Given the amount of madness now under way, particularly regarding Trump’s Epstein problems — much of that, thankfully, hilarious — it seemed another good moment on The BradCast to once again send up our Digby/Driftglass Signal! Happily, they answered the call. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
With an avalanche of incoming, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover on today’s program. So, our OG blogger pals — HEATHER DIGBY PARTON Salon and Digby’s Hullabaloo, and the pseudonymous ‘DRIFTGLASS’ of the Professional Left Podcast — generously join us for the full hour to try and make some sense of it all.
Among the many stories discussed today…
- Donald Trump‘s hilariously ham-fisted attempts at covering up his long-running role in the life of his former bestie and late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, are become more transparently ridiculous by the day. Driftglass describes it as “Stupid Watergate,” where even the MAGA supporters are finally catching on. What took them so long? “This is a cult that we are dealing with” after all, Digby reminds.
There is a lot of news wrapped into that one story alone to keep us busy today. But, no, neither Digby nor Driftglass believe Speaker Mike Johnson‘s gambit to recess the U.S. House early for the rest of Summer to avoid demands for votes to release the “Epstein Files” (which Johnson himself favored just last week) is going to make any of this go away or get better for Trump. Digby explains why. And it may, as the pair seem to concur, be the “load-bearing lie”, finally knocked down, that does to the Trump Presidency what Hurricane Katrina did to George W. Bush‘s.
- One of Trump’s latest attempts at distraction from his ever-growing Epstein woes was to declare this week that “Barack Hussein Obama” (and Hillary Clinton) have been caught dead to rights in a “coup” to steal the 2016 Presidential election! The one that Trump won. What is the “irrefutable proof” Trump claims has been newly uncovered by his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revealing that, as Trump charged yesterday, “Obama was sedatious”? (His actual word.) Well, it takes all of us on today’s program to even muster a guess at what the hell any of them are talking about. (Even folks on the Right who previously decried “RussiaGate” aren’t impressed.) But, sure. Here’s the evidence. They finally caught Obama!
Whatever the supposed crime is “doesn’t matter because there’s nothing there,” explains Driftglass. “There is no conspiracy. It simply exists as a bright shiny object to distract from the fact that Donald Trump is covering up a pedophile business that his dead best friend ran, with Donald Trump’s knowledge, consent, and approval. That’s it. That’s the only reason this is happening. It will be another distraction next week and another one after that if this one doesn’t work.”
- In somewhat darker news, we also try to make sense of the firing (next year, anyway) of Stephen Colbert by Paramount/CBS on the heels of a $16 million settlement paid by the company to Trump as an obvious attempt to win his FCC’s approval for a merger with a company named Skydance.
“The big overview here is that all these institutions have been caving,” laments Digby. “Whether it’s Big Law, universities, these big media companies settling with Trump, basically paying bribes to get what they want. “The fact that [Colbert’s firing] happened within days of the settlement — if it wasn’t part of the settlement, or if they just decided to throw it in as a little treat for Trump to make him happy — either way, it’s a horrible thing. And it’s happening throughout our culture.”
“All we’ve got are the comedians,” she argues, echoing her column today at Salon. “The only people who have what it takes to speak truth to power in our whole damn culture. And that is a pathetic realization.”
- All of which brings us to our final topic of discussion today, based on an email I received earlier this week, calling me out for describing Trump as a “wannabe-dictator” instead of a flat-out dictator. His argument, which I share today, was sound, and my guests tended to agree with him. (Trump’s “a fascist,” asserts Driftglass. “Coming up with an accurate definition of what is happening right now is important, because it gives us a place to stand and start.”) But I think I’m gonna be sticking with “wannabe” by and large right now. I explain why on today’s lively, funny and sometimes appropriately grim program…
A cornered psychopath with more power than any other single citizen will use it in “non-conventional” ways.