Background Briefing: August 13, 2020

On By gram

 

Trump Praises a Racist Q-Anon Devotee as a Rising Star in the GOP

We begin with Trump’s praise today of a racist redneck who is a member of the bizarre QAnon cult who believe Trump is a victim of a deep state cabal inside the government and the Democratic Party who run child sex rings and drink children’s blood while consorting with demonic forces as they worship Satan. Trump praised the QAnon follower Marjorie Taylor Greene who won the Republican primary in Georgia and will be elected to Congress from this safe GOP district as “a future Republican star” and we will discuss this mind-bending insanity with Angelo Carusone, the President of Media Matters for America, a recognized authority on right-wing extremism who has been tracking the alarming growth of this movement since it first emerged at Trump rallies. Q is supposed to be inside the deep state feeding information to his followers as they prepare for “The Storm”, a much-heralded event when they believe Trump will order mass arrests of his political opponents who will either be imprisoned at Guantanamo or lined up and shot by the military. Now House Republican leaders McCarthy and Scalise who initially denounced her, have changed their tune since their fuhrer has praised her and it is not inconceivable that Trump is right, Marjorie Taylor Greene could become the new rising star of the Trump Republican Party.

 

Trump and De Joy’s Criminal Attack on the United States Postal Service

Then with Trump now openly admitting he doesn’t want any funding for the Post Office or election protection because he wants to stop mail-in balloting, we speak with Steve Hutkins, a retired literature professor at the Gallatin School of New York University who edits and administers the website Save the Post Office. He joins us to discuss what can be done to stop the criminal attack on the USPS by Trump’s Postmaster General whose investment in companies that would benefit immensely from the privatization of the Post Office expose his avaricious agenda.

 

The Author of Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976 – 1880 

Then finally we speak with Rick Perlstein, the author of the new book Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976 -1980. We explore the conservative strategy to gain power and the extent to which we are still living in Reaganland today with Trump having borrowed Reagan’s campaign slogan to “Make America Great Again” as well as the same appeal to a nostalgia for the “Ozzie and Harriet” halcyon days of the 1950’s when Blacks and Latinos were invisible.