The racism, misogyny, and corruption are also the points

One thing our largely useless political media could do is put scare quotes around “Trump presidential library” when there’s a story about how an open bribe to Trump is being funneled through this completely imaginary entity.

Another thing that would be worth noting is that when Trump’s fascist lawyers file a sub-frivolous lawsuit against CBS for supposed campaign interference because of its “deceptive edit” of a broadcast interview with Kamala Harris, what Trump is saying is that a [N-word B-word] isn’t smart enough to debate a white man like him on even terms. It’s the purest racism and misogyny imaginable, and it made him president. Twice.

As for the corruption, a lot of people are saying that the big new restrictions on federal student loan programs in the budget bill are part of the broader attack on higher ed. (New caps would be placed on the amount students can borrow in federal student loans for graduate school and how much parents can borrow to help pay students’ tuition. There would be fewer opportunities for deferments or forbearance. There would also be limits on lending for part-time students and a much more limited set of repayment options, veering away from the loan forgiveness programs of the Biden era). I mean there’s some element of that of course, but what this misses is a far more fundamental principle here.

And that principle is the most sacred belief in the entire GOP canon, other than white supremacy and patriarchy, which is that, for the productive members of our society — for the makers rather than the takers — profit should be privatized and risk should be socialized, as Jesus intended.

The way this works is that all those government loans are going to be replaced by private loans — except the private loans are going to be backed against default by the government (See Leviticus 6:13 and also Atlas Shrugged et, seq.).

We’re rocketing past banana republic to pure kleptocracy, with the soothing sound of Protestant hymns somewhere in the background. (My wife’s great-uncle composed this one, so I’m expecting to see some sweet sweet royalties someday soon).