History doesn't repeat, but it surely does rhyme. Those who believe in true democracy, and the liberal consensus,can never rest. We will always have to fight those who would concentrate power for themselves.
I feel our protests do not shine a light on Fox News, and any other bias news media that spreads hatred, greed, disinformation and a competitive thirst for power. No matter how many Trumps, Heritage Foundation/Voughts, Vance and corrupt SCOTUS >>> if our media and Supreme Court are allowed to promote criminal behavior— maybe our April 19th Protest should point a spotlight on Fox News, CNN, NYT, USA Today, etc.
April 20 was Hitler’s holiday. Now it may mark the day Trump declares martial law, suspends the Constitution, and finishes the job he started on January 6.
"(According to the Tesla website, April 20 is “Elon Musk Day,” a moment in time for celebrating the underappreciated genius. Elon once tweeted that he was “considering taking Tesla private at $420”; in 2021 he raised money for SpaceX by selling shares for $419.99, just one penny below $420; he acquired Twitter for $54.20 a share; has noted in a tweet, “I was born 69 days before 4/20”; and sometimes just randomly tweets 420.)
"This year, however, Hitler’s birthday is the date one of Donald Trump’s first executive orders requires Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to submit to him a report on whether or not he can suspend the Constitution and Bill of Rights by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807."
..."We’re long past the moment when our first felon president slipped into his criminal mode; the question now is how far he’ll go once he gets his Hitler’s Birthday present in roughly two weeks."
They are not just fighting the unitary executive they created because they have a change of heart, they are fighting because the protect 2025 policies as they are being implemented, are affecting their own finances.
Ricardo, yes, none of these uberwealthy give a rat's behind about the rest of us or our democracy. They are laser focused as they have always been, on their bottom line. I spend a lot of my time reading history and the behavior of the top tier has not really changed over the centuries.
Well, they are the ones who actually own SCOTUS and Trump is just their pawn. Is that why he became a Panican and paused tariffs for 90 days? He blinked. He’s everything he accused others of being. He’s a weak, crazy, old man who never had a minutia of intelligence. He couldn’t make a real deal if his life depended on it so he resorts to mob tactics.he’s the actual welfare queen.
Sharon, oh yes, but he loved all those countries coming to kiss his smelly ass and saying yes sir, no sir. The cabal has found their perfect puppet until as the black cat on the tee shirt says, "Is he dead yet?"
lin, I never would have known who this dude was if you hadn't told us about your "encounter" with him, what was it....2 years ago? My first hearing of his name.
I so appreciate the added value that you and others bring to our LFAA family table.
What will THEY do if the traitor-in-chief tries to suspend the Constitution? Now that they have disagreed with a monster, will they stand their ground? Surprised the chief nazi is still alive.
While Leo and Koch may be Christian Nationalists waiting for Gods Judgement, they certainly don't want to do it from a point of great financial loss. Perhaps this is step one of them setting the stage for Article 25 to be enacted. It might be them signaling to the SCOTUS members that they have bought how they want them to vote.
I think it was Robert Reich (or maybe Robert Hubbell?) yesterday who cautioned against fearing the 20th as the date for martial law, believing it was just a circulating rumor designed to get people revved up. I wish I knew more of the background to this - as it is unsettling at the very least.
As someone who lived in a country plagued by dictatorships I will tell you this: Always go to the streets and protest, this is your constitutional right and duty as a citizen. Never back down. Never fear. They will fall. Popular pressure is our best weapon.
laurie, it is unsettling because I have no doubt what the drunk rapist and the prairie Barbie (who looks like a streetwalker) will say. The Gnome will probably appear in a new costume which doesn't hide the fact that she is running the same old dog and pony show. Someone needs to take her on a gravel pit tour.
Totally like a streetwalker - like all the women who are in Trumpworld. And we refer to Karoline L. as Propaganda Barbie. I love "Gnome" for the puppy murderer.
Definitely the scumbag president would go there but not now. My feeling is that if they sense the numbers are not in their favor at the time of the midterm elections, they will make up an incident to justify invoking the insurrection act.
It is like living with an abusive partner or drunk abusive parent. Time to leave if you can and come back when they are gone. While I wrote this piece in November, having a mother who was born in Germany the year after Hitler came to power, and then having my family divided by the Berlin wall, and the DDR regime, I am aware of what fascism looks like for every day people, and it harms everyone.
This article seems to prophesy every thing trump is doing. An article caught my attention about the democratic Pennsylvanian governors house set on fire by arsonists. Interesting that we are not reading about DeSantis or Abbott's house burned up.
If there is going to be a day of reckoning perhaps it should come sooner rather than later. Before further normalization, and so that we really know where everyone stands.
Reportedly, yesterday Rep. W. Gregory Steube (R-Fla.) called Speaker Johnson a liar and said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus!" according to three sources.https://www.alternet.org/gop-johnson-budget/
I've been hoping that some Republicans would have a revelation that they were working for/with the devil.
Daniel, I try to make at least 5 calls to Congress every day. Some days, I email instead. I have called Johnson several times, and I always add to my message that he need to examine his conscience because he is falling into the trap of worshiping a false idol who promotes the deadly sins.
Just a side observation, but has anyone else noticed that in his latest appearance on camera, the top of trump's hair appeared to be sticking up on the sides like devil's horns? I'm not joking.
Blinded by the darkness...overcome by the lust for power....his minions having been rejected in their past lives, are fully with the one they worship, "The Donald"..."President forever..."
unless...sane Americans stop this INSANITY! playing out before our eyes....
But, many of Trump's MAGA supporters approve of what he and Musk are doing right now, totally oblivious to the harm and disruption that DOGE is creating. They are "True Believers." With them it is virtually "religious." I did take advantage of Trump's reversal on the tariffs and bought Tesla stock low and sold high.
He’s the guy that fell off a ladder and hit his head right? They’re all lunatics claiming Christianity to sound like they care about anything other than their own greed, misogyny and racism.
It's always been a power grab for Trump. He views Congress and the courts as nuisances which need to be defanged. I tell anyone who will listen that our democracy will be officially dead once the Trump Admin begins to use firing squads against those who are ACCUSED of crimes without due process. Sound nuts? Just wait. Germans in the 1930's never believed the rumors of sinister Nazi plans. German pride began sprouting and its people closed their eyes to what was to come. So I say, keep your eyes open.
Daniel, the 19th is my birthday. I hope people will use that day to continue the fight for democracy. I read yesterday that it can also be a day of doing some good as well as protest. i think this may a recognition that this is Easter weekend which might hinder large protest crowds showing up (or not). I am thinking we should donate to the local food share. I have no doubt what the drunk and the Gnome will tell him. I also expect he will use it. I can only hope that the people and the courts will stand in his way. I am afraid I have on my cynical hat this am. Yesterday on Nextdoor there was a post about Headstart and the fact that it is financed by Federal funds which are now in jeopardy. The thread was very long and full of nonsense about what the Feds finance. The same people who complain nonstop about any local or state taxes seem to think money grows on trees. Some were sane, but we have a whole bunch of people who buy what muskrat, for example, is telling them. This year, a two and half year sewer street project was completed which included sidewalks for kids to walk to school on the racetrack that is our street. I knew Federal funds were involved, but it turned out that the Feds paid something like 80% of this. And re China, people are just about to find out just how many things we buy come from China or have parts in them made in China. I think I am going to love my version of my iPhone for example. As for the other tariffs, the whole thing reeks of insider trading.
Republicans moved American manufacturing off shore wholesale in order to pay lower wages and escape US regulation. They call it "efficiency" and "innovation". Now they want to tax us for it, and not pay themselves.
Daniel, IMO & not humble deduction, Thom Hartman is incorrect, Orange Face lost any whiff of credibility yesterday & few will salute 🔻Pancake Make-Up Guy on any Day.
This stuff is so disgusting! Total Tweedle heads. I keep hoping for a glimmer of reality from some of the people mentioned. There ARE more of us than them!. Protests & letter writing have to continue.
I feel so depressed. It seems as though trump and his Himmlers (concentration camp creator) and Goebbels (propaganda-suicide one day after appointed the position) Bormans, von Ribbentrops, Menegels, et al. do whatever they want.
Simon Rosenberg, the founder of Hopium Chronicles, said last night that he would like to see more American Flags at future rallies. We need to take back the Patriotic American narrative. We are the people defending Democracy, freedom and liberty and justice for all.
TBlack, I agree about taking back the patriotic American narrative by carrying/flying the American flag at ALL rallies AND creating appropriate slogans that communicate our basic message. Ironically, the “makers and takers” of years ago now might be used to draw attention to selfish oligarchs. Workers make it and oligarchs take it.
These media sources are not equally evil, however. Let's not waste energy and focus attacking the New York Times, no matter how pusillanimous it has been in its sanewashing of the demented Donald, or CNN, whose new leadership has made it cringe before the felon in the White House - when the real enemy of American democracy and decency is Fox, which has led the hatred and corruption of the truth for decades and still leads it.
Pusillanimous journalism is the flip side of hate media. The sort of courageous and dogged journalism we saw in the Vietnam War and Watergate is a far weaker presence. The "both sides are the same" approach gives the edge to demagogues. A free and socially responsible press, at least the primary thrust of it is essential for the success of democracy. It has been said that democracy dies in darkness.
After posting to HCR tonight, I stumbled into a substack called MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY which is dedicated to improving our news media. Not only are they guys upbeat and creative - they are generous with tips & tricks…it reminds me of CHOP WOOD | CARRY WATER.
Re the national security issue, every veterans' group should be up in arms. Same for tariff issue. Every car dealer, car manufacturer. Can use social media.
YES! We need business owners, health facility staff, Veterans groups to be a big show of the people! Wear their business t shirts, vets their insignia. scrubs & such. Show yourselves.
If the maga crowd really want to return American goods to America then they should insist that ALL media be owned and controlled by Americans. Bye bye Fox (not) News.
Yes, the ownership and control of thousands of media outlets (newspapers, radio stations, TV, etc.) have been consolidated in the hands of Republicans, primarily, making it easy to spread their propaganda and influence using wedge issues - abortion, immigrants, women's and gay rights, etc. Thomas Franks, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" (2004); Heather Cox Richardson, "How the South Won the Civil War." (2020.) "Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" Published in the journal "Critical Sociology," Feb. 2018.
It is my understanding that Fox Agenda also known as Fox "news" has been able to thwart scores of lawsuits for libel because their license is under "entertainment." When Fox was sued by Dominion (voting machines) the libel was beyond blatant, This is when Dominion was characterized as stealing the election. The out of court settlement was just under 1 billion ($890,000+) in favor of Dominion. Naturally Fox did not cover that in their so-called news. Newsmax is just as bad.
I disagree about USA Today, NYT and maybe CNN that are labeled the "Fake News" by King Trump. What I tell young people who do not have TV is to watch the PBS Newshour on line, while it is still being broadcast. It is ranked #1 for accuracy. I also tell my Republican friends to get off Fox or Newsmax, both rated at the bottom for accuracy and watch the Newshour. We have been able to convert a few Republicans when they are faced with factual data.
I do believe that they were noticed....just not reported. MSNBC especially Rachel shows lots of them. Thank goodness for her. I love Lawrence too. They are the only ones I stay up with!
When will we, as voters, take action to restore the Fairness Doctrine? It was put in place after Hitler and taken down by Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes and Dick Cheney in the 1990's to pave the way for Fox TV.
If you're old enough to remember when ABC, CBS and NBC were our news options, you know the difference between the Fairness Doctrine and Post-Fairness Doctrine Eras. Broadcasters were not allowed to create "information silos" under the Fairness Doctrine. We had a Civil Rights Movement, stopped Nixon and ended the Viet Nam war under the Fairness Doctrine.
When will we, the voters, summon the WILL to restore it and update it to govern social media / cable television? Will we have to go through a 3rd World War before we recognize [again] that it is needed?
Whether or not Fairness Doctrine 2.0 ever sees the light of day, the American people bear the burden of seeking reliable journalism.
We are, at the end of the day, each the masters of our own domain. We as consumers choose where we get our news, and what steps we take to ensure that the information we receive is legitimate.
We are using our 'Good Ol’ Fashioned American Skepticism'
Need some carried signs to mention FOX news in particular. The few glimpses I get of FOX news, I wonder if they are all drugged, drank the koolaid. For a short time, FOX tried to be less hostile to non- Trumpists but, $$ always seemed to be the big issue for them. I believe a lot of the reporters are biting their tongues only to have a job.
It seems to be "the same old serpent", malignant narcissism, sociopathy, cruel extreme hubris, excessive selfishness whatever you want to call it. Lack of care or reflexive malice for whomever or whatever fails to amuse one's self. It's the Mr. Hyde in Dr. Jekyll bereft of moderating empathy and conscience. It's cruel greed, oppression, exploitation, subjugation, or genocide. It's reborn with every generation. It's wired into human nature. It can be defeated, but the battle has never been won for all time, and play out the similar scripts with a changing cast again, and again, and again.
This recent Guardian essay is illuminating and creepy as hell. Somehow I think we need to take a much harder look at the narcissistic side of human nature. Self interest is inevitable, but nothing but self interest is deadly.
That sure is creepy… To me, this “empathy is sin” is a glorification of narcissism. And I just keep wondering hiw it can be that we all let narcissists rule us. Look at all the people calling the shots an creating so much misery: Trump, Musk, Bezos, eta yahy, Purin - all of them narcissists. Why do we listen to them?
In my opinion, much of our problems come from letting narcissists take the wheel. At the risk of sounding eugenetic myself, it may be something inherent in humans, but it wasn’t a problem 20.000 years ago: when we were running around in small tribes if, say, 30 to 50 humans, narcissism didn’t stand a chance: after everyone saw through the manipulations and egoism and got sick of it, the narcissist was likely kicked out if the tribe - and left to die on his own. Now we have civilization and narcissists are allowed to thrive. Once again, I fully realize this sounds very eugenetic, too, but on the other hand: there is no cure for narcissism, and we now witness the destructive power it has when we let narcissists rule our countries and companies. So what do we do about it?
Well, I read that at least the pope rebuked Vance's stance on immigration (i.e. hate against immigrants), but the White Evangelicals are embracing the "empathy is sin" doctrine like it's Jesus himself.
The only empathy the narcissists allow is the adoration of said narcissists...
It is. Musk has it exactly backwards. A civilization that does not show empathy destroys itself. The “Christian” Nationalists who rail against the “sin” of empathy don’t seem to be familiar with the Jesus recounted in the gospels. They create God in their own image as a divine tyrant and worship themselves. Joe Rigney, Doug Wilson (who has done some really vile things,) and Allie Beth Stuckey need to stop calling themselves Christians, as it’s quite clear they’re not, but they believe Christianity is a path to political dominance.
"but they believe Christianity is a path to political dominance."
Sadly, Trump has the undying support of almost half of the Christian priests, preachers, faith leaders in the US.
This is a bold prejudicial statement but, most Christians are followers and not leaders when it comes to politics. If their faith leader tells them that Trump is a great leader and prays for him, most of them will support him.
I mentioned before the election that my niece attended a wedding in Omaha at a Catholic Church and they had Trump political signs INSIDE the church. And I'm sure there were hundreds of other churches that did the same thing.
You are absolutely right, and yes, Musk has it backwards. But it's not the first time in history that religion is hijacked by some power hungry narcissist and used as an excuse to get people to do what he wants - look at the Crusades: same story.
These were the same attitudes toward Christ who was crucified by the religious leaders of His day. They were afraid of losing power, offerings and control of the people.
Protective adoration but not real engagement. Not real empathy. Grant's mentioned sadness was real empathy. He also showed that the notion that empathy makes you a pushover is slander. Real empathy is a product of emotional strength. One needs to be empathetic to kids, but to also set limits. We all need to set limits, implicitly or explicitly, with one another.
Anyway, have you noticed how often and how easily MAGAs throw each other "under the bus"?
Yes, I have noticed. And that's why I simply can't understand how they are still acting as if they are absolutely loyal to one another; I mean, look at this "BFF thing" Trump and Musk got going on... Everybody knows that only a little spark is needed and they will start to wish each other dead.
"[Grant] also showed that the notion that empathy makes you a pushover is slander."
Totally agree. I think it's slander made up by weak men who are too afraid of their own feelings. All of Russia's toxic masculinity culture is based on that premise. I am more in Keanu Reeves' camp: "I refuse to live in a world in which kindness is seen as a weakness."
Check out the Interfaith Alliance. The leader of that organization just spoke at our church. And I was part of an interfaith group that went to Tallahassee to advocate for restoring reproductive rights for women with a petition on the ballot. The work is being done. But remember, the MAGA churches proselytize to MILLIONS of followers in mega churches and online. Talk about flooding the zone!!! And many on PINO’s “cabinet” (such as it is) believe in far-right religious ideology. Including Pete Hegseth. (Check out “sphere sovereignty”.)
But what do the mega-MAGA-churches do with their money. Osteen's church I Houston infamously locked their doors to hurricane Harvey victims so as not to soil the carpets.
They are a bunch of rich hypocrites that hoard the pennies given to them.
It's a well established concept even in Kant, and for many other respected writers. I think it's implied in the Declaration of Independence.
And yes, those who actually have faith in some version of "Love thy Neighbor" (care about, not just "like") need to speak up in unison. Many nasty things are happening.
Our political and corporate leaders no longer need to be competent, sincere or honest and completely at odds with the facts. They have mastered the art of entertainment which feeds their bloated egos.
"Empathy is sin." Please! This originated from a hearing-impaired old wo/man who sat in church and thought they heard that. What the preacher really said was, "APATHY IS SIN." Apathy is equal to sloth, one of the seven deadly sins. Every time an intellectually challenged person uses that phrase, just correct them. It's (un)common sense. Thank you.
"A great wealth of intellectual diversity, and consequent selective mating, based upon mutual attraction, would emerge from the dark storehouse of nature. The cruel and the gentle would sit at the same fireside, dreaming already in the Stone Age the different dreams they dream today.
Some of them, a mere handful in any generation perhaps, loved — they loved the animals about them, the song of the wind, the soft voices of women. On the flat surfaces of cave walls the three dimensions of the outside world took animal shape and form. Here — not with the ax, not with the bow — man* fumbled at the door of his true kingdom. Here, hidden in times of trouble behind silent brows, against the man with the flint, waited St. Francis of the birds — the lovers, the men who are still forced to walk warily among their kind."
I think there is a narcissistic element to all people, but we can learn to civilize it. Perhaps some (such as Trump) can't. Wrapped in extreme privilege, it was never required of him.
Apparently it’s between those who celebrate self interest, greed, Ayn Rand, and those who celebrate a community of humans…some of whom need help. At the moment, the greed-meister shitheads have their hands on the ship’s wheel. And the ship is headed toward the rocks. Their philosophy will doom them in the end. A gaping emptiness awaits them.
In the end, contrary to her core philosophy and lifelong objections to any government-run programs and due to poor health after surgery for lung cancer, Ayn Rand enrolled in and and claimed Social Security and Medicare with the aid of a social worker (Wikipedia).
Apparently Rand fought it until she was destitute and government help was her only chance to survive. Unlike others perhaps, she knew it would reveal her as a fraud in the end and show her life philosophy to be deeply flawed.
I have been considering similar questions. Is narcissism and selfishness the default of human nature? I am reminded of Golding's dark novel, Lord of the Flys.
I like your succinctness -- sometimes dualities help clarify. We all have narcissistic tendencies but for some, typically due to emotional neglect, it becomes malignant. Hypothesis is that it's rooted in fear which leads to self-preservation. As a clinician, I see that it's about disconnection: never apologize, won't & can't bond, no vulnerability (cf. Brene Brown), shame based.
Narcissism is also charasmatic and makes things happen. But it needs boundaries.
Keeping with the historical nature of this blog (Thank you professor Richardson for a wonderful narrative arc that gives meaning and insight into our behavior and situation), I've been wondering the last few years how President Eisenhower could check his ego, and how he served at under and above "narcissists", such as, generals MacArthur (under) and (above) Patton, and his Secretary of State Dulles.
Such dichotomies are one reason I'm drawn to the work...why does one person with a similar profile get up and change and another double downs on dysfunction? Maybe boundaries brought to bear? Maybe grace? Prof D. McAdams (identity formation) in a brief book monograph noted that Trump has a low need to be likeable and has NO discernable core narrative or character--that is, Trump is episodic, win the deal today and lie, deny, dissemble to "win" the opposite tomorrow.
May I suggest to you a study of George C. Marshall, who was quite influential in FDR's choice to elevate Eisenhower to his position of Supreme Allied Commander Europe and thus his rise to the presidency? It may, perhaps be interesting.
I also forgot to add Nixon. Perhaps Eisenhower was differentiated enough to utilize people to achieve a bigger/higher goal and then bond with a core group of family--his children, pastor, mentor(s). Also interesting is that he didn't hang out with close war colleagues, such as, Gen. Mark Clark who he described as close.
Although it has been a while, I was trained on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. From the information available and without an in-person interview, he would very likely score high. Early research indicated those high in psychopathy had very different fMRIs from "normals."
Susan, there was a reason Lord of the Flies was set in a world of child characters. Some children take longer to develop empathy. It is a quality or capacity that develops later in an individual’s growth. Lawrence Kohlberg posited 6 stages of moral development in which growth is marked, at least in part, by the capacity for empathy. tRump and many if not most of his devout followers appear to be stuck between stages 2 and 3.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development
Perhaps as soon as civilization created human communities competition for land, and goods, led eventually to power, comfort and entitlement, selfishness. Perhaps it's all built into our DNA....
It's a component if human nature is it not? Perhaps a minimal component for some, the whole show for others. We of necessity attend to our own self interests, but, one hopes, self interest includes more than self-gratification. I have encountered the term "enlightened self-interest" which I take to mean a bigger picture than I,ME, MINE.
Totes, JL. This is exactly the problem: the people who get an actual sexual charge out of being cruel and horrible are in power. And are elevating the absolutely worst parts of human psyches. John Pavlovitz has posted recently on his substack about this issue in the white christo-nationalist community.
If the United States of America ever fully becomes the society envisioned by Saad, Musk, et al, I want no part of it. In the meantime, I will fight it with everything I have.
The Confederacy was defeated, but its racism and white supremacy never went away. How could this have been prevented? What could General Grant have done? Generosity didn’t calm their tempers. What then? Should he have ordered every Confederate leader executed? Would that have solved anything?
I have long believed that Lincoln failed to bring home the defeat of the Confederacy’s ideology by not exacting a great amount of punishment on the leaders of the Confederacy. We will never know if he had executed the Confederate generals would have had a better effect. As someone who was born and raised in the Deep South prior to the Civil Rights era, I cannot stress how many times I heard the phrase “the South Shall Rise Again!” So many white families raised their children to believe in the Confederate ideology. With the Jim Crow laws we saw legal discrimination. That reinforced the idea of white superiority. Churches did nothing to counter this, most reinforcing it. I escaped the ideology of both white nationalism and religion which freed me to embrace all of humanity as equally valuable and worthy of respect and inclusion. However, this has not happened to the majority of whites. I don’t know how we get out of this now that the Confederate ideology has risen to power.
Lincoln did not really have a chance to do that. He was assassinated on April 12, 3 days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. His selection of Andrew Johnson as his VP for all his good intentions on binding the Union back together was destroyed at Fords Theater.
Wow :o I deeply respect you for having the clear mind and the audacity to see through the Confederate ideology whilst being brought up in the Deep South. It takes courage to break free of such a world view when it is all around you..
Rhonda-Thanks for acknowledging the ways Americans have been inculcated with white supremacy. At this point in our history, education based on the truth is a key to our progress. That’s why education is being attacked and eliminated.
We can though learn more ourselves and share what we learn with others. Imagine what our nation would be if we stopped separating and oppressing people based on something so superficial as skin color.
Rhonda, I'm back, riding my hobby horse named Evangelicalism.
The belief in white supremacy is hard to eradicate because it's so closely associated with evangelicalism. Evangelicals claim to believe that the Bible is "divinely inspired," which sounds fairly innocuous.
But the evangelical fantasy is that God selected certain special writers to listen and write down word-for-word what he dictated. Given this "divine dictation," evangelicals also believe that the Bible is "inerrant," meaning every word is true, historically accurate and there are no mistakes. So, for example, they believe that Adam and Eve were real people, and she actually gave in to the temptation of a talking snake (evangelical origins of misogyny).
Evangelicals also believe that Noah was a real man who actually built an ark and herded pairs of animals from around the world to save them from a global flood (Forget the logistics). Having survived the flood, and in possession of all those animals, Noah took up animal husbandry. One night, in a bout of drunken revelry, Noah stripped naked. Typical of biblical stories, details are sketchy, but Noah's son, Ham, happened into Noah's tent and saw his father in the buff. When Noah sobered up, he cursed Ham. The specifics of this curse are unknown, but Southern Baptists, seeking to justify slavery, began teaching that the curse of Ham was that he had dark-skinned children. This curse of dark skin was then interpolated to mean that white men are superior to everyone else. The Southern Baptist Convention continued to hold this belief until as recently as 2018!
For the overwhelming majority of humans, religious beliefs are the most unshakeable. With white supremacy so thoroughly integrated with conservative religion, under the best of circumstances, it could take generations for this belief to fade.
Correct. The lack of curiosity about the origins of those ancient tales is frustrating in itself. Like Voltaire said, when you can get people to believe absurdities, you can get them to commit atrocities. History is replete with such atrocities committed by the gullible faithful.
That’s interesting. The evangelicals I lived next to in Florida in 1980 told me the curse was on from Cain and Able and God turned his skin black and hair curly for killing his brother.
The "Mark of Cain" was another popular myth embraced by Southern religious folk, because you can't have too many justifications for christian racism. Again, the "mark" wasn't clearly specified in scripture, but since all religious text is open to interpretation, Southern christians seized on it to spread racism. To my knowledge, it wasn't the primary component for doctrine ... more like a backup story to reinforce the dogma.
Your opening sentences bring to mind the debate among historians of whether Lincoln felt forced to free the slaves by politics or believed that they deserved to be treated as created equal. His comments seem to go both ways, he was challenged by abolitionists for not doing enough but counted himself as one when in Illinois. In the dedication of a Lincoln memorial in Chicago, Frederick Douglas points to Lincoln being forced into freeing the slaves to win the war and some contemporary historians push that it was expediency alone. In contrast, Allen C. Guelzo argues in "Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment" that Lincoln was more idealistic about the clause "all men are created equal"--Lincoln: "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." And yet elsewhere he more measured and avoidant.
Would Lincoln too have had a failure of nerve to see the freedmen resettled at the expense of southern whites?
They could have enforced the law that no former confederate could hold public office or stand for election to office. Ran into same problem in Germany after WWII … denazification foundered on the alleged “reality” that only former Nazis had the skills to rebuild the German government. Bullshit.
We actually had prepared many high level German POWs to reboot Germany as a democracy IIRC. I wish we did the same to the Confederacy as we did to Germany and Japan, turning enemies into friends and allies as we alleviated the huge problems faced by all of Europe (whether fried or foe).
NATO and the Marshall Plan worked miracles for us. Though most know enough about the Marshall Plan, I'd offer the following link to describe the problems faced and how NATO started (during the Berlin Airlift while our Air Force family was stationed in the Munich area.
"...World War Two left behind a terrible legacy which even today it takes a great deal of imagination as well as historical knowledge to fully comprehend.
Let me just give you some statistics. In World War Two 36.5 million Europeans were killed. That is the equivalent of the total population of France in 1939. Nineteen million of those were civilians. It doesn’t also of course incorporate all of those who died from natural causes or all of the babies that were not born. The death toll created an enormous imbalance between men and women. In the Soviet Union in 1945, there were 20 million more women than men.
In 1946, in the German suburb of Triptal, there were only left 181 adult men between the ages of 19 and 21, but there were 1105 women. A whole generation of Germans including for example Gerhardt Schroeder, the former German Chancellor, were brought up by their moms. There were no dads around. They were either incarcerated in the Soviet Union or had died in the war. There were many orphans. In Berlin in 1945 there were 53,000 lost children wandering the streets, 49,000 orphans in Czechoslovakia, 80,000 in the Netherlands and as many as 200,000 in Poland. Those who did survive were underfed. The calorie intake in Vienna was only about 800 calories a day in 1945. The infant mortality in Austria four times the 1938 rate. In the British zone of Berlin, in December 1945, the death rate of children equalled one in four. The calorie intake in Germany was about 2,500 calories in 1941. It had gone down to around 1000 calories in 1946 and as everybody knows rationing was a very big feature of the post-war years.
The other issue is displaced people. I mean we’ve heard a lot about ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, ethnic cleansing after World War Two was infinitely worse. Stalin and Hitler between them managed to uproot 80 million people in Europe between 1939 and 1945. Thirteen million Germans were expelled from Central and Eastern Europe after the war. In 1947, the United Nations’ recently created Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was caring for 6,795,000 displaced Europeans in 762 camps. Yes, we had refugee camps in Europe in 1945. And the US alone – and this is before the Marshall Plan, before NATO – was spending $10 billion dollars a year on that, on caring for those refugees.
Another issue, the damage to infrastructure. Twenty-five million homeless people in the Soviet Union, 20 million homeless people in Germany, Hamburg alone had half a million homeless people in 1945. If you look at the level of destruction, again even today these figures still strike me as incredible. 70,000 villages, 1700 towns, 32,000 factors, 40,000 miles of railway track destroyed in the Soviet Union alone. France, which suffered of course far less physical damage than the Soviet Union, still lost half a million homes. I could carry on talking about the wastage of agricultural land or even a country like Norway, again which suffered little war damage, still lost 14 % of its industrial capital. These awesome statistics of course could be repeated almost ad infinitum when you talk about World War Two..."
Vance, like Musk and Trump, is totally racist. All three of them need the “boost” of white supremacy (in Trump’s case taught by his KKK father) to excuse their “rise.”
Yes, I know... :( Just like in the US, here in Germany the Nazi ideology was never gone. Especially in East Germany, many people have anti-West, anti-democracy and pro-Putin sentiments...
If I could through prayer or by some great effort of sacrifice or suffering "exist as a really good person according the most perfect rule of humanity or spiritual representation of goodness" I would want to....not to be looked upon as "perfect" but just because I want to love humanity because we are in desperate need of love and acceptance...we need to be encouraged...humanity needs help with so many problems of sickness, with the misunderstandings regarding the idea of power and what it really means and the responsibilities that are attached with the idea of power. Our attempts to dominate the natural world have been a disaster. We are even polluting the heavens with objects we have sent out but cannot return to earth.
The power represented by those Confederates (my family is from NC so I am sure I had relatives who wanted to keep people of color in the fields or in other "servant roles") was short lived yet the ideas of race...and "levels" of humanity remain a horrible reality.
If you look at those on Trump's "team", you will see many men and women who have been put aside by life. This is like Trump himself...note his business failures...his marriages. He has formed a 'team" much like himself.
His major problem is Himself and his refusal to take account of his personal character. He fills his life with people who are the same. They are attempting to "rule" by putting themselves at the center of everything. They have each found a place to receive the attention they have each longed for. This longing fulfilled only bonds them to one another with an even greater strength. However...it does nothing to improve their character.
Dutch, it does not matter how cruel we are to one another....the revenge some may seek,...these actions do not provide healing or life or health or a future for our children and grandchildren. Meanness is not power. Love which seems so soft is POWER. Love builds up...love feeds the hungry....love forgives...love does not give up in times of disasters and seeming hopelessness. Love can face evil...it must....we must.
It is in giving that we receive....giving without seeking reward....giving out of love...an inner strength that is much more powerful than it is given credit. There are a few of our leaders who have this gift...this power. We are seeing a few rise up.
emily, you rite a better explaination of something I posted here the other day. I struggle to be a "good Christian", It is really, really hard for me to not feel glee that people who voted for Trump are suffering. This, I feel, reduces me to MAGA territory.
Afterover 60 years of weekly mass attendance, I stopped because of COVID. I tried to return but there was a nasty undercurrent I didn't like. Somehow, I came across this :
I subscribed to get daily meditations. The theme is often about the power of love. I will be truthful: while some days, the meditation resonates with me, there are days that I struggle with it. It's hard for me to feel love when it seems we are surrounded by a steamroller of hate.
I used the below quote from Richard Rohr as an epigraph in my manuscript that I am (so far, unsuccessfully) querying.
“It doesn’t matter how old we are: we all need stories to believe in. If there’s no storyline, no integrating images that define who we are or give our lives meaning or direction, we just won’t be happy. I can’t imagine I’m alone in longing for us collectively to embrace a better story, one with the power to change our hearts and minds and enliven our imaginations.”
I totally agree with you, Emily. Especially with your statement "Humanity needs help with so many problems of sickness". And I would say the greatest sickness is separation, or the disconnect that we have. The separation from Nature, and the disconnect with each other. For hundreds of years, we have been fed the idea that Nature is just a bunch of resources to be used, and emotions and things like love are "secondary qualities", weak things, not measurable and therefore less real than everything that can be quantified. We are completely stuck in a reductionist, material world: the spiritual has been cast aside. And THIS divide is making humanity sick. And as long as we stay stuck in the material, and disregard our innate need for love, connection, and faith, we will become even more sick.
In my opinion, Trump, Musk and all the other narcissists are screaming for attention; there's a giant hole in their hearts. Many people are experiencing a lack of love in their lives. The real tragedy is that this shortage need not be: we humans are capable of giving infinite love.
Precisely. People who are loved have no need to tell everybody all the time. Just as people who are _really_ smart don't need to say of themselves that they are smart... ;)
Dave-Thanks for sharing these links. I find that reading about the thoughts, beliefs and actions of confederates brings clarity to where America stands today.
Dutch Mike, I think that some of the answers to your question can be explained by the book "American Nations" by Colin Woodard.
Someone in the LFAA "bookclub' suggested this to me a few years back. FASCINATING! I just re-recommended on here a few days ago. Here's a link to check it out:
April 9, 2025 at 9:30 AM "Everything is Cool"; 225 minutes later, Tariffs ere reduced to a "baseline" 10 against more than 180 countries & yet another new Tariff for China-Xi of 125%. Markets soar 😵💫
Thursday morning: Dow Futures 🔻444 which is not a good indicator of the Thursday Open 5 minutes from now. Watch those sudden pressure drops & keep your Buckles on tight.
Well said! This country has had better moments, but I still believe in it. Trump isn't really the problem, the MAGA movement is. Trump tells awful lies and commits crimes. Very likely he is using tariffs to single handedly manipulate the stock market to enrich his family's and political cronnies. Still, MAGA is in love, NOT with Trump necessarily, but with Trump's idea of domination. Trump will fall soon enough because of his age if nothing else, but MAGA will live on and have to be faught continually. That's our lot, democracy requires a defense, but it's a burden I'm quite willing to bare.
The most egregious lie is the pretense that we are all created equal before the law with inalienable rights, etc. The assault on education, personal rights, voting, etc. began, as Heather noted, over a century ago. We have been trapped for a long time in mythical beliefs that we are the greatest nation blessed by god, endowed by superior qualities and moral character - NOT.....
For me, Heather's time line from before the Civil War until today, makes it clear that our fight for a Democratic Republic continues. The underlying struggle between those who believe in equality for all, and the few who lust for power and wealth for themselves, is at the center of the struggle. It brings today's chaos into focus as the foundations of Democracy collide with today's rich and powerful.
''In the 1930s, Nazi leaders, lawyers, and judges turned to America’s Jim Crow laws and Indian reservations for inspiration on how to create legal hierarchies that would, at the very least, wall certain populations off from white society.''
The billionaires are all up in Trump's face because of the stock market. Okay. So if hypothetically they have $5B and the market drops 20%--they still have $4B.
The M.A.G.A.s and unreconstructed racists have started this fight, and we intend to finish it, preferably, through peaceful means toward a conciliatory, democratic end.
G-D bless General / President Grant: “If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.”
What we have ended up with from the white man superiority is women and people of color who are the hard working Americans supporting the wealthy rich welfare queens. These men, like Musk and Trump, are living off the dole of the workers. Bessent and Lutnick are so tone deaf while they rake in millions. Any one of them that work in government should not be allowed to receive a penny in contracts and fees.
History does not end just because it is now. We have never had full enfranchisement of non-Whites. Jefferson Cowie documents in his book Freedom's Dominion that without the federal government interfering directly in elections to oversee that people can register to vote and that they get to vote, people are denied the vote, by White men, who feel that they alone are the chosen people who get to have dominion over everyone else. Does that sound like Christian Nationalism. Well, that is the group that wrote Project 2025 and is taking over our country.
Right now being governed by a madman is like living in an abusive marriage, or with an abusive alcoholic parent. Best to leave if you can, until they are gone.
Those who participate with Professor HCR in observation, analysis and chronicling of current events in historical context, are producing not just documentation: What has evolved is analogous to jazz musicians metaphorically gathering as a flock of sparrows do early in the morning, unseen in hedges but clearly heard chirping out their impressions of, & responses to the living world. We jam together every day, responding to the world like sparrows must do, educating each other for the common good. Contrast that with monks ritually harmonizing through prescribed Gregorian chants inside a sacred space. The gospel according to Fox "News", Newsmax, OAN, etc. - the corrupt leading the easily manipulated, in service of a fascist mafia state death cult, now openly praising the philosophy and power of hegemonic church rulers in medieval times.
Heather’s inclusion of Walt Whitman in this post is brilliant and much appreciated. Defense of democracy is now by necessity, intrinsically linked with environmental and social justice because we’re at concurrent tipping points for both environmental and socioeconomic resilience & sustainability. The philosophy and writings of the transcendentalists are pertinent and instructive when considering effective countermeasures to surging fascist mafia state oligopoly and long-term solutions for resilience and sustainability. Aside from reaching out to persuadable former 47 voters to encourage them to start voter recall campaigns against 47 complicit congress-people, I suggest we need to be starting up all kinds of grassroots projects that bring diverse people together, working hard and having fun on mutually beneficial projects.
For details, I posted an essay on Transcendentalism & Planetarity convergence in response to death cult fascism in Substack on Feb.15, 2025.
Yes there are ‘toxic recessive’ genes in our culture that emerge: puritanical views of sex and gender, the very American invention of Eugenics that pollutes policy and politics, the many people like Lindbergh who was a prototype American fascist, and these all live today, alive and well, in Stephen Miller!, and all his buds/ the Pay Pals, JD, etc…
Until with rise up, “Awake, Awake,” and notice these toxic excessive….anti-science, anti-education, anti-reality….school choice has the smell, JFK is a stink-bomb, gender issues and definitions too.
Real Strength through flexibility, dynamism, membership through diversity, resiliency and flexibility as strength!
This is one of my favorite pieces that you have written. The images are just so powerful tonight. And I will see Trump as this century’s Jim Crow. We never should have let him rise again.
And McConnell could have cut this all off. The perfectly reasonable 2nd Impeachment was all set to go. And there are only a few on the fringes who think that it wasn't an attempted coup 1/6 2021
Yes. Grant’s instincts (The men could keep their sidearms and their horses because Grant wanted them “to be able to put in a crop to carry themselves and their families through the next winter.”) were noble but, unfortunately, bad management. It was fine to let the grunts take home what they needed to make a living, but Grant should never have allowed CSA politicians and soldiers at the rank of lieutenant or above off the hook. He should haved hanged every last one of them. Not sure it would have made a difference in the long run but might have delayed their comeback for several decades.
Hard to select a favorite. I also put this in my favorites category. HCR’s ability to distill hundreds of years of history into comprehensible inflection points within a few, easily understood paragraphs is brilliant!
Yes, HCR, a powerful article and so thought provoking! Thanks so much for your good works! How Trump was elected twice is stunning in so many ways. Your article, certainly, helps to explain the "critical" reasons.
We can only think of one person when Heather gets to the crux of things as she does here.
The fat orange felon.
What Heather says immediately linking to him -- to it, that mass of blubber -- is her note on the enslavers' myth that "some people were better than others and had the right—and the duty—to rule."
That's our convicted criminal, Putin's great asset, today not aware of any history, but only of his fantasy that world leaders from all over have been "kissing" his "ass."
All they want to do is negotiate "with me," he crows: get him to deign to see them, talk with their representatives, allow his shining majesty to glow a bit on them.
Heather concludes hers today with sober words from Grant, who beat Lee, on how pitifully sad that entire conflict was, how pitiful its premises were for those of the enslaving class.
And as Heather notes this, we also have today J.D. Vance in another burst of his ignorance, his bad manners, and his sheer oafishness as he insults the Chinese, calling them all mere "peasants."
I cite Vance and his clown boss because, while both shine in their brazen bad behavior toward the world, we can remember, too, that no U.S. school has any essay writing exchange program with any Chinese school -- and the Chinese take learning English in school most seriously.
Trump and Vance exhibit this bad faith which U.S. schools practice on all its tens of millions of students, growing all those near illiterates in the U.S. who form MAGA, who still root for the reckless, ignorant Trump and Vance.
They could take a page instead from Grant, who had proximity to more sober reality than the sheer fantasyland lurid which U.S. "leaders" pathetically lead in now.
One semester, the best student in my intermediate-level ESL class was a young Russian, studying in China for her Ph.D., but first spending some time here so that she could improve her language skills sufficiently to be able to write her dissertation in acceptably accurate academic English. I wonder where she is now and what she's doing.
Social media doesn't exactly elicit the best from people, but schools could.
Schools could give us the legacy of taking others seriously as individuals in disparate cultures. They could train classrooms of students in English (late high school, early college) to quote others in the room. Based first on intro essays, which all read, and which (after discussion) grow into revisions citing others for apt themes they've shown.
It snowballs. Eventually finished product goes to a school far away, in essay exchange. So replies to these can also cite cultural complications.
If schools lead the way, Betsy, people can be in better touch with each other, more solidly, with respect and many other contacts that won't just disappear.
Schools yes, and the right wing is trying to capture them too. All of us need to affirm and protect human rights for one another. It's our ultimate survival strategy.
Stop, hey what's that sound, everybody look whats going down.
Well, Trump has convinced many that he is a very "stable genius" and that he only attended the best schools. JD Vance may be following suit? Because, it is so hard to believe the Ivy League and Vance connection. Just a hard to believe story?
The Ivy League schooled sons of the rich (sons only) for 200 years.
Being rich, and practicing the U.S. version of European primogeniture, it's no surprise that many of the most vociferous of U.S. Nazi supporters in the 1930s -- and investors in enterprises of the Waffen SS -- were Ivy League grads in the main U.S. banks, telecom, automotive, gas, and rubber industries.
Can we take any refuge in the counter glow of the great American land grant universities arisen from the Justin Morrill land grant legislation which Lincoln singed n 1862?
Maybe we can, from the year 1862 to the year 1971, when Lewis Powell, a Harvard Law grad -- and biggest lawyer for Big Tobacco at its most corrupt -- in 1971 wrote the memo that set in motion the school-and-democracy-killing machinery the world could ever anticipate.
To be fair, JD Vance isn’t a son of the rich, although his children are. Despite his hillbilly book, he’s a son of the suburban middle class, pulling up the ladder behind him.
One's having occupied a classroom or lecture hall does not mean that one has been educated. Moreover, when a "student" benefits from the sponsorship of great wealth and/or power, the student's scholastic achievements can be falsified. As has been revealed in various scandals, Ivy League schools are not immune to corruption.
Kathy is terrifying to think he is first in line to succeed the scumbag president if the need arises. And if not, he'll be the leading candidate for the maga party in the next presidential election. :(
I wonder. One thing Trump has is charisma. I don’t get it, but lots of folks are mesmerized by him. JD Vance has as much charisma as a wet dish towel and I can’t imagine him inspiring the MAGA folks to support him. I don’t know who else on the right possesses that same ability that Trump has. Hopefully nobody.
It seems any gains we have made with legislation on accepting a diverse country with equal opportunity, rights, and privileges are very fragile. Will we ever realize a mostly democratic, open society? Lincoln thought Johnson would give balance to his politics. Instead, we lost the momentum of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.
Now, we are losing the momentum of Civil Rights legislation and a “Great Society.”
We need to regain our democratic ideals or else we won’t have a country any more.
Phil, This is what I have been sitting with after reading this sweeping post. I found Grant’s reflection at the end so moving. And the dissonance if the propaganda and policy flowing from and around the White House that is all focused on markets, opportunities for financial gain, and the power to make the rules that apply to who has money/wealth and who does not, with the thumb on the scale for those who already have enough power through wealth to influence the Administration and Congress. Where are the values, the right and wrongs, the principles of common good? The Musk-Trump regime could not care less about the actual wellbeing of their own voters or the theory of national and international security based on freedom from fear and want or, in truth, the freedoms of speech and worship. It is not clear to me whether their anti trans vitriol and race bating is anything more than part of this profit and power equation. I know this is a simplification and HCR is so attuned and informative when it comes to the American roots of subjugation including slavery and the genocidal policies towards indigenous peoples. Like invasive plant species with rhizomes under the ground, these racist and sexist attitudes are pernicious and so easy to cultivate and exploit when it serves the interests of those seeking power and resources. And so here we are without a moral compass and with little agreement on where lies true north.
Watching the President of The United States of America boast that leaders across the world are “kissing his ass”. This convicted felon, liar, rapist was elected as President of The United States of America. A COMPLETE DISASTER.
No one ever has all the answers, which is part of what makes mindful, good faith democracy make sense. If we focus, perhaps enough of us would agree that the notion that there is no such thing as white supremacy, nor any other sort of innate supremacy of persons, nor right to rule save for universal restrictions on materially harmful behaviors or needed responsible behaviors that we identify in democratic discussion. That beyond that, liberty is our birthright, no more or less than anyone else. That's unmistakable in the D O I, but echos as well in many works of recognized wisdom, including that attributed to Jesus.
Well said, KSC: "Like invasive plant species with rhizomes under the ground, these racist and sexist attitudes are pernicious and so easy to cultivate..."
Today... April 9 2025....the biggest scam of Insider Trading was pulled off by trump and his buddies. Every one of those con men that said "It will all turn out fine" knew exactly what was happening and, I'm absolutely sure, were in on it. The oligarchs made more money off the back of the majority of Americans in 7 days than we will all make in our lifetime.
Not one of us will recover what we collectively lost. trump knew exactly what he was doing and so did his GOP pals. These despicable people must be held accountable or this injustice will just continue to happen over and over again.
Adam Schiff is calling for an investigation into the insider trading and who was involved. This is just the beginning of pulling back the veil of dishonesty in the GOP and this administration.
1. Zero sum game. If someone lost $3 trillion, somebody else won it. IMHO Trump has surrounded himself with people who know how to short the market.
2. A few right wing Republicans are opposing him. Grassley has a bill that would remove his power to adjust tarriffs. A right-wing group with financial ties to Leonard Leo and the Koch network, the New Civil Liberties Alliance sued, claiming that Trump’s decision to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not give him the power to “usurp” Congress’s right to control tariffs or “upset the Constitution’s separation of powers.” https://newrepublic.com/post/193612/donald-trump-lawsuit-tariffs-far-right-group
3. He now is at odds with Musk, who is recommending a tariff free zone, the US and EU.
NBC felt it was necessary to put up an article claiming there was no insider trading as they explained exactly how he sent out his post that it was time to buy then paused the tariffs.
"Lee’s surrender did not end the war—there were still two major armies in the field—but everyone knew the surrender signaled that the American Civil War was coming to a close."
Unfortunately, as you know we are still fighting the Civil War and a major new front was opened in 1981 (as you document). The plans, outlined by Lewis Powell, called for organized wealth to subvert public and higher education, media, the courts, and the creation of so-called "Think" tanks which are nothing more than well-funded public relations entities representing the interests of organized wealth and industries like Big Oil, Coal, the Gun lobby, and more.
The war continues and we are paying dearly for the generosity extended to the South, to Nixon when he was pardoned, to Reagan and his cohorts for Iran/Contra, and for allowing Trump to act with impunity for his pattern of corruption and major crimes against the United States.
I have thought ever since it happened that pardoning Nixon was a grave mistake. So, of course, all the failure of accountability since. I think that in a certain sense Trump’s pardon of the Jan. 6 rioters was limned in Ford’s pardon of Nixon.
And McConnell's decision to tank the perfectly justified 2nd Impeachment following 1/6/21. We could all have been saved this turmoil and bona fide threat to our hard fought democracy.
Very true. In our attempt to delineate our system from authoritarians, tyrants, and fascists who jail opponents (when they are not being poisoned or “falling” from high places), we have forgotten that some actions are not those stemming from a different opinion about the range of thinking from liberal to moderate, to conservative. Some actions are a blatant attempt to undermine and destroy the system.
Nixon’s betrayal of the system, Kissinger’s role in Chile, Reagan’s responsibility for Iran/Contra, and of course Trump and all in the GOP who have shifted from political party to a criminal enterprise through aiding, abetting, and acting as accessories after the fact should have died in prison or be rotting there now.
I have come to think that Ford’s pardon of Nixon was a huge mistake that has the probability of destroying our polity. The only thing the Republicans learned was not to get caught.
Kathy, as shown many times, the scumbag president do not care about getting caught. It's a kind of game for him where, at least so far, he was always the winner. Not a single day in jail and an honorary title of felon and a lot of people through small donations paying for his defense
I saw that a dangerous precedent was being set at the time of Nixon's pardon, though I failed to grasp just how corrupted the practice would become. Much has been corrupted in the years since, yet somehow sexier "issues" always have seem to bump aside concerted efforts to enforce a line against increasingly corrupt political abuses of power. And here we are. I don't think it's all on account of Nixon's pardon (follow the money) but that the pardon created a major breach in the wall of political integrity that ultimately stopped Joe McCarthy and Nixon.
Adolf Hitler was indebted to the racial-ethnic ladder that was presented in the extremely popular and widely read unashamed racist 1916 book by New York lawyer Madison Grant, entitled "The Passing of the Great Race." It placed "Nordics" at the top, with Jews, Italians, Irish, Russians and so forth, down to the non-Whites at the bottom. While in prison writing "Mein Kampf", where he said that "The highest aim of human existence is...the conservation of race", Hitler was relying upon Madison Grant's book, which he later referred to as "my Bible." [See "Stamped From the Beginning", by Ibram X. Kendi, Pages 310-311.] These racist beliefs have a long history and cultural durability, and no amount of Black accomplishment (known as "uplift suasion") or appropriation and mimicry of White clothing and manner of speaking, and other behaviors (i.e., assimilation) will change them. It takes an uncompromising, constant stance of antiracism to dismantle the centuries of institutional racism and the legacies and demographic disparities it has created.
"So confident was General Grant in the justice of his people’s cause that he asked only that Lee and his men give their word that they would never again fight against the United States and that they turn over their military arms and artillery."
Give their word.
Give their word.
Hard to imagine today, but (with tragic consequences) someone's word meant something then--maybe.
Certainly "give their word" to Indian Country was also worthless in US history.
There is NO ONE, even on the periphery of power, no matter what their politics, whose word I would trust right now.
So true. Trust has been trampled in the mud. Joe tried to restore trust but was as soundly defeated as Lee was. We must rise again. The cult must be defeated, over and over.
Wow, human expressive capacity unleashed! I'm glad I watched it. A comment said it well, "Levon Helm's magnum opus. His vocal performance is astonishing. He is utterly committed. This is how you completely inhabit a song."
If only the Jan. 6th mob's force had been channeled into art.
Daniel, thanks for this link. I had only known Joan Baez's version before this. Frankly, I love having the brass section, including a tuba in the background with this version.
And trust is essential for a free society. Like our own bodies, we can manage and intervene with some of the things that would irresponsibly or maliciously harm us, but if too much of a human body or society goes septic, we are cooked.
Our bodies are incredible healers, but we sure manage to test the limits in myriad ways. Rupert and clones deliberately tried to destroy our society and as the lying bastards metastasized, sepsis is at a tipping point. Or maybe we are like the lobster in heating water. Trapped..
One of your very best, Heather, among so many superb essays. You've captured not only the essence of the full sweep of American history as it relates to the endless battle to enshrine the values that guide our nation, but, as you so often do, made it 100% relevant to the moment we find ourselves in. Your body of work is masterful, and will have a notable influence on the outcome of this titanic struggle to actualize the ideals stated in the preamble to our Declaration of Independence.
As always, another brilliant essay tying our history to our present. When will we ever learn…. I memorized the Gettysburg Address in the 5th grade and as a 10 year old it had a profound effect on me. That was the same year President Kennedy was assassinated. It hurts my heart and soul to think of Lincoln and Kennedy and where we are now.
A cause for which there was least excuse. Still true and still a battle for the soul of humanity. It’s hard to think of humanity without a soul. Is there such a thing? Google thinks it means human nature and kindness. Human nature has a dark side, as history documented over and over. A battle between kindness/empathy and self-interest/fear/hate. The Declaration of Independence touts the former, but the Confederates were clear that they opposed “all men are created equal.” The most disputed words ever uttered, seems to me. Reagan wasted no time in resurrecting the latter.
Lincoln’s words still ring true for most of us but are denigrated by the losers who have now achieved what the sacrifices of the war could not.
Learned a new word today from TCinLA substack.
Iatrogenic - when the people whose job it is to make things better are the active agents of making things worse. Describes chump perfectly, but RFKJ is the winner of that prize.
It is still shocking to me that Nazis used our Jim Crow laws as templates for their evil.
Our history is littered with potholes. So glad some recognize and teach that truth.
It Can’t happen here is a chilling tale, and was written when the newspaper was the main source of news. Buzz Windrip is a nascent T💩p.
This PSA, Don’t Be A Sucker, illustrates the peril of Nazism, and shows just how T💩p and other racists are still hard at work: https://youtu.be/vGAqYNFQdZ4
Some of the characters in “It Can’t Happen Here” were modeled on real people. The character Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch was modeled on the forgotten antisemitic red baiter Elizabeth Dilling. Dilling also spearheaded a group that was opposed to our becoming involved in World War II called “Mothers Against War.” After the attack on Pearl Harbor, they disbanded.
A Night at the Garden is a 2017 short documentary film about the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City.[1] The film was directed by Marshall Curry from footage found by archival producer Rich Remsberg, and was produced by Laura Poitras and Charlotte Cook with Field of Vision.[2] The seven-minute film is composed entirely of archival footage and features a speech from Fritz Julius Kuhn, the leader of the German American Bund, in which anti-Semitic and pro white-Christian sentiments are espoused.
Viewing that video several years ago was life-changing for me, as it prompted me to calculate the ages of my parents and family in NYC and the boroughs at that time. What was unsaid but what they knew, felt, and transmitted to me made sense. Ouch!
Bravo. All of your essays are informative and enlightening. But this is the best one yet, on top of so many superlatives. Just today I read an essay by another historian about the reason why the US doesn't have national Healthcare, and that is mainly because our racist parts of government don't want to allow non whites to benefit from health care. I've suspected this for years so it really rings true. And the fact that Jan 6 traitors got away and pardoned was the downfall of the normalcy we thought we had.
Getting a little bit “queasy” or “yippee” … are you kidding…a significant number of us were “heaving” and “throwing up” — okay, vomiting — as soon as we came to the realization that our country’s largest voting block — those legally registered, but find an excuse not to vote — had or played a significant role in putting trump back into our White House!
Please take a read and share if you - as i do - think this is the heart of Project 2025 and the endgame for Hitler’s birthday April 20. If we allow violence on 4/19 in protests infiltrated by Trump’s militia, he may take the opportunity to declare martial law on 4/20.
History doesn't repeat, but it surely does rhyme. Those who believe in true democracy, and the liberal consensus,can never rest. We will always have to fight those who would concentrate power for themselves.
I feel our protests do not shine a light on Fox News, and any other bias news media that spreads hatred, greed, disinformation and a competitive thirst for power. No matter how many Trumps, Heritage Foundation/Voughts, Vance and corrupt SCOTUS >>> if our media and Supreme Court are allowed to promote criminal behavior— maybe our April 19th Protest should point a spotlight on Fox News, CNN, NYT, USA Today, etc.
Beware April 19. Thom Hartmann wrote the other day, "Trump’s "Hitler’s Birthday" Gift: The Death of American Democracy."https://hartmannreport.com/p/trumps-hitlers-birthday-gift-the-ffc
April 20 was Hitler’s holiday. Now it may mark the day Trump declares martial law, suspends the Constitution, and finishes the job he started on January 6.
"(According to the Tesla website, April 20 is “Elon Musk Day,” a moment in time for celebrating the underappreciated genius. Elon once tweeted that he was “considering taking Tesla private at $420”; in 2021 he raised money for SpaceX by selling shares for $419.99, just one penny below $420; he acquired Twitter for $54.20 a share; has noted in a tweet, “I was born 69 days before 4/20”; and sometimes just randomly tweets 420.)
"This year, however, Hitler’s birthday is the date one of Donald Trump’s first executive orders requires Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to submit to him a report on whether or not he can suspend the Constitution and Bill of Rights by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807."
..."We’re long past the moment when our first felon president slipped into his criminal mode; the question now is how far he’ll go once he gets his Hitler’s Birthday present in roughly two weeks."
This is the story Hartmann cites: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/german-ambassador-warns-trump-plan-redefine-constitutional-order-document-shows-2025-01-18/
Is it bluster? I think Trump would try to go there if he thinks he can manage it.
I was heartened to see my neighbor from Southwest Harbor, Leonard Leo and fellow theocrat and white supremacist Charles Koch sue Trump for his ill conceived and heinous tariffs. https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/-can-money-stop-trump-in-2024-koch-network-s-70m-move-186093125724
Ironic that the two major financial supporters of Project 2025 are fighting the unitary executive they created.
They are not just fighting the unitary executive they created because they have a change of heart, they are fighting because the protect 2025 policies as they are being implemented, are affecting their own finances.
Ricardo, yes, none of these uberwealthy give a rat's behind about the rest of us or our democracy. They are laser focused as they have always been, on their bottom line. I spend a lot of my time reading history and the behavior of the top tier has not really changed over the centuries.
Salute
Well, they are the ones who actually own SCOTUS and Trump is just their pawn. Is that why he became a Panican and paused tariffs for 90 days? He blinked. He’s everything he accused others of being. He’s a weak, crazy, old man who never had a minutia of intelligence. He couldn’t make a real deal if his life depended on it so he resorts to mob tactics.he’s the actual welfare queen.
Sharon, oh yes, but he loved all those countries coming to kiss his smelly ass and saying yes sir, no sir. The cabal has found their perfect puppet until as the black cat on the tee shirt says, "Is he dead yet?"
So true, Sharon.
46 South Shore Road
NorthEast Harbor
Maine 04662
lin, I never would have known who this dude was if you hadn't told us about your "encounter" with him, what was it....2 years ago? My first hearing of his name.
I so appreciate the added value that you and others bring to our LFAA family table.
Thank you.
Thank you. I wonder if there are still protests at their residence in NorthEast Harbor??
What will THEY do if the traitor-in-chief tries to suspend the Constitution? Now that they have disagreed with a monster, will they stand their ground? Surprised the chief nazi is still alive.
While Leo and Koch may be Christian Nationalists waiting for Gods Judgement, they certainly don't want to do it from a point of great financial loss. Perhaps this is step one of them setting the stage for Article 25 to be enacted. It might be them signaling to the SCOTUS members that they have bought how they want them to vote.
I think it was Robert Reich (or maybe Robert Hubbell?) yesterday who cautioned against fearing the 20th as the date for martial law, believing it was just a circulating rumor designed to get people revved up. I wish I knew more of the background to this - as it is unsettling at the very least.
As someone who lived in a country plagued by dictatorships I will tell you this: Always go to the streets and protest, this is your constitutional right and duty as a citizen. Never back down. Never fear. They will fall. Popular pressure is our best weapon.
Listen to Heather’s chat from Tuesday. She talks about this.
Where do you find her chat? On substack?
Thank you so much -- I will. Hope I can find it on YouTube.
How to connect to her chat about this anyone??
Thanks for useful information. :)
It was Hubbell. He went a long way in assuaging some of my concerns,
He always seems to find a vein of optimism
laurie, it is unsettling because I have no doubt what the drunk rapist and the prairie Barbie (who looks like a streetwalker) will say. The Gnome will probably appear in a new costume which doesn't hide the fact that she is running the same old dog and pony show. Someone needs to take her on a gravel pit tour.
Totally like a streetwalker - like all the women who are in Trumpworld. And we refer to Karoline L. as Propaganda Barbie. I love "Gnome" for the puppy murderer.
@lauriemcf, I know Robert Hubbell did, as well as Jessica Craven from Chop Wood, Carry Water.
thank you !
Watch HCR podcast from the 8th.
So good on topics, I'm slowly working on cleaning up the generated transcript as time allows.
Concur with MLMinET.
Definitely the scumbag president would go there but not now. My feeling is that if they sense the numbers are not in their favor at the time of the midterm elections, they will make up an incident to justify invoking the insurrection act.
It is like living with an abusive partner or drunk abusive parent. Time to leave if you can and come back when they are gone. While I wrote this piece in November, having a mother who was born in Germany the year after Hitler came to power, and then having my family divided by the Berlin wall, and the DDR regime, I am aware of what fascism looks like for every day people, and it harms everyone.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/a-plan-b-for-catastrophe?r=f0qfn
Most of the actions mentioned in that Reuters article have been at least initiated.
This article seems to prophesy every thing trump is doing. An article caught my attention about the democratic Pennsylvanian governors house set on fire by arsonists. Interesting that we are not reading about DeSantis or Abbott's house burned up.
If there is going to be a day of reckoning perhaps it should come sooner rather than later. Before further normalization, and so that we really know where everyone stands.
Epiphany?
Reportedly, yesterday Rep. W. Gregory Steube (R-Fla.) called Speaker Johnson a liar and said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus!" according to three sources.https://www.alternet.org/gop-johnson-budget/
I've been hoping that some Republicans would have a revelation that they were working for/with the devil.
Daniel, I try to make at least 5 calls to Congress every day. Some days, I email instead. I have called Johnson several times, and I always add to my message that he need to examine his conscience because he is falling into the trap of worshiping a false idol who promotes the deadly sins.
Is there such a thing as good cruelty? I think not. Are DOGE/MAGA policies cruel? Obviously.
Just a side observation, but has anyone else noticed that in his latest appearance on camera, the top of trump's hair appeared to be sticking up on the sides like devil's horns? I'm not joking.
Yes! And it’s a strange silver color now. Honestly, he looks pretty terrible.
Daniel Solomon,
Blinded by the darkness...overcome by the lust for power....his minions having been rejected in their past lives, are fully with the one they worship, "The Donald"..."President forever..."
unless...sane Americans stop this INSANITY! playing out before our eyes....
But, many of Trump's MAGA supporters approve of what he and Musk are doing right now, totally oblivious to the harm and disruption that DOGE is creating. They are "True Believers." With them it is virtually "religious." I did take advantage of Trump's reversal on the tariffs and bought Tesla stock low and sold high.
It's not clear from the article what Steube was reacting to.
Some are crazy in the name of their extreme religious views. Some are just plain crazy. Hard to keep track.
That's right. Others were also.
He’s the guy that fell off a ladder and hit his head right? They’re all lunatics claiming Christianity to sound like they care about anything other than their own greed, misogyny and racism.
I was also thinking on those lines David.
It's always been a power grab for Trump. He views Congress and the courts as nuisances which need to be defanged. I tell anyone who will listen that our democracy will be officially dead once the Trump Admin begins to use firing squads against those who are ACCUSED of crimes without due process. Sound nuts? Just wait. Germans in the 1930's never believed the rumors of sinister Nazi plans. German pride began sprouting and its people closed their eyes to what was to come. So I say, keep your eyes open.
Daniel, the 19th is my birthday. I hope people will use that day to continue the fight for democracy. I read yesterday that it can also be a day of doing some good as well as protest. i think this may a recognition that this is Easter weekend which might hinder large protest crowds showing up (or not). I am thinking we should donate to the local food share. I have no doubt what the drunk and the Gnome will tell him. I also expect he will use it. I can only hope that the people and the courts will stand in his way. I am afraid I have on my cynical hat this am. Yesterday on Nextdoor there was a post about Headstart and the fact that it is financed by Federal funds which are now in jeopardy. The thread was very long and full of nonsense about what the Feds finance. The same people who complain nonstop about any local or state taxes seem to think money grows on trees. Some were sane, but we have a whole bunch of people who buy what muskrat, for example, is telling them. This year, a two and half year sewer street project was completed which included sidewalks for kids to walk to school on the racetrack that is our street. I knew Federal funds were involved, but it turned out that the Feds paid something like 80% of this. And re China, people are just about to find out just how many things we buy come from China or have parts in them made in China. I think I am going to love my version of my iPhone for example. As for the other tariffs, the whole thing reeks of insider trading.
Republicans moved American manufacturing off shore wholesale in order to pay lower wages and escape US regulation. They call it "efficiency" and "innovation". Now they want to tax us for it, and not pay themselves.
Daniel, IMO & not humble deduction, Thom Hartman is incorrect, Orange Face lost any whiff of credibility yesterday & few will salute 🔻Pancake Make-Up Guy on any Day.
This stuff is so disgusting! Total Tweedle heads. I keep hoping for a glimmer of reality from some of the people mentioned. There ARE more of us than them!. Protests & letter writing have to continue.
PLEASE watch Heather's most recent Politics Chat!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFLjHDAhAQ8
Hat Tip Miselle H/t.
Still have to be alert.
But don't let fear overcome you, Daniel. Think of all those massive numbers of people who are marching, calling and emailing Congress.
As a JEW, what a DISGUSTING POST. Shame on you.
Hitler murdered 6 Million JEWS.
BTW the Democrats are the party of Antisemitism and JEW HATRED.
U B Nuts. -- Musk supports neo Nazis. Salutes like one... and those are his own words.
"The Democrats are the party of Antisemitism and JEW HATRED" is disinforrmation. 70% of American Jews happen to be Democrats.
THAT IS SLANDER - Musk NEVER said he endorses NEO NAZI's.
You are a moron. Where is all the JEW HATRED in America coming from?
ITS THE LEFT. Go to a college campus. Its NOT the College Republicans.
ITS THE LEFTIST FACULTY and students.
Its AOC, Its the SQUAD. Most of the major democrats are NOT Pro Israel.
Support for the Palestinians is not the same as antisemitism.
I am Jewish, and I am not a knee jerk supporter of the Israeli government.
There are blood-stained leaders on both sides, and a lot of innocent people in between.
@ James A. Read this and get back to us.
1. Elon Musk Pushes for Global Neo-Nazi Regime Change. The World Is Fighting Back.
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/elon-musk-neo-nazi-regime-change/
2. Elon Musk faces criticism for encouraging Germans to move beyond 'past guilt'. https://www.npr.org/2025/01/27/nx-s1-5276084/elon-musk-german-far-right-afd-holocaust
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZObMDPR7CQ
Oh bullshit. Democrats do not hate Jewish people.
I feel so depressed. It seems as though trump and his Himmlers (concentration camp creator) and Goebbels (propaganda-suicide one day after appointed the position) Bormans, von Ribbentrops, Menegels, et al. do whatever they want.
Simon Rosenberg, the founder of Hopium Chronicles, said last night that he would like to see more American Flags at future rallies. We need to take back the Patriotic American narrative. We are the people defending Democracy, freedom and liberty and justice for all.
You’re right. We need to take it back. I have seen far more flags at rallies. It’s sad that my first reaction is fear. I’m an American. It’s my flag.
I agree on this. It’s hard for me to hang my flag and feel it’s sending the right message.
Right On! I can do this !
With our real flags in big enough sizes the
cameras will be delighted… !
TBlack, I agree about taking back the patriotic American narrative by carrying/flying the American flag at ALL rallies AND creating appropriate slogans that communicate our basic message. Ironically, the “makers and takers” of years ago now might be used to draw attention to selfish oligarchs. Workers make it and oligarchs take it.
These media sources are not equally evil, however. Let's not waste energy and focus attacking the New York Times, no matter how pusillanimous it has been in its sanewashing of the demented Donald, or CNN, whose new leadership has made it cringe before the felon in the White House - when the real enemy of American democracy and decency is Fox, which has led the hatred and corruption of the truth for decades and still leads it.
Pusillanimous journalism is the flip side of hate media. The sort of courageous and dogged journalism we saw in the Vietnam War and Watergate is a far weaker presence. The "both sides are the same" approach gives the edge to demagogues. A free and socially responsible press, at least the primary thrust of it is essential for the success of democracy. It has been said that democracy dies in darkness.
Yes, I read your note Daniel,
After posting to HCR tonight, I stumbled into a substack called MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY which is dedicated to improving our news media. Not only are they guys upbeat and creative - they are generous with tips & tricks…it reminds me of CHOP WOOD | CARRY WATER.
👍check out these activists:
https://open.substack.com/pub/mediaanddemocracyproject/p/local-news-outlets-show-the-new-york?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios
Daniel, maybe I’ll do a day of ‘Letter Writing to Parent Corporations’ on April 19th.
Re the national security issue, every veterans' group should be up in arms. Same for tariff issue. Every car dealer, car manufacturer. Can use social media.
YES! We need business owners, health facility staff, Veterans groups to be a big show of the people! Wear their business t shirts, vets their insignia. scrubs & such. Show yourselves.
Wow! Thank you for this.
If the maga crowd really want to return American goods to America then they should insist that ALL media be owned and controlled by Americans. Bye bye Fox (not) News.
Yes, the ownership and control of thousands of media outlets (newspapers, radio stations, TV, etc.) have been consolidated in the hands of Republicans, primarily, making it easy to spread their propaganda and influence using wedge issues - abortion, immigrants, women's and gay rights, etc. Thomas Franks, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" (2004); Heather Cox Richardson, "How the South Won the Civil War." (2020.) "Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" Published in the journal "Critical Sociology," Feb. 2018.
It is my understanding that Fox Agenda also known as Fox "news" has been able to thwart scores of lawsuits for libel because their license is under "entertainment." When Fox was sued by Dominion (voting machines) the libel was beyond blatant, This is when Dominion was characterized as stealing the election. The out of court settlement was just under 1 billion ($890,000+) in favor of Dominion. Naturally Fox did not cover that in their so-called news. Newsmax is just as bad.
I disagree about USA Today, NYT and maybe CNN that are labeled the "Fake News" by King Trump. What I tell young people who do not have TV is to watch the PBS Newshour on line, while it is still being broadcast. It is ranked #1 for accuracy. I also tell my Republican friends to get off Fox or Newsmax, both rated at the bottom for accuracy and watch the Newshour. We have been able to convert a few Republicans when they are faced with factual data.
Fox, sadly, has a following of 80 million.
I do believe that they were noticed....just not reported. MSNBC especially Rachel shows lots of them. Thank goodness for her. I love Lawrence too. They are the only ones I stay up with!
My local news programs all showed pictures of the protests going on in WA 4/5. Interviewed some attendees.
Will someone please inform me of the April 19 protests? Thank you.
https://www.fiftyfifty.one/
A repeat of the rallys. I read somewhere that the intent is to keep having them until sanity is restored.
I'm sure someone reading has more information and hopefully, they will elaborate.
When will we, as voters, take action to restore the Fairness Doctrine? It was put in place after Hitler and taken down by Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes and Dick Cheney in the 1990's to pave the way for Fox TV.
If you're old enough to remember when ABC, CBS and NBC were our news options, you know the difference between the Fairness Doctrine and Post-Fairness Doctrine Eras. Broadcasters were not allowed to create "information silos" under the Fairness Doctrine. We had a Civil Rights Movement, stopped Nixon and ended the Viet Nam war under the Fairness Doctrine.
When will we, the voters, summon the WILL to restore it and update it to govern social media / cable television? Will we have to go through a 3rd World War before we recognize [again] that it is needed?
Whether or not Fairness Doctrine 2.0 ever sees the light of day, the American people bear the burden of seeking reliable journalism.
We are, at the end of the day, each the masters of our own domain. We as consumers choose where we get our news, and what steps we take to ensure that the information we receive is legitimate.
We are using our 'Good Ol’ Fashioned American Skepticism'
Fox is still unbelievably focused on Biden. It's like an obsession.
Perhaps. We are told not to sign up for 50501 in Democrats Abroad because apparently their use of data is suspect. It is being investigated.
Need some carried signs to mention FOX news in particular. The few glimpses I get of FOX news, I wonder if they are all drugged, drank the koolaid. For a short time, FOX tried to be less hostile to non- Trumpists but, $$ always seemed to be the big issue for them. I believe a lot of the reporters are biting their tongues only to have a job.
What “unbiased news” do you read daily? What do you turn toward for daily news?
The Guardian - plus many Substacks - and because I’m old & still watch tv - Rachel Maddow
What do you mean exactly? How spotlights could be pointed at those fake news sources??? What does that look like?
I totally agree with you.
It seems to be "the same old serpent", malignant narcissism, sociopathy, cruel extreme hubris, excessive selfishness whatever you want to call it. Lack of care or reflexive malice for whomever or whatever fails to amuse one's self. It's the Mr. Hyde in Dr. Jekyll bereft of moderating empathy and conscience. It's cruel greed, oppression, exploitation, subjugation, or genocide. It's reborn with every generation. It's wired into human nature. It can be defeated, but the battle has never been won for all time, and play out the similar scripts with a changing cast again, and again, and again.
This recent Guardian essay is illuminating and creepy as hell. Somehow I think we need to take a much harder look at the narcissistic side of human nature. Self interest is inevitable, but nothing but self interest is deadly.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/08/empathy-sin-christian-right-musk-trump
That sure is creepy… To me, this “empathy is sin” is a glorification of narcissism. And I just keep wondering hiw it can be that we all let narcissists rule us. Look at all the people calling the shots an creating so much misery: Trump, Musk, Bezos, eta yahy, Purin - all of them narcissists. Why do we listen to them?
In my opinion, much of our problems come from letting narcissists take the wheel. At the risk of sounding eugenetic myself, it may be something inherent in humans, but it wasn’t a problem 20.000 years ago: when we were running around in small tribes if, say, 30 to 50 humans, narcissism didn’t stand a chance: after everyone saw through the manipulations and egoism and got sick of it, the narcissist was likely kicked out if the tribe - and left to die on his own. Now we have civilization and narcissists are allowed to thrive. Once again, I fully realize this sounds very eugenetic, too, but on the other hand: there is no cure for narcissism, and we now witness the destructive power it has when we let narcissists rule our countries and companies. So what do we do about it?
Dutch Mike. "Creepy" came to mind for me as well.
But Musk gives us a road map to follow. If enough MAGAs replace hate and cruelty with empathy and love the narcissists are fucked.
"Love thy neighbor as thyself" is the cornerstone of Christianity as well as "Do unto other's as you would have them do to you."
Where are the religious leaders of all faiths?
Well, I read that at least the pope rebuked Vance's stance on immigration (i.e. hate against immigrants), but the White Evangelicals are embracing the "empathy is sin" doctrine like it's Jesus himself.
The only empathy the narcissists allow is the adoration of said narcissists...
It is. Musk has it exactly backwards. A civilization that does not show empathy destroys itself. The “Christian” Nationalists who rail against the “sin” of empathy don’t seem to be familiar with the Jesus recounted in the gospels. They create God in their own image as a divine tyrant and worship themselves. Joe Rigney, Doug Wilson (who has done some really vile things,) and Allie Beth Stuckey need to stop calling themselves Christians, as it’s quite clear they’re not, but they believe Christianity is a path to political dominance.
"but they believe Christianity is a path to political dominance."
Sadly, Trump has the undying support of almost half of the Christian priests, preachers, faith leaders in the US.
This is a bold prejudicial statement but, most Christians are followers and not leaders when it comes to politics. If their faith leader tells them that Trump is a great leader and prays for him, most of them will support him.
I mentioned before the election that my niece attended a wedding in Omaha at a Catholic Church and they had Trump political signs INSIDE the church. And I'm sure there were hundreds of other churches that did the same thing.
Tell me I'm wrong.
You are absolutely right, and yes, Musk has it backwards. But it's not the first time in history that religion is hijacked by some power hungry narcissist and used as an excuse to get people to do what he wants - look at the Crusades: same story.
These creatures are not christians at all...just greedy racist misogynist haters. Jesus would totally call them out for what they are.
Kathy Hughes,
These were the same attitudes toward Christ who was crucified by the religious leaders of His day. They were afraid of losing power, offerings and control of the people.
"Musk has it exactly backwards."
Pretty much the whole "Republican Party" turns everything on it head.
Don't temp God.
Jesus became political because urged his followers to go their own way. Pay the tax and be done with it. Thus he was executed.
Protective adoration but not real engagement. Not real empathy. Grant's mentioned sadness was real empathy. He also showed that the notion that empathy makes you a pushover is slander. Real empathy is a product of emotional strength. One needs to be empathetic to kids, but to also set limits. We all need to set limits, implicitly or explicitly, with one another.
Anyway, have you noticed how often and how easily MAGAs throw each other "under the bus"?
Yes, I have noticed. And that's why I simply can't understand how they are still acting as if they are absolutely loyal to one another; I mean, look at this "BFF thing" Trump and Musk got going on... Everybody knows that only a little spark is needed and they will start to wish each other dead.
"[Grant] also showed that the notion that empathy makes you a pushover is slander."
Totally agree. I think it's slander made up by weak men who are too afraid of their own feelings. All of Russia's toxic masculinity culture is based on that premise. I am more in Keanu Reeves' camp: "I refuse to live in a world in which kindness is seen as a weakness."
Christian author Anne Lamott wrote a succinct opinion about this.
“You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
Doesn't it say in the Bible that white Americans are better than everybody else? Gott Mit Uns?
Check out the Interfaith Alliance. The leader of that organization just spoke at our church. And I was part of an interfaith group that went to Tallahassee to advocate for restoring reproductive rights for women with a petition on the ballot. The work is being done. But remember, the MAGA churches proselytize to MILLIONS of followers in mega churches and online. Talk about flooding the zone!!! And many on PINO’s “cabinet” (such as it is) believe in far-right religious ideology. Including Pete Hegseth. (Check out “sphere sovereignty”.)
But what do the mega-MAGA-churches do with their money. Osteen's church I Houston infamously locked their doors to hurricane Harvey victims so as not to soil the carpets.
They are a bunch of rich hypocrites that hoard the pennies given to them.
It's a well established concept even in Kant, and for many other respected writers. I think it's implied in the Declaration of Independence.
And yes, those who actually have faith in some version of "Love thy Neighbor" (care about, not just "like") need to speak up in unison. Many nasty things are happening.
Amen to that JL. And isn't that what the protests are really all about!
Our political and corporate leaders no longer need to be competent, sincere or honest and completely at odds with the facts. They have mastered the art of entertainment which feeds their bloated egos.
Good One!!
"Empathy is sin." Please! This originated from a hearing-impaired old wo/man who sat in church and thought they heard that. What the preacher really said was, "APATHY IS SIN." Apathy is equal to sloth, one of the seven deadly sins. Every time an intellectually challenged person uses that phrase, just correct them. It's (un)common sense. Thank you.
That's a good one! I wonder if Musk and Gad Saad know this.
"A great wealth of intellectual diversity, and consequent selective mating, based upon mutual attraction, would emerge from the dark storehouse of nature. The cruel and the gentle would sit at the same fireside, dreaming already in the Stone Age the different dreams they dream today.
Some of them, a mere handful in any generation perhaps, loved — they loved the animals about them, the song of the wind, the soft voices of women. On the flat surfaces of cave walls the three dimensions of the outside world took animal shape and form. Here — not with the ax, not with the bow — man* fumbled at the door of his true kingdom. Here, hidden in times of trouble behind silent brows, against the man with the flint, waited St. Francis of the birds — the lovers, the men who are still forced to walk warily among their kind."
Loren Eiseley, The Marginalian August 18, 2024
I think there is a narcissistic element to all people, but we can learn to civilize it. Perhaps some (such as Trump) can't. Wrapped in extreme privilege, it was never required of him.
I wouldn't be surprised if he was taught that this is simply the way you treat other people...
Apparently it’s between those who celebrate self interest, greed, Ayn Rand, and those who celebrate a community of humans…some of whom need help. At the moment, the greed-meister shitheads have their hands on the ship’s wheel. And the ship is headed toward the rocks. Their philosophy will doom them in the end. A gaping emptiness awaits them.
In the end, contrary to her core philosophy and lifelong objections to any government-run programs and due to poor health after surgery for lung cancer, Ayn Rand enrolled in and and claimed Social Security and Medicare with the aid of a social worker (Wikipedia).
Sometimes even the bullies need the help of other humans….and they won’t bat an eye accepting it. It’s all about self-interest for them.
Apparently Rand fought it until she was destitute and government help was her only chance to survive. Unlike others perhaps, she knew it would reveal her as a fraud in the end and show her life philosophy to be deeply flawed.
Too bad she wasn't a billionaire. Billionaires don't see the point of social security.
I hope so.
I have been considering similar questions. Is narcissism and selfishness the default of human nature? I am reminded of Golding's dark novel, Lord of the Flys.
I like your succinctness -- sometimes dualities help clarify. We all have narcissistic tendencies but for some, typically due to emotional neglect, it becomes malignant. Hypothesis is that it's rooted in fear which leads to self-preservation. As a clinician, I see that it's about disconnection: never apologize, won't & can't bond, no vulnerability (cf. Brene Brown), shame based.
Narcissism is also charasmatic and makes things happen. But it needs boundaries.
Keeping with the historical nature of this blog (Thank you professor Richardson for a wonderful narrative arc that gives meaning and insight into our behavior and situation), I've been wondering the last few years how President Eisenhower could check his ego, and how he served at under and above "narcissists", such as, generals MacArthur (under) and (above) Patton, and his Secretary of State Dulles.
I am also a clinician and my clients were felons.
And I found more humanity, desire to change and compassion for others in most of the felons I worked with, than I see in this Administration.
Such dichotomies are one reason I'm drawn to the work...why does one person with a similar profile get up and change and another double downs on dysfunction? Maybe boundaries brought to bear? Maybe grace? Prof D. McAdams (identity formation) in a brief book monograph noted that Trump has a low need to be likeable and has NO discernable core narrative or character--that is, Trump is episodic, win the deal today and lie, deny, dissemble to "win" the opposite tomorrow.
May I suggest to you a study of George C. Marshall, who was quite influential in FDR's choice to elevate Eisenhower to his position of Supreme Allied Commander Europe and thus his rise to the presidency? It may, perhaps be interesting.
Do you know the author?
I also forgot to add Nixon. Perhaps Eisenhower was differentiated enough to utilize people to achieve a bigger/higher goal and then bond with a core group of family--his children, pastor, mentor(s). Also interesting is that he didn't hang out with close war colleagues, such as, Gen. Mark Clark who he described as close.
George Marshall: Defender of the Republic by David L. Roll.
Although it has been a while, I was trained on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. From the information available and without an in-person interview, he would very likely score high. Early research indicated those high in psychopathy had very different fMRIs from "normals."
Susan, there was a reason Lord of the Flies was set in a world of child characters. Some children take longer to develop empathy. It is a quality or capacity that develops later in an individual’s growth. Lawrence Kohlberg posited 6 stages of moral development in which growth is marked, at least in part, by the capacity for empathy. tRump and many if not most of his devout followers appear to be stuck between stages 2 and 3.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development
I agree.
Perhaps as soon as civilization created human communities competition for land, and goods, led eventually to power, comfort and entitlement, selfishness. Perhaps it's all built into our DNA....
It's a component if human nature is it not? Perhaps a minimal component for some, the whole show for others. We of necessity attend to our own self interests, but, one hopes, self interest includes more than self-gratification. I have encountered the term "enlightened self-interest" which I take to mean a bigger picture than I,ME, MINE.
Totes, JL. This is exactly the problem: the people who get an actual sexual charge out of being cruel and horrible are in power. And are elevating the absolutely worst parts of human psyches. John Pavlovitz has posted recently on his substack about this issue in the white christo-nationalist community.
If the United States of America ever fully becomes the society envisioned by Saad, Musk, et al, I want no part of it. In the meantime, I will fight it with everything I have.
The Confederacy was defeated, but its racism and white supremacy never went away. How could this have been prevented? What could General Grant have done? Generosity didn’t calm their tempers. What then? Should he have ordered every Confederate leader executed? Would that have solved anything?
I have long believed that Lincoln failed to bring home the defeat of the Confederacy’s ideology by not exacting a great amount of punishment on the leaders of the Confederacy. We will never know if he had executed the Confederate generals would have had a better effect. As someone who was born and raised in the Deep South prior to the Civil Rights era, I cannot stress how many times I heard the phrase “the South Shall Rise Again!” So many white families raised their children to believe in the Confederate ideology. With the Jim Crow laws we saw legal discrimination. That reinforced the idea of white superiority. Churches did nothing to counter this, most reinforcing it. I escaped the ideology of both white nationalism and religion which freed me to embrace all of humanity as equally valuable and worthy of respect and inclusion. However, this has not happened to the majority of whites. I don’t know how we get out of this now that the Confederate ideology has risen to power.
Lincoln did not really have a chance to do that. He was assassinated on April 12, 3 days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. His selection of Andrew Johnson as his VP for all his good intentions on binding the Union back together was destroyed at Fords Theater.
It definitely reinforces the importance of picking VP running mate….”balancing the ticket” should not be the only qualification.
Wow :o I deeply respect you for having the clear mind and the audacity to see through the Confederate ideology whilst being brought up in the Deep South. It takes courage to break free of such a world view when it is all around you..
Rhonda-Thanks for acknowledging the ways Americans have been inculcated with white supremacy. At this point in our history, education based on the truth is a key to our progress. That’s why education is being attacked and eliminated.
We can though learn more ourselves and share what we learn with others. Imagine what our nation would be if we stopped separating and oppressing people based on something so superficial as skin color.
Rhonda, I'm back, riding my hobby horse named Evangelicalism.
The belief in white supremacy is hard to eradicate because it's so closely associated with evangelicalism. Evangelicals claim to believe that the Bible is "divinely inspired," which sounds fairly innocuous.
But the evangelical fantasy is that God selected certain special writers to listen and write down word-for-word what he dictated. Given this "divine dictation," evangelicals also believe that the Bible is "inerrant," meaning every word is true, historically accurate and there are no mistakes. So, for example, they believe that Adam and Eve were real people, and she actually gave in to the temptation of a talking snake (evangelical origins of misogyny).
Evangelicals also believe that Noah was a real man who actually built an ark and herded pairs of animals from around the world to save them from a global flood (Forget the logistics). Having survived the flood, and in possession of all those animals, Noah took up animal husbandry. One night, in a bout of drunken revelry, Noah stripped naked. Typical of biblical stories, details are sketchy, but Noah's son, Ham, happened into Noah's tent and saw his father in the buff. When Noah sobered up, he cursed Ham. The specifics of this curse are unknown, but Southern Baptists, seeking to justify slavery, began teaching that the curse of Ham was that he had dark-skinned children. This curse of dark skin was then interpolated to mean that white men are superior to everyone else. The Southern Baptist Convention continued to hold this belief until as recently as 2018!
For the overwhelming majority of humans, religious beliefs are the most unshakeable. With white supremacy so thoroughly integrated with conservative religion, under the best of circumstances, it could take generations for this belief to fade.
Correct. The lack of curiosity about the origins of those ancient tales is frustrating in itself. Like Voltaire said, when you can get people to believe absurdities, you can get them to commit atrocities. History is replete with such atrocities committed by the gullible faithful.
Cf. Dr. Kristen De Mez, John Wayne and Jesus, tells it well.
I also agree with her conclusion that this type of macho-evangelicalism inevitably leads to abuse of the flock and cover-up by the institution.
That’s interesting. The evangelicals I lived next to in Florida in 1980 told me the curse was on from Cain and Able and God turned his skin black and hair curly for killing his brother.
The other improbable thing is the Tower of Babel.
The "Mark of Cain" was another popular myth embraced by Southern religious folk, because you can't have too many justifications for christian racism. Again, the "mark" wasn't clearly specified in scripture, but since all religious text is open to interpretation, Southern christians seized on it to spread racism. To my knowledge, it wasn't the primary component for doctrine ... more like a backup story to reinforce the dogma.
Because we all know everyone was born blonde hair, white skin and blue eyes in the creation of the world by their God.
Your opening sentences bring to mind the debate among historians of whether Lincoln felt forced to free the slaves by politics or believed that they deserved to be treated as created equal. His comments seem to go both ways, he was challenged by abolitionists for not doing enough but counted himself as one when in Illinois. In the dedication of a Lincoln memorial in Chicago, Frederick Douglas points to Lincoln being forced into freeing the slaves to win the war and some contemporary historians push that it was expediency alone. In contrast, Allen C. Guelzo argues in "Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment" that Lincoln was more idealistic about the clause "all men are created equal"--Lincoln: "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." And yet elsewhere he more measured and avoidant.
Would Lincoln too have had a failure of nerve to see the freedmen resettled at the expense of southern whites?
definitely something to ponder.
They could have enforced the law that no former confederate could hold public office or stand for election to office. Ran into same problem in Germany after WWII … denazification foundered on the alleged “reality” that only former Nazis had the skills to rebuild the German government. Bullshit.
We actually had prepared many high level German POWs to reboot Germany as a democracy IIRC. I wish we did the same to the Confederacy as we did to Germany and Japan, turning enemies into friends and allies as we alleviated the huge problems faced by all of Europe (whether fried or foe).
NATO and the Marshall Plan worked miracles for us. Though most know enough about the Marshall Plan, I'd offer the following link to describe the problems faced and how NATO started (during the Berlin Airlift while our Air Force family was stationed in the Munich area.
See https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_139301.htm
"...World War Two left behind a terrible legacy which even today it takes a great deal of imagination as well as historical knowledge to fully comprehend.
Let me just give you some statistics. In World War Two 36.5 million Europeans were killed. That is the equivalent of the total population of France in 1939. Nineteen million of those were civilians. It doesn’t also of course incorporate all of those who died from natural causes or all of the babies that were not born. The death toll created an enormous imbalance between men and women. In the Soviet Union in 1945, there were 20 million more women than men.
In 1946, in the German suburb of Triptal, there were only left 181 adult men between the ages of 19 and 21, but there were 1105 women. A whole generation of Germans including for example Gerhardt Schroeder, the former German Chancellor, were brought up by their moms. There were no dads around. They were either incarcerated in the Soviet Union or had died in the war. There were many orphans. In Berlin in 1945 there were 53,000 lost children wandering the streets, 49,000 orphans in Czechoslovakia, 80,000 in the Netherlands and as many as 200,000 in Poland. Those who did survive were underfed. The calorie intake in Vienna was only about 800 calories a day in 1945. The infant mortality in Austria four times the 1938 rate. In the British zone of Berlin, in December 1945, the death rate of children equalled one in four. The calorie intake in Germany was about 2,500 calories in 1941. It had gone down to around 1000 calories in 1946 and as everybody knows rationing was a very big feature of the post-war years.
The other issue is displaced people. I mean we’ve heard a lot about ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, ethnic cleansing after World War Two was infinitely worse. Stalin and Hitler between them managed to uproot 80 million people in Europe between 1939 and 1945. Thirteen million Germans were expelled from Central and Eastern Europe after the war. In 1947, the United Nations’ recently created Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was caring for 6,795,000 displaced Europeans in 762 camps. Yes, we had refugee camps in Europe in 1945. And the US alone – and this is before the Marshall Plan, before NATO – was spending $10 billion dollars a year on that, on caring for those refugees.
Another issue, the damage to infrastructure. Twenty-five million homeless people in the Soviet Union, 20 million homeless people in Germany, Hamburg alone had half a million homeless people in 1945. If you look at the level of destruction, again even today these figures still strike me as incredible. 70,000 villages, 1700 towns, 32,000 factors, 40,000 miles of railway track destroyed in the Soviet Union alone. France, which suffered of course far less physical damage than the Soviet Union, still lost half a million homes. I could carry on talking about the wastage of agricultural land or even a country like Norway, again which suffered little war damage, still lost 14 % of its industrial capital. These awesome statistics of course could be repeated almost ad infinitum when you talk about World War Two..."
Germany was defeated too and look at the resurgent AfD aka Nazi party supported openly by JD Vance and Musk.
Vance, like Musk and Trump, is totally racist. All three of them need the “boost” of white supremacy (in Trump’s case taught by his KKK father) to excuse their “rise.”
Yes, I know... :( Just like in the US, here in Germany the Nazi ideology was never gone. Especially in East Germany, many people have anti-West, anti-democracy and pro-Putin sentiments...
Dutch Mike,
If I could through prayer or by some great effort of sacrifice or suffering "exist as a really good person according the most perfect rule of humanity or spiritual representation of goodness" I would want to....not to be looked upon as "perfect" but just because I want to love humanity because we are in desperate need of love and acceptance...we need to be encouraged...humanity needs help with so many problems of sickness, with the misunderstandings regarding the idea of power and what it really means and the responsibilities that are attached with the idea of power. Our attempts to dominate the natural world have been a disaster. We are even polluting the heavens with objects we have sent out but cannot return to earth.
The power represented by those Confederates (my family is from NC so I am sure I had relatives who wanted to keep people of color in the fields or in other "servant roles") was short lived yet the ideas of race...and "levels" of humanity remain a horrible reality.
If you look at those on Trump's "team", you will see many men and women who have been put aside by life. This is like Trump himself...note his business failures...his marriages. He has formed a 'team" much like himself.
His major problem is Himself and his refusal to take account of his personal character. He fills his life with people who are the same. They are attempting to "rule" by putting themselves at the center of everything. They have each found a place to receive the attention they have each longed for. This longing fulfilled only bonds them to one another with an even greater strength. However...it does nothing to improve their character.
Dutch, it does not matter how cruel we are to one another....the revenge some may seek,...these actions do not provide healing or life or health or a future for our children and grandchildren. Meanness is not power. Love which seems so soft is POWER. Love builds up...love feeds the hungry....love forgives...love does not give up in times of disasters and seeming hopelessness. Love can face evil...it must....we must.
It is in giving that we receive....giving without seeking reward....giving out of love...an inner strength that is much more powerful than it is given credit. There are a few of our leaders who have this gift...this power. We are seeing a few rise up.
emily, you rite a better explaination of something I posted here the other day. I struggle to be a "good Christian", It is really, really hard for me to not feel glee that people who voted for Trump are suffering. This, I feel, reduces me to MAGA territory.
Afterover 60 years of weekly mass attendance, I stopped because of COVID. I tried to return but there was a nasty undercurrent I didn't like. Somehow, I came across this :
https://cac.org/
I subscribed to get daily meditations. The theme is often about the power of love. I will be truthful: while some days, the meditation resonates with me, there are days that I struggle with it. It's hard for me to feel love when it seems we are surrounded by a steamroller of hate.
Miselle,
Thank you for this site. My daughter is a Lutheran pastor.
I am familiar with the author of one of your meditations.
I used the below quote from Richard Rohr as an epigraph in my manuscript that I am (so far, unsuccessfully) querying.
“It doesn’t matter how old we are: we all need stories to believe in. If there’s no storyline, no integrating images that define who we are or give our lives meaning or direction, we just won’t be happy. I can’t imagine I’m alone in longing for us collectively to embrace a better story, one with the power to change our hearts and minds and enliven our imaginations.”
—Richard Rohr
“Stories are Essential”
Daily Meditations, January 20, 2021
I totally agree with you, Emily. Especially with your statement "Humanity needs help with so many problems of sickness". And I would say the greatest sickness is separation, or the disconnect that we have. The separation from Nature, and the disconnect with each other. For hundreds of years, we have been fed the idea that Nature is just a bunch of resources to be used, and emotions and things like love are "secondary qualities", weak things, not measurable and therefore less real than everything that can be quantified. We are completely stuck in a reductionist, material world: the spiritual has been cast aside. And THIS divide is making humanity sick. And as long as we stay stuck in the material, and disregard our innate need for love, connection, and faith, we will become even more sick.
In my opinion, Trump, Musk and all the other narcissists are screaming for attention; there's a giant hole in their hearts. Many people are experiencing a lack of love in their lives. The real tragedy is that this shortage need not be: we humans are capable of giving infinite love.
I agree. That’s why Trump constantly tells us how much he is loved. He has no concept what real love is.
Precisely. People who are loved have no need to tell everybody all the time. Just as people who are _really_ smart don't need to say of themselves that they are smart... ;)
Emily-We’ll said-as MLK reminds us it takes strength to love.
Still with us today, indeed.
https://davea.substack.com/p/the-fall-and-rise-of-a-confederate?r=nnpdg
https://davea.substack.com/p/the-fall-and-rise-of-a-confederate-67f?r=nnpdg
Dave-Thanks for sharing these links. I find that reading about the thoughts, beliefs and actions of confederates brings clarity to where America stands today.
Thanks. Here is the third, and final, part of the story. https://davea.substack.com/p/the-fall-and-rise-of-a-confederate-054?r=nnpdg
Thank you. Here is the third, and final, part. https://davea.substack.com/p/the-fall-and-rise-of-a-confederate-054?r=nnpdg
Dutch Mike, I think that some of the answers to your question can be explained by the book "American Nations" by Colin Woodard.
Someone in the LFAA "bookclub' suggested this to me a few years back. FASCINATING! I just re-recommended on here a few days ago. Here's a link to check it out:
https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029
April 9, 2025 at 9:30 AM "Everything is Cool"; 225 minutes later, Tariffs ere reduced to a "baseline" 10 against more than 180 countries & yet another new Tariff for China-Xi of 125%. Markets soar 😵💫
Thursday morning: Dow Futures 🔻444 which is not a good indicator of the Thursday Open 5 minutes from now. Watch those sudden pressure drops & keep your Buckles on tight.
Be Safe All
Trump became a Panican. He blinked.
Well said! This country has had better moments, but I still believe in it. Trump isn't really the problem, the MAGA movement is. Trump tells awful lies and commits crimes. Very likely he is using tariffs to single handedly manipulate the stock market to enrich his family's and political cronnies. Still, MAGA is in love, NOT with Trump necessarily, but with Trump's idea of domination. Trump will fall soon enough because of his age if nothing else, but MAGA will live on and have to be faught continually. That's our lot, democracy requires a defense, but it's a burden I'm quite willing to bare.
The most egregious lie is the pretense that we are all created equal before the law with inalienable rights, etc. The assault on education, personal rights, voting, etc. began, as Heather noted, over a century ago. We have been trapped for a long time in mythical beliefs that we are the greatest nation blessed by god, endowed by superior qualities and moral character - NOT.....
For me, Heather's time line from before the Civil War until today, makes it clear that our fight for a Democratic Republic continues. The underlying struggle between those who believe in equality for all, and the few who lust for power and wealth for themselves, is at the center of the struggle. It brings today's chaos into focus as the foundations of Democracy collide with today's rich and powerful.
This quote RIGHT HERE:
''In the 1930s, Nazi leaders, lawyers, and judges turned to America’s Jim Crow laws and Indian reservations for inspiration on how to create legal hierarchies that would, at the very least, wall certain populations off from white society.''
(and let's not forget just how much of Margaret Sanger's eugenics played into Hitler's final solution as well) https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/07/28/margaret-sangers-extreme-brand-eugenics
Money surely is the root of all evil.
The LOVE OF MONEY.
The billionaires are all up in Trump's face because of the stock market. Okay. So if hypothetically they have $5B and the market drops 20%--they still have $4B.
Isn't that ENOUGH?
The love of money.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-att_001&hspart=att&p=song+money+money+money+o%27jays&type=E210US105G0#id=51&vid=c5f8b7a14a6a786bf2651312f5d3284b&action=click
great tune.
The M.A.G.A.s and unreconstructed racists have started this fight, and we intend to finish it, preferably, through peaceful means toward a conciliatory, democratic end.
G-D bless General / President Grant: “If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.”
What we have ended up with from the white man superiority is women and people of color who are the hard working Americans supporting the wealthy rich welfare queens. These men, like Musk and Trump, are living off the dole of the workers. Bessent and Lutnick are so tone deaf while they rake in millions. Any one of them that work in government should not be allowed to receive a penny in contracts and fees.
Queens is an apt term for the Trumpanzee, his MUSKrat lover, Putin et al. Something homo-erotic going on here.
History does not end just because it is now. We have never had full enfranchisement of non-Whites. Jefferson Cowie documents in his book Freedom's Dominion that without the federal government interfering directly in elections to oversee that people can register to vote and that they get to vote, people are denied the vote, by White men, who feel that they alone are the chosen people who get to have dominion over everyone else. Does that sound like Christian Nationalism. Well, that is the group that wrote Project 2025 and is taking over our country.
Right now being governed by a madman is like living in an abusive marriage, or with an abusive alcoholic parent. Best to leave if you can, until they are gone.
Those who participate with Professor HCR in observation, analysis and chronicling of current events in historical context, are producing not just documentation: What has evolved is analogous to jazz musicians metaphorically gathering as a flock of sparrows do early in the morning, unseen in hedges but clearly heard chirping out their impressions of, & responses to the living world. We jam together every day, responding to the world like sparrows must do, educating each other for the common good. Contrast that with monks ritually harmonizing through prescribed Gregorian chants inside a sacred space. The gospel according to Fox "News", Newsmax, OAN, etc. - the corrupt leading the easily manipulated, in service of a fascist mafia state death cult, now openly praising the philosophy and power of hegemonic church rulers in medieval times.
Heather’s inclusion of Walt Whitman in this post is brilliant and much appreciated. Defense of democracy is now by necessity, intrinsically linked with environmental and social justice because we’re at concurrent tipping points for both environmental and socioeconomic resilience & sustainability. The philosophy and writings of the transcendentalists are pertinent and instructive when considering effective countermeasures to surging fascist mafia state oligopoly and long-term solutions for resilience and sustainability. Aside from reaching out to persuadable former 47 voters to encourage them to start voter recall campaigns against 47 complicit congress-people, I suggest we need to be starting up all kinds of grassroots projects that bring diverse people together, working hard and having fun on mutually beneficial projects.
For details, I posted an essay on Transcendentalism & Planetarity convergence in response to death cult fascism in Substack on Feb.15, 2025.
I think it does repeat itself because the nature of mankind has not changed.
Yes there are ‘toxic recessive’ genes in our culture that emerge: puritanical views of sex and gender, the very American invention of Eugenics that pollutes policy and politics, the many people like Lindbergh who was a prototype American fascist, and these all live today, alive and well, in Stephen Miller!, and all his buds/ the Pay Pals, JD, etc…
Until with rise up, “Awake, Awake,” and notice these toxic excessive….anti-science, anti-education, anti-reality….school choice has the smell, JFK is a stink-bomb, gender issues and definitions too.
Real Strength through flexibility, dynamism, membership through diversity, resiliency and flexibility as strength!
Changing your mind keeps it cleaner.
Thank you for all you continue to do
This is one of my favorite pieces that you have written. The images are just so powerful tonight. And I will see Trump as this century’s Jim Crow. We never should have let him rise again.
And EVERY SINGLE Republican politician is a TRUMP REPUBLICAN that is in office today.
They have willfully and blindly allowed Trump to execute Project 2025 along with the Fasicist Republicans on the Supreme Court.
And McConnell could have cut this all off. The perfectly reasonable 2nd Impeachment was all set to go. And there are only a few on the fringes who think that it wasn't an attempted coup 1/6 2021
McConnell is guilty!! He’s as bad as it gets
The republican party is dead now. It was replaced by the maga party.
They're Nazis
Yes. Grant’s instincts (The men could keep their sidearms and their horses because Grant wanted them “to be able to put in a crop to carry themselves and their families through the next winter.”) were noble but, unfortunately, bad management. It was fine to let the grunts take home what they needed to make a living, but Grant should never have allowed CSA politicians and soldiers at the rank of lieutenant or above off the hook. He should haved hanged every last one of them. Not sure it would have made a difference in the long run but might have delayed their comeback for several decades.
Or as this century’s Hitler.
His goal from the git go.
Certainly wannabee.
Hard to select a favorite. I also put this in my favorites category. HCR’s ability to distill hundreds of years of history into comprehensible inflection points within a few, easily understood paragraphs is brilliant!
Some tried to stop him.
And still are on it, though I worry about a great deal of complacence.
Yes, HCR, a powerful article and so thought provoking! Thanks so much for your good works! How Trump was elected twice is stunning in so many ways. Your article, certainly, helps to explain the "critical" reasons.
Can you say Mitch McConnell?
We can only think of one person when Heather gets to the crux of things as she does here.
The fat orange felon.
What Heather says immediately linking to him -- to it, that mass of blubber -- is her note on the enslavers' myth that "some people were better than others and had the right—and the duty—to rule."
That's our convicted criminal, Putin's great asset, today not aware of any history, but only of his fantasy that world leaders from all over have been "kissing" his "ass."
All they want to do is negotiate "with me," he crows: get him to deign to see them, talk with their representatives, allow his shining majesty to glow a bit on them.
Heather concludes hers today with sober words from Grant, who beat Lee, on how pitifully sad that entire conflict was, how pitiful its premises were for those of the enslaving class.
And as Heather notes this, we also have today J.D. Vance in another burst of his ignorance, his bad manners, and his sheer oafishness as he insults the Chinese, calling them all mere "peasants."
I cite Vance and his clown boss because, while both shine in their brazen bad behavior toward the world, we can remember, too, that no U.S. school has any essay writing exchange program with any Chinese school -- and the Chinese take learning English in school most seriously.
Trump and Vance exhibit this bad faith which U.S. schools practice on all its tens of millions of students, growing all those near illiterates in the U.S. who form MAGA, who still root for the reckless, ignorant Trump and Vance.
They could take a page instead from Grant, who had proximity to more sober reality than the sheer fantasyland lurid which U.S. "leaders" pathetically lead in now.
One semester, the best student in my intermediate-level ESL class was a young Russian, studying in China for her Ph.D., but first spending some time here so that she could improve her language skills sufficiently to be able to write her dissertation in acceptably accurate academic English. I wonder where she is now and what she's doing.
Trump is working to take down the colleges and universities by defunding as much research as possible.
When schools like Columbia bow to Trump it hurts all academia.
This is a major strategy of Project 2025. Is research really liberal?
Make America Great Again! Masses who cannot learn to read and write
They will learn to read and write. But will they learn to comprehend?
I am astounded that zoos can be considered "woke".
Only if you can read and write.
There are sparks of humanity in unexpected places.
Good question, Betsy.
Social media doesn't exactly elicit the best from people, but schools could.
Schools could give us the legacy of taking others seriously as individuals in disparate cultures. They could train classrooms of students in English (late high school, early college) to quote others in the room. Based first on intro essays, which all read, and which (after discussion) grow into revisions citing others for apt themes they've shown.
It snowballs. Eventually finished product goes to a school far away, in essay exchange. So replies to these can also cite cultural complications.
If schools lead the way, Betsy, people can be in better touch with each other, more solidly, with respect and many other contacts that won't just disappear.
Schools yes, and the right wing is trying to capture them too. All of us need to affirm and protect human rights for one another. It's our ultimate survival strategy.
Stop, hey what's that sound, everybody look whats going down.
For what it's worth, J L, one of our greatest songs, born, though in another context.
Probably trying to improve her acceptable accurate academic Chinese. :(
For someone who attended an Ivy League school, JD Vance is a remarkably ignorant person. His real religion is Yarvin’s evil and dystopian ideas.
Well, Trump has convinced many that he is a very "stable genius" and that he only attended the best schools. JD Vance may be following suit? Because, it is so hard to believe the Ivy League and Vance connection. Just a hard to believe story?
No surprises here, Brenda.
The Ivy League schooled sons of the rich (sons only) for 200 years.
Being rich, and practicing the U.S. version of European primogeniture, it's no surprise that many of the most vociferous of U.S. Nazi supporters in the 1930s -- and investors in enterprises of the Waffen SS -- were Ivy League grads in the main U.S. banks, telecom, automotive, gas, and rubber industries.
Can we take any refuge in the counter glow of the great American land grant universities arisen from the Justin Morrill land grant legislation which Lincoln singed n 1862?
Maybe we can, from the year 1862 to the year 1971, when Lewis Powell, a Harvard Law grad -- and biggest lawyer for Big Tobacco at its most corrupt -- in 1971 wrote the memo that set in motion the school-and-democracy-killing machinery the world could ever anticipate.
To be fair, JD Vance isn’t a son of the rich, although his children are. Despite his hillbilly book, he’s a son of the suburban middle class, pulling up the ladder behind him.
His book was an insult to all of us 'hillbilly's'!
His book is a complete lie. He passed that lie off so well he entered politics to he could lie about immigrants, women and POC.
The scumbag president is a very "stable genius" at producing "stupid instability".
One's having occupied a classroom or lecture hall does not mean that one has been educated. Moreover, when a "student" benefits from the sponsorship of great wealth and/or power, the student's scholastic achievements can be falsified. As has been revealed in various scandals, Ivy League schools are not immune to corruption.
Kathy is terrifying to think he is first in line to succeed the scumbag president if the need arises. And if not, he'll be the leading candidate for the maga party in the next presidential election. :(
I wonder. One thing Trump has is charisma. I don’t get it, but lots of folks are mesmerized by him. JD Vance has as much charisma as a wet dish towel and I can’t imagine him inspiring the MAGA folks to support him. I don’t know who else on the right possesses that same ability that Trump has. Hopefully nobody.
Ignrisncism
It seems any gains we have made with legislation on accepting a diverse country with equal opportunity, rights, and privileges are very fragile. Will we ever realize a mostly democratic, open society? Lincoln thought Johnson would give balance to his politics. Instead, we lost the momentum of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.
Now, we are losing the momentum of Civil Rights legislation and a “Great Society.”
We need to regain our democratic ideals or else we won’t have a country any more.
Phil, This is what I have been sitting with after reading this sweeping post. I found Grant’s reflection at the end so moving. And the dissonance if the propaganda and policy flowing from and around the White House that is all focused on markets, opportunities for financial gain, and the power to make the rules that apply to who has money/wealth and who does not, with the thumb on the scale for those who already have enough power through wealth to influence the Administration and Congress. Where are the values, the right and wrongs, the principles of common good? The Musk-Trump regime could not care less about the actual wellbeing of their own voters or the theory of national and international security based on freedom from fear and want or, in truth, the freedoms of speech and worship. It is not clear to me whether their anti trans vitriol and race bating is anything more than part of this profit and power equation. I know this is a simplification and HCR is so attuned and informative when it comes to the American roots of subjugation including slavery and the genocidal policies towards indigenous peoples. Like invasive plant species with rhizomes under the ground, these racist and sexist attitudes are pernicious and so easy to cultivate and exploit when it serves the interests of those seeking power and resources. And so here we are without a moral compass and with little agreement on where lies true north.
Watching the President of The United States of America boast that leaders across the world are “kissing his ass”. This convicted felon, liar, rapist was elected as President of The United States of America. A COMPLETE DISASTER.
Indeed.
Washington's grave might boil over.
Washington & his fellow patriots tried so hard to make us a good nation. Guess we all didn't plan on how nasty people would be about $, race, sex.
No they are not!
No one ever has all the answers, which is part of what makes mindful, good faith democracy make sense. If we focus, perhaps enough of us would agree that the notion that there is no such thing as white supremacy, nor any other sort of innate supremacy of persons, nor right to rule save for universal restrictions on materially harmful behaviors or needed responsible behaviors that we identify in democratic discussion. That beyond that, liberty is our birthright, no more or less than anyone else. That's unmistakable in the D O I, but echos as well in many works of recognized wisdom, including that attributed to Jesus.
JL-Yes-if we focus on white supremacy we could tear down the divisions that keep us from experiencing a true democracy.
This is an excellent focus. We could ask people to really think about it:
Do you believe in female supremacy?
Do you believe in 40 year old supremacy?
Do you believe in military veteran supremacy?
Do you believe in richest 1% supremacy?
Do you believe in healthy people supremacy?
Hopefully you answered no to all.
Then white supremacy, and white male supremacy, are also unbelievable.
"Where are the values, the right and wrongs, the principles of common good?"
Great Q, KSC. Answer, simple: all you cite went out with the testing that replaced them.
Well said, KSC: "Like invasive plant species with rhizomes under the ground, these racist and sexist attitudes are pernicious and so easy to cultivate..."
"Advertising signs that con
You into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime, life outside goes on
All around you"
Here's Bernie in good form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfRjA0yIjwQ
Thanks for the link. Not a second wasted listening to this great American and to the young people asking fundamental questions.:)
Anne Louise--WOW WOW WOW!!
THANK YOU for that link!
Never more clear…
Today... April 9 2025....the biggest scam of Insider Trading was pulled off by trump and his buddies. Every one of those con men that said "It will all turn out fine" knew exactly what was happening and, I'm absolutely sure, were in on it. The oligarchs made more money off the back of the majority of Americans in 7 days than we will all make in our lifetime.
Not one of us will recover what we collectively lost. trump knew exactly what he was doing and so did his GOP pals. These despicable people must be held accountable or this injustice will just continue to happen over and over again.
Adam Schiff is calling for an investigation into the insider trading and who was involved. This is just the beginning of pulling back the veil of dishonesty in the GOP and this administration.
He was a con man from the start. Age hasn't withered him, dyed and painted though he is.
Like I said yesterday, deja vu all over again? https://alternativefundinsight.com/how-next-us-treasury-secretary-once-broke-the-bank-of-england/
1. Zero sum game. If someone lost $3 trillion, somebody else won it. IMHO Trump has surrounded himself with people who know how to short the market.
2. A few right wing Republicans are opposing him. Grassley has a bill that would remove his power to adjust tarriffs. A right-wing group with financial ties to Leonard Leo and the Koch network, the New Civil Liberties Alliance sued, claiming that Trump’s decision to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not give him the power to “usurp” Congress’s right to control tariffs or “upset the Constitution’s separation of powers.” https://newrepublic.com/post/193612/donald-trump-lawsuit-tariffs-far-right-group
3. He now is at odds with Musk, who is recommending a tariff free zone, the US and EU.
4. We can take advantage. Read Feathers of Hope. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
Only takes 3 Republican House members to kick it off
The oligarchs will have more monies, now, April 9. 2025 to support the campaigns that they want to win.
NBC felt it was necessary to put up an article claiming there was no insider trading as they explained exactly how he sent out his post that it was time to buy then paused the tariffs.
Thank you Professor Richardson.
From your LFAA:
"Lee’s surrender did not end the war—there were still two major armies in the field—but everyone knew the surrender signaled that the American Civil War was coming to a close."
Unfortunately, as you know we are still fighting the Civil War and a major new front was opened in 1981 (as you document). The plans, outlined by Lewis Powell, called for organized wealth to subvert public and higher education, media, the courts, and the creation of so-called "Think" tanks which are nothing more than well-funded public relations entities representing the interests of organized wealth and industries like Big Oil, Coal, the Gun lobby, and more.
The war continues and we are paying dearly for the generosity extended to the South, to Nixon when he was pardoned, to Reagan and his cohorts for Iran/Contra, and for allowing Trump to act with impunity for his pattern of corruption and major crimes against the United States.
I have thought ever since it happened that pardoning Nixon was a grave mistake. So, of course, all the failure of accountability since. I think that in a certain sense Trump’s pardon of the Jan. 6 rioters was limned in Ford’s pardon of Nixon.
And McConnell's decision to tank the perfectly justified 2nd Impeachment following 1/6/21. We could all have been saved this turmoil and bona fide threat to our hard fought democracy.
I'm not sure whether his manipulation of SCOTUS or the failure to impeach the felon when we had the chance is is worst legacy. Both are huge.
Very true. In our attempt to delineate our system from authoritarians, tyrants, and fascists who jail opponents (when they are not being poisoned or “falling” from high places), we have forgotten that some actions are not those stemming from a different opinion about the range of thinking from liberal to moderate, to conservative. Some actions are a blatant attempt to undermine and destroy the system.
Nixon’s betrayal of the system, Kissinger’s role in Chile, Reagan’s responsibility for Iran/Contra, and of course Trump and all in the GOP who have shifted from political party to a criminal enterprise through aiding, abetting, and acting as accessories after the fact should have died in prison or be rotting there now.
I have come to think that Ford’s pardon of Nixon was a huge mistake that has the probability of destroying our polity. The only thing the Republicans learned was not to get caught.
Kathy, as shown many times, the scumbag president do not care about getting caught. It's a kind of game for him where, at least so far, he was always the winner. Not a single day in jail and an honorary title of felon and a lot of people through small donations paying for his defense
, not him.
Thanks Kathy -these days I don't think they even care about being caught.
I saw that a dangerous precedent was being set at the time of Nixon's pardon, though I failed to grasp just how corrupted the practice would become. Much has been corrupted in the years since, yet somehow sexier "issues" always have seem to bump aside concerted efforts to enforce a line against increasingly corrupt political abuses of power. And here we are. I don't think it's all on account of Nixon's pardon (follow the money) but that the pardon created a major breach in the wall of political integrity that ultimately stopped Joe McCarthy and Nixon.
Quite on target you are with the Powell memo, George.
Except its issuance date, which was August 23, 1971.
I think George is referring to the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership, published January 1981, the precursor of Project 2025.
Anyway, Gail -- they sure have been organized, and for a long time.
True, but accusing another of lack of knowledge when you’ve misunderstood a post is concerning.
Adolf Hitler was indebted to the racial-ethnic ladder that was presented in the extremely popular and widely read unashamed racist 1916 book by New York lawyer Madison Grant, entitled "The Passing of the Great Race." It placed "Nordics" at the top, with Jews, Italians, Irish, Russians and so forth, down to the non-Whites at the bottom. While in prison writing "Mein Kampf", where he said that "The highest aim of human existence is...the conservation of race", Hitler was relying upon Madison Grant's book, which he later referred to as "my Bible." [See "Stamped From the Beginning", by Ibram X. Kendi, Pages 310-311.] These racist beliefs have a long history and cultural durability, and no amount of Black accomplishment (known as "uplift suasion") or appropriation and mimicry of White clothing and manner of speaking, and other behaviors (i.e., assimilation) will change them. It takes an uncompromising, constant stance of antiracism to dismantle the centuries of institutional racism and the legacies and demographic disparities it has created.
A constant stance of anti racism, a vigil for our survival.
Gary-So true. As long as we allow white supremacy to prevail we’ll never experience America’s democratic ideals including liberty and justice for all.
"So confident was General Grant in the justice of his people’s cause that he asked only that Lee and his men give their word that they would never again fight against the United States and that they turn over their military arms and artillery."
Give their word.
Give their word.
Hard to imagine today, but (with tragic consequences) someone's word meant something then--maybe.
Certainly "give their word" to Indian Country was also worthless in US history.
There is NO ONE, even on the periphery of power, no matter what their politics, whose word I would trust right now.
So true. Trust has been trampled in the mud. Joe tried to restore trust but was as soundly defeated as Lee was. We must rise again. The cult must be defeated, over and over.
Yeah, but You can't raise a Kane back up
When he's in defeat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jREUrbGGrgM
Wow, human expressive capacity unleashed! I'm glad I watched it. A comment said it well, "Levon Helm's magnum opus. His vocal performance is astonishing. He is utterly committed. This is how you completely inhabit a song."
If only the Jan. 6th mob's force had been channeled into art.
Daniel, thanks for this link. I had only known Joan Baez's version before this. Frankly, I love having the brass section, including a tuba in the background with this version.
Composer Robbie Robertson, was a Canadian and also wrote some Native American oriented music. The Band was Bob Dylan's backup for several years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_Robertson#:~:text=He%20wrote%20%22The%20Weight%22%2C,River%22%2C%20and%20many%20others.
Kate S, great point regarding the following "give their word" to Indian Country was also worthless in US history.
Trust is earned.
And trust is essential for a free society. Like our own bodies, we can manage and intervene with some of the things that would irresponsibly or maliciously harm us, but if too much of a human body or society goes septic, we are cooked.
Our bodies are incredible healers, but we sure manage to test the limits in myriad ways. Rupert and clones deliberately tried to destroy our society and as the lying bastards metastasized, sepsis is at a tipping point. Or maybe we are like the lobster in heating water. Trapped..
Kate, so true!
Trump's "word" is as valuable as the TRUMP DOLLARS he pushed a few years ago.
One of your very best, Heather, among so many superb essays. You've captured not only the essence of the full sweep of American history as it relates to the endless battle to enshrine the values that guide our nation, but, as you so often do, made it 100% relevant to the moment we find ourselves in. Your body of work is masterful, and will have a notable influence on the outcome of this titanic struggle to actualize the ideals stated in the preamble to our Declaration of Independence.
As always, another brilliant essay tying our history to our present. When will we ever learn…. I memorized the Gettysburg Address in the 5th grade and as a 10 year old it had a profound effect on me. That was the same year President Kennedy was assassinated. It hurts my heart and soul to think of Lincoln and Kennedy and where we are now.
This tapestry weaving of past and present is Professor Richardson's true gift. Well, that, and her stamina...
A cause for which there was least excuse. Still true and still a battle for the soul of humanity. It’s hard to think of humanity without a soul. Is there such a thing? Google thinks it means human nature and kindness. Human nature has a dark side, as history documented over and over. A battle between kindness/empathy and self-interest/fear/hate. The Declaration of Independence touts the former, but the Confederates were clear that they opposed “all men are created equal.” The most disputed words ever uttered, seems to me. Reagan wasted no time in resurrecting the latter.
Lincoln’s words still ring true for most of us but are denigrated by the losers who have now achieved what the sacrifices of the war could not.
Learned a new word today from TCinLA substack.
Iatrogenic - when the people whose job it is to make things better are the active agents of making things worse. Describes chump perfectly, but RFKJ is the winner of that prize.
It is still shocking to me that Nazis used our Jim Crow laws as templates for their evil.
Our history is littered with potholes. So glad some recognize and teach that truth.
If you haven't seen A Night at the Garden, here's the link: https://anightatthegarden.com/.
And if you haven't read It Can't Happen Here, I'm sure that there are still copies at your local library.
Thank you for the link to that very short film of Hitler’s supporters at Madison Square Garden. It supports what i just posted after you.
So shocking when I first learned of that. Posted that lots five years ago before I got banned.
It Can’t happen here is a chilling tale, and was written when the newspaper was the main source of news. Buzz Windrip is a nascent T💩p.
This PSA, Don’t Be A Sucker, illustrates the peril of Nazism, and shows just how T💩p and other racists are still hard at work: https://youtu.be/vGAqYNFQdZ4
Some of the characters in “It Can’t Happen Here” were modeled on real people. The character Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch was modeled on the forgotten antisemitic red baiter Elizabeth Dilling. Dilling also spearheaded a group that was opposed to our becoming involved in World War II called “Mothers Against War.” After the attack on Pearl Harbor, they disbanded.
That film was eerie. Must have been made in the forties - and sounds just like MAGA today.
1945
from Wikipedia:
A Night at the Garden is a 2017 short documentary film about the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City.[1] The film was directed by Marshall Curry from footage found by archival producer Rich Remsberg, and was produced by Laura Poitras and Charlotte Cook with Field of Vision.[2] The seven-minute film is composed entirely of archival footage and features a speech from Fritz Julius Kuhn, the leader of the German American Bund, in which anti-Semitic and pro white-Christian sentiments are espoused.
see my reply to Derek Smith, below--the film was put together in 2017 from archival footage from 1939.
It was banned in Texas so it must be good.
https://stacker.com/stories/art-culture/25-blacklisted-books-seemingly-predicted-future
Ali Velshi has a weekly segment on his Saturday morning MSNBC show that highlights a banned book. He often has the author on as well.
Viewing that video several years ago was life-changing for me, as it prompted me to calculate the ages of my parents and family in NYC and the boroughs at that time. What was unsaid but what they knew, felt, and transmitted to me made sense. Ouch!
Bravo. All of your essays are informative and enlightening. But this is the best one yet, on top of so many superlatives. Just today I read an essay by another historian about the reason why the US doesn't have national Healthcare, and that is mainly because our racist parts of government don't want to allow non whites to benefit from health care. I've suspected this for years so it really rings true. And the fact that Jan 6 traitors got away and pardoned was the downfall of the normalcy we thought we had.
It’s definitely true, and we are sicker and die earlier than Europeans because of it.
Getting a little bit “queasy” or “yippee” … are you kidding…a significant number of us were “heaving” and “throwing up” — okay, vomiting — as soon as we came to the realization that our country’s largest voting block — those legally registered, but find an excuse not to vote — had or played a significant role in putting trump back into our White House!
Please take a read and share if you - as i do - think this is the heart of Project 2025 and the endgame for Hitler’s birthday April 20. If we allow violence on 4/19 in protests infiltrated by Trump’s militia, he may take the opportunity to declare martial law on 4/20.
https://andrewtobias.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac6596c37311f68abdaf76ab7&id=51495154b9&e=d3d20d930e
No doubt about it. Have anthems and sing.
Thanks, Freda.