Mostly Monday Reads: Martyrdom Syndrome vs Real Suffering

Northeaster, Winslow Homer,1895

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

New Orleans got some much-needed rain this morning!  It was too late for several homeless folks in the city who were overcome by heat exhaustion and stroke. They are not alone, as there are victims throughout the Southern United States with similar fates.

President Biden will visit the site of the Maui Fires, which will take unprecedented federal resources to return many people to a new normal situation. Having been part of a diaspora and major disaster–Hurricane Katrina–I can attest to the remaining devastation here and the impact on the psyche of its victims that never entirely goes away.  We’re just beginning to get information on the flooding and storms that have damaged cities like Palm Springs. National resources, Charitable funds, and ordinary citizens will come to the rescue with basic needs as well as much-needed hugs and comfort.

Prairie Meadows Burning, on the Missouri, George Catlin, 1852

These climate-change-related disasters are on the minds of concerned Americans who are reaching out with grace and resources to make their fellow citizens whole again.  Scanning the headlines, I notice that a specific group of Americans doesn’t appear to be part of the massive acts of neighborly love that will begin so many paths to healing and restoration. Hurricane Ida is still an issue down here. Resources are still finding their way to those just trying to get back to some kind of routine. The only thing I can find on the Maui fires and Trump is a fake video telling his acolytes he visited there during the fires.  This was obviously not true.  The other headline is him lambasting President Biden for a “disgraceful” response.  This after his response to Puerto Rico’s American citizens after a hurricane was to toss paper towels at them and appear surprised they were actually tax-paying and voting U.S. Citizens. Trump delayed $2 billion in aid.  No word about the California Hurriquake from His Orange Assholines yet.

So, what kind of person isn’t focused on helping their neighbors during these multiple disasters?  Well, you know, but I’m going there anyway.  This is from Sidney Blumenthal, writing at The Guardian. “Trump’s legal woes are part of his quasi-religious mythology of martyrdom. These criminal entanglements are not only means but ends – not a sideshow, but the heart and soul of Trump’s campaign.?”   Yes, it’s his continual refrain of “poor, poor pitiful me.

Even more than during the gripping performance of his various indictments, the theatre of his trials will subsume politics. There will not be another campaign, some semblance of a normal campaign of the past, a fantasy campaign, separate from Trump’s trials. The scenes from courtroom to courtroom will overlap with the primaries – the final ones taking place on 4 June 2024 – only intensifying the zeal of his base. And then Trump’s battle with the law will engulf the general election.

The trials are a continuous spectacle, featuring an all-star cast in far-flung locations. Political reporters are barely heard from, while legal analysts fill the airwaves. Every twist and turn, every motion, every argument is the breathless lead story. Everyone, from prosecutors to co-conspirators, named and unnamed, indicted and unindicted, are characters in Trump’s new reality show – part violent action movie (the insurrection), part sleazy porn flick (Stormy Daniels), part conspiracy thriller (Mar-a-Lago), and part mafia drama (the fake elector racket).

But the Trump trials are more than his means; they are his ends. The trials are not the sideshow, but the heart and soul of Trump’s campaign. They have become his essential fundraising tool to finance his defense, his platform for whipping up his followers into a constant state of excitement, and his instrument for dominating the media to make himself the center of attention and blot out coverage of anyone else.

The trials are the message. They are the drama around which Trump plays his role as the unjustly accused victim, whose rights are trampled and who is the martyr for his oppressed “deplorables”. He is taking the slings and arrows for them. The narcissist is the self-sacrificing saint. The criminal is the angel. The liar is the truth-teller. If any Republican lapses in faithfulness, they are more than a mere doubter or skeptic, but a betrayer and traitor. Trump’s trials are the rigorous trial of his followers’ faith. Rejection of temptation in an encounter with an impertinent fact that might raise a qualm shows purity of heart. Seduction by fact must be resisted. The siren song of critical thinking must be cast out as sin. Trump’s convictions are the supreme test of his followers’ strength of conviction.

Republicans are not prisoners of Trump’s narcissistic rage. They don’t reject it. They don’t regret it. They don’t apologize. They mirror it. They mimic it. They exult in it. It is the gratification they receive for passing through the ordeal of belief. His rage is their reward. It is their cheap vicarious defiance of the evil-doers: the establishment, the globalists, the Fauciists, the FBI, the Barbie movie. As Trump has received target letters, so judges, district attorneys, the special counsel, and their wives, too, must be targets. Fair game is fair play. Hallelujah!

After the Hurricane Bahamas, Winslow Homer, 1899

Yup, it’s all about him, and whatever it is they developed in terms of connecting their own little grievances to him.  Even getting airplay in Trumpland requires a little sumpin’ sumpin’.  Every Republican has a grievance about somebody else interfering with their KKK cosplay. “Republican candidate told associates Newsmax tried to make him pay for coverage.”  It’s one big grift in Trumplandia, especially for the propagandists. This is from Salon.  Meanwhile, the USA drowns, burns, and melts. 

If Vivek Ramaswamy wants to appear on Newsmax, he should pay to do it.

That was the message that network chief Chris Ruddy delivered to the Republican presidential candidate during a private call earlier this summer, according to two people to whom the candidate described the conversation. Ramaswamy had complained that the right-leaning network was sticking him in little-watched midday slots or ignoring him outright.

Ruddy also suggested a solution, Ramaswamy told associates: buy more television ads on the network. Ruddy, Ramaswamy told them, noted that such a transaction had helped Republican businessman Perry Johnson, a gadfly candidate who has thus far garnered only passing attention among mainstream and even conservative outlets covering the 2024 presidential cycle.

In a statement, Newsmax spokesperson Bill Daddi told Semafor that the insinuation “that Newsmax is asking candidates to advertise in order to ensure coverage as some quid pro quo … is categorically untrue and incorrect. Newsmax would take an assertion such as that very seriously. There is no correlation between advertising and editorial visibility for any candidate on Newsmax.”

“If candidates want to reach our audience outside of our programming, then, of course, advertising would be a good way for them to do this. That is the basis of all political advertising,” he said.

Tornado over Kansas, John Steuart Curry.1929

And all that time, the League of Woman Voters could’ve been collecting booty for the Voter’s Guides. But wait, there’s the House of Representatives that’s supposed to really care about the people, right?  This is from Axios. “House Freedom Caucus fires warning shot over government shutdown.”  Just as we need Federal resources to handle all these natural disasters, why shouldn’t we just close all of it down?  What could be more important than helping our citizens in desperate need?

Members of the House Freedom Caucus are making it harder for leadership to avoid a government shutdown, announcing on Monday that they’ll oppose a stopgap funding bill unless it caves to their terms.

Driving the news: The HFC is demanding more funding for border enforcement, cuts to the Department of Justice and FBI, and an end to “woke” policies at the Department of Defense.

• “We refuse to support any such measure that continues Democrats’ bloated COVID-era spending and simultaneously fails to force the Biden Administration to follow the law and fulfill its most basic responsibilities,” they said in a statement.
• “Any support for a ‘clean’ Continuing Resolution would be an affirmation of the current FY 2023 spending level grossly increased by the lame-duck December 2022 omnibus spending bill that we all vehemently opposed just seven months ago.”

The big picture: Congress is unlikely to complete its work on appropriations bills by the deadline on Sept. 30, with leadership calling for a continuing resolution to provide themselves with more time.

• “If you think we’re going to come in and in three weeks, three partial weeks in September and get the appropriations bills done — that seems unlikely, given the extent to which there was a total failure in settings, spending levels where they needed to be set in order to get to 218,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told Axios.

What’s next: Some members have discussed potentially attempting to block a continuing resolution on legislation from reaching the House floor unless it meets their criteria, upping the likelihood of a government shutdown if Democrats don’t vote for the measure.

The Gulf Stream, Winslow Homer, 1899

So, I guess the “basic” responsibilities don’t include rebuilding anything after a natural disaster.  Just let them eat dust and fire-rotted logs!  Who needs schools?  Food?  Water?  This is from NBC. “Freedom Caucus rebels against a short-term funding bill with new demands.  The new list of policy changes sought by the ultraconservative House lawmakers drew immediate pushback from Democratic leaders, who warned it would cause a shutdown.” So, they have the ability and want laws to shame people but have no shame themselves.  Got it!

In a statement Monday, the Freedom Caucus said its official position was that the group’s members would oppose any bill unless it includes their preferred language on border security, new laws to address what they call the “weaponization” of the Justice Department and FBI and a shift in some of the Pentagon’s policies — although they didn’t detail all the changes they want.

Yup, more hypocrisy.

Here’s some of the latest on the Maui Fires.  This is from the New York Times. “Maui Knew Dangerous Wildfires Had Become Inevitable. It Still Wasn’t Ready. As President Biden arrives to survey the damage with state and local officials, shock and grief are giving way to anger and questions about the government’s preparation.”  The photos are shocking.

Here’s some of the latest on the damage caused by Hurricane Hilary.  This is from CBS News. “Video, pictures of Hilary aftermath in Palm Springs show unprecedented flooding and rain damage from storm.” Again, more shocking photos.

This is from the Washington Post.  “Record central U.S. heat wave delivers ‘life-threatening’ conditions. Heat indexes topped 130 in Kansas on Sunday. Several days of similar heat are on the way.”  This isn’t your grandfather’s August Summer Days.

More than a third of Americans are under heat alert early this week as a monster heat dome stifles a huge swath of territory across the central United States, threatening the hottest temperatures of summer. As officials warn of “life-threatening” conditions, numerous records in parts of the Midwest could be reached as the heat continues to pummel the South.

Excessive-heat warnings stretch from Texas and Louisiana to Wisconsin and Minnesota, including the entire states of Iowa and Missouri. Cities under excessive-heat warnings include Des Moines, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Dallas and Little Rock. Combinations of heat and humidity will lead to feels-like values of 110 to 120 degrees across much of the Midwest and South, with some spots even surpassing those marks.

That already happened Sunday, with heat indexes in numerous locations topping 120, focused on Kansas, Iowa and Missouri.

More than 200 long-period record highs were set since Friday alone, including an all-time high of 112 degrees in College Station, Tex. Another all-time high was reached in Alexandria, La., where it reached 110 on Saturday. August records were set in Abilene, Tex., at 111, and in Stephenville, Tex., at 110.

But, hey, the majority party in the House of Representatives believes we need to stop responding to public health emergencies and start paying more attention to making Trump’s indictments about politics and not his crime spree.  That sounds about right.  It’s their idea of our priorities.

What’s on your blogging and reading lists today?

Let us know how you’re making out from the heat, the hurriquake, the fires, and the overall Republican plan to turn us into victims of their shame and plunder policies.