Trump's Second, Third, and Fourth Terms

I am having a hard time dealing with the post-truth environment tonight. The Russian military is at it again, hacking the 2020 election, the same actors that hacked 2016. The president tweets that he is protecting people with pre-existing conditions even as he is in court to eliminate these protections. Tonight, the constant barrage of lies and propaganda intensifies through new media outlets that outFox Fox (OAN). How easily we have adapted - no outrage, no people in the streets, everyone at home watching their six hours of repetitive hypnotic advertising, binge eating and binge watching. Honestly, I thought we would put up more of a fight. I was wrong. Welcome to Weimar.

STRUDEL AND MOVIES

In Nazi Germany there were brilliant movies and groundbreaking art, not to mention delicious strudel and heartstopping sports. And there was money to enjoy them all. Yes, somewhere Jewish families were being separated and sent to camps, and the chancellor became the Fuhrer and attacked the press and controlled the judiciary, but this all seemed like it would pass any day and the opposition would soon rise . . And how bad could things be with such delicious strudel and movies?

ON TRUMP SUPPORTERS

There are many books on the market that urge us to listen to Trump supporters, to be kind and respectful of them. I find Trump supporters, who enable a vulgar, lying white supremacist, who spew racial epithets and insane Q conspiracy theories, morally and intellectually reprehensible. They have supported child separation, "good people on both sides," and attacks on the free press.There have to be limits to tolerance, especially when actors actively attack the rights and freedoms of others. Trump supporters are fascists, are creating a unitary authoritarian executive, and are destroying democracy. I hold to my right to condemn them like the Nazis that they are.

THE POWER THAT INTENDS TO STAY

So, this is how the dictatorship comes, with basketball games and favorite cop shows. By attrition, a law at a time. Information is hidden and propaganda blares; the whistleblowers are quietly arrested, and the lies, simple, big, repeated often, stare. The power that intends to stay forever flaunts custom and rule, riles up lumpenproletarian crowds, loud, louder, accusing opponents of what they term you. A germ warfare of words ensues. Gorka is hired by Sinclair; fascism is doled out with Dole pineapples, McCafe frappes. A public eats the words and naps.

RULES OF PROPAGANDA

Do not underestimate Trump. He has effectively followed Hitler's racist and rapist playbook for power and has divided our nation to the point of civil war. We are surrounded by disinformation and propaganda and the press and freedom of assembly are in grave danger. 
Remember the rules of propaganda, of which Trump is a master, and teach others to resist.
1. Make the lie big.
2. Make it simple so that your least intelligent follower can grasp it.
3. Repeat it often.
And . . .
4. Accuse your opponents of what they accuse you, to confuse and undermine. If your followers are an angry mob, call Democrats an angry mob; if you are extreme and dangerous, call Democrats extreme and dangerous. Etc.
Watch for these tactics, and educate others, and resist, resist, ,#resist.

When Poets Get Shot

Orange: the color of emergency: Trump’s Mein Kampf has successfully launched. Here come the Nazis, the pedophiles, the “benevolent white supremacists,” the wife rapists, men who like their women bruised, the gay bashers who are secret homosexuals. Yes, Nazism has always had to do with violent and non-consensual sex.

Orange prison uniforms for asylum seekers kept hungry and in cramped dirty quarters. Little babies ripped from their mothers (Reference: see Sophie’s Choice). One thousand five hundred border babies lost, no one knows where they are, probably in human trafficking (see paragraph 1).

For you and me, orange uniforms? There is no surety that says no, even if you support the Nazis. One day, a Nazi pal will turn you in as gay or part black or disloyal, and there you go to the camps, to the beautiful BASF or DOW or Monsanto chemical gas (Reference: see This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski).

Here will be the reliable cadres of orange prisoners: mentally ill people, all disabled people for that matter, gays and trans, commies (and who’s to say that you are not), latinxs, blacks, and uppity women (whom we will keep in the Frauenblock for fun). And you, if you slip up. Or if somebody wants your job. Or just for fun. Oh, and Jews, perhaps after a reprieve, but always, ultimately Jews. (Reference: See Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz).

Examples:

In 1921, a poet dreaming of his wife and Addis Ababa
is brought before the firing squad and shot.

During World War II in Stalingrad, a clownish writer accused of espionage dies of starvation trying to eat his prison mattress.

Poets who died in the camps:
Anica Černej
Grażyna Chrostowska
Robert Desnos
Benjamin Fondane
Pavel Friedmann
Peter Hammerschlag
Jakob van Hoddis
Noor Inayat Khan
Max Jacob
Itzhak Katzenelson
Peter Kien
Gertrud Kolmar
Igor S. Korntayer
Henryka Łazowertówna
Yechiel Lerer
Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger
Erich Mühsam
Arno Nadel
Sarah Powell
Moriz Seeler
Augustyn Suski
David Vogel
Ilse Weber

Here in the U.S., it will be me – I will be called a Democrat and hauled to a dark site to be waterboarded, not because I have any information (I don’t), just for stupid sadistic fun. There will be a picture of Ivanka Trump on the wall and my torturers will force me to genuflect and pray to her. I mumble lines from my poetry, proud that they have burned me, proud that I have told the truth. Then come the rats . . . .

25 Tell-Tale Signs That Trump Is a Nazi

1. He has his doctor brag about his genes.
2. He mocks a reporter with ankylosing spondylitis (ableism).
3. He lies and repeats his simple, outrageous lies until, like advertising, they seem true (see Joseph Goebbels).
4. He approves of Nazis and white supremacists.
5. He cultivates Nazis and white supremacists for his base.
6. He hates immigrants.
7. He thinks African nations are “shit holes.”
8. He spoke of “my African American” on the campaign trail.
9. He calls Mexicans rapists, as Hitler called Jews.
10. His wife Ivana said he enjoyed reading Mein Kampf.
11. He enjoys the company of dictators.
12. He emulates dictators.
13. He wants to shut down the free press.
14. He calls for the arrest and imprisonment of political opponents.
15. He wants to replace the FBI and CIA with agents loyal to him (see also Stalin).
16. Members of his own party fear him.
17. Loyalty to Trump, rather than agreement on policy, is the criterion for Republican candidate election today.
18. He encourages police brutality.
19. He reduces women to objects for male use.
20. Like a true fascist, he has consolidated his alliance with business and the oligarchy through tax breaks and other financial incentives.
21. He sets up concentration camps.
22. He separates families and puts them in concentration camps.
23. He hires Nazis.
24. He wants you to “sit up and pay attention” when he speaks.
25. He will likely succeed if you do not act now (see history).

Trump Is Winning and We Are Wimps

Trump is winning and we are wimps. He owns the Internet now, will control 72 percent of television now that DOJ has approved Sinclair's acquisition of Tribune (not counting FOX), owns the courts, has taught local police to be brutal, has listed Black Lives Matter and other black organizations as terrorist groups, has successfully incited Nazis, KKK, and other gun-toters to violence, and has triumphantly dominated the Republican Party. And like any good fascist, he has cemented his relationship with business with his tax bill. He's right - he and his generals really have done more than any other dictators in one year. We have been outmaneuvered, and better wake up to that fact going forward.

This Is Different

The lip service to democratic values is gone, the judiciary is a tool of the executive, the media as watchdog is vastly undermined, propaganda is rife (Sinclair with the merger will reach 72 percent of TV households), the government is a white supremacist one, fascist governments are our models, right wing evangelicals are successfully taking evolution out of our schools and now, with the tax bill, can wage political campaigns without losing nonprofit status, climatology and other sciences are under attack, so much more. This is not business as usual; this is fascism and we have to fight with all our might now, literally all our might all the time, or else.

Hitler's Cookies

Hitler's followers baked cookies, played sports, loved movies. Most, I'm sure, loved their families and were kind to their pets. None of that remains. We feel only contempt and loathing for these fascists. Trump supporters, nothing of your legacy will remain except your support of an evil leader. Absolutely nothing else.

There is no such thing as nonviolent Nazis

Or Klan. 
They want to kill you. If you are disabled, mentally ill, black, brown, Muslim, feminist, Jewish, LGBT, or leftist, they want you dead or enslaved. Don't be confused about that. And their affiliates want the same. They are much more extreme than you can imagine. I spend time on their websites for a book I am writing, and almost pass out from the murderous rage of these monsters. Almost. 
They are lifting weights, stockpiling arms, get ready as we speak. The president of the United States loves them. Do not think Trump will not use them for violent ends.
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Nazi Signs and Symbols

As evidenced by yesterday's march at the University of Virginia, Nazi and white supremacist groups are forging alliances, uniting, and proselytizing. Be on the lookout for their signs and symbols, which include the versatile Pepe the Frog meme. This meme appears as racial caricature, Hitler, concentration camp "humor," and even as alt-right hero Donald Trump; per Joshua Green, Trump has sent this meme to his fans on reddit, and alt-right leader Richard Spenser wears a Pepe pin). 
More classic signs are tats with the numbers 14, 18, 88, which refer numerologically to Hitler's name and Nazi slogans; the Nazi SS sig and other runes; and even AC/DC logos (these refer to Nazi vids set to this music). Of course, the true messaging of the Alt Right (who are not all Nazis; they just don't mind hanging out with Nazis) is in Trump's attacks on immigrants, Latinos, LGBT persons, African Americans, women, and people with disabilities - yes, Trump's mocking of the disabled NYT reporter was red meat to this base and their ableism beliefs. 
Do not for a moment think that Donald Trump is not completely aligned with these movements. His chief strategist may not be a Nazi, but Bannon's reading list shows he is willing to use Nazi philosophy. White supremacists and their fans are Trump's best hope for an 8-year presidency, and the years beyond.

Sinclair Broadcasting Group - Alt-Right Propaganda

I am deeply troubled. Sinclair Broadcasting Group, whose news programs make Fox News seem centrist, is attempting to acquire Tribune Media. The resulting megamedia would saturate 80 percent of the nation. Their glowing coverage of Trump is devoid of fact, literally pure propaganda. So, an impressive cavalry is coming to aid Trump, and, if need be, will be positioned to replace him with another Koch-and-Mercer-approved candidate. I know we who oppose the right are the majority, but aren't authoritarian governments always opposed by an oppressed -- and silenced - majority? #resist

Fascism in the U.S.

When someone says that the president “dog whistled” to his white suprematist and Nazi followers, meaning that his racist or Nazi references went above the head of regular people, I am often surprised, because I get them. Like when Breitbart megadonor Robert Mercer called Steve Bannon “the Leni Riefenstahl of our movement.” Some are in-jokes, like “100 percent” (for “100 percent white”), but others are direct references to Nazi history (Bannon spouts the same bullshit esoterica that Hitler’s “intellectuals” did). But they are usually obvious: saying the “sex” in employment nondiscrimination doesn’t include gays, attacking transgender service people, dramatically stepping up deportations, and today, trying to end affirmative action and limit immigration to those “who speak English.” How many Muslims does 45 have to beat up (the Gold Star family, mayor of London, travel ban victims), how many encroachments must we endure before we all acknowledge that our president is actively seeking a fascist white supremacist agenda?

While you are watching the Mooch . . .

While you are watching the Mooch, Trump is crippling, or trying to cripple, his opposition; gays now have to fight new job discrimination, transgenders to stay in the armed forces, Muslims to travel, Latinos to fight deportation of their families. Trump and Bannon will keep us all busy so that we can't resist. And we won't get any news because we'll all be watching the Mooch. 
People don't get it. The White House doesn't care about White House things, health care, etc. They give the appearance of disorder, but when it comes to power grabbing, they are 100 percent organized. They are lining up the most reactionary cops and military, inciting race hatred, and are positioned to deport any of us in a moment. THEY ARE VERY ORGANIZED