Author: admin

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.” – Harrison Bergeron – Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut’s short story – Harrison Bergeron – was written in 1961, and in Vonnegut’s darkly satirical style, portrayed America in 2081 as an disgracefully dystopian nightmare. Little did Vonnegut know what he considered outrageous and 120 years in the future, would be far closer to our current dystopian reality just 60 years later. The story was brought to my attention by my wife a week ago when we were talking about the absurdity of masks, their uselessness in stopping viruses, how they are nothing more than a means to control the population, being used to spread fear, and as a dehumanizing technique.

She remembered the name Diana Moon Glampers from reading the story in high school. Never has a story that takes 15 minutes to read, captured the evilness and depravity of a government demanding “equality” in a more succinct and brutal manner. Its parallels with our current government enforced lockdown, mandatory muzzles, mainstream media propaganda, and social media censorship is uncannily accurate.

The premise of Vonnegut’s story is George and Hazel Bergeron sitting on their couch watching TV, sometime after their fourteen-year old son Harrison had been taken away by the government and jailed for the crime of being strong, good looking, intelligent, and defiant against their ridiculous regulations and dictates. The mediocre minds of those in charge had taken the American Declaration of Independence’s phrase – “All men are created equal” to a ludicrous extreme.

Their warped interpretation of our founding document failed to acknowledge the term “independence”, and the unalienable rights of all men to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We are created equal in the eyes of God, but we have free choice to use our abilities to succeed or fail in life. Some people use their intellectual abilities to succeed, others use their athletic strength, and others their physical appearance and talents. The government should not dictate who should succeed or fail.

The totalitarian government in Vonnegut’s 2081 America coerces its citizens into being equal to one another in appearance, behavior, and achievements. To attain physical and intellectual equality among all Americans, the government torments its citizens through mandatory handicapping, enforced by the Handicapper General – Diana Moon Glampers.

The beautiful must wear repugnant masks or disfigure themselves, the intelligent must listen to piercing noises that impede their ability to think, and the elegant and strong must wear weights around their necks. Removal of their government mandated handicaps results in huge fines and imprisonment. Vonnegut takes the “achievement” of total equality to its most absurd outcomes. The foolishness of handicapping the best and brightest citizens to achieve total equality is unnatural and wrong. Punishing the talented by forcing them to be unexceptional and compliant, results in a society of mediocrity and mendaciousness.

Harrison Bergeron is seven feet tall, three hundred pounds, athletic, graceful, handsome, intelligent and defiant. He is the embodiment of the alpha American male, making him a dangerous threat to a government dependent upon keeping its populace fearful, sedated, cowed, average and unmotivated to defy their dictates. The handicaps placed on Harrison were heavier than anyone had ever required.

“Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides. Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. And to offset his good looks, the H-G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle-tooth random.” – Harrison Bergeron – Kurt Vonnegut

Despite these hinderances, he escapes from his jail cell, bursts into the studio where average ballet dancers, masked to hide their beauty, and weighed down by bags of birdshot, are joylessly giving an unexceptional performance in front of a nationwide audience of unthinking automatons, obediently following the orders of their overseers. The warning announcement from the government before he arrived at the studio said he was plotting to overthrow the government and should be considered extremely dangerous.

In this world of the “future”, anyone not toeing the government line and exercising their right to think differently or question the government narrative is considered a traitor and dangerous. Individuality is a crime. Thinking for yourself is a crime. Enjoying life is a crime. Not obeying masking rules is a crime. Does this remind you of anything in present day America? Harrison is brave and defiant, while the majority are cowardly and passive.

Harrison rips off his steel restraints and handicaps, revealing his physical strength and magnificence, reminding TV viewers that underneath their own restraints and handicaps, they too are individuals, capable of excelling and living life fully. He declares himself emperor and selects a ballerina as his empress.

The other dancers and musicians removed their handicaps and began to play and dance up to their God given abilities. This scene offered the potential for a revolution. As Harrison and his empress danced majestically, you could visualize the mental and physical binds breaking across the country. A spirit of excellence and independence could sweep across the land and the people could break free of their government mandated trusses.

But it was not to be. Authoritarian governments, once they attain power and control, will not relinquish it without a fight. They will use violent means to keep the sheep docile and obedient.

“It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor. Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.” – Harrison Bergeron – Kurt Vonnegut

The governments of the future and the present cannot allow displays of individuality and defiance of authority, or they lose their power, control and wealth. Therefore, they will resort to extreme acts of violence to enforce their will upon their subjects. Governments want passive, unthinking, obedient serfs, who do as they are told and believe whatever narrative they are peddled.

In Vonnegut’s dystopian future the government achieved this mental state of distraction through externally applied handicaps, but in reality, they have been able to achieve this outcome through government school indoctrination centers, drugs to induce tranquility, and technology to mesmerize, distract, and propagandize an easily swayed populace.

Vonnegut was certainly warning his readers about the evils of equality as sold by the socialists/communists during the 1950s. Based on what have seen since his warning and the current drift of the country towards socialist authoritarian enforced equality – taking from the successful and giving to the failures – we have failed to heed the moral of his cautionary tale. We’ve chosen comforting lies over unpleasant truths.

Vonnegut’s two main themes were the dangers of government enforced total equality and the power of television/technology to control and manipulate our thoughts and feelings. Those with average intelligence required nothing more than to be entertained by the TV, but those with above average intelligence or abilities either willingly dumbed themselves down or hid their special attributes, to avoid the harsh handicaps inflicted by the government.

Fear of severe punishment intimidated the talented into docile submission. The quest for equality was achieved. The result was a nation of stupid, slow dullards, incapable of critical thought or achievement. Vonnegut’s question for his audience was, are we willing to sacrifice our liberty and freedom in order to achieve a government mandated and enforced level of warped equality?

Anyone with an iota of awareness and critical thinking ability can see the parallels with our current path of compulsory equality, enforced through government regulations, left wing academics, social media shaming, corporate virtue signaling, and socialist politicians. Rather than physically handicapping those with more talent and drive, they attempt to equalize for the inept and lazy by lowering the bar and heaping financial incentives upon the “disadvantaged”.

The entire BLM scam being jammed down the throats of white Americans is based on the falsehood of systemic racism and the perceived need to equal the playing field for blacks by giving them the ball on the five-yard line. We have universities ignoring SAT scores to allow minorities slots earned by Asians and whites. The entire educational system has been dumbed down to make the intellectually challenged (aka dummies) feel like they are equal to those who outperform and outwork them. Being educated at a university by academics who have never worked a day in their lives doesn’t make you intelligent, as we can plainly see by the level of ignorance in this country.

The narrative of victimhood has been flogged by the deceitful mainstream media, pandering politicians, and imparted by left wing professors to their oblivious indoctrinated students. This narrative is used to guilt those who worked for their success into volunteering their positions and supporting undeserved remunerations.

The trillions spent to alleviate the perceived disadvantages of blacks since LBJ’s Great Society implementation have done nothing but enslave millions in the chains of a welfare mentality and it’s never enough. Equality won’t be achieved until trillions of reparation bribes are paid and their criminal element are rewarded for their looting and rioting efforts in cities across the land.

The victim card is used by feminists for “equal pay”, even though the statistics they use are fake. The LGBQT movement demands special rights, rather than equal rights. Sports Illustrated now puts obese chicks and men pretending to be women in their swimsuit issue in order to be politically correct and woke. Those of a libertarian bent don’t care how others choose to live their lives, but trying to force abnormality upon the community through laws and regulations is a bridge too far. Bringing others down to further your agenda is not what this country is about. And the pushback is now commencing.

The most relevant parallel between Vonnegut’s dystopian future and 2020 has been the use of fear by the government, their media mouthpieces, and handsomely paid “experts” to herd the population into lockdown corrals, while forcing mandatory masking (muzzling) under threat of fines and imprisonment. This has been done to “save us” from a flu that will not kill 99.7% of us and is only a risk to the very old and infirm.

Even though the CDC, New England Journal of Medicine and numerous other medical authorities detailed the ineffectiveness of masks in combating viruses prior to this engineered pandemic, the authorities demand compliance and submission to mask mandates, even though the virus continues to spread despite compulsory masking around the world – except in Sweden.

In Vonnegut’s dark vision of the future, the handsome and beautiful are masked to make the ugly and average feel good about themselves. The intelligent and thoughtful are hampered by screeching sounds so they are dumbed down to the level of compliant dullards. The fear of reprisal and punishment keeps the population terrified and easy to manipulate and manage.

Vonnegut’s totalitarian government behemoth sought to dehumanize its subjects, suck the joy from their lives, and create a nation of submissive serfs, unwilling to revolt against their masters. Our power-crazed autocrats, running the show, are jubilant at the success of their demonic experiment in convincing the vast swath of humanity to love their servitude, scurrying around like masked mice, avoiding each other as if there was a real plague engulfing the world.

The un-Constitutional lockdowns are a test drive for further authoritarian measures designed to make our lives joyless, bleak and controlled by a master class of oligarchs and their henchmen enforcers. Their goal is to turn us against each other, creating a nation of snitches and equally miserable slaves for the state. They haven’t resorted to shotgun blasts on national TV, but physically attacking the non-compliant has begun.

Vonnegut’s entire story takes place with George and Hazel Bergeron planted on their couch watching TV. Vonnegut clearly believed the relatively new invention of television had become a hugely important part of our daily lives, with the potential capacity to be used by the government to sedate, rule and terrorize the population into doing what they were told. As Bernays noted almost 100 years ago, the manipulation of the habits and opinions of the masses through unseen propaganda techniques allow the invisible government to manipulate and control the minds of its citizens.

Television made this “necessary” molding of minds to the desires of the government dramatically easier. Vonnegut saw television as mainly a sedative for the masses, keeping them docile and distracted from thinking. It was also a means of coercion, as the news bulletin showed a photograph of Harrison with his good looks disfigured and strength dissipated as a visual example to viewers of what will happen to them if they do not stifle their own abilities and obey their overlords. The live executions on TV were used as a warning to everyone about the fate of revolutionaries.

Vonnegut had no idea how the power of television would be taken to the nth power with the onset of the internet, “smart” phones, and social media. The geniuses and techno-geeks assured us technology would enhance freedom and open the world to new horizons and discoveries. All the knowledge ever learned would be at the fingertips of everyone on the planet. A glorious future awaited. Sadly, for humanity, the glorious future never arrived. As Huxley predicted, technological progress has just provided a more efficient means of going backwards. Technology is used as a never-ending distraction for those with below average intelligence.

The unadulterated use of propaganda and fear has never been more evident than during this great reset pandemic scheme. The brightly colored Covid-19 case counters at the bottom of every MSM news channel screen are designed to scare the non-thinking math challenged noobs into believing mass death will sweep the nation unless they lockdown and mask-up. The government uses influencers (Hollywood idiots and sports heroes who can’t spell hero) and mass media advertising campaigns to make the plebs believe masks work and lockdowns will stop the virus. The level of willful ignorance is beyond comprehension, but a true credit to the propaganda powers of the state.

The truth is out there, but the billionaire Silicon Valley censorship police are doing their part as the enforcement arm of the invisible government overseers, to obscure, delete, and suppress any opinions not adhering to the approved Party narrative. There are thousands of medical professionals who know HCQ + zinc stops this virus dead in its tracks, but acknowledging that truth would not help enrich Gates, Fauci and the drug company complex. Therefore, it is ridiculed, scorned and banned from use by politicians and media pundits on the take. The current fear mongering has reached a new level this week as their final push to rid themselves of Trump enters the home stretch.

The talking heads screech about new all-time highs in cases and hyper-ventilate about the coming wave of death unless we elect Biden, lockdown and enforce mandatory masking. What they do not tell you is testing reached an all-time high of 1.4 million yesterday, so with the same positivity rate (with at least 50% false positives), cases will always go up. The vast majority of those testing positive have no symptoms, meaning they aren’t sick. The only thing that should matter is deaths per case. How many cases lead to a death?

At the peak in April there were 2,113 deaths per day when cases were 30,000. That was a death rate of 7%. Two months ago, there were 922 deaths per day when cases were 41,000. That was a death rate of 2.3%. Today we have 809 deaths per day, with cases at 79,000 – a death rate of 1%. Have you heard an MSM propagandist joyously declare the death rate is now down 86% from its peak and down 57% in the last two months? That doesn’t fit the narrative of fear needed to keep you controlled, cowed and compliant.

Vonnegut was right, but he was far too optimistic on the timing. The totalitarians are on the warpath. They already have control over most governments and intend a great worldwide reset to implement their socialist/communist agenda of equality for all – except themselves. They want more wealth, more control, and more power. As Orwell predicted, they seek power for its own sake. They don’t care about our lives, liberties, or pursuit of happiness. They just want dumbed down obedient workers to do the menial jobs and passively accept their fate until death.

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?” – 1984 – George Orwell

Of course, the antidote to this new world order is written within our founding document. The government should derive its powers from the consent of the governed. Those in charge, whether elected or unelected, have destroyed our rights, freedom and liberty. Therefore, it is our right to abolish the existing form of government and institute a new government under our original founding principles. Those in control will not relinquish their power without violent conflict. That is how Fourth Turnings reach a climax. I have a feeling the fight will begin in earnest on November 4. Brace yourself and prepare to fight for the future of our country.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” – Declaration of Independence – 1776

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Ever since Vision Fund chief Rajeev Misra told Bloomberg that SoftBank’s second “Vision Fund” might instead be formulated as a “SPAC” instead of another VC fund, we’ve pretty much been waiting for the next shoe to drop over at the Vision Fund.

Miraculously, SoftBank’s shares have recovered, and talk of giving a WeWork IPO one more shot suggests Masayoshi Son is more focused on rehabilitating his reputation than embarking on a new venture replete with new companies and new risks. Plus, the firm is also dealing with the fallout from the whole “Nasdaq Whale” fiasco.

At the time, we speculated that a SoftBank SPAC might be brought in to finally bring WeWork public, without Adam Neumann and his cliches about “elevating consciousness”,  maybe investors could be persuaded that companies like WeWork, which offer more “flexibility” when it comes to leasing apartment space, might be in a better position to capitalize on the ‘work from home’ economy. WeWork’s CEO insists the company will be profitable next year, an almost unimaginable feat, and a claim that we are deeply skeptical of.

SoftBank has insisted that Vision Fund 2 will happen, but apparently, many of its most senior, and thus most richly-paid employees, are reading the writing on the wall. Because as Bloomberg reports, at least 4 Vision Fund executives have left the company, which is also supposed to oversee its investments.

Here’s the rundown on who is leaving, and who has left: (text courtesy of Bloomberg):

• Ruwan Weerasekera, 54, the fund’s chief operating officer and a managing partner, has retired, according to SoftBank spokesman Andrew Kovacs.
• Neil Hadley, who’s also chief of staff to Vision Fund Chief Executive Officer Rajeev Misra, will take on the COO role in addition to his current duties.
• Penny Bodle, a partner who headed investor relations, has also departed, Kovacs confirmed.
• Avi Golan, an operating partner, has left to become CEO of artificial intelligence software maker AnyVision, the company said in a statement last week.
• Carolina Brochado gave her notice a month after she was promoted to partner.
• Investing partners Ted Fike and Justin Wilson have resigned to join Alec Gores’s eponymous Gores Group as senior managing directors, focusing on the firm’s special purpose acquisitions companies, or SPACs, effort, Kovacs said (their move was reported by Axios on Sunday).

In recent years, the media has portrayed SoftBank’s culture as aggressive and reckless, an impression that will no doubt be cemented if the company follows through with the SPAC plan.

Like we noted above, VF still has companies to run, and it’s still putting money to work: this year, VF has made investments in fitness tracker whoop and restaurant-technology maker Ordermark. It’s not clear how much money has been raised for the second vision fund, but the first featured $100 billion with at least half of that amount coming from the Middle East.

But it’s not like Masa needs any more outside money: for all we know, the “Nasdaq Whale” trades might have given SoftBank and the Vision Fund the financialsupport they needed to strike out on its own.

To be sure, we imagine Misra, the top dog over at the Vision Fund, is pleased to see all of these potential rivals search for greener pastures. Despite its failures, the Vision Fund has a sizable portfolio. And now Misra and Masa Son are effectively the only two left to run it.

Authored by Michael Tracey via Medium.com,

From the moment Donald J. Trump took office, I argued it was necessary that he face a rational opposition – with an emphasis on “rational.”

Discerning, targeted, evidence-based criticism would be imperative to counteract against Trump’s worst impulses, I maintained at the time, given his hardly-disguised penchant for blusterous, petty authoritarianism. While of course Trump would be far from the only president whose excesses needed checking – any occupant of the most powerful office in world history would – there was at least some reasonable cause to believe that his regular issuances of impulsive, fly-by-tweet demands could eventually raise unique civil liberties concerns.

In hindsight, I might as well have been arguing for a parade of pinstriped purple unicorns to march down Fifth Avenue. Because the concept of a rational Trump opposition was an utter fantasy.

Instead what we got right off the bat was blanket “Resistance” to Trump, with the concept of “Resistance” turning into far more of a self-promotional branding exercise than any kind of sensible civic-minded disposition. Seemingly every word that came out of Trump’s mouth, no matter how inane or innocuous, prompted wild outbursts of blithering hysteria — egged on by the unholy profit-seeking alliance of social media algorithms and TV ratings. In the imaginations of his most excitable antagonists, it was taken as a truism that the United States was perpetually teetering on the edge of total Trump-induced collapse. Usually because he insulted a cable news host or something.

To encapsulate this paranoid oppositional tendency, the slogan “Resistance” was picked for a specifically self-aggrandizing reason – having been derived from European anti-Nazi insurgent brigades in World War II. As preposterous as it sounds that anyone of stable mental health could have possibly believed present-day America to be meaningfully comparable with Occupied France, this conceit became near-ubiquitous within anti-Trump activism and media circles. Sure, some who trafficked in rhetoric of “anti-fascism” probably did so out of a bizarre psychic need to feel as though they were combatants in an epic battle to save civilization from genocidal tyranny. But many also came to really and truly believe it, with full-fledged sincerity — as I can personally attest based on innumerable direct interactions with such people. A “Literal Nazi” president running literal concentration camps? Yup, that was a standard, uncontroversial viewpoint amongst the culture-media-activism industrial complex.

Clearly, to harbor such delusions about the nature of your own country’s political circumstances was antithetical to the “rational opposition” ideal that I’d initially floated. Combine it with the storyline that Trump had been illegitimately installed into power by a hostile foreign government — another profit-generating bonanza for the corporate media — and any prospect of sanity being maintained during the 2016–2020 period was rendered completely hopeless.

As for civil liberties? The preservation of which is what I had originally thought would necessitate a rational opposition? So much for that. If anything, the overt reliance by Democratic partisans and self-styled “Resisters” on officials associated with the CIA, FBI, NSA, and other “intelligence community” has been an unbridled civil liberties disaster.

With some distance from the day-to-day mania of life under Trump, it’s going to be impossible to deny that these agencies intruded to an extraordinary degree in US domestic political affairs over the course of the past several years. But because it was largely done to the detriment of Trump – typically to create the impression that he’s an agent of Russia, or at least benefitting from their sinister so-called “interference” – the long-term consequences of this development have yet to be fully wrestled with. Let’s just say it doesn’t bode well for the future of civil liberties when intelligence agencies seize autonomy to do whatever they please in the political realm.

Those of us repulsed by this slew of anti-Trump tactics – despite having no affinity for Trump himself, or the Republican Party, and no reason to support his re-election – will have to reckon with a grim recognition if he goes down to defeat this week. Which is that these tactics will have been successful.

All the security state machinations, the blathering media tirades, the incessant waves of phony moral panic, the needless infliction of mass psychological turmoil – the constant fantasies and delusions that obscured far more than they ever revealed about the country’s actual problems – all of it will have been vindicated. Because it will have been done in service of accomplishing the desperately-craved goal that has been forefront in the minds of these hysteria-purveyors every single day for the past four years: removing Trump.

Trump is routinely decried as a singularly menacing destroyer of democracy. And at least around the margins, there’s probably a kernel of truth to some of that. But the damage his opponents have done — arguably far more significant — will reverberate long after he’s gone.

Please note, to observe this does not amount to making an affirmative case for Trump. Irrespective of the insanity of his haters, Trump as the incumbent had to deliver on the pledges he made in 2016, and then some, in order to expand his coalition and have any hope of re-election. By and large he hasn’t done that. Either way, he screwed up the federal response to a pandemic, so it might’ve been a wash regardless. And just for the record, Trump himself has certainly been more than happy to provoke, troll, and needle his foes, so it’s not as if he’s blame-free in the ensuing miasma of hyper-partisan craziness.

Still, if the “Resistance” is really on course to declare victory tomorrow – barring some unforeseen shift or major polling error – then we’re just hours away from the final vindication of their off-the-wall tactics.

Trump may not deserve another term on his own merits.

But a loss for Trump is nonetheless a win for the lunatics who’ve spent four years subjecting the rest of us an unceasing tsunami of freakish nonsense.

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Note from MT: Regardless of the election outcome, there’s little hope that the corrupting dynamics so painfully observable in the media industry are going to improve any time soon. Recent developments at The Intercept and elsewhere confirm that. So, this is why I asked for reader/viewer-based contributions to sustain my own independence. I appreciate the support:

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China is again being accused of a blatant landgrab along the disputed Himalayan high altitude border region not far from where Chinese and Indian Army troops previously clashed. 

This time it’s the country of Nepal that has accused China of stealing over 150 hectares sovereign of its territory, or about 1.5 square kilometers. Leaders of the tiny country wedged between the major regional powers of India and China made the explosive charge to the Daily Telegraph early this week.

“Why should China come over into Nepal, when China is already sixty times the size of our small country?” a lawmaker in the Nepali Congress Party, Jeevan Bahadur Shahi, said. However, it’s believed that thus far neither Kathmandu nor Beijing has officially acknowledged it because it would harm trade ties – a much more worrisome prospect for the Nepal side. 

Nepalese politicians have recently accused top officials have seeking to hide the scandal for fear of the economic repercussions. 

But perhaps most alarming is what the cross-border territory is to be used for by the PLA, as the Telegraph explains:

China allegedly began seizing Nepalese land in five frontier districts in May, sending members of its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) across undefended areas of the border.

In the north-western district of Humla, PLA troops crossed the border into the Limi Valley and Hilsa, moving stone pillars which had previously demarcated the boundary further into Nepalese territory before constructing alleged military bases. The Daily Telegraph has seen images of the bases.

Border identifiers were also allegedly moved by the Chinese in the district of Gorkha as well, while additional annexations Rasuwa, Sindhupalchowk and Sankuwasabha were also said to have taken place according to the report. 

PLA Military camps and bases have also featured into the much larger dispute along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) which separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory, especially in the Ladakh region, which witnessed hand-to-hand combat last summer resulting in at least 20 Indian troop deaths. India had accused PLA forces of setting up fortifications inside its administered territory.

But in the case of Nepal, China may think it can get away with more while hoping the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) will look the other way, given the two governments consider themselves ideological allies.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A Yale psychiatrist with a history of anti-Trump rhetoric tried to seriously argue on Twitter that Donald Trump is worse than Adolf Hitler, before deleting her tweet.

Bandy Xenobia Lee bills herself as an “Expert on global violence prevention,” yet she appears to seriously think that Trump poses a bigger threat than one of the worst dictators in human history.

Just incredible stuff here…my god. pic.twitter.com/Hq2QcMiuzN

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 2, 2020

“Donald Trump is not an Adolf Hitler,” Lee tweeted.

“At least Hitler improved the daily life of his followers, had discipline, and required more of himself to gain the respect of his followers. Even with the same pathology, there are varying degrees of competence.”

Desperately backpedaling, Lee was forced to delete the tweet and issue a mealy-mouthed apology.

Okay, I have taken it down, since it has upset so many people and was not provoking thought but the opposite. Of note, my statement was about how little Donald Trump believes he needs to do to retain his followership, NOT to minimize Adolf Hitler’s atrocities.

— Bandy X Lee, MD, MDiv (@BandyXLee1) November 2, 2020

And then doubled-down on her remarkable hyperbole…

If we cannot look at parallels in history and learn from them, we are truly poised to repeat it. I say so in heartbreak for the 11+ million lives lost, not in their minimization (currently, we are looking at 7 billion at risk, without exaggeration if we soberly thought of it).

— Bandy X Lee, MD, MDiv (@BandyXLee1) November 2, 2020

Lee’s outburst is ironic given that she has repeatedly asserted that Trump is mentally unstable yet is clearly suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome herself.

Respondents weighed in with their views on Lee’s bizarre tweet.

“The doctor has the worst case of TDS I’ve ever seen. Sick stuff,” said one.

“You’d think that the [checks notes] President of the World Mental Health Coalition wouldn’t be fucking insane. And yet here we are,” remarked another.

“Intellectuals nowadays. Gotta love ’em,” added another.

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Yesterday we published a lengthy election cheat sheet looking at what happens on and after November 3.

Due to popular demand, and since there have been some notable changes in the past 24 hours, we update this preview as well as present some new data that will be relevant to keep track of tomorrow’s events.

But first, here is how to follow the news on Election Day.

The table below shows the states that are considered toss-ups or have a slight lean according to forecasters (“likely” and “safe” states are likely to go as expected, which gives Biden 226 Electoral College votes and Trump 125 Electoral College votes). As different states below are awarded to each candidate, add the Electoral College votes to their total. The first candidate to 270 Electoral College votes wins the Presidency. Times which these states were called on election night in 2016 are also included, though these times can and will likely vary this year.

Florida and Pennsylvania are perhaps the two most important states to watch as no Republican has won the Presidency without winning Florida since 1924 and it is a must-win for Trump – without it the path for him to reach 270 Electoral College votes diminishes significantly. Meanwhile, as we reported last night, Pennsylvania is considered by FiveThirtyEight to be the most likely “tipping point” in the election and should Biden lose it, he will become the underdog. It is another state which Trump likely needs, but is also critical for Biden. If Biden wins Florida or Pennsylvania, he is very likely to win the election and if he wins both it is almost certain he gains the 270 Electoral College votes.

Additionally, Iowa, Ohio and North Carolina are states Trump won in 2016 and he needs to retain some combination of them – though not necessarily all of them – to win. If he loses all three, it is likely Trump has lost.

Here are a few tips from Bank of America:

1. Be wary of exit polls: The track record of exit polls is tenuous at best. In 2004, exit polls showed John Kerry winning the popular vote by 51% to 48% only to ultimately lose by the same margin. Similarly, there were major flaws in the 2016 exit polls which substantially underestimated the number of white working-class voters while overestimating the number of college-educated white voters, leading to bias results favoring Hilary Clinton. Pollsters claim they have fixed the issues ailing Election Day polls but the better mouse trap is yet unproven. Moreover, there has been unprecedented surge in early voting (both in person and mail-in) with over 70mn votes cast nationwide to-date and there is a major skew in voter day preference by party. Admittedly, pollster are aware of this issue and will enhance their methodology by polling at large and early voting centers but nevertheless this creates greater uncertainty in their estimates.
2. Brace for head fakes: Results from battleground states should begin to trickle in just after polls close within each state (Table 3). First battleground states to report will be Florida, Georgia and New Hampshire where polls close at 7pm EDT (polls in Florida’s panhandle will close at 8 pm), followed by North Carolina, Ohio and Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Type of ballots reported first will vary across states. For example, according to reporting done by the Upshot blog of the New York Times, battleground states such as Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, and Iowa will report early in-person and processed mail-in votes first. Meanwhile, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nevada will not follow any specific order. Getting a clear sense of who is winning will be difficult given the large number of early voting by mail and absentee ballots and different rules around processing ballots, which we discuss below.
3. Key demographics: In 2016, President Trump was able to tip the election by winning the older and suburban vote. A post-mortem of the 2016 election by the Pew research center showed that Trump won the age groups 50-64 and 65+ by a margin of 6 and 9 points, respectively and edged out the suburban vote by 2 points. During the 2020 election cycle, polls have shown President Trump consistently running below his 2016 election numbers in these key demographic groups. In this context, keep an eye on results coming out of suburban areas such as Maricopa County in Arizona and Peach County in Georgia and older leaning regions such as Sumter County and Pinellas County in Florida. Results in these regions could prove to be a canary in the coalmine.

Below we present a BofA cheat sheet summarizing the key election details including poll closing times, ballot processing and deadlines, heatmap of Electoral College votes, and competitive Senate races (Battleground states highlighted in blue, bold Senators indicate predicted flipped seat).

As Reuters expands, here is what to expect in some of the most bitterly contested states :

Blue Mirage

Florida and North Carolina allow election officials to begin processing mail-in ballots weeks before Election Day, and the results of those counts are expected to be released as soon as polls close on Nov. 3. If both states follow that schedule, it is likely that Biden will appear to be ahead initially, as the latest Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll shows that people who already have voted in Florida and North Carolina support the Democratic challenger by a more than 2-to-1 margin over the president. In both states, a majority of people who plan to vote in person on Election Day support Trump.  A blue mirage is not expected to last long in either state. Experts say they expect Florida and North Carolina to finish counting most of their mail-in and in-person ballots before the end of the night.

Texas, Iowa and Ohio – which Trump won easily in 2016 but polls show could be competitive this year – also allow early processing of mail ballots, so could show a similar blue mirag. All three states are expected to finish counting most ballots on Nov. 3.

Red Mirage

In Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, mail-in ballots cannot be counted until Election Day. While Michigan did recently pass a law that allows many cities to start processing mail-in ballots, such as opening ballot envelopes, the day before the election, they cannot begin to count votes. Because mail-in ballots typically take longer to count than ballots cast in person, the initial results could skew Republican. Then, some experts say, expect a “blue shift” as election officials wade through the piles of mail-in ballots. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin may be slowed by their lack of experience with high volumes of mail-in ballots. About one in 20 votes in the two states were cast by mail in the 2018 congressional election, compared to a quarter of Michigan’s votes and about a third of Florida’s.

Pennsylvania’s vote counting could go on for days. Democrats in the state recently won a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court to allow officials to accept mail-in ballots up to three days after the election as long as they are postmarked by Nov. 3. “Something I’m prepared for on election night is for Pennsylvania to look more Republican than it may actually be, whoever ends up winning the state,” said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. Ballots in Wisconsin and Michigan must arrive by Election Day, although litigation is under way over whether the states should count ballots that arrive late if postmarked by Nov. 3.

When could the Presidential election be called?

Traditionally, most Presidential elections are called by midnight of Election Day (see chart below) but there are few exceptions including the 2000 contested Bush-Gore election and the 2016 Trump-Clinton election. These are also the only two elections in over 130 years in which the Electoral College winner was not the winner of the national popular vote (that is the loser in both those elections received more national votes than the winner).

As a reminder, the 2000 election came down to Florida’s 25 Electoral College votes as the deciding factor (and Bush only won the state by 537 votes). The 2016 election came down to Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania which Trump won by around 77,000 votes (0.05% of all votes cast in 2016).

The obvious message here is that the timing of the results is conditional on how close the election is. Given current election forecasts, polls including in swing states, it is possible that the election results could therefore be known before midnight IF Biden in actuality is going to win by a significant margin. Even if Biden wins, a smaller margin of victory could see delayed results.

One other item to note is that there could be greater care in calling the winner by the major news networks. Traditionally, AP gives the official “call” though other news networks compete to be the first. However, given the polarized climate and concerns around contested elections, networks could be especially cautious before proclamations.

Closing Gap

One key development of note in the past 24 hours has been the continued shift in Trump’s favor in a number of swing state polls, which has narrowed the polling margin error difference separating a decisive early Biden victory and a potentially delayed slog towards certainty. This can be seen in a number of states that have more closely clustered around the 1.6-1.9% polling margin in favor of Biden (GA, NC, FL, AZ), which together count for 71 Electoral College Votes (26% of those needed to win).

This matters because if we re-run the analysis we conducted over the weekend where we assume the same polling errors in 2020 as in 2016, Trump will win comfortably with 279 votes, and take Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona and North Carolina.

As the following chart from JPMorgan shows, this is indicated by the unusual steepness of the Electoral College curve just before the 2% margin. The exhibits presents cumulative electoral college votes according to polling margin – to give an idea of which states are important to watch to determine which final outcome is most likely. Put in plain English, a systematic polling error of less than 1.6% should give high certainty of a decisive Biden victory assumed tomorrow evening. A systematic polling error of greater than 1.9%, however, will likely push the tipping point states towards those known to likely have delayed results (PA, WI, MI).

The next chart shows a baseline and alternative scenarios where a decisive number of electoral college votes could be achieved over the course of election day and beyond. This chart shows cumulative electoral college votes according to likely result release time according to various representative scenarios, to provide a template to track how the actual observed outcomes unfolding election night and beyond is tracking to either the baseline, or to alternative wildcards outcomes.

Here are some observations on the chart above from JPMorgan:

• The ‘Baseline’: Early confirmation of Biden/Blue Wave sweep (TX goes to Biden at ~9-10 pm EST). Each of TX, GA, OH, FL and IA are close contests after strong Republican outturns in 2016. Newswires called TX first in 2016, followed by OH. If the same holds true in 2020, Biden victories in TX or OH would suggest no systematic polling error in favor of Trump (and the potential for the opposite). It would set a decisive path to deliver the majority 270 EC votes by around 10-11pm (after the 9pm EST closing polls report), and towards as many as 417 Electoral College votes. Earlier in the evening (with the 7pm poll closures) a definitive Biden victory in Florida and Georgia would also go a long way to signaling a highly probable Biden victory. Importantly, if Biden wins in all the states where he has a polling margin lead (including Florida), he will be able to be confirmed without relying on states where there could be potential reporting delays because of mail-in ballot counting, with the decisive EC votes coming in after CA and WA report. Finally, Biden could win even with a polling margin error of up to ~4% in favor of Trump, but this would likely involve a delay.
• Wildcards: On the other hand, Trump has a path to win or at least contest the election process (Trump wins Florida at ~11pm EST, PA/WI/MI results are delayed). Trump realistically needs Florida to remain competitive on election night. If he wins Florida and upsets in a number of smaller states (e.g. NC, GA and AZ, implying a systematic polling error at least 2% in Trump’s favor), then this would elevate the importance of PA, WI and MI to cross the 270 electoral vote threshold. These three states have all seen massive surges in requests for mail-in ballots, and largely do not pre-process the votes; this creates risk of reporting delays. Delayed results in these states keep a contested election a possibility, and could delay the final official outcome for several days while late absentee votes are counted in PA. Importantly, a Trump upset requires a greater than 4.5% systematic polling error in his favor and will almost necessarily involve states where there would likely be delayed reporting. Without any delays, this upset win could be confirmed as soon as the 10pm closing polls report.
• Biden/gridlock likely (Republicans defend almost all Lean-R incumbent Senate seats pushing to a Jan 5 Georgia Runoff). If Biden wins, Democrats need to net +3 seats to have the bare minimum for a Blue Wave sweep that includes a win in the Senate. Per Cook, they look poised to net +2, with seven toss-up seats to be decided. A Biden victory in NC or IA could potentially carry the Senate seat as well, giving Democrats net +3 or +4. So the signal for the Senate may be clear before midnight (it was called at 1:24am EST in 2016). But if the Republicans mount a strong defensive performance, it may come down to seats in Georgia – at least one of which is likely to be decided in a run-off format on 5 Jan 2021. Thus in a tail-risk scenario, there is scope for the Senate not to be decided until January, which would pose significant discomfort for market participants given the potential legislative agenda at stake.

According to JPM, markets should focus on and potentially reprice specifically around outcomes in Texas and Florida. A Texas Biden win should trigger a fuller pricing in of the Blue Wave scenario and a closing of wildcard hedges, as it will also likely rule out a delayed or contested scenario. A Florida win by Trump should trigger a pricing of greater risk premium against the baseline low-drama Blue Wave scenario. Together with news of too-close-to-call outcomes in PA, WI, MI and NC will trigger hedging against a delayed outcome and more significant chance of a Trump upset.

The chart below presents a full listing of state-level election details, together with the risk of delays and the deadline to receive absentee ballots when it’s not election day.

Risks of delays and lead changes

Concerns around delays due to greater voting by mail may be overblown in some states, and understated in others. Over 93 million Americans have already voted, including 59 million by mail and 34 million in-person. For reference just 25% of the 2016 votes were by mail, although a big reason for the mail votes is due to the covid pandemic. Most of the swing states are able to process and even count votes ahead of Election Day, which should reduce or eliminate delays. Therefore we would not expect any significant delays in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa or Ohio, thought marginal delays (hours not days) could be seen in Michigan and Wisconsin.

The biggest potential for delays come from Pennsylvania and North Carolina as under current law both states will allow ballots to arrive up to three days after Election Day so long as they are sent by November 3. These are the two most important swing states after Florida, therefore a tight race in these states could lead to delayed results through Friday, November 6. Both states could see potential cases in the Supreme Court that could alter these rules: Pennsylvania could see its deadline forced back to Election Day and North Carolina could see its deadline extended from three days to nine days. These states need not see such long delays, though, if there is a big lead by one candidate; rather this how long the delays could be under a worst-case scenario. Officials in North Carolina expect over 98% of ballots will be reported on election night which suggests we may still see early results there.

How are the mail in ballots being counted?

According to BofA, states could have a challenging time working through such a large number of mail-in ballots. The rules also vary by state in terms of when the ballot can be sent and counted. The most common state deadline is on Election Day when the polls close (see Table 3 above).

However, some states will accept a mailed ballot if it is received after Election Day as long as it is postmarked prior. The rules differ in terms of when the ballots can be counted. Some states do not allow mail-in ballots to be opened before Election Day which could mean counting delays. This includes a few of the critical swing states – such as PA and WI. Moreover, mail-in ballots may be contested for signatures that don’t match voter registration cards.

Expect to wait for Arizona

On election night in 2018, Arizona Republican Martha McSally appeared to be on the road to victory in the state’s U.S. Senate race, telling her supporters she was going “to bed with a lead of over 14,000 votes.” Six days later, McSally conceded the race to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema as election officials tallied hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots, including many from the Democratic-leaning metropolitan areas of Phoenix and Tucson that were handed in at voting centers on Election Day.

Arizona officials said they hope it will take less time to count ballots this year as Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, has upgraded its equipment and added an extra week to handle early mail-in ballots. But if the race is close, it could still take days to fully count the votes. That would be “an indication of things going the way they’re supposed to,” said C. Murphy Hebert, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Secretary of State. “The process is complex, and we would just invite folks to be patient.”

Lead changes throughout the night

One potential consequence of the significant early voting and different counting procedures is for lead changes throughout the evening. In states with delayed processing/counting (e.g., Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania), in-person Election Day voting could be counted and reported sooner than mail-in voting which could appear to give Trump an early lead that later diminishes. Conversely, states reporting already-counted mail-in votes early could appear to give Biden a lead initially that then reduces as in-person Election Day votes are tallied (e.g., Florida, North Carolina). This is why Twitter today said it will flag tweets from certain accounts, including those of presidential candidates, who claim a U.S. election victory before it’s called by two of seven media outlets (indicatively, Twitter cited the following news outlets as acceptable race callers: The Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, FOX News, DecisionDeskHQ and NBC News).

Contested election risk

Close races in key states could lead to delays because it can trigger recounts, in some cases automatically, especially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida if the margin is less than 0.5%. Initial machine recounts can be done in days while manual recounts if needed can take longer. Even if results are not within the margin to trigger automatic recounts, candidates are still able to petition for recounts in close elections.

Recounts – an infrequent if normal part of elections – come with added risk this year as markets have becoming increasingly concerned with the potential for a contested election. A contested election is conditional on close/unclear results. Clear, lopsided results on election night could still lead to challenges but they are unlikely to be material or alter outcomes. However, a scenario wherein: (1) the Electoral College 270 vote threshold is a function of one or two states, and (2) where initial results in those deciding states are close enough to require recounts could lead to a significantly higher probability of a contested election, as was the case in the 2000 Bush versus Gore election.

Therefore, if the overall outcome is not known by the morning following the election as we are waiting on recounts or delayed results, the markets could quickly price in a higher probability of a contested election and we could see the USD higher and equities and yields lower on risk-off sentiment until there is greater clarity.

A recent note from Bank of America attempted to quantify the impact of a contested election on markets: in it BofA’s Michelle Meyer and Savita Subramanian said that stocks could slide as much as 20% if there’s a contested election. This means that as soon as Wednesday once it emerges if the election will not have a clear winner, we could see a bear market. Whether that happens or note will depend on the reason and duration of the delay. There are three scenarios:

1. Benign: Results are delayed due to counting backlogs given the large number of absentee and mail-in ballots but a result is expected within days.
2. Painful: If the count is close, it could result in a dispute about ballot validity and lead to a recount at the state level. C
3. Crisis: Either side refuses to accept the results, leading to a legislative battle and a high degree of government dysfunction

“A landslide victory for either Trump or Biden and rapid election conclusion would likely be welcomed by markets while a severely contested election could see risk-off and drive 10-year rates materially lower”…

… and even though probability of a contested election has subsided  (or perhaps, acceptance of a contested election has increased) VIX futures still remain elevated, clearly discounting risks of a contested election.

The flipside, of course, is that “if markets sell off violently and the economic data deteriorate, we could see Washington facilitate the passage of stimulus even in a highly contentious environment.“

The battle for the Senate

An unspoken truth is that while the presidential race is important, it will have little to no impact on markets. It will however, matter, in conjunction with the outcome of Congressional votes. As such the outcome of the Senate race matters more markets.  Currently, Republicans hold 53 of the 100 seats, with 34 seats up for re-election this year. Recall that in the event of a 50-50 split, the Vice President acts as a tiebreaking vote. Currently forecasters expect Democrats to lose a seat in Alabama and gain seats in Arizona, Colorado and Maine for a net gain of 2 seats (from 47 to 49 of 100). This leaves four toss-up Senate seats to watch: Georgia, Iowa, Montana and North Carolina. Democrats would need to win one of these four and the Presidency or two of these outright to ensure control of the Senate. The Georgia Senate seat requires 50% of votes; however, there are multiple candidates running which likely means a run-off election on January 5 will be needed to determine the winner of that seat. Though unlikely, this can create a scenario where the Senate majority is not known until then.

According to the Iowa Electronic Markets, the probability of the Democrats taking over the Senate and maintaining the House (Democratic Sweep) is the mostly likely outcome with a 57.5% probability, although online prediction market PredictIt begs to differ, and according to the latest data, odds of a Blue Sweep have tumbled to just 50%, the lowest in weeks and leaving open the possibility of years of Congressional gridlock.

As noted above, the Senate and Presidential election results need not be called at the same time, and historically this has been the case for many of the key states we are watching. In 2016 Senate results were typically called earlier than Presidential results, and the same political party won both elections in all swing states. In 2012, though, the Senate results were usually slightly delayed compared to the Presidential election; however, here again there was consistency across parties with three of the four swing states seeing the same political party win both contests.

The story for stimulus

The first order impact of the election will be on the trajectory for additional stimulus. Here are our expectations:

• Biden win + Democratic Congress (‘Blue wave’): $2.0 – 2.5tr in stimulus, including additional funds for the COVID health response. Passed right after inauguration.
• Biden win + divided Congress: $500bn – 1tr in stimulus. Passed after inauguration but with some delay. There is also some chance of continued gridlock in this scenario.
• Trump win + divided Congress (‘Status quo’): $1.5 – 2.0tr in stimulus. Passed in the lame duck session because neither side gains an advantage by waiting for a new government to form.

Needless to say, a clear victory could accelerate stimulus negotiations. This is particularly the case if it returns the status quo so neither side has a reason to delay. The two sides are not that far apart — both agree on additional unemployment insurance (around 100% replacement income which is about $300-400 additional/week) and aid for small businesses. They disagree over state & local aid and liability protections for businesses but these appear surmountable hurdles. It is even possible that stimulus is passed in the lame duck session with a status quo result.

The worst case scenario, and one which could lead to a 20% drop in markets according to BofA, a scenario of a Biden victory with a Republican Senate could make it harder to get any package through, creating a risk of sustained gridlock. By contrast, a “Blue Wave” would make a stimulus package very likely by February, one that is likely in excess of $2tr. Under any election result, there will be much more clarity on the path for fiscal stimulus with a fading of the uncertainty shock.

In the event of a contested election that looks like either scenario 2 or 3, the political environment creates a challenge for additional stimulus. Markets will likely become discouraged about the prospects for compromise. However, there is a threshold. If markets sell off violently and the economic data deteriorate, we could see Washington facilitate the passage of stimulus even in a highly contentious environment.

To summarize, BofA believes that an election result of status quo could lead to an earlier passage of stimulus (in lame duck), a “Blue Wave” makes a stimulus package very likely but only after inauguration and a highly contested election would likely create an impediment to stimulus but if the markets and economy deteriorate, an emergency stimulus could be triggered. A clear victory would be a net positive for the economy as it reduces some of the negative risk from higher uncertainty. A Blue Wave likely means greater stimulus which thereby provides the greatest near-term boost to the economy.

The Fed wild card

If there is not a result and financial conditions tighten due to a contested election, BofA believes the Fed’s credit facilities will once again be needed. The Fed could consider easing terms to facilitate the flow of credit. The Fed could also ramp up the QE program, buying Treasuries and MBS at a faster rate, as well as corporate credit as needed, particularly if it sees concerns over market liquidity. Ultimately the focus could be on credit (MBS and corporate credit) versus USTs in a risk-off scenario. Or as BofA recaps, “the Fed has tools and will use them.”

My colleagues at Rolling Stone recently endorsed Joe Biden for president:

Biden’s lived experience and expansive empathy make him not just a good, but an outstanding candidate… This is a fight between light and darkness…

Joe Biden is a corpse with hair plugs whose idea of “empathy” is to jam fingers in the sternums of people who ask the wrong questions, or call them “fat” or “full of shit,” or dare them to “try me” — and that’s if he remembers what state he’s in. Is he a better human than Donald Trump? Probably, but his mental decline has hit Lloyd Bridges-in-Hot-Shots! levels and he shares troubling characteristics with the president, beginning with a pathological struggle with truth.

Biden spent much of 2020 lying about everything from his Iraq War vote to his educational history to a fantasy about being arrested in South Africa with Nelson Mandela. The same press that killed him for this behavior in the past let it all slide this time. Same with the growing ledger of handsy-uncle incidents that had adolescent girls and campaigning politicians alike wondering why a Vice President needs to smell their hair or plant lingering kisses on their heads while cameras flash.

Biden’s entire argument for the presidency, and it’s a powerful one, is his opponent. This week’s election is not a choice between “light or darkness,” but “pretty much anything or Donald Trump,” and only in that context is this disintegrating, bilious iteration of Scranton Joe even distantly credible as a choice for the world’s most powerful office.

Donald Trump is going to be a difficult case for future historians because he’s simultaneously the biggest liar and the most lied-about politician in American history. The standard propaganda lines about Trump are all incorrect. The usual technique involves sticking his name in headlines next to absurd disqualifying descriptors: “fascist,” “traitor,” “dictator,” and so on.

“18 Ways Trump Might Be a Russian Asset” is a typical example of what passed for commentary at outlets like the Washington Post in the Trump years. Such hot takes were a sure way to get TV invites:

Trump may have played cartoon Mussolini on the stump and reached for Hitlerian cliches in his campaign videos, but the dirty secret of the last four years — hidden from the broad mass of voters by both conservative and mainstream media — was that the president’s much ballyhooed strongman leanings were a fraud. Trump the Terrible was great TV, but away from cameras he was a fake despot who proved repeatedly that he didn’t know the first thing about how to exercise presidential power, even in his own defense.

Taibbi subscribers can read the rest of the report here…