Trump associates with some rather questionable characters, including Lin Wood:

Despite many in Trump’s orbit declaring war on Wood after he pushed for a boycott of the Georgia Senate races, the president himself has personally kept in touch with the firebrand. Trump has not only encouraged Wood and Powell to continue with their “Kraken” lawsuits, but he also hasn’t told them to tone down their rhetoric, much to the dismay of many of Trump’s advisers.

This article caught my eye:

It seems that even the “free speech” social network Parler has its limits.

The social network that has attracted scores of conservative commentators because of its commitment to free speech has taken down several posts from Trump affiliate Lin Wood, according to a report in Mediaite.

In one of the posts removed from the social media platform, Wood called for the execution of Vice President Mike Pence.

The Trumpistas that stormed the Capitol seem to have similar views:

Meanwhile, the incitements to execute Pence seem to have been the animating factor for at least some of the rioters who stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday. Reuters Photo News Editor Jim Bourg tweeted about hearing at least three different rioters hoping to “find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by hanging him from a Capitol Hill tree as a traitor.”

There’s discussion over whether Trump was inciting a riot and/or whether a “coup” attempt took place. Most of the discussion has too narrow a focus. For 5 years, Trump has been using violent rhetoric and fascist symbolism to create a misogynist, xenophobic, white nationalist movement in America. He’s demonized foreigners and minorities. He opposes free speech. He repeating praises brutal dictators while denigrating our democratic allies. He advocates putting a million Chinese Muslims into concentration camps. He praises American war criminals. He advocates torture. He invents a poisonous mythology of a stolen election, and tells his supporters to show strength in stopping Congress from stealing the election (while he hides like a coward). He surrounds himself with people who advocate violence, including Steve Bannon (who said Fauci should be beheaded) and Rudy Giuliani (who called for the Capitol Hill mob to engage in “combat”.) And Lin Wood.

Update: I forgot to mention that the Arizona Republican Party encouraged its members to be willing to die for Trump. (Why would anyone want to die to protect a coward?)

Do I really need to connect the dots? How can anyone not see Trump for what he is?

Now you might argue that all this violent rhetoric was “just joking”, or metaphors. Maybe so. But look at the videotape of the morons that stormed Capital Hill. Do these look like people who understand when a person is joking?

It now seems that the GOP is going to stick with Trump. He’ll continue to poll well among average people, and cowardly GOP politicians will therefore stick with him. They cower in fear. That means that each day Trump will drag the Republican Party ever further down into the gutter with him.

It’s still Trump’s party.

Here’s me, before the recent Georgia election:

Does Trump even want the GOP to hold the Senate? Or is Trump like some un-named central European dictator who doesn’t care if his own country is destroyed once it becomes clear that his hairhare-brained scheme for world domination didn’t work?

And today we see that:

“The president was telling people today that he was happy Loeffler and Perdue lost, according to a person familiar with the conversations,” she tweeted.

“He said they didn’t defend him enough,” she added.

Not enough? Trump is the best friend the Democrats ever had. But then perhaps he’s just a mole; he did support Bill Clinton, didn’t he? 🙂

PS. Like Trump, I’m glad they lost.

Winners:

Mitt Romney and other conservative Never-Trumpers.

CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, etc. No, they didn’t exaggerate.

Intellectuals with TDS

Biden—He has enhanced moral authority to get things done. Recall LBJ after the Kennedy assassination.

Black Lives Matter (If you can’t see systemic racism in the kid glove treatment of that white mob, there’s nothing I can do to help you.)

Wall Street

Xi Jinping (we lose some of the moral high ground)

Losers:

Trump and his family

Cruz, Hawley, Pence and the rest of the Trump lapdogs

Fox News and the National Review

Right-wing intellectuals who claimed they focused on “the issues”, not Trump’s “bad manners”. Those who mocked Trump’s critics for being unhinged. The universities where they teach and the think tanks where they sell your services. I’ve gotten a wheelbarrow full of junk mail from these places over the past 4 years. Pathetic defenses of Trump.

A dead DC police officer and 4 dead protestors

Putin (seen by the Dems as having helped Trump get elected.)

PS. I just saw Trump’s hostage tape concession speech, and broke out laughing. He started lying 10 seconds into the speech (when he claimed that he immediately called out the National Guard), and lied all the way through.

PPS. Another day with more than 4000 reported deaths. But then Trump says the numbers are fake.

For the first time ever, yesterday more than 4000 Americans were reported to have died of Covid. But don’t worry, Trump’s hard at work on the issue (writing tweets that the mass Covid deaths are fake news.)

—–In a normal country, that behavior by a president would be a major scandal. A disgrace. In America, I’m not sure it even makes the top ten list.

PS. The sawtooth nature of the graph reflects the fact that less data is collected on weekends—actual deaths would be smoother.

PPS. Who’s going to explain how things work to the VP: