Category: US Politics

Donald Trump, Insulter-in-Chief

Teenage Boys Playing “Risk” Lead America!

BILL ASTORE

JUN 27, 2025

When I was in high school, my friends and I would get together and play “Risk,” the game of world domination. It was an excuse to hang out, to have fun, and especially to trade insults as we rolled the dice and moved our “armies” around the board to vanquish one another.

Trump understands this mentality—the mentality of adolescent teens trading insults for fun, bonding over shared putdowns. Never did I or my friends think, however, that juvenile and puerile insults should become the foundation of politics and governance in America. That was Trump’s peculiar “genius”: he has become America’s Insulter-in-Chief. 

Consider this recent post from Trump’s Truth Social account:

Now, my teenage self is smiling or laughing even as I read these insults. Of course they’re outrageous, deceptive, irresponsible, juvenile, inaccurate, add your own descriptors here. Yet Trump recognizes that they work, especially with his followers, whose main objective often appears to be “owning the libs.”

To Trump, all of this is par for the course. His “genius” in 2015-16, when he first ran, was recognizing that his Republican challengers were, as we say in the military, whiskey deltas, often deserving of insults and contempt. He recognizes too in 2025 that the Democrats similarly are weak, are corrupt, and therefore targets of opportunity for the most withering insults, no matter how exaggerated.

Predictably, more than a few of his insults are patently absurd. Israel has no bigger champion than Chuck Schumer, yet Trump labels him as a “Great Palestinian Senator.” Absurd as that is, it’s a reminder to Chuck to get back in line, to continue kowtowing to Israel, which, of course, he doesn’t need much reminding to do.

Best of all, perhaps, is Trump’s reference to Dirty Harry’s “Make My Day!” tagline, which Ronald Reagan also employed. Again, we as teenagers were fond of quoting our favorite lines from various Clint Eastwood movies, and I can still recite many from memory. (“Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”)

Trump’s insults resonate in part because America’s so-called best and brightest have so often failed or betrayed the working classes or sold themselves out to the highest bidder. And most everyone deserves to be taken down a peg or two now and again. But, to state the obvious, there should be something more to our political scene than insults and name-calling.

Too often, U.S. politics and foreign affairs today resemble a bunch of 16-year-olds ragging on and insulting each other while hatching plots for world dominance. It might make for a fun “Risk” game, but it doesn’t make for a healthy world.

The 12-Day War?

Israel, Iran, and the U.S. Theater of Death

BILL ASTORE

JUN 24, 2025

Last night, President Trump declared the so-called 12-Day War between Israel and Iran is over, though the president admitted this AM that both countries have already broken the ceasefire. Still, there’s a chance the war won’t escalate further, which is good news for the world. It even led the president to bless the entire world! And that’s progress, since God’s blessings are usually restricted to the USA.

GOD BLESS THE WORLD!

More than a few people have suggested we’ve been watching an elaborate form of theater as Israel, Iran, and the U.S. have traded deadly strikes. If so, even that worries me, since theater among other things requires smart actors, sound direction, plenty of rehearsal, savvy scriptwriters, and talented crews. I’m not convinced our version of war theater is in skilled hands.

Meanwhile, Gaza continues to suffer, pushed off the front page by the Iran “theater.”

*****

In other news, I recently got a new phone number; its previous owner, a certain Thomas, it seems, signed up for alerts from AIPAC. It’s been enlightening to see this tiny manifestation of AIPAC influence over U.S. policy. Here are a few automated text messages I’ve received:

Thomas, we are outraged and horrified by the terrorist attack & murder last night in DC. Full AIPAC statement here: https://aip.ac/78a

Emergency Alert: Israel is striking Iran’s nuclear program. Tell Congress that America must stand with our ally https://itbl.co/xlF~mjXXI

Fordow is gone! Tell Congress you support the U.S. destroying the Iranian nuclear program. https://itbl.co/xlF~eah1c

If you’re seeking to combat AIPAC, learn from them. It helps if you have loads of money and you can convince Christian evangelists that your fate is tied to the Second Coming of Christ.

Update: As of 8:00AM EST, Trump is announcing the ceasefire is back in effect:

President Trump in his latest post on Truth Social insisted that the ceasefire between Israel and Iran was in effect after earlier rebuking both sides for violating the truce by launching fresh attacks.

“ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran,” Trump wrote.

“Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect!” he added.

A friendly “plane wave”? More theater?

U.S. Strikes Iranian Nuclear Sites

War Finds A Way

BILL ASTORE

JUN 21, 2025

President Trump announced tonight that the U.S. has bombed three nuclear sites in Iran. After these attacks, he’s now asking for peace.

That the attacks were coming was obvious. Even Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was brought firmly into line before the attacks. As the Downing Street Memo said about the Iraq War, the intelligence was fixed around the policy. In Iraq, the policy was a regime-change war; with Iran, the policy is to destroy nuclear sites and possibly to topple the Iranian government. A predetermined policy determines what is a “fact” and what isn’t.

When you have an empire like the U.S. that devotes so much of its money and resources to the military, and when you have leaders desperate to be seen as “strong” and decisive, this is what happens. Military attacks followed by declarations that America seeks peace. War for peace. It makes no sense, but there you go.

Cui bono? Who benefits? Certainly, Israel in its ongoing efforts to dominate the region. Israel’s influence over U.S. foreign policy is remarkable. There was no way Trump was not going to bomb Iran, given the push from Israel to do so.

What happens next, I don’t know. But I did think that this was exactly what Trump would do—bomb Iran—because it’s always what the U.S. does.

Somewhere, in perhaps some hell, John McCain is singing a ditty about bombing Iran. People may have made fun of him, but the man predicted the future—and the future is now.

Have bombers, will bomb.

Demonizing the Opposition

The Abyss Beckons

BILL ASTORE

JUN 15, 2025

Demonizing the opposition is a conduit to murderous crimes. There is no excuse for it.

I remember hearing Judge Jeanine Pirro refer to Democrats as “demoncrats” and “the enemy within.” Some Democrats accused a sitting president, Donald Trump, of being in league with Vladimir Putin and Russia, a traitor to his country. (Just as Satan was traitorous to God, Trump is portrayed by some as a malevolent force, disloyal to America.)

The result of such malicious rhetoric is obvious: A Democratic official, Melissa Hortman, assassinated in Minnesota along with her husband. Another Democratic official and his wife severely wounded. Two separate attempts on Donald Trump’s life.

Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were killed in a politically motivated shooting.

Words matter. Viewing opponents in demonic terms, as savages, as terrorists, as “other,” enables and generates violent crimes. In the mind of perpetrators, it even “justifies” the crimes, for who wishes to tolerate the presence of the demonic among us?

A friend and colleague, historian David Lovejoy, wrote a fine paper, “Satanizing the American Indian,” for the New England Quarterly in 1994. It became far easier for European colonists to America to kill indigenous peoples when they viewed them as demonic savages. Especially when this view was allegedly supported, even sanctified by Biblical passages.

Democracy thrives on reasoned discourse and tolerance of dissent. Democracy dies when opponents are viewed as demonic and therefore worthy of the harshest actions, including murder.

Whatever your political, religious, or other affiliations may be, we should all agree to treat each other with respect and dignity. And if you think a person is unworthy of your respect, walk away. Or express your dissent in factual and measured terms. There is no need to reach for the demonic, for that way only opens a door to the abyss, whether in you or in someone else.

America’s Unrepresentative Government

How can ordinary Americans regain political agency?

BILL ASTORE

JUN 06, 2025

When you have an unrepresentative government, or, put differently, a government that represents oligarchic interests and corporations, as well as being heavily influenced by lobbyists, domestic and foreign (AIPAC), you get Trump and Congress conspiring to decrease Medicaid, to cut food support for the poor, while funneling more money upward to the very richest Americans.

American workers essentially have no agency, no ability to act in meaningful ways in the political realm. Along with no agency, Americans also have fewer liberties, especially if you should choose to criticize U.S./Israeli policies and otherwise challenge the imperatives of the powerful.

Be careful shouting “Give me liberty or give me death!” in these times. Death may be far easier to achieve.

Hannah Arendt

What is the answer to regaining our agency? In “Between Past and Future,” the political philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote how French resisters to the Nazis during World War II discovered themselves—their true nature—in and through action. In resisting the Nazis, they seized control over their own agency by exercising it in the face of danger. They chose risk, they fought to effect change, they took stands that often meant life or death.

Through action, these resisters lifted themselves out of “normal” time, Arendt argued, entering instead a realm between past and future, a realm of true existence, a present of dynamism, of possibilities, of clarity of commitment.

Political agency is not going to be given back to the people. If we regain it, it will only be by seizing it ourselves, through action, through commitment, through risk-taking, and perhaps most of all through large-scale organized resistance.

Hopefully, that resistance can remain non-violent. I prefer reformation or restoration to revolution, recalling the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn that revolutions unleash the most elemental barbarism.

Genocidal Parallels and Final Solutions

A Grim Reckoning

BILL ASTORE

JUN 01, 2025

At her Substack, Lisa Savage asks whether the “Gaza Hunger Games” we’re witnessing—the concentration of Palestinians there accompanied by slaughter and mass starvation—was the plan all along for Israel and the United States. It got me to thinking, so I wrote a rather longwinded response to Lisa, which I’d like to share with all of you.

Whether it was the plan all along or whether it’s the result of ad hoc decisions over time, one thing is certain: the holocaust in Gaza must be stopped.

*****

Lisa, I’ve taught the Holocaust, and your question reminds me of a debate among historians: Did Hitler and the Nazis always plan to kill all the Jews, or was it the result of ad hoc decisions over time? Scholars still debate this.*

Perhaps the debate is somewhat artificial in the sense that Hitler and the Nazis vilified the Jews, demeaning them, attacking them, dehumanizing them, establishing the conditions for genocide, which were linked to the need to win a war (Jews as an existential enemy that had to be destroyed, even Jewish children, i.e. they were all “guilty”).

The “logic” of genocide sees even children as enemies who must be eliminated (Image of the “Warsaw Ghetto Boy” during World War II)

Something similar is happening with Palestinians in Gaza. I don’t think Israel and the U.S. had a plan all along to concentrate them in Gaza and kill them. But all that’s gone before this has created the preconditions for a final solution to the Gaza question.

When you vilify Palestinians, demean them, attack them, incarcerate them, dehumanize them, you establish the conditions for a genocide. Then you use the excuse of a “war” to drive the most radical solution–elimination–just as the Nazis used the excuse of World War II to eliminate the Jews (who, of course, posed no existential threat to Germany).

Within the Nazi government (and now within the Israeli government), extremists always come to the forefront. Many officials in Nazi Germany wanted to relocate the Jews, not kill them all, or they wanted to exploit them as slave labor before killing them. But the extremists–the ones who just wanted to kill them all–tended to win the argument. They were the most committed, most sure of themselves, the most radical. 

So, what’s happening in Gaza has been the result of long-term dehumanization and propaganda coupled with ad hoc decisions that have run to extremes, because those who are most radical tend to win these “arguments.”

What is truly unconscionable is the eagerness of the U.S. government to provide Israel with all the weapons and diplomatic cover it needs to implement its final solution in Gaza. Whether the president is Biden or Trump, whether Congress is controlled by the Democratic or Republican parties, the policy and result is the same: a blank check to Israel to kill as many Palestinians as they want, justified falsely in “defending” Israel from Hamas.

The Nazis thought or said the Jews were out to destroy them (obviously the Jews were totally incapable of threatening the German war machine) so they tried to destroy the Jews.

The Israeli government says Hamas is out to destroy them (obviously Hamas is totally incapable of threatening the IDF war machine) so they’re trying to destroy the Palestinians.

Genocide is sold as “defensive” and “necessary.”

The parallels are there, yet few people want to see them.

*****

*Addendum: Among Holocaust historians it’s known as the “intentionalist” versus “functionalist” debate, i.e. was it always the Nazis’ intent to kill the Jews, or did it emerge slowly as a function of specific events and decisions?

Some might say, who cares? Dead is dead. Stop the killing!

Trump Puts the Naked Back in Naked Capitalism

The Emperor Hath No Clothes–And Is Proud of It

BILL ASTORE

MAY 30, 2025

It remains amazing to me that a man known for overselling himself, of stiffing others, a man who became notorious for saying, “You’re fired!” to a lot of ordinary people and a few celebrities as well, is somehow seen as a champion of little guys and gals. Of course, it’s not like the Democrats offered much of an alternative (Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris as working-class champions? I don’t think so). Nevertheless, Donald Trump is about the furthest thing from a public servant to America that I can imagine. When he’s not playing golf or stirring the pot or posing and preening, he’s finding new ways to cash in as president.

Well, as Richard Nixon famously argued, if the president does it, that means it isn’t illegal. Right?

Trump is a creature of Pottersville, the nightmarish alternative to Bedford Falls if George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) had decided to jump off the bridge rather than serving the humble people of his community. Lurid Pottersville, shiny and decadent and shallow, where everyone’s on the make or on the take: that’s Trump’s kind of place. It’s a wonderful life—for Trump!

Which brings me to a fine article by Juan Cole at TomDispatch, Trump of Arabia, in which Cole recounts Trump’s grasping and greedy trip to the Middle East. You gotta hand it to Trump: he knows how to party down with the sheikhs, with all the hair-flipping and exotic dancing.

One thing is certain: Trump isn’t lecturing them about democracy and human rights. It’s just gimme-gimme-gimme. Trump puts the naked back in naked capitalism. The emperor who hath no clothes.

Well, at least America got a big beautiful jet out of the deal: a “free” luxury 747 from Qatar, the new Air Force One if Trump has his way. How sad is it that the new Air Force One that America was supposed to have is years behind schedule and billions over budget? Thanks a lot, Boeing!

Maybe on his next trip to the Middle East, Trump can convince the sheikhs to help fund Medicaid and SNAP for the poor. For struggling Americans, it sure would beat luxury jets and hair-flipping.

Trump’s Military Parade

The Triumph of Trump’s Will

BILL ASTORE

MAY 28, 2025

When I think of celebratory military parades with lots of heavy weaponry and the like, images of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union come to mind. Authoritarian regimes, strongly militaristic, led by dictators.

When I think of U.S. military parades, featuring large numbers of troops, I think of victory parades after World War II that celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany. Back then, the idea was to celebrate the triumph of the free world over darkness, not the triumph of Trump’s will over wokeness.

The naked celebration of military strength in Trump’s proposed parade is yet another example of American militarism on steroids. It marks the further erosion of democracy in America and a coarsening of the human spirit in America.

Trump’s parade, scheduled to coincide with his birthday on June 14th (Flag Day as well), may cost as much as $100 million. But that price tag is minuscule compared to the damage it does to America’s image.

For Trump, openly embracing the idea (and ideal) of America as a dominant empire built around a trillion-dollar-a-year military just seems commonsensical. An acknowledgement of the obvious and the irreversible.

It’s high time America acted to prove him wrong.

What Should A U.S. President Do–And Be?

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Presidents

BILL ASTORE

MAY 27, 2025

What are the seven habits of highly effective presidents?

My simple answer is the president needs to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution. That’s first and foremost.

Second, he or she needs to be a public servant. Not a servant of special interests, and not a servant of himself or herself.

Third, he or she needs to be a leader. A president should be able to inspire, to bring people together, to get things done for the betterment of all (as much as that’s possible).

Fourth, the president should be a defender of the little guy or gal. Wall Street doesn’t need a defender. Corporations don’t need a defender. But ordinary people do. People without big money and connections need a champion, and the president should be that champion.

Fifth, the president must represent America on the world stage in a positive light. Like it or not, the president, whoever he or she is, inevitably becomes a lead symbol of America. That person should represent us at our best, not our worst.

Sixth, the president, as commander-in-chief, needs to recognize the limits of military power, and needs to exercise control over the national security state, recognizing that incessant war is an enemy of democracy, and that spending on weapons and war is a waste of resources.

Seventh (and perhaps most importantly), the president must be a steward of the nation’s resources, especially its environment (healthy air, clean water, unpolluted land, and so on). The president must always have an eye on the future — on the need to preserve our country for our children and their children.

This is a quick list, and it could easily be lengthened, but these to me are the seven most important habits for the U.S. president.

One presidential role model: An MLB Umpire

With respect to the fourth “habit,” I used “should,” not “must.” In my mind, I see the president as a sort of umpire or referee, making sure the game is played fair and square. In the “game” of life, powerful interests (the ultra-rich, powerful corporations, and so on) already have a big advantage, so I see the president as a public servant (umpire) who acts to ensure the interests of the people are not subsumed or denied or violated.

Of course, there are many interests of the people, and some are contradictory, but again I see the president as acting to ensure, as much as he or she can, the integrity of the process.

This is one reason we need campaign finance reform. Those with money speak with a much louder and more powerful voice, essentially drowning out our voices. A president who’s a captive of the special interests is a president only in name, i.e. just a money-grubber, just a bag-man (or -woman). We’ve allowed politics to be co-opted by special interests with deep pockets; campaign finance reform and public funding of elections will help to reverse this.

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Robs the Poor and Rewards the Rich

More Walls, A “Golden” Dome, More Weapons, Higher Deficits, Make this a Petty Ugly Bill

BILL ASTORE

MAY 23, 2025

The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed recently by the House is petty and ugly. A sham. A reverse Robin Hood. It cuts SNAP benefits (food stamps) to the poor. It cuts Medicaid. Because who needs food and medical care, amirite? Meanwhile, it cuts taxes for the richest Americans and funds various weapons follies (a foolish and wasteful missile shield known as “Golden Dome,” more nuclear weapons, yet more billions for the wall on America’s border with Mexico). And it adds significantly to the national debt.

Remember when Republicans were once known as fiscal conservatives? Remember calls for a balanced budget? Those days are long gone. The “Big Beautiful Bill” is a fever dream, or a night terror if you prefer, of wanton and wasteful spending that rewards the already well-heeled and hurts the most vulnerable of Americans.

Trump, who is truly an expert at the craft of the con, concocts the most outrageous names to sell his BS. Thus a missile shield that may end up wasting $500 billion is a “golden dome.” Heck, the whole bill, which is contempuous toward the poor and punishing to workers organizing for higher wages, is sold as “big” and “beautiful.”

When Trump describes things as “golden” and “big” and “beautiful,” you should know to hold tightly to your wallets and purses, America, because you’re about to get scammed.

At his site, Stephen Semler has a superb chart that breaks down the petty ugly bill the House just passed. Here’s an excerpt. Read it and weep, America.

The bottom line: More money for the already affluent and for the Pentagon; less money and benefits for the poor. The rich get richer, the poor poorer, as America reinforces its turn to weapons, walls, police, domes, and warriors.