Posts Tagged ‘JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY’
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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, Law, Politics, Social commentary on July 21, 2025 at 12:09 am
On March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow, the most respected broadcast journalist in America, outlined the career and demagogic tactics of Wisconsin United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.
He did so on his CBS news show, “See It Now,” at the height of the “Red Scare” hysteria that McCarthy had whipped up four years earlier. In doing so, he risked his own future at CBS.
Virtually any American could find himself accused of being a Communist, a “Comsymp,” or a “fellow traveler.” Such an act could rob him/her of friends, career—or even liberty on the flimsiest of evidence.
Meanwhile, Republicans cowered before McCarthy’s attacks on the press, the military, the judiciary and law enforcement—or joined his chorus. Protecting the nation’s social and political institutions took a distant second place to attacking Democrats as Communist traitors.
Joseph McCarthy
Today, 71 years later, another demagogue—Donald Trump—casts an even darker shadow across the land. As President of the United States, he commands far more power than McCarthy ever did.
Among the crimes and outrages of his second term:
- Slandering anyone—famous or anonymous, athlete or disabled, politician or celebrity—he dislikes or who dares contradict him.
- Pardoning about 1,500 of his followers who violently attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, to overturn the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election. Move than 250 of those pardoned had been convicted of assaulting police.
- Withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement.
- Ordering the dismissal of 5,000 FBI agents who investigated his incitement of the January 6 riot and his illegal hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Donald Trump
- Declaring a false “national emergency” targeting migrants—legal and illegal—for arrest and deportation.
- Seeking to cancel automatic citizenship for U.S.-born children, known as birthright, and enshrined within the United States Constitution.
- Attacking and endangering federal judges who have ruled against him—such as on his authority to issue extortionate tariffs and strip Harvard University of its right to admit international students.
- Withdrawing the security detail assigned to Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Fauci’s “crime”: Contradicting Trump’s lies about the dangers of COVID-19.
He has, in short, forced most Americans to re-think their longtime assumption that a dictatorship can’t happen here.
Today, only those Republicans who have decided to retire from Congress dare to criticize Trump. The rest fear he will aim a nasty tweet at them—and cost them Fascistic voters, perhaps even their offices.
At this time, Murrow’s warnings about Joseph McCarthy need to be seriously reconsidered. Just substitute “President” for “Junior Senator” and “Trump” for “McCarthy,” and Murrow’s text could have been written yesterday.
Edward R. Murrow
On one thing the [President] has been consistent. Often operating as a one-man committee, he has traveled far, [defamed] many, terrorized some, accused civilian and military leaders of the past administration of a great conspiracy to turn over the country to [terrorism], [slamdered] and substantially demoralized the [Department of Health and Human Services]….
He has [slandered] a varied assortment of [the press], what he calls [“the enemy of the American people.”]
[Democratic Representative Adam Schiff of California] said of [Trump] today: “….This President believes he is above the law, beyond accountability. And in my view, there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical President who believes they are above the law.”
It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the [President of the United States] has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of [liberalism].
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another.
We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men—not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.
This is no time for men who oppose [President Trump’s] methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result.
There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
The actions of the [President of the United States] have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his.
He [has created] this situation of fear [and] exploited it—and rather successfully. Cassius was right: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 24, 2025 at 1:00 am
In 1996, Newt Gingrich, then Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote a memo that encouraged Republicans to “speak like Newt.”
Entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” it urged Republicans to attack Democrats with such words as “corrupt,” “selfish,” “destructive,” “hypocrisy,” “liberal,” “sick,” and “traitors.”
Even worse, Gingrich encouraged the news media to disseminate such accusations. Among his suggestions:
- “Fights make news.”
- Create a “shield issue” to deflect criticism: “A shield issue is, just, you know, your opponent is going to attack you as lacking compassion. You better…show up in the local paper holding a baby in the neonatal center.”
Newt Gingrich
This is in line with the advice of Florentine statesman Niccolo Machiavelli: “For men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands; for everyone can see, but very few have to feel. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are….”
In the memo, Gingrich advised:
“….In the video “We are a Majority,” Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning.
“…We believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases….
“This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media.
“The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used.”
Here is the list of words Gingrich urged his followers to use in attacking “the opponent, their record, proposals and their party”:
- abuse of power
- anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs
- betray
- bizarre
- bosses
- bureaucracy
- cheat
- coercion
- “compassion” is not enough
- collapse(ing)
- consequences
- corrupt
- corruption
- criminal rights
- crisis
- cynicism
- decay
- deeper
- destroy
- destructive
- devour
- disgrace
- endanger
- excuses
- failure (fail)
- greed
- hypocrisy
- ideological
- impose
- incompetent
- insecure
- insensitive
|
- intolerant
- liberal
- lie
- limit(s)
- machine
- mandate(s)
- obsolete
- pathetic
- patronage
- permissive attitude
- pessimistic
- punish (poor …)
- radical
- red tape
- self-serving
- selfish
- sensationalists
- shallow
- shame
- sick
- spend(ing)
- stagnation
- status quo
- steal
- taxes
- they/them
- threaten
- traitors
- unionized
- urgent (cy)
- waste
- welfare
|
And to the dismay of both Republicans and Democrats, Donald Trump has learned his lessons well.
On May 27, 2016, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks analyzed the use of insults by Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump. He did so with his 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.”
His victims, in turn, struggled to respond. Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio tried to out-insult Trump at the Republican Presidential candidates’ debate on March 3, 2016.
“I call him Little Marco. Little Marco. Hello, Marco,” said Trump.
Rubio retaliated with “Big Donald.” Since Americans generally believe that “bigger is better,” this was a poor choice of insult.
A better choice, given Trump’s “bromance” with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin: “Red Donald.”
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.”
- 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.”
And David Brooks offered: “And so the tactics…is either you do what Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 18, 2024 at 12:10 am
On January 27, 1944, Adolf Hitler convened a meeting of 100 of his military chiefs, including all the army group commanders of the Eastern front.
The war against the Soviet Union was going badly while the Americans and British were preparing to invade France. And Hitler believed he had the recipe for assuring victory: The Wehrmacht needed to be inoculated with the spirit of National Socialism.
At the end of his long-winded speech, he addressed this challenge to his generals:
“If the worse ever comes to the worst, and I am ever abandoned as Supreme Commander by my own people, I must still expect my entire officer corps to muster around me with daggers drawn—just as every field marshal or the commander of an army corps, division or regiment expects his subordinates to stand by him in the hour of crisis.”
Adolf Hitler
Sitting in the front row was Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, perhaps the most brilliant member of the German General Staff. It was Manstein who had designed the “Sickle Cut” attack on France in May, 1940.
Bypassing the much-vaunted Maginot Line, the Wehrmacht struck through Belgium, taking the French completely by surprise. As a result, it defeated France in six weeks—something Germany had been unable to do during the four years of World War 1.
Now, in a loud voice, Manstein proclaimed: “And so it will be, Mein Fuhrer!”
Hitler froze; it had been more than a decade since anyone had dared interrupt him. Then, trying to make the best of a bad moment, he continued: “Very well. If this is the case, it will be impossible for us to lose this war.”
Hitler hoped that Manstein had intended to reassure him of his loyalty. But Martin Bormann, his all-powerful secretary, told him that the generals had interpreted the outburst differently: That the worse would indeed come to the worst.
Erich von Manstein
And, which, in fact, happened.
As the Russian army closed in on his underground bunker in April, 1945, Hitler revealed his utter contempt for the Germans who had so blindly served him for 12 years.
“If the war is lost,” Hitler told his former architect and now Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable.
“There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.
“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.”
Just as Hitler demanded loyalty from his accomplices to infamy, so does Donald Trump.
Former FBI Director James Comey has had firsthand experience in attacking organized crime—and in spotting its leaders.
In his bestselling memoir, A Higher Loyalty, he writes:
“As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and the truth.”
James Comey
When Comey refused to overlook Trump’s treasonous contacts with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Trump fired him.
On October 9, 2019, The Week published an article: “Note to Republicans: Trump will betray you just like he betrayed the Kurds. The one constant in the president’s life is betrayal.” Specifically:
“Trump’s forte is con artistry. He sells books he doesn’t write to people who don’t read. He failed as a businessman but succeeded as a fake businessman on TV. The supreme irony of his life is that he poses as a dealmaker when he is the opposite. Trump doesn’t make deals. He breaks them….
“If there’s a constant in Trump’s life, it’s betrayal. He has betrayed his business partners, his customers, his employees, his friends, his wives, and his voters. A man who is willing to betray those closest to him will not hesitate to turn his back on foreigners thousands of miles away.”
To enrich himself at the expense of his followers, Trump has peddled a variety of expensive products. Among these:
- “Never Surrender” sneakers;
- Mugshot T-shirts, mugs and posters;
- Bibles made in China (as he rails against a trade deficit between China and the United States.
On the international level, Trump has withdrawn the United States from a host of international agreements. Among these:
- The Trans-Pacific Partnership;
- The Paris Agreement to combat global warming;
- The Iran nuclear deal.
As a result, the world no longer trusts the United States to honor its commitments.
A 2018 Pew Research Center survey found that 82 percent of Europeans didn’t trust Trump’s handling of international issues. Seventy-five percent of Canadians and 91 percent of Mexicans didn’t trust him to do the right thing regarding world affairs.
For Trump, as for Hitler, loyalty goes only one way—from others to him. No one who served either man—no matter how loyally or how long—could be certain when he would be deemed disposable.
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In History, Politics, Social commentary on October 23, 2024 at 12:59 am
On November 13, 2012, Dave, a conservative friend of mine who reads my blog, sent this email to a friend:
Warren,
This is the propaganda blog editor friend of mine in San Francisco that I talked about during my presentation last Thursday evening at the Opera House.
As you can see, he is a typical unbiased uournalist…. As I said, I love the guy dearly and truly have the utmost respect for his ability and intellect (although it’s sometimes pointed). Nonetheless, I thought you and others would get a kick out of this blog.I would suggest that you log onto his site and read some of his other postings. You will then see why I am such an admirer….
* * * * *
Thus, here is my philosophy as a blogger for those of you who read my blog.
Many years ago I worked as an investigative reporter, covering local police and courts for a small Utah newspaper
As a reporter, I adhered strictly to a policy of objectivity: Reporting only what I knew to be true. And in crime-related stories, reporting only what I knew I could legally prove to be true.
For example: You might feel absolutely certain that So-and-So committed a crime. But to avoid libel suits, you had better have the proof in legal documents. And if you can find sources who are willing to back up those legal documents, so much the better.
Another thing: As a straight journalist, you have no right to inject your opinion into anything you write.
So if you write a story about a mayor or councilman you know is corrupt, you don’t have the right to add: “This guy needs to be tossed out of office and indicted.”
If a prosecutor says that, quote him. But your opinion doesn’t matter.
As a blogger I editorialize by pointing out what these facts mean (at least to me) and offering, when possible, a proposed solution to problems.
Take my column about Right-wing columnist Ann Coulter.
On November 13, 2012, I posted a column entitled, “Tears for the Miss America Nazi.”
Coulter had been outraged that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney had not deprived Barack Obama of a second term as President.
First, I laid out her recent, public weeping over the re-election of President Obama. Then I quoted comedian Bill Maher and political commentator Chris Matthews on their reactions to Coulter’s comment that “There is no hope.”
Ann Coulter
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
So far, I had adhered to journalistic principles of fairness and objectivity—the who, what, when, where, how and why of journalism.
Only in the last six paragraphs of my column did I venture an opinion.
First, I laid out the historical precedent for what I intended to recommend. When her Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, committed suicide, Magda Goebbels murdered her six children. Then she and her husband, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, killed themselves.
Magda and Joseph Goebbels and their children
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1978-086-03 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons
Then I offered the depressed Coulter an option she might not have considered: She could follow the example of Magda (minus the husband and children that Magda had and Coulter lacked).
Not that I expected her to do so.
Frankly, I didn’t consider Ann Coulter a legitimate journalist. She and Rush Limbaugh were the ultimate propaganda icons for the Republican party. They made a career out of attacking the integrity and patriotism of anyone who dared to disagree with them.
For example: Take Coulter’s book Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.
One of her heroes is Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, who unleashed a wave of hysteria across America with his slanderous accusations of massive Communist infiltration of the Federal Government.
Joseph McCarthy
Coulter maintains that McCarthy was a true patriot, and that he—not his victims—was the true victim of history.
This is on a par with rewriting history as the son of Laventi Beria, Joseph Stalin’s infamous secret police chief, has attempted. He insists that his father was a good man who was forced by Stalin to do bad things.
Jesus was right: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I hugely admire those who seek out the truth and speak it forcefully, without fear or favor.
And I despise those who ride to fame, power or wealth on a carpet of lies and evasions. Although I have written heavily about the infamies of the Right, I realize there is plenty of stupidity, arrogance and criminality on the Left.
I don’t believe that any person, agency, political party or corporation has a monopoly on virtue, intelligence or judgment. On the contrary: Members of agencies, political parties and corporations should be held to the highest level of scrutiny. This is especially true when those institutions hold vast power over the lives of ordinary citizens.
Throughout the last half-century Republicans have dominated American politics—and the lives of Americans. Thus I have written far more about their all-consuming lust for absolute power than I have on the usually secondary role played by Democrats.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 11, 2024 at 12:19 am
In 1996, Newt Gingrich, then Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote a memo that encouraged Republicans to “speak like Newt.”
Entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” it urged Republicans to attack Democrats with such words as “corrupt,” “selfish,” “destructive,” “hypocrisy,” “liberal,” “sick,” and “traitors.”
Even worse, Gingrich encouraged the news media to disseminate such accusations. Among his suggestions:
- “Fights make news.”
- Create a “shield issue” to deflect criticism: “A shield issue is, just, you know, your opponent is going to attack you as lacking compassion. You better…show up in the local paper holding a baby in the neonatal center.”
Newt Gingrich
This is in line with the advice of Florentine statesman Niccolo Machiavelli: “For men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands; for everyone can see, but very few have to feel. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are….”
In the memo, Gingrich advised:
“….In the video “We are a Majority,” Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning.
“…We believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases….
“This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media.
“The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used.”
Here is the list of words Gingrich urged his followers to use in attacking “the opponent, their record, proposals and their party”:
- abuse of power
- anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs
- betray
- bizarre
- bosses
- bureaucracy
- cheat
- coercion
- “compassion” is not enough
- collapse(ing)
- consequences
- corrupt
- corruption
- criminal rights
- crisis
- cynicism
- decay
- deeper
- destroy
- destructive
- devour
- disgrace
- endanger
- excuses
- failure (fail)
- greed
- hypocrisy
- ideological
- impose
- incompetent
- insecure
- insensitive
|
- intolerant
- liberal
- lie
- limit(s)
- machine
- mandate(s)
- obsolete
- pathetic
- patronage
- permissive attitude
- pessimistic
- punish (poor …)
- radical
- red tape
- self-serving
- selfish
- sensationalists
- shallow
- shame
- sick
- spend(ing)
- stagnation
- status quo
- steal
- taxes
- they/them
- threaten
- traitors
- unionized
- urgent (cy)
- waste
- welfare
|
And to the dismay of both Republicans and Democrats, Donald Trump has learned his lessons well.
On May 27, 2016, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks analyzed the use of insults by Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump. He did so with his 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.”
His victims, in turn, struggled to respond. Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio tried to out-insult Trump at the Republican Presidential candidates’ debate on March 3, 2016.
“I call him Little Marco. Little Marco. Hello, Marco,” said Trump.
Rubio retaliated with “Big Donald.” Since Americans generally believe that “bigger is better,” this was a poor choice of insult.
A better choice, given Trump’s “bromance” with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin: “Red Donald.”
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.”
- 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.”
And David Brooks offered: “And so the tactics…is either you do what Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 14, 2024 at 12:10 am
On January 27, 1944, Adolf Hitler convened a meeting of 100 of his military chiefs, including all the army group commanders of the Eastern front.
The war against the Soviet Union was going badly while the Americans and British were preparing to invade France. And Hitler believed he had the recipe for assuring victory: The Wehrmacht needed to be inoculated with the spirit of National Socialism.
At the end of his long-winded speech, he addressed this challenge to his generals:
“If the worse ever comes to the worst, and I am ever abandoned as Supreme Commander by my own people, I must still expect my entire officer corps to muster around me with daggers drawn—just as every field marshal or the commander of an army corps, division or regiment expects his subordinates to stand by him in the hour of crisis.”
Adolf Hitler
Sitting in the front row was Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, perhaps the most brilliant member of the German General Staff. It was Manstein who had designed the “Sickle Cut” attack on France in May, 1940.
Bypassing the much-vaunted Maginot Line, the Wehrmacht struck through Belgium, taking the French completely by surprise. As a result, it defeated France in six weeks—something Germany had been unable to do during the four years of World War 1.
Now, in a loud voice, Manstein proclaimed: “And so it will be, Mein Fuhrer!”
Hitler froze; it had been more than a decade since anyone had dared interrupt him. Then, trying to make the best of a bad moment, he continued: “Very well. If this is the case, it will be impossible for us to lose this war.”
Hitler hoped that Manstein had intended to reassure him of his loyalty. But Martin Bormann, his al-powerful secretary, told him that the generals had interpreted the outburst differently: That the worse would indeed come to the worst.
Erich von Manstein
And, which, in fact, happened.
As the Russian army closed in on his underground bunker in April, 1945, Hitler revealed his utter contempt for the Germans who had so blindly served him for 12 years.
“If the war is lost,” Hitler told his former architect and now Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable.
“There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.
“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.”
Just as Hitler demanded loyalty from his accomplices to infamy, so does Donald Trump.
Former FBI Director James Comey has had firsthand experience in attacking organized crime—and in spotting its leaders.
In his bestselling memoir, A Higher Loyalty, he writes:
“As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and the truth.”
James Comey
Validating Comey’s comparison of Trump to a mobster is the case of Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime attorney and fixer.
A longtime executive of the Trump Organization, Cohen told ABC news in 2011: “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit.”
In April 2018, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York began investigating Cohen. Charges reportedly included bank fraud, wire fraud and violations of campaign finance law.
Michael Cohen
By IowaPolitics.com (Trump executive Michael Cohen 012) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
On April 9, 2018, the FBI, executing a federal search warrant, raided Cohen’s office at the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, as well as at his home and his hotel room in the Loews Regency Hotel in New York City.
Agents seized emails, tax and business records and recordings of phone conversations that Cohen had made.
Trump’s response: “Michael Cohen only handled a tiny, tiny fraction of my legal work.”
Thus Trump undermined the argument of Cohen’s lawyers that he was the President’s personal attorney—and therefore everything Cohen did was protected by attorney-client privilege.
Cohen, feeling abandoned and enraged, struck back: He “rolled over” on the man he had once boasted he would take a bullet for.
On August 23, on the Fox News program, “Fox and Friends,” Trump attacked Cohen for “flipping” on him:
“For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they—they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go. It—it almost ought to be outlawed. It’s not fair.”
For Trump, as for Hitler, loyalty went only one way—from others to him. No one who served either man—no matter how loyally or how long—could be certain when he would be deemed disposable.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 26, 2023 at 12:10 am
Two suggestions for interviewees with a dark secret to hide:
First: Don’t give interviews to journalists you like. (Or, in the case of Fox News, pseudo-journalists.)
Second: Don’t give interviews at 4 A.M.
Why?
Because you’re less likely to be on guard with a friendly journalist—and thus reveal truths you will later regret spilling.
And because at 4 A.M. you’re likely so tired or keyed up you make the same mistake.
Part One of this series spotlighted such a slip-up by Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield, CA) on September 30, 2015.
In just 51 words, McCarthy revealed that the House Select Committee on Benghazi was not a legitimate investigative body. Its real purpose was to sabotage the expected Presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
In doing so, McCarthy unintentionally sabotaged his own chances of becoming Speaker of the House when the then-Speaker, John Boehner, retired
Part Two of this series showed how Donald Trump made a similar mistake on September 21, 2022.
Appearing on the Right’s favorite television network, Fox News, Trump thoroughly embarrassed himself.
He was facing investigation for illegally removing classified government documents when he left the White House on January 20, 2021, and storing them at his private club, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.
Once again, Trump asserted he had done nothing wrong: “If you’re the President of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, ‘It’s declassified.’ Even by thinking about it, because you’re sending it to Mar-a-Lago or to wherever you’re sending it.”
Not only was this blatantly untrue, it was so outlandish that late-night talk show hosts had a comedic field day with it.
And still Republican politicians refuse to learn.
Latest case in point: House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY).
James Comer
Comer made the same mistake as McCarthy and Trump—letting the public in on an embarrassing secret—with an added twist. He did so at 4 A.M. on May 22.
Speaking—you guessed it—on Fox News, Comer unintentionally admitted weaponizing his investigative committee to aid Donald Trump’s Presidential ambitions.
Fox News host Ashley Strohmier threw out a comforting softball question: “We have talked to you about this on the show, about how the media can just not ignore this any longer. In an op-ed in The Washington Post, it says, ‘Millions Flowed to Biden Family Members. Don’t Pretend It Doesn’t Matter.’
Ashley Strohmier
“So do you think that because of your investigation, that is what’s moved this needle with the media?”
Comer, whose committee has been relentlessly investigating Hunter Biden, the son of President Joseph Biden, leaped to answer:
“Absolutely. There’s no question. You look at the polling, and right now Donald Trump is seven points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward, Joe Biden’s trending downward.
“And I believe that the media is looking around, scratching their head, and they’re realizing that the American people are keeping up with our investigation.”
His claim that Trump has a seven-point edge over Biden stems from an ABC News/Washington Post survey in early May. But other surveys show Biden leading, and polling generally indicates a tight race between Biden and Trump.
In fact, there is little evidence that House GOP investigations of Biden’s family are having a negative effect on Biden’s political standing. Biden’s approval rating remains low, but surveys show little indication that the Comer-led investigations have had a major effect one way or another.
On May 10, Republicans claimed that President Biden’s family members received millions in suspicious money transfers before Biden became president.
But despite promises of a bombshell revelation, the new evidence Republicans displayed did not directly implicate Biden.
Comer said that bank records obtained through subpoenas showed that the President’s son Hunter Biden, his brother James Biden and his son Beau’s widow, Hallie Biden, received payments totaling more than $10 million from foreign sources, including from individuals aligned with the Chinese Communist Party.
Hunter Biden
Comer didn’t say that the President himself received any payments or that he performed an official act in exchange for his family members receiving the money.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD.), the committee’s top Democrat, said Comer had failed to provide evidence substantiating his claims of wrongdoing by Biden.
“He continues to bombard the public with innuendo, misrepresentations, and outright lies, recycling baseless claims from stories that were debunked years ago,” said Raskin.
Even before Republicans won control of the House on November 8, 2022, they openly admitted their upcoming investigations would target political opponents and influence public opinion for the 2024 elections
On August 10, 2022, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): “So, all these things need to be investigated just so you have the truth, plus that will help frame up the 2024 race, when I hope and I think President Trump is going to run again and we need to make sure that he wins.”
And on October 26, James Comer said: “There are a lot of factors that are going to prevent Joe Biden from running. His age, the results of the midterm elections in two weeks. But also his son. Look, this Biden family investigation’s only going to ramp up in a Republican majority.”
Not since the notorious reign of Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy have Congressional Republicans been so open about their all-consuming drive for all-encompassing power.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 25, 2023 at 12:10 am
Donald Trump—before, during and after his Presidency—has always preferred “journalists” who toss him softball questions and repeatedly pay homage to him.
Such a “journalist” is Sean Hannity, host of the Fox Network’s Sean Hannity Show.
On September 21, 2022, Hannity—who had “interviewed” Trump on many other occasions—did so again.
From the outset, he made his intentions clear: To exonerate Trump—who is now facing multiple civil and criminal investigations—from all accusations.
Hannity opened by attacking Trump’s longtime foe, New York Attorney General Letitia James:
“Take a look at New York Attorney General Letitia James. Now, today she filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump and three of his children and other entities, claiming that they inflated the value of the Trump Organization. It is nothing short of a very obvious political stunt. It is not a criminal case. It is a civil case….
Sean Hannity
“Now, the attorney general isn’t even trying to hide her efforts to weaponize justice in New York State. Her conduct is deeply unethical at best.”
Then Hannity moved on to other “Trump haters”:
“But she’s not alone, you know, from the Trump haters on Capitol Hill, high-ranking deep state bureaucrats in the DOJ, the FBI. Now we have witnessed, going on many years, the 45th President has been the subject of what is non-stop, never-ending legal scrutiny focused not on a specific crime but on the man himself.”
Donald Trump
Then he moved on—inevitably—to attacking former Secretary of State and 2016 Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton:
“And, by the way, the President can declassify any of these documents—unlike, for example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, she cannot.
“Still, she stored 110 classified documents on unsecured private servers. Hillary Clinton was never forced to endure a federal raid. She was never charged with any crime.”
Hannity then ran a clip of former FBI Director James Comey saying of Clinton: “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
But Hannity did not say that Trump, on becoming President, fired Comey for investigating the proven ties between Trump’s Presidential campaign and operatives for Russian president Vladimir Putin.
All of this undoubtedly made Trump feel vindicated and comfortable. Too comfortable, as matters turned out.
When Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021, he illegally took highly-classified government documents to his private club, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.
On August 8, 2022, FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago to recover those documents. Among those retrieved: Eleven sets of classified documents, four of them tagged as “Top Secret” and one as “Top Secret/SCI,” the highest level of classification.
Documents found at Trump’s residence
Continuing to exonerate Trump, no matter what the offense, Hannity said: “OK. You have said on Truth Social a number of times you did declassify—”
TRUMP: “I did declassify.”
HANNITY: “OK. Is there a process—what was your process to declassify?”
TRUMP: “There doesn’t have to be a process, as I understand it. You know, there’s—different people say different things, but as I understand there doesn’t have to be.
“If you’re the President of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, ‘It’s declassified.’ Even by thinking about it, because you’re sending it to Mar-a-Lago or to wherever you’re sending it.”
Not even Trump’s attorneys have dared to make such an argument. Not when they demanded a “Special Master” to comb through the seized documents—allegedly so those that belonged to Trump could be returned to him.
Nor did they make such an assertion when, before Special Master Judge Raymond Dearie, they refused to state the process by which Trump had allegedly declassified the documents.
The media—and Trump’s many enemies—quickly seized upon this mind-blowing claim. Late-night TV hosts in particular milked it for laughs.
The Daily Show host Trevor Noah: How could Trump “declassify documents with his brain” when he couldn’t even “read documents with his brain?”
“If Trump actually had the power to change things just by thinking about them,” joked Jimmy Kimmel, “Don Jr. would have turned into a Big Mac 30 years ago.”
Nor did Kimmel pass up the opportunity to stick a barb into Hannity: “His approach was basically, ‘Show me on the doll where the FBI investigated you.’ I mean you have to hand it to Sean. When life gives him felons, he makes felon-ade!”
On a serious level, Trump’s outlandish assertion is liable to hurt his—or his attorneys’—appearances before various state and federal judges.
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern politics, warned that a prince must guard against being taken lightly—and, worse, expose himself to ridicule.
In his book, The Prince, Machiavelli writes: “…He ought….to pay attention to [guilds and classes], mingle with them from time to time, and give them an example of his humanity and munificence, always upholding, however, the majesty of his dignity, which must never be allowed to fail in anything whatever.”
It’s hard to be taken seriously when you claim supernatural powers denied to other, mere mortals.
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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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