Mike 03
Mike 03's JournalI'm not anticipating miracles, but it is possible that the
Trump coalition will re-fragment, go their separate ways (in discouragement) and seep back into the fringes of society, this time with fewer platforms to operate on.
I absolutely would like to see any GOP/military/law enforcement who may have collaborated in the planning and execution of Wednesday's siege prosecuted and possibly expelled.
So that is not really healing. It's more like cutting out the scar tissue, burning away the parts of the tumor we can reach with radiation, and throwing them in the trash. Sorry if that sounds a little harsh. I've read too many psychiatrists say that "facts" and "reason" cannot change the minds of Trumpsters and nationalist fanatics (racist or religious).
Trump will slowly lose his grip over these people
These are the desperate rantings of a demagogue who recognizes his grasp on power is slipping away.
It is the most dangerous time, but it will come to an end.
Historian (and expert on classical Fascism) Ruth Ben-Ghiat nails this phase of the process in her book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. She takes the reader through every phase of the tyrant's reign, from ascendency to fall.
I know this will sound crazy, but I'm a little bit relieved to see him acting like this, looking like shit and saying things like this, because it demonstrates that he' knows the end has come. (And that is assuming it's true that he's now out of the chain of command).
I'm starting to believe this is possible.
First there was the George Conway tweet.
Secondly, there are some GOP senators who have been hiding in plain sight who I don't believe like Trump one bit, but because they don't speak a lot or get mentioned in headlines, nobody pays much attention to them.
Philly Transit Authority Police investigating 7 officers who attended Trump rally that preceded Capi
WHYY PBS
Approx 1 hour ago
Full Headline: SEPTA police investigating 7 officers who attended Trump rally that preceded Capitol riot
“They are being investigated to see if they were involved in riotous behavior or for violations of our social media policies,” said SEPTA Police Chief Thomas Nestel on Tuesday.
What started as a rally organized to pressure Congress into overturning the results of the 2020 election over baseless voter fraud claims ended with five deaths, including the killing of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.
Nestel said the department received information last Thursday about one officer who attended Trump’s “Save America Rally” rally. After investigating, officials later independently discovered six others from the department, which has 260 sworn officers, had also attended. Nestel indicated that the transit agency would share the results of the investigation with the FBI.
Read more at link: https://whyy.org/articles/septa-police-investigating-7-officers-who-attended-trump-rally-that-preceded-capitol-riot/
https://twitter.com/WHYYNews/status/1349114034113671171
TEXT: #BREAKING: Seven Philadelphia transit cops are under investigation for attending the “Save America Rally" that came before insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Donny Deutsch Rant from Deadline White House: "He's fully castrated at this point" (transcript)
Donny Deutsch:
"I'm going to go a little farther than Tim [Timothy O'Brien, Bloomberg] did: His brand his destroyed. Forever. You cannot do business without any type of partners, whether it's a TV-business platform, whether it's real-estate business and you loan money, and it's no different with anything online. You're not going to do business with Bin Laden. When you think about the logo of Trump's business at this point, it's the people storming the Capitol. When you think about the spokesperson of that brand, it's the people with the horns, the people with the painted faces and those villainous creatures that we saw there. Donald Trump's business is over. There will never be a name on a Donald Trump property again. It can't exist. The powers that be-- He's fully castrated at this point, he's ruined his business for himself and his family. Trumpism is no longer just a far-right, even leaning-towards-authoritative, law-and-order whatever nonsense words he associates with it. It is about Insurrection against our country. There is no branded product, there is no company, there is no corporation, there is no business that in any way, shape or form can or will be associated. If you are a Donald Trump hater, it is going to be fun to watch. He has no business future at all. It is over. And that is before the Feds get a hold of him. It is going to be enjoyable to watch this loathsome lizard of a human being go down the drain."
Just now on MSNBC.
(Any mistakes are mine alone)
Or maybe it's so plainly obvious that people felt it wasn't even mysterious
enough to make a post about?
Nothing would make AZ Dems happier than seeing Gosar and Biggs marched off
to jail.
I put NOTHING past Gosar. He's the kind of guy that would have taken Anne Frank by the hand and personally walked her into a gas chamber. From Day One he has only and singularly had one goal: to disrupt and destroy the functioning of government. He even voted against back-pay for government workers furloughed during the #TrumpGovernmentShutdown.
Observation from Anne Applebaum's book "Twilight of Democracy"
Many of these people are disgruntled, resentful people who think they've gotten a raw deal in life and are attracted to a demagogue like Trump who tells them they are right to be angry and their failures in life are someone else's fault.
So they think they've suffered terribly in life. Terribly! Like having their cell phones seized while they sit in jail.
"Going to the antifa protest" it appears is their euphemism for attending
forthcoming MAGA insurrection rallies. It's a very lame attempt (laughable, really) to cover their tracks, because they are so clever. 
It's sort of like how The Third Reich routinely used the phrase "deportation to the east" in verbal and written communications as a euphemism for shipping Jews to Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec for extermination.
Of course this is just a guess...
Can Trump really retain his role as Kingmaker? A month ago I would have said 'yes' but strangely, over the past week, I'm not quite so confident. I also think the future for the other Trumps is dim at best. I'm not nearly so fretful as I was that there are political futures for Don Jr., Ivanka and Lara.
I can imagine the Trump movement actually separating from Trump and continuing to foment violence, although in random bursts and not anything quite as organized as we'll see between now and the end of January. They actually existed before Trump, although in fractured, fragmented form. I do think they've got a taste now for inflicting terror and trying to experiment with their "power" such as it is. We can continue to deplatform, shame and fight them. Law enforcement has a huge role here because if determined to do so, I believe LE could badly degrade the criminal element of the Trumpsters, which is the most dangerous element (Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Boogaloo Bois, The Base, Atomwaffen, Q, radical Christian Nationalists, etc.).
The Republican Party itself can go in one of several ways:
They can be on their good behavior for a short period of time before recommencing their project of making America ungovernable. Now, thankfully, we won the Senate. This is a huge freakin deal that makes me more optimistic about the next two years.
There could be, as people like Steve Schmidt predict, a war within the Republican party as they try to save it from self-destruction. IMHO this is the preferred outcome. It would force part of the Republican party to repudiate and fight the violence from the fascist right. This is in the best interest of large segments of the Republican Party because by expelling fanatics they clear the way for more reasonable Republicans to run for POTUS in 2024.
But there is still a perception among many Republicans that the Trump base is something precious and worth pandering to. So much depends on whether or not the MAGAts remain as a unit or whether they re-fragment and go their separate ways. I think they will try to stay united, but it will be hard if the tech giants help us remove their gathering spots.
Something could happen that nobody has quite predicted, too.
It's just my nature to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: Modesto California
Home country: United States
Current location: Arizona
Member since: Mon Oct 27, 2008, 06:14 PM
Number of posts: 16,616
