Trump, even as late as this weekend, repeated the lie on his blog that the election was stolen from him by non-existent voter fraud.  He bragged that 80% of Republicans believed that lie as he desperately tries to keep his iron grip on the party that he wants destroyed.  Trump is nothing, if not obsesively vindictive.  What’s telling, though, have been his actions.  How do we know?  Trump tried to wreck as much of the US government as he could on the way out the door.  I don’t think he would have done that had he truly believed he won.

On November 9th, John McEtee, aide to Trump, told Douglas Macgregor, new acting defense secretary Chris Miller’s senior advisor, that Trump wanted full military withdrawal, by Inauguration Day,  from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, all of Africa, and…wait for it…Germany.  Recall that Miller had just taken on the defense job after Trump fired Mark Esper by tweet just a few days earlier.  This, as you would imagine, was an impossible task, and worse, it was from out in left field.  A written order followed two days later that commanded the Pentagon to withdraw troops  from Somalia by December 15th, and Afghanistan bay January 15th.  It was personally signed by Trump in his idiotic scribble.  The order sent shockwaves through the Pentagon as leaders realized that this was an “off the books” operation with none of the usual planning, table top simulations, or alternatives.  This was just Trump being Trump, and luckily the Pentagon held the line, slow walking the order to run out the clock.

At the same time, Trump tried to wreck the CIA and dig dirt on his enemies by installing loyalists at the top of the agency trying to get the director, Gina Haspel, to resign.  Mercifully, that effort also failed as Pence and WH counsel Pat Cipollone came to Haspel’s defense.  Switching tactics, Trump then installed a Nunes staffer and Trump loyalist, Michael Ellis, to the general counsel position at the NSA, a position difficult to terminate by the new administration.  In an appropriate end to his short career, Ellis resigned in April after he had been sidelined by an IG investigation into his role in the handling of classified information and placed on indefinite leave.

It’s now just coming out that Trump’s DOJ tried to get the courts to unmask a Twitter user who had gotten under Devin Nunes skin with a parody account @NunesAlt.  Barr’s attorneys sought a grand jury subpoena of Twitter to reveal the user’s actual name, and Twitter had fought the subpoena until the demand was dropped after Biden took office.

These are just a few examples of the lengths to which Trump went in the waning days of his infestation to wreck as much of the government that he could, install loyalists as his spies, and punish his supporters’ enemies.  Luckily the actual public servants in these agencies kept their oaths to the Constitution, and repelled Trump’s attacks.  Next time (if there is a next time) we might not be so lucky.

A great piece yesterday in the Washington Post talks about how a snake oil salesman, Russell J. Ramsland Jr, from Addison, a suburb north of Dallas, pushed the Big Lie as early as 2018, trying to recruit politicians to his narrative that there was as much as 68% error rate in electronic voting systems.  He gained traction in 2020 with none other than Trump and his deplorable cronies, including Rudy, Sidney Powell, and others.  HE’S the one who pushed the unfounded Venezuelan story.  The story will leave you shaking your head.  It’s a good read, highly recommended.

File under Gravity Makes Things Fall Down:

Stating the obvious, federal judge ruled this week that former AG Bill Barr misled her, Congress, and the American people about the Mueller report, using an internal DOJ memo as the excuse to not charge Trump with obstruction of justice in the investigation.  Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the DC Circuit ordered the DOJ to release the memo saying that it was more of a strategy memorandum and not a legal opinion protected by attorney client privilege.

I would say there’s a good chance that Barr’s going to get his for letting Trump off the hook, lying in public, and then politicizing the DOJ to protect Trump and punish his enemies (and career staff).  This is long overdue, and I’ll be popping popcorn for this show.

Facebook’s oversight board just announced it is upholding Facebook’s ban of Trump from the platform, but there is a Big But. The Big But is that it is giving Facebook 6 months to determine Trump’s actual punishment; that is, the board said that they can’t just indefinitely ban him, that Facebook must treat him like other users with definite punishment communicated to him.  That seems pretty easy, since he egregiously violated numerous policies; incite to violence by itself is reason to permanently ban him. Zuckerberg now just need to grow a spine and do it.

Yesterday, Michael Gerson published a good piece in the Washington Post about how Republicans lying about the 2020 election are doing so with open eyes, and why that is corrosive to a free society.  He’s right in that Trump is a congenital liar, and everyone knows it.  The ones committing the most egregious lies are those enabling Trump’s lies, those party leaders and politicians who are passing the litmus test by knowingly telling the Big Lie to avoid the wrath and primary threats.

This lying, though, is not new.  Since Reagan, Repubs have made lying the foundation of the party.  Examples: cutting taxes increases revenue; cutting taxes for the rich trickles down prosperity to everyone;  “welfare queens” are lazy and always non-white; companies don’t need regulations since
the “free market” will drive them to do the right thing; Iraq was involved in 9/11; Saddam has weapons of mass destruction; if you’re opposed to war you “hate the troops”; Barack Obama was not born in the US; a gigantic conspiracy of thousands of poll workers, voting machine companies, elected officials from both parties, state legislatures, the US Congress, and even VP Pence caused the 2020 election to be stolen from Trump.  This last lie is now required to be told, and repeated, by all Republicans, no matter where they come from or role they play.  Those who refuse to tell the lie are censured or run out of the party.

When a party’s foundation is all based on a dictated lie as a litmus test, that party is dead.  The GOP has come a long way to this point, but I personally believe it has morphed from political organization to religious cult.  A lot of people reject drawing comparisons between the rise of Hitler to the rise of Trump.  I think they do that our of fear that it may be true.  I believe it’s absolutely the perfect analogy.  It’s well known that Hitler was a psychopath.  He tried to overthrow the Bavarian government in 1923 in the Beer Hall Putsch, which he planned to use as a springboard to take over the German government.  He was convicted of high treason, but during the trial became a national figure, and much of the public adored him.  Upon his conviction he swore to ignore the verdict saying he would be acquitted by the “Eternal Court of History”; indeed, Hitler served less than a year before he was released.  Eight years later he accomplished his goal in taking over the government, leading to World War II.  Hitler’s main weapon?  Lying.  Gargantuan lying, which he required repetition by his followers.  His lying lead to millions of deaths around the world and the collapse of Europe which took a generation to recover.

Trump is more like Hitler than anyone wants to admit.  He has the same personality traits including toxic narcissism and total disregard for human life.  Like Hitler, he freely used the levers of government to enrich himself, protect his co-conspirators, and punish his enemies.  He politicized everything from science to law enforcement.  If allowed back in, he will follow the same path as Hitler, and if we ignore it, the chance of history repeating itself is highly likely.

All the lights about Trump are flashing red, and his enablers are speeding along the road that will most certainly lead to disaster for all of us.

Facebook’s oversight board has apparently decided on the fate of Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts and is going to announce the decision on Wednesday.  The thought of the Orange Menace ranting again on social media sends cold chills, but based on Zuckerberg and Company’s terrible decisions in the past, it won’t surprise me a bit if they let him back on just to drive internet clicks.  Of course, Facebook was right (like Twitter) to finally ban his ass way too late, especially since he violated almost every rule in the book, especially in inciting violence against the US government, Democrats, and everyone not white, obese, gun-toting, or bible thumping.  I guess they finally decided to take steps after his followers attacked the US Capitol resulting in millions of dollars in damage, 200 injuries, and 5 deaths.  At least Twitter’s ban is permanent.

Trump has no business with a public voice ever again, and Facebook should permanently ban him along with his entire fucking family from the platform.  I won’t hold my breath, though.