When someone is true to themselves, it doesn’t automatically mean they’re a good person. You can be authentic and an asshole – just look at Donald Trump.
There’s a strange phenomenon in the MAGA world where authenticity trumps character, where how Trump talksis more important than what he’s saying.
That’s why we see Trump supporters laugh and applaud at all the crass crap spewing from that moron’s mouth – to them, it’s like sitting next to their racist buddy at their favorite bar. It speaks to how shallow and lazy a large portion of the American electorate has become – that a simplistic view of Trump’s authenticity resonates more than his utter lack of substance and character.
I can hear the twang of a Trump supporter now: “That Arnold Palmer schlong story was hilarious; that guy has my vote.”
Since the 2024 VP debate, we’ve all watched JD Vance sidestep whether Trump lost the 2020 election. Most recently, Vance was asked five separate times in the same interview but refused a yes or no answer.
Anyone with an iota of intelligence understands that JD Vance knows Trump lost but was instructed never to say it. Trump won’t allow any of his people to utter the word “loser” when talking about him—he’s too fragile. So, like the good soldier, JD refused to answer, sidestepping more than Al Jolson and Fred Astaire in a game of dodgeball.
Yesterday, Vance got a message from his boss that sidestepping wasn’t cutting it and to fall in line with the election denial. So, when asked AGAIN if Trump lost the 2020 election, he said “No,” which we all know is complete bullshit.
How do we know it’s complete bullshit? Because it’s been almost 4 years since the votes for the 2020 election were tabulated, litigated, and re-tabulated, yielding the same result – an overwhelming victory in the popular vote and electoral college by Joe Biden, with no evidence of vote rigging or cheating, in what the lead Trump election official called the fairest election in a generation and in which Trump’s attorney general called Trump’s assertions of a stolen election “total bullshit.”
Zero evidence that Trump won.
If I were a reporter, I’d follow up with JD Vance and ask why he has refused to answer the question for the last several weeks. Why didn’t he say “No” the first time he was asked? Now that JD Vance has officially joined the Election Deniers club, I would press him to explain precisely why he thinks Trump won. What evidence does he have to come to his conclusion?
It was almost comical watching JD Vance refusing to answer the question about Trump’s 2020 loss because we all understood (to an extent) the Vance Dance – He didn’t want to piss off his boss by being honest, so, sidestep shuffle-shuffle, sidestep, no answer.”
Embracing the lie is anything but comical because it shows us that JD Vance cannot be trusted with the most basic of things: facts, math, counting, and recounting.
If he denies something so clear and definitive, how can he be trusted to be truthful to the American people?
Everyone knows Donald Trump can’t be trusted—that if he loses AGAIN, he’ll refuse to accept the result. Some of us might have had an inkling of hope for Vance—that when faced with basic math that proved he and Trump came out on the short end of the election, he would man up and say, “We lost.” That hope is now gone with his one-word answer, “No,” and it’s the biggest reason to vote against this ticket.
Vance’s election denial is the latest example of the public humiliation by association that anyone close to Trump goes through. The cowardice of simply going along to get along will stick to Vance long after the stench of Trump fades.
It’s challenging to poll the minds of Republican voters in 2024.
Some are undoubtedly embarrassed their party re-nominated an incompetent, narcissistic, and megalomaniacal liar who they deeply regret voting for in 2016 and AGAIN in 2020 and will no way in hell vote for again in 2024.
Others wobble on a farcical fence of feeling that says they must vote Republican because they are Republican, even though their candidate has long abandoned Republican principles in favor of authoritarianism.
There are large sacks of numb-nuts incapable of independent and critical thought who still believe the 2020 election was stolen and will undoubtedly vote for the orange jack-wagon again.
And then all those barely closeted racists who won’t openly say they’re voting for Trump for fear of being publicly shamed, but deep down in their black hearts, have every intention of doing so.
Tough to quantify that fuck-tangled mess, even with the best polling in place.
Trump and Trumpism get their sustenance at the intersection of blind ambition and intellectual vapidity, as demonstrated most recently by the former President’s racist remarks about immigrants eating the pets of people who live in Springfield, Ohio.
More telling than the remark itself was Trump’s justification for making it on the debate stage in front of 67 million viewers:
“I saw a guy say it on TV.”
Nothing exemplifies the festering rot of politics in America more than that statement by former president Trump, which dovetails beautifully into the Murdochian decline of American news media and its host of shit shovelers like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingram.
Donald Trump is the embodiment of Nazi Joeseph Goebbels’s “Big Lie” messaging strategy:
If you repeat a lie or falsehood loudly and frequently enough with conviction, your audience will come to believe it, even when the facts do not support it.
America is a failing nation
Crime rates are through the roof
Inflation is the worst it’s been in the history of our country
Democrats stole the 2020 election
Haitian immigrants are eating the pets of the people who live in Springfield, Ohio
All of these statements are blatant lies that Donald Trump continues to promote and lean into.
The President’s willingness to repeat and share what he hears (regardless of validity) is strategic. When coupled with our natural inclination to glom onto stories that support preconceptions and voters’ zeal to dismiss evidence and facts they don’t like, the President’s words have a rippling and corrosive effect on social cohesion in our country.
So, when President Trump heard the unsubstantiated rumor on TV about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs, that was all the evidence he needed – A responsible candidate for President of the United States would have done their due diligence on the veracity of the rumor because sharing false stories about Haitians eating their neighbor’s pets puts the Haitian community in danger.
Donald Trump is not a responsible candidate.
President Trump shared the lie about Haitians eating cats and dogs because promoting hate of immigrants serves his interests and ambition, the same way refusing to condemn insurrectionists who stormed the capital and violently attacked police officers serves his interests and ambitions.
It’s why we can’t allow this sociopath near the white house again.
After the presidential debate last night between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the choice of who should be the next President of the United States couldn’t be clearer.
Unfortunately, nearly 40 percent of Americans will continue to disregard Trump’s incompetence, petulance, and insatiable desire for power and vote for him this November.
In the 1940’s, the greatest generation stormed the beaches of Normandy to stop fascism from spreading across Europe. This November, Gen Z Americans need to storm the polls in massive numbers to stop the spread of fascism here at home.
Gen Z voters are not facing machine gun fire, land minds, or snipers. Still, they are up against concerted voter suppression efforts, deep cynicism and apathy, and an information landscape of lies from far-right, anti-democratic, pro-Russian sources.
Voting this November to stop fascism here at home is far less dangerous and requires none of the bravery that young Americans faced on June 6th, 1944, on the beaches of Normandy – but it is no less critical in terms of what is at stake.
Kamala Harris did her job last night. She demonstrated a calm, cool, and collected understanding of the issues and exposed Donald Trump for the political and personal fraud that he is.
Now it’s up to the voters – it’s on us and (in large part the youth of America) to do their part on Election Day to keep Donald Trump from ending democracy and killing the great American experiment.
“Can you and the young lady step out of the car, please?”
The voice behind the mirrored shades was professional and pleasant, but the driver was reluctant to comply. The look of panic in his daughter’s eyes only hardened his hesitancy.
“I’m sorry, officer. Was I speeding?” the driver asks calmly, offering the officer his license and registration.
“Sir, I received a tip about your passenger’s medical condition. I need you and the young lady to exit the car NOW.”
“Daddy, please, don’t go,” the daughter implores her father, gripping her seatbelt tightly with both hands. Her knuckles are white, and her body visibly trembles.
“It’s OK, honey – just stay put.”
“Listen, officer. This girl is my daughter. She’s 13 years old. I’m her parent and legal guardian, and she is NOT getting out of this car.”
The officer takes a step back, draws his weapon, and points it at the father.
There’s a jarring change in tone as the officer’s jagged words erupt coarsely from his gravel-lined throat:
“Sir, this is your last warning—step out of the car NOW.”
“Jesus fucking Christ – what’s wrong with you?” the flinching father screams towards the officer, angrily throwing his license and registration out of the car window.
Worried and panicked, he turns to his daughter, who cannot speak – “Honey, you stay buckled – I’m going to talk with the officer.”
The father exits the car slowly – putting his hands above his head to show the officer he’s unarmed. The officer instructs him to turn and face the vehicle – before doing so, the father glances at the badge on the officer’s uniform – noticing the etching of four white crosses above and below the shield – the officer holsters his weapon, grabs the father by the back of the collar, and slams him onto the hood of the car before violently slapping handcuffs on him.
The father sees the horrified look on his daughter’s face; she wretches and vomits.
He is helpless.
“She was raped,” he growls at the officer who stands him up against the side of the car – “Six weeks ago, my baby girl was raped.”
“Not by the child in her womb,” the officer sneers callously.
“She’s a soul vessel now. Transporting her across state lines for reproductive care (the officer uses air quotes) is a crime.”
“You’re under arrest.”
Like a black and poisoned weed, the phrase “soul vessel” takes root in the father’s head. He had heard rumors about a network of like-minded Christian police officers across the United States working to enforce “God’s law,” especially as it pertained to unplanned pregnancies.
When he and his daughter worked out their visit to planned parenthood, they consciously mapped a backroads route, steering clear of major highways. “It’ll be safer this way,” he remembers assuring his daughter, whose biggest concern six weeks ago was getting the right cleats for soccer.
The officer places the defeated father in the back of the police cruiser and walks back to the car where the girl sits, still clutching her seatbelt. He opens the passenger door, reaches over her, and unbuckles the seatbelt, coldly instructing her to “exit the vehicle.”
The girl, expressionless, complies. When she gets out, he pushes her towards the back of the car, turns her harshly towards the trunk, and instructs her to place her hands on the vehicle.
The officer glances back at the father, wanting him to witness what comes next.
He takes out his Billy Club and tells the girl to spread her legs; while looking back towards her father, he gently taps the insides of her thighs, moving the club up towards her vagina. He leans into her, and she can feel the warmth of his breath on her neck. Through the stale scent of chewing tobacco and cheap cologne – he whispers, “We’ve got to keep that bun baking, little girl – that’s all that matters now.” – she turns her head in disgust.
She sees her father’s shadowy figure behind the cruiser’s tinted glass and imagines the steel edge of his restraints cutting into his wrists as he explodes in rage at the assault taking place before him. She looks past her father and notices the cruiser’s engine is still running. The tailpipe exhaust relentlessly pushes down on a patch of withering daisies—they bend and twist, but there’s no escape.
As the officer leans away to put the cuffs on the girl, she falls to the ground. He steps aside and smirks with disdain, staring momentarily at her before extending his hand. She looks up at him and sees her broken and crumpled self in the reflection of his sunglasses. She offers up her hand, her middle finger extended. The officer grabs her wrist and pulls her to her feet.
As she rises, she notices the gun in his holster, unsecured—she grabs it and is surprised at how easily it comes out. She takes one step back, points the gun at the officer, and (without hesitation) pulls the trigger.
The bullet shatters his sunglasses and tears through his left eye. Blood, shards of bone, and brain matter explode from the back of the officer’s head, spraying the soft beige dirt on the side of the road in red and pink.
The officer’s knees buckle, and he falls in a heap. The girl’s arm goes limp, and the gun falls loosely from her hand.
She walks purposefully and in silence towards the police cruiser. She passes by her father, who sits stunned, mouth agape, in the back seat—she never even glances at him. At the rear of the car, she squats down, gently pulls the daisies out of the ground, and holds them to her chest. She stands up, walks down an embankment on the side of the road to a running brook, places the flowers in the water, and watches them float away.
She retrieves the handcuff keys from the dead officer and walks to the cruiser to free her father. He hugs her immediately, but she’s unable to hug him back. Her arms hang heavy and motionless from her shoulders like slats of wood.
After a minute, she looks at him and says, “Take me away from here – there’s nothing here for me anymore. – there’s nothing.”
I listened to JD Vance this morning on Meet the Press state forcefully that Donald Trump believes abortion is a state’s rights issue – not a federal issue. Vance went on to say he understands that California’s abortion laws will be different than Ohio’s – “and that’s OK.”
Either way, both Trump and Vance believe it’s appropriate for the state to decide what kinds of reproductive health options are available to women. So, suppose you’re a woman who happens to live in a state with a total abortion ban, and you’re a victim of rape. In that case, you have no right to terminate the pregnancy – and Republican lawmakers also want to criminalize crossing state lines to get an abortion.
In a Trump / Vance America, your geography determines whether or not you have rights around reproductive care.
The Republican party used to be the party of limited government and individual freedom. That changed when religious groups became players in American politics, wielding influence by promising votes and converting religious lecterns into political pulpits. As soon as Republicans saw votes in those church pews, they began crafting legislation and policies catering to religious groups (so much for individual freedom and limited government).
Harris and Walz and the democratic party believe reproductive health decisions should always be up to the woman, regardless of the fate of geography.
If you care about individual freedom and don’t want to live in a country that says your state determines what women can and cannot do in terms of abortion care, then vote blue in November.
In Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton, he said:
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Mr. Trump said as the crowd began to boo. He quickly added: “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know” – queue July 13th, Butler, PA.
People who love Democracy and hate Donald Trump want him to just go away. They go to sleep at night hoping the twice impeached rapist and convicted felon would just die of a heart attack, stroke, or maybe a domestic “Clue-like” demise (Melania at Mara Lago with a My Pillow).
While millions let out a sigh of relief Saturday, just as many (if not more) were thinking, “A few inches to the left or right and problem solved.” – that’s where we are in this country, and we have Donald Trump to thank for it.
It’s hard to separate the attempt on Trump’s life from the divisive political discourse that coincides with the Trump / MAGA brand. Trump and his MAGA base have ushered in the idea that sometimes violence and retribution are theanswer.
In recent years, we’ve seen MAGA members of Congress posing with and filming campaign commercials with the AR-15. Marjorie Taylor Greene created campaign posters of herself posing with an AR-15 and threatening other members of Congress. We’ve seen angry citizens at town halls across America talking about taking up arms because they believe the Trump-based lie that the left stole the 2020 election.
Donald Trump has incited, condoned, and threatened violence throughout both of his candidacies and during his presidency. He has divided our country and pitted Americans against one another by lying and demonizing people along political, racial, and religious lines.
With the help of foreign adversaries, Trump has transformed the Republican party from a party that detested autocracies and dictatorships to a party that aligns with them. Trump continuously heaps accolades on dictators and authoritarians who use violence and retribution on political opponents and suppress dissent and freedom of speech. As we know from former members of Trump’s cabinet, President Trump wondered aloud, “Why not just shoot protestors in the legs?”
All of this is bound to alienate people on both the left and right. Is it any wonder that someone decided to take things into their own hands?
It’s also worth noting that a significant number of Americans connect the right to bear arms with the right to topple a tyrannical government. That message has been marketed and sold with great success – primarily by gun-loving Republicans. It’s a message that taps into our deeply held beliefs around freedom and independence. Combine that message with our lax gun laws and protected access to assault weapons, and you get what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
Whether it’s an 18-year-old incel, a deranged congresswoman from Georgia, or a registered Republican from Pennsylvania who saw Donald Trump as an existential threat to Democracy, each views guns and violence as an acceptable way to neutralize threats.
People who live by the sword die by the sword. Trump and his supporters are seeing that Trump’s loose and comfortable affiliation with violence can cut both ways – perhaps that’s what they want?
We’re approaching a tipping point in America, where we must choose between bullets or ballots.
bendingtheneedle 