The nightmare of a second Trump term: John Oliver nails it

I really hate to keep harping on this (well, no I don't), but anyone who remains unaware of what a profound peril a second Trump "presidential" term would be -- not only for American democracy and national security but also for democracy and security across the globe -- is either willfully blind, or has been in a coma for the past eight or nine years, or is hopelessly naive, or is profoundly stupid.

I wrote at length in November of 2023 about this, outlining the specific threats posed by Trump's own "Agenda 47" and an evil, well-funded, and well-organized Christofascist tool known as "Project 2025." And of course countless others who have a much broader reach and infinitely more knowledge, experience, and insight than I do have also been sounding alarms all over the place.

And yet... and yet... Mango Mussolini has a very good chance of oozing back into the Oval Office.

I know blogs are unexciting and even, many would argue, passe, or at least somewhat unfashionable. But videos are not. And the lovely and talented John Oliver, with his characteristic John Oliver-ness, really nailed the Trump 2.0 threat on a recent edition of Last Week Tonight. If the embedded video above doesn't work, here is the direct YouTube link.

It's worth your time to watch.

And if you're eligible and registered, it's very much worth your time to vote blue this November, from the White House all the way down-ballot. Staying home, or voting for a spoiler "presidential" candidate like anti-vax/conspiranoid loon RFK Jr., are not options -- unless, of course, you want to see American and Western democracy crushed by a lethal combination of evil, cynicism, and stupidity.

Please pay attention to the warnings. Someday, and much sooner than you might think, it may be too late.

Before you leave...
This has been, through what is no apparent fault of her own (excluding, perhaps karmic matters that are quite beyond her ability to comprehend), a nightmare of a year for the ruler of this Whirled. Money, alas, cannot make the nightmare go away, but it can make it easier to bear. Now more than ever, donations are urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to do it:

• New: Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
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  Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account of Cosmic Connie's husband, RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.

NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please specify that your contribution is a gift, which it is (as opposed to a conventional purchase, for which PayPal deducts a percentage for their fee).

Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this Whirled.

 

Trump grift Bible: Holy Week offer by wholly weak former president and Christofascist tool

 

The Trumpwood Bible, aka The God Bless The USA Bible, is not new; it has actually been around for a few years. But it has found a new and happy home in the Donald Trump grift machine, much to the delight of the Christofascists who are propping up Trump for their own benefit, and the outrage of pretty much everyone who is actually trying to follow the teachings of Christ.

By now you have surely heard of the so-called Trump Bible: a $60.00 tome endorsed and promoted by Cheeto Jeezus himself in conjunction with his close buddy and ally Lee Greenwood. Greenwood, of course, is best known for what to many folks is one of the world's worst songs, the performative-patriot anthem, "God Bless The USA." This Bible is not actually new -- see below, under, "A bad book finally finds a home" -- but the Trumpy promo campaign is new, and was strategically timed to coincide with Holy Week. (Well, technically, it's only Holy Week for non-Orthodox Christians; Orthodox Christians are going to be celebrating Easter on Cinco de Mayo this year.)

As ludicrous as the Trumpwood Bible itself is, even more ludicrous is the robotic promo vid by Mango Mussolini, who hilariously claims to be fighting hard for the Constitution every day. (Maybe he's fighting for the Constitution of Trumpistan, but not of the United States of America.) Here's a link where you can watch the Trump Bible video if you haven't already; I did have a YouTube link but it seems to be no longer valid.

I had a few thoughts when I first saw the social media posts and the promo vid about this grift Bible.

1. Compulsory prayer? Orange Overlord's Truth Social post said, "Let's Make America Pray Again." Does that mean that he thinks that prayer should be compulsory?
   
   Believe me, nobody needs to make Americans pray. Millions of Americans who do pray, and even many who don't normally do so, are sending heartfelt pleas to the Almighty that Trump is never allowed anywhere near the Oval Office again.
   
   
2. Christofascist dog whistle, anyone? In the video Cheeto Jeezus repeatedly says that the country needs to bring back religion, but in the same breath he says that we need to bring back CHRISTIANITY. He does mention "Judaeo-Christian values" one time in passing, but then again, this is the same guy who declared that the 2017 tiki-torch loons, who were marching in Charlottesville and shouting "Jews will not replace us!", were "very fine people."
   
   
3. Book design and readability questions. Even though I am an agnostic, I love books, and I actually do have "many Bibles" in my home, as Trump claims that he does. But I wonder about the "slim design" product that Cheeto Jeezus is holding in his little paws in the promo pics and video. I have Bibles of all sizes and formats, including ones that are even smaller than the book Trump is promoting, and that contain the entire text of the Old and New Testaments. They're printed on onionskin paper, as are many Bibles, and the font is teeny-tiny. So the fact that the Trumpwood Bible is advertised as being "large print" for easy reading seems a little odd, even if it is formatted in two columns as advertised.
   
   It's especially puzzling when you consider that the Trump/Greenwood tome also contains extras: the text of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights (which actually is a part of the Constitution, being the first 10 amendments), the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and a "handwritten" version of the chorus to "God Bless The USA."
   
   How can it be so comprehensive in such a slender package, even with onionskin paper -- and yet still be "large print" and "easy to read?" I think they should show previews of some of the interior pages, a "search inside this book" feature like Amazon has, but that seems to be missing from the web site. (See below under "Dueling editions...")
   
   
4. The "Trusted King James Version edition." Given the profound dumbing-down and marginal literacy of so much of the American public, particularly the Trump base, I'm thinking that the KJV, "trusted" though it may be, is a poor choice if you're actually trying to reach people who may not be familiar with the Bible. Even much more literate folks have challenges with the archaic English in KJV. Do the sellers really hope to introduce new generations to the word-o-God with this version? Granted, the KJV is in the public domain, whereas many later translations are not. But there are more modern translations that are in the public domain, so more than likely the book's creators and promoters are banking on the probability that the ignoranti will embrace the outmoded language as being sacred and holy, even if they don't understand a word of it.
   
   
5. Yet another bald-faced lie about affiliations. No big shocker here. This is from the Q & A page on the GodBlessTheUSABible dot com web site.
   Q. Is any of the money from this Bible going to the Donald J. Trump campaign for President?
   A. No, GodBlessTheUSABible dot com is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign. GodBlessTheUSABible dot com is not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates.GodBlessTheUSABible dot com uses Donald J. Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.
   
   But CIC Ventures is clearly a Trump company (Trumpany?). It's one of the players behind the gaudy gold sneakers, the low-tops, and the Trump golden toilet water. And it's also pretty clear that all proceeds will go, if not to Trump's political campaign, then to his legal fund. Anyone who genuinely believes this grift is totally apolitical is willfully blind or just not very bright, or both -- in other words, if I may state the painfully obvious, a member of Trump's base.

Many Christians are offended
There is, I must add, slightly reassuring evidence that the world hasn't turned totally upside down. Many Christians actually are offended by Trump's "blasphemous grift," as religious scholar and self-described "sane conservative" Tara Setmayer put it in a Xitter post.

Tara Setmayer @TaraSetmayer There’s NOTHING “holy” about selling Bibles “endorsed by Trump.” More blasphemous grift. Beware: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” Matthew 24:24

Hmm. Matthew 24, verse 24. And this is 2024. Maybe that's a sign.

A March 29, 2024 piece in the Daily Kos has more about the blowback from the saner Christian world. And while there are legitimate reasons to criticize the Reverend Al Sharpton for some of his rhetoric and his personality, he does seem to speak for many mainstream Christians regarding the Trumpwood Bible.

Speaking to MSNBC, the Rev. Al Sharpton said that Trump’s scheme brought to mind the word “blasphemy.”

“I think that people ought to realize how offensive this is to those of us that really believe in the Bible,” said Sharpton. “He’s doing this during Holy Week. Tomorrow is Good Friday. Sunday is Easter. Of all of the times you want to hustle using the Bible, why would you do it during Holy Week, which is really a spit in the face of people that really believe in the Bible from a Christian point of view?”

Nevertheless, Lee Greenwood is all over the reich-wing media, staunchly defending his crass decision to partner with Trump. For instance, check out the Newsmax video embedded in a post by journalist Aaron Rupar.

A bad book finally finds a home
As you may also know by now, this Bible, though new to the Trumpian grift mill, is not actually new. Lee Greenwood had been struggling for years to launch his project, which was rejected by major Bible publishers. From USA Today, March 27, 2024:

A petition emerged in 2021 calling Greenwood’s Bible “a toxic mix that will exacerbate the challenges to American evangelicalism.” From there, a broader conversation ensued about the standards by which publishers print Bibles.

Gatekeeping in Bible publishing
Greenwood’s early business partner on the project, a Hermitage-based marketing firm called Elite Source Pro, initially reached a manufacturing agreement with the Nashville-based HarperCollins Christian Publishing to print the “God Bless The USA Bible.”

As part of that agreement, HarperCollins would publish the book but not sell or endorse it. But then HarperCollins reversed course, a major setback for Greenwood’s Bible.

The reversal by HarperCollins followed a decision by Zondervan — a publishing group under HarperCollins Christian Publishing and an official North American licensor for Bibles printed in the New International Version translation — to pass on the project. HarperCollins said the decision was unrelated to the petition or other public denunciations against Greenwood’s Bible...

A September 2021 piece in Slate has much more about the Greenwood Bible's struggles to get published, and the article also contains insightful info about some even more radical "patriotic" Bibles and their place in American politics and culture wars. Some of those Bibles, such as The American Patriot's Bible, published by Southern Baptist pastor Richard G. Lee in 2009, make Greenwood's project look remarkably subtle by comparison.

In any case, for decades evangelicals in general have been quite comfortable with the idea of marrying the Bible to American patriotism and the country's founding values -- but Trump caused some of them to rethink that notion, particularly after the deadly January 6, 2021 Trump-fueled insurrection.

Trump’s election changed how many more progressive evangelicals saw the idea, particularly after the researchers Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead published research highlighting the influence of Christian nationalism and connecting it to support for Trump. According to Whitehead, around half of all American adults are broadly in favor of thinking of America as a Christian nation, and a smaller segment of those Christians—about 20 percent of Americans overall—strongly advocate for the idea. Many faith leaders who noticed the ideology in their churches really began to worry after the Jan. 6 insurrection, when the rioters waved crosses and Christian protest signs. “We can’t unsee the Jesus signs next to Trump signs, the Confederate flag paraded, the broken windows, injured bodies and officers assaulted,” the Zondervan authors wrote in their public letter protesting the God Bless the USA Bible.

Publishing struggles and controversies aside, though, it looks like a happy ending now for Greenwood and Trump as they stroke each other off in public and proudly promote their Very Special Bible. Praise the Lard.

Dueling editions (spoiler: there WAS a cheaper version available, for a while)
[NOTE: This section was updated on April 2, 2024 to reflect the fact that the cheaper edition of this Bible no longer seems to be available. ~ CC]

On a whim I decided to pay a visit to Amazon a few days ago to see if the Trumpwood Bible was listed there, and if so, if it might have a "search inside this book" option. What I found was what seemed to be a print-on-demand "paperback" version for a mere $24.95, with a pub date of March 29, 2024, "available to ship within 1-2 days."

Notably, this edition was listed as being in the "patriotic" American Standard Version translation (which is also in the public domain), as opposed to the "trusted King James Version." On the Trumpwood $60.00 Bible sale site, however, there's this little bit in the FAQ

What translations are available?
The God Bless The USA Bible is produced in the trusted King James (KJV) translation. 

Please Note:
We do not offer additional translations at this time.

At the time I saw this listing, there had been no customer reviews yet for the $24.95 "paperback," but I promised to update this when I began seeing reviews. The point seems moot now, however, because this particular edition no longer seems to be listed on Amazon.

The author of this version of the Greenwood Bible was listed as American Bible Ministries (you'll just have to take my word on it, since the listing is no longer on Amazon). The link still works, but clicking it can be confusing because there are several other editions of Bible listed, none of which seem to indicate American Bible Ministries either as an author or a publisher.

This was the product description on Amazon:

The God Bless The USA Bible is the ONLY Bible inspired by America’s most recognized patriotic anthem, God Bless The USA.

This American Bible invites you to explore God's word anywhere, at any time with easy-to-read clear print and a slim design. This Bible will deliver an inspiring experience in the patriotic American Standard Version translation. This Bible is perfect to take with you to church, or to Bible study, and to your work and on your travels. Let the world know you by your acts. As a true American Bible it also features:

• Lyrics to “God Bless The USA” by Lee Greenwood
• The US Constitution
• The Bill of Rights
• The Declaration of Independence
• The Pledge of Allegiance

This Bible has a high quality cover made of imitation leather graphics achieving our discounted price.

Product details indicated that the book was a standard trade book size and was 418 pages long.

• ASIN: B0CZJ53NDL
• Publisher: Independently published (March 29, 2024)
• Language:English
• Paperback: 418 pages
• ISBN-13: 979-8321139240
• Item Weight: 1.55 pounds
• Dimensions: 6 x 0.95 x 9 inches

But there was no "search inside" feature available, only a flat image of the front cover, which looked just like the front cover for the $60.00 edition. You could zoom over that image but you could not search inside the book.

My original comment about the above was this: 'But hey, it's cheaper than $60.00. Even if the cover is fake leather, and this is not THE edition specifically endorsed by the Mango Messiah, and even if it apparently doesn't have a "handwritten" version of the chorus to "God Bless The USA"... hey, it's got all of those important patriotic Murican documents in it along with the word-o-god, and it's got the flag on the cover, so really, what's not to love?'

I guess the fact that it doesn't exist any more (if it ever did) is what's not to love.

So what happened? A hack? An AI-generated listing? Or did the book actually exist, but the greedy sellers and promoters of the $60 version discovered it and had the listing removed?

Your guess is as good as mine. All I can tell you is that currently, if you type the ISBN or ASIN (which I listed in the product details above) in your search engine, the top result is a link to the Amazon page -- but when you click that link you get a cute picture of a doggy (presumably one of the "dogs of Amazon") and the message, "SORRY, we couldn't find that page." If you type the ASIN or ISBN into Amazon's search engine, you'll get a message that says, "No results... Try checking your spelling or use more general terms."

So I guess you're stuck with the $60 version for now.

If only it were just funny.
On one level, the tawdry Trump tome is just another in a long line of comical Trump grifts like the tacky gold high-tops, overpriced low-tops, and Trump toilet water that caused a deluge of well-deserved ridicule just last month. In fact, the Bible is being marketed and sold by the same folks who are selling the footwear and eau d'ouche. (I should also note that as of this posting on March 30, 2024, the Trump GoFundMe grift that's run by a billionaire Scientologist couple, and that I cited in the shoe-and-stinkum post and in a previous one, has exceeded $2 million sucker bucks.)

Not surprisingly the Internet has been working overtime to entertain itself with snarks and snipes about the God Bless The USA Bible. Among zillions of other offerings, an author at Religion News Service named Tyler Huckabee wrote on March 27, 2024 that the Trump Bible is the Bible that America deserves.

America, alas, does not deserve the Gideon Bible. A free gift just sitting there for anybody who might want to read it? Well, that just seems like a slap in the face to all the hard-working Americans who had to pay good money to buy their own Bibles! Maybe the Americans who want to read the Bible should have thought of that sooner and planned ahead instead of sitting around waiting for the Gideons to bail them out. 

No, the Gideon Bible may be ubiquitous but it does not capture the true spirit of the United States. For that, we must turn to a new kind of Bible, and a very different kind of salesman. We must turn to Lee Greenwood. We must turn to the God Bless the USA Bible. We must turn to America’s favorite Christian, former/future(?) President, convicted criminal and attempted insurrectionist Donald Trump...

...It’s the literary adaptation of “In God We Trust” on the dollar bill. It is the perfect encapsulation of American Christianity. It is the inevitable climax of white evangelicalism.

And that brings us directly to the part that isn't so funny. For even though it's comic relief on one level, on another level the Trump Bible is part of a much larger and seriously menacing Christofascist movement. Trump himself is basically a Christofascist tool in ways he probably doesn't realize (even as the fictional Cersei Lannister in Game Of Thrones didn't realize until too late that she was a tool of very powerful religious zealots, the Faith Militant).

The fact that so many folks who consider themselves “Christians” are apparently not the least bit outraged by Cheeto Jeezus embracing comparisons of his struggles to those of Original Jeezus shows that Trumpism really is a cult.

As for the evangelical “leaders” who are giving Trump a pass, their true motives have been apparent for decades: for them it’s all about power and ego and money rather than the teachings of Christ. In their (unholy) book, the end -- creating an American theocracy/plutocracy -- justifies the means, and at the moment, Trump is one of their most powerful means.

The fact that conservative Christians share Trump's sense of persecution reinforces the alliance. In an October 2022 article on The New Republic site, author Brynn Tannehill wrote, 'Conservative Christians have a deep sense of victimhood and fear about a secular America and are willing to end democracy to prevent it. As [political commentator] David Frum noted, “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism, they will abandon democracy.”'

And we have all seen that Trump is an expert at playing the victim, and that he is all too willing to abandon democracy to achieve his own goals of remaining in power/getting back in power/staying in power indefinitely.

Looked at in this light it's not at all difficult to figure out why, despite their veneer of godliness and their willingness to judge almost anyone else who doesn't live up to their standards, the Christian reich leadership is more than willing to overlook Trump's "flaws." Rather than sanction him for his sins, they work overtime portraying him as an instrument of God who was sent to save America and the world from a host of imaginary enemies. They shamelessly stroke his ego and bask in his orange glow as they continually fuel, and and are fueled by, his messianic messaging.

We have to outvote the MAGAts and the Christofascists this November. It's going to be a long, hard campaign season, but American democracy and even world democracy depend upon the outcome in November.

In the meantime, we can expect more tacky Trump products -- not to mention more performative piety from Trump himself, whose lifelong creed, clearly, is, "Let us prey."

This post has been updated and amended since its original publication on March 30, 2024. ~ CC

Related
Donald Isn't the Only Trump Shilling Bibles: On the The Bulwark site, April 2, 2024, Bulwark political reporter Joe Perticone shared that Donald Trump Junior, aka DJTJ, aka Traitor Tot, has thrown his coke-addled support behind the We the People Bible. This Bible is considerably more pricey than Daddy's, retailing for $90. For the truly patriotic and/or faithful there are bundle options such as the "Liberty bundle" ($145) and the "Faith bundle" ($170).

Turns out this isn't new news; Traitor Tot has actually been touting this Bible since at least late 2022. But it's worth noting anyway.

Perticone's Bulwark article also offers an interesting history of other politically controversial Bibles in American public life, dating back to Thomas Jefferson's redacted Gospels, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. In more recent history, politically controversial Bibles have been various flavors of "patriotic" scripture that are closely tied to right-wing politics, so in this context, the Trump-endorsed Bibles aren't an aberration in and of themselves. And they wouldn't even be newsworthy but for the deeply amoral father and son's ludicrous posturing about embracing the values, religious or secular, upon which the United States of America was founded. 

Before you leave...
This has been, through what is no apparent fault of her own (excluding, perhaps karmic matters that are quite beyond her ability to comprehend), a nightmare of a year for the ruler of this Whirled. Money, alas, cannot make the nightmare go away, but it can make it easier to bear. Now more than ever, donations are urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to do it:

• New: Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
  New: PayPal -- Here is a direct link to Cosmic Connie's PayPal page.
  Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account of Cosmic Connie's husband, RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.

NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please specify that your contribution is a gift, which it is (as opposed to a conventional purchase, for which PayPal deducts a percentage for their fee).

Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this Whirled.

 

Trump 2.0, Project 2025, and Agenda 47: a truly fascist nightmare in the making

 ...Donald Trump... is now so openly fascist he may soon start wearing his Mussolini Underoos on the outside of his pants.
~ Aldous J. Pennyfarthing, Daily Kos, November 9, 2023

You might have noticed that the quiet parts are no longer merely being said out loud, but are now being shouted from the rooftops, in re the fascist aspirations (fascpirations?) of 2024 GQP (un)presidential front runner Donald John Trump and his cartel of powerful, deep-pocketed allies. Trump and gang have made no secret of the many ways in which they intend to crap all over the United States Constitution, and totally dismantle American democracy, if Trump wins another term in the White House.

Together, the Trump campaign's disturbingly authoritarian Agenda 47 and the alarming Project 2025 have all of the makings of a fascist nightmare in progress, a dystopian novel come to life. Moreover, in the unlikely event that Trump does not win the rethuglican nomination, we're still not off the hook; the backers of the extremely well-funded and well-organized Project 2025 -- the theocratic Heritage Foundation -- have briefed not only the Trump campaign but those of the distant-second rethuglican candidates, Nikki Haley and Free State of Floriduh Governor Ron DeSantis. It seems pretty clear that the Heritage Foundation is determined to force its Christofascist agenda on the American people in the event that any rethuglican wins the White House in 2024.

The nightmare features of Trump 2.0, including the plot to dismantle America and recreate it in the Trumpublican/Talibangelical image, are not really new news, of course, but they were pushed to the front in the news cycle again due to a report earlier this month from Washington Post. By now, everyone who has been paying even superficial attention to reports and commentary across the media spectrum has at least a glimmer of a notion that a second Trump term would be a vicious revenge tour. Unfortunately, it appears that many folks are totally fine with this. Trump may be an authoritarian asshole, but he's their kind of authoritarian asshole.

Behind the curtain there's not a timid little bald man, but an army of aggressive Trump loyalists
In case you can't get past the WaPo paywall to read the report cited above, there are scads of other sources covering this matter. Axios, in a piece published on November 13, 2023, is a good place to start if you want to catch up. The article provides a disquieting summary of the preparations being made behind the metaphorical curtain for a second Trump term.

If Trump were to win, thousands of Trump-first loyalists would be ready for legal, judicial, defense, regulatory and domestic policy jobs. His inner circle plans to purge anyone viewed as hostile to the hard-edged, authoritarian-sounding plans he calls "Agenda 47."

• The people leading these efforts aren't figures like Rudy Giuliani. They're smart, experienced people, many with very unconventional and elastic views of presidential power and traditional rule of law.

Behind the scenes: The government-in-waiting is being orchestrated by the Heritage Foundation's well-funded Project 2025, which already has published a 920-page policy book from 400+ contributors. Think of it as a transition team set in motion years in advance.

• Heritage president Kevin Roberts tells us his apparatus is "orders of magnitude" bigger than anything ever assembled for a party out of power.

The late poet Maya Angelou is often quoted as having said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." Although many folks voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020 -- and plan to vote for him again in 2024 -- because he repeatedly showed the world exactly who he is, there were many others, at least in 2016, who were in a state of denial, not believing that he would be all that bad once he assumed the office of POTUS. But he was by most measures far worse than even many of the "alarmists" had expected, and a second term would be even more ghastly. From Axios again:

Here's what the early days of a second Trump presidency would look like, based on his words and our conversations with Trump insiders:

1. His top obsession will be the Justice Department, the FBI and the intelligence community — all of which he thinks conspired to investigate him, thwart him, screw him. He's been very clear that he's willing to unleash these agencies against political enemies.
2. The next priority will be the Department of Homeland Security and the border, with plans to erect sprawling detention camps, "scour the country for unauthorized immigrants," and "deport people by the millions per year," The New York Times reports. We're told Trump's top criterion for immigration officials will be whoever promises to be most aggressive. Trump has told allies he's confident the Supreme Court will back his most draconian moves.
3. As first reported by Jonathan Swan for Axios last year, a key tool for Trump's "revenge term" would be the use of Schedule F personnel powers to wipe out employment protections for tens of thousands of civil servants across the federal government. Trump allies want a deep and wide purge of the professional staff that often serves across new administrations.
4. Officials close to the Pentagon tell us they're worried about a plan, articulated by former Trump official Russ Vought in the Heritage document, to direct the National Security Council to "rigorously review all general and flag officer promotions to prioritize the core roles and responsibilities of the military over social engineering and non-defense related matters, including climate change, critical race theory [and] manufactured extremism." Indeed, the Trump allies see obstacles to remove at every level of every agency.

The fourth item on that list, regarding the military, should be a matter of deep concern for anybody who cares about national security. And since we're on the topic of the military for the moment, anyone who thinks that Alabama GOP Senator Tommy Tuberville's ongoing blockade of military promotions is really just about abortion access isn't paying attention. On November 7, 2023, The Guardian published an opinion piece detailing the ways that Tuberville is in reality the useful idiot of both Trump and the Heritage Foundation, with goals much more far-reaching than merely sabotaging reproductive rights.

Idiots can still be useful idiots. There are larger purposes involved in [Tuberville's] scam kulturkampf. His subversion of the military is not just collateral damage. It is not the unintended consequence, but the overriding motive. His abortion ban is both context and pretext. Tuberville has opened Trump’s strategy for a second term to replace the professional class of officers pledged to the constitution with a collection of flunkies who will salute his command, legal or not. Tuberville is a blunt instrument, but, however crude, he is the available tool.

The Heritage Foundation – which has produced a blueprint for a Trump second term, the 2025 Transition Project, which includes firing the entire federal civil service and replacing it with Trump loyalists, and invoking the Insurrection Act on day one of Trump II to deploy the military against political dissidents – has evidently been behind Tuberville’s attack on the military. It circulated a letter of several far-right ex-military figures to Senate leaders demanding that they “Support Senator Tuberville’s Fight Against Woke Military”, which they denounced for “advancing the leftwing social agenda”.

Heritage published an article by one of its fellows claiming that Tuberville is the “one man” standing in the way of a dastardly conspiracy led by Biden: “Replacing the officer class of police and military ranks with politicized ideologues who will bend to a transformative dogma is a strategy that has worked in places like the Soviet Union, Cuba and Venezuela … Tuberville, thus, is stopping the promotion of woke apparatchiks.” Like Trump, the Heritage cadres project their own scheme on to their enemies.

There are indicators that even the republicans in the Senate are finally growing impatient with Tuberville, but he has already done significant damage.

The Axios report concludes with a dire warning.

The bottom line: This Trump-allied machine has the most power over the formation of a potential future government of any group in U.S. history. Trump, if elected, will leverage it to do things with government that none of us has seen in our lifetime.

That's the kind of stuff that should be keeping you awake at night.

The gaffes are good for laughs, but the plans (and the fetish for brutality) are anything but funny
The conservative Bulwark has had a lot to say as well about Trump's dick-tatorial wet dreams. In a November 13, 2023 piece, Charlie Sykes warned that while Trump's numerous verbal blunders are a target-rich environment and provide ample fodder for comedians of all stripes, we really should be focusing on his clearly stated plans as well as his fetish for brutality. Sykes wrote:

Understandably, it’s tempting to focus on Trump’s gaffes, which are, indeed, a target-rich environment. The stumbles, the bumbles, the confusion.

But the problem with Trump isn’t the gaffes — underneath the verbal clownishness Trump is telling us who he is and exactly what he intends to do.

He genuinely admires the brutality of the Chinese; he finds violence exciting; and he’s a sincere fanboy of the world’s fascists. And he keeps tell[ing] us what his presidency will mean if and when he regains power. There’s no subtlety here.

It’s also no secret what he thinks about his fellow Americans.

To illustrate the latter point about Trump's regard for his fellow Americans, Sykes compared the November 11 Veteran's Day social media messages from Trump and from President Joe Biden. Biden's message on Xitter was clear and simple and decent:

Today, we honor the story of our veterans -- the story of our nation at its best.

On Veterans Day, let's recommit to fulfilling our one sacred obligation as a nation: to prepare those we send into harm's way and care for them and their families when they come home.

Trump, on the other hand, had this to say on his exceedingly ill-named platform, Truth Social:

In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran's Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our Country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

And Trump amplified his message in a Veterans Day speech, in which he not only repeated the "vermin" comment but also claimed that undocumented immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country." He got a lot of blowback for these comments, which are eerily similar to the rhetoric of Hitler and Mussolini, but he and his army of defenders have, not surprisingly, dismissed the criticism. Trump campaign spokesmonster Steven Cheung, for example, told the Washington Post that the critics are snowflakes. From Axios, November 13, 2023:

"[T]hose who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House," Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told the Post in a statement.

Cheung later said he was referencing their "sad, miserable existence" instead of their "entire existence," the Post noted.

Oh, okay. So that makes it all right. Trump and his authoritarian army will only crush the "sad, miserable" existence of critics instead of the critics' "entire" existence.

On the Bulwark piece, Charlie Sykes continued:

So, once again, it is essential to pay attention. Trump may be clownish, but the clown car is carrying a neutron bomb. Possibly several.

Last week, the Washington Post detailed how Trump and allies are planning to weaponize the Justice Department to go after his opponents and critics. Trump himself confirmed as much.

This weekend, we got a deeper glimpse at Trump 2.0 from the NYT: “Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans.”

Former President Donald Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up people living in the United States without legal permission on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.

Camps.

Sykes later added, "You can't say we have not been warned."

Asleep or awake?
The big mystery to me is why so many people still don't seem to be particularly concerned about this whole mess. Whether they consider themselves to be conservative or liberal, republican or Democratic, or essentially apolitical, anybody who really cares about American democracy should be sounding the alarms full blast.

I hate coming across like one of those intensely annoying conspiranoids who claim that only they and a few others are totally awake and aware, while the masses of sheeple snooze on unaware. Truth is, I don't consider myself to be totally awake and aware about anything. But I am awake and aware enough to understand what Trump and his backers are trying to do to the country I love. And so, of course, are millions of other people, but there are also millions for whom all of the above is NBD.

Like most of us who have been blaring warnings about Trump for years and years, I have been repeatedly accused by Trumpanzees of being an alarmist, a snowflake, a libtard, and a victim of Trump Derangement Syndrome (when in fact supporting Trump is the true derangement). The accusations don't bother me.

What does bother me is that the US as a nation appears to be sleepwalking towards authoritarianism, in the words of Professor Brian Klaas on a recent episode of "Morning Joe." Klaas said:

I study the breakdown of democracy, and I don't know how to say this more clearly. We are sleepwalking towards authoritarianism, and people are not waking up to this. And the Constitution is not written with magical ink. It is protected by the people who make brave choices during moments of political peril and we are in one of those moments.

So the question is, do voters wake up as well? Because our political class is not rising to the challenge. They're not distancing themselves and the Republican Party from this rhetoric. They're just sort of pretending like it doesn't exist. And we are literally walking towards a world in which Donald Trump is going to consolidate power, politicize the rule of law, and break down democracy one day at a time, and I think that's something that we have to really grapple with as we head towards the election next year because that is the biggest story in American politics and nothing else comes close.

It's definitely time for more folks to wake up and smell the fascism.

The next Big Lie is adding fuel to the fire
America is still reeling from the effects of Trump's initial Big Lie, i.e., his repeated, obsessive claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen (or "stollen," as he has put it more than once) from him. But as Amanda Carpenter and Deana El-Mallawany wrote in a November 15, 2023 report on The Bulwark, Trump's next Big Lie -- his tall tale about "weaponization" of various institutions whose purpose is to uphold the rule of law -- is already here. And not only is it adding fuel to the fire that led to January 6th, it is in certain fundamental ways more dangerous than the original Big Lie.

The authors warn that we should recognize the power the second Big Lie may hold over the 2024 campaign, as well as its potential to inspire violence the way the original lie did on January 6, 2021. In fact, as detailed on Carpenter's and El-Mallawany's Bulwark piece, the false weaponization claims have already inspired disturbing and credible threats of violence to witnesses and prosecutors in Trump's various legal dramas.

But the danger to the rule of law cannot be overstated.

TRUMP’S 2020 LIES WERE AIMED at holding on to power; the damage they caused to the rule of law was collateral. With his 2024 lies, opposition to the rule of law is the very purpose. No one is supposed to be above the law, not even former presidents. Yet Trump resists any form of legal accountability for his acts because, as he has said, “I was always of the opinion that a thing like this couldn’t happen. In other words, you protect your former presidents.”

Like many aspiring autocrats, Trump is engaging in the democratic process in hopes of becoming powerful enough to subvert it. Should he win the presidency, he will use his powers as both a spear and a shield—both to “dismantle” the government and to protect himself from accountability.

Anyone who is either unconcerned by, or actively supports, Project 2025, Agenda 47, and Trump's whole body of lies and his revenge agenda is very much a part of the problem, and is either willfully blind or not very bright... or is a fascist too. And as I've said many times before and will no doubt say again, anybody who still supports Trump and his allies specifically because of their rhetoric, actions, and plans deserves to live under an authoritarian, fascist regime... but the rest of us do not.

We have to outvote them.

Update: December 1, 2023: In a followup to its disturbing November 13 report, Axios revealed on December 1 that it has obtained copies of the exact questionnaires Trump allies are using and that then-President Trump used himself during his final days in office.

The 2020 "Research Questionnaire," which we obtained from a Trump administration alumnus, was used in the administration's final days — when most moderates and establishment figures had been fired or quit, and loyalists were flexing their muscles. Questions include:

• "What part of Candidate Trump's campaign message most appealed to you and why?"
• "Briefly describe your political evolution. What thinkers, authors, books, or political leaders influenced you and led you to your current beliefs? What political commentator, thinker or politician best reflects your views?"
• "Have you ever appeared in the media to comment on Candidate Trump, President Trump or other personnel or policies of the Trump Administration?"

Axios noted that similar questions are being asked for the Talent Database being assembled by the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025.

An alumnus of the Trump White House told us both documents are designed to test the sincerity of someone's MAGA credentials and determine "when you got red-pilled," or became a true believer.

• "They want to see that you're listening to Tucker, and not pointing to the Reagan revolution or any George W. Bush stuff," this person said.

Both documents," Axios added, "are striking for their emphasis on what you believe rather than your credentials or accomplishments." Copies of both docs can be viewed at the end of the Axios article (here's that link again).

Reportedly, Trump himself has been irritated by all the attention Heritage and other outside allies have received for, as Axios puts it, "the prefab administration that's being assembled."

• The Trump campaign's top two officials, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, issued a statement in mid-November saying that "none of these groups or individuals speak for President Trump or his campaign. We will have an official transition effort to be announced at a later date."
• "Unless a second term priority is articulated by President Trump himself, or is officially communicated by the campaign," they added, "it is not authorized in any way."

Um...okay. But I think we've heard and seen enough from Trump himself (and his campaign) to know that he poses a threat of the highest order to American democracy.