Trump wants you to believe Kamala has a "migrant phone app" to help drug cartels. Is this schtick or does he believe it? By Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

You can watch the video of him saying this here.

 

I read about this in 

Trump’s lie-industrial complex by Lucian Truscott, IV in Salon today.

Excerpt:

He tells this lie at every one of his rallies, accusing President Biden and Vice President Harris of “letting in criminals from “insane asylums which are mental institutions on steroids” using what he calls “Kamala’s migrant phone app. She’s got a phone app. It’s meant for the cartel heads. The cartel heads call the app and they tell them where to drop the illegal migrants…It’s not even believable.” 

Here's an another excerpt from the article:

Trump spreads one vicious lie after another about immigrants, alleging that tens of thousands of “illegal” immigrants descended on the town of Springfield, Ohio, population 58,000, taking people’s jobs, eating their cats and committing crimes such as murder and rape. He tells lies about other towns such as Aurora, Colorado, where immigrant “gangs” are taking over entire apartment complexes “with AK-47s and they’re going to take over the whole damn state by the time they finish, unless I become president.”  He has even ginned up a whole new lie, that immigrants are crossing the border with Mexico “from the Congo in Africa. Many people from the Congo. I don’t know what that is, but they come out of jails in the Congo.” 

Whether Trump is doing schtick when he says things like this or whether he believes them is important. If he wanted to employ a metaphor he should be writing something like this about Kamala, the phone app, and migrants:

It's like Kamala has a migrant phone app. It's as if she’s got a phone app meant for the cartel heads, as if cartel heads call the app and they tell them where to drop the illegal migrants....

He doesn't write this. He concludes what he did write with "It’s not even believable” which is telling because it shouldn't be believable for any rational person because it is ludicrous.

If Trump just wants you to believe it he's a psychopathic manipulative liar, but if he believes it he is clincally delusional. This tells us that he gets information from others that supports his narrative, or that he makes things up with some semblence of creativity, or has them pop up from the fevered recesses of his unconscious. Wherever they come from if he ends up believing they are true he is experiencing delusions.

Along with the prospect that if Trump becomes president we will end up with what Chauncey DeVega called "The Age of Trump: MAGAVerse 2.0" in yesterday's Salon column (here). DeVega, ever the consumate wordsmith, wrote the following words that I hope against hope won't turn out to be prescient:

With less than a month to go until Election Day, the American people and the world will soon find out if the epic that is the Age of Trump is about to be over or if they will be forced to suffer through a sequel featuring the various characters and spin-offs that the MAGAverse 2.0 may spawn. In these final weeks, the story that is the Age of Trump most closely resembles some type of crime novel, one in which the crimes are announced and planned in public and then committed in plain sight.

With Trump we will also have a president with worsening dementia and a delusional psychosis. As I was quoted in the DeVega column this would mean that there would be a very good chance Trump's condition would deteriorate to the point he'd be removed through the 25th Amendment and Vance would become president. Vance would be a president with intact mental capacity who would be more capable than an unhinged president of implementing Project 2025. 

Vance wouldn't be doing schtick. He'd be be as serious a a heart attack for democracy.

I wrote about this in yesterday's blog:

Other previous blogs.

If "they" knew what we in Chauncey DeVega's Salon column know, would "they" still vote for Trump? Probably... By Hal M. Brown, MSW

Trump from Perchance Image AI

 With less than a month to go until Election Day  the American people and the world will soon find out if the epic that is the  Age of Trump is about to be over or if they will be forced to suffer through a sequel featuring the various characters and spin-offs that the MAGAVerse 2.0 may spawn. In these final weeks, the story that is the Age of Trump most closely resembles some type of crime novel, one in which the crimes are announced and planned in public and then committed in plain sight.  Chauncey DeVega

This was the main story on Salon this morning. It is a column by Chauncey DeVega .

(About Salon from Wikipedia.) 

It is a series of interviews with several people he interviews about politics on a regular basis. It happens that I am one of them. The quote about Vance in the title comes from what I said.

The "they" I refer to are those who people who believe another Trump term won't destroy democracy. They do believe Trump will fulfill all his promises to make their lives and the country better. They are among the good, moral, ethical, and caring people I wrote about in my blog the other day.

To quote myself from that blog:

Everyone voting for Trump isn't a believer in white nationalism, isn't a racist, and certainly not a violence prone sadist who thinks it's a good idea to separate migrant children from their parents and lock them in cages let alone put alligators in the Rio Grande or shoot those attempting to cross it in the legs.

First and foremost they believe that a Trump presidency will be good for them, their families, and for the country. Second, they believe that Kalama Harris will not be good for them, their families, and for the country. Many of them say that they just don't trust Kamala Harris but they are unable to explain why. 

When confronted with all the reasons not  to vote for Trump they either counter by saying this is fake news or dismissing these reasons by saying that his various strengths as a leader outweigh his shortcomings. They don't think children are being sent to school where, against their parents will, they will have their gender changed. They don't think Kamala Harris will turn the country into a communist or Marxist state.

What do Chauncey DeVega and those quoted in his column know?

Chauncey DeVega knows that Trump is an enemy of democracy. He has clearly made a case for this in his numerous columns.  Chauncey DeVega is a senior politics writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts two weekly podcasts, The Chauncey DeVega Show and The Truth Report. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.

Scholar and best-selling author Norm Ornstein knows that if Trump wins there's a good chance he will fulfill his pledge "to invoke the Insurrection Act, provoke political violence, focus on retribution, pardon the January 6 criminals, blow up our alliances and form a new one with dictators."

Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University and author, thinks that "if Trump were to lose, it’s virtually impossible to envision him accepting the election results; he is likely to accuse his enemies of stealing the election and urge his most passionate followers to take to the streets."

Lawyer, writer, political activist David Pepper knows that there is a very real chance Project 2025 will be implemented and could mean the "privatizing weather forecasts to attacks on public education, unions and workers, to bans on abortion and IVF, everyday Americans will quickly see how long-sought right-wing priorities will quickly upend their own lives, their communities and the nation as a whole."

As the only psychotherapist interviewed for this column what I know is that Trump is in cognitive decline. Therefore there is a very good chance that if Trump wins he would eventually be removed through the 25th Amendment. This would happen if his condition deteriorated into advanced dementia that was impossible to hide from the public. This would make a J.D. Vance, a clincially sane authoritarian, president. 

My impression is that Trump voters would miss their "dear leader" and turn him into some kind of god. They would engage in massive denial that people like us addressed the signs he had early dementia for months if not years.  Chris Christie noted this yesterday: 'I Saw': Chris Christie Describes 'Significant Declines' In Trump's Cognitive Skills (read article).

For people to change their minds about Trump (and Vance) they need to open them. This is not only incredibly difficult for those who have deeply held or core beliefs to do. These are beliefs that are part of their identity and how they view the world. Signficantly, it is even harder to radically change a belief that is central to one's identity when doing this means admitting you were gullible. Consider this entry from my online therausus for gullible:

 the swindler preyed upon gullible people. credulous, over-trusting, over-trustful, trustful, easily deceived/led, easily taken in, exploitable, ripe for the picking, dupable, deceivable, impressionable, unsuspecting, unsuspicious, unwary, unguarded, unskeptical, ingenuous, naive, innocent, simple, inexperienced, unworldly, green, as green as grass, childlike, ignorant; foolish, silly; informal wet behind the ears, born yesterday.

Considering the malevolent vengeance driven personalities of both Trump and Vance my suggestion to everyone should they win is that there's both strength and solace when you join with like minded people.

This is my quote from the DeVega column:

I want to share some advice, and hopefully some wisdom, from my 40 years as a psychotherapist and from the insights I gained from both my own clients and from my own therapists. In addition to what I said above, I would remind everyone who feels overwhelmed that no matter how horrific things get you are not alone in the resistance. The most insidious feeling during times of stress is loneliness. If you feel this and want to hide your head under a blanket force yourself to rally whatever strength you can muster and reach out to like-minded people.

Another way to put it is that it is better to hang together than to hang alone.

.............

This was posted on Oct. 14. This is the blog from Oct. 15th.

Read previous blogs here. 

If Trump wins Trumpism will be like Naziism but have it's own unique chilling definition , by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

Trump spoke in Aurora, CO where he says Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs while standing in front of signs that said "Occupied America" showing photos of purported gang members. He not only wants to deport criminals, he wants to deport legal immigrants. As if this isn't fascistic enough, he wants to prosecute his political enemies. This may sound like Naziism but while it may be similar it is a new brutal authoritarianism. It won't be fully defined as Trumpism unless he wins the election.

Here's how a Colorado newspaper covered what he calls "Operation Aurora":

In speech, Trump paints violent picture of immigration in Colorado, says he’ll call his mass deportation efforts ‘Operation Aurora’

Excerpt:

In his remarks, Trump declared, “I love this state. This state has to flip Republican,” to raucous cheers. 

He said he could be spending time on the most beautiful beaches in the world but instead, he came to Colorado to figure out what “the hell happened to Aurora.” 

He blasted Gov. Jared Polis, referring to him as a coward, a fraud and pathetic. He also blamed Vice-President Kamala Harris for the surge in new immigrants arriving in the country in the past two years. 

“Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world,” said Trump. “And she has had them resettled, beautifully, into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens, that’s what they’re doing. And no place is it more evident than right here.”

He has also claimed numerous times that illegal immigrants take jobs from Blacks and Hispanics. The term "illegal" is irrelevant because to his base even legal immigrants aren't real Americans and should be deported. Of course this is a ploy to get votes but it isn't true. Consider the following:

Data shows migrants aren’t taking jobs from Black or Hispanic people, despite what Trump says (read AP article)

Excerpt:

What has Trump said?

Trump, who often uses anti-immigrant rhetoric, has referred during his campaign to immigrants he says are taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.”

At a recent rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump said, “You have an invasion of people into our country.”

“They’re going to be attacking — and they already are — Black population jobs, the Hispanic population jobs, and they’re attacking union jobs too,” Trump said. “So when you see the border, it’s not just the crime. Your jobs are being taken away too.”

Trump's rhetoric about jobs has been widely condemned by Democrats and Black leaders who have called it a racist and insulting way of implying that Black and Hispanic Americans take menial jobs.

Janiyah Thomas, the director of Team Trump Black Media, told The Associated Press that Democrats “continue to prioritize the interests of illegal immigrants over our own Black Americans who were born in this country” and that Biden-era job gains in the labor market were primarily due to illegal immigration.

None of what Trump says is true. This doesn't matter to him. Whether or not he knows this only matters when you want to make a differential diagnosis of him to determine whether he is mentally challenged, a manipulative psychopath, or clincially delusional. I'd go primarily with manipulative psychopath since demonizing a segment of nation's population is chapter one in the dictator's handbook.

Here's a glimpse of how our European allies view this. It is from the English version of France 24. Of course France was occupied by the Nazis during World War II and of the 340,000 Jews living in metropolitan/ continental France in 1940, more than 75,000 were deported to death camps, where about 72,500 were murdered. (Wikipedia)

'Occupied America': Trump further demonizes immigrants in Colorado campaign speech

If Trump wins it doesn't take any imagination to think about how our allies will react as they watch the United States turned from a democracy into a ruthless dictatorship where "undesirables" are rounded up and deported, or in the case of political rivals, imprisioned. 

Just yestereday Gen. Michael Flynn, who may very well end up with a high position in a Trump administration said some chilling things. He recently escalated violent rhetoric against Vice President Kamala Harris by calling her "an enemy of America" and saying we're at "war," was reportedly asked if he would consider "executing the swamp." 

"General Michael Flynn was asked at the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival Friday night if he'd 'sit at the head of a military tribunal to not only drain the swamp, but imprison the swamp, and on a few occasions, execute the swamp.' General Flynn says 'What your sentiment is about is accountability' and that 'I definitely believe we need accountability,'" he reported Saturday.

"There's a way to get after this, but we have to win first," Flynn further said, according to the weekend report. "These people are already up to no good, so we gotta win first. We win, and then [Katy] Bar the door. Believe me, the gates of hell, my hell will be unleashed." (reference)

This is what another general said, only this was about Trump:

“He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.”

These are the words of Gen. Mark Milley who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Trump and Biden. Read article.

From demonizing and getting rid of undesirables to taking away women's right to chose with the consequenses of climate change denial to making up "facts" to suit a political agenda it is Scream inducing to think what Trump will turn this country into if he wins. 

Trump won't bring in Naziism which is defined in the dictionary here.

He will have his own noun, Trumpism. We won't know exactly how it will be defined years from now, but we do know it will be horrific.

Update from Politico:

The article concludes as follows:

Vivid imagery, such as telling crowds of rally attendees that migrants will “cut your throat,” are now a staple of Trump’s speeches. He cites cases of U.S. women and girls allegedly murdered by immigrants in the country illegally, even as studies have shown that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans.

But Trump says they are — because they are inherently worse people. He’s told nearly all-white crowds in the past that they have “good genes,” even before his explicit suggestion this week that non-white immigrants are genetically inferior — when he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that migrants have “bad genes.”

“What is so jarring to me is these are not just Nazi-like statements. These are actual Nazi sentiments,” said Robert Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute, the author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy” and a vocal critic of Trump’s rhetoric. “Hitler used the word vermin and rats multiple times in Mein Kampf to talk about Jews. These are not accidental or coincidental references. We have clear, 20th century historical precedent with this kind of political language, and we see where it leads.”

You can see why I wrote yesterday's blog:

Friday blog: A message to good people, those who are caring, moral, and ethical, and who believe in democracy, and still are voting for Trump

Other recent blogs:

Cats

Watch Kamala's "60 Minutes" interview here and see why Trump wants to say it was incoherent and illegal

This is an important blog: Trump and his malignant narcissim revisited

If Trump ends up going to trial and is convicted is he capable of saying he's sorry?

Will the drip-drip-drip of Trump being Trump overflow his bucket and ruin his chance of winning?

Read previous blogs.

 

My name tags, from Dali's melting clocks to Munch's The Scream, By Hal M. Brown, MSW

I live in a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) which has about 450 residents. Almost all of them are liberal and although there are a few who are never-Trump Republicans nobody who is pro-Trump has made this known. 

A few residents, most of whom have recently moved in, wear lanyards which also have a key card chip in them with their names on them. 

Hey, we're old and sometimes we don't always remember the names of people we don't know that well. It also helps start conversations when we meet people for the first time.

Not too long ago a resident got the idea of helping residents order plastic name tags which, if they like, can be personalized with symbols. Here's an example.

I decided to order my own name badge from Zazzle which was even more personalized. I uploaded an image which had as its background a portion of Dali's well known painting The Persistence of Memory, often referred to as his melting clock painting. I felt this expressed my existential view of memory as an 80 year old. Here's how it looks on me:

It has been something of a conversation starter.

I got to thinking about another feeling I have much of the time and how I used another very famous painting to illustrate this blog:

 It is of course "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. 

My badge is due to arrive on October. 25th.  This means that by the time I recieve it the election will be two weeks away. 

I won't be screaming on the outside during this period. This will come if Trump wins. However, I will be screaming on the inside whenever I think of the possiblity that he will win. 

I am wondering what kind of conversations my wearing this badge will prompt.

Yesterday's blog:

Other recent blogs:

Cats

Watch Kamala's "60 Minutes" interview here and see why Trump wants to say it was incoherent and illegal

This is an important blog: Trump and his malignant narcissim revisited

If Trump ends up going to trial and is convicted is he capable of saying he's sorry?

Will the drip-drip-drip of Trump being Trump overflow his bucket and ruin his chance of winning?

Read previous blogs.

A message to good people, those who are caring, moral, and ethical, and who believe in democracy, and still are voting for Trump, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

Everyone voting for Trump isn't a believer in white nationalism, isn't a racist, and certainly not a violence prone sadist who thinks it's a good idea to separate migrant children from their parents and lock them in cages let alone put alligators in the Rio Grande or shoot those attempting to cross it in the legs.

They aren't in what Hillary Clinton, much to her detriment, called the "basket of deplorables" (a phrase that has it's own Wikipedia entry).

"Basket of deplorables" is a phrase from a 2016 US presidential election campaign speech delivered by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on September 9, 2016, at a campaign fundraising event. She used the phrase to describe "half" of the supporters of her opponent, Republicannominee Donald Trump, saying they're "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic".^[1] The next day, she expressed regret for "saying half", while insisting that Trump had deplorably amplified "hateful views and voices".^[2]

The Trump campaign repeatedly used the phrase against Clinton during and after the 2016 presidential election. Many Trump supporters adopted the "deplorable" moniker for themselves in reappropriation. Some journalists and political analysts questioned whether this speech played a role in the election's outcome. In her 2017 book What Happened, Clinton herself said that her comments on the "basket of deplorables" were a factor in her electoral loss.^[3]

Here's some of what I think they believe.

First and foremost they believe that a Trump presidency will be good for them, their families, and for the country. Second, they believe that Kalama Harris will not be good for them, their families, and for the country. Many of them say that they just don't trust Kamala Harris but they are unable to explain why. 

When confronted with all the reasons not  to vote for Trump they either counter by saying this is fake news or dismissing these reasons by saying that his various strengths as a leader outweigh his shortcomings. They don't think children are being sent to school where, against their parents will, they will have their gender changed. They don't think Kamala Harris will turn the country into a communist or Marxist state.

I ask myself whether they even listen to some of what Trump has been saying and do they believe him? For example:

Trump falsely claimed that there are “over 13,000 illegal alien convicted murderers roaming free in our country … that were released from jail from all over the world,” particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Illegal immigrants, he said, “have equipment that our military doesn’t have” and are “taking over apartment buildings” in Colorado. It’s all part of a “mass migrant invasion of murderers and child predators and gang members, terrorists, drug dealers and thugs.” He told the audience that if “this crazy, incompetent” Harris wins, “this same group is going to meet in Caracas, Venezuela, because it’ll be much safer than your particular state.” (From Dana Milbank in The Washington Post )

Are they aware of the following and do they approve of it? 

Mark Milley, the retired U.S. Army general and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, worries that Donald Trump will order a military trial against him if re-elected, according to a new book.

Veteran journalist Bob Woodward reveals in his new book, "War," that Milley recently “warned former colleagues that Trump intends to recall and then court martial retired senior officers who have criticized him as part of a wide-ranging revenge campaign he has pledged to carry out in a possible second term as president, according to excerpts published by The Guardian.

I am convinced that most of these voters would change their minds if they opened them, their minds that is, to the truth about who Donald Trump is and to how he plans to govern if he's elected again. They need to learn about what Project 2025 says (Snopes has a good piece about it here) and ask themselves whether if Trump manages to implement half of it the following question: is this the kind of country they want to live in?

He is a self-centered liar (he lied 40 times yesterday) incapable of empathy who enjoys inflicting pain on those who challenge him and who believes the world should bend to his needs whether they are at the most basic sexual level to his need to be seen as the real life incarnation of of Rambo or Superman. That Trump actually seeing himself as someone who both is so sexually attractive  that women should be grateful for his grabbing them by the private parts to someone who thinks he's a manly man because he can get in a professional wrestling ring and shave Vince McMahanon's head should preclude him from ever being president.

Trump shared this on Truth Social:

This image includes Elon Musk, the pro-Trump megabillionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who owns X (formerly Twitter), as the part-human/part-robot Cyborg, and entrepreneur, investor and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy as the Flash. Former U.S. congressional representative Tulsi Gabbard is suited up as Wonder Woman, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently dropped his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Trump, seems to be Aquaman.

Read: Donald Trump Shares Bizarre Photoshopped Image Showing Himself, JD Vance, Elon Musk and Others as DC Superheroes.

Nobody over the age of 12 who has such fantasies should be president. Yet there are those who dismiss this aspect of him and it doesn't bother them that if elected he holds the nuclear codes and he'd be the Commander in Chief of the most powerful military in the world which he's said he might use to go after his domestic enemies. See: Donald Trump threatens to imprison Biden, Harris, Pelosi, and others. Experts are worried. USA Today

(Addition) My life partner, in proofreading this for me, just said with dismay and incredulity "who would even think of trying to inprison their political enemies?" adding "this is not who we are."

People who say they don't think Kamala Harris has the experience or strength to be president discount the incontrovertible facts about her career going from an assistant prosecutor in the San Francisco DA's office to being elected as District Attorney of San Francisco to being elected as Attorney General of California to being elected as a Calfornia Senator to being Vice President.

They may not have heard that she said in her "60 Minutes" that  she's been a gun owner since she was a senator. (See USA Today article.)

Vice President Kamala Harris revealed that she owns a Glock gun during the Democratic ticket's interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" Monday night.

Harris told Bill Whitaker that she has fired the gun at a gun range and has had it for "quite some time."

“I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do — for personal safety,” Harris said at the time. An aide at the time said Harris purchased a handgun years before her statement and that it was locked up.

I wonder if this part of her interview was the final straw it leading to him say CBS should lose its license over the "60 MInutes" interview (Reference) because showed her as a woman not afraid to own and learn to shoot the a Glock, the  handgun carried by most police officers (reference).

There's one thing you can be sure of. It's that Kamala Harris won't be using AI (as I did) to make an image of herself firing a pistol. She doesn't have a psychological need to do this and she wouldn't insult voters by portraying herself this way.

Update:

Today Trump spread lies about Aurora, Colorado, the town where there was a lie he supported about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs, while he was in Aurora. 

When he was in Wisconsin over the weekend in Prairie du Chien he said “If Kamala is reelected, your town, and every town just like it, all across Wisconsin and all across our country — the heartland, the coast, it doesn’t matter — will be transformed into a third-world hellhole.” He also said “Today I make you this promise: I will liberate Wisconsin and our entire nation from this mass migration invasion of murderers, child predators, drug dealers, gang members and thugs. It’ll be liberated,” Trump said before a crowd of thousands at a rally in Juneau, Wis., over the weekend. 

The tragedy is that people in these Wisconsin towns, and in towns across the country, believe these lies. If they opened their eyes and looked around they would be hallucinating if they saw what he says is happening in their towns.

Most recent blogs:

Cats

Watch Kamala's "60 Minutes" interview here and see why Trump wants to say it was incoherent and illegal

This is an important blog: Trump and his malignant narcissim revisited

If Trump ends up going to trial and is convicted is he capable of saying he's sorry?

Will the drip-drip-drip of Trump being Trump overflow his bucket and ruin his chance of winning?

Read previous blogs here.