Policy positions v. a baseball bat

Testimony in the nasty guys business fraud case is wrapping up. He wanted to give his own closing arguments, an unusual move. The judge, Arthur Engoron, first thought to let him provided he didn’t turn it into a campaign speech, then on Wednesday said no he couldn’t. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reported that early morning Thursday, the day of closing arguments, authorities went to Engoron’s home in response to a bomb threat. No actual bomb was found and the court proceedings continued as scheduled. A second AP article reported:

Barred from giving a formal closing argument, Donald Trump seized an opportunity to speak in court at the conclusion of his New York civil trial Thursday, unleashing a barrage of attacks during a six-minute diatribe before being cut off by the judge. “We have a situation where I am an innocent man,” the former president protested. “I’m being persecuted by someone running for office and I think you have to go outside the bounds.” After a few minutes, Judge Arthur Engoron — who had denied Trump permission earlier to give a closing statement at the trial — cut him off and recessed for lunch.

This article added a bit more about the bomb threat and also reviewed the case. Bill Bramhall of the New York Daily News tweeted a cartoon of a bomb squad in Engoron’s office and the squad leader saying, “All clear to write the verdict.” Dartagnan of the Kos community wrote about projection and the nasty guy’s escalating use of it.

Donald Trump dropped some blatant teasers last week revealing what the day-to-day experience of living under a second Trump regime would be like. They all share a common theme or motif, one routinely employed by fascists and despots in autocratic societies to bamboozle the public while keeping their critics (often the media) off balance. The method is called “projection,” and for Trump it is a well-documented, well-established rhetorical tool. ... Projection essentially means accusing your opponents of the crimes and misdeeds you are actually guilty of yourself in order to distract from your own behavior. Its effect is reminiscent of the classic old carnival attraction known as a “hall of mirrors.” A hall of mirrors, of course, is a room or series of rooms staged and set up to reflect back grotesquely distorted images of everyone who passes through. The purpose is to unsettle and confuse, to keep the observer off balance and questioning their reality through a repeated sequence of disturbing illusions.

The projection is now to the point where the nasty guy is calling Biden the insurrectionist. Dartagnan quoted Jason Stanely, professor of philosophy at Yale University:

Fascist tactics always involve projection. The fascists are always accusing their opponents of being the totalitarians. The fascists are always accusing their opponents of being the threat to the nation that they in fact are. The fascists are the most corrupt people, like the Nazi party was incredibly corrupt, incredibly lawless. But they accused their opponents of being corrupt.

Dartagnan quoted professors Chris Bell and Gary Senecal who wrote an article for Room analyzing the nasty guy’s rhetorical tactics. They said projection can make a situation difficult to understand. That creates confusion and obscures reality. It gives the appearance the opponents are doing the same things, creating a false equivalency. Back to Stanley, who said projection manipulates a susceptible population, to make them feel like victims, that they’ve lost something because of a particular enemy. Stanley wrote, “This is why fascism flourishes in moments of great anxiety, because you can connect that anxiety with fake loss.” Dartagnan quoted David Renton, writing for Jacobin, who said fascists use projection to co-opt the state institutions best equipped to perpetrate the violence that sustains fascism. In fascists states the violence is aimed at women (for violating the “natural order”) and anyone that blurs the line between male and female, such as LGBTQ people, especially transgender. In present day America that means co-opting the military and the intelligence services. The nasty guy will escalate the sense of threat and use the formidable tools to eliminate the threat. He and his enablers have announced they will do just that in a second term. Escalating the threat keeps the focus off the person doing the escalating. Bell and Senecal explain that projection bypasses logical debate, including developing a background knowledge of an issue and engaging in a reasoned case over position. Instead, it confirms preexisting biases. This is what is coming in a second term. It will be similar to the first but with a much more sophisticated propaganda and disinformation apparatus. If you don’t wish to live in such a country understand this well and vote accordingly. Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press shows a modern debate. The Democrat has a stack of policy positions. The Republican has a baseball bat. Mark Sumner of Kos has a few things to say to those who believe the nasty guy won’t impose a national abortion ban. First, instead of participating in the last Iowa debate (Haley and DeathSantis on stage) the nasty guy had a solo “town hall” on Fox News where the host lobbed easy questions so he could talk about himself. As part of that he bragged about he was the one to end Roe v. Wade. Second, he has been talking, not about enacting a national abortion ban, but warning fellow Republicans that talking about abortion before the election isn’t good for getting elected. But after the election he’ll be ready to sign a national ban through executive order. Third, he’s been repeating a hideous lie, one that Fox News hosts are letting slide, that Democrats want to kill babies, even after they are born. (See above about projection.) Dartagnan also discussed the nasty guy telling European officials he intends to pull us out of NATO. A fundamental position of that organization is if one member is attacked it will be seen as an attack on all and all will respond. That’s why during the Cold War the Soviets never attacked West Germany. It why in the current war Putin isn’t attacking Poland or the Baltic states. That deterrence won’t mean much if the US president says the other members are on their own. If Russia doesn’t fear a US response they are much more likely to attack. Ask Ukraine about it. The US betrayal of Europe would also make South Korea, Taiwan, and Israel wonder if they’re next. The US military would lose standing in the world. Trade agreements would be seen as suspect or worthless.

As those alliances disintegrated, the entire idea of democratic representation—the idea that people deserve a voice in their own government—would start to erode on a global scale. It wouldn’t happen quickly, as Applebaum notes, but, “By the time people here realize how much has changed, it will be too late.”

The nasty guy may have complained about US protection being a handout to Europe. But this is about “our own country’s future and its ability to survive in the world we are faced with.” And the nasty guy seems willing to throw that away. My goodness, I’m getting tired of writing about this guy and the havoc he intends to inflict. I want to ignore him until after election day, but I dare not. Last week I wrote about environmental tipping points. Pakalolo of the Kos community reported that science has determined another. This is the “snow loss cliff.” As long as the average winter temperature of an area stays below 17F (-8C) the snowpack at higher elevations is stable. What melting it does provides water to people who live downstream. But when the average temperature rises the snowpack decreases. Here’s the tipping point part: each degree of warming means faster decreases in the snowpack. This is not a linear relationship. By the time the temperature reaches 32F (0C) half the snowpack can be lost. Snow cover is not the same as snowpack. Snow cover refers to the geographic range of the show. Snowpack refers to the amount of water frozen in the snow.