Here is the ad by Lincoln Project everyone in America needs to see but Corporate Media doesn’t have the guts to air or talk about:
The video is a direct response to the video “God Made Trump” which has been flooding the Right Wing Media ecosystem–and Evangelical communities–for months.
Trumpism has infested most of Christianity in America but even before Trump, there were clear signs Christian Fundamentalists and a growing number of Evangelical movements were pushing to make the lie “America is a Christian Nation” a reality. In the case of House Speaker Mike Johnson that means literally.
People need to understand something: The Bible literally warns–I mean repeatedly–of people weaponizing religion or a twisted form of religion to manipulate and control people. It’s true many of the people who first came to North America from Europe sought religion freedom. What’s also true is they brought the same ideologies around pursecuting those who didn’t fall in line with them from Europe.
Don’t take my word for it. Look up the Salem Witch Trials. That incident from the early 1600s is WHY the Rhode Island colony was founded several years later. It was founded by people who felt the Puritains who controlled the Massachusetts Colony was forcing everyone to live under the same kind of theocratic rule they supposedly left Europe to escape from.
The Separation of Church and State was hard baked into the Rhode Island Colony’s constitution and of course when it become a U.S. state. The Puratains’ control of Massachusetts was finally broken several decades after the Salem Witch trials when the people demanded change and refused to be silent any longer.
400 years later, the victims of that dark chapter from Massachusetts’ past are finally getting proper burials and memorials. Was Abigail Williams–the main accuser–or the other three accusers ever held legally responsible for the deaths of almost 40 innocent people? No but there was an investigation. The victims were later formally pardoned and cleared of any wrongdoing though Williams later admitted she lied about being demonically possessed and made everything up out of boredom. Yes, really.
The Salem Witch Trials have LONG been used as THE textbook example of why the idea of an American Theocracy is so dangerous to EVERYONE with good reason. All of the victims were devout Christians but that didn’t spare them from being murdered over baseless accusations.
We have been seeing a modern-day version of that era with these baseless accusations of pedophillia being lobbied by Far Right personalities against the Democratic Party. It’s extremely dangerous and will be one of the contributing factors to America being plunged into Civil War. It needs to stop and condemned in the strongest terms possible. More so given how normalized the practice is getting by Far Right personalities and QAnon believers.
All that said and getting back to Trump’s Cult of Personality that has ensnared a large chunk of Evangelicals and Conservatives. Make no mistake the blind devotion comes from a desire by many Evangelicals to have political power and be “THE” ruling class over “others”. They got a small taste of that the last time Trump was in the White House and they want it again.
It’s all about turing America into an Autocratic Theocracy at the end of the day in their minds. Nothing more or less.
It would be more accurate to say Trump started planting the seeds back in 2007. For those who might not be old enough to remember, Trump was the one who amplified, popularized and weaponized the Birther consiracy theory concerning former President Obama. Trump picked up an easily debunked conspiracy theory that asserted Obama was not born a U.S. Citizen. Obama’s father was a Kenyan national. His mother was White.
The governor of Hawaii at the time went of their way to track down and publicly releasea copy of Obama’s birth announcement which had been published in an article. Since that obviously wasn’t enough for the racists who asserted Obama was an illegitimate president on the basis of his name, the White House publicly released a copy of his birth certificate about halfway through 2009. In 2017, Michelle Obama didn’t mince words when she said she’ll never forgive Trump for that more than anything he’s ever done.
Like I said before though, the GOP was already beginning to embrace the maliciousness, xenophobia, inwardness and cruelty it now is long before Trump came along. He simply gave people permission to and encouraged them to be the worst versions of themselves. A common recent example of this is Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis. I’ve got some breaking news on him to cover in a bit so I’ll stop here for now.
Of course, the media is not mentioning this critical detail. Why? Because it doesn’t fit the narrative they want to portray that Trump is a serious threat to Biden. Iowa is a state with a population of 3.1 million people. Only 756,000 of them are registered Republican voters. That means the other over 2.4 million registered voters are Democrat, Independent and everything inbetween. Let that sink in.
I said this on Xitter a few times last week but if this trend continues, the upcoming presidential election could easily have the lowest voter turnout in U.S. History. Know what happens when people stop voting? You give people in power and wanna-be dictators who feel they shouldn’t have to go throug the election process every so often justification to rewrite the rules as they see fit.
For all the problems the Democratic Party has–and it has a LOT of glaring issues to be clear–at least they are not actively working to suppress and subvert Republican votes. They don’t need to. The problem is unlike Republican voters, the Democratic Party basically has to BEG their base to vote every election. THAT is the reason voter turnout among the Democratic voters has been consistently low and getting worse in recent years.
It’s like I said earlier: All this is doing is giving people like Trump justification to LEGALLY take away the most sacred right in ANY Democracy: The right to vote period. Ask most Black Americans who are 70 and older what life was like before the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They’ll be happy to tell you.
Before I move on to the next topic, I want to mention this because it speaks to how normalized the political dysfunction and malinformation in the U.S. has become lately. I recently went to my Community College to take care of some errands and I happened to overhear a political debate in a hallway. An ardent young Trump supporter was telling his companions–who all supported Biden but sounded worried–“If Biden gets re-elected, all of us are going to be fighting Russia, China or Hamas by next year and that’s not right. If Trump gets back in the White House, he will keep us out of it.”
I couldn’t help but think of that famous William Wallace speech from Braveheart in that moment. To summarize, Wallace gives the army gathered before him a choice: “You can either fight for liberty knowing you may die or you can go home and live under the yoke of a tyrant who only wants to keep you in line. Which will you choose today?”
That brings me to a developing story involving Dean Philips. Apparently, Philips is considering switching to the so-called No Labels Party ahead of the Democratic Primary. The media still continues to pretend they don’t know but the No Labels Party is being managed by the same person who manages Trump’s campaign. In other words, it’s a political scheme with the sole purpose of taking votes from Biden to help Trump win by default.
This isn’t the same as 2016. Most of the country understands allowing Trump back in the White House would mean the end of not just our Democracy but the end America period. The only real chance Trump has–and it’s what he and his allies foreign and domestic have been working on since he left the White House in disgrace in 2021–is to siphon as many votes from Biden as possible before the election.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unexpectedly united NATO under Biden’s leadership so Putin turned to Far Right personalities and Right Wing Media outlets in the U.S. to sow malinformation about the nature of the conflict in Ukraine. In exchange, American Far Right media is being aired in Russia.
The latest bit of malinformation from the Kremlin being parroted by their allies in the U.S. alleges Biden and the Pentagon want to go to war with Russia but the only way to avoid it would be for voters to put Trump back in the White House.
Yes, really.
Of course, the truth is the exact opposite. Putin wants to do with Trump what he’s done with Belarus’ Lukashenko: Make Trump his puppet. Putin tells Trump to jump and all Trump will say in return is “how high?” That is what awaits in the near future if Trump gets back in the White House. Trump’s only concern will do everything he can to appease Putin. That includes cutting funding to Ukraine, Israel and likely pulling our military out of Europe.
I’ll say it again: 100 years ago, we tried “America alone”. It didn’t work out for us. Before both WW1 and WWII we said the conflict in Europe “wasn’t our problem or concern”. Until it was. Germany attacking American ocean liners brought the U.S. into WW1 and Japan attacking Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into WWII. No one in America saw either of those moments coming but when they happened, we didn’t sweep them under the rug. We got our pound of flesh plus interest.
Getting back to the anti-Biden coaltion, as of this past weekend it’s safe to say Andrew Yang is now among them. I disagree with a lot of the things former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh says on Xitter but one thing I do agree with him on is the only person who can beat Trump IS Biden. The only serious candidate on the ballot in November will be Biden.
Don’t let the antics of the No Labels Party fool you: It exists for the sole purpose of helping Trump win the election. That’s the outcome No Labels was created to help make happen. They’ve been desperately looking for a candidate to prop up as a “serious” threat to Biden for two years. These new reports Philips is considering running as their candidate don’t surprise me and more so now that Yang is stumping for him.
I’ll be blunt, I’m disgusted by Yang’s social media attacks against Biden. He showed his hand and has revealed himself as being angry and bitter over the fact he was summarily dismissed during his failed presidental run several years back. Yang ran with two signature concepts that have since been adopted by many U.S. States and counties: Universal Basic Income (UBI) and Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV). The reason Sarah Palin is not a Senator right now is thanks to RCV on that note.
The silver lining is Yang was smart enough to not push a presidential candidate via The Forward Party. He would have torn that party’s credability to shreds since he is going to pay a political price for his antics. It’s obvious with his social media attacks against Biden it’s very personal for him and in his mind, his personal beef with the DNC is more important than ensuring Trump doesn’t get back in the White House.
I want to share this quote from January 14 by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis before I share the big news:
You can be the most worthless Republican in America, but if you kiss the ring, he’ll say you’re wonderful.
You can be the strongest, most dynamic, successful Republican and conservative in America, but if you don’t kiss that ring, then he’ll try to trash you
~ Ron DeSantis, 1/14/2024
DeSantis said that during some public remarks last Sunday. Literally a week later, DeSantis didn’t just announce he’s dropping out. He also announced that he’s (wait for it) endorsing Trump. Yes, really.
I don’t really need to get into the irony and hypocrisy behind DeSantis endorsing Trump. It goes without saying he’s doing it to avoid being targeted by Trump and his base. Ever since he started getting national attention 6 years ago, DeSantis presented himself as basically Trump without actually being Trump himself. He thought that would have been enough to get enough popular support to be a threat to Trump but his lack of Charisma is why his campaign was doomed to fail from the start.
That said, I do expect Haley to not only drop out sooner than later but to also endorse Trump too. The media recently stopped pretending the race for the Republican Primary could be won by anyone other than Trump. All that the Republican Primary was about–which most people knew from the beginning–was identifying potential VP and cabinet picks for Trump. That’s all it really was.
As for DeSantis, hopefully a potential Democratic challenger in Florida replaces him as Governor in the near future. Florida needs a change in leadership and culture ASAP.
Before I forget. It’s worth noting most of the Evangelical movements who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020 backed DeSantis. They like what he did with Florida–especially his so-called “War on Wokeness”–and were convinced DeSantis was a viable alternative to Trump. The problem is unlike Trump, DeSantis lacks natural charisma first and foremost.
Now that DeSantis has dropped out–and cowardly endorsed Trump at the same time–the big question now is where do all the Evangelical movements who backed DeSantis go from here. Some have already gone back to Trump weeks ago though most are quietly biding their time waiting to see hpw election season plays out.
Real talk: Most Evangelical movements who’ve moved to the sidelines do not want Trump back in the White House. They think he’s insane and their fear of Trump’s base is why they dare not speak out against him publicly. This is also why most of them urged DeSantis to run early on. After all, they had history on their side. The Republican candidate backed by Evangelicals has consistently become the nominee for decades. This is the first time I can remember that not happening.
That brings me back to my earlier question: Where do they go from here?
Like it or not, Evangelical leaders and their various movements hold a lot of influence in American politics. It’s why they’ve largely been lockstep with the Republican Party for decades. Now they’re up against a force of chaos even they don’t know how to deal with.
A day before the New Hampshire Primary, things have taken a REAL dangerous turn. We now have the first confirmed case of Artificial Intelligence being used for Voter Suppression and Voter Subversion in a U.S. Election.
There has been a robocall created using Deepfake A.I. impersonating Biden telling New Hampshire voters not to vote in tomorrow’s primary. This is the work of either someone looking to cause chaos or a foreign power. It’s unlikely a campaign would take the risk of such a brazen act being traced back to them.
I’m pretty sure a federal investigation will be opened because of this incident as well. We’ll likely find out who was responsible sooner or later.
I want to end with this because the Iowa Republican Primary reminded me of a problem no one is really talking about: Low Voter Turnout.
The 2020 presidential election was decided by about 155 Million votes. That’s a little less than half the U.S. population. Everyone else stayed home. The GOP is all about minority rule. They are also all about getting and holding on to power by any and all means necessary.
Case example: It’s just been revealed this week that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is now going to do the same thing House Majority Leader Mike Johnson is doing: Shut down the Senate. Why? Because Trump told them to. Yes, the GOP is once again holding Congress–and the country for that matter–because they’re scared of Trump and his allies. That is their primary motivation behind all this. They were willing accomplices who sold their souls for power. They deserve to pay the ultimate political price.
I’ll speak more to this–and how it’s now much more likely there will be acts of domestic terrorism before November–in a separate post.
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