America

Distressing articles about how the sea has warmed up in scary ways. Ignore that. 

Trump keeps saying incendiary provocative things to get attention, and the press seems duty bound to report on it without editorializing. They want horror, but there's also an element of normalizing his madness. The press hasn't figured out how to not amplify him, give him free publicity. 

His base thinks he doesn't really means the horrors he spouts, and those who hate him, believe him. His base is shrinking, but he thinks he's owning the libs. Every horrible story about him coming out in an effort to discredit him, and he is discredited as he will ever be, but his base doesn't care, they don't mind the grift, corruption and horror, they see it all as owning the libs, which is what the opposition party is all about. They like every mention, retweet. There is no bad Trump news to them. He can't be self defeating, even as he shoots himself in the leg and becomes less and less imaginable as a president for conservatives who still have some rationality left.

There's no serious platform to solve problems or to run government sanely, conservatives run to not do things, even though they're men of action, and the dumb show is a distraction. Hucksters and snake oil salesmen.

Most people see through it all, and the worse Trump gets, the more the people who were not going to vote for him, get disgusted, which makes him and his followers happy. 

He's never going to win unless people somehow forget how dangerous he is, but to his base, that perceived danger is exciting to them. The fact that he could win is enough for him to keep gathering lurid attention to his provocative statements. He speaks to the unsatisfiable rage we all have. Most people back away from this shadow, but he embraces it. His malevolence is where he draws his most strength. I'll get them.

Never mind the republican party is dead, he's killed it, in making it over in his image. It took him a while to pry it out of the hands of reasonable people. 

The excitement in the disgust might be more motivating than the disgust to avoid him, so the campaign goes back and forth, back and forth. How horrible. Yes, isn't it great. 

Democracy is motivating people enough to vote, not some calculus of who is fit to govern. Absurdity and disgust can motivate people, regardless of proposals and fitness to govern. 

Biden is by far the clear and obvious choice, but people aren't thrilled by him the way they can be thrilled about Trump. 

Democrats counter, no, we don't have a cult leader, that's exactly what we don't want, but that lack of fire leads to low voter turnout. Democrats are once again begging people to vote, to actually participate in democracy with rationality. 

The opposition doesn't want to lead, it's just another grift to run for office, avoid justice. They don't expect to win, but sometimes they do, and it's more opportunity for grift. 

Trump's being held accountable in court isn't political, but he makes it political. Boo hoo, they're persecuting me. Most of his voters have live antisocial tendencies. They see themselves in his persecution, somehow. So it is political to them because it feels political to them.

What must it be like for your grand narcissistic narratives to be gratified at times.

Trump is the logical extension, to an absurd degree, of the conservative hope that government shrinks and is not be relied on, like an inconsistent parent. The kid finally takes over. 

It's enough to occasionally pull the rug out from under the system. They don't like government, don't like taxes, don't like the inevitable mistakes involved in trying to do things, ameliorate the excesses of capitalism. Let the law of the jungle rule, it's all made up, right?! And use that disgust to further their cause. Every script can be flipped, to your own self interest. They admire his confidence, his gall. No shame at all. To endlessly flip the script, even in defiance of reality. Every accusation is a projection, but that takes sophistication, it's not emotive, not instinctual. 

The threat is enough, the possibility of being president again, even if republicans always tank the economy and never succeed by any measures, beyond lowering taxes for the rich, which always makes things worse. 

People imagine they're potentially going to benefit from lower taxes on the rich even if they're never going to be rich and they're hurting themselves. As much as they like destroying liberal ideas, their vision of America is sacred to them. One unhindered by norms, rules and laws.

The racism gets people vote for Trump, it's the southern strategy. His tropes of marginalizing immigrants and punching down on the vulnerable populations is the American way. 

His stochastic terrorism is an outlet for wingnuts, permission without actually telling people directly that it's OK to reign terror on your own country, think only of yourself, respond to internal stimuli, don't worry about your impact on others. You have permission to bully the weak in Trump's America. That's the middle school playground, away from the teachers, about where America's arrested development is at. 

Trump is America's shadow, the disowned horribleness many hope to move away from. They can't pretend it isn't there. Cruelty in its many forms. Inchoate rage at life's unfairness, it's a twist on the understanding of how the system is rigged, it inverts the critique of capitalism in terms of a wish. 

That we're so befuddled and confused isn't a surprise to Trump. Look at those suckers, they eat it up. His contempt for his followers doesn't matter, they're imagining they're invited to the exclusive party, but everyone involved with Trump actually suffers. Giuliani is bankrupt and being forced to sell off vacation property to cover his bankruptcy. Everyone is trying to cash in on their time, but it ends up selling their souls in this hell is worthless. You can only sell your soul in system that values a soul. Trump's system doesn't value souls, it grinds them up. 

What Trump found was that there are endless people looking for a chance to cash in somehow, and he uses that sort of multilevel marketing grift to exploit people. Everyone is exploitable, they think he's smart for having that outlook. He's an exploitation genius. That is their vision of America and unfettered capitalism. He finds unstable people who are guided by the wish. When the rug is pulled out, they wonder why they couldn't be more like him. One chess move ahead of everyone. He really is a stable genius. That is what I will vote for. He keeps doing the bait and switch. 

There's never a normal business model underneath. People in regular business, with normal jobs. The market is oversaturated. You have to go into some fringe desperate situation to cull that market. 

His short life is coming to its end. You can see the decline, but humans continue to tell the emperor that he's got great clothes. Because that's who they are. They have great clothes. Not in actuality, but the fantasy is good enough. Keep voting for the dream and the shadow, because the reality isn't so fun. 

Money is drying up, nobody wants to donate money to Trump. It's Trump's final days. 

We're watching his downfall in court. His base is shrinking. The Faux News lies just double down on horrible stories to stoke fear of liberal nightmares for conservatives, and attack immigrants, punching down, imagining that is what the strong do, instead of lead with virtue. 

In collaboration with Russia and China, America suberts it's own democracy with pointing to problems, there must be problems somewhere. There's always a glitch in the system. Trump likes the strong dictators, he wishes he could be one. Somehow he's turned away from it, he's a good salesman, he doesn't ask for too much, but he's laying the groundwork for a future sale.

He praised Hitler, though he had good ideas. Trump is of German heritage, so he looks back nostalgically to the chaos of two world wars. It's the chaos that he felt growing up with his strict dad, he doesn't want that, he's going to bring chaos and own the libs. Like some drama on a reality show, he wants to bring the chaos. He sees how he can profit. More chaos means more people desperate to buy his snake oil. He envies the evangelicals, knows how to appeal to them. Hold up a bible.

America is going to grow past him on November 4th. He's going to fade into obscurity even as the media covers his latest outlandish attention seeking belches and farts. 

America will remember him the way they remember the holocaust, scapegoating weakness as strength, and the heroin addict Joseph P. McCarthy and other merchants of spite. Darth Vader's death star, tragically flawed, defeated.

Always remember America's dark underbelly. 73 million people voted for Trump and he was actually president for 4 years. And even though his empire crumbled and he's disgraced, for a while there. 

And he kept fighting for more, and didn't go away, when he could have, like other presidents who had some measure of propriety. He broke norms, and that's his thing, he never gave up, always presented the strong man, relentlessly on the grift. 

Stood on that balcony after getting Covid, like his medical services were the same ones Americans could have, but he got drugs and shots to bolster him up, and his drug addled White House was just another aspect to the big bowl of wrong that lingers, reminding America, we don't have to be great. We could identify with Darth Vader's death star.

Taylor Swift's forces will be in ascendence. Struggling against wanting to please others, present the impossible ideal of femininity, moving past that, fighting sexual abuse, a reporter sticking his hand up her dress. He sues her?! 

She's an artist, a business person and a philanthropist. Instead of bilking her workers, she gives real bonuses to her loyal workers, she donates money to real causes. She is an artist and a force of good in the universe, and she's going to motivate her young voters to vote against disgusting Trump. Fighting the good fight, understanding your emotions, insight into how not to be a victim of the system. She represents the American way of light, of goodness. She has the audacity to try to be good. She harkens to a greater America. 

Forget the carbon emissions of flying friends and family to visit her in her loneliness. Nobody is perfect. Technology will solve global warming the way it created it. 

Trump would never consider carbon emissions either. He's trying to figure out how to get a new plane, how to bilk his supporters for a new plane. Because neither worry about our real problem, that gives us permission to say fuck it. Meanwhile billionaires are building bunkers to wait out the coming storms. I'm not going to be a common man ground up in climate change, rising seas, cataclysmic weather, and heat. The gods are angry with us, and sending retribution we feel we deserve. We have not been good.

This whole election distracts from the impending disaster of human caused climate change. We can't quibble about real problems when we're fighting off distractions. The bigger the problems, the bigger the distraction has to be. And that was why Trump was perfect for the moment and he won't go away.

As Israel pounds Gaza into a fine dust, didn't they deserve that? Nevermine it's led by an undemocratic faction in Israel, to fight another undemocratic radical faction in Gaza. The problem isn't a lack of democracy, it's a lack of the will to carry out the nasty job of self protection, never mind it increases the dangers. Every time badass Israel expands it territories after being swiped at, that gives the radical Muslims a pressure valve for their own lack of democracy, funnel it all into Israel hate, don't look behind our undemocratic curtains. And the ugly murderous distracting dances continue. 

We need endless wars to distract us. Information wars are just another aspect in the befuddlement that sidetracks us.

Inflation is global warming and climate change tax (source). But just resent the tax, don't look at the larger causes. 

I believe the wisdom is present to embrace the moment.

This election is about the very soul of America. Is it a foreign bought, obviously wrong candidate who became president, or a mild mannered older fellow who hasn't been corrupted, and won't do horrible things to America. 

If you're upset about Biden not stopping the smashing of Gaza or his lack of climate action, think about what Trump would do. The worst criticisms of Biden are not solved by Trump, and the worst criticism of Trump are what are at stake here, they are the thing to be avoided. Understand your choice.