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.

Jon Stewart was right a few years ago when he described Trump’s behavior as, “Gleeful Cruelty and Dickishness”.  At the time, Stewart was talking about Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” immigration plan that separated thousands of children from their parents at the border, and then purposely lost track of them, but his characterization most certainly applied to his intentional slow walking of funding relief to Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.  There was absolutely no reason to do so except to make American citizens’ lives more miserable as if that was even possible.  As evidence that his cruelty was intentional.  He then obstructed investigations into his cruelty just because.  Trump is an asshole, just to be an asshole.  He relished wielding the power of the presidency to not serve Americans, but too harass those he didn’t like, and I don’t have to describe who it is who he didn’t like.

Disappointingly, but not surprising, the obstruction of oversight was led by Ben Carson, the comatose Secretary of Housing and Urban development.  His staff aided in the corruption, even as Carson feigned concern about delays in approvals by OMB of funding while refusing to cooperate with the IG trying to get to the bottom of the delays.  It was classic Trump…assuaging his own need for adoration while urinating on people who desperately needed help.

It boggles the mind that a human being can be such a shitbag, but we are talking about Trump, so that’s no surprise.

John Cornyn this week:

“The president is not doing cable news interviews,” Cornyn said on Twitter. “Tweets from his account are limited and, when they come, unimaginably conventional.”

That’s right – Cornyn’s not happy that Biden isn’t acting like a narcissistic screwball Trump.  I know that sounds stupid, but that criticism has gained serious traction along with the usual “Biden is feeble” and “who’s in charge?” insults.  This one, though, plays to only one demographic – Trumpists.  Trump is still the hijacker, holding the entire GOP hostage, even though his primary weapon, Twitter, has been taken away from him since January, and there are few chinks in his armor against challengers.

Also this week, the Washington Post published a report that Biden is doing exactly what he said he would do during the campaign, to not be continuously top of mind for Americans.  His calm demeanor and low key political style has calmed the waters in American political life. As measured by studies of Google searches, Trump is fading in the American consciousness and Biden has not replaced him.  Since the inauguration, the number of searches using the terms Trump and Biden have declined.

But even as the attention of the American people on the presidency has diminished, attitudes towards it are much different.  By a large margin, Trumpists and Trump leaners believe that Biden has made communication to the American people MORE negative than when Trump infested the WH.  They actually liked Trump’s loud, abusive, and confrontational style, and now criticize, like Ccornyn, that Biden is too normal and not bombastic enough.  A lot of that is the constant torrent of vitriol that they are fed by rightwing media and Republican politicians trying to keep the spotlight on themselves.  The other is that much of Trump’s base is actually attracted to over the top rhetoric along with the childish bullying and insults.  In short, Biden’s not a big enough asshole to suit them, and probably could never be.

The GOP is so subverted that just being normal is now viewed as weakness.  The Crazy Train to 2024 is already full and pulling out of the station.  It promises to be a weird trip.

This is a good one…Rick Scott who’s chairing the NRSC this cycle attempted to gain favor with Trump by inventing a new award, the Champion of Freedom.  He had it engraved on a tiny cheap bowl and rushed over to Mar a Lago to give it to him.  THEN, he stupidly tweeted out the picture.  Yes, the Twitterverse responded as you would expect, and it is glorious.

This party is so fucking pathetic that they have to bestow golden offerings (with names like "FrEeDoM aWaRd") to stay in the good graces of their one-term president.

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) April 12, 2021