General Trump hilarity free-for-all thread

[Bathtub Jim]

The only thing more troubling than his mental acuity is his colossal ego. If only there were some way to get him alone for 24 hours and hammer away at some of the spooks that hold him hostage...

[Salty]

I'm all for hyperbole, but I don't think that's going to do it.

[Cain]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/world/europe/bannon-vatican-julius-evola-fascism.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur&_r=0

Steve Bannon is a fan of Evola.

Those trying to divine the roots of Stephen K. Bannon's dark and at times apocalyptic worldview have repeatedly combed over a speech that Mr. Bannon, President Trump's ideological guru, made in 2014 to a Vatican conference, where he expounded on Islam, populism and capitalism.

But for all the examination of those remarks, a passing reference by Mr. Bannon to an esoteric Italian philosopher has gone little noticed, except perhaps by scholars and followers of the deeply taboo, Nazi-affiliated thinker, Julius Evola.

"The fact that Bannon even knows Evola is significant," said Mark Sedgwick, a leading scholar of Traditionalists at Aarhus University in Denmark.

Evola, who died in 1974, wrote on everything from Eastern religions to the metaphysics of sex to alchemy. But he is best known as a leading proponent of Traditionalism, a worldview popular in far-right and alternative religious circles that believes progress and equality are poisonous illusions.
Continue reading the main story

Evola became a darling of Italian Fascists, and Italy's post-Fascist terrorists of the 1960s and 1970s looked to him as a spiritual and intellectual godfather.

They called themselves Children of the Sun after Evola's vision of a bourgeoisie-smashing new order that he called the Solar Civilization. Today, the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn includes his works on its suggested reading list, and the leader of Jobbik, the Hungarian nationalist party, admires Evola and wrote an introduction to his works.

More important for the current American administration, Evola also caught on in the United States with leaders of the alt-right movement, which Mr. Bannon nurtured as the head of Breitbart News and then helped harness for Mr. Trump.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What Trump has is the unshakeable incompetence of a man whose performance feedback loop has been missing for a long time. No matter how smart you are, you cannot become competent without accurate feedback about what you do wrong. He has probably never had that feedback in his life. He strikes me as probably slightly above average intelligence, maybe an IQ of around 110 if I had to take a stab at it. He was a C average Economics student, and I doubt he put much work into achieving that much. He has probably been praised for his intelligence all his life, and has no idea that he is not brilliant.

I think we all know people like that. Break the feedback loop and pile on the praise, and what you get are hopelessly incompetent people who think they are brilliant unique talented superior snowflakes.

[LMNO]

Cain, would you be willing to give a brief synopsis of Evola for those of us who are hopelessly ignorant of this kind of asshole philosophy?

Not that you're an asshole, or a philosopher. You're just smarter than I am, and I thought you would have the information.

[00.dusk]

I'm not Cain, but I'm well aware of Evola and his "fans". I've read a book or two of his.

Basically Evola was a dyed-in-the-wool fascist, specifically a fan of the Italian form (strict fascism, so to speak). He had a belief that the occult (specifically esoteric traditions) was the reason the world was "better" back in the day, and that all culture stemmed from nationalistic impulses being acted on by "nations of heroes" in the form of warring nations, etc.

It was clear he knew some of what he was talking about, e.g. he obviously had read actual Buddhist and Hindu texts in their original languages, but that just made him more bizarre: he was convinced that war and "nations of heroes" were a common theme of all "successful" cultures and as "evidence" essentially conflated all variants of the Indo-European "dual pantheon, there is a war between one and the other, the newer weaker guys win" story as talking about a clash between a nation of powerful but corrupt and unheroic "foreigners" and weaker but honorable and heroic "settlers".

He was connected to Nazi theosophists and other groups that combined fascism and the occult, and until the day he died he espoused fascism as the One True Political System of the World. He wrote thousands of books on a wide variety of occult subjects. To this day you cannot actually learn very much about some classical esoteric systems (e.g. Hermeticism) without picking up an Evola book or a book written based on his hopelessly tainted work. So among occultists and people interested in that sort of thing, his views have slowly gained ground.

Now, I don't know much about his actual background or why he wasn't, say, killed in his sleep at the end of WW2... For that, you'd definitely need to ask Cain. But his philosophy is familiar enough to me that I can spot it at a distance -- the world has always seen conflict and the culture with a "nation of heroes" always wins, and this will always be the case. Martial worship, the myth of the divinely appointed leader, all the stuff that makes me want to stomp on Nazi heads.

Apologies if I stole your spotlight, Cain, I was also hoping that if I was wrong on any points you could correct me though.

[Cain]

Nope, you gave a great overview.

The only thing I would add - which is mentioned in the article - is that Evola was very popular with the fascist terrorist groups that existed in the 1st Italian Republic.  And with Aleksander Dugin, because why not.

Evola's fascism was sufficiently weird (spiritual racism + European Imperium) and aristocratic that the SS kept an eye on him at one point, and that point of distinction is what saved him after WWII, despite otherwise being a supporter of Mussolini.

He's pretty esoteric in both senses of the word, so that Bannon is aware of him is...disturbing.  Of course, this does allow for hilarious juxtapositions with his stated position of defending "Judeo-Christian" civilization against the Great Islamic Menace as well as his collaboration with traditionalist factions within the Vatican. 

[00.dusk]

Yeah, he's a bit like a walking Dan Brown novel now.

[Cain]

And some of the information in the Steele dossier has been confirmed

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/10/politics/russia-dossier-update/index.html

Washington (CNN)For the first time, US investigators say they have corroborated some of the communications detailed in a 35-page dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent, multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials tell CNN. As CNN first reported, then-President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the existence of the dossier prior to Trump's inauguration.

None of the newly learned information relates to the salacious allegations in the dossier. Rather it relates to conversations between foreign nationals. The dossier details about a dozen conversations between senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals. Sources would not confirm which specific conversations were intercepted or the content of those discussions due to the classified nature of US intelligence collection programs.

But the intercepts do confirm that some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier, according to the officials. CNN has not confirmed whether any content relates to then-candidate Trump.

The corroboration, based on intercepted communications, has given US intelligence and law enforcement "greater confidence" in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents, these sources say.

Reached for comment this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, "We continue to be disgusted by CNN's fake news reporting."

[Junkenstein]

Flynn gone. 24 days, some kind of record.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38965557

US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has resigned over allegations he discussed US sanctions with Russia before Donald Trump took office.
Mr Flynn is said to have misled officials about his call with Russia's ambassador before his own appointment.
It is illegal for private citizens to conduct US diplomacy.

Who's next? Taking all bets!

Kelly "Huck this cheap crap" conway at 5/2

Jeff "Black crime is worse, y'all" at 6/4.

Betsy "I couldn't actually spell anything over 5 letters if you paid me" devos at 5/1

Rex "I'm covered in grease!" tillerson at 3/1.

Sean "ALL IS WELL" spicer at 2/1.

Add your own.

At this point, it's probably worth asking which of the selected clowns are actually going to last the 4 years. I'm pretty sure that 50% won't make it to the 2 year mark. Expecting exceptionally wealthy people to act in the public interest is just silly at the best of times, so how long do you really need to stick in a post before you've made your mates some money? Surely you can get that shit done in less than a year and now they seriously owe you. Why stick around longer? You don't need the money and you certainly don't care about either the job or public perceptions.

You can just see some fun coming with the sackings/accepting resignations. Sooner or later (probably sooner) he's just going to sack someone. And then there will be a little road to Damascus moment for that particular cretin as they try and save face or mitigate the damage they've just done. Or just as a simple fuck you bit of revenge. I'm pretty sure that that's when the attacks on the media will really start up.

[Cain]

Donald "tiny-handed Nixon" Trump?

Seriously, this is bad for Trump.  In addition to today's reports that the Trump election team had persistent ongoing contacts with individuals considered Russian intelligence assets, allegedly picked up during routine intelligence gathering on those assets, the question now is "what did the President know, and when did he know it?"

There's also the question of "who was Flynn working on the behalf of when he went to meet with the Russian ambassador?"

Meanwhile, Russia is getting increasingly nervous about Trump's irrationality and their percieved ownership of his stumbling.  If I was a short-term thinker, like I suspect Putin is, and I was in Putin's position, I'd blow this whole thing up in a month or so.  Instigate a constitutional crisis, while US agencies are still decapitated and reeling from a loss of experienced staff.  Keep the executive branch so on the defensive and battling Senate investigations (you know McCain is gearing up for this already) that it has no cognitive bandwidth for anything else.  Double down on the FN in France and fighting in the Donbass while you can and if you have to, blame the whole thing on rogue operatives and use it to purge your own radical right enemies in Russia.

[LMNO]

So.....

Are we in "we're all doomed, make your time" mode, or is this a "while the US flails, Russia will expand its empire" thing?

[Cain]

I'm assuming a short-term crisis (maybe 18 months), with Russia making hay while the sun shines.

But after this election, who knows?  It wouldn't take much to portray this as a deep state coup against an outsider President.  Throw in The Donald throwing a tantrum and refusing to, say, stand down...I'm not going to say it, because I don't like throwing the term around lightly, and talking about potential political violence can lead to actual political violence, but I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.

I don't think it's as likely as the first option, but it's something to keep in mind. It's also worth keeping in mind that Russia has an economy roughly the size of Portugal and is fighting in Ukraine and Syria.  They likely cannot afford to make more trouble through overt means, not without risking economic collapse.  So in their position, sticking to needling NATO through subversive hacks and attempt to obtain resolution on those two conflicts would be my aim.  It would put me in a stronger position should there be negative fallout from the former (like the entire US establishment deciding Russia needs to be taught a lesson).

[Cain]

http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/how-the-trump-regime-was-manufactured-by-a-war-inside-the-deep-state/

I don't buy the overall thesis, but if you want an overview of the people coalescing around Trump, this is a good guide.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/how-the-trump-regime-was-manufactured-by-a-war-inside-the-deep-state/

I don't buy the overall thesis, but if you want an overview of the people coalescing around Trump, this is a good guide.

Perhaps it's too much of simply stating the obvious, but I think that this sentence stands alone as a concise summary:

Trump appears to be in conflict with the bulk of the US intelligence community, and is actively seeking to restructure the government to minimize checks and balances, and thus consolidate his executive power.