e-commentary

. . .

J          “He failed.”

K          “Hard to dispute.”

. . .

K          “The few positive aspects of MAGA – reigning in the forever wars, respect for the First Amendment, regard for civil rights, responsible spending on America and Americans – have been trashed by Trump.”

J          “Trump is the Swamp in its current incarnation in the nation.  ‘Trump’ almost looks like an anagram of ‘Swamp’.  ‘Swump’ is a portmanteau of ‘Swamp’ and ‘Trump’.  Or how about ‘Trump the Chump’.  I don’t know that using castigating names is helpful.  I don’t know what helps.”

. . .

J          “You have the ‘Democratic Alligators’ with blue jerseys in a faux war with the ‘Republican Crocodiles’ with red jerseys.   Both teams are united in a campaign to loot the public.  ‘Swump’ is looting the government for the benefit of his friends and threatening the security and welfare of the people and the Republic.”

K          “And the Democratic legislators are engaged in rampant insider trading along with their Republican colleagues.  They fiddle with their portfolios.”

. . .

K          “Twelve months have passed without him doing what he said he would do on day one.  The U.S. war against Russia in the Ukraine could end in an hour by ceasing the ISTAR [Intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance].  Cease the ISTAR, no war; continue the ISTAR, war.”

J          “It is not that easy nor should it be done.  The Russians remain a threat.   We need to hold the line.  We can’t let our differences divide us.”

. . .

J          “Tariffs have been deployed as weapons of mass economic destruction.  They are simply a tax increase on Americans that has not resulted in any on-shoring of business in America or even an enduring predictable increase in revenue.”

K          “I have heard businessmen and businesswomen say that predictability and certainty even of something undesirable is better than unpredictability and uncertainty.  They need to plan.”

J          “Chaos is costly.”

. . .      

J          “The ICE army is training to be the Trump army.  Look at the recruiting messages.  The Swump army is ready for wider deployment against the populace. A revolution now appears more likely than a civil war.”

K          “Statutes, principles, and precedent govern the use of the state national guards, yet very little specific authority restrains the private army other than general legal principles.”

. . . 

J          “Trump continues to threaten to invade Canada and Greenland and other sovereign countries.  He has all but signaled that force is the only factor.  If diplomacy and public opinion and some internal sense of decency and order fail, the only way to resist force is with force.  Despite high hopes, flowers are ineffective.”

K          “You would think the Businessman-In-Chief would realize that taking by investment rather than by invasion is so much more efficient and effective.  Canada and Greenland will sell whatever the U.S. needs.”

J          “How the U.S. even intends to patrol the waters around Greenland with one icebreaker does not seem to be a concern.”

. . .

K          “There is so much more fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal budget than I ever imagined.  And I have quite an imagination.  Something needs to be done.”

J          “And DOGE did desperately little to reduce fraud or waste or abuse while destroying morale and ripping apart the social fabric.”

. . .

J          “Trump is medically and mentally unfit for the job.”

K          “Americans may subconsciously accept incompetence as the norm.  You knew that Biden was marginally fit when he was first elected to the Presidency and then quickly became mentally unfit.  The Sunday morning talk shows existed to allow his sycophants to proclaim that he was sharp as a tack.”

J          “Time to apply the 25^th Amendment?”

. . .

K          “Again and again, those in power are keen to keep the folks with the burning torches turning on the folks with the pitch forks.”

J          “Or to keep the folks with the pitch forks turning on the folks with the burning torches.”

. . .

J          “MAGA.  Make America Go Away.”

K          “We need an ‘America Right Up’ there policy that takes care of America without disregarding our duties and obligations to the world.”

. . .

J          “The faint hope now is for the Democrats to take a majority in the House and apply a brake.”

K          “But re-elect Thomas Massie.  His re-election is the most important single election this Fall.“

. . .

J          “Things can get worse.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at Tearing Down The East Wing; Tearing Down Western Mores; Tearing Down MAGA.  Trump Is The Swamp.  Oh, And Happy Armistice Day! (November 10, 2025), U.S.A. Escalates Trump’s War With Russia.  Trump’s Budget Turbocharges National Debt (June 2, 2025), Biden’s War With Russia Is Now Officially Trump’s War With Russia.  Oh, And Happy Memorial Day! (May 26, 2025), Liberation Day?  Tariffs Are Tarrifying . . . And Enslaving (April 7, 2025), Time To MAAA:  Make America America Again? (September 30, 2024) and Tenth Annual “Cameo In Courage” Award For 2025 (March 31, 2025) (Thomas Harold Massie).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

MAAA

Make America America Again

Make America Go Away

Trump is the Swamp

Swump

Espoused on a large bumper:

“The person down the street who votes differently than you is not your enemy. They are your neighbor.  They worry about the same things you worry about.  They want their kids to be safe and their bills to be paid and their country to be a place worth living in.  They have been manipulated just like you have been manipulated, fed a different flavor of the same poison, sorted into a different tribe by the same algorithm, pointed at you as the enemy by the same people who point you at them.

The working class Republican and the working class Democrat have more in common with each other than either of them has with the billionaire class that funds both parties.

You share the same struggles.  You face the same rigged systems.  You are being crushed by the same economic forces that have transferred more wealth upward in the last fifty years than at any point in human history.  And instead of uniting against the people doing this to you, you are screaming at each other on the internet about pronouns and flags and whatever fresh outrage the algorithm served up this morning.

This is exactly what they want.  A nation at war with itself cannot resist a takeover.  A people consumed by mutual hatred will accept any authority that promises to protect them from the manufactured enemy.  Every empire that fell was divided before it was conquered.  Every free people who lost their freedom were set against each other first.

The red versus blue war is not real.  It is a show put on by people who own both teams.  It is professional wrestling and you think it is a real fight.  The wrestlers go backstage after the match and laugh together while you are still screaming at the guy in the other section who was rooting for the wrong character.

This Is Our Country Not Theirs.

This nation belongs to the people who live here and work here and raise families here and will be buried here.  It does not belong to billionaires who hold citizenship in three countries and will flee to their bunkers the moment things get bad.  It does not belong to tech oligarchs who view democracy as an obstacle to efficiency.  It does not belong to foreign interests who have purchased so much influence that they might as well be writing our laws themselves.

We have to stop letting them divide us.  We have to start seeing each other as fellow Americans again instead of enemy combatants in a culture war that was manufactured to keep us weak.  We have to remember that the person screaming at us online is also a victim of the same manipulation, and maybe if we stopped screaming back and started talking, we might realize we have been fighting the wrong enemy this entire time.

Turn off the television.  It is not informing you.  It is programming you.  Question everything, including the sources you trust, especially the sources you trust.  Talk to people who disagree with you and do it without trying to win.  Listen to why they believe what they believe.  You might discover that the monster you have been told to hate is actually just another person trying to make sense of a confusing world with imperfect information, exactly like you.

Remember who you are.

You are an American.  Your ancestors came to this land or were brought to this land or were already on this land, and regardless of how they got here, they built something together that was supposed to be different from the old world’s tyrannies and aristocracies.  That project is not finished.  Every generation has to fight to keep it alive against the forces that want to drag us back to a world where a handful of rulers own everything and everyone else serves at their pleasure.

Stop letting them divide you.  Your enemies are not your neighbors.  Your enemies are the people who profit from your division and are building machines to replace you the moment you are no longer useful.

Start acting like it before it is too late”.  The Wise Wolf

“We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools.”

. . .

J          “The use of Executive Orders seems akin to a dog marking its territory.  With great consequence.”

K          “Trump marked his territory and remarked what Biden had unmarked.  Biden had marked his territory and unmarked what Trump had marked.  You can mark their words.”

J         “It is a dog-mark-dog world.”

. . .

K          “We may each hear what we want to hear.  I did hear him celebrating freedom of speech and the rule of law and the possibility of peace sprinkled among some of the other dross and red meat he announced.”

J          “He has not left the campaign trail.  His screed was a full contact frontal ‘shock and awe’ assault on the status quo.”

. . .

J          “Not much about China.  China is the challenge.  China will define his administration.”

K          “You can say that again.”

J          “Not much about China.  China is the challenge.  China will define his administration.”

. . .

J          “The DEI movement was problematic and often unfairly discriminatory in practice.  However, the wholesale attack and dismantling of the programs is too wrenching.  Public and private programs must provide for everyone’s participation in society.”

K          “His broad attacks on LGBTQ+ concerns are too sweeping.  Someone needs to find the reasonable common ground.”

J          “Americans of all stripes believe they can repudiate both physics and biology when reality is inconvenient or intrusive.  Trump and I – imagine that – and you – imagine that – accept biology and recognize that biological men and women are different when they walk out on the playing field, the pitch and the court.  However, some courts demand to repudiate this reality.”     

. . .

K          “I am pleased he kept his word and commuted and pardoned the January 6 defendants.  I have trouble with the release of those who had committed violent acts and/or destroyed property.  However, with time it is clear that the entire undertaking was a grand cynical entrapment by the Democrats.  Convictions are tossed out when the prosecution is tainted.  The pardons are in effect a repudiation and an indictment of the entire Democratic political and legal machine.  Biden’s pardon of the J6 Committee is a clear acknowledgment that the members and its henchman were involved in a dishonest and fraudulent enterprise.”

J          “Trump’s pardons are disgusting.  There is no law.  Biden’s pardons were necessary and appropriate.”

K          “Is there even one person in America who has the knowledge and the wisdom and the perspective and the maturity and the independence to chronicle the events of J6 honestly and objectively?  Future historians will write whatever is necessary to obtain tenure.”

J          “If there is tenure.”

. . .

K          “What about Biden’s pardon of the other members of the Biden crime family?  If they accept the pardon, they are admitting culpability.  Back to the books for a read of Burdick v. United States, 235 U.S. 79 (1915).”

J          “Trump has made it clear that the Biden family would have been unfairly pursued and prosecuted.”

K          “On the basis of the available public information, there is no doubt that the government could have secured criminal indictments against each one of the Bidens.”

J          “Just a political vendetta.”

K          “Someone has argued for some time that the Lawfare would circle around.”

. . .

J          “It is and will always be Denali.”

K          “Yup.”

J          “Denali, Alaska has a nice ring and subtle cadence.  As I recall, ‘Denali’ is a Koyukon Athabascan word that means ‘big’ or ‘tall’ and ‘Alaska’ means ‘Mainland’ or ‘Greatland’ in some dialects.  Big, Great.  They pair well.”

K          “Denali, Alaska is also a pleasing six-word memoir.”

. . .

J          “Here be dragons.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at Cheney/Bush v. Trumpi:  Crime Families Battling On The Big Stage (August 22, 2022) and Let Lawfare Continue!  And Let War With Russian Escalate! (June 3, 2024).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end and, perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.  That’s what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier.”  Donald Trump, Inaugural Address.

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”  Alexander Pope

Here be dragons