Trump’s Propaganda on a Stage Set by Submissive Courtiers and Buffoons

The late Andrew Breitbart, the Right Wing media pioneer who founded Breitbart News sad something that his friends in the Right Wing media, the Republican Party and especially Donald Trump have adopted as their playbook, not that Trump himself had not already learned it from Adolf Hitler, whose speeches were at his bedside:

“The power of propaganda is to say something enough times that it becomes the Big Lie.”

Trump did this throughout the Obama Presidency, his first campaign and term in office, and ramped up during the Biden Presidency, his campaign and since his inauguration. Everything he does is to support his big lies, especially the shows that he stages to put himself front and center of everything. His methods are thoroughly Hitlerian.

After the Trump-Musk Blitzkrieg against the Constitution and the American people since his inauguration I was not going to watch his State of the Union address because I knew that it would be little more than a self-congratulatory campaign rally rally speech laced with fetid propaganda. After the disgusting assault by the American President and Vice President committed against the President of Ukraine in the Oval Office under the glare of cameras for all for all the world to see I resolved that I could not watch it. I followed some of the coverage during the night but since I had been up 1:30 AM writing tests on the Nazi regime and the Holocaust the night before and teaching all day I was too exhausted to do anything here.

The morning after the speech I was still exhausted, kept awake by the PTSD nightmares I have been plagued with since Iraq, but have gotten far worse over the past month, I had to get ready to teach again, and the day with my youngest class did not go well and by the time the day was done I was more stressed, and by the time I got home after going out to eat I was toast. I went to bed early but my sleep was still crappy. Thursday I woke up exhausted, taught all day and went to see a bunch of people who I have not seen in years at a get together. Today was full of doctor’s appointments after which I had dinner with friends.

I have been trying to figure out how I was going approach Trump’s full out propaganda program, complete with the adulation of MAGA and obligatory displays of phony care and compassion for children in the audience, who served as props for his show, just as children did in the Third Reich for Hitler.

The Democratic response was something fit for 1992, not 2025. It was a great response for normal times, but there is nothing normal about the United States in 2025. The small signs held up by some Democrats were laughable, and the response after Representative Al Green was removed for a protest saying "no mandate to cut Medicaid ... no mandate" in which the 75 year old raised his walking cane was terribly weak. A few walked out during the speech but most did nothing. It would have been far more effective for every Democrat to walk out in protest then, or even better after Trump began his speech. Green’s words were not heard by the television audience, and none of the cameras showed individual Democrats walking out. They could not have ignored the entire Democratic House and Senate membership walking out en masse.

Then ten spineless House Democrats joined every Republican to censure Green because he broke “decorum” to criticize Trump, a man bound by no set of rules or decency, or decorum. The time for such fastidious observance of any respect or decorum for the office that he occupies. Decorum and respect only works when both parties agree to abide by them, the Republicans including Trump have refused to do that since Barack Obama’s first term. Why in the face of looming dictatorship should Democrats respect them now?

All that being said, the best response was that of French Senator Claude Malhuret on Wednesday.

Europe is at a critical turning point in its history.

The American shield is slipping away, Ukraine risks being abandoned, and Russia is being strengthened.

Washington has become the court of Nero: an incediary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a buffoon on ketamine tasked with purging the civil service.

This is a tragedy for the free world. But above all it is tragedy for the United States.

Never has such an observation been so true. While I might have compared Trump’s regime with the Nazis, and Musk to Hermann Göring whose dependence on paracodeine pills certainly influenced his decision making during the Third Reich. Nonetheless, the comparison of Trump with Nero and Musk a “jester on ketamine” works just fine.

Since I got started on this later than I expected tonight I will close, but I am not finished criticizing Trump and his criminal regime by a long shot.

Until next time. Be safe, don’t stop resisting and watch your six.