Internationalist Writer

Internationalist Writer

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Devil in Disguise QAnon Don Does CPAC

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Quote: You fooled me with your kisses/ You cheated and you schemed/. Heaven knows how you lied to me/ You’re not the way you seemed (Elvis Presley, 1968; songwriters Bill Gland, Bernie Baum, Florence Kaye; backup by gospel group Jordanaires)

In the news: Adam Kinzinger’s family calls him a “disappointment to God” for standing up to Trump (Charlotte Klein, Vanity Fair, 2.16.21)

In context: US President Joe Biden was savvy in labeling his predecessor as “former guy.” Trump was a master of branding, plastering his name across the world to get into every face. Since his US presidency, the name has been synonymous with QAnon, a shadowy worldwide by-product of technology that became a syphon for web groups sinister..

The wacky QAnon movement most likely arose in the US. It first came to mainstream attention through media coverage of “former guy” rallies.

The rallies were packed with supporters who certainly seemed devoted to “former guy.” However, the events were held largely in small towns not usually graced by personages. There was no telling what element of any spectacle really drew the crowds. Nonetheless, fervor grew as the rallies went on for years, culminating in the Covid era “super-spreader” sprees where a willingness to risk life itself was part of the entrance fee.

The die-hard faithful willingly paid the price, even if not fully convinced that Covid was nothing but a hoax. The rallies were invigorating fans reported. They spread the word on social media, which fed a hunger for a passion in desperate need of a concrete substance on which to anchor.

Both QAnon and “former guy” fit the bill. When mixed together, they satisfied like vodka and orange in mimosa. They also exploded like uranium and plutonium in a nuclear bomb. They brought to a head an ancient struggle between good and evil, fought on the battleground of rationality over base instinct.

Belief in God or devil was not necessary to accept both terms as symbols inherent in their names. God and good, devil and evil were obvious. The difference between the two was set out from the earliest humanoid days even before civilization.

By the time of the Bible, for example, there was a God who began with a void that he filled with a universe in an orderly way. When finished, God rested at home in Heaven with helper angels. All were pleased with Earth below, the special place for plants, animals and humans made in God’s image housed in the fertile Garden of Eden. Bliss prevailed until God’s chief helper grew impatient with the limits of God’s creation..

The archangel Lucifer challenged God’s right to make decisions. Lucifer lost and was cast out to establish his own domain apposite God’s with Earth in between. Thus the first solid form to emerge from the void became the battleground to determine who would rule the universe.

Fueled by fury and convinced he could outdo God, the fallen Lucifer looked for ways to recruit others to his cause. Opportunity arose in the Garden of Eden, where God had planted a tree designed to keep humans in line with Earth’s demands.

The tree bore a fruit that revealed the secret of God’s exclusive power, that of knowing the difference between good and evil. God had told the humans to avoid eating the fruit of the tree. The humans had never thought about the taboo since they were wholly satisfied with tending the Garden God had provided for them. But in the tenderness with which humans cared for others, Lucifer saw an Achilles heel.

Lucifer wooed the humans. They ate of the tree. The humans were cast out of Eden to learn God’s secret the hard way through experience. The rest became human history on earth.

When humans chose to learn God’s secret the hard way through experience on Earth, they made the decision at the behest of the fallen Lucifer. That verdict automatically made the humans living pawns in a divine chess game between God and Lucifer.

“Living” was the operative word. Made in God’s image, humans were free to make decisions. They could take the side of God the creator or that of Lucifer, the destroyer of God’s order on the claim that he had a grander plan. On Earth, that divine 3D chess match elevated humans from mere pawns to invested go-betweens.

The human journey on Earth has reflected the path that God seet out in creating the universe. God made order out of a formless void, knowing that concrete substance was better than empty space. Likewise, the outcast humans tamed wilderness in an orderly fashion.

God finished his work in a week. Human have taken many millennia to make a dent in the chaotic Earth they had chosen. From Stone Age tools to the mysteries of Quantum Physics, humans found their way forward by trial and error in ever clarifying areas of science, culture and art. The journey was a jamboree for Lucifer.

The harmony of God’s Heaven was the goal of human on Earth. The challenges of Earth, however, proved more exciting than expected because of Lucifer’s seductions.

“Do as I say and you can be greater than God,” Lucifer prodded as he had since his fall from Heaven. On Earth, the claim seemed valid. Dominion over creation was fine but the prospect of control was compelling. only because Lucifer took a cue from God and retreated to start from scratch in the chaos of the great void.

Whether seen as an entity or symbol, God can be described as simple, steady, immutable. He created and made things that were good. The only way to challenge God was to confuse. The tactic reached its epitome when humans developed the powerful new tool of technology.

The Tech Age rocked humans on Earth as soundly as Gutenberg in the Middle Ages. This time, however, the effect was global. Overnight, more people knew more information than ever and much of that knowledge was false. Lucifer was delighted when “former guy” and QAnon met up in a serendipitous union even he couldn’t have planned.

Chaos was the devil’s wading pool on Earth and QAnon became its sump pump. drawing fringe groups into its fold like a black hole in space. With no concrete truth of God to fill the void, QAnon drew scary hobgoblins that arose in the dead of night. It was an internet sensation that caught the fancy of “former guy” who was an empty vessel desperate to be filled with concrete adulation that never satisfied.

The huckster “former guy” and the QAnon web phenomenon were like Tantalus to each other. Both offered grand promises. Neither ever defined the form that the grandness would take.

The mystery of the great void has been the driving force throughout all creation. God filled the emptiness with concrete good. Certain he could do better with no substance to the claim, Lucifer had no other option but to use the materials God had created and then to make a hash of them.

Creating chaos has been Lucifer’s specialty from the beginning and his millennia-long training with humans on Earth came to fruition with the Tech Age. Opportunistic “former guy” finally found the elusive adulation he craved and he exploited the mutuality of the sensation however unfulfilled he was left by the relationship.

By all accounts, “former guy” was fixated on glitz, money, glamour and attention above all. A fact-check in that regard is quite unnecessary. Former guy has never denied his ambitions.

Also by still emerging accounts, QAnon would not deliver those desirables. While members of the bizarre QAnon movement have achieved a bit of political success, the majority have proved to be ordinary humans misled by Lucifer’s chaos made out of the substance God had created. .

The far-out QAnon conspiracy theories probably had their origins in multi-twisted unrelated news items. The weird concept of elite liberals drinking the blood of babies to stay young could have arisen from a melange of news stories about stem cell research and collagen. Misgivings aobut those issues would have been augmented by social media adherents, the entire ball of wax snowballing into mayhem.

The devil is in the details, said German philosopher Friedrich Nietsche more than 150 years ago. God is in the details, said architect Mies van der Rohe among others at about the same time.

In truth on Earth, both God and the Devil are in the details. Only humans can decide which details to decipher., On Earth, God’s way is solid, steady and straightforward. Lucifer’s way is chaotic, uncertain and, horror of horrors for humans, exciting.

For humans opting for the constant adrenalin rush of challenge, one detail that may provide a clue for making decisions. Is the offer worth a gamble if the only pay-off is the boast that I got away with defying the order God created? .

Defusing the MAGA Mob-sters

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Quote: New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings (Lao Tsu, c. 6th-4th cent bc, cited online among others by Skip Prichard, 25 Quotes to get you through a storm).

In the news:: Trump whines to advisors: Why cant I tweet? (Asawin Suebsaeng, Noah Shachtman The Daily Beast, 1.07.21)

In context: Trump lost his signature Twitter platform when the mob he incited stormed the US Capitol to stop the vote count verifying Joe Biden as the next US President. The ultimate crime of sedition against the country he headed was obvious. Proving liability was mired in the chaos that was the hallmark of every Trump venture…

Trump found his opportunity to seize the country in the social media havoc that overturned social norms. In that environment of “anything goes,” he won the 2016 election by trumpeting the most base of human instincts. That appalled most Americans but it caught fire with enough of a minority to get him elected on a technicality.

Trump’s big strike was with the disgruntled in America, most of whom were white men resistant to rapid social changes in a globalizing world. As in classic Greek drama, a Trump show had a cathartic effect on those he attracted. He gave voice to feelings repressed in the socializing process taught from earliest days..

Trump liberated the beast in those who needed the release. He was a quack who unleashed behaviors based on feelings that were best worked through on an analyst’s couch.

Public validation of base impulses forged a bond of affinity between Trump and his admirers. When he elevated the antisocial attitude to the highest level of the US government, adulation turned into idolatry. That sucked a complementary portion of America’s conservative Republicans into the vortex of opportunism.

Through Trump, like-minded conservatives tapped into base instincts to get elected. Once in Office, they were wired into the Trump booby trap..

Trump first appeared as a 2016 presidential candidate in the guise of a successful businessman offering his expertise to rescue what he presented as a downtrodden America. His pitch was aimed at the working class in the American heartland, where traditional jobs were threatened by climate reality, globalization and technology. All were unsettling to those expecting life to be the same as it had been for generations..

The Trump sales pitch in 2016 was a mulligan stew. of doomsday threats and grandiose promises of restoring a past glory that never was. The baseball cap worn with a suit and emblazoned with MAGA to Make America Great Again became Trump trademarks.

Replayed like a mantra over four years with the authority of the Oval Office behind it, success of the Trump doctrine and defiance against its outrages were amplified by the media. Trump unleashed on Twitter tortured those messages to tighten the ligature between himself, his admirers and the hungry Republicans cashing in on a meal ticket.

Loyalty was the price of admission to the Trump train headed for Easy Street. “Can’t argue with success,” Trump politicians seemed to say, limber in being supportive when Trump deflected charges against him.

The MAGA mob was the barometer. Trump admirers didn’t care about Trump transgressions. Rules didn’t matter. Trump made followers feel good. and that was good enough for Trump political mobsters.

Like all structures built on flimsy foundations, the Trump MAGA game plan crumbled when he failed to win re-election in 2020. Trump pulled all his punches to stay in office but nothing worked. He exhausted the entire legal system & he broke the Republican party with threats and attempted bribes. Twitter as his last resort, he summoned the mob.

Misfits, malcontents, hot heads, thrill seekers and devotees answered the call. They came from all parts of the country, including distant Hawaii, and they coalesced in Washington to stop the Biden verification process. Fortified by a final call to arms, the mob stormed the US Capitol, which delayed but failed to derail the verification process. As the dust settled over weeks, the roles of mob and mobsters changed places to carry on the Trump legacy after he was out of office.

The MAGA mob had failed in the job assigned them by Trump. MAGA political mobsters would have to take over.

The MAGA mob dispersed after the failed coup. They went back to the points from which they’d convened. After the failed coup, the MAGA mob dispersed to points from whence they’d convened, to be rounded up over many me country’s vast law enforcement grid. MAGA political mobsters, on the other hand, were anchored in Washington with undefined legal status as elected officials.

The assault on the Capitol was clearly an act of sedition. The Constitution clearly stated that attempts to overthrow the government were among the worst offences. To address the situation, Trump political mobsters with legally undefined status adopted the Trump signature tactic. They created chaos to preserve the political advantage gained through the Trump mob….

Trump was impeached for sedition in the House of Representatives while he was still in Office. The following trial in the Senate was politically delayed until he was no longer president. In the interim, the novel situation brought into relief the interplay between emotional conviction and rational maintenance of social order according to the rule of law.

The Trump MAGA mob that descended on Washington in defense of Trump was convinced that the 2020 election was rigged and that the election was stolen from Trump. There was no supporting evidence for the claim and yet no amount of evidence would convince the Trump mob members that the election was legitimate and Trump had lost. The key to that disconnect between belief and reality was based in the fraudulent bond between Trump and his mob to begin with.

Trump sold himself as an avatar of blissful simplicity in a complex world. It was a classic sales pitch used by political and religious movers from earliest days of history. The difference between the two was the end goal, either for the good or evil of social order.

Trump was a social divider plundering the land of opportunity for the opportunism of personal gain, To him, the MAGA mob was a tool to implement a vast organized crime network.

By definition, a mob is a disorganized crowd. a mobster is a member of an organized crime group. Trump managed to arrange a marriage between the two.

Many in the MAGA mob will become disillusioned with Trump as the rule of law comes to affect them directly. They will be like the litigants who ended up suing when Trump University failed to deliver on tempting get-rich-quick promises. Others may be influenced by what happens to Trump when MAGA political mobsters render a verdict on his role in the insurrection aimed at overthrowing a government to keep Trump in office.

The irony of the MAGA mob couldn’t be starker. They attacked a government that allowed them the freedom to do so. That government was built over a period of near 250-years based on a Constitution that formed the foundation for the natural evolution of law as society grew.

One branch of US government made laws, another implemented them and a third settled disputes about legitimacy. Over four years, Trump knee-capped all three branches to establish his ambitious organized crime plan..

When Trump called his mob to storm the US Capitol, he directed them to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs That legend about greed had the goose killed in the false belief that the motherlode of the gold in the egg was there in spades inside the goose that laid it. The mob took the bait. The political mobsters went with the momentum of winning.

The rule of law based on the US Constitution as a blueprint for democratic rule produced the environment that allowed a grubber like Donald Trump to usurp the system and turn it into an organized crime operation. The MAGA mob and political mobsters were prey for the scam but the rule of law won out.

Convicted or not, Donald Trump has been unmasked and defanged. Mobsters may carry on in the name of the Don but the mob has scattered. In pieces under rule of law reality, they will melt back into the American fabric of comfortable decency. The remaining Trump political mobsters just don’t have the skill of fraud to hold their interest. .

Where’s the Beef in Trump America?

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Quote: “It certainly is a big bun…a very big bun…a big fluffy bun…a very big fluffy…but where’s the beef?” (chain store Wendy’s hamburger ad challenging competitors, 1984).

In the news: Nero fiddled. Trump golfs (Dean Obeidallah, CNN, 12.27.20).

In context: In 1949, British author George Orwell published his classic dystopian science fiction novel, Animal Farm. Set in the futuristic 1984 at the time, the novel presented a “Big Brother” society that had turned the world upside down with propaganda.

In the real year 1984, the American hamburger chain Wendy’s released an ad that questioned the meat portion of products offered by large global conglomerate rivals. “Where’s the beef?” became a catch-all phrase for the value of substance beyond a puffed up presentation.

Thirty years later, Donald Trump won the 2016 US presidency with a flourish of fluff that over the next four years of his Presidency proved devoid of substance. It took a global pandemic to prove the emptiness of his words and persona. A crisis that could have been mitigated by decisive action ran out of control because of Trump puffery..

When it came to the pandemic, seeming to be in control was more important to Trump than the work of the Office he held. The Covid pandemic proved there was no meat patty in hamburger Trump. Yet nearly half the country wouldn’t believe they had been scammed into thinking there was.

A successful scam calls for a lot of fluff. The act of cheating by scam has many forms, including swindle, con and fraud. Most forms involve a veneer of having already achieved some measure of success. Also essential to a scam is a smooth delivery of sales techniques that are only tangentially related to the truth of the transaction.

The unscrupulous used-car salesman unloading lemons is a classic example of defrauding a buyer by scam. The speedometer is fixed, the spiel is delivered and indemnity from liability is covered by legal small print in the contract. Ultimately, however, the sale is clinched by persuasion, a communication technique covering a wide range of transactions.

Legitimate advertising is regulated by laws. Gray areas between practice and law are litigated in courts. That legal process is the way that laws evolve over time to close gaps between the many forms of persuasion that are questionable. The law settles disputes by determining the level of truth contained in the persuasive technique being used.

Facts play a central role in persuasion disputes. So does the question of whether facts are used to support or distort the truth. The field is vast and the legal process involved is understandably slow.

As an example, laws regulating Ponzi schemes deal with a fine line between legitimate and illegal use of investor funds. If an investor expects to make a projected profit but the facts underlying the projection may be false, the claim of a scam is litigated in court.

Most non-lawyers would consider the legal process of distinguishing truth from fact and persuasive technique as an exercise in splitting hairs. That, however, is the laborious process by which the law protects the public.

Without that protection, society would be an open season free-for-all bonanza for crafty scammers out to bilk as many as possible. With the legal safeguard, the unscrupulous are forced into exploiting loopholes.

In Trump era America, the all-important political arena was a goldmine of legal loopholes wide open to ambitious charlatans. The Constitutional right to free speech had knee-capped the natural evolution of law. Gray areas had not been clarified between truth, fact and persuasive claims.

Politicians in America when Trump entered the field were free to lie as much as they dared. Trump the master con intrepid seized the opportunity and took up the challenge of the new frontier.

The act of lying also has many forms, from little white lies to whoppers and complete fabrications. Trump pushed the license to lie further than any imaginable limits. Mixing the gamut of lies with other persuasive techniques such as promises and threats, he won the 2016 Presidency and with the powers of the presidency swept up key portions of the country with so much fluff that they ended extorting democracy itself.

In advertising, fraudulent claims are relatively easy to prove. The product either delivers on the promise or fails to do so. The line between truth, fact and claim are fairly straightforward. In the political sell, the product is an unregulated platform Constitutionally protected to fly free of limits

Until Trump limits on the ultimate American position of the presidency were set by commonly accepted human decency standards. Respect was among the virtues presupposed by that standard, especially respect for any social position achieved. As President of the United States, Trump blasted right past precedent with a flurry of fluff that drowned out the fact that there was no substance beneath the veneer.

Fluff has a tendency to scatter and settled. The fluff of Trump with Presidential powers spread like contagion among adherents who came to emulate his persuasive techniques. By the time Covid tested his skills and found them wanting, a large swathe of America had bought into the ruse as the only example to follow.

Admirers of Donald Trump view him as a trailblazing maverick fighting for his right to take the country for all it had to offer. After all, America was the land of freedom and opportunity. Bankruptcy laws gave strivers a second chance if they failed and Trump had survived six of them. The trump base heard charges against their and forgave, even fought harder for him against the enemy. They didn’t even mind if they’d been scammed except for the pesky Americans who just wouldn’t be satisfied with Trump.

Anger seems to be a common element among Trump supporters. That may be a sign of a loophole in the formidable Trump persuasive technique. Allies believe there is a beef patty inside the fluffy Trump bun. The belief is kept alive only by the disconnect between fact, truth and claim that would not be allowed in any legitimate advertising campaign.

Long before he reached for the ultimate enchilada of the US Presidency, Trump sold himself as a wealthy, savvy business tycoon. The claim was not backed by facts. He had run out of options for the legitimate funding needed to keep his Ponzi scheme afloat. He had also covered his financial dealings with so much affiliate and off-shoot fluff that no single thread could be traced. That was the mindset with which Trump approached the mighty powers of the US Presidency.

With no political experience, Trump prepared for the persuasive skills the Presidency required by conducting shady business deals. By the time he ran for Office, his sales pitch had reached the level of propaganda, both comprised of the same ingredients of truth, fact and persuasive technique, differing only in degrees to which each element is used. In the Trump approach, truth was irrelevant as logic would show..

When the Trump fluff settles, scholars of logic will have a field day parsing Trump sentences. They will unearth a treasure trove of textbook examples of errors in rhetorical debate, a formal term for the simple human process of common sense logical thinking.

During four years under the brightest public spotlight, Trump has proved a master at lobbing foul balls into American thought. The sheer volume of his strikes has overwhelmed the system. Professional fact checkers can’t keep up with lies tossed off as naturally as a “howdy do?”. And while Trump allies admire and copy the technique that Trump makes look easy, most Americans take the Wendy’s cue to ask, “Where’s the beef?”

Trump sold himself as an easy solution to the complicated problems of a global world. Much of America bought into the view even at the cost of admitting they’d been scammed into buying it. The base stayed true to the vision that Trump presented even when Covid unmasked him as tofu instead of the red meat they expected.

The attraction of fluff over substance is a specialty of the dynamic young American land of freedom and opportunity. The romance of easy gain is not unique to America in a global world. But the basic human drive to know truth beyond fact and persuasive claim may prove a unifying element that draws America triumphantly into the greater world of democratic ideals once the fluff adventure with Donald Trump has ended.

Neither fact nor truth made an impact on the Trump base once it bought into the Trump persuasive claim of easy gain. The price was simplify loyalty to the seller.

That “gentleman’s agreement” between Trump and his base may hold up even after Trump is divested of the mighty US Presidential powers he wrested through a scam based on persuasive techniques.,

Publication of the elusive Trump tax returns may be the factual element that tips the scale.in the sale of himself as a wealthy winner. Meanwhile, the American majority holds the fort for American substance being at least as important as fluff in a global world that is America’s new frontier for progress.

Biden Buries Trump

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Quote: Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly as ravening wolves (The Bible, Matthew 7:15).

Definition: Perfidy,; betrayal of faith, trust, official responsibility. (mentioned once in the US Constitution)

In the news: Trump faces pressure from Republicans to drop “corrosive” fight to overturn election (Miranda Bryant, The Guardian, 11.24.20).

In context: Times change but core principles don’t. Gravity may be defied in space but it’s still gravity that draws the vehicle back to earth.

Likewise, humans can choose to abandon moral standards but the social drive is toward evolution. That overrides revolution and even more fiercely, the devolution that goes backwards.

Donald Trump captured the US Presidency in 2016 with qualities that left much to be desired for human development in a world growing global. He was angry, spiteful, derisive and downright cruel. He mocked both social heroes and those defying limits of physical challenge. While repugnant to most in the world, those qualities resonated with enough American to win him the 2016 election even if only on a technicality.

Trump’s relish for airing crude impulses was considered refreshingly honest by core supporters. Reprehensible qualities were dismissed as insignificant relative to his role as leader of the country as he promoted himself. Opposition of any sort was seen by fans as an attack on a rugged individualist fighting for the cause of all malcontents similar to him.

For three years the bond between Trump and his base deepened as he shattered Constitutional norms. That agenda won help from career politicians for whom Trump was a meal ticket. The media was crucial. As a reliable source of scandal, Trump maximized the earnings potential. . When the Covid pandemic hit as the next election year began, the dynamics of the Trump machine shifted into high gear.

The basest instincts emerged in Trump when Covid threatened his smooth ride to re-election based on a vibrant economy. Never a leader and ever the solo autocrat, Trump by-passed national plans, downplayed danger and delegated responsibilities to 50 state Governors while withholding aid. Predictably enough, utter chaos ensued and redoubled over time.

As the virus mushroomed across the country, Trump milked the political opportunity. He ignored, contradicted or undercut scientists and public health officials. He mocked containment measures and branded masks as symbols of affiliation, supporting either Trump the US President or the anti-American infidels.

That message came through in the media at large, powered by the rowdy base commanding attention. Noise and outrage were fodder. and the Trump political allies rode the tidal wave. Thus Trump the maverick warrior drowned out the common sense that a viral pandemic warranted.. .

Only Trump with the Presidential bullhorn could have convinced followers to ignore science and believe his assertion that the pandemic would just disappear. Once ignited, the catastrophic momentum shot out of control..

Nearly the entire world was afflicted by Covid and global astonishment barely registered in the US. Yet social media undertones confirmed the disbelief that the majority of Americans said outright.

America, the wealthiest, most powerful country on earth, was leading the world in the number of contagions and deaths, When it became clear that federal assistance was stalled beyond an early thrust, when armed resistance to containment measures was encouraged, then the world came to a devastating conclusion. America was unwilling to help its own.

Skyrocketing death tolls, health care burn-out, unemployment and looming homelessness unemployment made headlines the world over. It was a side of America the world had never seen.

America, once known as the global friend, was now the pitiable poor cousin. To all countries rich or poor, whether democratic or despotically ruled, the greatest sin was to abandon its own people as a whole. With all its resources, America was morally bankrupt. The insight was confirmed when Trump lost the election and the country turned rabid.

The virally contracted rabies is commonly called “foaming at the mouth.” Passed from animals to humans, rabies affects the brain and central nervous system to expel water, a vital physical component. Extreme aggression is a symptom. The term was applicable to the base when Trump lost an election they fully expected him to win.

Tuned into warrior Trump, the base had rallied in his style throughout the campaign. They showed up when summoned, cheered when directed and booed agreement when Trump mocked his opponent Biden for abiding by Covid guidelines. When the term “super-spreader” was attached to the events, fans signed indemnity agreements against lawsuits if illness ensued.

Proving a correlation between Trump “super spreader” events and contagion took time. By then, Trump was in full campaign mode against “sleepy” Joe Biden who made few but targeted appearances.

As election day neared and polls showed Biden in the lead, Trump ramped up the rhetoric about election fraud. The message was fueled by obscured information about state variations in voting systems, tailored to account for the Covid epidemic. Obstruction of the Postal Service played a major role in both delivering the Trump message and eroding faith in the voting process. Then when Trump lost the election despite all that cushioning, neither Trump nor his fans had any basis for believing the outcome.

Attuned to the loud, rollicking Trump message divorced from fact, Trump fans saw a Trump win as preordained. The actual outcome made no sense to them. Biden hadn’t even campaigned. He couldn’t have won. It was a real perception and a sure sign of a toxic investment.

Believing in Donald Trump took a lot of effort. He sold easy solutions to complaints but the assurances failed to materialize. Disappointment was conquered by a renewal of faith, either by overlooking the let-down or by assigning blame for the failure to others. The emotional investment in either case was substantial. Compared to all that work, the easy Biden win could have been the result of nothing other than a scam.

Toxic relationships take many forms. All are characterized by harm to at least one person involved. In the case of Donald Trump, the injury to his base began when he descended the golden escalator and denounced Mexicans as drug runners and rapists.

The rhetorical device of generalizing sparked an outsized emotional response in fans that stemmed from many streams. Once tested to find traction, Trump fanned the toxic love affair with his base. It spread like dry rot as Trump tested and affirmed base reliability at critical junctures.

The Hollywood Access tapes were one. The Mueller Report was another, followed by Impeachment. At each point, the base bought into the Trump contention that a witch hunt was being pursued, that Trump was being hounded and vilified by political opponents and the media intent on taking him down. The Covid pandemic was the final exam. “Super-spreader” rallies in rural areas proved that the base was eager to even die for him.

Sure of his base after the loss to Joe Biden, Trump retreated to plan next steps while the base carried on the noisy display of resistance. But as he failed to find affirmation in one court challenge after another, the Biden alternative racked up momentum.

Low-key, seasoned, utterly human an moral, Joseph Biden was the ultimate contrast to Trump. He needed to do nothing more than present the character that America had lost since electing Trump..

As reality sank in, Trump grew frantic like a lover knowing he was losing his once-smitten captive. He redoubled on tactics that had first worked but the contrast with Biden was glaring. Despite the awesome presidential powers in hand, Trump was a mere dark shadow of a leader that America wanted and desperately needed in its war on the global pandemic Covid..

Donald Trump was literally AWOL from duties as US President after his loss to Joe Biden. He continued to exercise privileges to a potentially criminal degree, but he wholly abandoned the responsibilities he had never assumed in the first place.

When inaugurated, Trump had sworn to uphold the Constitution but he had already violated the emoluments clause regarding business conflicts. He backed that up with a very public show of indulging the nepotism prohibited by the Constitution. A wholesale assault on Constitutional norms followed, stemmed only by the 2020 election indicating that the majority of the country had had enough. That left the minority base still mired in a toxic love affair that had started with lies and false promises.

Reason and logic don’t work on a victim trapped in a toxic relationship. That is especially true when nonsense noise was the main attraction for an adrenalin rush delivered to those stuck in the ditches of a changing world. Detoxing the base will take time but the rewards will be inestimable to a global world because of their strong passions.

The year 2020 will go down in history as a globalizing world ravaged by Covid due to mismanagement by an isolationist American conman who never intended to be President. He merely played a game that he kept winning until he lost to the reliable American trusted the world over..

Whether or not he wanted the position, Joe Biden has been conscripted to salvage a country transitioning in a globalizing world. Climate change impacting migrations and immigration bear a direct correlation with pandemics like Covid.

Meanwhile, national issues call for redress, as racial injustice in the US. However much the base still loves Trump, such wide-wide spread concerns just can’t be addressed by the 3660 characters allowed by Twitter.

America deserves a debriefing after conman fleecing the land of opportunity for personal gain. Joe Biden has emerged as the detox guide He has nothing more to do than be the leader that he has trained to be. As the quintessential American he is the eternal silent Sphinx, The North Star that has guided sailors throughout recorded history, the motherboard for American ingenuity solidly grounded in history.

“Rules are made to be broken” seemed the Trump motto. The notion was was first stated by Douglas MacArthur, a four star General from the time of the Second World War. He lost in a run for the White House against Dwight Eisenhower, in part because he held that atomic weapons should be used during the Cold War.

The Presidential powers of the US are awesome. They affect the world. They call for a steady hand, not the blowhard fake rhetoric of a conman full of “sound and fury, signifying nothing,” as American William Faulkner would have said, drawing on the Brit William Shakespeare.

Trump the Dumped

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Quote: “Better to Rule in Hell than Serve in Heaven” (John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667).

In the news: Criminal probes, legal fights await Trump after White House (Michael R. Sisak, AP, 11.20.20)

In context: The blitz of the Trump tenure has obscured the character of the America that elected Obama in 2008 and dumped Trump in 2020. The mangled Trump response to the Covid pandemic foreshadowed the downfall. The felicity of his ouster has been validated ever since that loss on a daily basis.

The title of “loser” is not new to Trump. He’s made a career of losing. He’s lost casinos, yachts, airplanes and sports teams, not to mention court cases and tons of money. The 2020 election, however, dealt him a blow he had never met. He lost “face” in the most humiliating way possible.

Throughout his career, Trump covered losses with blowhard tactics while recouping with more brazen ventures. When he took on America and its democracy, the loss of the project was the end of the final stop.Judging by his record in Office, the US presidency was just another project that Trump ran the same way as other businesses.

Regardless of hue and cry, he rolled over the Constitution as if it were a speeding ticket for someone to fix. The 2020 referendum on his performance was a speedbump that crushed his roadster.His response was to stubbornly redouble usual efforts, which in his position served only to prove why his election to the US presidency was a mistake in the first place.

The United States of America is a federal republic, held together by a central government with states retaining individual rights. Disputes over conflicting laws have been settled in courts, from the state level all the way up to the country’s Supreme Court. That Court heads up the Judicial branch of the central government, one of three set up by the Constitution.

Of the other two branches, the Legislative has been charged with making laws and the Executive with putting laws into practice. The three branches were meant to be a check on each other in the revolutionary stroke of genius that America would be a pioneer democracy..

Democracy in America probably began in the pioneer 1600’s when early arrivals decided who among them would fetch water in the wilderness. The person deemed most likely to succeed took up the challenge on behalf of the group. Given the times, the designate was probably a man, who went forward with blessings and returned to a hero’s welcome.

That 400-year historical tradition of America was massacred in four short years by Donald Trump, an antihero whose record reflected nothing more noble than self-interest.

By all accounts, his rise to the eminence of his current position was based on skills in knavery practiced upon successive power-brokers as he moved beyond New York to emerging capitols in the developing parts of a globalizing world.As chronicled in texts and media, the Trump expansion into ever broader foreign fields was fueled by the need to move on when his growing portfolio of failures and bad debt resulting from opportunistic overreach ran into limits. His success in the new arenas may have been born of a common interest in brokering deals under the radar. A boost into the Oval may have come from that business growth on a global scale.

Regardless of how Trump landed in the Oval Office, his win was a pyrrhic victory for both allies and foes. Nobody won.

Elected by the Electoral College technicality, Trump never achieved majority appeal. He himself was dogged by doubts about his legitimacy. Foreign leaders of all stripes were silenced by the terror of the mighty US powers in such fickle hands And while the entire world was on tenterhooks with Trump, it was the US Constitution that took a workout.

Trump won the 2016 election in large part because he sold himself as an “outsider” who would “drain the swamp” of Washington politics, which was supposedly keeping the American middle class from prospering. The grand promise soon proved empty.

Instead of returning, businesses left. Farms fell fallow under trade wars and the rich prospered with tax cuts. That reality dawned as the Washington “swamp” turned into a “cesspool.”

In the 250 years since its founding, America had evolved in line with the Constitution that established three branches of the central government to act as a check on each other. Quite naturally,, the branches had filled out since horseback days. In his signature branding style, Trump skipped over reality and labeled “good government” as “the deep state.”

As he had with other keynote projects, Trump appropriated the US that others had built, reshaped it for his own purposes and affixed his brand on the new package. He was well along in reshaping American democracy on the bold, gaudy Trump scale when the 2020 election pulled the plug on his marquee ambition.

For three years he had gotten away with violating every Constitutional norm that got in his way. He had fired every one of the “best people” he had brought into office and had escaped impeachment despite the testimony of the most credible American hero witnesses. He had gotten away with firing those heroes for spite and with replacing them from a trove of Trump loyalists to the Trump motto that government was a tool for self-servers who are able to grab it.

Trump had never made a secret of those naked ambitions and apparently that was a big part of his attraction for his base supporters. The quality was seen as refreshingly honest in a politician. The view missed the point that the leader of the free world with the mighty US presidential powers at his disposal needed needed skills beyond those of a mere politician, even a good one. In the hands of a quack conman, those powers proved stressful for the world and deadly when the Covid pandemic hit.

By Covid time, however, the base had become totally enamored of its antihero US President. Like a toxic love object, Trump bound his subjects closer with every insult that outraged objective outsiders. By the time of Covid, in fact, with Trump in the Presidency, the “outsiders” had become the “insiders” ruling the country.

The Covid pandemic was a physical phenomenon subject to the laws of nature most familiar to scientists. As with laws of any sort, Trump declared himself immune. Science-based directives became bowling pins to be struck down in an Olympic battle for control.

Science called for minimizing contagious spread. Trump vacillated between labeling Covid a hoax and calling for a vaccine to be produced at “warp speed.”

Months of predictable devastation and chaos ensued before thr 2020 election pulled the plug on the Trump bowling alley. That unleashed the full fury of the Trump America years.

The 2008 electio of Barack Obama as the western industrialized world’s first non-white president was a groundbreaking victory for teh US. Trump seized teh opportunity to head up a backlash through the conservative Republican party. Reluctant at first, the party went gung-ho once Trump became a winner. Once Trump lost in 2020, he turned on everybody, including the Republicans and the Trump-loyal base that kept the Republicans tethered to Trump.

Not surprisingly, Trump refused to concede defeat. :Lawsuits flew like arrows from a quiver, only to be laughed out of courts. Recounts taxed a Covid-weary nation as Covid spiked in daily rolling records, primarily in the Heartland states where the majority of the Trump base lived. That phenomenon illustrated most concretely the downside of putting the mighty US Presidential powers into the hands of a self-serving opportunist destined to lose the ill-gotten bounty he had managed to amass.

The 2008 election of Barack Obama as the western industrialized world’s first non-white president was a stunning victory for America and the globalizing world. Trump seized the opportunity for a backlash by snagging the US conservative party whose initial resistance gave way to an inevitable win. The party rode the winning streak until the 2020 dump. Then when in fury Trump turned on everyone, sanity rose to the surface like cream in a chruner.

The US 2020 election was a sterling feat under the most challenging circustances. States with diverse rules for voting scrambled to extend opportunities to vote within Covid guidelines. When Trump defied the outcome, states pushed back. They stood up for their integrity within the federal system of government that bound the republic of states into one. Torn and wounded, American democracy emerged as the victor.

Donald Trump has not yet gone but the 2020 election that dumped him removed the venom from his self serving fangs. The simple democracy of the early settlers has prevailed through the complexities of teh modern age. Most significantly, democratic decency rallied against a hostile takeover by an unscrupulous self-server.

The beacon of democracy has proved its worth to lead a world faced with real challenges that can be addressed onto with concerted effortt. Through its 2020 struggle with Donald Trump, America has proved that the old world of the dictator is doomed worldwide.

States United by US Election 2020

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Quote: A lie can travel halfway round the world while truth is putting on its shows (Mark Twain, aptly enough, attrib falsely per Fred Shapiro, Freakonomics, 4.07.11)

In the news: Why People Who Hate Trump Stick with Him (Sarah Longwell, The Atlantic,10.19.20).

In context: America seems more divided than ever in the 2020 transition but it’s never been more united. The pandemonium created by Trump in wake of his electoral loss was initiated by the campaign fervor that brought out a record number of voters of both parties in 2020. The only upside to Covid in Trump’s hands was that the 50 US states became neighbors where they had been strangers to each other before then.

The Covid pandemi hit America on the two coasts, liberal bastions bearing little relevance to the vast majority populating the great stretch of the country in between. That mass of states held little nuance in the popular American conception. They blended into generalizations like the Midwest, South and Sunbelt. With the Trump presidency the states began their emergence as distinct personalities.

Symbolically enough, red and blue were already their distinguishing traits. The color attributions foreshadowed the coming integration of national elements when an East Coast Republican renegade swept up the electoral college votes in the traditionally Democratic Midwest. Over the first three years with Trump at the helm, both localized unity and opposition overall hardened in tune with Trump policies.

Trump won the Midwest with promises that failed to deliver. Jobs heralded as returning were hyped with a few early successes while actual jobs dried up and factories closed. Deluded solid Midwesterners howled along with neighbors whose farms were decimated by Trump trade wars. Covered by the much maligned media, the plight of those states took on human faces that reflected the impact of promised tax cuts went iinto the pockets of the wealthy. with a token pittance tossed to them

Trump’s public boast to friends that he had made them a lot of money went barely noted until the corporate tax cuts failed to trickle down into jobs. By then, the Southern border states were coming into high relief over fallout from the Wall and the Trump Immigration policy.

Catchy as campaign slogans, the “Wall’ and “tough on immigrants” cants were total duds in practice. The Wall was an ecological and neighborhood disaster. The anti-immigrant policy ended up in images of fathers ripped from families and children torn from parents, sobbing forlornly in cages. The nation as a whole was incensed over the Hispanics victims.

Attention on Hispanics in the Trump era began a national process of differentiating that large and varied segment of the population. Their backgrounds and current locations became features. The unfolding horror of children separated from parents for the sole purpose of enforcing a policy fueled the national outrage The assault on human decency transcended differences and opened the floodgates onto grasping the magnitude of the cruelty involved in racial injustice.

The empathic element of that complex issue in a country of immigrants adjusting to a globalizing world splintered the country into near-even halves. Levels of capacity to empathize became a unifying element.

Way back in about 500 b.c. Confucius outlined the three paths to wisdom. Those were contemplation, the noblest; imitation, the easiest; and experience, the bitterest.

As a product of all three paths, empathy has played a major role in the Trump response to Covid. It has also served as a fulcrum for the social ramifications of that response, which has led simultaaneously to dividing and unifying the country.

By Confucian standards, Donald Trump would not be a wise man. He has admitted that he does not contemplate. Boasting that he knows more than “the generals” and declaring doctors “morons” who don’t know anything, he obviously has found no one worth imitating. By all accounts, his experience has been limited to wheedling money out of others. In short, by Confucian standards, he would be devoid of empathy, perhaps an enviable trait to those overburdened even before Covid.

Those already embittered by disappointment with life might well choose Trump as a carefree hero to emulate. The bond between the unhappy and their fantasy incarnate was strong. When Covid hit like a cold shower of reality, the country went into the paradox of uniting by splintering.

The Trump response to the messy Covid disruption of plans was two-fold. One was to ignore it and the other was to use it as a rally cry to supporters. The ensuing whiplash was a centrifuge culling out parts of society at large.

Uncertainty, isolation, fear and social stratification led to social unrest. Yes, all were affected by Covid but most were more so than the affluent. Social injustice took front stage headed by mainstream media and brough. into question by conservative alternate streams. When winnowed down, however, instances of social injustice came to a captive audience and were supercharged by the horrific George Floyd event that swept the world.

By then, Covid was also rampaging worldwide. The Trump response to both those situations fused the racial and social components of government irrevocably.

In the long months since the pandmic hit, Trump has emerged as a man with no interest in people. His concern was limited to products they made, namely the stock market and a re-election pool. Betraying no hint of empathy, he coasted through the pandemic with pot-shot quick fix tips that muddled control efforts. Racial protests called out his condemnation of far left agitators

Through it all, the large majority saw the failure of his lead. A large minority held that he was doing fine and no one could have done better. The situation was beyond his control.

Not since the Middle Ages has a virus been seen as intractable.. Taming pathogens has been a major focus of science ever since the Black Death. Successes were obvious, with smallpox and polio just two of countless diseases tamed. Donald Trump, however, managed to convince a large minority of Americans to regress and let him allow Covid to run its course.

The paradox of unity in fragmentation can be attributed to the response of states to the Trump lead. With both Covid and social unrest, states followed Trump cues when the heads of those states were allied with Trump. The citizens of those states at all levels were split along majority and minority lines.

On the way to US election 2020 after the onset of Covid, poll numbers of both candidates dovetailed with updates on Covid, news about natural disasters, racial protests, protests about masks and alarms about supply shortages, unemployment and stimulus stalemates. Not muddled enough, Trump threw shade about mail-in voting and vote fraud. Then came the Postal Service scandal and short-cut of the Census. Through it all, while the minority and majority ration held, most Americans came to reflect that these larger issues had a direct effect on their lives.

The wild west of the loosely regulated information age brought that realization to the American public from polarized axes, including mainstream, left, right and free-wheeling social media. Personal bias selected the source and facts were drowned in coverage of the response. That is where Donald Trump, speaking from the presidential pulpit, threw the country into a frenzy that united America beneath the extremes.

Despite their alarming presence in American society, ultra-extremists such as Qanon and militias are a minimal part of the population. Their danger comes from their dark ardor and, of course, the heavy arms some brandish outside legal standards. Presently, they are also transcendent with the presidential seal of approval. Overall, however, the large majority of Americans are well-intentioned. They are also willing to be reasonable, to a sliding-scale extent.

Like all cultures, America has its traditions. Independence is a big part of the American Zeitgeist. An affection for the rebel is a sideline of that cultural strand and it played a role in the 2016 election of Donald Trump as President. After rou years of Donald Trump, America voted decisively for Joe Biden despite all the hurdles tossed out from the presidential pulpit to thwart a fair election.

US election 2020 brought Americans back to unity after four yaers of being torn asunder by the unscrupulous rebel elected four years earlier. The proof was in the aftermath.

After the Trump election, four years of protests ensued. After the Biden election, celebrations went up not only in America but the world over.

Since the election, Donald Trump has driven home the degree of absurdity in his being President of the United States. The greatest democracy in the world has been headed by a full-blown demagogue who now refuses to cede power to a fairly elected successor and instead brings frivolous lawsuits and purges law-abiders before leaving office.

Worst of all, Trump is hell-bent on obstructing the path of his successor bursting to tame the pandmic ravaging the country under Trump. Though the intransigence is maddening, America continues to unite beneath strong differences through logic, a cousin of the empathy that is a Biden hallmark.

As empathy is a product of the three Confucian paths to wisdom, so is logic. Thinking about the plight of others, emulating a leader and experiencing first hand the result of raging pandenic, America is growing wise. And whatever Trump supporters said in defense of supporting him, not one ever said they wanted their children to be just like him.