Sundowning in America: A Series: Part IV

First, Donald Trump is a fascist, attempting to generate stochastic terrorism to scare his political adversaries and the risk-averse into not opposing him. Saying that Liz Cheney should be put in...

First, Donald Trump is a fascist, attempting to generate stochastic terrorism to scare his political adversaries and the risk-averse into not opposing him. Saying that Liz Cheney should be put in front of a firing squad doesn’t work with Liz Cheney, but it has already worked with a lot of other people. Second, the Trump Supreme Court is profoundly illegitimate and in the tank. The only question is how far they will dare to go. Third, I did not expect Trump to manage to get Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) to denounce his Madison Square Garden event. Fourth, Donald Trump could not keep Madison Square Garden filled. Fifth, yes, the idea behind that line at the event was that it would be really funny if somebody were to murder Taylor Swift…

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What more is there to say? Yes. Donald Trump is a fascist, attempting to generate stochastic terrorism to scare his political adversaries and the risk-averse into not opposing him. It doesn’t work with Liz Cheney, but it has already worked with a very large number of Republican office-holders, and a surprising—to me at least—number of plutocrats. Or should it be surprising to me?:

Donald Trump: ‘Let's put her [Liz Cheney] with a rifle standing there with [the] 9 barrels [of a firing squad] shooting at her. Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face… <bsky.app/profile/atrupa…>

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Yes, the Trumpist Supreme Court is profoundly illegitimate and in the tank. The only question is how far they will dare to go. Any more questions?:

Steve Vladeck: The Supreme Court and the 2024 Election, Part II: ‘The Court[‘s]… unexplained decision Wednesday morning… remov[ing] more than 1600 registered voters from the rolls… who, when they completed their driver’s license application, neglected to check the box identifying as a U.S. citizen, or… became naturalized citizens after moving to Virginia…. U.S. citizens—and lawfully registered voters—were removed from the rolls as part of this process; the Prince William County Registrar noted at a public hearing that he had to remove 43 voters who had previously affirmed their citizenship and had voting histories…. The court of appeals… [had] concluded that… [removing the voter] “violates basic principles of statutory construction”… [and that] judge-made constraint[s] on the equitable powers of federal courts… [are] overridden by… statute[s]…. [These] difficulties in explaining why the Fourth Circuit was wrong—are why… I [had] thought it unlikely that the Court would intervene.) We’ll never know exactly what the Court concluded…. If it’s important enough for the Court to intervene, it should be important enough for the justices to drop everything and tell us why they’re doing so…. The real concern Wednesday’s ruling raises is that the justices may be willing to intervene in a similar fashion in election-related disputes with higher stakes… <stevevladeck.com/p/106-…>

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For Trump to manage to get Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) to denounce his event is something I did not expect to see:

Heather Cox Richardson: I stand corrected. I thought this year’s October surprise was the reality that Trump’s mental state had slipped so badly he could not campaign in any coherent way.  It turns out that the 2024 October surprise was the Trump campaign’s fascist rally at Madison Square Garden, a rally so extreme that Republicans running for office have been denouncing it all over social media…

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First, Donald Trump could not keep Madison Square Garden full. Meditate on that. Ultimately, no matter how hard his campaign tried, he could not keep Madison Square Garden full. Second, Stochastic Terrorism Watch: This wasn’t the worst of his dissing of American Hispanics. And, yes, the idea is that it would be funny to murder Taylor Swift:

Danielle Kurtzleben: ‘The opening speaker at M[adison ]S[quare ]G[arden] rally, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe -- jokes included calling Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage" and saying "Travis Kelce might be the next OJ Simpson."

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I presume it is not being covered because editors are telling their reporters “it’s not really the policy” and Republican tax-policy worthies are unwilling to comment because they claim “it’s not really the policy”. But why are those things determinative?

Normative: It is so, so bizarre that the core of Trump’s policy agenda is based on just lying about how tariffs work at the most basic, 101 level imaginable. It’s not controversial. It’s not even complicated. It’s just a lie. It’s like saying income taxes are paid by leprechauns. I know he’s been lying about this for years so it’s hardly “news” but given it’s his one core policy idea other than “police state for mass deportation,” it should be a prominent feature of all coverage that it’s based on a straightforward lie. And look, it HAS to be a lie. Yes, he’s a moron. Yes, he’s not a very good businessman. But it is not possible to be in business for five decades, however ineptly, and not understand that importers pay tariffs, or that the cost gets passed on. It just isn’t…

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Is there a theory of turnout behind this? Or is it just purely the end of all pretense at repression of the id?:

David Frum: This rally seems aimed at the crucial bloc of swing voters who like Donald Trump but worry that maybe he's not quite stupid and obnoxious enough. They need him and his team to squeeze out of the tube that one last plop of stupidity and obnoxiousness…

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Wait until somebody tells Donald Trump that water is just full of hydrogen, or that gasoline makes a dandy fuel-air explosive!:

Donald Trump: The one thing I can't get used to is hydrogen. You know, you know, the story with hydrogen, it's great until it blows up, in which case you're not recognizable. Even guys, strong guys like this, they call your mom or your wife. Is it a mom or? Oh, look at that. Oh, I know them. Very wealthy parents. That's nice. You know, I know them. No, your kids wouldn't be recognizable. That's not a good thought. How's my son doing? Well he tried the new hydrogen…

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Now Donald Trump is blaming Abraham Lincoln for the US Civil War:

Donald Trump: Lincoln was probably a great president, although I’ve always said, why wasn’t that settled, y’know? it doesn’t make sense, we had a Civil War...

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If this answer were to have been given by an OpenAI chatbot in response to this prompt, OpenAI’s valuation would have collapsed:

Q: Like my fellow Americans, my grocery bill has not gone down. Everything is still so very expensive. What steps will your administration take to help American families suffering from this inflation?

Donald Trump: ‘So, you know, it’s such a great question in the sense that people don’t think of grocery. You know, it sounds like not such an important word when you talk about homes and everything else, right? But more people tell me about grocery bills, where the price of bacon, the price of lettuce, the price of tomatoes, they tell me. And we’re going to do a lot of things.

You know, our farmers aren’t being treated properly. And we had a deal with China, and it was a great deal — I never mentioned it because once covid came in, I said, that was a bridge too far because I had a great relationship with President Xi [Jinping]. And he’s a fierce man and he’s a man that likes China and I understand that. But we had a deal and he was perfect on that deal, $50 billion he was going to buy. We were doing numbers like you wouldn’t believe, for the farmer. But the farmers are very badly hurt. The farmers in this country, we’re going to get them straightened out. We’re going to get your prices down.

But you asked another question about safety and also about Black population jobs and Hispanic population in particular those two. So when millions of people pour into our country, they’re having a devastating effect on Black families and Hispanic families more than any others. I think it’s going to spread to a lot of other places.

I think it’s going to spread to unions. I think unions are going to have a big problem because, you know, employers are just not going to pay the price. They’re going to—and it’s going to be—it’s a very bad thing that’s happening.

So they’re coming in. Many are coming in from jails and prisons and mental institutions, insane asylums. That’s like, you know, step above, right? Insane asylum. And whenever I go, Hannibal Lecter, you know what I’m talking about. They always go—the fake news. That’s a lot of fake news back there, too.

They always mention—you know, it’s a way of demeaning, they say, ‘Hannibal Lecter, why would he mention?’ Well, you know why, because he was a sick puppy, and we have sick puppies coming into our country. I figured that’s a lot—that’s better than wasting a lot of words. You just say, ‘Hannibal Lecter. We don’t want him.’ But. But they always sort of say, ‘Why would he say that?’ I do it for a lot of reasons.

But I do it because we are allowing some very bad people into our country. And they’re coming as terrorists. You know, you saw the other day, last month they had the record number of terrorists. I had a month — and I love Border Patrol.

Did you see they gave me a full endorsement two days ago? Border Patrol.

The Border Patrol. And they’re great. And, you know, they want to do their job. They don’t want to let these people come in. They look at them. They can tell. They can look at somebody, say good, bad. They say what’s coming into our country now, it’s having a huge negative impact on Black families and on Hispanic families and ultimately on everybody.

And we’re going to close that border so tight. It’s going to be closed. And I said the two things I’m going to do, first, we’re going to close that border—and people are going to come in. You want people to come in. We need people to come in. People are going to come into our country legally.

You know, it’s so unfair. You have people that are waiting on a system, in a line and they’ve been waiting in this line. You know how long? For years, 10 years, 12 years and they study and they take tests. And then people come. I actually say, ‘Why don’t you just go and just come on across?’ I tell people that it’s terrible, right? I said, ‘Go out. You’re incredible.’ They say, ‘What can I do to speed up the process?’ I say, ‘You know what, go to the southern border. I’ll see you on the other side.’ It’s so unfair.

But we’re going to have them come in legally. You have to see what they have to do. They take tests on, you know, who was the first one here? What date was this? What does 1776 mean? All this stuff.

And these other people are coming in and they’re affecting the school systems and they’re affecting the hospital system. I mean, if you take a look at what’s going on in Springfield, Ohio, a town of 50,000 people, they’ve just added 32,000 people. Illegal immigrants. And we’re not going to put up with it.

And we’re going to take care of your costs are going to come down, and you’re not going to have a problem with — because the biggest problem, and I’m hearing it from Black people and to a lesser extent right now, but it’ll be the same, Hispanic people.

And I’ll tell you what, our poll numbers have gone through the roof. With Black and Hispanic, have gone through the roof. And I like that. I like that. I like that. So we’re going to take care of it. You will be — I’ll tell you, if everything works out, if everybody gets out and votes on January 5th.Or before.

You know, it used to be, you’d have a date. Today, you can vote two months before, probably three months after. They don’t know what the hell they’re doing. But we’re going to straighten it all out. We’re going to straighten that out. We’re going to straighten our election process out, too. That’s going to be important, also.

So thank you very much, darling. We’re going to get it straight.

Thank you. <readtpa.com/p/letting-trumps-words-spea…>

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