SAY WHAT? - Sorry, but much like your kids' projectile vomiting - remember it? - the them-and-us vitriol spewing from a crumbling, raving Grand Wizard and his Nazi-adjacent minions still persists in a "disinformation maelstrom" aimed at Fake News, "dumb women," raping-and-dog-eating "vile animals," windmills that "aren't wind," and Dems doing gender transition surgery on kids at recess as he pot-kettle-calls Bob Woodward, reporting on his Putin love-fest, "an angry little man, truly demented and deranged." Pleasemake it stop.
Trump's rancid word-salad has gotten so garbled even the both-sides New York Times finally deigned to write about it. Starting with the by-now-common lunatic moment when Trump claimed the audience "went crazy" for him at the Harris debate where there was no audience, they broke the shocking news it wasn't the only time he's seemed "confused," noting, "He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought," (sic) which are often incoherent, half-finished, or "factually fantastical." How does he ramble? Let us count the ways. Sharks, boats, Hannibal Lecter, his "beautiful" beach body, his "wide margin" in the polls, Komrade Kamala paying for “transgender operations on illegal aliens,” his "great day in Louisiana" which was in Georgia, his fear "North Korea is trying to kill me" though he meant Iran and his imaginary dystopian hellhole of an America where you can’t venture out to buy a loaf of bread without getting shot, mugged or raped by immigrants "living in those hotels and laughing at our soldiers."
Wednesday, the Times undid whatever meager good they may have done with a breezy piece on Trump's rallies - "freewheeling performances full of jokes and audience participation," presumably like shrieking "Send Them Back!" - to help readers see his "themes." WTF NYT? We wonder what "themes" they'd uncover in his call for a new Muslim ban, his plan to imprison people who oppose the overturning of Roe v Wade as well as climate protesters for up to 10 years, his strategy on Iran - "Hit the nuclear button first, that's what it's for, and worry about the rest later" - his "stunningly stupid," The Purge-like public safety idea for "one really violent day" - "and I mean real rough" - and "the word will get out and it will end immediately." He also said JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon endorsed him (not), charged migrants "are ripping down and burning our shopping centers," and mused about a fly at the podium: "I wonder where the fly came from? Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. We can’t take it any longer.”
Not just the crazy is escalating; so is the stomach-churning misogyny. Color us shocked. Fishing for any schoolyard diss that comes into his mean wee brain, the accomplished Kamala Harris is "stupid," “low IQ,” "mentally disabled," "a bad person": "Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way." The master of projection on his debate loss: "We had a woman debating. She just talked about, like, the birds and the bees. She didn’t talk about...when you asked a question, there was never an answer...It's all lies. Everything she says is lies." The sexual predator on Roe v Wade: "And the women thing - they'll understand I did a great thing." The ultimate, infantalizing patriarch on a choice-free future: "I will be your protector. You will no longer be thinking about abortion.” On The View's hosts who welcomed Harris: They're “degenerates” and "dumb women." The ugly bottom line from women who know and want better than his "thoroughly stifling" 19th century vision of womanhood: "The truth is, he hates all of us."
Most grotesquely, the racism is spiraling, gushing, curdling, ever more vicious. Brown-skinned migrants are “vermin,” "foreign jihad sympathizers," "not humans," and "infesting" America, says the blood-and-soil eugenicist who's openly embraced Nazi race science: "I'm proud to have that German blood." "Murder is in a person’s genes, and we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now," he says. "American girls are being raped and sodomized and murdered by savage criminal aliens." His last Wisconsin rally featured huge photos of three people killed by undocumented migrants - two stabbings, one meth-crazed car crash - and banners urging, “Deport Illegals Now!" Each day, a local right-wing site helpfully highlights those "horrific" crimes by non-citizens, declaring, "Every state is a border state." Trump vowed to "liberate Wisconsin from the mass migrant invasion" of what he called "stone-cold killers and monsters" wanting to “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill the people of America." The crowd roared, "Send them back!"
Of course the lunatic nadir of this racist frenzy was in Springfield, Ohio where, Trump famously declared during the debate, "They're eating the dogs!" Improbably for a party boasting puppy-murdering Kristi Noem and a Project 2025 author who killed a neighbor's dog with a shovel, the fictional story proved wildly popular: Incorporating the key "they are taking from us" concept, it extends the migrant threat to a blood libel against beloved pets, a perfect, wrenching parable of American decline. After the tale prompted 33 bomb threats against schools and terrified Haitians, city officials repeatedly insisted there is "no evidence" of said pet-eating by what are legal Haitian migrants revitalizing the economy, and a Haitian advocacy group filed seven charges against the idiotic Vance and Trump's "aggravated menacing" - after that, Miss Sassy Pants, the missing Maine Coon cat who started the insanity, emerged uneaten from a few days' nap in the basement of MAGA owner Anna Gilgore, who's likely leery of her new black neighbors - we love the poorly educated! - but apologized to them anyway.
Of course the return of Miss Sassy Pants did nothing - we also really love alternative facts! - to stem the flood of vile immigrant demonizing at the core of Trump's otherwise entirely hollow campaign. The bonkers, brazenly false claims that migrants are to blame for all of America's ills still rage: They've “unleashed a deadly plague of migrant crime," they're draining social services, trying to vote, making housing expensive, taking jobs, bringing fentanyl, boosting inflation - all ugly fiction. Often, state and local officials take their purported leader's malevolent lead and run with it. Arizona is furiously combing voter rolls to look for illegal voters; so far they've found 97,688, but they're all old, white Republicans. Ohio's Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski asked constituents to report nearby homes with yard signs for Harris, aka "the Flip-Flopping, Laughing Hyena"; that way, when they arrive in the neighborhood, he'll know where to direct the perpetrators of the "migrant crime wave," aka the "illegal human locusts.”
He has much deplorable company. Louisiana GOP Rep. Clay Higgins, a failed ex-cop and David Duke fan who argued the FBI brought feds to Jan. 6 on "ghost buses" and once filmed a selfie inside an Auschwitz gas chamber, called the Haitians "wild thugs" and “slapstick gangsters” from "the nastiest country in the western hemisphere" who needed to "get their ass out of our country.” He later deleted the post, but when confronted he dug in. "It's all true," he squawked. "We do have freedom of speech - I’ll say what I want. It’s not a big deal to me. It’s like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life." Jasmine Crockett had a word; so did Hakeem Jeffries, calling Higgins "an election-denying, conspiracy-peddling racial arsonist - this is who they've become. Still, fellow Louisiana Nazi MAGA Mike defended "the gentleman": "Look, he prayed about it, and he regretted it, and he pulled the post down...But you know, we move forward. We believe in redemption around here."
They also believe in mass deportation so fervently they won't let facts - like Miss Sassy Pants is fine, thanks - get in the way of their racist narrative. Vance, who also blames kids' car seat rules for bringing down American birth rates (don't ask), never apologized for starting the Springfield furor, but he did pivot to attack the media: “Did you ever think about listening to people instead of harassing them...Listening to people speak their truth?" (Weirdo Scumbags 'R Us). Meanwhile Trump, whose enduring daddy issues spark outbursts like, "THE WORLD IS LAUGHING AT US AS FOOLS, THEY ARE STEALING OUR JOBS AND OUR WEALTH. WE CANNOT LET THEM LAUGH ANY LONGER,” has lumbered ahead with rants about the "beautiful little town (he's never seen) taken over by 32,000 illegal immigrants" - though they're legal and it's about 10,000 - who will be "the first rounded up...That's a terrible thing that happened. They've gotta get much tougher. We’re gonna get these people out. You have to get them the hell out."
Weeks ago, he said he was going to deep, dark Springfield. "You may never see me again, but that’s OK. I gotta do what I gotta do," he said. "'What ever happened to Trump? Well, he never got out of Springfield." (Cue Gary Larson's Far Sidecartoon of a dog trying to lure a cat into a washing machine with a scribbled "Fud" sign as he mutters, "Oh please, oh please...") After both the GOP mayor and governor said it'd be "fine" if he didn't visit, Trump instead descended on Charleroi, Penn., another now-"totally different place" with another "foreign invasion" he promptly "warped and weaponized." Seething about "the cruelty Kamala Harris has inflicted" with "thousands and thousands of migrants from the most dangerous places on earth," Trump seethed, "You have to get 'em the hell out." Again, local officials pushed back, noting it's 700-800 Haitians and they've really helped rebuild their post-Covid economy. The Manager Joe Manning: “There’s what the former president is saying, and then there’s easily observable reality."
Regrettably, the former president is wholly uninterested in observable reality, which is why he's doggedly charging on with his plan for "the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen." Appropriately, key to this dystopian, despicable initiative to deport over 10 million people is dystopian, despicable Stephen 'Goebbels' Miller, whose last project of brutally separating screaming babies from their distraught mothers at the border and/or putting them all in cages we all remember so fondly. Reportedly using as a model Eisenhower's infamous, deadly Operation Wetback to push migrants back into Mexico, a vast militaristic venture using trucks, planes and cargo ships later compared to slave ships, Miller giddily envisions a nationwide “detain-and-remove strategy”; for this noble cause, he will build enormous prison camps, each housing up to 70,000 immigrants, that he excitedly boasts will be "greater than any national infrastructure project in American history" - a vision one former DHS official likens to "Schindler’s List."
In this election season, the loathsome Miller has been popping up in interviews to confirm he's implausibly grown ever more vile. This week, he inexplicably appeared on Fox to offer "vomit-inducing" dating tips to other white supremacist ghouls. (Please don't ask). Last month, he had an on-camera hissy fit after NTN24 reporter José María del Pino challenged numbers he was spouting to support his claim that Venezuela is now safer than the U.S. after sending all their criminals here, a theory based on a debunked story about Venezuelan gangs taking over a Colorado apartment complex. As the Venezuelan-born del Pino kept asking, "Are you trusting the figures of the dictatorship?" Miller got redder, and louder, and burst. “I am trusting the fact (Harris) is letting illegal immigrants into this country who are raping and murdering children,” shrieked the reviled-by-his-family descendant of immigrants. "CHILDREN ARE BEING RAPED AND MURDERED!" Del Pino: "Why are you yelling?" Miller stalked off. Only the best people.
Clutching at the only sorry facsimile of a "policy" he has - hatemongering and scapegoating poor people of color (along with Dems) for everything wrong in the world - Trump continues to play the vicious race card. The details can vary: In a recently unearthed audio from an August fundraiser in Colorado, he unleashes, for bootlickers willing to pay up to $500,000 to listen to it, a foul tirade claiming Democratic Republic of Congo officials just dropped 22 newly released prison inmates into the U.S - a charge the DRC flatly denies. In his supposed encounter with the supposed former inmates, "We said, ‘Where do you come from?’ They said, ‘Prison’. ‘What did you do?’ ‘None of your fucking business.'" "You know why? Because they're murderers," he sneered. "These are the toughest people, coming in from (all) the bad parts, the parts where they’re rough, and the only thing good is they make our criminals look extremely nice." He only left out one exquisite bit of the supposed story: He flew in on Jeffrey Epstein's former jet.
From Bob Woodward's new book - he's suing him - it also transpires that as "president" and in the face of 1,125,000 American deaths from COVID he was secretly talking with and gifting Daddy Putin much-needed tests. Vance in response to outrage: "Is there something wrong with engaging in diplomacy?" So many lies, so little time. At a Pennsylvania rally, he bragged of his "beautiful" rallies, “We never have an empty seat, look at it.” Cue video of half-empty arena. At a Michigan rally, non-auto-worker yahoos wore Auto Workers For Trump shirts. At a flamboyant return to Butler, "this hallowed place" where his ear was grazed - "This man cannot be stopped," "In a true miracle God saved him" - he honored "our beautiful Corey" who died instead though he's joked about him. Then he lied about Dems: "They impeached me, indicted me tried to throw me off the ballot (and) maybe even tried to kill me. We have a very sick world." No wonder "undecided" voters look bewildered when asked about his "policies."
Because, per Paul Krugman, "The Trump campaign rests entirely on denouncing things that aren’t happening," he has now turned to another "firehose of lies" about the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which he obviously calls "the worst ever." The lurid charges mount: Biden was at the beach, "they" control the weather, "they" only care about diversity not disasters, "they" stole all the FEMA money "so they could give it to illegal immigrants to vote for them" - which it turns out is what Trump did as president to fund migrant detentions; he also repeatedly, repulsively tried to deny disaster funds to blue states. A furious Biden pushed back - "He's lying" - as did peeved GOP pols demanding an end to "completely false" MAGA lies dangerously obstructing recovery efforts, and, again, observable reality.. They are in fact "deeply appreciative" of feds who are "working quickly," "working well," "a great team effort" and doing a "superb" job. Trump on the other hand, notes The Liberal Redneck, stays busy "tellin' lies and stirrin' shit."
And whining: 60 Minutes "must be investigated!" for their "FAKE NEWS SCAM" of editing Harris' interview, like every interview on every show, to make her look “more Presidential"; it's also "a major Campaign Finance Violation." "TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE!' he screeched. "An UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL!!! The Dems (should) concede the Election? WOW!” Yes, wow. He's also making windmill word salad - "The wind is bullshit" - trashing Detroit in Detroit - "Fuck this guy"- and as usual grifting. Having claimed the economy is so bad nobody can afford bacon - "the stomach is speaking" - he's launched a $100,000 Trump Victory Tour watch - "These watches are truly special" - and a $600-ish “Fight Fight Fight” watch - "Don’t wait, they will go fast!" He's also hawking crypto - AI needs a lot of electricity? with brilliant Barron as “DeFi visionary”? - and of course his $59.99 “God Bless the USA” Bible, which is not only selling fast in Oklahoma but, it turns out, is made in China. For under $3. Get your patriotic Chinese Bibles here. Don't wait, they will go fast.
O God who avenges, shine forth. - Psalms 94:1-2.
“God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time (to) judge every deed.” - Ecclesiastes 3:17
(Abby Zimet has written Common Dream's Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: [email protected])
