We need to use every means available to resist and call out Trump's illegal and unconstitutional efforts to become a dictator, to fight Republican efforts to steal the midterms, and to ensure the midterms occur.
Support the NDRC (National Democratic Redistricting Committee). Founded by Barack Obama and Eric Holder this organization has been doing good work for years fighting gerrymandering and voter suppression. These are on the ground efforts.
Is Obama really ready to fight … publicly, every day? Or is he going to continue to hang back and be the guy who is “too cool to fight”? He never fought the GOP when he was POTUS. He never gets angry. I won’t support anything he does until he shows he’s more than “the smartest guy in the room”. Even if he is (and he isn’t), we need ALL our ex-presidents to FIGHT! Speaking of which, Texas is his state… where the fuck is George W Bush?!?!
The NDRC has been operating for years. The Obama Foundation has also been doing great work. I prefer people who suit up and show up and don't need to be running their mouth all the time in front of the cameras.
Why is this Obama's job or Bush's job? It is our job. These people were in the game. Where were the voters? How politically active have each of us been while the Republicans were planning this coup? This began well before Obama or Bush. It's all too easy to stomp around, curse and point the finger.
We the people made this mess. There is no one coming to bail us out.
You’ve missed my point. But go ahead and think ordinary people can lead the effort to save democracy without Obama and Bush’s active involvement. They have the ability to attract news organization you and I don’t have. I am not suggesting they “go it alone”. What I am saying is they need to demonstrate the leadership commitment that got them elected in the first place. And if you think that will make them (especially Obama) a “target”… well, that’s why he and Michelle have got Secret Service protection.
Agreed! WE do need Both a republican who will stand up for democracy along with Obama. We need them to stand together and speak up at these demonstrations. We still haven't gotten the number of people demonstrating that we need to create change.
That is why our group efforts are shown on world- wide news shows. I do believe there are a lot of republicans with bullseyes. They just don't see the numbers of very angry people.
It is the belief that ordinary Americans have no say or effect on this Country's direction that got us in this mess.
Just think if the 15 million who did not vote in the 2024 election had cast a vote (he only won by a 1.4% margin.) Or if the 1.7% who voted for someone besides the 2 major party candidates had voted for Harris.
Each exact vote makes an exponential difference. Each action makes an exponential difference.
News? The "news" had descended into propaganda machines owned by oligarchs who hate democratic forms of government. It was a toxic stew of lies and disinformation that helped elect him twice.
Ok, so I agree, we the people DO need to stand up and fight. BUT, we need both republican and democratic leaders, to stand up at these demonstrations with us. We need leaders to come to these rally's to attract bigger crowds. Even though we have had record numbers, we still haven't gotten to that number we need to create the change that we so desperately need right now. Obama, Bush, and other strong leaders to lead these demonstrations. THAT would I believe attract that percentage we need to turn the tides.
G.W. Bush was only marginally better as President than trump.
And trump would demonize Bush just like he is demonizing Chuck Grassley now. If the rabid trump chumps and Q-twits carry out any violence because of trump rhetoric, it would be poetic justice if it is against a right-winger.
It was the election of Barack Obama that the right weaponized to manipulate the racist, misogynistic, and losers who blame their failures on the equality of people who "don't deserve"it because they are not white. Obama might have that in mind as he thinks about how best to inspire people and minimize the right-wing backlash. I agree that ex-Presidents should show up to defend democracy, but I don't see W. doing that.
"It was the election of Barack Obama that the right weaponized to manipulate the racist, misogynistic, and losers who blame their failures on the equality of people who "don't deserve"it because they are not white." THIS
PS If you really believe “We the People” made this mess, I invite you to read Sarah Kendzior’s two best-selling books (“Hiding In Plain Sight” and “They Knew”) to learn about the deep level of corruption in our society… including in the Democratic Party. This mess is a product of a lot of things. Voter apathy is one. Making Merrick “slow walk” Garland the US AG is another. There are many others.
Read Erica Chenoweth's study on the effect of mass movements have on politics and change. There has always been corruption, racism, misogyny, and evil in this Country. I prefer to focus on what we do in the fight. We either stand around in the problems or we climb up and out and take our Country back.
I have fought for over 50 years for America and I am not stopping now. I have never expected America to be good enough to fight for or spent too much time on what is wrong and who is to blame. I have just never understood that approach.
We are in a coup d'etat against the United States of America. How we got here or who is to blame is for the historians to sort out someday.
We are less inclined to act collectively than people of decades past. For example, we have lower participation in PTA meetings, unions have been decimated, people aren't employed in large groups as we were when we had manufacturing.
Oh wouldn’t they love Obama to step out into the open in this fight. How easy could it get? The less distractions the GOP has from their democracy demolition, the better chance we, the people, have
Barbara, SO correct! It is OUR mess & WE need to clean it up. Assuming that a wonderful past President will be able to direct all political stands is hilarious. He did his job. Now it is time to do ours.
You are asking someone at Amazon to walk off the job, get fired, lose their income, health insurance, and possibly their home. They won't be able to feed their kids.
Then what?
We have got to stop with empty rhetoric. We must roll up our sleeves and do the boring work of writing Congress, writing postcards, calling Congress, protesting, town halls and then doing it all over again.
Calling my call to “shut the country down” empty rhetoric misses the point. We don’t need Amazon warehouse walk-outs to bring things to a halt. And yes—contacting our representatives is a great idea. Just picture the MAGA crowd lighting up the phones of their Trump-enabling members of Congress to gripe about whatever grievance is trending today. We Democrats have been calling our reps for years. Let’s be clear: both of Trump’s elections were tilted by voter-suppression tactics, and the upcoming midterms could be hijacked the same way unless blue states counteract Texas-style gerrymandering.
Where is George W? Why, he's nestled comfortably at his Texas ranch honing his oil painting skills. More specifically, painting the wounded soldiers he sent into war under false pretenses. Can't get more effed up than that.
That would be a backlash. He would be another Trump target to fuel hate among people, plus another distraction away from the Epsteiner files. He is out there - in a subtle way, as his Biden.
Unwritten protocol is that former presidents don't meddle in future elections. Also, the new administration is not to drag the prior administration through the mud. The US economy was the envy of the world. Trump continued saying it was horrible. He knows if you keep repeating the lie, people will believe it.
There must be some juicy stuff in the files if Trump sends subs to the waters surrounding Russia - and tells the whole world. All subs are nuclear. Those carrying ballistic missiles are dangerous.
Now he is going after Jack Smith, who, despite the enormous amount of evidence proving Trump was guilty in the classified documents case, dismissed the case, doing Trump a favor.
We have got to stop waiting for a savior. No juicy stuff will save us. We have got to stop listening to whatever junk he is throwing out. The nuclear subs were on routine maneuvers. Jack Smith can take care of himself.
We need to focus. We need to fight. Each of us.
Donate to your local public station. Save a free press.
Organize people with signs on the street. Let them know we are here.
Go to a protest.
Support the NDRC.
Support an up-and-coming local school board candidate. We rebuild from grassroots up.
Support your local library.
Help the elderly person in your neighborhood.
Volunteer at your school, library or any number of organizations in your town.
Yes, Barbara, we need to always check beyond the gibberish from T. to get the real story. My Savior is not of this world. It is expected for all of us to help all of us all the time- esp. in the ways you have listed above.
Uh, and do you ask the republicans who voted for the BBB to help their constituents? That's where the massive protests should be. Kick them out of office for their greedy acts.
“Unwritten protocol” must be discarded when dealing with domestic terrorists who will stop at nothing - including faking an assassination attempt and now creating additional House seats out of thin air - to win.
Yes, these are valid points. This business of ex-POTUS hanging back and not interfering out of some perceived protocol is bizarre. The big tent is on fire, so scream —FIRE!
We would never have had the orange blight without W. Remember W was the first Republican president this century to lose the popular vote. If it weren't for Karl Rove and W's father, W would still be just another failed businessman. He's an impulsive idiot. Rummsfelt, Chaney and Rove played him like a fiddle. He is by far, the second worst president in our history. Together they make Hoover look brilliant.
I really don't see how GW Bush getting involved would really help matters at all.
If Bush were to get involved, Trump, Congressional Republicans and the media would begin by "relitigating" the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bush's failed attempt at immigration reform in 2007 would be "read meat" to Trump, Johnson and the Freedumb Caucus's base too.
Bush, Dick Chaney, Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz's foreign policy legacy is the Taliban back in power, ISiS, increased Iranian influence in Iraq and ultimately the current mess in the Middle East. Bush isn't stupid enough to want any of this relitigated.
In 2007, Bush attempted to pass a comprehensive immigration reform package through Congress. It would have created a path to legal status, and ultimately citizenship fot undocumented immigrants. Like the Biden reform package Trump and Johnson scuttled, Bush's plan would also have increased funding for border security. Despite bipartisan support, it failed. Trump would definitely weaponize this.
Lastly, I think it's worth noting that the last time a Bush ran for office he got run over. Jeb Bush's 2016 campaign folded after he received less than 8% of the vote in South Carolina.
The Bush family "dynasty" is over, there's just too much baggage. Anything GWB did to try and lead an anti-Trump movement would, at best, be drowned out by the baggage.
Steve, you and I might not agree with the idea, but traditionally past presidents avoided commenting about their successors. Obama is probably the best spokesperson for the Democrats, but he appears to be honoring tradition. I suspect both Bush and Obama are sickened by what is happening and maybe their will speak up - forcefully! Personally, I wish they would
Absurd. Obama got THE most important health care reform bill through Congress in THREE decades. By now, it saved more than half a million additional American lives.
If that's still not good enough for you, my question to you is: what did you do with you life? How many lives did you save?
Steve, you were not privy to what Obama said or did in his fights against the 'police state' of the repubs. I can only imagine some of his remarks. AND, someone doesn't have to scream, yell & pound the podium to make a good point. GW wants to quietly enjoy his non- political life. He'd be eaten alive if he starts playing politics.
Go to hell with your sparkle pony fauugressive posting. Where were any of you in November 2024? Obama was out there, as was many others, laying out the case against this yam colored clown and the chaos his reign would bring, but here we are. When are WE going to hold ourselves accountable and keep OURSELVES engaged without always needing someone to prop us up? Where are the protests in Texas? In Florida?
Hello EcstaticRationalist: "Shane Goldmacher and Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times note that “[v]oters are…reduced almost to bystanders as Republicans essentially admit to trying to determine the outcome of Texas races long before the elections are held.”
A person close to the president told Goldmacher and Corasaniti that the White House strategy is “Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.” ... ... For Once They Are Being Honest... May This Be Their Last Death-Ride... Heya!!!
I was certain that everything that is occurring under the current administration would happen again as it did in the first go-around. But Round I was childhood training wheels for the 2nd run. Most people or at least, a very large segment of the American population unfortunately have short memories. Donald Trump proved to be the modern Antichrist by 2020 yet we voted for him again.
I believe that many people revenge vote, which means that if you don’t like what the current president is doing, you caste your vote for the other candidate but this time the other is the one true Antichrist. He knows only destruction and self-aggrandizement. I would liken such figures in our time to Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Pol Pot indeed even Benjamin Netanyahu fits this description for killing more than 50,000 and starving 2 million victims by Israeli government oppression of Palestinians who have lived on their lands for hundreds and thousands of years. And this just so he can keep out of prison and stay in power. While Trump hasn’t killed yet in concentration camps, his behavior has led to hundreds of thousands needlessly dying in nursing homes in 2020. His vile hatred inspires his followers to kill indiscriminately. Certainly his closure of many agencies of government that protect people here and abroad will ultimately lead to premature deaths.
Why did so many Americans revenge vote? Certainly the missteps (literally) of Joe Biden cannot be dismissed. I have no need to regurgitate it. But to turn away from the stability of government and revenge vote is unconscionable. One must too, consider our online cell devises that has changed human behavior to be more aggressive; having shortened attention spans - a devise that separates us into aloneness instead of bringing us together and makes us prone to political grooming. The world community walks around with cell devises because, well, they can. And the tendency is to converse with the person in front of you unless or until the cell gives notice of an incoming message. Does anyone realize how fucking irritating it is to stop mid-sentence just so the person you are communicating with can measure instantly how important you are against the next incoming call and that call usually supersedes you unless you have money on the table.
In a “Star Trek: The Next Generation” segment from “The Game” in 1991, the “Starship Enterprise” is infected with a hand-held computer game that leaves the user addicted to the games as they exhibit orgasm-like responses to the game wins. And the business of interstellar exploration is badly affected. Does that ring any bells? How far-sighted of the writers to project this hand-held devise as the potential ruination of Starship America. This devise arguably contributed to a massive socialization crises and turned many voters to kiss off American Democracy by electing the AntiChrist of our time.
Yes, JDinTX, Money a plenty along with a limited vocabulary with which to express oneself: "like", "you know", "uh huh uh huh", "yeah", and the "f" word, and of couirse WTF! Go. Yeah.., GO ask someone.., anyone.., what the word fealty means. Hahahaa..., go ahead.., try it. And, go-ahead, mis-spell it, 'feelty', or 'fielty', they won't know any difference, let alone what it means. Put f--- in front of it along with WTF and 'you know' and you'll have a complete sentence and/or expression, of that persons level of intellect. Then, ask those dickheads or dildos, what "gerrymander" means. Ask anyone.., not just MAGAtts. Keep notes.
There is evidence Trump stole the 2024 election with Musk but we need election audits to prove it. Ballots are still on file until Wed Sept 30, 2026 and the evidence might be there if we can encourage election officials to look for it. We are running out of time to ensure the integrity of all future elections.
Your essays are always insightful and brilliant. Good people are under the influence of bad ideas. The Maga engage in deliberate ignorance because they do not want to know. If they did, they'd have to take responsibility for their lack of intelligence and compelled to leave their comfort zone.
Judge, I'm curious about a couple of things. I don't understand why you say his thesis is dependent on an assumption of 47 winning fairly. I see his info as important, stand alone background on the psych-war focused on dismantling democracy; the who, why, how of the reality. Regarding % population QAnon &/or other cultists & their influence: I agree, it's most likely a small %. Mainstream media being profit driven, it grabs extremes and boosts them to create interest and a story that can grow; analagous to fishermen chumming to attract schools of fish and create a feeding frenzy / more efficient way to catch. Do you know of any reliable polling that has quantified the numbers of cultists, their locations and qualified their influence?
I think psy ops works -- but not necessarily as to individual voters. I think there was intimidation on several levels. Intimidation of election officials. Intimidation within the Republican Party. Intimidation of voters.
I don't track it but during the election, I worked with data and all of the data showed Dems shpuld have had a huge advantage.
I once wrote about Cuba. We used psy ops, but all our data was wrong. It was partly due to bumbling by the CIA....
I was in school about the time that Jung died. His collective racial subconscious theory is a better rationale. Subconscious racism.
Yes I read it and will read it again and probably download it for someone. But note, as soon as I express issues that don’t coincide with standard democratic group-think, I’m harshly criticized and this tendency is an example (though small) of bias thinking. And this is because we are all subliminally influenced for better or worse. Just a note of caution.
Why does it matter? Standard Democratic groupthink has made itself irrelevant and impotent; For the most part standing around doing nothing, acting like somehow things will all go back to business as usual. IMO, too large a % followed Bill Clinton and decided to compete with Rs for campaign financing from the same sources. Most Fed elected Dems gave up on Progressive ideals and squandered the gains made by Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, through LBJ. They seem to have been too lazy and bought off to organize smart defense of democracy. In my view, the whole dominant paradigm of materialistic, consumer society driven by extractive capitalism is a mass scale, carefully orgainzed dynamic that reflects the instincts and drivers of a malignant narcissist. Fascist mafia state oligopoly uses outrageously mentally ill Donald Trump because he represents and acts out exactly what they want and need. <> Assisting grassroots, doing what needs to be done in your own neighborhood is more productive than trying to force intimidated and bought off pols to do the right thing. Some Dem Fed elected officials are trying to do the right thing. We need to help them to get as much into the historic records as possible to show exactly corrupt and widespread this contagion has infected our politics. IMO, we need to be reaching out to fringes of Trumpworld, find those who are regretting their vote and help them see how they, their families and communities are being badly hurt for the long term by Project 2025 and their gangster mercenaries. Disillusioned and rational Republicans are the ones who can put a stop to this. Use Stanley Milgram - 3 degrees of separation and Philip Zimbardo guidance to find them. Use Karin Tamerius' Smart Politics and George Lakoff & Gil Duran's The Frame Lab to effectively frame discussion / messaging. Use simple graphic visual aids that illustrate the benefits of changing paradigms from toxic extractive capitalism that destroys earth and most of humanity to planetarity and subsidiarity. <> I'll try to copy and past some good survey data by PRRI in a separate post on my substack tomorrow. It's too extensive to put in a comment.
Both of you, Rich and Bill, present great commentary. I will only ad that in any game (and it's a "game" we are in) there can be moves which are 'slight-of-hand' to one level or another. However, dumping a mountain-load of MANURE onto this game has us all struggling for air. Throwing shit into the game.., any boardroom meeting etc, means the game stops - period as it is no longer a "game". This is where we are now. WE must bring this to a stop. We must do it with our physical presence - strongly.
Bill, I don't think it was so much of a revenge vote, but much more an example of how we have grown up in this country. Just call "us" Americans. As such, 'tomorrow' will arrive like today - good or bad; deals will be made with usual honesty; agreements will be honored most of the time; people might cheat a little but ponzi-schemes will be the exception and probably found out; crooks will generally end up dead or in jail; the rich will provide jobs for you and me by buying new cars, houses, interior designers, etc; the poor will get EBT cards and be criticized for the mis-use; Governors will be voted in or voted out; term limits will be good for some, but not for all. Basically, the situation we have found ourselves in over the recent 30 years has been one in which we could "DEAL WITH IT".., and, call it naive if you want, or call it bliss, or call it ignorance.., that's how we have been here in the USA. I don't think the average person ( that's ME ) thought we'd have a Supreme Court have to take on some case and rule that "a president" could behave in such a relatively "CARE LESS" manor as just part of the job. OR.. that our Constitution would be just an expresssion of how one might think depending on some hidden proclivity. In other words, we/the country didn't see this happening. The fact that 'this' didn't just happen, is 'the fact' that the manure-spreader($$$$)s are continuing to obscure. We better wipe our eyes, stand up, make our presence known and shown.
He got elected through widespread voter suppression. The 2024 election was close enough in key swing states to raise legitimate concerns that suppression tactics may have tipped the scales. Between aggressive voter roll purges, changes to mail-in voting, stricter ID laws, limits on drop boxes and polling locations—not to mention coordinated misinformation campaigns by both domestic and foreign actors—it's not unreasonable to conclude that both of Trump’s elections were, in effect, stolen
Spoonamore is not a recognized voting-machine or government cybersecurity expert. He was an independent candidate for the Ohio state House in 2016, holds a background in finance and tech entrepreneurship, and is listed as founder or board member of companies unrelated to election administration or cryptography
But will Rupert tell the cult…fat chance, but I doubt that the cult would object. Vlad is no longer the enemy to be opposed, it is the Democratic Party. This demonization has had long legs and is a virus worse than Covid. Aren’t we all tired of sounding the same alarm over and over.
As Governor Newsom said, “California’s moral high ground means nothing if we’re powerless because of it.” Democrats need to fight fire with fire, but they should run on getting power back so they can make a law that all states have to use independent citizen-led redistricting commissions.
We've been resisting and calling out trump's illegal and unconstitutional efforts for about 10 years now. His followers won't hear it. I have relatives who still support trump because "he's getting things done". I've come to realize some of my relatives are morons.
Debbie, it is amazing to me that people still think death star is "getting things done" in some kind of positive way. Well, yes, if people live to see the rich get richer, programs for the vulnerable go by the wayside, destruction of our first rate science and research institutions, etc. All it means is that your relatives have not yet been hurt by his policies.
I agree they haven't been hurt by his policies - - yet. But it doesn't take a genius to see the destruction these policies are causing or will cause. I cannot believe my relatives don't have enough common sense or logic to see this. They're brainwashed or morons, or both. 😭
Debbie, maybe both. People can be so indifferent until they are affected. I note too that people who diss the government all the time are also first in line when they see a way to use what the government is offering.
Agree. I don't see them turning down their Medicare coverage or their Social Security payments. They'll wake up when those things disappear. Unfortunately, they'll disappear for all of us as well.
My other question would be: are your relatives hard-line Christian’s? I’ve found many in this group tend to be single-issue voters, like anti-abortion.
I just about puke when I hear politics framed in “family values”. Back in the day (realistically, before Monica L.’s stained dress), the people wanted the government to correct wrongs being done to people. Just about every oppressed group made gains, many through funded programs to EDUCATE about inclusion. The goals of The Heritage Foundation really coalesced into action when the country had the gall to elect a Black man. The Heritage Foundation really cultivated the closed-community thinking that gave rise to MAGA. trump is NOT the brains behind any of this. He is the Project 2025 meat puppet. In both of trump’s victories, the Heritage Foundation put the spotlight on high electoral vote swing states while quietly taking the majority of sparsely populated, agricultural, or poorly educated states and ALL OF THOSE electoral votes. Not once but twice.
Yes, some of those relatives are proud to call themselves "christians". I put that in quotes because, seriously, they need to re-think what that means.
I totally agree that trump is just the Project 25 puppet. They can't wait for him to go away so they can really dig in and crush every democratic aspect of America. I'm afraid it will be more brutal than what we've seen so far. These people are evil.
There appears to be no stopping him! Grandiosity, vulgarity and ignorance have their own relentless momentum and, to date, there are no pleas or good arguments that can check their course..... MAGAs should feel like traitors for being so easily bought with praise and vacant promises.
It's all about optics; it's all about his taking complete control over something; it's all about his world-shaping importance. Yes, indeed, it becomes more frightening daily without access to responsible sources of news and information and honest government. Our lives have become the battleground and his daily anger and vindictiveness (so far) is the unsurmountable enemy.
The problem is the dems fell asleep at the wheel for about 45 yrs...good that they are finally fighting back but this seems too little too late to me...I know a little pessimistic this morning.
Did anyone watch the Democratic National Convention Harris led? It was brilliant. Breathtaking. Inspirational. Her only misstep was not including a vetted Palestinian speaker. That cannot possibly be enough to have kept her from success. I'm so tired of people blaming the Dems. Have you heard Jasmine Crockett? James Talarico? Cory Booker? Elizabeth Warren? AOC? Bernie? Adam Schiff? We have leaders fighting for us with all their might every day. Back some of them up, people, rather than cutting everyone down in one fell swoop.
laura, I listened to AOC take down the Florida rep who called her a f...ing bitch in front of cameras. She is so articulate and reminded that Florida rep that he has wife and daughters and that he is modeling an attitude toward women
Yes. Stop this self flagellation. It has long since stopped being useful. We Dems need a single, strong theme to get behind. Herd mentality isn't flattering, but it works to get the short term job done.
I cheer at my TV when those people speak. Do not tell me or them to SHUT UP! AOC has got such a mouth! She can hold someone's feet to the fire. Wonder what that FL rep's wife had to say in response to AOC. Hope either is face is still stinging from her slap or, his ears are still ringing from his wife's rage!
One would think that the art of the deal meant that the deal benefitted both sides. But for Trump, the art of the deal is to make sure that Trump gets to rip off everyone involved, and the Texas gerrymandering is just one more rip-off. Of course in the end, if the Republican gerrymandering is successful, the gerrymandering will let Trump rip off his own voters, which he will, since he is obsessed with ripping people off. And many of his Deplorables are too stupid and too consumed by White Christian Resentment to realize that they are being ripped off.
Monroe, most legitimate negotiators agree that a "good" deal is one where both parties come away from the negotiation with something they wanted. The Trump men, starting with Friedrich, then Fred, and now Donald, never subscribed to that philosophy. Donald was mentored by his attorney, Roy Cohn, who believed that negotiating is a zero-sum game. The outcome must be one winner and one loser. But Cohn only reinforced the Trump family approach to negotiations.
In a lifelong campaign to win his father's approval, even post-mortem, Donald is desperate to always be a "winner" and make everyone around him "losers." He cheats at golf and he cheats at everything else because he's actually incapable of doing anything well, with the exception of calling attention to himself.
I absolutely agree. I’ve read the comments on this thread, and people are hesitant to write that we need to push for gerrymandering blue states. I believe that the 2026 election will be gerrymandered in red states so that Republicans will win. Rather than “playing fair”, Democrats need to fight fire with fire. Barack Obama may agree with Michelle that “when they go low, we go high,” but Donald Trump has now made that impossible.
I completely agree, we can’t afford to sit on the sidelines. What’s happening isn’t just political maneuvering; it’s a direct assault on democratic norms and human dignity. We need to call it what it is and push back through every legal, ethical, and organized means available. That includes not just opposing authoritarian tactics, but actively cultivating the kind of civic culture and community power that makes them impossible to sustain. Thank you for speaking up—this clarity and urgency are exactly what we need right now.
That won’t matter — we need to go head to head with Trump, the Republicans and MAGA. The rule of law matters not one iota to Trump, as they have so far illustrated. So again, GAME ON. We must prove we can and will go head to head.
Correction: the neofascist GOP's "illegal and unconstitutional efforts" to turn the US into a fascist regime!
It is SO important that we begin to acknowledge that Trump is merely their clown in chief, literally paid billions to sign all their neofascist Project 2025 orders into law and then distract us while they're "burning down all America's institutions", as Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts called for in his book "Dawn's Early Light" (the book published in 2024 that JD Vance wrote the foreword for).
When "EcstaticRationalist" says "every means possible, Margaret-Rose, I don't think so.
The #1 step from among "some of these means" should be -- no competition -- ridding our schools of standardized testing.
There is absolutely no difference between the numbers, numbers, numbers students and teachers crave from testing and the numbers of seats politicians crave from gerrymandering.
Both forms of mania eschew the human. Schools to ignore, avoid, drop good books, essays, and discussion. Politicians to ignore, avoid, and drop actual people caught in the claws of our rapacious elites.
Heather's totally correct. The South did win the Civil War. Won it when the schools then politicians all sold out to the impersonal, money-driven, rationally strategized.
Dehumanizing of schools and teachers was first goal of the Powell memo's earliest key foundations. Then (easily) could come gerrymandering, Citizens United, and some fool entertainment criminal pedophile.
Phil, attacking the public sector is actually fairly easy as the sector does not defend itself. Michael Lewis wrote 2 books about this. There is another In Defense of Public Service - L. Alexander that talks about public service. Conservatives do not understand why anyone would not do a job that pays more money. They say things like how important many of the jobs public servants do, but in the same breath trash them for being on the public dole. I have had this discussion with my conservative family members before and they have no idea about the sacrifices many in the public sector make. They usually take the attitude "they knew what they signed up for" to justify the measly pay they get.
Rickey, what i see way too often is that all taxes are bad and this attitude is often fostered by the media which loves to trash public entities and employees.
Interesting argument, "knowing what they signed up for". And one that I never hear made about police officers. There's "Back the Blue" as if an officer is born into duty, rather than choosing a job that they can also decide to leave at any time. We humans don't seem all that interested in having consistency in our views.
Phil, people were not paying attention to what has been happening to schools. it has finally dawned on quite a few people around here (Oregon) that they need to pay attention to all elections including school boards. You know how I feel about standardized testing, bane of the existence of good teachers.
Margaret, they believe he has found and eliminated waste, fraud, and abuse (via DOGE), he is cleaning the streets of immigrants who have committed violent crime, and his “honest and incorruptible” appointees in federal law enforcement have found evidence the the “Russia hoax” was fabricated. (Seriously—Kash Patel found a “burn bag” with ALL the evidence that Obama, H.Clinton and Biden fabricated the story.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has a fairly bright social media team and they've been creating and posting memes with clever comebacks in response to FOTUS's social media rants. I hope other blue states have also upped their social media game.
"California governor Gavin Newsom posted on social media: “[Trump] is so scared of the American people holding him accountable for his catastrophic actions, he wants Republicans to rig the 2026 elections for him.” Newsom pointed out that it would be easy for California to eliminate its Republican-leaning districts altogether, getting rid of nine Republican seats.
Gerrymandering is irredeemably corrupt, but if $COTUS has made legal gerrymandering the law of the land, I suppose it's best to do it to counter it until it can be ended. The current system is grossly unrepresentative.
As HCR points out, the Democrats don't even bother putting up a candidate against the Republican in the heavily Republican districts. We are 16 months away from the mid-terms and only 6 - 11 months away from primaries. So Republicans are going to scramble to find candidates that will run in these new districts. The Cons haven't exactly done a good job of vetting their candidates, so it's very likely Texas will send other MTG, Boebert or Santos to Congress.
The Dems need to find young enthusiastic up and comer to run in these districts. By just having a candidate run against the Cons, they will be forced to spend money and Elon isn't going to bet on every loser that is running in a "safe" district. Plus, the Democrats have a better chance of winning gerrymandered districts because they are not going to be running against incumbents. There's got to be dozens of Ann Richards, AOC, Crocketts, etc. out there that can fight every day for these seats.
No one thought AOC could beat a longtime Democrat incumbent but she did.
Yes 100%. Even if there is little to no chance of winning it is an opportunity to spread the message and cause the Republican candidate to have to defend his or her positions -- which are largely indefensible unless you can get people to believe all the lies.
And as the Guardian pointer out, which economic class really benefits, and benefits bigly, from "Republican" policies? How many times and in how many ways have "Republicans" kicked working families in the teeth? "Same old serpent" if you ask me.
Fetterman is actually an accurate reflection of the Pennsylvania constituency he represents. He won because he's a "home boy" who ran against outsider Mehmet Oz.
Like so many states, Pennsylvania is largely rural, poorly educated and conservative, with pockets of educated, progressive thinkers in its largest cities. A truly progressive Democrat won't fare well in a statewide Pennsylvania election.
Its neighbor to the south, West Virginia, gave us the supremely disappointing Joe Manchin for exactly the same reasons.
And now Oz gets to play TV doc with the Feds. So tired of having a bunch of crappy TV news folks. shamed lawyers & judges & anything- for- money TV docs. party with the power they have been anointed with by Reps. & T. Might as well watch reality TV- some show, different names.
And we got another serious voice in the process. We need to change the playing field to accommodate newcomers with fire in their bellies if we are to make a difference. Redistricting, "Game On"... finally?
It seems to me that in our over-commercialized society most advocacy is handed over to marketing departments in which the profundities of human communication are stripped away. I don't even open most political emails that often apply gimmicks and little useful information. I do support a number of causes, but am sometimes put off by their semi-deceptive, hard sell marketing techniques. Advertising so often parks dignity at the door, and I think our grudging acceptance if of that helps enable wider corruption. Dignity and decency are not just niceties that need not apply to pursuit of money. They are key indicators of our quality of life, including on a practical level. MAGA is a Hell of a way to run a county.
If I were King, I would either eliminate the US Senate or make representation there proportional to population. Then I would eliminate the Electoral College and elect the President with a simple national majority, having a run off if any 3rd party (or parties) receives as many votes as the difference between the 2 largest vote getters. Then I would award seats in the House based on population as it is now, more or less, but in line with the total popular vote in each state. Close win, reps divided 50-50. Big landslide? How about 80-20 or 70-30?
This would give us governments that actually govern and guarantee that every vote is equal to every other. In other words, our democracy in name only would become a real democracy.
Of course, this would require an amendment to our Constitution. So, we're screwed.
Run off? Ranked Choice Voting. Run offs are just a waste of time and money. Especially for small towns, where budgets are already tight (and have been for decades).
David any plan that would threaten the current occupation will be doomed. The American People, in general, are not “fighters!” Their battle cry is, “Ho-Hum!! Oh Well! Somebody else will come along to save us!” So unless Americans experience a Major Epiphany!!!! The last three words of your Comment become the Testament we will live or, Die with!!!
I think every constitutional amendment begins by drafting one. Some may have been a shoo in, but Abolition, and Women's suffrage, among others, took some doing. The 19th Amendment was not yet in effect when my father was born, but is now taken for granted. There are amendments (such as NO to "Citizen's United") that might be ready to pick up momentum with persistence and sustained promotion (that even the Roberts Court might have the guts to defy) but any such effort is widely deemed useless. Many social movement begin small before their hour has come, yet maintain a visible presence around which support may gather. The Electoral College is anti-democratic; period. I have thought that since the first day I learned of it in High School.
Yes, it's a no brainier unless it's the only thing permitting your "side" to win presidential elections. Interests so often take precedence over ethics, unfortunately.
David, I have preached and will continue preaching that nearly all our electoral problems would be solved by criminalizing gerrymandering (as it once was) and eliminating the Electoral College. Both of these devices enable minority rule, which is antithetical to the tenets of democracy.
To reinforce the prevailing notion that only conservative white men were wise enough to vote properly, the Electoral College was a scheme created specifically to minimize the effect of votes cast by newly freed Black citizens who'd previously been enslaved.
Structure of the Senate and House would not need any adjustment if the two above-mentioned problems were corrected.
We can't expect to win using the old tactic of "bringing a knife to a gun fight." Sometimes, it's necessary to hold your nose and fight with the same bloodymindedness as your opponent.
The Court has ducked the issue and plaintiffs have allowed them to do so. They need to be forced to face it squarely with a case that simply relies on equal protection principles devoid of allegations of racial discrimination. Simple principles. In the context of elections Equal Protection translates to the principle of One Man One Vote.
If that principle is not offended by politically engineered voting districts then force the high court political majority to own that position. Let them say legislatures can do whatever they want with voting districts. They can create virtual electoral concentration camps. And say they are equal to other districts.
Hello JustRaven.... I saw Gavin Newsom on Bill Maher's ( Traitor ) Show... Gavin Crushed Bill Maher... Gavin has found Purpose, and Cause... Gavin is a Champion... GAME ON !!!...
Continue to - Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Use/share this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to those in your own state, as well as those in others. Use your voice and make some “good trouble” ❤️🩹🤍💙
I've posted this several times. On an individual basis, some Congressional Republicans are vulnerable, morally and politically.
Of the 33 regularly scheduled elections in 2026, 13 seats are held by Democrats and 20 are held by Republicans. Four senators announced they will not seek re-election in 2026. Imagine a Democrat taking McConnell's seat in KY.
Of the 33 states holding regularly scheduled elections in 2026, Trump (R) won 21 of those states in 2024 and Harris won 12. In 2026, Democrats will be defending two states that Trump won in 2024: Georgia and Michigan. Republicans will be defending one seat in a state Harris won: Maine. The last time the 20 Republican-held seats were up for election in 2020, four were decided by a margin of less than 10 percentage points: Iowa (6.6), Maine (8.6), North Carolina (1.8), and Texas (9.6). The last time the 13 Democratic-held seats were up for election in 2020, five were decided by a margin of less than 10 percentage points: Colorado (9.3), Georgia (1.2), Michigan (1.7), Minnesota (5.3), and New Mexico (6.1).
What our candidates have failed to do is analyize them rationally. Neutralize their strengths. Compete for donors.
If Medicare and Medicaid cuts will kill their local health care, we should seek support from hospitals and other medical providers.
If Trump tariffs are killing agriculture, we should support the agricultural sector.
This stuff hits Trump as the pedofile issue, but also Russia. I remember when people like Phil Graham, Strom Thurmond, Arlen Spector, Ben Nighthouse Campbell, Ric hard Shelby, Connie Mack, et al switched parties. Sen. John (Cleghorn) Kennedy R, La, once was a Dem. Do these people have daughters? Do they support Putin?
We should have a book on: Capito, Shelley Moore (R-WV) Cassidy, Bill (R-LA) Collins, Susan M. (R-ME) Cornyn, John (R-TX) Cotton, Tom (R-AR) Daines, Steve (R-MT) Ernst, Joni (R-IA) Graham, Lindsey (R-SC) Hagerty, Bill (R-TN) Hyde-Smith, Cindy (R-MS) Lummis, Cynthia M. (R-WY) Marshall, Roger (R-KS) McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) Mullin, Markwayne (R-OK) Ricketts, Pete (R-NE) Risch, James E. (R-ID) Rounds, Mike (R-SD) Sullivan, Dan (R-AK) Tuberville, Tommy (R-AL)
Agreed. Democrats cannot make the mistake of running one issue campaigns (abortion) or simply being anti-Trump. There are real issues voters care about: inflation, healthcare, immigration reform, etc; and some the country needs real leadership on: food insecurity, AI, education, predatory lending, venture capitalist destruction of small and mid-sized businesses, housing, trade, Ukraine, gun control, etc.
We need a robust, sane, in-your-face platform our coalition can stand on, not just a few planks. We also need to talk about how to hold those most responsible for this threat to our Constitutional Republic accountable for their actions.
I agree. Groceries. Healthcare. Weather forecasting (god forbid someone says 'climate change'!). They should stress the positives of what they CAN do, in contrast to the GOP tearing everything apart. Most Americans do not know history or even global geography. I'll bet most don't know where the products they regularly buy come from. And the GOP wants to keep them ignorant. From 1984: "Ignorance is Strength" -- ignorance of the voters = strength of the GOP.
We had one as the fucking corporate media demanded of Harris. And from Trump they got NOTHING BUT BULLSHIT.
Trump says this is war. So let's make sure the voters know that Trump hates America and everything he does is to 1) help himself and 2) his oligarch friends.
Fortunately, his insane tariffs are hurting many of the oligarchs and their friends, families and employees. There will be a recession under Trump and many indicators are already pointing in that direction.
Let's be very clear, the conservative leadership hates America. Why else would they allow all the constitutional violations? Why else would they keep pushing for an Article V convention?
I'm sorry but we wuz robbed. We had a good campaign. Psy ops. Voter intimidation. The most important symbol in 2004 is a 6'7 girls' basketball player who needed a shave.
Truth - start asking these issues in the form of questions. Over the umbrella like: Which party is taking away things? There are a litany of ways to tailor the campaign in each and every district. The conservatives used to say all politics are local so how come those in power in high places have take local power away? State level legislatures did it to cities and counties and now the Congress is doing it to states. The overall strategy is there. As this administration states: maximum warfare everywhere. We need to do the same and stop playing by the norms and use the damn law before they change it like they did with the recission bill.
There are comment sections in many newspapers and online sites. Politely denigrate the actions of the Senators listed above, like voting for the OBBB that takes Medicaid and healthcare away from thousands of their constituents.
And continue the heat on Trump being a pedophile, sex trafficker and sexual deviant. "Release the Epstein files," needs to be a news story EVERY day until at least the midterms.
Even some evangelicals are opposed to Trump being a pedophile.
Why are there so many white Christian Nationalist pastors? Most of them have to have 2nd jobs and have their spouses work just to survive. Of course there are the greedy bastards like Osteen that are just like Trump--just a group of carnival barkers.
I think this phrasing could be really effective: “tRump is so busy protecting his rich friends who are in the Epstein files that he doesn’t have any time to work on getting costs down” [or ending the Ukraine war or any other campaign promise].
26 Republican senators and dozens of Republican House members voted to support Ukraine. We were hoping that people like Don Bacon would take Trump on -- but didn't.
IMHO had we put on a full court press on some of these issues, some Repubs would have voted against Trump. But we didn't.
Many of the Congressional Republicans have personally lost bigly due to elimination of stuff like crop supports, food stamps.....
I don't live in West Virginia, but a few months ago, I wrote a letter to Senator Capito as she is married to a former college classmate of mine. I tried to appeal to her conscience regarding tariffs and deportations. Shortly after sending the letter, I noticed her nephew, newly elected Representative Riley Moore, on TV with 2 thumbs up in front of CECOT proudly claiming how good it is that are Homeland is being secured. I called Senator Moore's office with a plea to not vote for the big beautiful bill and gave her some praise for doing the right thing about saving the program in West Virginia that monitors black lung disease supporting coal miners. Of course, she voted for the bill. Then, I saw her website containing a photo with her arm around Pete Hegseth and his arm around her with a caption underneath proclaiming how proud she was to have a warrior ethos back in the Dept of Defense. If only she knew how unamerican Pete Hegseth is, when he pressured Trump to pardon Clint Lorrance, court martial and imprisoned for demanding his platoon to murder 3 unarmed Afghanis simply because he believed them to be members of the Taliban. The young platoon members became victims of drug abuse, alcoholism, and suicide because of Lorrance's immoral leadership.
Daniel, as an Idaho voter I find the way that Risch cozies up to Trump indicates he has a piggy bank where his heart used to be and his lips close enough to Amberman’s ear to seem as if begging for access to 12 year olds where his morality lies in his withered nutsack. When you find his name on the “list” Idaho will finish sinking his yacht. On the other hand it might be because he got hooked on magas milk which dribbles from Amberman’s boobies. Astounding he could not be weaned. This is Utah’s close neighbor, which cultivates millions of boo bees and exports them everywhere. In fact you should look around for suspicious little white boxes where you live. I think it could be the next pandemic. Protective clothing is strongly advised when approaching boo bee boxes unless you have been maganated.
thank you! US citizen no longer resident, lived there last in DC so have no vote for Senate. but will make good trouble for all these folks, what do I have to lose?
That’s not exactly a winning social media turn of phrase. Whatever comes out has to be a lot simpler, more direct and far earthier. May I humbly offer something like this?
“Fuck these loser assholes who think being Republican means they can pop a tic-tac and just grab you by the voting booth because they’re rich and powerful!”
By tens of millions, ICTT, most of those who voted Trump were not "rich and powerful."
But they were the products of a U.S. system of education which, covertly engineered by the rich and powerful, took all morality, civic decency, and humanities out of the schools, easily, easily, easily replacing all that with the monstrous (totally impersonal, mechanized, machine-gradable) conceits of testing.
Phil, I think it's far, far too facile to blame recent elections on standardized testing and the gutting of civics and humanities from schools, but it seems *every* comment you make uses public school education as a scapegoat. I must tell you that it gets tiresome after a while. Heather laid out reasons in this LFAM that blame strategic gerrymandering (used primarily by Republicans) as among reasons why it has been difficult to maintain House control by Dems. In past posts she has reported on Russian bot influencers working through social media to thwart our democracy. I don't have to tell you this, as I see your frequent comments in this Substack.
Must you blame everything on public education? I'd also add that I'll soon be 70, and had the advantage of a more rounded education in public schools. Yet people in my cohort are among the most reliable MAGA supporters. You can't blame the educational system for that.
Thanks for hearing me out -- I'm not trying to rant. I enjoy your frequent comments, but immediately tune you out when you start beating that poor deceased equus.
Go Gavin Newsom - let’s get this party started!! Though it’ll be a legal arms race - particularly as Democrats support anti-gerrymandering reform. He legally can’t redraw maps himself. But his sabre-rattling is of the highest order.
Like Canada, the Aussies are watching this slow-motion dumpster fire of a presidency and going, “Yeah… let’s not let that happen here.” They’ve started cracking down on political donations, banned foreign money in campaigns, and are pushing for more transparency and integrity in government. Basically, they’re trying to stop anything like this from crawling out of the gutter and into Parliament.
Good Morning Kazz... I'm Glad that the Australian Body Politic is Watching & Learning.... Seems to me that Climate-Change is impacting Australia more than the USA thus far, and Australia is closer to China... Forewarned is Forearmed... Blessings, Take Care...
Gavin can be made into a young voters dream candidate, a man on the run. Perhaps giving him the shine of super hero JFK. When we were young even us isolated morons in Fallon Ekalaka and Mildred and Zero Montana, were drawn to those California girls with the flowers 💐 in their hair and those funky dresses. Did I mention beads. I’m not sure how Alzada and Two Dot went. But the rest of us youngulators came out in every way even(gulp) so far as to become actual demonstrators. This is an emotional crowd we have not much engaged. How about another Woodstock every weekend? How about a gamer’challenge? How about raising the notion that the crowd who has the least possibility of ever owning a home until their parents pass actually means something like the real national treasure they are. Perhaps passing along to them a symbolic engagement ring. Imagine. Imagine the creativity of Hollywood’s “game on” flooding the nation with renewed vigor. Imagine the vigor of youth slaying the dragon, riding the wings of good ole Puff coast to coast Canada 🍁 to Mexico 🇲🇽.
How does that tall handsome fellows name go? Uh Gavin, uh NEWsum? Hmnnnn. How in the hell does he run the world’s fifth largest economy. How in the hell does he fight the current regime to standstill ??? Can he sing the body electric?
Thank you Dale, er nan. I just knew when they brought high speed internet to my rural Idaho residence the damned republicans would cut a few strands of the fiber optic cable. Part of their Trump infrastructure make Amurica great absconding movement. MAGAM!
The Rs have been working for decades to ensure an unfair and unrepresentative majority in the House. It's time for Ds to push back. What's good for the goose is good for the gerrymander. Once Ds are back in charge, they really should pass legislation that lays out very clear rules for balanced, representative redistricting. Let's get back to fair elections.
In a meaningful democracy, how can the right to vote, and the right to have your vote count no more and no less than any other not be considered axiomatic and sacred? If we really support and admire governance of, by and for the people, is it not essential that all the people are represented by their vote? Is it not something of unalienable value that should be fiercely protected?
Good Sunday morning folks , it’s another cool start .
I’m a fixer. I fix broken stuff, vacuums, figurines, toilets, a circuit blown, seeing our barnyard menagerie healthy perchance an animal limping or off their feed…I fix it . I had a career of fixing, taking a person/system obviously out of balance , the why, and restoring best support/balance..sometimes it’s a compromise , sometimes the dump container, after trying too long I may just walk away.
We don’t have a choice in this problem and we all face it. This is the only planet known to be able to support life. When you can’t drink the water ,grow enough food to feed the population , or breathe the air w/o choking or soon dying …it needs fixed. Whatever gets in the way of those priorities -that stops fixing it…doesn’t matter..we all still die..and anyone who says ..well, we’re all going to die…is just avoiding the principle.
Yea I know it’s a lot more complicated than that.
But always or all ways still is about the principle.
If there was a way to get India and China to clean up their acts, 80% of the pollution would be gone. That's where it starts. It ends everything else is futile
So you want to stop natural born created fire? I know this may not sound inconvenient, but nobody is mandating you to live in Michigan. You could go out and have the freedom to go out and enjoy it 49 other states as well.
As a practical matter, this issue doesn't effect votes for President or even Senators in the same way as it does for Congress critters. It is hard to gerrymander a state. Both Senators run at large and other than the inherent "gerrymanderness" of each state itself, those races are more or less decided based on what the population actually wants. Its at the Congressional district level that things start to go amiss.
True enough, but here I am speaking of all of the ways in which the right to vote and know that your vote with count as much as any other is seriously diluted or deliberately sabotaged. Gerrymandering is patent corruption and it's part and parcel of the systematic effort to cheat citizens of their fair share of representation.
Meanwhile, the Cons continue to purge eligible voters from their roles. And most of those purged live in districts that are majority minority. Many of them don't even realize they have been purged until they go to vote. In many ways this is just another method of gerrymandering. Stacey Abrams fought for years to register people to vote. If it wasn't for her and her volunteers, would there be two Democrat Senators from Georgia?
J L, true as to gerrymandering being "patent corruption."
But when you note "the systematic effort to cheat citizens of their fair share of representation," for attention diverted to gerrymandering you forget the far worse and more final cheating of people's "fair share of representation" vis-a-vis and among each other.
If Americans had literacy as to our great novels, memoirs, and histories (and other books), all would feel and would be represented among each other. We've lost that morality, that humanity, those decency skills.
Other elites decided schools would teach all instead to number each other, to covet finishing points on top of all others, and to surrender humane decencies to the logically rationalized groups, categories, and linearity of testing.
No other value in U.S. schools now. So we inhabit a poisoning, the "patent corruption" to which you refer. Gerrymandering included.
In 2010, my state senator excitedly told me (I was then a Republican business woman, and he was advising me on how to succeed in my new start up) that "We've gerrymandered this state so bad those f%#$ing Democrats will never win again!!" Like it was as legal as a quarterback sneak, all a game to him with NO conscience involved, and no legislative referee to call them on their deceit. Then he laughed. After that I supported "Michigan's Voters Not Politicians" which succeeded in creating a fair redistricting process, and victories for Democrats. I now fear what these political crooks will do to destroy our fair Michigan elections. https://share.google/sforZDPFUrcLoC1Ia
When republicans were losing and democrats were gerrymandering, they supported the independent commissions. Now they don't in republican controlled states. Democrats signed on to the independent commission idea in the states they controlled, but republicans never did in their controlled states. Democrats need to understand there is no negotiating with these people.
Thank goodness, NO!! Her uncle George was at one time, though. I serve on a board with him, and, when I was a young lobbyist, he gave me excellent political advice.
That is a good point, but as one who lived in Texas for 40 years, the affects of gerrymandering do end up impacting state wide elections. When you cut out the ability for the districts to be competitive, you eliminate the opposing voters from voting. Then you add the voter suppression techniques, then gerrymandering becomes even more effective. TX republicans have done it well. Look at how Cruz is viewed by the voters and yet he wins comfortably. Same in other republican states.
Texas is unusual. First you don't register to vote with a party. You become affiliated with a party by voting in their primary. But that only lasts until the end of that year.
The fact is Texas is still a GOP state. But the gerrymandering of Congressional and state legislature seats is much worse than the actual party split. By primary affiliation Texas is about 52% GOP 42% Democrat and 6% independent and other. But by Congressional district it is about 70% GOP. The gerrymandering definitely effects voting.
Once you vote Republican for the House, it's too easy to vote the same party all the way down the ticket. How many voting machines have the option of ticking one box for a straight party ticket? Especially known too, is the incumbent advantage.
Actually I'm not sure if this is true anymore. California for instance has no "straight party" voting on its ballots and hasn't for many years. In the old cumbersome voting machine days this was prevalent but most states now vote by computerized ballot and its very easy to vote for each race individually. I expect some states still have straight party tickets on their ballots but if like to learn how many people actually still do that.
You on the left actually have the audacity to talk about voting rights when Biden opened the border and everybody from the center of the political aisle to the right knew exactly why he was doing it in order to get them to vote. In order to get non-citizen specifically to vote democrat it was attempted in four smaller markets, but in one huge market, and it almost made it all the way to the finish line so try denying it all you want, but you have to be kidding about talking about voting rights yikes
Exactly! That’s why I feel now that we have lost our democracy. Republicans want a one party government and are doing everything to achieve that for many years. I don’t know how we can pull back from the brink of autocracy because it feels like it is already here. I am no longer optimistic. I have lived through many administrations. I have watched the gerrymandering, the Supreme Court capitulation, the rest of the destruction of our democratic values, the corruption. Calls to our reps, protests in the street up against the “machine”? Feels like we’re using our bare knuckles in a gun fight.
Well, looks like the economy is just fine even per CNN energy prices down 1.1% food price is flat housing prices up .2% which is because Paula won’t lower the rates stock market up 7000 points since liberation day on the Dow 6000 points in NASDAQ And 20% up on the S&P also an all-time high Hope you pulled all your money out of the market there smarty-pants
Right now we have an exemplary efficient democracy. In fact, I can’t imagine it getting much better than this, but I think the next three years it actually will
Only a very few people by the way think that Trump is a convicted felon 77 million people willingly and knowingly voted for a convicted felon last November and why do you think that is? BS cases brought by twisted prosecutors with liberal juries and compromise, judges, and all the cases have gone away. If any of these cases were brought in Florida or Texas, as an example, they would’ve never made it to a courtroom.
The problem with people like you is you’re still living in the past it’s gone. Trump is president. He’s gonna be one of the best presidents out of the last 50 years. So you keep complaining the economy is screaming along without the help from the fed unfortunately which would only double Trump’s efforts Iran is no longer going to be a nuclear threat to the world and I think the taco lol has made that clear. The border is closed crime is down. And only six months he’s made five piece steals or Cease fires
Albert in my opinion, you’re absolutely lost and just so you know my prediction and many people’s predictions are the first black female will be a republican. How about that?
I woke up just as this Letter dropped into my in-box. I also broke my cardinal rule of not reading until it is well past Heather's bedtime :) and later than 7am and cup of coffee firmly in hand. So, I'm just going to repost my comment from yesterday and try to go back to sleep to calm my angst. Every.Single.Day!
trump’s mental decline has been apparent for years, yet the MAGA’s (and way too many other republicans who twiddle their thumbs) remain fanatical devotees and make trump beyond reproach. For those who voted for him, admitting a mistake would be an admission of despicable political judgment and the truth about their own lack of values. Denial is their path of least of resistance, but it also creates a coalition we all have seen to block trump’s removal.
The issue extends far beyond cognitive fitness. trump's occupation of the WH has been marked by a dangerous convergence of incompetence, corruption, authoritarianism with an overlay of evil. His so-called administration includes individuals whose actions continuously undermine democratic norms, damage international alliances, and end institutional integrity. The evidence of this, whether in the form of legal investigations, whistleblower reports, or public records, is extensive and well-documented. Yet, the overwhelming evidence has failed to translate into a meaningful shift in public support or political accountability.
This failure reveals a critical vulnerability in democratic systems: if a tyrant gains control of all three branches of government, the very mechanisms designed to protect civil liberties are ignored. Unless corrected, this trajectory leads not just to political dysfunction, but to the destruction of the fundamental principles under which democracy operates. Dictatorships never end well.
Even with the visibility of all his failures, crudeness, limited intelligence, and gross and illegal behavior (he is a convicted felon) trump is beyond being incompetent; he is crazy dangerous and has the codes to the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Yes, it is the U.S. that the world sees as a rogue nation.
Absolutely. No dictator acts alone. They get and hold onto power by bullying, threatening, and bribing their cult members/companies, controlling the press, judiciary, legislature, every institution/agency they can get their hands on, as well as exploiting other countries. Simultaneously they, and their family members profit enormously and live opulent lifestyles while the masses pay the price!
In Canada, Parliamentary redistricting is established by federal law only after the 10-year census, never before, and then within procedures according to widely published, strict guidelines laid down by the country’s chief electoral officer — akin to our FEC here, all governed by explicit federal law.
Once seats are allocated by province, each province appoints 2 3-person independent commissions to oversee the internal provincial redistricting process. One member is chosen by the Chief Justice for that province, the other two are appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons. They are never chosen by political parties on the basis of political affiliation. Canadians would never accept outcomes based on something that grotesquely absurd.
It amazes me how little Americans know, or care to know, about how other democracies undertake the very same tasks with far more intelligent outcomes than the Rube Goldberg contraptions we’ve come up as a substitute for common sense here.
Oh Canada, keep your land glorious and free! I've been to Vancouver, B.C. a few times and have always felt an allure to the place. Americans could learn something or maybe even just be better neighbors to Canada.
I wonder how many Americans know, or care to know, about are own democracy or if we are even aspiring to be one anymore. It's our republic if we can keep it, but more people need to vote, become aware, informed and educated. Which is completely at odds with the Trumpublican deviousness and P2025 agenda. Stifling and denying the vote by gerrymandering when their legislation and other schemes can't do it alone.
I always remember when I was a kid and first learned about it, seeing the illustration of the gerrymander creature from the extremely old political cartoon.
"Printed in March 1812, this political cartoon was made in reaction to the newly drawn state senate election district of South Essex created by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the Democratic-Republican Party. The caricature satirizes the bizarre shape of the district as a dragon-like "monster", and Federalist newspaper editors and others at the time likened it to a salamander."
How about Canada being better neighbors to us Jorhai?
After all, they have very little military presence and rely on us for their protection, and we would come through in a heartbeat. Secretly there were millions of Canadians that would love to become part of the United States, but refrain from saying so outwardly
What ever happened to decency and honor? What about doing what is right? Trump is so malignant that he has sapped all morality from every Republican, from SCOTUS down to local school boards.
He so craves awards. IMO, he is in the running for "The Most Vile Human Who Ever Lived. I will rejoice at news of his passing.
The trouble is that you know this, I know it, Professor Richardson knows it, all of us know it, Democrats know it, and yes — so does sad Lisa Markowski, concerned Susan Collins, conscientious Thom Tillis. Even Kentucky Fried Voldemort knows it.
So does every other Repulsican Senator and about 95% of them in the House. But they won’t do anything about it. They voted to exonerate him for High Crimes in 2020 and 2021. They continue sucking their thumbs today while holding candid discussions with each and every one of their Lean Cuisine dinner choices.
So have you seen the map of the United States by County voting last election by any chance I didn't think so would you like me to send you a link? The country is red with a few blotches of blue on either coast and a few freckles in the middle
CA, decency and honor were mortality wounded during Reagan times and finally passed away with a little help from the scumbag president in charge of this fascist regime. Democrats can't keep playing by the book and being nice. That's a proven formula for losing every time.
Ricardo, when Michelle Obama declared, "When they go low, we go high," she made that declaration on the very last day it was operable.
We can no longer operate on that principle or we will lose our democracy and ultimately, the lives of our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, maybe even our own. I had thought I was old enough to have the good fortune to die before this nation and the world go to shit. But at the pace things are happening, I may not miss the worst of it after all.
So we'll have to chuck Michelle's noble platitude and go with the more practical "Fight fire with fire."
So is it your imagination that the Democrats don't do gerrymandering as well? Once again, coming from the intersection of the street signs say hypocrisy and double standard with the Democrats live here.
This is like living in a horror film. Insanity, greed, lust for power, money, pedophiles, rapists, liars and cheats. Why are so many good, powerful people so silent? Reading and learning as much as I can, my conclusion is blackmail and death threats abound. Mafia Politics.
There should be zero doubt that what is continuing to unfold in the United States is organized wealth versus an intentionally divided society. Several years ago the "Occupy" movement amplified a simple frame that it's the 1% versus the 99%. The reality is a fraction of the 1% are insatiable, and have accumulated and hoarded massive wealth. They only need to use a small percentage to buy media companies, control and constrain news and therefore "Manufacture Consent". While the criminal elect and his corrupt GOP organization enjoy the spotlight, those in the shadows have been working toward this subversion of our system to concentrate wealth, power, and control. What they have done and continue to do is criminal. It is an overwhelming economic attack on the system -and they are pushing society beyond the edge.
"To push a plan they dubbed Operation REDMAP, which stood for Redistricting Majority Project, they raised $30 million, mostly from corporations, to buy ads and circulate literature that would convince voters to elect Republican state legislators in 2010. The legislatures elected in 2010 would get to redistrict their states with maps that would last for a decade."
The GOP didn't do it all themselves in 2010 - they had the assistance of several Democratic Quislings in the upper ranks, plus the inexperience of Obama for help.
Obama won in 2008 largely because of Howard Dean's 50-state Strategy and Obama For America, the best grassroots campaign I ever saw in 50 years of political involvement. Then right after he won and was in office in 2009, he appointed the Worst Democrat In America - his good Chicago buddy Rahm Emanuel - to be his Chief of Staff. Rahm's first acts were to fire Dean and install one of his stooges in the DNC, then to shut down OFA (right as the GOP was wheeling out their astroturf "Tea Party"). He also told his stooge that the DNC should only support "winnable races."
And then Obama flunked the first rule of being a Community Organizer: the REAL fight starts AFTER you win the election. He installed the Chicago Democratic Mafia and people like Ben Nighthorse Campbell in office and those scum did a good job of suppressing enthusiasm from progressives. And he decided he was too busy presidentin' and getting Nobel Prizes and believing "there are no Red States and Blue States, there are the United States" so he was too busy to go out and campaign in 2010 like he did in 2008.
And the result was the Obama Presidency was irrelevant from 2010 to when he left office in terms of creating a political system that could actually fight the fascist scum who were (and still are) dedicated to planting him six feet under.
The Republicans didn't win 2010 - the Democrats lost. And we have been digging ourselves out of that demographic hole ever since. At least now most Democrats finally believe there are more elections that matter than merely the quadrennial presidential "shiny object" competition.
But I will never ever ever ever vote for another inexperienced amateur who didn't know where the bathroom was in the Senate. And I'll never ever ever ever be stupid enough to say "Wow, we finally won the election of 1968!" as I did to a friend on election night 2008.
And that sonofabitch Emanuel can go fuck himself in his face repeatedly, him and the rest of the Third Way Vichy traitors.
It’s inevitable that one or more of these mid-census gerrymanders will be quickly brought before the Supreme Court.
In normal times, the Court would at the very least keep to the letter and spirit of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which explicitly banned race-based gerrymandering in order to deny minority voters representation.
But, as everyone knows, the ship marked “Normal Times” set sail from the Port of Sanity long ago. The Court can’t be trusted even to uphold one of the longest, strongest, most bipartisan acts of settled law in history. And Trump’s legal weasels will argue that this has nothing to do with race.
Yet it also clearly has nothing to do with mid-census population shifts that must urgently be addressed before the next census. Somehow, however, the Roberts Court will figure out a way to give Republicans new, previously unarticulated Constitutional rights to choose their voters long before the voters have made up their own minds, long before elections are even held. There will be 3 principled objections to the new fascism who will read their dissents from the bench, but that will be that. They’ll have no more power to change anything than a Democratic state legislator in Austin.
Someone please point out the error of my thinking….
The Supreme Court already ruled a few years ago that gerrymandering is undesirable but, alas, there is no remedy. In the 1960s, the Court ruled that the 'one man, one vote' rule should prevail and heard a lot of redistricting cases as a result (and is still hearing some of them today.)
No doubt the Court would prefer not to have judges have to oversee the creation of Congressional districts to ensure that they are fair ... but there is nobody else to do this.
An ideal system would have a non-partisan body setting the districts based on publicly-stated factors, as some states and many countries have (e.g. Canada, not to look too far away....) But in the absence of such a body, then the courts - and if not the courts, then ... nobody.
That's the result of the Supreme Court declining to act - nobdy is preventing the obscene gerrymandering going on in mainly R states. Not a surprise that some D states are pushing back - and pretty well have to, given the new push to weaponize districting that Trump is encouraging and that some states are enthusiastically pursuing.
Sadly, in the end, this conflict will lead to nothing but chaos and tragedy for the American democracy (small d). Congress has managed to work (more or less) through 250 years because of the respect both parties gave to each other in Congress. Those days are definitely gone now and the winner of this conflict is likely to gain very strong control of the Congress possibly for years or even decades.
After the golden age and the great depression, Republicans were in the political wilderness Congressionally for more than fifty years.
They returned with Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, during the Clinton administration. That is when the Republicans adopted the tactics of treating their opponents with hatred, which has led us to where we are today. This is the new Golden Age, and trump is breaking the economy. Will the people blame right-wingers for the damage they have caused? For the last ten years, too many have chosen to believe the rhetoric they want to believe and ignore the lack of evidence.
The winner, Jon, may be parents of various parties.
Americans may -- may -- draw a line we haven't seen yet by the many now disgusted by elites who've been freely fondling, effing, and having themselves sucked off by these parents' underage, for-money-trafficked children.
They may withdraw the license long given to our disgustingly dehumanized elites.
It’s time for Democrats to strongly deliver the message that we are not the “enemy”. That we, too, are Americans wanting the best for the US. But that our ideas are different from those of the current administration: We believe in truth in reporting and an independent media, that federal and state institutions must be truthful and trusted. We believe in the importance of independent educational institutions, in scientific research, that a society is best served when it best serves its people, in representation by the people, in the importance of the separation of powers. We believe in individual rights, including a woman’s right to manage her own body. We believe that climate change is a reality, that a nation’s history must be related truthfully, etc., etc., etc. Don’t let “them” define “us” as “the enemy”. We’re all in this together.
Correct, but can I ask you, do you know why these differences in the two sides exist? I literally never see it discussed- the right are people with proportionally bigger amygdalas than the left. Amygdalas are what guides our response to fearful stimuli. The right is basically more afraid. And this is why neither side changes- its physiology. You can Google this.
I haven’t seen the amygdala size mentioned. I have seen studies where people self-identified as either “liberal” or “conservative”, were hooked up to brain activity monitors, and then given a task: make a financial investment that was either “high risk, high reward” or “low risk, low reward” and measure the brain activity while they made the decisions. The actual decision wasn’t test measured; it was what area of the brain was accessed to make the decision. Self-identified conservatives accessed the amygdala as the primary source while liberals accessed the frontal cortex. Danger perception/response vs. critical thinking. It explains a lot.
Any interested in Tina's here may usefully go to Robert Lustig's "The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains."
PLEASE state more clearly how gerrymandering is the perfect example between the two political ideologies. The right is motivated by fear of losing their privilege and cheats to win with gerrymandering. The left is motivated by morality and had passed legislation previously in many areas including California, that districts had to be drawn fairly by independent commissions. This so clearly identifies differences in the two parties but also identifies sadly, how much more effective their side is at winning.
extraordinary perversions of Constitutional practice and precedent, going back to Reagan. these are the people who truly hate the USA and its founding principles.
“Truth” “is” but what the autocrat feels best furthers his drama of Himself.
Latest: his need to rid public professionals based in the real world. As his jury-convicted criminality and long record show, he’s no respect for such realities as our Bureau of Labor Statistics measures. As his gift of comfort housing for Ghislaine Maxwell shows, he’s no respect for her many victims of child sex trafficking. Rather, it’s only fictions pinnacling Himself he values – never mind realities such as his own life-long abuse of women and girls (including fondling his own daughter’s 15-year-old hips – who’s not seen that image?).
If our schools centered human truths other than has this rapist, felon, bully, and perverse liar, schools could open the best books on the human in all its complications and personal nuances. They could key student essays on that, too. But schools don’t do that. So we’ve instead tens of millions helpless before rape, felony, bullying, and perverse lies.
My concern isn't with the obvious sicko. But how American "education" could ever possibly grow the vast support he and his sick agenda have so obviously had -- ten years now.
But I'd go back a decade, to the Powell memo of Aug. 23, 1971, and to the new far-right, well-funded foundations such as The Heritage Foundation and ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), both in operation from very early 1973.
Yes, nothing comes from nothing, and the predecessors of now reach back far and wide. Conquest and slavery are "original sins" that live to this day, and corrupt self-dealing is as abiding an affliction of societies as infectious disease. The "Powell Memo", as well as Powell's elevation to the Supreme Court by Tricky Dick. An "Attack on the American Free Enterprise System"? I love free enterprise, just not monopoly, which hardly makes it free. And I love a robust, respectful, and trustworthy public sector. Why the hell not? Too bad for billionaires who yearn to rule, but government of, by, and for the people is a better way. What was so bad about well paying jobs, defined benefit pensions, affordable state universities, rules for safe products, reduced de facto bribery, due process of law? Not that any age was golden, but is Trumptopia in any way better? Legendary Japanese swords contained two metals, a steel holds an edge, but is brittle and a steel that is resilient but won't hold an edge. I find many of the "sweet spots" in life are some blend of divergent qualities, but fanatics fight for a "purity" that too often tosses out the babies with the bathwater.
Keep writing like this, J L, and you'll soon be writing poetry.
I say that as you are seriously welcoming complications here -- which means valuing, too, nuance, layering, analogizing, corollaries, contradictions, and serendipity.
A poet welcomes all this for the chance to let it all cohere and turn into a new something-other in ways no one earlier might have imagined.
Not just those "who control the puppet-strings," Margaret-Rose.
Not even the tens of millions who've voted, cheered on his and those elites' cruel, heartless agenda. But similarly sick, Dems in the elite law firms, the universities, the social media world, the legacy media world who've caved and given him, them, their extortion millions.
And the DNC which, out of related sick money calculations, refused to field decent Dem candidates in many, many red districts.
Margaret-Rose, you are exactly right. Anyone who's followed Donald's life knows this. Since his boyhood, he has relied on the brighter minds around him, whether it was his nannies, schoolmates he cheated with, business executives who actually ran his companies, the producer of his TV shows or his campaign managers and operatives.
When left to his own devices, Donald Trump fails consistently. And he has a string of bankruptcies to prove it.
Russell Vought and his cronies at the Heritage Foundation drew up the blueprint for Donald's "reign." Vought is now handling Trump's administrative responsibilities. Stephen Miller is handling Trump's domestic policies. Susie Wiles is handling Donald, himself. Donald is trying to handle foreign policy, which is why it's in such a shambles. Rubio is just a weak bystander, watching as Donald screws it all up.
With "money pouring in from Russia" and assorted grifts that he has been rich to be held accountable for, he is pretty much a shallow playboy, with a certain gift for selling "snakeoil".
If there was any doubt at all this is a blatant example of how far we’ve fallen as a country. My grandparents, who struggled mightily to become citizens of the United States would be heartbroken, as am I.
It is interesting to see that where we choose to live is so reflective of our politics. It would be challenging to gerrymander if housing patterns were more random.
States like Wyoming, the Dakotas, and Alaska only have one representative but have a total of 8 senators. That kind of math, when combined with gerrymandering, gives outsized clout to conservatives. We can have a minority government that disrespects the majority. The framers wanted the reverse - a majority government that respects the minority.
We need to use every means available to resist and call out Trump's illegal and unconstitutional efforts to become a dictator, to fight Republican efforts to steal the midterms, and to ensure the midterms occur.
Support the NDRC (National Democratic Redistricting Committee). Founded by Barack Obama and Eric Holder this organization has been doing good work for years fighting gerrymandering and voter suppression. These are on the ground efforts.
Is Obama really ready to fight … publicly, every day? Or is he going to continue to hang back and be the guy who is “too cool to fight”? He never fought the GOP when he was POTUS. He never gets angry. I won’t support anything he does until he shows he’s more than “the smartest guy in the room”. Even if he is (and he isn’t), we need ALL our ex-presidents to FIGHT! Speaking of which, Texas is his state… where the fuck is George W Bush?!?!
The NDRC has been operating for years. The Obama Foundation has also been doing great work. I prefer people who suit up and show up and don't need to be running their mouth all the time in front of the cameras.
Why is this Obama's job or Bush's job? It is our job. These people were in the game. Where were the voters? How politically active have each of us been while the Republicans were planning this coup? This began well before Obama or Bush. It's all too easy to stomp around, curse and point the finger.
We the people made this mess. There is no one coming to bail us out.
There are more of us than them. And we will win.
You’ve missed my point. But go ahead and think ordinary people can lead the effort to save democracy without Obama and Bush’s active involvement. They have the ability to attract news organization you and I don’t have. I am not suggesting they “go it alone”. What I am saying is they need to demonstrate the leadership commitment that got them elected in the first place. And if you think that will make them (especially Obama) a “target”… well, that’s why he and Michelle have got Secret Service protection.
You are both right. Obama can attract news automatically, but so can thousands of people in the streets
Agreed! WE do need Both a republican who will stand up for democracy along with Obama. We need them to stand together and speak up at these demonstrations. We still haven't gotten the number of people demonstrating that we need to create change.
We need a huge DC protest. The hugest.
Bingo! 3.5%!
That is why our group efforts are shown on world- wide news shows. I do believe there are a lot of republicans with bullseyes. They just don't see the numbers of very angry people.
They have proven themselves. It is our turn.
It is the belief that ordinary Americans have no say or effect on this Country's direction that got us in this mess.
Just think if the 15 million who did not vote in the 2024 election had cast a vote (he only won by a 1.4% margin.) Or if the 1.7% who voted for someone besides the 2 major party candidates had voted for Harris.
Each exact vote makes an exponential difference. Each action makes an exponential difference.
News? The "news" had descended into propaganda machines owned by oligarchs who hate democratic forms of government. It was a toxic stew of lies and disinformation that helped elect him twice.
Ok, so I agree, we the people DO need to stand up and fight. BUT, we need both republican and democratic leaders, to stand up at these demonstrations with us. We need leaders to come to these rally's to attract bigger crowds. Even though we have had record numbers, we still haven't gotten to that number we need to create the change that we so desperately need right now. Obama, Bush, and other strong leaders to lead these demonstrations. THAT would I believe attract that percentage we need to turn the tides.
Mr. Scrooge is alive & well, hiding behind philanthropy.
G.W. Bush was only marginally better as President than trump.
And trump would demonize Bush just like he is demonizing Chuck Grassley now. If the rabid trump chumps and Q-twits carry out any violence because of trump rhetoric, it would be poetic justice if it is against a right-winger.
It was the election of Barack Obama that the right weaponized to manipulate the racist, misogynistic, and losers who blame their failures on the equality of people who "don't deserve"it because they are not white. Obama might have that in mind as he thinks about how best to inspire people and minimize the right-wing backlash. I agree that ex-Presidents should show up to defend democracy, but I don't see W. doing that.
"It was the election of Barack Obama that the right weaponized to manipulate the racist, misogynistic, and losers who blame their failures on the equality of people who "don't deserve"it because they are not white." THIS
DO you understand the racism in this country?
It's our job and it's Obama's job and it's Bush's job.
PS If you really believe “We the People” made this mess, I invite you to read Sarah Kendzior’s two best-selling books (“Hiding In Plain Sight” and “They Knew”) to learn about the deep level of corruption in our society… including in the Democratic Party. This mess is a product of a lot of things. Voter apathy is one. Making Merrick “slow walk” Garland the US AG is another. There are many others.
www.sarahkendzior.com
Read Erica Chenoweth's study on the effect of mass movements have on politics and change. There has always been corruption, racism, misogyny, and evil in this Country. I prefer to focus on what we do in the fight. We either stand around in the problems or we climb up and out and take our Country back.
I have fought for over 50 years for America and I am not stopping now. I have never expected America to be good enough to fight for or spent too much time on what is wrong and who is to blame. I have just never understood that approach.
We are in a coup d'etat against the United States of America. How we got here or who is to blame is for the historians to sort out someday.
Boy, will there be stories to tell. Been watching the Roosevelt series & all the intrigue was very interesting.
We are less inclined to act collectively than people of decades past. For example, we have lower participation in PTA meetings, unions have been decimated, people aren't employed in large groups as we were when we had manufacturing.
Only Obama can get the publicity this requres
Obama is not the savior. This is on us.
Millions upon millions of Americans in the streets. It has been proven to work.
Oh wouldn’t they love Obama to step out into the open in this fight. How easy could it get? The less distractions the GOP has from their democracy demolition, the better chance we, the people, have
Don't be silly.
Barbara, SO correct! It is OUR mess & WE need to clean it up. Assuming that a wonderful past President will be able to direct all political stands is hilarious. He did his job. Now it is time to do ours.
Words help, but if we all resist things can change, like shuttin down the country. That will get us heard.
You are asking someone at Amazon to walk off the job, get fired, lose their income, health insurance, and possibly their home. They won't be able to feed their kids.
Then what?
We have got to stop with empty rhetoric. We must roll up our sleeves and do the boring work of writing Congress, writing postcards, calling Congress, protesting, town halls and then doing it all over again.
Calling my call to “shut the country down” empty rhetoric misses the point. We don’t need Amazon warehouse walk-outs to bring things to a halt. And yes—contacting our representatives is a great idea. Just picture the MAGA crowd lighting up the phones of their Trump-enabling members of Congress to gripe about whatever grievance is trending today. We Democrats have been calling our reps for years. Let’s be clear: both of Trump’s elections were tilted by voter-suppression tactics, and the upcoming midterms could be hijacked the same way unless blue states counteract Texas-style gerrymandering.
Support the organizations fighting voter suppression and gerrymandering.
Could be? This was clear to me when he won.
Yes, spend some time to call the opposition, tie up their phones, clog their mailboxes in DC & at home.
I'll buy pens for people! And postcards.
Where is George W? Why, he's nestled comfortably at his Texas ranch honing his oil painting skills. More specifically, painting the wounded soldiers he sent into war under false pretenses. Can't get more effed up than that.
He's scared.
Of what? He's a coward for sure, but not sure what he has to be scared about now.
Geo W cannot open his mouth- for shame. Which means complicity. Weasel.
That would be a backlash. He would be another Trump target to fuel hate among people, plus another distraction away from the Epsteiner files. He is out there - in a subtle way, as his Biden.
Unwritten protocol is that former presidents don't meddle in future elections. Also, the new administration is not to drag the prior administration through the mud. The US economy was the envy of the world. Trump continued saying it was horrible. He knows if you keep repeating the lie, people will believe it.
There must be some juicy stuff in the files if Trump sends subs to the waters surrounding Russia - and tells the whole world. All subs are nuclear. Those carrying ballistic missiles are dangerous.
Now he is going after Jack Smith, who, despite the enormous amount of evidence proving Trump was guilty in the classified documents case, dismissed the case, doing Trump a favor.
We have got to stop waiting for a savior. No juicy stuff will save us. We have got to stop listening to whatever junk he is throwing out. The nuclear subs were on routine maneuvers. Jack Smith can take care of himself.
We need to focus. We need to fight. Each of us.
Donate to your local public station. Save a free press.
Organize people with signs on the street. Let them know we are here.
Go to a protest.
Support the NDRC.
Support an up-and-coming local school board candidate. We rebuild from grassroots up.
Support your local library.
Help the elderly person in your neighborhood.
Volunteer at your school, library or any number of organizations in your town.
Contribute to a food pantry.
I agree that all of these things are necessary. However, at this point it seems we are fighting fire with a small misting bottle. We need to do more.
What else then? What do you suggest?
Great comment, Barbara.
Yes, Barbara, we need to always check beyond the gibberish from T. to get the real story. My Savior is not of this world. It is expected for all of us to help all of us all the time- esp. in the ways you have listed above.
Uh, and do you ask the republicans who voted for the BBB to help their constituents? That's where the massive protests should be. Kick them out of office for their greedy acts.
“Unwritten protocol” must be discarded when dealing with domestic terrorists who will stop at nothing - including faking an assassination attempt and now creating additional House seats out of thin air - to win.
Yeah, I have always thought that was a fake job on the assassination. And yes, the hell with protocols.
Yes, these are valid points. This business of ex-POTUS hanging back and not interfering out of some perceived protocol is bizarre. The big tent is on fire, so scream —FIRE!
I dont think that is why they are hanging back.
We would never have had the orange blight without W. Remember W was the first Republican president this century to lose the popular vote. If it weren't for Karl Rove and W's father, W would still be just another failed businessman. He's an impulsive idiot. Rummsfelt, Chaney and Rove played him like a fiddle. He is by far, the second worst president in our history. Together they make Hoover look brilliant.
And that's saying something Carol.
If Trump can run for a fourth time, why can't Obama run for three?
I really don't see how GW Bush getting involved would really help matters at all.
If Bush were to get involved, Trump, Congressional Republicans and the media would begin by "relitigating" the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bush's failed attempt at immigration reform in 2007 would be "read meat" to Trump, Johnson and the Freedumb Caucus's base too.
Bush, Dick Chaney, Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz's foreign policy legacy is the Taliban back in power, ISiS, increased Iranian influence in Iraq and ultimately the current mess in the Middle East. Bush isn't stupid enough to want any of this relitigated.
In 2007, Bush attempted to pass a comprehensive immigration reform package through Congress. It would have created a path to legal status, and ultimately citizenship fot undocumented immigrants. Like the Biden reform package Trump and Johnson scuttled, Bush's plan would also have increased funding for border security. Despite bipartisan support, it failed. Trump would definitely weaponize this.
Lastly, I think it's worth noting that the last time a Bush ran for office he got run over. Jeb Bush's 2016 campaign folded after he received less than 8% of the vote in South Carolina.
The Bush family "dynasty" is over, there's just too much baggage. Anything GWB did to try and lead an anti-Trump movement would, at best, be drowned out by the baggage.
Steve, you and I might not agree with the idea, but traditionally past presidents avoided commenting about their successors. Obama is probably the best spokesperson for the Democrats, but he appears to be honoring tradition. I suspect both Bush and Obama are sickened by what is happening and maybe their will speak up - forcefully! Personally, I wish they would
Tradition has nothing to do with it.
Kathy, I think we will have to disagree to disagree.
My husband used to say that Barack Obama's negotiation skill set with the GOP was to come to the strip poker table with his shirt already off.
Absurd. Obama got THE most important health care reform bill through Congress in THREE decades. By now, it saved more than half a million additional American lives.
If that's still not good enough for you, my question to you is: what did you do with you life? How many lives did you save?
He’s busy painting as Nero was busy fiddling!
Steve, you were not privy to what Obama said or did in his fights against the 'police state' of the repubs. I can only imagine some of his remarks. AND, someone doesn't have to scream, yell & pound the podium to make a good point. GW wants to quietly enjoy his non- political life. He'd be eaten alive if he starts playing politics.
Go to hell with your sparkle pony fauugressive posting. Where were any of you in November 2024? Obama was out there, as was many others, laying out the case against this yam colored clown and the chaos his reign would bring, but here we are. When are WE going to hold ourselves accountable and keep OURSELVES engaged without always needing someone to prop us up? Where are the protests in Texas? In Florida?
So, basically Democrats should be Republicans ...
Thank you, Barbara. We all need continued information passed along/ shared as to “what where how” in this gobsmacking fight
I thought Holder was a weak and dithering AG. Until we all met Garland.
Sorry, but The sound you have heard for the past 15 years, just before another norm falls, is Eric Holder vowing that it will not fall.
Barbara, can you list any specific achievements of the NDRC?
I recommend you go to their website. It's comprehensive.
Thank you for the reminder Barbara! NDRC works hard.
Hello EcstaticRationalist: "Shane Goldmacher and Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times note that “[v]oters are…reduced almost to bystanders as Republicans essentially admit to trying to determine the outcome of Texas races long before the elections are held.”
A person close to the president told Goldmacher and Corasaniti that the White House strategy is “Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.” ... ... For Once They Are Being Honest... May This Be Their Last Death-Ride... Heya!!!
Reposted from my recent blog:
The Nightmare that Has Become a Reality
I was certain that everything that is occurring under the current administration would happen again as it did in the first go-around. But Round I was childhood training wheels for the 2nd run. Most people or at least, a very large segment of the American population unfortunately have short memories. Donald Trump proved to be the modern Antichrist by 2020 yet we voted for him again.
I believe that many people revenge vote, which means that if you don’t like what the current president is doing, you caste your vote for the other candidate but this time the other is the one true Antichrist. He knows only destruction and self-aggrandizement. I would liken such figures in our time to Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Pol Pot indeed even Benjamin Netanyahu fits this description for killing more than 50,000 and starving 2 million victims by Israeli government oppression of Palestinians who have lived on their lands for hundreds and thousands of years. And this just so he can keep out of prison and stay in power. While Trump hasn’t killed yet in concentration camps, his behavior has led to hundreds of thousands needlessly dying in nursing homes in 2020. His vile hatred inspires his followers to kill indiscriminately. Certainly his closure of many agencies of government that protect people here and abroad will ultimately lead to premature deaths.
Why did so many Americans revenge vote? Certainly the missteps (literally) of Joe Biden cannot be dismissed. I have no need to regurgitate it. But to turn away from the stability of government and revenge vote is unconscionable. One must too, consider our online cell devises that has changed human behavior to be more aggressive; having shortened attention spans - a devise that separates us into aloneness instead of bringing us together and makes us prone to political grooming. The world community walks around with cell devises because, well, they can. And the tendency is to converse with the person in front of you unless or until the cell gives notice of an incoming message. Does anyone realize how fucking irritating it is to stop mid-sentence just so the person you are communicating with can measure instantly how important you are against the next incoming call and that call usually supersedes you unless you have money on the table.
In a “Star Trek: The Next Generation” segment from “The Game” in 1991, the “Starship Enterprise” is infected with a hand-held computer game that leaves the user addicted to the games as they exhibit orgasm-like responses to the game wins. And the business of interstellar exploration is badly affected. Does that ring any bells? How far-sighted of the writers to project this hand-held devise as the potential ruination of Starship America. This devise arguably contributed to a massive socialization crises and turned many voters to kiss off American Democracy by electing the AntiChrist of our time.
What they did in the Reagan administration was first Lewis Powell Memo and they learned from that to devise P25. Better planned and executed.
They imported Rupert in Jan 1981 and the prep began. Nixon’s disappointed crooks were eager to sign on, as were Reagan Democrats, and plenty of money.
Yep, Dark Money. Jane Mayer said it best.
So many speak, so few listen
Yes, JDinTX, Money a plenty along with a limited vocabulary with which to express oneself: "like", "you know", "uh huh uh huh", "yeah", and the "f" word, and of couirse WTF! Go. Yeah.., GO ask someone.., anyone.., what the word fealty means. Hahahaa..., go ahead.., try it. And, go-ahead, mis-spell it, 'feelty', or 'fielty', they won't know any difference, let alone what it means. Put f--- in front of it along with WTF and 'you know' and you'll have a complete sentence and/or expression, of that persons level of intellect. Then, ask those dickheads or dildos, what "gerrymander" means. Ask anyone.., not just MAGAtts. Keep notes.
Sadly true, ignorance is as dangerous as stupidity. Add money to that and off the rails we go…
Check out the work of https://electiontruthalliance.org/audit-advocacy-toolkit/
There is evidence Trump stole the 2024 election with Musk but we need election audits to prove it. Ballots are still on file until Wed Sept 30, 2026 and the evidence might be there if we can encourage election officials to look for it. We are running out of time to ensure the integrity of all future elections.
Your essays are always insightful and brilliant. Good people are under the influence of bad ideas. The Maga engage in deliberate ignorance because they do not want to know. If they did, they'd have to take responsibility for their lack of intelligence and compelled to leave their comfort zone.
Thank you.
The article attached here by Jim Stewartson is pertinent to “political grooming”, aka brainwashing. I suggest that despite it being long it’s well worth reading through. It’s a summary of 5 years of study by a qualified & competent person. I just finished reading through it a second time. https://open.substack.com/pub/jimstewartson/p/how-it-happened-why-america-mirrors?r=41pd0&utm_medium=ios
IMHO this falsely assumes that Trump won a fair election.
It's true there are cultists and QAnon, but not to any significant extent.
Judge, I'm curious about a couple of things. I don't understand why you say his thesis is dependent on an assumption of 47 winning fairly. I see his info as important, stand alone background on the psych-war focused on dismantling democracy; the who, why, how of the reality. Regarding % population QAnon &/or other cultists & their influence: I agree, it's most likely a small %. Mainstream media being profit driven, it grabs extremes and boosts them to create interest and a story that can grow; analagous to fishermen chumming to attract schools of fish and create a feeding frenzy / more efficient way to catch. Do you know of any reliable polling that has quantified the numbers of cultists, their locations and qualified their influence?
I think psy ops works -- but not necessarily as to individual voters. I think there was intimidation on several levels. Intimidation of election officials. Intimidation within the Republican Party. Intimidation of voters.
I don't track it but during the election, I worked with data and all of the data showed Dems shpuld have had a huge advantage.
I once wrote about Cuba. We used psy ops, but all our data was wrong. It was partly due to bumbling by the CIA....
I was in school about the time that Jung died. His collective racial subconscious theory is a better rationale. Subconscious racism.
Yes I read it and will read it again and probably download it for someone. But note, as soon as I express issues that don’t coincide with standard democratic group-think, I’m harshly criticized and this tendency is an example (though small) of bias thinking. And this is because we are all subliminally influenced for better or worse. Just a note of caution.
Why does it matter? Standard Democratic groupthink has made itself irrelevant and impotent; For the most part standing around doing nothing, acting like somehow things will all go back to business as usual. IMO, too large a % followed Bill Clinton and decided to compete with Rs for campaign financing from the same sources. Most Fed elected Dems gave up on Progressive ideals and squandered the gains made by Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, through LBJ. They seem to have been too lazy and bought off to organize smart defense of democracy. In my view, the whole dominant paradigm of materialistic, consumer society driven by extractive capitalism is a mass scale, carefully orgainzed dynamic that reflects the instincts and drivers of a malignant narcissist. Fascist mafia state oligopoly uses outrageously mentally ill Donald Trump because he represents and acts out exactly what they want and need. <> Assisting grassroots, doing what needs to be done in your own neighborhood is more productive than trying to force intimidated and bought off pols to do the right thing. Some Dem Fed elected officials are trying to do the right thing. We need to help them to get as much into the historic records as possible to show exactly corrupt and widespread this contagion has infected our politics. IMO, we need to be reaching out to fringes of Trumpworld, find those who are regretting their vote and help them see how they, their families and communities are being badly hurt for the long term by Project 2025 and their gangster mercenaries. Disillusioned and rational Republicans are the ones who can put a stop to this. Use Stanley Milgram - 3 degrees of separation and Philip Zimbardo guidance to find them. Use Karin Tamerius' Smart Politics and George Lakoff & Gil Duran's The Frame Lab to effectively frame discussion / messaging. Use simple graphic visual aids that illustrate the benefits of changing paradigms from toxic extractive capitalism that destroys earth and most of humanity to planetarity and subsidiarity. <> I'll try to copy and past some good survey data by PRRI in a separate post on my substack tomorrow. It's too extensive to put in a comment.
Both of you, Rich and Bill, present great commentary. I will only ad that in any game (and it's a "game" we are in) there can be moves which are 'slight-of-hand' to one level or another. However, dumping a mountain-load of MANURE onto this game has us all struggling for air. Throwing shit into the game.., any boardroom meeting etc, means the game stops - period as it is no longer a "game". This is where we are now. WE must bring this to a stop. We must do it with our physical presence - strongly.
A fascinating and terrifying article!
Nice Post Bill…. Star Trek was Prescient..
Bill, I don't think it was so much of a revenge vote, but much more an example of how we have grown up in this country. Just call "us" Americans. As such, 'tomorrow' will arrive like today - good or bad; deals will be made with usual honesty; agreements will be honored most of the time; people might cheat a little but ponzi-schemes will be the exception and probably found out; crooks will generally end up dead or in jail; the rich will provide jobs for you and me by buying new cars, houses, interior designers, etc; the poor will get EBT cards and be criticized for the mis-use; Governors will be voted in or voted out; term limits will be good for some, but not for all. Basically, the situation we have found ourselves in over the recent 30 years has been one in which we could "DEAL WITH IT".., and, call it naive if you want, or call it bliss, or call it ignorance.., that's how we have been here in the USA. I don't think the average person ( that's ME ) thought we'd have a Supreme Court have to take on some case and rule that "a president" could behave in such a relatively "CARE LESS" manor as just part of the job. OR.. that our Constitution would be just an expresssion of how one might think depending on some hidden proclivity. In other words, we/the country didn't see this happening. The fact that 'this' didn't just happen, is 'the fact' that the manure-spreader($$$$)s are continuing to obscure. We better wipe our eyes, stand up, make our presence known and shown.
He got elected through widespread voter suppression. The 2024 election was close enough in key swing states to raise legitimate concerns that suppression tactics may have tipped the scales. Between aggressive voter roll purges, changes to mail-in voting, stricter ID laws, limits on drop boxes and polling locations—not to mention coordinated misinformation campaigns by both domestic and foreign actors—it's not unreasonable to conclude that both of Trump’s elections were, in effect, stolen
Trump confessed to the fact that Musk’s computer skills gave Pennsylvania to Trump!!!
Agreed. And now these states will be gerrymandered to an extreme. And the Supreme Court will do nothing!
Who Is Stephen Spoonamore?
Spoonamore is not a recognized voting-machine or government cybersecurity expert. He was an independent candidate for the Ohio state House in 2016, holds a background in finance and tech entrepreneurship, and is listed as founder or board member of companies unrelated to election administration or cryptography
Harvey, thank you for bringing me up to date on Spoonamore. His credentials fooled me.
We lefties need to be careful not to spread misinformation especially when it confirms our biasm which is what the RW does all the time.
But will Rupert tell the cult…fat chance, but I doubt that the cult would object. Vlad is no longer the enemy to be opposed, it is the Democratic Party. This demonization has had long legs and is a virus worse than Covid. Aren’t we all tired of sounding the same alarm over and over.
Yes
Seems a useless endeavor, but I can’t not do it…
I hope it's not Our (the People's) last death ride. Instead of win-win, it seems the country's being set up for lose-lose. Our comprehensive plan?
Hopefully, this WH's hubris will urge them to fly closer to the Sun.
As Governor Newsom said, “California’s moral high ground means nothing if we’re powerless because of it.” Democrats need to fight fire with fire, but they should run on getting power back so they can make a law that all states have to use independent citizen-led redistricting commissions.
We need more street fighters like Gov. Newsome to take proactive measures.
We are the street fighters. There are million and millions of us.
And they are setting up concentration camps throughout the country. to put us in.
We all need to be very careful about fear mongering.
Too many of us for 'them' to take us all. Let them try.
Go, Gavin, go!
We've been resisting and calling out trump's illegal and unconstitutional efforts for about 10 years now. His followers won't hear it. I have relatives who still support trump because "he's getting things done". I've come to realize some of my relatives are morons.
Debbie, it is amazing to me that people still think death star is "getting things done" in some kind of positive way. Well, yes, if people live to see the rich get richer, programs for the vulnerable go by the wayside, destruction of our first rate science and research institutions, etc. All it means is that your relatives have not yet been hurt by his policies.
I agree they haven't been hurt by his policies - - yet. But it doesn't take a genius to see the destruction these policies are causing or will cause. I cannot believe my relatives don't have enough common sense or logic to see this. They're brainwashed or morons, or both. 😭
Debbie, maybe both. People can be so indifferent until they are affected. I note too that people who diss the government all the time are also first in line when they see a way to use what the government is offering.
Agree. I don't see them turning down their Medicare coverage or their Social Security payments. They'll wake up when those things disappear. Unfortunately, they'll disappear for all of us as well.
Hello DebbieM…. Do they have, or had, Substance Abuse Problems?…
Nope, not at all. They're just gullible enough to believe obvious lies. It's mind-boggling.
My other question would be: are your relatives hard-line Christian’s? I’ve found many in this group tend to be single-issue voters, like anti-abortion.
I just about puke when I hear politics framed in “family values”. Back in the day (realistically, before Monica L.’s stained dress), the people wanted the government to correct wrongs being done to people. Just about every oppressed group made gains, many through funded programs to EDUCATE about inclusion. The goals of The Heritage Foundation really coalesced into action when the country had the gall to elect a Black man. The Heritage Foundation really cultivated the closed-community thinking that gave rise to MAGA. trump is NOT the brains behind any of this. He is the Project 2025 meat puppet. In both of trump’s victories, the Heritage Foundation put the spotlight on high electoral vote swing states while quietly taking the majority of sparsely populated, agricultural, or poorly educated states and ALL OF THOSE electoral votes. Not once but twice.
Yes, some of those relatives are proud to call themselves "christians". I put that in quotes because, seriously, they need to re-think what that means.
I totally agree that trump is just the Project 25 puppet. They can't wait for him to go away so they can really dig in and crush every democratic aspect of America. I'm afraid it will be more brutal than what we've seen so far. These people are evil.
There appears to be no stopping him! Grandiosity, vulgarity and ignorance have their own relentless momentum and, to date, there are no pleas or good arguments that can check their course..... MAGAs should feel like traitors for being so easily bought with praise and vacant promises.
And to think it's only been just over half a year...it's actually terrifying....
I read a quote once that went something like "Nothing is more offensive than creativity without taste (and I would add mental illness.)
The WH is 55,000 sq. ft. and this buffoon's ballroom addition will be 90,000. How hideous! Who does he think he will fill it with?
It's all about optics; it's all about his taking complete control over something; it's all about his world-shaping importance. Yes, indeed, it becomes more frightening daily without access to responsible sources of news and information and honest government. Our lives have become the battleground and his daily anger and vindictiveness (so far) is the unsurmountable enemy.
The problem is the dems fell asleep at the wheel for about 45 yrs...good that they are finally fighting back but this seems too little too late to me...I know a little pessimistic this morning.
Did anyone watch the Democratic National Convention Harris led? It was brilliant. Breathtaking. Inspirational. Her only misstep was not including a vetted Palestinian speaker. That cannot possibly be enough to have kept her from success. I'm so tired of people blaming the Dems. Have you heard Jasmine Crockett? James Talarico? Cory Booker? Elizabeth Warren? AOC? Bernie? Adam Schiff? We have leaders fighting for us with all their might every day. Back some of them up, people, rather than cutting everyone down in one fell swoop.
laura, I listened to AOC take down the Florida rep who called her a f...ing bitch in front of cameras. She is so articulate and reminded that Florida rep that he has wife and daughters and that he is modeling an attitude toward women
Yes. Stop this self flagellation. It has long since stopped being useful. We Dems need a single, strong theme to get behind. Herd mentality isn't flattering, but it works to get the short term job done.
I cheer at my TV when those people speak. Do not tell me or them to SHUT UP! AOC has got such a mouth! She can hold someone's feet to the fire. Wonder what that FL rep's wife had to say in response to AOC. Hope either is face is still stinging from her slap or, his ears are still ringing from his wife's rage!
He is not a dictator now? With the help of RW judges, and Congress controlled by sycophants.
One would think that the art of the deal meant that the deal benefitted both sides. But for Trump, the art of the deal is to make sure that Trump gets to rip off everyone involved, and the Texas gerrymandering is just one more rip-off. Of course in the end, if the Republican gerrymandering is successful, the gerrymandering will let Trump rip off his own voters, which he will, since he is obsessed with ripping people off. And many of his Deplorables are too stupid and too consumed by White Christian Resentment to realize that they are being ripped off.
Monroe, most legitimate negotiators agree that a "good" deal is one where both parties come away from the negotiation with something they wanted. The Trump men, starting with Friedrich, then Fred, and now Donald, never subscribed to that philosophy. Donald was mentored by his attorney, Roy Cohn, who believed that negotiating is a zero-sum game. The outcome must be one winner and one loser. But Cohn only reinforced the Trump family approach to negotiations.
In a lifelong campaign to win his father's approval, even post-mortem, Donald is desperate to always be a "winner" and make everyone around him "losers." He cheats at golf and he cheats at everything else because he's actually incapable of doing anything well, with the exception of calling attention to himself.
I absolutely agree. I’ve read the comments on this thread, and people are hesitant to write that we need to push for gerrymandering blue states. I believe that the 2026 election will be gerrymandered in red states so that Republicans will win. Rather than “playing fair”, Democrats need to fight fire with fire. Barack Obama may agree with Michelle that “when they go low, we go high,” but Donald Trump has now made that impossible.
I completely agree, we can’t afford to sit on the sidelines. What’s happening isn’t just political maneuvering; it’s a direct assault on democratic norms and human dignity. We need to call it what it is and push back through every legal, ethical, and organized means available. That includes not just opposing authoritarian tactics, but actively cultivating the kind of civic culture and community power that makes them impossible to sustain. Thank you for speaking up—this clarity and urgency are exactly what we need right now.
That won’t matter — we need to go head to head with Trump, the Republicans and MAGA. The rule of law matters not one iota to Trump, as they have so far illustrated. So again, GAME ON. We must prove we can and will go head to head.
Secession by blue states; join Canada and the E.U.
Agree. It's no longer DEMs vs REPs. It's Democracy or Dictatorship. DEMs and REPs should joint hands for this fight.
Correction: the neofascist GOP's "illegal and unconstitutional efforts" to turn the US into a fascist regime!
It is SO important that we begin to acknowledge that Trump is merely their clown in chief, literally paid billions to sign all their neofascist Project 2025 orders into law and then distract us while they're "burning down all America's institutions", as Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts called for in his book "Dawn's Early Light" (the book published in 2024 that JD Vance wrote the foreword for).
When "EcstaticRationalist" says "every means possible, Margaret-Rose, I don't think so.
The #1 step from among "some of these means" should be -- no competition -- ridding our schools of standardized testing.
There is absolutely no difference between the numbers, numbers, numbers students and teachers crave from testing and the numbers of seats politicians crave from gerrymandering.
Both forms of mania eschew the human. Schools to ignore, avoid, drop good books, essays, and discussion. Politicians to ignore, avoid, and drop actual people caught in the claws of our rapacious elites.
Heather's totally correct. The South did win the Civil War. Won it when the schools then politicians all sold out to the impersonal, money-driven, rationally strategized.
Dehumanizing of schools and teachers was first goal of the Powell memo's earliest key foundations. Then (easily) could come gerrymandering, Citizens United, and some fool entertainment criminal pedophile.
Hello Phil... The South won the Cultural War, The North won the Economic War... Now we are fighting their Bastardized Child...
Phil, attacking the public sector is actually fairly easy as the sector does not defend itself. Michael Lewis wrote 2 books about this. There is another In Defense of Public Service - L. Alexander that talks about public service. Conservatives do not understand why anyone would not do a job that pays more money. They say things like how important many of the jobs public servants do, but in the same breath trash them for being on the public dole. I have had this discussion with my conservative family members before and they have no idea about the sacrifices many in the public sector make. They usually take the attitude "they knew what they signed up for" to justify the measly pay they get.
Rickey, what i see way too often is that all taxes are bad and this attitude is often fostered by the media which loves to trash public entities and employees.
Exactly. As the business sector has adopted the most heinous attitudes and practices. Michael Lewis tells the tales
Interesting argument, "knowing what they signed up for". And one that I never hear made about police officers. There's "Back the Blue" as if an officer is born into duty, rather than choosing a job that they can also decide to leave at any time. We humans don't seem all that interested in having consistency in our views.
Phil, people were not paying attention to what has been happening to schools. it has finally dawned on quite a few people around here (Oregon) that they need to pay attention to all elections including school boards. You know how I feel about standardized testing, bane of the existence of good teachers.
I see you commenting well to many here, Margaret-Rose.
When you refer to "your country's politics" it seems as if you inhabit another country. Might you say here or some other time allude to which one?
Margaret, they believe he has found and eliminated waste, fraud, and abuse (via DOGE), he is cleaning the streets of immigrants who have committed violent crime, and his “honest and incorruptible” appointees in federal law enforcement have found evidence the the “Russia hoax” was fabricated. (Seriously—Kash Patel found a “burn bag” with ALL the evidence that Obama, H.Clinton and Biden fabricated the story.
:))
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has a fairly bright social media team and they've been creating and posting memes with clever comebacks in response to FOTUS's social media rants. I hope other blue states have also upped their social media game.
"California governor Gavin Newsom posted on social media: “[Trump] is so scared of the American people holding him accountable for his catastrophic actions, he wants Republicans to rig the 2026 elections for him.” Newsom pointed out that it would be easy for California to eliminate its Republican-leaning districts altogether, getting rid of nine Republican seats.
He posted on social media: “Game on.”"
Gerrymandering is irredeemably corrupt, but if $COTUS has made legal gerrymandering the law of the land, I suppose it's best to do it to counter it until it can be ended. The current system is grossly unrepresentative.
As HCR points out, the Democrats don't even bother putting up a candidate against the Republican in the heavily Republican districts. We are 16 months away from the mid-terms and only 6 - 11 months away from primaries. So Republicans are going to scramble to find candidates that will run in these new districts. The Cons haven't exactly done a good job of vetting their candidates, so it's very likely Texas will send other MTG, Boebert or Santos to Congress.
The Dems need to find young enthusiastic up and comer to run in these districts. By just having a candidate run against the Cons, they will be forced to spend money and Elon isn't going to bet on every loser that is running in a "safe" district. Plus, the Democrats have a better chance of winning gerrymandered districts because they are not going to be running against incumbents. There's got to be dozens of Ann Richards, AOC, Crocketts, etc. out there that can fight every day for these seats.
No one thought AOC could beat a longtime Democrat incumbent but she did.
Yes 100%. Even if there is little to no chance of winning it is an opportunity to spread the message and cause the Republican candidate to have to defend his or her positions -- which are largely indefensible unless you can get people to believe all the lies.
And as the Guardian pointer out, which economic class really benefits, and benefits bigly, from "Republican" policies? How many times and in how many ways have "Republicans" kicked working families in the teeth? "Same old serpent" if you ask me.
Herschel Walker lost so enough people mustered up some common sense. We can’t give up on our country.
don't forget Oz lost as well, but it was to Fetterman which has been a disappointment.
Fetterman is actually an accurate reflection of the Pennsylvania constituency he represents. He won because he's a "home boy" who ran against outsider Mehmet Oz.
Like so many states, Pennsylvania is largely rural, poorly educated and conservative, with pockets of educated, progressive thinkers in its largest cities. A truly progressive Democrat won't fare well in a statewide Pennsylvania election.
Its neighbor to the south, West Virginia, gave us the supremely disappointing Joe Manchin for exactly the same reasons.
And now Oz gets to play TV doc with the Feds. So tired of having a bunch of crappy TV news folks. shamed lawyers & judges & anything- for- money TV docs. party with the power they have been anointed with by Reps. & T. Might as well watch reality TV- some show, different names.
And we got another serious voice in the process. We need to change the playing field to accommodate newcomers with fire in their bellies if we are to make a difference. Redistricting, "Game On"... finally?
It seems to me that in our over-commercialized society most advocacy is handed over to marketing departments in which the profundities of human communication are stripped away. I don't even open most political emails that often apply gimmicks and little useful information. I do support a number of causes, but am sometimes put off by their semi-deceptive, hard sell marketing techniques. Advertising so often parks dignity at the door, and I think our grudging acceptance if of that helps enable wider corruption. Dignity and decency are not just niceties that need not apply to pursuit of money. They are key indicators of our quality of life, including on a practical level. MAGA is a Hell of a way to run a county.
Chip Roy, Louis Gomert, Ted Cruz, and don't forget Ken Paxton will most likely dethrone Cornyn.
Gross.
If Musk starts a new party, it will split the right-wing vote and give the Democrats a better chance in the gerrymandered states.
Not hearing much about that.
If just one Dem. would get on the ballot, I think the Rep.s could see the silent majority kick their collective asses.
I keep asking for the Dem. party to introduce me to candidates I can choose from. Not a lot is happening.
If I were King, I would either eliminate the US Senate or make representation there proportional to population. Then I would eliminate the Electoral College and elect the President with a simple national majority, having a run off if any 3rd party (or parties) receives as many votes as the difference between the 2 largest vote getters. Then I would award seats in the House based on population as it is now, more or less, but in line with the total popular vote in each state. Close win, reps divided 50-50. Big landslide? How about 80-20 or 70-30?
This would give us governments that actually govern and guarantee that every vote is equal to every other. In other words, our democracy in name only would become a real democracy.
Of course, this would require an amendment to our Constitution. So, we're screwed.
One person one vote -- I totally agree. Currently a voter in Montana has way more clout than one in NY or CA.
As someone else put it, several square miles of vacant land in Montana have more of a voice than one New Yorker.
Run off? Ranked Choice Voting. Run offs are just a waste of time and money. Especially for small towns, where budgets are already tight (and have been for decades).
Okay, ranked choice voting. I'll look it up.....
David any plan that would threaten the current occupation will be doomed. The American People, in general, are not “fighters!” Their battle cry is, “Ho-Hum!! Oh Well! Somebody else will come along to save us!” So unless Americans experience a Major Epiphany!!!! The last three words of your Comment become the Testament we will live or, Die with!!!
Yes, a major epiphany might clear the air a bit. Bring it on!
I think every constitutional amendment begins by drafting one. Some may have been a shoo in, but Abolition, and Women's suffrage, among others, took some doing. The 19th Amendment was not yet in effect when my father was born, but is now taken for granted. There are amendments (such as NO to "Citizen's United") that might be ready to pick up momentum with persistence and sustained promotion (that even the Roberts Court might have the guts to defy) but any such effort is widely deemed useless. Many social movement begin small before their hour has come, yet maintain a visible presence around which support may gather. The Electoral College is anti-democratic; period. I have thought that since the first day I learned of it in High School.
Yes, it's a no brainier unless it's the only thing permitting your "side" to win presidential elections. Interests so often take precedence over ethics, unfortunately.
David, I have preached and will continue preaching that nearly all our electoral problems would be solved by criminalizing gerrymandering (as it once was) and eliminating the Electoral College. Both of these devices enable minority rule, which is antithetical to the tenets of democracy.
To reinforce the prevailing notion that only conservative white men were wise enough to vote properly, the Electoral College was a scheme created specifically to minimize the effect of votes cast by newly freed Black citizens who'd previously been enslaved.
Structure of the Senate and House would not need any adjustment if the two above-mentioned problems were corrected.
No Kings, David! Not even you! 😉
Fire with fire. Sometimes needed in most desperate of times and situations
We can't expect to win using the old tactic of "bringing a knife to a gun fight." Sometimes, it's necessary to hold your nose and fight with the same bloodymindedness as your opponent.
... and overtly racist as in Texas attacking latino & black majority districts.
Texas districts will fight back adroitly.
Check out Texas State Rep GINA HINOJOSA (Regina Inez Hinojosa).
Gina is a lawyer & a legal 🦅 eagle.
The Court has ducked the issue and plaintiffs have allowed them to do so. They need to be forced to face it squarely with a case that simply relies on equal protection principles devoid of allegations of racial discrimination. Simple principles. In the context of elections Equal Protection translates to the principle of One Man One Vote.
If that principle is not offended by politically engineered voting districts then force the high court political majority to own that position. Let them say legislatures can do whatever they want with voting districts. They can create virtual electoral concentration camps. And say they are equal to other districts.
We do not have '1 person 1 vote' in this Country. Like any good attorney Gina has not discussed her exact litigation strategy out load.
An attorney's like Gina 's "WORK PRODUCT" is a privilege held by the attorney herself NOT the client.
REPEAT: "Check out Gina" means observe her litigation tactics in Court.
Hello JustRaven.... I saw Gavin Newsom on Bill Maher's ( Traitor ) Show... Gavin Crushed Bill Maher... Gavin has found Purpose, and Cause... Gavin is a Champion... GAME ON !!!...
Hope "game on" it's really on, otherwise Apache, we'll be lost forever.
Rob Bonta is the CA AG, game on.
Apache, thank you for this. Will look for it.
ALSO: From Megan Rothery:
Continue to - Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Use/share this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to those in your own state, as well as those in others. Use your voice and make some “good trouble” ❤️🩹🤍💙
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lYafj0P-6owAJcH-5_xcpcRvMUZI7rkBPW-Ma9e7hw/edit?usp=drivesdk
I've posted this several times. On an individual basis, some Congressional Republicans are vulnerable, morally and politically.
Of the 33 regularly scheduled elections in 2026, 13 seats are held by Democrats and 20 are held by Republicans. Four senators announced they will not seek re-election in 2026. Imagine a Democrat taking McConnell's seat in KY.
Of the 33 states holding regularly scheduled elections in 2026, Trump (R) won 21 of those states in 2024 and Harris won 12. In 2026, Democrats will be defending two states that Trump won in 2024: Georgia and Michigan. Republicans will be defending one seat in a state Harris won: Maine. The last time the 20 Republican-held seats were up for election in 2020, four were decided by a margin of less than 10 percentage points: Iowa (6.6), Maine (8.6), North Carolina (1.8), and Texas (9.6). The last time the 13 Democratic-held seats were up for election in 2020, five were decided by a margin of less than 10 percentage points: Colorado (9.3), Georgia (1.2), Michigan (1.7), Minnesota (5.3), and New Mexico (6.1).
What our candidates have failed to do is analyize them rationally. Neutralize their strengths. Compete for donors.
If Medicare and Medicaid cuts will kill their local health care, we should seek support from hospitals and other medical providers.
If Trump tariffs are killing agriculture, we should support the agricultural sector.
This stuff hits Trump as the pedofile issue, but also Russia. I remember when people like Phil Graham, Strom Thurmond, Arlen Spector, Ben Nighthouse Campbell, Ric hard Shelby, Connie Mack, et al switched parties. Sen. John (Cleghorn) Kennedy R, La, once was a Dem. Do these people have daughters? Do they support Putin?
We should have a book on: Capito, Shelley Moore (R-WV) Cassidy, Bill (R-LA) Collins, Susan M. (R-ME) Cornyn, John (R-TX) Cotton, Tom (R-AR) Daines, Steve (R-MT) Ernst, Joni (R-IA) Graham, Lindsey (R-SC) Hagerty, Bill (R-TN) Hyde-Smith, Cindy (R-MS) Lummis, Cynthia M. (R-WY) Marshall, Roger (R-KS) McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) Mullin, Markwayne (R-OK) Ricketts, Pete (R-NE) Risch, James E. (R-ID) Rounds, Mike (R-SD) Sullivan, Dan (R-AK) Tuberville, Tommy (R-AL)
Agreed. Democrats cannot make the mistake of running one issue campaigns (abortion) or simply being anti-Trump. There are real issues voters care about: inflation, healthcare, immigration reform, etc; and some the country needs real leadership on: food insecurity, AI, education, predatory lending, venture capitalist destruction of small and mid-sized businesses, housing, trade, Ukraine, gun control, etc.
We need a robust, sane, in-your-face platform our coalition can stand on, not just a few planks. We also need to talk about how to hold those most responsible for this threat to our Constitutional Republic accountable for their actions.
I agree. Groceries. Healthcare. Weather forecasting (god forbid someone says 'climate change'!). They should stress the positives of what they CAN do, in contrast to the GOP tearing everything apart. Most Americans do not know history or even global geography. I'll bet most don't know where the products they regularly buy come from. And the GOP wants to keep them ignorant. From 1984: "Ignorance is Strength" -- ignorance of the voters = strength of the GOP.
We had one as the fucking corporate media demanded of Harris. And from Trump they got NOTHING BUT BULLSHIT.
Trump says this is war. So let's make sure the voters know that Trump hates America and everything he does is to 1) help himself and 2) his oligarch friends.
Fortunately, his insane tariffs are hurting many of the oligarchs and their friends, families and employees. There will be a recession under Trump and many indicators are already pointing in that direction.
Let's be very clear, the conservative leadership hates America. Why else would they allow all the constitutional violations? Why else would they keep pushing for an Article V convention?
Power, fame & money- only can be theirs if they violate the constitution.
I'm sorry but we wuz robbed. We had a good campaign. Psy ops. Voter intimidation. The most important symbol in 2004 is a 6'7 girls' basketball player who needed a shave.
Did Trump admit that Musk stole Pennsylvania?
Truth - start asking these issues in the form of questions. Over the umbrella like: Which party is taking away things? There are a litany of ways to tailor the campaign in each and every district. The conservatives used to say all politics are local so how come those in power in high places have take local power away? State level legislatures did it to cities and counties and now the Congress is doing it to states. The overall strategy is there. As this administration states: maximum warfare everywhere. We need to do the same and stop playing by the norms and use the damn law before they change it like they did with the recission bill.
All politics is (and are) local. Need to tailor the attack.
What is important here in Bagdad By the Sea is oblivious to most of the rest of the country.
A national message is sometimes poison here.
There are comment sections in many newspapers and online sites. Politely denigrate the actions of the Senators listed above, like voting for the OBBB that takes Medicaid and healthcare away from thousands of their constituents.
And continue the heat on Trump being a pedophile, sex trafficker and sexual deviant. "Release the Epstein files," needs to be a news story EVERY day until at least the midterms.
Even some evangelicals are opposed to Trump being a pedophile.
Last night he was booed at WWE.
Social media is more effective.
Have to take it to MAGA institutions. Churches. Veterans' orgs.
Why are there so many white Christian Nationalist pastors? Most of them have to have 2nd jobs and have their spouses work just to survive. Of course there are the greedy bastards like Osteen that are just like Trump--just a group of carnival barkers.
always remember - silence is approval.
Old saying: silence = death.
I think this phrasing could be really effective: “tRump is so busy protecting his rich friends who are in the Epstein files that he doesn’t have any time to work on getting costs down” [or ending the Ukraine war or any other campaign promise].
https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/beyond-epstein-how-we-win-bigly-that
26 Republican senators and dozens of Republican House members voted to support Ukraine. We were hoping that people like Don Bacon would take Trump on -- but didn't.
IMHO had we put on a full court press on some of these issues, some Repubs would have voted against Trump. But we didn't.
Many of the Congressional Republicans have personally lost bigly due to elimination of stuff like crop supports, food stamps.....
Don Bacon is a theocratic liar. He says one thing and sounds like a tough guy until he votes every single time with the Republicans.
He says he supports Ukraine and hates Putin, but then he won't support additional sanctions on Russia or aid to Ukraine.
I can't wait until he's gone.
And don’t forget to add Gym Jordan.
Where has this snake been hiding?
I don't live in West Virginia, but a few months ago, I wrote a letter to Senator Capito as she is married to a former college classmate of mine. I tried to appeal to her conscience regarding tariffs and deportations. Shortly after sending the letter, I noticed her nephew, newly elected Representative Riley Moore, on TV with 2 thumbs up in front of CECOT proudly claiming how good it is that are Homeland is being secured. I called Senator Moore's office with a plea to not vote for the big beautiful bill and gave her some praise for doing the right thing about saving the program in West Virginia that monitors black lung disease supporting coal miners. Of course, she voted for the bill. Then, I saw her website containing a photo with her arm around Pete Hegseth and his arm around her with a caption underneath proclaiming how proud she was to have a warrior ethos back in the Dept of Defense. If only she knew how unamerican Pete Hegseth is, when he pressured Trump to pardon Clint Lorrance, court martial and imprisoned for demanding his platoon to murder 3 unarmed Afghanis simply because he believed them to be members of the Taliban. The young platoon members became victims of drug abuse, alcoholism, and suicide because of Lorrance's immoral leadership.
Her father was former governor and jailbird Arch Moore. Support for criminals is a family tradition.
She never supported the black lung regulations that recognizes "legal" pneumoconiosis.
Most coal mine owners these days are Chinese.
Daniel, as an Idaho voter I find the way that Risch cozies up to Trump indicates he has a piggy bank where his heart used to be and his lips close enough to Amberman’s ear to seem as if begging for access to 12 year olds where his morality lies in his withered nutsack. When you find his name on the “list” Idaho will finish sinking his yacht. On the other hand it might be because he got hooked on magas milk which dribbles from Amberman’s boobies. Astounding he could not be weaned. This is Utah’s close neighbor, which cultivates millions of boo bees and exports them everywhere. In fact you should look around for suspicious little white boxes where you live. I think it could be the next pandemic. Protective clothing is strongly advised when approaching boo bee boxes unless you have been maganated.
thank you! US citizen no longer resident, lived there last in DC so have no vote for Senate. but will make good trouble for all these folks, what do I have to lose?
Hello Leslie, Is it possible to change you voting address?
hi, Kristin -- I don't think so, not legally anyway.
That’s not exactly a winning social media turn of phrase. Whatever comes out has to be a lot simpler, more direct and far earthier. May I humbly offer something like this?
“Fuck these loser assholes who think being Republican means they can pop a tic-tac and just grab you by the voting booth because they’re rich and powerful!”
By tens of millions, ICTT, most of those who voted Trump were not "rich and powerful."
But they were the products of a U.S. system of education which, covertly engineered by the rich and powerful, took all morality, civic decency, and humanities out of the schools, easily, easily, easily replacing all that with the monstrous (totally impersonal, mechanized, machine-gradable) conceits of testing.
Phil, I think it's far, far too facile to blame recent elections on standardized testing and the gutting of civics and humanities from schools, but it seems *every* comment you make uses public school education as a scapegoat. I must tell you that it gets tiresome after a while. Heather laid out reasons in this LFAM that blame strategic gerrymandering (used primarily by Republicans) as among reasons why it has been difficult to maintain House control by Dems. In past posts she has reported on Russian bot influencers working through social media to thwart our democracy. I don't have to tell you this, as I see your frequent comments in this Substack.
Must you blame everything on public education? I'd also add that I'll soon be 70, and had the advantage of a more rounded education in public schools. Yet people in my cohort are among the most reliable MAGA supporters. You can't blame the educational system for that.
Thanks for hearing me out -- I'm not trying to rant. I enjoy your frequent comments, but immediately tune you out when you start beating that poor deceased equus.
Hello Phil... Maybe they were just Lousy Students...
Go Gavin Newsom - let’s get this party started!! Though it’ll be a legal arms race - particularly as Democrats support anti-gerrymandering reform. He legally can’t redraw maps himself. But his sabre-rattling is of the highest order.
Morning Kazz... Gavin will keep it Legal... The MAGAts? How are the Australians seeing this... Y'all can be a Wild Bunch...
Evening Apache!! Great question!
Like Canada, the Aussies are watching this slow-motion dumpster fire of a presidency and going, “Yeah… let’s not let that happen here.” They’ve started cracking down on political donations, banned foreign money in campaigns, and are pushing for more transparency and integrity in government. Basically, they’re trying to stop anything like this from crawling out of the gutter and into Parliament.
Good Morning Kazz... I'm Glad that the Australian Body Politic is Watching & Learning.... Seems to me that Climate-Change is impacting Australia more than the USA thus far, and Australia is closer to China... Forewarned is Forearmed... Blessings, Take Care...
Gavin can be made into a young voters dream candidate, a man on the run. Perhaps giving him the shine of super hero JFK. When we were young even us isolated morons in Fallon Ekalaka and Mildred and Zero Montana, were drawn to those California girls with the flowers 💐 in their hair and those funky dresses. Did I mention beads. I’m not sure how Alzada and Two Dot went. But the rest of us youngulators came out in every way even(gulp) so far as to become actual demonstrators. This is an emotional crowd we have not much engaged. How about another Woodstock every weekend? How about a gamer’challenge? How about raising the notion that the crowd who has the least possibility of ever owning a home until their parents pass actually means something like the real national treasure they are. Perhaps passing along to them a symbolic engagement ring. Imagine. Imagine the creativity of Hollywood’s “game on” flooding the nation with renewed vigor. Imagine the vigor of youth slaying the dragon, riding the wings of good ole Puff coast to coast Canada 🍁 to Mexico 🇲🇽.
How does that tall handsome fellows name go? Uh Gavin, uh NEWsum? Hmnnnn. How in the hell does he run the world’s fifth largest economy. How in the hell does he fight the current regime to standstill ??? Can he sing the body electric?
Hello, Pat, my name is Dale Rowett and I'll be your fact nanny today.
California's economy is now the world's 4TH largest.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly80zlk1lyo
Thank you Dale, er nan. I just knew when they brought high speed internet to my rural Idaho residence the damned republicans would cut a few strands of the fiber optic cable. Part of their Trump infrastructure make Amurica great absconding movement. MAGAM!
😆
The Rs have been working for decades to ensure an unfair and unrepresentative majority in the House. It's time for Ds to push back. What's good for the goose is good for the gerrymander. Once Ds are back in charge, they really should pass legislation that lays out very clear rules for balanced, representative redistricting. Let's get back to fair elections.
Go Newsom!
I live in CA, and I say, YES, let's do it! Go, Newsom!
Oooh, memes. Biden did, too. Memes don’t win elections.
In a meaningful democracy, how can the right to vote, and the right to have your vote count no more and no less than any other not be considered axiomatic and sacred? If we really support and admire governance of, by and for the people, is it not essential that all the people are represented by their vote? Is it not something of unalienable value that should be fiercely protected?
I
Good Sunday morning folks , it’s another cool start .
I’m a fixer. I fix broken stuff, vacuums, figurines, toilets, a circuit blown, seeing our barnyard menagerie healthy perchance an animal limping or off their feed…I fix it . I had a career of fixing, taking a person/system obviously out of balance , the why, and restoring best support/balance..sometimes it’s a compromise , sometimes the dump container, after trying too long I may just walk away.
We don’t have a choice in this problem and we all face it. This is the only planet known to be able to support life. When you can’t drink the water ,grow enough food to feed the population , or breathe the air w/o choking or soon dying …it needs fixed. Whatever gets in the way of those priorities -that stops fixing it…doesn’t matter..we all still die..and anyone who says ..well, we’re all going to die…is just avoiding the principle.
Yea I know it’s a lot more complicated than that.
But always or all ways still is about the principle.
I read this with all my windows closed, watching the thick haze from Canada fires ruin my Michigan view and my freedom to go out and enjoy it.
"We don't have a choice in this problem." We ALL must work to fix it.
So sorry. Sorry for our Mother Earth too.
At this point of our ‘civilization‘taking as much responsibility for cleaning up after ourselves ought to be self evident.
All things equal is a forever commitment , but not everyone commits.
Thanks MaryPat 🫶
And Thank You for your continued fixing, Patricia.
If there was a way to get India and China to clean up their acts, 80% of the pollution would be gone. That's where it starts. It ends everything else is futile
So you want to stop natural born created fire? I know this may not sound inconvenient, but nobody is mandating you to live in Michigan. You could go out and have the freedom to go out and enjoy it 49 other states as well.
And here's why your protests have questionable motives and names
Ironically, countries with kings, don't allow protests for no Kings day. Ooooops
As a practical matter, this issue doesn't effect votes for President or even Senators in the same way as it does for Congress critters. It is hard to gerrymander a state. Both Senators run at large and other than the inherent "gerrymanderness" of each state itself, those races are more or less decided based on what the population actually wants. Its at the Congressional district level that things start to go amiss.
True enough, but here I am speaking of all of the ways in which the right to vote and know that your vote with count as much as any other is seriously diluted or deliberately sabotaged. Gerrymandering is patent corruption and it's part and parcel of the systematic effort to cheat citizens of their fair share of representation.
Meanwhile, the Cons continue to purge eligible voters from their roles. And most of those purged live in districts that are majority minority. Many of them don't even realize they have been purged until they go to vote. In many ways this is just another method of gerrymandering. Stacey Abrams fought for years to register people to vote. If it wasn't for her and her volunteers, would there be two Democrat Senators from Georgia?
I love Stacey Adams; we need more of her kind in the Dem party.
J L, true as to gerrymandering being "patent corruption."
But when you note "the systematic effort to cheat citizens of their fair share of representation," for attention diverted to gerrymandering you forget the far worse and more final cheating of people's "fair share of representation" vis-a-vis and among each other.
If Americans had literacy as to our great novels, memoirs, and histories (and other books), all would feel and would be represented among each other. We've lost that morality, that humanity, those decency skills.
Other elites decided schools would teach all instead to number each other, to covet finishing points on top of all others, and to surrender humane decencies to the logically rationalized groups, categories, and linearity of testing.
No other value in U.S. schools now. So we inhabit a poisoning, the "patent corruption" to which you refer. Gerrymandering included.
In 2010, my state senator excitedly told me (I was then a Republican business woman, and he was advising me on how to succeed in my new start up) that "We've gerrymandered this state so bad those f%#$ing Democrats will never win again!!" Like it was as legal as a quarterback sneak, all a game to him with NO conscience involved, and no legislative referee to call them on their deceit. Then he laughed. After that I supported "Michigan's Voters Not Politicians" which succeeded in creating a fair redistricting process, and victories for Democrats. I now fear what these political crooks will do to destroy our fair Michigan elections. https://share.google/sforZDPFUrcLoC1Ia
When republicans were losing and democrats were gerrymandering, they supported the independent commissions. Now they don't in republican controlled states. Democrats signed on to the independent commission idea in the states they controlled, but republicans never did in their controlled states. Democrats need to understand there is no negotiating with these people.
This is painfully true. Negotiations require trust that your opponent will abide by any agreement, be a honest broker
We can no longer expect honesty. In fact to them, honesty is a liability. We need to understand that they intended to keep NO bargain
Was your Senator Michelle McManus?
Thank goodness, NO!! Her uncle George was at one time, though. I serve on a board with him, and, when I was a young lobbyist, he gave me excellent political advice.
It's their way of telling us that their vote is more important than ours.
Formerly the Party of Lincoln, now addicted to mega-money.
(Imagine a moldering apple): "This is your soul on graft."
Follow the money.
That is a good point, but as one who lived in Texas for 40 years, the affects of gerrymandering do end up impacting state wide elections. When you cut out the ability for the districts to be competitive, you eliminate the opposing voters from voting. Then you add the voter suppression techniques, then gerrymandering becomes even more effective. TX republicans have done it well. Look at how Cruz is viewed by the voters and yet he wins comfortably. Same in other republican states.
Texas is unusual. First you don't register to vote with a party. You become affiliated with a party by voting in their primary. But that only lasts until the end of that year.
The fact is Texas is still a GOP state. But the gerrymandering of Congressional and state legislature seats is much worse than the actual party split. By primary affiliation Texas is about 52% GOP 42% Democrat and 6% independent and other. But by Congressional district it is about 70% GOP. The gerrymandering definitely effects voting.
Once you vote Republican for the House, it's too easy to vote the same party all the way down the ticket. How many voting machines have the option of ticking one box for a straight party ticket? Especially known too, is the incumbent advantage.
Actually I'm not sure if this is true anymore. California for instance has no "straight party" voting on its ballots and hasn't for many years. In the old cumbersome voting machine days this was prevalent but most states now vote by computerized ballot and its very easy to vote for each race individually. I expect some states still have straight party tickets on their ballots but if like to learn how many people actually still do that.
Well-stated, Jon, so I give you a "like."
But your last sentence errs. It's at the level of all schools taken over by testing "that things start to go amiss."
No Child Left Untested.
You on the left actually have the audacity to talk about voting rights when Biden opened the border and everybody from the center of the political aisle to the right knew exactly why he was doing it in order to get them to vote. In order to get non-citizen specifically to vote democrat it was attempted in four smaller markets, but in one huge market, and it almost made it all the way to the finish line so try denying it all you want, but you have to be kidding about talking about voting rights yikes
And of course, Heather totally ignores any attempts at gerymandering by Democrats in the past as a great example in New York itself
This is the part where I suggest that these threads are written by people who live at the intersection of hypocrisy and double standard.
Exactly! That’s why I feel now that we have lost our democracy. Republicans want a one party government and are doing everything to achieve that for many years. I don’t know how we can pull back from the brink of autocracy because it feels like it is already here. I am no longer optimistic. I have lived through many administrations. I have watched the gerrymandering, the Supreme Court capitulation, the rest of the destruction of our democratic values, the corruption. Calls to our reps, protests in the street up against the “machine”? Feels like we’re using our bare knuckles in a gun fight.
And after the Shelby decision, States immediately started openly racially profiling again.
Well, looks like the economy is just fine even per CNN energy prices down 1.1% food price is flat housing prices up .2% which is because Paula won’t lower the rates stock market up 7000 points since liberation day on the Dow 6000 points in NASDAQ And 20% up on the S&P also an all-time high Hope you pulled all your money out of the market there smarty-pants
Right now we have an exemplary efficient democracy. In fact, I can’t imagine it getting much better than this, but I think the next three years it actually will
How come you didn't bring this up during Biden's administration or Obama's administration or Clinton's administration? Hmmmm something now seems amiss
What we really need here or term limits that would solve a large measure of our problems
Only a very few people by the way think that Trump is a convicted felon 77 million people willingly and knowingly voted for a convicted felon last November and why do you think that is? BS cases brought by twisted prosecutors with liberal juries and compromise, judges, and all the cases have gone away. If any of these cases were brought in Florida or Texas, as an example, they would’ve never made it to a courtroom.
The problem with people like you is you’re still living in the past it’s gone. Trump is president. He’s gonna be one of the best presidents out of the last 50 years. So you keep complaining the economy is screaming along without the help from the fed unfortunately which would only double Trump’s efforts Iran is no longer going to be a nuclear threat to the world and I think the taco lol has made that clear. The border is closed crime is down. And only six months he’s made five piece steals or Cease fires
Albert in my opinion, you’re absolutely lost and just so you know my prediction and many people’s predictions are the first black female will be a republican. How about that?
The first black female president will be a republican. In fact, if Condaleeza rice would’ve run she probably could’ve won
No fear certainly but literally "no way" either as our system is in gridlock and will have to get UNlocked before anything could actually happen.
I woke up just as this Letter dropped into my in-box. I also broke my cardinal rule of not reading until it is well past Heather's bedtime :) and later than 7am and cup of coffee firmly in hand. So, I'm just going to repost my comment from yesterday and try to go back to sleep to calm my angst. Every.Single.Day!
trump’s mental decline has been apparent for years, yet the MAGA’s (and way too many other republicans who twiddle their thumbs) remain fanatical devotees and make trump beyond reproach. For those who voted for him, admitting a mistake would be an admission of despicable political judgment and the truth about their own lack of values. Denial is their path of least of resistance, but it also creates a coalition we all have seen to block trump’s removal.
The issue extends far beyond cognitive fitness. trump's occupation of the WH has been marked by a dangerous convergence of incompetence, corruption, authoritarianism with an overlay of evil. His so-called administration includes individuals whose actions continuously undermine democratic norms, damage international alliances, and end institutional integrity. The evidence of this, whether in the form of legal investigations, whistleblower reports, or public records, is extensive and well-documented. Yet, the overwhelming evidence has failed to translate into a meaningful shift in public support or political accountability.
This failure reveals a critical vulnerability in democratic systems: if a tyrant gains control of all three branches of government, the very mechanisms designed to protect civil liberties are ignored. Unless corrected, this trajectory leads not just to political dysfunction, but to the destruction of the fundamental principles under which democracy operates. Dictatorships never end well.
Even with the visibility of all his failures, crudeness, limited intelligence, and gross and illegal behavior (he is a convicted felon) trump is beyond being incompetent; he is crazy dangerous and has the codes to the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Yes, it is the U.S. that the world sees as a rogue nation.
None of this happens without the approval of the republican leadership. Remind them.
Absolutely. No dictator acts alone. They get and hold onto power by bullying, threatening, and bribing their cult members/companies, controlling the press, judiciary, legislature, every institution/agency they can get their hands on, as well as exploiting other countries. Simultaneously they, and their family members profit enormously and live opulent lifestyles while the masses pay the price!
In Canada, Parliamentary redistricting is established by federal law only after the 10-year census, never before, and then within procedures according to widely published, strict guidelines laid down by the country’s chief electoral officer — akin to our FEC here, all governed by explicit federal law.
Once seats are allocated by province, each province appoints 2 3-person independent commissions to oversee the internal provincial redistricting process. One member is chosen by the Chief Justice for that province, the other two are appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons. They are never chosen by political parties on the basis of political affiliation. Canadians would never accept outcomes based on something that grotesquely absurd.
It amazes me how little Americans know, or care to know, about how other democracies undertake the very same tasks with far more intelligent outcomes than the Rube Goldberg contraptions we’ve come up as a substitute for common sense here.
https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=cir/red&document=index&lang=e
Oh Canada, keep your land glorious and free! I've been to Vancouver, B.C. a few times and have always felt an allure to the place. Americans could learn something or maybe even just be better neighbors to Canada.
I wonder how many Americans know, or care to know, about are own democracy or if we are even aspiring to be one anymore. It's our republic if we can keep it, but more people need to vote, become aware, informed and educated. Which is completely at odds with the Trumpublican deviousness and P2025 agenda. Stifling and denying the vote by gerrymandering when their legislation and other schemes can't do it alone.
I always remember when I was a kid and first learned about it, seeing the illustration of the gerrymander creature from the extremely old political cartoon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#/media/File:The_Gerry-Mander_Edit.png
"Printed in March 1812, this political cartoon was made in reaction to the newly drawn state senate election district of South Essex created by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the Democratic-Republican Party. The caricature satirizes the bizarre shape of the district as a dragon-like "monster", and Federalist newspaper editors and others at the time likened it to a salamander."
How about Canada being better neighbors to us Jorhai?
After all, they have very little military presence and rely on us for their protection, and we would come through in a heartbeat. Secretly there were millions of Canadians that would love to become part of the United States, but refrain from saying so outwardly
And here's why your meaningless protest fail
They have no basis in fact and your. names are ironically wrong
In a country ruled by kings you cannot have a no King's protest
What ever happened to decency and honor? What about doing what is right? Trump is so malignant that he has sapped all morality from every Republican, from SCOTUS down to local school boards.
He so craves awards. IMO, he is in the running for "The Most Vile Human Who Ever Lived. I will rejoice at news of his passing.
The trouble is that you know this, I know it, Professor Richardson knows it, all of us know it, Democrats know it, and yes — so does sad Lisa Markowski, concerned Susan Collins, conscientious Thom Tillis. Even Kentucky Fried Voldemort knows it.
So does every other Repulsican Senator and about 95% of them in the House. But they won’t do anything about it. They voted to exonerate him for High Crimes in 2020 and 2021. They continue sucking their thumbs today while holding candid discussions with each and every one of their Lean Cuisine dinner choices.
So have you seen the map of the United States by County voting last election by any chance I didn't think so would you like me to send you a link? The country is red with a few blotches of blue on either coast and a few freckles in the middle
https://vividmaps.com/2024-presidential-election-county-by-county/ This is the true complexion Of America.
And by the way, you can see what you want about me I didn't produce the map nor the votes.
And every single website will show you the same thing
CA, decency and honor were mortality wounded during Reagan times and finally passed away with a little help from the scumbag president in charge of this fascist regime. Democrats can't keep playing by the book and being nice. That's a proven formula for losing every time.
Ricardo, when Michelle Obama declared, "When they go low, we go high," she made that declaration on the very last day it was operable.
We can no longer operate on that principle or we will lose our democracy and ultimately, the lives of our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, maybe even our own. I had thought I was old enough to have the good fortune to die before this nation and the world go to shit. But at the pace things are happening, I may not miss the worst of it after all.
So we'll have to chuck Michelle's noble platitude and go with the more practical "Fight fire with fire."
And if you have a younger family Dale its not just about you or me. It's also about them. Thanks for your comment.
Sadly, I believe you’re correct.
So is it your imagination that the Democrats don't do gerrymandering as well? Once again, coming from the intersection of the street signs say hypocrisy and double standard with the Democrats live here.
This is like living in a horror film. Insanity, greed, lust for power, money, pedophiles, rapists, liars and cheats. Why are so many good, powerful people so silent? Reading and learning as much as I can, my conclusion is blackmail and death threats abound. Mafia Politics.
Definitely a time we will celebrate
Thank you Professor Richardson.
There should be zero doubt that what is continuing to unfold in the United States is organized wealth versus an intentionally divided society. Several years ago the "Occupy" movement amplified a simple frame that it's the 1% versus the 99%. The reality is a fraction of the 1% are insatiable, and have accumulated and hoarded massive wealth. They only need to use a small percentage to buy media companies, control and constrain news and therefore "Manufacture Consent". While the criminal elect and his corrupt GOP organization enjoy the spotlight, those in the shadows have been working toward this subversion of our system to concentrate wealth, power, and control. What they have done and continue to do is criminal. It is an overwhelming economic attack on the system -and they are pushing society beyond the edge.
"To push a plan they dubbed Operation REDMAP, which stood for Redistricting Majority Project, they raised $30 million, mostly from corporations, to buy ads and circulate literature that would convince voters to elect Republican state legislators in 2010. The legislatures elected in 2010 would get to redistrict their states with maps that would last for a decade."
The GOP didn't do it all themselves in 2010 - they had the assistance of several Democratic Quislings in the upper ranks, plus the inexperience of Obama for help.
Obama won in 2008 largely because of Howard Dean's 50-state Strategy and Obama For America, the best grassroots campaign I ever saw in 50 years of political involvement. Then right after he won and was in office in 2009, he appointed the Worst Democrat In America - his good Chicago buddy Rahm Emanuel - to be his Chief of Staff. Rahm's first acts were to fire Dean and install one of his stooges in the DNC, then to shut down OFA (right as the GOP was wheeling out their astroturf "Tea Party"). He also told his stooge that the DNC should only support "winnable races."
And then Obama flunked the first rule of being a Community Organizer: the REAL fight starts AFTER you win the election. He installed the Chicago Democratic Mafia and people like Ben Nighthorse Campbell in office and those scum did a good job of suppressing enthusiasm from progressives. And he decided he was too busy presidentin' and getting Nobel Prizes and believing "there are no Red States and Blue States, there are the United States" so he was too busy to go out and campaign in 2010 like he did in 2008.
And the result was the Obama Presidency was irrelevant from 2010 to when he left office in terms of creating a political system that could actually fight the fascist scum who were (and still are) dedicated to planting him six feet under.
The Republicans didn't win 2010 - the Democrats lost. And we have been digging ourselves out of that demographic hole ever since. At least now most Democrats finally believe there are more elections that matter than merely the quadrennial presidential "shiny object" competition.
But I will never ever ever ever vote for another inexperienced amateur who didn't know where the bathroom was in the Senate. And I'll never ever ever ever be stupid enough to say "Wow, we finally won the election of 1968!" as I did to a friend on election night 2008.
And that sonofabitch Emanuel can go fuck himself in his face repeatedly, him and the rest of the Third Way Vichy traitors.
Thanks TC. I have always thought that Obama pissed away a mandate thinking he could build consensus.
You must have read They Knew by Sarah Kenzdior.
A great book to read.
It’s inevitable that one or more of these mid-census gerrymanders will be quickly brought before the Supreme Court.
In normal times, the Court would at the very least keep to the letter and spirit of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which explicitly banned race-based gerrymandering in order to deny minority voters representation.
But, as everyone knows, the ship marked “Normal Times” set sail from the Port of Sanity long ago. The Court can’t be trusted even to uphold one of the longest, strongest, most bipartisan acts of settled law in history. And Trump’s legal weasels will argue that this has nothing to do with race.
Yet it also clearly has nothing to do with mid-census population shifts that must urgently be addressed before the next census. Somehow, however, the Roberts Court will figure out a way to give Republicans new, previously unarticulated Constitutional rights to choose their voters long before the voters have made up their own minds, long before elections are even held. There will be 3 principled objections to the new fascism who will read their dissents from the bench, but that will be that. They’ll have no more power to change anything than a Democratic state legislator in Austin.
Someone please point out the error of my thinking….
The Supreme Court already ruled a few years ago that gerrymandering is undesirable but, alas, there is no remedy. In the 1960s, the Court ruled that the 'one man, one vote' rule should prevail and heard a lot of redistricting cases as a result (and is still hearing some of them today.)
No doubt the Court would prefer not to have judges have to oversee the creation of Congressional districts to ensure that they are fair ... but there is nobody else to do this.
An ideal system would have a non-partisan body setting the districts based on publicly-stated factors, as some states and many countries have (e.g. Canada, not to look too far away....) But in the absence of such a body, then the courts - and if not the courts, then ... nobody.
That's the result of the Supreme Court declining to act - nobdy is preventing the obscene gerrymandering going on in mainly R states. Not a surprise that some D states are pushing back - and pretty well have to, given the new push to weaponize districting that Trump is encouraging and that some states are enthusiastically pursuing.
Sadly, in the end, this conflict will lead to nothing but chaos and tragedy for the American democracy (small d). Congress has managed to work (more or less) through 250 years because of the respect both parties gave to each other in Congress. Those days are definitely gone now and the winner of this conflict is likely to gain very strong control of the Congress possibly for years or even decades.
After the golden age and the great depression, Republicans were in the political wilderness Congressionally for more than fifty years.
They returned with Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, during the Clinton administration. That is when the Republicans adopted the tactics of treating their opponents with hatred, which has led us to where we are today. This is the new Golden Age, and trump is breaking the economy. Will the people blame right-wingers for the damage they have caused? For the last ten years, too many have chosen to believe the rhetoric they want to believe and ignore the lack of evidence.
The winner, Jon, may be parents of various parties.
Americans may -- may -- draw a line we haven't seen yet by the many now disgusted by elites who've been freely fondling, effing, and having themselves sucked off by these parents' underage, for-money-trafficked children.
They may withdraw the license long given to our disgustingly dehumanized elites.
It’s time for Democrats to strongly deliver the message that we are not the “enemy”. That we, too, are Americans wanting the best for the US. But that our ideas are different from those of the current administration: We believe in truth in reporting and an independent media, that federal and state institutions must be truthful and trusted. We believe in the importance of independent educational institutions, in scientific research, that a society is best served when it best serves its people, in representation by the people, in the importance of the separation of powers. We believe in individual rights, including a woman’s right to manage her own body. We believe that climate change is a reality, that a nation’s history must be related truthfully, etc., etc., etc. Don’t let “them” define “us” as “the enemy”. We’re all in this together.
Correct, but can I ask you, do you know why these differences in the two sides exist? I literally never see it discussed- the right are people with proportionally bigger amygdalas than the left. Amygdalas are what guides our response to fearful stimuli. The right is basically more afraid. And this is why neither side changes- its physiology. You can Google this.
I haven’t seen the amygdala size mentioned. I have seen studies where people self-identified as either “liberal” or “conservative”, were hooked up to brain activity monitors, and then given a task: make a financial investment that was either “high risk, high reward” or “low risk, low reward” and measure the brain activity while they made the decisions. The actual decision wasn’t test measured; it was what area of the brain was accessed to make the decision. Self-identified conservatives accessed the amygdala as the primary source while liberals accessed the frontal cortex. Danger perception/response vs. critical thinking. It explains a lot.
Yes, that too. Our frontal cortex is bigger/ more developed.
Any interested in Tina's here may usefully go to Robert Lustig's "The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains."
PLEASE state more clearly how gerrymandering is the perfect example between the two political ideologies. The right is motivated by fear of losing their privilege and cheats to win with gerrymandering. The left is motivated by morality and had passed legislation previously in many areas including California, that districts had to be drawn fairly by independent commissions. This so clearly identifies differences in the two parties but also identifies sadly, how much more effective their side is at winning.
extraordinary perversions of Constitutional practice and precedent, going back to Reagan. these are the people who truly hate the USA and its founding principles.
“Truth” “is” but what the autocrat feels best furthers his drama of Himself.
Latest: his need to rid public professionals based in the real world. As his jury-convicted criminality and long record show, he’s no respect for such realities as our Bureau of Labor Statistics measures. As his gift of comfort housing for Ghislaine Maxwell shows, he’s no respect for her many victims of child sex trafficking. Rather, it’s only fictions pinnacling Himself he values – never mind realities such as his own life-long abuse of women and girls (including fondling his own daughter’s 15-year-old hips – who’s not seen that image?).
If our schools centered human truths other than has this rapist, felon, bully, and perverse liar, schools could open the best books on the human in all its complications and personal nuances. They could key student essays on that, too. But schools don’t do that. So we’ve instead tens of millions helpless before rape, felony, bullying, and perverse lies.
Powerful, predatory sociopaths don't really care about anyone, except for satisfying their own insatiable appetites.
Yes, true, J L.
My concern isn't with the obvious sicko. But how American "education" could ever possibly grow the vast support he and his sick agenda have so obviously had -- ten years now.
The "Reagan Revolution" left the republic sliding off the rails.
True, J L.
But I'd go back a decade, to the Powell memo of Aug. 23, 1971, and to the new far-right, well-funded foundations such as The Heritage Foundation and ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), both in operation from very early 1973.
Yes, nothing comes from nothing, and the predecessors of now reach back far and wide. Conquest and slavery are "original sins" that live to this day, and corrupt self-dealing is as abiding an affliction of societies as infectious disease. The "Powell Memo", as well as Powell's elevation to the Supreme Court by Tricky Dick. An "Attack on the American Free Enterprise System"? I love free enterprise, just not monopoly, which hardly makes it free. And I love a robust, respectful, and trustworthy public sector. Why the hell not? Too bad for billionaires who yearn to rule, but government of, by, and for the people is a better way. What was so bad about well paying jobs, defined benefit pensions, affordable state universities, rules for safe products, reduced de facto bribery, due process of law? Not that any age was golden, but is Trumptopia in any way better? Legendary Japanese swords contained two metals, a steel holds an edge, but is brittle and a steel that is resilient but won't hold an edge. I find many of the "sweet spots" in life are some blend of divergent qualities, but fanatics fight for a "purity" that too often tosses out the babies with the bathwater.
Keep writing like this, J L, and you'll soon be writing poetry.
I say that as you are seriously welcoming complications here -- which means valuing, too, nuance, layering, analogizing, corollaries, contradictions, and serendipity.
A poet welcomes all this for the chance to let it all cohere and turn into a new something-other in ways no one earlier might have imagined.
Not just those "who control the puppet-strings," Margaret-Rose.
Not even the tens of millions who've voted, cheered on his and those elites' cruel, heartless agenda. But similarly sick, Dems in the elite law firms, the universities, the social media world, the legacy media world who've caved and given him, them, their extortion millions.
And the DNC which, out of related sick money calculations, refused to field decent Dem candidates in many, many red districts.
Morally broken, America.
Margaret-Rose, you are exactly right. Anyone who's followed Donald's life knows this. Since his boyhood, he has relied on the brighter minds around him, whether it was his nannies, schoolmates he cheated with, business executives who actually ran his companies, the producer of his TV shows or his campaign managers and operatives.
When left to his own devices, Donald Trump fails consistently. And he has a string of bankruptcies to prove it.
Russell Vought and his cronies at the Heritage Foundation drew up the blueprint for Donald's "reign." Vought is now handling Trump's administrative responsibilities. Stephen Miller is handling Trump's domestic policies. Susie Wiles is handling Donald, himself. Donald is trying to handle foreign policy, which is why it's in such a shambles. Rubio is just a weak bystander, watching as Donald screws it all up.
With "money pouring in from Russia" and assorted grifts that he has been rich to be held accountable for, he is pretty much a shallow playboy, with a certain gift for selling "snakeoil".
Supporting Trump suits the self-centered purposes of many plutocrats. Or at least, so they think.
If there was any doubt at all this is a blatant example of how far we’ve fallen as a country. My grandparents, who struggled mightily to become citizens of the United States would be heartbroken, as am I.
It is interesting to see that where we choose to live is so reflective of our politics. It would be challenging to gerrymander if housing patterns were more random.
States like Wyoming, the Dakotas, and Alaska only have one representative but have a total of 8 senators. That kind of math, when combined with gerrymandering, gives outsized clout to conservatives. We can have a minority government that disrespects the majority. The framers wanted the reverse - a majority government that respects the minority.