No sugarcoating it: Trump is a traitor

I was just listening to Bill Cunningham advancing the conspiracy theory that the Justice Dept. and the FBI conspired to get Hillary in office, and after that failed, to nullify the 2016 Presidential election and get Trump out of the White House. Fox and other conservative outlets are all saying the same thing; it's not clear if they are wagging Trump's tail or vice-versa.

First, do people realize there hasn’t been a Democratic FBI director ever? EVER. Carter, Clinton and Obama all appointed Republicans. And what did that say about their confidence in the professionalism of our highest law enforcement body to do that? Can you imagine Trump doing that today?? Hell no. ‘Nuf said. What's more, Robert Mueller is a Vietnam vet (while Trump dodged the draft) and a registered Republican!

Second, just like other law enforcement, the FBI has a bias for Republicans. To protect himself, President Trump is throwing thousands of FBI staff under the bus, intimating they are traitors or so politically biased that they cannot be just law enforcement officers. Republicans, don’t believe for a second the FBI is going to forget this; Trump may have flipped the Republican-leaning FBI Democratic for a generation. And for what? To advance a conspiracy theory with no evidence to save his own orange skin. For shame!

Third, I heard Willy ask, what can ordinary people do when law enforcement and prosecutors won’t do what’s right? He was talking about Hillary’s emails, etc. (which have been investigated ad nauseam). Do these people not understand how Black Lives Matter and other protest movements started, for just this reason? And we’re not talking for one orange President, we’re talking hundreds of people shot or killed by police over decades! Their blinders and hypocrisy are breathtaking: the second their president is under the eye of law enforcement, they are ready to throw our institutions under the bus – the same people they once praised as heroes!

This is scary, folks. What this tells me is a large portion of Republicans are actively tearing down law enforcement and our institutions, all to protect Donald Trump, whose team we already know has lied about multiple suspicious and inappropriate (to say the least) contacts with Russia, who refuses to say anything bad about the murderous invading dictator Putin, and who refuses to act to protect our elections from further Russian meddling. Who is outraged by intelligence briefings that even mention Russian meddling. This isn’t a what-if, this is happening NOW. We are already AT RISK.

We have a traitor in the White House, my fellow Americans. Out of his own ego and self-interest and his family’s, he has sold out his country. This is the nightmare scenario for our republic. It is happening NOW. The adults and the patriots in the room must take control from this money-grubbing, egomaniacal, sociopathic traitor.

I won’t sugarcoat it: either you love America, or you love Trump. There is no middle ground anymore. Choose sides. I for one am not going to pretend this isn’t happening. Call me partisan, call me crazy, call me a “hater,” I don’t care. Trump does NOT put America first. Not as long as he owes this odd allegiance to Vladimir Putin and Russia.

America should belong to her cities

I've certainly posted about it before, but I still doubt most people recognize how big a deal urbanization is, economically and politically, around the world but also in the U.S.

For instance, consider the complexity and difficulty of being the Governor of Nevada (pop. 3 million), Kansas (2.9 million), New Mexico (2 million), Nebraska (1.9 million), Idaho (1.7 million), North and South Dakota (1.7 million, combined), Wyoming (586,000), versus the job of being Mayor of New York City (8.6 million - 24 million in the metro area), Los Angeles (4 million - 18.7 million in the metro area), Chicago (2.7 million - 9.4 million in the metro area), Houston, (2.3 million - 6.5 million in the metro area), Philadelphia (1.6 million - 6 million metro), Phoenix (1.6 million - 4.2 million metro), San Antonio (1.5 million - 2.2 metro), or San Diego (1.4 million - 3.1 million metro).

So any one of these cities is larger than a handful of U.S. states.

The annual GDP of the New York and Los Angeles metro areas is about $1 trillion each! Compare that to VP Mike Pence's home state of Indiana, with a GDP in 2016 of $3.5 billion. There's really no comparison.

On top of that, consider that as many as 800 languages are spoken in New York City. Over 200 languages in Los Angeles.

Consider all the diverse people packed together in cities who have to find a way to get along with one another. Tolerance of multiculturalism in these cities isn't a liberal fetish -- it's a matter of survival, a fact of life.

Moreover, every major U.S. city votes Democratic in national elections. We don't have a Red/Blue state divide; we have an urban/rural divide. Even in the Red state of Texas, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio voted overwhelmingly for Hillary in 2016. It wasn't even close.

The U.S. is becoming two different countries: urban and rural. This is not what our Founding Fathers or the Federalist Papers anticipated. Even in rural/Red states, we have urban centers who vote solidly Democratic. That matters in Presidential and governors races, but not in state or federal congressional races.

Hence, the people representing the fewest and most rural have outsized, un-representative influence over our politics at the state and federal level.

I predict that liberals and Democrats will become the new Federalists, preaching the government closest to the people should have the most power, because cities are where all the people are, and the most diverse, well-educated, innovative and liberal people are. Also the wealthiest. The math and demographics are unassailable. America belongs to her cities. Or ought to.

Is Trump a 'heel' or just become himself?

So WTH, I'm going to start posting stuff again, if only to document some of the insanity of the Trump Years. I don't know if I have any special insight, as I'm not a trained psychologist, but here goes anyway.... 

Here, Matt Taibbi and backyard wrestling's liberal "heel" Daniel Richards described what I've noted for a while now: Trump is all negative, all the time.

Even when Trump is for something -- like, um, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ at the recent Values Voter Summit -- he can't do it without naming an enemies list.  His enemies are God's enemies.

Trump's fuel is spite and vengeance....And I guess that's where Taibbi kind of muddies the waters, speculating that Bannon trained Trump how to exploit cultural wedge issues.  Nope, not entirely.

Indeed to be a truly good heel, it can't be entirely an act, as Taibbi said.  The difference is that Old Man Trump has changed.  Young Man Trump was kind of a winking, coy political chameleon -- just watch his interviews from the 80s and 90s.  But by now, it's all a big positive-negative reinforcement loop: the crazies, old people, flyover states, Bible-thumpers, gun-lovers and neo-Nazis all love him; the liberals, young, gays, both coasts, and minorities all hate him. Meanwhile Trump has consumed Fox on TV as his main media for years now.  Trump was not always, but has become, a quintessentially isolated, rich, grumpy old white man.  

And Trump, who prizes loyalty above all else, loves who loves him, and hates who hates him. In that sense, he's still apolitical, he's still the narcissistic shell of a man he's always been, but he realizes he's made his bed with the crazies and now he has to sleep with them.  And this time there won't be a quickie divorce.


Wrestling's Newest Star, Daniel 'The Progressive Liberal' Richards, on Trump
By Matt Taibbi
October 9, 2017 | Rolling Stone

URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/features/wrestler-the-progressive-liberal-daniel-richards-on-trump-w507900