Civil Commotion

Undoubtedly, everybody in the universe has heard by now that the First Felon is a tax cheat.

The tax data examined by The Times provides a road map of revelations, from write-offs for the cost of a criminal defense lawyer and a mansion used as a family retreat to a full accounting of the millions of dollars the president received from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.

Together with related financial documents and legal filings, the records offer the most detailed look yet inside the president’s business empire. They reveal the hollowness, but also the wizardry, behind the self-made-billionaire image — honed through his star turn on “The Apprentice” — that helped propel him to the White House and that still undergirds the loyalty of many in his base.

Ultimately, Mr. Trump has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life.

But nobody with the barest knowledge of Trump’s conduct through the years — six bankruptcies, tens of dozens of stiffed subcontractors, on and on — can credibly claim to be surprised by this news; Donald Trump has never been anything but a corrupt fraud.

You’re probably wondering: Will documented corruption affect his evangelical base? The answer is … no. For starters, churches commit tax fraud on an epic scale, and everybody knows it. Second, they’re distracted by this picture:

You can see the problem: On the one hand, there is the First Fabulist doing exactly the same thing that every pastor in the country does. And on the other hand: A Christian actress cheerfully tolerates a boob-grab by her husband.

Truly, we are approaching the End Times, and wickedness stalks the land.

NC pastor yells ‘white power’ from truck
during weekend Trump parade, videos show

[ ,,, ]

Later the same day, Hursey drove a pickup truck through Elon, shouting “White power!”

This is s-o-o-o North Carolina. The racism and ignorance are barely suppressed here, and only in the more prosperous, better educated parts of the state.

I have long been horrified yet also fascinated by the way Germany fell into dictatorship and then launched a war that cost tens of millions of lives. Science and legitimate knowledge were done away with whenever they failed to support the Nazi agenda and civil rights for citizens disappeared. And while all of this happened a significant minority – or perhaps it was a majority, if people were honest – let this all happen. Indeed, many cheered it on. Fast forward to today and we are witnessing something similar in America where an amoral, narcissistic monster is out to destroy America’s democracy and institutions simply to satiate his ego and remain in power. It’s treason on a massive scale, yet the Republican Party, now controlled by racists, religious zealots and, of course the greedy, are fully onboard if it means power is retained and taxes are cut. Frighteningly, individuals who I once thought were decent and moral are onboard this nightmare train as well. I am terrified that we are witnessing the last days of the American republic and may soon face a fascist dictatorship.

Michael Hamar

When I first speculated more than 3-years ago that Trump would refuse to leave office if he lost the 2020 election, I wondered if I should even say it. Maybe I’d lost perspective? Perhaps I had Trump Derangement Syndrome? Now that worry is a commonplace, and even more firmly grounded than then. He has said, after all, he can lose only if the election is ‘rigged.’ By definition, then, his loss is invalid and the only defense against a corrupt dismissal is to stay in place.

Trump has no intention of going anywhere next January.

And, like Michael, I’ve been both surprised and saddened by those I know who have been seduced by Trump’s cataracts of malice and resentment. As the introduction to the old Shadow drama used to ask, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”

Trump controls a craven and thoroughly emasculated GOP that is not going to step-forward and fulfill its Constitutional duty and check him. It’s up to us — We, the People.

#AnnihilateTheGOP

From The Nation:

Still, we owe Stephanie Winston Wolkoff some gratitude. Her portrait of Melania as cold, hostile, self-centered and “not a normal woman” seems right. Without Wolkoff, we might not know that the first lady refused to move into the White House until the toilets and showers used by the Obamas had been replaced.

I wish I could say I have difficulty believing this, but … I don’t.