Category Archives: election 2024

0 and 2

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That title’s a tad misleading. There was only one actual assassination attempt on Trump’s life. The second incident was basically a security breach, but it’s being described as an assassination attempt. In order to be an assassination attempt, you have to actually attempt the assassination. The Secret Service stopped the guy before an attempt could be made. Which, you know, is what they’re supposed to do.

About that…people (and by ‘people’ I mean Republicans and gutless Democrats) are posturing outrage again, asking “How did the would-be shooter get so close to Trump before being spotted?” He got that close because 1) Trump insists on golfing at his public courses, and 2) golf courses are fucking huge, and 3) unless a golf course is in a secure area (like, say, a military base) it would take a LOT of personnel to secure the entire perimeter. This is why presidents Obama and Bush often golfed on military bases. They weren’t greedy narcissists like Trump, who’s happy to charge the Secret Service for green fees that’ll go right into his own pocket.

I don’t know, but I’m assuming the Secret Service was running some sort of rolling security bubble around Trump’s golf cart, securing a couple of holes ahead of him and a couple of holes behind him. Which, really, is enough…or would be enough for an ordinary ex-POTUS. An ex-POTUS who wasn’t an active, volatile threat to the future of democracy. An ex-POTUS who didn’t thrive on pissing people off.

Let’s face it. A lot of people would like to see Trump dead. A lot of people responded to the first assassination attempt by saying they were sorry the shooter missed. A lot of people fucking hate Trump.

I want to see him cry.

I’m not one of them. Well, okay, yeah, I hate the guy. But I don’t want to see him dead killed by an assassin. I don’t want him made into some sort of MAGA martyr. That could lead to something really really ugly. And, frankly, a quick death is too good for Trump. I want him to suffer.

I want to see him tried by a jury of ordinary citizens and, it’s to be hoped, convicted of his crimes. I want to see him incarcerated. Or at least—at the very least—facing some sort of carceral punishment, even if it’s something like 20 years under house arrest. I want to see him bankrupt. I want to see his assets seized to given to E. Jean Carroll. I want Trump broke and humiliated and reviled. I want his wife and family broke, humiliated, reviled. I want him to be internationally scorned; I want global headlines calling him a convict. I want Trump alive and painfully aware that he’ll be one of the most despised characters in American history. I want him cognizant that the name Trump will be mocked and scorned for decades.

I want the motherfucker to suffer. I’m somewhat ashamed of that, but there it is.

completely batshit deranged

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I’m really beginning to believe that a line has been crossed. I’m talking about the line between neurosis and psychosis. I’m talking about Donald Trump.

A week ago, on August 30th, Trump sat down for a chat with Tiffany Justice of ‘Moms for Liberty’ (which, seriously? Is there a ‘Moms Adamantly Opposed to Liberty’ group somewhere?). The issue of trans rights came up and Trump said something completely batshit deranged.

“The transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s gonna happen with your child. And you know, many of these childs [sic] 15 years later say, ‘What the hell happened? Who did this to me?’ They say, ‘Who did this to me?’”

That’s…well, as I said, completely batshit deranged. And as much as I complain about the news media ‘sanewashing’ the batshit deranged stuff Trump says, I have to admit that I did the same thing. I laughed with others about it, and basically dismissed it as Trump being a fucking bonehead again, exaggerating wildly for effect. Because, c’mon, ain’t nobody gonna to believe a kid goes to school and comes home days later (I guess the kid’s parents were busy and didn’t notice he was gone for a few days) with an entirely different set of gender tackle.

But then yesterday Trump held a rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin. And guess what? He basically repeated that same completely batshit deranged story. He said,

“Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation. Can you even imagine this?”

No. No, I can’t imagine it. In fact, I can’t even imagine any rational person saying it. I especially can’t imagine a fucking candidate for POTUS saying it. And I double especially can’t imagine a fucking candidate for POTUS believing it. But I’m actually beginning to wonder if Trump does, in fact, believe something like that is happening. I mean, if you say something completely batshit deranged once and it gets reported as being completely batshit deranged, a person who is NOT completely batshit deranged would know NOT to repeat it.

Completely batshit deranged?

But here we are. And all of a sudden, I’m hearing the lyrics to Psycho Killer in my head.

You start a conversation, you can’t even finish it
You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed
Say something once, why say it again?
Psycho Killer
Qu’est-ce que c’est?

Seriously, qu’est-ce que fucking c’est? It’s delusional, is what it is. And that brings me right back to that line I said may have been crossed in the opening paragraph. Back in January of 2021, in an article about Trump for Psychology Today, Dr. Stephen Diamond wrote this:

Once a person, including a leader, has crossed over the line from neurosis to psychosis, for, by definition, a delusion is a psychotic rather than neurotic symptom, that person has now become debilitated or disabled by a severe mental disorder, and may no longer be able to continue to perform or discharge their job responsibilities safely, efficiently and effectively. Their reality testing–which is different than neurocognitive functioning per se–has been significantly impaired.

Bingo. By repeating that completely batshit deranged story, I have to question if Trump’s reality testing has gone down the porcelain facility. It’s pretty widely accepted that he’s had a severe personality disorder for decades. But has he crossed that line? Is he actually delusional?

I’m thinking the answer is, yeah.

undecided? c’mon.

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A couple of days ago there was a headline in the Philadelphia Enquirer stating “About 3% of Pennsylvania voters are still undecided.” As of October 23 of this year, there are 8,646,572 registered voters in Pennsylvania. That’s 3,897,179 Democrats, 3,451,289 Republicans, and 1,298,104 independent and third party voters. Three percent would be 259,397 undecided voters. A quarter of a million Pennsylvanian claim they just can’t make up their minds. “Harris or Trump…man, I just don’t know.”

I’m inclined to think the headline should have read ‘About 3% of Pennsylvania voters are either lying sacks of shit OR completely fuckwitted chumps.’ The liars, of course, are Trump supporters who don’t want to acknowledge out loud that they’re racist, misogynistic assholes. And really, I don’t blame them. The completely fuckwitted chumps are just that—chumps who are completely fuckwitted.

(Okay, short etymological tangent. The origin of chump is uncertain, but it’s thought to probably be a mash-up of stump, chunk, and lump—all of which at some point referenced a short, thick piece of wood in Old English, Danish, and Middle High German. In other words, a blockhead.)

There has never, in the entire long, ugly, weird history of these United States, been a more vividly clear difference between two presidential candidates. Never. About the only thing they have in common is they both walk upright on two feet (although Trump’s posture calls that into question). Comparing Harris and Trump is like comparing apples and maybe some sort of foot fungus. I could make a list (an incredibly long list) of the differences between them, but unless you’re on the Editorial Board of the Washington Post, you already know most of those differences. And unlike WaPo’s Editorial Board, you know why they’re important.

My point, if you can call it that, is that it seems highly improbable that 3% of the voters in Pennsylvania are truly undecided. The reality is you’ve got some Trump supporters who are either afraid of confessing their support or who’d like to get a little bit of attention, so are lying about their position. And you’ve got some people who simply don’t care about anything outside of their own personal interests and who probably can’t be bothered to vote anyway.

This election won’t turn on convincing ‘undecided’ voters to become ‘decided’ voters. It’ll turn on 1) getting people to the polls and 2) making sure the people in charge of counting the votes and certifying the results do their job. Trump can’t win the popular vote. He probably can’t win the electoral vote. But he’s put a LOT of money and effort into ratfucking the certification process.

I’m confident Harris will win the election. I’m not as confident she’ll become president.

we got us a presidential buddy movie

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“Alright, buddy, I’ll see you soon.” That’s how Democratic POTUS nominee Kamala Harris ended her phone call asking Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate. She calls him ‘buddy.’

Buddy is one of those familiar terms with a murky etymology. It’s thought to have evolved from butty, an 18th century term for ‘work-mates’ associated with Welsh coal miners. It’s a wonderfully informal word describing close but informal friendships. Buddy has been mostly associated with men, but these days gender is a lot more fluid than it used to be. Oddly enough, that cultural shift has been supported by popular culture in the form of buddy movies.

Buddy movies are basically male rom-coms. Romantic comedies between hetero men. They’re not sexual (usually), but they’re about two people who are intimately close to each other, engaged in some sort of adventure. And people, that’s what we’ve got with Harris/Walz. We got us a buddy movie. Kamala and Tim’s Excellent Adventure.

Sure, in some ways it’s a non-trad buddy movie. I mean, we’re talking about a whip smart mixed race woman former DA from California and a classic Midwestern Dad who’s a balding former social studies teacher and high school football coach. But in all the ways that matter, it’s an absolutely classic pairing. Most buddy movies revolve around two people from different backgrounds with different personalities who go through episodic shit and in the end gain mutual respect and a stronger relationship.

And Coach Walz is perfect casting. He’s the polar opposite of the GOP notion of masculinity. He’s not loud, he’s not a bully, he’s not aggressive, he’s not domineering, he’s not suffering from testosterone poisoning, he’s not brutally competitive. He’s compassionate, caring, practical, thoughtful, considerate, helpful. Walz is the kind of guy who’s not only loan his neighbor a hedge trimmer, he’d also offer to help trim the hedge. And he’d know HOW to trim a hedge.

The Adventure Begins

Tim Walz appears to be a sort of counter-Kamala, but he’s not…and that’s much of what makes this buddy team work. He’s what Kamala Harris would be if she’d grown up a white boy in Nebraska. And she’s what Coach Walz would be if he’d grown up a mixed race girl who moved frequently as a child. They bring together a weird melding of experiences and cultures that work perfectly together. (Editorial Note: yeah, I don’t know if that whole ‘who they’d be’ business is accurate in any way, but it like it so I’m keeping it.)

I’m telling you, we need a campaign poster in which Harris and Walz are dressed in Men in Black suits and shades, with the tagline “Protecting the earth from the scum of the universe.” We need a poster of them in ordinary clothes and the tagline “The Not-So-Odd Couple.” We need a poster of them in Wyld Stallyns t-shirts, standing outside a phone booth, with the tagline “Be excellent to each other. And party on, dudes!”

This presidential campaign is going to be different. Yes, it’ll get ugly at times, and yes we’ll probably be disappointed by something Harris or Walz does, and yes yes yes we’ll still have to see Trump and JD being creepy and hostile and mean-spirited. But buddy movies are all about two people overcoming that shit by being supportive of each other. And the very best buddy movies, like the very best rom-coms, have happy endings.

And let also say this: we fucking deserve a happy ending.

the bleeding ear of trump

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I confess, I’m a wee bit disappointed. I mean, yeah, I’m glad Trump’s idiotic but hypnotic control of the MAGAverse is waning. But I really thought this might happen. I’m talking about the potential for an Ellen Jamesian moment.

Now some (okay, probably most) of you right now are wondering, “Greg, old sock, who is this Ellen James of which you speak and what would that moment entail?” I’m going to tell you. Back in 1978 novelist John Irving published a novel called The World According to Garp. It won the National Book Award for Fiction the following year. Garp was the first novel I’d ever read that explicitly examined toxic masculinity, and the first novel I’d read that featured a trans character in a positive way. It also looked at ideological extremism and cults of personality. One critical element of the narrative revolves around a group of women who cut off their own tongues in solidarity with an eleven-year-old sexual assault survivor (Ellen James) whose tongue was cut out by her rapists to silence her.

When I first saw a Trump supporter wearing a sweatshirt with a ‘Diapers over Dems’ logo and other supporters wearing adult diapers with the logo ‘Real Men Wear Diapers’ I thought his cult of personality might have hit a high water mark. Then came the assassination attempt. Trump’s ear got pinked, possibly by a bullet fragment. It doesn’t matter what pinked his ear; it got pinked. It bled. He had to wear a bandage for a few days. And some of his supporters adopted the bandage. People actually put bandages on their ears. It looked ridiculous, but that never stopped them before.

I felt all the elements of an Ellen Jamesian moment began to coalesce. I actually thought there was a chance–not a great chance, but a chance–members of the MAGAverse would pink their own ears. But no. The cowards stopped with the bandage. Sure, there was at least one guy who got a tattoo of Trump surrounded by Secret Service personnel with his tiny fist raised and an angry look on his face. But that was about it.

Bloodless fake crucifixion

I truly believe that if the assassination attempt had happened a year ago, we’d have seen some MAGA fuckwits piercing their own ears. A year ago, a bleeding ear would have been seen as Trump stigmata. Maybe the most dedicated Trumpists died of Covid, maybe his people are just weary of having to support every idiotic thing that rancid motherfucker utters, maybe JD Vance has hollowed out some of his support, but a year ago Trump’s bloody shirt would be enshrined at Mar-a-Lago. A year ago Trump would be selling cheap-ass Chinese-made white shirts with symbolic blood on the collar. It seems clear (to me, at least) that Trump doesn’t command quite the same passion that he did a year ago.

And yes, that’s a good thing. A very good thing. But I did sorta kinda want to see Trumpists tearing out a chunk of their own ears.

madam president…oh, that sounds good

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President Uncle Joe has done something amazing. He made the decision to voluntarily relinquish the most powerful political position on Earth. He did it under some pressure, to be sure. But he did it with grace and dignity. Compare that to all the ugly bullshit Comrade Trump pulled in a desperate attempt to cling to power–the lies, the threats, the violence–even after he was legitimately defeated in a fair election.

Even more amazing, Biden did something no other politician has ever done. As an old White man, he is willingly surrendering his power to a Black woman. Think about that for a moment. He didn’t have to do that. In fact, by most reports, the majority of the Powers That Be in the Democratic Party opposed that approach. Even a lot of Harris supporters said they preferred a more open contest to determine who’d be their nominee. Biden deliberately scuttled that idea by quickly voicing his support for Kamala Harris. He basically challenged the Democratic Party, saying, ‘Don’t even think about denying a Black woman as the Democratic candidate.’ That was ballsy.

He didn’t do that out of pique; he didn’t support Harris out of spite, just to thwart the people who’d refused to support him. He did it because he believed it was the right thing to do. And lawdy, our boy Joe was right. The organic groundswell of support for Harris has been nothing short of astonishing.

The timing couldn’t have been better. I’ve no idea if this was deliberate or not (I hope it was deliberate), but Biden waited until Trump had weighed the GOP ticket down with JD Vance, the oleaginous Senator from Faux Appalachia, as his VP pick. This effectively pits the most joyless, misogynistic, racist tag-team in US political history against a young(ish), vibrant Black woman who laughs and dances and embraces diversity (along with a PTBNL).

Biden’s move has totally disrupted the MAGA election plan (such as it was). At a rally yesterday, Trump was reduced to claiming Harris “is totally against the Jewish people” despite being married to a Jewish man, and complaining that she was disrespectful by refusing to attend Bibi ‘War Criminal’ Netanyahu’s speech before Congress–which is risible coming from an asshole who refused to attend Biden’s inauguration.

Joe Biden wasn’t my first choice for POTUS in 2020. He wasn’t even in my top five. But he’s been the most effective president in my lifetime, and he did that without calling much attention to his effectiveness. In a normal election year, Kamala Harris wouldn’t be my first choice. But she’s completely changed the dynamic of this election cycle, and she is without a doubt the most authentic candidate of this generation. I couldn’t be happier.

This kid? She’s gonna be the President of the United States of America. How great is that?

I not only feel hopeful for the 2024 election, I’m beginning to feel something approaching confidence. Of course, I was confident that Clinton would win in 2016, so I distrust my confidence. But I absolutely believe that the ONLY way Trump can win is by successfully ratfucking the election–by challenging legit vote counts, by voter suppression, by installing corrupt election officials and MAGA-friendly judges. And if SCOTUS is any measure, that’s a distinct possibility. So while I’m confident that Democrats will win the election, I’m only hopeful they’ll gain the presidency.

President Harris. I like the sound of that. If we work hard and we’re fortunate, the first conflict of the Harris administration will be whether it’s Madam President (my choice) or Madame President.

EDITORIAL NOTE: A reminder that we must dismantle the patriarchy. Pull it apart at every joint, disassemble every element, demolish every component. We must gather all those fragments, douse them in oil, and set them on fire. Gather the ashes, drop them in an acid bath. Enclose the acid in a titanium container and launch it into a distant sun. Then have tapas and a colorful rum drink with a tiny umbrella in it.

if it had been anybody other than trump

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Yes, it’s an impressive photograph. You know the one I’m talking about. Trump, bloody, angry, fist raised. I’m not going to post it because I’m already sick of it. But it’ll probably win a lot of photojournalist awards, and rightly so. A lot of folks (and by ‘folks’ I mean ‘political pundits’) believe that photo is going to help Trump in the coming election. They think it’ll carry Trump along on a groundswell of sympathy.

A lot of folks are wrong.

Had it been anybody other than Trump, they’d probably be right. But we’re talking about Comrade Donald J. Trump here. Trump is different. There’s not a lot of sympathy for Trump. Perhaps the most remarkable (and, in a very real way, incredibly sad) aspect of the assassination attempt against Trump is this: so many people are disappointed that it failed.

Yes, that’s a horrible thing to say. But there it is. I’ve heard it and I suspect you’ve heard it as well. It’s usually expressed in a soft voice–maybe even a whisper–and it’s often said with more than a little shame. But it’s being said all the same. Regret that Trump didn’t catch one of those rounds fired.

The people saying this aren’t raging ideologues, they’re not political junkies, they’re not rabid progressives or conspiracy nuts. They’re regular people. Moms to their kids, people in the produce aisle at the market, couples eating smashburgers at a diner. They’re saying stuff like, “You know, I don’t really want anybody to get shot, I’m opposed to any sort of violence, but….” And they let that ‘but’ hang there, and the person they’re talking to frowns and nods. Or maybe they turn it into a joke. “Nobody’s been that disappointed by a couple of inches since Stormy Daniels.” And we cringe and groan, but we’re still nodding.

Most people who feel this way are properly reluctant to say it out loud. It’s a horrible thing to say. It’s a horrible thing to feel. I mean, we’re decent people–or we try to be. But that thought and feeling is out there, and it’s widespread. And it’s Trump-specific.

If it had been anybody other than Trump…

hey MAGA, remember this?

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We knew there was going to be violence, didn’t we. I mean, the threat of violence has been a constant theme in the MAGAverse. Just a few days ago, Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, announced, “[W]e are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” Hell, Trump his ownself, during the George Floyd protests, asked his Sec. of Defense, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”

Of course there was going to be violence. We just didn’t expect the violence would be directed at Trump. It’s always been MAGA that’s been doing the threatening. They’re the ones with all the guns. Democrats and the left have all been threatening to…you know, vote. We’ve been threatening to…you know, hold criminal investigations and give Trump and his MAGA fuckwits a chance to defend themselves in court. We’ve been threatening them with the Constitution of the United States. Or the tattered shreds of the Constitution after SCOTUS ripped it up.

And MAGA? This is their approach:

A pickup tailgate with the image of a kidnapped President Biden.

We post images of Trump in an orange jumpsuit on social media. They celebrate the imagined kidnapping of Joe Biden. And let’s not forget, just four years ago 13 men were arrested by the FBI and charged in a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and ‘try’ her for the crime of…you know, implementing Covid public health restrictions.

But the MAGAverse is trying, once again, to turn reality on its head. Here’s one of the headlines in the morning’s Washington Post.

Trump allies immediately blame Biden, Democrats for their rhetoric

There are LOTS of examples of GOP politicians and supporters blaming Democrats. I’ll just mention one. Senator Tim Scott, once a hopeful VP candidate, said “This was an assassination attempt aided and abetted by the radical Left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse.” Scott ignores the fact that Trump actually IS a threat to democracy.

At this point, we know very little about what happened yesterday. We know the shooter was a 20-year-old registered Republican armed with an AR-15 style rifle. That’s about it; that’s about all we actually know at the moment. We’ll know more by the end of the day. We’ll also be inundated by a cascade of conspiracy theories, misinformation, disinformation, and outright bullshit. It’ll be hard to separate what we know from the bullshit. Hell, a lot of folks won’t even try to separate it. MAGA won’t.

But we can count on this: Democrats and folks on the left will be held to a higher standard of behavior than Republicans and other MAGA fuckwits.