#cult of trumpism

[isawthismeme]

[shutinthenutouse]

I think it is time to write a new constitution. Past time really. https://gofund.me/f8097784

right now if you were to call for a constitutional convention it would be dominated, albeit by a thin majority, by Christian Nationalist sympathizers. So no for now and until we can wrestle several state legislatures away from these new world Fascists we are gonna have to muddle on with the one we got. Tweaking it here and there.

[deadpresidents]

Hypothetically what do you think would have happened if the january 6 rioters had gotten to pence or pelosi before they got safe?

At this point, I almost dread answering questions like this anymore because I know the kind of hate mail it will unleash for the next few days, but it's important to keep talking about what happened on January 6, 2021 since so many people are trying to normalize it. That includes many people whose lives were in danger that day, as well as the former President who tried to hold on to power by encouraging his supporters to launch a violent insurrection and is now referring to those who have been brought to justice for attempting a coup as "patriots" and "hostages".

I genuinely believe that there were people in that crowd who would have killed Vice President Pence, Speaker Pelosi, and certain Congressional leaders if they had reached them on January 6th. I think there are people in that crowd who were ready to hold lawmakers hostage. Why else did they have handcuffs and zip ties? To help the Capitol Police maintain order? (Oh yeah...that's right, thanks for reminding me: they violently attacked the police -- some even beat police officers with the "Blue Lives Matter" flags that they brought with them.) Now, I do not think that everybody who was at the Capitol on January 6th -- or even the majority of those who took part in the insurrection -- were willing to go that far. I think a lot of them got swept up in what was happening and went with the flow. That doesn't excuse what they did. The flow that they got swept up in was still a fucking insurrection, and anyone who took part in that deserves to be held accountable. But I think there were certain elements embedded throughout that crowd that were much more organized and prepared to fully execute their plans for a coup after disrupting the certification of the Electoral College votes.

I actually think Vice President Pence was probably in more danger than even Speaker Pelosi or some of the Democratic leaders because Trump was so actively calling him out in the days and hours before the insurrection. I think that's why Pence is so adamant now about not supporting Trump. I mean, think about how disgustingly loyal and subservient Pence was to Trump throughout those four years until basically the first few days of January 2021. But even as other Republican leaders are crumbling and offering their allegiance to Trump again in 2024, Pence is standing by his decision not to endorse or support Trump, and I think that's because he realizes that Trump absolutely almost got him (and his family, who were with him in the Capitol on that day) killed on January 6th. Shit, even Mitch McConnell has folded and endorsed Trump again despite the fact that Trump has spent the last three years not only insulting him but also making racist attacks and questioning McConnell's wife's loyalty to the United States all because Elaine Chao had the audacity to resign from Trump's Cabinet in the wake of the insurrection. Yet Mike Pence -- who spent the better part of four years following Trump around like Paul Heyman follows Roman Reigns...

...THAT same Mike Pence is steadfastly refusing to endorse Trump because he has personal experience about how real of an existential threat Trump is. Some of those people at the Capitol were very serious about following through on their chants to "Hang Mike Pence", and not only does Pence realize that, but he also knows now that Trump -- who refused to take actions that would have helped clear the Capitol more quickly -- said "he deserves it" when hearing about those chants.

That's what is so scary about the insurrection, its aftermath, and the Trump Republican Party's redefinition of what happened that day. It almost worked. They stormed the United States Capitol and invaded both chambers of Congress. They carried Confederate flags into the United States Capitol -- even the fucking Confederate States of America didn't successfully invade Washington, D.C. and plant their flag in the Capitol. They were willing to hurt and probably kill some of America's elected leaders. And the people who helped plan and instigate the events of January 6th have spent the three-plus years since then learning from their mistakes and figuring out how to be successful next time. And guess what? "Next time" is only a few months away.

[rockets-capris]

When we said that Pete Hegseth wasn't just hateful he was literally devastatingly unqualified, we meant it, and the fact that Mitch fucking McConnell had to say it before any republicans took it seriously is so-

And you know what, MAGA still won't take that shit seriously. They still won't. They don't even CARE ABOUT ANY OF THESE CABINET PICKS it's just Trump said they're good so they must be, right?!

And the second one of them says something against Trump, they're gonna tear them apart like vultures like they have done to JD Vance multiple times now.

McConnell is an actual politician, who at the very least cares about the head of a thing having a background in that thing. Jesus Christ, this is gonna be a disaster. You wanna talk about "unqualified hires to fill diversity quotas" look at the fucking people Trump is hiring.

He selected for the most fringe, sycophantic idiots he could find in hopes he can bully them into doing whatever he wants. Because what we saw in 2020 with Mike Pence is that even a qualified Republican has enough braincells to go against Trump when he goes against the constitution.

[boymanmaletheshequel]

As we enter back into an era where technology is used primarily as a weapon against you by the United States and Russian governments, (welcome back 1980s! 😍) let’s go over some tips to consider if you are a queer, bipoc, or otherwise an “enemy from within” as trump so lovingly and hypocritically put it, to protecting your identity and privacy through the internet so that you can continue to resist this cultural shift safely and resiliently!

• stop posting identifying information on social media like your full name, place of residence, and pictures of yourself or other at risk people, and go back and delete posts in which you might’ve already.

• disable location tracking services and camera and mic access to apps, services, or websites that you know to be compromised by the influence of shady overseers, such as X, Instagram, Facebook, Google, and TikTok. I know it’s convenient to use these but it’s a MAJOR security hazard.

• Turn your phone COMPLETELY off when discussing sensitive subjects with friends or when you are making plans of resistance and gathering your communities, or when you are discussing personal feelings on such subjects with family, friends, or a doctor/therapist. Basically all mobile phones now have live mics that are constantly listening to you.

• Create a new email under a fake name if you haven’t already to use as your primary email address, in order to further protect your true identity.

• use an alternative browser like DuckDuckGo or brave in place of google, preferably with a VPN on top of it to even further secure your browsing history and to bypass potential IP blocks of websites from the government.

• if you want to watch YouTube and don’t want a recording of your watch history, log out of your account and watch that way, preferably you would just delete your account entirely but I understand why some might not want to.

• pirate content from streaming services via piracy websites, again so that your watch history can’t be used to make assumptions about you if that data were ever sold to the government.

These are obviously just some of the ways to bypass data collection and ti protect your real identity online, but there are many others I’m sure I’m not aware of. Please add to this if you can, and stay safe out there, because anything you say can and will be used against you in the future of this country. But: We have survived this kind of shit before, we can again, if we are careful. Loose lips sink ships, and that goes for the internet as well.

[politicintel]

Sshhhhhhocker 🤣

[jonostroveart]

Accordion Hands

[shutinthenutouse]

[deadpresidents]

This shit is just insane. And the response of the followers of Trump's personality cult on social media to this is fucking bonkers.

Can we go back to living in a somewhat normal country now?

[tomorrowusa]

«[T]he Trump trials are more than his means; they are his ends. The trials are not the sideshow, but the heart and soul of Trump’s campaign. They have become his essential fundraising tool to finance his defense, his platform for whipping up his followers into a constant state of excitement, and his instrument for dominating the media to make himself the center of attention and blot out coverage of anyone else.

The trials are the message. They are the drama around which Trump plays his role as the unjustly accused victim, whose rights are trampled and who is the martyr for his oppressed “deplorables”. He is taking the slings and arrows for them. The narcissist is the self-sacrificing saint. The criminal is the angel. The liar is the truth-teller. If any Republican lapses in faithfulness, they are more than a mere doubter or skeptic, but a betrayer and traitor. Trump’s trials are the rigorous trial of his followers’ faith. Rejection of temptation in an encounter with an impertinent fact that might raise a qualm shows purity of heart. Seduction by fact must be resisted. The siren song of critical thinking must be cast out as sin. Trump’s convictions are the supreme test of his followers’ strength of conviction.»

– Sidney Blumenthal, author and onetime senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, writing at The Guardian.

Trump frames himself as a quasi-religious figure – which is ironic given his personal lack of spirituality.

It's not at all gratuitous to refer to Trumpism as an extremist cult. Members of this cult will even flirt with death at his suggestion. We remember how large numbers of the Trump cult followed his quack medical advice during the pandemic emergency rather than observe scientific medical practices. Many became human sacrifices to the Dear Leader.

The only way this cult will end is to utterly defeat its leader. Reasoned arguments and logic won't cut it with the profoundly self-deluded. And the only way to defeat Republicans is to vote Democratic in large numbers.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert P. Jones at Religion Dispatches:

Last week’s historic verdict is worth rehearsing. On May 30, Donald J. Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a crime. Twelve ordinary citizens unanimously found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in an attempt to conceal hush money he paid to a porn star with whom he allegedly had an affair—all driven by a desire to protect his 2016 presidential campaign. Following the verdict, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who had already made a public pilgrimage to the New York courtroom to undermine the legitimacy of the trial while the jury was still considering evidence, continued to defend Trump and called for the US Supreme Court to “step in.”  [...]

Johnson’s boasts of personal relationships with and open partisanship among US Supreme Court justices is deeply troubling. It builds on the legitimacy problems the nation’s highest court is facing in the wake of the recent stories that Justice Alito flew flags representing support for the January 6th insurrection and White Christian nationalism at his primary residence and a beach house. That revelation, in turn, amplified previous confirmations that Justice Thomas’s wife Ginni Thomas was deeply involved in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election to keep Trump in office. But on Saturday, ahead of a Republican fundraiser event in Peoria, Johnson said something even more disturbing in his continued defense of Trump. Trump, Johnson said, “is not just our nominee, not just an individual running for president. I think now he’s seen as a symbol, a symbol of one who is willing to fight back against that corruption, the deep state and all the rest.”

Given any number of other statements by Johnson, this comment may seem unremarkable. But the transformation of Trump from a person to a symbol is the key to understanding the power of the MAGA movement and the internal logic of the upside-down world where a unanimous guilty verdict in a fair trial results in solidified support, record fundraising, and desperate Christian defenses of a convicted felon. [On the latter, see Al Mohler, president of the SBC’s flagship seminary: “Say what you will about Donald Trump and his sex scandals, he doesn’t confuse male and female.” Also, see “From Fox News to the Far(ther) Right — Calls for Violence and Retribution Follow Trump Verdict“]

[...]

The MAGA movement, more than any in my adult lifetime, has spawned a multitude of transgressive and aggressive symbols. The proliferation of flags alone is remarkable: the ubiquitous blue Trump 2020, the “Trump is My President, Jesus is My Savior,” and the thin blue line. These commune with older flags resurrected with new meaning, such as the Tea Party’s “Don’t Tread on Me,” the insurrectionist’s inverted US flag, and the Christian nationalist’s “An Appeal to Heaven.” And they whip alongside White supremacist flags that still mean what they have always meant, such as the Confederate flag and even Nazi flags. Beyond the banners, a gleaming golden idol made in Trump’s image appeared at a 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), clad in a coat and tie paired with American flag shorts and flip-flops, holding the US Constitution in one hand and a magic wand in the other. At the individual level, a plethora of hats, t-shirts, bumper stickers, digital art (often featuring Jesus and Trump), tattoos, and, of course, Trump’s “God Bless the USA”-branded Bible flooded into public spaces. This explosion of symbolic material was the result of the energy unleashed by the Big Bang of the MAGA movement. Yet, this chaotic cloud of symbols are only mediating objects of devotion, held in loose orbits around the gravitational force of Trump, transposed from man to totem.

[...] When the leader becomes the totem, no transgression is capable of separating him from his acolytes. A totem can’t lie or be vulgar. A totem doesn’t have marriage vows that can be violated. A totem can’t sexually assault a woman. A totem can’t commit fraud. A totem can’t betray an oath to the Constitution. A totem has no innate human characteristics at all. It’s a mirror, reflecting back the collective fears and aspirations of the group, who both generate its image and receive it back reinforced.

Robert P. Jones writes in Religion Dispatches describes the symbolism that Donald Trump represents to his brainwashed supporters: They view him as a totem for their grievances against a civilized society.

[ziggy-solarecreator]

[witchypandamonium]

You will never win over these people, get them to break free of the cult's mental conditioning, with spiteful schadenfreude and I-told-you-so's. You need to show them that universal really means universal. You can and should put up boundaries to prevent them from hurting you, but when they are hurting you need to show them that we shouldn't be fighting each other, we should be supporting each other and punching up.

I do actually care marginally about the guy in that reddit screenshot who voted for Trump and is now worried that he might lose his medicaid funding because I did not fucking stutter when I said healthcare is a human right but the people losing their internships and job offers to the hiring freeze are straight up hilarious.

[jonostroveart]

HE SUITS NIKKI

Much of America was shaking heads in mild, slightly stunned (but not really surprised) disbelief yesterday, as Nikki Haley casually let it me known that she plans to vote for Trump in November. I titled a previous Nikki drawing: “Not so Picky Nikki.” I guess that could still work, too.

[deadpresidents]

"It's pretty much impossible to go anywhere in Iraq and not be reminded of Saddam. Thousands of portraits of him appear on walls and in glazed mosaic tiles on concrete plaques. In granite, bronze, and gilded statues he holds a sword aloft; he prays; he rides a prancing stallion. Saddam smiles, frowns, fires guns, smokes cigars. He is depicted wearing a black leather greatcoat and matching trilby; in military uniform; in Arab robes, three-piece suits, and even, oddly, trekking gear. He is sometimes thin, sometimes imposingly muscular, occasionally fat, his face pouchy and double-chinned. He wears a judge's robes and holds scales in his hands; dandles small children on his knee; stands with bloodied sword over a mutilated serpent whose tail is in the form of a cruise missile. On one building, eight identical smiling Saddams are set together, creating an effect not unlike that of Warhol's 'Marilyn Diptych.'" -- Jon Lee Anderson, "The Unvanquished", The New Yorker, December 11, 2000

It's almost chilling how similar this sounds to the ridiculous propaganda images on social media used in the present-day United States to build up the MAGA/Trump personality cult. This is happening here.