Seig Heil

The Tarnished Age


POST 1142

Only I

In Mr. Trump’s first inaugural speech he spoke about American dystopia, carnage without limits, evil violence and our collective hopelessness (“This is some crazy shit,” said George W. Bush). There was only one way to save our republic, he told us, only one savior to lead us from the dumpster slime that was America. “Only I,” claimed Donald Trump, could deliver us from this degradation. “Only I” could correct the awful violations of the true spirit of our country that had been dumped upon us by Democrats. “Only I.”

Then “Only I” brought us a vastly expanded pandemic that at last killed over 1,150,000 Americans. Because of his ineptitude, his recommending cures that were not cures, some of them toxic, and because he made no effort to get vaccinations into the arms of Americans once vaccines were available, the CDC calculated that 750,000 of those deaths had been preventable, but for the bumbling of “Only I.”

And those Covid distancing protocols and the shut downs and the quarantines that MAGAs still rail at, “Only I” did that, too, not Joe Biden. Biden opened the country back up.

“Only I” also brought us over 6% inflation and the loss of millions of jobs. Nobody else could have done that. “Only I.”

He brought us a weakened NATO and allowed Russia to invade Ukraine. No Democrat would have attacked the organization that had kept the peace for over 80 years, but “Only I” managed it easily.

And who else could have proclaimed endlessly that Infrastructure Week was coming, but it never arrived. “Only I” bragged that he would repeal and replace Obamacare with some vastly better health care at a cheaper price. Now, of course, “Only I” tells us that he only has a “concept of a plan” that will be both better and cheaper – no specifics. Nothing but puffery.

“Only I” says he is gong to create an American Gestapo (my term, not his) to pound down the doors of people suspected of being in this country illegally and even some who are naturalized American citizens. He’ll have his cruelty cops round these people up into concentration camps and then deport them – somewhere – nobody knows where. That’s some number of people who will make up between 11 and 20 million deportations at a cost estimated to become north of a billion dollars. It will probably cost far more, as other countries refuse Trump’s rejects onto their shores.

“Only I” is also going to end birthright citizenship. You know: that pesky thing in the 14 Amendment to the Constitution.* He’s going to make that go away like he claimed he did to a hurricane, with the flair of a Sharpie, so that he can expel brown people, black people, Muslims and Asians who were born in this country but aren’t tech geniuses. He thinks an executive order he signs can eliminate an Amendment to our Constitution. There are already multiple lawsuits filed to disabuse him of his idiocy.

With each passing day and each hateful, anti-democracy uttering, the Trump menagerie of cult followers is making this look more and more like 1930s Germany.

Get over your rejection of comparisons of Trump to things Nazi. You aren’t required to self-blind or to go deaf. Face the obvious: we are in an advanced state of voluntarily abandoning our democracy and embracing fascism. We are turning over the wealth and power of our nation, giving what is ours to the billionaires, whom Trump has already begun to reward for their loyalty to “Only I” alone.

Even First Asshole Elon Musk gets it. Here’s his salute to Trump on inauguration day.

Click the pic for a Seig Heil! to warm the otherwise cold, dead hearts of today’s Sturmabteilung (Storm Troopers, aka Brown Shirts) and our right wing thug extremists.

That salute made front pages all around the world, as people reacted to the Nazi salute to der Trump-Führer. Decide for yourself who the angry f-word on Musk’s lips is for. Note that his Nazi salute was well received in the Capital One Arena on Monday. It is standard at MAGA militia rallies and was popular at the January 6 insurrection. Bear in mind that these are all red-blooded Americans doing the Nazi salute. Don’t tell your Greatest Generation relatives, neighbors and friends about this.

Elon is saluting evil. So are the MAGAs. That’s what We The People voted for. Are you okay with that?

You must decide for yourself how many small, sort-of tolerable changes you can tolerate, because they accumulate and become massive, fetid, stinking rot, emitting a foul miasma and poisoning our bodies. We’ve seen this movie over and over, so it isn’t as though this is some new learning. What’s needed is for us to see what is right before our eyes.

And take action.

Like demanding that your senators reject Trump’s “Creature Cantina” (Steve Schmidt’s term) of proposed department heads. Go ahead – pick up the phone and make the calls.

_______________________________________________

* XIV Amendment, Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state where in they reside.

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

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JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

There Is No Difference


We’re told that there was fraud in every state, every county, every precinct and behind every tree. They tell us bad people brought boxes and suitcases full of fraudulent ballots to vote counting centers and that they destroyed legitimate ballots for Trump. People are righteously incensed at what they believe is a theft of our democracy and of their victory and they’re demanding that we “Stop the steal!” They pay no attention to the total lack of evidence of fraud. Well, there was a small handful of perps casting ballots for Trump in the name of dead relatives (here, and here), but not nearly enough to make a difference in any election outcome anywhere.

Gen. Jack D. Ripper – “Precious bodily fluids”

Right wing pundits, cable and radio blabbers and unhinged, googly-eyed senators and representatives are proclaiming that Democrats are forcing socialism on America. They rant that we are destroying our democracy and capitalism and that the Build Back Better plan is Marxism and it’s polluting our American precious bodily fluids. Okay, that “precious bodily fluids” thing is from the 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove, but the lunacy is parallel. The ranters aren’t even a little subtle in accusing Democrats of being communists.

They decry Democrats as part of an evil cabal running this country. They say Democrats are child sex traffickers and that they kill children for their blood in order to extend their own lives.

Surely, you remember the insane right wing conspiracy claim that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex trafficking ring run out of the basement of a DC pizza shop – “Pizzagate.” A North Carolina man traveled to DC to free those children. He was going to be a hero. In his rescue attempt he even fired a couple of bullets through the floor of the pizza shop – no clue why he would do that if he thought there were innocent children down there.

He would have been a hero, by golly, except that there were no children in the basement. There wasn’t even a basement.

Pizzagate Boy and millions of others had been fed that horrid story of child abduction, trafficking and murder and he believed it, as did many others.

Then there is the Jewish space laser thing. According to this piece of absurd hate mongering the wild fires from California to Colorado last year were started by – and I’m not making this up – an orbiting laser owned by Jews. Except there is no Jewish space laser. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, nobody has a laser in space that could even light a match. But people peddled this idiocy and millions believed it – some still do.

I’ve heard many interviews with Stop the Steal people being asked about their beliefs. To a person they puff up with righteous indignation and certainty, declaring that the election was stolen from Trump. When asked what evidence they have of that, the best they can do is to either repeat their assertion or declare that it’s obvious and everybody knows. They’re unable to cite even a single fact to support their certainties. To be fair, some have repeated ridiculous lies about bogus ballots. They have no interest in the near-perfect record of Trump court losses, wherein he claimed election fraud and was laughed out of court because all he had were wild accusations and no evidence. None.

There is no evidence of voting fraud beyond just a handful of idiots, most of them stuffing ballot boxes for Trump. It’s clear why some people peddle this lie. What isn’t as clear is why so many believe it. They truly believe what they have been fed by self-serving liars. They are certain that they are patriots standing up for truth, justice and the American way. And their certainty is as simplistic as Superman TV fiction for children.

So,

  1. Why would millions of people abandon their critical thinking and believe outrageous, baseless claims – like Pizzagate Boy did?
  2. Why would people believe physically impossible things or cruel, vicious allegations – like the Jewish space laser gullibles do?
  3. How did it come about that accusation is now the same as conviction? No evidence or proof is required – just a repeated accusation.
  4. How come working White guys have shifted in huge numbers to the Republican conspiracy Party, such that it’s now 90% White?

Rebecca Solnit took up these questions and wrote in part, “Distinctions between believable and unbelievable, true and false are not relevant for people who have found that taking up outrageous and disprovable ideas is instead an admission ticket to a community or an identity.” [emphasis mine]

Facts? Reality? Who cares, as long as I can be in a group with my peeps who validate me! And nothing drives us together like the passion of hatred of “others,” especially when we do it in a mob. It feels so good to blame and I feel so big when I make others small!

You don’t suppose all of that is somehow connected to our having elected a Black man as President of the United States, do you? You don’t think that privileged Whites harboring centuries of bigotry felt shaken when power went to the one who they think was born in Kenya, do you? Or that they were sure they were being displaced by less-thans? You don’t suppose that what they called the illegitimate president annihilated their sense of privilege and security, such that they’re eager to join in the choruses of snarling anger and hatred, do you?

Nuremberg Rally, 1934

Last weekend I was a judge at the junior high school science fair. One 8th grader’s entry sought to determine if the stress of peer pressure had more influence on introverts or extroverts. Interesting study. Would that this student scientist could have had a few million MAGA hatters to test. The peer pressure to chant “Stop the steal!” must be overwhelming, just like Hitler’s Nuremberg Rally chants. And it turns out that,

There is no difference between “Stop the steal!” and “Seig Heil!“
.

None.

It’s so easy to manipulate people into hate and violence. The fallout from this stuff is nuclear waste. It’s poison. It’s deadly. And it’s now American red, white and blue.

We’ve seen this movie before and we know how it ends.

Republican Follies

The announcement of Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement wasn’t even 24 hours old when Republicans started bashing President Biden’s not-yet-picked replacement. Gosh, that’s so surprising.

Reading List

Click me. Watch, listen and read. Again.

.

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The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!)

And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town vibrant.

JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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