The Ignoble End of the Trump Presidency

This will likely be my last post for this blog. Not to beat a VERY dead horse, but the disgraceful Trump Administration should be remembered for all time by this article and podcast.

Bonus episode: Inside the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency 

“Four conspiracy theorists marched into the Oval Office. It was early evening on Friday, Dec. 18 — more than a month after the election had been declared for Joe Biden, and four days after the Electoral College met in every state to make it official…

President Trump's private schedule hadn't included appointments for Powell or the others: former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, and a little-known former Trump administration official, Emily Newman. But they'd come to convince Trump that he had the power to take extreme measures to keep fighting…

It was after midnight by the time the White House officials had finally said their piece. They left that night fully prepared for the mad possibility Trump might still name Sidney Powell special counsel. You have our advice, they told the president before walking out. You decide who to listen to.”

The article ends with a link to the definitive podcast post mortem to the Trump Administration:, Trump's Last Stand Part V: Where It Ends, detailing the siege on the Capital on January 6.

“In this episode of How It Happened: Trump's Last Stand, national political correspondent Jonathan Swan tracks the unfolding of the Capitol insurrection on January 6, revealing what happened in the Senate and at the White House — and what it means.”

Well worth listening to this excellent 30-minute podcast.

Biden Won, But...

Biden-Harris won the 2020 election. The good news is that over 78 million people voted for Biden, and the Democratic ticked won at least 290 electoral college electors. The bad news is that over 72.7 million people voted for Trump. National polls were close to right about Biden’s 50.8 percent of the popular vote, but Trump’s 47.4 percent was five and a half percent more than his average 42 percent in the pre-election opinion polls. Democrats held their majority in the House but lost several seats. Republicans have 50 seats in the Senate, with January runoffs in Georgia will determine if they retain control.

No Resounding Repudiation 

The hoped-for Blue Wave did not materialize. The terrifying reality is that even after four years in office, an openly racist delusional malignant narcissist demagogue ‘President’ increased his popular vote. This is particularly astounding given Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

How Trump Sold Failure to 70 Million People

November 10, 2020

“At some basic level, Americans do seem to agree that the coronavirus is a major threat. Despite attempts to politicize and divide us on the pandemic, we are at least united in anxiety. In September, a survey of almost 4,000 Americans found that only 12 percent disagreed with requiring masks in public. Fully 70 percent wanted the government to do more to protect people, and only 8 percent wanted it to do less.

Since then, though, the government under President Donald Trump has done less. The U.S. has suffered the most documented coronavirus deaths in the world, by far. The Trump administration has continued to downplay and ignore the virus as its spread has accelerated in almost every region of the country…

It may have been reasonable to expect, then, that the leadership vacuum at the core of these numbers would decide the presidential election. Polling indicated extensive support for former Vice President Joe Biden, which buoyed speculation that the vote tallies might amount to a decisive repudiation of Trump’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus. The president has variously lied by his own admission, denied the severity of the disease, and promised false cures, all as the death toll shot into the hundreds of thousands.

Yet no repudiation came. Biden won decisively, but more than 70 million Americans still voted for Trump. That’s more than those who voted for him in the 2016 election… 

The narratives and tactics Trump used to persuade people to trust him as a sole beacon of truth—amid a sea of corrupt, lying scientists and doctors—draw on those of cult leaders, self-proclaimed healers, and wellness charlatans as much as those of authoritarian demagogues. They have proved effective over centuries…

Nothing is novel about the effectiveness of Trump’s approach. Scrutinizing and understanding its universal elements may help mitigate its damage as the pandemic continues…

If the nation’s public-health and scientific communities assume that the appeal of a quack was some transient aberration—something that will end when Trump is out of office, and that can be remedied with yet more facts—then the Biden administration will fail to reach millions of Americans, no matter how soundly it recites statistics. Its warnings and mandates will go unheeded and become fodder for charismatic outsiders who tell people what they want to hear.

There are ways to serve as a confident, optimistic leader without making up nonsensical promises. Hope can be conferred with promises to take care of people, and to be there for them. Reassurance can be offered by guaranteeing that no one will go into debt because they had to go to the hospital, and that people will have paid sick leave and job security so they can stay at home when necessary. If the public-health community does not do more to give people hope and reassurance in the face of this disaster, it will see people defect to those who will—even when they know the promises are too good to be true.”

Trump will never concede

Trump continues to refuse to concede and mount a delusional campaign to delegitimize the election result. He has already lost several ludicrous legal challenges and will continue to lose them. His dream of a Supreme Court packed with three of his confirmed Justices somehow reversing the election result will not be realized.

Republicans in office and his lunatic Trump Cult base continue to echo Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. His administration refuses to release transition funds and the White House has directed that no one in the administration do anything to support the transition.

Almost eighty percent of Americans already accept the result of the election. Once Trump’s legal challenges are all set aside, and the election results are certified by the States, Republican House and Senate members will have to acknowledge that Trump lost. He may never concede, but his administration will eventually be forced to cooperate with the transition.

A Lasting Dangerous Legacy

Trump’s desperate attempt to cling to power and scorched earth attempts to de-legitimize the election result will damage the Nation. We will prevail and on January 20, his reign will end as Biden is sworn in as President. But the most dangerous lasting effect of the last four years is that Trump has accelerated the rising authoritarianism of the Republican Party.

GOP leaders’ embrace of Trump’s refusal to concede fits pattern of rising authoritarianism, data shows

November 12, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. EST

“Taking a cue from President Trump, several leading Republican lawmakers and officials have refused to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential contest and indulge Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud…

It’s the latest sign of the party’s lurch away from democratic ideals and practices, a shift that predates Trump but one that has accelerated precipitously since. Now, according to data released by an international team of political scientists just before the Nov. 3 election, it’s possible to quantify the extent to which the Republican Party no longer adheres to such principles as the commitment to free and fair elections with multiple parties, the respectful treatment of political opponents and the avoidance of violent rhetoric.

‘The Republican Party in the U.S. has retreated from upholding democratic norms in recent years,’ said Anna Lührmann, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and a former member of the German parliament. ‘Its rhetoric is closer to authoritarian parties, such as AKP in Turkey and Fidesz in Hungary.’ …

The drivers of the Republican Party’s drift toward authoritarianism are visible in the sub-indicators that make up the main index. Consider the demonization of political opponents… 

By 2016, that sort of rhetoric had become the norm among GOP leaders…

Encouraging violence has become alarmingly common. From the 1970s through roughly 2010, V-Dem’s experts note that both Republican and Democratic leaders consistently rejected the use of violence against political opponents. For Republicans, that began to change under Trump…

‘That leading Republicans are not willing to defend the electoral process shows that Trump is not the only GOP politician who has a problem with key democratic norms,’ Lührmann said.”

What These Words Mean

As Trump continues to become undone in the face of his incompetent response to the pandemic and economic collapse, his malfeasance, and inability to bluff, bully, lie, deflect, distract, and demagogue his way out of this disaster of his making, it's useful to have a vocabulary to identify what he is.

I have said repeatedly that Trump is a corrupt delusional malignant narcissist demagogue. That he is guilty of malfeasance and dereliction of duty. I use these words often. From comments I get from Trump Cultists here on social media, these are apparently words that some people don’t know the meaning of. Hopefully this helps…

Trump’s Undoing: His Feckless and Incompetent Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

His Attorney General was able to spin the Mueller Report and sit on the release of the redacted report for weeks. The House impeached him, but his Republican controlled Senate refused to convict. Until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, Trump has been able to bluff, bully, lie, deflect, distract, and demagogue his way past things that would have brought down any other President. His approval numbers have stayed in the 40-45 percent range; a persistent majority continue to disapprove. But now, what has worked throughout his candidacy, and since his election, has met a crisis his delusional, anti-science/expert, malignant narcissistic approach can’t carry him through.

The Pandemic

What started as a trickle of cases on March 1 has now exploded into a nation-wide pandemic that has infected over 600,000 and killed over 25,000 Americans. America is number 1 in both confirmed cases and deaths. And we are now, at best, in the middle of the first wave of the outbreak. Once it ends sometime this summer, eventual widespread testing will show that over a million Americans were infected and over 60,000 Americans will have died.

The Economy

Blue State governors, joined by a few Red State ones, responded in the face of inaction and delusional happy talk from Trump by ordering businesses closed and their residents to stay home beginning in mid-March. Trump was eventually forced to issue a nation-wide advisory to do the same. The Stock Market has already crashed once. Unemployment and declines in GPD are expected to reach levels that rival the Great Depression.

Trump’s Feckless and Incompetent Response

Despite Trump’s attempts to revise the documented history of his inept response, an independent press and radio and TV media continue to hammer him. An excellent and perhaps definitive recounting of what has happened is provided by the New York Times.

He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus

“An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response…

Unfolding as it did in the wake of his impeachment by the House and in the midst of his Senate trial, Mr. Trump’s response was colored by his suspicion of and disdain for what he viewed as the “Deep State” — the very people in his government whose expertise and long experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus, and likely save lives…

The shortcomings of Mr. Trump’s performance have played out with remarkable transparency as part of his daily effort to dominate television screens and the national conversation.

But dozens of interviews with current and former officials and a review of emails and other records revealed many previously unreported details and a fuller picture of the roots and extent of his halting response as the deadly virus spread…

There were key turning points along the way, opportunities for Mr. Trump to get ahead of the virus rather than just chase it. There were internal debates that presented him with stark choices, and moments when he could have chosen to ask deeper questions and learn more. How he handled them may shape his re-election campaign. They will certainly shape his legacy…

The chaotic culture of the Trump White House contributed to the crisis. A lack of planning and a failure to execute, combined with the president’s focus on the news cycle and his preference for following his gut rather than the data cost time, and perhaps lives…”

One of Trump’s recurring delusions is that the Nation can abandon social distancing soon. Now he’s creating a new distraction by asserting that he, not governors, has the sole power to order an end to the social distancing measures that are working and have limited the extent of the pandemic here. He has no such power; governors ordered the measures and only governors can end them. It’s tempting to assume that Trump has created this fake ‘controversy’ so that he can later argue that the economic disaster would have been much less severe if mostly Blue State governors hadn’t refused his ‘order’ to end their social distancing measures. Sadly, it’s much more likely that he is just being his malignant narcissist self. Of course, after the fact, he will surely blame governors.

Here’s just one sample of the outcry Trump’s assertion has resulted in.

Trump says his ‘authority is total.’ Constitutional experts have ‘no idea’ where he got that.


“When President Trump was asked during Monday’s news briefing what authority he has to reopen the country, he didn’t hesitate to answer. ‘I have the ultimate authority,’ the president responded, cutting off the reporter who was speaking…

The local leaders, Trump said, ‘can’t do anything without the approval of the president of the United States.’…

While the president appears convinced he is the only one empowered to make the critical determination, his extraordinary assertions of authority over the states astounded legal scholars, leaving them wondering, as they have before about Trump’s broad claims, where on earth he got them…

Not only does the power Trump asserted have no basis in reality, experts said, but it’s also completely antithetical to the Constitution, the concept of federalism and separation of powers — whether during a time of emergency or not…

It’s the most basic tenet of federalism, [Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor] said: ‘The federal government can’t give orders to governors. That’s a very simple fact of life.’…

Blackman said he had ‘no idea’ what law or legal precedent Trump believed granted him such sweeping authority, because none do. He said there is a long history of presidents using ‘creative arguments’ to assert executive authority during wartime or emergencies — but … there is not a long history of presidents getting away with nearly unfettered authority. There is no ‘emergency clause’ in the Constitution for presidential power, he said.”…

The Bottom Line

Trump’s incredible luck has finally run out. The brief and small “bump” in his overall approval numbers quickly vanished. By election day this November, the Nation will still be in a deep recession if not a second Depression. The Stock Market will be down, unemployment will be over 10 percent, and GPD will have significantly declined. Recent polling is already showing a dramatic decline in approval and increase in disapproval of Trump's handling of the pandemic.

Net Approval for Trump’s Handling of Coronavirus Dips Underwater

“For the first time in Morning Consult polling, more voters disapprove than approve of President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States.

An April 10-12 survey of 1,987 registered voters found 49 percent disapprove and 45 percent approve of the president’s COVID-19 response, marking a drop of 5 percentage points in his net approval rating, the share who approve minus those who disapprove, in the course of a week and an 18-point drop since a mid-March peak in evaluations of his handling of the pandemic.

The slide in net approval since that March 17-20 survey has been driven by a souring among Democratic voters (down 24 points) and independents (down 17 points), while the vast majority of Republicans have continued to rate Trump well…

In the weeks since Trump announced national social distancing guidelines on March 16, the United States has seen a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths that brought the roaring economy during the president’s tenure to a standstill. Critics have repeatedly accused Trump of not doing enough to stop the virus early on and to help state and local governments respond as it spread. Meanwhile, some of the president’s allies are pressing to reopen much of the country in order to stimulate the economy.”

The Last Two Adults in the White House are Resigning

Chief of Staff John Kelly announced his resignation earlier this month. Defense Secretary James Mattis announced his resignation yesterday. With their departure, the last adults standing between our corrupt malignant narcissist demagogue ‘President’ and our Nation and Planet will be gone. At least Mattis left a blistering resignation letter. Hopefully he and Kelly will soon start publicly calling for their unfit to serve mental and emotional cripple boss’ removal from office. Soon Trump will only be surrounded by sycophants who will not speak truth to this lunatic.

All of this, in the face of a report on the massive and ongoing efforts by Russia to interfere in the 2016 Presidential Election and since.

Reports show Russia mounted sweeping effort to sow divisions, support Trump

“Russia’s disinformation campaign during and after the 2016 presidential election touched nearly every top social media platform as it sought to sway U.S. voters, according to a pair of reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee that offer the most detailed look yet at the Kremlin's interference effort.

The reports, commissioned by Senate Intelligence leaders, shed light on the breadth of the Russian strategy, which included posting content on not only Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but also Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr and Pinterest. The findings corroborate the conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller's team that Russia carried out a long-term, comprehensive effort to sow political divisions in the U.S., including over racial issues — but in some ways find it was even more sweeping than Mueller has portrayed it.

Russian influence operations extended well beyond the presidential race and into the 2018 election cycle, the researchers found, with Kremlin-linked trolls consistently pushing narratives supportive of President Donald Trump and critical of impeachment talk. And as the major tech companies moved to curb the spread of online disinformation after 2016, the trolls evolved their strategies and shifted their resources to other platforms…

‘The goals of active measures are to undermine citizens’ trust in government, exploit societal fractures, create distrust in the information environment, blur the lines between reality and fiction, undermine trust among communities, and erode confidence in the democratic process,’ according to one of the reports by the research firm New Knowledge. ‘This campaign pursued all of those objectives with skill and precision. The IRA exploited divisions in our society using vulnerabilities in our information ecosystem.’ …”

The question now is how long will it take for Republicans in the House and Senate to realize that they must regain their senses, join Democrats and remove Trump from office in disgrace? Whenever they finally do, it may be too late to save the opportunistic and morally bankrupt Republican Party, which has enabled this lunatic, but at least they can redeem their souls.

John Kelly to Step Down as Trump, Facing New Perils, Shakes Up Staff

“WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Saturday that his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, would step down by the end of the year, the latest move in a long-planned staff shake-up as the president heads into the 2020 campaign facing growing peril from the special counsel and newly empowered Democrats.

The departure of Mr. Kelly, who had been brought in last year to impose order on the West Wing but found managing Mr. Trump an impossible task, had been rumored for months, and Mr. Trump announced it to reporters before departing for the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia. He said a replacement would be named in the next day or two…”

Shaken, saddened, scared: Washington erupts over Mattis resignation

“Washington (CNN) Shaken, disappointed, saddened and scared -- those were just some of the reactions in a bipartisan outpouring of shock and concern as lawmakers reacted Thursday to the news that Defense Secretary James Mattis had resigned over President Donald Trump's policy decisions.

‘Just read Gen. Mattis resignation letter,’ Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida tweeted. ‘It makes it abundantly clear that we are headed towards a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances & empower our adversaries.’

‘This chaos, Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich said on Twitter, "both foreign and domestic, is putting America in danger and must stop immediately’ " …

See my The Last Adults are Leaving the White House.

As Noose Tightens, Trump is Becoming Even More Unhinged

In a midterms Blue Wave, Democrats picked up 40 seats and a majority in the House of Representatives, flipped 7 Governor seats and a number of Statehouses, and limited Senate gains to two seats in an election that heavily favored Republicans in the Senate. Mueller’s investigation is closing in on Trump. A Democratic House, beginning in January 2019, will exercise its Constitutional responsibility to hold Trump and his Administration accountable. Our corrupt, morally bankrupt, lawless, malignant narcissist demagogue ‘President’ for the first time faces another co-equal branch of the Federal Government, in addition to the Judiciary, that isn’t in bed with him and covering his ass.

As the noose tightens, Trump is lashing out: at Federal Judges, the Fourth Estate, the Mueller investigation, and Democrats. His support is eroding as a persistent majority who oppose him is joined by others tired of the constant chaos and drama of this mental and emotional cripple.

The only issue now is whether this wounded lunatic can cling to power for another two years, to face final rejection and humiliation at the hands of the voters in November 2020.

Trump: Rosenstein belongs in jail because 'he never should have picked a special counsel'

“President Donald Trump defended his decision to retweet a meme this week depicting his political opponents behind bars — including his sitting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — signaling more storm clouds for the embattled No. 2 at the Justice Department after what appeared to be a brief reprieve from Trump’s attacks.

In an interview with the New York Post, Trump was asked about the photoshopped image, which depicted targets of Trump attacks like former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Robert Mueller, Huma Abedin and James Comey overlaid with the text ‘Now that Russian collusion is a proven lie, when do the trials for treason begin?’ Tucked just above Obama's head in the photo is Rosenstein's, smaller than almost all the other individuals in the image…”

Trump's aggressive bid to define Mueller's end game

“President Donald Trump is sending an unmistakable and daringly public message to his jailed ex-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, that his defiance of special counsel Robert Mueller could eventually see him walk free from jail.

And Trump's move -- delivered in an interview with the New York Post on Wednesday -- is more than just an effort to show mercy to a former associate. It is the latest sign of an increasingly aggressive effort to define the end game of the investigation with what looks more and more like an effort to use his presidential power to protect himself.

Trump's latest maneuvering came amid indications that Mueller's team, after a hiatus in midterm election season, is accelerating toward a pivotal moment in an investigation that has cast a cloud over Trump's presidency…”

Robert Mueller probe: Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress

“Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to lying to Congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Russia.

Cohen reached the plea deal with Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Cohen pleaded guilty to a single count of lying to Congress about a Trump Tower development project in Moscow, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan…”

Attacks on the Truth

Trump continues to create an alternate reality, based on outright lies, attacking anyone or institution that poses a threat or challenge to his illegitimate reign.

The Trump Cult

Sensing the end is near, Trump's core lunatic 10-15% of Americans Trump Cult base, like their delusional 'Leader', is becoming more irreconcilable.

The Bottom Line

One way or another—removal from office in disgrace by the House and Senate or via Article 25, Section 4 of the Constitution, mortality and/or fate, military coup, or defeat at the hands of the voters in 2020—this unprecedented lunatic demagogue’s reign will end. When it does, the issue of the malignant cancer on the body politic his irreconcilable, authoritarian, willfully ignorant Trump Cult represents will remain. If they rise up in insurrection, we will annihilate them in a Civil War do-over and end this once and for all. But an alternative that should be seriously considered, to end this permanent divided and ungovernable Nation impasse, is to schedule a national plebiscite to allow the minority Trump supporters to move to, and all others to move from, the reddest States over a six-month period and then vote by two-thirds majority to voluntarily secede from the United States.

The Voters have spoken. The Midterm Elections as of November 12, 2018

My early take on the results…

The midterms were the beginning of the end of this unfortunate reactionary episode in America’s history. With Democrats assuming control of the House of Representatives in January 2019, Trump will face a co-equal branch of government with the power and will to challenge his corrupt reign. He will become even more erratic, unstable, threatening, and dangerous in the face of this new reality.

The First Two Days

My First Post Midterms Comments (Nov 7) – https://youtu.be/tMU93XncMkw

WARNING: Contains language many 6-year-old children use, but ‘offensive’ to some...

My Post Midterms Day Two Comments (Nov 8) – https://youtu.be/9sKeU7md0E8

Trump’s delusional and threatening comments after the election speak for themselves. 64 truly remarkable lines from Donald Trump's otherworldly post-election news conference

 “(CNN) On Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump took a victory lap via an almost-90-minute news conference that came fewer than 24 hours after his party lost control of the House but strengthened its Senate majority.

Trump seemed entirely unconcerned with his party's loss of one of the chambers of Congress -- instead he focused on reading out the names of Republican House members who refused to embrace him (and lost) and sparring with reporters…”

Contrast Trump’s performance with Nancy Pelosi’s post-election Press conference. Nancy Pelosi vows"bipartisanship and common ground" after Democrats take the House 

“House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi held a press conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday, hours after Democrats recaptured the House in the midterm elections Tuesday night. Pelosi discussed the gains in the House and in Democratic governorships, and called the day after the election was ‘great day for America’ and a chance to ‘restore the health of our democracy.’ She pledged to find ‘bipartisanship’ and ‘common ground where we can.’ …”

A Week After the Election

Close races demonstrate how tenuous and fragile our election process is. A number of races are still too close to call.

Democrats flipped a number of Governor seats, now trailing 23 – 25 with two races undecided. They flipped over 300 State House seats, retaking control of several chambers.

Democratic wins in these 9 states will have seismic policy consequences

Democrats retook the House of Representatives, 227 – 198, with 13 races undecided. Already the most pickups since the midterm election in 1974, after Nixon resigned in disgrace. Democrats are leading and likely to win another eight House seats.

2018 midterms update: What has changed since election night

Republicans held onto the Senate, 51 – 46, with three races undecided.

Election 2018: Big races in Arizona, Florida and Georgia still open

‘Massive Voter Fraud’

Trump, our delusional malignant narcissist demagogue ‘President’, and his propagandists are already talking about ‘massive voter fraud’ with no evidence, in races Republicans have already lost or are likely to lose. When they lose, even after gerrymandering Congressional districts for over a decade and massive voter suppression efforts in Republican controlled States, they still cannot accept defeat at the hands of We the People, the electorate.

Without evidence, Trump and Sessions warn of voter fraud in Tuesday’s elections

The Bottom Line

Trump lost the popular vote by an almost 2.9 million vote plurality in November 2016. His insistence on continuing to feed his lunatic Trump Cult base—less than half of his minority 40% support among Americans—has helped him cling to power, keeping Republicans in Congress in check. But his support among all Americans has eroded since his electoral college ‘election’, as evidenced by the nation-wide election results last Tuesday.

Like everything else, Trump made the Midterm elections all about him. It was a gamble that paid off in the Senate, where an already Republican favorable map this election cycle almost guaranteed Republicans would retain their majority. By holding the Senate, possibly even picking up a seat or two, he has likely ensured his survival in office until the 2020 election, barring some unimaginably outrageous act that drives his approval rating below 30 percent, still not an impossibility for this mental and emotional cripple.

The lunatic actually believes his rebuke by the Nation on Tuesday increases his re-election chances in 2020. I think not, but this entire unfortunate fiasco could still end up being a good thing for America in the long run. See my The End of the So-Called Era of Trump: An American Renaissance, updated November 10, 2018)

Trump’s Desperate Scorched Earth Gambit to Cling to Power

Recent Days

Recent days have revealed Trump’s cynical strategy to cling to power until 2021. While dividing America to the brink of a second Civil War, with only 40% approval and feeding and stoking his 10 to 15% of Americans Trump Cult minority core base, Trump has kept his Republican majority in Congress at bay. They dare not challenge his outrages, fearing primary challenges from Trump True Believers. With few exceptions, only Republicans who are not seeking re-election in the midterms next Tuesday will speak truth to this dangerous and corrupt malignant narcissist demagogue.

In the face of three recent Trump-supporter and Trump hate-speech inspired terrorist acts of violence, he blames the news media and refuses to acknowledge his central role and culpability for the divisiveness, hate, and violence. In the final days of the run-up to the midterms, Trump decries an ‘invasion’ by ‘thousands’ of Central Americans seeking legal asylum and tweets the most patently racist fear-mongering anti-immigrant video in recent history to his 55 million “followers”. He sends 5,000 military troops to our southern border and threatens to send another 10,000 troops, to stop a ‘wave’ of at most hundreds of immigrants that will not reach our border for over a month, if ever. Trump even proposes to alter birthright citizenship, guaranteed by the 14^th Amendment, with an executive order.

Three hate-filled crimes in 72 hours

Trump keeps pushing ‘invasion’ narrative that motivated Pittsburgh gunman to kill 11 people

Trump, in racially divisive ad, blames Democrats for undocumented immigrant convicted of kill­ing police

Trump eyeing executive order to end birthright citizenship, a move most legal experts and top House Republican say runs afoul of the Constitution

Last month, Trump and his morally bankrupt Republican majority Senate rammed through the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh—a partisan Right-Wing ideologue who never saw a presidential power he didn’t love—and put him on the Supreme Court.

The Kavanaugh confirmation fight is not a media story

What America Stands For

With a lunatic demagogue assaulting our sacred values and institutions, it’s a good time to remember what our Nation was at its birth.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson changed “Life, Liberty, and Property” to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. What a difference that has made throughout our history as a Nation, especially for the 90% Have Nots majority of Americans in general and renters like me in particular. The phrase comes from the Enlightenment. It did not mean the materialistic pursuit of things, conspicuous consumption, consumerism, selfishness, or hedonism. It meant the pursuit of a meaningful and purposeful good life. For a Nation founded by the rich and powerful few, for the benefit of the many, in opposition to a despotic King, it was a stunning and unprecedented guiding principle.

Why did Jefferson change "property" to the "pursuit of happiness"?

With the Constitution, the Founders—over two-hundred and forty years ago—knew they were writ­ing a living document they optimistically assumed would be read and amended by enlightened and honorable men, for as long as the Republic endured. At the time, women couldn't vote, most African Americans were slaves, Senators were appointed by State governments, and property owners and the Rich ruled and dominated public life. Our Founders optimistically assumed that enlightened and honorable men would serve as elected representative of The People, serving in good faith to preserve the Union, protect the Common Good, and continue to secure the bless­ings of liberty for all Americans.

In 1790, the first year the Census was conducted, the US population was close to four million. Almost all of the 3,172,000 Whites were White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs), former British citizens. Almost all of the 757,208 Blacks were slaves. A bloody Civil War ended slavery. Large numbers of Irish, Italians, and Germans, including all four of my grandparents, immigrated to America in the 1800s and early 1900s and mostly settled in urban ethnic enclaves in the North \East and Midwest. At the same time, large numbers of Asians immigrated to America, settling in California and the West. With lower birthrates and the significant immigration of non-WASPs, by the early 1900s WASPs were no longer a majority of Americans. They embraced the same Irish, Italian, and German immigrants they despised, demonized, and exploited as their lessors as “Caucasians” for Census purposes, honorary “Whites”, to mask the loss of their majority status. Now, WASPs and the people they convinced were also White face the reality that they, in aggregate, will become a minority sometime in the 2040s, Trump’s racist attempts to prevent this demographic inevitability notwithstanding.

The diverse, inclusive, and welcoming Nation we became over the intervening centuries could not have been imagined by our Founders. But they would recognize that we became the Nation they made possible. A Civil War was waged to end slavery. Women and African Americans became full citizens; their rights guaranteed by the same Constitution that once excluded them. In recent decades, Hispanics, like all immigrants before them, have flocked to America, taken the lowest rung jobs, followed the rules, and worked their way into the American mainstream. Their children and grandchildren will become the plurality that displaces non-Hispanic Whites and makes Whites a minority for the first time in America.

The Founders could not have anticipated: (1) the current poisonous political environment; (2) a lunatic demagogue 'President' exploiting the fear, hate, and willful ignorance of a significant minority of Americans; or (3) a morally bankrupt Republican Party majority Congress providing no check or balance on that demagogue's power.

What's Going On?

Trump has been unprecedented and outrageous since he declared his candidacy. After almost two years in office, any fantasies that he would ‘pivot’ and become presidential in any sense of the word once in office are now untenable. Mental health professionals have repeatedly publicly warned that far from getting better, as a malignant narcissist, he would become more unstable, irrational, and erratic under the strain of office. As the midterms loom and loss of his Republican majority in the House is all but certain, Trump’s final desperate strategy becomes clear.

The Mueller Investigation will conclude and inevitably become public soon thereafter. With the loss of his Republican majority apologists and protectors in the House of Representatives in the midterms, at best Trump will face real oversight and endless hearings into his and his administration's wrong doing. At worst, he will face impeachment hearings and the ratification of Articles of Impeachment.

The only way Trump can cling to power until 2021, and keep the self-delusion that his fluke electoral college ‘election’ in 2016 can be repeated in 2020, is if: (1) a 5 – 4 Supreme Court backs him up as he opposes Congressional attempts to force the release of his tax returns and other damaging documents, and interrogate members of his administration under oath; and (2) a  Republican Senate refuses to confirm his impeachment in the House of Representatives.

President Obama tried to explain to this mental and emotional cripple, before Trump took office, that a president has no power or moral authority except that derived from the consent of the governed. Trump’s 2.9 million vote plurality defeat to Hillary Clinton denied him any mandate to govern. His inauguration address made clear that he had no intention of governing with the consent of the majority. His actions since have only made more obvious that the only thing Trump values is winning and power. He sees no legitimate interest or need except his own interests and needs.

Only We the People Can Stop this Demagogue

Trump will cling to power, by whatever means and at any cost to the Nation, as long as he can. There is no bottom to the madness and chaos he will bring, no outrage beyond his imagination, no standard of conduct or moral code he will not deliberately violate. A presumed anthropo­morphic patriarchal God did not bring Trump to power and will not deliver us from this dema­gogue’s reign. Only We the People can begin the end of this insanity by voting his Republican enablers out of office on November 6. 

Now Pipe Bombs Sent to Those Who Dare to Oppose Trump

It only took seven years and seven months for Trump’s demagoguery: (1) starting with championing the Birther Movement in March 2011; (2) continuing during his campaign for President announced in June 2015—demonizing Mexican immigrants and later every conceivable target, from ‘elites’, ‘bureaucrats’, Democrats, the Fourth Estate (‘Fake News’, ‘Enemy of the People’), people of color, and ‘the Other’, and (3) since taking office in January 2017 and especially now as the 2018 midterms are upon us, for Trump’s escalating hate speech to bear fruit. The list now includes anyone or institution that poses a threat to his illegitimate authoritarian rule: including the majority Trump Resistance; members of his own administration, the Justice Department, FBI, and Mueller investigation; the Intelligence Community; Democrats in Congress; and peaceful mass protests against his administration—a ‘violent hateful mob’ in his delusional mind. Not to mention the fictitious 'massive voter fraud' that denied him a plurality of the popular vote in 2016 and will surely be blamed if Republicans lose the House in the midterm elections.

Thankfully, the lunatic Trump supporter Right-Wing terrorist bomber has been caught. Who is Cesar Sayoc? What we know about the suspected mail bomber arrested in Florida.

As I and many others, including hundreds of mental health professionals and prominent Republicans not enthralled with this mental and emotional cripple continue to point out, Trump is a corrupt malignant narcissist demagogue, emboldened by an irreconcilable lunatic Trump Cult minority core base of perhaps 10 to 15% of Americans. Trump, his administration, and the morally bankrupt Republican Party in Congress that enables him are a clear and present danger to our Republic, our American values and norms of decency, and the people of the World.

Like Hitler, who could have been stopped by the people of Germany before he consolidated this power and eliminated all opposition, We the People have one chance, in the midterm election on November 6, to stop this demagogue and end this madness. If we don’t, God help us all. Unfortunately, as his White Evangelical ‘Christian’ supporters clearly demonstrate, there is no God, except maybe the fictions ‘White Jesus’ they worship.

This reactionary digression in our march toward a diverse, inclusive, more just and equitable Nation, no longer dominated by Filthy Rich White Men and steeped in racism and Patriarchal sexism—led by a corrupt malignant narcissist demagogue—is a matter of public record. Now this delusional mental and emotional cripple even has the audacity to publicly denounce the very violence he has precipitated.  

Now Pipe Bombs, by me – https://youtu.be/r2Xk4kO-quM

Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories

“During Barack Obama's campaign for president in 2008, throughout his presidency, and afterwards, a number of conspiracy theories falsely asserted Obama was ineligible to be President of the United States because he was not a natural-born citizen of the United States as required by Article Two of the U.S. Constitution…

In March 2011, during an interview on Good Morning America, Donald Trump said he was seriously considering running for president, that he was a ‘little’ skeptical of Obama's citizenship, and that someone who shares this view should not be so quickly dismissed as an ‘idiot’ (as Trump considers the term ‘birther’ to be ‘derogatory’). Trump added, ‘Growing up no one knew him’, a claim ranked Pants-on-Fire by Politifact. Later, Trump appeared on The View repeating several times that ‘I want him [Obama] to show his birth certificate.’ He speculated that ‘there [was] something on that birth certificate that [Obama] doesn't like’, a comment which host Whoopi Goldberg described as ‘the biggest pile of dog mess I've heard in ages.’ On the March 30, 2011, edition of CNN Newsroom, anchor Suzanne Malveaux commented on Trump's statements, pointing out that she had made a documentary for which she had gone to Hawaii and spoken with people who knew Obama as a child. In an NBC TV interview broadcast on April 7, 2011, Trump said he would not let go of the issue, because he was not satisfied that Obama had proved his citizenship. After Trump began making his views public, he was contacted by Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily, who was reportedly on the phone with Trump every day for a week, providing Trump with a ‘birther primer’, answers to questions, and advice. After Obama released his long-form birth certificate on April 27, 2011, Trump said ‘I am really honored and I am really proud, that I was able to do something that nobody else could do.’ …” [Numerous reference footnotes in the original removed for clarity.]

NAACP SEES CONTINUED RISE IN HATE CRIMES, LEGACY OF TRUMP’S RACISM – https://www.naacp.org/latest/naacp-sees-continued-rise-hate-crimes-legacy-trumps-racism/

Do Trump Tweets Spur Hate Crimes? Study makes strong case that president’s Twitter activity encourages anti-Muslim crimes – https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-trump-tweets-spur-hate-crimes1/  

‘Making America Hate Again’ – The Correlation Between Trump’s Anti-Muslim Tweets And Hate Crimes – https://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/making-america-hate-again-the-correlation-between-trumps-anti-muslim  

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and CNN Offices Are Sent Pipe Bombs – https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/nyregion/clinton-obama-explosive-device.html  

Donald Trump condemns pipe bombs as 'abhorrent, despicable' – live – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2018/oct/24/bombs-clintons-obamas-latest-live-news-updates-cnn-time-warner-evacuations-explosive-devices

'Act of terror': Bombs sent to CNN, Clintons, Obamas, Holder – https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/24/politics/bill-clinton-hillary-clinton-chappaqua/index.html

Time to 'Man Up' or Fold

How We Got Here

Liberals like me—a trained Social Psychologist,  President Obama—the whitest and safest black man in America and a very smart and accomplished guy, and Hillary Clinton—a woman too smart and arrogant for her own good, have repeatedly underestimated the power of hate, fear, and willful ignorance for a significant minority of the electorate. A fat, lazy, ignorant, angry disaffected and racist minority made Trump’s electoral college ‘win’ possible. Donald Trump defeated a flawed, arrogant, out of touch Democrat who, like Michael Dukakis versus George H. Bush (1988), and John Kerry and Al Gore versus George “W” Bush (2000 and 2004) before her, assumed the American people would make a rational, informed choice for President in 2016.

We can still stop this madness, but not with intellectual or moral arguments, 21-point platforms, reaching out to idiots, moving to ‘the Center’, playing it safe or being civil. This is a War Republicans have been fighting and winning for decades. We have been bringing intellect, knowledge, and moral appeals to a knife fight with evil, well-funded, morally bankrupt monsters who see power and winning as the only thing that matters, effectively appealing to the basest aspects of human nature.

Trump is a corrupt malignant narcissist and demagogue. His presidency is unprecedented. He represents a threat to our Nation that cannot be overestimated. He is not a stable genius. He is not a populist. He is not a White Savior who can Make America White Again. He is not a successful businessman or self-made man. Trump is a fraud, a con artist, a mental and emotional cripple.

Trump has unmasked the face of the Filthy Rich and Corporate America—concerned only with satisfying their rapacious greed and gaining and keeping political power at any and all costs. They have: (1) created a fake Culture War with values they personally mock, to appeal to White Evangelical ‘Christians’; (2) used hate and fear to demonize “the other” to appeal to bigots; (3) destroyed labor unions that defend workers; and (4) deliberately created a ‘winner take all’ economy to increase the insecurity of low-education working people—the very people they have exploited for profits and their gain. They have demonized programs for the common good like the Affordable Care Act, Social Security and Medicare as socialism, and demonized out groups, faceless ‘elites’ and bureaucrats to focus appropriate rage away from themselves. Trump has revealed the moral bankruptcy of the Filthy Rich and Corporate America. As a demagogue, he has effectively exploited and continues to exploit his hateful, fearful, and willfully ignorant authoritarian core minority base.

While the Democratic National Committee and Democratic operatives were obsessed with winning presidential elections and keeping abortion legal, for decades, the Republicans have been executing a deliberate plan: systematically buying Governor seats and State Houses on the cheap, creating gerrymandered districts so even as they lose the popular vote in a State, they win most of the seats in the House of Representatives and State House majorities.

The culmination of all of this is Donald Trump, a dangerous mental and emotional cripple, in the White House, and a majority in Congress to enact a Republican Tax Reform fraud in 2017, passed with no Democratic support, and the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, with just one Democratic vote.

How Do We Fix This?

I used the term man up deliberately in the title for the benefit of women. We are way past political correctness or doctrinaire feminism. We are in a war for the very survival of an America that was, until the ‘election’ of this reactionary demagogue, well on its way to an inclusive, diverse, more just and equitable America, no longer dominated by the Filthy Rich, Corporations and White Men. To deal with this clear and present danger, we will have to abandon the luxury of dissension and infighting. We are no longer men or women, White or People of Color, White Collar professional or Blue-Collar worker, Hillary or Bernie supporter, or political socialists, liberals, progressives, moderates, or centrists. We are Democrats. Not the weak, fragmented, easily distracted, quarrelsome  Present-Day Democrats. We must become New Warrior Democrats; unified freedom fighters in The Resistance to defeat the darkness, madness, and evil that has arisen.

So, what do we do? We need to convince Democrats and Independents who occasionally vote—when it’s a Presidential election and they “like” and/or have an ethnic affinity for the Democrat, or to support some specific issue, or if it is convenient or they don’t forget—that their lives and the future of the Republic depends on them registering and voting. In every election, at every level of government—Federal, State, and Local—starting with the midterms. We need to convince so-called Independent and Disaffected Voters that the popular sentiment that both parties are the same is wrong. There are profound differences between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Republicans are the lackeys of the Filthy Rich and Corporations. They are the Party of: exploiting hate, fear, and willful ignorance; wealth and income inequity; Drill Baby Drill; Climate Change and other Science denial; angry White Men; racism, xenophobia and homophobia; selective ‘Christianity’ and religious intolerance; Country Clubs, gated communities, private schools, White Male Privilege and exclusion; and government for the privileged few. Only the Democratic Party supports diversity, inclusion, progressive taxation, secular humanism and religious tolerance, science, reason, public education, and government for the many and the common good.

If we cannot convince poor people, working people, people of color, women, LGBTQ people, Hispanics, Students, immigrant citizens and second and third generation hyphenated Americans, Independents and Disaffected Voters to register and vote for Democrats like, forgive the expression, Republicans do for their Party, we deserve to fail to regain power, and the America we cherish deserves to die.

I believe the stakes are this high. Hitler could have been stopped if the German people had woken up and realized the threat he posed, instead of dismissing him and his Brown Shirts minority. The breach Trump has exploited and inflamed may already be so great that only a second Civil War or the voluntary secession of the reddest States can close it. But Trump and his Republican enablers must be stopped now. How and when we deal with his irreconcilable Trump Cult lunatic minority core base—the malignant cancer on the body politic he has brought into the light—can be addressed after Trump is dealt with. A Democratic majority in the Congress should act to reestablish the Rule of Law and remove Trump from office in disgrace for his many high crimes and misdemeanors in 2019. Failing that, we must neutralize him and his administration until the 2020 presidential election when We the People can reject and defeat him through the ballot box.