Leon Trotsky just had a good day in the Congress of the United States. He was the man who conceived of the ideology of permanent revolution, of endless war against the bureaucracy and the evil establishment. That pretty much sums up the far-Right radicals of the Republican Party. They’re not satisfied with a win here, a win there, maybe a draw in between. They want it all, and they want it now. When Kevin McCarthy wouldn’t play their game, they sent him into internal exile. To hell with governing! Up the revolution!
And I suppose Mr. Big Shot with his list imagines we who outnumber them and don’t support them will just watch as they implement this bullshit? That’s not a plan: it’s a fever dream by a delusional maniac. A friend posted after McCarthy was dispatched that “now trmp can be speaker,” also an idea that should have been but was not produced by psychedelic drugs.
I have no fear that Donald and the Deplorables will have any chance of serving in any capacity in DC except for their jail terms. I have faith in the people who have been harmed the most - women of all colors and ethnicities - will turn out as they did in the midterms to vote against the GOP. Any country who would give the GOP more chances to inflict harm on people, values, policies, and institutions probably deserves whatever they get. Everyone I know is hypervigilant about the next election.
Your essay is thought provoking and certainly makes us all aware of the stakes. Thanks for listening to the MAGA maniacs so we don’t have to…..
That's what reasonable Germans said in 1932. Remember, 70 million people voted for a lunatic here. They will probably do it again. They don't want Biden.
Not all 70 million. Many died from Covid. And we are not Germany and it is 2023, not 1932. Did the Germans also have votes like our last midterms? Nope.
When did that happen, before or after Adolf Hitler was installed as Chancellor on January 30, 1933?
Oh wait, Hitler was "installed," appointed, designated to hold the office, so it couldn't have been then, and after even the first six or seven months of Nazi rule, led by Der Fuehrer Adolf Hitler {Imagines the obligatory fascist salute and a "Heil Hitler!") to call elections in the Third Reich free and fair?
Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind by H. R. Knickerbocker
Check out the Foreword by John Gunther, you'll see why this remains a tremendous collection of insights into the rise of Hitler and why America entered World War 2 - officially on December 8, 1941, but in a de facto war in the North Atlantic against Nazi Germany by May 1941.
I don’t imagine even the Republicans are fools enough to make Trump their Speaker. To be Speaker, you have to do the job, and and you have to be able to count.
What I found most instructive about why Kevin got thrown overboard was the story of how after averting the last minute shutdown by enlisting Democratic votes he went on national television Sunday to blame the Democrats for the crisis in the first place. An obvious attempt at blame shifting as Republicans have become wont to do. But, when this morning the Democratic caucus was meeting to discuss whether to save his bacon from Gaetz's recall vote they showed the video of his Sunday AM knife in the back. So, in the end Kevin got ZERO Democratic votes and along with the eight MAGA insurrectionists led by Gaetz from his own party he was toast.
So, in the end while Gaetz was saying his party couldn't trust McCarthy it was his own double dealing and assumption he could continue to roll the Democrats and get away with it which cooked his goose.
Good riddance. Wonder how the last of the Young Guns is going to feel being a permanent back bencher?
I had some free time over the last few days so I got to follow these developments, including watching a good portion of today’s “debate.” I enjoyed watching the Republicans squabble among themselves while the Democrats sat quietly. But I was mostly fascinated by all the face time and airtime given to Matt Gaetz. I wouldn’t vote for him for high school senior class president. He’s in his second term from a Florida panhandle district winning this time by a significant margin. He seems to have dodged a House ethics inquiry as well as a Department of Justice investigation. He’s now gotten rid of Speaker and is raising money on that achievement. I wonder if he now considers himself a kingmaker. We’ll see who he backs for the Speakership. But I really question the judgment of the voters in his district.
Matt Gaetz? He is the product of a corrupt, Florida official who bailed out his son every time Matt went off the rails, which was often. Matt Gaetz was “the person of interest” in the wrongful death of his college roommate--(he’s a f-king murderer)--but his daddy stepped in and made the coroner change the report. Matt Gaetz like his porn, pedophiles and whatever else Epstein was peddling. And, still! He walks free.
Lucian, I agree with everything you say except for one tiny comment that is repeated by many over and over, even though it's been disproved. It's that Trump held the Bible upside down. Nope. He didn't. I've seen the photos and videos up close. "Holy Bible" is clearly visible at the top of the spine, right side up.
Why should I care when this is small potatoes? Because we have to be accurate in our criticisms in order to persuade those on the fence to see the light. We have to have higher standards than the devious right, and we have to correct our mistakes, even the small ones, or at least not continue to repeat them. I'm one of your biggest fans, so forgive this nitpicking.
I have looked at those photos of the insipid clown holding up the Bible as well, I don’t think it was upside either, unless I’m wrong I think that started with Joe, on Morning Joe, he likes to repeat things, 4 hours is a lot of air time to fill up and I know some of it is a repeat. For a while the “upside down Bible” was like a mantra with him.
Thank you (with Maalox handy). The quotes you gave us from former DOJ official Mike Davis are really something. Yes, be afraid. Be very afraid.
Add to Trotsky/Lenin/Stalin/Bannon that other European madman of the 20th Century, and the model he makes for Trumpublicans. There's a quote from Franz Gurtner, the Minister of Justice who served that other European madman that's particularly appropriate to Mike Davis and the other MAGAsterial pseudo-legalists. A German District Judge (and church goer), Lothar Kreyssig, protested to Gurtner in 1940 that the Aktion T4 Program, murdering thousands of "mental defectives" and other "enemies of the state," such as homosexuals, the warm-up for Jews, was illegal. Why? There was no law or executive decree from that other European madman authorizing it.
Gurtner immediately fired Kreyssig, writing words that would warm Defendant Trump's "heart," if he had one, "If you cannot recognise the will of the Führer as a source of law, then you cannot remain a judge." Kreyssig was almost arrested by the Gestapo, but managed to live out the war. How many of "us" will evade nets of the Mike Davises who will inhabit Trump's Second Reich/Second Soviet?
A reactionary is a person who wants to reverse changes and seeks to restore society to a state believed to have existed before or some elements thereof. However, they don't necessarally want to change the system itself. Democracy is OK as long as blacks and women's don't vote. Democracy is OK as long as laws allow rich people to not pay taxes. Radicals want to change the actual system. These guys are opposed to democracy itself. MAGA extremists are OK with authoritarian strongman rule. Hitler used democratic methods to advance in power, then turned to violence to complete his takedown and assumed control. LT is correct; these guys are radicals in suits and skirts.
"Radical" is an adjective as well as a noun. "Radical reactionary" is not an oxymoron. A radical reactionary takes "reactionary" a step or two further.
A stellar lede! "Leon Trotsky just had a good day in the Congress of the United States."
As for Davis, he is rank, and clearly has delusions of dictatorship; not to mention reality.
It is still hard for me to believe that there are people who will say these things in public. In days gone by, they would be shunned ... or sent for a 30-day observation period. And every day Trump provides new examples of how he has besmirched the office of the presidency.
Again a thank you, Lucian, for writing what the fascists are planning for us. And we need to believe it. This column is a must read for the entire country. *Rump has made it clear already with his proclamation, “I am your retribution” that he will wage terror on all those he and the MAGAs hate. He has scores to settle, and has always sought vengeance against his many enemies. It’s what motivates him along with money and power. No one should be surprised that he and they are already drawing up lists of their intended victims. As Masha Gessen, a Russian exile, said about *Rump before he was elected, paraphrasing, ‘when a wannabe dictator shows you who he is (it’s always a he), and tells you what he’s going to do, BELIEVE HIM!’ She witnessed Putin’s rise, wrote about him, and finally had to leave Russia for her own safety. The dystopia that *Rump and his thugs will visit on this country is, unfortunately, beyond the imagination of too many Americans whose complacency is still very much intact. I wonder every day what it will take to dislodge it, whether we can actually dislodge it. Or perhaps I’m painting the devil on the wall needlessly. The next year, at least, is going to be agony for those of us who have lost our complacency, and realize that ‘ it can happen here.’
"This column is a must read for the entire country." I absolutely agree. Those of us who follow Lucian don't need to be convinced of the danger that faces the nation if the Orange Dumpster regains power. We all know it with every fiber of our being. But there are many, many others who are not as aware of the dangers pointed out in todays column. Lucian, please find a way to get your words out to a larger audience. Substack by itself isn't enough.
Lucian, Davis is more than likely a Leonard Leo appointee. Reading some of the R’s manifesto called Project 2025 is pretty eye-opening in how they plan on moving the Trump needle. The best explanation of it is from this very young attorney who does not mince her words. If you have time, listen to what she has to say.
“In the 50th anniversary edition of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Ron Rosenbaum discusses how the Post tried to expose the Nazi Party's plans of mass genocide and extermination of European Jews in the early 30s, to no avail.
It was the Post that discovered and published on December 9, 1931, a secret Nazi Party post-takeover plan for the Jews in which can be found the first known use of the Nazi party euphemism for genocide - "Endlossung," Final Solution.
— Ron Rosenbaum, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
That opening line about Trotsky cracked me up -- but I don't think it's fair to associate him with the Republican far right. Trotsky's idea of permanent revolution isn't all that far off from Thomas Jefferson's famous quote about how "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." What they both were saying is "Don't get complacent. The revolution is ongoing."
Back in the day I was known among my activist friends as an "independent radical" -- not aligned with any particular lefty faction (the type that gets put up against the wall first when the revolution finally comes because we're unpredictable). I was pretty proud of this. But my closest allies were the Trots -- the Trotskyites of the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialist Alliance. They were practical. They were good organizers. They played a major role in organizing the mass protests of the Vietnam era. So I think Trotsky would have been horrified by the GOP, and they would have been twice as horrified by him.
Was this in the UK or the US? My associations with the Spartacists in the US in the late '60s and very early '70s were mostly negative. I just learned from a quick search that the US Spartacist League was expelled by the SWP (Socialist Workers Party) in 1963. This may help explain my negative impression because I hung around with SWP/YSA types in the Mobe years.
A great, if despressing post warning us all about the dystopian future. It's a mistake though to just blame MAGA republicans, all Republican politicians, excepting perhaps Liz Cheaney, are MAGA, none have shown any courage to rebut Trump. Voters should, however, be treated differently, not all Republican voters are MAGA, but their party has abandoned them. Biden has been effective in emphasizing this distinction.
Prepping for surgery this afternoon, I heard the McCarthy dismissal on the news. Tabled reaction until I heard from My Favorite Scribe. You cut to the chase. Thank you.
And I suppose Mr. Big Shot with his list imagines we who outnumber them and don’t support them will just watch as they implement this bullshit? That’s not a plan: it’s a fever dream by a delusional maniac. A friend posted after McCarthy was dispatched that “now trmp can be speaker,” also an idea that should have been but was not produced by psychedelic drugs.
I have no fear that Donald and the Deplorables will have any chance of serving in any capacity in DC except for their jail terms. I have faith in the people who have been harmed the most - women of all colors and ethnicities - will turn out as they did in the midterms to vote against the GOP. Any country who would give the GOP more chances to inflict harm on people, values, policies, and institutions probably deserves whatever they get. Everyone I know is hypervigilant about the next election.
Your essay is thought provoking and certainly makes us all aware of the stakes. Thanks for listening to the MAGA maniacs so we don’t have to…..
That's what reasonable Germans said in 1932. Remember, 70 million people voted for a lunatic here. They will probably do it again. They don't want Biden.
Not all 70 million. Many died from Covid. And we are not Germany and it is 2023, not 1932. Did the Germans also have votes like our last midterms? Nope.
We live in hope.
I disagree - I have hope !!
When did that happen, before or after Adolf Hitler was installed as Chancellor on January 30, 1933?
Oh wait, Hitler was "installed," appointed, designated to hold the office, so it couldn't have been then, and after even the first six or seven months of Nazi rule, led by Der Fuehrer Adolf Hitler {Imagines the obligatory fascist salute and a "Heil Hitler!") to call elections in the Third Reich free and fair?
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66251
Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind by H. R. Knickerbocker
Check out the Foreword by John Gunther, you'll see why this remains a tremendous collection of insights into the rise of Hitler and why America entered World War 2 - officially on December 8, 1941, but in a de facto war in the North Atlantic against Nazi Germany by May 1941.
Linda, fantastic comment. I agree with every word. Thank you!
Thank you!
Your friend was bested by:
Congressman Troy E. Nehls
@RepTroyNehls
·
Follow
Kevin McCarthy will NOT be running again as Speaker.
I nominate Donald J. Trump for Speaker of the House.
4:00 PM · Oct 3, 2023
Oh shit.
I don’t imagine even the Republicans are fools enough to make Trump their Speaker. To be Speaker, you have to do the job, and and you have to be able to count.
And we know he is counting-impaired…
Besides being bone-lazy. Being Speaker would cut into his “Executive Time.”
What I found most instructive about why Kevin got thrown overboard was the story of how after averting the last minute shutdown by enlisting Democratic votes he went on national television Sunday to blame the Democrats for the crisis in the first place. An obvious attempt at blame shifting as Republicans have become wont to do. But, when this morning the Democratic caucus was meeting to discuss whether to save his bacon from Gaetz's recall vote they showed the video of his Sunday AM knife in the back. So, in the end Kevin got ZERO Democratic votes and along with the eight MAGA insurrectionists led by Gaetz from his own party he was toast.
So, in the end while Gaetz was saying his party couldn't trust McCarthy it was his own double dealing and assumption he could continue to roll the Democrats and get away with it which cooked his goose.
Good riddance. Wonder how the last of the Young Guns is going to feel being a permanent back bencher?
Good info. Thanks
I had some free time over the last few days so I got to follow these developments, including watching a good portion of today’s “debate.” I enjoyed watching the Republicans squabble among themselves while the Democrats sat quietly. But I was mostly fascinated by all the face time and airtime given to Matt Gaetz. I wouldn’t vote for him for high school senior class president. He’s in his second term from a Florida panhandle district winning this time by a significant margin. He seems to have dodged a House ethics inquiry as well as a Department of Justice investigation. He’s now gotten rid of Speaker and is raising money on that achievement. I wonder if he now considers himself a kingmaker. We’ll see who he backs for the Speakership. But I really question the judgment of the voters in his district.
Yes he is quite full of himself, is he not? He’ll slip up though, you’ll see.
Matt Gaetz? He is the product of a corrupt, Florida official who bailed out his son every time Matt went off the rails, which was often. Matt Gaetz was “the person of interest” in the wrongful death of his college roommate--(he’s a f-king murderer)--but his daddy stepped in and made the coroner change the report. Matt Gaetz like his porn, pedophiles and whatever else Epstein was peddling. And, still! He walks free.
Yup yup
I've been waiting for this article all day. I knew you would cut to the chase. What can we do? Seriously, what can we do to stop this?
Vote
Register new voters
Make sure your (sane) family, friends, and neighbors vote
Donate to the Biden campaign
Join Vote Forward and write to prospective voters in swing states
https://votefwd.org/
Lucian, I agree with everything you say except for one tiny comment that is repeated by many over and over, even though it's been disproved. It's that Trump held the Bible upside down. Nope. He didn't. I've seen the photos and videos up close. "Holy Bible" is clearly visible at the top of the spine, right side up.
Why should I care when this is small potatoes? Because we have to be accurate in our criticisms in order to persuade those on the fence to see the light. We have to have higher standards than the devious right, and we have to correct our mistakes, even the small ones, or at least not continue to repeat them. I'm one of your biggest fans, so forgive this nitpicking.
Corrected.
Either way, don't know why it didn't spontaneously combust!!
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-hold-bible-upside-down/
I have looked at those photos of the insipid clown holding up the Bible as well, I don’t think it was upside either, unless I’m wrong I think that started with Joe, on Morning Joe, he likes to repeat things, 4 hours is a lot of air time to fill up and I know some of it is a repeat. For a while the “upside down Bible” was like a mantra with him.
Thank you (with Maalox handy). The quotes you gave us from former DOJ official Mike Davis are really something. Yes, be afraid. Be very afraid.
Add to Trotsky/Lenin/Stalin/Bannon that other European madman of the 20th Century, and the model he makes for Trumpublicans. There's a quote from Franz Gurtner, the Minister of Justice who served that other European madman that's particularly appropriate to Mike Davis and the other MAGAsterial pseudo-legalists. A German District Judge (and church goer), Lothar Kreyssig, protested to Gurtner in 1940 that the Aktion T4 Program, murdering thousands of "mental defectives" and other "enemies of the state," such as homosexuals, the warm-up for Jews, was illegal. Why? There was no law or executive decree from that other European madman authorizing it.
Gurtner immediately fired Kreyssig, writing words that would warm Defendant Trump's "heart," if he had one, "If you cannot recognise the will of the Führer as a source of law, then you cannot remain a judge." Kreyssig was almost arrested by the Gestapo, but managed to live out the war. How many of "us" will evade nets of the Mike Davises who will inhabit Trump's Second Reich/Second Soviet?
Wrong terminology. They’re not radicals, they’re reactionaries.
A reactionary is a person who wants to reverse changes and seeks to restore society to a state believed to have existed before or some elements thereof. However, they don't necessarally want to change the system itself. Democracy is OK as long as blacks and women's don't vote. Democracy is OK as long as laws allow rich people to not pay taxes. Radicals want to change the actual system. These guys are opposed to democracy itself. MAGA extremists are OK with authoritarian strongman rule. Hitler used democratic methods to advance in power, then turned to violence to complete his takedown and assumed control. LT is correct; these guys are radicals in suits and skirts.
"Radical" is an adjective as well as a noun. "Radical reactionary" is not an oxymoron. A radical reactionary takes "reactionary" a step or two further.
I’d call them Che Guavera on steroids!
Che Guevara was better looking.
It’s Guevara! And why don’t the freaking ... include ‘edit’ here!
My phone won’t let me but the laptop does...
Open this in browser, and then click on 3 dots. Edit function should come up.
Edit is the three little dots on the right side of the comment.
Che Guevara had better politics.
More like Lenin. Destroy the state.
INDEED!!!
A stellar lede! "Leon Trotsky just had a good day in the Congress of the United States."
As for Davis, he is rank, and clearly has delusions of dictatorship; not to mention reality.
It is still hard for me to believe that there are people who will say these things in public. In days gone by, they would be shunned ... or sent for a 30-day observation period. And every day Trump provides new examples of how he has besmirched the office of the presidency.
Again a thank you, Lucian, for writing what the fascists are planning for us. And we need to believe it. This column is a must read for the entire country. *Rump has made it clear already with his proclamation, “I am your retribution” that he will wage terror on all those he and the MAGAs hate. He has scores to settle, and has always sought vengeance against his many enemies. It’s what motivates him along with money and power. No one should be surprised that he and they are already drawing up lists of their intended victims. As Masha Gessen, a Russian exile, said about *Rump before he was elected, paraphrasing, ‘when a wannabe dictator shows you who he is (it’s always a he), and tells you what he’s going to do, BELIEVE HIM!’ She witnessed Putin’s rise, wrote about him, and finally had to leave Russia for her own safety. The dystopia that *Rump and his thugs will visit on this country is, unfortunately, beyond the imagination of too many Americans whose complacency is still very much intact. I wonder every day what it will take to dislodge it, whether we can actually dislodge it. Or perhaps I’m painting the devil on the wall needlessly. The next year, at least, is going to be agony for those of us who have lost our complacency, and realize that ‘ it can happen here.’
"This column is a must read for the entire country." I absolutely agree. Those of us who follow Lucian don't need to be convinced of the danger that faces the nation if the Orange Dumpster regains power. We all know it with every fiber of our being. But there are many, many others who are not as aware of the dangers pointed out in todays column. Lucian, please find a way to get your words out to a larger audience. Substack by itself isn't enough.
Lucian, Davis is more than likely a Leonard Leo appointee. Reading some of the R’s manifesto called Project 2025 is pretty eye-opening in how they plan on moving the Trump needle. The best explanation of it is from this very young attorney who does not mince her words. If you have time, listen to what she has to say.
https://youtu.be/9k3UvaC5m7o?si=pTU4AGxZs8oTeD0S
PS: GOP learned the hard way: Turning the base up too high blows out your Speaker.
Bravo! Way to blow Margo
“In the 50th anniversary edition of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Ron Rosenbaum discusses how the Post tried to expose the Nazi Party's plans of mass genocide and extermination of European Jews in the early 30s, to no avail.
It was the Post that discovered and published on December 9, 1931, a secret Nazi Party post-takeover plan for the Jews in which can be found the first known use of the Nazi party euphemism for genocide - "Endlossung," Final Solution.
— Ron Rosenbaum, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Münchener_Post
Just a small correction of a typo, the German word is "Endloesung" with the
Umlaut on the "o" instead of "oe"which my computer is not able to manage.
Correct — keine umlaut
That opening line about Trotsky cracked me up -- but I don't think it's fair to associate him with the Republican far right. Trotsky's idea of permanent revolution isn't all that far off from Thomas Jefferson's famous quote about how "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." What they both were saying is "Don't get complacent. The revolution is ongoing."
Back in the day I was known among my activist friends as an "independent radical" -- not aligned with any particular lefty faction (the type that gets put up against the wall first when the revolution finally comes because we're unpredictable). I was pretty proud of this. But my closest allies were the Trots -- the Trotskyites of the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialist Alliance. They were practical. They were good organizers. They played a major role in organizing the mass protests of the Vietnam era. So I think Trotsky would have been horrified by the GOP, and they would have been twice as horrified by him.
I knew some activists from the Spartacist League in the mid-seventies, who claimed they were the true Trotskyists.
Was this in the UK or the US? My associations with the Spartacists in the US in the late '60s and very early '70s were mostly negative. I just learned from a quick search that the US Spartacist League was expelled by the SWP (Socialist Workers Party) in 1963. This may help explain my negative impression because I hung around with SWP/YSA types in the Mobe years.
This was in the US. As I recall (50 years ago), there was no love lost among the several Socialist factions.
That's my recollection too -- and the Socialists and the independent lefties, like SDS even before it split, didn't like or trust each other either.
A great, if despressing post warning us all about the dystopian future. It's a mistake though to just blame MAGA republicans, all Republican politicians, excepting perhaps Liz Cheaney, are MAGA, none have shown any courage to rebut Trump. Voters should, however, be treated differently, not all Republican voters are MAGA, but their party has abandoned them. Biden has been effective in emphasizing this distinction.
Prepping for surgery this afternoon, I heard the McCarthy dismissal on the news. Tabled reaction until I heard from My Favorite Scribe. You cut to the chase. Thank you.
Surgery for yourself? Hope everything’s okay.
Thanks! Yes, partial knee replacement. I think my surgeon likes me better than the Repubs like Kevin, though.
Bannon is a ranting insane radical deconstructionist.
Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were never as dangerous as Trump, Bannon , Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell.
Fidel and Che were only slightly dangerous to obscene capitalism.
And
Today the House set the stage for the coming bloodletting.
And
Talk about COLD blooded. Trotsky was murdered with an ice Axe.
But he did get to have an affair with Frida before Stalin got him.
Why the F%&* is Bannon not in prison????
Because he didnt hold up a gas station for 60 dollars.