We must make it stop

There are North Korean soldiers fighting with the criminal Russian Army on European soil, and Donald Trump has staked out a neutral position with manic tweets that raise the question of whether, besides his malignant narcissism, he might have schizophrenia.

The tariffs are on; the tariffs are off. Next, they are on, then delayed, on again, off again, and on and on it goes.

Meanwhile, the financial markets are cratering, inflation is rising, consumer confidence is plummeting, national forests are being handed over to lumber companies, traditional allies are being betrayed, enemies are being appeased and the richest man in the world has full license to berate, attack, and demean the secretary of state in a cabinet meeting. MAGA!

MAGA Senator Jim Banks of Indiana appeared with CNN’s Brianna Keilar to explain that the mass firings at the VA are great for veterans, and tells the American people that the blue sky is red.

Keilar seemed utterly defeated, like a kindness therapist at a CPAC convention.

She could not pierce the gaslighting. Her questions, each a pristine example of dullness, served no purpose other than to confuse the viewer about what is real and what is not. However, during the flailing interview, Jim Banks asserted something incredible. He said that the Republican Congress stands solidly and absolutely behind Elon Musk:

President Trump and Elon Musk and DOGE efforts, which we - which Republicans and Congress fully support, is just getting started and it's cutting a lot of the waste out of the government.

The politics are easy, but Democrats are too soft to do what must be done. They need to tie Elon Musk around the necks of the Republican Congress, and then throw each of them off the bridge into the river for political drowning.

On a Saudi Arabian news show, a former Trump state campaign chair was celebrating Donald Trump as the greatest dealmaker in history:

Does he really believe that?

It is absurd.

Seriously, what are Trump’s greatest deals? What are his most amazing acquisitions?

The truth is that there are none. Donald Trump is a con, a fraud, and a hustler. This is what Trump excels at. He is a world-class demagogue, who has hypnotized and anesthetized the American population. While doing so, he has brought many empty vessels to his side, who saw the opportunities to join in the taking.

Donald Trump is a reality television show star, who ran a branding company built around his name because American consumerism is vulgar. Trump’s excesses and the tackiness are confused for luxury.

He is America’s lowest and tackiest rapper, a Brioni-clad schlepper, conjured from a malignant cartoon and brought to life by America’s corporate media just like Frosty the Snowman was — “there must have been some magic in that old silk hat they found, for when they placed it on his head, he began to dance around.”

The 47th presidency of the United States is a global reality show that has taken billions hostage. The star is America’s mad King Donald. The supporting characters are a pack of conspiring courtiers with broken characters, degenerate personalities, political extremists, conspiracy loons, and all manner of the worst, lowest and depraved amongst us who have found their way home.

“The Apprentice” boardroom has moved to the Oval Office, where he summons and dismisses, summons and dismisses, summons and dismisses both halves of America’s broken media. There is the right-wing media, which is the tip of his poisonous arrows, and there is the corporate media, which is the engine of his nonsense.

Here is a perfect example from NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez, who tried to ask about Musk and Rubio’s confrontation during this week’s cabinet meeting:

Some details have come out about your cabinet meeting with Elon Musk, and some clashes potentially between Secretary Rubio…

Trump interrupted by saying:

No clash. I was there — you’re just a troublemaker. And you’re not supposed to be asking that question, because we’re talking about the World Cup.

Elon gets along great with Marco, and they’re both doing a fantastic job. There is no clash.

Trump then asked which outlet he was with. When Gutierrez replied, “NBC,” Trump said, “Ugh, no wonder. That’s enough NBC.”

This is the question asked by a reporter?

How about this question: do you know that there are North Korean troops fighting in Europe? Why is the United States indifferent about that fact, and now materially supporting the invading Russian Army by completely strangling the ability of Ukraine to fight back by denying them weapons and intelligence?

Yet, it goes unasked in favor of a relentless and dangerous pattern of asking tedious, banal, pointless questions to a man who is conducting the interaction like a maestro in front of his musicians. He plays the press like Yo Yo Ma can play a cello.

Trump says he’s doing great things, and America is going to be great again. He is surrounded by zealots whose arrogance is the only thing shining brighter than the gleam in their eyes.

We are watching something terrible turn into something sinister. There is time to stop what is happening and arrest the damage that will be felt, but it is running out.

There is a lack of toughness and grit within the Democratic leadership, and America’s corporate media has been broken like a horse.

These days of crisis will not abate. They will not fade away or disappear. Day by day, where we are heading will become clearer and clearer.

Day by day, it will become clearer that we must stop it.

We must, or the world will burn.

Donald Trump is not coherent, and he is not wise. What he is doing is laying tracks. Tracks to the abyss. When we get there he will tell us that this is what being great looks like. Some people will continue to believe him all the way to the bottom of the abyss, but in the end, reality is undefeated.

The suffering, chaos and misery ahead should be understood above all else as one thing in this country.

It was a choice.

The Democratic Party is making a choice to remain detached from danger, out of touch with America, and supine when it comes to confrontation with the evils at hand, with very few exceptions.

Senator Chris Murphy is an example of a fighting Democrat, who has my respect, and should have yours. If there were 10 Chris Murphys in the Democratic Senate, Trump could be stopped.

As you go about this Saturday know that there are warehouses in the poorest places on Earth with American food aid rotting inside, while children and mothers die outside. Marco Rubio made that happen with a signature on the orders of Musk and Trump.

We let that happen.

Now, we must make it stop.

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