Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump. Ignoramus Watch Part 4. Dr. Hegseth countermands George Washington edition.

 

April 22, 2026

During the Revolutionary War, George Washington ordered his troops inoculated against Small Pox.

This week Pete Hegseth lifted the requirement that troops be inoculated for influenza for "religious" reasons.

The current GOP is heavily anti scientific.

Opposition to vaccinations has been in American history largely a thing of smaller Christian and non Christian sects which are fairly anti scientific, as opposed to the majority of Christians who have no objection to vaccination.  However, when the far right of the country started to turn weird, listening to such medical lights as boob model Jenny McCarthy, that began to change a bit. Covid really made it worse as a significant portion of the country turned anti vax under the leadership of Donald Trump, who got the vaccine, but who recommended some really lethal approaches to the crisis as well.

Troops who don't get inoculated ought to just be given dishonorable or less than honorable discharges.  That's what should have occurred to those who refused the Covid vaccine.

April 24, 2026

The war department stands ready for what comes next. Locked and loaded. May God continue to breast—bless our warriors each and every day and on each and every mission.

Hegseth. 

Breast?

Okay, I get that it's a slip of the tongue, um, well, but it's an odd one.

May 12, 2026

The Aryan Nation, the Nazis, and the KKK are not far-right organizations.  Those are far-left organizations, and they always have been. The KKK was created and started by the Democrats in the United States to prevent blacks from being able to participate in the political arena, if you will. So, I'm going to say they've never been associated with the right, they've always been associated with the left.

Harriet Hageman.

Hageman's no dummy and she knows this is crap, or has drank so much of the Kool Aide she'll spout stuff that's absurd.

Every one of these organizations is from the far right and any claim to the contrary is patently absurd.  The claim about the Nazis, which I've seen before, comes from the party's very early, and frankly pre Hitler, days  and its name, the National Socialist Party.  The absurdity of that claim fails to realize that "socialism" in the context of nationalist parties doesn't necessarily mean Marxism, but "for society".  In the case of the Nazis, way early on their did espouse Socialism but by the time they'd come to power they'd abandoned it in favor of autarky and the early socialist in the party were sidelined or expelled.

And the claim about the KKK being founded by the Democrats and therefore left wing completely ignores that originally the Republican Party was the left wing party, and the Democrats were a right wing party.  The Democrats didn't evolve into the political left until the 20th Century and in the American South remained the conservative party into the 1980s.  Hageman herself is old enough to have voted in Reagan's first run for the Oval Office and therefore should be well aware of that.

This is totally reprehensible.

Cont:

Reporter: What extent are Americans’ financial situation motivating you to make a deal?

Trump: Not even a little bit. I don't think about Americans’ financial situation.

May 13, 2026

So it turns out that Trump's advisors uniformly told him not to launch the war against Iran, but he did anyway, and the advisors, not wanting to be blamed for his stupidity, leaked.  He wants them prosecuted for treason, and sycophant Todd Blanche is looking to to it.

The real crime here is Trump's, who launched an illegal war.  With no declaration of war, every single Iranian killed in it has been the victim of some sort of crime, and every American who has died has been the victim of some sort of crime ultimately attributable to Trump as well.

Blanche is pathetic.  When this is over, and it will be, his careers should be flushed down the toilet.

And then there's this:

PabloReports: Ted Cruz called you a parasite and disparaged your work as a bartender.

AOC: I think it’s funny that he’s been taking a government paycheck for 23 years but has the audacity to criticize someone who has come from a family that had to work their way up and earn their place here.

This is really becoming a Republican specialty around here.  We get retired servicemen who come in after sucking on the government tit for 30 years, retire, and then start sucking on the other government tit, and then run for office on the "I hate the government" ticket.

In that sense, the Democrat running against Collins in Maine is really refreshing.  He's given a speech about his combat service and then noted how he can't figure out how that's relevant to being a Senator.  It isn't.  

Recently I saw somebody post something in favor of Brent Bien here in Wyoming, noting that he's served in combat or dangerous conditions all over the world, and how that will make him ready to lead.  Yeah, lead troops, not a state government. 

We have a whole host of candidates from the He Man Government Haters Club running locally.  They have a right to run, but while they're doing it, they shouldn't be draining their mommy.  It's hypocritical.

June 22, 2026

Unqualified for her office Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said her office would prosecute individuals caught vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

That would mean prosecuting Donald Trump, which should be done for a variety of reasons.

June 24, 2026

The ideology of the Mooslims is slightly different than the ideology of the Catholics. We have the Catholics and the Mooslims. Slightly different. But Venezuela has been great and Iran has been great.

Donald Trump.

Insulting in the extreme.

The ideology of Catholics, of which I am one, is the ideology of Christianity, as Catholicism is the first and original Christian religion  It's more than "slightly different" than Islam.

This provides a good reason for those Catholics who support Trump to really question what they are doing.

June 26, 2026

Under President Trump the U.S. unemployment rate is at a historic low of just 4.3%. It was at a dismal rate of 3.4% under Biden.

Karoline Leavitt.

What the crap?

June 27, 2026

The new special edition passports with a glowering Supreme Leader Trump's image in them features the words, "Welcome!  But be good".

Apparently some moron didn't realize that these were passports, not visas.

Related thread:

August 7, 2026

After an embarrassing display of conspiratorial lunacy, in which Rand Paul notably played a part, a panel of Republican dimwits voted to send a measure to the Senate floor to hold Dr. Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer their moronic questions.

The basic truth of the matter is that the GOP has become completely scientific and dimwit conspiratorial in nature.  Basically, Flat Earthers, really.  I'm sure the whole panel will hold an investigation soon on whether we really went to the moon, and decide we didn't.

Not really on ignorance, but on the perversion that surrounds everything Trump, Republicans have been more or less silent on Rep. Max Miller after having a fit about Graham Platner.  Miller has been accused of abusing his wife by pouring boiling water on her and breaking the collar bone of his daughter.  Even his father in law, who is in the Senate, has been reluctant to criticizes him.

That's your party of family values.

August 20, 2026

We have a spike in oil prices that I don't really understand

Scott Bessent.

Seriously?

September 16, 2026

Trust in vaccines for deadly childhood diseases including measles has fallen according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.  Measles is on the uptake.

People who don't vaccinate their children for measles are, quite frankly, criminally stupid.

September 20, 2026

Yeah, sure the military asked for that. . .

September 24, 2026

"We almost have to go back to, what did medicine look like to the pioneer days in America?"

Republican Minnesota state auditor candidate, Dr. Scott Jensen.

Eee gads.

Oh, but it gets better, Sen. "Coach" Tommy Tuberville was holding forth on the Senate floor yesterday about the dangers of transvestitism and furries in commercial avaiation.

It’s possible that the pilot flying your plane could have a deranged fetish of dressing up like an animal.

 U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville.

Maybe a Star Wars convention was in town?

Posted under fair use exception.

Tuberville says stuff all the time that's flat out stupid. How he was ever elected is a mystery, but frankly, he raises questions about Arkansas because of his routine idiotic comments.

Somebody else who routinely raised eyebrows before he was appointed to the government is Dr. OZ, who yesterday stated:

More than a third of people on Obamacare have never used the insurance policy once. If you were gonna pay your hard-earned money to buy insurance, would you ever use it? The answer is yes.

What an idiotic statement that was.  You never want to have to use your insurance. Did Dr. Oz go into the office everyday thinking "golly, I hope I get to turn something in on my malpractice insurance today!"

Cont:

Sen. Jim Justice held a huge birthday party for his dog on Capitol Hill, wheeling it in with a small covered wagon.

It's like the last days of the Roman Empire.

Justice is a West Virginian Republican.

So, we had John Barrasso calling the Democrats "weird" last weekend. . . 

September 25, 2026

Tommy Tuberville doubles down on stupid.

Tommy just causes me to unfairly bring to mind all the stereotypes I have about football coaches, a game I don't really like.

Last edition:

Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump. Ignoramus Watch Part 3. The Quack Edition.

Labels: Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Epstein Scandal, Health, Health and Human Services, Ignorance, Medicine, Playboy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., The Oprah Effect, Yeoman's Twentieth Law of Behavior

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 157th Edition. Press Revolt and other matters.

Press Revolt.

Today’s action revoking access for journalists from CNN, POLITICO, and MSNOW violates the First Amendment. The implications extend beyond these organizations: a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future. The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably.  That’s why courts have repeatedly held that once the White House provides access to journalists, it cannot deny that access arbitrarily or based on the content of their reporting. The WHCA calls on the administration to immediately restore our colleagues’ access.

Jacqui Heinrich, WHCA President

In a really remarkable event, the broadcast media is boycotting the Trump Administration after it banned some press outlets from covering King Donald.

Donny loves, and feeds on, the attention, and it'll be interesting to see how this pans out.  Yesterday the White House blew the coverage on the opening use of the helipad so that nobody could really hear what King Donny had to say.

Today King Donny's admin tried to pass off the press ban as being in the interest of national security, which recently has been his default position on everything.  That's why King Donny is building a ballroom, that's why we need a Triumphal Arch.

The bloom may be off the red stinkweed of Trumpism as by and large, the public just isn't buying it at all.

Good for the press to finally find its courage.  It's been lacking.  This Week expresses addressed the Trump ban.

Dr. John trotted out.

The GOP hauled out the uninspiring Dr. John Barrasso, majority whip, to justify the GOP's malfeasance.  

Dr. John is a pretty uninspiring speaker.  This was no exception.  He attempted to justify the press ban saying that the press had an obligation to report fairly.

That's a really dangerous position for a local politician to take, quite frankly.  He didn't sound like he really meant it as he knows that they do report fairly.  What he also knows is that they don't report, locally, too deeply, at least they haven't until recently.  They're starting too thanks to the online journals which have been a lot more proactive in digging things up than the print media ever was.

Barrasso is turning out to be a worthless Senator for the state.  He has four more years to serve. My suspicion is that this will be his last term, if the 74 year old Senator lives through it.  I think people are tired of him and he won't want to go down in defeat.  He'll retire and move somewhere else, as he was never really from here to start with.

Dr. John was in Iowa where he was campaigning for a Republican candidate there.  Wow, the Midwest must really like bland if somebody thinks Dr. John is going to help.  Asked about what is going on, the doctor mustered up this reply:

Well, people all around the country are feeling the pain. I’m hearing it in Wyoming with our farmers and ranchers as well. But people vote about what’s going on in their life and their future. And we know we need to do more. We need to get more money into people’s pockets. That’s what Republicans want to do. But let’s talk about what we have done. And that is we’ve prevented a $4 trillion tax increase. We’ve gotten rid of taxes on tips and social security and on overtime. And we know what the Democrats would do if they were able to take over. They would put all those taxes back on for the purpose of paying for health care for illegal immigrants. So they want to put on taxes on waitresses, on nurses who work overtime, firefighters, and on our seniors. I mean, there’s a huge difference between where Republicans want to take this country and where Democrats want to take this country. Those Democrats that are so unpopular in your poll, why? They want to eliminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They want to defund the police. They want to get rid of the military. They want to open the borders. They talk about opening the prisons and putting these prisoners back in our communities. That doesn’t make us safer, it doesn’t make us more prosperous. And that is the difference between common sense and the craziness. And I think that’s what this election is going to be about.

And

Well, we’re always looking for ways to put more money in people’s pockets. And I hear it in Wyoming all the time at the grocery store, at the gas station, people are paying more. And we need to do more. And that’s why we need more American energy production, we need to get rid of regulations, we need to do more with permitting. That’s legislation we’re working on now. The president and the Republicans are focused on all of those things at the time that Democrats have gone so far to the left that they don’t want to do those sorts of things. And I’ll tell you, once this war in Iran is over, diesel prices are going to go down and stay down under President Trump. But they would stay up forever under the Democrats and specifically diesel in Wyoming, I was in Meeteetse, Wyoming last week, talking to ranchers and farmers there, diesel’s over $6 a gallon now. But in California, it’s over $8 a gallon. And the difference is the rules, the regulations, all the climate issues in California. If the Democrats took over, prices would go up to those levels which are over $2 higher in California than they are in Wyoming right now.

So, inflation is going up and fuel prices are killing us, but the Democrats are bad because Dr. John says so.

Not very inspiring.

Not only that, but Barrasso has joined the GOP liars club.  Raise taxes so we could give healthcare to illegal immigrants. Bullshit. Taxes do need to be raised, but because we aren't paying for the government.

It's almost as if Dr. John had a list of things he had to say, so he made sure he said them all as quickly as possible.

And diesel being $6.00/gal in Wyoming isn't made better by it being $8.00/gal in California.  Oh, we feel so good about that here.

Beef

A popular Trump line right now is that you don't mind paying more for fuel as you don't want Iran to have a nuke.

M'eh.

Secretary Rollins took a similar tone on the price of beef.

Instead of eating less beef as the price continued to rise, Americans began to eat more beef. And even though the price of a pound of ground beef was $6.50, most Americans say, 'I'm good with that. I want this protein for my family.' So they continue to buy.

Um, sure.

When, by the way, did everyone start calling meat "protein".  Knock it off.

Huge

The video footage of the helipad unveiling reveals it to be huge.

I didn't really have an appreciation of its size  until I saw the video.

I really don't know what to make of the helipad.  In some ways it makes sense and it was well done.  I also think that the President doesn't need a giant Sikorsky helicopter and that all the prior Marine Corps 1 helicopters were gigantically overblown as well.  One of the smaller business helicopters would be plenty large enough, quite frankly.

They wouldn't have all the countermeasures, I know. Well, too freaking bad.  The President is supposed to be the chief executive of limited powers, not an emperor.  Flying around in an armored helicopter just gives that much more of a delusion of the opposite.

Speaking of monumental works, I had an exchange, on Twitter, with a MAGA over the ballroom.  It was interesting, as her mind was so completely closed and she was utterly incapable of realizing it.

Besotted

She was convinced that anyone opposed to the ballroom had to be a "liberal" who "hated" Trump.  I'm opposed to it.  I hate what Trump is doing to the country, but I don't hate a living soul.  We are required in Christianity to exhibit agape towards our enemies, and frankly Trump is the enemy of decency in a lot of ways. We should pray for his well-being and salvation.

In the exchange I gave my reasons for opposing the ballroom.  Well, some of them, not all of them. The list would be large.

The principal reasons I detest the ballroom, I'll note, is because of the illegality of its construction and the illegality of the destruction of the wing where it is located.  I'm not a fan of the wings of the White House in general.  I think the whole thing ought to be restored to some prior appearance.

I also think the bunkers that were put in and those being built ought to go.  As with the helicopter, building a bunker is something that shouldn't be done unless it's done for every single American.

I didn't go into it but I also detest the overblown size and the intended interior embellishments are in horrifically bad taste.  

The latter, of course, can and will be removed, if the monstrosity stands.

Anyhow, while I have very wide ranging views, I'm generally very conservative.  Indeed, Trump and the MAGAs are not conservatives at all.  At this point, they're populist of the fascist variety.

Her argument, lifted from Trump, was that the ballroom would benefit future Presidents.  I asked how, and she couldn't provide how. Even though I don't believe it will benefit a living soul, and that it will rightfully be blown to the ground by a future administration, I could make up reasons to support that argument.

Most revealing, however, is that her basic worldview, which came through very clearly, is that if you claim to be an American you have an absolute duty to love Donald Trump.  If you don't, you are a traitor.

During World War Two there was a Marine Corps officer who received the Silver Star for heroism.  He was later killed in the war.  He was also a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and was an admitted communist.

I have no doubt he loved his country.

For that matter, Sterling Hayden, the famous actor, also was a Marine Corps officer, and a member of the OSS, who was briefly a member of the Communist party.

I have no doubt that he loved his country.

I doubt that Donald Trump loves his.

And I know that those who love Donald Trump so much they see everything he does as correct do not love their countrymen.  And if you hate your countrymen because of their political beliefs, you hate your country.

Fairytale balls

One of the interesting things about the "benefitting future Presidents" line is that it fits into the Trump narrative perfectly. Trump sees himself as a sort of monarch and the White House as a palace.

It's just supposed to be a house.

No. 10 Downing Street doesn't have a ballroom.  24 Sussex Drive doesn't have one either.  The Hôtel Matignon doesn't have one either.  Even the Novo-Ogaryovo Estate doesn't have one, and its quite lavish.

The Kremlin does.  So does Buckingham Palace.

Hmm. . . . . 

That really shows us a glimpse of Trump's mindset. And contrary to what MAGAs like to imagine, no prior President has ever asked for a dedicated ballroom.

It's all just a weird fantasy and a glimpse into the American inferiority complex.  We may have rebelled against a king, but in some ways we never got over being besotted by them. Even to this day we follow what the British royal family is doing as if it matters to us at all.  

So here you have it.  

Abolitio nominis

Back during Roman times, the Senate could issue a decree of abolitio nominis, although it's pretty unclear to me if they called it that.  It was an abolition of a leader's name to the full extent possible.

The Roman Senate well knew that it couldn't really erase an Emperor's name from history, so it was symbolic. But it is worth noting that some very early societies effectively nearly did achieve just that.  The purpose was to express maximum public disdain for the disgraced person.

It's easy to think the US never attempted anything like that, but perhaps it slightly has in the case of the removal of Confederate monuments which started some years ago, and then generally stopped under Trump, whose world outlook doves relatively well with a lot of Confederates or at least Dixiecrats, which is what he really is.  At the time, I was of mixed view as erasing history bothers me, and that reflected the history of the attempt at reviving Confederate reputations.  I find that effort horrific, but I thought having a reminder of it served a purpose. And, also, quite frankly as times change the views of various persons from the past change as well.  Thomas Jefferson was a great man, for instance, but it's pretty clear that he was also screwing his late wife's enslaved half sister when she was only 14.  He was 44. She was his youngest daughters nanny.  The children from the illicit union were born into slaver.

That's warped.

So, suffice it to say, leaders of the past have some warts on them.

But things like rebelling for slavery or ignoring the legalities of things while in office that are open and obvious at the time are another matter.  Jefferson was a domestic creep, and there's no defending that, but the weird mores of his culture made that less weird than it would seem now, although there were plenty of rumors at the time and it's hard not to regard the liasons as starting off, at least, as a type of rape.  Anyhow, the Confederate monuments came up mostly in the 1910s.  It's my view now they ought to all come down. Trump has brought me to that.

Trump is such a horrific person that some sort of decree of abolitio nominis needs to be made when he's gone.  The American instinct is always "well, let's all reconcile". 

Let's not.

Recognizing mistakes is one thing.  Lots of MAGAs who should have known better are now crossing over into sanity as their own wallets are looted by Trump's policies.  I don't care what brings them back into some sort of reality, I think they ought to be welcomed back.  But diehard MAGAs and people who are going to serve Trump until the last days of his administration, not so much.  Karoline Leavitt, for example, can be forgiven, but not readmitted to decent society.  Vance and Rubio should be made to retire from politics.

But because Trump has shown such disdain for the law, he should be made an example of. And the first part of that is to declare his second presidency a legal nullity.  Given his status as an insurrectionist, there's a legal grounds to do that.  Every order, commission, appointment and whatever that depended on his signature should be immediately declared to be null, void, and of no effect by the next President, irrespective of the impact.  Every "agreement" entered into should be declared a nullity, including agreements with foreign powers.  The ballroom should be blown down, and the triumphal arch as well, but the next administration immediately.

Yes, it's extreme, but the correction to fascism is extreme.

Real balls

The first inaugural ball was held for George Washington in 1789 in New York. Washington D.C. did not exist yet, of course.  It was an unofficial ball which, if we must have these, is how they should be in my view.  

The first official one was in 1809 for James Madison.  It was held at Longs Hotel.  Balls didn't occur at all in 1853, 1913, 1921, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, and 2021.  I don't think they should be held at all anymore, but when they are, there are numerous official balls. Clinton had fourteen one year, which is absurd.

Inflation

The GOP is seriously worried about inflation as everyone is seriously worried about it.  It's flopping around like a fish on the deck trying to explain high fuel prices to MAGA bases like agriculture and truck transportation.

It's not going to work.

It took hitting their own pocketbooks but all of a sudden truck drivers are mad at Trump. Well, they ought to be, but it's too late.  Trump's not able to help.

Farmers and ranchers, who started to be angry a while back, are angry once again for the same reason, and in the case of farmers they're upset about potash, most of which comes from Canada, now being tariffed.  

Oops.

King Donny tried to claim that we were going to get potash from Belarus. That claim survived a few hours until the Belarusians said, nope, we don't have any to sell you.

The claim on fuel, of course, is that it'll all go down when the war is over. Given as the war is getting worse, not over, there's not much stock that can be put in that claim.  And the potash situation can only be solved by not being an asshole to Canada.

Even there, the diehard MAGAs are convinced that the Canadians have been picking on us for decades. This is just flat out false.  The border was basically duty free until Trump came in and tore up the very deal that he'd arrived upon with Canada during his first term.

The entire thing has caused now desperate Republicans to ponder taking extreme measures on topics they don't grasp. There's a move, for example, to ban the exportation of diesel fuel.  

The refining of petroleum products doesn't work the way people think it does and the price is very heavily dependent upon the cost of the raw product.  The refractions that become diesel and jet fuel are there no matter what.  There's pretty good reason to believe that banning the export of diesel fuel doesn't do anything to its price, and might just raise it.

We may, of course, get to find out.

Frankly, at this point, my prediction is fuel prices are never coming down.  The wars gone on too long, and too much damage has been done to Middle Eastern infrastructure to change that.

This might have some good side benefits, however.  One might be the acceleration of the switch to electric vehicles.  I actually overheard somebody whose family is employed in the petroleum industry discussing a desire to get an electric vehicle yesterday.  Another may be a switch to rail transportation, which is a much better means of transporting goods in the first place.  In agriculture, there are means of relying on petroleum less, and that may start to occur more and more in livestock production at least.  A lot of the television farmers and ranchers that are interviewed look like they've never walked a day in their life, they might start to.  The end of ATVs and driving everywhere may start to arrive.

Maybe a slight "think this out" trend might start to.  Truckers and farmers who voted for Trump are getting exactly what they deserve.  Unfortunately, the rest of us have been dragged along with them.

Last Edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 156th Edition. Name Changes, Go home Cynthia, The Merits of Packing Heat.

Labels: Casper College, Crime, Currency, Cynthia Lummis, Education, Highways, Laramie County Community College, University of Wyoming, Weapons, Zeitgeist

Flak Towers and Ballrooms.

During World War Two all of the major European combatants built flak towers to support anti aircraft guns. The German ones were particularly impressive.

Made out of massive amounts of reinforced concrete, they proved to be extremely difficult to remove after World War Two, although a lot of them were.  The large Berlin Zoo Tower proved to be very difficult to remove and required more than one attempt to do so.  

Ultimately, the effort to remove the concrete monstrosities just wasn't worth and some are accordingly left.

Not all, by any means.  Most of the flak towers in Berlin and Hamburg were demolished or partially destroyed but all six towers in Vienna were left standing

Trump is having his absurd ballroom built out of "nuclear grade" cement, so they're sort of being built like a flak tower.  Nuclear grade cement is in fact extremely durable and cannot be removed easily, or by conventional means.

Trump has specifically said that this is so the monstrosity cannot be taken down.

Well, nuclear cement or not, nuclear towers can be taken down.

At least so far, Trump's L'Arche de la défaite, another hideous monstrosity, is proposed to be built out of  standard concrete and covered with U.S.-sourced granite.  The granite will be easy to peel off and as triumphal arches are hollow, blowing it off the face of the earth will be easy.

This needs to occur.

Trump is an illegitimate occupant of the White House and not the President.  He's not qualified to occupy the office as he's an insurrectionist, and the Constitution prohibits that. AFter the Civil War, proving that a former Confederate was that was not a requirement to banning them from office. As they were known to be insurrectionist, the ban just applied.  It still does.

Leaving anything Trump touched that can be associated with him legitimizes him.  He's been a horrific disaster and everything associated with him should be scraped. Everything.

It needs to happen.

There are real reasons to fear that it will not.  Simple institutional laziness is one of them.  American government moves at the speed of Baby Boomers and that isn't fast.  A natural human dislike of wasting resources is another.

Still, it's interesting, there's an open and obvious fear in MAGA circles that it will in fact come down.  MAGA tends to repeat lines that Trump spouts as attempts to gain support, and the most recent one is that it will "benefit future presidents".  

Oh, how noble.

The fact of the matter is that the White House was always intended to be one thing, a house, and nothing else.  Giant ballrooms are something that fairy tale princesses have.  We're living in the real world, and a frightening real world at that.  We don't need a fairy tale ballroom.  We need a balanced budget and attention focused on the urgent topics of the day.

This needs to happen.

Day One of the Next Administration.

The November election won't stop Trump from issuing dictatorial executive orders, and he's not going to sign any bills the upcoming Democratic House and Senate pass, no matter what they are, so we're going to have to put up with an increasingly erratic and weird Executive Branch over the next two years.

It may, frankly, get much, much more worse.  There's literally nothing I'd put past Trump whatsoever.

Assuming we all make it to January 20, 2029, it's going to be a priority for the incoming administration to act quickly.  Republicans, having taken a drubbing in 2026 and 2028, will be back on the conservative bandwagon and howling about anything a Democratic administration does.

So, looking forward, what should it do on day 1?

The very first thing it should do is an omnibus executive order wiping out every standing executive order and declaring any issued by Trump a nullity. This should be done partially on the legal premise that Trump was not a legitimate President and all actions he took, including executive actions and appointments to Federal office are null, void, and of no effect.

Any executive orders that were worth doing can be preserved in a following order, or the same order.

Yes this means that over 5,000 Federal employees that were Trump appointees would lose their offices immediately, including sitting judges.

And it means that every single military officer commissioned during Trump's interregnum would lose their commissions.  They can be recommissioned in a following order, but it would have to be a conditional order so that if they were deemed disloyal or associated with the criminal war in Iran, they would be removed.

On day one, the incoming President should order that any officer complicit in the illegal war against Iran be court-martialed appropriately, including every current member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

All the Joint Chiefs should be removed.  The senior positions should be filled with Reserve and National Guard officers.

Every member of the Space Force should be transferred into the Air Force.  Eliminating the Space Force would take an act of Congress, but that doesn't mean it's absurd presence really has to be tolerated.  Former Space Force personnel would report to their stations with Air Force insignia within six hours of the order, as they otherwise came on duty.

Taking a page out of the conservative agenda (I am conservative), women should be removed from combat MOS's.  Basic training should be strictly segregated by gender.  All Air Force basic training should be transferred to the Army.

On Day 1 Lt. Gen. William H. "Butch" Graham Jr., head of the Army Corps of Engineers, should be summoned to appear as soon as the inauguration is over.  He should be given an order to cause the demolition and removal of the Ball Room with in 24 hours of receiving the order.  The same shall apply to the Triumphal Arch.  Within an additional 48 hours, the subterranean bunker complex shall be filled with cement.

The helipad should be broken up and restored to grass.  A dedicated Marine Corps helicopter and dedicated Air Force aircraft for Presidential use shall be halted and those aircraft, all of them, returned to conventional service use within their respective branches.  Likewise the Rose Garden paver shall be removed.  All the gilded crap shall be tossed out within four hours of the inauguration and the interior of the impacted areas restored within twelve hours.  The gilded equestrian statutes shall have the gold removed within 48 hours.  The rhino lining in the reflecting pool shall be removed with in 48 hours.

All Federal lands subject to mineral exploration including petroleum exploration shall be withdrawn from the same, something well within the President's authority.  Biden's order on electric vehicles shall be restored and expanded.

Federal lands removed from withdrawal by Trump shall immediately restored to their prior status.

Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino should be summoned (the current Postmaster General's appointment is illegitimate) and ordered to restore the 671 sorting machines that were dismantled in the first Trump administration back into service within one week.  If they are not available, and they likely are not, he will be ordered to cause their replacement within one month.

Federal offices which have been relocated, such as the Interior's, shall be ordered back to their original quarters within one week of the inauguration. As the order to move them was invalid, all costs associated with the moves to and from other locations shall be ordered to be recovered by the U.S. Attorney's Civil Division by those causing the moves to occur, including Donald Trump.

All use of government property during the interregnum of an improper and personal nature, such as Trump's use of government aircraft, shall likewise be subject to a suit for recovery.

The complete Epstein files shall be released along with an order that anyone implicated in them shall be sought for prosecution, no matter who it is.

All existing "emergencies" which have been declared in place by prior Presidents shall be declared over and any authority extended under them eliminated.  Any order allowing the imposition of tariffs by the President shall be declared over.

All combat operations in place by the United States anywhere would be ordered over within an hour of the inauguration.  Restoring the status quo ante in the Persian Gulf is now almost impossible, so how to proceed on this would be tricky in the extreme.  The best course may be to immediately ask for an international convention on the topic.

Military aid, and frankly any aid, to Israel would be terminated.  The country has been there since 1947 and can make it on its own.  Israel has a right to exist, but it's situation does not involve a vital interest of the United States.

Likewise, pulling out militarily in the Middle East should be ordered to be commenced.  It would take some time, but it should be done.

All military missions to Venezuela would be withdrawn within twelve hours of the inauguration and the legitimate elected head of state recognized as the proper one.

All extrajudicial killings by the U.S. military in the Pacific and Caribbean would be ordered halted and anyone participating in them, right down to the E1 level, ordered to be prosecuted.

All "pardons" issued by Trump would be declared null, void, and of no effect, with anyone released from jail ordered to be returned. An illegitimate President cannot issue a pardon.

The production of penneys would be ordered resumed.

Currency bearing Donald Trump's signature would be ordered to be recovered through the banking system for destruction.

Trump's name would be stricken from anything it attached to during his "second term".

There's be a lot more to do, but that's what ought to happen on the very first day.

The Aerodrome: New White House helipad.

The Aerodrome: New White House helipad.:   At least to some degree, of all the vandalization that Trump has done to the White House, perhaps this is not completely offensive. Report...

New White House helipad.

 

At least to some degree, of all the vandalization that Trump has done to the White House, perhaps this is not completely offensive.

Reportedly this was put in because the new Sikorsky VH-92A used as Marine Corps 1 was scorching the lawn, which raises the question of why the President requires such a heavy duty helicopter, or a helicopter at all.  The Canadian and British prime ministers do not have dedicated helicopters.

Also worth noting, a mile of sod on the National Mall is now ripped up, thanks to the 250th Hootenanny that Trump caused to occur.

Court Watch Part VIII. The only restraint edition.

Jefferson County Courthouse, Port Arthur, Texas.

July 14, 2026

In a blistering opinion, a Federal Court judge ruled that President Donald Trump improperly used a $10 billion lawsuit he filed against the IRS to extract personal benefits from the government and prevented the terms of a settlement agreement from taking legal effect.

And more locally:

Laramie County sheriff ordered to appear in court, explain why law firm can’t inspect records

July 23, 2026

Headline in the CST:

Wyoming attorneys oppose Trump’s AG pick

71 Wyoming attorneys signed onto the letter.  Lummis and Barrasso will ignore it.

August 1, 2026

Charges against an Olympic kayaker for vandalizing the reflecting pool have been dropped. 

That was predictable, but what the Justice Department admitted was not.  It admitted the damage was the result of "flawed installation by the contractor" as well as "the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026."

Every lawyer associated with this should be dismissed and disbarred.  Trump should be impeached.  The victim of these false charges should sue for malicious prosecution.

Closer to home:

Wyoming archaeologists take BLM to court over Native sites, human remains

August 5, 2026

The U.S. Attorney’s Office dismissed all charges against David Hearn, Justin Carreno, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Cameron Thiers for the pool vandalization that never occured.  Donald Trump had previously described these people as “SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE".  He's the sick deranged people, but people who aren't victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome and think he's something other than a rampaging deranged narcissist know that. 

Now, even after the Toddler's tantrums, no charges are pending at all. They never should be.

Lawsuits should, and I predict will, be filed against the government over this.

August 8, 2026

The DC Circuit ordered Trump to halt his illegal ballroom construction but, in a wussy move, stayed its decision for fourteen days in order to allow Trump to appeal, which he, or rather his administration, will.

The Court, in its decision, noted:

Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help.

August 11, 2026

It's not that there aren't some really issues here.

Judge dismisses closed primary lawsuit for the second time

But it does provide a good example of why it hurts things for everyone when a gadfly like Skovgaard decides to play lawyer.

August 12, 2026

Court steps in to counter coup attempt.

August 18, 2026

Good news:

Retired Cheyenne attorney renews legal challenge to Secretary Gray’s handoff of voter data feds

Gray violated the law on this and needs to be held fully accountable. Courts looking at this issue have uniformly supported the states that refused to provide the information.

Gray should be made to recover the information he supplied.  This was illegal.  

August 25, 2026

This doesn't decide the ultimate issue:

Supreme Court allows Trump administration to move forward with order imposing restrictions on mail-in voting

But coming when it does, it may very well be the law in a practical sense this election cycle, and impact the election.  It's specifically designed to frustrate Democratic voting.  However, as Amy Howe reports:

A separate ruling by the same judge, in a case filed by a different set of plaintiffs, temporarily prohibits the U.S. Postal Service from implementing one provision of the executive order anywhere in the United States. That ruling remains in effect, at least for now.

The decision is flat out wrong and the Supreme Court will regret it.  The Democrats are increasingly like to win both houses of Congress this Fall and they will begin to work on major Supreme Court reform. Trump can prevent that while he's in office, but he's becoming the political kiss of death for GOP candidates and when a new Democratic President comes in, this order will come off and the Supreme Court will be radically reformed.  Perhaps first up will be age limitations, likely 70 years of old, which will wipe out the conservative majority on the court.

A decision like this one will help bring about that downfall.  So does stuff like this:

Supreme Court allows White House ballroom construction to continue for now

The mail in voting one at least has some think judicial reasoning Staying ballroom construction was the obvious choice here and the Court didn't do it. That probably signals that they'll let this insane project go forward.

August 27, 2026

After Election Loss, Reid Rasner Sues A Sixth Person For Defamation

One of Rasner's previous suits is in the CST today on the pending summary judgment motion.

August 31, 2026

The Supreme Court sealed its fate today in holding that the Plaintiffs in a case challenging the legality of Trump's illegal construction of a giant garden shed on White House Grounds lacked standing.

Bullshit.

Justice Roberts, who dissented in the 5 to 4 decision, noted that the construction was likely illegal.  It is. This was a standing decision.

So construction will commence and may well get completed. The legality will be ruled upon in the future, and then the heaping pile of shit hopefully blown to the ground by a future administration that will rely on this decision. The Supreme Court will go to 13 members, and an age limitation will be put on the justices guaranteeing a liberal majority on the court for a century.

September 10. 2026

Twenty states filed two separate lawsuits against the government alleging the Trump administration illegally weakened the Endangered Species Act.

September 11, 2026

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals refused to lift an injunction on the USPS prohibiting the implementation of crybaby's attempt for a fall coup by banning mail in voting.

September 15, 2026

The US Supreme Court decided in a 7 to 2 vote to block the Trump USPS rule prohibiting mail in voting.  Alito and Thomas were the two dissenting votes.

Last edition:

Court Watch Part VII. When the last law was down.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, Abortion, Chuck Gray, Court Watch, law, Politics, South Korea, St. Sir Thomas More, The 2021 Insurrection, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming, Wyoming (Powell), You heard it here first

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 153rd Edition. The Hunt for the Golden Pheasants, Delusional monuments, Recovering the imaginary 1950s.

Ousted.

Maria Bartiromo was given the boot at Fox.

That's really remarkable.

Bartiromo managed to go from being a credible mainstream reporter to a Trump talking head after leaving going to Fox in 2014.  Her departure would indicate that we've entered the "Hunt for the Golden Pheasants" stage of the Trump regime in which there's localized uprising.  The recent resignation of the Secretary of the Army fits into that as well.

I seriously thought that by this point the 25th Amendment would have been invoked and we'd have a President J. D. Vance trying to cut his own path.  People like Hegseth would be gone.  There'd be no Iran war and the tariff experiment would be over.  What didn't count on wa the administration being made up of radical right wing Confederates and Seven Mountain adherents, as well as members of the Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne that have no place to go.  So it appears my prediction was incorrect, although there's still hope.  Having said that, those who plan on surviving the regime are beginning to make their exit, or are being tossed overboard.

Well, Bye Felicia.

Trying to sell.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced that the Trump Admin will begin a further vandalization project this upcoming week and very clearly he knows nobody wants it, and therefore is trying really, really, hard to sell it.  He took to Twitter trying to show that Presidents have so dearly wanted an arch   Witness:

Secretary Doug Burgum@SecretaryBurgum

We are pleased to announce that after a very long wait (over 125 years!), we are preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck, at Memorial Circle on Columbia Island between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture, honoring the history and significance of Arlington Cemetery and befitting the most powerful Capital in the World.

For over 125 years, Congress and various congressionally chartered commissions decreed that a monumental work should adorn Columbia Island. In 1902, the U.S. Senate’s “McMillan Commission” called for “a concourse suited to memorial treatment be established” on the westerly terminus of the Memorial Bridge.

In 1924, the congressional chartered Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission stated, “[Columbia Island] was always considered as a suitable site for formal park treatment, a fitting end for the Memorial Bridge, as well as an important feature in itself.” Specifically, the Commission called for “a plaza with fitting architectural adornment in a measure supplemental to the Lincoln Memorial across the river.”

Despite Congress’s intent, the site became and remains today a barren traffic circle lacking any monumental treatment and significant historic value. In fact, the passage extending from Arlington Memorial Bridge to Arlington National Cemetery was meant to serve as an Avenue of Heroes.

In the years after World War II, Ulysses S. Grant III— who was the grandson of the former president and Union general Ulysses S. Grant, executive officer of the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission, and member of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission—decried the state of Columbia Island as a “temporary road with an informal circle.” He lamented that “the central plaza on Columbia Island had never been undertaken and seems to be absolutely essential to link together the two parts of the project, namely the main bridge itself and the entrance to Arlington Cemetery.”

Over 70 major cities/capitals around the world, from London, Paris and Rome to Madrid, Athens and New Delhi, all showcase beautiful arches. Interestingly, Washington, DC, is the only major Western capital without an arch. Now after 125 years of waiting, the most powerful capital in the world will be home of the most spectacular and beautiful arch of them all!

M'eh.

Nobody wants it except for King Donny.  The irony of building a triumphal arch while losing a war is really rich for one thing, and this is a huge monstrosity.

Maybe if they were going to put something there, they could put up a small monument (not gilded) to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.  He could serve as an example to these guys.

Anything one government builds, another can rip down.

The U.S. Army blows the Swastika off of the Nuremberg parade grounds.

Anyhow, at last there's a really growing movement to rip this crap, including the ballroom, down as soon as Trump is out of office.

This from Senator Ted Lieu:

Here is my prediction: the Democratic presidential candidate who promises to restore the White House to what it looked like pre-trump will win the primary and the Presidency.

I"m seeing a lot of that now.

Just ripping it down might be illegal. But then the Supreme Court has already established that  you can get away with building this crap even if it is illegal, and ripping stuff down takes a lot less time than putting it up.

On the White House, by the way, the wings were added in 1902.  With one already gone, they ought to take the other out in my opinion and just restore the building to its original architectural integrity. The wings don't look great to start with and the ballroom looks absurd.

A trip down Trump's memory lane.

An Albert Dornei illustration of how bowling was once imagined in the urban world of the 1950s.  Posted via fair use exception.

The Trump administration has announced its renovating the bowling alley in the White House as well.

The bowling alley story really brings into focus the way that the Trump administration, captured by the decaying mind of Donald Trump, is sort of a monument to an imaginary 1950s where everyone was urban, white, middle class, or maybe upper middle class.

I realize that people still bowl, but bowling reached the apex of its popularity in the 50s and 60s when automatic pin setters came in.  Golfing peaked later, in the 90s and 2000s, but the mental image of golfing in a lot of ways, in terms of its popular image, is from an earlier era.  Ballroom dancing was biggest in the mid 20th Century, basically from when the American population started to rapidly become urban and music, first jazz, and then later big band, dominated.

7up ad featuring bowling, 1963.

A popular study of the decline of American culture in some ways is titled "Bowling Alone".  A person can look at this in a lot of ways, but the cultural evolution of the country, which has been negative in many, maybe most, ways has hit all of this stuff.  One big factor, and yes here we go again, is that the demographic rabbit in the snake of the Baby Boomers changed all of this.  Bowling, as noted, is still sort of a big deal, and its charmingly portrayed in The Big Lebowski, but even when I was young most young people didn't bowl, and regarded it as, well, square.  Big halls where you had to rent shoes and dispirited older blue collar workers hung out, drank Budweiser, and smoked cigarettes lacked appeal.  If you talked to our parents generation, however, you'd see that isn't how they viewed bowling when they were young at all.

Golf had a real reputation as an upper middle class sport when I was young. The sort of sport that lawyers and doctors engaged in and talked shop.  I still sort of regard it that way, although that time has passed too, and now I think of it as a sport that is played by old lawyers and doctors.  I know that's not really fair, but there's an element of truth to it.

Ballroom dancing is something that was dead as a doornail by the time I was old enough to hit any kind of a dancefloor, by which I mean a high school gym.  The 60s had killed it.  Indeed, this was illustrated recently by a video going viral of elderly people dancing to AC/DC at a nursing home.  I've wondered if that would occur. For years, if you went to a nursing home at certain times of the day, you'd hear The Lawrence Welk Show blaring.  

I'll be that's not the case anymore.

Well, for somebody like Trump, who is old, wealthy and likes to golf, and is old, and has big structures, and is old, all this probably seems a lot like taking a trip back to the past, like watching American Graffiti. One thing about the really wealthy is that they hang on to certain social aspects of the past more than other classes, so a wealthy hotelier like Trump probably did grow up thinking ballrooms were cool, and probably still does.

Going back to the past is a pretty strong desire for the old, and particularly strong for the demented old.  I'm told that my dying grandmother on my mother's side, as her dying words, noted that my grandfather "sure can play tennis" no doubt recalling what he'd been like when they were young.  Trump's now fixated on his reputation and on building.  He's building like crazy, and building his way back to the past.

Of course, most old people can't command the entire resources of the nation to attempt to reconstruct an imaginary past.

Sic transit gloria mundi

Trump's monuments in stone will only last as long as Americans tolerate their presence.  They shouldn't tolerate them for more than one second after he's gone.  The next administration should tear them all down on the very first day of the next adminsitration.

It's necessary.

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 12. The "Economic D-Day" edition. CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 152nd Edition, the irony edition.

 The author concludes that the Arch of Defeat will be built.

The National Park Service Does Not “Support” President Trump’s Triumphal Arch

If it is, it should be blown down by a sane incoming administration as soon as possible, along with however much of the stupid ballroom as has been constructed.

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 150th Edition. Why Karoline is departing. Donald Trump's Weird Obsession with monuments to himself. The Invincibly Ignorant.

Trump looking out of the window of Air Force One with Natalie Harp, Sunday, September 7, 2025, before landing at LaGuardia Airport in East Elmhurst, New York, to attend the U.S. Open Men’s Championship, a shocking waste of public money.

Yesterday we discussed the departure of Karoline Leavitt from the Trump Administration.  Also yesterday, two different articles appeared purporting to give her reasons, both of which are pretty interesting.  Between the two, the article in The New Republic struck me as a bit more credible.  It's here:

Karoline Leavitt Quit Because Trump Was Driving Her Crazy

Trump is a pathetic man baby pretty much and shows what happens with a privileged kid is raised to become a spoiled brat.  Of course, his parents realized that which is why they sent him to military school, but it didn't work to straighten him out.

What very well may have worked would have been a hitch in the service, but that, as is well known, didn't happen. That omission is probably part of the reason that the pathetic man has such an inferiority complex today.

Anyhow, TNR holds that Leavitt had been looking to depart her role as Big Liar for Der Fibber for some time and was burnt out from her role. The straw that broke the camel's back was Trump repeatedly calling her on her maternity leave to find out when she'd leave her children and come back to serving him.

If true, that makes Trump even more of an asshole than we already knew him to be, but it's pretty credible.

And it's also perfectly credible that Leavitt was burnt out.  Explaining the sea of lies would be a huge burden.  And, for normal people, having children is really sobering.  I've often said that's when you really become fully adult.  While I think Leavitt's role in the administration in particular and American society overall has been completely despicable, she may have made that leap.  She is Catholic and the burden of her sins for Trump may have just grown too large.

The Daily Beast, on the other hand, holds that Leavitt decided to leave when she was left on the "decoy" Air Force One when Trump was smuggled out on a lesser aircraft.  He took with him, apparently, Pete Hegseth, Natalie Harp, Dan Scavino, and Walt Nauta.  Marco Rubio and Bessent were left to go down in flames if Air Force One was actually targeted.

Unlike a lot of the commentary on this, I don't think it was  unreasonable for Trump to make the switch, although like the CIA I'm not crediting Israeli intelligence on this one much.  But if Leavitt was really left to die on the decoy, that's inexcusable.  But it's not really clear that she actually was.  You would think this would be easy to determine, but it hasn't been.  She may not have been on either plane.

Anyhow, the DB reports she was upset about being left on the decoy plane, and as a mother of two, she should have been.  And if true, and we don't know that it was, that would be a despicable thing for Trump to have done.  

This puts Executive Assistant to the President Natalie Harp back in the spotlight.  There's already piles of rumors about here which are unlikely to be true, but it doesn't help.

Trump just can't accept defeat on anything as he's a spoiled brat.  He also has surrounded himself with sycophants like flies surround shit, and much for the same reason.  Its not surprise therefore that the flies on the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted on Thursday to add an inscription bearing President Donald Trump’s name to the building’s exterior,  It'll read:

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump,’

The plaza where it's located will be outright named for Trump.

Well, maybe.

More likely the same court that told the administration to remove Trump's name from the building for being illegally pasted there will say "hold on, buckwheat" and stop it from occurring.

This does, however, bring up a topic that many people have been pondering and which was just discussed on NPR's Politics:

How Trump's focus on his legacy drives his decisions

NPR doesn't quite put it this way, but there's something downright weird about Trump's manic campaign of building crap, and it has been crap, and naming stuff for himself.

Trump's about to die.  It's a fact simply because of his age.  Around 15% of American men live to age 85.  He's 80.  He could literally die any day simply due to old age.  Having elected such an elderly man was foolish.  

While its purely speculation on my part, I strongly suspect that Trump is worried about his impending death, and I can see why.  He's lived a horrible life.  He openly worries about going to Hell, but he doesn't do anything to arrest that chance.  Reforming at age 80 isn't easy, particularly for a man whose on to his fourth wife, if you consider it a real marriage.  That's part of the reason, I'd guess, he's surrounded himself with people like Paula White, who believe in a diluted version of Christianity, or even one that's perverted the actual message of the Gospels.  There's almost nothing that Trump routinely does or says that are Christian in nature, but those religious figure surrounding him don't seem to rebuke him on his behavior to the extent that we can tell what hey do.

The people that Trump has surrounded himself with probably give him a modicum of assurance that his soul is A Ok, but he doesn't seem convinced.  He shouldn't be.  Anyhow, I wonder to some extent if he believes in the next world, in any form, at all.

His manic construction would suggest not.  He desperately wants to be remembered for something, and childish monstrous architecture seems to be what he's hit on.

It won't work.

Most of the things that the Romans built are gone.  The Coliseum is still around, but very few people know which Roman Emperor caused it to be built.  Most of the Trump crap will simply come down, and indeed it needs to.  The stuff he's pasting his name to will all be renamed.

It's vanity, and it's sad.  And expensive.

I've really gone after Trump on this site and people who voted for Trump and his sycophants. Just the other day I posted, in regard to Mike Lindell's bid for office:

Lindell had no chance of winning the primary as only the stupid and ignorant would vote for him.  That's what happened.  He's not accepting that however, claiming, in true Trump/MAGA style that there were "irregularities".

Lisa Demuth won the race with 43.4% of the vote.  Lindell did bring in 32.5% of the vote, which some have been shocked by.  One person asked if his supporters were stupid. 

Well, probably a lot of them are.

Let's be honest about stupidity, as the country has a real stupidity problem right now.

The United States has always had a strong anti intellectual streak, which endorsed the native intelligence of the common man. Frankly, it's been one of the problems the country's always been afflicted with. But at the same time, up until now, there's never been an era in which education was despised. Right now, we're seeing a lot of that. The reason is fairly simple. The really intelligent, through technology, have made it possible for the stupid to have a voice.

Which brings us to the bell curve.

Human intelligence it not really very well understood, even today.  Perhaps in some ways we don't know that much more about it than we ever did.  Btu what we do know is that in an average population, there's a mean.  Half the people are above it, and half below it.

More than that most of the people are somewhere on the middle part of the curve.  But if you divide it into thirds, 1/3d of it is considerably above the rest in terms of intelligence, and 1/3 considerably below.  Like Larry David's skit lampoons, we let the bottom third vote.

Therefore, it'd be somewhat fair to say that Lindell's 1/3d of the Minnesota vote represents "the stupid ones", and to some extent, it actually does.  While some of low intelligence would have voted for other candidates, Trump uniquely appeals to stupid.

He also uniquely appeals to the ignorant, which is not the same.  And that's where the story of intelligence gets complicated, particularly in voting.  I have a friend, for example, whose highly intelligent, but completely disinterested in politics.  He still votes.  A lot of rural people I know are big Trump supporters, not because they're dumb, but because they listen to their neighbors and they've all collectively bought off on BS Trump conspiracy theories.  As part of that, however, I'll note, that they're mostly poorly educated.

Anyhow, take the dumb, the ignorant, and the poorly educated together, you probably have at least 33% of the population.  Technology makes the difference.  In prior eras, those people were influenced by the smarter and the well educated around them.  Now, they're influenced by themselves.

After this, I got a first hand glimpse of how really intelligent people can be MAGA through ignorance.

A person I know, who is definitely highly intelligent, but very narrowly focused, and very focused on religious matters, sent me something on one of the millennialist religions that was influenced by Christianity, but which isn't Christian.  He follows stuff like that extremely closely.  This brought up in my mind something I just saw elsewhere on "post truth Christians".

The reason I note that is that I always find such statements to be sweepingly overbroad.  When people speak about "Christians" and societal, cultural or political matters, the mere use of the term is incorrect.  The MAGA Christians contain a strong element that doesn't regard we Catholics, the original Christian religion, as Christian at all.   The "post truth" Christians, in the article I saw, are Evangelical Christians. Well, informed Catholics have regarded them as post truth for their entire, and short, existence.

But my friend, who is alway studying what Muslims, Jews, the LDS, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists are doing, doesn't realize that and I should have appreciated that.  He frankly just assumes that all Christians have the same view on everything, for the most part, and by extension that the Christians around Donald Trump are all the same, and just like us.

Anyhow, I tried to explain to him how people like Johnson and the group are part of the New Apostolic Reformation and how Doug Wilson figures  the nation should be Calvinist.

He clearly doesn't believe that.

And that gets back to this.  Amongst those who loyally back Trump are a bunch of people who aren't dumb (there are  bunch who are dumb), but almost invincibly ignorant.  The really do think Reagan is just like Trump and people are worried about Trump because he's a "conservative".  Mike Johnson is just a religious guy.  Charlie Kirk just a zealous layman.  Doug Wilson just the tweed wearing vicar of some local Protestant church.

It's a view of the world like its portrayed on The Waltons, or if you want it a little racier, Spencer's Mountain.

It's dangerously naive, but nearly impossible to penetrate.

Some ignorance, and I suspect more than a little bit of that here, is wilful.  It's an example of the tail wagging the dog in quite a few people.  I suspect my friend knows that the Trump administration is a dumpster fire, for example, but he voted for it twice under a sincere conviction that it seeks to advance Christianity against the enemy of secular humanism and Islam.  When the war with Iran came he was ecstatic.  When Israel was decimating Gaza he was all in on it.  Now he's finding that even in his own family people don't hold these views.

Admitting that you're wrong is a hard thing to do. Trump can't do that.  Neither can a lot of his backers.

Speaking of ignorance:

That one speaks for itself.

In terms of really bad news, military student Phillips P. O'Brien, who has been warning that rot is setting into the U.S. military, is now at its worse shape since World War Two.

He cannot be discounted.

I noted in my entry yesterday that we haven't seen a sailor's rebellion since the last days of the Vietnam War.  As also noted, at that time, the military was in horrible shape.  I'd find it hard to believe that we are in worse shape now as opposed to then, frankly, but I am concerned that we're in bad shape.  We may be seeing an over bloated military in a state of advanced decay.  We're certainly losing the war against Iraq.

I'd note, on this, Trump wouldn't be the only one to blame, along with Hegseth.  I would go back to 2013 in regard to the acceleration of the decline in the U.S. Military, when women were first allowed into combat roles (yeah, that again).  Barack Obama was President at the time. He also was when transgendered troops were okayed, which was insane.  So here we can actually blame Obama for something.

But it isn't that alone.  As noted here recently, keeping a bloated, if shrunken, big military after the Cold War was a mistake.  That allowed the US to engage in quasi colonial wars, which was a mistake. Rather than fix things, Trump, via Hegseth, has given in fully to a bloated military and, while keeping women in combat roles openly, begun in backdoor sabotage on a cultural basis and started to try to convert it into the New Model Army.

Finally, as predicated, each day brings a flood of new mailers.

Yesterday had its usual crop.  Notable amongst them was a Chuck Gray one claiming he kept "men" out of "girls" sports.  A very non political female friend of mine had a fit over that as she views female sports as women's sports.

I've received that mailer before. The thing that's really odd about it is that it shows a great big fat dude with facial stubble winning something over female athletes, but the due looks oddly like the cartoon portrayal of J. D. Vance you see around sometimes.

Hmm. . . 

In my friends case, her 12 year old daughter picked up the mail and asked "what's that supposed to mean"?

We also received here, on the same day, a large flyer calling Gray "California Chuck Gray" and pointing out that he's from Los Angeles.  

Well, fair enough but the artful illustration of him wearing a short brimmed straw Fedora and a Hawaiian shirt, all done electronically I'm sure, was a bit much.  I'm sure that he doesn't have either.

Also, it oddly made him look like what Westerners imagine elderly men in Florida to look like.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 149th Edition. Abandoning Ship.

Labels: 1970s, 1972, 1973, 2020s, 2026, Chuck Gray, Donald Trump, Karoline Leavitt, Lies, Military, Personalities, The Madness of King Donald, The Second Trump Administration, U.S. Navy, Washington DC Vandalization, Zeitgeist