Category Archives: election 2024

well, that was something

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US presidential debates have always been…wait, wrong approach. US presidential debates have NEVER been debates. I mean, a debate is a discussion, right? A discussion between individuals or groups about a particular topic or a related range of topics. When you sit around the coffee shop and have a convivial argument with your friends about the merits of film photography versus digital imagery, that’s a debate. When you sit in a bar and challenge your friend to prove that Star Wars has a more coherent universe than Star Trek, that’s a debate. These may be stupid debates, but they’re more true to the debate concept than whatever the fuck that was last night.

[Okay, I wrote this yesterday morning, then had a Squirrel Moment and got distracted by something outside. Then I had to go to the gym and get ritually humiliated in pickleball by a bunch of savage retired women. Then there was lunch and the day just got away from me. So any reference to ‘last night’ should be interpreted as ‘Thursday’.]

Presidential debates in the US have just been awkward Q&A sessions. The moderators ask a question, the candidates give some sort of an answer that may or may not be tangentially related to the question. There’s rarely any real discussion, and to my knowledge there’s never ever been any attempt to persuade their opponent to change their mind.

What we saw last night was…well, I don’t know what the fuck it was. Whatever it was, it was ugly. And the reaction by most of the US political news media to whatever it was, was even uglier. In fact, the news media reaction has been just as fucking stupid as Donald Trump was last night.

How stupid? The New York Times editorial board called for Joe Biden to drop out of the race. Why? Because he gave a poor performance. Which is true; Biden seemed older than usual, and his voice was raspy and congested. He didn’t always give a consistent, reasoned answer to the moderator’s questions. He rambled a bit, he stuttered (the guy has always had a stutter, that’s not unusual for him), and he sometimes strayed from the topic. It was unpleasant to watch.

Trump, on the other hand, was fucking vile. Which is to say, Trump was Trump. Rude. Often incoherent. Insulting. Openly lying in literally almost every comment he made. But he told those lies in a loud, confident voice, as opposed to Biden’s tremulous responses. Trump refused to even attempt to answer the moderator’s questions, while Biden tried to answer them.

But NYT thinks Biden should drop out of the race? Because he’s old and did poorly in a debate? Because he’s a decent, patriotic American, Biden should be willing to sacrifice his presidential career for the good of the nation?

What about the convicted felon and sex pest? The NYT did NOT call for Donald Trump to drop out of the race. In (grudging) defense of the NYT, there’s no point in suggesting Trump drop out for the good of the nation, because he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the good of the nation. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything but his ownself. Trump is a fucking cancerous tumor; the only way he’ll leave the political body if he’s surgically excised.

Trump mugging democracy

This is a seriously risky moment in US history. The Republican Party has become an authoritarian White Christian Nationalist party, openly hostile to the very concept of representative democracy. That’s bad enough, but we also have what is essentially a rogue Supreme Court. In the last couple of weeks alone, SCOTUS has decided that 1) homeless people can be banned from sleeping outside even if there’s no other place for them to sleep, 2) random judges should have more control over the environment, public health, workplace safety & consumer protections than expert regulators, 3) public officials can accept ‘gratuities’ from wealthy businesses for favorable decisions AFTER the decision is made (but not before the decision is made, because that would be bribery), and 4) that obstructing or impeding an official proceeding only applies if you destroy records or documents, not if you violently disrupt Congress by breaking in and threatening members of Congress. (We still don’t know how SCOTUS feels about presidential immunity for criminal acts, but I’ve got no confidence in them doing what is obviously right.)

Joe Biden is NOT an ideal candidate. I mean, his role in enabling the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is, to me, incomprehensible and unforgivable. But I’ll vote for the guy because he IS the Democratic candidate. I’ll vote for whoever the Democratic candidate is because fuck Trump and the GOP. Fuck them in the neck.

hitler/trump — not just a cheap shot

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A couple of years ago, when I was dodging the work I should have been doing, I decided to research the authenticity of a quotation that frequently appeared online. I’d seen it attributed to both Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. You’ve probably seen it too.

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.

There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that either Hitler or Goebbels said it, though they certainly believed it and acted on it. However, a very similar line appeared in a classified World War 2 psychological profile of Hitler:

People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

I downloaded the report (which was declassified in 1968) to read later…and promptly forgot about it. Until yesterday, when I stumbled on it again while deleting old files. I decided to glance through it before deleting it…and lawdy.

This is what happened. Back in late 1943 or early 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (the US intelligence agency during World War 2, which eventually morphed into the CIA) tasked a psychoanalyst named Walter Langer to prepare a profile on Adolf Hitler. The report was “an attempt to screen the wealth of contradictory, conflicting and unreliable material concerning Hitler into strata which will be helpful to the policy-makers and those who wish to frame a counter-propaganda.”

We’ve all seen a lot of comments comparing former POTUS Comrade Donald Trump to Hitler. It’s easy to either nod and agree or dismiss the comparison as overreach. But when you read the report–which, remember, was completed before the end of the war, when Hitler was still alive and in power–it’s uncanny how closely Langer’s evaluation of Hitler resembles Trump. The report itself has six sections: 1) Hitler as he believes himself to be, 2) as the German people know him, 3) as his associates know him, 4) as he knows himself, 5) a psychological analysis and reconstruction, and 6) Hitler’s probable behavior in the future. Only some of those could be applied to Trump. The quotations are taken directly from Langer’s report (which can be found here).

Hitler/Trump as he believes himself to be:

Many people have stopped and asked themselves: “Is this man sincere in his undertakings or is he a fraud?” Certainly even a fragmentary knowledge of his past life warrants such a question…. [A]ll of his former associates whom we have been able to contact, as well as many of our most capable foreign correspondents, are firmly convinced that Hitler actually does believe in his own greatness.

It makes little difference whether the field be economics, education, foreign affairs, propaganda, movies, music or women’s dress. In each and every field he believes himself to be an unquestioned authority.

He has fallen in love with the image of himself in this role and has surrounded himself with his own portraits.

Does that sound like Trump? Oh, absolutely.

Hitler/Trump as the people know him:

[F]rom a physical point of view, is not, however, a very imposing figure.

[His] personal appearance… it is safe to assume that this has been greatly tempered by millions of posters, pasted in every conceivable place, which show the Fuehrer as a fairly good-looking individual with a very determined attitude. In addition, the press, news-reels, etc., are continually flooded with carefully prepared photographs showing Hitler at his very best.

[H]is speeches were sinfully long, badly structured and very repetitious. Some of them are positively painful to read but nevertheless, when he delivered them they had an extraordinary effect upon his audiences.

[B]y the time he got through speaking he had completely numbed the critical faculties of his listeners to the point where they were willing to believe almost anything he said. He flattered them and cajoled them. He hurled accusations at them one moment and amused them the next by building up straw men which he promptly knocked down. His tongue was like a lash which whipped up the emotions of his audience. And somehow he always managed to say what the majority of the audience were already secretly thinking but could not verbalize.

[H]is refusal to permit ordinary scruples to get in his way is given as a sign of his greatness.

Yeah, that’s Trump.

Hitler/Trump as his associates know him: much of this section contradicts comparisons with Trump. Hitler, it seems, was a hard worker who was actually well informed about the workings of government. Apparently, he was generally thoughtful with his underlings, making sure they took breaks and ate well–even to the point of refusing to eat until everybody in the room had been served. He was also, it seems, personally courageous. However, there are a lot of aspects of Hitler’s personality that are equally Trumpian. For example:

H]is ability to persuade others to repudiate their individual consciences.

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong.

He has a passion for the latest news and for photographs of himself…. Very frequently he becomes so absorbed in the news or in his own photographs that he completely forgets the topic under discussion.

Almost everyone who has written about Hitler has commented on his rages. These are well known to all of his associates and they have learned to fear them…. [H]is behavior is still extremely violent and shows an utter lack of emotional control. In the worst rages he undoubtedly acts like a spoiled child who cannot have his own way and bangs his fists on the tables and walls. He scolds and shouts and stammers and on some occasions foaming saliva gathers in the corners of his mouth.

It must not be supposed, however, that these rages occur only when he is crossed on major issues. On the contrary, very insignificant matters might call out this reaction. In general they are brought on whenever anyone contradicts him, when there is unpleasant news for which he might feel responsible, when there is any skepticism concerning his judgment or when a situation arises in which his infallibility might be challenged or belittled.

We all know how he can say something one day and a few days later say the opposite, completely oblivious to his earlier statement. He does not only do this in connection with international affairs but also with his closest associates.

[H]e seems to lack any real sense of humor. He can never take a joke on himself.

That’s so totally Trump.

Hitler/Trump as he knows himself and Psychological analysis and reconstruction: These sections are devoted to a Freudian psychoanalytic view of Hitler’s personal life and history. It’s about his family, his youth, his military service in WW1, his rise to power, his relationships, and his sexuality and sexual proclivities. They’re full of Freudian concepts and interpretations (like “Unconsciously, all the [Oedipal] emotions he had once felt for his mother became transferred to Germany.”) and there’s a lot of focus on Hitler’s probable issues with childhood toilet training trauma. I mean, this was the early 1940s–Freud still wore the biggest hat in the field–so we have to expect this stuff. I suppose we could include Hitler’s alleged indulgence in urine play as a similarity with Trump, but I’m not sure that anybody’s particular kink is terribly relevant.

What MIGHT be relevant, though, is this observation by Langer:

Hitler’s outstanding defense mechanism is one commonly called projection…his own personal problems and conflicts were transferred from within himself to the external world where they assumed the proportions of racial and national conflicts.

We’ve all heard that every accusation made by Trump is also a confession. It’s interesting to read, to be sure, but while there are comparisons to be made with Trump’s personal life and history, the comparisons are rather generic.

Hitler’s/Trump’s probable behavior in the future: Langer outlined eight possible/probable scenarios for Hitler’s fall.

  1. He said Hitler might die of natural causes, but considered that a remote possibility. Given Trump’s diet and lack of exercise, this possibility is less remote in his case.
  2. Hitler might seek refuge in a neutral country. Langer also considered this to be extremely unlikely. Trump, who has property in other countries, might be more open to this.
  3. Hitler might get killed in battle. Langer thought this was a real possibility. He said it would be undesirable from the US point of view, since it would make Hitler a martyr. As for Trump, ain’t no way he’d martyr himself.
  4. Hitler might be assassinated. Langer felt Hitler was too well protected for this, and thought it would be undesirable–again, that martyrdom business. It also seems an unlikely scenario for Trump.
  5. Hitler may go insane. Langer meant more insane. Incapacitated by mental illness. Which could also happen to Trump, as his emotional defenses collapse.
  6. German military might revolt and seize him. Langer believed as Hitler’s behavior became more neurotic, a point might be reached where the military confined him. As for Trump, nobody in the MAGAverse has the courage to seize him.
  7. Hitler may fall into [the US military’s] hands. Yeah, no, doesn’t apply.
  8. Hitler might commit suicide. Langer said this was the most plausible outcome. And hey, that’s what Hitler did. I won’t comment further on this possibility.

Langer’s profile concluded with this comment:

[Hitler’s} mental condition will continue to deteriorate. He will fight as long as he can with any weapon or technique that can be conjured up to meet the emergency. The course he will follow will almost certainly be the one which seems to him to be the surest road to immortality and at the same time drag the world down in flames.

Again, that’s totally Trump. Willing to burn the entire combustible world in a fit of pique if he can’t get his way.

It’s weird and disturbing that Walter Langer, 80+ years ago, writing about a man “the world has come to know…for his insatiable greed for power, his ruthlessness, cruelty and utter lack-of feeling, his contempt for established institutions and his lack of moral restraints” seems to have provided us with some pretty solid insight into the psyche of Donald Trump.

the way to end the genocide in Gaza is…

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…not to vote in the 2024 election, I guess?

Well, that’s what some people seem to believe. I’m basing this on recent Bsky comments responding to my ‘voting is like taking a bus‘ analogy. Granted, the voting-bus analogy is flawed. Anytime you compare a thing to a different thing, the comparison will fall short, because (obviously) they are two separate things. Still, I think that analogy is/was useful in explaining WHY I’ll be grudgingly voting for Biden in the 2024 election. Here, briefly, is the analogy:

The U.S. government is a bus. The 2024 election is about who’ll drive the bus. If neither bus driver will take the bus directly to the place we want to be, it makes sense to choose the driver who’ll deliver us closest to where we want to be.

Several people on Bsky used the analogy to lament the choice of bus drivers and/or wish there was a better bus driver we could choose. Here are some of their responses:

— There are two buses that are driving toward hell at slightly different rates, I would like to turn around and take a bus away from hell
— If my desired destination required that the bus run over tens of thousands of innocent people to get me where I was going, I’d simply not ride that bus and find some other way to get there
— So if I want guaranteed healthcare, take the genocide bus, got it.
— why don’t we change the bus routes so the bus goes where people actually want to go instead of only going to the dump.

I don’t blame these folks. I’m not happy with the choices either, or with the system that limited our choices. Unfortunately, the system we have IS the system we have. It takes time to change an entire electoral system and, sadly, the only way to change it is by voting for people who’ll change the system (very few of which are running for national office).

For a lot of these folks, the solution is obvious. Don’t take the bus. Don’t vote. They argue that voting for Biden is essentially endorsing genocide. They say Biden’s support of genocide is so defining they can’t, in good conscience, vote for him.

These folks have an uncomfortably valid point. Here’s an exchange I had with one person:

Them: Here’s the problem with this analogy: The place I want to go is a free and safe Palestine. Not only is Biden going nowhere near there, it’s impossible to get there on one’s own.
Me: I would also like a free, safe, independent Palestine. Tell me, who should I vote for to get that? I’m willing to be convinced. Hell, I’m eager to be convinced.
Them: Neither. That’s the point.
Me: So your suggestion is…not to vote? Does that help anybody at all? Voting for either Biden or Trump–or not voting at all–isn’t going to help anybody in Gaza or the West Bank. For me, personally, there are other reasons to vote; friends & family who will suffer more under Trump. Yes, the lesser of 2 evils is still evil, but it’s less evil. I can settle for that.
Them: Well, many can’t. Either get Biden to change or deal with it.

A lot of these folks argue they’ll vote for the down ballot candidates–the members of the U.S. Congress, state legislators, local offices–but not for Biden as POTUS. But here’s the thing: POTUS sets foreign policy. Congress controls the budget, but the agenda for foreign relations is established by the president. If your primary concern is a safe, independent Palestinian state, your choices are limited to a guy who reluctantly contributed to genocide or a guy who enthusiastically endorses it.

Forget the bus analogy. Instead, think of the coming election like this: somebody is going to pound a nail through the foot of every Palestinian. You have a choice: a) a ten-penny nail, or b) a railroad spike. It’s an ugly choice. In a better world, we could choose between two leaders who want to teach Palestinians to dance. But we don’t live in that world. The best we can do right now is try to reduce the harm.

I’ll be voting for Joe Biden AND doing what I can to pressure him and Congress to stop the genocide. Yes, it’s contradictory. But Walt Whitman was right; we are large, we contain multitudes.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Biden is also significantly better than Trump on a number of issues, including the environment, labor, LGBTQ issues, voting rights, civil liberties, infrastructure, taxes, and a lot of other policy stuff. Still awful on his support for Netanyahu, but multitudes and all that.

we’re all on the bus

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Voting. Think of it like public transportation. Think of it like a bus service. There’s a place you want/need to go to. But there’s no bus line that will take you directly to that place. So what do you do?

You take the bus that gets you closest to where you want to be.

For me, that bus is driven by Joe Biden. Yes, he’s old and believes that the institutions of democracy will save us. Yes, his role in aiding the Palestinian genocide and his actions in support of Netanyahu are unforgivable. I could provide a long list of his faults and flaws. But he’s also the bus driver that will get the bus closer to where I want this nation to be. It might only a few blocks closer, but closer is closer.

Trump, on the other hand, wants to take the bus in the opposite direction. A big chunk of the US population is in favor of that. There are also a few third party bus drivers who have plans for the bus, and they all have their supporters. But let’s be honest about that; no bus driven by a third party driver is going to leave the terminal. That’s just a fact.

Here’s a True Thing: you’re on the bus. Whether you like it or not, if you’re a US citizen, you’re on the bus. That gives you the right to vote to decide who’ll be driving it. But here’s another True Thing: your choices are basically limited to two old white guys: Biden or Trump. Sure, there are those third party folks out there who’d LIKE to drive the bus. Some of them might be much better bus drivers than either Biden or Trump. But the reality is, it’s going to be one of the two old white guys. That’s just another fact.

So what do you do if you don’t like those two old white guys? You can choose NOT to vote; you can forfeit your right to choose the bus driver. You can opt out. You can tell yourself there’s no difference between those two old white guys. You can claim they’re both awful, that one is only marginally less evil than the other. You can argue that less evil is still evil and you won’t vote for evil.

That’s fine. But you’re still on the bus, as are all your friends and family. If you opt out, you have to be willing to ignore the fact that less evil is still less evil. You have to ignore the fact that less evil is a better choice than more evil.

When there’s no direct route, you take the closest bus.

You also have the option to cast your vote for a bus driver other than Biden or Trump, one of those third party drivers. You can, in fact, choose to vote for the BEST POSSIBLE bus driver. You can tell yourself that voting for the BEST POSSIBLE bus driver–that voting your conscience–is absolutely the right thing to do, the moral and ethical thing to do. But you know the BEST POSSIBLE bus driver isn’t going to get enough votes to drive the bus. You know either Trump or Biden IS going to be driving the bus. No matter how much you hate knowing this, you still know it’s true.

In effect, voting for the BEST POSSIBLE bus driver is passively accepting whichever old white guy eventually wins. Whoever wins, you can tell yourself (and others) it’s not your fault. You can blame everybody else for not being wise enough to vote for the BEST POSSIBLE bus driver. You can’t be held responsible for the direction the bus takes. You can take comfort in that, if/when the bus goes in the wrong direction.

The bus isn’t going to wait. The bus is on a schedule. Come November, one of those two old white guys will be chosen to drive the bus in January of 2025. You can help choose which one. Or you can shrug it off.

It sucks. But here we are and there it is.

it’s not a ‘hush money’ trial

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Jury selection for Comrade Donald Trump’s first criminal trial is scheduled to begin on the 15th. People and the news media (you’d think the ‘news media’ would be populated by ‘people’ but I swear, it’s more a collection of rabid ferrets tied up in a gunny sack) keep referring to it as “the hush money trial.”

There’s a good reason for that, of course. Trump did actually pay money to hush up a sleazy sexual episode. Three sleazy sexual episodes, in fact (the one-night stand with Stormy Daniels, the 9-month affair with Playboy model Karen McDougal, and Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin who claimed Trump fathered a child with a former employee). Hell, Trump’s probably paid hush money on multiple occasions to multiple people. This is a thing rich assholes do. Nobody is ever really surprised when rich assholes pay money to suppress their disreputable behavior.

But here’s the thing: the hush money isn’t the issue. The issues are: 1) how Trump paid the hush money and 2) how his attempts to hush up the way the hush money payments were made.

Does that sound confusing? Well, it kinda is. Here’s what happened (according to the prosecution, anyway). The various hush money payments were listed in Trump’s business records as a ‘legal expense’ payable to Michael Cohen (who, by the way, pled guilty to violating campaign finance laws, tax fraud, and bank fraud; he picked up a three year sentence in federal prison, fined US$50,000 fine, and was eventually disbarred from practicing law in the state of New York.). Shuffling the money through Cohen involved falsifying business records, which is only a misdemeanor UNLESS that falsifying is done to cover up another crime. That turns the misdemeanor into a felony. The other crime, in this case, is violating campaign finance laws. Trump is facing 34 felony counts in this trial.

It’s one thing for a rich asshole to dip into his pockets to pay a person money in order to hide his disreputable behavior. It’s one thing to pony up some of your own coin so your family and/or business acquaintances won’t find out that you’re a despicable creep. That’s just ordinary everyday sleazy rich asshole behavior.

It’s another thing altogether to dip into campaign pockets to pay a person money in order to suppress a story that would lead voters to believe you’re a despicable creep, which might make them decide not to vote for you.

Trump is being prosecuted for falsifying business records in order to disguise the fact that he used campaign money to suppress ugly stories that might hurt his chance of being elected to the highest political office in the United States.

Maybe the most horrible part of this trial is that Trump probably didn’t need to…well, do anything at all to hush up his bad behavior. His attorneys could argue that Trump’s supporters would vote for him even if he publicly admitted he’d cheated on his wife with a porn actor. I mean, this is the guy who bragged he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue in New York City and not lose any votes. This is a guy who is EXPECTED to behave like a total asshole, and who regularly lives up to that expectation.

Trump: Yeah, that’s right, I cheated on my first wife with my second wife, and I cheated on my second wife with my third wife, and I cheated on my third wife with a porn star. I’ve cheated on everybody at every chance I got in every aspect of my life. Why shouldn’t I? You’d do it too if you thought you could get away with it. Vote for me!
MAGAverse: Hell yeah! We love his honesty! He’s just like us! We’d be total assholes too if we thought we could get away with it! Vote Trump! He’ll make America great for total assholes again!

That may be true, but it’s not a legit defense in a criminal matter. The victims in this case aren’t Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal or the many voters Trump were lied to. The true victim is the electoral system itself, not the voters who use it.

The total asshole in question.

This isn’t a case of a rich total asshole paying hush money to salvage his reputation. It’s a case of a rich total asshole paying hush money to gank the electoral system—to gank it so he could gain access to power and influence. And hey, it worked. The motherfucker actually got himself elected (with the aid of a hostile foreign nation, Russia). And to nobody’s surprise, when he was faced with losing a second election, he tried to gank the system again. And almost succeeded.

Trump is still trying to gank the electoral system. The upcoming trial is the first real attempt to hold the motherfucker accountable.

EDITORIAL NOTE: I have a baseball cap with ITMFA on the front. It originally stood for Impeach the Motherfucker Already. And hey, they did impeach him. But it didn’t take. So then ITMFA stood for Impeach the Motherfucker Again. And they did. And it didn’t take. Then it stood for Indict the Motherfucker Already. And they did. Now ITMFA stands for Incarcerate the Motherfucker Already. (I reserve the right for the I to eventually stand for ‘incinerate’.)

the bull goose loony of asshole culture

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The Trump re-election campaign is basically a defense of Asshole Culture. It’s clearly NOT a traditional presidential campaign. It consists almost entirely of Trump shouting various iterations of the Asshole Culture credo (if ‘credo’ means what I think it means).

The Asshole Credo? I’m glad you asked.

I do/do not want to do this thing. I don’t care if it helps/hurts other people. You can’t make me do or not do this thing. I will go way the fuck out of my way to create a disturbance sufficient to make others miserable in order to do/not do/stop other people from doing this thing. I am Asshole, hear me roar.

I wrote about Asshole Culture back in 2021, detailing how my understanding of the Republican Party shifted from seeing them as a Fuckwit Collective to advocates of Asshole Culture. I used to believe they did cruel stupid shit because they were too stupid to grasp that what they were doing was cruel. It became clear to me that many of them did cruel stupid shit because they’re cruel. Not just cruel, but performatively cruel. In your face cruel. Visibly and vocally cruel, without any fear of consequence.

Trump is campaigning on the theme of A Celebration of Asshole Culture. His claim of Absolute Immunity is grounded in Asshole Culture. His mockery of Joe Biden’s stutter, his deliberately insulting language about judges and prosecutors, his honoring of the January 6th Insurrectionists, his racist comments about immigrants, his contention that he’s the victim of reverse racism, his hateful depiction of E.Jean Carroll, his absurd gestures toward Christianity, all of his blatant lies — these are all manifestations of Asshole Culture.

And Trump? He’s the bull goose loony of Asshole Culture.

Trump’s entire presidential campaign is, down at the cellular level, based on the idea that he should be able to fart in church and enjoy the discomfort of other churchgoers without any consequence. Own the libs, insult eggheads, denigrate experts, mock the disabled, taunt minorities, malign women, intimidate those who disagree with you, fuck your feelings — these are the centerpieces of Asshole Culture.

Policies? Trump doesn’t need them. He doesn’t want them. He doesn’t understand them. He just wants to do whatever the fuck he wants to do at any particular moment. He insists on his right to be the supreme asshole.

That’s the open secret of his political success. Trump’s followers wish they could be as much an asshole as Trump is. They wish they could be as openly objectionable, as blatantly abhorrent as Trump is, and escape responsibility for it as much as he has. They don’t care that he’s a liar, a crook, a cheat, a hypocrite, an asshole; they just want him to be able to get away with it. Because then maybe they can do the same. Did he cheat on his taxes? Did he cheat on his wives? Did he pay hush money to porn stars? Did he try to steal an election? Fuck yeah!

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Asshole Culture is rooted in patriarchy.

EDITORIAL NOTE: We must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Nuke it from orbit. Then have tea and pastries.

an extremely grudging vote for uncle joe biden

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It’s still 260+ days until the presidential election, which means a whole hell of a lot could happen to change things. But as things stand right now, I’m going to be voting—with some reluctance—for Uncle Joe Biden.

Why the reluctance? Because of his unwillingness to lean on the government of Israel to stop the genocide of Palestinians. Uncle Joe has been a much better president than I’d expected. Better than I’d hoped for, in fact. Yeah, he’s old and yeah, he makes gaffes and says stupid shit periodically. But overall, I’ve got to say he’s had an incredible number of accomplishments—especially considering the massive ongoing clusterfuck created and sustained by House Republicans.

But still, it’s impossible to be happy about casting a vote for a man who has enabled Bibi Netanyahu to physically destroy Gaza and kill tens of thousands of civilians. And for anybody who wants to argue that opposing the Israeli Defense Force is the same as supporting Hamas, go fuck yourself. What Hamas did on October 7th was monstrous. No matter how frustrated they were with the Israeli government, there’s no fucking way to justify the slaughter of civilians.

But that same notion applies to the government of Israel. The willful slaughter of more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza (10,000 of whom were children) isn’t justice for the 1100 people killed during the Hamas attack. Biden’s willingness to go along with the genocide and the destruction of two-thirds of Gaza’s infrastructure makes it almost impossible to vote for him.

Almost impossible.

Despite the many good things Uncle Joe has done domestically and internationally (and personally—the guy has effectively reduced my student loan payments to almost zero), I’m extremely unhappy with the thought of voting for him. But I will, grudgingly.

Why? Because of this one simple fact: if Biden wins re-election, we’ll have a chance to elect a better leader in 2028. But if Trump wins re-election, there’s a very good chance the US will die as a democracy and we may not have anything remotely like a fair election in 2028.

That’s incentive enough.

the iowa caucus as smoke detector

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Let me say this first: I actually live in Iowa. I’ve been here steadily since 2008. I’ve participated in the Iowa caucus system. And people, I’m telling you it’s worthless.

Wait, that’s not entirely true. The Iowa caucus has value…to the news/entertainment media. Why? Partly because it’s quirky and quaint; it’s basically a 19th century system. Partly because it gives the media good visuals; you get to see candidates visiting farms and small town diners and county/state fairs. You get to see photos of them eating a corn dog or standing by a cow or smiling at somebody wearing bib overalls. And it has media value partly because it’s the first contest of the ridiculous process the US has for nominating presidential candidate. The news media has made the Iowa caucus ‘important’ because it thinks…and perhaps they’re right…that viewers love this stuff.

But except as a form of news entertainment, the Iowa caucus system is a pretty shitty way to select a nominee to represent a political party in a campaign for POTUS. It’s shitty in several ways.

  • It’s shitty because it’s held in fucking January, when it’s almost always bitterly cold. That discourages participation.
  • It’s shitty because it’s held in the evening and requires people to attend physically. If you work the second shift, you can’t attend. If you have child care issues, you may be unable to attend (although some parents do bring their kids…who then have to sit through what is often a long process that’s excruciatingly boring to kids). If you don’t have reliable transportation, if you’re elderly, if you’re disabled, you may be unable to attend.
  • It’s shitty because it can take a long time. People gather at the caucus site (which might be a church or a school or even somebody’s house) then listen as somebody representing each candidate (and sometimes there are several candidates) tries to convince the attendees to support their candidate. After those speeches, people physically separate themselves in groups. I’m NOT making this up. Candidate A supporters go to that corner, Candidate B’s people to another, and so on. If a candidate doesn’t have enough supporters to be considered viable, there’s a period of persuasion in which the more popular candidate’s supporters try to get them to join. There’s a whole supporter-poaching system in place. After all that physical shuffling around is done, they physically count the number of supporters in each group, and apportion delegates based on that.
  • It’s shitty because this unwieldy process happens in EVERY precinct of each of Iowa’s 99 counties. And they’re almost all run by volunteers. In other words, this is largely an amateur hour process.
  • It’s shitty because the population of Iowa is…well, not representative of the US as a whole. There are about three million people living in Iowa. About 85% of them are white; 7% Latino; 5% Black. Do the math.

So what we’re talking about here is an antiquated, inherently unfair system that doesn’t represent the nation as a whole and is conducted largely by amateurs, but is massively promoted as important by the news/entertainment media. It’s also worth mentioning that the Iowa caucus system isn’t very predictive. Since 1972, it’s basically been a coin toss whether the caucus winner became the actual nominee. Only 55% of the Democratic Iowa caucuses winners became the party nominee; 43% of GOP winners became the Republican candidate. (I should also point out that the Iowa Democratic Party has mostly abandoned this system; they’ll still hold a physical ‘caucus’ but will also allow mail-in and early voting.)

The success rate since 2008, when I moved back to Iowa, has been pretty accurate for Democrats, but absolutely dismal for Republicans. Democratic caucus winners were Obama (2008 and 2012), Clinton (2016), and a tie between Buttigieg and Sanders (2020). GOP caucus winners were Mike Huckabee (2008), Rick Santorum (2012), Ted fucking Cruz (2016), and Trump (2020).

You’ll notice that the Iowa GOP has consistently chosen evangelical Christians as candidates. Or at least candidates who claim to represent evangelical Christians, because Trump? C’mon. What that suggests (or screams out loud) is that evangelical Christians aren’t really that interested in Christianity. They’re less concerned with spirituality and morality, and more concerned with racist and sexist ideology. It’s not about religion; it’s about willfully blind obedience to a cult leader.

Ain’t nobody painting their tractor for Biden.

My point, if you can call it that, is that Trump’s massive victory in yesterday’s Iowa caucus isn’t terribly meaningful in terms of who’ll win the 2024 election. Notice that every GOP Iowa caucus winner since 2008 LOST in that year’s election.

I’m not saying we should shrug off Trump’s win. It’s evidence that the GOP has solidified itself as an authoritarian, anti-democratic, Christianist political party rooted in racism and sexism rather than conservative principles or policies. The fact that they represent such a large chunk of the US population is fucking terrifying.

But I think it’s important to remember that Trump’s power is a product of hate, resentment, and fear fueled in large measure by a news and entertainment media more interested in marketing than in reportage. Half of his power is a media-fostered illusion. The way the GOP Iowa caucus is reported feeds that illusion.

So don’t disregard the caucus result any more than you’d disregard the alarm on the smoke detector in your home. It could be a legit warning. But it’s more likely to mean the battery needs to be changed. Pay attention to what happens in Iowa, but don’t let it panic you. It’s mostly just noise leading to anxiety.

Wait. That’s my point. I knew I had one. I’m glad it snuck in at the end.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Just another reminder that we must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the fucking ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, then set fire to the stake and burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then nuke it from orbit. Then drink whiskey and have wild monkey sex.