The Year of Living Dangerously in the U.S.A.

It feels exceedingly strange to find myself alive at a time when the American experiment in democracy could come to a sudden end. So sudden that it even has a sell-by date: Tuesday, November 5, 2024. If Joseph R. Biden doesn’t get reelected by a substantial majority — or, even worse, if he loses to Donald Trump — this country will devolve almost immediately into a theocracy.

No hypothetical here; the planning for the immediate Christofascist takeover of the United States proceeds apace even as I write this. Thanks to the rogue Supreme Court, among other forces, they already have many of the necessary pieces in place. The speed at which it happens — if it does — will take your breath away.

Here’s an excellent summary of “Project 2025,” a/k/a “Agenda 47″— “Behind the Curtain: Trump allies pre-screen loyalists for unprecedented power grab,” by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, published at Axios on November 13, 2023. You’ll find multiple relevant links in that article and this one: “It’s Project 2025, Stupid,” by Mikey Weinstein, Daily Kos, April 10, 2024.

And here is the pro-Trump messaging we’re up against, courtesy of Larry Kudlow et al, as broadcast on the failing Truth Social: “Trump’s Virtues,” recited by far-right financier Thomas Klingenstein in a manner that makes him the geriatric-male counterpart to Ms. Katie Britt. (See below.)

You have to watch it to believe it. But you don’t have to sit through all eight minutes of it. (I didn’t.) Any two minutes of it tells you all you need to know.

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POTUS and His SOTU

This year’s first notable image shift in the presidential campaigns took place on the evening of March 7, when President Biden delivered his 2024 State of the Union address. Biden came into the House chamber of the Capitol needing to put to rest the portrayal of him as fumbling, inept, enfeebled, gaffe-prone, borderline senile, and basically unfit to govern for another four years. The Trump forces and the MAGA horde, in lamentable concert with the mainstream media (yes, looking at you in particular, New York Times) had and have promulgated that vision of Biden relentlessly.

In 90 minutes of fiery, combative, carefully crafted, and eloquently delivered oratory Biden decisively shot down that effort to derail his bid for a second term. So effectively did he do so that Trump and his minions had to mansplain Biden’s energy, situational grasp, and public-speaking skills by floating the nonsensical theory that his handlers had coked him up for the occasion.

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Biden’s age will remain a concern in this campaign — not just in terms of what it signifies in regard to his physical and mental condition but also in his generational distance from younger voters who may play a major role in the election. But, however well it plays with the GOP/MAGA base, the attempt to persuade voters outside the MAGA echo chamber to consider Biden ineffectual and incompetent and subject to easy backstage manipulation has fallen flat.

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“Fundi Baby Voice”

Delivering the Republican response to a Democratic president’s SOTU address has proven itself a minefield in the past — think former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s career-tanking take on Barack Obama’s 2009 SOTU.

Surely she didn’t intend this when she got picked to present the Republic Party’s response to Biden’s address, but later that night GOP “rising star” Alabama Sen. Katie Britt torpedoed any prospect she had of rising further in the Putinist-MAGA party while, simultaneously, becoming the poster-girl face of “Fundi Baby Voice.”

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What on earth is “Fundi Baby Voice,” you might well ask? I certainly did. As explained here at The Direct by Gillian Blum, “Fundie Baby Voice” is a breathy, high-pitched tone used by some women to signal their submissiveness and sweetness, especially popular in fundamentalist Christian circles, where it’s actually taught as an appropriate way for women to speak to men. An acquired affectation, in other words — not Britt’s normal speaking voice, which sounds quite different, as numerous examples prove.

Predictably, this infantilized, borderline-tearful bad-Joe-Biden-hurted-my-feefees performance went instantly viral, got mercilessly mocked, and established itself as a meme that will haunt Britt for the rest of her life. Indeed, it did so much damage that it even horrified members of her own party. We can only hope that whoever planned and directed this video and encouraged Britt to adopt this whiny, childish persona has a hand in other GOP productions for this election cycle.

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Diaper Don, a/k/a Donald Von ShitzInPantz

Naysayers notwithstanding, inevitably Donald Trump would go on trial somewhere during this election cycle, given the number and gravity of his crimes and wrongdoings, and the variety and scope of his multiple indictments.

Which meant that, predictably, images of Trump on trial — outside courthouses, inside courthouses, seated at one or more defense tables, and even on the witness stand — would permeate the media environment. And here we come to the year’s second notable image shift — from Trump the impervious strongman to Trump the defendant, Trump the perp, Trump as “Sleepy Don,” even Trump as … let’s wait a bit on that.

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New York State got there first, with the fall 2023 civil fraud case brought by NYS Attorney General Letitia James against Trump and others connected to an assortment of Trump organizations for a lengthy list of financial shenanigans. The resulting non-jury trial, presided over by the Hon. Arthur Engoron, ended with Trump and his companies ordered to pay nearly $355 million in penalties and interest in a judgment handed down on February 16, 2024. An appeal will doubtless follow, but the verdict currently stands and enforcement looms.

Hot on its heels comes the criminal election interference case brought by New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Misleadingly labeled a “hush-money” case by most of the media, this involved the perfectly named David Pecker — then CEO of American Media, Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer — “catching and killing” any stories that could prove detrimental to the Trump campaign, while at the same time running dozens of stories attacking his opponents, both Democrats and Republicans.

You can readily access the details, which get repeated ad nauseum, so I won’t inflict any further recap on you.

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Trump’s physical deterioration and rapid descent into dementia have become so noticeable that it has forced the mainstream media into discussion of his physical and mental health — which have become front-page and headline news. Reputable journalists chronicle his falling asleep repeatedly during his trials, and pay attention to endless verbal flubs. At long last, his speeches and press comments and tweets and other utterances receive serious evaluation on major media platforms, in print and on broadcast news programs and online, as evidence of dramatic cognitive decline and grave psychiatric disorder.

All of which must deeply wound the one-term, twice-impeached pathological narcissist who cheated his way into the White House. Even worse, given Trump’s obsession with his macho self-image, the conversation has now turned to multiple reports of persistent flatulence and incontinence.

For years now, “Diaper Don” has trended on the social-media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), referencing both Trump’s tantrums and other immature behavior and the rumors that he suffered from major problems with his lower intestinal tract.

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The mainstream press mostly stayed away from this gossip, out of respect for the office of the presidency if not the particular individual who once held it. However, these accounts of Trump’s excretory exploits have become sufficiently numerous and credible — and public — that this now features in daily coverage of the trial.

After all, Michael Cohen, set to appear shortly as a witness in the NYC trial, attributes Trump’s physical ailments to an Adderall addiction, to which others have referred as well. Whoever coined “Diaper Don,” Cohen has gone them one better (or worse), dubbing his former boss “Donald Von ShitzInPantz.” Which nickname officially entered the court record of the current trial when Trump’s lead lawyer, defense attorney Todd Blanche, read it aloud as part of a complaint to Judge Juan Merchan about the gag order he’d imposed. Which then allowed (indeed, effectively mandated) newspapers, and magazines, and TV shows, and online media to repeat it.

As a result of which 45’s MAGA fanclub felt obligated to come to his defense. Perhaps taking their cue from the decision by Biden supporters to convert the covertly vulgar MAGA chant “Let’s go Brandon!” into the celebratory “Dark Brandon” meme, the RWNJ contingent has embraced this development by adopting the slogan “Real Men Wear Diapers.” Some of them actually wear adult diapers outside their street clothes to manifest this endorsement. (If you don’t tell them that it doesn’t play as well as they think it does, I surely won’t.)

Which leads, inevitably, to the Lincoln Project’s “Trump Diapers” ad.

You cannot make this stuff up.

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Where’s Melania?

Because it involves her husband’s infidelity made public, the image of Melania Trump hovers over the ongoing criminal trial. The press has noted the absence of Melania from the front-row family seats of the trials to date. Given that the current one centers around The Donald paying hush money to squelch a story about him inserting his mushroom-shaped “nubbin” into a porn star while his wife was recovering from giving birth to their son, I doubt that anyone finds this surprising.

I’ve taken the liberty of drafting lyrics to what might eventually emerge as Melania’s theme song. You all know the melody:

Don’t celebrate me, O Slovenia!

The truth is, I’m glad I left you!

All through my fake life, my sad existence,

I’ve liked you better at this long distance.

Yes, Don and Barron are sh*theads.

I don’t really care, do U?

I brush my cheekbones, I get my hair done —

I go out shopping, no time to boohoo.

So I destroyed the Rose Garden

that Jackie put her effort into.

It didn’t matter, they were just flowers,

Another so boring place I’ve been to.

I have contributed nothing,

And for that I think you should thank me.

In Slovenia that ranks as genius,

So let me go now and please don’t shank me —

So let me go now and please don’t shank me.

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DJT Gets Kittenish

Okay. It’s a presidential election year. So we’ll get bombarded daily with pix of the candidates. Improbable as it seems, Donald J. Trump appears headed for the Republican nomination, 91 felony counts be damned. One way or another, he’s all over the news, and — even if he loses the election, even if he’s convicted of one or crimes, indeed even if he gets thrown in jail — he will almost certainly remain newsworthy throughout the election cycle.

Which means we’ll see his ugly face — the baleful eyes, the anus-shaped mouth, the Cheetoh-color oatmeal complexion — multiple times a day. A dismal prospect. If only, at least in our online pursuits, we had some way to automatically replace his repellent mug with something wholesome and appealing, something no one doesn’t enjoy seeing. (Sigh.) …

Wait! Look! Up in the sky, there in the cloud — it’s Make America Kittens Again! The browser extension that substitutes irresistible pix of baby felines for images of Mango Mussolini! Now available again for Google Chrome and Firefox, Windows and Mac, and for your cellphone too!

Just go to your browser’s Extensions page and search for it. Easy peasy.

For example, here’s a screenshot of the front page of the New York Times online before:

and after:

I feel better already. Try it — you’ll like it.

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Pursuant to the publication of the lavish “Trump Bible,” I posted the following in the Comments following a post by someone else at Daily Kos:

Donald Trump and Two Corinthians walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What’ll you have?” Trump says, “A Diet Coke, and I want you to open it and pour it in front of me.” The bartender obliges, then asks the Corinthians, “What about you two?” The Corinthians reply … (your answer here)

Best answer by far:

“Say, isn’t that Clarence Thomas’ pubic hair on that can?”

Runner-up:

“We’ll split a bottle of retsina, please, and we’ll sit at that table for two over in the corner where the air may be less polluted.”

Honorable Mention for revisionism:

“Two Corinthians walk into a bar — the sort of bar that caters to people who are into their rich leather …”

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