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It takes a brave investor to go into business with Donald Trump.

The former presidents hotels and casinos have declared bankruptcy six times. Trumps short-lived airline crashed. He paid out millions of dollars to settle multiple lawsuits for running an unlicensed university that the conservative National Review called a massive scam. And then there is the Trump Organizations looming criminal trial for tax fraud.

For all that, a business built around Trumps famed ability to rile up millions of people online must have seemed a good bet to those who poured money into backing the company behind his rival to Twitter, Truth Social.

Now that too has run into trouble as more than a billion dollars in investment has stalled amid shareholder hesitation and a federal investigation into whether Trump Media and Technology Group broke the law in its dealings with a company set up to provide the money.

As so often with the former president, its not immediately clear what is going on.

Trump launched Truth Social in February after he was thrown off of Twitter for inciting violence after he lost the presidential election. He previously ran a blog, From the Desk of Donald Trump, but it shut down after less than a month because almost no one was reading it.

Truth Social has fared better as a vehicle for Trump to rile his base and rage against his enemies, and for white nationalists and others on the far right to say what they cannot on Twitter. But it has failed to generate the kind of reach enjoyed by other social media platforms.

Trump has about 4 million followers on Truth Social compared with 80 million on Twitter, in part because its reach has been limited by a ban by Googles app store for failing to take down posts making physical threats and inciting violence.

Truth Social had only 11.5m visits in July compared with 7bn to Twitter, according to the online analytics firm Similarweb. Last month, Trump Media reported losing $6.5m in the first half of this year. It is also reported to be in debt to a web hosting company.

That has raised questions about whether investment in Trump Media is a sound business decision or likely to be money thrown into the sinkhole of the former presidents ceaseless political campaigning.

Michael Ohlrogge, a law professor at New York University who specialises in the kind of funding Trump is now seeking, said that there is no evidence Trump Media has a strategy to become a money-making enterprise.

Theres a lot of questions about whether this a viable business. Is it actually going to make any money? Theres plenty of good reasons to doubt that. Its pretty obvious that this was just this thing that he slapped together very quickly, he said.

Trump Media had been counting on a large injection of money from a form of shell corporation created solely to raise funds for another business by merging with it, known as a special-purpose acquisition company (Spac).

Digital World Acquisition Corp was created as a Spac a year ago without any commitment to invest in Trumps media business. Shareholders gambled that their investment would increase in value when Digital World found a company to merge with. Thats exactly what happened when the deal with Trump Media was announced just seven weeks later, driving the price of Digital Worlds shares up tenfold.

But earlier this month, the shareholders failed to meet a deadline to approve the merger, depriving Trump Media and Truth Social of about $1.3bn.

In addition, the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors are blocking any merger while they investigate Trump Medias dealings with Digital World after questions were raised by the speed of their tie-up announcement.

Ohlrogge said that the SEC is likely to be looking at whether Trump sealed an agreement, or came close, with Digital World before the Spac began selling shares without telling potential investors, in breach of financial regulations.

If they were already in advanced talks with Trumps Spac and didnt tell that to the initial investors, then that could be a relatively clear violation of the securities laws. Theres relatively good reason to suspect that may have been the case, he said.

Meanwhile Digital Worlds share price has fallen back sharply, from a high of nearly $100 to about $23, although anyone who bought from the initial offering would still double their money.

Ohlrogge said it is not clear why shareholders did not approve the merger by the 8 September deadline. He said that some may not have been paying attention. Others may be withholding approval until Trump resolves issues with the SEC.

What makes the most sense for Trumps company would be to just settle with the SEC, do whatever they want and try to get them happy in order to get them to let the merger move forward. That kind of an approach, though, does not seem to be Trumps preferred method in most legal dealings. He seems to fight tooth and nail, he said.

Some shareholders were twitchy about the wisdom of financial dealings with Trump once they found out where their money was going.

Digital World has now called a special shareholder meeting for next month to extend the deadline for approval of the merger by a year. It remains unclear how that will go after the Spac acknowledged earlier this year that Truth Social may never generate any operating revenues or ever achieve profitable operations.

Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor in the school of information studies at Syracuse University and author of Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age, said that Truth Social is an effective tool for Trump to stay in touch with his base, which is to some extent amplified by journalists writing about his statements. But she questioned whether it could ever get beyond being a political campaigning tool to function as a business.

One of the tremendous assets for Trump has always been his name. Because of his brand he gets an instant base of people that Truth Social can start to expand from. But then it has to expand past that, because thats probably not enough to keep this enterprise going. I dont see how Truth Social expands beyond that very, relatively narrow, hardcore base that is Trumps bread and butter constituency, said Stromer-Galley.

If I were an investor of communications, media, and technology companies, I would be sceptical of what is the actual business that Truth Social is in. When the head of the company cant put together a coherent business case or legal arguments for what theyre doing, is this really someplace you want to put your money?

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Is Truth Social another of Trumps bungled businesses? - The Guardian US

The line between imagination and delusion is thin, as Donald Trumps initial reaction to an FBI search at Mar-a-Lago in August demonstrated. In the first days afterward, the former president saw the search as a political gift, not a blow: a chance to rally his base, put would-be challengers like Ron DeSantis in their place, and reconsolidate his eroding position as the leader of the Republican Party.

Over time, it has become clear that the FBI finding reams of top-secret documents at his club is not, in fact, a boon to Trump. Even with the presidential-records investigation slowed down by a sympathetic judge, the probe has exacted costs both political and monetary, including a $3 million prepayment to a lawyer aware of Trumps tendency to stiff people who provide services. Nearly every Trump adviser youve ever heard of, plus a few you havent, has been subpoenaed by the Justice Department in an investigation into election subversion, and the House committee looking into the same matter will return to public hearings later this month. The New York attorney general just rejected a settlement offer in an investigation into Trumps business.

David A. Graham: Trump opened Pandoras prosecutorial box

No single strategy can handle the range of problems Trump faces. With some clever forum-shopping, he managed to get the FBI investigation into the hands of a judge whom he appointed late in his termshe was confirmed after the 2020 electionand whose rulings have baffled and appalled legal experts. But this is a stalling tactic, not a solution, and not every judge draw will be so lucky. A second strategy is to cry political persecution, which is good at rallying the minority of the population who already stands behind him but unlikely to win over those who dont, especially because the claims are so unpersuasive.

This brings us to a third gambit: threats. If the people pursuing these criminal investigations into his conduct dont back off, he warns, someonenot him, mind youmight do something dangerous. In this heads-I-win, tails-you-lose logic, the justice system can either exempt Trump from the rule of law or risk someone destroying it by other means. Nice democracy youve got here. Shame if someone tried to make it great again, again.

In an interview yesterday, the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, a Trump critic turned flatterer, asked whether being criminally indicted would dissuade Trump from running for president in 2024. Trump took the answer in a dark direction.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Donald Trumps mafia mind-set

I dont think the people of the United States would stand for it, he said. I think if it happened, I think youd have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps weve never seen before. I dont think the people of the United States would stand for it.

The implication was clear enough that Hewitt felt the need to throw Trump a preemptive lifeline: You know that the legacy media will say youre attempting to incite violence with that statement.

Thats not inciting, Trump replied. Im just saying what my opinion is. I dont think the people of this country would stand for it.

But theres no need to believe hes merely making an analytical judgment. Anyone else can see as clearly as Hewitt what Trump is doing. As The Altantics editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, has noted, Trump commonly uses this mob-boss-derived method: He speaks in fluent innuendo and implication, making his desires clear while leaving himself just enough vagueness to be able to smirkingly deny it.

Read: The lurking menace of a Trump rally

Like a Mafia dons warnings, this Dons warnings serve as a kind of intimidation, trying to make authorities who care a great deal about the government, civil peace, and the reputations of their agencies (as Attorney General Merrick Garland clearly does) wonder whether its really worth enforcing the law against this particular would-be defendant.

These threats might also actually occasion violence. By now, everyoneTrump, Hewitt, you, mehas seen this happen. Sometimes, the violence comes from mentally disturbed individuals who think theyre doing what Trump wants, such as Cesar Sayoc, who sent bombs to Trump critics shortly before the 2018 midterms, or Ricky Walter Shiffer, who was killed after attempting to attack an FBI office in Cincinnati just days after the Mar-a-Lago search.

Other times, the violence comes from Trump backers who simply listen to what he says: the kinds of people who slugged protesters at campaign rallies after he waxed nostalgic for the good old days of rough treatment and offered to pay legal bills, or who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, after Trump called on them to fight like hell.

If there was a time when Trump didnt know how people would respond when he makes these veiled threats, it has passed. He understands now, and does it anyway. His persistence also helps show why his claims that his exhortations on January 6 were not incitement are not to be believed.

This very real menace also makes Trumps threats ultimately self-defeating. When he speaks this wayor when he embraces QAnon, or whatever fringe view he happens to be espousing at the momentit riles up his backers, but it also drives away voters he needs to be a viable political force. This means the threats are unlikely to be Trumps salvation, even as they could inflict real harm on American democracy. He seems not to care.

Read the original here:
Trump's Threats of Violence - The Atlantic

President Trump often complained about the deep state of career civil servants who, he asserted, were determined to undermine his presidency. He promised to drain the swamp, and his aide Steve Bannon predicted the deconstruction of the administrative state.

But it was his own presidential appointees who most visibly resisted his directives. Political appointees are expected to be the most loyal advocates of a presidents policy agenda, riding herd on the many bureaucracies of the executive branch. Yet Trumps appointees in the White House, cabinet, military, and intelligence community refused to carry out many of the presidents directives to an extent unprecedented in the modern presidency. President Trumps appointees went well beyond the normal disagreements about policy that are typical in every administration; they resorted to slow walking orders, refusing to comply with directives, and even outright sabotage. Leadership is central to the presidency. The resistance to President Trump by his highest level officials illustrates how his own appointees judged his leadership.

Senior members of the White House staff often tried to thwart Trumps instincts. For example, Staff Secretary Rob Porter considered Trumps desire to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord unwise. So, Porter took a draft statement off Trumps desk. Similarly, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and Porter decided to slow-walk an order to withdraw from the NAFTA free trade agreement. Cohn told Porter: I can stop this. Ill just take the paper off his desk before I leave. If hes going to sign it, hes going to need another piece of paper. Later, after multiple reviews, Trump got his way on the Paris Accord and NAFTA.

In August 2017, Trump wanted to fulfill a campaign promise to withdraw from the U.S. free trade agreement with South Korea, and a letter was prepared to that effect. Cohn thought that if Trump saw the letter, he would sign it; so Cohn quietly removed it from Trumps desk. Eventually Secretary of Defense James Mattis talked the president out of abandoning the agreement.

During the Mueller investigation about possible Trump campaign coordination with Russia, Trump ordered White House Counsel Donald McGahn and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to have Mueller removed, but they refused. Trumps counsel, Pat Cipollone, refused Trumps order to take a 2020 election case to the Supreme Court.

Reflecting on his White House service, Staff Secretary Rob Porter recalled: A third of my job was trying to react to some of the really dangerous ideas that he had and try to give him reasons to believe that maybe they werent such good ideas. When top economic adviser Gary Cohn recalled how he removed decision papers from the presidents desk, he said: Its not what we did for the country. Its what we saved him from doing.

Though White House staffers are powerful, cabinet secretaries are officers of the United States and hold the most authority in the executive branch, short of the president. Yet Trumps appointees often refused to do his bidding. When Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielson refused to implement a White House plan to arrest thousands of immigrants in major cities across the country and deport them, Trump fired her.

For all of his posturing about the military power of the United States, President Trump did not respect the norms of military leadership. President Trump demonstrated his attitude toward his secretaries of state and defense as well as military leaders. In a meeting with them in July 2017 at the Pentagon, after Trump had been briefed on the status of U.S. forces, Trump lashed out at his top civilian and military leaders: Youre all losers. . .. Youre a bunch of dopes and babies. No commander in chief had ever spoken to his top national security appointees in that manner.

In the spring of 2017, Trump ordered the removal from South Korea of the U.S. radar installation, that was essential for detecting any missiles coming from North Korea. Secretary of Defense Mattis refused to carry out the direct order until he was able to talk the President out of his decision. Secretary Mattis also rejected Trumps desire to Kill Bashar al-Assad

On July 26, 2017 President Trump tweeted that, contrary to then current policy, the military would not allow any transgender individuals to enter the armed forces. Mattis slow walked the order until the Supreme Court allowed it to go into effect. On November 11, 2020, General Mark Milley was given a memo, signed by President Trump, stating: I hereby direct you to withdraw all U.S forces from Afghanistan. General Milley and Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller went to the White House and Trump was convinced to rescind the memo.

In line with President Trumps distrust of the career services, he considered the intelligence community to be part of the deep state. After meeting with President Putin, Trump took him at his word that Russia did not try to affect the 2016 election. In doing so, he ignored the unanimous consensus among the DNI, CIA, NSA, and FBI.

Trump was not the only president to have conflicts in his White House staff or who requested the resignations of cabinet secretaries. But his administration set records in turnover in Executive Office of the President (EOP) and the cabinet.

At the White House level, Trump had four chiefs of staff, four national security advisors, five directors of National Intelligence, four press secretaries, and six communications advisors (including acting officials). Likewise, the turnover in Trumps cabinet (14) exceeded by far the first term turnover of all other modern presidents. Trump had four secretaries of defense, four attorneys general, and four secretaries of homeland security (including acting secretaries). When Trump decided to replace his officials, he often insultingly fired them by tweet (for example, Priebus, Esper, Nielsen, Tillerson, and Coats, among others).

Despite President Trumps complaints about the deep state, the above examples illustrate the willingness of top-level White House aides and cabinet secretaries to actively undermine his wishes.The danger is that in a second term Trump would not make the mistake of appointing officials with integrity and courage.

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President Trump and the shallow state - Brookings Institution

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) Former President Donald Trump is visiting the Valley Saturday, to campaign with Senate candidate J.D. Vance.

The event will be at the Covelli Centre.

Like any major event that happens at the Covelli Centre, there will be some rules youll need to follow. Like any concert, there is a list of prohibited items:

A representative with the rally said simply to use common sense and to be courteous of others in attendance.

If you dont want someone beside you also with a loud noisemaker or something besides, thats going to be distracting dont bring it in yourself because you wont be allowed to take it into the arena. But, if you use that common sense, I think youll be OK. Youre able to bring in purses and small water bottles and things like that. But, when in doubt, go ahead and leave it at home, said Save America Rally Representative Luke Ball.

Event representatives say the rally is an all-day event. The parking lot will open early at 8 a.m. Saturday. There will be food and other vendors to check out all morning long. Then, at 2 p.m., the doors open at the Covelli Centre.

Seats are first come, first serve. Guest speakers begin delivering remarks at 4 p.m.

Here is the complete list of speakers:

Then at 7 p.m., former President Donald Trump will be speaking in support of Vance.

It is recommended to get there as early as possible to make sure you get the seat you want.

One rally organizer says tickets are not required, but rally goers are encouraged to sign up on the website so event organizers know how many to expect.

If you are unable to make it, WKBN.com will be offering a live stream of the event.

Original post:
What you need to know: Trump in Youngstown - WKBN.com

Editors note:These two columns by David Corn first appeared in his newsletter, Our Land.But we wanted to make sure as many readers as possible have a chance to see them. Our Landis written by David twice a week and provides behind-the-scenes stories about politics and media; his unvarnished take on the events of the day; film, book, television, podcast, and music recommendations; interactive audience features; and more. Subscribing costs just $5 a monthbut you can sign up for a free 30-day trial ofOur Land here. Please check it out. And please also check out Davids new book: American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy.

Donald Trump recently issued a statement on his strugglingTRUTH Social platform: Why are people so mean? This came in the middle of a conservative crusade to depict liberals and Democrats as nasty folks. Trumps remark captured the absurdity of this campaign. The fellow who routinely assails political foes and critics as losers, whose misogynistic history of denigrating women is unparalleled in American public life, who rose to the top of the GOP pile by disparaging the physical appearances of his opponents (and, in one case, the wife of an opponent), who railed against Muslims and shithole countries, who called for locking up his political rival, whoworships revenge and lives on spite, who denounced journalists as the enemy of the people, who relishes conjuring up ugly and dismissive nicknames for his political adversaries, whose entire political project is built upon denigration and vilificationthis guy complains about people being mean? And this list does not include his incitement of an insurrectionist riot or his attempt to destroy the foundation of American democracy.

Yes, you can chalk this up to Trump projection: his habit of accusing others of his own pathological sins. But his whine occurred as other right-wingers boo-hooed about President Joe Bidens recent blast at Trumpism. During a campaign rally in Maryland, Bidennotedthat Trump has embraced political violence andno longer believes in democracy: What were seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. Its not just Trump, its the entire philosophy that underpins theIm going to say somethingits like semi-fascism. Of course, the right went berserk over this.

A Republican National Committee spokesperson howled that Bidens comment was despicable. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu exclaimed that it was horribly inappropriate and urged Biden to apologize. Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted that communists have always called their enemies fascists. (Biden is a communist?) But what to call a movement that denies election results, falsely claims an election was stolen, and refuses to admonish or excommunicate a leader who encouraged and used violence in his effort to overturn that election? In a flurry of unhinged tweets this week, Trump demanded his restoration to the presidency (a move impossible under the Constitution) and hinted that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago might spur his supporters to violence. That all sounds a bit fascist-ish.

Trump and his cultists are masters at the Im-rubber-youre-glue form of name-calling. Each day, I receive a bunch of fundraising emails from Trump or other Republicans lambasting evil Democrats as radical socialistsor communists pursuing devious plots to purposefully destroy America. In a recent request for money, Sen. Marco Rubio, citing the FBI raid, railed that the Biden administration was comparable to Marxist dictatorships. (As the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Rubio ought to care about the handling of the intelligence communitys secrets. Yet he pounded the FBI for the raid, claiming in MAGA-like fashion that the bureau was doing more to erode public trust in our government institutions, the electoral process, and the rule of law in the US than the Russian Federation or any other foreign adversary.) During the 2020 campaign, Trump asserted that Biden was in league with antifa, Marxists, looters, anarchists, Black Lives Matter, terrorists, and radicals to demolish Americas suburbs, where a law-abiding citizen could easily become the victim of a very tough hombre. (Not too subtle, eh?) He portrayed Biden as an ally of far-left fascism. For decades, the GOP has depicted Democrats as an anti-American force (commies! radicals! subversives!) actively scheming to wreck the nation. Now they cry foul?

Alt-right (andwhite supremacy-supporting) Stephen Miller went bananas on Fox. Referring to the FBI search, hehuffed, What you are seeing is the classic technique of tyrants and authoritarians where they use the methods of dictatorships while accusing their opponents of being fascists. (Miller called the FBI raid an effort to seize and steal [Trumps] property and his documentsan utterly false characterization. The records belong to the US government, not Dear Leader.) Also on Fox, right-wing commentator Mollie Hemingwayharrumphedthat Bidens semi-F-word remark is more hateful than the worst thing Donald Trump has ever said. Last year Hemingway enthusiasticallytweetedout an article from the conservativeFederalistthat proclaimed Bidens vaccine program was a fascist move. Apparently, F-word for thee, not for me. And amid this kerfuffle, Trump posted a photograph of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which their faces were covered by the words Your enemy is not in Russia. In other words, they are your enemy. Not mean, right? Such meme-ing could well lead to violence.

One of the silliest retorts of the right came after Matt Lewis, a level-headed conservative columnist for theDaily Beast, posted a column that zeroed in on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz andasked, When did the GOP become the party of jerks? Right-wing writer Bethany Mandelreplied, If I had to pinpoint a moment, when Mitt Romney spent his entire campaign being accused of killing Big Bird, building binders full of women, torturing the family dog, etc etc. That certainly set off Twitter. She was suggesting that Trumps party was driven mad-mean because the Ds had been too rough on good ol Mitt.

Did Mandel forget that in the years prior to the 2012 campaign, Republicans and conservatives regularly accused Barack Obama of being a secret Muslim socialist who despised the United States and was conspiring to ruin the nation? Did she not watch the Tea Party rallies attended by John Boehner, then the top House Republican, where the crowd cried out, Nazis! Nazis, when Democrats were mentioned? Did she never view Glenn Beck on Fox, as he claimed the Obama administration was creating concentration camps and prominent Republicans appeared on his show to validate his conspiratorial lunacy? Nothing said about Romney matched the right-wing vitriol hurled at Obama. (At McCain-Palin rallies in 2008, Republican voters shouted out that Obama should be killed.) And also: Rush Limbaugh. By the way, Romney embraced this guy named Trump, the number-one birther.

On September 1, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Biden again addressed the issue of MAGA extremism in a formal speech. Noting that not every Republican is a MAGA Republicanwhich is a charitable position these dayshe declared, Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. He put it simply: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And theyre working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence. Factcheck: True. Biden did not use the F-word, but he fully and passionately explained how Trumpism presents a profound danger to the nation.

And this, too, triggered the Trumpers. Mercedes Schlapp, a former Trump White House official,exclaimed, No Republican can feel safe in Bidens America. (Ask the 150 cops who were brutally assaulted by MAGAites at the US Capitol.) In pro-Trump internet forums, Biden was cast as Hitler. Ari Fleischer, the onetime White House press secretary who helped the Bush-Cheney administration lie the United States into the Iraq war,slammedBiden as the most divisive, over the top, rhetorically vile, bumbling, inarticulate president in history. Did Fleischer just wake up from a five-year coma? Whats more divisive than inciting political violence and purposefully doing nothing to stop it because it benefits you?

There has long been an asymmetry in American politics. The GOP, going back to McCarthyism, has wielded falsehoods and paranoia to cast its political enemies as malevolent and nefarious threats to the nationas literal enemies of the state. Democrats have tended to assail Republicans as being on the wrong side. And now we see that Trump and his Republican enablers are snowflake fascists. They hurl false accusations to demonize and dehumanize adversaries, plot against democracy, peddle outrageous lies to their followers,support dangerous and nutty conspiracy theories, andfan the flames of political violence. Then they moan when they are called out. Cmon now. Fascists ought to be made of sterner stuff. Perhaps thats why Biden called them semis.

Last issue, I wrote about the snowflake fascism of Republicans and conservatives. As I explained, Donald Trump and his cultists have long demonized liberals and Democrats, often calling them fascists (or subversives and enemies of America), but now they clutch pearls and express outrage when President Joe Biden warns that baselessly challenging and refusing to accept election resultsand inciting (or downplaying or dismissing) a violent insurrectionist attack that attempted to overthrow democracy should be seen as semi-fascism. This is obviously a disinformation tactic adopted by MAGA Republicans, and it is being deployed in tandem with another propaganda tool: gaslight fascism.

This is when authoritarians deny their own efforts to impose an authoritarian regime. The GOP has been engaged in gaslight fascism since the January 6 riot, refusing to fully acknowledge the assault for what it was: a rampage of domestic terrorists who had been directed by Trump toward the Capitol and who tried to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power. With Biden raising the stakes by calling out MAGA Republicans as a fascistic force, these gaslighting efforts appear to have intensified. Which makes sense: The raid on the Capitol and the GOPs subsequent refusal to disavow the man who sparked this violence (and who this past week said he would considerfull pardonsfor convicted January 6 rioters, should he again be elected to the White House) are key components of Bidens compelling case for labeling the MAGA GOP a threat to the nation. To counter Biden and to claim thathe(not Trump) is the divisive force in American politicsTrump called Biden an enemy of the state at a rally in Pennsylvania this weekendMAGA-ites cannot admit the reality of January 6 and Trumps various schemes and actions to sabotage the 2020 election.

I encountered this directly after Biden delivered his recent speech at Independence Hall blasting MAGA Republicans, when I got into a Twitter dust-up with Ric Grenell, the combative and nasty (and apparently misogynistic) Trumpster who served as Trumps acting director of national intelligence for three months in 2020, despite his lack of experience in the intelligence community. Grenell contended that criticism of Trump and the Republicans for January 6 and the 2020 Big Lie was nothing but a Democratic attempt tocrush dissent.He insisted that Trump had done no wrong on January 6 and only had called fora peaceful protest. He asserted that the fact-based description of Trumps misdeedsTrump declaring victory with no basis for that claim, subsequently plotting secretly to overturn the election results, and then doing nothing when his mob attacked the Capitolwasfake history.

This was full-scale denialismso extreme as to be absurd. But this is how fascists and authoritarians debate. There is no real truth; there is only the self-serving truth they can concoct and enforce. George Orwell knew this. In1984, what is the apotheosis of the Partys desire to create a false reality? In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it, Orwell wrote. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it.

Trump fascists have been trying to do the same with the 2020 election: conjure an alternative reality untethered from confirmed facts and declare it to be the partys truth. And in a two-plus-two-equals-five way, they transform a democracy-threatening authoritarian force into patriotic defenders of democracy. Grenell was casting the Big Lie brownshirts as heroic dissenters, not fascist thugs. More disturbing was that a pack of Grenells tweeps chimed in with assorted lies and distortions about the 2020 election and January 6. They were drowning in the Kool-Aid served by Trump, Grenell, and their co-conspirators.

This was not surprising coming from Grenell. Days after the 2020 election, he claimed that there had been widespread voter fraud in Nevada butrefused to provide evidenceto back up his assertion. (This allegation was judged apants-on-fire lieby Politifact.) And now he was presenting a clear example of the MAGA playbook: insist Trumps attack on democracy was no attack on democracy. With such a denial, it is far easier to blast Biden as a mean-spirited and divisive hater of MAGA. As former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley did,complainingof Bidens speech, Its unthinkable that a president would speak about half of Americans that way. You can only get away with this line if you ignore the fact that Trump has for years been accusing Democrats of seeking to destroy the United States. As I noted previously, during the 2020 campaign, Trump accused Biden of pushing far-left fascism. Did anyone get their knickers bunched over that? (By the way, Biden did not apply his warning to half of Americans. The number might be closer toa tenthof the population.)

The reality of Trumps conniving to subvert the republic cannot be recognized by leading Republicans. Doing so would create a dilemma for them. They would then have to explicitly declare themselves in favor of or opposed to this Trumpian war on democracy. They realize an outright expression of support for autocracy would not be good for the GOP, yet a declaration of opposition to the Trumpist assault on the Constitution would alienate any Republican from the partys cult-like base. (See Liz Cheney.) To survive within the GOP, they must deny. They must say black is white. War is peace. Authoritarianism is democracy. That is the only way the party can now exist. The logic of their position demands it.

The rest is here:
Donald Trump and His Two Forms of Fascism Mother Jones - Mother Jones