Summations Only

Live now...February 24, 2017 9:29 AM EST President Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference.It's unbelievable. Trump is again talking about himself, fake news, and is again attacking the press. He claims that the press should use names when using "sources"... There should be a transcript later.

Remember when the buck stopped on Harry Truman's desk?

Now does the buck stop in Trump Inc.'s coffers?

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Fascism /ˈfʃɪzəm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before it spread to other European countries. Opposed to liberalism, Marxism, and anarchism, fascism is usually placed on the far-right within the traditional left—right spectrum.

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Just before his talk his staff gave the press a background briefing; i.e. no naming of sources.

The President Trump executive order to expand the number of Border Patrol and ICE agents is not the first such surge. There was an earlier on right after 9-11 and perhaps we can learn from that.In the earlier surge the goal was to increase the Border Patrol from the approximately 10,000 personnel level to the current 20,000 person level. It took from 2001 to 2008 to reach that goal.This surge is somewhat more challenging, an increase of over 15,000 people with specific job designations, Border Patrol Agents, Pilots and drone operators and ICE agents. To do that there will also need to be additional staffing personnel, more folk to do background and security checks as well as training personnel and facilities.With 9-11 there was an immediate perceived threat, realistic threat or not, a clear perceived threat. That is missing today.And the check is still not even in the mail.

The people who read Mein Kampf understood where Hitler was going. Lets examine Donald Trumps book: Expert on Nazism explains the shocking similarities between Trump and Hitler’s propaganda tacticsNicholas O’Shaughnessy is Professor of Communication at Queen Mary, University of London and currently Visiting Professor at King’s College London. His book Selling Hitler: Propaganda and the Nazi Brand has just been published by Hurst in the UK and distributed by Oxford University Press in the USA.

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The first thing to say is that this is not all about Donald Trump. He represents merely the apex of a cultural trend and before he appeared there were movements and events that presaged his arrival. If Trump did not exist someone would have invented him. Secondly he is not a fascist even though there are some significant comparisons with the language of fascismfor example his notorious ‘snake’ anecdote (Muslims) parallels the Nazi -era der Sturmer children’s story of the snake (Jews).

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However there definitely are similarities in communications method between the US today and the fascist era in Europe, and all draw from the same polemical- evangelical script.

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This does not make the American right fascist, or Trump a Nazi. It does however point to the recrudescence of persuasion techniques associated with these things and long thought extinct. Now, today, it is the Obama campaign of 2008 with its idealism, its focus on the future, its co-opted hordes of youth and digital and social media projection that lies in the past. The old has become new for those who don’t remember, with malign consequences.

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This candidate and the hold he has on millions of Americans did not emerge from nowhere. Trumpery is not self-created but the consequence of the polemicization of our political discourse arising out of the polarization of our political culture. And the paladins of this cultureFox News, Sarah Palin, Anne Coulter, the Tea Partyinspire a great army of followers who decant their frustrations into cyberspace. The blogosphere shakes with their rage. In this it does indeed parallel Weimar Gemany. The Third Reich was also a culture war. It was not that a majority of Germans wanted Nazism, but they didn’t want democracy and there was no real political center left in Germany, just communist, socialist and fascist. Trumpery flourished in part because of Obama’s failure to sell a counter narrative and his drily intellectual approach to leadershipand similarly with Hitler’s Weimar predecessor Chancellor Heinrich Bruning, who rejected exhortations to use the media and give Germans a powerful story.

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And in terms of evangelical methods, there is an obvious parallel between Hitler’s use of the living theater of politicsthe rhetorical assault before a live audienceand Trump’s dramaturgy. For Trump has revived the mass rally, eschewing until late in the day established methods of political marketing such as advertising, direct mail and so forth. He knows that the media will relay his polemical performances, heavy in denunciation, into every home. As did Hitler, who ensured that Germans were able to by a very cheap state produced radio (Volksempfaenger VE 301) that could only be tuned into the regime programs. For both men, the theatre of politics was just as important as the instrumentality. In the view of one respected academic, a Hitler rally in the early 30s was ‘well worth it’ for the entertainment value. Crowds thrill to Trump’s bullying bellicose manner; his playing to the gallery and demonization of opponents, his egocentric fictions; his huge lies which go so far beyond anything seen before in American politicswhat he says is largely imaginary. Missing however in the conventional analysis of Trump is the element of self-parody, he is a pantomime villain exhaling bluster, a wizard of Oz. That is part of the show, part of the entertainment.

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Phat, look up "It can't happen here".AbE: By the way, on the tenth grade English class reading list.Edited by jar, : see AbE

It Can't Happen HereOne parallel that I see involves this whole idea of the source of the news. The nazis didn't want conservative news nor liberal news. They simply wanted National Socialist News. Too many people do not trust the news unless it comes from ultra right wing Alex Jones...who somehow has them convinced that he and he alone has the pulse of truth.I am beginning to see the wisdom in examining content before worrying about the source.Another thing I have noticed. Donald Trump is more entertaining than any parody of him ever could be. Hilarious yet sad. We definitely live in interesting times.One more note: To any of you who see yourselves as Christian. Jesus did not see Himself as a part of this world. He was neither a socialist nor a right wing nationalist. Perhaps you are fighting the wrong battles.

So a question Phat. If kids in the 9th or 10th grade study stuff like "It can't happen here" do you think they would be more likely to recognize propaganda and marketing when they were old enough to become voters?Is is worth while inoculating children against bullshit just like mumps or polio?

Trump signed another really stupid executive order calling for Regulatory Reform Task Forces in each agency to look at regulations and recommend all that might inhibit business.Sounds good.But there is no mention in any of the guidelines about workplace safety, the environment, quality of life, general welfare or any of the things that make the US today a place where the rivers have fish in them that many can even eat, the rivers are not burning, the air can be seen through and does not kill you if you breath it, that keep companies from dumping poisons in the ground or water...The man is a direct threat to all living in the US as well as the world in general.Hopefully Canada and Mexico will quickly file lawsuits to protect the common water supplies.Edited by jar, : are ---> and appaling spallin

Khalilah Camacho-Ali and her son were detained and questioned by US Immigration Officials at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. They were sneaking back into the US from Jamaica.Khalilah Camacho-Ali was released when she showed the officials a picture of her with the famous American boxer with the same last name. The son though had no such picture and so was detained and questioning continued for hours. He was asked repeatedly if he was a Muslim which he affirmed and where he got his name.Although he did not have a picture with the famous boxer of that name he did have his US Passport showing that he was born in Philadelphia, PA and that he got his name from his father, the famous boxer of the same name and the famous boxer's firstsecond wife, Khalilah Camacho-Ali.I feel so much safer today.Edited by jar, : precedence

I think being surrounded by a combination of retired generals and white supremists is even MORE dangerous.

I didn't forget, I just didn't include it because it's totally meaningless. Not only because it isn't how elections are decided in the U.S., but because I, for one, have not one iota more respect for the inner-city mob vote than I do for illegal alien votes. Trump has personality issues, some are amused by them, some hate him for them. I don't care either way, as long as he does what he said he would do during the campaign. So far he has. I'm not sure he actually put a number on the voter fraud issue. It could have only been two million illegal aliens, with the other million courtesy of inner-city mobs. If you Democrats want to believe there's absolutely NO voter fraud in the U.S., go ahead and object to any investigation of it. I heard a few years ago that in the Philadelphia area, there were precincts that showed NO votes at all for Romney. No one, even Democrats, should condone, or look the other way, at possibilities of voter fraud. He's made no more mistakes than other presidents before him, in their first 6 months or year in office. The reason it took them so much longer to make theirs is because that's how long it took them to attempt to actually get something done. Long sentences? Is there any stone left unturned for the left to dream up things to criticize him for?

One of the major newspapers from years ago in my area (out of business now, still on the net, but not paper) had one characteristic that was/is normal for liberal newspapers, they hated the trucking industry. Several years ago, a pickup and a car collided on a local interstate, and both of them ended up in the grass alongside the interstate. The headline read; TRUCK CRASH INJURES TWO, along with a picture of the accident scene. No problem right? The problem is, the picture was taken from a high elevation from a hill several hundred feet away, and the mangled remains of the car and pickup were at the bottom of the picture, a small in insignificant part of the picture. What was the main, attention getting part of the picture, right in the center? A tractor-trailer going by. It had nothing at all to do with the accident, the picture was snapped at that moment to mislead anyone who just skimmed headlines and pictures.Another example - an accident from my area in 1988 was the "Carrolton Bus Crash", I'm sure you heard of it, a freak accident where a mini-pickup hit a full-sized bus head on, a glancing blow, enough that no one was seriously hurt by the collision, but the bus caught fire. The driver of the pickup was described in more than one headline as a "truck driver", in spite of the fact that the proper definition of a truck driver is one who drives a truck for a living, almost always a heavy truck. The implication for those not paying close attention was that a tractor trailer driver ruthlessly killed 27 people. It's dishonest, yet they can't technically be held accountable for misleading in either one of those headlines.These two examples are similar to the games that are played by the news media against Trump.