DCUM Weblog

Next week I will not be writing as I will take some time off for rest and relaxation and to enjoy the holidays with my family. So this will be my last post for a week or so. There is an expression that "you should never let a crisis go to waste." Two recent shootings show that pro-Israel Islamophobes are ardent practitioners of this advice. With scant evidence, almost all of which turned out to be wrong, online influencers and even the Israeli government sought exploit recent shootings to portray the events as antisemitic attacks possibly linked to Iran. In the end, they turned out to be completely wrong.

Not quite a week ago, a gunman burst into a study hall at Brown University and opened fire on students who were preparing for final exams. He killed two students and wounded nine others. Two days later, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was also shot and killed. Supporters of Israel and many Islamophobic influencers online immediately attempted to portray these shootings as acts of antisemitism. In the case of Brown, online personalities such as all-around crazy person Laura Loomer pointed out that the professor of the class that was targeted is Jewish. However, that professor was not at the study session during which the shooting took place. Loomer and others then claimed that the MIT professor was both Jewish and an outspoken critic of Hamas. The anti-Hamas claim was based on a Threads post that was wrongly attributed to the professor and friends of his denied that he was Jewish or ever talked about Israel or Hamas. Early on, there were reports that when the gunman entered the study hall, he had yelled something. However, whatever that may have been — or if it occurred at all — was never clarified. Loomer, without evidence, claimed that the shooter had yelled "Allahu Akbar" and that authorities were covering it up.

In October, I wrote a blog post about Vice President and reply guy JD Vance in which I described how almost everything about Vance is fake. He is not and never has been a hillbilly, "JD Vance" is either the third or fourth iteration of his name depending on how you count, and he was originally a Trump opponent (once even referring to Trump as "America's Hitler") before transitioning into a MAGA supporter of Trump. In that post, I dubbed Vance a "reply guy," which is "an internet slang term for someone who excessively responds to social media posts, often in an annoying, condescending, or overly familiar or flirtatious manner." Vance may, thankfully, avoid the flirtatious manner characteristic, but the rest fits him to a T. Vance so thoroughly represents someone who is deeply embedded in a social media bubble that I wondered what his social media influences might be. I then looked through the accounts that he follows. The result, let's say, was not surprising. Vance almost exclusively follows far-right accounts, some of which are very troubling.

On May 22, 1967, then Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced a blockade of the Straits of Tiran, which provides entry to the Gulf of Aqaba and passage to the Israeli port of Eilat. Two weeks later, the Israelis launched air strikes against Egypt, initiating the Six-Day War. After the war, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson would say:

If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed. The right of innocent, maritime passage must be preserved for all nations.

In March of this year, cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump authorized the bombing of Houthi targets in Yemen. The Houthis had been disrupting shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza. In a Signal chat that included The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote that "Restoring Freedom of Navigation, a core national interest" was one of two justifications for the attacks (the second was the reestablishment of deterrence).

Republicans have long championed legislation that would make it impossible for websites such as DC Urban Moms and Dads to continue operating. That the Republican Party is currently dominated by autocrats that want complete control of society, including Internet services, should not be news to anyone. However, Democrats are now joining the effort. Democrats have recently come out in strong support of the repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This law currently protects small websites like ours, and without it, we would face unacceptable legal exposure.

The Communications Decency Act of 1996 was actually an attempt by Congress to regulate certain content on the Internet. However, a year after passage, the bulk of the law was overturned by the United States Supreme Court on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment. The Court left one section intact. That was Section 230, which remains in effect. The key provision of the statute is Section (c)(1), which says:

Yesterday we woke up to news of a horrific massacre in Australia. Members of the Jewish community were celebrating "Hannukah by the Sea" on the famous Bondi Beach when two gunmen — apparently a father and son who were allegedly associated with the Islamic State — opened fire, killing at least 15. This was antisemitism in its rawest form. The celebration was targeted solely because its participants were Jewish. There is no explanation or justification that can change that fact. This was not an attack targeting individuals, but rather members of a group based on the assumption that their being Jewish was enough to legitimize their murder. Such thinking should be condemned. Indeed, many condemned it, often with tremendous but understandable anger. However, there were also some whose reaction was to engage in thinking that was very similar to that of the killers. However, their categorical presumption of guilt was targeted at Muslims.

I last wrote about Kilmar Ábrego García in August. At that time, the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump was attempting to deport Ábrego to Uganda. In the final paragraph of that post, I mentioned that Ábrego's lawyers had filed a writ of habeas corpus in federal court. Yesterday, United States District Judge Paula Xinis issued an opinion in the matter. Not to put too fine a point on things, but it was a doozy. Xinis found that Ábrego, who at the time was in federal custody, was being unlawfully held, and she ordered his immediate release. As a result, Ábrego was released from custody last night. However, the Trump administration is not finished with its persecution of this man and late yesterday engaged in some highly irregular and potentially unlawful behavior that threatened Ábrego's freedom.

MAGAland is extremely fractured these days, with different MAGA personalities fighting with each other and splits emerging within the movement. The fissures result from two vacuums within the MAGA coalition, one that is frequently exaggerated and one that is generally underestimated. The exaggerated vacuum is that caused by the assassination of Charlie Kirk. While Kirk was popular on the right and had a high profile, he simply did not have the importance with which he has been attributed in the lionization that has occurred since his murder. Nevertheless, he did lead a credible and well-funded organization, and there is now strong competition to seize, if not his actual mantle, at least the glorified version of it. The underestimated vacuum is one caused by cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump’s transition from a populist grassroots leader to a corporatist autocrat who has abandoned much of MAGA orthodoxy.

Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump rode a wave of devotion among his cult followers to power. His popularity among the MAGA movement gave him a base of support that was practically unrivaled. But in his second term in office, Trump seems less interested in that grassroots movement and instead is relying on the institutions of government as the source of his power. Trump has seemingly abandoned his role as a grassroots leader and, instead, exerted power through his control of government.

Trump has transitioned from primarily being a grassroots populist to an authoritarian leader whose power flows from his control of government institutions rather than his devoted followers. During his quest for the presidency, Trump relied on his dominance among grassroots MAGAs. This is a group that was so devoted to Trump that they literally stormed the Capitol Building on his behalf. Trump not only benefitted from his supporters' votes, but used them to threaten other politicians and force them to submit to his will. Elected Republicans were well aware that crossing Trump could result in a primary challenge and a likely election defeat. But now, little more than 10 months into his second term, Trump has less need for his mass of followers and, instead, is relying on his control of the government as the basis of his power.

When Zohran Mamdani, Mikie Sherrill, and Abigail Spanberger led a wave of Democratic victories in November by campaigning on affordability, the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump got the message. Something needed to be done about rising prices. After all, one of Trump's primary campaign issues had been the price of eggs. However, consumers were finding that under the Trump administration, almost everything was more expensive. This created a dilemma for the Trump officials. One of the main causes of rising prices was Trump's signature tariff policy. The quickest way to contain prices would be to abandon Trump's tariffs, but that was something that Trump would not consider. The administration did eventually reverse tariffs on coffee, tea, bananas, beef, and a few other food items, but tariffs remained a key policy. In the absence of acceptable options for lowering, or even stabilizing prices, the Trump administration decided that they would address affordability through messaging. Briefly, administration officials took to the airwaves to assure Americans that they felt their pain and were working night and day to confront the problem of affordability. This message was undercut by their boss. Trump, instead of focusing on affordability in the U.S., bailed out Argentina and, in the process, provided assistance to Argentinian soybean farmers and cattle ranchers while harming the interests of U.S. farmers. Ultimately, Trump would drive a spike through the heart of the administration's message by declaring that affordability was a "hoax." The administration then settled on a new message: It's all the fault of former President Joe Biden.

Thanks to cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, Republican elected officials are increasingly emulating Sergeant Schultz, the aimable German prison camp guard in the Hogan's Heroes sitcom. Schultz was famous for ignoring the prisoners' illicit activities, claiming that "I see nothing" or "I know nothing." Faced with Trump's increasingly controversial or hard-to-defend actions, Republicans are often claiming that they know nothing about them. This is an easy way to avoid either criticizing Trump or standing behind his latest move. Elected officials of all stripes are generally very image-conscious and reluctant to reveal any faults. Yet Republican after Republican will happily portray themselves as ignorant of current events rather than being forced to choose between either of the less desirable alternatives. These Republicans, of course, are not being forthright and, if they were, it would be reasonable to ask how such uninformed individuals can adequately perform the jobs for which they were elected. But for today's Republicans, ignorance is truly bliss.