‘I’m more worried today than I was on January 6’: top conservative’s warning to America
David Smith in Washington
Mon, November 13, 2023 at 4:00 AM MST·8 min read
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Photograph: Octavio Jones/Reuters

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Michael Luttig knows the eye of the storm. On the night of 4 January 2021, the retired federal judge advised Mike Pence, the vice-president, against trying to overturn the results of the presidential election. Last year on live television he delivered compelling testimony to the congressional panel investigating the January 6 insurrection.

Now, with less than a year until the nation goes back to the polls, Luttig recognises that the battle to save the American republic from the demagoguery of Donald Trump is far from over – and he is more worried than ever before.

“I am more worried for America today than I was on January 6,” he warns in a phone interview with the Guardian. “For all the reasons that we know, his election would be catastrophic for America’s democracy.”


Related: Judge sets new deadlines that could delay Trump’s classified documents trial

Luttig, 69, is an unlikely hero of the resistance. Born in Tyler, Texas, he was assistant counsel to the president under the Republican Ronald Reagan, and clerked for then judge Antonin Scalia and the supreme court justice Warren Burger. He served on the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit from 1991 to 2006 and was committed to an “originalist” interpretation of the constitution.

He endorsed the George W Bush White House’s post-September 11 policy of declaring terrorism suspects “enemy combatants” so that they could be held by the military without charges. He was an advocate of the death penalty – including for the man who killed Luttig’s own 63-year-old father, John, in a carjacking outside his home.

Luttig retired in 2006 and entered the private sector, working for Boeing and Coca-Cola before sliding into what seemed a quiet retirement. But at the dawn of 2021, America was on the brink of a constitutional crisis after Trump lost the election to Joe Biden and pressured Pence to reject the outcome.

On the night of 4 January, Luttig received a call from old friend Richard Cullen, who was working as a lawyer for Pence. Cullen explained that John Eastman, who had previously clerked for Luttig, was making the claim that Pence had the constitutional authority to stop certification of the election results.

Luttig told Cullen to advise Pence that this was flat wrong and further set out his views on Twitter: “The only responsibility and power of the Vice-President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast.”

The vice-president duly stood his ground and spurned Trump, who reportedly branded Pence a “wimp” and complained: “I don’t want to be your friend any more if you don’t do this.” On January 6 a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol and demanded that Pence be hanged, leaving a trail of death, destruction and excrement, but the results got certified all the same.

Testifying to the House of Representatives’ January 6 committee in an almost painfully slow and deliberate manner, Luttig recalled: “On that day, America finally came face to face with the raging war that it had been waging against itself for years. So blood-chilling was that day for our democracy, that America could not believe her eyes and she turned them away in both fear and shame.”

As Biden was sworn in, proclaiming that “democracy has prevailed”, and Trump slinked back to his Mar-a-Lago redoubt in Florida, there were hopes that the worst of the storm had passed. But it soon became apparent that Trump wasn’t going anywhere. He continued to hold rallies, call the shots in the Republican party and push the “big lie” that he, not Biden, was the true winner in 2020.

Now, despite 91 criminal indictments in four jurisdictions, many of which relate to the attempted coup, he is running to regain the White House in 2024. He is the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination and, according to a recent New York Times and Siena College poll, leading Biden in five of the six most important battleground states.

Should Trump win a second term, the Washington Post newspaper reported this week, he already has plans to use the federal government to investigate or prosecute perceived enemies including his former chief of staff John Kelly, former attorney general William Barr and Gen Mark Milley, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff.


Michael Luttig testifies to the January 6 hearings in June last year. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
A presidency guided by such authoritarian impulses would be “ruinous” for democracy and the rule of law, Luttig predicts. “He did what he did on January 6. He’s continued to maintain for three years that the election was stolen from him. He’s done that with now complete and total support of the Republican party.

“All that he has done beginning with January 6 has corrupted American democracy and corrupted American elections and laid waste to Americans’ faith and confidence in their democracy to the extent that today millions and millions and millions of Americans no longer have faith and confidence in their elections.

“He’s the presumptive nominee of the Republican party in 2024 and indeed many people believe that he will be the next president.”

Luttig, however, has a plan to stop him. In August he joined with the liberal constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe to publish an article in the Atlantic magazine under the headline “The Constitution Prohibits Trump From Ever Being President Again”.

The pair argued that section 3 of the 14th amendment automatically excludes from future office anyone who swears an oath to uphold the constitution and then rebels against it. Irrespective of criminal proceedings or congressional sanctions, they contended, Trump’s efforts to overturn the election are sufficient to bar him for life.

Luttig elaborates by phone: “The former president is disqualified from holding the presidency again because he engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the constitution of the United States when he attempted to remain in power, notwithstanding that the American people had voted to confer the power of the presidency upon Joe Biden.

“That constituted a rebellion against the executive vesting clause of the constitution, which limits the term of the president to four years unless he is re-elected by the American people. I cannot even begin to tell you how that is literally the most important two sentences in America today.”

Luttig draws a fine but important legal distinction between a rebellion against the constitution, as described by the 14th amendment section 3, and rebellion against the United States. He claims that groups that filed lawsuits in Colorado and elsewhere to bar Trump from the ballot are confused on this issue.

“They do not yet understand what disqualifies the former president, namely an insurrection or rebellion against the constitution. They have argued the cases as if he is disqualified because he engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.

“That’s why they have, unfortunately, focused their efforts on establishing or not that the former president was responsible for the riot on the Capitol. The riot on the Capitol is incidental to the question of whether he engaged in a rebellion against the constitution.”

But he adds: “All of these cases – and there’ll be others in the states – is the constitutional process by which the American people decide whether the former president is disqualified from the presidency in 2024. All of these cases are going to roll up to the supreme court of the United States and it will be decided by the supreme court whether Donald Trump is disqualified.”

Even some Trump critics, however, have argued that a legal ruling banning him from the race from the White House would enflame America’s divisions, whereas beating him at the ballot box would be more satisfying. Luttig naturally takes a lawyerly view: “The constitution tells us that it is not disqualification that is anti-democratic. Rather, it is the conduct that gives rise to disqualification that the constitution tells us is anti-democratic.”

America’s founding document does not allow for second guessing about the political fallout, he adds. “It is the constitution that requires us to decide whether he is disqualified, whatever the consequences of that disqualification might be.”

In the meantime Luttig this week helped form a new conservative legal movement, relaunching an organisation formerly known as Checks & Balances as the Society for the Rule of Law. The move was billed as a nationwide expansion aimed at protecting the constitution and defending the rule of law from Trump’s “Make America great again” movement. Its leadership includes Luttig, the lawyer George Conway and former Republican congresswoman Barbara Comstock.

“We believe that the time has come for a new conservative legal movement that still holds the same allegiances to the constitution and the rule of law that the original conservative legal movement held but has abandoned,” Luttig explains. “There’s a split in the conservative legal movement that mirrors the split in the Republican party about Donald Trump.”

On other side of that split is the Federalist Society, a group that for decades has played a crucial role in grooming conservative judges – its prominent figures have included Leonard Leo, who advised Trump on his supreme court picks – but has said little about the threat posed by the former president to the constitutional order.

Luttig, who, unlike Conway, has never been a member of the Federalist Society, said: “We believe that the Federalist Society has failed to speak out in defence of the constitution and the rule of law and repudiate the constitutional and legal excesses of the former president and his administration and, most notably, failed to repudiate the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.”


https://www.yahoo.com/news/m-more-worried-today-january-110024058.html

 

House Speaker Mike Johnson played a key role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election
Johnson, who was elected House speaker Wednesday, led an amicus brief in support of a Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory in four battleground states.

 

We need to talk to Donald Trump about Adolf Hitler: analyst

Kathleen Culliton
November 13, 2023 1:40PM ET



Photo by Gage Skidmore.


Someone should probably ask Donald Trump if he knows how much his rhetoric and threats mirror those made by Adolf Hitler — because it’s been an open question for too long, the Washington Post recommended Monday.

“Stories about Trump’s flirtations with Hitler — or, at least, with some narrowly constructed vision of the mass murderer — have been around for decades,” wrote analyst Philip Bump.

“Is Trump doing so knowingly — or is he simply following the same path those dictators walked?”

The Washington Post’s plea comes on the heels of disturbing statements from the former president, and top Republican candidate, comparing detractors to vermin and pledging to punish critics upon his return to the White House.

His spokesperson also threatened those raising concerns of fascism by responding, “Their entire existence will be crushed.”

Reports show that Trump’s “flirtations with Hitler” began as early as 1990, when Vanity Fair reported Ivanka’s contention, which he denied, that he kept Hitler’s collected speeches in a cabinet by his bed.

During his tenure in the White House, Trump told White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things,” according to Michael Bender’s book “Frankly, We Did Win This Election.”

Bump also notes Trump’s praise of autocrats, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Finally, Bump points to a recent Politico report that, when former German chancellor Angela Merkel compared Trump’s rallies to another populist leader, it was not clear if he knew she’d referenced Hitler — but certain that Trump took it as a compliment.

It is at this point Bump raises the question that Americans headed to the voting booths in November 2024 need answered, he says.

“Is it better if Trump doesn’t know how Hitler’s story ends — taking his own life as his grotesque empire collapsed having earned a reviled position in world history — or if he does?” Bump writes.

“Which possibility offers a less disconcerting set of possibilities for the post-2024 future?”

“And, of course, how does that distinction color other reports about what Trump has planned, that he wants to scour the federal bureaucracy of disagreement, turn federal law enforcement against opponents and imprison asylum seekers in camps?”

At least one commenter argued they’d heard enough.

“The leading Republican candidate is openly talking about establishing a totalitarian government and the Republican Party is on board with this,” wrote one commenter.

“It is a moment when decent people must stand up and say ‘enough!’ or eventually the monster wil

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-adolf-hitler-2666253166/

 

We need to look at this. Not just because it will be used to convict Trump for his attempted coup. But because Trump tried to get the US military to back his coup to keep him in power. And this time they refused. But if Trump gets a chance to remake our military they will go along with him next time.


Ex-Prosecutor Says A Torn-Up Note Could Be Key To Taking Down Donald Trump
Lee Moran
Tue, November 14, 2023 at 2:04 AM MST·2 min read
1.4k

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann on Monday pointed to a ripped-up note he argued “absolutely” shows Donald Trump’s intent in his failed efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.

Trump aide Jonny McEntee wrote the note after then-U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and then-U.S. Army Chief of Staff James McConville issued a statement in December 2020 saying the military could not determine the outcome of a U.S. election.

McEntee penned: “[Acting Defense Secretary] Chris Miller spoke to both of them and anticipates no more statements coming out. (If another happens, he will fire them).”

The torn-up note was patched up and appeared as part of the House Jan. 6 Committee’s investigation into the deadly U.S. Capitol riot. It is now included in ABC News journalist Jonathan Karl’s new book “Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party.”

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace asked Weissmann if the note got “right at his [Trump’s] intent of what he wanted them [the military] to do.”

“Absolutely,” replied Weissmann.

The military is “incredibly law-abiding” and “really stands for the rule of law,” he continued. “As much of you think of it as a military organization with a hierarchy, they are also trained that they do not violate the Constitution. And when there’s an invalid order, they know that they cannot follow it because the Constitution comes first.”

Weissman said he was concerned that Trump, who has been indicted over his alleged efforts to thwart democracy and toss out the 2020 result, has now learned “the levers of power,” which he’ll know how to pull immediately should he win a second term.

“I remember when he first started a friend … said this was malevolence matched by incompetence so they weren’t really effective,” he recalled. “The Muslim ban is a perfect example where it took them so many tries to get it ‘right’ so it could pass muster.”

“But I took your book as that it going to be a pale comparison about what will come in a Trump 2.0.,” Weissmann added to Karl.

Watch the full exchange here:





https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-prosecutor-says-torn-note-090450649.html

 

Steve Bannon confirms official plans for 'Trump Davidians' cult merchandise

David Edwards
November 14, 2023 11:51AM ET



Christian Leaders Lay Hands and Pray over Trump Official White House Photos by Joyce Boghosian


Right-wing podcast host Steve Bannon confirmed on Tuesday that he plans to sell merchandise promoting a "Trump Davidians" movement.

ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl first reported on MSNBC that Bannon planned to sell swag with the "Trump Davidians" logo. The slogan refers to the Branch Davidian religious cult that had a deadly standoff with ATF agents in 1993.

ALSO READ: What is Trump planning if he gets a second term? Be worried. Be really worried.

"I understand that Steve Bannon's war room is making merchandise now with the phrase Trump Davidians," Karl told MSNBC on Monday. "They're embracing the idea that they are out to get retribution against the deep state, against the communists, the radicals, the RINOs, and the vermin. I mean, they're embracing this idea. The amount of pushback is remarkably little."

On Tuesday, Bannon confirmed the nws.

"By the way, Grace is working on the merch," he said. "How did they know that? The inside baseball."

Bannon also used the phrase during an interview with Karl.

"We're the Trump Davidians," Bannon said, according to Karl's new book.

https://www.rawstory.com/bannon-trump-davidians/

 

Let's take a close look at that is happening here. This is part of the Heritage Foundation 2025 Project.





COMMENTARY Conservatism
Project 2025
Jan 31, 2023 2 min read

COMMENTARY BY
Spencer Chretien
Associate Director, 2025 Presidential Transition Project

Spencer is Associate Director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project at The Heritage Foundation.

When conservatives do finally make it into an administration, they often don’t know what to do or how to seize the gears of power effectively. Rudy Sulgan / Getty Images
Key Takeaways
It’s past time to lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right.

The policy book Mandate for Leadership represents the work of more than 350 leading conservatives and outlines a vision of conservative success.

The usual suspects in the permanent political class will be ready for the next conservative administration. Will we be ready for them?

Copied
With the Biden administration half over and with the immediate dangers inherent to one-party rule in Washington behind us for now, it’s past time to lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right. For decades, as the left has continued its march through America’s institutions, conservatives have been outgunned and outmatched when it comes to the art of government.

One reason is because the Republican establishment never moved on from the 1980s. Beltway conservatives still prioritize supply-side economics and a bellicose foreign policy above all else. Belief in small government, strangely enough, has manifested itself in a belief among some conservatives that we should lead by example and not fill all political appointments. Belief in the primacy of the national security state has caused conservative administrations to defer political decisions to the generals and the intelligence community.

The result has been decades of disappointment.

Fortunately, this situation is changing. The conservative movement increasingly knows what time it is in America. More and more of our politicians are willing to use the government to achieve our vision, because the neutrality of “keeping the government out of it” will lose every time to the left’s vast power. The calls for a “new Church Committee” represent a momentous shift in energy; while conservatives used to lament liberal Sen. Frank Church’s original project as a kooky leftist attack against “The Brave Men And Women of Our Intelligence Community,” we’re now the ones agitating for Congress to go after the three-letter agencies.

This new vigor of the right can be found at Project 2025. Organized by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 has brought together 45 (and counting) right-of-center organizations that are ready to get into the business of restoring this country through the combination of the right policies and well-trained people. The Project’s foundation is built on four interconnected pillars.

>>> Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project

The first pillar, the upcoming production of the policy book Mandate for Leadership, represents the work of more than 350 leading conservatives and outlines a vision of conservative success at each federal agency during the next administration. Presidential candidates won’t be able to ignore what the conservative movement demands in this book.

The second is our online personnel database. This “Conservative LinkedIn” will launch in March and will provide an opportunity for rock-solid conservatives to place themselves in contention for roles in the next administration. This pillar will bring Mr. (and Mrs.) Smith to Washington.

The third is our Presidential Administration Academy. When conservatives do finally make it into an administration, they often don’t know what to do or how to seize the gears of power effectively. Through their action, inaction, and their encyclopedic knowledge of volumes of technicalities about the federal workforce, certain career federal employees are masterful in tripping us up. Our interactive, on-demand training sessions will change that. They will turn future conservative political appointees into experts in governmental effectiveness.

The fourth and final pillar of Project 2025 is our Playbook, which will take the policy ideas expressed in Mandate for Leadership and transform them into an implementation plan for each agency to advocate to the incoming administration. What regulations and executive orders must be signed on Day One? Where are the greatest needs for more political appointees? How can we effectively use the mechanisms of government to face our most challenging problems? Our Playbook will put our movement to work answering questions like these.

In November 2016, American conservatives stood on the verge of greatness. The election of Donald Trump to the presidency was a triumph that offered the best chance to reverse the left’s incessant march of progress for its own sake. Many of the best accomplishments, though, happened only in the last year of the Trump administration, after our political appointees had finally figured out the policies and process of different agencies, and after the right personnel were finally in place.

The usual suspects in the permanent political class will be ready for the next conservative administration. Will we be ready for them? That’s where Project 2025 comes in. We have two years, and one chance, to get this right.


https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/project-2025



That might not sound too bad but just who are these "conservatives" they are talking about? Well here's a few of them. And we might call them the "insurrection caucus."

Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, James Comer, Byron Donalds, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene,Harriet Hageman, Ronny Jackson, Mike Johnson, Jim Jordan, Debbie Lesko, Scott Perry.

In other words.



YouTube/screen grab



And now let's look at what they are really talking about. Which is basically elect Trump. Expand his powers to that of a dictator so he can gut our federal government, especially the DOJ, intelligence community, judiciary, and military so he can install loyalists. And get rid of all the kinds of people that prevented Trump from becoming a dictator last time.




Analysis Exposes Trumpian Project 2025 as 'Far-Right Playbook for American Authoritarianism'
"Our plea to political leaders and to the media is to accurately describe Project 2025 as a dangerous and unconstitutional attempt to move us towards an authoritarianism guided by Christian nationalism."


https://www.commondreams.org/news/project-2025




COLUMNS
Republicans now plan to turn our democracy to fascism | Your Turn
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story...racy-fascism-heritage-foundation/70425794007/



"Project 2025 shows us that the old Right has left the building": GOP's surrender to Trump complete
Power expert explains how MAGA is "consciously manipulated" by "a fear and loathing of liberals"
https://www.salon.com/2023/10/10/pr...left-the-building-gops-surrender-to-complete/


Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025
The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/us/politics/trump-plans-2025.html


Conservatives aim to restructure U.S. government and replace it with Trump’s vision
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politi...-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision

It cannot be more clear. Treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans hate the United States of America, our Constitution, our democracy, and every great thing America has ever stood for. What they want is a fascist authoritarian dictator to give them "retribution" against all Americans except them.

 

A perfect example of the fascist playbook. The use of violence to achieve political ends. And of course the fascist authoritarian strongman figure.

That is how much you hate the United States of America and every great thing it has ever stood for which makes you a literal traitor in fact and in deed.

 

Hahaha @stumbler trying to use his position against me is absolutely hysterical! We all know that you are the American hater & traitor! You constantly and continuously demonstrate that at the beginning of every post! But keep trying because members of your party are constantly leaving because they can't stand what you have become!!! And oh by the way, that's a comic that you're getting upset about....LMFAO!!!! What a retard!!!

 

If you truly believe what you are saying and you are not too much of a big talking coward let's debate this right here.

https://forum.xnxx.com/threads/stumbler-vs-nicekalven.682899/

And if you to much of a coward I might do it for you.

 

Yeah so is this a comic.


https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/Holocaust/ds2a.jpg

 

O. Garvens, "The Sculptor of Germany"



Philipp Rupprecht – alias "Fips "- in Julius Streicher’s Der Stürmer, December 1929

The experts on authoritarian regimes and dictators point out is its actually pretty hard to get normal people to commit violence for political ends. So the dictator needs to go through a process of normalizing violence to their followers. And one what they can do that is to joke about violence. "I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes."

And Trump has always tried to use joking about violence for that purpose. This article is more than a year old but Trump is now back to making fun of Paul Pelosi being attacked on the campaign trail right now. And as you have demonstrated you are also normalizing violence as a means tor trying to achieve your political ends. Which does make you a fascist.



This article is more than 1 year old
Jokes about Paul Pelosi aren’t just in bad taste. They normalize political violence
This article is more than 1 year old
Arwa Mahdawi

Rightwingers are laughing about an attack that left an 82-year-old in hospital. It’s a watershed moment in politics


What do you do when an 82-year-old man is attacked at his home with a hammer? You laugh about it, of course. A number of Republicans – people who like to preach to others about family values and civility – seem to find the recent attack on Paul Pelosi very amusing indeed.

Donald Trump Jr, for example, posted a meme on Sunday night showing a pair of underwear and a hammer next to the caption: “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.” On Monday night, the self-proclaimed “Meme Wars General” doubled down on his post, which referenced a baseless conspiracy theory about Pelosi and put up another crude meme mocking the attack.


Either Trump Jr is capable of feeling shame or someone talked some sense into him. In any case, the former president’s son has deleted those memes. He’s replaced them with a message cynically politicizing the assault on Pelosi instead. “Imagine how safe the country would be if democrats took all violent crime as seriously as they’re taking the Paul Pelosi situation,” he posted. “They simply don’t care.” Trump Jr, it should be said, can always be relied on to react to a situation in incredibly bad taste.



The only reason it’s worth mentioning his disgusting comments is because he wasn’t alone in mocking Pelosi. Far from it. On Monday, Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, drew laughter at a campaign event with a joke about security at the Pelosi residence. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican governor of Virginia, drew criticism from Democrats on Friday after a comment he made while Pelosi was in hospital that appeared to make light of the attack. And on Monday, Claudia Tenney, a Republican who represents a district in central New York, tweeted a picture of a group of men holding hammers for Halloween with the caption “LOL”.

I’ll be fair here. Not everyone on the right mocked the attack on Pelosi. Some spread misinformation about it and some minimized it instead. Elon Musk, self-proclaimed “Chief Twit” of Twitter, posted a link to a baseless conspiracy theory about Pelosi, then deleted it. Meanwhile the rightwing commentator Dinesh D’Souza crowed: “The Left is going crazy because not only are we not BUYING the wacky, implausible Paul Pelosi story but we are even LAUGHING over how ridiculous it is.” On Monday, Charlie Kirk, a rightwing pundit, called for an “amazing patriot” to bail out 42-year-old David DePape, who is accused of perpetrating the attack on Pelosi. It seems, alarmingly, that there may be an appetite on the right to turn DePape into the next Kyle Rittenhouse and make him a hero.



You wouldn’t think it from looking at the Republican reaction but it can’t be stressed enough how serious the attack on Pelosi was. Were it not for the fact that he managed to make a secret 911 call from the bathroom, the House speaker’s husband, who suffered skull injuries, might have fared a lot worse.

It has also been reported that DePape was looking for Nancy Pelosi and was planning to hold her hostage and break her kneecaps because he saw her as “the leader of the pack” of lies told by the Democratic party. There’s nothing remotely funny about any of this. Republicans should be united in their condemnation of politically motivated violence and pledge to find ways to turn down America’s political temperature.

It goes without saying that, had a Republican politician been the subject of the attack, they’d be demanding that Democrats do just that. There was more Republican outrage about the time the supreme court Justice Brett Kavanaugh had his steak dinner interrupted by protesters than there was about the attack on Pelosi. And there was certainly a lot more outrage when Kavanaugh was the subject of an unsuccessful assassination attempt earlier this year.

The fact that so many on the right felt comfortable joking about the attack demonstrates the extent to which extremism has become accepted
Kavanaugh, by the way, has been brought up a lot by Republican politicians who are pushing the talking point that “both sides” are to blame for political violence. Senator Tom Cotton, for instance, condemned the attack on Pelosi but also said: “You see deranged lunatics attack both Democrats and Republicans alike,” mentioning the alleged attempt in June by 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske to assassinate Kavanaugh.

It’s certainly true that there are unhinged people across the political spectrum and politicians from both sides have been targeted for violence. However, “both-sidesing” this issue is dangerously dishonest. Both sides aren’t engaging in inflammatory rhetoric: that’s very much the Republicans’ area of expertise. Both sides don’t have a history of encouraging their supporters to storm the Capitol. Both sides aren’t pushing lies that the 2020 election was stolen. Both sides don’t turn people like Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two protesters, into folk heroes. Both sides don’t glorify political violence. Both sides aren’t using an attack on an 82-year-old to generate laughs on the campaign trail.

The Republican reaction to the attack on Pelosi feels like a watershed moment in US politics. The fact that so many on the right felt comfortable joking about the attack demonstrates the extent to which extremism has become accepted and political violence has been normalized. Pelosi may be on the road to recovery, but American democracy is going down a very dark path.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/02/paul-pelosi-attack-donald-trump-jr-memes

 

We can always tell when american hater triggers.
He starts copy n paste attacking and will fill at least a page of spew no one much bothers to read or even much cares about.

In the instant case hes on a rant about trump making light of violence to "normalize" it.

Well, what of a decapitated Trump, his bloody head held up for ridicule just like HAMAS does?
What of a United States senator calling on followers to find and harrass non believers?

Ethics and reputation were given up by american hater years ago. No need to let such hamper his mission to get trump/conservatives, no matter what it takes or how low he'll go.

 

So trumptards. Why do you believe Trump's 2020 stolen election claims. And what got trumptards so riled up on Jan 6th?

Any ideas?

 

'Sadistic': Clinical psychologist explains the 'creepy depravity' of Trump’s 'fascism'

John Stoehr
November 16, 2023 7:23AM ET



Former U.S. President Donald Trump (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)


During a recent rally in New Hampshire, Donald Trump said something he’s been saying for some time. He said the indictments against him are reason enough to bring indictments of his own against his enemies once he regains the presidency. “This is third-world-country stuff, ‘arrest your opponent,’” he said. “And that means I can do that, too.”

At first glance, this is the height of hypocrisy. Just because there are indictments against him – which, by the way, were brought for good reasons – doesn’t mean Trump can turn around and bring indictments of his own against perceived enemies, just because he feels like it.

Moreover, “arrest your opponent” is “third-world-country stuff,” right? That’s a bad thing, right? And yet, in the same breath, Trump is saying, once he has the power to do so, that he’s going to do his own version of this bad thing. Would that be “third-world-country stuff”? Evidently, not. His enemies’ bad thing is bad while his own bad thing is good.

While this is indeed hypocrisy, it’s more than that. It’s an expression of a particular view of the world in which some people – I have called this “inpeople” – are entitled to say what’s punishable by law, while other people – I have called them “outpeople” – have no such entitlement. Those who hold this particular view of the world insist on setting themselves apart from the rest of humanity. And, as you have surmised by now, this makes equal treatment under law nearly impossible.

Nearly impossible, but not impossible, as long as numerous enough voters understand that Trump represents more than mere hypocrisy. People like him can hold that particular view of the world all day long if they want to, for all I care, just as long as they don’t have access to power. But he and others are unlikely to be prevented from gaining access to power if most Americans think he’s just being a hypocrite.

To that end, I got in touch with Ian Douglas Rushlau. He’s a clinical psychologist outside Philadelphia who specializes in understanding, and explaining, this particular view of the world, which he calls “fascist.” I began by asking about the place of punishment in it.

JS: Why is punishment so important?

IDR: Punishment is about dominance, who’s in charge. Not that all punishment is wrong, only that who gets to decide what is a punishable transgression, and who determines what is suitable or severe enough punishment, and who metes out that punishment, is whomever (the individual or the group) is in charge, who has power.

Because the fascists' sole focus is dominance for the sake of impunity – the capacity to engage in violence or threats of violence without consequence – to declare someone is punishable is also immediately, inherently, a declaration of the authority and the power to determine who is the transgressor (the sinner, the apostate, the criminal, etc.)

As a psychologist, I believe it’s important to include the role of sadism – or the emotional gratification that’s derived from inflicting suffering on others – in the analysis of those who are preoccupied with compulsively seeking out those who are in need of punishment, and wishing to be the hand that deals out that punishment. This is why I say that fascists revel in violence with slobbering glee. It really is at that level of creepy depravity, and it is fundamentally sadistic.

JS: Is Trumpism a cult or an ideology?

IDR: There is no Trumpism. There is only fascism, the same that has existed, and pushed by the GOP for decades, under various guises and camouflage. It's just that they're now saying the quiet parts out loud.

Trump is a figurehead, and as such, he is a totem that allows GOP voters (which I refer to as “the fascist crowd”) to simply express themselves in the manner they already want. My mantra about the GOP rank-and-file, just like the average German and Italian, who aligned with fascists in the 1930s and 1940s, is that none are duped.

Fascism is a worldview, not an ideology. It entails attitudes, preferences and core beliefs about the world, specifically the inherent superiority of a particular demographic, which is therefore entitled to dominate, and has impunity to brutalize and murder the disfavored. Fascism always involves bigotry, and almost exclusively the same forms – racism, misogyny, homophobia and religious demonization.

JS: Is that why trans people are so scary?

IDR: The existence of the LGBT-plus community undermines the basic framework of heteronormativity – that only cisgender hetero people, and “traditional” norms of masculinity and femininity, are normal.

It is sometimes the case that the most violent reactions to the trans community are from individuals who are most conflicted about their own sexual feelings, but not always. Generally, it is about insecurity.

The anti-trans person interprets the presence of a trans person as a challenge to their own sexual identity. It is notable that the anti-trans community refers to trans individuals as “predators” when it is almost exclusively (the research is clear on this) cisgender males who are the predators. So there's a fair amount of projection and deflection going on as well, a refusal for the anti-trans community to acknowledge that they are in fact the problem when it comes to deeply pathological attitudes and conduct in matters of sexuality and sexual violence.

For example, the worldwide phenomena of sex trafficking and pornography are largely at the behest of cisgender hetero males, in this country, mostly married men who identify as Christian. The threat of violence from the fascist crowd towards scapegoats is a fundamental aspect of fascism: all differences are absolute and essentially viewed as betrayal. (Fascists are obsessed with purity.)


https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/trump-sadistic/