Free speech for fucking bullies

Anyone who has ever been bullied either comes to hate and oppose bullies or becomes a bully himself. The first reaction takes a certain amount of integrity and a sense of self-worth, the second, only a reflex to appear tough and hurt others before they can hurt you.

Free speech protected in the United States includes verbal bullying, lying, divulging private details about others on-line, making many kinds of threats, claiming imaginary outrages are real (Biden is a pedophile who drinks the blood of his victims, etc.) and all sorts of disgusting speech. The truth does not always prevail over such speech. Here’s today’s bit from Trump v. United States and Common Decency, part 7,582.

This is 42 year-old Huyen “Steven” Cheung, MAGA loyalist and current Trump spokesman. Here are two quotes to give you the context of his general credibility, from his Wikipedia page:

Cheung was named the spokesman of the Trump 2024 presidential campaign. After Trump was criticized in October 2023 for his statement that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” echoing language of white supremacists and Adolf Hitler, Cheung responded:

That’s a normal phrase that is used in everyday life – in books, television, movies, and in news articles. For anyone to think that is racist or xenophobic is living in an alternate reality consumed with non-sensical outrage.[40]

After Trump was criticized in November 2023 for using language of fascist dictators by referring to his political opponents as “vermin”, Cheung said:

Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.[41]

Mr. Cheung was right that the phrase “poisoning the blood” is common in books, movies, television shows and news articles … about Adolf Hitler. Fuck that fucking puto.

Here’s Heather Cox Richardson, reporting on the recent stink Trump, Cheung and others made at a recent transgressive campaign photo op at Arlington National Cemetery that involved at least one member of Trump’s entourage shoving a female employee of Arlington National Cemetery who politely tried to prevent the forbidden campaign photo op. An Army spokesperson defended the professionalism of the employee, who although abruptly pushed aside avoided further disruption.

Spoiler, Trump spokesman Huyen Cheung graciously claimed that the Arlington National Cemetery employee shoved aside “was clearly suffering from a mental health episode”.

Heather:

A statement from the Arlington National Cemetery reiterated: “Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign. Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”

Republican vice presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio first said there was a “little disagreement” at the cemetery, but in Erie, Pennsylvania, today he tried to turn the incident into an attack on Harris. “She wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up?” Vance said. “She can go to hell.” Harris has not, in fact, commented on the controversy. 

VoteVets, a progressive organization that works to elect veterans to office, called the Arlington episode “sickening.”

In an interview with television personality Dr. Phil that aired last night, Trump suggested that Democrats in California each got seven ballots and that he would win in the state if Jesus Christ counted the votes. As Philip Bump of the Washington Post pointed out today, Trump has always said he could not lose elections unless there was fraud; last night he suggested repeatedly that God wants him to win the 2024 election.  

source

Heather, in a follow-up posted early this morning:

And now the U.S. Army has weighed in on the scandal surrounding Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery for a campaign photo op, after which his team shared a campaign video it had filmed. The Army said that the cemetery hosts almost 3,000 public wreath-laying ceremonies a year without incident and that Trump and his staff “were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and [Department of Defense] policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.” 

It went on to say that a cemetery employee “who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside…. This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the… employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked. [Arlington National Cemetery] is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation’s fallen deserve.” 

“I don’t think I can adequately explain what a massive deal it is for the Army to make a statement like this,” political writer and veteran Allison Gill of Mueller, She Wrote, noted. “The Pentagon avoids statements like this at all costs. But a draft dodging traitor decided to lie about our armed forces staff, so they went to paper.”

source

American hero, to millions…

From the great Heather Cox Richardson

And then, this evening, Quil Lawrence and Tom Bowman of NPR explained the story behind the surprising photos of Trump on Monday giving a thumbs-up over a grave in Arlington National Cemetery. The reporters wrote that “[t]wo members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff had a verbal and physical altercation Monday with an official” at the cemetery, where “[f]ederal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities.” When a cemetery official tried to prevent Trump campaign staff from entering the section where the grave was located, “campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside.” A Trump campaign spokesperson said the official who tried to prevent the staff from holding a political event in the cemetery was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.” 

The elephant in the room these days is that most Republicans, along with many pundits, are pretending that Trump is a normal presidential candidate. They are ignoring his mental lapses, calls for authoritarianism, grifting, lack of grasp on any sort of policy, and criminality, even as he has hollowed out the once grand Republican Party and threatens American democracy itself.

It’s hard to look away from the reality that the Republican senators could have stopped this catastrophe at many points in Trump’s term, at the very least by voting to convict Trump at his first impeachment trial. At the time, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, “Out of one hundred senators, you have zero who believe you that there was no quid pro quo. None. There’s not a single one.” Republican senators nonetheless stood behind Trump. “This is not about this president. It’s not about anything he’s been accused of doing,” then–majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told his colleagues. “It has always been about November 3, 2020. It’s about flipping the Senate.”

When the Framers wrote the Constitution, they did not foresee senators abandoning the principles of the country in order to support a president they thought would enhance their own careers. Assuming that lawmakers would jealously guard their own power, the Framers gave to the members of the House of Representatives the power to impeach a president. To the members of the Senate they gave the sole power to try impeachments. They assumed that lawmakers, who had just fought a war to break free of a monarch, would understand that their own interests would always require stopping the rise of an authoritarian leader. 

But the Framers did not foresee the rise of political partisanship. 

In the modern era, extreme partisanship has led to voter suppression to keep Republicans in power, the weaponization of the filibuster to stop Democratic legislation, and gerrymandering to enable Republicans to take far more legislative seats than they have earned. The demands of this extreme partisanship also mean that members of one of the nation’s major political parties have lined up behind a man whom, were he running this sort of a campaign even ten years ago, they would have dismissed with derision. 

Finally, devastatingly, the partisanship that made senators keep Trump in office enabled him to name to the Supreme Court three justices. Those three justices were key to making up the majority that overturned the nation’s fundamental principle that all people must be equal before the law. In July 2024 they ruled that unlike anyone else, a president is above it.  

In May 2016, South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham famously observed: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.”

source

Free Speech, Nazi style

Free speech is crucial to informed debate in a democracy. Without the right to freely exchange ideas, to speak and write freely without government prosecution, we’re pretty much done as a democracy.

Totally free speech is a double edged sword, of course, since Nazis and Klansmen are as free as anyone else to speak publicly as they see fit. Our First Amendment prevents the government from making any law infringing our right to say or write pretty much anything we want (unless we are actively causing violence). It reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

They do this in a manner that is much clearer and more unmistakable than, say, in the Second Amendment which reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Aside from the use of the passive voice, and the context of a well regulated militia (conveniently omitted by most gun lovers), the gun amendment is much more squishy and subject to interpretation as to regulation than the freedom of religion, speech, the press and our right to peacefully assemble amendment.

Tech giant Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who famously told his executives that “you go to the mat” if the government tries to regulate Facebook in any way, spoke out recently (in a letter to pugnacious dickhead Jim Jordan, no less) against pressure he claims to have received from the Biden administration to monitor and flag pernicious lies that spread virally on Facebook.  Zuckerberg’s position is the same as virtually any working billionaire’s — you do whatever is necessary to prevent any government action that can lessen your profits, even by a penny.

Note the elegance of that Fox headline: Zuckerberg “admits” Biden is persecuting him and trying to force him to censor Americans.

Biden responded that he was asking all social media giants to behave as responsible citizens by flagging harmful lies that kill people. Facebook was among tech giants that allowed, among other things, countless viral videos touting the alleged harmfulness of the Covid vaccine that Trump fast-tracked with Operation Warp Speed. Biden pointed out that the deadly Covid pandemic is now only killing the unvaccinated. How much money would it cost Zuckerberg to post warnings on deadly lies embraced by millions because they show up over and over in a social media feed?

Who gives a fuck?

Free speech isn’t free, of course. It has to be fought for, against a formidable enemy — the brutal, incendiary, viral lie — as powerful as free speech itself.

When the government attempts to curb lies, powerful liars are outraged. They cite their right to say whatever they please, as guaranteed by the First Amendment. Unfettered free speech, particularly when it goes viral, is supremely useful for climbing to power. Once in power, Nazi free speech is famously whatever the fucking Fuhrer, and his handlers, say it is.

In late April [2022], the Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of the Disinformation Governance Board, whose mission would be recommending best practices to counter disinformation related to homeland security. The head of this board, Nina Jankowicz [1], was cyberbullied until she resigned. Operations of the board were promptly “suspended”. As far as I’m aware, the cyberbullies prevailed.

Biden subsequently opened an office, the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse, to combat the pernicious threat of vicious “social media” and specifically to police cyberbullies who make gender-based attacks. Not much has been reported about the task force since it was launched with some fanfare in June of 2022.

Now Zuckerberg is bitching again about his right to be the number one richest man in history, which, weighed against the health of our Nazi besieged democracy, is the only thing that counts to a billionaire who, by definition, can never have enough.

I’ll leave you with an example of free speech from the New York Times. See if you can spot the difference in these two paragraphs, the lead paragraph in a recent article about “MAGA jurisprudence” (an oxymoron if there ever was one).

As for freedom of the press, so necessary to protect democracy that the founders chose to protect the press in the First Amendment, they have a right to publish any opinion they choose, even in news articles. I’ve tweaked one sentence in this New York Times first paragraph to make it more accurate. See if you can spot the sentence I fixed:

The Supreme Court term that ended this summer delivered a number of big wins for traditional conservative causes. The court made it easier to challenge federal regulations. It made it harder to prosecute former presidents who commit crimes while in office. And it delivered another decision that expanded the rights of gun enthusiasts.

The original:

The Supreme Court term that ended this summer delivered a number of big wins for traditional conservative causes. The court made it easier to challenge federal regulations. It made it harder to prosecute former presidents. And it delivered another decision that expanded the rights of gun enthusiasts. 

Let’s leave aside that the editorial frame of “traditional conservative causes” is a poor description of these truly radical, reactionary decisions.

“It made it harder to prosecute former presidents” is a true statement, as far as it goes. A more accurate statement, one that better informs and underscores the revolutionary nature of the Supreme Court’s radical rightwing decision in Trump v. United States is: “It made it harder to prosecute former presidents who commit crimes in office.”

Freedom of fucking speech, sisters and brothers, mind that shit carefully.

[1] She gives examples of free speech she was treated to while heading the Disinformation Governing Board:

And then beyond that, there were calls to create deepfake pornography of me and then the violent threats, which were numerous. And I was reporting at least one a day to the department for the three weeks that this campaign was going on before I resigned – things like, go hang yourself, you leftist, C-word. You’re the new Goebbels; will you meet the same end? Of course, Goebbels killed himself. One person said, this is a hill to die on; get ready – we will not tolerate this. And this, to me, seems to have come directly from a tweet that Representative Lauren Boebert sent out saying that this was Stalinist or Mao level, and this was a hill to die on, so directly echoing her language and the threat. People saying, you will regret this. Kill yourself, you subhuman sack of S-word. You and your F-ing family should be sent to Russia to be killed. Hey – I don’t know how to describe this word, a pejorative for a woman – quit And then beyond that, there were calls to create deepfake pornography of me and then the violent threats, which were numerous. And I was reporting at least one a day to the department for the three weeks that this campaign was going on before I resigned – things like, go hang yourself, you leftist, C-word. You’re the new Goebbels; will you meet the same end? Of course, Goebbels killed himself. One person said, this is a hill to die on; get ready – we will not tolerate this. And this, to me, seems to have come directly from a tweet that Representative Lauren Boebert sent out saying that this was Stalinist or Mao level, and this was a hill to die on, so directly echoing her language and the threat. People saying, you will regret this. Kill yourself, you subhuman sack of S-word. You and your F-ing family should be sent to Russia to be killed. Hey – I don’t know how to describe this word, a pejorative for a woman – quit your job before we destroy your life. Everything you’ve ever cared about will be taken from you. And you’re nothing but a freaking liar. And you’re going to pay for it with a heavy price, you stupid B-word, before we destroy your life. Everything you’ve ever cared about will be taken from you. And you’re nothing but a freaking liar. And you’re going to pay for it with a heavy price, you stupid B-word. That’s just a few of them. (source)

Damaged souls replicate themselves!

My father, I learned late in his life (and not from him) was the victim, from infancy, of his mother’s uncontrollable, violent temper. His mother’s lifelong brutality left him unable to trust anyone, including his own children. He fought us every night at the dinner table, cursed, insulted and undermined us. It was all he could do when he felt under attack. He was always on guard against threats to his fragile sense of wellbeing.

My sister and I suffered greatly under his childishness. He had the emotional resilience of a two-year old and the agile intellect of a skilled prosecutor, a daunting combination. His genius was his ability to calmly and persuasively reassure those he abused that he was motivated only by love and that any misunderstanding, while understandable, was not his fault in any way. In the end, he convinced my sister, who had dubbed him the Dreaded Unit (DU), of his sincere and unalterable love, in spite of his frequent angry overreactions.

My sister told me, not long after her son was born, that she was the DU. “I’m the DU,” she said nonchalantly at the Dunkin’ Donuts where we were having coffee. I reacted with alarm, telling her that as the mother of two young children she needed to fix that, get help to make necessary changes for the better.

“Being the DU means you can’t change,” she said.

Her answer, it took me decades to understand, was completely true. If you have experienced trauma and humiliation and adjusted to this by becoming a strong person who can never be wrong, never be questioned, that’s all she wrote as far as positive change in your future.

These monsters, these dreaded units, replicate themselves before they die. They leave behind the same exact monstrosity that harmed and haunted them for their entire life. They recreate themselves in their children, and then they die. Talk about a hellish vision of hopelessness.

Getting enough sleep

Sleep deprivation, as every dark site practitioner of “enhanced interrogation” knows, is the ultimate torture. Deprive the most well-trained partisan torture resister in the world of sleep for long enough and you will eventually break them in half, even as you render them insane. Being unable to sleep night after night, for whatever reason, will rob you of optimism and eventually destroy you.

On the other hand, a good night’s sleep is the best medicine. When you wake up after enough sleep your day starts off better, your mood is lighter. Get enough sleep day after day and your faith in the goodness of life and a large range of possibilities returns.

Of course, all bets are off when it comes to psychopaths. They may be insomniacs or machines that sleep exactly eight hours a night. What’s the difference?

Project 2025 = Gleichschaltung

Wikipedia:

The Nazi term Gleichschaltung (German pronunciation: [ˈɡlaɪçʃaltʊŋ] ⓘ) or “coordination” was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler — leader of the Nazi Party in Germany — successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society “from the economy and trade associations to the media, culture and education”.[1] 

Although the Weimar Constitution remained nominally in effect until Germany’s surrender following World War II, near total Nazification had been secured by the 1935 resolutions approved during the Nuremberg Rally, when the symbols of the Nazi Party and the state were fused (see Flag of Nazi Germany) and German Jews were deprived of their citizenship (see Nuremberg Laws). The tenets of Gleichschaltung also applied to territories occupied by the Nazis. . .

. . .  Another measure of Nazi Gleichschaltung was the enactment of the “Law for the Restoration of a Professional Civil Service” (7 April 1933), which mandated the “co-ordination” of the civil service – which in Germany included not only bureaucrats, but also schoolteachers and professors, judges, prosecutors, and other professionals – at the federal, state and municipal level, and authorized the removal of Jews and Communists from these positions, with limited exceptions for those who had fought in the First World War or had lost a father or son in combat.[19] . . .

. . . With Reich President von Hindenburg fatally ill, the Reich government enacted the “Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich” (1 August 1934). This law was signed by the entire Reich cabinet. It combined the office of Reich President with that of Reich Chancellor under the title of “Führer and Reich Chancellor,” and was drawn up to become effective on the death of the Reich President, which occurred the next day. Again, this flagrantly violated Article 2 of the Enabling Act, which forbade any actions interfering with the office of the Reich President. With this law, Hitler became not only Germany’s head of state, but also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.[32] 

It also removed the last remedy by which Hitler could be legally removed from office, and with it all checks on his power.

source

And of course:

One of the most critical steps towards Gleichschaltung of German society was the introduction of the “Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda” under Joseph Goebbels in March 1933 and the subsequent steps taken by the Propaganda Ministry to assume complete control of the press and all means of social communication. This included oversight of newspapers, magazines, films, books, public meetings and ceremonies, foreign press relations, theater, art and music, radio, and television.[37] To this end, Goebbels said:

[T]he secret of propaganda [is to] permeate the person it aims to grasp, without his even noticing that he is being permeated. Of course propaganda has a purpose, but the purpose must be concealed with such cleverness and virtuosity that the person on whom this purpose is to be carried out doesn’t notice it at all.[38]

This was also the purpose of “co-ordination”: to ensure that every aspect of the lives of German citizens was permeated with the ideas and prejudices of the Nazis. From March to July 1933 and continuing afterward, the Nazi Party systematically eliminated or co-opted non-Nazi organizations that could potentially influence people. Those critical of Hitler and the Nazis were suppressed, intimidated, or murdered.[10]

Every national voluntary association, and every local club, was brought under Nazi control, from industrial and agricultural pressure groups to sports associations, football clubs, male voice choirs, women’s organizations—in short, the whole fabric of associational life was Nazified. Rival, politically oriented clubs or societies were merged into a single Nazi body. Existing leaders of voluntary associations were either unceremoniously ousted, or knuckled under of their own accord. Many organizations expelled leftish or liberal members and declared their allegiance to the new state and its institutions. The whole process … went on all over Germany. … By the end, virtually the only non-Nazi associations left were the army and the Churches with their lay organizations.[39]

same source

The difference between Hitler’s 37% and Donald’s

Nazis will be Nazis, tireless, fanatical, unafraid to look stupid or desperate, hellbent on avenging humiliation and dominating/humiliating/destroying all enemies. I think of them the same way I think of corporations, which, in their single-minded lust for profit above all else, are the implacable, eternal, legally-created embodiment of the narcissistic personality.

Driven by conformity to a black and white worldview that tells them who is to blame for their troubles, and proposes subjugation and destruction of these hateful enemies as the only cure for those troubles, they are not folks you can have a meaningful discussion with. They are closed minded. Our present American Nazis are the same as all Nazis anywhere, unalterably convinced of their righteousness as they support an angry maniac who calls for immediately rounding up millions and putting them into concentration camps.

The present MAGA threat (rebranded from the Tea Party, rebranded from the John Birch Society — with all of the same longtime players) must be taken seriously, particularly when so many of our 1,000 American billionaires [1] are, by inclination and self-interest, supportive of an American Hitler they can work with. They have been giving mountains of dark money to bring about a glorious white American version of the Thousand Year Reich to permanently solve, among other ills, the extreme and unfair anti-billionaire bias of commies, socialists, trade unionists, integrationists, humanists, intellectuals, fascists and other cannibalistic pedophile cucks.

I’ve been thinking about Hitler’s high water mark of support in the 1932 election, the margin that brought him to power, 37% of German voters. I always shudder to think of that same margin of angry citizens here, Trump’s diehard base. I did five minutes of painstaking internet research today that I share with you now.

In the German parliamentary system in 1932 it took 305 votes to gain a majority. At the peak of the fascist party’s electoral power, in 1932, the Nazis got 37% of the vote and captured 230 seats. I keep thinking of this Nazi 37% which has got to be pretty close to Donald’s diehard support. I don’t believe that 37% of this country is in the Klan or supports American Nazism, necessarily, and though I’d be horrified to learn that such a large number of Americans hold these views, I can’t rule it out either.

The difference between Hitler’s 37% and Trumpie’s is that Hitler’s support was surging in 1932 when he got that 37%. Hitler doubled his numbers from the previous election, in percentage and number of seats in the Reichstag. Donald’s 37% is a stagnant number, he’s not gaining any new voters and he’s not doing anything to create a wave of popular support he can surf into a second term on. Check out these factors (and think of their present-day analogues here in the USA):

Nazi membership rose from 293,000 in September 1930, to almost 1.5 million by the end of 1932. The amount of papers controlled by the party rose from 49 in 1930, to 127 by 1932. Völkischer Beobachter‘s circulation rose from 26,000 in 1929, to over 100,000 in 1931.[5]

Joseph Goebbels was placed in charge of the Nazi’s propaganda and campaign in 1930.[6] Goebbels’ staff was expanded and his role formalized by the Reich Propaganda Directorate (RPL) in 1931.[5] In prior elections the Nazis relied on membership dues, but started receiving financial support from businesses in 1932.[7] The ban on the Sturmabteilung and Schutzstaffel was lifted by Papen, against the pleas of state governments, in exchange for Nazi tolerance of his cabinet.[8]

source

Consolidation of mass media and the market share controlled by right-wing and right-wing friendly corporate forces in the US. — check. An organized propaganda campaign, based on outrageous and infuriating lies that have been disproven many times over — check. The vigorous, secretive support by “businessmen” who in many cases inherited vast fortunes — check.

The one thing they don’t have at the moment is a rising tide of voter support. Which is worrisome in another way — it increases the likelihood of organized chicanery, with proven MAGA extremist fucking Mike Johnson in position to help his master if the MAGA state legislatures who have changed the rules and closed ranks behind MAGA can’t swing the Electoral College their way in the handful of states that decide presidential elections. The fucking Electoral College, a wonderful vestige of the Founding Fathers’ deal with pious Christian enslavers…

[1] I exaggerate, there are just over 800 of these insatiable parasites:

Much of the gains [on the billionaire wealth list] come from the top 20, who added a combined $700 billion in wealth since 2023, and from the U.S., which now boasts a record 813 billionaires worth a combined $5.7 trillion.

source

[2] A few of MAGA Mike’s greatest hits:

The legal brief that Johnson submitted along with 125 of his fellow House Republicans, claimed that “unconstitutional irregularities involved in the 2020 presidential election cast doubt upon its outcome and the integrity of the American system of elections.”

Hours after the January 6, 2021, insurrection was quelled, when Republicans objected to the Democratic electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania, Johnson voted for the objection, which would’ve deprived Biden of 36 electoral votes that he legitimately won.

On the House floor – the scene of an armed standoff, mere hours earlier, between police officers and the pro-Trump mob – Johnson inaccurately claimed there had been  a “usurpation” of authority by judges who changed voting rules in 2020. (In truth, as the Supreme Court later affirmed, judges have the power to review state election laws.)

The longshot bid to nullify the results from Arizona and Pennsylvania, which would’ve disenfranchised 10.3 million voters, was defeated by a bipartisan majority of lawmakers.

source

The Beer Hall Putsch, redux

In 1923 Hitler and a mob of angry, violent, armed supporters in Munich attempted to seize control of Germany in a riot known as the Beer Hall Putsch [1].  The attempted revolution failed, fifteen Nazis were killed along with four policeman and a bystander.   The failed coup made Hitler an international star, thanks to endless speeches he was allowed to make during his trial, the right wing press in Germany and a sympathetic judge who sentenced him to five years for treason and ultimately had him serve nine months.  During that gestation period Hitler lived as a guest of the state, dictated his infamous autobiography to two co-conspirators and changed tactics.  Now he would sway public opinion by pioneering and perfecting Nazi propaganda, relentless, organized, incendiary lies to inspire fear and hatred, come to power legally, and become the Adolf Hitler of destiny.

Ten years of hard work later the Nazi motherfucker and his party won just over 37% of the vote, made a coalition with old school German reactionaries who believed they could  control Hitler, and the rest, as they say, is history.  Germans wouldn’t have to vote again during the twelve long years of the Thousand Year Reich.  Shortly after being named chancellor Hitler watched the Reichstag, the German parliament, go up in flames.  Invoking the Enabling Act of the Weimar constitution he seized emergency powers.  He had opponents beaten, imprisoned, tortured and killed.  He had German society reorganized so that only Nazis held positions of power and respect.  Six years later he invaded Poland, beginning the world war he accused the Jews of arranging.

My point is that Nazis tirelessly play the long game. It is the same with super-wealthy American reactionaries who would be very happy with a compliant dictator to enforce their privileges in perpetuity.

What do you need to make sure your power will be absolute and eternal in a democracy controlled by “majoritarian tyranny”? Select a super-majority of the nine judges who decide the limits of democratic power and individual rights.

How do you gain control of the Supreme Court? Create a well-funded right wing judicial fraternity, as part of a network of influential public relations outfits, recruit bright young reactionaries in law school, get them good jobs, promote them, have them appointed to the federal courts whenever possible. These right wing judges will in turn hire younger fraternity brothers and be promoted themselves. Eventually, through parliamentary chicanery, six of these ideologically pure members of the glorious society will be in place on the nation’s highest court to make rulings that support their patrons and render government oversight and freedom for most people vestiges of a failed experiment.

Perfect Donald and his followers are of great use to this reactionary movement. He has the Hitlerian charisma, to his followers, to dominate corporate media and garner tens of millions of votes. More important, he has no real ideas about anything except aggrandizing himself. Write him a detailed plan that makes him dictator and he’s good. He wants to be dictator, even if only on day one and he is a corrupt “transactional” man willing to compromise on any belief for a price and in order to “win”.

A popular TV savvy Nazi motherfucker with corporate media fawning over his every demented pronouncement, Donald really is a great figurehead for Charles Koch and friends, no matter how much many of them might detest him personally. If you’re a fascist by nature you work with the Hitler history gives you, I suppose. It is also wonderful (to the Kochtopus) that the New York Times and other respected news brands hold two standards, one for America’s favorite semi-coherent Nazi fuck, another much higher one for anyone who opposes him. Here’s the Grey Lady today, number one headline going into the Democratic convention:

Way down the page we read:

God bless these United Shayssssh.

What, me worry?

[1] Wikipedia:

The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,[1][note 1] was a failed coup d’état by Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff and other Kampfbund leaders in Munich, Bavaria, on 8–9 November 1923, during the Weimar Republic. Approximately two thousand Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle, in the city centre, but were confronted by a police cordon, which resulted in the deaths of 15 Nazis, four police officers, and one bystander.[2][3]

Hitler escaped immediate arrest and was spirited off to safety in the countryside. After two days, he was arrested and charged with treason.[4]

The putsch brought Hitler to the attention of the German nation for the first time and generated front-page headlines in newspapers around the world. His arrest was followed by a 24-day trial, which was widely publicised and gave him a platform to express his nationalist sentiments. Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison,[note 2] where he dictated Mein Kampf to fellow prisoners Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess. On 20 December 1924, having served only nine months, Hitler was released.[5][6] Once released, Hitler redirected his focus towards obtaining power through legal means rather than by revolution or force, and accordingly changed his tactics, further developing Nazi propaganda.[7]