That’s not fair! In its own way, Shit is actually quite intelligent. It acts in tandem with water and sunlight to make plants grow. Amazing, really – and far superior to the Orange Turd squatting in the Oval Office.
Never was man so cruel, nor more vicious, nor more wicked, nor more poisonous, and... nor more gluttonous. (I'm flooding the substack with a lot of comments today. I'm leaving for Argentina for a 10-day respite. And to empty my brain and conscience from the rot that it has been subject to. Escape early and linger and come back late.)
Stephanie Have an enjoyable respite in Argentina. If you have a spare moment, could you assess the national reaction to Trump giving $20 billion to the authoritarian president?
Argentina has a trump-like president who is also running the country into the ground with “chainsaw” cuts. He has increased the poverty rate in his country. Trump bailed out Argentina with $20 billion. Not much of an escape from the rot…
This is the civil war redux with the old South, border states and the old West in unflagging support of their state's and their" trumped-up federal government's neo-antebellum dehumanization of people of color, women of all colors and immigrants. The white supremacists in these states are not going to turn against the bottom-feeder-in-chief. The more he feeds, the more he defecates, the more they cheer him on.
We must stop them in November and that means defeating the pending SAVE act, prohibiting HHS presence at the polls, registering voters, exhorting the 90 million or so who didn't vote in 2024 to get off their asses and do so, etc.
If we don't, the dehumanization will go into overdrive.
Yes, defeating the SAVE act should be what we're all LASER-FOCUSED on right now, because doing so is absolutely crucial. The same goes for prohibiting HHS presence at the polls, registering voters, and making sure that the 90 million who don't vote finally get it and vote.
And yes, historically there has been more of a culture of dehumanization in the south than in the north.
Still, I think that what's going on today is essentially unprecedented. It's not the racism that is driving it all, it's the fact that the GOP plunged its voter base into a truly alternative universe, where everything that is false is said to be true - tons of tiny, in and of themselves morally neutral facts are being omitted or entirely distorted inside this media landscape day after day. PART of this propaganda is focused on dehumanizing, but most of it is not. Just watch Ed Schulz for instance. It's quite anti-political, a bit cynical at times, but Schulz is not a racist. Most of the big voices in this media landscape are not. This is why fascist propaganda is SO effective.
I agree. It might be fun, it might feel good or make us feel better in the moment, but- even though it might be 100000% true- it doesn't help to move things forward in a good way. We need to cultivate ways to connect, make it possible for people to get helpful info, build bridges, have conversations, change hearts and minds. We need those resources and skills now.
Also, it is function that supports healthy, functioning bodies in humans and animals. I prefer referring Republicans, their allies, and other political factions as bowel blockers.
We need to plant a new crop and enhance the soil. I'd say throw the old bad crop into the compost bin, but it might fester and come back to life. Or maybe remain the manure it always has been. .
MaryB, we never throw diseased crops into the compost bin or weeds either. Death star and his minions should be blown into outer space and join the trash out there.
An example: When I planted a beech hedge 30 years ago, I rented a mini-digger and dug a trench. A nearby horse-riding center gave me as much free horse manure as I wanted; it had matured for at least three years in their huge pile and was ready to use. I layered that with dirt below the level of the roots, then piled dirt around the roots, then layered manure and dirt above that again. I have not needed to add any nutrients to that hedge since then.
(But to your point: no human waste, and no fresh manure. I would never use either on my edible plants.)
How bad can it be for a person when that person doesn't even measure up to shit? The takeaway? When the voters put into office a person who isn't worth even a piece of shit, it is a very severe indictment of that nation's education system - a gross failure to teach critical thinking skills, civics, history and political systems.
As a retired teacher, I find fault in generalizations, especially when it comes to blaming our education system. Kids mimic their parents political views even when they are being taught the truth.
For some, kindness and respect are just not their thing. For some segments of society, people welcome a dictatorship, because they wish to see certain people subjugated or eliminated; for some voting is inconvenient, or lazy minds prefer not to have to think or read critically. Or people may just believe the country needs a realignment, a new military strategy, a new economic model. I don't know.
I agree but as a retired teacher from a very affluent community, a lot of common sense, very relevant courses have been supplanted by STEM and STEM only.
Over the past quarter century republicans have assailed American's public schools by supporting vouchers, which divert money from public education systems to subsidize tuition at private and religious schools.
I could not agree more. Education—yes to critical thinking skills, civics, history, political systems. Amen! Add in Logic, philosophy, literature, art history, debate, etc., and education for all and see what all that brings forth.
Public education today is a battleground. Republicans in state legislatures refuse to adequately fund public schools. Then they whine and complain about how terrible public schools are and that parents need vouchers so they can choose private schools instead of those terrible public schools. The Republicans create a problem that hurts the public good. Then their solution monetizes the situation making things even worse for regular folks but putting money in the pockets of the rich.
Richard, as a former educator, I can tell you that it is extremely difficult to overcome what kids learn at home unless said kids want to change. I cite the student we had who was in special ed and not because he was not intelligent. He had aspirations for having a nice family life which he wrote about in his creative writing class. We did everything we could to encourage him. Later on he and his father were in Washington (the state) and his dad told him to kill someone and he did and ended up in prison. Then there was the problem with students using the N word and any number of other examples. I do have ex-students who have overcome their upbringing.
Right wing UK PM Margaret Thatcher did the same thing by removing topics like critical thinking, politics, sociology linked topics, and current political history from the school curriculum in order to dumb down the populace.
Now why just make up lies to bolster a point. Especially an obvious one.
I didn’t care for her policies in many ways, But her government introduced the Education Reform Act 1988, which created the National Curriculum and standardized testing at key stages, meaning all state schools had to teach a prescribed set of subjects and content. 
The official rationale was to ensure a minimum national standard of literacy, numeracy, and basic subjects such as English, maths, History and Civic Education, and to give parents information to compare schools. 
Her own speeches stressed the need to raise achievement in basic skills to promote sustained competitive economic and civic growth.
Meanwhile, we seem to produce a segment of adults who believe in a flat earth.
Clearly, the culture is broken. The public knows as much about policy as it knows about - I don't know - decency or oysters and embryos - that is, not much. Their keen vision for a rules based, democratic state, is like that of bat blind in the clear light of day....
My (political) experience is that after Democratic leaders denigrated the entire hard working, physically gifted tradespeople in our state, and in other states across the country, Trump (who actually has NO respect for them) recognized a potential new audience for his con.
I don't believe this at all. Every trumper I know, and I know quite a few despite living in Mass, is covertly racist and selfish. This is why they voted for trump. he allowed these hateful qualities to be embraced and quantified, even in those who try to keep them hidden. It's subtle but if you pay attention you hear it: the comments on critical race theory, the support of abolishing DEI, the belief that minorities aren't "deserving of social programs because they don't work, or don't work as hard, that their children aren't as smart as the trumpers "white" children and the minorities only got awarded jobs or scholarships due to the color of their skin. Nothing more, nothing less.
One former friend is married to a Mexican woman from Mexico and still living in Mexico that he met through a Mexican dating site, yet he viciously denigrates Mexicans. Apparently his daughter is not of poisoned blood! The irony is astounding but goes unrecognized by this totally tone-deaf, indoctrinated man.
Sharon, I agree. Here in Arkansas, the political demographics are crystal clear. Little Rock, West Memphis and a few smaller cities which are home to colleges and university branches are the only places where you'll find educated, progressive thinkers. The remainder of the state is rural, populated by undereducated, Baptist or Pentecostal low-wage earners. There are pockets of Black and Latino communities in the rural areas, but they have been warned by the white overlords not to participate in civic life.
Outside the aforementioned cities, white folks freely use racially offensive terms and no one bats an eye. If this behavior is questioned, people just shrug and excuse the offender as being "old school." In fact, complacency pervades the state. Infrastructure here is deplorable and people just accept it as "the way things are."
Bigotry works as a political call sign! Trumpty, in his campaigning and in every moment of life, is just as bigoted as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. They called used outright bigotry on a regular basis. Half of our population, if not more, are prejudiced against one minority group, or one religious denomination or another. Many are openly racist and are white supremacists. Not very surprising that the most racist and the most entitled bigots happen to think of themselves as white; all while their actual genetic history is more, shall we say, complicated.
What is strange in Mass is that most of our rural areas, especially west of Springfield are solid blue. I live in an affluent, well educated town and we are very right wing. We seem to be an outlier for trump supporters. We are religious, majority Catholic and about 99.9% white, so this might have a lot to do with it. Just odd, because usually the better educated communities are usually liberal, and not batshi* crazy rightwing which my town is.
Not in my state, and not Democrats I know. We appreciate a good plumber, but not the private equity firms who own the companies and want to charge you $850 to replace a $350 garbage disposal.
Jen, our neighbor across the street has a degree in rhetoric and is an electrician. I admire people who can do these sorts of jobs and we have some good local companies. I do worry about corporate buyouts. Our dentist retired recently and fortunately, one of his dentists bought the practice. Otherwise, it might have gone corporate. Our vet was inundated with new clients when another local clinic went corporate. We have problems here in Oregon with the buyout of medical practices and facilities. Bottom line is the only thing that matters for these greeds.
What I hear you saying MaryPat is that we have idiotic leaders on both sides. That would explain a lot, and fits with the theory that negative political TV adds are more effective than not.
Mary Pat, when I hear the charge you've made here that Democratic leaders have denigrated tradespeople, I always want examples because that has never been my experience or been delineated in anything I've read. What are you seeing? What have I missed?
As a lobbyist in Michigan, I was in two meetings where Democratic Governor Granholm announced that our soon to be displaced (by computer operated systems) auto workers would be "sent to college" to learn how to run the computers. At the same time I was hiring trades people to fix up my house, and every one of them had something nasty to say about her attitude towards workers. They didn't mis-perceive: her attitude was pretty arrogant.
Interesting. This leads me to consider how Putin’s evil has fed into our world with his propaganda intended to divide our country. This had made so many of us quick to feel like victims and to blame others for anything we are lacking.
I think to some extent your criticism of Granholm is similar to the social and cultural divide that Putin used to create distrust of Hillary. It’s also something that Obama was keenly aware of and worked to minimize when he spoke of not isolating himself inside the bubble of our White House. The life of an educated woman trying to rise in political leadership in order to solve some of our social and economic ills for the benefits of we the people, to a fairly large extent, places them in a social bubble quite disparate from, for instance, my youngest son, a construction worker, living in a bubble of angry tradespeople. Seems like human nature makes it pretty easy for the powerful, greedy, and evil like Putin to infect our brains with a rhetoric where we seek to blame each other instead of one of tolerance and seeking to understand and work together. 🤷🏻♀️
My car’s diagnostic computer is a real thing. Perhaps it’s a good thing, but I spent most of my life depending on skilled mechanics to keep my car running. Adjustments to progress don’t always feel like progress.
Not just denigrated. They seemed to completely ignore them. And at times take positions or pass legislation that (mostly inadvertently) worked against them.
When I see someone question how we Dems lost the support of tradespeople and others, I say, well, it was years of hard work, but we finally fid it.
When polls are done now, that 35% number never changes. These are the hardheaded deniers, the core of the Cult of Trump, who refuse to see his faults for what they are. Why do they do that? Because as cult members, they've equated their wellbeing with their leader being successful, dubious as that is. And if he falls, they know they'll fall, too. That thought terrifies them, and, so, they won't budge on their opinions of him.
I wish they would officially announce themselves. Really. Wouldn't a study of them, at least a deep dive, be helpful to know more about them? Who they are, where they come from, what created their core belief systems? They're proud MAGA, right? You'd think they would proudly step up for such a study!
Hard-core racists used to hang out in their living rooms together and then keep their lips zipped when they went out the front door because it was a socially unattractive trait. Trump has provided permission to say the bad part out loud and the yahoos are making the best of it at the moment. But the racists know in their hearts that their hatred of others is wrong, but their own weak personalities require an undergirding of scapegoat. I think the most we can hope for is that at the end of this regrettable era, they’ll return to their living rooms and leave the rest of us alone.
He didn’t just give permission, he encouraged it and modeled it. I really think that shame is an undercurrent that comes from living in an authoritarian and/or evangelical home. Taught at young ages that our own humanity is something to be ashamed of and hidden instead of understood and reckoned with. Scholars have told us thru history that the oppressed become the worst oppressors. The trauma of shame provides a limbic connection that is felt. A freedom/permission to be oneself. After the 2016 election there were numerous studies showing that counties that voted strongly for the felon also had high rates of addiction and health issues. This is very consistent with the ACE study which connects childhood trauma to those same issues.
A combination of Dunning Kruger effect and a complete lack of critical thinking skills, amplified by their jealousy of (and need to "own") people who are educated and experts in their field.
I can not support the complete vilification of trumpers. Many of them are neighbors, former friends, even family members. I do think they are self satisfied and want tp preserve their way of life. They are concerned about people who are of a different culture, a different color, and a different situation in life, the adjective is xenophobic. They have a very narrow view of life and no interest beyond their niche. They can be generous, good neighbors and decent people but without empathy and will fiddle while Rome burns.
Well, then the republicans need to remind them to pull themselves up by their boot straps, be responsible, self-reliant, hardy and embrace that pioneer spirit - but not the kind that fought to eliminate the Indian menace. But maybe that too.....
Kelli, yes ..... with an attitude of kind curiosity, I'd love to see that because it would help me understand in details rather than my usual assumptions of trauma, role models, unappealing or non-existent career paths, toxic media and blabla. The future can offer opportunities to build together in big ways which can be scary, as creativity can be scary and thrilling at the same time.
“More than half a century of research in genetics, neuroscience and psychology has demonstrated that human behaviors, including social and political attitudes, are influenced by genetic and neurobiological factors (for a review see Hatemi and McDermott 2012a). Lindon Eaves, Hans Eysenck and Nicholas Martin pioneered this radical departure, finding that genetic variance accounted for a substantial portion of individual differences in conservatism, sub-dimensions of social, economic and defense ideologies, as well as individual social and political attitudes (Eaves and Eysenck 1974; Martin et al. 1986; Eaves et al. 1989). Additional twin and extended kinship studies which included parents, non-twin siblings, spouses, and twins reared apart confirmed these earlier results and found that most individual political attitudes were influenced by a combination of genetic effects (which explain between 30 and 60% of variance) and environmental influence (Truett et al. 1994; Eaves et al. 1999; Bouchard and McGue 2003; Hatemi et al. 2010). In this way, children resemble their parents because of their genetic relatedness as much as parental upbringing and social environments”
Well, the colonizers genes persist! No doubt about it!!
Bullies are gonna bully (and rape) 😢
Makes ya rethink the entire anti-abortion culture, huh?
“Inferiority” is a human construct. Genetics is science.
I would greatly prefer to be able to spend more time outside in the sun without worrying about getting burned, or skin cancer or slathering myself in greasy chemicals or sticky zinc oxide.
Question for the future is what in hell is it about humanity that creates a need for the human construct of “inferiority”? I want to see a construct where we work together to build up what’s best in each other toward’s a goal of creating abundance in the world for all.
Our lives would improve if we worked on rethinking our constructs instead of competing, dominating, accumulating…
Except that we are living in the year 2026, not 1913. At some point, might our morality evolve to a point where we can stop denying science? I’m hopeful but doubtful. Curious and kind.
In the year 2026 we also have learned of neuroplasticity and epigenetics.
And many among us have committed themselves to the idea of equal Justice for all, and that laws and order are necessary, and our love for each other could prevent our violent destruction.
I’d like to think, anyway, that I am light years away from having been an amoeba. 🤷🏻♀️
William, I've commented on this before, but I'll repeat a summary version. It is significant that according to Pew research, 35% of the U.S. population identifies as evangelical Protestants or traditionalist Catholics. These folks focus on the Old Testament (aka Hebrew Scriptures) and its jealous, vengeful God. They are obsessed with sin and guilt.
The racist factor comes from the long-held doctrine of "The Curse of Ham," an Old Testament myth about Noah cursing his grandson, Canaan, because his father, Ham, son of Noah, was a voyeur observing Noah engaged in some embarrassing act while drunk. At Noah's behest, God turned Canaan's skin black and caused all his descendants' skin to be black, and guaranteed that they would always be enslaved to others. Only in the last few years did the Southern Baptist Convention remove this doctrine from their corporate theology.
Not all MAGA are evangelical and not all evangelicals are MAGA, but the overlap is almost total.
It is so important to remember that every human has the potential to have a sudden experience of the truth of a situation that changes everything in his or her or their noggin. We have to remember that even the most loyal MAGA can have a conversion experience. Be kind. Be respectful.
There's hard mathematics (well beyond what I had to learn to survive the first year of engineering school) that explains the numbers that our species has evolved. This is also beyond the legal and business training that most of our political leaders have.
We are doomed to endless debate and conflict until human societies and their governance assets are able to unlock this quandry and learn to manage with it.
You have to get their attention first. How do you wrest the attention of shallow people from their digital devices, football scores, “ influencer” posts and their mirrors long enough to get them to focus on the future of this country.
May I suggest at 6:00 CDT that shit, though dumb, is important? I keep looking at the face of the unhinged, nasty smelly (remember MBS on the hot mike?) stupid, elected “president” of the country I was taught to love and work for as a child during WWII. It shows a frightening depravity and almost unbelievable meanness.
Justin Sain, Denial slaughters truth. I know this personally from my family history. People repeat their pov about something as that something morphs into another form. It happens over and over. Any attempt to alter that rigid pov fails. And it kills.
In trump world everything is deceit, lies, cunning, theft, sodomy, wickedness with no fear of retribution or concern for the world. They are worse than beasts. Did I just give the animal kingdom a bad name? I apologize....
Humpty is The Beast: not a statement about other mammals; he is the worst that American humans currently have to offer. Of course, other nations have, and have had those who were just as bad or worse. Russia had Stalin and not surprisingly, as a result now has Putin. Germany had Hitler and the Nazis, which took a world war to crush. China had Mao who ordered millions to be killed, or to be starved, and now as a result they have the totalitarian CCP. Why do we humans constantly elevate the worst of us to the highest positions? I think that the dumbest of us are too easily manipulated into thinking that voting for the worst mothraflocker amongst us will only hurt the minority groups that they (the dumbest among us) want to hurt. They never figure out that they will be among (their) victims until it is too late and the damage is done to everyone.
I got a new refrigerator delivered yesterday. The driver was wearing a MAGA hat. Rather than climbing on my high horse and refusing to allow him in my house, I asked him why, in a reasonable and interested tone. This late-middle aged guy said that there are lot of things he dislikes about Trump, but he has 4 grown kids, and none of them can come near buying a house. They put up with rent that goes up more than a hundred bucks a month, every year. He thinks Trump will fix that.
Sure, some of his voters are racists and idiots. I’m sure some Harris voters have their own grave faults.
But we need to persuade that guy, and many more like him. We need to grow our coalition into now-red states, ot face electoral ruin after 2030.
Frankly, one of our challenges is arrogant, stupid people who refer to voters we might otherwise persuade, as “dumber than shit”. And others, in love with their own meager cleverness, who find a way to riff on the remark.
Dumber than shit. I like that. In English I usually say, "dumber than dirt" which gets complaints from my daughter, about me cursing in front of her. In German I usually say "Vollidiot!" I draw it out so that it is more like "Vo-o-o-o-ollidiot!That is a like a complete and total idiot. Of course I am not making fun of people who are not able to understand, but people who should know better.
As racist and disgusting as is post was, it has been the perfect distraction, in his eyes, from the trumpstein files. I believe his actions and behaviors are all or in part because he knows his name is mentioned throughout the files and what better way to distract from all that than to post something so vile and racist people think about that instead of the files.
Most of what the Orange Monster does is distractive. And it is certainly the Epstein Files that he doesn't want us to focus on. And dozens of other accusations of abuse by women - including his ex-wife.
But it is also the billions of dollars the "Trump Family" is extracting from U.S. citizens. Last tally was about $4 billion.
And then, this Ultimate Con Man sued the U.S. IRS (us) for $10 billion. Reason? Reputational damage - the revelation that this Sleazebag hasn't paid any significant taxes because of all his "business losses"?
So wait. Think. Is this lawsuit really about embarrassment? Or fear? He lost so much money he didn't pay taxes...isn't that incompetence? So you and I should pay him $10 billion because he is exposed as a lousy business person?
Yes! It's outrageous. So is hanging out with a child rapist for 15 years. The fact that even 6 people are left in this country that support such a creature is astounding.
Mike Johnson should have introduced Articles of Impeachment a very long time ago. His legacy will be that of "Protector of Pedophile and Thief".
This corruption (violation of laws and of universally accepted morality) exceeds anything I have read in fiction. If it were a novel, it would flop because it is so unbelievable.
The people who still support 47 have dark hearts and their souls are long gone to vapor. Poof. Think Zombies.
Bill, I used to think that at some point, the Cognitive Dissonance would kick in, and that my MAGAt cop cohort would realize what they were being fed was dis/misinformation of the highest order. Instead, they lap it up like my cats lap up tuna juice. It feeds a part of their souls that absolutely disgusts me.
Marj, unless Trumpstein were trafficking boys (which is not impossible), I don't think you'll see "Holy Mike" in the files. I would look for him on Grindr.
Yes, this is true. The people who support him comment sometimes on posts in the Free Press, which I also subscribe to, and they are delighted that we take the bait, get crazy over his behavior. This is a big part of the strategy.
If these reports are indeed valid, what these men allegedly did was more than just perversion beyond sex, it was full blown sadomasochism. If the women who addressed Congress spoke of this to Mace, it is understandable why she was reportedly "shaken," and the perpetrators absolutely MUST be revealed and prosecuted.
If anyone reading is strong enough to stomach this and is willing to devote the time to reading his LONG Substack--please--restack, post, forward, whatever. I fear it is up to the public to force justice to happen.
For the Epstein-Trump-Musk-Putin international relationship to be “studied” by the Tusk government gives me great hope. Dzerzhinsky, born in Kyiv, was grandfather to the KGB, Putin’s home. Like the British, the Polish have a long and distinguished history of “digging.” (Sorry. Couldn’t think of a better word for intelligent Intelligence. Thinking about how the Allies got the Enigma Machine.)
Yes: Agolf Shitler is trying to finish what the Nazis started, and he’s made quite a bit of openly transparent attempts along with his coalition of white Un-Christian nationalists. This is the culmination of their efforts over time; but it seems that a majority of non-Repugnican voters are not buying the shit that they’re selling, so what next? Calls to mass violence from Trumpstein?
That may well be the method to his madness. I think the likelihood grows with every day that rapidly accelerating fronto-temporal dementia, where all the filters just come off, is now the dominant force behind everything he does.
It feels more like this is who he’s always been and no longer gives a shit how many millions see it. Perhaps both are true, of course.
I would agree that in the past he has a finely honed edge for the art of manipulation, trickery, the “con”. But as age deteriorates his neural functioning and the FAFO consequences further his narcissistic collapse, I suspect he’s running on fumes of revenge and jealousy. He has plenty of parasites around him though to continue the con.
Sorry,no. It is just. Trump letting his inherent hate and racism out for all to see. That is the basis for all his actions. He cannot help himself. Surrounded as he is with fellow white supremacists he sees nothing wrong with showing his lack of humanity.
I am waiting for the day to see "all the action" at the White House when the Trumps and their administration are gone. Lots of disinfectant trucks as well as dump trucks to haul out all that gaudy gold krap. As well as the photos hanging in the hall, and who knows, perhaps there will be a statue of Trump in front of his office by that time. But I am waiting for the day. It will be celebratory.
Of course he stiffed the artist. I'm waiting to hear the news of when that is melted down. It'll happen someday. Hopefully I will be alive to enjoy it.
I agree with the first sentence but my 2 yo granddaughter is adorable and while she hasn't hit the full fledged tantrum stage yet, it will never be on the same scale as what is in the WH now. 😳 The teenage years? Now, that's a horse of a different color!! 🤯 🎠
Funny you should say about your granddaughter not being at the tantrum stage, my 18- month old grandson has been having tantrums but he's still adorable. However, I know this to shall pass, but, with tRvmp, not so much. His tantrums are way worse than any toddler.
That's why -- when all the Ku Klux Klan klaverns unite to honor Donald the Destroyer for his racism by voting him their Imperial Wizard, and he celebrates it with the first national cross-burning on the front lawn of the newly renamed Trump White House -- the plutocratic press will cover it as if it were nothing more than normal politics.
You are correct, Loren: MAGA s the KKK, Trump is the Imperial Wizard. Timothy Egan, "A Fever in the Heartland" (2023); Heather Cox Richardson, "How the South Won the Civil War," (2020); and "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" published in the Feb. 2018 edition of "Critical Sociology."
'How the South Won the Civil War" was my introduction to Dr. Richardson. Two other vital books are Chris Hedges' "American Fascists: the Christian Right and the War on America" (Free Press: 2007) and Jeff Sharlet's "The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" (Harper-Collins: 2008). The Democrats hate the latter reference because it documents Hillary's clandestine collaboration with the ChristoNazis. But I've long been aware of the threat; my father cross-referenced Goldwater's speeches to their sources in "Mein Kampf," hoping it would aid the Democrats, but by 1964 they were already too compromised, and in essence they told him to get lost.
Ouch, Loren Bliss, I missed that. As a musician, focused on the arts in the US, I hadn’t time to concentrate on much “bad,” except racism and homophobia.
J L, I'd posit that plutocrats have always owned the media (at least the major outlets.) I'd also say that, for the most part, they've traditionally had a hands-off policy, allowing their executive editors, editorial boards and the like to make the day-to-day decisions about coverage, and so long as staff maintained profitability, ownership was happy. Ex: John Henry (billionaire owner of the Red Sox, a soccer team, F1 racing team, etc etc) bought my beloved Boston Globe and has had, to the best of my knowledge, nothing to do with editorial decisions, unlike the Murdochs and Bezos of the world.
Caveat: my only *bona fides* are that I was a paperboy in my youth from 5th to 9th grade for 3 Boston papers, and have been a lifelong lover of newspapers.
What has happened to the media (and I'd include the entertainment side as well) over the past decade is shameful. I'm not sure if this was the start of it, but the idjit djt calling once-reputable companies "fake news" has jaded and tainted consumers' view of the industry for good, it seems. We no longer trust what we see and hear reported, and AI makes it much worse. Were it not for the fact that we each carry devices on our persons to make an A-V record of what is happening (even going back to Romney's talk to a donor group about the privileged class in 2011 or whenever it was), we wouldn't know much of what we know -- the killing of Mr. Floyd, Ms. Good, Mr. Pretti, and only and on.
It is a daunting pile up of facts. But we can't indulge in the outrage and use up our energy on purposeful distractions. The apes trope distracted from the Epstein files, yet again, among many other things.
After the ICE reform scandals and the question of who is actually in charge of CBP, the next biggest threat of the day is the attacks on voting rights.
This has lots of moving parts. The SAVE America Act is the newest piece.
The seizure of the ballots in Fulton County Ga ties back to Dominion Voting Systems, which provided the election equipment used there. Dominion received a $787.5 million settlement in a defamation lawsuit alleging it had rigged the election. Dominion still had suits open against Rudi Giuliani, Sydnee Powell, Mike Lindell, and OANN when it was purchased in October 2025 by Scott Lieindecker, who was a former Republican Election official under Ed Martin, Trump's current Pardons Attorney at the DOJ.
The original owner of Dominion sold it because of concerns about its viability. Lieindecker is the sole owner and bought it for an undisclosed sum. The suits against the election deniers were dropped, and Dominion was rebranded as Liberty Vote. Liberty Vote proudly serves 26 states and supports elections for more than 54 million voters, and we remain focused on supporting you with dependable, modern election technology for the years ahead, according to the company.
According to Axios:
A Liberty representative said the organization will engage in a "top-down" review of Dominion's equipment ahead of next year's midterm elections, and that it would "rebuild or retire" machines as needed.
Anybody guessing what they will find???
Lieindecker also owns KnowInk, a manufacturer of electronic pollbooks used to check registrations at the polls. Liberty Vote and KNOWiNK together have systems deployed in more than 40 states, and KNOWiNK’s Poll Pad alone checked in about 36 million voters across 29 states in the 2024 general election, according to the company.
Lots of pieces of the puzzle are fitting together. Trump is coming after the midterms. He's going for disenfranchisement through the Save America Act and control of the machines that verify registrations at the polls and count the votes. He wants to put a few ICE agents at the door to add a dose of intimidation. Steve Bannon told us so.
So can we, as voters, refuse to use ‘Liberty’ machines, and demand paper ballots? If We The People start doing this during the primaries, perhaps we can be reasonably confident in the November results?
To answer this question, Daniel Kunsman, you would need to check with your state voting commission. Elections are run by the several states unless Trump is somehow successful in “nationalizing” it, whatever that means. I only know the laws in Massachusetts and NY, but I think most states follow similar procedures. So if your vote is challenged, you can vote on a provisional ballot, which is paper, but if it isn’t challenged, in Massachusetts and NY at least, you write on a paper ballot and it is fed into the machine to be tabulated. But the paper ballots have to be preserved and can be recounted. Preserving the paper ballots is legally required and necessary for the democratic process. There is a very stringent process by which they are preserved and locked up in theft-proof and fire-proof storage, and the chain of custody is also written and preserved. The chain of custody is what was destroyed when the FBI went in and seized ballots in Georgia a couple of weeks ago.
So yes, Elizabeth, I will be contacting the Ohio Board of Elections with this question. But it’s not about MY vote being challenged; it’s about ME challenging the veracity of Liberty’s voting machines. My thought is that if enough people express doubts about Liberty, each State will HAVE TO stand behind the legitimacy. Liberty will be forced to stand down, and play by the rules. I’m hoping more people from more states will follow my lead.
I totally understand and sympathize, but I was only addressing your question about paper ballots. Good luck with your Board of Elections! I hope you can get somewhere before the primaries.
It depends on whether the SAVE America Act is passed. I am more worried about the KnowInk pollbooks showing that people are not registered, and the subterfuge in the Act about Real ID, which sounds like it embeds citizenship data when it doesn't.
I am also wondering if they get the rolls for all the states and cross-reference them, if they will challenge everyone who appears on more than one state's roll, or at two different addresses, because they moved and didn't cancel their previous registration. Purge first, ask questions later, and then cut off counting before the provisional ballots can be counted. So many crappy possibilities!!!
It's going to take a couple of days to splice together the SAVE America Act with the previous voter registration act to figure out what is going on. One thing I keep bumping into is the lack of a resource that provides a clean, edited version of the operative law. All you get are the amendments to what was previously there--"change phrase A to Phrase B on line 13 of page 16 of Act XYZ" "Add paragraph F after Section 3 Clause 2 numering is as clause 3."
I have a friend who is a retired law professor, and she sent me pages of instructions on how to do it.
There ought to be a Transparency in Legislation Act so you can see what you are getting. The Congressional Record provides summaries, but they are not the same as actually reading the text. Law professors apparently use law librarians to do the job.
We’ve got a LOT of work to do, once we retake our government! For now, we all need to get along side Megan, and overwhelm our Reps about voting down the SAVE Act.
Both the SAVE Act HR 22 (passed by House, not yet introduced in the Senate) and the SAVE America Act HR 7296 (House vote possible on Tuesday) and I haven’t figured out what the key differences are. :-(
It is crazy making and confuzzling ( A favorite word of my daughter’s when she was four.)
Be sure you are asking the members of the correct chamber about the correct bill.
Save America Act HR 7296 in the House vote on Tuesday is the priority.
Confuzzling! Love it!! The aim of every Repub.. er Nazi, is to have us all confuzzling about what their bills actually are. I'm gonna throw that at the Nazis here in Ohio!
As long as there are paper ballots is the mantra. But clearly to have computing machines owned by MAGA operatives doesn’t bid well. The good news is that many republicans are disgusted with this MAGA movement and I pray our democratic side doesn’t fall prey to un popular issues.
Don’t get me started on the post office. I paid insurance and signature request on an expensive print and when delivered, my signature was forged and the package left on front steps and was stolen. It took me 3 written applications demand for coverage before they finally paid. And you can believe me, I was thinking evil things about the post office at the time. An I was prepared to walk a picket sign in front of local post office headquarters if they did t pay.
That's Lieindecker. With a sole owner corporation there is no external oversight. He wrote that he is aligned with Trump's executive order on voting integrity. What is suspicious is that having gotten the huge settlement from Fox, that the prior owners of Dominion would have sold, since the Fox settlement was many times the prior purchase price of the company.
If Lieindecker wasn't pro-MAGA why would he have dropped the other defamation suits since he won the Fox one which would have had the best defense being the biggest.
I originally thought that the prior owners could not overcome the hit to their reputation and lost most of their government contracts, but here we are, 5 months post sale date later, and Liberty is touting how big their embedded base is.
Of course the whole thing smells like rotting fish. The process of decomposition may be unclear, but we know what the end result is likely to be. More corruption, at the cost of our democracy.
I think that if they are brazen enough to send feds at all, they will do so regardless of the governor. The larger risk is federal authorities acting outside the bounds of Constitutional norms because Congress failed to reign in the lawlessness. Let's hope conditions on DHS funding and a rejection of the SAVE Act come from the Hill this week.
I’ve got to believe that a large number of both male and female Republican voters will be affected by the Save America Act—no passports and women whose IDs don’t match their given names. Their fixation with “owning the Libs” will possibly be their own undoing.
I agree if it is equally applied, but Trump is saying he only wants Rs to take over voting in 15 blue cities because that’s the only places where there is rigging.
As the judges are now saying, there is no longer a presumption of regularity.
Once upon a time, I used to think you could fix that with a high-fiber diet.
Georgia, thank you. You’re doing a great job keeping the details before us. Even if I can’t deal with all the references, appreciating that they’re available and for the time and skill to collect them.
I just did a deep-dive into the US Election Assistance Commission (US EAC) and am somewhat relieved. The Commission was established by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002. Everything here was obtained using Perplexity AI.
The good news is that it is an independent commission of 4. Congressional leaders submit names reflecting balanced party representation (no more than two from the same party), after which the President formally nominates them for Senate confirmation. Currently, 1 D and 1 R were appointed by Obama, and 1 D and 1 R were appointed by Trump in his first Term. They can serve two consecutive four-year terms and be held over until new ones are appointed. The two appointed by Obama are holdovers whose terms expired in 2023.
The bad news is that the Biden administration did not appoint new commissioners, so Trump could at any time choose to do so. The other two had first terms that expired in 2023 and could remain until 2027, or Trump could choose to replace them now. So Trump gets to pick all 4 Commissioners before the midterms, but 2 must be Rs and 2 Ds if he chooses to follow the law that created the commission.
The Commission was funded on February 3, 2026, when the minibus was signed. It operates under the Congressional appropriations committees (the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Financial Services and General Government), which provide budgetary oversight, while the EAC's Office of Inspector General conducts internal audits.
The good news is that there is still an Inspector General. Sarah Dreyer is the current Inspector General for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Recent EAC OIG documents, including the FY 2026 Oversight Plan and the Management Challenges report dated December 2025, explicitly refer to Sarah Dreyer as Inspector General, overseeing audits, investigations, and evaluations of EAC operations and grants. 2025.
The good news is that they use independent test labs to verify the performance of election equipment, and those labs are recertified every 2 years using NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) testing standards. There appear to be rigorous compliance standards and best-practice recommendations for the states on using the equipment and verifying results.
The bad news is that testing is optional, and the states can choose to follow the recommended standards or not.
The good news is that HAVA has funds for state grants to enhance election security, and the US EAC was funded at a higher level than Trump requested.
Bottom line is that by law the commission has to be balanced between the parties and it is independent. The bad news is that Trump could nominate all 4 new commissioners tomorrow if he chose, ahead of the midterms, but they would have to be confirmed by the Senate. It is not clear if the Dems must stay if someone isn't confirmed or Trump could fire them like he is trying to do with Lisa Cook on the Fed. And with everything else these days, the presumption of regularity has to be questioned.
djt's vile racism runs all the way back to early life with his core racist father. All the recent 2025-26 elections are evidence that generally a bit more more than 32% vote for him.
I go back to his first run for President when the Iowa primary was a flop, his New Hampshire primary result was poor but, the vote in the South Carolina primary was around 32% for djt in each & every district throughout the state of South Carolina.
That evidence is what we now call his maga base a deep & dividing fissure in the not-United States.
Heather has detailed our history succinctly in "How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy & the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America".
Time to re-read Heather's book and finally deal with it.
Mary Trump has said it correctly as she points to his developmental stages where both parents were unable to offer positive reinforcement and love and this twisted him into the monster he is today. And we must not forget, Joe Biden gave him the opportunity to win and destroy this nation by remaining in office for a 2nd term.
Our darkest hour is at hand. The effects of this unwanted and unneeded destruction is at hand. Protect your assets. My hunch is the stock market is going to crash. The Phoenix will rise. But not before total destruction. We must set aside our differences and unite. We all can contribute according to our strengths.
I already notified certain local activists groups of my willingness to drive children of immigrant parents to school in my van. I would also open my home as a sanctuary if needed but I do live in a relatively safe Connecticut. I published an open letter to our governor asking him to give instructions to our state National Guard to be protective of our residents. Whether my letter had anything to do with it, he is now on record of taking a more defensive rule for our state police apparatus.
I've thought for a long time that the markets are thriving on vapor and magic beans. The Dow rose by 1200 points today for no good reason. I should be happy about that but instead it scares me to bits.
I applaud your actions. And I agree that we are on the verge of a market collapse. If anyone reading this has significant assets invested, don't think that you will be able to make them liquid when the bottom falls out and there are no buyers. In 2008, perfectly "safe" mutual funds dropped 40% or more in a heartbeat.
"Conservative" index funds (S&P 500) are now dominated by AI driven investments - which are shaky at best in terms of ROI. The AI con is significantly bigger and more market consuming than "bundled junk mortgages". The scope of this bubble is larger than anything in history. Throw in a little crypto collapse and you have the 2030's looking like the 1930's.
And yes, "Unite to Save America".
But anyone who would have voted for Trump over Biden's brain in a jar or a super experienced, competent and decent Harris deserves the credit for where we are. Self blaming is a hobby Democrats have been really good at. Biden didn't give us Trump. The whole Democratic Party did.
So, if you want to go that route, many of us think Sanders could have trounced Trump. Why? Because he speaks the truth about the real problem in the US - income and wealth hoarding by the few. Poverty for the families with multiple jobs. Walmart wages so low that you and I subsidize their workers with SNAP benefits. There is a message that should have been central and used to pound the establishment's theft of a way of life.
If someone works full time - at any job - maybe also has a part time gig to pay for rent and groceries - that person should have decent housing, drinkable water, food security, health care, a good education for their kids, and child care. Period. Full stop. Basic policy in the richest nation to have ever existed.
All of which should guide us going forward. We need a new populist Democratic Party - for Workers. Ironically, it will take billions of dollars and benevolent billionaires to get us there. Because America is bought and sold to the highest bidder.
But again, Bill, your heart is in the right place. Your actions tell us so.
Today I will write an impassioned letter to the founders of Mobilize asking them to include me or at least give me performing access to the directors of the larger rallies.
After what I read about the collapse of farms today and remembering that “investors” are buying up farmland, with climate change wreaking havoc everywhere, wondering about food. It’s past time for price controls and rationing. This time it’s not for the troops. It’s for US all.
The very folks who by nature are conservative and did vote MAGA are now losing and I trust the will vote for democratic candidates if they will be able to vote at all.
Oh… you are so kind. It doesn’t happen that way. If the songs are good enough, one can get in. If you are a touring artist, even easier. In my case I’m a leaping unknown. I was foolish last April 18 to drive to DC and ask the stage direct to let me perform one song. And that also isn’t the way it’s done. But after knowing that senator Cory Booker spoke on the senate floor for 25 hours, I was so inspired to drive for 350 miles.
I’m an avid Heather fan and yet understand people who are too tied up in their own lives to follow the atrocities like we Heather-fans do. They are part of the 35% who aren’t concerned enough about what’s happening in MN. About 20% of Americans, I’m afraid, are Trumpistas and like what Trump does. Let’s be good to the ~15% who are low-info, not low IQ. Let Trump be the one who derides decent people.
Late at night, while most of the country was sleeping or doomscrolling quietly like responsible citizens, President Donald J. Trump decided to post a video from his social media account that combined two enduring American traditions: recycled lies about the 2020 election and racist imagery so crude it would embarrass a nineteenth-century minstrel show.
The video featured Barack Obama and Michelle Obama with their heads pasted onto the bodies of apes. Not metaphorical apes. Not symbolic apes. Literal apes. The kind historically used to justify enslavement, lynching, segregation, and the comforting lie that cruelty was simply biology in action.
Predictably, the White House response arrived on schedule and on brand. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the backlash as “fake outrage,” because nothing says moral seriousness like accusing millions of Americans of hallucinating racism they have recognized for centuries.
But something unexpected happened. A few Republican senators, including Tim Scott, Pete Ricketts, and Roger Wicker, broke protocol and called the post racist. At which point the White House sprang into action with the reflexes of a practiced crime scene cleanup crew.
The video was deleted. A statement appeared. A “staffer” was blamed. Not just any staffer, mind you, but a magical one with the ability to access the president’s account at midnight, post racially charged propaganda, and then vanish into the walls like a disgraced Hogwarts graduate.
Republicans rushed to condemn the racism once it had been safely reclassified as accidental. Racism is only intolerable, it seems, when no one powerful has to own it.
Then came the plot twist. Later that night aboard Air Force One, Trump admitted that he had posted the video himself. When asked if he would apologize, he replied, “No, I didn’t make a mistake.”
At this point, the staffer likely began updating their resume.
This was not a slip of the finger. It was not a misunderstanding. It was a political maneuver as old as the republic, updated for the age of digital paste and denial. When power erodes, reach for race. When coalitions grow, divide them. When accountability looms, throw a slur and call it strategy.
Trump’s racism is not a personality quirk. It is a governing philosophy. It is what remains when policy collapses, credibility evaporates, and even loyal supporters start asking inconvenient questions about competence. Racism becomes the flare shot into the sky to remind the base who they are supposed to fear and hate.
We have seen this pattern before. When Black journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were arrested while covering protests, white protesters nearby were left untouched. When demonstrators gathered at a church, enforcement followed pigmentation rather than behavior. The message was consistent and unmistakable. Democracy is allowed, but only if it stays the right color.
The manipulation extended beyond arrests. The White House went so far as to digitally alter a photograph of civil rights activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, darkening her skin and making her appear distraught during an arrest in which she was, by all accounts, composed. Reality was inconvenient. So it was edited.
“They couldn’t break me,” Armstrong later said. “So they altered an image showing me broken.” She asked, with devastating clarity, whether she was truly that much of a threat to the world’s greatest superpower.
The answer is yes. Not because she is dangerous, but because she is not alone.
What Trump and his allies fear is not any one person. They fear a coalition. A multiracial, multigenerational alliance of Americans who understand that democracy is not a brand or a birthright but a practice that must be defended. History teaches us that when such coalitions emerge, those in power reach for racial wedges to fracture them. This blueprint stretches back to Bacon’s Rebellion, when elites learned that poor whites and enslaved Blacks united were far more dangerous than divided.
Trump’s ape imagery is not random. It is a dog whistle that has long since become a foghorn. It is meant to provoke disgust in some and delight in others, to force Americans back into tribal reflexes at the precise moment when those reflexes are beginning to fail.
The irony is that this strategy exposes weakness, not strength. Confident leaders do not rely on dehumanization. Secure administrations do not need midnight racism. Empires do not panic edit photographs of peaceful protesters.
Trump is doubling down on racism because fewer people are buying the rest of the story. The economy is not a miracle. The courts are not loyal. The press is not cowed. The coalition against authoritarianism is growing, not shrinking.
So we get apes. We get denial. We get a staffer scapegoat followed by a personal confession. We get the spectacle of a president insisting that racism is not a mistake but a choice.
And in a way, he is finally telling the truth.
The question is whether Americans will keep pretending this is normal political theater, or whether they will recognize it for what it is: a last, desperate attempt to govern by fracture in a country increasingly determined to remain whole.
As a foreigner who is white and looks like and almost sounds like an American (if you ignore how I pronounce certain words -- I say mo-bile, for example, not mo-bul) and so have enjoyed a lot of time spent in rural America, drawn to such places as a birder and naturalist. I say "enjoyed" not only because of the experiences, but the hospitality. I am well traveled so while I hope I speak up in a home I have learned to bite my tongue when away from home and outnumbered by the locals. I am polite, have a self-deprecatory sense of humor, and that carries one a long way. I don't defend my veganism in west Texas or my antipathy to shrimp fishing in coastal Louisiana. I am looking for birds, not trouble. All that is by way of prelude and I think the millions of Americans still somewhat accepting of this hideous man are truly isolated from the truth, and truly immersed in ideology that accepts the underlying premises to much of Trumpian "ideology", so far as there is one beyond an infantile need for attention, wealth, and above all, power in the absence of any empathy or loyalty to any law...but we know all that.
This morning I read a bit of the Washington Post...and yes, I know who owns it. But there is a veneer of truth in articles that appear critical of Trump...they still treat him as if there is an explanation for what he does, as though there is a rationale or purpose or perhaps a lax of same. It is too seldom presented for the insanity it represents, and thin on the ground on much of the info Heather has just shared...especially about the agricultural sector. Such news may bubble up into the mainstream, or legacy, news, but only if it can't be avoided.
If one lists all the character flaws Trump exhibits, it mirrors a list of all the character flaws of which the human mind is capable, including cruelty, inconsistency (sounds mild but is very serious), and a staggering level of mendacity. But that is not evident, I posit, to many poorly informed rural Americans of less than a decent level of intelligence, and with their own biases, and their gullibility and inexperience....and American exceptionalism...the belief imbued from infancy that theirs is the best country in the world that can, in effect, do no wrong. And I won't get into the uber-complex issue of religion, except to say that it is reflective, I believe, of cultism.
We need to concentrate on what to do going forward, not on fighting over labeling the MAGA supporters. Please always remember that every human has the capacity to have a sudden change of heart and see the light. They are more likely to join us if they haven’t been labeled and disrespected. Thanks for reading and considering.
I don't agree. If they haven't been yet moved to abandon trump after murders in the street, of five year olds locked up by ICE, of the countless atrocities, they are a lost cause. Sorry but the excuse of "I didn't know" doesn't work in this age of 24/7 at your fingertips news. they choose to watch fox. they choose to listen to alex jones, turning point, they choose to turn away from the news they don't want to see/hear.
Our efforts and energy are far better spent on registering new voters and getting all registered non republican voters to show up to vote. This is how we end this destruction. We have to outvote them and make them pariahs. It's far too late to turn the other cheek or hope these trump supporters will change.
So, Sharon, You and I completely agree on where we are at and the necessity of registering new voters etc. I’m not suggesting we somehow expend energy evangelizing MAGAs. But a change of heart if it comes involves sincere remorse for the previous belief as well as a reversal of the belief. And everyone has this potential. So as long as we are augmenting and amplifying what we see and what we believe, if a MAGA picks up on it and has a change of heart, we are all to the good. Being kind is just part of sincere and humane treatment of our fellow humans. Otherwise we are doing the same thing the MAGAs are doing, hating, labeling and disrespecting.
I really don't need to know of a change of heart if they have one. Why should they have to rend their clothing to satisfy us? What purpose does that serve? I'm just of the belief that the cult isn't going anywhere. They have been exposed to the truth countless times through either others informing them or their reading a headline on a newspaper while in line at the grocery store or on a television show in a waiting room somewhere. With our 24/7 exposure to news it strains credulity to believe that his supporters are still just uninformed. rogan called him out, some on fox are calling trump out. The cult ignores this too. That's why it's called a cult.
In one of Heather's chats this week, she said the average time spent by Americans on political information was 4 minutes a week. That may have more than a little to do with maga.
Elizabeth, I gather from your comments that you are a nice person. I would even guess that you are a Christian – probably the genuine kind who follows the model and teachings of Jesus. If I'm right, then it would explain why you believe that people can have a "conversion experience." This is where your beliefs have led you astray.
To invoke an evangelical term, some people are "lost." They can never be "saved." Except I'm referring to the dyed-in-the-wool, never-gonna-change folks who are racist, misogynist, homophobic climate-change deniers.
To name these folks accurately, plainly and candidly is not to "label" them or "disrespect" them. It is to identify the enemy, which is clearly who they are; enemies of democracy.
We are in a war, but not the military kind. We are in an ideological war. We cannot be nice and pretend that we are not in this war. The only way to defeat the enemy is to identify them.
Thanks for your note. Anyone can have a change of heart. Cultists can have a change of heart. I’m not a Christian, I’m agnostic, but Jesus certainly has a lot to say about seeking the lost persistently.
Well, Elizabeth, I was wrong about your religious status, but you've not convinced me I'm wrong about MAGA.
About that chasing the lost sheep thing, it seems like a bad strategy to leave the 99 sheep unattended and vulnerable to wolf attacks, while you chase one dumb lamb who ignored all the warnings. Jesus had a lot to say about being the son of God, too. He implied it was Yahweh, the Hebrew god, but how do we know it wasn't Zeus, Jupiter, Odin, Quetzalcoatl or one of the hundreds of other deities invented by ancient men?
Somewhere, someone has made a brick float on the water. But as a rule, bricks sink. It is a waste of time and energy to try and make bricks float when there are so many other productive ways to invest one's time and energy. Let the bricks sink. Just make sure they're in the water and not in your boat.
The point I am trying to make, Dale, is that we need to treat everyone with a basic respect and kindness. It is better for everyone’s health to avoid anger, hate and accusations. I’m not sure what your dismissive listing of deities and offputting dismissal of Jesus have to do with having a basic respect for all people. Once you decide some people are worthy of respect and others aren’t, you’re doing the same thing as those MAGAs who write off all liberals.
Because the GOP has launched a fake news machine for 25 years now, and its voters are trapped inside it.
The GOP is a neofascist party, using a propaganda machine that is neofascist in nature. By now, these people are no longer living in reality. Their media literally tell them the opposite of what is going on, and ALL their media do. The people they meet at the workplace or at church repeat the same stuff - honestly believing that these lies are true.
Trump didn't build this, the GOP did.
Or as Kamala Harris recently said, this has been DECADES in the making.
As long as we still think that the problem is "one hideous man", things will only get worse.
Let’s hope it is more and more as we learn just how awful he really is. One thing I do not understand is his appeal to the moneyed class. His actions and the actions of his minions are seriously undermining the value of the dollar. When will the billionaires wake up and realize they would actually be better off paying higher taxes to a Democrat majority government than having the very basis of their wealth totally undermined.
Yeah I think the polls are skewed.Instead of 65%, I would say 90% seems more accurate.This vile man and his hateful administration are a sh*tstain on the soul of America.
Back then it was a matter of civility in many cases. Today it’s become a matter of safety. I’m in awe of the people of Minnesota and other areas under siege.
Excellent Q, foosbeal: "why is it only 65% against him . . ..[?]"
Answer, U.S. schools that abandoned humanities and the writing of personal essays to anesthetize all instead to testing's corporate packaging priorities.
So many good teachers in the schools but, unlike Finland and other countries where good teachers are central, in the U.S. testing's race for numbers governs all. Thus dehumanized, it's debatable how many acquire the skills and literacy fit to seeing others as individuals. Minneapolis and St. Paul, Los Angeles, Chicago, Springfield, Ohio, and Portland, Maine say many.
But it's not debatable how too many (35%?) thrill to Donald's militarized thugs, his relishing of cruelty and violence, his murders (in the Caribbean and U.S. cities), his racism, his concentration camps, extortions, arrogance, and protection of all the elite underage girl rapists.
Polls have to be discounted in large part because the responses are usually based on what the responder beileves the pollster wants to hear, rather than from conviction.
Anecdotally, I will testify that in my discussion groups all, even the most MAGA, condemn the killings.
BTW, here in Baghdad By the Sea, two of our 3 MAGA House members have brioken with Trump on immigration. All politics is (and are) local.
I still think if we pressure Congressional REPUBLICANS who represent Minnesota, Los Angeles, Chicago, Springfield, Ohio, and Portland, Maine, we can stop it.
I also think that the Epstein issue is the best way to get Republican support. Trump fell apart at the prayer breakfast, attacking MAGA who oppose him on Epstein.
Simple, because most of the other 35% still do not understand who he is and what he wants.
It often occurs to me that were most Trump supporters to have known him as a schoolmate, they wouldn’t have chosen him to run a school fund raiser, let alone a student government.
When public opinion is STRONG, Trump knows he has to back down. It's time to call Congress (202 224 3121) and the White House (202 456 1414) about ICE reform. The next 10 days are critical. Read about the 10 Democratic proposals to curb ICE.
Here’s another resource to help contact as many as possible -
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Here is part of Mitch McConnell’s justification for T’s actions, in response to my concern about arresting Maduro:
“…Maduro degraded human rights conditions in Venezuela and brutally repressed political dissent. He falsely claimed victory in the country’s 2024 presidential elections, subverting the will of the Venezuelan people to maintain his hold on power. And, while in power, Maduro profited from the flow of illegal narcotics and reduced a once-prosperous neighbor of America to an impoverished state…”
When I attempted to respond (e.g., then why aren’t we arresting T?), McConnell’s email was full.
McConnell sounds exactly like he is describing Trump and additionally is describing things that are unfortunately Venezuela’s problems not U.S. problems.
Maduro was a bad guy. But Trump replaced him with Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, who’s no better. All Trump wanted was access to the oil, and Rodriguez apparently agreed to give him access.
McConnell's staff includes key figures like Chief of Staff Terry Carmack (or potentially Sharon Soderstrom in older contexts), Tiffany Ge (Legislative Director/Rules Committee), Robert Steurer (Press Secretary), and various legislative assistants, schedulers, and field representatives for his Kentucky offices, with detailed roles found on sites like LegiStorm and official Senate directories.
MAIN OFFICE PHONE. 202-224-2541. MAIN OFFICE ADDRESS. ...
LEXINGTON OFFICE PHONE. 859-224-8286. ...
LONDON OFFICE PHONE. 606-864-2026. ...
LOUISVILLE OFFICE PHONE. 502-582-6304. ...
BOWLING GREEN OFFICE PHONE. 270-781-1673. ...
FORT WRIGHT OFFICE PHONE. 859-578-0188. ...
OTHER STAFF PHONE. 202-224-2541. ...
PADUCAH OFFICE PHONE. 270-442-4554.
IMHO he has split with Trump on 1. tariffs and 2. ICE. So far that's it.
You can't expect him to become a Dem.
But check out how far Rand Paul and Thom Massie have come!
It is not easy to pick out what issue to contact my representatives about. Not easy, but pleasant, because the specific choice doesn't matter. What matters is making the contact.
I live in a farming community, in a state that is quite dependent on agriculture (NC). I am going to email my 3 Republican reps and talk about the letter that HCR mentioned today from the former Agriculture Secretaries. I usually call, but I have laryngitis.
I don't think "could spread" may be strong enough. "Will spread" may be more accurate. Measles is crazy contagious. But I will say "could spread" to my reps.
I will write about that tomorrow. I do one topic per call/letter.
There are so many issues at stake, and as someone posted above, stupid juvenile (insert bad words!) from Trump like the meme gets our goat which delights the MAGA.
I am appalled and disgusted by him, but I'm not going to waste time yelling about that to Congress.
Pick no more than three issues to report to Congressional aides who answer the phone. (IF they answer!! I'm at the point where I prefer to get voice mails or email as talking to them just boils my blood.)
I always tell Mike Johnson's staff that he has sold his soul to Satan, and advise the aide to find other employment so they can avoid the near occasion of sin.
If you are in South Carolina, I'd ask you please address the outbreak of measles. It's not something to joke about. Children WILL die.
In Ulster county NY, our 5 Indivisible groups have an organized, weekly call to action chain with about 250 active callers between us. We all call on various researched issues every week. Some of us call more than once a week, just cuz…
Our lead organizers create the scripts and give all pertinent info and numbers to all key elected officials and we sub-organizers get the info to our teams. It’s very effective and community building. And one can start a team just with a few friends. We definitely need to flood our congress and state legislatures with calls. Especially in red states or districts with Republican members. In blue areas, the calls give support for our reps to be more assertive and take risks they might not if they didn’t have such strong constituent support.
Our state senator told us that 15 calls a day in a topic puts it at the top of their offices list of priority.
Amy that is amazing! I am going to look for Indivisible groups in my area to see if such action is being taken. I want to DO something rather than just discuss with my family members. Thanks for spreading the word.
They need to add the human and constitutional rights abuses at the ICE detention centers that were exposed in the February 3 Minneapolis court transcript. Right now, the detention centers are only briefly mentioned in point #8 in the list. The rights abuses are the ones to focus on in impeachment proceedings against Noem and all the other ICE political appointees. There was a lot of discussion of this in the comments in yesterday's letter from Heather.
We should recognize the sexual victimization of terrorized children by the Trumpstein Cult is the immediate predecessor, perhaps even a test run, of the terror the MAGAstapo is now unleashing on anyone who refuses to kowtow to the ChristoNazi theocracy. Thus the vital, know-our-enemy relevance of the full text of the Jane Doe lawsuit against Trump and Epstein -- later withdrawn in response to credible death threats against the plaintiff: https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Johnson_TrumpEpstein_Lawsuit.pdf
Loren, I am always glad to see you posting here. As I have added to you above post, I add here as well the Greg Olear Substack. It's long and sickening, but the truth needs to be told.
IF these allegations are true, justice MUST be obtained for the victims.
I have to tell Loren, today I opened a google doc and named it Loren Bliss - so I can keep all your notes and suggested reading organized. I am learning so much. Thank you again! The link to the Jane Dow Lawsuit is definitely included.
I did too. Beautiful and powerful and so completely the polar opposite of Trump. That is what gives me hope. That there are still people in government with empathy and integrity who love and respect the people they serve and who honor bravery. Honesty, too—nothing was sugar-coated.
Different, too, from Newsom, who keeps trying to one-up Trump with the social media posts. No dignity, and we desperately need some dignity instead a clown car.
Trump has clearly “crossed a line” in respect to naked racism, and yet it seems ironic to me that public reaction to his latest hurtful symbolic gesture is more intense that the racist assaults on the Haitian community he claimed was eating neighborhood dogs and cats, and then persisted with that narrative even after being assured by local officials that nothing of the kind was taking place. What would it be like to part of that targeted community? To be called “garbage” as trump has done with Somalis in Minnesota? To have your children snatched away and imprisoned, as Trump did with immigrants and refugees in his first term, or the racist rampages of ICE in his second? Blanketly dubbed “rapists and murderers” despite evidence-based statistical evidence to the contrary?
Not to mention pulling mentions and photos of non-white war heroes or mention of slavery from government sites (Web and physical) as well as restoring celebration of the "legitimacy" of the Confederacy. Add the basis of the unusual special immigration status of white South Africans.
The fundamental racism has long been a core M.O. for dividing and conquering the will is one of this nation’s biggest open secrets, hiding in very plain sight.
Yes, it is ironic, but I'd say also understandable that the public reacted more swiftly and widely to the racist portrayal of the Obamas than we have to the manifold expressions of Trump's racism that have real-world effects on those he attacks. But I think the Obamas outrage will shine a brighter light on Trump's broadly applied racism and its real effects, not just on people of color but on the nation as a whole.
“God bless the King,” Benjamin Franklin was supposed to have uttered as “God damn the King!” reverberated through parts of the Continental Congress upon news that the King had rejected their petitions for redress of grievances and put a price on their heads. “No one else could have brought us all together.”
This has a striking parallel in Vlad Putin. Had someone predicted, say five years ago, that one man would inspire Sweden and Finland to join NATO, and push Germany to vastly increase its defense spending, we would have written them off.
But Vlad Putin has managed this and more. And he has united the West – except Trump’s America – to strongly stand with Ukraine.
I don't believe that Senator Pete Rickett's name (NE-R) has ever been mentioned by HCR, the corporate media or maybe even Fox News since he had the manager of a Mexican Restaurant in racist Papillion, NE fire a young Hispanic student because she told Ricketts and his party they had to wear masks. And the irony was that he was governor at the time and the requirement came from his own state government.
Apparently, his ego was bruised because someone actually told him he had to wear a mask.
He is a racist piece of excrement and had to be appointed to the Senate by the current Republican governor who is an alcoholic. You can't make this shit up.
Nearly as bad as Ohio, where the absolutely corrupt Jon Husted was appointed by the absolutely corrupt governor Mike DeWeenie, to replace the absolutely corrupt jd vance. Again, you can’t make this shit up!
And they blamed the outrage on a “staffer”, until Humpty claimed ownership, then probably lied (it’s what he does!) when he claimed that he only saw the first bit. The question I have: who sent the racist crap to him? My guess is down to just a few candidates: Stephen Miller; Elon Musty; Nick Fuentes; Steve Bannon; Tucker Snarlson.
I take it way back to when he first imitated a mentally challenged reporter and told a female anchor she had blood coming out everywhere and was ugly(I am conflating several disgusting comments about women he has made). Some of those were from his 2016 campaign. He was gross and vile and out to lunch obvious back then but we have a violence-entertainment saturated populace who are numb to that violence and crass behavior and no longer discern a president from a mob boss. Our entire American psyche could use a reset to kindness and thoughtful consideration of each other and our poor planet. Trump is our red flag. Our chance to choose something better and stop our downward spiral. He must be stopped and is also not worth our focus. He’s got sorry, sad, withered and puny character and should never have been in power. But we can all choose a new path and it will stop this madness.
You are right of course. Leaders like Reagan would at least fake kindness, talk of unity, display the illusion of being a president of all Americans. It was an act. He was recorded referring to African Americans as monkeys. But there was at least a public sense of "decorum" as you say.
And...they didn't align themselves with murdering dictators. There was that.
His vile comments about blood were directed at Megan Kelly who is now an over the top Trump supporter and who recently announced that she could feel no sympathy for Alex Pretti.
Megan Kelly grew up in a suburb of Albany, NY and, as far as I know, went to the same excellent public schools as some of my friends and family. But they didn’t become shills for the racist MAGA regime.
Not JUST him, but the entire Republican party ( now known as the NANP - the New American Nazi Party ) needs voted out ON ALL LEVELS for us to recover from this nightmare.
And t he business w ith the Haitians is the creation of the vile little turd Corporal Couchfucker - who go booed out of the stadium in Milan at the Parade of Nations.
Indeed, the bridge is out. You might say the bridge has been abridged. But I do remember that the bridge on the River Kwai was destroyed and rebuilt again.
ICTT, I know that Substack offers the ability to sort the comments in various ways. I never bother sorting them, though I know others do. Personally, I can rarely get through more than about a third of the comments as I'm usually reading later on in the day. I am guessing, but I think Public Servant posts several times to catch the attention of as many readers as possible. Just a guess.
I'm guilty of posting a link to Greg Olear at least three times this morning, so I'm guilty of this as well.
I don't have a problem with anyone's multiple posts as long as they aren't trolls. I get more annoyed by people who beat the dead horses, as we have so much at stake. But even with that, I think "you be you" and just skip over their comments.
If you post tte SAME stuff over and over again without changing a syllable, you’re a troll AND you insult other people’s intelligence. We don’t don’t have to settle for that.
If I recall correctly, Public Servant is a reader who both they and their spouse worked for the government and lost their jobs due to DOGE. They started their Substack and poetry as a way to support their family. I cut them slack for that reason.
I am former USAID -- the first agency Dump and DOGE went out of their way to illegally destroy. Tens of thousands have already died as a result. Someone choosing to be a troll really doesn't have all that much to do with who they were in a previous life.
I respectfully disagree. Considering you have to pay to comment, I believe that most people commenting genuinely want their message to be heard. I myself am new to Substack and do not have a following. So, I am posting what I have written multiple times as comments on posts like these so people will see it, and hopefully subscribe, like, restack, etc. (Wink, wink 😉)...
Now, when you start to see nasty, rude comments, or racist AI videos, then I think you can fairly say you have found a troll.
But, most people are just disturbed by what is happening in our country and don't know what else to do besides write, call, protest, etc. This is the power we have. I support anyone using it for the good of all of us.
On that note...
We must protect the right to vote. Demand that Congress reject the SAVE Act.
They tried to move court date to deport them up to yesterday but the lawyer said there wasn’t time to prepare. It’s a month away. This Admin wants to quickly eradicate the names and faces of those who have publicized their shamelessness.
That video was so blatantly racist it’s infuriating he’s still our president. I am thankful I saw multiple Republicans speak out about how racist it was though.
Be LOUD. These are unprecedented times 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
And yet — as usual — not enough Republicans. 3 or 4 (oh look, there’s another one, maybe…) Why was Tim Scott the first to say anything? Where’s that vile creature, Kentucky Fried Voldemort? Where’s Senator Pittypat from South Carolina? Thune, Barraso?
Waiting for someone else to fix it, of course. Waiting for Godot. Unrepentant, arrogant, lazy collaborators and enablers hiding in the shadows who first brought the Beast to the ball, applauding while he floated down his golden staircase.
Write THEM. Call THEIR offices. Make THEIR life hell. Surely, they’re the ones who truly have it coming.
Thanks again, Megan. Multiple Republicans speaking out is a start but it’s not enough. Where is the outrage? Where is their line in the sand? Or as someone else posted, “Where is the tea?”
(This act of defiance -Boston Tea Party- led directly to the British Parliament passing the Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts) in 1774, which closed Boston Harbor and acted as a major catalyst for the American Revolution.)
I totally agree it’s definitely not enough, and if they’re calling out something he did now after all this time it’s probably more to save themselves as they realize the major split and growing coalition of Americans against MAGA and for defending democracy like Professor Richardson noted
Someone at a town hall asked right-wing Mike Lawler where his line was - at what point would he say Trump is wrong and has gone too far - and he went all JD Vance on them -- accusing them of having made up their minds about the murders in Minneapolis before an "investigation" was conducted. Huh?
I so wish when interviewers ask Trump (and his posse) a question which they don't answer, the interviewer wouldn't give up--and the next interviewer repeat the question.
I'd also like to see reporters all join together when a woman (always a woman!) is insulted by Trump, they ALL walk out on him.
After seeing the clips of his rant at the prayer breakfast, I could not comprehend why someone in the audience didn't stand up and say "You're fucking crazy! Resign!" All those supposed leaders and none of them had the courage to call him out. Shameful.
Jeff Tiederich has a long-running challenge on his substack.
The first person to call out at a press conference, 'What the fuck is wrong with you?' gets $1million. No takers so far and the challenge has been on-going for a year or so.
The SAVE Act shreds voters' rights rather than protecting them. This proposed legislation threatens our democratic processes by denying the right to vote to millions. Were Congress to pass this law voting would no longer be a protected right.
Considering the centrality of fair and free elections to the integrity of our republic and "liberty and justice for all", the US right to vote has always needed more robust protection, and certainly now.
In fact, the ChristoNazis are (already) stealing our elections. Here in a vital Thom Hartmann exclusive is how the thievery is done, including credible statistical evidence showing that the ChristoNazis' purging of Blacks, Hispanics and white progressives from the 2024 voter rolls put Trump in the White House. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-q1lWsnlhg&t=5s (Election discussion starts at 9:09)
Yes Carmen, rumors has it that the Republicans will push the SAVE act to hit at the last minute. I wish we could rally folks to purchase a US Passport. It’s the golden card - even the DMV can’t refuse your proof of identity and we could be doing a GoFundMe for US Passports.
Passports are $165 + require an original birth certificate to process. Fewer than half of all US citizens even possess a passport.
SCOTUS has ruled that requiring that kind of ID is form of poll tax (due to the expense) and is an unconstitutional violation of the right to vote.
If these hosers seriously want to force everyone to provide ID every time they vote, then they need to set up a mechanism that will provide that ID to every single voter. Which they will never do, because they point of voter ID is voter suppression. Nothing more, nothing less.
Wait for it…. The next outrage will be Humpty calling for the establishment of a National Identification Card, which only he or his assigns in the DOJ can issue. Passports? We won’t need no stinking passports! And if you’re the wrong color, the wrong religion, or vote for the wrong party, you’re NID will be the means to round you up and make you disappear somewhere into the Gulag.
Thank you, I agree Carthago, it is similar to punishing our immigrants who lack identification while the United States has a system of unbelievable processing loopholes. Having authentic proof of identity is a task that we need to look at today and a Passport is the most valuable, especially out of the country.
We will be decades repairing the damage done to our democracy in just Trump’s first year. If a Democratic president had done what Trump has done, especially that vile rasist post of the Obamas, it would have ended their presidency. Are there not enough Republicans of character left in congress to end this presidency before he completely destroys everything?
There are NO "Republicans of character" and haven't been for a long time. Harry Truman observed 78 years ago - in 1948 - that "The only 'good Repuiblicans' are pushing up daisies."
Is it time for Republican leaders "to denounce this serial fraudster?"
Heather says yes, which 99.9% on her site here applaud. But let's remember, there's a mass of his unaccountable peers, that entire Epstein class, still successfully saying eff you to the rest of us.
Still, Heather paints a marvelous picture of our resolve -- and Donald's total failures in the real world. Like his record with jobs. His public flaunting of racism. His continued rush into the militarized thug police state his pal Putin applauds.
Now that Trump has his methods locked in for seizing the assets of the United States, he established his Board of Peace to seize the assets of the nations of the world.
As of a week ago, they are claiming to have a plan to start “rebuilding” the one-half of Gaza that is not currently occupied by the IDF. Israeli extremists are pissed! One little detail of concern: exactly who is going to disarm Hamas? Please do not hold your breath while waiting for the answer!
“Mike Stunson of Forbes reported today that the U.S. lost 108,435 jobs in January in the biggest cuts since January 2009 during the Great Recession. “
And yet, in after-hours trading, the Stock Market has jumped 1,200 points and just topped 50,000 for the first time. Seems like the wealth gap is about to spike again for the #EpsteinFiles class, before a devastating correction hits the 99% of us.
Truly a regime of bullies for billionaires bent on stealing our wealth and blocking our vote to hold onto power, no matter what.
Time to show up and fight back—Minneapolis shows us how!
Rep. Neguse gave a very memorable quote of John Adams at the end of the interview:
John Adams to James Warren, 22 April 1776
“We may feel Sanguine Confidence of our Strength: yet in a few years it may be put to the Tryal.
We may please ourselves with the prospect of free and popular Governments. But there is great Danger, that those Governments will not make us happy. God grant they may. But I fear, that in every assembly, Members will obtain an Influence, by Noise not sense. By Meanness, not Greatness. By Ignorance not Learning. By contracted Hearts not large souls. I fear too, that it will be impossible to convince and perswade People to establish wise Regulations.”
There was also a recent interview of Michael Wolff that readers may be interested in because it explains many of Trump’s behaviors. Wolff is a well known American journalist, author and media commentator, who has written several behind-the-scenes books on Trump’s campaigns and WH. He is interviewed by Joanna Coles including questions from the audience and excellent answers by Wolff. Enjoy.
Joanna Coles and Michael Wolff: Inside Trump’s Head - YouTube
We will not have every major building and institution renamed in honor of someone so despicable. I did not have Trump Derangement Syndrome before but may be getting it.
Usually it is good form to wait until a politician is out of office or dead before giving their name to public facilities, particularly those they had no hand in creating or supporting. As a compromise Trump might qualify if we named toxic Superfund sites after billionaires.
I think we should fabricate cesspools henceforth calling them trumpsters. With the Presidential being the largest and the Maralago model being the elite and the Golf of America the commercial model. As one sits on their throne they can be greatly relieved knowing their trumpster is online. Night club owners who’s businesses are open until 2:00 am will queue up long lines to get the Truth Social model.
Notes on earlier slang meanings for Trump: 16th - 18th Century: to fart. 16th Century: derived from the Old French Tromper (to blow a horn), it evolved into a slang term meaning to deceive, cheat or mock, often associated with fraudulent street quacks, who would blow a horn to get people’s attention and then swindle them. 18th Century: by the 1720s, “Trumped Up” was used to describe something fabricated, false or concocted. Scottish: “a worthless trifle”. Also for Trumped Up: “fabricated out of nothing or deceitfully; forged; false; worthless (recorded by 1728). The family name was supposedly changed in Germany from Drumpf to Trump, by about the time of Napoleon around the turn of the 19th Century. So! The above meanings seem to fit quite well and are more accurate than the meanings that Humpty probably prefers to consider the meanings to be such as ‘to triumph’ or to hold the winning card, etc. If so, why do his actions fit the more derogatory slang over hundreds of years? Could this be an important factor in his insecurity complex??
My father was the key negotiator for the Chemical Manufacturing Association in the EPA's efforts to get buy in (literally) from the nation's chemical companies to establish and agree to the terms of Superfund. He thought Anne Gorsuch's son, Neil, was so polite.
JL, I usually appreciate your contributions and naming Superfund sites after billionaires is a refreshing thought while I can't help but notice how the combined creative release generated in comments here -- in the form of sarcasm, whimsy, design strategies -- if all that could collect in a channel that moves us to power great enough to offset the power of money. That's my wow and hope for creativity: painfully shared compassion, task and time management, inclusive communities. (I just saw the film "Hamnet" -- what Shakespeare did!). I see the readiness building. In Due Time.
I like to call TDS (which MAGAts deploy endlessly as a slur for his detractors) as the Trump Distortion Syndrome ( or perhaps TDF: Trump Damping Field), which emanates relentlessly from him and, by spooky action at a distance, encapsulates all of his true believers in a web of falsity which they must accept to party on his ship of fools, on penalty of walking the plank.
This video (you know the one) should unsettle anyone who takes the United States seriously as a nation.
Because it exposes something dangerous: the trivialization of the world's most consequential office. It shows how carelessly the power, credibility, and accumulated moral authority of a superpower can be squandered for a few seconds of viral attention.
In any other major democracy, this behavior from a head of state would trigger a constitutional crisis. Paris would burn. Berlin would convene emergency sessions. In the Nordic countries, resignation would follow within hours. Across functioning democracies, the public, institutions, and political class would recognize this for what it is: an assault on the dignity of the state itself. Leaders are not free to perform as entertainers without consequence. National honor is not personal property, it's held in trust.
But the United States is not just another country with a provocateur in charge. It is the linchpin of global order. It maintains formal alliances and security guarantees with forty to fifty nations. It underwrites the financial architecture, trade systems, and diplomatic frameworks that billions of people depend on daily. When the American president speaks—or posts—it doesn't land as satire, meme, or personal whim. It reads as a signal about what the country is becoming.
American power has never relied solely on carrier strike groups or economic output. It has rested on something more fragile and more valuable: trust. The belief that beneath domestic turbulence lies institutional seriousness, predictability, and a baseline commitment to dignity. That belief is now disintegrating in real time.
Millions of American companies operate globally. They negotiate multibillion-dollar contracts in environments where reputation is currency. Boardrooms in Frankfurt, Singapore, and Dubai aren't debating whether a post was clever—they're asking whether the United States remains a reliable partner. Whether agreements signed today will be honored tomorrow. Whether American leadership has devolved from institutional to purely theatrical.
Consider tourism, which sustains millions of American jobs—airlines, hotels, restaurants, museums, entire regional economies. Soft power isn't an abstraction. It materializes in flight bookings, conference locations, study-abroad programs, and decades of accumulated goodwill. A quiet, decentralized boycott doesn't require government action—only a collective sense that a nation no longer respects itself.
Now picture this image being studied by foreign ministers, central bank governors, defense strategists, and sovereign wealth fund managers. Picture them asking a coldly rational question: How do we write binding thirty-year agreements with a country whose public face will be this, relentlessly, for years to come? How do we plan for the long term when the tone is impulsive, mocking, and unbound by the gravity of office?
This is where the real calculus begins. Trillions in foreign capital depend on confidence that America is stable, credible, and rule-governed. That confidence is now being traded for what, exactly? Applause from an online mob? A dopamine rush from manufactured outrage? Content designed to dominate the news cycle rather than serve the national interest?
Every serious nation eventually confronts this choice: burn long-term credibility for short-term spectacle, or safeguard the reputation previous generations bled to build. The United States spent eighty years constructing an image of reliability, restraint, and leadership under pressure. That image wasn't born from perfection—it came from a visible commitment to standards that transcended impulse.
This isn't a partisan issue. Europeans who value democratic norms recognize something ominously familiar here. Americans—Democrat and Republican alike—who believe in responsibility and restraint should see it too. Power attracts scrutiny. Leadership demands discipline. A superpower cannot behave like a reality TV contestant without paying a price.
The presidency is not a personal broadcast channel. It's a symbol carried on behalf of 330 million people and countless international partners who never voted but whose lives are shaped by American decisions anyway. Every post either reinforces or erodes the idea that America can be counted on when it matters most.
So the question is no longer whether this is offensive. The question is whether this is who America chooses to be: a nation that trades a century of hard-won reputation for viral moments. A country that replaces statecraft with content creation. A republic governed like a season of reality television.
History offers a harsh lesson here. Great powers don't fall because enemies mock them. They collapse when they begin mocking themselves—publicly, proudly, and without grasping the cost until it's far too late.
Excellent post Ed Lane. I would include the UK in the list of European countries that understand and value both soft power and ,above all, accountability.
The fact that our PM Kier Starmer appointed Mandelson as our Ambassador to the US in the knowledge that Mandelson continued his association with Epstein after the man’s conviction in 2008, (but probably not in the knowledge that Mandelson, whilst then a senior Minister in Gordon Browns Labour Government [2007 -2010] passed Epstein market sensitive information) is proving sufficient in itself to create a huge political storm here. So huge that Starmer is now considered most unlikely to survive beyond the local elections in May this year. (His successor from within the Labour party to become party leader and thus the next PM is still being played out in the corridors of Westminster.)
And as for (Prince) Andrew ( the KIng’s younger brother), he is absolutely shamed and finished, dead and buried. Gone. By US standards, all rather quaint, but boy accountability can work. And is obviously completely essential for democratic survival and renewal.
Let’s hope, when the US public can effectively turn on MAGA , in your mid terms , (despite all efforts to undermine them) in a blue tsunami, that the forces of accountability are let fully loose. ( as well as a tidy up of all that public building nomenclature…)Go for it Hakeem Jeffries ! Good luck to all. And good on Minneapolis and all those other brave US citizens standing firm.
I loved reading this quote from Minority Leader Jeffries before going to bed! ...
“This disgusting video, posted by the so-called president, was done intentionally. F*ck Donald Trump and his vile, racist, and malignant behavior. This guy is an unhinged bottom feeder. President Obama and Michelle Obama are brilliant, caring, and patriotic Americans. They represent the best of this country. It’s time for John Thune, Mike Johnson, and Republicans to denounce this serial fraudster, who’s sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue pretending to be the president of the United States.”
I like the message, but I want to see action, not platitudes. Jeffries and Schumer will give us a secret police state with police immunity and police without identities. They won't do what is right unless they sense a serious primarying and loss of power is in their future. Theirs is the party that protected Menendez and Cuellar.
Wow what a laundry list of outrages at the hands of Trump and his sycophantic top staff. It truly is like the Titanic going down, as referenced by Vance recently. No wonder, as you say, that Trump pulled out the white supremacy card with his vile racist video of the Obamas. After all that is the core principle at the heart of MAGA. The 25th Amendment or Impeachment and Removal would absolutely be invoked if any other president engaged in such disgusting acts. Jeffries was spot on. The GOP has to step up, if only to salvage their own careers. Dems wouldn’t hesitate if a president of their party was so utterly unhinged and unfit.
THANK YOU FOR THIS PILE UP OF FACTS... hideous man. why is it only 65% against him....
Because half of America never gets the message and is dumber than shit.
That’s not fair! In its own way, Shit is actually quite intelligent. It acts in tandem with water and sunlight to make plants grow. Amazing, really – and far superior to the Orange Turd squatting in the Oval Office.
I read somewhere yesterday that if a DNA test were done on Trump the results would come back classifying him as "fecal matter".
I prefer "rotting pile of human offal".
Never was man so cruel, nor more vicious, nor more wicked, nor more poisonous, and... nor more gluttonous. (I'm flooding the substack with a lot of comments today. I'm leaving for Argentina for a 10-day respite. And to empty my brain and conscience from the rot that it has been subject to. Escape early and linger and come back late.)
Wish I could do the same! Enjoy the respite from Looneyland....
Stephanie Have an enjoyable respite in Argentina. If you have a spare moment, could you assess the national reaction to Trump giving $20 billion to the authoritarian president?
Argentina has a trump-like president who is also running the country into the ground with “chainsaw” cuts. He has increased the poverty rate in his country. Trump bailed out Argentina with $20 billion. Not much of an escape from the rot…
Uh... so your idea is to fight fascism and its vital need for dehumanizing propaganda with... dehumanizing?
History has shown that that never works.
Instead of allowing ourselves to be distracted and then cultivate cruelty too, we urgently need to get OUR shit together and THINK!!
Agreed! Understanding history, recognizing propaganda, and cultivating compassion are paramount for these times.
As history has shown us, so too will it show future generations what we do now.
Congress plans to vote next week. We must protect the right to vote. Demand that Congeess reject the SAVE Act.
https://c.org/bk7K7Vy5JH
This is the civil war redux with the old South, border states and the old West in unflagging support of their state's and their" trumped-up federal government's neo-antebellum dehumanization of people of color, women of all colors and immigrants. The white supremacists in these states are not going to turn against the bottom-feeder-in-chief. The more he feeds, the more he defecates, the more they cheer him on.
We must stop them in November and that means defeating the pending SAVE act, prohibiting HHS presence at the polls, registering voters, exhorting the 90 million or so who didn't vote in 2024 to get off their asses and do so, etc.
If we don't, the dehumanization will go into overdrive.
I mostly agree.
Yes, defeating the SAVE act should be what we're all LASER-FOCUSED on right now, because doing so is absolutely crucial. The same goes for prohibiting HHS presence at the polls, registering voters, and making sure that the 90 million who don't vote finally get it and vote.
And yes, historically there has been more of a culture of dehumanization in the south than in the north.
Still, I think that what's going on today is essentially unprecedented. It's not the racism that is driving it all, it's the fact that the GOP plunged its voter base into a truly alternative universe, where everything that is false is said to be true - tons of tiny, in and of themselves morally neutral facts are being omitted or entirely distorted inside this media landscape day after day. PART of this propaganda is focused on dehumanizing, but most of it is not. Just watch Ed Schulz for instance. It's quite anti-political, a bit cynical at times, but Schulz is not a racist. Most of the big voices in this media landscape are not. This is why fascist propaganda is SO effective.
I agree. It might be fun, it might feel good or make us feel better in the moment, but- even though it might be 100000% true- it doesn't help to move things forward in a good way. We need to cultivate ways to connect, make it possible for people to get helpful info, build bridges, have conversations, change hearts and minds. We need those resources and skills now.
Fabulous!!
🤣🤣🤣
I think it would come back as "deadly virus" requiring the injection of bleach.
Also, it is function that supports healthy, functioning bodies in humans and animals. I prefer referring Republicans, their allies, and other political factions as bowel blockers.
Kathleen, death star, et al. have certainly screwed the gut biome. We need to find some probiotics to overcome this.
Have we sunk so low to a place where we are defending, extolling shit? Actually, that was rather funny -- and true...
I do a fair bit of gardening. Compost and manure are essential.
We need to plant a new crop and enhance the soil. I'd say throw the old bad crop into the compost bin, but it might fester and come back to life. Or maybe remain the manure it always has been. .
MaryB, we never throw diseased crops into the compost bin or weeds either. Death star and his minions should be blown into outer space and join the trash out there.
Arctic, I do too, but no human waste and only manure that will not burn.
An example: When I planted a beech hedge 30 years ago, I rented a mini-digger and dug a trench. A nearby horse-riding center gave me as much free horse manure as I wanted; it had matured for at least three years in their huge pile and was ready to use. I layered that with dirt below the level of the roots, then piled dirt around the roots, then layered manure and dirt above that again. I have not needed to add any nutrients to that hedge since then.
(But to your point: no human waste, and no fresh manure. I would never use either on my edible plants.)
Chance lives!
✔️ 😅
I wish name-calling was all that is needed. I fear many think so.
Arctic, yes it is, but some of it can burn if too fresh or carry diseases like when people use night soil to fertilize fields.
This hit my funny bone! Thanks for the laugh, needed that!
How bad can it be for a person when that person doesn't even measure up to shit? The takeaway? When the voters put into office a person who isn't worth even a piece of shit, it is a very severe indictment of that nation's education system - a gross failure to teach critical thinking skills, civics, history and political systems.
As a retired teacher, I find fault in generalizations, especially when it comes to blaming our education system. Kids mimic their parents political views even when they are being taught the truth.
Refreshing though when a kid revolts from their parent's views and learns who they are by digging for the truth.
Or when members of a community have the intestinal fortitude to leave the herd.
Or, as I did, by the utilization of unbiased critical reasoning. "Thinking for oneself", as it were. All it requires is giving yourself permission.
For some, kindness and respect are just not their thing. For some segments of society, people welcome a dictatorship, because they wish to see certain people subjugated or eliminated; for some voting is inconvenient, or lazy minds prefer not to have to think or read critically. Or people may just believe the country needs a realignment, a new military strategy, a new economic model. I don't know.
Absolutely! Harder in today's environment, unfortunately.
It was always hard to go against parental and peer pressure.
Thank you for your important service, Bonnie.
Bonnie, thank you. I agree.
I agree but as a retired teacher from a very affluent community, a lot of common sense, very relevant courses have been supplanted by STEM and STEM only.
Over the past quarter century republicans have assailed American's public schools by supporting vouchers, which divert money from public education systems to subsidize tuition at private and religious schools.
I could not agree more. Education—yes to critical thinking skills, civics, history, political systems. Amen! Add in Logic, philosophy, literature, art history, debate, etc., and education for all and see what all that brings forth.
Hopefully a better crop of citizens.
Public education today is a battleground. Republicans in state legislatures refuse to adequately fund public schools. Then they whine and complain about how terrible public schools are and that parents need vouchers so they can choose private schools instead of those terrible public schools. The Republicans create a problem that hurts the public good. Then their solution monetizes the situation making things even worse for regular folks but putting money in the pockets of the rich.
Richard, as a former educator, I can tell you that it is extremely difficult to overcome what kids learn at home unless said kids want to change. I cite the student we had who was in special ed and not because he was not intelligent. He had aspirations for having a nice family life which he wrote about in his creative writing class. We did everything we could to encourage him. Later on he and his father were in Washington (the state) and his dad told him to kill someone and he did and ended up in prison. Then there was the problem with students using the N word and any number of other examples. I do have ex-students who have overcome their upbringing.
Right wing UK PM Margaret Thatcher did the same thing by removing topics like critical thinking, politics, sociology linked topics, and current political history from the school curriculum in order to dumb down the populace.
Now why just make up lies to bolster a point. Especially an obvious one.
I didn’t care for her policies in many ways, But her government introduced the Education Reform Act 1988, which created the National Curriculum and standardized testing at key stages, meaning all state schools had to teach a prescribed set of subjects and content. 
The official rationale was to ensure a minimum national standard of literacy, numeracy, and basic subjects such as English, maths, History and Civic Education, and to give parents information to compare schools. 
Her own speeches stressed the need to raise achievement in basic skills to promote sustained competitive economic and civic growth.
Meanwhile, we seem to produce a segment of adults who believe in a flat earth.
🎯
I’m no
Clearly, the culture is broken. The public knows as much about policy as it knows about - I don't know - decency or oysters and embryos - that is, not much. Their keen vision for a rules based, democratic state, is like that of bat blind in the clear light of day....
I think the hard nucleus of Maga stupidity appears to be on the order of 35%. The 36 to 50% might be trainable.
My (political) experience is that after Democratic leaders denigrated the entire hard working, physically gifted tradespeople in our state, and in other states across the country, Trump (who actually has NO respect for them) recognized a potential new audience for his con.
I don't believe this at all. Every trumper I know, and I know quite a few despite living in Mass, is covertly racist and selfish. This is why they voted for trump. he allowed these hateful qualities to be embraced and quantified, even in those who try to keep them hidden. It's subtle but if you pay attention you hear it: the comments on critical race theory, the support of abolishing DEI, the belief that minorities aren't "deserving of social programs because they don't work, or don't work as hard, that their children aren't as smart as the trumpers "white" children and the minorities only got awarded jobs or scholarships due to the color of their skin. Nothing more, nothing less.
One former friend is married to a Mexican woman from Mexico and still living in Mexico that he met through a Mexican dating site, yet he viciously denigrates Mexicans. Apparently his daughter is not of poisoned blood! The irony is astounding but goes unrecognized by this totally tone-deaf, indoctrinated man.
I agree completely with your thoughts. I too know some of the same people and their beliefs are disgusting.
Sharon, I agree. Here in Arkansas, the political demographics are crystal clear. Little Rock, West Memphis and a few smaller cities which are home to colleges and university branches are the only places where you'll find educated, progressive thinkers. The remainder of the state is rural, populated by undereducated, Baptist or Pentecostal low-wage earners. There are pockets of Black and Latino communities in the rural areas, but they have been warned by the white overlords not to participate in civic life.
Outside the aforementioned cities, white folks freely use racially offensive terms and no one bats an eye. If this behavior is questioned, people just shrug and excuse the offender as being "old school." In fact, complacency pervades the state. Infrastructure here is deplorable and people just accept it as "the way things are."
Bigotry works as a political call sign! Trumpty, in his campaigning and in every moment of life, is just as bigoted as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. They called used outright bigotry on a regular basis. Half of our population, if not more, are prejudiced against one minority group, or one religious denomination or another. Many are openly racist and are white supremacists. Not very surprising that the most racist and the most entitled bigots happen to think of themselves as white; all while their actual genetic history is more, shall we say, complicated.
What is strange in Mass is that most of our rural areas, especially west of Springfield are solid blue. I live in an affluent, well educated town and we are very right wing. We seem to be an outlier for trump supporters. We are religious, majority Catholic and about 99.9% white, so this might have a lot to do with it. Just odd, because usually the better educated communities are usually liberal, and not batshi* crazy rightwing which my town is.
Not in my state, and not Democrats I know. We appreciate a good plumber, but not the private equity firms who own the companies and want to charge you $850 to replace a $350 garbage disposal.
Jen, our neighbor across the street has a degree in rhetoric and is an electrician. I admire people who can do these sorts of jobs and we have some good local companies. I do worry about corporate buyouts. Our dentist retired recently and fortunately, one of his dentists bought the practice. Otherwise, it might have gone corporate. Our vet was inundated with new clients when another local clinic went corporate. We have problems here in Oregon with the buyout of medical practices and facilities. Bottom line is the only thing that matters for these greeds.
What I hear you saying MaryPat is that we have idiotic leaders on both sides. That would explain a lot, and fits with the theory that negative political TV adds are more effective than not.
Hate sells!!!!!!!
It's sensation. No one ever got elected by uttering E = mc2.
That's right...look at all of the adolescent comments about shit above...
And Money is buying
Every dysfunctional relationship has an enabler.
Bothsideism? Now? Really?
Mary Pat, when I hear the charge you've made here that Democratic leaders have denigrated tradespeople, I always want examples because that has never been my experience or been delineated in anything I've read. What are you seeing? What have I missed?
As a lobbyist in Michigan, I was in two meetings where Democratic Governor Granholm announced that our soon to be displaced (by computer operated systems) auto workers would be "sent to college" to learn how to run the computers. At the same time I was hiring trades people to fix up my house, and every one of them had something nasty to say about her attitude towards workers. They didn't mis-perceive: her attitude was pretty arrogant.
Interesting. This leads me to consider how Putin’s evil has fed into our world with his propaganda intended to divide our country. This had made so many of us quick to feel like victims and to blame others for anything we are lacking.
I think to some extent your criticism of Granholm is similar to the social and cultural divide that Putin used to create distrust of Hillary. It’s also something that Obama was keenly aware of and worked to minimize when he spoke of not isolating himself inside the bubble of our White House. The life of an educated woman trying to rise in political leadership in order to solve some of our social and economic ills for the benefits of we the people, to a fairly large extent, places them in a social bubble quite disparate from, for instance, my youngest son, a construction worker, living in a bubble of angry tradespeople. Seems like human nature makes it pretty easy for the powerful, greedy, and evil like Putin to infect our brains with a rhetoric where we seek to blame each other instead of one of tolerance and seeking to understand and work together. 🤷🏻♀️
My car’s diagnostic computer is a real thing. Perhaps it’s a good thing, but I spent most of my life depending on skilled mechanics to keep my car running. Adjustments to progress don’t always feel like progress.
Not just denigrated. They seemed to completely ignore them. And at times take positions or pass legislation that (mostly inadvertently) worked against them.
When I see someone question how we Dems lost the support of tradespeople and others, I say, well, it was years of hard work, but we finally fid it.
Clinton's NAFTA and Obama's perceived arrogance didn't help.
Every dysfunctional relationship has an enabeler.
When polls are done now, that 35% number never changes. These are the hardheaded deniers, the core of the Cult of Trump, who refuse to see his faults for what they are. Why do they do that? Because as cult members, they've equated their wellbeing with their leader being successful, dubious as that is. And if he falls, they know they'll fall, too. That thought terrifies them, and, so, they won't budge on their opinions of him.
I wish they would officially announce themselves. Really. Wouldn't a study of them, at least a deep dive, be helpful to know more about them? Who they are, where they come from, what created their core belief systems? They're proud MAGA, right? You'd think they would proudly step up for such a study!
Hard-core racists used to hang out in their living rooms together and then keep their lips zipped when they went out the front door because it was a socially unattractive trait. Trump has provided permission to say the bad part out loud and the yahoos are making the best of it at the moment. But the racists know in their hearts that their hatred of others is wrong, but their own weak personalities require an undergirding of scapegoat. I think the most we can hope for is that at the end of this regrettable era, they’ll return to their living rooms and leave the rest of us alone.
What you're referring to are KKK meetings.
William, you’ve articulated what I have said since 2016: he gave that population permission to hate: Blacks, women, LGBTQ+…all of us “others”.
Yup.
He didn’t just give permission, he encouraged it and modeled it. I really think that shame is an undercurrent that comes from living in an authoritarian and/or evangelical home. Taught at young ages that our own humanity is something to be ashamed of and hidden instead of understood and reckoned with. Scholars have told us thru history that the oppressed become the worst oppressors. The trauma of shame provides a limbic connection that is felt. A freedom/permission to be oneself. After the 2016 election there were numerous studies showing that counties that voted strongly for the felon also had high rates of addiction and health issues. This is very consistent with the ACE study which connects childhood trauma to those same issues.
A combination of Dunning Kruger effect and a complete lack of critical thinking skills, amplified by their jealousy of (and need to "own") people who are educated and experts in their field.
I can not support the complete vilification of trumpers. Many of them are neighbors, former friends, even family members. I do think they are self satisfied and want tp preserve their way of life. They are concerned about people who are of a different culture, a different color, and a different situation in life, the adjective is xenophobic. They have a very narrow view of life and no interest beyond their niche. They can be generous, good neighbors and decent people but without empathy and will fiddle while Rome burns.
Well, then the republicans need to remind them to pull themselves up by their boot straps, be responsible, self-reliant, hardy and embrace that pioneer spirit - but not the kind that fought to eliminate the Indian menace. But maybe that too.....
You mean return to under their rocks.
Same goes for those who secretly fantasize about raping women....
Kelli, yes ..... with an attitude of kind curiosity, I'd love to see that because it would help me understand in details rather than my usual assumptions of trauma, role models, unappealing or non-existent career paths, toxic media and blabla. The future can offer opportunities to build together in big ways which can be scary, as creativity can be scary and thrilling at the same time.
Generations of those who have been “carefully taught” that hatred.
"You've got to be taught to hate & fear."
"You've got to be taught from year to year."
...
"You've got to be taught to be afraid."
"Before you are six or seven or eight"
A sociologist named Arlie Hochschild has written at least two books on the topic.
“More than half a century of research in genetics, neuroscience and psychology has demonstrated that human behaviors, including social and political attitudes, are influenced by genetic and neurobiological factors (for a review see Hatemi and McDermott 2012a). Lindon Eaves, Hans Eysenck and Nicholas Martin pioneered this radical departure, finding that genetic variance accounted for a substantial portion of individual differences in conservatism, sub-dimensions of social, economic and defense ideologies, as well as individual social and political attitudes (Eaves and Eysenck 1974; Martin et al. 1986; Eaves et al. 1989). Additional twin and extended kinship studies which included parents, non-twin siblings, spouses, and twins reared apart confirmed these earlier results and found that most individual political attitudes were influenced by a combination of genetic effects (which explain between 30 and 60% of variance) and environmental influence (Truett et al. 1994; Eaves et al. 1999; Bouchard and McGue 2003; Hatemi et al. 2010). In this way, children resemble their parents because of their genetic relatedness as much as parental upbringing and social environments”
Well, the colonizers genes persist! No doubt about it!!
Bullies are gonna bully (and rape) 😢
Makes ya rethink the entire anti-abortion culture, huh?
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4038932/#:~:text=More%20than%20half%20a%20century,parental%20upbringing%20and%20social%20environments.
Nah. Combo of nature & nurture. The theory you preach sounds like southern slave owners espousing the inferiority of blacks.
“Inferiority” is a human construct. Genetics is science.
I would greatly prefer to be able to spend more time outside in the sun without worrying about getting burned, or skin cancer or slathering myself in greasy chemicals or sticky zinc oxide.
Question for the future is what in hell is it about humanity that creates a need for the human construct of “inferiority”? I want to see a construct where we work together to build up what’s best in each other toward’s a goal of creating abundance in the world for all.
Our lives would improve if we worked on rethinking our constructs instead of competing, dominating, accumulating…
Didn't Shaw cover this in 'Pygmalion'?
Except that we are living in the year 2026, not 1913. At some point, might our morality evolve to a point where we can stop denying science? I’m hopeful but doubtful. Curious and kind.
In the year 2026 we also have learned of neuroplasticity and epigenetics.
And many among us have committed themselves to the idea of equal Justice for all, and that laws and order are necessary, and our love for each other could prevent our violent destruction.
I’d like to think, anyway, that I am light years away from having been an amoeba. 🤷🏻♀️
They have no power but their personal point of view....
Any thing that that35% say would be nothing more than a nonsense rationalization.
William, I've commented on this before, but I'll repeat a summary version. It is significant that according to Pew research, 35% of the U.S. population identifies as evangelical Protestants or traditionalist Catholics. These folks focus on the Old Testament (aka Hebrew Scriptures) and its jealous, vengeful God. They are obsessed with sin and guilt.
The racist factor comes from the long-held doctrine of "The Curse of Ham," an Old Testament myth about Noah cursing his grandson, Canaan, because his father, Ham, son of Noah, was a voyeur observing Noah engaged in some embarrassing act while drunk. At Noah's behest, God turned Canaan's skin black and caused all his descendants' skin to be black, and guaranteed that they would always be enslaved to others. Only in the last few years did the Southern Baptist Convention remove this doctrine from their corporate theology.
Not all MAGA are evangelical and not all evangelicals are MAGA, but the overlap is almost total.
These are often times the same grown women who will blame the 13 & 14 year old victims of Epstein. Those neural pathways of shame seem ironclad. 💔
Christy, it goes back to Eve, the talking snake, the apple and their banishment from the garden of Eden. It was all her fault.
Interesting. So blatant but I had not thought about that. Thanks.
Trainable? You might be dreaming William.
It is so important to remember that every human has the potential to have a sudden experience of the truth of a situation that changes everything in his or her or their noggin. We have to remember that even the most loyal MAGA can have a conversion experience. Be kind. Be respectful.
Yes.
Is this before or after you thump them on the head?
... and hopeful, optimistic, patient - afterall these are rugged individuals....so the myth goes.
Anyone is trainable - if they choose to be. The question is do they want to be trained. My guess is no.
That's where BF Skinner comes in.
There's hard mathematics (well beyond what I had to learn to survive the first year of engineering school) that explains the numbers that our species has evolved. This is also beyond the legal and business training that most of our political leaders have.
We are doomed to endless debate and conflict until human societies and their governance assets are able to unlock this quandry and learn to manage with it.
Yes, I do believe we have far too many people who are disengaged. It's how some deal with abuse.
You have to get their attention first. How do you wrest the attention of shallow people from their digital devices, football scores, “ influencer” posts and their mirrors long enough to get them to focus on the future of this country.
May I suggest at 6:00 CDT that shit, though dumb, is important? I keep looking at the face of the unhinged, nasty smelly (remember MBS on the hot mike?) stupid, elected “president” of the country I was taught to love and work for as a child during WWII. It shows a frightening depravity and almost unbelievable meanness.
And in denial. Never underestimate the power of denial.
Also TC, some people are seduced and trapped and afraid to speak against him, you know, like 13 year old girls on Epstein Island.
Justin Sain, Denial slaughters truth. I know this personally from my family history. People repeat their pov about something as that something morphs into another form. It happens over and over. Any attempt to alter that rigid pov fails. And it kills.
In trump world everything is deceit, lies, cunning, theft, sodomy, wickedness with no fear of retribution or concern for the world. They are worse than beasts. Did I just give the animal kingdom a bad name? I apologize....
Humpty is The Beast: not a statement about other mammals; he is the worst that American humans currently have to offer. Of course, other nations have, and have had those who were just as bad or worse. Russia had Stalin and not surprisingly, as a result now has Putin. Germany had Hitler and the Nazis, which took a world war to crush. China had Mao who ordered millions to be killed, or to be starved, and now as a result they have the totalitarian CCP. Why do we humans constantly elevate the worst of us to the highest positions? I think that the dumbest of us are too easily manipulated into thinking that voting for the worst mothraflocker amongst us will only hurt the minority groups that they (the dumbest among us) want to hurt. They never figure out that they will be among (their) victims until it is too late and the damage is done to everyone.
I got a new refrigerator delivered yesterday. The driver was wearing a MAGA hat. Rather than climbing on my high horse and refusing to allow him in my house, I asked him why, in a reasonable and interested tone. This late-middle aged guy said that there are lot of things he dislikes about Trump, but he has 4 grown kids, and none of them can come near buying a house. They put up with rent that goes up more than a hundred bucks a month, every year. He thinks Trump will fix that.
Sure, some of his voters are racists and idiots. I’m sure some Harris voters have their own grave faults.
But we need to persuade that guy, and many more like him. We need to grow our coalition into now-red states, ot face electoral ruin after 2030.
Frankly, one of our challenges is arrogant, stupid people who refer to voters we might otherwise persuade, as “dumber than shit”. And others, in love with their own meager cleverness, who find a way to riff on the remark.
Dumber than shit. I like that. In English I usually say, "dumber than dirt" which gets complaints from my daughter, about me cursing in front of her. In German I usually say "Vollidiot!" I draw it out so that it is more like "Vo-o-o-o-ollidiot!That is a like a complete and total idiot. Of course I am not making fun of people who are not able to understand, but people who should know better.
Some are not, I know some, and that's even scarier!
Putin's days must be full of glee, watching the wilfull destruction of the United States of America by this awful president-in-name-only! PINO?
Exactly. I keep sending to maga people I know the truth in reels and articles because they don’t look beyond Fox
Tom I see that, as you age, you have become more gentle in your personal assessments. Deep down, how do you really feel?
Dumber than shit is accurate. And they are indifferent, too. Zombies
You summed it up TC.
The shabbiest, pissiest, ugliest, most broken wretch ever to soil the Oval Office.
2-year-old behavior totally, tiresomely, nauseatingly predictable — and predicted.
As racist and disgusting as is post was, it has been the perfect distraction, in his eyes, from the trumpstein files. I believe his actions and behaviors are all or in part because he knows his name is mentioned throughout the files and what better way to distract from all that than to post something so vile and racist people think about that instead of the files.
Yes klutt7358. Yes.
Most of what the Orange Monster does is distractive. And it is certainly the Epstein Files that he doesn't want us to focus on. And dozens of other accusations of abuse by women - including his ex-wife.
But it is also the billions of dollars the "Trump Family" is extracting from U.S. citizens. Last tally was about $4 billion.
And then, this Ultimate Con Man sued the U.S. IRS (us) for $10 billion. Reason? Reputational damage - the revelation that this Sleazebag hasn't paid any significant taxes because of all his "business losses"?
So wait. Think. Is this lawsuit really about embarrassment? Or fear? He lost so much money he didn't pay taxes...isn't that incompetence? So you and I should pay him $10 billion because he is exposed as a lousy business person?
Yes! It's outrageous. So is hanging out with a child rapist for 15 years. The fact that even 6 people are left in this country that support such a creature is astounding.
Mike Johnson should have introduced Articles of Impeachment a very long time ago. His legacy will be that of "Protector of Pedophile and Thief".
This corruption (violation of laws and of universally accepted morality) exceeds anything I have read in fiction. If it were a novel, it would flop because it is so unbelievable.
The people who still support 47 have dark hearts and their souls are long gone to vapor. Poof. Think Zombies.
Bill, I used to think that at some point, the Cognitive Dissonance would kick in, and that my MAGAt cop cohort would realize what they were being fed was dis/misinformation of the highest order. Instead, they lap it up like my cats lap up tuna juice. It feeds a part of their souls that absolutely disgusts me.
I hope Mike Johnson is in the Trumpstein files
Marj, unless Trumpstein were trafficking boys (which is not impossible), I don't think you'll see "Holy Mike" in the files. I would look for him on Grindr.
Yes, this is true. The people who support him comment sometimes on posts in the Free Press, which I also subscribe to, and they are delighted that we take the bait, get crazy over his behavior. This is a big part of the strategy.
We should never forget thatTrump, the ChristoNazi conquest and its MAGAstapo terrorism is the triumph of a multi-generation, bi-partisan scheme more than a century in the making, To learn of the carefully hidden roots of the crisis, the documentation of which include a PBS film about the enormous support for Hitler here in the '30s and additional, meticulously footnoted documentation of the plutocracy's support for Nazism, go here: https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/january-25-2026?utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=205274486
In the last week or so, I've added Greg Olear's Substack "Prevail" to Loren's comment. WARNING: GRAPHIC REPORT OF CHILD SEX ABUSE
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/ramble-on-there-is-no-santa-claus
If these reports are indeed valid, what these men allegedly did was more than just perversion beyond sex, it was full blown sadomasochism. If the women who addressed Congress spoke of this to Mace, it is understandable why she was reportedly "shaken," and the perpetrators absolutely MUST be revealed and prosecuted.
If anyone reading is strong enough to stomach this and is willing to devote the time to reading his LONG Substack--please--restack, post, forward, whatever. I fear it is up to the public to force justice to happen.
Similarly, Carole Coldwalladr's https://broligarchy.substack.com/p/we-all-live-in-jeffrey-epsteins-world
For the Epstein-Trump-Musk-Putin international relationship to be “studied” by the Tusk government gives me great hope. Dzerzhinsky, born in Kyiv, was grandfather to the KGB, Putin’s home. Like the British, the Polish have a long and distinguished history of “digging.” (Sorry. Couldn’t think of a better word for intelligent Intelligence. Thinking about how the Allies got the Enigma Machine.)
Yes: Agolf Shitler is trying to finish what the Nazis started, and he’s made quite a bit of openly transparent attempts along with his coalition of white Un-Christian nationalists. This is the culmination of their efforts over time; but it seems that a majority of non-Repugnican voters are not buying the shit that they’re selling, so what next? Calls to mass violence from Trumpstein?
Lauri D and Loren Bliss, you are absolutely right.
Thank you.
That may well be the method to his madness. I think the likelihood grows with every day that rapidly accelerating fronto-temporal dementia, where all the filters just come off, is now the dominant force behind everything he does.
It feels more like this is who he’s always been and no longer gives a shit how many millions see it. Perhaps both are true, of course.
😂😂😂ICCT, you hit my funny bone.
Oh, I’m glad, thanks. Laughter is essential, otherwise we’ll all just shrivel up to nothing and blow away with the wind…
I would agree that in the past he has a finely honed edge for the art of manipulation, trickery, the “con”. But as age deteriorates his neural functioning and the FAFO consequences further his narcissistic collapse, I suspect he’s running on fumes of revenge and jealousy. He has plenty of parasites around him though to continue the con.
My jaw is still dragging on the floor....
Sorry,no. It is just. Trump letting his inherent hate and racism out for all to see. That is the basis for all his actions. He cannot help himself. Surrounded as he is with fellow white supremacists he sees nothing wrong with showing his lack of humanity.
I am waiting for the day to see "all the action" at the White House when the Trumps and their administration are gone. Lots of disinfectant trucks as well as dump trucks to haul out all that gaudy gold krap. As well as the photos hanging in the hall, and who knows, perhaps there will be a statue of Trump in front of his office by that time. But I am waiting for the day. It will be celebratory.
There’s a 15’ tall gold statue of him meant to grace the lawn at Doral. At issue is a remaining $95 K balance due the sculptor. 🤣
Of course he stiffed the artist. I'm waiting to hear the news of when that is melted down. It'll happen someday. Hopefully I will be alive to enjoy it.
I would buy a ticket to that event.
Seems the backers are a failed crypto scheme.
Break a leg. Off.
Scratch the golden statue and what you find is probably made of lead, just like the real article himself.
All his self monuments should be ripped down just to spite him, and a national holiday should be declared to celebrate it.
It's Come To This,
And yet...he was chosen to be the "front man" by the Republican Party.....(and maybe Putin?)
Trump should wonder what the last thoughts of similarly deluded dictators were.
He should be thinking about Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Mousillini and aristocrats who list their life to the guillotine.
But he won't because he believes in his own delusions that the People love him.
Most definitely Putin.
I agree with the first sentence but my 2 yo granddaughter is adorable and while she hasn't hit the full fledged tantrum stage yet, it will never be on the same scale as what is in the WH now. 😳 The teenage years? Now, that's a horse of a different color!! 🤯 🎠
Apologies to all non-deranged 2-year-olds with sweet dispositions....
Funny you should say about your granddaughter not being at the tantrum stage, my 18- month old grandson has been having tantrums but he's still adorable. However, I know this to shall pass, but, with tRvmp, not so much. His tantrums are way worse than any toddler.
Plutocratic capture of media is certainly part of the picture.
That's why -- when all the Ku Klux Klan klaverns unite to honor Donald the Destroyer for his racism by voting him their Imperial Wizard, and he celebrates it with the first national cross-burning on the front lawn of the newly renamed Trump White House -- the plutocratic press will cover it as if it were nothing more than normal politics.
You are correct, Loren: MAGA s the KKK, Trump is the Imperial Wizard. Timothy Egan, "A Fever in the Heartland" (2023); Heather Cox Richardson, "How the South Won the Civil War," (2020); and "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" published in the Feb. 2018 edition of "Critical Sociology."
'How the South Won the Civil War" was my introduction to Dr. Richardson. Two other vital books are Chris Hedges' "American Fascists: the Christian Right and the War on America" (Free Press: 2007) and Jeff Sharlet's "The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" (Harper-Collins: 2008). The Democrats hate the latter reference because it documents Hillary's clandestine collaboration with the ChristoNazis. But I've long been aware of the threat; my father cross-referenced Goldwater's speeches to their sources in "Mein Kampf," hoping it would aid the Democrats, but by 1964 they were already too compromised, and in essence they told him to get lost.
Ouch, Loren Bliss, I missed that. As a musician, focused on the arts in the US, I hadn’t time to concentrate on much “bad,” except racism and homophobia.
Wonder if he’d paint the White House gold.
I'm pretty certain he would. And then he'd have them leave all the empty spray paint cans lying on the lawn.
J L, I'd posit that plutocrats have always owned the media (at least the major outlets.) I'd also say that, for the most part, they've traditionally had a hands-off policy, allowing their executive editors, editorial boards and the like to make the day-to-day decisions about coverage, and so long as staff maintained profitability, ownership was happy. Ex: John Henry (billionaire owner of the Red Sox, a soccer team, F1 racing team, etc etc) bought my beloved Boston Globe and has had, to the best of my knowledge, nothing to do with editorial decisions, unlike the Murdochs and Bezos of the world.
Caveat: my only *bona fides* are that I was a paperboy in my youth from 5th to 9th grade for 3 Boston papers, and have been a lifelong lover of newspapers.
What has happened to the media (and I'd include the entertainment side as well) over the past decade is shameful. I'm not sure if this was the start of it, but the idjit djt calling once-reputable companies "fake news" has jaded and tainted consumers' view of the industry for good, it seems. We no longer trust what we see and hear reported, and AI makes it much worse. Were it not for the fact that we each carry devices on our persons to make an A-V record of what is happening (even going back to Romney's talk to a donor group about the privileged class in 2011 or whenever it was), we wouldn't know much of what we know -- the killing of Mr. Floyd, Ms. Good, Mr. Pretti, and only and on.
It is a daunting pile up of facts. But we can't indulge in the outrage and use up our energy on purposeful distractions. The apes trope distracted from the Epstein files, yet again, among many other things.
After the ICE reform scandals and the question of who is actually in charge of CBP, the next biggest threat of the day is the attacks on voting rights.
This has lots of moving parts. The SAVE America Act is the newest piece.
The seizure of the ballots in Fulton County Ga ties back to Dominion Voting Systems, which provided the election equipment used there. Dominion received a $787.5 million settlement in a defamation lawsuit alleging it had rigged the election. Dominion still had suits open against Rudi Giuliani, Sydnee Powell, Mike Lindell, and OANN when it was purchased in October 2025 by Scott Lieindecker, who was a former Republican Election official under Ed Martin, Trump's current Pardons Attorney at the DOJ.
The original owner of Dominion sold it because of concerns about its viability. Lieindecker is the sole owner and bought it for an undisclosed sum. The suits against the election deniers were dropped, and Dominion was rebranded as Liberty Vote. Liberty Vote proudly serves 26 states and supports elections for more than 54 million voters, and we remain focused on supporting you with dependable, modern election technology for the years ahead, according to the company.
According to Axios:
A Liberty representative said the organization will engage in a "top-down" review of Dominion's equipment ahead of next year's midterm elections, and that it would "rebuild or retire" machines as needed.
Anybody guessing what they will find???
Lieindecker also owns KnowInk, a manufacturer of electronic pollbooks used to check registrations at the polls. Liberty Vote and KNOWiNK together have systems deployed in more than 40 states, and KNOWiNK’s Poll Pad alone checked in about 36 million voters across 29 states in the 2024 general election, according to the company.
Lots of pieces of the puzzle are fitting together. Trump is coming after the midterms. He's going for disenfranchisement through the Save America Act and control of the machines that verify registrations at the polls and count the votes. He wants to put a few ICE agents at the door to add a dose of intimidation. Steve Bannon told us so.
Am I missing anything???
https://www.aol.com/articles/republican-buys-dominion-voting-systems-190053825.html
https://libertyvote.com/
https://knowink.com/
https://www.axios.com/2025/10/09/dominion-voting-machines-sold-elections
So can we, as voters, refuse to use ‘Liberty’ machines, and demand paper ballots? If We The People start doing this during the primaries, perhaps we can be reasonably confident in the November results?
To answer this question, Daniel Kunsman, you would need to check with your state voting commission. Elections are run by the several states unless Trump is somehow successful in “nationalizing” it, whatever that means. I only know the laws in Massachusetts and NY, but I think most states follow similar procedures. So if your vote is challenged, you can vote on a provisional ballot, which is paper, but if it isn’t challenged, in Massachusetts and NY at least, you write on a paper ballot and it is fed into the machine to be tabulated. But the paper ballots have to be preserved and can be recounted. Preserving the paper ballots is legally required and necessary for the democratic process. There is a very stringent process by which they are preserved and locked up in theft-proof and fire-proof storage, and the chain of custody is also written and preserved. The chain of custody is what was destroyed when the FBI went in and seized ballots in Georgia a couple of weeks ago.
So yes, Elizabeth, I will be contacting the Ohio Board of Elections with this question. But it’s not about MY vote being challenged; it’s about ME challenging the veracity of Liberty’s voting machines. My thought is that if enough people express doubts about Liberty, each State will HAVE TO stand behind the legitimacy. Liberty will be forced to stand down, and play by the rules. I’m hoping more people from more states will follow my lead.
I totally understand and sympathize, but I was only addressing your question about paper ballots. Good luck with your Board of Elections! I hope you can get somewhere before the primaries.
I’m sure going to try!
It depends on whether the SAVE America Act is passed. I am more worried about the KnowInk pollbooks showing that people are not registered, and the subterfuge in the Act about Real ID, which sounds like it embeds citizenship data when it doesn't.
I am also wondering if they get the rolls for all the states and cross-reference them, if they will challenge everyone who appears on more than one state's roll, or at two different addresses, because they moved and didn't cancel their previous registration. Purge first, ask questions later, and then cut off counting before the provisional ballots can be counted. So many crappy possibilities!!!
It's going to take a couple of days to splice together the SAVE America Act with the previous voter registration act to figure out what is going on. One thing I keep bumping into is the lack of a resource that provides a clean, edited version of the operative law. All you get are the amendments to what was previously there--"change phrase A to Phrase B on line 13 of page 16 of Act XYZ" "Add paragraph F after Section 3 Clause 2 numering is as clause 3."
I have a friend who is a retired law professor, and she sent me pages of instructions on how to do it.
There ought to be a Transparency in Legislation Act so you can see what you are getting. The Congressional Record provides summaries, but they are not the same as actually reading the text. Law professors apparently use law librarians to do the job.
We’ve got a LOT of work to do, once we retake our government! For now, we all need to get along side Megan, and overwhelm our Reps about voting down the SAVE Act.
Both the SAVE Act HR 22 (passed by House, not yet introduced in the Senate) and the SAVE America Act HR 7296 (House vote possible on Tuesday) and I haven’t figured out what the key differences are. :-(
It is crazy making and confuzzling ( A favorite word of my daughter’s when she was four.)
Be sure you are asking the members of the correct chamber about the correct bill.
Save America Act HR 7296 in the House vote on Tuesday is the priority.
Confuzzling! Love it!! The aim of every Repub.. er Nazi, is to have us all confuzzling about what their bills actually are. I'm gonna throw that at the Nazis here in Ohio!
As long as there are paper ballots is the mantra. But clearly to have computing machines owned by MAGA operatives doesn’t bid well. The good news is that many republicans are disgusted with this MAGA movement and I pray our democratic side doesn’t fall prey to un popular issues.
I just hope enough MAGA are both disgusted, and compelled to demonstrate that disgust at the ballot. Nonetheless, we have to do our part.
We must protect the right to vote. Demand that Congress reject the SAVE Act.
https://c.org/qPpL6PqFNn
Don’t forget what the Postal Service recently did about postmarks
Don’t get me started on the post office. I paid insurance and signature request on an expensive print and when delivered, my signature was forged and the package left on front steps and was stolen. It took me 3 written applications demand for coverage before they finally paid. And you can believe me, I was thinking evil things about the post office at the time. An I was prepared to walk a picket sign in front of local post office headquarters if they did t pay.
I understood that recently Dominion was sold to --guess who-- a GOP donor with big bucks. So you can see how that will work.
That's Lieindecker. With a sole owner corporation there is no external oversight. He wrote that he is aligned with Trump's executive order on voting integrity. What is suspicious is that having gotten the huge settlement from Fox, that the prior owners of Dominion would have sold, since the Fox settlement was many times the prior purchase price of the company.
If Lieindecker wasn't pro-MAGA why would he have dropped the other defamation suits since he won the Fox one which would have had the best defense being the biggest.
I originally thought that the prior owners could not overcome the hit to their reputation and lost most of their government contracts, but here we are, 5 months post sale date later, and Liberty is touting how big their embedded base is.
Of course the whole thing smells like rotting fish. The process of decomposition may be unclear, but we know what the end result is likely to be. More corruption, at the cost of our democracy.
This is the one guy Liendecker that GF is talking about.
I've been wondering if ICE presence in Democratic cities is a pretext for election interference. Now Bannon and Leavitt are confirming that suspicion.
We must protect voting rights.
https://c.org/qPpL6PqFNn
Most cities are blue. Will governors in red states invite the feds to intimidate voters in their blue cities?
I think that if they are brazen enough to send feds at all, they will do so regardless of the governor. The larger risk is federal authorities acting outside the bounds of Constitutional norms because Congress failed to reign in the lawlessness. Let's hope conditions on DHS funding and a rejection of the SAVE Act come from the Hill this week.
I’ve got to believe that a large number of both male and female Republican voters will be affected by the Save America Act—no passports and women whose IDs don’t match their given names. Their fixation with “owning the Libs” will possibly be their own undoing.
I agree if it is equally applied, but Trump is saying he only wants Rs to take over voting in 15 blue cities because that’s the only places where there is rigging.
As the judges are now saying, there is no longer a presumption of regularity.
Once upon a time, I used to think you could fix that with a high-fiber diet.
Georgia, thank you. You’re doing a great job keeping the details before us. Even if I can’t deal with all the references, appreciating that they’re available and for the time and skill to collect them.
And this to me is the most important info I keep reposting. And to think the average American spends 4 minutes a week engaged in news. Mind blowing.
I just did a deep-dive into the US Election Assistance Commission (US EAC) and am somewhat relieved. The Commission was established by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002. Everything here was obtained using Perplexity AI.
The good news is that it is an independent commission of 4. Congressional leaders submit names reflecting balanced party representation (no more than two from the same party), after which the President formally nominates them for Senate confirmation. Currently, 1 D and 1 R were appointed by Obama, and 1 D and 1 R were appointed by Trump in his first Term. They can serve two consecutive four-year terms and be held over until new ones are appointed. The two appointed by Obama are holdovers whose terms expired in 2023.
The bad news is that the Biden administration did not appoint new commissioners, so Trump could at any time choose to do so. The other two had first terms that expired in 2023 and could remain until 2027, or Trump could choose to replace them now. So Trump gets to pick all 4 Commissioners before the midterms, but 2 must be Rs and 2 Ds if he chooses to follow the law that created the commission.
The Commission was funded on February 3, 2026, when the minibus was signed. It operates under the Congressional appropriations committees (the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Financial Services and General Government), which provide budgetary oversight, while the EAC's Office of Inspector General conducts internal audits.
The good news is that there is still an Inspector General. Sarah Dreyer is the current Inspector General for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Recent EAC OIG documents, including the FY 2026 Oversight Plan and the Management Challenges report dated December 2025, explicitly refer to Sarah Dreyer as Inspector General, overseeing audits, investigations, and evaluations of EAC operations and grants. 2025.
The good news is that they use independent test labs to verify the performance of election equipment, and those labs are recertified every 2 years using NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) testing standards. There appear to be rigorous compliance standards and best-practice recommendations for the states on using the equipment and verifying results.
The bad news is that testing is optional, and the states can choose to follow the recommended standards or not.
The good news is that HAVA has funds for state grants to enhance election security, and the US EAC was funded at a higher level than Trump requested.
Bottom line is that by law the commission has to be balanced between the parties and it is independent. The bad news is that Trump could nominate all 4 new commissioners tomorrow if he chose, ahead of the midterms, but they would have to be confirmed by the Senate. It is not clear if the Dems must stay if someone isn't confirmed or Trump could fire them like he is trying to do with Lisa Cook on the Fed. And with everything else these days, the presumption of regularity has to be questioned.
Liam Ramos is a brave American boy! He is back in Minnesota after a judge ruled that the ice fascists could not deport his family. I wrote a poem inspired by him: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/liam-ramos-poem
You are a Public Servant a Public Poet.
djt's vile racism runs all the way back to early life with his core racist father. All the recent 2025-26 elections are evidence that generally a bit more more than 32% vote for him.
I go back to his first run for President when the Iowa primary was a flop, his New Hampshire primary result was poor but, the vote in the South Carolina primary was around 32% for djt in each & every district throughout the state of South Carolina.
That evidence is what we now call his maga base a deep & dividing fissure in the not-United States.
Heather has detailed our history succinctly in "How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy & the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America".
Time to re-read Heather's book and finally deal with it.
Mary Trump has said it correctly as she points to his developmental stages where both parents were unable to offer positive reinforcement and love and this twisted him into the monster he is today. And we must not forget, Joe Biden gave him the opportunity to win and destroy this nation by remaining in office for a 2nd term.
Our darkest hour is at hand. The effects of this unwanted and unneeded destruction is at hand. Protect your assets. My hunch is the stock market is going to crash. The Phoenix will rise. But not before total destruction. We must set aside our differences and unite. We all can contribute according to our strengths.
I already notified certain local activists groups of my willingness to drive children of immigrant parents to school in my van. I would also open my home as a sanctuary if needed but I do live in a relatively safe Connecticut. I published an open letter to our governor asking him to give instructions to our state National Guard to be protective of our residents. Whether my letter had anything to do with it, he is now on record of taking a more defensive rule for our state police apparatus.
Unite to Save America.
I've thought for a long time that the markets are thriving on vapor and magic beans. The Dow rose by 1200 points today for no good reason. I should be happy about that but instead it scares me to bits.
The " Age of Easy Money". It will collapse upon itself sooner or later.
Bill Katz,
I applaud your actions. And I agree that we are on the verge of a market collapse. If anyone reading this has significant assets invested, don't think that you will be able to make them liquid when the bottom falls out and there are no buyers. In 2008, perfectly "safe" mutual funds dropped 40% or more in a heartbeat.
"Conservative" index funds (S&P 500) are now dominated by AI driven investments - which are shaky at best in terms of ROI. The AI con is significantly bigger and more market consuming than "bundled junk mortgages". The scope of this bubble is larger than anything in history. Throw in a little crypto collapse and you have the 2030's looking like the 1930's.
And yes, "Unite to Save America".
But anyone who would have voted for Trump over Biden's brain in a jar or a super experienced, competent and decent Harris deserves the credit for where we are. Self blaming is a hobby Democrats have been really good at. Biden didn't give us Trump. The whole Democratic Party did.
So, if you want to go that route, many of us think Sanders could have trounced Trump. Why? Because he speaks the truth about the real problem in the US - income and wealth hoarding by the few. Poverty for the families with multiple jobs. Walmart wages so low that you and I subsidize their workers with SNAP benefits. There is a message that should have been central and used to pound the establishment's theft of a way of life.
If someone works full time - at any job - maybe also has a part time gig to pay for rent and groceries - that person should have decent housing, drinkable water, food security, health care, a good education for their kids, and child care. Period. Full stop. Basic policy in the richest nation to have ever existed.
All of which should guide us going forward. We need a new populist Democratic Party - for Workers. Ironically, it will take billions of dollars and benevolent billionaires to get us there. Because America is bought and sold to the highest bidder.
But again, Bill, your heart is in the right place. Your actions tell us so.
Today I will write an impassioned letter to the founders of Mobilize asking them to include me or at least give me performing access to the directors of the larger rallies.
After what I read about the collapse of farms today and remembering that “investors” are buying up farmland, with climate change wreaking havoc everywhere, wondering about food. It’s past time for price controls and rationing. This time it’s not for the troops. It’s for US all.
The very folks who by nature are conservative and did vote MAGA are now losing and I trust the will vote for democratic candidates if they will be able to vote at all.
Could you start a petition and get signatures of people who will support you?
Oh… you are so kind. It doesn’t happen that way. If the songs are good enough, one can get in. If you are a touring artist, even easier. In my case I’m a leaping unknown. I was foolish last April 18 to drive to DC and ask the stage direct to let me perform one song. And that also isn’t the way it’s done. But after knowing that senator Cory Booker spoke on the senate floor for 25 hours, I was so inspired to drive for 350 miles.
And SC is a hotbed of measles. In MAGA fashion, if it was a Democratic state, does anyone doubt they'd be screaming it was the wrath of God?
Karma is a bitch.
Re-read again. Third time's the charm
Got it.
I’m an avid Heather fan and yet understand people who are too tied up in their own lives to follow the atrocities like we Heather-fans do. They are part of the 35% who aren’t concerned enough about what’s happening in MN. About 20% of Americans, I’m afraid, are Trumpistas and like what Trump does. Let’s be good to the ~15% who are low-info, not low IQ. Let Trump be the one who derides decent people.
"The American Racist''
Late at night, while most of the country was sleeping or doomscrolling quietly like responsible citizens, President Donald J. Trump decided to post a video from his social media account that combined two enduring American traditions: recycled lies about the 2020 election and racist imagery so crude it would embarrass a nineteenth-century minstrel show.
The video featured Barack Obama and Michelle Obama with their heads pasted onto the bodies of apes. Not metaphorical apes. Not symbolic apes. Literal apes. The kind historically used to justify enslavement, lynching, segregation, and the comforting lie that cruelty was simply biology in action.
Predictably, the White House response arrived on schedule and on brand. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the backlash as “fake outrage,” because nothing says moral seriousness like accusing millions of Americans of hallucinating racism they have recognized for centuries.
But something unexpected happened. A few Republican senators, including Tim Scott, Pete Ricketts, and Roger Wicker, broke protocol and called the post racist. At which point the White House sprang into action with the reflexes of a practiced crime scene cleanup crew.
The video was deleted. A statement appeared. A “staffer” was blamed. Not just any staffer, mind you, but a magical one with the ability to access the president’s account at midnight, post racially charged propaganda, and then vanish into the walls like a disgraced Hogwarts graduate.
Republicans rushed to condemn the racism once it had been safely reclassified as accidental. Racism is only intolerable, it seems, when no one powerful has to own it.
Then came the plot twist. Later that night aboard Air Force One, Trump admitted that he had posted the video himself. When asked if he would apologize, he replied, “No, I didn’t make a mistake.”
At this point, the staffer likely began updating their resume.
This was not a slip of the finger. It was not a misunderstanding. It was a political maneuver as old as the republic, updated for the age of digital paste and denial. When power erodes, reach for race. When coalitions grow, divide them. When accountability looms, throw a slur and call it strategy.
Trump’s racism is not a personality quirk. It is a governing philosophy. It is what remains when policy collapses, credibility evaporates, and even loyal supporters start asking inconvenient questions about competence. Racism becomes the flare shot into the sky to remind the base who they are supposed to fear and hate.
We have seen this pattern before. When Black journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were arrested while covering protests, white protesters nearby were left untouched. When demonstrators gathered at a church, enforcement followed pigmentation rather than behavior. The message was consistent and unmistakable. Democracy is allowed, but only if it stays the right color.
The manipulation extended beyond arrests. The White House went so far as to digitally alter a photograph of civil rights activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, darkening her skin and making her appear distraught during an arrest in which she was, by all accounts, composed. Reality was inconvenient. So it was edited.
“They couldn’t break me,” Armstrong later said. “So they altered an image showing me broken.” She asked, with devastating clarity, whether she was truly that much of a threat to the world’s greatest superpower.
The answer is yes. Not because she is dangerous, but because she is not alone.
What Trump and his allies fear is not any one person. They fear a coalition. A multiracial, multigenerational alliance of Americans who understand that democracy is not a brand or a birthright but a practice that must be defended. History teaches us that when such coalitions emerge, those in power reach for racial wedges to fracture them. This blueprint stretches back to Bacon’s Rebellion, when elites learned that poor whites and enslaved Blacks united were far more dangerous than divided.
Trump’s ape imagery is not random. It is a dog whistle that has long since become a foghorn. It is meant to provoke disgust in some and delight in others, to force Americans back into tribal reflexes at the precise moment when those reflexes are beginning to fail.
The irony is that this strategy exposes weakness, not strength. Confident leaders do not rely on dehumanization. Secure administrations do not need midnight racism. Empires do not panic edit photographs of peaceful protesters.
Trump is doubling down on racism because fewer people are buying the rest of the story. The economy is not a miracle. The courts are not loyal. The press is not cowed. The coalition against authoritarianism is growing, not shrinking.
So we get apes. We get denial. We get a staffer scapegoat followed by a personal confession. We get the spectacle of a president insisting that racism is not a mistake but a choice.
And in a way, he is finally telling the truth.
The question is whether Americans will keep pretending this is normal political theater, or whether they will recognize it for what it is: a last, desperate attempt to govern by fracture in a country increasingly determined to remain whole.
https://essayx.substack.com/p/the-american-racist
Excellent piece. Thank you.
That is my question, as well.
As a foreigner who is white and looks like and almost sounds like an American (if you ignore how I pronounce certain words -- I say mo-bile, for example, not mo-bul) and so have enjoyed a lot of time spent in rural America, drawn to such places as a birder and naturalist. I say "enjoyed" not only because of the experiences, but the hospitality. I am well traveled so while I hope I speak up in a home I have learned to bite my tongue when away from home and outnumbered by the locals. I am polite, have a self-deprecatory sense of humor, and that carries one a long way. I don't defend my veganism in west Texas or my antipathy to shrimp fishing in coastal Louisiana. I am looking for birds, not trouble. All that is by way of prelude and I think the millions of Americans still somewhat accepting of this hideous man are truly isolated from the truth, and truly immersed in ideology that accepts the underlying premises to much of Trumpian "ideology", so far as there is one beyond an infantile need for attention, wealth, and above all, power in the absence of any empathy or loyalty to any law...but we know all that.
This morning I read a bit of the Washington Post...and yes, I know who owns it. But there is a veneer of truth in articles that appear critical of Trump...they still treat him as if there is an explanation for what he does, as though there is a rationale or purpose or perhaps a lax of same. It is too seldom presented for the insanity it represents, and thin on the ground on much of the info Heather has just shared...especially about the agricultural sector. Such news may bubble up into the mainstream, or legacy, news, but only if it can't be avoided.
If one lists all the character flaws Trump exhibits, it mirrors a list of all the character flaws of which the human mind is capable, including cruelty, inconsistency (sounds mild but is very serious), and a staggering level of mendacity. But that is not evident, I posit, to many poorly informed rural Americans of less than a decent level of intelligence, and with their own biases, and their gullibility and inexperience....and American exceptionalism...the belief imbued from infancy that theirs is the best country in the world that can, in effect, do no wrong. And I won't get into the uber-complex issue of religion, except to say that it is reflective, I believe, of cultism.
Is it safe to say that the 35% that still support this fraudster are all racists?
All the “ists”, Harvey: racist and sexist, and phobic as well; homophobic and transphobic.
We need to concentrate on what to do going forward, not on fighting over labeling the MAGA supporters. Please always remember that every human has the capacity to have a sudden change of heart and see the light. They are more likely to join us if they haven’t been labeled and disrespected. Thanks for reading and considering.
I don't agree. If they haven't been yet moved to abandon trump after murders in the street, of five year olds locked up by ICE, of the countless atrocities, they are a lost cause. Sorry but the excuse of "I didn't know" doesn't work in this age of 24/7 at your fingertips news. they choose to watch fox. they choose to listen to alex jones, turning point, they choose to turn away from the news they don't want to see/hear.
Our efforts and energy are far better spent on registering new voters and getting all registered non republican voters to show up to vote. This is how we end this destruction. We have to outvote them and make them pariahs. It's far too late to turn the other cheek or hope these trump supporters will change.
So, Sharon, You and I completely agree on where we are at and the necessity of registering new voters etc. I’m not suggesting we somehow expend energy evangelizing MAGAs. But a change of heart if it comes involves sincere remorse for the previous belief as well as a reversal of the belief. And everyone has this potential. So as long as we are augmenting and amplifying what we see and what we believe, if a MAGA picks up on it and has a change of heart, we are all to the good. Being kind is just part of sincere and humane treatment of our fellow humans. Otherwise we are doing the same thing the MAGAs are doing, hating, labeling and disrespecting.
I really don't need to know of a change of heart if they have one. Why should they have to rend their clothing to satisfy us? What purpose does that serve? I'm just of the belief that the cult isn't going anywhere. They have been exposed to the truth countless times through either others informing them or their reading a headline on a newspaper while in line at the grocery store or on a television show in a waiting room somewhere. With our 24/7 exposure to news it strains credulity to believe that his supporters are still just uninformed. rogan called him out, some on fox are calling trump out. The cult ignores this too. That's why it's called a cult.
Like I said, it isn’t an informational thing. It’s a change of heart.
In one of Heather's chats this week, she said the average time spent by Americans on political information was 4 minutes a week. That may have more than a little to do with maga.
Elizabeth, I gather from your comments that you are a nice person. I would even guess that you are a Christian – probably the genuine kind who follows the model and teachings of Jesus. If I'm right, then it would explain why you believe that people can have a "conversion experience." This is where your beliefs have led you astray.
To invoke an evangelical term, some people are "lost." They can never be "saved." Except I'm referring to the dyed-in-the-wool, never-gonna-change folks who are racist, misogynist, homophobic climate-change deniers.
To name these folks accurately, plainly and candidly is not to "label" them or "disrespect" them. It is to identify the enemy, which is clearly who they are; enemies of democracy.
We are in a war, but not the military kind. We are in an ideological war. We cannot be nice and pretend that we are not in this war. The only way to defeat the enemy is to identify them.
Thanks for your note. Anyone can have a change of heart. Cultists can have a change of heart. I’m not a Christian, I’m agnostic, but Jesus certainly has a lot to say about seeking the lost persistently.
Well, Elizabeth, I was wrong about your religious status, but you've not convinced me I'm wrong about MAGA.
About that chasing the lost sheep thing, it seems like a bad strategy to leave the 99 sheep unattended and vulnerable to wolf attacks, while you chase one dumb lamb who ignored all the warnings. Jesus had a lot to say about being the son of God, too. He implied it was Yahweh, the Hebrew god, but how do we know it wasn't Zeus, Jupiter, Odin, Quetzalcoatl or one of the hundreds of other deities invented by ancient men?
Somewhere, someone has made a brick float on the water. But as a rule, bricks sink. It is a waste of time and energy to try and make bricks float when there are so many other productive ways to invest one's time and energy. Let the bricks sink. Just make sure they're in the water and not in your boat.
The point I am trying to make, Dale, is that we need to treat everyone with a basic respect and kindness. It is better for everyone’s health to avoid anger, hate and accusations. I’m not sure what your dismissive listing of deities and offputting dismissal of Jesus have to do with having a basic respect for all people. Once you decide some people are worthy of respect and others aren’t, you’re doing the same thing as those MAGAs who write off all liberals.
Because the GOP has launched a fake news machine for 25 years now, and its voters are trapped inside it.
The GOP is a neofascist party, using a propaganda machine that is neofascist in nature. By now, these people are no longer living in reality. Their media literally tell them the opposite of what is going on, and ALL their media do. The people they meet at the workplace or at church repeat the same stuff - honestly believing that these lies are true.
Trump didn't build this, the GOP did.
Or as Kamala Harris recently said, this has been DECADES in the making.
As long as we still think that the problem is "one hideous man", things will only get worse.
Let’s hope it is more and more as we learn just how awful he really is. One thing I do not understand is his appeal to the moneyed class. His actions and the actions of his minions are seriously undermining the value of the dollar. When will the billionaires wake up and realize they would actually be better off paying higher taxes to a Democrat majority government than having the very basis of their wealth totally undermined.
The billionaires want tax cuts and deregulation. Plus special laws for them in some cases (like loosening crypto restrictions).
Yeah I think the polls are skewed.Instead of 65%, I would say 90% seems more accurate.This vile man and his hateful administration are a sh*tstain on the soul of America.
Sadly, that solid 33-35% is reflective of a population that has always been with us.
Remember how “never discuss religion and politics” was a mantra, at least in the ‘50’s and 60’s?
Back then it was a matter of civility in many cases. Today it’s become a matter of safety. I’m in awe of the people of Minnesota and other areas under siege.
Excellent Q, foosbeal: "why is it only 65% against him . . ..[?]"
Answer, U.S. schools that abandoned humanities and the writing of personal essays to anesthetize all instead to testing's corporate packaging priorities.
So many good teachers in the schools but, unlike Finland and other countries where good teachers are central, in the U.S. testing's race for numbers governs all. Thus dehumanized, it's debatable how many acquire the skills and literacy fit to seeing others as individuals. Minneapolis and St. Paul, Los Angeles, Chicago, Springfield, Ohio, and Portland, Maine say many.
But it's not debatable how too many (35%?) thrill to Donald's militarized thugs, his relishing of cruelty and violence, his murders (in the Caribbean and U.S. cities), his racism, his concentration camps, extortions, arrogance, and protection of all the elite underage girl rapists.
Polls have to be discounted in large part because the responses are usually based on what the responder beileves the pollster wants to hear, rather than from conviction.
Anecdotally, I will testify that in my discussion groups all, even the most MAGA, condemn the killings.
BTW, here in Baghdad By the Sea, two of our 3 MAGA House members have brioken with Trump on immigration. All politics is (and are) local.
I still think if we pressure Congressional REPUBLICANS who represent Minnesota, Los Angeles, Chicago, Springfield, Ohio, and Portland, Maine, we can stop it.
I also think that the Epstein issue is the best way to get Republican support. Trump fell apart at the prayer breakfast, attacking MAGA who oppose him on Epstein.
Guns and bibles per Batak Obama.
Que passa mida?
Simple, because most of the other 35% still do not understand who he is and what he wants.
It often occurs to me that were most Trump supporters to have known him as a schoolmate, they wouldn’t have chosen him to run a school fund raiser, let alone a student government.
When public opinion is STRONG, Trump knows he has to back down. It's time to call Congress (202 224 3121) and the White House (202 456 1414) about ICE reform. The next 10 days are critical. Read about the 10 Democratic proposals to curb ICE.
https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/the-most-important-thing-you-can
Here’s another resource to help contact as many as possible -
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
I live in Kentucky.
Here is part of Mitch McConnell’s justification for T’s actions, in response to my concern about arresting Maduro:
“…Maduro degraded human rights conditions in Venezuela and brutally repressed political dissent. He falsely claimed victory in the country’s 2024 presidential elections, subverting the will of the Venezuelan people to maintain his hold on power. And, while in power, Maduro profited from the flow of illegal narcotics and reduced a once-prosperous neighbor of America to an impoverished state…”
When I attempted to respond (e.g., then why aren’t we arresting T?), McConnell’s email was full.
McConnell sounds exactly like he is describing Trump and additionally is describing things that are unfortunately Venezuela’s problems not U.S. problems.
The predictable Republican lie.
Maduro was a bad guy. But Trump replaced him with Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, who’s no better. All Trump wanted was access to the oil, and Rodriguez apparently agreed to give him access.
McConnell's staff includes key figures like Chief of Staff Terry Carmack (or potentially Sharon Soderstrom in older contexts), Tiffany Ge (Legislative Director/Rules Committee), Robert Steurer (Press Secretary), and various legislative assistants, schedulers, and field representatives for his Kentucky offices, with detailed roles found on sites like LegiStorm and official Senate directories.
MAIN OFFICE PHONE. 202-224-2541. MAIN OFFICE ADDRESS. ...
LEXINGTON OFFICE PHONE. 859-224-8286. ...
LONDON OFFICE PHONE. 606-864-2026. ...
LOUISVILLE OFFICE PHONE. 502-582-6304. ...
BOWLING GREEN OFFICE PHONE. 270-781-1673. ...
FORT WRIGHT OFFICE PHONE. 859-578-0188. ...
OTHER STAFF PHONE. 202-224-2541. ...
PADUCAH OFFICE PHONE. 270-442-4554.
IMHO he has split with Trump on 1. tariffs and 2. ICE. So far that's it.
You can't expect him to become a Dem.
But check out how far Rand Paul and Thom Massie have come!
Epstein!!!!
What does Elaine know?
It is not easy to pick out what issue to contact my representatives about. Not easy, but pleasant, because the specific choice doesn't matter. What matters is making the contact.
I live in a farming community, in a state that is quite dependent on agriculture (NC). I am going to email my 3 Republican reps and talk about the letter that HCR mentioned today from the former Agriculture Secretaries. I usually call, but I have laryngitis.
Thank you, Megan. I appreciate you.
As I posted directly below you, PLEASE mention the measles in SC! It could spread north quite easily!
And now the clown car vaccine committee of RFK Jr.-appointed jack wagons wants to re-introduce polio into the population of children.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/omerawan/2026/01/25/cdc-vaccine-advisory-panel-chair-questions-polio-recommendation-heres-why-that-sets-a-dangerous-precedent/
RFK Jr., (and Noem, and Bondi) should be impeached and immediately removed from their posts.
I know! That was runner-up.
I don't think "could spread" may be strong enough. "Will spread" may be more accurate. Measles is crazy contagious. But I will say "could spread" to my reps.
I will write about that tomorrow. I do one topic per call/letter.
Thank you, Miselle!
Measles is one of the most contagious viruses known to medicine.
Apparently measles virus is quite contagious as it remains in the air for up to two hours
Wowza!
We must protect the right to vote. Demand that Congress reject the SAVE Act.
https://c.org/qPpL6PqFNn
Thank you for still speaking up even though you have laryngitis. I hope you get better quickly ❤️🩹
Thank you, Megan, as always!
There are so many issues at stake, and as someone posted above, stupid juvenile (insert bad words!) from Trump like the meme gets our goat which delights the MAGA.
I am appalled and disgusted by him, but I'm not going to waste time yelling about that to Congress.
Pick no more than three issues to report to Congressional aides who answer the phone. (IF they answer!! I'm at the point where I prefer to get voice mails or email as talking to them just boils my blood.)
I always tell Mike Johnson's staff that he has sold his soul to Satan, and advise the aide to find other employment so they can avoid the near occasion of sin.
If you are in South Carolina, I'd ask you please address the outbreak of measles. It's not something to joke about. Children WILL die.
Thank you Megan, you are another treasure we have during this most awful time.
We must protect the right to vote. Demand that Congress reject the SAVE Act.
https://c.org/qPpL6PqFNn
Hi Kathleen,
In Ulster county NY, our 5 Indivisible groups have an organized, weekly call to action chain with about 250 active callers between us. We all call on various researched issues every week. Some of us call more than once a week, just cuz…
Our lead organizers create the scripts and give all pertinent info and numbers to all key elected officials and we sub-organizers get the info to our teams. It’s very effective and community building. And one can start a team just with a few friends. We definitely need to flood our congress and state legislatures with calls. Especially in red states or districts with Republican members. In blue areas, the calls give support for our reps to be more assertive and take risks they might not if they didn’t have such strong constituent support.
Our state senator told us that 15 calls a day in a topic puts it at the top of their offices list of priority.
We the People!!!
Thank You All For Your Service, Amy. An excellent political action model to emulate!
Amy that is amazing! I am going to look for Indivisible groups in my area to see if such action is being taken. I want to DO something rather than just discuss with my family members. Thanks for spreading the word.
Me too! Amy your comment has made a difference, thx!
We must protect the right to vote. Demand that Congress reject the SAVE Act.
https://c.org/qPpL6PqFNn
This is amazing. Thank you for sharing Amy. And for being an important part of protecting our democracy
They need to add the human and constitutional rights abuses at the ICE detention centers that were exposed in the February 3 Minneapolis court transcript. Right now, the detention centers are only briefly mentioned in point #8 in the list. The rights abuses are the ones to focus on in impeachment proceedings against Noem and all the other ICE political appointees. There was a lot of discussion of this in the comments in yesterday's letter from Heather.
We should recognize the sexual victimization of terrorized children by the Trumpstein Cult is the immediate predecessor, perhaps even a test run, of the terror the MAGAstapo is now unleashing on anyone who refuses to kowtow to the ChristoNazi theocracy. Thus the vital, know-our-enemy relevance of the full text of the Jane Doe lawsuit against Trump and Epstein -- later withdrawn in response to credible death threats against the plaintiff: https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Johnson_TrumpEpstein_Lawsuit.pdf
Loren, I am always glad to see you posting here. As I have added to you above post, I add here as well the Greg Olear Substack. It's long and sickening, but the truth needs to be told.
IF these allegations are true, justice MUST be obtained for the victims.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CHILD ABUSE
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/ramble-on-there-is-no-santa-claus
Greg has been on my reading list for some time along with Thom Hartmann and Tim Snyder
I have to tell Loren, today I opened a google doc and named it Loren Bliss - so I can keep all your notes and suggested reading organized. I am learning so much. Thank you again! The link to the Jane Dow Lawsuit is definitely included.
Liam Ramos is a brave American boy! He is back in Minnesota after a judge ruled that the ice fascists could not deport his family. I wrote a poem inspired by him: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/liam-ramos-poem
For some awesome inspiration, read Keith Ellison's post on the people of Minnesota.
This is the real America.
This is the way forward.
This is the way out of the nightmare.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-186307811
Shared. Thank you!
Thank you
Crying in my coffee. Just beautiful.
I did too. Beautiful and powerful and so completely the polar opposite of Trump. That is what gives me hope. That there are still people in government with empathy and integrity who love and respect the people they serve and who honor bravery. Honesty, too—nothing was sugar-coated.
Different, too, from Newsom, who keeps trying to one-up Trump with the social media posts. No dignity, and we desperately need some dignity instead a clown car.
Thank you for your consistent reminder to make calls! I do it daily!
We must protect the right to vote. Demand that Congress reject the SAVE Act.
https://c.org/qPpL6PqFNn
Trump has clearly “crossed a line” in respect to naked racism, and yet it seems ironic to me that public reaction to his latest hurtful symbolic gesture is more intense that the racist assaults on the Haitian community he claimed was eating neighborhood dogs and cats, and then persisted with that narrative even after being assured by local officials that nothing of the kind was taking place. What would it be like to part of that targeted community? To be called “garbage” as trump has done with Somalis in Minnesota? To have your children snatched away and imprisoned, as Trump did with immigrants and refugees in his first term, or the racist rampages of ICE in his second? Blanketly dubbed “rapists and murderers” despite evidence-based statistical evidence to the contrary?
Not to mention pulling mentions and photos of non-white war heroes or mention of slavery from government sites (Web and physical) as well as restoring celebration of the "legitimacy" of the Confederacy. Add the basis of the unusual special immigration status of white South Africans.
The fundamental racism has long been a core M.O. for dividing and conquering the will is one of this nation’s biggest open secrets, hiding in very plain sight.
Yes, it is ironic, but I'd say also understandable that the public reacted more swiftly and widely to the racist portrayal of the Obamas than we have to the manifold expressions of Trump's racism that have real-world effects on those he attacks. But I think the Obamas outrage will shine a brighter light on Trump's broadly applied racism and its real effects, not just on people of color but on the nation as a whole.
“God bless the King,” Benjamin Franklin was supposed to have uttered as “God damn the King!” reverberated through parts of the Continental Congress upon news that the King had rejected their petitions for redress of grievances and put a price on their heads. “No one else could have brought us all together.”
As back then, may it be so now.
Good point ICTT.
May Congress defund the expanded ICE efforts and force the remaining ICE agents to follow the laws and the Constitution.
And hopefully a "Fuck ICE" chant will break out during the Super Bowl.
The whole world will be watching.
Now that would be its own half-time show.
This has a striking parallel in Vlad Putin. Had someone predicted, say five years ago, that one man would inspire Sweden and Finland to join NATO, and push Germany to vastly increase its defense spending, we would have written them off.
But Vlad Putin has managed this and more. And he has united the West – except Trump’s America – to strongly stand with Ukraine.
Even as we fight Trump as well.
It certainly underlines the label "RACIST" with a broad Sharpie.
I don't believe that Senator Pete Rickett's name (NE-R) has ever been mentioned by HCR, the corporate media or maybe even Fox News since he had the manager of a Mexican Restaurant in racist Papillion, NE fire a young Hispanic student because she told Ricketts and his party they had to wear masks. And the irony was that he was governor at the time and the requirement came from his own state government.
Apparently, his ego was bruised because someone actually told him he had to wear a mask.
He is a racist piece of excrement and had to be appointed to the Senate by the current Republican governor who is an alcoholic. You can't make this shit up.
Nearly as bad as Ohio, where the absolutely corrupt Jon Husted was appointed by the absolutely corrupt governor Mike DeWeenie, to replace the absolutely corrupt jd vance. Again, you can’t make this shit up!
And they blamed the outrage on a “staffer”, until Humpty claimed ownership, then probably lied (it’s what he does!) when he claimed that he only saw the first bit. The question I have: who sent the racist crap to him? My guess is down to just a few candidates: Stephen Miller; Elon Musty; Nick Fuentes; Steve Bannon; Tucker Snarlson.
I take it way back to when he first imitated a mentally challenged reporter and told a female anchor she had blood coming out everywhere and was ugly(I am conflating several disgusting comments about women he has made). Some of those were from his 2016 campaign. He was gross and vile and out to lunch obvious back then but we have a violence-entertainment saturated populace who are numb to that violence and crass behavior and no longer discern a president from a mob boss. Our entire American psyche could use a reset to kindness and thoughtful consideration of each other and our poor planet. Trump is our red flag. Our chance to choose something better and stop our downward spiral. He must be stopped and is also not worth our focus. He’s got sorry, sad, withered and puny character and should never have been in power. But we can all choose a new path and it will stop this madness.
Pete Buttigieg.
Make America Decent Again…
Yes, and Make America Kind Again...
I'm not sure America was ever kind, quiet maybe - with some sense of decorum. Racism is not kind. We have been steeped in unkind racism for centuries.
You are right of course. Leaders like Reagan would at least fake kindness, talk of unity, display the illusion of being a president of all Americans. It was an act. He was recorded referring to African Americans as monkeys. But there was at least a public sense of "decorum" as you say.
And...they didn't align themselves with murdering dictators. There was that.
We must protect the right to vote. Demand that Congress reject the SAVE Act.
https://c.org/qPpL6PqFNn
His vile comments about blood were directed at Megan Kelly who is now an over the top Trump supporter and who recently announced that she could feel no sympathy for Alex Pretti.
Send your kids to an American school, laurie, and you've one in three chances at ?
Megan Kelly grew up in a suburb of Albany, NY and, as far as I know, went to the same excellent public schools as some of my friends and family. But they didn’t become shills for the racist MAGA regime.
Not JUST him, but the entire Republican party ( now known as the NANP - the New American Nazi Party ) needs voted out ON ALL LEVELS for us to recover from this nightmare.
We must protect the right to vote. Demand that Congress reject the SAVE Act.
https://c.org/qPpL6PqFNn
Thanks, Katie! I signed and shared!
Thank you!
The reporter he mocked has cerebral palsy, not a mental challenge.
And t he business w ith the Haitians is the creation of the vile little turd Corporal Couchfucker - who go booed out of the stadium in Milan at the Parade of Nations.
And NO coverage by our useless MSM! Should have been the lead story.
Liam Ramos is a brave American boy! He is back in Minnesota after a judge ruled that the ice fascists could not deport his family. I wrote a poem inspired by him: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/liam-ramos-poem
SURPRISE! Trump is a racist, sexist, Putin lovin’ , pedophile.
He has surrounded himself with automatons who do his dirty work of lying, cheating, stealing and try to oppress the American people.
If you know anyone who ain’t “ woke” yet. Wake ‘em up.
That's a very long bridge to cross.
Indeed, the bridge is out. You might say the bridge has been abridged. But I do remember that the bridge on the River Kwai was destroyed and rebuilt again.
We must protect the right to vote. Demand that Congress reject the SAVE Act.
https://c.org/qPpL6PqFNn
Liam Ramos is a brave American boy! He is back in Minnesota after a judge ruled that the ice fascists could not deport his family. I wrote a poem inspired by him: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/liam-ramos-poem
This is only the 5th time you’ve posted exactly the same thing. Did you think we’re all incapable of getting it the first time?
ICTT, I know that Substack offers the ability to sort the comments in various ways. I never bother sorting them, though I know others do. Personally, I can rarely get through more than about a third of the comments as I'm usually reading later on in the day. I am guessing, but I think Public Servant posts several times to catch the attention of as many readers as possible. Just a guess.
I'm guilty of posting a link to Greg Olear at least three times this morning, so I'm guilty of this as well.
I don't have a problem with anyone's multiple posts as long as they aren't trolls. I get more annoyed by people who beat the dead horses, as we have so much at stake. But even with that, I think "you be you" and just skip over their comments.
If you post tte SAME stuff over and over again without changing a syllable, you’re a troll AND you insult other people’s intelligence. We don’t don’t have to settle for that.
If I recall correctly, Public Servant is a reader who both they and their spouse worked for the government and lost their jobs due to DOGE. They started their Substack and poetry as a way to support their family. I cut them slack for that reason.
I am former USAID -- the first agency Dump and DOGE went out of their way to illegally destroy. Tens of thousands have already died as a result. Someone choosing to be a troll really doesn't have all that much to do with who they were in a previous life.
I respectfully disagree. Considering you have to pay to comment, I believe that most people commenting genuinely want their message to be heard. I myself am new to Substack and do not have a following. So, I am posting what I have written multiple times as comments on posts like these so people will see it, and hopefully subscribe, like, restack, etc. (Wink, wink 😉)...
Now, when you start to see nasty, rude comments, or racist AI videos, then I think you can fairly say you have found a troll.
But, most people are just disturbed by what is happening in our country and don't know what else to do besides write, call, protest, etc. This is the power we have. I support anyone using it for the good of all of us.
On that note...
We must protect the right to vote. Demand that Congress reject the SAVE Act.
https://c.org/qPpL6PqFNn
They tried to move court date to deport them up to yesterday but the lawyer said there wasn’t time to prepare. It’s a month away. This Admin wants to quickly eradicate the names and faces of those who have publicized their shamelessness.
That video was so blatantly racist it’s infuriating he’s still our president. I am thankful I saw multiple Republicans speak out about how racist it was though.
Be LOUD. These are unprecedented times 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
And yet — as usual — not enough Republicans. 3 or 4 (oh look, there’s another one, maybe…) Why was Tim Scott the first to say anything? Where’s that vile creature, Kentucky Fried Voldemort? Where’s Senator Pittypat from South Carolina? Thune, Barraso?
Waiting for someone else to fix it, of course. Waiting for Godot. Unrepentant, arrogant, lazy collaborators and enablers hiding in the shadows who first brought the Beast to the ball, applauding while he floated down his golden staircase.
Write THEM. Call THEIR offices. Make THEIR life hell. Surely, they’re the ones who truly have it coming.
Where’s Mr Ultimate Christian Johnson, who feels he is smarter than the pope?
Remember their names…every.last.one.
Well, maybe they're getting death threats like "we know where your kids go to school."
Then our calls are their safety net — if they have brains to see their way out of the burning political building they inhabit.
The burning edifice they THEMSELVES set fire to, while axing the firefighters.
It's not like they can't get security. Most of them are very wealthy.
Thanks again, Megan. Multiple Republicans speaking out is a start but it’s not enough. Where is the outrage? Where is their line in the sand? Or as someone else posted, “Where is the tea?”
(This act of defiance -Boston Tea Party- led directly to the British Parliament passing the Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts) in 1774, which closed Boston Harbor and acted as a major catalyst for the American Revolution.)
I totally agree it’s definitely not enough, and if they’re calling out something he did now after all this time it’s probably more to save themselves as they realize the major split and growing coalition of Americans against MAGA and for defending democracy like Professor Richardson noted
Someone at a town hall asked right-wing Mike Lawler where his line was - at what point would he say Trump is wrong and has gone too far - and he went all JD Vance on them -- accusing them of having made up their minds about the murders in Minneapolis before an "investigation" was conducted. Huh?
I saw that clip. He never answered the question.
I so wish when interviewers ask Trump (and his posse) a question which they don't answer, the interviewer wouldn't give up--and the next interviewer repeat the question.
I'd also like to see reporters all join together when a woman (always a woman!) is insulted by Trump, they ALL walk out on him.
OH THE NEWS THAT WOULD MAKE.
Boy oh boy -- how I would love to see that too.
That line, or point, does not exist for him.
He also said something stupid along the lines of ‘you don’t have all the facts.’ Sounded to me like HE didn’t have all the facts.
Seem so terribly unwise for R reps to fight with their constituents if they want to be reelected. That is a shaky enough proposition.
Thank You, Megan.
Liam Ramos is a brave American boy! He is back in Minnesota after a judge ruled that the ice fascists could not deport his family. I wrote a poem inspired by him: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/liam-ramos-poem
There’s no better way for me to ignore a post than for the author to insert it multiple times one day’s comments.
Thanks, Megan!
After seeing the clips of his rant at the prayer breakfast, I could not comprehend why someone in the audience didn't stand up and say "You're fucking crazy! Resign!" All those supposed leaders and none of them had the courage to call him out. Shameful.
Jeff Tiederich has a long-running challenge on his substack.
The first person to call out at a press conference, 'What the fuck is wrong with you?' gets $1million. No takers so far and the challenge has been on-going for a year or so.
Not at a press conference, but Hakeem Jeffries sure didn't mince any words about his outrage.
Not $1 mil - a lifetime Pulitzer Prize. Should have been won long ago.
I wondered why somebody didn’t just start guffawing. Either way…
There’s a nice phrase, translated from Norwegian:
"Bow deeply, so the Big Boss doesn’t see you laughing."
Why is he even allowed at prayer breakfasts??
Because they are all praying for power and riches.
Praying that he chokes on a sausage
Lol
The SAVE Act shreds voters' rights rather than protecting them. This proposed legislation threatens our democratic processes by denying the right to vote to millions. Were Congress to pass this law voting would no longer be a protected right.
Considering the centrality of fair and free elections to the integrity of our republic and "liberty and justice for all", the US right to vote has always needed more robust protection, and certainly now.
In fact, the ChristoNazis are (already) stealing our elections. Here in a vital Thom Hartmann exclusive is how the thievery is done, including credible statistical evidence showing that the ChristoNazis' purging of Blacks, Hispanics and white progressives from the 2024 voter rolls put Trump in the White House. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-q1lWsnlhg&t=5s (Election discussion starts at 9:09)
Yes Carmen, rumors has it that the Republicans will push the SAVE act to hit at the last minute. I wish we could rally folks to purchase a US Passport. It’s the golden card - even the DMV can’t refuse your proof of identity and we could be doing a GoFundMe for US Passports.
Passports are $165 + require an original birth certificate to process. Fewer than half of all US citizens even possess a passport.
SCOTUS has ruled that requiring that kind of ID is form of poll tax (due to the expense) and is an unconstitutional violation of the right to vote.
If these hosers seriously want to force everyone to provide ID every time they vote, then they need to set up a mechanism that will provide that ID to every single voter. Which they will never do, because they point of voter ID is voter suppression. Nothing more, nothing less.
Wait for it…. The next outrage will be Humpty calling for the establishment of a National Identification Card, which only he or his assigns in the DOJ can issue. Passports? We won’t need no stinking passports! And if you’re the wrong color, the wrong religion, or vote for the wrong party, you’re NID will be the means to round you up and make you disappear somewhere into the Gulag.
Thank you, I agree Carthago, it is similar to punishing our immigrants who lack identification while the United States has a system of unbelievable processing loopholes. Having authentic proof of identity is a task that we need to look at today and a Passport is the most valuable, especially out of the country.
My spouse is very pissed about the SAVE ACT. Thanks to Heather she now realizes the true danger.
Had it on a sign a year ago, nobody at protest knew about it.
We will be decades repairing the damage done to our democracy in just Trump’s first year. If a Democratic president had done what Trump has done, especially that vile rasist post of the Obamas, it would have ended their presidency. Are there not enough Republicans of character left in congress to end this presidency before he completely destroys everything?
No there are not enough Republicans of character.
There are NO "Republicans of character" and haven't been for a long time. Harry Truman observed 78 years ago - in 1948 - that "The only 'good Repuiblicans' are pushing up daisies."
I doubt there is even one.
Not just politicians, but anyone who declares that they are Republican.
The GOP is the Fascist Party.
A vote for any right-winger, in any race, is a vote for Fascism.
Short answer: No.
No. No character at all.
No
Is it time for Republican leaders "to denounce this serial fraudster?"
Heather says yes, which 99.9% on her site here applaud. But let's remember, there's a mass of his unaccountable peers, that entire Epstein class, still successfully saying eff you to the rest of us.
Still, Heather paints a marvelous picture of our resolve -- and Donald's total failures in the real world. Like his record with jobs. His public flaunting of racism. His continued rush into the militarized thug police state his pal Putin applauds.
What a set of times in which to live.
"Interesting" times.
Now that Trump has his methods locked in for seizing the assets of the United States, he established his Board of Peace to seize the assets of the nations of the world.
Board of Grift, Graft and Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.
Bored of Peace.
It's already fallen apart. You don't hear him bleating about it now, do you?
As of a week ago, they are claiming to have a plan to start “rebuilding” the one-half of Gaza that is not currently occupied by the IDF. Israeli extremists are pissed! One little detail of concern: exactly who is going to disarm Hamas? Please do not hold your breath while waiting for the answer!
“Mike Stunson of Forbes reported today that the U.S. lost 108,435 jobs in January in the biggest cuts since January 2009 during the Great Recession. “
And yet, in after-hours trading, the Stock Market has jumped 1,200 points and just topped 50,000 for the first time. Seems like the wealth gap is about to spike again for the #EpsteinFiles class, before a devastating correction hits the 99% of us.
Truly a regime of bullies for billionaires bent on stealing our wealth and blocking our vote to hold onto power, no matter what.
Time to show up and fight back—Minneapolis shows us how!
March 28th - next nationwide No kings march…check mobileus.org and/ or your local Democrat Party website. LFG 💪🏽
Make sure not to buy any crypto! It’s unstable and many who bought it with borrowed money are now losers.
ICYMI: Heather interviewed Colorado US Representative Joe Neguse today and it is one of her best interviews:
American Conversations: Representative Joe Neguse - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7ELj9jQgqg
Rep. Neguse gave a very memorable quote of John Adams at the end of the interview:
John Adams to James Warren, 22 April 1776
“We may feel Sanguine Confidence of our Strength: yet in a few years it may be put to the Tryal.
We may please ourselves with the prospect of free and popular Governments. But there is great Danger, that those Governments will not make us happy. God grant they may. But I fear, that in every assembly, Members will obtain an Influence, by Noise not sense. By Meanness, not Greatness. By Ignorance not Learning. By contracted Hearts not large souls. I fear too, that it will be impossible to convince and perswade People to establish wise Regulations.”
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-04-02-0052#:~:text=We%20may%20please%20ourselves%20with,People%20to%20establish%20wise%20Regulations.
There was also a recent interview of Michael Wolff that readers may be interested in because it explains many of Trump’s behaviors. Wolff is a well known American journalist, author and media commentator, who has written several behind-the-scenes books on Trump’s campaigns and WH. He is interviewed by Joanna Coles including questions from the audience and excellent answers by Wolff. Enjoy.
Joanna Coles and Michael Wolff: Inside Trump’s Head - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKVN36NvYjg
"I fear too, that it will be impossible to convince and perswade People to establish wise Regulations.”
Here I thought "deregulation" was all the rage? But the Devil is always in the details.
And here we are: just where John Adam’s feared we would go.
Excellent Michael Wolff interview! Thank You, Fred!
beneath contempt-
We will not have every major building and institution renamed in honor of someone so despicable. I did not have Trump Derangement Syndrome before but may be getting it.
Surfacing yesterday was the news that he wants the FAA code for Dulles Airport changed from IAD to DJT.
Is a 4-digit code possible, like FDJT, I wonder?
Usually it is good form to wait until a politician is out of office or dead before giving their name to public facilities, particularly those they had no hand in creating or supporting. As a compromise Trump might qualify if we named toxic Superfund sites after billionaires.
I think we should fabricate cesspools henceforth calling them trumpsters. With the Presidential being the largest and the Maralago model being the elite and the Golf of America the commercial model. As one sits on their throne they can be greatly relieved knowing their trumpster is online. Night club owners who’s businesses are open until 2:00 am will queue up long lines to get the Truth Social model.
Not sure why the English meaning for Trump didn't catch on here- it's slang for fart.
As long as we're wishing, why not cockwomble and scunner...
Notes on earlier slang meanings for Trump: 16th - 18th Century: to fart. 16th Century: derived from the Old French Tromper (to blow a horn), it evolved into a slang term meaning to deceive, cheat or mock, often associated with fraudulent street quacks, who would blow a horn to get people’s attention and then swindle them. 18th Century: by the 1720s, “Trumped Up” was used to describe something fabricated, false or concocted. Scottish: “a worthless trifle”. Also for Trumped Up: “fabricated out of nothing or deceitfully; forged; false; worthless (recorded by 1728). The family name was supposedly changed in Germany from Drumpf to Trump, by about the time of Napoleon around the turn of the 19th Century. So! The above meanings seem to fit quite well and are more accurate than the meanings that Humpty probably prefers to consider the meanings to be such as ‘to triumph’ or to hold the winning card, etc. If so, why do his actions fit the more derogatory slang over hundreds of years? Could this be an important factor in his insecurity complex??
My father was the key negotiator for the Chemical Manufacturing Association in the EPA's efforts to get buy in (literally) from the nation's chemical companies to establish and agree to the terms of Superfund. He thought Anne Gorsuch's son, Neil, was so polite.
And when in history has a political figure named such buildings after himself! I think sewage plants should be named after him.
JL, I usually appreciate your contributions and naming Superfund sites after billionaires is a refreshing thought while I can't help but notice how the combined creative release generated in comments here -- in the form of sarcasm, whimsy, design strategies -- if all that could collect in a channel that moves us to power great enough to offset the power of money. That's my wow and hope for creativity: painfully shared compassion, task and time management, inclusive communities. (I just saw the film "Hamnet" -- what Shakespeare did!). I see the readiness building. In Due Time.
Good form is not a phrase that the current administration understands.
Lauri D, I rebrand “TDS” with the derangement being the unwavering support of that vile individual.
I like to call TDS (which MAGAts deploy endlessly as a slur for his detractors) as the Trump Distortion Syndrome ( or perhaps TDF: Trump Damping Field), which emanates relentlessly from him and, by spooky action at a distance, encapsulates all of his true believers in a web of falsity which they must accept to party on his ship of fools, on penalty of walking the plank.
Not my words but worth passing on:
This video (you know the one) should unsettle anyone who takes the United States seriously as a nation.
Because it exposes something dangerous: the trivialization of the world's most consequential office. It shows how carelessly the power, credibility, and accumulated moral authority of a superpower can be squandered for a few seconds of viral attention.
In any other major democracy, this behavior from a head of state would trigger a constitutional crisis. Paris would burn. Berlin would convene emergency sessions. In the Nordic countries, resignation would follow within hours. Across functioning democracies, the public, institutions, and political class would recognize this for what it is: an assault on the dignity of the state itself. Leaders are not free to perform as entertainers without consequence. National honor is not personal property, it's held in trust.
But the United States is not just another country with a provocateur in charge. It is the linchpin of global order. It maintains formal alliances and security guarantees with forty to fifty nations. It underwrites the financial architecture, trade systems, and diplomatic frameworks that billions of people depend on daily. When the American president speaks—or posts—it doesn't land as satire, meme, or personal whim. It reads as a signal about what the country is becoming.
American power has never relied solely on carrier strike groups or economic output. It has rested on something more fragile and more valuable: trust. The belief that beneath domestic turbulence lies institutional seriousness, predictability, and a baseline commitment to dignity. That belief is now disintegrating in real time.
Millions of American companies operate globally. They negotiate multibillion-dollar contracts in environments where reputation is currency. Boardrooms in Frankfurt, Singapore, and Dubai aren't debating whether a post was clever—they're asking whether the United States remains a reliable partner. Whether agreements signed today will be honored tomorrow. Whether American leadership has devolved from institutional to purely theatrical.
Consider tourism, which sustains millions of American jobs—airlines, hotels, restaurants, museums, entire regional economies. Soft power isn't an abstraction. It materializes in flight bookings, conference locations, study-abroad programs, and decades of accumulated goodwill. A quiet, decentralized boycott doesn't require government action—only a collective sense that a nation no longer respects itself.
Now picture this image being studied by foreign ministers, central bank governors, defense strategists, and sovereign wealth fund managers. Picture them asking a coldly rational question: How do we write binding thirty-year agreements with a country whose public face will be this, relentlessly, for years to come? How do we plan for the long term when the tone is impulsive, mocking, and unbound by the gravity of office?
This is where the real calculus begins. Trillions in foreign capital depend on confidence that America is stable, credible, and rule-governed. That confidence is now being traded for what, exactly? Applause from an online mob? A dopamine rush from manufactured outrage? Content designed to dominate the news cycle rather than serve the national interest?
Every serious nation eventually confronts this choice: burn long-term credibility for short-term spectacle, or safeguard the reputation previous generations bled to build. The United States spent eighty years constructing an image of reliability, restraint, and leadership under pressure. That image wasn't born from perfection—it came from a visible commitment to standards that transcended impulse.
This isn't a partisan issue. Europeans who value democratic norms recognize something ominously familiar here. Americans—Democrat and Republican alike—who believe in responsibility and restraint should see it too. Power attracts scrutiny. Leadership demands discipline. A superpower cannot behave like a reality TV contestant without paying a price.
The presidency is not a personal broadcast channel. It's a symbol carried on behalf of 330 million people and countless international partners who never voted but whose lives are shaped by American decisions anyway. Every post either reinforces or erodes the idea that America can be counted on when it matters most.
So the question is no longer whether this is offensive. The question is whether this is who America chooses to be: a nation that trades a century of hard-won reputation for viral moments. A country that replaces statecraft with content creation. A republic governed like a season of reality television.
History offers a harsh lesson here. Great powers don't fall because enemies mock them. They collapse when they begin mocking themselves—publicly, proudly, and without grasping the cost until it's far too late.
Stay connected,
Follow Gandalv @Microinteracti1
Excellent post Ed Lane. I would include the UK in the list of European countries that understand and value both soft power and ,above all, accountability.
The fact that our PM Kier Starmer appointed Mandelson as our Ambassador to the US in the knowledge that Mandelson continued his association with Epstein after the man’s conviction in 2008, (but probably not in the knowledge that Mandelson, whilst then a senior Minister in Gordon Browns Labour Government [2007 -2010] passed Epstein market sensitive information) is proving sufficient in itself to create a huge political storm here. So huge that Starmer is now considered most unlikely to survive beyond the local elections in May this year. (His successor from within the Labour party to become party leader and thus the next PM is still being played out in the corridors of Westminster.)
And as for (Prince) Andrew ( the KIng’s younger brother), he is absolutely shamed and finished, dead and buried. Gone. By US standards, all rather quaint, but boy accountability can work. And is obviously completely essential for democratic survival and renewal.
Let’s hope, when the US public can effectively turn on MAGA , in your mid terms , (despite all efforts to undermine them) in a blue tsunami, that the forces of accountability are let fully loose. ( as well as a tidy up of all that public building nomenclature…)Go for it Hakeem Jeffries ! Good luck to all. And good on Minneapolis and all those other brave US citizens standing firm.
From your lips to God's ears
Welcome to the forum!
I loved reading this quote from Minority Leader Jeffries before going to bed! ...
“This disgusting video, posted by the so-called president, was done intentionally. F*ck Donald Trump and his vile, racist, and malignant behavior. This guy is an unhinged bottom feeder. President Obama and Michelle Obama are brilliant, caring, and patriotic Americans. They represent the best of this country. It’s time for John Thune, Mike Johnson, and Republicans to denounce this serial fraudster, who’s sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue pretending to be the president of the United States.”
Thanks, Heather!
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-ice-masks-dhs-shutdown_n_69839db8e4b053ac3e17298d
I like the message, but I want to see action, not platitudes. Jeffries and Schumer will give us a secret police state with police immunity and police without identities. They won't do what is right unless they sense a serious primarying and loss of power is in their future. Theirs is the party that protected Menendez and Cuellar.
https://theintercept.com/2026/02/05/schumer-ice-reforms-elizabeth-warren/
We need to demand and force a better Democratic Party into existence.
Wow what a laundry list of outrages at the hands of Trump and his sycophantic top staff. It truly is like the Titanic going down, as referenced by Vance recently. No wonder, as you say, that Trump pulled out the white supremacy card with his vile racist video of the Obamas. After all that is the core principle at the heart of MAGA. The 25th Amendment or Impeachment and Removal would absolutely be invoked if any other president engaged in such disgusting acts. Jeffries was spot on. The GOP has to step up, if only to salvage their own careers. Dems wouldn’t hesitate if a president of their party was so utterly unhinged and unfit.