Tag: Donald Trump

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I recently wrote about the murder of Brian Thompson, UnitedHealthcare CEO. People who I respect were arguing that the people really don’t have much power over healthcare executives and that, given the political climate, weren’t likely to see any changes. This forced Luigi Mangione into action. His frustration with the system gave him no other choice. I wanted to respond to these arguments but I couldn’t quite get my ideas straight about what I wanted to say. The massacre in New Orleans have clarified things for me.

The killer in New Orleans’s probably felt similar to Luigi Mangione, that nobody was listening to what he had to say and, in order to change that, he took extreme action to bring attention to his cause. Since US government is part of the problem, then all Americans are legitimate targets until the US government changes their policy.

Now I don’t believe that to be true and I am betting the most other Americans agree with me. The problem then becomes why is it all right to kill Thompson and not the party goers on Bourbon Street. It becomes a matter of splitting hairs. Thompson definitely held more power over his company than the average American has over government decisions. A terrorist, however, might argue Americans have the power to vote for their leaders. If they are going to vote for the leaders who oppose their cause, then they deserve to die until Americans change to a more ISIS friendly government.

If frustration with the system is a legitimate reason to massacre people then who is to say your frustration is better than my frustration. It is wrong to stay silent when the people dying are disagreeable people. Disagreeable people deserve due process and fair trials because we, as a people, have to know that we there is justice in the process and we are not just going after people we don’t like. Letting lone assassins make that decision is insanity because you are then are opening up political violence option to everyone, including people you disagree with, and who then will kill people you like.

The election of Trump was an incredibly disappointing result but then there is another election coming and, depending on how things go, the political climate could change. At least, this is the way forward I would like to pursue. Call me bourgeois but I much prefer the chaotic and slow machinery of democratic institutions than political violence. I can’t give up on it just yet. It worries me that so many people seem willing to let murder slide as long as the victim is perceived as a legitimate target because someone might decide that you are a legitimate target. Just ask the families who lost a loved one on Bourbon Street.

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I have been trying to write about the murder of Brian Thompson but I am having difficulty finding the right words. A lot of people I know and respect are, at best, indifferent to his murder. I agree with their issues about healthcare in USA and I agree that it is a mess. But this is about cold blooded murder. Just because you have a good motive, doesn’t mean you should do it.

Here are my reasons:

  1. I am against murder. Nobody has the right to take another person’s life no matter the crime.
  2. I am for trial by jury. If somebody is guilty of a crime there needs to be a trial. This didn’t happen. One man took it upon himself to execute another human being based on his opinion and his opinion alone. There was no chance for the CEO executive to make his case.
  3. I am against capital punishment. Even if he was guilty of murder, I don’t believe it is right for anyone to be executed for their crimes even if that crime is murder.

Some of the reasons I hear for the indifference is that it will put Healthcare executives on alert. Change your ways or someone might kill you. This is a horrible state of affairs. How is making someone afraid an argument for anything? It is coercion plain and simple. More importantly, they might just opt for better security over changing their behavior. They after all have billions in the bank.

But, this is the first shot for regular people to take back a system that no longer works for them. Well, maybe but then again maybe not. Trump just won election to the presidency. Something that many on the left couldn’t even image happening, but it did. It is incredibly wishful thinking that people might rally around Luigi Mangione and take to the streets in order to overthrow the healthcare oligarchs. A jury might as easily prefer stringing him up instead of celebrating the killing of a capitalist pig.

Which brings me to January 6. If the people who broke into Congress were wrong, and I think they were wrong, then so is a person who murders a man in the street. Violence against persons, no matter how rotten they are, is intolerable.

But the system is broken and the people have no avenue for justice. Again, isn’t that what the January 6 rioters are saying as well? If the system is so broken that both sides are willing to use violence as a method to gain their point then when does the violence stop. When my side gets its way? And, more importantly, will the other side stop using violence based on this defeat. That doesn’t seem likely, at least not without a lot of bloodshed. I, personally, would like to avoid that.

Thinking that revolution is around the corner is a chimera. Look I prefer a single payer system but, given the American public’s attitude towards capitalism, it seems unlikely for the foreseeable future. This means we settle for the best deal we can get which is far less exciting but more likely to happen. I would like to think we have not given up on compromise just yet and that a deal can be worked out. I certainly don’t want to see bloodshed in the streets of our cities.

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The Republican Party’s hypocrisy regarding family values has always been epic. Donald Trump, as its leader, is hypocrisy personified. Three times married and multiple affairs, come on Family Values Party, you would saddle a 16 year girl with a child as a consequence for her sexual indiscretion while elevating Trump, this paragon of virtue,to the highest office in the land. The girl has to face consequences, why not Trump?

Just when I thought they couldn’t get any worse, they prove me wrong with the duel issues of Matt Gaetz elevation to Attorney General and Nancy Mace’s snit about having a trans woman use the women’s restroom. Given that women use stalls and not urinals, there is little chance that Sarah McBride will see anything other than Mace’s naked hands while she is washing up. I’m not sure what Mace is worried about. Maybe that McBride will be gawking over the stall’s wall? This is certainly a ginned up controversy showing that Mace will stop at nothing to prevent trans people from peeing in the “wrong” restroom.

All this is going on while Matt Gaetz is trying to hide the congressional report that has discovered his actual predatory practices with minors, his paying off of women he has had sex with, that he attended orgies, he has had sex outside of marriage and who knows what else. Gaetz, if nothing else, is a creep but, by all means, hand over the Department of Justice to him. But before you do, please explain how this promotion furthers family values?

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In the past, I said that I would support a serial killer Democrat over a Mother Teresa Republican. The point, for me, is that the party matters more for me than the person nominated by the party. I am assuming that the serial killer would support the same issues that I, a fellow Democrat, support. I may not like the serial killer. I may much prefer sitting down with the Mother Teresa Republican than a blood thirsty killer but, in the end, I will vote for someone agrees with me on issues I care about. Particularly if he is going to be president. This means, I will have to, on occasion, align myself with people I don’t particularly like. I stand by that statement.

Which brings me to the election of Donald Trump. I think Donald Trump is a terrible person and I can’t imagine myself ever voting for him. Well, wait a minute, that is unless he changes his position on an array of issues and is somehow nominated by the Democratic Party and he was running against Ted Cruz and then, yes, I would happily vote for Donald Trump. Not because he was a good person, a truthful person but because, given the choices I have, he is the best possible option for implementing the policies I want. I vote for the person I agree with on policy and not the person I like best.

So I find it a little irritating when people say they could never vote for a man like Donald Trump and, because of your principles, you then are cutting out any Trump voters from your life. I have seen people asking any Trump voters in their friends list to unfriend them, people are cancelling their holidays with Trump voting relatives and some women are trying to organize a sex strike against Trump voting men. These people think they are punishing their Trump voting acquaintances. Why this is necessary is beyond me because they seemed perfectly willing to maintain their relationships as long as Harris won. Losing is what broke the camel’s back here. There is no principle involved. If Trump voters are so despicable, they were despicable before the election results came rolling in. Instead of looking like a moral stance based on good principles, they look more like a child throwing a tantrum.

Then there is calling the Trump voters racists, misogynists and stupid. This is half the country. Now if you are doing this in the privacy of your own home to let of some steam, go for it. But it isn’t particularly helpful public position when you are trying to persuade people to change their votes in the next election. Indeed it confirms all of their worst impressions of the snowflake liberal. Liberals just aren’t tough enough to handle disagreement and losing. Well, then toughen up buttercup because, if the battle is with facism as so many people believe, liberals need to be able to deal with people who disagree with them, address their concerns and hopefully persuade them to change. Taking to your bed is of no help at all.

That doesn’t mean beat yourself up listening to racists and misogynists spew their poison but it also means that there is a range of people who voted for Trump. Some were enthusiastic and thus unreachable, some were voting for the lesser of two evils and are potentially persuadable. They need thoughtful argument. Joe Rogan, for instance, who was a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2020 seems like a good example. Harris refusing to go on his show certainly didn’t help her cause with him or his millions of followers. Worse still, she opted out of appearing on Rogan’s show because she was afraid how it would affect her left wing supporters. Well, who else were left wingers going to vote for? Jill Stein? Better to show up for Rogan and disappoint the left wing purists. Even if Rogan was unpersuadable, it would have shown Harris was willing to reach out to the broader electorate instead she looked like a whiny snowflake.

The question shouldn’t be why are the American people so horrible. The better question is why did so many Americans, given the choice they had, choose a two bit carnival barker over a rather conventional Democratic politician. There is a problem here that needs to be addressed. Seeing how Democrats are stuck with the voters they have and not the voters they want, it might be a good idea to figure it out before 2026.

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Maybe it is because almost everything that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth is bat shit crazy and to actually single one statement out becomes difficult given the sheer volume of his output that so few Republicans have commented on it. But recommending vigilante justice has disturbed me more than any of the other recent comments. An hour of violence or a day of violence to stop drug store thievery seems like a fairly big breech of democratic norms. It takes the government out of the whole process and puts it squarely into the hands of his own supporters.

I was certain that some Republicans would, at the very least, caution him to use less violent language. Yet there is nothing and I mean nothing so far that resembles even a mild rebuke. Given that Republicans like to point out the Constitution and the original intent of our founders, it seems like a good time to remind Trump that the Constitution enshrines the right to a trial as opposed to grabbing suspected thieves off the street and teaching them a lesson (in other words – beat them up).

Trump has always had a penchant for vigilante justice but this is the first time he has so nakedly expressed his desire to see it enacted. It also makes his denial of violent intent on January 6 less believable. If Trump thinks violence is a suitable response for shoplifting, why wouldn’t he also think it was appropriate for something more important like losing a stolen election? What are the limits of Trump’s extralegal violence? He needs to explain how this tool might be used if he were to win.

It is incredibly disappointing that Republicans have chosen to remain silent about this blatant call for violence. Trump talking shit like this is hardly surprising. It is the game he has been playing since he entered the political scene. What is surprising is the silence of other Republicans. The American legal system is flawed but, then, all systems are flawed. We should work to create a better system instead of ignoring the system we have. If we decide to go outside this system, particularly with violence, who knows where that violence will take us. I suspect to a much worse place than where we are now.

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The problem with comparing Donald Trump to Hitler is that Hitler is as bad as they come. Very few people quite match up to Hitler, Stalin and Mao spring to mind but then, after them, there is a pretty huge gap between potential Hitlers and actual Hitlers. It is very inaccurate measurement and should be used sparingly if ever. because if Trump is like Hitler, then isn’t killing Trump the right thing to do. There is no moral equivocation here. Better to kill the tyrant before the tyrant has power.

My narrow viewpoint of the efficacy of comparing Trump to Hitler, however, is not universally agreed upon. People are comparing Trump to Hitler, or at least to a potential Fascist dictator, and claiming he is an existential threat to democracy. If he is indeed that dangerous that leaves us with the question does Trump deserve killing?

I, personally, think it is a bad idea. A really bad idea. This means we who oppose the man need to be careful when people try to make an attempt on his life. Make it clear that Trump does not deserve this treatment and that this behavior is unacceptable. Indeed assassinating political opponents is far more dangerous than Trump himself. So far, Democrats, at least publicly, are saying this. There is, however, this unspoken sentiment that the world would be better off without him.

I think it needs to be said: he is a human being. An awful human being but a human being nonetheless. If he doesn’t rise to Hitleresque, and he doesn’t, then he deserves, as much as I do, his life. Nobody has the right to execute someone because you don’t like him or his politics. If he gets elected, we will need to see what happens.

It is a risk. But one that is preferable to people taking the law into their own hands. A Trump assassination is potentially disastrous in so many ways because, if the right wing is as dangerous as the Left believes, there could be bloody revenge and then what happens? This means President Trump is a better bet than a dead Trump.

Now, a better solution is for Harris to beat him, and beat him soundly, in the upcoming election.

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I watched the debate on Tuesday and I didn’t catch the same vibe really. I mean Trump sounded crazy as shit, he fell into Harris’ traps and his lies were so outrageous that the moderators had to correct him twice. I realize this has irked some people but honestly Harris’ lies were pretty well hidden and arguable enough that no moderator could justify the interruption. Trump’s, on the other hand, were whoppers and easily refuted.

That said, he didn’t seem any more crazy than usual. This was your standard Trump performance. I can’t see that it will make much of a difference with ardent Trump supporters. There may be that very thin slice of voters who hate Trump but are going to vote for him any way who might be influenced but I think these people have already made their peace about their vote. If they were on the Titanic, they would drown because they went back to their rooms to retrieve their jewels.

There are people who claim to be neutral but how many people are really in that camp. Trump has been around too long and is too divisive for people not to have an opinion on him. People either like him or they don’t. That means something like a debate, while entertaining for those of us who support Harris, is going to change very few minds. Trump’s performance was pretty much the same level of craziness that he has displayed for years without serious effect.

The fact that 68 million people watched it might have a little significance. Maybe the few undecided voters who watched will make their minds up based on her superb performance. But, then, there will be people who won’t like the sound of her voice, her vivid facial reactions to Trumps bull shit, or some bit of minutia that would be of no significance to the normal person but is of overwhelming importance to this voter. I know a woman who couldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton based on Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. Yes that was the determining factor in her vote — some nonsense about Chelsea’s wedding dress.

So, for now, the debate has given me hope but I am still worried about how this is all going to pan out. Keep in mind that Hillary Clinton won her two debates as well so what this means is difficult to know.

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Donald Trump apparently calls Kamala Harris a bitch. In private. So what? Why is this a headline? Why is this shocking?

  1. It is private behavior. He can say what ever wants to say in private including calling Kamala Harris a bitch.
  2. Donald Trump has a history of bad mouthing almost everybody including members of his own party. Is it really that shocking to discover that he calls a political opponent who is presently besting him a bitch? And, least we forget, he did it in private.
  3. What are people supposed to do with this information? So Trump calls Harris a bitch? Yes it is sexist but so what? Bitch sometimes is the right word. I mean would bastard be better? If I am mad at someone, I might call them a bitch. I find it hard to condemn a man for doing something that I might do particularly if it is done in private.

The only interesting thing about this little tidbit is that someone close to Trump wants to screw him over and they are talking to the press. Now that is interesting to me.

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I know some people who think that Biden bowing out of the election is a bad thing. I think it is genius.

First, and most importantly, what party is now stuck with an aging candidate who often borders on the incoherent. Biden was bad in the debate, but if incoherence is a problem, and I do, then Trump managed to look against Biden because he was marginally more coherent.

Now that Biden is out of the race, all eyes will turn to Trump, and he is a handful. He says whatever the hell he wants to which is what his supporters like about it. It also carries a risk. Often Trump is notoriously undisciplined. He says whatever is on his mind, unfortunately for Trump, this is often ill thought out and incoherent.

So what do you do if you have a troublesome candidate. Well, the Democrats just showed you. Party leaders have to come in, deliver the bad news to the candidate and change course. Contrary to some of the commentary out there, particularly the Republicans — this is a good thing. It is to Biden’s credit that he understood what these leaders were saying and acted on it. No doubt it was an unpleasant experience for everyone involved. But it was done and, for the most part, done well. Biden understood the message and acted on it. There was something more important than Biden running and that was Democrats winning.

Trump, on the other hand, won’t listen to anyone. He routinely ignores advice from his lawyers and his fellow Republicans. Trump has travelled unbelievably far on his brash personality but this very brashness has also created a lot of the problems for him. Sometime it is best just best to keep your mouth shut. Trump can’t do this even if it is costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This reveals Trump’s greatest weakness. He thinks he is smarter than everyone else in the room and if someone’s advice doesn’t match up to what he wants to do, he does what he wants to do. So therefore there is no influence on him other than yes men. Quite a bit of Trump’s time is spent cleaning up his own messes.

This was fine when Trump was matched with Biden. Now Trump has a new opposition candidate who will be a younger and more energetic candidate. Presumably, Kamala Harris, but most anyone will do. She will not be having senior moments. She will also be better at listening to advice from senior Democratic advisors which already gives her a leg up on Trump who doesn’t. A 78 year old man isn’t likely to change anytime soon

I don’t think this means Harris is going to handily defeat Trump. It is still a close election. The good news is that the Republicans are more locked into their candidate than the Democrats. The dynamic of the election has changed significantly with Harris and Trump is still pretty tied up in his present behavior.

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Elon Musk announced his intentions to give $45 million a month to a pro-Trump Super Pac. If he is true to his word, he will, at least, contribute $180 million to the Trump campaign before the election.

Think about it. He has an extra $180 million free dollars to contribute to an election campaign. This is a fairly large sum of money in anyone’s books. Unlike most people, his donation will not be missed in the least bit. He has billions so it doesn’t matter to him if he loses $180 million dollars.

If Trump wins, there is no way that Trump could pay off Musk other than through favors. Even the best person would have difficultly saying no to a man who gave you $180 million and Trump is far from being the best person. To be fair to Trump, in his crooked understanding of wealth, he probably thinks there is nothing wrong with billionaires draining the public trough any way but this makes it ridiculously easy for him to say yes.

More importantly, if Musk has this amount of money, why not divide it among his own employees instead of investing in a political campaign. $180 million divided among the employees of Tesla and Instagram would bring real benefits to his own employees, encourage other rich people to do the same and it spreads the wealth around a bit to people who can then make campaign contributions of their own.

Musk is free to use this money in any way he wanted yet he choose to use this money to support a political action committee. With all his billions, he would rather gamble with a political candidate that may lose than giving more money to his own employees. Spreading the wealth this way would also give some political power to his employees. Now, because he is such a generous leader, these employees might follow his lead and contribute to the pro-Trump Pac or they may choose to give to the Democrats but it wouldn’t be one man using this money to gain more political leverage.

But Musk would much rather spin the wheel with Trump. To get what exactly? More billions? This disproves this oft repeated notion that billionaires will do the right thing with their money if only left alone. Musk would much rather keep the money which also keeps the political power this money can provide strictly within his hands.

If the government took only half of the $180 million, Musk would still have $90 million to contribute to Trump. Wouldn’t it be good for Musk to help pay off the national debt the Republicans are so worried about and it wouldn’t be a bit of a problem for Musk because he wasn’t planning to put the money back into his business and creating in the first place. Win Win, I say.