PMC Commentary

The Hitler Youth, rebranded

I should probably desist in making comparisons between Trump's corps of youthful supporters and the Hitler Youth, for in these bizarrest of times — an era pathologically contaminated by populism-cum-neofascism — these young Americans might find the comparison not only creditable, but praiseworthy.

Being as ill-schooled in history as they are in politics, this immature voting bloc harbors no informed conception of the Hitler Youth's evils. To them, a modern-day spinoff of the American variety is merely that of a brotherhood in which "bonding" takes place — or rather, takes the place of their shiftless, empty lives.

Here they can be led, and their existence, given meaning. Their rootless upbringing, stripped of impeccant values, created a tabula rasa on which their leaders — from Trump to the also youthful, equally benighted Charlie Kirk and others — can now write. And no more than among Hitler's youth are they capable of discerning the evils ingested. Enlightenment will come only with their abject ruination, as it did in 1945.    

On the other hand, this budding youth of soft Hitlerism is scarcely a readership component of this site. So I'm free of encouraging any propensities they might have toward applauding that ugly title of yore. Instead I can gape with historical disgust at other soft dopplegängers of European origin, such as this Goebbelslike pronunciamento from a Trump official: "Embracing and providing access to people that are informing millions of people has to be an important part of our overall strategy, for sure." 

The quote might seem harmless — until you see who these "informative" people are, the ones addressing "millions" of U.S. youth, virtually all male. They "look a whole lot more like the media consumption habits of the American voters of today versus the 1980s," continued the Trump official. And they'll constitute, at least in part, the "strategy and the press briefing room" of Trump's White House.  

Who are they by name? They're the once-deservedly obscure Joe Rogan (an internet jack of all trades)), the Nelk Boys ("YouTube pranksters"), Theo Von (a "stand-up comedian"), and "the guys from 'Bussin’ With The Boys,'" whoever those guys are. Explains Politico: "They were the podcasters and social media influencers who helped mobilize a new generation of Trump voters, using their platforms with hundreds of millions of viewers combined to talk to young voters about issues like illegal immigration, while making it socially acceptable to support Trump."  

As noted, "these types of new media influencers will be a factor in the Trump White House’s broader messaging strategy," reports Politico. In addition to the above personalities, look for "influencers" like Benny Johnson and, already noted, TurningPointUSA's Charlie Kirk. The former has 3.1 million Twitter followers, the latter — a 31-year-old junior college dropout who has devoted his life to far-right politics without the least schooling in its history; he simply parrots the Trump line by changing hours — 4.2 million followers.   

The "broader messaging strategy" hailed by Trump insiders will include the campaign's "flood of content from the influencers that resonated with viewers — like videos of pranks that promoted Trump and conservative policies." (Strike "conservative.") Much of it was banned from sites like YouTube for hustling disinformation. Accordingly, it's anything but informative, sober and honest. Said the quoted Trump official: "It’s not like, 'Hey, we’re talking about immigration policy today. Here’s why illegal immigration is bad for the economy.' It’s just, here’s some fucking hilarious skit."

Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of "The Charlie Kirk Show," (yes, he's on TV too), told Politico that "You can’t just put on a camo hat and have a relationship with that audience. You have to embody the values of that audience. You have to have a connection." Kolvet almost nailed it. The connection is made by a dedicated avoidance of serious thought and rational analysis of issues. This works because "that audience" is itself bereft of serious thinking and "values" to be embraced. Instead, the contorted, contemptible values of Trumpism are fed to the audience as those of manly virtue. 

And repetition is king — as is always the case with demagogues. John Shahidi, whose internet platform houses the programs of far-right podcasters, said this to Politico: "Bypassing traditional media ... was critical to [Trump's] success, and we hope to visit him in Washington, D.C. soon to celebrate his epic victory." Enter said repetition. Trump has been pounding the message on social media that his electoral victory was a "landslide" — alternatively labeled epic by Shahidi.

There was of course no landslide, nothing even close. Trump won by 1.6% of the vote. President Biden won in 2020 by 5.1% of the vote, which earned him articles such as Politifact's, titled "How narrow was Joe Biden's victory over Trump?" and FactCheck.org's "No 'landslide' for Biden." Dear Trumpers, if 5.1 is no landslide, then 1.6 can't be — even you can grasp that. Nevertheless, on Twitter this morning, Trump was indeed peddling his victory as a landslide — to be expected. The point, though, is that all the rubes on Twitter were likewise naming it, all of them chiming in about his landslide victory.

That tells us what America's Trump Youth are learning from their leaders: distortions, contortions, misinformation and disinformation — all of it hammered over and over from ahigh. And yet the membership youth of this corps is utterly unaware of the mendacity involved, for they know nothing of politics or the truth of current affairs. The quoted Trump official said more than he realized: "It’s not like, 'Hey, we’re talking about immigration policy.... It’s just, here’s some fucking hilarious skit." 

Although the primal Hitler Youth were fed nothing hilarious, the repetitious lies they were taught to embrace as virtuous truths ultimately unfolded as a national nightmare. Doubtless, once entrenched in the White House, the Trump regime will serve up similarly counterfeit virtues to its similarly clueless youth; which is to say, the lessons taught will careen evermore serious — nothing hilarious or mildly amusing, for fascism is a serious business.

Once funny skits morph into the substantive stuff of Trump's quasi-Nuremberg messaging — as must occur; otherwise there's no point to it — will the regime lose the attention of its frivolous young? I don't know, a guess is all I could offer, a useless venture. But at least his Hitler Youth will retain the freedom to wander off, disappointed as they might be in having so much sternness thrown at them. Or, they'll willingly eat it up, believing that they have become serious thinkers.    

America's youthful corps of twisted minds would then authentically become America's Hitler Youth, rebranded. Their future, not nearly as dire as their predecessors, but still devastating — to them more than others, once the Trump regime is also pulverized and liquidated. Its destiny will out, as did its predecessor's.  

I'd use #s 2 & 6

I missed putting this up for Thanksgiving. But family Christmas dinners are nigh, so tuck away Andy's advice and spring it on your MAGA relatives later. 

How to Gaslight Your Trump-Voting Relatives This Thanksgiving

Stuck with MAGA relatives around the table today? Gaslight them by pretending you’re a convert to their movement! Just slip these surefire talking points into the conversation:

1. Matt Gaetz would have been a great Attorney General. No one cares more about America’s children.

2. I can’t wait for Trump’s tariffs. I’m sick of paying so little for everything.

3. American education is a mess, and that’s because we’ve never had someone in charge of it with professional wrestling experience.

4. The fact that a worm ate half of RFK Jr’s brain means he won’t have as many thoughts distracting him from his job.

5. If you ask me, Kristi Noem’s dog was asking for it.

6. Thank God Trump is kicking out all those undocumented workers! If I want fruit and vegetables I’ll just pick them myself.

Who's afraid of the New York Times?

Had Thomas Jefferson been edited by The NY Times, his first draft of the nation's founding document would have read, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, it appears that all men are created equal." (This assumes the Grey Lady's editors stopped short of a second alteration: "We seem to hold these truths to be self-evident.")

I'm unclear on precisely when the Times developed a fear of straightforward declarative sentences, but that it plays to Donald Trump's advantage, I'm quite certain. For this fear — or whatever the cause of its reportorial indirectness might be — produces an irresponsible softening of the scofflaw's untoward realities.

The failing may be limited to Trump. I've not gone back to look, but I doubt the Times ever reported, for instance, that convicted felon Bernie Madoff's business activities don't appear to have been legal. And yet the paper of record reports that in this week's transition proceedings, Trump's ethics plan "does not appear" to "address his own conflicts of interest."        

There's a more informative way of reporting the story, which even the cowardly Washington Post managed to pull off: "[His plan] does not include an ethics pledge for the president-elect." The Times could not have been unaware of this unequivocal fact; after all, the plan is online. Moreover, the Times linked to it.

Why, then, would the paper report that said plan does not appear to include the president-elect? There's more. In the same story, the paper writes that "the plan may run afoul of the Presidential Transition Act, which mandates that such plans detail how a president-elect himself will address his own conflicts of interest."

If the Transition Act mandates this detailing, which it does, then Trump's averting the detail runs afoul of the act, full stop. So again we must ask, why would the Times report that his omission may run afoul of the act?   

Of these two journalistic transgressions, the second is more severe. Though running afoul of an unenforceable statute is a relatively insignificant malfeasance, in Trump's case it is characteristic of his chronic wrongdoing and thus the first of his own declarations of independence from statutes on the books. And they too will become more severe once he's in office.      

As Trump proceeds to commit one incontrovertibly criminal or unconstitutional act, it appears The NY Times will be there, reporting that each blatancy may have run afoul of the law. In answer to my own questions of why, I must confess, I'm at a loss.

As for the question I posed in the post's title, I do have answer. It sure as hell isn't Donald Trump. 

I'm thankful for Nikolay Patrushev, aide to V. Putin

Yes, I am. I'm thankful for Putin presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev for telling America the truth about our president-elect. 

"The election campaign is over," said Patrushev to the Russian news agency Tass on 11 November. "To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them."

And no doubt he will. 

The moment the Trump campaign knew it would win

At great and imminent risk to himself, an anonymous source has provided this writer several seconds of film footage shot at a secret focus-group session conducted 28 October, a mere eight days from the presidential election.

The group in attendance was invited surreptitiously by the Trump campaign, which, just prior to completing the filmed session, had been in something of a panic. Pollsters in its employ were picking up — or so they believed — some rumblings of voter discontent with the Republican nominee's proposed economic plan, specifically his intention to slap higher tariffs on friend and foe alike.

Was electoral unhappiness with Trump's economic idiocy a real thing? Was it, in fact, emerging throughout the electorate, especially among the much-prized 18-25 bloc? Was the discontent factor sizable enough to threaten The Second Coming of America's most blockheaded presidency? Fast intel was in need.

And Team Trump knew just what to do. Stage a focus-group session. Once convened, its leader-organizer would review with those in attendance at least some historical background on the known domestic effects of hefty tariffs imposed by the profoundly unknowing. For what the Trump campaign deeply desired to learn were the answers to two questions:

Was the focus-group leader needlessly, almost insultingly reminding these voters of what is, after all, really basic American history; that time roughly a century ago when some other blockheads raised import duties by an average now proposed by Trump? More important, had these voters connected in their minds the fallout from that buffoonish tariff hike to what would come under a second Trump administration?

Just lay it on 'em, these voters; that's what the campaign wanted done.

And that's what the focus-group leader did — or, rather, began doing, until he realized the pollster's suspicion of emerging electoral unhappiness with Trump's economic idiocy was altogether a phantom; that American voters of '24 could no more connect these two phenomena than they could pass a U.S. citizenship test. And he had the film footage to prove it.

Remember when "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" tried to teach us about tariffs and no one was paying attention pic.twitter.com/Yhxh3ky7on

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) November 26, 2024

"Well, it looks like we're going to win, boys," said campaign senior adviser Susan Wiles after 20 seconds of watching the focus-group film.

If this is the Electoral College's best defense ...

Somewhere this morning I ran across a piece referencing a 12-minute video of a college professor's justifications for the Electoral College system. That, I had to see. After watching his apologia for the wholly unjustified I read up on the college at which he teaches, which explained the position that he, Kevin Portteus, takes in the following.

Before getting to the professor's "educational institution," a few notes on his brief lecture.

Most notable right off is that he omits even a mention of the Electoral College's racist origin; how the slaveholding Southern states gained an electoral advantage because of it. I found that ... peculiar. A professor of politics should make note of such historical things.

He also explains what the founders — principally, Hamilton and Madison — had in mind when they devised the EC: that presidential electors not be bound by the will of voters, since that can materialize as little more than the voice of the mob. The founders trusted independently minded electors to choose presidents of "ability and virtue," wrote Hamilton. Soon, however, states began binding their electors to the popular vote. So much for ability and virtue.

Portteus then presents five justifications for the modern EC system. 1. He reverts to the founders and their distrust of majority rule, which arose, he says, from the British parliamentary system (the party with the most seats reigns) and its abusive conduct toward the American colonies. That's far too simplistic. The founders were well-read in history, which provided a much wider and more informed basis for their misgivings about majorities and their rule.

2. He makes the absurd claim that the EC "forces" presidential candidates to campaign nationwide (i.e., smaller states included). As virtually everyone knows, the opposite is true. Every four years the nominees routinely concentrate on only a handful of battleground states. 3. Tragically, no longer would presidential candidates visit "diners." I kid you not. He says this. They'd kick around instead only in heavily populated areas. Like, where most voters are? 

His fourth point is essentially a repetition of the third; he argues that presidential candidates would neglect rural areas. Some might, although the smarter ones would not. About 20% of the population is rural, and its vote translates into 14% of the electorate. Only a fool would neglect such a potentially decisive bloc. Finally, 5. Presidential elections by popular vote, says Portteus, would put "election integrity" at risk. He cites, for instance, the danger of "ballot harvesting." And that should clue you in as to where he's coming from.

You got it — the right. One hopes this presidential election, with Trump eeking out a popular-vote advantage as well as winning the EC, was the authentic black swan we thought his first election was. I suspect the right suspects this will not hold; that from 2028 on, they'll again rely on the EC, as they did in 2000 and 2016. Hence Prof. Portteus' 12-minute propaganda spiel.

Which he delivers at greater length each year to his students at Hillsdale College in Michigan. If one is initially inclined to give the good professor the benefit of doubt, to accept that he preaches the righteous merits of the EC purely out of intellectual objectivity, then learning of the "educational institution" at which he teaches should smother one's continuing inclination.             

Hillsdale is a private, Christian, "conservative" liberal arts college, or so it says — quotation marks applied given the right's deep incongruity with conservatism. As confirmation, it joined the advisory board of the decidedly anti-conservative Project 2025.

Having lost federal funds because of its refusal to abide by Title IX, the college depends on endowments and the private sector. From the latter, one of the college's financial contributors is the right-winging billionaire Timothy Mellon, grandson of banker-industrialist Andrew Mellon and inheritor of vast wealth. (The family is worth about $14 billion, says Forbes.) I mention Timothy because a few years back he pledged a contribution to Hillsdale upon each downloading occasion of his ebook autobiography.    

Let the humor begin. One site wrote this of his self-reflective effort: "Tim's story explores the many ways he has been able to turn theoretical opportunity into productive reality." I looked him up on Wikipedia. And there I found that billionaire Timmy had indeed accomplished the almost theoretically impossible.

For example a small airline he owned was forced out of operation when the U.S. Department of Transportation revoked his carrier certificate "on the basis of lack of financial fitness, poor management oversight, failure to follow federal laws and regulations, and filing false financial data." And there was this: In 1999 he bought a Connecticut airport for $2.33 million; in 2020, he sold it for $891,000.

But back to Hillsdale College. It isn't all bad, in that it requires students to take courses on the Great Books — the literary foundations of Western civilization which have been sidelined and retired at too many non-ideological colleges and universities. Even dead white guys had something to say, though little heard from are they today. 

As for the professor's defense of that other college, the Electoral, I expected more — certainly more than bugaboo warnings about the evils of ballot harvesting and the unbearable loss of presidential candidates dropping by diners. The professor may not know it, but rather than a vindication of America's asinine system of electing a U.S. president, he made the alternative popular-vote system seem all that much more logical.  

It's back in working order, the comment section. 

A never-discussed Theory of TrumpThink

Trump, Trumpism and Trumpomoronics couldn't wait until 20 January. Yesterday they leapt from the mental wasteland of Truth Social, getting an early start on inflicting worldwide chaos and generating domestic trepidation.

"Global stocks are falling, and the dollar is climbing," reported DealBook this morning — all because of Trump's two entries on his social media site, Monday at 5:35 p.m. EST. 

Truth Social Entry 1: "As one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders. This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!"

Truth Social Entry 2: "I have had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular Fentanyl, being sent into the United States – But to no avail.... Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America."

These may merely be threats. He pulled similar stunts in his first term and never carried out their intent. We mustn't expect and rely on a repeat of ineptitude interrupted, however; he seems determined to unleash Crazy in all its Trumpian variations this time around. Given Trump's Biden-disqualifying age in the White House, he knows this is his last shot at doing as much damage globally as he's done domestically all his life.

Before proceeding to a discussion of such rack and ruin, there's a consistent feature of his threats and executed actions I wish to point out — an element of Trumpian thinking which, though titanic and thus unignorable (or so it seems to me), I've not seen noted elsewhere. And it is this:

Trump never thinks more than one move ahead. Others' higher-level, more active frontal lobe activity anticipates an opponent's countermove, which influences and often alters the initiating move. Options are conceived, and generally not just one countermove but a series of countermoves in reaction to each further, contemplated move is taken into account. This intellectual process continues until the initiator foresees a winning outcome based on the alternatives ideated. Think chess.  

Like clockwork, however, Trump sees his first, unexamined move as so powerfully devastating to his opponent, no countering is possible, only capitulation. And so he blunders ahead (much to the dunderheaded delight of his hardcore supporters in the gallery). Yet without exception, his opponents are too clever to simply give up the game. They instead respond to his Move #1 with an even more devastating countermove that some analysts of the game are wont to label an "unintended consequence" of the first move.

At least in the objective press, no such labeling is destined to make it to print about the immensely damaging blowback of Trump's tariff threats, as issued yesterday. Analysts in assorted fields — economics, politics, history, international relations — instantly recognized and have written about the wreckage to come from his threats if executed. One assessment made a year from now about the overall global fallout from spiked tariffs has, indisputably, been rendered inadmissible: "We didn't know."

The Wall Street Journal reports that “Mexico, China and Canada are the nation’s top three suppliers of imported goods, accounting for about 42% of imports to the U.S. this year.” That translates into almost $1.5 trillion in annual imports — everything from "high-value goods like cars and electrical equipment to commodities like oil to innumerable grocery items and household goods." The NY Times observes that "adding 25 percent to the price of imported products could make many too costly, potentially crippling trade around the continent."

But there's a twist to Trump's latest Move #1 attack. If ever there were a chance of its success — which there isn't, but work with me here — he botched even that by tying future tariff relief not only to ending  the "Illegal Aliens Invasion of our Country," but to Canada, Mexico and China's success in reducing? eliminating? "the massive amounts of drugs, in particular Fentanyl, being sent into the United States." 

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a Brooking Institution senior fellow who studies global drug policy, told the Times that "an imposition of tariffs is not going to do anything regarding the flow of fentanyl. In fact, it might undermine the counternarcotics cooperation that the U.S. and China have been doing in 2024 and that came after no cooperation for over two years." U.S. officials have said that this recent cooperation has "decreased substantially" the drug's flow into America. 

Trump would blow it all up. Not only would fentanyl flow into the U.S. at previous levels, American consumers would be stung by draconian price increases on thousands of products sold domestically. Two-point-six is current, yet buyers would soon look back with nostalgia at the 9.1% rate of inflation in 2022, the good old days. 

About fentanyl — put aside Canada and Mexico. China is the key nation involved. Falbab-Brown was being cautious: Trump's tariff's might undermine U.S.-China cooperation in decreasing the drug's flow. I and many others would make book on will undermine, for a quite simple reason. And this is where my above observation — Trump never thinks more than one move ahead — comes into play.

"China is the main source of chemicals used to make fentanyl." That's from the Times, and that is one hell of an inconvenient fact. The fentanyl produced there makes its way especially to drug cartels in Mexico and Central America, but they're middle men. Without the Chinese source, their fentanyl business would be critically hurt. The DEA notes that "India is emerging as a source for finished fentanyl powder and fentanyl precursor chemicals." But "emerging" isn't "dominating," which is China. 

Now let's think as President Xi would think. Trump's hits China's economy with new, higher, multileveled tariff rates — this being the U.S. president's powerfully devastating, unchallengeable Move #1 aimed at ceasing that nation's shipments of fentanyl to America. What — and the answer to this is pretty much unquestionable — what would Xi do in response? What countermove would he make?

There'd be several, but his first would be to remove the chemical compounds used in manufacturing fentanyl from China's list of controlled substances — the imposition of controls being the one move that so recently played the essential part is "decreasing substantially" the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.    

I doubt that Trump is even aware of official actions taken by China to reduce our incoming. If he is unaware, there's certainly no one around him now to educate him. Like all budding and sitting dictators, he has surrounded himself by obsequious toads who know only the words, "You're damn right, Sir."

Most Republicans on the Hill are being mute about Trump's tariff posts, reports Politico. Even they understand how idiotic they are. But Trump is sure to hear from the little critters on lily pads, croaking on Twitter as newly elected Sen. Bernie Moreno did: "We finally have a president who will fight back & let the CCP know that until they stop flooding our country with fentanyl, there will be consequences!" Well, he got the last part right. 

Imagine (or not) four years of Trumpian "ideas" — countless moves #1 — being tossed from behind the Oval Office's Resolute desk or from the swelling swamp of Mar-a-Lago: thoughts and potential actions such as deploying the U.S. military to Mexico or shooting protestors in the leg. They sprang from his underdeveloped frontal lobe in his first term, but folks were around him then to either let these misty imbecilities evaporate in his brain's wide airy spaces or gently inform him of, let's say, the difficulties involved. Those folks are gone — and barred from his presence.

Endless authoritarian shallowness mired in his absence of impulse control, all of it unmet by logic, experience and even the most rudimentary cyclings of intelligence — every act, each move #1 piled atop mounds of executed decisions lying in national and global ruins. Could at some point Trump be detonated out of office? He could, if his congressional allies ever failed to undergo the paroxysms of fear generated by primary challenges. But that's out, for Trump's hardcore base — primary voters — will forever salute and cheer every cretinous decision and their catastrophic results.

For the time being, we the vast majority are captives of a small electoral bloc of the unapproachably witless — those who also think in terms of only one move: support him at all costs. Such is our circumstance, one to be acknowledged but never accepted. Our turn will come.

***     

Subtext to the drug issue above; some eyeopening background and a personal recommendation. 

Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and, because it's far cheaper to produce, twenty times more profitable to drug dealers than cocaine and other illegal substances. These statistics I read only this morning and they left this impression: No wonder. I read them in the Council on Foreign Relations piece I linked to above, which for your non-searching convenience I'll link to again. 

Its theme struck me as this: Give up. No country will ever succeed in combating the plague of illegal drugs. But there's an alternative to just giving up, which I note at the end of this section.

The background: Chinese criminals — need I add, persons untroubled by laws and the regulation of controlled substances — continue producing fentanyl or its compounds which are then shipped to Mexico and Central America. That won't stop. Another complication in restricting fentanyl's manufacture is that the drug is made synthetically, meaning creative chemists have produced variants of China's controlled substances. Zongyuan Zoe Liu, senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes that "because synthetic drugs such as fentanyl are made entirely from artificial substances, the potential manufacturing methods are limitless."

In short, illicit motivations to turn a huge profit with little effort will always circumvent governments' latest controls. So round and round the "war on drugs" goes, destined to be lost in battle after battle. Officials should, but they won't, learn the lesson as spoken artificially in the film Wargames: "The only way to win is not to play."

Or in this case, "fight." Instead, legalize, tax and medically supervise the use of these drugs — all of them, from coke to fentanyl — which would eliminate the criminal element. Then the government turns a profit and those inclined to ingest once-illegal drugs can do so more safely. This is, by the way, an insignificant percentage of the population: Remember, before the 1920s all such drugs were legal, and Americans at large weren't stumbling around stoned out of their minds. The same would be true again.

I'm confident that someday the legalization of all drugs will come. But it won't come before we've squandered tens of billions of dollars more on controlling what cannot ever be entirely controlled: human beings.   

The year's most brazen appeal

My least ability is self-promotion, and closely related is the raising of funds for my own work. This is understatedly ironic, given my long-ago past of raising — in all immodesty — vast sums in the fields of politics and public broadcasting. Indeed my promotional-financing skills, when devoted to others, were in demand.

But when turned inward, that talent has always failed me. At self-promotion/personal fundraising, I stink. There's no more accurate way to put it.

So I'm going to do something I have never before done — steal, plagiarize, outright rip off some words from another site's evidently successful plea for paywalled subscriptions. The latter don't apply to this site, hence while stealing I also altered several original passages and assorted wordings peculiar to that site only. (As would any thief, I've asked not for permission to steal; I'll trust the victimized party to understand.)

What follows is the result — my last fundraising plea of 2024 — which, notwithstanding my alterations, I've put in quotation marks:

"Before I move on to the next post and we all move on to the next year, I want to offer a big and obsequious thank you to the readers of this site, and an even bigger, even more obsequious THANK YOU to its paying contributing readers. This commentary page has turned out to be not just my most consistent but also my most (emotionally) rewarding and ..."

There, right off, my word-theft had to pause. For the supplicant went on to say that his site has also turned out to be his most "(financially) remunerative source of income." I don't see this site's financing as "income"; rather, the funds raised are support for the work produced. Nor has the funding been what one might call "financially remunerative." I absolutely adore every contributing reader and deeply appreciate every dollar — individual amounts having ranged from 10 to hundreds. Still, this site's largest subsidy comes from its composer, thus its finances are more draining than remunerative. Back to thievery:

"But that income only exists because you guys have reached into your wallets and pulled out your credit cards to affirm that good (or, at least, sometimes good), human writing is worth paying for directly. As I say every time, I find this quite moving and kind of extraordinary--to get direct, unquestionable affirmation and support for what I do, from an audience that genuinely appreciates it (that literally values it!).

"So, you know, thank you for paying contributing. And if you don’t pay contribute, well, as I often say, if you get about one beer’s worth of enjoyment from my site every month, or ten beers’ worth every year, consider paying donating about that price to ensure the lights remain on and the site keeps coming."

***

One other feature of my, let's say, borrowed appeal was testimonials. This is something I have rarely done. Why? I've explained that. I stink at self-promotion. Reproducing testimonials is, in my view, pure, bodacious bragging (God knows we've had enough of that over the last nine years). And that makes me inexpressibly uncomfortable. But hey, the site I'm "borrowing" from has had success with it, so I won't allow my extreme discomfort to interfere with what seems to have worked for others. So here are merely a few kind notes from readers:  

It makes no sense that you have no more support than you do — perhaps this is another indication of the anti-intellectual zeitgeist that has seized the country and even the world?

Your posts should be mandatory reading for all.

The amount I contribute does not come close to matching how much I value your commentaries and unique perspectives.

I love your column. I read it daily. I need to talk politics with someone sane. I've tried talking with my cat, but she's not much help.

I am a recent convert to your blog. Yours is a fantastic, in my view, combination of wit, irreverence, and sound political commentary with a much-appreciated added element of getting into history; something that I feel like most of the best blogs out there today sadly lack. Please keep it up, Sir.

I shall, with your help. The year is coming to a close, and this commentary would very much like to leave it — very much needs to leave it — with a bang. The Make a Donation button is on the left. To all of you clicking it, you have my sincerest thank you in advance, which I always follow with a personal thank you. —PM

One hour can seem like "This Week"

In my Sunday morning haste to land on a credible news network, only by accidental surfing did I see Josh Hawley splattered on the TV screen. His was a brief appearance on ABC's "This Week," a top-of-the-hour teaser to open the show: The president-elect deserves the cabinet members he wants, said the senator.

Instant was the stench of cynical pretense, in that Hawley did more than just utter the words. He cast them in the form of a noble, universal principle, i.e., every president deserves the cabinet members he wants — not just Donald Trump. The ultrapartisan's feigned nobility and con artistry of fair play stank up the room.

Before posting I re-checked history to make doubly sure I wasn't slandering Jackrabbit Josh, the fist-pumping senator from Trumpy Missouri, my birth state of Trumanesque integrity and now a Mississippi doppelgänger moved north. Was he as noble and principled in 2021? Did he believe that that year's president deserved the cabinet members he wanted?

Not quite. Hawley voted Nay on 19 of Joe Biden's 21 cabinet and cabinet-level nominations — against a Democrat, a 90% kill rate. But let's cut him some slack. An Evangelical Presbyterian U.S. senator of God-blessed-neofascistic Republicanism couldn't possibly vote Yea on every nominee proposed by a radical-leftist-Marxist president in servile bondage to Roman popery.

They're rather remarkable, these Sunday shows, what with their usual suspects and standard humbuggery. I began this post by noting that my returning (and one-off) Sunday adventure was inadvertent; I sort of splashed into it while surfing my way to the BBC. Yet once at ABC, I decided to dive in for the hour.

Hawley had hooked me. His preposterous comment on the evenhanded treatment of presidential nominations was merely the opening teaser. And yet, with only these few seconds of airtime in mind, on the record and as a Sunday morning template, one could write a fair-sized book on the unchallenged absurdities of these shows and the pols who appear on them.

I don't single out the Missourian. The show's special guest was another Republican b.s.-peddler and senatorial colleague of Hawley's, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee. Several times he said Trump had scored a huge and magnificent mandate from the American people — I'm paraphrasing — so now they want him to move expeditiously on all fronts, and to give no quarter.

And his rhetorical hustling was sheer nonsense. Trump's 1.6% advantage in the popular vote was a squeak, not a roar; a slim victory, not a sweeping decree of carte blanche. I should probably mention about now that "This Week" did have a host, a person sufficiently informed, one assumes, to guide the discussion back from any errant journeys into propagandistic falderal, such as Hagerty's. But host Jonathan Karl just sat there as the Tennessean yakked on about the nonexistent mandate.  

At times Karl did add some peculiarities of his own, the most conspicuous of which was his statement that Pam Bondi is "obviously qualified" to be attorney general of the United States. With that, the host dismissed her Trumpian agreement on the "stolen" 2020 election as dispositive evidence of either stupidity or skulduggery. Both should disqualify her as head of the DOJ or any high-ranking job, for that matter, other than RNC chairwomen.  

Finally, not one remark of originality or daring unconventionality was articulated throughout the hour. That I suppose is a feature inherent to such programming — especially anything audacious. In mediocrity there is safety. And originality? Even assuming its potential, it would only get in the way of one's talking points.

After sitting through every one of this Sunday show's 60 minutes, it turned out that Josh Hawley's absent B-roll appearance and triple-A insincerity, delivered in a flash, were the most interesting of them all.

I'll say this much for the other senator, the host and the panel's usual suspects and standard humbuggery. Rather than giving us another stint at American politics' cornucopia of crazy, they were refreshingly monotonous in that old-school tradition of Sunday public affairs programming. (Do people really watch this stuff every week?) 

"Every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence"

Gaetz's Job Application Rejected by Hooters

POMPANO BEACH (The Borowitz Report)—In the latest setback for the former lawmaker, on Friday Matt Gaetz’s application to be an assistant manager at a south Florida Hooters was flatly rejected.

“As the flagship Hooters of Pompano Beach, we take the responsibility of vetting applicants very seriously,” manager Harland Dorrinson said. “We strongly felt that Matt Gaetz would do irreparable harm to the Hooters brand.”

“To be clear, we are not singling out Matt,” the Hooters manager added. “We would have had the same reaction to Pete Hegseth.”

***

Gaetz also dreamed too big. A server, maybe, but assistant manager would have started him at a level that satisfied the Peter Principle.

He can still be an insufferable drag on society, however, as Florida's governor. For that position, incompetence is required; ethical bankruptcy, desirable. *See Lara Trump for job application.  

Theodore Roosevelt's almost eerie visions of today

"I'll be back in a bit but first wanted to share this thought from Theodore Roosevelt." That's how I began this post, thinking it'd be a short one. But, Q.E.D., it kept growing on me. Anyway, this was TR's thought to be shared, one I ran across this morning in Sykes' column.

To judge a man merely by success is an abhorrent wrong; and if the people at large habitually so judge men, if they grow to condone wickedness because the wicked man triumphs, they show their inability to understand that in the last analysis free institutions rest upon the character of citizenship, and that by such admiration of evil they prove themselves unfit for liberty.

Knowing the history of TR's words is critical to a fuller understanding of the words' modern relevance. That history, I shall make brief and painless. 

He delivered his thoughts on "Citizenship in a Republic" at the Sorbonne, 23 April 1910. His address has since become known as "The Man in the Arena" speech. It's the year that is critical. The 1910 man of triumphant "success" tainted by "wickedness" was a robber baron of the Progressive Era — that turn-of-the-century time of vast reforms, political and social; effectively a time in which the emerging middle class rose against its (potentially) displacing oppressors: unfeeling, uncaring men of wealth and power, captains of industry who accumulated riches through the exploitation of labor, captains of finance who exploited the nation at large. The citizens of 1910 knew instantly those whom TR identified in his Sorbonne speech.

Always the politician, he was rather late to the Progressive cause but never the fool. He hopped on its popularity and essentially became its voice. Hence the former two-term president delivered another major address four months after Paris, this one in somewhat less regal surroundings: Osawatomie, Kansas. There he proposed a "New Nationalism," or "Square Deal," the Progressive platform of his 1912 quest to recapture the presidency.

Today's wicked men of triumphant success would label TR's "square deal" as — let me see if I can recall all the pejoratives — a radical leftist socialist Marxist communist fascist proposal so typical of Democrats. There were strains of leftism in his speech, though nothing radical. There was wisdom: "The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows.... That is what we strive for."

And that is what enraged certain "men of success" in his day. What they labeled radical leftism (etc.) in 1910 is now common sociopolitical and fiscal policy. Exhibit A: When TR spoke of taking "from some one man or class of men" he was speaking of a graduated income tax, which came three years later under President Wilson.

What else enraged Wicked Success? Precisely a few other items that Roosevelt spoke of in his "Osawatomie Speech": ending corporate political power; regulating all interstate business; looking after the "terms and conditions of labor"; and protecting our natural resources through foresightful conservationism. 

Knowing this historical background of Roosevelt's 1910 speeches heightens our appreciation of his profound shift in emphasis at times — a transition in contrast indeed, and yet a reflection of his acute disquiet; his speech and focus now centering on a chronic and ageless phenomenon more perilous than the gilding of his era. It's as though he was speaking of 2024.

Having aimed his sharpest rhetoric at the robber barons of wealth and power — these attacks, socioeconomic — he would keenly careen to the political and a lurking evil wholly consistent with wanton acquisitiveness and Veblen's "conspicuous consumption." At the Sorbonne: The man who, if born to wealth and power, exploits and ruins his less fortunate brethren, [he] is at heart the same as the greedy and violent demagogue.              

The demagogic breed TR had in mind differed from today's only in its principal target: pols who "excite[d] those who have not property to plunder those who have." This was a call for restrained activism, a warning of overreaction; he desired no forthcoming Bolshevik Revolution. Yet outside of that narrow focus, Roosevelt described the America into which we have now plunged ourselves like lemmings, led by the indispensable rabble-rouser. Again, at the Sorbonne: 

"Indeed, it is a sign of marked political weakness in any commonwealth if the people tend to be carried away by mere oratory ... as divorced from the deeds for which they are supposed to stand. The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger, the ready talker, however great his power, whose speech does not make for courage, sobriety and right understanding, is simply a noxious element in the body politic, and it speaks ill for the public if he has influence over them."

TR went further in his forewarning. Every demagogue is bereft of sobriety and right understanding, but there's a subspecies of his noxious presence that the ex-president singled out for even harsher condemnation. "Of one man in especial, beyond any one else, the citizens of a republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic.... The man who makes such an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake of furthering his own interest." 

Going further still, Roosevelt spoke of "the chief factor in the downfall of so many, many nations." Here we come to his preaching a kind of political eschatology. Our downfall, he said, could arrive given a demagogue's particularly ruinous, one-word element. "Wide differences of opinion ... must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted." But the whipping up of "hatreds, based on such differences, are signs not of earnestness of belief but of fanaticism." (All italics mine.) 

The ready talker, the phrase-monger, the absence of sober understanding, the hostility toward other citizens, the self-interest — all of them tangled up with and unextractable from the killer apotheosis of today's fanaticism, that which reigns above all, whether in what's laughably called "policies" to come or retributions assured.

Theodore Roosevelt wasn't the only man of history to warn of this nation's downfall; he just did so with remarkable clarity. So what's next? Does the story end here? I take this from TR: Having ignored his layered warnings, we can no longer evade an extraordinary amount of ruin. But we can still reject the foundations of that ruin, especially the fanaticism which otherwise would lastingly undergird, support, and entrench it.

We've entered the fiercest of long games since the Civil War — itself ignited by the demagogic fanaticism that Roosevelt warned of. Many among his preceding generation believed that was the end of this nation. As the war turned out, it was but our second beginning, and one better than the first. Now we find ourselves working toward a third beginning (I hope) — and one better yet.

A House Democrat spotlights his party's worst instinct

My absence today is unattributable to Pre-Traumatic Trump Syndrome, even though I and 75 million of my fellow real Americans — we should reclaim that status — are suffering from it. Instead, a morning appointment will take the day.

Before leaving I do want to note a seemingly insignificant occurrence that in reality said a lot about why Democrats lose.

Last night the BBC interviewed a Democratic member of the House Ethics Committee. The anchor asked if the committee's vote on releasing the Gaetz material failed along partisan lines. The congressman demurred, saying he'd leave comment on that to a House colleague.

If the situation had been reversed, a House Republican would have ripped into his Democratic counterparts for concealing information vitally important to the public on a president-elect's attorney general nomination.

Even the increasingly timid NY Times opened its report on the vote in straightforward partisan terms: "Republicans on the House Ethics Committee blocked the release of a report into sexual misconduct allegations against former Representative Matt Gaetz." (Italics mine.)

So the press reports a damaging partisan fact, but a partisan who stands to gain from it does not — yet another instance of a Democrat surrendering before the first shot is fired.

Wars tend to be lost that way. 

Have a minute? (You'll be glad you did.)

Actually, four. And only a few seconds.

We thought we knew Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" pretty well, having listened to it countless times. But we'd not yet heard Jon Batiste lend it some Blues, as he does in his new album, Beethoven Blues. Prepare for creative genius.

Vould Ludvig vig out? Ich glaube nicht. 

The way Batiste so easily, even casually veers classical Beethoven into bluesy B.B. and jazzy Brubeck is utterly captivating. After I listened to the variation a few times it almost seemed as though the composer had written it this way, with its characteristic flats and, in Batiste's manner, quite subtle syncopation.   

On that last note (terrible pun), and moving to another genre, the note itself is what in my book made Led Zeppelin the greatest of all rock bands. Where Batiste uses syncopation sparingly in the sonata, Zeppelin used it extensively (universally?). Merely two examples, "Kashmir" and "Black Dog."

Give them another listen, only this time while paying special attention to the beats' displacements. Kashmir is positively mind-blowing in 4/4 time (with six beats), riff guitar in 3/4 time, percussion (by the supernal John Bonham) providing syncopation's motherload in 2/4 time with a 9/8 measure thrown in — all of it coming out, somehow, in perfect time. Black Dog: 4/4 time but also 5/4, 2/4, and again with Bonham driving the syncopation.

Enough of that, I've trailed way off track, I'll stop before you begin thinking I know what I'm talking about. Sorry, I'm no music critic. But I know musical genius when I hear it — so what say we hear it one more time, this time Batiste's Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5 Stomp."

(Regular programming may resume tomorrow.)

Joe and Mika divine one way forward — on bended knee

I'll put this in memo form:

Pursuant to my gut-wrenched post of 18/11/2024, The Wall Street Journal reports that "across the media world, journalists and commentators are reflecting on the election results and their place in the national political discourse—who they are reaching, whether their news and opinion content is having an impact, and whether they need to do anything differently." One commentary source in the media world made a quick study of "different" doings: just sell out. This memo is to advise that others will follow, in throngs.

I give credit to Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski for so ruthlessly having bypassed all genuine "reflection" and opting for a wholesale liquidation of conscience. The act lies in conformity with the soulless, global embarrassment of the New America, where shamelessness joins rank opportunism. Both demand ruthlessness. Well done, guys.     

Ms. Brzezinski sees clearly now, what with conscience no longer clouding her thoughts: "For nearly 80 million Americans, election denialism, public trials, January 6th, were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the White House with their vote. Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him."

I read her words several times in the hope my shock and disgust would abate. They did not. For a political commentator with a national audience to dismiss Trump's assorted crimes and unmitigated charlatanism as less "important" than the ignorant indifference to them of "nearly 80 million Americans" was a media low among a dispiriting, suffocating multitude of new lows.

On my second reading I understood Brzezinski's gambit. I was slow on the uptake. She made those millions the fall guys as cover for her and Joe's crime. She may be ruthless, but, curiously, her gambit suggested a guilty conscience, however deep she tried to bury it.

I also found her citation of "nearly 80 million" of interest. Again as cover, the figure is inflated. Counting continues but as of today, Trump has 76.5 million votes. We should recall he had a competitor. And she has racked up 74 million votes.

I'll play Brzezinski's game. "For what could approach nearly 80 million Americans, election denialism, public trials and January 6th positively swamped the issues that Donald Trump habitually lied about and caused them to vomit at even the thought of sending this serial felon with one conviction back to the White House with their vote."

The point being, the election was close to a tie, it was a virtual tie, so what of Kamala Harris' Americans, Mika? Her answer, plainly, is that they too must be dismissed.     

As for her and Joe's "realization" that "it’s time to do something different" — that being "talking with" Trump as though he's worth it — the twosome win the prize for this year's most emetic rationalization. Yes, I still had vomiting on the mind when I wrote that. For never in the days of our lives have our stomachs turned so often.   

Because it's sickening, I wish to wrap this up. Perhaps I'm wrong but I see Joe and Mika as canaries in the collapsed coal mine of media and politics. Their breathless chirping I think signals the outcome of what The WSJ reports about journalists and commentators "reflecting ... whether they need to do anything differently."

Why reflect too arduously? Just jump on the shitwagon, currently steered by Joe and Mika.