[Note from Steve: I know if you’re reading this, you’re probably a member of the good, decent citizens’ choir that hates Trump. Rest assured that I find the man despicable, a worthless piece of human trash like most fascists. It’s hard to preach to the stupid hordes of Trump’s followers, though; in general, they’re mindless zombies willfully following their evil Voldemort. But you, my readers, can help. If you can hold your nose, please work on people around you who support Trump to convince them that #NeverTrump is the only sane way to vote in the 2020 election. (Maybe you can work on the rest of the Good Ole Piranhas too, the lead zombies in your neighborhood.) You will at least be able to say to your children and grandchildren that you tried to halt America’s spiral down into fascism. I’ve already voted. Have you? By the way, everything in this post is fact. If you can’t deal with facts, stop reading.]

Like a lot of physicists, Einstein was an observer, and he also observed human behavior, perhaps more complicated than the workings of the physical Universe. Here’s perhaps his most famous and pithy remark that any sane person should be able to understand: “Two things are possibly infinite: the Universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” That sums up our current situation quite well: Trump and his mindless followers validate the truth of his statement in spades. It’s not that there are an infinite number of them—they’ve only been a steady minority for a long time, but they are dangerous because they are ruining this country and the world—and each one seems to possess infinite stupidity.

Even right here in blue-state NJ, Il Duce flaunted all CID guidelines to meet his stupid donors, at his golf club in Bedminster, no less (no concern for them or the workers there, of course, because Trump is a sociopath; and the lobotomized zombies hugging and kissing on the White House lawn to celebrate the new nominee to SCOTUS, another Nazi-leaning right-wing witch—all this shows that he and they aren’t only stupid, they’re brainless swamp scum. Some idiots still claim the virus is a Dem hoax or believe that it’s basically harmless, even with 200K+ Americans dead—after all, the Supreme Idiot says they shouldn’t fear it (with all the lies spewing out of his mouth, why anyone would believe a word that “f&^% moron” says is beyond me—the quote is from SecState Tillerson, whom Trump fired, as he’s done for any reasonable person in this administration). And then there’s the mindless buffoon seen on our local news who’s working for herd immunity, never mind that that gives millions more Americans a death sentence! (Trump’s “fear” comment is basically in support of herd immunity, too.)

Everywhere I look I see stupid people, and each one’s stupidity does seem infinite! The “herd” right now is comprised of all the lemmings with herb mentality happily following their great cult leader right over the cliff. Narcissus le Grand isn’t Jim Jones, but he might as well be, because the marching morons following him are intent on drinking his poisonous Kool-Aid. You saw a good sample right in front of Walter Reed, cheering their leader on as he rode by, an infantile demonstration of political theater. Trump wanted campaign optics. He got it. People shook their heads at his stupidity and sociopathic disregard of the Secret Service agents’ health, and leaving most medical experts livid. (Forget the president’s medical team. They lie just like the president. The chump’s Sean’s commander-in-chief, after all, although I believe he was picked because he’s loyal to the idiot—“loyalty to the fuehrer uber alles” is Trump’s requirement to hire someone.)

Trump’s political theater—the ride in that SUV, exposing the Secret Service agents; the demasking on the White House balcony and reentering without the mask, exposing everyone inside—these are the actions of a demented person. They show that the ignoramus-in-chief has an incurable mental disease—he’s a pathetically stupid sociopath! And he doesn’t deserve to be the leader of the free world. Instead, he deserves to be in a straitjacket locked up in a padded cell. Yes, @realDonaldTrump is probably the dumbest and most dangerous man on the planet!

He mocks Biden for going to a state school. How stupid is that!? Perhaps, like me and many others, Biden’s family situation was such that he couldn’t afford a private and snobbish Ivy League school. He didn’t have Trump’s money, that’s for sure, or Trump’s amoral behavior that allowed the self-proclaimed billionaire to use Daddy’s money to pay someone to take his SATs so he could go to UPenn (my opinion of that Ivy League school just hit a new low). (And we now know that Trump lied about being a successful businessman too. He’s a putz who’s lost millions! You and I manage our money better than he does because we don’t have Deutsche Bank to save our asses. Or Putin?)

And telling us not to fear the virus? The 200K+ dead in America really appreciate that, Mr. Trump, and what you said is a damn insult to the people who have survived or watched relatives and friends sicken and die because of his mismanagement of the COVID pandemic. FYI, you idiot who wrote off $70K in taxes for managing your three-foldover straw-like hairdo, I don’t fear the virus. I fear you and other idiots who tell me this virus is nothing, at worst like a little flu, or claim we should kill millions to achieve herd immunity. I don’t have your access to state-of-the art COVID treatments. Most people don’t. Many people still can’t get tested. And if you and your Nazi judge Amy kill the ACA, they won’t even be able to see a nurse or doctor!

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This question considering Il Duce’s bromance with the evil Russian has been asked many times by many people, and asked most notably by ex-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats (another person Narcissus le Grand fired, replacing him with a toady who knows absolutely nothing about national security!). It’s a reasonable question with the Putin-led attacks on the 2016, 2018, and 2020 electoral process. Maybe that’s what all that foreign debt is about? (Eric Trump is on record saying that they don’t need to borrow money in the US because they can get all they want from Russia?) In any case, that would give Trump an excuse for treason: Putin’s blackmailing me!

But Trump doesn’t deserve an excuse. He’s committed treason many times over and was nearly impeached for one of those flagrant and treasonous actins. He told George Stephanopoulos that he’ll use anything Putin gives him, which he did in 2018, and is doing so now. He tried to bribe the Ukrainian president and was impeached for it. (He wasn’t convicted because Moscow Mitch and the other Good Ole Piranhas, Trump’s toadies, didn’t allow it to happen, in spite of overwhelming evidence against Trump, but that impeachment still stands for all time! The People’s House has spoken!) He now uses a typical and whining autocratic tactic, saying that he won’t leave the White House even if Biden wins because the election will have been rigged if he loses.. Huh? And isn’t 200,000+ mass murders committed in the mismanagement of the pandemic enough treason perpetrated on the American public for you? That’s a crime against humanity!

However, let’s put the title’s question aside for the moment. While it’s one explanation of the Trump/Putin bromance, if Coats and his spy-minions couldn’t answer it, we still have plenty of evidence from other available information that Trump is a treasonous SOB. Michael Cohen describes the Moscow Trump Tower shenanigans in his book, and these went on during the 2016 campaign! If you believe Cohen (considering his pathetic situation, I have no reason not to) the bromance exists because Trump wants to have what Putin has: Putin owns an entire country, Russia! Trump not only admires Putin, Trump emulates him. They’re both like Mafia capos at the head of gangster mobs whose thugs, the oligarchs in Russia and the Good Ole Piranhas here, want to shake down their countries, raping and pillaging (the first, literally, in Trump’s case, if his treatment of women is any indication). That would also explain why Trump admires the world’s other autocrats as well—Kim, Netanyahu, Duterte, and many other dictators who rape and pillage their countries. He used to have a love affair with China’s Xi too, but now Trump blames the Chinese president-for-life (a title Trump aspires to) for COVID, blaming all the deaths from his mismanagement of the crisis on Xi. Maybe Trump’s followers are stupid enough to believe that (some of these attack Chinese in this country, although that might be more motivated by white-supremacy sentiments, which he supported in that infamous brawl called the first debate), but sane people will not believe it. (Most sane people don’t believe anything Il Duce says anymore. In fact, believing Trump might be a good definition of insanity!)

But what does Trump really admire about Putin et al? They can kill their enemies with impunity! Trump wants that power. So far he only destroys his enemies by ruining their reputations and their ability to make a living, but as capo of the gangster group, Trump Inc., he undoubtedly prefers that easier route, assassination. Putin excels at that. You can bet Trump’s respects to RBG included a whispered, “Thank you for dying, you old hag.” He can’t rise above partisanship and his all-out effort to destroy the country. Even the obnoxious Scalia could do that with RBG.

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“Rage, rage, against the dying of the light….” I rage against Trump and his evil army, and I’m depressed that the light of democracy in this country is dying. Many days I think we now need another Civil War! (I’d much prefer, of course, that Trumpsters would come to their senses and realize their hero is a snake-oil salesman.) As the history of 1930’s Germany is currently repeated in our land, how can one not rage against the evil, hypocritical, bigoted, racist Trump and his followers who now make up the Good Ole Piranhas hordes? This mood of mine alternates between that rage and a terrible depression that Despicable Mel (Trump) and his fanatic Minions (Trumpsters) will succeed in destroying America and the rest of the world.

I rage when I see the crowds of Trump fanatics, those “marching morons” without masks or any social consciences, cheering for their leader, the “f&^%ing moron” (SecState Tillerson quote). I often hope they all die from COVID—he won’t, of course, because he keeps away from the idiots and gets tested every day, something no one in America can do because of him. (Why is the pandemic battle a political issue?) But I’m also depressed, thinking these mindless zombies will kill me, my family, and friends, and anyone else who doesn’t play along with them, fanatic hordes of despicable human beings. Until that happens, I don’t want any of them near me. Unless you see the error of your ways, stay away! You are diseased if you’re a Trumpster (better name than “Trumper” because it rhymes with “dumpster”). You’re diseased both mentally and physically, carrying a terrible virus in your mind as well as in your body.

Is the GOP the party of Lincoln? No way! Lincoln is looking down on them now, shaking his head, terribly annoyed with these poor excuses of human beings. The current Good Ole Piranhas no longer have the right to claim his ancestry. (Most of them would have fought with the CSA.) Lincoln wasn’t a racist, bigoted, and faux Christian like Trump and his followers. He had a SCOTUS nomination to make, with less time than now in replacing RBG, but he waited until the next term. He was a reasonable man and understood that the electorate should have its say, an argument the Good Ole Piranhas made in 2016 about Justice Garland. Lincoln wasn’t a racist or a bigot. And he was willing to fight a Civil War in an attempt to stamp out those who believe that crap. But the man who killed Lincoln was the first Trumpster…and true ancestor of the GOP! It’s gone downhill ever since.

Biden is right! This election is about saving the soul of America. Don’t look for the Good Ole Piranhas to save it. They’re zombies without souls, having sold them to the Devil named Trump. We already have Gardner, Graham, Grassley, and McConnell’s number—hypocrites,  all of them. They might just lose their electoral contests, but they don’t give a rat’s ass. They’ll screw American liberty any way they can. And Romney clearly votes for anyone who wants to turn the country into a religious theocracy. Only Collins and Murkowski have had the courage to go against Trump’s toadies in the Senate when it comes to SCOTUS nomination timing. And so we’ll see healthcare, abortion, and immigrant rights, and many other human rights fall in the shitstorm created by the Good Ole Piranhas, Trump’s imperial snarl appearing within the smoke and flames, saying, “Now I am Death, the destroyer of worlds.”.

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Except for those uncaring citizens who aren’t up on the news, or who only watch Fox to reaffirm their crazy adoration of Trump and belief in conspiracies, most of us in the US, even around the world, recognize that Il Duce is a liar, cheat, pervert, and criminal. It doesn’t take his ex-fixer Cohen or Watergate journalist Woodward to tell us that. We have plenty of evidence by now that he should never have been president, that he’s the worst US president ever, and that the rest of the world will consider the US voters idiots if we reelect Narcissus le Grand.

My real fear, though, is that Trump is such a psychotic and paranoid sociopath that he will do anything to remain in power and realize his ambition to be like those other autocratic presidents-for-life like Kim, Putin, and Xi, whom he admires so much. (What does Putin have on Trump? Both Dan Coats and I want to know!). And that might just include destroying the world if this foul-mouthed schoolyard bully can’t have his own way. He thinks he’s surpassed Obama and Bush. Yes, but not in the way he thinks. Barack was super-presidential, smart, and gifted; and Dubya even shines in comparison to Il Duce. Trump’s become the worst of the worse as far as bad presidents go. And his statement about twelve more years might mean he wants to surpass FDR and stay in power forever.

His supporters must be too stupid to realize how dangerous this man is. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about their problems; he just cares about himself. Everything he was impeached for was a high crime and misdemeanor, and the Good Ole Piranhas in the Senate let him get away with it because they drink his poisoned Kool-Aid. Everything in the Mueller report was impeachable too, but Mueller didn’t have the balls to prosecute, leaving that to Congress, which failed America twice by not getting rid of “the f&^%ing moron” (SecState Tillerson quote, without the &^%). How many cases are pending in the SDNY court now? Trump doesn’t want to lose because he’ll end up in jail!

It’s sad. My litmus test for even talking with people now is whether they are Trump supporters. Trump has succeeded in dividing us, and he’s destroyed the GOP—there are few true conservatives left, just Trump sycophants. I don’t want anything to do with Trump supporters. I know you might want to shoot me, spit on me, boo me, shout me down, spit in my face, like the unthinking wild lemmings you are, but I’ll just walk away. You’re despicable human beings, so I’ll avoid you. In my old day-job, I had to suffer fools gladly; I don’t have to do that anymore. But I fear you’re going to destroy the country I love, and Trump is leading the charge to kill democracy.

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Kentucky, a state with a long tradition of continuing to fight the Civil War into the 21^st century like many southern states, has two laws most people there, or most anywhere else, could imagine clashing: the “Stand Your Ground” law and the “No-Knock Warrants” law. They clashed in a deadly fashion in the case of Breonna Taylor, putting her in a deadly vise and providing a strong indictment against systemic racism and the NRA with its wrong interpretations of the Second Amendment.

I can understand the intention of no-knock warrants. Knocking is the signal for a “perp” to run. Forget the fact that anyone looking out and seeing a SWAT group would probably run for their live too, especially a black person espying a white SWAT. In fact, a black person, guilty or innocent, should run for their life in a southern state. In these red states, it’s usually guilty until proven innocent, especially toward black and brown people by the Trumpers. If ICE agents can be seen in combat gear, same thing.

Of course, the suspected “perp” inside might start firing his gun (easy to own in red states) through the door when he hears the knock. Patience isn’t a virtue among some cops, especially white ones looking for a black man in a red state, so they prefer to neutralize a perceived threat and question the suspect later. They don’t bother to check the address of the person they’re after either. In Breonna’s case, they were sent there to arrest a different black man, and by damn they were going get one! They had the wrong address. Afterward the cops and prosecutors tried to make it out that the one with Breonna was the drug dealer’s accomplice.

“Standing Your Ground” is an absurd law, of course. Those laws, again mostly enacted in red states where the size of one’s gun seems to be a measure of a man’s masculinity (or a woman’s desire to show she’s “man enough”?), meaning that a person who perceives a threat can kill the person supposedly making a threat. All kinds of validation for a racist killing there, as we saw in that parking lot in Florida! Or with Trevon Martin. This is deadly force sanctioned by stupid or racist politicians who happily benefit from the NRA’s deep pockets, politicians willing to accept blood money for their campaigns from the NRA.

Breonna’s boyfriend stood his ground. There was no knock, and the cops didn’t identify themselves. He had no idea who they were…and stood his ground, because in Kentucky he could own a gun and use it exactly that way.

Two stupid laws met that fateful night, catching the poor EMT in a deadly crossfire. Both laws should be repealed. Unforeseen consequences are no excuse when it comes to saving human life, in this case a beautiful person who lived to help others. Reasonable gun laws should be enacted, strong, federal laws so gun owners in red states or anywhere else are forced to use guns responsibly, and so they’re punished when they don’t.

Of course, the NRA doesn’t want this. They bloviate about their Second Amendment rights. Judge Scalia himself proved their credo is bullshit. He consulted a database in Utah trying to buoy up that credo and could hardly find a document from that era supporting individual gun ownership. Except for neo-Nazis and white supremacists, gun owners aren’t part of a militia; the militias are now our National Guard. Personal gun ownership is not guaranteed by the Second Amendment, and never was. No individual besides soldiers in the National Guard really has a right to own a gun! And cops get along with them just fine in Britain.

God help us if we can’t do what’s right and get reasonable gun laws. A failure there will make the coming Civil War between red and blue states all that bloodier. That’s where Trump is taking us, but we can disarm those with the blood lust to save some innocents at least…like Breonna Taylor!

***

Comments are always welcome.

Death on the Danube. Esther Brookstone, ex-MI6 agent in East Berlin in the Cold War and ex-Scotland Yard Inspector in the Art and Antiques Division, is on her honeymoon with Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden. Their idyllic cruise down the Danube is interrupted when a reclusive and mysterious passenger is murdered. Why was the victim alone on that riverboat filled with couples, in a stateroom by himself? And who killed him? Esther and Bastiann were often called Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot by wags at the Yard, and this addition to the series might remind readers of Christie’s Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express, but this mystery/thriller is very much a story set in the twenty-first century. So tour the Danube with Esther and Bastiann…and enjoy the ride! Coming soon!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

“Defund the police!” Let’s analyze this statement. There are a lot of people who see a few rotten apples and think the whole barrel is bad—they hate all the police. They feed off stereotypes. The same thinking that leads to KKK-type tropes about blacks and Hispanics being thieves, rapists, and murderers (out current president uses those and repeats them over and over again), that same thinking the other side employs to see cops—“pigs” as they call them—as Nazi Stormtroopers doing the bidding of autocratic personalities like Trump.

Cases like George Floyd and Jacob Blake’s don’t help, of course. Those few bad cops are indeed murdering, racist fascists who must be brought to justice. But those cases, as horrible as they are, don’t mean all cops are bad. And I’m sure the good cops, often bastions of their communities across the land, find those actions as deplorable as we do. And one must remember that there’s evidence for right-wing anarchists starting the looting and violence (e.g. white kid with long gun in Kenosha); that certainly belies Trump and homophobic Brother Pence’s law-and-order message!

In a previous op-ed post, I spoke of the “marching morons.” It’s moronic behavior to believe all cops are bad, and having fewer cops will not make people safer. Quite the contrary. NYC is showing this now: moronic mayor De Blasio cut $1 billion from the NYPD and cancelled a special unit whose mission was to get guns off the street. The result: More violence, and a lot of it associated with more guns!

Having fewer cops might have made East Germans safer from the Stasi; that will not be the case in the US. (Narcissus le Grand wants to turn us into East Germany and create his own Stasi, of course. Hopefully he doesn’t succeed.)

My fellow Americans at left-of-center like me, might counter with: “Well, De Blasio is going to use that $1 billion for social programs, isn’t he?” Ha! He’s also ready to sell you that bridge in Brooklyn too. (Or is it Giuliani? Mayors sometimes tend to think the own the city.) Maybe $1 billion for social programs sounds good to AOC and her rabid followers on the extreme left, but it’s bad policy to steal it from the NYPD. That will only exacerbate the clear and present danger in NYC streets that is making people move away from the city as much as COVID does. My response to all those screaming to defund the police (the following is also a trope, I’ll admit, but one that’s positive): What are you going to do when you have to confront a mugger, rapist, or murderer? Call a social worker?

People are already finding out that De Blasio’s move was moronic and oh so wrong (opportunistic at its best, proof of stupid thinking from an inept man unable to foresee the consequences of his dangerous actions at the worse). It will be proven wrong all across the land where city councils and county commissioners believe that defunding the police and sheriff’s departments is a solution to systemic racism in these organizations—systemic because the good cops often aren’t willing to confront the bad ones, and not because there are too many cops!

Good, solid policing is necessary. There are gangs, drug dealers, and terrorists; there are muggers, rapists, and murderers. That’s a fact of life, and not just in our big cities. We’re already hearing from many people (and many are minorities who bear the brunt of the violence): Where are the cops? My answer is simple: Defund policing means fewer cops, not only because of budget cuts but because those who want to serve and help their communities are demotivated.

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No, this isn’t a review of that awful Brad Pitt movie Inglorious Bastards (tried to watch it, but, like a bad book, I left it after ten minutes—okay, maybe that is a review?). No, I’m talking about that Trump the Chump Reality Show (more fantasy than reality with its lies and vitriol), led by the snake-oil fascist, Donald Trump AKA Il Duce AKA Vainglorious-Bastard-in-Chief and his homophobic sidekick, Brother Pence. (Of course, they’re not bastards in the true sense of the word; Trump had a father and learned far too much from that sociopath.)

“Vainglorious” perfectly describes Narcissus le Grand and most of his minions, so his is my review of the RNC, where luminaries from the Good Ole Piranhas are practiced their Orwellian doublespeak into the wee hours of the night. Or is it just following Goebbels’s dictum? Say the lies often enough, and people will believe them.

Some people will believe the doublespeak, that’s for sure…those marching morons who make C. M. Kornbluth’s characters in his famous sci-fi novella seem tame. Trump’s followers are so gullible that they’ll follow the “f&^% moron” (SecState Tillerson quote) right over the cliff like lemmings. “Blue-collar billionaire”? Now that’s the epitome of an oxymoron. Narcissus le Grand spews a lot of those too, and has trained homophobic Brother Pence and his family and other minions to spew them, along with the doublespeak and lies.

That brings me to Don Jr. Like papa and granddaddy, he should be in nappies, in a straitjacket, and locked away in a padded cell (the nappies are needed for his big mouth where only you-know-what comes out). He spewed lots of doublespeak during his speech along with that oxymoron “blue-collar billionaire.” If anyone out there thinks the Chump cares about anyone but himself, Giuliani’s probably willing to sell you a bridge in Brooklyn that he thinks he owns (he came out from under his rock too for an evil cameo-he has his ticket to leave the country as soon as the Donald loses).

“Church, school…”? Great timing there, Don Jr. Most everyone will remember your daddy’s evangelical leader and campaign donor in 2016, the most Rev. Jerry Jr. (the juniors were really blathering a lot last week). Is he what you mean by church, Don Jr? Working to create an evangelical, fascist theocracy, are you, led by philanderers like you, Falwell (actually he and his wife are holy swingers too), and your father, nasty men who abuse and use women? I see decency in the Biden camp. I see a bunch of immoral and perverted  creeps in yours. And school? Well, there’s Liberty U, which essentially financed Jerry Jr. and his wife’s sex games. (I wonder if that’s a course there. It would be more entertaining than that “Hate the Pope” course.) Or maybe we should ask your father to teach courses on how to hire someone to take their SATs? He missed out on following Lori Mclaughlin’s example—I’m sure he would have applauded her easier solution to get into UPenn (couldn’t stay at Fordham—it’s run by Jesuits, those demon hordes of the anti-Christ).

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DeJoy, Il Duce’s campaign donor and sneaky fascist, is having fun doing Narcissus le Grand’s bidding to destroy the USPS as a way of suppressing voting in 2020. [Note added in press: He’s backtracking on Post Office removal of sorting machines and cutting overtime and other things, even before Speaker Pelosi holds his feet to the fire. That’s not enough, of course.] You see, most Good Ole Piranhas know they don’t have enough votes if everyone votes (some mail-in states like Utah see 80% turnout), so they have to make sure that all the tired and poor who vote democratic either don’t vote or go to the polls and catch COVID-19—the latter will at least guarantee they’re dead by 2024, making it easier for their planned fascist takeover of America.

Seem harsh? Maybe, but I intend it to be harsh, because all the evidence we have so far points in that direction:

First, let’s dispel the myth and show Il Duce (he of the imperious scowl) is a liar when he says mail-in voting leads to fraud. While I’ll admit that Trump and his wife, who use mail-in votes (they are unwelcome in NYC, so they registered in Florida), have already been shown to be complete frauds, even their votes will count. Oregon, Utah, and other states have used mail-in voting for years, and Colorado, more purple than blue, just approved it. These efforts have been successful with negligible voter fraud and larger voter turnout in most cases. And some states now think it’s not correct that voters should have to risk dying from COVID to vote.

To beat a dead horse, i.e. that mail-in voting leads to fraud, the Trump administration has sued NJ’s Governor Murphy, who wisely decide to offer mail-in voting for everyone and is mailing out the ballots to do so. Of course, that will play out in Federal courts, and it still might be going on well after the election, even with Trump’s packing of the courts. How far the Good Ole Piranhas have come: They used to trumpet state’s rights, be for small government, and minimizing the national debt. They used to work against despots and authoritarian practices. No more. Poor Abe must be turning over in his grave.

Most red states don’t care about COVID, never have, never will, and, as a consequence, don’t care what happens at the ballot box either, as long as their Q-anon candidates and other fascist personalities get elected and re-elected. (Gerrymandering is another fascist tactic they use, but you already knew that.) In fact, they make sure that fewer ballot boxes are available for minorities, who, for many reasons, give the finger to the Republican party and vote for Democrats, with few exceptions like toadies Ben Carson and Clarence Thomas . Minimizing voting by mail is just another wonderful fascist tool for the red states.

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Sci-fi novellas can be just as meaningful and probing as novels (most of mine can be found in the list on the “Free Stuff and Contests” web page at his website). One of the best is a classic by C. M. Kornbluth, “The Marching Morons.” This was long before Trump even inherited his millions; in fact, he might have still been in diapers! (For all the crap he spreads, he probably should still be.) Kornbluth’s humorous albeit dystopian story first appeared in Galaxy in 1951 (back when ‘zines weren’t some editors’ little fiefdoms—or maybe they’ve always been that way?). It’s reappeared in collections ever since, which is why it’s a classic. The theme is simple: In the future, stupid people outnumber smart ones, and some of the latter feel compelled to take care of the former, although those smart ones should have just let good old Darwinian evolution take its course.

We’re living in a real dystopia now caused by really stupid people, and that’s not funny. In fact, it’s frightening. Human beings aren’t subjected to the pruning action of Darwinian evolution anymore. The stupid gene is becoming dominant. Dumb animals die. Stupid humans survive because, even if they rail against Obamacare and modern medical technology, they still reap its benefits. Until now with COVID-19. They’ve set out to kill themselves and take a lot of smart innocents with them. Kornbluth’s marching morons weren’t necessarily evil, just stupid. Our real-life marching morons, with Trump at the lead, are evil warriors in the Devil’s army.

Trumpism provided the first signs that the stupid gene was becoming dominant, even before COVID. The moron in the White House is the David Koresh for the cult of stupidity, a narcissistic dummkoph with zero leadership qualities who won’t mind killing all his followers. “I don’t believe the numbers.” “Kids are immune.” “Hydroxychloroquine is the cure.” “Drink some disinfectant.” Trump and his followers’ beliefs and conspiracy theories make it easy to see how stupid they all are, unscientific Neanderthals who are much worse than the stupid people in Kornbluth’s story because they’re evil. And they’re doing a lot of damage; the facts and stats don’t lie.

Of course, Trumpism doesn’t have a monopoly on stupidity. COVID has uncovered large numbers of people possessing the stupid gene, people usually managing to hide in the general population because Darwinian evolution no longer weeds out that gene. The US is by far and many times over the worst of all industrialized nations in controlling the pandemic, and the primary reason is stupidity. This is an indictment against all the stupid people who have let the virus get out of control. The logic one must generally apply is: Every Trumper is stupid and propagates the virus, but sadly not every person who propagates it is a Trumper. Yet it is Trumpism that has made wearing a mask into a political statement.

Even if a vaccine is approved, there are also stupid people who won’t get the shot. They’re not all anti-vaccine fanatics either, but they’re all stupid. They’re the ones who won’t wear face masks, put partying in large crowds over safety concerns, and go to COVID parties. Some, especially Trumpers, even crow that COVID is all a liberal plot, or the Deep State’s, whatever the hell that is. They don’t really think about it too much; they just echo what they hear on Fox News and radio broadcasts from conspiracy nuts. There’s no telling, though, how many more idiots the virus will uncover. It does a good job of that.

Whether the current pandemic of stupidity is nurture or nature at work (probably both, because the stupidity gene seems to be dominant), we need to stop its progress in order to save the world. Let’s get breedin’, smart folks! Time to make a lot of babies so we can avoid thundering herds of marching morons that leave the four horsemen of the apocalypse in their dust as they go over the COVID precipice.

I’m not serious about the need for a baby boom of smart people, of course. The planet already has enough people. We just need to control the stupid people and not let them have any political or commercial power, something akin to what happens in Kornbluth’s novella. The problem is too many people are as stupid as Trump, which is being alarmingly stupid. Should I expect an insulting tweet from the Tweeter-in-Chief attacking me and this article? Never. He’s “a f&^%ing moron” (SecState Tillerson quote) who never reads! (Not even his intelligence briefings, a name lost on him, the man who paid someone to take his SATs.) Most of his followers don’t read either. Fortunately less than 50% of the US population is affected by the stupid gene, but that percentage is growing. “Danger, Will Robinson!” said the robot. Anyone who’s smart should pay attention to that wily machine, not just Will. Protect the world from the stupid gene with your vote this November! That’s the short order cure for this pandemic of stupidity.

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Comments are always welcome!

A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. We were still sipping the champagne and going over the experimental data when I jumped back from my bench. A shimmering in the air coalesced into the trophy that appeared a foot above the bench and fell onto it.

“Did someone in the past send it back?” I said after calling her over.

This sci-fi rom-com is now available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

The title here is the German’s nickname for Donald J. Trump, “the fire devil” (NY Times editorial page, July 25 edition). I still like my own nicknames, Narcissus le Grand and Il Duce (he of the imperial sneer), but you have to create bad nicknames for the jerk because he does it to everyone else.

In this blog, I’ve often commented on how America nowadays is looking a lot like 1930s Germany, and others are getting on board with that idea. Trump is a fascist and a wannabe dictator, and our whole country is his Reichstag as he makes his plans to torch it.

But the Germans are too nice. Let’s summarize some other qualities that have created the cult of personality of Trumpism and made him into the archetypal fascist:

Trump is a racist. His reaction to Charlottesville pleased bigots and racists, and Trump wants you to believe he loves Jews because his son-in-law is one and his daughter became one—Ivanka converted before marrying Jared. And if Mary Trump’s book only succeeds in exposing the racist tradition in Trump’s family where the n-word was common place, it has done its job. Any black or brown persons who vote for this man with a sick mind either has buried their heads in the sand or explicitly accepted his racism. In either case, it’s a vote for bigotry.

Trump is not religious. He panders to white, fanatical, right-wing Christians, ready to help them impose their beliefs on all Americans to get their votes. These people are anti-LGBT rights, anti-women’s reproductive rights, anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-Muslim, anti-black and anti-brown, and all for a state religion as long as it’s theirs…so Trump panders them by espousing those same beliefs. (Sometimes SCOTUS gets in the way of that agenda, but not often enough.) These people often make Nazi Jew-haters look tame, call the pope the Anti-Christ, and tolerate just about anything as long as they get what they want. And Narcissus le Grand, whose only God is himself, gives it to them. Standing across from Lafayette Park and holding up that Bible was pitifully stupid (there are claims that it was upside down, as if Il Duce were a practicing warlock), an affront to three great religions. As I’ve argued before in these pages, Trump has no moral backbone at all. A true Christian would never vote for him.

Trump is a sexual predator. I guess the Access Hollywood tape wasn’t enough evidence for Trump’s stupid supporters. Of course, the Christian right has had their share of reverent sexual predators, and Trump’s other supporters seem to look the other way too. Add to that the payoff to a porn star and Playboy bunny and other women complaining about his attempts at molesting, and you’d think people would get the idea. He’s also a misogynist. He hates the squad, Nancy Pelosi, and other female politicians, both for their unyielding attacks against home but also because they’re strong women. (Can you name one female leader of a country he actually admires?)

He can’t stand strong women. Apparently they can’t stand him either. Liz Cheney and Lisa Murkowski, members of his own party, have stood up to him (although Liz might just be looking to rebrand her family name—her father wore a virtual mask over his fascist face all the time he was VP). Hypocritical Melania and hell, maybe even Ivanka, are examples of weak women who go along with his perverted behavior within his own family (his exes were smart enough to show him the door). Again, I can’t understand why any woman would vote for Trump.

Trump is a hypocrite. All of the above can be summarized nicely by this statement. Hypocrites abound in America now—that group of old dinosaurs awaiting the asteroid, AKA the Good Ole Piranhas, is the most prominent group of hypocrites—so it’s not so unusual that their leader deserves this label. He’s the hypocrite-in-chief. He contradicts himself all the time, a badge of shame for hypocrites everywhere. There’s no consistency in the muddled, diseased mind of Donald Trump. And in that lies the danger for America…and the world.

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Comments are always welcome.

Soldiers of God. This is a good novel for the Christian right in America. It considers what kind of nation we might be becoming. It’s a bridge novel between the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” and the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.” An FBI agent and a priest are out to stop a fanatical religious group’s terrorist attack plans. In the background, a maniacal industrialist is pulling the strings, using religion to further his agenda. Will they succeed? This is one of my evergreen books, and it’s available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!