What Are We So Worried About?

All the headlines today paint a picture of a US that is worried, under extreme stress, anxious, and emotionally destroyed. I wonder why is that? Could it be that both candidates are making threats and unleashing dark, violent rhetoric? I think that’s what the New York Times is implying here.

Or it all our stress be due to one of the candidates? Let’s think this one over.

Isn’t is just one side that ruins our mental health? Think. Which party has been fucking with us for most of our lives?

Surely the stress is not being caused by both sides. It’s one side. Since 1980 it has always been one side.

Are we worried what Kamala Harris will do should she win, as the exit polls suggest? Is she going to have her rivals assassinated? Is she going to broadcast social media posts at five in the morning, ranting about how she didn’t look her best in an interview? She will go off on some White House leak that she privately insults Americans, has to be shown pictures rather than words, or has to have two scoops of vanilla ice cream before burrowing into the White House residence for 8 hours a night? And if she has a bad day, would she throw items against the walls, stuff her personal toilet with printed classified materials, and just rant endlessly on X?

Trump once posted 52 times on X in a single 24-hour period. Now tell me where the stress is coming from and what this nation is worried about.

Let This Be The Final Trump August

By my count, we have had 7 Trump Augusts. The criteria is simple. First, it has to be August. Second, he has to be all over the news. He took a break in 2021 and stayed out of the news that August. The last two Trump Augusts while he was president were traumatic - 2019 and 2020. And August 2017 gave us Charlottesville!

August plus Donald Trump equals rally bad news, as he would say. Really bad news.

Trump is having another catastrophic month of August in 2024. He isn’t in office, of course, but the man is a geyser of gasoline again in the public spotlight. And this time, he could set himself on fire.

Trump’s worst Augusts were those as the sitting president: 2017, 2019 and 2020. This time, he is back as the GOP nominee for president for a record third time. His party can’t get enough of him. And for a couple of years, it appeared he was destined to become president again. Biden was so unpopular, Trump was simply leading the polls by default. I mean, look at Biden’s Gallup approval numbers. There was no way Biden was going to surge back to 50% popularity to beat Trump. And any Democrat who tells you otherwise is not worth having as an acquaintance or friend. Burn some bridges this fall. The Democrats who yelled at you for 3 years to vote Biden no matter what were both (1) wrong, and (2) fucking idiots.

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But now it appears the American public has swung back to rejecting Donald Trump for the first time since 2021. Holy shit! All the Democrats really had to do was switch to an opponent younger than Trump. No small feat, but look at Trump’s response. Trump is having such a dramatic meltdown, he just might guarantee the election result from here. Trump can never recover from disasters. He can never “pivot,” or change his tone (ha!). Trump is fucked.

Let’s acknowledge that the near assassination of Donald Trump had no effect on the US public. There was no outpouring of support. There was no show of national unity. People don’t reflect on what happened on July 13 2024. It feels like years ago, doesn’t it? I’ve seen no ‘7/13 Never Forget’ posters or memes. I’ve seen no Democrats reminding each other to go easy on Donald Trump. The days of going easy on this man are well over. And the vast majority of Americans don’t care about Trump’s well being. How do you like that?

I like that. As Robert De Niro might say, fuck this guy.

Donald Trump is hosing gasoline everywhere, and he’s getting himself wet with it. He’s gone a little wild, even by his standards. His campaign can’t control him. He cannot delay his sentencing in his Manhattan financial crime case. It’s only matter of time before he starts calling Kamala Harris a “bitch” in public, as he has long done in private. He’s going to let it loose.

All it takes is a few good writers to land some nationally-televised zingers at Trump at the Democratic National Convention, and the man might go up in flames. It’s past time this happened. There are whispers it finally might.

I don’t mean literally, of course. I mean that Trump would become so enraged, so out of control, that he would lash out at everyone. His campaign staff. His allies in Congress. JD Vance (let’s face it, Trump should have chosen Kristi Noem). Nikki Haley, who won’t shut the fuck up tying to be Trump’s coach (shut the fuck up, Nikki).

Trump is going to show us just how explosive an old man from Queens New York can be for the next 11 weeks. Just 11 weeks! These 11 weeks are going to fly. And they will be hot. Don’t get burned! Just beat this guy one last time.

Harris Takes The Wheel While Trump Breaks Down

A driver change. That’s all it took.

This has made Trump even more miserable. His campaign management in 2024 is the weakest it has ever been in his three campaigns. Not only can they not control their candidate, the stress is destroying them. Good.

Goodbye, Joe

I've been explaining to my fellow Democrats the reasons Biden must resign and/or drop out of the presidential race. It's a hard truth. Biden has to run faster and get his approval numbers up by at least 6 points. He’s at 40%. Trump is at 45%. Biden has to surge, but he can't. His party has been waiting for a surge since his decent State of the Union address. The surge is not coming.

The responses I get range from anger, to allegations that I'm a GOP troll. Do we think oncologists get such angry denials when they break news to patients that their cancer is most likely terminal? Breaking bad news is difficult. Accepting it is difficult. I’m glad giving people live changing, shattering news is not part of my job.

While I am here, I have a few more ways to describe Joe Biden’s chronic low approval rating problem.

Joe Biden is like an under-powered or broken automobile. The car not only has to catch-up to Donald Trump, it has to do so while driving uphill. It just can’t.

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Joe Biden taking the “long stairs” down from Air Force Once, March 28 2023. Look at younger Joe go!

Joe Biden is the starting pitcher who needs to be taken out of the game so the relief pitcher and closer can secure the win. This one came from Congressman Jamie Raskin, who I admire. But I just realized now that it’s not clear what the game represents. Is the game his first term? Is it the rest of our time as a republic? What happens at the end of the game? Maybe that’s not a good one.

A tag team wrestling match. Joe is beat. He needs to tag out. But can he reach the ropes?

Can. He. Make. One. Last. Leap. To. The. Ropes. And. Tag. Harris. In?

Just pass the torch, Joe. Do it tonight!

Multiple Things Can Be True At The Same Time

We're surrounded by idiots who can't get their little brains to comprehend that all of the following are true:

1. Joe Biden clearly didn't have the fuel in the tank to go two terms, let alone mount a media surge, claw back to 50% approval, campaign, get re-elected, and then serve 4 more years. Obama did that! We could see by the fall of 2021 that Biden was losing steam and support as the public saw him less and less often. The story of the Biden term is a president who slowly faded in every measurable way. With the exception of enabling Israel. That surged.

2. Donald Trump and the GOP are evil. The next Republican who takes the White House will rule as an autocrat and not let go of the office.

3. The New York Times is shit.

All of this is true. I don't have tolerance for people who re-post whatever Aaron Rupar or that sponsored influencer BooklynDad says. Over at Mastodon, I can easily tell who not to follow. If they boost Rupar, or whoever the hell GottaLaff is, that's a big NO.

They're Talking Extrajudicial

The Republicans cry that Democrats are prosecuting them illegally. Therefore, the Republicans argue, they must retaliate with illegal prosecutions AND political violence, just to make that response overwhelming. The Democrats are an enemy of the state, they argue, so they must physically attack this threat. I’d call that projection.

I wonder what Federal and State judges think about this.

In normal times, legal revenge wasn't possible without evidence and the actions of judges. Maybe we should adjust our perception and realize that because no judge would allow a lawmaker to be prosecuted for rightly investigating trump, maybe the "revenge" the fascist Republicans are talking about is physical violence. And by that, I mean extrajudicial violence. "Oh, they are just using violent rhetoric to motivate their base," the media will say. I disagree. The GOP has gone so far down this violent path since 2015, that they are unrecognizable as the party of family values and children. This is not the party that recruited Whitney Houston to sing the national anthem in 1991. This is the party of bloodshed, destabilization and possibly murder. Political assassinations. Pinochet knew he could terrorize Chile by just murdering the right influencers. Same with the GOP? So they have a list? You bet they do.

Will A Weak Donald Trump Defeat An Even Weaker Joe Biden?

Over the 17 years I have run this tiny blog, I have been a doomer. It isn’t some outlier opinion. I knew when I started that I would be documenting the hell that is the 21st Century.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump are confirmed for their 2020 rematch. The presidential campaign, now underway, will probably be the worst in US history. This campaign is already the longest. It started in 2022 when Trump announced. Yeah.

In many ways, I wish this was just like the 1956 rematch between Ike and Stevenson. Eisenhower cruised to victory. Stability and conformity prevailed. But these are not stable times. Joe Biden should be leading Trump by 10 points. Instead, he and Trump are tied in most polls.

Biden stuck in a statistical tie with Trump is the result of a lot of poor strategy and performance by his White House. Biden has not interacted with the public. He hasn’t released videos on YouTube. It’s obvious he doesn’t write his own Tweets, although I suspect he approves them.

The refrain of this post is quite simple. Biden and the nation are in grave danger because he’s tied with Trump when he should be 10 points ahead. I will be repeating variations of this a couple of times. I apologize in advance.

As of today, both the BDS movement and abortion are more popular than President Biden. Poll history tells us he can't possibly win with approval numbers this low. I don't buy into 'history repeating itself like poetry' bullshit, with all the Gen-X journalists comparing 1968 to 2024 (I am also a proud Xer, born in '73). But this summer looks like a looming disaster for Joe and the Democrats. They made it clear that the US must prop-up Israel forever, no matter how small the benefits to the American people and no matter how many times young Americans question that policy. The Democrats have also made it clear that while they welcome Republicans and anti-abortionists to their big tent, they have zero tolerance for critics of Israel.

Joe Biden should be leading Donald Trump by 10 points. He’s not. Why?

It’s because Biden has bled too much support. All incumbent presidents lose voters between their election and re-election. We can call that a haircut (the banking term). But Joe Biden has lost significant support among key demographics. We’re talking double-digit drops with Black men, Hispanics, Asians, and voters under the age of 40. All of those drops explain why Joe Biden’s lead in New York State has dropped from 20 points to just 10. Biden will easily win New York State. But a 10 point drop in a Democratic-majority state spells big trouble for states with smaller differences in registered voters.

These drops in support are going to cost Biden key swing states. Take Georgia, for example. Voter suppression and lack of enthusiasm for Biden has swung Georgia firmly back into Trump’s column. In Arizona, Democrats outnumber Republicans, and yet Democratic Senate candidate Reuben Gallego is leading in the polls while Trump is leading Biden in Arizona. Michigan is slipping away. Incredibly, so is Nevada, again, where Democrats outnumber Republicans. My current (and very pessimistic) electoral map looks like this:

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Biden should be the one with 280 electoral votes. Biden should be 10 points up in the polls. But he isn’t.

Sometimes I think Trump is actually weaker than Biden. Trump is unhinged, slower and older than he was in 2016. He is also a big loser. But Trump also has 70 million votes in the bag no matter how bad he is. Joe Biden needs to be great to get votes back. Trump just needs to be alive and he gets 70 million votes. Advantage, Trump.

The GOP autocracy is coming now, folks. Not 2028. It's happening now. Come up with a resistance and/or exile plan.

Joe Biden Constantly Tries To Be Ronald Reagan

In his years as president, Joe Biden has been trying to be like Ronald Reagan. He thinks he can maintain a centrist approach and not make any one side too upset or too happy. He’s trying to appeal to everyone and be likable. But you can’t be appealing if you don’t engage with the public.

Also, Ronald Reagan was not a centrist.

And you certainly can’t be appealing to your base if you making a public effort to court Nikki Haley voters.

I get strange looks from mainstream MSNBC Democrats when I point out that if Joe Biden was just a little more engaged with the 80 million who voted for him in 2020, he wouldn't be so thirsty for the weird, evil, anti-trump Republican vote. That vote is still vehemently anti-woman, anti-trans, anti-queer, and anti-worker.

Chris Murphy, arguably one of the nicest US Senators in the chamber, has tried to spin Joe’s centrist style as disappointing everyone by design. So while Reagan made most people feel good, Joe Biden makes most people feel down, and that was the plan.

You didn't have to make the strategic choice to be Ronald Reagan in the 2020s, Joe. You could have, um, listened to what voters under 40 want. They are the ones inheriting this environmental catastrophe. They are the ones who can't buy a house or apartment. They are the ones who are reporting that they are the saddest US generation since the Great Depression, while Americans over 60 are reporting they are richer and happier than ever before. Oh, but the men in that group are all voting for Trump! Great strategy, Joe.

Joe could have at least done a weekly video on YouTube. A little fireside chat for the kids who care. But Joe didn't even do that!

Look, we were all stressed out, doing drugs and committing suicide when Trump was dropping a dozen tweets a day (we're still committing suicide, see how young people are unhappy above). Joe could have found a happy medium between engaging with us and tweeting us to death. He chose to be the silent type. That doesn't help when you need to retain 80 million votes for the re-election.

Joe Biden might somehow win this election because Trump is so unhinged. But if I had to examine this as an objective outsider for the first time, I’d think Joe Biden is trying to lose. Intentionally.

Joe Biden Just Blew It

With a single, colossally bad statement, Joe Biden just unofficially lost the November election. Winning in November with a historically low approval rating is extremely difficult. It’s never been done! But his unwillingness to listen to anyone under the age of 40 dooms his chances. Young Democrats are asking good questions. They are asking why does the US prop-up Israel if all Israel does is keep Palestinians in ghettos. The answer from almost every elected Democrat is ‘shut the fuck up.’

It’s over for Joe. He knows it. At this point, I have to suspect he is simply throwing the election. He has my vote, of course. But he is going to lose. I can see it now.

I know when a president is finished. I saw it, sadly, with Jimmy Carter in the summer of 1980. I saw it again when George H.W. Bush had no answers for the far more charismatic Bill Clinton. I saw it again with Donald Trump, totally losing control of the world in the spring and summer of 2020. And I see it now happening to Joe Biden. He is not winning in November.

Today was the day that Joe Biden blew it. I cannot see him winning the election if he won't even address the needs of people under 40 years old. The youngs are concerned about the environmental catastrophe and they want a change in our relationship with Israel. Today Joe basically condemned them as if they did things far worse than set up tents and protest peacefully. He remembers Los Angeles 1992. He remembers Charlottesville 2017. But no. He condemned his own base of voters today. Joe -or perhaps I should say Brandon- is done.

Trump's Life Has Been Miserable For Years Now

Donald Trump is doing something never before seen in American national politics. He’s literally running for his freedom.

I think I have remarked on this blog that Donald Trump has been thriving on stress his whole adult life. Looming lawsuits, debts, financial failure and legal trouble have long been his motivation and have taken-up a lot of his time. We are all mortal. We can’t run forever. Even Trump, 8 years after first running for the White House, has slowed down. He no longer cracks jokes. He’s no longer entertaining. He has frankly become more scary since leaving office. He is more profane in his rally speeches. Thematically, he’s an angrier and darker man, and he vowing to be a ruthless and vicious leader.

And he’s alone. He’s been stuck in his worst-ever emotional state since November 2020.

His two sons still support him, but that hasn’t changed in decades. He has no loyal wife by his side. He has no best friend. George Steinbrenner is now 13 years gone. He’s down to one sibling, Elizabeth, who doesn’t have a public profile.

He almost didn't pause for his last living brother, Robert. He said goodbye to his brother in a hospital room and was playing golf at Bedminster the next morning as Robert passed away. He then abused his office to host his brother’s funeral at the White House - the first since JFK’s nearly 57 years before. His daughter is unofficially estranged. His son-in law is his handler and unofficial campaign chief. He is unofficially separated from his wife. He's alone. And he's at his most dangerous, without a check or guardrail in sight. This is how it has been for decades. No one has ever stopped Trump.

He lost the 2020 election, you may say. I will argue, that didn’t stop him. As the man would say, “you see what’s happening.”

The Republic Is Doomed

This week has me convinced that Trump is going to win in 406 days. How do I know? Our news media. They reported a surge of migrants crossing the southern border, but didn't point out that the vast majority of them were captured by CBP. Today they are describing Trump's speech in a non-union parts factory as a visit to striking UAW workers. Trump's behavior and past rape is not being covered. His age is not being mentioned. Fascism is coming. There haven’t been moderate Republicans since the Obama administration. Anyone who votes for Donald Trump is a bloodthirsty fascist.

And if, by some miracle, Trump loses, we’re still doomed. 2024 will signal to the world that American democracy no longer functions.

We have already crossed the Rubicon on this. There was no peaceful transfer of power in 2021. There probably won’t be a peaceful transfer of power in 2025.

It’s amazing how some smart people have come around on this. In October 2020, Trump didn’t meet the definition of a fascist. Today he meets and exceeds them. As Trump calls for the executions of people, all he’s lacking now is a military uniform. It’s a good thing he despises the military. He’s just a fascist with a poorer fashion taste. Most fascist dictators put on the dress uniform and medals and call it a day. Trump is happy with his dumb fucking red tie down to his scrotum.

One Of The Greatest Indictments Ever Written

Jack Smith delivered. Was there any doubt he would? We have an incredible indictment. Know the case name: Case 1:23-cr-00257-TSC. The structure and elements of the case are frankly astonishing to a non-lawyer like me. It’s a beautiful document.

There is still so much to do. More conspirators to indict. Some lawmakers, too. But for now, enjoy 130 near-perfect paragraphs.

We don’t have Trump in our grasp. Not yet. But if this Republic is to survive a little longer, he must be convicted and live to see it happen. We’re very close. Don’t give up the fight for justice. Ruby Freeman isn’t.

Democrats Petrified To Do Anything Good

It’s 2023, and Democrats are out of gas, out of ideas, and just hoping that voters don’t give Donald Trump another chance to destroy the republic. You know, it’s all they can do! They are firing of all cylinders! They are working SO HARD to save the USA.

Seriously, though. Democrats spend more time and energy fighting their left wing than dealing with their two rogue Senators who were responsible for stopping Biden’s domestic agenda dead in its tracks.

This is our party. It sucks. And the senior citizens who run it are terrible.

Jack Smith, Unlike Robert Mueller, Knows What He Is Doing

The nation is waiting for the DOJ to respond to Trump’s request to indefinitely delay his Federal trial. While we wait, I just want to point out how competent Jack Smith has been in his first 8 months on the job as Special Counsel. In just 8 months, Jack Smith has put together an airtight indictment of Donald Trump in Florida, with probably two more to go in New Jersey and DC. He has spent just $10 Million. His office hasn’t leaked one bit of information. And his persecutors have done things by the book. No one has frightened him away from where his investigation has led. No one has commandeered his conclusions. In short, Jack Smith is doing what Robert Mueller should have been doing towards the end of his two year investigation.

And what did Robert Mueller’s weakened report get us? It got us nothing but trouble. It gave Donald Trump a full 4 more years in which to commit more serious crimes. From his shakedown of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in August of 2019 to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, Donald Trump was free to commit crimes far more serious than the obstruction that should have resulted in an indictment from Mueller.

Think about that for a moment. Donald Trump can be compared to Mohamed Atta. We had multiple opportunities to stop him, and we failed. Actually, that’s not a fair comparison. Atta only committed one giant crime against humanity. Donald Trump has been committing crimes of escalating seriousness since 1973 - as long as I have lived. Particularly since November 2021, Donald Trump has been a raging criminal, responsible for the deaths of several Americans. Right now, as things stand, the only person who can stop him is Jack Smith. This is out last chance to stop Donald Trump. If he breaks free from this, the fire burning our Republic today will become a raging inferno.

The Biden Presidency Is Over

The original title of this post was “The last political cycle is repeating itself, only worse.” I wrote that in June 2021. Below is the aborted text of that post:

If Joe Biden was hoping for a bi-partisan epiphany from Moscow Mitch and Cowardly Kevin, he's delusional. The Republicans are replaying 2009 and 2010 when a Republican president left a hot mess for Obama and decided they would obstruct everything  Barack needed to do to avoid a depression and begin extracting us from two unnecessary wars. And their plan worked. The stimulus needed to begin a robust recovery was far too small, and Republicans ran in 2010 on the lie that the Democrats were taking over health care and exploding the national debt.

In the 2010 off-year elections, the Democrats were crushed, losing control of the House of Representatives  for the next 8 years, getting annihilated in state legislative races, allowing the Republicans to gerrymander dozens of Congressional seats, and giving Obama an obstructionist legislature for his final six years in office. Mitch and Kev intend to do it again. And this time, if they're  successful,  they stand ready to elect a right wing president in 2024, regardless of the outcome of the vote. A majority of House Republicans voted to overturn the presidential election in 2020. If they control the House and Senate in 2024, they will surely do it again. The Democrats had to have seen this coming. They did nothing to stop it.

Republicans want to win elections when they don't have enough voters. So logically, they want to take rights away. They want to make their rich friends richer. They want to destroy the regulation regime (EPA, CDC, FDA, IRS, Department of Education, OSHA, FEMA). They want to dismantle state gun regulations (as the Court will do to New York this summer). And when leftists complain, they say, "you're being hysterical. You're in power. You're exaggerating. That little rally in he Capitol was overblown. You're making it all up." Or in the case of overturning Roe, they say, "the Court is just sending the issue back to the states." That's what you call taking away liberty from women. That is gaslighting.

It is really happening. And while I might come across as a crazy person now, we shall see where the nation stands in 2025 when President Noem or DeSantis steals an election, and the next one. And then stacks the court 7-2 or even 9-0 to the right. Sotomayor looks ready to walk and Breyer won't live much longer.

Republicans are evil. Anyone who joins their side is in for some fun in online forums, "owning the libs," or encouraging their children to murder their classmates, but it will destroy the nation in the process. And that is the bottom line. Republicans would rather burn the nation down than share power with brown people and women. That is what we are seeing. The bros and their white supremacist allies are having their final stand. It's one last party for the bros who marked keggers in their calendars.

10 months after I wrote those words, it is clear this nation is is being destroyed. The decline is noticeably fast now.

Joe Biden got his single Supreme Court pick. Joe Manchin will ensure he gets nothing more accomplished. The Biden presidency is finished.

It Will Get Worse Again Soon

Joe Biden didn't beat Donald Trump. No, Donald Trump beat himself. His big mouth lost him Pennsylvania and Arizona. His refusal to be decent and kind set up his defeat years ago. I'm thrilled he sunk himself. But we have to acknowledge that his loss is all on him. He had this election almost in the bag. Turns out Americans didn't care about the recession or COVID-19! They were ready to give him a full pass! But he insulted the ghost of John McCain and insulted Pennsylvania. Cocky bastard.

We’re getting another Trump. Sooner than we think. And he or she will be more competent, charismatic, and get even more votes.

As much as I want to see Harris become president after Biden, we have to acknowledge that Trump’s base is huge. If there’s a slip in enthusiasm on the Democratic side, the GOP takes back the White House easily. Or worse, if the vote is close enough, the GOP will steal the election.

We need to build a movement to keep the Democrats in power. Threatening and shouting to move to the center is not going to get that done. Glorifying and worshipping militarized police and sheriffs departments is not going to get that done. Cheering on fossil fuels for another decade won’t do it either. Another catastrophe is coming in the form of a destructive, abusing Republican president, and this time, I won’t care as much. I’ll be in my 50s and I will be well past the point of giving a shit. Good luck, kids.