End of the year odds and ends, a list of some of this year's most popular essays and most importantly... Happy New Year to one and all.
Oh, and a hard, "I told you so" to the MAGA base
Happy New Year to TAT readers, one and all.
My friends, please don’t be frightened by the long headline, today’s TAT won’t be all that long. The main reasons are that the herniated disc in my back, doesn’t permit much time at my desk. Not to worry though, as that I have gone through this off and of, for a couple of decades now. It does put a dent in my typical ADHD energy level. In many ways, slowing down this time of year is a highly recommended approach, so long as your backs and other health issues. are not the reason. I may enter 2025 a bit slower but my desire to explain our worst national security threats in plain language, is in no way diminished.
Surprisingly, even the incoming Elonald (Elon Musk and Donald Trump) administration seems a bit less intimidating than it did even a week ago. MAGA is at war with Trump and his billionaires over another round of Trump reneging on his campaign promises. I will talk about this a little in the next section and then move on. No need to burden y’all with too much reading as we slide gently towards New Year’s Eve.
Onward
First and foremost, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy annoy pretty much everyone, except a few of the MAGA crowd. Both have an immigrant heritage, and both are known for being arrogantly annoying in their public appearances, absent of business ethics and willing to lie outright to anyone and everyone for personal gain. Their Silicon Valley community throughout this year’s political campaign kept it afloat with massive donations. This is just an extension of, the Citizens United debacle imposed onto all Americans by Chief Justice John Roberts and company, of the US SCOTUS. Trump and his 14 billionaires now can buy more say in our republic, than all other Americans combined. America was never intended to be an oligarchy.
For working Americans, the price-gouging, not inflation we’ve experienced that last couple of years, takes a toll on our lives at an ever-increasing rate. Everything costs more but somehow, the ever-narrowing monopolies and small groups of monopolies see record quarterly profits, while prices show almost no improvement. This is the elite wealth crew getting congress to do their dirty work and not take action against the profiteers. At the moment, this is what MAGA sees when they look at Trump, Musk, Ramaswamy and the rest of the billionaires named to high-level Trump administration positions. They are becoming angry, and I don’t blame them.
That anger is the opportunity to say, “I told you so,” but no one, me included is in the mood for it. It would change nothing now that Republican voters have saddled everyone with the new Trump administration. It didn’t take Trump more than a couple of weeks, post-election, to announce that he didn’t think he could actually reduce prices at the supermarket or anywhere else. MAGA has not responded favorably to this sell-out. That’s only one issue. The next one, is a doozy of a failed campaign promise, the issue of immigration, visas and deportations.
Trump now sides with Musk, Ramaswamy and the big campaign donor, Silicon Valley tech moguls over his MAGA base, in not revoking the visas of all immigrants who work in the industry. MAGA is furious because the movement is comprised of mostly hardliners on any and all immigration, especially for those who are not northern European and white, as Trump expressed in his first term.
The two campaign items that motivated Trump’s turnout during the election cycle were, lowering prices and mass deportations. Now, he has sold-out on both, and he hasn’t even made it to his inauguration yet. Trump’s entire plan for this term is to empty our treasury again and grift in every manner possible for his own selfish interests. This term will be like his first, everyone at the highest levels in his administration, were burned. This term will be no different and in fact, will be far worse. Anyone that believes Trump will change, is a self-imposed, delusion. This degrades our national security and that of our allies, dramatically.
When this term becomes too painful for his base, just maybe they will revolt and begin to slowly accept reality again. The problem is, that it takes a great deal of pain before those so “brainwashed,” begin to open up again. Because Trump and his GOP lemmings voted him into a national office, we all will suffer that pain too. I can assure you as a Texan, that everyone suffers when far-right extremists masquerading as conservatives, make the laws that we all live under.
For me, I’m happy just to pop some popcorn and watch the MAGA base battle the Trumpy billionaires. If we all must suffer, at least we can enjoy watching MAGA lose its mind too. No one responds well to being lied to and abused. Even MAGA. I’m sure that Secretary Clinton is laughing too. We all remember the hoopla over her calling MAGA voters a “basket of deplorables.” Well, Musk went one step further saying, "And those contemptible fools must be removed from the Republican Party, root and stem."
One final note about Musk this past week, he’s gone all in on supporting the AfD, Germany’s far-right political party, with years of close association to Putin’s Russia. As bad as Trump’s far-right beliefs go, he’s still not as bad as Russia’s far-right, which is ground zero for nearly all, far-right governments. It is primarily Russia’s far-right ideology that feeds today’s MAGA/ GOP. In case you’re wondering where all of the GOP’s gender wars come from, if you guessed Russia, you would be correct. And that is only one of several far-right narratives that sustains MAGA. India, Iran, formerly Brazil under Bolsonaro etc. all operate on such far-right ideology as exported by Russian influence operations and cooperatively with MAGA and the rest of the global far-right.
In my years’ operating in influence in combat zones, pitting different elements of the enemy against each other is a reliable tactic. Such as Taliban versa AQ or ISIS, the Haqqanis etc. On American soil I won’t engage in pitting Americans against each other, but I am happy to sit back and tell the truth about what I know to be occurring within MAGA world.
The one thing that we must all realize about extremist movements, is that in their lifecycle and much like drug addiction, they must become more extreme in order to hold on to power. The truth I learned first-hand from my CT/ counterterrorism career, is that radicalization, when it reaches a public display of extremism, like January 6th, 2021, those who participated, will very likely never recover from this addiction. The rest will diminish in their extremism over time but will eventually be ashamed of what they have wrought with their votes. The willingness to believe their leaders exclusively, disassociation from reason and reality are classic signs of in radicalization.
MAGA is nearing the part of their lifecycle as an extremist or rather, violent extremist movement. The phase they are now entering, brings the type of in-fighting that we are now witnessing. This doesn’t mean that MAGA is over, but it does generally indicate that they are on the downslope. When their charismatic leader, Trump is gone, they will then be on their last legs. This is why we cannot allow tech billionaires like Musk and his Russian and GOP colleagues to continue dominating social media. Even after Trump, the false narratives will endure forever. As an example, today’s MAGA is very much the American South before, during and post-Civil War. The narratives are remarkably similar, and they have survived for one hundred and sixty years in the American far-right.
Okay, enough reading for today and I’m off to lay on a heating pad with another dose of anti-inflammatory over-the-counter meds. As for the list of most popular essays from this past year, my favorites are at the links below.
I wish all of you and yours, the most delightful celebration of the New Year. If we all work together to sustain truth instead of MAGA conspiracy theories in public discussions, we can restore the nation that our founders intended for us and our offspring and grandchildren. America has always stood tallest, when the chips are down. If you or those you share these essays with are reading TAT, I have unbroken faith that together, that we can snap the nation out of this current insanity.
Cheers and with my glass raised, I toast of you for your moral courage,
Paul
Conned, the conversion of the GOP conservatives into right-wing extremists
Put an end to the GOP/ MAGA/ NRA murder spree, via assault weapons.
January 6th & Project 2025... two strategies, one objective... COUP
Tonight's debate is about Trump's and MAGA's false reality, not party nor message
Christian Nationalists... the Olympic Opening Ceremony is not all about you.