The Daisies in the Dell Will Give Off a Different Smell

This is an update of an article I wrote in July 2024

If Donald Trump were to drop dead of a heart attack today, this country would be a better place. 

In the days after the murder of Charlie Kirk, anyone pointing out how the world was a better place without him, or how he himself said that gun violence was a fair price to be paid for the Second Amendment, was accused of "celebrating" his death. I would imagine that the death of Donald Trump would inspire celebrating that would require no interpretation. 

No - I am not suggesting that political assassination is a good thing nor am I wishing that the bullet had struck a fraction of an inch to the right. I didn't make jokes about the attempt on Trump's life; nor am I sharing "clever" memes. It's not funny. Even as bad as things are now, that's not how to do things. (Although I have to wonder whether the assassination attempt was a false flag where the bystander was collateral damage)

But do I think Trump dying (of natural causes) is a good thing? Absolutely. 

Politics is, and always has been, a dirty business. Idealistic people of all political persuasions run for office but get caught up in the system and often are corrupted to greater or lesser degree. They spend so much time and effort raising money and campaigning for the next election that it's amazing that anything ever gets done. Members of the House of Representatives are up for re-election every two years! But Trump is an entirely different political animal. Policy is beside the point with him and his legions of followers are loyal to him no matter what he does and says. He is upfront about wanting to tear down any semblance of democratic institutions - the danger that he poses is well known and documented in detail. 

But what about Project 2025 and the many Trump supporters who have been taking over the Republican party? Wouldn't they still be a threat? Of course. The anti-abortion movement didn't suddenly spring up in 2017; Mitch McConnell was stealing Supreme Court seats during Obama's time in the White House. But the grass roots support, voters who will turn out for their guy, just wouldn't be there to the same extent without Trump. I was in a cult and have seen first hand what happens to a cult when their charismatic leader dies. And make no mistake about it, Trumpism, "MAGA" if you will, is a cult. Can you see anyone in MAGA-land who can energize the crowds like Trump does? Anyone who can, without fail, cause millions of people to believe their every lie? 

That person does not exist.

The reason that Project 2025 is such a threat is that its authors counted on Trump getting elected. They counted on Trump appointing 2025-friendly cabinet members and staff. Since the Republicans have a majority in both the House and Senate they are counting on Trump bullying members into supporting the program. If the Democrats had won one or both Houses of Congress they would have been counting on Trump using executive orders or novel constitutional interpretations to achieve their goals. It all falls apart without Trump. All the local MAGA election officials, school board members, county board members, they all lose interest and fade away without Trump. Even with Trump, Trumpism isn't the overwhelming choice of the electorate. Trump received more votes than Harris in the last election, but it was a statistical dead heat with Trump receiving slightly less than a majority of votes cast. 

As long as he is alive Trump is a threat. Even if he had lost we'd have seen a repeat of "Stop the Steal". It wouldn't have been Confederate Wannabes and Sentient Oakleys beating up cops with flagpoles, or Rudy Giuliani's hair dye running down his forehead - it would have been real lawyers flooding the zone with lawsuits and challenges just inside the boundaries of legality. Without Trump - no one cares. And you don't have the MAGA cult leader telling them to care. 

Will Project 2025 still exist, still embedded in the government? Will there still be Republicans intent upon dismantling our institutions? Will many rural Americans still be convinced that the Democrats are a bunch of baby-killing, gun grabbing communists? Yes, yes, and yes. But does anyone think that J.D. Vance (or whatever his name is) has the charisma to mesmerize the MAGA cult the way Trump does? In the religious cult that I was in, when the founder died, his top lieutenants fought among themselves and the cult splintered in many small groups, all claiming to be carrying on the legacy of the founder. That's what will happen to the MAGA cult. Vance will claim the MAGA banner, one of the Trump family will do the same; various Republicans will all shout from the rooftops that they are the true heirs of the orange buffoon. 

Trump can't live forever, and the poison that he has spread will take a while to dissipate, but there is no doubt that the country will be a better place without him in it. 

And the daisies in the dell will give off a different smell 'cause Donnie is underneath the ground. *

* Apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein

Filibusters and Government Shutdowns

Nobody likes the filibuster when the other guys are doing it, and everybody likes it when it prevents the other guys from doing things that you don't like. When Democrats were in the majority there was a lot of talk about eliminating the filibuster in order to enshrine a right to abortion in legislation, as well as accomplishing other Democratic priorities. But since Democratic Senators Manchin and Sinema were not in favor, it never got done. Now that the Republicans are in the majority, the Democrats in Congress love the filibuster. 

The Senate rules allow for unlimited debate on any bill. However debate can be ended by a three fifths (60 vote) "cloture" (Cloture = ending debate). A filibuster is an attempt to extend debate indefinitely, therefore effectively killing a bill since it will never be voted upon. In practice the threat of a filibuster is enough to kill a bill if it is determined that there are not 60 votes for cloture, which is why major legislation is said to require 60 votes in the Senate, allowing the minority to kill any bills they don't support. Or simply to hamstring the majority just because. As frustrating as the filibuster, and by extension the 60 vote requirement can be to getting anything done, I believe it serves an important function. 

I am well aware that the filibuster was long used by segregationists to stymie civil rights legislation. It's possibly one of the main reasons that this rule existed in the Senate. However, it is my belief that it serves as a brake on major changes that are supported by a slim or transient majority that might not represent a majority of the electorate. The founders couldn't think of everything (in fact they didn't include the filibuster in the Constitution, that was added later as part of Senate rules) but one thing that they included as part of the design of the new government was a framework to prevent things from preceding without due consideration. There were three branches. The executive and legislative had to come to agreement before legislation could pass and the judicial could override any legislation that was unconstitutional. Even within the legislative branch there were two houses of Congress which may not agree. (Originally Senators were appointed by state governments, not directly elected). Every part of the governing process served as an invitation to stop and think about what was happening and get buy-in from other stakeholders. 

We often hear the phrase, which I first heard from President Obama, "elections have consequences". It's true that whoever wins an election has the constitutional authority to carry out their agenda, but with majorities so thin that a case of the flu can leave the majority party without enough votes to pass their bill, and a president who won a majority of the electoral votes but beat out the main competition by a razor thin margin (with slightly less than 50% of the votes), should we be attempting a major restructuring of government, with changes affecting millions of ordinary Americans, on such a shaky foundation? And I'm not even factoring in the arguably unconstitutional power grab by the president who is attempting to rule by fiat. 

Currently the Senate majority (53 Republicans) is attempting to circumvent the filibuster, and therefore the 60 vote threshold, in order to push through their budget which includes huge changes in the government. A process called reconciliation allows a bill that includes only spending or taxes to proceed with limited debate and no option of a filibuster. One of the requirements is that it be revenue neutral over ten years. The Republicans in 2017 were able to push through their tax plan in this manner. They were able to claim that it was revenue neutral over ten years by having it expire in 2025. Yet here we are seeing an attempt to extend it past this year, so the original terms have been thrown out the window. This year's subversion is using similar creative accounting -- having aspects of the plan -- those that benefit ordinary Americans and not billionaires and corporations -- expire at the end of Trump's term. [Since I first wrote this in May 2025, the budget bill favored by Trump passed with no Democratic votes]

Government policy should embody at least some consistency. Our allies have no idea how to interact with us as each administration seesaws back and forth; domestically we have no idea what the next day will bring -- inflation and stock prices (and with them our 401(k)'s) are at the mercy of a man ignorant of economic reality, and Congress, at least the majority, willing to acquiesce to his whims.  Even aside from questions of constitutionality, we need some bulwark against the tyranny of the (bare) majority. The filibuster is one of those checks.

Right now, the first week of October 2025, we are dealing with a government shutdown. The reason we have government shutdowns at all is that the different factions in Congress usually can't agree how to fund government operations. Not just Republicans vs. Democrats, but disagreements within the majority party. The Republicans, including President Trump, are blaming the Democrats and the Democrats are blaming the Republicans. The Republicans in the House of Representatives, with one Democratic House member joining them, passed what is called a "clean" Continuing Resolution. A Continuing Resolution (CR)  is a bill which simply extends the budget levels from the previous fiscal year. (An essentially meaningless action, since Trump seems to believe he can simply ignore the budgets that Congress passes) A "clean" bill is one where there are no new items attached to it. The Democrats in this case are incorrect in calling it a "dirty" CR, since it doesn't have any new, hidden, Republican dirty tricks. 

Now the CR is in the Senate, where we have filibusters. (There is no option for a filibuster in the House of Representatives). So the Republicans cannot pass the CR with their majority of 53 alone. Assuming all Republicans sign on, they also need 7 Democrats or Independents to vote "yes". Democrats are using this leverage to demand that the ACA subsidies, which are expiring this year, be made permanent, and for cuts to Medicaid made earlier this year be repealed. Republicans are claiming that it is inappropriate to add anything to a clean CR and that ACA subsidies and Medicaid can be negotiated and voted upon separately, and it's the Democrats that are shutting down the government. The Democrats are maintaining that all the Republicans have to do is agree to these two things (in reality, they'd probably accept the ACA subsidies alone), so it's the Republicans who are shutting down the government. 

Two things to consider. First: why, since the Republicans have had control of both houses of Congress all year, were they waiting until the final week of the fiscal year to come up with a new budget...and fail to do so? Passing a CR is an admission that they couldn't agree on a budget, even within the Republican Party. Second: legislation has always been the art of compromise, despite the way the current administration is acting like a conquering army even though the electorate is virtually evenly split. factions within parties use their influence to extract concessions from the majority within their own party, the minority party doing the same to the majority when able. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party often holds the moderate institutional Democrats hostage, while the far right faction seems to call the shots in the more traditionally conservative Republican Party. In this case the Republicans need seven Democrats to vote with them. But why should they? They have the leverage they need to get something for their votes and they're taking it. Why should they believe that a "clean" vote on the ACA subsidies or reversal of Medicaid cuts will go anywhere? They have something that the Republicans need (seven votes) and want something in exchange. That's politics. 

Of course, there's nothing to stop the Republicans from changing the rules and eliminating the filibuster and passing the CR with 53 votes. 

We've Become An Anti-Democratic, Anti-Constitutional Republic

What is a republic? What is a democracy? Are they different? Do the definitions overlap? If you engage at any level of political discourse you have probably had the phrase "We're not a democracy, we're a republic (or constitutional republic). Why the emphatic belief that they're different?

"Republic" comes from the Latin Res Publica, "a matter of the people", whereby the government is a public matter and not the private property of a monarch. In other words, in the strictest interpretation, a republic is simply "not a monarchy". The form that a republic can take is quite varied. In the United States, most people who refer to republics are talking about a representative-constitutional government, whereby the executive and legislators are elected by the people for fixed terms and are guided by laws, in our case, a constitution. However who "the people" are can be circumscribed quite broadly. In the early days of the United States only adult, white, male, landowners were permitted to vote in most states. This eventually gave the way to voting rights for all adults, except some felons. In a Socialist, or Communist, Republic, the will of "the people" is assumed to reside in the ruling party, which has elections, but decides ahead of time who may run. In an Islamic Republic, the Quran and the clergy empowered to interpret it decide what's good for the people. Ancient Greek republics limited voting to a citizen class. 

"Democracy" literally means power or rule of the people. The simplest form of this is Direct Democracy, often referred to as "Mob Rule", where every decision is voted upon by everyone. Obviously this could only work in very limited situations, such as (very) small towns, or people in small isolated groupings. Direct Democracy almost never exists. A less "pure" form of democracy would involve an elected administrator and/or hired technical people who would keep things running, while important decisions would be voted on. The other end of the democracy continuum would be a system indistinguishable from what we defined above as a representative, constitutional republic: you elect representatives for fixed terms, who are then responsible to run the government according to a constitution. Those who are careful about their words refer to this as a democratic republic, or just a democracy for short. Nobody who calls the United States a democracy really believes that it is a direct democracy or thinks that a direct democracy is a good thing for a large nation.

The terms "republic" and "democracy" are not mutual exclusive. 

But why would supporters of the Trump regime want to emphasize so vociferously that we aren't a democracy? 

It's pretty obvious to anyone who pays attention to politics that the United States Constitution, while providing for representative government, is a decidedly anti-democratic document. It was written in decidedly undemocratic times. Although the power of monarchs had been diluted over the previous century, the ruling classes represented only a small sliver of the population of any European country. The Constitution provided for the officers of the government to be elected, but did not define who would be allowed to do the electing. Individual states set the qualifications to be met by anyone who wanted to vote, and most of them restricted the franchise to white male landowners. Neither descendants of the original inhabitants nor enslaved people were considered "people", let alone allowed to vote. Even that restricted electorate was not trusted fully by the founders. The Electoral College system provided a check against "the people" making the "wrong" choice when electing the president. 

The Founders were men of their time. This is not to say that it was morally right to hold the positions that they did, just that it was not unusual. It was perfectly normal in that time to look down upon non-White people as "lesser races", or to believe that it was the natural order for the élite to rule and the common folk to be ruled. 

But times changed. People changed. 

Few seriously believe that only the élite should get to make the decisions for the rest of us, that women should have no rights, that certain people were not "people" within the meaning of the law. We have, in so many ways, moved beyond the ethics and morals of eighteenth century society. So why do we still deify the men who instituted the framework of a nation based on eighteenth century ethics and morals and worship the document that they created?

The Constitution provided within itself a means to change it. In addition to the first ten amendments we collectively refer to as The Bill of Rights it has been amended seventeen times. A few of those of been procedural: changing the way the Vice President is chosen, providing for the direct election of Senators, changing the date a new presidential term begins, limiting a president to two terms; others were hugely consequential: outlawing slavery, prohibiting the denial of voting rights due to gender; and of course alcohol prohibition and its subsequent repeal. 

Changes have been made, but antidemocratic features still persist.

The equal representation of each state in the Senate, where every state, no matter its population, receives two Senate seats, gives small states a voice well out of proportion to their population. The makeup of the House of Representatives is capped at 435 members, despite the overall U.S. population continuing to rise. Since each state is guaranteed at least one representative, no matter how small the population, the population of Congressional districts vary between around 500,000 to over 900,000. This discrepancy carries over to presidential elections where a state's electoral votes equal the total number of members in the House of Representatives plus two Senators. 

For a long time the arc of progress in this country has been toward more democracy. More people enfranchised, fewer barriers to voting, less decision-making in the smoke-filled back rooms. But lately this has been reversed, at least among the White, Christian, "conservative" electorate. Realizing that their hold on the democratic process has been eroded due to demographics they now proudly champion the anti-democratic features of the system. Gerrymandered state legislatures pass laws that make it more difficult to register to vote and eliminate polling places in majority Democratic areas. These same legislatures pass laws that a majority of their citizens are against, and draw electoral maps that guarantee their legislative majority despite receiving a minority of the votes. 

The cry of "We're not a democracy" is not just an argument over semantics. It's a mindset of a demographic that sees their ascendancy in our society reduced or even eliminated, and is determined to retain their power and influence even if they are numerically in the minority. They emphasize the nondemocratic aspects of our governmental structure and ignore anything that hints at honoring the wishes of the majority. 

This is one of the reasons the cult-like supporters of Trump ignore his dictatorial actions: his authoritarianism benefits them. 

Is Opposition to Trump a Cult?

Trump's MAGA movement started being called a cult during his first term, and it's only gotten clearer that his base is very clearly a cult. Standard operating procedure for the Trumpists is to accuse their opponents, or enemies, as they like to say, of the same thing they are being accused of. I'm not going to spend a lot of time backing up my assertion that Trumpism is a cult. I have done that numerous times over the years. Just type "cult" into the search bar for this blog and you'll see numerous articles supporting this thesis. I'm interested in examining whether groups who oppose Trump are in fact cultish also.

There is broad consensus among people who study cults that there are clear warning signs indicating whether a church or movement is a cult:

1. Absolute authoritarianism without accountability
2. Zero tolerance for criticism or questions
3. Lack of meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget
4. Unreasonable fears about the outside world that often involve evil conspiracies and persecutions
5. A belief that former followers are always wrong for leaving and there is never a legitimate reason for anyone else to leave
6. Abuse of members
7. Records, books, articles, or programs documenting the abuses of the leader or group
8. Followers feeling they are never able to be “good enough”
9. A belief that the leader is right at all times
10. A belief that the leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or giving validation

Not all of these apply to Trumpism, #3 is a maybe, #6 - probably not, and #8, definitely not (as far as I know), so let's boil them down to the ones that I believe apply, re-number them, and see if they apply to Leftism or even opposition to Trump:

1. Absolute authoritarianism without accountability
2. Zero tolerance for criticism or questions
3. Unreasonable fears about the outside world that often involve evil conspiracies and persecutions
4. A belief that former followers are always wrong for leaving and there is never a legitimate reason for anyone else to leave
5. Records, books, articles, or programs documenting the abuses of the leader or group
6. A belief that the leader is right at all times
7. A belief that the leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or giving validation

Some of these could reasonably be applied to Trump opponents:

#2 - there are some segments of "the Left" that are very doctrinaire about their articles of faith. Some anti-Trump people will never believe that Trump is even capable of doing anything right 

#3 - Trump supporters might characterize Trump opponents' fears as unreasonable

#4 - The hardcore Trump opponents might be adamant that changing "sides" is an indicator of insanity

The rest point to a leader, which "the Left" does not have, and opposition to Trump is definitely diffuse. 

Who is telling Trump's opponents to oppose him? The Democrats, the mainstream media? A good portion of Trump opposition don't like the Democrats any more than they like Trump, and trust in the mainstream media is hardly an article of faith among those on the Left. In my opinion, which agrees with the consensus of those who study cults, a true cult requires a leader, or at least a small oligarchy, that gives the orders and decides what constitutes "truth". Trump opposition does not have a leader, it is therefore, in my view, not a cult.

But is it cult-like, or are cult-like behaviors exhibited? Or is it something else? 

There are behaviors that when viewed in isolation or out of context seem similar to cult behavior, here are a few:

• Succumbing to peer pressure
• Self censorship due to fear of being labeled a bigot, racist, sexist, ableist, etc.
• Lack of relevant education (ignorance about the subject)
• Assuming everything a person or group does is bad based on past performance

One of the defining features of today's political climate is that someone's own political leanings often cause them to identify strongly or even exclusively with one political party. This identification is paired with a strong loyalty, similar to how many people feel for their favorite sports team. Like it or not, there are realistically only two viable options politically. The Democratic and Republican parties, for good or for ill, dominate elections. Even though alternatives exist, for a variety of reasons they never get much traction, especially in national elections. You realistically have only two choices. 

Before I get to whether being opposed to Trump is itself cult-like behavior, let's look at whether Leftist politics in general is characterized by cult-like behavior. 

My observation is that Liberals often are obsessed with purity tests. There is often no room for nuance. Office seekers are often held to a standard of either 100 percent support for a position or are excoriated for seeing some middle ground. I understand that for some issues there is no middle ground. You're either for or against, but many more positions require thoughtful examination of the big picture. While this isn't unique to Liberalism, the loudest voices often carry the most weight; and those loud voices are often the ones that are most eager to pin labels on those they disagree with. The result is often self-censorship. Rather than face the wrath of the mob, many people will withhold their opinions, stifle their own voices, because they know that their take on an issue will likely get them tarred as a racist, a transphobe or a Nazi. Peer pressure plays into this as well. Most people want to fit in; if your social group is overwhelmingly a believer in "A", you might hesitate to speak out about "B". 

The one defining non-cult-like characteristic of Liberals-Progressives-Leftists, despite any groupthink or lemming-like behavior they might exhibit, is fragmentation. While there might be factions that are unbending on their opinions on Gaza, or transgender athletes, or autism, there are other factions that disagree. There are Democratic politicians who are indistinguishable from moderate Republicans and there are those who are Democratic Socialists and everything in between. And there is a constituency for them all! You'd think if Liberalism was a cult they'd get their story straight!

Opposition to Trump isn't quite the same. Virtually all subsets of Leftists unanimously oppose him. I have heard Trumpists claim that this opposition is cult-like. I'll stipulate that some opposition to Trump is by people who don't understand the issues, or why he is a malign element, or who are going along with the crowd. Some people will oppose anything Trump does, even if it would have been supported if someone else had done it. Trumpists are convinced that opposition is due to "propaganda" by the mainstream media, or maybe by George Soros. I'm convinced that unalloyed opposition to Trump is justified simply by reading and listening to his own words and observing his actions. Many opponents (myself included) spend what could be described as an inordinate amount of time focusing on Trump because, as president, he's always there. A day can't go by without him saying or doing something objectively harmful as well as unconstitutional. I'll concede that occasionally he'll make a good decision, but those few are swamped by everything else he is doing to turn this country into a dictatorship. 

Labeling opposition to Trump as a cult is nothing more than an attempt by his supporters to deflect from their own cultish behavior, and to discount any resistance as irrational. 

Militarization of Police Functions (ICE, the Marines and The National Guard)

Do I think that we as a nation should control our borders, including apprehending those who attempt to enter without proper authorization? Yes, I do. There's various reasons, including national security, economics, legal issues and infrastructure. 

At the same time do I think that we should broaden the reasons for which we allow immigration, make asylum applications easier, speed up the process and expand the legal infrastructure needed to process the number of people who want to immigrate here? Also yes. 

Our current system is overwhelmed by the numbers of potential immigrants. Even without increasing the quotas and making the requirements for permanent residence more flexible, there aren't enough Border Patrol officers, there aren't enough immigration judges, and the system is too opaque for most people to successfully navigate. That's one of the reasons why we have so much illegal immigration. People who are so desperate to leave the situation that they're in that they will risk everything to sneak in and live under the radar for the rest of their lives, just so that their children can grow up in a safe environment. I also believe that instead of mass deportations we should be finding a way to integrate the undocumented people who are already here into the legal side of our society. If they've been here for decades, working and paying taxes, raising their children and contributing to the community, wouldn't we want them here? 

Something I hear from anti-immigration voices about the undocumented is that they've been here for years or decades, but have made no effort to legalize their status, so they should be unceremoniously deported. The problem with that stance is twofold: once you've come in illegally, if you make your presence known you run the risk of deportation, so many figure it's safer to just ride it out and hope they never get caught. The other side of the coin, at least in the current climate, is that people who have been "doing it the right way" are still being detained and deported. Legal permanent residents, visa holders, asylum applicants, all have been swept up in the ICE raids. Many of these regularly showed up for ICE appointments or court dates, only to be arrested there and subsequently deported. 

The policy of zero tolerance is bad enough, but the implementation has been compared to a secret police operation, and the comparisons are not too much of an exaggeration. 

On one hand ICE is simply implementing government policy. If the president and the Homeland Security Secretary have decided that the law will be enforced to the letter, they are just doing their jobs. Yet, the methods by which ICE is operating smell a lot like the secret police in a dictatorship. Bringing in the National Guard and the military to assist only strengthens this view. Every law enforcement agency in the country identifies its members to the public. If you're arrested, you know the name and badge number of the police officer or sheriff's deputy. Even the FBI, if executing a warrant or an arrest,  will identify themselves. Not ICE. They are wearing masks, not wearing any kind of uniform, nor anything that identifies them as law enforcement officers. They violently restrain people without verifying that they have the right people, they operate without judicial warrants, they violently attack people who film or protest their actions. (Of course, the promised focus on violent criminals isn't happening, they're going after people who go to work, take their kids to school, and show up for court) They refuse to allow (legally mandated) Congressional oversight of their facilities. They are a shadowy outfit with no visible accountability. Pair this with how the National Guard is being sent in to conduct law enforcement support (or trash pickup and gardening duties) in several cities in addition to their partnering with ICE in California and you can see the beginnings of a national police force, even without squinting. 

It's illegal to use the military for domestic law enforcement you say? Well, the military has been at the southern border all year. Not sure what they are doing precisely, but in theory they are backing up the Border Patrol, which is a domestic law enforcement agency. Illegal or not, Trump is doing it and he isn't being stopped. As for the National Guard, when they are activated, they are active duty military. Even when a court ruled that the use of the military in Los Angeles was illegal, it didn't seem to stop Trump from pledging to use them in other cities. Is it so much of a stretch to imagine that the president who is operating as a dictator would use ICE as the template for a national police force to arrest those engaging in criticism of him?

Dictators gonna dictate. 

NOW Do You Believe We're In a Dictatorship?

Occasionally a Trump sympathizer will tell me, along with a laughing emoji, that I should stop watching CNN, or otherwise suggest that I am regurgitating opinions spread by "liberal media". I came down hard recently on a friend who couldn't believe that any objective viewing of the facts wouldn't lead to the same exact opinions that he had. But anyone who follows this blog knows that, if anything, I have been ahead of the curve when it comes to identifying cult-like behavior and authoritarianism within Trumpworld. Sometimes I wonder what took the New York Times and other supposedly liberal media so long to see the light. 

In Trump's first term, it was obvious that he wanted to rule as an authoritarian. His background, both as the head of a privately owned business and an entitled rich kid, caused him to act with impunity and unaccountability. What kept him from going full dictator was the people he surrounded himself with. While it is true that he had the Republican members of Congress cowed, and there were certainly sycophants in his cabinet, there were enough people in positions of responsibility who would not let him do what he wanted to do if it was illegal or unconstitutional. There were a few "adults in the room". The second term is another story. There are few if any responsible people who are willing to put the country's wellbeing over fealty to Trump. The danger is twofold: in addition to the obvious incompetents like Robert Kennedy and Pete Hegseth, the next layer of officials below those requiring Senate confirmation are conservative policy geeks from think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the creator of project 2025. These people have been planning for decades for the time when they had a president who would be willing to enact their radical agenda of "dismantling the administrative state". They are also architects of the "Unitary Executive Theory" (Some thoughts on those items here: "Dictators Gonna Dictate") 

The second source of danger is Trump's volatile personality. His staff kept him provided with a steady stream of Executive Orders, which despite Trump's insistence that he knew nothing about Project 2025, were straight out of the Project 2025 playbook. But in addition to the precision strikes against the structure of government and the unilateral reversal of decades of Congressional action, Trump is still a loose cannon who makes decisions with little regard, not only for the consequences, but for easily verified facts. His entire tariff policy, for example, is based upon his ignorance of what balance of trade is. 

I first identified Trump's actions as dictatorial on January 20, 2025. The flood of Executive Orders overturned existing laws; virtually dismantled whole departments; fired people he had no authority to fire, including government lawyers and military JAG officers who might be tempted to point out illegality; opened up IRS records to a bunch of computer hackers under the leadership of a businessman with a questionable grasp of reality; nullified the 14th Amendment to the Constitution; in addition to actions that were certainly not priorities, like renaming the Gulf of Mexico. All of this was being done on his sole authority. 

But wait, there's more!

Trump, during his campaign last year, was very vocal about exacting retribution against his perceived enemies. He walked his stance partly back by saying that the retribution would be his election victory, but he and his main aides constantly talked about investigating and prosecuting those who stood against him, including President Biden. His supporters sometimes cheered on this promise of revenge, while elected officials usually downplayed his words as merely campaign rhetoric. This was somewhat believable in that, for all his yelling about "locking up" Secretary of State Clinton for imaginary crimes, he did not follow through during his first term. The second term would be different. 

In the last few months Trump has pushed his Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate anyone who investigated or prosecuted him, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and Special Counsel Jack Smith. At least one prosecutor who declined to continue an investigation due to a complete lack of evidence was summarily fired. Scores of FBI and DOJ agents and lawyers were fired or demoted because they were part of investigations into Trump. His FBI Director Kash "Crazy Eyes" Patel is infamous for publishing a Trump "enemies list" is his book. William Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is using his access to mortgage records to provide the DOJ with potential targets for mortgage fraud allegations. Trump has been very vocal about his reasoning for this push: they investigated him, they indicted him, they impeached him -- it's time for payback. Turning our law enforcement agencies into vehicles for personal revenge is a sure sign that we are in a dictatorship. 

The apparent transformation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into an unaccountable secret police organization is another sign of dictatorship. I haven't spent a lot of keystrokes on that subject yet, but anonymous masked men in unmarked vehicles, deporting people without due process, scooping up legal residents and even citizens in their nets, is turning out to be not what we thought it would be. To give this subject the attention it deserves, I'll devote a separate article to it. 

Finally, the one that blew up this week: free speech. 

I wrote a few words about free speech and the First Amendment in the article The Cost of The First Amendment. In just a few days it has gotten worse. Most of what we have seen is a right wing version of cancel culture. As abhorrent as attempts by private citizens to stifle free speech can be, it's still legal in most cases. What's not legal is the government, or any part of it, abridging freedom of speech. That's exactly what happened in the case of Jimmy Kimmel. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the government agency tasked with regulating broadcasting, threatened the network Kimmel was on, ABC, and its parent company, Disney, with "doing things the hard way" if Kimmel was not fired. Kimmel was supposedly removed for "celebrating Charlie Kirk's death", when in reality all he did was criticize "the MAGA crowd" for doing everything they could to convince themselves the killer wasn't one of them, he subsequently mocked Trump for focusing on the ballroom construction when asked about the shooting.  But even if Kimmel had overtly mocked Kirk and celebrated his death, that's not illegal! 

Follow up remarks from both Bondi and Trump are concerning, even frightening. Bondi initially drew a distinction between "free speech" and "hate speech", but changed her tune later, correctly pointing out that there is no legal definition of hate speech, and it's not illegal. Trump and his most vocal supporters are defining "hate speech" as anything critical of Trump. He has stated that critical coverage of him is illegal, and that "...when 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, it's no longer free speech". He has been emboldened by several settlements in response to his lawsuits against media companies (falsely claiming to have "won" his suits). He has come out in favor of "canceling" other late night comedians as well. He is mulling over taking away broadcast licenses of companies that offend him. Stephen Miller is calling liberal organizations a "vast terror movement" and vowing to "identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy" them using every resource of Homeland Security and other government agencies. It's no longer a matter of "oh that's just campaign rhetoric", it's happening now. 

Ironically, the only thing that reliably moderates Trump's dictatorial actions is Trump's personality. He is ignorant, incompetent, and inconsistent, and frequently doesn't follow through on his threats. But I wouldn't put too much hope in that. The dictatorship is already in full swing. 

The Cost of the First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

~~ First Amendment to the United States Constitution

The newest craziness coming out of the Trump Regime involves "abridging the freedom of speech". They want to see people who speak or write negatively about Charlie Kirk to "suffer the consequences" of their words. They're on the lookout for anyone who posts anything on social media "celebrating" Kirk's murder and are sending that information to employers, urging them to be fired. As reprehensible as this is, in many places it's completely legal. It's usually perfectly legal in most jurisdictions to fire someone for any reason, as long it's not for being part of a protected class. The federally recognized protected classes are:

• Race and Color
• Religion
• National (or Ethic) Origin
• Sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender identity - although I suspect the last one will be ended by the regime)
• Age Over 40 (in employment)
• Disability
• Genetic Information
• Veteran/Military Status

The use of the term "protected class" is often misunderstood. For instance, within the "Race and Color" class, it does not mean that a minority race is a protected class of people; it means that race is a prohibited reason for discrimination in employment. Same for "Sex"; it does not mean that women are a protected class, but that the sex of an employee cannot be the basis of discrimination. 

Note that "Political Beliefs" is not a class protected from employment discrimination. Nor is "Saying Offensive Things on the Internet". At one of my past jobs I was written up for some of my internet activity, although it was not for political opinions and I wasn't fired for it. You can be summarily fired in most states for saying things on social media, whether about Charlie Kirk or not, and you have no recourse. Your neighbors can take offense at your posts and alert your employer, and there's nothing you can do about it. 

What I find hypocritical about all of this, is that not long ago the right wingers in the United States were mostly opposed to this kind of behavior. They were dead set against "cancel culture" and were in the main First Amendment absolutists. During the 2024 election I had several discussions with a Trumper friend on his Facebook page. He was very concerned about remarks Vice President Harris had made years before that he interpreted as censorship. The article I wrote about it can be found here. My friend, and people like him, were very much up in arms about this supposed censorship. Right wing Twitter ("X" by then) was overflowing with outrage about how the Democrats would take away our First Amendment right to free speech. Elon's takeover of Twitter was partly fueled by anger over harmful  disinformation being flagged and removed, as well as Trump's ban from the platform. Now, in the aftermath of the murder of one of their own, they have changed their position and are fervent cheerleaders for, not only cancel culture, but government censorship. 

A word about cancel culture:

We mostly heard about people, usually celebrities, being "canceled" because they said or did something that some people found offensive. The offended would spread the word, and before you know it tours get canceled, book sales drop, or in the case of politicians, their career is ended. But the thing is, whatever the motivation of the "canceler", it was just information. I could hear about some stupid thing my Senator did or said when he was in college and decide whether he still had my vote. I could read about the comedy routine from years back that wouldn't fly today and make my own decision whether I could let it slide. I could determine whether I thought that a joke was indeed hateful toward a subgroup of society or not. We could all take that information and act upon it or not. We could choose to give the information credence, resolve to assign it importance or just shrug our shoulders and move on. 

But that's all in the context of private citizens exercising their First Amendment right, even though they're attempting to negate another citizen's First Amendment right. What we have escalated to is the government targeting individuals for their speech. Trump, as well as several members of his dictatorial regime, have announced that they will be identifying anyone "celebrating" the death of Charlie Kirk. I don't know how they decide where the line is when defining "celebrating". If I say that the world is a better place without him, is that celebrating? If I quote his own hateful speech, is that celebrating? If I point out the moral vacuousness of he and his ilk, is that celebrating?  Trump Attorney General Pam Bondi has vowed to crack down on liberal "hate speech". To give an example of how hate speech might be defined this NY Daily News article recounts ABC reporter Jonathan Karl's question to Trump about where the line between "hate speech" and "free speech" lay. Trump's response was “She’d probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly, it’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart.”

There you go. Asking a question of the dictator is hate speech and the questioner will be "gone after". Trump followed up with: “Your company paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech, so maybe they’ll have to go after you,” - in apparent reference to the settlement where George Stephanopoulos described a judgment against Trump as rape, when the judgment was legally defined as sexual abuse, not rape. Vice President J.D. Vance (or whatever his name is) called on people to report their neighbors who "celebrate Kirk's death" to their employers to get them fired. Stephen Miller, another high ranking cog in the regime, called for the dismantling of left wing institutions, calling them a "vast domestic terrorist movement,". 

Funny how Trump's words on and leading up to January Sixth weren't incitement according to the right, but a liberal's or a Democrat's words of opposition are terroristic. 

Sounds like abridging to me.

Dictators gonna dictate.

The Cost of The Second Amendment

"I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."

~~ Charlie Kirk April 25, 2023

 On September 10, 2025, at 12:23 Mountain Daylight Time Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, allegedly by Tyler Robinson. I was on my way home, driving through New Mexico and listening to a podcast about the band Deep Purple, so I was completely in the dark about the killing. When I continued my journey the next day I started to notice that flags were at half mast and assumed that it was in recognition of 9-11. It was not. Trump had ordered flags to be lowered in honor of Kirk. Late in the day I checked messages on Facebook and saw numerous references to the murder. (I won't call it an assassination, which implies the killing of a political leader: a president or other high government official. It is however, a murder).

As of today, we do not know the motive for the killing. It is reasonable to assume that it had something, indeed everything, to do with Kirk's politics and the way that he communicated those politics. Since Kirk was such a prominent voice on the right, is was reasonable to assume that the motivation of the killer was leftist ideology, or at least opposition to Kirk's ideology. 

Reasonable to assume. 

It's nothing more than an assumption.

We don't know.

Right now, everyone is grasping at straws, flailing around, trying to interpret the meager evidence that is publicly available. Certain phrases inscribed on the bullet casings suggest leftist anti-fascist ideology, which alternatively may have been online gaming references; someone suggested that these same phrases indicated that the killer was a supporter of a rival right wing figure. A family member supposedly told law enforcement that Robinson claimed that Kirk was "spreading hate". Robinson was registered to vote, but unaffiliated with any political party and had not voted in any election. He's reportedly not cooperating with law enforcement. 

Summary: WE DON'T KNOW

But what if we did know? What should we do? 

The same thing we're doing now: charge the alleged killer with murder and whatever related pile-on charges they can come up with, and put him on trial. And if he's convicted by a jury of his peers, enact whatever penalty the law requires. Does it matter what his motivation was? Whether he was "radicalized" by "leftist ideology", or by allegiance to another right wing figure, or if he was just a freakin' nut, Robinson was the one who made the decision to pull the trigger and kill another human being and he's the one who should be held accountable. No one else.

But what about "the left's" incitement to violence, to "dehumanizing" the Trumpists? There's a lot of discussion about the proper use of the descriptors Nazi, Fascist, Dictator, and Authoritarian as applied to Trump and his coterie. A friend recently wrote about why what the Trump regime is doing doesn't sink to the level of Nazism, and she had a point. Fascism, includes Nazism, but they aren't identical. I know there are some technical definitions of Fascism that don't fit the current administration either. I have consistently use the term "dictatorship" from Day One. Trump's attempts, sometimes successful, sometimes not, to institute one-man rule over the machinery of government certainly fit even the strictest definition of dictator. Most publicly available comments by progressives range from calling-it-like-they-see-it labeling of Trump as a Nazi or a Fascist to mockery of his disjointed speaking style, to pointing out the harm that his policies bring. Democratic "leaders" don't even do that, still lulled into the dream that "we can all get along". Maybe there's fringe figures calling for violence, but I haven't seen them. 

In contrast, the right, including Republican party leaders and elected office holders and including the President of the United States, have incited violence, mostly ambiguously worded, but in some instances quite overtly. These instances are well documented. Violence against opponents of the regime is well documented also. The attack on Paul Pelosi, which Republican leaders laughed about and mocked; to the assassination of a Minnesota legislator and her husband and the non-fatal shooting of her colleague, which Trump ignored, declining to attend the funeral; the attack on the Capitol in 2021; and the plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan. It's quite disingenuous and hypocritical for the Trumpublicans to wring their hands over hate speech. 

Trump is a dictator. Not a particularly effective one, but a dictator just the same. One thing any dictator worth his salt will do is turn a tragedy into an excuse to crack down on dissent, to exert more control. And that's what he's talking about doing. Even before we knew who the killer was, let alone why he did it, Trump and his cult were raging about "dismantling and uprooting" left-wing groups. "Major investigations are underway" into leftist groups supposedly tied to the murder. Supposedly. More assumptions. 

Adjacent to official actions, Kirk stans are mobilizing to expose anyone who publicly speaks disrespectfully of Kirk, calling for them to be doxed or fired from their jobs. In many cases these people are simply quoting Kirk, or pointing out the hatefulness of his words and positions, not celebrating his death. What's hypocritical is that most of these right wingers were First Amendment absolutists until recently. They were in favor of the waves of disinformation on Twitter and were rabidly against any infringement of free speech, at least against their own kind.  Cancel culture was reviled. They even claim that Kirk was killed for exercising his right to free speech. Yet here they are, advocating for  "cancelling" those that they disagree with. 

Charlie Kirk was a horrible human being. Over and above his support for the dictator-in-chief, he showed zero empathy for the people killed in gun violence every year, including the many school children. In fact he claimed that empathy was "harmful and made up". He said birth control made women angry and bitter; 10 year old rape victims should be forced to give birth; he assumed that if the pilot was Black he was probably unqualified; the 1965 Civil Rights Act was "a mistake"; "Jewish money" was ruining America; gay people were destructive and should be put to death; he encouraged his followers to bail out Paul Pelosi's attacker. His so-called campus debates were anything but. He did take questions from people who disagreed with him, but it was usually just a setup for public humiliation of "woke" students not used to public speaking or debate. Like a comedian handling a heckler. 

Despite my belief that he was a loathsome feeder upon hate and divisiveness, he had every right to say what he said, and had every expectation that he wouldn't be murdered for speaking his mind. I'll never celebrate someone being killed like a rabid animal in the street...but you know what? Charlie Kirk thought it was part of the cost of having the Second Amendment.

Dictators Gonna Dictate

Every day brings a new action by Trump that confirms his intentions to rule as a dictator. And to forestall any suggestions that I am simply regurgitating the "media narrative", here's a link to an article I wrote on January 21, 2025, calling his Day One actions dictatorial. My conclusion is not based on the effect of his actions or the rightness or wrongness of his actions, but the very basis of his actions: unilateral actions without respect to existing law or to the other branches of government. One man rule is the very definition of a dictatorship. 

Trump's Heritage Foundation allies have provided him with a framework of legal gymnastics justifying his rule by fiat, specifically the specious "Unitary Executive Theory", but Trump needs no legal basis for his authoritarianism, it's his default method of governing. His style of leadership derives from two sources: (1) Being the head of a family-owned private business and (2) Being a rich kid. 

We Americans regularly fall for the idea that a successful businessman will make a successful mayor, governor, president etc. I wrote about it here and again here. The main difference between the head of a government and the head of a business is accountability. The owner of a privately owned business answers to no one. He can make decisions that will cause the business to lose all its customers, but no one has the authority to stop him. Even in publicly traded companies, boards of directors usually don't get involved in the day-to-day operations. Trump, after pushing out other family members, inherited his father's business and remolded it in his own image. He made decades of bad decisions, bankrupting multiple businesses, but kept on making them because no one had the power to stop him. The idea that as president he would have to cooperate with Congress, defer to the courts, and work within a system, was entirely foreign to him. If he had been a self-made businessman, that would have been bad enough, but he was a rich kid who never wanted for anything, never had to work a day in his life, and had everything in life handed to him. What could possibly go wrong?

The promulgators of the Unitary Executive claim that the phrase in Article II Section 1 -  "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." means that everything related to how laws are executed, how laws are interpreted, how laws are enforced is under the unquestioned authority of one person: the president. I'm sure that this would surprise the nation's founders, who were very specifically against entrusting supreme power to one individual. In fact, Article II Section 3 states that the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"...no exceptions are mentioned. Throughout Article II, virtually all responsibility and authority of the president is contingent upon concurrence of Congress. The Constitution lays out the framework where Congress writes the laws and the president executes the laws. It's true that for a bill to become law the president must agree (by signing it) before it becomes law, but it's the Congress where all laws and policies and budgets originate. A president can suggest, a president can send a proposed budget request to Congress, but it's Congress that writes the rules. 

Something not fully anticipated by the founders was the growth of what right wingers call the administrative state. As the country grew, and especially as government took a greater role in protecting its citizens Congress created regulatory and enforcement agencies. Once Congress passes a law, there has to be some mechanism to determine whether the law is being followed and what to do about it if not. It's fine and good to pass a law requiring workplace safety, but it's the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that writes the regulations defining what that specifically means, enforces the consequences laid down in the law. Congress has created and funded all of these agencies, services and administrations, but they are all technically part of the executive branch. This is where is gets a little muddy. Some of these regulatory agencies were set up to be independent, or at least semi-independent, in order to allow them to do their jobs outside of partisan considerations. The president appoints the head of the agency with Senate approval, who usually has a term that includes multiple presidential terms. Most of these agency heads cannot be replaced without cause. The theory of the Unitary Executive rejects that and posits that the president has authority over every aspect of every government department. Trump, latching on to that theory, has eliminated whole departments, fired thousands of employees, cancelled contracts and neutered whole swaths of Congressionally approved programs...unilaterally. 

The problem with these unilateral actions isn't whether or not they're good ideas...okay, whether or not they're good ideas is relevant, but not germane to whether they're dictatorial. Terry Pratchett, one of my favorite authors, put these words into the mouth of Sam Vimes, one of my favorite characters. 

“If you did it for a good reason, you'd do it for a bad one. You couldn't say 'We're the good guys' and do bad-guy things.”

It doesn't matter if you believe that the Department of Education should be eliminated, or that there's too many people working for the government, or that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs are discriminatory, or if you believe that a trade deficit means we're losing money or tariffs are the best way to balance the budget. It doesn't even matter if Trump is actually right about anything, he is governing by fiat, he is ruling by executive order. What makes it worse is that Congress has abdicated its role out of fear of Trump's ability to end their careers and the Supreme Court has largely acquiesced to his actions. State and local Republicans obey his commands. 

We are not becoming a dictatorship, we have been one since January 20, 2025. 

Freedom of Speech

A clip from a speech that Vice President Harris made in 2019 when she was a Senator running for president was making the rounds on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Typically the tweet starts with something along the lines of: "Kamala: I will censor content on X that I don't like", followed by a clip where she doesn't say anything like that. In the clip she is actually saying:

"We'll put the Department of Justice of the United States back in the business of justice. We will double the Civil Rights Division and direct law enforcement to counter this extremism. We will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy. And if you profit off of hate, if you act as a megaphone for misinformation or cyber warfare, if you don't police your platforms, we are going to hold you accountable as a community.”

I have not been able to find a text of the full speech, so I don't for sure what the context is for these remarks. It's also unclear what she intends by "hold them accountable". What is clear is that does not mention censoring social media platforms or shutting them down. I can draw some conclusions based on who she is speaking to and what was going on nationally. 

She is addressing the NAACP, a Black advocacy organization, and there had been a number of killings inspired by racial animus that had been abetted by social media posts. She specifically invokes the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. One can infer from her remarks that she is targeting online incitement to violence. I have seen arguments that what she is saying amounts to de facto censorship, if not censorship de jure. Free speech is not absolute. There are laws making certain narrow categories of speech illegal. Two examples are libel (although libel is more of a civil matter) and the previously mentioned incitement to violence. Individuals can be held to account in a court of law, but social media platforms cannot be. Why is that?

Section 230 of the 1934 Communications Act as amended in 1996 states that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." In other words, a social media platform is not responsible to moderate their content (except for child pornography and bootleg movies) and cannot be held responsible for what gets posted there, like a publisher of a newspaper or the producer of a television or cable program would. Both Trump and former President Biden were in favor of repealing Section 230. Trump was for this mainly (in my opinion) because Twitter (when it was still Twitter) was fact checking his tweets and was allegedly suppressing conservative and Trump-supporting content. I'm not sure what Biden's motivation were. (Side note: it's funny how the Trumpists were up in arms about how Twitter was "censoring" right wing speech, even though it was a private company that had every right to do so and now they're celebrating Musk who is doing similar things to left wing speech [which he categorizes as "propaganda"] because as a private owner he has every right to do so). In the larger context Harris isn't suggesting anything that Trump or Biden haven't already suggested (she's not really suggesting anything, since the clips that were circulating are from five years ago). What she said in that speech, right or wrong, unconstitutional or not, is mainstream, but as usual, her opponents ignore this and brand her words as that of a communist. 

For all the hand wringing and pearl clutching by Harris' opponents, do they ever consider the anti-free speech actions of their avatar, Trump?

• In 2020, after Twitter began appending fact checks to his tweets Trump issued an executive order that effectively re-interprets Section 230 and involves the government in platforms' moderation policies. In other words, Trump did what his supporters allege that Harris' 5-year old words indicate she would do - if their interpretation is correct
• In 2017 Trump publicly mused about changing the libel laws to make it easier for the government to sue media organization. In effect, to give the government a cudgel to prevent criticism of the president
• In 2020 Trump sued Facebook and Twitter for not publishing some of his posts and tweets
• In 2017 Trump halted whistleblower protections
• Trump aides call the press the opposition party
• Trump repeatedly call the mainstream press the enemy of the people
• Trump campaign calls for holding the media accountable (wording sound familiar?) for trying to rig the election
• Trump has sued a pollster in Iowa who incorrectly predicted that Harris would win Iowa's electoral votes
• Trump is sued CBS over how they edited an interview with Harris
• Trump's administration is deporting people, otherwise here legally, for their speech
• Trump has threatened the tax exempt status of universities whose curriculum he doesn't like
• AP has been banned from covering White House press briefings because they continue to use the term "Gulf of Mexico"
• Trump is in the process of dismantling Voice of America
• John Bolton is under investigation after speaking out against Trump, with Chris Christie threatened with the same
• ABC and NBC have been threatened with fines or license revocations because of their coverage of him

There's more, some more overt than others, but Trump's antipathy toward a free press should not be a surprise to anyone. 

If Harris' 5-year old speech is indicative of her current policy position and it means censorship, of course I'm concerned, (1) I don't believe that's the most logical, reasonable inference to be made and (2) Trump has already engaged in more direct anti-free speech actions.

Trump's actions in his first 100 days have clearly indicated his intention to rule in an authoritarian manner. On his first day he declared that the 100 year old understanding of the 14th Amendment's guarantee of citizenship to anyone who was born here was overturned, revealing his contempt for the Constitution. He has decided that due process is no longer a thing if you aren't a citizen, despite it being provided in the 5th and 14th amendments, with the 4th amendment, securing us from unwarranted searches and seizures next on the chopping block. 

But hey, Harris wanted accountability for Twitter, so we had to vote for Trump.

Anti-Trump Propaganda?

Recently I wrote a trio of articles on the ongoing cultishness of Trump supporters, their weird affinity for authoritarianism and how just plain stupid they are. A conversation I had recently with a Trump supporter inspired me to write about what they consider reliable and trustworthy sources of information. It's not new information that Trump has done his best to undermine any media that doesn't cheerlead for him, and that Trumpists derive their opinions from sources with a pro-Trump bias, but I was surprised at how, in some cases, major issues just don't hit their radar. 

The conversation in question involved Trump's authoritarian and dictatorial words and actions since he was re-elected. As an example, I referred to Trump's attempt to nullify part of the actual Constitution, Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, by fiat, i.e. executive order. I have heard plenty of anti-immigrants rhetoric arguments against the concept of birthright citizenship; I have heard numerous barstool legal scholars maintaining that it only applied to freed slaves, but was shocked that this person had not so much as heard about this. To clarify, this person is not apolitical, he likes to think he stays up to date on current events, and often expresses opinions about world events, but he had no idea what I was talking about. 

As the conversation progressed (and I'm using the word "progressed" very loosely, only as it pertains to the passage of time and not to quality) he referred to the "anti-Trump propaganda in the legacy media" (legacy is used as a synonym for mainstream here). I'm very aware that Trumpists believe that most of what we view as the mainstream media has a liberal bias, and that they often repeat a "statistic" claiming the 92% of Trump coverage is negative. This statistic, in this case inflated to 98%, came up in our discussion. Let's divert from my friend's view of the media for a moment and look at where that "92%" figure comes from.

Media Research Center, the organization that came up with the 92% negative rating for media coverage of Trump. Its mission is, according to their website, to “prove—through sound scientific research—that liberal bias in the media exists and undermines traditional American values…MRC’s sole mission is to expose and neutralize the propaganda arm of the Left: the national news media.” Hardly unbiased. They have started with a conclusion have gone about seeking facts that back up their assertion. Their presumably biased "analysis" is the basis of virtually every mention that you will ever see about anti-Trump media bias. The bottom line is that any claim of a statistical basis for a claim of anti-Trump or pro-liberal media bias is itself biased. 

One mainstream news source that I regularly read is the New York Times, which is regularly excoriated by Trump and his minions as virulently anti-Trump and has been criticized even pre-Trump as having a liberal bias. However, a typical Times piece about Trump will simply report what he said or did. The article might also include analysis of the consequences or benefits of the policy as well as statements by his spokesperson or by the opposition. In other words, complete and detailed reporting. The same standards applied to previous presidents and presidential candidates. Of course I'm talking about news articles and not opinion or editorial pieces. I wrote an article that included the difference between news and opinion last year. Trump and the Trumpists believe that news coverage of him should include effusive praise for his "accomplishments" and serve as cheerleading for his policies. If it doesn't, they call it negative. 

As my conversation with my Trumpist friend continued, I asked him to show me a recent example of anti-Trump propaganda in the mainstream media, pretty confident that I could demonstrate that whatever he came up with was simply "reporting". This was his response:

"there's so much out there that the mere question is comical these days my friend. You have Russiagate, the Hunter Biden Laptop Russian Disinformation, The Steele Dossier, the Very Fine People On Both Sides, making fun of a disabled reporter, calling our Military suckers and losers, just to list a few right off the top of my head. These, and many more have been thoroughly exposed and debunked. A simple AI or grok questioning/research will provide all the information you're requesting."

No specific article was referenced, just a recycling of the pro-Trump position that what we heard with our own ears and saw with our own eyes wasn't what we really heard or saw. I'm surprised he didn't bring up "injecting bleach", which was supposedly debunked because he said "disinfectant" and not "bleach". I wrote an article about debunking last year, covering some of the things he brought up. I further responded that I knew how to Google, but was looking for specific evidence of the anti-Trump propaganda he believed existed, rather than vague assertions. What's ironic is that The New York Times, as well as other media with a supposedly liberal bias, is regularly criticized by "The Left" for including opinion pieces that support some Trump policies or even that report on Trump evenhandedly. 

All of this is in line with the cultishness of most of Trump's support. They have bought into his criticism of mainstream news sources as "fake news". They have "decided" that anything in the mainstream media is biased at the very least, and probably simply lies. As an alternative their go-to news sources are podcasts, blogs and Twitter. To be fair, you can find factual, unbiased, information anywhere, but most of these right wing, pro-Trump sites are merely opinions about actual news, and don't have the resources to do any investigative reporting, or access to the people who set policy in this country. 

Like any cult, they have limited their sources of information to those approved by the cult leader. 

Checking the Facts

The other day I saw someone refer to "so-called fact checkers". In other words, the fact checkers weren't really checking facts, they were just another part of "the media", spreading their "fake news". I'm sure that it's no surprise that most Americans no longer view "the mainstream media" as a credible source of information. The proliferation of alternative news sources has only accelerated that trend. But is the information in mainstream media actually unreliable?  

There are fundamental things that most people do not understand about "news". The first thing is that not all of what you see on television news, or in a newspaper, is "news". Most media sources' content is roughly divided between "news" and "opinion". The "news" is what we might colloquially think of as "just the fact ma'am" - a strict, no frills recounting of what happened. The opinion side of a media outlet would include what "what happened" means, it would include an interpretation of events and speculation regarding the consequences of what happened. It's easy to point to a newspaper's editorial that you vehemently disagree with and extend your negative opinion to the news section, your confidence in the paper's accuracy undermined by your opinions being in opposition. You can think that the New York Times is full of it for stating that Trump was unfit to be president back in 2016, sure that the were unequivocally wrong about his qualifications while their reporting about his borderline illegal business dealings was beyond reproach and 100% accurate. Despite this widespread distrust in the media, traditional newspaper and television media's news (and I include conservative-leaning outlets like Fox in this group) is fairly accurate. What drives the lack of confidence in that accurate reporting is the overwhelming emphasis that is put on the opinion side of the business. Viewers of (for example) CNN or Fox News spend more of their viewing time listening to "hosts" who are doing nothing but giving their opinion, and in some cases, not giving their actual opinion but repeating back what they think their viewers want to hear. 

Another misunderstood fundamental is bias. Everybody has biases. Everybody is biased to some extent. https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart But the question is, how does that bias affect the news, the "what's happening" side of the media? An obvious sign of bias is the facts that a media outlet chooses to publish. A newspaper with a liberal bias may choose to run stories about White police officers shooting unarmed Black men and not examples of White officers acting with restraint and politeness when dealing with Black citizens while a conservative newspaper might emphasize the reverse. In general you would expect the stories that are published to support that newspaper's overall biases. To determine whether a medium's bias swamps its journalistic integrity you have to look at what else is being reported. To extend my example, it's really not "news" for a police officer to be acting with professionalism, politeness and respect - that's their job. But does the newspaper also provide context? Are their stories about the statistics related to police shootings? Are we provided with enough information to form an opinion about whether what they're reporting are isolated incidents or evidence of a systemic problem? The answer to that will tell you whether your news source can be trusted to provide you with accurate information. 

What about fact checkers? The attack, mostly from former President Trump and his supporters, on mainstream media, characterizing it as Fake News, eventually extended to the legions of fact checkers. Fact checkers are a very narrow slice of "presenters of facts" who focus on the veracity (or lack of it) in public statements by politicians (or at least mainly politicians). Like mainstream media, and really, everybody, they have their own biases that sometimes guides who and what they check for factuality. Those who support politicians whose inaccuracies have been called out by fact checkers will reflexively refuse to believe the facts that fact checkers check, apparently for no other reason than that they disagree with them. What I have observed with most fact checkers is that they don't merely claim that a targeted politicians is wrong about something, they provide evidence to back it up. For example, Trump repeatedly claimed in his speeches that he "got Veterans'' Choice". Fact Checker Daniel Dale just as repeatedly pointed out that that the Veterans' Choice bill had been proposed by the late Senator John McCain and signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2012, four years before Trump was elected. He presented evidence that could be easily cross checked for accuracy. Trump also regularly claimed to have completed building "The Wall" (most of it) - fact checkers often posted links to government websites (during Trump's presidency) that showed a small number of miles of new barriers had been constructed. Most fact checkers are not simply saying "nuh-uh" but are presenting a checkable documentary trail that can easily be verified. 

Some things are a matter of opinion. The best way to deal with the effects of climate change is a matter of opinion; whether there is climate change isn't. That we had a worldwide pandemic starting in 2020 is not a matter of opinion - the best way to minimize death and illness is. What we are lacking (in my opinion!) is not a lack of facts in the media, but a lack of understanding by the electorate of the difference between fact and opinion.

Life After Trump

"...people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” – Hebrews 9:27

Who knows if there's anything to this, but there's been speculation lately about Trump's health. From his swollen ankles to the wounds on his hands to his weird talk about going to heaven, there are signs that he is seriously ill. Some people believe that the current state of the nation, as we slide deeper and deeper into authoritarianism, dictatorship and fascism, is completely due to Trump, and that his death would result in some sort of national "reset". 

I wouldn't hold my breath.

There are several strands interweaving in our national tapestry that are contributing to the current state of affairs:

• Trump and his cultish hold on much of the electorate
• Behind the scenes actors such as the architects of Project 2025 who have thought through how to turn theory into operational reality
• The ongoing Republican efforts to retain power by disenfranchising portions of the voting public
• The Supreme Court majority that appears to agree with extreme right wing interpretations of the law

The Project 2025 authors are the brains behind much of what is going on in the federal government right now. Kevin Roberts and The Heritage Foundation have spent years documenting what they believed the federal government should look like and how it should be run. They have not trafficked in vague ideas and catchy slogans, but in concrete plans to remake the government. Their over all goals and ideology can be summarized as:

• Dismantling the "Administrative State", by which they mean eliminating the ability of regulatory agencies to effectively execute and enforce the laws creating them. 
• The President is the head of a "unitary executive" branch of government. This means that the president is the only authority regarding what any agency of the federal government can do.  This includes whether that agency can exist, despite any laws to the contrary. 
• Stricter immigration policies
• Government policy should be oriented toward traditional conservative Christian values, aka Christian Nationalism

Some of these views are concrete such as the unitary executive and dismantling regulatory agencies, while Christian Nationalism is more implied than spelled out. Officially Project 2025 was not connected to the Trump campaign, nor has it been overtly adopted by the administration. However, Project 2025 was virtually indistinguishable from Agenda 47, Trump official campaign platform, and several Heritage Foundation members are now ensconced in the administration. Who do you think is writing all those executive orders?

How would the Project 2025 influence be different if Trump died and Vice President Vance became president? (Or any post-Trump Republican president)

Hallmarks of Trump's leadership style include his utter ignorance of how things work, his lack of desire to learn how things work, his childish need for adulation, his laziness when it comes to the hard work required of the job, his tendency to take things personally and seek retribution when wronged and his buffoonish public persona. I have no doubt that a more restrained right wing president would have gotten more of the conservative agenda accomplished in the last half year than Trump did, simply because there wouldn't have been the daily distractions of the crazy utterances from Trump himself every day. For example, I imagine that the dismantling of the federal work force would have been undertaken in an organized, methodical fashion, rather than the clown show put on by Musk and DOGE. We would have barely noticed the Department of Education being eliminated and there would be no silly renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. paving over the Rose Garden, or gilding the Oval Office. There would be no daily announcements of ridiculous tariffs or tiffs with his "enemies" on social media. All the truly horrible things would still be enacted, but we probably wouldn't realize that they were happening. 

The Trump as Cult Leader strand is still important though. As incompetent as he is at actual governing there is no one out there who can take his place at campaigning. The whole MAGA "movement" is all about personal fealty to Trump himself and only peripherally to any coherent ideology. We have seen time and time again how a position supposedly so important to the base get abandoned because Trump changed his mind. Like the "it's the economy" crowd no longer concerned about rising grocery prices. Even when there appeared to be a rebellion, like when many from the QAnon portion of his base appeared to turn against him, it seems to wind down and they're back to hanging on Trump's every word. Sure, there are some among the Trump cult who would never vote for a Democrat because they believe the propaganda that Democrats are all pedophilic communist gun grabbers, but you might see some moderate Republicans speaking up again when the fear of having their careers torpedoed by Trump's ire fades away. Republican voters might actually start thinking about their choices. 

But even absent Trump and The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, Republicans are conservatives at heart and aren't really opposed to the goals of Project 2025. Due mainly Trump's influence over the last ten years, the bulk of Republican office holders have been right wing extremists, and often White Christian Nationalists. The extreme right wing has taken control of most state Republican parties. Despite their rhetoric claiming to represent the majority of Americans, and despite the electoral failures of the Democratic Party nationally, Republicans know that their influence is waning. If they believed that their star was rising there wouldn't be a need to engage in the numerous anti-democratic maneuvers designed to discourage or outright disenfranchise those most likely to vote against them. A truly democratic society would set things up so that more people could vote, not make it more difficult to register or to get to the polls. Here are a few examples from a previous article where Republicans have ignored the will of the people:

• Wisconsin voters elected a Democrat as governor. Before he could take office, the Republican legislature voted to strip the governor of many of his powers
• North Carolina did the same thing
• The Democratic North Carolina governor vetoed a budget that the legislature with a Republican majority submitted, but they didn't have enough votes to override. They waited until the entire Democratic caucus was at a 9-11 memorial and voted to  override the veto, since the 2/3 override threshold wasn't 2/3 of the entire legislature, but 2/3 of those present
• Several states, including my own state of Nebraska, voted to expand Medicaid coverage. The Republican governor has instructed state agencies to delay implementation and to throw up roadblocks to prevent people from actually utilizing it
• The same Nebraska governor, when faced with Republican legislators (in a ostensibly non-partisan legislature) who did not vote with him, he bankrolled primary challenges to those "disloyal" Republicans. 
• Lincoln Nebraska Republicans bankrolled a ballot initiative to term limit a Democratic mayor who had already announced that he was running for another term
• In Maine, South Dakota, Nevada and Oklahoma citizen ballot initiatives were overturned by the Republican governors and the legislatures
• In Florida, a ballot initiative restored voting rights to convicted felons who had served their sentences. The Republican governor and legislature instituted roadblocks that would prevent most from actually being able to vote (this was overturned by the courts)
• Let's not forget voter suppression laws. They require identification, and then close DMV's and other places where ID can be secured. 
• Just this past year in Nebraska, the supposedly nonpartisan legislature, which has a filibuster-proof Republican majority, overturned, delayed, slow-walked or watered down several initiatives passed by the people

The Republicans simply don't care what the majority wants. And in order to stay in power they will suppress the vote and gerrymander their way to permanent majorities. Texas Republicans have escalated the gerrymander game by redistricting halfway through a census period. Gerrymandering doesn't affect presidential elections (except in Nebraska and Maine) but a permanent Republican House majority will neuter any hypothetical Democratic president. 

Finally, there's the Supreme Court. District and Appellate federal courts have done a wonderful job slowing down some of Trump's dictatorial actions, yet when the appeals make it to the Supreme Court, the 6-3 majority has been very friendly to Trump's agenda. Thomas and Alito will be 78 and 76 respectively at the end of Trump's term, while the rest of them are in their 50's and 60's. A Democrat would need to be elected president, Thomas and Alito would have to die and we'd have to hope the Senate would either be in Democratic hands or not pull a McConnell if in Republican hands before we would see any change in the court's makeup. The current majority seems very sympathetic to right wing goals unless egregiously unconstitutional. 

The bottom line is that things may not get any better if Trump keels over and dies tomorrow. At the very least the Democrats would need to gain a majority in the House (the Senate seems out of reach for the foreseeable future) and moderate Republicans will need to come out of hiding.