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HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 20, 2025 at 12:14 am

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.                    

Case #12: Democrats expected to receive support from their traditional allies—such as blacks and Hispanics. But that didn’t happen.           

Despite Donald Trump’s overt racism, blacks deserted Vice President Kamala Harris in droves. About three in 10 back men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020.     

A clear majority of young black voters described the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” compared with about half of older black voters.

Similarly, in 2024, Trump made “mass deportations” the signature issue of his campaign. The vast majority of those slated for such removal were Hispanics. 

But numerous Hispanics, when interviewed, said they didn’t feel threatened. They felt certain that Trump would deport “only the bad people.”

Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, were more supportive to Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Harris, compared with about six in 10 who went for Trump.

Majorities of Latino voters, regardless of age, said the economy was in bad shape. They wanted a bigger paycheck. And they were willing to re-elect a man who despised them in hopes of getting it.

Case #13: Muslims—especially those living in Dearborn, Michigan—played a losing blackmail game with the Biden administration

On October 7, 2023, under the cover of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, Hamas terrorists slaughtered an estimated 1,139 men, women and children in Israeli streets, houses, kibbutz communities and at a rave music festival.

About 250 others were kidnapped and taken into Gaza.

Israel responded by declaring a state of war—pounding Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers. Palestinian health authorities claim that Israel’s ground and air campaign has killed more than 46,600 people, 

Why Hamas and Israel reached this moment now — and what comes next | WBUR

Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel

Terrorism-sympathizing Islamics—especially in Michigan—demanded that the Biden administration stop sending military equipment to Israel—and force Israelis to stop their military campaign to free the hostages. They threatened: “If you don’t do what we want, we won’t vote for Kamala Harris.”

Biden and Harris rejected their demands—and Islamics voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all.

The end result: Harris lost—and was replaced with a Right-wing administration so pro-Israel that it made the Biden one seem pro-Palestinian by comparison. 

Case 14: Ignorance of and/or contempt for history. 

“Low information voters” is a euphemism for people dangerously ignorant of the issues affecting their lives.

After World War II ended in 1945, the United States proved a force for worldwide stability. Its “nuclear umbrella” prevented a Russian takeover of Europe and a Chinese takeover of Asia. 

But voters ignored Trump’s “bromance” with Communist dictators Vladimir Putin (Russia), Xi Jinping (China) and Kim Jong-Un (North Korea). They also ignored his proven disdain for the leaders of democratic nations—such as Canada and Great Britain. 

As a result, Canada and Mexico, America’s biggest trading partners, are now treated—by Trump—as enemies. Meanwhile, he cozies up to Putin against Ukraine’s legally-elected President, Vododmyr Zelensky.

 * * * * *

Countless historians have tried to answer the question: “Was the rise of Adolf Hitler—and the catastrophe he unleashed—inevitable?” 

Future historians will ask the same question about Donald Trump—and the almost certain disaster of a second Trump Presidency.

Competent historians will conclude that no one factor was responsible, but a combination of otherwise unrelated ones. Among these:

  • Republicans: Who feared that Trump’s Fascistic supporters would deprive them of political office if they didn’t abase themselves to a lifelong criminal and would-be dictator.
  • Republican judges: Who bent and/or broke the law to enable Trump to escape justice.
  • Justice Department prosecutors: Whose awe of the Presidency allowed Trump to slander and threaten federal prosecutors and judges.
  • Attorney General Merrick Garland: Whose cowardice prevented him from appointing Jack Smith Special Counsel until November 18, 2022—giving Trump time to delay justice and again win the Presidency.
  • Democrats: Whose cowardice toward Trump encouraged Republicans to ever more extreme measures.
  • Hispanics: Like the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, who couldn’t believe that Trump would carry out his threats to imprison and/or deport them.
  • The Biden administration: Which  refused to stem the tide of illegal aliens invading America—and thus enraged millions of law-abiding Americans into supporting Trump.
  • American voters: Whose misogynistic attitudes toward women led them to reject a former local and state prosecutor for a 34-times convicted felon.
  • American voters: Whose hatred of Hispanic illegal aliens and inflationary grocery prices led them to ignore overwhelming evidence of Trump’s intent to overturn the democratic process and make himself absolute dictator.

As John Adams, second President of the United States, observed:

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence and cruelty. 

HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Social commentary on March 19, 2025 at 12:08 am

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.         

Case #9: Americans had become increasingly worried and angry about surging numbers of illegal aliens pouring into the country. But the Biden administration refused—until its closing months—to dramatically address this issue.   

A Vox story, dated July 12, 2024, warned:  “According to Gallup,  2024 is the first time since 2005 that most of the public have wanted less immigration, and this year marks the largest share of Americans feeling resistant to immigration since 58 percent said so in 2001….” 

Illegal alien climbing over the border fence in Brownsville, Texas

Six months later, on January 17, 2025, another Vox story offered: “What Democrats must learn from Biden’s disastrous immigration record.” 

It opened: “One of the main reasons Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election is the Biden administration’s record on immigration and the border — polls show it ranks up close with inflation among the top issues that drove swing voters to Trump….

“During Biden’s first three years in office, the number of arriving migrants skyrocketed, leading to a backlash as even blue states and cities complained they were overwhelmed. The peak came in December 2023, a month when officials reported about 250,000 encounters with migrants at the border, a record.” 

Then, starting early in 2024, and continuing throughout the year, border arrivals plummeted—by more than 80%.

The reasons:

  1. The Biden administration got the Mexican government to launch an extensive crackdown on migrants passing through its territory to the United States. 
  2. Biden decreed that new unauthorized migrants would be ineligible for asylum if too many people were coming to the border. Essentially, this meant shutting down the asylum process.

Unfortunately for Harris, the downturn in illegal immigration came too late.

Related image

Donald Trump

In times of economic uncertainty, hostility rises toward immigrants—especially those who are alien to a host country’s language and culture. This has proven true in Europe as well as the United States.

Case #10: Americans blamed President Biden for inflationary price increases—especially for groceries such as eggs. 

According to a December 20, 2024 article—“Why are groceries so expensive? What you need to know”—by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

“Since January 2019, food prices have risen nearly 30 percent in the US, leaving many households struggling to afford groceries.”

Among the issues responsible for this:

  • COVID-19: Caused worldwide disruptions in supply chains.
  • Transportation costs and fuel prices: Fuel costs are directly tied to how much retailers charge for groceries and other goods.
  • Animal diseases, weather events, crop failures: When bird flu (H5N1) first struck the U.S. in 2022, eggs were priced at around $2 per dozen. They peaked at $4.82/dozen in January 2023, and in December 2024—following the infection of over 123 million chickens—prices fell to about $4.15/dozen.
  • Global conflict: In February, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, which exports wheat, corn and agricultural fertilizer, among other products. Russia has tried to strangle Ukraine’s exports by attacking the nation’s agricultural centers.

No President—including Biden and Trump—can control such events. Unfortunately, every Presidential candidate virtually promises to be Superman. And voters repeatedly fall victim to this absurdity.

So when elected Presidents fail to perform miracles, those voters turn on them—and turn them out of office.

Case #11: Americans don’t want a woman President.

American voters proved that in 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ran for President—and lost to Trump in the Electoral College by a count of 227 to 304. 

And Hillary had an advantage that Vice President Kamala Harris lacked: Hillary was white.

England has elected a female Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher. And Mexico—notorious for the machismo of its men—has elected a woman President: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. But in the United States, electing a woman chief executive is unthinkable to most American men. 

According to Daniel Cassino, Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, men who support Trump hold to a traditionally masculine identity.

“So, among that group, Trump is up over Harris by about 35 points. Huge gap, Among other men, the half of men who don’t put themselves at the extremes of masculinity, Harris is up by 20. In fact, Harris is also up by 20 among most groups of women. So, really the gap is not between men and women, it’s between this one group of traditional masculine men and everybody else.” 

Machismo played a major role in Trump’s popularity among Hispanics. Roughly six in 10 men described Trump as a strong leader, compared with 43% who said that in 2020. About half of Hispanic women said Trump was a strong leader, up from 37%. 

Case #12: Democrats expected to receive support from their traditional allies—such as blacks and Hispanics. But that didn’t happen.   

During the eight-year tenure of America’s first black President, Donald Trump attacked Barack Obama as a foreign-born citizen who was thus ineligible for that office. He also had a history of supporting—and being supported by—racist white groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.

Nevertheless, blacks deserted Vice President Kamala Harris in droves. About three in 10 back men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020. 

HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on March 18, 2025 at 12:05 am

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.                  

Case #5: Even after Donald Trump left office, the Justice Department treated him with a deference not shown any other criminal defendant.

He was allowed, for example, to hurl insults and threats at Special Counsel Jack Smith and even Smith’s family.

One such post, published on Trump’s website, Truth Social, went: “Deranged Jack Smith, who is a sick puppet for A.G. Garland & Crooked Joe Biden, should be DEFUNDED & put out to rest. Republicans must get tough or the Dems will steal another Election. MAGA!” 

By “A.G. Garland” Trump meant Attorney General Merrick Garland. By “put out to rest,” he meant that his followers should assassinate Smith. 

Not even Mafia bosses like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Albert “The Executioner” Anastasia dared issue such a threat.

Laura Rozen on Twitter: "Jack Smith bio from the Hague court https://t.co/5iOsfwMSAa https://t.co/wAG6RmQ7N4" / Twitter

Jack Smith

By contrast: Jimmy Hoffa was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. But that didn’t prevent Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department from indicting him for jury tampering—and convicting him on March 4, 1964. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and a $10,000 fine. 

No one in the Kennedy Justice Department said: “He’s the elected president of the Teamsters Union—so we can’t touch him.” Yet that is precisely how the Biden Justice Department repeatedly acted—simply because, in 2016, he won a Presidential election.

Case #6: Throughout his struggles to stay out of prison, Trump was aided by the unrelenting support of the Republican party. 

Republicans loudly and repeatedly claimed that Donald Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 Presidential election—despite overwhelming evidence that he wasn’t.

They also claimed that, by appointing Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump, the Democrats had weaponized Federal law enforcement.

They also fully supported Trump’s demand for the release of those who attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

Republican Disc.svg

For example: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has depicted these coup supporters as persecuted martyrs.

On March 24, 2022, members of the Republicans’ House Oversight Committee toured a Washington, D.C. jail where some of these defendants were held. “Their due process rights are being violated. And they have been mistreated and treated as political prisoners,” Greene told reporters after the tour.

Adolf Hitler similarly portrayed as martyrs the Nazis who tried to violently overthrow the government of Bavaria on November 9, 1923.

A March 2, 2020 Washington Monthly story concluded ominously:  “U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.” 

Case #7: While Congressional Republicans have relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats have refused to similarly investigate Trump’s family.

The United States House Oversight Committee opened its investigation into the Biden family on January 11, 2023. The investigation included the foreign business activities of Biden’s son, Hunter, and brother, James. 

By November 2023, the investigation had not found any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. 

Democrats, by contrast, have not probed why Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and  former White House adviser, received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The money came to Kushner’s private equity firm after Kushner left the White House in 2021. 

DNC alleges Secret Service blocked it from serving lawsuit to Jared Kushner | CNN Politics

Jared Kushner

Salman has been implicated by U.S. Intelligence reports in the 2018 torture and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. When asked if he believed the reports, Kushner said: “Are we really still doing this?” 

Democrats have also refused to investigate the Trump administration’s illegally seizing vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not publicly report the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the administration explain how it decided which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.

The Federal Government did not inform states whose supplies it seized if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for. 

Case #8: On July 13, 2024, Trump was allegedly wounded in his right ear by a gunman while speaking at an open-air Presidential campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania.

The would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired eight rounds from an AR-15 style rifle from the roof of a nearby building. Trump dived for cover behind his lectern, as the shooter killed one audience member and critically injured two others. 

Crooks was shot and killed seconds later by the Secret Service’s Counter Sniper Team.

Had Trump not slightly turned his head at the moment Crooks fired, Republicans would have been forced to choose another nominee. 

In addition, Trump would not have been alive to win the 2024 Presidential election and openly threaten to imprison the Justice Department prosecutors who sought to hold him accountable for his litany of crimes.

The assassination attempt calls to mind that by Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944, to kill Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb. Had he succeeded, the war in Europe would no doubt have ended far earlier, with countless lives being saved.

HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 17, 2025 at 2:37 am

On November 9, 1923, Nazi Party Fuhrer Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Munich, Bavaria.          

About 2,000 Nazis marched to the center of Munich, where they confronted heavily-armed police. A shootout erupted, killing 16 Nazis and four policemen.  

Hitler was injured during the clash, but managed to escape. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with treason.

Put on trial, he found himself treated as a celebrity by a judge sympathetic to Right-wing groups. He was allowed to brutally cross-examine witnesses and even make inflammatory speeches.

At the end of the trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

Serving time in Landsberg Prison, in Bavaria. he was given a huge cell, allowed to receive unlimited visitors and gifts, and treated with deference by guards and inmates.

Hitler used his time in prison to write his infamous book, Mein Kampf-–“My Struggle.” Part autobiography, part political treatise, it laid out his future plans—including the extermination of the Jews and the conquest of the Soviet Union.

Image result for Images of Adolf Hitler outside Landsberg prison

Adolf Hitler leaving Landsberg Prison, December, 20, 1924

Nine months later, he was released on parole—by authorities loyal to the authoritarian Right instead of the newly-created Weimar Republic.

Hitler immediately began rebuilding the shattered Nazi party—and deciding on a new strategy to gain power. Never again would he resort to armed force. He would win office by election—or intrigue.

Writes historian Volker Ullrich, in his monumental biography, Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939: “Historians have perennially tried to answer the question of whether Hitler’s rise to power could have been halted….

“There were repeated opportunities to end Hitler’s run of triumphs. The most obvious one was after the failed Putsch of November 1923. Had the Munich rabble-rouser been forced to serve his full five-year term of imprisonment in Landsberg, it is extremely unlikely that he would have been able to restart his political career.”Related imageAmazon.com: Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939: 9780385354387: Ullrich, Volker: Books

Thus, it isn’t just what happens that can influence the course of history. Often, it’s what doesn’t happen that has at least as great a result.

Future historians—if there are any—may one day write that it’s what didn’t happen that played at least as great a role in re-electing Donald Trump President as what actually did.

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 election.

Case #1: On December 18, 2019, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate voted to acquit Trump on both articles of impeachment.

Their motive: Fear that if they didn’t, they would be “primaried” by even more extreme, Trump-supported Right-wing candidates—and lose their positions and the accompanying power and perks.

Had Republicans agreed to convict him, he could not have run again for President. 

Case #2: On January 13, 2021, Trump was impeached for the second time for “incitement of insurrection”—inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.

The reason: To stop the counting of Electoral College votes, which he knew would prove that former Vice President Joseph Biden had won the 2020 Presidential election.

The evidence against him was overwhelming—including video of his inciting a mob of his followers to storm the Capitol Building.

But Republican Senators again acquitted Trump on February 13, 2021—choosing ambition over patriotism.

Had they done so, he could not have again been a candidate for President. 

Related image

Donald Trump

Case #3: Only on November 18, 2022—a year and a half after becoming Attorney General—did Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Independent Counsel to investigate Donald Trump’s role for:

  1. Inciting the January 6 attack on Congress; and
  2. Illegally seizing and storing highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach Florida.

This gave Trump time to play his “deny and delay” game. Had he been prosecuted and convicted before the November 5 Presidential election, the results might well have been different.

Even hardcore supporters might have proved unwilling to vote for someone found guilty of inciting a riot or stealing highly classified documents.

Case #4: In June, 2023, Trump was indicted for illegally seizing and storing hundreds of highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee as Federal Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, presided over the case.

She repeatedly ruled in his favor and finally dismissed the case in July, 2024. claiming that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. 

Aileen Cannon 

Southern District of Florida, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons 

Many legal experts, citing her handling of the civil case against Trump, called for her recusal from the case. Jack Smith could have requested her removal from the case but did not ask a Federal appeals court to do so.

MSNBC analyst Barbara McQuade told Newsweek that Smith likely refused to do so to “return public trust” to the Justice Department, which had been challenged in recent years.

Cannon’s kid-gloves treatment of Trump echoed that of the Right-wing judge who presided over Adolf Hitler’s trial in 1923 for trying to overthrow the government of Bavaria. 

HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on December 18, 2024 at 12:47 am

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.        

Case #5: Even after Donald Trump left office, the Justice Department treated him with a deference not shown any other criminal defendant.

He was allowed, for example, to hurl insults and threats at Special Counsel Jack Smith and even Smith’s family.

One such post, published on Trump’s website, Truth Social, went: “Deranged Jack Smith, who is a sick puppet for A.G. Garland & Crooked Joe Biden, should be DEFUNDED & put out to rest. Republicans must get tough or the Dems will steal another Election. MAGA!” 

By “A.G. Garland” Trump meant Attorney General Merrick Garland. By “put out to rest,” he meant that his followers should assassinate Smith. 

Not even Mafia bosses like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Albert “The Executioner” Anastasia dared issue such a threat.

Laura Rozen on Twitter: "Jack Smith bio from the Hague court https://t.co/5iOsfwMSAa https://t.co/wAG6RmQ7N4" / Twitter

Jack Smith

By contrast: From 1957 to 1971, Jimmy Hoffa was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. But that didn’t prevent Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department from indicting him on May 18, 1962, for accepting $1 million from a trucking company in exchange for labor peace.

After beating the case through jury tampering, he was again indicted—for jury tampering—and convicted on March 4, 1964. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and a $10,000 fine. 

No one in the Kennedy Justice Department said: “He’s the elected president of the Teamsters Union—so we can’t touch him.” Yet that is precisely how the Biden Justice Department repeatedly acted—simply because, in 2016, he won a Presidential election.

Case 6: Throughout his struggles to stay out of prison, Trump was aided by the unrelenting support of the Republican party. 

Republicans loudly and repeatedly claimed that, by appointing a Special Counsel to investigate  Trump, the Democrats had weaponized Federal law enforcement.

Republicans refuse to acknowledge the criminal charges which led to the Justice Department appointing former DOJ official Jack Smith to that position. They also fully support Trump’s demand for the release of those who attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

Republican Disc.svg

For example: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has depicted these coup supporters as persecuted martyrs.

On March 24, 2022, members of the Republicans’ House Oversight Committee toured a Washington, D.C. jail where some of these defendants were held. “Their due process rights are being violated. And they have been mistreated and treated as political prisoners,” Greene told reporters after the tour.

Adolf Hitler similarly portrayed as martyrs the Nazis who tried to violently overthrow the government of Bavaria on November 9, 1923.

Case 7: While Congressional Republicans have relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats have refused to similarly investigate Trump’s family.

The United States House Oversight Committee opened its investigation into the Biden family on January 11, 2023. The investigation included the foreign business activities of Biden’s son, Hunter, and brother, James. 

By November 2023, the investigation had not found any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. 

Democrats, by contrast, have not probed why Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and  former White House adviser, received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The money came to Kushner’s private equity firm after Kushner left the White House in 2021. 

DNC alleges Secret Service blocked it from serving lawsuit to Jared Kushner | CNN Politics

Jared Kushner

Salman has been implicated by U.S. Intelligence reports in the 2018 torture and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. When asked if he believed the reports, Kushner said: “Are we really still doing this?” 

Democrats have also refused to investigate the Trump administration’s illegally seizing vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not publicly report the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the administration explain how it decided which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.

The Federal Government did not inform states whose supplies it seized if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for. 

Case 8: On July 13, 2024, Trump was shot and slightly wounded in his right ear while speaking at an open-air Presidential campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania.

The would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired eight rounds from an AR-15 style rifle from the roof of a nearby building. Trump dived for cover behind his lectern, as the shooter killed one audience member and critically injured two others. 

Crooks was shot and killed seconds later by the Secret Service’s Counter Sniper Team.

Had Trump not slightly turned his head at the moment Crooks fired, Republicans would have been forced to choose another nominee. 

In addition, Trump would not have been alive to win the 2024 Presidential election and openly threaten to imprison the Justice Department prosecutors who sought to hold him accountable for his litany of crimes.

The assassination attempt calls to mind that by Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944, to kill Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb. Had he succeeded, the war in Europe would no doubt have ended far earlier, with countless lives being saved. 

Case 9: On November 5, Americans faced a choice between a former prosecutor and a convicted felon for President. 

They chose the felon—partly out of hatred for illegal aliens and partly out of anger at high grocery prices. 

HOW TRUMP WON IN 2024: WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN–PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 17, 2024 at 12:18 am

On November 9, 1923, Nazi Party Fuhrer Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Munich, Bavaria.     

About 2,000 Nazis marched to the center of Munich, where they confronted heavily-armed police. A shootout erupted, killing 16 Nazis and four policemen.  

Hitler was injured during the clash, but managed to escape. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with treason.

Put on trial, he found himself treated as a celebrity by a judge sympathetic to Right-wing groups. He was allowed to brutally cross-examine witnesses and even make inflammatory speeches.

At the end of the trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

Serving time in Landsberg Prison, in Bavaria. he was given a huge cell, allowed to receive unlimited visitors and gifts, and treated with deference by guards and inmates.

Hitler used his time in prison to write his infamous book, Mein Kampf-–“My Struggle.” Part autobiography, part political treatise, it laid out his future plans—including the extermination of the Jews and the conquest of the Soviet Union.

Image result for Images of Adolf Hitler outside Landsberg prison

Adolf Hitler leaving Landsberg Prison, December, 20, 1924

Nine months later, he was released on parole—by authorities loyal to the authoritarian Right instead of the newly-created Weimar Republic.

Hitler immediately began rebuilding the shattered Nazi party—and deciding on a new strategy to gain power. Never again would he resort to armed force. He would win office by election—or intrigue.

Writes historian Volker Ullrich, in his monumental biography, Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939: “Historians have perennially tried to answer the question of whether Hitler’s rise to power could have been halted….

“There were repeated opportunities to end Hitler’s run of triumphs. The most obvious one was after the failed Putsch of November 1923. Had the Munich rabble-rouser been forced to serve his full five-year term of imprisonment in Landsberg, it is extremely unlikely that he would have been able to restart his political career.”

Related imageAmazon.com: Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939: 9780385354387: Ullrich, Volker: Books

Thus, it isn’t just what happens that can influence the course of history. Often, it’s what doesn’t happen that has at least as great a result.

Future historians—if there are any—may one day write that it’s what didn’t happen that played at least as great a role in re-electing Donald Trump President as what actually did.

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 election.

Case #1: On December 18, 2019, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate voted to acquit Trump on both articles of impeachment.

Their motive: Fear that if they didn’t, they would be “primaried” by even more extreme, Trump-supported Right-wing candidates—and lose their positions and the accompanying power and perks.

Had Republicans agreed to convict him, he could not have run again for President. 

Case #2: On January 13, 2021, Trump was impeached for the second time for “incitement of insurrection”—inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.

The reason: To stop the counting of Electoral College votes, which he knew would prove that former Vice President Joseph Biden had won the 2020 Presidential election.

The evidence against him was overwhelming—including video of his inciting a mob of his followers to storm the Capitol Building.

But Republican Senators again acquitted Trump on February 13, 2021—choosing ambition over patriotism.

Had they done so, he could not have again been a candidate for President. 

Related image

Donald Trump

Case #3: Only on November 18, 2022—a year and a half after becoming Attorney General—did Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Independent Counsel to investigate Donald Trump’s role for:

  1. Inciting the January 6 attack on Congress; and
  2. Illegally seizing and storing highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach Florida.

This gave Trump time to play his “deny and delay” game. Had he been prosecuted and convicted before the November 5 Presidential election, the results might well have been different.

Even hardcore supporters might have proved unwilling to vote for someone found guilty of inciting a riot or stealing highly classified documents.

Case #4: In June, 2023, Trump was indicted for illegally seizing and storing hundreds of highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee as Federal Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, presided over the case.

She repeatedly ruled in his favor and finally dismissed the case in July, 2024. claiming that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. 

Aileen Cannon 

Southern District of Florida, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons 

Many legal experts, citing her handling of the civil case against Trump, called for her recusal from the case. Jack Smith could have requested her removal from the case but did not ask a Federal appeals court to do so.

MSNBC analyst Barbara McQuade told Newsweek that Smith likely refused to do so to “return public trust” to the Justice Department, which had been challenged in recent years.

Cannon’s kid-gloves treatment of Trump echoed that of the Right-wing judge who presided over Adolf Hitler’s trial in 1923 for trying to overthrow the government of Bavaria. 

REPUBLICANS: PREDATORS, NOT PACIFISTS: PART FIVE (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 19, 2024 at 12:05 am

To understand Republicans’ behavior, you need to understand the word “projection.”            

As defined by psychologists, “projection” means unconsciously taking unwanted emotions or traits you don’t like about yourself and attributing them to someone else.

Except that, with Republicans, there is nothing unconscious about attributing their own evil intentions and/or actions to those they hate.

To cite a current example: “Weaponizing” is a word now in vogue among Republicans. As in: “By appointing a Special Counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice (DOJ) proves that Democrats have weaponized Federal law enforcement.”

Republicans conveniently refuse to say why the Justice Department appointed former DOJ official Jack Smith to that position: Because, before leaving the White House, Trump shipped more than 300 highly classified documents in 15 boxes to his estate in Mar-a-Lago.

Laura Rozen on Twitter: "Jack Smith bio from the Hague court https://t.co/5iOsfwMSAa https://t.co/wAG6RmQ7N4" / Twitter

Jack Smith

As an ex-President, he had no right to possess any of these documents.

Moreover, he not only illegally took these documents, he lied to government investigators that he had not done so. It took an August 8, 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago to retrieve them.

Then there’s the matter of the January 6, 2021 defendants. 

They are so named because, on that date, Trump incited his followers to violently attack the United States Capitol Building. Their goal: To prevent Republicans and Democrats from counting the Electoral Votes cast in the 2020 Presidential election.

Trump fully understood that an accurate count of those votes would reveal his loss to former Vice President Joe Biden: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump.

The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police, who made little effort to arrest or shoot them.

Photo showing police tryin to push back rioters at the Capitol

Capitol Police facing off with Stormtrumpers

  • Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted.
  • A gallows was erected in front of the Capitol.
  • Members of the mob attacked police with chemical agents or lead pipes. 
  • Improvised explosive devices were found in several locations in Washington, D.C.
  • A Capitol Hill police officer was knocked off his feet, dragged into the mob surging toward the building, and beaten with the pole of an American flag.
  • Several rioters carried plastic handcuffs, possibly intending to take hostages.
  • Others carried treasonous Confederate flags.
  • Blue-and-white TRUMP flags floated above the crowd.
  • Shouts of “Hang [Vice President] Mike Pence!” often rang out.
  • Many of the lawmakers’ office buildings were occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.

Trump to Pardon 'Patriots' Involved in Capitol Attack? Truth About WH Pardons Attorney Seeking Names in Viral Post

Stormtrumpers inside the Capitol Building

More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol.

By December, 2023, 728 participants in the coup attempt had pleaded guilty. Another 166 defendants had been convicted at trial; a total of 749 defendants have been sentenced; 467 have been sentenced to prison.

Yet Republicans—most notably Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)—have depicted these coup supporters as persecuted martyrs. 

On March 24, 2022, members of the Republicans’ House Oversight Committee toured a Washington, D.C. jail where some of these defendants were held. 

“Their due process rights are being violated. And they have been mistreated and treated as political prisoners,” Greene told reporters after the tour. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene 117th Congress portrait.jpeg

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), another member of the tour, exchanged hugs with with Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt. Babbitt had been shot by police as she forced her way into the House Chamber where members of Congress were sheltering in place. 

Republicans fixation on “weaponization” centers on Trump’s facing 91 criminal offenses in four criminal cases.

These relate to Trump’s

  • Attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election;
  • Election interference in Georgia;
  • Falsifying business records in New York; and
  • Mishandling classified records after leaving the presidency. 

Donald Trump is the first former president in American history to be criminally indicted. 

For Republicans, prosecutors’ daring to hold Trump accountable for his litany of crimes amounts to “election interference.” As if winning office through the efforts of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has conferred “untouchable” status upon him. 

As a result, Republicans have made unprecedented efforts to undermine these prosecutions. 

Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., a Trump ally who sits on the Appropriations Committee, introduced two amendments to eliminate federal funding for all three of Trump’s prosecutors—Special Counsel Jack Smith, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is also trying to cut off funding for Smith’s office.

Republicans have in the past championed “states’ rights” against “federal overreach.”  But now that their former President finds himself facing the consequences of his own criminality, they are eager to abort state-level prosecutions.

At the same time, they slander President Joseph Biden as “weaponizing” the Justice Department against his political rival.

In George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, the dictatorship ruling Oceania offers the following slogan for its citizens:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Republicans would have Americans believe

  • The attempted overturning of a legitimate Presidential election was an act of patriotism;
  • An ex-President taking classified materials to which he had no right was entirely justified; and
  • Donald Trump has an absolute right to commit any crime he desires.

REPUBLICANS: PREDATORS, NOT PACIFISTS: PART FOUR (OF FIVE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 18, 2024 at 12:09 am

Republicans and their Rightist allies have repeatedly compared President Barack Obama and other Democrats to Adolf Hitler. But their propaganda campaign draws heavily on the Nazi leader’s own advice.  

In Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.

“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”

Adolf Hitler

Among the slanders Right-wingers hurl at Democrats:

“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”

In recent years, the GOP has targeted gays and lesbians as America’s subversive enemies. 

These attacks have come as thinly disguised as efforts to “restore religious freedom.”.

On March 26, 2015, Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

This allows any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.

Thus, a bakery that doesn’t want to make a cake to be used at a gay wedding or a restaurant that doesn’t want to serve lesbian patrons can legally refuse to do so.

The bill seems modeled on a proposed law that the Republican House and Senate in Arizona sent to Governor Jan Brewer in 2014.

Under threat of a nationwide boycott of Arizona if the bill became law, Brewer vetoed it.

Republicans have introduced similar “right-to-discriminate” legislation in other states as well:

  • In Kansas, Republican lawmakers voted to exempt individuals from providing any service that was “contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
  • That bill passed the state’s House chamber on February 11, 2014, triggering national backlash. It stalled in the Senate and didn’t advance beyond that body.
  • In January, 2014, South Dakota Republicans introduced a bill to let businesses refuse to serve same-sex couples on the grounds that “businesses are private and that their views on sexual orientation are protected to the same extent as the views of private citizens.”
  • The South Dakota bill—which was killed in February, 2014—would have made it illegal for a gay person to file a lawsuit charging discrimination.

Republicans claim they want to “get the government off the backs of the people.” But their fixation on regulating the sexual lives of Americans ensures government intrusions of the most intimate kind.

Since 9/11, Republicans have warned that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on America.

Ironically, Right-wing legislators, in elevating religion above the secular law, may have laid the legal foundations for making that possible.

What will happen when some Muslims claim their right—guaranteed in Islamic religious law—to have as many as four wives?

And when they claim that the “religious freedom” laws protect that right?

Republicans have defended such legislation by equating gays with child predators.

In fact, the Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute states that 90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and friends, and the majority are heterosexual men married to women.

Yet Republicans and their Rightist allies have refused to condemn such heterosexual—and Right-wing—child molesters as Dennis Hastert and Josh Duggar.

Josh Duggar, the “all-American” child molester

On May 21, 2015, responding to press leaks, Duggar resigned as director of the Family Research Council, a Right-wing organization dedicated to fighting sexually-oriented issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion and pornography.

In 2002-3, as a 14-15 year-old, Duggar had fondled the breasts and vaginas of five underage girls—four of whom were his own sisters.

Before Duggar was forced to admit his scandalous depravities, he had hobnobbed with many influential Right-wingers, including: 

  • Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz;
  • Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush;
  • Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee;
  • Texas Governor Rick Perry.

On December 8, 2021, a federal jury found Duggar guilty of receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography. He drew a sentence of more than 12 years of imprisonment and was ordered to pay fines and special assessments of $50,100.

And on October 28, 2015, HastertSpeaker of the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007—pleaded guilty to structuring money transactions in a way to avoid requirements to report where the money was going.

Dennis Hastert

The reason: To conceal the truth about his past as a child molester. Hastert had abused four young boys when he was their high school wrestling coach. One was only 14 years old.

Despite such setbacks, the politics of “smear and fear” have been good to Republicans—and their Right-wing allies.  

The Republican “base” refuses to learn that those who portray themselves as morally superior are:

  1. Hypocrites, who are in effect saying: “Do as I say, not as I do,” or
  2. Fanatics, who intend to force their version of morality on others.

So long as millions of hate-filled Right-wingers support the endless succession of “two minute hates,” Republicans will continue to target an endless series of victims.

The good news: As blacks, Hispanics, women, gays and others become a significant political force, Republicans will stop attacking them and court them for votes.

The bad news: Republicans will move on to find other still-helpless scapegoats for America’s troubles.

REPUBLICANS: PREDATORS, NOT PACIFISTS: PART THREE (OF FIVE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 17, 2024 at 12:06 am

The electoral success of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red-baiting treason slanders proved too alluring for other Republicans to resist.                          

Joseph McCarthy

Among those who have greatly profited from hurling similar charges are:

  • President Richard Nixon
  • His vice president, Spiro Agnew
  • Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
  • Former Congressman Dick Armey
  • President George W. Bush
  • Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin
  • Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann
  • Rush Limbaugh
  • Sean Hannity
  • Bill O’Reilly.

During the 1992 Presidential campaign, Republicans tried to paint Bill Clinton as a brainwashed “Manchurian candidate” because he had briefly visited the Soviet Union during his college years.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Republicans lost their “soft on Communism” slander-line. So they tried to persuade voters that Democrats were “soft on crime.”

When riots flared in 1992 after the acquittal of LAPD officers who had savagely beaten Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush blamed the carnage on the “Great Society” programs of the 1960s.

George H.W. Bush

After losing the White House to Clinton at the polls in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried to oust him another way: By impeaching him over a tryst with a penis-loving intern named Monica Lewinsky.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach, but the effort was defeated in the Democratically-controlled Senate.

The 2008 election of Barack Obama pushed the Republican “treason chorus” to new heights of infamy.

Barack Obama

Almost immediately after Obama took office, he came under attack by an industry of Right-wing book authors such as Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

The following titles vividly reveal the hates, fears and ambitions of their authors—and audience:

  • Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda by Sean Hannity
  • Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation by Jason Mattera
  • How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy by Stephen Moore
  • Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism by Sean Hannity
  • The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists,Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists by Aaron Klein
  • The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency by Ken Blackwell
  • Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Croniesby Michelle Malkin
  • Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster by David Gratzer
  • To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine by Newt Gingrich
  • Obama’s Radical Transformation of America: Year One by Joshua Muravchik
  • How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine Our Elections by John Fund
  • Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policicies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America by Christopher C. Horner
  • The Bad Science and Bad Policy of Obama’s Global Warning Agenda by Roy W. Spencer
  • America’s March to Socialism: Why We’re One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades by Glenn Beck
  • Obama’s Betrayal of Israel by Michael Ledeen
  • The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality by Jerome R. Corsi
  • The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate by David Freddoso
  • Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio by Brian Jennings
  • The War On Success: How the Obama Agenda Is Shattering the American Dream by Tommy Newberry
  • Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them by Steven Milloy
  • Liberalism is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions by Michael Savage
  • Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by Ann Coulter
  • How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter by Ann Coulter
  • Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right by Ann Coulter
  • If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans by Ann Coulter
  • Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter
  • Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress and the Special Interests Are Transforming…a Slump into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism and a Disaster into a Catastrophe….And How to Fight Back by Dick Morris

Consider the vocabulary Right-wingers use to describe their political adversaries:

“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”

And while the Right lusts to constantly compare Democrats and liberals (the two aren’t always the same) to Adolf Hitler, its propaganda campaign draws heavily on the Nazi leader’s own advice.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.

“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.

“[The masses] more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”

Thus, Republicansled by Donald Trumpspent the eight years of Barack Obama’s Presidency repeating the lie that he was born in Kenya—not Hawaii, as the long-form version of his birth certificate attests.

The reason: To “prove” that he was an illegitimate President, and should be removed from office. 

To Republicans’ dismay, their slander campaign didn’t prevent Obama from being elected in 2008—and re-elected in 2012.    

REPUBLICANS: PREDATORS, NOT PACIFISTS: PART TWO (OF FIVE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 16, 2024 at 12:14 am

“The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, radicalized and indivisible.”                    

So wrote Rolling Stone writer Jeb Lund in a blistering June 19, 2015 editorial.    

But the proof of Republican culpability in political violence goes back much further.

Consider:    

Gabrille Giffords, 40, is a moderate Democrat who narrowly wins re-election in November, 2010, against a Republican Tea Party candidate.

Her support of President Barack Obama’s health care reform law has made her a target for violent rhetoric–-especially from former Alaska Republican Governor Sarah Palin.

In March, 2010, Palin releases a map featuring 20 House Democrats that uses cross-hairs images to show their districts. In case her supporters don’t get the message, she later writes on Twitter: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”

Sarah Palin’s “Crosshairs” Map

As the campaign continues, Giffords finds her Tucson office vandalized after the House passes the healthcare  overhaul in March.

Giffords senses that she has become a target for removal—in more than political terms. In an interview after the vandalizing of her office, she refers to the animosity against her by conservatives.

She specifically cites Palin’s decision to list her seat as one of the top “targets” in the midterm elections.

“For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the cross-hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action,” Giffords tells MSNBC.

At one of her rallies, her aides call the police after an attendee drops a gun.

Giffords may have seen the spectre of violence closing in on her. In April, 2010, she supported Rep. Raúl Grijalva after he had to close two offices when he and his staff received threats.

Raúl Grijalva, official portrait, 117th Congress (cropped).jpg

Raúl Grijalva

He had called for a boycott of Arizona businesses in opposition to the state’s controversial immigration law.

“I am deeply troubled about reports that Congressman Grijalva and members of his staff have been subjected to death threats,” Giffords said.

“This is not how we, as Americans, express our political differences. Intimidation has no place in our representative democracy. Such acts only make it more difficult for us to resolve our differences.”

But intimidation—-and worse—-does have a place among the tactics used by influential Republicans in the pursuit of absolute power.

Increasingly, Republicans have repeatedly aimed violent—-and violence-arousing—-rhetoric at their Democratic opponents. This is not a case of careless language that is simply misinterpreted, with tragic results.

Republicans like Sarah Palin fully understand the constituency they are trying to reach: Those masses of alienated, uneducated Americans who live only for their guns and hardline religious beliefs—and who can be easily manipulated by perceived threats to either.

Sarah Palin (51769866572) (cropped).jpg

Sarah Palin

Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

If a “nutcase” assaults a Democratic politician and misses, then the Republican establishment claims to be shocked—-shocked!—that such a thing could have happened.

And if the attempt proves successful—as the January 8, 2011 Tucson shootings did—then Republicans weep crocodile tears for public consumption.

The difference is that, in this case, they rejoice in knowing that Democratic ranks have been thinned and their opponents are even more on the defensive, for fear of the same happening to them.

Consider the following:

  • Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.) yelled “baby killer” at Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) on the House floor.
  • Florida GOP Congressional candidate Allen West, referring to his Democratic opponent, Rep. Ron Klein, told Tea Party activists: “You’ve got to make the fellow scared to come out of his house.  That’s the only way that you’re going to win.  That’s the only way you’re going to get these people’s attention.”
  • Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said Tea Partiers had “every right” to use racist and homophobic slurs against Democrats, justifying it via Democrats’ “totalitarian tactics.”
  • Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she wanted her constituents “armed and dangerous” against the Obama administration.
  • Sarah Palin told her supporters: “Get in their face and argue with them.  No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!”
  • Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.”
  • Senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) “We’re going to keep building the party until we’re hunting Democrats with dogs.”
  • Rep. Louisa M. Slauter (D-NY) received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families.

Since the end of World War 11, Republicans have regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-sponsored thoughts.

Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.

Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.

During the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence—by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.

The fact that McCarthy never uncovered one actual case of treason was conveniently overlooked during his lifetime.