Division

Why is there division? The simple answer is because people disagree about things. People have always disagreed about things and always will disagree about things. Some of those things are inconsequential —who is the best rock band of all time?; who would win a bout between heavyweight boxing champions of different eras?; is pineapple an appropriate topping for pizza? While other disagreements reflect fundamental beliefs about the world — should everyone be treated equally under the law?; are some classes of people worth intrinsically less than others?; should everyone have access to affordable healthcare? The former, minor, disagreements can exist without jeopardizing friendships, how you think about the latter, major disagreements says a lot about the type of person that you are. 

Recently I have seen the claim that divisions among us are somehow caused from some outside source. For years I have seen the finger pointed at "the media"; politicians get the blame as well, the latest was that it was the "shadow government", also known as "the cabal". I'll concede that some media feed off divineness because it gives them something to report on. I'll concede that billionaires love to see us squabbling about petty bullshit because it distracts us from their tax financed empire building. I'll concede that some politicians need to foster discord because it makes them look like they're accomplishing something, that they're fighting for us. But despite my concessions on these points, I believe that divisiveness is simply the result of there being positions for which there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. 

Abortion is a stark example. For most of those who are against abortion it's no less than murder. No amount of compromise by the pro-choice side will convince them that abortion, at any point in the pregnancy, for any reason, is anything other than the killing of a human being. Pro-choice advocates can argue for a woman's bodily autonomy, dangers to women's health is some cases, even pointing out to those with religious objections that The Bible doesn't actually prohibit abortion or equate it with murder, but they won't budge. 

But there are many other areas where there is apparently no compromise. 

Most of the areas where there is a clear black or white, day or night difference involve who deserves simple human rights. One can support border security and vetting of immigrants without advocating for a government agency running rampant in the streets, shooting and killing people, or for the administration arbitrarily canceling legal avenues of attaining citizenship. A sincere argument might be able to be made for banning someone whose male biology presents an unfair advantage competing against female athletes without assuming that transgender people are "pretending" to be something they're not, or are mentally ill. We can support  politicians that push back against the current iteration of corporate capitalism, championing policies that value individuals' health and well-being rather than the bottom line without being tarred as communists. Yet cheerleaders for one "side" are fine with shooting people in the street and breaking up families; they push for making it difficult if not impossible for transgender people to live the lives they choose; they prefer that children starve rather than budget more for food assistance programs. 

That's why there's  division. 

No one is forcing them to believe as they do — no one is forcing us either. We all believe what we do because that's what we want to believe. And I want to be divided from people who devalue human life and prioritize religion or racial purity over people. I have no problem being friends with someone with whom I disagree about property taxes, or term limits, or student loan forgiveness. I do have a problem with you if you support shooting people in the streets who aren't actively threatening harm. I do have a problem with you if you think getting beaten up is an appropriate response for speaking against a politician I do have a problem with you if you're a bigot. 

What's crazy though, is some people have a problem with us for not being okay with beating people exercising First Amendment rights, for not being okay with shooting people in the streets, for not being a bigot. These same people believe that the problem with divisiveness is not so much that it exists, but that we have been persuaded by some outside force to be divided from them. Compromise or consensus isn't the answer for them, but acquiescing to their world view. This is similar to the Trumpist view of bipartisanship — not that both parties come to a mutually acceptable solution to the issue of the day, but that the other party bowing to his position. 

There are plenty of my fellow Americans that I am perfectly happy to be divided from. 

Do We Have a King?

On Saturday people across the country, and even in other countries, gathered for the "No Kings" protests. I attended the one here in Lincoln Nebraska for a few hours. Afterwards I spend some time perusing social media to see what "the other side" had to say about them Of course, the fact that the Trumpers, and Trump himself, would downplay, and even misrepresent them, came as no surprise. At the nadir of disgustingness, also no surprise, was the Truth Social post by Trump himself. The post featured a video of The Dotard at the controls of a military jet, which had the words "King Trump" emblazoned on the side, bombing the protesters with shit. Most of the other comments sunk merely to the level of childish taunts. 

The commenters who attempted to explain why the protests were a waste of time tended to focus on the fact that, literally, Trump is not a king. He is not a member of a royal family, nor did he inherit his position. He was elected to it. Variations on the theme included references to July 4th being the real "No King" day, or that we haven't actually had a king since 1776. All of that is true, so why have we, the Trump opposition, latched on to the "No King" label? One of the reasons comes from Trump himself. After inserting himself into the congestion pricing debate in New York, he declared that he was canceling it, and added "The King has spoken". He has also posted pictures of himself wearing a royal crown. Most of us, hopefully all of us, realize that Trump is not a literal king. We are using the term as shorthand for the kind of absolute ruler archetype that Trump is aspiring to become. Even those who rebelled against Great Britain in 1776, while using the language of opposition to a king, were in reality opposing the British parliament, since the actual king was at that time in their history not an absolute monarch, and parliament made the rules. It's shorthand, it's an image, intended to convey our protestation against rule by one man. The Trumpers' attempt at cleverness portrays their ignorance of symbolism and nuance. 

There are a number of other words that have been used to describe the Trump presidency: fascist, dictator, Nazi, authoritarian. I have seen some Trump opponents object to some of these because they aren't completely accurate in painting a picture of the regime. Some Jewish friends have pointed out that Trumpism hasn't yet sunk to the level of depravity of the Nazis in World War II; Fascism has a specific meaning that includes the economic in addition to the political side of things. There are even technical differences between an authoritarian and a dictator. This article lists the differences between the two. In short, while both are essentially one-man rule, an authoritarian relies somewhat on a constitutional structure and a dictator controls all aspects of the state and society. The article presents the differences in more detail; Trump's regime resembled the authoritarian model more closely (although I believe the author has defined "dictator" in a way that only the very extreme cases qualify). I have chosen to characterize Trump as a dictator, rather than an authoritarian, mainly because the word has more impact—doesn't sound as academic—and is more recognizable. 

I have had people argue with me that the fact that Trump was elected disqualifies him from the category of dictator, although it is pretty easy to find dictators who were initially elected but eventually accreted all power to themselves, like Putin in Russia. Others have maintained that the fact that we have been able to hold mass protests like Saturday's, or can publicly criticize the regime means that we aren't a dictatorship. I argue that a dictatorship exists on a continuum—not very dictator starts by going full Stalin—but that it builds and gets steadily worse. Yes, the protests were allowed to happen, and our social media accounts haven't been shut down, but the attacks on the First Amendment are already happening—universities are being threatened, former high-ranking officials are being indicted, and the arrests have started with non-citizens. It's only a matter of time. 

In my opinion the defining characteristic of dictatorship in Trump's second term is the fact that he is unilaterally making decisions that are either should be decided jointly with Congress, or are Congress's sole purview. This is entirely separate from the issue of whether what he is doing is beneficial or is harmful for the country, but goes to the question of whether he has the authority to do what he does on his own. This blog post of mine outlines in detail why I think we are now under a dictatorship. But whether you call him a dictator, an authoritarian, a fascist, a Nazi, or a king, the bottom line is that he is acting illegally and extra-constitutionally. He is making unilateral decisions and claiming that, as president, he "can do whatever he wants". This is not how a representative democracy works, not how a constitutional republic works. 

The defenses of Trump have fallen into two main camps. One type of Trumper is fully on board with his policies and is willing to accept anything that puts those policies in effect. A Trumper friend the other day rationalized the blowing up of boats alleged to be smuggling drugs to the United States by stating how reprehensible drug dealing was. I don't disagree with his assessment of drug dealers, but there are several illegal things happening with these attacks. We are using the military in what is essentially a law enforcement capacity. Trump has declared the drug cartels, not just a criminal conspiracy, but a terrorist group supported by the Venezuelan government. We have not be shown any evidence that these boats are running drugs, or in any way connected with drug cartels—we are summarily executing people from a country with whom we are not at war and have not been accused of, let alone convicted of, a crime. We also already have a method to stop drugs coming in by boat: the Coast Guard stops and searches them, and if carrying drugs, subjects them to the legal system. Yet my friend believes the end justifies the means. The other camp believes that the actions that Trump has taken are legal, and believe his assertion that he can do whatever he wants. These people truly believe that the president has the authority to take whatever action he deems fit. They don't understand, and don't want to understand the constitutional nuances. 

So yes, if we are speaking figuratively, we have a monarch wannabe. We have a president who craves the unrestricted power that the absolute monarchs, exercising the divine right of kings, had once upon a time. That's why we march.

What Do We Focus On?

A good friend of mine often (accurately) points out how the latest Trump social media blow up is a distraction. I agree to a point. Trump does do and say things with the express purpose of getting us to forget about the last unethical, illegal, unconstitutional thing that he did. He says things just to piss off his opponents that he has no intention of following through on. There are insignificant blips on the political radar which are unworthy of our attention. However, there are so many unethical, illegal, unconstitutional things going on, all at the same time, it seems like everything is a distraction from everything else. 

Steve Bannon articulated the "flooding the zone" strategy. Throw so many outrages at people, all at once, and keep on doing it, so that no one can focus on all of them. And if there is any strategy coming out of the White House, this is it. What do you want to rage against? What do you want to protest? ICE? The War against Iran? DOGE? Tariffs? Corruption and self-dealing? Epstein Files? Bypassing Congress? Ignoring court orders? Attacking press freedoms and free speech? Retribution against political opponents? Destroying part of the White House? Do we ration some of our anger for his recurring claim that he actually won the 2020 election or that he is thinking about running again in 2028?

The other side of the coin is the short attention span and lack of intellectual depth of the typical voter. So many people would rather mock Trump's spray tan, his weird hairdo, his clumsy dance moves, his cheap suit, his weight, his gifts of ill-fitting shoes, his mispronouncing words, or his stupid insults than any of the dangerous actions he and his administration are taking.  And so many of us who oppose Trump hardly comprehend the danger he poses to the Constitutional order, to democracy (or to the Republic, if you prefer) and to the nation itself and see him as nothing more than a bumbling clown who simply says offensive things. 

He is a bumbling clown who says offensive things, but a bumbling clown who has a cadre of loyalists who will make his rambling retribution fantasies and destruction of democracy a reality. 

Follow The Money (Or the meme coin)

If you believe that Trump cares about anything other than enriching himself, you have not been paying attention. This attribute goes back to way before he even thought about running for president. 

It's not exactly new information that he bankrupted several casinos, lost money on several big real estate ventures, and started up numerous businesses (Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Mortgage, Trump University, Trump Magazine...) that failed. 

He's infamous for refusing to pay contractors what they were owed on many of these catastrophes. In fact, despite running what should have been successful businesses into the ground, he always managed to make sure he got paid. Without getting overly technical, Trump did this by hiring accountants who knew the tax code inside and out. It was extremely rare that Trump was investing his own money in these endeavors. Set up an LLC, take out a loan, list himself as a consultant or advisor with a guaranteed fee, and even if the business goes under, he still received his check. The loss and loan default is against the LLC, not Trump personally, and as a bonus, the loss flows through to its owners, including Trump, reducing his tax liability. None of this is illegal. I saw similar shenanigans on a smaller scale when I worked in Tax Incentives, but it illustrates that Trump wasn't a good businessman, i.e. someone who grows a business, providing jobs for a community while providing a return on investment to shareholders, but someone who was extremely adept at self dealing. 

Why would we believe that this basic fact of his personality would somehow disappear when he became president?

Trump's financial disclosure report for 2025, his first year back as president, was made public recently. It showed income of over $2 billion, triple what he reported for the previous year. (Who knows how accurate his reporting even is?) About half of that was from cryptocurrency. Here is a quote from an NPR interview with Eric Lipton of the New York Times:

"The two biggest chunks come from his meme coin, which he launched three days before his inauguration. It was a kind of a collectible that surged in value initially, and the people who quickly invested made a boatload of money, but then it crashed, and hundreds of thousands of people then lost money.

Trump made hundreds of millions of dollars from that gamble that he asked people to follow on him on. And many of his followers ended up as losers. The second big chunk of revenue comes from World Liberty Financial, a company that he and his sons started in October of 2024.

That company is now one of the biggest issuers of what's called stablecoins in the world, and it was bought secretly and — half of it — by the United Arab Emirates in January of 2025, just as he was being sworn in to be president.

And the UAE separately has invested $2 billion into its stablecoin, making it one of the biggest stablecoin issuers in the world. So, I mean, the it is really intensely tied up with a foreign government. And the president is profiting from that foreign government's investment in his own business at the same time as he is acting as commander in chief and working with that foreign government to negotiate a war in the Middle East."

I admit that there's a lot about cryptocurrency, starting with Bitcoin and including every scam by some guy with a laptop, that I don't understand. But this sounds a lot like a pump and dump — like was portrayed in the movie Boiler Room — convince people that worthless stock is a great investment. Trump made a ridiculous amount of money selling...nothing. The meme coin, if it ever had any value, certainly doesn't now. All it accomplished was providing a cash pipeline to Trump from credulous investors.  Or maybe they weren't all that credulous. Doesn't it seem like a stable coin without any real value would be the perfect conduit for bribes? What value are the "investors" receiving if not the access any large donor would expect? The opportunities for money laundering aren't insignificant either. 

"......there are new real estate deals in the Middle East, in Vietnam, in Romania, in the Maldives. He's struck a bunch of deals that include some deals that are actually with foreign governments, like the government of Saudi Arabia and in Qatar as well.

And then there are, as you mentioned, settlements from lawsuits and that are being paid to him from media companies. And there's also money in there from Melania, from Jeff Bezos and Amazon for the documentary. I mean, there's just — it's quite a crazy array of sources of revenue going to a sitting president.

...there's nothing like this in American history."

I'm not sure if Trump is donating his presidential salary as he did during his first term, but his $450,000 salary is peanuts compared to what he's raking in from what amounts to influence peddling. A lot of hot air has been exchanged about insider trading, and how stock trades by Congress should be banned. All of that pales in comparison to what is being done by Trump. 

"...the big question here is, if Mr. Trump was not president, could he or would he have made the same amount of money that he did?

It's hard to imagine that if he were not president that there would — that his meme coin or — it would be as profitable as it has been, or that there would have been the scale of investment in World Liberty Financial and the stablecoin.

It is — it seems as if his status as president is intimately intertwined with the success of those companies. And, I mean, the fact that he launched the meme coin as they were gathering in an auditorium in D.C. three days before his inauguration for what was called the Crypto Ball — it was a bunch of crypto executives and administration — soon-to-be administration officials there to celebrate his inauguration.

And that's the night he launched it. And it was like, follow me as I lead the world. These things are so intertwined, I think it's hard to imagine he would have made as much money. He's never made this much money in his entire life as he's made in this one year. So I think that's part of your answer right there.

The pay-to-pardon scheme that Trump has going has also become a lucrative income stream. Anyone with a few million lying around can get a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Not-So-Free card from Trump. 

Let's not forget all his shady stock trades. From Democracy Now:

"...he purchased as much as $5 million in SpaceX bonds shortly before he signed a new space policy that could benefit Elon Musk and his company. In total, Trump bought up to $250 million in stocks in August, including an investment of up to $25 million in Meta, the parent company of Facebook. Such stock trading by a sitting president is unprecedented. ABC recently reported Trump made 21,000 securities trades during his first year back in office. By contrast, Joe Biden made a total of 13 trades during his entire term. In related news, on Thursday, Trump honored SpaceX founder Elon Musk and other tech executives at a White House science summit."

From The New York Times:

I"t is hardly the only issue to arise from having a businessman serve as president. The president’s family business, the Trump Organization, has also capitalized on Mr. Trump’s popularity in certain parts of the world, licensing the Trump name to properties in countries that are crucial to U.S. foreign policy interests, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Those two deals alone generated more than $14 million for Mr. Trump last year, the filing shows."

With Trump, if you want to know the answer to why anything is being done, just follow the money. 

Nebraskans Cheering The Nuking Of California

“And again, remember, with the war it's just artificial, it's a little bit high [referring to gas prices]. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let them take, let it, let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That's [this is] a very small price to pay, and it's going to be over very soon. It's essentially almost over with."

One of the things that irritate me to no end is when words are taken out of context and used to attack someone. There's an anti-Lynne Walz ad going around which quotes in writing an ally of hers from when she was a State Senator says "I will burn this session to the ground" — metaphorically of course. The Senator was making the point that she would do whatever it took to prevent a harmful bill from being passed. However the voiceover quotes her as saying that she threatened to burn down the state capitol building, which is, of course, not the same thing. It's irritating and infuriating when the red hats do it, it's irritating and disappointing when people with whom I share political views do it. What's been going around social media this past week is the claim that Trump, while speaking in Grand Island, either encouraged Iran to bomb Los Angeles and San Diego or said that bombing Los Angeles and San Diego was a small price to pay. I maintain that his words are being taken out of context and interpreted incorrectly.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, or even follow me on Facebook, you know that I am far from a Trump supporter. I regularly write about how dangerous he is, how incompetent he is, how he is essentially ruling as a dictator. I'm writing this because I believe in accuracy, and that there are plenty of things to criticize Trump about without creating issues that aren't there.

FactCheck.org posted an analysis of Trump's remarks on their website. (Quotes from that article will be in this fontI had posted a short statement n my Facebook page as well. It's my opinion that the context doesn't support the conclusion that Trump was encouraging Iran to bomb Los Angeles and San Diego or that he said that bombing Los Angeles and San Diego was a small price to pay.

Trump is one of the worst public speakers that I have ever heard. He rambles & changes course in the middle of what I loosely call his thoughts. His cult says they love him because he says what he means, but then have to explain that what we heard isn’t really what he meant. Part of the problem is that they’ll excuse anything, another part of the problem is that he makes no effort to speak clearly and concisely. Most presidents employ speechwriters who will take the president's thoughts and craft them into something concise and coherent. Trump thinks he knows better. He thinks he's a great extemporaneous speaker. He's not so great at reading a prepared speech either. The goal of reading a prepared speech is to act like you're not reading! Trump appears like he's a seeing the speech for the first time and stumbles through as if he's a remedial reader. That's the problem (as it always is) with Trump. Even when he's not lying he has no ability to express himself clearly.

"While his wording is confusing, a more plausible interpretation is that he meant the war would prevent Iran from posing a threat to U.S. cities, and higher gas prices are a small sacrifice to make. He’s made versions of those points before, using similar language."

I believe that it's the more plausible interpretation because of the context. He starts off by saying “And again, remember, with the war it's just artificial, it's a little bit high" — referring to oil prices. He follows up with "It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe." This is a point that he and his cult have made repeatedly, that high oil prices are the price we need to pay to keep us safe. It's a separate issue whether that's true or not. It's not obvious that Iran is a threat to us, or that they are building a nuclear weapon. And of course high gas prices under Biden was a huge problem to them in 2024 — so much so that it was the excuse many gave for voting for Trump. Let's not forget the whole "Peace President Schtick".

Nonetheless, Trump has been consistent in his messaging that high gas prices are temporary and the necessary result of protecting the nation from an Iranian threat. He said this on September 28th: “The one thing already has happened is, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon,” he said in the Oval Office on Sept. 28. “That’s a very big thing, because if you want to see turmoil and a travesty, let them take out a city with a nuclear weapon. I’m not only talking about Israel and big parts of the Middle East, but let them hit us with a nuclear weapon.” Note his use of the wording "let them". Contextually, it means "if it happens", not "I am allowing it to happen". 

Trump's next phrase, the one that has been consistently taken out of context is "They can take out a city. Let them take, let it, let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.". And out of context it sounds terrible. It's as if he's telling Iran: go ahead and "take out" these cities. See the quote above from FactCheck.org regarding his previous use of the phrase. I have seen this phrase quoted over and over, mostly without the lead in phrase about gas prices, which causes it to mean something completely different than the context suggests. And the following phrase "That's a very small price to pay, and it's going to be over very soon. It's essentially almost over with." which, without the initial phrase “And again, remember, with the war it's just artificial, it's a little bit high" it sounds like he's saying that the destruction of two American cities is a small price to pay.

My conclusion is that Trump was justifying the high cost of oil by claiming that (1) It was temporary and (2) It was a necessary price to pay for national security and invoked the image of Iran hypothetically destroying American cities to make his point that the war was all about protecting the American people.

All bullshit, but consistent bullshit.

The bigger issue in my view was the cheering that accompanied his phrase "Let them take, let it, let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego". Trump may not have meant it as the destruction of two (liberal) American cities being a small price to pay, but the crowd sure thought he did. And they cheered for it. A reliable applause line in any political race in Nebraska is the demonization of people from New York and California. Bob Kerrey, a former Senator and Governor who grew up in Nebraska, was a business owner, was a Navy SEAL and Medal of Honor recipient, who lost a leg in war, was vilified because he took a job in New York. I imagine if I had ever run for office the prime thing used against me would be that I grew up in New York City — never mind that I have lived here since 1981. But cheering for nuclear annihilation of fellow Americans? I guess that's just the other side of "Nebraska Nice".

Update:

Someone I briefly engaged with on social media claimed that Trump repeated the same remarks the next day (actually two days later) "proving" that he DID mean it. Mean what exactly? That he was saying that the destruction of Los Angeles and San Diego is a small price to pay? I don't think so.

Here's his quote from his rally in Texas: “Just as I promised, I am ensuring that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, oil prices are a little” high but will come down as soon as the war ends. You want to see trauma? You want to see problems? And I said it the other day, let them hit a missile into San Diego or Los Angeles on the way. You want to see a horror show? Let them hit San Diego. Let them hit Los Angeles, you want to see some bad things happen? You want see a country in free fall? We’re not going to let that happen. We protect our cities. We protect our country. We’re not letting that happen.”

I stand by my comments that Trump was not suggesting that Iran "taking out" Los Angeles. He is addressing what he believes is unwarranted complaining about high fuel prices, maintaining that American cities are at risk of an attack by Iran if he doesn't pursue the war against Iran. His reasoning is bullshit, but he's not saying what many people are saying he's saying.