I’ve been tardy in approving comments and posting these daily rants to Facebook and Bluesky. I am also likely to miss a couple of days, although I will try not to. I usually write ahead, but yesterday’s was the last full post I’d prepared.
On vacation in South Carolina, I was trying to help my son-in-law take my husband’s mobility scooter out of the rear of his van. I slipped (it’s heavy) and fell, and heard something crack (NOT a pleasant sound!) Turns out I fractured something called the T12 vertabra. I flew home rather than riding in a car for 15 hours, but the airplane trip didn’t help. Bottom line, I’m pretty much out of order for the next couple of weeks. Between the pain and the drugs to control the pain, it’s definitely interfering with my ability to read, think and analyze. So expect brief messages rather than extended conversations for the next few days, until sitting at my computer is easier.
ER folks tell me the fracture is the only problem, which is good, and that it should heal in 8-12 weeks–and the pain should subside well before that, so those of you who are kind enough to keep coming back to my cantankerous offerings won’t have a long time to wait for the “full experience.”
Meanwhile, if you have news that Trump’s hold on his cult is failing, the Epstein files are being leaked, Stephen Miller has disappeared–good news, in other words–please share it in the comments!
The central mystery of MAGA’s devotion to Donald Trump has always been–at least to me–one incomprehensible question: how can any minimally reasonable person look at this man– an adjudicated felon and sex offender, a thin-skinned buffoon and bully constantly lashing out at any criticism with kindergarten-level insults and a third-grade vocabulary–and think, “yep, that’s the guy I want to entrust with the nuclear codes.” How can anyone who can read or watch news videos ignore the increasingly psychotic behaviors?
It’s understandable that people who don’t follow the news, or who get their “news” from Fox, et al, might have missed the copious evidence of his greed, and his use of the Presidency to enrich himself–although the most recent evidence (Paramount Plus’ payment of a bribe to get the government to approve a merger that will make its owner billions) has been very widely publicized.
Evidently, none of this matters to the MAGA cult: not the stupidity, not the ignorance, not the greed. Not the enormous damage he is doing to the country. Cult leaders can do no wrong.
So what explains the evident defection of so many MAGA cultists over the Epstein cover-up? Why of all things has the increasing likelihood that he participated in the rape of numerous young girls penetrated (no pun intended) MAGA’s “see no evil” devotion? After all, they were happy to ignore all the evidence of his predatory sexual behavior against adult women–E. Jean Carroll’s successful lawsuit, the 26 women who’ve claimed they were subjects of groping and other inappropriate assaults, his own taped admission that, being a “star” (at least in his wildly inflated opinion) he could grab women by the you-know-what.
Sane Americans are cheered by recent polling that shows Trump’s precipitous decline, but according to Gallup there are still 37% of Americans who approve of his performance as President. Thirty-seven percent of us look at this pathetic, criminal ignoramus and say “looks good to me.”
Psychologists tell us that one of the most important aspects of a cult–one of the most attractive attributes to members–is the reduction of the individual’s autonomy, the ceding of control over large areas of one’s life to someone else. As one article I read put it, the cult controls people’s thinking and behaviour, their choices about who to associate with, what jobs to do, who to marry or have relationships with, what to believe, and depending upon how extreme, when to eat and sleep and even in some notorious cases when to die.
In addition to relieving the burden of thinking for oneself, in the case of MAGA, mountains of research have affirmed the central role played by racism. As American society has changed in ways that most of us would consider positive, White “Christian” men have experienced those changes as assaults on their status. How dare those uppity women take management positions? When did those Black and Brown people get the idea that they were entitled to equality? Gay people are getting married! There were plenty of straight White males who experienced the progress of others as an assault–as deprivation of their god-given right to dominance. Trump validated their anger and bitterness at a world that was failing to accord them the status they believe is their due. He made it okay to voice their racism, homophobia and misogyny.
Most of all, he provided them with stories to tell themselves. One of the most pervasive of those stories was that of the Deep State. Government was filled with horrible Democrats who sexually abused (and even ate) helpless children. Cult members were the good guys who were going to root out these terrible people and return control of the country to the good guys who deserve to control it. It was an article of faith, a part of the cult identity.
What happens when this article of faith encounters the reality that Trump–the man with whom they identified themselves in this holy war against evil– is one of the bad guys, one of the Deep State pedophiles? I think we’re about to find out.
Some of the faithful will simply reject the evidence, but as we are seeing, others will experience disillusion.
I don’t know what the outcome will be, but thus far, Trump’s usual tactics–lie, call out “fake news,” blame Obama and Hillary Clinton, manufacture distractions–haven’t worked. There are several possible outcomes: MAGA may burrow more deeply into denial and cognitive dissonance. They may double down. Or they may defect.
The most important thing I learned in law school can be summed up with the adage “he who frames the issue wins the debate.” The most consequential move a lawyer–or any debater–can make is to define what the argument is all about. (Our idiot-in-chief clearly does recognize that, at least at some subconscious level, since his response to any and all accusations is always to insist that the real issue is whether the accuser is “fake.”)
What reminded me of that old law school conclusion was a recent article in the New York Times, citing a communications professor from Texas A&M, one Jennifer Mercieca. According to the article, her recent book addresses that issue– what she calls “frame warfare.” Mercieca argues that the power to name things is the power to define reality, and she identifies that tactic as Trump’s most potent. As she points out, it’s a tactic that goes hand in hand with his constant assertions that fly in the face of facts and evidence. Redefinitions of reality, she writes, have been central to his success.
As Mercieca explains frame warfare, “What you call a thing determines the contours of the debate around it — or precludes debate altogether. Did you borrow a car without permission, or did you steal it? Was the crush of migrants at the Mexican border an invasion or a humanitarian crisis?”
The importance of framing is obvious in the fulminations of America’s White Christian Nationalists. One of the most obvious examples is the debate about abortion. “Christian” paternalists focus on the “sin” of terminating a pregnancy–on the propriety of the decision being made by a pregnant individual. Civil libertarians insist that the issue is really who decides? In our frame, we ask: is this a decision government should have the authority to make, or is it a decision properly made by the individual woman? As I used to tell my students, the Bill of Rights is essentially a list of things that government is prohibited from deciding–what prayer you say (or whether you pray at all), what political opinions you hold, whether you have a right to travel without offering justification to authority…
Back when Republicans could credibly claim to be proponents of limited government, many weighed in on the side of individual liberty. (I remember–back in the day– being part of a group called Republicans for Choice.) Barry Goldwater famously said that government didn’t belong in either your boardroom or your bedroom. (That belief also led him to support gay rights–he even got an award from PFLAG.)
Rather obviously, if we decide that the role of government is to require people to live in accordance with God’s will, we have to decide whose version of that will government should enforce. “Christian” nationalists are fine with giving government that power, so long as they get to be the arbiters of what is “godly.’ They also talk a lot about religious liberty–for them. They aren’t so solicitous about religious liberty for adherents of other (wrong) religions. Their version of religious liberty turns out to be their liberty to use government to impose their particular religious beliefs on those who don’t share them.
It isn’t just the “Christian” nationalists whose framing is perverse. It’s also MAGA.
Just what makes America great? Or more properly, since “again” is a prominent part of that slogan, what DID make America great? If you listen to Trump’s base, it’s pretty clear that their version of “greatness” requires the social dominance of straight White males.
Over the past several years, Americans have stopped debating policy–after all, policy debates require evidence, consideration of past experience ….FACTS. It requires respect for people who come to the conversation with a different–but rreality-based– perspective. The reason we can no longer engage in civil discourse is that MAGA has framed control of government as a fight between the resistance of those of us who live in the real world and their right-their need– to impose their “alternate reality”–their preferred frame– on the rest of us.
I think the proper frame for the culture war we are fighting is this: Both MAGA and the “Christian” nationalists want to take America back to a time that never was.
For the length of my 83 years, I have been proud of being an American Jew.
My deep devotion to this country has been based upon its commitment to what I call “The American Idea,” the philosophy that permeates our foundational documents. The principles set out in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights undergird creation of an open society–a society in which individuals have the right to live in accordance with their beliefs, so long as they do not harm others. In such a system, minorities thrive. Granted, slavery and various bigotries have challenged that goal of civic equality over our history, but the U.S. was the first country to aspire to a system where government power flows from the people rather than the other way around, and is structured to protect individual liberty.
And even though I’m an atheist, I am a very Jewish atheist, adhering to the values of a Jewish culture that admonishes us “Justice, justice shall thou pursue,” and counsels that–while we aren’t expected to perfect the world in one generation–we aren’t free not to try. The Jewish commitment to community has produced citizens who believe in social justice for everyone, not just the “elect” or chosen, and who feel an obligation to help achieve it.
Everyone who reads this blog knows what is occurring in today’s “Trumpified” America. And most know how far Netanyahu has deviated from the founding beliefs and Jewish values of the State of Israel.
Klein notes that the American Jewish community is split, largely but not entirely on generational lines, with younger Jews more critical of Israel. I can certainly understand that. I still remember my mother crying as she read the Black Book–a compendium of Nazi atrocities. Like most Jewish families, we had a blue box where pennies and nickels were collected to plant trees in Israel, which was seen as the only place in the world where Jews could be safe. Older American Jews retain their devotion to the “Promised land,” and have enormous difficulty believing that it is behaving in a manner entirely contrary to the most central values of the Jewish religion.
Where do these twin disasters–the disintegration of American governmental structures and norms, and the unbelievable deviation of the Jewish state from the values on which it was founded– leave people who (like yours truly) have made allegiance to those norms and values central to their lives and behaviors?
I practiced law for several years. I spent six years as the Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU. I spent two decades teaching students public policy through a constitutional lens, emphasizing the various ways in which our governmental structure and the protections of the Bill of Rights enable what Aristotle called “human flourishing.” (Not that it was perfect, nor all of its provisions adequate for all time.) Watching the destruction of the rule of law, and the cowardly obedience of what was once my political party to a demented manchild, has been agonizing.
Like most Jews, I felt a special kinship to Israel as it operated as a haven for my co-religionists all over the world. I took pride in the ability of its original settlers to create a vibrant and vital state from the desert, although I did disagree with certain aspects of its governance–especially the settlements policy. (Despite anti-Semetic slurs, that kinship was nothing like “dual loyalty,” any more than my Irish friends’ special fondness for Ireland constitutes dual loyalty.)
I encourage those of you reading this to click through and read Klein’s essay in its entirety; he captures the angst of both Israel’s defenders and those of us who simply cannot see any honest way to justify what is occuring.
The two main pillars of my philosophical/intellectual life are being erased. I feel the way my friends who are real Christians feel as they watch their faith being appropriated by very unChristian Christian Nationalists.
To define this situation as “unpleasant” would be a gross understatement.
There’s a tendency to lose focus on past Trumpian insanities while fixating on the most recent ones–and insanities come daily from our mad would-be king. But as we approach the next arbitrarily-set date for the institution of his further, higher tariffs, it’s probably a good time to revisit the impacts of one of his biggest and most damaging misconceptions. In a recent column, Michael Hicks patiently explains why we citizens will pay for that misconception, and why the costs Americans will have to absorb due to Trump’s tariffs are worse than additional costs attributable to inflation.
As Hicks writes, “the average American family will pay about $2,500 more this year because of tariffs. But unlike inflation, your wages won’t rise to compensate. That’s because tariffs work differently than inflation.”
Inflation is a decline in the value of currency over time. It happens because there is too much currency in circulation. That extra money can enter the economy through a growing deficit, as happened after the 2020 CARES Act, the 2021 American Rescue Plan and—the most inflationary of these—President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
When certain tax and spending policies meet monetary growth ( a result of miscalculations by the Federal Reserve), the result is inflation. Inflation affects all goods and services, including wages. (During the last inflationary bout, wages actually grew more than prices for the average private sector worker.) Not so with tariffs.
Tariffs work very differently. Tariffs are taxes on imports and range from 10% to 55%, depending on the country of origin, the product in question and the president’s hormone level.
Hicks reminds readers that American consumers pay tariffs–not the countries producing the goods, despite Trump’s insistence that tariffs are a fiscal punishment for the countries exporting the merchandise.
Thus far, consumers haven’t really seen the higher prices that Trump’s tariffs will produce. That’s because, as Hicks explains, imports spiked in February, March and April as American businesses bought nearly five extra months’ worth of goods. That was in order to beat the tariff deadlines and avoid the extra tax. The surge meant that “many of the goods now on store shelves and being assembled into cars, computers and washing machines were bought before the tariffs, keeping price increases relatively low.”
The consumer price index—the main measure of inflation—rose 0.3% in the latest reading. That’s modest, but it came as the Federal Reserve was successfully reducing inflation. Prices have stopped falling and are rising again.
These higher prices are solely due to Trump tariffs. They are poised to worsen substantially as the stockpile of pre-tariff goods are sold by retailers or put onto cars, RVs and other American-made products. The cost of goods sold later this summer, and until tariffs are eliminated, will continue to rise.
This increase in prices and the consumer price index will look, feel and taste just like inflation. Journalists and even economists will call it inflation, but it’s not inflation. If it was inflation, we’d eventually see wages rising as well. But higher tariff costs don’t lead to higher wages; in fact, the opposite may occur.
The tariffs took the U.S. from 2.4% growth in the fourth quarter of 2024 to -0.5% in the first quarter this year. The economy continues contracting, which will reduce wage growth and maybe even reverse it. So, as prices go up, wages will decline for the average worker.
Trump keeps insisting that his tariffs will cause businesses to increase domestic production–to build factories in the U.S. There are a number of false assumptions underlying that prediction, and we are already seeing a drop, not an increase, in factory employment. Hicks notes that the two months of data that became available since Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced show that the U.S. lost 14,000 factory jobs.
As he also points out, the slowdown in the economy this year follows a pattern that virtually all economists have identified as an outcome of tariffs–one reason for the global decline in their incidence. He also tells us that price increases due to the imposition of tariffs is not–at least technically–inflation.
The technical name for rising prices during a weak economy is stagflation. And Hicks reminds us that stagflation is “what made the 1970s so miserable.”
Despite MAGA world’s constant dishonest attacks on Joe Biden, he presided over America’s robust economic recovery; he left Trump an economy that was globally envied. But then, Biden had assets Trump lacks–decency, a working brain, and a firm connection to reality.
