It is time for Rachel Maddow cut the chuckling and get deadly serious. by Hal M. Brown

 

I have admired Rachel Maddow ever since she began her show on MSNBC. I always agree with everything she says. I don't always agree with how she says it or how she produces her show. I address the latter today.

Last night Rachel Maddow found something to smile and chuckle over about something Trump did. I found this to be inappropriate.

I wanted to find a picture for this Substack of Rachel Maddow to illustrate the habit she has of laughing inappropriately when discussing something serious. I looked up "Rachel Maddow laughing" and found more than I expected to in this: 

Rachel Maddow laughs at white supremacists whining about money woes before Charlottesville trial

Out MSNBC host Rachel Maddow laughed at complaints from white supremacists about their upcoming trial for inciting violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Maddow also mocked the white, straight, cisgender men at their choice to represent themselves after their lawyers quit the case, saying “couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.”

The article didn't offer an opinion about her laughing about something so serious.

Last night Rachel Maddow began her show with a long explanation about Trump using a family crest which the previous owners of Mar-a-Lago left behind on a wall for his own self-agrandizement. It was off-putting to me because she sounded rather chipper and she smiled and chuckled occasionally as she went on. 

She told about his new challenge coin. Wikipedia explains what they are, but in brief, they have been used by many other presidents and by the military to show appreciation to individuals.  

Bottom: Trump's coin with the crest and Donald J. Trump on it.

At least she didn't waste time, like I am about to do, telling about his 2017 challenge coin. This is from The NY Times:

What’s big and shiny and gold and features Donald J. Trump’s name splashed across the front? No, it’s not a new development on the West Side of Manhattan. It’s the redesigned presidential challenge coin.

A custom dating back 20 years, presidential challenge coins have traditionally been handed out to service members in commemoration of special achievements and milestones. President Trump’s coin, which many saw on Friday for the first time, is unmistakably different from its predecessors.

Gone is the national motto, E pluribus unum, meaning “out of many, one.” In its place appears the president’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” which the administration has also used on official White House documents.

This would have been approprate if the segment was merely about Trump's narcissim. Besides, his stealing the family crest is old news. The only thing new is his putting it on a coin. Here's a BBC article about it from 2017:

The title of this segment was "Trump makes laughingstock of America with repeated embarrassments in early days of term." His being the laughingstock of the world doesn't mean we should be laughing at him. You can watch the segment here. 

She talked about his saying that Hezbolah used condoms in making bombs and quizically asking just how this would work. She talked about his saying that the US sent military troops into Calfornia to turn on the water, and other things not at all related to his appropriation of the crest of another family. She talked about how Trump thought Spain was a member of the BRIC nation group. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. All this is fodder for discussion, but it had nothing to do with the family crest story. 

Rachel frequently begins her show with a backstory, but it always connects to what she then goes on to address. This one didn't. It just gave her something light to talk about.

Rachel never made the connection between Trump's wanting to have a family crest and an aspect of his dark and dangerous personality. She could have made the connection by doing this.

Better yet...

 ... she could have explained that demonstrates that Trump is an exemplar of someone manifesting all of the traits of The Dark Triad. The triad is narcissism, psychopathology, and Machiavellianism. These traits have been described as occuring together in a malevolent way. I won't waste space going further into this here since you can look it up on Wikipedia.

Click to enlarge image

I have never seen Rachel Maddow address the psychopathology of Trump. On the other hand, Lawrence O'Donnell regularly has mental health professionals on his show addressing this subject. 

Recently he had psychoanalyst Lance Dodes on. This was just after Trump announced his desire, or threat, to take over Greenland. You can watch the segment here.

O'Donnell previously had both Dodes and psychologist John Gartner, the founder of Duty to Warn, on the show.

Rachel Maddow came back to doing a five night a week show to cover the first 100 days of Trump's presidency with great fanfare on MSNBC. 

I see from the MSNBC website that she went on to discuss Trump going too far in his zeal to dismantle the federal government and interviewing Tim Walz. I don't know whether those segements were worth watching because when she went to commercial after 25 minutes we went back to watching "The Night Agent" on Netflix.

This is the second Substack I've written expressing dismay that Rachel sometimes takes things too lightly. Read it all here.

I wrote, among other things, the following:

I don't want to pick on Rachel Maddow in particular, but she seems to be the worst offender. Others, like Lawrence O'Donnell, Michelle Wallace, and Ali Velshi, report on Trump and what he is doing with gravity. But Rachel seems to have a kind of nervous reaction sometimes, not all of the time, when she laughs or chuckles when reporting on Trump and his cadre.

There is nothing remotely amusing about Trump and about what he is doing. He is hell-bent on turning the country into a ruthless dictatorship as soon as possible.  Nobody on MSNBC should crack a smile when they talk about him even if they are reporting on some of his faux pas. 

I am open to considering that Rachel's approach is acceptable just because, however she comes across, she gets under Trump's thin skin. I measure this possiblity against how it effects her audience. I think of the impact Walter Chronkite had when he came out against the VietNam War.  

It is time for Rachel to say she isn't going to crack so much as a hint of a smile until the menace of MAGA is gone.

I think the peril of Trump will begin to sink in. It may take more reporting on children cowering in fear and crying when ICE agents manhandle their parents who are in chains when they are loaded onto airplanes.

Rereading this, written just five days ago, I realize that the actions Trump has taken since then demonstrate that he is hellbent on riding roughshod over democracy. In his fervor to get revenge on his enemies as he demands alligence from the GOP lest they, too, become his enemies, he makes no secret of the fact that he wants to become a ruthless dictator. Forget the "day one" crap and the lie about not knowing about Project 2025. This is his plan.

I expect more from Rachel Maddow. I think her lead-in last night was basically shtick. Chuckle, chuckle, so Trump is a self-aggrandizing asshole. Yeah, we know that, but he's an asshole that has nominated somone to be FBI director who, as a wrote about yesterday, wants to put you in prison.

I've given up on the "Morning Joe" crew. They or their producers insist on spending time talking about sports and having entertainment segments on. The other morning they had a relevant discussion about Trump and then had John Larrouqutte on talking about the revival of "Night Court." That's when we tuned in to CNN. 

What is happening to the couunty is, as the sayings go, as serious as a heart attack or a cancer diagnosis. Now it is time for Rachel Maddow to get deadly serious. 

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

Trump's gift to the press is Candy Karoline. At least she's better looking than Joseph Goebbels, by Hal M. Brown

 

Joseph Goebbels served his master well as his minister of propaganda. Without television Hitler didn't need a pretty face.

I watched Rachel last night when she explained unequivocally that Trump was intent on becoming a dictator and implied that anyone who denied this was a fool. If you watched this you may have had trouble falling asleep and woke from a nightmare in the wee hours of the morning. It may have crossed your mind that it is in these hours that Trump was wide awake and sending out a post on what probably should be called "Terror Social" announcing his latest assault on democracy.

How many of us look at the news on TV or online and ask ourselves "what did Trump do today?"

Just now having turned off MSNBC because they had John Larroquette on talking about the new "Night Court." I consider this their fiddling while Rome is burning. On CNN I watched a clip of Trump's Press Secretary, Karoline Leavit, lambasting the mainstream press for lying while effusively praising Trump for always telling the truth. This led me to write about her today.

Here's an article about her which people in India are reading.

This sentence jumped out at me:

The lifelong Trump loyalist is a avid gun-lover and shared a video on Instagram showing her unloading a machine gun at a firing range with the caption “Joe Biden come and take it”. 

Obviously she likes having a husband old enough to be her father. She seems to have a crush on someone old enough to be her grandfather.  Have I gone to far in suggesting this? How important is pleasing Trump to her? Consider this from the Hindustan Times:

Karoline Leavitt is a new mother who gave birth to a son in July last year amid Trump's election campaign. Leavitt refused to take a maternity leave and rejoined work four days after giving birth following an assassination attempt on Trump.

In the press conference she also announced that she was inviting podcasters, social media influencers, and new media voices to apply for press credentials. You can watch the video here.

At least she didn't call them journalists. Does anybody expect to see someone from The Bulwark or Salon added to the White House press corps?

Maybe I should apply.

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

 

If Rachel Maddow isn't on the top of Kash Patel's media hit list, after last night's take-down she is now, by Hal M. Brown

 

Rachel Maddow is known for wearing the same black outfit on all of her shows. Kash Patel wants to put her in prison orange. Patel aspires to be Trump's Hermann Göring with his own Gestapo.

Background: Nazi Gestapo.

Bottom:  Hermann Göring and Hitler

To fully appreciate why I titled this the way I did, watch the 11 minute segment of last night's Rachel Maddow show (here).

Here are some screen grabs:

Talking about J6 insurrectionists

Blaming J6 on the FBI

Veiled threat about prosecution the media

Like most of us, I knew about his book which listed some 60 people he labeled enemies of the state and that he included the anti-Trump media in general.

I knew about his saying that on his first day he'd close the FBI building and turn it into a museum of the deep state. 

He also insisted on a far right podcast that he can prove that the FBI was responsible for the J6 attack on the Capitol.

I knew about his children's book series with the stupid names for Hillary and Biden.

I didn't know about the extent of his grandiose narcissistic grifting and his hawking self-aggrandizeing merch. Rachel covered that, but it isn't in the video clip.

I wonder if Patel is the only nominee who has his own website featuring Donald Trump and a plea for donations to his own foundation on the main page.

Check out the crap he is selling on his website (here).

He says this one is perfect "for the wall of your man cave."

This is a version of the Donald Trump Punisher logo that he's adopted to promote himself. I don't kmow who first came up with it, and frankly, I don't give a damn.

Today HuffPost published 

Donald Trump’s Most Controversial Cabinet Picks Face Skeptical GOP Senators

The confirmation battles over Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be a test of how much Trump has changed the Republican Party.

There's no mention of Kash Patel in the article.

We all know why RFJ Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard are dangerous. One imperils the health of the nation and the other puts our national security at risk. I propose that if you add Kash Patel to the list of the three worst yet to be confirmed he is more dangerous than the two of them combined. He is in a position to drive the real top-cops out of the FBI and replace them with a corps like Hitler's Gestapo. 

While real criminals lookig for the federal laws they can break with impunity will celebrate, we should realize that Patel cares nothing about tradtional federal law enforcement. The Gestapo never went after bank robbers and kidnappers.

I think that the Rachel Maddow segment on Kash Patel should be required viewing for every GOP senator. Let them explain how they could vote to confirm this paranoid lunatic who aspires to be Trump's  Hermann Göring.

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

Performative sadisim: Cruelty in the closet doesn't count. It's just no fun. By Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

This is a sequel to yesterday's Substact:

Trump and MAGA cohorts don't lack empathy. As sadists, they have perverse empathy.

I wrote this in part as a reaction to the following:

'Cruel': Ex-GOP lawmaker slams Trump's border czar for Dr. Phil stunt: RawStory

Needless to say, Phil McGraw is an embarrasment to me and any self-respecting member of the mental health profession. Here's an example of his empathetic interview technique:

He was filmed taking to a Thai national detained in Chicago by authorities over an alleged history of sex crime charges.

"Have you been deported before?" McGraw asked him. "What have you been charged with? Are you a citizen?" The detainee, in handcuffs, said he wanted to speak to his lawyer.

This is how Adam Parkhomenko and Sam Youngma put it on their Substack in Dr. Phil did what?

Oh what the effing fuck? How gross is this damn country?! It’s like we hit rock bottom of scuminess and then someone remembered to add a reality TV component. Were the Kardashians not available? Is Dr. Oz too busy sucking somewhere else? At what point do we disown Oprah for introducing us to these assholes? And how is it possible that we fucking miss Omarosa already?

I didn't know that a requirement to be a psychotherapist was to enjoy making frightened people uncomfortable, let alone ask to have their lawyer present.

The sadistic Stephen Miller, who has yet to make a guest appearance at a deportation festival, and Tom Homan, are both happy thugs delighted by the power they have been given, so I suppose there's another criterion to apply to their job description. 

Dr. Phil holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, albeit from North Texas State University (rated 220 in national universities). He ceased renewing his license to practice psychology in 2006. I would hope that by now his license would have been revoked. A deportation performance like his would merit a review by any licensed mental health professional  licensing board.

This is how Robert Hubbell put it in his Substack today:

As is often said of the Trump administration, “The cruelty is the point.” Dr. Phil has elevated that rubric to the next level, “The cruelty is entertainment.”

Hubbell went on:

Oprah created Dr. Phil’s celebrity. Her voice is needed to condemn his actions as a PR agent for Trump's deportations. Per the Chicago Sun-Times, “Dr. Phil’s TV channel, MeritTV, was given special access to the operation on Sunday.” 

I saw this photo posted in a comment on the RawStory article.

I couldn't believe it was real so I checked it out. Bizarre doesn't begin to describe a therapist with a gun obsession. Some shrinks publish in journals - he made House Beautiful. 

Obviously, all this is a cruel and sadistic performance meant to be shared in the media.

Trump and his sadist cohorts and followers get a rush out of this. You can bet this is must see TV for Trump, Miller, and the members of his cult. Is it sick? See below:

________________________

For those who want to delve more deeply into what is so very wrong with people like this, I suggest reading the Wikipedia entry about sadistic personality here. You can look at the traits and characteristics and consider which of them apply to Trump and his henchmen, and to those who enjoy watching the deportations.

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.