Trump's ongoing attempted coup

Click here for Robert Reich's Substack entry for April 16, 2024, entitled "The Big Picture: Trump's ongoing attempted coup."

Reich writes: "Zoom out and Trump’s entire presidential campaign constitutes an assault on America. In reality, Trump’s campaign is an ongoing attempted coup. In his presidential campaign, he has:" and then he goes on to list 

(1) Repeatedly rejected the legitimate outcome of the 2020 presidential election, without any basis in fact. Trump continues to tell his followers, — in advertisements, on social media, and and in rallies — that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.

2) Repeatedly praised the criminals convicted of the January 6 mob violence. He calls them “hostages” and promises to pardon them, despite the fact that most were convicted of injuring police officers during the attack.

(3) Repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the criminal indictments issued against him in connection with his attempts to overturn the election are the work of President Biden, and that prosecutors and judges are part of the same Biden-led conspiracy against him.

He then says: Together, these three central elements of Trump’s presidential campaign — his baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, his praise for the January 6 rioters, and his groundless claim that the indictments against are a partisan plot — constitute a direct extension of his attempted coup that began in 2020.

 

 

Trump's Foul-Mouthed Campaign Spokesman - Steven Cheung

Click here for an article at Mother Jones by Michael Sokolove entitled "How Trump's 2024 Campaign Became a Bloody Cage Fight." It introduces us to Trump's campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, an imposing, burly figure 6 feet tall, the Sacramento-born child of two Chinese immigrants (did they pollute the nation's bloodstream) who was spokesman for the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship); he and Trump bonded over a common love of combat sports.

This is Mother Jones' introduction to the article:

I’ll admit that I sometimes laugh aloud at the things Steven Cheung, Donald Trump’s campaign spokesman, posts on X.

It’s not that the posts are inherently funny. It’s more that they’re so outrageously middle-school-bullyish that they manage to both amuse and repel me. An example: On Monday, Cheung posted a screenshot showing online attendance for an obscure Biden media event. His caption: “Broke dick press conference by @BidenHQ with only 59 people watching.”

Broke dick. I mean, is this what our political discourse has come to?

Seems so. In Cheung’s trollish postings, Chris Christie is a “weak b*tch,” “birdbrain” Nikki Haley is “f*cking stupid,” and presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden are “dumb and dumber…and dumbest.” Cheung's posts didn't use the asterisks, but I added them out of respect for your email program's trash filters.

Presidential campaigns have always been dogfights, as the talented Michael Sokolove reminds us in his profile of Steven Cheung published today by Mother Jones, and Trump is one dirty dog, but such base and aggressive rhetoric from a campaign spokesperson is pretty unprecedented. It makes sense that Cheung cut his teeth doing comms for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, an organization that promotes brutal cage fights that are particularly popular in demographics the Trump campaign wouldn't mind poaching. Trump, himself a huge boxing and pro-wrestling fan, has become a UFC devotee as well. He and Cheung bonded, Sokolove writes, “over their mutual affection for combat sports.”

And sure, past Trump spokespeople were combative, too. But Cheung pumps things up further, channeling that hyper-macho UFC sensibility as he amplifies his boss’ personal grievances, aggressions, and ruthlessness, and gleefully pummels political rivals and cultural critics, even people who very reasonably question Trump’s Nazi-esque characterization of migrants as “vermin.”

Behind the scenes, though, Cheung is at the center of a comms operation that is far more professional and sophisticated than Trump has ever had before. His pugilism aside, Sokolove cautions, Cheung “is disciplined and laser-focused on the mission: Elect Trump at all costs.”

 

Steven Beschloss: "The Weakness of a Violent Man"

Click here for the Substack daily entry of Steven Beschloss. Today's is titled "The Weakness of a Violent Man," a blistering takedown of Trump for his weakness, hidden behind the blustering of a bully.

He attacks a judge’s daughter to stir up hate and conflict. He posts a video of the President of the United States, bound and gagged. He condemns millions of humans as poison, who, in their struggle to survive, have come to the United States to seek better lives. This is not a strong man, a man displaying his strength to lead; this is a malignant man who’s revealing his essential weakness and dangerously exacerbating a climate of violence.

Bereft of any vision of positive change, this is a man who is only capable of exploiting an aggrieved people’s worst instincts—who has figured out that he can get what he wants by stoking the fear, hatred and anger of others. He uses violence, not imagination. Conflict, not collaboration. Cruelty, never kindness. Retribution, not affirmation. These are the tools of a weak man inciting the mob to satisfy his hunger for carnage.

Beschloss says: 

But this is a weak man, a narcissist in the extreme, who cannot tolerate his own failures or the painfully obvious reality that he will never get the total adoration that his bottomless pit of need seeks. This is a sad creature, utterly lacking self-consciousness. When he looks in a mirror, he never sees the truth.  

He concludes:

The responsibility to defeat Donald Trump and the Trump Republicans could not be clearer. In another time, that may sound like a partisan urging. But this is about our commitment to sustaining America’s centuries-old democratic experiment.

Many of our fellow citizens look at Joe Biden and insist he lacks something they want. But his capacity for compassion and kindness, his commitment to democracy, and his record of competence and achievement should be more than enough for doubters to find a reason to support him.

The failure to achieve massive voter turnout can lead to a dark, fascistic future, led by a weak and desperate man who thinks he’s strong. That is a dangerous combination, which each of us has the power to help overcome.

 

Women's History Month (March): Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Click here for the Heather Cox Richardson entry in her diary, "Letters from an American," for March 31.

Noting that "On Wednesday, President Joe Biden issued an executive order instructing the National Park Service to “highlight important figures and chapters in women’s history," HCR writes:

In a time when American women are seeing their rights stripped away, it seems worthwhile on this last day of Women’s History Month to highlight the work of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who challenged the laws that barred women from jobs and denied them rights, eventually setting the country on a path to extend equal justice under law to women and LGBTQ Americans.

She goes on to tell how RBG, who was born on March 15, 1933,  spent her whole life battling against sexual discrimination in an age when women were definitely seen as second-class citizens. The first time she appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court, she quoted nineteenth-century abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sarah Grimké: “I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.”

One of her important dissents from the majority opinion of SCOTUS was the disastrous decision in Shelby County v. Holder:

In 2013, Ginsburg famously dissented from the majority in Shelby County v. Holder, the case that gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The majority decided to remove the provision of the law that required states with histories of voter suppression to get federal approval before changing election laws, arguing that such preclearance was no longer necessary. Ginsburg wrote: “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” As she predicted, after the decision, many states immediately began to restrict voting.

 

Click here for Robert Reich's diary entry on Substack for April 1, 2024, titled "Trump's 5-Step Fascist Plan," subtitled "He's already laid each step out."

Reich says:

In a previous post, I laid out the defining traits of fascism and how MAGA Republicans embody them, and I suggested that Trump and his lackeys shouldn’t be seen as simply “authoritarian.” They need to be understood as fascist.

But how could Trump actually turn America into a fascist state?

In five steps, which he’s already signaled he plans to take. Here they are:

And he explains each of the steps in detail:

Step 1: Use threats of violence to gain power.

Step 2: Consolidate power.

Step 3: Demonize a group of people and establish a police state to round them up into detention camps. 

Step 4: Jail the opposition.

Step 5: Undermine the free press.