Since I hate myself, I watched Trump's speech from yesterday. Nobody has to read this. There's no surprises. I'm just cataloging, because it was hella relevant. Hellevant. Hell event. This one's a bit different than a typical rally or campaign event because he's addressing an explicitly Christian evangelical audience. This is like, the base of his base, and he knows exactly who he's pandering to. He knows exactly what their issues are. Truly though, he is a very skilled orator, and I don't really question whether he's as late along in cognitive decline as maybe some other people, maybe just one guy, out there, maybe running for president as well. One of the biggest, longest cheers was when Trump began talking about support for Israel. He blamed Biden for Oct. 7th. He even had a guy come up on the mic and tell a remarkable tale of fictional Zionism tailored to an American audience. Painted Trump as Israel's savior. Amazing. Then, for a solid five minutes, Trump proceeds to tell the construction details for the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem that he had relocated there (maybe he truly missed building things? idk). No teleprompter. Frequently throughout the entire speech, he's just riffing. It's very, very, very well received. The narrative about the Iran deal is hilarious. "We canceled the nuclear deal. It was a bad deal. Obama's. Then we imposed sanctions on their oil, which were very successful. But Iran still got a lot of money somehow, and now they're building a nuclear weapon, and Joe Biden has done NOTHING." It doesn't have to be true or remotely make sense. Besides, favorable foreign policy will be awarded to countries with leaders Trump likes, so hopefully you're fantastically wealthy, you're a fascist strongman, and you've already appeased him by kissing the ring. He praises SCOTUS, and Clarence Thomas (only Clarence Thomas) by name. Gonna privatize schools. Gonna "defeat gender ideology" (he'll probably use the word "exterminate" in a few weeks or so, in case it was unclear what the insinuation might be). Gonna pardon J6ers. If you pick any other issue and find the worst option, that's the policy platform. Earlier in the, uh, the show, Trump tells them to their faces something like "the communists try to destroy religion, and fascists co-opt the religious for their own power. Fascists like Joe Biden. Don't fall for it." I love this, this is an especially strong "fuck you", straight to me. Right into my mouth. It's a fascist little shitgoblin telling me that he knows exactly what he's doing, that he knows that I know what he's doing, and that we both know I can basically do fuckall about it besides vote. Why not lay out exactly how to do fascism while pulling the fascist trick of saying, actually, no, it's the other side doing that. He can say anything. It doesn't matter to these folks anymore. All of the reports suggesting that Trump has replaced Jesus as the head of the evangelical church? Yes. Yes, he has. He seems to draw physical power from losing court cases. I'm pretty sure he's convinced he'll avoid prison. I think so too. I think that he'll win the election, but even if he doesn't, and then, even if he unleashes hell on Biden after losing, he'll never get locked up. He might ultimately be pardoned by Biden, if it comes to that, to "preserve the dignity of American presidency". Or something. Anyway, the Israel stuff is pretty new. And abhorrent, obviously. It dominates the speech, easily the most time spent on a single topic. Trump also repeats his claim that he'll "settle" the Russia-Ukraine war within a day. We all know that "settle" means do everything that he can to give Putin Ukraine, right? Surely we all know that. Perhaps Trump can re-appropriate any ex-Ukraine funds to the massive deportation operation they're gonna try. Keeping kids in cages was child's play. Haha. Wordplay. It's fuckin' wild to live through this. The logical endpoint of the republican party, who're hellbent on destroying the country if they can't have it after radicalizing themselves into a bunch of hate-worthy, corrupt morons. This will not end well. The sooner the better. ['X0Oo_am_Unitoinz'_e-hubski_bAdtimes_dairy_oO0X'] post 11/??