Dear Everybody:
Today is the tragic anniversary of 9-11, and I’ll get to that in a bit, but first, I have to tell you what happened last night at Trump’s midterm-convention/cult gathering. I knew it was going to be bad, but even I didn’t think they could go this low–or sound this crazy:
First, they played a video that has to be seen to be believed:
–The video starts with an old-timey shot of a scratchy record being played and then a photo of the moon, and says, “On June 14th, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump.” It then goes on, to the tune of creepy music, to recount all the things God needed and how Trump fulfilled them, getting more and more cultish all the time.
–The voiceover said, “God said, ‘I need a man who can finish a hard week’s work and then go to church on Sunday,” and showed a photo of Trump at church (probably the only time he went.)
–The voiceover said, “I need someone who can shape an axe, but wield a sword,” while showing Trump doing that deranged sword dance with Mohammed bin Salman.
–The voiceover said, “I need a man who is willing to go into the den of vipers, call out the Fake News with their tongues as sharp as serpents, the poison of vipers on their lips, and yet stop,” which didn’t make any sense at all.
–The video talked about “…a man who comes home hungry and has to wait until the first lady finishes having lunch with friends, and then tell them all to come back real soon–and mean it,” while showing photos of Melania sitting at lunch with a group of women, which seemed like a backhanded slap at her.
–And it talked about Don Jr. turning to his father, and saying, “Dad, let’s make America great again,” which I think was an attempt to make him Trump’s chosen successor.
–One of the strangest lines was, “God needed a man strong enough to wrestle the deep state and then deliver his own grandchild.”
–Advocacy Shouts Memphis: “He delivered his own grandkid? Say what now?”
–The line about delivering his grandson makes NO sense till you realize the video was plagiarized from a speech that Paul Harvey gave at the Future Farmers of America convention in 1978 which was called, “So God sent us a farmer.” The original line was “a man who is strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandkids.” They were too lazy to even change it to fit Trump.)
–And then it went into full-on Trump-as-Jesus cult territory, with “God needed a man who cares for the flock, a shepherd to all mankind who will never leave nor forsake them.”
–But you really can’t get the full effect without seeing it. It’s here:
The reactions ranged from calling if “ridiculous” and “laughable” to people comparing it to a speech Jim Jones might have given before the mass suicide at Jonestown:
–Wu Tang is for the Children: “They’re going full cult vibes in Dallas for Dear Leader.”
–Matt Dearing: “This is actual blasphemy, by the way.”
–Sam Dillon: “Horrific blasphemy.”
–Gord Nielson: “The Antichrist.”
–Dennis Kavanaugh: “Batshit crazy.”
–Ron Filipkowski: “This should be repulsive to any real Christian, but these people worship Republican Jesus–Donald J. Trump.”
–Tony: “You know what? You can’t put this out there and be pissed that people are
–Nanci8: “I KNEW he was an aspiring cult leader. This confirms it, and to me, it seems sacrilegious. And when did he last go to church on Sunday? More like the church of Golf.”
–Asawin Suebsaeng: “We constantly cover how the modern-day Republican Party is just a cult now, worshipping a mentally deteriorating madman and former game show host. According to the party’s big, official 2026 messaging event, God gave us Trump, a man so awesome and powerful he delivered his own grandson. The message from the RNC and Team Trump seemed clear: The President is our God-King and you should let him rule you like one.”
–gmccpa: “And these are the idiots who want the 10 Commandments plastered all over schools and government buildings. Funny…they’re all on board with breaking the first two: 1) Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and 2) “Thou shalt not make for yourself an idol.”
–To give you an idea of just how bad it was, when asked about the video, the Republicans all said they had no comment or hadn’t seen it (even though they were all right there watching)
But wait, there’s more:
— The video wasn’t the worst thing that happened last night (although it was kind of tied for worst.) The worst was when Trump made them all pledge allegiance to HIM:
–Trump: “Please raise your right hand! I pledge, to the greatest President in the history of the United States, who loves us so much he can’t even breathe, that I will go out with my family, my friends, IÂ will do it anyway. I will try to cheat like they do. I don’t care. Cheat like hell. We are going to vote on November 3, or we are going to vote before that! So help me God!”
–Trump then added, “You know what happens if you don’t vote? You go to hell. And I don’t want that to happen to you, so please go and vote.”
–At that point, the crowd, which had all raised their hands in the pledge, cheered and applauded and began shouting “USA, USA!”
–Joyce Vance: “The Supreme Court needs an amicus brief on this as they consider whether to transfer control of our elections into his hands.”
–Blogger Editor’s Note: “An oath to cheat in an election administered by the President of the United States. This actually happened last night, and it is the most treasonous, office-abusing, Presidential-oath-breaking offense against the United States than I can ever conceive.”
–Robert Reich: “If you saw this happening in another country, what would you call it?”
–Heather Reese Delaney: “The depths that this man just took our country to tonight cannot be overstated. Our President made American citizens raise their right hands and pledge their loyalty to him, not the country. This was his battle call to his most radicalized base, and it was exactly like the loyalty oaths that have preceded authoritarian consolidations of power throughout modern history.”
–On an historical note, Hitler made his officers and men of the armed forces swear an oath of allegiance, not to Germany, not to the Constitution, which he had already violated, but to himself: “I swear by God this sacred oath, that I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and will be ready as a brave soldier to risk my life at any time for this oath.”
Other awful stuff–including Trump’s speech and JD Vance’s–happened at the Trumpapalooza, which one commentator described as being a lot like the Alamo’s last stand, but I will save it for tomorrow. I think you’ve suffered enough for one day.
In 9-11 news:
–Really American: “25 years ago this morning, 2977 people went to work, boarded planes, or reported for duty, and never came home. Among them were 343 firefighters, 37 Port Authority officials, 23 New York City police officers, and 8 paramedics and EMTs who went up the stairs while everyone else was coming down. Thousands more have died since of the illnesses they got searching that pile for their neighbors, and thousands more are sick today.”
–All four living former presidents and their wives were at the New York ceremonies. Trump refused to go because they wouldn’t let him make a speech.
–The ceremony began at 8:46 a.m., with the ringing of the bell, marking the time when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower, followed by the reading of the names of everyone who died.
–At the ceremony in New York, there are usually six moments of silence, to mark the six events of the day, but this year a seventh moment was added to acknowledge the thousands who have died since due to health issues related to Ground Zero.
–President Obama spoke: “We pray for their families. And we hope Americans everywhere remember the true lesson of 9-11, that we can survive even our darkest days as long as we move forward as one nation and one people.”
–Mayor Mamdani, whom Republicans had spent all week vilifying and saying he shouldn’t be allowed at the ceremonies today because he’s a Muslim and therefore behind the 9-11 attack (he was 9 years old at the time), delivered a great message and exactly the sort you’d expect from the Mayor of New York City: “25 years ago, terrorists killed nearly 3000 people, including 2,753 new Yorkers. As we remember that day, let us also remember the first responders, office workers, and strangers who ran toward danger to help each other. Let us remember the extraordinary compassion, resilience, and bravery that carried our city through its darkest day. Today New York remembers. We will never forget.”
–Mamdani spent all last week attending ceremonies honoring the 9-11 victims and first responders and the dedication of the FDNY Memorial Wall. He declared September 11 as an official citywide Day of Remembrance and Service.
–Trump spent the morning at the Pentagon, where they let him make a speech, a speech he stumbled through and slurred so badly you could hardly understand it and then immediately fell asleep. The droop on the right side of his mouth was more pronounced than ever.
–quokkafella: “That is the face of a stroke victim.”
–Serendipity: “You would think Melania would make him up as the families of the victims of the Pentagon were watching. Shameful!”
–Christian Peterson; “How long are the corporate media going to ignore this? The double standard between Biden and Trump is mind-blowing, appalling, and deeply insulting. The signs that there is something seriously wrong with him, both mentally and physically, are a million times more apparent than with Biden. Madness!”
After the ceremony, Trump planned to fly immediately to Ireland for the Irish Open (which seems like a bad idea to me, since he’s clearly already exhausted and embolisms are a real danger on long flights, especially for people with heart problems (which his swollen ankles indicate he has.) Plus, there’s the whole plane thing.
–Plus, the Irish don’t want him. There are all sorts of protests already going on.
–The police who have been called on to guard him are in open revolt because they have to work overtime and pay for their own accommodations at wildly inflated prices. (When Queen Elizabeth II and Obama visited, the accommodations for those providing the extra security were paid for.)
In Iran war news:
–The Houthis seized Zagar Island and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait.
–Mohammed bin Salman asked Trump to attack the Houthis. Trump refused.
–Angry: “I hope folks realize this Bab-el-Mandeb situation will be much worse than the Strait of Hormuz if it’s not sorted out quickly. and it doesn’t currently look like it will be sorted out quickly.”
–dtf1947: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the war that Dumpy has already won several times over has just expanded to involve another, even more critical maritime strait.”
–CENTCOM finally admitted that Iranian missile and drone strikes damaged the Naval Systems Activity Bahrain base so badly that the USS Abraham Lincoln had nowhere to dock and that’s why their deployment went on and on and on.
In Not Everybody’s a Jerk news:
–9-11 was full of horrific, terrifying, and unimaginable stories, but sandwiched in among them were some wonderful tales of heroism, courage, and self-sacrifice. My favorite is about one of the elevators which was still functional and which was crammed full of people. As it started down, it stopped at a floor where two young girls were waiting desperately for rescue, but there was literally no room for another person on the elevator.
–A gray-haired man in his sixties said, “I’ve had my life. You girls deserve yours,” stepped out, and let them take his place. They never saw him again. He died when the Towers went down.
–I remember this story particularly because when the Titanic went down, there were stories just like this–particularly the one of 22-year-old Edith Evans, who stepped out of a crammed lifeboat to let a woman get in, saying “You have children at home.” Some of the authors who wrote about the Titanic were convinced that that was because it was a different, more heroic age, with better people than now, but when I read about that elderly man, I knew it wasn’t true, that people can be compassionate and brave and selfless in any age. I’ve held that story to me through all the times when it seemed like mankind was actually becoming crueler and more savage. It’s not. There were heroes in 9-11 and there are heroes now.
In other news:
–Trump is pressuring NATO to abandon the International Criminal Court (where Trump knows he has a good chance of being tried for war crimes.)
–An ethics complaint has been filed in regard to the $45,000 apiece Trump paid Natalie Harp and two of his other aides.
–People are asking questions about that deployment of the emergency slide on Trump’s Qatar-gifted plane the other day. Trump said they were just inspecting it and that it would only take about 15 minutes (which was how long it was before they took off), but that doesn’t really fit what’s known about these slides. On a commercial airplane, repacking the slide would take two days, and the plane would require another inspection before flying again. So did they just roll it up and haul it away and there’s no emergency slide? (“We don’t need no stinkin’ slide?”)
In good news:
–The Supreme Court of Missouri found MAGA Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in contempt for enforcing Missouri’s gerrymandered map in spite of court orders not to. He immediately caved and put the old, more fair map back in place.
–New Mexico has sued Cambridge Analytica. (In case you don’t remember who they are, they were the company that was engaged in all kinds of election skulduggery for Trump during the 2016 election.)
–No Kings! is holding a “Vote Early!” event on October 17th to encourage early voting. There will be rallies, marches, voter registration drives, and trips to the polls. “With our democracy at stake, we’re showing up again to promote unprecedented voter participation in the midterms. Our goal is to translate the historic protest power of ‘No Kings’ mobilizations into a massive wave of voter turnout.”
And in VERY good news:
–Trump lawyer Joe DiGenova quit today.
–A little background: DiGenova was one of the lawyers helping Trump steal the 2020 election. He called for former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Director Chris Krebs to be “drawn and quartered, taken out and shot” for not going along with the Big Lie, and made claims that George Soros controlled the State Department. Most recently, Trump hired him and his wife Victoria Tensing to head up an investigation (translation: witch hunt) into the “grand conspiracy” of all the people who tried to prove that the Russians influenced the 2016 election and the people who prosecuted Trump.
–Today he resigned because he refused to file charges without evidence. He said Trump and the DOJ wanted him to take cases to trial without probable cause and without evidence to support them.
–People don’t think DiGenova quit because of his high ethical standards. They think either 1) he didn’t want to be disbarred, or 2) he can see the end of Trump’s reign of terror coming and don’t want to be caught on the ship when it goes down, or 3) both.
–calidove: “Being too dishonest and corrupt for even Joe DiGenova is quite an accomplishment.”
–Texas Tom: “My suspicion is that it wasn’t ethical qualms that led him to resign but instead a concern that he could be placing himself in legal jeopardy if he continued the job Trump wanted him to do.”
–DiGenova is now trying to walk back what he said, saying there’s plenty of evidence, “but it just takes time to get there and some people want to get there a little faster than others, and you can’t do that.”
–His wife, Victoria Tensing, is also expected to resign.
Best comment of the day, from Heather Delaney Reese: “This country was built so that no American would ever have to swear allegiance to a single person…they created the entire framework of our government to safeguard us from a madman or a king…”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
