reflectivepundit

To Unmask the Trump-Vance Threat, Harris and Walz Must Call a Spade a Spade

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After he learned that Kamala Harris had chosen Tim Walz as running mate, Donald Trump claimed in a post on his social media platform Truth Social (what an ironic name!), “This is the most Radical Left duo in American history…” This was a mild version of his usual accusations that characterize his domestic political “enemies” as existential threat to America. On Veterans Day last November, for example, Trump said,

“The real threat is from the radical left. And it’s growing every day, every single day… They lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible…They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream…We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

He and his acolytes have revealed what they mean with rooting out the enemy within, namely, to destroy the “deep state” and the “administrative state” and replace them with MAGA loyalist who are being trained for their “patriotic” duty in the next Trump administration. Oh, yes, after the mainstream media finally covered the scary content of “Project 2025” at some length, Trump distanced himself from the far-right blue print. But the same Trump supporters who worked on that project are involved in a more detailed plan for the transition from the Biden to another Trump presidency.

And nobody should forget that the former president has threatened retribution against non-loyalists, that he has talked about prosecuting and executing high level members in his administration and in the congress who stood up to his illegal schemes.

Trump’s illegal and immoral actions and plans are so numerous that they seem normal and not worth mentioning.

The normalization of Trump’s extremism and its blessing by his running mate are great, perhaps the greatest problems for his opponents in this campaign. In their efforts to counter the dark picture of contemporary America that Trump and his side-kick JD Vance are painting, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are embracing hope and joy and laughter. That is a wonderful antidote to the script of the MAGA leaders that speaks to the fear and resentment that they stoke in their supporters.    

But the lion’s share of the Harris/Walz campaign energy must be reserved to unmask the existential threat that Trump and Vance post for America. That is not a laughing matter. Satire, jokes, and hints will not do.

Harris and Walz must call a spade a spade and bare the undemocratic views and plans of former president Trump and U.S. Senator Vance as un-American. They must explain the devastating consequences of the MAGA agenda and its implementation for the mass of Americans. And they must deny the far-right’s birthright to patriotism and the American flag.

When Vice President Harris spoke in Philadelphia about the “promise of America” coming true for her and her team-mate Walz and used the refrain “Only in America,” the crowd screamed repeatedly, U.S.A!

That was a good beginning for their 90-day campaign.

President Biden Cannot Win the November Election; He Must Step Down NOW

In this morning’s Washington Post the journalist Sally Quinn recalls the mental and physical decline of her husband Ben Bradlee, the well-known executive editor, who led the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal. Under the headline “My husband was slowing down. He needed protecting,” she describes in sadness what she calls up front “A story for Jill Biden,” the growing signs of dementia.

I hope that the First Lady and Joe Biden’s most influential advisors read this heartbreaking narrative of the progressive deterioration of Sally Quinn’s husband and how she protected him from doing publicly and privately what he was no longer able to do.

 If anyone had doubts about President Biden’s mental and physical decline, there was no denying after his catastrophic failure during the first debate with Donald Trump. While not as bad as the debate non-performance, his following public communication opportunities did not wipe out the terrible memories of the televised event.

Biden’s wife and sister along with his closest aides may have been in denial about the true state of the president’s decline for quite some time. But how can they ignore what unfolded in the last five or so weeks in full view of the American public? They all should arrange for a replay—or several--of the first presidential debate and meet reality. President Biden’s condition does not allow him to be a strong candidate and certainly not an effective president during a second term.

Surveys show that Donald Trump’s lead, especially in swing states, has increased. I do not see a path for Joe Biden to win the November election. And when the top dog loses, chances are that the rest of the ticket loses in greater numbers as well.

Today, a united front of Democrats, elected and appointed officials inside and outside of congress, must convince the president to abandon his candidacy. According to polls a strong majority of rank-and-file Democrats will agree with them. In short, with Biden as candidate, there may well be a landslide win for Trump and the GOP. With another candidate, younger, stronger, articulate, there will be at least a slim chance to prevent a second Trump term and majorities on both congressional chambers.

I like Joe Biden and thank him for his accomplishments during his presidency. If he stays in the race, I will vote for him as I would vote for a dog-catcher running against the former president. But my respect for President Biden will diminish as will his historic legacy.

Hate Speech and Violence are Contagious; Don’t Count on Sudden Civility

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After spending decades studying all aspects of political violence/terrorism, even the most horrific verbal and physical violence does not shock me. When I watched the assassination attempt on Donald Trump on live television, I was not surprised. Just as I was not surprised, when I saw the violent images of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. No, I could not have predicted what would happened to whom at what venue. But when political actors and groups of one persuasion label opponents regularly as illegitimate, enemies, and evil threats, there will be violent consequences sooner or later. There is some evidence that political violence is contagious in that it persuades other actors to carry out similar attacks.

President Joe Biden asked Americans to take down the temperature of divisive discourse in the hope that a less hostile climate would prevent further violence. Don’t count on it. Both sides believe that the stakes in the upcoming elections are the highest in modern times.

This morning, congressman Scott Perry (R-PA) was interviewed on the BBC News Hour on Public Radio. Perry, a close Trump ally, was one of the House members involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 elections. Today, after some lip service to President Biden’s call for tuning  down the temperature of the political rhetoric, he put all the blame for some of Trump’s rhetoric on the other side blaming the government and the weaponized Department of Justice for persecuting Donald Trump since 2015. In response, Trump was just defending himself.

But while it seems difficult for many commentators, especially those who are liberal, to set the record straight after a failed assassination attempt, it needs to be done.

Yes, there have been aggressive rhetoric and hate speech on the far-left that targeted Trump, MAGA, and the GOP. But whereas the far-right and its rhetoric have  gone mainstream and were adopted by one of our two major parties, the far-left has not such a reach. There is no major far-left movement, party, and leader.

That is the difference.

The latest phase of the current political climate in our country began with the election of the first Black U.S. president in 2008. A few weeks after Barack Obama’s inauguration, the Tea Party was established—officially, as an anti-tax movement—even though Obama had not initiated legislation at that early time. Eventually, the libertarian—less government--wing of the movement was overshadowed by social/cultural/religious/white conservatives, many of whom were “birthers.”

Donald Trump made himself the self-appointed propagandist for the anti-Obama rumors that the sitting president was not born in the U.S. and therefore an illegitimate office holder and likely a Muslim, not a Christian. With that role on his resume, Trump won the support of many Tea Partiers, especially religious nationalists, and Birther conspiracy theorists, once he won the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. The extremism on Tea Party and Birther online discussion boards and social media became more pronounced in the MAGA movement and Trumpian GOP.

Their call to action was and remains, Attack, Attack, Attack.

Because President Biden mentioned the Jan 6 insurrection attempt among other violent attacks in his conciliatory speech, he was attacked by Republicans demanding to forget about Jan 6, not mentioning it any more. They defended their leader who has promised that he will pardon the “political prisoner” jailed for their Jan 6 crimes on day one of his second presidency.

It has been reported that Donald Trump rewrote his originally tough speech for the National Nominating Convention at Milwaukee this week and hast tuned it down. This was not exactly what he did yesterday in a post on Truth Social, when he wrote,

• “In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win."

Nothing changed. Just another wording of what he has called repeatedly “the last battle” that his side is fighting and must win against the existential Evil threat.

This reality does not bode well for less hate speech and less violence.

Contrary to the News, Far-Right Parties Are Not Dominating the EU

By Brigitte L. Nacos

If one looks for a case to demonstrate the problem of jazzed up breaking news accompanied by incomplete information and wrong conclusions, last night and today’s reporting on the elections for the European Parliament make for a perfect example. After watching the BBC, Euro News, and CNN, I was sure that far-right parties had won a landslide victory in the EU parliament. One commentator considered the far-right showing so strong that he saw it also as a good omen for Donald Trump and bad news for Joe Biden. A historic shift.

The reality is this: After this election, the EU parliament in Strasbourg has a total of 720 seats. The two far-right parties combined won 131 of those seats, 13 seats more than they had before. Because the two right-extreme factions do not see eye to eye, there is no unified far-right bloc on policy issues. The biggest party remains the center-right European People’s Party made up of deputies belonging to Germany’s Christian Democrats, the second largest bloc form Socialist Democrats with 185 seats.

Add to this that EU elections have lower turnouts than elections in individual countries. The turnout for this latest EU election was slightly over 50%. In past EU elections, too, extreme parties fared better than in their respective country’s contests.

No doubt, news claims that the far-right was the big winner in the EU elections were wrong; the actual gains were very modest.

How could that happen? Based on what I heard and read, most reporting did not focus on what the results meant for the EU parliament but for the political landscape in individual member states.

And, yes, there were notable changes but, again, not as mind-blogging as reported.

In France, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National won 32% of the vote—more than any other party, but far from an absolute majority. It will be interesting to see, how Rassemblement National will do in the soon to be held parliamentary elections that President Macron called in a surprising move in reaction to the election results.

In Italy, Georgia Meloni’s Fratelli Italia remained the strongest party and increased its vote percentage to 28%--not exactly a smashing majority or plurality. No wonder that Meloni’s actual policy was and will probably remain pro-EU and supportive of the Transatlantic Alliance.

In Austria, the far-right Freiheitliche Partei became with 26% of the vote the leading party before the center-right Volkspartei with 25% and will have trouble to form a coalition government.  

In Germany, the far-right Alternative fuer Deutschland won 16% of the vote and became second strongest party behind the CDU/CSU with 30% of the vote. In Eastern Germany, once part of the Soviet bloc, the AfD is the majority party. But in the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, no other party will work with the neo-Nazi party in a governing coalition.

Most importantly, in the individual countries, the EU elections resembled surveys that provided a measurement of contemporary voter sentiments causing no immediate governmental changes except for Belgium, where the Prime Minister resigned because of the poor showing of his party in the EU election. 

The real and good news is that the Far-Right will not control the EU parliament nor the vast majority of its 27 member states in the foreseeable future.    

How Trump Attacks and Violates the Rule of Law and Gets Away with it

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The year before coming to power in Germany the Nazis claimed falsely that Hitler had defeated President Hindenburg in the German parliament’s presidential election. As Sebastian Haffner, then a young German, wrote later, “Summoned as a witness before the highest German court, Adolf Hitler bellowed at the judges that he would one day come to power by strictly constitutional means and then heads would roll.” Hitler repeated his retribution threat at a following court session. But he was not charged with contempt and gone to jail as any other German would have at that time. Perhaps, the highest court feared Hitler’s heavily armed private army of storm troopers.

In the last several weeks, former President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the Manhattan prosecutor responsible for Trump’s criminal indictment, the judge who presides during his current trial, and the jury that will come up with the verdict. When Trump violated the judge’s gag order repeatedly, he was held in contempt and threatened with jail. But while any other defendant attacking, as the judge said, the rule of law would have spent some time in jail, Mr. Trump did not. The former president does not have storm troopers like Hitler, but he and his sycophants are loose with references to violence. The latest came from Matt Gaetz whose online battle cry “Stand Back and Stand By” was a repeat of Trump’s 2020 command to the Proud Boys who—along with the Oath Keepers—were instrumental in the violent breach of the capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump’s promise that he would pardon on day one of his next presidency all imprisoned January 6 “hostages," among them the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper groups--domestic terrorists-- is another attack on the rule of law.

Trump and his MAGA followers are relentlessly attacking the Department of Justice, prosecutors, and judges. They must be thrilled about the support they receive from members of the US Supreme Court, whose ethics violations in the context and in support of illegal actions by Trump and leading GOP officials become ever more scandalous.

Not enough that Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, the two calling themselves “best friends,” was an active supporter of the coup attempt to deny Joe Biden the electoral college votes he legitimately won. We now learn that shortly after January 6 and merely days before Biden’s inauguration an up-side-down US flag—a symbol for “Stop the Steal” MAGA activists--was flown outside Justice Alito’s house.

That much for the once highly regarded Supreme Court that soon will decide whether former president Donald Trump enjoys unlimited immunity for criminal actions during and after his presidency.

Trump warns of “a bloodbath” in case he does not win this year’s election. And the news media yawns

By Brigitte L. Nacos

On Saturday (3/16), Donald Trump warned during a campaign stop in Ohio that there will be “a bloodbath” if he is not elected later this year. When I checked the front pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and a bunch of well-regarded regional newspapers this morning, none of them carried the shocking warning on page one. The websites of Times and News, too, did not treat the former and perhaps next president’s outrageous threat as number one breaking news.

Instead, they paid more attention to the presidential candidates’ campaign donations, Trump supporters’ successful spread of disinformation, the election in Russia, arms smuggling to Yemen, and the Schumer-Netanyahu feud.

The Times headline “Trump Says Some Migrants are ‘Not People’ and Predicts a ‘Blood Bath’ if He loses,” rated Trump’s old insult of “illegals”—he called them repeatedly “animals,” “rapist,” “criminals” and the likes—higher than his unprecedented “bloodbath” threat. And the story itself cited Trump’s new rhetorical low only in the third paragraph. Note, that the story was updated on Sunday morning.

Everybody should read and remember this explicit Trump warning issued this weekend: “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a blood bath for the country.”

The Washington Post headlined its report, "Trump says some undocumented immigrants are 'not people' and relegated the bloodbath warning to the subtitle. It is only in the sixth paragraph that the reporters get to Trump's most outrageous remark and cited it: "Later in the rally, Trump warned it will be a bloodbath for the country, if he is not elected. The comment came as he was promising to hike tariffs on foreign-made cars, and it was not clear exactly what Trump was referring to with his admonition." 

What could not be clear, when a presidential candidate predicts a bloodbath for the country, if he is not elected? And why would the news report call Trump’s warning of something horrific to happen to America an admonition? It sounded more like a threat of civil war or a terrorism threat that goes and in hand with his frequent warning that this election year will be “the last battle.”

When I grew up in Germany and was an aspiring young journalist, I looked at American journalists and the high standards in their professional ethics rules with tremendous admiration. And I was not an exception. Many of my colleagues felt the same at the time, when German journalism found a new beginning after the dark years of the Nazi regime and looked to the Anglo-American press model.

Yes, technology has changed the whole media industry. But if the news organizations that are perceived to be the best in the country and the world cannot or do not want to recognize and priorities truly extraordinary news, the old press model that I once admired greatly is on its way out.

Trump Spoke of “Cutting” Entitlements, the News Media Paid Little or No Attention

By Brigitte L. Nacos

This morning, shortly after 7:30 a.m., I was watching CNBC, when the co-host of “Squawk Box” Joe Kernen began his interview with Donald Trump. Before long, Kernen asked the former president and presumptive GOP nominee for this year’s presidential race,

“Have you changed your, your outlook on how to handle entitlements Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Mr. President? Seems like something has to be done, or else we’re going to be stuck at 120% of debt to GDP forever.”

Trump answered according to the transcript,

“So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements, tremendous bad management of entitlements. There’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do. So I don’t necessarily agree with the statement…”

Trump was crystal clear as he touched the third rail of politics and spoke of “cutting” entitlements. While he did not go into any details of what, how deep and whom he would cut, the mere fact that he mentioned the “c” word for cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid was a complete reversal of his previous campaign assurances that he would protect those programs.

A few news organizations mentioned Trump’s statement. But there were no “breaking news” highlights.

Around 3:00 p.m., some seven hours after the live interview, I wondered how the New York Times and Washington Post covered what I thought to be a news blockbuster. Instead, I found that the Times posted a lengthy story about the interview but it was solely devoted to Trump’s backtracking of his former demand to ban TikTok. I found no headline about Trump’s remarks on potential Social Security cuts. I looked carefully through the headlines on the Post’s website and found none on Trump’s words on entitlements in the morning.

Given that many millions of Americans depend on the so-called entitlements, I have no idea, why those two influential media entities failed to report on this promptly and prominently.

To be sure, Trump makes lots of controversial and shocking statements so that editors have to make choices on what to report. But for two of the most influential media to ignore for hours (and perhaps for good?) the very newsworthy statement of one of the two leading presidential candidates that will likely become a major issue in the presidential campaign is more shocking than Trump’s turn-around words on entitlements.

Democrats Must Magnify the Unholy Agenda of Trump’s Congressional Proxies

By Brigitte L. Nacos

President Biden, the White House, and the Democratic Party have received ample criticism for their lack of effective and around-the-clock public communication promoting their considerable policy achievements and countering the hell-bent Trumpian propaganda of lies, most of all, that he and his coterie are the protectors of the American people against their evil enemies within the country.

I have been asked frequently, how Biden and Democrats could counter their opposition's positions and promote their own. Here I provide a very small but, I believe, workable example.

Below you see the closing lines of a New York Times article by Catie Edmondson about current efforts in the House of Representatives to prevent the shut-down of the government later this week:  

"Among the measures that Republicans have sought are one that would restrict access to abortion medication and another to restrict the Department of Veterans Affairs from flagging veterans deemed mentally incompetent in a federal background check needed to buy a gun. They also have tried to block an effort by Democrats to increase funding for nutrition programs for low-income women and children."

There are no better facts than those described above for Biden and his communication experts to highlight as three of many outlandish measures which are typical for the Republican Party’s extreme, inhumane, and violent agenda.

First, Republican House leaders are not content with the conservative U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Now they try to further limit American women’s decision-making right over their reproductive health by adopting federal restrictions to access abortion medication.

Second, Republicans in the House want to give mentally challenged veterans the right to buy guns by removing their health information from background checks. If they succeed, they will make another dangerous gift to the gun industry in return for generous campaign donations. And that at a time, when mass shootings and the number of innocent victims are on the rise.

Third, in another scandalous move, Republicans in the House want to withhold food from children who live in low-income households by blocking efforts by House Democrats to increase funding for this basic nutrition program. Another heartless move by House Speaker Mike Johnson who claims to be a Christian but does not act like a real Christian.

I, like others, have long been disappointed by the Biden White House’s and more recently by the Biden campaign’s lack of old-fashioned spoken and written public relation tactics that use the opposition’s own measures and demands to explain and amplify the threat that the MAGA/GOP and its Dear Leader pose for all Americans and the democratic fabric of the 250-year old American governmental system.  

Donald Trump is a Clear and Present Danger at Home and Abroad

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Just like other dictators before him (think of Germany’s Adolf Hitler or, more recently, the Philippine’s Rodrigo Duterte), Donald Trump, too, has spelled out his strong preference for authoritarian rule, even if it violates the U.S. Constitution and longstanding pacts with European and other allies. According to his own words, he is not only eager to end America’s two-and-a-half century old model of democracy but also the post-WWII transatlantic bulwark against military aggression, originally by the Soviet Union and more recently by Putin’s Russia.

At home, Trump claims in his social media posts and during his campaign appearances that he and his MAGA movement are fighting “our final battle” to “demolish the Deep State…expel warmongers from our government…cast out Communists, Marxists, and Fascists [ he must not know the meaning of that word] …rout the Fake News Media…and liberate our country from these tyrants and villains once and for all.”

Last weekend, he promised that as president he will immediately order a “door-to-door hunt” for migrants and put them into huge camps.

Trump’s admirers abroad embrace his inhumane plans. In Germany, for example, the far-right party AfD (Alternative for Germany) wants to deport all non-Germanic persons residing in the country, even those who are naturalized citizens.      

During Trump’s first presidency he left no doubt about his disregard for NATO and its European members and leaders. In large part, because his NATO peers treated him as an equal and not superior colleague, the narcissistic Trump threatened them with the American withdrawal unless they paid their “fair” dues to the military alliance.

Although European leaders were shocked by President Trump’s repeated threats and appalling behavior during meetings, the U.S. did not leave NATO. Thankfully, during those years, there were serious defense and national security experts in the White House and the Department of Defense who knew the value of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Last weekend, Trump gave his idol Vladimir Putin another gift, when he said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to a NATO country that does not follow the financial guidelines of the organization. He also made clear that he would not abide by NATO’s provision that a military attack on one member must be countered by all members.

The guardrails that existed in the first Trump administration in form of responsible officials will not be in place if he wins a second term. In a second Trump administration, he and his equally power-hungry advisers would not select the most knowledgeable and experienced men and women to serve their country—instead, the litmus test would be absolute loyalty to Mr. Trump and his fascist agenda. There would not be a single official in the administration trying to stop the president from undemocratic and illegal measures.

When Trump claims that he and his supporters are fighting their final battle, he surely does not do so for the benefit of the country but solely to install himself as a lawless leader.

Despite the unthinkable threat of a fascist regime coming to power in the foreseeable future, there is no pro-democracy movement here to counter Trump and prevent him from implementing what sounds and looks like an Orwellian blueprint.  

How the Mainstream Media Magnified Trump’s Victory in Iowa

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The former president Donald Trump was the choice of 51% of Iowa’s caucus goers. Because of the extreme winter weather, the turnout was the lowest in Iowa’s caucuses in the 21^st century. Given the cultish nature of the MAGA movement, I assume that the fans of Trump were far more inclined to fight their way through snow and record low temperatures to their caucus sites than supporters of the other competing candidates.

When everything was said and done, yes, Trump was the choice of about half of all caucus goers, but what was lost in news media reports was equally important: 49% of participating Iowans, about half of the total number, voted for other candidates.

This is the likely distribution of delegates who will represent Iowa at the GOP nominating convention:

Donald Trump                   20 delegates in Iowa

Ron DeSantis                       8 delegates in Iowa

Nikki Haley                          7 delegates in Iowa

Vivek Ramaswamy            3 delegates in Iowa

As the above numbers show, Trump received two more delegates than the next three candidates combined. Ramaswamy suspended his campaign last night and declared his support for Trump. Thus, Ramaswamy’s three delegates are likely to support Trump’s nomination at the convention and most of the former candidate’s supporters—even fewer than in Iowa—will switch to Trump.

Yet, to interpret the outcome of the Iowa caucuses as the coronation of candidate Trump and a slowdown of Nikki Haley’s momentum before the New Hampshire primary as a New York Times headline suggested is once again playing perfectly into Trump’s campaign.

Not his good showing in Iowa was Trump’s greatest triumph after the results were reported; it was the massive coverage in the off- and online mainstream media that assigned an importance to the Iowan GOP caucuses which the small electorate in this demographically unrepresentative U.S. state does not have.                                      

Trump does not have to bother with the retail campaigning for the first primary in New Hampshire next week—a must for his competitors. Not merely Fox News but the very mainstream media that Mr. Trump attacks frequently as “enemy of the people” does this job for him by over-covering anything related to Trump.