It’s not about LOGIC!

Posted on by Opher

That 47% MAGA don’t care!

They know he’s a lying conman, crook. They don’t care!

They know he’s lining his own pockets and parroting what they want to hear. They don’t care!

They know that he will do what they want – he will come down hard on immigrants, foreigners and act mean. They want nasty. They are full of hate and frustration and want to hit out.

They don’t care if he believes it; he just has to do it!

Trump is the product of their anger. They feel they are being side-lined in their own country. They want Trump to put them first!

Trump is not an instigator; he’s a product!

Posted on by Opher

The MAGA movement wasn’t started by Trump. The MAGA movement has always been there. They were looking for a Trump to coalesce around.

47% of the people are nasty fascist racist bastards looking for a leader who represents their views.

Trump was canny enough to see that, exploit it and set himself up as the champion of these people.

It’s exactly the same in the UK. These self-same nationalistic racists are searching for a leader. They are coalescing around Farage.

They don’t care about morality. They don’t care about truth. They don’t care about rational thinking. They just want to vent their spleen and have someone agree with their simplistic solutions. They want all the immigrants out. They want Britain and the USA to be white. They want all the ‘foreign’ religions, foods, dress and culture banned (apart from curries). They want Britain and the USA to rule the world and put everyone else in their place. They hark back to the days of empire when we were great.

It’s no use arguing with them. It’s no good pointing out that back in the wonderful days of empire, when we were raping the world, the wealth was funnelled back to that 1% and their ancestors lived in slums and worked like slaves.

It’s not about logic, truth or rational thought.

So when Trump and Farage talk about walls and expulsions and threaten ‘foreigners’ they speak for this 47%.

When Trump or Farage are rude and arrogant to foreigners they are behaving in exactly the way that that 47% want to behave.

When they are racist, misogynistic and belligerent they are mirroring the way that 47% think is the right way.

When they talk about putting Britain and the USA first and dumping foreigners they are speaking their language.

There is nothing intelligent, rational or practical about it. They don’t really care if it works. They just want it done.

They know it’s lies. They know Trump and Farage are crooks. They don’t care.

They want vengeance! They feel let down by the system, by politicians, by everything. They see their rosy-tinted view of their culture being trashed. The country is full of brown-skinned people with different ways. They feel threatened. They have retreated to a view of what constitutes their culture – white, Christian and superior. They think they have an innate superiority. They should be ruling the world.

Trump and Farage leapt on to this bandwagon, said the right things and will deliver. That’s enough. They don’t care if it works. They don’t care if they end up suffering. They just want it done.

They know Farage and Trump are insincere. They know they are paying lip-service to everything. They know they are lining their pockets. They don’t care! They are getting done what they want to get done! Trump and Farage will be nasty to immigrants and foreigners. They will take drastic action. They will put white Americans and British back where they belong.

It’s sad.

Trump and Farage did not start this. It’s been coming for sixty years and growing. 9/11 and Muslim militancy gave it legs. Mass immigration is fuelling it. Poverty and decades of being lied to has spurred it into action. The decline of manufacturing which provided their jobs and pride has focussed their discontent. Globalisation has frustrated them. They have been ignored, abandoned and feel worthless. They see immigrants and foreigners being privileged. They are frustrated and angry. They have lost faith in politicians, institutions, education, science and argument. They are turning to nationalism, conspiracy, superstition, religion and populists. They are deeply fascist, racist, misogynist and irrational – even if they wouldn’t all admit it.

Until politicians start addressing the underlying issues things are going to get worse. Trump and Farage might not be too bright but they are sharp enough to home in on this underlying anger and know how to stir it up into red-hot hate so they can exploit it.

We have to become much cleverer.

Trump and Farage are products of a groundswell of discontent. That 47% do not buy into a multicultural future of prosperity and shared values. They want to subjugate and rule!

What I don’t like about Trump

Posted on by Opher

I don’t like the way he is backing war-mongering despots like Putin, Kim Jung Un and Netanyahu.

I don’t like him backing genocide in Gaza

I don’t like him siding with Putin in Ukraine

I don’t like his rudeness

I don’t like the way he has turned on his allies and friends

I don’t like him locking up kids in cages

I don’t like his taking over of the court system and packing the supreme court with cronies

I don’t like his continual lying

I don’t like his ridiculous bragging

I don’t like his attack on education. I don’t like him controlling the curriculum and sacking people with opposing views. Smacks of indoctrination.

I don’t like his release and support of rioters, violent insurrectionists and thugs who attacked the police and were looking to lynch politicians

I don’t like his sexual activities – raping and abusing women, talking about them in a derogatory way and associating with known paedophiles and child abusers like Epstein, Maxwell, Diddy and others.

I don’t like his blatant business scams preying on the poor

I don’t like his association with billionaires

I don’t like his nepotism and cronyism

I don’t like his attack on the poorest and weakest – lowering welfare and medicaid to give to the wealthy

I don’t like his blatant tax evasion

I don’t like his attack on the UN and NATO

I don’t like his war on woke

I don’t like his simplistic and stupid applying of tariffs on friends, disruption of world trade and betrayal of friends

I don’t like his attitude towards Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal

I don’t like his chaotic stupidity

I don’t like his acceptance of conspiracy theories – like covid vaccination and global warming

I don’t like his wanton destruction of the environment

I don’t like his alliance with extreme right wing and white supremacy groups and neo-nazis – like The Proud Boys

I don’t like his acts of vengeance against anybody who opposes him

I don’t like his bullying

I don’t like his incitement to violence at his rallies

I don’t like his crude and crass ridiculing of the handicapped or oponents

I don’t like his scapegoating

I don’t like his scapegoating of immigrants and the poor

I don’t like his intolerance towards anybody different – transgender, homosexuals, races, religions

I don’t like his phony religious posturing

I don’t like the way he is taking over the democratic system – replacing unbiased officials with his henchmen – looking at the voting mechanisms and machines – making it harder and harder for the opposition to register and vote – removing voting sites – making it illegal to give out water – requiring passports – removing postal votes. Smacks of tyranny.

I don’t like he is stirring up division and hate and dividing the country

I don’t like his posturing and bullying of friends and allies

I don’t like him voting with Putin in the UN and opposing allies

I don’t like him bullying and trying to fleece friends

I don’t like the way he and his family lie, scheme and use his office to make money

I don’t like the way he slimes his opponents with rude and derogatory terms, unfounded lies and crude slanders

I don’t like his hypocrisy

I don’t like the way he treats the media and reporters

I don’t like the way he blames Zelenskyy for the Russian invasion of his country

I don’t like the way he supports Netanyahu starving and bombing women and children in GAZA

I don’t like the way he is stuffing his pockets while talking of draining swamps

I don’t like the way he has created a mindless cult

I don’t like the way he set up and turned on Zelenskyy

I don’t like the way he is insinuating incompetent supporters into major positions instead of competent people

I don’t like the way he is banning books and trying to control minds

I don’t like the way he is crushing opposition and controlling courts and media

I don’t like the way he stole boxes of secret documents to sell or show off with or use for blackmail

I don’t like the way he hits out in anger like a spoilt kid every time he is opposed

I don’t like his unreliability, instability, vacillations and chaotic incompetence

I don’t like his brand of fascism

I don’t like the way he refused to transfer power, sulked like a teenager, snubbed other presidents and then, despite all evidence to the contrary, insisted the election was stolen (and still does)

I don’t like the way he tried to overturn the legal result, threaten officials and attempted to steal the election

I don’t like the way he put trillions on the debt and mismanaged the economy

I don’t like the way he orchestrated an attack on the Capitol

I don’t like the way he lied about using the fascist Project 2025 as his blueprint

I don’t like the way his narcissism dominates

I don’t like his lack of empathy and compassion

I think he is a psychopath who enjoys hurting anyone who opposes him

I don’t like the way he incites violent vengeance on others and creates a climate of hate and fear

I don’t like the way he spends huge amount of time, at massive expense, on his golf courses

I don’t like the way he shows off and has to be the centre of attention

I don’t like the way he uses executive orders to circumvent democratic process

I don’t like the way he escaped being locked up for his many crimes

I don’t like the way he is associated with the mafia, paedophiles and Russian state control

I don’t like the way his Russian business connections have been influencing his policies

I don’t like the way he has allowed Russians to interfere with American elections

I don’t like the way his lying bragging

I don’t like the way he used Covid for his own ends (to deliberately spread conspiracy while himself being vaccinated) and allowed a million to die in order to promote himself

I don’t like the way he treats neighbours Canada and Mexico with threats and snide remarks, false claims and blatant lies

I don’t like the way he is threatening national parks and taking away all environmental protection to give free rein to polluting industries, oil and gas

I don’t like the way he is starting a trade war with China

I don’t like the way he is posturing and threatening other countries like Iran

I think the man is a narcissistic, psychopathic, posturing bully, who likes getting his own way, is a spoilt brat, none too bright sexual predator and failed businessman, a conman and criminal, and a loathsome individual with racist and misogynistic tendencies – a complete Nazi conspiracy throwing, repugnant orange slug whose understanding of science could be written on a piece of confetti.

Apart from that I reckon we’d get along great!

Trump – Andrew Coyne of the Toronto Globe and Mail

Posted on by Opher

I don’t think any US journalist has written as tough (and spot-on) a portrayal of the threat facing us as this Canadian, Andrew Coyne of the Toronto Globe and Mail.

“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fueled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”

I read this in Qora and thought it said everything. Worrying times. These fascists are taking over the machinery – the courts, civil service and voting. It is a daylight robbery condoned by half the US electorate. Democracy and justice are being systematically dismantled and it takes a Canadian journalist to point it out.

MAGA

Posted on by Opher

Do Trump and his MAGA followers suffer from antisocial personality disorder??

Posted on by Opher

To be diagnosed with an antisocial personality disorder, people must attain self-esteem from power, personal gain, or pleasure, be self-centered, and set goals based on personal gratification with little regard to law or ethics.

Sums it up for me!

High Tax is Better!!

Posted on by Opher

I look to the high tax Scandinavian countries and see that they have a far higher standard of living and better quality of life.

I don’t mind paying taxes if they are well spent on the right things.

I want transparency and accountability!

I find it utterly immoral to have a rich country with so many poor desperate people without proper healthcare!

I find it immoral to have billionaire (and Presidents) avoiding paying tax.

I find a high level of inequality completely immoral.

I want the environment and peoples’ welfare properly dealt with.

I greatly value education, science and nature!!

So FUCK TRUMP, MAGA, REFORM and the TORIES!!!

Is MAGA cruelty actually a psychological disorder?

Posted on by Opher

Fortunately I’m not American so I am a little removed from the mayhem and hatred. That maybe provides me with a little objectivity.

I am astounded by a number of things that the MAGA republicans are doing that seem remarkably cruel and callous to me:

Cutting off aid to the extremely needy people in the Third World. A decision that will not save a lot of money but which will cause immense suffering, starvation and death.

The cutting off of medicare for the poor. Throwing the poorest under the bus unable to get vaccinations or even basic medical care.

The reducing of welfare for the poorest people (while giving huge tax relief to the wealthy).

The deportation of people who have lived their entire life in America to countries they have never known, to violence, torture and death.

MAGA mentality is extreme and seems entirely lacking in compassion and empathy. They heartlessly blame the poor for being poor and treat immigrants with disgust. They don’t care what happens to these people. It’s as if they are vermin and should be eradicated. They are no longer real people. Their suffering is of no consequence!

Put America first! Nobody else matters!

There does seem to be a strong racist element to it. The ‘We Shall Not Be Replaced’ white supremacy movement is big in the thinking.

There are obvious fascist parallels with Nazi Germany – scapegoating immigrants, Muslims and Jews.

We are all familiar with the psychological profile of Trump who seems to be very much a stereotype of a narcissistic sociopath with psychopathic tendencies.

(Sociopathy – Some people may use the term sociopath to describe what a mental health professional would diagnose as antisocial personality disorder. Symptoms may include disregard for others, a lack of empathy, and dishonest behaviour.)

(Psychopathy, or psychopathic personality,[1] is a personality construct[2][3] characterized by impaired empathy and remorse, along with bold, disinhibited, and egocentric traits. These traits are often masked by superficial charm and immunity to stress,[4] which create an outward appearance of apparent normalcy)

(Narcissism – selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, as characterizing a personality type.)

The key word in this is empathy – a human trait leading to compassion, a basic human trait that is the basis of most positive relationships and civilisation.

It appears to be a key factor missing from most MAGA individuals. Musk is another who fits the profile. Vance is another.

They simply do not seem to care at all about anybody – particularly people who oppose them. Indeed, they actively seem to enjoy inflicting pain on these people. That’s Psychopathy!

The weird thing is that the evangelical movement have got right behind this heartlessness. They selectively use scripture to support their own support for policies that seem completely at odds with the teachings of Jesus. But they justify it. It’s a weird double-think.

The other weird thing is that the MAGA policies of giving to the rich and taking from the poor hit the very people who avidly support them. By stoking up the fear of immigrants they have successfully distracted from what is actually going on. Far from draining swamps they are supporting a confederacy of billionaires!

The psychology of this phenomena is interesting. Is there a mass psychology at work? Does Sociopathy breed sociopathy? Can psychopathy breed psychopathy?

Big Brother Loves You!

Posted on by Opher

Evil is incremental

Posted on by Opher

Evil is incremental

Evil comes in increments

                Hate arrives step by step.

It never sleeps

Empathy is narcotised

                Compassion slowly dies

Sanity weeps.

Yes.

Evil comes in increments

                Hate arrives step by step.

It never sleeps

Opher – 7.4.2025

I watched this after seeing Simon Sharma in programme on the holocaust interviewing a survivor of the concentration camps. The survivor said it wasn’t the Germans. It could have happened anywhere. The hate doesn’t happen all at once; evil comes step by step.

The comparison with what is happening in the USA at the moment was salutary to me. I see MAGA taking exactly the same route, the hate, the racial purity, the scapegoating. Step by step. ICE and concentration camps. Blame, stereotyping and hate. Step by step.

The Nazification of the USA is proceeding. Project 2025 is its model.

Yesterday was chilling. To see Trump sitting in the White House with the war criminal Netanyahu who he should be arresting for war crimes instead of cosying up to. He was sanctioning genocide!

Is this was the USA has descended to? How much worse does it get?