After Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies at the end of his sleaze-drenched hush-money/porn-star/election-interference trial in New York City, Donald Trump Jr. groused, “Republicans play tee-ball. Democrats play hardball.” He added, “That needs to change if we want to save America.”

For years, it’s been a mantra on each side of the political divide: The other team is rougher and meaner than we are. Liberals have long complained that Democrats are often wusses compared to the conniving and pugilistic Republicans, and right-wingers have often griped that the GOP is constantly outmaneuvered and outplayed by do-anything-to-win Democrats. There’s obviously something wrong with this picture.

Republicans point to the two impeachments and four indictments of Trump and the assorted investigations of him (such as the January 6 committee inquiry and special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe) to push the narrative that maniacal Democrats (in league with the media and the supposed Deep State) will go to any length to destroy Trump and impose their left-wing ideology on the nation. And, they say, this is how it’s always been. Yet their version of reality sidesteps much of…well, reality. Did President Barack Obama wage a scorched-earth campaign against Republicans? Rather, for decades, the right and the GOP have ratcheted up their rhetoric and their assaults on Democrats and progressives, demonizing and dehumanizing them, while adopting vicious tactics as standard operating procedure.

In the 1970s, the New Right and the Religious Right rose to power by assailing Democrats and liberals as anti-Christian commies who despised God and the United States—and Ronald Reagan and the Republicans welcomed them into their ranks and allowed them to transform the GOP. (Compare that to the campaigns of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter.) In the 1980s, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich led Republicans to new levels of vitriol and underhanded political warfare. During the 1988 campaign, the George H.W. Bush campaign, steered by Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes, mounted an unprecedented attack of character assassination against Michael Dukakis—an effort that now seems quaint by current standards. In the 1990s, Gingrich and his allies urged the GOP to brand Democrats as traitors, heathens, and idiots—and they deployed baseless conspiracy theories and investigations to delegitimize and undermine them. (The Clintons were murderers!) In 2000, the George W. Bush campaign was ruthless and prevailed during the recount. Sarah Palin, as the Republican vice presidential nominee, accused Obama of being a terrorist-loving socialist. The tea party, fully supported by such GOP leaders as John Boehner and Kevin McCarthy, claimed Obama was a born-in-Kenya covert Muslim aiming to set up concentration camps and scheming to wreck the economy so he could take over as emperor. Then came Trump, with his politics of hatred, derision, and division. (“Lock her up!”) 

None of this was softball.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans and conservatives have hardly been weenies in recent years. They forced unnecessary and pointless government shutdowns. They nearly caused the United States to forfeit on its debt—which could have triggered a financial crisis. As majority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stole a Supreme Court seat from Obama. The GOP fought fiercely (though unsuccessfully) to thwart and then undo Obamacare. And they have blocked many key Democratic initiatives, including voting rights and climate change measures. They have pushed through tax cuts for the well-to-do. They orchestrated the demise of a constitutional right to abortion. At the state level, Republicans have tended to outdo Democrats in gerrymandering, maintaining power in anti-democratic fashion.

All in all, not a bad record for the Rs, given the GOP has not won the popular vote in a presidential contest in 20 years.

The GOP has generally been meaner and more vicious than their Democratic rivals. Exhibits A to Z: Trump. Just look at the 2020 campaign. Trump’s message was that Joe Biden and the Democrats were conspiring with Black radicals, antifa, and commies to annihilate America, particularly its white suburbs. Literally, not figuratively. Biden’s message: Let’s bring the country together and implement my left-leaning policy agenda. After the election, Trump pushed the bonkers conspiracy theory that cast Biden, the Democrats, and the media as a devilish cabal that schemed with voting machine companies and overseas enemies to steal the election from him. Meanwhile, he plotted to mount a coup and incited an insurrectionist riot. The party embraced his lies and assault on the constitutional order.

Trump has not ceased peddling this demonization or his poisoning of the political discourse. True, Biden has assailed Trump and MAGA Republicans as a threat to American democracy. But he does distinguish between the MAGA and the good ol’ GOP—a distinction largely irrelevant or nonexistent at this stage. More to the point, Trump relentlessly pounds away at Biden every single day: old, crooked, weak, corrupt, dumb, incompetent (except as the head of a supposed “crime family”). And the Trumpified GOP and the right-wing media noise machine follow suit, pumping up the volume on smears and baseless allegations. It’s a never-ending pummeling.

How is all this playing T-ball?

Just look at what happened after the verdict. Democrats appeared to dither, trying to figure out how much hay they should make out of the historic felonization of a former president and current presidential candidate. Trump did not hesitate. He blasted the “bad people” and “sick people” who prosecuted him. He accused Biden of orchestrating this trial and declared Biden and his administration were running a “fascist state.” This is what he and his minions do hourly. Following the verdict, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), eager to gain favor with Trump as a potential veep pick, tweeted that Biden was “a demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people” and it was now time to “fight fire with fire.” This week, a former member of the Florida House of Representatives now seeking a GOP congressional nomination posted on social media that he is running “to imprison as many Democrats as possible,” noting that Democrats “are the enemy and must be jailed & removed from public life.”

The return fire from Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Democratic leaders on the Hill does not occur at the same pace or intensity. They certainly take their pokes at Trump and the Rs, but not nearly at the same steady level of aggression and venom. Moreover, the Democrats are not as monomaniacal in their political warfare. As writers Brian Beutler and Matthew Yglesias discussed in a recent podcast, Republicans tend to stick to their talking points and narratives. If Trump takes an action that might tick off House Republicans, these legislators, when asked for comment by reporters, use the opportunity to bash Biden and the Ds. On the other side, when journalists question progressive Dems about a Biden action they oppose, the Democrats don’t hesitate to criticize Biden. That’s a rough generalization, but one containing a fair bit of truth. And it sure took a long time before Biden began decrying Trump as a threat to democracy. There are a few fractious Republicans who will devour their own. (Ask former Speaker McCarthy!) But for the most part the Republicans' over-the-top loyalty to their crooked and nasty Dear Leader is rock solid. 

Here's the bottom line: There is an asymmetry in viciousness within the nation’s political discourse. Only a right-winger nursing an inferiority complex and wallowing in phony self-victimization (DJT Jr.?) could sincerely believe that Democrats are more ferocious and cutthroat. But this raises the question: In the face of relentless and extreme attacks from the right, should Biden and the Democrats fight back more fiercely? When they go low, we go high, once said Michelle Obama. That’s a noble notion. But does the ceaseless walloping and vilifying of Biden and the Ds by Trump and his cult shape the overall political narrative to Biden’s disadvantage? Does Trump look strong if he’s mean and ruthless, no matter the truth of what he says? Hillary Clinton said love trumps hate. Not always. There’s room for Biden and the Democrats to show more fight. (Three months ago, I suggested Harris could take the lead here.) The challenge for Biden and his team is not to adopt Trumpian tactics to fight fire with fire but to match the intensity of the Trumpist right with an intensity of their own.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

In the last issue, I noted that following the guilty verdict, we should keep in mind Trump’s fondness for retribution, noting he had a history of citing revenge as a key to his personal success. In a recent article, I examined his post-verdict remarks regarding retribution and how they track with his previous declarations of love for vengeance. Trump has quite the past in this regard. You can read about that here.

Here’s another reminder that on June 19 at 8 p.m. ET, Our Land readers will gather for another Zoom get-together, hosted by me. But this confab is only open to premium subscribers to Our Land. There’s still plenty of time to sign up—which will also bring you the full version of the Our Land newsletter, featuring more insider reports on politics and on the media, reviews of movies, television shows, books, and music, the Dumbass Comment of the Week, access to the interactive Mailbag, and, best of all, MoxieCam™. And, most important, if you become a premium subscriber, you will be supporting Our Land. Without premium subscribers, Our Land wouldn’t exist. So either to join our shindig or to keep our lights on, please consider enlisting as a premium Our Lander.

As you know, the judges tend to apply the mercy rule to Donald Trump. Otherwise, Mar-a-Lago would be so stuffed with DCotW trophies that he’d have to store them in the bathrooms. But this week, the judges could not ignore two of his comments related to Russia. First, Trump downplayed the threat posed by Russia (and China) and claimed the bigger danger to the United States was his political opponents at home: "I'm telling you. China and Russia, they're not the problem. We have a problem from within that's really bad."

Nothing surprising. Trump was backing Russia and Vladimir Putin and villifying his critics while stoking paranoia about a supposed enemy within—a tactic much favored by demagogues and authoritarians.

Two days later, Trump went further and asserted that because of his chummy relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Moscow would release the American reporter it has imprisoned, if Trump is elected president in November:

Evan Gershkovich, the reporter from the Wall Street Journal, who is being held by Russia, will be released almost automatically after the election but definitely before I assume office. He will be home He will be safe. Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, will do that for me. And I don’t believe he’ll do it for anyone else.

This was a brazen suck-up to Putin, with Trump signaling to the Kremlin that it should hold on to Gershkovich until November—rather than demanding his immediate release. Moreover, Trump was boasting of his fabulous relationship with a tyrannical war criminal. His belief that this is a selling point for his candidacy illustrates the danger he presents.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) was back in the running this week for his absurd reading of Black history. He claimed that within the Black community family values eroded due to the Democratic policies that Black Americans embraced after the civil rights movement. Donalds was pushing the old and tired right-wing theory that programs that assisted low-income Black people (such as those implemented by the former US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare) were responsible for the disintegration of the Black family. He then went on to say that Black people had it better under Jim Crow:

You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative—Black people have always been conservative-minded—but more Black people voted conservatively. And then H.E.W., Lyndon Johnson—you go down that road, and now we are where we are.

Apparently, Medicare, Medicaid, the Fair Housing Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act—all of this was bad for Black America. And he talks about Black people voting conservatively? During Jim Crow, many were not allowed to vote and encountered intimidation and violence from right-wing racists when they tried. Those who did vote were certainly not voting for the more conservative candidates. I guess when you’re auditioning to be the running mate of a racist, you have to say really stupid crap about Black people, even if you’re Black.

Kevin Sorbo, the one-time television actor (Hercules!) who now appears mainly in Christian-themed movies, earned his debut appearance in this contest with this observation: “If Alex Jones wasn’t right they wouldn’t be trying so hard to shut him down.”

No comment.

For our winner, we return to dumbassery about Russia. On Steve Bannon’s War Room show, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) painted Putin as a passive actor in the Ukraine war whose army has only been fighting within Russia, who has no designs on Ukraine territory, and who’s merely waiting for Ukraine to cease fighting so the war can be settled:

How many TV clips have you seen of a battle in Ukraine? Zero—in the last six, seven, eight months. It’s one-sided. Putin’s just kinda sitting back, watching what’s going on, wondering, “Hey when you all are going come over…” He doesn’t want Ukraine. He doesn’t want Europe. Hell, he’s got enough land of his own. He just wants to make sure he does not have United States weapons in Ukraine pointing at Moscow.

Here's a US senator mouthing Putin’s absurd talking points, ignoring reality and history. (Putin illegally annexed a large chunk of Ukraine—the Crimea—and he’s aiming to grab other parts of the country, if his forces cannot totally overrun Ukraine.) Tuberville should look at the recent New York Times investigation that tallied all the damage done by Russian forces inside Ukraine and that noted, “A vast area with some 210,000 buildings [has been] leveled across a jagged, 800-mile frontline and beyond.” This has included 106 hospitals and 708 schools. Why is Tuberville serving as a useful idiot for Putin? The judges don’t know. But they know this amount of idiocy deserves the prize.

There was much mail in response to the issue on Trump’s guilty verdict. Most of it was what you’d expect: cheers for the trial’s resolution and concerns about Trump’s ability to carry on as a felon. Charlotte Dunham, who lives in Texas, sent in an interesting report of a conversation she had post-verdict with a family member:

I just had a long discussion with my conservative cousin in Dallas who had complained that Biden was just as bad as Trump, even though I had reminded how Trump was a threat to democracy and Biden wasn’t. He told me he wasn't influenced by Fox but Bill Maher, but he was using all the Fox talking points when he tried to justify why he felt that way about Biden.

What I heard was that he was telling me that he sees the Democrats are a threat to his way of life, which is privileged because he is an upper-middle-class, white Southern male. He is not comfortable with who Trump is, but to him Biden is just as big a threat. I believe that fear is real for him. And the fear is made stronger by right-wing propaganda that exploits that fear. Democrats are implementing policies that are making people like him share a piece of the pie. There are folks that would support an authoritarian leader to make that stop. Not that they really understand what that would mean. How else can you explain Ron DeSantis or Greg Abbott? Ask the women of Texas, it's getting awful!

I had always thought that the problem was that people just didn't understand what Biden had accomplished. I still believe that, but I think there are others out there who will vote for a thief, rapist, traitor to his country, if only he makes the gains progressives have made go away. If what I said is true—and who knows?—the Democrats need to not only attack Trump’s character but appeal to how these policies are the right thing to do and are good for everyone. 

Biden and his crew are certainly trying to sell his policies and their impacts as part of his reelection campaign. But the question always is, can policy trump personalities, tribalized culture wars, and other factors? That would include Biden’s age and the barrage of irrational and vicious attacks hurled at him by Trump and the right.

George Lucore emailed this:

Another good article, but once again Mitch McConnell goes unmentioned in describing Trump’s lack of accountability. He could have easily mustered the necessary votes in either impeachment trial to convict Trump, and if he had done so, Trump would have been in the nation’s rear view mirror years ago. He is also at the center of our nation’s current polarization. In conjunction with John Boehner, he decided that their number one priority during the Obama administration was not advancing the nation’s best interests on a bipartisan basis, but rather to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Why? Hard to imagine it had nothing to do with race. History may judge McConnell a crafty politician, but it will also judge him sorely lacking in the categories of patriotism and advancing the country’s best interests.

We should never forget Mitch McConnell. And you left out so much.

I was not surprised by the passionate responses to the issue in which I wondered why Trump-Russia denialists—notably, writers Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi—keep denying that Moscow ran an intelligence warfare operation in 2016 that targeted the US presidential race to help Trump. Many readers suggested ambition and the desire for attention as motives. Others proposed darker theories that you can guess.

Ben Barlyn wrote:

Read your piece about Greenwald and Taibbi. I used to revere Taibbi. I think his books Griftopia and The Divide remain brilliant works exploring the harshest and dysfunctional aspects of capitalism and inequality. But the last decade has absolutely broken him. Shocking.

In response to the photograph illustrating that piece—which showed Trump in the Oval Office in 2017 laughing it up with the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador to the United States—Nancy Paist-Riches observed,

Trump’s expression reminds me of someone not quite in on the joke but acting like they understand. The other two Russians are looking at each other as if to say, “We have him now don't we! That was easy. HAHAHA.”

“I’m so tired.”
“Moxie, what did you do today to be so tired?”
“I went for a walk. Then thought about playing with the ball. Then went for another walk. Then thought about playing with the ball. Then went for another walk. Then we—finally!—played with the ball. Then I lay on the porch. After that, I thought about playing with the ball.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“Please don’t set the alarm.”

June 4, 2024: The Trump-Russia denialists are back; revenge of the Trump; a frustrating Civil War; the unending extraordinariness of Richard Thompson; and more.

June 1, 2024: Trump loses a big battle in his war on accountability; Dumbass Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

May 25, 2024: Trump’s dangerous grifting; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s crazier than you might think; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Jared Perdue); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

May 21, 2024: Why do they believe Trump?; the meaning of Trump’s bad makeup; lesson from a mass shooter’s mother; the beautiful noir of Ripley; and more.

May 18, 2024: Here come the Russians, again; Sonya Cohen Cramer’s You’ve Been a Friend to Me; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Eric Trump); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

May 14, 2024: Paul Manafort and the metrics of shamelessness; 3 Body Problem’s obvious but understated tie to climate change; Neil Young and Crazy Horse keep a promise; and more.

May 11, 2024: America is broken, and the media ain’t helping; my fascinating trip to Japan; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Laura Ingraham); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

May 7, 2024: Modern-day lessons from Hiroshima; Ed Zwick’s Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions; the virtues of Tokyo Vice; and more. 

May 1, 2024: From the Our Land archive: Donald Trump, stochastic terrorist; and more.