Stephan: Here is another take on what is going on in Portland. I take this very very seriously, and I suggest you do so as well. The only thing that is going to protect our democracy in November is massive citizen push back to what Trump, his administration, and the Republicans in Congress, and the state level, are trying to pull off.
Credit: Shealah Craighead
Last night I wrote about Trump’s use of ICE and Border Patrol stormtroopers under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security to detain and intimidate peaceful protesters. In that piece I speculated that Trump was not only testing the waters of creating his own personal paramilitary domestic security force and attempting to please the most sadistic elements of his base, but also that he was taking the natural actions an executive might take if he actually believed the dystopian propaganda about America’s cities being promulgated every day on Fox News.
But there is another deeply alarming possibility to consider. This November will be the first since the expiration of a 1982 consent decree in which the Republican National Committee will be freed to conduct voter suppression and intimidation en masse. As Andy Kroll recently explained at Rolling Stone:
The result of the suit was a 1982 consent decree between the Democratic and Republican parties. Even though the RNC refused to admit wrong-doing in New Jersey, the group agreed […]
Stephan: And, finally, I will close this sequence with this piece by John Alexander that gives what I consider to be very important historical context to what is now happening in Portland.
In March 1933, the Waffen SS was formed as a paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party. Members pledged personal loyalty to Adolf Hitler and Hitler alone.
Trumpian storm troopers in Portland, Oregon in July 2020 Credit: Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian/AP)
Let me begin by acknowledging for a qualified observer, that there have been a number of recent protests that have turned violent. As will be seen, suggesting that all, or even many protesters are violent anarchists, or members of Antifa, is specious. There is a problem in which ill-intended people have joined peaceful protests and led them into unwanted violent confrontations. While a few temporarily have gotten out of hand, none have exceeded the capabilities of local and state officials to bring under control. None have necessitated federal intervention but that has not stopped Trump from political Kabuki theater at the expense of those communities and the nation’s reputation.
Stephan: I will just let these sentiments expressed by Donald Trump to speak for him.
The psychopath in the White House
President Donald Trump declined Sunday to say he would accept the results of the 2020 election, adding that he will “have to see” and claiming without evidence that mail-in voting will “rig the election.”
Trump’s comments came during a wide-ranging interview with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace in which he criticized so-called cancel culture and repeatedly downplayed the coronavirus, which has infected more than 3.7 million people in the U.S. and killed at least 140,131, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
During the interview, Wallace debuted the results of Fox News’ latest national poll, which showed Democratic candidate for president Joe Biden leading Trump by 8%. The poll showed Biden leading on specific issues as well, including a 1% lead over Trump on the economy.
When presented with the results, Trump downplayed the findings as “fake polls.”
“First of all, I’m not losing because those are fake polls,” he said. “They were fake in 2016 and now they’re even more fake.”
Later in the interview, when Wallace asked whether Trump is a […]
Erica Werner and Jeff Stein, - The Washington Post
Stephan: Saturday: 18 states set single-day records for new coronavirus cases, 65,000 new cases, and 872 deaths. And the Trump administration is trying to gut testing and contact tracing. How is this not facilitating and augmenting mass murder?
Mandatory Credit: Photo by JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (10715787b) US President Donald J. Trump (L), alongside Republican Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham (R), play golf at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, USA, 18 July 2020. US President plays golf at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday.
The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said.
The administration’s posture has angered some GOP senators, the officials said, and some lawmakers are trying to push back and ensure that the money stays in the bill. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal confidential deliberations, cautioned that the talks were fluid and the numbers were […]
MICHAEL LIPKA and GREGORY A. SMITH, - Pew Research Center
Stephan: Every day I check in with the FiveThirtyEight website to see what their meta-analysis of the polls has to say. And every day, as the death toll mounts, the pandemic spreads, civil rights are trashed, unemployment soars, the economy collapses, and corruption becomes so blatant we look less like a democracy and more like a banana republic, I see virtually no change in Trump's support.
How can that be I wonder? And I want a fact-based answer, not the usual political bloviation. Well, here is the answer; it is the evangelicals and fundamentalist "Christians", the christofascists.
They are an amazing group really. They prattle on endlessly about morality and spirituality and wear sanctimony like a cloak. They are obsessed with what other people do sexually. And yet the data is clear: it is all a fraud of White supremacy, willful ignorance, self-deception, and hypocrisy. And their choice for America is clear; they love and support Donald Trump perhaps the worst human being to ever occupy high public office in America. The facts are not pretty, but here they are.
Roughly seven-in-ten white evangelical Protestants (72%) say they approve of the way Trump is handling his job, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 16 to 22. That is a 6 percentage point drop from 78% recorded in April, in line with the 5-point drop during that period among U.S. adults overall. The share of white evangelicals who say they “very strongly” approve of Trump’s performance is now at 59%, down 8 points from 67% in April. (Pew Research Center also asked the presidential approval question in March of this year, at which time Trump’s rating was similar to results obtained in April.)
The same survey finds that if the 2020 presidential election were held today, 82% of white evangelical Protestant registered voters would vote for Trump or lean toward voting for him, while 17% say they would back the Democratic Party’s presumptive […]
Every day I check in with the FiveThirtyEight website to see what their meta-analysis of the polls has to say. And every day, as the death toll mounts, the pandemic spreads, civil rights are trashed, unemployment soars, the economy collapses, and corruption becomes so blatant we look less like a democracy and more like a banana republic, I see virtually no change in Trump's support.
How can that be I wonder? And I want a fact-based answer, not the usual political bloviation. Well, here is the answer; it is the evangelicals and fundamentalist "Christians", the christofascists.
They are an amazing group really. They prattle on endlessly about morality and spirituality and wear sanctimony like a cloak. They are obsessed with what other people do sexually. And yet the data is clear: it is all a fraud of White supremacy, willful ignorance, self-deception, and hypocrisy. And their choice for America is clear; they love and support Donald Trump perhaps the worst human being to ever occupy high public office in America. The facts are not pretty, but here they are. 
