The Supreme Foolishness of Appeasement

Among the lessons of World War II, perhaps no other lesson has been accepted as the most important lesson than this:  you can never appease an aggressor.  Indeed, entire foreign policy and military texts have been created around this premise because it is so important and central to handling an aggressor.  For 80 years we have known this.  It was a grave error of World War I that we attempted to appease an aggressor.  As a result came World War II.  Unfortunately, today's MAGA Republicans haven't learned this and they happen to hold office in the Executive branch of the U.S. government, in addition to the Congress.  They have tried to paint the aggressor, Russia, as the victim, even though Russia clearly attacked Ukraine without provocation.  There can be no appeasing Russia; that lesson is clear.  To do so only prolongs the conflict, as any subsequent months or years of apparent peace will later prove to have been anything but peaceful, but rather the opportunity for a nearly-expired Russian military to rearm, reorganize, retrain and recruit more soldiers for a second, more sophisticated attack on Ukraine or another neighboring country.  If the appeasement happens, Russia will decide when they want to attack again and they won't be restrained by prior agreements, not even agreements that have favored them.

We should hold no illusions that Trump or any other Republican in power today will suddenly decide to read a bit of history and learn what foreign policy and military experts have known for 80 years.  However, we should hold them accountable for the delayed consequences that any appeasement will certainly bring.  As the Nixon administration's strategic ambiguity on Taiwan has now come home to roost, an appeasement of Russia will bring consequences much more severe and realized much sooner than Nixon's strategic ambiguity.  China, Russia and the rest of the international community have observed Republicans in the last several decades brag about the deceiptful use of the English language that defined U.S. policy on Taiwan by leaving it confusingly unclear, thanks to a confusingly unclear use of English.  That in itself has become a selling point to China and Russia that they're better off together, united against the USA.  If Trump thinks separating them is more important than maintaining alliances, it only illustrates how wrong strategic ambiguity was that Republicans have grown to idolize the policy and the President who devised it so much as to believe that repeating it, no matter how temporary the outcome, is so important that it's worth abandoning allies to them.  Whether or not Republicans are trying to repeat the Nixon goal of separating China and Russia, they no doubt realize it would be beneficial.  However, appeasement isn't the answer.

Zelenski The Brave will lead Ukraine to victory, if given the support he needs.

If you take nothing else away from the Trump administration's attempts to create "peace" between Ukraine and Russia, it should be this:  through angry and repetitive delivery, Trump has repeatedly tried to paint his own cowardly, simpleton decisions as genious and strong and it has repeatedly caused grave harm to the United States of America and its allies.  Europe and Ukraine will suffer the greatest consequences of appeasing Russian aggression, but it will also negatively impact the USA.  Whether Trump and the Republicans think they are going to separate Russia and China or they just want to stop spending money to keep a safe and free world, it's the most supremely foolish geopolitical folly that has been attempted in the last 100 years.  Those who believe in the lie that Donald Trump is intelligent because he can coerce Ukraine to submit to Russian demands and achieve a few months or a few years without active war should read a bit of history from the second World War.  Appeasement guarantees that this conflict will last much, much longer, albeit with an intermission.  The saddest part of all of this is the fear-peddling Trump engages in to promote appeasement.  While it's difficult to count the number of times he has sought to instill a fear of nuclear war and World War III into Americans, it emphasizes the cowardice that is so core to his being and his decisions that he wants all Americans to share in it.

The Extrajudicial, Extraconstitutional Presidency

The violations of law have grown so consistent and so predictable that this Trump Presidency can’t be viewed as an Article II Presidency.  It is, in fact, an Extrajudicial and ExtraConstitutional Presidency looking for ways to break every law that creates an inconvenience or an obstacle to Trump’s agenda of establishing divine right of kings for himself.  It gives the appearance of being a part of the U.S.A. while valuing nothing that is American culture that can’t be turned into a culture war and valuing nothing of American tradition that can’t be branded as uniquely owned by this Extrajudicial Administration and valuing nothing of the American legal system that can’t be used to claim supreme power.  

Unlawful terminations of government employees have been directed at such agencies as the CDC, NHS, NPS, FBI and others.  In many cases, they have been directed by the unlawful entity that is DOGE, which is led by an individual whose only purpose is to make the government cease all legal proceedings against him and his companies, after having broken numerous laws in the private sector in the months and years prior to the formation of this Extrajudicial Agency that is DOGE.  The defiance of the Judicial branch of government over the weekend is one of many examples of an Extrajudicial, Extraconstitutional essence.

This Trump Presidency began as an Extrajudicial Presidency even before Trump’s inauguration, when he began threatening CEOs who refused to donate to his inauguration party.  It continues in ways we may never know completely, as it has unlawfully attempted to shield all of its activity from any public visibility, in defiance of sunshine laws.  No assumption of legality should have ever been granted to Trump after what he did on January 6th, 2021.  That assumption of legality is destroying the United States of America.  When Trump isn't openly breaking the law, he is destroying the ability of any future Executive branch to enforce the law, both by destroying its visibility into domestic and foreign affairs and by destroying the manpower required for such legal enforcement operations.  The continued existence of the Legislative and Judicial branches of government rests with them realizing that they must use all of their Constitutional Authority to ensure that Donald Trump’s presidency ends this year, without further negative impact to the U.S.A.  Our reputation, our alliances, our economy, our traditions and our Constitution are all being destroyed by this Extrajudicial Presidency.  Bravery from the Legislative and Judicial branches to assume all of their respective powers is required.

Citizens are losing their patience.  That is reflected in the protests around the country over the weekend, which grew markedly in size from previous protests.  The size of the protests is artificially supressed by the threats and actions of Donald Trump to extinguish free speech and freedom in general.  There is a fear in the citizenry today that shouldn't exist, but it stems from the knowledge that this President seeks to harm any U.S. citizen that speaks out against Trump.  Nonetheless, free people don't all give up easily.  We owe every protester a debt of gratitude for showing the country that what's happening is wrong and can't be allowed to continue.

Brainwashing Requires Reinforcing

It's easy to dismiss Trump's cowardice towards Putin as the explanation for Trump's punching down by yelling at the leader of an allied country who has bravely led his nation through a now 3-years-long attack from the violent Russian state, as he did on the 28th of February, 2025, during a visit by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.  After all, Trump was too scared to fight in Vietnam, so he said he had bone spurs.  Further, he does appear scared of hearing truthful information in regards to geography, weather, politics, international relations, business and people.  At every opportunity to criticize Russia, Trump cowers.  Give him a chance to punch down and he takes it every time.  This is what he has turned the Republican party into, as several of them joined Trump in ganging up on Zelensky in the Oval Office, where the business of the People of the United States is conducted.  Donald Trump hates the United States of America for standing for freedom and he's ready to put a stop to it during his presidency this time, after failing during his first attempt.  He's scared of an educated free people because educated free people don't historically choose to voluntarily allow someone as shallow, empty and hateful as Trump to serve as a business partner or a leader.

What was really behind the trumpists' setup and attempt to create a reality only appreciated by elderly dementia patients is the need to continue and reinforce the brainwashing being dished out by hard-right disinformation outlets that masquerade as news (i.e. Fox News, OANN, etc.).  What Trump did won't affect the way Americans view Ukraine and its heroic leader, Zelensky, except amongst those consuming the disinformation-as-news outlets.

Amongst those disinformation-as-news consumers, they are well along the path of embracing the Russian view of the world.  It's a radical departure from where they and their ancestors were 30 years ago and that's why it requires persistent, continuing disinformation and acceptance amongst the political leadership to allow such a transformation.  People like Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Vance and Trump have given them permission to transform into the opposite of what they used to be and what they used to represent.  Feigning outrage over a fabricated idea of disrespect from Zelensky is disgusting to those of us who avoid the disinformation-as-news world, but it's accepted as a valid criticism from disinformation-as-news consumers.  It hurts them to question the ideas being offered to them by people who bring them order and understandable explanations, as the anchors in disinformation-as-news outlets do.

It's painful to witness half our country being pulled into a new reality where our friends are our enemies and our enemies are our friends, but that's where Trump and the disinformation-as-news outlets are taking them.  They've been on this path for years and they can't abandon it because doing so would force them to recognize and attempt to rationalize the inconsistency in their behavior that would cause extreme psychological pain for them.   It's human nature to want to be consistent, but these changes have happened over such a long arc of time, in baby steps and with dismissive acceptance of Republican politicians and the disinformation-as-news anchors that MAGA doesn't recognize what they've become.  They focus on a small subset of issues (like gender and skin color) to rationalize their chaos, not realizing what they're doing.  The political leaders and billionaire American Oligarchs realize, but their financial interests are too strong a pull to allow them to speak for morality.  Trumpism is a dark force that only knows how to love Putin and his dictator friends.  We can be certain there have been numerous payoffs from Russian oligarchs besides the ones the Trump family has been known to receive through business transactions.  But, in only 5 weeks, the Trump regime has eliminated all resources that the U.S. government would need in order to find that out.  The Russian money will flow freely and the disinformation-as-news outlets will grow in strength with Russian backing.  The Brainwashing will continue because it requires maintenance to block out, dismiss or explain away all sources of truth.  MAGA as a slogan solidifies this for them.  They repeat it, wear it on their clothing and say it from their mouths and it prevents them from questioning what they're really doing and correcting course.

What's an Ally?

If a guy walks up to you and punches you in the face and keeps hitting you until his brother runs up and manages to pull him off, you don’t say “that’s a nice family”.  You say “those people are crazy and I’m staying the hell away from them”.

People need to understand that Republicans are doing real damage to our friendships and alliances around the world.  This isn’t damage that can be repaired by simply replacing the Republican President with a Democrat or an Independent for a few years.  They will remember this.

The impact of this damage reverberates in trade negotiations, travel restrictions, the way we experience people from other countries, etc.  The U.S.A. has lost significant influence in the world since Trump has occupied the White House a second time and we’re weakening the alliances that keep the world stable.  We can’t have leadership in the Presidency that makes it unclear who the aggressor is.  Trump's threats against Canada, Greenland (Denmark) and Panama aren't shrugged away by those countries as easily as the Republicans dismiss them.  Republicans will have to stand-up to their leader soon or this world will become a very lonely place for the U.S.A.

There's overwhelming evidence from both social media and traditional media in a number of countries indicating real damage.  If you need an example, look right here.  It's already triggering boycotts of U.S. products and travel to the U.S.  The absence of any apology from the U.S. is an indicator that the U.S. is changing for the worse.  We can say "this isn't who we are", but it's unfortunately more accurate to say "this isn't who we used to be".  There's still time to prove that statement false, but there has to be evidence of an expression of remorse from the Republicans.  Democrats can't counter the damage they have done.

Progra-MAGA-ed

When MAGA can’t muster the political power to project their hatred, they become angry.  They don’t know why they hate and they don’t even realize that their angry stems from their inability to make use of their hate to make others feel bad.  They’re prevented from becoming aware of this by their need to express their emotions.  It’s not something that stems from them as individuals, but a collective emotion that they’ve been taught to feel and taught not to question.  They’ve become incapable of questioning it entirely.

Donald Trump probably really thought he was an American his whole life.  His MAGA supporters probably also thought they were Americans.  They flew the U.S. flag and wore U.S.A. t-shirts and burned fireworks on Independence Day and said the pledge of allegiance and they thought they knew what it meant to be an American.  They thought it was money, or arrogance, or simply being here and having a social security card or they thought it was having the world’s biggest military or having a decent track record of having won some wars.  Their parents may not have known what it was to be an American, but probably most of them did.  It was forgotten along the way and mixed-up with something simpler, something more selfish and easy to rationalize.  It was a points system built into their heads that they imagined individually, but not dissimilarly.  Most of the MAGA crowd has never traveled abroad or made close friends with someone from abroad.  They don’t want to imagine that they’ve been used by wealthy media figures who broadcast to them every day and every night what to think.  They don’t want to imagine that it’s all just a sham to destroy every part of their government that ever helped them and to do so under the guise of saving them money.  They won’t be better off for having lived under a second Trump administration, as they weren’t better off for having lived under a first one.  They may never acknowledge it.  They may be too proud and too filled with displaced anger.  Many of them didn’t make it through the first Trump administration, having died of a completely preventable communicable disease that their President told them wasn’t a problem.  The longer they listen to him, the more they suffer.  They try to make up for it by expressing anger at members of the other party, but they are only disguising their insecurities.  Some of them tote guns to mask those same insecurities.  They fantasize of using those guns to build self-esteem, the kind they didn’t find through relationships.  They learned to threaten and express anger and their media reinforces it every day and every night.  

They’ve been trained to feel and exhibit a pavlovian response to such terms as “death tax” — never questioning why they were paying health care premiums to companies that would never pay their claims.  Never realizing that those health care premiums were the real death tax, but that’s not what the Republican party wants their voters to know.  They need the death tax to be what is convenient for them to win votes, and so the dystopian application of the word came to be used as a synonym for the inheritance tax.  The inheritance tax affects the billionaire-class more than anyone else and those are the people setting the policies in today’s Republican party.  The little guy is just there to be programmed.  If they can program their voters to hate the inheritance tax, there’s no chance of ever having a wealth tax, which would ensure that some of Elon Musk’s money makes its way back to those voters someday.  They program their voters to hate education because it turns people into Democrats, never acknowledging that those educated people are better able to ask questions about policies, which is why they choose to become Democrats in the first place.  It’s all very simple for them:  hate anything that could be correlated to an election loss or to lower political contributions and love anything that could be correlated to an election win or higher political contributions.  Policies don’t matter unless you’re rich and then they only need to help you more and more.

Don't Be A Sucker

This video is 23 minutes of time well-spent of what used to be common knowledge in the USA.  Imagine if every news channel or "news" channel put this on the air once a week.  Corporate news is falling to the fascists, so all we can do is share the knowledge and slowly try to deprogram people we know.

Now that you've seen that, ask yourself who is trying to abolish the 14th amendment with an Executive Order?  Why do they want to take away U.S. citizenship from certain groups of people?  That is but one point in a long list of tactics to break us apart.  We must not fall for any tricks that make U.S. citizens feel like they don't belong in the U.S.A.  We all belong.

The Trumpists Are Watching You

The Tech Bros are all trumpists now.  Becoming a trumpist gives them access to the selectively-enforced laws that trump will wield against anyone who doesn't come to his corner and it gives them access to the possibility of more wealth through preferred treatment from the state.  You should have closed your accounts on Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram and Xitter by now.  If you haven't quit Facebook, be aware that you're being tracked even when you're visiting a web site that doesn't have anything to do with Facebook.  Other companies use Facebook tracking pixel code in their site.  This code follows you around the internet.  You're exposing yourself for someone else's political and financial gain the longer you keep your account open.  There's no legal obstacle to Meta selling your information to the government or to Palantir (to presumably use on the government's behalf).  As the laws become more and more draconian, especially in red states, you're needlessly placing yourself at risk by maintaining any presence on Meta sites.

Over time, we'll see Facebook become more and more extreme far right, politically.  This change will happen because of Meta's announcement that they will cease all moderation on their platform.  When you see Mark Zuckerburg, Elon Musk and the rest of the corrupt oligarchy at Trump's inauguration, ask yourself if you're helping them in any way.  There isn't an individual citizen who is going to put a dent in the billionaire oligarchs' lifestyle, but deleting your accounts on their social media platforms and encouraging your friends and family to do the same is an important message.

Leave Facebook ASAP

Mark Zuckerberg has killed Meta by his refusal to be consistent and protect its users.  He meanders a weaving line of uncertainty, catering to whoever appears to scare him the most at any particular time.  Its time its users fled everything owned by Meta.  You are not and will not be safe using their tools.  Whatsapp is easily replaced by Signal, which has been around for many years and functions as a non-profit.  Signal is end-to-end encrypted and for that reason the best messaging app to use on your cell phone.  To replace Facebook, there are a few options.  The Fediverse has published a page to help people find an alternative social media site to what they may be using.  There is no reason to be a slave to the venture capitalists creating AI bots to trick you, the user, into thinking you're talking to a real person.  You won't be a slave to venture capitalists on the Fediverse.

There has already been an exodus of users, including companies, non-profits and government agencies.  Don't give Meta any more of your time or your data than you already have.  They're not using it for anything good.  Come to the Fediverse and bring your friends and family!

What You May Be Missing

 

If you've seen any of this information before, I hope taking it all in at once cements the seriousness of this point in time.  Unfortunately, this isn't a game.  People live and die by the actions we do or don't take.  The above images were all shared on Mastodon, where good people are striving to keep truthful information flowing.  You don't have to be on social media, but if you are, Mastodon is the smart option.  Any social media owned and operated by a corporation is controlling what you see and what you think and they're using algorithms to do it.  There are no algorithms on Mastodon.  Best of all, you'll be able to stop watching the news on television and start understanding the ways in which the mass media has become part of the problem.  It's an eye-opening experience.

Integrity Is Out

The next Trump Presidency is already unlike the last because our standard has fallen and we barely realize it.  We already know Trump is a crook and that he's only interested in enriching himself and his friends and family.  We already know that he will find new and creative ways to accept bribes, to sell or rent his name on any product imaginable and to do so every day throughout his time in office and beyond.  He will fight any effort to reintroduce integrity to the Presidency.  With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that Trump has accepted a multimillion dollar bribe from a crypto fugitive, Justin Sun (yes, the same Justin Sun who purchased a banana duct taped to a wall for millions of dollars).  The Trump administration is for sale and he wants the world to know it.  America will do what you want if you will only give Trump the attention and money he seeks.  The American brand and moreover the Republican brand have been the perfect cover for him to do this.  He was never as wealthy as he claimed when he first ran for office in 2016, but having been President once allowed him to earn wealth he would have never been able earn without the world's most powerful job.  For those who care about returning to a day when we held our elected officials to a higher standard, we still have freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and we must use those freedoms regularly over the next 4 years.  We must not stop letting Trump and the Republicans know that we're watching them and we don't like what we see.  This is the calm before the storm.  When the storm hits, it will be violent--Trump has signaled this with his cabinet picks.  He will not respect the law and he has attempted to appoint Justices to America's courts that will cower to him and allow him to break the law.  Of course, they will tailor their Judicial opinions in such a way as to appear to respect the Constitution, but they have already shown that they will give him what they want, as judge Aileen M. Cannon has done in the case of the classified documents Trump stole from the U.S.A. when he left office in January, 2021.  He will attempt to sell anything he can, including America's most protected technologies.  Trump is a real danger to our safety and security, but exercising our constitutionally protected rights is a way to fight back.  If we do so consistently and collectively, we'll force Trump to realize that he's not wanted or needed in the U.S. government and that his best option is to leave.  Get ready to put the pressure on this crook!