If news that Donald Trump is going to Pope Francis' funeral instead of it being the other way around has you feeling bummed, please take heart.
Goodness knows there's so much magical thinking going on at the very highest levels of the decaying world order, why can't we little people indulge in a little of it ourselves?
Picture this: St. Peter's Basilica. When the collection plate is passed to them, Donald and Melania clink down a couple of their commemorative crypto coins in hopes of tempting the crooked Vatican financiers to rob the Church's vast coffers of all its riches and invest them in the latest Trump scam. Just at that point, a lighting bolt strikes Trump right smack in the middle of his cold blue eyes and he is instantly struck blind. And then, by a miracle, the soul of Francis restores his sight. Just like the Apostle Paul, who'd made a career of rounding up various undesirables for deportation and worse, Donald will finally see the light and devote the rest of his life to preaching the social gospel beloved of the late pope.
Maybe not. Actually, most likely not. But we can at least imagine that even if he doesn't exactly experience a come-to-Jesus epiphany, he will compromise and transform himself into the second coming of Huey Long.
Long was the fascist governor of Louisiana who rose to power during the Great Depression. Even after his election to the US Senate, he continued governing his home state via proxy.
Despite being as corrupt as hell, he differed from Trump by being a not totally fake populist. He gave free textbooks to every poor child in Louisiana, taxed the oil companies to the hilt and built a modern highway system. Instead of trying to destroy universities, he built Louisiana State University into a premier national institution. Sure, he built it into his own image and allocated most of its public funding to the athletic department and beautiful grounds while giving short shrift to actual academics.
Sure, just like Elon Musk, he was rabidly opposed to the New Deal and especially Social Security. But rather than coddle the oligarchs, he espoused a "Share Our Wealth" agenda of radical income redistribution.
Of course, then as now, there is a huge public appetite for restoring government in the service of regular people. Bernie Sanders is bringing in record crowds for his "Fight Oligarchy" rallies, and millions of people are taking to the streets to protest Trumpian cruelty. Change is indeed in the air, but what direction it will ultimately take is anybody's guess.
So again, picture this: Donald Trump in Rome, seeing the light.
Then again, he could just as well issue another executive order, this one declaring himself Pope of the entire world and converting the Vatican into a Trump-licensed resort and golf course. Anything to gain attention, anything to consolidate power by instilling terror and loathing wherever he goes.
***
Sorry I haven't been around lately. A combination of medication side-effects and being left, like most people, feeling speechless and powerless with the sudden revving up of this country and this world's fascist takeover by financialized capital and a desperate, dying Imperium. But I have been reading a lot during my self-imposed exile, and think I am beginning to make more sense of things. (As much as it is impossible to make sense of this chronic state of absurdity!)
Meanwhile, many thanks to the group of faithful commenters who've been keeping the place open this past month.
9 comments:
Best wishes, Karen, and I hope you can continue to progress with recovery.
With regard to Trump, you said:
"So again, picture this: Donald Trump in Rome, seeing the light."
I don't know, I much more picture him seeing the RED light in Rome's eponymous district.
Interesting that what seems to be making the most difference in the fight against Trump are the financial markets and Harvard, not progressive people power. While I'm pleased to see any success against Trump, one should not for even one moment think that any significant, let alone decisive, battle is even close to being won, is even yet being fought, is even on the horizon. Public protest is useful because it keeps resistance in opponents' thoughts, but in the milder forms likely to be expressed in the U.S. (that is, no general strikes, no Tahrir Square, no Maidan Nezalezhnosti), it doesn't actually in any way stop fascism. And I believe that most U.S. citizens opposing Trump, not only having never before seen serious authoritarianism first-hand but also not being particularly knowledgeable historically, are vastly underestimating what it'll take to be victorious over Trump and his co-conspirators. Does anyone here think that the people of Hungary or Turkey have not been fighting back against Orban and Erdoğan --- and doing so for years? Yet those politicians still rule. Getting rid of authoritarianism ain't easy. An authoritarian has control of most of the ordinary power of the national government formally allotted to him, plus whatever additional power he can grab, both of which usually increase over the course of his rule.
Good to see you're back, Karen!
Yes, it's hard to write with any frequency amidst Trump's manic policy swings. For a while I harbored the grim fantasy that Trump's Tarrifism would strike the American Consumer from his high horse, mitigated only by the hopeful fantasy of Trump being then struck from his high horse in a Road to Damascus moment.
But then the Bosses of the Senate showed up in the Oval Office and explained the Facts of Life in words Trump could understand, likely something about campaign contributions ...
"Trump denies aid for Arkansas after storms that killed more than 40 people.
Latest denial of disaster funding comes as Trump has repeatedly stated he wants to eliminate Fema."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/24/trump-denies-aid-arkansas-tornados
This despite major MAGgot co-conspirator politicians of the state (Republican governor Sarah Huckabee, senators Tom Cotton and John Boozman, and US Representative Rick Crawford), according to the article, pleading that he reconsider the denial.
Trump's obvious ideological rejection of 1) the concept of the "common good" and of 2) a federal role in effecting that, coupled with 3) his overriding need to free-up money for his desired tax cuts, made denial of such assistance entirely predictable.
Hope his MAGgot devotees enjoy their new "self-reliance" --- cuz advice to that effect is the only assistance they'll get from the feds, nowadays.
Maybe with enough of such "winning", they might perhaps have an epiphany (as some Republican judges reportedly are having, as they see Trump routinely wilfully violate the law and even specific directed judicial orders). Still, in politics as in life, one seldom gets "do-overs", and "buyers' remorse" won't oust Trump and his minions any more than any buyers' remorse by the German industrialists who originally backed Hitler could rid Germany of him.
"A battle looms over rule of law as some courts start to flex their muscles against Trump.
Whether federal courts can force Trump to comply with their orders is an essential question for US democracy."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/23/federal-courts-rule-of-law-trump
I cannot emphasize enough how big of an issue this is. If Trump and his minions get their way --- and the judiciary doesn't actually have both the balls and an effective means to stop Trump, then, while we might have a "constitutional crisis" in theory, what we have in practice is dictatorship, and that will likely only end when there is either a military coup, "palace" coup, or a popular uprising.
By the way, to answer here (because of its relevancy to what I wrote above) the now-vanished comment (former comment #29) from @ThoughtCriminal, to the previous Sardonicky column, about why Trump (or probably his co-conspirators, as I doubt Trump himself knows the actual law) are choosing to use the Alien Enemies Act to go after foreign students and visitors, green-card holders, etc rather than use other stronger legal empowerments that already exist:
By using the Alien Enemies Act for what would previously have been considered impermissible uses, Trump, or his strategizers, are extending the power of existing law to do the authoritarian's bidding BY INTERPRETATION. If they can get away with it, that potentially opens up countless other ways for the "maximum leader" to expand his powers by means of simple far-right legal interpretation of existing law. In a sense, what he/they are doing is the metaphorical "boiling of the frog", in this case, that frog is metaphor for the law. Will it jump out of the pot -- or to switch metaphors, will the judiciary reach over and turn off the stove? With the current domination of the judiciary by Republican ideologues, there's a strong likelihood that won't happen -- unless enough of those judges at high enough levels soon start to worry about the decline of their own power, have a serious epiphany about the monster they created by their previous enablements of Trump, have the courage and resolve to actually do something about it, and find some way to enforce their rulings. That's a long sequence of contingencies, quite possibly too many to actually occur.
Interestingly -- and hypocritically -- right wingers have long complained vehemently about what they have called "activist" judges "reinterpreting" the law to expand civil liberties, labor rights, environmental protections, etc. -- but nary a peep out of them when a Republican executive or their own judges reinterpret the law to oppress.
Need I remind anyone how dangerous that can be in the hands of megalomaniac ideologues?
(Karen, I hope you didn't censor that vanished previous comment 29 from @ThoughtCriminal, it might have been phrased a bit indelicately, but I don't recall anything that merited censorship. But if you didn't censor, and that person didn't retract it, is Blogspot itself censoring?)
@Fred
I didn't retract #29. As a matter of fact, I changed to 'Thought Criminal' to reflect having so many of my comments here disappear.
Previously none of my other comments have vanished so rapidly though. That one was gone so fast I didn't think anyone noticed it ever existed.
Thanks for your support for free speech, Fred.
"Karen, I hope you didn't censor that vanished previous comment 29 from @ThoughtCriminal..."
I didn't see the "vanished" comment #29 but it sounds interesting enough that I now wish I had. Evidently it will remain a mystery as to how and why it was "disappeared." Still, as Karen has pointed out in the past, it's her blog and she's quite free to exclude comments by anyone for any reason--and she's done so in the past. "Free speech" is not a right that anyone should expect from any blog or blogger.
Brief comment #29 had to do with due process and hypocrisy. Let's see if this one flies. I'll also elaborate.
Obama used a Disposition Matrix, aka the K*** List, to target enemies of the state (or of our special friends). No due process, just guilty as accused, possibly aided by those with their own vested interests feeding their 'intelligence' into ours.
The American parents of American citizen Anwar Al Awaki went to court to get due process for their son, an American citizen, to try to save his life. However, the Obama regime prevailed and the case ended up being dismissed for lack of standing - they weren't an injured party.
So there was no due process for them or their son. No demands for due process from Congress or the public nor proof of his guilt. No need for even a criminal record. His record was simply being on The List based on the say-so of unknowns who may have an ax to grind.
Subsequently both their son and grandson, both American citizens, were k***** by Hellfire missiles launched by drones upon orders of POTUS.
Contrast to Trump. Why is he using the Alien Enemies Act when he could just use a semblance of the due process-free Obama Method? Parties can't sue until after they're deported then try to prove they're an injured party with standing. Moot point if they're d**d of course, as Obama preferred.
The Obama Method seems to have no real legal legs to stand on but it does have that Catch-22 that keeps it propped up. Just ask Chris Hedges. He and other journalists and foreign correspondents also had a related case dismissed for lack of standing because they couldn't prove they were an injured party - because they're still alive.
"When it affects some of us, it affects all of us" is the current rallying cry of many for due process. Too late though. Obama already set a dangerous precedent for future Presidents - he broke the citizenship barrier.
@Thought Criminal--
Your extended Comment #29 seems both thoughtful and truthful. Hard to see what would have warranted its suppression or exclusion. Maybe it was "disappeared" solely as a result of computer/internet gremlins. However, your mention of Obama reminds me that he was once a professor of constitutional law--or, at least, pretended to be. I guess that, enamored with the utility of his "Disposition Matrix," he forgot the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution:
"No person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;"
Expedience--and, perhaps the need for votes--won out over due process.
There is much to complain about with Trump, but bashing Trump won't win.
Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore's founding leader) gave a long interview about forming new political movements and about political leadership. It is based on offering people something they need from someone they trust. Basing the bad guys has nothing to do with it.
Democrats have shown themselves untrustworthy sellouts. The few promises they made went unfulfilled (student loans, healthcare, name one and they were all talk). Instead they delivered a genocide and a European war, driven by in inflated economy pumping borrowed money (much of which went to insiders).
We need someone to follow to a place we want to go. That is not on offer. Bashing Trump instead is just feel-good talk from the losers. It is more Hillary, instead of more FDR, or Kennedy, or even LBJ (he was good at home anyway). We have seen what we need. Democrats WERE that. Now?
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