Lawyers, Sex and Money

The first criminal trial of Donald Trump (and likely the only one that we'll have before the election) finally gets underway tomorrow, with selection of the jury . . . which will likely be as exciting as watching paint dry.

But never mind that.  The conventional wisdom about this case is that it is the least serious and most trivial criminal case Trump faces.  Maybe.  But everything's relative.  Saying that this is the least serious case to affect Trump is like saying that "Rock and Roll All Nite"is Kiss's least sexually offensive song.  (I'll just say that the line "You show us everything you got" has nothing to do with asking a woman to display all of her Royal Doulton dinnerware.).  Because the bottom line is that Trump paid a porn star and a Playboy model to keep quiet about the sexual trysts he had with them and he got his lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to arrange for buying their silence.  And he did that to make sure that no one would know about his infidelity against his wife Melania while she was taking care of their newborn son.    

This is as much election interference as the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. 

Trump is afraid of this trial because it will likely uncover more sordid information like removing a rock uncovers all of those nasty beetles you find in your garden.  And you can bet that jury selection is going to go very slowly because of his defense ding wit hTrump's lawyers do best - stalling for time. 

Music Video Of the Week - April 12, 2024

"Call Me the Breeze" by Lynyrd Skynyrd  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.) 

Trump 2024: Abort!

As with so many things, Donald Trump tried to have it both ways on the abortion issue.

He put out a video statement expressing pride in being instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade and also advocating that whatever the people of the fifty states decide on abortion for their own jurisdictions should be the law in the respective states, refusing to endorse a national abortion ban. His attempt to please everyone pleased no one.  But his insistence that the federal government should let the people of each state decide - what Illinois senator Stephen Douglas once called "popular sovereignty" in defending the right of the people to decide whether their states should allow slavery - was a defensible position.

Until it wasn't.

Right after Trump made that statement, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that an extremely restrictive  abortion law handed in in the state in 1864 - when Arizona was still a territory and before women could vote - is enforceable.  As soon as the decision was handed down, Trump said that Arizona had gone too far and urged the state legislature to repeal it.  Which isn't possible, as Republicans in the Arizona legislature blocked an effort to do so.  So much for popular sovereignty.      

Trump had no problem with the right so the states to decide on abortion until Arizona made a decision he didn't like.  When Stephen Douglas said that the people in the territories had a right to decide whether to enter the Union as free states or slave states and Kansas voted to become a free state, did Douglas object to the decision?  No.  Even though he curried support from Southerners for his presidential ambitions and even though he and his Southern wife owned a plantation in Mississippi, he stood by Kansas' decision to enter the Union as a free state - and it cost him Southern support, support from President James Buchanan and, ultimately, the Presidency.  Say what you will about Stephen Douglas - racist, craven politician, bad senator - no one ever said he was inconsistent, which is what Donald Trump has been for all of his political life.

There's another difference between Trump and Douglas.  When there was an insurrection shortly after Abraham Lincoln became President, Douglas famously called for all patriotic Americans to "rally 'round the flag."  And Trump . . . you know the rest. 

Out Of the Tribe

I just quit Tribel.

I don't know what it is about this blog that offends people.  It is my writing style?  Is it my choice of topics to write about?  Is it because I think black women are more attractive when they don't wear their hair in cornrows?  But apparently someone at the social media platform Tribel - the more liberal, more fair, more welcoming alternative to Facebook - was ticked off at me for something.  When I tried to post a link to my previous blog post - about Gaza -  I got a message saying, "You cannot post this link in Tribel."  I tried repeatedly to post it again and got the same message.  I posted the link to my entire blog to see what would happen; that didn't work.   An attempt to repost a link to a blog entry that had nothing to do with Gaza proved to be equally futile.   

So I terminated my account.  So what? No one I knew posted there, and I had little if any reason to interact with those who were on Tribel.  And I only set up an account there to post links to my blog because Facebook wouldn't let me do so on its platform.  I got approximately the same number of pageviews for my Gaza post that I'd gotten with previous posts, indicating that Tribel was a waste of time anyway.   

And any social media platform that purports to be liberal, fair and welcoming only to block something you have to say ought not to stay in business.  

Gaza: Six Months On

If President Biden is voted out of office in November, the ongoing war in Gaza will be the reason.

Enough young people are appalled at Biden's unwavering support for Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to go after Hamas with the sort of force comparable to the use of a thermonuclear device, to deny Biden a victory in the election by going third party or staying home.  Nothing Netanyahu has done in prosecuting the fight against Hamas has persuaded the Biden White House to change their policy toward Israel because of Biden's interest in ensuring Israel's right to self-defense.

Except that Israel is gong way too much on the offensive.  This past week, members of Jose Andres' World Central Kitchen were killed by a precision missile fired by the Israeli "Defense" Force, leading many to suspect that part of Israel's strategy is denying relief workers the freedom to feed the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians who have been turned into refugees and are barely scrounging to get by.  President Biden angrily demanded that Netanyahu open a route to food relief for charities to get through, threatening to condition further aid to the IDF, and Netanyahu acquiesced to the demand as the IDF punished those responsible for the firing of the missile .  This will help, but not much.  What Biden really needs to do is reduce aid to Israel to purely defensive weapons and get that damn temporary pier along the sea built to accelerate aid to the Palestinians. 

Biden has to make more of a tilt to trying to get a cease-fire arranged and get as much aid to Gaza as possible before he loses young people and Arab-Americans on such a widespread basis that it's impossible to win Michigan, a state with large Arab-American and Islamic populations as well as many politically active youth (particular among college kids) and a state he absolutely needs to win in November.  Alas, it may already be too late. 

No Labels . . . No Candidate

No Labels, the political non-movement aimed at running a presidential ticket to appeal to centrist voters (because nominating Hillary Clinton to appeal to centrists worked out so well for the Democrats), gave up the ghost and announced it would not field a ticket for 2024.  

No Labels had made a sincere effort at finding a presidential candidate who could win enough states to reach the minimum majority of 270 electoral votes and offer a more palatable platform than what the Democrats and the Republicans have espoused, but it was not only sincere, it was stupid.  Those of us who would have rather stuck our fingers in an automatic garbage disposal than vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in 2016 and looked toward building a new party to replace one of the existing major parties could have told the No Labels nobodies that long ago.  Third-party movements meant to create a new major party to replace one of the existing ones are doomed to fail because the major parties rig the system to prevent it from happening.  And when there is a window for a minor party to displace a major party, as there was in early 2017 when the Democrats were declining and falling faster the the Roman Empire in the late fifth century, the potential organizers of such a party miss the opportunity.

To be fair, former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman (above), a leader of the No Labels movement who died last month, did make it clear that No Labels would sit out the 2024 presidential election if they determined that a No Labels ticket would tilt the election to Trump and there was no clear path for a No Labels victory in November.  So shouldn't I give credit to the leadership of No Labels for gauging the situation and making the right call?  No, I shouldn't.  The folks at No Labels made this decision not out of seeing the error of their ways but because they couldn't find anyone dumb enough to accept their nomination for the Presidency.  One centrist politician after another - and Chris Christie, who's a centrist like I'm a jet pilot - turned down No Labels' offer of the group's presidential and vice presidential nominations.  And let's be honest here: If Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who has talked openly about running for President, had been offered the nomination, he would have accepted it.  Also, to be quite blunt, Lieberman's death took the wind out of No Labels' sails. 

So now that that's out of the way, we should now turn to the next task at hand - denying Robert Kennedy, Jr. ballot access in swing states.

Music Video Of the Week - April 5, 2024

"The Golden Age of Rock 'n' Roll" by Mott the Hoople (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Donald Trump Superstar

Well, I hope we're not too messianic 

Or a trifle too satanic . . . 

We love to play the blues. 

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

Not to be content with hawking Bibles with Lee Greenwood, the worst country singer of all time (and the Michael Bolton of country and western), Donald Trump has made himself out to be a modern messiah out to save the Union, fashioning himself not in comparison to Abraham Lincoln but to Jesus Christ.

Trump has never come out and said he is a Christ-like figure, but, through insinuations both subtle and obvious, he's let his MAGA supporters believe that.  He's insisted that the multiple indictments against him are not actually directed at him but an effort by the Deep State to neutralize his power as part of an effort to go after ordinary Americans, and he's suffering the slings and arrows on their behalf, almost as a human shield for the little guy (a human shield who actually lives in a gold-plated castle in Florida).  His supporters actually talk about how Donald Trump is suffering for them, how he's sacrificing himself for them, leading them to revere him like, if not like Christ, at least like an Old Testament prophet.

So it shouldn't seem so surprising that MAGA folks hold their index fingers up in a prayerful mood at Trump's rallies, which is actually a QAnon gesture.

I can think of another finger I'd like to give to Trump.

And so this is why so many evangelicals support Trump.  Even as they acknowledge his sins - while Trump doesn't acknowledge his own, bragging how he has nothing to apologize for or confess to - they reason their support for him as an example of how the Lord works in mysterious ways by sending them a flawed hedonist to save Christianity, or at least their nationalistic version of it, which sees America as a citadel of Christian civilization.   They fear the citadel is under attack from forces of depravity, Islam, non-heterosexual culture, Islam, tree-hugging pagans, Islam, secular humanism, Islam, Taylor Swift, Islam, vegans, Islam, abortion, Islam. and of course, loudmouthed Puerto Rican and potty-mouthed Palestinian congresswomen.   

Did I happen to mention that they also fear Islam?

The idea that America is a citadel of Christian virtue is nothing new.  The Reagan administration played up the idea of the U.S. as a moral beacon in the 1980s, and many Americans concurred with that sentiment.  "God intended for us to have the highest moral country in the world," an Oregon nurse told a newspaper reporter in the early nineties.  But while Ronald Reagan believed that God intended that he be spared and live virtuously after being nearly killed by a deranged would-be assassin in 1981, he, as his son Ron noted, "accepted that as a responsibility, not a mandate."  Nor did Reagan accept that as a messianic mission, as opposed to Trump's insinuation as "the chosen one."

If Trump is a savior, why didn't he save this country from COVID?  Why did he suggest injecting ourselves with bleach instead?  And would a modern savior put out a social-media post like this on Easter Sunday?

Even Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has repeatedly mocked Christianity for making its holiest day a moveable feast for lack of a permanent date ("I know what day my leader died") and secularizing it with rabbits and eggs (because rabbits don't lay eggs), has shown more respect for Easter than this.

And while President Biden, a devout Roman Catholic, was offering best wishes to the nation on Easter Sunday, March 31, he also put out a proclamation acknowledging March 31 as Transgender Visibility Day.  This offended MAGA Republicans who charged the President of placing the honoring of "depraved" transsexual culture over the solemnity of Easter.  But unlike Easter, Transgender Visibility Day, which was first observed in 2009, has always been on the last day of March, and has only coincided with Easter twice - in 2013 and in this year - since then.

Next year, when Trump could be President again and his administration could be transforming the country into a fascist police state along the guidelines of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, Easter Sunday falls on April 20.

Adolf Hitler's birthday.

Easter Greetings 2024

 

The Book of Trump

I'd like to say that this is the political equivalent of Madonna covering Don McLean's "American Pie" -doing something spectacularly outrageous that endears oneself to one's followers even more while offending detractors to the point of tearing their own hair out and realizing that nothing can be done about it.  But it's far worse than that.

Donald Trump, having put his name through licensing to so many unrelated products - steak, spring water, vodka - in a effort to make his name a brand like Henry Ford or Willis Carrier made theirs, is now putting his name on the Holy Bible.  He's also putting his name in the Bible, along with the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and Pledge of Allegiance (originally written by a socialist in 1892, the words "under God" added in 1954), in an undertaking with country and western hack Lee Greenwood, known for his beer-commercial-jingle-influenced song "God Bless the U.S.A." 

And this limited-edition version of the King James Bible can be yours for sixty bucks! 

Trump has done it.  He's done the most disgusting thing anyone can ever possibly done short of committing a mass shooting, though he could stage a mass shooting ono Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and still not lose any votes.  He's committed the ultimate blasphemy, exploiting the religious faith of his supporters to make a quick infusion of cash to pay his legal bills - including his legal bills to the lawyers defending him over the case of paying hush money to a porn star to cover up an affair with her.  But his supporters are hardly innocents in this deal.  They've committed to Trump so vehemently that they see him as a messiah of sorts, someone who will stand and fight for their Christian nationalist views that regard American civilization as a bulwark of Christian values.  

Christian nationalism has been around for decades, mainly a by-product of the Cold War against the atheistic Soviet Union.  The values of  Christian nationalism involve a rabid self-righteousness and an intolerant attitude toward people of different views and different cultures (the latter extending to people of different races), as well as control of the weak and punishment for opponents with no love or charity.  Even Barry Goldwater, who coined the phrase that a good doer is preferable to a do-gooder, was appalled by Christian nationalists.   

More recently, calls for maintaining America as a "Christian nation" has gone beyond maintaining "In God We Trust" as the national motto.  There was always an exclusionary element in Christian fundamentalism, including a belief that federally mandated racial integration was a Communist plot, but once Communism was defeated, the Christian right focused more on using their influence to  suppress secularist values they didn't like, using public figures like President Bill Clinton as dangerous avatars of immortality, and also pushing Christianity as a foundation of America in the face of one of the fastest-growing religions in the United States - Islam.  I find it interesting that throughout the 1990s, the Christian right never came out and said their emphasis of America's "Christian foundations" was meant to be a talisman against Islam.  Then came 9/11, then the rise of the Tea Party, culminating with the rise of Donald Trump, who gave Christian nationalists carte blanche to demonize Muslims as un-American and a threat to the exclusive influence Christians had once enjoyed in the U.S.

This has led to Trump pushing these "patriotic" Bibles, reinforcing America as a citadel of Christian values and casting himself as the leader of a modern Christian restoration and as a defender of the faith.  The irony of placing the Constitution in this Bible edition to Americanize a holy book written long before Christopher Columbus or even Leif Ericsson were born is most evident in the inclusion of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion.  

It makes sense that I'm talking about all this on Holy Saturday, because it feels like the nation has descended into hell.

And we've been taken there by a man who has zero understanding of Judeo-Christian tradition.

Donald Trump has long been a con man, but with this schtick, he's descended into being a false prophet, much like Alexander of Paphlagonia apapred in that Roman province in what is now Turkey and were able to attract followers by getting the people, who were incredibly stupid, to accept the smallest sleight of hand as a miracle.  If Trump has so much money as he claims, he should be giving Bibles away,  much like missionaries do (as well as missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who give away copies of Book of Mormon, which ironically was dismissed as a blasphemous money-making venture when it first appeared in 1830).  But even if Trump did give away Bibles, it would still be meaningless, coming as they would from a man who threatened the daughter of the judge in his hush-money case for having worked for the Democratic Party.  

Music Video Of the Week - March 29, 2024

"Touch Me In the Morning" by Diana Ross (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Truck Fump

I've heard all of the explanations for how Trump didn't really get away with paying a lower amount on his bond to the state of New York and how, should he lose his appeal, he may end up still having to pay $454 million, and he may still lose some of his properties, but the fact is, he got away with getting off with a 68 percent discount on his bond payment and he's already coming up with creative ways  to pay it by the deadline a week from today.

You can spin it all you want to explain how Trump is still on the hook for nearly half a billion smackers, but the fact is, he got away with it, so don't go trying to put lipstick on a pig and calling it Belinda!

Ahh, well, at least Trump is still going to trial for the election-interference hush money case.

Brown Versus Moreno

Hey, guys, how abut an Italian-American third-party candidate named Maronne? 😃

Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio will face MAGA Republican Bernie Moreno, and the common meaning of their surnames is just about all they have in common.  Brown is a traditional Hubert Humphrey liberal who supports a strong industrial policy to help workers and who backs unions and workers' rights.  Moreno is a Trump wannabe who has a big auto-dealership network, and that's all you need to know about him.  And being a MAGA man may be all he needs to win Brown's Senate seat in November.

Brown was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006, the first - and only - Democrat to be elected to the Senate from the Buckeye State since John Glenn won his last term in 1992.  Ted Strickland was elected governor of Ohio in 2006, but since then no Democrat other than Brown has won statewide in Ohio, mainly because the national party keeps relying on a coalition of Ivy League ethnic-studies professors, Wall Street bankers, and latte drinkers with a running tab at their local Starbucks.  Democrats have become spectacularly toxic in Ohio because of all that, which is why Brown - who is neither an Ivy League ethnic-studies professor or a Wall Street banker and prefers a good ol' cup of diner coffee - has been able to distinguish himself from the national Democratic leadership.  

But this time, Brown's luck may have run out.  As the Democratic Party in Ohio has atrophied, Brown has found himself increasingly isolated from political trends in his home state as well as from the party elites in Washington.  Ohio has become so deeply Trumpist that not even a Democrat who runs on working-class concerns and issues and has his own blue-collar bona fides, like Tim Ryan, can win a statewide election.  This explains why Ohioans keep sending morons like Jim Jordan to the House and James David Vance to the Senate. 

I still can't understand how Ryan could have lost his 2022 Senate bid,  but it may be for the same reason Brown may lose his bid for a fourth Senate term; Ohioans are just plain sick of the Democrats. They're so full-blown MAGA that Brown will likely lose and (like Tim Ryan did in 2022 and like the Ohio Democratic Party did long before 2022) become politically irrelevant.  And if that happens, as I have said on this blog before, Ohio will be as Republican, as MAGA, and as hostile to Democrats as Florida.

And so having a university named Miami won't be the only thing the two states have in common.  

Funny Money

You know, all of this news about the election is wearing me down . . .

It looks like Monday (March 25) will be a red-letter day for the American justice system as far as Donald Trump is concerned.  New York State Attorney General Letitia James has demanded that pay a bond penalty totalling the nearly half a billion dollars that he owes the state and he had until Monday to pay it.  Trump has indicated that he has the cash, even though there's no evidence that he has that sort of cash available to him. While it won't happen overnight, James could start the process as early as then to seize some of Trump's properties.

It's nice to think that a possible seizure of buildings like Trump Tower (above) and other real estate holdings could start happening very,very soon, but in fact it could take awhile.  And if that weren't enough, Trump may end up having a white knight - possibly a Saudi or Russian interest - that bails him out literally and figuratively and then demands a quid pro quo from Trump should he end up backing the WHite House.   And I think the laws are such that Trump doesn't have to disclose where he gets his sudden cash infusion.    

I hope Attorney General James gets hold of Trump Tower, because, as with Hitler's Chancellery, I would have to see it demolished, the ground underneath salted, and the plot never to be developed. again.

Music Video Of the Week - March 22, 2024

 "Already Gone" by the Eagles  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Vandalia Vendetta

Until this past Saturday, Vandalia. Ohio was best known, if known at all, as a suburb of Dayton and the location of the junction between Interstates 70 and 75.  

Now it will be forever known as the town where Donald Trump, in a rally there, laid out his doctrine for a reign of brutality not only in the event that he wins back the White House but also in the event that he doesn't win the White House. 

In the Vandalia Doctrine, as I call it, Trump declared that there will be a bloodbath if he doesn't win, as that will mean the election was rigged against him and the Republicans and that elections will be rigged against the GOP ever after.

So, there will be bloodshed and violence from Election Day through the holidays all the way to Inauguration Day.  In other words, they guy who wants to make America great again will make America like Newark. 

Oh yeah, a few takeaways from the Vandalia rally:

Trump wants to impose a 100 percent tariff on imported automobiles. So that Golf GTI that now costs thirty thousand dollars will coast . . . sixty thousand dollars.  You think VWs are too expensive now . . . 

He also said that some migrants "are not people."  So, that means that some migrants are illegally transported pets?  What's wrong with bringing cats and dogs into this country, Trump?  Not that you'd ever adopt one . . .

Oh, and by the way, one of Trump's supporters standing behind him held up a sign that turned President Biden's surname into an acronym: "Biggest Idiot Democrat Ever Nominated."    All right, Democrats, here's your homework: Come up with an unflattering acronym of Trump's surname - "tRump" or calling Trump by his ancestral German name ("Drumpf") won't cut it.

And if Trump supporters are out for blood after Election Day, perhaps Americans should consider anew the Second Amendment right to self-defense.

"Hey, We Forgot the Whipped Cream!"

Remember that old episode of "The Brady Bunch" where Bobby enters an ice cream-eating contest on a local children's TV show and he and the other kids are about to start - but then the kiddie-show host stops everything to take away their spoons because spoons would make it too easy?  And then they're about to start again but the host stops them and has them put their hands behind their backs not only to make it harder to eat the ice cream but make it messier?  And then they're about to start again but the host stops them because . . . he forgot the whipped cream?  And he takes his time adding whipped cream to the ice cream bowls?  And then they finally start and there's a big mess?

The Trump criminal indictments are petty much going the same way.

The January 6 trial has been indefinitely postponed so the Supreme Court can hear an argument about presidential immunity that they hadn't wanted to hear when Jack Smith first brought it to them, and that doesn't happen until April 25 . . . and who knows when the decision will be handed down.   The documents case, which would be the easier case for Smith to win because the evidence is so overwhelming, is in neutral because Trump's lawyers have been stonewalling the prosecution repeatedly with a judge that seem to sympathize with the defense.   

Meanwhile, Fani Willis has been allowed to continue with the election interference case in Georgia in spite of her dalliance with fellow prosecutor Nathan Wade, and Wade has stepped down.  Hower, Judge Scott McAfee has chastened Willis for the "odor of mendacity" with regard to her relationship with Wade,  and that's a smell worse than Tea Rose perfume.  Willis might have to give up the case and hand it over someone else to appease those who doubt her own integrity.  And just when you thought that at least - at least - the hush money case in New York City would start on time, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in light of the surfacing of documents from the Southern District of New York, has asked for a delay for a few weeks for the opportunity to go through those documents - documents that could have been made available earlier.  And when there's a hearing on March 25 - the day the trial was supposed to start - it could uncover a complication that could derail, not delay, the trial.  

It has become apparent that the judicial system in These States cannot handle in a timely matter a criminally indicted former President vying for a comeback.  Trump has taken advantage of the kinks in the justice system that affords so many rights to the defendant to delay the start of his trials, while all the prosecutors can do is grin and bear it while doing what they can to speed things up.  And even in the unlikely event that Trump is convicted before the election, he'll appeal his conviction(s) and delay things even further.

On the other hand, if he's President again, he ensure a speedy trial for Hillary Clinton when his Justice Department indicts Hillary Clinton for her e-mails.  He'll have her found guilty, then he can lock her up.  And he'll ensure a speedy trial for Joe Biden for the treasonous act of stealing the 2020 election. He'll have him found guilty, then he can . . . string him up.

In which case, Biden's last meal will include ice cream. 

With whipped cream on top.

St. Patrick's Day 2024

Music Video Of the Week - March 15, 2024

"Dim" by Family (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Orbán Development

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is the one European leader not named Vladimir by his mother that Donald Trump has a good rapport with, and he proved it by hosting Orbán at Mar-a-Lago last weekend.  

At a celebration of  for his guest of honor, Trump praised Orbán as a leader who gets things done for the Hungarian people because he gives the orders and he makes sure they're carried out.  "He's the boss," Trump said.

Viktor Orbán is the boss of Hungary.  What he says goes.  And that's the problem.   he gets things done because he's run roughshod over Hungarian institutions that had previously upheld democracy in the Central European nation for over twenty years.  Orbán has emasculated the Hungarian courts, cracked down on the media, discriminated against gays, promoted white nationalism, and encouraged Hungarian newlyweds to have as many children as possible in an effort to preserve the Hungarian nation.  And oh yes, he's warned about migrants "replacing" Europeans just like white nationalists in America have blamed the Jews for "replacing" white people with people of color.  Orbán likes to say that he has founded an "illiberal" democracy in Hungary.  As contradictory as that sounds, Hungary technically is a democracy, with elections with multiple candidates, but Orbán's Fidesz Party is so dominant that it always wins.

Like, what sort of a system is that?  This is as bad as Florida!

Orbán, of course, must have found Trump's adopted home state very familiar in terms of its politics and its policies.

Oh yeah, Trump made his laudatory comments about Orbán in the Mar-a-Lago ballroom, where the entertainment for the night was a couple of performances from Beatles and Rolling Stones tribute bands - the bass player for the Beatles tribute band even playing a Hofner violin bass and sporting mop-top hair.  This is Trump's biggest contribution to our pop culture - associating classic rock with the villainy and inflexibility of white men while hip-hop becomes the voice of "the good guys."  Thanks a lot, Trump - thanks a whole lot!    

Illegal Language

President Biden's re-election campaign broke a fundraising record for one-hour periods during the first hour of his State of the Union address - and broke that record in the second hour with Katie Ledecky-style speed.  The campaign then set a record for a one-day fundraising period  - $10 million.  He then began a campaign tour of swing states, hitting the ground running.

Then he did something that may one day cause his campaign to hit the ground.

During his speech, President Biden referred to the migrant who killed Georgia nursing student Laken Riley as an "illegal" immigrant but a couple of days later apologized for calling the killer "illegal," saying he should have called him "undocumented" and that migrants deserve to be treated with dignity.

Excuse me?

This migrant who committed murder doesn't deserve dignity.  He deserves punishment.  I don't believe in capital punishment, but I hope this migrant gets thrown into jail for life and the key gets thrown away.  And yes, he should be called "illegal," because he entered the country illegally.  And the last time I checked, homicide is also illegal.

The President apologized - in an interview with MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart, who brought up the moment in his speech with a tone of disappointment and disapproval - for his choice of words primarily to mend fences with the progressive base of the Democratic Party that disapproves of the use of the word "illegal" to describe a foreigner who enters this country without permission from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, an office that progressives want to shut down.  But he also needs swing voters who don't identify with either base of the two major parties and who take a pretty dim view of anyone who dictates to them how to talk.  And these swing voters see immigrants coming into the country without permission or without papers as illegal because they entered . . . illegally!  And I speak as the grandson of an Italian immigrant who came to this country illegally a hundred years ago.  He worked on an Italian ship that docked in Texas and jumped ship at about the same time Congress passed a law restricting immigration to the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic countries.  My maternal grandfather was a decent and law-abiding man, and he did become a citizen eventually, but he was still an illegal immigrant.

I may be liberal on a lot of issues, but I happen to be pretty conservative when it comes to other things.  I am musically conservative, obviously, as my idea of music doesn't include hip-hop or electronica.  But I am also linguistically conservative, as I have became hostile to efforts to make the American English lexicon more sensitive and less offensive, as if words hurt even worse than sticks and stones.  And so Hispanics become Latinos and Latinos became Latinx (pronounced "Lat-tin-ex") in the interest of gender neutrality (except that the Spanish language is highly gender-sensitive, applying gender to inanimate objects), the poor become economically disadvantaged, the handicapped become physically challenged, the ghetto becomes the inner city (which doesn't make sense when you consider that some of the worst ghettoes in America are on the edges of city limits, like the Austin section of Chicago or the Vailsburg section of Newark, both bordering upper-middle-income suburbs), and blacks become African-Americans (or "black" must be capitalized, as in "Black," suggesting, as John Judis and Ruy Teixeira wrote, that "blacks were a national group similar to the 'French' and the 'Chinese'").  And, of course, "urban" is a synonym for "black" because it's accepted that white people don't live in cities anymore (not true, of course; majority-black Detroit even has a white mayor).

I, for one, am completely disgusted with efforts by so-called progressives to police the English language in These States.  I have noticed with brain-numbing regularity that pregnant women are referred to as "pregnant people."  Pregnant people?  As in pregnant men and women?  Someone please give me an example of a pregnant man - other  than fictional characters played in the movies by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Billy Crystal, and Marcello Mastroianni.  (The English-language title of the French-Italian movie in which Mastroianni starred, A Slightly Pregnant Man, was an obvious - and obviously biting - joke.  How can you be "slightly" pregnant?  No more than you could be a pregnant man.)  But then these are the same people who were so hell-bent on neutralizing gender in language that the wanted us to call those circular steel plates in the streets "personhole" covers and U.S. House of Representatives members "congresspersons" (even though they are in fact officially called "representatives")  And of course, the big kahuna - when the left decided that non-heterosexuals should be called LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisxeual, transsexual - oops, "transgender" - because "transseuxal" sounds dirty),  with the initials in that order for no apparent reason.  Then it was LGBTQ ("Q" for "questioning").  Then LGBTQ+ (what is this, an algebra formula?). Now it's LGBTQIA - sounds like an international intelligence agency.  ("You're in the LGBTQIA, they wouldn't have you in the Ma-fye-ay!")

Look, I understand that non-heteosexuals need an all-encompassing term to define what they are, as opposed to a term like "non-heterosexuals," which defines what they're not.  But until the PC Language Police comes up with an acronym I can actually pronounce, I am going to keep referring to "non-heterosexuals."

So what does this have to do with President Biden?  Simply this.  No one wants a President so beholden to his base that changing his lexicon is more important than changing his policy, especially when the change of lexicon softens and obfuscates a serious issue and turns off swing voters.  Immigration is still an Achilles heel (oh, did I just offend the Greeks?  No?  Okay!) for the Biden administration, and n amount of campaign cash is going to bring back any swing voters he loses because he appears to be so dismissive of immigration protocol and border enforcement by calling a killer illegally in this country "undocumented."  Remember, Trump won the White House in 2016 despite being outspent by the Democrats in part because people were tired of Democrats telling them how to talk.  But at least Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden wouldn't enforce linguistic rules punitively on their supporters.  If you're a MAGA Republican and don't call the January 6 convicts "hostages," you're blackballed from MAGA forever.

Oh yeah, the left doesn't want you to use words like "blackballed," because that's racially offensive. 😛 

Take a Message to Congress

Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. President, was known to be afflicted with a stammer and so feared public speaking that he became the first of 24 consecutive U.S. Presidents to deliver the annual presidential message to Congress - now known as the State of the Union address - as a printed text to the Capitol for a clerk to read.  Given Joe Biden's own stammer - and given his lifelong ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time - he could have easily revived the tradition that Jefferson began.  In fact, many Democrats might have been more than happy with such a decision.

Democrats needn't have worried.  President Biden delivered a strong speech that was as powerful as Mario Cuomo's famous keynote address at the 1984 Democratic convention and roared out of the gate with strenuous defenses of the American democratic system and aid for Ukraine as well as a condemnation of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.  He doubled down on his record, citing the increases in infrastructure spending and the decrease in the unemployment rate and reminding Americans that COVID had gripped the country at the time of his inauguration and how all of these advances came once his administration got control of and helped end the pandemic.

Even better, he pushed for the immigration bill that Republicans had supported before Donald Trump told them not to, citing the bill's highlights and what it would accomplish with Senator James Lankford - the Oklahoma Republican who spearheaded the bill nodding and vocalizing his agreement.  President Biden even showed up Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), having an appreciative  laugh at her MAGA hat and red blazer as he entered the House chamber and later taking up her dare to mention the name of Laken Riley - the Georgia nursing student murdered by an illegal immigrant - in his support for the Republican immigration bill.  (A similar bill giving states more power to challenge federal immigration laws when wanting to deport illegal immigrants, named for Laken Riley, passed the House hours before.)  His mere energy got Republicans so angry when he proposed increased aid to education, improving literacy, working on reducing inflation further - the sort of issues no one could oppose - and they subsequently booed them.  Most importantly, he played up the assault on women's reproductive rights and addressed members of the Supreme Court in the second person - to their faces - in admonitory language and vowed that women were ready to reverse the Dobbs decision at the ballot box.  (Justice Alito, who actually wrote the Dobbs decision was nowhere to be found, as usual.)  

President Biden even address the age issue, noting that with age comes wisdom, and he reminded people that Trump - whom he referred to thirteen times as "my predecessor" - was almost as old as he was but his ideas - oligarchy, patriarchy, authoritarianism - were older.  But for all of his abilities to ad-lib and banter with Republicans like they were his sparring partners in a boxing ring, he did have a couple of missteps, coughing on occasion and stumbling over his words in talking about women's political power and saying that they had already helped Democrats in 2022 and "in 2020" when he meant to say "in 2022 and 2023."  Also, one speech does not a turnaround make, and a Make America Great Again PAC ad showing a compilation of Biden's verbal and physical slip-ups is now getting a good deal of attention.  (It also juxtaposes these scenes with a clip of Kamala Harris laughing, the better to remind MAGA voters that a Biden death in office would give us a female President who is half black and half South Asian and prefers Bootsy Collins to Phil Collins . . . and her husband's a Jew!) 

With Nikki Haley - who frequently raised the specter of "President Harris" to Republican presidential primary voters - now out of the presidential campaign (as is Dean Phillips on the Democratic side), President Biden needs to win of swing voters - some of whom supported Haley in the GOP primaries - and neutralize the inevitable MAGA mobilization.  He needs to keep up what he did this past Thursday.  Thankfully, he appears to be doing that; he's been on the campaign trail this weekend, as Biden-Trump Mark Two - the first general presidential election rematch since 1956 - begins in earnest.

I forgot about the Republican response to Biden's address from Katie Britt.  I sort of prefer to.

Music Video Of the Week - March 8, 2024

"Piano Man" by Billy Joel  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Super Doomsday

As I type this, it is Super Tuesday, March 5, eight months to the day before the 2024 general election - and my 59th birthday. And if the polls and the media analysis bear any weight, I have concluded that it is a better-than-even bet that Donald J. Trump will be elected to a second non-consecutive term as President of the United States.   

And then we will prepare to meet our doom. 

Once Trump is backing power on January 20, 2025 - Martin Luther King Day, ironically enough - he will invoke the Insurrection Act to crack down on protesters against him, declare martial law, terminate the Constitution, and have the Democratic Party closed down.  All fifty states will have Republican governors who will be even less answerable to their constituents than Pontius Pilate was to the people of Judea, and Congress and the state legislatures will be rubber-stamp assemblies in the style of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.  We will still have elections, but they will have only one candidate per office.  The press will obey the government, and anti-Trump media outlets will be shut down.  Anyone accused of a crime will likely go to jail without a fair trial.  

And while I've said this before, I will say it again with as much clarity as possible: Trump will make opposition to his regime a capital offense. Those who cross Trump with lesser offenses will be sent to labor camps., though those who voice opposition will likely also be worked to exhaustion in said camps, and then, when they are all worked to exhaustion, they will be executed.  And I, as a blogger who has been speaking out against Trump for the past nine years, will not be immune to such punishment.  The Justice Department will find me and other bloggers by simply finding our IP addresses, and they will use the United States Secret Police - currently known as the Oath Keepers, and who will likely be known colloquially as the "Gestrumpo" - to arrest us once they track us down.

And once again - I cannot repeat this warning enough! - don't make plans to leave the country once Trump is back in power  . Anyone who plans to leave the U.S. will learn that Trump will not allow anyone to leave to avoid losing human capital and to avoid the humiliation of anyone leaving a country he claims to have made great again. The border patrol, who will likely be under the control of Stephen Miller, will "shoot to kill" anyone who tries to cross the border. And if you're caught alive. . . .you'll wish you had been shot to death first.

While I turn 59 on Election Day, I do not, at this moment, expect to live to see my sixtieth birthday.  If I do, I will likely be in a labor camp with my execution scheduled shortly thereafter, likely by hanging, although Trump has suggested using guillotines for executing capital offenders.

But I think this song from Led Zeppelin - a band Karen Hunter ridiculed Paul Ryan for still listening to in 2012 - better illustrates what we can expect a year hence. 

As does this song from Styx, a band Stephanie Ruhle ridiculed a Republican operative for still going to see in concert in 2018. 

This blog post is gallows humor . . . without the humor part. 😬

Sick Home Alabama

So let me see if I follow this correctly . . .

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that a frozen embryo, having been stored in the deep freeze for future intentions to fertilize for impregnation, is a child.  Therefore, if you take a test tube and try to produce a child through in-vitro fertilization, and if something goes wrong in the process and the embryo does not survive, the parents can be . . . held liable for murder?  

Wha?

So, if this ruling means that eggs are people . . . 

Therefore . . .

And then when Republicans announce that they're for IVF after having insisted they were against it, they get the chance to pass a pro-IVF bill in CONgress, and they balk at it and then kill it altogether.

Just to give you an idea of how far behind Alabama is behind the country and indeed the world, I ought to remind you that the first IVF child, Louise Brown, was conceived and born in 1978, which, in science, is a lifetime (weell, at least Louise Brown's lifetime, and she's now 45 years old, but let that pass).  This breakthrough took place in Great Britain, not the U.S., as the British have been far more accommodating of science than many people in AMerica (especially Alabama), and IVF was in fact developed both in Britain and Australia, where hte religious teachings of the Anglican Church (what we call Episcopalians) is dominant. The Anglican Church, the Web site IVF WOrldwide reports, is "more liberal on the use of IVF/ET and allows semen collection by masturbation (!) for artificial insemination by the husband for IVF . . .."

Really!

Oh yeah, by the way, France just did something today that the U.S. will never do - it made abortion a constitutional right.

If you're a Frenchwoman, you go, femme.  If you're an American woman . . . oh, well, c'est la vie. 

The Ghost of Hillary Clinton - 2024 Edition

Back in January 2017, I insinuated in a blog post that the Democrats - who at the point completely ceased to matter - had thrown away the previous year's presidential election by doing a number of things wrong - mainly by nominating Hillary Clinton, for starters.

Among the other things I accused them of were doing little or nothing to prevent a breach in the Democratic National Committee's computer and blaming the Russians for hacking it, as well as Hillary calling half of Donald Trump's supporters "deplorables."  Given how deplorable many of Trump's supporters have proven to be, and given that the Russians really were intervening in the 2016 presidential campaign with memes and bogus stories about Hillary, you might think I have regret and remorse for what I wrote over seven years ago.

Actually, none whatsoever.  I've been reading John Judis' and Ruy Teixeira's 2023 book "Where Have All the Democrats Gone?," a dissection of the Democratic Party's failures over the past few decades, and their commentary on Hillary's presidential campaign only reminded me of what a lousy campaign she ran and what a lousy candidate she was.  As Judis and  Teixeira explain, Hillary largely ran on an agenda aimed at pleasing the coastal white-collar professionals that had sustained the Democratic Party since her husband was elected President in 1992 and discounted - indeed, disparaged - the deindustrialized areas of the interior Northeast and the Great Lakes region that had suffered from Democratic policies toward trade agreements and toward the banking sector.  She forgot that the backbone of the Democratic Party was - or, more accurately, had been - the working class that built this country and were now wasting away in blue-collar communities that had lost all of those good manufacturing jobs that sustained their towns and regions.  She took a condescending approach to these populations, lecturing them like a schoolmarm for not appreciating how good they would have it under her presidential administration.  "Clinton was heard correctly," Judis and Teixeira wrote, "to be voicing the snobbery of the postindustrial metro areas toward the victims of deindustrialization."

And when it came to race and ethnicity, Judis and Teixeira noted that Hillary only proved how clueless she really was.  Many of those same working-class voters she disparaged were black men; Republicans have actually made incremental gains among black male voters since 2016.  She dismissed the concerns over border security as being anti-Hispanic; in fact, Mexican-American voters in southern Texas have been strong proponents, not opponents, of border security.  Trump actually increased his support among Hispanics (and not just Americans of Cuban or Venezuelan origin) in 2020.  In a rush to berate Trump supporters over stereotyping racial minorities, Hillary never stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, you should not assume that a black or brown person is going to back you just because you're a Democrat.

As noted earlier, it is true that the Russians  were meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and it is also true that many of Trump's supporters were and still are deplorable.  But a smart presidential campaign that reached out to blue-collar voters and made a serious effort to earn votes Democrats had long taken for granted could have easily neutralized Putin's meddling.  And while Hillary did say that only half of Trump's supporters were deplorable and the other half were simply concerned voters who felt that the "new" American economy hadn't worked for them (the latter part of her quote was forgotten), many Trump supporters who were not deplorable and planned to support Trump despite their personal dislike for his bigotry and arrogance felt compelled to wonder if someone like them was who Hillary was talking about when she called half of Trump supporters deplorable.  And was it really half of them?  Maybe more like 30 to 35 percent of them, as polls of the MAGA movement have generally suggested, but 50 percent?  But even Hillary admitted that she was being "grossly generalistic" in her cursory census of how many Trump supporters were god-awful bigots.  Judis and Teixeira discovered in their own research that people who supported Trump in 2016 "were not so much voting for him so much as voting against the elites who were trying to dictate how they talked about race, gender, immigration and a host of other subjects."

Oh yeah, and a lot of people who voted for Trump in 2016 had voted for Obama twice.   

Nowhere was this more apparent than in Ohio, where, at her campaign rally in Cleveland, Hillary was joined by Beyoncé (who performed at the rally) and her husband, Mr. Shawn Carter, in an effort to appeal to the cool, hip voters in Ohio without trying to appeal to the machinists, steelworkers and autoworkers who were more likely to listen to Quiet Riot (a heavy-metal band long out of style) on their CD players (because they made too little money to stream and had to rely on obsolete technology).  Many of those same blue-collar guys weren't machinists, steelworkers or autoworkers; they had been, but their factories closed down and they were underemployed at the local 7-Eleven . . . and their hometowns ended up looking like this!

For the record, this is an abandoned plant in Mansfield, Ohio, along East Fifth Street on the outskirts of town.   

Hillary Clinton's onetime supporters - who continued to revere her for proving that a woman could be a nominee for President of the United States, even though she, umm, lost - continue today to blame Bernie Sanders (who spoke to those same working-class voters the way Trump did), James Comey, Vladimir Putin and Julian Assange for where Trump is today, but they particularly blame the voters themselves.  These are the same Hillbots who echoed her dismissals of calls for banking reform ("Yeah, we don't need Glass-Steagall reinstated!"), parroted her basic description of herself as as true liberal ("Yeah, she's a progressive, and she wants to use her power as President to get things done!") and laughed off a certain 2016 Democratic presidential contender who was not named Bernard by his parents ("Martin O'Malley?  Ha ha ha ha!"). And they're blaming us for refusing to support a candidate who couldn't connect to the very voters she needed?  Who hosted two hip-hop stars in a state where folks still listened to heavy metal?  Who never visited a steel mill or a car factory?  Who refused Debbie Dingell's pleas to campaign for the Presidency in Michigan, a state she lost along with Ohio?  Go home, Hillbots, you're stoned.

Joe Biden, the most working-class-friendly President we've had since Harry Truman, has made great strides as President so far in trying to repair the damage that the Clintons - and let's be honest, Obama too - have wrought to the Democratic coalition with their pro-banking, pro-business, neoliberal economic politics.  But he's only been able to go so far with his support for building new factories, his support for transportation infrastructure, the Chips Act, and his pro-union stance.  That's why he's still struggling against Trump in the polls and why those of us who have publicly opposed Trump could be a year away from either being locked up or strung up for our opposition.  And a second Trump administration would undo, not continue, the progress President Biden has made with rebuilding the working class.  Yes, the ghost of Hillary Clinton's political career is still at work.

Supreme Disaster - 2024 Edition

Just when we thought it was safe to turn MSNBC back on, because it looked like Donald Trump was finally going to face justice courtesy of special prosecutor Jack Smith in the January 6 election interference case, the Supreme Court has decided to hear Trump's appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that a former President has no immunity from prosecution. 

As the Eagles once sang, lay down your law books now, they're no damn good.

Some legal experts have suggested that the Supreme Court feels the need to re-affirm the idea that no ex-President should be immune from prosecution to head off possible challenges to indictments in the classified-documents case and the two state cases, while others suggest that the election interference case involves actions Trump may have done that were not germane to his duties as President, as the President does not preside over election and therefore the rules have presidential conduct have to be clarified.  Yeah, so why didn't the Supreme Court take this case ahead of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which Smith wanted them to do?      

There is no reason why the Supreme Court should accept this case - except for the possibility that the zealots in the conservative majority want to tip the scales in Trump's favor.  Though oral arguments will take place on April 22, the Court doesn't have to decide the case as soon as April 30 - it could wait until the end of June to decide, which would cause the trial to begin either just before Election Day or some time in late autumn.  

And if Trump wins back the White House on November 5, he, once he's sworn in again, can make the case disappear.

That's not all he's going to make disappear.  Ever hear of what happened under the 1976-1983 military dictatorship in Argentina?

Give it up, fellow anti-Trumpers.  The courts are not going to save the Republic.  If you don't want the United States Secret Police - currently known as the Oath Keepers - to arrest you in the middle of the night for the crime of disliking Trump after January 20, 2025, if you don't want to be sent to a labor camp and worked until exhaustion for said crime, and you if you don't, so as to take your mind off your utter exhaustion, want to be executed, you'll not only vote for Joe Biden on Election Day, you'll do what you can in the weeks and months leading up to Election Day to make sure Biden wins.  

It's do . . . or die.

I rest my case. 

Music Video Of the Week - March 1, 2024

"Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.) 

Leap Thursday

Leap Day falls on a Thursday this year for the first time since 1996.

I remember 1996.  It was a year when you didn't have to worry about climate change so much, when a blizzard in January happened not because of climate change but because it was January.  And even though it was the year that a Christian nationalist named Eric Rudolph bombed a park in Atlanta, you didn't have the President of the United States say he was a fine person for the other side of the cultural debate.

I also remember when you were just as likely to hear Rush on FM radio as you were to hear Rush Limbaugh on AM radio, because even though the Telecommunications Act passed that year eventually ruined radio, you didn't need to get satellite radio to hear rock music because it was still available on terrestrial radio.  In fact, we didn't even have satellite radio in 1996.

And the fact that you could still hear rock on terrestrial radio meant that you could avoid the Macarena.

I have some personal memories of 1996.  I remember getting my first 9-to-5 full-time office job since graduating from college.  ("But Steve," you say, you graduated from college in 1988!"  I know . . ..)  My mother and I got our kitchen redone for the first time since we moved in.  I visited the Winterthur gardens in Delaware for the first time.  And I drove to Cleveland to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which had just opened a year before.  On my way home, I drove through northern Pennsylvania on scenic U.S. Route 6.

Given that's happened with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since, I remember the trip home on Route 6 more fondly.  Probably because I stopped at Presque Isle State Park on Lake Erie in Pennsylvania along the way.  No, I think it was because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame started inducting pop, non-rock acts soon after.  Well, I still liked Presque Isle State Park.

Also, we didn't have social media, which mean that I couldn't meet any top fashion models, but it also meant that a foreign adversary couldn't meddle in our elections.  We did have "Seinfeld," and it's damn hard for me to find any sitcom as funny as that today.  But at least I can find old TV favorites on YouTube, which also didn't exist in 1996.

Mmm . . . You know, on balance, I think 1996 was a better year.  And I don't expect to look back fondly on 2024 if I'm still around for the next Leap Thursday in 2052.  

Madonald

What's the difference between Madonna and Donald Trump?

One of them is a professional celebrity who emerged in the early 1980s with only a talent for shameless self-promotion and did irreparable damage to American civilization, while the other is . . .  I lied, there is no difference. 

I know this post will please no one.  Progressives who revere Madonna for her badass attitude and her guerilla war against white-male-dominated classic rock will hate me for insisting that she isn't a true musical talent.  MAGA Republicans will hate me for implying that Donald Trump is not the savvy businessman and devoted patriot he pretends to be.  Go ahead and hate me; I'm not here for you to love.

But for those who still have a brain in your heads . . . you're gonna love this. 

When Madge - that's what I'll call her from here on - first emerged in 1983 with his first hit record,  she was clearly no singer.  Her voice was weak, high-pitched, and as annoying as fingers on a blackboard.  Her songwriting was simplistic and gimmicky, and the songs she chose from other composers weren't all that much better.  Her arrangements relied so much on warmed-over disco and electronic noise that to call it "music" would be too charitable.  Compared to her peers - Annie Lennox, Cyndi Lauper, Alison Moyet - she was pitiful.  Her only schtick was a novelty-act sexpot image that deliberately contradicted her given name.  Pop fans who'd grown up on the rock and soul of the sixties and seventies had every right to dismiss her and predict that she'd come and go as quickly as A Taste of Honey (who, inexplicably, won the 1979 Best New Artist Grammy over the Cars and Elvis Costello).  

But Madge proved that P.T. Barnum was right.  She was able to make herself an enduring icon largely through her promotional videos, which promoted her more than her records and made her a star on MTV, leading to a string of hit singles and platinum records that stretched through the 1980s and beyond, along with irreverent and churlish publicity stunts designed to keep impressionable teenage girls - her main audience - buying her records and coming back for more.  And the press happily went along with Madge's charade because, well, she was so damn interesting and entertaining to write about.  And so her misandric comments on male heterosexuals ("they ought to be slapped around") and her incoherent explanation of the right to free speech in defending one of her promotional videos after MTV banned it went unchallenged and uncritiqued.  Among other things.   

But hey, Madge was indeed more interesting than bands like Foreigner and Night Ranger, whose frontmen - Lou Gramm and Jack Blades, respectably - weren't going to sell magazines if either one of them were on the cover of Rolling Stone.   By becoming a performer who was taken seriously as an artist in spite of - nay, because of - her shallow, self-promotional stunts, Madge helped turn popular music in to a burlesque, where style is more important than substance.  And she's helped popularize hip-hop by incorporating it into her own records.  Today pop-tart "singing" stars like Madge are more likely to appear on the cover of Vogue than the cover of Rolling Stone, while Rolling Stone puts people like Kim Kardashian (talk about a professional celebrity) on its cover.  And Madge's 2024 tour is, alas, likely to be yet another fantastic success.

And Trump?  To be fair, Trump, as a real estate developer, has actually created things of substance.  But they're all either ugly skyscrapers in New York and Chicago or uglier casino-hotels in Atlantic City.  What Trump is really interested in is creating an image of a successful businessman, an image that has been severely compromised by the successful civil suit against him in New York State for inflating the value of his properties to defraud lenders.  But he's so good at Barnumesque self-promotion that he's recast that verdict as yet another attempt by the "Deep State" to destroy his political power, endearing himself more to his supporters.  

Quite frankly, I don't understand why his reputation as a successful businessman hadn't been severely compromised before.  As I just stated, Trump is best known as a real estate developer.  He is not known as a vodka distiller, necktie designer, meatpacking distributor, educator, football-team franchisee, casino operator, beauty-pageant owner, footwear designer, or hotelier, all trades in which he's dabbled - disastrously.   Nor is he known as a mathematical genius, which explains why he's gone bankrupt six times.  Even his career in his primary profession - real estate - is a scam, given his awful deals and history of stiffing contractors.  And yet, as with Madge, the media have remained fascinated with him and generations of Americans admire the appearance of a legitimate business acumen, because, well, he's just so damn interesting!

And so, despite his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election after one term in the White House, he's not only the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination over Nikki Haley, he's the early favorite in the inevitable November matchup with Joe Biden.  Meanwhile, his threat to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and his incoherent utterances ("We are an institute in a powerful death penalty") have gone largely unchallenged and uncritiqued.

Madge once told Dick Clark she wanted to rule the world.  And she did.  And so did Trump, for four years . . . and he may be back to rule it even longer.

And don't get me started on Madge's and Trump's fans.  You say one unkind word about either one of them, their fans will attack you verbally online and possibly physically in person.  Madge's fans are the Islamic State of pop-star fandom, and Trump supporters are the Islamic State of political fandom.  You do not want to cross either fan base.  

But there is one key distinction between these two charlatans.   You can avoid Madge.  True, her records are compatible with most of the few remaining music formats that are on terrestrial radio these days, but you can always get satellite radio, where oldies, rock and jazz channels can still be found, and there's always your own record collection.  But if Trump becomes President, no one will be able to escape him.  The worst Madge's fans can do to you is physically assault you if you insult their idol (as Guy Ritchie found out when his marriage to Madge failed and he took all the blame for it).   But if Trump is President again . . .