be racially inferior or politically unacceptable. People arrested for resisting German rule were mostly sent to forced-labor or concentration camps. The Germans deported Jews from all over occupied Europe to extermination camps in Poland, where they were systematically killed, and also to concentration camps, where they were used for forced labor. Transit camps such as Westerbork, Gurs, Mechelen, and Drancy in western Europe and concentration camps like Bolzano and Fossoli di Carpi in Italy were used as collection centers for Jews, who were then deported by rail to the extermination camps. According to SS reports, there were more than 700,000 prisoners registered in the concentration camps in January 1945. Reference

Here’s an excerpt from another article:

But as horrific as they were, they were only three camp complexes in a system of more than 850 ghettos, concentration camps, forced-labor camps and extermination camps that the Nazis established during the 12 years Adolf Hitler was in power.

By the end of World War II in 1945, the death camp system stretched from France and the Netherlands in the west to Estonia, Lithuania and Poland in the east.

There were 20 main concentration camps, many of which had many subcamps, according to Geoffrey Megargee, the editor of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. Reference.

Thom Hartmann referenced this in his RawStory article about Trump musing over sending “Tesla thugs” to prison in El Salvadore.

Excerpt:

Trump’s people are trying to argue that the government of Venezuela sent these people to “invade” the United States and therefore they’re justified in suspending habeas corpus. It’s an outrageous argument, and if they get away with it there’s little to prevent them from coming after dissident American citizens they can charge with “rebellion” against Trump or being a “threat to public safety.”

No lawyer. No court hearing. No judge. No jury. Trump simply has you arrested, and you end up in a private prison in a foreign country where you have no enforceable rights whatsoever.

(It’s useful to note that Hitler also moved out of Germany the people he’d targeted. While over 1000 labor and prison camps were built within that country, the death camps where the real horrors happened were located outside Germany: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibór, Bełżec, Chełmno, and Majdanek were all in Poland. Trump’s running a similar scam with El Salvador.)

It is true that the Salvadoran prisons are not death camps. At least we can be glad that no first world country is practicing mass extermination as a cost effective method of getting rid of enemies of the state. Genoicide, however, as of 2017 was still happening five counties: Myanmar, South Sudan, Iran & Syria, Central African Republic, and Sudan. (Reference, Business Insider)

We have a president who is not only sending gang members (or alleged gang members) to a prison in El Salvadore, but who has floated the idea sending 'thug' Tesla vandals to the same prison. (Reference)

This is from RawStory:

President Donald Trump on Friday mused about sending American citizens who allegedly vandalized Tesla cars and charging stations to an infamous prison in El Salvador where he has already shipped purported Venezuelan gang members.

Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump gloated about capturing the alleged Tesla vandals and fantasized about them being on the receiving end of gruesome punishments.

"I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla. Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!" Trump wrote.

In fact, the prison in El Salvador is notorious for its poor conditions.

As a recent article in Foreign Policy explained this week, "human rights organizations have gathered credible evidence of systematic corruption, torture, and killings" at the jail.

Trump has given Elon Musk his marching orders: cut goverment spending so we can give tax breaks to billionaires no mater the consequences. As you’re doing this, help me satisfy my insatiable need for revenge and make me tumescent as I fantasize about being the most manly man in history.

Here’s a partial bullet list of what Trump’s mini/maxi me has done with Trump’s reactions.

• Send innocent people to prison in El Salvordore. No problem.

• Cut life saving vaccination programs to children in other countries die. No problem.

• Cut funds for medical research in this country. No problem.

• Let the gang that can’t shoot straight run the Pentagon. No problem.

• Scare the bejesus out of Social Security recipients. No problem.

• Cut services at the Veterans Administration. No problem.

• Distrupt the lives of thousands of government employees. No problem.

The list goes on… and on… and on. 

What fresh hell will he unleash next? 

Look at all the aspects of what has been called American exceptionalism and put them on a dart board and close your eyes and throw a dart.

Here’s a defintion of American exceptionalism:

American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is either distinctive, unique, or exemplary compared to other nations. Proponents argue that the values, political system, and historical development of the U.S. are unique in human history, often with the implication that it is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage.

It originates in the observations and writings of French political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, most notably in his comparison of the United States with Great Britain and his native France. Tocqueville was the first writer to describe the country as "exceptional" following his travels there in 1831. The earliest documented use of the specific term "American exceptionalism" is by American communists in intra-communist disputes in the late 1920s. ^(Wikipedia)

There are two other terms not currently in vogue, but we should consider what they mean. These are Americanism and American patriotism:

Americanism, also referred to as American patriotism, is a set of nationalist values which aim to create a collective American identity for the United States that can be defined as "an articulation of the nation's rightful place in the world, a set of traditions, a political language, and a cultural style imbued with political meaning". According to the American Legion, a U.S. veterans' organization, Americanism is an ideology, or a belief in devotion, loyalty, or allegiance to the United States of America, or respect for its flag, its traditions, its customs, its culture, its symbols, its institutions, or its form of government. In the words of Theodore Roosevelt, "Americanism is a question of spirit, conviction, and purpose, not of creed or birthplace."

Americanism has two different meanings: the defining characteristics of the United States, or loyalty to the United States and defense of American political ideals. These ideals include but are not limited to independence, equality before the law, freedom of speech, democracy, and progress. Wikipedia.

I have been pondering why Trump would want to do all of this. What could be going on in his mind? Why would he want to destroy all that is good in America? What motivates Musk and all the others helping him do this? 

Can all of these people really want to nazify the country? If so, why would they want to do this. Could they all have been so wounded in childhood that they are acting this out as adults

I’ll think about this. I don’t know if I’ll come up with an answer.

Related story:

Another related story:

Trump and his Gesatpo enforcers reaction probably is along the lines of “so what, in order to make an omelet you gotta breaksome eggs.” 

Read my previous Substacks here.

Trump survived Pussygate unscathed. Will he survive Signalgate unscathed? By Hal M. Brown (It appears that our military and intelligence agencies are being run by Col. Klink and Sgt. Shutlz.)

 

• 

• I wrote this last night and was waiting to proofread it for typos this morning. Then I turned on “Morning Joe” I see that Jeffery Goldberg, whose name everyone following the news now knows, has released the Signal message text chain he originally withheld. They show without a doubt that this messages contained highly sensitive classifiedinformation.

• 

• 

  

  

• It was revealed today that there are other Signal message chats some of which may have included people without authorization to be on them. The talk is about whether what Hegseth having done is a fireable offense. It is being emphasized that one of the people on the chat, Steve Witkoff, was in Russia at the time.

Morning Update:

The verdict of what to call this is in. It is now Signalgate or SignalGate! This is from USA Today.

As if we need an example of the level of the incompetence and nincompoopery that Trump sold the Senate with his appointments, we only have to look at what may or may not come to be commonly called Signalgate. (Update: It is now Signalgate) The following is all outdated. This reference in Wikipedia needs to be revised: The incident has been coined "Signalgate" by some in the media.^[2][3][4])

This is from Foreign Policy:

Wikipedia already has an entry where the term Signalgate is used. They note three instances where the term Signalgate was used including in the Foreign Policy article.

There is only one “gate,” Watergate, which sent people to jail and brought down a president. It was the gate that made gate a suffix. 

Hillary Clinton’s Emailgate may have contributed to her losing the election. There’s no way to know how much it did, if it had any effect at all.

Wikipedia has a list of over 800 scandal “gates.”. Aside from the most famous, Watergate, they range from Janet Jackson’s “nipplegate” to those I doubt many people have heard of like “tomato gate.”

Pussygate (described here in the Access Hollywood entry)  is on the list. It never made it into the vernacular. Perhaps this is because the term is so crude or because it never effected Trump’s political career. Many publications writing about the Access Hollywood bus recording never spelled out what he said writing instead that Trump’s words were “you can grab them by the p**sy.” It never became a gate because it barely was a scandal.

If anything, Pussygate may have helped Trump burnish his image as both untouchable politically and as a man other misogynistic men envied.

Ironically, considering what has just happened, Emailgate is on the list. This describes the scandal over Hillary Cinton’s email server.

I doubt Signalgate will be Trump’s Watergate, but this does have some potential to seriously harm his reputation for hiring the best and the brightest. 

If Trump has to fire one person and blame them for the entire thing it would be a bad look but he’d get over it. The person most likely to be blamed and fired may be the person whose fault it possibly was. Lucky for Trump he has someone nobody has heard of possibly on the staff of Mike Waltz, who also is someone nobody has heard of, or possibly Waltz himself.

Trump blames unnamed ‘lower level’ staffer for Waltz having reporter’s number Politico.

Excerpt:

In his revelation of the incident on Monday, Goldberg wrote that he was added to the encrypted conversation, presumably inadvertently, after receiving “a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz.”

Of course the scandal wouldn’t be a scandal if someone hadn’t included Jeffrey Goldberg in the message stream. However, since it is now out, the scandal is made worse because these top brains were using Signal in the first place.

Another scandal waiting to emerge is where Trump was in all this. Why didn’t he know about it when it had been all over the news for two hours before he spoke to the press. Another question is where was he when the raids were going on? It would seem that if there was a Situation Room photo op like the one for the bin Laden raid to be had, Trump would have made sure he was there.

Anyone who saw the Senate hearing will know why I made this image:

None of the people above, including Sgt. Shultz, who worked for the clueless Nazi Col. Klink, are the best and the brightest. Those testifying before the Senate aren’t Nazis, but what they do have in common with Nazis is slavish loyalty to a dictator.

Update: Watch this.

My previous Substacks If you are reading this here please consider reading what I post on Substack and also subscribing. It is free.

Recommended:

..

If Trump was told and forgot about what was reported by The Atlantic this could be solid evidence he has dementia, By Hal M. Brown, MSW, Retired psychotherapist.

 

Read my previous Substacks here. They are always free. Please consider subscribing.

Short term memory loss is one of the primary symptoms of early dementia. I’ve been agnostic on what other mental health professionals point to as indications of his having dementia. I see this as possibly being just as plausibly Trump feleing unleashed and more majic than usual when he goes off on a rant.

Read:

Also read this earlier essay:

The June 2016 Article in The Atlantic wasn’t the most alarming early article about how dangerous Trump’s psychopathology was. That would be Dr. John Gartner’s Donald Trump's malignant narcissism is toxic in USA Today published on Mar. 4, 2017. The Atlantic does feature it as their cover story and it doesn’t have a particularly unflattering photo of the preening nacrssist who is so concerned about how he is depicted. See what I wrote about Trump’s obsession with how he looks yesterday.

Here are two other 2017 Atlantic articles, one of them has Trump on it and the other a sinking White House.

The Atlantic has not been kind to Donald Ttump. It is clearly on his shit list.

The the psychologist’s article in the June, 2016 edition wasn’t effusive in praising him. It thought it was rather mild. But it is by a clincial psychologist who did not say he was the most mentally healthy person in the world. I’d be surprised if he didn’t have a copy of the magazine given to him because he was on the cover.

It’s possble this was an early contributor to Trump’s animosity toward the magazine.

(I published a portion of the following yesterday.)

Here’s a summary of the article:

In the 2016 presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump has thrown this year’s contest for President of the United States into a tailspin. A conventional presidential candidate, he’s not.

In June 2016, the Atlantic Monthly ran a front page cover story covering the psychology and mind of Donald Trump. For political scientists, fundamental features of human personality—such as extroversion and narcissism—help shape the distinctive leadership styles of our elected officials and the decisions they make. Dan P. McAdams writes about Trump’s dispositions, cognitive styles, motivations and self-conceptions that comprise his unique psychological makeup.

The Department of Political Science at Cal Poly Pomona has assigned the Atlantic Monthly article for summer reading. Freshman and transfer students have been given a copy of June’s Atlantic Monthly to read up on Trump and other current political events. When school resumes in September, professors will discuss McAdams’s article with students in various courses and at department events.

Read the Atlantic Monthly article here. 

Trump may have just revealed the most compelling evidence that he has early dementia. This happened when he was asked about the number one story of the past two days. 

You have to actually watch this video to understand my suggestion that Trump’s reaction to being asked about the security breach could be strongest indication Trump now has dementia.

Excerpt:

Asked about Monday's story by The Atlantic that top cabinet officials and aides used Signal and texted war plans to a reporter, Trump said, "I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it's not much of a magazine. But I know nothing about it. You're saying that they had what?"

Trump added in his comments that it was the first he was hearing about the alleged sharing of the information.

There aren’t too many plausible explanations why Trump didn’t have a coherent answer. Either none of the officials in on the Signal chat didn’t know that the news had come out that the editor of The Atlantic revealed that he was in on the classified message chain. How could that be possible since it was the main story in the news for two hours? They should know that Trump could have learned about it from watching TV. How could they risk Trump finding out about it not from them but on TV?

Watch that video of Trump. He appears confused. He seems to know nothing about the incident. He launches into an attack against The Atlantic. 

If Trump was told about this or learned about it on TV, or was told about it by an official, and forgot about it, one objectively has to call this short term memory loss. This is a major symptom of dementia.

Even if Trump had no knowledge of the security disaster he was clearly put off balance by the question. Going with this explanation would mean that he jumped to the conclusion that this was fake news because it was reported in The Atlantic. 

If Trump was not the volatile angry person he is and for whatever reason he wasn’t aware of this he would have known that The Atlantic is a credible news source. He would have had the reporter who asked the question carefully explain to him what was reported in the story. 

This would have put Trump in the worse than embarrassing position of having to throw some or all of his national security officials under the bus. He would have to say that they were negligent in not keeping him in the loop and that he would investigate why this top secret information was shared with the editor of The Atlantic.

Everyone so far is talking about other aspects of this story. I suggest we all look at this possibly being this is the strongest evidence to date that he may have dementia.

Read my previous Substacks.

The president's preening narcissism, again! By Hal M. Brown

Please go to Substack to read this with the photos by clicking here.  

This is unformatted. It is always best to read my posts on Substack.

For this essay click here or below. Please consider subscribing to my free Substack

This is what Trump posted on Truth Social at 5:26 PM last night. Here’s the text: "Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before. The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older. In any event, I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one, but many people from Colorado have called and written to complain. In fact, they are actually angry about it! I am speaking on their behalf to the Radical Left Governor, Jared Polis, who is extremely weak on Crime, in particular with respect to Tren de Aragua, which practically took over Aurora (Don’t worry, we saved it!), to take it down. Jared should be ashamed of himself!"

 This is making the news both in Colorado and around the country. Below, from, Colorado Poltics: This is from Time: It is making news in the homeland of the artist. This is from the British publication The Telegraph. Here’s the painting of Barack Obama: One might think that this is more than merely Trump resenting that President Obama’s picture seems to show him looking better than he does. Could it be that deep, deep, down in the murky morass of Trump’s unconscious he is jealous of the president who he calls Barack Hussein Obama? This is the dictionary definition of preen: (of a bird) straighten and clean its feathers with its beak: robins preened at the pool's edge | [with object] : the pigeon preened her feathers. • (of a person) devote effort to making oneself look attractive and then admire one's appearance: adolescents preening in their bedroom mirrors. • (preen oneself) congratulate or pride oneself: it did not prevent them from preening themselves on their achievement. The first person to use the term “preening narcissism” to describe Trump in an article was Pulitzer Preze winning columnist Jennifer Senior (Wiki profile) writing for The New York Times. It was in this article written during the pandemic: President Trump Is Unfit for This Crisis. Period. His narcissism is a grave danger to our health. The article was illustrated with a photo with this caption: President Trump boarding Air Force One in Florida on Monday. Reports over the weekend said the White House overruled government health officials who wanted to advise older people against flying. I was struck by one term in what she wrote, in bold below: And of course, it was at that same news conference that Trump infamously said, “I like the numbers being where they are,” in explaining why he was reluctant to let passengers, some of whom have tested positive for the virus, off the Grand Princess cruise ship floating off California (it has since been given permission to dock in Oakland). That news conference was, to me, the most frightening moment of the Trump presidency. His preening narcissism, his compulsive lying, his vindictiveness, his terror of germs and his terrifying inability to grasp basic science — all of it eclipsed his primary responsibilities to us as Americans, which was to provide urgent care, namely in the form of leadership. It’s preposterous for Trump to resist determining how widespread this epidemic is. Yet right now, the United States isn’t reporting how many people have been tested; the C.D.C. pulled the number from its website. Late last week, an extraordinarily detailed article by The Atlantic, counting state by state, put that number at only 1,895. In South Korea, the number was more than 140,000. (Which Trump dismissed as “sampling.” It was not. It was testing, straight and simple.) I wrote about Senior calling Trump a preening narcissist and posted it in Daily Kos: Trump was captured in one paragraph and one catchphrase by NY Times OpEd writer Jennifer Senior This is the illustration I made for this: What I wrote there had no particular content which was original with me. I just wanted to share her use of the term “preening narscisst” because it was the first I’d heard it and it described one aspect of Trump so well. It turned out that of the 1,700 pieces I posted on Daily Kos this one received the most recommendations (471) and it had 188 comments. I also wrote: "Don't rain on my pomade" president, the pathetic preening narcissist is getting his due with this illustration: I discovered this in this RawStory article: 'Nobody likes a bad picture of themselves': Trump rages that Obama painting is 'wonderful'. RawStory used a bad picture of Trump to illustrate this article: The least noxious and dangerous part of Trump’s narcissism is that it has to do with his appearance. If only he was just a strutting peacock dispalying his feathers or a crowing rooster ruling and impregnating all the chickens in a henhouse. Put another way, Trump thinks he is the cock of the walk. The origins of this idiom are somewhat unclear, but it’s believed to have originated in rural England during the 18th century. At that time, cockfighting was a popular pastime among farmers and other working-class people. The winner of each fight was considered to be the “cock of the walk,” or the top rooster in the pecking order. Trump, if he believed in God, would think he was God’s gift to women because he’s such a hunka burning love. Trump’s has many other characteristics besides narcissism that makes him the most dangerous president in history. I wrote about this here: Sadists ® U.S: Trump and The Dark Tetrad, By Hal M. Brown It should be obvious that Trump is an example of someone who has all of the traits of The Dark Tetrad: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and sadism The most dangerous aspect of his narcissism looked at in isolation is that he believes he knows more about everything than anybody else. He has said that he has the biggest brain which to him means he is more intelligent than anybody else. He has surrounded himself with toadies who have far more knowledge in their areas of expertise than he does, but when Trump doesn’t agree with them they disagree with him at their peril.  

Addendum: 

 This was one of the comments I posted on my Daily Kos piece: Michael D'Antonio, the author of the book "Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success" and co-author with Peter Eisner of "The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence." wrote: ...the problem is not so much the President's overweening self-regard but his inability to recognize the needs of others. This problem, invariably a characteristic of the truly narcissistic... In the current crisis, the problem is not so much the President's overweening self-regard but his inability to recognize the needs of others. This problem, invariably a characteristic of the truly narcissistic, makes it difficult if not impossible for someone to put others first. In families, it can be evidenced by the parent who buys himself a new car when the rent is overdue. In countries, it is seen when a leader can't seem to see what people need in a moment of crisis. Whether he's throwing paper towels into a crowd amid death and devastation in Puerto Rico or mocking victims of sexual assault, Trump has shown himself to be callous with enough regularity that he has taught us to cringe when we see him in a moment where concern for others is required. Remember how he joked about crowd sizes when he visited a hospital after a mass shooting in El Paso? How about the time, at the beginning of his term, when he stood at a memorial for fallen intelligence officers and bragged about his own intellect? Compassion, which is the opposite of narcissism, is as essential to the presidency as any trait and presidents of both parties have shown it often. We all remember the moving responses from Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing, George W. Bush after the attacks of 9/11 and Barack Obama after the Charleston church shooting. It is something we have relied on from our leaders. It is also the piece so often missing from Trump's response to difficult times. This is the man, who, a Huffington Post video showed, needed an emotional cheat sheet for a meeting with survivors of school shootings. That the prompts encouraged him to say, "I hear you," is all the evidence we need to know that the White House staff recognizes that the President struggles when it comes to compassion.