Meanwhile, Trump intensifies groping of America

January 9, 2017 Originally published on SFGate

Was it his recent anti-Hillary tweet storm, childishly bashing his former rival again and again for joining Jill Stein’s recount effort, the bitchy little hissy fit coming, this time, not from a boorish reality-TV imbecile, but from the imminent leader of the free world, the most powerful human on the planet, the president of these newly doomed United States – thus reconfirming Trump’s grievous incapacity to “pivot” to something remotely more mature and respectable as we lurch toward apocalypse inauguration?

Is it the heartbreaking letters from large teams of NASA scientists – and the other one signed by more than 2,300 very concerned scientists across all disciplines – decrying Trump’s promised annihilation of all international climate accords and research, including Nasa’s long-standing, enormously valuable, deeply respected Earth Sciences division?

[Stripping the division of all funding] would mean the elimination of Nasa’s world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena. Nasa’s network of satellites provide a wealth of information on climate change, with the Earth science division’s budget set to grow to $2bn next year. By comparison, space exploration has been scaled back somewhat, with a proposed budget of $2.8bn in 2017.

Bob Walker, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said there was no need for Nasa to do what he has previously described as “politically correct environmental monitoring”.

What about Trump’s nonsense pule that Hillary actually didn’t win the popular vote (by a record 2.5 million humans, and counting), but rather, due to a completely baseless, reference-free lie he found on a racist fake news site somewhere, he actually won it, but all those millions of votes for him weren’t fairly counted, even here in California?

It’s all kinds of ridiculous. Except that it’s not. Except, much like the mountains of fake news his numb followers believed pre-election without giving a damn for credibility, millions of his acolytes appear to believe him, based on nothing but bloviated BS propaganda.

Get used to it, America

Then there’s the baffling, disturbing interview the new president-elect gave with the NYT, bitching about an unflattering photo and pointing stubby orange fingers hither and yon and indicating, to everyone’s ongoing horror, how much he hates the press and will do everything he can to mock, threaten and grope it into submission, if not outright arrest and imprisonment?

Did you enjoy the savage irony of all those Trumpsters whining about Hillary’s “secret” speeches to Goldman Sachs, as Trump announces his new head of the US Treasury: one Steven Mnuchin, himself a lackey from Goldman Sachs, who has zero political experience whatsoever? What about entirely useless Ben Carson to lead HUD?

It’s only bitterly amusing until you realize it’s not, until you realize it’s becoming quickly terrifying, akin to how the newly empowered trolls of the alt-right – AKA the KKK 2.0 – have now released their first “official” watch list, beginning with liberal professors and educators.

Did you hear? It’s true: The alt-right has already begun targeting anyone who dares teach progressive or intellectually curious ideas (read: science, civil rights, environmentalism, love, breathing), often including the professors’ photos, home addresses, phone numbers, and posting it all to online hate groups.

A bunch of idiot, meth-snorting racists baiting liberals from their parents’ basements? Nothing new. Same inbred, sexless trolls given unexpected power and the full run of the White House? Terrorizing.

It’s all capped by the devastating fact that we have somehow flipped from the most graceful, intellectually sophisticated presidency in modern history, straight to the sleaziest and most repulsively inept. It’s a cruel sociopolitical whiplash that’s left us shattered, wildly destabilized, well below England on the shortlist of once-proud nations that seemed to basically have their sh-t together, to a suddenly unhinged totalitarian nightmare on the precipice of categorical collapse. No wonder Noam Chomsky called the GOP “the most dangerous organization in world history.”

And oh, woe my beloved major media, beleaguered teams of talented reporters and journalists currently more shell-shocked than anyone, still trying to figure out how to cover it all and remain not merely relevant, but more indispensable than ever, all against a vicious tidal wave of manufactured, anti-media vitriol, clickbait headlines, for-profit news centers, hateful fake stories, idiot alt-right bloggers and a new president eager to destroy them entirely.

One thing is certain: Trump is doing exactly what he promised; he is very much gutting the political machinery in DC. But of course he has absolutely no intention of making it better, more dynamic, more respectable, helpful and intellectually curious, a boon to both the American experiment, and the world.

Just the opposite: your Trump-ified US government is about to hurl itself into a pit of numb violence and vicious anti-intellectualism: America has officially declared itself more paranoid, more racist, more vindictive and shrill than perhaps any time in our history.

There is zero denying it: We have gone from a deeply civilized, hugely successful, beautifully historic presidential administration marked by tremendous grace and calm wisdom, to a bullying sh-t-show run by a bloviated, tiny-brained reality TV man-child who doesn’t give a damn about what his army of confused, poorly educated protest voters might have wanted, but very much adores all those violent, misogynist white supremacist sociopaths who would gladly lead us all into the pits of hell. What fun it shall be.

Resistance is nigh.

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Mark Morford

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