World: please celebrate for us! (But not Vlad.)

Many factors are at work in the drama that’s unfolding this week, and maybe the least important player is a whining toddler who will rant at at Joint Base Andrews, Wednesday morning, screaming for attention after running around the White House prying the letter “J” off keyboards and leaving doobies in the ventilation ducts. There will be worse.* And just-in-case, I’ve urged that Biden, Harris and Pelosi keep distant (social and precautionary) from each other, while offering us all words of hope that America is back, baby.

Three groups will matter a lot, now and for weeks to come: foreign friends, foreign and domestic enemies… and nerds. I’ll get to Vladimir Putin and his fear of renewed western skill, in a bit. but first, here’s a call for our friends around the world to celebrate for us.

== Dancing in the Streets ==

To our allies around the world and to all friends of freedom, enlightenment, science and progress -- please turn out, the Wednesday.  Our domestic, home-grown enemies of progress -- many of them dear neighbors lured into furious madness by Fox/Sinclair/Goebbels liars, far more than by that pathetic toddler -- have triggered immune response by our protective services, locking down the American Capital and other cities when Joe Biden takes the oath of office, even more than we're compelled by a Trump-amplified pandemic.  

As  a result, Americans won't be pouring into the streets to celebrate nearly as much as we want to. But YOU, our allies in wanting an enlightened, forward-looking, fact-seeing and decently-just world, YOU can celebrate for us!

We ask that you fill your most famous streets with flags and balloons and signs that congratulate not just Joe Biden but all of us, including you fellow members of the Great Enlightenment Experiment!  Oh, stay safely masked and distanced! But please, make a good show of welcoming America back.

Because we need encouragement, right now! It truly would help Joe & Kamala, a lot. And also because, well, a dynamic and forward-looking, scientific-creative and generous USA is still necessary, if we want a civilization worthy of the stars. 

Certainly our enemies think so, given how hard they have striven to bring us down. Which brings us to...

== I wouldn’t be in Vlad’s shoes ==

I hope I’m wrong. I pray that I am wrong. But given the nearly 100% perfect record of Trumpian Republicans betraying the West and giving the Kremlin everything is wants (offer me large wager stakes on that: I will own your house), tearing down our sciences and alliances, weakening US entrepreneurship, waging war against all fact-using professions and instigating civil war, I have to worry whether the quarter million men and women in our security and intel agencies are even ready to teach Vladimir Putin that it’s time to back off.

1. For four years the top political-appointee slots atop those agencies have been people of at-best questionable qualification or loyalty. I have no doubt that skilled professionals isolated/cauterized the worst of them. But it is quite possible that an evisceration or rot-from-above has plunged deep into the ranks of those whose skill and professionalism won the Cold War and the War on terror, while treasonous, Sinclair agitprop demoralized them with slanders like “deep state.”

2. Putin is desperately getting in final licks. Yesterday he pulled out of the Open Skies Treaty that Trump formally exited a couple of months ago.  I expected (and obviously so did Vlad) that Biden would rejoin almost instantly (along with the Paris Accords on climate) since the Open Skies Treaty VASTLY favored Europe and the West and Putin long chafed over allowing NATO planes to crisscross Russia. Giving Putin an excuse to quick-exit that treaty - and the Intermediate Forces Agreement and others - was among the countless favors performed for him by the Kremlin’s White House agent. 

ALAS, not a single news report (that I’ve seen) has looked at this matter of timing. But watch. Don’t be distracted by Trump’s sudden tsunami of pardons! Vlad will do as many last-minute sabotages as Trump, these last few days.

3. On the other hand, Vlad’s got to be nervous. Surely some corner of our ‘deep state’ has been un-suborned, preparing options to offer the new president. Ways to - in some measured degree - at least smack the relabeled (but almost identical in staff, goals and methods) Soviet KGB across the snoot and say “back off!”  Oh, how wonderful - for example - if the Russian people were suddenly to see how much of their nation is now owned by “ex” Soviet commissars, now relabeled as billionaire oligarch mafia dons.

Okay. Revenge doesn’t interest the mature… and we count on Joe to be mature and judicious. So I expect to be frustrated and angry at his levels of restraint! Because… well… I am not ‘mature.’

4. I’ve spoken relentlessly about what simply has to be the elephant in the room, in DC. What I expect will be revealed as a mountain of blackmail.  We all saw in the recent Borat movie how trivially easy it is to lure many males into kompromat traps, and Russian spy services are much more adept at it than Sacha Baron Cohen. They have been doing it since the 1800s.  Elsewhere I warn those newly arriving in DC to be wary! 

If I’m right, then no event would so dramatically reverse our current troubles than a tidal wave of light. Some of the most blatant examples, for whom there is no other conceivable explanation than blackmail - Graham, Cruz, Rubio, Collins and Anthony Kennedy - could at any moment turn their legacy from zero to hero, by helping turn the tables on their tormentors. But don’t expect that. At least not till Biden establishes a Truth & Reconciliation Commission.

5. Extending that more generally, Putin knows his edifice will collapse if the West gets good intel. It's hard to retaliate or deter the current wave of relentless Muscovite attacks when we are blind! Part of that blindness will be solved when our defenders are no longer hampered by the quislings who were appointed over them by a Putin-blackmailed shill. 

But that leaves out an even more significant factor. That HALF of our good intel during the Cold War came from defectors, who would regularly even the playing field by bringing over vast floods of information, counterbalancing excellent KGB spycraft and our disadvantages as an open society.

==The vital importance of the moral high ground ==

During the Cold War, defectors were attracted by three things. We offered:

1) Safety

2) Good prospects

3) The moral high ground.

I’ve tried to explain this - repeatedly - to large audiences at CIA, fer gosh sakes!** - how the patterns of FSB/Putin actions all fit an overall aim of demolishing western alliances (Trump accomplishment #1) plus systematically toppling all three pillars that brought us recurring waves of defectors from the USSR. 

To that end, 'botched' assassinations of Russian dissidents were actually perfectly executed, achieving terror in potential defectors. 

Above all, the Trumpian campaign to crush and despoil the US moral high ground has been Putin's greatest accomplishment….

…but that victory can be reversed if our friends around the world do that one thing - both for us and for themselves and the planet and their children and the future:

Celebrate for us! 

Show the world that you know Donald Trump was an aberration! That the confederate side of our recurring American fever is and always has been a minority of fervid lunacy and when the blue is back, we can resume being a scientific, progress-seeking, problem-solving, egalitarian beacon and partner in making a better world.

And the forces of evil, trying to re-impose 6000 years of wretched, failed rule-by-oligarchy will fade under waves of cleansing light.

——

*Rent the first episode of the Kiefer Sutherland TV series DESIGNATED SURVIVOR. 

** And yes I am regularly invited back.

Be Afraid Mitch. Be very afraid....

I'll conclude this posting with a reassurance about the U.S. Military (relax, will ya?) plus an attempt at humor -- what if a pathetic, shambling squatter refuses to leave the White House?  But first, far more important political matters about our current fix, starting with this interesting article. 

 

"Just two men will decide when the election challenge farce has gone on long enough. Rupert Murdoch and Sheldon Adelson, because are the only two Donald Trump needs to listen to. Sheldon’s campaign money and Fox’s stranglehold on Republican opinion are the mechanisms that made this entire experiment possible. They’re why sitting Republican politicians and the right’s politically ambitious stay in line."

True but incomplete! First, I have no proof that the Beijing politburo is the source of Adelson's many hundreds of millions donated to warping today's GOP into a tool for treason -- almost a billion dollars laundered through his preposterously profitable Macao casinos. But truly, is any other explanation remotely possible? Putin may own Trump's half a billion in older debt, coming due in 2021 and Trump's reason to scam working class donors a bit longer. But that Russian debt is another matter. The core point here is that anyone funded by Adelson is very likely a "Macao-ian Candidate."

Second: while this article sheds valuable insights, it misses the third leg on which foreign control of today's GOP rests. Blackmail. No amount of money can explain the perfect obedience of 75% of the top Republican political caste - the 3/4 who not only vote in disciplined lockstep with Moscow Mitch, or turn their states into cheatocracies, but slavishly toady to Trump to degrees that leave them without even a figleaf of dignity. Mere money and power are insufficient to explain that. Both are satiable - at least a bit. But blackmail is total. You are owned by the blackmail masters of the KGB.

 

Which leads again (and again!) to the one thing Joe Biden could do that'd make a transforming, seismic difference. The one and only thing. I've said it before and will repeat it till maybe someone passes the idea up the line, at least to Indianapolis's best son, Ron Klain. 

 

 

 == The deepest of McConnell's fears ==

 

Moscow Mitch has to hope that today's Union generals - leading Democrats - remain what they have always been... mere well-meaning betas, unable to see agile tactics. Because McConnell is so-toast if they wake up. For example, it's been suggested that Chuck Schumer approach half a dozen GOP senators - the non-blackmailed ones - with a deal: "We'll throw 49 Democratic votes behind a new Republican Majority Leader, so long as it's anyone but Moscow Mitch. Or Graham or Cruz or Rubio, since they are clearly blackmailed Russian stooges, too. But pick someone sapient and reasonable and we'll do this!"

 

Would it work? Maybe not. But Mitch fears it.

 

What he fears far more is about to happen... Their vaunted Senate and Court majorities will do nothing to prevent Joe's appointment of 10,000 skilled grownups to replace 10,000 corrupt lunatics and blackmailed Putin Shills — especially a sane and vigorous and honest Attorney General. 

 

Consider history. When GW Bush entered office in January 2001, he shifted many agents of the state to opening every Clinton Administration file in search of 'smoking guns' and indictable crimes. In fact, they found (effectively) nothing whatsoever to impugn what was (til Obama) the most honest administration in the history of the Republic. 

 

To the point: it can be agued that Bush's shift in agency emphasis away from terrorism to a wild goose chase, seeking Clinton dirt, contributed to our blindness before the 9/11 attacks... and hence was at minimum dereliction, or even treason.

 

In sharp contrast, what do you expect this time, even if Justice and other departments simply become "normal" again? Not even engaging in vendetta. (Though that's what Foxites will howl - and counter-memes must be ready!)

 

Simply by getting out of the way of stymied FBI, counter-intelligence, grand jury and state prosecutor investigations, such a new Justice Department will unleash a dike-breaking of massive proportions. Just the Deutsche Bank records alone will send scores to jail. 

 

== An even greater fear ==

 

Mitch has openly stated that he will never confirm any Biden judgeships or even (yes, he said it) cabinet posts! And yes, this is reason why anyone not helping Democrats take the two remaining Senate seats in Georgia, January 6, is in effect aiding and abetting treason.

 

Of course odds are Mitch will stay as majority leader of the most tightly disciplined political machine ever, in US history. He no doubt expects Biden to use the technique Trump used, to stymie and effectively kill Congressional Advice & Consent -- "acting" appointments... thus weakening another fundamental of US democracy. 

But there is a way around this, even if Moscow Mitch keeps his caucus blackmailed and terrified and in line.

 

Next time, as I begin my formal list of suggestions for the Biden transition and first 100 days, I'll go into more detail on what I think is a great idea by a blogger named "Daddy Batholemew." In brief: Biden should put forward two slates. First agency and department heads he wants to see confirmed - consisting of a broadly diverse array of highly competent, honest, decent (hence non-Trumpian) folks, including some best-elements from sane American conservatism (e.g. NASA Administrator Bridenstine). 

The second, separate slate would consist of acting officers, all of them similarly honest and competent… but chosen to be offensive to deep-red mania! 

 

“For instance, I suspect Al Gore would be willing to be Acting Director of the EPA for awhile. I see Robert Mueller as Acting Attorney General? Might Hillary Clinton be Acting Secretary of State? Barrack Obama as Acting Director of National Intelligence? I kind of like Diane Ravitch as Acting Secretary of Education, Paul Krugman as Acting Secretary of Treasury, Anthony Fauci as Acting Secretary of Health and Human Services (although he is probably critically needed in the current Covid battles), Alexander Vindeman as Acting Secretary of Defense…”

 

Joe can make it explicit: 

"If you go back to traditional Advice & Consent, including judgeships, you can replace these acting heads. I don't want to use the Trump method, nor do any sane Americans. But if you force me to... then take this fait accompli."

 

== And greater fear, striking past Mitch at Rupert... ==

 

It is suggested that Biden might restore the old Fairness Doctrine - requiring widely-viewed channels to offer dissenting opinions - and he might do it without legislation, by reversing an executive order issued by Ronald Reagan! Expect the Foxites to howl! But it can be done right. Visibly win-win.

 

 Now consider if a new president actually created an empowered, Truth and Reconciliation Commission that included all sane interests, with some powers of clemency for testimony, backed by whistle blower rewards offered officially... or by some friendly billionaire… as I suggested in Polemical Judo? Giving the blackmailed a way to retire without jail, if they fess-up? Giving *henchmen* a chance to tattle profitably against some of the electoral cheats we've long (and recently) seen?

 

Are there Democrats who would have reason to fear light, as well? Sure. And giving such folks a gentle path out of DC would also seem a good idea, though in ways that were proportional and reciprocally fair, not the self-inflicted suicides we saw with Al Franken etc.

 

Above all, one and only one thing will make the greatest difference. Restoration of belief in the existence and utility of facts. 

 

Yes that takes priority! Because every other wanted reform - like eliminating racism and fixing wealth disparities and ending treason will all proceed faster after that. Because facts have a liberal bias. See: The Fact Act.

 

And yes, soon we'll talk about the panicky flight to "Parler."

== Are you worried about a coup? ==

Calm down about the 'coup' thing, already! The US senior military officer corps is the 3rd most educated clade in American life, after University professors and medical doctors. To become a general or admiral you must have at least a PhD or three masters degrees. They are fact oriented and deeply upset over the strategic threat of climate change. There are a few crazy, Dr. Strangelove types, but most are desperately eager to return to respect-worthy civilian rule - it is a religion to them. They dread ever having to engage in politics... until they retire, and even then it is uncomfortable. 

As for the pathetic Trumpian effort to stuff the DoD with shills and traitors? Well, the Officer Corps would not raise arms against legal authority. But they will "work to rule," following procedures with such meticulous slowness that it will drive Trump insane. (They have been doing this vs. his worst orders for 4 years.)

Suppose the mad right summons 'militias' to Washington? Bah. The police will be adequate to deal with those. If necessary, Maryland and Virginia will call up National Guard and we must hope the governors of those states have appointed good commanders. If so, that should be plenty.

 

Oh, I'm no polyanna, shrugging off all danger! Especially I do not preclude McVeigh type bombings and such. Against those we have to hope the FBI has deep undercover guys and that will at-best be hit or miss! We're still in 2020.

== Finally -- what about a Trump 'squatter'? ==

Okay, now for that "humor" about something pathetic, that I promised you. One unlikely but bathos-plausible path this might all take is not to a coup but to satire, with Trump refusing to go. 

 

If so, he can't leave the White House to attend the Inaugural, because they'll just lock him out. So... supposing he tries to squat inside... want a fun scenario? Dig it. The Secret Service and White House Police have as TOP priority the sitting President; ex-presidents are secondary. On January 20 at 12:01pm, Biden gets the most and the top agents, while Trump gets a few of those on punishment detail. 

 

So if Trump tries to squat, Biden marches in and personally frog-marches Trump out! If he does it right - grabbing the back of the collar and belt, then it's a matter of strength and skill, with the USSS guys peering like wrestling umpires to see to it no one is physically injured. And if Trump tries to wail on Joe - even a pathetic attempted punch - then priority sets in. Suddenly, he's a physical threat to the President and must be taken down and sat on, then hauled away. Oh, for that footage!

Of course Joe won't do that! No, instead he and Jill would go bunk with Kamala and Doug at the Naval Observatory while movers and FBI guys sift and then haul away anything Trump, including beds and the horrible curtains, from any room Trump happens not to be in at the moment. While he shambles about screaming, the new staff assembles to get to work in the Eisenhower Building, just fifty feet from the West Wing ...

 

...as the fumigators move in! Then, one minute before the flea bombs are set off, Trump's USSS detail steps in to protect his life by hauling him away... their job. 

Is that it? Well, no. Strictly speaking, they have to let him go in the driveway, where the fumigation gases don't threaten him with harm. But at that point the Marine guards don't let him back in... so he wanders about outside, screaming. Ivanka and Jared can't drag him away because their fingernails might harm an ex-president, so there he stays, fed and given blankets...

...til Biden has the extra fences taken down from around the People' House and tours resume, with a new feature, the shabby, homeless, wandering ghost. Till he is hemmed in by fenced areas of lawn being fertilized by fresh manure in stages that drive him ever closer to the exit....

...at which point he is promised a nice airplane ride. And Wendys.

Optimistic signs. And plans, in case I'm wrong. My final(?) electoral blog. Unless its a "winter of discontent."

Like millions, I expect to be drunken-comatose on Wednesday, either giddy with relief or else nervously watching Putin's end-game plan unfold, or even repelling the Holnist Uprising. (See below about that.) 

And yes, with two days left, there are very few Americans still on the fence, so why do I bother with a political posting? Because there are still edges to nibble at.

 

1- First a prediction… The Roberts Court will only intervene for Trump if they think they can actually succeed without triggering revolution. If Trump appears toast, they and the criminal GOP secretaries of state in Red states will shift their cheats to Senate races. If that seems a blowout, they'll want to avoid anything so blatant the victors will prosecute. So they’ll divert all cheat energies to state assemblies, where the real power lies.

So, what if the best happens and it’s a wave that repudiates them thoroughly? 

Then their final fallback is to confidently expect that the left will betray Biden in 2022, as they did in Clinton in 94 and Obama in 2010. And let’s be clear about the people who will desert our coalition in 2 years: not a single “corporatist Democrat,” or “Republican-lite” mewling has anything to back it up stronger than sanctimony. But sanctimony is among the strongest and hottest of mental metals. So yes, Rupert Murdoch will be counting on that, since it seems as reliable as an atomic clock.

 

2-  So why am I posting today? Who is left to make a difference? Well, consider how the polls might be wrong! 

 

Much hand wringing has gone to the “Shy Trump Voter” who might lie to a pollster, then vote MAGA in the booth. This may have been a factor in 2016, but how shy are Trumpists, today?  In any event, there may be a bigger populace that matters even more. It’s the Shy Trump-Fretting Wife of a MAGA. She won't answer a poll with "Biden," especially not if she's in earshot of her husband. But in the polling booth....

 

In any event, here is one of my last voter appeals: 

MAGA wives of Red America, for the sake of your children, get your husbands and their friends too drunk to go vote. Run down the battery on his phone so he stands in line bored and maybe gives up. You can help save the nation.

 

3- We finally watched the Borat Subsequent Moviefilm… and wow! Not just the Gift-from-God Giuliani part. (And what if Rudy was a knowing participant?) In fact, the most telling and weirdly devastating scene was at the CPAC in March, when Mike Pence told thousands of assembled conservative activists: 

 

“There are only 15 cases of the virus in America and just one recently. It’s under control and if there’s a breakout anywhere, you can count on us to be ready.” 

 

Go 1:20 in and watch... and murmur “OMG. These are worse clowns than Borat!” Show it everywhere. 

The notion that Covid-19 might have been crafted by… well, no spoiler but it’s a cute twist.

 

4- Kinda sad and scary: "No single group of Americans was targeted by IRA (Russian) information operatives more than African Americans. By far, race and related issues were the preferred target of the information warfare campaign designed to divide the country in 2016," the report said. This year, these campaigns are even more widespread, voting rights activists say. And while in most cases, it's not clear who is behind the disinformation, the intent is unmistakable: to depress turnout among people of color by fueling cynicism and distrust in the political process."

 

== If America wins, will we be done with the crooks? ==

 

5-  And what will each side do, when one of them loses? One sign of a phase of the Civil War is that neither side will accept defeat with any grace. It happens that I believe one side would have immense cause, given the staggering levels of cheating by their opponents. Though the worst we've been talking about -- at least at first -- is a national General Strike.  

Alas, the other side promises volcanic and violent fury, no matter what happens with the vote counts. I may post about this on or soon after election day, because those fellows are self-stimulating to a notion that they would win any violent new Civil War Phase Nine. 

There are wrong, for seven very strong reasons, other than their delusional brains. They truly need to consider those seven facts, and stand down while they can.

6- R.I.P GOP? Here’s  the most cogently well-written optimistic view of what happens if the undead zombie elephant gets a well-deserved stake through the heart.

 

7- Of course that wouldn’t be the end of American conservatism, nor should it be! Political scientists find that a strong center-right party serves as a bulwark against far worse… and we have seen far worse lately! But it would have to be one with restored love of honesty, democracy, science and justice. 

 

And yes, there’s talk of Republican Party Resurrection after this debacle. Many of the lifelong Republicans who have shown the guts and patriotism to stand up for country ahead of party – including some Lincoln Project fellows who call for the current top GOP corrupt leadership caste to be ‘burnt to the ground’ are hoping for a sane and smart and decent and grownup phoenix conservative movement to rise from the ashes.  (Ideally led by a clade of fact and justice and honesty-friendly retired military officers and scientists and the like.)

 

I pray that will be an urgent topic next year! If so, I have some words of advice for those attempting the revival. Like reject the prince-in-waiting, Paul Ryan, who has been lurking to rake in all the ash-covered bones and make them walk to Rupert Murdoch’s tune. And take nothing from George W. Bush. Junior could have stood up for us by peeling off a million votes from what he himself called “some really weird shit.” His refusal to do so, despite relentless Trumpian insults to his family, is craven and huge. In fact, he would benefit from doing so, by establishing himself as a leader of the new party, so indicates what I’ve always believed. He is another high gopper being blackmailed.

 

== And finally… ==

 

Someone asked: 'Say one nice thing about 2020!'

 

Well… I root for LA sports teams… but how about this? Add a zero in front and 2020 becomes a palindrome and still accurate! 02020. 

The Long Now folks push that meme. Put a zero in front of year dates as a statement of faith that we have a future. Start now! For luck.

As for whether ol' Joe can calm us down... well... all 7 previous phases of civil war finally damped down. After each earlier phase of the U.S Civil War there was acrimony, but some normalcy returned... though only after Union victories.

 

This is a nasty one and if the recurring confederate fever wins this round, we're dead. Even if they break even. There must be an Appomattox.

 

Almost done posting POLEMICAL JUDO! But here are some vital final features.

 I had hopes that self-publishing my book of 100+ unusual/agile political tactics a year before the 2020 elections would give time for some of the ideas to percolate to the political and punditry castes who might use a few effectively. I should have known better. There are no stronger guild-protection rackets going than the corps of political advisors surrounding every representative, senator and candidate... even the good guys. And they are pikers compared to the closed-shop enforcers who rigidly control the op-ed pages.

That complaint is orthogonal to our current crises, but it exacerbates the dullard incompetence of the democratic/moderate/liberal, scientific-ethical coalition's leadership at turning what could have been a tsunami into a nail-biter. Even if this election turns out to be a 'landslide" against the Putin-Murdoch cult... it could have been spectacularly better.

But we persevere. I'll be finishing these chapter postings and spend the last two weeks ranting and praying, along with everyone else, looking forward to the scenes of celebration November 4, when a billion people around the world spill into the streets in celebration.

Last time we finished Chapter 13... 'What would adults do?' laying out dozens of concepts for governance that could efficiently achieve reform and end the cheating, some of them both surprising and trivially easy.

 Next would be Chapter 14: Our 250 year Family Feud -  Phase 8 of the Civil War? where I explain how this recurring national fever has erupted many times, ever since 1780. (What we call the "Civil War" was only phase 4, though a bad one... as is this phase we're in.) But that topic was already covered in a blog posting, and many of you have seen it before, so let's move on.

This time let's post from the "mini-sections" I arrayed between main chapters of the book. Again remember this was published last November 2019... This one offers capsules that might yet - even this late - help in some polemical battles over the remaining supply of undecideds or sway-ables out there.

Mini-section #1 for…

One-Liners, Zingers and “tl;dr” Quick-memes

  

I. ZINGERS & ONE-LINERS: Meme grenades distilled from chapters.

 

-  “MAGA? Okay wise guy, when do you claim America was greater than today?” Hint: when they say “the 1950s….” pounce! (See Polemical Judo Chapter 3.)

 

- “Fake News problem?” Why do no voices on the right offer to help moderates and professionals to set up an impartial fact-checking service? If all current ones are ‘biased,’ will you name ten eminent and widely respected conservatives to join a commission, charged with helping design acceptable and competing fact-services? What, you can’t name any? (Chapter 5.)

 

- “Fake News Fix.” If you hijackers of the right won’t propose august, respect-worthy American conservatives to serve on such panels, then we will. Retired justices, retired admirals, Nobel winners, or almost any citizen of Utah![1] Folks who may differ from us over markets and regulation – even about guns – but who agree that ‘facts are things’ and Nazis are bad… and that we need a way out of the poison fog of lies. (Chapter 5.)

 

- “Deep State?” Which seems more likely? A ‘conspiracy’ by ten million scientists, journalists, teachers, doctors, civil servants, FBI agents, intel and military officers - the same folks who defeated Hitler, stymied Stalin and won the Cold War and the War on Terror? Or that just five thousand golf buddies in an incestuous CEO caste connive secretly with Wall Streeters, casino moguls, foreign despots and inheritance brats? (Chapters 8 & 10.)

 

- Adam Smith, the core founder of both market economics and liberalism, would today be a flaming Democrat. (Chapters 3, 10 & 11.)

 

- Who’s a commie? How many times must Donald Trump hold secret debriefing sessions with communist despots - or conveniently "ex" communist dictators who grew up reciting Marx - without any reputable U.S. officials present - before you'll admit something fishy is going on? 

 

- Vladimir Putin called the fall of the USSR “history’s greatest tragedy.” All of today’s Russian oligarchs were raised reciting Leninist catechisms. The KGB transitioned without a hiccup. But you folks call them all great guys.[2] Sure, they dropped the hammers and sickles, but surely you didn’t fall for a trick of symbolism? Because nothing else changed. (Postponed for Volume 2.)

 

- Wanna bet? Oh, glaciers are advancing? Would you put an actual money wager on any of your ravings, from climate change to inaugural crowds to those mighty Trumpian accomplishments? (In Chapter 15 we’ll see that demanding wagers, rather than being an immature stunt, actually works ferociously well.)[3]

 

-  Wrong, almost always. "Tobacco is harmless,” “Cars don't cause smog,” “No seat belts in cars!” and “Keep lead in gasoline!” then McCarthyism, Burning Rivers, the insane War on Drugs, mass incarceration and Supply Side voodoo... the list of wrong, wrong, wrong is endless. Can you offer times when the GOP was provably/decisively right? Actually, I can! A couple of times. But there’s been so much more wrong. (Chapter 6.)

 

- Conspiracy Theories: show us any of the ones you keep changing and then dropping, that ever proved decisively true? There are conspiracies that pass half a dozen “sniff tests.” But not many. (Chapter 7.) 

 

- IGUS. The recent Whistleblower Crises revealed weakness in one of our major bulwarks of clean government, as the seventy-four Inspectors General of federal departments and agencies endure unprecedented meddling and bullying – or else mal-appointment – by Republican politicians. In Chapters 5 and 10 we’ll see how to restore autonomous oversight by bringing them all under an independent office of the Inspector General of the United States[4] (IGUS), along with other reforms including the Fact Act.[5]

 

- Obamacare was the Republicans’ own damn plan! Cooked up by the Heritage Foundation,[6]it was on GOP platforms through the 90s and enacted in Massachusetts by Republican Gov. Mitt Romney.[7] Now Republicans call their own plan satanic. Which is worse? That hypocrisy? Or failure of any Democrats to mention it?

 

- And by the way… where’s the alternative health insurance plan that Republicans have promised for … what now? Eleven years? Any day now.

 

- Judges and taxes? Millions of U.S. conservatives who are ashamed of all the rest – Trumpism, bigotry, climate denialism, cheating, lies, trashing our alliances and blatant cozying with tyrants – justify their hold-my-nose loyalty to the GOP in one incantation: “judges and taxes.” But if every other fruit is poisonous, might the whole tree?

 

- Aren’t you curious… even a little… about those tax returns? Or Deutsche Bank funneling Trump loans from Russian oligarchs? The contents of David Pecker’s National Enquirer safe ought to fill any American with flaming, nonpartisan curiosity, along with the scores of Non Disclosure Agreements (NDA) that Donald Trump openly brags about.[8] What happened to “We deserve to know!”

 

II. TACTICS DEMOCRATS COULD TRY… TOMORROW:

 

- Some congressional committee could unleash a tsunami of revelations just by offering full protection and immunity for testimony from anyone who has an NDA - or Non-Disclosure Agreement - with Donald Trump. Trump has bragged about his Great Wall of punitive-protective NDAs. Shatter it and let the revelations spill. (Michael Cohen will tell you whom to approach.)

 

- Assume Chief Justice John Roberts will use the Court’s right wing majority to uphold his clever new Roberts Doctrine of "no-interference between the legislative and executive," or non-justiciability, thus allowing GOP henchmen to passively refuse House subpoenas on lame and unprecedented excuses. They think fait accompli resistance will stymie investigation and oversight. But there's a judo move that Schiff and Nadler and Pelosi can try. It means appealing to the Fourth Branch of government. It would work.[9]

 

- Immaturity alert! This one is almost… Trumpian. But imagine if one mid level Democratic politician were to hold a news conference denouncing fellow Democrats for their unsympathetic pestering of an addled-volatile old man who clearly qualifies for extra care and kindness under the Americans with Disabilities Act... I mean it. Paul Krugman and Nancy Pelosi have come close. But go all the way.[10] Close your eyes and imagine that being drawn out, again and again. Even those who don't 'get it' at first will catch on when Trump responds with volcanic fury, ironically proving it's true! What a tweet-storm that would trigger, hysteria that undermines his one pillar of support – the superficial appearance of “strength.” (Chapter 15.)

 

- More immaturity: Bush and Trump and others on that side love to hurl nicknames. And yes, as grownups we avoid schoolyard bully ploys. Still, if you go there, I recommend using “Old Two Scoops.” It’s not overtly sneering or mean or obscene. But it mocks the pompous preening of a narcissistic character trait – emblematic of aristocracy – that even the reddest booster can’t defend.

 

III. WAGER DARES FOR TRUMP: Hey you major public figures or late night hosts: instead of reacting every week to the next distraction outrage, then the next, try openly and repeatedly challenging Donald Trump to:

 

- accept a medical exam by skilled doctors he can’t control, 

 

- prove his “stable genius IQ” with a panel of simple tests applied by professionals chosen randomly,

 

- waive IRS privacy rules enough for them to at least say publicly whether or not there’s an audit, 

 

- roll dice and randomly pick any week’s top five accusations of “fake news” for a jury of respected Americans to audit in detail (see Chapter 5). Or even randomly chosen Americans. 

 

- prove the birther thing, at long last. That Obama’s parents planted – all the way from Kenya – birth announcements in Hawaiian newspapers, or to  golf less than Obama.  Or to pay the money he owes every city where he held a rally.[11] Make that a money bet, right now, 

 

- or swear never again to be alone with foreign despots without trusted American witnesses present.

 

It’s not that any one such demand will be transformative, or even become an actual wager – none of them will (for reasons given in Chapter 15). Alas, no Democratic politician or pundit seems to understand the power of repetition and persistent hammering, despite having witnessed Trump use that method to great effect. 

 

 

IV. WAGER-DARES FOR OTHER REPUBLICANS: A bit different, these in-yer-face challenges are for your confederate cousins. Demands for real-money bets will send most of them backpedaling. Or else (rarely) persuade one to resume viewing at facts as real things. (See Chapters 5, 11, 13, and especially 15). And yes, some of these will be repeated, later in the book.

 

- How many Trump appointees and associates started out described by him as 'great guys,' who later 'betrayed' him? I bet it’s more than any ten other presidents. Whatever the anecdotal merits or turpitudes of any particular case, will you admit it proves he's a lousy judge of character?

 

- Put money on military readiness. Which political party generally leaves U.S. defenses, alliances and resilience in better shape than how they found them? Which party nearly always leaves the American military worse off than before they took over? (And yes, it is the GOP. See pause#10.)

 

- Quick, name a Republican top leader between Reagan and Ryan who was mentioned at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Neither Bush president, nor Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Hastert, DeLay, Romney, McCain… not even mentioned. All “ancient history.” But if you disavow those past Republican administrations, then where is your party’s credibility?

 

- I bet you can’t name a fact-profession not being warred upon by Fox & Accomplices. Even one. (Chapter 5.)

 

- Name one Supply Side “economics” prediction that ever came true. That tax cuts for the rich would be invested in R&D and new factories? That they result in increased revenue and reduced deficits? That they achieve anything other than asset bubbles, collapsed money velocity and skyrocketing wealth disparities? Name one reason we should trust a supply sider with a wet match? (Chapter 11.)

 

- The rate of change of the rate of change of debt was positive (toward reckless acceleration) during almost every year of every Republican administration (post Eisenhower). It was negative (braking the rate of deficit growth gradually toward prudence) in every year of every Democratic administration (post Johnson). How does that fit the GOP’s last ditch justification… that they are the prudent, pragmatic ones?  (Chapter 11.)

 

- Across the last 25 years, the GOP either controlled Congress, or else could thwart it, for all but two. Care to name any positive accomplishments? Not wars or tax gifts to the rich, but major adjustments to law or even major de-regulations? (Chapter 10.)

 

- And again and again. Put money on Trumpian lies for any given day. Pick at random day in the near future.

 

 

V. SLIGHTLY LONGER MEME BOMBS: Also in chapters, with longer summaries.

 

- What if Obama did it? “WODI” can be effective. Every day, your “ostrich” Republican shrugs aside some antic that would have sent them ballistic, if done by Clinton or Obama. A decent bar bet would be to say in advance “Next Thursday let’s try out WODI on that day’s Trump travesty.” It only works on a gal or guy who has a shred of remaining honesty or honor.

 

- Clinton or Obama-related “investigations” – after a quarter of a century and half a billion dollars – and never a stonewalled refusal of testimony – congrats. You proved a husband fibbed about some adult-consensual (while still inappropriate) infidelity and the wife was caught using the same sort of somewhat improper email system as Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, John McCain, Mike Pence, George Bush, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. That’s it. After 25 years without proof, where’s your cred?

 

- Answer both right and left critics of Pax Americana. If the U.S. had behaved like all other empires and imposed mercantilist trade patterns after WWII, then America would have no debt today. Its cities would gleam and factories hum. The country would swim in gold...but hope and prosperity in the larger world would be ruined by the same short-sighted greed that brought down Babylon, Persia, Rome, Pax Sinica, Pax Britannia etc. And when we finally fell, it would be in a tumult of well-deserved wrath. But we didn’t do what all those empires did. We did something very different. (Chapter 9.)

 

- Mitch McConnell’s declaration that no judges should be appointed or confirmed in an election year, then chortling he’ll pass anyone nominated by Trump in 2020… a perfect example of how one complaint – or a few – can be shrugged off as whining. But a concerted campaign of mockery….[12]

 

- Offer an amnesty for Americans now enslaved by blackmail.  It’s speculative! Perhaps no one will step up… or perhaps too many to count… in which case it’s unlikely, amid a tsunami of revelation, that our scheming enemies will survive. As we’ll see in Chapter 8, the long range victory condition for our kind of civilization is a future world that’s filled with open-fair competition, calm negotiation, but above all… light.

 

 

 

* DON’T FOR A MINUTE THINK WE’VE FORGOTTEN…

 

That’s but a sampler list, offered for those who find an actual book “TLDR.” 

 

For the rest of you, hang in there. Chapter 15 will dive into the effectiveness of wager-demands, even – especially - when the other side weasels and refuses to bet! The tactic corners them anyway, by their own macho standards.  It destroys the illusion of macho “strength.” And there will be other distilled “meme bomb” collections, especially near the end of the book.

 

Finally… here’s a challenge that I’ll reiterate many times – in chapters 6 and 12 and 13 – aimed at every dogmatic purist out there:

 

Are you actually asserting that you are absolutely 100% right, with no margin of error?

 

And yes, this question can bedevil purists of the left as well as the right. Dig it (and this is good news!) Your enemies are likely no more than 99% wrong! Possibly as little as 90%. Moreover, have you the character strength to sift through your opponents’ maelstrom of “wrongness” for those slivers where they actually have a point? 

 

We’ll come back to this. It’s not just about being the mature person. Entering and understanding your adversary’s head is a key ingredient that Sun Tzu recommended… for achieving victory.

There's still time to use some of these!!

footnotes

---

[1] This will come up again. Utah is probably the largest concentration of RASRs – Residually Adult Sane Republicans –disgusted, even outraged, by the Trumpian travesties. Outreach by moderate-liberal America would seem timely, even overdue. 

 

[2] The Right’s romance with Russia: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/false-romance-russia/603433/

 

[3] As Christopher Walken’s character in Blast From The Past dubiously observes, when told that the Kremlin had simply dropped communist revolution – or at least all the surfaces and incantations: “You got to hand it to them,” he said, with errie brevity.

 

[4] The Inspector General of the United States http://davidbrin.com/nonfiction/inspectorgeneral.html

 

[5] The FACT Act: http://davidbrin.com/nonfiction/factact.html

 

[6]  See the signing ceremony, April 12, 2006, for the crowning achievement of Mitt Romney's governorship – a health insurance plan that was the template for the Affordable Care Act. The head of the Heritage Foundation crows over the role his group played in designing "Romneycare" based in the earlier Republican Party Health Plan for individual mandates and insurance buying markets or "exchanges" that originated at the Heritage think tank and that was touted as a way to use market forces to solve the problem of the uninsured.  http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/04/10/90621/heritage-romneycare/

 

[7] Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/04/10/90621/heritage-romneycare/

 

[8] Karen McDougal released from her NDA: https://www.spin.com/2018/04/karen-mcdougal-nda-agreement-american-media/

 

[9] As of pub date, 10-25-19, it appears that civil servants are taking matters into their own hands, not waiting for Congressional subpoenas to step forward. I don’t mind seeing some of my “judo Suggestions” bypassed in such ways. We’ll be saved by heroes.

 

[10] In October 2019, Nobelist Paul Krugman wrote: “I don’t mean that Trump is stupid; a stupid man couldn’t have managed to defraud so many people over so many years. Nor do I mean that he’s crazy, although his speeches and tweets – ‘my great and unmatched wisdom,’ the Kurds weren’t there on D-Day – keep sounding loonier.” Krugman adds, however, that Trump is “lazy, utterly incurious and too insecure to listen to advice or ever admit to a mistake. And given that he is, in fact, what he accuses others of being – an enemy of the people – we should be thankful for his flaws.” Well… we’ll see. The same week, on Saturday Night Live, Weekend Update host Michael Che voiced (brilliantly) a meme I had been spreading about a new and clever way to deal with the weird-crazed phenomenon of Donald Trump. ““I don't know how to ask this, but are we sure that it's OK to make fun of this guy?” he asked. “Did you ever read Of Mice and Men? Remember how Lenny was really ‘strong?’ What if Trump is really strong? I've got a cousin who is also strong. And he loves alligators too, but we don't make fun of him.” https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/paul-krugman-trumps-mental-deficiency-may-actually-save-us-from-disaster-as-he-keeps-sounding-loonier/

 

[11] Minneapolis mayor: We saw Trump stiffing cities for his rallies, so we told him to pay up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/12/minneapolis-mayor-we-saw-trump-stiffing-cities-his-other-rallies-so-we-told-him-pay-up/

 

[12] Old fashioned terms like honor, courage, dedication, devotion, integrity, etc. These are core values for a lot of people. And they await rescue from hypocrites who have stolen them.