Trump’s Domestic Terrorism Week
In the space of the last 6 days America has been treated to the rotting fungal fruits of Trump.45’s rhetoric and fundamental campaign tactics.
We have lived through the worst mass mail bomb assassination attack in U.S. History. 14 bombs send by a dedicated partisan coward through the mail, all to opponent targets individually identified by name by his inspirational political leader (Trump.45).
To cap off the week, on Saturday, another despicable White Nationalist proponent committed the worst Domestic Mass Terrorism Shooting hate crime against Jewish Americans in 60 years. The final Butcher’s Bill comprises 11 dead and 6 wounded, including 4 injured police officers.
The two perpetrators, both captured alive, were Cesar Sayoc (56 years old) in Florida, and Robert Bowers (46 years old) in Pittsburgh.
There is little rational pretense that these unprovoked attacks are not horrific domestic terrorism assaults on America’s fundamental core values. Both deflect positive attention away from Trump.45’s intended closing Midterm Election run in a Big Way, much to his continuing annoyance. Adverse public reaction to them even threatened to cause cancellation of several highly anticipated Trump.45 political rallies in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois, surrounding a call for a partisan rhetorical pause, God Forbid.
Trump.45’s better angels won out however, and he was peppy and on message tossing out more red meat to adoring rally audiences over the weekend.
The thesis here is that both Sayoc and Bowers are Trump.45 Ideological Mushrooms of a particularly toxic variety, both of whom happened to emerge publicly in the same week to wreck havoc on America’s civil order and social fabric. They are not alone, but represent an entire species of poisonous plants coddled and encouraged by Trump.45’s unique brand of political fertilizer and watered by the sweet rain of conspiracy theorists and the torrent of fact free journalism available from Trump.45’s favorite media fountain.
To put it plainly, Trump doesn’t personally know Sayoc or Bowers from Adam or the Man in the Moon. As the White House Press Office put it so elegantly this past week, Trump didn’t pack or mail the bombs (nor did he buy or load the guns Saturday). But Trump is the Head Nationalist Ideologue, who regularly gives cover to the peculiar, hateful, biased, and ignorant ideas of aggrieved political haters who take heart and inspiration from his repeatedly inflammatory and false claims.
Trump.45 bears the primary responsibility (moral, intellectual, and inspirational) for unleashing by verbal example this upsurge of violent fanaticism on the rest of us.
Mushroom Management
Most readers have heard or experienced some variant of the complaint that they have been given the Mushroom Treatment at some time. There is even a semi-serious business management theory called Mushroom Management. This is perhaps apposite here since Trump.45 fancies himself not only a business guru, but also an educator responsible for the fabulously successful Trump University, an educational paradigm sure to teach one and all who can come up with the scratch how to make millions, like the eponymous founder. (Before, that is, Trump U was successfully sued for civil fraud, and ultimately closed down after a $25 million payout to victims last year.)
Here is a sampling of the Mushroom Management entry from the Wikipedia entry.
Mushroom management, also known as Pseudo-Analysis or Blind Development, is a mocking term used to describe the running of a company where the communication channels between the managers and the employees do not work properly. The term alludes to the stereotypical (and somewhat inaccurate) view of mushroom cultivation: “Kept in the dark and periodically given a load of manure”.
Mushroom management is a style of management in which the personnel are not familiar with the ideas or the general state of the company, and are given work without knowing the purpose of this work, in contrast with open-book management. Mushroom management means that workers’ curiosity and self-expression are not supported. The employees often have no idea what the company’s overall situation is, because the leaders tend to make all the decisions on their own, without asking anyone else to give their opinion. This problem can occur when the manager does not understand the employees’ work (in a programming company, for example) and therefore cannot communicate effectively with the employees.
Mushroom management can also be found in environments that are unrelated to business. It can sometimes be found within schools, when students working in a group decide not to share information with the other students in the group. This means that they will appear more intelligent and hardworking during assessments.
The main reasons for the development of mushroom management within a company can be found at the managerial level. Mushroom management often develops when managers see themselves as the sole decision-makers within the company, rather than the people who lead all the employees towards a shared success. This can often take place unintentionally: managers fear that their employees will discover important new ideas instead of them, which drives the managers to make bad decisions and prevent employees from taking an active role in their work. As a result, the employees end up doing this work in a mechanical, repeated fashion, without contributing in a more productive or active way.
The key feature of mushroom management is that the employees have limited responsibility over the company. The importance of the decisions they have to make is minimal, which can often reduce workplace-related stress.
The consequences of mushroom management can be extremely detrimental for everyone involved in the company. If the flow of information within a company is insufficient, the people involved often have a limited understanding of how to react in situations that require quick assessment and prompt decision making. For example, a company that makes and sells shoes might research their customers’ preferences and discover that these preferences have changed. However, if this piece of information is not passed on to the sales manager of an individual shop, then the shop will still display the “old” shoes and will not attract the customers’ attention effectively. At the end of this process, the blame is sometimes even attributed to the shop assistants, because they are the employees in a direct contact with the customers.
Kind of sounds like Trump.45’s White House operation since 2017, doesn’t it?
The Terrorism Mushroom Twins
Both men are middle aged White Males. One is a declared Trump.45 political devotee, who literally drives a rolling billboard van plastered with hate speech and grievances, and lives in Florida. Sayoc has a checkered personal history, and a number of previous brushes with law enforcement.
The second is an apparently law abiding (no previous record found so far), and legal gun owner of multiple weapons (at least 6 since 1996) who lives in Pittsburgh. He is a devote of the social media site Gab, a favorite of White Nationalists, right wing extremists, and Neo Nazis.
From the Wikipedia entry:
Gab is a far right American social networking service, created as an alternative to Twitter which promotes itself as supporting free speech. It allows its users to read and write messages of up to 300 characters, called “gabs”. The site also offers multimedia functionality.
Gab has been widely described as a “safe haven” for Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and members of the alt-right. Gab.com describes itself as “a social network that champions free speech, individual liberty and the free flow of information online.” As of October 29, 2018, Gab has taken themselves offline, pending relocation to a new hosting site.
Gab was created in August 2016 as an alternative to the popular social network Twitter. Founder and CEO Andrew Torba cited “the entirely left-leaning Big Social monopoly” as part of the inspiration for Gab, which he created “after reading reports that Facebook employees suppress conservative articles”.
Torba said in November that the site’s user base had expanded significantly following censorship controversies involving major social media companies, including the permanent suspensions from Twitter of several prominent alt-right accounts.
Bowers’ frequent Gab posts demonstrate that he shares an obvious and passionate affinity with these groups. Bowers did write one post where he complained that Trump.45 was not doing enough to protect White People against alien hordes brought here to exterminate his kind, but apparently Trump’s explicit public declaration that he was a Nationalist, one week ago (10/22/18) didn’t penetrate to Bowers over the grapevine.
Bowers is avowedly anti-Semitic, but he is perhaps as much anti-immigrant as his last Gab media post within an hour of his horrific slaughter demonstrates. So he is a declared White Nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic hate monger who thinks Trump.45 may be too soft. As for his personal intersection with Trump.45’s philosophical intentions, two out of three ain’t bad. And Non-Christians can be tricky, as everyone knows.
Trump.45’s Janus Reactions
In brief glimpses this week Trump.45 has read appropriate Presidential Leadership words off a teleprompter at the White House and on the campaign trail (Teleprompter Condolence Syndrome). He has also, often within minutes pivoted to display his Wink and a Nod communications strategy correction to the Base, as he talks variously about being nice, or toning it down (not really), or considering cancelling a partisan rally, or calling the attempted assassination targets, or how Trump.45 is really the primary victim, or that the Media is to blame (over and over again), or that Trump45 bears no responsibility whatsoever for inflamed rhetoric, or trying to foist off false equivalencies of political protest (comparing largely legal peaceful protests to Federal Crimes punishable by the death penalty).*
We won’t even get into the completely phony and FAKE NEWS story Trump.45 made up and served the Illinois crowd about how the New York Stock Exchange reopened the day after 9/11. It did not, plain and simple. (Facts are Stubborn Things). Trump.45 never lets the truth interfere with a rollicking good yarn that equates Trump.45’s rally attendance bravery in October 2018 with the Stock Market’s performance in a time of terror in September 2001, addressed to credulous, low information voters who love him and don’t question his accuracy. It just feels right. Think Fox News issued a polite factual clarification?
The cherry on Saturday’s mass shooting by a domestic terrorist White Nationalist, which happened entirely under Trump.45’s watch, was Trump.45 witless Twit later in the evening about Game 4 of the World Series, made as he relaxed after attending not one but two partisan political events literally in the hours after the worst anti-Semitic shooting spree in American 60 years.
There is no blame to cast. Trump.45 did nothing wrong. After all, he had already told the Jewish Community by noontime the massacre was their own fault. If only they had placed armed guards at Shabbat Services, the results would have been so much better. And, incidentally, if you examine things more closely, then four brave law enforcement officers would not have been hurt, and those who need the protection (the Jewish Synagogue) would have paid for their own protection, as is only right. America First.
Even so, Trump.45 graciously arranged to lower the American Flag to fly at half-staff at the White House, providing a solemn photo op to demonstrate respect for the victims.
Remember, Trump.45 made this magnanimous gesture without the need for public prodding, as was the case recently with John McCain’s passing. Congratulations are due.
Summary
This litany of murderous sociopathic behavior by political fanatics visited on their perceived political foes with lethal and near lethal consequences is staggeringly nauseating and un-American There has always been an slimy undercurrent of political violence in America, largely condemned and controlled, by our society as a whole. What is new is that we have a river, increasing to a torrent, cascading down on us now. The current surge burst on us staring in mid 2015, and worsens as we watch.
You can figure out for yourself what political force emerged in the summer of 2015 as the increase began in earnest. And whether it is all a coincidence and False Flag fakery by those out of power.
Trump.45 didn’t invent it. He just feeds it, protects it, and magnifies it with cynical precision. He is not the initiating energy supply; he is the concentrating magnifying lens. Take away Trump, and the ignition danger recedes.
Like it or not, Trump.45 is the reigning Captain of this political violence horror ship. He bears supervisory responsibility even while he knows nothing of the perpetrators personally. Trump.45 doesn’t lift a finger; the Toxic Mushrooms sprout on their own in a highly favorable growing climate.
He wanted the Buck Stops Here desk sign; he’s surely got it.
But Trump.45 is not alone. Kevin McCarthy’s (Majority Leader of the House) just deleted tweet was originally sent out after the bomb arrived at Jewish-American financier George Soros’ home, is but one obvious example.
“We cannot allow Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg to BUY this election! Get out and vote Republican November 6th. #MAGA,” McCarthy wrote in the tweet posted Tuesday and deleted a day later, a reference to top donors to Democratic causes George Soros and Tom Steyer and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
At least McCarthy exhibited enough personal shame to delete the tweet when the heat rose. Trump.45 is more courageous and never backs down; he just changes the cover story.
Trump.45 fervently wants all of this distracting nonsense to go away for the last week of his political rally run. Given the speed of events lately in America, there will be another set of concerns before next Tuesday’s election day.
One thing we can expect is that Trump.45 acolyte and Rolling Billboard owner Cesar Sayoc will face a Preliminary Hearing on multiple Federal charges of bomb making, domestic terrorism, and hate crimes by Monday, November 5 in the Southern District of New York (within the prescribed time frame of 10 days after his arrest). He can join the Pittsburgh miscreant who has already been bound over for 29 Federal Crimes, including 11 counts of murder, for the Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooting by a domestic terrorist.
No doubt, we will all be amazed by this next week’s events. Trump.45 wants this election to be a referendum on him. I suspect he will get his wish, one way of the other.
America, GO VOTE, or stop complaining.
For all the victims and their families from the heart of America:
Shalom Aleichem (Hebrew: שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם, “Peace be upon you”)
* I watched part of Trump.45’s Illinois rally on Fox Saturday night. Trump.45 actually pushed his theme that we must not tolerate anti-Semitic hate crimes in America three of four times in a row. I have no external data to prove it, but by observation the crowd greeted his first statement with cheers, grew softer with his second, and then more muted. They only came to life again when he switched to his standard We pray to God, We love our Flag, We love our Country formulations. The crowd held back and re-engaged with brio only after Trump.45 got off the side road distraction of anti-Semitism and celebrated the mainstream values. It seemed rather obvious to this viewer.
Watch it for yourself, and draw your own conclusions.
There is additional, admittedly anecdotal support, found in a brief survey of Facebook posts from the fairly red Cajunland county hereabouts. From Tuesday until mid-day Friday there was a prolific stream of FAKE NEWS, False Flag, and other conspiracy posts related to the growing number of mail bomb discoveries from Conservative Trump.45 supporters here, including some humorous posts like the Trojan Horse piñata at the U.S. Mexican border left by the illegal invading Caravan hordes. Ha, Ha !!
Not from the Wacko section, but the successful small business owners, educated, middle class, professional, and better folks set who help determine the political and cultural tone for our state.
Since Friday it has gone thunderously quiet. No more fake bomb memes, and on Saturday radio silence about a Synagogue of Jewish Americans massacred. No mocking or ribaldry, no shock, no sorrow, just silence. A turning away.
This morning, a plea to suspend all political commentary until after Saturday to honor the Trash Talk conventions for the upcoming LSU (#4) versus Alabama (#1) college football shoot-out. So people can pay attention to what matters in the now.
Geaux Tigers! Nonetheless, it is discouraging.