Opinion

I have heard way more than enough of this grotesque garbage that perhaps we should try to understand what makes the Trump voter tick, and somehow sympathize with their support of an unapologetic loudmouth who is so vile he sees “good people” on both sides of a violent white supremacist rally.

Have you seen or heard any of this crap?

Dear Mr. Musk,

You are hereby on notice that your recent activities in support of Donald Trump could lead to significant personal liability, both civil and criminal.

I grew up in a violent home. You name it, it happened, usually more than once. I was also raised Catholic, complete with Catholic schools, where I learned first-hand how religion could be bent into a cruel and uncaring tool. The upshot is that I’ve never had much faith in organized religion, or in man’s fairness when no one is looking.

When I ran for Congress, imposter syndrome kicked in and I didn’t talk about my early years. Instead, I leaned on my Constitutional law pedigree, a diversion I hoped would highlight my competence and hide my origins. But the truth is, I turned to law because I needed something believe in.

I think the clearest evidence that being called a fascist is hurting Donald Trump is the reaction by “independent” and GOP talking heads who foolishly defend him against the allegations or deflect them.

Their thinking goes something like this:

America’s morbidly rich billionaires are at it again, this time screwing the average family’s ability to have decent, affordable housing in their never-ending quest for more, more, more. Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, and Denmark have had enough and done something about it: we should, too.

There are a few things that are essential to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that should never be purely left to the marketplace; these are the most important sectors where government intervention, regulation, and even subsidy are not just appropriate but essential. Housing is at the top of that list.

You wouldn’t expect a presidential candidate to make a massive middle class tax hike the centerpiece of his economic platform, but that’s exactly what Donald Trump is doing.

Trump has vowed to slap a 20 percent tax on all imports, a 60 percent tax on all Chinese imports and a 2,000 percent tax on imported cars.

As this piece publishes, I will have started on the 1,200-mile trail home that bends hard to the northwest and connects the Battleground State of North Carolina to the Battleground State of Wisconsin.

Such are the highly charged political times we live in …

Some of Donald Trump’s highly visible supporters seem concerned that their man is losing his mind and everyone can see it.

The former president was scheduled for an early-morning interview today, a regular thing for a presidential candidate. It was even more regular for someone like Trump. The show was “Fox and Friends.”

We all saw it on Wednesday night. Bret Baier, the multimillionaire supposed “real news” guy at Fox, angrily and rudely lied to the face of the Vice President of the United States and his millions of viewers, presenting an edited version of Trump’s most fascistic remarks that turned truth on its head.

This is just the most recent example of the deadly toxins Fox “News” has been spreading across the American media and political landscape for decades.

Langer’s profile of Hitler wasn’t declassified until 1972, when much of it was published in a book titled The Mind of Adolf Hitler. As The New York Times explained that year:

“[Langer] saw Hitler as a weakling who masqueraded as a bully, Hitler the failure casting himself in the role, unconsciously for reasons of mental self‐preservation, as Hitler the Fuehrer the superman.

Based on his work, in 1943 the OSS summarized the strategy Hitler used — driven in part by his own psychopathy — to both seize and hold power:

I think there are two conversations about Donald Trump’s fitness that are happening in tandem, but are not connecting as they should.

One of them is about the former president being a fascist. This is the older of the two. It started after he was elected in 2016. It has grown in intensity since then, crescendoing to a fever pitch over the weekend when he called on using the US military against American citizens.