Digby has excerpts from a new book: “The Divider” by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. Here’s a few:
Mr. Trump’s mercurial approach to the presidency so baffled John F. Kelly, his second chief of staff, that Mr. Kelly secretly bought a copy of a best-selling book by a group of psychiatrists questioning Mr. Trump’s mental health. Mr. Kelly told others that the book was a helpful guide to a president he came to consider a pathological liar whose inflated ego was in fact the sign of a deeply insecure person.
Mr. Kelly often regaled others with stories of Mr. Trump’s ignorance about basic historical facts and his inability to absorb information. But it was Mr. Trump’s flawed judgment that most rattled Mr. Kelly, and he concluded that the problem was not that Mr. Trump did not know right from wrong, but that “he always does the wrong thing.”
Mr. Kelly grew so disaffected from Mr. Trump that he snapped at him when the president refused to lower the flag after Senator John McCain’s death. “If you don’t support John McCain’s funeral, when you die, the public will come to your grave and piss on it,” Mr. Kelly told Mr. Trump, according to interviews for the book.
So many cabinet secretaries were disenchanted with the president that at one point they discussed a plan to resign en masse. There were other mutual suicide pacts during the Trump administration as well. Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, agreed with Alex Azar, the health and human services secretary, that they would both resign in protest if Mr. Trump resumed separating the children of migrants at the border from their parents.
Greenland was one issue that absorbed the National Security Council staff for months. Mr. Trump later claimed the idea was his personal inspiration. “I said, ‘Why don’t we have that?’” he recalled in an interview last year for the book. “You take a look at a map. I’m a real estate developer. I look at a corner, I say, ‘I’ve got to get that store for the building that I’m building,’ etc. It’s not that different.”
He added: “I love maps. And I always said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.’”
Tell-all books about Trump are now a literary genre all by themselves. It seems like there is more coming out all the time — and not the least worrying thing is how much people knew that was concerning, horrifying even, and they said nothing at the time. Some who had eventually recanted have gone crawling back. Some… have only doubled-down.
I’m not putting this here to promote the book, or because these incidents are all that remarkable. If you want a longer review, there’s one at The NY Times. I’m putting it up here because I have a question.
How many more books like this will it take to make people realize Trump is an ongoing danger to America? What will it take to make people realize that the Republican Party has been thoroughly Trumpified to the point that they are just as great a danger? Is there anything that can make a difference, break the spell?
The acceptance of the idea that Trump could be nominated again and be placed into the office by a perfected election rigging scheme that he and the GOP almost pulled off last time should terrify every sane person who isn't a member of the GOP cult.
He's openly threatening to unleash more violence like he did on January 6 if he is indicted. He is a clear and present danger; so why do we seem powerless to defend ourselves from him and the Republican Party?
America is sleepwalking into the fire.
With all the people around Trump who saw what he was every day, why aren’t they all speaking out against any future political ambitions he has? It shows how thoroughly corrupted they have become as well. His pet judge is still ruling DOJ can’t do anything with the papers he stole; anyone else would be in jail by now. But then, he should have been in jail a long time ago.
What is it going to take?
The only thing about Trump as the 2024 GOP candidate that’s even vaguely not the worst news is that it might block the path of Ron DeSantis, who has shown he is even more imaginatively cruel as well as just as corrupt.
It seems as though every Republican president from Nixon on has managed to be worse than his predecessor. Which is not surprising — the new book by David Corn “American Psychosis” shows that the Republican Party has a long history of turning to the Dark Side.
They really have no choice — they are post fact, post policy, they have no principles left worth mentioning, their ideas don’t work — demagoguery is all they have left. Winning is all they care about.
This interview with David Corn is about 11 minutes long and is well worth watching.
So the question is, for those of us who are not members of the Republican Cult, how is it we can continue to live with this in our midst? How do we keep it from spreading? What are we going to do if they can’t be stopped?
It’s enough to make one wonder if America has developed a death wish.
EDIT/Update 9/16/22:
There’s more must-read material on this, which I am adding here:
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