For much of human existence, we have developed what the mental health professionals call an approach avoidance strategy for certain mind altering plants, e.g., Peyote: some Native Americans incorporate its use in religious ceremonies, while the federal government attempts to prohibit its consumption. No government prohibits the consumption of the fruit of the bigotry, and some actively promote it; ergo veritable armies, upon consuming that mind altering fruit, have become bigots who, in turn, recruit other bigots and pre-bigots by promising them that the tasty fruit will cure all that ails them. The bigot lobby has managed to suppress any and all disclaimers and warnings, even the most minimal, such as: any claimed benefit by the consumption of this fruit is not supported by science; consumers may experience an initial slight discomfort or nausea; overindulgence can lead to addiction; and prolonged usage will cause areas of the brain related to compassion to necrotize.

Bigotrees grow like weeds, and, when uncontrolled, will choke even the stateliest trees of reason. This is readily seen in the United States and many parts of the world where a plague of bigots covers the land like locusts in Pharoah’s Egypt.

Like locusts, bigots are pests. They cannot be eliminated in our current state of development, but they can be controlled. The first step in controlling them is to identify them, the second to call them out, to warn the innocent and unwary, the third is the application of the appropriate bigoticide, truth mixed in a solution of facts (effective concentrations will vary depending on the strength of the infestation).

Of the various flavors encountered in the fruit of the bigotry, racism most often dominates, while misogyny never lags far behind. Neither do the infamous phobias: xeno and homo.

Scientists have identified what they term the 4B’s, blustering, bragging, bullying, and plain old bullshitting, as tell-tale symptoms resulting from the consumption of the fruit.  Fellow bigots feed on those symptoms, amplify them, and pass them on to succeeding generations by a process scientists call grooming.

While there is a lot of loose, unscientific talk these days about grooming, usually directed at a disfavored group, only those who have made a careful study of the phenomenon are aware that grooming is much more common than the vast majority realizes. It is all around us, readily visible for those not blinded by the fruit of the bigotry, and, in fact, the vast majority are groomers. Anthropologist call grooming a cultural universal. Most, if not all, parents do it. Most, if not all, religions do it. Many, a great many, educators and schools do it. Certainly, politicians do it. These groomers take advantage of the innocent and trusting nature of children and offer them small tastes of the fruit, carefully grooming their victims from innocent childhood, through adolescence when they break out of the cocoon (locusts lack a pupal stage; pardon the mixed metaphor) and become full-fledged adult bigots.

When studying the genesis of bigotry and searching for its raison d’etre we come, inevitably, to the question of Nature vs. Nurture. Academicians have weighed the evidence for each side, placing them on the scale of science. No credible, peer–reviewed studies even hint at a genetic predisposition for transitioning from an unbigoted embryo to a bigot. As no bigot gene has been identified, the scale plummets in the Nurture direction. Numerous weighty studies, as well as one show tune—none of which will be cited here—strongly indicate that bigots are not born, but carefully taught.

Racism is a driving force in power politics. When you see films of violence against Blacks during the civil rights movement of the 60’s, you cannot help but notice the young, White, males and females whose frightening facial expressions have been contorted by vicious racism toward Black children and adults. They had been carefully groomed. In certain countries when the police stop a man from beating another man to death, if the assailant states that the victim is queer, the police will leave him to it. In the United States, an ex-policeman received a shockingly light sentence for the premeditated assassination of an openly gay city councilman and the straight mayor. When the very large gay community in that city rioted, the police repelled them with tear gas, and later that night raided many gay bars. Seeing the result of the police violence, bloodied and bandaged gay men on the street for the next week, was not a rare sighting. The police had been carefully groomed, as had the judge and jurors who passed the light sentence. When people vote for a known sexual predator, they have been carefully groomed. No examples need be given.

Humans tend to gather in groups.  Bigots, being human, also tend to gather in groups and share much of the same knowledge, or lack thereof, beliefs, and behavior patterns. In the case of bigots, hierarchical groupings or cultures in which the Alpha- or A-bigot dominates seem to be the norm. In many animal cultures, the non Alpha-male is called the Beta- or simply B-male and is characterized by traits such as caring and kindness. In bigot cultures the non Alpha-bigots’ main characteristics are fear of the Alpha-bigot and the sometimes overwhelming desire to emulate him or her, which leaves little to no room for caring or kindness. I will, therefore call them Delta- or simply D-bigots. When the A-bigot displays cruelty, the D-bigots rush to emulate the A-bigot and at times even surpass him or her in cruelty. Scientists have developed a formula to explain this example of bigot behavior:  Ambition + 4B’s = C (cruelty with a capital C).

A- and D-bigots are cunning and sly, more so even than the infamous snake in Eden when it comes to enticing the innocent into taking a bite of this dangerous fruit. They are resourceful, carefully and purposefully grooming their army of bigots by shouting louder and louder to drown out any opposition, any questions, any inconvenient truths. They are experts at projection and accuse even the most innocent of doubters of exhibiting at least one of the 4B’s. They are adept at distraction or misdirection, making inconvenient facts magically disappear by referring to alternate facts. Scientists call this sleight of mind. When cornered A-bigots will viciously attack, accusing the truth seeker or fact bringer of some failing, none too ridiculous to matter since the great buzzing caused by the strident stridulation of the locust-like chorus of D-bigots will drown out reason.

Non-bigots, let’s call them 0-bigots, as well as minimally infected bigots, should not throw in the towel. Better to throw in the appropriate dose of bigoticide. When applying, don’t overlook the dark nooks and crannies: bigots have a propensity to multiply in the shadows where they nurture their nymphs until they are ready to metamorphose and emerge into the light as fully formed bigots. A thorough cleaning is also recommended since bigots, like dung beetles, lay their eggs in well-rounded balls of their own bullshit. (Pardon this last mixed metaphor, but it seemed too appropriate to resist.)

Well, just one more mixed metaphor, after all humans tend to think in terms of metaphors—witness many religious texts. The current cultural fascination with zombies is, without doubt, merely a metaphor for the plague of bigots who, metaphorically, eat the brains of the young.

I can’t help but think about bullies lately. So many reminders. My all White, working class grade school had a surplus of bullies. The older kids bullied the younger and the tougher kids the weaker. As I had transferred from the north side of the city, which was tougher and Blacker, some of my second grade companions in my new school thought I must be a tough guy. I confess that I liked that image and adopted that persona, as much as a second grader can, but I didn’t bully anyone. Quite the opposite. I took on the role of bodyguard to our class sissy who was being bullied. Looking back, I think he was gay, but at the time none of us seven year olds had the faintest understanding of human sexuality or knew the usual pejoratives for gays, and the bullies settled for sissy. I liked the bodyguard role—it didn’t require any actual violence, and I liked the kid I guarded. We became friends and played together at his house for a few years until I got into sports. Still, we remained friendly throughout grade school and high school.

About four grades later, in my class of possibly 50 kids, the toughest kid had a coterie of bullies hanging around him. We played soccer in gym class and one of the coterie kids wasn’t a good athlete, but he was effective. He was a fat kid, bigger and heavier than most kids in the class. He aimed his kicks not at the ball but at the shins of weaker kids. That had the effect that the weaker kids cleared out when he and the ball were in their area. I also remember that bully groveling to the toughest kid, who I suspect had just groveled to the principal and was about to grovel to his parents. For a week or so the coterie kids went up to the non-coterie boys, including those in all the lower grades, during recess and, with an underhand motion, flipped the boys’ testicles. One of them did it to me. I didn’t punch him for two reasons: it didn’t hurt, and I had never punched anybody. But I was surprised and confused. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. A friend told me they were doing it to all the boys. Someone must have squealed. One at a time the coterie kids were called to the principal’s office where I assumed they were grilled and, under pressure, ratted out their coterie companions who were called to the office as the grilling continued. I further assumed that the principal called the parents of the coterie kids. I make that assumption because after school I witnessed the soccer bully groveling to the toughest kid, apologizing for, I assumed, ratting him out. The toughest kid was angry and punched the soccer bully knocking him down a few stairs. The soccer bully lay on the pavement and cried. I walked past him.

I only had one bullying experience in my four-year high school. When I was a freshman, barely 13, an older kid who sat in the back of the room putting in his time until his parents let him drop out and maybe get a job at the can company walked to the front of the room, ostensibly to sharpen his pencil, but when he walked back to his desk he called me a suckie and punched me. It was during science class, and I wish I could say that his action provoked an equal and opposite reaction. I tried to return his friendly gesture, but I was inexperienced and only got him on the arm. He was a difficult target for a novice: I was seated and he was upright and in motion. I liked science and excelled in that class, ergo the anger from the back-of-the-room kid. Although I refute the suckie charge, I confess that the teacher did like me. When he saw the commotion, he simply told the back-of-the-room kid to return to his place at the back of the room.

I don’t remember any other bullying incidents, but I seldom took school books home because I learned through osmosis that in my working class school it was generally OK to do well in class but not OK to take a lot of books home. Maybe I wasn’t bullied because I was athletic and maybe because I helped some of the older kids. I remember mouthing the answers during a test on the state constitution we were required to pass to an older and bigger kid who sat across from me.

In Basic Training we had two DI’s. One White—an alcoholic whose face was often red—and one Black. The Black sergeant was tough but fair, and we respected him. The White sergeant was a bully. Once, when we were doing push-ups on a cement patio the bully swore at the recruit next to me who had trouble with the push-ups and stepped on his head, banging it to the ground and causing his forehead to bleed, proving what we had learned in a first aid class: that facial wounds bleed a lot. The White sergeant was immediately sobered—he could have lost a stripe—but the bleeding recruit did not complain. The BR was an RA (Regular Army: he had joined), hiding the fact that he had had polio that resulted in one arm being smaller and weaker. I was a US (draftee) and had a hard time understanding the motivations of some RAs. Still, when we got up from the push-up position and stood at parade rest, rifles by our sides, the BR beside me, still bleeding, I felt a strong urge to whack that DI bully with my rifle, using what I had learned in a class on combat when you’re out of ammo. Knowing that I would be in big trouble if I did didn’t stop me because I knew that I was headed for Vietnam, which I viewed as bigger trouble. My innate pacifism stopped me, and I still hadn’t successfully punched anyone. Since escaping Vietnam I have avoided Vietnam movies, but did see Full Metal Jacket, twice. I especially like the part where the recruit wasted the bullying DI. I never claimed that my innate pacifism was perfect.

I saw racism in Vietnam, but not so much bullying. After all, in the field everyone carried loaded weapons everywhere except the showers.I take it back. Most officers were bullies. It’s the nature of the beast. And we lower ranking—ergo weaker—kids put up with it, although some fragged their commanding officers, sometimes with good reason. Which tended to have a pacifying effect on many officers, especially in the boonies.

Hmm. It occurs to me that I have forgotten—possibly due to denial or senile dementia or a stunning one two punch by both—about my long-deceased father who was most definitely a bully. And a former DI. Only the DI connection made me think of him. Were he alive he would surely be an enthusiastic member of the MAGA coterie. He had very strong, often loud and dissonant opinions on the real man’s persona. Yet, as do many blue collar he-men, he often groveled before the bosses or anyone in a superior station—an attitude the army no doubt reinforced, even if the bosses were physically weaker or even sissies. He called me a sissy as well as many other things when he learned I was trying to flunk the draft physical, exaggerating—I prefer to think of it as emphasizing—my sports injuries. I flunked flunking—easy to do: remember the BR who’d had polio and still passed—and, 19 months later, when I got off that big silver bird that carried me home, wearing my dress uniform and ribbons, my father was proud of me. I was not so proud of myself, and my sympathy for anyone who tried to avoid military service had grown enormously. As long as they didn’t try to hide that grievous sin. I admired M. Ali, although he made his living beating up weaker people and bragged about it, but he stood up to the draft board bullies and lost his world champion standing. A great friend starved himself in order to flunk the draft physical and enjoys telling that story with great good humor, which I enjoy hearing, each and every time. All the real he-men, man’s men types were upset when Carter forgave the draft dodgers. In my world view, the draft dodgers were the ones who deserved commendations and medals. With two notable exceptions.

I am at a loss to understand why all the MAGA he-men simply gloss over the fact that their favorite bully used his wealth and his family’s influence to find a doctor who helped him flunk the physical. I have no great problem with a rich man getting out of military service. They all do it. It’s expected. Bush’s influential family got him into the National Guard, despite it being closed at the time, in order to avoid the draft. He put in a few months’ service before he went AWOL. For me, the problem arises when they play the bully but won’t ‘fess up, when they still lie about it or still gloss over their actions to avoid action in Vietnam. That is an act of cowardice. It’s the cowardly cover-up that bothers me. It’s what bullies do. Even knowing that Bush and Trump might well have cheated to avoid the draft and going to Vietnam, I feel certain that my father, had he not died young because he didn’t believe in science, would have voted for them, would have groveled before that dynamic duo, as did and do all the Bushies and MAGA types. Bush was a bully on the world stage. Think Afghanistan and Iraq and Liberty Fries. Trump is a bully on the national stage, the big fat bully who kicks immigrants/refugees and trans kids, the weakest in our society, in the shins.

Trump is far from being the toughest kid, but he is our biggest bully, a very rich bully, and all the MAGA tough-guy and –gal bullies signed up to serve in his coterie, and all the GOP politicians grovel before him. I fail to see the appeal. He does not outrank the MAGA types who are not in the military and are free and equal citizens, and he certainly can’t beat them up or even punch them for fear of being punched back. The valiant politicians do have a good excuse: if they stand up to him he will support their rivals in the primaries.

Anyway, Trump who has the knack of too often putting himself in the conversation was not the reason I’ve been thinking of bullies lately. Well, not the main reason. That honor goes to Bashar Al-Assad. The good news is that he has fled to a land where he must grovel before a bigger bully. The bad news comes from the unending reports of atrocities committed by his coterie. I cannot help but wonder what it is in the human race, what defect in our makeup, impelled Assad’s coterie to commit such repugnant crimes against fellow human beings on such a wide scale.

Last century, Stanley Milgram came up with his agentic theory, positing that humans will commit acts they would not ordinarily perform if they were under the direction of someone they perceived as more powerful. In his experiment, guards (students) brutalized prisoners (also students) at the direction of the warden (Milgram).  Psychologists apply Milgram’s theory to torturers acting as agents for higher ranking officers or a dictator. Assad was at the apex of the power pyramid in Syria with a great many different levels of bullies in his very large coterie. I don’t know of any evidence that Assad or his generals took a hands-on-approach to the brutality, but the famous photo of the Saigon execution, also last century, shows that some generals are not averse to getting their hands dirty. I have no trouble imagining a sadistic general or two in Assad’s coterie going down to the basement dungeons to pass a few enjoyable moments torturing a prisoner or two. The last century is replete with examples. However, I do believe that in this century American generals kept their dress white gloves spotless and left all the sadism to the troops at black sites and Guantanamo but were suitably appalled when the torture became public. And draft dodger Bush’s coterie tried to change the definition of torture.

The stories told by the quantity of human remains and mass graves in many parts of Syria are shocking enough, but, according to the accounts of survivors, Assad’s bullies not only murdered but tortured and raped on an astonishing scale. Assad may not have personally directed or ordered every grisly incident, or even the majority of them, but he and his officers condoned or ignored those crimes against humanity, leaving the details up to the lower-level bullies who did not require explicit directions from a powerful person. The lower-level bullies possibly acted in accordance with the agentic theory, but their own creativity led them to commit acts of dismaying depravity. They didn’t matter-of-factly imprison, torture, rape, and murder anyone they thought was the enemy, anyone they didn’t like, anyone whose wife or property they coveted. No, they committed this Syrian Holocaust with gusto.

The agentic theory does not explain why bullies so readily become agents for bigger bullies, why anyone wants to be a bully. I certainly can’t explain it. Although I believe that fear, ambition, and the desire to fit in with the in group all play a role. Syria is a hierarchical country where people at or near the bottom are taught from childhood on that they have to obey those higher up on the social ladder. But here in the US, it’s the MAGA coterie that shouts the loudest about their independence and freedom while they act as agents for the American Alpha Bully. Did they join the MAGA coterie because our Alpha Bully gives them permission to indulge their desire to bully a variety of victims, other genders, other races, other nationalities?

Sociopathy Swallowed Sympathy in Assad’s Syria.

Antipathy Trumped Empathy in our recent elections.

Why?

Teflon coating makes pots and pans easy to clean, just wipe with a damp cloth and burnt bacon bits slide right off. For many years Trump has worn a Teflon coat and pants that cause accusations and charges of common crimes and treason to slide right off. Sadly, even billionaire ex-Presidents shrink in height and grow in girth as they age, and even Teflon coats and pants grow thin at the elbows, knees, and butt.  Trump’s Teflon tailors have had to let out the pants at the waist and butt and the jacket at the back. Possibly they did not have to take the pant-legs up because, as rumored, Trump resorts to lifts in his shoes.

COMMON CRIMES

Due to wear and tear of the Teflon suit and growth in girth of the wearer, a few of the common crimes committed by Trump have stuck despite his furious attempts to wipe them away. He was convicted in a civil trial of doing what he bragged about in an infamous video: grabbing a woman by the pussy. The braggadocio was not just idle or locker-room talk, as he claimed when the video was released. He actually sexually assaulted a woman in the dressing room of an upscale clothing store and then slandered the woman when she accused him. Too traumatized and humiliated by the assault, the woman did not press charges for years. The statute of limitations protected him from criminal charges that could have resulted in many years in prison, but he was found guilty of sexual assault by a jury in civil proceedings and ordered to pay many millions of dollars to the victim for slandering her. He was then ordered to pay many millions more after he continued to defame the woman he was found guilty of assaulting and slandering.

He was found guilty by another jury in another civil proceeding for defrauding the state of New York. One of those frauds was lying about the size of his penthouse (size seems to be an obsession with him). He was ordered to pay the state of New York many millions. 

Most recently he was convicted of 34 felonies for falsifying documents in order to cover up a hush-

money payment to a porn star and deducting it as a business expense during a political campaign. Not a violent crime, not like sexually assaulting a woman in the dressing room of a clothing store, more of a peccadillo for which the MAGA types, especially the INCEL wing, whose manly men only (often?) fantasize in their dearest dreams about dallying with a porn-star. The falsifying documents part made the peccadillo rise to the level of felonies. Another former President, Nixon, also learned the hard way that the cover-up can be worse than the crime. We are awaiting sentencing in that case (Trump’s, not Nixon’s). Probably another fine of many millions more, but it would be too delicious if he were ordered to perform community service, which, according to his belief system, is for suckers and losers.

TREASON

Despite the worn spots and small tears in the shabby old Teflon suit it has held up against treason charges, thus far, thanks to the efforts of the Teflon tailors and seamstress. But they have to work with the limited material in the old suit, and I like to think that although they let out the pants as much as possible, they warned Trump not to bend over in public.

Most Americans over the age of, say, 21 have seen videos of the J6 (the term favored by the insurrectionists) insurrection, including Trump’s speech exhorting the crowd to “Fight like hell” or “you won’t have a country.” A bipartisan House Committee (two Republicans served on the committee but have since been excommunicated from the party for their apostasy) unanimously found Trump guilty and referred the case to the Department of Justice, which appointed a Special Counsel who filed charges against Trump. The House then impeached Trump, but the Republican senators circled their wobbly wagons. However, the Special Counsel filed numerous charges against Trump. While not using the T word (Treason) or even the I word (Insurrection) in the charges, he did avail himself of an abundance of good words, including “prolific lies” and “Dishonesty, Fraud, and Deceit,” and the charges state that Trump put more effort into various conspiracies to interfere with the legitimate functions of the government than he ever did in governing when he was President. Well, they don’t precisely state that, but I do.

Several states have not shied away from using the I word. Colorado and Maine, citing the 14^th Amendment, went the distance and ruled that because Trump incited an insurrection he, like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, was ineligible for any public office. The Supreme Courts of both states upheld. Trump appealed to his tailors on the federal Supreme Court, not arguing that he was innocent of treason, but that as President the 14^th Amendment did not apply to him. The conservative originalists on our Supreme Court agreed, originating a rule that Congress had to act on the matter. Had they been on the court in 1868, Jeff D., could have run for President of all the states and R. E. Lee could have become the Secretary of Defense. Trump’s tailors did not rule whether Trump was innocent or guilty of the crime of treason and the charges slipped off his hastily mended Teflon coat. When poor people or people of color get off on technicalities those of a conservative and white bent exercise their outrage glands. When a technicality easily cleansed those clinging charges from the Teflon Traitor’s suit, the conservatives applauded as enthusiastically as any fired-up congregation performing a call and response.

After two grand juries recommended indictment of the Teflon Traitor, the District Attorney of Atlanta filed numerous charges against Trump and numerous co-conspirators for their efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia. Instead of charging them with treason, she has charged them with racketeering and conspiracy due to their widespread efforts, including the use of fake electors, to overturn the election. Trump and his platoon of attorneys, falling back on their usual distraction technique, have attacked the DA, embroiling her in several controversies, and thus far delayed any trial.

Most Americans over the age of, say, 12 have seen the photographs of the boxes upon boxes of documents concealed at Mar-a-Lago, especially those in the bathroom with the opulent chandelier, which only a 12-year-old could find esthetically pleasing. And let’s not forget all the boxes upon boxes in the storeroom guarded by a copy machine. Photographs are worth thousands of words in a charging document, but the local Teflon seamstress who has a side gig as a federal judge has done her best to patch over the numerous worn spots in the butt of the Teflon suit.

All of which begs the question of what the hell Teflon Trump wanted with all those documents and why he fought to keep them, and even lied about having them? And got his attorney and staff to lie. It’s not as if Trump were a compulsive reader. He is not known to have a working relationship with books, although he did once hold up a Bible, up-side down, at a news conference. Not your average 12-year-old, but, say, those daring few over 21 who pay attention to the news, have seen reports that, when President, Trump could not be bothered to read the daily briefings and intelligence reports, usually shuffling them off to V.P. Pence. If he didn’t want to read the documents when he was President, why are they so dear to him now? Is it then that Trump is simply a hoarder, like some of the elderly, childless cat ladies of V.P. Candidate Vance fame who can’t bear to throw away old New Yorkers until they can no longer cram a copy machine into their bathrooms.

If Teflon Trump has a defensible reason for stocking his bathroom, ballroom, store room, and bedroom with classified documents (and a copy machine), he has yet to share that defense with the public. Instead, he lied about having them, then lied about the number, then lied that he had given them all back—suborning perjury in the process—all of which gives us license to speculate.

Speculation number 1 (my favorite): He was a good President but corrupted by the nearness of powerful documents and now cannot bear to be apart from them. Perhaps like Gollum he caresses them in the bathroom and calls them “My Precious?”

Speculation number 2 (less visually pleasing but more in touch with reality): Businessman Trump made a business of selling copies of those documents.  

Stealing classified documents is a form of treason as is selling them or even gratuitously sharing them with friends or hostile parties, say, Trump’s good buddy Putin, for instance. In the documents case Trump was charged under the Espionage Act but his local seamstress delayed and delayed the case and finally threw it out, writing that Special Counsels have to be appointed by Congress (based on a tip from that most eminent legal scholar and pubic-hair-on-coke-cans-inspector, Clarence Thomas.) The Special Counsel has appealed that ruling. Meanwhile, the Supreme Teflon Tailors’ presidential immunity ruling sews a gigantic patch, one nearly big enough to cover the entire butt, over the hastily sewn small patches. Not wanting to look completely ridiculous they did blink when it came to the possibility of ordering military assassins to kill a political rival. Perhaps they were afraid that Biden would order the assassination of their Precious boy.

All of which means that it appears inevitable that the expanded and mended Teflon suit will hold until after the presidential elections. Only those under, say, 12 cannot imagine what will happen to all those charges if he wins the election. If he loses, he might well hop on Trump Force One and head for Moscow to re-ignite his bromance with Putin.

Trump’s defenders may argue that as a wealthy man he would have to reason to try to make a buck selling classified documents and it is unreasonable to assume that he did. That this is a specious argument will be readily proved by the briefest review of the Trumpian record. The following few examples are not in chronological order.

SCAMS: Trump University; the Donald J. Trump Foundation; numerous bankruptcies; numerous fund-raising pleas; see also Hardy v. Kaszycki.

GRIFTS: Trump Coins; Trump Watches; Trump Ties; Trump Bibles; Trump Digital Trading Cards; Trump Steaks; all of which can be purchased from the Official Trump Campaign Store, with the possible exception of Trump Steaks, which might be better placed under SCAMS.

No product is too tacky for the Trumpian taste. Why not Trump Classified Records?

Any partially opened mind, any person half-way honest with herself, would realize that Trump, who did not divest himself when assuming the Presidency, does not miss an opportunity to make a buck. Trump Hotel even overcharged his own Inaugural Committee because he wanted to make (many more than) a few bucks upon entering the White House. Why not make a buck after leaving? Why not add Classified Documents to his grift? And to say that he would never betray our country, is to ignore J6.

“Why” is the question. We know he took the documents. We’ve seen the photos. He initially returned 15 boxes of documents when requested to do so. Did he first make copies? Why else were so many documents stored with a copy machine. Then the FBI search found more than 13,000 documents in, by my count from photos, more than 100 boxes in the bathroom, ballroom, and storeroom, and later even more in the bedroom. They also found 48 folders marked classified that were completely empty. Why did he take the documents, why did he lie about them, why did he say he returned them all?

It is a matter of great pride that in the United States all accused persons have the right to their day in court. The Teflon Traitor and his battalions of attorneys appear to be directing all their efforts to prevent that from happening. In this they are aided by numerous Teflon tailors, seamstresses, Congresspersons, governors, and just about everyone in the Republican Party. They have all closed ranks to protect this Teflon Traitor, either actively voicing their support or by their silence. MLK Jr. said, “There comes a time when silence is betrayal”. All of which brings up an interesting legal and ethical point. If Trump was selling access to classified documents, are these people co-conspirators or accessories? According to federal law it is a felony for anyone who owes allegiance to the U.S. and knows of the commission of any treason to conceal it or not tell authorities. They all saw the photos. They all heard the lies. Why do they protect him? On J6 and the day after even Republican Congresspersons were upset with Trump and might even have uttered the words “insurrection” or “coup.” Why did they so quickly try to erase J6 from the historical record, turn it into just another ho-hum day at the Capitol with the usual large number of peaceful tourists? On J9 (my term for June 9, 2023, the day the photos of the classified documents were published) some Republicans kinda sorta feebly distanced themselves from Trump, but in the following days they fell back into line. “Why,” again, is the question. Why do they protect him? In their heart of hearts (“in the deepest, most intimate, and most honest part of one’s feelings or beliefs,” according to the Free Dictionary) these Republicans, Congresspersons, and judges know that Trump instigated a failed coup and subsequently illegally took classified documents from the White House. They’ve seen the videos. They’ve seen the photos. Some actually fled for their lives from the insurrectionists who assaulted the Capitol. They know that Trump is a traitor. But he’s also the most powerful member of their party–they surrendered the power to him–a Wizard of Oz hiding behind a curtain they put up to screen him from charges of treason because they are afraid that if he goes down they go with him. If Trump goes down, the Republican Party might also go down and they might get thrown out of office, losing their cushy, prestigious, and powerful positions. They place party and their own positions above country.

They will never be charged or tried, but they are guilty of aiding a traitor. They owe allegiance to the United States and know of the commission of treason, yet attempt to conceal it and fail to tell the authorities. They protect Trump and their own personal defense mechanisms protect them.

JUST DESSERTS

The mainstream press, with some exceptions, is jumping on Biden for his poor performance in the debate, which he deserves. But if the press is concerned about just desserts what about Trump. Along with his lies, he made a number of verbal gaffs. If you babble incoherent nonsense and make up outrageous lies but do so loudly and forcefully, do you get a pass from the media? Did the reporters and commentators not notice? Or were they so convinced that Biden’s bumbling was the saleable story that they ignored Trump’s ludicrous performance? Where’s the fair and balanced news that the media brag about? Am I the only one who thought Trump’s performance was that of a deranged or a practiced con man? Or both? Am I the only one who thought Trump lied incessantly, while Biden, when he did manage to get a point across, was truthful? Am I the only one who rates mumbled and bumbled truthfulness higher that loud-mouthed lies?

FANTASY

Biden disappointed me and Trump appalled me, more the former than the latter because I expected more from Biden and got what I expected from Trump. I’ve seen his schtick far too many times and have a certain level of immunity. I could kick myself for wasting my time watching those two old farts talk about their golf game when I could have watched baseball. Or taken a refreshing nap. And Biden seems to be kicking himself, as well he should. Whenever I have an argument or dispute with someone, I spend far too many napless hours thinking of all the trenchant things I wish I had said and mentally kicking myself for not saying them. I would mentally kick Biden, but far too many people are verbally kicking him. As I watched Biden fumble a number of opportunities to rebut the lies, I thought of all the things I wished he had said. Here’s a partial list (so many lies, so little time):

TRUMP (paraphrased): Only a handful of people participated in what was a peaceful walkthrough of the Capitol on Jan 6 and they were ushered in by the Capitol police.

BIDEN: (laughing) Yeah, a peaceful walkthrough. Tell that whopper to the many Capitol police officers who bravely tried to defend the Capitol and were injured by the peaceful insurrectionists. Tell that to the police officers suing you for instigating the insurrection. Over a thousand of those peaceful tourists were convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes. Many more cases will follow. And you say they were ushered in by the police, HA! That’s a good one, even for a practiced liar like you. Millions of people saw on their TV screens the violent attacks on the police. Millions saw the police valiantly trying to defend the Capitol against overwhelming numbers of your peaceful tourists committing overwhelming numbers of violent acts. And now you’re telling the millions watching this debate that they didn’t see what they saw, what they can watch again, any time they want. That insurrection was televised for all the world to see, and yet you stand here and claim it didn’t happen that way. You have no shame, no moral or intellectual braking system that prevents you from telling your outrageous whoppers. The sad part is that your die-hard supporters will convince themselves to go along with this delusion.

TRUMP (paraphrased): It was Nancy Pelosi’s fault (the attack on the Capitol) because I offered to have ten thousand National Guards standing by, but Nancy rejected them. Nancy admitted that it was her fault because she rejected the troops that I offered.

BIDEN: What unmitigated bull pucky! Nancy, as speaker of the House, had nothing to do with the protection of the Capitol, nothing to do with accepting or rejecting your fantasy offer of ten thousand National Guards. Maybe in your deluded mind you think you made the offer. Or possibly you offered the ten thousand troopers to Nikki Haley. You do get her and Nancy mixed up. And Nikki had even less to do with the protection of the Capitol. And if you did offer ten thousand troopers to Nikki, it must have confused the hell out of her. She must have wondered what in the hell would she do with ten thousand troopers in South Carolina where she’s no longer governor. And as to Nancy or even Nikki admitting it was her fault because she rejected your very kind offer, this is either another of your outrageous lies or another example of you living in a fantasyland of your own, one more inventive than anything Disney studios could come up with. We can ask Nancy and Nikki, but when both say that they received no such offer and they admitted no such thing, you won’t care because you’ll have moved on to other lies and, you hope, the damage will already have been done. Your delusional followers will either continue to believe the lie or at least say they do or forgive it as just another example of good old Trump being Trump. Let’s make a deal. If Nancy says on live television that the insurrection was all her fault, then I’ll drop out of the race. If she denies saying it, then you drop out.

TRUMP (paraphrased and quoted): Biden and the Democrats are radical extremists because they “will take the life of a child in the eight month, the ninth month, and even after birth. After birth.”

BIDEN: Here we go again with another of your whoppers. Maybe you’ve gorged yourself on so many whoppers in your life that you can’t help vomiting up a few. This latest whopper is another dishonest creation of your sick mind. As far as killing babies after birth, I believe it’s called infanticide and is against the law in every state. You are correct, astoundingly, in that some abortions do take place in the eighth and ninth month, but those are only in cases of abnormalities that put the life of the mother or fetus at risk. But none occur after birth and it’s ridiculous to say so.

TRUMP (paraphrased): He’s killing people with his open borders. Other countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions and flooding our country with murderers and rapists causing a huge crime wave in our country.

BIDEN (looking into the camera): Don’t be fooled, folks. This is another example of Trump appealing to his Nazi and white supremacist supporters. There is not a shred of evidence to support this racist claim. No country is emptying its prisons and mental institutions. There is no crime wave caused by undocumented immigrants. In fact, numerous studies have shown that the crime rate among undocumented people is much lower than that of people born in the USA. While I don’t deny that we have a problem with the overwhelming numbers of immigrants at the southern border, at the same time we should recognized the humanity of those immigrants and realize that the vast majority have come fleeing violence or simply looking for better lives, just as all our immigrant ancestors did, just like all the people on the Mayflower. They are all human beings. I’m surprised you didn’t blame them for late term abortions and killing babies after birth.

TRUMP (paraphrased): I did not call those American servicemen in the French cemetery losers and I have 19 witnesses who have come forward to refute what that lying general said I said. And I fired him.

BIDEN: It is true that you shout a lot, as you’re doing tonight. I don’t know, maybe you have a hearing problem as well as a listening problem. Did you shout loud enough when talking to General Kelly, that 19 witnesses heard every word you said that day? Where did your deranged mind come up with the number 19? Is that number preying on your sick mind because you are one of 19 defendants in the Georgia election fraud case? Against your list of 19 imaginary witnesses, we have the word of a Major General in the US Army whom you appointed as your Chief of Staff. And, the fact is, you did not visit that cemetery. Why don’t you publish this list of 19 and we can check to see if they were always around you when you spoke with General Kelly. Next, I suppose you’ll lie and claim that you never trashed that American hero John McCain.  Or insulted Gold Star Families.

TRUMP (paraphrased and quoted): I gave Americans the largest tax cut ever. “We had the greatest economy in history.”

BIDEN: That tax cut was given mainly to billionaires and led to a nearly 8 trillion dollar increase in our national debt, which average Americans, the people who didn’t benefit from the tax cut, will spend the rest of their lives trying to pay off.

CLOSING STATEMENT

BIDEN: (looking into the camera) You know, folks, I get tired of this same old schtick. He rants and raves and tells the most outrageous lies that not even he can believe. If he does believe them then he’s living in a dangerous fantasy world. He makes up conversations with imaginary people that confirm his outrageous lies. He says he was the greatest president in our history and just about everyone told him so. Well, 154 historians recently rated all our Presidents, and they all, including conservative historians, ranked Trump near the bottom.  He brags that he had the respect of the leaders of every country in the world, a fact he knows because they all told him so. If the leader of Mexico respected him so much, why didn’t Mexico pay for the border wall as Trump had promised. He says he has the respect of the police everywhere. Everywhere he goes they tell him so. Tell that to the Capital Police who are suing him.

CONFESSION

I confess that I am Biden’s age. I’m slower than I used to be and sometimes grope for words. I don’t stammer, but I have a (service-related) hearing disability, which means I have to concentrate more than most in normal conversations, and I often slack off. Supporters claim that Biden simply had a bad day, that his poor performance was an episode, not a condition. I have episodes as well as a condition. But, like Biden, I’m not ready to retire. Like Biden I think I can still help people. Like I have to do, it’s up to Biden to show that he has more good days than bad. The 20- and 30-somethings in my office sometimes patronize me, but they also come to me for advice and to take advantage of some of the knowledge I couldn’t help but accumulate through the years.

I don’t mean to insinuate that my situation is just like Biden’s, but I do have an inkling, however infinitely small, of his situation. He may mumble and stammer and walk stiffly but he looks healthy. He may not be buff, but he’s trim. He bicycles for exercise. He does not try to hide his thinning white hair. I’m healthy. I’m certainly not buff and only sort of trim. I do bike to work. I have a good deal more thinning white hair than Biden. The media seems obsessed with Biden’s health. What about Trump’s? Trump does not look healthy and I cannot imagine him on a bicycle. Never. Ever. He’s the opposite of buff and trim. He’s obese and his facial skin is a non-human color and his bleached comb-over calls reveals his hidden baldness when the wind blows. Is this body-shaming? Ask Trump. He wrote the book. The White House doctor who gave Trump a glowing health report in 2018 and recently gave him a cognition test which Trump claims to have passed with flying colors had to withdraw from the nomination to head the VA because of allegations of a drinking problem and improper opioid prescriptions. Is he to be trusted?

And let’s clear up a common misconception about power and the powerful. In our patriarchal society Presidents get the credit or the blame for everything that happens on their watch. The reality is that they cannot and do not do everything. They delegate. They surround themselves with people who advise them, warn them when an idea is bad and, when it’s good, help them execute it. Biden seems to have surrounded himself with good, intelligent people who want to do the right thing for the county. Trump promises to surround himself with enablers and yes men, as well as a few blonde women, who will do whatever he says, no matter how deranged or delusional.

Our choice couldn’t be clearer.

Sloppy thinkers opine that the 2024 election between Biden and Trump is a choice between the lesser of two evils. They may dislike either candidate for a variety of reasons, but to say they are both evil is a false dichotomy. Biden is a decent human being who sincerely wants to do the right thing and has done many right things as well as some wrong things (hello Anita Hill). The problem for him, and all of us, is knowing what is the right thing. Not always easy to say, and sometimes those who say it loudest say it wrongest. Many people say many things about Trump, but no one ever accused him of being a decent human being. Those inclined to defend his decency and desire to do the right think have to get over—or around, or under—some high hurdles, such as his bragging that he can grab women by the pussy and get away with it because he’s rich and powerful; and his subsequent conviction for doing just that. Or taking young children from their parents and putting them in cages to discourage others from immigrating. These are not indicators of decency.

Biden has expressed remorse for the way he handled the Anita Hill hearings, and his many appointments of women of color (Deb Haaland is my favorite) indicate that he has learned and grown to a certain extent. Trump makes a point of never expressing remorse, perhaps indicating that he is incapable of learning and growing, and his female appointees tend to have long blonde hair.

Some of Biden’s admirers might say and even believe that he is an honorable man. Trump’s admirers might say that he is an honorable man, but would they believe it? Again, there are high hurdles to overcome. Slandering a woman whose pussy he grabbed or lack of remorse for putting young children in cages are higher hurdles than his border wall, which, by the way, Mexico did not pay for as promised, that is, as Trump promised; Mexico only laughed. Trump’s defenders—admittedly they are many—might argue that many thousands of citizens prove their belief that Trump is an honorable man by sending small donations to his presidential or get out of jail campaigns. Do suckers buy snake oil because they believe the grifter who peddles it is an honorable man? Or because they are desperate for a cure? Or because the peddler has charisma, a quality Trump has, according to about a third of the population, while Biden lacks charisma, according to just about everybody.

Clear thinkers, then, will see the choice in the election as between a decent man with no charisma and an indecent man with charisma. Is charisma a positive characteristic in an indecent person? Look at 1930’s Italy and Germany.

Trump’s recent conviction on 34 counts in New York is due to another characteristic of this indecent man: He’s a cheapskate. Had billionaire Trump paid the porn star with some chump change he must have lying around his many mansions there would have been no crime, no charges, no conviction. But no, he’s a cheapskate and illegally wrote it off as a business expense. Now he’s a cheapskate felon.

Taylor Swift and the Super Bowl. Hillary and a pedophile ring under a pizza parlor. Hunter and his laptop. Trump battling Satan. Majorie Taylor Green and Jewish Space Lasers. Social and anti-social media are inundated with whacko-right conspiracy theories. I used to laugh at them, until a whacko shot up the pizza parlor. Now I see their effectiveness as distractions and chaos creators. Now I think it’s time to revive the extinct Fairness Doctrine, and publish some fact-inspired, leftist conspiracy theories.

I confess that I am a politics junkie as well as an incorrigible conspiracy theorist. Whether condemnable or commendable, these mutualistic traits have contributed to my tendency to blame Trump and Putin for much of the nation’s and world’s ills. I can’t help but view Putin and Trump as Hollywood-movie buddies on the world stage, Batman and Robin, or, more appropriately, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, with Putin as the L.R., since he does much of his work behind the mask of a clandestine cyber hacking network and through enablers that I call the Putin Wing, and Trump as Tonto because, well, because he’s tonto.

Let’s start with 2016, the lamentable year of Brexit, the distressing year Trump was chosen to be the 45^th President of these unfortunate United States. The Putin Wing in the British government has long since successfully quelled any zeal for an investigation into Russian influence in the Brexit vote, while the Putin Wing in the Trump government successfully misled the American public into not believing and not caring if the Russians boosted him over the finish line. Neither the British government nor Trump will confess that they owe at least a portion of their success to Putin’s machinations. While the Putin Wing in both countries has done their darnedest to stifle any hint of meddling by Putin, the Brits have been more successful stiflers. Still, Trump and the U.S. Putin Wing’s efforts have been sufficient to feed the MAGA millions’ disdain for facts. And the British government as well as Tonto has been aided by the reluctance of the public to admit they were duped.

NB. While it is incontrovertible that Russian use of social media foments conspiracy theories, they only indirectly fomented mine.

Intensive investigations by Special Counsel Mueller, American intelligence services, and three Congressional Committees concluded that the Russians intervened in the U.S. elections in order to harm Clinton and help Trump.

Getting ahead of the news, ex-Attorney General and ex-high-ranking official of the Putin Wing, Bill Barr, helpfully summarized the book-length Mueller Report for the MAGA minions before it was released and stated that it completely exonerated Trump from obstruction of justice charges, which it did not; he said Trump cooperated fully with the investigation, which he did not—the report expressly stated that he declined to testify or provide written responses to questions; BB said that the report found “no collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russians—well, here he might be right, sort of: collusion is not a legal concept and was not investigated.

I can’t help but wonder what BB’s high school book reports were like.

The report did state that it looked for evidence of “conspiracy”, a legal concept, between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and in a form of legalese wrote that not establishing particular facts “does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.”

No sooner had our Putin Wing Attorney General publicly misled the public, than Trump trumpeted that the report stated unequivocally that there was no collusion. When the report was released, those with a long enough attention span learned that, while the Special Counsel wrote that he did not find enough evidence to charge anyone in the Trump Campaign with illegal contact with Russian officials, he expressly noted that:

“the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference.”

Subsequently, thirty-four high level Trump Campaign officials, including the campaign manager Paul Manafort, and national security advisor Lt. Gen Michael Flynn were indicted, convicted and pleaded guilty to a number of other charges, including lying to impede the investigations. Trump then pardoned his minions. Twenty-six Russian officials were also indicted. No doubt Putin gave them Christmas bonuses.

Much more slowly, the Senate Committee kept plugging away and found evidence that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 elections, including undermining confidence in U.S. democratic institutions and voting processes.

Despite the Special Counsel, the committees, and the intelligence agencies finding that the Russians did indeed meddle in our elections, when Trump had a one on one (interpreters don’t count) with Putin after the election, he claimed that he asked Putin about it, and Putin told him that Russia had not interfered in the election. After looking in Putin’s eyes, Trump looked into the cameras and said he believed him. How could he say otherwise? How could he criticize the man who had his back after the grab em by the pussy tape was made public? Or was it sheer coincidence that minutes after that tape aired, Wikileaks leaked a load of documents the Russians had hacked from the Democratic National Convention computers, pushing the pussy tape out of the news and social consciousness? How many of Trump’s high-minded evangelical Christian supporters have seen, let alone heard about the pussy tape?

NB: Putin warmed up for the interference in the U.S. elections and the Brexit vote with a cyber hacking campaign in the 2014 Ukraine election. Putin seems to have an obsession with Ukraine.

Russian aid to Trump in the 2016 elections is no longer a conspiracy theory. It’s fact. Whether the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians is still in the realm of conspiracy theory.

From all the dribs and drabs of hints, clues, and information over the years, it doesn’t take any great leap of faith for a conspiracy theorist like me to believe that the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians. The Pizzagate conspiracy theory, courtesy of the Russians, had neither drib nor drab of evidence and how many bought it? How many still buy it? The Lone Ranger wanted Tonto to win the election, and Tonto was only too glad to grasp the outstretched hand.

Some might say that Mr. Trump would never stoop that low. After all, he’s an honorable man, deserving of our respect. But then there’s that tape of him bragging about grabbing a woman by the pussy, and news videos of him claiming it was just locker-room talk and he would never, and now his recent conviction for grabbing Ms Carroll by the pussy and slandering her afterwards. Can any aware and reasonable person doubt that the honorable and respectable Mr. Trump and his minions have a proclivity for the illegal and despicable? Not so long ago we had the forced dissolution of the Trump Foundation followed by the folding of Trump University. Very recently Trump was found guilty of fraud and we’re anxiously awaiting the decision on the penalty. Currently, the honorable Mr. Trump has 91 criminal counts against him as well as many of his minions resulting from his second campaign for president. He also has pending numerous civil cases against him brought by women claiming sexual assault, nearly all from before he was elected in 2016. While he’s only been found guilty of sexually assaulting Ms Carroll, thus far, any decent theorist with a nose for conspiracy visualizes fire when he smells enough smoke.

The first big whiff of his second campaign came from Ukraine when Trump tried to extort a foreign leader. After blocking $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, the dynamic duo of Trump and Giuliani called President Zelensky to pressure him to announce that he was opening an investigation into the alleged corruption of the Bidens. An actual investigation was not required—the case against Biden had already been investigated and found to be without merit—but the mere announcement of an investigation would have been put to use by the Trump campaign, expert at selling sound and fury as a substitute for facts and honesty. Trump characterized his call to Zelensky as a “perfect” call because he’s tonto. Tempting as it is to compare Trump and Giuliani to Mafia Dons extorting a corrupt politician, I cannot imagine any Don being so stupid as to illegally ask for political favors with a cadre of secretaries, clerks, and intelligence agents monitoring the call. Stupidity abetted by hubris. Tonto and more tonto.

Zelensky refused. Trump was impeached for the attempted extortion. But the Putin Wing and fellow travelers—some Republicans, while not card-carrying members of that non-exclusive club, Mitch McConnell, for instance, are willfully blind to the harm of a temporary alliance with the Putin Wing for the sake of the party (but not the country)—found him not guilty.

With the House Putin Wing’s recent authorization of an Impeachment Inquiry against President Biden, they have succeeded in doing what Trump failed to extort Ukrainian President Zelensky into doing. Contrary to the statements of their own witnesses testifying before House committees that there is no there there, and contrary to the current Speaker of the House’s past statement that Congress should not authorize an impeachment inquiry without evidence, the House has given candidate Trump the ammunition he wanted for his campaign. They have announced an official investigation. The bullets may be blanks, but they will make a loud noise. Sound and fury Trump facts—but not alternative facts—and reason.

Which brings us to our southern border. Unquestionably, many countries in the southern hemisphere are barely functional—largely due to centuries of meddling by Europe in Africa and the U.S. in Latin America. Unquestionably, the large caravans of humans heading to the southern border hope for a better life. Many knocking at that door are encouraged to come by family, friends, and neighbors who entered successfully, and many are encouraged to come by coyotes and human traffickers who exploit them. But does this account for the large caravans? Do coyotes and human traffickers make money off the hundreds or thousands of people we see in videos publicly parading along the roads and highways of Mexico? Or mainly those who make the trek out of public view.

I know of no hard evidence and have heard no rumors to support my tendency to blame Putin here. But, as an avid fan of mysteries, I seek whom the crime benefits. I suspect Putin of spreading misinformation—his most effective long-range weapon—in Central American countries, Haiti, Venezuela, and lately, Africa that would encourage these masses of humanity to make the long, long trek. I am aware that it’s all supposition on my part, but can there be any doubt that Putin likes to spread misinformation and cause chaos? And not just for the sake of causing chaos, but for a political goal. What does he gain from this particular chaos? The Lone Ranger wants to help Tonto who will repay him by not supporting Ukraine.

Even if Putin did not have a cyber hand in the mess, the Putin Wing of Congress certainly enjoys the chaos at the border. They use it as an excuse to hold up funding for Ukraine, which is struggling to hold off Putin’s invasion. They batter our senses with sound and fury about Biden’s incompetence or reluctance to do anything to alleviate this crisis, this emergency situation on the border, about the dangerous criminals and terrorists crossing into the United States, about an invasion, when the reality is that the responsibility is largely theirs. Only Congress can pass laws. Only Congress controls the budget. If they want the President to hire more people to secure the border, they have to fund them. If the Putin Wing demands changes in our asylum laws, they have to do it. If they want to build an enormous, ineffectual wall, they have to pass the funding and change the environmental laws. If they want to change the citizenship law, they have to amend the Constitution. Biden can only propose actions/reforms or make rules—rules that will be immediately challenged in court.

Just when it seemed that Congress was about to pass a bill to alleviate the emergency situation on our border, along comes Tonto to stop them.  Crises, emergency situations, terrorist and criminal infiltrations, and invasions call for immediate action and Tonto has immediately acted. He publicly told the Putin Wing and fellow travelers to wait a year before taking action, and when Tonto is President, he’ll resolve the situation better and faster than anyone in the world could. This year-long delay has the added benefit of allowing Tonto and the Putin Wing to continue with the sound and fury about the emergency situation on the border. It should go without saying that Tonto and the Putin Wing desire the continued chaos at the border because it just might help them defeat Biden and the Democrats, but it should be said—shouted really—because that fact is often lost—especially by mainstream media—in the sound and the fury. For much of the media sound and fury are, per se, sexier than legislating, and despite all the high-minded censorship and book banning, sex sells.

Another added benefit, for Putin, is that the Putin Wing has tied border funding to funding for Ukraine.

Biden and the Democrats are not free of all blame in this border chaos; they have failed to attack the enemy—not the immigrants at the border—but the Putin Wing and fellow travelers in Congress who bloviate about the need to act yet refuse to act.

Which brings us to the Israel-Palestine conflagration. While I again know of no hard evidence to support this conspiracy theory, I blame Putin for the recent Israel-Palestine conflagration. Before you have an apoplectic fit, read on and ask yourself if any of the following facts are incorrect.

Putin has his cyber fingers in a great many troubled pies around the world. He doesn’t draw the line at war crimes such as the bombing of civilians in Ukraine or the use of sarin gas in Syria. He would not be the least troubled by the deaths of thousands of civilians, Palestinians and Israelis, as collateral damage. He has a long history of support in and for Hamas and Herzbollah, if not always directly then through his proxies, Iran and Syria. Putin aids Iran, providing much military assistance and intelligence. [Hmm. Wasn’t one of the top secret documents Trump pilfered from the White House the U.S. plan for the invasion of Iran?] Iran sends arms to Hamas and Herzbollah. And, yes, the Houthis. Those arms were used to attack Israel and ships in the Red Sea.

Is it such a stretch to believe that Putin encouraged, either directly or through his proxies, Hamas to attack Israel on October 7, 2023? Is it such a stretch to imagine that Putin could easily predict that war criminals in waiting, Netanyahu and his extreme nationalist cohorts, would overreact? And war criminals in waiting, Hamas, would continue their holy war unto the last Gazan?

How does Putin love this war? Let me count the ways:

1. The world’s focus is no longer on aiding Ukraine, while Putin maintains a laser-like focus on attacking that country.
2. US military funding for Ukraine is now indefinitely delayed, tied to funding for Israel and our southern border. Our Putin Wing Speaker of the House is opposed to aid to Ukraine. There’s poor, battered Ukraine again.
3. The political fallout in the U.S. falls mainly on Biden, and helps Tonto. If Tonto is elected president, he will halt funding for Ukraine, and do what he can to weaken or even withdraw from NATO.
4. Putin is as aroused by the thought of a helpless NATO and raping Ukraine as Trump is by the thought of grabbing women by the pussy.

Seek whom the crime benefits.

Because you’re stupid is a phrase I often feel compelled to use when talking to myself. It’s an overused yet often extraordinarily apt line burned into my brain by the Nihilists in the show Fact Wino by the San Francisco Mime Troup half a lifetime ago. I don’t remember all the lyrics and probably didn’t hear them correctly when I saw the performance. I only remember the punk version of a Greek chorus, fists raised, jumping up and down while shouting, “You voted for Nixon twice. Why? Because you’re stupid.” I may often be stupid, but not never enough to vote for Nixon, not even once.

I have done a quantity, a large quantity, of stupid things in my long life. One was to call a sensitive (overly?) person stupid. A sergeant I was somewhat friendly with in Vietnam confided in me that his wife was angry because in a letter to her he was indiscreet about his indiscretions on R and R in Japan and he didn’t understand her reaction. I blurted out the magic S word, and he coldly informed me that he hated it when anyone called him stupid and stopped speaking to me.  We were in the middle of a(n  undeclared) war, getting ready for what might be a dangerous mission, and his main concern was that I called him stupid. That was more than half a lifetime ago, and I still have some slight regret about hurting him, even though he was a lifer sergeant and the facts were on my side. Discretion is the better part of accuracy, as I came to realize, and I have since bitten my tongue so often that most of my taste buds are gone rather than call anyone stupid. Other than myself, of course.

Perhaps through the years, I’ve grown weaker and less resolute, but recently I find that I no longer have the fortitude to resist calling spades spades and stupid people stupid.  With the caveat that I would never call someone born with low intellectual ability stupid—say, those in or near the 13.6% of the left side of the bell curve for intelligence, assuming there is such a thing (I’m not talking about the problematic Bell Curve that describes IQ test results and stupid people swear by). Everyone else is fair game for the Stupid title, especially those on or near the far right, politically and statistically.

A friend, a German with a Doctorate, insists that many more than the 13.6% are born with far less mental acuity than what passes for average on the dubious Bell Curve for IQs. Over a glass or two of cognac, I often disagree with him and advance my thoroughly unresearched theory that that the vast majority of the damn human race is born with the same number of neurons and synapses, while a great percentage of the DHR folds stupidity into their cerebral cortexes postnatally. Racism, misogyny, homophobia, fear/hatred of the other– let’s call them the Four Horsemen of the Stupocolypse—make us stupid. Often by choice, as if they were trying on a warm snuggly coat to protect themselves from the winter of cold reason, much of the DHR dons stupidity. Perhaps a suit of armor would be a better metaphor because it shields them from the slings and arrows of facts. In the rare case when a fact-laden dart manages to get through, they resort to the antidote of alternative facts.

A famous line from the (Bill) Clinton campaign was, “It’s the economy, stupid,” to remind Bill and his staff that people voted according to their economic interests. Which is not true. Not anymore. A brief look at labor history in late 19^th and early 20^th century America would indicate that while many blue-collar working men and women valued education, which they were often denied, they became increasingly aware of their best interests, economically as well as socially, as well as aware that the upper class had other interests. And some—certainly not all–began to organize and vote according to their interests. They made important gains, but it was always a struggle. After the economic crash (the Hoover Hard Times) the vast majority of hardhat, blue-collar working men and women voted again and again for FDR. Certainly not a monolithic force, but certainly a force to be reckoned with. 

Beginning, at least, in the 1960’s, many hardhats—read white working men—bashed hippies and anti-war activists, lynched Blacks, and voted for Nixon twice because they were true patriots and supported that stupid war in a country they couldn’t find on a map if their lite beer depended on it, but mostly because the Democrats imposed Civil Rights on them, mostly because the culture was changing and they were frightened. Mostly because they were stupid. The Four Horsemen chipped off large blocs of the non-monolith. Those large blocs voted against their best interests economically because they put their faith in the Four Horsemen of the Stupocolypse, which goes a long way, a very long way, in explaining why the rich got richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class stagnated.

The putative culture wars have replaced the economy in determining the behavior of a large segment of the population, whether blue collar or white collar, which makes them stupid. Right wing pols may make plaintive noises about about the economy, but they loudly scream about the main concerns of their base: the gains make by Blacks, Browns, Asians, Immigrants, and Queers (particularly Trans people and Drag Queens). And let’s not forget the Jews. 

Which is why their base consistently votes for the candidates who do them the most harm economically. Because they’re stupid, because they’ve been made stupid by overdeveloping the bigotry lobes of their brains and causing the rational thought lobes to atrophy from disuse. They don’t even know what their favored candidates stand for economically, other than tax cuts for billionaires. In 2020, the Repubs didn’t have an official platform. They didn’t even have one plank about what they would do for the economy, but they made it clear that bigotry was the only plank they wanted people to walk. Today, without the least regret about hurting the feelings of sensitive souls, I can say that if you’re a working class schmuck and you voted for Trump twice, it’s because you’re stupid.

This is not to say that every vote for DJT was an act of stupidity. Let me run a few exceptions to my hard and fast rule by you. Billionaires who got their dreamed of tax breaks and multi-millionaires with dreams of becoming billionaires understood that a vote for Trump was a vote for their economic fantasies. Their votes were not acts of stupidity, merely of greed. Republican Pols weren’t stupid because they campaigned and voted for their best interest which entailed taking power and perhaps one day joining the billionaire class or at least being amply rewarded by the billionaire class. They weren’t stupid, merely ambitious. Many others campaigned or at least said nice things about Trump out of fear, which was more cowardly than stupid. This one-two punch of fear and stupidity became evident when on the day after the Jan 6 insurrection many Repub Pols angrily claimed it was a Trump abetted riot, but some days later, after the smoke had cleared, they backed off and claimed that it was a peaceful demonstration, that it was a normal day with normal tourists, that what most Americans saw on their TV screens didn’t happen and if it did it was antifa or the deep state, as some deep thinkers stupidly claimed and stupid people believed, or, for stupid reasons, said they did. Those brave Repub Pols knew all too well that to say otherwise would harm their political futures as well as bring the wrath of Trump on their bowed heads. Stupid cowards!

While voting for Trump and defending Trump might actually be in the best interest of billionaires and Repub Pols, it most certainly is not in the best interest of the country or the world, certainly not in the best interest of the DHR (think global warming). But Joe the plumber or Harriett the hard hat, what have they gained by flexing their straight white male/female supremacy lobes? Stagnant wages. (I won’t mention the extra quarter of a million who died during the COVID pandemic because this diary is concerned about the economy and I never ever stray from the topic at hand.)  

I suppose I should say a few kind words about all the good white suburbanites—I wish I could—who ban books and react with horror if you say gay or they spot a Black man who is not an Amazon delivery person in their neighborhood, otherwise I could be accused of snobbery for picking on the working class. If you, dear white suburbanite, voted for Trump twice (or even if you only voted for him in 2020 after his first term), it’s because you’re stupid. If you voted for Trump because you’re a hereditary member of the Republican party, it’s because you’re stupid. If you voted for Trump because everyone in your country club or church voted for Trump, it’s because you’re stupid.

Deservedly or not, Einstein, who likely did some stupid things but was far from being stupid, gets credit for the pithy remark that doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results is insanity. If you voted for DJT in 2016 and, expecting him to be different, voted for him again in 2020, it’s because you’re not only stupid, but insane.

This is not to say that doing something stupid once means that stupidity is your defining characteristic. Repeating it might.  Looking at the gross numbers of votes for Trump in 2020, many of them repeat offenders, it becomes clear that there is a pandemic of stupidity in America.

Against my bleeding heart, egalitarian belief that we’re all created equal, at least equally, I’m beginning to lean toward my elite intellectual German friend’s view.

Speaking of stupidity in America, Marjorie Taylor Green recently lambasted Biden in a speech to some Repub organization for accomplishing things that greatly helped the working and middle classes, i.e., the Infrastructure Program, comparing his program to FDR’s Great Society and LBJ’s War on Poverty, and she wants to impeach him for those accomplishments. That’s because she’s truly stupid. Never mind that Trump promised to pass an infrastructure program but couldn’t, not even when he controlled both houses of Congress.

Unless you’re completely—well, not stupid but ignorant—unless you’ve been asleep, unconscious or in a daze these past 50 years or so, it will have dawned on you that I’m basically accusing rank and file Republicans and fellow travelers of being stupid. Let me say it as plainly as I can: The R’s are the enemy of reason. They encourage, abet, and wallow in stupidity.

Republicans such as MTG have an economic platform but they don’t want it publicized. Only behind closed doors do they talk about getting rid of taxes on the rich (income, investment, and estate), choking the life out of Social Security, ending regulations that restrict the fossil fuel industry, doing away with renewable energy. They resort to Stupocratic slogans and ideas: climate change is a hoax, stop the woke, banning books, banning history that might make someone uncomfortable, teaching the upside of slavery, but never the downside.  As I said, they aren’t stupid, but they are greedy and power hungry.

I recently made it through segment of the PBS news about the partisan divide in America. In this particular segment, a roundtable of Jim and Mary Republicans who lamented the divide, made appropriately disparaging remarks about partisanship in America, but did not regret voting for Trump twice. When asked their sources for news and current events, they named Fox and one added Rush Limbaugh. I suspect that QAnon was on the tip of a few tongues but they were not so stupid as to admit it. Another question was whether democrats could be good Christians. The moderator and participants were White with the exception of a token Black, and all were Christian. They represented, supposedly, a cross-section of Arizona Republicans. Which made me wonder if Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Native Americans, to name the major alternatives, were not permitted in their exclusive club. They unanimously agreed that, as a whole, Democrats could not be good Christians because of their support for abortion and transgenders. After all, god made every embryo and he made every boy a boy and every girl a girl and only heretics transgressed against his will. They were sorry that there was a partisan divide in American, for which, I’m sure, they blamed Democrats. They said they didn’t talk politics with family and friends who were Democrats because they were afraid of being attacked. No one bothered with facts, such as the fact that a majority of death threats came from white and right nuts against progressive Democrats. No one bothered to ask if they accepted the results of the 2020 election and agreed that Trump lost. No one bothered to ask any difficult questions, such as: Was the assault on Capitol on Jan 6 an insurrection? Or even an assault? Did Trump have any culpability at all?

To my admittedly partisan eyes it all appeared to be a round table discussion of like-minded bigots seeking confirmation of and solidarity in their bigotry.

My ex-army sergeant friend whom I regrettably called stupid, was not, in my opinion a stupid person. I thought of him as a person of average or even above average intelligence, despite the fact that he was a lifer. Doing something stupid did not make him stupid. We lost touch when I DEROSed out of that beautiful by troubled country, and I know nothing about his life after that time. However, I can confidently state that if he went on R and R again and told his wife some of the salacious details and again didn’t understand her angry reaction, it’s because he’s stupid.

Doing something stupid, such as voting for Trump in 2016 doesn’t make you stupid, doing it again in 2020 and looking forward to doing it a third time in 2024, means, as the Nihilists sang, BECAUSE YOU’RE STUPID.

I have generally kept my conspiracy theories to myself—not out of fear of ridicule, and certainly not out of fear of being linked to QAnon, which is at the extreme end of the opposite corner of the conspiracy theory universe and protected by an enormous and growing black hole of misinformation—but because I only half believe my CTs. I invent them for my own private amusement and do not widely share them. Also, I am lazy, too lazy to do any digging in search of facts to confirm or refute my CTs.

However, the recent revelations by Ben Barnes have resurrected my long buried CT on Iran-Iraqgate. Mr. Barnes confirms that in the summer of 1980 candidate Reagan’s minions, of which he was one, did their best to contact those in power in Iran to let them know they would get a better deal if they did not release the hostages until after the election, if Reagan won. Mr. Barnes said that he and his mentor, former ambitious Democrat turned ambitious Republican John Connally, traveled to a number of foreign countries to get the word out, and William Casey, Reagan’s campaign manager and later Director of the CIA, met with Iranian officials in Madrid in July 1980. All of which might well amount to treason, something no American president would ever do…with the exception of Nixon who urged the South Vietnamese government to slow down on the Peace Talks until after the 1968 election when he would give them a better deal, if he won.

For those with faulty memories and the very young too lazy to do independent research into the Iranian Hostage Crisis, I’ll let our trusty US Department of State explain who the hostages were:

 On November 4, 1979, Iranian students seized the embassy and detained more than 50 Americans, ranging from the Chargé d’Affaires to the most junior members of the staff, as hostages. The Iranians held the American diplomats hostage for 444 days.

NB: The fact that the Dept. of State says “more than 50” rather than the precise number of 52, is evidence of their habitual avoidance of hard facts.

Had then President Carter’s administration been successful in bringing the hostages home before the election, in what the Reagan people and the press called the October Surprise, at least 75 days would have been knocked off the detention time for >50 hostages. (Election day to inauguration day = 75 days.) I don’t know if hostages get paid overtime or hazardous duty pay, but I have a gut feeling that at least some of the 52 would have welcomed an earlier release.

As with most CTs there is no hard evidence of this portion of my theory, other than travel records and Mr. Barnes’ word. Mr. Barnes and Mr. Connally did travel to various Middle Eastern countries and Mr. Casey did go to Madrid and then to a meeting in Dallas.  However, the fact that the hostages were released a few minutes after Reagan was inaugurated and Carter left office, on 20 January 1981, should make anyone’s antennae tingle.

Thus began our tango with Iranian mullahs.

Before delving further into my CT, I will diagram (not-literally) certain steps in this complicated tango to help those who are dance-impaired:

Nov 4, 1979 – Iranians take US Embassy personnel hostage.

Nov 14, 1979 – Congress passed and President Carter signed an arms embargo on Iran, making it illegal to send military hardware to Iran

Sep 1980 – Iraq invades Iran

Nov 1980 – Reagan elected President, promises to continue arms embargo because Iran supported terrorism.

Jan 20, 1981 – Reagan inaugurated.

5 minutes later – Iran releases hostages.

1981 – 1986 – Reagan administration illegally sold arms and weapons parts to Iran that they badly needed in their war against Iraq.

1981 & 82 — The Boland Amendment outlawed funding of the murderous Nicaraguan Contras

1985 – Reagan administration secretly used funds from arms sales to Iran to fund Contras (although fascinating in itself, the Contra part in this affair is only marginally related to this CT).

Dec 1986 – An independent Counsel was named to investigate possible criminal actions, resulting in 11 convictions.

May 5, 1987 – Iran Contra Hearings began. Televised.

May 17, 1987 – An Iraqi jet attacked the USS Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 American sailors. Iraqi Dictator and long-time U.S. ally Saddam Hussein said it was a mistake. (Various CTs have the jet pilot executed, given a hero’s welcome, or living the good life in Iran).

1990 & 91 – Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, the Hollywoodish names for the first war against Iraq, under Bush the First

1993 – Bush the First, pardoned 11 Reagan administration officials convicted in the Iran-Contra affair, possibly pre-empting his own indictment.

March 2003 – Bush the Second ordered the invasion of Iraq to find and destroy the chimerical weapons of Mass Destruction and, incidentally get our final revenge on Saddam Hussein.

Let me put some meat on this bare-bones timeline. Before the Iranian revolution the Iranian military shopped for supplies in the U.S. The military hardware Iran bought in the U.S. naturally required U.S. repair parts and munitions to keep the rifles, cannons, tanks, missiles, etc. in fighting condition. The 1979 arms embargo meant that we could not legally send armaments, repair parts, and munitions to Iran. When Hussein’s Iraqi forces invaded Iran a month or two before the 1980 U.S. presidential elections, the Iranian mullahs just might have realized that they needed U.S. hardware in a hurry. The Reagan campaign was worried that an October Surprise, e.g., the release of the hostages the month before the presidential elections, would be a big boost to Carter, big enough to defeat Reagan, big enough for a worried Reagan to promise military hardware to Iran despite the embargo. Supplying Iran with military hardware was against U.S. law, but the Reagan administration did it for 7-8 years. Asking the Iranian mullahs to hold off releasing the hostages was treason, but according to Barnes the Reagan administration did that. And the illegal shipment of arms was the quid pro quo. During the Iran-Contra hearings, the Reagan administration advanced the argument that they were only shipping arms to Iran, in order to secure the release of American prisoners held in Lebanon. That seemed more patriotic and therefor more excusable than to admit that their law and order administration illegally shipped weapons and hardware to Iran in order to secure the continued detention of the American prisoners held in Iran until after the US presidential elections.

When the Reagan administration got caught violating the arms embargo, the Iran-Contra hearings began. While the details of the Contra connection seemed most riveting to the American Public, I feel certain that to Saddam Hussein the more riveting connection was that the US was supporting both Iran and Iraq with weaponry, and perhaps intelligence as well (we gave satellite images of Iranian troop movements and emplacements to Iraq; why not satellite images of Iraqi troop movements and emplacements to Iran?). The brutal Iran Iraq war killed anywhere between 500,000 to 2,000,000 people, including combatants and collateral damage (the wonderful military euphemism for civilians).

We cannot know when Hussein became aware of this duplicity, and it is possible that it was but mere coincidence that soon after our duplicity became public knowledge (televised hearings began on 5 May 1987), an Iraqi jet mistakenly attacked an American ship, killing 37 American sailors (17 May 1987). Mistakes do happen. As do acts of revenge.

Now to the crux of my Conspiracy Theory: high level U.S. politicians, intelligence and military officers knew or believed that the attack on the USS Stark was deliberate, an act of revenge by Saddam Hussein for our secret support of Iran during that terrible war, and those high level U.S. politicians, intelligence and military officers vowed to someday take revenge on Hussein.

Another, or corollary, CT popular at the time (not mine, although I give it a high plausibility rating) advances the idea that our high level politicians, intelligence and military officers lured Hussein into invading neighboring Kuwait—our payback for his revenge. When Iraq moved some military units (US intelligence and military officers exaggerated the size of the force) into Kuwait, Bush the First launched Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and sent them scurrying back to Iraq. US forces did not enter Iraq in hot pursuit, possibly because our allies would have objected.

Back to my CT: the thirst for revenge by high level U.S. politicians, intelligence and military officers was not sufficiently slaked by merely pushing Hussein’s forces back to Iraq. As he was still in power, their thirst grew through the years and when a group of Saudis attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, on 9/11/2001, they saw an opportunity to quench that thirst. All the world was on our side, well, most of it, because of that terrorist attack, and Bush the Second took advantage of that good will to build an international coalition to invade Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorist attack, by claiming, falsely, that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

In sum, my CT theory is: We invaded Iraq because they attacked a U.S. Navy ship, which they did because we supplied Iran with military hardware during a terrible war, which we did because Reagan wanted to avoid an October Surprise and be elected President. Simple, really.

What? You say that statesmen would never stoop so low, especially when so many lives, so much destruction is at stake? Hmph. I contend that foreign policy based on petty emotions is the norm. Remember: another of statesman Bush’s well-articulated reasons for invading Iraq was “they tried to kill my dad.”

Recently, I was made aware that I had been spitting and spewing a spray of vitriol when discussing current events and certain public persons. I sincerely apologize. Vitriol can be contagious, and, while not life-threatening or fatal like COVID, a few airborne droplets can infect those exposed and provoke a basic psychological response, which mental health experts call the vitriolic defense mechanism: the infected body produces more vitriol. And really, vitriol, apart from being an infectious agent is nearly always an inappropriate response to the pronouncements and actions of those certain public persons. The fault is mine, mea culpa, for resorting to vitriol. After all, when surrounded by clowns and stand-up comedians, there is something terribly wrong in the mental makeup, some mental defect, some imbalance—I plead temporary insanity—in anyone who did not respond with uproarious laughter when professional sex therapist Marjorie Taylor Green advanced the theory that discrimination against poor white men leads them to addiction to porn and video games. If she headlined in a comedy club instead of the House Oversight Committee, her shtick would have us rolling in the aisles, and I would fully expect her to riff on starting an INCEL self-awareness support group. Or even an INCEL dating app, which, if successful, could cause the porn industry to collapse, resulting in serious economic repercussions in INCEL strongholds. But an INCEL Self Help Manual might be just what the sex therapist ordered. [Some people are saying that the nude photos of Hunter Biden titillated Marjorie and her INCEL buddies when shown at their regular get-together in the basement of a pizza parlor outside Baltimore. I’m not saying it’s so. I’m just repeating what I heard.]

Laughter Trumps Vitriol: I laughed appropriately at the scene in Born in East L.A. of the hordes of people atop the California hills, ready to invade the U.S. I laugh even harder when Marjorie counts 6 billion of them. I would never laugh at anyone who suffers from dyscalculia.

And what about her fine sense of irony when advancing her plan for a national divorce. The Disunited States of America would split up according to voting preferences. Since the blue states support the red states financially, I suppose they would have to pay alimony. Marj is silent on the alimony issue but has a partial plan for who gets custody of the children: The hordes (somewhat less than 6 billion, I would hope) who flee from the evil blue state woke leftists into the welcoming embrace of red state freedom lovers would be prohibited from voting for 5 years, a kind of quarantine to ensure that they are truly free of all blue-state viruses before they come of age and can be trusted to participate in the unwoke adult world of red state politics. I don’t think Marj realizes that if some red staters tried to sneak illegally into blue states in order to work and send remittances home to their impoverished red state families they might well get burned by the Jewish space lasers that circumcise the globe every 24 hours.  

Ms Green’s true color came out when she wore, at the State of the Union address, an all-white costume, complete with a white, fake (I hope) fur, accessorizing her haute couture moment with a white helium balloon.  Only a comedically creative mind such as hers would think to call out the President’s handling of the Chinese spy balloon by imitating one. Although costumed clowns per se do not usually tickle my funny bone, I laughed when the camera panned on her.

The camera also panned on Ms Green’ soul sister, fellow heckler and clown, Lauren Boebert, who totes an AR 15 instead of a seltzer bottle. Ms Boebert, along with her comedic colleague, George Santos, has co-sponsored a bill to make the AR 15 our national gun. After all, as she claims, if Jesus had had an AR 15 his government wouldn’t have crucified him. This example of her finely honed sense of Biblical knowledge has gotten some blowback from humorless and vitriolic Christians quick to shout “Blasphemy” instead of cutting her some well-deserved slack because, after all, she stated that our founding fathers intended that the Church should be the Ringmaster in our big top.

Instead of spewing vitriol, I applaud the Grand Old Party for its creativity in the field of Curricula Vitae. Three freshmen Representatives, well, one freshman and two freshwomen, have been particularly industrious and merit a few chuckles, if not outright laughs. Sadly, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are the closest the pitiable left can come to that supreme artist, George Santos’ Jew-ish drag queen.

The list of GOP/MAGA performers deserving of applause and laughter is too long to mention them all, but how about a giggle, if not a groan, for the Horned QAnon Shaman in his quest for vegan prison food, the Pillow Man and his tireless, but never sleepless, search for missing votes, the Groomer Governor (Trump’s nickname for him) opposed to anything that would make school children uncomfortable (except his presence at high school parties). And let’s not forget the Trump Trading Cards. Exquisite.  

The Republican Party has chosen entertainment over politics and their performances deserve laughter or groans, but never vitriol. We should all applaud them.

Confession: While I have had some experience as a book critic, this is my virginal voyage as a tweet critic, and, while I’m in the confessional mode, I suppose I should be up front and confess to a certain envy of Donald John Trump’s success as an author. There is no denying that DJT is a popular and well-remunerated author, exceedingly well remunerated. Despite my envy, I offer my criticism in a constructive and fraternal spirit, unlike the Fake News Media with their numerous and unnecessarily cruel criticisms.

Both the FNM with their cutting jabs and the Vulpine News Networks with their defensive ripostes have sadly misunderstood the belles-lettres of DJT because they allow their emotions and political prejudices to dictate their responses. To properly dissect the literary corpus of DJT, we must first define it. When the Washington Post, for example, smugly lists 30,573 lies that DJT told during his term as President, I feel certain that some arrogant WAPO correspondents see that as a damning criticism, but what they fail to realize is the obvious fact that the literary oeuvre of DJT lies in the realm of fiction with forays into fantasy.

If one but takes a dispassionate, academic approach to DJT’s published works and recorded statements (as well as actions), one must surely conclude that he is engaged in a great definitive work, possibly to be ready for the opening of his presidential library. Too shy to reveal his great secret, he leaves us to speculate. Will it be an anthology of his greatest tweets? I sometimes think it will it be THE Great American Novel, perhaps a war novel. Another War and Peace, or All Quiet on the Western Front? I lean more toward Faulkner’s A Fable because of the inevitable fantasy element. In any event, I’m predicting a war novel because DJT is a self-acknowledged expert on military strategy. Who can forget that he is smarter than all our generals?

Other times, I strongly suspect that it will be a work of science fiction/fantasy, on the order of The Matrix, in which the facts are in constant flux, and his comments about the Mar-a-Lago document scandal serve as an hors d’oeuvre: there were no documents; all the documents had been returned; someone else packed the boxes; the documents were mostly clippings and doodles; the important documents were planted by the FBI; he wanted to keep the classified documents in a safe place; he declassified the documents using his powerful brain waves; and, of course, he wants his documents back (possibly to be prominently placed in the presidential library?).

The penultimate comment segued into further indication that DJT is working on a science fantasy project: he declassified all the documents by thinking it. Let’s think about that. According to our evil Department of Justice, some classified documents are still missing. Given that he has an extraordinarily powerful mind, who among us could claim surprise upon learning that DJT, adept at psychokinesis, had moved those missing documents to an even safer location using only his mind?

Can there be doubt that DJT’s definitive work will, be it fiction, science fiction, or fantasy, surpass that of America’s premier humorist, Mark Twain. Poor MT, on his best days, could not compete with DJT’s suggestion that brutal North Korean dictator Kim have a firing squad deal with his barber (this from a man who coiffure comes straight from the realm of fantasy). Or what about his helpful comments to V. Putin about comb-overs?

Detractors may criticize DJT for his many spelling and grammatical errors. At worst these are mere literary peccadillos, not sins, but they are indicative of a greater sin. His pronouncement from on high, that he is a very stable genius, confirms the diagnosis. Hubris, arrogance, pride, call it what you will, he does not read what he wrote and is too stubborn or cheap to get an editor. Gloating that his political enemies couldn’t find the smocking gun? Come on! A simple edit would have given us a powerful image instead of a Three Stooges scene. Or when he talks about the very sole of our nation depending upon stopping the stolen election, we want to be careful not to step in something unpleasant rather than boldly march into action. 

At the same time, we critics must beware of our own ignorance or gullibility. We ridicule him when he says, “Promote the possibility of lasting peach,” or “Sometimes protest is needed in order to heel, and heel we will.” Yet, I suspect that DJT deliberately throws in these errors to satisfy his own sly sense of humor. After all, when he misspelled the name of the British Prime Minister three times in a tweet, writing Teresa May, the name of a porn star, it should be obvious that he was merely tweet tweaking the PM with some private joke between them. Or, considering his penchant for porn stars, he merely indulged in a bit of nostalgia. And when he tantalized us with his famous covfefe tweet, he later tweet-challenged us with, “Who can figure out the true meaning of ‘covfefe’ ??? Enjoy!”

 I am of two minds re the covfefe allusion. I applaud DJT for his inventiveness, just as I and millions of readers applauded the creativity of two popular novelists in the 1960’s. However, Mr. Heinlein and Mr. Vonnegut made clear to their readers the meaning of their fantastic words, which then made their way into the lexicon for some years. But no member of the granfalloon of DJT’s disciples can grok the meaning of covfefe, let alone use it in a sentence.

I give DJT credit for his Hemingwayesque use of short, punchy, declarative sentences, a style designed to capture and maintain the attention of his fans. He also blusters and bullies and lets loose more than a few Alpha Male howls at the Twitterverse moon a la Hemingway, again a style most appealing to his Beta and Delta Male followers. Where EMH was an unapologetic big game hunter who always stood by his guns when attacking, when DJT takes aim at some big or even little game he makes sure to have a retreat route ready. This is the coward’s way. And COWARDICE is his greatest literary sin.  When the true Alpha Male attacks a public figure, he does not prepare his retreat by hiding behind catchphrases: People say; Many people say; A lot of people think; or I’m just retweeting someone else’s opinion: Obama is sympathetic to Muslim terrorists; The Clintons murdered Vince Foster. If DJT’s shot goes wide of the mark or ricochets back he retreats, he runs for cover, he claims innocence and says that he didn’t say what he is accused of saying but was only repeating/retweeting what (imaginary) others said. He might retreat so far as to say that he doesn’t really know anything about it while innocently wondering why (imaginary) people are saying it. His is often a controlled retreat, and when he hides behind the pusillanimous excuse that he’s just repeating what many (invented others) are saying, he howls once more that perhaps they’re right.

Hemingway would not approve.

[Pardon the mixed metaphors. I couldn’t resist. Hemingway would not approve—not of the mixed metaphors—but my begging your pardon.]