Trump's campaign strategy: Reichstag fires

Trump tweet from today

I am certainly not the first person to make a connection between Trump and the Reichstag fire strategy. As Timothy Snyder wrote in Reichstag Warning in the New York Review of Books on February 26, 2017, a month after Trump was sworn in. (my highlights):

In February 27, 1933 the German Parliament building burned, Adolf Hitler rejoiced, and the Nazi era began. Hitler, who had just been named head of a government that was legally formed after the democratic elections of the previous November, seized the opportunity to change the system. “There will be no mercy now,” he exulted. “Anyone standing in our way will be cut down.” 

The Reichstag fire shows how quickly a modern republic can be transformed into an authoritarian regime. There is nothing new, to be sure, in the politics of exception. The American Founding Fathers knew that the democracy they were creating was vulnerable to an aspiring tyrant who might seize upon some dramatic event as grounds for the suspension of our rights. As James Madison nicely put it, tyranny arises “on some favorable emergency.” What changed with the Reichstag fire was the use of terrorism as a catalyst for regime change. To this day, we do not know who set the Reichstag fire: the lone anarchist executed by the Nazis or, as new scholarship by Benjamin Hett suggests, the Nazis themselves. What we do know is that it created the occasion for a leader to eliminate all opposition.... 

...The aspiring tyrants of today have not forgotten the lesson of 1933: that acts of terror—real or fake, provoked or accidental—can provide the occasion to deal a death blow to democracy. 

The most consequential example is Russia, so admired by Donald Trump. When Vlaimir V. Putin was appointed prime minister in August 1999, the former KGB officer had an approval rating of 2 percent. Then, a month later, the bombs began to explode in apartment buildings in Moscow and several other Russian cities, killing hundreds of citizens and causing widespread fear. There were numerous indications that this was a campaign organized by the KGB’s heir, now known as the FSB. Some of its officers were caught red-handed (and then released) by their peers. A Russian parliamentarian announced one of the “terror” attacks several days before the bomb actually exploded.
Putin blamed Muslim terrorists and began the war in Chechnya that made him popular. He thereafter exploited more terrorist attacks to consolidate his rule: three years later, Russian security forces ended up gassing to death Russian civilians in a botched response to an attack at a Moscow theater. Putin used the negative press coverage as a justification for seizing control of television. In 2004, after the Beslan massacre, in which terrorists occupied a school and killed a large number of parents and children during a violent confrontation with Russian forces, Putin abolished the position of elected regional governors. And so the current Russian regime was built...

...It is alarming that in a series of catastrophic executive policy decisions—the president’s Muslim travel ban, his selection of Steve Bannon as his main political adviser, his short-lived appointment of Michael Flynn as national security adviser, his proposal to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem—there seems to be a single common element: the stigmatization and provocation of Muslims. In rhetoric and action, the Trump administration has aggrandized “radical Islamic terror” thus making what Madison called a “favorable emergency” more likely.

It appears that Synder thought Trump would use Muslims to execute his Reichstag fire strategy, but now it appears - or rather it has appeared since last August - that Trump intends to use ANTIFA as the great bogeyman.

And ANTIFA is the perfect vehicle. ANTIFA - for anti-fascist - like to protest wearing masks and refuse to reveal their identities. This is custom-made for use by the Right to infiltrate, commit mayhem and blame it on leftists and the "terrorist organization" ANTIFA.

The connection between Trump's Reichstag fire strategy and the IDW is through Andy Ngo.  Ngo is a right-wing sympathizer who disgraced himself so badly that he's no longer with Quillette but rather has descended even further into the pits by joining the right-wing garbage publication Post-Millennial.

Andy Ngo, the right-wing journalist and provocateur who was embraced by mainstream Republicans and covered favorably in mainstream media after he was attacked by antifa activists during a street fight in Portland, Oregon, may suddenly be persona non grata among conservatives. Nearly all mentions of Ngo were scrubbed from the upscale right-wing publication Quillette after a newly-released video showed him acting friendly with members of Patriot Prayer, a far-right hate group that has repeatedly sought out fights with leftists.

Ngo, who has used selectively edited videos to paint antifa as a violent, criminal group was hit with punches and milkshakes during a clash between antifa activists and members of the Proud Boys, an organization labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Many on the right rallied around Ngo after that altercation, and spread false rumors that the milkshakes thrown at him and others had contained quick-dry cement. 

After the Ngo-ANTIFA brouhaha last July/August, it turned out that Ngo's lawyer is Republican committee woman Harmeet K. Dhillon.

The Proud Boys are apparently at it again.

This tweet is also from today

The Proud Boys is a right-wing organization founded by Gavin McInnes, who has his own IDW connection - he worked for the right-wing extremist Canadian Rebel Media along with Quillette founder Claire Lehmann.

Several Proud Boys were prosecuted for brawling in Manhattan in October 2018.

Meanwhile another organization of anonymous individuals called Anonymous has apparently published information about Trump's connection to Epstein although the story is not new. And of course the IDW has another connection to Trump - Steven Pinker was also a known associate of Jeffrey Epstein.

Although it was new to me that Trump had been accused of child molestation - of both boys and girls - by a web site called the Wayne Madsen Report:

In addition to Stephanie Clifford, aka porn actress "Stormy Daniels," and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, Cohen reportedly helped settle a number of rape cases involving Trump. WMR received a list from a reputable Republican source of these settlement claims, all of which involve male and female minors: 

1. Michael Parker, 10-years old, oral rape, Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, FL, 1992. Trump paid his parents a $3 million settlement.
2. Kelly Feuer, 12-years old, $1 million settlement paid in 1989, allegations of forced intercourse, Trump Tower, NY, NY.
3. Charles Bacon, 11-years old, $3 million, allegations of oral and anal intercourse, 1994, Trump Tower, NY, NY.
4. Rebecca Conway, 13-years old, intercourse and oral sex. Trump Vineyard Estates, Charlottesville, VA, 2012, $5 million settlement.
5. Maria Olivera, 12-years old. Her family was paid $16 million to settle allegations of forcible intercourse occurring in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, FL, 1993.
6. Kevin Noll, 11-years old, anal rape, Trump Tower, NY, NY. 1998. Settlement details unknown.

Five of the six alleged incidents took place at two of Trump's best-known properties -- Trump Tower in New York City and Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, FL. The exception is incident No. 4, which is the most recent (2012) and took place at Albemarle Estate at Trump Winery. Donald and Eric Trump opened the facility as a bed-and-breakfast in May 2015.

Trump started negotiating to acquire the property after it went into foreclosure in 2011. Trump formally purchased the entire estate in October 2012. 

The child-sex settlements might explain Trump's reluctance to disclose his tax returns, WMR reports, and documents indicate our "president" is a deeply disturbed individual:

WMR's GOP source indicated that Trump has refused to release his tax returns because they will reveal the many out-of-court settlements he has paid to silence his assault victims and their families. The list of Trump's child victims came with an interesting reference point that was apparently part of the documentation in the settlement cases. Trump was designated with a psychiatric disorder referenced in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5). The referenced disorder is "Pedophilic Disorder (F65.4)."

Yes of course the Trump administration is the Intellectual Dark Web administration

Pinker dancing for joy over Trump's
defeat in 2020
-----------------------------------------

Yes, like the Intellectual Dark Web, the Trump administration is chock-full of unqualified morons, racists, grifters and right-wing extremist plutocrats. 

I made the connection between J. D. Vance and the IDW back in August.

Trump supporters Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are hard-core believers in race pseudoscience - I noted Trump was pushing race pseudoscience during the campaign.

The Conversation, an opinion website funded foremost by religious conservatives, is celebrating this victory of IDW-style racism and fascism über alles in an article by Jamie Q. Roberts.

Roberts, an Australian, is a true believer in the Intellectual Dark Web, working on a forthcoming book about the IDW.

It's obvious that Roberts adores the idiocracy:

Donald Trump had his own celebrities, such as Hulk Hogan, but he was also supported by a group of converted Democrats: Joe Rogan, Tulsi Gabbard, (just chosen as Trump’s director of national intelligence), Robert F. Kennedy Jr (Trump’s pick to head the federal health agency), and Elon Musk, who has been selected to co-lead Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. 

Rogan is a self-confessed moron.

Gabbard is also a moron and a Russian asset.

Stephen Colbert recently had some great lines about Gabbard: “Tulsi Gabbard has been named Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence. Now, I... I... I have met this woman. I interviewed Tulsi Gabbard right over there during the 2020 presidential campaign, and I gotta say... uh... when, I think Tulsa Gabbard, the word intelligence is not the first one that comes to mind. Or the second. And, a reminder, a reminder: Gabbard is known for spreading Russian propaganda on fringe, far right sites, which is why Hillary Clinton said Tulsa Gabbard is being groomed by Russia, but only because she’s too old to be groomed by Matt Gaetz.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an anti-vaxxer and animal-corpse-abusing kook.

Elon Musk is also a Russian asset and a full-blown corrupt oligarch in the Russian tradition, who needs to be deported back to South Africa.

The best part of the article though is when Roberts links Trump's victory to the IDW grift of Steven Pinker.

While Trump won for many reasons, including immigration and the economy, my sense is that Trump, forever the populist, harnessed a widespread dissatisfaction with a form of identity politics promulgated by a quite often well-paid, white-collar class: psychologist Steven Pinker’s “chattering class.”

Pinker can be seen a month ago worrying about a Trump presidency. While comparing Trump's fascism to "culture wars" and the woke mob.

Pinker's dislike of Trump while loving much of what Trump stands for is likely more evidence of Pinker's intellectual incoherence: he likes to have things both ways, a personality trait which many critics have noticed.

I hope Steven Pinker's devotion to the IDW grift will henceforth be recognized as an important factor in the triumph of fascism over American democracy.

Candace Owens, Trumpian Coronavirus Denier

IDW member Candace Owens features prominently in a NYTimes article today about the right-wing approach to the Coronavirus pandemic: denialism and then when that is no longer tenable, blame the left:
Alarm, Denial, Blame: The Pro-Trump Media’s Coronavirus Distortion.

On March 10, the day that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned every American to adopt an “all hands on deck” mind-set, Ms. Owens scoffed at what she called “the mass global mental breakdown” as financial markets plunged. “People think it’s novel that 80 year olds are dying at a high rate from a flu,” she wrote, adding that when future generations study the world’s coronavirus response, “This tweet will age well.” 

Ms. Owens is the kind of influential conservative — she has a huge online audience as well as sway with the White House and top cable news and radio producers — who has been central to spreading doubt about the seriousness of the virus to Mr. Trump’s most loyal supporters. 

In an interview, Ms. Owens said she did not believe that her tweets were irresponsible. “Do I think it’s irresponsible to say the economic impact will be the legacy?” she said. “It’s not about being responsible. It’s about being honest.”

Trump and his team of monsters from hell cannot lose access to the White House soon enough for sane people in the world.

Speaking of Trump and his team, the current pandemic must have put a real crimp in Trump's plans to ratfuck the Democrats.

Way back a million years ago, in August, I posted an article called Trump is the ratfucker.

And just a month later, Trump's biggest ratfucking scheme (so far. that we know of.) was revealed when his quid pro quo attempt with Ukraine hit the news on September 25. Trump Pressed Ukraine’s President to Investigate Democrats as ‘a Favor.'

Now I don't doubt that Trump is planning more ratfucking attempts. That's who Trump is. You can't expect Trump to do anything without cheating. He's cheated his way through life - when he wasn't just handed advantages - and he's not about to stop cheating now.

I still think Trump and his malicious elves Andy Ngo and Ngo's lawyer, Republican committeewoman Harmeet K. Dhillon are likely to try a ratfucking attempt a la the Nazi's Reichstag fire - frame the Democrats for the actions of one rando.

And I think they are likely to do it via antifa. But they can't very well use antifa performance art in the middle of a stay-at-home pandemic.

But once social distancing is over, expect to see more signs of Trumpian ratfucking. All the polls now indicate Biden will beat Trump and Trump is not about to stand by and let that happen without using every possible dirty trick that he and his monstrously evil supporters can dream up.

Our country depends on stopping Trump.

The Trump campaign fully embraces race pseudoscience

Per the Washington Post:

In an interview with right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday morning, Trump’s suggestion that non-White immigrants are genetically inferior was made explicit.

The comment came as Trump was disparaging his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

“How about allowing people to come through an open border,” he said, “13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person and they’re now happily living in the United States?”

This is a false claim — “outrageously false,” in the wording of The Washington Post Fact Checker — based on a misrepresentation of numbers released by the government. That data indicated that there were about 13,000 immigrants who had committed murder but were not in custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Many, though, are in custody elsewhere, including at the state level. Nor were they all immigrants who arrived during the Biden administration; many were here under Trump, too.

Unchallenged by Hewitt, Trump continued on the subject.

“You know, now, a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes,” he said. “And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.” Reinforcing that he was talking about the “bad genes” of immigrants, Trump offered up more false claims based on the ICE data.

Hewitt, rather than contesting Trump’s genetic argument, shifted the conversation with no apparent irony to the federal criminal charges Trump himself faces. These, of course, are not a function of criminal genes, in Trump’s estimation, but instead of the political whims of Biden. (In reality, they are a function of Trump’s actions.)

"Criminal genes" is a core belief of Biosocial Criminology, a loose collection of racist, hereditarian beliefs that relies heavily on the racist garbage of Jean-Phillipe Rushton. How did I miss this article in Undark on the subject of Biosocial Criminology?

Later that year, the lead author of the paper, Brian Boutwell, took to the right-wing magazine Quillette to complain that biosocial criminologists were being shunned by their colleagues. Around that time, Boutwell and one of his co-authors on the paper, Florida State University criminologist Kevin Beaver, appeared separately on the show of alt-right podcaster Stefan Molyneux to talk about the links between crime, biology, and race. (Wright, one of the Cincinnati professors, appeared on the show too.)

Shunned or not, the authors of the paper maintained active careers. Boutwell is now an associate professor at the University of Mississippi. One of his co-authors, J.C. Barnes, was until recently the chair of the Biopsychosocial Criminology division of the American Society of Criminology. Another co-author, Beaver, now directs the Biosocial Criminology Research & Policy Institute at Florida State University, and he maintains an affiliation with King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. (Beaver did not respond to requests for an interview.)

Steven Pinker is a booster of biosocial criminology, which the Undark article does not mention, but which I've been tracking.

It should come as no surprise that Trump embraces race pseudoscience, considering he is funded by racists like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen. 

In a surprise twist, Andreessen's partner Horowitz has switched to supporting Harris.

But any reporter doing the least amount of research on Thiel would understand exactly how racist he has always been. This is from "Contrarian" the book about Thiel by Max Chafkin:

Clarium employees read, played chess, and debated (sample topic: If you were going to design a country from scratch, what would it look like?) Everyone spent a lot of time talking politics, though out was important that those politics always be of the right-wing variety. An employee told me that it was common to hear talk about climate change denial and to see web browsers open to VDARE, the far-right website with a long record of publishing white nationalist writing. There were liberals at Clarium, but they understood that it was best to keep those views quiet. 

How ironic that Steven Pinker (born in Canada), who apparently despises Trump (see him doing his awkward dance when Trump lost in 2020) has contributed to Trump's dangerous racist beliefs, by promoting racists and race pseudoscience (albeit usually stealthily) for the past couple of decades.

Juneteenth thoughts on the failures of the degenerate racist Trump administration

One of the best American presidents is Barack Obama, and this fact is what gave us degenerate freak Donald Trump. Because Trump and his loyal supporters are racists, and the reality of a good American president who is also Black - actually only half Black but America still operates on the one-drop rule - is what drives their white supremacist humiliation and thus their political project of revenge

Republicans are opposed to giving Americans public-funded healthcare, and so Obamacare, an impressive accomplishment considering what Obama was up against, is what they consider an example of Obama's inferiority as a president. But even Republicans can't deny that Obama killed bin Laden. The day Obama got bin Laden, I knew for sure he was going to be re-elected.

The Trump administration's degeneracy and racism were on full display this past week with the moronic White House lawn cage-match. 

I don't know if anybody connected to this administration has ever seen the film Idiocracy but those of us who have seen that 20-year old movie understand the connection, including one of the film's writers:

Comparisons have been made between the film and Trump's first presidency.[50][51][52] An article for Collider pointed out the ways in which Trump's positions echoed the political decisions of the characters in the film in areas such as science, business, entertainment, environment, healthcare, law enforcement, and politics.[53] Internet memes have spawned comparisons to Trump and characters in the film.[54][55][56]
The comparisons resurfaced when Trump became president again in 2025,[57] and became referenced again in 2026.[58]

And the rotten racist cherry on top of the cyanide-laced sundae was the moment when one of the wrestlers, on winning his wallow in the mud, yelled "Michelle Obama is a man."

This was the same week that Trump made a deal with Iran - called a capitulation by many - that was entirely to the benefit of Iran. Trump had already sealed his standing as worst US president of all time when he used his mob of morons to attack the Capitol on January 6, 2021. But this week has sealed his future standing as one of the most hated men in American history. 

Trump is physically unwell and in the early-middle stage of dementia. And the degenerate Republican Party will deny that, publicly, as long as it possibly can. The Republican Party needs to be punished, so hard, at the polls, if we can prevent them from destroying our democracy and ending elections entirely.

Yes, I know J. D. Vance is a soulless weasel, perfectly suited to the degeneracy of this administration. But if Trump dies while in office, I will still join the rest of the world - excluding the idiocracy, who will never stop worshipping Trump - in the massive celebration. 

Trump is the ratfucker

I've been talking about the connection between Trump and Quillette's favorite grifter, Andy Ngo via Ngo's lawyer, Republican committeewoman Harmeet K. Dhillon for the past month.

It was my hunch that Trump would try to use Ngo's fear-mongering over Antifa as a deflection tactic.

A week later, my hunch was further confirmed when Dhillon showed up at Trump's rightwing social media summit.

Just a few days after that, I saw that Andy Ngo was proceeding with the obvious next step - try to connect Antifa to the Democratic party.

A week ago, on what I think is the obvious co-ordination between Ngo, his lawyer and the Trump campaign I wrote:

There is a slight problem with the Antifa tactic - Antifa, being a bunch of anarchists and random zanies likely hate the Democratic Party as much as the Republican Party. 

But I am confident that Trump's ratfuckers will come up with a scheme to try to link Antifa and the Democrats. And Andy Ngo has already made an attempt to do just that.

The movie "All the President's Men" discussed the dirty tricks committed by the Nixon campaign, called "ratfucking."

But as we can see in the image at the top of this post, Trump does his own ratfucking, personally.

And this will not be the end of it. According to the NYTimes yesterday:

The Trump campaign was unapologetic on Tuesday about a New York Times report on its Facebook advertisements that use the word “invasion,” which featured prominently in the El Paso suspect’s manifesto. A senior Trump political adviser had a single-word answer — “no” — when asked if the campaign would change the tenor of its ads.

Trump's tweet about Antifa from today makes it obvious - any time Trump is accused of causing harm to the country because of his unrestrained racism and fear-mongering, he is going to try to do a both-sides. With plenty of help from grifter Andy Ngo. Expect Trump to mention Antifa a lot more, and to try to smear Democrats with that conveniently anonymous collection of masked individuals.

Legitimate journalists would do well to keep track of Andy Ngo if they want to scoop the next big story of the campaign. It's sure to be an utterly shameless example of ratfucking.

This video clip is the ratfucker scene from "All the Presidents Men" with Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein and Robert Walden as Donald Segrettti.

Trump's Reichstag moment - Pinkerite called it in April 2020

According to a book on the Trump presidency called "I Alone Can Fix It" about to be released:

In the days leading up to January 6, Leonnig and Rucker write, (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark) Milley was worried about Trump's call to action. "Milley told his staff that he believed Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military."

Milley viewed Trump as "the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose," the authors write, and he saw parallels between Adolf Hitler's rhetoric as a victim and savior and Trump's false claims of election fraud.

"This is a Reichstag moment," Milley told aides, according to the book. "The gospel of the Führer."

Ahead of a November pro-Trump "Million MAGA March" to protest the election results, Milley told aides he feared it "could be the modern American equivalent of 'brownshirts in the streets,'" referring to the pro-Nazi militia that fueled Hitler's rise to power. 

Pinkerite was sounding the alarm about Trump's re-election campaign as early as July 2019, especially with the Republican party's connection to grifter and Quillette team member Andy Ngo and his lawyer, Republican committee woman Harmeet K. Dhillon but I didn't use the term "Reichstag fire" in reference to Trump until April 2020.

On his show yesterday, Colbert referred to Trump, flat-out, as a "fascist." Nobody except MAGA freaks miss Trump, but there is nothing quite like Trump to bring out Colbert's comedic genius.

Quillette, Andy Ngo and the Trump campaign

Starting last summer, Pinkerite reported on the connection between Andy Ngo and the Trump campaign via Ngo's lawyer Harmeet K. Dhillon:

• July 6, 2019 - Andy Ngo, the grift and the Republican Party
• July 13, 2019 - More on the IDW's plan to help Trump's re-election campaign
• July 16, 2019 - The IDW/Republican Party/Andy Ngo grifter scheme continues apace
• July 18, 2019 - Andy Ngo & Bob Roberts
• July 29, 2019 - Ezra Levant -> Claire Lehmann -> Andy Ngo -> Donald Trump
• August 7, 2019 - Trump is the ratfucker
• August 29, 2019 - The Andy Ngo saga continues

The last link goes to a post that includes a passage from a Slate article about Ngo's career:

Andy Ngo, the right-wing journalist and provocateur who was embraced by mainstream Republicans and covered favorably in mainstream media after he was attacked by antifa activists during a street fight in Portland, Oregon, may suddenly be persona non grata among conservatives. Nearly all mentions of Ngo were scrubbed from the upscale right-wing publication Quillette after a newly-released video showed him acting friendly with members of Patriot Prayer, a far-right hate group that has repeatedly sought out fights with leftists. 

Ngo, who has used selectively edited videos to paint antifa as a violent, criminal group was hit with punches and milkshakes during a clash between antifa activists and members of the Proud Boys, an organization labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Many on the right rallied around Ngo after that altercation, and spread false rumors that the milkshakes thrown at him and others had contained quick-dry cement. 

Ngo used his newfound fame to boost his profile, appearing on Fox News and other cable news outlets and embracing his victimhood.
Just weeks later, however, a video surfaced on Twitter showing Ngo pal around with the Proud Boys-adjacent group Patriot Prayer. 

The video shows Ngo laughing as the group plans a violent attack on antifa members at a Portland bar in May. The video surfaced as part of a lawsuit brought by the bar, accusing Patriot Prayer members of causing a riot.

Please note that there has never been any evidence presented as to the identity of those who attacked Ngo and it's possible - and I think extremely plausible - that those anonymous people were right-wingers staging the attack in coordination with Ngo.

Ngo's strategy is obviously a template for Trump's campaign: coordinate with far-right groups and the right-wing media machine to bait and even frame leftist groups in order to claim leftists are out of control and a danger to the country.

Now Ngo is aiding the Trump campaign as reported last month in the Washington Post article Conservative media helps Trump perform ‘law and order’ in Portland, with risks for November.

The Trump administration has escalated tensions, local officials argue, by sending camouflaged officers to confront activists, most of whom have practiced nonviolence. The president, while devolving control of the coronavirus response to state and local authorities, has vowed to replicate the federal crackdown in Chicago, New York and other Democratic-controlled cities seeing sustained protests after the police killing of George Floyd. And he is being cheered on by provocateurs online and in the media pointing to the backlash against federal mobilization as a sign that a still more severe response is needed.

Video posted by conservative activist Andy Ngo, showing a scuffle with armed agents in military fatigues, became fodder for Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire website to label protesters “rioters.” Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, thundered: “The president’s right. This is a war zone.”

It helps that actual members of Antifa won't reveal their identities nor pledge non-violence, making them the perfect boogeymen for the Trump campaign. This reveals the genius of Martin Luther King, Jr.:  his emphasis on nonviolence and non-anonymity prevented the FBI from successfully portraying the Civil Rights movement as scary violent thugs out to destroy America.

It's also important to note that the far left, including Antifa, generally hates the Democratic Party. But Trump and Andy Ngo did their best to try to connect them:

And in spite of Andy Ngo's being caught coordinating with Patriot Prayer it's clear that Slate was wrong when it said:

Andy Ngo... may suddenly be persona non grata among conservatives. Nearly all mentions of Ngo were scrubbed from the upscale right-wing publication Quillette after a newly-released video showed him acting friendly with members of Patriot Prayer, a far-right hate group that has repeatedly sought out fights with leftists. 

Ngo is not only aiding the Trump campaign with his sleazy tactics he is also, in spite of being scrubbed from Quillette last August, back in the Quillette fold. He is listed as a member of Quillette's team as Sub-editor, Contributing Writer.

And in spite of the brief break between Quillette and Ngo, Quillette's founder Claire Lehmann has supported and enabled Ngo throughout his sleazy grifting career, including promoting the completely unfounded claim that Ngo was the victim of "a chemical attack."

Lehmann it seems is not at all disturbed by Ngo's aiding the Trump campaign with his Reichstag Fire tactics.

Neither is Steven Pinker since he hasn't said a single word against Andy Ngo and his sleaze, nor Quillette's continuing support for Ngo.

Steven Pinker & Jeffrey Epstein & Bari Weiss & Larry Summers & Trump

Pinker and Epstein, apparently on the "Lolita Express"

Although Pinker has claimed to be opposed to Trump, the second Trump atrocity has been in some respects very good for Pinker:

• His "woke" enemies in Academia have been fired or intimidated into silence, thanks to the Trump administration

• Legislation targeting trans people is being promoted by the Trump administration

• Pinker is a long-time ally of Bari Weiss.

•  She is now controlling CBS News, a result of Trump allies/appeasers wanting to curry favor with Trump. And before Weiss completely destroys CBS News, she's making sure to help boost the career of Pinker by putting him in one of her ill-regarded Town Halls.

And although Pinker has criticized Weiss' The Free Press, that doesn't stop him from being a contributor to that right-wing piece of crap.

Well, I've said it a million times - Pinker is a weasel. He only cares about promoting his career and promoting race pseudoscience, and if ethical consistency is an impediment to either, he will jettison ethical consistency. 

A striking aspect of Pinker's intellectual output, long noted by critics, is his habit of promoting two mutually exclusive propositions, or as critics have often called it "wanting to have things both ways."

It seems the only thing that has done any damage to his career at all is his association with Jeffrey Epstein.

Salon:

When Weiss isn’t suppressing reporting on torture, she is busy transforming CBS into a platform for the fringes of the right. Along with hosting a town hall featuring Erika Kirk, Weiss has tapped noted associates of the deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including the attorney and law professor Alan Dershowitz and psychologist Steven Pinker, for collaborations. This also comes as Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, was spotted this weekend dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago after refusing to defend his agency’s independence in congressional testimony.

But as we see, thanks to Weiss boosting his career, even the Jeffrey Epstein connection has not significantly hindered his career.

Another long-time ally of Pinker, Larry Summers, was an extremely close friend of Epstein, asking him for advice on how best to sexually harass one of his professional colleagues.

Recently someone has shared a brief video clip of Pinker with Epstein on what appears to be the "Lolita Express" (see above.) It's funny how many images of Pinker and Epstein there are, considering Pinker claimed to try to keep his distance.

As Inside Higher Ed wrote:

Pinker’s response begins with what he calls an “annoying irony” about Epstein: that “I could never stand the guy, never took research funding from him and always tried to keep my distance.”

“I found him to be a kibitzer and a dilettante -- he would abruptly change the subject, ADD-style, dismiss an observation with an adolescent wisecrack and privilege his own intuitions over systematic data.”

Still, he said, because “Epstein had insinuated himself with so many people I intersected with,” and since “I was often the most recognizable person in the room, someone would snap a picture; some of them resurfaced this past week, circulated by people who disagree with me on various topics and apparently believe that the photos are effective arguments.” He said that most joint engagements were before Epstein’s arrest, but one was after he served his sentence.

Regarding the 2007 letter, Pinker wrote that Dershowitz is a friend, “and we taught a course together at Harvard. He often asks me questions about syntax and semantics of laws, most recently the impeachment statute.” While he was representing Epstein, Dershowitz “asked me about the natural interpretation of one of the relevant laws, and I offered my opinion; this was cited in a court document.”

Pinker is friends with Trump's "confidant" Alan Dershowitz, lately seen encouraging Trump's dreams for a third term. Deshowitz was "part of the legal team that negotiated Epstein’s 2007 non-prosecution agreement in Florida and later represented him as allegations mounted in civil suits."

Pinker will be speaking to some of the wackiest crackpots of all, Randroids (aka "Objectivists") at their Summer Conference in 2026.

Back in 2013, on my personal blog, I did a deep dive into the career of Ayn Rand, with a focus on her magnum opus "Atlas Shrugged." I began with a pretty low opinion of Rand, but still, I was stunned by how bad "Atlas Shrugged' was on every level - literary, political, geographical and logical. And also by how much her "philosophy" was shaped by her mother giving away her favorite toy, a mechanical chicken, when she was five years old. 

Yes, in spite of the specter of Jeffrey Epstein, and Pinker's alleged dislike of Trump, Pinker and his allies are doing well during the second Trump administration.

The IDW/Republican Party/Andy Ngo grifter scheme continues apace

Here we see Andy Ngo trying to connect Democrat Maxine Waters to a violent mob.

This was an obvious next step in the IDW/Republican Party/Andy Ngo grift -

First make a big to-do about Andy Ngo being hit by an anonymous rando at an anti-Proud Boys demonstration. Including bogus claims of milkshakes with quick-drying cement. Or as Claire Lehmann called it a "chemical attack."

Next get Republican committee woman Harmeet K. Dhillon to become Ngo's lawyer.

Get Dhillon to make common cause with Trump by showing up at Trump's right-wing social media summit.

And of course when Trump is being criticized for attacking three American-born congress women as originally coming from "countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe" neither Andy Ngo nor any member of the IDW has, so far, had any complaints. Even alleged "liberal" members of the IDW like Steven Pinker and Bret Weinstein.

And in fact, Trump's response to criticism is similar to the IDW/Republican/Andy Ngo tactic. Trump's response was to claim that he wasn't the racist, it was the women he attacked who are the racists.

Much like Ngo and friends are trying to deflect from the hatred of journalists and pro-violence of the right and Trump by claiming it's the left and Democrats who are anti-journalist (Andy Ngo is portrayed as a "journalist" ) and pro-violence.

This is the ultimate expression of what the "intellectual dark web" is really all about. A pro-Trump effort trying to pass itself off as centrist or even liberal.

And Andy Ngo himself is the son of Vietnamese immigrants. Exactly the kind of people Trump attacked.   Because the grift is too strong for Andy Ngo to give up, even when Trump hates him as much as he hates any non-white immigrants.

When will the media do a story on children of immigrants like Andy Ngo & his lawyer, Harmeet K. Dhillon who side with Trump's racism, knowing Trump must hate their own immigrant parents as much as any congresswoman's?

Imagine voting for this demented freak

Calling Trump supporters "garbage" is not fair to garbage.

Why did Donald Trump simulate oral sex with his microphone at Milwaukee rally?

Yes, that is the Republican candidate for president.

But even as Trump’s rhetoric grows darker and more unhinged as election day approaches on Tuesday, and many voters — after nine years of insults and lies — have become numb to it, maybe you still thought Trump crossed a line with his comments about golfing legend Arnold Palmer’s penis.

Well, it turns out the 78-year-old former president and Republican presidential nominee has even more penis comedy material — an impersonation of Linda Lovelace.

Trump, in one of his final rallies on Friday night, simulated sexually stroking and then performing oral sex on his malfunctioning microphone in Milwaukee.

I cannot stop laughing.

More media

https://crooksandliars.com/2024/11/trump-simulates-oral-sex-stage#google_vignette

https://www.joemygod.com/2024/11/trump-simulates-giving-oral-sex-to-rally-microphone/

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/trump-pantomimes-oral-sex-at-rally/680511/

https://www.thewrap.com/donald-trump-blow-job-oral-sex-microphone-rally/

https://allhiphop.com/news/donald-trump-mimics-oral-sex-microphone-rally/

https://www.ibtimes.com/social-media-erupts-after-what-trump-does-dead-mic-blows-it-3749241

Let the beating down begin

Months ago I said Trump must be beaten down and also "Using every legal means, he must be beaten down. Constantly. Without ceasing. UNTIL HE IS DONE."

Well the January 6 committee finally got into the serious legal beating-down as discussed by The New York Times:

Which brings us to the investigation into the Capitol riot and the Jan. 6 committee’s four referrals to the Department of Justice for obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and for inciting or assisting an insurrection or offering aid and comfort to its participants. The last is the most important. Violating 18 U.S.C. 2383, which derives from a law dating to the Civil War, carries the penalty that, if convicted, Donald Trump “shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”

Here, at last, is an accountability that goes beyond what the impeachment managers, regardless of their brilliant arguments, were able to do in 2021. Here is the uncompromising statement that while an insurrection is an impeachable offense — Mr. Trump was after all impeached by the House of Representatives — it is also unequivocally and horribly a criminal act.

This specific referral then holds out the hope that Mr. Trump will not be permitted to hold elective or appointed political office ever again. That was arguably the point of the impeachment: to make sure that his political career had ended.

Now, whatever the Department of Justice decides to do and whatever the special counsel Jack Smith discovers or determines, the Jan. 6 committee has achieved what the impeachment of Mr. Trump could not: a series of referrals that caps an expansive and heart-rending investigation into the abuse of power, the obstruction of Congress and the aiding and abetting of a rebellion, condoned, if not designed, by an American president. That president will be remembered as lawless, indicted or not, and will be disgraced in perpetuity, as Andrew Johnson should have been.

Exactly.

There is an excellent YouTube channel called LegalEagle with 2.68 million subscribers, which is a combination of fluff, like reviewing lawyers on TV shows (even a video on Sponge Bob Square Pants ) and serious legal analysis.

I've enjoyed many LegalEagle videos, but recently came across several about Trump's attempts to destroy American democracy:

• LegalEagle reacts to American Carnage at Lafayette Square and he is clearly very upset. Probably the first big wakeup call that many people received about how fascist Trump is.

• In a shorter piece, there is a day-after discussion of American Insurrection at The Capitol.

• And just yesterday there is an analysis of Trump's Criminal Referral from the January 6 Committee. And like every other video produced by LegalEagle on the topic of American politics, well worth a look.

It's a reminder how awful and dramatic Trump's reign of terror was. I can't wait for the movies about this time period to come out. If they are half as good as Game Change, about the 2008 election with a focus on Sarah Palin's candidacy (whose ignorance rivals Trump's), I will be very happy.

Julianne Moore is amazing.

Chotiner strikes again - Chotiner vs. AEI's Danielle Pletka

CHOTINER FOR 
THE WIN

When we last saw the New Yorker's Ian Chotiner, he was embarrassing free speech grifting stooge Thomas Chatterton Williams (to think I once admired Williams.)

Now Williams is, as far as I have been able to discern, only loosely connected to the wingnut welfare system funded foremost by Koch.

(UPDATE: Williams became an official member of the plutocrat funded wingnut welfare system by accepting a post at the AEI in December 2020.)

But in Chotiner's interview, published today, with Danielle Pletka, he strikes at the heart of the Koch plutocracy since Pletka is an American Enterprise Institute bigwig (like IDWs Charles Murray and Christina Hoff Sommers). 

Chotiner asked Pletka about her time working for infamously racist Jesse Helms.

You know things that were wrong. This isn’t a “may.”

But I worked for him on the Middle East and South Asia, and I was very proud of what we accomplished.

You know his record on South Africa, though, correct? [Helms opposed any sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa. When Nelson Mandela visited the Capitol in 1994, soon after he was elected South Africa’s first post-apartheid President, Helms turned his back on him.]

I didn’t work on South Africa. I worked on the Middle East and South Asia.

I understand that. But I’m saying you must know about the guy’s career? I mean, the Civil Rights Act, the Martin Luther King holiday, his interactions with Carol Moseley Braun, his ads, his comments about South Africa and African National Congress. This stuff isn’t completely unknown to you.

I’m not quite sure what this has to do with my article.

What a weasel. And then this part:

Most significant to me is that Pletka was a "never Trumper" who claims to have changed her mind about Trump. I think what likely happened was that the plutocrats yanked her chain and she fell in line.

...and I really am crushed by this cancel culture, by the bullying, and by the transformation of American political discourse. And, by the way, I have really been happy, actually, to in some ways blame Donald Trump for that. It started with him. What did Michelle Obama say? “When they go low, we go high.” That has not been the guiding principle here.

Trump is probably making cancel culture, however much significance you attribute to it, significantly worse. That’s why I was surprised a little bit by the op-ed, because it seems like his defeat would be good for some of the things you’re worried about.

Yes, except for the fact that I think the ship has already sailed.

The obsession with "cancel culture" is telling. I think it's probable the AEI is the original instigator of the Harper's letter. Certainly many of the Harper's letter signers have Koch connections.

The Koch-dominated branch of the Right promotes the Trump antifa smear campaign against Biden, a campaign possibly inspired by and coordinated with the IDW's favorite shameless grifter Andy Ngo. 

Who was nominated is irrelevant, you mean?

Yes. I think that that choice was irrelevant, because I don’t think that those voters are the people who are steering the direction of the Party.

You write, “Are there problems on the right—horrible nasties on a par with the violent protesters who have lately inflicted untold damage on many U.S. cities, businesses and lives? You bet. These execrable gun-toting racists have received too much tacit encouragement from Trump.” Would you say it’s tacit? Isn’t it more direct than tacit?

I have to think about my answer. I think Donald Trump has played an opposite and equal role in encouraging bad people in the destruction that we’ve seen this year.

I’m asking because he talked about liberating Michigan. And then what he said about Kyle Rittenhouse.

Well, again, Donald Trump’s reaction, for example, in the wake of Charlottesville was abhorrent. I find an unwillingness on the part of many to condemn the destruction that takes place. The shootings, the violence, the threatening that’s been taking place—I find that also extraordinarily troubling. Now, is it incumbent upon the President to behave better? Damn, yes. That is why, for the last three and a half years, I’ve done very little but condemn Donald Trump on these matters. I try to be fair in calling balls and strikes, as I tried to be fair with Obama. I’m a conservative, so my view of what a ball and a strike is is different from yours. Nonetheless, those things are abhorrent. The problem that I see and the problem that brought me to write this is that there is an almost equal and opposite reaction on the other side.

You follow up that last quote by writing, “But they do not represent the mainstream of the Republican Party or guide the choices of the vast mass of Republican members of Congress.” Can you explain this a little bit more? I was slightly confused, because Trump is actually the President. And so it feels like maybe that does represent the mainstream of the Party, since he is the nominee and extremely popular and the most powerful and important Republican.

So Pletka's argument is that while violent extremists do represent the Democratic Party in spite of its nominee's moderate positions, on the other hand violent Trump supporters don't represent the Republican Party even though its leader, Trump, openly defended their violence.

The mind-fuckery and SHAMELESSNESS is absolutely appalling.

And to demonstrate once again the wretched character of the people aligned with Koch and the IDW, like Pinker and his defenders and the IDW/GamerGate creeps, Pletka takes a stupid cheap shot at Chotiner.

I’m thirty-seven—no, no, I’m thirty-eight.

You can’t even add.

Pletka hates Chotiner for allowing her to reveal herself as the soulless toady and defender of racists that she always has been and likely always will be.

Racists, led by Trump's FBI, come for the Southern Poverty Law Center

Pinker hates the SPLC because it 
refuses to accept race pseudoscience
------------------------------------------

I've noticed before that although Steven Pinker claims to dislike Trump, Trump has a habit of making Pinker's anti-woke dreams come true.

Pinker is among many, even on the right, who have doubted the Trump administration's reasons for going after the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Per the NYTimes:

The indictment appears to fit within the Trump administration’s pattern of using the Justice Department to punish its political adversaries. The S.P.L.C. has certainly been adversarial toward the president: In an article last year, Margaret Huang, who was then the president and chief executive of the group, wrote that with President Trump’s second election, hard-right extremism now had “an ally in the highest office in the nation.”

Nevertheless, Steven Pinker can't help but reveal how much he hates SPLC because it refuses to accept Pinker's brand of race pseudoscience.

Pinker doesn't name the "ordinary academic behavioral geneticists" (another name for sociobiologists) he claims have been unfairly targeted in Hate Watch, but I will make some guesses:

• Linda Gottfredson
• Henry Harpending
• Arthur Jensen
• Richard Lynn
• Charles Murray
• Jean-Phillipe Rushton

Every one of them a gutter racist.

Bari Weiss herself identified Pinker as a member of the Intellectual Dark Web and that network of grifters and clowns has hated the SPLC for a long time, as I have documented on this website. For example, in 2019 Quillette founder Claire Lehmann suggested Sam Harris sue SPLC for publishing an article that presented evidence for Harris' being a conduit to the far right.

The "Quillette Editorial Board" was railing against SPLC a few years ago, this time because of SPLC's support of transgender rights.

Other members of the IDW, or member-adjacent who have attacked SPLC include Michael Shermer, Gavin McInnes, Jerry Coyne,  and Christina Hoff Sommers.

The New Republic says:

The Trump administration had already taken steps to break ties with the SPLC even before the indictments, citing its research into far-right traditionalist Catholic groups. “The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on Twitter last year. “Their so-called ‘hate map’ has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence.” He did not specify which, if any, acts of violence the organization’s research had inspired.

That brings us back to Blanche’s claims that the organization was “paying sources to stoke racial hatred.” A cynical observer might suspect that the Trump Justice Department’s goal is to blame the work of white nationalist groups on the civil rights groups that oppose them. There is a long history of Klan denialism in this country that minimizes the actions of violent white supremacists, often by blaming their actions on their victims and opponents.

It is horrifying to see the Justice Department, whose original mission was to fight the Klan, engage in similar denialism. At least some conservative commentators appear to be buying it too. “Given the small and marginal nature of these groups, the obvious conclusion is that the SPLC found that demand for racism outstripped the supply, so it had to spread cash around to keep talking up these fringe groups,” McLaughlin wrote.

In reality, there has been an alarming resurgence in white-supremacist organizations since Trump first captured the presidency in 2016. White-nationalist rhetoric, which was once politically fatal ten years ago, is now regularly espoused by Trump administration officials and even by official government publications. Now the Justice Department is throwing its full weight behind a flimsy prosecution in an effort to destroy one of the Klan’s greatest opponents. There is no subtlety about what is happening here.

Lawyer Joyce Vance weighs in:

Unfortunately Vance's blog is on Substack, funded by techno-fascist Marc Andreessen.

Speaking of whom, Andreessen has been using Grok - aka "MechaHitler" - to promote hatred against SPLC, while at the same time spitting on the grave of Charles M. Shulz by using Charlie Brown as his X avatar.

And Elon Musk, MechaHitler's creator, is a long-time hater of the Southern Poverty Law Center, probably because the organization is pro-democracy and anti-racism, and Elon Musk, a stochastic terrorist, is the exact opposite.

Jamelle Bouie completely understands Elon Musk.

Speaking of techno-fascists, techno-racists and all around techno-nutjobs, there is an excellent New Republic article out now, How the Tech World Turned Evil, about these insanely wealthy freaks. And it does raise the question - has their insane wealth rendered them all insane?