Neo-Facism – The Wrongologist

GOP Very Concerned About Florida Special Election

The Daily Escape:

While Mike Waltz bumbles about in Washington, the special election for his old Congressional seat is drawing near: Floridians will go to the polls on April 1. That race was supposed to be a layup for Republicans, but some of them are starting to get pretty stressed about it.

In November, Waltz won his district by 33 points. But a new poll from St. Pete’s Polls in Florida has the race between Republican Randy Fine and Democrat Josh Weil within the margin of error. From Axios:

“Private GOP polling is even scarier for Republicans: A recent survey by Tony Fabrizio, who was a chief strategist for Trump in 2024, has Fine with just a three percentage point lead, according to a person familiar with the data.”

Per Florida Politics: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The results [in the St. Pete’s Polls] show Fine winning just over 48% of the vote, while Weil received just over 44%. The poll of 403 likely voters in CD 6 was conducted on March 22. Pollsters report a 4.9% margin of error, greater than Fine’s lead.”

It’s a tiny poll, meaning the results could go either way.

Axios also reported that among those polled who said they already voted, more than half supported the Democrat. Weil leads 51% to 43% among those whose decision has already been made via a mail-in ballot or in-person early voting. According to the survey, about 38% of likely voters have already cast their ballots in the race.

That means Fine will have to make up the difference with those who vote between now and the close of polls on Tuesday, if he intends to move into Congress. He has already submitted an irrevocable resignation letter from the Florida Senate to run.

Weil has also outraised Fine by a lot, hauling in almost $10 million—a large sum for such a small race.

Link that news up with Trump pulling Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) nomination as UN Ambassador after last-minute panic about Fine’s electoral chances. More from Axios:

“Stefanik has waited for months on her nomination due to the House GOP’s tiny margin. The Florida special elections are Tuesday, but the administration has gotten cold feet about its margin ahead of crucial votes.”

Stefanik’s nomination as UN Ambassador was expected to move forward on Wednesday, April 2 — the day after the Florida specials, when the GOP would have added one seat to its slim majority. Stefanik had at least some bipartisan support in the Senate before the administration’s moves to completely dismantle the US Agency for International Development without any Congressional input or authorization. In response, some Democrats have subsequently vowed to block all Trump nominees for key foreign policy posts. This could gum up the works for a Senate confirmation for Trump’s next UN pick even if it turns out to be Stefanik.

Politico reports that for the past several months:

“Stefanik had held briefing sessions to dive deep on pressing international policy issues from China to the war in Sudan, according to three people familiar with the conversations. She also dispatched some of her closest aides in her congressional office to jobs at the State Department, including her deputy chief of staff…in preparation for her being confirmed as Trump’s UN envoy.”

Eventually Stefanik will leave the House, but It’s unclear if the Florida race is a harbinger for a tough midterm election cycle for Republicans, or just another case of a bad candidate screwing up a winnable situation.

First They Came For The Communists

The Daily Escape:

Provincetown, MA, March 2025 photo by Marty Cowden

Wrongo hasn’t written since January, and there are two primary reasons. First, his overwhelming feeling of helplessness when the Democrats lost both Houses of Congress along with returning Trump to the White House. Truly, the Dems can’t be forgiven for their meek performance since November.

Second, chemotherapy and radiation can ruin your attention span: It is difficult to read anything long-form, much less write connected sentences. On the other hand, I’m having more good days than bad right now.

But today let’s gear up to talk about the arrest by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security of Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and green card holder, over his participation in protests at Columbia against Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

On Saturday Khalil was arrested by ICE agents in New York City and swiftly moved to a detention facility in Louisiana while the government attempts to deport him.

The NYT reported: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security…said in a statement on Sunday night that Mr. Khalil had been arrested “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism.”

‘Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization…’

Aligned”? So, Khalil was arrested for wrong-think. Charlie Pierce asks in Esquire:

“So we’re disappearing people now? Nice to know…Are we now allowing the rendition of legal residents to black sites in the United States?”

Trump’s Blue State Rallies

The Daily Escape:

We’re now in the homestretch of the presidential campaign, but in an unorthodox move, Trump plans on holding rallies in New York, Illinois, Colorado, and California, all of which are locks to vote for Harris. Biden won those states by an average of 20 points in 2020, with his 13-point Colorado win the closest margin. Colorado is the only one of those states to vote for a Republican nominee for president this millennium, backing George W. Bush in 2004.

Trump will still be spending most of his political advertising funds in the handful of battleground states where the races appear extremely tight, but the expectation is that the media will dutifully cover these rallies, giving him free publicity since it’s unusual to campaign where you don’t expect to win.

In the case of New York, Trump apparently will hold a rally in Madison Square Garden (MSG). The New York Post first reported that the event will take place Oct. 27, a little more than a week before Election Day. Why rallies in Blue states? Trump’s idea is to campaign in places where Democrats have near-complete control of government, and to take the opportunity of free media to highlight their supposed failures. Another consideration is that control of the House could be decided by a few close races in New York and California.

But with the battleground state races seemingly so tight, it seems like a bit of a luxury for Trump to be focused on helping down-ticket candidates. Think about it: None of the states where Trump is holding rallies has a competitive Senate race, although there are a handful of competitive House races in a year where the House will likely be decided by a razor-thin margin. From NBC: (brackets by Wrongo)

“In California, House District 40 is represented by Republican Young Kim, and House District 41 is represented by Republican Ken Calvert, both of whom are in contested races in the Los Angeles media market along with Coachella [CA], where Trump will be holding his rally.

In New York, Rep. Anthony D’Esposito won Nassau County’s 4th district in 2022, but it is a seat that leans Democratic and was won by Joe Biden by 15 points in 2020. Flipping the seat played a big role in helping Republicans take the House majority in 2022.”

Will the rallies be useful? People are already voting, and the primary value of rallies is to energize your base to help get out the vote. The more people they can get to vote early, the easier the Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort on Election Day becomes. So little boosts of enthusiasm and local press coverage can help drive your people to the polls.

Is a rally in Madison Square Garden really a good idea? NBC quotes Republican operative Matthew Bartlett:

“This does not seem like a campaign putting their candidate in critical vote rich or swing vote locations — it seems more like a candidate who wants his campaign to put on rallies for optics and vibes…”

Two of his stops, Coachella, CA and Aurora, CO seem to be simply for optics about immigration and crimes committed by immigrants. Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez, a Democrat, issued a statement blasting Trump:

“Trump’s attacks on immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community and the most vulnerable among us don’t align with the values of our community….He has consistently expressed disdain for the type of diversity that helps define Coachella.”

At Trump’s stop in Aurora earlier this year, he spread debunked rumors about Venezuelan gangs overrunning the city, including taking over an apartment complex. Trump’s claims have been refuted by local police, and the Republican Mayor Mike Coffman, who called them “not accurate.”

The Chicago stop will feature both Trump and his VP candidate JD Vance, at a Bloomberg-hosted event at the Economic Club of Chicago.

But let’s focus on MSG. Holding a rally at MSG has long been on Trump’s wish list. For some Conservatives, it harkens back to when the “America First” rally was conducted at MSG in 1939. On its surface, it was simply a rally held by the German-American Bund at the old Madison Square Garden in Manhattan at a time when pro-Nazi feeling was high in the US.

The Bund (bund is German for “organization”), was founded by German immigrant Fritz Kuhn in Buffalo in 1936. His vision was to create a pro-Nazi ideology within the US. Kuhn and his people used patriotic images of George Washington and the American flag to attract Americans of German descent as members. But the organization’s goals were wider: To create a “socially just, white gentile-ruled United States” and a “gentile-controlled labor union free from Jewish Moscow-directed domination.”

He sounds nice.

Tom Nichols, a Never Trump conservative who writes for the Atlantic, quotes from a Trump talk in Claremont, NH:

“We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, Marxists, fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country….On Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible…legally or illegally to destroy America and to destroy the American dream.”

The parallelism between a fascist speaking in MSG in 1939 and a would-be fascist speaking there 85 years later shouldn’t be lost on anyone who is sitting up and taking nourishment.

Time to face up to the truth. Trump is a wanna-be fascist, even if he’s too ignorant to label what he is. Others on the extreme Right have noticed and see the potential of using him for fascistic purposes.

Trump’s bringing fascism back to America one rally at a time, whether we call it by its name or not.

Harris’s Chances This Fall

The Daily Escape:

Storm over Mt. Tom, Easthampton MA – July 2024 photo by Stef Michael

It’s sad that Biden is unable to carry the torch, but Wrongo’s never been happier with the Democratic Party. The leadership made an incredibly difficult decision to insist that despite winning the nomination of the Party, Biden shouldn’t accept it. The reality was that neither Biden nor the Party could responsibly argue that Biden would be fit to serve another four and a half years in office. Worse, the American people simply weren’t buying that he could.

So the past 30(ish) days constituted the best example in Wrongo’s lifetime of a political party doing what a political party is supposed to do, which is to put the interests of the Party, and by extension the interests of the country, ahead of the interests of any individual. Even if that person happens to be the president of the US.

This shows the central difference between the Democrats and the cult of personality we formerly called the Republican Party. It’s impossible to imagine the Republicans removing Trump as its presidential candidate.

By contrast, the Democrats gradually came to a collective conclusion after the June 27 debate that circumstances had changed enough to warrant bringing maximum institutional pressure on Biden to withdraw from the race. We will never know how well Biden would have done in the election compared to how Harris will do. The Party decided, and the Party made the right decision — as most critically, did Biden himself.

We’ve all seen the energy, enthusiasm, fresh hope, and tons of money that have poured into the Democrats’ coffers. But how realistic is Harris’s path to the White House?

It’s only day four, and Harris, the (very) likely Democratic presidential nominee, is still getting loads of positive press while Democrats are falling all over themselves to give her money and volunteer to work on the campaign. It may be early but it’s worth looking at Harris’s path to winning 270 Electoral College votes in order to keep the White House out of Trump’s hands.

The Harris campaign told Politico about how they see the Electoral College map:

“The Midwest is not where the opportunity is for her….The opportunity with her… is going to be Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania. And however those four states go, the rest of the country will follow.”

That thinking is based on the EC maps produced by 270towin.com. Here’s their current take:

Now Wrongo doesn’t think that PA and MI are currently toss-ups. He thinks that they lean Democratic, making the spread: Harris 260 vs. Trump at 251, with just 27 toss-up EC votes remaining. Wrongo is uncertain that Harris can win North Carolina, despite having a Democratic governor and both of its GOP senators having won last time by less than 2 percentage points. Mark Robinson, the NC Republican gubernatorial candidate is perhaps the worst in the US. Having said that it was acceptable to kill people on the left, and that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote, he should be a real drag on the Trump vote.

But Harris may be able to take Georgia and Arizona as well as Pennsylvania and Michigan. Here’s that map:

In fact, in this scenario, Harris could lose either Georgia or Arizona, and still get to 270.

If you’re looking for an upside, Harris has more viable paths to 270 electoral votes than Biden did. However, Trump has more places (Virginia and Minnesota) to expand the map than does Harris (North Carolina). So the map STILL favors Trump, since he has more paths to 270.

So we’ve gone from no realistic path to victory to setting the stage for victory. We shouldn’t forget that Trump essentially has a ceiling. Politico has reported a 700% increase in voter registration at Voter.com in the last 48 hours. The higher the turnout, the better for Harris.

When Biden was running, many people said, “It’s hopeless, Trump will win.” And now, they’re feeling energized. OTOH, some are thinking that “Harris is raising so much money, maybe I don’t need to do anything.”

We can’t be lazy or passive, the stakes are too high. There’s an organization, Focus4Democracy, a group of smart people with decades of experience crafting effective campaign messages. They do a zoom every 2 weeks. The next one is Sunday, July 28 @ 8:00 pm EST. You can register at bit.ly/F4D28July . Their Zooms explain how they test and refine messages that generate more Democratic votes, particularly in battleground states. And they track the results. They also need donations.

Speaking of messaging, Harris’s first appearance as the Democratic nominee in Milwaukee was promising. At the strategic level, here’s what she did:

Highlighted her time as a prosecutor and tied that to Trump’s crimes.
Positioned her campaign as focused on middle-class, kitchen-table issues.
Framed the choice as “striding into the future” vs. “being dragged into the past.”

Here’s some things she did not do:

Describe Trump as a threat to democracy.
Reference the historic nature of her campaign as a black woman.
Reach out to the left.

The things she didn’t do were very smart. She didn’t give any policy details. In a 100-day campaign, she needs to be as light on details and as long on ideas as possible. At some point she’ll need to come up with a couple of concrete proposals.

There was no “democracy” talk. While most Democrats view this election in terms of democratic backsliding, polls consistently show that “democracy” isn’t something voters care much about. To the extent Harris gestured toward democracy, it was to frame the choice as:

“Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion, and the rule of law? Or a country of chaos, fear, and hate?”

Branding Trump as “chaos” while framing her agenda as “freedom” seems more effective than talking about “saving democracy,” the way most Dems prefer.

There was no talk of identity politics. Everything about Harris’s nomination is historic. She’s the first Black woman to be nominated for president by a major party. She’s the first Democrat to run against an insurrectionist. The first person to be swapped into a presidential nomination at the final hour. But these firsts are all out there. So unlike Hillary, she doesn’t need to talk about them. And maybe not talking about the historic nature of her candidacy makes it even more powerful in the minds of voters.

Wrongo likes Harris’s energy and focus on the future! In the immortal words of Tom Brady, “Let’s goooo!”

We Can’t Sit Back. We Must Become Activists

The Daily Escape:

Doll House, Bears Ears National Monument, UT – June 2024 photo by Robert Villegas

Over the weekend, Wrongo and Ms. Right along with friends of the blog Gloria R., Pat M. and David P. saw the play “Suffs” on Broadway, NYC.

The plot is that it’s 1913 and the women’s movement is trying to get women the right to vote. They are organized by the suffragists, not suffragettes (they call themselves “Suffs”). “Suffs” traces their heroic and occasionally dangerous campaign from 1913 through ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. There’s a schism in the movement between the conservative old-line establishment Suffs, and a youthful breakaway group who want to emulate a similar movement in England, led in the US by Alice Paul who briefly spent time in the UK.

Paul and her group confront then-president Woodrow Wilson, who, after jailing the Paul group and allowing them to nearly die in a hunger strike, eventually tumbles to supporting the Suffs’ cause.

So much has changed since the passing of the 19th Amendment over a century ago, and yet this musical reminds us that we sometimes need to look back, in order to march into the future.

It was a sold out crowd. The audience was enthusiastic, and predominantly women. “Suffs” is a fantastic show that should be seen by anyone who loves Broadway, loves musicals, and needs a breath of hope in this bleak world. Like “Hamilton“, it invites us to learn something about the history of America. It’s a good show and it’s good for the world. Wrongo was emotional, remembering his time as an activist in the Civil Rights movement.

The show sets the stage early with the song, “Find A Way”:

How will we do it when it’s never been done?
How will we find the way where there isn’t one?

“Suffs” also makes us think about where we are today in America, along with what we can do to make it better. My lunch with the Broadway friends underlined that Democrats think it’s a scary time. Dan Pfeiffer wrote about how “Democrats are in a full-blown freakout over Biden”. Wrongo was the only one at lunch who thought that Biden has an excellent chance of winning in November. To paraphrase a line in the New Yorker by Lore Segal:

“The current situation is like two Democrats who are fighting a duel. On the count of ten, they turn and each shoots themselves in the foot”.

Can You Sell Just Five Percent Of Your Soul To Satan?

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Duck, NC – June 2024 photo by Nate Waddell

This should be a trivial story, except it isn’t. The WaPo reported this week that two former law enforcement officers who defended the US Capitol from rioters on Jan. 6 were jeered on Wednesday by state GOP lawmakers during a visit to the Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives:

“Former US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and former sergeant Aquilino Gonell were introduced on the floor Wednesday as “heroes” by House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D) for having “bravely defended democracy in the United States Capitol against rioters and insurrection on January 6. As the two men — both of whom were injured by rioters on Jan. 6 — were introduced, the House floor descended into chaos. According to Democratic lawmakers, several GOP lawmakers hissed and booed, with a number of Republicans walking out of the chamber in protest.”

In this specific instance of MAGA misbehavior, two things are significant. First, the Pennsylvania House has 203 members split between 102 Democrats and 101 Republicans. This is very similar to the polarizing political split in the US House. Second, MAGAs acting out underscores just how polarizing the Jan. 6 insurrection has become with Republicans.

Once again, we’re seeing that MAGA Republican politicians support very few of the historical guardrails of our politics. Wrongo used to think that most Republicans were sincere in their beliefs in a certain moral standard; in fiscal responsibility, in honoring those who served in the military, and respecting police officers and other authority. But over time, every one of those supposed standards has been trampled, and while Trump has been the single biggest perpetrator, all of today’s the loudmouth grifters on the Right also share in this ignominy. It’s doubtful that any argument they make is in good faith.

The irony is that the MAGA Republicans readily abandoned their long-standing heritage of freedom, of democratic rule, of the fundamentals of law dating from the Magna Carta, and of British common law. They’ve replaced it all with the Ethos of Trump. Their patriotism, like Trump’s business prowess, is a sham. Its disposable if political advantage is on the line. See Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) opinions on Ukraine if you doubt this.

And commitment to the principle of equal justice under law? That has been replaced with the saying: “For my friends, everything, for my enemies, the law.”

It’s nothing short of amazing how otherwise principled Republican politicians have flocked to Trump’s side. Their moves started slowly, but picked up steam during his presidency. Now they’re fully espousing whatever Trump says. And since his conviction in NY for fraud, it seems revenge is what’s driving them. Their willingness to shrug off a jury’s ruling and characterize it as illegitimate isn’t a new demonstration of their disregard for the rule of law. We’ve already seen this disregard in two impeachment trials, and in their disavowing any importance to the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection.

The MAGA movement has become a full-blown fascist enterprise before our eyes. The response we’re seeing to Trump’s conviction is bringing it more out in the open. Despite all of Trump’s bankruptcies, his greatest achievement in bankruptcy is in his completing the moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party. But Republicans still hope to re-elect their convicted leader to the White House. Now a felon, Trump cannot possess a gun, but they want to hand him the US military and nuclear arsenal.

Republicans ought to know that there’s no such thing as selling five percent of your soul to Satan. More likely, the Devil is in a Rent-to-Own relationship with the GOP.

Some decent news for your Saturday. Post the Trump verdict, the NYT resurveyed the participants in its last poll of 2,000 people. They found a perceptible shift toward Biden. It was only a couple of points but what’s meaningful about it is who shifted. Nate Cohn wrote:

“Perhaps not surprisingly, the swings were relatively pronounced among young, nonwhite, less engaged and low-turnout voters. In fact, 20% of Mr. Trump’s previous supporters who are Black now say they back Mr. Biden.”

Overall, Mr. Trump retained 93% of voters who told the NYT that they backed him in a previous survey. But in a close election, losing 7% of your supporters could be decisive. More:

“A potentially crucial sliver of Mr. Trump’s former supporters — 3% — now told us they’ll back Mr. Biden, while another 4% say they’re now undecided.”

Also, Trump only leads Biden by 4 points in Florida in the latest poll of the state by Fox News:

Biden is just outside the margin of error, but both of them have slipped slightly since the 2020 election. It should give some faint hope to Democrats, since Florida also has a November ballot initiative that would restore abortion rights. If the Florida initiative passes, abortion will be legalized up to 24 weeks. If it gets anywhere near the 60% required to become law, Biden has a chance in Florida. Trump doesn’t have a path to 270 electoral votes without Florida!

All we have to do is vote.

As usual, we’re heading into the weekend with mostly bad and a smattering of good news. It’s now time for our Saturday Soother, where we unplug from the social media that’s trying to murder our brains, and instead, spend a few moments of relaxation. Here on the Fields of Wrong, we’re attempting to turn a ½ acre patch of our lawn into a meadow that will attract pollinators. So far, the grass is very tall, and there are occasional flowers in bloom. Wrongo planted a few more this week, disturbing the bluebirds in one of our nest boxes in the process.

It’s going to be sunny and warm in the Northeast, so grab a seat under a tree. Now, watch and listen to the late, great Jeff Beck perform “Nessun Dorma”, on the Fender guitar. It’s the wildly popular aria from Puccini’s opera “Turandot” played here at the Crossroads Blues festival in February 2010. Beck also performed “Nessun Dorma” on many other stages. Beck died in January 2023. At the time, a fellow musician said…”If you haven’t heard this version of Nessun Dorma you need to because it can move you to tears.” Strongly recommended:

Americans Have No Idea How Deep Our Illiberal Roots Are

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Avon Beach, NC – May 2024 photo by Donna Cartwright Hayden

Discussions about “Illiberalism” are suddenly popping up in Wrongo’s daily feeds from many sources. Several are reviews of a book (“Illiberal America”) by Steven Hahn, an NYU professor of history.

Hahn also wrote an article in Saturday’s NYT that condenses the arguments in his book. In his column, “The Deep, Tangled Roots of American Illiberalism”, Hahn argues that American illiberalism is not a mere reaction to a dominant tradition of freedom and individual rights, but a philosophy that has long competed against liberalism for primacy in American politics.

David Leonhardt in a NYT book review of Hahn’s book says:

“This country’s liberal tradition is certainly strong. It explains the democratic radicalism of the American Revolution, the relative openness of the US immigration system in the early 19th century and the inclusiveness of the nation’s public education system in the early 20th century.”

A short version of Hahn’s thesis is that the US has long been deeply reactionary and it’s amazing we’ve gotten as far as we have without a challenge to American democracy prior to Trump. Here’s a excerpt of Hahn’s view of our history:

“Back in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville, in “Democracy in America,” glimpsed the illiberal currents that already entangled the country’s politics. While he marveled at the “equality of conditions,” the fluidity of social life and the strength of republican institutions, he also worried about the “omnipotence of the majority.”

“What I find most repulsive in America is not the extreme freedom reigning there,” Tocqueville wrote, “but the shortage of guarantees against tyranny.” He pointed to communities “taking justice into their own hands,” and warned that “associations of plain citizens can compose very rich, influential, and powerful bodies, in other words, aristocratic bodies.” Lamenting their intellectual conformity, Tocqueville believed that if Americans ever gave up republican government, “they will pass rapidly on to despotism,” restricting “the sphere of political rights, taking some of them away in order to entrust them to a single man.”

The slide toward despotism that Tocqueville feared may be well underway, whatever the election’s outcome. Even if they try to fool themselves into thinking that Mr. Trump won’t follow through, millions of voters seem ready to entrust their rights to “a single man” who has announced his intent to use autocratic powers for retribution, repression, expulsion and misogyny.

Only by recognizing what we’re up against can we mount an effective campaign to protect our democracy, leaning on the important political struggles — abolitionism, antimonopoly, social democracy, human rights, civil rights, feminism — that have challenged illiberalism in the past and offer the vision and political pathways to guide us in the future.

Our biggest mistake would be to believe that we’re watching an exceptional departure in the country’s history. Because from the first, Mr. Trump has tapped into deep and ever-expanding illiberal roots. Illiberalism’s history is America’s history.”

America remains a self-deluded country since many Americans have no idea just how illiberal they are, or how deep those illiberal roots run. Today’s college students are living through the consequences of illiberalism. Educational institutions with DEI programs and cultural studies majors have no qualms about siccing the police on their students.

It’s no surprise that university administrators don’t observe the liberal tolerance they espouse in their curricula. But what’s less clear is American colleges and universities exist as training grounds for lawyers, physicians, future Wall Street geniuses and other legs in the stool of elitism. These students are supposed to be compliant because those professions require it.

Time to wake up America! In a few months we’re holding a presidential election in which an illiberal ethnonationalist will stoke white fear of replacement while his Party exploits anti-antisemitism to chip away at our tenuous liberal coalition. There’s danger, and we have little time left to get it right.

No matter how much violence a Trump loss unleashes it’ll pale in comparison to the violence that will come under a Trump dictatorship.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Van Halen’s “Ballot Or The Bullet” from their 1998 album “Van Halen III”. The song’s title comes from a 1964 speech by Malcolm X who, while speaking about the civil rights struggle, said “We’re going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet.”

Van Halen wasn’t a political band, but they appropriated Malcolm X’s speech for this tune:

Also, Eddie Van Halen played slide guitar on this, a rarity.

Sample Lyrics:

Give me liberty or give me death
No truer words have ever been said
Well are you prepared for your very last breath?
Don’t you dare start what you cannot finish
So when we face, face the adversary
No longer are we the minority

When a house is divided, it just will not stand
Once it’s decided, a line drawn in the sand

Ah, the ballot or the bullet
The choice is up to you
The ballot or the bullet
Tell me what you gonna do
The sword or the pen
Can’t be held by the same hand

The Supreme Court Is Officially Corrupt

The Daily Escape:

Moonrise, Boston, MA – April 2024 photo by Kristen Wilkinson. The Jenga-style building is Boston University’s Data Science Center.

Wrongo spent part of Thursday morning listening live to the oral arguments at the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) over Trump v. United States, which concerns former president Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from criminal charges for “official acts”: In this case, whether Trump can claim immunity as a defense in the Jan. 6 case brought by Jack Smith, the DOJ’s special prosecutor.

While the decision in this case is unclear at this point, the questions the Conservative justices asked of both sides were very disheartening.

A short walk through the history of this case: The Conservative majority granted Trump a victory before the hearing began by refusing Jack Smith’s request to skip the intermediate step of an appeal to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Then the Court improved on that by refusing to hear the matter on an expedited schedule. Finally it appears that the Court probably won’t issue what pundits think will be a fractured opinion until the last possible day (June 30). It’s possible that the Court will order the DC trial court to engage in pre-trial fact-finding about the difference between “private” and “official” acts. Meaning further delays, possibly until after the November presidential election.

And if Trump were to win, the Jan. 6 case will be quashed by the incoming DOJ.

So even if the Supremes don’t grant Trump a total victory, they have already granted Trump what he most wanted: a lengthy delay. Their lackadaisical approach to resolving the question of immunity smells of the current politicization of the Court. From Jamele Bouie:

“Rather than grapple with the situation at hand — a defeated president worked with his allies to try to overturn the results of an election he lost, eventually summoning a mob to try to subvert the peaceful transfer of power — the Republican-appointed majority worried about hypothetical prosecutions against hypothetical presidents who might try to stay in office against the will of the people if they aren’t placed above the law.

It was a farce befitting the absurdity of the situation. Trump has asked the Supreme Court if he is, in effect, a king. And at least four members of the court, among them the so-called originalists, have said, in essence, that they’ll have to think about it. “

Chris Hayes reminded us when Republicans aggressively took the other side of the immunity argument:

Taking a wide view, Alito is 74. Thomas is 75. Roberts and Sotomayor are 69. The next president could be in a position to nominate four replacements for these justices if Trump wins, or if Biden wins a second term. If it’s Trump, say goodbye to the SCOTUS for at least 30 years, and say goodbye to your Constitutional rights. That would also mean that Trump can commit crimes with impunity, including a complete dissolution of the Voting Rights Act, implementing legalized voter suppression, and much more.

Is it totally lost on the American people that the very same Supreme Court who ruled that 172 million women should no longer have the freedom to decide their own pregnancy choices, is now, suddenly, struggling with the idea whether ONLY ONE MAN in America should have the freedom to commit crimes without punishment?

Watergate and Nixon doesn’t come close to the stench surrounding today’s Supreme Court and its propping up of Trump. Josh Marshall had this to say:

“The Roberts Court is a corrupt institution which operates in concert with and on behalf of the Republican Party . . . That’s the challenge in front of us. . . . But things become more clear-cut once we take the plunge and accept that fact.”

But, there’s really nothing you can do about it individually. So relax and cruise into our Saturday Soother, where we turn off all political news for a few minutes and try to find the will to rejoin the fight next week.

Here on the Fields of Wrong, we had a hard frost on Friday morning, and expect 80° on Monday. It’s weather like this that keeps us from planting the vegetable garden until early May. To help you get into a proper frame of mind, grab a seat by a south-facing window. Now watch and listen to “Suite Opus 34 for flute, harp, violin, viola and cello” by Marcel Tournier. Tournier is among the relatively few important composers who were also virtuoso harpists. He composed several dozen solos for harp, and a few chamber works that feature the harp. Tournier wrote this Suite in 1928. He died in 1951.

Here is his “Opus 34” performed by the Cracow Harp Quintet:

Wrongo and Ms. Right first learned about Tournier and saw this live last summer as part of a local concert series by the Washington Friends of Music.

America’s Coming Theocracy

The Daily Escape:

New Preston, CT – February 2024 photo by Dave King

This week, the full extent of the MAGA plan to convert America into a theocracy run by religious fundamentalists came into view. Charles Blow. writing in the NYT said:

“If you don’t think this country is sliding toward theocracy, you’re not paying attention….on Tuesday, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children, and that destruction of those embryos, even by accident, is subject to the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.”

The Alabama court’s Chief Justice Colonel Tom Parker, wrote:

“Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”

For some background on Justice Parker, Media Matters writes: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“During a recent interview on the program of self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker indicated that he is a proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a theological approach that calls on Christians to impose fundamentalist values on all aspects of American life.”

We’re watching a slow motion Christian takeover of our Constitutional democracy happen right before our eyes. From the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe to plans by Trump-aligned think tanks to restructure the US government to suit Christian nationalists to the Alabama ruling, Christian Nationalism is on the march.

From Politico:

“An influential think tank close to Donald Trump is developing plans to infuse Christian nationalist ideas in his administration should the former president return to power…”

“Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget during his first term and has remained close to him. Vought, who is frequently cited as a potential chief of staff in a second Trump White House, is president of The Center for Renewing America think tank, a leading group in a conservative consortium preparing for a second Trump term.”

From Dan Pfeiffer:

“…based on the public statements of those advisors, Trump’s Christian Nationalist Agenda will include:

A national abortion ban.

Using FDA authority to ban or greatly restrict access to abortion medication (a defacto abortion ban).

Undermining marriage equality.

Attacking the rights and freedoms of trans people.

Ending no-fault divorce.

Invoking the Insurrection Act to stop protests.

Making it harder to access contraception.

Ending surrogacy; and

Getting rid of sex education in schools.

This is not theoretical. All across the country, Republican extremists are implementing policies to further involve the government in people’s private decisions. Republicans want to regulate what you read, who you marry, how you procreate, and your medical decisions.”

More from Pfeiffer: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Some of you might be surprised to learn that very few voters know about the major stories that have dominated cable news and your social media feeds. The chasm between political junkies in both parties and everyone else has never been greater. You either consume a ton of political news or no news. And the no-news people will decide the election — and the fate of democracy.”

But that’s not all. The Heritage Foundation is the think tank developing Project 2025, the playbook for staffing the next Trump administration. If you haven’t heard of Project 2025, you can read up on it here.

Project 2025 is an action plan for how to use the most extreme versions of the unitary executive theory to weaponize the federal government to be an instrument of authoritarian theocratic ethno-nationalism. It’s difficult to overstate the extent to which a key element in this all-out culture war is the re-subjugation of women. Here’s a quote from a Heritage Foundation video: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“It seems to me that a good place to start would be a feminist movement against the pill, & for… returning the consequentiality to sex….Conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose & ending recreational sex & senseless use of birth control pills. “

You can watch the video here. Do Conservatives ever have sex to just enjoy it?

The handwriting has been on the wall for years, but few voters seem able to read these signs of growing authoritarianism and fascism. There are only a few months for Democrats to keep enough attention on this so that voters are fully aware of November’s political stakes.

Our politics are broken. The political system no longer works – what with gerrymandered House districts, the anti-democratic rules in the Senate, the wildly corrupt Supreme Court, and the Electoral College bias in favor of small states.

This partially explains why Americans born post Bush v. Gore have a disdain for both Parties, even though they disagree much more with the Republicans than with the Dems. Telling the Gen Z kids to get out there and fix our democracy doesn’t match reality – that our system is well and truly fucked.

It can’t easily be fixed until the MAGA movement is killed, root and branch.

Will The Law Restrain Trump And The MAGAs?

The Daily Escape:

Shiprock, NM – January 2024 photo by Matt Farber

Does the law matter anymore to Trump and his MAGA followers? As Heather Digby said, the MAGAs:

“…now believe that the law is what Trump says it is.”

That seems patently true if you read anything on Xitter by Right-wing Trump apologists, since they throw all sorts of pasta at the wall hoping some will stick. The latest is about the judge in the E. Jean Carroll case Lewis Kaplan and Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan (no relation) having worked together in the early 1990s. Somehow that constitutes a conflict of interest in the minds of the MAGATs.

Roberta Kaplan joined the firm in 1992 and left in 2016. Judge Kaplan was a partner there until 1994, so there was a two year overlap that occurred 30 years ago. They’ll try to make chicken salad out of this chicken shit.

A more serious attack on the law is occurring in Texas. Vice News is reporting that:

“A trucker convoy of ‘patriots’ is heading to the US border with Mexico next week, as the standoff between Texas and the federal government intensifies. The organizers of the ‘Take Our Border Back’ convoy have called themselves “God’s army” and say they’re on a mission to stand up against the ‘globalists’ who they claim are conspiring to keep US borders open and destroy the country.”

God’s Army. Vice quotes Ruth Braunstein, professor at the University of Connecticut:

“When people believe that they are working on behalf of God, they might be willing to resort to relatively extreme measures….And so you have a politically volatile situation that could become much more so, in part because of this rhetoric.”

The God’s Army website is “Secure Our Borders.” It is calling on:

“…all active & retired law enforcement and military, veterans, mama bears, elected officials, business owners, ranchers, truckers, bikers, media and LAW ABIDING, freedom-loving Americans…”

To join in the march on Texas. This has stoked civil war fantasies on fringe forums, as well as favorable comments on the social media accounts of GOP lawmakers and right-wing political commentators. And no surprise, this has bled into politics. The Daily Beast reported that on a news show, Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and Newsmax host Carl Rigbie mused about the possibility of a “force-on-force conflict” erupting between the federal government and the Texas National Guard.

They should be careful what they wish for. Sen. Ted Cruz, (R-TX), was quoted in the Dallas Morning News saying he expects to see continuing escalation in the legal battles between the state and the Biden administration:

“It’s striking that Texas Democrats are willing to side with Mexican drug cartels invading the state of Texas over their own governor and over the people of Texas…”

And most Republican governors recently signed a statement backing Abbott:

“We stand in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbott, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border….We do it in part because the Biden Administration is refusing to enforce immigration laws already on the books and is illegally allowing mass parole across America of migrants who entered our country illegally.”

Wrongo has written many times about the faction of MAGATs who sport flag lapel pins and show you copies of their pocket Constitutions. The irony is that these (mostly) dudes haven’t really accepted the words of the Constitution and its Amendments. They want to interpret the law based on referendums orchestrated by Trump and Fox News.

What Abbott, Trump, and the MAGAs are attempting with the “southern border resistance” is testing to see how much buy in they can get from red state governors, truck drivers, law enforcement, and “patriots”. Can they sow enough chaos that the presidential election is difficult to conduct?

Here’s a theory: Trump doesn’t expect to win in November. In fact, he may not even care about the November election. Why wait until November 2024 and/or January, 2025 to make his move? What if he can mobilize his followers to strike now? How would Biden and the federal government respond to multiple domestic attacks occurring simultaneously within our borders?

If the GOP and Trump can’t beat Biden one-on-one, why wait? Waiting means that Trump will likely be incarcerated. Both Trump and the GOP certainly know that time isn’t on their side.

It’s time for the federal government to step in and knock this shit off before somebody gets killed. All Guardsmen at the border should be federalized immediately and then ordered to assist other federal officials in enforcing the Court’s decision.

That’s the only legitimate authority in play here. The GOP Constitutional reading favoring the states against the federal government is laughable. What would the fallout be if the National Guard, federalized by Biden attacks Texas law enforcement along with guys who drove their pickups to the border?

Time to wake up America! The Gospel According To CB Radio isn’t an authority on anything! Ask Trump and Abbott how many federal law enforcement officers enforcing a Supreme Court ruling are you willing to kill for your political stunt?

To help you wake up, we recognize the passing of the 1970s singer Melanie Safka who died this week at 76. Melanie was one of the surprise stars at Woodstock in 1969. To Wrongo, her best tune was “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)”. She would later say that the sight of people in the Woodstock crowd lighting candles in the rain inspired her to write the song which she recorded with gospel-style backing from the Edwin Hawkins Singers. It was released in 1970 and became her first hit.

Here she performs it live with the Edwin Hawkins Singers in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1970:

The song was anthemic, in the same way the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ “Oh Happy Day” had been the summer before. And the Edwin Hawkins Singers are also the chorus on “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).” The song is alternately hugely upbeat and dark.

Sample Lyric:

We were so close there was no room
We bled inside each other’s wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace

Lay down, lay down, let it all down
Let your white birds smile up at the ones who stand and frown
Lay down, lay down, let it all down
Let your white birds smile up at the ones who stand and frown

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Neo-Facism

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