I woke up and did something unfortunate: I turned on the radio. Dirty Diaper Don has announced hi running mate, a J. D. Vance. Where had I heard his name before? Or do I have him mixed up with J. R. from the old TV series "Dallas"? No, it turns out Mr. Vance had written a book that did rather well called "Hillbilly Elegy".
I'd been interested in the book when it came out, but lost that interest when it came out that the author had not pulled himself up by his bootstraps but was born rather well-off and had made himself, through connections, more well-off. A parallel is Jim Foxworthy who made many millions bagging on "rednecks" while being the son of an IBM executive, dropping out of college to be a mainframe tech because his father fixed him up with the job (which would have paid better than almost any degreed job) and started out in comedy clubs with his one trick of picking on the actual working class.
So J.D. Vance's book didn't interest me after all, and another part of Vance's working-class schtick was calling Trump "America's Hitler". There's an exact parallel for this part of his life also. I call it the wooing of Goebbels.
Goebbels didn't like Hitler at first. Goebbels was well educated and wanted to write poetry and novels. He thought Hitler was crude and even dangerous. So the two were brought together, Goebbels went to one of Hitler's spit-filled speeches, and apparently after wiping the flecks of phlegm off of his noble visage, decided Hitler was just fine and he'd swear the utter loyalty to the person of Hitler required.
Now, no doubt, Vance is still calling El Dumpo "America's Hitler" but as the saying goes, "That's a good thing!". Donnie + Vance are going to appeal to the "forgotten Americans" in the same way as their role models no doubt.
I'm sure Vance's plan called for concentration camps for the non-Aryans, and then there will be the quest for lebensraum. If I were Canada or Mexico I'd be very nervous right now. Most of the "Forgotten Germans" died in WWII, mostly on the Eastern Front. I suspect we'd have the same. The Northern Front will be like the old Western, the fighting a bit more genteel if war can be said to be. The Southern Front will be the one that bashes the hull of the Nazi 2.0 ship of state to pieces on its insurmountable rocks. For one thing we'll be fighting all of South America also, as we've made enemies of most of those countries already. We'll have tons of trouble inside our country unless anyone with brown skin is thrown into a camp, which brings problems of its own. Canada will be backed by NATO while Mexico and S. America will likely have Chinese backing. The US will be allied with Russia but Russia is showing itself to be a paper tiger. Its ships sink a lot, for instance. Hopefully the Ukrainians will bleed them white by the time this big quest for lebensraum begins. And hopefully I'm out of here.
They'll be scraping every crackhead off the streets of New Orleans for this war. No need for actual physical fitness or intelligence, just a pure DNA test. This is why the Nazi/US quest for lebensraum, the attempt to overtake the entire North American continent, will fail in the same way Nazi Germany's quest to take over the entire Eurasian continent failed. Alienate/imprison/kill a good portion of the smartest people in your country, declare war on most of the rest of the world, and demonstrate that you intend to wipe entire populations off the face of the Earth, and you'll end up like one of those "kung fu" guys who's watched a lot of TV and honestly think you can take on three street fighters at once.
Everything awful is being described, For instance the new Nazi government is supposed to be more "crypto friendly" in other words, the biggest scam to come down the pike. I'm not sure how this is supposed to work with a lot of working class prepper types preferring silver, gold, lead, and brass. They trust banks even less than I do. And they dread a fully digital money system. Even the Nazis 1.0 had to mint coins in silver. Again, our new Nazis won't let reality get in the way of a good fantasy.
More awfulness: First a light, entertaining piece on how awful Orthodox Judaism is (presented as Judaism in general) then NPR goes on to mention that the Dump-appointed judge in his classified documents case is dropping all charges.
I'm reminded of those videos of a very clumsy, generally very overweight, tripping all over themselves in the process of trying to climb a few steps or some such easy task, and with each twist and flop appears to injure themselves even worse. That person being what I'm increasingly dismayed to say is my country.
The next hour or so is spent gushing over this J. D. Vance, the Himmler to Dump's Hitler. There's a very good change Diaper Don wont' live through a second term as he is most definitely not aging gracefully. Vance is much, much younger, not even 40, so he can take over as dictator for many decades. NPR, or the corporations that largely fund NPR, thinks this is interesting and cool.
Of course a dictator's regime needs A Book. Hitler his his Mein Kampf, Stalin had Marx and Lenin's writings. Mao had his Little Red Book. This new regime will have this one: https://www.baconsrebellion.com/wp/the-lies-in-hillbilly-elegy/ all in all no more full of falsehoods than Mein Kampf, and no more unrealistic than Mao's tome.
I was able to pack about a dozen things and took off at 4. I dropped the things off at the downtown post office, then went over to Whole Foods where I got a slice of garlic ricotta pizza which is really good, and a Trumer Pils.
At the checkout, some Karen behind me said "You're the trumpet guy!" and I said I'll be the cornet guy too if a guy on Craig's List answers my email. The Karen could not understand anything not said while yelling, so I had to yell this a 2nd time so she understood. She had a can of Trumer Pils too so that gave an opportunity for me to say something nice and neutral, that it's a great hot-weather beer. By this time I was checked out and the Karen said BYE! and I said Bye but that upset her - not loud enough so I had to do this stage-yell BUYEEEE! thing. Idiot Karen.
I'd gotten some broccoli along with the pizza and since the food is by weight at the hot bar, that was some expensive broccoli. Next time maybe I'll get some toasted kale or something. It was all good though.
After eating I got the bright idea to go to what I was sure was a CVS down by the Valley Medical place on Santa Clara Street. I went down there and it was a Walgreen's - no booze as opposed to the booze wonderland a CVS can be. I rode back to Market Street then down to the "Neighborhood Market" Walmart I always go to.
Going there on a Monday was not a good tactic. I'd swear I was in line 45 minutes, then the couple in front of me could not come up with a card that worked and tried paying with a smart phone somehow and that didn't work either. Eventually they had to leave their stuff and I paid for mine and said my farewells to the nice older couple I'd been talking with who were after me.
Now it was 7:30 at least. I found some books on the way home - OK many of them. And stopped at TAK Market for a bottle of Guinness as that would go well with the boiled peanuts I'd just bought. They had Guinness in every configuration but pint bottles so I had to get a 4-pack of cans. A pint of Guinness at Whole Foods is $3.25, the same as it was in Newport Beach 30 years ago. I figured it would be maybe $4 at TAK but the 4-pack was $12 and change, which was not bad.
I have to apologize a bit to the hero kid who almost capped Donnie Dumpo. He'd just climbed up a ladder to the top of a building, a cop went up to check the situation out, kid pointed his rifle at the cop who retreated (even Sgt. Saunders was allowed to duck when lead might come his way) and then, without having time to set up a position, get his breathing under control, etc., he got off 7 or 8 shots and with actually pretty good accuracy. If Donnie hadn't moved his fat head we'd all be celebrating now. So, Good Job, kid. You're a hero and a credit to our country.
This all makes me ponder the trope that's gone around for the last couple of decades about the average lift of empires. It seems to be 250 years, with 220 years being the median. We're at about 238 years now. We are seriously pondering, as a nation, whether leaders are to be chosen by the will of the people or by connivance and force. That this is a serious question says a lot towards our perhaps living in the very end of the American empire.
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