219 Trump 2.0 Absolute Immunity Edition Returns as Farce: We are all Nietzscheans Now
Our long national nightmare is just beginning.
Here’s Pam Hemphill who actually admits she was wrong to join the insurrection and doesn’t want a pardon from Trump.
Once again all the worst people won on November 5 and it’s coming: in just 21 hours America will enter a Brave New World-where democracy may nor may not still be a thing. Calling it “brave” is a little ironic true with all the Cowardly Lions bending the knee for Trump. But one thing that’s undeniable is it’s Orwell’s world and we’re just living in it:
So it really doesn’t matter does it a la Kellyann Conway’s facts
Yesterday 2+2 equaled 4 as it has since the invention of math 2500 years ago or whenever it was today it equals 5 and it always has according to #MAGAUSA and you’re nuts if you don’t agree.
FN:
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen on X: “This you @charliekirk11? https://t.co/fYnQUs06X9” / X
At this point I can’t figure out if I’m going insane or America is, that the nation has come down with mass psychosis.
FN:
End FN
UPDATE:
FN:
Mehdi Hasan on X: “Former TikTok employee” / X
End UPDATE
Like it’s a FACT that Biden’s economy was superlative. But it’s just a fact and they don’t matter. The truth is whatever the Manchurian Orange King says it is at any particular moment. Nothing he said before matters, when he says the next thing at the next particular moment that will be what is, always has, and will always be true.
This is Donald Trump’s America-totalitarian kakistocracy.
Indeed, Biden proudly revealed recently that in their private conversation when Biden invited Trump to the WH-Trump hasn’t even conceded when Biden beat him in 2020 yet-Trump admitted that Biden’s economy is pretty good actually which completely contradicts what Biden and his GOP co-conspirators have siad the last four years-just as now it turns out it’s pretty hard to actually LOWER PRICES. During the election the Biden economy was the worst ever when Trump told Biden it was good at that moment it was but later when it’s convenient again it will suck again after Trump is in Office long enough to take credit for the Biden economy himself.
There are millions of people who live by this Orwellian logic. Even alleged progressives like Cenk Uygur right? I mean Trump’s a populist though he just became the 25th richest man in the world after doing his own crypto coin this weekend-that doesn’t contradict the idea Trump’s a populist. You just have to master the doublethink.
Indeed Orwellian doublethink the US version didn’t start with Trump he just perfected it. We saw during the Obama years where almost all Republicans would tell pollsters the economy sucks if the President is a Democrat. After Trump won in 2016 that changed overnight. And Democrat already starts at maybe a 60-70 percent approval rating as GOP Nation will say the economy stinks no matter what the actual material conditions.
Meanwhile all we hear is the gloating of media that the #Resistance is dead. The list of Democrats who will miss Trump’s Inaguration is much smaller this time.
From Michelle Obama to Pelosi, here’s who is skipping Trump’s inauguration – The Washington Post
There’s a lot of schadenfreude in these kind of stories like this NYT article:
The Trump Resistance Won’t Be Putting on ‘Pussy Hats’ This Time – The New York Times
For those of us NOT willing to give up or give in to “fatigue” what next?
A couple of thoughts. Regarding the possibility of a liberal-left alliance-see chapter-Kyle Kulinski and some other leftists have suggested that liberals will be abandoning MSNBC for them. There’s some truth in this-though I still watch Rachel Maddow and other late night hosts. Kyle clearly hopes maybe we #ResistanceLibs types might be moving Left.
I think in some ways this is true in other ways I feel like Kyle has come along in his own perspective in the last 4 years-since he was “Bernie or Bust” in 2020-back then he was Vaush’s foil who pushed back hard against “Bernie or Bust-ism.”
Kyle has come to see things more my way in some ways to be honest as I ALWAYS knew people like Joe Rogan-to say nothing of Jimmy Dore-were reactionaries. Remember when Kyle both sided Dore’s despicable sexual harassment of Ana Kasparian-though Ana herself ironically has gone Jimmy Dore herself ideologically the last few years?
But in some ways I would agree liberals post election are dusting off the books on class analysis again-after seeing Elon Musk buy not just Trump but evidently Mike Johonson, and Bezos completely destroying the Washington Post’s brand in a couple of weeks.
Indeed, watching Vaush the last 15 months has gotten me to acknowledge that even if as a liberal I think Marx was wrong on a number of things-certainly many of his predictions proved dead wrong-“dialectical materialism” continues to prove itself a very useful intellectual heuristic if nothing else.
Think about it. One thing that has helped Trump is because he’s such a blatant opportunist rather than an ideologue-George W Bush and Ronald Reagan were conservative ideologues-people treat him as if you can simply impute any idea or preference you want onto him. He’s kind of a Rorschach test-so you can project on him anything you want as the anti anti Trump Left loves to do-he’s ANTI WAR really-rather than in reality pro Russia.
Somehow his talk of annexing Greenland, the Panama Canal, or Canada in no way changes their belief he’s anti war anymore than the record drone strikes he dropped in his first term.
A very good example of this was an-excellent-piece Masha Gessen wrote soon after Trump’s November 5 victory.
Opinion | This Is the Dark, Unspoken Promise of Trump’s Return – The New York Times
I think they’re completely right in their central thesis.
For those bewildered by why so many Americans apparently voted against the values of liberal democracy, Balint Magyar has a useful formulation. “Liberal democracy,” he says, “offers moral constraints without problem-solving” — a lot of rules, not a lot of change — while “populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints.” Magyar, a scholar of autocracy, isn’t interested in calling Donald Trump a fascist. He sees the president-elect’s appeal in terms of something more primal: “Trump promises that you don’t have to think about other people.”
Around the world, populist autocrats have leveraged the thrilling power of that promise to transform their countries into vehicles for their own singular will. Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban vowed to restore a simpler, more orderly past, in which men were men and in charge. What they delivered was permission to abandon societal inhibitions, to amplify the grievances of one’s own group and to heap hate on assorted others, particularly on groups that cannot speak up for themselves. Magyar calls this “morally unconstrained collective egoism.”
However Masha disagrees with Magyar here and I agree with them.
Kamala Harris’s campaign, of course, tried to warn Americans about this and a lot more, labeling Trump a fascist. But Magyar describes fascist movements as “ideology driven” in a way Trump is not. Take, for comparison, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a former prime minister of Poland, who pursued severe abortion restrictions even when polls showed that those policies could cost him his office. Trump, on the other hand, campaigned against abortion rights when it suited his ends and then positioned himself as a champion of reproductive rights when the context shifted.”
I was not convinced by this distinction. To use George Orwell’s formulation, a politician’s face grows to fit his ideological mask. There is perhaps no better example of this than Vladimir Putin, once a cynic with no political convictions, who is now waging a costly, disastrous war in the name of an ideology (incoherent though it may be) of his own invention. And it’s only in hindsight that the European fascists of the 20th century appear to have been driven by coherent ideology: Many of their contemporaries described their beliefs as a hodgepodge. The Yale philosopher Jason Stanley, the author of the book “How Fascism Works,” has argued that fascists are defined less by political beliefs than by the way they do politics: by trafficking in fear and hatred of the other, by affirming the supremacy of us over them. All of which describes Trump, doesn’t it?”
I appreciate her namechecking Orwell as this is truly where we are as a nation now-the Orwellian States of America. But regarding Magyar’s argument as a point of fact it’s simply wrong that to contrast Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s severe abortion restrictions to Trump I mean that’s what Dobbs is-severe abortion restrictions! Watch that video Rick Wilson did with that guy whose wife almost died as the not so great state of Texas was refusing to even allow her to have an abortion with a DEAD FETUS hanging outside her uterus. To disallow abortion in the case of even rape or the life of the mother is about as SEVERE as it gets.
FN: Chapter Sometimes the Bad Guys Win.
But I’m not picking on Magyar just noting this is a very common take where people argue-‘ sure if he does what he says he’s going to do that would be cataclysmic but who knows maybe tomorrow he’ll change his mind.’
You see this all the time. That was a big part of how he won the election-about 15 to 20% of voters in many states voted for abortion rights AND Donald Trump-the guy who overturned abortion rights. You see this with Ukraine now where many are postulating his elecdtion will be GOOD FOR UKRAINE actually despite his record, his campaign rhetoric, and the people he’s surrounding himself with-who are almost all Russia simps.
We see this with Gaza where many are missing that Trump’s alleged imposing of a ceasefire was likely choreographed just like Reagan’s alleged freeing of the hostages in 1981 was actually the opposite-he delayed their release and I argue Trump did in his collusion with Bibi. But again we’re hearing Biden was a Zionist Trump has no beliefs but self promotion to maybe that will help the Palestinians ignoring who he’s surrounded himself with, his first term, or that or the noises we’re now hearing about Trump giving the greenlight for the Palestinians being forcibly removed from the Gaza strip-a la ethnically cleansed.
To return to abortion, many obviously fell for his gaslighting that he’s NOT going to do a national ban and that he supports exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. What this missed is that everywhere Dobbs has become law of the land there have been on such exceptions and that the head of Heritage Foundation-who Trump has nominated for his OMB Director-revealed in July 2024 he opposes ANY restrictions ut that he wasn’t worried that Trump said he did as he recognized it was just politics.
But Trump gets away with this as many people don’t think he’s really personally a forced birther pro life. And if you look at it this way that makes sense. Indeed, it was just 26 years ago that he appeared on the Howard Stern show and declared “I’m very prochoice.”
‘I’m very pro-choice’: Watch Trump’s evolving position on abortion – YouTube
So what changed? His material interests changed when he ran and won the GOP Presidential nomination. But that doesn’t mean his ideology is infinitely malleable as his material interests are to be forced birther pro life.
This was what the religious right learned-it was precisely in a profane charlatan like Trump who could take them to the promised land-it DOESN’T MATTER WHAT HE BELIEVES. So what does Trump really think about abortion? It doesn’t matter. In 1999 it was in his interest to claim to be pro life as he did business in NY. But now that he’s the Grand Wizard of the Republican party his interests have changed.
Just like on Israel there are hundreds of millions of reasons in terms of money from the Adelsons. Will he be pro Israel or pro Palestinian-follow the money. Trump always does just like in the recent dustup over HB-1 visas-he followed the money and took Elon Musk’s side.
As for class analysis for a long time I’ve somewhat ignored issues like media consolidation as what can you do about it? And honestly I didn’t always see any big problem with it. It seemed like one of the niche issues of the frustrated Marxist Leninist Left. But seeing what happened with Bezos in late October crystallized the issue for me and I suspect many liberals.
(2) This is The Contrarian – by Jennifer Rubin – The Contrarian
During Trump 1.0, Bezos had eseentially done what liberalism says he should do-he let the journalists and editors run the paper. Trump had been nagging him for years to exert editorial control but he refused-instead the Post declared Democracy Dies in Darkness. Now Bezos seems to like the darkness. What changed? A reappraisal of his material interests-Trump greatly empowered by the Supreme Court giving him Absolute Immunity could give Amazon a very hard time. So Bezos has changed his tune.
But speaking of Marxism as an excellent heuristic wether you agree with it or not I’ve come to read the 18th Brumaire of Napoleon with completely fresh eyes.
FN:
There really are some lessons in it for us shitlibs. In the idea that “history repeats itself first as tragedy then as farce.”
Hegel remarks somewhere[*] that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851[66] for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. And the same caricature occurs in the circumstances of the second edition of the Eighteenth Brumaire.”
For us it was from Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0 Absolute Immunity Edition. It’s hard to call Trump 2.0 a farce-it feels like you only have the luxury of laughing at it assuming we survive it and we don’t know if we will yet. What happened in France was truly tragic. Somehow they staged this revolution in 1848 and went from Napoleon to Napoleon.
We staged this #Resistance to Trump and then somehow America took back her abusive husband. And he didn’t even apologize-to the contrary, he’s gaslighted her into thinking she never had it so good as the Trump years.
FN: In reality it’s not this simple; the saving grace is Trump only gained 3 million votes since 2020 MAYBE that makes up for population growth maybe not. What’s become clearer even then when I wrote chapter Sometimes the Bad Guys win is that the real question is why did Democratic support collapse? They actually LOST 6 million votes-it’s figuring out where all these Democratic votes went that is key. As I suggest in Chapter Charles Johnson part of the answer might be voter suppression. While as I discussed in this chapter I was impressed by Jason Paul’s appearance on Destiny, one shortcoming is he underestimates the issue of voter suppression IMO.
Indeed, while I dismissed out of hand the idea in the immediate aftermath of November 5 that Trump stole this election I’ve been having second thoughts-and third and fourth-since. After all there were all those bomb threats at Democratic precints likely from the Russians, we do know that Russian inteferred AGAIN as they did in 2016 and 2020. Of coruse they did-Lex Fridman revealed in his Zelensky interview that Trump “is likely going to leave Nato”-how could Russia NOT want this guy again? Then there’s Elon Musk. Speaking of Elon Musk last night Trump appeared to maybe CONFESS to something?
I mean think about it when has the Republican party EVER won a fair election?
A major point of this entire book is that the GOP has stolen every election it allegedly won starting with Nixon 1968. Indeed, Daniel Ellsberg reveals that back when he was working for the US military in Vietnam they were talking about setting up free elections in Vietnam and came across Nixon who was like ‘Yeah free elections-as long as we win. Tee hee! Nod nod wink wink.’
End FN
In many ways the France of the 1848-1851 era is analogous to the 2021-2024 years.
Bourgeois revolutions, like those of the eighteenth century, storm more swiftly from success to success, their dramatic effects outdo each other, men and things seem set in sparkling diamonds, ecstasy is the order of the day – but they are short-lived, soon they have reached their zenith, and a long Katzenjammer [cat’s winge] takes hold of society before it learns to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress period soberly. On the other hand, proletarian revolutions, like those of the nineteenth century, constantly criticize themselves, constantly interrupt themselves in their own course, return to the apparently accomplished, in order to begin anew; they deride with cruel thoroughness the half-measures, weaknesses, and paltriness of their first attempts, seem to throw down their opponents only so the latter may draw new strength from the earth and rise before them again more gigantic than ever, recoil constantly from the indefinite colossalness of their own goals – until a situation is created which makes all turning back impossible, and the conditions themselves call out:
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
[Here is the rose, here dance!] [NOTE]
I’m not entirely sure who the “proletariat” are today exactly-it was much clearer in Marx’s day. According to Vaush even people who make $200 grand a year are in the proletariat-though I guess in NY that’s plausible as expensive as things are here! According to him the “Bourgeoise” aren’t the middle class but the corporate billionaire class.
But it does strike me in significant ways this sums up well the entire 2017-2024 period:
Bourgeois revolutions, like those of the eighteenth century, storm more swiftly from success to success, their dramatic effects outdo each other, men and things seem set in sparkling diamonds, ecstasy is the order of the day – but they are short-lived, soon they have reached their zenith, and a long Katzenjammer [cat’s winge] takes hold of society before it learns to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress period soberly.”
Certainly feels like we’re in this “cat’s winge” period currently.
FN:
End FN
I feel like Matt Pearce-who Remain in Hell subtweeted-is onto something. You see what I mean about the heuristic utility of Marxist analysis?
UPDATE:
Very good and illuminating observation-the war on woke is in reality the war on workers.
End UPDATE
And I have to admit I remain obsessed with the idea that Mark Cuban who has positioned himself as the Nice Billionaire for us #Resistlibs had threatened that if Kamala did Biden’s tax policy on carried interest he’d “campaign against her”-see chapter The Bad Guys Win
In that vein I have to wonder yet again is it possible that the real reason the donors were so insistent that Biden step out of the campaign were not that they were certain he couldn’t win but that they weren’t certain he couldn’t?
This tweet yesterday garnered all the usual Biden Derangement Syndrome on Xitter yesterday.
FN:
Waleed Shahid 🪬 on X: “Jesus. https://t.co/0CJes1z3WF https://t.co/WpYVb7bSwb” / X
Two questions: who was that Senator I’d really love to know? And is it possible he was lying? To be clear I don’t know that just asking. That’s the whole problem how can we really know what happened here? Many are taking the Pod Save America Obama Bros at their word they saw this poll that PROVED Biden would have lost 400 electoral votes. But they were always biased against Biden going back to 2019 so I’m a little dubious accepting this as gospel based on their word alone.
During the first Trump term liberals like me would often quote Benjamin Franklin: a Republic if you can keep it. Guess we’re going to learn a lot the next 4 years just how strong a stress test our democracy can withstand.
As the anti Nietzschean self identified communist Geoff Waite tells us: communism doesn’t promise victory only struggle. Of course, I’m not a Communist. But as Zizek says there’s something hallowing in the Lost Cause and what greater lost cause is that at this point than the cause of American liberalism? Again as I discussed in Chapter Bag Guys Win liberalism hit its nadir in 1965 and has been in a fairly consistent downward spiral ever since. Our “cat’s winge” period has been pretty long. Again I’m a Gen Xer born in 1971 and in my life time the GOP has dominated the Supreme Court the entire span-they have done since Nixon blackmailed Abe Fortas off the Court. Still the Democrats have been tepid on the filibuster of course now they’re grateful for it.
Of course, unlike Waite I’m neither a communist nor anti Nietzschean. Nietzsche and Marx though felt somewhat similarly about liberalism. He would agree with Marx’s sentiment here:
But unheroic though bourgeois society is, it nevertheless needed heroism, sacrifice, terror, civil war, and national wars to bring it into being. And in the austere classical traditions of the Roman Republic the bourgeois gladiators found the ideals and the art forms, the self-deceptions, that they needed to conceal from themselves the bourgeois-limited content of their struggles and to keep their passion on the high plane of great historic tragedy. Similarly, at another stage of development a century earlier, Cromwell and the English people had borrowed from the Old Testament the speech, emotions, and illusions for their bourgeois revolution. When the real goal had been achieved and the bourgeois transformation of English society had been accomplished, Locke supplanted Habakkuk.”
He would agree on both counts-that bourgeois society is unheroic AND that it needs ” heroism, sacrifice, terror, civil war, and national wars to bring it into being.” He made a very similar point to this in Twilight of the Idols-that liberal democracy is worth as much as the expenditure of energy we have to expend to achieve it.
“My concept of freedom.—The worth of a thing lies sometimes not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it,—what it costs us. I give an example. Liberal institutions immediately cease to be liberal, as soon as they are attained; afterwards, there are no more mischievous or more radical enemies of freedom than liberal institutions. One knows well enough what they accomplish: they undermine the will to power, they are the levelling of mountain and valley exalted into morality, they make people small, cowardly, and voluptuous,—with them the herding animal always triumphs. Liberalism: that is increased herding-animality . . . The same institutions produce quite other results as long as they are fought for; they then, in fact, further freedom in a powerful manner. On looking more accurately, we see that it is warfare which produces these results, warfare for liberal institutions, which, as war, allows illiberal instincts to continue. And warfare educates for freedom. For what is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one’s self. To keep the distance which separates us. To become more indifferent to hardship, severity, privation, and even to life. To be ready to sacrifice men for one’s cause, one’s self not excepted. Freedom implies that manly instincts, instincts which delight in war and triumph, dominate over other instincts; for example over the instincts of “happiness.” The man who has become free, how much more the spirit which has become free, treads under foot the contemptible species of well-being dreamt of by shopkeepers, Christians, cows, women, Englishmen, and other democrats. The free man is a warrior.—How is freedom measured, in individuals, as well as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort which it costs to retain superiority. We should have to seek the highest type of free men where the highest resistance is constantly overcome: five paces from tyranny, close on the threshold of the danger of thraldom.”
Locations 1271-1283
And just so. Back in August 2024 I was really shocked at how EASY it seemed after Biden dropped out and Kamala replaced him. Back then she was rising in the polls and the wind seemed totally at her back, at our back. It seemed just so easy-too easy? I wondered. Again as I discussed in Chapter Bad Guys Win I will go to the grave believing she was on her way to winning at that point before Tony West and the Consultant Brains got to her.
FN: Just like Hillary correctly said in What Happened? she was on her way to winning then James Comey happened.
End FN
And of course the Nietzschean position would be that it WAS too easy. For us to survive the next four years much less ultimately prevail will take even more than we’ve done in the past. As Maddow said post November 5: Your country needs you more than ever. Or again as Marx put it: “heroism, sacrifice, terror, civil war, and national wars to bring it into being.”
It being an actual functioning liberal democracy.
And so you see we’re being forced to think even bigger as this is an international fight against world crypto xenophobic fascism cum tech bro-ism gone mad. To speak of crypto-Trump was the runaway favorite of the crypto Bros this election and now thanks to crypto he’s now the 25th richest man in the world-so much for the good old days when the Democrats used to mock him for not being a real billionaire.
So this takes us into a very different world than that of the complacent Sensible Centrists a la Shadi Hamid for whom The End of History is nigh and There is Nothing New Under the Sun a la Fukuyama.
So NIETZSCHE might argue this COULD BE a great gift for liberalism. To be clear this will only be something we will be able to say in the future IF WE WIN. God help us if we don’t.
But I will end this chapter on this terrible morning of Trump’s inauguration MLK day with the Nietzschean gesture of thanking President Biden for his service to our nation the last four years and indeed the last 50 years. It’s Nietzschean in the sense that Nietzsche was among other things about is advocating and defending the most well slandered things. Which is what I always strive to do speaking as a Hillary Clinton Democrat…
FN:
We certainly will.
End FN
I acknowledge Biden was far from perfect. A big part of me feels that while in many ways Biden did this to himself nevertheless feels like saying Biden didn’t fail this country this country failed Biden. I feel ambivalent. In a way both these things are true-Hegelian-Marxian dialectics!
The most accurate take is once again Daphne Lawless a la Remain in Hell Without Despair:
Yes. Bernie always called Biden the most progressive President since FDR because as a child of the 60s he couldn’t’ bring himself to say LBJ.
Anyway to use another word of Geoff Waite’s Happy Decelebrating Trump’s Inauguration Day. Remember to refer to it as just MLK’s birthday. Personally this is the song I’m going to be pushing replay on today.
(114) Nine Inch Nails – The Hand That Feeds – YouTube
UPDATE: Bluesky is truly Blue electorally. After I put up my shamelessly hagiographic comment about the country failing Biden it went immediately viral. Truly Bluesky is Biden Country.
On the other hand one Bluesky denizen disagreed.
I responded that I don’t disagree with him. I kind of see it both ways.
I kind of feel both are sort of true.
But I’m focusing on the hagiographic “Biden didn’t fail the nation the nation failed Biden’ this morning precisely because it’s an entirely contrarian thing to say today-it so goes against the grain of today’s conventional wisdom-to take what as a good Nietzschean cum Zarathustrian is a contradiction in terms.
The idea that Biden failed the nation is the consensus so I’m taking the opposite position. That’s what make it Nietzschean. Always go with the contrarian take. More than ever we’ll need this particular superpower the next four years
Unlike Michael Wolff-see Chapter Charles Johnson-you have to be willing to do the hardest thing there is to do. How else do we much less democracy get through the next four years?
Be strong end encouraged Blue Nation you are the gem of the nation.
UPDATE: You knew I couldn’t stay away. This in miniature is the story of the last 7 years of why I still haven’t finished this book-there’s always something else I want to say. But happy to see Biden do some pardons on MLK day-Trump assured us he’s only going to be a dictator on Day One and it’s Day One.
Interesting to see who he’s chosen to pardon.
President Joe Biden on Monday issued preemptive pardons to potential targets of the incoming Trump administration, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and lawmakers who served on the House Jan. 6 Committee.
“Our nation relies on dedicated, selfless public servants every day. They are the lifeblood of our democracy,” Biden said in a statement just hours before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office.
“
Yet alarmingly, public servants have been subjected to ongoing threats and intimidation for faithfully discharging their duties,” Biden added.
Trump in his 2024 campaign repeatedly vowed “retribution” on his political enemies, specifically singling out lawmakers like Liz Cheney who investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump said Cheney and other committee members should be put in jail.”
So is that everyone on the J6 SC? Some people on it, notably Liz Cheney, had requested not to be pardoned. As for Miley OTOH, even Emptywheel who generally has been critical of the idea of mass pardons said that Miley is the one person whom she’d support getting a pardon. And Miley has already publicly accepted and thanks President Biden.
Fauci is interesting as while none of these folks have committed any crime there is not even the slightest pretext that Fauci did. All he did was try to be a good public servant and advise the public in a time of a great health crisis. The pretty interesting question in his case is what his crime is supposed to be other than Trump and his co-conspirators decided he’s icky.
In that vein I recently started reading RFK Jr’s 1000 page book-he’s actually written three 1000 page completely unhinged books accusing Fauci and Bill Gates of conspiring with the CIA and the Chinese government.
UPDATE: Marcy Wheeler weighs in on the pardons.
Here’s more of EW’s response:
UPDATE: Since I did the hagiographic Biden tweet-are they tweets on Bluesky?-I’ve gotten like 1000 new followers. So I put out this tweet(?)
Hey this has the convenience of not only being entirely contrarian but I TOTALLY mean it. With President Joe I mean it but also know the opposite is also kind of true. Here I’m now and will forever be #WithHer. #StillWithHer #HillaryForever. Again the more contrarian the better this is how we survive the next four years. This is why I’m appealing to Nietzsche in this chapter: for whom conventional wisdom is a contradiction in terms the “wisdom” of the herd. We have to goi against the grain as much as possible the next few years, against herd “wisdom” much less Zarathustra help us Herd “logic.”
Because this is Orwell’s world we’re just living in it. And we have to somehow keep a semblance of truth in the MAGA Matrix.
UPDATE: Happy MLK Day
(6) Christopher Webb: “He lit the path. Keep walking it—don’t stop now.” — Bluesky
UPDATE: Serious question is there a way to short Trump’s memecoin?
UPDATE: Yes
This what’s so disgusting-one of the many disgusting things-about Trumpism. Like Masha Gesen said who we quoted and linked to above it gives people a permission structure to bully marginalized people who can’t defend themselves.
UPDATE:
Mood at 11:20 on this terrible day
This “tweet” was another crowd pleaser it turns out. If only the election had been held on Bluesky… I’m up like 1600 followers since I declared Biden didn’t fail the country the country failed Biden. Big picture: I have like 14500 followers in Xitter and I’ve been there since like 2011 while I’ve been on Bluesky like a month and am closing in on 11000 already.
Just had a very interesting exchange with a friend and follower.
It’s not just their ignorance but their utter lack of empathy that makes them kind of reprehensible. And no doubt their ignorance is a function of their lack of empathy-this is what Trumpism is. It encourages people to care about nothing and no one that doesn’t effect themselves or their own family.
Kind of what Buddhism calls the Unenlightened Life. Rational ignorance
UPDATE: More capitulating in advance from Trumpland the FBI
But let’s face it for Trumpland it’s not really capitulation. Kash Patel is going to fit right in.
Meanwhile listening to Trump’s long rambling speech he’s talking up William McKinley again-his Presidency was characterized by long and deep years of recession.
Anyway I think it’s official: American Exceptionalism is over-I mean after threatening to invade Denmark it was already official really. I AM however warming up to the idea of AOC 2028
Hate to say it but the last few years of Celine Richards’ life was pretty tough kind of almost gives you Jimmy Carter vibes
1:18 pm. Serious question how is it possible to “overreact to Donald Trump?
The Brave New World aka post democratic America is here
$1 trillion dollar tariff.
They say revenge is a dish served cold so how is just 200 proof schadenfreude best served?
2:43: NOW it’s official American Exceptionalism is OFFICIALLY DEAD
Meanwhile 200 campaign promises kept for Breibart?
Trump to Sign over 200 Executive Orders on Day One — Just Like ‘The Agenda’
UPDATE: 9:13 PM
Elon Musk does a Nazi salute-the ADL says it’s not a Nazi salute that it’s just an “awkward gesture at a delicate time” but you be the judge
I mean even if it were a Nazi salute that would offend the ADL less than if someone offered a mild criticism of Israel
Even Senator Chris Murphy says it was a Nazi salute.
FN:
See also: AOC
UPDATE:
So neither Trump’s ceasefire-remember he was the guy who used all this leverage unlike Biden-or any semblance of the Rule of Law lasted one day
FN:
It all comes down to knowing your enemy.
But the big loser today is the sensible centrist rap that “you don’t want to freakout over every outrage”-I mean it’s one day and any semblance of the Rule of Law is shattered.
That’s always how it is with Trump: as bad as the biggest Cassandras amongst us-like your friendly personable author here-say it will be it’s always worse than even they fully imagine
10:12: It’s only going to get worse
(14) George Takei: “Here’s more.” — Bluesky
So he pardoned 1500 J6ers 45% who are felons, 140 police assaulted, took us out of the WHO, the Paris Climate Agreement, tried to end birthright citizenship, but lacks confidence-his words-that the ceasefire will last or that he can lower the price of eggs. Have I missed anything? Probably plenty.
UPDATE: David Baier the Director of Immigration Studies at Cato does a deep dive showing just how bad Trump’s EO declaring birthright citizenship over is. For starters it has a “Kamala Clause.”
OTOH we have the steely spines and vigilance of our Democratic Congressional leaders who aren’t going to take these unprecedented attacks on our democracy lying down. April fools!
Guys win again! In all seriousness though is there a way George Conway can run for the US Senate as a Democrat and take Chuck Schumer’s job? I mean David Bier quoted above argues Trump’s EO eliminating birthright citizenship is “an attack on American tradition, the rule of law, the Constitution, and indeed Americans themselves. He argues that “given how blatantly unconstitutional and how dangerous it is to the rights and freedoms of Americans it’s obviously unconstitutional.”
So Schumer’s response is it’s time to look to the future and talks about bipartisanship?
UPDATE: Trump also “lacks confidence” about a ceasefire in Ukraine
Kind of ironic seeing as all the Russian apologists on the MAGA Right and Tankie Left have been claiming Russia wants a ceasefire but Ukraine won’t do it because Boris Johnson didn’t let them
April Fools! Guys win again. We’re going to be seeing a lot of this the next four years. Charlie Brown vs Lucy with her football.
As usual Haaretz frames it best-this headline says it all
1/21 So Day One is over. And we have to admit he kept one promise at least: he’d promised “to be a dictator on Day One” and he was that to say the least. He also had promised “only on Day One”-that I think you can be fairly less optimistic he will keep.
America if it ever was over time of death: January 20, 2025
UPDATE:
To all the millions of voters who didn’t think Trump was seriously anti abortion: April Fools! Guys win again.
As Malcolm Nance says yesterday was the beginning of the end for our democracy. He says there is one word for how we must go forward with: defiance. Amen have no doubt like many of you I will choose defiance any day of the week and twice on Sundays
This is a microsm of how I still can’t finish this book-I can’t even finish this chapter just tweeted Cenk on Xitter:
