A moment's vigilance before the weekly shop

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NOT for the faint of heart, thou hast been warned: '(M)asturbating in front of female customers at branches of Dollar Tree… fast becoming a national phenomenon'. {The Guardian 20 July}

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/20/dollar-tree-sexual-assault-gooner

Yes, thou read the above headline correctly. Disturbed women-hating men (‘incels’) engaging in the gamification of sexual harassment and sexual assault, then posting the video evidence online for the amusement and approval of similarly depraved individuals.

Dollar stores, with their chronically weak security, skeletal staffing, and tendency to be located in poorer or higher-crime communities, provide fertile hunting grounds for these predators (some of whom are employees). Similar incidents have occurred in other countries — I am not proclaiming that the former United States possesses a monopoly on sick people doing deranged things — but if ever there were a measure of how far this nation hath fallen, when women cannot safely shop for household necessities without becoming targets of sexual abuse, this would be it.

Do not read The Guardian article if one hath a weak stomach. It is genuinely horrible in detail. Yet women should know what is happening, and — wherever possible — exercise caution when visiting these establishments. Concealed carry whether it is legal or not to do so in one’s jurisdiction: guns, mace, whatever necessary. Best yet, just avoid dollar stores altogether — wherever possible.

And I stress wherever possible. Throughout large swathes of the former United States — in forever-neglected urban neighbourhoods, dying rural Trumpvilles alike, and increasingly everywhere in between — dollar stores have become the only practical place many people can afford to shop, or can physically access. Much hath already been written about the exploitative business model behind these chains, and I would encourage all readers to investigate it further. The very existence of so many communities dependent upon them is itself a damning indictment of America’s economic system and of the country's overall health.

America's problems are not exactly unique, though it is clearly responsible for the abomination that is the dollar store. Every nation possesses its own extremists, criminals, and cultural maladies. Yet my abiding impression is that most or all of those societies shall still possess functioning institutions and a sense of civic responsibility long after the final remnants of it have been stamped out here in Trumpistan (nearly there). We must accept decline as though it were inevitable, because y’all done made it inevitable, #Muricans. The rest of you in this world still have a chance to hang in for a bit longer, until climate change finishes the planet off, but another topic for another day.

Make no mistake, this grotesque behaviour is not merely the work of isolated deviants. It reflects a culture in which women are treated as objects to be humiliated rather than fellow human beings deserving of dignity and safety. The conduct described in The Guardian article is extreme, but it did not emerge from a vacuum. It grows in an environment where harassment is trivialised, empathy is in short supply, and cruelty increasingly masquerades as entertainment. An environment that gave rise to, and hath since been made immeasurably worse — to the point of no possible recovery — by President Donald J. Trump, his enablers, and his handlers.

All of this is profoundly sick. America’s modern culture is profoundly and plainly sick. What should one expect from a country that knowingly returned a man found liable for sexual abuse — among other things — to the White House? We have become a society in which people either actively despise one another or simply no longer care. In 2024 — knowingly so from past experience and in contempt for the most hated institution of any kind in white working-class America (the Democratic Party), and the (unfortunately politically untalented and personally untrustworthy) black woman who was leading the opposing ticket that year — the ruling plurality of citizens elected a government of wolves that are hostile to public safety, dismissive of civil liberties and human rights, and all too willing — eager, even — to subordinate ordinary people to powerful corporate interests. We should not be surprised when people who voted repeatedly for psychopaths begin acting like psychopaths. Nor that there be any remorse, even as their own lives deteriorate further. 

Women should not have to plan an ordinary shopping trip as though entering hostile territory. Until this country rediscovers both the will and the ability to protect ordinary citizens from predators such as these, remaining aware of one's surroundings and taking whatever precautions available is the only prudent thing. No civilised society should require its women — nay, any peaceful citizens, period — to live this way. Trumpistan is not a civilised society.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

This was not in the briefing

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Secret Service reportedly fed-up with VP Vance and family. {MS NOW 15 July}

https://www.ms.now/news/veeps-security-detail-fed-up-with-hastily-arranged-personal-and-family-travel-requests

Blatantly entitled, brazenly so, and only a heartbeat away from the presidency. Taking a young boy to a golf lesson aboard a military helicopter at taxpayer expense, reportedly costing more than $24,000. Meanwhile, JD Vance and his wife — ever the natalists — are expecting their fourth child soon. 

Vance is not fit for the office he holds, and certainly not the presidency: too young, too self-assured, too many contradictions about him, and too aloof in nature. Alas, thanks largely to his boss, standards no longer apply to most Republican office-holders, provided they remain in Trump's good graces.

White Americans and much of the mainstream media — generally speaking, of course — do not hold Republicans to the same standards they apply to Democrats. I believe this has been true for decades, beginning with the political realignment that followed the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, but more acutely so since 2016, when a third or so of the overall American population decided what a wonderful idea it would be to join a political cult led by a foul-mouthed real estate mogul and ‘reality television’ star with closets full of skeletons. 

At the dawn of his political career, Donald Trump could have attempted to run as a Democrat. After all, he spent roughly a decade registered with the party in the 2000s. Yet he understood that his chances of success were far greater as a Republican. He needed the white working-class vote, and that constituency had been drifting away from the Democratic Party since the 1960s, a process completed with the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008.

Just look at the number of state legislative seats Democrats lost during Obama's presidency, particularly across the South. The scale of the decline is staggering. Trump was taking note. Trump could not have won as a Democrat, nor could he have gotten away with everything he has gotten away with as a Republican. No demographic group has proven more willing to overlook — or even embrace — his corruption, incompetence, and ethical failings than the coalition that now comprises #MAGA. 

So long as JD Vance remains Trump’s trusted VP, he shall be Teflon. Ask Mike Pence what happens, however, when one falls out of good graces. The best thing that can happen between now and the scheduled presidential election of 2028 (and I use the word ‘scheduled’ as there is no guarantee there will be any election in 2028) is for Trump to throw Vance under the bus and fire him, for he would be a horrible president (yes, worse).

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The woman who said no

World Economic Forum

Sheinbaum vows legal action against the former United States after a Mexican national is killed in Houston by ICE agents. {click2houston 10 July}

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2026/07/08/mexican-president-vows-legal-action-against-us-after-ices-shooting-death-of-lorenzo-salgado-araujo-in-houston/

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Fear of the Golden Elephant

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Evangelical propagandist Todd Starnes: Christians must support the GOP in spite of ‘how bad the Republicans have betrayed you’. {Right Wing Watch 23 June}

https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/todd-starnes-says-voters-must-support-gop-regardless-how-bad-republicans-have

generated via ChatGPT

And so we see a prime example of how and why the GOP maintains such a powerful hold over large swathes of this country and its people. Regardless of one's views of the Republican Party, Todd Starnes is articulating a sentiment that hath become increasingly common among most professed Christians in the former United States: support the party no matter what, even when it disappoints thee. Loyalty to the cause, and to Donald Trump, supersedes dissatisfaction with the party. Consider Starnes’ own words, putting it all very starkly:

"I've been telling people, 'I don't care how bad the Republicans have betrayed you or have not done what [they] said they would do,' … It's not about them. It's about protecting President Trump at the end of the day. And it's about protecting the Supreme Court."

Not much nuance or room for interpretation there. It is plainly stated: loyalty to Trump and keeping hold of the high court are tantamount to any and all other considerations. It explains why the GOP is so difficult to hold electorally accountable. Voters who would otherwise punish a party for perceived and real failures instead view the alternative as the literal spawn of Satan. Rightly or wrongly, the Democratic Party is the most hated institution of any kind throughout middle America, particularly in the South, where Democrats once enjoyed overwhelming dominance. For these white, working-class types, opposition to Democrats is not merely political; it is cultural, religious, and deeply personal. 

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The Democratic Party did itself no favours in 2024 when it cast President Biden aside in favour of a candidate who proved incapable of winning the confidence of enough voters to prevent the return of a convicted felon to the White House. Indeed, the woman was unelectable from the very start; including for reasons that should not be, of course, but they are. Furthermore, she has not acquitted herself well at any point in her political career; it was not the time for a grand political experiment, not when it was so obvious and apparent how far rightward the winds were blowing in 2023, 2024, and continuing onward to the present moment. 

Fair or not, the election reinforced existing perceptions of Democratic weakness and disorganisation. And I do not see tangible moves being made to at least attempt to alter these perceptions. So long as the white working-class remains the most powerful voting bloc, the Democrats have to win at least some portion of them. And it is as though they do not even try, or the attempts they do make are clumsy and not well thought out (see nominating Tim Walz as the running mate in ‘24, or what hath become of Sen. John Fetterman).

Yet Republican strength cannot be explained solely by Democratic mistakes. Right-wing media ecosystems, partisan identity, religious affiliation, geographical sorting, nationalistic and anti-globalist sentiment, and decades of heated cultural conflict over a range of issues from abortion to zoning have all contributed to an environment in which voters increasingly define themselves by what they oppose even more so than by what they support. In this atmosphere, criticism of Republican leaders simply fails to translate into electoral consequences for the GOP. How else can we explain Trump being restored to power by the voters in 2024 after the myriad failures, embarrassments, and abuses of power previously, to say nothing of being a convicted felon?

Rightly or wrongly, the Democratic brand is toxic: if they hope to regain durable political power, they may need not merely new candidates, but a broader reconfiguration of how they present themselves to the electorate. Perhaps they retire the ‘Democratic Party’ brand name altogether, in the manner of how major corporations will rebrand when they have become toxic in the public eye (think Philip Morris becoming Altria, perhaps; or Lord Elon changing Twitter to ‘X’, though everyone still calls it ‘Twitter’, but I digress). Revivals rarely begin in Washington, though; they begin in town halls, state legislatures, school committees, and local communities. And in these places is where the Democrats have lost the most ground in recent decades.

On the current trajectory, Republicans will enjoy significant institutional advantages for years to come. Gerrymandering; favourable electoral geography; peer pressure upon individuals from family, society, and church; and the structure of American government all provide benefits that make Democratic victories more difficult than raw national vote totals suggest. It is not enough for Republicans to perform poorly in office if voters remain entirely unwilling to embrace the alternative. Especially, if only one alternative is ever allowed or considered. I suppose, going back to the 1790s, Americans have always demanded their politics be us against them, a team sport, and have never been keen on nuance. George Washington warned us about this in his farewell address, even as ‘the spirit of party’ was already overtaking the nation’s populace.

Whether a temporary realignment or the beginning of something more permanent remains an open question, though I am heavily leaning toward the latter. American history is filled with moments when observers believed one party had achieved lasting dominance, only for political circumstances to change... but that was then. Concerns about democratic erosion are never without foundation in the best of times, but today we are at red alert. To put it mildly. What ‘y’all’ voted for.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The weeping republic

 

generated via Grok

Fewer Americans see the former United States as exceptional; young doubt democracy and the mythical ‘American Dream’. {AP 8 June}

https://apnews.com/article/ap-poll-america-250-democracy-exceptional-474874cbb88c08908c8b6c01e386ba91

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Inflation has climbed to its highest level since 2022, and the same nation that screamed bloody murder over it under Joe Biden now looks the other way even as it bears the cost

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{Yahoo! Finance 10 April} “Consumer prices in March saw the largest monthly gain since 2022 as the US-Israel war against Iran sent gas prices skyrocketing past $4 a gallon”

A surge attributable almost entirely to Donald Trump’s humiliating and utterly futile adventure in Iran. Yet where, I pray, is the indignation from the American people that was so freely directed at President Joe Biden during his term of office? For Mr Biden, at the least, did endeavour to bridle inflation and uphold essential government services, whereas we now have Trump bellowing about cutting Medicare and Medicaid because the United States must pay for wars before anything else (at the same time declaring himself a peacemaker and demanding a Nobel Prize for it). And all the while, Trump is blatantly and shamelessly lying about the cost of gas, food, etc., and the media and general public shrug their shoulders (‘Trump being Trump’). James Carville’s oft-quoted maxim — ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ — no longer applies in post-Obama #Murica: its poor, white, rural denizens hath decided, time and again, that their resentments and grievances outweigh every other consideration, including their own financial survival. Thus they, and the rest of us in this polyglot empire who never wanted this madness and did what we could to prevent it, are being shunned and left behind by the wider world. For that, there shall be no redemption. Y'all done f**ked' up.

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The Dow Jones sinks to a 2026 low amid renewed inflation anxieties. Do not expect the American people to ever hold Donald Trump to account for it, or anything else

image generated via ChatGPT

{CNBC 18 March} “Dow tumbles more than 750 points to new closing low for 2026, fueled by inflation woes; Fed holds steady on rates”

Curious how ‘y’all’ are enjoying this beautiful economy that was promised by your orange godking?

No need to ask. So long as grievance remains the organising principle, and the American people – at least, the ruling white trash coalition that comprises the vast majority of the country’s gun owners, law enforcement, military personnel, assorted Christian leaders, trailer park dwellers, conspiracy theorists, dedicated racists, and suburban lay folks of what we used to know as ‘the middle class’ – are granted licence to hate without consequence, no amount of bad news will touch Donald J. Trump. Allegations of sexual misconduct. An attempted coup. Criminal mismanagement of a once-in-a-century medical crisis. We are not even scratching the surface — and still he remains insulated.

All because a culture animated by resentment would rather suffer than surrender its animus. Stop trying to reason with it. When cupboards empty, someone else (be it Joe Biden, or whoever Trump hath anointed as the villain of the day on any given day) will be blamed. It never fails. Hell on Earth. 

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Really f**king typical of all you people: #Murica lost its collective bearings over Biden, sits back and does nothing as Trump loses whatever bearings he had left

There is something fundamentally wrong with a populace that, on the one hand, dissolved into a national tantrum in 2024 because the sitting president, a man whose principal defect was the inexorable march of age, appeared momentarily forgetful during a single debate; yet, on the other hand, by late 2025 greets with a shrug the daily unravelling of their self-anointed orange god-king, a visibly deteriorating elder whose lucidity flickers like a faulty bulb.

White, working-class America, by and large (obviously there are plenty of exceptions, just not enough), does not care about competence, mental sharpness, or even basic suitability for office; what they crave and revere is the licence to be as malicious as their hearts incline, unburdened by shame or civic duty. Until 2016, I would have dutifully dismissed the idea as so fantastical and childish that it could not possibly be that simple—but it actually is.

Looking back, so much of the appalling behaviour of so many random people I have been unfortunate enough to know over the years, and the vile ways I myself acted in trying to placate these swine, all makes sense—and yet I am no less staggered. For a bloody decade now, even during the blessed four years when Trump was in exile and a grown man held the helm (a thankless burden, as events made plain), I remain aghast—in a state of perpetual disgust—that so many of you are as wretched, as spiteful, as morally decayed as ever I feared. Nay—far worse.

This nightmare abateth not; it is metastasising. Trump’s devotees will kill—eagerly kill—to enthrone him as dictator-for-life, and nothing in the present climate suggests they will fail. When a nation’s institutions tremble before the phantom of a white, working-class uprising, justice becometh a theatre of cowardice. Were it otherwise, Donald Trump would already be serving a life sentence, accompanied by the entire cohort of witless acolytes who stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021. And, frankly, by many of those who have enabled, defended, financed, and propagandised this treasonous movement.

Let us not mince words: this sedition endures because the most heavily armed demographic in the country hath anointed Trump as their messiah and awaits only the signal to unleash wholesale bloodshed. Their hatred of the rest of America is so bottomless that what we have thus far witnessed is but the faintest overture.

The Trump regime will order the arrest of Joe Biden, and other high-profile figures deemed as political adversaries, within the coming year. And I expect the public response to be one of mute paralysis—and vigorous approval in many quarters. I likewise anticipate that many of our friends, colleagues, and family members shall begin to vanish, spirited away into the machinery of autocracy… and few will dare speak of it, publicly or privately. Yet through all this darkness, Americans will continue to thunderously proclaim themselves the ‘Land of the Free, Home of the Brave’.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.

No more pretences: the majority of the American people either rejoice or shrug their shoulders as the POTUS justifies murder of anyone opposed to him

Imagine but for a moment, if Barack Obama had so much as hinted—let alone declared outright—that a notable conservative or Republican figure had been murdered because his or her deranged slayer had been driven to distraction by the victim’s anti-Obama rhetoric, irrespective of the actual motives or tragic circumstances involved. Imagine, further, one’s disbelief had greater than half the American public responded with a gleeful ‘amen’, or with a shrug of chilly indifference, whilst those who were justly outraged were mocked, dismissed, and threatened with violence. Even a decade ago, in what now feels a more sober age, such a spectacle would have been unthinkable: that an American president would exploit another’s private grief so nakedly in order to menace the roughly forty per cent of the population who oppose him.

We all know precisely what would have followed had this been Obama—or Biden, or Clinton, or even George W. Bush, who long ago fell from favour with the very voters who once rallied behind him in the aftermath of 9/11. But most of all, had it been the black guy. The same #MAGA partisans who now rush to defend Donald Trump’s grotesque exploitation of the deaths of Rob and Michelle Reiner—using their passings as a blunt cudgel to chill political dissent—would be marching through the streets with torches and pitchforks, bellowing (rightly, in that hypothetical) of tyranny and persecution. They know it; we know it; the hypocrisy is so brazen it scarcely troubles itself to counterfeit disguise.

Nay, now it doth not hide at all. Beginning in earnest with the January 6 insurrection, accelerating through the 2024 presidential election and the rise of the ‘manosphere’ that presently poisoneth the hearts and minds of young men at scale, and culminating in Trump’s return to office, #MAGA hath cast off any remaining pretences. What remains is an unambiguous supremacist movement: racial, gendered, and theocratic in equal measure. Roughly sixty per cent of the population is being mobilised—a fair number actively, but more commonly by enforcing passivity and apathy—against the approximate forty per cent of us who resist this nation-killing and soul-killing frenzy. I should like to claim some residue of optimism, yet truthfully I cannot summon the least glimmer of it.

We inhabit a profoundly dark chapter of national life when a majority of the public either tolerates or actively revels in a president willing to rationalise the killing of individuals on account of their political persuasions (or, more to the point, that they hurt his little feelings). We are no longer poised at the brink of the abyss; we have passed within its gate. Trump and his coterie manipulate the American populace with the effortless virtuosity of a master fiddler, and mass bloodshed—spontaneous and orchestrated—is not hypothetical, but imminent.

Most disquieting of all is the truth that remains largely unspoken—though I shall articulate it plainly: many of you reading this are not dreading what comes next. NO… you eagerly await it! For forty-eight humiliating years upon this benighted planet I have sensed, however dimly, that most of you are, at your core, rotten and malign; yet I lacked the vocabulary, the conceptual framework, to name the malignancy. Now I can. And I know, with no small measure of grim consolation, that many others have come to the same conclusion regarding people in general… yet I am entirely alone in my recognition and pain.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.

Optimism hath little soil: a large and ever-growing plurality of Trump 2024 voters express extremist, hard-right leanings in poll

image generated via Google Gemini

{Manhattan Institute 1 December} ‘The New GOP Survey Analysis of Americans Overall, Today’s Republican Coalition, and the Minorities of MAGA’

A disquieting proportion of GOP voters are willing to embrace conceits that had long been relegated to the feverish margins of our public life—averring that the Holocaust was but a hoax, that the moon-landing was but a cunning masque, that the attacks of 9/11 were ‘an inside job’, and that vaccines be the very fountain of autism. More than half do yet maintain that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulently contrived against Donald Trump, a belief impervious to evidence and judicial review alike.

Yet more grievous still, some seventeen per cent of Republicans and Trump-aligned voters are reckoned to harbour devoutly anti-Semitic notions, a vice most sharply found among the younger cohort. Alas, among Democrats the figure rises to twenty per cent, and in both camps these numbers are growing: the future estate of Jewish safety and dignity within the former United States standeth, by any sober measure, in most ominous and perilous uncertainty.

And let us not forget: there is every reason to assume that a certain proportion of those surveyed were not wholly candid about the extremity of their convictions. This is invariably the case—in polling, in public discourse, and in the unguarded corners of daily life. Always. The past decade or so, during which so many individuals’ true colours have bled through with startling clarity, hath rendered this truth almost painfully obvious; only now, instead of recoiling from the rot thus exposed, most appear content to embrace it.

Nihilism rules the day, and we stand a long, long way from any conceivable moment—if such a moment will ever come—when the tide may turn back toward the relative sanity and civic composure once enjoyed in the America of earlier decades. One might say this equilibrium reached its apogee in the 1980s and 1990s; and though I freely concede that my judgement may be coloured by the fact that I grew up in those years, it remains, by any rational assessment, a period in which the nation was stronger, its people more resilient, and American power at its undisputed zenith. My instincts tell me that we now inhabit the terminal stages of the republic, and that optimism hath little remaining soil in which to grow.

And what, then, is to become of this fractured multitude, all these bloody people, when the edifice finally collapses outright? A nation whose citizens despise one another is singularly ill-equipped to weather a total societal unravelling; indeed, even the most harmonious civilisation would struggle to withstand the gathering HELL into which the former United States is, day by day, further descending. 

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.

Federal judge orders Trump to restore SNAP payments—futile in a lawless land where the nation ravenously consumes its own

image generated via ChatGPT

{ABC News 6 November} Federal judge orders Trump to fully fund SNAP November payments by tomorrow, 7 November.

SPOILER ALERT: Trump shall not do so, and there is nobody stepping up to force him to comply. WARNING: these assaults on Medicaid and SNAP are mere probes of public apathy—Social Security shall be the next citadel besieged. Trump and his confederates are getting away with literal murder—met with mass approbation.

Do not prattle of polls to me: for about a decade, between forty and sixty per cent of Americans have consistently either cheered this tinpot-dictator on or have averted their gaze, whilst the Democratic Party remains the nation’s most reviled institution—particularly among men, the devout and superstitious, the rural, and above all those who bear arms. The Democrats have not secured a majority of the white vote in a presidential election since 1964. Democracy lies dead now—for the majority of Americans, as of humankind generally and eternally, elevate tribal loyalty above reason or principle.

Abandon all hope of repairing the former United States: the self-styled patriots have slain their country in the name of ‘saving’ it. The Democratic Party—and its voters—have for far too long busied themselves with pronouns, quotas, and assorted p.c. frivolities, yet possess not the slightest courage when it comes to confronting the true adversary: the white-trash American—most often rural, though found everywhere—who enables this criminal network of nation-destroying tyrants. And they would see the rest of us dead and gone. That is why all this unfolds—and that truth must be spoken plainly, the bloody feelings of white-trash be damned (none, after all, are more enslaved to their feelings than those who bellow “f**k your feelings”).  —Arthur Newhook, 6 November 2025.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.

Post-debate Reuters/IPSOS poll: Harris fails to surpass fifty percent, with eleven percent still undecided, even after Trump’s notably poor performance

A political cartoon lampooning Donald Trump supporters. Illustration: Monte Wolverton

While I do not place too much weight on polls, here is proof this election is going down to the wire, regardless of how low Donald Trump will sink. It is crucial to always acknowledge that Trump commands the largest and most loyal political cult in American history, and Kamala Harris, as a mixed-race woman, faces the additional challenge of running in a country that harbours deep and violent prejudices against women of colour.

This may not be the optimistic spin most reading this want to hear, nor am I at all happy about having to say it, but it serves as a reminder that in a more rational, just, and moral society, this race would not be close, and a vile and criminal figure like Donald Trump would never have risen to power in the first place. 

I have said it before, and I shall say it again: we have not yet witnessed the full extent to which White America will go to avoid being governed by a coloured woman. Trump’s most devoted supporters will stand by him, no matter what he says or does or how frail he becomes. Prepare accordingly, to whatever extent possible, for mass bloodshed is on the horizon.

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

One in three NCAA men's and women's basketball players faced abuse from bettors, including death threats, during this year’s tournaments

Angel Reese. Photo: Getty Images

NCAA: 1 in 3 star athletes receive abuse, threats by bettors {ESPN 5/18}

Methinks I am not sufficient of a constitutional scholar to know if the federal government hath any legitimate authority to regulate gambling, and I generally do despise any nanny state tendencies I detect in others. All said, I really do hate gambling. Years ago, I laboured in gas station convenience stores and felt like a glorified drug pusher with all the scratch tickets I did sell to Massholes. Most of the folk buying them were downright pathetic, but I digress. Furthermore, I have long turned a blind eye to gambling in my waning enthusiasm for horse racing, knowing that it hath always been the lifeblood of the industry. Yet, for the life of me, I shall never understand why any individual would desire to play with money. It maketh absolutely no sense.

Absolutely nothing of goodly import is emerging from the explosion of legalised sports betting currently taking place. When combined with the endemic, regressive, and all-pervading hatred raging in the United States at this time, it doth create a deadly combination. The ESPN article notes that female collegiate basketball players are about thrice more likely than their male counterparts to receive abuse. One day, somebody is going to get killed, but it will not matter to the puissant interests invested in the commons casting away coin they cannot afford to lose. It ought to go without saying, this is beyond shameful and yet another sign, among thousands, that the people of #Murica are, in laymen’s terms, losing their s**t.

Alito J6 controversy ‘another blow for Supreme Court under fire’ - Lifetime tenure for Justices was a huge error of foresight by our nation’s founders. {AP 5/17}

President Biden signs a significant aviation safety and airline reform bill into law. {Reuters 5/16}

Cost of living crisis. Suze Orman warns ‘If you don’t have at least $5 million or $10 million, don’t retire early’. {Yahoo! 5/16}

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social, and @arthurnewhook on POST. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

MORE ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE THAT ANTI-SEMITISM AND CONSPIRACISM ARE GOING MAINSTREAM IN #MURICA

Assorted American Nazis at the Charlottesville rally of 2017. Photo: Chet Strange/Getty Images

If there was ever a disheartening indication to me that humanity is facing dark times, it was today's discovery that a former girlfriend of mine - once the epitome of sweetness and kindness, with whom I shared many years - now disseminates QAnon conspiracy theories and virulent anti-Semitic content on her Twitter (X) account. I had been aware since 2016 of her support for Trump. We parted ways in 2017, partly due to our political disparities (i.e., even the most rational of Trump supporters morph into big babies whenever their idol is criticised). However, I never could have imagined that this woman would eventually embrace such ancient, hateful beliefs as the blood libel.

Trumpism is an incremental mental disorder, one that typically starts off innocently enough for most, but ultimately consumes the hearts and minds of its followers, leading towards hateful ideologies such as Nazism. However, it's not just Trump supporters who exhibit concerning tendencies; it is all the leftists who are quick to blame Israel and our own government for the actions of Islamist extremists, true to their long-standing and petulant refusal of over twenty years to acknowledge the true threat posed by Islamist terrorists.Anti-Semitism is becoming increasingly prevalent across the political spectrum, and it achieves no positive outcomes or offers any solutions except more hate and violence.

Large segments of the American populace are increasingly turning against Israel, blaming the victims and siding with the oppressors (Hamas), while simultaneously Vladimir Putin's popularity among Americans soars along with anti-Ukrainian sentiment. What kind of monsters are Americans becoming? I find it increasingly difficult to recognize this nation and much of its populace, and genuinely feel as though I am trapped in a bizarre fever dream. Unfortunately, these dire circumstances will only worsen, particularly as the younger generations come of age, their brains addled by (among other things) video games and Tik Tok. The irreversible decline and eventual disintegration of the United States are inevitable now, as the election of 2016 opened the Gates of Hades. There is no saviour in sight to prevent our self-inflicted demise (if America is the new Babylon of prophecy, as I’ve long suspected, then the Bible tells us that God is not going to save it); nobody will be left to pick up the shattered pieces when the inevitable collapse occurs.

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social, and @arthurnewhook on POST. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

POPULISM AND GRIEVANCE: THEOCRATIC FASCISM’S STRONGEST WEAPONS

Reuters

On a primal level, #Cult45 adherents are cognizant of the intentions of Trump and his associates: Namely, to establish an Fascist and theocratic regime, closely aligned with Putin's Russia. The rank-and-file enthusiastically supports such efforts and greatly desires conformity, silencing dissenting voices (‘own the libs.’) Unfortunately, those most vulnerable to the consequences of this political climate are often disengaged, preoccupied with distractions like video games and cell phones, and are 100% jaded and cynical (not without much justification to feel such way.) With pervasive violent rhetoric and the assertive nature of #Cult45, a significant number feel intimidated, unwilling to ‘resist’ regardless of the circumstances. Neither will they find the courage to stand up and resist. January 6, 2021, was all about a show of power - to put the fear of God into a nation and its people - and I believe the majority of Americans were sufficiently spooked by that event. #Cult45 operates as a formidable pressure group, a collective of intimidating figures led by a supreme bully. Their relentless efforts have worn us down considerably, and are showing no indication of relenting. Exactly the opposite.

Do we truly believe that all this amplified 'Boomer' rhetoric about everything being 'woke,' younger generations being soft and not wanting to work, the illegal aliens and the ‘Great Replacement’ theory, the panic about drag queens, the anti-intellectualism, etc. is all just a coincidence? Confirmation bias and time-tested, yes - the ‘get off my lawn’ type is as old as time immoral - but not a coincidence. All the 'back in my day' memes that saturate our feeds nonstop do so because the intended demographics eat that s**t up with a silver spoon. Donald Trump absolutely knows what his audience wants, and has since day one of his political career. Fox News and talk radio do not devote most of their broadcast days to populist bellyaching as the target audience is predisposed to such complaints by their elder nature. Elon Musk's influence is transforming X (formerly Twitter) into a breeding ground for extremist ideologies, driven not solely by his own Nazi inclinations but also by the widespread presence of millions - perhaps even billions - of populist-minded individuals worldwide, who are always characterized by racist, nationalistic, and religious biases. Said individuals are the biggest marks around, and the likes of Trump, Musk, and Putin are taking full advantage.

Do not misunderstand me, there are many hints of truth to all these populist laments about a country gone 'soft' and a culture that is rotten: For most Americans are too cowardly, and/or dumb, and/or complicit to defend themselves against those taking everything away from them, and therefore will only give our would-be overlords and their army of minions the added satisfaction of having correctly proved their point before they slice our throats. We only narrowly averted Fascism in 2020, and only under extraordinary circumstances; even then, many of those 81 million that elected President Biden had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing so. Reminder: In 2020, Trump actually received around 12 million more votes than he did in his triumphant 2016 campaign. With President Biden successfully cast as the central villain in their twisted tale, #Cult45 and their leaders are licking their lips and smelling blood, more motivated than ever. The rest of us are too tired or apathetic to do anything about it. Am I wrong? 

Begin the fightback immediately, starting yesterday, as failure and tyranny are assured otherwise.

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. Visit Stop the Idiocracy, @Sunking278 on FACEBOOK and X; @arthurnewhook on POST. @arthurnewhook.bsky.social; and @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world.

Decency hath forsaken this abode. In a country fraught with ludicrous partisanship and division, denizens from both the left and the right forsake our allies, and, instead, warmly clasp hands with our most malevolent adversaries

Pray, where doth sanity and virtue reside in this bloody country? Much of the American left doth point accusing fingers at Israel in the face of assault, with too many openly applauding Hamas; all disseminating untruths they fervently wish to embrace. The true hues of Jew-hatred are becoming manifest on each side. Most of the American right doth lay blame upon Ukraine for the onslaught, with many boldly extolling Vladimir Putin and reproving (the Jewish) Mr. Zelensky; all spreading falsehoods. Extremes in both factions (arguably the majority of everybody now, the centre hath witherered) do heap blame upon the victims of terrorism, oppression, and anti-semitism. And how quick are each extreme to lay blame upon President Biden, the actual grown-up and decent, sensible human being in the room? Left and right, they cheer on the literal murderers, terrorists, and despots of their choosing, performing and thinking as their leaders dictate.

In these times, I am thoroughly repulsed and oft find myself in solitude with my steadfast beliefs. Uphold Israel, champion Ukraine, and cease the dissemination of propaganda and fabrications, predominantly spawned in the troll factories of St. Petersburg and Beijing, be it from the left or the right. If a bumbling soul and a virtual cripple such as I can discern these matters, what ails everyone else? Alas, I detest these times, and they will become darker still. Aye, far darker. Lunatics of all persuasions are steering us not merely toward a domestic civil conflict but straight into World War III. A lamentable state, indeed. Nick work, #Murica, nation of f**king imbeciles.

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social, and @arthurnewhook on POST and THREADS.

The left-hand washing the right-hand: The epidemic of anti-Israeli and anti-Jew sentiment on the hard-left helps no one of goodwill, only tyrants

The anti-Semitic, anti-Israel faction of the Democratic Party must be silenced without delay, beginning yesterday. We have literal Nazis with designs on reclaiming the White House, and they hold a potent position in Congress. Half the land doth mindlessly lament President Biden's age, the enduring presence of COVID (as I have personally encountered of late), and a multitude of other quandaries. Yet these left-wing nutjobs wouldst instead point accusatory fingers, espouse conspiracy theories, and weep for repressive individuals who would not hesitate to slay them (and the rest of us) without a second thought. Verily, if these leftists are to extend their sympathy to a bunch of Islamist barbarians, why do they not shed tears for the plight of the ordinary Trump-supporting fellow (#Cult45)? Those fools probably hate any American to the left of Attila the Hun more than any Islamist half a world away, yet these bloody leftists cry for these foreign murderers. In a circuitous manner, here is precisely what hath transpired: The left-hand once more washes the right-hand, and all of you expressing support for the ‘Palestinians’ - however well-intentioned or not one may be - are falling for these lies, hook, line, and sinker. You are helping Donald Trump to reclaim the White House, and thine hands art stained with blood! Cast not Israel as a scapegoat, nor lay blame upon the Jews. #StandWithIsrael and stand against barbarism and repression. 

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, and @arthurnewhook on POST and THREADS.

The response of America to two distinct media scandals involving modeling work with lesbian themes, and the implications it holds regarding our society

#OTD 1983: Vanessa Williams is crowned the first black Miss America. She would be stripped of the crown following the publication of lesbian-themed softcore photos from her modeling portfolio. In 2016, many of the same people who called for Vanessa Williams’ head took no issue with the wife of a swindler - a white Eastern European lady who likewise had done lesbian-themed modeling work - becoming First Lady of the United States. In all fairness, Vanessa Williams did recover from the scandal and forge a prosperous singing career. Nevertheless, this narrative does not present a particularly flattering portrayal of the values and inclinations of this nation.

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, and @arthurnewhook on POST and THREADS.

Has anything changed? Thoughts on the 60th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing

AP

#OTD 1963: KKK terrorists perpetrate a bombing upon the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, which resulted in the death of four children and inflicted injuries upon others. Sadly but tellingly, particularly since a certain Donald J. Trump entered the political arena with his venomous rhetoric, it hath been irrefutably demonstrated that the kind of mindset that impelled these Klansmen to commit such a heinous deed still persists; and is far more widespread than most of us have been willing to acknowledge or confess.

We all do recall the terror of June 17, 2015, when a white supremacist did slay nine congregants at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. America has scarcely progressed any further in terms of enlightenment regarding matters of race, and is just as prone to violence and deliberate ignorance as it was in 1963. If anything, in the era of Trump, we appear to be regressing, which is a genuine affront to the memory of all those innocent souls who suffered torment and perished solely due to the color of their skin. {CNN 9/15 - 60 years after 4 little girls were killed in a KKK attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church, memories of the lives that were taken live on} 

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on TWITTER, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, and POST - @arthurnewhook.

Hath the United States of America deliberately forgotten COVID?

CDC

Is there a notable 'forgetting' taking place amongst the public concerning the pandemic? I find myself here in contemplation, casting my thoughts back to our state three years past: Most every enterprise shuttered, masks adorning the faces of all in public, and a large portion of the nation turned the act of complaining and whining into a cottage industry. The NBA and Stanley Cup playoffs contested in the month of August within empty arenas, the artificial hum of crowd noise accompanying baseball and football games played before sparse or nonexistent spectators. The utter lack of leadership from the incumbent president, a leader bereft of any discernible plan, viewing the pandemic merely as a diversion from his populist and slanderous escapades. Concurrently, the extensive protests for racial justice unfurled against the backdrop of the COVID scourge and the aftermath of George Floyd's untimely demise. It was an exceedingly distressing period, one that I ardently believe should not slip into oblivion. Indeed, the transient surge in emphasis on the act of hand washing remains a practice applicable at any time and in any circumstance, yet I hear scarce mention of it nowadays. In fact, due to widespread defiance regarding mitigation measures, we now find ourselves a less hygienic and more squalid nation. Nurses and physicians face disdain, basic cleanliness is met with scorn, and in the advent of the next pandemic or epidemic, it is probable that a sufficient portion of the general populace will disregard public health mandates. Irrespective of the trauma endured, a nation that willfully forgets and obstinately marches forward, pretending naught occurred, is destined to replicate its errors. Thus, it is doomed to failure.

[Visit Stop the Idiocracy, @Sunking278 on FACEBOOK and TWITTER; @arthurnewhook on POST and THREADS. And @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world.]