In nine years of bring a politician, Trump, by his own words and deeds, has proven he is a congenital liar, a criminal, and a rapist. He stole classified files in the biggest breach of our national security in our country's history. He incited an insurrection. He wants to tear up the Constitution. He is a classic narcissist, loyal to no one but himself, and totally lacking a moral conscience or empathy. He has repudiated the rule of law by calling those who participated in the Jan 6, 2021 insurrection “patriots,” and stating his intention to pardon any of them found guilty in a court of law. He spews character assassination and insults with reckless abandonment. He has wrecked the lives of ordinary Americans and destroyed the careers of some for simply telling the truth about him.
Simple Google searches will provide the evidence backing up every word in that paragraph above. But there is an even simpler, quicker way to get a comprehensive summary of Trump’s own words that reveal him to be an immoral cretin. Read my report: “The Republican Screed: What It Takes to be a Republican, According to Donald Trump.” Trump actually escalated his malicious diatribes in the closing days of his campaign.
You would have thought Trump’s reputation as an immoral cretin had been signed, sealed, and delivered. But not surprisingly, an apologia for Trump is already underway. Some of its propagators have given it an additional twist by claiming that Democrats treated Trump with false charges and extremist rhetoric.
Not surprisingly, the mainstream media—the same instruments that back in 2015-16 fueled the political career of the novice Trump with tons of free publicity—are in the forefront of the apologia crowd. Their poster boy has to be Shadi Hamid, author of a Washington Post column on November 25, “Why the Resistance Went Quiet After Trump’s Victory: The fight against supposed fascism is not much of a fight, and that’s a good thing.” Hamid tells us that the criticism of Trump’s malicious lies, insults, and personal attacks—much less calling him a fascist—was wildly exaggerated, alarmist language. Some excerpts:
- The language of autocratic doom has dissipated…Biden welcomed the would-be dictator to the White House and seemed in good spirits, pledging to do everything he could to make sure the president-elect was accommodated.
- In Harris’s concession speech, she did not seem overly troubled by the prospect…of a fascist in the (White House).
- This sudden softening, however, raises questions about whether Democrats ever truly believed their own words.
- Perhaps, too, there is a bit of shame (among Democrats)
- There is also a sense that protests might not exactly work, that people power isn’t particularly powerful.
- Four more years of civil unrest would probably have little effect on someone like Trump and might even trigger him to (take more extreme measures).
- Despite how it might feel in this moment…there should be no embarrassment in pulling back, even if temporarily.
In my opinion, this is one of the worst commentaries the Post has ever published. The headline prepares the reader to for comments centered on Trump’s explicitly pro-authoritarian, anti-democratic, violence-inciting statements. But any reference to Trump’s drumbeat of extremist diatribes quickly disappears, and Hamid launches attacks on virtually the whole of the Democratic agenda.
The first four paragraphs of the article—summarized in my first three bullet points—are an insult to honest journalism. They reach new heights of obfuscation. Hamid actually mocks the proudest legacy the Democrats led by Biden and Harris bequeathed America: the peaceful transfer of power. His depiction of their adherence to the law and tradition as “a dishonorable surrender” and a “sudden softening” of their position on Trump’s extremism is a disgrace.
Hamid seems to admire the opposite approach taken by Trump and the Republicans in 2020-2021, when they showed their contempt for the Constitution, the rule of law, & democracy, by falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen, and unleashed an attack on the Capitol and used other criminal acts to try to overturn the lawful results.
In the Post’s comment section on Hamid’s article, LJWALKER offered this eloquent statement:
- Shadi Hamad is essentially giving the finger to those who do and will stand up against Trump. He mocks the idea of resistance as if it's something funny and unserious.
- I hope Hamad doesn't have to worry about his friends, family members and colleagues losing jobs, being deported, and marginalized (though with a name like his, I wouldn't bet on it). When they are, however, he can thank himself for this pathetic appeasement piece to a low life piece of scum who is also a fascist and will take this country back generations while he's also working to tear it apart.
- Hamad's words will come back to bite hard.
- So yeah, he should go ahead and make fun. Laugh it up! If he thinks the resistance is a joke, he couldn't be more wrong. And mealy-mouthed, spineless pieces like this show just exactly how much he DOES know about it: ZERO.
- A lot of us still care about this country and the U.S. Constitution, freedom of speech, the 14th and 15th Amendments, law and order—as screwed up and racist and sexist as it sometimes is. And that number is only going to grow from Trump's Day One
A Prominent Conservative Speaks
New York Times columnist David Brooks, one of the last real American conservatives with a prominent platform, has also taken a stand on the apologia cabal arguing for dropping the denunciation of Trump’s lying racist, xenophobic, misogynistic diatribes and treating him as a normal person. Excerpts from Brook’s article “The Moral Challenge of Trumpism:”
- …Trumpism represents an alternative value system. The people I regard as upright and admirable MAGA regards as morally disgraceful, and the people I regard as corrupt and selfish MAGA regards as heroic.
- The crucial distinction is that some of us have an institutional mind-set while the MAGA mind-set is anti-institutional.
- MAGA morality is likely to regard people like me as lemmings. We climbed our way up through the meritocracy by shape shifting ourselves into whatever teachers, bosses and the system wanted us to be. Worse, we serve and preserve systems that are fundamentally corrupt and illegitimate.
- (By Trump’s standards) The virtuous man in this morality is self-assertive, combative, transgressive and vengeful. He’s not afraid to break the rules and come to his own conclusions.
- In this worldview, a nominee enshrouded in scandal is more trustworthy than a person who has lived an honest life.
- The corrupt person owes total fealty to Donald Trump.
Brooks quotes another prominent observer of American morals, David Linker, from his recent Substack essay:
“Trumpism is seeking to advance a revolutionary transvaluation of values by inverting the morality that undergirds both traditional conservatism and liberal institutionalism. In this inversion, norms and rules that counsel and enforce propriety, restraint and deference to institutional authority become vices, while flouting them become virtues.”
The Republican Party Screed 2025, as Stated by Donald Trump
The words of the guru that reveal the heart and soul of the modern Republican Party. Here’s what it takes to be a Republican in the Age of Trump
- Make over 30,000 false or misleading statements (lies) as President
- Spend weeks downplaying the coronavirus threat and stating it would soon “just disappear,” leaving the nation unprepared for the full force of the pandemic
- In later interviews with Bob Woodward, admit that you lied in giving your optimistic view
- Recommend that Americans ingest bleach to cure Covid-19
- During the 2020 Presidential campaign, refuse to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and disparage mail-in voting in a transparent effort to set the stage for an extra-legal or illegal challenge of the vote
- Create out of whole cloth the Big Lie that massive fraud prevented you and other Republicans from winning in 2020
- Have your followers launch numerous frivolous legal challenges to the lawful election results, all of which are thrown out of court.
- Pressure state election officials to illegally alter the official election results, including a flagrant appeal to the Georgia Secretary of State that results in your being subjected to a criminal investigation by a District Attorney
- Use the Big Lie about voter fraud to mobilize a rally in Washington on January 6, 2021 and incite the participants to stage a violent invasion of the Capitol
- After the rioters spend over an hour viciously beating Capitol policemen and vandalizing and looting the Capitol, appear in public to refer to the mob as “my kind of people.”
- Follow up by describing the violent insurrection as a “day of love.”
- When informed that the life of Vice President Pence is at risk from the rioters, respond by saying “so what.”
- Describe the violent insurrectionists as “patriots” and state your willingness to abrogate the rule of law by saying you will pardon them if re-elected president
- Label your political opponents “the enemy within” and indicate you are prepared to use the military to seek retribution against them
- Make up a Big Lie about how two Georgia election workers engaged in criminal activity to manipulate the ballot count, and engage his lawyer, Rudolf Giuliani, in a publicity campaign to spread the lie, unleashing a torrent of threats and intimidation of the two that turns their lives into a living hell.
- Keep the vile lie going for three years until a trial and decisions by two juries exonerates the two and juries order Giuliani to pay almost $150 million in damages.
- After your presidential term ends, mobilize the Republican Party to launch an attack on democracy itself, with the aim of stealing the 2022 and 2024 elections by passing laws to allow extreme voter suppression and to place partisan hacks in charge of state electoral processes.
- At the end of your presidential term, steal classified documents and hide them from the FBI.
- Call for the Republican party to "purge" individuals who oppose him. Well into 2024, keep up a drumbeat of condemnation of Georgia Republicans who resisted his attempt to enlist them in a criminal conspiracy to alter the lawful outcome of the 2020 election, in which Biden won Georgia’s electoral college votes.
- During the 2024 presidential campaign, spread a false claim that Haitian migrants in a small Ohio city were stealing and eating the pets of their neighbors.
- Tell a Big Lie that “Every job in this country produced over the last two and a half years has gone to illegal aliens — every job.”
- State publicly that Springfield, Ohio would be one of the places where Trump would start “the largest deportation in the history of our country” — despite the fact that officials said correctly that a majority of Haitian migrants in Springfield and elsewhere are in the country legally.
- In a presidential campaign, use rhetoric that becomes increasingly violent and rambling. State publicly that it would be a legitimate act to murder the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley.
- In another explicit appeal to violence, depict a scene with Harris standing “with nine barrels shooting at her…with the guns trained on her face."
- When virtually all the former high-level appointees in your own Administration warn the country what a disaster you would be as President, condemn them with rhetoric that once would have been thought to be too coarse, vulgar, and demeaning to be used in presidential contest.
- Call your former national security adviser a "real dope" and "nut job." Lambast a former Republican Congressman from Illinois as a "total whack job," and call Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, a "watermelon head."
- In a live interview, say that Kamala Harris is a “very dumb individual, very dumb…a radical war hawk.”
- Also, call Harris “retarded,” “mentally disabled,” and “a sh-- vice president”
- “Donald Trump’s recent speeches have lapsed into an incoherence that’s striking even for him — and it’s causing a whole new level of panic over his possible return to the White House, an MSNBC columnist wrote.”
- Approve suspending the Constitution
- Talk about using the Federal Communications Commission and the Internal Revenue Service to punish media organizations and anyone else who crosses him.
- Demean the military service of John McCain and insult his memory by raising the White House flag back to full mast while his memorial services were underway
- Mock a handicapped person
- Kidnap children and lock them in wire cages
- Talk about Hispanic immigrants and demonize them the way Hitler talked about the Jews. Say they are “animals” who are “infesting” America and “poisoning the blood of our country.”
- In a talk with a right-wing group in September, Trump singled out migrant children as the cause of suffering for American school children. “Our country is being poisoned. And your schools and your children are suffering greatly because (the migrant children) are going into the classrooms, they’re taking the seats and they don’t even speak English.”
- Tell brazen lies about the extent of criminality among Hispanic migrants. In an interview in October 2024, claim that among people coming to an open border, “13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person…I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”
- (A range of studies by academics and think tanks have shown that immigrants do not commit crime at a higher rate than native-born Americans. A more limited universe of studies specifically examine criminality among immigrants in the U.S. illegally but also find that they do not commit crimes at a higher rate. Click here for a review of the scientific studies that refute Trump’s claims about immigrant crime).
- Pledge to deport up to 12 million undocumented immigrants. Justify this plan by citing a false storyabout Venezuelan gang members taking over an apartment complex in a Denver suburb, although police there say no such thing happened.
- State, yourself, that expelling migrants from the country “will be a bloody story.”
- Impugn the integrity of a respected Federal judge based on his family’s Mexican heritage
- Brag about sexually assaulting women
- Call various women bimbo, dog, ugly, of low intellect, & Miss Piggy
- Refer to a United States female Senator by the racist-tinged term “Pocahontas”
- Subject a woman to a vicious sexual assault (a judge labeled it rape) and spend years slandering and libeling her for telling her account
- Support a known sex offender for the Senate from Alabama
- Publicly boast that you take the word of Putin over U.S. intelligence services about Russian interference in U.S. elections
- Come across as an obsequious lapdog of Putin in a 2018 joint press conference
- Refuse to take serious steps to counter Russian cyber warfare aimed at the U.S.
- Spread the proven Russian Big Lie about Ukraine interfering in U.S. elections
- Pressure Ukrainian President Zelenski to launch a fake investigation of his political opponent, using a cutoff of U.S. military aid as leverage
- State that the United States was no better than Russia in its moral values
- Insult and demean the United States’ democratic allies
- Call for the dissolution of NATO
- Press for Russia to be invited to the annual meeting of the G-7, despite our allies’ opposition
- Order the removal of 11,000 troops from Germany without prior consultation with our NATO allies
- Publicly and frequently express fulsome praise for murderous thugs Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim Jung Un, Chinese President Xi, Hungarian strongman Orban. Even call the terrorist organization Hezbollah "very smart."
- Proclaim that you are in love with Kim Jung Un
- Remain unstinting in your praise of Putin and Kim Jung Un after they are revealed as ordering the assassination of their political opponents abroad
- Urge Americans to vote twice, a criminal as well as moral offense
- Establish a long track record of incendiary and disparaging remarks about veterans and military service. Include in the disparagement veterans who were wounded, captured, or missing in action, and call those killed in combat “suckers” and “losers.”
- Proclaim publicly that the civilian Presidential Medal of Freedom is "better" than the Medal of Honor for military valor.
- In a meeting with top U.S. generals, call them “losers” and “a bunch of dopes and babies,”
- Support torture
- Engage in the character assassination of a respected U.S. Ambassador
- Treat as trivial the brutal murder of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi on orders of the Saudi Crown Prince
- Praise neo-Nazi demonstrators in Charlottesville in 2017 who were chanting "Jews will not replace us"
- Say it’s OK to accept damaging information on political rivals from a foreign government
- Run political campaigns overtly supporting racism, xenophobia, and white nationalism
- Use fear-mongering and race-baiting to support that campaign
- Clasp to your bosom the extremist crackpot organization QAnon, which believes a cabal of pedophiles and cannibals is waging a Satanic conspiracy against Trump, by effusively praising QAnon’s chief Georgia advocate for winning a Congressional primary
- Sum up QAnon by saying, “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.”
- Falsely accuse Barack Obama of engaging in a criminal conspiracy to hide his real birthplace
- Tell U.S. Congresswomen of color to “go back where you came from.”
- Call African countries "s---holes"
- Continue to call for the punishment of five Black and Latino teenagers wrongfully convicted of rape, even after legal authorities had completely exonerated them
- In a transparently racist appeal, warn “suburban housewives” that Democratic housing policies would “destroy” the suburbs
- Incite followers to violence
- Have police authorities assault peaceful protestors to clear a path for you to walk across the street and pose in front of a church holding a Bible
- Imply that the Second Amendment could be invoked to justify assassinating Hillary Clinton
- Tell law enforcement officers that they should feel free to rough up detainees and break the law, and be guaranteed a pardon
- Call a Republican U.S. Congressman who body-slammed a newsman “my kind of guy”
- In a talk with a right-wing political group, assert that schools were essentially creating transgender students by forcing children to undergo gender reassignment surgery without even obtaining parents' permission.
- "Think of it, your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation."
- Approve Howard Stern's calling your daughter "a piece of a--"
- Overrule U.S. security services and grant Jared Kushner a security clearance
- Belittle a Gold Star American mother
- Create a sham “university” to defraud average citizens of their money
- Have a court order the closing of your foundation because of financial impropriety
- Play up being called “the chosen one,” an appellation usually reserved for Jesus Christ
- Subvert the military’s due process by pardoning three officers duly convicted of atrocities against civilians in separate instances
- Do the same to civilian courts by pardoning Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff who housed Latino prisoners outdoors in inhumane conditions and was convicted on federal contempt-of-court charges
- Accuse TV personality Joe Scarborough of being a murderer
- Falsely accuse a senior citizen protestor assaulted by police of being an anti-government conspirator
- Violate the Constitution’s emolument clause and enrich yourself and your family by welcoming foreign delegations to your hotels and resorts
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- Finally, have good words to say about:
-The “very good people” (armed protesters) who showed up in the Michigan Capitol to intimidate lawmakers
-The person who allegedly shot and killed two people at a protest in Wisconsin
-The “Great Patriots” who drove into Portland, Ore., hurling paintballs and pepper spray at demonstrators
-Officers who kill unarmed African Americans. Claim they simply “choke” under pressure.