Sorry for the months of vacuum here, dear reader. I’m a pretty irresponsible blogger. I’ve spent way too much time lately doom-scrolling Twitter, or TikTok, or Substack … Apologies in advance too for the Trump topic again. Clearly the orange menace still haunts me.

After losing the 2020 election and getting booted from Twitter, FORMER President Trump started a blog so he could maintain his presidential boner, get his “manifesto” out there and generally keep tooting the Trumpet. It’s not too blog-like, just another place for his short, randomly capitalized word excretions. This appeared before Truth Social, which seems to be floundering, if you believe the left wing comedians. I’ve looked there and it’s horrible. Misnamed too. No truth there at all.

As manifestos go, djt.com isn’t likely to survive much longer than most of that guy’s creations do. Nonetheless, I’m compelled to copy/paste it here and respond to its various “positions”. The manifesto (red italics) appears on his “About” page:

Over the past four years, my administration delivered for Americans of all backgrounds like never before. Save America is about building on those accomplishments, supporting the brave conservatives who will define the future of the America First Movement, the future of our party, and the future of our beloved country.  Save America is also about ensuring that we always keep America First, in our foreign and domestic policy.  We take pride in our country, we teach the truth about our history, we celebrate our rich heritage and national traditions, and of course, we respect our great American Flag.

The very first sentence is a lie, or just terrible sarcasm. Maybe the wealthy beneficiaries of his tax cut came from “all backgrounds”, maybe even a rich Mexican rapist or two, who knows? Veracity is reclaimed by “… like never before …”. Can’t argue with that. Let’s hope NEVER AGAIN too.! “America First” is code for ME ME ME FIRST! Bless the USA and don’t you DARE miscast historical errors as such. USA, like GOD, makes no mistakes. My country right or wrong, THAT is the “truth about our history”! Ends intro with a good old flag-hug. His flag hugging means about as much as what tree-hugging means to his MAGA crowd. Though he probably really does love the nation that enalbed the best con of his life.

We are committed to defending innocent life and to upholding the Judeo-Christian values of our founding.

(From here forward, interpretations are in HIS voice.) No abortions, period (we need soldiers)!, And get comfy with the Bible, because we’re serving up theocracy as a side dish in my next term. Don’t forget, I AM the CHOSEN one, and I ain’t no Muslim! My favorite Bible verse? ALL OF THEM! Have you seen some of the FILTH in that book? All the old time Jews had SLAVES or WERE slaves, it was fantastic!

We believe in the promise of the Declaration of Independence, that we are all made EQUAL by our Creator, and that must all be TREATED equal under the law.

The “promise” of the Declaration, as we re-interpret it using our direct connection to Mr. God. Yes, he talks to us! And we are gonna EQUAL-TREAT the shit outa you non-equal people. God is telling us what to do, so watch your step!

We know that our rights do not come from government, they come from God, and no earthly force can ever take those rights away. That includes the right to religious liberty and the right to Keep and Bear Arms.

That’s right! We’re gonna make up GOD words as we go, and it’s gonna beat all that dead letter shit in your law books. Trust me, religious freedom doesn’t mean what you think it means. And even though the Bill of Rights is a functional document of GOVERNMENT, we think government kinda sucks. Monarchy seems much more fun. Plus there’ll be plenty of guns for y’all to Keep and Bear. I’ll make sure everyone has at least two guns and plenty of ammo! TRUMP FIREARMS AND AMMO … my newest company …

We believe in rebuilding our previously depleted military and ending the endless wars our failed politicians of the past got us into for decades.

Not sure how but we’re gonna end endlessness. You’ll see! And hey, we’re better than anyone ever, so we’ll figure it out. Plus, again, lots more weapons and guns. Like the best, newest, fastest and most strongest weapons and guns.

We embrace free thought, we welcome robust debate, and we are not afraid to stand up to the oppressive dictates of political correctness.

We don’t really understand “free thought” and you radical left elitist eggheads don’t either, so don’t be lording it over us with your advanced degrees, scientific knowledge, and Nobel prizes. Political correctness is anti-nostalgic and we WILL NOT TOLERATE that woke-ass SHIT. So if you want your freedom to think, just think the right stuff. Being polite to people who are different or feel differently from us is oppressively dictatorial. Fuck that weakness!

We know that the rule of law is the ultimate safeguard of our freedoms, and we affirm that the Constitution means exactly what it says AS WRITTEN.

Did I mention we’re the party of LAW AND ORDER? Just like those founding fathers wrote it. And slavery was FINE with them. We might have to kill off some of those pesky amendments, but who knows? AS WRITTEN means “originalist”, which is the best way to keep up all the divisions and barriers to dialogue between the red and blue states. Gotta keep that pot ‘o hatred on full boil. That’s what AMERICA is all about.

We support fair trade, low taxes, and fewer job-killing regulations, and we know that America must always have the most powerful military on the face of the Earth.

Oh yeah, more military, because enforcing martial law is gonna be a tremendous job. And “job-killing” is the opposite of planet killing. So burn that coal and fossil fuel. Climate change is BULLSHIT and hey, what’s the problem if there is more land to grow sugar beets?

We believe in Law and Order, and we believe that the men and women of law enforcement are HEROES who deserve our absolute support.

Law and order, martial law, worship the cops and the military (Marshall Law will enforce this) … uh … we got it all, right? Anything else? Refund the police, give ’em automatic weapons? We’re going to need a LOT of cops to enforce church attendance. A LOT OF COPS. Free gun and badge to any trump voter wanting to be a cop!

We believe in FREE SPEECH and Fair Elections.  We must ensure fair, honest, transparent, and secure elections going forward – where every LEGAL VOTE counts.

Because we were cheated out of the second term, worst fraud ever, remember? LEGAL VOTE = TRUMP VOTE. Simple! Fantastic! Wait’ll Jesus gets back he’s gonna be so thrilled with all the greatness we got back for America! He’s gonna help us SMITE all our enemies in our non-never-ending wars that we’re not gonna be getting into. He’s gonna want citizenship too, amirite? Should we give it to him? He’s a Jew ya know. Did you know that? A lot of people think he was a Christian, but you know that wasn’t even invented yet. We’ll bring Him into our brand: JESUS TRUMP CHRIST. Maybe we’ll fly him back to Israel. He can help with the new temple, change some water into wine … you know. It’s gonna be fantastic. Think of what we can accomplish with me (and the lord) as your president for a decade or two!

Great article in last week’s New Yorker magazine (link might be blocked by pay wall), and I stole its title for this post. I subscribed for a year, a bargain at $50, even knowing I’d have trouble keeping up with this dense weekly. This brilliant article, Thinking it Through, was the perfect length. It took multiple sittings to finish it, but I’m a slow reader. There’s a funny scene in an episode of The Good Place, where accumulating New Yorker issues are a form of torture …

The topic was thinking itself. Rational thought, more precisely. It was an easy, lightweight examination of what constitutes rationality, and how it differs from looser modes of thought. In a pragmatic frame, rationality is considered as a tool for decision making, which is how we navigate our lives. Though the author, Joshua Rothman, doesn’t touch heavily on politics, an early mention of the rise of authoritarianism stuck with me through the whole reading. Thinking about thought is very entertaining, it turns out, but worrying about all the non-thinkers out there is just scary.

The article avoids ponderous examples of logical math, rather looking at the applied art of rational thought. The meta-level process of careful, data-driven analysis, which relies heavily on reconsideration, self-examination and unflinching acceptance of the possibility of error. Or, more deeply, that we might have defective structural members in the thought-houses we’ve been building for ourselves since childhood. Misconceptions that weaken our ability to properly engage even a simple choice. We “rationalize” our own a priori fundaments easily. Chocolate has always been my favorite, why would I even consider vanilla? While it was delightful to read such a well-written piece, I was dogged by a vague sadness as I read.

You can guess what THAT was about. Yup. Trumpism. My best friend tries to keep me from putting 100% of trump voters into the deplorable basket, since he personally knows some wrong-voting “smart people”. But maybe their bad vote was not for dumb reasons. He thought maybe 10% had some valid, considered reason, maybe wealth-related, to vote for a barely educated egomaniac who never admits to doubt, mistakes or errors; someone therefore incapable of rational thought. (Wait, but why would a “stable genius” businessman file for bankruptcy so many times?)

The GOP Trumpists fall into that same category: non-thinkers. Irrational ignorance as a way of life, or hiding behind their chosen authoritative texts. Stridently claiming their flag stands for FREEDOM, of speech, of thought, of gun shopping. But when their beliefs are challenged, look out! They CANNOT be wrong. Because … AMERICA! AS with abusive relationships, if you love your country, then you mustn’t believe her capable of error. Sorry Bunky, nations are made of people (like Soylent Green HAH!!!), and people are flawed.

Anyway … we are a work in progress. Devastation is around the corner, but we’re wiser today than ever in history. The internet gives us better access to information than we’ve ever had, but stupidity and mindless dogma pollute the web just as mightily.

I have to lean toward the comic-ironic view in order to save myself from apocalyptic disease-causing stress. You do you. Thanks for reading.

Happy Birthday 245 America!

It’s well past time to scuttle the dichotomy of conservative versus liberal. This impoverished rhetoric is failing us as a nation. Not since the Civil War has there been such overt antagonism toward basic democratic norms, voting for example. Authoritarianism is alive and well on planet earth, to the detriment of nearly all who live under such constraints. “Nearly”, because the wealthy and ruling classes obviously do quite nicely. They always do, don’t they? We Americans thought we’d never need to worry about a dictator trashing our precious constitution. Well, we do now.

We live at an intersection of Wall Street and Madison Avenue, enslaved to ecstatic daydreams of wealth and power. We’re compelled to traffic in meaningless tropes, like the latest TV shows, car models, fashions and celebrity gossip. This is not the pursuit of happiness, nor is it liberty and justice for all. Free markets, free speech, free will are all high-level illusions, made to serve politics as needed. It’s a not so subtle kind of tyranny. Chains of gold, forged by corporate entities, enhanced by social media. Just keep scrolling down … rabbit hole or pigeon hole, it’s still a hole: an absence. As Lily Tomlin said of the rat race, even if you win, you’re still a rat.

Liberals and conservatives are squared off like never before. Each embraces ultrabinarianism. That’s a pseudo-academic word I just made up. It describes the zero-sum flavor of polarization. The news media employ that word to describe how far apart we are in our belief systems (a.k.a. “echo chambers”). Why do you hate our country?! Our political system has always had at least two parties for discourse. Obviously, debate requires differing points of view. More subtly, points of view under debate need a few fundamental threads in common to avoid meaninglessness. (Cue the Python Argument Sketch) The common threads form the structural members of logic.

Problem now is that we have lost the common threads. Left and right no longer agree on fundamentals. If reality itself is up for debate, then truth dies. Questioning reality my be within your first amendment rights, but it’s also crazy. It’s the active ingredient in gaslighting. Of babies and bathwater, unhinged folk at the extremes want to throw it all out and start over. Citing authoritative sources such as “Ancient Wisdom” or “The Bible”, even “Science”, unwavering belief, or faith, is required. The earth is either 4.5 billion years old, or 7 thousand years old and all those dinosaur fossils are a hoax. Either or, not both, nor anything in between. Ultrabinarianism leads to misconceptions, pointless debates, and conspiracy theories.

Reality IS WHAT IT IS; that which science attempts to formally study and systematically describe. Scientists have always been human, and fallible, but our understanding of our own bodies’ biology, our planet and the universe around us has increased dramatically since the arrival of the scientific method, four centuries ago. Scientists admit that an achingly huge portion of the universe is still mysterious, in spite of all we’ve learned. Spiritual figures similarly remind us that absolute certainty is rare and precious. Death is one of those certainties. Time and gravity are also fairly popular certainties. Reality cares not a whit what any of us think we know, see or hear.

Since we’re at an impasse now, agreeing to disagree isn’t really possible. But when we see our opponents this summer, at the fair with their kids and their cousins, getting ice cream or pizza, laughing and enjoying the hot summer day just as much as we are, let’s try to forget that our votes cancel each other out. In living our lives as best we can, secure in the knowledge that reality will prevail, as it always does. Our opponents are people too. They’ve been hoodwinked. They’re marks in the longest con, with military-grade hardened hearts and minds filled with deceptions. They will ultimately be disappointed. But then, so will we.

Constipation got you down? It’s a national problem, friend. The Floridian fecalith, still saying he is the “true” president, knowing he’s really not, but caring so little for the 80 million citizens who voted him out, that he’s just gonna keep the con going. Gonna keep stirring that boiling cauldron of fear and loathing. Naturally. He’s a conman, and this is the con of a lifetime. We are lucky that he and his thugs were too incompetent to properly organize a coup. Will he ever face the music? Doubtful.

How do we move on? I keep harping on this, and I’m really sorry. But HE STARTED IT! He lost the election and won’t go away. He hadn’t expected to win in 2016, and didn’t whine about fraud then, did he? SAME VOTING SYSTEM! We actually DO know how to properly conduct elections, sir! If there’s one thing we’re good at in the USA, it’s running fair elections.

This civil war he and his followers are now trying to foment, how will that go exactly? Will aunts and uncles come with guns to kill their nieces and nephews? Neighbors gonna kill their neighbors? They want to burn everything down, to save the nation?! What the ever living fuck do they think that means? And who put all of them in charge? How is it that they think their patriotism overrules that of all the rest of us?

OH WAIT, I KNOW THIS ONE!!

It’s because they’ve decided that turdboy is, like, their god. Whatever he says goes! And if he says that he WON the election that he actually lost, then by golly, HE is the TRUE president. And the GOP figures that with the momentum of 70 million believers, they might just as well barrel on ahead and double down on the lies. So when they scream about who hates the USA, well, hell, that’s just another lie too, because they’re the ones that want to tear it all down. They wanna make America great again by destroying it. Cuz Shitler says! HEIL SHITLER! Cue the goose-stepping soldiers …

Constipation Nation. We may be past the point where a laxative will help. Perhaps some kind of nuclear enema? Divine intervention? Aliens, catastrophic asteroid impact? Our political system is literally in the toilet now, waiting to be flushed. GOP all darkness and lies, Democrats too weak to counteract them. God help us all, and please pass the prune juice.