"Republicanism is a political ideology that encompasses a range of ideas from civic virtue, political participation, harms of corruption, positives of mixed constitution, rule of law ..." That is essentially the opposite of what the Trump Party has become.
One of the most disturbing aspects of MAGA cruelty is that so many approving of the cruelty call themselves 'Christian' and flagrantly wear Christian crosses around their necks. It is almost as if they are trying to redefine Christianity as a Satanic cult.
The MAGA administration appears to be run by deeply flawed and dysfunctional human beings who are projecting their deep dysfunctionalism onto the outer world as a mirror of their dark inner reality.
In other words, a jury will fail if all members do not belong to the MAGA cult.
A cult-like state of self-delusion.
If this MAGA administration had one iota of principle, they would at least consider replacing him. But MAGA is at its nihilistic core an anti-principle movement.
The constant lying of Trump and MAGA is not to fool people, it is a part of a larger gaslighting strategy to make people indifferent to their lies and to make truth irrelevant.
It is not so much that Trump is directly attacking family values. That is a side effect of his sociopathic nihilism. He essentially hates and seeks revenge on all humanity.
Trump epitomizes the vulgarity and profanity of our times. He has inflamed it and used it for his own political purposes. It will be his legacy.
Of course he is 'special' in the sense of 'unique', but that term can always be applied to the most horrible examples of the human species.
Freud called it the 'death instinct' or 'death drive'. It is always latent in the psyche, but tends to emerge when someone develops an insatiable ego that feels very frustrated yet morally unrestrained.
If human society doesn't thrive, humans don't thrive. What are our priorities? Humans or computers?
"I do what I think is right .. whether it benefits me or not." As a principle, this is what is so missing today in an era of hyper-partisan tribal politics. It used to be a common idea. Believe or not, even many conservatives once abided by this principle.
It is an unwise ethos that gets more irrational the longer the time frame and the broader the scope of its effects.
This is another example of MAGA's ideological war on rational, ethical adult minds. They detest rational, ethical adults more than America's mortal enemies.
Mother Nature will probably survive Donald Trump, if she can get a good lawyer.
Maybe he wants to redecorate wherever he is going in expensive gold decor, like the White House.
Remarkable case of Orwellian double-think: I hate the guy and will never vote for him BUT I adore the guy and will bow down and kiss his feet. In a short-lived split brain struggle, his selfish Reptilian Brain has utterly squashed the brain module with some rationality and ethics.
Once again, the lightbulb only goes on in MAGA minds when their particular ox is being gored. Otherwise, the ethics of an issue is irrelevant and meaningless to them.
Gimme the Peace Prize or I'll break your legs.
They were specially vetted for their roles as fawning sycophants and to ensure that the naked emperor could always revel in narcissistic flattery while looking down at the sniveling hoard at his feet.
It is sort of like Al Capone complaining that he shouldn't be convicted or sent to Alcatraz because it would be an embarrassment to Italians.
"he feeds and inflames Trump’s worst instincts." He is very successful at it because Trump has no moral defences, being a psychopath. He is normally a relatively benign psychopath who Miller has manipulated into being a malignant psychopath.
It is a stage performance with troops as amateur actors.
There some psychopaths for whom truth-telling is a weakness and lying is a sign of strength. The more and bigger the lies, the stronger you are because it shows you are either so powerful that you are above accountability, or that you simply don't care about accountability or consequences.
Just as Trump is giving America a bad name in the world, he is also giving billionaires a bad name. Not all billionaires are bad people, but we would be wise to wake up to where they are leading the world. Only democracy can save us from their worst tendencies.
Cruelty is like a drug with these guys. It gives them their daily high.
Scared and silent is not what Americans have normally been in their long and sometimes heroic history, but Trump has tapped into some of America's darkest psychological weak points to form MAGA. Hopefully America proves to be better than MAGA.
There's an easy fix. Maybe all elected representatives in Congress should swear allegiance to the US Constitution. Oh wait.
The masks suggest they are not considered public servants by Trump (or Miller), but as servants of Trump.
The next Democratic administration should make a very public display of taking it all down to contrast the extravagant hypocrisies of MAGA with a more sensible party.
It appears that comment struck a nerve. That suggests that Putin and his Kremlin cronies exist in a bubble of self-righteous denialism.
He is the unleashed reptilian brain unrestrained by conscience, the product of one's inner demons gleefully annihilating one's better angels.
Of course, the resemblance to the notorious 'brown shirts' in Germany in the early 1930s is very obvious.
Trump is now reveling in his power to be flagrantly unethical and sadistically immoral without accountability.
Like with all dictators, the more outlandishly unethical or immoral you show yourself to be, the more powerful you feel. You eventually feel you no longer need to answer to your conscience or to God. That is pure power.
Once again, we see the deliberate irrationality and irresponsibility at the ideological core of MAGA. They are an anti-adult cult of overgrown juvenile delinquents.
It also demonstrates MAGA's overwhelming need to use scapegoating to explain the world to themselves.
Their priorities are indeed warped if one presumes that conscience matters. But this administration has shown that it not only lacks conscience, it is ideologically anti-conscience.
Miller has made of himself a very compelling target for mockery. Savagely mocking these pompous fascists may be an effective way to neutralize their obvious attempts to terrorize and intimidate Americans.
Maybe Vance should show some gratitude to the free and democratic America that he was born in and that allowed him to become a relative success in life. Instead of trashing its laws and traditions to serve a dictator.
Trump has shown that he ultimately has no loyalty to anyone but himself, no matter the cost to others. So it is ultimately futile to suck up to him. Thus there is really little to lose in standing up to him. The more who do so, the sooner he will back down. There is no realistic alternative.
If Trump had any rational or ethical understanding of his policies, he probably would have very different policies. He has become a nihilistic wrecking ball, which is what a psychopath who feels totally unchained naturally becomes.
This high level of disrespect for freedom, democracy and the ethical principles of the Constitution must be a projection of a deep self-contempt plaguing many Americans. What in American culture is producing such a high level of self-contempt?
The longer that MAGA runs the American government, the more likely that America First will turn into America Last in the eyes of the world.
What is the average lifespan of a dictator? I suspect that even if they avoid a grisly ending, the effects of constant paranoid anxieties will eat away at their health.
Even the top elites seem trapped in a state of paralyzing disbelief that we have reached this point. Is it a lack of rationality or courage that defines them? It does seem rational to conclude that we need a new type of leader for these unprecedented times.
I suspect that the very psycho-dynamics of his pathological narcissism will relentlessly impel him toward at least pretending to want to hold power forever. He is also very afraid of appearing to be a weak or 'lame duck.'
Trump functions like a Russian asset mainly because his mind and soul are more attuned to that of a sociopathic dictator like Putin than to any leader of a rule of law democracy.
I'm surprised it hasn't happened already. We are inexorably nearing an ignition point for mass violence like the 1960s.
Maybe we should all pray that someday those who control America will care more for the lives of children than for the profits of gun makers.
Maybe they should pray that God will save the children from their own ideological cowardice and stupidity.
If they eliminated everyone who didn't align with Trump's agenda, they would literally have no one left with a rational adult mind. The federal government would collapse.
If I was Trump, I would be watching my back. If you've been watching closely, Vance seems secretly obsessed with taking over as soon as possible.
Trump and his sycophants make some of the childishly dumb insults imaginable. Their very propensity to be dumb and their profound self-destructive stupidity may actually be what will ultimately save us.
This is essential for self-integrity, which is essential for the type of rational, ethical adultness that is almost totally missing from the Trump administration.
Many concerned persons are watching closely. This will not end well.
Trump's sociopathic attitude to life and human relations is a bigger threat to the true spirit of Christmas than tariffs.
'Lost touch with their humanity' describes MAGA very well.
It is much more reasonable to conclude that 'demonic forces' are responsible for MAGA.
One more sickening sign that MAGA is a sociopathic cult.
He is a dramatic symptom of something deeper that has gone wrong in American culture and society.
Trump chose his cabinet for this very purpose. He is a surprisingly good judge of character, or rather, lack of character.
"What kind of evil country does this to people?" That is the question more and more civilized countries in the world are asking? It has been asked of countries like Afghanistan and Russia, but now asked of both the U.S. and Israel.
In saner times, when integrity mattered, a more responsible Supreme Court would at least drop a subtle hint or two that that statement was slightly at variance with the U.S. Constitution.
Guns are not the main problem. The main problem in America is its gun culture fed by paranoia.
"His hubris will be his undoing." Unfortunately, it could also be America's undoing. Americans knowingly elected someone who essentially proclaimed he was above the law, above morality and above reality. A reckoning is coming for the self-deluded.
The Trump administration resembles a combination of the Mafia, a motorcycle gang and the Jehovah's Witnesses. The way Trump is going, I can see him replacing the Lincoln Memorial with a statue of his true hero, Al Capone.
Bluesky is one of the last refuges from having your soul sucked out of you by Orwellian algorithms.
"They couldn't imagine someone of Trump's character gaining power." The big question then becomes: why have so many Americans become so apathetic to the 'character' of their political leaders?
This partly the result of a culture that does not teach its children how to grow up with integrity into responsible adults.
Except that it is not simple cause and effect. He was planning to attack scapegoats before winning the election. The failed policy is not the cause of his scapegoating. It is the excuse.
Christian nationalism is a perversion or rejection of the core teachings of Jesus. As such, it is also a perversion or rejection of the ethical, moral and spiritual potential of humans to rise above their inner demons toward their better angels. That is the opposite of true Christianity.
What will all the Trump sycophants do with themselves when Trump and his madness are gone in a few years? Do they think they can just order a spine from Amazon so they can walk around upright like normal humans? Like they did before Trump?
Trump seems increasingly not only drunk with power, but with the sadistic abuse of power. This cannot end well.
If you're an utterly unprincipled psychopathic leader obsessed with absolute power, you will need absolute blind loyalty. Revenge for disloyalty will be your main policy tool. But it is a policy that will make you many more enemies than friends. So watch out!
If you're an American who is OK with subverting democracy and the rule of law in your own country, subverting other countries, even former friends, is a no-brainer.
Anyone who cares about Trump's health should also care about whether he has surrounded himself with sycophantic doctors who only tell him what he wants to hear. They will shorten his life.
'There is no rule of law'. History shows, time and time again, that acting on such an evil assertion will not end well.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that his psychopathic ego is entering a state of unrestrained glee that it has no checks or balances of any kind, legal or moral.
In Freudian terms, war is what these MAGA types are all about. That war starts in their own souls, becoming a war on their own consciences and now projected as a war on anything 'woke' -- i.e. any moral sign of human decency.
Make lawlessness great again.
In Freudian terms, it is a projection of their own tortured self-contempt.
To a paranoid sociopath, the worst of the worst is anyone who challenges him.
As an outsider, I am puzzled as to why so many Americans, particularly Republicans, have revealed such an ignorance or even contempt for their own Constitution and with it the rule of law in general. What has happened in America?
This like deputizing the Hell's Angels. All the worst impulses in toxic males are being encouraged.
Unprincipled people only notice wrongdoing when it affects them. Presumably, O'Leary is concerned that this will set a precedent that will undermine his notion of 'only the fittest survive' capitalism.
The political and moral lesson here is that they just don't care.
There is nobody that Trump detests more than a person of principle. He himself is probably the most unprincipled person to ever set foot in the White House, never mind as President. MAGA has only one principle: blind fealty to Trump.
"An America that works for all of us" is clearly not what the MAGA elites want for America. Their 'soft on slavery' attitude is indicative of what they envision for America.
Every one of us must confront the question: if not now, when? When we will find the courage to stand up for ourselves, for our families, for all that our ancestors fought and died for?
It is very interesting to watch America deal with this historic crisis. What will be the Rubicon moment for different people and groups and how will they react to the realization that it is now or never for their democracy and their own inner integrity?
Of course, retribution can be a two-edged sword. As Trump uncharacteristically noted, he is probably not going to heaven (but to hell). That may be God's retribution.
It is an interesting philosophical question as to whether turning parks into golf courses is a more noble idea than paving paradise to put up a parking lot.
Paranoid psychopaths can be dangerous, especially if they have political power.
One irony is that MAGA's authoritarian and state interference policies have more in common with communism than with democracy.
American culture as a whole does not value an educated mind. It is the only country on Earth that I am aware of in which a significant fraction of the population sees ignorance as a virtue.
Corruption used to be bad. Now it is a pillar of Trump's new America. To be anti-corruption is to be woke. Make corruption great again!
Trump is the Ugly American on steroids. He has unleashed the ugly American and the inner demons in millions of otherwise normal Americans. He has rendered the American soul into a stinking pile of fascist offal.
It is clear from the history of such policies by such regimes that 'feeling safe' is actually not the real intent. Just the opposite.