Smokey-overcast this late-afternoon Monday here in California’s Central Valley — warm, and seemingly a bit humid, too.
Meanwhile, how do you handle what you don’t know?
In the T-Rump indictment case, as he rolled into Miami today to await the perp walk scheduled for tomorrow, Republicans of every stripe, from Congressasses to sidewalk MAGA hatters, there’s no time for the truth of reality. T-Rump is an asshole criminal, and it’s as obvious as the color orange — although there’s a 49-page, 37-count indictment presenting an alarmingly-obvious criminal activity enforced by intent, wingnuts are full ‘alternative facts’ mode in supporting the T-Rump.
Intentional ignorance is a planned way of life — Steve Benen at MSNBC this morning and the GOP ignorant style:
The editors’ use of the word “read” stood out for me, because it struck me as emblematic of a larger point: Republicans are counting on the public not to read the Trump indictment, as part of a broader assumption that the public will avoid reading all sorts of things.
Or put another way, an amazing amount of the GOP’s strategy, especially since the dawn of the Trump era, is based on a simple assumption: Their base won’t actually read relevant documents, which makes it vastly easier for them to lie more or less with impunity about documents party officials haven’t read, either.
Take former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia scandal, for example. It’s easy to forget that one House Republican — former Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan — publicly endorsed Trump’s impeachment in 2019. Asked why, the then-congressman said that he, unlike most of his GOP colleagues, actually read Mueller’s findings.
See, nutcase vibes from the top down:
this stuff is totally unhinged pic.twitter.com/MR5uZZNm30
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 12, 2023
Likewise, Phillip Bump at The Washington Post, also this morning, on the impossible task of disclosing the truth to bottom-feeders in the MAGA cult, even with a Bill Barr reciting the veracity of the indictment:
For example: It is not the case that the situation should have been resolved under the congenial auspices of the Presidential Records Act, Barr said, because “it started out under the Presidential Records Act” but Trump refused to comply.
“I think the government acted responsibly,” Barr told Bream. “They gave him every opportunity to return those documents. They acted with restraint. They were very deferential to him and they were very patient. They talked to him for almost a year to try to get those documents, and he jerked them around. They finally went to a subpoena. And what did he do? According to the government, he lied and obstructed that subpoena. And then they did a search and they found a lot more documents.”
Bump concluded:
One of the bizarre dynamics that has been exposed since the indictment came out is that Trump supporters theorize that their own assessment of the law (adopted from Trump, Hannity and other loyalists) is somehow more robust than the assessment of the Justice Department or of people like Bill Barr. Because Trump has been so effective at convincing his supporters that the legal system is out to get him — a belief that Barr himself helped to bolster! — the former president’s self-serving claims about the case are accepted by default.
In a CBS News-YouGov poll released over the weekend, three-quarters of likely Republican primary voters said the indictment was politically motivated. Three-quarters also said the indictment doesn’t change their view of Trump or improves their view (though that’s almost certainly just a way for respondents to emphasize how little they care).
There is no voice who could convince Trump’s most energetic supporters of the idea that he willfully violated the law. There never has been. Anyone who tries to present the reality of the situation to his base, however close they were to Trump at the outset, is immediately exiled.
The truth has no place in Trumpism.
As per the course (Insider):
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy defended Donald Trump’s practice of storing boxes of classified documents in a chandeliered bathroom today by arguing that doing so is safer than storing them in a garage, because bathroom doors lock.
However, many — if not most — garage doors have locks.
Asked at a press gaggle whether it was “a good look” for Trump to be caught storing classified documents in the bathroom of Mar-a-Lago’s Lake Room, McCarthy responded with a question: “I don’t know — is it a good picture to have boxes in a garage that opens up all the time? A bathroom door locks.”
One must assume we’re living in a weird time frame and space:
Good evening pic.twitter.com/nAVgyIqj1c
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) June 13, 2023
And we await tomorrow, it’s about tomorrow:
Jailed or not, yet once again here we are….
Image out front is my favorite of the T-Rump mugs, though, ‘favorite‘ does not mean in any form or fashion, as in, ‘my favorite movie,’ or ‘my favorite song.’ It’s more of an anti-appreciation/like.
And aptly titled, ‘Basic Shapes,‘ by caricaturist/illustrator Chong Jit Leong (and found here), it’s an image that displays the elemental form of a purloined sociopath — a bloated profile of flatulent bile and arrogant ignorance.