Musk is not the only problem. Trump will appoint the heads of federal agencies who will then dismantle them. RFK Jr. has announced that in return for dropping out of the race, Trump promised RFK Jr. that he would be put in charge of public health in the U.S. by appointing him as head of HHS (which includes the FDA, CDC, NIH, and other public health agencies). Will a Republican Senate approve this appointment.? Even if not, Trump can make him "acting" head of HHS and not appoint anyone else. What has Trump promised Tulsi Gabbard or other people? What role will Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and his other strange bedfellows hold? The danger they can do in 4 years is incomprehensible.
You're right, Nancy. Musk is not the only problem. There's also Rudy Giuliani, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and now Warren Buffet of all people. There's a five alarm fire and these formerly-respect-worthy clowns have morphed into Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman reciting some version of his famous "What me worry?" motto. Thank God for people like Reid Hoffman, Michael Bloomberg, Marc Cuban, etc.
Aye, it would seem like a modern day sacking of Rome may be in store for the United States of America. Yet I doubt these men can maintain their own lanes. It seems much more likely a scenario from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar where power over others is everyone's personal plan. As I see it, there is a race between American democracy's survival and internal dissension in the ranks of MAGA leading to its demise.
Professor Heather Cox Richardson is a national treasure. She never fails to enlighten and credibly inform in this fractured time. Also related and of special historical interest today, October 31, 2024, is Megan Gardener's article in The Atlantic, "What Orwell Didn't Anticipate."
Devastating and very accurate dystopian analysis if Trump wins. My take is that Trump will be just a figure head while Vance runs the government. If the average American thinks that a Trump win will not effect them they'll have another thing coming very very soon.
Internationally most Americans will never understand that the weakening of our preeminent position in world will effect their kitchen table budget.
That Economic forecast is frightening...not just for the USofA...but for all nations that are tied to America in trade & commerce!
It's becoming increasingly clear that it's not Trump who will win this election...it's the Oligarchs that keep him propped up. It's a form of stealth puppetry!
One must sincerely hope for a Democratic Harris Presidency to save all...
Following the Election...it must surely be time for everyone to take a vacation or a road trip...to witness the natural world...to clear our minds...and start anew.
Stephen, do you know how many Russian oligarchs died in mysterious circumstances? Trump wins, and everyone loses, including the oligarchs. Harris wins, and everyone wins, including the oligarchs.
For the record, I'm feeling very positive about next week.
Yes...you're right on...in Russia that's certainly what's going on...Putin is ex KGB, expert in spycraft and is intelligent...although extremely evil.
Trump on the other hand...is evil but doesn't know it...as he is a 'Malignant Narcissist'. He is certainly not intelligent and not wise...and knows nothing about history. I read a brief by John le Carre from the Guardian posted Sept. 7th 2017 were he stated 'Something Seriously Bad is Happening [in America]'...having observed Trump...and commenting on the 'Rise of 1930's Fascism'. He also called the Republican Party 'Spineless'...in their unending support of Trump. I think the Oligarchs in America will get the upper hand...and will continue the Puppetry of Trump...and then Vance. Again I'd vote for Harris if I were an American...as it's the only way out to Freedom.
If we're playing a zero-sum game, then we're playing a small game within a larger positive-sum game. Sports teams are a good example. Two teams playing is a zero-sum game wherein one team’s win is the other team’s loss. But there’s a larger positive-sum game wherein both teams sacrifice in service of the league, and then both teams win in the long term because of the league’s strength.
If we were all mature adults, we’d all recognize that we’re all ultimately playing a positive-sum game, but because the oligarchs are immature, it appears as if they can win by letting the rest of us sacrifice while their benefitting from what appears to them to be a zero-sum game, except that the appearance is an illusion in that it’s really a negative-sum game dressed up to look like a zero-sum game. Yes, they’re benefiting in the short term, but it’s one roast goose dinner and then no more golden eggs.
It’s impossible to react to what we’re learning on a daily basis about Trump and his new set of insults, threats, and crazy antics. This morning I watched “Daughters” from the Lincoln Project. I am a mother and a retired teacher. What kind of America will our children inherit from our choices ? PLEASE VOTE 🇺🇸💙
There are, of course, many terrible things that a future Trump presidency could portend. This certainly isn’t the worst of them, but I worry that Trump’s “political appointees” to government agencies under Schedule F will mean that we cannot trust any of the economic statistics coming out of the government. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles and publishes the inflation and employment statistics month-to-month that everyone pretty much relies on to be nonpartisan and as accurate as they can be (they do get revised as better data becomes available). And the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes the quarterly GDP data we just saw released. Under a Trump presidency, will the lackeys he appoints be the equivalent of Trump’s sharpie that redirected hurricanes wherever he wanted them to go? How will business leaders, investors, and the public at large be able to make good financial decisions based upon economic data “jiggered” to make Trump look good?
It would all (what little they could manage to produce) be considered to be crap. But that wouldn’t matter, the oligarchs say, because they’re doing every bit of it for your own good!
Immigration and immigrants have been a huge part of the Trump campaign, mostly to stir Xenophobic sentiments and racism yet his biggest support has come from immigrants Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk, Peter Theil and remarkably, Trump's trophy wife, Melanja. It is the old game of misdirection; look here not there. It may be unclear what their individual motives may be, it seems to me each has a great deal of contempt for ordinary Americans.
I saw a bizarre post by someone on badmouthing Kamala for being the most "ineffective president in history."
I must finally be coming up for air, because I actually laughed. Well, yeah, she actually did nothing as president for the past four years. I guess that's as "ineffective" as you can get. In exactly the same vein, I was certainly the most ineffective national football quarterback in the last four years.
But the other thing that slips through more often, is that -- as this election makes so clear -- being "ineffective" is not nearly the problem that "insane" is. I certainly don't want an "effective" president whose programs are insane.
It's like this bugaboo about "the efficiency of private enterprise" in the Republican lexicon. There are a lot of things private enterprise is doing that are either useless or malign, and in either case, "efficiency" is hardly a bonus.
flthy rich have contracted with another ripened narcissist (Trump, Musk) to pied-piper the deplorable common folk to follow the bouncing ball while their pockets are being picked. Musk, who regales the drooling MAGA lemmings with tales of how he fires people who differ in only in a sliver of complete compliance to his scintillating brilliance. He fires them not in a second, but in a "nano-second" thus subtly reminding us that high esoteric science always tints his every tilt. Musk particularly likes to eviscerate things , structures, people. Eviscerating particularly without mercy somehow, he thinks, proves that ruthlessness is genius. Anybody familiar with the tels of addictive substancing easily recognize that both Trump and Musk are routinely lit. Trump's drugs of choice are more probably of the provincial sorts, the cheap, junk-food drugs, accounting for the numbed, befuddled stumblings, while the oh earnestly hip drugs like calamine, etc, account for the choices of Musk, where the intoxication induces preoccupation of elitist self--makes them think they shine like lights.
Musk is probably using too many street drugs. For Trump it’s probably too much fast food and diet soda, which could accelerate cognitive decline. You’re right about Trump: he likes to eviscerate everything, as you note because he thinks being ruthless makes him a genius. Malignant narcissist indeed!
Malignant narcissism makes one a fascist. Clinically, you are malignanantly narcissistic when you think you can get inside someone's head and do ALL their thinking for them.
Musk is not the only problem. Trump will appoint the heads of federal agencies who will then dismantle them. RFK Jr. has announced that in return for dropping out of the race, Trump promised RFK Jr. that he would be put in charge of public health in the U.S. by appointing him as head of HHS (which includes the FDA, CDC, NIH, and other public health agencies). Will a Republican Senate approve this appointment.? Even if not, Trump can make him "acting" head of HHS and not appoint anyone else. What has Trump promised Tulsi Gabbard or other people? What role will Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and his other strange bedfellows hold? The danger they can do in 4 years is incomprehensible.
And what makes you think "they" will leave office in 4 years? I'm pretty sure their idea is to stay in power forever.
You're right, Nancy. Musk is not the only problem. There's also Rudy Giuliani, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and now Warren Buffet of all people. There's a five alarm fire and these formerly-respect-worthy clowns have morphed into Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman reciting some version of his famous "What me worry?" motto. Thank God for people like Reid Hoffman, Michael Bloomberg, Marc Cuban, etc.
The damage they could do in one yr is incomprehensible...in 4 yrs we'd no longer have a country.
Aye, it would seem like a modern day sacking of Rome may be in store for the United States of America. Yet I doubt these men can maintain their own lanes. It seems much more likely a scenario from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar where power over others is everyone's personal plan. As I see it, there is a race between American democracy's survival and internal dissension in the ranks of MAGA leading to its demise.
Professor Heather Cox Richardson is a national treasure. She never fails to enlighten and credibly inform in this fractured time. Also related and of special historical interest today, October 31, 2024, is Megan Gardener's article in The Atlantic, "What Orwell Didn't Anticipate."
Devastating and very accurate dystopian analysis if Trump wins. My take is that Trump will be just a figure head while Vance runs the government. If the average American thinks that a Trump win will not effect them they'll have another thing coming very very soon.
Internationally most Americans will never understand that the weakening of our preeminent position in world will effect their kitchen table budget.
That Economic forecast is frightening...not just for the USofA...but for all nations that are tied to America in trade & commerce!
It's becoming increasingly clear that it's not Trump who will win this election...it's the Oligarchs that keep him propped up. It's a form of stealth puppetry!
One must sincerely hope for a Democratic Harris Presidency to save all...
Following the Election...it must surely be time for everyone to take a vacation or a road trip...to witness the natural world...to clear our minds...and start anew.
Stephen, do you know how many Russian oligarchs died in mysterious circumstances? Trump wins, and everyone loses, including the oligarchs. Harris wins, and everyone wins, including the oligarchs.
For the record, I'm feeling very positive about next week.
Yes...you're right on...in Russia that's certainly what's going on...Putin is ex KGB, expert in spycraft and is intelligent...although extremely evil.
Trump on the other hand...is evil but doesn't know it...as he is a 'Malignant Narcissist'. He is certainly not intelligent and not wise...and knows nothing about history. I read a brief by John le Carre from the Guardian posted Sept. 7th 2017 were he stated 'Something Seriously Bad is Happening [in America]'...having observed Trump...and commenting on the 'Rise of 1930's Fascism'. He also called the Republican Party 'Spineless'...in their unending support of Trump. I think the Oligarchs in America will get the upper hand...and will continue the Puppetry of Trump...and then Vance. Again I'd vote for Harris if I were an American...as it's the only way out to Freedom.
Define upper hand. I'll go first.
If we're playing a zero-sum game, then we're playing a small game within a larger positive-sum game. Sports teams are a good example. Two teams playing is a zero-sum game wherein one team’s win is the other team’s loss. But there’s a larger positive-sum game wherein both teams sacrifice in service of the league, and then both teams win in the long term because of the league’s strength.
If we were all mature adults, we’d all recognize that we’re all ultimately playing a positive-sum game, but because the oligarchs are immature, it appears as if they can win by letting the rest of us sacrifice while their benefitting from what appears to them to be a zero-sum game, except that the appearance is an illusion in that it’s really a negative-sum game dressed up to look like a zero-sum game. Yes, they’re benefiting in the short term, but it’s one roast goose dinner and then no more golden eggs.
I believe I understand your point here...but I think you're assuming there is still a Democracy to turn the tables.
The bad guys win all the battles, and the good guys win all the wars.
It’s impossible to react to what we’re learning on a daily basis about Trump and his new set of insults, threats, and crazy antics. This morning I watched “Daughters” from the Lincoln Project. I am a mother and a retired teacher. What kind of America will our children inherit from our choices ? PLEASE VOTE 🇺🇸💙
There are, of course, many terrible things that a future Trump presidency could portend. This certainly isn’t the worst of them, but I worry that Trump’s “political appointees” to government agencies under Schedule F will mean that we cannot trust any of the economic statistics coming out of the government. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles and publishes the inflation and employment statistics month-to-month that everyone pretty much relies on to be nonpartisan and as accurate as they can be (they do get revised as better data becomes available). And the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes the quarterly GDP data we just saw released. Under a Trump presidency, will the lackeys he appoints be the equivalent of Trump’s sharpie that redirected hurricanes wherever he wanted them to go? How will business leaders, investors, and the public at large be able to make good financial decisions based upon economic data “jiggered” to make Trump look good?
It would all (what little they could manage to produce) be considered to be crap. But that wouldn’t matter, the oligarchs say, because they’re doing every bit of it for your own good!
Immigration and immigrants have been a huge part of the Trump campaign, mostly to stir Xenophobic sentiments and racism yet his biggest support has come from immigrants Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk, Peter Theil and remarkably, Trump's trophy wife, Melanja. It is the old game of misdirection; look here not there. It may be unclear what their individual motives may be, it seems to me each has a great deal of contempt for ordinary Americans.
I saw a bizarre post by someone on badmouthing Kamala for being the most "ineffective president in history."
I must finally be coming up for air, because I actually laughed. Well, yeah, she actually did nothing as president for the past four years. I guess that's as "ineffective" as you can get. In exactly the same vein, I was certainly the most ineffective national football quarterback in the last four years.
But the other thing that slips through more often, is that -- as this election makes so clear -- being "ineffective" is not nearly the problem that "insane" is. I certainly don't want an "effective" president whose programs are insane.
It's like this bugaboo about "the efficiency of private enterprise" in the Republican lexicon. There are a lot of things private enterprise is doing that are either useless or malign, and in either case, "efficiency" is hardly a bonus.
See where the dark
flthy rich have contracted with another ripened narcissist (Trump, Musk) to pied-piper the deplorable common folk to follow the bouncing ball while their pockets are being picked. Musk, who regales the drooling MAGA lemmings with tales of how he fires people who differ in only in a sliver of complete compliance to his scintillating brilliance. He fires them not in a second, but in a "nano-second" thus subtly reminding us that high esoteric science always tints his every tilt. Musk particularly likes to eviscerate things , structures, people. Eviscerating particularly without mercy somehow, he thinks, proves that ruthlessness is genius. Anybody familiar with the tels of addictive substancing easily recognize that both Trump and Musk are routinely lit. Trump's drugs of choice are more probably of the provincial sorts, the cheap, junk-food drugs, accounting for the numbed, befuddled stumblings, while the oh earnestly hip drugs like calamine, etc, account for the choices of Musk, where the intoxication induces preoccupation of elitist self--makes them think they shine like lights.
Musk is probably using too many street drugs. For Trump it’s probably too much fast food and diet soda, which could accelerate cognitive decline. You’re right about Trump: he likes to eviscerate everything, as you note because he thinks being ruthless makes him a genius. Malignant narcissist indeed!
Malignant narcissism makes one a fascist. Clinically, you are malignanantly narcissistic when you think you can get inside someone's head and do ALL their thinking for them.
Oh, I attributed your comment to Trump… oh well it seems to apply to both. Thanks for your insight!