Opinion

"Delusion." "Off the chart bonkers." "Insane." "Objectively nuts." These are some of the terms that pundits — both on the left and on the right — are using to describe Donald Trump's reported belief that he will be "reinstated" as president in August, a belief that is tied to the growing enthusiasm in QAnon circles for a Myanmar-style coup d'état.

This article was originally published at Salon

Last week, oil companies were hit by simultaneous business decisions by climate activists to force rethinking their strategies towards reducing emissions much more quickly than had been planned.

In The Hague, a Netherlands court insisted that Royal Dutch Shell make immediate changes to comply with the Paris climate accords that would require Shell to nearly halve emissions for which it is responsible by 2030. Shell would most certainly have to reduce oil in its energy portfolio and halt growth in liquefied natural gas.

The role of the free press is critical in a representative democracy. It is covered in the First Amendment of the Constitution for a reason. The overarching purpose of the press is to keep in the spotlight every deliberation and decision that is made in our government. The press is the watchdog of our elected officials.

Politicians have tried to undermine the importance of the media by questioning their motives and intent. The most obviously self-serving and disingenuous case in point is Donald Trump, who spent his entire presidency trying to convince the public that the mainstream media is "the enemy of the people." Whenever he didn't like a story, he called it "fake news." His purposeful and relentless effort to undermine the public's trust in the media will be one of his worst legacies. Why? Because a free press is indispensable to democracy. We depend on it to inform, to explain, to interpret and, yes, to warn. To a large degree, that is what separates us from authoritarian regimes and "managed" pseudo-democracies.

The former president deleted his blog Wednesday. The reason, according to the Times, was humiliation. After being banned from Twitter and Facebook, a spokesman said Donald Trump would return with "his own platform" that would be the "the hottest ticket in social media" and that would "completely redefine the game."

Turns out it was a blog. It got less attention, according to a Post analysis, "than the pet-adoption service Petfinder and the recipe site Delish. The blog's prospects hadn't improved since, even though Trump had taken to writing on it more." The Times said the former president became "frustrated after hearing from friends that the site was getting little traffic and making him look small and irrelevant." After less than a month online (29 days), "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump" has vanished from the internet.

The Age of Trump and its expanding and escalating aftershocks remains a form of cruel tutelage for the American people in how democracies die. The American people now know what a fascist assault on the world's leading democracy looks and feels like in real time. Few people have the "opportunity" to live through such a world-historical event.

The Age of Trump involved many lessons, such as the regime's daily assaults on truth and reality, its wanton cruelty toward nonwhite migrants and refugees, its disregard for human life, its attacks on free speech and other fundamental civil and human rights, its democide through indifference or incompetence in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, its open embrace of white supremacy, its overt corruption and its disregard for the rule of law.

Many Americans love to mock Donald Trump and laugh at him. They're amused by his seeming haplessness and loss of purpose, as he wanders around Mar-a-Lago, reportedly delivering grievance-filled impromptu speeches to strangers. They guffaw at Trump's bombastic proclamations, sent forth from Florida as though he were still president of the United States. Trump's confidants have described him as anxious, bored and unhappy because he is no longer president and is now mostly denied the narcissistic fuel and direct adulation from his followers. In the worldview of liberal schadenfreude, a sad and bored Donald Trump is very funny.

This article was originally published at Salon

The second-most revered figure in the QAnon conspiracy firmament called for a military coup in the United States. Again. Retired three-star general and former Trump campaign national security advisor Mike Flynn called for the end of democracy during a question-and-answer session last weekend at a QAnon conference in Dallas.

"I'm a simple Marine," a grizzled audience member said, "I wanna know why what happened in Minamar (sic) can't happen here." The room erupted. Flynn waited for the cheering to subside and said, "No reason. I mean, it should happen here."

Back in 2016 when Trump brought former General Michael Flynn onboard his fledgling campaign, most people outside of military and national security circles had no idea who he was. And because very few people took the Trump campaign seriously, I don't think many cared. My first clue that we were dealing with a Strangelovian Jack D. Ripper character, however, was when Flynn appeared at the GOP convention and led the crowd in "lock her up" chants about Hillary Clinton. It was clear: He was afflicted with the right-wing disability called Fox News Brain Rot. So when Trump unexpectedly won his upset that November, one of the most unnerving of his early decisions was to make this unbalanced former general his national security adviser.

I wrote about Flynn several times in 2016, gravely concerned that such a man was being tapped for such a powerful post, noting that he was so far submerged in the right-wing fever swamp that he had practically grown gills:

Donie O'Sullivan is a reporter for CNN. His beat appears to be American conspiracy theories. He was on Anderson Cooper's show last night with reporting on a QAnon conference last weekend during which former Donald Trump adviser and pardoned traitor Michael Flynn said a Myanmar-style military coup "should happen" in America.

This article was originally published at The Editorial Board

This past Memorial Day weekend was bookmarked by two major events meant to continue Donald Trump's efforts to overthrow democracy. On Friday, Republicans in the Senate used their filibuster power to shut down debate on the formation of a bipartisan commission to study the Capitol insurrection Trump incited on January 6. A million excuses were offered by Republicans, but of course, the real reason is that they support Trump and his efforts to undermine U.S. democracy. Thus on Sunday, Republicans who control the Texas legislature moved to pass a law that, along with draconian efforts to keep huge swaths of Texans from voting, would also make it easier to simply throw out elections if Democrats win them.

This article was originally published at Salon

The greatest danger to American democracy right now is not coming from Russia, China, or North Korea. It is coming from the Republican Party.

Only 25 percent of voters self-identify as Republican, the GOP's worst showing against Democrats since 2012 and sharply down since last November. But those who remain in the Party are far angrier, more ideological, more truth-denying, and more racist than Republicans who preceded them.

The Republican Party is running a huge scam right now, similar to the one they ran in 1992 when President George H.W. Bush was setting up phony cocaine busts across the street from the White House having achieved his position by running his infamous Willie Horton ad four years earlier.

Here's the essential formula:

"Slavery is not real. Have you ever seen a picture of a slave with dreds? White people just tell y'all that to make y'all's dumb asses serve them and be inferior. And y'all just listen like sheep."

This article first appeared on Salon.