Late last night, the White House said in a statement that “President Biden and his team are closely monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria and staying in constant touch with regional partners.”
I don't care if Trump was elected. He's a felon, a criminal with outstanding indictments. Trump is SO CLEARLY a Russian asset and a traitor to the United States. He is the biggest national security danger to our country. He must be stopped. Figure it out Merrick Garland, FBI, CIA - just find the final smoking gun to put this danger to world peace behind bars. Enough.
Unfortunately this is not going to happen anytime soon. We need to face the facts that here in the US, criminals are allowed to be in power. And then do something about that, somehow.
We tried our best to keep the criminal regime out of power but were outvoted by a mob of vicious voters who want, at any cost, including devastation of democracy, what Republicans offer, namely the preservation of systemic legal, political, and economic advantages of white Americans.
I regret that I can’t quite agree with your assessment of Trump voters. While some certainly ARE vicious, and nihilists, I fear at least half of them are merely, and devastatingly, OBLIVIOUS.
It’s hard to imagine that there are US voters out there who don’t know 1% of what any of us HCR readers learn in a single year…or month… or DAY…but they exist, in large numbers. They knew that this colorful guy, Trump, was running for president, and that he was going to tell “the elite”, aka scientists, doctors, professors, TV people— basically anyone with a college education— to fuck themselves. Most entertaining! And who cares, right? Those know-it-alls deserve to burn! Also, everything got expensive, because of “inflation.” That happened because of “marxists.” No, they can’t define those terms, but they are BAD, and Trump will put that creep Fauci in prison for life because of it. WOOOOOOOO!
I keep thinking of the old adage: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” True, but in our present propaganda + ignorance fueled culture, you can’t even lead it to the water, because it’s decided the water is poison.
The Trump voters I know are physicians, investment bankers, church clergy. We are simply not getting the message across. Democrats are better at the economy, immigration etc etc. But we are horrible in getting the message out. CBS, NBC had rather promote ratings by talking about Trump saying people are eating pets than talk about Biden’s budget reduction due to hiring IRS agents, etc etc but then we don’t spoon feed them like Trump does. We must stop complaining and start getting out there with what we want
Again. How would you persuade those media entities to talk about real news? Why wouldn't they talk about the real truth of the economy for the past four years? What would you tell the oligarchs who own the media left and right?
You are stating what everyone already knows. What everyone is looking for are solutions.
Reagan got into bed with Ralph Reed. Movement conservatism with the Religious Right. Unmitigated greed with unrepentant bigotry. Racist right wing religious extremists funded by such as Charles Koch et al used Civil Rights movement tactics to turn back civil rights progress. They united at the ballot box. They ran for every office, volunteered on every committee, voted in every election. As Republicans. It took 40 years to get to here.
Maybe one option would be to cancel your cable and streaming subscription and let them know why. Then send a “divorce” (aka it’s YOU not ME) email/letter to digital or print news organizations cancelling those subscriptions. There are other more reliable news sources where we can get the news and not the drama…..substack, Bluesky, non US media outlets.
A solution is to hire the best damn brand development expert there is and to aggressively market the Democratic brand utilizing all forms of media; especially targeting young people who will become our future leaders.
We are divided deeply and accordingly too as to where we get the news. The traditional and responsible news sources could not ( lest they become partisan) and did not join in the division overtly. Editorially yes.
The economy was great for some and apparently not for others. The latter, their anger and "cultural" resentments is what Trump caught and played up, while still aiming at trickle down economics.
The rest was gaming the system ( including with Musk money).
Biden had the bully pulpit for 4 years but did not use it effectively or at times at all. He was a terrible communicator. He was weak and even fearful depending on others to shout the great news of what he was doing, accomplishing, and trying to do.
Ignorance and deep "cultural" divisions and resentments.....that's what we have to thank.
And.. this business of oligarchs owning the news is deadly...
I'm a physician living in a purple state. I know a lot of physicians. I know only one, ONE, one out of hundreds, who voted for Trump. An overwhelming majority (in the range of 90%) who I have known for the past 40 years of being a physician regard Trump as a pathetic and dangerous psychopath, and a tool and useful idiot for the 2025 Project crowd and Putin. His comments about Syria are further proof. The question is whether the Republicans in the HOR and Senate who are up for re-election in 2026 will be held accountable for supporting an ideology and foreign policy that is so blatantly wrong.
Unfortunately that will depend upon how effective the Trump/Putin cartel’s kompramat on such individuals, their extended families and high up officials in the military, Intelligence and law enforcement is. We are entering an era of Wild Western lawlessness with the Trump Cult Mach 2.
One of the best podcasts I listen to is John Heilmanns, and his recent guest Tina Peters (not THAT Tina peters who just got sentenced in Colorado for election fraud) claimed with great credibility it was showmanship and rage that got him elected. They are mad at Biden because he acts old. And the Democrats ran a damn liberal black woman.
Until we can field an echo chamber as loathsome as Fox and its worst demons we won't "get our message out".
But if he messes with their ACA and the economy tanks, or their educationally disabled kids are institutionalized instead of educated, there might be hell to pay.
A tough slog, Sandra, for sure! Let's hope there is a lot for voters to be disillusioned over by 2026, Trump has just inherited a rebounding and apparently robust economy from Biden, can he wreck it up a bit with tariffs, I honestly can't say - and I'm not so sure how much Americans will care with what MAGA does with the federal government.
Frank, what 47 will do is blame everything he causes on the "mess I inherited from Sleepy Joe Biden. It's a mess nobody has ever seen the likes of. But we're cleaning it up, strongly."
Frank, I do think if he does the tariffs, prices will go up and people will notice. What I am not sure of is if they will understand that this is his doing. And they will care about the federal government when their health care, social security, medicare goes down the tube. Once again, I do not know if they will understand that this is death star and his minions.
White people who are well off have always voted Republican (but in smaller numbers now that rethugs have embraced populism). The votes of the well off do not win elections for Republicans. Their wins depend strictly on the votes of the white working class, which goes rethug by a 30-point to 40-point margin (and a 60-point margin for white evangelicals). Some of those are don’t-care-it’s-a-joke votes, as you point out, but most are votes for the continued opression of black Americans and other marginalized groups. Obama made that clear in his recent oration on the election outcome. Those voters are not stupid. They know what they’ve voting for. Democrats cannot get their votes without joining them in systemic oppression of marginalized groups. There are just barely enough votes to beat the bastards, but we have to get them all to the polls. We fell about six million short of doing that this time, and that cost us the election.
We are now about to officially enter a period of American history which one day be compared to Germany in the late 20’s/early 30’s. So many people (professionals, academics, clergy, etc.) went along with Hitler only to regret later.
Yes. But they cannot win elections without white working class votes. They are greedy creeps for sure, but that’s the least of it. They use the racist, misogynst (including hatred of non-binary people… don’t know a word for that) attitudes of the the white working class to garner their votes, then use rethug victories to move massive amounts of money from white working class pockets to plutocrat bank accounts. The wealthy manipulators are worse, yes, but the white voters they dupe are plenty bad enough on their own.
In a democracy it it also on the CITIZENS of it to GET their information. Yes Democrats did not get their message across, but they were not hiding. Harris and Walz laid it out loudly and clearly these last few months. Where were the citizens- were they listening--- and to what? How about those that did not vote?
Here is what Trump voters are seeing. “Russia, because they are so tied up in Ukraine, and with the loss there of over 600,000 soldiers, seems incapable of stopping this literal march through Syria, a country they have protected for years.” The account blamed former president Barack Obama for the crisis of 2011 and said that Russia had stepped in then to stop the chaos…… “[t]here was never much of a benefit in Syria for Russia, other than to make Obama look really stupid.”
When Biden made this announcement why didn’t he say how our Democratic Party and the us is in the right side of this? What does Biden’s social media account say to counter act this?
Time and time again we miss our opportunities to tell our side or defend through social media
We could certainly be better at "messaging". But there is the problem of a delivery vehicle. The old media and now the new media are dominated by the liars and those beholding to corporate interests (our oligarchs). Please read this:
Biden's speech was ineffective and confusing. It was not clear to me if the US was firing on the rebels who had just toppled Assad or another group. We need clarity of purpose, messages and intended targets at a time like this. And the reasons behind each of those.
If his speech appears that way to you it is bc the issues in the region are complex and require some deep education to understand. There are many different factions in the region. These can't be viewed as either Sunni or Shiite (or united in any way) bc within each sect there are many factions that tend to fight each other depending on differing circumstances and needs. In this case, a seeming miracle has been pulled off by the leadership that toppled Assad in that it was able to unite many factions (or militias) to fight together under a common goal of removing Assad. The rebels fired on during the US airstrikes are ISIS camps not related to the militias that toppled Assad. The point of the airstrikes, in my opinion, was to ensure ISIS stays weakened in the event of a power vacuum in Syria that might allow ISIS to reconstitute into a major threat in the region.
Face it, Biden's political capital has been mostly expended, and the last 5 months or so have seen the proverbial stuffing kicked out of him. Unfair, but it's what's happened, and i don't think you can put all this on the msm.
Sandra, I tend to agree with you, but I offer this counter: If it does not come from "their" sources (Faux, OAN*, America First) they will not believe it in any way, shape or form. The statements that tfg "disavowed" Project 2025, and "promised" he would not end abortion in the US are all they will believe. I have tried for years to provide accurate counters to all their beliefs (most recently, sex change operations at school; c'mon, they can't even give your kid Tylenol without your permission) and have met with NO success.
*I'm not familiar with your name, so I will tell you my junior high brain is very much present in my cognitive processes, and jumped in to say that I should add a second "n" between the vowels in OAN, because that's what she thinks of their "output". I apologize in advance for her. She did hang out with the boys quite a bit.
Sandra your rants against the D party are old and tired. For decades people like you have claimed the Ds lose because they either have no message, or don't get it out effectively. I write this just to make it clear that I don't agree, and that there is nothing remotely original in your rants. I hope Harris runs again, she'll win next time when at least some of the Frump voters realize they have been conned.
I agree that many of the people who voted for him WERE and ARE oblivious. I was trying to "do my part" when talking to a Trump voter. I was expressing my worries about what we are in for and I explained some of the reasons for my worry, as all of us here already recognize. She said she never listens to politics beause she gets too nervous. She listens to Christian radio to calm her nerves. There is nothing wrong with listening to Christian radio, but to close your mind to what's happening to our country is more than sad. It's dangerous. I listed all the unqualified nominees and reiterated some of the proposed policies of Project 2025. She said I shouldn't worry about trying to change something that's beyond my control. Can you imagine how much worse it could be if all the Democratic patriots had given up the fight for our democracy? To those like Jack Smith, who, under threats of violence, persevered, until Trump's "Extreme" Court made it almost impossible for Trump to be held responsible for all his immoral and illegal actions.
What a world. But in Trump's world, we shouldn't care about anyone in the world but us. :(
There is something wrong with listening to "christian" radio. Many of these stations are Sinclair outlets, and disguise white christian nationalism with references to the bible and christian teachings. End times? You bet.
Bill, I agree with you, but to those who feel that Christian radio helps them "calm themselves," I kind of understand. However, I resigned my position as church pianist after 25 years at a Baptist Church, because I realized that the majority of the members voted for Trump. I could not reconcile their "Amens!" to sermons, or the singing of the hymns of love, joy, and peace, with the supporting of someone as vile and mean-spirited as Donald Trump. Hiis false claims of "christianity" fooled so many, and spurred on the Christian Nationalist movement.
These people who voted for Trump can listen to their radios, but I don't want to be involved in a hypocritical culture anymore. I have been a church musician for 50 years at different churches, but I couldn't play the songs and hymns anymore, while thinking about those who were singing them and proclaiming Christ as their leader. Trump has become their leader whether they realize it or not.
Even listening to christrian radio can be very political. The German Lutheran Church was the State Church in NAZI Germany. I can't remember the title of the movie, but after the war, a German minister had to stand up in front of his congregation and recant years of supporting hitler. More recently, in our local RC church, the priest praised the SCOTUS decision on Roe vs Wade. People applauded.
Thinking Harris campaign now, I think she has made a fundamental mistake of listening to her consultants too much. She should have made it clear that she will control the border as soon as she becomes President. A must policy for MAGA, and reasonable for DEMs.
You are right. 74% of the American public operates at a 6th grade or lower literacy rate. These people are not interested in policy positions. They want to be entertained. Since trump operates on about a 4th grade level and appeals to all their hatreds, they find him very appealing.
The base emotions such as fear or disgust can generally overrule the calm deliberations of critical thinking.
Have you seen the TED talk by by Peter Pomerantsev about Sefton Delmer’s work in WWII to stoke strong emotions against the SS in Germany? To overcome t***p Right-wing propaganda, we have got to get better at stirring strong feelings!
Maria, you're so correct! While Leonard Leo's adherents have political goals that they've been putting in place for years, many who voted for Trump have no idea of the damage that his handlers, including Leo, have in store for this country, or the world. Social media, Fox, OANN, and other outlets, combined with MSM who are afraid to refute them, and instead harp on Joe Biden's "obvious" dementia and his pardoning of Hunter, have stirred a toxic stew that engulfs many. As some of my friends are wont to say, "politics upset me, so I refuse to listen to any of it." Last week I responded to such emptyheaded comment by telling her that such behavior has single-handedly put us exactly where we are. This person has also refused to have any currently available vaccines - flu, Covid, pneumonia, etc. One more reason to distance myself - she's been led to the river but chooses to die of thirst.
A few weeks before the election, I heard a clip where I young woman said she was voting for him because she "used to watch the Apprentice, and he's so cool!"
If we Democrats do not get voters to understand what is happening, much of the blame, perhaps most of it, is on us. The simple, unpleasant fact is that we did not do a good enough job during this year’s campaign. And the challenge is to figure out how to do it better next time.
" Ludicrous lies and cynical propaganda campaigns are meant to create apathy and nihilism.”.... The MAGAs that I talk to don't think that the 'Elites' can take care of themselves... The 'Elites' need their Labor, And Skills... The Apathy, and Nihilism is Corrosive... For the MAGAs, the 'System' is Broken... They have no Hope in it... They'll Dance While It Burns Down... In this Century, Ignorance Is A Defiant Choice...
Maria, an excellent assessment of the attitude of many in this country. As a teacher, someone with a college education, I sometimes ran into this kind of resentment. I am careful around certain people who are probably ashamed that they didn't finish high school or are resentful of intellectual snobs. All of them that I know have skills that I do not have and I respect them for that and do not look down on them at all. Sometimes just being an intellectual is enough to make them misinterpret what that person is saying.
I suggest that some of you add Lucas Kunce to the substacks you read. He has written two wonderful substacks on why people "vote against their interest" and why people blame the Democrats for everything that is wrong in the U.S. right now. I have added him to my list.
Well said. I agree: we cannot call all trump voters evil. Doing so is antithetical to those of us who care about and believe in the virtues of our democracy. Instead, let us work to sideline trump and his followers in every way.
Trump, though, IS evil. Cruel, spiteful, vengeful, poisonous.
All through the campaign, when “he’s got dementia” was repeated ad infinitum by everyone on the left, I thought, No. He’s fatigued, and sounds like an exhausted windbag. But he’s not stupid, and not merely ignorant— he is pure, malevolent EVIL.
I’m glad you called them “vicious” voters because you are exactly right. I’m never going to understand our fellow Americans - how they look at Trump, et.al., - and say, “Yes, this is who I want my children to emulate, to be just like him/them.” smh …
Because the democrats are not offering the evidence strong leadership. Biden saved this country, brought inflation down. But you don’t hear that on the campaign trail. You don’t hear anything on social media counter-acting the Obama blame
The problem with Biden was he elevated too many people of color in his administration: Vice President, Secretary of Defense, United Nations rep, Budget Director, Press Secretary, campaign officials and many more. He even elevated a Native American to manage Interior and oh so many women in high places. Even a Black man named Hakeem became Speaker of the House.
Trump is giving us “the best”
people. Notice the number of billionaires and people with white skin who he wants to elevate to positions of power. The backlash to Obama’s election is still being played out. Gotta Make America great again by solidifying white supremacy.
Strangely, they don’t say that often. Listening to Sarah Longwell’s podcast, The Focus Group, has shown many voters DON’T like him. In a recent podcast, some were enamored of RFKJr’s joining the administration (!), belief that Dems are not competent, stopping drag shows in schools, etc. One even said she couldn’t listen to Harris’s laugh—she sounded like a “witch.” The pounding of the tfg camp’s ridiculousness is unrelenting.
"We tried our best to keep the criminal regime out of power..."
Did we really? Did we recognize the danger too late? Did the Biden Administration try in any way to forestall this? Did Merrick Garland? Did the Harris campaign operate outside of the box?
The Democratic Party has known for years and years about voter suppression and gerrymandering. What did they do? The DNC has always known the media was a vastly imperfect megaphone, but did they find a different tactic? Did the Democrats look at their aging leadership and ponder radical changes?
The Democratic Party has been operating as the business-as-usual Party while a coup 9 years in the making was going on right outside their door.
The Democratic Party hasn't done sh*t since the day Reagan was elected. You couldn't even go back farther and say they haven't been worth a sh*t since LBJ left office. For all his faults, and he had many, he dragged the country into the 20th century on race relations and we've been paying for it ever since. The Democrats had a chance to double down on their Rooseveltian mandate once Nixon's crimes were revealed but instead decided to go "centrist" with Carter. Once Reagan took office the game became trying to be just like the Republicans, with predictable results. Thank you, Bill and Hillary!
Carolyn-so right. Notice how American upheavals are always about “race relations”. From the Civil War to Civil Rights to George Floyd. We’re sinking with the impact of race relations tied around our necks just like white supremacists tied weights around Emmitt Till’s neck and Derek Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck. Racism will always weigh us down in our pursuit of a “more perfect union”.
Well said, Barbara. I think this coup may have been 9 years in the making, but the current crop was planted in 1971 with the Powell Memo, and its farmer was the America First organization in the 30's, with the seeds from crops of the 1850 plantations. The fields were plowed and prepared by a country which got its riches on the backs of Black slave labor and its land by theft from and genocide of the Indigenous Peoples.
Ally, I think this coup was planned after the success of getting Reagan, an actor, elected. An opportunity emerged and Leonard Leo plus, the Kochs, the Mercers, and eventually Putin, devised evil plans. Look at the judiciary now. Cruelty in the name of Christianity, is their game plan. Dems have been asleep at the wheel for too damn long! They ridiculously reinstated Schumer as minority speaker AGAIN!! Should’ve been Amy Klobuchar!
Marie handled my concern over your use of "vicious" voters. This was more an incumbency protest than a cross the board hope for an Orange Messiah. The Dems' shrill warnings of a potential dictatorship fell on a lot of deaf ears.
Rex, but let's not forget what they wanted most: cheaper eggs, damn the consequences. (And I wouldn't call most of them "vicious" voters, but "shallow".)
Rex-I agree. American institutions, economy, politics and culture are tied closely to white supremacy.It’s too bad that most Americans don’t know our true history.
Inventing a caste system based on skin color has proven to be a boon to capitalists and a boost to the psyche of people with white skin who enjoy privilege while others with darker skin who are labeled as “minorities”, “non-white” “disadvantaged” “marginalized” etc. struggle to be accepted as “worthy” and “deserving” citizens.
It was easy to rationalize voting for white supremacists because of immigration and the price of eggs. MAGA’s goal is to make America “great” by ensuring that some people “stay in their place”.
If we want proof of white supremacy just imagine what would’ve happened to Obama if he stole documents, incited a riot, raped women, cheated on his taxes, defrauded consumers, claimed White people were eating pets, etc.
Then there are all of the institutional disparities involving Americans’ wealth and health t which have been driven by exclusionary policies and practices as well as laws and violence designed to keep some people “in their place”.
Black people voted overwhelmingly for Biden and Harris because they’re clear about how white supremacy works. Why all of the attacks on DEI, CRT, BLM, “woke”??
The solution to America’s slide toward fascism is to dismantle racism. Without this tool the Rs wouldn’t win. This election certainly let us know where America stands…and Trump’s election to the highest office in our nation was not about the price of eggs.
Yes, but dismantling racism is a tall order. It’s been a deeply held “value” of white Americans for 400 years. I think we made a little progress when K12 schools were integrated, but that’s pretty much gone now, which has contributed to the regression to past attitudes on race. We won’t make any more progress unless we beat the rethugs and thoroughly integrate K12. Even if we were to do that (which would require a miracle), it would take two generations to reduce white supremacist attitudes to a manageable level.
Regarding terminology, I don’t like to see the term “white supremacy.” White supremacy is not a thing. White supremacism is a thing. White supremacists are things. White supremacy isn’t, and phrase using the term always can be rewritten using “white supremacism” or “white supremacist” without changing the meaning of the phrase.
If the Republicans cooperate, He can be removed on day two. J.D. Hates him as he said for real long ago. After that he only played the part to get the position. I'd much rather have Vance who has a soul.
oooo - I disagree re Vance. He is a Christian Nationalist and a misogynist. No thank you. In some ways I find him scarier than Trump because he is smarter than Trump.
Sadly, Trump is just a figurehead. He exists because the billionaire oligarchs have funded him and allowed him to exist. JD Vance could be worse. He is younger and smarter. He is slick and lies better. He is a shape shifting lizard.
The answer is the reinvention of the Democratic Party. It is so damaged, it may even require a new name. Whatever it becomes, it needs to be radically on the side of the working class. It needs to stir the hearts of struggling Americans - whatever their political affiliation. And that takes two things. A leader who can inspire with passionate rhetoric and who isn't afraid of the corporate overlords. And... a message of ECONOMIC JUSTICE.
What an irony Bill. While we were smugly watching the Republican Party descend into fascism the Democratic Party was wasting away. What a massive mess.
At least the Dems are trying to be inclusive. In our society that’s more complicated than sticking with white supremacy and patriarchy that the Rs cling to as “gospel”.
Today the police in Pennsylvania arrested the person of interest in the assassination of the CEO of United Health. Of course there was all kinds of coverage about it. All the commentators were concerned that so Americans are all right with the murder. They rightly point out that we should not feel this way but I have a different take on the whole thing which lines up with your comment about the people electing a felon. I for one am sorry that young man got caught but I'm more sorry for why he felt the need to do it. Isn't that what we should be talking about? Yes, it's wrong to gun down an unarmed man & shoot him in the back at that BUT I'm curious, why, he, as a CEO can set policy that sickens & most likely kills several people a year & that's ok. It's not against the law & when complaining & bad press do nothing to reverse the trend & someone takes the law into their own hands to point out the "legal" crime of killing people by making health care too expensive that is reprehensible. You'll note that in most major religions that murder is against a sin & the law except for self defense & war? So why the exceptions if murder is so horrific & war is mass killing on an industrial scale is ok but the taking of one person's life is so terribly wrong? We can't possibly say that CEOs of medical & drug companies DON'T have blood on their hands can we?
It's a real problem & we need to take a long hard look at oligarchs who run everything & get away with murder in some instances from dangerous products or withholding critical care. C'mon America we need a level playing field in the economy so that the little guy can make a decent living & a consistant legal system that applies to everyone evenly & if we don't get a handle on it there will be more deaths from health care denials & more CEOs will be at risk.
Rex, votes are still being counted and with 1% outstanding, Trump has 49.1% (not outvoted yet) with 50.9% of the people voting for Kamala and Others (Jill Stein, Uncommitted, etc.) 50.9 % did not vote for Trump so far. I'll let you know the final # but it is estimated that the final vote totals will still have Trump at less than 50%. It is NOT a "mandate" to screw the republic, as I've said before!
The vengeance might not be as satisfying as they think. We have to keep fighting for democracy, and the politics of joy and possibility. This won’t be easy.
Sometimes, only hitting rock bottom can induce change. By midterms, if everything goes according to trump’s plan, farms, dairies, and meat packing plants will have gone bankrupt and imported food, if you can get it, will cost at least 20% more. Perhaps this will get people who voted for trump because of higher egg prices to wake up and do some critical thinking….
Of course they have a plan but so do the Democrats. And though we don't have gazillionaires footing the bill we do have people. And by the time the midterms come around people are going to be big mad and know who to be mad at. (That's my story and I'm stickin to it ;-)
My point is that there may not be another election in this country in two or four years, or ever. The Democrats have a way of bringing a knife to a gunfight.
I agree. Psy ops are where Putin has weakened democracies and NATO the most, feeding divisive culture wars, laundering oligarch monies, and feeding the bloated egos of puppets like Trump, Musk, and their ilk in Congress. Who needs troops for that?
It iS a national security issue, Daniel. I totally agree that is what happened and that it's not being talked about. I truly believe that there must be Intel people investigating. If so, that is something we would not be privy to, as it would need to be undercover. Let us see what transpires with all this. It is a global issue for sure!
Our revolution was launched against the most powerful nation in the world. They had the best navy, the biggest army and deep pockets. We had passion fueled by anger and desperation.
The oligarchs of this nation can be defeated with the right message and a charismatic messenger (s).
Senator Chris Murphy's message voiced by Senator Booker and Sec Buttigieg could do it. Throw in Gov Whitmer, Newsom and Healy and that would be a phalanx of rhetoric and energy hard to defeat.
We need to throw ourselves in with the disenfranchised, the financially desperate, the families abused by a vicious healthcare system...so much frustration and pain out there. We can tap into it and bring change.
People tell me that Buttigieg could never be president, that voters would not elect a gay man... but here's another idea: He should be the next leader of the Democratic Party.
Yes Ellen! Pete is the best speaker and thinker in the party. He can project positivity and inclusiveness. But he can also eviscerate when appropriate.
Criminals are allowed to be in power all over the world, and always have been, because they're powerful and willing to do anything to retain and amass more power; with money=power in force, worldwide, people who have worshiped money include rich and poor alike, all dreaming the same dream and siding with whatever it would take to achieve it be it lottery or force. We just have to keep on keeping on countering that fact, showing people that freedom is not tied to wealth or power.
Matt, I read the last part of Heather's letter as a reminder to all of us not to lose hope and not let ourselves fall into a US version of Syria. I do not exactly how we do this, but I see some people here have had suggestions and are doing organizing. I think not knowing exactly what will happen when death star begin his reign is part of the tension we are already feeling.
To recap. You don't care that Trump was elected. And assert that the Attorney General, FBI, and god help us the CIA, should just find the final smoking gun and put Trump behind bars.
Yikes! And 88 and counting commenters 'Like' this? Seriously? Anybody want to rethink this fantastical, futile, and deeply flawed magical and dangerously MAGA-like mash-up of antidemocratic self indulgence?
We should care very much that Trump was elected. Because it's not just Trump and his immediate cadre of enablers, it's the millions who put him in power. Every eligible American who did not vote for Kamala Harris. And every eligible American who did not vote for Hillary Clinton. Captured and stacked the Supreme Court and ensured that we cannot put Trump behind bars. Which actually itself would not solve the problem. The problem is all the plutocrats and populists eager and on board with Project 2025. Trump is merely the personification of a Republican party bent on repurposing a Democratic republic as a clerical corporate fascist state. And all those unready or unwilling to resist in meaningful and effective ways.
We have just been overtaken by a coup. The United States has been reduced to a fascist form of government. The media is playing business as usual. People in these comments are still complaining about the media and calling the Republicans baby names. Biden went to Africa. Harris disappeared. Hakeem Jeffries isstill talking about numbers in the House. The Democrats are throwing paper wads at each other and hiding from the media. People are actually wondering if/when they will be arrested in the coming days. People are walking around stunned and terrified.
Thank goodness for Barack Obama, Substack, Bluesky, Meidas Touch and others for holding the fort.
"We have just been overtaken by a coup . . . " etc and so forth
Seriously. No. No coup, fascist government, leaders MIA or AWOL etc etc.
We had a free and fair election, albeit unduly influenced by foreign and domestic bad actors. The government is functioning, albeit dominated by a corrupt GOP. There are 100s of Democratic members of Congress pushing back every day. There are Democrats across the nation leading state governments. There are millions of us resisting every day.
Not enough Americans voted for Democratic candidates. Not enough Americans voted at all.
Those are problems we can fix.
Meanwhile and towards that goal we must be strategic and united. Including avoiding specious rhetoric - hyperbole, false equivalencies, fallacious assertions etc etc And reach out every day to our government officials at every level and media of every sort wherever and whenever there are opportunities for public comment. Connect. Engage.
Dems in and out of office are afraid to do the needful. This incoming regime is basically a revolution and no one is stopping it. Seriously, with all the clarity we get from writers like HCR, say about Syria, Israel, or Ukraine, how is it Biden and Congressional Dems are responding as if this is a country club dispute over lawn fees (“we can agree to disagree but let’s meet at 5 for drinks…”). It is not a debating society moment when the incoming regime is proposing a n accused sexual abuser and drunk with a cloudy combat background as leader for the military of the United States of America? It is beyond belief. Dems are afraid to use their power and take emergency action to save this country. Trump announced he would use executive orders to end birthright citizenship (a right established in the Constitution). Where are Dem executive orders to deny installation of a Cabinet of anti-American and unqualified nominees who pose a threat to not only the US but the world. Dems don’t use the power they have because they fear change to the current rules of order which are imaginary and only they believe in. We voted Blue in 2016, 2020, and 2024. And here we are.
Thank you. I am being pressured to believe it is business as usual. In my deepest knowledge it is not. I offered up a Salon Article reflecting how you and I believe. Barack Obama is essentially echoing our thoughts.
Obama is saying for the Democrats to stop being polite.
ThankYou. You, me, and a cast of millions paying attention and taking action.
And Thanks to HCR, Joyce Vance, Robert Hubbell, Timothy Snyder, ProPublica, and yes investigative reporters at WaPo and NYTimes et al. We all have reliable reporting and analysis to pay attention to. And CSPAN to pay attention to the Democratic defenders and Republican destroyers of democracy, fully and in their own words.
We came close to victory in 2024. We prevented a Trump landslide and insurmountable GOP majorities in Congress. Our activism has and can mitigate the potential damage of the next 2 years. And we can win in 2026.
No one has been paying attention. For the past 9 years the Democrats have been polite. For the past 9 years the Democrats have been playing by the rules. Guess what. The Republicans were not. And they won. I am not impressed by thin margins; only frustrated. The Democrats and the wonderful people you list were not able to forestall a coup. Good heavens we sure can talk about it a lot though.
Barack Obama is the lone voice speaking to what I am saying. I recommend you track down his latest talk.
I love President Obama. He is brilliant. But with complete respect, I suggest that he stops short of the next step. I refer you to Senator Chris Murphy who is asking us to reformulate the platform of the Democratic Party - knock it down and rebuild as a populist party of the working class.
Obama did deliberately stop short. I support Senator Murphy's suggestion. We can start by not acting like this was a normal election with a normal outcome and if the Democrats keep playing nice it will all work out like in Annie when the sun comes out tomorrow.
Bill-I assume you mean a party for the white working class because the Black working class vote overwhelmingly for the Dems. Why are the white working class not voting for the Dems who support unions, fair wages, fair taxation etc??
Sorry, but the R party has already been there. Done that. However, you’re welcome to take our Rinos and uniparty go-along, get-alongers. The Obama/Hilary ‘wing’ of the D party over the last 16 years at least ( really going back to the nomination of J Kerry days) have abandoned the low income, blue collar, non-four year college degreed, non-professional, non-credentialed working class Americans. Just recall what Gman Peter Strzok said, as he disdainfully said, he “could smell them” in Walmart. He was referring to Republican Trump supporters. I think many posting here have the exact same olfactory sense former FBI guy Strzok. And are proud to express it. The R party has turned and is now the party of working class Americans. FDR and JFK have officially rolled over in their graves. It is too late for the D party to recast itself as a populist party. Any of you populists? Gavin Newsome strike any of you as a working class populist? Any of the well known Dems on the national scene strike you as populists? The problem for the Dems is that they don’t have the right sentiments for it. And you’ll have to start by re-adjusting your olfactory sense.
Agree to all of this...yet no one is talking about how this cadre of enablers will ignore the death sentence that is just on the horizon ..global warming. While we are engulfed in our petty human drama, nature will follow it's course. We will have whined and cried our way through all of the warnings nature has given us.
Right you are! Climate change is the elephant in the room. “Drill, baby, drill,” is our wicked and stupid president-elect’s response. Everyone should hear his long interview in which his mindlessness is fully revealed.
The planet isn’t here to take care of us. Mother Nature does what she does in order for all living creatures to be able to continue a living example . That includes death. That allows life.
We think we’re above this?? Sorry……
but, I personally think we are smarter than we like to accept. We have science and curiosity and purpose to remain a gifted part of this cycle. We also allow those with NO kNOWLEDGE to take control for only themselves…. Gosh, wonder when they will realize that money is no currency for oxygen and or water. Have fun on Mars MAGA!!
lin• you are a deep thinker here. One of the things I was first taught as a corrections deputy (in the 18 months I worked the jail before going to patrol, where I spent the next 26.5 years) was that if you are supervising a housing area and something sudden draws your attention (could be anything from someone dropping a phone book, to a shouting match between two inmates, to someone coming to the dayroom door to ask for something) look beyond what drew your attention. There is something else going on that the people involved do not want you to notice.
The Democratic Party has not noticed anything beyond the circus of the modern political arena. It has been complicit in creating the environment where schools have been corrupted, family wage jobs have been outsourced where wages are penny on the dollars and people cannot find work that will support a family, where "rules" in media have been removed, and health care has been morphed from caring for people to creating billions of dollars in profit to "overseers".
To put our faith in a corrupted system to "fix" the "problem" is ridiculous. I cannot state your last paragraph any better. I argued in 2016 that the election was not just for president, but more so for the Supreme Court. I have been dismayed at the lack of action by the Justice Department during the Biden administration, but not surprised.
I'm not as articulate nor informed as you. My pedestrian analysis is that the Democratic party has brought its peewee water pistol to an AR-15 convention.
What does your comment have to do with Syria? I remember back a dozen years, when Russia intervened. Many people felt that Russia, at first, in trying to secure her naval base in Tarsus, was providing a stabilizing presence. Obviously, I and other were off-the-mark. 😵
"Finally" . . . [SecState Blinken] . . . said, "the U.S. wants to make sure “that this does not lead to a humanitarian catastrophe." Between Israël, Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria, the Middle East is already a humanitarian catastrophe. 💔
With respect to SecState Blinken, Syria has been a humanitarian catastrophe for the entire Assad regime. Our current administration, while heads and tails above the proposed incoming team, is also trapped in its grad school seminar rules (and language) of the game.
Well I am an amateur SecState Blinken, so my essay, above, is doubly trapped. One problem with thinking through policy options is that, at least for me, the proponent is blind to his or her spinning a best-case scenario with a low probability of success and a big but unseen downside. 🤭
Perhaps SecState Blinken -- Caspar Milquetoast that he seems to be -- is also trapped by something else: avoiding unanticipated consequences that make situations worse. The SecState is a fine man intent on making the world a better place, I am sure; doing so is another matter, altogether. 😱
Indecision is a very costly trait; decisions, however, can be catastrophic. A long-run mitigant might be discouraging, if not shutting down, the arms trade. The merchants of death -- thank you Pope Francis citing a French journalist of the 1930s -- have aggravated these situations. 😢
A catatstrophe that might of have been mitigated ten years ago. Back then Prime Minister Cameron floated the idea of allowing Assad to leave; that went down in chemically poisoning . . . quickly. This essay from ten years ago -- already a year late and now out of date -- shows that timely action may have mitigated the catastrophe then and the dissolution of any rule-of-law now. ✍️
''The future of Syria is entirely unclear, Applebaum writes, but there is no doubt that “the end of the Assad regime creates something new, and not only in Syria. There is nothing worse than hopelessness, nothing more soul-destroying than pessimism, grief, and despair. The fall of a Russian- and Iranian-backed regime offers, suddenly, the possibility of change. The future might be different. And that possibility will inspire hope all around the world.”''
That need to pretend that “hope” heals all just reiterates our acceptance that pretending takes care of our messes.
That is why “the kick in the head “ of trump coming back to claw away our rights is a BIG warning for us to stop hoping hope works without hard work pushing it along.
My sentiments exactly. Hope and responding ethically to the machinations of the Republican party have gotten us where we are because we presumed the Republicans would act morally and play by the rules. They haven’t for a very long time and the Democratic party has been asleep at the wheel and slow to realize even now that they cannot presume ethical behavior from that party. We should not continue to be in La-La land and presume elections will ever take place in this country during the reign begging in January 2025. Or if the elections take place that the Republican party won’t manipulate the results to favor them remaining in power. The norms set forth in our constitution are no longer valid under Trump’s leadership and the blatant partisan behavior of the Supreme Court in its rulings.
I agree.I find it incredulous that on January 20, we are just going to turn our democracy over to a dictator who wants to destroy our Constitution, rule of law and everything we hold dear.Are Joe and Jill going to hand the key to the White House over to Trump along with the rest of the government and say”Best wishes”?Trump may have been duly elected ( and I have my doubts here on that ) but he is clearly illegitimate in the eyes of freedom and democracy.
Agree 100%. Biden and Dems are acting as if it is business as usual, walking us into something absurdly unacceptable as if this is a normal state of affairs.
The “smoking guns” are out in plain sight. January 6 and stolen documents in the bathroom. The system has been rigged FOR 45 not AGAINST him. Those with oversight authority just shrugged their shoulders, so what.
Let it go, Ellen. Too many lazy, greedy, selfish, ignorant, hateful, brain-washed people voted for Trump and what he’s about to do. We won’t be able to change anything until most people are miserable enough to want to earn Democracy back.
The straight party-line voters are the most troublesome. Most are too lazy or say they are too busy to engage and they likely think they know what's going on when they turn on Fox News when they roll out of bed and click it off when their head hits the pillow.
Eileen, I liked your fantasy. It ain't going to happen. His lackeys are nominated to run the DOJ, the FBI, all the levers of government. It remains for a few brave republican Senators to save a complete dismantling of our democracy. Biden continues to govern in the few days he has left and continues to do a great job. If only the MSM would stop hounding him for pardoning his son.
I hear you loud and clear. The foolish ones who voted him into office are responsible for this calamity. The fall of Assad, however, is a rejection of authoritarianism. I believe we will see more of this in the future. Trump, and the Republican conservative movement itself, are a little late in their efforts to turn this country into an authoritarian
Don’t blame non-voters and Trump voters entirely. There’s a lot of blame to go around.
-The poor education regarding politics, civics, and the urgent need to understand and participate in our government processes. We needed to give all American children the best public education and teachers, but instead we segregated quality education by zip code and income level.
-Allowing America to get away with racism, sexism, misogyny, and intolerance. If you give your consent to targeting a group of people to be less than equal, you give consent for people to do the same to you. No one said you had to like everyone, but it is wrong to have inequality in our government and society.
-Longstanding biases in media
-A culture selfishness and growing lack of empathy
-Not putting a stop to corruption in government at all levels everywhere in our country
-Allowing the wealth disparity to grow so large by letting corporations have such power over government and their wealthy owners.
-Allowing *g-d* into government. We went from “In God We Trust” to having religious-based laws.
- Allowing poor quality foods & poor nutrition in America. Unhealthy bodies lead to poor behavior, attitude, cognitive abilities, and mental health.
You should care he was elected, as it shows that the rot goes deep and wide, and cutting it out isn’t just a matter of stopping one man and his close clique. 74 million of your fellow citizens support him and what he represents. American plutocrats support him. Your Supreme Court support him. He has large and well-organised far-right militias on his side. Far-right leaders and followers around the world support him, including here in Europe. Dictators recognise him as one of their own.
This week, I believe, I read that Louis DeJoy had delayed the mail in ballots. One of those was mine. I understand that Mr Trump received many votes. IF all the mail in ballots had been counted, would that change? *How many votes were not counted? IF THOSE VOTES WERE COUNTED NOW, what would be revealed? **The number of votes that make up Trump’s margin of victory is small, so, just possibly, he fears that counting the mail-in votes will alter the numbers and the victory would belong to Biden. COUNT EVERY SINGLE MAIL-find someone trustworthy and make it a rush job… might help !
Trump has again shown his ignorance of foreign affairs by declaring that Russia didn’t benefit much from propping up Assad. The Russian military has now lost its only outposts on the Mediterranean, a major blow to various operations in the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe - including Ukraine.
Not that we needed reminding of Trump’s glaring lack of intellect, which will cause so much harm abroad and at home.
I have no words to describe the orange thug. You are absolutely correct. If anyone in his future administration can take the time to look at a map, they can see that Putin lost its only access to the African continent by losing the two Mediterranean ports, Hezbollah lost land and air contact with their daddy Iran. Now Europe can build gas pipe lines avoiding Russia. The entire world gains by helping Syria become a land for every Syrian, in a country of their own.
Purobi, you are forgetting that Trump doesn't need maps because he can rule the world with a phone call. And when he does need a map he can change it with a sharpie. He also can defeat a pandemic with bleach injections and stop hurricanes with nukes. 😒 Is it any wonder that they call him Orange Jesus?
He thinks that Belgium is a city and India has no border with Russia. He probably thinks Mar-a-Lago is a city. Can't tell the difference between Sioux City Iowa and Sioux falls N. Dakota.
Persian Gulf—Black Sea corridor is a transport and transit corridor project proposed and created by Iran.[1] The corridor project starts from the Persian Gulf and southern Iran, heads north across the country, and then continues to Armenia,[2] from where it reaches the Georgian ports of Poti and Batumi in the Black Sea. From there, Ro-Ro ships cross the Black Sea to the Bulgarian ports of Burgas and Varna, after which the goods are again sent by road to Greece and on to the European Union.[3]
Black sea can be blocked by Turkey. See Bosphorus. Now neither Iran, nor Russia has any money to build anything. Let's see what happens in Georgia. Batumi may soon go back to Georgia (I have been all these places you mentioned, a few times) if the Russian puppet government falls and Georgia takes Abkhazia back. Armenia is pissed off about Nagarno Karabakh and Russia's propping up Azerbaijan. Russia's economy can not handle these many fronts. Then we have the Russian Federation countries itching to be independent plus China would love to get a chunk of Siberia back. Incredible world drama soon to be unfolded. Zambia's political situation is grave, Malawi is falling apart too. I need to finish my morning coffee (in Rome now).
For those that liked my comment. I cannot take credit for it. William Farrar is the person you should thank. He is a wealth of information and he quoted the Wikipedia article, and his own familiarity on the subject. It made sense to me, so I cut and pasted it. Purobi, see his post. You should be able to have an informed debate. I would look forward to that.
The problem is we can have a debate after the dust settles. We came to Pompeii for a shirt visit to see the recently excavted Blue and Black rooms. The first message I got as soon as I entered our Airbnb is from a young Georgian woman telling me how insane the current government is and how strongly they are fighting against this illegitimate government. All of us can speculate what may or may not happen but all of us need to wait and see. It is easy to solve other people's problems.
I did not say they are not but it going to be harder and harder. Zambian government fell because of foreign debt and its last government's willingness to sell the country.
Trump is repeating the Tulsi Gabbard line on Syria and Russia. Now that Assad has fled to Putin, birds of a feather, perhaps Gabbard should fly to her BFFs. Just not as head of US intelligence services.
Please continue contacting your Senators and House members - all of them - to oppose recess appointments. Evidently there is a way for the House to force the Senate into recess. And as we know Republicans in general and Speaker Mike Johnson like nothing better than to leave town when the going gets tough. For every comment you write please phone and write your congressional delegation and send a Letter to the Editor. Do not give Trump a chance to make recess appointments. And to the degree possible get 'anti-qualified' Trump nominees to withdraw.
I often write to Susan Collins. Days before the Maine Presidential primary she sent out an email asking Mainers to vote for Nikki Haley. And then Nikki Haley supported Trump after she lost. If Nikki had come out against Trump instead of supporting him, Kamala would be President.
I call Blackburn’s and Hagerty’s offices and their staffs are cordial. The problem is both are tfg sycophants in the worst way. All I can hope is other Tennesseans are calling too.
Good point, lin• I have solid Democrats representing me: Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden, and Val Hoyle. I will write them today regarding the recess appointments issue.
"Trump's glaring lack of intellect." I love that. While Trump just parrots himself with by calling everyone stupid many comment sites will reject your comment for calling the orange Julius stupid. Thanks Michael.
At the reopening of Notre Dame, Trump in Paris with Macron just might have been turned a bit away from Russia and toward Europe, which would be a great benefit to everyone!
Thank you for providing such a clear narrative of the events in Syria. It has been such a complicated situation, not that there is a simple solution now, but it is good to know who the players are and how the situation evolved from your overview. We are going to miss Biden's cool head and statesmanship! But, what an excellent reminder that dictators eventually fall!
I saw a good interview on CNN with the leader of the rebels. It was referenced on The Rest Is Politics podcast with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. I was left feeling hopeful that things can really turn around there. Syria is one of those European-designed countries that has an even more complex social structure than Lebanon. Assad being gone is just the first step on the long, treacherous road to recovery.
That's what some people said when the Shah was ousted in Iran 45 years ago. And look how well that turned out.
Assad was a terrible leader and certainly no friend of the US (except maybe a few individuals like... Tulsi Gabbard !) but the rebels are much like the radical Islamic jihadists and aren't likely to be "good friends" of America either.
In the end we have few friends in that part of the world and maybe in this thing, as stupid as he can be, Trump might be correct that we should stay the hell out of it.
Our memories of expectations for Iran after the shah was deposed are quite different. I don't recall anyone saying it would be great when the Ayatollah returned from exile. Was Jolani putting on an act when he was interviewed by CNN and indicated that he's no longer a Jihadist? Time will tell. That said, I must push back on your criteria of being "good friends of America." I rather thought the criteria should be improved quality of life for Syrians.
I'm not a disinterested bystander. Though I could only spend three days there*, my time in Damascus left me, a single female traveling alone, with very tender feelings toward Syrians. This was in 2008, before the uprising turned Assad into a true monster.
*I could only get a 3-day transit visa from Jordan to Lebanon because I hadn't applied for a visitor's visa in the US.
There is a lot of "meet the new BOSS, same (or as bad) as the old BOSS" when the motive is absolute power, and it's hard to know how any revolution will eventually shake out. At least they may shake some of the influence of puppetmaster Putin.
I have wondered how much the US CIA contributed to the emergence "religious" political fanaticism in Iran and surrounding regions with the engineered overthrow of the secular Mossadegh government in 1953, in order to retain control of Iranian oil?
At what cost Vickie? We can tell that dictators eventually fall but shouldn't be in power to being with. I our own country we are allowing that to happen .
Perhaps it would help to better understand the psychology that somehow leads people to embrace dictators. It's way too common, and it gone on for far too long.
Republicans today and I don't mean just maga don't seem to have the emotional equipment to run things from the both head and heart places by at some point passing them through the mind’s thinking parts.
Beware of the image industry and its influence on people's brains therefore minds therefore emotions therefore a whole lot of confusion.
All that you said and in some cases, poisoned by PFAs, lead and microplastics. The neurological damage of one of those alone can be devastating. It's quite a cocktail when combined, I think.
Bill, you've articulated this in a manner that I have seen here for the first time. That is a fascinating potential contributing factor to what seems to me to be a completely inexplicable draw to the garbage that has been spewed out by MAGA world.
Sadly Robin, most Republicans are followers, not leaders and most can't explain why they support Trump. Most are uneducated and blindly follow Trump. If you asked them their opinion about Syria, they would be totally clueless having no idea what has transpired there since 2000.
With that being said, I know many Republicans who are well educated, but think that Trump will be good for their own pocketbook.
Evolution is a process of modification, not total redesign, thus the "branching" structure of evolutionary genetics, and species classification. A lot of our human neurological makeup is a recent evolutionary add-on, and a lot is pretty ancient. Some speak of our more primitive "reptile" nature.
I'm no expert, and it's hard not to oversimplify, but I think Robert Lewis Stevenson was on the right track when, in "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde" envisioned an inherent tension in human nature between civility and sociopathic narcissism. We all have an "ego", Latin for "I", but also capacities for empathy and conscience, Perhaps some people are born lacking some of the latter, but that does not explain how whole societies go sociopathic, as Germany did in WWII, and as our society our own history did with respect to brutalization of native peoples and slaves.
We have to observe and calm the narcissism in our own nature, and while we all of necessity pursue self-interest, choose what some call "enlightened self-interest", though I think must be compassionate self interest, as well as enlightened. I don't just think, therefore I am, I think AND FEEL therefore I am. It's not just a thought of honey that makes it experiential, it's the taste. It's not just the sound of music, it's how it makes us feel.
We have a special ability to chart alternative paths to alternative envisioned fates, often not with much certainty, but with our best educated guesses, that can improve the outcomes we experience;, and that involves self-reflection. The ancient Oracle at Delphi advise "Know Thyself", and it still holds; but now we have much better tools to do so, provided we choose to use them.
It's time we stop, hey what's that sound? Everybody look what's gong down.
We should have been pushing harder against blatant conflicts of interest and corruption long ago, including the blatantly antidemocratic "Citizens United" legalization of de facto bribery. Better late than never would be my hope.
I am grateful for the writings of Dan Rather, Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Andy Borowitz satire, and Dry Bar (clean) Comedy, reruns of The Golden Girls and Seinfeld to help keep a sense of balance and sanity amidst the chaos. Although, they all are keeping me up way too late at night!!
The inspiration that Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign brought during its 100+ days was extraordinary. It was a time of hope, optimism, and pride. Many of us felt a renewed sense of purpose, walking with lighter steps, clearer minds, and hearts full of possibility. We saw her as a competent, visionary leader ready to usher in meaningful progress for everyone. Losing that opportunity was more than just a political setback—it was a blow to the collective spirit of those who believed in her vision. The aftermath lingers, as we now face the tangible consequences of what could have been, a loss that feels both personal and deeply consequential.
The outright incompetence (and yes evil) that is being put in place now is an appallingly clear and present danger. We are watching a train wreck - much like a Hitchcock movie where the horror is that the viewer knows what is going to happen to the victim but can do nothing to stop it.
During trump’s prior occupation of the WH the diplomatic corps was decimated. My "go to" resource (for years) in understanding international policy and diplomacy is Nicholas Burns (career diplomat, soon to be ex-ambassador to China). Nick is but one example of the caliber of President Biden's administration appointments with the qualifications and experience Kamala Harris would have been able to tap into. Burns exemplifies the kind of knowledge, negotiating skills, and leadership that makes him one of the most engaging and informative speakers I have witnessed firsthand. He's as unassuming and genuine as his brother who happened to be in my high school class. We will be losing the continuity and decades of steady guidance of such capable people at a globally perilous time.
Losing such institutional knowledge especially in a time of global instability, is an incalculable loss. It underscores just how perilous this moment is, as we watch Biden’s accomplishments and ethical governance unravel before us—a tragedy for our country and the world.
"....Nick is but one example of the caliber of President Biden's administration appointments.." When speaking of Nicholas Burns, and the caliber of gifted talent Biden has been able to secure for our benefit, you have made the understatement of the year Janet. I like and also use your list of sources and some more as well. We shall have to share those in this little community going forward. Brava sister !
It is the institutional thinkers who are responsible for the mess we are in. These institutionalists were so far up in their heads and so entrenched in the "we have always done things this way" addiction the fascists were able to run rings around them. We have just witnessed a successful coup in the United States of America. Has no one noticed? People are actually wondering if they will be arrested for their political views. J6 prisoners are slated to be released. The media are jumping over each other to capitulate to the incoming fascists and Americans are acting like business as usual.
I am sure your Mr. Burns is a fine person. What Mr. Burns needed to do was think outside of the box and forestall this coup years ago.
Janet is right. And so are you. People of the future who study history will ask why there hadn't been huge protests outside the DOJ right after January 2021 - demanding that Trump be arrested, held accountable for an attempted coup. He should have been held without bail as a flight risk. The Russian connection was confirmed by the Republican Senate committee!
But we (I am ashamed of me) sat at home and watched as all the obvious facts were mired in lies and media obfuscation. We ALL saw the coup attempt on TV. That's all the evidence the DOJ needed. In another country, Trump would be wearing orange for life.
There must be something in the water that has numbed us....
I too cannot get my head around that trump was not immediately arrested after January 2021 and held without bail. We all kept asking how much freakin' information and proof is needed for an indictment, conviction, and lifetime jail sentence?! Now we have an evil dictator with immunity from everything surrounded by the $billionaire cabal who will be pulling the strings for their benefit only. These types of political situations do not end well . . .
We are exhausted. We are numbed and mentally down by years and years of his incessant screaming, lying and threats. This is the exact game of a narcissist and the playbook of fascism.
Our Democratic Party has failed us and the Country.
Barbara-I think we are failing each other by not being honest about what divides people in this country. We allow ourselves to be manipulated as different groups of people are demonized and dehumanized. It’s up to “we the people” to come together against the forces that want to keep us divided.
Barbara - I identify with your frustration with where this country is headed. So many of us are screaming into the wind with sirens blaring to no avail! But the issue is not with the country’s diplomatic corps that provides an understated but essential component of international relations. Being Ambassador to China is a more public persona and where decades of experience and network building are invaluable.
Nick has been part of the diplomatic corps for 40+ years and appointed to various roles by presidents of both parties. Diplomats serve as the frontline representatives of their country, fostering dialogue, building relationships, advancing national interests abroad, navigating complex political situations, and providing a bridge between governments.
It is not the role of a diplomat to prevent a coup (or interfere in the politics of host countries) but to maintain open channels of communication and support the long-term goals of cooperation and mutual understanding. It is unimaginable that any professional diplomat would be comfortable working for trump hence we get the likes of former Georgia senator David Perdue as his choice.
Someone on here mentioned the Irish comedy trio "Foil, Arms & Hog" a year or so back. They release a new clip every Thursday, on YouTube. They are hilarious! As a newbie to them, I had years of clips to watch. I highly recommend them.
Thanks for the recommendation! We all need to brain drain and laugh for a bit. Then gird our loins and not let the evil ones get away with their planned horror show . . .
Dictatorships thrive on fear and the illusion of permanence. Assad’s fall shows that even the most entrenched regimes can crumble, a reminder that no dictatorship is truly unshakable.
I'm not sure that a dictatorship being overthrown by a bunch of Islamist extremists in the Al Qaeda mould is necessary cause for rejoicing. Remember the Taliban?
And they are, it appears, all Salafists. (Salaf being the presumed state of affairs at the time of Mohammed). Very conservative, and proponents of universal shari law. Sorry ladies... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi_movement).
Talia, there are differences between Afghanistan where the Taliban rose and Syria. The southern rebel Leader broke from Al Qaeda and has been preaching tolerance for minorities snd a focus on stable institutions that serve people. You're right that the Islamist label is worrisome, but there is hope that this will develop into a tolerant Islamic country, for which there is historical precedent. Time and future actions will tell.
Peter, The Assad regime was entrenched only because it was propped up by Russia and Iran-via-Hezbollah. The elder Assad kept Syria among the other nations, though he was ruthless. The younger Bashir al Assad squandered what little international standing Syria had and was brutal without purpose. Ultimately, demographics played a role because the Assad regime propped up the minority Alawites in Syria at the expense of a diverse majority.
Now, finally, Syria has a chance to develop its natural resources, encourage the innate artistry and resourcefulness of its diverse people, and be a positive influence on the region. They just have to keep Iran and Russia out. They also have to avoid antagonizing Israel, though the rebel leader, al Julani whose family was displaced from the Golan Heights in 1967 might not follow that advice.
Anne Applebaum's mention of "cold, deliberate, well-planned cruelty" and "Ludicrous lies and cynical propaganda campaigns" referred to dictatorships in general, but the same descriptions could also be used in a specific sense for MAGA, so-called "America First" and the ominous, imminent prospect of an authoritarian Trump 2.0 regime. They're all rooted in fanaticism and are the antithesis of democracy.
I missed the broadcast, but MSNBC aired the documentary Separated, directed by Errol Morris, based on the book by Jacob Soboroff.
A reminder of the official policy of 45's administration to separate families. An initial list of 700 children taken from their parents, including 100 under the age of 4 years old, was the basis for an ACLU class action suit against the cruel actions. Eventually there were over 7,000 children separated, and probably at least 1,000 who TO THIS DAY are STILL not reunited with their family of origin.
Trump 2.0 not only plans to resume these horrific procedures, but to deny Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship rights, and to DEPORT BOTH undocumented persons AND their American-born children.
Well i hate to point this out but deporting undocumented people is the law of this country. We have repeatedly ignored it but it is one of the few things that Trump has proposed which are in fact absolutely in accordance with the law. And if their American born children are kept here that would be another case of separating families that we have v take against.
You can't have it both ways. If people come to this country illegally and choose to have children, it would be absurd to say "oh well now they can all stay. " that would make illegal immigration followed by having a child a way to get legal status in the US.
If that's the case, why not just open up the borders?
Until we decide to do that, deporting parents and children is the only legal AND sensible thing you can do. If you have a better idea, I'd love to hear it.
And so it goes: we, all the descendants of immigrants, continue to have a discussion of the issue that is purportedly the most concerning. It is a manufactured issue, less problematic than the truly important one: rich vs poor. The wealthiest are controlling the narrative and doing it well. And I say that as a white American who has a home and enough money to live.
the point of the comment was not that illegal immigrants should stay. It was that Trump (pushed by Miller) imposed deliberate cruelty on immigrants by separating them *at the time they crossed the border" from thei infants. This cruelty was intended to scare people into not coming. Many of the children were too young to know their parents' names, beyond mommy and daddy (and of course their own language equivalents). That is a large reason why so many have not been re-united. The other reason is that the parents were sent back without their kids, the relation not being identfiable (and Trump and Miller did not care.)
So it's not about 'dreamers', though treating them with some humanity would be a benefit to everybody.
By the way just for the record, I am FIRMLY in favor of COMPLETELY opening the borders and permitting unrestricted immigration to all from any country. It would eliminate the need for most ICE employees particularly those who are engaged in hunting down and deporting people.
I still love the poem on the Statue of Liberty...
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." by Emma Lazarus.
Btw, Th statute of Liberty quote was written by a foreigner. And not country on earth allows unmitigated migration. Now if it read: “Give us you sexiest, gorgeous but tired women..” ah then yes. (That was a joke)
You need to brush up on your history Bill. Emma Lazarus who wrote the poem that is enscribed on the Statue of Liberty was born in New York City and lived there most of her relatively short life. She died at the age of 38 the year after the statue was erected on Liberty Island. She was a Jewish activist who helped Russian immigrants fleeing from antisemitism on czarist Russia. It was NOT written by a "foreigner". Lazarus was as American as you and me.
I truly hope this is going to lead to freedom for the Syrian people, and eventually to freedom for the Iranian and Russian people who have been suffering so long under authoritarian regimes. I vividly remember the promise of the Arab Spring, and the students in my classes that had spent time in refugee camps in those areas.
Sharon I think you are dreaming of you really think that is going to happen. The people who have ousted Assad are radical Muslims who have no love for the US or for democracy. We will likely see a new regime in Syria, led by different people but just as repressive if not more so than Assad. This may seem like a "victory" but I seriously doubt we are going to love the results.
The Syrian situation started with the incredibly heady Arab Spring. Unfortunately it all ended badly - dictators, civil wars, famine, failed states and Assad cracking down on a divided tribal people to stay in power. The rebel groups have been lying low for 13 years in control of parts of Syria. Then this Wizard of Oz scenario ! So they start all over, with the emptying of the prisons, possible cooperation among rebel groups or the emergence of the usual strongman. Who knows and, you are right, we probably won’t like the newest Afghanistan.
We are, of course, absorbed in our own impending dark days. But events in Syria are an emphatic warning that the United States is unlikely to be any sort of reliable or staunch leader in the near future. That is not to suggest that we should be immersed militarily; far be it from me to weigh in on that and no one from the Pentagon has called to consult me! But the United States, as a democratic leader, is clearly heading for, at best irrelevancy, and at worst, complicity in very wrong ways in a nasty struggle for dominance.
We keep saying and hearing “unprecedented” and then carrying on like it’s over. No more “unprecedented” events can/will occur. THIS IS WRONG. Find another word if that makes you feel better but ACCEPT unprecedented is the new normal.
I don't think that will work. As I understand it the President doesn't have that power. It would take an act of congress which certainly isn't going to happen even if 150 million people sign that petition.
The differences in the viewpoints between President Biden and President-elect Trump couldn’t be any clearer than their perspectives detailed here. Trump once again sides with authoritarian leaders and their horrendous behaviors enacted upon their citizens to maintain their control and power. This explains fully Trump’s desire to use our own military against our citizens and his vows of retribution against those who oppose him. Buckle up folks for the horror show to come under Trump.
And Trump, as expected, takes his marching orders from Putin on Syria. Look carefully those of you who voted to put this Russian asset back in our White House. The risk to democratic institutions in the U.S. falls on you.
Syrian immigrants are celebrating in major European cities …Berlin and Stockholm had major demonstrations of relief. Germany and Sweden took in a large number of the war refugees. I guess time will tell whether or not the country stabilizes enough for those thinking of returning home.
I appreciate having this history of the Assad regime explained in detail. Where it will all lead for Syria and the region seems to be a guessing game. We can trust that Trump’s Cracker Jack brilliant, thoughtful and knowledgeable foreign relations team will have smart plans to implement on day one in response to the changing landscape.
Success results when preparation meets opportunity.
Putin and Russia are in steep decline and at an economic brink,
because (with the invasion of/war against Ukraine) they are intent on (violently) taking away inherent freedoms and human rights.
Biden's lifetime of experience - and moral compass - are integral to the nationalistic chess games being played out globally. His multilayered actions supported democratic values of self-determination (Ukraine), strengthened alliances (such as NATO), stood against tyranny - leading Russia to go hat in hand to North Korea.
Donald Trump is a narcissistic poser of astounding stupidity and absent of character (imo).
We (the USA) could really use a do-over of the 2024 Election,
G*d D*mn... is EVERYONE going crazy at the same time?
Beverly there are no do overs. Get over it.
There is even LESS chance of "divine intervention".
What's even sadder to me is invoking Biden as some ultimate moral compass. Biden got Clarence Thomas elevated to the Supreme Court. Biden did that!!! Biden just pardoned his son, something he swore he would never do. I am not condemning Biden, he is human just like the rest of us.
But PLEASE don't act like he is some otherworldly Saint. He isn't and never has been.
It is absolutely terrorizing and insane the this is happening just as Trump and his MAGA Traitors, a whole owner subsidiary of "Putin Inc" are coming into power. This may not end well.
I don't care if Trump was elected. He's a felon, a criminal with outstanding indictments. Trump is SO CLEARLY a Russian asset and a traitor to the United States. He is the biggest national security danger to our country. He must be stopped. Figure it out Merrick Garland, FBI, CIA - just find the final smoking gun to put this danger to world peace behind bars. Enough.
Unfortunately this is not going to happen anytime soon. We need to face the facts that here in the US, criminals are allowed to be in power. And then do something about that, somehow.
We tried our best to keep the criminal regime out of power but were outvoted by a mob of vicious voters who want, at any cost, including devastation of democracy, what Republicans offer, namely the preservation of systemic legal, political, and economic advantages of white Americans.
I regret that I can’t quite agree with your assessment of Trump voters. While some certainly ARE vicious, and nihilists, I fear at least half of them are merely, and devastatingly, OBLIVIOUS.
It’s hard to imagine that there are US voters out there who don’t know 1% of what any of us HCR readers learn in a single year…or month… or DAY…but they exist, in large numbers. They knew that this colorful guy, Trump, was running for president, and that he was going to tell “the elite”, aka scientists, doctors, professors, TV people— basically anyone with a college education— to fuck themselves. Most entertaining! And who cares, right? Those know-it-alls deserve to burn! Also, everything got expensive, because of “inflation.” That happened because of “marxists.” No, they can’t define those terms, but they are BAD, and Trump will put that creep Fauci in prison for life because of it. WOOOOOOOO!
I keep thinking of the old adage: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” True, but in our present propaganda + ignorance fueled culture, you can’t even lead it to the water, because it’s decided the water is poison.
The Trump voters I know are physicians, investment bankers, church clergy. We are simply not getting the message across. Democrats are better at the economy, immigration etc etc. But we are horrible in getting the message out. CBS, NBC had rather promote ratings by talking about Trump saying people are eating pets than talk about Biden’s budget reduction due to hiring IRS agents, etc etc but then we don’t spoon feed them like Trump does. We must stop complaining and start getting out there with what we want
Again. How would you persuade those media entities to talk about real news? Why wouldn't they talk about the real truth of the economy for the past four years? What would you tell the oligarchs who own the media left and right?
You are stating what everyone already knows. What everyone is looking for are solutions.
Real news.
How billionaire Charles Koch’s network won a 40-year war to curb regulation
A seismic Supreme Court ruling has ushered in a new era of diminished federal power. The next Trump administration hopes to capitalize on it.
https://wapo.st/4g2Stv3
Reagan got into bed with Ralph Reed. Movement conservatism with the Religious Right. Unmitigated greed with unrepentant bigotry. Racist right wing religious extremists funded by such as Charles Koch et al used Civil Rights movement tactics to turn back civil rights progress. They united at the ballot box. They ran for every office, volunteered on every committee, voted in every election. As Republicans. It took 40 years to get to here.
Maybe one option would be to cancel your cable and streaming subscription and let them know why. Then send a “divorce” (aka it’s YOU not ME) email/letter to digital or print news organizations cancelling those subscriptions. There are other more reliable news sources where we can get the news and not the drama…..substack, Bluesky, non US media outlets.
A solution is to hire the best damn brand development expert there is and to aggressively market the Democratic brand utilizing all forms of media; especially targeting young people who will become our future leaders.
Media entities are business, after all. Their editors are evaluated by the circu,ation size.
We are divided deeply and accordingly too as to where we get the news. The traditional and responsible news sources could not ( lest they become partisan) and did not join in the division overtly. Editorially yes.
The economy was great for some and apparently not for others. The latter, their anger and "cultural" resentments is what Trump caught and played up, while still aiming at trickle down economics.
The rest was gaming the system ( including with Musk money).
Biden had the bully pulpit for 4 years but did not use it effectively or at times at all. He was a terrible communicator. He was weak and even fearful depending on others to shout the great news of what he was doing, accomplishing, and trying to do.
Ignorance and deep "cultural" divisions and resentments.....that's what we have to thank.
And.. this business of oligarchs owning the news is deadly...
I'm a physician living in a purple state. I know a lot of physicians. I know only one, ONE, one out of hundreds, who voted for Trump. An overwhelming majority (in the range of 90%) who I have known for the past 40 years of being a physician regard Trump as a pathetic and dangerous psychopath, and a tool and useful idiot for the 2025 Project crowd and Putin. His comments about Syria are further proof. The question is whether the Republicans in the HOR and Senate who are up for re-election in 2026 will be held accountable for supporting an ideology and foreign policy that is so blatantly wrong.
Unfortunately that will depend upon how effective the Trump/Putin cartel’s kompramat on such individuals, their extended families and high up officials in the military, Intelligence and law enforcement is. We are entering an era of Wild Western lawlessness with the Trump Cult Mach 2.
Thank you Max. You are correct.
One of the best podcasts I listen to is John Heilmanns, and his recent guest Tina Peters (not THAT Tina peters who just got sentenced in Colorado for election fraud) claimed with great credibility it was showmanship and rage that got him elected. They are mad at Biden because he acts old. And the Democrats ran a damn liberal black woman.
Until we can field an echo chamber as loathsome as Fox and its worst demons we won't "get our message out".
But if he messes with their ACA and the economy tanks, or their educationally disabled kids are institutionalized instead of educated, there might be hell to pay.
Hell to pay too late.
A tough slog, Sandra, for sure! Let's hope there is a lot for voters to be disillusioned over by 2026, Trump has just inherited a rebounding and apparently robust economy from Biden, can he wreck it up a bit with tariffs, I honestly can't say - and I'm not so sure how much Americans will care with what MAGA does with the federal government.
Frank, what 47 will do is blame everything he causes on the "mess I inherited from Sleepy Joe Biden. It's a mess nobody has ever seen the likes of. But we're cleaning it up, strongly."
Frank, I do think if he does the tariffs, prices will go up and people will notice. What I am not sure of is if they will understand that this is his doing. And they will care about the federal government when their health care, social security, medicare goes down the tube. Once again, I do not know if they will understand that this is death star and his minions.
His chaos should benefit the Dems in the midterms
If it doesn't then we know we are really truly screwed.
White people who are well off have always voted Republican (but in smaller numbers now that rethugs have embraced populism). The votes of the well off do not win elections for Republicans. Their wins depend strictly on the votes of the white working class, which goes rethug by a 30-point to 40-point margin (and a 60-point margin for white evangelicals). Some of those are don’t-care-it’s-a-joke votes, as you point out, but most are votes for the continued opression of black Americans and other marginalized groups. Obama made that clear in his recent oration on the election outcome. Those voters are not stupid. They know what they’ve voting for. Democrats cannot get their votes without joining them in systemic oppression of marginalized groups. There are just barely enough votes to beat the bastards, but we have to get them all to the polls. We fell about six million short of doing that this time, and that cost us the election.
We are now about to officially enter a period of American history which one day be compared to Germany in the late 20’s/early 30’s. So many people (professionals, academics, clergy, etc.) went along with Hitler only to regret later.
The above Trump voters you mentioned all get the message and know better. They are worse than the “uneducated” Fox-loboticized
voter because deregulation and tax cuts are more important than democracy. Greedy creeps, all of them.
Yes. But they cannot win elections without white working class votes. They are greedy creeps for sure, but that’s the least of it. They use the racist, misogynst (including hatred of non-binary people… don’t know a word for that) attitudes of the the white working class to garner their votes, then use rethug victories to move massive amounts of money from white working class pockets to plutocrat bank accounts. The wealthy manipulators are worse, yes, but the white voters they dupe are plenty bad enough on their own.
I agree - I've been saying this in my family for years!
In a democracy it it also on the CITIZENS of it to GET their information. Yes Democrats did not get their message across, but they were not hiding. Harris and Walz laid it out loudly and clearly these last few months. Where were the citizens- were they listening--- and to what? How about those that did not vote?
Are the physicians and investment bankers voting their pocketbook?
Are the clergy voting down women's rights to not be enslaved?
Here is what Trump voters are seeing. “Russia, because they are so tied up in Ukraine, and with the loss there of over 600,000 soldiers, seems incapable of stopping this literal march through Syria, a country they have protected for years.” The account blamed former president Barack Obama for the crisis of 2011 and said that Russia had stepped in then to stop the chaos…… “[t]here was never much of a benefit in Syria for Russia, other than to make Obama look really stupid.”
When Biden made this announcement why didn’t he say how our Democratic Party and the us is in the right side of this? What does Biden’s social media account say to counter act this?
Time and time again we miss our opportunities to tell our side or defend through social media
We could certainly be better at "messaging". But there is the problem of a delivery vehicle. The old media and now the new media are dominated by the liars and those beholding to corporate interests (our oligarchs). Please read this:
https://billalstrom.substack.com/p/media-reality-check
I just read your column Bill. Thank you. Very well stated. And. Scary.
It’s not the messaging. It’s fhe message. Most white Americans want what they got.
Biden's speech was ineffective and confusing. It was not clear to me if the US was firing on the rebels who had just toppled Assad or another group. We need clarity of purpose, messages and intended targets at a time like this. And the reasons behind each of those.
If his speech appears that way to you it is bc the issues in the region are complex and require some deep education to understand. There are many different factions in the region. These can't be viewed as either Sunni or Shiite (or united in any way) bc within each sect there are many factions that tend to fight each other depending on differing circumstances and needs. In this case, a seeming miracle has been pulled off by the leadership that toppled Assad in that it was able to unite many factions (or militias) to fight together under a common goal of removing Assad. The rebels fired on during the US airstrikes are ISIS camps not related to the militias that toppled Assad. The point of the airstrikes, in my opinion, was to ensure ISIS stays weakened in the event of a power vacuum in Syria that might allow ISIS to reconstitute into a major threat in the region.
Face it, Biden's political capital has been mostly expended, and the last 5 months or so have seen the proverbial stuffing kicked out of him. Unfair, but it's what's happened, and i don't think you can put all this on the msm.
Sandra, I tend to agree with you, but I offer this counter: If it does not come from "their" sources (Faux, OAN*, America First) they will not believe it in any way, shape or form. The statements that tfg "disavowed" Project 2025, and "promised" he would not end abortion in the US are all they will believe. I have tried for years to provide accurate counters to all their beliefs (most recently, sex change operations at school; c'mon, they can't even give your kid Tylenol without your permission) and have met with NO success.
*I'm not familiar with your name, so I will tell you my junior high brain is very much present in my cognitive processes, and jumped in to say that I should add a second "n" between the vowels in OAN, because that's what she thinks of their "output". I apologize in advance for her. She did hang out with the boys quite a bit.
Trump's media statements are mainly to the faithful base. It wouldn't make any difference to them.
"Time and time again we miss our opportunities to tell our side or defend through social media."
What do you propose Sandra? How would you break through the media wall?
Sandra your rants against the D party are old and tired. For decades people like you have claimed the Ds lose because they either have no message, or don't get it out effectively. I write this just to make it clear that I don't agree, and that there is nothing remotely original in your rants. I hope Harris runs again, she'll win next time when at least some of the Frump voters realize they have been conned.
Absolutely, our democratic leaders continue to play this game with the upper hand tied behind our backs.
You can lead a fool to knowledge but you can't make it think!
TeeHee. So right, Rob.
Maria, "Our leader forever." Trump supporters' proclamation.
I agree that many of the people who voted for him WERE and ARE oblivious. I was trying to "do my part" when talking to a Trump voter. I was expressing my worries about what we are in for and I explained some of the reasons for my worry, as all of us here already recognize. She said she never listens to politics beause she gets too nervous. She listens to Christian radio to calm her nerves. There is nothing wrong with listening to Christian radio, but to close your mind to what's happening to our country is more than sad. It's dangerous. I listed all the unqualified nominees and reiterated some of the proposed policies of Project 2025. She said I shouldn't worry about trying to change something that's beyond my control. Can you imagine how much worse it could be if all the Democratic patriots had given up the fight for our democracy? To those like Jack Smith, who, under threats of violence, persevered, until Trump's "Extreme" Court made it almost impossible for Trump to be held responsible for all his immoral and illegal actions.
What a world. But in Trump's world, we shouldn't care about anyone in the world but us. :(
There is something wrong with listening to "christian" radio. Many of these stations are Sinclair outlets, and disguise white christian nationalism with references to the bible and christian teachings. End times? You bet.
Bill, I agree with you, but to those who feel that Christian radio helps them "calm themselves," I kind of understand. However, I resigned my position as church pianist after 25 years at a Baptist Church, because I realized that the majority of the members voted for Trump. I could not reconcile their "Amens!" to sermons, or the singing of the hymns of love, joy, and peace, with the supporting of someone as vile and mean-spirited as Donald Trump. Hiis false claims of "christianity" fooled so many, and spurred on the Christian Nationalist movement.
These people who voted for Trump can listen to their radios, but I don't want to be involved in a hypocritical culture anymore. I have been a church musician for 50 years at different churches, but I couldn't play the songs and hymns anymore, while thinking about those who were singing them and proclaiming Christ as their leader. Trump has become their leader whether they realize it or not.
Even listening to christrian radio can be very political. The German Lutheran Church was the State Church in NAZI Germany. I can't remember the title of the movie, but after the war, a German minister had to stand up in front of his congregation and recant years of supporting hitler. More recently, in our local RC church, the priest praised the SCOTUS decision on Roe vs Wade. People applauded.
"devastatingly OBLIVIOUS"
They knew that the Democrat candidate for president was a black female. That was all they needed to know.
Thinking Harris campaign now, I think she has made a fundamental mistake of listening to her consultants too much. She should have made it clear that she will control the border as soon as she becomes President. A must policy for MAGA, and reasonable for DEMs.
You are right. 74% of the American public operates at a 6th grade or lower literacy rate. These people are not interested in policy positions. They want to be entertained. Since trump operates on about a 4th grade level and appeals to all their hatreds, they find him very appealing.
The base emotions such as fear or disgust can generally overrule the calm deliberations of critical thinking.
Have you seen the TED talk by by Peter Pomerantsev about Sefton Delmer’s work in WWII to stoke strong emotions against the SS in Germany? To overcome t***p Right-wing propaganda, we have got to get better at stirring strong feelings!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgHHRVH0NFo
tell it!
Maria, you're so correct! While Leonard Leo's adherents have political goals that they've been putting in place for years, many who voted for Trump have no idea of the damage that his handlers, including Leo, have in store for this country, or the world. Social media, Fox, OANN, and other outlets, combined with MSM who are afraid to refute them, and instead harp on Joe Biden's "obvious" dementia and his pardoning of Hunter, have stirred a toxic stew that engulfs many. As some of my friends are wont to say, "politics upset me, so I refuse to listen to any of it." Last week I responded to such emptyheaded comment by telling her that such behavior has single-handedly put us exactly where we are. This person has also refused to have any currently available vaccines - flu, Covid, pneumonia, etc. One more reason to distance myself - she's been led to the river but chooses to die of thirst.
There is no shortage of American Morons.
Craig, I'm hoping that many of them realize how bad things can really be and will take the time to listen in the future. Okay, I'm overly optimistic.
A few weeks before the election, I heard a clip where I young woman said she was voting for him because she "used to watch the Apprentice, and he's so cool!"
Yup.
The TikTok generation.
OMG!
Brain Dead.
If we Democrats do not get voters to understand what is happening, much of the blame, perhaps most of it, is on us. The simple, unpleasant fact is that we did not do a good enough job during this year’s campaign. And the challenge is to figure out how to do it better next time.
" Ludicrous lies and cynical propaganda campaigns are meant to create apathy and nihilism.”.... The MAGAs that I talk to don't think that the 'Elites' can take care of themselves... The 'Elites' need their Labor, And Skills... The Apathy, and Nihilism is Corrosive... For the MAGAs, the 'System' is Broken... They have no Hope in it... They'll Dance While It Burns Down... In this Century, Ignorance Is A Defiant Choice...
Maria, an excellent assessment of the attitude of many in this country. As a teacher, someone with a college education, I sometimes ran into this kind of resentment. I am careful around certain people who are probably ashamed that they didn't finish high school or are resentful of intellectual snobs. All of them that I know have skills that I do not have and I respect them for that and do not look down on them at all. Sometimes just being an intellectual is enough to make them misinterpret what that person is saying.
I suggest that some of you add Lucas Kunce to the substacks you read. He has written two wonderful substacks on why people "vote against their interest" and why people blame the Democrats for everything that is wrong in the U.S. right now. I have added him to my list.
Well said. I agree: we cannot call all trump voters evil. Doing so is antithetical to those of us who care about and believe in the virtues of our democracy. Instead, let us work to sideline trump and his followers in every way.
Trump, though, IS evil. Cruel, spiteful, vengeful, poisonous.
All through the campaign, when “he’s got dementia” was repeated ad infinitum by everyone on the left, I thought, No. He’s fatigued, and sounds like an exhausted windbag. But he’s not stupid, and not merely ignorant— he is pure, malevolent EVIL.
I do think he has mild dementia. Both his parents had it. You are right he's not stupid.
You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think. Dorothy Parker
Looked you up on Youtube and enjoyed your singing.
You are a gentleman of taste and discernment! 😏 (Thanks!)
I enjoyed your singing and Thursday night I'm going to see The Hot Sardines. I do like jazz also.
I’m glad you called them “vicious” voters because you are exactly right. I’m never going to understand our fellow Americans - how they look at Trump, et.al., - and say, “Yes, this is who I want my children to emulate, to be just like him/them.” smh …
Because the democrats are not offering the evidence strong leadership. Biden saved this country, brought inflation down. But you don’t hear that on the campaign trail. You don’t hear anything on social media counter-acting the Obama blame
The problem with Biden was he elevated too many people of color in his administration: Vice President, Secretary of Defense, United Nations rep, Budget Director, Press Secretary, campaign officials and many more. He even elevated a Native American to manage Interior and oh so many women in high places. Even a Black man named Hakeem became Speaker of the House.
Trump is giving us “the best”
people. Notice the number of billionaires and people with white skin who he wants to elevate to positions of power. The backlash to Obama’s election is still being played out. Gotta Make America great again by solidifying white supremacy.
"Too many people of color"? A Native American for Interior is logical in a rational world... what's your viewpoint, really?
Hakeem did?????
and legacy media does not emphasize this either.
I disagree. It was all over the campaign trail, however, 35 years of 24-hour
hate on Fox and Sinclair owning the airwaves in fly over country, has
lobotomized people. Those affected hear it in Church, their neighbors,
in schools. It is cultural as much as anything in their lives.
Good luck with that.
Strangely, they don’t say that often. Listening to Sarah Longwell’s podcast, The Focus Group, has shown many voters DON’T like him. In a recent podcast, some were enamored of RFKJr’s joining the administration (!), belief that Dems are not competent, stopping drag shows in schools, etc. One even said she couldn’t listen to Harris’s laugh—she sounded like a “witch.” The pounding of the tfg camp’s ridiculousness is unrelenting.
There is also an element of junior high thinking in that clique-like behavior; mocking physical and personal attributes and the like.
Oh, definitely, Ally. Trump's revenge campaign is like that, too.
"We tried our best to keep the criminal regime out of power..."
Did we really? Did we recognize the danger too late? Did the Biden Administration try in any way to forestall this? Did Merrick Garland? Did the Harris campaign operate outside of the box?
The Democratic Party has known for years and years about voter suppression and gerrymandering. What did they do? The DNC has always known the media was a vastly imperfect megaphone, but did they find a different tactic? Did the Democrats look at their aging leadership and ponder radical changes?
The Democratic Party has been operating as the business-as-usual Party while a coup 9 years in the making was going on right outside their door.
"The Democratic Party has been operating as the business-as-usual Party while a coup 9 years in the making was going on right outside their door."
Exactly!!!!!
The Democratic Party hasn't done sh*t since the day Reagan was elected. You couldn't even go back farther and say they haven't been worth a sh*t since LBJ left office. For all his faults, and he had many, he dragged the country into the 20th century on race relations and we've been paying for it ever since. The Democrats had a chance to double down on their Rooseveltian mandate once Nixon's crimes were revealed but instead decided to go "centrist" with Carter. Once Reagan took office the game became trying to be just like the Republicans, with predictable results. Thank you, Bill and Hillary!
Carolyn-so right. Notice how American upheavals are always about “race relations”. From the Civil War to Civil Rights to George Floyd. We’re sinking with the impact of race relations tied around our necks just like white supremacists tied weights around Emmitt Till’s neck and Derek Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck. Racism will always weigh us down in our pursuit of a “more perfect union”.
Well said, Barbara. I think this coup may have been 9 years in the making, but the current crop was planted in 1971 with the Powell Memo, and its farmer was the America First organization in the 30's, with the seeds from crops of the 1850 plantations. The fields were plowed and prepared by a country which got its riches on the backs of Black slave labor and its land by theft from and genocide of the Indigenous Peoples.
Ally, I think this coup was planned after the success of getting Reagan, an actor, elected. An opportunity emerged and Leonard Leo plus, the Kochs, the Mercers, and eventually Putin, devised evil plans. Look at the judiciary now. Cruelty in the name of Christianity, is their game plan. Dems have been asleep at the wheel for too damn long! They ridiculously reinstated Schumer as minority speaker AGAIN!! Should’ve been Amy Klobuchar!
But that angry mob is clear about what they want. We are only clear about what we do not want.
Marie handled my concern over your use of "vicious" voters. This was more an incumbency protest than a cross the board hope for an Orange Messiah. The Dems' shrill warnings of a potential dictatorship fell on a lot of deaf ears.
Rex, but let's not forget what they wanted most: cheaper eggs, damn the consequences. (And I wouldn't call most of them "vicious" voters, but "shallow".)
Rex-I agree. American institutions, economy, politics and culture are tied closely to white supremacy.It’s too bad that most Americans don’t know our true history.
Inventing a caste system based on skin color has proven to be a boon to capitalists and a boost to the psyche of people with white skin who enjoy privilege while others with darker skin who are labeled as “minorities”, “non-white” “disadvantaged” “marginalized” etc. struggle to be accepted as “worthy” and “deserving” citizens.
It was easy to rationalize voting for white supremacists because of immigration and the price of eggs. MAGA’s goal is to make America “great” by ensuring that some people “stay in their place”.
If we want proof of white supremacy just imagine what would’ve happened to Obama if he stole documents, incited a riot, raped women, cheated on his taxes, defrauded consumers, claimed White people were eating pets, etc.
Then there are all of the institutional disparities involving Americans’ wealth and health t which have been driven by exclusionary policies and practices as well as laws and violence designed to keep some people “in their place”.
Black people voted overwhelmingly for Biden and Harris because they’re clear about how white supremacy works. Why all of the attacks on DEI, CRT, BLM, “woke”??
The solution to America’s slide toward fascism is to dismantle racism. Without this tool the Rs wouldn’t win. This election certainly let us know where America stands…and Trump’s election to the highest office in our nation was not about the price of eggs.
Yes, but dismantling racism is a tall order. It’s been a deeply held “value” of white Americans for 400 years. I think we made a little progress when K12 schools were integrated, but that’s pretty much gone now, which has contributed to the regression to past attitudes on race. We won’t make any more progress unless we beat the rethugs and thoroughly integrate K12. Even if we were to do that (which would require a miracle), it would take two generations to reduce white supremacist attitudes to a manageable level.
Regarding terminology, I don’t like to see the term “white supremacy.” White supremacy is not a thing. White supremacism is a thing. White supremacists are things. White supremacy isn’t, and phrase using the term always can be rewritten using “white supremacism” or “white supremacist” without changing the meaning of the phrase.
If the Republicans cooperate, He can be removed on day two. J.D. Hates him as he said for real long ago. After that he only played the part to get the position. I'd much rather have Vance who has a soul.
oooo - I disagree re Vance. He is a Christian Nationalist and a misogynist. No thank you. In some ways I find him scarier than Trump because he is smarter than Trump.
Sadly, Trump is just a figurehead. He exists because the billionaire oligarchs have funded him and allowed him to exist. JD Vance could be worse. He is younger and smarter. He is slick and lies better. He is a shape shifting lizard.
The answer is the reinvention of the Democratic Party. It is so damaged, it may even require a new name. Whatever it becomes, it needs to be radically on the side of the working class. It needs to stir the hearts of struggling Americans - whatever their political affiliation. And that takes two things. A leader who can inspire with passionate rhetoric and who isn't afraid of the corporate overlords. And... a message of ECONOMIC JUSTICE.
And sadly, apparently needs to be a white male.
What an irony Bill. While we were smugly watching the Republican Party descend into fascism the Democratic Party was wasting away. What a massive mess.
At least the Dems are trying to be inclusive. In our society that’s more complicated than sticking with white supremacy and patriarchy that the Rs cling to as “gospel”.
The eggs are just an excuse.
Trump's supporters, among other things, are racist to the core.
What about his black and Latino supporters?
To be clear, white American males.
Today the police in Pennsylvania arrested the person of interest in the assassination of the CEO of United Health. Of course there was all kinds of coverage about it. All the commentators were concerned that so Americans are all right with the murder. They rightly point out that we should not feel this way but I have a different take on the whole thing which lines up with your comment about the people electing a felon. I for one am sorry that young man got caught but I'm more sorry for why he felt the need to do it. Isn't that what we should be talking about? Yes, it's wrong to gun down an unarmed man & shoot him in the back at that BUT I'm curious, why, he, as a CEO can set policy that sickens & most likely kills several people a year & that's ok. It's not against the law & when complaining & bad press do nothing to reverse the trend & someone takes the law into their own hands to point out the "legal" crime of killing people by making health care too expensive that is reprehensible. You'll note that in most major religions that murder is against a sin & the law except for self defense & war? So why the exceptions if murder is so horrific & war is mass killing on an industrial scale is ok but the taking of one person's life is so terribly wrong? We can't possibly say that CEOs of medical & drug companies DON'T have blood on their hands can we?
It's a real problem & we need to take a long hard look at oligarchs who run everything & get away with murder in some instances from dangerous products or withholding critical care. C'mon America we need a level playing field in the economy so that the little guy can make a decent living & a consistant legal system that applies to everyone evenly & if we don't get a handle on it there will be more deaths from health care denials & more CEOs will be at risk.
Rex, votes are still being counted and with 1% outstanding, Trump has 49.1% (not outvoted yet) with 50.9% of the people voting for Kamala and Others (Jill Stein, Uncommitted, etc.) 50.9 % did not vote for Trump so far. I'll let you know the final # but it is estimated that the final vote totals will still have Trump at less than 50%. It is NOT a "mandate" to screw the republic, as I've said before!
The vengeance might not be as satisfying as they think. We have to keep fighting for democracy, and the politics of joy and possibility. This won’t be easy.
Advantages only to rich white male Americans only.
Midterms 2026. Yes, the Trumplicans can do a lot of damage in the interim, but we must never surrender to despair.
Sometimes, only hitting rock bottom can induce change. By midterms, if everything goes according to trump’s plan, farms, dairies, and meat packing plants will have gone bankrupt and imported food, if you can get it, will cost at least 20% more. Perhaps this will get people who voted for trump because of higher egg prices to wake up and do some critical thinking….
Yes, the Trump regime will fall too.
Pretty sure they have a plan for the midterms. They didn’t work to get here only to remain in power for only two years. Or four.
Of course they have a plan but so do the Democrats. And though we don't have gazillionaires footing the bill we do have people. And by the time the midterms come around people are going to be big mad and know who to be mad at. (That's my story and I'm stickin to it ;-)
My point is that there may not be another election in this country in two or four years, or ever. The Democrats have a way of bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Russian psy ops carried the election for Trump. They attacked us. Should be a national security issue.
I agree. Psy ops are where Putin has weakened democracies and NATO the most, feeding divisive culture wars, laundering oligarch monies, and feeding the bloated egos of puppets like Trump, Musk, and their ilk in Congress. Who needs troops for that?
Especially when the puppets have money.
Then we cannot let Tulsi Gabbard lead Intelligence. That would be a disaster.
It iS a national security issue, Daniel. I totally agree that is what happened and that it's not being talked about. I truly believe that there must be Intel people investigating. If so, that is something we would not be privy to, as it would need to be undercover. Let us see what transpires with all this. It is a global issue for sure!
You misspelled "is", but it is factually correct as well. Ignoring the Russian psy ops component is the trojan horse.
We can count on Tulsi to fix it though. Right?
When they have billionaire backers with more money than anyone else in the world it seems they are impervious. How tragic for us all.
Our revolution was launched against the most powerful nation in the world. They had the best navy, the biggest army and deep pockets. We had passion fueled by anger and desperation.
The oligarchs of this nation can be defeated with the right message and a charismatic messenger (s).
Senator Chris Murphy's message voiced by Senator Booker and Sec Buttigieg could do it. Throw in Gov Whitmer, Newsom and Healy and that would be a phalanx of rhetoric and energy hard to defeat.
We need to throw ourselves in with the disenfranchised, the financially desperate, the families abused by a vicious healthcare system...so much frustration and pain out there. We can tap into it and bring change.
I agree, Bill, but let us not leave out VP Harris among those who can carry out this superb energy and messaging!
People tell me that Buttigieg could never be president, that voters would not elect a gay man... but here's another idea: He should be the next leader of the Democratic Party.
Yes Ellen! Pete is the best speaker and thinker in the party. He can project positivity and inclusiveness. But he can also eviscerate when appropriate.
Nobody is impervious, not even billionaires.
Maybe not quite as impervious as they’d like us to believe.
At the moment we can all write or phone our representatives in Congress to encourage or disagree with their votes. That’s a start.
Vote responsibly is what needs to be done.
Criminals are allowed to be in power all over the world, and always have been, because they're powerful and willing to do anything to retain and amass more power; with money=power in force, worldwide, people who have worshiped money include rich and poor alike, all dreaming the same dream and siding with whatever it would take to achieve it be it lottery or force. We just have to keep on keeping on countering that fact, showing people that freedom is not tied to wealth or power.
Matt, I read the last part of Heather's letter as a reminder to all of us not to lose hope and not let ourselves fall into a US version of Syria. I do not exactly how we do this, but I see some people here have had suggestions and are doing organizing. I think not knowing exactly what will happen when death star begin his reign is part of the tension we are already feeling.
To recap. You don't care that Trump was elected. And assert that the Attorney General, FBI, and god help us the CIA, should just find the final smoking gun and put Trump behind bars.
Yikes! And 88 and counting commenters 'Like' this? Seriously? Anybody want to rethink this fantastical, futile, and deeply flawed magical and dangerously MAGA-like mash-up of antidemocratic self indulgence?
We should care very much that Trump was elected. Because it's not just Trump and his immediate cadre of enablers, it's the millions who put him in power. Every eligible American who did not vote for Kamala Harris. And every eligible American who did not vote for Hillary Clinton. Captured and stacked the Supreme Court and ensured that we cannot put Trump behind bars. Which actually itself would not solve the problem. The problem is all the plutocrats and populists eager and on board with Project 2025. Trump is merely the personification of a Republican party bent on repurposing a Democratic republic as a clerical corporate fascist state. And all those unready or unwilling to resist in meaningful and effective ways.
We have just been overtaken by a coup. The United States has been reduced to a fascist form of government. The media is playing business as usual. People in these comments are still complaining about the media and calling the Republicans baby names. Biden went to Africa. Harris disappeared. Hakeem Jeffries isstill talking about numbers in the House. The Democrats are throwing paper wads at each other and hiding from the media. People are actually wondering if/when they will be arrested in the coming days. People are walking around stunned and terrified.
Thank goodness for Barack Obama, Substack, Bluesky, Meidas Touch and others for holding the fort.
"We have just been overtaken by a coup . . . " etc and so forth
Seriously. No. No coup, fascist government, leaders MIA or AWOL etc etc.
We had a free and fair election, albeit unduly influenced by foreign and domestic bad actors. The government is functioning, albeit dominated by a corrupt GOP. There are 100s of Democratic members of Congress pushing back every day. There are Democrats across the nation leading state governments. There are millions of us resisting every day.
Not enough Americans voted for Democratic candidates. Not enough Americans voted at all.
Those are problems we can fix.
Meanwhile and towards that goal we must be strategic and united. Including avoiding specious rhetoric - hyperbole, false equivalencies, fallacious assertions etc etc And reach out every day to our government officials at every level and media of every sort wherever and whenever there are opportunities for public comment. Connect. Engage.
Resist, oppose, engage.
And a host of current federal employees who loathe the Orange Menace and will slow-walk every malicious attempt he makes.
If they still have jobs after Project 2025 gets going....
Thank you Lin, for your careful perspective. We have to avoid hyperbole.
Dems in and out of office are afraid to do the needful. This incoming regime is basically a revolution and no one is stopping it. Seriously, with all the clarity we get from writers like HCR, say about Syria, Israel, or Ukraine, how is it Biden and Congressional Dems are responding as if this is a country club dispute over lawn fees (“we can agree to disagree but let’s meet at 5 for drinks…”). It is not a debating society moment when the incoming regime is proposing a n accused sexual abuser and drunk with a cloudy combat background as leader for the military of the United States of America? It is beyond belief. Dems are afraid to use their power and take emergency action to save this country. Trump announced he would use executive orders to end birthright citizenship (a right established in the Constitution). Where are Dem executive orders to deny installation of a Cabinet of anti-American and unqualified nominees who pose a threat to not only the US but the world. Dems don’t use the power they have because they fear change to the current rules of order which are imaginary and only they believe in. We voted Blue in 2016, 2020, and 2024. And here we are.
Thank you. I am being pressured to believe it is business as usual. In my deepest knowledge it is not. I offered up a Salon Article reflecting how you and I believe. Barack Obama is essentially echoing our thoughts.
Obama is saying for the Democrats to stop being polite.
Agreed
Lin has been paying attention
ThankYou. You, me, and a cast of millions paying attention and taking action.
And Thanks to HCR, Joyce Vance, Robert Hubbell, Timothy Snyder, ProPublica, and yes investigative reporters at WaPo and NYTimes et al. We all have reliable reporting and analysis to pay attention to. And CSPAN to pay attention to the Democratic defenders and Republican destroyers of democracy, fully and in their own words.
We came close to victory in 2024. We prevented a Trump landslide and insurmountable GOP majorities in Congress. Our activism has and can mitigate the potential damage of the next 2 years. And we can win in 2026.
No one has been paying attention. For the past 9 years the Democrats have been polite. For the past 9 years the Democrats have been playing by the rules. Guess what. The Republicans were not. And they won. I am not impressed by thin margins; only frustrated. The Democrats and the wonderful people you list were not able to forestall a coup. Good heavens we sure can talk about it a lot though.
Barack Obama is the lone voice speaking to what I am saying. I recommend you track down his latest talk.
I love President Obama. He is brilliant. But with complete respect, I suggest that he stops short of the next step. I refer you to Senator Chris Murphy who is asking us to reformulate the platform of the Democratic Party - knock it down and rebuild as a populist party of the working class.
Obama did deliberately stop short. I support Senator Murphy's suggestion. We can start by not acting like this was a normal election with a normal outcome and if the Democrats keep playing nice it will all work out like in Annie when the sun comes out tomorrow.
Bill-I assume you mean a party for the white working class because the Black working class vote overwhelmingly for the Dems. Why are the white working class not voting for the Dems who support unions, fair wages, fair taxation etc??
Sorry, but the R party has already been there. Done that. However, you’re welcome to take our Rinos and uniparty go-along, get-alongers. The Obama/Hilary ‘wing’ of the D party over the last 16 years at least ( really going back to the nomination of J Kerry days) have abandoned the low income, blue collar, non-four year college degreed, non-professional, non-credentialed working class Americans. Just recall what Gman Peter Strzok said, as he disdainfully said, he “could smell them” in Walmart. He was referring to Republican Trump supporters. I think many posting here have the exact same olfactory sense former FBI guy Strzok. And are proud to express it. The R party has turned and is now the party of working class Americans. FDR and JFK have officially rolled over in their graves. It is too late for the D party to recast itself as a populist party. Any of you populists? Gavin Newsome strike any of you as a working class populist? Any of the well known Dems on the national scene strike you as populists? The problem for the Dems is that they don’t have the right sentiments for it. And you’ll have to start by re-adjusting your olfactory sense.
"No one has been paying attention etc etc"
https://www.c-span.org/
https://www.propublica.org/
Both these publications look like business as usual. I see people playing isn't everything normal reporting.
Wish I shared your optimism, but the coup is no mirage. It will take much longer than two years
I’m not at all confident that there will be another election in 2026, in 2028, or ever again in America.
As always!
Yup.
Agree to all of this...yet no one is talking about how this cadre of enablers will ignore the death sentence that is just on the horizon ..global warming. While we are engulfed in our petty human drama, nature will follow it's course. We will have whined and cried our way through all of the warnings nature has given us.
Right you are! Climate change is the elephant in the room. “Drill, baby, drill,” is our wicked and stupid president-elect’s response. Everyone should hear his long interview in which his mindlessness is fully revealed.
Susan is correct.
The planet isn’t here to take care of us. Mother Nature does what she does in order for all living creatures to be able to continue a living example . That includes death. That allows life.
We think we’re above this?? Sorry……
but, I personally think we are smarter than we like to accept. We have science and curiosity and purpose to remain a gifted part of this cycle. We also allow those with NO kNOWLEDGE to take control for only themselves…. Gosh, wonder when they will realize that money is no currency for oxygen and or water. Have fun on Mars MAGA!!
Nature will ensure it's own survival even if that means the demise of humanity or large portions of it.
Grow.foodrevolution.org is one place to get information
Thank you, Lin!
lin• you are a deep thinker here. One of the things I was first taught as a corrections deputy (in the 18 months I worked the jail before going to patrol, where I spent the next 26.5 years) was that if you are supervising a housing area and something sudden draws your attention (could be anything from someone dropping a phone book, to a shouting match between two inmates, to someone coming to the dayroom door to ask for something) look beyond what drew your attention. There is something else going on that the people involved do not want you to notice.
The Democratic Party has not noticed anything beyond the circus of the modern political arena. It has been complicit in creating the environment where schools have been corrupted, family wage jobs have been outsourced where wages are penny on the dollars and people cannot find work that will support a family, where "rules" in media have been removed, and health care has been morphed from caring for people to creating billions of dollars in profit to "overseers".
To put our faith in a corrupted system to "fix" the "problem" is ridiculous. I cannot state your last paragraph any better. I argued in 2016 that the election was not just for president, but more so for the Supreme Court. I have been dismayed at the lack of action by the Justice Department during the Biden administration, but not surprised.
I'm not as articulate nor informed as you. My pedestrian analysis is that the Democratic party has brought its peewee water pistol to an AR-15 convention.
If Biden had continued Trump’s border policy ( but not separating families) Harris would have won.
What does your comment have to do with Syria? I remember back a dozen years, when Russia intervened. Many people felt that Russia, at first, in trying to secure her naval base in Tarsus, was providing a stabilizing presence. Obviously, I and other were off-the-mark. 😵
"Finally" . . . [SecState Blinken] . . . said, "the U.S. wants to make sure “that this does not lead to a humanitarian catastrophe." Between Israël, Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria, the Middle East is already a humanitarian catastrophe. 💔
With respect to SecState Blinken, Syria has been a humanitarian catastrophe for the entire Assad regime. Our current administration, while heads and tails above the proposed incoming team, is also trapped in its grad school seminar rules (and language) of the game.
Well I am an amateur SecState Blinken, so my essay, above, is doubly trapped. One problem with thinking through policy options is that, at least for me, the proponent is blind to his or her spinning a best-case scenario with a low probability of success and a big but unseen downside. 🤭
Perhaps SecState Blinken -- Caspar Milquetoast that he seems to be -- is also trapped by something else: avoiding unanticipated consequences that make situations worse. The SecState is a fine man intent on making the world a better place, I am sure; doing so is another matter, altogether. 😱
Indecision is a very costly trait; decisions, however, can be catastrophic. A long-run mitigant might be discouraging, if not shutting down, the arms trade. The merchants of death -- thank you Pope Francis citing a French journalist of the 1930s -- have aggravated these situations. 😢
a humanitarian catastrophe spilling over...
A catatstrophe that might of have been mitigated ten years ago. Back then Prime Minister Cameron floated the idea of allowing Assad to leave; that went down in chemically poisoning . . . quickly. This essay from ten years ago -- already a year late and now out of date -- shows that timely action may have mitigated the catastrophe then and the dissolution of any rule-of-law now. ✍️
https://nedmcdletters.blogspot.com/2013/08/letter-83-thoughts-on-syria-case-for.html
Ned, it is just one of those "LFAA comments rabbit holes". We go down them often, most of us.
Yes, agreed Ally. ln fact, I am composing a map of rabbit holes, I know them so well. 😉
Now, Eileen, I go off-topic: you may enjoy last night's monologue by Jimmy Kimmel, one of the few policy wonks whom I trust. 😉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kiv_gdDfckg
- Pulled Quote -
''The future of Syria is entirely unclear, Applebaum writes, but there is no doubt that “the end of the Assad regime creates something new, and not only in Syria. There is nothing worse than hopelessness, nothing more soul-destroying than pessimism, grief, and despair. The fall of a Russian- and Iranian-backed regime offers, suddenly, the possibility of change. The future might be different. And that possibility will inspire hope all around the world.”''
Hope is maybe the best of things right now.
Hope alone will not stop Trump or the power grabbing desires or actions of those in the Republican Party.
That is correct Nanci,
That need to pretend that “hope” heals all just reiterates our acceptance that pretending takes care of our messes.
That is why “the kick in the head “ of trump coming back to claw away our rights is a BIG warning for us to stop hoping hope works without hard work pushing it along.
My sentiments exactly. Hope and responding ethically to the machinations of the Republican party have gotten us where we are because we presumed the Republicans would act morally and play by the rules. They haven’t for a very long time and the Democratic party has been asleep at the wheel and slow to realize even now that they cannot presume ethical behavior from that party. We should not continue to be in La-La land and presume elections will ever take place in this country during the reign begging in January 2025. Or if the elections take place that the Republican party won’t manipulate the results to favor them remaining in power. The norms set forth in our constitution are no longer valid under Trump’s leadership and the blatant partisan behavior of the Supreme Court in its rulings.
I agree.I find it incredulous that on January 20, we are just going to turn our democracy over to a dictator who wants to destroy our Constitution, rule of law and everything we hold dear.Are Joe and Jill going to hand the key to the White House over to Trump along with the rest of the government and say”Best wishes”?Trump may have been duly elected ( and I have my doubts here on that ) but he is clearly illegitimate in the eyes of freedom and democracy.
Agree 100%. Biden and Dems are acting as if it is business as usual, walking us into something absurdly unacceptable as if this is a normal state of affairs.
What do you suggest?
The “smoking guns” are out in plain sight. January 6 and stolen documents in the bathroom. The system has been rigged FOR 45 not AGAINST him. Those with oversight authority just shrugged their shoulders, so what.
Let it go, Ellen. Too many lazy, greedy, selfish, ignorant, hateful, brain-washed people voted for Trump and what he’s about to do. We won’t be able to change anything until most people are miserable enough to want to earn Democracy back.
The straight party-line voters are the most troublesome. Most are too lazy or say they are too busy to engage and they likely think they know what's going on when they turn on Fox News when they roll out of bed and click it off when their head hits the pillow.
It's worse than cognitive dissonance.
Eileen, I liked your fantasy. It ain't going to happen. His lackeys are nominated to run the DOJ, the FBI, all the levers of government. It remains for a few brave republican Senators to save a complete dismantling of our democracy. Biden continues to govern in the few days he has left and continues to do a great job. If only the MSM would stop hounding him for pardoning his son.
and don't forget he's a rapist
I hear you loud and clear. The foolish ones who voted him into office are responsible for this calamity. The fall of Assad, however, is a rejection of authoritarianism. I believe we will see more of this in the future. Trump, and the Republican conservative movement itself, are a little late in their efforts to turn this country into an authoritarian
Don’t blame non-voters and Trump voters entirely. There’s a lot of blame to go around.
-The poor education regarding politics, civics, and the urgent need to understand and participate in our government processes. We needed to give all American children the best public education and teachers, but instead we segregated quality education by zip code and income level.
-Allowing America to get away with racism, sexism, misogyny, and intolerance. If you give your consent to targeting a group of people to be less than equal, you give consent for people to do the same to you. No one said you had to like everyone, but it is wrong to have inequality in our government and society.
-Longstanding biases in media
-A culture selfishness and growing lack of empathy
-Not putting a stop to corruption in government at all levels everywhere in our country
-Allowing the wealth disparity to grow so large by letting corporations have such power over government and their wealthy owners.
-Allowing *g-d* into government. We went from “In God We Trust” to having religious-based laws.
- Allowing poor quality foods & poor nutrition in America. Unhealthy bodies lead to poor behavior, attitude, cognitive abilities, and mental health.
You should care he was elected, as it shows that the rot goes deep and wide, and cutting it out isn’t just a matter of stopping one man and his close clique. 74 million of your fellow citizens support him and what he represents. American plutocrats support him. Your Supreme Court support him. He has large and well-organised far-right militias on his side. Far-right leaders and followers around the world support him, including here in Europe. Dictators recognise him as one of their own.
The Syrian dictatorship ends and then what happens here? Does our dictatorship begin?
This week, I believe, I read that Louis DeJoy had delayed the mail in ballots. One of those was mine. I understand that Mr Trump received many votes. IF all the mail in ballots had been counted, would that change? *How many votes were not counted? IF THOSE VOTES WERE COUNTED NOW, what would be revealed? **The number of votes that make up Trump’s margin of victory is small, so, just possibly, he fears that counting the mail-in votes will alter the numbers and the victory would belong to Biden. COUNT EVERY SINGLE MAIL-find someone trustworthy and make it a rush job… might help !
My sentiments exactly. Thank you 😊👍
Hi Eileen, love your war cry. How about Biden calling martial law?
And Melania is his handler.
I saw the strange picture of the orange felon with Saudis around a glowing orb, with the handler looking like her usual strange self in the shot.
Reminded me how disgusting he is. Both of them
Trump has again shown his ignorance of foreign affairs by declaring that Russia didn’t benefit much from propping up Assad. The Russian military has now lost its only outposts on the Mediterranean, a major blow to various operations in the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe - including Ukraine.
Not that we needed reminding of Trump’s glaring lack of intellect, which will cause so much harm abroad and at home.
I have no words to describe the orange thug. You are absolutely correct. If anyone in his future administration can take the time to look at a map, they can see that Putin lost its only access to the African continent by losing the two Mediterranean ports, Hezbollah lost land and air contact with their daddy Iran. Now Europe can build gas pipe lines avoiding Russia. The entire world gains by helping Syria become a land for every Syrian, in a country of their own.
Purobi, you are forgetting that Trump doesn't need maps because he can rule the world with a phone call. And when he does need a map he can change it with a sharpie. He also can defeat a pandemic with bleach injections and stop hurricanes with nukes. 😒 Is it any wonder that they call him Orange Jesus?
It will be time for Putin to collect from chump on Jan 21
That is why I said anyone in the future administration of the Orange Jesus.... :😅
You sort of did
Anyone remember the drink named “Orange Julius”? Only this onmaid with koolaide.
He thinks that Belgium is a city and India has no border with Russia. He probably thinks Mar-a-Lago is a city. Can't tell the difference between Sioux City Iowa and Sioux falls N. Dakota.
Purobi, This is Iran and Russia's plan.
Persian Gulf—Black Sea corridor is a transport and transit corridor project proposed and created by Iran.[1] The corridor project starts from the Persian Gulf and southern Iran, heads north across the country, and then continues to Armenia,[2] from where it reaches the Georgian ports of Poti and Batumi in the Black Sea. From there, Ro-Ro ships cross the Black Sea to the Bulgarian ports of Burgas and Varna, after which the goods are again sent by road to Greece and on to the European Union.[3]
Wikipedia
Black sea can be blocked by Turkey. See Bosphorus. Now neither Iran, nor Russia has any money to build anything. Let's see what happens in Georgia. Batumi may soon go back to Georgia (I have been all these places you mentioned, a few times) if the Russian puppet government falls and Georgia takes Abkhazia back. Armenia is pissed off about Nagarno Karabakh and Russia's propping up Azerbaijan. Russia's economy can not handle these many fronts. Then we have the Russian Federation countries itching to be independent plus China would love to get a chunk of Siberia back. Incredible world drama soon to be unfolded. Zambia's political situation is grave, Malawi is falling apart too. I need to finish my morning coffee (in Rome now).
At least the coffee will be good.
I know, right? We live here and the Italian coffee culture is something we adore. I will drink for you later.
Un dopio per favore
Grazie. Magari anche corretto alla sambuca,
For those that liked my comment. I cannot take credit for it. William Farrar is the person you should thank. He is a wealth of information and he quoted the Wikipedia article, and his own familiarity on the subject. It made sense to me, so I cut and pasted it. Purobi, see his post. You should be able to have an informed debate. I would look forward to that.
The problem is we can have a debate after the dust settles. We came to Pompeii for a shirt visit to see the recently excavted Blue and Black rooms. The first message I got as soon as I entered our Airbnb is from a young Georgian woman telling me how insane the current government is and how strongly they are fighting against this illegitimate government. All of us can speculate what may or may not happen but all of us need to wait and see. It is easy to solve other people's problems.
I agree that Syria should be helped. However, there are many different political factions that will fight each other and cause further unrest.
If only that were true Purobi. https://apnews.com/article/mali-wagner-mercenaries-russia-abuses-b03cf8fe6d9ddbbcdb2d012464944906
Russia is ravaging minerals from several African countries by propping up authoritarian governments.
I’ll need to scout around but I remember reading recently that Wagner has been rebuffed. A power vacuum as I remember.
I did not say they are not but it going to be harder and harder. Zambian government fell because of foreign debt and its last government's willingness to sell the country.
A totally ignorant president Michael. Consequences are going to start piling up and we all will pay the price.
Only ignorant people elect an ignorant president.
Trump is repeating the Tulsi Gabbard line on Syria and Russia. Now that Assad has fled to Putin, birds of a feather, perhaps Gabbard should fly to her BFFs. Just not as head of US intelligence services.
Please continue contacting your Senators and House members - all of them - to oppose recess appointments. Evidently there is a way for the House to force the Senate into recess. And as we know Republicans in general and Speaker Mike Johnson like nothing better than to leave town when the going gets tough. For every comment you write please phone and write your congressional delegation and send a Letter to the Editor. Do not give Trump a chance to make recess appointments. And to the degree possible get 'anti-qualified' Trump nominees to withdraw.
Democrats in both the house and senate should show up regardless of what republicans say or do about recess
A plan must accompany hope or hope is a nothing exercise. Thank you
I often write to Susan Collins. Days before the Maine Presidential primary she sent out an email asking Mainers to vote for Nikki Haley. And then Nikki Haley supported Trump after she lost. If Nikki had come out against Trump instead of supporting him, Kamala would be President.
There are many if onlys ...
A sure thing is to keep on contacting Collins et al
I call Blackburn’s and Hagerty’s offices and their staffs are cordial. The problem is both are tfg sycophants in the worst way. All I can hope is other Tennesseans are calling too.
Tulsi must be disappointed that Assad is gone
I’ve been writing to my senator, but I’ll add my reps as well. Thank you 🙏
Good point, lin• I have solid Democrats representing me: Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden, and Val Hoyle. I will write them today regarding the recess appointments issue.
Trump showed how he can turn lies into truth and I don’t see anyone going toe-to-toe to counter act him.
The media fails hugely at the task of countering mis/dis information!
https://www.c-span.org/
"Trump's glaring lack of intellect." I love that. While Trump just parrots himself with by calling everyone stupid many comment sites will reject your comment for calling the orange Julius stupid. Thanks Michael.
bullseye
At the reopening of Notre Dame, Trump in Paris with Macron just might have been turned a bit away from Russia and toward Europe, which would be a great benefit to everyone!
Heather,
Thank you for providing such a clear narrative of the events in Syria. It has been such a complicated situation, not that there is a simple solution now, but it is good to know who the players are and how the situation evolved from your overview. We are going to miss Biden's cool head and statesmanship! But, what an excellent reminder that dictators eventually fall!
The power of concentrated money has made damn sure they stay ignorant.
Yes JL, because facts and education and truth are the "enemies within 😵💫.
I saw a good interview on CNN with the leader of the rebels. It was referenced on The Rest Is Politics podcast with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. I was left feeling hopeful that things can really turn around there. Syria is one of those European-designed countries that has an even more complex social structure than Lebanon. Assad being gone is just the first step on the long, treacherous road to recovery.
That's what some people said when the Shah was ousted in Iran 45 years ago. And look how well that turned out.
Assad was a terrible leader and certainly no friend of the US (except maybe a few individuals like... Tulsi Gabbard !) but the rebels are much like the radical Islamic jihadists and aren't likely to be "good friends" of America either.
In the end we have few friends in that part of the world and maybe in this thing, as stupid as he can be, Trump might be correct that we should stay the hell out of it.
Our memories of expectations for Iran after the shah was deposed are quite different. I don't recall anyone saying it would be great when the Ayatollah returned from exile. Was Jolani putting on an act when he was interviewed by CNN and indicated that he's no longer a Jihadist? Time will tell. That said, I must push back on your criteria of being "good friends of America." I rather thought the criteria should be improved quality of life for Syrians.
I'm not a disinterested bystander. Though I could only spend three days there*, my time in Damascus left me, a single female traveling alone, with very tender feelings toward Syrians. This was in 2008, before the uprising turned Assad into a true monster.
*I could only get a 3-day transit visa from Jordan to Lebanon because I hadn't applied for a visitor's visa in the US.
There is a lot of "meet the new BOSS, same (or as bad) as the old BOSS" when the motive is absolute power, and it's hard to know how any revolution will eventually shake out. At least they may shake some of the influence of puppetmaster Putin.
I have wondered how much the US CIA contributed to the emergence "religious" political fanaticism in Iran and surrounding regions with the engineered overthrow of the secular Mossadegh government in 1953, in order to retain control of Iranian oil?
At what cost Vickie? We can tell that dictators eventually fall but shouldn't be in power to being with. I our own country we are allowing that to happen .
Perhaps it would help to better understand the psychology that somehow leads people to embrace dictators. It's way too common, and it gone on for far too long.
Republicans today and I don't mean just maga don't seem to have the emotional equipment to run things from the both head and heart places by at some point passing them through the mind’s thinking parts.
Beware of the image industry and its influence on people's brains therefore minds therefore emotions therefore a whole lot of confusion.
All that you said and in some cases, poisoned by PFAs, lead and microplastics. The neurological damage of one of those alone can be devastating. It's quite a cocktail when combined, I think.
Bill, you've articulated this in a manner that I have seen here for the first time. That is a fascinating potential contributing factor to what seems to me to be a completely inexplicable draw to the garbage that has been spewed out by MAGA world.
Sadly Robin, most Republicans are followers, not leaders and most can't explain why they support Trump. Most are uneducated and blindly follow Trump. If you asked them their opinion about Syria, they would be totally clueless having no idea what has transpired there since 2000.
With that being said, I know many Republicans who are well educated, but think that Trump will be good for their own pocketbook.
Evolution is a process of modification, not total redesign, thus the "branching" structure of evolutionary genetics, and species classification. A lot of our human neurological makeup is a recent evolutionary add-on, and a lot is pretty ancient. Some speak of our more primitive "reptile" nature.
I'm no expert, and it's hard not to oversimplify, but I think Robert Lewis Stevenson was on the right track when, in "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde" envisioned an inherent tension in human nature between civility and sociopathic narcissism. We all have an "ego", Latin for "I", but also capacities for empathy and conscience, Perhaps some people are born lacking some of the latter, but that does not explain how whole societies go sociopathic, as Germany did in WWII, and as our society our own history did with respect to brutalization of native peoples and slaves.
We have to observe and calm the narcissism in our own nature, and while we all of necessity pursue self-interest, choose what some call "enlightened self-interest", though I think must be compassionate self interest, as well as enlightened. I don't just think, therefore I am, I think AND FEEL therefore I am. It's not just a thought of honey that makes it experiential, it's the taste. It's not just the sound of music, it's how it makes us feel.
We have a special ability to chart alternative paths to alternative envisioned fates, often not with much certainty, but with our best educated guesses, that can improve the outcomes we experience;, and that involves self-reflection. The ancient Oracle at Delphi advise "Know Thyself", and it still holds; but now we have much better tools to do so, provided we choose to use them.
It's time we stop, hey what's that sound? Everybody look what's gong down.
We should have been pushing harder against blatant conflicts of interest and corruption long ago, including the blatantly antidemocratic "Citizens United" legalization of de facto bribery. Better late than never would be my hope.
With the participation of the citizenry. And concise forward
Strategic leadership.
I am grateful for the writings of Dan Rather, Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Andy Borowitz satire, and Dry Bar (clean) Comedy, reruns of The Golden Girls and Seinfeld to help keep a sense of balance and sanity amidst the chaos. Although, they all are keeping me up way too late at night!!
The inspiration that Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign brought during its 100+ days was extraordinary. It was a time of hope, optimism, and pride. Many of us felt a renewed sense of purpose, walking with lighter steps, clearer minds, and hearts full of possibility. We saw her as a competent, visionary leader ready to usher in meaningful progress for everyone. Losing that opportunity was more than just a political setback—it was a blow to the collective spirit of those who believed in her vision. The aftermath lingers, as we now face the tangible consequences of what could have been, a loss that feels both personal and deeply consequential.
The outright incompetence (and yes evil) that is being put in place now is an appallingly clear and present danger. We are watching a train wreck - much like a Hitchcock movie where the horror is that the viewer knows what is going to happen to the victim but can do nothing to stop it.
During trump’s prior occupation of the WH the diplomatic corps was decimated. My "go to" resource (for years) in understanding international policy and diplomacy is Nicholas Burns (career diplomat, soon to be ex-ambassador to China). Nick is but one example of the caliber of President Biden's administration appointments with the qualifications and experience Kamala Harris would have been able to tap into. Burns exemplifies the kind of knowledge, negotiating skills, and leadership that makes him one of the most engaging and informative speakers I have witnessed firsthand. He's as unassuming and genuine as his brother who happened to be in my high school class. We will be losing the continuity and decades of steady guidance of such capable people at a globally perilous time.
Losing such institutional knowledge especially in a time of global instability, is an incalculable loss. It underscores just how perilous this moment is, as we watch Biden’s accomplishments and ethical governance unravel before us—a tragedy for our country and the world.
"....Nick is but one example of the caliber of President Biden's administration appointments.." When speaking of Nicholas Burns, and the caliber of gifted talent Biden has been able to secure for our benefit, you have made the understatement of the year Janet. I like and also use your list of sources and some more as well. We shall have to share those in this little community going forward. Brava sister !
It is the institutional thinkers who are responsible for the mess we are in. These institutionalists were so far up in their heads and so entrenched in the "we have always done things this way" addiction the fascists were able to run rings around them. We have just witnessed a successful coup in the United States of America. Has no one noticed? People are actually wondering if they will be arrested for their political views. J6 prisoners are slated to be released. The media are jumping over each other to capitulate to the incoming fascists and Americans are acting like business as usual.
I am sure your Mr. Burns is a fine person. What Mr. Burns needed to do was think outside of the box and forestall this coup years ago.
Janet is right. And so are you. People of the future who study history will ask why there hadn't been huge protests outside the DOJ right after January 2021 - demanding that Trump be arrested, held accountable for an attempted coup. He should have been held without bail as a flight risk. The Russian connection was confirmed by the Republican Senate committee!
But we (I am ashamed of me) sat at home and watched as all the obvious facts were mired in lies and media obfuscation. We ALL saw the coup attempt on TV. That's all the evidence the DOJ needed. In another country, Trump would be wearing orange for life.
There must be something in the water that has numbed us....
I too cannot get my head around that trump was not immediately arrested after January 2021 and held without bail. We all kept asking how much freakin' information and proof is needed for an indictment, conviction, and lifetime jail sentence?! Now we have an evil dictator with immunity from everything surrounded by the $billionaire cabal who will be pulling the strings for their benefit only. These types of political situations do not end well . . .
We are exhausted. We are numbed and mentally down by years and years of his incessant screaming, lying and threats. This is the exact game of a narcissist and the playbook of fascism.
Our Democratic Party has failed us and the Country.
Barbara-I think we are failing each other by not being honest about what divides people in this country. We allow ourselves to be manipulated as different groups of people are demonized and dehumanized. It’s up to “we the people” to come together against the forces that want to keep us divided.
Agree.
Barbara - I identify with your frustration with where this country is headed. So many of us are screaming into the wind with sirens blaring to no avail! But the issue is not with the country’s diplomatic corps that provides an understated but essential component of international relations. Being Ambassador to China is a more public persona and where decades of experience and network building are invaluable.
Nick has been part of the diplomatic corps for 40+ years and appointed to various roles by presidents of both parties. Diplomats serve as the frontline representatives of their country, fostering dialogue, building relationships, advancing national interests abroad, navigating complex political situations, and providing a bridge between governments.
It is not the role of a diplomat to prevent a coup (or interfere in the politics of host countries) but to maintain open channels of communication and support the long-term goals of cooperation and mutual understanding. It is unimaginable that any professional diplomat would be comfortable working for trump hence we get the likes of former Georgia senator David Perdue as his choice.
Thank you for that post, Janet W.
thank you for such clear, useful information, Janet W.
How do I follow Nicholas Burns for more information?
He's still on the Space Nazi's hellsite. Not yet on BlueSky.
♥️ Well said.
Someone on here mentioned the Irish comedy trio "Foil, Arms & Hog" a year or so back. They release a new clip every Thursday, on YouTube. They are hilarious! As a newbie to them, I had years of clips to watch. I highly recommend them.
Thanks for the recommendation! We all need to brain drain and laugh for a bit. Then gird our loins and not let the evil ones get away with their planned horror show . . .
Dictatorships thrive on fear and the illusion of permanence. Assad’s fall shows that even the most entrenched regimes can crumble, a reminder that no dictatorship is truly unshakable.
I'm not sure that a dictatorship being overthrown by a bunch of Islamist extremists in the Al Qaeda mould is necessary cause for rejoicing. Remember the Taliban?
And they are, it appears, all Salafists. (Salaf being the presumed state of affairs at the time of Mohammed). Very conservative, and proponents of universal shari law. Sorry ladies... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi_movement).
Talia, there are differences between Afghanistan where the Taliban rose and Syria. The southern rebel Leader broke from Al Qaeda and has been preaching tolerance for minorities snd a focus on stable institutions that serve people. You're right that the Islamist label is worrisome, but there is hope that this will develop into a tolerant Islamic country, for which there is historical precedent. Time and future actions will tell.
Peter, The Assad regime was entrenched only because it was propped up by Russia and Iran-via-Hezbollah. The elder Assad kept Syria among the other nations, though he was ruthless. The younger Bashir al Assad squandered what little international standing Syria had and was brutal without purpose. Ultimately, demographics played a role because the Assad regime propped up the minority Alawites in Syria at the expense of a diverse majority.
Now, finally, Syria has a chance to develop its natural resources, encourage the innate artistry and resourcefulness of its diverse people, and be a positive influence on the region. They just have to keep Iran and Russia out. They also have to avoid antagonizing Israel, though the rebel leader, al Julani whose family was displaced from the Golan Heights in 1967 might not follow that advice.
Anne Applebaum's mention of "cold, deliberate, well-planned cruelty" and "Ludicrous lies and cynical propaganda campaigns" referred to dictatorships in general, but the same descriptions could also be used in a specific sense for MAGA, so-called "America First" and the ominous, imminent prospect of an authoritarian Trump 2.0 regime. They're all rooted in fanaticism and are the antithesis of democracy.
I missed the broadcast, but MSNBC aired the documentary Separated, directed by Errol Morris, based on the book by Jacob Soboroff.
A reminder of the official policy of 45's administration to separate families. An initial list of 700 children taken from their parents, including 100 under the age of 4 years old, was the basis for an ACLU class action suit against the cruel actions. Eventually there were over 7,000 children separated, and probably at least 1,000 who TO THIS DAY are STILL not reunited with their family of origin.
Trump 2.0 not only plans to resume these horrific procedures, but to deny Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship rights, and to DEPORT BOTH undocumented persons AND their American-born children.
THAT is what the 2024 Election has led to.
Well i hate to point this out but deporting undocumented people is the law of this country. We have repeatedly ignored it but it is one of the few things that Trump has proposed which are in fact absolutely in accordance with the law. And if their American born children are kept here that would be another case of separating families that we have v take against.
You can't have it both ways. If people come to this country illegally and choose to have children, it would be absurd to say "oh well now they can all stay. " that would make illegal immigration followed by having a child a way to get legal status in the US.
If that's the case, why not just open up the borders?
Until we decide to do that, deporting parents and children is the only legal AND sensible thing you can do. If you have a better idea, I'd love to hear it.
And so it goes: we, all the descendants of immigrants, continue to have a discussion of the issue that is purportedly the most concerning. It is a manufactured issue, less problematic than the truly important one: rich vs poor. The wealthiest are controlling the narrative and doing it well. And I say that as a white American who has a home and enough money to live.
the point of the comment was not that illegal immigrants should stay. It was that Trump (pushed by Miller) imposed deliberate cruelty on immigrants by separating them *at the time they crossed the border" from thei infants. This cruelty was intended to scare people into not coming. Many of the children were too young to know their parents' names, beyond mommy and daddy (and of course their own language equivalents). That is a large reason why so many have not been re-united. The other reason is that the parents were sent back without their kids, the relation not being identfiable (and Trump and Miller did not care.)
So it's not about 'dreamers', though treating them with some humanity would be a benefit to everybody.
By the way just for the record, I am FIRMLY in favor of COMPLETELY opening the borders and permitting unrestricted immigration to all from any country. It would eliminate the need for most ICE employees particularly those who are engaged in hunting down and deporting people.
I still love the poem on the Statue of Liberty...
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." by Emma Lazarus.
Let's go back to THAT America!
Btw, Th statute of Liberty quote was written by a foreigner. And not country on earth allows unmitigated migration. Now if it read: “Give us you sexiest, gorgeous but tired women..” ah then yes. (That was a joke)
You need to brush up on your history Bill. Emma Lazarus who wrote the poem that is enscribed on the Statue of Liberty was born in New York City and lived there most of her relatively short life. She died at the age of 38 the year after the statue was erected on Liberty Island. She was a Jewish activist who helped Russian immigrants fleeing from antisemitism on czarist Russia. It was NOT written by a "foreigner". Lazarus was as American as you and me.
I truly hope this is going to lead to freedom for the Syrian people, and eventually to freedom for the Iranian and Russian people who have been suffering so long under authoritarian regimes. I vividly remember the promise of the Arab Spring, and the students in my classes that had spent time in refugee camps in those areas.
Sharon I think you are dreaming of you really think that is going to happen. The people who have ousted Assad are radical Muslims who have no love for the US or for democracy. We will likely see a new regime in Syria, led by different people but just as repressive if not more so than Assad. This may seem like a "victory" but I seriously doubt we are going to love the results.
The Syrian situation started with the incredibly heady Arab Spring. Unfortunately it all ended badly - dictators, civil wars, famine, failed states and Assad cracking down on a divided tribal people to stay in power. The rebel groups have been lying low for 13 years in control of parts of Syria. Then this Wizard of Oz scenario ! So they start all over, with the emptying of the prisons, possible cooperation among rebel groups or the emergence of the usual strongman. Who knows and, you are right, we probably won’t like the newest Afghanistan.
We are, of course, absorbed in our own impending dark days. But events in Syria are an emphatic warning that the United States is unlikely to be any sort of reliable or staunch leader in the near future. That is not to suggest that we should be immersed militarily; far be it from me to weigh in on that and no one from the Pentagon has called to consult me! But the United States, as a democratic leader, is clearly heading for, at best irrelevancy, and at worst, complicity in very wrong ways in a nasty struggle for dominance.
Tffg’s clownish statement says it all.
He's obviously STILL p*ssed off with President "Oh, so much better than him" Obama!
We keep saying and hearing “unprecedented” and then carrying on like it’s over. No more “unprecedented” events can/will occur. THIS IS WRONG. Find another word if that makes you feel better but ACCEPT unprecedented is the new normal.
Please consider signing this petition to grant green cards to DACA recipients so that Trump can't deport them.
https://www.change.org/p/urge-the-government-to-grant-green-cards-to-daca-recipients
I don't think that will work. As I understand it the President doesn't have that power. It would take an act of congress which certainly isn't going to happen even if 150 million people sign that petition.
The differences in the viewpoints between President Biden and President-elect Trump couldn’t be any clearer than their perspectives detailed here. Trump once again sides with authoritarian leaders and their horrendous behaviors enacted upon their citizens to maintain their control and power. This explains fully Trump’s desire to use our own military against our citizens and his vows of retribution against those who oppose him. Buckle up folks for the horror show to come under Trump.
And Trump, as expected, takes his marching orders from Putin on Syria. Look carefully those of you who voted to put this Russian asset back in our White House. The risk to democratic institutions in the U.S. falls on you.
Syrian immigrants are celebrating in major European cities …Berlin and Stockholm had major demonstrations of relief. Germany and Sweden took in a large number of the war refugees. I guess time will tell whether or not the country stabilizes enough for those thinking of returning home.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/09/beyond-our-dreams-exiled-syrian-activists-set-sights-on-returning-home?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I appreciate having this history of the Assad regime explained in detail. Where it will all lead for Syria and the region seems to be a guessing game. We can trust that Trump’s Cracker Jack brilliant, thoughtful and knowledgeable foreign relations team will have smart plans to implement on day one in response to the changing landscape.
Oh, that smarts.
Lessons: Things can suddenly change.
Success results when preparation meets opportunity.
Putin and Russia are in steep decline and at an economic brink,
because (with the invasion of/war against Ukraine) they are intent on (violently) taking away inherent freedoms and human rights.
Biden's lifetime of experience - and moral compass - are integral to the nationalistic chess games being played out globally. His multilayered actions supported democratic values of self-determination (Ukraine), strengthened alliances (such as NATO), stood against tyranny - leading Russia to go hat in hand to North Korea.
Donald Trump is a narcissistic poser of astounding stupidity and absent of character (imo).
We (the USA) could really use a do-over of the 2024 Election,
or divine intervention before Inauguration Day.
No divine intervention and I fear that Putin will collect from chump on Jan 21st. How can we stop that…
G*d D*mn... is EVERYONE going crazy at the same time?
Beverly there are no do overs. Get over it.
There is even LESS chance of "divine intervention".
What's even sadder to me is invoking Biden as some ultimate moral compass. Biden got Clarence Thomas elevated to the Supreme Court. Biden did that!!! Biden just pardoned his son, something he swore he would never do. I am not condemning Biden, he is human just like the rest of us.
But PLEASE don't act like he is some otherworldly Saint. He isn't and never has been.
It is absolutely terrorizing and insane the this is happening just as Trump and his MAGA Traitors, a whole owner subsidiary of "Putin Inc" are coming into power. This may not end well.