AMERICA FIRST

“I admit, I was fascinated by Adolf Hitler. He was a pleasant boss and a fatherly friend. I deliberately ignored all the warning voices inside me and enjoyed the time by his side, almost until the bitter end. It wasn’t what he said, but the way he said things and how he did things.” Traudl Junge

     Even Hitler's private secretary had her Road to Damascus moment after the war. When Traudl Junge discovered what the Third Reich was actually doing, she felt guilt after the war that she ever liked and admired a man she would call the greatest criminal in history. 

     But Junge, as a powerless young secretary, fell into the same trap that so many like her before and since- Failing to see the warning signs. She heard the shots ring out while she played with the doomed Goebbels children in the bunker and that was her wake up call to get out of Dodge. She had to learn from her Soviet and American interrogators about the crimes that Hitler had ordered done on his behalf.

     She had some moral fiber, in other words.

    That fiber is conspicuously absent in the sycophants that surround Trump like beetles around a pile of fresh vomit. Indeed, every morning when I wake up, I'm amazed that so many people in this country, both within and outside the government, are so completely in the tank for an incipiently demented, insecure person like Trump.

     Considering that 77,000,000+ voted for him in 2024, I think we can dispense with the word "cult". A cult generally encompasses a handful of people to perhaps hundreds or even thousands. 77,000,000 is pushing it. I don't know what to call this. Barring "mass hysteria", I don't think we have a word for it, yet. A "movement" doesn't quite capture why so many tens of millions remain so slavishly devoted to Trump. 

     Certainly there are alarming similarities between the people surrounding Trump and an actual cult, number one being that the Leader shall never be questioned. Cult leaders and authoritarian rulers all have one thing in common- They're weak men who brook no dissent and crush it whenever it rears its head. (For context, witness his ongoing war against late night comedians, especially Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel.) 

     But I have never seen this at any other time in American history and I'm sure anyone else reading this would have to make the same admission. Even if Trump still had all his marbles, and he obviously doesn't, this slavish devotion to one man would still be alarming. But when you factor in Trump's cognitive decline, it makes it look even more inexplicable and gives such unconditional devotion a carnival ambience. God only knows what's kept the calliope silent all this time.

     And much of this government, starting with the Congress and the Supreme Court, seems to be conveniently forgetting that the Founding Fathers built into the Constitution a system of mutual checks and balances on all three branches. Congress had long ago abjured itself of it its Article 1 powers just as much of the federal judiciary has similarly jettisoned its Article 3 powers. Checks and balances, as least when Trump is falling asleep in his chair behind the Resolute Desk, on the Executive branch's Article 2 powers has been degraded into a quaint notion.

     The ballroom and arch are classic cases. Legally, Trump cannot make any changes to Washington DC without Congressional approval and at least one commission. But Republicans are conspicuously silent about these vanity projects because they fear for their incumbency. These Republican profiles in cowardice are terrified Trump will say mean things about them on Truth Social and threaten them with primary opponents.

     And now, anticipating a bloodbath in the midterms, Trump is fast-tracking the construction of the arch because he knows Democrats will surely oppose him. (It's something of a miracle that Trump hasn't opted instead for a solid gold pair of golden arches). 

    The Supreme Court recently allowed construction on the ballroom to continue. Republican lawmakers may at least have personal fear to explain their cowardice but the Supreme Court doesn't have any fear of Trump because justices, and all federal judges, have lifetime appointments. The SCOTUS has given Trump almost everything he's demanding of them (aside from birthright citizenship and tariffs). The high court is driven by pure, blind ideology.

      And it amazes me that our government and how it's been conducting its business for the past year and a half plus is being dictated, and I use that word literally in every sense, by one man, as if it's being run by a mad king or, at best, just one branch of government. And the right wing devotion to Trump is absolutely inexplicable since he loathes even members of his own party.

     He recently told a group of Republicans, "Don't ask me to come to your districts" unless they were running a close race. He's hardly freed up any money from his $400,000,000 war chest to help vulnerable Republicans and the only reason he's trying to steal this election is not because he wants Republicans to maintain control of both chambers but so he doesn't get impeached for the third time ("If they win, I'll get impeached!")

     And the party that went after Hunter Biden for years over a board spot on Burisma and for selling a few paintings (Narrator: Hunter Biden was never part of the federal government) is turning a permanently blind eye to Trump's staggering, cartoonish corruption. Recently, financial disclosures revealed that Trump made a staggering $2.2 billion last year off the presidency, about a billion and a half alone coming from his cryptocurrency scam.

     

     And just 24 hours after Trump met with a corrupt jailbird of a Brazilian beef executive, Trump just magically found 300,000 metric tons of beef that he's planning on dumping on the American market, promising to lower beef prices by 25%. Originally, we thought it was going to be tainted beef from Argentina but as it turns out it's coming from Brazil. And, gee, wouldn't you know it, but the meatpacking company that will provide it just happened to have donated $5,000,000 to Trump's inaugural fund (for a scaled down indoor inauguration). That five mil is more than Google, Apple and Facebook contributed combined.

     And, obviously, he's cutting American cattle ranchers out of the action just as he had soybean farmers.

     Meanwhile on the right side of the aisle: Crickets and tumbleweeds.

     It's yet another example of Trump's American First mantra being revealed as the hollow bumper sticker slogan it always was. Anyone with one functioning eye and a pair of neurons can see that with Trump, it's always Trump First. Or, at best, Russia First. Israel First. Saudi Arabia First. North Korea First. Hungary First. Argentina First.

     And, now, Brazil First. 

     Never America First.