Trump's War on Barbie and the Loomering of Mike Waltz
Plus: How the worst get on top
As we head into the weekend, let’s keep connecting the dots:
Trump did not simply fire his national advisor; Mike Waltz was “Loomered.”
Faced with an economic meltdown and a losing tariff war, our billionaire president launched a War on Barbie.1
The Trump Crime family corruption is going international. (Don’t sleep on the story about the Trump deals in Qatar: “At a Dubai Conference, Trump’s Conflicts Take Center Stage - The New York Times” or this: “Trump’s Quest for Crypto Riches Is a Constitutional Scandal Waiting to Happen | WIRED”)
In Oklahoma, the Big Lie about the 2020 Election, will now be taught as part of the official high school curriculum. (And, as you will see below, this is not a parody.)
A Trump-appointed judge ruled that Trump’s use of wartime act for deportations is illegal.
Trump renewed his threats to revoke Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status (even though that’s blatantly illegal)… and “Trump signs executive order to stop federal funding for NPR and PBS.”
And we’re getting a parade: Army plans for a potential parade on Trump's birthday call for 6,600 soldiers, AP learns | AP News
Happy Friday.
Folks, we are not going to kumbaya our way out of this. It’s going to be tough, and the struggle is likely to be long and the outcome still uncertain. So, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters need to hang together.
I know there are a lot of claims on your time and your pocketbook. More than 90 percent of you read everything we write and post for free — and I want to keep it that way, because you really can’t defend democracy from behind a paywall.
But I want you to know that I am deeply grateful for those of you who have become paid subscribers, because you make it possible for me to stay on this hamster wheel of crazy. I won’t promise that you won’t disagree with me from time to time, but I will promise you straight, sober, sane, (and snarky) commentary. And I hope to earn your support and convince others that what we do here has some value.
Why the worst get on top
As we contemplate the week that was, a flashback to Friederich Hayek’s warning:
The Austrian-born economist and classical liberal, who played such a central role in the emergence of American free market conservativism, had a keen understanding of the temptations of authoritarianism. That’s what makes his warnings seem so prescient. “’Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded,” he wrote.
Hayek’s chapter on “Why the Worst Get on Top” in his classic work, The Road to Serfdom, diagnosed the populist impulse that would lead to the demand for ceding power to a “man of action.”
This is “the position which precedes the suppression of democratic institutions and the creation of a totalitarian regime.” At some point in a political or economic crisis, there “is the general demand for quick and determined government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic procedure which makes action for action's sake the goal. It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough ‘to get things done’ who exercises the greatest appeal....”
Hayek knew that it was in the nature of free societies for people to become dissatisfied “with the ineffectiveness of parliamentary majorities,” so they turn to “somebody with such solid support as to inspire confidence that he can carry out whatever he wants.”
Hayek then lays out the preconditions for the rise of a demagogic dictator: a dumbed down populace, a gullible electorate, and a common enemy or group or scapegoats on which to focus public enmity and anger.
Sound familiar? The more educated a society was, Hayek wrote, the more diverse their tastes and values will be, “and the less likely they are to agree on a particular hierarchy of values.” The flip side was that “if we wish to find a high degree of uniformity and similarity of outlook, we have to descend to the regions of lower moral and intellectual standards where the more primitive and ‘common’ instincts and tastes prevail.”
But in a modern society, potential dictators might be able to rely on there being enough of “those whose uncomplicated and primitive instincts,” who will support his efforts. As a result, Hayek said, he “will have to increase their numbers by converting more to the same simple creed.”
Here is where propaganda comes into play. The “man of action,” Hayek wrote, “will be able to obtain the support of all the docile and gullible, who have no strong convictions of their own but are prepared to accept a ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently.”
Slogans (“Build That Wall! Lock her Up!”) should be simple and relentless. “It will be those whose vague and imperfectly formed ideas are easily swayed and whose passions and emotions are readily aroused who will thus swell the ranks of the totalitarian party,” Hayek predicted.
This led to what Hayek called the third and most important element of the demagogue’s program: in order to “weld together a closely coherent and homogeneous body of supporters,” he needed to find an enemy.
It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative programme, on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off, than on any positive task. The contrast between the "we" and the "they", the common fight against those outside the group, seems to be an essential ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit together a group for common action. It is consequently always employed by those who seek, not merely support of a policy, but the unreserved allegiance of huge masses.
The identification of scapegoats has numerous advantages, not the least of which, is that it gives the leader far more leeway than a positive agenda for which he might be held accountable.
The enemy, whether he be internal like the "Jew" or the "Kulak", or external, seems to be an indispensable requisite in the armoury of a totalitarian leader.
Immigrants, foreigners, refugees, “elites,” “international bankers,” Mexicans, or the Davos oligarchy would work equally well. But this is not a path to restored, “greatness.” It was, in Hayek’s terms, the road to serfdom. And it was— and is — a radical rejection of values central to the conservative tradition.
(Portions of this are adapted from my book, “How the Right Lost its Mind.)
“Loomered”
Daniel Drezner summed up Thursday’s firing of National Security advisor Mike Mike waltz thusly: “Clown Car Administration Moves Some Clowns Around in the Car.” Waltz apparenty managed to piss off quite a few people and was probably a dead man walking after the epic FUBAR of Signalgate — from which he evidently learned absolutely nothing:
By close of business yesterday, Waltz was given Elise Stefanik’s old gig as ambassador to the UN, and one of MAGA’s most batshit crazy conspiracists and bigots was claiming credit for his ouster. So perhaps attention ought to be paid.
Via the Daily Beast: Laura Loomer Takes Victory Lap After Waltz’s Ouster and Calls for More Blood
MAGA diehard Laura Loomer celebrated the ouster of National Security Adviser Mike Waltz from President Donald Trump’s cabinet on Thursday and called for more heads to roll.
Loomer, 31, claimed credit for the firing of Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, whom she targeted in a flurry of critical posts in March that accused him, the son of Chinese immigrants, of advancing Chinese interests over America’s.
“Hopefully, the rest of the people who were set to be fired but were given promotions at the NSC under Waltz also depart,” Loomer wrote on Thursday.
Loomer shared a later post about Wong’s firing with the word “SCALP.”
Loomer traveled to Washington to meet with Trump on April 3. That same day, Trump fired multiple officials from the National Security Council but left Waltz untouched for the time being.
The NSC purge was proof that Loomer, a member of the MAGA fringe who briefly was the center of Trump affair rumors during last year’s campaign, had the president’s ear.
Via Tara Palmieri, who recently interviewed Loomer:
"I don't really feel like Mike Waltz has much credibility these days," Loomer said, explaining how she was able to overrule the national security advisor in the Oval Office and recommend the firing of six members of the National Security Council.
Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist who has a side door into the Oval Office, suggested at the time that Pete Hegseth had a higher status in Trump’s mind than Waltz, but we’ll see how long that lasts. Maybe he’ll be shipped off to Cyprus. I see the ambassadorship is still open and it does have beautiful beaches …
She also revealed why she really went to Washington last month: to show Trump a damaging video of Waltz from 2016 that would put the final nail in the coffin of his tenure. (Waltz says in the ad, paid for by the Koch brothers, that he “can’t stomach” Trump’s slamming John McCain as a loser for being captured in war.) Loomer knows how to pull on the president’s heartstrings by exposing who should not be trusted and naming names.
Flashback: “Trump's bigoted, freaky new BFF.”
“It is extraordinary. Laura Loomer is not just a bigot, she is a freak. She is at the far edges of the fever swamp. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene described her as racist and offensive. And yet Donald Trump is associating with her; these are the kinds of people who have his ear right now. So, at this moment of the campaign — I mean think about this we're less than two months away from the election — Donald Trump is associating with some of the craziest, weirdest figures on the right.” — Me on “Morning Joe,” September 12, 2024
Not a parody
Via Popular Information: “New Oklahoma curriculum includes pro-Trump conspiracy theories.”
Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, thousands of high school students in Oklahoma will be required to learn about President Trump's debunked claims that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud. The lesson will not be part of a course on conspiracy theories, but an official component of the new social studies curriculum created by Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters (R).
The new curriculum includes a section that requires students to "analyze contemporary turning points of 21st-century American society." That requirement includes the following:
Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of “bellwether county” trends.
FFS.
Friday dogs
My buddy, Eli (who is sleeping under my desk right now, snoring rather loudly).
ICYMI, the NY Post nailed it:
Connecting some dots of my own, on a micro level ...
1) The new regime issues an executive order (another one?), in this case eliminating federal funding for public broadcasting.
2) I've always felt a little guilty about being one of "those people" who sometimes listens to NPR or watches PBS but, playing the role of Johnny Thinwallet, never has put a crowbar into my billfold in order to pry out a contribution.
3) I've always felt an inherent empathy for the little people and entities out there, fighting to get ahead and stay relevant when others want to keep them down and take things away from them.
4) Pretty much anything that the new regime does or wants to do meets with immediate disdain and disgust from me and goes against my longstanding moral principles and values.
5) The checkbook is in the drawer. A pen is near my side. Envelopes ... check. Stamps ... check.
6) About to put pen to paper and send a substantial contribution, in the name of Democracy and fueled to some extent by spite, to my state's public broadcasting entity.
Feeling good about this. Might even become a sustaining member during an upcoming pledge drive. Thanks, Donald, and congratulations. In this case it really is all about you.
Indivisible and other groups are planning another national day of mass protests for June 14, coinciding with Trumps birthday and his Soviet Russia style military parade. The insanity that we are being forced to live through should inspire millions to get out there. Let's show Trump and his sick, indecent, moronic band of fools that we WILL NOT let this stand!