Republicans are the party of anti-values. Antivalues in this category directly attack fundamental human needs: physical safety, emotional security, and basic dignity. Some are obvious and dramatic. Others are so subtle they’re dismissed as “just how things are” until the cumulative damage becomes undeniable.
If you want to understand how the entire Republican Party became neofascist, you need to go back to the 1940s and neoliberalism, an ideology that was designed to destroy the New Deal. That's how it all started. From the beginning, its founders are on the record claiming that "democracy and capitalism are incompatible". And they want capitalism.
Why?
None of this has anything to do with Trump (merely an actor hired to distract us 24/7 and to sign the executive orders that the GOP puts on his desk).
It all has to do with what Isaiah Berlin called "negative" and "positive" freedom.
Neoliberals believe that negative freedom is more important than positive freedom.
Negative freedom means "freedom from" (others' unwanted influences on your life). Positive freedom means "freedom to" (the freedom to not have to sell your home when you get cancer because a health insurance mandate gives everyone solid coverage, etc.).
Traditionally, the left believes that if the government limits the freedom of the wealthiest to do whatever they want and makes them do what "we the people want", all while increasing positive freedom through government programs, society as a whole (and democracy) will thrive. People will be well-educated, healthy, happy (if they lead a moral life), and well-informed, so their votes will be based on a high level of political literacy and change the country into the direction they want.
Conservatives have always believed the opposite, because deep down, they're much more pessimistic about human nature. Most people are "mediocre", they fear, and therefore, letting them limit the freedom of the wealthiest (often synonymous for "the best") is absurd and cannot but lead to disasters. So a government needs to prioritize positive freedom for the wealthiest (giving them the laws needed to be able to do whatever they want) and negative freedom (limiting how much people have to say when it comes to politics) for everyone else.
Obviously, by now conservatives know that that means that the masses will be unhappy, in this way. But on the one hand, they believe that overall, society will be better off than with a leftist approach. And, even more importantly, neofascism (the logical consequence of neoliberalism) drew lessons from the mistakes neoliberalism and fascism made in the past, and concluded that the best society is one in which "the people" suffer AND in which a fundamentalist form of religion is imposed to channel that suffering into hatred of anything that is incompatible with neofascist control of the government (hating liberals, etc).
Neofascists also believe that the best way to obtain world peace is to divide the world in a handful of big neofascist empires, who subjugate their "mediocre masses" all while letting the neighboring dictatorship do whatever it wants, as long as they too let our neofascists do whatever they want.
These are not "anti-values", it's a value system based on the belief that human nature is essentially bad, whereas democracy needs people to believe that human nature is essentially good and will manifest as a force for the good IF the government creates the right conditions.
A good of example of this is featured in the FX television series "Alien Earth" in which a future Earth is completely controlled by seven corporations each valued at trillions and trillions of dollars. They dictate collectively (and sometimes individually without approval of the greater collective, usually with disastrous results) how the Earth and its resources (including the human population) can best serve them. I can see us heading towards a similar fate and it certainly disrupts my sleep patterns even thinking about it!
I don't know the TV series, but yes, that sounds like it. In real life, it's called "Network States", sometimes called "network cities" or "freedom cities".
Gil Duran is one of the experts on this (see his Substack).
Historian Quinn Slobodian has explained how there are many of them already in China today (which is one of the reasons why Musk is so interested in China) in his book "Crack-up Capitalism".
Peter Thiel already built one in Honduras.
Now neofascist billionaires want to build them everywhere inside the US.
A "Network City" is a city that is entirely autonomous, within a sovereign state, and run by a wealthy CEO - run POLITICALLY by that CEO, that is. Citizens of the city are treated as "customers" or "employees". They all sign a contract, written by the CEO, and the CEOs security service throws them out of the city if they don't obey its rules.
Citizens of such cities have no political power whatsoever.
THAT is what they mean when they say that they want the "government to be run like a business".
It's because they want to multiply these cities now also inside Western democracies that the GOP wants to "own" Greenland or Gaza.
It's all happening right now, and yet, instead of talking about this, we only talk about Trump. TDS for sure!
Practical minds cannot comprehend the chaos of democracy. Ascribing motivation to other individuals requires an understanding of the possibilities - all possibilities. That is beyond comprehension.
Very interesting essay. It appears that democracy has been in great peril and the possibility of totalitarianism is real. Our way of life is nearly over unless.... Our profligate consumption is impoverishing us. Our future may be quite bleak unless.... It has been decades in the making. Can the nation responsibly face the stark limitations? Or will some continue to follow the demagogues and charlatans in trump's orbit? What needs to occur to wake up the nation to radically reinvent a system that protects citizens and fosters some sort of common good?
I've thought of the the Republican Party (now the Trump Cult) as Freedom To: carry guns, pollute, discriminate, set low wages, etc., and the Democrats as Freedom From: being shot, being forced to breathe polluted air and drink polluted water, discrimination, a wage the family can't live on, etc.
You can always play with the words, of course, but originally, prioritizing negative freedom means focusing on legislation that refuses to restrict people's ability to do what they want... with what they have RIGHT NOW. That's why it's "conservative" concept.
"Positive freedom" means that the government installs conditions that otherwise the people who'll benefit from it would NOT have.
Very well said. The system that says human nature is essentially bad, is a good descriptor of those selfish rich men who want to do as they please at the expense of the masses.
I think that in general, they grew up in circumstances that caused a lot of violence, so much so that they can't believe that less violent circumstances will ever be possible (see Trump and his mafia-like environment (both at home and in the real estate world he was born into), or Musk and his pro-apartheid, utterly abusive father, etc.
Once you can't imagine a less violent world is possible, the only option for happiness is material wealth, and having more of it than anyone else...
My bookclub read "Secret Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism" by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson. I understand the history. However, we also read Katherine Stewart's "Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy" and just read Noelle Cook's "The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism and the Lure of Belonging." The first talked about the history of Neoliberalism in the US mostly, and the second about Christian Nationalists and their thinking, and the third about conspiracists and conspiritualists, which have beliefs that are bizarre, but still has them thinking about Trump in ways that are so twisted one cannot reason with them. In fact, the author posits that these people only leave their crazed bubbles if they choose to because of some experience they have. So, we are looking at different groups that make up the people that support Trump. These are just some of them.
Yes, exactly, and then there is the neofascist "Christian" nationalism that is the second wing of the current neofascist GOP coalition.
To understand their thinking, read Kevin Roberts' "Dawn's Early Light" (Heritage Foundation director), or any book written by Patrick Deneen.
Here too, we have real ideologues, which means that we'll need to be willing to debate their ideas, rather than simply trying to make sure everyone knows Trump is a corrupt, immoral man.
There are two different things when it comes to "Christian" nationalism: (1) the ideologues who created this ideology, and (2) the neofascist propaganda that made traditionally conservative "ordinary citizens" adopt this hollowed-out, fundamentalist version of religion.
Not, that's not it. They believe that the masses will never be able to lead a truly moral life. So they want to impose a fundamentalist religion, using the force of government. Only that will make the mediocre 99% stay quiet, they fear...
GJ, funny that the author enumerated 40 antivalues, just like we used to have the Top 40 Hits of popular music. I copied them, and guess who ticks every box.
We have public records of Donald's indulgence of every one of these antivalues. As it happens, we have same for all the "rock stars" of the Republican Party, including the late, not-so-great Lindsey Graham and the – allegedly – undead Mitch McConnell. Not to mention Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito.
J L, unfortunately Trump may think that with his name on it, he can take whatever he wants out of it. Well, I guess that's pretty much what he is doing to our treasury right now, it's just not gold!
donna, I agree that death star has no human values that we consider good. His value is his gigantic ego and how he can use the government to enrich himself, his family, and the uber wealthy.
Joe Biden used this line repeatedly during his 2007 presidential campaign, throughout his vice presidency, and later as president, almost always introducing it with words like:
I just completed reading an article in the Atlantic "The Age of Reading is Over." Some observations: "Gambling has become a more leisure activity than reading; last year 57% of Americans placed a bet." "Some students now view reading as an unnecessarily burdensome way of acquiring knowledge;" "television is our culture's principal mode of knowing about itself;" "many administrations are instructing teachers not to assign full books;" "trump is our first postliterate president; he has pioneered a style of communication that exploits our distracted disputatious age, and his communication style is perfectly suited to an oral society; he employs epithets: "Low-energy Jeb," "Little Marco," "Sleepy Joe." "trump likes pictures and charts and bullet-pointed briefings......." Americans are proudly postliterate.
Stephanie, I think the headline writer for the article fell victim to their own premise. In an effort to write a "short, sweet" headline, the writer misled readers.
From my cultural research, "The Age of Attention Span is Over."
People are still reading, but the majority of our population has difficulty paying attention long enough to finish a stream of text more than about 100 words long.
However, I concur with the highlights you noted, especially your mention of television. Years ago, I wrote: "In people, things or ideas, the greatest strength is also the greatest weakness."
Since television became a fixture in virtually every home, it has both enriched our lives and introduced the undoing of our society. With the TV schedule divided into 30- and 60-minute segments, television conditioned our culture to expect all our problems to be resolved in no more than an hour. The introduction of even smaller screens has further compressed both our patience and our attention span.
Screens alone are not the cause of our ever-shortening attention spans; they accompanied the other cultural characteristics that constantly demand our attention.
Dale, I too read the article and i agree with you about short attention span. I did see a reply to that article somewhere, but did not read it. I am a voracious reader, but I am old. I once did encounter a young man while waiting for a book store to open. He commented that he had hated to read when he was younger and now here he was, waiting for the book store to open.
Michele, I estimate that the overwhelming majority of HCR's readers are senior citizens, for reasons discussed here. This often causes me concern, because it's really the younger generations who need to benefit from her wisdom as regards Americans' repeating the same mistakes and expecting different outcomes.
I agree with you. There are many additional quotes I could have borrowed that would agree with your premise too. Eg - A Harvard university professor was troubled by his students resenting the amount of dense reading they were assigned. A focus group asked high school students how they felt about reading for pleasure. Most thought of it as an alien practice. It is, as you posited, a result of a short attention span, since our phones and ipads provide short-form videos and condensed text. The article wrote what the author has uncovered from various interviews and studies. (Does your premise and the author's purport to suggest that MAGA underutilizes good, reliable sources, because they are too complex - hence a society of voters who are woefully underinformed and educated?)
Stephanie, to you remember those large metal tops that were printed with cartoon characters or other subject matter? You powered them by repeatedly pushing down and releasing a knurled handle in the top of the toy. The more rapidly you pushed down on the plunger handle, the faster the top would spin until the printed characters were just a blur.
I think life is like that for the younger generations, still immersed in child-rearing and career-building (if that's an option). The idea of sitting down to read a book is utterly beyond their imaginations.
Dale, Since it was impossible to quote the entire article in the Atlantic, I did find this phrase, which corroborates your thesis: "Faced with shrinking attention spans and declining comprehensions, teachers have favored short passages over full books" - no doubt due in some part to short attention spans...
There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. -- Emerson
Reading is a creative act at least insofar as it relies on our construction of thoughts and visions from a compacted code. There are strengths and weaknesses to that, as in any means of communication, but I see well-crafted writing as especially evocative of mind-enriching thought; reportage or fiction. Haiku is an especially compacted trigger for sharing of imagery.
Display screen media is far more passive. What one sees may be uniquely revealing and/or emotionally moving, but you see only what the originator wants you to see. "Day for night", this but not that, and, or so it seems to me, or meta, thinking about our own thoughts critical thinking skills are less engaged. I love many forms of media, but find no fully adequate substitute for the written word. Even spoken words. which have their own constellation of strength and weaknesses are fully interchangeable with reading.
"Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, a controlled language of simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary designed to prevent people from being able to think critically. The Newspeak language thus limits the person's ability to articulate and communicate abstract concepts, such as personal identity, self-expression, and free will,[1][2] which are thoughtcrimes, acts of personal independence that contradict the ideological orthodoxy of Ingsoc collectivism."
Very interesting.....Kind of like shrinking every idea into something short enough for screen-addled voters to concentrate on. And has AI or will AI in some cases, (I don't want to make statements for which I have no data), highjack attention and make reading all but impossible, hence to reduce people, as you describe, into nonthinking, simple, people?
I had a co-worker who touted all the "quality time" she spent with her young children, sayint that the few hours she saw them were quality hours. I often wondered, why couldn't she give her "quality time" to the job, and the bulk of her time to her young kids? If quality time is good enough for your family, isn't it good enough for your job?
I learned the same thing in Tax Law class back in the late '70s: The Tax Code is a powerful policy instrument (that most ordinary folks don't even know about).
Christine, I have doubts that the MAGA faithful could find their own state on a U.S. map. My MAGA neighbors are very familiar with the shape of their state, but I suspect they'd have to study a U.S. map for a few minutes to find the state where they live. I doubt they could locate other states without labels.
Seems like Trump's team is looking at Ukraine's success against Russia, and wants to copy their strategies. However, Putin has not been brought to the table, and never will be. Putin is a lying liar just like Trump and will never give up. This is the reality of Putin, and perhaps those that will follow him, so Ukraine has to take away his power. Iran is not Russia, and the US is in the position of the aggressor. This is looking like an endless war, as fascists are known to have, and one which Trump's successor is going to have to end, but one in which Trump pretends he is working towards peace. It is the war of making the stock market go wonky for Trump.
Clearly we have not just become this sort of society, this is the society we have been, or so many people would not be backing Trump. There are a lot of damaged people voting for Trump, looking for something that they are probably not going to get, but they will believe in it anyway.
"There are a lot of damaged people voting for Trump, looking for something that they are probably not going to get, but they will believe in it anyway." Linda, your comment is the definitive definition of the Trump republican. And to see that approximately 1/3 of this nation believes in a patent, chronic, buffoonish, miscreant is the result, in part, of our sordid history against many of our own people. Those who have in the past been seen as "the other" are now on the ascent. The truth is creeping ever so forward in defining the true losers, and unfortunately, those who by their own hand, are and will be left behind.
Quite true. That "damaged group" of Trump supporters have their identity tied to MAGA. It is as powerful as a religion that tells you that you will go to Hell if you don't do the dogma dance.
But. The biggest chunk of American voters are Independents - most of whom, I believe, are disgusted with broken promises, high prices, stupid wars and maybe even a little frightened by ICE murders.
And both extremes of the political spectrum are furious at the unfairness of the economy.
And....a VAST majority are still wicked upset about the Epstein Files Follies.
There IS a core of brown shirt fascist Trump worshippers. But I am confident that their numbers are not nearly as high as the media makes them out to be. They represent a huge percentage of cable TV subscribers. But cable is dying.
There is NOTHING that this administration is doing that is expanding its support. EVERYTHING it is doing is losing support.
So, you are right LInda. But two things can be right at the same time :)
A friend was saying today that she feels that so many people in the US are not in touch with what is going on, for example the exploding diarrhea epidemic right now, and think that it is a matter of waiting until Trump is out. The amount of damage that can still be done in the remaining time is enormous. And, there is no guarantee that the Oligarchs that bought his presidency will not invest in buying us our next president too. That part is scary as well.
I just had this convo with a friend last night too Linda! I asked her if she thought the people suffering with exploding diarrhea have a clue why it is happening to them. We decided probably not.
Amen!Two things can indeed be right at the same time.I also truly believe that there are more of us than there are of them no matter what the feckless media yammers about.They are trying to suppress us and our voices/ votes.We must be persistent and we will prevail.
I think many of these people are as clueless as they are hateful. Sarah Longwell has done recent focus groups with people who know nothing about these murders in our streets. While we might be paying attention, they are either inattentive or misled by curated news. That kind of ignorance in a country that votes for its representatives is deadly.
The absence of serious regulation of crypto and AI may even undermine investor confidence in the US dollar and bring the whole edifice crashing down. It is already leading to some countries exploring ways to reduce their dependence on the dollar.
Canada is led by an international banker. Hmmm, maybe the world can have a "Loonie Standard"!
(ICYDK: the "loonie" is the nickname of a Canadian dollar, which bears the image of a loon. ICYDK: the loon is a beautiful waterbird with a haunting cry.)
This is what I can’t understand. We keep being outraged by the actions of this maladministration, and seem to believe we are helpless to combat their march to the destruction of democracy. We have the votes! We DO have the power to halt this rampage if we vote in overwhelming numbers this November. We simply have to remove Republicans toadies and elect younger replacements who are willing to fight for their futures by standing up to the greedy oligarchs who have taken over.
Failing to do this by Constitutional means leaves only one other option to save democracy, and that is violent revolution. Our duty as citizens is to prevent that outcome.
About 90% of MAGATs vote against their own interests.
During the 2024 cycle, we identified tens of thousands of SSI recipients who were registered Republican. Tried, but failed to do outreach to them......
The child tax credit benefiited humdreds of thousands of MAGAT families.
Ah, but some privation is okay if it fosters ideas of *greater* interest: emotional interests, not economic, and social interests, rather than ther people's social interests. And key: *religious* interests.
All that makes it worth destroying the social fabric that (bonus!) means one can still be homophobic, transphobic, racist, and misogynist, and not have to change ideas, approaches, or understanding. Besides, their dads may have been strict disciplinarians or some such.
Ally, "in the churches that they attend" is certainly part of the problem. They are often led by male pastors who love the power and in some cases, the money. It is the reason that vaccine rates are going down and the refusal to give babies Vitamin K shots. The idea seems to be that God will take care of them.
I'd bet most SSI MAGATS are fanatical ChristoNazis, shackled to Trump by that old time religion, complete with orgasmic fantasies about burning witches, stoning LGBTQ people to death, ballistically "cleansing" neighborhoods, etc. ad nauseam. They start their brats off early, too. I know of an incident -- this was at least 40 years ago, when I was still part of the drinking press -- in which four Aryan Christian boys decided it would be fun to impale an elderly Black couple's small dog on a broomstick and see how long it would take the canine to die. (Proto-ChristoNazi science, you know; gotta get ready for the new Holocaust.) They grabbed the little dog and headed for a nearby woods. If I remember the story right, they were teens, you know, just kids from a bible-study group out for a little fun, but what they didn't know about their intended victim was he had big-dog friends, a pair of Rottweiler neighbors who heard the little dog yelping, broke out of their yard, rescued their buddy and put all four boys in the hospital. No surprise to me because I know Rotties to be uncannily intelligent. Best part -- again if I remember it right -- was the oldest boy, the leader, fled into the woods and thought he had escaped, but by this time other neighborhood dogs had mustered to join theneighborhood dogs mustering. little dog's avengers, and that freed one of the Rotties to hunt the escapee. (A Rottie's jaw closes with something like 1500 pounds-per-inch pressure. Crunch.}
By the way, I don't doubt the bit about the neighborhood canine muster. When I lived on a dirt road in a forest --five houses in about a third of a mile, two or three big dogs at each dwelling -- a delivery driver maced one of the dogs simnply for approaching his truck. The maced dog howled, and at least one dog from each house -- all three from my place -- jumped their fences and went after the driver.
Five years ago, Democrats briefly committed the unforgivable act of helping children eat. The expanded Child Tax Credit lifted 3.7 million children out of poverty, helped families pay bills, improved nutrition, and failed to produce the mass epidemic of parental laziness Republicans had confidently predicted. Families mostly spent the money on food, housing, education, and other suspiciously responsible things.
Then Donald Trump returned with his One Big Beautiful Bill Act, because no political obscenity is complete until Trump gives it the name of a Las Vegas casino. The law extended or expanded more than $4.5 trillion in tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy while cutting more than $1 trillion from social programs. Apparently, giving money to struggling parents creates dependency, but handing fortunes to billionaires encourages rugged individualism.
The bill cut $187 billion from SNAP. By March, more than four million people had lost food assistance, including at least a million children. Perhaps those children should stop wasting money on juice boxes, fire their accountants, and move their assets into a tax-protected trust. Personal responsibility must begin before kindergarten.
Meanwhile, House Republicans are looking for another $73 billion for Trump’s war in Iran, $12 billion to rescue farmers wounded by Trump’s tariffs, and $10 billion for a voter-suppression scheme wearing an election-security nametag. It is the perfect Trump economic cycle: create a disaster, demand applause, then make taxpayers finance both the damage and the bailout.
The governing principle could not be clearer. Feeding children is socialism. Feeding defense contractors is national security. Helping workers is wasteful. Helping billionaires is growth.
And when the grocery shelves become unaffordable, Trump can rename hunger “abundance,” print it in gold capital letters, and announce that no country in history has ever gone without dinner so beautifully.
I think it's time for a cabinet post representing children. In virtually every hideous move made lately by those in power, it's children who will suffer most and are the most defenseless, as always. Nancy Pelosi had it right: do it for the children. They are the country's future, and our country is screwed for at least the next 20 years - it will take a lot of smart, determined people to save it in the end and many of them aren't born yet.
Fran, I know several people who have decided to have no children or limit their family to one because they can see what is here and getting worse. We thought this years ago and so have no children.
Kelli, spot on. The government's priorities reveal everything. And under Trump, it's clear: he wants his name and face on everything and to enrich himself and his cronies.
Historian and authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat explains that autocrats plaster their names and faces everywhere to build "personality cults" and remake the world in their own image.
This tactic, detailed in her book Strongmen, serves a few core strategic purposes:
Ego as Omnipresence: Placing their names on public buildings and showing their faces everywhere projects the idea that the leader is the state itself, creating a constant visual reminder of their total control.
The "Sole Savior" Narrative: By constantly associating the government's achievements—and the nation itself—with their personal identity, these leaders position themselves as indispensable saviors.
Psychological Bonding: As Ben-Ghiat outlines in her Lucid newsletter, constant visibility helps forge an intense emotional bond with supporters.
It makes the leader's aesthetic and taste the dominant culture.For a deeper dive into how this visual propaganda works alongside other "strongman" tactics, you can listen to her interview on the WBUR On Point podcast or explore her University of Pennsylvania lecture.
Government deficits are welfare for the rich. Resulting profits are privatized while the debt is socialized. That is why the GOP is the "borrow and spend" party. Started with Reagan.
”Should it be used for the good of the American people, or to concentrate wealth and power among a few?“ Why does the current congress work for the wealth and power. instead of the voters? Because once elected, they are protected. To make them work for the people, the congress men and women should not be protected. That is, they should be paid as they take care of their voters.
Trump’s speech tonight will likely be a furtherance of the crimes of 2020 election.
I hope (without hope) the networks will lead into the speech with the following reminder:
Trump was the indicted for election fraud:
Four federal felony charges in the 2020-election case: Including
1. Conspiracy to defraud the United States — 18 U.S.C. § 371
The alleged conspiracy was to impair and obstruct the federal government’s lawful process for collecting, counting and certifying presidential-election results through deceitful means. Prosecutors alleged that knowingly false fraud claims were the principal tool used in that scheme.
2. \Conspiracy against rights — 18 U.S.C. § 241
Prosecutors alleged a conspiracy to interfere with citizens’ constitutional right to have their lawful votes counted.
ChatGPT: "So, in plain English, Smith’s core accusation was:
Trump knowingly used election-fraud lies as the means of a coordinated effort to defeat the lawful vote-counting and presidential-certification process and remain in power.
Lie: a knowingly false statement made to deceive."
Smith formally reported, in his official capacity as Special Counsel, that his office believed it had sufficient admissible evidence to convict Trump
During his one term in office, President Biden successful navigated a slew of legislative accomplishments investing in American society, rather than just making certain its uber-wealthy could become even more uber-wealthy. Many of those bills were even bipartisan in nature. Though the American Rescue Plan never got a single Republican vote, the massive, ten-year infrastructure investments did. Infrastructure, transportation, urban water systems, bridges, tunnels, ports -- all received an infusion of investment critically needed for future growth, and not seen since the Eisenhower Administration. All you have to do is go to China, Japan, Europe, to see why such continuous re-investments in technology are necessary in a modern, globally interdependent economy.
The Biden people did all this without crowing much about it. They didn't claim to have invented peanut butter and sliced bread, and certainly didn't do so while greasing their own pockets to the tune of billions through shady cryptocurrency investments favored by scoundrels, black marketeers, drug dealers and human traffickers.
Too late, perhaps, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg named this the "Big Deal" -- in honor of past Democratic ideas -- the New Deal, Fair Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society. The term never caught on during Biden's time, but it was a big deal indeed. And Biden got Republicans to get on board with it, as billions got awarded through grants that also benefited red states (whose hypocritical Republican representatives would then later try to claim credit for it in spite of voting against it when given the chance).
Under Trump, claiming credit for things you had nothing to do with and voted against previously is considered a virtue. The idea that you would spend your energies scheming how to pass a national budget without any involvement whatever from the opposing political party is an approach to governing that would have been considered both contemptuous and unthinkable in any previous era. For the Trump people, it's become a virtual article of faith to cover how a demented narcissist milks the public cow every day to the tune of billions for himself, not even including his wretched offspring -- Uday, Qusay and Jarvanka -- who then have another go at the teat for themselves.
The problem for Biden was that these were medium to long-term policies and they didn't have time to kick in before he was kicked out. Now Trump has been taking credit for the Biden economy and for infrastructure projects that Biden had made possible.
In his 108-minute State of the Union speech in 2026, which was otherwise content-free in terms of policy, Trump announced a proposal to give lower-income workers a $1,000 federal match for their retirement accounts, but this was already on the books thanks to Biden's 2022 SECURE 2.0 Act.
Trump and his minions continue to argue that the good parts of the economy are his while the bad parts are vestiges of the Biden era, a claim that has been harder to sustain when all parts of the economy are ailing under him.
Biden and his amazing team did a great amount of good - and famously said he was President of all 50 states when asked why his policies were benefitting red states more. This is in contrast to Trump punishing blue states. Biden sadly never learned the power and importance of controlling the bully pulpit and a corollary, the press did not do its job.
How about getting complete records of all the proceedings they engaged in outside of the halls of congress? Aren't there rules about what should be in official records, and did they totally ignore the rules?
My wife and I were trying to clarify our personally different views of fascism to see how close our administration is to being legitimately called fascist. The closest we could come to agreeing (since there are so many variations that adapt differently to wiggle into more secure central power), seems to be the Spanish version under Franco that evolved into mostly Opus Dei technocrats setting the norms and rules (rather strict on what women could do, and severe meddling in the business operations). The Roman Catholic version of fascism seems more properly called Falangism (Phalangism by French), super right wing religious methodology. With people like supporters of Russel Vought, JD Vance and Supreme Court Justices being Opus Dei friendly members, it scares me to think they may be trying to make the US too similar to the Spanish technocrats (typically OD), that had Spain so far behind after WWII, that their miracle economic growth period in the 50s and 60s allowed over 6.5% annual growth simply because they were starting from so far backwards in the 30s and 40s. I don’t think many want to go back to Franco's worst days with all the other strict rules and intimidation. I can’t imagine the US ever wanting anything like Franco’s Roman Catholic Falangist led society.
We don’t have too much faith in AI, other than it collecting whatever seemed most commonly accepted beliefs or popular rumors, but it did suggest a few places to check further.
Google AI Overview (starts with):
The alliance between corporate power and authoritarian regimes is one of the darkest chapters of 20th-century history. While the historical consensus notes that big business was initially hesitant, once fascists consolidated power, major corporations eagerly collaborated to maximize profits, exploit captive labor, and secure massive government contracts.
From a link we got to "Wikipedia: The Economics of Fascism" with a few little jewels like:
"...Fascist governments encouraged the pursuit of private profit and offered many benefits to large businesses, but they demanded in return that all economic activity should serve the national interest.[25] Anti-fascist historian Gaetano Salvemini argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise because "the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise. ... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social".[40] Stanley Payne argues that fascist movements defended the principle of private property because they held it to be "inherent to the freedom and spontaneity of the individual personality", but that they also aimed to eliminate the autonomy or in some cases the existence of large-scale capitalism.[41] Jürgen Kuczynski characterizes a fascist economy as a type of "monopoly capitalism", which preserves the "fundamental traits of capitalist production", such as the fact that production is carried out for the market by privately owned firms which employ workers for a certain wage.[42] He argues that fascism is "nothing but a particular form of government within capitalist society",[43] which features a major role for the state, as was also the case in some early capitalist societies of previous centuries..."
Maybe not the best, but it does make us feel comfortable to start comparing notes with others.
Benito Mussolini was the first of the autocrats to coin the term fascism. Disillusioned after World War I he began the movement in Italy in 1919 with the creation of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento and officially launched the National Fascist Party in 1921.
Mussolini declared in a speech in 1927: "everything in the state, nothing against the State, nothing outside the state."
In the Doctrine of Fascism, in 1932, Mussolini (with the help of his ghost writer Giovanni Gentile) wrote:
Fascism desires the State to be strong and organic, based on broad foundations of popular support. The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its action felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporative, social, and educational institutions, and all the political, economic, and spiritual forces of the nation, organized in their respective associations, circulate within the State.
"Mussolini declared in a speech in 1927: 'everything in the state, nothing against the State, nothing outside the state.'" Essentially, that is where we now are, or, if not completely, certainly on the way.
I was always baffled about how WWI was fought and how what seemed such harsh economic reprisals on them seemed to lead us to WWII. About all I remember from high school was the Dawes and later Young plan that collapsed when the Great Depression caused the cancellation of so many short term loans to Germany at the end of the financially careless "Roaring Twenties."
i seems a good outline to build more knowledge on, in my case about the Armenian Genocide that an aunt fled (to Iran) before marrying my uncle.
I was most aware of Dachau since my military parents visited it in 1947 (and we may go there later this year). We had lived in Munich then, about 15 miles south of Dachau.
I missed something with the (new?) spawn names ICTT, do tell ,please.
What I didn’t miss was the mess we’re now in forecast in 2015…warned ,worn, wicked …was it not the final summation of Republican Rhetoric with Putin’s perfect Puppet provided ?
Uday and Qusay were Saddam Hussien's sons. Not unlike Trump's sons (and daughter) enriching themselves at the expense of most Americans, they enriched themselves at the expense of 99% of the Iraqis.
meant: I so enjoy his wit, clarity and intelligence! He somehow almost always astonishes me, as today with thanks to you Riad for your ‘enlightenment’.
This brings tears to my eyes. I just read a survey that voters believe Dems and Republicans are equally corrupt and worthless. Why this amnesia? Ok, algorithms, blah, blah. Why don’t Americans take the time to get other new sources? This is a rhetorical question. Thanks for this Heather.
Most American voters are just plain too lazy to bother investigating allegations to see if they have merit. It's comforting to just rest with the silly 'all sides do it' nonsense and thereby not have to make any moral decisions whatever.
On the other hand, I keep reading purer-than-thou lefties here savaging the Democratic Party with a ferocity better left in a jungle. Between ignorance and searching for a 'practically perfect in every way' Mary Poppins-style Democrat are two good explanations for why we're stuck in the current hellhole we now occupy.
I am inclined to think "perfection" is a myth, since we never see it in history, except, perhaps in a highly restricted sense, and complex choices of any sort are apt to have pros and cons, and a need to order priorities. I do have a problem with the choice not to vote, especially in the most impactful elections, or to "protest" with some clearly inconsequential vote that is a personal gesture with predictably negligible impact. Ralph Nader scuttled his influence by diverting votes in a key contest he had no indication whatsoever he could win. That said, I think that Democrats have been on the defensive ever since Reagan, and failure to adequately make a "thing" out of creeping plutocracy, privatization, and corruption is part of how we got here. I admire Biden as the clearest departure from plutocratic "Reaganomics" since the "Reagan Revolution", but while he did not shamelessly puff himself as Trump does, he was also less out there with his message. Nor has our party sufficiently sold a different and palpable vision to vie with Republican lies. The bought off press has clearly been a big part of the problem, as Biden made some memorable speeches that few heard, but I believe we need to restrategize to keep a white hot spotlight on what has worked in the past, what we could be in the future, and how epically corrupt the "Republican" party has become. Yes, we are doing that, but even more so, even more clearly and boldly by contrast.
Let’s not lose sight of the end game autocratic manipulation /money management and the mighty transfer of wealth upwards. Lies and Propaganda led from trickle down to trust me and the world came down like dominos.
I saw this in the Independent "Salman Rushdie has called for history of the British Empire to be taught in schools, warning: 'If you don’t teach your history, nobody understands what it means.' ”. History is long-term memory, and memory is our guide to what comes next. Not that two events are ever identical or they would not be distinguishable as two, and events always occur in connection with a context. Waking in morning we know where we are and what to do next guided by memory. Analysis and logic. "completion", which is what the Arab inventor of modern algebra called his creation, can provide better than random heads up or "blueprints" for variations in events that are new and unique. Forewarned is forearmed, and knowledge observably reveals better choices, yet we, myself included, resist or neglect to make best use of the tools at our disposal.
It may be true, ICTT, that some voters are lazy; I disagree that it’s “most.” Remember that over the years the productivity of American workers has increased, while free time has decreased. Many laborers get zero healthcare benefits, no vacation time and no sick time. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. This means long hours of labor and a lot of stress, typically for wages that don’t cover the basics of food, housing, etc. So is it lazy, or is it overwhelmed and exhausted? Think of the fast-food chains, who make sure their workers don’t get enough hours to qualify for health insurance, but who might be asked to work a 12-hour shift one day. You can’t refuse or you’ll get fired. No hours the next day. Very random shift assignments. Childcare? Impossible. Welcome to Amerika.
You also end up without the best healthcare, something which the WWII industry started providing since the pay was capped during the war. I've seen so many people working jobs they hate, simply because the family healthcare is unaffordable if they don't stay semi-slaves to the companies that ever more seem to hate providing it.
Absolutely true about people staying in jobs because of the healthcare benefits. If my spouse hadn't had a job with excellent benefits, I never could have left the job I hated.
Not for my entire career, but for about half of it, I was able to get my wife on my county medical benefits when the courts ruled that they had to treat unmarried partners as well as married ones. We had to jump through some hoops towards the end (we were married, Oregon passed a constitutional amendment not recognizing same sex marriage, so we had to get "domestic partnership" status which kept benefits but not for tax purposes, then the Obergefell decision made that moot) but we've managed to keep those benefits although she now pays out of pocket for her medical insurance.
You can vote by mail (still) ahead of time if you can't take time off to vote on Election Day. People do it all the time, even people without good health benefits or paid sick leave. You can be exhausted and STILL exercise your choice as to who runs your damn country. Sorry, not buying it.
You are absolutely right where voters are too lazy to do any research on their own and depend on memes from FB and snippets her and there to do any real searching. I also agree with you Mary Poppins-style Democrat candidate they are all searching for and even tho there are a few I would suggest I believe we need to stay away from Kamala and Pete. Pete will never get elected in this country and isn't because he isn't qualified and Kamala we need to just move away from a female president. That isn't going to happen either, although it should.
A lot of what Biden did was “boring government stuff” that doesn't make for good click bait. Important yes, but not exciting. Especially not when you have a loud orange ape in the background flinging shit everywhere.
Now the orange ape is back in charge, flinging even more shit, and twisted evil technocrats like Vought and Miller are doing the boring government stuff but in the opposite direction, empowering the elites and preferred people while disempowering and endangering everyone else
Apparently, long-term investments in infrastructure aren't as sexy and appealing as screaming about Haitians eating cats and dogs in the street, or building a weird spaceship on the White House lawn so TV can show tattoo-covered thugs beat the shit out of each other while lowlifes cheer them on.
Maybe my problem was that I never once watched The Apprentice. Millions of us recognized a dangerous phony when he first reared his ugly head. Why didn't others?
Yep ICTT, the people complaining the loudest about dems not doing their job are just loving hearing themselves talk. If they spent as much time looking at all the good things the dems are doing they wouldn't have the time or inclination to complain.
I get it though with the overall illiteracy rate in America - an estimated 54% of adults read below a 6th-grade level.
ICTT, apparently, there's plenty of savaging to go around. Savaging voters who are struggling to pay their bills and keep their families together, thus lacking time to even follow current events, much less verify reports, is unfair condemnation.
To wit, The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell specializes in focus groups to "take the temperature" of the voting public. She just reported that she conducted a focus group of swing voters, asking their opinions about ICE's most recent two murders. NOT ONE of the interviewees had even heard about the shootings. They indicated that they couldn't form an opinion until they knew more about the circumstances.
I think it's more that they are afflicted by the "And the herd moves on" syndrome.
You look at a a herd of wildebeest (or bison, seeing as it's the US). Herd is grazing undisturbed - a big cat comes up and snatches the weakest. Some of the herd scatter, a few try to intervene - but soon enough the cat and the weakling are forgotten - and the herd moves on. They don't change their behavior, they just carry on the way they have for thousands of years.
And neither has man.
A few who will intervene to protect the many.
A few who will rip throats to get what they want.
And the majority who just want to be left in peace to chew on grass - or Big Macs.
Perhaps it’s my many years of working as a psychotherapist, but I disagree with these characterizations. Many people are “living lives of quiet desperation.” There is an implication in some of these comments that people are lazy or just don’t care, can’t be bothered. I see it this way: some people don’t have the emotional or physical bandwidth to engage proactively nor reactively to anything happening on the political scene. They’re trying to take their exhausted selves to work, and get their kids to do some homework. The diseases of depression and anxiety have been rising, and rising, for years. I understand the frustration of posters, and I share it; but give these folks some credit. Charity begins at home.
Putnam’s book Bowling Alone we all are like the blind men trying to describe an elephant with just our hands and in only one place. The elephant is old and huge and its family tree legion. Trauma can make one think and act stupid. Crisis with housing or education can affect one for decades. The air we breathe, the soils are food is grown in, the soil and pavement we walk on have issues that affect all us us. The air as in today in the Midwest smoky, air is vital to not only health but survival, water and the fact we are more water than not affects us in multiple layered ways. Smells the olfactory senses can hurt abd harm depending on what zip code one lives in. The ability to let a dog or see a bird also part of the essential of life for many but again access to being able to have a pet or walk in nature or green spaces again the zip code matters. In the old days that is where the concept of Fresh Air Camps came into being. Los Alamos was an educational haven for elite young boys with asthma issues before it was taken over by our government. Everything matters and only if we can begin to comprehend all of these fine lines of webs and chess games played by the powerful can we come together and begin undoing the damage and recreating a new format.
not acknowledging what you're saying here, signe, is ignorance...at the level, imo, of having ignored the homeless for so long...so it makes sense to me that i'd see this sort of 'laziness' comment here.
I refuse to believe that 77 million Americans are "Morons." The American gene pool from way, way back is made from survivors, adapters, innovators. We wouldn't have survived AND flourished if not.
I do, however, firmly believe that educational standards have been dropping for years - much of that is down to GOP policies, some to religious indoctrination - and over the last few years social media.
Ignorance is NOT stupidity.
Unfortunately, Dunning Kruger seems to be reigning supreme at the moment.
L.E., I did ascend to your analysis in large part. The term, "moron" is definitively a slur. However, one has to ask, after experiencing Trump in the WH on the first go 'round, why would anyone wish him to return to this vaulted position? You bring in a good point regarding educational credibility: with too many of these folks, there is little evidence that they have it.
In many cases, one cannot necessarily fault them for that. The reasons possibly many. Poverty, poor educational system, possible family dynamics, etc. etc. As a retired educator, I've seem much of what I just described. After all, we know from Howard Gardner's theory that at least 9 forms of intelligence exist. So, you're correct in saying that ignorance is not stupidity. Just because one may be brilliant in mathematics, will not automatically make on cognitively efficient as a naturalist. However, when one looks at the numbers and results of where we now are, folks like TCinLA have a good point in calling out, at least, some people as "morons." I know; TC said "most." I would give TC the benefit of the doubt and put it down to a "tongue in cheek" statement.
I think the popularity of such substacks as this, and HCR, and many more, are indicators of what there is a craving for in this country - intelligent informed discussion. I have found that the less informed the commenters seem to be, the more likelihood there is of insults and back biting. I was taught how to debate - and I was also taught to think before I spoke. My father was always saying "Go back a bit - and now go back some more." So many disagreements, and so much anger, seem to start because people haven't thought. Another thing dad taught me as a child, which has always stuck vividly in my head, was:
"For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For the want of a horse, the rider was lost.
For the want of a rider, the message was lost.
For the want of a message, the battle was lost.
And all for the want of a horse shoe nail.
Truly sorry that we didn't have the capacity to "nail" trump in 2016. I say "capacity", not "knowledge" because the "knowledge" was there - but so many people couldn't see it, only the glitter.
As someone has mentioned on numerous occasions, Americans, for the most part, no longer read books. There is a piece in The Atlantic where Rose Horowitch writes “The Age of Reading Is Over”.
Note: It's behind a paywall and was too long for me to read. /s
I find this trend disturbing. I'm a lifelong reader, as are other members of my family (one of whom once ran a bookstore). I like learning about various subjects.
As someone whose job involves a lot of report writing, I've noticed that many people don't read beyond the executive summary. I'm also seeing a push by some organizations to use more "infographics" instead of narrative. Makes me glad I'm on the cusp of retirement.
I have the magazine in hand as I write this plus a stack of 5 books from the library waiting to be read and a stack of 3 books I have read waiting to be returned to the library. I don’t like knowing that reading is not the same for others. It is not a surprise when you realize how much time is spent on our phones. I allow one hour a day to the phone. The rest of my day is devoted to books. Obviously I am old and have the privilege of being retired.
Approximately 21% of U.S. adults are functionally illiterate, meaning they lack the reading skills necessary to complete everyday tasks like reading prescription labels or understanding simple texts. Overall, an estimated 54% of adults read below a 6th-grade level, placing the United States 36th in global literacy rankings.
I think I remember having to see some military equipment manuals had to be written at the 6th grade level back when I became a tech writer in 1985.
I believe the lowest requirement I had to meet for manuals was an 8th grade level. At the start of WWII it seems some were at the 4th grade level but advanced to the 6th grade by the end of the war.
I do remember the war years manuals including a lot of cartoon like drawings that tried to warn soldiers what mistakes could kill them or ruin equipment. Some of our tech manual section illustrators came from Disney and enlightened me on how cartoons were used in WWII to overcome the lack of reading skills. I remember their descriptions of the cartoonists that worked for the Army at the old Hal Roach studio, and what Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) contributed.
I couldn't find the examples they showed me 40 years ago but did find he grew up in Springfield, MA, near where I went to high school, and where they have a museum of his work. Another is found at at https://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dswenttowar/
It seems so many women I meet (at protests) or other events have joined reading clubs.
I also learned "...Doctors must earn CME credits to keep their licenses because they increase knowledge and update skills. These courses often cover the latest industry best practices and breakthroughs.
While CME credits are available in many formats, if you prefer hands-on demonstrations or face-to-face events, live CME conferences are a top choice for staying updated. Plus, in-person events allow you to network and discuss your findings with others..."
I do wonder how RFK,Jr gets his information though. CME -Continuing Medical Education.
Jim, thank you and everyone else who spells out the meaning of abbreviations you use in your posts. The trend to abbreviate so many words and phrases frustrates me greatly. Of course it makes sense in many cases but I can't help but think that we are losing language just as we are readiing fewer books. I'll say one more thing before getting off of my soap box. I worked for the federal government as a biologist. To this day, whenever I see or hear BLM, my first inclination is to think Bureau of Land Management!
Bureau of Land Management, has always been my first association with BLM, as a tech writer, especially. For over a dozen years back in the 80s and 90s I had typists, an editor, and an especially good proof reader in a 76 year old Scottish woman (that insisted on her area not having fluorescent lights, just old filament bulbs that gave of a yellowish light so familiar to students in the 1930s).
She quickly let me know I should always spell out what abbreviations meant the first time they were mentioned in any chapter. She would also provide a list of words she thought contained different terms for the same thing, making me choose the best one and stick to it. Variations had to have a good reason (and usually include a comparison if the equipment itself had different labeling for similar items.
They actually required auto manufacturers to use only approved words in their service manuals to describe smog equipment hardware 45 years ago. Another member of the Society of Logistic Engineers made a very successful business of adapting their drafts of manuals to meet the requirements for similar descriptions of what was then rapidly changing technology in smog reduction equipment.
I listened to Rose H yesterday. Although we are reading more text than ever we are not reading books. It has been a while since schools even, mandate book reading.
Approximately 21% of U.S. adults are functionally illiterate, meaning they lack the reading skills necessary to complete everyday tasks like reading prescription labels or understanding simple texts. Overall, an estimated 54% of adults read below a 6th-grade level, placing the United States 36th in global literacy rankings.
Thanks Marj. I read that elementary, middle school and high school librarians are replacing their materials with more books with pictures and simpler sentences.
The democrats were not able to communicate the benefits of some of their legislation with the people who benefited. It is not enough to just pass a bill, it is important to let the public know what, and how, it is expected to affect people's lives. The media does not do a good enough job to keep everyday Americans, who work and don't have the time to research every proposed bill, properly informed. IMHO, the fact that Americans believe both parties are corrupt is not a surprise.
There's mainstream media which is now owned by wealthy, tax-break beneficiaries, local stations now monopolized by the religious right, and there's Fox 'News'.
One problem is the lack of local news creating news deserts all over the country, but critically in many rural, red areas. The League in Washington State did a study a few years ago. Take a look.
The history of journalism in this country is worth a deep dive. Ben Franklin and others with different causes such as abolitionism. Also the African American Press and Ida B Wells work on the documenting of lynchings. NEO had at times two or three daily newspapers with other cities. Many folded and at the same time the content just de evolved. Now between independent journalism and some force changes in the voice of old papers such as the work in Cleveland, Ohio’s paper recently. The other problem was ALEC it’s and others use of talking points and KOL. Key Opinion Leaders. Big Pharma also employed this tactic. Damon Runyon , John Hersey, ‘s work and life along with female journalists like Dorothy Fuldheim and Molly Ivins part and parcel of need to know journalistic history.
I hate to say this but the very people who are impacted by the loss of assistance did t vote or don’t vote. Women lost the 50 year old right to control their bodies and they didn’t come out and vote. Now the right to vote is about to be questioned. What will try do now? Protest? It’s frustrating.
Of note also is Ida Tarbell, who was an early investigative journalist, wrote a scathing series in 1903 for McClures Magazine about the ruthless vertical integration practices of John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company. This series was key in the eventual breakup of the Standard Oil Company cartel.
The Media and Democracy Project is working hard to bring back unbiased local news, which has been disappearing at an alarming rate. There are things you can do to help bring accurate news to your area:
Thanks, Signe, for the Media and Democracy Project link. In email every day, I receive the "Daily Reformer" for Minnesota and national news––locally produced by professional journalists who bring out stories that do not get enough attention and should.
Perhaps other states have independent journalists working through similar non-profits they have established? I only learned about the Daily Reformer from word of mouth.
Yesterday I talked to a woman in her 50s who voted for rump because she is a devout Catholic who is happy that Roe iwaa overturned. I told her I'm very concerned about all the deaths due to ICE, the Iran war, social safety nets being gutted, and the rise of disease. She said "I don't want to hear anything about politics! I don't want to get involved in any debates." Sometimes I feel so hopeless when there are smug idiots like that walking around.
Revenge voters. They are all over the place. In the other hand, why didn’t women come out in huge numbers numbers to vote against Trump? Speaking of revenge voting.
Yes but she and others were cultivated to be single issue voters! It was in the sermons abd homilies and Fox. The thread goes to Francis Schaefer and Dr Everett C Koop the surgeon general. Frank Schaefer has been doing a lot of work on working against all of this thinking. Shrenk and some voices in the Roman Catholic Church.
It may be 'rhetorical' but you are still going to get my explanation because it literally has nothing to do with 'algorithms' since Substack is as close as I get to social media. And I sure as heck don't have amnesia. You can feel free to block me.
... I believe that their are more Democrats who are 'good people' than there are Republicans. Both in the world and in the government.
But that's about as far as it goes.
Thanks to Citizens United, the Democrats are quite literally driven by the exact same funding sources that the GOP is. These PACS (both foreign and domestic), Billionaires and Corporations have solved their 'representation' by just paying off both sides.
And every decision in Congress is for the betterment of the corporations not the people.
We have for decades asked for Roe v Wade to be codified. For the ERA to be passed. To make our rights undeniable instead of at the whims of whomever the current administration is. But the party prefers to have them as campaign issues.
The dems have thrown us a few more dollars now and then because they aren't as stupid as the GOP but neither party is interested in helping the people. They are all interested in the Economy.
Even as homelessness was rising the Biden administration stood there and claimed that since the stock market was doing great we were obviously just confused. And yet.. as Trump does the EXACT SAME THING.. you all are quick to jump on him for it but I didn't see that here 2 years ago.
Is Biden a better man than Trump? Absofuckinglootly. Would Harris have been a better president than Trump? I have no doubt she would have been. Will I vote for whomever gets the nomination to replace Platner? Again, absolutely.
But the Democratic party itself? They are just as complicit as the GOP.
They manipulate the votes and the funds to support their own private wishes. And even today I get irrationally angry at that witch Wasserman-Schultz. The way she handled the Bernie/Hilary situation was egregious. And DIRECTLY contributed to Hilary's loss because people lost faith in the system.
Ken Martin has not made that better. The first thing he did was get rid of David Hogg for even suggesting that every sitting Democrat was not guaranteed their position and that we should allow primaries. Hogg wanted to Primary people like Fetterman (D-PA) and Golden (D-Maine). He wanted to get younger people with new ideas into the party. But the party cares more about the letter after their name than how they actually vote. Somehow believing that these men would what? Switch their votes back to Dem priorities because 'new administration'?
I get that I'm further left than most of the people here. But don't tell me how great the democrats are. They might be freer with spreading the money around instead of funneling it up. But they are equally complicit in this disaster. You all see Pelosi as some sort of god. I don't. She was a powerful woman who enjoyed manipulating the powerful and was happy to turn that in to personal gain. I think Hakeem Jefferies is a bigot (his islamophobia is OTT). And the fact that Chuck Schumer announced to the world via the NYT that his job was not to support the American people but to keep Zionism in the American view should have been an impeaching issue.
All my life I've been forced to vote with the Dems because 'harm reduction'. But I didn't do it because I believed in what they were selling. I did it because what the GOP was selling was worse.
The only reason I continued to vote even knowing that my rights would never be protected was the vain hope that society would see the error of it's ways.
Instead you all have doubled down on corporatism.
I'm running out of 'f&*^s' to give. Which I guess is ok since I doubt I'll be around for the next Presidential election. Once I lose my medical care in the fall my options will be slim.
And I'm losing my medical insurance because of the Democrats. It might have been Trump's bill. But the Democrats broke and sided with Trump in order to fund his government. They kept him in power. They might have had the luxury of voting no when the bill hit the floor. But the bill would never have hit the floor without them.
They don't care about us. They care about money and power. If I had billions of dollars to funnel into their campaigns then I'm sure they would care what happened to me. Just like they care what happens to Bayer and United Healthcare. But since I don't. What I need is not important.
I think you make a huge mistake here. You are trained to see through a partisan lens only. Clickbait rewards.
By making everything partisan we are distracted from seeing the systemic problems. In a partisan only world we run endlessly against the other party and ignore the corruption both parties engage in.
Campaign finance has led to a US economy that favors wealth and income inequality. The Clinton's surrender to what they saw as electoral reality to stay competitive in their self-styled "third way". Arguably to that point no one did more to unleash big finance. The Great Recession was created by Democrats' capitulation as much as by Bush Republicans.
If you look at the economy, the balance of economic power doesn't shift much between parties. Labor and worker rights are still waning. Tax policies still favor wealth. Don't confuse tweaking around the edges with reinvention.
While inequalities lessen slightly under Democratic control it is largely through government expansion providing bandaids such as the ACA and tax credits. All paid for by debt. Why debt? Because billionaire donors seen as essential to political victory won't be taxed out of existence and made millionaires. Voters don't want government handouts and programs as much as they want the dignity of prosperity through work. They're often dumb but essentially not stupid.
And while MAGA convinces white Americans government benefits go to non-whites, the reality is that tax benefits that reduce child poverty don't create a robust middle class that a majority of Americans want: whites who have lost it and minorities and women still hoping to participate on equal terms.
And so because of the systemic political corruption model that defines our politics Democrats always fail to deliver a change in who controls wealth and prosperity and who receives it. They keep failing and assuring Trump and Republicans stay in business. Creating jobs with poor pay is not the same as creating widespread prosperity.
It's the system. And because you think it's partisan the rich have you exactly where they need you to be. Making micro-arguments while the big picture stays the same. There's a reason Chuck Schumer is the Senate leader. He gets Wall Street money and ignores inequality in wealth on a macro basis. He's certainly no FDR.
On being surrounded in combat by Lt. Gen. Lewis Puller Ret. USMC: "Sir do you know they've cut us off? We're entirely surrounded? "Those poor bastards," Puller said "They've got us right where we want 'em. We can shoot in all directions now." Burke Davis Marine: The life of Chesty Puller
I argue with "progressives" about this constantly. I put the word in quotes because most of these individuals are anything but progressive. There's only one path to saving Democracy in this country and that is to vote blue in this two-party system. Sure, there is corruption in both parties but this is false equivalence and only one party is committed to helping ALL U.S. citizens as HCR points out in the opening paragraph of today's post.
I have countless conversations with my octogenarian mother and in-laws about current events and they are mostly ignorant of all of it. These are the people of the generation who are largely responsible for the mess we are currently in and seeing how all three of them didn’t vote in the last election because they either couldn’t be bothered or couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a woman of color enrages me. My MIL made a comment about how she’s tired of seeing all of the pharmaceutical commercials and I said well the US is one of the only countries where a pharmaceutical company can market directly to consumers because we have a for-profit healthcare system. She looked at me as if I was speaking another language! My in-laws are college educated and it baffles me that they are so clueless. My own mother does nothing to educate herself on candidates and when I ask her about it she tells me she always voted however my father and after he passed how my step-father told her to vote. And this madness is now being encouraged again by the far right evangelicals pushing for “family voting”. These are retired people who spend the majority of their time watching TV — NOT FOX — and they are still unaware of current events and history. Sorry…venting…rant over.
Because they are not taught to THINK. Thinking is not a testable skill AND it is not uniform, and, it's subjective, so it's just not taught any longer. And, learning to think takes time......testable "milestones" have to be met on time. And then, we could talk about Media who no longer adhere to high standards of critical thought.
Our whole system is now based on money, thanks to Reagan and Dark Money. Wealthy donors tell politicians what they want. Some donors actually want to help people, so they donate to Democrats. Others, who seem to be more ruthless and greedy, back the GOP. I think those people represent the Seven Deadly Sins.
I understand that 90 million Americans did not bother to vote at the last election. I believe that the profound sense of disillusionment in politics in the US and in the main institutions of US democracy was one of the key reasons for Trump coming to power in 2015. He persuaded people that he was a Beltway outsider who would 'drain the swamp', yet he stocked his first cabinet with billionaires and millionaires.
OFF Topic but, a hot Topic. My understanding is that it will only take 1R "no" vote to tank Blanche's Nomination leaving the Court co-fraudster plenty of tome time to report to the State of New York State Bar as ordered by Judge Harper with his license to practice law at risk.
Epstein Victim, DANI BENSKY testifying at Blanche hearing this AM about Blanche-the-Court-Fraudster's multiple failures to carry out The Epstein Disclosure Act.
Epstein Victim, JESS MICHAEL's backing her up today with detailed percipient knowledge interviews this AM.
Perhaps that will end up being John Cornyn, provided he can retrieve his very small testicular man-bits from the locked-and-guarded vault at Mar-a-Lardo where they're being held as ransom.
"Acting" is a good adjective to characterize Blanche Dubois's obsequious, oleaginous offertory to Trump today. His entire testimony and put-on outrage at questions about his integrity was reminiscent of a staged Miss Piggy-style "moi?" soliloquy from start to finish.
Whatever happens, he should get this year's Oscar for Most Deceitful Performance by a Poker-Faced Diva Babbling Nonsense Not Under Oath.
And the Rs’ performative outrage (outrage, I tell you!!) over Jack Smith’s DARING to get a court to approve handing over some senators’ emails during his investigation—he MUST be investigated!!—was ridiculous.
I heard that being a lawyer is not a requirement to be an Attorney General. But I think there is a limit to the amount of time a person can be 'Acting' as in the Alina Habba situation.
True, he doesn't have to be an atty to hold the position of AG. But he can't practice law without a law license. If he were to cross the very fine line into "the practice of law," he's fair game for arrest.
Seems the bar associations are painfully slow, as we saw with Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman. One can only hope that it may put the brakes on Blanche when contemplating life after 47’s reign of terror ends.
I heard Blanche dismiss that referral as only a letter, or something equally dismissive. I think his refusal to obey a court order is far, far more disqualifying.
HCR lays out the core truth we keep dancing around: Republican leadership isn’t failing accidentally — it’s failing on purpose. The OBBBA didn’t just “miss the mark.” It was designed to shovel trillions upward while ripping food assistance away from millions of families. It was designed to weaken antitrust enforcement so corporations can keep jacking up prices. It was designed to fund an unpopular war and an immigration crackdown that’s already producing deadly outcomes.
Meanwhile, the same people who voted against the child tax credit expansion — a policy that literally cut child poverty nearly in half — are now insisting that the chaos and rising costs are somehow the fault of everyone except themselves.
The problem is that a lot of voters feel the pain but don’t see the cause. They see higher grocery bills, SNAP cuts, ICE violence, and a war no one asked for. What they don’t see is that these aren’t random events. They’re the predictable results of a governing philosophy that treats the majority of Americans as collateral damage.
If we want to break through, we have to say it plainly: this isn’t about left vs. right. It’s about whether government is used to help families or to reward billionaires and fuel endless conflict. The contrast HCR draws today isn’t subtle — it’s a flashing red warning light. One party used policy to lift children out of poverty. The other used policy to push millions back toward it.
People deserve to understand that the instability they’re living through didn’t just “happen.” It was chosen. And we don’t have to keep choosing it.
The Democrats need to stop solely blaming the Republicans. The oligarchs are their puppet masters. Case in point: Trump held up the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge between Windsor and Detroit for at least 4 months because one of his big donors receives the tolls from the other bridge. It will finally open on July 27th and save untold hours of sitting in long queues waiting to pay the toll. Trucking firms can purchase passes so they can drive through without stopping.
Richard Nixon, Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist, 'W', Donald Trump, JD Vance, Pam Bondi, RFK,Jr., Steven Miller, Pete Hegseth, Markwayne Mullin, Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent, Russell Vought, Howard Lutnick, any current Republican member of the Senate you would care to name, Mike Johnson, any current Republican member of the House you would care to name. How are those for names?
It took more than Republicans to do this. Democrats consistently supported these bills in order to get them onto the floor to begin with. (Where they could grab plausible deniability by voting against it 'when it counted'.)
A telling reminder that the Big Ugly bill got passed by a couple of votes in the very DEAD of night around 3:30am.
The only people hard at work at 3:30am in order to avoid the light of day and public scrutiny are Republicans and grave-diggers working for Dr. Frankenstein.
Or we can reclaim the unalienable rights defended long ago. Everyone has heard of government of, by and for the people, and more of us need to pull together to make it so. Way too big to rig.
“So what do we do? We do not wait until the database is finished to ask whether it should exist. The fastest outside force that can stop it is a federal court, where a state attorney general can ask a judge for an emergency order halting further transfers, suspending cross-agency access, and preserving every database, contract, and access log while the system is investigated. But to bring that, their lawyers need more than public concern.
‘Trump’s National Design Studio, whose stated job is not only duplicating dot-gov sites under the White House.’
“And the next time one of these National Design Studio sites shows up, clean and friendly, a gold eagle stamped on the bottom, do not listen to what it is promising to do for you. Ask what it is connecting, and what picture of you it is trying to assemble.
Piece by piece, the same [NDS] office is pulling your health, your money, your movement, your politics, and your identity onto one key, from the day you are born, and that key is your Social Security number.”
This is one of those incredibly important facts that often fly right over our heads and cause our eyes to glaze over, alas because this is almost without parallel in its importance.
She is amazing. Her analysis of the reflecting pool as cover for data center cooling for whatever is being built under the East Wing left me gobsmacked.
I've almost finish reading It Can't Happen Here, which my banned book group will be discussing tomorrow afternoon. One of Buzz Windrip's campaign promises is to give every family $5,000, a promise that is never realized. But so much of this book is happening here, right now. If you haven't read it, or haven't read it recently, take it off the shelf or go to you local library and take it out. It's uncanny and very unsettling how this book from 1936 reflects what we are living through in 2026.
HCR ended her essay today and 5 years ago writing,"I ended my discussion of it with the observation that this huge achievement (the American Rescue Plan) of the Biden presidency—every single Republican voted against it—has taken a backseat in the news to two blockbuster stories about the former president.”
And therein lies a big part of the problem we have: "The news" amplifies every Trump twist and turn while letting "huge achievements" like the American Rescue Plan, which diminished U.S. child poverty, fade quickly from public awareness.
The Democrats need to invest money in placing clever information pieces on all media to keep Democratic achievements in the public eye. "The news" won't do it. It is addicted to the gravy train created with every clickbait headline that has Trump's name.
Oh to have a president and leaders like we had five years ago. Every day we need to step up and demand accountability and raise our voices for human dignity, justice, and the rule of law. Things we should be able to take for granted by the people we elect.
Hi Heather. Thank you. I’m here to help. I have become a constitutional observer and I will be manning my polling place in Maryvale Arizona, a predominantly Latino neighborhood is west Phoenix. I will do everything possible to see that my friends and neighbors can vote on July 21st without fear or intimidation. Also I am a professional canvasser and will be taking on door to door to talk to like minded registered voters to get the real word out there. And I start conversations about what is happening to our democracy. We already know we are losing it. It’s time to act. It’s time to vote. It’s time to unite. We are the majority. I ask others to find grass roots organizations in your community and listen to them. Maybe volunteer. Also. There is a lot of campaign money being paid to canvassers to knock on doors. I usually make 25 an hour. So win win. I hope someone reads this and takes the initiative to make a change. We know what the problem is; now is the time to solve it
I grew up in Phoenix in the 70s and 80s but left when I enlisted in the Navy. My mom canvassed and registered voters back in the mid 70s and worked on the Bruce Babbitt for Governor campaign, which he won. She was involved in trying to pass the Equal Rights Amendment too, still waiting though…
Heather rightfully contrasts Joe Biden pushing legislation that benefited ordinary Americans with Trump’s legislative efforts mean to benefit the very rich and/or feed his ego (which can NEVER admit the decision to attack Iran was a mistake).
What Heather fails to report, however, is what corruption expert Sarah Kendzior has told us for years:
The corruption in the Democratic Party runs so deep that Joe Biden‘s visible efforts to do good ran parallel with his actions designed to make it possible for Donald Trump to serve a second term as president.
The hard truth must be known… Biden‘s decision to choose Merrick Garland (who then waited 25 months before beginning to prosecute Trump, which permitted Trump to remain free to run again instead of going to prison) and his decision to run for a second term instead of keeping his promise to be a one term president are the cornerstone decisions consciously made to help Trump return to power.
Had Biden really wanted to protect and defend the Constitution, he never would’ve let Merrick Garland be the US Attorney General. He would’ve selected someone he knew would start prosecuting Trump on Day One, which would’ve spared the country and the world from the devastating effects seen so far and the even more devastating effects sure to come from this insane agent of chaos getting to be in The White House again.
Read Sarah Kenzior! “The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off”.
I’m tired of the navel gazing and finger pointing from pundits, no matter how good they are. It’s time to move forward and leave the circular firing squad behind.
There's a lot of truth in the expression "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." If you don't want to learn the truth of what the Biden administration was really doing, that's up to you. But please note: That history will not disappear just because you aren't looking at it.
Yes, they are both corrupt. It just shows itself in different ways. The Democratic Party leadership "talks" like they want to save democracy. But it's all just talk. They want things to remain they way they've been for a long time. Watch 1939's Mr Smith Goes to Washington, and you'll see how it was portrayed before WWII. That film upset a lot of people in Washington DC at the time... because it hit too close to home.
Oh good grief. Do you think any of that will change with MAGA in charge? How naive and shortsighted. You belive it more important to win the argument than winning the war.
On this week’s episode of “The David Frum Show,” The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his reaction to the recent ICE shooting in Maine.
Then, David is joined by Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, to discuss the future of Social Security, the mounting national debt, and the political dysfunction preventing Washington from confronting America’s fiscal challenges.
Finally, in honor of Bastille Day, David ends the episode with a discussion of Hilary Mantel’s novel “A Place of Greater Safety” and the lessons one can learn from the terror of the French Revolution.
From the “No children left behind act” passed by George W. Bush, the students needed to meet the actual year progress.it had a profound impact on education to millions of children. The regime took a wood chipper to the Department of Education because nothing says voter suppression more than one’s undereducated constituents which also falls uniquely into discussions about eugenics and racial politics.
So Trump’s former defense attorney invents an amnesty from Internal Revenue Service audits and investigations for him, his family and all his business ventures. Todd Blanche is an Acting Attorney General in the Department of Justice but has no legal authority or permission to direct another government agency to take such action. Then we have the Secretary of Defense announcing that members of the military over age 30 will be tested for testosterone levels. Taking medication to boost testosterone levels is to be voluntary. Perhaps the secretary is worried for some reason about his own levels or use of supplements. Then you have a candidate to become the permanent Director of National Intelligence. Who, during a confirmation hearing, refused to directly answer a simple question about who won the 2020 election. Maybe saying President Joe Biden won that election would have caused a myocardial infarction, but more likely it would have made one person angry. This is the quality of government we are receiving from the lawless administration occupying the White House.
There is no evidence of a voting machine hacks but Cheeto wants to put that evidence under attack. This attack comes with the concern of election interference and make it with national intelligence information.
The whole point is to sow confusion about election results. This appears to a long term Nazi Republican strategy over the next 4 months before the midterms. Admittedly there have been reports from ETA(Election Truth Alliance) suggesting that there is statistical evidence that there was a potential manipulation of election data from specific areas of the 2024 electorate. But there are reputable election advisors on the Democratic side who have labeled this type of data misleading.
The Nazi Republicans read this information as well. Perhaps they were responsible for data manipulation, so why not now take advantage of this above confusion and give voters enough propaganda to persuade parts of the electorate to question midterms elections?
But clearly there are AI chatbots now being used in robocalling to spread false claims, specifically in Michigan where the Nazis are falsely claiming that Obama has endorsed El-Sayed’s political opponent in the Democratic primary. This type of propaganda is meant to confuse voters and make them feel like voting may be useless. This is all out political election interference and should be investigated and prosecuted. Successful prosecution has been done in the past and the Nazis are doing it again.
A government reveals its purpose by who it consistently chooses to benefit.
Every budget, every law, and every policy answers the same question: who should be protected, who should prosper, and who can be left behind.
Those choices don’t just shape the economy. They determine the kind of society we become.
I think it was Joe Biden who said "don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I'll tell YOU what you value..."
We know it wasn't the current president, who doesn't know what a value is.
Republicans are the party of anti-values. Antivalues in this category directly attack fundamental human needs: physical safety, emotional security, and basic dignity. Some are obvious and dramatic. Others are so subtle they’re dismissed as “just how things are” until the cumulative damage becomes undeniable.
https://psychologyfor.com/40-antivalues-definition-list-and-examples/
Any of these fit the Trump administration along with SCOTUS and the Republicans in Congress?
Violence, cruelty, abuse, hatred, fraud, corruption, deceit, lying, discrimination, selfishness. etc.......
That's not the whole of the story.
If you want to understand how the entire Republican Party became neofascist, you need to go back to the 1940s and neoliberalism, an ideology that was designed to destroy the New Deal. That's how it all started. From the beginning, its founders are on the record claiming that "democracy and capitalism are incompatible". And they want capitalism.
Why?
None of this has anything to do with Trump (merely an actor hired to distract us 24/7 and to sign the executive orders that the GOP puts on his desk).
It all has to do with what Isaiah Berlin called "negative" and "positive" freedom.
Neoliberals believe that negative freedom is more important than positive freedom.
Negative freedom means "freedom from" (others' unwanted influences on your life). Positive freedom means "freedom to" (the freedom to not have to sell your home when you get cancer because a health insurance mandate gives everyone solid coverage, etc.).
Traditionally, the left believes that if the government limits the freedom of the wealthiest to do whatever they want and makes them do what "we the people want", all while increasing positive freedom through government programs, society as a whole (and democracy) will thrive. People will be well-educated, healthy, happy (if they lead a moral life), and well-informed, so their votes will be based on a high level of political literacy and change the country into the direction they want.
Conservatives have always believed the opposite, because deep down, they're much more pessimistic about human nature. Most people are "mediocre", they fear, and therefore, letting them limit the freedom of the wealthiest (often synonymous for "the best") is absurd and cannot but lead to disasters. So a government needs to prioritize positive freedom for the wealthiest (giving them the laws needed to be able to do whatever they want) and negative freedom (limiting how much people have to say when it comes to politics) for everyone else.
Obviously, by now conservatives know that that means that the masses will be unhappy, in this way. But on the one hand, they believe that overall, society will be better off than with a leftist approach. And, even more importantly, neofascism (the logical consequence of neoliberalism) drew lessons from the mistakes neoliberalism and fascism made in the past, and concluded that the best society is one in which "the people" suffer AND in which a fundamentalist form of religion is imposed to channel that suffering into hatred of anything that is incompatible with neofascist control of the government (hating liberals, etc).
Neofascists also believe that the best way to obtain world peace is to divide the world in a handful of big neofascist empires, who subjugate their "mediocre masses" all while letting the neighboring dictatorship do whatever it wants, as long as they too let our neofascists do whatever they want.
These are not "anti-values", it's a value system based on the belief that human nature is essentially bad, whereas democracy needs people to believe that human nature is essentially good and will manifest as a force for the good IF the government creates the right conditions.
A good of example of this is featured in the FX television series "Alien Earth" in which a future Earth is completely controlled by seven corporations each valued at trillions and trillions of dollars. They dictate collectively (and sometimes individually without approval of the greater collective, usually with disastrous results) how the Earth and its resources (including the human population) can best serve them. I can see us heading towards a similar fate and it certainly disrupts my sleep patterns even thinking about it!
I don't know the TV series, but yes, that sounds like it. In real life, it's called "Network States", sometimes called "network cities" or "freedom cities".
Gil Duran is one of the experts on this (see his Substack).
Historian Quinn Slobodian has explained how there are many of them already in China today (which is one of the reasons why Musk is so interested in China) in his book "Crack-up Capitalism".
Peter Thiel already built one in Honduras.
Now neofascist billionaires want to build them everywhere inside the US.
A "Network City" is a city that is entirely autonomous, within a sovereign state, and run by a wealthy CEO - run POLITICALLY by that CEO, that is. Citizens of the city are treated as "customers" or "employees". They all sign a contract, written by the CEO, and the CEOs security service throws them out of the city if they don't obey its rules.
Citizens of such cities have no political power whatsoever.
THAT is what they mean when they say that they want the "government to be run like a business".
It's because they want to multiply these cities now also inside Western democracies that the GOP wants to "own" Greenland or Gaza.
It's all happening right now, and yet, instead of talking about this, we only talk about Trump. TDS for sure!
Sounds more like a reality TV show. 😧
Practical minds cannot comprehend the chaos of democracy. Ascribing motivation to other individuals requires an understanding of the possibilities - all possibilities. That is beyond comprehension.
Very interesting essay. It appears that democracy has been in great peril and the possibility of totalitarianism is real. Our way of life is nearly over unless.... Our profligate consumption is impoverishing us. Our future may be quite bleak unless.... It has been decades in the making. Can the nation responsibly face the stark limitations? Or will some continue to follow the demagogues and charlatans in trump's orbit? What needs to occur to wake up the nation to radically reinvent a system that protects citizens and fosters some sort of common good?
I've thought of the the Republican Party (now the Trump Cult) as Freedom To: carry guns, pollute, discriminate, set low wages, etc., and the Democrats as Freedom From: being shot, being forced to breathe polluted air and drink polluted water, discrimination, a wage the family can't live on, etc.
You can always play with the words, of course, but originally, prioritizing negative freedom means focusing on legislation that refuses to restrict people's ability to do what they want... with what they have RIGHT NOW. That's why it's "conservative" concept.
"Positive freedom" means that the government installs conditions that otherwise the people who'll benefit from it would NOT have.
Very well said. The system that says human nature is essentially bad, is a good descriptor of those selfish rich men who want to do as they please at the expense of the masses.
I think that in general, they grew up in circumstances that caused a lot of violence, so much so that they can't believe that less violent circumstances will ever be possible (see Trump and his mafia-like environment (both at home and in the real estate world he was born into), or Musk and his pro-apartheid, utterly abusive father, etc.
Once you can't imagine a less violent world is possible, the only option for happiness is material wealth, and having more of it than anyone else...
My bookclub read "Secret Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism" by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson. I understand the history. However, we also read Katherine Stewart's "Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy" and just read Noelle Cook's "The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism and the Lure of Belonging." The first talked about the history of Neoliberalism in the US mostly, and the second about Christian Nationalists and their thinking, and the third about conspiracists and conspiritualists, which have beliefs that are bizarre, but still has them thinking about Trump in ways that are so twisted one cannot reason with them. In fact, the author posits that these people only leave their crazed bubbles if they choose to because of some experience they have. So, we are looking at different groups that make up the people that support Trump. These are just some of them.
Yes, exactly, and then there is the neofascist "Christian" nationalism that is the second wing of the current neofascist GOP coalition.
To understand their thinking, read Kevin Roberts' "Dawn's Early Light" (Heritage Foundation director), or any book written by Patrick Deneen.
Here too, we have real ideologues, which means that we'll need to be willing to debate their ideas, rather than simply trying to make sure everyone knows Trump is a corrupt, immoral man.
There are two different things when it comes to "Christian" nationalism: (1) the ideologues who created this ideology, and (2) the neofascist propaganda that made traditionally conservative "ordinary citizens" adopt this hollowed-out, fundamentalist version of religion.
Awesome book club! I quit on an earlier book club I belonged to many years ago when they chose "Gone Girl." Awful, AWFUL book!
I like this assessment, EUWDTB.
And herein lies the biggest propaganda tool Republicans have used to say they are the most appropriate to lead the country:
You wrote:
“ People will be well-educated, healthy, happy (if they lead a moral life)….”
How “moral life” is defined is the crux of the biscuit. Republicans hold their definition to be is what is best.
Not, that's not it. They believe that the masses will never be able to lead a truly moral life. So they want to impose a fundamentalist religion, using the force of government. Only that will make the mediocre 99% stay quiet, they fear...
GJ, funny that the author enumerated 40 antivalues, just like we used to have the Top 40 Hits of popular music. I copied them, and guess who ticks every box.
☑violence, ☑cruelty, ☑abuse, ☑vengeance, ☑hatred, ☑humiliation, ☑domination, ☑dehumanization, ☑lying, ☑deceit, ☑fraud, ☑corruption, ☑hypocrisy, ☑betrayal, ☑manipulation, ☑exploitation, ☑selfishness, ☑narcissism, ☑arrogance, ☑envy, ☑greed, ☑vanity, ☑contempt, ☑entitlement, ☑intolerance, ☑discrimination, ☑prejudice, ☑indifference, ☑exclusion, ☑demeaning, ☑scapegoating, ☑devaluation, ☑irresponsibility, ☑apathy, ☑laziness, ☑negligence, ☑recklessness, ☑avoidance, ☑indiscipline, ☑cynicism.
We have public records of Donald's indulgence of every one of these antivalues. As it happens, we have same for all the "rock stars" of the Republican Party, including the late, not-so-great Lindsey Graham and the – allegedly – undead Mitch McConnell. Not to mention Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito.
All of the above and probably many more.
Thanks for sharing
Gold. He loves only gold.
"Orange-finger"
Not sure everyone will get "Orange finger". Us oldies will.
And power. And raping women. All the things that insecure men love.
I LOVE that E Jean Carroll is 5 plus million richer today!
Not for long. She's going to donate it all.
J L, and that gold must be his or in the pockets of his rich buddies, the ones he can tap for bribes and other forms of corruption!
Fort Knox renamed to "Donald J Trump Money Bin".
J L, unfortunately Trump may think that with his name on it, he can take whatever he wants out of it. Well, I guess that's pretty much what he is doing to our treasury right now, it's just not gold!
He loves gold leaf, which is the perfect metaphor for Trump: all glitter, no substance. One once of gold will cover 300sqft.
Gold spray paint gives more bang for the buck, even more Trumpily.
And himself.
He'll probably buy out the mints supply of Trump dollar coins and resell them for $25 each.
donna, I agree that death star has no human values that we consider good. His value is his gigantic ego and how he can use the government to enrich himself, his family, and the uber wealthy.
It's Come To This - "I think it was Joe Biden"
Joe Biden used this line repeatedly during his 2007 presidential campaign, throughout his vice presidency, and later as president, almost always introducing it with words like:
𝑀𝑦 𝑑𝑎𝑑 𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛: "𝐷𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒. 𝑆ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑚𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑏𝑢𝑑𝑔𝑒𝑡, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐼'𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒."
The quote has endured because it applies well beyond government. You can substitute almost any organization:
"Do not tell me what your company values. Show me your budget."
"Do not tell me what your church values. Show me its budget."
"Do not tell me what your family values. Show me how you spend your time and money."
The underlying idea is the same: our allocations of money (and often time) reveal our priorities more reliably than our words.
I just completed reading an article in the Atlantic "The Age of Reading is Over." Some observations: "Gambling has become a more leisure activity than reading; last year 57% of Americans placed a bet." "Some students now view reading as an unnecessarily burdensome way of acquiring knowledge;" "television is our culture's principal mode of knowing about itself;" "many administrations are instructing teachers not to assign full books;" "trump is our first postliterate president; he has pioneered a style of communication that exploits our distracted disputatious age, and his communication style is perfectly suited to an oral society; he employs epithets: "Low-energy Jeb," "Little Marco," "Sleepy Joe." "trump likes pictures and charts and bullet-pointed briefings......." Americans are proudly postliterate.
Stephanie, I think the headline writer for the article fell victim to their own premise. In an effort to write a "short, sweet" headline, the writer misled readers.
From my cultural research, "The Age of Attention Span is Over."
People are still reading, but the majority of our population has difficulty paying attention long enough to finish a stream of text more than about 100 words long.
However, I concur with the highlights you noted, especially your mention of television. Years ago, I wrote: "In people, things or ideas, the greatest strength is also the greatest weakness."
Since television became a fixture in virtually every home, it has both enriched our lives and introduced the undoing of our society. With the TV schedule divided into 30- and 60-minute segments, television conditioned our culture to expect all our problems to be resolved in no more than an hour. The introduction of even smaller screens has further compressed both our patience and our attention span.
Screens alone are not the cause of our ever-shortening attention spans; they accompanied the other cultural characteristics that constantly demand our attention.
Dale, I too read the article and i agree with you about short attention span. I did see a reply to that article somewhere, but did not read it. I am a voracious reader, but I am old. I once did encounter a young man while waiting for a book store to open. He commented that he had hated to read when he was younger and now here he was, waiting for the book store to open.
Michele, I estimate that the overwhelming majority of HCR's readers are senior citizens, for reasons discussed here. This often causes me concern, because it's really the younger generations who need to benefit from her wisdom as regards Americans' repeating the same mistakes and expecting different outcomes.
My daughter was a bit slow to be able to read then took off like a rocket. I was, am, dyslexic, and am a slow reader, but try to keep up.
I agree with you. There are many additional quotes I could have borrowed that would agree with your premise too. Eg - A Harvard university professor was troubled by his students resenting the amount of dense reading they were assigned. A focus group asked high school students how they felt about reading for pleasure. Most thought of it as an alien practice. It is, as you posited, a result of a short attention span, since our phones and ipads provide short-form videos and condensed text. The article wrote what the author has uncovered from various interviews and studies. (Does your premise and the author's purport to suggest that MAGA underutilizes good, reliable sources, because they are too complex - hence a society of voters who are woefully underinformed and educated?)
Stephanie, to you remember those large metal tops that were printed with cartoon characters or other subject matter? You powered them by repeatedly pushing down and releasing a knurled handle in the top of the toy. The more rapidly you pushed down on the plunger handle, the faster the top would spin until the printed characters were just a blur.
I think life is like that for the younger generations, still immersed in child-rearing and career-building (if that's an option). The idea of sitting down to read a book is utterly beyond their imaginations.
https://www.curiousmindsbusybags.com/products/classic-large-metal-tin-spinning-top-toy-vintage-pump-style-classic-toy?srsltid=AfmBOoqDCKn3bG3M1yOg9OrFsv6tAz-DS7QTe55UwEhYxCfw0giA2-tK
Dale, Since it was impossible to quote the entire article in the Atlantic, I did find this phrase, which corroborates your thesis: "Faced with shrinking attention spans and declining comprehensions, teachers have favored short passages over full books" - no doubt due in some part to short attention spans...
There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. -- Emerson
Reading is a creative act at least insofar as it relies on our construction of thoughts and visions from a compacted code. There are strengths and weaknesses to that, as in any means of communication, but I see well-crafted writing as especially evocative of mind-enriching thought; reportage or fiction. Haiku is an especially compacted trigger for sharing of imagery.
Display screen media is far more passive. What one sees may be uniquely revealing and/or emotionally moving, but you see only what the originator wants you to see. "Day for night", this but not that, and, or so it seems to me, or meta, thinking about our own thoughts critical thinking skills are less engaged. I love many forms of media, but find no fully adequate substitute for the written word. Even spoken words. which have their own constellation of strength and weaknesses are fully interchangeable with reading.
"Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, a controlled language of simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary designed to prevent people from being able to think critically. The Newspeak language thus limits the person's ability to articulate and communicate abstract concepts, such as personal identity, self-expression, and free will,[1][2] which are thoughtcrimes, acts of personal independence that contradict the ideological orthodoxy of Ingsoc collectivism."
Wikipedia
Very interesting.....Kind of like shrinking every idea into something short enough for screen-addled voters to concentrate on. And has AI or will AI in some cases, (I don't want to make statements for which I have no data), highjack attention and make reading all but impossible, hence to reduce people, as you describe, into nonthinking, simple, people?
I worry about having too much done for us, thus making us overly dependent. Use it or lose it.
How did you get that text in italics?
Frau Katze - "How did you get that text in italics?"
I use https://yaytext.com/bold-italic/ but there are several others.
Thanks.
I had a co-worker who touted all the "quality time" she spent with her young children, sayint that the few hours she saw them were quality hours. I often wondered, why couldn't she give her "quality time" to the job, and the bulk of her time to her young kids? If quality time is good enough for your family, isn't it good enough for your job?
Trump has his priorities, and it's no secret it ain't we the people.
I learned the same thing in Tax Law class back in the late '70s: The Tax Code is a powerful policy instrument (that most ordinary folks don't even know about).
In the MAGAverse most folks couldn't find England on a world map.
Christine, I have doubts that the MAGA faithful could find their own state on a U.S. map. My MAGA neighbors are very familiar with the shape of their state, but I suspect they'd have to study a U.S. map for a few minutes to find the state where they live. I doubt they could locate other states without labels.
I was going to say they probably couldn't name the capital of their own state but.....
Seems like Trump's team is looking at Ukraine's success against Russia, and wants to copy their strategies. However, Putin has not been brought to the table, and never will be. Putin is a lying liar just like Trump and will never give up. This is the reality of Putin, and perhaps those that will follow him, so Ukraine has to take away his power. Iran is not Russia, and the US is in the position of the aggressor. This is looking like an endless war, as fascists are known to have, and one which Trump's successor is going to have to end, but one in which Trump pretends he is working towards peace. It is the war of making the stock market go wonky for Trump.
Clearly we have not just become this sort of society, this is the society we have been, or so many people would not be backing Trump. There are a lot of damaged people voting for Trump, looking for something that they are probably not going to get, but they will believe in it anyway.
"There are a lot of damaged people voting for Trump, looking for something that they are probably not going to get, but they will believe in it anyway." Linda, your comment is the definitive definition of the Trump republican. And to see that approximately 1/3 of this nation believes in a patent, chronic, buffoonish, miscreant is the result, in part, of our sordid history against many of our own people. Those who have in the past been seen as "the other" are now on the ascent. The truth is creeping ever so forward in defining the true losers, and unfortunately, those who by their own hand, are and will be left behind.
Describes them perfectly, deluded
but one still gets complaints about "deplorable"....
Quite true. That "damaged group" of Trump supporters have their identity tied to MAGA. It is as powerful as a religion that tells you that you will go to Hell if you don't do the dogma dance.
But. The biggest chunk of American voters are Independents - most of whom, I believe, are disgusted with broken promises, high prices, stupid wars and maybe even a little frightened by ICE murders.
And both extremes of the political spectrum are furious at the unfairness of the economy.
And....a VAST majority are still wicked upset about the Epstein Files Follies.
There IS a core of brown shirt fascist Trump worshippers. But I am confident that their numbers are not nearly as high as the media makes them out to be. They represent a huge percentage of cable TV subscribers. But cable is dying.
There is NOTHING that this administration is doing that is expanding its support. EVERYTHING it is doing is losing support.
So, you are right LInda. But two things can be right at the same time :)
A friend was saying today that she feels that so many people in the US are not in touch with what is going on, for example the exploding diarrhea epidemic right now, and think that it is a matter of waiting until Trump is out. The amount of damage that can still be done in the remaining time is enormous. And, there is no guarantee that the Oligarchs that bought his presidency will not invest in buying us our next president too. That part is scary as well.
I just had this convo with a friend last night too Linda! I asked her if she thought the people suffering with exploding diarrhea have a clue why it is happening to them. We decided probably not.
Amen!Two things can indeed be right at the same time.I also truly believe that there are more of us than there are of them no matter what the feckless media yammers about.They are trying to suppress us and our voices/ votes.We must be persistent and we will prevail.
OhI hope -and pray- that you are correct.
🙏🙏🙏
Or as I have argued many times, Linda, Trump is not the problem. He is the symptom.
The problem, white supremacy, or I should stipulate the BELIEF in white supremacy, has existed since the arrival of white Europeans on this continent.
I think many of these people are as clueless as they are hateful. Sarah Longwell has done recent focus groups with people who know nothing about these murders in our streets. While we might be paying attention, they are either inattentive or misled by curated news. That kind of ignorance in a country that votes for its representatives is deadly.
Those focus groups are very discouraging to listen to.
The absence of serious regulation of crypto and AI may even undermine investor confidence in the US dollar and bring the whole edifice crashing down. It is already leading to some countries exploring ways to reduce their dependence on the dollar.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Uxo8RgTljpk
Canada is led by an international banker. Hmmm, maybe the world can have a "Loonie Standard"!
(ICYDK: the "loonie" is the nickname of a Canadian dollar, which bears the image of a loon. ICYDK: the loon is a beautiful waterbird with a haunting cry.)
Loonies and Twonies. One for the loon, the other for the $2 piece.
They sure are 'flooding the zone' - making it difficult to prioritise what fires to put out first.
This is what I can’t understand. We keep being outraged by the actions of this maladministration, and seem to believe we are helpless to combat their march to the destruction of democracy. We have the votes! We DO have the power to halt this rampage if we vote in overwhelming numbers this November. We simply have to remove Republicans toadies and elect younger replacements who are willing to fight for their futures by standing up to the greedy oligarchs who have taken over.
Failing to do this by Constitutional means leaves only one other option to save democracy, and that is violent revolution. Our duty as citizens is to prevent that outcome.
And the crypto industry has invested heavily in politicians of both parties.
" ... sort of society we [have] become.
About 90% of MAGATs vote against their own interests.
During the 2024 cycle, we identified tens of thousands of SSI recipients who were registered Republican. Tried, but failed to do outreach to them......
The child tax credit benefiited humdreds of thousands of MAGAT families.
MAGATs value hatred of "the other" more than their own children.
True words, LB.
Ah, but some privation is okay if it fosters ideas of *greater* interest: emotional interests, not economic, and social interests, rather than ther people's social interests. And key: *religious* interests.
All that makes it worth destroying the social fabric that (bonus!) means one can still be homophobic, transphobic, racist, and misogynist, and not have to change ideas, approaches, or understanding. Besides, their dads may have been strict disciplinarians or some such.
Ignorance is their bliss.
and Fox "news' is the source and the maintenance of their ignorance.
It has actually gone far, far beyond Faux Noise. It has taken root in propaganda sites, "conservative" "think" tanks, and in the churches they attend.
Ally, "in the churches that they attend" is certainly part of the problem. They are often led by male pastors who love the power and in some cases, the money. It is the reason that vaccine rates are going down and the refusal to give babies Vitamin K shots. The idea seems to be that God will take care of them.
Daniel, one more proof that stupidity is real and will stay with us for at least, a generation.
To graphically make the point, MAGAts will happily burn their own neighborhood to the ground if it means that the home of an "other" will be consumed.
I'd bet most SSI MAGATS are fanatical ChristoNazis, shackled to Trump by that old time religion, complete with orgasmic fantasies about burning witches, stoning LGBTQ people to death, ballistically "cleansing" neighborhoods, etc. ad nauseam. They start their brats off early, too. I know of an incident -- this was at least 40 years ago, when I was still part of the drinking press -- in which four Aryan Christian boys decided it would be fun to impale an elderly Black couple's small dog on a broomstick and see how long it would take the canine to die. (Proto-ChristoNazi science, you know; gotta get ready for the new Holocaust.) They grabbed the little dog and headed for a nearby woods. If I remember the story right, they were teens, you know, just kids from a bible-study group out for a little fun, but what they didn't know about their intended victim was he had big-dog friends, a pair of Rottweiler neighbors who heard the little dog yelping, broke out of their yard, rescued their buddy and put all four boys in the hospital. No surprise to me because I know Rotties to be uncannily intelligent. Best part -- again if I remember it right -- was the oldest boy, the leader, fled into the woods and thought he had escaped, but by this time other neighborhood dogs had mustered to join theneighborhood dogs mustering. little dog's avengers, and that freed one of the Rotties to hunt the escapee. (A Rottie's jaw closes with something like 1500 pounds-per-inch pressure. Crunch.}
By the way, I don't doubt the bit about the neighborhood canine muster. When I lived on a dirt road in a forest --five houses in about a third of a mile, two or three big dogs at each dwelling -- a delivery driver maced one of the dogs simnply for approaching his truck. The maced dog howled, and at least one dog from each house -- all three from my place -- jumped their fences and went after the driver.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-15-2026/comment/295768612
''The One Big Beautiful Hunger Plan''
Five years ago, Democrats briefly committed the unforgivable act of helping children eat. The expanded Child Tax Credit lifted 3.7 million children out of poverty, helped families pay bills, improved nutrition, and failed to produce the mass epidemic of parental laziness Republicans had confidently predicted. Families mostly spent the money on food, housing, education, and other suspiciously responsible things.
Then Donald Trump returned with his One Big Beautiful Bill Act, because no political obscenity is complete until Trump gives it the name of a Las Vegas casino. The law extended or expanded more than $4.5 trillion in tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy while cutting more than $1 trillion from social programs. Apparently, giving money to struggling parents creates dependency, but handing fortunes to billionaires encourages rugged individualism.
The bill cut $187 billion from SNAP. By March, more than four million people had lost food assistance, including at least a million children. Perhaps those children should stop wasting money on juice boxes, fire their accountants, and move their assets into a tax-protected trust. Personal responsibility must begin before kindergarten.
Meanwhile, House Republicans are looking for another $73 billion for Trump’s war in Iran, $12 billion to rescue farmers wounded by Trump’s tariffs, and $10 billion for a voter-suppression scheme wearing an election-security nametag. It is the perfect Trump economic cycle: create a disaster, demand applause, then make taxpayers finance both the damage and the bailout.
The governing principle could not be clearer. Feeding children is socialism. Feeding defense contractors is national security. Helping workers is wasteful. Helping billionaires is growth.
And when the grocery shelves become unaffordable, Trump can rename hunger “abundance,” print it in gold capital letters, and announce that no country in history has ever gone without dinner so beautifully.
I think it's time for a cabinet post representing children. In virtually every hideous move made lately by those in power, it's children who will suffer most and are the most defenseless, as always. Nancy Pelosi had it right: do it for the children. They are the country's future, and our country is screwed for at least the next 20 years - it will take a lot of smart, determined people to save it in the end and many of them aren't born yet.
Fran, I know several people who have decided to have no children or limit their family to one because they can see what is here and getting worse. We thought this years ago and so have no children.
I like this idea very much. The office of "next generation".
Kelli, spot on. The government's priorities reveal everything. And under Trump, it's clear: he wants his name and face on everything and to enrich himself and his cronies.
Historian and authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat explains that autocrats plaster their names and faces everywhere to build "personality cults" and remake the world in their own image.
This tactic, detailed in her book Strongmen, serves a few core strategic purposes:
Ego as Omnipresence: Placing their names on public buildings and showing their faces everywhere projects the idea that the leader is the state itself, creating a constant visual reminder of their total control.
The "Sole Savior" Narrative: By constantly associating the government's achievements—and the nation itself—with their personal identity, these leaders position themselves as indispensable saviors.
Psychological Bonding: As Ben-Ghiat outlines in her Lucid newsletter, constant visibility helps forge an intense emotional bond with supporters.
It makes the leader's aesthetic and taste the dominant culture.For a deeper dive into how this visual propaganda works alongside other "strongman" tactics, you can listen to her interview on the WBUR On Point podcast or explore her University of Pennsylvania lecture.
Government deficits are welfare for the rich. Resulting profits are privatized while the debt is socialized. That is why the GOP is the "borrow and spend" party. Started with Reagan.
”Should it be used for the good of the American people, or to concentrate wealth and power among a few?“ Why does the current congress work for the wealth and power. instead of the voters? Because once elected, they are protected. To make them work for the people, the congress men and women should not be protected. That is, they should be paid as they take care of their voters.
Trump’s speech tonight will likely be a furtherance of the crimes of 2020 election.
I hope (without hope) the networks will lead into the speech with the following reminder:
Trump was the indicted for election fraud:
Four federal felony charges in the 2020-election case: Including
1. Conspiracy to defraud the United States — 18 U.S.C. § 371
The alleged conspiracy was to impair and obstruct the federal government’s lawful process for collecting, counting and certifying presidential-election results through deceitful means. Prosecutors alleged that knowingly false fraud claims were the principal tool used in that scheme.
2. \Conspiracy against rights — 18 U.S.C. § 241
Prosecutors alleged a conspiracy to interfere with citizens’ constitutional right to have their lawful votes counted.
ChatGPT: "So, in plain English, Smith’s core accusation was:
Trump knowingly used election-fraud lies as the means of a coordinated effort to defeat the lawful vote-counting and presidential-certification process and remain in power.
Lie: a knowingly false statement made to deceive."
Smith formally reported, in his official capacity as Special Counsel, that his office believed it had sufficient admissible evidence to convict Trump
During his one term in office, President Biden successful navigated a slew of legislative accomplishments investing in American society, rather than just making certain its uber-wealthy could become even more uber-wealthy. Many of those bills were even bipartisan in nature. Though the American Rescue Plan never got a single Republican vote, the massive, ten-year infrastructure investments did. Infrastructure, transportation, urban water systems, bridges, tunnels, ports -- all received an infusion of investment critically needed for future growth, and not seen since the Eisenhower Administration. All you have to do is go to China, Japan, Europe, to see why such continuous re-investments in technology are necessary in a modern, globally interdependent economy.
The Biden people did all this without crowing much about it. They didn't claim to have invented peanut butter and sliced bread, and certainly didn't do so while greasing their own pockets to the tune of billions through shady cryptocurrency investments favored by scoundrels, black marketeers, drug dealers and human traffickers.
Too late, perhaps, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg named this the "Big Deal" -- in honor of past Democratic ideas -- the New Deal, Fair Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society. The term never caught on during Biden's time, but it was a big deal indeed. And Biden got Republicans to get on board with it, as billions got awarded through grants that also benefited red states (whose hypocritical Republican representatives would then later try to claim credit for it in spite of voting against it when given the chance).
Under Trump, claiming credit for things you had nothing to do with and voted against previously is considered a virtue. The idea that you would spend your energies scheming how to pass a national budget without any involvement whatever from the opposing political party is an approach to governing that would have been considered both contemptuous and unthinkable in any previous era. For the Trump people, it's become a virtual article of faith to cover how a demented narcissist milks the public cow every day to the tune of billions for himself, not even including his wretched offspring -- Uday, Qusay and Jarvanka -- who then have another go at the teat for themselves.
The problem for Biden was that these were medium to long-term policies and they didn't have time to kick in before he was kicked out. Now Trump has been taking credit for the Biden economy and for infrastructure projects that Biden had made possible.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/infrastructure-bill-cost-biden-trump-united-states-economy/5977071/
In his 108-minute State of the Union speech in 2026, which was otherwise content-free in terms of policy, Trump announced a proposal to give lower-income workers a $1,000 federal match for their retirement accounts, but this was already on the books thanks to Biden's 2022 SECURE 2.0 Act.
Trump and his minions continue to argue that the good parts of the economy are his while the bad parts are vestiges of the Biden era, a claim that has been harder to sustain when all parts of the economy are ailing under him.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HTotSL0e0Oo
Biden and his amazing team did a great amount of good - and famously said he was President of all 50 states when asked why his policies were benefitting red states more. This is in contrast to Trump punishing blue states. Biden sadly never learned the power and importance of controlling the bully pulpit and a corollary, the press did not do its job.
How did the system ever permit this 'budget reconciliation'? How is it reconciliation to pass bills without the other side participating?
How about getting complete records of all the proceedings they engaged in outside of the halls of congress? Aren't there rules about what should be in official records, and did they totally ignore the rules?
My wife and I were trying to clarify our personally different views of fascism to see how close our administration is to being legitimately called fascist. The closest we could come to agreeing (since there are so many variations that adapt differently to wiggle into more secure central power), seems to be the Spanish version under Franco that evolved into mostly Opus Dei technocrats setting the norms and rules (rather strict on what women could do, and severe meddling in the business operations). The Roman Catholic version of fascism seems more properly called Falangism (Phalangism by French), super right wing religious methodology. With people like supporters of Russel Vought, JD Vance and Supreme Court Justices being Opus Dei friendly members, it scares me to think they may be trying to make the US too similar to the Spanish technocrats (typically OD), that had Spain so far behind after WWII, that their miracle economic growth period in the 50s and 60s allowed over 6.5% annual growth simply because they were starting from so far backwards in the 30s and 40s. I don’t think many want to go back to Franco's worst days with all the other strict rules and intimidation. I can’t imagine the US ever wanting anything like Franco’s Roman Catholic Falangist led society.
We started from a factually.co (AI), scooped version of the article she found, and then did further searches to see what that AI hit or missed in the article found at https://www.salon.com/2025/04/05/when-big-business-rolled-over-for-fascism-and-cashed-in-a-lesson-or-a-warning/
We don’t have too much faith in AI, other than it collecting whatever seemed most commonly accepted beliefs or popular rumors, but it did suggest a few places to check further.
Google AI Overview (starts with):
The alliance between corporate power and authoritarian regimes is one of the darkest chapters of 20th-century history. While the historical consensus notes that big business was initially hesitant, once fascists consolidated power, major corporations eagerly collaborated to maximize profits, exploit captive labor, and secure massive government contracts.
From a link we got to "Wikipedia: The Economics of Fascism" with a few little jewels like:
"...Fascist governments encouraged the pursuit of private profit and offered many benefits to large businesses, but they demanded in return that all economic activity should serve the national interest.[25] Anti-fascist historian Gaetano Salvemini argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise because "the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise. ... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social".[40] Stanley Payne argues that fascist movements defended the principle of private property because they held it to be "inherent to the freedom and spontaneity of the individual personality", but that they also aimed to eliminate the autonomy or in some cases the existence of large-scale capitalism.[41] Jürgen Kuczynski characterizes a fascist economy as a type of "monopoly capitalism", which preserves the "fundamental traits of capitalist production", such as the fact that production is carried out for the market by privately owned firms which employ workers for a certain wage.[42] He argues that fascism is "nothing but a particular form of government within capitalist society",[43] which features a major role for the state, as was also the case in some early capitalist societies of previous centuries..."
Maybe not the best, but it does make us feel comfortable to start comparing notes with others.
Benito Mussolini was the first of the autocrats to coin the term fascism. Disillusioned after World War I he began the movement in Italy in 1919 with the creation of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento and officially launched the National Fascist Party in 1921.
Mussolini declared in a speech in 1927: "everything in the state, nothing against the State, nothing outside the state."
In the Doctrine of Fascism, in 1932, Mussolini (with the help of his ghost writer Giovanni Gentile) wrote:
Fascism desires the State to be strong and organic, based on broad foundations of popular support. The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its action felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporative, social, and educational institutions, and all the political, economic, and spiritual forces of the nation, organized in their respective associations, circulate within the State.
"Mussolini declared in a speech in 1927: 'everything in the state, nothing against the State, nothing outside the state.'" Essentially, that is where we now are, or, if not completely, certainly on the way.
And the people provided a solution for Mussolini’s fascism. Don’t think kit can’t happen here.
Here is timeline for Holocaust 1914 to 1933 from Yad Vashem which I consider a trusted source- https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/resource-center/timeline/1914-1933.html
I was always baffled about how WWI was fought and how what seemed such harsh economic reprisals on them seemed to lead us to WWII. About all I remember from high school was the Dawes and later Young plan that collapsed when the Great Depression caused the cancellation of so many short term loans to Germany at the end of the financially careless "Roaring Twenties."
i seems a good outline to build more knowledge on, in my case about the Armenian Genocide that an aunt fled (to Iran) before marrying my uncle.
I was most aware of Dachau since my military parents visited it in 1947 (and we may go there later this year). We had lived in Munich then, about 15 miles south of Dachau.
Uday and Qusay? You don't say?
I missed something with the (new?) spawn names ICTT, do tell ,please.
What I didn’t miss was the mess we’re now in forecast in 2015…warned ,worn, wicked …was it not the final summation of Republican Rhetoric with Putin’s perfect Puppet provided ?
Uday and Qusay were Saddam Hussien's sons. Not unlike Trump's sons (and daughter) enriching themselves at the expense of most Americans, they enriched themselves at the expense of 99% of the Iraqis.
Thank you!
Yes, Thank you.
I pretended i knew what ICTT
meant: I so enjoy his wit, clarity and intelligence! He somehow almost always astonishes me, as today with thanks to you Riad for your ‘enlightenment’.
This brings tears to my eyes. I just read a survey that voters believe Dems and Republicans are equally corrupt and worthless. Why this amnesia? Ok, algorithms, blah, blah. Why don’t Americans take the time to get other new sources? This is a rhetorical question. Thanks for this Heather.
Most American voters are just plain too lazy to bother investigating allegations to see if they have merit. It's comforting to just rest with the silly 'all sides do it' nonsense and thereby not have to make any moral decisions whatever.
On the other hand, I keep reading purer-than-thou lefties here savaging the Democratic Party with a ferocity better left in a jungle. Between ignorance and searching for a 'practically perfect in every way' Mary Poppins-style Democrat are two good explanations for why we're stuck in the current hellhole we now occupy.
I am inclined to think "perfection" is a myth, since we never see it in history, except, perhaps in a highly restricted sense, and complex choices of any sort are apt to have pros and cons, and a need to order priorities. I do have a problem with the choice not to vote, especially in the most impactful elections, or to "protest" with some clearly inconsequential vote that is a personal gesture with predictably negligible impact. Ralph Nader scuttled his influence by diverting votes in a key contest he had no indication whatsoever he could win. That said, I think that Democrats have been on the defensive ever since Reagan, and failure to adequately make a "thing" out of creeping plutocracy, privatization, and corruption is part of how we got here. I admire Biden as the clearest departure from plutocratic "Reaganomics" since the "Reagan Revolution", but while he did not shamelessly puff himself as Trump does, he was also less out there with his message. Nor has our party sufficiently sold a different and palpable vision to vie with Republican lies. The bought off press has clearly been a big part of the problem, as Biden made some memorable speeches that few heard, but I believe we need to restrategize to keep a white hot spotlight on what has worked in the past, what we could be in the future, and how epically corrupt the "Republican" party has become. Yes, we are doing that, but even more so, even more clearly and boldly by contrast.
Let’s not lose sight of the end game autocratic manipulation /money management and the mighty transfer of wealth upwards. Lies and Propaganda led from trickle down to trust me and the world came down like dominos.
I saw this in the Independent "Salman Rushdie has called for history of the British Empire to be taught in schools, warning: 'If you don’t teach your history, nobody understands what it means.' ”. History is long-term memory, and memory is our guide to what comes next. Not that two events are ever identical or they would not be distinguishable as two, and events always occur in connection with a context. Waking in morning we know where we are and what to do next guided by memory. Analysis and logic. "completion", which is what the Arab inventor of modern algebra called his creation, can provide better than random heads up or "blueprints" for variations in events that are new and unique. Forewarned is forearmed, and knowledge observably reveals better choices, yet we, myself included, resist or neglect to make best use of the tools at our disposal.
Well said.
It may be true, ICTT, that some voters are lazy; I disagree that it’s “most.” Remember that over the years the productivity of American workers has increased, while free time has decreased. Many laborers get zero healthcare benefits, no vacation time and no sick time. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. This means long hours of labor and a lot of stress, typically for wages that don’t cover the basics of food, housing, etc. So is it lazy, or is it overwhelmed and exhausted? Think of the fast-food chains, who make sure their workers don’t get enough hours to qualify for health insurance, but who might be asked to work a 12-hour shift one day. You can’t refuse or you’ll get fired. No hours the next day. Very random shift assignments. Childcare? Impossible. Welcome to Amerika.
You also end up without the best healthcare, something which the WWII industry started providing since the pay was capped during the war. I've seen so many people working jobs they hate, simply because the family healthcare is unaffordable if they don't stay semi-slaves to the companies that ever more seem to hate providing it.
Absolutely true about people staying in jobs because of the healthcare benefits. If my spouse hadn't had a job with excellent benefits, I never could have left the job I hated.
Not for my entire career, but for about half of it, I was able to get my wife on my county medical benefits when the courts ruled that they had to treat unmarried partners as well as married ones. We had to jump through some hoops towards the end (we were married, Oregon passed a constitutional amendment not recognizing same sex marriage, so we had to get "domestic partnership" status which kept benefits but not for tax purposes, then the Obergefell decision made that moot) but we've managed to keep those benefits although she now pays out of pocket for her medical insurance.
calling these people lazy is lazy.
You can vote by mail (still) ahead of time if you can't take time off to vote on Election Day. People do it all the time, even people without good health benefits or paid sick leave. You can be exhausted and STILL exercise your choice as to who runs your damn country. Sorry, not buying it.
You are absolutely right where voters are too lazy to do any research on their own and depend on memes from FB and snippets her and there to do any real searching. I also agree with you Mary Poppins-style Democrat candidate they are all searching for and even tho there are a few I would suggest I believe we need to stay away from Kamala and Pete. Pete will never get elected in this country and isn't because he isn't qualified and Kamala we need to just move away from a female president. That isn't going to happen either, although it should.
A lot of what Biden did was “boring government stuff” that doesn't make for good click bait. Important yes, but not exciting. Especially not when you have a loud orange ape in the background flinging shit everywhere.
Now the orange ape is back in charge, flinging even more shit, and twisted evil technocrats like Vought and Miller are doing the boring government stuff but in the opposite direction, empowering the elites and preferred people while disempowering and endangering everyone else
Apparently, long-term investments in infrastructure aren't as sexy and appealing as screaming about Haitians eating cats and dogs in the street, or building a weird spaceship on the White House lawn so TV can show tattoo-covered thugs beat the shit out of each other while lowlifes cheer them on.
Maybe my problem was that I never once watched The Apprentice. Millions of us recognized a dangerous phony when he first reared his ugly head. Why didn't others?
Never watched it either. But then I grew up in NJ and most of us knew what a fraud he always was. If only the rest of the country had just asked us.
They knew; they were given the information but didn't care. He serves many purposes.
I hated him since the USFL days. Never understood the popularity of "The Apprentice".
Yep ICTT, the people complaining the loudest about dems not doing their job are just loving hearing themselves talk. If they spent as much time looking at all the good things the dems are doing they wouldn't have the time or inclination to complain.
I get it though with the overall illiteracy rate in America - an estimated 54% of adults read below a 6th-grade level.
Ignorance and under education is a great form of voter suppression. It has worked so far for republicans.
ICTT, apparently, there's plenty of savaging to go around. Savaging voters who are struggling to pay their bills and keep their families together, thus lacking time to even follow current events, much less verify reports, is unfair condemnation.
To wit, The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell specializes in focus groups to "take the temperature" of the voting public. She just reported that she conducted a focus group of swing voters, asking their opinions about ICE's most recent two murders. NOT ONE of the interviewees had even heard about the shootings. They indicated that they couldn't form an opinion until they knew more about the circumstances.
Sounds like her focus group all watch only Faux news. Hard to believe none of them are exposed to objective reporting elsewhere, though.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-15-2026/comment/295768612
When I look back on high school, and then look at the results 60+ years later, it's clear the majority of Americans are morons.
I think it's more that they are afflicted by the "And the herd moves on" syndrome.
You look at a a herd of wildebeest (or bison, seeing as it's the US). Herd is grazing undisturbed - a big cat comes up and snatches the weakest. Some of the herd scatter, a few try to intervene - but soon enough the cat and the weakling are forgotten - and the herd moves on. They don't change their behavior, they just carry on the way they have for thousands of years.
And neither has man.
A few who will intervene to protect the many.
A few who will rip throats to get what they want.
And the majority who just want to be left in peace to chew on grass - or Big Macs.
Perhaps it’s my many years of working as a psychotherapist, but I disagree with these characterizations. Many people are “living lives of quiet desperation.” There is an implication in some of these comments that people are lazy or just don’t care, can’t be bothered. I see it this way: some people don’t have the emotional or physical bandwidth to engage proactively nor reactively to anything happening on the political scene. They’re trying to take their exhausted selves to work, and get their kids to do some homework. The diseases of depression and anxiety have been rising, and rising, for years. I understand the frustration of posters, and I share it; but give these folks some credit. Charity begins at home.
Some people are simply overwhelmed by the political climate, so they tune out. I may not agree with their reaction, but I get it.
Putnam’s book Bowling Alone we all are like the blind men trying to describe an elephant with just our hands and in only one place. The elephant is old and huge and its family tree legion. Trauma can make one think and act stupid. Crisis with housing or education can affect one for decades. The air we breathe, the soils are food is grown in, the soil and pavement we walk on have issues that affect all us us. The air as in today in the Midwest smoky, air is vital to not only health but survival, water and the fact we are more water than not affects us in multiple layered ways. Smells the olfactory senses can hurt abd harm depending on what zip code one lives in. The ability to let a dog or see a bird also part of the essential of life for many but again access to being able to have a pet or walk in nature or green spaces again the zip code matters. In the old days that is where the concept of Fresh Air Camps came into being. Los Alamos was an educational haven for elite young boys with asthma issues before it was taken over by our government. Everything matters and only if we can begin to comprehend all of these fine lines of webs and chess games played by the powerful can we come together and begin undoing the damage and recreating a new format.
not acknowledging what you're saying here, signe, is ignorance...at the level, imo, of having ignored the homeless for so long...so it makes sense to me that i'd see this sort of 'laziness' comment here.
'some' people, yes. We should not generalize.
Yes, L.E. Your analysis is correct in large part; however, TCinLA nevertheless, makes a valid point.
I refuse to believe that 77 million Americans are "Morons." The American gene pool from way, way back is made from survivors, adapters, innovators. We wouldn't have survived AND flourished if not.
I do, however, firmly believe that educational standards have been dropping for years - much of that is down to GOP policies, some to religious indoctrination - and over the last few years social media.
Ignorance is NOT stupidity.
Unfortunately, Dunning Kruger seems to be reigning supreme at the moment.
L.E., I did ascend to your analysis in large part. The term, "moron" is definitively a slur. However, one has to ask, after experiencing Trump in the WH on the first go 'round, why would anyone wish him to return to this vaulted position? You bring in a good point regarding educational credibility: with too many of these folks, there is little evidence that they have it.
In many cases, one cannot necessarily fault them for that. The reasons possibly many. Poverty, poor educational system, possible family dynamics, etc. etc. As a retired educator, I've seem much of what I just described. After all, we know from Howard Gardner's theory that at least 9 forms of intelligence exist. So, you're correct in saying that ignorance is not stupidity. Just because one may be brilliant in mathematics, will not automatically make on cognitively efficient as a naturalist. However, when one looks at the numbers and results of where we now are, folks like TCinLA have a good point in calling out, at least, some people as "morons." I know; TC said "most." I would give TC the benefit of the doubt and put it down to a "tongue in cheek" statement.
I think the popularity of such substacks as this, and HCR, and many more, are indicators of what there is a craving for in this country - intelligent informed discussion. I have found that the less informed the commenters seem to be, the more likelihood there is of insults and back biting. I was taught how to debate - and I was also taught to think before I spoke. My father was always saying "Go back a bit - and now go back some more." So many disagreements, and so much anger, seem to start because people haven't thought. Another thing dad taught me as a child, which has always stuck vividly in my head, was:
"For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For the want of a horse, the rider was lost.
For the want of a rider, the message was lost.
For the want of a message, the battle was lost.
And all for the want of a horse shoe nail.
Truly sorry that we didn't have the capacity to "nail" trump in 2016. I say "capacity", not "knowledge" because the "knowledge" was there - but so many people couldn't see it, only the glitter.
As someone has mentioned on numerous occasions, Americans, for the most part, no longer read books. There is a piece in The Atlantic where Rose Horowitch writes “The Age of Reading Is Over”.
Note: It's behind a paywall and was too long for me to read. /s
I find this trend disturbing. I'm a lifelong reader, as are other members of my family (one of whom once ran a bookstore). I like learning about various subjects.
As someone whose job involves a lot of report writing, I've noticed that many people don't read beyond the executive summary. I'm also seeing a push by some organizations to use more "infographics" instead of narrative. Makes me glad I'm on the cusp of retirement.
GJ: Rose Horowitch was on the NewsHour last night. The statistics concerning diminished reading over the decades are alarming.
Nice. I saw where The Atlantic is partnering with The News Hour. Good news.
I have the magazine in hand as I write this plus a stack of 5 books from the library waiting to be read and a stack of 3 books I have read waiting to be returned to the library. I don’t like knowing that reading is not the same for others. It is not a surprise when you realize how much time is spent on our phones. I allow one hour a day to the phone. The rest of my day is devoted to books. Obviously I am old and have the privilege of being retired.
Approximately 21% of U.S. adults are functionally illiterate, meaning they lack the reading skills necessary to complete everyday tasks like reading prescription labels or understanding simple texts. Overall, an estimated 54% of adults read below a 6th-grade level, placing the United States 36th in global literacy rankings.
I think I remember having to see some military equipment manuals had to be written at the 6th grade level back when I became a tech writer in 1985.
I believe the lowest requirement I had to meet for manuals was an 8th grade level. At the start of WWII it seems some were at the 4th grade level but advanced to the 6th grade by the end of the war.
I do remember the war years manuals including a lot of cartoon like drawings that tried to warn soldiers what mistakes could kill them or ruin equipment. Some of our tech manual section illustrators came from Disney and enlightened me on how cartoons were used in WWII to overcome the lack of reading skills. I remember their descriptions of the cartoonists that worked for the Army at the old Hal Roach studio, and what Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) contributed.
I couldn't find the examples they showed me 40 years ago but did find he grew up in Springfield, MA, near where I went to high school, and where they have a museum of his work. Another is found at at https://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dswenttowar/
It seems so many women I meet (at protests) or other events have joined reading clubs.
I also learned "...Doctors must earn CME credits to keep their licenses because they increase knowledge and update skills. These courses often cover the latest industry best practices and breakthroughs.
While CME credits are available in many formats, if you prefer hands-on demonstrations or face-to-face events, live CME conferences are a top choice for staying updated. Plus, in-person events allow you to network and discuss your findings with others..."
I do wonder how RFK,Jr gets his information though. CME -Continuing Medical Education.
Jim, thank you and everyone else who spells out the meaning of abbreviations you use in your posts. The trend to abbreviate so many words and phrases frustrates me greatly. Of course it makes sense in many cases but I can't help but think that we are losing language just as we are readiing fewer books. I'll say one more thing before getting off of my soap box. I worked for the federal government as a biologist. To this day, whenever I see or hear BLM, my first inclination is to think Bureau of Land Management!
That would be my first thought seeing BLM, too.
Agreed re: initials
Bureau of Land Management, has always been my first association with BLM, as a tech writer, especially. For over a dozen years back in the 80s and 90s I had typists, an editor, and an especially good proof reader in a 76 year old Scottish woman (that insisted on her area not having fluorescent lights, just old filament bulbs that gave of a yellowish light so familiar to students in the 1930s).
She quickly let me know I should always spell out what abbreviations meant the first time they were mentioned in any chapter. She would also provide a list of words she thought contained different terms for the same thing, making me choose the best one and stick to it. Variations had to have a good reason (and usually include a comparison if the equipment itself had different labeling for similar items.
They actually required auto manufacturers to use only approved words in their service manuals to describe smog equipment hardware 45 years ago. Another member of the Society of Logistic Engineers made a very successful business of adapting their drafts of manuals to meet the requirements for similar descriptions of what was then rapidly changing technology in smog reduction equipment.
I listened to Rose H yesterday. Although we are reading more text than ever we are not reading books. It has been a while since schools even, mandate book reading.
Approximately 21% of U.S. adults are functionally illiterate, meaning they lack the reading skills necessary to complete everyday tasks like reading prescription labels or understanding simple texts. Overall, an estimated 54% of adults read below a 6th-grade level, placing the United States 36th in global literacy rankings.
Thanks Marj. I read that elementary, middle school and high school librarians are replacing their materials with more books with pictures and simpler sentences.
The democrats were not able to communicate the benefits of some of their legislation with the people who benefited. It is not enough to just pass a bill, it is important to let the public know what, and how, it is expected to affect people's lives. The media does not do a good enough job to keep everyday Americans, who work and don't have the time to research every proposed bill, properly informed. IMHO, the fact that Americans believe both parties are corrupt is not a surprise.
There's mainstream media which is now owned by wealthy, tax-break beneficiaries, local stations now monopolized by the religious right, and there's Fox 'News'.
We have been thoroughly moronized.
Whatboutism works.
One problem is the lack of local news creating news deserts all over the country, but critically in many rural, red areas. The League in Washington State did a study a few years ago. Take a look.
https://www.lwvwa.org/local-news#Quick
The history of journalism in this country is worth a deep dive. Ben Franklin and others with different causes such as abolitionism. Also the African American Press and Ida B Wells work on the documenting of lynchings. NEO had at times two or three daily newspapers with other cities. Many folded and at the same time the content just de evolved. Now between independent journalism and some force changes in the voice of old papers such as the work in Cleveland, Ohio’s paper recently. The other problem was ALEC it’s and others use of talking points and KOL. Key Opinion Leaders. Big Pharma also employed this tactic. Damon Runyon , John Hersey, ‘s work and life along with female journalists like Dorothy Fuldheim and Molly Ivins part and parcel of need to know journalistic history.
I hate to say this but the very people who are impacted by the loss of assistance did t vote or don’t vote. Women lost the 50 year old right to control their bodies and they didn’t come out and vote. Now the right to vote is about to be questioned. What will try do now? Protest? It’s frustrating.
Of note also is Ida Tarbell, who was an early investigative journalist, wrote a scathing series in 1903 for McClures Magazine about the ruthless vertical integration practices of John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company. This series was key in the eventual breakup of the Standard Oil Company cartel.
Si! se pueda... Yes! we can....
Yes ! Thank you! Her name was there but I didn’t bring it up fast enough. She is a voice we need now.
OH, to have Dorothy here in this moment!! She would RIP trump to shreds, and that WOULD make national news!
We don't need Dorothy - E Jean Carrol is doing a pretty good job of it!
E Jean and Dorothy Fuldheim would have been INSTANT BFF's!! If you don't know who Dorothy was, see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Fuldheim
Then, check out some of the video of her appearances on The Tonight Show with Carson. Absolute GOLD!!
The Media and Democracy Project is working hard to bring back unbiased local news, which has been disappearing at an alarming rate. There are things you can do to help bring accurate news to your area:
https://www.mediaanddemocracyproject.org/
Thanks, Signe, for the Media and Democracy Project link. In email every day, I receive the "Daily Reformer" for Minnesota and national news––locally produced by professional journalists who bring out stories that do not get enough attention and should.
Perhaps other states have independent journalists working through similar non-profits they have established? I only learned about the Daily Reformer from word of mouth.
Exactly. We are well informed on matters but we are a small slice of the pie.
Yesterday I talked to a woman in her 50s who voted for rump because she is a devout Catholic who is happy that Roe iwaa overturned. I told her I'm very concerned about all the deaths due to ICE, the Iran war, social safety nets being gutted, and the rise of disease. She said "I don't want to hear anything about politics! I don't want to get involved in any debates." Sometimes I feel so hopeless when there are smug idiots like that walking around.
Revenge voters. They are all over the place. In the other hand, why didn’t women come out in huge numbers numbers to vote against Trump? Speaking of revenge voting.
Lots of victim-blaming in the comments section today!
Ahup.
She's a single-issue voter. There are lots of this type of people, unfortunately.
Yes but she and others were cultivated to be single issue voters! It was in the sermons abd homilies and Fox. The thread goes to Francis Schaefer and Dr Everett C Koop the surgeon general. Frank Schaefer has been doing a lot of work on working against all of this thinking. Shrenk and some voices in the Roman Catholic Church.
Just stay at it. Put one foot in front of the other. As one old fella told me one time: "Just stay in the seat. That's how you get this done."
It may be 'rhetorical' but you are still going to get my explanation because it literally has nothing to do with 'algorithms' since Substack is as close as I get to social media. And I sure as heck don't have amnesia. You can feel free to block me.
... I believe that their are more Democrats who are 'good people' than there are Republicans. Both in the world and in the government.
But that's about as far as it goes.
Thanks to Citizens United, the Democrats are quite literally driven by the exact same funding sources that the GOP is. These PACS (both foreign and domestic), Billionaires and Corporations have solved their 'representation' by just paying off both sides.
And every decision in Congress is for the betterment of the corporations not the people.
We have for decades asked for Roe v Wade to be codified. For the ERA to be passed. To make our rights undeniable instead of at the whims of whomever the current administration is. But the party prefers to have them as campaign issues.
The dems have thrown us a few more dollars now and then because they aren't as stupid as the GOP but neither party is interested in helping the people. They are all interested in the Economy.
Even as homelessness was rising the Biden administration stood there and claimed that since the stock market was doing great we were obviously just confused. And yet.. as Trump does the EXACT SAME THING.. you all are quick to jump on him for it but I didn't see that here 2 years ago.
Is Biden a better man than Trump? Absofuckinglootly. Would Harris have been a better president than Trump? I have no doubt she would have been. Will I vote for whomever gets the nomination to replace Platner? Again, absolutely.
But the Democratic party itself? They are just as complicit as the GOP.
They manipulate the votes and the funds to support their own private wishes. And even today I get irrationally angry at that witch Wasserman-Schultz. The way she handled the Bernie/Hilary situation was egregious. And DIRECTLY contributed to Hilary's loss because people lost faith in the system.
Ken Martin has not made that better. The first thing he did was get rid of David Hogg for even suggesting that every sitting Democrat was not guaranteed their position and that we should allow primaries. Hogg wanted to Primary people like Fetterman (D-PA) and Golden (D-Maine). He wanted to get younger people with new ideas into the party. But the party cares more about the letter after their name than how they actually vote. Somehow believing that these men would what? Switch their votes back to Dem priorities because 'new administration'?
I get that I'm further left than most of the people here. But don't tell me how great the democrats are. They might be freer with spreading the money around instead of funneling it up. But they are equally complicit in this disaster. You all see Pelosi as some sort of god. I don't. She was a powerful woman who enjoyed manipulating the powerful and was happy to turn that in to personal gain. I think Hakeem Jefferies is a bigot (his islamophobia is OTT). And the fact that Chuck Schumer announced to the world via the NYT that his job was not to support the American people but to keep Zionism in the American view should have been an impeaching issue.
All my life I've been forced to vote with the Dems because 'harm reduction'. But I didn't do it because I believed in what they were selling. I did it because what the GOP was selling was worse.
The only reason I continued to vote even knowing that my rights would never be protected was the vain hope that society would see the error of it's ways.
Instead you all have doubled down on corporatism.
I'm running out of 'f&*^s' to give. Which I guess is ok since I doubt I'll be around for the next Presidential election. Once I lose my medical care in the fall my options will be slim.
And I'm losing my medical insurance because of the Democrats. It might have been Trump's bill. But the Democrats broke and sided with Trump in order to fund his government. They kept him in power. They might have had the luxury of voting no when the bill hit the floor. But the bill would never have hit the floor without them.
They don't care about us. They care about money and power. If I had billions of dollars to funnel into their campaigns then I'm sure they would care what happened to me. Just like they care what happens to Bayer and United Healthcare. But since I don't. What I need is not important.
Welcome to my morning rant.
I think I'm out of here today.
Enjoy the weather.
I think you make a huge mistake here. You are trained to see through a partisan lens only. Clickbait rewards.
By making everything partisan we are distracted from seeing the systemic problems. In a partisan only world we run endlessly against the other party and ignore the corruption both parties engage in.
Campaign finance has led to a US economy that favors wealth and income inequality. The Clinton's surrender to what they saw as electoral reality to stay competitive in their self-styled "third way". Arguably to that point no one did more to unleash big finance. The Great Recession was created by Democrats' capitulation as much as by Bush Republicans.
If you look at the economy, the balance of economic power doesn't shift much between parties. Labor and worker rights are still waning. Tax policies still favor wealth. Don't confuse tweaking around the edges with reinvention.
While inequalities lessen slightly under Democratic control it is largely through government expansion providing bandaids such as the ACA and tax credits. All paid for by debt. Why debt? Because billionaire donors seen as essential to political victory won't be taxed out of existence and made millionaires. Voters don't want government handouts and programs as much as they want the dignity of prosperity through work. They're often dumb but essentially not stupid.
And while MAGA convinces white Americans government benefits go to non-whites, the reality is that tax benefits that reduce child poverty don't create a robust middle class that a majority of Americans want: whites who have lost it and minorities and women still hoping to participate on equal terms.
And so because of the systemic political corruption model that defines our politics Democrats always fail to deliver a change in who controls wealth and prosperity and who receives it. They keep failing and assuring Trump and Republicans stay in business. Creating jobs with poor pay is not the same as creating widespread prosperity.
It's the system. And because you think it's partisan the rich have you exactly where they need you to be. Making micro-arguments while the big picture stays the same. There's a reason Chuck Schumer is the Senate leader. He gets Wall Street money and ignores inequality in wealth on a macro basis. He's certainly no FDR.
On being surrounded in combat by Lt. Gen. Lewis Puller Ret. USMC: "Sir do you know they've cut us off? We're entirely surrounded? "Those poor bastards," Puller said "They've got us right where we want 'em. We can shoot in all directions now." Burke Davis Marine: The life of Chesty Puller
Yes, they are succeeding in their job to divide us.
How rare is a Trump posting where he does not accuse a Democrat of some bad action.
Craig - Just further truth his dementia is progressing.
I argue with "progressives" about this constantly. I put the word in quotes because most of these individuals are anything but progressive. There's only one path to saving Democracy in this country and that is to vote blue in this two-party system. Sure, there is corruption in both parties but this is false equivalence and only one party is committed to helping ALL U.S. citizens as HCR points out in the opening paragraph of today's post.
I have countless conversations with my octogenarian mother and in-laws about current events and they are mostly ignorant of all of it. These are the people of the generation who are largely responsible for the mess we are currently in and seeing how all three of them didn’t vote in the last election because they either couldn’t be bothered or couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a woman of color enrages me. My MIL made a comment about how she’s tired of seeing all of the pharmaceutical commercials and I said well the US is one of the only countries where a pharmaceutical company can market directly to consumers because we have a for-profit healthcare system. She looked at me as if I was speaking another language! My in-laws are college educated and it baffles me that they are so clueless. My own mother does nothing to educate herself on candidates and when I ask her about it she tells me she always voted however my father and after he passed how my step-father told her to vote. And this madness is now being encouraged again by the far right evangelicals pushing for “family voting”. These are retired people who spend the majority of their time watching TV — NOT FOX — and they are still unaware of current events and history. Sorry…venting…rant over.
Because they are not taught to THINK. Thinking is not a testable skill AND it is not uniform, and, it's subjective, so it's just not taught any longer. And, learning to think takes time......testable "milestones" have to be met on time. And then, we could talk about Media who no longer adhere to high standards of critical thought.
Our whole system is now based on money, thanks to Reagan and Dark Money. Wealthy donors tell politicians what they want. Some donors actually want to help people, so they donate to Democrats. Others, who seem to be more ruthless and greedy, back the GOP. I think those people represent the Seven Deadly Sins.
I understand that 90 million Americans did not bother to vote at the last election. I believe that the profound sense of disillusionment in politics in the US and in the main institutions of US democracy was one of the key reasons for Trump coming to power in 2015. He persuaded people that he was a Beltway outsider who would 'drain the swamp', yet he stocked his first cabinet with billionaires and millionaires.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_AN1zUU75qw
Things haven't changed much in his second cabinet and yet people still support him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adJ4VcS7LpY
OFF Topic but, a hot Topic. My understanding is that it will only take 1R "no" vote to tank Blanche's Nomination leaving the Court co-fraudster plenty of tome time to report to the State of New York State Bar as ordered by Judge Harper with his license to practice law at risk.
*****************************************************************************************
Epstein Victim, DANI BENSKY testifying at Blanche hearing this AM about Blanche-the-Court-Fraudster's multiple failures to carry out The Epstein Disclosure Act.
Epstein Victim, JESS MICHAEL's backing her up today with detailed percipient knowledge interviews this AM.
Perhaps that will end up being John Cornyn, provided he can retrieve his very small testicular man-bits from the locked-and-guarded vault at Mar-a-Lardo where they're being held as ransom.
Would his spine be easier to access? I mean, both body parts seem to be MIA.
But as “acting AG” won’t he be Trump’s lawyer regardless for the next 2 years?
"Acting" is a good adjective to characterize Blanche Dubois's obsequious, oleaginous offertory to Trump today. His entire testimony and put-on outrage at questions about his integrity was reminiscent of a staged Miss Piggy-style "moi?" soliloquy from start to finish.
Whatever happens, he should get this year's Oscar for Most Deceitful Performance by a Poker-Faced Diva Babbling Nonsense Not Under Oath.
And the Rs’ performative outrage (outrage, I tell you!!) over Jack Smith’s DARING to get a court to approve handing over some senators’ emails during his investigation—he MUST be investigated!!—was ridiculous.
Excellent, ICTT!
Not if he is prohibited from practicing law. Judge Harper sent the receipts & her admissible court findings to the NY State Bar.
I nominnate Judge Harper for sainthood.
She has already ascended.
I heard that being a lawyer is not a requirement to be an Attorney General. But I think there is a limit to the amount of time a person can be 'Acting' as in the Alina Habba situation.
Correct. My understanding is that being disbarred does NOT prohibit Blanche from being the AG acting or otherwise but, not a good professional look.
True, he doesn't have to be an atty to hold the position of AG. But he can't practice law without a law license. If he were to cross the very fine line into "the practice of law," he's fair game for arrest.
Seems the bar associations are painfully slow, as we saw with Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman. One can only hope that it may put the brakes on Blanche when contemplating life after 47’s reign of terror ends.
I heard Blanche dismiss that referral as only a letter, or something equally dismissive. I think his refusal to obey a court order is far, far more disqualifying.
HCR lays out the core truth we keep dancing around: Republican leadership isn’t failing accidentally — it’s failing on purpose. The OBBBA didn’t just “miss the mark.” It was designed to shovel trillions upward while ripping food assistance away from millions of families. It was designed to weaken antitrust enforcement so corporations can keep jacking up prices. It was designed to fund an unpopular war and an immigration crackdown that’s already producing deadly outcomes.
Meanwhile, the same people who voted against the child tax credit expansion — a policy that literally cut child poverty nearly in half — are now insisting that the chaos and rising costs are somehow the fault of everyone except themselves.
The problem is that a lot of voters feel the pain but don’t see the cause. They see higher grocery bills, SNAP cuts, ICE violence, and a war no one asked for. What they don’t see is that these aren’t random events. They’re the predictable results of a governing philosophy that treats the majority of Americans as collateral damage.
If we want to break through, we have to say it plainly: this isn’t about left vs. right. It’s about whether government is used to help families or to reward billionaires and fuel endless conflict. The contrast HCR draws today isn’t subtle — it’s a flashing red warning light. One party used policy to lift children out of poverty. The other used policy to push millions back toward it.
People deserve to understand that the instability they’re living through didn’t just “happen.” It was chosen. And we don’t have to keep choosing it.
The Democrats need to stop solely blaming the Republicans. The oligarchs are their puppet masters. Case in point: Trump held up the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge between Windsor and Detroit for at least 4 months because one of his big donors receives the tolls from the other bridge. It will finally open on July 27th and save untold hours of sitting in long queues waiting to pay the toll. Trucking firms can purchase passes so they can drive through without stopping.
Chosen by Republicans. Cite their name when you talk blame.
Richard Nixon, Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist, 'W', Donald Trump, JD Vance, Pam Bondi, RFK,Jr., Steven Miller, Pete Hegseth, Markwayne Mullin, Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent, Russell Vought, Howard Lutnick, any current Republican member of the Senate you would care to name, Mike Johnson, any current Republican member of the House you would care to name. How are those for names?
Follow the money.
Chosen by POLITICIANS.
It took more than Republicans to do this. Democrats consistently supported these bills in order to get them onto the floor to begin with. (Where they could grab plausible deniability by voting against it 'when it counted'.)
A telling reminder that the Big Ugly bill got passed by a couple of votes in the very DEAD of night around 3:30am.
The only people hard at work at 3:30am in order to avoid the light of day and public scrutiny are Republicans and grave-diggers working for Dr. Frankenstein.
Or we can reclaim the unalienable rights defended long ago. Everyone has heard of government of, by and for the people, and more of us need to pull together to make it so. Way too big to rig.
“This is part of my ongoing investigation into the National Design Studio. Please see parts one and two.”
‘The True Cost of Trump Accounts’
THE DREY DOSSIER
JULY 15 2026 | Substack
https://thedreydossier.substack.com/p/the-true-cost-of-trump-accounts?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios
💲💲💲💲💲
“So what do we do? We do not wait until the database is finished to ask whether it should exist. The fastest outside force that can stop it is a federal court, where a state attorney general can ask a judge for an emergency order halting further transfers, suspending cross-agency access, and preserving every database, contract, and access log while the system is investigated. But to bring that, their lawyers need more than public concern.
‘Trump’s National Design Studio, whose stated job is not only duplicating dot-gov sites under the White House.’
“They are pouring their energy into standing up brand-new government websites that seem to appear out of thin air, sites like TrumpAccounts.gov, not to be confused with TrumpAccount.com, which as far as I can tell they did not make, along with Trumpcards.gov, RealFood.gov, Genesismission.energy.gov, and more.
“And the next time one of these National Design Studio sites shows up, clean and friendly, a gold eagle stamped on the bottom, do not listen to what it is promising to do for you. Ask what it is connecting, and what picture of you it is trying to assemble.
Piece by piece, the same [NDS] office is pulling your health, your money, your movement, your politics, and your identity onto one key, from the day you are born, and that key is your Social Security number.”
This is one of those incredibly important facts that often fly right over our heads and cause our eyes to glaze over, alas because this is almost without parallel in its importance.
She is amazing. Her analysis of the reflecting pool as cover for data center cooling for whatever is being built under the East Wing left me gobsmacked.
I wish Drey would have a broker explain this in a layperson's terms. Her rapid-fire dialog and edits are confusing.
I've almost finish reading It Can't Happen Here, which my banned book group will be discussing tomorrow afternoon. One of Buzz Windrip's campaign promises is to give every family $5,000, a promise that is never realized. But so much of this book is happening here, right now. If you haven't read it, or haven't read it recently, take it off the shelf or go to you local library and take it out. It's uncanny and very unsettling how this book from 1936 reflects what we are living through in 2026.
I read it during the reign of 45. The parallels were shocking.
I think a film and or The Face in the Crowd.
oh.. it gets better.
Just finished A Resistance History of the United States by Stoermer.
Ironically also saw the musical 1776 over the holiday (my mom's usual date backed out)
We have always been critically flawed.
The "give" part in "to every family $5,000....was a typo Betsy, very efficiently corrected by the scumbag president 👏
The trump administration has written a document defining their morality.
What does this 'moral document' say about this administration's loudly shouted Christianity?
The man from Nazareth would not recognize these people as followers of the new law to love thy neighbor. They are fully the devil's own folk.
Detained by ICE and crucified at the Reflecting Pool for walking on the water…
HCR ended her essay today and 5 years ago writing,"I ended my discussion of it with the observation that this huge achievement (the American Rescue Plan) of the Biden presidency—every single Republican voted against it—has taken a backseat in the news to two blockbuster stories about the former president.”
And therein lies a big part of the problem we have: "The news" amplifies every Trump twist and turn while letting "huge achievements" like the American Rescue Plan, which diminished U.S. child poverty, fade quickly from public awareness.
The Democrats need to invest money in placing clever information pieces on all media to keep Democratic achievements in the public eye. "The news" won't do it. It is addicted to the gravy train created with every clickbait headline that has Trump's name.
Thank you- I was going to post a similar observation. Such an important ending today.
Oh to have a president and leaders like we had five years ago. Every day we need to step up and demand accountability and raise our voices for human dignity, justice, and the rule of law. Things we should be able to take for granted by the people we elect.
Hi Heather. Thank you. I’m here to help. I have become a constitutional observer and I will be manning my polling place in Maryvale Arizona, a predominantly Latino neighborhood is west Phoenix. I will do everything possible to see that my friends and neighbors can vote on July 21st without fear or intimidation. Also I am a professional canvasser and will be taking on door to door to talk to like minded registered voters to get the real word out there. And I start conversations about what is happening to our democracy. We already know we are losing it. It’s time to act. It’s time to vote. It’s time to unite. We are the majority. I ask others to find grass roots organizations in your community and listen to them. Maybe volunteer. Also. There is a lot of campaign money being paid to canvassers to knock on doors. I usually make 25 an hour. So win win. I hope someone reads this and takes the initiative to make a change. We know what the problem is; now is the time to solve it
Thank you, great comment.
I grew up in Phoenix in the 70s and 80s but left when I enlisted in the Navy. My mom canvassed and registered voters back in the mid 70s and worked on the Bruce Babbitt for Governor campaign, which he won. She was involved in trying to pass the Equal Rights Amendment too, still waiting though…
Heather rightfully contrasts Joe Biden pushing legislation that benefited ordinary Americans with Trump’s legislative efforts mean to benefit the very rich and/or feed his ego (which can NEVER admit the decision to attack Iran was a mistake).
What Heather fails to report, however, is what corruption expert Sarah Kendzior has told us for years:
The corruption in the Democratic Party runs so deep that Joe Biden‘s visible efforts to do good ran parallel with his actions designed to make it possible for Donald Trump to serve a second term as president.
The hard truth must be known… Biden‘s decision to choose Merrick Garland (who then waited 25 months before beginning to prosecute Trump, which permitted Trump to remain free to run again instead of going to prison) and his decision to run for a second term instead of keeping his promise to be a one term president are the cornerstone decisions consciously made to help Trump return to power.
Had Biden really wanted to protect and defend the Constitution, he never would’ve let Merrick Garland be the US Attorney General. He would’ve selected someone he knew would start prosecuting Trump on Day One, which would’ve spared the country and the world from the devastating effects seen so far and the even more devastating effects sure to come from this insane agent of chaos getting to be in The White House again.
Read Sarah Kenzior! “The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off”.
I’m tired of the navel gazing and finger pointing from pundits, no matter how good they are. It’s time to move forward and leave the circular firing squad behind.
There's a lot of truth in the expression "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." If you don't want to learn the truth of what the Biden administration was really doing, that's up to you. But please note: That history will not disappear just because you aren't looking at it.
And that attitude right there is why we say that both parties are broken.
We are expected to just accept whatever you give us instead of fighting for a better world.
I'm done with it.
Yes, they are both corrupt. It just shows itself in different ways. The Democratic Party leadership "talks" like they want to save democracy. But it's all just talk. They want things to remain they way they've been for a long time. Watch 1939's Mr Smith Goes to Washington, and you'll see how it was portrayed before WWII. That film upset a lot of people in Washington DC at the time... because it hit too close to home.
Oh good grief. Do you think any of that will change with MAGA in charge? How naive and shortsighted. You belive it more important to win the argument than winning the war.
Oh good grief indeed. You act as if I’m attacking you when I’m just offering a different perspective. Fine. Have a nice day. 🙏🏻😊☮️❤️
The YouTube here has Maya’s great explanations about our country’s debt -
Is Social Security Broke? | David Frum & Maya MacGuineas (7/15/26)
https://youtu.be/ICc8UZc2Re8?is=_siTkVd9ugMhcYu6
On this week’s episode of “The David Frum Show,” The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his reaction to the recent ICE shooting in Maine.
Then, David is joined by Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, to discuss the future of Social Security, the mounting national debt, and the political dysfunction preventing Washington from confronting America’s fiscal challenges.
Finally, in honor of Bastille Day, David ends the episode with a discussion of Hilary Mantel’s novel “A Place of Greater Safety” and the lessons one can learn from the terror of the French Revolution.
❇️
From the “No children left behind act” passed by George W. Bush, the students needed to meet the actual year progress.it had a profound impact on education to millions of children. The regime took a wood chipper to the Department of Education because nothing says voter suppression more than one’s undereducated constituents which also falls uniquely into discussions about eugenics and racial politics.
Mike, you bring up a good point.
Speaking of that topic, anyone seen Phil Bella lately?
So Trump’s former defense attorney invents an amnesty from Internal Revenue Service audits and investigations for him, his family and all his business ventures. Todd Blanche is an Acting Attorney General in the Department of Justice but has no legal authority or permission to direct another government agency to take such action. Then we have the Secretary of Defense announcing that members of the military over age 30 will be tested for testosterone levels. Taking medication to boost testosterone levels is to be voluntary. Perhaps the secretary is worried for some reason about his own levels or use of supplements. Then you have a candidate to become the permanent Director of National Intelligence. Who, during a confirmation hearing, refused to directly answer a simple question about who won the 2020 election. Maybe saying President Joe Biden won that election would have caused a myocardial infarction, but more likely it would have made one person angry. This is the quality of government we are receiving from the lawless administration occupying the White House.
Thanks, Joel.
Cheeto Puts Up An Election Smoke Screen
There is no evidence of a voting machine hacks but Cheeto wants to put that evidence under attack. This attack comes with the concern of election interference and make it with national intelligence information.
The whole point is to sow confusion about election results. This appears to a long term Nazi Republican strategy over the next 4 months before the midterms. Admittedly there have been reports from ETA(Election Truth Alliance) suggesting that there is statistical evidence that there was a potential manipulation of election data from specific areas of the 2024 electorate. But there are reputable election advisors on the Democratic side who have labeled this type of data misleading.
The Nazi Republicans read this information as well. Perhaps they were responsible for data manipulation, so why not now take advantage of this above confusion and give voters enough propaganda to persuade parts of the electorate to question midterms elections?
But clearly there are AI chatbots now being used in robocalling to spread false claims, specifically in Michigan where the Nazis are falsely claiming that Obama has endorsed El-Sayed’s political opponent in the Democratic primary. This type of propaganda is meant to confuse voters and make them feel like voting may be useless. This is all out political election interference and should be investigated and prosecuted. Successful prosecution has been done in the past and the Nazis are doing it again.
It's only going to get more intense. <Sigh.>