That is exactly what I thought when reading Heather's post this morning and how quickly our democracy was dismantled and destroyed. Every day there is something new, something more embarrassing from him than the day before. When will this be over? unfortunately not soon enough. He needs to resign, although we all know that will never happen.
It wasn't quick. It has been in progress since the Heritage Foundation wrote the first version for Reagan. They have been putting judges, and rulings, and legislation in place for 45 years. They are the most patient people on earth.
Thinking it was fast biases you to thinking it can be unwound quickly. It won't be, Democrats have not really begun to think about how to unwind it. And that is a problem. That's why Heather's Politics Chat on YouTube from yesterday is important to listen to.
We are going to have to be doing triple duty, fighting what is, envisioning what we want to get to, and figuring out how to get there and what to do first.
You have paid attention, it has been a long slog, with so many times seeing one guardrail after another fall or be trampled. It will take much effort to rebuild what has been torn asunder
You may be underestimating unelected economic power, i.e., the mega-rich and big corporations. They've beat back "the grass roots" every single time, and since Reagan they've become more powerful and more entrenched than ever. At the same time, too many of "we the people" are woefully ignorant of U.S. history and how democracy *could* work -- not all that surprising, thanks to the decline in civics education and the rise in the number of hours we have to work to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads.
If there's a fatal flaw in the U.S. Constitution, it's the failure to reckon with unelected economic power. It was busily corrupting all three branches of government before Trump I came along. Where were your "people on the ground" then?
Reread HCR's letter today, especially the last paragraph. What you want won't make the headlines, which are based on fear to make the reader hooked. The reconstruction efforts are there. George Conway and James Talarico are running for Congress, for example. There are many people who are ready and working. Project 2025 people want us to remain asleep and afraid. We aren't going to do that.
Look around you. In my state we have a group called Blue Ohio which focuses on getting Dems to run in state and local races. Look at the efforts of Indivisible. Although that has some big funding, the work of each state chapter is local. There is more if you look.
I need a little help. I have been editing my first draft of a comprehensive review of the key facts of American history which voters need to be informed about, the dimensions of the Attack upon us by the corporatist fascist R.I.N.O.s since Louis Powell wrote his Memo (August 23, 1971, four mounts before Nixon put him on the Supreme Court) spoon feeding them on his attack plan, and a model Amendment for how we repair what our enemy has done. I need some helpful ideas from a couple of thoughtful people. The project is now 95% completed and ready for review, proof read, edited by others. In a couple of weeks it will be shared with key people in Congress and key groups. The intent is to spark thinking on the dimensions of the Attack on our Constitution by these greedy bastards and the dimensions our Amendment must be to resolve it.
I almost bypassed it over the "Successes" in the title but dig get as far as: "...Since corporate media failed - AGAIN - to cover Christian Nationalism and Project 2025 effectively, I’ll do my own round-up of Christo-fascist Project 2025 objectives that materialized this year..."
"Objectives" sounds better to me than "Successes", since I want to make the Heritage/"Confederalists" successes as close to short lived as Confederates "successes" at Gettysburg (where my wife and I walked the ground the Maine 20th held 162 years ago).
Uncharacteristically, I've been too ill for the last several days with a particularly bad cold (only slight fever one day), to read much but I did at least upvote it (without completing the comment I started).
Yes. Where is the alternate version of Project 2025, one that reflects our founding ideals? Have the Democrats even begun to draft their own blueprint for change? Lo these long decades Russell Vought has been a master at playing the long game, not seeking power through elective office (as ambitious types tend to do), but by promoting a mandate that appeals to a certain mindset. It's catch-up time, Dems.
Richard Sullivan, I agree. I’m hoping-praying that The Young Democrats et al, are doing just that now. Having been in in a few teaching us to peacefully resist, I’ve noticed not only how young the leaders seem to me to be, but how wonderfully informed, intelligent and multi racial as well. I thought, ‘Wow. If they only knew that I was born in 1940!’ as I watched the love icons drift up.
Maybe that new New Deal will be named A Better Deal?
The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution are two excellent plans that We, the People should use to counter Project 2025. And, let’s remember a couple of things about We, the People: 1.) WE have the power and the authority in our voting habits; 2.) WE are the employers not the employees in this governing environment since we pay our taxes and, therefore, the salaries (and benefits) of Donald J. Trump, JD Vance, Mike Johnson, John Thune, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas…even Stephen Miller’s $195,200 plus benefits, etc. WE, the People pay these folks. They work for us. 3.) We, the People include MAGA voters. Let’s do this together in 2026! Happy 250 years!!
If we all refuse to pay the in the coming year, meaning by many millions of us for the illegal use not only killing fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico, but tearing down part of OUR house plus re Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s list today.
Our State governments, attorney generals really need to try their best unravel some of those ‘fake laws’
But what do we do with Kelly, Klobuchar, Kaine, Gallego, Hassan, Cortez-Masto/Rosen, and all the MAGA Democrats who vote with Trump. They will still be in powerful positions and willing to mask their beliefs on television interviews to continue the assault on Democracy. Notice Duckworth and Hirono are not asked to give opinions - just those planning to run for the presidency.
I don’t think we have to mimic them, and I think we are better off if we pass laws at the state level to begin with, while we are re gathering political power. Then we have models at the state level for federal laws.
I need a little help. I have been editing my first draft of a comprehensive review of the key facts of American history which voters need to be informed about, the dimensions of the Attack upon us by the corporatist fascist R.I.N.O.s since Louis Powell wrote his Memo (August 23, 1971, four mounts before Nixon put him on the Supreme Court) spoon feeding them on his attack plan, and a model Amendment for how we repair what our enemy has done. I need some helpful ideas from a couple of people. The project is now 95% completed and ready for review, proof read, edited by others. In a couple of weeks it will be shared with key people in Congress and key groups. The intent is to spark thinking on the dimensions of the Attack on our Constitution by these greedy bastards and the dimensions our Amendment must be to resolve it.
We've been here before. Our solution back then: the New Deal. We need a new NEW DEAL. What that implies, of course, is to stop the oligarchs from stripping trillions of dollars out of the economy. They (the billionaires) are a selfish lot. Not one of them served in the U.S. Military but they're OK with cutting funding and services for the Veterans Administration while steering trillions of dollars in tax cuts their way. What we're dealing with here is one of the lowest forms of humanity - lucky SOB's who think that they're God's gift to the world and have no responsibility for contributing to the common good.
The Dems need to be working on this as we speak. Winning is one thing. What to do AFTER you win is entirely another. We are in the second Gilded Age. I don't believe there is yet political will to punish the perpetrators of our downfall.
Funny, I was just “hung up” in my mind yesterday thinking similar thoughts….it is like a blanket that has developed numerous tears and it is difficult to know where to start the repairs while still needing to use the blanket😵💫
If it were like whack a mole at least there would be some sense of “satisfaction” each time the mole disappeared from sight….in this case there are so many holes and it is hard to figure out which are the high priority 🤔
We do need to be methodical in repairs to do our best to shore up everything so as to undermine any repeat performances by those going after our democratic ways.
Georgia, what you say in this response is vital to understanding how and why we arrived at this critical state of our democracy. The book "Evil Geniuses" by Kurt Anderson chronicles the Right's long-term project to end democracy in the United States in detail, beginning with "The Powell Memo" in the early 1970's (1971 ?), through the Reagan years, Grover Norquist's tax revolt, the rising influence of religion in politics and beyond. And now, here we are. It won't be fixed easily.
What to do first Georgia? First, if we ever have the power again, is to make sure this regime doesn't repeat itself in the future, ever. If we can accomplish that, the rest it's fixable in a generation.
It seems to me fixing SCOTUS must be one of the top priorities. Otherwise, it can undo whatever laws get passed they don’t like. And they seem to be bent toward pushing the unitary executive (which doesn’t need them, btw).
45 years of republican planning? Now that they are trying to turn us into their warped version of Christianity, do we need to worry about more religious crusades in our “new world order”?
It might be that the "confederacy of dunces" is what it took to hook in the populace that has been drained of its curiosity and competence by the sporadically mentioned de-"humanityization" of our schools and rote teaching to the test. They needed a mass of people that cannot think critically and have no foundational background in the humanities to succeed.
This is what happens when a group is certain that committing verses of the Bible to memory (without understanding or following them) is a substitute for an actual education.
Oh it’s so much worse, they sit in well-named pews and hear a world salad of textual dreck that can mean anything needed for money and power! And Harvard is right up there helping! They have create a whole fake history of Jesus based on nothing, sort of like all those TV shows looking for the Ark…completely fake, reality TV!
I, too, have long thought this. It gave me some solace to think that, despite all the planning, all the patience, all the money, they ended up putting incredibly stupid people in charge of it all.
Wallace, Nixon, Reagan were all imperfect vassals…these came Bush and Cheney and the guardians and guardrails were gone! Of course Clinton and Obama tried to gets their message out, ‘crickets.’ The ‘if it smells it sells’ media is now a major drug dealer! Powered by so called AI, which is neither, not Artificial nor Intelligent. Marketing 101 as they train and steal on the collective digitized works stolen data, augmented by GOOgly…all SLOP!
Hire a human! I’m really sick of “False Profits” a bubble it a hot tub does not require you bend over to sniff to know…AI could be interesting if it trained on love instead of dreck and hate!
Extremely well said. That's why -- for the first time ever -- I did (not) give Dr. Richardson a "like"; I believe she is entirely too optimistic in every sense -- that is, in terms of the Christonazi atrocities to come; the willingness of the (plutocracy-bribed) Democrats to resist; and -- most of all -- the courage, solidarity and discipline required of the population to overthrow the Christonazi regime. (I'd say more, but Substack -- behaving in exactly the pro-Christonazi manner Andra Watkins has been predicting -- has imposed censorship-by-format, deliberately making detailed commenting impossible, and thereby nullifying our ability for in-depth discussion and analysis.
You might try starting your own stack and linking to a longer post of your own if it's germane to the immediate comment that you are replying to. Maybe you could update your personal post on a topic by adding each day's new commentary with the date, so everyone can see how people's thinking is evolving.
A couple of years ago, there was a lot of discussion about "self-promotion" being undesirable in Substack comments. But referencing other people's posts was not questioned. I think it's more efficient than seeing people write long posts that I know they put a lot of time into, only to substantially repeat the background for a new iteration.
I often wish we could go back and easily reference someone else's argument from a few days ago. Has anyone found a way to search through the comments and replies?
If we are going to structure conversations about new ideas and approaches as Heather suggested, we need a hack to handle the threads more efficiently.
To do that requires commenters not so filled with ego and arrogance that they at least keep to the topic, whether agreeing or disagreeing with it, either tersely or not. There's quite a few in here whose idea of a conversation is only: 'what about me and my one-trick pony?' Most of us know who they are.
Georgia, there are *far* too many stacks as it is, in my opinion. It's the vanity press of the masses. In fact, I'm starting to be less inclined to read the ones I subscribe to, whether free or not, and I'm more apt to skim the ones I open. Having carefully-curated authors who provide content regularly can seem like having Faux News and Entertainment running in the background 24/7; it's siloing. There's far more to life. Again, only my opinion.
That said, I do recognize the time you put into your work on Ukraine; it is well-researched.
And I hate the app -- my default is to keep it uninstalled.
Click on a person’s name and/or click on follow them. It will take you to their user profile page. Under activity you should see notes they have posted and long posts they have written, and restacks and what subscriptions they have under reads, but I can’t find a way to see replies to see a way to search for a comment. You can search for a user name.
You can look to see if they created a note out of their comment when they poseted it if they can make it be understandable on its own. Restacking it gives the comment more exposure if you think it is good, and on your profile you can see what you restacked, especially if you restack with a note so your own take appears above it.
You could just copy what and paste into a google doc and search there. Free or to keep it in substack past it into a post of your own. You can keep posts private—you don’t have to publish them.
Haven't seen him here for months, and I miss his commentary. I'd go back into the archives and see if he's there on some of the Letters from last summer.
Thanks for this comment, Georgia. Substack's comment utility is imperfect, but at least it exists.
I appreciate your suggestions, although I remain conflicted about links to other Substacks, including my own. Some commenters link to their own Substacks as a form a "signature," which seems like naked self-promotion to me – almost spammy. These folks must be unaware that a link to their Substack is already present next to their name at the top of their post.
But in many cases, someone has already written a thoughtful Substack article on the topic at hand, and simply linking to it would be efficient and make the conversation here a lot less unwieldy.
I have also wished I could refer to a previous comment from the past few days, but I know of no easy way to do that.
Loren Bliss, Dr. Richardson has said many times in her conversations (on Politics Chat or interviews with others) that she, as an historian, does not make predictions. She suggests parallels to other times in history. But she does acknowledge that what is happening now is unique. I think her ability to mark other times in our history when it was seemingly impossible to fight against the odds, the people did so. If that is what you consider optimism, I personally think it is crucial for us to know that it has been done before, no matter how grim the situation, which she certainly does outline for us as well. I see her as a realist in her thorough, well documented reporting of the atrocities happening day by day, all year long. She also records the positive steps taken so far against this present regime. Yes, I agree we could take a pessimistic stance with all that Project 2025 has already put in place, but studying history does offer us alternative ways to get through these dark times and also gives us hope that we can make it so. She never makes it sound easy, as historians are well aware of the disasters that have happened before. But I will sign on to the hope she implies in her letters, that it is "we the people" who will stand up and say ENOUGH!
I am reading a book called “The Oppermans” by Lion Feuchtwanger, written in 1933, about the Nazi takeover, written in real time. Fascinating parallels. This book shows that what is happening now is not unique. The Nazi takeover proceeded more quickly, but was obviously the structural basis for “2025” which has been chillingly successful. The most amazing part of the book is its exposition of how the Nazis set the people at each others’ throats, and how quickly people fell into line. If we all have read Prof. Snyder’s “On Tyrrany” and “On Freedom,” we can see that following his outline will bring us through to fresh air on the other side of this.. It is heartening to see how well we have resisted. And of course Hitler’s use of his thugs to kill and maim anyone who spoke out contrasts with the use of Trump’s masked thugs to take out lots of people who don’t speak out. In any case, while we hold together, maintaining solidarity in spite of our various disagreements, stand up and speak out, the wind is changing even as we celebrate the new year.
Thank you for your book recommendation. I was not aware of that particular book, The Oppermans. I meant that what is happening now is “unique" to our American history. Clearly there are many parallels to be made to Nazi Germany, and HCR has certainly made them. I have read both of Prof. Timothy Snyder’s books that you highlight and also highly recommend them to everyone. Yes, the wind is definitely changing!
There is this as you state and also Dr Richardson is excited and optimistic that it is we the people who get to rewrite this sinking ship. I think a lot of her optimism comes from this.
I'm leaving for the night, driven to despair -- no doubt as Substack intends -- by this new format. The removal of the "edit" function is particularly devastating.
Loren, how are you accessing Substack? Two factors could be causing difficulties. 1. Using the Substack app instead of a browser. 2. Using a mobile device (phone or small tablet) instead of something with a larger screen (large tablet, laptop, desktop computer).
Substack promotes their app, which I suspect is because it's always with you and always "on." But I tried it and didn't like it for many reasons. I use my MacBook Pro for Substack and find the comments much easier to navigate. All the features I expect are still here.
Can someone help me find a link? Sometime in the last 4-6 weeks, I believe there was a link posted on this site about Jane Doe's lawsuit that nearly came to light before the 2016 election. The lawsuit was withdrawn, and Jane Doe disappeared, but it is as important to the Epstein files as anything else. It is classic trump and needs to be in the public sphere.
Just finished listening to Heather’s Politics Chats from 12/30…..well worth my time. I usually do not do pod casts because I would much rather read . Hearing her, watching her was even more inspiring than reading what she writes. And that is saying a lot for me.
And… after the pod cast I feel hopeful. Happy New Year.
Sally, I’ve been a serious, obsessive reader since second grade. But I do enjoy podcasts I’ve signed up for because there are times, like driving, I can’t be reading! Consider doing so. I particularly like The Bulwark and The Daily Beans. Also Spycast, because I love cloak-and-dagger stuff—telling real stories.
Exactly, the long game has been in play since Goldwater ran for president. The powers behind him asked a key question: how did we lose and what groundwork do we need to lay in order to win? Take over the judicial system so laws can be weakened. Weaken higher education by reducing public funding. Stoke the flames of prejudice via claiming reverse racism, create large deficits in order to justify reductions in public service. Support candidates who follow the party line, create a blueprint for legislation for states to follow ALEC…. On and on, it is mind blowing to see the fulmination of their strategy.
The many Vietnam vets who went to college on the Army Bill strengthened grassroots movements and put off the shut-down plan. Which was renewed then by the Powell memo. The impoverishment of education on all levels, from Kindergarten to Grad school, lies at the core of the plan to reduce the population of the US to a disempowered source of cheap labor. The support for Pre-K under the Biden admin was helpful, given the pressures on the workforce and the family, and the bru-ha-ha alleging "massive" Pre-K fraud (which had already been investigated) is clearly propaganda to prepare to strike that down. At the other end, some public and private universities were improving access, so those particular universities got slammed by Trump. They just can't wait to return to the Middle Ages.
You're right, it wasn't quick -- but I'd go back a lot further than Reagan. I'd go back at least to the late 19th century, to Jim Crow and vicious battle of the rich and corporate against workers' attempt to unionize. (HCR's HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR is beyond helpful on this.) I'd also note that upper-level, mostly white Democrats have been in denial for a long time, and they've generally tried to marginalize those who did get it.
Reveille–JFKs assassination was a coup that created our military-industrial empire, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and other subsequent military fabrications. His assassination, Project 2025, etc. are links in the chain of events that created the empire live in today.
Alec, I think it bears mentioning that Project 2025 is the brand name, or the culmination of a (very) long-term mission of evangelicalism in the U.S.
I once read a statement by someone I can't remember and can't find to cite: "The most effective way to make something happen is to start the rumor that it already has."
Donald Trump has utilized that strategy. So have evangelicals. They started with the notion that the U.S. was founded as a "Christian nation." Every day of every year since they rose to significant influence in the 1940s, evangelicals have claimed they are determined to "return the U.S. to its Christian roots" and "make the U.S. the godly nation it once was." Evangelicals claim that "God's law supersedes man's law," thus, are onboard with undermining the rule of law as we know it. That is the foundation for all the other stuff in Project 2025.
Yes! I saw it last night, deep in bleak thoughts. She brilliantly explained what she wrote here, and I am grateful.
If you haven't read George Monbiots "Invisible Doctrine", I highly recommend it. I can share the audiobook excellent version with you for another day or so if you like. He describes exactly what's happened.
Thanks for the suggestion. I have a bunch of audiobook credits I can use. I listen while I’m doing chores and cooking. Multi-tasking (really duo-tasking, bi-tasking?) These days I wish there was a way to tri-task, but I haven’t figured it out yet ! ;-) But I am ratcheting up the playback speed some.
This is something I might try. I have always been an auditory processor, and I am finding that as I age, my retention of written material is less than it used to be. I find that listening to the various programs that the Professor hosts while I do a visual task (think Tetris) aids in my retention of the material.
I think it actually got its start when the New Deal was implemented... the Republicans have been pissed about Social Security since its inception. Half the country still has that "I'm going to get mine, and screw you" philosophy.
I won't generalize how others react but I view what has happened as both a long game and a quick and radical set of changes that have taken place during this 2025 reign of the Trump regime. Recognizing the radical changes this past year in no way biases me to thinking it can be unwound quickly. We don't even know all of the damage that has been done yet. I don't know anyone who thinks reclaiming our democracy will be quick.
Such a powerful message that Heather has sent out tonight. It is thanks to her and to the other historians, concerned media outlets and well informed Americans that we have continued to expose Trump and the frightened, meek Republican Senators and Representatives who have allowed him this extraordinary power that we’ve allowed our National Guard to perform illegal and heinous acts.
Thankfully, the majority of Americans are joining forces and legally protesting a King just as we did over 200 years ago. We will crush the wealthy who support this administration and return American democracy through the system of checks and balances that were so wisely set up by our forefathers who penned the constitution with its checks and balances as they intended.
Putin’s plan to take down America and Ukraine will also be thwarted.
Step 1: We remind ourselves that the words of the first Republican POTUS still apply today.
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln said, “In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions.”
Step 2: We behave like those words still apply today.
“You can fool part of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.”
Trump's version is that you can in fact fool enough of the people most of the time and that is in part what accounts for his extraordinary electoral success because it would otherwise be scarcely believable that such a ninny could have been elected once, never mind twice.
One could recommend that you should urgently look to your education system but that's hardly a viable solution for the current crisis you face.
A disaster like no other. Let us hope a tidal wave is in the making and that democrats elect super majorities in congress. I’m fearful we will put obstacles in our paths.
Bill if you speak about immigration I will say that even if it got us here, I will say American ignorance about immigrants is what got us here, and the rhetoric of a master fascist speaker, and it is all so wrong minded.
Yes. I mostly live abroad, but maintain a residence in the US because my mom is there with dementia. I am looking into moving her, but it will not be easy for so many reasons.
Most of the Americans I know living in Germany earn a lot less than they would be in the US, but with lower cost of living and a good safety net manage to live good lives. My spouse and I earned our money in the US so our money is under Trump's control.
Our daughter had decided to go to university in Germany when she was a child; long before Trump was a known entity in our household. We were going to retire here just as many Americans retire to Arizona or Florida because of climate, and lower cost of living. My idea of good weather is not the blazing sun, but places where in summer it is bearable without air conditioning most of the time, thus the Northern part of Germany.
However, when Americans tell me I am lucky, what they should be saying is that I am plucky, because it is more pluck than luck that had me moving overseas on retirement.
Trump is a contrarian from hell. He has a compulsion to destroy everything just to claim it as his own. In my book, I compare him to ancient Egyptian pharaohs who sometimes had the noses smashed off the statutes of the previous ruler thinking this was the way to end the influence because the nose was the conduit of life. Which is why in a way, Biden didn’t follow Trump on the border. I provided numerous other examples of Trump ending NAFTA under Clinton only to remake it in his name and little if anything changed. I was aware that coming into office would be a fatal error especially after his near assassination. Now his revenge borders on madness and destruction.
Imagine for a moment that he destroyed the historic East Wing of the White House to vindicate himself against the No Kings rallies only 2 days before.
I am almost certain that was his motivation. He's a temper tantrum toddler emotionally.. His emotional development is there and has always been. He's never been truly an adult in any sense of the word. But he's dying physically too. Someone keep sending him his favorite McDonald's meals and it won't be long.
With respect, "never say never". I don't think anyone could have predicted anything that has happened in 2025. Or happened on January 6, 2021.
The same should apply to 2026. Forgive me for my optimism, but I think a year from now we will mark this New Year as a tipping point when the pendulum began to swing back to sanity.
I know that many here have dumped their subscriptions to the NYTimes. Understood. It has been way too slow in telling America about the coup. But today's "Editorial Board" piece is quite well written and clearly stated. Paywall by passed.
I visualize Trump boarding a plane to Mar a Lago...or maybe Saudi Arabia...or Russia for the last time. Or perhaps a padded cell in a fancy memory unit. This will not last. "47" is too fragile physically, mentally and politically. He is at the edge of a cliff.
Here's to a revolutionary return to democracy in 2026!
But we have the revised Heritage Roadmap to tell us what they expect to happen if given the chance in 2026. Don't need no crystal ball when it is put down in black and white and color photos.
Yes. It is like a war cry. A war on democracy. A war on people. Heritage declared it.
But I think the impoverishment of the former middle class, the starvation of the poor (food, healthcare) and events we can't possibly foresee will provide plenty of pushback. Pardon my optimism, but I think it won't be long before MAGA and Heritage become cuss words across an America that is in pain.
Sorry but I can't trust that group either. They still be Reagan like and that's not the future we need. The GOP must remain the lowest rung on any political ladder.
Thank you, Georgia, for this and your always-substantial contributions. Words like "Heritage" and "Conservative" have been purloined by those who wish to plunder and destroy.
Thanks for sharing the Times editorial. I did cancel my subscription. But it did make me roll my eyes when I read this: "The shocking part of the story was the response of so many other people in government, media and business." They are the media and they blew it. This feels like too little too late. I hope it isn't.
Yes! I agree with you: never say never! If 2025 has taught us anything, it is all that can happen without checks and balances. We need them in Justice, Military, and especially in Executive branches. Term limits required and, at this point, many asking themselves important questions about elected representatives ignoring their best interests. The Constitution, Rule of Law is front and center as March mid-terms fast approaching. Authoritarianism, not so much...As for the New York Times, compared to most major media in 2025, I was kept informed by fact-based journalists, although some of the Opinion pieces were disappointing. RESIST!!!
One good editorial does not a good news outlet make, unfortunately. As the nation's leading newspaper the NYT had a great part in normalizing this president starting with his first campaign. They failed to dig deep and report his lifelong lies, his bigotry, his frauds, his vulgarities, etc. To this day they report his actions in headlines that reflect his boasts that his presidency is succedding. They put his photo all over the website. I ended my subscription too, and miss certain things. (But often the paywall comes down.) They need to do much more to atone for their dereliction of duty.
Thank you for bringing up the New York Times editorial piece. We must always remember January 6th. It should become a day of infamy that is recalled with shame and fear. For me now Trump is the January 6th president. We must remember.
Today, Heather's newsletter came particularly late (or early in the morning). I wondered why so long, and first worried about her. I might have realized today's missal would try to sum up the past year of shame and degradation in all its bizarre, freakish detail. It takes time and tremendous effort to do that, so much nonsense and chickenshit has taken place since January. Most of us wouldn't have believed it could get this bad this fast.
If 2025 has been the year of fulminating disbelief on our parts, let 2026 be the year of organizing like no tomorrow existed. If faith is a part of who you are, remember the words of Martin Luther -- pray as though everything were up to God, but work as though everything actually depended on you alone. May we make good use of good time to get into good trouble and retake our legislative branch and several state legislatures this coming November.
*Per 3 Reuters reporters, the TOTAL number of Epstein documents that should have been produced on 12/19/25 is now up to 5.2 million documents whereas only about 125,000 have been produced as of 12/23/25, 5:59 Pacific.
*I will address how Survivors & their attorneys can gain a judicially controlled, searchable, database in a coming post.
But our democracy has not been destroyed, and only partially dismantled. Doomscrolling is counterproductive. We need to take a collective deep breath and get back to the work of restoring what America was a year ago.
They are tolerating chump but, as HCR said, Yarvin is impatient. The flood will continue as long as “the tyrants are in charge.” And they plan to rebuild according to their specs. Just check out the Nazi plans. It’s all laid out
We used to write that spec book and inspect the design and building parts of it, but were fooled into giving that up and assumed it was a done deal, or "over". I guess we better take that back, yes?
#47 is so much more than embarrassing!!! He needs to be impeached as he has circumvented laws and our constitution and he has an entire regime backing him and a do nothing GOP congress. The speaker of the house has cancelled congress in support of the FOTUS. Almost everyone in his regime should be investigated, prosecuted and jailed for their illegal acts. EVERY GOP representative should be voted OUT.
He could "go" under my theory. I can it "One Last Cheeseburger"! I believe it has a much higher probability of success than waiting for Trump to resign.
It's more like MAGA sponsored genocide which goes way beyond people being hurt.
Trump uses OUR US Treasury as a weapon to starve Americans and impoverished people around the world. Many Americans railed on the Democratic Senators that essentially voted to reopen the Federal government but how many Americans would have died without SNAP benefits. And as of tomorrow, how many more Americans will be without health insurance again, a death sentence for thousands.
Keep an eye on the myriad elections local, state and federal. We the people have a chance to make not only a difference but MANY differences if we stay engaged in the election process next year.
Despite a few objections, I'm calling it Trump's resurrection of Hitler's Holocaust, this time with a much more inclusive target list -- which it what it obviously is.
Yup. Just compare Trumps treatment of Putin when he stepped on American soil vs Zelensky. There it is. Putin got a red carpet welcome and jet flyover. I was surprised Trump didn't kneel and kiss Putin's ring. Zelensky got a tongue lashing.
Amazing how all the Republican foreign policy hawks just slithered under rocks. A question for McConnell and Graham: "What does Trump have in his files about you?"
It is and also paths to repair may be appearing, as indicated in the letter tonight. The oligarchy remains very dangerous, but since they are now tipping their hand, solidarity is rising. The race is on.
The ancient Greeks coined a term for this blindness of Trump's supporters: Amathia - Willful ignorance; Intelligent stupidity. In the present case, the racists and white Protestant Nationalists (MAGA/KKK) can't see the danger that a Fascist Christian theocracy poses for them, too. And the wealthy keep playing them for the fools that they are.
This is the puzzling part: do they know that they're ignorant? Do they not know what they don't know? The MAGA folks support Trump in large part because they and he share the same racism and they want Trump to crush them. "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why? by two Univ. of Kansas professors, published in the Feb. 2018 edition of the peer-reviewed magazine, "Critical Sociology."
I spent decades searching before I came across this term (amathia.) It isn't even in my International Dictionary. Perhaps more than anything else it was Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D.,, Co-Chair of the Human Genome Project, who baffled me. Does Collins understand DNA? Does he know that all life on earth (plants, animals, insects) ALL share the same DNA? You bet your booties he does, yet he is a fundamentalist/evangelical Christian. Amathia explains this.
So many of us have wondered 'when will this be over?' indeed. One of the scarier truths out there is that it is far more difficult to leave a cult than to get into one in the first place. Millions would have to undergo a psychic break of sorts, which is deeply traumatic.
Adam Kinzinger did at least two memorable interviews this year with two former MAGA who refused to accept the blanket pardon offered to them by the ringleader of January 6. Both were very difficult reads for me -- people with low self-esteem latching onto something that didn't just provide them smug political answers, but a sense of belonging. One of those lives was so filled with alcoholism and substance abuse I'm surprised he's still alive. Though they both had the courage to leave, it cost them greatly.
When Trump 2.0 starts to unravel at the seams (arguably already doing so), it will be even more difficult for these people to find safe ground, psychologically. It took the utter destruction of Germany for many to finally abandon Hitler, after all. Let's hope and pray (and work) to find some other way for that to happen here.
Low self-esteem has a great deal to do with support for authoritarians and narcissists who swagger and claim 'only I can solve this.' There was an op-ed in the New York Times the other day dealing with this exact phenomenon -- I don't remember the author, a practicing psychologist.
That's the nub of the problem as far as I'm concerned. Those who voted for the despot in 2016 might get a pass as "fool me once, shame on you," but the 77 million who voted in 2024, it's "fool me twice, shame on me." Yes, the Heritage Foundation and the Trump administration, including his made for FOX TV cabinet of studs and sluts, are the ones doing the dirty work of dismantling democracy here and abroad, with the consequent immiseration of tens of million of innocents, but it's the 77 million who have yet to oppose the tyranny that are at the heart of the crisis we face here at home. Instead they could care less about the rule of law, because for them the end justifies the means. We make a serious mistake when we rail against the Trump tyranny, but fail to made it clear that we hold the 77 million to be co-conspirators in the coup d'etat taking place in the U.S.A.
So, I am left to wonder, why there remains as much faith as seems to be expressed or otherwise implied in these string of comments that the constitutional checks and balances may be lying dormant, but will inevitably spring to life and begin the remediation, if not the resurrection, of a nation where no one is above the law.
An estimated 600,000 people have died this year (BU, Harvard) as a direct result of cuts to USAID. Millions more will die. And that's supposed to make us great?
2025: The Year MAGA Discovered the Constitution Was Load Bearing
MAGA mistook shouting for consent and cruelty for courage. History keeps a ledger, not a comment section. When the noise dies down, legitimacy still belongs to the people who show up, vote, organize, and remember that power flows upward, never from grievance, spectacle, or force.
And yet in 2024 Trump somehow harnessed the shared dysphoria of millions of Americans by linking his own imagined grievances to their very real ones. He fell just short of winning the popular vote. This can't be ignored as a freakish phenomenon because it's now happened twice in almost exactly the same way. This point to deeper problems with your whole system of democracy and the lack of trust in your institutions of government.
I've been avoiding all the End of Year radio & TV reports. Thankfully Prof HCR's letter sums it all up for us without too many desires to yell, scream, drink more bourbon, etc .... As I was listening to some of the news outlet shows yesterday evening about the attacks/actions in Venezuela, I could not help but think this was another Bizzarro (opposite) event: Arts imitating Life: Are we witnessing our version of Tom Clancy's 1989 novel & 1994 movie; A Clear & Present Danger. Unfortunately for us, there's no Jack Ryan fighting against the rouge gov't agencies or there is, he or she or them are outnumbered right now, not by numbers of activists but by the lack of courage for elected representatives to stop it.
Most folks don't like him personally (who would), but they still think he is somehow good for the country. Otherwise, why would we elect him twice? He may be losing a little stream, but folks still can't get enough FOX News.
It is a nightmare and people voted for him and still support the cruelty - deaths around the world. We need to continue to turn our utter disgust of this tyrant into action: write, protest, knock on doors, contribute... make good trouble.
The supporters LOVE the Nazi propaganda. Lap it up like my cats lap up tuna juice. To them, it is not propaganda, it is their truth and belief. Go have a listen to "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" from "Cabaret". Look at the faces...
"As we reach the end of 2025, it appears the law is catching up to an administration that began the year by acting as if the law and the Constitution didn’t exist.
More than that, though, over the course of 2025, the administration’s refusal to recognize the tenets of American democracy has roused the American people to defend that democracy.
It appears that as we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, when British colonists on the North American continent took the radical step of rejecting the idea not just of King George III but of all kings, and launched the experiment of government based on the rule of law created by the people themselves, the American people are reclaiming that history."
When we rise up and stop it! Vision, energy, money, loud voices!
And my little red Ice Scrapper, with ‘Fights Fascists’ in my pocket…and publish The NY Times video of Ice attacking a woman and her son by blowing off the door and window with explosives!
In her podcast today Heather recounted today’s chronology linked to 1930s Nazi Germany.
That is, there was Carl Schmitt who then taught Hitler simply how to go around what there was of constitutionality and law. Today’s reincarnation of that is Curtis Yarvin, whose ideas have clicked with Silicon Valley techie billionaire Peter Thiel, who’s been funding J.D. Vance’s parroting of all those billionaires wanting to kill all Washington, D.C.’s regulatory and taxing agencies. So these billionaires could cohere in the same ways Schmitt’s thinking let fascism replace democracy in Germany all those years ago.
Abstractions rule them all. They fester in proportion as none of them has any grounding in anything human as in our novels, memoirs, movies, songs, and other arts.
Yes, 2025 has been “horrific,” but when Heather nearly midway through cites a key moment in “Star Wars,” her own tone changes, and the full second half of her podcast today stresses the positive of We the People.
She can do that because of one reference to one movie where the human is transcendent.
It seems that Thiel has not picked a very charismatic person to back. I hope that our will outranks his money. We the People do not want more MAGA. Also, according to Julie Roginsky MAGA 1.0 is evolving into the even more terrifying MAGA 2.0
It sounds like what is happening to the AfD in Germany with the youth group being more conservative than the main part of the party. MAGA 2.0 are just Nazis.
Democrats Abroad and Indivisible Abroad are getting ready for GOTV in January. We must register every year when we vote from abroad. We want to support a blue tsunami this year. Happy New Year from Northern Germany.
Sadly over a third of the country still support Trump. He overturned ROE, is willing to protect Christianity everywhere in the world, closed the border, kills drug dealers...
I don’t really think it’s close to that. Many polls still rely heavily on land lines and then cell phones where many people don’t bother answering or block unknown numbers
So you and GJ would rather believe, after Trump's first term, that there was low voter turnout than voter suppression/tampering? Not that it matters NOW, but that doesn't come CLOSE to ringing true...there was alREADY proof that's been suppressed that Trump had help from the Russians in tampering with the 2016 election...Trump will do or say ANYthing to get what he wants...
Maybe the leverage against Thiel's money is the widespread concern about AI and what it may bring. Now that Trump's other hand is bruising, I am more concerned that he is not going to last until 2028, and we will be faced with a Vance incumbency without the need for him to be elected.
I am also concerned about Putin's manipulating Trump with the fake "attack" on his estate. I've believed for a while now that NATO will be abandoned for a version without the US, but it looks like it may be happening on a much faster time scale. The NYTimes investigative piece on the backstory of US/Ukraine relations is horrific. The link below should be gifted.
Georgia, that is why I see having a Democrat dominated Congress in the midterms as important. A president who has people in Congress who will impeach him is not like a president who has people in Congress who will not impeach him. They should also be impeaching SCOTUS and members of Trump's cabinet.
I am grateful that Zelensky is so bright and up to Trump's tricks. He already knows Putin's tricks. He has been negotiating where he gives in on a lot, but holds on to reasonable seeming items that are non-negotiables for Putin.
They should, but to get any legislation passed it has to be a 2/3 majority in each chamber to get around Trump's veto. And I don't doubt that he would veto everything out of spite.
Conviction following impeachment requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Impeaching SCOTUS while Trump is still in office will get us younger, more corrupt replacements, like swapping in Aileen Cannon for Clarence Thomas. Shivers down my spine.
Trump has invoked his first veto on a clean drinking water project in Colorado in retaliation for Lauren Boebert voting for the discharge petition to release the Epstein files, and because the governor of Colorado did not release Tina Peters, who is jailed for state election interference crimes. He had generally threatened retaliation, but he covered it with a fig-leaf justification. "Enough is enough. My administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable projects," he said.
IT HAD PASSED BOTH THE HOUSE AND SENATE UNANIMOUSLY.
Hopefully, that means the House and Senate will override the veto unanimously...
Me too! But timing will be all in determining how the doinos will fall. Lots of permutations, some of which could lead to worse outcomes than the current situation.
BUT remember that she's not getting into Scotus without a thorough rendering in the Senate without McConnell there. He's a lame duck as are several senators who agreed to the lies of the Trump three from before.
I think that the financial dealings of Thomas offer the best avenue, and I don't recall the specifics around Alito, but I think there are similar grounds there.
I am whole heartedly behind your analysis. Trump is by far the stupidest negotiatior of any diplomatic relations especially because he only listens to himself
To paraphrase Glinda from 'The Wizard of Oz,' we've long known that MAGA 2.0 "was worse than the other one by far." I don't think that's anything anyone paying the least attention would doubt at this point. And if we continue to echo that Nazi parallel, remember the Night of the Long Knives. We're already at the beginning of that paradigm shifting when the rats start eating each other. In history, that's generally the signal for one of two things: either the darkness worsens, or the cracks that let the light in widen so much they can no longer be patched up.
There's great evidence that the latter already predominates. It doesn't mean things won't get worse in the immediate short-term. Our rulers are flailing now, not yet failing. But they will fail. Projects like this --- 'algebra to a cat' to re-quote Heather (no offense to felines everywhere) -- simply don't have long shelf lives. The dementia is accelerating. MAGA is cracking. Republicans are abandoning ship. It's not even clear through sudden retirements they'll keep their majority even *before* November, let alone afterward.
It remains our task to see to it those cracks continue to widen. My own motto for 2026: Don't Fulminate -- Organize. (I like to think I'm channeling the first Mrs. Trump: 'don't get angry --- GET EVERYTHING.' 😊
ICTT I agree with your motto for 2026. I am already thinking of the GOTV efforts that I am going to be doing. A friend and I have something planned for January 6, which is a day to wear paper clips in solidarity. I am in discussions on the best way for Democrats Abroad and others who want to vote Democratic to apply for their voting abroad as we must do each year, and how to get our ballots to our polling places on time, or at all, if we are in states that do not allow us to email them.
I made no connection with Star Wars, but if you and she say so. I just remember the aftermath of WW2 and the war hell that the earth suffered. Never knew about Schmitt though, one evil voice reverberated through the ages and landed in brains corroded by hate. History is a two-edged sword. We balance on a pinhead it seems.
the nazis learned from Jim Crow and the eugenicist here in the US and the rise of hitler was funded by americakkkan billionaires and corporations like jp Morgan, Rockefeller, ibm and ford...
I would also recall Stalin's Russia, since this regime has brought in its own Comrade Lysenko, in the form of Bobby and his Merry Band of Medical Miscreants.
But Heather, in her YouTube video today (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSEV5uuzbq8), calls on us to articulate the values, policies, and ideologies we want in 2026. We are at a turning point in history where we may still lose our democracy. The path immediately ahead will be awful, but it is on us to be the agents of change. More and more people are realizing the danger Trump poses and are joining the fight.
It may be terrifying, but, for democracy, to quote Joni Mitchell Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?” We only really appreciate democracy when we have to fight for it. It is an exciting time because we are the ones who will decide what comes next. What kind of country do we want to live in?
It is up to us, the people, to make that decision. We need to start now, to generate new ideas about the values and policy areas we care about, and talk about them together. Out of those conversations, some ideas will rise and become important, while others will fail to gain traction; yet, amid the competition, an America 2.0 will emerge.
It's not just in domestic policy either. We need to determine how America will fit into the new world order going forward. Trump has brought us to a dangerous place. America's 80-year reign as the leader of the free world is over. What rises to replace it is also up to us. I, for one, do not want to see the authoritarian National Security Strategy with its spheres of influence be the future. There are major global challenges we face, including climate change, the toxic waste produced by new technologies, mass migration, and hunger. We have to be better at addressing those crises with global policies.
May 2026 bring us all clarity and a sense of purpose, and joy in the work to come, and plenty of good trouble!
Actually, Georgia, saying "It is up to us, the people" relies on figurative language.
Heather strongly agrees with your positive note, as do -- I think -- the vast majority of our fellow Americans.
But for literal English, it "is up to" those who have power. That means all our rancid, cynical, dehumanized billionaires, who belong to the traditions of the Powell memo, Citizens United, and most corrupted White House, Congress, and Clarence court / John Roberts court.
It also means our schools. And remember, Georgia, in schools where testing rules, it is never "up to us, the people." No one taking tests can ask any human or any other questions. Only the rationalized elites who rule ask the questions. All doomed to their packaging have no choice but to submit to them -- to the billionaires and their corrupted, neutered, test-proficient lackeys who enable only humanly empty billionaires to set the choices.
Phil, I was quoting Heather when I said it was up to us. She believes we, the people, ultimately have the power, and can show it at the ballot box and through mass demonstrations.
Seems I remember seeing the phrase in a document written around 250 years ago...
Phil, as you say the tyrants are in power and power rules. Resistance, opposition and self-determination exist also. We must keep them alive despite the programmed existence that they have planned for us. Russia has apparently gotten used to such, we must never.
Phil, you itemize the reasons I believe Dr. Richardson is far too optimistic. Also, I believe anyone who regards the Democrats as trustworthy
is naive (if not deluded); the proof is in the historical record -- how their their collaborative votes and policies prove they are as responsible as the RepubliKlans for the Christonazi triumph.
It gets worse with Trumps lies about Putin and Ukraine, his phony wars , his not standing up to dictators around the world and his destruction of the economy. His administration and party have unilaterally destroyed the country and threatened world stability and peace. Bravo GOP, you will be remembered with the Southern Slaveholders as the evil forces of history. Thanks Heather for this summation of this disastrous year!
Keep in mind, above all, Trump supports fossil fuel. His drill drill drill hasn't worked out well for him as many wells have been taken offline in 2025. And now it's steal the oil from Venezuela under the guise that he is preventing drugs form entering the US. Of course, as is his MO, no proof of any extrajudicial killing is/was provided.
I wish the press would remind people that Trump recently pardoned a notorious drug king pin who actually did bring tons of drugs into the country -- to reiterate that Trump's claim to be saving us from drugs is total bullshit.
On what basis was Speaker Mike Johnson able to declare the rest of the House session a single day to prevent any legislative challenge to Trump’s tariffs? That action on Johnson's part doesn't expose a weakness in the Constitution or structure of the government that can be fixed, but willful madness on the part of Republicans to subvert reality in order to give license to Trump to do whatever he wants. Their message was "Trash the nation, Donald? Go right ahead. It's fine with us." And that's what Donald has been doing ever since.
It happened on the first day of the new Congress when they vote on the House Rules package. It requires a majority of the whole House. There were enough Republicans to pass it. It was rewritten to make it harder to have a motion to vacate and gave Johnson more power over the House calendar. He has the unilateral power to keep the House out or to call them back. And by choosing how many calendar days are equal to a legislative day so he can stall legislation.
It can be amended during the session--but it would probably require a discharge petition.
Below is the link for the current House Rules which is just for the amendments from the previous Rules. I have not seen a "clean" copy with all of the accumulated edits over time. Why would members of the House want to actually know what is in the Rules? The Parlimentarian is supposed to know so they have someone to ask.
It only takes one or two Republicans in the House to challenge Johnson’s leadership and he’ll be gone. Those are the rules Republicans left in place when they elevated Johnson the first time. MJT could have done it before she “retired”. But, as we know, her act was always fake to the max.
No matter how we look at it, the “party of NO” has taken that position to a new extreme: the party of NO Congress.
Except, as noted in remarks below, this isn’t true. At the moment it takes 9 representatives to challenge the speakership.
I have been on here for 5 years and only realized you could do most of this stuff a few weeks ago when I decided to focus my posts more on Ukraine. This is not the easiest to use platform—I have yet to understand why I can’t consistently access the formatting or why some things I have paid subscriptions to don’t always get dropped in the feed.
JD, just read it, reread it actually. It would make a pretty good mockumentary. Which, come to think of it, is appropriate for the mockery we see now. Soon the script will become … nevermind, I can’t even bear to characterize this.
Greg is smoking too much pot these days LOL... isn't he the one who wrote the 10 steps to getting rid of Trump? Total b***sh*t from a reality perspective although amusing to read.
House rules are generally not subject to court review and the rule which gives Johnson that power is just a consolidation of what the GOP can do as the majority. Dems have had the same power when in control, they just generally don't do things that way. Nothing illegal about it. It's the way Congress has always worked. Study the history of the Senate and House and you will see.
It's a "legislative day" and it's whatever the rules says it is. There are lots of "legal fictions" in both the House and Senate rules which only "make sense" when you understand how Congress actually works. Because they all vote on these rules at the beginning of each legislative term (2 year terms) the rules can be whatever they agree on by majority vote which is of course one of the reasons holding a majority at the start of legislative term is so critical.
In some ways it has actually worked to our (Dems) limited benefit because under previous rules if the House adjourned for three days, it went "out of session" and then the President had even greater power while they stayed in recess. Under the "continuous session rules, they never go out of session so Trump has no "between sessions" power.
Waiting on sunrise at the edge of the continent on the last day of our year. Heather and I are both very close to the first place the light touches here in Dawnland, Wabanakik.
Wishing all of us better times ahead.
Do we understand what is at stake, now? Can we hold on to what really matters? Can we continue to grow and to change without breaking? Can we learn to live in reciprocity and loving kindness with one another and the natural world?
Michael, you asked four wonderful questions. The last one should be on the lips of every leader.
As we try to keep our hands on the rudder of this ship, we should refer back to those questions. The rough waters are going to challenge us in 2026 - perhaps more so than in our lifetimes.
While we all speculate what may happen politically, there have always been events that changed the direction of the winds almost overnight. Some of those events should be fresh in our memory, if we step back and reflect.
A pandemic - are we more or less prepared for the next one?
Extreme weather events - that could disrupt the fragile global food system?
A financial crisis - that could exceed the damage of 2000 and 2008? (AI, Crypto cons)
A sick president leaves office - the chaos and power struggles in the vacuum?
China invades Taiwan - as promised, and America has no clear policy if it occurs?
Putin's leadership collapses - Russia is bleeding, how will we respond?
Let's not be shocked if all of the above - and more happen in 2026. Your four excellent questions should be referred to every day. Guideposts.
Sunrise hit here 5 minutes ago. We're in the middle of 10 or so days where the latest sunrise is at 0747. Our earliest sunset was at 1634 three weeks ago, and are already seeing 5 minutes more light at the end of the day.
There has never been a better case for impeachment for the President and his entire cabinet (not to mention the Speaker of the House and some members of the Supreme Court). The two previous attempts at impeachment were minor compared to this. He/they have violated the Constitution over and over again and Congress and the Supreme Court are not doing their job to check the Executive branch. They must all be removed. This is a danger to the government of our country. This is not partisan politics. This is make or break time for the United States! ENOUGH!
I’m an original sponsor of the bill to impose the toughest possible sanctions on Russia. We will also start a discharge petition in January to force a vote on the floor. Congress must act now. We cannot wait for the White House to do the right thing here.
Every day I am increasingly appalled at the inaction of GOP Congress -- they are just sitting there, silent, watching the country be dismantled. They could stop this - by impeaching Trump, Bondi, Patel and the rest of the thugs - or even by taking back the power of the purse and over tariffs and the shutting down of agencies. This total obedience from Congress is something I never imagined and I hope, as Heather indicates, that the tide is finally turning.
Although I'm willing to bet the GOP is appalled by Trump's vulgarity, they like what he is doing - returning America to the days before the New Deal. Sure, they're scared of Trump's threats to get them kicked out of their cushy jobs. But they still believe in lower to no taxes and the lack of a safety net that goes with it, no regulations, and a kickass military. And for a party that doesn't want the government to interfere in people's private lives, how does that match with their fierce attacks on a woman's right to make her own decisons about her health care? And why are they passing legislation about trans folks, who are 1% of our population?
If you haven't read It Can't Happen Here in a while, take it off the shelf and re-read it. And if you've never read it, or don't own it, either get a copy from your local public library or order one from your local bookstore (NOT from Amazon). I'm with Phil Balla on finding inspiration from literature. Wishing us all a year of peace through activism in 2026.
It Can't Happen Here copy from your local public library Betsy? Better hurry before it's too late !!!!!. I wish 2026 it's the year we regain control of Congress and at least be able to stop the destruction being inflicted on our country, institutions and people. Activism should be directed to guarantee we'll have a fair and real election in November. Thanks for all your comments Betsy 😀
Speaking of public libraries…the extreme court just opened the door to censorship in public libraries by deciding NOT to rule on an appeal…Little v. Llano out of TX. Quite a scary thing!. It is a total violation of 1st amendment rights and opens up taking books off the shelf that do not support the regime or its ideology.
I appreciate reading what Heather said on video yesterday since it’s 4 am. It is the best recap of this disastrous monstrosity that I have read, an overview, concise and embedded in history. It makes me feel so ignorant as it points out my misdirected focus. I have blamed Rupert Murdoch for the whole fiasco, long planned and executed. And, make no mistake, he, Ailes, and classic republicans created the MAGAts. What I totally missed was the stealth tech agenda. Who the hell is Curtis Yarvin? I knew muskrat, and thought Peter Thief and Larry Ellison were just rich goons who were no threat to me. What I learned too late was that smart can be crazy too. It’s not just ignorant MAGAts. I should have learned that working at jr high and high school. I knew many smart crazy teens who loved to disrupt and manipulate. I thought that they would grow up. Well, some did, but some had learned the lessons of their parents well. Anyway, HCR has taught me a lot. I hope it is not too late for me and others to right this ship has been charted off course. As a commenter said yesterday. The tyrants have the power now and they will not give it up easily. I’d like to think that they made a mistake when they have embraced the Nazi agenda so openly. We liked Ike and many of us remember why. We also remember that Russia promised to destroy us from the inside, as did Osama bin Ladin. Wake up democrats and Americans of all stripes. HCR has challenged us to take back what was left in our care.
Thank goodness, HCR, that our Democracy is getting reclaimed from the greedy & cruel Republicans. I read an essay earlier today that relates to this…
“A phrase has been circulating online—borrowed from gaming jargon, but disturbingly accurate as a description of American life: the slaughter line. In America, there is no truly safe zone.
The modern slaughter line is the predictable product of the Republican project: privatize risk, concentrate reward, moralize the suffering, and keep the public angry at each other so they don’t notice the extraction pipeline overhead.
You can look stable and still be a few hundred dollars away from the edge.
When public systems are dismantled, something fills the gap. In America, that something is often religion. In America, churches frequently do what government refuses to do: provide food, shelter, and connection. Republicans celebrate this arrangement because it allows them to dismantle public systems while still claiming moral virtue.
If there’s a New Year message here, it isn’t “try harder” or “stay positive.” It’s this: don’t turn on yourself, and don’t turn away from others. Hold on to your ability to see people clearly, including yourself. Keeping it intact matters.
Not because it guarantees victory. But because it preserves the kind of humanity without which no victory would mean anything at all.”
How close are you to the slaughter line. We all think we are well back. Not so, as they destroy the economy, our comfort zone shrinks to the size of a pea.
I'd like to think Americans are roused to defend democracy and our Constitution enough to vote in the midterms to break Trump and his enablers' strangle hold on our country and stop their unimaginable cruelty. However, I went to the supermarket today and red peppers were $4.49 a pound, green onions, which were $0.99 a bunch three weeks ago, were $1.99 today - and the bunches were smaller. I shopped very carefully and it still cost me $150. On Jan. 1, my medicare advantage premium will go up and my benefits will go down - again. I know Republicans, Libertarians and MAGA folks have a Malthusian approach to the people who are even more strapped than an 86 year old woman on social security like me, so appealing to them is useless. They'd rather see those folks die rather than help them live. But unlike rich people, the MAGA folks go to the supermarket and need help paying for health care. So, James Carville is right again. "It's the economy, Stupid." The cost of red peppers, green onions and health care may save our democracy and the Constitution - if we're lucky.
My Dem daughter mid 50’s is married to a man who never discusses politics or his vote. According her only drastic reductions to Social Security will unite both left and right voters. The says I should calm down until then.
I'm sure she's correct. However, I'm not asking for unity. That not only takes too long and I'm not sure I'm ever going to be comfortable with Christian nationalism and bigotry. All I want right now is for Republicans to become the very, very minority party in Congress. And I hope it's okay with your daughter to be married to that guy.
Unfortunately Yarvin has inspired many inroads to his dystopian authoritarian takeover. Thiel is deeply entrenched in all branches of our government, and all the DOGE -harvested data of the agencies, national treasury, and our personal info are being funneled into his surveillance company Palantir. The monopolies in MSM are fast becoming authoritarian mouthpieces and Ellison has expressed support for establishing a surveillance society. AI is being shoved down our throats, education systems are dumbing down. The ballroom is just a topper for a data/ power center/bunker such as that recently built in Israel. How are we to hold into our independent press, sound waves, internet? How long can a portion of us stay tapped into truth?
What a fabulous summary of events. Your derails sent chills down my spine and the feeling, finally, that hope is in the air. May you have a blessed, healthy, happy and successful New Year. I believe that if you do, so will 'WE THE PEOPLE"
Thank you for all you do. May your passion, HISTORY, reward you for being a banner for Democracy!
Reviewing 2025 is like reliving a nightmare.
So many people have been hurt not only in America but around the world.
Yet, Trump supporters cannot see through Nazi-like propaganda.
When will this be over?
That is exactly what I thought when reading Heather's post this morning and how quickly our democracy was dismantled and destroyed. Every day there is something new, something more embarrassing from him than the day before. When will this be over? unfortunately not soon enough. He needs to resign, although we all know that will never happen.
It wasn't quick. It has been in progress since the Heritage Foundation wrote the first version for Reagan. They have been putting judges, and rulings, and legislation in place for 45 years. They are the most patient people on earth.
Thinking it was fast biases you to thinking it can be unwound quickly. It won't be, Democrats have not really begun to think about how to unwind it. And that is a problem. That's why Heather's Politics Chat on YouTube from yesterday is important to listen to.
We are going to have to be doing triple duty, fighting what is, envisioning what we want to get to, and figuring out how to get there and what to do first.
You have paid attention, it has been a long slog, with so many times seeing one guardrail after another fall or be trampled. It will take much effort to rebuild what has been torn asunder
Fortunately the people on the ground are already busy thinking, electing, envisioning. The grass roots- is already getting it done.
You may be underestimating unelected economic power, i.e., the mega-rich and big corporations. They've beat back "the grass roots" every single time, and since Reagan they've become more powerful and more entrenched than ever. At the same time, too many of "we the people" are woefully ignorant of U.S. history and how democracy *could* work -- not all that surprising, thanks to the decline in civics education and the rise in the number of hours we have to work to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads.
If there's a fatal flaw in the U.S. Constitution, it's the failure to reckon with unelected economic power. It was busily corrupting all three branches of government before Trump I came along. Where were your "people on the ground" then?
Citizen's United, "corporations are people," is crazy, allowing the greedy oligarchs to be above "we the people," IMHO.
What do you suggest? Giving up? We the people can pass state laws effectively neutering Citizens United in our states.
In Canada...this is the LAW relative to Political Contributions:
Eligible Annual Political Contributions are limited to $1,725.00 for Canadian Citizens or Permanent Residents.
Ineligible are Corporations, Trade Unions and Other Organizations.
This is carefully scrutinized by 'Elections Canada' and 'The Auditor General' then up to the 'Attorney General' if required.
Considering that the US was constructed by rich, white men who wanted protection for their property, it was not a flaw, but an implied given.
Thank you, Kimberly. We should all re-read HCR's letter today, especially the last paragraph.
Really? Could you show me something that proves this? I'd sure feel a lot better if I believed this.
Reread HCR's letter today, especially the last paragraph. What you want won't make the headlines, which are based on fear to make the reader hooked. The reconstruction efforts are there. George Conway and James Talarico are running for Congress, for example. There are many people who are ready and working. Project 2025 people want us to remain asleep and afraid. We aren't going to do that.
Read or watch something inspiring.
Look around you. In my state we have a group called Blue Ohio which focuses on getting Dems to run in state and local races. Look at the efforts of Indivisible. Although that has some big funding, the work of each state chapter is local. There is more if you look.
I need a little help. I have been editing my first draft of a comprehensive review of the key facts of American history which voters need to be informed about, the dimensions of the Attack upon us by the corporatist fascist R.I.N.O.s since Louis Powell wrote his Memo (August 23, 1971, four mounts before Nixon put him on the Supreme Court) spoon feeding them on his attack plan, and a model Amendment for how we repair what our enemy has done. I need some helpful ideas from a couple of thoughtful people. The project is now 95% completed and ready for review, proof read, edited by others. In a couple of weeks it will be shared with key people in Congress and key groups. The intent is to spark thinking on the dimensions of the Attack on our Constitution by these greedy bastards and the dimensions our Amendment must be to resolve it.
Read Andra Watkins' "Reviewing Project 2025's Christian Nationalist 2025 Successes - Since The Atlantic failed to include them" at
https://andrawatkins.substack.com/p/reviewing-project-2025s-christian
I almost bypassed it over the "Successes" in the title but dig get as far as: "...Since corporate media failed - AGAIN - to cover Christian Nationalism and Project 2025 effectively, I’ll do my own round-up of Christo-fascist Project 2025 objectives that materialized this year..."
"Objectives" sounds better to me than "Successes", since I want to make the Heritage/"Confederalists" successes as close to short lived as Confederates "successes" at Gettysburg (where my wife and I walked the ground the Maine 20th held 162 years ago).
Uncharacteristically, I've been too ill for the last several days with a particularly bad cold (only slight fever one day), to read much but I did at least upvote it (without completing the comment I started).
Yes. Where is the alternate version of Project 2025, one that reflects our founding ideals? Have the Democrats even begun to draft their own blueprint for change? Lo these long decades Russell Vought has been a master at playing the long game, not seeking power through elective office (as ambitious types tend to do), but by promoting a mandate that appeals to a certain mindset. It's catch-up time, Dems.
What we need is a new New Deal, the one that benefitted virtually all of us here.
Unf*cking the Republic has its Five non -negotiables, and it's a fine start.
Richard Sullivan, I agree. I’m hoping-praying that The Young Democrats et al, are doing just that now. Having been in in a few teaching us to peacefully resist, I’ve noticed not only how young the leaders seem to me to be, but how wonderfully informed, intelligent and multi racial as well. I thought, ‘Wow. If they only knew that I was born in 1940!’ as I watched the love icons drift up.
Maybe that new New Deal will be named A Better Deal?
The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution are two excellent plans that We, the People should use to counter Project 2025. And, let’s remember a couple of things about We, the People: 1.) WE have the power and the authority in our voting habits; 2.) WE are the employers not the employees in this governing environment since we pay our taxes and, therefore, the salaries (and benefits) of Donald J. Trump, JD Vance, Mike Johnson, John Thune, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas…even Stephen Miller’s $195,200 plus benefits, etc. WE, the People pay these folks. They work for us. 3.) We, the People include MAGA voters. Let’s do this together in 2026! Happy 250 years!!
Caught ‘our taxes’!
If we all refuse to pay the in the coming year, meaning by many millions of us for the illegal use not only killing fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico, but tearing down part of OUR house plus re Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s list today.
Our State governments, attorney generals really need to try their best unravel some of those ‘fake laws’
our corona virus of a pres has ordered.
Voight is the voice in the demented orange idiot head/brain because we know he doesn’t have the brain power on his own!
But what do we do with Kelly, Klobuchar, Kaine, Gallego, Hassan, Cortez-Masto/Rosen, and all the MAGA Democrats who vote with Trump. They will still be in powerful positions and willing to mask their beliefs on television interviews to continue the assault on Democracy. Notice Duckworth and Hirono are not asked to give opinions - just those planning to run for the presidency.
Wide brush of ugliness you use to demean these people! Cite instances or stf!
Now that's productive! Kelly's MAGA? WTF is wrong with you.
I don’t think we have to mimic them, and I think we are better off if we pass laws at the state level to begin with, while we are re gathering political power. Then we have models at the state level for federal laws.
I need a little help. I have been editing my first draft of a comprehensive review of the key facts of American history which voters need to be informed about, the dimensions of the Attack upon us by the corporatist fascist R.I.N.O.s since Louis Powell wrote his Memo (August 23, 1971, four mounts before Nixon put him on the Supreme Court) spoon feeding them on his attack plan, and a model Amendment for how we repair what our enemy has done. I need some helpful ideas from a couple of people. The project is now 95% completed and ready for review, proof read, edited by others. In a couple of weeks it will be shared with key people in Congress and key groups. The intent is to spark thinking on the dimensions of the Attack on our Constitution by these greedy bastards and the dimensions our Amendment must be to resolve it.
We've been here before. Our solution back then: the New Deal. We need a new NEW DEAL. What that implies, of course, is to stop the oligarchs from stripping trillions of dollars out of the economy. They (the billionaires) are a selfish lot. Not one of them served in the U.S. Military but they're OK with cutting funding and services for the Veterans Administration while steering trillions of dollars in tax cuts their way. What we're dealing with here is one of the lowest forms of humanity - lucky SOB's who think that they're God's gift to the world and have no responsibility for contributing to the common good.
The Dems need to be working on this as we speak. Winning is one thing. What to do AFTER you win is entirely another. We are in the second Gilded Age. I don't believe there is yet political will to punish the perpetrators of our downfall.
Funny, I was just “hung up” in my mind yesterday thinking similar thoughts….it is like a blanket that has developed numerous tears and it is difficult to know where to start the repairs while still needing to use the blanket😵💫
If it were like whack a mole at least there would be some sense of “satisfaction” each time the mole disappeared from sight….in this case there are so many holes and it is hard to figure out which are the high priority 🤔
We do need to be methodical in repairs to do our best to shore up everything so as to undermine any repeat performances by those going after our democratic ways.
Georgia, what you say in this response is vital to understanding how and why we arrived at this critical state of our democracy. The book "Evil Geniuses" by Kurt Anderson chronicles the Right's long-term project to end democracy in the United States in detail, beginning with "The Powell Memo" in the early 1970's (1971 ?), through the Reagan years, Grover Norquist's tax revolt, the rising influence of religion in politics and beyond. And now, here we are. It won't be fixed easily.
Thanks for the suggested reading. I’m putting it on my list. I think I need to take a speed reding course!
Fortunately (or maybe not) I can access my library account from here. The hold feature is my friend. But I’ve got many right now.
And "Democracy Awakening" by HCR recounts how we ended up where we are today.
I'd forgotten about the wonderful Kurt Andersen. Loved his Studio 360 programs.
What to do first Georgia? First, if we ever have the power again, is to make sure this regime doesn't repeat itself in the future, ever. If we can accomplish that, the rest it's fixable in a generation.
It seems to me fixing SCOTUS must be one of the top priorities. Otherwise, it can undo whatever laws get passed they don’t like. And they seem to be bent toward pushing the unitary executive (which doesn’t need them, btw).
45 years of republican planning? Now that they are trying to turn us into their warped version of Christianity, do we need to worry about more religious crusades in our “new world order”?
You'd think after 45 years, they could have done better than the confederacy of dunces they now have implementing the plan.
It might be that the "confederacy of dunces" is what it took to hook in the populace that has been drained of its curiosity and competence by the sporadically mentioned de-"humanityization" of our schools and rote teaching to the test. They needed a mass of people that cannot think critically and have no foundational background in the humanities to succeed.
😁 Indeed
This is what happens when a group is certain that committing verses of the Bible to memory (without understanding or following them) is a substitute for an actual education.
Oh it’s so much worse, they sit in well-named pews and hear a world salad of textual dreck that can mean anything needed for money and power! And Harvard is right up there helping! They have create a whole fake history of Jesus based on nothing, sort of like all those TV shows looking for the Ark…completely fake, reality TV!
I, too, have long thought this. It gave me some solace to think that, despite all the planning, all the patience, all the money, they ended up putting incredibly stupid people in charge of it all.
Yes. Beware.
Wallace, Nixon, Reagan were all imperfect vassals…these came Bush and Cheney and the guardians and guardrails were gone! Of course Clinton and Obama tried to gets their message out, ‘crickets.’ The ‘if it smells it sells’ media is now a major drug dealer! Powered by so called AI, which is neither, not Artificial nor Intelligent. Marketing 101 as they train and steal on the collective digitized works stolen data, augmented by GOOgly…all SLOP!
Hire a human! I’m really sick of “False Profits” a bubble it a hot tub does not require you bend over to sniff to know…AI could be interesting if it trained on love instead of dreck and hate!
Extremely well said. That's why -- for the first time ever -- I did (not) give Dr. Richardson a "like"; I believe she is entirely too optimistic in every sense -- that is, in terms of the Christonazi atrocities to come; the willingness of the (plutocracy-bribed) Democrats to resist; and -- most of all -- the courage, solidarity and discipline required of the population to overthrow the Christonazi regime. (I'd say more, but Substack -- behaving in exactly the pro-Christonazi manner Andra Watkins has been predicting -- has imposed censorship-by-format, deliberately making detailed commenting impossible, and thereby nullifying our ability for in-depth discussion and analysis.
You might try starting your own stack and linking to a longer post of your own if it's germane to the immediate comment that you are replying to. Maybe you could update your personal post on a topic by adding each day's new commentary with the date, so everyone can see how people's thinking is evolving.
A couple of years ago, there was a lot of discussion about "self-promotion" being undesirable in Substack comments. But referencing other people's posts was not questioned. I think it's more efficient than seeing people write long posts that I know they put a lot of time into, only to substantially repeat the background for a new iteration.
I often wish we could go back and easily reference someone else's argument from a few days ago. Has anyone found a way to search through the comments and replies?
If we are going to structure conversations about new ideas and approaches as Heather suggested, we need a hack to handle the threads more efficiently.
To do that requires commenters not so filled with ego and arrogance that they at least keep to the topic, whether agreeing or disagreeing with it, either tersely or not. There's quite a few in here whose idea of a conversation is only: 'what about me and my one-trick pony?' Most of us know who they are.
Yep
Georgia, there are *far* too many stacks as it is, in my opinion. It's the vanity press of the masses. In fact, I'm starting to be less inclined to read the ones I subscribe to, whether free or not, and I'm more apt to skim the ones I open. Having carefully-curated authors who provide content regularly can seem like having Faux News and Entertainment running in the background 24/7; it's siloing. There's far more to life. Again, only my opinion.
That said, I do recognize the time you put into your work on Ukraine; it is well-researched.
And I hate the app -- my default is to keep it uninstalled.
How might I search for “Will from California”?
I have wondered about him! He had such interesting comments.
Click on a person’s name and/or click on follow them. It will take you to their user profile page. Under activity you should see notes they have posted and long posts they have written, and restacks and what subscriptions they have under reads, but I can’t find a way to see replies to see a way to search for a comment. You can search for a user name.
You can look to see if they created a note out of their comment when they poseted it if they can make it be understandable on its own. Restacking it gives the comment more exposure if you think it is good, and on your profile you can see what you restacked, especially if you restack with a note so your own take appears above it.
You could just copy what and paste into a google doc and search there. Free or to keep it in substack past it into a post of your own. You can keep posts private—you don’t have to publish them.
Haven't seen him here for months, and I miss his commentary. I'd go back into the archives and see if he's there on some of the Letters from last summer.
Thanks for this comment, Georgia. Substack's comment utility is imperfect, but at least it exists.
I appreciate your suggestions, although I remain conflicted about links to other Substacks, including my own. Some commenters link to their own Substacks as a form a "signature," which seems like naked self-promotion to me – almost spammy. These folks must be unaware that a link to their Substack is already present next to their name at the top of their post.
But in many cases, someone has already written a thoughtful Substack article on the topic at hand, and simply linking to it would be efficient and make the conversation here a lot less unwieldy.
I have also wished I could refer to a previous comment from the past few days, but I know of no easy way to do that.
Loren Bliss, Dr. Richardson has said many times in her conversations (on Politics Chat or interviews with others) that she, as an historian, does not make predictions. She suggests parallels to other times in history. But she does acknowledge that what is happening now is unique. I think her ability to mark other times in our history when it was seemingly impossible to fight against the odds, the people did so. If that is what you consider optimism, I personally think it is crucial for us to know that it has been done before, no matter how grim the situation, which she certainly does outline for us as well. I see her as a realist in her thorough, well documented reporting of the atrocities happening day by day, all year long. She also records the positive steps taken so far against this present regime. Yes, I agree we could take a pessimistic stance with all that Project 2025 has already put in place, but studying history does offer us alternative ways to get through these dark times and also gives us hope that we can make it so. She never makes it sound easy, as historians are well aware of the disasters that have happened before. But I will sign on to the hope she implies in her letters, that it is "we the people" who will stand up and say ENOUGH!
I am reading a book called “The Oppermans” by Lion Feuchtwanger, written in 1933, about the Nazi takeover, written in real time. Fascinating parallels. This book shows that what is happening now is not unique. The Nazi takeover proceeded more quickly, but was obviously the structural basis for “2025” which has been chillingly successful. The most amazing part of the book is its exposition of how the Nazis set the people at each others’ throats, and how quickly people fell into line. If we all have read Prof. Snyder’s “On Tyrrany” and “On Freedom,” we can see that following his outline will bring us through to fresh air on the other side of this.. It is heartening to see how well we have resisted. And of course Hitler’s use of his thugs to kill and maim anyone who spoke out contrasts with the use of Trump’s masked thugs to take out lots of people who don’t speak out. In any case, while we hold together, maintaining solidarity in spite of our various disagreements, stand up and speak out, the wind is changing even as we celebrate the new year.
Thank you for your book recommendation. I was not aware of that particular book, The Oppermans. I meant that what is happening now is “unique" to our American history. Clearly there are many parallels to be made to Nazi Germany, and HCR has certainly made them. I have read both of Prof. Timothy Snyder’s books that you highlight and also highly recommend them to everyone. Yes, the wind is definitely changing!
💯💯💯💯
There is this as you state and also Dr Richardson is excited and optimistic that it is we the people who get to rewrite this sinking ship. I think a lot of her optimism comes from this.
I'm glad Andra is standing fast on that front.
I'm leaving for the night, driven to despair -- no doubt as Substack intends -- by this new format. The removal of the "edit" function is particularly devastating.
There's nothing wrong with the edit function. Nothing got changed.
Yikes, no editing? I hadn't noticed that.
PS: It's still here, I've just used it.
My edit is still available.
Loren, how are you accessing Substack? Two factors could be causing difficulties. 1. Using the Substack app instead of a browser. 2. Using a mobile device (phone or small tablet) instead of something with a larger screen (large tablet, laptop, desktop computer).
Substack promotes their app, which I suspect is because it's always with you and always "on." But I tried it and didn't like it for many reasons. I use my MacBook Pro for Substack and find the comments much easier to navigate. All the features I expect are still here.
I still have the edit function; sometimes the ios platform does not support it.
Loren, Is your screen enlarged - hiding the three dots on the left?
The Chinese have an even longer view - centuries not just decades...
Can someone help me find a link? Sometime in the last 4-6 weeks, I believe there was a link posted on this site about Jane Doe's lawsuit that nearly came to light before the 2016 election. The lawsuit was withdrawn, and Jane Doe disappeared, but it is as important to the Epstein files as anything else. It is classic trump and needs to be in the public sphere.
https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Johnson_TrumpEpstein_Lawsuit.pdf
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/dramatic-1994-case-involves-trump-and-epstein-with-shocking-details/ar-AA1JUvZL
(Dunno if these links will stay live in this new format, but they will at least give you go-tos via the Internet.
Tried the links, both worked for me.
Just finished listening to Heather’s Politics Chats from 12/30…..well worth my time. I usually do not do pod casts because I would much rather read . Hearing her, watching her was even more inspiring than reading what she writes. And that is saying a lot for me.
And… after the pod cast I feel hopeful. Happy New Year.
Sally, I’ve been a serious, obsessive reader since second grade. But I do enjoy podcasts I’ve signed up for because there are times, like driving, I can’t be reading! Consider doing so. I particularly like The Bulwark and The Daily Beans. Also Spycast, because I love cloak-and-dagger stuff—telling real stories.
Exactly, the long game has been in play since Goldwater ran for president. The powers behind him asked a key question: how did we lose and what groundwork do we need to lay in order to win? Take over the judicial system so laws can be weakened. Weaken higher education by reducing public funding. Stoke the flames of prejudice via claiming reverse racism, create large deficits in order to justify reductions in public service. Support candidates who follow the party line, create a blueprint for legislation for states to follow ALEC…. On and on, it is mind blowing to see the fulmination of their strategy.
The many Vietnam vets who went to college on the Army Bill strengthened grassroots movements and put off the shut-down plan. Which was renewed then by the Powell memo. The impoverishment of education on all levels, from Kindergarten to Grad school, lies at the core of the plan to reduce the population of the US to a disempowered source of cheap labor. The support for Pre-K under the Biden admin was helpful, given the pressures on the workforce and the family, and the bru-ha-ha alleging "massive" Pre-K fraud (which had already been investigated) is clearly propaganda to prepare to strike that down. At the other end, some public and private universities were improving access, so those particular universities got slammed by Trump. They just can't wait to return to the Middle Ages.
You're right, it wasn't quick -- but I'd go back a lot further than Reagan. I'd go back at least to the late 19th century, to Jim Crow and vicious battle of the rich and corporate against workers' attempt to unionize. (HCR's HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR is beyond helpful on this.) I'd also note that upper-level, mostly white Democrats have been in denial for a long time, and they've generally tried to marginalize those who did get it.
Reveille–JFKs assassination was a coup that created our military-industrial empire, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and other subsequent military fabrications. His assassination, Project 2025, etc. are links in the chain of events that created the empire live in today.
Alec, I think it bears mentioning that Project 2025 is the brand name, or the culmination of a (very) long-term mission of evangelicalism in the U.S.
I once read a statement by someone I can't remember and can't find to cite: "The most effective way to make something happen is to start the rumor that it already has."
Donald Trump has utilized that strategy. So have evangelicals. They started with the notion that the U.S. was founded as a "Christian nation." Every day of every year since they rose to significant influence in the 1940s, evangelicals have claimed they are determined to "return the U.S. to its Christian roots" and "make the U.S. the godly nation it once was." Evangelicals claim that "God's law supersedes man's law," thus, are onboard with undermining the rule of law as we know it. That is the foundation for all the other stuff in Project 2025.
Plus its precursor in the 1971 Powell memo.
Yes! I saw it last night, deep in bleak thoughts. She brilliantly explained what she wrote here, and I am grateful.
If you haven't read George Monbiots "Invisible Doctrine", I highly recommend it. I can share the audiobook excellent version with you for another day or so if you like. He describes exactly what's happened.
Thanks for the suggestion. I have a bunch of audiobook credits I can use. I listen while I’m doing chores and cooking. Multi-tasking (really duo-tasking, bi-tasking?) These days I wish there was a way to tri-task, but I haven’t figured it out yet ! ;-) But I am ratcheting up the playback speed some.
This is something I might try. I have always been an auditory processor, and I am finding that as I age, my retention of written material is less than it used to be. I find that listening to the various programs that the Professor hosts while I do a visual task (think Tetris) aids in my retention of the material.
I think it actually got its start when the New Deal was implemented... the Republicans have been pissed about Social Security since its inception. Half the country still has that "I'm going to get mine, and screw you" philosophy.
I won't generalize how others react but I view what has happened as both a long game and a quick and radical set of changes that have taken place during this 2025 reign of the Trump regime. Recognizing the radical changes this past year in no way biases me to thinking it can be unwound quickly. We don't even know all of the damage that has been done yet. I don't know anyone who thinks reclaiming our democracy will be quick.
I see your point and agree with it. Thanks!
Trump is getting rid of our allies, and attacking countries illegally. We need a congress that will hold him in check.
Such a powerful message that Heather has sent out tonight. It is thanks to her and to the other historians, concerned media outlets and well informed Americans that we have continued to expose Trump and the frightened, meek Republican Senators and Representatives who have allowed him this extraordinary power that we’ve allowed our National Guard to perform illegal and heinous acts.
Thankfully, the majority of Americans are joining forces and legally protesting a King just as we did over 200 years ago. We will crush the wealthy who support this administration and return American democracy through the system of checks and balances that were so wisely set up by our forefathers who penned the constitution with its checks and balances as they intended.
Putin’s plan to take down America and Ukraine will also be thwarted.
Here here! Let's make this a reality. Not a pie in the sky!
Okay, so here’s the plan:
Step 1: We remind ourselves that the words of the first Republican POTUS still apply today.
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln said, “In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions.”
Step 2: We behave like those words still apply today.
Step 3: Return to Step 1 and repeat.
I can hear the music James!
He also is reported by some to have said that:
“You can fool part of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.”
Trump's version is that you can in fact fool enough of the people most of the time and that is in part what accounts for his extraordinary electoral success because it would otherwise be scarcely believable that such a ninny could have been elected once, never mind twice.
One could recommend that you should urgently look to your education system but that's hardly a viable solution for the current crisis you face.
I think Julie Roginsky has a powerful message too. She is talking about how Democrats must exercise power.
https://open.substack.com/pub/saltypolitics/p/how-democrats-must-exercise-power?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
A disaster like no other. Let us hope a tidal wave is in the making and that democrats elect super majorities in congress. I’m fearful we will put obstacles in our paths.
The obstacles I am most concerned about are the lying, cheating MAGAs.
The obstacles I speak of are the ones that in my opinion, got us here and I won’t elaborate because I’m always get shot down when I do.
Bill if you speak about immigration I will say that even if it got us here, I will say American ignorance about immigrants is what got us here, and the rhetoric of a master fascist speaker, and it is all so wrong minded.
More specifically the normalization of lying! (“All politicians lie.”)
Well you are lucky to take refuge outside this country. The rest of us aren't so lucky.
Yes. I mostly live abroad, but maintain a residence in the US because my mom is there with dementia. I am looking into moving her, but it will not be easy for so many reasons.
Most of the Americans I know living in Germany earn a lot less than they would be in the US, but with lower cost of living and a good safety net manage to live good lives. My spouse and I earned our money in the US so our money is under Trump's control.
Our daughter had decided to go to university in Germany when she was a child; long before Trump was a known entity in our household. We were going to retire here just as many Americans retire to Arizona or Florida because of climate, and lower cost of living. My idea of good weather is not the blazing sun, but places where in summer it is bearable without air conditioning most of the time, thus the Northern part of Germany.
However, when Americans tell me I am lucky, what they should be saying is that I am plucky, because it is more pluck than luck that had me moving overseas on retirement.
Thank you for your constant pluck in fighting to save American democracy at home and abroad. Happy New Year!
Ein schoenes, neues Jahr fuer Dich und deine Familie, Linda, und fuer uns alle! 🇩🇪 🇺🇸 💙
Danke Jen! Und einen guten Rutsch! ✌🏽
How did you pick Germany? If I recall, you grew up in Chicago (south side?). I kinda did too-just over the IL-IN state line—JUST over.
Trump is a contrarian from hell. He has a compulsion to destroy everything just to claim it as his own. In my book, I compare him to ancient Egyptian pharaohs who sometimes had the noses smashed off the statutes of the previous ruler thinking this was the way to end the influence because the nose was the conduit of life. Which is why in a way, Biden didn’t follow Trump on the border. I provided numerous other examples of Trump ending NAFTA under Clinton only to remake it in his name and little if anything changed. I was aware that coming into office would be a fatal error especially after his near assassination. Now his revenge borders on madness and destruction.
Imagine for a moment that he destroyed the historic East Wing of the White House to vindicate himself against the No Kings rallies only 2 days before.
I am almost certain that was his motivation. He's a temper tantrum toddler emotionally.. His emotional development is there and has always been. He's never been truly an adult in any sense of the word. But he's dying physically too. Someone keep sending him his favorite McDonald's meals and it won't be long.
Did you hear about his bunker under Mar-a-lago?
Talk about underwater! Glub, glub, glub....
No. He has one? He must have added it; I doubt it was there originally.
Yes Linda that is something we can do this November. Let's get to work:-)
With respect, "never say never". I don't think anyone could have predicted anything that has happened in 2025. Or happened on January 6, 2021.
The same should apply to 2026. Forgive me for my optimism, but I think a year from now we will mark this New Year as a tipping point when the pendulum began to swing back to sanity.
I know that many here have dumped their subscriptions to the NYTimes. Understood. It has been way too slow in telling America about the coup. But today's "Editorial Board" piece is quite well written and clearly stated. Paywall by passed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/opinion/jan-6-anniversary-trump-politics.html?unlocked_article_code=1.A1A.3Sl1.VQ_d1tPflw_K&smid=url-share
I visualize Trump boarding a plane to Mar a Lago...or maybe Saudi Arabia...or Russia for the last time. Or perhaps a padded cell in a fancy memory unit. This will not last. "47" is too fragile physically, mentally and politically. He is at the edge of a cliff.
Here's to a revolutionary return to democracy in 2026!
But we have the revised Heritage Roadmap to tell us what they expect to happen if given the chance in 2026. Don't need no crystal ball when it is put down in black and white and color photos.
https://www.heritage.org/priorities
It is titled "Restoring America's Promise."
Detailed down to pre-written bills for states to enact to bring it to fruition.
Yes. It is like a war cry. A war on democracy. A war on people. Heritage declared it.
But I think the impoverishment of the former middle class, the starvation of the poor (food, healthcare) and events we can't possibly foresee will provide plenty of pushback. Pardon my optimism, but I think it won't be long before MAGA and Heritage become cuss words across an America that is in pain.
I’m also encouraged by the staff exodus at Heritage. I’m not sure Pence’s group will have its gravitas.
Sorry but I can't trust that group either. They still be Reagan like and that's not the future we need. The GOP must remain the lowest rung on any political ladder.
Thank you, Georgia, for this and your always-substantial contributions. Words like "Heritage" and "Conservative" have been purloined by those who wish to plunder and destroy.
Thanks for sharing the Times editorial. I did cancel my subscription. But it did make me roll my eyes when I read this: "The shocking part of the story was the response of so many other people in government, media and business." They are the media and they blew it. This feels like too little too late. I hope it isn't.
The January 6 attack on the capitol was inevitable not isolated.
Yes! I agree with you: never say never! If 2025 has taught us anything, it is all that can happen without checks and balances. We need them in Justice, Military, and especially in Executive branches. Term limits required and, at this point, many asking themselves important questions about elected representatives ignoring their best interests. The Constitution, Rule of Law is front and center as March mid-terms fast approaching. Authoritarianism, not so much...As for the New York Times, compared to most major media in 2025, I was kept informed by fact-based journalists, although some of the Opinion pieces were disappointing. RESIST!!!
Thank you, Bill. I am going to end my reading of comments on your positive note. No more "buts". Let's roll up our sleeves and get to it.
One good editorial does not a good news outlet make, unfortunately. As the nation's leading newspaper the NYT had a great part in normalizing this president starting with his first campaign. They failed to dig deep and report his lifelong lies, his bigotry, his frauds, his vulgarities, etc. To this day they report his actions in headlines that reflect his boasts that his presidency is succedding. They put his photo all over the website. I ended my subscription too, and miss certain things. (But often the paywall comes down.) They need to do much more to atone for their dereliction of duty.
Thank you for bringing up the New York Times editorial piece. We must always remember January 6th. It should become a day of infamy that is recalled with shame and fear. For me now Trump is the January 6th president. We must remember.
I agree but the young guy in the second chair isn’t any better.
Thank you for sharing the NYT opinion piece. It was powerful and very disturbing. I can only hope it will open some eyes!
Thank you for the NYT article. At last they are calling it as it truly is!
Can I push him off that cliff?
Thank you for that link. What an excellent piece.
Thanks for posting the NYT editorial. It’s a bit late for them to speak up
You think when he is gone things will magically revert to the way they were? BTW - things were not so great before this madness.
No Marj. No reversion requested. Just go forward with progress for all of us. ALL.
And yes, 47 is just the head of the snake. It will be like Medusa. We will have a lot of chopping to do!
Today, Heather's newsletter came particularly late (or early in the morning). I wondered why so long, and first worried about her. I might have realized today's missal would try to sum up the past year of shame and degradation in all its bizarre, freakish detail. It takes time and tremendous effort to do that, so much nonsense and chickenshit has taken place since January. Most of us wouldn't have believed it could get this bad this fast.
If 2025 has been the year of fulminating disbelief on our parts, let 2026 be the year of organizing like no tomorrow existed. If faith is a part of who you are, remember the words of Martin Luther -- pray as though everything were up to God, but work as though everything actually depended on you alone. May we make good use of good time to get into good trouble and retake our legislative branch and several state legislatures this coming November.
A happy and hopeful new year to all...
ICTT- I love your post and reminders especially by MLK Jr. Thanks!
Martin Luther -- way back when. But thanks for the kind words!
*Per 3 Reuters reporters, the TOTAL number of Epstein documents that should have been produced on 12/19/25 is now up to 5.2 million documents whereas only about 125,000 have been produced as of 12/23/25, 5:59 Pacific.
*I will address how Survivors & their attorneys can gain a judicially controlled, searchable, database in a coming post.
*Reuters Team:
BRAD HEATH
RICHARD COHEN
BHRGAV ACHVAYA
But our democracy has not been destroyed, and only partially dismantled. Doomscrolling is counterproductive. We need to take a collective deep breath and get back to the work of restoring what America was a year ago.
And if that would happen, remember klutt, Manchurian vice president it's going to be much mych worse......
They are tolerating chump but, as HCR said, Yarvin is impatient. The flood will continue as long as “the tyrants are in charge.” And they plan to rebuild according to their specs. Just check out the Nazi plans. It’s all laid out
We used to write that spec book and inspect the design and building parts of it, but were fooled into giving that up and assumed it was a done deal, or "over". I guess we better take that back, yes?
agree
#47 is so much more than embarrassing!!! He needs to be impeached as he has circumvented laws and our constitution and he has an entire regime backing him and a do nothing GOP congress. The speaker of the house has cancelled congress in support of the FOTUS. Almost everyone in his regime should be investigated, prosecuted and jailed for their illegal acts. EVERY GOP representative should be voted OUT.
klutt, He needs to drop dead...in public.
He could "go" under my theory. I can it "One Last Cheeseburger"! I believe it has a much higher probability of success than waiting for Trump to resign.
It's more like MAGA sponsored genocide which goes way beyond people being hurt.
Trump uses OUR US Treasury as a weapon to starve Americans and impoverished people around the world. Many Americans railed on the Democratic Senators that essentially voted to reopen the Federal government but how many Americans would have died without SNAP benefits. And as of tomorrow, how many more Americans will be without health insurance again, a death sentence for thousands.
Keep an eye on the myriad elections local, state and federal. We the people have a chance to make not only a difference but MANY differences if we stay engaged in the election process next year.
I keep wondering about just how much “we” have needlessly spent on his and his minions vanity projects.
Far, far too much.
A lot!
Despite a few objections, I'm calling it Trump's resurrection of Hitler's Holocaust, this time with a much more inclusive target list -- which it what it obviously is.
And this time Russia is not on our side…
Not only that; there is compelling evidence Trump and Putin are co-conspirators in our deliberate reduction to a Failed State.
Yup. Just compare Trumps treatment of Putin when he stepped on American soil vs Zelensky. There it is. Putin got a red carpet welcome and jet flyover. I was surprised Trump didn't kneel and kiss Putin's ring. Zelensky got a tongue lashing.
Amazing how all the Republican foreign policy hawks just slithered under rocks. A question for McConnell and Graham: "What does Trump have in his files about you?"
nazi like? it's ok to say it - we have a felon child rapist NAZI in the White House!
I got banned for saying it in 2020, by T and FB. Is it okay now.
Keep speaking the truth.
It’s the truth
It is and also paths to repair may be appearing, as indicated in the letter tonight. The oligarchy remains very dangerous, but since they are now tipping their hand, solidarity is rising. The race is on.
The ancient Greeks coined a term for this blindness of Trump's supporters: Amathia - Willful ignorance; Intelligent stupidity. In the present case, the racists and white Protestant Nationalists (MAGA/KKK) can't see the danger that a Fascist Christian theocracy poses for them, too. And the wealthy keep playing them for the fools that they are.
Amathia- pride in ignorance. Have another..
(I’ve done that)
This is the puzzling part: do they know that they're ignorant? Do they not know what they don't know? The MAGA folks support Trump in large part because they and he share the same racism and they want Trump to crush them. "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why? by two Univ. of Kansas professors, published in the Feb. 2018 edition of the peer-reviewed magazine, "Critical Sociology."
I love that word: Amathia, willful ignorance/intelligent stupidity!! THAT is the shoe that fits the MAGAts in my world.
I spent decades searching before I came across this term (amathia.) It isn't even in my International Dictionary. Perhaps more than anything else it was Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D.,, Co-Chair of the Human Genome Project, who baffled me. Does Collins understand DNA? Does he know that all life on earth (plants, animals, insects) ALL share the same DNA? You bet your booties he does, yet he is a fundamentalist/evangelical Christian. Amathia explains this.
Learned a new word!
So many of us have wondered 'when will this be over?' indeed. One of the scarier truths out there is that it is far more difficult to leave a cult than to get into one in the first place. Millions would have to undergo a psychic break of sorts, which is deeply traumatic.
Adam Kinzinger did at least two memorable interviews this year with two former MAGA who refused to accept the blanket pardon offered to them by the ringleader of January 6. Both were very difficult reads for me -- people with low self-esteem latching onto something that didn't just provide them smug political answers, but a sense of belonging. One of those lives was so filled with alcoholism and substance abuse I'm surprised he's still alive. Though they both had the courage to leave, it cost them greatly.
When Trump 2.0 starts to unravel at the seams (arguably already doing so), it will be even more difficult for these people to find safe ground, psychologically. It took the utter destruction of Germany for many to finally abandon Hitler, after all. Let's hope and pray (and work) to find some other way for that to happen here.
Is it ego that keeps people chained to cults? Is it the refusal to admit one's wrongs or are they so blinded they truly believe all the lies?
Wouldn't they find the same sense of belonging on the right side of history? I suppose the word 'right' is subjective.
Low self-esteem has a great deal to do with support for authoritarians and narcissists who swagger and claim 'only I can solve this.' There was an op-ed in the New York Times the other day dealing with this exact phenomenon -- I don't remember the author, a practicing psychologist.
Anyone who still supports Trump is, for all practical purposes, a Nazi.
That's the nub of the problem as far as I'm concerned. Those who voted for the despot in 2016 might get a pass as "fool me once, shame on you," but the 77 million who voted in 2024, it's "fool me twice, shame on me." Yes, the Heritage Foundation and the Trump administration, including his made for FOX TV cabinet of studs and sluts, are the ones doing the dirty work of dismantling democracy here and abroad, with the consequent immiseration of tens of million of innocents, but it's the 77 million who have yet to oppose the tyranny that are at the heart of the crisis we face here at home. Instead they could care less about the rule of law, because for them the end justifies the means. We make a serious mistake when we rail against the Trump tyranny, but fail to made it clear that we hold the 77 million to be co-conspirators in the coup d'etat taking place in the U.S.A.
So, I am left to wonder, why there remains as much faith as seems to be expressed or otherwise implied in these string of comments that the constitutional checks and balances may be lying dormant, but will inevitably spring to life and begin the remediation, if not the resurrection, of a nation where no one is above the law.
Phil, watch her Dec 30 politics chat. It has a fully different tone than this recounting of the year, in its bleak reality. It will give you hope.
An estimated 600,000 people have died this year (BU, Harvard) as a direct result of cuts to USAID. Millions more will die. And that's supposed to make us great?
Satirical Commentary
2025: The Year MAGA Discovered the Constitution Was Load Bearing
MAGA mistook shouting for consent and cruelty for courage. History keeps a ledger, not a comment section. When the noise dies down, legitimacy still belongs to the people who show up, vote, organize, and remember that power flows upward, never from grievance, spectacle, or force.
👉 https://essayx.substack.com/p/2025-the-year-maga-discovered-the
And yet in 2024 Trump somehow harnessed the shared dysphoria of millions of Americans by linking his own imagined grievances to their very real ones. He fell just short of winning the popular vote. This can't be ignored as a freakish phenomenon because it's now happened twice in almost exactly the same way. This point to deeper problems with your whole system of democracy and the lack of trust in your institutions of government.
I've been avoiding all the End of Year radio & TV reports. Thankfully Prof HCR's letter sums it all up for us without too many desires to yell, scream, drink more bourbon, etc .... As I was listening to some of the news outlet shows yesterday evening about the attacks/actions in Venezuela, I could not help but think this was another Bizzarro (opposite) event: Arts imitating Life: Are we witnessing our version of Tom Clancy's 1989 novel & 1994 movie; A Clear & Present Danger. Unfortunately for us, there's no Jack Ryan fighting against the rouge gov't agencies or there is, he or she or them are outnumbered right now, not by numbers of activists but by the lack of courage for elected representatives to stop it.
I hadn't drawn that parallel, but that is one of my favorite Clancy books. Your assessment is spot on.
Most folks don't like him personally (who would), but they still think he is somehow good for the country. Otherwise, why would we elect him twice? He may be losing a little stream, but folks still can't get enough FOX News.
It is a nightmare and people voted for him and still support the cruelty - deaths around the world. We need to continue to turn our utter disgust of this tyrant into action: write, protest, knock on doors, contribute... make good trouble.
The supporters LOVE the Nazi propaganda. Lap it up like my cats lap up tuna juice. To them, it is not propaganda, it is their truth and belief. Go have a listen to "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" from "Cabaret". Look at the faces...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6lpT6e8nAA
"As we reach the end of 2025, it appears the law is catching up to an administration that began the year by acting as if the law and the Constitution didn’t exist.
More than that, though, over the course of 2025, the administration’s refusal to recognize the tenets of American democracy has roused the American people to defend that democracy.
It appears that as we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, when British colonists on the North American continent took the radical step of rejecting the idea not just of King George III but of all kings, and launched the experiment of government based on the rule of law created by the people themselves, the American people are reclaiming that history."
When we rise up and stop it! Vision, energy, money, loud voices!
And my little red Ice Scrapper, with ‘Fights Fascists’ in my pocket…and publish The NY Times video of Ice attacking a woman and her son by blowing off the door and window with explosives!
In her podcast today Heather recounted today’s chronology linked to 1930s Nazi Germany.
That is, there was Carl Schmitt who then taught Hitler simply how to go around what there was of constitutionality and law. Today’s reincarnation of that is Curtis Yarvin, whose ideas have clicked with Silicon Valley techie billionaire Peter Thiel, who’s been funding J.D. Vance’s parroting of all those billionaires wanting to kill all Washington, D.C.’s regulatory and taxing agencies. So these billionaires could cohere in the same ways Schmitt’s thinking let fascism replace democracy in Germany all those years ago.
Abstractions rule them all. They fester in proportion as none of them has any grounding in anything human as in our novels, memoirs, movies, songs, and other arts.
Yes, 2025 has been “horrific,” but when Heather nearly midway through cites a key moment in “Star Wars,” her own tone changes, and the full second half of her podcast today stresses the positive of We the People.
She can do that because of one reference to one movie where the human is transcendent.
It seems that Thiel has not picked a very charismatic person to back. I hope that our will outranks his money. We the People do not want more MAGA. Also, according to Julie Roginsky MAGA 1.0 is evolving into the even more terrifying MAGA 2.0
https://open.substack.com/pub/saltypolitics/p/there-is-something-scarier-afoot?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
It sounds like what is happening to the AfD in Germany with the youth group being more conservative than the main part of the party. MAGA 2.0 are just Nazis.
Democrats Abroad and Indivisible Abroad are getting ready for GOTV in January. We must register every year when we vote from abroad. We want to support a blue tsunami this year. Happy New Year from Northern Germany.
And convince non-voters they have a lot to lose.
And ask the non-voters how the Trump administration is working out for them.
Sadly over a third of the country still support Trump. He overturned ROE, is willing to protect Christianity everywhere in the world, closed the border, kills drug dealers...
To them it's all good.
You just summarized my retired cop cohort in a nutshell.
I don’t really think it’s close to that. Many polls still rely heavily on land lines and then cell phones where many people don’t bother answering or block unknown numbers
Ah But affordability affects them all. Even at their hateful Walmart
So you and GJ would rather believe, after Trump's first term, that there was low voter turnout than voter suppression/tampering? Not that it matters NOW, but that doesn't come CLOSE to ringing true...there was alREADY proof that's been suppressed that Trump had help from the Russians in tampering with the 2016 election...Trump will do or say ANYthing to get what he wants...
Best to keep this in mind...
Maybe the leverage against Thiel's money is the widespread concern about AI and what it may bring. Now that Trump's other hand is bruising, I am more concerned that he is not going to last until 2028, and we will be faced with a Vance incumbency without the need for him to be elected.
I am also concerned about Putin's manipulating Trump with the fake "attack" on his estate. I've believed for a while now that NATO will be abandoned for a version without the US, but it looks like it may be happening on a much faster time scale. The NYTimes investigative piece on the backstory of US/Ukraine relations is horrific. The link below should be gifted.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/30/world/europe/ukraine-war-us-russia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.A1A.oZlK.sMB5nqdtfTik&smid=url-share
Georgia, that is why I see having a Democrat dominated Congress in the midterms as important. A president who has people in Congress who will impeach him is not like a president who has people in Congress who will not impeach him. They should also be impeaching SCOTUS and members of Trump's cabinet.
I am grateful that Zelensky is so bright and up to Trump's tricks. He already knows Putin's tricks. He has been negotiating where he gives in on a lot, but holds on to reasonable seeming items that are non-negotiables for Putin.
They should, but to get any legislation passed it has to be a 2/3 majority in each chamber to get around Trump's veto. And I don't doubt that he would veto everything out of spite.
Conviction following impeachment requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Impeaching SCOTUS while Trump is still in office will get us younger, more corrupt replacements, like swapping in Aileen Cannon for Clarence Thomas. Shivers down my spine.
https://www.newsweek.com/lauren-boebert-sends-message-to-trump-over-vetoing-colorado-water-project-11287530
Weaponization of the veto power has begun...
Trump has invoked his first veto on a clean drinking water project in Colorado in retaliation for Lauren Boebert voting for the discharge petition to release the Epstein files, and because the governor of Colorado did not release Tina Peters, who is jailed for state election interference crimes. He had generally threatened retaliation, but he covered it with a fig-leaf justification. "Enough is enough. My administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable projects," he said.
IT HAD PASSED BOTH THE HOUSE AND SENATE UNANIMOUSLY.
Hopefully, that means the House and Senate will override the veto unanimously...
A clean test of who will cave and who won't.
Veto override immediately please. I have written about this to our members of Congress.
It is extremely important that Congress quickly override this clearly vindictive veto.
I guess they will have to make things as popular as releasing the Epstein Files in order to get the 2/3.
I have to pretend you didn’t write those last 12 words.
This is what Julie Roginsky is telling us about MAGA 2.0. She says they are much worse, if that is possible.
https://open.substack.com/pub/saltypolitics/p/there-is-something-scarier-afoot?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Me too! But timing will be all in determining how the doinos will fall. Lots of permutations, some of which could lead to worse outcomes than the current situation.
BUT remember that she's not getting into Scotus without a thorough rendering in the Senate without McConnell there. He's a lame duck as are several senators who agreed to the lies of the Trump three from before.
I appreciate your sentiment, but what would be the basis of impeachment for which SCOTUS justice(s)?
I think that the financial dealings of Thomas offer the best avenue, and I don't recall the specifics around Alito, but I think there are similar grounds there.
I am whole heartedly behind your analysis. Trump is by far the stupidest negotiatior of any diplomatic relations especially because he only listens to himself
Happy New Year back to northern Germany as well.
To paraphrase Glinda from 'The Wizard of Oz,' we've long known that MAGA 2.0 "was worse than the other one by far." I don't think that's anything anyone paying the least attention would doubt at this point. And if we continue to echo that Nazi parallel, remember the Night of the Long Knives. We're already at the beginning of that paradigm shifting when the rats start eating each other. In history, that's generally the signal for one of two things: either the darkness worsens, or the cracks that let the light in widen so much they can no longer be patched up.
There's great evidence that the latter already predominates. It doesn't mean things won't get worse in the immediate short-term. Our rulers are flailing now, not yet failing. But they will fail. Projects like this --- 'algebra to a cat' to re-quote Heather (no offense to felines everywhere) -- simply don't have long shelf lives. The dementia is accelerating. MAGA is cracking. Republicans are abandoning ship. It's not even clear through sudden retirements they'll keep their majority even *before* November, let alone afterward.
It remains our task to see to it those cracks continue to widen. My own motto for 2026: Don't Fulminate -- Organize. (I like to think I'm channeling the first Mrs. Trump: 'don't get angry --- GET EVERYTHING.' 😊
ICTT I agree with your motto for 2026. I am already thinking of the GOTV efforts that I am going to be doing. A friend and I have something planned for January 6, which is a day to wear paper clips in solidarity. I am in discussions on the best way for Democrats Abroad and others who want to vote Democratic to apply for their voting abroad as we must do each year, and how to get our ballots to our polling places on time, or at all, if we are in states that do not allow us to email them.
No surprise as there's no question Trump and indeed his entire regime are fanatical Hitler disciples.
Happy New Year to you Linda Weide.
I made no connection with Star Wars, but if you and she say so. I just remember the aftermath of WW2 and the war hell that the earth suffered. Never knew about Schmitt though, one evil voice reverberated through the ages and landed in brains corroded by hate. History is a two-edged sword. We balance on a pinhead it seems.
the nazis learned from Jim Crow and the eugenicist here in the US and the rise of hitler was funded by americakkkan billionaires and corporations like jp Morgan, Rockefeller, ibm and ford...
That’s “modern” western thinking running rampant: reductionist materialism brought to its extreme by the Tech Bro Billionaires.
I would also recall Stalin's Russia, since this regime has brought in its own Comrade Lysenko, in the form of Bobby and his Merry Band of Medical Miscreants.
The summary of the year is bleak.
But Heather, in her YouTube video today (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSEV5uuzbq8), calls on us to articulate the values, policies, and ideologies we want in 2026. We are at a turning point in history where we may still lose our democracy. The path immediately ahead will be awful, but it is on us to be the agents of change. More and more people are realizing the danger Trump poses and are joining the fight.
It may be terrifying, but, for democracy, to quote Joni Mitchell Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?” We only really appreciate democracy when we have to fight for it. It is an exciting time because we are the ones who will decide what comes next. What kind of country do we want to live in?
It is up to us, the people, to make that decision. We need to start now, to generate new ideas about the values and policy areas we care about, and talk about them together. Out of those conversations, some ideas will rise and become important, while others will fail to gain traction; yet, amid the competition, an America 2.0 will emerge.
It's not just in domestic policy either. We need to determine how America will fit into the new world order going forward. Trump has brought us to a dangerous place. America's 80-year reign as the leader of the free world is over. What rises to replace it is also up to us. I, for one, do not want to see the authoritarian National Security Strategy with its spheres of influence be the future. There are major global challenges we face, including climate change, the toxic waste produced by new technologies, mass migration, and hunger. We have to be better at addressing those crises with global policies.
May 2026 bring us all clarity and a sense of purpose, and joy in the work to come, and plenty of good trouble!
Happy New Year, everyone!
Actually, Georgia, saying "It is up to us, the people" relies on figurative language.
Heather strongly agrees with your positive note, as do -- I think -- the vast majority of our fellow Americans.
But for literal English, it "is up to" those who have power. That means all our rancid, cynical, dehumanized billionaires, who belong to the traditions of the Powell memo, Citizens United, and most corrupted White House, Congress, and Clarence court / John Roberts court.
It also means our schools. And remember, Georgia, in schools where testing rules, it is never "up to us, the people." No one taking tests can ask any human or any other questions. Only the rationalized elites who rule ask the questions. All doomed to their packaging have no choice but to submit to them -- to the billionaires and their corrupted, neutered, test-proficient lackeys who enable only humanly empty billionaires to set the choices.
Phil, I was quoting Heather when I said it was up to us. She believes we, the people, ultimately have the power, and can show it at the ballot box and through mass demonstrations.
Seems I remember seeing the phrase in a document written around 250 years ago...
Phil, as you say the tyrants are in power and power rules. Resistance, opposition and self-determination exist also. We must keep them alive despite the programmed existence that they have planned for us. Russia has apparently gotten used to such, we must never.
Phil, you itemize the reasons I believe Dr. Richardson is far too optimistic. Also, I believe anyone who regards the Democrats as trustworthy
is naive (if not deluded); the proof is in the historical record -- how their their collaborative votes and policies prove they are as responsible as the RepubliKlans for the Christonazi triumph.
Loren I believe Americans can evolve, discarding without forgetting our neocon stumbles. Democrats can learn from their mistakes.
It gets worse with Trumps lies about Putin and Ukraine, his phony wars , his not standing up to dictators around the world and his destruction of the economy. His administration and party have unilaterally destroyed the country and threatened world stability and peace. Bravo GOP, you will be remembered with the Southern Slaveholders as the evil forces of history. Thanks Heather for this summation of this disastrous year!
Keep in mind, above all, Trump supports fossil fuel. His drill drill drill hasn't worked out well for him as many wells have been taken offline in 2025. And now it's steal the oil from Venezuela under the guise that he is preventing drugs form entering the US. Of course, as is his MO, no proof of any extrajudicial killing is/was provided.
I wish the press would remind people that Trump recently pardoned a notorious drug king pin who actually did bring tons of drugs into the country -- to reiterate that Trump's claim to be saving us from drugs is total bullshit.
TOTAL BULLSHIT, and MSM just ignores the stench…
On what basis was Speaker Mike Johnson able to declare the rest of the House session a single day to prevent any legislative challenge to Trump’s tariffs? That action on Johnson's part doesn't expose a weakness in the Constitution or structure of the government that can be fixed, but willful madness on the part of Republicans to subvert reality in order to give license to Trump to do whatever he wants. Their message was "Trash the nation, Donald? Go right ahead. It's fine with us." And that's what Donald has been doing ever since.
It happened on the first day of the new Congress when they vote on the House Rules package. It requires a majority of the whole House. There were enough Republicans to pass it. It was rewritten to make it harder to have a motion to vacate and gave Johnson more power over the House calendar. He has the unilateral power to keep the House out or to call them back. And by choosing how many calendar days are equal to a legislative day so he can stall legislation.
It can be amended during the session--but it would probably require a discharge petition.
Below is the link for the current House Rules which is just for the amendments from the previous Rules. I have not seen a "clean" copy with all of the accumulated edits over time. Why would members of the House want to actually know what is in the Rules? The Parlimentarian is supposed to know so they have someone to ask.
https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20241230/119th%20Congress%20Rules%20Section%20by%20Section%20For%20Circulation%2001.03.25v2.pdf
It only takes one or two Republicans in the House to challenge Johnson’s leadership and he’ll be gone. Those are the rules Republicans left in place when they elevated Johnson the first time. MJT could have done it before she “retired”. But, as we know, her act was always fake to the max.
No matter how we look at it, the “party of NO” has taken that position to a new extreme: the party of NO Congress.
Except, as noted in remarks below, this isn’t true. At the moment it takes 9 representatives to challenge the speakership.
The Rules changed. It now takes 9 Republicans to call to vacate the chair.
I should have known. I should’ve looked it up.
I have been on here for 5 years and only realized you could do most of this stuff a few weeks ago when I decided to focus my posts more on Ukraine. This is not the easiest to use platform—I have yet to understand why I can’t consistently access the formatting or why some things I have paid subscriptions to don’t always get dropped in the feed.
Georgia, there does seem to be quite a few bugs. I don’t think the implementation was done with a clear view of how massive it would become.
But hey, just about everything breaks sometime. I think that’s where sand started.
Yup Mike saw what happened to McCarthy (Kevin not Joe lol) and made sure that couldn't happen to him!
I guess they enjoy those discharge petitions. Wasting time on that just so they can chase their own tails.
Read Greg Olear’s Liz48 post.
JD, just read it, reread it actually. It would make a pretty good mockumentary. Which, come to think of it, is appropriate for the mockery we see now. Soon the script will become … nevermind, I can’t even bear to characterize this.
Greg is smoking too much pot these days LOL... isn't he the one who wrote the 10 steps to getting rid of Trump? Total b***sh*t from a reality perspective although amusing to read.
House rules are generally not subject to court review and the rule which gives Johnson that power is just a consolidation of what the GOP can do as the majority. Dems have had the same power when in control, they just generally don't do things that way. Nothing illegal about it. It's the way Congress has always worked. Study the history of the Senate and House and you will see.
But on what basis can someone say how a day is 30 or 90 days long? I never understood how Johnson even came up with the idea.
It's a "legislative day" and it's whatever the rules says it is. There are lots of "legal fictions" in both the House and Senate rules which only "make sense" when you understand how Congress actually works. Because they all vote on these rules at the beginning of each legislative term (2 year terms) the rules can be whatever they agree on by majority vote which is of course one of the reasons holding a majority at the start of legislative term is so critical.
In some ways it has actually worked to our (Dems) limited benefit because under previous rules if the House adjourned for three days, it went "out of session" and then the President had even greater power while they stayed in recess. Under the "continuous session rules, they never go out of session so Trump has no "between sessions" power.
It makes me want to crawl under a rock and cry.
It's like"magical thinking!"
That should have been laughed at and ignored. Did it go the the supreme idiots?
Waiting on sunrise at the edge of the continent on the last day of our year. Heather and I are both very close to the first place the light touches here in Dawnland, Wabanakik.
Wishing all of us better times ahead.
Do we understand what is at stake, now? Can we hold on to what really matters? Can we continue to grow and to change without breaking? Can we learn to live in reciprocity and loving kindness with one another and the natural world?
Stay tuned … time will tell.
Michael, you asked four wonderful questions. The last one should be on the lips of every leader.
As we try to keep our hands on the rudder of this ship, we should refer back to those questions. The rough waters are going to challenge us in 2026 - perhaps more so than in our lifetimes.
While we all speculate what may happen politically, there have always been events that changed the direction of the winds almost overnight. Some of those events should be fresh in our memory, if we step back and reflect.
A pandemic - are we more or less prepared for the next one?
Extreme weather events - that could disrupt the fragile global food system?
A financial crisis - that could exceed the damage of 2000 and 2008? (AI, Crypto cons)
A sick president leaves office - the chaos and power struggles in the vacuum?
China invades Taiwan - as promised, and America has no clear policy if it occurs?
Putin's leadership collapses - Russia is bleeding, how will we respond?
Let's not be shocked if all of the above - and more happen in 2026. Your four excellent questions should be referred to every day. Guideposts.
Good questions to ponder in 2026
Sunrise hit here 5 minutes ago. We're in the middle of 10 or so days where the latest sunrise is at 0747. Our earliest sunset was at 1634 three weeks ago, and are already seeing 5 minutes more light at the end of the day.
There has never been a better case for impeachment for the President and his entire cabinet (not to mention the Speaker of the House and some members of the Supreme Court). The two previous attempts at impeachment were minor compared to this. He/they have violated the Constitution over and over again and Congress and the Supreme Court are not doing their job to check the Executive branch. They must all be removed. This is a danger to the government of our country. This is not partisan politics. This is make or break time for the United States! ENOUGH!
Rep. Don Bacon (Tweet)
@RepDonBacon
I’m an original sponsor of the bill to impose the toughest possible sanctions on Russia. We will also start a discharge petition in January to force a vote on the floor. Congress must act now. We cannot wait for the White House to do the right thing here.
Thank you for your magnificent and thorough review of the year. It keeps us focused and balanced, ready to fight on.
Now get some sleep.
Every day I am increasingly appalled at the inaction of GOP Congress -- they are just sitting there, silent, watching the country be dismantled. They could stop this - by impeaching Trump, Bondi, Patel and the rest of the thugs - or even by taking back the power of the purse and over tariffs and the shutting down of agencies. This total obedience from Congress is something I never imagined and I hope, as Heather indicates, that the tide is finally turning.
Although I'm willing to bet the GOP is appalled by Trump's vulgarity, they like what he is doing - returning America to the days before the New Deal. Sure, they're scared of Trump's threats to get them kicked out of their cushy jobs. But they still believe in lower to no taxes and the lack of a safety net that goes with it, no regulations, and a kickass military. And for a party that doesn't want the government to interfere in people's private lives, how does that match with their fierce attacks on a woman's right to make her own decisons about her health care? And why are they passing legislation about trans folks, who are 1% of our population?
They are not appalled, they are in a trance, like all cults.
It looks like that, doesn't it. But you can be deprogrammed from a cult. I'm not sure that would work.
If you haven't read It Can't Happen Here in a while, take it off the shelf and re-read it. And if you've never read it, or don't own it, either get a copy from your local public library or order one from your local bookstore (NOT from Amazon). I'm with Phil Balla on finding inspiration from literature. Wishing us all a year of peace through activism in 2026.
It Can't Happen Here copy from your local public library Betsy? Better hurry before it's too late !!!!!. I wish 2026 it's the year we regain control of Congress and at least be able to stop the destruction being inflicted on our country, institutions and people. Activism should be directed to guarantee we'll have a fair and real election in November. Thanks for all your comments Betsy 😀
Speaking of public libraries…the extreme court just opened the door to censorship in public libraries by deciding NOT to rule on an appeal…Little v. Llano out of TX. Quite a scary thing!. It is a total violation of 1st amendment rights and opens up taking books off the shelf that do not support the regime or its ideology.
Unfortunately I was right Happy Valley....at 7:17 am today I was half joking and now, at 11:50 am it's no joke anymore 😕
I appreciate reading what Heather said on video yesterday since it’s 4 am. It is the best recap of this disastrous monstrosity that I have read, an overview, concise and embedded in history. It makes me feel so ignorant as it points out my misdirected focus. I have blamed Rupert Murdoch for the whole fiasco, long planned and executed. And, make no mistake, he, Ailes, and classic republicans created the MAGAts. What I totally missed was the stealth tech agenda. Who the hell is Curtis Yarvin? I knew muskrat, and thought Peter Thief and Larry Ellison were just rich goons who were no threat to me. What I learned too late was that smart can be crazy too. It’s not just ignorant MAGAts. I should have learned that working at jr high and high school. I knew many smart crazy teens who loved to disrupt and manipulate. I thought that they would grow up. Well, some did, but some had learned the lessons of their parents well. Anyway, HCR has taught me a lot. I hope it is not too late for me and others to right this ship has been charted off course. As a commenter said yesterday. The tyrants have the power now and they will not give it up easily. I’d like to think that they made a mistake when they have embraced the Nazi agenda so openly. We liked Ike and many of us remember why. We also remember that Russia promised to destroy us from the inside, as did Osama bin Ladin. Wake up democrats and Americans of all stripes. HCR has challenged us to take back what was left in our care.
Thank goodness, HCR, that our Democracy is getting reclaimed from the greedy & cruel Republicans. I read an essay earlier today that relates to this…
“A phrase has been circulating online—borrowed from gaming jargon, but disturbingly accurate as a description of American life: the slaughter line. In America, there is no truly safe zone.
The modern slaughter line is the predictable product of the Republican project: privatize risk, concentrate reward, moralize the suffering, and keep the public angry at each other so they don’t notice the extraction pipeline overhead.
https://open.substack.com/pub/patricemersault/p/how-close-are-you-to-the-slaughter?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios
You can look stable and still be a few hundred dollars away from the edge.
When public systems are dismantled, something fills the gap. In America, that something is often religion. In America, churches frequently do what government refuses to do: provide food, shelter, and connection. Republicans celebrate this arrangement because it allows them to dismantle public systems while still claiming moral virtue.
If there’s a New Year message here, it isn’t “try harder” or “stay positive.” It’s this: don’t turn on yourself, and don’t turn away from others. Hold on to your ability to see people clearly, including yourself. Keeping it intact matters.
Not because it guarantees victory. But because it preserves the kind of humanity without which no victory would mean anything at all.”
.
How Close Are You to the “Slaughter Line”?
OPEN LETTERS BY MERSAULT | DEC 31 2025 | Substack
https://open.substack.com/pub/patricemersault/p/how-close-are-you-to-the-slaughter?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios
How close are you to the slaughter line. We all think we are well back. Not so, as they destroy the economy, our comfort zone shrinks to the size of a pea.
I'd like to think Americans are roused to defend democracy and our Constitution enough to vote in the midterms to break Trump and his enablers' strangle hold on our country and stop their unimaginable cruelty. However, I went to the supermarket today and red peppers were $4.49 a pound, green onions, which were $0.99 a bunch three weeks ago, were $1.99 today - and the bunches were smaller. I shopped very carefully and it still cost me $150. On Jan. 1, my medicare advantage premium will go up and my benefits will go down - again. I know Republicans, Libertarians and MAGA folks have a Malthusian approach to the people who are even more strapped than an 86 year old woman on social security like me, so appealing to them is useless. They'd rather see those folks die rather than help them live. But unlike rich people, the MAGA folks go to the supermarket and need help paying for health care. So, James Carville is right again. "It's the economy, Stupid." The cost of red peppers, green onions and health care may save our democracy and the Constitution - if we're lucky.
It might be the economy, stupid, but it’s also the propaganda, stupid.
It sure doesn't help.
The propaganda that feeds their racism and sexism, and that they lap up like my cats lap up tuna juice.
My Dem daughter mid 50’s is married to a man who never discusses politics or his vote. According her only drastic reductions to Social Security will unite both left and right voters. The says I should calm down until then.
I'm sure she's correct. However, I'm not asking for unity. That not only takes too long and I'm not sure I'm ever going to be comfortable with Christian nationalism and bigotry. All I want right now is for Republicans to become the very, very minority party in Congress. And I hope it's okay with your daughter to be married to that guy.
Thank you Professor Richardson.
The GOP is complicit in the cruel, illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral actions of this administration.
https://open.substack.com/pub/bomdia/p/the-disappearing-thin-red-line
Unfortunately Yarvin has inspired many inroads to his dystopian authoritarian takeover. Thiel is deeply entrenched in all branches of our government, and all the DOGE -harvested data of the agencies, national treasury, and our personal info are being funneled into his surveillance company Palantir. The monopolies in MSM are fast becoming authoritarian mouthpieces and Ellison has expressed support for establishing a surveillance society. AI is being shoved down our throats, education systems are dumbing down. The ballroom is just a topper for a data/ power center/bunker such as that recently built in Israel. How are we to hold into our independent press, sound waves, internet? How long can a portion of us stay tapped into truth?
My Q every day when I read my substacks, and know that most don’t. MSM has been hijacked, Walter is no more.
".... the press and the pulpit have in every age and every nation been on the side of the exploiting class and ruling class." Eugene V. Debs
True then. True now.
What a fabulous summary of events. Your derails sent chills down my spine and the feeling, finally, that hope is in the air. May you have a blessed, healthy, happy and successful New Year. I believe that if you do, so will 'WE THE PEOPLE"
Thank you for all you do. May your passion, HISTORY, reward you for being a banner for Democracy!