Trumps Indictment: Historical and Future Implications V
Conservative Republican White Christian Nationalist quote of the day:
It says ‘let the women learn in silence with all subjection but I suffer not a woman to teach nor usurp authority over a man’. So how is it that Christian women should be voting? ~ Jason Graber, Pastor of Sure Foundation Baptist Church
https://youtu.be/8VdFM1sExuA?si=NIDGssMkI9B1D1TL
Time stamp: 2:05
Trump in Arizona: "I'm angry about young American girls being raped and sodomized and murdered by savage criminal aliens"
I prosecuted sexual assault cases in Texas.
I prosecuted these cases for 17 years.
I never prosecuted an undocumented immigrant for rape.
I prosecuted multiple Christian pastors for rape.
As a descendant of a holocaust survivor, I have to speak up against this hate. ~ Sarah Spector
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1834345125696204892
I prosecuted sexual assault cases in Texas.
I prosecuted these cases for 17 years.
I never prosecuted an undocumented immigrant for rape.
I prosecuted multiple Christian pastors for rape.
As a descendant of a holocaust survivor, I have to speak up against this hate. ~ Sarah Spector
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1834345125696204892
Ahavati said:September 12, 2024
Heather Cox Richardson
Sep 13, 2024
Psychiatrist Richard A. Friedman wrote in The Atlantic today that Trump is showing signs of cognitive decline. His tangents and inability to get to a point suggest “a fundamental problem with an underlying cognitive process.” “If a patient presented to me with the verbal incoherence, tangential thinking, and repetitive speech that Trump now regularly demonstrates, I would almost certainly refer them for a rigorous neuropsychiatric evaluation to rule out a cognitive illness,” he wrote.
Trump continues to try to dominate the political debate by refusing to back off any of his assertions, doubling down on the lies about immigrants eating pets and teachers giving students sex change operations. He called Harris a “Marxist communist fascist socialist,” clearly just stringing words together
It's important to note here that Trump's constant and intentional use of emotional trigger language, as referenced above, has been recycled regularly by conservatives for many decades, and has most likely been what MAGA has relied on for shoring up their white supremacist worldview, and we can see that linguistic phenomenon sometimes at work here in the forums as well.
Textual analysis software is available that will count the number of times a word gets used by a writer, but readers need not rely on that to see when words like "Marxist-communist-fascist-socialist" are being worn out, and done so intentionally.
And I'm sure we can add "antisemitism" to that list now that Bibi has become the world's leading antisemite by murdering over 40,000 neighboring Semites.
It all makes plain that words take a back seat to action.
That being said we can acknowledge that Trump's well documented linguistic history makes it clear that he isn't in cognitive freefall since he was obviously never in a lofty cognitive place to begin with, which David Letterman knew perfectly well back in 2012...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGSaJHdGXk&t=1s
Heather Cox Richardson
Sep 13, 2024
Psychiatrist Richard A. Friedman wrote in The Atlantic today that Trump is showing signs of cognitive decline. His tangents and inability to get to a point suggest “a fundamental problem with an underlying cognitive process.” “If a patient presented to me with the verbal incoherence, tangential thinking, and repetitive speech that Trump now regularly demonstrates, I would almost certainly refer them for a rigorous neuropsychiatric evaluation to rule out a cognitive illness,” he wrote.
Trump continues to try to dominate the political debate by refusing to back off any of his assertions, doubling down on the lies about immigrants eating pets and teachers giving students sex change operations. He called Harris a “Marxist communist fascist socialist,” clearly just stringing words together
It's important to note here that Trump's constant and intentional use of emotional trigger language, as referenced above, has been recycled regularly by conservatives for many decades, and has most likely been what MAGA has relied on for shoring up their white supremacist worldview, and we can see that linguistic phenomenon sometimes at work here in the forums as well.
Textual analysis software is available that will count the number of times a word gets used by a writer, but readers need not rely on that to see when words like "Marxist-communist-fascist-socialist" are being worn out, and done so intentionally.
And I'm sure we can add "antisemitism" to that list now that Bibi has become the world's leading antisemite by murdering over 40,000 neighboring Semites.
It all makes plain that words take a back seat to action.
That being said we can acknowledge that Trump's well documented linguistic history makes it clear that he isn't in cognitive freefall since he was obviously never in a lofty cognitive place to begin with, which David Letterman knew perfectly well back in 2012...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGSaJHdGXk&t=1s
MidnightSonneteer said:
It's important to note here that Trump's constant and intentional use of emotional trigger language, as referenced above, has been recycled regularly by conservatives for many decades, and has most likely been what MAGA has relied on for shoring up their white supremacist worldview, and we can see that linguistic phenomenon sometimes at work here in the forums as well.
Textual analysis software is available that will count the number of times a word gets used by a writer, but readers need not rely on that to see when words like "Marxist-communist-fascist-socialist" are being worn out, and done so intentionally.
And I'm sure we can add "antisemitism" to that list now that Bibi has become the world's leading antisemite by murdering over 40,000 neighboring Semites.
It all makes plain that words take a back seat to action.
That being said we can acknowledge that Trump's well documented linguistic history makes it clear that he isn't in cognitive freefall since he was obviously never in a lofty cognitive place to begin with, which David Letterman knew perfectly well back in 2012...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGSaJHdGXk&t=1s
I actually saw that episode of Letterman!
Have you seen this? I LOVE Pete Buttigieg and really wanted Harris to select him as VP. But MAGA would've eaten him alive because of his lifestyle. He does a great job of describing Trump's strategy regarding the latest crazy thing he claims.
https://youtu.be/fDkNe1K9IJI?si=rNVXK_TW9PVBxlCQ
It's important to note here that Trump's constant and intentional use of emotional trigger language, as referenced above, has been recycled regularly by conservatives for many decades, and has most likely been what MAGA has relied on for shoring up their white supremacist worldview, and we can see that linguistic phenomenon sometimes at work here in the forums as well.
Textual analysis software is available that will count the number of times a word gets used by a writer, but readers need not rely on that to see when words like "Marxist-communist-fascist-socialist" are being worn out, and done so intentionally.
And I'm sure we can add "antisemitism" to that list now that Bibi has become the world's leading antisemite by murdering over 40,000 neighboring Semites.
It all makes plain that words take a back seat to action.
That being said we can acknowledge that Trump's well documented linguistic history makes it clear that he isn't in cognitive freefall since he was obviously never in a lofty cognitive place to begin with, which David Letterman knew perfectly well back in 2012...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGSaJHdGXk&t=1s
I actually saw that episode of Letterman!
Have you seen this? I LOVE Pete Buttigieg and really wanted Harris to select him as VP. But MAGA would've eaten him alive because of his lifestyle. He does a great job of describing Trump's strategy regarding the latest crazy thing he claims.
https://youtu.be/fDkNe1K9IJI?si=rNVXK_TW9PVBxlCQ
At his rally in Arizona today, Donald Trump continued his racist assault against immigrant Haitians, claiming they're taking the geese from the park and eating the pets.
https://x.com/sagesurge/status/1834353192286482662
MAGA is grasping at lies ( I don't want to insult the word straws ).
The anonymous man who was snapped carrying the bodies of two geese earlier this week was removing them from the street after they were hit by a car in Columbus, 45 minutes away from Springfield, the Ohio Division of Wildlife confirmed.
At least 63 billionaires have now publicly endorsed Trump. Hosted a fundraiser for him, or contributed to Trump-aligned pacts. Why are they rallying behind him? Tax cuts, mostly. But there’s more. The more Trump tears down democracy, the safer the oligarchy becomes. Be warned. ~ Robert Reich
September 14, 2024
Heather Cox Richardson
Sep 15, 2024
Five years ago, on September 15, 2019, after about a six-week hiatus during the summer, I wrote a Facebook post that started:
“Many thanks to all of you who have reached out to see if I'm okay. I am, indeed (aside from having been on the losing end of an encounter with a yellow jacket this afternoon!). I've been moving, setting up house, and finishing the new book. Am back and ready to write, but now everything seems like such a dumpster fire it's very hard to know where to start. So how about a general overview of how things at the White House look to me, today....”
I wrote a review of Trump’s apparent mental decline amidst his faltering presidency, stonewalling of investigations of potential criminal activity by him or his associates, stacking of the courts, and attempting to use the power of the government to help his 2020 reelection.
Then I noted that the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), had written a letter to the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, on Friday, September 13, telling Maguire he knew that a whistleblower had filed a complaint with the inspector general of the intelligence community, who had deemed the complaint “credible” and "urgent.” This meant that the complaint was supposed to be sent on to the House Intelligence Committee. But, rather than sending it to the House as the law required, Maguire had withheld it. Schiff’s letter told Maguire that he’d better hand it over. Schiff speculated that Maguire was covering up evidence of crimes by the president or his closest advisors.
And I added: “None of this would fly in America if the Senate, controlled by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, were not aiding and abetting him.”
“This is the story of a dictator on the rise,” I wrote, “taking control of formerly independent branches of government, and using the power of his office to amass power.”
Readers swamped me with questions. So I wrote another post answering them and trying to explain the news, which began breaking at a breathtaking pace.
And so these Letters from an American were born.
In the five years since then, the details of the Ukraine scandal—the secret behind the whistleblower complaint in Schiff’s letter—revealed that then-president Trump was running his own private foreign policy to strong-arm Ukraine into helping his reelection campaign. That effort brought to light more of the story of Russian support for Trump’s 2016 campaign, which until Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine seemed to be in exchange for lifting sanctions the Obama administration imposed against Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.
The February 2022 invasion brought renewed attention to the Mariupol Plan, confirmed by Trump’s 2016 campaign advisor Paul Manafort, that Russia expected a Trump administration to permit Russian president Vladimir Putin to take over eastern Ukraine.
The Ukraine scandal of 2019 led to Trump’s first impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, then his acquittal on those charges and his subsequent purge of career government officials, whom he replaced with Trump loyalists.
Then, on February 7, just two days after Senate Republicans acquitted him, Trump picked up the phone and called veteran journalist Bob Woodward to tell him there was a deadly new virus spreading around the world. It was airborne, he explained, and was five times “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” “This is deadly stuff,” he said. He would not share that information with other Americans, though, continuing to play down the virus in hopes of protecting the economy.
More than a million of us did not live through the ensuing pandemic.
We have, though, lived through the attempts of the former president to rig the 2020 election, the determination of American voters to make their voices heard, the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, the election of Democrat Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and the subsequent refusal of Trump and his loyalists to accept Biden’s win.
And we have lived through the unthinkable: an attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob determined to overrule the results of an election and install their own candidate in the White House. For the first time in our history, the peaceful transfer of power was broken. Republican senators saved Trump again in his second impeachment trial, and rather than disappearing after the inauguration of President Biden, Trump doubled down on the Big Lie that he had been the true winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Cont below
Heather Cox Richardson
Sep 15, 2024
Five years ago, on September 15, 2019, after about a six-week hiatus during the summer, I wrote a Facebook post that started:
“Many thanks to all of you who have reached out to see if I'm okay. I am, indeed (aside from having been on the losing end of an encounter with a yellow jacket this afternoon!). I've been moving, setting up house, and finishing the new book. Am back and ready to write, but now everything seems like such a dumpster fire it's very hard to know where to start. So how about a general overview of how things at the White House look to me, today....”
I wrote a review of Trump’s apparent mental decline amidst his faltering presidency, stonewalling of investigations of potential criminal activity by him or his associates, stacking of the courts, and attempting to use the power of the government to help his 2020 reelection.
Then I noted that the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), had written a letter to the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, on Friday, September 13, telling Maguire he knew that a whistleblower had filed a complaint with the inspector general of the intelligence community, who had deemed the complaint “credible” and "urgent.” This meant that the complaint was supposed to be sent on to the House Intelligence Committee. But, rather than sending it to the House as the law required, Maguire had withheld it. Schiff’s letter told Maguire that he’d better hand it over. Schiff speculated that Maguire was covering up evidence of crimes by the president or his closest advisors.
And I added: “None of this would fly in America if the Senate, controlled by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, were not aiding and abetting him.”
“This is the story of a dictator on the rise,” I wrote, “taking control of formerly independent branches of government, and using the power of his office to amass power.”
Readers swamped me with questions. So I wrote another post answering them and trying to explain the news, which began breaking at a breathtaking pace.
And so these Letters from an American were born.
In the five years since then, the details of the Ukraine scandal—the secret behind the whistleblower complaint in Schiff’s letter—revealed that then-president Trump was running his own private foreign policy to strong-arm Ukraine into helping his reelection campaign. That effort brought to light more of the story of Russian support for Trump’s 2016 campaign, which until Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine seemed to be in exchange for lifting sanctions the Obama administration imposed against Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.
The February 2022 invasion brought renewed attention to the Mariupol Plan, confirmed by Trump’s 2016 campaign advisor Paul Manafort, that Russia expected a Trump administration to permit Russian president Vladimir Putin to take over eastern Ukraine.
The Ukraine scandal of 2019 led to Trump’s first impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, then his acquittal on those charges and his subsequent purge of career government officials, whom he replaced with Trump loyalists.
Then, on February 7, just two days after Senate Republicans acquitted him, Trump picked up the phone and called veteran journalist Bob Woodward to tell him there was a deadly new virus spreading around the world. It was airborne, he explained, and was five times “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” “This is deadly stuff,” he said. He would not share that information with other Americans, though, continuing to play down the virus in hopes of protecting the economy.
More than a million of us did not live through the ensuing pandemic.
We have, though, lived through the attempts of the former president to rig the 2020 election, the determination of American voters to make their voices heard, the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, the election of Democrat Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and the subsequent refusal of Trump and his loyalists to accept Biden’s win.
And we have lived through the unthinkable: an attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob determined to overrule the results of an election and install their own candidate in the White House. For the first time in our history, the peaceful transfer of power was broken. Republican senators saved Trump again in his second impeachment trial, and rather than disappearing after the inauguration of President Biden, Trump doubled down on the Big Lie that he had been the true winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Cont below
Cont from above
We have seen the attempts of Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress to move America past this dark moment by making coronavirus vaccines widely available and passing landmark legislation to rebuild the economy. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act spurred the economy to become the strongest in the world, proving that the tested policy of investing in ordinary Americans worked far better than post-1980 neoliberalism ever did. After Republicans took control of the House in 2023, we saw them paralyze Congress with infighting that led them, for the first time in history, to throw out their own speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
We have watched as the Supreme Court, stacked by Trump with religious extremists, has worked to undermine the proven system in place before 1981. It took away the doctrine that required courts to defer to government agencies’ reasonable regulations and opened the way for big business to challenge those regulations before right-wing judges. It ended affirmative action in colleges and universities, and it overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion.
And then we watched the Supreme Court hand down the stunning decision of July 1, 2024, that overturned the fundamental principle of the United States of America that no one is above the law. In Donald J. Trump v. U.S., the Supreme Court ruled that a president could not be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his official duties.
We saw the reactionary authoritarianism of the former president’s supporters grow stronger. In Republican-dominated states across the country, legislatures passed laws to suppress Democratic voting and to put the counting of votes into partisan hands. Trump solidified control over the Republican Party and tightened his ties to far-right authoritarians and white supremacists. Republicans nominated him to be their presidential candidate in 2024 to advance policies outlined in Project 2025 that would concentrate power in the president and impose religious nationalism on the country. Trump chose as his running mate religious extremist Ohio senator J.D. Vance, putting in line for the presidency a man whose entire career in elected office consisted of the eighteen months he had served in the Senate.
In that first letter five years ago, I wrote: “So what do those of us who love American democracy do? Make noise. Take up oxygen…. Defend what is great about this nation: its people, and their willingness to innovate, work, and protect each other. Making America great has never been about hatred or destruction or the aggregation of wealth at the very top; it has always been about building good lives for everyone on the principle of self-determination. While we have never been perfect, our democracy is a far better option than the autocratic oligarchy Trump is imposing on us.”
And we have made noise, and we have taken up oxygen. All across the country, people have stepped up to defend our democracy from those who are open about their plans to destroy it and install a dictator. Democrats and Republicans as well as people previously unaligned, we have reiterated why democracy matters, and in this election where the issue is not policy differences but the very survival of our democracy, we are working to elect Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.
If you are tired from the last five years, you have earned the right to be.
And yet, you are still here, reading.
I write these letters because I love America. I am staunchly committed to the principle of human self-determination for people of all races, genders, abilities, and ethnicities, and I believe that American democracy could be the form of government that comes closest to bringing that principle to reality. And I know that achieving that equality depends on a government shaped by fact-based debate rather than by extremist ideology and false narratives.
And so I write.
But I have come to understand that I am simply the translator for the sentiments shared by millions of people who are finding each other and giving voice to the principles of democracy. Your steadfast interest, curiosity, critical thinking, and especially your kindness—to me and to one another—illustrate that we have not only the power, but also the passion, to reinvent our nation.
To those who read these letters, send tips, proofread, criticize, comment, argue, worry, cheer, award medals (!), and support me and one another: I thank you for bringing me along on this wild, unexpected, exhausting, and exhilarating journey.
—
Notes: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-14-2024
We have seen the attempts of Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress to move America past this dark moment by making coronavirus vaccines widely available and passing landmark legislation to rebuild the economy. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act spurred the economy to become the strongest in the world, proving that the tested policy of investing in ordinary Americans worked far better than post-1980 neoliberalism ever did. After Republicans took control of the House in 2023, we saw them paralyze Congress with infighting that led them, for the first time in history, to throw out their own speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
We have watched as the Supreme Court, stacked by Trump with religious extremists, has worked to undermine the proven system in place before 1981. It took away the doctrine that required courts to defer to government agencies’ reasonable regulations and opened the way for big business to challenge those regulations before right-wing judges. It ended affirmative action in colleges and universities, and it overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion.
And then we watched the Supreme Court hand down the stunning decision of July 1, 2024, that overturned the fundamental principle of the United States of America that no one is above the law. In Donald J. Trump v. U.S., the Supreme Court ruled that a president could not be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his official duties.
We saw the reactionary authoritarianism of the former president’s supporters grow stronger. In Republican-dominated states across the country, legislatures passed laws to suppress Democratic voting and to put the counting of votes into partisan hands. Trump solidified control over the Republican Party and tightened his ties to far-right authoritarians and white supremacists. Republicans nominated him to be their presidential candidate in 2024 to advance policies outlined in Project 2025 that would concentrate power in the president and impose religious nationalism on the country. Trump chose as his running mate religious extremist Ohio senator J.D. Vance, putting in line for the presidency a man whose entire career in elected office consisted of the eighteen months he had served in the Senate.
In that first letter five years ago, I wrote: “So what do those of us who love American democracy do? Make noise. Take up oxygen…. Defend what is great about this nation: its people, and their willingness to innovate, work, and protect each other. Making America great has never been about hatred or destruction or the aggregation of wealth at the very top; it has always been about building good lives for everyone on the principle of self-determination. While we have never been perfect, our democracy is a far better option than the autocratic oligarchy Trump is imposing on us.”
And we have made noise, and we have taken up oxygen. All across the country, people have stepped up to defend our democracy from those who are open about their plans to destroy it and install a dictator. Democrats and Republicans as well as people previously unaligned, we have reiterated why democracy matters, and in this election where the issue is not policy differences but the very survival of our democracy, we are working to elect Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.
If you are tired from the last five years, you have earned the right to be.
And yet, you are still here, reading.
I write these letters because I love America. I am staunchly committed to the principle of human self-determination for people of all races, genders, abilities, and ethnicities, and I believe that American democracy could be the form of government that comes closest to bringing that principle to reality. And I know that achieving that equality depends on a government shaped by fact-based debate rather than by extremist ideology and false narratives.
And so I write.
But I have come to understand that I am simply the translator for the sentiments shared by millions of people who are finding each other and giving voice to the principles of democracy. Your steadfast interest, curiosity, critical thinking, and especially your kindness—to me and to one another—illustrate that we have not only the power, but also the passion, to reinvent our nation.
To those who read these letters, send tips, proofread, criticize, comment, argue, worry, cheer, award medals (!), and support me and one another: I thank you for bringing me along on this wild, unexpected, exhausting, and exhilarating journey.
—
Notes: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-14-2024
Why hasn't Harris done more as vice-president? Well, mostly because people questioning her actions don't understand how the government works themselves. Here you go:
https://www.tiktok.com/@zak.kimball/video/7413791236470885662?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7397944176715793950
Conservative Republican White Christian Nationalist quotes of the day:
I think our government should be run 100% by Christians. No Hindus allowed. No Muslims allowed. ~ Steven Anderson, Pastor, Faithful Word Baptist Church, Tempe, Arizona
https://youtu.be/8VdFM1sExuA?si=NIDGssMkI9B1D1TL
Time Stamp: 1:58
America is a white and Christian nation, and this should not be controversial. ~ Tyler L Russell, Leader of Canada First
https://youtu.be/8VdFM1sExuA?si=NIDGssMkI9B1D1TL
Time stamp: 2:15
The hypocrisy of MAGA followers on full display proving that no matter what Trump does they will support him.
https://x.com/Canaansdad1987/status/1832838923350835342
BASH: Can you say now that immigrants eating dogs and cats is a rumor that has no basis with evidence?
JD VANCE: If I have to create stories so that the media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do.
Ladies and gentlemen, your potential cough*vice-president*cough of the United States, and who could be leading this country in lieu of Trump's obvious mental decline.
https://x.com/CalltoActivism/status/1835398078922141922
JD VANCE: If I have to create stories so that the media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do.
Ladies and gentlemen, your potential cough*vice-president*cough of the United States, and who could be leading this country in lieu of Trump's obvious mental decline.
https://x.com/CalltoActivism/status/1835398078922141922
