Never Before

 

The Letter from Editor seemed a rather pollyannaish dream of a better outcome for the United States under the unprecedented autocratic rule of Donald Trump.

I invite you to consider his optimistic view of this New Dark Age of Trumpism. I hope it makes you feel comforted. Spoiler: It didn't comfort me.

~~~~~~~~

The future seems scary, but we've been here before

 

I read something recently that was mindboggling: As of July 2, we are closer to the year 2050 than we are to the year 2000. 

Once I confirmed the math – it’s correct if you count from Dec. 31, 2000 – I was left dizzy. A whole generation has passed in a blink, and it’s easy to feel like we are living in dire times.  

Climate change, political turmoil, threats of global warfare, economic uncertainty, runaway technology – the next 25 years can seem overwhelming. 

But if you look backward rather than forward, a different picture emerges. In many ways what we are experiencing is not the exception but the norm. And that gives me hope.  

Why? History is full of upheaval. Every 25-year stretch is marked by seismic shifts.   

1900-1925: The First World War; the collapse of empires and rise of communism and fascism; a global flu pandemic.  

1926-1950: A stock market collapse and Great Depression; World War II; polio outbreaks; the advent of nuclear weapons and the Cold War. 

1951-1975: The Korean and Vietnam wars; civil rights struggles; political assassinations; fears of overpopulation and famine. 

1975-2000: Regional wars in the Gulf and the Balkans; drug wars in the U.S. and Central America; the HIV/AIDS crisis; nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.  

And then came the 25 years we just lived through. When the Y2K scare fizzled and I came to work on Jan. 2, 2000, there were no iPhones, no widespread social media, no Uber or DoorDash. Netflix? It was DVDs that came in the mail. It seems like a simpler time. 

But then we had 9/11, which changed our national psyche forever and led to America’s longest war. The 2008 financial crisis. The election of our first Black president – which sparked celebration and backlash. We faced a global pandemic, cultural spasms over race and gender and sexuality, political polarization and a digital revolution that has changed how we live, work and relate to one another. 

With a 24/7 news cycle and social media amping news into crises, it's easy to feel like things are spinning out of control. But if you zoom out, you realize every generation has stood at the edge of the unknown and faced challenges that seem insurmountable. And yet, we’ve always found a way forward. 

In each crisis, there has been progress: vaccines and medical advances, space exploration, civil rights gains and technologies that lived only in science fiction decades ago. There are dark sides to the internet and social media, but they have also connected families, democratized information, and provided opportunities for creators and small businesses.  

We’ve avoided a doomsday war, lifted millions out of poverty, made everyday life more convenient, and connected countries and cultures in ways we could have never imagined. So yes, the future is uncertain. It always has been. But that doesn’t spell doom. 

When the present feels overwhelming, I think of something the late radio commentator Paul Harvey said: “In times like these, it is helpful to remember there have always been times like these.” 

That perspective doesn’t erase our problems, but it reminds us that we’re not uniquely burdened. We’re part of a long, unbroken string of human challenges, inventions and advances.  

How do you want to shape this ongoing story? You have a choice in how you view the world and how you participate in it. 

I wish at times it was less tumultuous. But then again, it never has been. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, I considered responding to his letter with a few facts:

No. Mr. Editor, I vehemently disagree. We have definitely NOT been here before.

Never before has an admitted sex offender been elected president.

Never before has a presidential candidate questioned his predecessor’s citizenship and still be elected.

Never before has a president had a massive civil fraud judgment against him.

Never before has a criminal president lied about winning an election he clearly lost.

Never before has a criminal president tried to overturn an election by organizing fraudulent electors.

Never before has a criminal president controlled a national media corporation willing to parrot his lies, hate, and false accusations, only to offer them jobs in his administration.

Never before has a criminal president sent a violent mob to desecrate the Capitol and terrorize Congress to overturn an election.

Never before has a criminal president demanded DOJ agents and prosecutors who worked to convict his thugs be fired.

Never before has a criminal insurrectionist been elected for a second term.

Never before has a criminal president praised and pardoned thugs for beating police officers bloody to overturn an election.

Never before has a criminal president fired without cause thousands of federal employees.

Never before has a criminal president shut down USAID and let 500 metric tons of food rot instead of going to hungry children.

Never before has a criminal president deprived the poor of food stamps and healthcare so his billionaire cronies and rich oligarchs could pay lower taxes.

Never before has a criminal president blackmailed and extorted the press, broadcast networks, law firms, and universities.

Never before has a criminal president crippled the CDC by appointing an unqualified Secretary of Health and Human services.

Never before has a criminal president shut down childhood cancer and other medical research out of spite for science and education. 

Never before has a corrupt Supreme Court granted a criminal president unconstitutional "presidential immunity", enabling him dictatorial power without legal accountability under the rule of law.

Never before has a corrupt Supreme Court granted a criminal president the power to dismantle public service agencies previously funded by Congress.

And never before has a criminal president written a birthday note to pedophile Jeffry Epstein saying, "We have certain things in common, Jeffrey".

Shall I go on, or am I overreacting?

Patriotic Reminder

 

OG Nazis and American RepublicaNazis doing their thing. Note the gleeful cruelty on the evil faces of the RepublicaNazis.

A July 4th patriotic reminder:

We have a corrupt and treasonous Supreme Court abetting a criminal tyrant.

We're building a police state with privatized corporate concentration camps without due process. 

Meanwhile the subjects of King Charles have healthcare, a right to due process, and the rule of law.

We showed them!!

USA! USA!

Supreme Traitors

 

I dare to call it treason.

This is how a flawed republic dies. 

Americans wittingly and unwittingly voted for fascism in 2016.

All the tyrant needed was a complicit and corrupt Supreme Court to win again.

So, the tyrant appointed his judicial co-conspirators, lied about a rigged election, and incited an insurrection. 

The honorable American tradition of peaceful transfer of power was terminated. The tyrant's violent criminal attempts to steal the 2020 election violated his oath to the Constitution. Under the rule of law he should have been prosecuted, punished, and never permitted into public office again.

The corrupt Justices abdicated their duty to the 14^th Amendment in defense of their sponsor's insurrectionist crime spree.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

With overwhelming supporting evidence, the Biden Justice Department rightfully indicted the tyrant for his numerous crimes.

Then the corrupt Justices fabricated the unconstitutional absurdity of "presidential immunity". The robed traitors endorsed the tyrant's power to politicize the Department of Justice into his personal weapon to persecute opponents, officials who pursued lawful convictions of his thugs, and even those who dared to disagree with him.

The honorable American ideal of "equal justice under law" was terminated. They may as well sandblast the antiquated inscription of those words from the portico of the Supreme Court building.

This enabled Americans to embrace the fascist criminal again in 2024.

America had lost its moral grounding. Finally the corrupt Justices stripped courts of their ability to wield checks and balances, and their judicial authority of injunction over illegal orders.

The legacy of the brazenly stolen and traitorous Roberts/McConnell/Trump court will rot in infamy as the most destructive in American history.

The end of the greatest experiment in representative democracy was sealed. 

I pray I am wrong…

RepublicaNazis

 

Let’s start with a little background information.

White attendees at a Trump tackled and beat a Black protestor. Trump approved of the attack, telling Fox News, “Maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”

 In 2018, Trump praised then-US Rep. Greg Gianforte for physically attacking a reporter who asked him questions on the trail. “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!" Trump joked at a rally.

Following Trump’s orders on January 6, 2021, to “fight like hell and take your country back”, his mob of thugs stormed the Capitol, terrorized Congress, and beat cops bloody in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. After watching their violence and mayhem for HOURS on TV, and realizing they failed in their mission, he finally told them to leave. In the same message he praised the thugs.

"I know you're in pain. I know you're hurt. We had an election that was stolen. It was a landslide. But you have to go home now...we love you, you're very special."

When the thugs and seditionists were finally locked up for their crimes, Trump would say they were “hostages, not prisoners”. His thugs were charged and  convicted of their crimes.

He was also justly indicted with abundant evidence for his crimes, but the corrupt Supreme Court Justices in his pocket decided to protect him with the blatantly unconstitutional concept of “presidential immunity”. Finally, after winning in 2024 he pardoned ALL of his thugs.

Thus, Trump became the Godfather of 21^st Century America’s political violence. Half the country and most of the world knows this vile authoritarian has no scruples, decency, or interest in following the law.

So, here we are in the second Trump presidency, America's first convicted criminal president and administration.

Masked ICE agents, many in civilian clothes, went on a spree of illegal abductions and mass deportations to gulags in Central America. Non-violent immigrants were sent to a prison in El Salvador, built to hold gang members and “terrorists”.

Trump next targeted Los Angeles, home of the largest immigrant population in the country.

Not waiting for a request by the California governor, he sent the military into Los Angeles in an unnecessary show of force.  Governor Newsom and the mayor knew the local police had the situation in hand.

His illegal deportations without due process inspired the massive “No Kings” rallies attended by millions of Americans across the country. This was the largest protest in American history. And it scares Trump’s party of fascists.

When fascists are frightened, they viciously smear, threaten, and demonize opposition. They would take down and handcuff Democratic Senator Padilla.

This is what Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said about the California governor. “I'm not going to give you legal analysis on whether Gavin Newsom should be arrested, but he ought to be tarred and feathered.”

How "Christian" of him.

Early on the Saturday morning of the No Kings protests, a gunman tried to kill state Democratic Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their Minnesota home. Soon after, the same gunman shot and killed Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their nearby home. Their two children are now orphans.

They were killed for simply being pro-choice Democrats.

The so-called “pro-life Christian" nationalist murderer had preached: “God is going to raise up apostles and prophets in America to correct his church, and those that are connected to the body, they will come through this mess and they will be strong again. They don’t know how their sexual orientation, they’re confused. The enemy has gotten so far into their mind and their soul.” And, “God is going to raise up apostles and prophets in America to correct his church, and those that are connected to the body, they will come through this mess and they will be strong again”.

I’ll remind you of the type of regime that would ban abortion.

On October 10, 1936, Heinrich Himmler created the Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion, or Special Office (II S), a sub-department of Executive Department II of the Gestapo.

(“Hitler did a lot of good things”. – DJ Trump)

 Let’s compare the reactions to the assassinations from a few politicians.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz asserted, “This cannot be the norm. It cannot be the way that we deal with our political differences. Melissa Hortman was the core of who our values were. It’s not about hatred. It’s not about mean tweets. It’s not about demeaning someone. It’s leading with grace and compassion and vision and compromise and decency.”

Contrast Walz's comment to what Trump said. “Well, it’s a terrible thing. I think he’s a terrible governor. I think he’s a grossly incompetent person. But I may, I may call him, I may call other people, too.” (This is why Mike Johnson's calling for Newsom to be tarred and feathered isn’t a problem for Trump.)

There's a photo of the killer's home-printed sheets of paper with "No Kings" on the back seat of his car, obviously intended to be a decoy to confuse  investigators. So naturally Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno tried to pin the assassination on the “extreme left”. He wrote online, “The degree to which the extreme left has become radical, violent, and intolerant is both stunning and terrifying.” (Since when has the “extreme left” assassinated pro-choice Democrats? Never.)

This projection is how evil fascists like Nazis attack those they hate.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also went full neo-Nazi with his sick justification of the killing, “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.”

Of course, Democrats are NOT Marxists, but that has been the go-to fascist smear tactic since Hitler and Mussolini.

This despicable mindset of the radical right is not simply conspiracy theories and misinformation. It is their deliberate propaganda meant to demonize opposition their Felonious Fuhrer termed, “the enemy within”. The day after the murders Trump openly incited MORE VIOLENCE, saying Democrats "cheat in elections", are "sick of mind", and "hate our country".

Trump and his Republicans have transformed their party into America’s version of Nazism. Besides the selective persecution of Jews, ethnic groups, and the mentally ill, the main differences between the US and Nazi Germany is we have our educational institutions, (free?) press, (independent?) judiciary, and Democratic opposition, which all happen to be the primary targets of American fascists.

And it will get worse. IF we have fair elections in 2026 this fascist scourge can be attenuated. But it can only happen by overwhelming Democratic and independent voter turnout.

Good luck, America. You’re going to need it.

American Dark Age

Trump's Reichstag moment is unfolding in Los Angeles, where he is baiting unrest and chaos over reckless ICE tactics. He had his openly bigoted fascist henchman Stephen Miller order quotas for ICE detentions and deportations, breaking their promise to prioritize arrests for violent criminals. 

He WANTS riots and social unrest to justify his authoritarian crackdown on our former democratic republic. Those of us who try to be informed and rational have seen this coming. Those of us who read history understand this is fascism tightening its grip over the country.

It has been gestating for decades before Trump came along as America's first Felon president. Trump's tyranny depends on agitating the worst Americans who lack empathy and compassion. 

The Radical Right propaganda machine has been relentless in fueling hate and bigotry through lies, demonization of dissent, and fascist scapegoating.

White nationalism and oligarchy have finally won their cold civil war.

This social/moral sickness of greed, bigotry, racism, ignorance, and indifference is abetting Trump's ambition to be a military dictator who rules over an expanding "Police States of America".

History teaches us this will only get far worse before the light of day shines again over MAGA's American Dark Age.

Hang on. Resist. Persist. And VOTE!

"Monsters"

 

First thing first. Happy Memorial Day, America. 

Second thing second. Let's make America America again. 

The nation is suffering a surge of white nationalist fascism as our Felonious Fuhrer emulates the OG Fuhrer of Nazi Germany. Trump's attacks on higher education and our free press, along with his demonization of political opponents are following Hitler's blueprint for dictatorship.

This is his demented notion of a Memorial Day statement:

Notice there is no mention of the Americans who died in uniform. Nothing!

Just what we'd expect from a narcissistic authoritarian COWARD who dodged the draft when he was eligible for service during the Vietnam War. Now the same deplorable despot wants a military parade for his birthday. I'm sure Adolf would send his compliments from Hell.

As patriotic Americans honor the supreme sacrifice of our fallen, many of whom were killed in defeating Hitler and his Nazi regime, we're forced to watch the history of fascism repeating itself within our borders. 

Trump is using the same hateful and demonizing rhetoric that Hitler used.

Everyone Hitler hated, and everyone Trump hates, would be called a communist, vermin, parasite, scum, traitor, monster, etc. 

The world sees this more clearly than millions of poorly educated duped Americans.

ElPaís is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain.

Harriet Over, a researcher in psychology at the University of York, studies theories of dehumanization in cases of mass violence such as the Holocaust.

In his book Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization, psychologist David Livingstone, the grandson of a German Jew and a professor at the University of New England in Maine, discusses the history of lynching in the United States.

“David [Livingstone] has written a careful study showing that Nazi propaganda contains references to Jews as nonhuman animals (for example, rats and parasites), as well as criminals, enemies, and traitors. He uses this evidence to argue that the Nazis perceived Jews as both human and subhuman at the same time and, thus, portrayed them as horrible monsters,” Over says. And, she adds, stripping them of their status as human beings helped facilitate the Holocaust. 

“We are still creating [monsters],” Livingstone says. “We see it in European attitudes toward Muslim and African refugees, in the genocidal war in Ethiopia, in anti-Muslim propaganda in Myanmar, in Russian attitudes toward Ukrainians, in Hindu Islamophobia, and in American racism against Black people, to cite just a few examples.”  

By witnessing his constant lies, demonization, and authoritarian cruelty, the world knows Trump has become the real monster.

Free Speech

 

Tyrants tend to hate educators, journalists, scientists, college students, and artists for a reason. It's difficult for them to DICTATE and CONTROL their words, acts and purpose.

Foreign students who dare to condemn Netanyahu's brutality risk being imprisoned and deported for speaking their conscience. Foreigners' phones are being checked by Immigration officers for anti-trump messages.

Universities, law firms, news outlets, and networks are under attack from Trump, with several bending the knee to his blackmail and threats. This needs to stop NOW.

Actors and musicians are also regular targets for Trump, but they’re not as easily intimidated by the Fascist Felon. They're not as dependent on corporate sponsors and business connections, and have the independence of their professions to allow them to get under his orange skin. 

Kudos to artists like Meryl Streep, Robert De Nero, Taylor Swift, and Bruce Springsteen for having the integrity and courage to speak out against the Criminal President.

If he is ever empowered to persecute and imprison them, he would most certainly do so. Thankfully, the US hasn’t entered this advanced stage of fascism at this point.

As if we need to learn yet another lesson from history, Harvard is showing America how to resist Trump’s fascism.

It’s past time for all corporate news media to take a similar stand.

Meanwhile artists are among the few who can publicly call out Trump without fear of retribution.

Before it was pulled for being too “political”, I responded to a thread in a music forum titled, “Please Artists, Leave your political BS at home”.​

Yes, someone got upset at a concert where the performer actually expressed an opinion.

The person posted, "Not saying an artist, can’t have their opinions, but please I don’t need to hear it at your shows.”

Has he not heard John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" or U2's "Sunday, Bloody Sunday", among countless other political songs? (Lennon's "Working Class Hero" and  "Gimme Some Truth" are still my favorites.)

So, of course I had to toss in my two cents:

Generally, the more a politician or leader attacks or suppresses artists, the more I side with the artist.

Mercifully, every country isn't like Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and other dictatorships.

Free expression is a core value of democracy and vital to freedom.

Politics and aesthetics are part of the human experience.

If it demonizes others and incites violence and bigotry, it's not really art or politics. It's hate veiled as art and politics.

Some people would hate John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin and even the Chicks, and others would detest Kid Rock and Ted Nugent for what they say on stage.

We are free to examine and judge what they say, and also free to reject or embrace those beliefs.

We still have a First Amendment in the US, if we can keep it...

So, yes. Let artists voice their opinions.  We can be grateful most of them aren’t as ignorant, hateful, and dishonest as Kid Rock and Ted Nugent.

~~~~~~~~

And predictably so, the thin-skinned Toddler Tyrant throws a tantrum:

“HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT? WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN’T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ? …AND HOW MUCH WENT TO OPRAH, AND BONO???”

“I am going to call for a major investigation into this matter. Candidates aren’t allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, under the guise of paying for entertainment. In addition, this was a very expensive and desperate effort to artificially build up her sparse crowds. IT’S NOT LEGAL! For these unpatriotic ‘entertainers,’ this was just a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL way to capitalize on a broken system. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!”