Posts Tagged ‘JOHN KASICH’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Humor, Politics, Social commentary on September 11, 2025 at 12:10 am
Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Halberstam summed up the effectiveness of 1950s Republicans’ smear tactics in his monumental 1972 study of the origins of the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest:
“But if they did not actually stick, and they did not, [Joseph McCarthy’s] charges had an equally damaging effect: They poisoned. Where there was smoke, there must be fire. He wouldn’t be saying these things [voters reasoned] unless there was something to it.”
Joseph McCarthy
As a whole, Democrats have proven indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language.
Donald Trump solicited Russian Communist aid to win the Presidency in 2016 and Chinese Communist aid to retain it in 2020.
Yet Democrats refused to directly accuse him of treason, as in:
- “TrumPutin”
- “Commissar-in-Chief”
- “Putin’s Poodle”
- “Red Donald”
- “Putin’s Puppet”
The Kremlin
Similarly, the news media has not dared state the obvious: That Trump moved boxes of classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate to sell them to America’s enemies in exchange for huge sums to pay his upcoming legal bills.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump repeatedly lied about its lethality and opposed the use of masks and social distancing to combat it. As a result, 400,000 Americans had died by the time he left office.
Yet no Democrat has dared label him “Coronavirus-in-Chief.”
Nor has the news media directly held him accountable for those deaths.
Tyrants are conspicuously vulnerable to ridicule. Yet in this YouTube-obsessed age, Democrats have proven unable or unwilling to make use of this powerful weapon.
For example, Trump’s well-established “bromance” with Vladimir Putin could be turned into a parody of the famous song, “Johnny B. Good”:
Way back inside the Kremlin where the lights glow red
There ruled a man named Putin who would poison you dead.
He came up with a plan to make his Russia great
And all it took was bribes and Republican hate.
And Trumpy was a man who couldn’t read or spell
But he could sell out his land just like he’s ringing a bell.
Many of Trump’s fiercest defenders in the House and Senate have taken “campaign contributions” (i.e., bribes) from Russian oligarchs linked to Putin. They could be pointedly attacked by turning the Muppet song, “The Rainbow Connection,” into “The Russian Connection.”
Why are there so many tales about Russians
And Right-wingers taking bribes?
Russians are Commies and have lots of rubles
For traitors with something to hide.
So I’ve been told and some choose to believe it
It’s clear as the old KGB.
Someday we’ll find it
The Russian Connection—
The bribers, the traitors—you’ll see.
Kristi Noem, Trump’s Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, became infamous in 2024 for bragging about shooting her 14-month-old wirehair pointer, “Cricket.” A parody of Marty Robbins’ hit “Big Iron” could easily be turned into a musical indictment of animal cruelty:
Now the woman started talking
Made it plain to folks around
Was a South Dakota Governor
Wouldn’t be too long in town.
She came here to take a doggie
On a hunt or shoot it dead.
And she said it didn’t matter
She was after Cricket’s head—
After Cricket’s head.
A continuing theme among Republican politicians is that they are paragons of religious virtue, while Democrats are champions of Satan.
Yet Democrats have done nothing to publicize such truths as:
- Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is a serial adulterer.
- Former Speaker Dennis Hastert is a convicted sodomizer of teenage boys.
- Josh Duggar, a Right-wing star of the high-rated “reality” series, 19 Kids and Counting, has been sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for possessing child pornography.
- Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, has boasted: “Marriage is a wonderful thing and I’m a firm believer in it.” Yet she engaged in open affairs with at least two members of her local gym—for which Perry Greene has divorced her.
Most Americans don’t follow political news closely—and know nothing of such revelations.
Moreover, Democrats need to repeatedly advertise such facts—to counter Republicans’ constant claims of being the moral arbiters of America. And this needs to be done through major advertising campaigns on TV—where most Americans get their news about politics.
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of former First Lady Hillary Clinton. They were cheered on by First Lady Michelle Obama’s naive advice on political tactics: “When they go, we go high.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump planned to subvert the 2016 election by Russian Intelligence agents and millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
History has proven which tactics proved superior.
It’s long past time for Democrats to accept that they—and the country’s democratic traditions—are engaged in a death-match with their Republican opponents.
Only certain defeat is guaranteed by adhering to Marquis of Queensbury when your enemy is using brass knuckles.
For Democrats to win elective victories and preserve America’s democratic traditions, they must find their own George Pattons to confront the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 10, 2025 at 12:18 am
Donald Trump is furious. The man who sticks humiliating nicknames on people he hates has had one stuck on him: TACO.
Or: “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The TACO nickname was coined in May, 2025, by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong. It refers to Trump’s practice of spooking the market with his tariff threats before ultimately backing off, prompting them to rebound.
The nickname went national on May 28, when CNBC’s Megan Casella alluded to Trump’s repeated tariff threats while asking him about the “TACO trade” theory:
“Mr. President, Wall Street analysts have coined a new term called the TACO trade. They’re saying Trump always chickens out on your tariff threats and that’s why markets are higher this week. What’s your response to that?”
“I’ve never heard that,” said Trump. “You mean because I reduced China from 145 percent that I set down to 100, and then down to another number, and I said you have to open up your whole country? And because I gave the European Union a 50 percent tax—tariff—and they called up and said, ‘Please let’s meet right now.'”
And then came the explosion: “But don’t ever say what you said. That’s a nasty question. To me, that’s the nastiest question.”
According to an unidentified source for CNN: “It clearly bothered him, primarily because it demonstrated a lack of understanding about how he actually utilizes those threats for leverage. But obviously he’s not a guy who looks kindly on weakness, so the idea anyone would think that with respect to his actions isn’t received well.”
Republicans generally—and Trump in particular—aren’t used to being insulted. This is primarily because Democrats lack the courage and/or imagination to fight fire with fire.
For example:
On May 27, 2016, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks analyzed the use of insults by then-Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump. He did so with his then-counterpart, liberal syndicated columnist, Mark Shields, on The PBS Newshour.
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
Donald Trump
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….”
Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only Presidential candidate who proved unable to cope with Trump’s gift for insult. His targets—and insults—included:
- Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Wears glasses to seem smart.”
- Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “Low Energy Jeb.”
- Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders: “Crazy Bernie.”
- Ohio Governor John Kasich: “Mathematically dead and totally desperate.”
Trump has reserved his most insulting words for women. For example:
- Carly Fiorina, his Republican primary competitor: “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?”
- Megyn Kelly, Fox News reporter: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”
- California Rep. Maxine Waters: “An extremely low IQ person.”
- Then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: “MS-13 Lover Nancy Pelosi.”
Only one candidate has shown the ability to rattle Trump: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
As Mark Shields noted on The PBS Newshour.
“Elizabeth Warren gets under Donald Trump’s skin. And I think she’s been the most effective adversary. I think she’s done more to unite the Democratic party than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.”
Among her attacks:
- “Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown because it meant he could buy up a bunch more property on the cheap. What kind of a man roots for people to lose their jobs and be kicked out of their houses? What kind of a man does that?”
- “When Donald Trump says ‘great,’ I ask: ‘great for who, exactly? When Donald says he’ll make America great, he means greater for rich guys just like Donald Trump. That’s who Donald Trump is. … And you have to watch out for him, because he’ll crush you into the dirt.”
- ”Donald Trump is a bigger, uglier threat every day that goes by – and it’s time for decent people everywhere— Republican, Democrat, Independent—to say, ‘No more Donald.'”
Words are weapons—or can be, if used properly.
Republicans learned this truth after World War II.
- Richard Nixon became a United States Senator in 1950 by attacking Helen Gahagen Douglas as “The Pink Lady.”
- From 1950 onward, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and other Red-baiting Republicans essentially paralyzed the Democratic party through such slanderous terms as “Comsymps,” “fellow-travelers” and “Fifth Amendment Communists.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 8, 2025 at 12:30 am
As a Presidential candidate, Donald Trump was fiercely attacked by Democrats and his fellow Republicans. But one of his sharpest critics lived more than 500 years ago.
He was Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine statesmen and father of modern politics.
For openers: Trump had drawn heavy criticism for his angry and brutal attacks on a wide range of persons and organizations—including his fellow Republicans, journalists, news organizations, other countries and even celebrities who have nothing to do with politics.
Donald Trump
Now consider Machiavelli’s advice on gratuitously handing out insults and threats:
- “I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one.”
- “For neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy—but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”
Trump, in turn, casually dismissed the criticism he had received:
“I can be Presidential, but if I was Presidential I would only have—about 20% of you would be here because it would be boring as hell, I will say,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Superior, Wisconsin.
Trump admitted that his wife, Melania, and daughter, Ivanka, had urged him to be more Presidential. And he promised that he would.
“But I gotta knock off the final two [Republican candidates—Ohio Governor John Kasich and Texas U.S. Senator Rafael Cruz] first, if you don’t mind.”
For those who expected Trump to shed his propensity for constantly picking fights, Machiavelli offered a stern warning:
- “…If it happens that time and circumstances are favorable to one who acts with caution and prudence he will be successful. But if time and circumstances change he will be ruined, because he does not change the mode of his procedure.”
- “No man can be found so prudent as to be able to adopt himself to this, either because he cannot deviate from that to which his nature disposes him, or else because, having always prospered by walking in one path, he cannot persuade himself that it is well to leave it…”
- “For if one could change one’s nature with time and circumstances, fortune would never change.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
Then there was Trump’s approach to consulting advisers:
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, Trump replied; “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
This totally contrasted with the advice given by Machiavelli:
- “A prudent prince must [choose] for his counsel wise men, and [give] them alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else.”
- “But he must be a great asker about everything and hear their opinions, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way, and in these counsels…comport himself so that every one may see that the more freely he speaks, the more he will be acceptable.”
And Machiavelli gave a related warning on the advising of rulers: Unwise princes cannot be wisely advised.
During the fifth GOP debate in the 2016 Presidential sweepstakes, host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump this question:
“Mr. Trump, Dr. [Ben] Carson just referenced the single most important job of the president, the command and the care of our nuclear forces. And he mentioned the triad.
“The B-52s are older than I am. The missiles are old. The submarines are aging out. It’s an executive order. It’s a commander-in-chief decision.
“What’s your priority among our nuclear triad?”
[The triad refers to America’s land-, sea- and air-based systems for delivering nuclear missiles and bombs.]
Nuclear missile in silo
Trump’s reply: “Well, first of all, I think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, who is totally responsible, who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important.”
He then digressed to his having called the Iraq invasion a mistake in 2003 and 2004. Finally he came back on topic:
“But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear.
“Nuclear changes the whole ballgame. The biggest problem we have today is nuclear–nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon.
“I think to me, nuclear, is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”
Which brings us back to Machiavelli:
- “…Some think that a prince who gains the reputation of being prudent [owes this to] the good counselors he has about him; they are undoubtedly deceived.”
- “It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised, unless by chance he leaves himself entirely in the hands of one man who rules him in everything, and happens to be a very prudent man. In this case, he may doubtless be well governed, but it would not last long, for the governor would in a short time deprive him of the state.”
All of which would lead Niccolo Machiavelli to warn: “This bodes ill for your Republic.”
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In Entertainment, History, Humor, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 16, 2025 at 12:06 am
Ridicule is a highly effective weapon. That’s why dictators always try to stamp it out. They know that if you’re laughing at them, you’re not afraid of them. And men like Donald Trump prize being feared above all else.
Yet Democrats and liberals (the two are not always the same) have failed to make use of this formidable weapon.
They could, for example, ridicule those evangelicals who have lustily embraced Trump as the new Jesus:
- Why are Donald Trump’s supporters like Adam and Eve? They are naked, they have only one apple to eat, they live in a forest, and they think they’re in Paradise.
- It’s the twelfth year of the Donald Trump Presidency. Two old friends meet on the street. “What’s the difference between life in the time of Jesus, and life as it is under Trump?” asks one. “Well, in the days of Jesus, one man suffered for all,” says the second man. “And, today, we all suffer for one man.”
- When President Trump and First Lady Melania met Pope Francis: MELANIA thought: “Damn! I thought he’d go up in smoke when the Pope touched him.” TRUMP thought: “Being so close to so much holiness is terrible! I need a bath.” THE POPE thought: “Now I know what Jesus felt like when he met Satan.”
Amazingly in this YouTube-obsessed age, Democrats have never assailed Trump with barrages of satirical musical videos. Yet the opportunities for incredible mirth lie all around us.
Trump’s notorious “bromance” with Vladimir Putin could be satirized by converting the Beatles’ hit, “With a Little Help From My Friends” into “With a Little Help From My Vlad”:
What do I do when the bank calls me in?
(Does it worry you to be in debt?)
How do I feel when I need rubles fast?
(Do you worry Vlad might say “Nyet”?)
No, I get by with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, I can lie with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, you’re gonna fry with a little help from my Vlad.
The religious hymn, “Jesus Loves Me,” could take on new meaning when applied to the man whom millions of evangelicals have embraced as their new Savior:
Trumpy loves me, this I know.
For he often tells me so.
Screwing others is his right
‘Cause he’s rich and mean and white.
Yes, Trumpy loves me,
Yes, Trumpy loves me.
Trumpy loves me.
He often tells me so.
Trumpy tells me who to hate.
And it makes me feel so great.
He will build that great big wall
Then good times will be for all.
“Springtime for Hitler,” the signature tune of the hit play and movie, The Producers, could become “Springtime for Trumpland”—and help mightily in clearing up the mystery of his popularity among the Right:
Republicans were having trouble
What a sad, sad story.
Needed a new leader
To restore their former glory.
Where oh where was he?
Who could that man be?
They looked around and then they found
The man for you and me.
And now it’s…
Springtime for Trump goons and bigotry—
Winter for Reason and Light.
Springtime for Trumpland and infamy—
Come on, Trumpsters, let’s go pick a fight. 
Many Americans have wondered how so many millions of their fellow citizens could support Trump. A parody of “Little Boxes” could help explain why:
And the voters in the “heartland”
All went off to the polling booth
Where they pulled hard on the levers
And the Nazis got a win.
And there’s bigots and oppressors
And screaming misogynists–
And they’re all made out of Fascist hatred
And they all sound just the same.
Nor should Republicans generally be ignored, since it’s their support for a proven adulterer, convicted rapist and friend of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein that remains the single greatest infamy of this party. Consider this parody of the classic Coasters’ song, “Yakety Yak”:
Support Marge Greene she is our trash
Or you don’t get no Fascist cash.
If you don’t praise and print her lies
You are a skunk in Republican eyes.
Republicans lie (Just say hi!)
You must “Sieg Heil!” to Donald Trump
‘Cause he’s your Fuhrer, he’s no chump.
You will not catch him with a book
He loves to steal but he’s our crook.
Republicans lie. (Just say hi!)
* * * * * * * * * *
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of former First Lady Hillary Clinton. She was going to “break the glass ceiling.” Democrats were going to retake the Senate—and maybe the House.
They were cheered on by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Pollyannaish advice on political tactics: “When they go low, we go high!”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump planned to subvert the 2016 election with the aid of Russian Intelligence agents and millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
History has proven which tactics proved superior.
It’s long past time for Democrats to accept that they—and the country’s democratic traditions—are engaged in a death-match with their Republican opponents.
Only certain defeat is guaranteed by adhering to Marquis of Queensbury when your enemy is using brass knuckles.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Humor, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 15, 2025 at 12:13 am
Donald Trump—as political candidate and President—has repeatedly expressed admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—and disdain for a wide array of democratic leaders.
Yet Democrats have never called called him to account for this—even though a plentiful series of insults exist:
- “TrumPutin”
- “Commissar-in-Chief”
- “Putin’s Poodle”
- “Commissar Bone Spurs”
- “Red Donald”
- “Putin’s Puppet”
The Kremlin
Trump has attached insulting nicknames to those he hates: “Little Marco” [Rubio], “Lyin’ Ted” [Cruz], “Crooked Hillary” [Clinton]. Yet Democrats have never inflicted the same on him, although a great many are available:
- DJTraitor
- Fake President
- Carrot Caligula
- El Dunce
- Trumpy Traitor
Ridicule is a highly effective weapon. That’s why dictators always try to stamp it out. They know that if you’re laughing at them, you’re not afraid of them. And men like Trump prize being feared above all else.
Yet Democrats and liberals (the two are not always the same) have failed to produce hard-hitting anti-Trump jokes.
For example, limitless opportunities exist to use humor to attack Trump’s notorious dictatorial nature:
- Trump is sitting in the Oval Office, when suddenly the door bursts open and an aide rushes in, shouting: “Mr. President, the House and Senate are on fire!” Trump looks at his watch and says, “Already?
- A reporter asks him: “Mr. President, do you ever collect the jokes that some people tell about you?” Trump: “I sure do. Two camps full.”
- A man knocks at the door of his neighbor’s apartment, shouting: “Quick, get up, get dressed!” From inside he hears terrified screams. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not with the Trump Police. I just want you to know your flat is on fire.”
Donald Trump’s egomania is universally known:
- Trump says he’s smart because his uncle was smart. He could be related to Albert Einstein—but that wouldn’t make him an Einstein. It would, however, make Einstein turn over in his grave.
- What’s the difference between Donald Trump and God? God never thinks he’s Donald Trump.
- Donald Trump dies and ascends to Heaven. But God is so disgusted by him He returns him to Earth—as a mouse. Being Trump-Mouse, he immediately begins raping all the other mice he encounters. But then he decides: “I deserve something better. I’m going to bag me an elephant.” So he visits a nearby waterhole, where a female elephant is munching on grass. Trump-Mouse shimmies up her leg to her backside, and begins pounding away. Suddenly, the elephant grunts, and Trump-Mouse says: “Did I hurt you, sweetheart?”
Nor have Democrats attacked the ignorant semi-literates who comprise most of Trump’s voters:
- Why do Donald Trump’s supporters always travel in threes? One who can read, one who can write, and one to keep his eye on the two intellectuals.
- “Hey,” says a comedian to a stranger at a bar, “you wanna hear a good Donald Trump joke?” “I think you should know I’m a Trump supporter,” shouts the stranger. “Don’t worry,” says the comedian. “I’ll tell it very slowly.”
- What’s the difference between a smart Trump supporter and a unicorn? Nothing. They’re both fictional characters.
Trump’s legendary cruelty could fill volumes of joke books:
- What’s the difference between a Donald Trump optimist and a Donald Trump pessimist? A Donald Trump pessimist says Donald Trump can’t any more vindictive. A Donald Trump optimist says he can.
- After Donald Trump won the Presidency in 2016, news analysts wondered: Why did so many people vote for him instead of Hillary Clinton? Interviewed on the subject, a Trump spokesman said: “Voters really responded to his campaign slogan: ‘Trump in 2016—Or He’ll Shoot Your Family.”
- What is the Donald Trump version of a microwave oven? It seats 300.
There is overwhelming evidence that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin subverted the 2016 Presidential election to seat Trump in the White Houses:
- Over 70% of evangelicals say that God helped get Donald Trump elected President. If so, then God must speak with a Russian accent.
- Donald Trump says Democrats are like Communists. In Hell, Joseph Stalin is laughing—and waiting for Trump to show up.
- What’s the difference between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump? Putin didn’t get HIS position through Donald Trump.
Trump’s well-known misogyny provides ample fodder for comedians:
- President Donald Trump is holding a press conference. REPORTER: “Do you talk with your wife when you’re having sex?” TRUMP: “Only if there’s a phone handy.”
- IVANKA TRUMP: “What’s the difference between kinky sex and perverted sex?” DONALD TRUMP: “In kinky sex, you use a feather. In perverted sex, you use the whole daughter.”
Then there is the very real threat that Trump represents to not only the United States but the world itself:
- Worried about the future if Donald Trump is elected President in 2024, a woman rushes to a local astrologer to ask: “If Donald Trump is elected President, will there still be life on the Earth in 2025?” And the astrologer replies: “Do you mean ‘LIFE’ the cereal or ‘Life’ the Milton-Bradley parlor game?”
- In President Donald Trump’s America, what is black and knocking at the door? The Future.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Humor, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 14, 2025 at 12:12 am
Reader’s Digest once carried a page entitled: “Laughter is the Best Medicine.” And from a purely medicinal viewpoint, it’s absolutely true.
According to the Mayo Clinic website: “Whether you’re guffawing at a sitcom on TV or quietly giggling at a newspaper cartoon, laughing does you good. Laughter is a great form of stress relief, and that’s no joke.
“A good laugh has great short-term effects. When you start to laugh, it doesn’t just lighten your load mentally, it actually induces physical changes in your body. Laughter can: Stimulate many organs, activate and relieve your stress response, soothe tension.”
In the long term: “Laughter may improve your immune system, relieve pain, improve your mood, increase personal satisfaction.”
But laughter may also prove the best weapon against tyrants and self-righteous hypocrites.
According to the 2016 book, One Day We Will Live Without Fear: Everyday Lives Under the Soviet Police State, by Mark Harrison, tyrants operate on seven working principles:
- Your enemy is hiding.
- Start from the usual suspects.
- Study the young.
- Stop the laughing.
- Rebellion spreads like wildfire.
- Stamp out every spark.
- Order is created by appearance.
Republicans have long won electoral victories through vivid appeals to Hatred, Greed and/or Fear. And in Donald Trump, they have found a candidate who delights in sticking ugly labels on his opponents.
Yet Trump carries a major Achilles heel: He’s unable to poke fun at himself—and he grows livid when anybody else does. Like all tyrants, he knows—and fears—that if people are laughing at you, they don’t fear you.
And, for Trump, being feared lies at the root of his drive for absolute power. As a result, “Stop the laughing” rises to the top of his list of priorities.
At Christmastime, 2018, “Saturday Night Live” aired a parody of the classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Its title: “It’s a Wonderful Trump.”
In it, Trump (portrayed by actor Alec Baldwin) discovers what the United States would be like if he had never become President: A great deal better-off.
Donald Trump
As usual, Trump expressed his resentment through Twitter: The Justice Department should stop investigating his administration and go after the real enemy: “SNL.”
Despite Trump’s obvious vulnerability to ridicule, Democrats have proven utterly unable or unwilling to deploy this powerful weapon against him.
One reason for this: Their apparent indifference to or ignorance of the power of effective language.
Another reason: Democrats seem uneasy with using ridicule or insults as a weapon. Many of them fear it will make them look silly. Others—such as former President Barack Obama—take the view: “I’m not going to get into the gutter like my opponents.”
Thus, they take the “high ground”—while their sworn Republican enemies undermine them via ridicule and “smear and fear” tactics.
On May 27, 2016, syndicated columnist Mark Shields—a liberal, and New York Times columnist David Brooks, a conservative—exchanged opinions on Donald Trump’s use of insults against his political opponents.
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….”
Mark Shields
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’”
David Brooks
DC_Rebecca from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only Presidential candidate who proved unable to cope with Trump’s gift for insult. His targets—and insults—included:
- Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Wears glasses to seem smart.”
- Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “Low Energy Jeb.”
- Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders: “Crazy Bernie.”
- Ohio Governor John Kasich: “Mathematically dead and totally desperate.”
Only one of Trump’s 2016 opponents tried to match him in insults—Florida’s United States Senator Marco Rubio.
At the 11th GOP presidential debate in Detroit, Rubio “countered” Trump’s insult of “Little Marco” by calling him “Big Donald.”
Since Americans believe that “bigger is better,” this was a poor choice of ridicule. A better choice: “Red Donald,” to highlight his notorious admiration for Vladimir Putin.
So why hasn’t anyone come up with a way to counter Trump’s repeated insults?
According to David Brooks: Democrats face two choices in combating Trump:
“Either you do what [Massachusetts United States Senator] Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”
Humor was not Hillary Clinton’s strong suit. But her limitations need not be those of other Democrats.
All that’s required: Creativity—and the courage to apply it.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 7, 2025 at 12:11 am
“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.”
—The Washington Monthly, March 9, 2020
During his 12-year reign, Adolf Hitler was the target of at least 42 assassination plots. The most famous of these was the one of July 20, 1944.
From 2017 to 2021, Donald Trump was not the target of even one.
In Hitler’s case, the plotters were officers of the German general staff—who believed the Fuhrer was leading Germany into a war it could not hope to win.
Adolf Hitler
In the case of President Donald Trump:
- A non-violent method for removal existed in the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to recommend the removal of the President when he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Vice President then becomes President.
- No Cabinet members had the courage to invoke this.
- Within the Senate and House of Representatives, Republicans acted as a rubber stamp for his every infamy.
- When he praised North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-Un or attacked Vietnam POW John McCain, they stayed silent.
- When he falsely charged massive voter fraud, Republicans stayed silent or loudly parroted his lies.
- Their most notorious example of ambition-fueled cowardice occurred on February 5, 2020. That was when the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
- At the Pentagon, American generals stood mute as Trump repeatedly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—and even gave classified CIA Intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
- And just as high-ranking field marshals in Hitler’s Wehrmacht held their tongues when he insulted them, so, too, did American generals when Trump belittled their intelligence and even patriotism.
- When Trump arbitrarily decided to remove American forces from Syria and Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned in protest in 2018. But then he was simply replaced by Mark Esper.
- Despite the fact that many of these men regularly came into contact with Trump, not one of them apparently plotted his removal.
- Similarly, Trump repeatedly attacked the integrity of the men and women of the FBI—even firing its director, James Comey, for daring to investigate Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election.
- If its agents—steeped in Federal criminal law—built a case for Trump’s indictment and prosecution, it has never come to light.
- Neither did any of his Secret Service agents register the slightest protest, despite his arrogant behavior toward them. He forced them to work without pay during his 35-day government shutdown in 2018.
- And he forced them to accompany him to COVID-infected states—both during the Presidential campaign and afterward. Many of them became stricken with this often fatal disease as a result.
Donald Trump
* * * * *
On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States. Trump, running for a second term, got 74,196,153 votes.
Yet almost two months after the election, Trump refused to concede, insisting that he won—and repeatedly claiming falsely that he was the victim of massive vote fraud.
This toxic lie was feverishly embraced by millions of Right-wingers, and cast a shadow of illegitimacy over the Biden administration.
This refusal to acknowledge the outcome initially denied Biden access to the money, information-sharing and machinery traditionally accorded the President-elect. Trump himself was the beneficiary of such assistance in 2016, after his win over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Only on November 23, 2020 was Biden acknowledged as the winner by the General Services Administration, as the Trump administration finally began the formal transition process.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the country. More than 400,000 Americans died by the time Trump left office. Hospitals were filled to capacity, and millions faced starvation and/or eviction.
Yet Trump remained obsessed with his loss, and did nothing to coordinate the Federal response to the pandemic.
Trump’s refusal to accept reality posed an unprecedented danger to democracy: No presidential candidate had ever refused to concede defeat once all the votes were counted and legal challenges resolved.
By refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, Trump took on the classic mantle of a dictator.
Right-wing Virginia State Senator Amanda Chase urged Trump to declare martial law and allow the military to “oversee” another election. So did disgraced ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, whom Trump pardoned for lying to the FBI about private talks he had with a Russian official.
Reports have surfaced that Trump considered doing so.
History has recorded an active German resistance movement against Adolf Hitler. And posterity has honored its members, many of whom died heroically for standing firm against a brutal tyrant.
To its eternal shame, the same cannot be said of America during the reign of Donald Trump.
Even more shameful: On November 5, 2024, having lived through four years of Trump’s lies, egomania and lawbreaking, 77 million Americans re-elected him as President.
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In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2025 at 12:05 am
On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
He had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941).
While serving in Tunisa, he was seriously wounded on April 7, 1943, when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand after surgery.
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg
Nevertheless, he now acted as the prime mover for the conspiracy among a growing number of German high command officers to arrest or assassinate Germany’s Fuehrer.
For most of these officers, the motive was craven: The “happy time” of German victories was over. Germany was losing the war it had unleashed on the world in 1939—and now they feared the worst.
This was especially true now that the numerically superior forces of the Soviet Union had gone onto the offensive.
For Stauffenberg, there was another reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.
Thus, Stauffenberg—more than many Germans–knew firsthand the vengeance his country could expect if the “Thousand-Year Reich” fell.
Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans—even members of the Wehrmacht—were criminals.
Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces—well before the much-feared Russians gained a toehold in Germany.
Stauffenberg didn’t want to arrest Hitler; he wanted to kill him. A live Hitler might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.
But Hitler was a closely-guarded target. He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel.
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
But his single greatest protection—he claimed—was an instinct for danger. He would suddenly change his schedule—to drop in where he was least expected. Or suddenly depart an event where he was expected to stay a long time.
That instinct had repeatedly saved his life.
A series of assassination attempts had been made against Hitler. All of them involved time-bombs. And all of the would-be assassins were members of the German General Staff.
In one case, a bomb secretly stashed aboard Hitler’s plane failed to explode. In another, an officer who had a bomb strapped to himself unexpectedly found his scheduled meeting with Hitler called off. He had to rush into a bathroom to defuse the bomb before it exploded.
Stauffenberg intended to carry his bomb—hidden in a briefcase—into a “Hitler conference” room packed with military officers. Rigged with a time-fuse, it would be left there while he found an excuse to leave.
After the explosion, he would phone one of his fellow conspirators with the news.
Stauffenberg intended to direct the new government that would replace that of the Nazis—and open peace talks with the British and Americans.
With Hitler dead, the coup—“Operation Valkyrie”—would be on.
Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. The British and Americans would then be informed of Germany’s willingness to surrender. Provided, of course, that the vengeance-seeking Russians did not have a say in its postwar future.
The Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) had killed millions of Russians. Many had died in combat. Others had been murdered as captives. Still more had been allowed to die by starvation and exposure to the notorious Russian winter.
So the Germans—both Nazi and anti-Nazi—knew what they could expect if soldiers of the Soviet Union reached German soil.
On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia. Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it—appropriately enough—“Wolf’s Lair.”
“Wolf’s Lair”
Stauffenberg entered the large, concrete building while the conference was in session. He placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler—who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table. Then he excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.
After Stauffenberg left the room, Colonel Heinz Brandt, standing next to Hitler, found the briefcase blocking his legs. So he moved it—to the other side of the heavy oaken support, partially shielding Hitler from the blast..
At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted.
Brandt died, as did two other officers and a stenographer.
Hitler not only survived, but the plotters failed to seize the key broadcast facilities of the Reich.
This allowed Hitler to make a late-night speech to the nation, revealing the failed plot and assuring Germans that he was still alive. And he swore to flush out the “traitorous swine” who had tried to kill him.
Mass arrests quickly followed.
Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”
At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo. Of these, 4,980 were executed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 5, 2025 at 12:09 am
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be called anti-Fascism.”
–Huey Long, Louisiana Governor/Senator
In the Twilight Zone episode, “No Time Like the Past,” Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews), a scientist in early 1960s America, uses a time machine to visit Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II.
He’s rented a motel room overlooking the balcony from where the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler will soon make a speech. And he’s eager to watch that speech—through the lens of a telescopic-sighted rifle.
Just as he’s about to pull the trigger, there’s a knock at his door—by the maid. Driscoll hustles her out as soon as possible, then once again picks up his rifle. He—and viewers—can once again see Hitler through the cross-hairs of his weapon.
Paul Driscoll prepares to shoot Adolf Hitler
But instead of the anticipated shot, there’s another knock at his door—his time by the black-uniformed secret police, the SS. Driscoll knows the game is up, and disappears into the present just as the thugs break down his door.
And the audience is left to ponder how different the world would have been if Driscoll—or someone in Nazi Germany—had succeeded in assassinating the man whose wars would wipe out the lives of 50 million men, women and children around the globe.
One 2016 Republican candidate for President dared to invoke the menace of Nazi Germany in warning of the dangers of a Donald Trump Presidency. And to argue that Americans could prevent that past from returning.
In November, 2015, John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, was peddling a message of creating jobs, balancing the Federal budget and disdain for Washington, D.C.
John Kasich
But he remained far behind in the polls, dropping 50% in support in just one month—from September to October. Meanwhile, Trump, the New York billionaire developer, was being backed by 25% of Republican primary voters.
So, with nothing to lose, Kasich decided to take off the gloves. He invoked the “N” word for Republicans: Nazi.
He authorized the creation of a TV ad that opened with ominous music—and the face of a snarling Donald Trump.
“I would like anyone who is listening to consider some thoughts that I’ve paraphrased from the words of German pastor Martin Niemoeller.”
The voice belonged to Tom Moe, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force—and a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war.
“You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims must register with the government, because you’re not one,” continued Moe.
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you’re not one.
Donald Trump
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says it’s OK to rough up black protesters, because you’re not one.
“And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you’re not one.
“But think about this:
“If he keeps going, and he actually becomes President, he might just get around to you. And you’d better hope that there’s someone left to help you.”
Martin Niemoeller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who had commanded a U-boat during World War 1. He became a bitter public foe of Adolf Hitler.
A staunch anti-Communist, he had initially supported the Nazis as Germany’s only hope of salvation against the Soviet Union.
But when the Nazis made the church subordinate to State authority, Niemoeller created the Pastors’ Emergency League to defend religious freedom.
For his opposition to the Third Reich, Niemoeller spent seven years in concentration camps.
With the collapse of the Reich in 1945, he was freed—and elected President of the Protestant church in Hesse and Nassau in 1947. During the 1960s, he was president of the World Council of Churches.
He is best remembered for his powerful condemnation of the failure of Germans to protest the increasing oppression of the Nazis:
First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Neither “Adolf Hitler” nor “Nazi Party” was mentioned during the one-minute Kasich video. But a furious Trump threatened to sue Kasich if he could find anything “not truthful” within the ad.
Apparently he couldn’t find anything “not truthful,” because he never sued.
So threatened the man who had called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and accused President Barack Obama of being a Muslim and an illegal alien.
The Kasich ad was the darkest attack made against Trump by any candidate–-Republican or Democrat. And it raised a disturbing question:
If Donald Trump proved to be America’s Adolf Hitler, would there be an American Claus von Stauffenberg?
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg was the German army officer who, on July 20, 1944, tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Humor, Politics, Social commentary on March 25, 2025 at 12:37 am
Words are weapons—or can be, if used properly.
Republicans learned this truth after World War II.
- Richard Nixon became a United States Senator in 1950 by attacking Helen Gahagen Douglas as “The Pink Lady.”
- From 1950 onward, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and other Red-baiting Republicans essentially paralyzed the Democratic party through such slanderous terms as “Comsymps,” “fellow-travelers” and “Fifth Amendment Communists.”
Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Halberstam summed up the effectiveness of such tactics in his monumental study of the origins of the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest:
“But if they did not actually stick, and they did not, [Joseph McCarthy’s] charges had an equally damaging effect: They poisoned. Where there was smoke, there must be fire. He wouldn’t be saying these things [voters reasoned] unless there was something to it.”
Joseph McCarthy
Democrats have generally proven ignorant of or indifferent to the power of effective language.
Donald Trump solicited Russian Communist aid to win the Presidency in 2016. He solicited aid from Chinese Communists to retain it in 2020.
He attacked countless Americans and world leaders—including those presiding over America’s NATO alliance. But he never even criticized Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Yet even with such clear-cut evidence, Democrats refused to directly accuse him of treason, as in:
- “TrumPutin”
- “Commissar-in-Chief”
- “El Dunce”
- “Predator of the United States”
- “Carrot Caligula”
- “Red Donald”
- “DJTraitor”
The Kremlin
Similarly, Trump got a free pass on treason from the news media. None dared suggest the obvious: That he moved boxes of classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate to sell them to America’s enemies in exchange for huge sums to pay his upcoming legal bills.
While Trump branded the news media “the enemy of the people,” no media outlet had the courage to hurl the same charge at him.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump repeatedly lied about its lethality and opposed the use of masks and social distancing to combat it. As a result, 400,000 Americans had died by the time he left office.
Yet no Democrat dared label him “Coronavirus-in-Chief.”
Nor has the news media directly held him accountable for those deaths.
Tyrants are conspicuously vulnerable to ridicule. Yet here, too, Democrats proved unable or unwilling to make use of this powerful weapon.
In this YouTube-obsessed age, Democrats could effectively assail Trump with a series of ridiculing videos. For example, Trump’s well-established “bromance” with Putin could be turned into a parody of the famous song, “Johnny B. Good”:
Way back inside the Kremlin where the lights glow red
There ruled a man named Putin who would poison you dead.
He came up with a plan to make his Russia great
And all it took was bribes and Republican hate.
And Trumpy was a man who couldn’t read or spell
But he could sell out his land just like he’s ringing a bell.
Many of Trump’s fiercest defenders in the House and Senate have taken “campaign contributions” (i.e., bribes) from Russian oligarchs linked to Putin. They could be pointedly attacked by turning the Muppet song, “The Rainbow Connection,” into “The Russian Connection.”
Why are there so many tales about Russians
And Right-wingers taking bribes?
Russians are Commies and have lots of rubles
For traitors with something to hide.
So I’ve been told and some choose to believe it
It’s clear as the old KGB.
Someday we’ll find it
The Russian Connection—
The bribers, the traitors—you’ll see.
A continuing theme among Republican politicians is that they are paragons of religious virtue, while Democrats are champions of Satan.
Yet Democrats have done nothing to publicize such truths as:
- Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is a serial adulterer.
- Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert is a convicted sodomizer of teenage boys.
- Josh Duggar, a Right-wing star of the high-rated “reality” series, 19 Kids and Counting, has been sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for possessing child pornography.
- Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has boasted: “Marriage is a wonderful thing and I’m a firm believer in it.” Yet she engaged in open affairs with at least two members of her local gym—for which Perry Greene divorced her.
Most Americans don’t follow political news closely—and know nothing of such revelations.
Thus, Democrats must repeatedly advertise such facts—to counter Republicans’ constant claims of being the moral arbiters of America. And this needs to be done through major advertising campaigns on TV—where most Americans get their news about politics.
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of former First Lady Hillary Clinton. They were cheered on by First Lady Michelle Obama’s naive advice on political tactics: “When they go low, we go high.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump planned to subvert the 2016 election by Russian Intelligence agents and millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
History has proven which tactics proved superior.
Many Democrats echo former President Dwight D. Eisenhower on Joseph McCarthy: “I’m not going to get into the gutter with that man.”
The result: A series of lost elections.
Democrats need to accept that they—and the country’s democratic traditions—are engaged in a death-match with their Republican enemies.
Only certain defeat is guaranteed by adhering to Marquis of Queensbury when your enemy is using brass knuckles.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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A LESSON FOR DEMOCRATS: WORDS CAN BE WEAPONS: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Humor, Politics, Social commentary on September 11, 2025 at 12:10 amPulitzer-Prize winning author David Halberstam summed up the effectiveness of 1950s Republicans’ smear tactics in his monumental 1972 study of the origins of the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest:
“But if they did not actually stick, and they did not, [Joseph McCarthy’s] charges had an equally damaging effect: They poisoned. Where there was smoke, there must be fire. He wouldn’t be saying these things [voters reasoned] unless there was something to it.”
Joseph McCarthy
As a whole, Democrats have proven indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language.
Donald Trump solicited Russian Communist aid to win the Presidency in 2016 and Chinese Communist aid to retain it in 2020.
Yet Democrats refused to directly accuse him of treason, as in:
The Kremlin
Similarly, the news media has not dared state the obvious: That Trump moved boxes of classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate to sell them to America’s enemies in exchange for huge sums to pay his upcoming legal bills.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump repeatedly lied about its lethality and opposed the use of masks and social distancing to combat it. As a result, 400,000 Americans had died by the time he left office.
Yet no Democrat has dared label him “Coronavirus-in-Chief.”
Nor has the news media directly held him accountable for those deaths.
Tyrants are conspicuously vulnerable to ridicule. Yet in this YouTube-obsessed age, Democrats have proven unable or unwilling to make use of this powerful weapon.
For example, Trump’s well-established “bromance” with Vladimir Putin could be turned into a parody of the famous song, “Johnny B. Good”:
Way back inside the Kremlin where the lights glow red
There ruled a man named Putin who would poison you dead.
He came up with a plan to make his Russia great
And all it took was bribes and Republican hate.
And Trumpy was a man who couldn’t read or spell
But he could sell out his land just like he’s ringing a bell.
Many of Trump’s fiercest defenders in the House and Senate have taken “campaign contributions” (i.e., bribes) from Russian oligarchs linked to Putin. They could be pointedly attacked by turning the Muppet song, “The Rainbow Connection,” into “The Russian Connection.”
Why are there so many tales about Russians
And Right-wingers taking bribes?
Russians are Commies and have lots of rubles
For traitors with something to hide.
So I’ve been told and some choose to believe it
It’s clear as the old KGB.
Someday we’ll find it
The Russian Connection—
The bribers, the traitors—you’ll see.
Kristi Noem, Trump’s Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, became infamous in 2024 for bragging about shooting her 14-month-old wirehair pointer, “Cricket.” A parody of Marty Robbins’ hit “Big Iron” could easily be turned into a musical indictment of animal cruelty:
Now the woman started talking
Made it plain to folks around
Was a South Dakota Governor
Wouldn’t be too long in town.
She came here to take a doggie
On a hunt or shoot it dead.
And she said it didn’t matter
She was after Cricket’s head—
After Cricket’s head.
A continuing theme among Republican politicians is that they are paragons of religious virtue, while Democrats are champions of Satan.
Yet Democrats have done nothing to publicize such truths as:
Most Americans don’t follow political news closely—and know nothing of such revelations.
Moreover, Democrats need to repeatedly advertise such facts—to counter Republicans’ constant claims of being the moral arbiters of America. And this needs to be done through major advertising campaigns on TV—where most Americans get their news about politics.
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of former First Lady Hillary Clinton. They were cheered on by First Lady Michelle Obama’s naive advice on political tactics: “When they go, we go high.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump planned to subvert the 2016 election by Russian Intelligence agents and millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
History has proven which tactics proved superior.
It’s long past time for Democrats to accept that they—and the country’s democratic traditions—are engaged in a death-match with their Republican opponents.
Only certain defeat is guaranteed by adhering to Marquis of Queensbury when your enemy is using brass knuckles.
For Democrats to win elective victories and preserve America’s democratic traditions, they must find their own George Pattons to confront the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
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