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La sinistra non comunista alle elezioni dal 1972 al 1983
Le elezioni del 1972 furono un precedente importante per le elezioni amministrative del 1975, che si svolsero in alcune delle principali città italiane, tra le quali Milano. In questa tornata elettorale, le due maggiori esperienze politiche della sinistra antagonista, Lotta Continua e Avanguardia Operaia, decisero di scendere nell’agone politico, la prima orientando i suoi elettori sul voto al PCI, la seconda promuovendo liste assieme al Pdup-pc. In alcune regioni si presentarono liste del Pdup-pc, mentre in altre circoscrizioni liste sotto la sigla Democrazia proletaria (Dp) formate da esponenti del Pdup-pc e da AO. Nell’insieme, i voti riportati da queste tre combinazioni di liste furono 417.355 (1,27%). Il risultato sopraggiunto forniva conferme importanti alle pubblica opinione italiana: se da un lato segnava che l’area elettorale della nuova sinistra si era consolidata – grazie anche a un profondo ricambio generazionale <88 (da non dimenticare che nel 1975 la maggiore età venne abbassata da 21 a 18 anni) <89 – catalizzando i 456.043 voti che nelle elezioni politiche del 1972 erano andati a tre e più liste diverse, dall’altro il dato sottolineava, differentemente, che pochissimi dei voti riportati dal Psiup nel 1972 (648.800) si erano riversati nelle liste della nuova sinistra. Il risultato, difatti sottolineava come il voto si era riversato in gran quantità sulle liste del Pci che, proprio in quella tornata elettorale, conobbe un ragguardevole incremento di consensi. Ciò era dovuto in parte anche alle indicazioni di voto provenienti dall’area giovanile dei militanti di Lotta Continua, che come menzionato avevano dato indicazioni al proprio bacino elettorale di votare per i comunisti, in parte in quanto questi ultimi erano riusciti a intercettare il voto dei ragazzi di nuova politicizzazione <90.
#1972 #1975 #1976 #1979 #1983 #amministrative #AndreaCapriolo #antagonista #avanguardia #DC #democrazia #DP #elezioni #extraparlamentare #LC #movimenti #operaia #PCI #politiche #proletaria #PSI #radicali #sinistra
Fu in tale contesto che si svolsero le elezioni politiche dell’anno successivo, che confermarono l’esito delle amministrative del 1975. Le elezioni – “impreviste e sorprendenti” <91 – che si svolsero tra il 20 e il 21 giugno del 1976, difatti, confermarono la primazia della DC – grazie anche ai voti provenienti da MSI e dai partiti del centro laico <92 – incalzata sempre più prepotentemente dal PCI. Non deve essere taciuto, tuttavia, che tali elezioni sorsero in un clima di forte tensione sociale: la “restaurazione” di fabbrica voluta dai grandi industriali dopo i grandi scioperi del “partito di Mirafiori” del biennio 1973-74, la strage di Brescia, i primi e feroci attentati e sequestri delle BR, portarono il segretario del PCI Enrico Berlinguer a promuovere il corso del Compromesso storico, un’inusuale tentativo di alleanza tra Democristiani e Comunisti per evitare che si creassero nello stato malumori tali da poter creare colpi di stato, come avvenne in Cile. Di fatto, il risultato delle elezioni, sembrava essere una conferma della volontà, da parte del popolo italiano, dell’attuazione di tale progetto. Tale tentativo ebbe nei differenti schieramenti politici una diversa risonanza; se l’ala sinistra della Democrazia Cristiana – soprattutto nella persona di Aldo Moro – accettò di benevolenza tale avvicinamento, la corrente andreottiana la rifiutò categoricamente, come del resto fecero anche i socialisti, paurosi che tale azione potesse sempre di più emarginarli. Di fatto, come sostenuto da Barbara Bartolini, la linea del Compromesso storico era riuscita a porre fine al conflitto di coscienza tra fede cattolica e coscienza
comunista <93. Il risultato delle elezioni vide la riconferma della DC, che avvalorò i voti presi alle precedenti elezioni, anche se il suo primato fu seriamente insediato dal PCI che si fermò a pochi voti percentuali dai democristiani, raggiungendo il suo miglior risultato nella storia. Va tuttavia sottolineato che, per la prima volta, si affermarono in sede parlamentare forze più a “sinistra” del PCI: Democrazia Proletaria – coalizione formata da Partito di Unità Proletaria per il Comunismo, Movimento Studentesco e Avanguardia Operaia, alle quale si aggiunse poco dopo anche Lotta Continua – che, ottenendo l’1,52% dei voti (circa 130.000 in più rispetto alle amministrative del 1975), riuscì ad a leggere 6 deputati <94. Il risultato elettorale ottenuto da Dp dimostrava soprattutto che il voto espresso era sintomo di appartenenza più che di protesta: lo si può accertare per due motivi principali. Primo, in quanto raccolse consensi nell’area già predisposta a quel tipo di “comportamento” elettorale, come si vede dal non marcato incremento di voti; secondo, dal fatto che, se confrontati con quelli dei partiti della sinistra storica, essi confermavano che il nuovo cartello elettorale non otteneva i consensi che aveva avuto il disciolto Psiup, che si erano, al contrario, riversati sul PCI. Allo stesso tempo, il non buon esito elettorale, stava a significare che l’elettore di “sinistra”, sebben non avrebbe rifiutato a priori l’alternativa “estremista”, aveva recepito nel Compromesso storico una possibile via di sbocco all’impasse economica e politica nelle quale versava da tempo l’Italia <95. Pare innegabile – anche recependo e rileggendo quanto sui quotidiani e pubblicazioni afferenti a questa area veniva scritto <96 – che il risultato elettorale venne recepito dai partecipanti all’esperienza di DP come una delusione, o quanto meno come un insuccesso. Poco dopo la tornata elettorale, difatti, Lotta continua decretò il suo scioglimento – un processo tuttavia iniziato alcuni anni prima, e dovuto a cause esogene al partito stesso, come l’avvento del femminismo militante – così come l’unità faticosamente impostata tra Ao e il Pdup-pc non ebbe sviluppi concreti, ma involuzioni. Dopo il V congresso al Teatro Lirico di Milano dal 24 al 27 marzo 1977, Avanguardia Operaia si divise in due tronconi e cessò di esistere come organizzazione autonoma. La minoranza, guidata da Aurelio Campi, confluì definitivamente nel Pdup di Lucio Magri, mentre la maggioranza contribuì alla fondazione del partito Democrazia Proletaria, nell’aprile del 1978 <97.
Pare innegabile sottolineare come le scadenze elettorali di quel decennio – dal 1968 al 1976 – misero bene in evidenza la non correlazione fra la capacità di mobilitazione nelle manifestazioni pubbliche della nuova sinistra con risultati acquisiti dalle liste: se da una parte questa “area” politica era indubbiamente in grado di riempire le piazze e di pianificare cortei con diverse migliaia di partecipanti, al contempo non riusciva a intercettare il voto dell’urna elettorale. Esso, difatti, si caratterizzò soprattutto per essere estrinsecazione di una appartenenza politica e sociale, ma con una scarsa capacità di incidere sull’opinione pubblica. Le organizzazioni politiche della sinistra antagonista, nel corso delle tre tornate elettorali analizzate, rilevarono che esse erano composte da un cospicuo numero di quadri militanti, capaci di organizzare, suscitare e dirigere lotte e rivendicazioni nei vari settori della società – di fatto, si può accertare che avevano legami ed erano inserite nei movimenti antagonisti in maniera radicata – ma riscontravano notevoli problematicità, al momento del voto, a raccogliere consensi elettorali. L’opinione pubblica di sinistra che guardava magari con simpatia alle loro iniziative, ne riconosceva il ruolo e partecipava alle lotte, ma al momento di votare preferiva scegliere l’attendibilità politica costituita dai partiti della sinistra storica, come quello fornito nello specifico dal PCI. Allo stesso tempo, si deve sottolineare che anche il PCI – solitamente intenso nel biennio elettorale 1975/76 come partito “pigliatutto” – raggiunse in questo periodo il suo massimo di voti erodendo la base elettorale del centro-destra – e in questo concordo con Pasquino e Parisi – diluendo il proprio programma e la propria ideologia pur di poter ampliare la propria platea elettorale, tanto da far venire meno, in seno agli elettori comunisti, il riconoscimento del PCI come partito degli operai, di contro al tentativo di rincorrere il voto di ceti medi impiegatizi e dei piccoli imprenditori <98. Infine la DC, che in seguito alle elezioni del 1976, pur ritrovando una stabilità in termini di voti, dal punto di vista “qualitativo” pareva – secondo i due studiosi – aver recuperato l’ambiguità e la natura composita, nonché contraddittoria, che l’aveva fino a quel periodo caratterizzata: più cattolica – grazie alla legittimazione da parte della Chiesa – ma allo stesso tempo anche polo di aggregazione del voto laico, anticomunista o, in ogni caso, non comunista <99. Di fatto, le elezioni del 20 giugno 1976 segnarono, grazie alla spartizione dei voti tra DC e PCI, una radicalizzazione della vita politica italiana <100. Ancora Parisi e Pasquino sottolineavano, difatti, come i risultati elettorali succedutisi nelle consultazioni del quadriennio 1972 – 1976 più che essere “reazioni contingenti dell’elettorato alla congiuntura politica”, avrebbero dovuto considerarsi come “espressioni di cambiamenti più profondi intervenuti nel corpo elettorale e nell’intero paese” <101 – pronunciati con una abbondanza di influenze ben prevalenti rispetto a quelle costituite dalla semplice opzione di voto – in un arco di tempo che aveva travalicato il periodo in cui tali fenomeni si erano manifestati dal punto di vista elettorale.
La situazione non mutò neanche negli anni seguenti. In occasione delle elezioni politiche del 1979 – le prime dopo l’assassinio Moro e l’inchiesta contro l’autonomia operaia portata avanti dal giudice Pietro Calogero – due liste si contesero i consensi alla sinistra del PCI, che vide per altro in quell’anno un brusco tracollo elettorale: Nuova sinistra unita, nella quale era confluita DP e parte dei fuoriusciti da Lotta Continua, la quale ottenne 294.462 (0,8%) e nessun eletto, e il Pdup-pc che raccolse 502.247 voti (1,37%) ed elesse sei parlamentari. Sommati tra loro i voti raccolti furono 796.709 (2,2%) con un incremento rispetto al dato del 1976 di più di 230.000 unità (+0,7%)102. Seppur i voti ottenuti segnarono un incremento dei consensi, tale somma aritmetica, tuttavia, non poteva essere automaticamente trasformata in cifra politica. Le due organizzazioni sopramenzionate capitalizzarono i loro consensi elettorali proprio perché divise nella loro corsa elettorale: il loro, difatti, era un elettorato molto attento ai posizionamenti politici e strategici, e dunque difficilmente sovrapponibile l’uno con l’altro, a causa di un passato politico differente. Gli elettori, dunque, erano disposti a votare il Pdup-pc o Nuova sinistra unita, ma non l’eventuale unità organizzativa tra i due schieramenti; unità che infatti, a posteriori, non ci fu. Questo “paradosso aritmetico” fu inoltre confermato dall’esito delle elezioni amministrative del 1980 quando DP, presente in sole nove regioni, ottenne 274.100 voti e il Pdup-pc 372.102. Nell’insieme le due formazioni avevano raccolto 646.202 voti, pari a circa il 2,5%:
un risultato reso possibile proprio perché si erano presentate, ancora una volta, separatamente. Con ogni probabilità, difatti, gran parte dei voti persi dal PCI e non dati ai partiti della nuova sinistra, non andarono a questi ultimi, ma ai Radicali – di fatto partito istituzionale a essi più vicino – i quali incrementarono nitidamente i loro consensi accrescendo la propria presenza parlamentare, da 4 a 18 seggi alla Camera, ed eleggendo inoltre due senatori. Del resto, la morte di Moro e il fallimento del compromesso storico, lasciarono così ampi margini di manovra ai socialisti, nella figura di Bettino Craxi che, con un lungo articolo “Il vangelo socialista” <103, ridefiniva l’identità del suo partito rivendicando “l’incompatibilità sostanziale” tra “comunismo leninista e socialismo”: l’obiettivo, per usare le parole di Paolo Mattera, “era chiaro: colpire l’immagine del Pci come versione italiana della socialdemocrazia [di tipo nordeuropeo], per spingere invece l’opinione pubblica di orientamento progressista a scegliere il Psi, che mostrava – attraverso l’inusuale richiamo a Proudhon contenuto nell’articolo – un’anima libertaria.” <104.
L’elettorato italiano, e la sua geografia elettorale si modificò in tutta rapidità nelle elezioni politiche del 1983 quando, in seguito della decisione del Pdup-pc di presentare liste in alleanza col PCI, organizzazione dentro la quale confluirà l’anno dopo, per poi definitivamente sciogliersi nel novembre del 1984. Rimasta sola, DP raccolse in quelle elezioni 542.039 voti, (1,47%), conquistando 7 seggi alla Camera dei Deputati <105. La cifra, pressappoco, era all’incirca la medesima di quella riportata dal cartello elettorale del 1976 e rilevava meriti, pregi e limiti che caratterizzavano quest’area elettorale. Un’area elettorale che conobbe, nelle successive elezioni politiche del 1987, una relativa espansione, quando DP ottenne 642.161 voti (1,66%) e 8 seggi alla Camera <106. Inoltre, per la prima volta nella storia delle vicende elettorali della Nuova sinistra, con 493.667 voti (1,52%) essa riuscì a conquistare un seggio al Senato <107. Senza saperlo, quello fu un modo per chiudere in “grazia” l’esperienza elettorale di un’area politica minoritaria che aveva percorso, con fortune e sfortune alterne, quasi un ventennio della vita politica italiana. Le elezioni del 1983, del resto, come facilmente si può riscontrare, videro un calo dei consensi della DC e un rilancio percentuale del PCI che fece diminuire il divario tra i due storici rivali di soli tre punti percentuali, mai così ristretto nella storia dell’Italia repubblicana: questo portò i democristiani a rinunciare a una delle pregiudiziali della sua politica – ossia il non eleggere un presidente del consiglio socialista – per non declinare la perdita della seconda: vedere il PCI al governo del paese. Questo condusse alla formazione di un governo guidata dal socialista Bettino Craxi. Difatti, col precipitare degli eventi alla fine degli anni Ottanta, che conclusero il cosiddetto “Secolo breve”, anche la geografia della politica partitica italiana fu sconvolta.
La fine del PCI, e la concomitante nascita di Rifondazione comunista condussero DP a deliberare, nel congresso del giugno 1991, lo scioglimento del partito e la confluenza immediata in Rifondazione. Di fatto, come abbiamo sottolineato nella pagine precedenti, l’elettorato italiano nel decennio analizzato si era espresso non quale voto di opinione, ma di appartenenza, caratterizzato, perciò “da una forte determinazione, scarsa esposizione alla congiuntura politica, continuità nel tempo, e da una assenza di specificità, scarsa considerazione cioè del tipo di consultazione” <108. Come si vede, anche nel periodo di maggior influsso delle teorie operaiste, l’incidenza politica di questi partiti fu marginale, se non totalmente ininfluente. Bisognerebbe notare come la portata culturale delle frange “movimentiste” non dovette esplicitarsi all’interno di una logica istituzionale, ma si mantenne viva in canali differenti, diretti e non mediati dalla politica istituzionale. O forse, dato anche i tassi di affluenza intorno al 90% dell’elettorato avente diritto, si deve notare come la paura generata da questi “movimenti” non sfociò in un voto politico, ma in una pratica Movimentista e antagonista da praticare nel quotidiano. Tali partiti della sinistra extraparlamentare, difatti, ponevano in essere una critica alle istituzioni che si esplicitava alla sua massima portata fuori delle aule parlamentari, e la loro critica ai partiti dell’arco istituzionale si aggregava unitamente attorno sia alla denuncia del compromesso storico mosso dal PCI sia attorno, ma con differenze da partito a partito, a richieste sociali: due casi su tutti, il referendum abrogativo sul divorzio del 1974 – che, come sottolineato da differenti studiosi accelerò “il processo di spostamento a sinistra” <109 o che comunque contribuì a sollecitare un processo di graduale superamento della logica degli schieramenti in atto <110 – dell’elettorato italiano – e quello sulla legge Reale del 1978. Essi, principino da una matrice libertaria, movimentista e non istituzionale, riuscirono a intercettare il consenso della sinistra antagonista (e nel caso della legge Reale, anche della destra), di contro ai partiti “storici” che si posero indefessamente in opposizione ai primi, rivendicando la propria aderenza alle volontà di unità nazionale. Fu infatti da queste rimostranze che a partire dalle elezioni del 1972 si mise in moto quel processo che portò alla nascita e alla successiva affermazione della cultura politica facente capo alla cosiddetta “autonomia operaia”, movimento non partecipante alle elezioni politiche, che riuscì a catalizzare l’attenzione soprattutto delle frange giovanili, ormai stanche della militanza nei partiti della sinistra “antagonista” e che faceva delle rivendicazioni sociali il suo fulcro d’esistenza. Al contrario, in seno ai partiti della sinistra storica, e in particolare nel PCI, si innescava un meccanismo di irrigidimento statalista reso obbligatorio dalla necessità di dimostrare ai prossimi alleati – alla DC soprattutto – la certificazione delle proprie garanzie di rispetto delle regole democratiche, ma soprattutto la capacità di controllo sulla classe operaia e sul proletariato tutto. A riguardo, in brevissimo tempo si assiste a prese di posizione e comportamenti che andavano dal patetico al paranoico, passando purtroppo spesso anche per il “repressivo”. Di mira vi erano tutti i comportamenti indisciplinati e quindi autonomi che avrebbero dovuto, nelle loro logiche, essere diligentemente dismessi in un frangente così strategicamente determinante per la presa del potere di governo. Protagonisti dell’insubordinazione erano, secondo una delle letture della situazione, i soggetti emarginati e disperati della “seconda società̀”, che viveva a carico parassitario della prima, costituita dal Movimento operaio ufficiale. Per gli autonomi, invece, quegli stessi soggetti, disoccupati, inoccupati, precari, al nero ecc. erano le diverse sfaccettature del nuovo “mostro” in gestazione, quell’“operaio sociale” che costituisce la sostanza dell’“altro movimento operaio”». Il regolamento dei conti avvenne il 17 febbraio del 1977, nel piazzale dell’Università̀ di Roma occupata dagli studenti e dal movimento. Luciano Lama, dirigente del partito comunista e segretario della Cgil, il più̀ grande e organizzato sindacato comunista d’Europa, si presentava con la potenza, facilmente interpretata come prepotenza dai giovani “antagonisti”, del suo servizio d’ordine e del suo richiamo all’ordine e alla disciplina. Nel furibondo scontro che ne seguì Lama e il suo “partito” saranno cacciati. Una spaccatura che non si ricomporrà̀ più̀. Come del resto sottolineato da Gianfranco Pasquino e Arturo Parisi, è “ipotizzabile, ma non del tutto sicuro, che il 1968 e la socializzazione sul “campo” (e nelle assemblee) ricevuta da molti giovani sia una prima ma fondamentale ragione del loro spostamento a sinistra, unitamente a una minore influenza della trasmissione di atteggiamenti e comportamenti politici ricevuta in famiglia e a un’accresciuta influenza dei rapporti fra gruppi di “pari” a scuola rispetto a quella degli insegnanti (o incerto e confusi o già politicizzati a sinistra).” <111.
[NOTE]
88 Cfr., Giacomo Masi, Le elezioni degli anni Settanta: terremoto o evoluzione?, in Continuità e mutamento elettorale in Italia. Le elezioni del 20 giugno 1976 e il sistema politico italiano, a c. di Arturo Parisi e Gianfranco Pasquino, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1977, p. 83.
89 Legge 8 marzo 1975, n. 39, articolo 14.
90 Cfr., Giacomo Masi, Le elezioni degli anni Settanta: terremoto o evoluzione?, in Continuità e mutamento elettorale in Italia, cit., p. 78.
91 Arturo Parisi, Gianfranco Pasquino, 20 giugno: struttura politica e comportamento elettorale, in Continuità e mutamento elettorale in Italia, cit., p. 11.
92 Cfr., ivi, p. 45.
93 Cfr., Barbara Bartolini, Insediamento subculturale e distribuzione dei suffragi, in Continuità e mutamento elettorale in Italia, cit., p. 144.
94 Dati ricavati dal sito del Ministero degli Interni.
95 Cfr., Barbara Bartolini, Insediamento subculturale e distribuzione dei suffragi, in Continuità e mutamento elettorale in Italia, cit., p. 63.
96 Solo a titolo d’esempio vedere il commento elettorale in prima pagina di “Lotta Continua” del 22 giugno 1976.
97 Volevamo cambiare il mondo. Storia di Avanguardia Operaia, a cura di Roberto Biorcio e Matteo Pucciarelli, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2021.
98 Cfr., Arturo Parisi, Gianfranco Pasquino, 20 giugno: struttura politica e comportamento elettorale, in Continuità e mutamento elettorale in Italia, cit., p. 31.
99 Cr., ivi, pp. 57-58.
100 Cfr., ivi, p. 64.
101 Arturo Parisi, Gianfranco Pasquino, Relazioni partiti-elettori e tipi di voto, in Continuità e mutamento elettorale in Italia, cit., p. 215.
102 Dati ricavati dal sito del Ministero degli Interni.
103 Bettino Craxi, Il vangelo socialista, In “L’Espresso”, 27 agosto 1978, pp. 24-30.
104 Paolo Mattera, Storia del Psi (1829-1994), Carocci, Roma 2010, p. 204.
105 Dati ricavati dal sito del Ministero degli Interni.
106 Dati ricavati dal sito del Ministero degli Interni.
107 Ibidem.
108 Arturo Parisi, Gianfranco Pasquino, Relazione e partiti-elettori e tipi di voto, in Continuità e mutamento elettorale in Italia, cit., p. 225.
109 Arturo Parisi, Gianfranco Pasquino, 20 giugno: struttura politica e comportamento elettorale, in Continuità e mutamento elettorale in Italia, cit., p. 19.
110 Cfr., Giacomo Masi, Le elezioni degli anni Settanta: terremoto o evoluzione?, in Continuità e mutamento elettorale in Italia, cit., p. 81.
111 Arturo Parisi, Gianfranco Pasquino, 20 giugno: struttura politica e comportamento elettorale, in Continuità e mutamento elettorale in Italia, cit., p. 27.
Andrea Capriolo, Manifestazioni artistiche nei centri sociali autogestiti della Milano tra anni Settanta e Ottanta. Dai Circoli del proletariato giovanile al movimento punk, Tesi di dottorato, Università degli Studi di Udine, 2013 -
25 aprile 1945: l’Italia è libera. Giorgio Almirante è latitante, ricercato, nascosto a Milano sotto falso nome: Giorgio Alloni. Lo userà fino all’amnistia del ’46. A dicembre, a Roma, con un manipolo di reduci di Salò, fonda il “Movimento Sociale Italiano”.
Almirante, 32 anni, ex capo di gabinetto del ministro Mezzasoma, ex redattore al “Tevere” e alla “Difesa della Razza”, ex brigatista nero in Val d’Ossola, ne diventa segretario. L’anno dopo arriva la “fiamma tricolore”, simbolo sulla tomba di Mussolini, oggi nel logo di Fratelli d’Italia.
Il primo comizio? Roma, 10 settembre 1947: finisce a calci. Alle elezioni del ’48 il MSI prende il 2,1%. Almirante entra in Parlamento e ci resterà per nove legislature.
Nel frattempo, flirta con la Democrazia Cristiana, contribuendo nel ’47 all’elezione del sindaco DC Salvatore Rebecchini. Nel 1950 lascia la segreteria, ma si mette a capo dell’ala più estrema: «L’equivoco, camerati, è uno: essere fascisti in democrazia».
Il MSI appoggia il governo Tambroni nel 1960. Genova, Roma, Reggio Emilia insorgono. A Reggio, 5 operai vengono uccisi. Il governo cade, il MSI torna nell’angolo. Sprofonda al 4-5%.
Nel 1969 muore Michelini e Almirante riprende il comando. Sono gli anni della “strategia della tensione”. Aizza le piazze, sostiene i “boia chi molla” a Reggio Calabria, predica autodifesa armata.
Nel 1971 la Procura di Milano lo indaga per ricostituzione del partito fascista. Nel 1973 la Camera autorizza a procedere. Finisce nel nulla.
Si mostra in doppiopetto, ma dietro restano manganelli e nostalgie. Il MSI sfonda il 9% nel ’72, diventa “MSI–Destra Nazionale”. Il suo stile è chiaro: ordine, repressione, revisionismo.
Almirante è ovunque: alla Sapienza scortato da squadristi, implicato nella strage di Peteano (amnistiato). Il suo partito è un mix torbido: notabili, reduci, apparati, golpisti, servizi segreti. Rauti, Borghese, Maggi, Freda, Fachini, Zorzi. Una rete mai trasparente, ma reale.
Nel 1970, in TV, invoca un colpo di Stato come quello dei colonnelli greci. Questo era il partito di Meloni, La Russa, Rampelli.
Almirante fu sempre chiaro: «Che sono fascista ce l’ho scritto in fronte». Razzista, rastrellatore, repubblichino, firmatario di ordini di fucilazione. Nel ’44, in Toscana, un suo bando impone la pena di morte per chi non si consegna a fascisti e tedeschi. Poi si arruola nelle Brigate Nere.
Nel 1938 scrive su Difesa della Razza: «Il razzismo dev’essere cibo di tutti». Sostiene che «i meticci e gli ebrei hanno potuto cambiare nome e confondersi con noi». Pochi mesi dopo, arrivano le leggi razziali. Lui è tra i teorici dell’odio.
Parte volontario in Nordafrica, a dare corpo alle sue idee: sterminare. Alla fine della guerra, scappa. Poi fonda un partito che diventa trampolino per una nuova destra neofascista.
Muore nel 1988. Ma prima benedice Gianfranco Fini, nuovo segretario.
E Giorgia Meloni scriverà: «Onestà, coerenza, coraggio: valori che ha trasmesso alla destra italiana. Un grande uomo che non dimenticheremo mai»."E qui mi parte il besttemmione"
Essere antifascisti oggi non è semplicemente una presa di posizione contro la malvagità del fascismo.
Essere antifascisti è un metodo di interpretazione della Storia. Uno strumento di valutazione del passato, affinché quel passato non si ripresenti più.
Non si arretra di un millimetro.
Perché puoi anche non occuparti del problema, ma sarà il problema a occuparsi di te.
#AlfredoFacchini
#Antifa
#antifascismo #25aprile #resistenza -
25 aprile 1945: l’Italia è libera. Giorgio Almirante è latitante, ricercato, nascosto a Milano sotto falso nome: Giorgio Alloni. Lo userà fino all’amnistia del ’46. A dicembre, a Roma, con un manipolo di reduci di Salò, fonda il “Movimento Sociale Italiano”.
Almirante, 32 anni, ex capo di gabinetto del ministro Mezzasoma, ex redattore al “Tevere” e alla “Difesa della Razza”, ex brigatista nero in Val d’Ossola, ne diventa segretario. L’anno dopo arriva la “fiamma tricolore”, simbolo sulla tomba di Mussolini, oggi nel logo di Fratelli d’Italia.
Il primo comizio? Roma, 10 settembre 1947: finisce a calci. Alle elezioni del ’48 il MSI prende il 2,1%. Almirante entra in Parlamento e ci resterà per nove legislature.
Nel frattempo, flirta con la Democrazia Cristiana, contribuendo nel ’47 all’elezione del sindaco DC Salvatore Rebecchini. Nel 1950 lascia la segreteria, ma si mette a capo dell’ala più estrema: «L’equivoco, camerati, è uno: essere fascisti in democrazia».
Il MSI appoggia il governo Tambroni nel 1960. Genova, Roma, Reggio Emilia insorgono. A Reggio, 5 operai vengono uccisi. Il governo cade, il MSI torna nell’angolo. Sprofonda al 4-5%.
Nel 1969 muore Michelini e Almirante riprende il comando. Sono gli anni della “strategia della tensione”. Aizza le piazze, sostiene i “boia chi molla” a Reggio Calabria, predica autodifesa armata.
Nel 1971 la Procura di Milano lo indaga per ricostituzione del partito fascista. Nel 1973 la Camera autorizza a procedere. Finisce nel nulla.
Si mostra in doppiopetto, ma dietro restano manganelli e nostalgie. Il MSI sfonda il 9% nel ’72, diventa “MSI–Destra Nazionale”. Il suo stile è chiaro: ordine, repressione, revisionismo.
Almirante è ovunque: alla Sapienza scortato da squadristi, implicato nella strage di Peteano (amnistiato). Il suo partito è un mix torbido: notabili, reduci, apparati, golpisti, servizi segreti. Rauti, Borghese, Maggi, Freda, Fachini, Zorzi. Una rete mai trasparente, ma reale.
Nel 1970, in TV, invoca un colpo di Stato come quello dei colonnelli greci. Questo era il partito di Meloni, La Russa, Rampelli.
Almirante fu sempre chiaro: «Che sono fascista ce l’ho scritto in fronte». Razzista, rastrellatore, repubblichino, firmatario di ordini di fucilazione. Nel ’44, in Toscana, un suo bando impone la pena di morte per chi non si consegna a fascisti e tedeschi. Poi si arruola nelle Brigate Nere.
Nel 1938 scrive su Difesa della Razza: «Il razzismo dev’essere cibo di tutti». Sostiene che «i meticci e gli ebrei hanno potuto cambiare nome e confondersi con noi». Pochi mesi dopo, arrivano le leggi razziali. Lui è tra i teorici dell’odio.
Parte volontario in Nordafrica, a dare corpo alle sue idee: sterminare. Alla fine della guerra, scappa. Poi fonda un partito che diventa trampolino per una nuova destra neofascista.
Muore nel 1988. Ma prima benedice Gianfranco Fini, nuovo segretario.
E Giorgia Meloni scriverà: «Onestà, coerenza, coraggio: valori che ha trasmesso alla destra italiana. Un grande uomo che non dimenticheremo mai»."E qui mi parte il besttemmione"
Essere antifascisti oggi non è semplicemente una presa di posizione contro la malvagità del fascismo.
Essere antifascisti è un metodo di interpretazione della Storia. Uno strumento di valutazione del passato, affinché quel passato non si ripresenti più.
Non si arretra di un millimetro.
Perché puoi anche non occuparti del problema, ma sarà il problema a occuparsi di te.
#AlfredoFacchini
#Antifa
#antifascismo #25aprile #resistenza -
25 aprile 1945: l’Italia è libera. Giorgio Almirante è latitante, ricercato, nascosto a Milano sotto falso nome: Giorgio Alloni. Lo userà fino all’amnistia del ’46. A dicembre, a Roma, con un manipolo di reduci di Salò, fonda il “Movimento Sociale Italiano”.
Almirante, 32 anni, ex capo di gabinetto del ministro Mezzasoma, ex redattore al “Tevere” e alla “Difesa della Razza”, ex brigatista nero in Val d’Ossola, ne diventa segretario. L’anno dopo arriva la “fiamma tricolore”, simbolo sulla tomba di Mussolini, oggi nel logo di Fratelli d’Italia.
Il primo comizio? Roma, 10 settembre 1947: finisce a calci. Alle elezioni del ’48 il MSI prende il 2,1%. Almirante entra in Parlamento e ci resterà per nove legislature.
Nel frattempo, flirta con la Democrazia Cristiana, contribuendo nel ’47 all’elezione del sindaco DC Salvatore Rebecchini. Nel 1950 lascia la segreteria, ma si mette a capo dell’ala più estrema: «L’equivoco, camerati, è uno: essere fascisti in democrazia».
Il MSI appoggia il governo Tambroni nel 1960. Genova, Roma, Reggio Emilia insorgono. A Reggio, 5 operai vengono uccisi. Il governo cade, il MSI torna nell’angolo. Sprofonda al 4-5%.
Nel 1969 muore Michelini e Almirante riprende il comando. Sono gli anni della “strategia della tensione”. Aizza le piazze, sostiene i “boia chi molla” a Reggio Calabria, predica autodifesa armata.
Nel 1971 la Procura di Milano lo indaga per ricostituzione del partito fascista. Nel 1973 la Camera autorizza a procedere. Finisce nel nulla.
Si mostra in doppiopetto, ma dietro restano manganelli e nostalgie. Il MSI sfonda il 9% nel ’72, diventa “MSI–Destra Nazionale”. Il suo stile è chiaro: ordine, repressione, revisionismo.
Almirante è ovunque: alla Sapienza scortato da squadristi, implicato nella strage di Peteano (amnistiato). Il suo partito è un mix torbido: notabili, reduci, apparati, golpisti, servizi segreti. Rauti, Borghese, Maggi, Freda, Fachini, Zorzi. Una rete mai trasparente, ma reale.
Nel 1970, in TV, invoca un colpo di Stato come quello dei colonnelli greci. Questo era il partito di Meloni, La Russa, Rampelli.
Almirante fu sempre chiaro: «Che sono fascista ce l’ho scritto in fronte». Razzista, rastrellatore, repubblichino, firmatario di ordini di fucilazione. Nel ’44, in Toscana, un suo bando impone la pena di morte per chi non si consegna a fascisti e tedeschi. Poi si arruola nelle Brigate Nere.
Nel 1938 scrive su Difesa della Razza: «Il razzismo dev’essere cibo di tutti». Sostiene che «i meticci e gli ebrei hanno potuto cambiare nome e confondersi con noi». Pochi mesi dopo, arrivano le leggi razziali. Lui è tra i teorici dell’odio.
Parte volontario in Nordafrica, a dare corpo alle sue idee: sterminare. Alla fine della guerra, scappa. Poi fonda un partito che diventa trampolino per una nuova destra neofascista.
Muore nel 1988. Ma prima benedice Gianfranco Fini, nuovo segretario.
E Giorgia Meloni scriverà: «Onestà, coerenza, coraggio: valori che ha trasmesso alla destra italiana. Un grande uomo che non dimenticheremo mai»."E qui mi parte il besttemmione"
Essere antifascisti oggi non è semplicemente una presa di posizione contro la malvagità del fascismo.
Essere antifascisti è un metodo di interpretazione della Storia. Uno strumento di valutazione del passato, affinché quel passato non si ripresenti più.
Non si arretra di un millimetro.
Perché puoi anche non occuparti del problema, ma sarà il problema a occuparsi di te.
#AlfredoFacchini
#Antifa
#antifascismo #25aprile #resistenza -
25 aprile 1945: l’Italia è libera. Giorgio Almirante è latitante, ricercato, nascosto a Milano sotto falso nome: Giorgio Alloni. Lo userà fino all’amnistia del ’46. A dicembre, a Roma, con un manipolo di reduci di Salò, fonda il “Movimento Sociale Italiano”.
Almirante, 32 anni, ex capo di gabinetto del ministro Mezzasoma, ex redattore al “Tevere” e alla “Difesa della Razza”, ex brigatista nero in Val d’Ossola, ne diventa segretario. L’anno dopo arriva la “fiamma tricolore”, simbolo sulla tomba di Mussolini, oggi nel logo di Fratelli d’Italia.
Il primo comizio? Roma, 10 settembre 1947: finisce a calci. Alle elezioni del ’48 il MSI prende il 2,1%. Almirante entra in Parlamento e ci resterà per nove legislature.
Nel frattempo, flirta con la Democrazia Cristiana, contribuendo nel ’47 all’elezione del sindaco DC Salvatore Rebecchini. Nel 1950 lascia la segreteria, ma si mette a capo dell’ala più estrema: «L’equivoco, camerati, è uno: essere fascisti in democrazia».
Il MSI appoggia il governo Tambroni nel 1960. Genova, Roma, Reggio Emilia insorgono. A Reggio, 5 operai vengono uccisi. Il governo cade, il MSI torna nell’angolo. Sprofonda al 4-5%.
Nel 1969 muore Michelini e Almirante riprende il comando. Sono gli anni della “strategia della tensione”. Aizza le piazze, sostiene i “boia chi molla” a Reggio Calabria, predica autodifesa armata.
Nel 1971 la Procura di Milano lo indaga per ricostituzione del partito fascista. Nel 1973 la Camera autorizza a procedere. Finisce nel nulla.
Si mostra in doppiopetto, ma dietro restano manganelli e nostalgie. Il MSI sfonda il 9% nel ’72, diventa “MSI–Destra Nazionale”. Il suo stile è chiaro: ordine, repressione, revisionismo.
Almirante è ovunque: alla Sapienza scortato da squadristi, implicato nella strage di Peteano (amnistiato). Il suo partito è un mix torbido: notabili, reduci, apparati, golpisti, servizi segreti. Rauti, Borghese, Maggi, Freda, Fachini, Zorzi. Una rete mai trasparente, ma reale.
Nel 1970, in TV, invoca un colpo di Stato come quello dei colonnelli greci. Questo era il partito di Meloni, La Russa, Rampelli.
Almirante fu sempre chiaro: «Che sono fascista ce l’ho scritto in fronte». Razzista, rastrellatore, repubblichino, firmatario di ordini di fucilazione. Nel ’44, in Toscana, un suo bando impone la pena di morte per chi non si consegna a fascisti e tedeschi. Poi si arruola nelle Brigate Nere.
Nel 1938 scrive su Difesa della Razza: «Il razzismo dev’essere cibo di tutti». Sostiene che «i meticci e gli ebrei hanno potuto cambiare nome e confondersi con noi». Pochi mesi dopo, arrivano le leggi razziali. Lui è tra i teorici dell’odio.
Parte volontario in Nordafrica, a dare corpo alle sue idee: sterminare. Alla fine della guerra, scappa. Poi fonda un partito che diventa trampolino per una nuova destra neofascista.
Muore nel 1988. Ma prima benedice Gianfranco Fini, nuovo segretario.
E Giorgia Meloni scriverà: «Onestà, coerenza, coraggio: valori che ha trasmesso alla destra italiana. Un grande uomo che non dimenticheremo mai»."E qui mi parte il besttemmione"
Essere antifascisti oggi non è semplicemente una presa di posizione contro la malvagità del fascismo.
Essere antifascisti è un metodo di interpretazione della Storia. Uno strumento di valutazione del passato, affinché quel passato non si ripresenti più.
Non si arretra di un millimetro.
Perché puoi anche non occuparti del problema, ma sarà il problema a occuparsi di te.
#AlfredoFacchini
#Antifa
#antifascismo #25aprile #resistenza -
25 aprile 1945: l’Italia è libera. Giorgio Almirante è latitante, ricercato, nascosto a Milano sotto falso nome: Giorgio Alloni. Lo userà fino all’amnistia del ’46. A dicembre, a Roma, con un manipolo di reduci di Salò, fonda il “Movimento Sociale Italiano”.
Almirante, 32 anni, ex capo di gabinetto del ministro Mezzasoma, ex redattore al “Tevere” e alla “Difesa della Razza”, ex brigatista nero in Val d’Ossola, ne diventa segretario. L’anno dopo arriva la “fiamma tricolore”, simbolo sulla tomba di Mussolini, oggi nel logo di Fratelli d’Italia.
Il primo comizio? Roma, 10 settembre 1947: finisce a calci. Alle elezioni del ’48 il MSI prende il 2,1%. Almirante entra in Parlamento e ci resterà per nove legislature.
Nel frattempo, flirta con la Democrazia Cristiana, contribuendo nel ’47 all’elezione del sindaco DC Salvatore Rebecchini. Nel 1950 lascia la segreteria, ma si mette a capo dell’ala più estrema: «L’equivoco, camerati, è uno: essere fascisti in democrazia».
Il MSI appoggia il governo Tambroni nel 1960. Genova, Roma, Reggio Emilia insorgono. A Reggio, 5 operai vengono uccisi. Il governo cade, il MSI torna nell’angolo. Sprofonda al 4-5%.
Nel 1969 muore Michelini e Almirante riprende il comando. Sono gli anni della “strategia della tensione”. Aizza le piazze, sostiene i “boia chi molla” a Reggio Calabria, predica autodifesa armata.
Nel 1971 la Procura di Milano lo indaga per ricostituzione del partito fascista. Nel 1973 la Camera autorizza a procedere. Finisce nel nulla.
Si mostra in doppiopetto, ma dietro restano manganelli e nostalgie. Il MSI sfonda il 9% nel ’72, diventa “MSI–Destra Nazionale”. Il suo stile è chiaro: ordine, repressione, revisionismo.
Almirante è ovunque: alla Sapienza scortato da squadristi, implicato nella strage di Peteano (amnistiato). Il suo partito è un mix torbido: notabili, reduci, apparati, golpisti, servizi segreti. Rauti, Borghese, Maggi, Freda, Fachini, Zorzi. Una rete mai trasparente, ma reale.
Nel 1970, in TV, invoca un colpo di Stato come quello dei colonnelli greci. Questo era il partito di Meloni, La Russa, Rampelli.
Almirante fu sempre chiaro: «Che sono fascista ce l’ho scritto in fronte». Razzista, rastrellatore, repubblichino, firmatario di ordini di fucilazione. Nel ’44, in Toscana, un suo bando impone la pena di morte per chi non si consegna a fascisti e tedeschi. Poi si arruola nelle Brigate Nere.
Nel 1938 scrive su Difesa della Razza: «Il razzismo dev’essere cibo di tutti». Sostiene che «i meticci e gli ebrei hanno potuto cambiare nome e confondersi con noi». Pochi mesi dopo, arrivano le leggi razziali. Lui è tra i teorici dell’odio.
Parte volontario in Nordafrica, a dare corpo alle sue idee: sterminare. Alla fine della guerra, scappa. Poi fonda un partito che diventa trampolino per una nuova destra neofascista.
Muore nel 1988. Ma prima benedice Gianfranco Fini, nuovo segretario.
E Giorgia Meloni scriverà: «Onestà, coerenza, coraggio: valori che ha trasmesso alla destra italiana. Un grande uomo che non dimenticheremo mai»."E qui mi parte il besttemmione"
Essere antifascisti oggi non è semplicemente una presa di posizione contro la malvagità del fascismo.
Essere antifascisti è un metodo di interpretazione della Storia. Uno strumento di valutazione del passato, affinché quel passato non si ripresenti più.
Non si arretra di un millimetro.
Perché puoi anche non occuparti del problema, ma sarà il problema a occuparsi di te.
#AlfredoFacchini
#Antifa
#antifascismo #25aprile #resistenza -
Fermezza o trattative con le Brigate Rosse nel 1981
Ma non è certo solo il caso Gioia, o, più in generale, un diverso approccio verso il ruolo della commissione inquirente, a dividere il Psi dal Pci. Gli ultimi mesi del 1980 infatti fanno riaprire vecchie ferite che risalgono a oltre due anni prima, ai giorni del rapimento di Aldo Moro e che ancora non si sono rimarginate. Nel mese di ottobre Berlinguer si reca a deporre presso la commissione parlamentare sul caso Moro ed esprime opinioni critiche nei confronti della condotta del Psi, che aveva rotto il “fronte della fermezza” con il suo tentativo umanitario; l’Avanti definisce «sconcertante» la deposizione del segretario comunista <220. A novembre è il turno di Craxi di deporre in commissione ed il leader del Psi parla dei contatti attivati con gli esponenti di Autonomia e, pochi giorni dopo, rilascia un’intervista all’Europeo sull’argomento. Ma il momento di maggior tensione arriva alla fine del mese quando i quattro commissari del Psi, dopo una riunione con Craxi, abbandonano polemicamente la commissione. In un comunicato si spiega la condotta dei socialisti con non meglio precisate «strumentalizzazioni e violazioni di legge» nei lavori della commissione e con la divulgazione intenzionale di documenti e, soprattutto, la «tendenza a trasferire l’obiettivo dell’inchiesta, trasformando i lavori della commissione in un vero e proprio processo politico diretto contro una tesi, una condotta e una forma politica» <221. A generare le ire del Psi sembra essere stata soprattutto la richiesta da parte della procura di una copia delle deposizioni di Craxi, Landolfi, Signorile e Guiso; ire acuite quando sia la Dc che il Pci (che insieme dispongono della maggioranza dei voti) si dimostrano intenzionati ad accogliere la richiesta dei magistrati <222.
I giorni del rapimento di Aldo Moro ritornano prepotentemente alla memoria di tutti quando, nel mese di dicembre, si verifica una nuova emergenza che ripropone il dilemma tra “fermezza” e “trattativa”. Il giorno 12 del mese viene rapito il magistrato Giovanni D’Urso, presidente di sezione della Cassazione e distaccato presso il ministero di Grazia e giustizia con responsabilità sul trasferimento di detenuti. L’azione è subito rivendicata dalle Br, che chiedono per la liberazione che venga chiuso il carcere dell’Asinara in Sardegna. Questa volta, a differenza di quanto era avvenuto nel 1978, lo schieramento tra fautori della fermezza e disponibili alla “trattativa” si definisce molto rapidamente.
Nel governo i socialisti sostengono che la chiusura del carcere non costituisce una violazione di legge <223 e la si può concedere per salvare una vita umana, mentre la maggior parte dei democristiani ed i repubblicani affermano che, sebbene non rappresenti un’illegalità, la chiusura dell’Asinara significa piegarsi al ricatto, e con ciò dare legittimità ai terroristi. I magistrati in generale dimostrano grande solidarietà nei confronti di D’Urso e, coloro che manifestano un’opinione, sebbene nessuno ovviamente proponga di violare la legge, sono a favore di prendere «tutte le misure possibili» per salvare il giudice rapito <224. Il 25 dicembre Craxi rilascia una dichiarazione nella quale dice che il carcere sardo deve essere chiuso subito; si tratta di quello che Gaetano Scamarcio definisce il «blitz di Natale» <225. Due giorni dopo la vecchia prigione viene effettivamente sgombrata <226, ma il 28 vi è una rivolta nel carcere di Trani organizzata dai terroristi, che prendono in ostaggio diversi agenti di custodia. Questa volta la reazione del governo è di notevole determinazione: il giorno seguente le installazioni di Trani vengono prese d’assalto dalle unità speciali dei Carabinieri, che salvano gli agenti sequestrati e ristabiliscono l’ordine senza vittime.
La posizione del Pci è, dall’inizio, critica di ogni linea d’azione che implichi segni di arrendevolezza nei confronti dei terroristi; dopo la chiusura del carcere sardo, nel commentare le esternazioni di Pertini, il quale si dimostra decisamente contrario a trattative, un editoriale dell’Unità afferma che “…è impensabile che chi governa questo paese sia così sprovveduto […] da non capire quello che anche il più ingenuo degli italiani ha capito subito: che l’Asinara era un pretesto, che cedere su quel pretesto significava esporsi a pagare poi, e forse subito, prezzi e rischi sempre più alti, che nessuna proclamazione di “autonomia” nell’atto di cedimento avrebbe liberato il governo dal sospetto di aver accettato il terreno della contrattazione coi terroristi…” <227
Il 31 dicembre viene assassinato a Roma il generale dei carabinieri Enrico Galvaligi, responsabile della sicurezza esterna delle carceri e quattro giorni dopo le Br diramano un comunicato in cui dichiarano che D’Urso è stato condannato a morte, ma che lasceranno ai compagni detenuti una valutazione definitiva. In favore della trattativa ci sono, oltre al partito Radicale, i cui deputati vanno nelle carceri a parlare con i terroristi, i vertici dell’Anm e, si direbbe, la maggior parte dei magistrati. Tra di essi però non mancano segnali in senso contrario, ad esempio il discorso d’inaugurazione dell’anno giudiziario del Pg di Roma Pascalino, che invita alla fermezza <228; oppure, qualche giorno dopo, la decisione dei magistrati della sezione civile della pretura, che rigettano l’istanza del fratello del giudice rapito con la quale si chiede di ordinare ai giornali la pubblicazione dei documenti Br per uno «stato di necessità» <229; ma quando Curcio accenna alla liberazione del brigatista Gianfranco Faina, la Corte d’Appello di Firenze ne ordina subito la libertà provvisoria, attirandosi le critiche del Pci <230.
I socialisti, mentre Craxi si trova in Africa in vacanza, tengono una direzione e sembrano orientati ad evitare contatti con i brigatisti in carcere <231; poco dopo, l’8 gennaio, i terroristi detenuti a Trani affermano che daranno il loro benestare alla grazia se giornali e Tv divulgheranno documenti preparati dai brigatisti <232. Mentre diversi giornali proclamano quello che verrà definito il “black-out”, per non favorire il disegno dei terroristi, i magistrati si fanno ancora promotori di una linea meno intransigente e l’Anm promuove un incontro con la federazione della stampa per trattare l’argomento; il segretario dell’associazione, l’esponente di Magistratura democratica Senese, spiega che «la nostra posizione è che nel rispetto della legalità si debba fare tutto per salvare il collega […] La cosa peggiore che si possa fare in questo momento è trasformare il dibattito sulle decisioni da prendere in una discussione teologica sui massimi sistemi» <233.
Intanto Craxi rientra dalle vacanze e impone la linea al partito sconfessando la direzione precedente: il Psi appoggerà la campagna radicale per la pubblicazione. Ad essa aderiscono Lotta Continua, il Manifesto, L’Avanti e, in un secondo momento anche il Secolo XIX ed il Messaggero. Il 14 gennaio l’Avanti ospita una lettera dello stesso D’Urso che, dalla prigionia, chiede la pubblicazione dei documenti; il giorno seguente il magistrato viene liberato.
Dopo il rilascio il Presidente del consiglio si reca immediatamente alla Camera per fare una relazione sull’accaduto ma nel suo discorso, ben accolto da Psi, Psdi e radicali, si sforza di non accusare nessuno e non prendere parte nel dibattito tra fermezza e trattativa. I repubblicani appaiono critici <234, ma lo stesso può dirsi di importanti settori della Dc. Il Popolo cita una dichiarazione di Piccoli in cui spiega che «l’atteggiamento di fermezza è stato determinante per la tenuta contro il ricatto delle Br» e poi, illustrando la posizione dei partiti, spiega che “Il Psi ha esposto la propria posizione «in autonomia»” ricordando la polemica di Balzamo contro il Pci, accusato di «farneticare su un presunto partito del cedimento che non è mai esistito» <235. Ma qualche tempo dopo Piccoli apparirà molto più deciso; in occasione del congresso del suo partito, nei primi giorni di maggio 1982, circa la richiesta di
pubblicare documenti ricorderà che “…affermavo: siamo dinnanzi al più grave ed inaccettabile dei ricatti […] furono molti i giornali, anche di partito, che ritennero di accedere alle richieste delle Br […] Mi limito ad osservare che accedere a quella richiesta consentì alle Br di conseguire un obiettivo essenziale della loro strategia di intossicazione psicologica […] Ciò che avrebbe dovuto suggerire maggior cautela a esponenti socialisti nell’affrontare alcune delle questioni poste dalla liberazione di Ciro Cirillo…” <236
Nel caso D’Urso quindi si riprende il gioco delle parti già sperimentato quasi tre anni prima, ma con qualche differenza: a questo punto l’opinione pubblica sembra essersi assuefatta, in qualche misura, alla tesi circa le possibilità che lo Stato si impegni in qualche tipo di “trattativa” con i terroristi. Di conseguenza l’azione del Psi, accompagnata da quella dei radicali, è assai più decisa ed incisiva. L’altra differenza è che questa volta a sostenere il governo in Parlamento non ci sono più i comunisti, e quindi i democristiani si ritrovano soli ad osservare il movimentismo degli alleati socialisti e lo fanno non senza malumori e risentimento.
[NOTE]
220 “Sconcertante deposizione di Berlinguer su Moro”, Avanti del 11 ottobre 80
221 “Si sono dimessi i commissari Psi”, Avanti del 29 novembre 80
222 “Commissione Moro”, La Stampa del 28 novembre 80
223 Inoltre la dismissione dell’Asinara era già prevista e al momento del sequestro vi rimanevano solo 25 detenuti.
224 Vedi ad esempio “I magistrati contrari a scelte aprioristiche per Giovanni D Urso”, Avanti del 19 dicembre 80, o “I magistrati favorevoli a chiudere l’Asinara”, Avanti del 31 dicembre 1980, contenente un’intervista a Beria d’Argentine; vedi anche P. Craveri, La Repubblica dal 1958 al 1992 Cit. pag. 858
225 Dichiarazione citata in G. Fiori, Berlinguer Cit. Pag. 412
226 Secondo Fiori, in questa maniera, la chiusura è «data non alle Br per salvare una vita umana, ma a Craxi per salvare il governo», Ibid. Pag. 413
227 “Salvare un governo o la democrazia?”, Unità del 30 dicembre 80
228 “E’ escluso che lo stato possa cedere al terrorismo”, Popolo del 10 gennaio 81
229 “Giornali (con poche eccezioni) prevale la linea della fermezza”, Popolo del 13 gennaio 81
230 “Traspare una torbida trattativa con le BR”, Unità del 9 gennaio 81
231 G. Fiori, Berlinguer. Cit. Pag. 415
232 “33 giorni di prigionia”, La Stampa del 15 gennaio 1981.
233 “Iniziativa dei giudici verso stampa e partiti”, Avanti del 7 gennaio 81
234 “Le BR annunciano: liberiamo d’Urso”, Unità del 15 gennaio 81
235 “La maggioranza unita nella lotta al terrorismo”, Popolo del 15 gennaio 81
236 “Relazione di Piccoli al congresso”, Popolo del 3 maggio 82
Edoardo M. Fracanzani, Le origini del conflitto. I partiti politici, la magistratura e il principio di legalità nella prima Repubblica (1974-1983), Tesi di dottorato, Sapienza – Università di Roma, 2013#1980 #1981 #1982 #Asinara #Berlinguer #BrigateRosse #carabinieri #carcere #Craxi #DC #EdoardoMFracanzani #EnricoGalvaligi #fermezza #generale #GiovanniDUrso #magistrato #PCI #Piccoli #Pri #PSI #radicali #rapimento #rilascio #trattativa #uccisione
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Una costante rappresentata sia dai numerosi depistaggi, sia dagli apparati statali che obbedivano a logiche diverse rispetto a quelle democratiche
Come si è detto, molti (intellettuali, politici, giudici ecc.) hanno dato ai fatti accaduti in quegli anni un’interpretazione unitaria del fenomeno terrorista di matrice neofascista come di una gigantesco sistema di protezione del potere ordito dalla classe dirigente del Paese. Una classe dirigente senza scrupoli avrebbe guidato le operazioni terroristiche (e golpiste) allo scopo di trarre vantaggi politici (rafforzare deboli coalizioni governative, ottenere il voto degli elettori) e per eliminare il pericolo del sorpasso delle forze di sinistra. Il terrorismo nero non sarebbe stato altro che un componente di un piano molto più ambizioso: “la strategia della tensione”.
Questa posizione può essere riassunta nel famoso articolo di Pasolini pubblicato sul Corriere della Sera del 14 novembre 1974 e dal titolo “Cos’è questo golpe? Io so”. <54 Una visione degli anni di piombo che godette di grandissima popolarità e conta ancora oggi un gran numero di sostenitori. <55
Tuttavia, un’immagine così unitaria dell’eversione neofascista non pare sufficiente a spiegare il fenomeno. Leggendo l’opera di Satta, centrando l’attenzione sull’attività degli apparati dello Stato coinvolti nella lotta antiterrorista ed esaminando i fatti, ci si rende conto che questi presentano una realtà contraddittoria e spesso rendono impossibile usare un’unica chiave interpretativa.
Analizzando cronologicamente l’attività terrorista di matrice fascista, ad esempio, si osserva che le date degli attentati non coinciderebbero con nessun concreto successo del PCI. <56 Non sarebbe dunque possibile giungere all’unica conclusione che questa non possa che essere considerata come una risposta anticomunista, dovuta al pericolo rappresentato dai crescenti successi del PCI in ambito politico. Invece, lo stragismo sarebbe stato, secondo Satta, la manifestazione di una strategia antisistema, antidemocratica e anticapitalista. Lo dimostrerebbero ad esempio le parole di Franco Freda, <57 nonché il fatto che una volta fallito l’obiettivo di destabilizzazione dell’ordine democratico, gli stessi terroristi avrebbero fatto un passo indietro. <58
D’altra parte, non si possono dimenticare le irregolarità commesse durante i processi, le collusioni dimostrate tra servizi segreti e ambienti neofascisti, le responsabilità dei dirigenti politici, degli organi di stampa, il coinvolgimento di istanze straniere, aspetti negativi solo parzialmente compensati dall’operato e dagli esiti in parte positivi di indagini e processi che avevano finito per individuare almeno la matrice degli attentati e messo in luce le irregolarità e collusioni di cui sopra.
Mirco Dondi giunge ad inserire il terrorismo degli anni di piombo all’interno della costruzione di uno “Stato intersecato”, nel quale diverse strutture si sovrapponevano facendo sì che uomini dei servizi segreti fossero allo stesso tempo parte delle organizzazioni eversive. <59 Le conseguenze sulla vita democratica di tale struttura sarebbero state devastanti: non solo attentati terroristici, ma la possibilità di influire sulle nomine delle forze armate e degli apparati di sicurezza, e condizionando la giustizia.
Invece, parlare di un vero e proprio “terrorismo o stragismo di Stato”, parrebbe improprio, essenzialmente perché “Stato” è un concetto complesso, in cui intervengono soggetti assai diversi tra loro. Durante “gli anni di piombo” le istituzioni dello Stato e della società civile (apparati di polizia, della magistratura, rappresentanti politici, i sindacati) hanno lavorato duramente e in una situazione sommamente difficile per sconfiggere il terrorismo. Mentre non esisterebbero prove che «un ceto dirigente di governo o una sua parte significativa abbiano pianificato stragi e assassinii». <60
Secondo Satta, questo uso improprio del concetto di strage, che si è propagato a macchia d’olio fra i giovani di sinistra e questa visione dello Stato italiano come di un assassino che addirittura pianifica gli attentati, si sommava, o ne era la conseguenza, ad un antistatalismo già diffuso nel Paese. <61 All’epoca ebbe senz’altro delle conseguenze importantissime e gravi, contribuendo a creare un ambiente propizio alla legittimazione di una risposta terroristica e violenta.
Tornando a Pasolini, si deve ricordare che il suo punto di vista non era né quello dello storico, né del giurista, ma di un intellettuale, un poeta, la cui missione, potremmo dire, è quella di illuminare i comuni mortali su una verità che va oltre i dati di fatto. Il contributo di Pasolini rimane estremamente prezioso in un’epoca nella quale la prassi comune nella società italiana, dalle istituzioni statali alla familia, era comunque quella di mettere a tacere tutto quello che poteva risultare scomodo. Era la voce di chi, dotato di una particolare sensibilità, avvertiva gli scompensi del sistema e voleva muovere le nuove generazioni a prendere in mano le redini della propia vita e a ricercare la verità attivamente, anche oltre le apparenze. Si trattava inoltre di una critica necessaria che avrebbe propiziato il dibattito fra le forze politiche e le diverse istanze della società e attraverso il quale si potè avanzare nel chiarire e organizzare un’efficace risposta al terrorismo, una risposta che, per vincere, doveva provenire dall’insieme della società italiana.
[NOTE]
54 Pier Paolo Pasolini, “Cos’è questo golpe? Io so”, in Corriere della Sera, 14 novembre 1974, in http://www.corriere.it/speciali/pasolini/ioso.html, consultato il 02/08/18.; Mirco Dondi, L’eco del boato…, cit., p. 395. Dondi precisa che l’articolo di Pasolini uscì pochi giorni dopo l’arresto del generale Vito Miceli che era stato capo del Sid, accusato di cospirazione contro lo Stato.
55 Tra questi c’è ad esempio Miguel Gotor, Il memoriale della Repubblica, Einaudi, Torino 2011, p. 525. Il titolo dell’articolo di Pasolini è stato poi più volte ripreso, riutilizzato e adattato da molti anche in tempi recentissimi (come ricorda Guido Vitiello nel suo articolo “Più Sciascia e meno Pasolini”, in La Lettura, supplemento domenicale del Corriere della Sera, 19 dicembre 2012, in http://lettura.corriere.it/piu-sciascia-meno-pasolini/, consultato il 28/08/18), come nel caso del magistrato Antonio Ingroia, autore insieme a Giuseppe Lo Bianco e Sandra Rizza del libro Io so, Chiarelettere, 2012, che cerca di ricostruire la verità dei rapporti fra mafia e Stato.
56 Vladimiro Satta, I nemici della Repubblica…, cit., p. 428.
57 Vladimiro Satta, I nemici della Repubblica…, cit., p. 263 e ss.
58 Secondo Satta, il terrorismo di matrice fascista si fu progressivamente debilitando, non tanto per i meriti delle forze di polizia o dei servizi segreti, ma più probabilmente perché vide poco a poco sfumare i suoi obiettivi politici. Vladimiro Satta, “La risposta dello Stato al terrorismo: gli apparati e la legislazione”, in Vene aperte del delitto Moro: terrorismo, PCI, trame e servizi segreti. – (Radici del presente), Firenze, Mauro Pagliai, 2009, p. 241.
59 Mirco Dondi, L’eco del boato…, cit., p. 400 e ss. L’autore individua tre livelli: i Nuclei di difesa dello Stato, di emanazione statale; la Rosa dei Venti e la Loggia P2 con importanti rappresentanti delle istituzioni; ON, AN, Fronte nazionale, Mar e Ordine nero, “cinque organizzazioni i cui atti criminosi sono coperti dalle istituzioni”. Le prime tre avrebbero avuto funzioni superiori rispetto alle altre.
60 Sono queste le parole dello storico Giovanni Sabbatucci nell’intervista rilasciata a Gian Guido Vecchi e pubblicata con il titolo “Lo stragismo di Stato? Categoria che non esiste”, in Corriere della Sera, 15 settembre 2008, in https://www.pressreader.com/italy/corriere-della-sera/20080915/281805689734907, consultato il 10/07/17. Secondo Sabbatucci: «Terrorismo di Stato è il nazismo, naturalmente. Sono Stalin, il regime militare argentino, i colonnelli greci […] Ma deve avere una regia politica, istituzionale. […] E invece in Italia la formula si è ripetuta con disinvoltura».
61 Alessandro Naccarato, Difendere la democrazia…, cit., p. 26.
Lilia Zanelli, Gli anni di piombo nella letteratura e nell’arte degli anni Duemila, Tesi di dottorato, Università di Salamanca, 2018In questo contesto, il 17 maggio 1973, davanti alla Questura di Milano, durante una cerimonia in memoria del commissario Luigi Calabresi, lo scoppio di un ordigno provocò la morte di quattro persone. Subito arrestato, l’attentatore Gianfranco Bertoli si professò anarchico: una versione smentita successivamente dalle indagini della magistratura, da cui emersero contatti di rilievo con i servizi segreti italiani e, indirettamente, con quelli statunitensi <952. Anzitutto, si appurò che il Bertoli fosse un uomo della destra eversiva, vicino alla cellula veneta di On e a Carlo Maria Maggi. Bertoli inoltre era stata una fonte informativa del Sifar e poi del Sid, con tanto di retribuzione, e proprio da parte degli organismi di intelligence era scattata, subito dopo l’azione, la protezione e la copertura finalizzata a coprire l’identità politica dell’attentato. L’obiettivo della strage era quello di attentare alla vita di Rumor, presente alla commemorazione, colpevole di non aver proclamato lo stato di emergenza subito dopo la strage di Piazza Fontana e di aver promosso lo scioglimento di On nel febbraio 1972. In linea più generale, tuttavia, la strage si proponeva di determinare uno stato di caos e di tensione tale da rendere necessaria una svolta autoritaria. La matrice anarchica dell’attentato serviva solamente a mimetizzare i veri mandanti e responsabili dell’attentato, esattamente secondo le linee indicate nel Field Manual 30-31 e nel piano Chaos, volto a introdurre in gruppi di estrema sinistra elementi mimetizzati appartenenti a servizi di sicurezza o comunque legati agli ambienti estremisti, convincendo la popolazione che i colpevoli della strage fossero da individuare a sinistra. Per queste ragioni, e per tutti gli elementi emersi dalle inchieste giudiziarie che collegano Bertoli ad ambienti della destra e dell’intelligence, l’attentato alla Questura di Milano non può ritenersi un gesto isolato, ma va inserito all’interno della strategia della tensione e di un quadro costituito oltreoceano e già entrato in attività nei precedenti attentati che, attraverso una sofisticata opera di mimetizzazione, ha posto in essere l’operazione di occultamento della vera identità di Bertoli.
[…] I riflessi della svolta del 1974 si ebbero anche in Italia. Gli eventi susseguitisi durante tutto l’arco dell’anno fanno infatti pensare “a un mutamento parziale di strategia della Cia all’interno del blocco occidentale e dunque anche in Italia” <959. La portata di questo cambiamento si coglie nelle parole di Giovanni Pellegrino: “L’obiettivo strategico non mutò: restò ferma cioè la direzione di contrasto all’espansionismo comunista; a mutare furono i mezzi, meno rozzi e più sofisticati, cui fu affidato il perseguimento dell’obiettivo. Le tensioni sociali non sarebbero state più artificiosamente acuite nella prospettiva di creare le precondizioni di un golpe o comunque di una involuzione autoritaria delle istituzioni democratiche. Nel permanere e nel consolidarsi di queste, le tensioni sociali sarebbero state soltanto, in qualche modo ed entro certi militi, “tollerate” al fine di utilizzarne l’impatto su settori dell’opinione pubblica favorevoli al consolidamento elettorale di soluzioni politiche non eccessivamente sbilanciate a sinistra e sostanzialmente moderate” <960. Secondo questa ipotesi, pur continuando ad essere importante l’obiettivo di stabilizzare il quadro italiano, del quale preoccupavano soprattutto l’apertura a sinistra e le tensioni sociali, la strategia aggressiva che aveva caratterizzato l’operato degli Usa in Italia subì una battuta di arresto <961.
Gli aiuti finanziari occulti iniziarono ad essere distribuiti in maniera più cauta, evitando di destinarli ad esponenti dell’estrema destra e ai singoli candidati, e preferendo invece programmi elettorali circoscritti e ben definiti <962. Le forze che in Italia avevano tentato di sovvertire l’ordine democratico, si ritrovarono improvvisamente senza appoggio. In questo contesto appare comprensibile anche la decisione del governo italiano di colpire i vertici dello stato e gli esponenti delle organizzazioni più compromessi con l’eversione di destra <963.
[NOTE]
952 Il processo nei confronti di Bertoli, colto in flagranza, si concluse rapidamente con una condanna all’ergastolo emessa dalla Corte d’assise di Milano il 1° marzo 1975, confermata sia in appello che in cassazione e divenuta definitiva l’anno dopo. Più lungo fu invece l’iter del processo cui furono sottoposti Carlo Maria Maggi, Francesco Neami, Giorgio Boffelli, Amos Spiazzi e Carlo Digilio, accusati di essere stati i mandanti della strage e rinviati a giudizio il 18 luglio 1998 dal giudice istruttore di Milano Antonio Lombardi. A giudizio fu rinviato anche il generale Gian Adelio Maletti, capo del Reparto D del Sid, accusato di omissione di atti d’ufficio nonché di sottrazione e soppressione di atti e documenti riguardanti la sicurezza dello Stato. Le vicende giudiziarie e i fatti del 17 maggio sono ricostruiti da: P. Calogero, Questura di Milano, via Fatebenefratelli (17 maggio 1973), in A. Ventrone (a cura di), L’Italia delle stragi, cit. pp. 69-77.
959 N. Tranfaglia, La strategia della tensione e i due terrorismi, in C. Venturoli (a cura di), Come studiare il terrorismo e le stragi. Fonti e metodi, Venezia, Marsilio, 2002, pp. 42-43.
960 G. Pellegrino, Proposta di relazione, in Commissione stragi, cit. p. 116.
961 P. Pellizzari, La strage di piazza Loggia e l’occhio statunitense, in “Storia e Futuro. Rivista di storia e storiografia”, 20, giugno 2009, disponibile al link: http://storiaefuturo.eu/strage-piazza-loggia-locchio-statunitense/.
962 Gli aiuti poi saranno interrotti nel mese di dicembre 1974, per opposizione del Congresso allo stanziamento di 6 milioni di dollari da parte di Ford. C. Gatti, Rimanga tra noi, cit. pp. 144-145.
963 L. Cominelli, L’Italia sotto tutela, cit. p. 167.
Letizia Marini, Resistenza antisovietica e guerra al comunismo in Italia. Il ruolo degli Stati Uniti. 1949-1974, Tesi di dottorato, Università degli Studi di Macerata, 2020Dunque, dobbiamo sempre tenere conto di due elementi di fondo che per l’intelligence statunitense erano imprescindibili: una totale fedeltà atlantica (sancita pubblicamente con la firma del patto NATO) da una parte e un intransigente anticomunismo dall’altra. Gli americani, per assicurarsi che le nuove strutture italiane corrispondessero ad almeno uno di questi due principi, adottarono due linee diverse per l’uno e per l’altro servizio: – Per riformare il servizio militare si appoggiarono all’ambiente dell’antifascismo bianco e del lealismo monarchico, coi quali avevano già collaborato durante la guerra dopo l’otto settembre, e dei quali poterono assicurarsi la totale fedeltà soltanto dopo la firma del patto Nato, a cui seguirono altri protocolli di collaborazione molto stringenti; – Per il servizio informazione della polizia (ed in sostanza per tutta la pubblica sicurezza), la linea che si seguì fu quella del reintegro dei quadri dirigenti delle disciolte polizie d’epoca fascista (in particolare Ovra e Pai), il fervente anticomunismo dei quali non era messo in dubbio.
Claudio Molinari, I servizi segreti in Italia verso la strategia della tensione (1948-1969), Tesi di laurea, Università degli Studi di Trieste, Anno Accademico 2020-2021Il colpo di Stato organizzato da Edgardo Sogno mostra una natura molto diversa da quella del golpe Borghese: non è un colpo di Stato neofascista, poiché a suo dire Sogno odiava molto il fascismo, anche se l’odio verso di esso veniva di gran lunga superato dall’odio verso il comunismo, molto più viscerale. Questo è uno dei motivi per i quali inizialmente il progetto trovò approvazione sia in ambienti politici sia in ambienti militari, anche se venne successivamente accantonato perché secondo la valutazione dell’intelligence Usa e della Nato, avrebbe causato più problemi di quelli che voleva risolvere.
Pietro Menichetti, L’Italia del terrore: stragi, colpi di Stato ed eversione di destra, Tesi di laurea, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Anno Accademico 2019-2020Nel valutare i fattori che hanno contribuito a fare del 1974 un anno di svolta per la strategia della tensione, va riconosciuta anche “la sincera adesione ai valori di una democrazia parlamentare da parte delle maggiori forze politiche presenti in Parlamento. I pericoli che la democrazia correva nel difficilissimo periodo furono adeguatamente percepiti; le spinte anche internazionali verso una involuzione autoritaria furono certamente intuite, probabilmente conosciute, ma non assecondate” <968. Inoltre, le maggiori eredità del movimento del 1968 avevano favorito la creazione di un contesto sociale “contrario alle ricorrenti tentazioni di pronunciamenti militari e di involuzione autoritaria delle istituzioni, che nella seconda metà del decennio vennero quindi in gran parte abbandonate” <969.
[NOTE]
968 G. Pellegrino, Proposta di relazione, in Commissione stragi, cit. p. 118.
969 Ibidem.
Letizia Marini, Resistenza antisovietica e guerra al comunismo in Italia. Il ruolo degli Stati Uniti. 1949-1974, Tesi di dottorato, Università degli Studi di Macerata, 2020Una terza costante è rappresentata sia dai numerosi depistaggi, sia dagli apparati statali che obbedivano a logiche diverse rispetto a quelle democratiche <165. La difficoltà maggiore, nella stesura dell’elaborato, è dovuta proprio al fatto che su molte delle vicende trattate non sia stata fatta sufficiente chiarezza. Non sono state chiarite (se vi sono state) le responsabilità internazionali, non è stata fatta luce sul ruolo dei servizi segreti e sui loro rapporti con la P2. Queste informazioni sarebbero state fondamentali, poiché appare piuttosto inverosimile che dei movimenti extraparlamentari abbiano potuto agire da soli. Senza delle risposte certe, la politica nostrana si è divisa in quattro direzioni interpretative <166: la prima, riconducibile al PCI, al PSI e alla sinistra della DC, vedeva l’emergere di un nuovo fascismo sostenuto da alcune frange delle forze dell’ordine, dei servizi segreti, dell’esercito e dalla NATO. Questi ultimi utilizzavano l’estrema destra per indurre la sinistra a rinunciare a qualsiasi tipo di aspirazione <167. La seconda ipotesi, riconducibile alla destra della DC, interpretava il fenomeno come manifestazione della teoria degli opposti estremismi, secondo la quale erano in atto dei disegni eversivi provenienti sia da destra che da sinistra <168. La terza ipotesi, riconducibile all’estrema sinistra, interpretava il fenomeno come volto alla costituzione di uno Stato apertamente fascista <169. La quarta ed ultima, riconducibile all’MSI, vedeva nel terrorismo la longa manus dell’URSS <170. Quel che è certo è che il caso italiano non può essere spiegato senza fare un chiaro riferimento alla Guerra fredda. USA e URSS utilizzavano delle «strategie indirette» per inserire i paesi nel loro raggio di controllo, i primi sovvenzionando colpi di Stato, i secondi appoggiando i gruppi che portavano avanti la guerriglia rivoluzionaria. Fu in questo frangente che la NATO adottò la strategia della guerra psicologica in tutti quei paesi europei “a rischio”. Il caso italiano risultò particolarmente difficile poiché ospitava il partito comunista più grande d’Europa. Il declino della strategia della tensione fu dovuto alle dimissioni di Nixon e alla debolezza del successore Ford. La lotta armata, invece, deriva da una sfiducia della sinistra extraparlamentare nei confronti di tutti i partiti, accusati di far parte del Sim; paradossalmente i comunisti, che volevano fermare la violenza attraverso il compromesso storico, crearono per essa un terreno ancor più fertile. Se in un primo momento il problema era il terrorismo di destra fomentato sia da gruppi facinorosi che da vertici dello Stato, ora la questione del terrorismo riguardava anche la sinistra.
[NOTE]
165 A. Speranzoni, F. Magnoni, Le stragi: i processi e la storia. Ipotesi per un’interpretazione unitaria della “strategia della tensione” 1969-1974, Grafiche Biesse Editrice, Martellago-Venezia, 1999.
166 A. Giannulli, La strategia della tensione. Servizi segreti, partiti, golpe falliti, terrore fascista, politica internazionale: un bilancio complessivo, Ponte alle Grazie, Milano, 2018.
167 A. Giannulli, La strategia della tensione. Servizi segreti, partiti, golpe falliti, terrore fascista, politica
internazionale: un bilancio complessivo, Ponte alle Grazie, Milano, 2018.
168 Ibidem
169 Ibidem
170 Ibidem
Ida Maria Galeone, Democrazia in bilico: gli anni di piombo e la strategia della tensione in Italia, Tesi di Laurea, Università Luiss “Guido Carli”, Anno Accademico 2021-2022#1969 #1980 #America #anni #anticomunismo #ClaudioMolinari #Commissione #depistaggi #destra #eversione #GiovanniPellegrino #IdaMariaGaleone #LetiziaMarini #LiliaZanelli #neofascisti #Parlamentare #PCI #PietroMenichetti #segreti #servizi #Settanta #Stato #stragi #strategia #tensione #terrorismo
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“The empathy just oozes from this one. Hurricane Helene was apparently wet.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Morning, Sky Dancers!
The signs of the results of lousy decision-making based on greed and mythology are everywhere. Hurricanes are no longer coastal phenomena but can make their way 300 miles inland and hold a Cat 2 status. You would think enough people in this country have critical thinking skills and conscience to vote the pols out who are doing this to us. It would help, of course, if the press were still on the side of democracy instead of creating clickbait to earn a buck for stockholders and top management. But, here we are deeper down the rat hole of “The Medium is the Message published in 1964.” McLuhan understood clickbait before just about anyone.
The title “The Medium Is the Massage” is a teaser—a way of getting attention. There’s a wonderful sign hanging in a Toronto junkyard which reads, ‘Help Beautify Junkyards. Throw Something Lovely Away Today.’ This is a very effective way of getting people to notice a lot of things. And so the title is intended to draw attention to the fact that a medium is not something neutral—it does something to people. It takes hold of them. It rubs them off, it massages them and bumps them around, chiropractically, as it were, and the general roughing up that any new society gets from a medium, especially a new medium, is what is intended in that title”
This is more true than ever. We have more than a few TV channels, newspapers, and radio to influence us these days. Most people treat their news and information more like boutique shopping, where they can find the look that suits them every time. Substack is one medium where I have seen public intellectuals. I feel comfortable reading a lot of people there, and I must admit that it’s because they are a lot like me. They write about things that bug them about the institutions and country that house them and likely educated them. However, they do bring reasoned thought and data with them. But anyway, enough of that rabbit hole. Let’s just say I’m not beyond shopping my own boutique. Also, the positive thing about the web is that you have access to authentic information and don’t have to spend days in dark, moldy library stacks to find it. The negative thing is that not all people want to be challenged. They want to feel good about what they already think is real.
Margaret Sullivan’s Substack–aptly called American Crisis–has this headline today. “The three phases of normalizing Trump’s attack on Harris in Wisconsin. The media did what it always does, and it’s not good enough.” Trump is so far off the sanity scale these days that it is indeed frightening.
- The use of neutral language. If you merely read about Donald Trump’s deeply offensive rally this weekend in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, you probably thought it was about immigration. And about Trump up to his usual tricks of disparaging his rivals.
Here the lead of the report from Axios, for example:
“Former President Trump, in a self-described ‘dark speech,’ told a rally in Wisconsin yesterday that his opponent, Vice President Harris, is “mentally impaired’ and “mentally disabled.’”
Axios, which favors bullet points and boldface help for the tuned-out, let us know “Why It Matters”: “Even for Trump, it was weird, nasty and nonsensical — when he needed to be swaying ‘national security moms’ and other undecideds.”
Or here’s the top paragraph of the Washington Post report: “Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump criticized Vice President Harris’s mental capacity Saturday, falsely claiming she was born ‘mentally impaired’ and comparing her actions to that of a ‘mentally disabled person.’ The remarks prompted criticism from advocates for people with disabilities.”
Here’s the Associated Press’s headline: “Trump lists his grievances in a Wisconsin speech intended to link Harris to illegal immigration.”
But if you watched the speech, or even snippets of it, you saw something quite different — an absolutely ugly and brutal attack on Kamala Harris, full of lies and racist misogyny. In case you missed it, watch a bit of it here.
Sullivan has written two more of them and a lot of examples to follow. Please go read it.
- The lack of substantial followup. Once the outrageous rally was over, and the stories with their neutral language written, the political media was ready — more than ready — to move on. The media does know how to follow up, as you may recall from, for instance, President Biden’s bad debate this summer. But in the case of Trump’s unhinged and ugly attack on Harris’s intelligence, the spot-news coverage was about it. I did not see countless outraged opinion pieces; I did not see days of stories examining every aspect of this. It was just, cover the speech and let’s get out of here.
- The pivot to safety. Like waves rushing to the shore, the media relentlessly returns to the familiar. The thinking seems to go something like this: Whew, that was a pretty crazy rally, but let’s leave that behind and get back to what we’re good at. When in doubt, cover the horserace. One thing I did see after Saturday’s rally were many, many, many stories about polls. A New York Times headline Sunday rendered it this way: “Harris and Trump are Neck and Neck in Michigan and Wisconsin, Polls Find.” And that’s about as horserace-oriented as it gets.
This New Yorker’s The Lede, published three days ago, has similar warnings. It’s written by Clare Malone. “Is There a Method to Donald Trump’s Madness? The former President’s appeal has always been his sui-generis persona and politics—take him as he is—but, this year, the campaign seems more devoted to fan service than anything else.” Why try to make sense out of acts stemming from severe Personality Disorders and likely advanced dementia? Are the lessons from Journalism school to just blandly report the unspeakable? Was there ever a method in madness?
Vance is now a historically unpopular Vice-Presidential nominee. Mainstream Republican contenders, such as Senator Marco Rubio or Governor Doug Burgum, might have appealed to the sort of Nikki Haley voters that can’t stand Trump. Rubio, who is Cuban American, might have been a good pick to attract Latino voters, who, polls showed, were less interested in voting Democratic this year. Instead, Trump’s selection of Vance and all that he brings with him emphasized a doubling-down on MAGA culture. It could end up being politically ill-advised, but it’s not without its logic. Trump’s team knows that America is a hyperpartisan country. Polls show that just four per cent of voters are undecided in this election, the smallest share of the electorate in any U.S. contest this century. For the Trump campaign, the theory goes: Why expend all your energy trying to convince people to vote for one of the most unpopular Presidents in American history? Work to amp up your base and find Trump fans who don’t usually vote and make sure they turn out on November 5th.
The Trump campaign calls these voters “low-propensity,” and they’re working to turn them out in swing states like Arizona, where a canvassing effort is being run by the conservative group Turning Point USA. An Elon Musk-backed PAC is doing the same in Nevada and Michigan. Some Republicans have expressed reservations about the strategy, but it’s not a new idea in Trumpworld. In 2016, when I was a reporter at FiveThirtyEight, I obtained a Trump campaign memo written during that year’s primaries that explained the unusual practice of targeting low-propensity voters. “Our candidate commands unheard amounts of earned media,” the memo read, calling the strategy “more akin to evangelization than persuasion.” The job, then, was to teach Trump fans how to become Trump voters. “These are people who may not know where to vote, whether or not they are eligible to participate, and what the hours are,” the memo read. “They may have to work on the actual election day and are unaware of early voting opportunities on Saturdays. Many of them may have simply never been asked for their vote.” Turning Point’s focus this year—one of its employees told Semafor—is on small groups of thirty thousand to forty thousand potential voters in swing states, a testament to the slim margins of 2024.
Trump’s appeal has always been his sui-generis persona and politics—take him as he is—but, this year, the campaign seems more devoted to fan service than anything else. Steven Cheung, Trump’s top spokesman, recently retweeted a three-minute tongue-in-cheek hard-rock music video titled “MAGA ENERGY,” which nicely captured the movement’s aesthetics. It features lyrics like “Our world is frightening / Globals want to burn it down,” images of American flags and Trump’s face overlaid on that of a lion, and a montage of the jiggling, mostly bare bottoms of women shooting automatic weapons. Trump, a marketer to his core, has also built a promotional flywheel that he hopes his voters will get stuck in: If you like Trump’s crazy persona, you might go to your first Trump rally. If you go to enough rallies, you might like Trump’s digital trading cards—collect enough and you’ll get a physical piece of the suit that he wore to his debate with Biden (really!). If you like the trading cards, maybe you’ll buy Melania’s new book (she stands by her nude photos). Somewhere in there, Trump and company are hoping their low-propensity supporters register to vote and do so early.
The purpose of Trump’s campaign is to bolster his ego and keep him out of jail. Then, he’ll likely be replaced either by death or the 25th Amendment, and Vance will put the entire 2025 plan into play. Because all the players will be set up in the Federal Government. Additionally, all the work of Pat Robertson and others from the Reagan administration to enslave us to White Christian Nationalism will come to fruition.
Yesterday, I read this article from Mother Jones where one of the so-called Christians in that movement finally realizes that what he was doing wasn’t very ‘Christ-like,’ has repented, and is now trying to reverse the hell they bring to the political system. The title is “Confessions of a (Former) Christian Nationalist. When religion is placed at the service of a political party, it corrupts both.” and it’s written by The Reverend Rob Schenck. Anyone who read the history of the Roman Empire and its use of Christianity to conquer Northern Europe should know this by now. The story on how they captured SCOTUS is even more interesting than the narrative on capturing members of Congress.
Federal judges and especially Supreme Court justices, unlike politicians, never need to shake hands across a rope line. Accessing their world required creativity. I found it through the little-known Supreme Court Historical Society. Founded by the late Chief Justice Warren Burger, the independent nonprofit holds an annual dinner hosted by the chief justice and attended by most associate justices. Tickets are strictly controlled. By establishing a close relationship with the society’s staff, I managed to secure seats each year for several of my donors, whom I would coach on how to connect with the justices attending the event. As a result, two of my most active participants, Don and Gayle Wright of Dayton, Ohio, ingratiated themselves with the Alitos, Scalias, and Thomases.
When I trained my donors to interact with conservative justices on the court, I told them to reinforce for their powerful new friends how important their decisions were to the country’s future, and how critical Judeo-Christian values are to America’s success. I encouraged them to underscore how millions of citizens thanked God for their presence on the top court.
In a notable instance, the Wrights were tipped off about a pending decision before it was announced to the public. As I later told the House Judiciary Committee, “Gayle relayed that she had learned the outcome of the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case while at the meal with the Alitos, that it was in Hobby Lobby’s favor, and that ‘Sam is writing it.’” The ruling would affirm that companies with religious objections were not required to provide contraceptive coverage in their health insurance packages. I also told the House committee that Gayle had shared the news with me and that I told the president of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green—his parents were donors to my organization—that they had won the case. The Green family found themselves in the enviable position of using the advance notice to prep their spokespeople so they could be ready at the microphone outside the court following Alito’s reading of the majority opinion. They could shape the public narrative, a distinct advantage over their opponents.
When word of our campaign eventually broke in the New York Times, Justice Alito responded, “I never detected any effort on the part of the Wrights to obtain confidential information or to influence anything that I did in either an official or private capacity, and I would have strongly objected if they had done so.” He added, “I have no knowledge of any project that they allegedly undertook for ‘Faith and Action.’” Gayle Wright denied obtaining or passing along any such information. Steve Green declined to comment to the Times, and his mother told the paper he hadn’t been notified in advance. Let’s just say this is not how I remember what had happened.
It took years for the scales to fall from my eyes. A major turning point occurred when I took a leave of absence from Faith and Action to pursue a late-in-life doctorate. Part of my research involved the German Christian movement of the 1930s, which supported the Nazi Party. One of the most respected Bible scholars of that period, Paul Althaus, declared Hitler’s ascent to the chancellorship to be a “gift and miracle from God.” I began to suspect that we evangelicals were similarly allowing our faith to be co-opted for political purposes. Devastating consequences seemed inevitable for evangelicalism and for our country.
These fears were reinforced when I attended a tribute banquet for Pat Robertson around 2010. Virtually every evangelical luminary was there. When Robertson introduced his guest of honor, Donald J. Trump, I was shocked. In Bible college, my preaching instructor had suggested that the New York playboy was a perfect illustration for what it meant to not live as a Christian. I asked a friend of Pat’s why Trump was there. They both were “members of the billionaires’ club,” he explained. “Besides, he may make a good president someday.” Trump worked the room, filled with the biggest names on the religious right, garnering hearty applause.
The article is long and can make you angry, but it gives you more insight into that influential movement. Know Thy Enemy.
The New York Times finally read the writing on the wall today and endorsed Kamala Harris for President. I’m using the Politico analysis rather than trying to get into the NYT again, so you can notice the subheading, which says a lot about Politoco as a source. “NYT endorses Harris as ‘the only choice’ for president. The editorial board has not backed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.” The analysis also says something about the New York Times.
The New York Times editorial board on Monday endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “the only patriotic choice for president” while painting a grim picture of a second term for former President Donald Trump.
Rather than praise for its preferred candidate, the board led its endorsement of Harris by listing off disqualifying arguments against Trump. “It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States,” the Times editorial board wrote.
“This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election,” the board, made up of 14 opinion journalists, wrote. “For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.”
The endorsement of Harris is unsurprising — the editorial board has not backed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 — though still important given the paper’s influence. In July, 10 days before President Joe Biden left the race (and after the board called on him to do so), the board published a five-part, scathing editorial against Trump that struck many of the same chords as Monday’s story.
Okay, enough of that. Trump has become utterly void of self-censoring, even when it’s something that would behoove him to hide. This is from MSNBC and Steven Benen. “On overtime pay, Trump slips up by accidentally telling the truth. Donald Trump admitted that he concocted a private-sector scheme to avoid paying his employees overtime compensation. So much for his “pro-worker” pitch.”
Five of the most interesting words in Donald Trump’s rhetorical repertoire are, “I shouldn’t say this, but…” While it’s obviously impossible to read the former president’s mind, whenever the Republican uses the phrase, it’s an apparent acknowledgement that he knows the rest of the sentence will be politically problematic, but he’s simply unable to help himself.
As his first year in the White House came to an end, for example, Trump declared, “I shouldn’t say this, but we essentially repealed Obamacare.” He was, of course, lying, but the comments served as a reminder of his anti-health care vision. About a year later, campaigning in Montana, the then-president publicly praised Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte for physically assaulting a journalist who asked a question the governor didn’t like.
“I shouldn’t say this [but] there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Trump said in reference to the violence.
Six years later, the Republican is still stumbling into inadvertent moments of candor. HuffPost reported:
Former president and current GOP nominee Donald Trump on Sunday admitted he ‘hated’ to pay his staff overtime and would instead replace them with other workers to avoid doing so. Trump’s confession came during a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, after promising to deliver ‘gigantic tax cuts’ via his pledge to end tax on tips, on overtime and on social security benefits for seniors.”
“I know a lot about overtime,” the Republican candidate boasted. “I hated to give overtime. I hated it. I’d get other people, I shouldn’t say this, but I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay.”
The public comments stood out for a few reasons.
Right off the bat, there are still some political observers who like to pretend that the former president is some kind of ally to working-class Americans. It’s against that backdrop that Trump thought it’d be a good idea to admit that he, as a boss, deliberately took steps to deny his own employees overtime compensation to which they were entitled.
Meanwhile, the DonOld Cult is up to more domestic terrorism. This is from Raw Story. “Trump-supporting Ohio businessman gets MAGA death threats for defending Haitian workers.” This analysis is by Brad Reed.
A Trump-supporting Ohio businessman is getting major blowback from fellow Trump supporters after he publicly defended the honor of the Haitian immigrants he has hired to work for him.
The New York Times reports that Jamie McGregor, a lifelong Republican who twice voted for former President Donald Trump and owner of the McGregor Metal manufacturing shop, has been hit with “death threats, a lockdown at his company and posters around town branding him a traitor” because he praised the Haitian immigrants who work at his company.
In fact, McGregor says the situation as gotten so scary that he’s arming both himself and his family members to defend against would-be MAGA assailants.
“I have struggled with the fact that now we’re going to have firearms in our house — like, what the hell?” he told the Times. “And now we’re taking classes, we’re going to shooting ranges, we’re being fitted for handguns.”
McGregor decided to hire newly arrived Haitian immigrants in recent years because he had trouble finding dependable workers, and he has praised them for having a strong work ethic that has benefitted his business.
McGregor’s home city of Springfield, Ohio has become the focus of MAGA anger in recent weeks after former President Donald Trump made false claims about Haitian immigrants there eating locals’ dogs and cats.
When confronted with evidence debunking this claim, Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have doubled down on attacking the Haitian immigrant community.
It’s beginning to feel like Lord of the Flies in Trumplandia. I wonder if said businessman will vote for Trump again? Has that book been banned yet in Florida?
Oh, and now we get to speak of The Purge. They filmed the TV series at the Abandoned Navy Base down the block from me, which was weird enough. I didn’t see the movie or the series, but I know enough of the franchise to recognize it in Donald’s speech. This is from Politico. “Trump says ‘violent day’ of policing will end crime. The remarks at a campaign rally Sunday did not amount to a policy proposal allowing police retaliation, the former president’s campaign said.” Adam Wren reports the story.
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for “one real rough, nasty” and “violent day” of police retaliation in order to eradicate crime “immediately.”
The remarks — delivered by Trump at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, just 36 days before the election — did not amount to a new policy proposal, according to a Trump campaign official.
Asked whether the former president’s idea amounted to a new proposal and how such an operation would work, a campaign official said Trump was “clearly just floating it in jest.”
“President Trump has always been the law and order President and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws,” Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, wrote in a statement to POLITICO. “Otherwise it’s all-out anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America, especially during her time as [California] Attorney General when she emboldened criminals.
The best analysis of what’s ahead and what’s happened is by Marcy at EmptyWheel. “As Kamala Harris Passes the Two-Thirds Mark, Trump Adopts Apocalyptic Language.”
Back on August 17, I laid out six things that could destabilize the race. We’ve gotten versions of four of those, though without yet serious impact on the race.
- There were no mass protests at the DNC. Neither, however, was there someone speaking for Palestinian people from the Convention podium.
- With the assassination last week of Hassan Nasrallah and Israel’s expanding operations against Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Yemen, we have seen unforeseen escalation in the Middle East. Joe Biden seems incapable of understanding that Bibi Netanyahu was never a good faith negotiator. On top of the instability this will bring (and the ongoing threat of Iranian violence targeted at Trump), I worry that Harris’ choice to prioritize Republican endorsements over Palestinian speakers could harm her in Michigan (as Elissa Slotkin issues warnings about Michigan).
- We did get a superseding indictment in Trump’s January 6 case (though without any new charges), but Trump succeded in delaying sentencing in his NY case. We may find out this week whether we’re going to get to see a redacted version of Jack Smith’s argument that Trump is not immune; indeed, given how Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a deadline for noon tomorrow, we may even see the argument itself this week. If we do, Trump’s attacks on Mike Pence will be at the center of the argument. Remember: Trump’s increasing fascistic language over the weekend has come after he got a first look at Smith’s argument, and his lawyers seem terrified of some of the claims made by witnesses that could get unsealed.
- Kamala Harris did have a historically successful debate, but it has done little more than bump polling, slightly. That said, her campaign continues to goad Trump to make him look weak, most recently in a national ad and plane advertisement at the Alabama-Georgia game yesterday. Whether or not Harris pushes him to accept a second debate, the continued goading seems to keep him unbalanced. In recent campaign appearances, Trump has denied he fell into her trap at the debate, directly addressed rally-goers who were leaving (denying they were leaving), and freaked out about a fly.
- Whatever the cause, Trump is increasingly unhinged in public appearances, though much of the press continues to sanewash his coverage. More and more, his rants adopt fascist language, such as yesterday when he either endorsed The Purge or Kristallnacht. Donald Trump looks weak and Donald Trump looks violent, but that is not yet a persistent news coverage theme (indeed, in his polling update, Nate Silver claims there’s nothing “like Joe Biden’s deteriorating public performances” that might be affecting the race in ways polling is not accounting for). If the press does begin to capture Trump’s weakness and violence, it may impact the race — but I’m not holding my breath.
- Trump’s right wing running mate has drummed up terrorist threats against his own constituents in Springfield, OH, and more recently drummed up threats against a beloved Pittsburgh restaurant (while trying to tamp them down). We have not yet gotten right wing violence, neither localized nor mass. But understand that the far right Christian nationalists that Trump has been cultivating, most notably with JD Vance’s appearance with Lance Wallnau, have been an absolutely central factor in past political violence, including January 6. When Donald Trump mobilizes Christian imagery, he does so not because he believes in any of it, but because he believes in power, and he knows he can get people who mistake him for the Messiah to go to war for him. (An Evangelicals for Harris group just rolled out an ad interspersing Billy Graham warnings of the anti-Christ with clips of Trump.) We have not yet seen political violence against marginalized groups, but Trump is doing everything that has fostered it in the past. Nevertheless, most horserace journalists are ignoring that, just like they and their colleagues dismissed the risk of political violence in advance of January 6.
In my earlier post, I said we should be unsurprised by a Black Swan event (I suggested all-out war was one possibility, and given the escalation in the Middle East, it remains one).
The floods caused by Helene could be another. Right wingers are already trying to ensure this works like Katrina did for George W Bush. And whatever else, the flooding disproportionately affected the rural areas that Trump needs to win North Carolina (though North Carolina voters can forego voter ID requirements under an emergency exception). That said, the Helene response may also highlight two things — FEMA and NOAA — that Project 2025 aims to defund. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s attempt to forgo federal help may provide a contrast that shows how Federal help can make a difference in a catastrophe. And a whole bunch of conservative people just got bowled over by the impact of climate change, hundreds of miles from the nearest coast. If the Feds can respond to the damage on I-40 like they did to the I-95 or the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster, it may convince people in North Carolina that the government can too do something good.
As for the flood, Biden promises the Federal Government will stay until the work is done. This is from USA. Today.”Biden on Helene disaster: ‘We’re not leaving until the job is done.'” Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy reports the story.
President Joe Biden assured communities reeling from Hurricane Helene that the “nation has your back,” and that help was on the way in a speech Monday from the White House.
“We’ll continue to serve resources including food, water, communications, and lifesaving equipment will be there,” Biden said. “I mean it − as long as it takes to finish this job.”
He also said he’s committed to travel later this week to affected communities.
“I’ve been told that it would be disruptive if I did it right now,” he said.
Authorities are dealing with the storm’s aftermath, which saw caused widespread devastation and power outages across the Southeast and killed at least 100. Biden, who said he’s been in touch with governors, mayors and local leaders, said 600 people were still unaccounted for.
I remember Hurricane Katrina all too well and while I loved spending time with Anderson Cooper et al, I’d rather no one have to live through that again. So, why don’t we keep going with renewable energy, develop a workable immigration plan, and continue to fund a government that works for the people? I’m tired of seeing billionaires and grifting politicians get the goodies.
Cheer up folks! Coach Tim debates J Dank Vance tomorrow night!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/09/30/mostly-monday-reads-the-final-meltdown/
#Repeat1968JohnBuss #DonaldSDankPennsylvaniaRally #HurricaneHelene #TheMediaAndTrump #TheMediaSUCKS #TheMediumIsTheMessage
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“The empathy just oozes from this one. Hurricane Helene was apparently wet.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Morning, Sky Dancers!
The signs of the results of lousy decision-making based on greed and mythology are everywhere. Hurricanes are no longer coastal phenomena but can make their way 300 miles inland and hold a Cat 2 status. You would think enough people in this country have critical thinking skills and conscience to vote the pols out who are doing this to us. It would help, of course, if the press were still on the side of democracy instead of creating clickbait to earn a buck for stockholders and top management. But, here we are deeper down the rat hole of “The Medium is the Message published in 1964.” McLuhan understood clickbait before just about anyone.
The title “The Medium Is the Massage” is a teaser—a way of getting attention. There’s a wonderful sign hanging in a Toronto junkyard which reads, ‘Help Beautify Junkyards. Throw Something Lovely Away Today.’ This is a very effective way of getting people to notice a lot of things. And so the title is intended to draw attention to the fact that a medium is not something neutral—it does something to people. It takes hold of them. It rubs them off, it massages them and bumps them around, chiropractically, as it were, and the general roughing up that any new society gets from a medium, especially a new medium, is what is intended in that title”
This is more true than ever. We have more than a few TV channels, newspapers, and radio to influence us these days. Most people treat their news and information more like boutique shopping, where they can find the look that suits them every time. Substack is one medium where I have seen public intellectuals. I feel comfortable reading a lot of people there, and I must admit that it’s because they are a lot like me. They write about things that bug them about the institutions and country that house them and likely educated them. However, they do bring reasoned thought and data with them. But anyway, enough of that rabbit hole. Let’s just say I’m not beyond shopping my own boutique. Also, the positive thing about the web is that you have access to authentic information and don’t have to spend days in dark, moldy library stacks to find it. The negative thing is that not all people want to be challenged. They want to feel good about what they already think is real.
Margaret Sullivan’s Substack–aptly called American Crisis–has this headline today. “The three phases of normalizing Trump’s attack on Harris in Wisconsin. The media did what it always does, and it’s not good enough.” Trump is so far off the sanity scale these days that it is indeed frightening.
- The use of neutral language. If you merely read about Donald Trump’s deeply offensive rally this weekend in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, you probably thought it was about immigration. And about Trump up to his usual tricks of disparaging his rivals.
Here the lead of the report from Axios, for example:
“Former President Trump, in a self-described ‘dark speech,’ told a rally in Wisconsin yesterday that his opponent, Vice President Harris, is “mentally impaired’ and “mentally disabled.’”
Axios, which favors bullet points and boldface help for the tuned-out, let us know “Why It Matters”: “Even for Trump, it was weird, nasty and nonsensical — when he needed to be swaying ‘national security moms’ and other undecideds.”
Or here’s the top paragraph of the Washington Post report: “Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump criticized Vice President Harris’s mental capacity Saturday, falsely claiming she was born ‘mentally impaired’ and comparing her actions to that of a ‘mentally disabled person.’ The remarks prompted criticism from advocates for people with disabilities.”
Here’s the Associated Press’s headline: “Trump lists his grievances in a Wisconsin speech intended to link Harris to illegal immigration.”
But if you watched the speech, or even snippets of it, you saw something quite different — an absolutely ugly and brutal attack on Kamala Harris, full of lies and racist misogyny. In case you missed it, watch a bit of it here.
Sullivan has written two more of them and a lot of examples to follow. Please go read it.
- The lack of substantial followup. Once the outrageous rally was over, and the stories with their neutral language written, the political media was ready — more than ready — to move on. The media does know how to follow up, as you may recall from, for instance, President Biden’s bad debate this summer. But in the case of Trump’s unhinged and ugly attack on Harris’s intelligence, the spot-news coverage was about it. I did not see countless outraged opinion pieces; I did not see days of stories examining every aspect of this. It was just, cover the speech and let’s get out of here.
- The pivot to safety. Like waves rushing to the shore, the media relentlessly returns to the familiar. The thinking seems to go something like this: Whew, that was a pretty crazy rally, but let’s leave that behind and get back to what we’re good at. When in doubt, cover the horserace. One thing I did see after Saturday’s rally were many, many, many stories about polls. A New York Times headline Sunday rendered it this way: “Harris and Trump are Neck and Neck in Michigan and Wisconsin, Polls Find.” And that’s about as horserace-oriented as it gets.
This New Yorker’s The Lede, published three days ago, has similar warnings. It’s written by Clare Malone. “Is There a Method to Donald Trump’s Madness? The former President’s appeal has always been his sui-generis persona and politics—take him as he is—but, this year, the campaign seems more devoted to fan service than anything else.” Why try to make sense out of acts stemming from severe Personality Disorders and likely advanced dementia? Are the lessons from Journalism school to just blandly report the unspeakable? Was there ever a method in madness?
Vance is now a historically unpopular Vice-Presidential nominee. Mainstream Republican contenders, such as Senator Marco Rubio or Governor Doug Burgum, might have appealed to the sort of Nikki Haley voters that can’t stand Trump. Rubio, who is Cuban American, might have been a good pick to attract Latino voters, who, polls showed, were less interested in voting Democratic this year. Instead, Trump’s selection of Vance and all that he brings with him emphasized a doubling-down on MAGA culture. It could end up being politically ill-advised, but it’s not without its logic. Trump’s team knows that America is a hyperpartisan country. Polls show that just four per cent of voters are undecided in this election, the smallest share of the electorate in any U.S. contest this century. For the Trump campaign, the theory goes: Why expend all your energy trying to convince people to vote for one of the most unpopular Presidents in American history? Work to amp up your base and find Trump fans who don’t usually vote and make sure they turn out on November 5th.
The Trump campaign calls these voters “low-propensity,” and they’re working to turn them out in swing states like Arizona, where a canvassing effort is being run by the conservative group Turning Point USA. An Elon Musk-backed PAC is doing the same in Nevada and Michigan. Some Republicans have expressed reservations about the strategy, but it’s not a new idea in Trumpworld. In 2016, when I was a reporter at FiveThirtyEight, I obtained a Trump campaign memo written during that year’s primaries that explained the unusual practice of targeting low-propensity voters. “Our candidate commands unheard amounts of earned media,” the memo read, calling the strategy “more akin to evangelization than persuasion.” The job, then, was to teach Trump fans how to become Trump voters. “These are people who may not know where to vote, whether or not they are eligible to participate, and what the hours are,” the memo read. “They may have to work on the actual election day and are unaware of early voting opportunities on Saturdays. Many of them may have simply never been asked for their vote.” Turning Point’s focus this year—one of its employees told Semafor—is on small groups of thirty thousand to forty thousand potential voters in swing states, a testament to the slim margins of 2024.
Trump’s appeal has always been his sui-generis persona and politics—take him as he is—but, this year, the campaign seems more devoted to fan service than anything else. Steven Cheung, Trump’s top spokesman, recently retweeted a three-minute tongue-in-cheek hard-rock music video titled “MAGA ENERGY,” which nicely captured the movement’s aesthetics. It features lyrics like “Our world is frightening / Globals want to burn it down,” images of American flags and Trump’s face overlaid on that of a lion, and a montage of the jiggling, mostly bare bottoms of women shooting automatic weapons. Trump, a marketer to his core, has also built a promotional flywheel that he hopes his voters will get stuck in: If you like Trump’s crazy persona, you might go to your first Trump rally. If you go to enough rallies, you might like Trump’s digital trading cards—collect enough and you’ll get a physical piece of the suit that he wore to his debate with Biden (really!). If you like the trading cards, maybe you’ll buy Melania’s new book (she stands by her nude photos). Somewhere in there, Trump and company are hoping their low-propensity supporters register to vote and do so early.
The purpose of Trump’s campaign is to bolster his ego and keep him out of jail. Then, he’ll likely be replaced either by death or the 25th Amendment, and Vance will put the entire 2025 plan into play. Because all the players will be set up in the Federal Government. Additionally, all the work of Pat Robertson and others from the Reagan administration to enslave us to White Christian Nationalism will come to fruition.
Yesterday, I read this article from Mother Jones where one of the so-called Christians in that movement finally realizes that what he was doing wasn’t very ‘Christ-like,’ has repented, and is now trying to reverse the hell they bring to the political system. The title is “Confessions of a (Former) Christian Nationalist. When religion is placed at the service of a political party, it corrupts both.” and it’s written by The Reverend Rob Schenck. Anyone who read the history of the Roman Empire and its use of Christianity to conquer Northern Europe should know this by now. The story on how they captured SCOTUS is even more interesting than the narrative on capturing members of Congress.
Federal judges and especially Supreme Court justices, unlike politicians, never need to shake hands across a rope line. Accessing their world required creativity. I found it through the little-known Supreme Court Historical Society. Founded by the late Chief Justice Warren Burger, the independent nonprofit holds an annual dinner hosted by the chief justice and attended by most associate justices. Tickets are strictly controlled. By establishing a close relationship with the society’s staff, I managed to secure seats each year for several of my donors, whom I would coach on how to connect with the justices attending the event. As a result, two of my most active participants, Don and Gayle Wright of Dayton, Ohio, ingratiated themselves with the Alitos, Scalias, and Thomases.
When I trained my donors to interact with conservative justices on the court, I told them to reinforce for their powerful new friends how important their decisions were to the country’s future, and how critical Judeo-Christian values are to America’s success. I encouraged them to underscore how millions of citizens thanked God for their presence on the top court.
In a notable instance, the Wrights were tipped off about a pending decision before it was announced to the public. As I later told the House Judiciary Committee, “Gayle relayed that she had learned the outcome of the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case while at the meal with the Alitos, that it was in Hobby Lobby’s favor, and that ‘Sam is writing it.’” The ruling would affirm that companies with religious objections were not required to provide contraceptive coverage in their health insurance packages. I also told the House committee that Gayle had shared the news with me and that I told the president of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green—his parents were donors to my organization—that they had won the case. The Green family found themselves in the enviable position of using the advance notice to prep their spokespeople so they could be ready at the microphone outside the court following Alito’s reading of the majority opinion. They could shape the public narrative, a distinct advantage over their opponents.
When word of our campaign eventually broke in the New York Times, Justice Alito responded, “I never detected any effort on the part of the Wrights to obtain confidential information or to influence anything that I did in either an official or private capacity, and I would have strongly objected if they had done so.” He added, “I have no knowledge of any project that they allegedly undertook for ‘Faith and Action.’” Gayle Wright denied obtaining or passing along any such information. Steve Green declined to comment to the Times, and his mother told the paper he hadn’t been notified in advance. Let’s just say this is not how I remember what had happened.
It took years for the scales to fall from my eyes. A major turning point occurred when I took a leave of absence from Faith and Action to pursue a late-in-life doctorate. Part of my research involved the German Christian movement of the 1930s, which supported the Nazi Party. One of the most respected Bible scholars of that period, Paul Althaus, declared Hitler’s ascent to the chancellorship to be a “gift and miracle from God.” I began to suspect that we evangelicals were similarly allowing our faith to be co-opted for political purposes. Devastating consequences seemed inevitable for evangelicalism and for our country.
These fears were reinforced when I attended a tribute banquet for Pat Robertson around 2010. Virtually every evangelical luminary was there. When Robertson introduced his guest of honor, Donald J. Trump, I was shocked. In Bible college, my preaching instructor had suggested that the New York playboy was a perfect illustration for what it meant to not live as a Christian. I asked a friend of Pat’s why Trump was there. They both were “members of the billionaires’ club,” he explained. “Besides, he may make a good president someday.” Trump worked the room, filled with the biggest names on the religious right, garnering hearty applause.
The article is long and can make you angry, but it gives you more insight into that influential movement. Know Thy Enemy.
The New York Times finally read the writing on the wall today and endorsed Kamala Harris for President. I’m using the Politico analysis rather than trying to get into the NYT again, so you can notice the subheading, which says a lot about Politoco as a source. “NYT endorses Harris as ‘the only choice’ for president. The editorial board has not backed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.” The analysis also says something about the New York Times.
The New York Times editorial board on Monday endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “the only patriotic choice for president” while painting a grim picture of a second term for former President Donald Trump.
Rather than praise for its preferred candidate, the board led its endorsement of Harris by listing off disqualifying arguments against Trump. “It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States,” the Times editorial board wrote.
“This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election,” the board, made up of 14 opinion journalists, wrote. “For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.”
The endorsement of Harris is unsurprising — the editorial board has not backed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 — though still important given the paper’s influence. In July, 10 days before President Joe Biden left the race (and after the board called on him to do so), the board published a five-part, scathing editorial against Trump that struck many of the same chords as Monday’s story.
Okay, enough of that. Trump has become utterly void of self-censoring, even when it’s something that would behoove him to hide. This is from MSNBC and Steven Benen. “On overtime pay, Trump slips up by accidentally telling the truth. Donald Trump admitted that he concocted a private-sector scheme to avoid paying his employees overtime compensation. So much for his “pro-worker” pitch.”
Five of the most interesting words in Donald Trump’s rhetorical repertoire are, “I shouldn’t say this, but…” While it’s obviously impossible to read the former president’s mind, whenever the Republican uses the phrase, it’s an apparent acknowledgement that he knows the rest of the sentence will be politically problematic, but he’s simply unable to help himself.
As his first year in the White House came to an end, for example, Trump declared, “I shouldn’t say this, but we essentially repealed Obamacare.” He was, of course, lying, but the comments served as a reminder of his anti-health care vision. About a year later, campaigning in Montana, the then-president publicly praised Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte for physically assaulting a journalist who asked a question the governor didn’t like.
“I shouldn’t say this [but] there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Trump said in reference to the violence.
Six years later, the Republican is still stumbling into inadvertent moments of candor. HuffPost reported:
Former president and current GOP nominee Donald Trump on Sunday admitted he ‘hated’ to pay his staff overtime and would instead replace them with other workers to avoid doing so. Trump’s confession came during a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, after promising to deliver ‘gigantic tax cuts’ via his pledge to end tax on tips, on overtime and on social security benefits for seniors.”
“I know a lot about overtime,” the Republican candidate boasted. “I hated to give overtime. I hated it. I’d get other people, I shouldn’t say this, but I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay.”
The public comments stood out for a few reasons.
Right off the bat, there are still some political observers who like to pretend that the former president is some kind of ally to working-class Americans. It’s against that backdrop that Trump thought it’d be a good idea to admit that he, as a boss, deliberately took steps to deny his own employees overtime compensation to which they were entitled.
Meanwhile, the DonOld Cult is up to more domestic terrorism. This is from Raw Story. “Trump-supporting Ohio businessman gets MAGA death threats for defending Haitian workers.” This analysis is by Brad Reed.
A Trump-supporting Ohio businessman is getting major blowback from fellow Trump supporters after he publicly defended the honor of the Haitian immigrants he has hired to work for him.
The New York Times reports that Jamie McGregor, a lifelong Republican who twice voted for former President Donald Trump and owner of the McGregor Metal manufacturing shop, has been hit with “death threats, a lockdown at his company and posters around town branding him a traitor” because he praised the Haitian immigrants who work at his company.
In fact, McGregor says the situation as gotten so scary that he’s arming both himself and his family members to defend against would-be MAGA assailants.
“I have struggled with the fact that now we’re going to have firearms in our house — like, what the hell?” he told the Times. “And now we’re taking classes, we’re going to shooting ranges, we’re being fitted for handguns.”
McGregor decided to hire newly arrived Haitian immigrants in recent years because he had trouble finding dependable workers, and he has praised them for having a strong work ethic that has benefitted his business.
McGregor’s home city of Springfield, Ohio has become the focus of MAGA anger in recent weeks after former President Donald Trump made false claims about Haitian immigrants there eating locals’ dogs and cats.
When confronted with evidence debunking this claim, Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have doubled down on attacking the Haitian immigrant community.
It’s beginning to feel like Lord of the Flies in Trumplandia. I wonder if said businessman will vote for Trump again? Has that book been banned yet in Florida?
Oh, and now we get to speak of The Purge. They filmed the TV series at the Abandoned Navy Base down the block from me, which was weird enough. I didn’t see the movie or the series, but I know enough of the franchise to recognize it in Donald’s speech. This is from Politico. “Trump says ‘violent day’ of policing will end crime. The remarks at a campaign rally Sunday did not amount to a policy proposal allowing police retaliation, the former president’s campaign said.” Adam Wren reports the story.
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for “one real rough, nasty” and “violent day” of police retaliation in order to eradicate crime “immediately.”
The remarks — delivered by Trump at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, just 36 days before the election — did not amount to a new policy proposal, according to a Trump campaign official.
Asked whether the former president’s idea amounted to a new proposal and how such an operation would work, a campaign official said Trump was “clearly just floating it in jest.”
“President Trump has always been the law and order President and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws,” Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, wrote in a statement to POLITICO. “Otherwise it’s all-out anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America, especially during her time as [California] Attorney General when she emboldened criminals.
The best analysis of what’s ahead and what’s happened is by Marcy at EmptyWheel. “As Kamala Harris Passes the Two-Thirds Mark, Trump Adopts Apocalyptic Language.”
Back on August 17, I laid out six things that could destabilize the race. We’ve gotten versions of four of those, though without yet serious impact on the race.
- There were no mass protests at the DNC. Neither, however, was there someone speaking for Palestinian people from the Convention podium.
- With the assassination last week of Hassan Nasrallah and Israel’s expanding operations against Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Yemen, we have seen unforeseen escalation in the Middle East. Joe Biden seems incapable of understanding that Bibi Netanyahu was never a good faith negotiator. On top of the instability this will bring (and the ongoing threat of Iranian violence targeted at Trump), I worry that Harris’ choice to prioritize Republican endorsements over Palestinian speakers could harm her in Michigan (as Elissa Slotkin issues warnings about Michigan).
- We did get a superseding indictment in Trump’s January 6 case (though without any new charges), but Trump succeded in delaying sentencing in his NY case. We may find out this week whether we’re going to get to see a redacted version of Jack Smith’s argument that Trump is not immune; indeed, given how Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a deadline for noon tomorrow, we may even see the argument itself this week. If we do, Trump’s attacks on Mike Pence will be at the center of the argument. Remember: Trump’s increasing fascistic language over the weekend has come after he got a first look at Smith’s argument, and his lawyers seem terrified of some of the claims made by witnesses that could get unsealed.
- Kamala Harris did have a historically successful debate, but it has done little more than bump polling, slightly. That said, her campaign continues to goad Trump to make him look weak, most recently in a national ad and plane advertisement at the Alabama-Georgia game yesterday. Whether or not Harris pushes him to accept a second debate, the continued goading seems to keep him unbalanced. In recent campaign appearances, Trump has denied he fell into her trap at the debate, directly addressed rally-goers who were leaving (denying they were leaving), and freaked out about a fly.
- Whatever the cause, Trump is increasingly unhinged in public appearances, though much of the press continues to sanewash his coverage. More and more, his rants adopt fascist language, such as yesterday when he either endorsed The Purge or Kristallnacht. Donald Trump looks weak and Donald Trump looks violent, but that is not yet a persistent news coverage theme (indeed, in his polling update, Nate Silver claims there’s nothing “like Joe Biden’s deteriorating public performances” that might be affecting the race in ways polling is not accounting for). If the press does begin to capture Trump’s weakness and violence, it may impact the race — but I’m not holding my breath.
- Trump’s right wing running mate has drummed up terrorist threats against his own constituents in Springfield, OH, and more recently drummed up threats against a beloved Pittsburgh restaurant (while trying to tamp them down). We have not yet gotten right wing violence, neither localized nor mass. But understand that the far right Christian nationalists that Trump has been cultivating, most notably with JD Vance’s appearance with Lance Wallnau, have been an absolutely central factor in past political violence, including January 6. When Donald Trump mobilizes Christian imagery, he does so not because he believes in any of it, but because he believes in power, and he knows he can get people who mistake him for the Messiah to go to war for him. (An Evangelicals for Harris group just rolled out an ad interspersing Billy Graham warnings of the anti-Christ with clips of Trump.) We have not yet seen political violence against marginalized groups, but Trump is doing everything that has fostered it in the past. Nevertheless, most horserace journalists are ignoring that, just like they and their colleagues dismissed the risk of political violence in advance of January 6.
In my earlier post, I said we should be unsurprised by a Black Swan event (I suggested all-out war was one possibility, and given the escalation in the Middle East, it remains one).
The floods caused by Helene could be another. Right wingers are already trying to ensure this works like Katrina did for George W Bush. And whatever else, the flooding disproportionately affected the rural areas that Trump needs to win North Carolina (though North Carolina voters can forego voter ID requirements under an emergency exception). That said, the Helene response may also highlight two things — FEMA and NOAA — that Project 2025 aims to defund. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s attempt to forgo federal help may provide a contrast that shows how Federal help can make a difference in a catastrophe. And a whole bunch of conservative people just got bowled over by the impact of climate change, hundreds of miles from the nearest coast. If the Feds can respond to the damage on I-40 like they did to the I-95 or the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster, it may convince people in North Carolina that the government can too do something good.
As for the flood, Biden promises the Federal Government will stay until the work is done. This is from USA. Today.”Biden on Helene disaster: ‘We’re not leaving until the job is done.'” Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy reports the story.
President Joe Biden assured communities reeling from Hurricane Helene that the “nation has your back,” and that help was on the way in a speech Monday from the White House.
“We’ll continue to serve resources including food, water, communications, and lifesaving equipment will be there,” Biden said. “I mean it − as long as it takes to finish this job.”
He also said he’s committed to travel later this week to affected communities.
“I’ve been told that it would be disruptive if I did it right now,” he said.
Authorities are dealing with the storm’s aftermath, which saw caused widespread devastation and power outages across the Southeast and killed at least 100. Biden, who said he’s been in touch with governors, mayors and local leaders, said 600 people were still unaccounted for.
I remember Hurricane Katrina all too well and while I loved spending time with Anderson Cooper et al, I’d rather no one have to live through that again. So, why don’t we keep going with renewable energy, develop a workable immigration plan, and continue to fund a government that works for the people? I’m tired of seeing billionaires and grifting politicians get the goodies.
Cheer up folks! Coach Tim debates J Dank Vance tomorrow night!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/09/30/mostly-monday-reads-the-final-meltdown/
#Repeat1968JohnBuss #DonaldSDankPennsylvaniaRally #HurricaneHelene #TheMediaAndTrump #TheMediaSUCKS #TheMediumIsTheMessage
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“The empathy just oozes from this one. Hurricane Helene was apparently wet.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Morning, Sky Dancers!
The signs of the results of lousy decision-making based on greed and mythology are everywhere. Hurricanes are no longer coastal phenomena but can make their way 300 miles inland and hold a Cat 2 status. You would think enough people in this country have critical thinking skills and conscience to vote the pols out who are doing this to us. It would help, of course, if the press were still on the side of democracy instead of creating clickbait to earn a buck for stockholders and top management. But, here we are deeper down the rat hole of “The Medium is the Message published in 1964.” McLuhan understood clickbait before just about anyone.
The title “The Medium Is the Massage” is a teaser—a way of getting attention. There’s a wonderful sign hanging in a Toronto junkyard which reads, ‘Help Beautify Junkyards. Throw Something Lovely Away Today.’ This is a very effective way of getting people to notice a lot of things. And so the title is intended to draw attention to the fact that a medium is not something neutral—it does something to people. It takes hold of them. It rubs them off, it massages them and bumps them around, chiropractically, as it were, and the general roughing up that any new society gets from a medium, especially a new medium, is what is intended in that title”
This is more true than ever. We have more than a few TV channels, newspapers, and radio to influence us these days. Most people treat their news and information more like boutique shopping, where they can find the look that suits them every time. Substack is one medium where I have seen public intellectuals. I feel comfortable reading a lot of people there, and I must admit that it’s because they are a lot like me. They write about things that bug them about the institutions and country that house them and likely educated them. However, they do bring reasoned thought and data with them. But anyway, enough of that rabbit hole. Let’s just say I’m not beyond shopping my own boutique. Also, the positive thing about the web is that you have access to authentic information and don’t have to spend days in dark, moldy library stacks to find it. The negative thing is that not all people want to be challenged. They want to feel good about what they already think is real.
Margaret Sullivan’s Substack–aptly called American Crisis–has this headline today. “The three phases of normalizing Trump’s attack on Harris in Wisconsin. The media did what it always does, and it’s not good enough.” Trump is so far off the sanity scale these days that it is indeed frightening.
- The use of neutral language. If you merely read about Donald Trump’s deeply offensive rally this weekend in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, you probably thought it was about immigration. And about Trump up to his usual tricks of disparaging his rivals.
Here the lead of the report from Axios, for example:
“Former President Trump, in a self-described ‘dark speech,’ told a rally in Wisconsin yesterday that his opponent, Vice President Harris, is “mentally impaired’ and “mentally disabled.’”
Axios, which favors bullet points and boldface help for the tuned-out, let us know “Why It Matters”: “Even for Trump, it was weird, nasty and nonsensical — when he needed to be swaying ‘national security moms’ and other undecideds.”
Or here’s the top paragraph of the Washington Post report: “Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump criticized Vice President Harris’s mental capacity Saturday, falsely claiming she was born ‘mentally impaired’ and comparing her actions to that of a ‘mentally disabled person.’ The remarks prompted criticism from advocates for people with disabilities.”
Here’s the Associated Press’s headline: “Trump lists his grievances in a Wisconsin speech intended to link Harris to illegal immigration.”
But if you watched the speech, or even snippets of it, you saw something quite different — an absolutely ugly and brutal attack on Kamala Harris, full of lies and racist misogyny. In case you missed it, watch a bit of it here.
Sullivan has written two more of them and a lot of examples to follow. Please go read it.
- The lack of substantial followup. Once the outrageous rally was over, and the stories with their neutral language written, the political media was ready — more than ready — to move on. The media does know how to follow up, as you may recall from, for instance, President Biden’s bad debate this summer. But in the case of Trump’s unhinged and ugly attack on Harris’s intelligence, the spot-news coverage was about it. I did not see countless outraged opinion pieces; I did not see days of stories examining every aspect of this. It was just, cover the speech and let’s get out of here.
- The pivot to safety. Like waves rushing to the shore, the media relentlessly returns to the familiar. The thinking seems to go something like this: Whew, that was a pretty crazy rally, but let’s leave that behind and get back to what we’re good at. When in doubt, cover the horserace. One thing I did see after Saturday’s rally were many, many, many stories about polls. A New York Times headline Sunday rendered it this way: “Harris and Trump are Neck and Neck in Michigan and Wisconsin, Polls Find.” And that’s about as horserace-oriented as it gets.
This New Yorker’s The Lede, published three days ago, has similar warnings. It’s written by Clare Malone. “Is There a Method to Donald Trump’s Madness? The former President’s appeal has always been his sui-generis persona and politics—take him as he is—but, this year, the campaign seems more devoted to fan service than anything else.” Why try to make sense out of acts stemming from severe Personality Disorders and likely advanced dementia? Are the lessons from Journalism school to just blandly report the unspeakable? Was there ever a method in madness?
Vance is now a historically unpopular Vice-Presidential nominee. Mainstream Republican contenders, such as Senator Marco Rubio or Governor Doug Burgum, might have appealed to the sort of Nikki Haley voters that can’t stand Trump. Rubio, who is Cuban American, might have been a good pick to attract Latino voters, who, polls showed, were less interested in voting Democratic this year. Instead, Trump’s selection of Vance and all that he brings with him emphasized a doubling-down on MAGA culture. It could end up being politically ill-advised, but it’s not without its logic. Trump’s team knows that America is a hyperpartisan country. Polls show that just four per cent of voters are undecided in this election, the smallest share of the electorate in any U.S. contest this century. For the Trump campaign, the theory goes: Why expend all your energy trying to convince people to vote for one of the most unpopular Presidents in American history? Work to amp up your base and find Trump fans who don’t usually vote and make sure they turn out on November 5th.
The Trump campaign calls these voters “low-propensity,” and they’re working to turn them out in swing states like Arizona, where a canvassing effort is being run by the conservative group Turning Point USA. An Elon Musk-backed PAC is doing the same in Nevada and Michigan. Some Republicans have expressed reservations about the strategy, but it’s not a new idea in Trumpworld. In 2016, when I was a reporter at FiveThirtyEight, I obtained a Trump campaign memo written during that year’s primaries that explained the unusual practice of targeting low-propensity voters. “Our candidate commands unheard amounts of earned media,” the memo read, calling the strategy “more akin to evangelization than persuasion.” The job, then, was to teach Trump fans how to become Trump voters. “These are people who may not know where to vote, whether or not they are eligible to participate, and what the hours are,” the memo read. “They may have to work on the actual election day and are unaware of early voting opportunities on Saturdays. Many of them may have simply never been asked for their vote.” Turning Point’s focus this year—one of its employees told Semafor—is on small groups of thirty thousand to forty thousand potential voters in swing states, a testament to the slim margins of 2024.
Trump’s appeal has always been his sui-generis persona and politics—take him as he is—but, this year, the campaign seems more devoted to fan service than anything else. Steven Cheung, Trump’s top spokesman, recently retweeted a three-minute tongue-in-cheek hard-rock music video titled “MAGA ENERGY,” which nicely captured the movement’s aesthetics. It features lyrics like “Our world is frightening / Globals want to burn it down,” images of American flags and Trump’s face overlaid on that of a lion, and a montage of the jiggling, mostly bare bottoms of women shooting automatic weapons. Trump, a marketer to his core, has also built a promotional flywheel that he hopes his voters will get stuck in: If you like Trump’s crazy persona, you might go to your first Trump rally. If you go to enough rallies, you might like Trump’s digital trading cards—collect enough and you’ll get a physical piece of the suit that he wore to his debate with Biden (really!). If you like the trading cards, maybe you’ll buy Melania’s new book (she stands by her nude photos). Somewhere in there, Trump and company are hoping their low-propensity supporters register to vote and do so early.
The purpose of Trump’s campaign is to bolster his ego and keep him out of jail. Then, he’ll likely be replaced either by death or the 25th Amendment, and Vance will put the entire 2025 plan into play. Because all the players will be set up in the Federal Government. Additionally, all the work of Pat Robertson and others from the Reagan administration to enslave us to White Christian Nationalism will come to fruition.
Yesterday, I read this article from Mother Jones where one of the so-called Christians in that movement finally realizes that what he was doing wasn’t very ‘Christ-like,’ has repented, and is now trying to reverse the hell they bring to the political system. The title is “Confessions of a (Former) Christian Nationalist. When religion is placed at the service of a political party, it corrupts both.” and it’s written by The Reverend Rob Schenck. Anyone who read the history of the Roman Empire and its use of Christianity to conquer Northern Europe should know this by now. The story on how they captured SCOTUS is even more interesting than the narrative on capturing members of Congress.
Federal judges and especially Supreme Court justices, unlike politicians, never need to shake hands across a rope line. Accessing their world required creativity. I found it through the little-known Supreme Court Historical Society. Founded by the late Chief Justice Warren Burger, the independent nonprofit holds an annual dinner hosted by the chief justice and attended by most associate justices. Tickets are strictly controlled. By establishing a close relationship with the society’s staff, I managed to secure seats each year for several of my donors, whom I would coach on how to connect with the justices attending the event. As a result, two of my most active participants, Don and Gayle Wright of Dayton, Ohio, ingratiated themselves with the Alitos, Scalias, and Thomases.
When I trained my donors to interact with conservative justices on the court, I told them to reinforce for their powerful new friends how important their decisions were to the country’s future, and how critical Judeo-Christian values are to America’s success. I encouraged them to underscore how millions of citizens thanked God for their presence on the top court.
In a notable instance, the Wrights were tipped off about a pending decision before it was announced to the public. As I later told the House Judiciary Committee, “Gayle relayed that she had learned the outcome of the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case while at the meal with the Alitos, that it was in Hobby Lobby’s favor, and that ‘Sam is writing it.’” The ruling would affirm that companies with religious objections were not required to provide contraceptive coverage in their health insurance packages. I also told the House committee that Gayle had shared the news with me and that I told the president of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green—his parents were donors to my organization—that they had won the case. The Green family found themselves in the enviable position of using the advance notice to prep their spokespeople so they could be ready at the microphone outside the court following Alito’s reading of the majority opinion. They could shape the public narrative, a distinct advantage over their opponents.
When word of our campaign eventually broke in the New York Times, Justice Alito responded, “I never detected any effort on the part of the Wrights to obtain confidential information or to influence anything that I did in either an official or private capacity, and I would have strongly objected if they had done so.” He added, “I have no knowledge of any project that they allegedly undertook for ‘Faith and Action.’” Gayle Wright denied obtaining or passing along any such information. Steve Green declined to comment to the Times, and his mother told the paper he hadn’t been notified in advance. Let’s just say this is not how I remember what had happened.
It took years for the scales to fall from my eyes. A major turning point occurred when I took a leave of absence from Faith and Action to pursue a late-in-life doctorate. Part of my research involved the German Christian movement of the 1930s, which supported the Nazi Party. One of the most respected Bible scholars of that period, Paul Althaus, declared Hitler’s ascent to the chancellorship to be a “gift and miracle from God.” I began to suspect that we evangelicals were similarly allowing our faith to be co-opted for political purposes. Devastating consequences seemed inevitable for evangelicalism and for our country.
These fears were reinforced when I attended a tribute banquet for Pat Robertson around 2010. Virtually every evangelical luminary was there. When Robertson introduced his guest of honor, Donald J. Trump, I was shocked. In Bible college, my preaching instructor had suggested that the New York playboy was a perfect illustration for what it meant to not live as a Christian. I asked a friend of Pat’s why Trump was there. They both were “members of the billionaires’ club,” he explained. “Besides, he may make a good president someday.” Trump worked the room, filled with the biggest names on the religious right, garnering hearty applause.
The article is long and can make you angry, but it gives you more insight into that influential movement. Know Thy Enemy.
The New York Times finally read the writing on the wall today and endorsed Kamala Harris for President. I’m using the Politico analysis rather than trying to get into the NYT again, so you can notice the subheading, which says a lot about Politoco as a source. “NYT endorses Harris as ‘the only choice’ for president. The editorial board has not backed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.” The analysis also says something about the New York Times.
The New York Times editorial board on Monday endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “the only patriotic choice for president” while painting a grim picture of a second term for former President Donald Trump.
Rather than praise for its preferred candidate, the board led its endorsement of Harris by listing off disqualifying arguments against Trump. “It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States,” the Times editorial board wrote.
“This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election,” the board, made up of 14 opinion journalists, wrote. “For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.”
The endorsement of Harris is unsurprising — the editorial board has not backed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 — though still important given the paper’s influence. In July, 10 days before President Joe Biden left the race (and after the board called on him to do so), the board published a five-part, scathing editorial against Trump that struck many of the same chords as Monday’s story.
Okay, enough of that. Trump has become utterly void of self-censoring, even when it’s something that would behoove him to hide. This is from MSNBC and Steven Benen. “On overtime pay, Trump slips up by accidentally telling the truth. Donald Trump admitted that he concocted a private-sector scheme to avoid paying his employees overtime compensation. So much for his “pro-worker” pitch.”
Five of the most interesting words in Donald Trump’s rhetorical repertoire are, “I shouldn’t say this, but…” While it’s obviously impossible to read the former president’s mind, whenever the Republican uses the phrase, it’s an apparent acknowledgement that he knows the rest of the sentence will be politically problematic, but he’s simply unable to help himself.
As his first year in the White House came to an end, for example, Trump declared, “I shouldn’t say this, but we essentially repealed Obamacare.” He was, of course, lying, but the comments served as a reminder of his anti-health care vision. About a year later, campaigning in Montana, the then-president publicly praised Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte for physically assaulting a journalist who asked a question the governor didn’t like.
“I shouldn’t say this [but] there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Trump said in reference to the violence.
Six years later, the Republican is still stumbling into inadvertent moments of candor. HuffPost reported:
Former president and current GOP nominee Donald Trump on Sunday admitted he ‘hated’ to pay his staff overtime and would instead replace them with other workers to avoid doing so. Trump’s confession came during a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, after promising to deliver ‘gigantic tax cuts’ via his pledge to end tax on tips, on overtime and on social security benefits for seniors.”
“I know a lot about overtime,” the Republican candidate boasted. “I hated to give overtime. I hated it. I’d get other people, I shouldn’t say this, but I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay.”
The public comments stood out for a few reasons.
Right off the bat, there are still some political observers who like to pretend that the former president is some kind of ally to working-class Americans. It’s against that backdrop that Trump thought it’d be a good idea to admit that he, as a boss, deliberately took steps to deny his own employees overtime compensation to which they were entitled.
Meanwhile, the DonOld Cult is up to more domestic terrorism. This is from Raw Story. “Trump-supporting Ohio businessman gets MAGA death threats for defending Haitian workers.” This analysis is by Brad Reed.
A Trump-supporting Ohio businessman is getting major blowback from fellow Trump supporters after he publicly defended the honor of the Haitian immigrants he has hired to work for him.
The New York Times reports that Jamie McGregor, a lifelong Republican who twice voted for former President Donald Trump and owner of the McGregor Metal manufacturing shop, has been hit with “death threats, a lockdown at his company and posters around town branding him a traitor” because he praised the Haitian immigrants who work at his company.
In fact, McGregor says the situation as gotten so scary that he’s arming both himself and his family members to defend against would-be MAGA assailants.
“I have struggled with the fact that now we’re going to have firearms in our house — like, what the hell?” he told the Times. “And now we’re taking classes, we’re going to shooting ranges, we’re being fitted for handguns.”
McGregor decided to hire newly arrived Haitian immigrants in recent years because he had trouble finding dependable workers, and he has praised them for having a strong work ethic that has benefitted his business.
McGregor’s home city of Springfield, Ohio has become the focus of MAGA anger in recent weeks after former President Donald Trump made false claims about Haitian immigrants there eating locals’ dogs and cats.
When confronted with evidence debunking this claim, Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have doubled down on attacking the Haitian immigrant community.
It’s beginning to feel like Lord of the Flies in Trumplandia. I wonder if said businessman will vote for Trump again? Has that book been banned yet in Florida?
Oh, and now we get to speak of The Purge. They filmed the TV series at the Abandoned Navy Base down the block from me, which was weird enough. I didn’t see the movie or the series, but I know enough of the franchise to recognize it in Donald’s speech. This is from Politico. “Trump says ‘violent day’ of policing will end crime. The remarks at a campaign rally Sunday did not amount to a policy proposal allowing police retaliation, the former president’s campaign said.” Adam Wren reports the story.
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for “one real rough, nasty” and “violent day” of police retaliation in order to eradicate crime “immediately.”
The remarks — delivered by Trump at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, just 36 days before the election — did not amount to a new policy proposal, according to a Trump campaign official.
Asked whether the former president’s idea amounted to a new proposal and how such an operation would work, a campaign official said Trump was “clearly just floating it in jest.”
“President Trump has always been the law and order President and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws,” Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, wrote in a statement to POLITICO. “Otherwise it’s all-out anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America, especially during her time as [California] Attorney General when she emboldened criminals.
The best analysis of what’s ahead and what’s happened is by Marcy at EmptyWheel. “As Kamala Harris Passes the Two-Thirds Mark, Trump Adopts Apocalyptic Language.”
Back on August 17, I laid out six things that could destabilize the race. We’ve gotten versions of four of those, though without yet serious impact on the race.
- There were no mass protests at the DNC. Neither, however, was there someone speaking for Palestinian people from the Convention podium.
- With the assassination last week of Hassan Nasrallah and Israel’s expanding operations against Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Yemen, we have seen unforeseen escalation in the Middle East. Joe Biden seems incapable of understanding that Bibi Netanyahu was never a good faith negotiator. On top of the instability this will bring (and the ongoing threat of Iranian violence targeted at Trump), I worry that Harris’ choice to prioritize Republican endorsements over Palestinian speakers could harm her in Michigan (as Elissa Slotkin issues warnings about Michigan).
- We did get a superseding indictment in Trump’s January 6 case (though without any new charges), but Trump succeded in delaying sentencing in his NY case. We may find out this week whether we’re going to get to see a redacted version of Jack Smith’s argument that Trump is not immune; indeed, given how Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a deadline for noon tomorrow, we may even see the argument itself this week. If we do, Trump’s attacks on Mike Pence will be at the center of the argument. Remember: Trump’s increasing fascistic language over the weekend has come after he got a first look at Smith’s argument, and his lawyers seem terrified of some of the claims made by witnesses that could get unsealed.
- Kamala Harris did have a historically successful debate, but it has done little more than bump polling, slightly. That said, her campaign continues to goad Trump to make him look weak, most recently in a national ad and plane advertisement at the Alabama-Georgia game yesterday. Whether or not Harris pushes him to accept a second debate, the continued goading seems to keep him unbalanced. In recent campaign appearances, Trump has denied he fell into her trap at the debate, directly addressed rally-goers who were leaving (denying they were leaving), and freaked out about a fly.
- Whatever the cause, Trump is increasingly unhinged in public appearances, though much of the press continues to sanewash his coverage. More and more, his rants adopt fascist language, such as yesterday when he either endorsed The Purge or Kristallnacht. Donald Trump looks weak and Donald Trump looks violent, but that is not yet a persistent news coverage theme (indeed, in his polling update, Nate Silver claims there’s nothing “like Joe Biden’s deteriorating public performances” that might be affecting the race in ways polling is not accounting for). If the press does begin to capture Trump’s weakness and violence, it may impact the race — but I’m not holding my breath.
- Trump’s right wing running mate has drummed up terrorist threats against his own constituents in Springfield, OH, and more recently drummed up threats against a beloved Pittsburgh restaurant (while trying to tamp them down). We have not yet gotten right wing violence, neither localized nor mass. But understand that the far right Christian nationalists that Trump has been cultivating, most notably with JD Vance’s appearance with Lance Wallnau, have been an absolutely central factor in past political violence, including January 6. When Donald Trump mobilizes Christian imagery, he does so not because he believes in any of it, but because he believes in power, and he knows he can get people who mistake him for the Messiah to go to war for him. (An Evangelicals for Harris group just rolled out an ad interspersing Billy Graham warnings of the anti-Christ with clips of Trump.) We have not yet seen political violence against marginalized groups, but Trump is doing everything that has fostered it in the past. Nevertheless, most horserace journalists are ignoring that, just like they and their colleagues dismissed the risk of political violence in advance of January 6.
In my earlier post, I said we should be unsurprised by a Black Swan event (I suggested all-out war was one possibility, and given the escalation in the Middle East, it remains one).
The floods caused by Helene could be another. Right wingers are already trying to ensure this works like Katrina did for George W Bush. And whatever else, the flooding disproportionately affected the rural areas that Trump needs to win North Carolina (though North Carolina voters can forego voter ID requirements under an emergency exception). That said, the Helene response may also highlight two things — FEMA and NOAA — that Project 2025 aims to defund. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s attempt to forgo federal help may provide a contrast that shows how Federal help can make a difference in a catastrophe. And a whole bunch of conservative people just got bowled over by the impact of climate change, hundreds of miles from the nearest coast. If the Feds can respond to the damage on I-40 like they did to the I-95 or the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster, it may convince people in North Carolina that the government can too do something good.
As for the flood, Biden promises the Federal Government will stay until the work is done. This is from USA. Today.”Biden on Helene disaster: ‘We’re not leaving until the job is done.'” Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy reports the story.
President Joe Biden assured communities reeling from Hurricane Helene that the “nation has your back,” and that help was on the way in a speech Monday from the White House.
“We’ll continue to serve resources including food, water, communications, and lifesaving equipment will be there,” Biden said. “I mean it − as long as it takes to finish this job.”
He also said he’s committed to travel later this week to affected communities.
“I’ve been told that it would be disruptive if I did it right now,” he said.
Authorities are dealing with the storm’s aftermath, which saw caused widespread devastation and power outages across the Southeast and killed at least 100. Biden, who said he’s been in touch with governors, mayors and local leaders, said 600 people were still unaccounted for.
I remember Hurricane Katrina all too well and while I loved spending time with Anderson Cooper et al, I’d rather no one have to live through that again. So, why don’t we keep going with renewable energy, develop a workable immigration plan, and continue to fund a government that works for the people? I’m tired of seeing billionaires and grifting politicians get the goodies.
Cheer up folks! Coach Tim debates J Dank Vance tomorrow night!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/09/30/mostly-monday-reads-the-final-meltdown/
#Repeat1968JohnBuss #DonaldSDankPennsylvaniaRally #HurricaneHelene #TheMediaAndTrump #TheMediaSUCKS #TheMediumIsTheMessage
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“The empathy just oozes from this one. Hurricane Helene was apparently wet.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Morning, Sky Dancers!
The signs of the results of lousy decision-making based on greed and mythology are everywhere. Hurricanes are no longer coastal phenomena but can make their way 300 miles inland and hold a Cat 2 status. You would think enough people in this country have critical thinking skills and conscience to vote the pols out who are doing this to us. It would help, of course, if the press were still on the side of democracy instead of creating clickbait to earn a buck for stockholders and top management. But, here we are deeper down the rat hole of “The Medium is the Message published in 1964.” McLuhan understood clickbait before just about anyone.
The title “The Medium Is the Massage” is a teaser—a way of getting attention. There’s a wonderful sign hanging in a Toronto junkyard which reads, ‘Help Beautify Junkyards. Throw Something Lovely Away Today.’ This is a very effective way of getting people to notice a lot of things. And so the title is intended to draw attention to the fact that a medium is not something neutral—it does something to people. It takes hold of them. It rubs them off, it massages them and bumps them around, chiropractically, as it were, and the general roughing up that any new society gets from a medium, especially a new medium, is what is intended in that title”
This is more true than ever. We have more than a few TV channels, newspapers, and radio to influence us these days. Most people treat their news and information more like boutique shopping, where they can find the look that suits them every time. Substack is one medium where I have seen public intellectuals. I feel comfortable reading a lot of people there, and I must admit that it’s because they are a lot like me. They write about things that bug them about the institutions and country that house them and likely educated them. However, they do bring reasoned thought and data with them. But anyway, enough of that rabbit hole. Let’s just say I’m not beyond shopping my own boutique. Also, the positive thing about the web is that you have access to authentic information and don’t have to spend days in dark, moldy library stacks to find it. The negative thing is that not all people want to be challenged. They want to feel good about what they already think is real.
Margaret Sullivan’s Substack–aptly called American Crisis–has this headline today. “The three phases of normalizing Trump’s attack on Harris in Wisconsin. The media did what it always does, and it’s not good enough.” Trump is so far off the sanity scale these days that it is indeed frightening.
- The use of neutral language. If you merely read about Donald Trump’s deeply offensive rally this weekend in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, you probably thought it was about immigration. And about Trump up to his usual tricks of disparaging his rivals.
Here the lead of the report from Axios, for example:
“Former President Trump, in a self-described ‘dark speech,’ told a rally in Wisconsin yesterday that his opponent, Vice President Harris, is “mentally impaired’ and “mentally disabled.’”
Axios, which favors bullet points and boldface help for the tuned-out, let us know “Why It Matters”: “Even for Trump, it was weird, nasty and nonsensical — when he needed to be swaying ‘national security moms’ and other undecideds.”
Or here’s the top paragraph of the Washington Post report: “Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump criticized Vice President Harris’s mental capacity Saturday, falsely claiming she was born ‘mentally impaired’ and comparing her actions to that of a ‘mentally disabled person.’ The remarks prompted criticism from advocates for people with disabilities.”
Here’s the Associated Press’s headline: “Trump lists his grievances in a Wisconsin speech intended to link Harris to illegal immigration.”
But if you watched the speech, or even snippets of it, you saw something quite different — an absolutely ugly and brutal attack on Kamala Harris, full of lies and racist misogyny. In case you missed it, watch a bit of it here.
Sullivan has written two more of them and a lot of examples to follow. Please go read it.
- The lack of substantial followup. Once the outrageous rally was over, and the stories with their neutral language written, the political media was ready — more than ready — to move on. The media does know how to follow up, as you may recall from, for instance, President Biden’s bad debate this summer. But in the case of Trump’s unhinged and ugly attack on Harris’s intelligence, the spot-news coverage was about it. I did not see countless outraged opinion pieces; I did not see days of stories examining every aspect of this. It was just, cover the speech and let’s get out of here.
- The pivot to safety. Like waves rushing to the shore, the media relentlessly returns to the familiar. The thinking seems to go something like this: Whew, that was a pretty crazy rally, but let’s leave that behind and get back to what we’re good at. When in doubt, cover the horserace. One thing I did see after Saturday’s rally were many, many, many stories about polls. A New York Times headline Sunday rendered it this way: “Harris and Trump are Neck and Neck in Michigan and Wisconsin, Polls Find.” And that’s about as horserace-oriented as it gets.
This New Yorker’s The Lede, published three days ago, has similar warnings. It’s written by Clare Malone. “Is There a Method to Donald Trump’s Madness? The former President’s appeal has always been his sui-generis persona and politics—take him as he is—but, this year, the campaign seems more devoted to fan service than anything else.” Why try to make sense out of acts stemming from severe Personality Disorders and likely advanced dementia? Are the lessons from Journalism school to just blandly report the unspeakable? Was there ever a method in madness?
Vance is now a historically unpopular Vice-Presidential nominee. Mainstream Republican contenders, such as Senator Marco Rubio or Governor Doug Burgum, might have appealed to the sort of Nikki Haley voters that can’t stand Trump. Rubio, who is Cuban American, might have been a good pick to attract Latino voters, who, polls showed, were less interested in voting Democratic this year. Instead, Trump’s selection of Vance and all that he brings with him emphasized a doubling-down on MAGA culture. It could end up being politically ill-advised, but it’s not without its logic. Trump’s team knows that America is a hyperpartisan country. Polls show that just four per cent of voters are undecided in this election, the smallest share of the electorate in any U.S. contest this century. For the Trump campaign, the theory goes: Why expend all your energy trying to convince people to vote for one of the most unpopular Presidents in American history? Work to amp up your base and find Trump fans who don’t usually vote and make sure they turn out on November 5th.
The Trump campaign calls these voters “low-propensity,” and they’re working to turn them out in swing states like Arizona, where a canvassing effort is being run by the conservative group Turning Point USA. An Elon Musk-backed PAC is doing the same in Nevada and Michigan. Some Republicans have expressed reservations about the strategy, but it’s not a new idea in Trumpworld. In 2016, when I was a reporter at FiveThirtyEight, I obtained a Trump campaign memo written during that year’s primaries that explained the unusual practice of targeting low-propensity voters. “Our candidate commands unheard amounts of earned media,” the memo read, calling the strategy “more akin to evangelization than persuasion.” The job, then, was to teach Trump fans how to become Trump voters. “These are people who may not know where to vote, whether or not they are eligible to participate, and what the hours are,” the memo read. “They may have to work on the actual election day and are unaware of early voting opportunities on Saturdays. Many of them may have simply never been asked for their vote.” Turning Point’s focus this year—one of its employees told Semafor—is on small groups of thirty thousand to forty thousand potential voters in swing states, a testament to the slim margins of 2024.
Trump’s appeal has always been his sui-generis persona and politics—take him as he is—but, this year, the campaign seems more devoted to fan service than anything else. Steven Cheung, Trump’s top spokesman, recently retweeted a three-minute tongue-in-cheek hard-rock music video titled “MAGA ENERGY,” which nicely captured the movement’s aesthetics. It features lyrics like “Our world is frightening / Globals want to burn it down,” images of American flags and Trump’s face overlaid on that of a lion, and a montage of the jiggling, mostly bare bottoms of women shooting automatic weapons. Trump, a marketer to his core, has also built a promotional flywheel that he hopes his voters will get stuck in: If you like Trump’s crazy persona, you might go to your first Trump rally. If you go to enough rallies, you might like Trump’s digital trading cards—collect enough and you’ll get a physical piece of the suit that he wore to his debate with Biden (really!). If you like the trading cards, maybe you’ll buy Melania’s new book (she stands by her nude photos). Somewhere in there, Trump and company are hoping their low-propensity supporters register to vote and do so early.
The purpose of Trump’s campaign is to bolster his ego and keep him out of jail. Then, he’ll likely be replaced either by death or the 25th Amendment, and Vance will put the entire 2025 plan into play. Because all the players will be set up in the Federal Government. Additionally, all the work of Pat Robertson and others from the Reagan administration to enslave us to White Christian Nationalism will come to fruition.
Yesterday, I read this article from Mother Jones where one of the so-called Christians in that movement finally realizes that what he was doing wasn’t very ‘Christ-like,’ has repented, and is now trying to reverse the hell they bring to the political system. The title is “Confessions of a (Former) Christian Nationalist. When religion is placed at the service of a political party, it corrupts both.” and it’s written by The Reverend Rob Schenck. Anyone who read the history of the Roman Empire and its use of Christianity to conquer Northern Europe should know this by now. The story on how they captured SCOTUS is even more interesting than the narrative on capturing members of Congress.
Federal judges and especially Supreme Court justices, unlike politicians, never need to shake hands across a rope line. Accessing their world required creativity. I found it through the little-known Supreme Court Historical Society. Founded by the late Chief Justice Warren Burger, the independent nonprofit holds an annual dinner hosted by the chief justice and attended by most associate justices. Tickets are strictly controlled. By establishing a close relationship with the society’s staff, I managed to secure seats each year for several of my donors, whom I would coach on how to connect with the justices attending the event. As a result, two of my most active participants, Don and Gayle Wright of Dayton, Ohio, ingratiated themselves with the Alitos, Scalias, and Thomases.
When I trained my donors to interact with conservative justices on the court, I told them to reinforce for their powerful new friends how important their decisions were to the country’s future, and how critical Judeo-Christian values are to America’s success. I encouraged them to underscore how millions of citizens thanked God for their presence on the top court.
In a notable instance, the Wrights were tipped off about a pending decision before it was announced to the public. As I later told the House Judiciary Committee, “Gayle relayed that she had learned the outcome of the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case while at the meal with the Alitos, that it was in Hobby Lobby’s favor, and that ‘Sam is writing it.’” The ruling would affirm that companies with religious objections were not required to provide contraceptive coverage in their health insurance packages. I also told the House committee that Gayle had shared the news with me and that I told the president of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green—his parents were donors to my organization—that they had won the case. The Green family found themselves in the enviable position of using the advance notice to prep their spokespeople so they could be ready at the microphone outside the court following Alito’s reading of the majority opinion. They could shape the public narrative, a distinct advantage over their opponents.
When word of our campaign eventually broke in the New York Times, Justice Alito responded, “I never detected any effort on the part of the Wrights to obtain confidential information or to influence anything that I did in either an official or private capacity, and I would have strongly objected if they had done so.” He added, “I have no knowledge of any project that they allegedly undertook for ‘Faith and Action.’” Gayle Wright denied obtaining or passing along any such information. Steve Green declined to comment to the Times, and his mother told the paper he hadn’t been notified in advance. Let’s just say this is not how I remember what had happened.
It took years for the scales to fall from my eyes. A major turning point occurred when I took a leave of absence from Faith and Action to pursue a late-in-life doctorate. Part of my research involved the German Christian movement of the 1930s, which supported the Nazi Party. One of the most respected Bible scholars of that period, Paul Althaus, declared Hitler’s ascent to the chancellorship to be a “gift and miracle from God.” I began to suspect that we evangelicals were similarly allowing our faith to be co-opted for political purposes. Devastating consequences seemed inevitable for evangelicalism and for our country.
These fears were reinforced when I attended a tribute banquet for Pat Robertson around 2010. Virtually every evangelical luminary was there. When Robertson introduced his guest of honor, Donald J. Trump, I was shocked. In Bible college, my preaching instructor had suggested that the New York playboy was a perfect illustration for what it meant to not live as a Christian. I asked a friend of Pat’s why Trump was there. They both were “members of the billionaires’ club,” he explained. “Besides, he may make a good president someday.” Trump worked the room, filled with the biggest names on the religious right, garnering hearty applause.
The article is long and can make you angry, but it gives you more insight into that influential movement. Know Thy Enemy.
The New York Times finally read the writing on the wall today and endorsed Kamala Harris for President. I’m using the Politico analysis rather than trying to get into the NYT again, so you can notice the subheading, which says a lot about Politoco as a source. “NYT endorses Harris as ‘the only choice’ for president. The editorial board has not backed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.” The analysis also says something about the New York Times.
The New York Times editorial board on Monday endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “the only patriotic choice for president” while painting a grim picture of a second term for former President Donald Trump.
Rather than praise for its preferred candidate, the board led its endorsement of Harris by listing off disqualifying arguments against Trump. “It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States,” the Times editorial board wrote.
“This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election,” the board, made up of 14 opinion journalists, wrote. “For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.”
The endorsement of Harris is unsurprising — the editorial board has not backed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 — though still important given the paper’s influence. In July, 10 days before President Joe Biden left the race (and after the board called on him to do so), the board published a five-part, scathing editorial against Trump that struck many of the same chords as Monday’s story.
Okay, enough of that. Trump has become utterly void of self-censoring, even when it’s something that would behoove him to hide. This is from MSNBC and Steven Benen. “On overtime pay, Trump slips up by accidentally telling the truth. Donald Trump admitted that he concocted a private-sector scheme to avoid paying his employees overtime compensation. So much for his “pro-worker” pitch.”
Five of the most interesting words in Donald Trump’s rhetorical repertoire are, “I shouldn’t say this, but…” While it’s obviously impossible to read the former president’s mind, whenever the Republican uses the phrase, it’s an apparent acknowledgement that he knows the rest of the sentence will be politically problematic, but he’s simply unable to help himself.
As his first year in the White House came to an end, for example, Trump declared, “I shouldn’t say this, but we essentially repealed Obamacare.” He was, of course, lying, but the comments served as a reminder of his anti-health care vision. About a year later, campaigning in Montana, the then-president publicly praised Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte for physically assaulting a journalist who asked a question the governor didn’t like.
“I shouldn’t say this [but] there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Trump said in reference to the violence.
Six years later, the Republican is still stumbling into inadvertent moments of candor. HuffPost reported:
Former president and current GOP nominee Donald Trump on Sunday admitted he ‘hated’ to pay his staff overtime and would instead replace them with other workers to avoid doing so. Trump’s confession came during a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, after promising to deliver ‘gigantic tax cuts’ via his pledge to end tax on tips, on overtime and on social security benefits for seniors.”
“I know a lot about overtime,” the Republican candidate boasted. “I hated to give overtime. I hated it. I’d get other people, I shouldn’t say this, but I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay.”
The public comments stood out for a few reasons.
Right off the bat, there are still some political observers who like to pretend that the former president is some kind of ally to working-class Americans. It’s against that backdrop that Trump thought it’d be a good idea to admit that he, as a boss, deliberately took steps to deny his own employees overtime compensation to which they were entitled.
Meanwhile, the DonOld Cult is up to more domestic terrorism. This is from Raw Story. “Trump-supporting Ohio businessman gets MAGA death threats for defending Haitian workers.” This analysis is by Brad Reed.
A Trump-supporting Ohio businessman is getting major blowback from fellow Trump supporters after he publicly defended the honor of the Haitian immigrants he has hired to work for him.
The New York Times reports that Jamie McGregor, a lifelong Republican who twice voted for former President Donald Trump and owner of the McGregor Metal manufacturing shop, has been hit with “death threats, a lockdown at his company and posters around town branding him a traitor” because he praised the Haitian immigrants who work at his company.
In fact, McGregor says the situation as gotten so scary that he’s arming both himself and his family members to defend against would-be MAGA assailants.
“I have struggled with the fact that now we’re going to have firearms in our house — like, what the hell?” he told the Times. “And now we’re taking classes, we’re going to shooting ranges, we’re being fitted for handguns.”
McGregor decided to hire newly arrived Haitian immigrants in recent years because he had trouble finding dependable workers, and he has praised them for having a strong work ethic that has benefitted his business.
McGregor’s home city of Springfield, Ohio has become the focus of MAGA anger in recent weeks after former President Donald Trump made false claims about Haitian immigrants there eating locals’ dogs and cats.
When confronted with evidence debunking this claim, Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have doubled down on attacking the Haitian immigrant community.
It’s beginning to feel like Lord of the Flies in Trumplandia. I wonder if said businessman will vote for Trump again? Has that book been banned yet in Florida?
Oh, and now we get to speak of The Purge. They filmed the TV series at the Abandoned Navy Base down the block from me, which was weird enough. I didn’t see the movie or the series, but I know enough of the franchise to recognize it in Donald’s speech. This is from Politico. “Trump says ‘violent day’ of policing will end crime. The remarks at a campaign rally Sunday did not amount to a policy proposal allowing police retaliation, the former president’s campaign said.” Adam Wren reports the story.
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for “one real rough, nasty” and “violent day” of police retaliation in order to eradicate crime “immediately.”
The remarks — delivered by Trump at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, just 36 days before the election — did not amount to a new policy proposal, according to a Trump campaign official.
Asked whether the former president’s idea amounted to a new proposal and how such an operation would work, a campaign official said Trump was “clearly just floating it in jest.”
“President Trump has always been the law and order President and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws,” Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, wrote in a statement to POLITICO. “Otherwise it’s all-out anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America, especially during her time as [California] Attorney General when she emboldened criminals.
The best analysis of what’s ahead and what’s happened is by Marcy at EmptyWheel. “As Kamala Harris Passes the Two-Thirds Mark, Trump Adopts Apocalyptic Language.”
Back on August 17, I laid out six things that could destabilize the race. We’ve gotten versions of four of those, though without yet serious impact on the race.
- There were no mass protests at the DNC. Neither, however, was there someone speaking for Palestinian people from the Convention podium.
- With the assassination last week of Hassan Nasrallah and Israel’s expanding operations against Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Yemen, we have seen unforeseen escalation in the Middle East. Joe Biden seems incapable of understanding that Bibi Netanyahu was never a good faith negotiator. On top of the instability this will bring (and the ongoing threat of Iranian violence targeted at Trump), I worry that Harris’ choice to prioritize Republican endorsements over Palestinian speakers could harm her in Michigan (as Elissa Slotkin issues warnings about Michigan).
- We did get a superseding indictment in Trump’s January 6 case (though without any new charges), but Trump succeded in delaying sentencing in his NY case. We may find out this week whether we’re going to get to see a redacted version of Jack Smith’s argument that Trump is not immune; indeed, given how Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a deadline for noon tomorrow, we may even see the argument itself this week. If we do, Trump’s attacks on Mike Pence will be at the center of the argument. Remember: Trump’s increasing fascistic language over the weekend has come after he got a first look at Smith’s argument, and his lawyers seem terrified of some of the claims made by witnesses that could get unsealed.
- Kamala Harris did have a historically successful debate, but it has done little more than bump polling, slightly. That said, her campaign continues to goad Trump to make him look weak, most recently in a national ad and plane advertisement at the Alabama-Georgia game yesterday. Whether or not Harris pushes him to accept a second debate, the continued goading seems to keep him unbalanced. In recent campaign appearances, Trump has denied he fell into her trap at the debate, directly addressed rally-goers who were leaving (denying they were leaving), and freaked out about a fly.
- Whatever the cause, Trump is increasingly unhinged in public appearances, though much of the press continues to sanewash his coverage. More and more, his rants adopt fascist language, such as yesterday when he either endorsed The Purge or Kristallnacht. Donald Trump looks weak and Donald Trump looks violent, but that is not yet a persistent news coverage theme (indeed, in his polling update, Nate Silver claims there’s nothing “like Joe Biden’s deteriorating public performances” that might be affecting the race in ways polling is not accounting for). If the press does begin to capture Trump’s weakness and violence, it may impact the race — but I’m not holding my breath.
- Trump’s right wing running mate has drummed up terrorist threats against his own constituents in Springfield, OH, and more recently drummed up threats against a beloved Pittsburgh restaurant (while trying to tamp them down). We have not yet gotten right wing violence, neither localized nor mass. But understand that the far right Christian nationalists that Trump has been cultivating, most notably with JD Vance’s appearance with Lance Wallnau, have been an absolutely central factor in past political violence, including January 6. When Donald Trump mobilizes Christian imagery, he does so not because he believes in any of it, but because he believes in power, and he knows he can get people who mistake him for the Messiah to go to war for him. (An Evangelicals for Harris group just rolled out an ad interspersing Billy Graham warnings of the anti-Christ with clips of Trump.) We have not yet seen political violence against marginalized groups, but Trump is doing everything that has fostered it in the past. Nevertheless, most horserace journalists are ignoring that, just like they and their colleagues dismissed the risk of political violence in advance of January 6.
In my earlier post, I said we should be unsurprised by a Black Swan event (I suggested all-out war was one possibility, and given the escalation in the Middle East, it remains one).
The floods caused by Helene could be another. Right wingers are already trying to ensure this works like Katrina did for George W Bush. And whatever else, the flooding disproportionately affected the rural areas that Trump needs to win North Carolina (though North Carolina voters can forego voter ID requirements under an emergency exception). That said, the Helene response may also highlight two things — FEMA and NOAA — that Project 2025 aims to defund. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s attempt to forgo federal help may provide a contrast that shows how Federal help can make a difference in a catastrophe. And a whole bunch of conservative people just got bowled over by the impact of climate change, hundreds of miles from the nearest coast. If the Feds can respond to the damage on I-40 like they did to the I-95 or the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster, it may convince people in North Carolina that the government can too do something good.
As for the flood, Biden promises the Federal Government will stay until the work is done. This is from USA. Today.”Biden on Helene disaster: ‘We’re not leaving until the job is done.'” Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy reports the story.
President Joe Biden assured communities reeling from Hurricane Helene that the “nation has your back,” and that help was on the way in a speech Monday from the White House.
“We’ll continue to serve resources including food, water, communications, and lifesaving equipment will be there,” Biden said. “I mean it − as long as it takes to finish this job.”
He also said he’s committed to travel later this week to affected communities.
“I’ve been told that it would be disruptive if I did it right now,” he said.
Authorities are dealing with the storm’s aftermath, which saw caused widespread devastation and power outages across the Southeast and killed at least 100. Biden, who said he’s been in touch with governors, mayors and local leaders, said 600 people were still unaccounted for.
I remember Hurricane Katrina all too well and while I loved spending time with Anderson Cooper et al, I’d rather no one have to live through that again. So, why don’t we keep going with renewable energy, develop a workable immigration plan, and continue to fund a government that works for the people? I’m tired of seeing billionaires and grifting politicians get the goodies.
Cheer up folks! Coach Tim debates J Dank Vance tomorrow night!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/09/30/mostly-monday-reads-the-final-meltdown/
#Repeat1968JohnBuss #DonaldSDankPennsylvaniaRally #HurricaneHelene #TheMediaAndTrump #TheMediaSUCKS #TheMediumIsTheMessage
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“The empathy just oozes from this one. Hurricane Helene was apparently wet.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Morning, Sky Dancers!
The signs of the results of lousy decision-making based on greed and mythology are everywhere. Hurricanes are no longer coastal phenomena but can make their way 300 miles inland and hold a Cat 2 status. You would think enough people in this country have critical thinking skills and conscience to vote the pols out who are doing this to us. It would help, of course, if the press were still on the side of democracy instead of creating clickbait to earn a buck for stockholders and top management. But, here we are deeper down the rat hole of “The Medium is the Message published in 1964.” McLuhan understood clickbait before just about anyone.
The title “The Medium Is the Massage” is a teaser—a way of getting attention. There’s a wonderful sign hanging in a Toronto junkyard which reads, ‘Help Beautify Junkyards. Throw Something Lovely Away Today.’ This is a very effective way of getting people to notice a lot of things. And so the title is intended to draw attention to the fact that a medium is not something neutral—it does something to people. It takes hold of them. It rubs them off, it massages them and bumps them around, chiropractically, as it were, and the general roughing up that any new society gets from a medium, especially a new medium, is what is intended in that title”
This is more true than ever. We have more than a few TV channels, newspapers, and radio to influence us these days. Most people treat their news and information more like boutique shopping, where they can find the look that suits them every time. Substack is one medium where I have seen public intellectuals. I feel comfortable reading a lot of people there, and I must admit that it’s because they are a lot like me. They write about things that bug them about the institutions and country that house them and likely educated them. However, they do bring reasoned thought and data with them. But anyway, enough of that rabbit hole. Let’s just say I’m not beyond shopping my own boutique. Also, the positive thing about the web is that you have access to authentic information and don’t have to spend days in dark, moldy library stacks to find it. The negative thing is that not all people want to be challenged. They want to feel good about what they already think is real.
Margaret Sullivan’s Substack–aptly called American Crisis–has this headline today. “The three phases of normalizing Trump’s attack on Harris in Wisconsin. The media did what it always does, and it’s not good enough.” Trump is so far off the sanity scale these days that it is indeed frightening.
- The use of neutral language. If you merely read about Donald Trump’s deeply offensive rally this weekend in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, you probably thought it was about immigration. And about Trump up to his usual tricks of disparaging his rivals.
Here the lead of the report from Axios, for example:
“Former President Trump, in a self-described ‘dark speech,’ told a rally in Wisconsin yesterday that his opponent, Vice President Harris, is “mentally impaired’ and “mentally disabled.’”
Axios, which favors bullet points and boldface help for the tuned-out, let us know “Why It Matters”: “Even for Trump, it was weird, nasty and nonsensical — when he needed to be swaying ‘national security moms’ and other undecideds.”
Or here’s the top paragraph of the Washington Post report: “Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump criticized Vice President Harris’s mental capacity Saturday, falsely claiming she was born ‘mentally impaired’ and comparing her actions to that of a ‘mentally disabled person.’ The remarks prompted criticism from advocates for people with disabilities.”
Here’s the Associated Press’s headline: “Trump lists his grievances in a Wisconsin speech intended to link Harris to illegal immigration.”
But if you watched the speech, or even snippets of it, you saw something quite different — an absolutely ugly and brutal attack on Kamala Harris, full of lies and racist misogyny. In case you missed it, watch a bit of it here.
Sullivan has written two more of them and a lot of examples to follow. Please go read it.
- The lack of substantial followup. Once the outrageous rally was over, and the stories with their neutral language written, the political media was ready — more than ready — to move on. The media does know how to follow up, as you may recall from, for instance, President Biden’s bad debate this summer. But in the case of Trump’s unhinged and ugly attack on Harris’s intelligence, the spot-news coverage was about it. I did not see countless outraged opinion pieces; I did not see days of stories examining every aspect of this. It was just, cover the speech and let’s get out of here.
- The pivot to safety. Like waves rushing to the shore, the media relentlessly returns to the familiar. The thinking seems to go something like this: Whew, that was a pretty crazy rally, but let’s leave that behind and get back to what we’re good at. When in doubt, cover the horserace. One thing I did see after Saturday’s rally were many, many, many stories about polls. A New York Times headline Sunday rendered it this way: “Harris and Trump are Neck and Neck in Michigan and Wisconsin, Polls Find.” And that’s about as horserace-oriented as it gets.
This New Yorker’s The Lede, published three days ago, has similar warnings. It’s written by Clare Malone. “Is There a Method to Donald Trump’s Madness? The former President’s appeal has always been his sui-generis persona and politics—take him as he is—but, this year, the campaign seems more devoted to fan service than anything else.” Why try to make sense out of acts stemming from severe Personality Disorders and likely advanced dementia? Are the lessons from Journalism school to just blandly report the unspeakable? Was there ever a method in madness?
Vance is now a historically unpopular Vice-Presidential nominee. Mainstream Republican contenders, such as Senator Marco Rubio or Governor Doug Burgum, might have appealed to the sort of Nikki Haley voters that can’t stand Trump. Rubio, who is Cuban American, might have been a good pick to attract Latino voters, who, polls showed, were less interested in voting Democratic this year. Instead, Trump’s selection of Vance and all that he brings with him emphasized a doubling-down on MAGA culture. It could end up being politically ill-advised, but it’s not without its logic. Trump’s team knows that America is a hyperpartisan country. Polls show that just four per cent of voters are undecided in this election, the smallest share of the electorate in any U.S. contest this century. For the Trump campaign, the theory goes: Why expend all your energy trying to convince people to vote for one of the most unpopular Presidents in American history? Work to amp up your base and find Trump fans who don’t usually vote and make sure they turn out on November 5th.
The Trump campaign calls these voters “low-propensity,” and they’re working to turn them out in swing states like Arizona, where a canvassing effort is being run by the conservative group Turning Point USA. An Elon Musk-backed PAC is doing the same in Nevada and Michigan. Some Republicans have expressed reservations about the strategy, but it’s not a new idea in Trumpworld. In 2016, when I was a reporter at FiveThirtyEight, I obtained a Trump campaign memo written during that year’s primaries that explained the unusual practice of targeting low-propensity voters. “Our candidate commands unheard amounts of earned media,” the memo read, calling the strategy “more akin to evangelization than persuasion.” The job, then, was to teach Trump fans how to become Trump voters. “These are people who may not know where to vote, whether or not they are eligible to participate, and what the hours are,” the memo read. “They may have to work on the actual election day and are unaware of early voting opportunities on Saturdays. Many of them may have simply never been asked for their vote.” Turning Point’s focus this year—one of its employees told Semafor—is on small groups of thirty thousand to forty thousand potential voters in swing states, a testament to the slim margins of 2024.
Trump’s appeal has always been his sui-generis persona and politics—take him as he is—but, this year, the campaign seems more devoted to fan service than anything else. Steven Cheung, Trump’s top spokesman, recently retweeted a three-minute tongue-in-cheek hard-rock music video titled “MAGA ENERGY,” which nicely captured the movement’s aesthetics. It features lyrics like “Our world is frightening / Globals want to burn it down,” images of American flags and Trump’s face overlaid on that of a lion, and a montage of the jiggling, mostly bare bottoms of women shooting automatic weapons. Trump, a marketer to his core, has also built a promotional flywheel that he hopes his voters will get stuck in: If you like Trump’s crazy persona, you might go to your first Trump rally. If you go to enough rallies, you might like Trump’s digital trading cards—collect enough and you’ll get a physical piece of the suit that he wore to his debate with Biden (really!). If you like the trading cards, maybe you’ll buy Melania’s new book (she stands by her nude photos). Somewhere in there, Trump and company are hoping their low-propensity supporters register to vote and do so early.
The purpose of Trump’s campaign is to bolster his ego and keep him out of jail. Then, he’ll likely be replaced either by death or the 25th Amendment, and Vance will put the entire 2025 plan into play. Because all the players will be set up in the Federal Government. Additionally, all the work of Pat Robertson and others from the Reagan administration to enslave us to White Christian Nationalism will come to fruition.
Yesterday, I read this article from Mother Jones where one of the so-called Christians in that movement finally realizes that what he was doing wasn’t very ‘Christ-like,’ has repented, and is now trying to reverse the hell they bring to the political system. The title is “Confessions of a (Former) Christian Nationalist. When religion is placed at the service of a political party, it corrupts both.” and it’s written by The Reverend Rob Schenck. Anyone who read the history of the Roman Empire and its use of Christianity to conquer Northern Europe should know this by now. The story on how they captured SCOTUS is even more interesting than the narrative on capturing members of Congress.
Federal judges and especially Supreme Court justices, unlike politicians, never need to shake hands across a rope line. Accessing their world required creativity. I found it through the little-known Supreme Court Historical Society. Founded by the late Chief Justice Warren Burger, the independent nonprofit holds an annual dinner hosted by the chief justice and attended by most associate justices. Tickets are strictly controlled. By establishing a close relationship with the society’s staff, I managed to secure seats each year for several of my donors, whom I would coach on how to connect with the justices attending the event. As a result, two of my most active participants, Don and Gayle Wright of Dayton, Ohio, ingratiated themselves with the Alitos, Scalias, and Thomases.
When I trained my donors to interact with conservative justices on the court, I told them to reinforce for their powerful new friends how important their decisions were to the country’s future, and how critical Judeo-Christian values are to America’s success. I encouraged them to underscore how millions of citizens thanked God for their presence on the top court.
In a notable instance, the Wrights were tipped off about a pending decision before it was announced to the public. As I later told the House Judiciary Committee, “Gayle relayed that she had learned the outcome of the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case while at the meal with the Alitos, that it was in Hobby Lobby’s favor, and that ‘Sam is writing it.’” The ruling would affirm that companies with religious objections were not required to provide contraceptive coverage in their health insurance packages. I also told the House committee that Gayle had shared the news with me and that I told the president of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green—his parents were donors to my organization—that they had won the case. The Green family found themselves in the enviable position of using the advance notice to prep their spokespeople so they could be ready at the microphone outside the court following Alito’s reading of the majority opinion. They could shape the public narrative, a distinct advantage over their opponents.
When word of our campaign eventually broke in the New York Times, Justice Alito responded, “I never detected any effort on the part of the Wrights to obtain confidential information or to influence anything that I did in either an official or private capacity, and I would have strongly objected if they had done so.” He added, “I have no knowledge of any project that they allegedly undertook for ‘Faith and Action.’” Gayle Wright denied obtaining or passing along any such information. Steve Green declined to comment to the Times, and his mother told the paper he hadn’t been notified in advance. Let’s just say this is not how I remember what had happened.
It took years for the scales to fall from my eyes. A major turning point occurred when I took a leave of absence from Faith and Action to pursue a late-in-life doctorate. Part of my research involved the German Christian movement of the 1930s, which supported the Nazi Party. One of the most respected Bible scholars of that period, Paul Althaus, declared Hitler’s ascent to the chancellorship to be a “gift and miracle from God.” I began to suspect that we evangelicals were similarly allowing our faith to be co-opted for political purposes. Devastating consequences seemed inevitable for evangelicalism and for our country.
These fears were reinforced when I attended a tribute banquet for Pat Robertson around 2010. Virtually every evangelical luminary was there. When Robertson introduced his guest of honor, Donald J. Trump, I was shocked. In Bible college, my preaching instructor had suggested that the New York playboy was a perfect illustration for what it meant to not live as a Christian. I asked a friend of Pat’s why Trump was there. They both were “members of the billionaires’ club,” he explained. “Besides, he may make a good president someday.” Trump worked the room, filled with the biggest names on the religious right, garnering hearty applause.
The article is long and can make you angry, but it gives you more insight into that influential movement. Know Thy Enemy.
The New York Times finally read the writing on the wall today and endorsed Kamala Harris for President. I’m using the Politico analysis rather than trying to get into the NYT again, so you can notice the subheading, which says a lot about Politoco as a source. “NYT endorses Harris as ‘the only choice’ for president. The editorial board has not backed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.” The analysis also says something about the New York Times.
The New York Times editorial board on Monday endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “the only patriotic choice for president” while painting a grim picture of a second term for former President Donald Trump.
Rather than praise for its preferred candidate, the board led its endorsement of Harris by listing off disqualifying arguments against Trump. “It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States,” the Times editorial board wrote.
“This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election,” the board, made up of 14 opinion journalists, wrote. “For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.”
The endorsement of Harris is unsurprising — the editorial board has not backed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 — though still important given the paper’s influence. In July, 10 days before President Joe Biden left the race (and after the board called on him to do so), the board published a five-part, scathing editorial against Trump that struck many of the same chords as Monday’s story.
Okay, enough of that. Trump has become utterly void of self-censoring, even when it’s something that would behoove him to hide. This is from MSNBC and Steven Benen. “On overtime pay, Trump slips up by accidentally telling the truth. Donald Trump admitted that he concocted a private-sector scheme to avoid paying his employees overtime compensation. So much for his “pro-worker” pitch.”
Five of the most interesting words in Donald Trump’s rhetorical repertoire are, “I shouldn’t say this, but…” While it’s obviously impossible to read the former president’s mind, whenever the Republican uses the phrase, it’s an apparent acknowledgement that he knows the rest of the sentence will be politically problematic, but he’s simply unable to help himself.
As his first year in the White House came to an end, for example, Trump declared, “I shouldn’t say this, but we essentially repealed Obamacare.” He was, of course, lying, but the comments served as a reminder of his anti-health care vision. About a year later, campaigning in Montana, the then-president publicly praised Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte for physically assaulting a journalist who asked a question the governor didn’t like.
“I shouldn’t say this [but] there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Trump said in reference to the violence.
Six years later, the Republican is still stumbling into inadvertent moments of candor. HuffPost reported:
Former president and current GOP nominee Donald Trump on Sunday admitted he ‘hated’ to pay his staff overtime and would instead replace them with other workers to avoid doing so. Trump’s confession came during a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, after promising to deliver ‘gigantic tax cuts’ via his pledge to end tax on tips, on overtime and on social security benefits for seniors.”
“I know a lot about overtime,” the Republican candidate boasted. “I hated to give overtime. I hated it. I’d get other people, I shouldn’t say this, but I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay.”
The public comments stood out for a few reasons.
Right off the bat, there are still some political observers who like to pretend that the former president is some kind of ally to working-class Americans. It’s against that backdrop that Trump thought it’d be a good idea to admit that he, as a boss, deliberately took steps to deny his own employees overtime compensation to which they were entitled.
Meanwhile, the DonOld Cult is up to more domestic terrorism. This is from Raw Story. “Trump-supporting Ohio businessman gets MAGA death threats for defending Haitian workers.” This analysis is by Brad Reed.
A Trump-supporting Ohio businessman is getting major blowback from fellow Trump supporters after he publicly defended the honor of the Haitian immigrants he has hired to work for him.
The New York Times reports that Jamie McGregor, a lifelong Republican who twice voted for former President Donald Trump and owner of the McGregor Metal manufacturing shop, has been hit with “death threats, a lockdown at his company and posters around town branding him a traitor” because he praised the Haitian immigrants who work at his company.
In fact, McGregor says the situation as gotten so scary that he’s arming both himself and his family members to defend against would-be MAGA assailants.
“I have struggled with the fact that now we’re going to have firearms in our house — like, what the hell?” he told the Times. “And now we’re taking classes, we’re going to shooting ranges, we’re being fitted for handguns.”
McGregor decided to hire newly arrived Haitian immigrants in recent years because he had trouble finding dependable workers, and he has praised them for having a strong work ethic that has benefitted his business.
McGregor’s home city of Springfield, Ohio has become the focus of MAGA anger in recent weeks after former President Donald Trump made false claims about Haitian immigrants there eating locals’ dogs and cats.
When confronted with evidence debunking this claim, Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have doubled down on attacking the Haitian immigrant community.
It’s beginning to feel like Lord of the Flies in Trumplandia. I wonder if said businessman will vote for Trump again? Has that book been banned yet in Florida?
Oh, and now we get to speak of The Purge. They filmed the TV series at the Abandoned Navy Base down the block from me, which was weird enough. I didn’t see the movie or the series, but I know enough of the franchise to recognize it in Donald’s speech. This is from Politico. “Trump says ‘violent day’ of policing will end crime. The remarks at a campaign rally Sunday did not amount to a policy proposal allowing police retaliation, the former president’s campaign said.” Adam Wren reports the story.
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for “one real rough, nasty” and “violent day” of police retaliation in order to eradicate crime “immediately.”
The remarks — delivered by Trump at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, just 36 days before the election — did not amount to a new policy proposal, according to a Trump campaign official.
Asked whether the former president’s idea amounted to a new proposal and how such an operation would work, a campaign official said Trump was “clearly just floating it in jest.”
“President Trump has always been the law and order President and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws,” Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, wrote in a statement to POLITICO. “Otherwise it’s all-out anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America, especially during her time as [California] Attorney General when she emboldened criminals.
The best analysis of what’s ahead and what’s happened is by Marcy at EmptyWheel. “As Kamala Harris Passes the Two-Thirds Mark, Trump Adopts Apocalyptic Language.”
Back on August 17, I laid out six things that could destabilize the race. We’ve gotten versions of four of those, though without yet serious impact on the race.
- There were no mass protests at the DNC. Neither, however, was there someone speaking for Palestinian people from the Convention podium.
- With the assassination last week of Hassan Nasrallah and Israel’s expanding operations against Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Yemen, we have seen unforeseen escalation in the Middle East. Joe Biden seems incapable of understanding that Bibi Netanyahu was never a good faith negotiator. On top of the instability this will bring (and the ongoing threat of Iranian violence targeted at Trump), I worry that Harris’ choice to prioritize Republican endorsements over Palestinian speakers could harm her in Michigan (as Elissa Slotkin issues warnings about Michigan).
- We did get a superseding indictment in Trump’s January 6 case (though without any new charges), but Trump succeded in delaying sentencing in his NY case. We may find out this week whether we’re going to get to see a redacted version of Jack Smith’s argument that Trump is not immune; indeed, given how Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a deadline for noon tomorrow, we may even see the argument itself this week. If we do, Trump’s attacks on Mike Pence will be at the center of the argument. Remember: Trump’s increasing fascistic language over the weekend has come after he got a first look at Smith’s argument, and his lawyers seem terrified of some of the claims made by witnesses that could get unsealed.
- Kamala Harris did have a historically successful debate, but it has done little more than bump polling, slightly. That said, her campaign continues to goad Trump to make him look weak, most recently in a national ad and plane advertisement at the Alabama-Georgia game yesterday. Whether or not Harris pushes him to accept a second debate, the continued goading seems to keep him unbalanced. In recent campaign appearances, Trump has denied he fell into her trap at the debate, directly addressed rally-goers who were leaving (denying they were leaving), and freaked out about a fly.
- Whatever the cause, Trump is increasingly unhinged in public appearances, though much of the press continues to sanewash his coverage. More and more, his rants adopt fascist language, such as yesterday when he either endorsed The Purge or Kristallnacht. Donald Trump looks weak and Donald Trump looks violent, but that is not yet a persistent news coverage theme (indeed, in his polling update, Nate Silver claims there’s nothing “like Joe Biden’s deteriorating public performances” that might be affecting the race in ways polling is not accounting for). If the press does begin to capture Trump’s weakness and violence, it may impact the race — but I’m not holding my breath.
- Trump’s right wing running mate has drummed up terrorist threats against his own constituents in Springfield, OH, and more recently drummed up threats against a beloved Pittsburgh restaurant (while trying to tamp them down). We have not yet gotten right wing violence, neither localized nor mass. But understand that the far right Christian nationalists that Trump has been cultivating, most notably with JD Vance’s appearance with Lance Wallnau, have been an absolutely central factor in past political violence, including January 6. When Donald Trump mobilizes Christian imagery, he does so not because he believes in any of it, but because he believes in power, and he knows he can get people who mistake him for the Messiah to go to war for him. (An Evangelicals for Harris group just rolled out an ad interspersing Billy Graham warnings of the anti-Christ with clips of Trump.) We have not yet seen political violence against marginalized groups, but Trump is doing everything that has fostered it in the past. Nevertheless, most horserace journalists are ignoring that, just like they and their colleagues dismissed the risk of political violence in advance of January 6.
In my earlier post, I said we should be unsurprised by a Black Swan event (I suggested all-out war was one possibility, and given the escalation in the Middle East, it remains one).
The floods caused by Helene could be another. Right wingers are already trying to ensure this works like Katrina did for George W Bush. And whatever else, the flooding disproportionately affected the rural areas that Trump needs to win North Carolina (though North Carolina voters can forego voter ID requirements under an emergency exception). That said, the Helene response may also highlight two things — FEMA and NOAA — that Project 2025 aims to defund. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s attempt to forgo federal help may provide a contrast that shows how Federal help can make a difference in a catastrophe. And a whole bunch of conservative people just got bowled over by the impact of climate change, hundreds of miles from the nearest coast. If the Feds can respond to the damage on I-40 like they did to the I-95 or the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster, it may convince people in North Carolina that the government can too do something good.
As for the flood, Biden promises the Federal Government will stay until the work is done. This is from USA. Today.”Biden on Helene disaster: ‘We’re not leaving until the job is done.'” Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy reports the story.
President Joe Biden assured communities reeling from Hurricane Helene that the “nation has your back,” and that help was on the way in a speech Monday from the White House.
“We’ll continue to serve resources including food, water, communications, and lifesaving equipment will be there,” Biden said. “I mean it − as long as it takes to finish this job.”
He also said he’s committed to travel later this week to affected communities.
“I’ve been told that it would be disruptive if I did it right now,” he said.
Authorities are dealing with the storm’s aftermath, which saw caused widespread devastation and power outages across the Southeast and killed at least 100. Biden, who said he’s been in touch with governors, mayors and local leaders, said 600 people were still unaccounted for.
I remember Hurricane Katrina all too well and while I loved spending time with Anderson Cooper et al, I’d rather no one have to live through that again. So, why don’t we keep going with renewable energy, develop a workable immigration plan, and continue to fund a government that works for the people? I’m tired of seeing billionaires and grifting politicians get the goodies.
Cheer up folks! Coach Tim debates J Dank Vance tomorrow night!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/09/30/mostly-monday-reads-the-final-meltdown/
#Repeat1968JohnBuss #DonaldSDankPennsylvaniaRally #HurricaneHelene #TheMediaAndTrump #TheMediaSUCKS #TheMediumIsTheMessage
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Google's proposed workaround for sideloading unverified apps requires 9 steps, a mandatory 24-hour waiting period, and is delivered through Google Play Services, not the Android OS. Google can modify or remove it at any time without user consent. It hasn't shipped in any beta. @keepandroidopen #KeepAndroidOpen https://keepandroidopen.org
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VIDEO – Lucca Comics 2025: le novità in casa Disney
#disney #fisbio - #afnewsinfo www.afnews.info segnala: Read More Vedilo su YouTube: Video da The Fisbio Show #luccacomics2025 #paninicomics #disney #pikappa Grandi novità in casa Disney nell'evento Panini Comics SPOILER ALERT in quel di Lucca, il ritorno di Fabio Celoni come autore completo e i festeggiamenti per tutto il 2026 per il 30simo anniversario di Pikappa! Inoltre alla Milan Games Week verrà presentato un…
https://www.afnews.info/w22/2025/11/05/video-lucca-comics-2025-le-novita-in-casa-disney/
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Weekend project: installing #GrapheneOS on a brand new refurbished 🤣 #Pixel8a
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Weekend project: installing #GrapheneOS on a brand new refurbished 🤣 #Pixel8a
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Weekend project: installing #GrapheneOS on a brand new refurbished 🤣 #Pixel8a
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Weekend project: installing #GrapheneOS on a brand new refurbished 🤣 #Pixel8a
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Robo Boxe
ROBOBOXE Notizia che ha ispirato la Vignetta QUA --------------------- #Moise #PaoloMoisello #Pubblicità #Fumetti #Vignette #Humor #Disegni #Marchi #Mascottes #Enigmistica #NarrazionePerImmagini
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Robo Boxe
ROBOBOXE Notizia che ha ispirato la Vignetta QUA --------------------- #Moise #PaoloMoisello #Pubblicità #Fumetti #Vignette #Humor #Disegni #Marchi #Mascottes #Enigmistica #NarrazionePerImmagini
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Robo Boxe
ROBOBOXE Notizia che ha ispirato la Vignetta QUA --------------------- #Moise #PaoloMoisello #Pubblicità #Fumetti #Vignette #Humor #Disegni #Marchi #Mascottes #Enigmistica #NarrazionePerImmagini
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Robo Boxe
ROBOBOXE Notizia che ha ispirato la Vignetta QUA --------------------- #Moise #PaoloMoisello #Pubblicità #Fumetti #Vignette #Humor #Disegni #Marchi #Mascottes #Enigmistica #NarrazionePerImmagini
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Mugugno MisoCatodico del Moise
Questa la capisce / Solo chi mi conosce! 🙂 ------------------ Visto il coacervo di belinate che, anche ad audio muto, sprizzano dal televisore... oggi ho pensato a questa vignettina semplicesemplice! ---------------- #Moise #PaoloMoisello #Pubblicità #Fumetti #Vignette #Humor #Disegni #Marchi #Mascottes #Enigmistica #NarrazionePerImmagini
https://www.afnews.info/w22/2025/05/21/mugugno-misocatodico-del-moise/
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Mugugno MisoCatodico del Moise
Questa la capisce / Solo chi mi conosce! 🙂 ------------------ Visto il coacervo di belinate che, anche ad audio muto, sprizzano dal televisore... oggi ho pensato a questa vignettina semplicesemplice! ---------------- #Moise #PaoloMoisello #Pubblicità #Fumetti #Vignette #Humor #Disegni #Marchi #Mascottes #Enigmistica #NarrazionePerImmagini
https://www.afnews.info/w22/2025/05/21/mugugno-misocatodico-del-moise/
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Mugugno MisoCatodico del Moise
Questa la capisce / Solo chi mi conosce! 🙂 ------------------ Visto il coacervo di belinate che, anche ad audio muto, sprizzano dal televisore... oggi ho pensato a questa vignettina semplicesemplice! ---------------- #Moise #PaoloMoisello #Pubblicità #Fumetti #Vignette #Humor #Disegni #Marchi #Mascottes #Enigmistica #NarrazionePerImmagini
https://www.afnews.info/w22/2025/05/21/mugugno-misocatodico-del-moise/
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Mugugno MisoCatodico del Moise
Questa la capisce / Solo chi mi conosce! 🙂 ------------------ Visto il coacervo di belinate che, anche ad audio muto, sprizzano dal televisore... oggi ho pensato a questa vignettina semplicesemplice! ---------------- #Moise #PaoloMoisello #Pubblicità #Fumetti #Vignette #Humor #Disegni #Marchi #Mascottes #Enigmistica #NarrazionePerImmagini
https://www.afnews.info/w22/2025/05/21/mugugno-misocatodico-del-moise/
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Harvard, cosa sta succedendo. La battaglia dell’università contro le intrusioni di Trump potrebbe ridefinire i confini della libertà accademica
www.afnews.info segnala #fascismi : Dopo le proteste contro la guerra a Gaza, il governo statunitense ha congelato 2,2 miliardi di dollari di fondi federali perché l'ateneo ha rifiutato di reprimere gli accampamenti studenteschi e abolire i programmi di diversità ... Leggi il resto su: Read More Wired Italia Quel…
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Una brutta storia contemporanea è in corso…
#fascismi - "Quando la folle ondata disumanizzante della variegata (e più o meno travestita) fascistizzazione globale avrà fatto il giro del mondo, per riavere Libertà, Uguaglianza, Solidarietà, Diritti e Valori Umani, sarete costretti di nuovo a (ri)scoprire l'Illuminismo e a usare le armi e le ghigliottine come con la Rivoluzione Francese? O volete reagire adesso, con decisione e forza, ma senza riempire le strade di…
https://www.afnews.info/w22/2025/04/07/una-brutta-storia-contemporanea-e-in-corso/
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Diversità, equità e inclusione, la battaglia delle aziende europee per resistere ai diktat di Trump
#fascismi - Trump ricatta l'Europa perché diventi disumana quanto lui - www.afnews.info segnala: Circola una mail con cui l'amministrazione Usa chiede alle imprese del Vecchio continente di invertire la rotta se vogliono continuare a fare affari con gli Stati Uniti. Un'ingerenza intollerabile, per alcuni: ma rifiutarsi non è semplice ... Leggi il resto su: Read More…