The RawStory article "A dark world': Ivanka Trump spills on why she dropped out of politics" got me to thinking about how Trump, if he wins, could declare himself president for life and how since his most intelligent adult kid may not want to take his place when he dies or is too old to rule we'd probably end up with Donald Jr. as the next dictator. Donald Jr. is the man who gets a thrill out of shooting exotic animals with a high powered rife and posing along with his dumber brother with their lifeless bodies. For the MAGA masses he's a perfect choice to inherit the MAGA throne.
By the time Donald Jr. took over the country would have become full-on NAZI, only it would be MAGA. Instead of the NAZI Party we'd have the MAGA Party. If one was a card carrying member they would not only be the privileged class, they would be the only citizens will full rights.
By the end of four years of Trump rule there won't be much, if any, independent media left because, like Putin and, before him Hitler and Mao, the goverment will totally control the dissemination of information. RawStory which published this article will be gone and it's staff sent to reeducation camps, or worse. Those of us who, like me, post comments on websites like RawStory, The New York Times, and The Washinton Post would be on the MAGA gestapo hit list too. Those who like me subscribe to proessive websites will be at risk. In fact, anyone with an online presence from Facebook or having a blog like mine could easily be checked out to see if they are should be added to the MAGA gestapo hit list. Hitler did this without the internet.
Once you were identified as being against MAGA not only would your freedom be at risk, but you could have all of your rights as a citizen taken away. If you have Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or food stamps these benefits could be cut.
MAGA Party members would have ID cards but others would be at the mercy of the overlords. If you're reading this, that's you
MAGA will control almost every aspect of the lives of those living in the United States. I have to phrase it this way because the word "citizen" won't apply anymore. Only MAGAs will have full citizenship.
The Second Amendment, so precious to the Right, would apply only to MAGA Party members. Not only would they be the only ones to be able to purchase firearms but ownship of firearms by non-MAGAs would probably be made a capital crime.
If you think prohibiting abortion is abhorrent consider how MAGA could veer into Handmaid's Tale territory. They could make it difficult for non-MAGAs to have children by denying prenatal care and in hosptial delivery. The children non-MAGAs did have could be taken away at birth to be raised by MAGAs. Also, there would be no child income tax deduction for non-MAGAs.
Non-MAGAs might need vouchers or special currency to buy all the necessities of living.
Let's not forget that the education of children would be controlled starting with kindergarten which might well be renamed MAGAgarten.
Anything which now is called woke would be illegal. Working with the Department of Justice (they would keep that name but it would be the MAGA gestapo) would be the Department of Compliance. These MAGAs would spend their time scouring the internet for anyone who goes against the regime and are identified as enemies of the state. This would include anyone identified as what comes under the rubrik of woke. Facebook and Instagram would be a treasure trove for them as millions of people share information about their personal lives there.
Millions of ordinary Americans would have a tremendious incentive to go along to get along and would join the MAGA Party. Some would turn in "deviant" neighbors to incur favor with the leaders, and perhaps be rewarded in various ways.
Only certain non-MAGAs would be required to wear something like this that identified them as deviants or undesirables. The ordinary non-MAGA could be identified because Party members would be issued official pins like these so they could easily be identified. A non-MAGA wearing one of these pins would risk being asked to for their "papers" (today it would be a holographic photo ID like a drivers license) and if they were trying to "pass" they'd be arrested.
The horror is that there are tens of millions of Americans who are not just fine with the country I have described here, they want this to to be "their" country. There are others who think those who make NAZI comparisons are engaing in hand-wringing hyperbole. Among the later group are many politicians and possibly the Supreme Court justices who just ruled on presidential immunity.
I think it is very possible that decades from now historians in countries where they are allowed to write about it will look at the Project 2025 manifesto as the 21st century Mein Kampf.
Footnote:
Project 2025 includes a 920-page plan devised to entirely remake the U.S. government and turn America into a Christian nationalist, authoritarian, and some say fascist nation run by an all-powerful president. Critics say it would obliterate separation of church and state, the rule of law, the social safety net, and civil rights advances including reproductive rights and rights for LGBTQ Americans secured over the past sixty years.
"The plan calls for a nationwide system of school vouchers, severe restrictions on reproductive freedom and LGBTQ+ rights, and maintains that the federal government should 'maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family,' which it refers to as 'heterosexual, intact marriage,'" Church & State magazine reports. Reference.
Update:
This is from Axios: As far as I'm concerned 1, 2, and 3 far outweigh 4, 5, and 6.
What to watch: To hear Trump and his allies tell it, this is how early 2025 would unfold if he wins:
1. A re-elected Trump would quickly set up vast camps and deport millions of people in the U.S. illegally. He could invoke the Insurrection Act and use troops to lock down the southern border.
2. In Washington, Trump would move to fire potentially tens of thousands of civil servants using a controversial interpretation of law and procedure. He'd replace many of them with pre-vetted loyalists.
3. He'd centralize power over the Justice Department, historically an independent check on presidential power. He plans to nominate a trusted loyalist for attorney general, and has threatened to target and even imprison critics. He could demand the federal cases against him cease immediately.
4. Many of the Jan. 6 convicts could be pardoned — a promise Trump has made at campaign rallies, where he hails them as patriots, not criminals. Investigations of the Bidens would begin.
5. Trump says he'd slap 10% tariffs on most imported goods, igniting a possible trade war and risking short-term inflation. He argues this would give him leverage to create better trade terms to benefit consumers.
6. Conversation would intensify about when Justices Clarence Thomas, 76, and Sam Alito, 74, would retire.
As I do every morning I look first at HUFFPOST to see which stories are on the top of their main page. Above is what I saw at 5:30 AM.
This is the main page at 9:30 here in Oregon:
It is impossible for a thinking person with any knowledge of history not to think about how Hitler rose to power and how he used the German court system to help him achieve this end. Consider:
Hitler determined to increase the political reliability of the courts. In 1933 he established special courts throughout Germany to try politically sensitive cases. Dissatisfied with the 'not guilty' verdicts rendered by the Supreme Court (Reichsgericht) in the Reichstag Fire Trial, Hitler ordered the creation of the People's Court (Volksgerichtshof) in Berlin in 1934 to try treason and other important "political cases." Under Roland Freisler, the People's Court became part of the Nazi system of terror, condemning tens of thousands of people as "Volk Vermin" and thousands more to death for "Volk Treason." The trial and sentencing of those accused of complicity in the July Plot, the attempt to kill Hitler in July 1944, was especially unjust. From: Law and Justice in the Third Reich, in The Holocaust Encylopedia.
It is possible that if Trump wins American courts will look like this:
Could it happen here? It may have just started to happen in France. As far fetched as it may seem to think that a few years from now under Herr Trump America could have its own Gestapo and SS, have pulled out of NATO and have aligned itself with Putin, have taken over the media, and developed a Hitlerian civilian corp of people who would be turning in their neighbors for the crime of questioning the administration.
Just take a look last night's Truth Social post:
It would hardly matter which party controlled Congress. If Congress passed laws undermining his polcies he'd just ignore the laws or when his power was solidified he might just disolve Congress. Why stop there? He could declare himself president for life and make sure that one of his children was his successor.
This horror makes it all the more important that a Democrat wins the election. The polls don't look good for Biden. The the future of Democracy rests on the answer to the following question:
Is Biden the candidate who has the best chance of beating Trump?
Even if we didn't have questions about his mental acuity and whether his debate performance was related to early dementia he is 81 and when he says loudly "I know I'm not a young man but I know how to do this job" his voice sounds to this listener as weak. It doesn't resonate with power and confidence. This is made much worse when you look at him and his face looks pale and, I hate to say this, as old as my 80 year old face does.
This election won't be decided by reasonable and well-informed voters. It will be decided by people casting their votes based on optics.
It occurred to me that America is a Marvel superhero country. Swing voters could embrace a Democrat whose superpowers were unexpectedly revealed. Since I don't follow the Marvel universe I decided to look online to see if any particular character could be used as an illustration in this blog.
The video went on to profile the 30 top superheroes.
I fast forwarded to the end to see who was considered the most powerful. Dr. Strange was number two:
Number one was Thor. He evolved as a weaker character in the first movies but in the more recent films his power increased (and his hammer changed to be even more deadly) to the point he justified the rank of most powerful:
The question I ask in my title is whether there is a Democrat who can emerge and in the time prior to the election convince enough undecided voters that he or she is a Thor who can and should lead America.
I believe this is possible because there are enough Americans who are infuenced by optics. Aside from the sadists who admire the villians, they love thier superheroes. They are thrilled when a superhero like Thor vanquishes his enemies:
Consider how Trump's electronic cards depict him as a muscle bound costumed superhero. His cult actually sees him that way.
With the right advertising and promotion a Democratic Party Thor can be sold to enough voters so they win the election. But before that happens Biden needs to step down and leave it to the wisdom of the power brokers leading up to and during the convention to decide that is best suited to wield Thor's hammer whether it's the new one or the original one (below).
Whether it's Kamala Harris as Superwoman (I've had the 14 x 19 poster below for years) or someone else, I think there's time for a Demorcat with the capabilities to be president to don a superhero outfit and kick Trump into the garbage bin of history.
Over the course of his presidency, Joe Biden’s small clutch of advisers have built an increasingly protective circle around him, limiting his exposure to the media and outside advice — an effort to manage public perceptions of the oldest person to ever hold the office and tightly control his political operation.
But inside the White House, Biden’s growing limitations were becoming apparent long before his meltdown in last week’s debate, with the senior team’s management of the president growing more strictly controlled as his term has gone on. During meetings with aides who are putting together formal briefings they’ll deliver to Biden, some senior officials have at times gone to great lengths to curate the information being presented in an effort to avoid provoking a negative reaction.
“It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off,’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’” said one senior administration official. “It’s a Rorschach test, not a briefing. Because he is not a pleasant person to be around when he’s being briefed. It’s very difficult, and people are scared shitless of him.”
It must be understood that some people whose dementia is getting worse either keep thier previous personality, become more subdued than they were before, or become more hostile.
You can read this and previous blogs on two websites. One may look better than the other because of how the platforms present the page.
For me the crucial story on HUFFPOST (above) is Family Urges Biden in, debate be damned. As important as the article about the poll is and the all the other news about editorial boards, opinion writers, fellow Democrats, and others about his dropping out the president won't drop out unless he sees how this is the best course of action and the most persuasive person to help him decide this is Jill. She knows him better than anybody else. In some ways she may know him better than he knows himself.
Jill sees Joe at his best, his worst, and every way in between. More than anyone else, even more than her husband, she is in a position to evaluate his behavior for indications he is in the earliest stage of dementia. People in that stage are often in denial about what they blow off as irelevant memory lapses. This is why any full assessment for dementia includes both an interview, possibly with some testing, of the patient and also with one or more family members.
While there is the major issue of public perception of Biden's cognitive ability when it comes to the election if he decides not to drop out I doubt this issue will change a significant number of votes. My position is that if he does have dementia I have faith in him to recognize that he may be slipping and will discuss it with Jill and others he trusts to see if they see the same thing. One doesn't need an expert assessment to recognize and accept that they are succumbing to dementia. If they have self-awareness, as I am sure Joe Biden does, they will see it in themselves and ask those who they trust the most if they observe the same things.
I have no doubt that the Bidens are well aware of what happened with Ronald Reagan who revealed his Alzheimer's diagnosis five years after he left office (read article in Snopes).
If Biden is reelected and symptoms are interfering with his ability to govern I believe he will step down. This obviously would make Kamala Harris president. I have the utmost confidence in her. She could prove herself to the country and run successfully on her own in 2028.
If Biden doesn't have dementia
There is a good chance Biden doesn't have dementia. In fact the statistics suggest it is unlikely:
RISK
Women, People Ages 85 and Older, and Racial and Ethnic Minorities Face Greater Dementia Risk
Dementia is more prevalent at older ages. About 3% of adults ages 70 to 74 had dementia in 2019, compared with 22% of adults ages 85 to 89 and 33% of adults ages 90 and older.6
Women are slightly more likely to have dementia than men. Among adults ages 70 and older, 11% of women and 8% of men had dementia in 2019.7
Non-Hispanic white adults are less likely to develop dementia than most other racial and ethnic groups. Among those ages 70 and older, an estimated 8.5% of non-Hispanic white adults were living with dementia in 2019, compared with 16.1% of non-Hispanic Black adults and 16.4% of Hispanic adults.8
As they age, married older people may have a lower risk of dementia than their unmarried counterparts.9Read more here.
I write this as an 80 year old former psychotherapist whose partner is 79, and who lives in a continuing care retirement community where I know dozens of elders. Neither of us shows signs of dementia. I have close friends in their early nineties who may need a walker to get around but who are almost as mentally sharp as they were 10 years ago when I first met them.
About me: For going on 10 years I have seen people in all the stages of dementia. I wouldn't call myself an expert on dementia. I never had a course on it or went to a workshop on the subject. My knowledge comes from reading and observation.
These are my previous blogs related to this issue. Yesterday I wrote:
The Democrats saying (and they are saying it now as I write this on MSNBC) that Biden "merely" had a bad night and lauding his accomplishment as presdient are not addressing the possiblity that his "bad night" might have been a result of, in the worst case, actual dementia the symptoms of which are only evident in the evening, or in the best case the "aging brain" which is sharper during the day than at night.
Democrats and people who care about democracy are voting for a brain. They deserve to know whether that the brain, like a car, is firing on all cylinders, or if running on batteries was fully chargred all day and after a good night's recharging, was ready to handle the duties of the presdiency the next morning.
“The Democratic press barely questioned Mr. Biden’s limited workday, his reliance on a teleprompter, and his rare unscripted media interviews,"
What they don't mention is Trump's typical workday as president and how often he spent time at his various homes frequently playing golf and Trump also using a teleprompter and how when he speaks extemporaneously it is often unhinged lunacy.
You can read this and previous blogs on two websites. One may look better than the other because of how the platforms present the page.
NBC News reports that President Joe Biden will travel to Camp David Sunday where he and First Lady Jill Biden are scheduled to join their children and grandchildren.
The trip had been planned before Thursday's debate, in which Biden gave a disastrous performance that has left Democrats on edge.
According to NBC News sources, "there is an understanding among top Democrats that Biden should be given space to determine next steps."
Insiders reportedly "believe only the president, in consultation with his family, can decide whether to move forward or to end his campaign early."
Biden is typically at his sharpest between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., according to Axios, which cited discussions with eight current and former Biden aides.
Thursday night’s debate was five hours after that window. Quite simply, it might have been too late in the day for him to present his best self.
Axios reported that the staffers have seen “flashes of an absent-minded Biden” akin to the version who took long pauses and delivered meandering sentences in a low, hoarse voice onstage this week. But they reportedly dismiss these moments because he is alert and engaged at other times.
International travel is also particularly tiring for the president, the outlet said.
New Yorker editor David Remnick Calls For Biden To Drop Out Of Presidential Race
New Yorker Editor David Remnick called for Biden to drop out of the presidential race following his disastrous debate performance on Thursday.
In a scathing editorial, Remnick said Biden’s age can no longer be ignored, and that watching him fumble during the debate was an “agonizing experience.”
“You watched it, and, on the most basic human level, you could only feel pity for the man and, more, fear for the country,” Remnick wrote.
While Remnick acknowledged that finding a new nominee would be an “admittedly complicated process,” he argued that it would still be the more “rational course.”
“To stay in the race would be pure vanity, uncharacteristic of someone whom most have come to view as decent and devoted to public service,” Remnick added.
We cannot treat what we saw with Biden during the debate as a one-off. If someone persistently had certain physical conditions that occurred at a consistent time of day if they had any sense they would see their doctor. Cognitive conditions tend to be treated differently. They are easier to dismiss.
I am 80 years old. I know I am more alert and articulate at certain times of the day than I am at others. I usually am up at 5 and working on my blog and I stay energized until 2 PM when I get sleepy and if at all possible I take a nap for an hour. Most of the time when I wake up I feel refreshed and alert, although sometimes I have trouble shaking the cobwebs out of my head. Then I am alert until about 7 PM when I start to get sleepy. I go to bed and watch MSNBC or listen to NPR for about two hours before I sleep, sometimes with the TV or radio on.
When I wake up at around 11 to go to the bathroom I am fairly wide awake and often stay in bed thinking of a blog topic for the morning. I know I could get up and start to write it but instead of throwing my sleep pattern off I compose a a general outline in my mind and thankfully fall asleep and wake up remembering what I planned to write.
I consider what would happen if I had to help someone in crisis at that hour and I think I'd be able to rouse myself enough to assist them, even to (as has happened) drive them to the emergency room. If I was president or a member of the team that was called to the White House Situation Room in the wee hours of the morning I might not be at 100% right away but with a cup of high octane coffee I think I could fire up all cylinders. We have to know that Biden could do the same thing.
President Biden, as I have wirtten in the previous blogs, showed signs of sundowning in the debate which could be part of early dementia. "Could" doesn't mean is. He could just have what, for want of a more clinical term, an aging brain. If this is the case he could still continue as the excellent president he's been as long as this doesn't change significantly for the worse. That is of serious concern. The Biden we see today may not be the Biden of one or two years from now.
Any elder with any self awareness knows this about themselves. My senior friends and I certainly do. We try to take advantage of the years we have left. I have a good friend who, when he turned 90 and was able to get around using just a cane, went with his entire family on a European tour. Now, 93, while mentally as sharp as he was at 90, he needs an electric wheelchair.
As for Biden, there are certainly work-arounds for cyclical daily cognitive changes. Scheduling meetings when you're at your best makes sense. Naps can be crucial. Consider the following from the website Somnology
1. “A night owl with a bedtime”
President Obama reportedly slept around 5 hours a night, preferring to hit the sack well past midnight and wake at 7 A.M. Sleep patterns like this are mostly dictated by our circadian rhythms, but these rhythms can be flexible depending on our personal schedules. Being a night owl (or an early bird), then, can sometimes be a blend of nature and nurture.
2. “Napping across party lines”
Ronald Reagan, JFK, and Bill Clinton napped daily; Reagan even made a schedule for his naps and took them at the same time each day. While there are pros and cons to napping, research indicates that a properly executed nap increases alertness, performance, and memory. All great benefits to have if you’re the leader of the free world.
The questions about Biden's cognitive fitness to serve has caused a schism among his supporters with editorial boards and highly regarded opinion columnists call for him to step down and pundits minimizing the debate as just one bad night.
It's time to say the quiet part out loud: Democrats must replace President Joe Biden as their party's nominee for president. If Democrats truly believe Trump is a threat to the constitutional orderand the rights of Americans, then they will need a better candidate to make the argument. At Thursday night’s debate, Biden looked and acted old, tired and feeble. He struggled to cite facts and statistics to bolster his arguments. Some of his responses were incoherent and rambling, like one early in the debate that elicited a rare truthful and accurate statement from Trump: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”
Ali Velchi on his MSNBC show just said that Biden's team has to convince voters not to let 90 minutes define a presidency. He talked about this Politico article.
I have to disagree with the notion that we can't let 90 minutes define a presidency. If those 90 minutes were disgnostic of either dementia or "an aging brain" we have to take the possiblity seriously. If this performance was caused by a cold medication (as I wrote yesterday) we need to know.
It is quite possible that Biden is what scientists call a super-ager. Consider:
Excerpt:
When it comes to aging, we tend to assume that cognition gets worse as we get older. Our thoughts may slow down or become confused, or we may start to forget things, like the name of our high school English teacher or what we meant to buy at the grocery store.
But that’s not the case for everyone.
For a little over a decade, scientists have been studying a subset of people they call “super-agers.” These individuals are age 80 and up, but they have the memory ability of a person 20 to 30 years younger.
Most research on aging and memory focuses on the other side of the equation — people who develop dementia in their later years. But, “if we’re constantly talking about what’s going wrong in aging, it’s not capturing the full spectrum of what’s happening in the older adult population,” said Emily Rogalski, a professor of neurology at the University of Chicago, who published one of the first studies on super-agers in 2012.
A paper published Monday in the Journal of Neuroscience helps shed light on what’s so special about the brains of super-agers. The biggest takeaway, in combination with a companion study that came out last year on the same group of individuals, is that their brains have less atrophy than their peers’ do.
There has been speculation as to whether there will be a second debate. If Biden choses not to drop out I think there should be. I expect Trump wants to have a second go at Biden having seen how poorly he performed the first time, perhaps with new debate rules. For Biden's part I think he owes it to the nation to demonstrate that when necessary he can be the 10 AM to 4 PM Joe Biden between 9:00 PM and 10:30 PM.
Jamie Raskin just said that Barack Obama had one bad night, referring to his first debate with Mitt Romney. Other's have also made this comparison. Nobody at the time suggested that Obama's bad debate performance might have been caused by dementia or an aging brian.
This is obviously relevant: New Report Suggests Reason Biden Appeared Sluggish At Debate
Biden is typically at his sharpest between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., according to Axios, which cited discussions with eight current and former Biden aides.
Thursday night’s debate was five hours after that window. Quite simply, it might have been too late in the day for him to present his best self.
Axios reported that the staffers have seen “flashes of an absent-minded Biden” akin to the version who took long pauses and delivered meandering sentences in a low, hoarse voice onstage this week. But they reportedly dismiss these moments because he is alert and engaged at other times.
International travel is also particularly tiring for the president, the outlet said.
Biden's North Carolina speech, albeit mostly read from a telepromtper, showed no indications of dementia. For example, in that speech Biden referenced the attacks on the Capitol and the police officers who were attacked as he has many dozens of times before. However, Biden fumbled when asked about the Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt at the debate Thursday night. He failed to point out that the U.S. Capitol attack, instigated by Trump, included violent assaults on 140 police officers, with one dying hours later. Instead, Biden only mentioned the breaking of windows and overturning of desks in the building, as if the vandalism had been the worst of it. (From HuffPost)
But the debate was at 9:00 PM where someone with dementia not present during daylight hours could be manifesting symptoms. This is called sundowning.
There are other, perhaps more likely, explanations for what I described as possibly indicative of early dementia sundowning.
We know he had a cold. It's possible that because of a severe cold he had a poor night's sleep the evening before. He may have taken an over-the-counter cold medicine, perhaps for the first time, and had an unexpected reaction to it.
Some people have adverse reactions to common cold medications. Drowsiness is a common side effect. You may have had the experience of feeling "a little goofy" after taking a cold medicine. I can see why Biden wouldn't want to admit that he was off his game because he had taken Robitussin or Mucinex because it seem like he'd be making an excuse.
I can see why Biden wouldn't want to admit that he was off his game because he had taken Robitussin or Mucinex because it would seem like he'd be making an excuse. I've taken both products with no aside effects (and little if any effect on my symptoms) but friends have told me they make them feel spacey.
I don't see how an ordinary cold would account for the bad debate. However, a really bad cold could explain it, especially if he was having a reaction to cold medication.
“As Joe said earlier today, he’s not a young man,” she continued, her voice upbeat. “After last night’s debate, he said, ‘You know, Jill, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel that great.’”
It was the most intimate detail anyone in Biden’s orbit had revealed about how the president viewed his debate performance on Thursday night, a dismal 90 minutes in which he stammered, stumbled and appeared to lose his train of thought.
If those closest to the president, especially Jill and his sister Valerie, notice that Biden is showing signs of dementia in the evening they would be well advised to talk to him about this. He should speak to his physician and if appropriate have a complete neuropsychological examination (read what this entails here).
If if does turn out that he is in the earliest stage of dementia Biden has the character to recognize he has to step down. He won't need to be pushed by the few people in addition to his wife and sisters like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and others listed here who he might be influenced by.
As for whether or ot Trump has dementia I am open to the possibilty, perhaps likelihood, that he does. Perhaps the symptoms are worse during the day. His sleep patterns are unsual.
