I know enough history to know what comes next
Donald Trump needed an ego boost. According to Alayna Treene, covering the race for CNN, Trump has long wanted to hold a giant rally celebrating the greatness of Trump, the importance of Trump and the brilliance of Trump in New York City.
Apparently, he had long dreamed of Madison Square Garden, but that was deemed impossible because he couldn’t fill it. At some level, this is progress given the original Bund filled it to the rafters in 1939 right down to the swastika-emblazoned banners of George Washington flanking the stage. At any rate, like any failing B or C act that can’t fill a room in Manhattan, Trump took his schtick to Long Island, where the MAGA faithful booed the media, cheered their leader, and demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that in fact what happened over there could absolutely happen over here, but for now at least, by a small number, there are more of us than there are of them.
When I talk about “us” and “them,” I don’t do so lightly. This is a position that has been forced on all of the rest of us by Donald Trump and his rotten cause. He and they have broken the faith, and turned away from the American creed, which most of them could not speak about coherently.
They have rejected the faith of our mothers and fathers. MAGA is a cult of disrespect. It has routinely and serially desecrated our sacred spaces from Arlington National Cemetery to Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. It has defiled our shared inheritance, obligations, responsibilities and duties to preserve a system of liberty and freedom that remains simultaneously unfinished work and one of mankind’s greatest achievements.
The MAGA movement is a community of misfits, led by scumbags and criminals who seek to impose control over the lives of 345 million free Americans in the name of a leader and a cause, whether we want him or not. MAGA is fascism, and like all fascist movements, it is sustained by lies, deception, propaganda, grievance and anger. MAGA is a fear-based poison that is making its last stand in a small Ohio town that has become the battleground for campaign 2024.
What is the meaning of Springfield, Ohio, 47 days before the nation picks the 47th president of the United States? What has happened there? How did it happen? Why did it happen?
What is going to happen next?
This is a photo of gas chamber #5 in Auschwitz.
Look at the steps. Hundreds of thousands of human beings — Jews, mostly — walked down those steps and were gassed and turned into smoke. There were no survivors of the gas chambers, not a single one. There were no eye witnesses to the last moments. There were survivors of the camps, but not of the gas chambers.
How many steps exist between pointing a finger at a marginalized community, and making an accusation like the one Trump has made against them before violence occurs?
How many steps exist between today and someone around Trump, who is already advocating for the construction of mass deportation camps, mentions it might be easier to kill them?
Oh, Stephen Miller has already done that.
Donald Trump has said he will go to Springfield, Ohio, and the Republican mayor has told him not to come. Obviously, Trump doesn’t care, and why should he when he is surrounded and encouraged by so much moral weakness.
There is no shortage of contemptible figures involved in the smearing of the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, but one of them who is not receiving the attention that he deserves is Mike DeWine, the governor of Ohio.
Mike DeWine endorsed JD Vance for the US Senate, and less than two years into his term, he has assaulted the people of Ohio like the GOP VP nominee. Trump’s hold on DeWine is so powerful and complete that DeWine continues to support Trump even as he deals with the bomb threats caused by Trump. In other words, they are all in on it together.
Soon, the House Republicans will shut down the government. They will do it to appease the demands of Trump’s loud, angry and bitter mob for no reason whatsoever other than they can, they could and they did because it was the craziest thing that could happen on that particular day.
Watching Trump’s rally in New York didn’t make me think he was winning, but it terrified me nonetheless because it happened.
Trump is the gravest threat to the American republic since the confederacy. When I see thousands of people who have given up their agency and freedom, succumbed to the contagions of a crowd in support of a movement that has no place in America, it scares me because I know enough history to know what comes next — and next after that.
It can happen here because it is happening here, and it has happened here before.
This is the warning. I can see Trump and Vance. Can you?
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust surviver, quotes:
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.”
“Action is the only remedy to indifference: the most insidious danger of all.”
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
“This is the warning. I can see Trump and Vance. Can you?”
Sadly Steve, I can, which is more than disturbing, and bordering on very creepy!
Some of it is sheer ignorance and stupidity by a large swath of our electorate. However, some of this nonsense are unforced errors; like Biden playing right into Bibi’s hands (supporting him with impunity), or the Teamster’s refusing to endorse Kamala, even though she was the only VP in US history to walk a picket line in solidarity with union members.
I’m not saying the Teamster’s are filled with pathetic fascists and racists, but did I mention Kamala is black, and Trump is an authoritarian kleptocratic PIG?
That said, I often wonder how Trump supporters can actually keep a straight faces. Miss Sassy’s owner said she found her cat unharmed, and apologized to the Haitian family that she accused of kidnapping and eating her cat. All I saw from the MSM is how apologetic this cat lady was, and that Trump and Vance could learn a thing or two about humility. Seriously, that’s their takeaway????????
So let me get this straight! Her cat disappears, and her first thought out of her mind is to call the police and claim that her Haitian neighbors stole her cat, and ate it for dinner? Seriously?
There’s a reason Miss Sassy’s owner is a Trump supporter, since only Trump and Vance supporters could seriously make this shit up!
And she’s a cat lady nonetheless. Vance has been calling her essentially less than human for months, and yet, she still supports these guys? INCREDIBLE, or more accurately INCREDULOUS!
This lady reminds me of a couple that was featured on 60 Minutes during COVID. They were interviewed because they were being evicted from their Baltimore apartment by Kushner’s family during the lockdown, which was illegal.
Bottom line: they still supported Trump and Kushner because the couple thought they were good businessmen. Seriously, they were being unfairly evicted, and they still support Trump? They’re like all the rubes that got ripped by Trump University and still voted for the guy.
So yes Steve, I can see Trump and Vance, but more importantly, and more disturbingly, I can see their supporters, and they scare me even more!….:)