The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) met in Washington, D.C., over the weekend, sparking speculation over the 2024 Republican presidential field.
Tucker Carlson isn’t changing anyone’s view about what happened on Jan. 6 with his selective release of videos. The truth is vividly etched into the American consciousness - forever.
I will never forget...no matter how they try to spin what really happened on that terrible day! It was a very sad day in our history and maybe worse than 9/11.
9/11 killed 3,000 people and destroyed two large buildings and others, but the entire country came together in support of democracy and freedom. 1/6 is at the heart of destroying that democracy.
Fox knows they are in deep sh*t, but have to continue to provide for their base. You know the line, "a lie keeps growing and growing until it's as plain as the nose on your face". They are hoping if they say it enough times, it will be believed and America will watch them (why does anyone watch them, I really don't understand!!)
Doubtful. I think we need the movie studios to bring back the two-minute news reel (circa WWII) before feature films - whether in the theater or streaming. We need to find a way to pierce the bubble.
I think that live coverage was on multiple stations including C-span. And MAGAs had a heads up. My neighbor, since moved, had a “house guest” he claimed he hardly knew, working in the driveway preparing his beat up pickup truck with trump and confederate flags and a small string noose on the rack. I took pictures because he didn't remove them for days. I was freaked out but our HOA has no rule against flags on vehicles. But commented about my BLM sign in my window, comparing. Many stories about the next three months. I know there are people who are tired of politics and not reading or watching much, but they must know something. Or they are repubs and are just letting life happen. Just vote R.
Maybe that is why Republican Politicians lead the anti-vaxxing efforts and anti-masking efforts, they want all the witnesses of their slide into fascist Autocracy dead!
I couldn’t agree more - with your first sentence. To wit: he is also not changing the minds of tens of millions of Trump supporters. He is merely strengthening a narrative they clutch to without reserve, and providing video documentation. This will be used, incredibly I might add, to continue to prop up America’s most powerful and despicable lie. Carlson is amplifying a view that will coax from willing martyrs a terroristic response at some point when the fuse has been lit by some other relatively insignificant action.
How this got from the government to the media this easily is a total shock to me. The comparison may be inapt and I apologize if it is. But, on the one hand the law allows lengthy stays of justice based on the most specious, absurd grounds (I’m thinking at the moment of Pence’s “I’ll have it both ways” challenge in order not to testify). On the other hand, a government official can simply hand over raw American history unchecked by any rule to a single entity which is now probably the most corrupt media outlet of power America has ever been subjected to.
The legal system is fast becoming a dangerous joke for its inability to avoid twisting itself into knots allowing appeal after appeal after appeal. Justice delayed through too clever by half appeals to the nooks and crannies of the laws is justice denied.
I am reminded of Ernest Wilde’s play Salome grossly orgiastic and profane written in the depths of his libertinism being banned from Germany at the turn of the 20th century. When public demand for this spectacle became intense, the Kaiserin managed to get the authorities to evade the ban by the simple expedient of insisting that the Star of the Magi appear at the end of each performance, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil. Two hours of blood-soaked orgiastic wallowing was redeemed by a one minute appearance of the star. This is the kind of hypocrisy American law now excels in.
I have blamed and continue to blame Merrick Garland for his tortured waste of time at the beginning of his term, using valuable effort and resources to try to convince those whose ears are stopped to him that he really was an even-handed good guy who would apply the law equally to both sides. It was a cowardly failure. And now we are reaping the results as Trump promises to run if indicted. *Of course* he will. What does he have to lose. Rachel Maddie’s utterly lame comparison of Trump to Spiro Agnew last night was a joke. These are far far more turbulent times - the zeitgeist is completely different.
Professor Cox Richardson’s piece seemed a bit overblown to me until I thought for two seconds. It is one of her darkest warnings yet, in a quiet but unmistakeable tone that she rarely uses. From her vast experience and knowledge, she sees a probability that is deeply unsettling. Best we listen.
Please do not apologize for stating honest and valuable concerns. I agree with everything you said. Particularly the parts about making a complete joke of our “by the Law” rhetoric. Every lawyer in this country should be overly concerned with how their careers are viewed.
I am on the verge of leaving this “lawless” country as the hypocrisy is about to do me in. And America needs people like me. All of “me’s” out there must start sharing their discontent. How dare a Tucker Carlson blatantly make a lie out of visual fact. I think a person should sue him for hurting all good Americans. How dare our legal teams allow this vulgar take over of truth.
Your comments leave no room for misunderstanding. :)
I'm Canadian, so have only a little skin in the game (my son is a prof at Carnegie Mellon and I worry about his welfare and even safety at times). Nonetheless, looking at it objectively I have increasingly had the feeling that America is deeply in need of reform - I had that thought at the very beginning of DJT's Presidency, as he crashed through norm after norm with spectacular ease. I began to think that this could not have happened out of the blue at the will of one man. The more I looked the more I felt that there are two kinds of Americans (forgive the over-simplification). There are those who rush into causes and conspiracies and take them as far as possible without regard to consequences known and unknown, as well as understanding that at some point they have zoomed past any point of logic. On the left, there are those who have what Sarah Kendzior has labelled accurately "Savior Syndrom" - first for Mueller, then for impeachment, then for Garland, now for Jack Smith. On the right there are any number of groups - MAGA itself, the absolutely incredible QAnon farce, and the long term belief in the lie that Trump won in 2020.
Then there are those Americans who are busy, preoccupied with their own cares, suffering, or just plain comfortable warming themselves under the shining light on the hill that is America. They have woken up somewhat now, but there remain millions who view political events as a somewhat amusing spectacle and something that will work itself out eventually.
But there are people like you who are reaching a point of no return with your outrage. Thank God - I think that a very small number of Americans relative to the whole saved America in 2020 and to a degree in 2022 by becoming activist. I don't know what you do but I'm sure America needs you to stay in the fight in restoring sensible and timely law to America.
I became fascinated by the subject of how the 2010 to 2020 (and now 2023) period happened in America. I was always your complacent neighbor! What could go wrong in such a country is the way that millions of my generation felt? I knew that there were terrible stories in American history - I majored in History, but I loved the country and visited it dozens of times. There is a superficial openness to Americans that makes one quite gratified to meet them and chat.
In any case, I began to study how the America of my imagining - 50s through 70s - had become such a shell of a country, and in the process lost so much of its swagger and confidence.
The fruit of my learning is in a SubStack called "Cancel the American Dream." It's a sort of chronological history - The Fifties through to the present (I'm currently in the Nineties). The articles I write are developing a thesis that America has, mostly by design, partly by historical sweep, and a little bit through sheer accident, conjured up the perfect storm. It is now being battered by it full force. Some of the problems are, in my opinion, irremediable. Social media is one. Racism - white vs black especially - is another.
I invite you to read it. (Sorry to hit you with a shameless self-plug, but I find the Americans who read really get it. The Canadians, most of whom are people I know, are doing Eric a favor :), and are only mildly interested with a few exceptions.
I would be interested in your critique and additional ideas.
Boy, is my blood boiling... please forgive my bark, but the DOJ and the Supreme Court are both just titles that are empty of integrity. Is this what we think of ourselves? Just empty suits pretending to be useful when we put up with the “lowest of bars” for our own children to experience. From that angry nasty dominating DeSanity(FLA take a bow), to Ga.putting up with “Grimace”( green), to the “Supreme Despicable Courtesan” pretending they are about “The Law”! I am beyond hope. Help me here.
Exactly. I had been to my massage and came home to the insurrectionist riot. It was awful and I still cannot look at the Capitol Building without remembering it.
fearfully, if enough bullshit is shoveled at the MAGA base to provoke more violence, something akin to a civil uprising could actually happen. With our country awash in 400 million guns, a relatively small but zealous faction can wreak a lot of havoc with sufficient provocation. His Orangeness is just the type of guy who could provoke.
You are so right! Look at the lengths the worst of the MAGA Govenors have been pushing for more and easier access to guns. Then add in MTG who said that there aren't enough guns in America and Barbara Boebart, who said Jesus should have been armed with an AR-15, it paints a pretty violent picture of their plans for the future!
I have posted "Jesus was a liberal" many times on Yahoo and have gotten some real nasty replies, most from MAGA types, but some from some atheists as well, the term "sky fairies" is popular.
While I am not here to argue religion(s), or the existence of God/higher power, my point is to support yours. If someone accepts Jesus as their savior, how can they justify white nationalist behavior? If you don't believe that Jesus truly existed, can you at least accept the concept of Jesus and use it as a role model?
Yes, sky fairies. I have seen that often. I have had the argument as well and often point out that people need to stop painting every believer with the same brush. The first three Gospels contain much that could help if people would only practice what is attributed to Jesus.
REPROBATE Hearts, CAN NOT, be CHANGED! Only the Hearts, that choose, THAT, that is Good, THEN REPENT ! then ASK OUR LORD ! By HIS HOLY SPIRIT, to MAKE YOU, the NEW CREATURE, in CHRIST THAT GOD has PROMISED !! { remember ! GOD ! Can NOT....LIE!! }
In Calvinism a reprobate is a person who is predestined to damnation. Since we make up what God must be like, and everyone who believes in God has done this, I my God is one who’s love is so complete there is no one outside of it.
For at least a time, the horrendous violence of the Oklahoma City bombing sent militias quietly back into their dark diseased holes. What will it take this time force the scum that has floated up to dissipate?
There is hope in Michigan. After our shootings in Oxford High School and Michigan State University, our Democrat-led (after 40 years) Congress has eleven gun safety bills up for the vote. I was heartened to see Michigan NRA members and Michigan gun owners speak to our state Congress in FAVOR of gun reform!
We passed a gun measure here in Oregon, but an eastern Oregon judge has held it up. There are some gun measures in the legislature, but as usual, Rs oppose them and then cry about all the gun violence, particularly in Portland. I just read a very long article yesterday in the Atlantic about all the violence and militias and Portland figures heavily in the article. It is long, but worth the read and I believe it is the cover story. It did not make me feel better about getting this deadliness under control.
It's difficult when hopes are dashed by politicized courts. Fortunately, we also have a Democrat attorney general in Michigan, and a 4-3 majority on our State Supreme Court, so that's one less thing to concern us. You can bet we're gonna get some legislation passed before the 2024 election!
However, I am finding that much of what happened in the Nineties, well beyond, but including, militias, was almost a dress rehearsal for the apocalyptic events of the last ten years.
They were beaten back for some time, but I don't think their ideas were reformed by the horror of OKC.
Their civil war consists of baiting the mentally unwell into taking freely available uzi’s into crowded spaces and slaughtering innocents. Please don’t call this a war, which requires more than just one armed opposing sides
And members of different police forces. I particularly want to know how Fox News Network can retain it's FCC to broadcast after all the releases of their hypocritical lies and dishonesty, labeling themselves as a news source, not entertainment.
That's interesting to know. Maybe we should all start a campaign to ask their licenses to be revoked. I am not sure what that criteria would have to be. Don't we have to show that they are not meeting some sort of community standard of some sort?
What you describe is what Trump and his friends wanted on Jan 6. According to the investigation and testimony (and the indictments against Stewart Rhodes and others), there were caches of weapons in place outside the perimeter of the Capitol in trucks and stashed in hotel rooms that day.
Specifically, seditious conspiracy. You can find the indictments online and read them. Funny how the media chose to more or less ignore that essential aspect of the charges against these yahoos. More recently, they ignored Trump's CPAC speech where he calls America a "filthy communist country." To me, it's a seditious comment and should have extensively reported.
Chop wood carry water mentioned a bill in the house to stop the sale of assault weapons to Mexico HR698. There is no summary of the bill or more information. It may be associated with a ban on assault weapons if indeed it is attached to that the bill is dead
Legitimate fear for sure. All the prison sentences handed out to the Jan. 6th rabble and more to come would be a deterrent — but how much of one? If violence were to spread, I'd worry about local police forces, or large segments of them, joining. This is why the sooner Trump is history, the better. Regardless, must uncertainty and anxiety ahead.
I agree, the sooner Trump is gone the better. My worry is the wannabes behind him, now getting major funding from the same set of donors and Media tycoon backers Like Murdoch and Newsmax, whoever owns that piece of propaganda trash. I am particularly thinking of Ron DeSantes, but luckily for us, I don't think he has that level of Charisma especially in front of the camera.
Michael, just remember how TFG was booed when he finally endorsed vaccinations. Once the people are convinced of something, it’s hard to change their minds.
"Carlson isn’t changing anyone’s view about what happened on Jan. 6"
Correct.
Those that support what happened by sponsoring the lie that it was a nonviolent excursion will stick to that lie.
Those (of us) who know that it was a violent attempted coup, authored, sponsored and led by Donald Trump will continue to know that.
And? ALL will continue to be amazed that Trump has not yet been arrested.
I now "believe" that Garland has stood aside waiting for Fani Willis to do his work for him. I believe he knows that whomever charges Trump will have trouble protecting their family and he does not want to be that guy.
I believe that both Willis and Garland are doing their jobs. I don’t know why it is taking so long to bring indictments, but I do know that the level of surety required to do such is very high. Although it seems quite obvious to me that crimes have been committed and that our democracy depends on at least the pursuit of Justice, I cannot second guess and wait, not so patiently
It is incredibly difficult to wait, to keep faith that Merrick Garland and Jack Smith are working hard preparing to indict Trump, when the stakes are so frighteningly high and we have no insight on what’s happening inside the Justice Department. I wake up every morning hoping to see the bombshell announcement on the front page of the New York Times.
First thing I do every morning is look (hopefully) that the news is of his demise. Honestly, he is looking worse and worse to me--these latest clips/photos appear, to me at least, that he's packed on about 30 more pounds, the makeup is extra thick and even still, he seems TIRED. We know his diet is atrocious and we know he abhors exercise, I think an MI/stroke is overdue.
Fani Willis will have to hurry up and indict Trump before the new bill the Georgia Senate just passed gets signed into law. My understanding is that it allows [the Georgia legislature?] to remove from office any district attorney or prosecutor they think is guilty of overreach.
Grace, I agree with you. trump has committed so many crimes, for so long, and the web of deceit in our government is so extensive, it will take years to unravel this.
I have no doubt that trump will be indicted. I honestly believe he has very little time left as a free man. I think he knows it too.
Glenn Kirschner. a former D.C. Federal prosecutor for 25 years does You Tube entries frequently. Last week, he was very excited that Jack Smith, Special Counsel, has requested that Judge Beryl Howell to force Pence to testify (to side step Pence's attempt @ defying his subpoena/dragging out his testimony.) Here's the link to that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSfWBhoYv2k
On Rachel last night she featured the Georgia House & Senate passing a bill that THEY can fire DA they think are not doing their job. Word is the Gov will sign it. It may take time to go into effect so I hope it will spur Willis to act now
Michael, sorry to contradict you, but the truth about Jan 6th is not etched into Republican voters’ minds at all. Most Republican voters still believe that the election was stolen*. They still believe that the investigation into the Jan 6th insurrection was rigged, biased*. They find ways to dismiss it, or to blame it on Democrats, the deep state or the media. Tucker Carlson will reinforce those beliefs. McCarthy wants to create an alternate reality about Jan 6th, one that shows Trump and his supporters did nothing wrong, and Tucker Carlson is going to make that happen.
The NYT has an ongoing series where they interview panels comprised of various voter groups. This panel of Republicans has been interviewed twice, 14 months ago, and again 2 months ago. It’s a long read, but it demonstrates that we mustn’t think that Republicans accept the facts, at all.
It's quite telling that Republican voters who hate government and don't want to pay taxes are the first ones to blame the government when something goes wrong--inflation, the train wreck, natural disasters, violence/crime--and demand action.
There John. Winner! Ding Ding. There are so many hopeful readers of these letters, who suggest that more Republicans are going to eventually come around. It is my belief that too many Republicans (if not statistically all of them) believe just as you describe, and will continue to do so. The phenomena is the most perplexing thing politically I have ever seen. That so many seemingly reasonable people would cling to this utter bullsh_t despite all evidence to the contrary. That is why Fox has not changed their tune yet (or ever). They know that force is still out there, is still strong, and they can still profit from them. They will spin this Dominion thing into some sort of victimhood story that the MAGAt's will eat up. This MAGA movement is a force that will - hell, has already but will continue to - diminish our nation from great status to also-ran status, if allowed to continue for much longer. The other great free nations of the world will cease to follow our lead; will relegate us to the annoying and dangerous carnival barkers that we are becoming. We saw the beginnings of that during Trump's term. Can you imagine if TFG found a way to win again in 2024? So far it is not out of the question. The very fact that it is a possibility, and that that orange dumpster fire monster is still walking around free and spouting the very lies that got him in trouble in the first place, is a giant setback for American democracy. Ask any European.
It is my very unfounded nor scientific belief that there are a lot of people, most actually. walking around with childhood Trauma or trauma. And for some of these people, they have a deep wound that they have neither acknowledge nor explored. And the wound can be exacerbated by all manner of life events. And the wound can prevent one from empathizing or sympathizing with others. An unhealed wound, grows, and becomes all encompassing, a seething just below the surface. Trump, with his rhetoric, taps directly into this wound. Of course, he knows how to do this because he is a walking wound himself. The embedded myth in this country that you be tough, don't cry, don't whine, sweep it under the rug or else you're a weenie does untold damage, untold til now that is.
Kim, that along with being forced to deny their reality by their family, living a lie is their culture. How existentially painful it would be to acknowledge the truth. Which is why I’ve always said once Hilary Clinton came out with It takes A Village, the wannabe fascists were all over her with lies and smears and trumped up investigations to destroy her. Imagine if the Clinton’s had gotten her health care proposals thru way back then. There would be a lot fewer vulnerable minds for the fascist to grow their hate. Entirely different times we’d be living in.
Republican propaganda from the moment republicans took her measure kept Hillary Clinton fighting for legitimacy from Arkansas to New York. Among the best of public servants, she was slandered during her entire public career by the GOP.
Correct - to their credit, they recognized very early that she was special, and an existential threat to their power. She was literally bombarded with innuendo and lies and accusations for years. She almost overcame it, but with the help of Putin (who feared her as much as the Republicans) she came up a little short. I am a huge Hillary fan. If only.......
John R: Thanks for this link. I missed it when it appeared in the newspaper. It is dumbounding to see how uninformed these people are. They dismiss the Jan. 6 committee's findings, f.ex., without having watched the hearings or learned about what Republican witnesses said against their own. It does seem like nothing can penetrate the worship of their guy. The wall against facts is thick.
“Uninformed” implies that they never had access to information. This is different. The Republican base is “other informed”. They know all about the Jan 6th Committee’s work. They know all about the 2020 election results. They choose to reject this information, because it threatens their world view. This is why Fox lost viewership when they broadcast the actual election results, and regained those viewers when they began broadcasting Trump’s big lie. This is why Tucker Carlson is going to selectively edit all that footage, to make it look like Jan 6th was peaceful and patriotic. The Republican base knows what it wants to hear, and rejects anything that doesn’t fit.
The answers of those Republican focus group are a tribute to the power of confirmation bias. They are also a tour of every shortcoming of our public education system. These people have no clue about how to think critically, how to take in and analyze complex information, how evaluate and distinguish between credible information sources and purveyors of bullshit who are deliberately manipulating them by playing on their emotions. They cannot grasp the complexity of our economy, and especially how long it takes for government policies that affect the macro economy (ex. inflation) to be visible at the grassroots level, or how factors external to government policy like the Covid pandemic can be shaped by good and bad policy decisions (Trump’s months of public Covid denial sabotaging the country’s chance to crush Covid early, and causing hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths because his inaction turbocharged the spread.) Attributing the good economy under Trump to Trump, instead of recognizing that Obama set up that success and Trump just coasted on taking credit for conditions created by his predecessor. It would take too long to describe the rest of the ways they are ignorant and missing higher thinking skills. I’ll stop there.
Elizabeth, I’m a high school teacher. Public education didn’t fail these people. They received the same education on civics, history and critical thinking that the rest of us did. They reject that education because they’ve joined the MAGA cult and it doesn’t fit the MAGA worldview. MAGA voters aren’t accidentally ignorant, they are intentionally, belligerently ignorant. Too many of us look at how ignorant they are and think, “it’s somebody’s - the schools, media, politicians’ - fault.” It’s not! MAGA voters choose ignorance, and do everything they can to support it. Don’t make public education a scape goat.
John, you're right and I apologize. I did not mean to make our _current_ public education system a scapegoat and I should have clarified. The millenials and Gen Z are showing in their politics that our education system recently is doing a much better job. I'm talking about mostly my generation, Baby Boomers. I went to high school in a suburb of Boston, but civics was not required, the history textbooks were still the kind that glorified what's good about our history and mostly whitewashed or omitted the parts of our past we should be ashamed about. There were only minimal references back then to massacres of Native Americans, to the way white settlers and the U.S. government pushed them off their land and effectively banished them to the least valuable and productive land available, and the government broke treaty after treaty with tribes. Minimal references to the full scope of the brutality of slavery and almost nothing about how the gains of Blacks during Reconstruction were systematically rolled back in Southern states to institute a new form of forced labor and subjugation called Jim Crow. And definitely nothing about slavery in the North. They did teach the injustice of the Salem witch trials and the evils of Senator McCarthy and the Committee on Un-American Activities, I'll give them that. And so forth. I think schools these days do a much better job teaching students everything they need to know to have a balanced view of our history, and critical thinking skills they can apply to current news and events, although Republicans in red states are now trying hard to return public education to the patriotism indoctrination of the 1950s and 1960s. I agree that you can only teach students what they are willing to learn and internalize. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, you can lead fools to culture but you can't make them think.
You're not contradicting me. My point: minds are made up. I don't believe there are large groups of voters on the fence about Jan. 6.
McCarthy and Carlson are doing a good job of keeping those who believe in the rule of law engaged and motivated. Their endeavor keeps Jan. 6 front and center when Republicans should want it to fade away in order to win back the power they so crave.
Michael, thanks for anchoring this subject in logic.
Any amount of video, statements of fact or lies will make little difference. What will matter is turnout on election days. Yesterday, I was very excited by a post that led me to https://www.turnup.us/
Consider this: "The generational makeup of the United States is shifting dramatically. In 2024, Millennials and Gen Z will account for almost 45% of the electorate."
I say forget Fox and the aging, dying off soon Fox Fools. Concentrate on youth and the future. Cable TV is on a death march. More and more people are cutting the cord. We had dinner last night with some family. A young couple in their late 20s quietly listened as we elders talked about all the TV shows we have enjoyed. They revealed that they don't watch TV. They live on their phones or laptops. He is a mechanical engineer. She is a health care administrator. They are more than the future. They are the now.
It's all about who we can convince to vote. Let's focus on the generations that we can motivate to make a difference. That's what "turnup.us" is doing. It's brilliant.
Bill that is the problem. Young folk aren't watching television on their televisions, they are watching it on their phones. Young voters or even potential voters have zoned out current issues. If they can control what they watch, it's not going to be the C-Span daily recap or the daily press conference from the White House. It's going to be what's hot on their streaming services.
I listened to a talk last week about "How to get the Youth to the voting booth". It was interesting and chilling.
One of the biggest talking points was if the Supreme Court tanks Bidens plans for college fund reimbursements, so will it do the same for his re election. He will lose the vote of the parents, students who parrot their parents vote and much more. It is a far reaching problem that will point to him, not the source of the problem (bought and paid for Supreme Court).
The wave from the last election has aged out many of the participants. Strength in numbers worked phenomenally last go around. Those same folks don't necessarily have that same social structure. They moved on about their lives. As they should.
That said, turnup.us is a fantastic organization. They were mentioned in the talk I attended last week.
It is the youth that needs to be educated. They will inherent this horribly chaotic world we live in.
Good points. Accurate observations. But I am buoyed by the fact that in the long run the "American Melting Pot" is happening. Younger generations have grown up with diversity and differences as more normal than not.
I am optimistic that tolerance will prevail in the long run. This backward slide into bigotry and autocracy will not hold. Call me naive. But that's how I get through the day :)
Linda - wish I could disagree with you, but I cannot. I think that there was some political calculation in the student loan forgiveness plan. A decent idea with decent reasons, but also a political choice to help get out the vote. Same can be said for climate change promises. Issues that ought to be of interest to today's young adults. The Supreme Court, the McCarthy House, the Senate filibuster, and Fox News are doing their best to neuter these efforts entirely. And it is working for the most part. The average young voting age person - I have seen this first hand - will roll their eyes, declare that their government has once again failed them, and call it quits. Move on to something else instead of political awareness and activity. This new generation cannot be accused of being patient or persistent. More likely too many will throw their collective hands up in despair, act like ostriches, and tune out. An act of entitlement, or better yet a failure to act. I now personally think that the student loan forgiveness promise was a miscalculation that is backfiring, a miscalculation that will only better assure more gen Z'ers stay away from the polls on 2024. God I hope I'm wrong.
The demographics you describe should frighten the right. But they're too busy believing the endless lies and misinformation. Or as was often said at a large tech company where I once worked, they breathing their own fumes.
Interesting that Carlson released these videos of protesters “reverently” walking though our Capitol building when he did. Last week, we know, he and other talking heads were exposed as never believing that Trump won 2020, but lying about it to the public. In case anyone on the right believes that Carlson lied, Carlson can drag them back in to the fold with these videos.
Repubs seem to have short memories, a demented connection with truth. Murdoch and friends admitting they lied, must come down to money. And he and the repubs, the party (cult?) and the followers seem to have an endless supply when it comes to buying “truth.”
I live in a Red state & a county that is headquarters for the Freedom Caucus. The spin on the Jan 6th attack is strong with all sorts of variations. I choose not to ignore that too many believe spin over visual facts.
The "American consciousness" is no more monolithic than the American electorate is. It may be etched into your consciousness and mine, and we certainly believe it's true. Tucker's video isn't going to sway either of us, but it's likely to confirm millions upon millions of USians in what they already believe to be true.
This is true -- but gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression are doing a pretty good job of making majorities look like minorities at the ballot box.
And here in blue Massachusetts, same-day voter registration got dropped from the VOTES Act passed and signed into law last year. Why? It was strenuously opposed by a member of the state house leadership who represents a Boston district with many, many college students. Our state primary is held in early September, and he was afraid of being primaried by newly registered student voters.
I couldn’t agree more - with your first sentence. To wit: he is also not changing the minds of tens of millions of Trump supporters. He is merely strengthening a narrative they clutch to without reserve, and providing video documentation. This will be used, incredibly I might add, to continue to prop up America’s most powerful and despicable lie. Carlson is amplifying a view that will coax from willing martyrs a terroristic response at some point when the fuse has been lit by some other relatively insignificant action.
How this got from the government to the media this easily is a total shock to me. The comparison may be inapt and I apologize if it is. But, on the one hand the law allows lengthy stays of justice based on the most specious, absurd grounds (I’m thinking at the moment of Pence’s “I’ll have it both ways” challenge in order not to testify). On the other hand, a government official can simply hand over raw American history unchecked by any rule to a single entity which is now probably the most corrupt media outlet of power America has ever been subjected to.
The legal system is fast becoming a dangerous joke for its inability to avoid twisting itself into knots allowing appeal after appeal after appeal. Justice delayed through too clever by half appeals to the nooks and crannies of the laws is justice denied.
I am reminded of Ernest Wilde’s play Salome grossly orgiastic and profane written in the depths of his libertinism being banned from Germany at the turn of the 20th century. When public demand for this spectacle became intense, the Kaiserin managed to get the authorities to evade the ban by the simple expedient of insisting that the Star of the Magi appear at the end of each performance, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil. Two hours of blood-soaked orgiastic wallowing was redeemed by a one minute appearance of the star. This is the kind of hypocrisy American law now excels in.
I have blamed and continue to blame Merrick Garland for his tortured waste of time at the beginning of his term, using valuable effort and resources to try to convince those whose ears are stopped to him that he really was an even-handed good guy who would apply the law equally to both sides. It was a cowardly failure. And now we are reaping the results as Trump promises to run if indicted. *Of course* he will. What does he have to lose. Rachel Maddie’s utterly lame comparison of Trump to Spiro Agnew last night was a joke. These are far far more turbulent times - the zeitgeist is completely different.
Professor Cox Richardson’s piece seemed a bit overblown to me until I thought for two seconds. It is one of her darkest warnings yet, in a quiet but unmistakeable tone that she rarely uses. From her vast experience and knowledge, she sees a probability that is deeply unsettling. Best we listen.
I have posted this elsewhere as a specific reply to Michael Bates’ comment that Carlson is not changing any minds. With whatever logic Substack applies, it did not appear here so did not look the least relevant. I am reposting in a second effort to place it properly. I apologize to those who notice it twice if this is considered bad form.
---
I couldn’t agree more - with your first sentence. To wit: he is also not changing the minds of tens of millions of Trump supporters. He is merely strengthening a narrative they clutch to without reserve, and providing video documentation. This will be used, incredibly I might add, to continue to prop up America’s most powerful and despicable lie. Carlson is amplifying a view that will coax from willing martyrs a terroristic response at some point when the fuse has been lit by some other relatively insignificant action.
How this got from the government to the media this easily is a total shock to me. The comparison may be inapt and I apologize if it is. But, on the one hand the law allows lengthy stays of justice based on the most specious, absurd grounds (I’m thinking at the moment of Pence’s “I’ll have it both ways” challenge in order not to testify). On the other hand, a government official can simply hand over raw American history unchecked by any rule to a single entity which is now probably the most corrupt media outlet of power America has ever been subjected to.
The legal system is fast becoming a dangerous joke for its inability to avoid twisting itself into knots allowing appeal after appeal after appeal. Justice delayed through too clever by half appeals to the nooks and crannies of the laws is justice denied.
I am reminded of Ernest Wilde’s play Salome grossly orgiastic and profane written in the depths of his libertinism being banned from Germany at the turn of the 20th century. When public demand for this spectacle became intense, the Kaiserin managed to get the authorities to evade the ban by the simple expedient of insisting that the Star of the Magi appear at the end of each performance, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil. Two hours of blood-soaked orgiastic wallowing was redeemed by a one minute appearance of the star. This is the kind of hypocrisy American law now excels in.
I have blamed and continue to blame Merrick Garland for his tortured waste of time at the beginning of his term, using valuable effort and resources to try to convince those whose ears are stopped to him that he really was an even-handed good guy who would apply the law equally to both sides. It was a cowardly failure. And now we are reaping the results as Trump promises to run if indicted. *Of course* he will. What does he have to lose. Rachel Maddie’s utterly lame comparison of Trump to Spiro Agnew last night was a joke. These are far far more turbulent times - the zeitgeist is completely different.
Professor Cox Richardson’s piece seemed a bit overblown to me until I thought for two seconds. It is one of her darkest warnings yet, in a quiet but unmistakeable tone that she rarely uses. From her vast experience and knowledge, she sees a probability that is deeply unsettling. Best we listen.
Democratic members of Congress are doing the right thing, calling out the lies and confronting Republicans in Committee rooms and in the press.
We need this righteous chorus, unrelentingly and directly in the faces of those who spread not just lies, but the fascist rhetoric of Trump and his spawn DeSantis – as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than Trump himself.
Cracks are showing in the Republican façade – it is time to break it up.
I agree that the Dems should point out the lies but I don't think it matters for a lot of these MAGA folks. They've drunk the kool-aid and are high on their entitlement and anger. It's like they're getting high on it. Addicts, can't wait for the next high with no cares for anything but that high, even if it kills them.
It matters less that it impacts all who might be aware of any particular exchange, but it matters a great deal that more exchanges take place where Republican members are caught in the act of lying.
My comment referenced Congress, in which the Republicans now control House Committees. These hearings are often televised, covered widely by the media, and provide an unusually rich opportunity to confront misinformation.
"High on their entitlement and anger" describes it very well -- in fact, it describes 1/6/21 very well.
I wouldn't call myself optimistic exactly, but I have been encouraged in the last year by the resistance to the right's attempts to ban abortion. The vote in the Kansas referendum blew almost everyone out of the water, and while that victory was pretty spectacular, there have been others. And more and more people are waking up to the real-life, on-the-ground implications of those particular laws.
According to 1st wife Ivana he kept a copy of Hitler's speeches next to his bed.
Trump is not stupid. He is a master practitioner of the grifter's art and the power of persuasion. Hitler may be one of the few books he would read but it would be for a purpose.
💯💯💯💯💯exactly I wish people would stop calling him an idiot or stupid. He is intentionally ignorant on everything except his craft of deceit, stealing, grift, etc. which he has honed to perfection
Christy, those of us who grew up in New York City during his real estate slash and burn, know all too well he was never stupid. But like all mob bosses, he has gotten away with murder. I think his karma is coming around to bite him in the ass.....
In rebuttal, TC: Cassidy Hutchinson. Bolton. Pompeo. Eastman. The last three named are indescribably evil; the first one naive. There are buttloads of mentally agile folks supporting T💩p. It’s best not to ignore that fact, and give support to the mentally agile on our side with scruples instead of greed, honesty without prevarication, and empathy without sociopathy.
When l consider what people can believe if it's presented as religious truth, I am not even surprised. Long, long ago I learned the aphorism "A fanatic is someone who's lost sight of his purpose." There's a lot of truth in that.
Just a side issue, TC, having just read your last personal piece on Trump at CPAC including the subject of Mussolini. You might also like to read Paul Corner's recent book entitled "Mussolini in Myth and Memory". He looks at the recent myth-making, what people actually remember against reality and how it is being shaped to serve today's purpose....for some!
KEM, I didn't listen to him, but read some of the BS he was spewing. I got a strong impression he was trying to resurrect his role as their messiah again.
His remarks that Heather quoted reminded me of the religious right and their rhetoric.
Whoaaa... this gives me some hope for humanity, in that maybe there aren't as many soulless MAGA Rethugs as there appeared to be...
"News broke today that an Israeli tech firm has uncovered a vast network of as many as hundreds of thousands of fake Twitter accounts designed to promote Trump and his vision, creating the illusion that he is more popular than he is. The analysts at the firm, Cyabra, believe the system was created within the U.S. “One account will say, ‘Biden is trying to take our guns; Trump was the best,’ and another will say, ‘Jan. 6 was a lie and Trump was innocent,’” said the engineer who discovered the network, Jules Gross. “Those voices are not people. For the sake of democracy I want people to know this is happening.”"
While lies upon lies may never bother the MAGAT base; we have all had the opportunity to see the subterfuge first hand and unmodified. The real question remains, "How much money does it take to steal/buy an election?"
Look, this is not the time to sit on our laurels! Tonight, Rachel reported that the Republican party in both the Georgia State House and Senate are sending a bill to Kemp, their governor, to disallow any prosecutors from investigating Trump and others regarding the J6 insurrection/election deniers. This means Fani Willis will NOT be able to proceed with her case. Democracy is seriously at stake here! How the hell do they think they can away with anything like this? How is it they are so many steps ahead of the Dems in invoking their evil scenarios? Are our reps merely asleep at the wheel, all of the effing time?!! Do we have any loopholes to hold onto and make them stick?
The only good thing I saw today was that Indivisible is creating something new having to do with reaching out to the populations in rural areas. That is where we lack decent representation. And Heather, CA will take Hakeem Jeffries any time!
The bill once signed will not take effect before the end of the year. Fani Willis will have proceeded with her case long before that. If they want to obviously interfere in the middle of a trial, let them.
Can you document that important distinction? A reporter for the Atlanta paper on Rachel tonight said it would be a matter only of two weeks or so before it woukd be effective? Many thanks for more information as this is very dangerous territory for our democracy to survive?
If Fani Willis is smart, she will drop the case against Trump.
She is a black woman in Georgia prosecuting one of the most popular white supremacists in history.
IF the state passes a law against arresting Trump and she goes ahead and arrests him anyway, regardless of the onset date, her life will be in constant danger.
“Ain’t nobody here but us chickens”? As you’ve pointed out, (and where is Sandy Lewis?) black women are the strength in this battle. Willis is a woman of courage. Had others not preceded her she’d not hold the position she does. She does this for our daughters and our future.
Sandy Lewis, where are you? I've also noticed his absence, and missed his reminding, consistant, dedicated message. Dr. Richardson may be picking it up with a different style.
I disagree with you, Mike. Believe me, from Day One, Fani has herself surrounded by law enforcement she can trust. Her life has been threatened many times while she has been gathering evidence. These people can’t stand the fact that she’s a very smart black woman in a powerful position that could bring their “god” down. A big FU would be if she could file a lawsuit against those members in the State and House legislatures who want her to quiver and squirm. Nothing like turnabout is fair play!
“States rights” trumps everything for the Rs. They’re effectively using the levers of government to support their agenda which the majority of Americans are against.
They’re so hypocritical. For a party that says they want “small government” and government to stay out of our lives, they’re doing way too much damage.
I agree that the Ds need to be more proactive and strategic-especially in red states.
Marlene- Robert Hubble addresses this bill in his latest Substack. His explanation on timeline of the bill will put your mind at ease ( at least until 2024).
Creating a pre-emptive law that makes it illegal to charge anyone engaging in constitutionally protected free speech with criminal acts is dictatorial. If your charge is found to have no merit or be intentionally so you can be countersued or charged with abusing the legal system with intent to cause injury. The GOP, Kemp, Fox and many other creeps are flooding America with opportunities for just that.
The MT legislature had a bill SB372 to give the legislature authority to appoint district judges & state Supreme Court judges. The bill barely died in committee 5-6 vote. The Freedom Caucus will try again in MT. The Congress in Mt is a super majority of people who call themselves Republicans .
We have to go back to “1984” to see what the GOP is becoming. It makes my blood run cold.
“There is nothing subtle about Trump’s behavior. He lies, he repeats the lie, and his listeners either cower in fear, stammer in disbelief, or try to see how they can turn the lie to their own benefit. Trump’s lies are pure Big Brother crude. The blind, blatant disregard for truth is offered in an ancient tone of rage, vanity, and vengeance. Trump is pure raging authoritarian id.And so, rereading Orwell, one is reminded of what Orwell got right about this kind of brute authoritarianism—and that was essentially that it rests on lies told so often, and so repeatedly, that fighting the lie becomes not simply more dangerous but more exhausting than repeating it.”
Orwell’s “1984” and Trump’s America | The New Yorker (2017)
Some fact checkers discovered more than 25 blatant lies in tfg's CPAC rant, adding to the 31,000 or so false statements that another person has counted since tfg appeared on the big stage. And after all the lies and chaos at FNC with tucker c and his teammates, including the Boss, Rupert, even admitting to peddling lies, they continue to manipulate their audience with more lies. How braindead are those viewers that they still believe anything that is being broadcast on that channel?
Part of what goes wrong when former democracies sink into despotism is that the sheer volume of lies becomes so overwhelming that they become hard to highlight, challenge and hold accountable; similar to what happens when invading bacteria overwhelm a body's immune system and produce sepsis. We surely need to hold the line.
"Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people." -John Adams
With all due respect to one of our founders, since when does a maxim do anything? Even if it’s a good maxim it just sits there until it’s taken to heart and moved on by we the people.
The same with the Constitution; and isolated quotations prove little except that, in many cases, Republicans are misrepresenting the history and the earlier historical mindset of the founders,. The anti-authoritarianism of our founding philosophies was applied shockingly unevenly, yet those Enlightenment Era principles have tacked against the wind into some of the more Woke streams of consciousness that now circulate in our society (End of explicit slavery and "Jim Crow" laws, women's suffrage, rights of workers, responsible sexual freedoms, etc.) that contrast with the authoritarian dark ages Republicans seem eager to restore.
And some strings of words provide a useful shorthand when they seem to hit the nail on the head.
And I think that actions based on lies, individually or as a national policy, are rather like flying in a fog with totally bad instruments. Maybe you'll luck out, but the odds of disaster are over the top. We as a society have become far too inured to significant lies, and it is literally killing us. Truth can be illusive but lies are deliberate, and often provable. We need to make lies and liars a far more visible issue and demand verifiable chains of evident in matters that matter, of which there are many. Some kinds of provable lies, especially from a position of entrusted authority, should be a matter of law, others a matter of decisive social rejection.
I keep wondering if the trump golden boy wasn't clever snark from some shadowy social commentary artist, like Banksy, but with a far less subtle "slapstick" style.
Kristin, I included a reference to Orwell’s 1984 in my comment, too. Thank you for expanding with links to articles about the dangers of “Trump’s America.” The fact that the repub lies are not challenged supports how effective the repub campaign and party are: lying, banning books, ignoring security risks, and essentially not governing. It’s the Wild West.
"rereading Orwell, one is reminded of what Orwell got right about this kind of brute authoritarianism—and that was essentially that it rests on lies told so often, and so repeatedly, that fighting the lie becomes not simply more dangerous but more exhausting than repeating it.”
I think that big lies and big liars have been part of the human condition so long as out species has existed, but big lies in our society on a national scale have ebbed and flowed, simultaneously, with the balance shifting now and again. I think that the endlessly repeat big lies, no matter what, became a central strategy to the former Republican Party with Reagan, and that big lies, inadequately called out and concertedly resisted, have become increasingly dangerous over time. Perhaps the sheer transparency of the cultivated social psychosis is now enough to energize sufficient and widespread resistance. If not, we'll be in a hell of a fix.
So many good arguments for how and why the Republican party, and especially the MAGA wing of the party, has become so corrupt and dangerous to the Republic.
The problem is that we're all preaching to the choir. We're all patting ourselves on the back in own own little self-righteous echo chamber. MAGA Republicans don't read any of this. And they wouldn't trust it if they did. They've already decided who and what they want to believe, and by God they're sticking to it. Rational arguments do not change minds that have been seduced by the demagogue. Have you talked to any of them lately? Regardless of the devil they choose in the next election, they haven't budged an inch.
The time for preaching and for rage is over. If Trump, himself, should disappear from the stage of our current history, the fascism in the Republican party that he made overt and acceptable will not die with him. At this point Trump is close to irrelevant. Cruz, DeSantis, Hawley and a host of other Trump acolytes are young, well educated and consumed by obscessive ambition to rule this nation. They seek , by any means necessary, nothing less than a One Party State.Unlike Trump, they wish to be feared not loved. A chain of serial election defeats in national and state elections--in purple states--over perhaps 20 years will be necessary but insufficient by itself to drive the fascist contagion back into the dormant “spore” stage of its life cycle. Italy in the 1980s and France today prove that. Like anthrax, the spores of fascist politics are always there. The most effective antidote to MAGA fascism in the corrupted Republican Party is massive turnout at the polls, contribution by ordinary citizens of time and money , sustained activism and high turnout of all those who understand the threat but do not vote. Can we be an effective Democracy when since the 1984 election turnout in National and State elections has never exceed 55% of those eligible to vote. As Franklin said, “We have a Republic, if we can keep it”. If fascism wins, it will be because of the political indifference of the American voters.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises. - Lincoln
True and yet while such assuring one another that it's awful is only palliative, clarity is potent weapon against dishonesty. That part of how a skilled and ethical prosecutor works. And democracy is dead in the water without conversation. Successful social movements highlight things society is reluctant to tackle, or even acknowledge. They keep a spotlight trained on an injustice until it becomes hard to ignore. Progress is rarely comfortable.
Whose legal property are those "films"? By what right are they transferred to whomever? Could someone in the government pass out other historical documents to Putin or their grandson if they so chose?
Underneath the facade of every Republican politician spouting white Christian heterosexual values is a closeted drag queen such as Ron DeSantis, who performs under the name Rhonda Santis and is the lead singer for the conservative drag queen band Rhonda Santis and the White Noise.
Love your pun on Ron's drag queen name. I saw a drag show in San Francisco decades ago at Finocchio's. It closed in 1999. It was a lot of good, clean fun and entertainment. I don't understand why people can't just live and let live. Straight white men seem to think being gay is contagious and that makes them afraid of it. Makes me consider who is the weaker sex in all this.
Seems that the weaker sex is the one most threatened by it, for whatever reason. Apparently their masculinity and manhood is so fragile, that a drag queen could topple it?
Gerald: my name is Ira Lechner; you have an extra “i” in yours. Question: by any chance is your family originally from Romania and is Jewish as is mine? If so, “cousin”, let’s talk? Thanks
The GOP has been based on lies ever since Reagan declared that the government is the problem and that trickle down is the basis for a fair economy. He knew, as do all who have come since, that government is the only effective tool to rein in out of control capitalism. What we are seeing now is the true trickle down of Reagan. Once the American people bought those lies, they were primed to believe anything, especially as amplified by Gingrich, Limbaugh, the Tea Party, Fox News, and the Freedom Caucus. Reality left the building a long time ago.
I think it is clear from what what Reagan actually did, and his acolytes since, that "Government" has become an obfuscating label for what Republicans are really attacking; democracy and the common good. And yes, Reagan's candy-coated alternative is updated forms of feudalism under the veneer.
<snip>But in the years since Trump took office, previously uninterested Americans have seen what it means when those who believe in that vision take power.
Those who believe in equality before the law are standing up for that principle. <unsnip>
A more personal example is my daughter, 19. Last week, she joined me on the couch watching KET coverage of the Kentucky legislature. This 80% GOP body has passed recent incinderary bills including some nasty hate rhetoric speeches (aka crap).
Her comment was: 'Guess I had better join you watching this crap, I to see what I need to fight back against next.'
The repub grift is never ending and the party has no shame. K. McCarthy is playing out a repub script where the chances of accountability are remote. Giving exclusive access to 44,000 hours of Jan 6 video to Tucker Carlson and Fox. Can’t believe with all the trouble Fox is in that they would touch the video with a ten foot pole. In his favor are distraction and a following of voters and nonvoters who look only for R to guide them. “Carlson’s coverage of the videos started tonight, with him depicting the rioters as “sightseers” and claiming that other media outlets have lied about the violence on January 6.” What do viewers see with their own eyes? George Orwell’s 1984 is a lesson in lies and doublespeak. That should be required reading. The repubs are masters of both.
Thank you for this post showing the disgusting work of FNC in the hands of Tucker. Finally, it was great to read how others are stepping forward to call out and demonstrate the lies that falsely offer a fake account of what we all saw on January 6, 2021. We will overcome.
I am reading Jon Meacham's biography of Abraham Lincoln, and I am just at the point of finishing the passages in Chapter 14 that describe the goings-on at the Democratic Presidential Convention that was held in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1860. Your description of the CPAC circus this past weekend in Washington DC is redolent of Jon Meacham's depiction of the 1860 Democratic convention , except that MAGAhats were nowhere in sight, but sideburns and hoop skirts were apparently well represented, along with overweening pride, arrogance, and attitude. As to the Democratic Party platform of 1860, it was indistinguishable from the popcorn antics that Trump boosters were braying about during the weekend's proceedings. The same sort of apocalyptic atmosphere prevailed at both events; except that delegations from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Texas withdrew early in disagreement with Northern Democrats, soon to be followed by delegations from Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia. Not to put a fine point on things, the Southern Democrats also lost the vote on the party platform by a vote of 165 to 138, in a battle that was all about preserving and advancing the cause of slavery. The Democrats' champion, Stephen Douglas, was unable to get the two thirds majority vote needed for him to become the Democratic Party's nominee at the Charleston convention. Without the radical Southerners to oppose them, the Regular Democrats soon reconvened in Baltimore, where Douglas secured his nomination, for what little it was worth. This was a pyrrhic victory, as the Democratic Party was by then irrevocably split, with one dissident faction opting to nominate the then Vice President John C Breckinridge, a Kentuckian, to represent what was left of the Democratic Party. A fourth candidate for president in the person of John Bell of Tennessee represented a group calling itself the Constitutional Union Party, which hope to preserve the Union while trying to downplay the slavery issue. John Bell was a relative moderate who embodied the ethos of the remnant of what used to be the historic Whig Party under the great Henry Clay. Most Whigs opted to affiliate with the up-and-coming Republican Party on its platform of funding internal improvements that promote interstate commerce.
Metaphorically speaking, from an astronomical perspective, what the nation saw was the equivalent of a dying star that was overtaken by its own heat and gravity until it blew itself to smithereens. What was left from the self-immolation of the Democratic Party were shards and pieces of what was once the dominant political party in America, now facing the new, and vital Republican Party, soon to be led by Abraham Lincoln in the race for the White House.
We are seeing echoes of the Democratic Party of 1860's implosion in the CPAC's meeting of today. The pressure and temperature are rising to unsupportable levels, with most Americans looking for peace and harmony. The party of Trump is a minority within the overall politics of America today; but, to carry the metaphor further, like the white dwarf star that survives the star that are formerly was, it is white-hot and infinitely dangerous, and to push the matter for further, it is spinning madly about, spewing deadly radiation in every direction. The question is, can the modern Democratic Party, led by Joe Biden, with his Lincolnesque mien and common decency, survive the radioactive fallout this weekend's grotesque reincarnation of the radical Southern Democrats of 1860. As that group of radicals reside within its own echo chamber, so does the Party of Trump. We can only hope and pray that the Democrats do reach out to the broad middle where nobody is looking to dissolve the Union, because today's radicals are no less anxious to destroy the federal Union than their forebears were in 1860 and 1861. Back then, it was all about preserving and celebrating slavery, today the mantra is somewhat more nuanced, but no less dangerous. And the same evil cast of characters has again appeared in our midst to destroy what the new Republican president would describe as, "the last best hope on earth".
I just updated Jeffries's state. Not sure why I put him in California. Maybe I thought he was on vacation? :)
Maybe he's bicoastal. :D
He's a son of Brooklyn, through-and-through! Yay for public education, too!
:D !
Sorry, but you cannot talk about "b*coastalism" on this site. There are no differences between East and West, North and South, Up and Down. </sarcasm>
OMG (as they say)... that's hilarious... gender-neutral USA. :D
He wants to be, away from Qevin’s nonsense. 😵💫
Qevin. First time I'm reading this. What a gem!
Qevin MQarthy is his new name....
Like all of us reading this morning's letter and you writing it, we NEED a vacation from the crazy out there!
Just his brain!
Could you put on the North Pole?
“ put him on the North Pole “ correction
No no no! Give him to the Aussies. Put him on the South Pole. Paybacks!
On vacation and snowed in?
Thought you were just baiting the bots to see where ther are.
😂
HA!
Tucker Carlson isn’t changing anyone’s view about what happened on Jan. 6 with his selective release of videos. The truth is vividly etched into the American consciousness - forever.
Millions of us watched it live and unfiltered. It is forever etched in our memories.
I will never forget...no matter how they try to spin what really happened on that terrible day! It was a very sad day in our history and maybe worse than 9/11.
Worse because it was an inside job and most are still out there, training for 2024.
9/11 killed 3,000 people and destroyed two large buildings and others, but the entire country came together in support of democracy and freedom. 1/6 is at the heart of destroying that democracy.
Did the folks who can only get/watch FNC have access to the LIVE coverage on 1/6/2021?
I don't know but maybe they showed Tucker Carlson live "talking" them through what was happening and then showing select video clips?
Because, at no time is Fox interested in representing reality accurately.
Fox knows they are in deep sh*t, but have to continue to provide for their base. You know the line, "a lie keeps growing and growing until it's as plain as the nose on your face". They are hoping if they say it enough times, it will be believed and America will watch them (why does anyone watch them, I really don't understand!!)
Doubtful. I think we need the movie studios to bring back the two-minute news reel (circa WWII) before feature films - whether in the theater or streaming. We need to find a way to pierce the bubble.
I actually watched about 2 hours of Faux that day. They were as dismayed as CNN or MSNBC was. At least during the event.
Now, Faux is simply echoing what the MAGAs tell them, or telling the MAGAs what they want to hear, to keep their ratings up.
The problem is what Fox has done afterward. The Dominion suit may bring out the truth and the whole truth.
So Trump heard them saying how dismayed their were (that's his only viewing channel as I understand it). Wonder what he thought about that.
I think that live coverage was on multiple stations including C-span. And MAGAs had a heads up. My neighbor, since moved, had a “house guest” he claimed he hardly knew, working in the driveway preparing his beat up pickup truck with trump and confederate flags and a small string noose on the rack. I took pictures because he didn't remove them for days. I was freaked out but our HOA has no rule against flags on vehicles. But commented about my BLM sign in my window, comparing. Many stories about the next three months. I know there are people who are tired of politics and not reading or watching much, but they must know something. Or they are repubs and are just letting life happen. Just vote R.
Maybe that is why Republican Politicians lead the anti-vaxxing efforts and anti-masking efforts, they want all the witnesses of their slide into fascist Autocracy dead!
I couldn’t agree more - with your first sentence. To wit: he is also not changing the minds of tens of millions of Trump supporters. He is merely strengthening a narrative they clutch to without reserve, and providing video documentation. This will be used, incredibly I might add, to continue to prop up America’s most powerful and despicable lie. Carlson is amplifying a view that will coax from willing martyrs a terroristic response at some point when the fuse has been lit by some other relatively insignificant action.
How this got from the government to the media this easily is a total shock to me. The comparison may be inapt and I apologize if it is. But, on the one hand the law allows lengthy stays of justice based on the most specious, absurd grounds (I’m thinking at the moment of Pence’s “I’ll have it both ways” challenge in order not to testify). On the other hand, a government official can simply hand over raw American history unchecked by any rule to a single entity which is now probably the most corrupt media outlet of power America has ever been subjected to.
The legal system is fast becoming a dangerous joke for its inability to avoid twisting itself into knots allowing appeal after appeal after appeal. Justice delayed through too clever by half appeals to the nooks and crannies of the laws is justice denied.
I am reminded of Ernest Wilde’s play Salome grossly orgiastic and profane written in the depths of his libertinism being banned from Germany at the turn of the 20th century. When public demand for this spectacle became intense, the Kaiserin managed to get the authorities to evade the ban by the simple expedient of insisting that the Star of the Magi appear at the end of each performance, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil. Two hours of blood-soaked orgiastic wallowing was redeemed by a one minute appearance of the star. This is the kind of hypocrisy American law now excels in.
I have blamed and continue to blame Merrick Garland for his tortured waste of time at the beginning of his term, using valuable effort and resources to try to convince those whose ears are stopped to him that he really was an even-handed good guy who would apply the law equally to both sides. It was a cowardly failure. And now we are reaping the results as Trump promises to run if indicted. *Of course* he will. What does he have to lose. Rachel Maddie’s utterly lame comparison of Trump to Spiro Agnew last night was a joke. These are far far more turbulent times - the zeitgeist is completely different.
Professor Cox Richardson’s piece seemed a bit overblown to me until I thought for two seconds. It is one of her darkest warnings yet, in a quiet but unmistakeable tone that she rarely uses. From her vast experience and knowledge, she sees a probability that is deeply unsettling. Best we listen.
Apologize for length.
Please do not apologize for stating honest and valuable concerns. I agree with everything you said. Particularly the parts about making a complete joke of our “by the Law” rhetoric. Every lawyer in this country should be overly concerned with how their careers are viewed.
I am on the verge of leaving this “lawless” country as the hypocrisy is about to do me in. And America needs people like me. All of “me’s” out there must start sharing their discontent. How dare a Tucker Carlson blatantly make a lie out of visual fact. I think a person should sue him for hurting all good Americans. How dare our legal teams allow this vulgar take over of truth.
I am sickened!
Your comments leave no room for misunderstanding. :)
I'm Canadian, so have only a little skin in the game (my son is a prof at Carnegie Mellon and I worry about his welfare and even safety at times). Nonetheless, looking at it objectively I have increasingly had the feeling that America is deeply in need of reform - I had that thought at the very beginning of DJT's Presidency, as he crashed through norm after norm with spectacular ease. I began to think that this could not have happened out of the blue at the will of one man. The more I looked the more I felt that there are two kinds of Americans (forgive the over-simplification). There are those who rush into causes and conspiracies and take them as far as possible without regard to consequences known and unknown, as well as understanding that at some point they have zoomed past any point of logic. On the left, there are those who have what Sarah Kendzior has labelled accurately "Savior Syndrom" - first for Mueller, then for impeachment, then for Garland, now for Jack Smith. On the right there are any number of groups - MAGA itself, the absolutely incredible QAnon farce, and the long term belief in the lie that Trump won in 2020.
Then there are those Americans who are busy, preoccupied with their own cares, suffering, or just plain comfortable warming themselves under the shining light on the hill that is America. They have woken up somewhat now, but there remain millions who view political events as a somewhat amusing spectacle and something that will work itself out eventually.
But there are people like you who are reaching a point of no return with your outrage. Thank God - I think that a very small number of Americans relative to the whole saved America in 2020 and to a degree in 2022 by becoming activist. I don't know what you do but I'm sure America needs you to stay in the fight in restoring sensible and timely law to America.
I became fascinated by the subject of how the 2010 to 2020 (and now 2023) period happened in America. I was always your complacent neighbor! What could go wrong in such a country is the way that millions of my generation felt? I knew that there were terrible stories in American history - I majored in History, but I loved the country and visited it dozens of times. There is a superficial openness to Americans that makes one quite gratified to meet them and chat.
In any case, I began to study how the America of my imagining - 50s through 70s - had become such a shell of a country, and in the process lost so much of its swagger and confidence.
The fruit of my learning is in a SubStack called "Cancel the American Dream." It's a sort of chronological history - The Fifties through to the present (I'm currently in the Nineties). The articles I write are developing a thesis that America has, mostly by design, partly by historical sweep, and a little bit through sheer accident, conjured up the perfect storm. It is now being battered by it full force. Some of the problems are, in my opinion, irremediable. Social media is one. Racism - white vs black especially - is another.
I invite you to read it. (Sorry to hit you with a shameless self-plug, but I find the Americans who read really get it. The Canadians, most of whom are people I know, are doing Eric a favor :), and are only mildly interested with a few exceptions.
I would be interested in your critique and additional ideas.
Boy, is my blood boiling... please forgive my bark, but the DOJ and the Supreme Court are both just titles that are empty of integrity. Is this what we think of ourselves? Just empty suits pretending to be useful when we put up with the “lowest of bars” for our own children to experience. From that angry nasty dominating DeSanity(FLA take a bow), to Ga.putting up with “Grimace”( green), to the “Supreme Despicable Courtesan” pretending they are about “The Law”! I am beyond hope. Help me here.
Exactly. I had been to my massage and came home to the insurrectionist riot. It was awful and I still cannot look at the Capitol Building without remembering it.
Yes!!!
Michael, it won't be used to change minds. It will be used to reinforce lies.
fearfully, if enough bullshit is shoveled at the MAGA base to provoke more violence, something akin to a civil uprising could actually happen. With our country awash in 400 million guns, a relatively small but zealous faction can wreak a lot of havoc with sufficient provocation. His Orangeness is just the type of guy who could provoke.
You are so right! Look at the lengths the worst of the MAGA Govenors have been pushing for more and easier access to guns. Then add in MTG who said that there aren't enough guns in America and Barbara Boebart, who said Jesus should have been armed with an AR-15, it paints a pretty violent picture of their plans for the future!
When will people realize the Jesus was the most "woke" figure in history.
I have posted "Jesus was a liberal" many times on Yahoo and have gotten some real nasty replies, most from MAGA types, but some from some atheists as well, the term "sky fairies" is popular.
While I am not here to argue religion(s), or the existence of God/higher power, my point is to support yours. If someone accepts Jesus as their savior, how can they justify white nationalist behavior? If you don't believe that Jesus truly existed, can you at least accept the concept of Jesus and use it as a role model?
White nationalists aren't interested in what Jesus preached. They connect with the extensive history of Christianity being spread by the sword.
Also, self-styled "Christian nationalists" do not necessarily believe in any Gd beyond Donald Trump. It's about white male supremacy, not religion.
Yes, sky fairies. I have seen that often. I have had the argument as well and often point out that people need to stop painting every believer with the same brush. The first three Gospels contain much that could help if people would only practice what is attributed to Jesus.
Miselle ! AMEN !
REPROBATE Hearts, CAN NOT, be CHANGED! Only the Hearts, that choose, THAT, that is Good, THEN REPENT ! then ASK OUR LORD ! By HIS HOLY SPIRIT, to MAKE YOU, the NEW CREATURE, in CHRIST THAT GOD has PROMISED !! { remember ! GOD ! Can NOT....LIE!! }
In Calvinism a reprobate is a person who is predestined to damnation. Since we make up what God must be like, and everyone who believes in God has done this, I my God is one who’s love is so complete there is no one outside of it.
It's Lauren Boebert...I just call her totally nuts though :-))
By any name she is crazed!
Boebert was probably referring to Jesus from the barrio who sells stolen weapons not the biblical Jesus!
For at least a time, the horrendous violence of the Oklahoma City bombing sent militias quietly back into their dark diseased holes. What will it take this time force the scum that has floated up to dissipate?
There is hope in Michigan. After our shootings in Oxford High School and Michigan State University, our Democrat-led (after 40 years) Congress has eleven gun safety bills up for the vote. I was heartened to see Michigan NRA members and Michigan gun owners speak to our state Congress in FAVOR of gun reform!
We passed a gun measure here in Oregon, but an eastern Oregon judge has held it up. There are some gun measures in the legislature, but as usual, Rs oppose them and then cry about all the gun violence, particularly in Portland. I just read a very long article yesterday in the Atlantic about all the violence and militias and Portland figures heavily in the article. It is long, but worth the read and I believe it is the cover story. It did not make me feel better about getting this deadliness under control.
It's difficult when hopes are dashed by politicized courts. Fortunately, we also have a Democrat attorney general in Michigan, and a 4-3 majority on our State Supreme Court, so that's one less thing to concern us. You can bet we're gonna get some legislation passed before the 2024 election!
That is an outstanding point, James.
However, I am finding that much of what happened in the Nineties, well beyond, but including, militias, was almost a dress rehearsal for the apocalyptic events of the last ten years.
They were beaten back for some time, but I don't think their ideas were reformed by the horror of OKC.
Their civil war consists of baiting the mentally unwell into taking freely available uzi’s into crowded spaces and slaughtering innocents. Please don’t call this a war, which requires more than just one armed opposing sides
I’m also worried about radicalized members of our military.
And members of different police forces. I particularly want to know how Fox News Network can retain it's FCC to broadcast after all the releases of their hypocritical lies and dishonesty, labeling themselves as a news source, not entertainment.
FCC doesn't license Fox, it is cable not broadcast. Now all the ultra right radio is a different story.
That's interesting to know. Maybe we should all start a campaign to ask their licenses to be revoked. I am not sure what that criteria would have to be. Don't we have to show that they are not meeting some sort of community standard of some sort?
The second paragraph of the Terms of Service says their purpose is "entertainment". It's in black and white, that's their 'out'.
I agree. Our Sheriff was an Oath Keeper 🤬
Where in America approximately are you. What State?
Nathan, just make sure if the zombies come near your place you have a plan.
What you describe is what Trump and his friends wanted on Jan 6. According to the investigation and testimony (and the indictments against Stewart Rhodes and others), there were caches of weapons in place outside the perimeter of the Capitol in trucks and stashed in hotel rooms that day.
Really ???😳
Yes! That is true. That is how the Government got the conviction on Sedition charges against Oath Keepers and next will be the Proud Boys.
Specifically, seditious conspiracy. You can find the indictments online and read them. Funny how the media chose to more or less ignore that essential aspect of the charges against these yahoos. More recently, they ignored Trump's CPAC speech where he calls America a "filthy communist country." To me, it's a seditious comment and should have extensively reported.
Right from the horses mouth:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/oath-keeper-weapons-stored-capital-jan-attack/story?id=91397495
Really.
Not ABCs mouth, but straight from sworn testamony in their trial. The weapons were found by the authorities.
Add lunatic mega billionaires willing to buy the big weapons to use against our National Guard!
Chop wood carry water mentioned a bill in the house to stop the sale of assault weapons to Mexico HR698. There is no summary of the bill or more information. It may be associated with a ban on assault weapons if indeed it is attached to that the bill is dead
Yes, it's a bill to limit assault weapons. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/698/text?s=1&r=4
Louis, please post some links on this point!
Legitimate fear for sure. All the prison sentences handed out to the Jan. 6th rabble and more to come would be a deterrent — but how much of one? If violence were to spread, I'd worry about local police forces, or large segments of them, joining. This is why the sooner Trump is history, the better. Regardless, must uncertainty and anxiety ahead.
I agree, the sooner Trump is gone the better. My worry is the wannabes behind him, now getting major funding from the same set of donors and Media tycoon backers Like Murdoch and Newsmax, whoever owns that piece of propaganda trash. I am particularly thinking of Ron DeSantes, but luckily for us, I don't think he has that level of Charisma especially in front of the camera.
My fear also.
Yes, to some degree, but the MAGAs who believe Jan. 6 was a just cause were never going to seek out much less embrace the truth.
Michael, just remember how TFG was booed when he finally endorsed vaccinations. Once the people are convinced of something, it’s hard to change their minds.
Right.
And to give its viewers what they want. Because they are r about truth, they’re about numbers according to Rupert.
"Carlson isn’t changing anyone’s view about what happened on Jan. 6"
Correct.
Those that support what happened by sponsoring the lie that it was a nonviolent excursion will stick to that lie.
Those (of us) who know that it was a violent attempted coup, authored, sponsored and led by Donald Trump will continue to know that.
And? ALL will continue to be amazed that Trump has not yet been arrested.
I now "believe" that Garland has stood aside waiting for Fani Willis to do his work for him. I believe he knows that whomever charges Trump will have trouble protecting their family and he does not want to be that guy.
Yes, I do blame him for being a coward.
I believe that both Willis and Garland are doing their jobs. I don’t know why it is taking so long to bring indictments, but I do know that the level of surety required to do such is very high. Although it seems quite obvious to me that crimes have been committed and that our democracy depends on at least the pursuit of Justice, I cannot second guess and wait, not so patiently
It is incredibly difficult to wait, to keep faith that Merrick Garland and Jack Smith are working hard preparing to indict Trump, when the stakes are so frighteningly high and we have no insight on what’s happening inside the Justice Department. I wake up every morning hoping to see the bombshell announcement on the front page of the New York Times.
First thing I do every morning is look (hopefully) that the news is of his demise. Honestly, he is looking worse and worse to me--these latest clips/photos appear, to me at least, that he's packed on about 30 more pounds, the makeup is extra thick and even still, he seems TIRED. We know his diet is atrocious and we know he abhors exercise, I think an MI/stroke is overdue.
I live in Georgia. There's a countdown to the day Trump will be indicted. It is a certainty.
Fani Willis will have to hurry up and indict Trump before the new bill the Georgia Senate just passed gets signed into law. My understanding is that it allows [the Georgia legislature?] to remove from office any district attorney or prosecutor they think is guilty of overreach.
Pretty awful, isn’t that?
Did u watch Rachel last night?
Grace, I agree with you. trump has committed so many crimes, for so long, and the web of deceit in our government is so extensive, it will take years to unravel this.
I have no doubt that trump will be indicted. I honestly believe he has very little time left as a free man. I think he knows it too.
Glenn Kirschner. a former D.C. Federal prosecutor for 25 years does You Tube entries frequently. Last week, he was very excited that Jack Smith, Special Counsel, has requested that Judge Beryl Howell to force Pence to testify (to side step Pence's attempt @ defying his subpoena/dragging out his testimony.) Here's the link to that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSfWBhoYv2k
Barbara, I watch Glenn's YouTube channel almost everyday. He's one of the voices of reason who have kept me going through this mess.
Sorry, but I don't share your faith.
No need to be sorry. Your point of view certainly has validity. It will take all of us to get through this craziness.
DITTO !..........ALL! , of US!
On Rachel last night she featured the Georgia House & Senate passing a bill that THEY can fire DA they think are not doing their job. Word is the Gov will sign it. It may take time to go into effect so I hope it will spur Willis to act now
GRRR! In other words they want to stop any legitimate investigation of themselves.
Michael, sorry to contradict you, but the truth about Jan 6th is not etched into Republican voters’ minds at all. Most Republican voters still believe that the election was stolen*. They still believe that the investigation into the Jan 6th insurrection was rigged, biased*. They find ways to dismiss it, or to blame it on Democrats, the deep state or the media. Tucker Carlson will reinforce those beliefs. McCarthy wants to create an alternate reality about Jan 6th, one that shows Trump and his supporters did nothing wrong, and Tucker Carlson is going to make that happen.
The NYT has an ongoing series where they interview panels comprised of various voter groups. This panel of Republicans has been interviewed twice, 14 months ago, and again 2 months ago. It’s a long read, but it demonstrates that we mustn’t think that Republicans accept the facts, at all.
* https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/12/opinion/republican-focus-group.html
It's quite telling that Republican voters who hate government and don't want to pay taxes are the first ones to blame the government when something goes wrong--inflation, the train wreck, natural disasters, violence/crime--and demand action.
There John. Winner! Ding Ding. There are so many hopeful readers of these letters, who suggest that more Republicans are going to eventually come around. It is my belief that too many Republicans (if not statistically all of them) believe just as you describe, and will continue to do so. The phenomena is the most perplexing thing politically I have ever seen. That so many seemingly reasonable people would cling to this utter bullsh_t despite all evidence to the contrary. That is why Fox has not changed their tune yet (or ever). They know that force is still out there, is still strong, and they can still profit from them. They will spin this Dominion thing into some sort of victimhood story that the MAGAt's will eat up. This MAGA movement is a force that will - hell, has already but will continue to - diminish our nation from great status to also-ran status, if allowed to continue for much longer. The other great free nations of the world will cease to follow our lead; will relegate us to the annoying and dangerous carnival barkers that we are becoming. We saw the beginnings of that during Trump's term. Can you imagine if TFG found a way to win again in 2024? So far it is not out of the question. The very fact that it is a possibility, and that that orange dumpster fire monster is still walking around free and spouting the very lies that got him in trouble in the first place, is a giant setback for American democracy. Ask any European.
It is my very unfounded nor scientific belief that there are a lot of people, most actually. walking around with childhood Trauma or trauma. And for some of these people, they have a deep wound that they have neither acknowledge nor explored. And the wound can be exacerbated by all manner of life events. And the wound can prevent one from empathizing or sympathizing with others. An unhealed wound, grows, and becomes all encompassing, a seething just below the surface. Trump, with his rhetoric, taps directly into this wound. Of course, he knows how to do this because he is a walking wound himself. The embedded myth in this country that you be tough, don't cry, don't whine, sweep it under the rug or else you're a weenie does untold damage, untold til now that is.
Kim, that along with being forced to deny their reality by their family, living a lie is their culture. How existentially painful it would be to acknowledge the truth. Which is why I’ve always said once Hilary Clinton came out with It takes A Village, the wannabe fascists were all over her with lies and smears and trumped up investigations to destroy her. Imagine if the Clinton’s had gotten her health care proposals thru way back then. There would be a lot fewer vulnerable minds for the fascist to grow their hate. Entirely different times we’d be living in.
Republican propaganda from the moment republicans took her measure kept Hillary Clinton fighting for legitimacy from Arkansas to New York. Among the best of public servants, she was slandered during her entire public career by the GOP.
Correct - to their credit, they recognized very early that she was special, and an existential threat to their power. She was literally bombarded with innuendo and lies and accusations for years. She almost overcame it, but with the help of Putin (who feared her as much as the Republicans) she came up a little short. I am a huge Hillary fan. If only.......
Indeed.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/fastfact.html
After 2016 many journalists linked djt voting counties to the unhealthiest based on multiple measures. So your belief is NOT unfounded!
I work on animal welfare stuff and this shows up in that arena as well. It's all connected, sadly.
Thank you! I have been listening to Dr. Gabor Maté a lot lately and he talks about this too.
PTSD ! Personified! and Etched PERMENTLY ! in Anyone ,in MANKINDS Mind !
John R: Thanks for this link. I missed it when it appeared in the newspaper. It is dumbounding to see how uninformed these people are. They dismiss the Jan. 6 committee's findings, f.ex., without having watched the hearings or learned about what Republican witnesses said against their own. It does seem like nothing can penetrate the worship of their guy. The wall against facts is thick.
“Uninformed” implies that they never had access to information. This is different. The Republican base is “other informed”. They know all about the Jan 6th Committee’s work. They know all about the 2020 election results. They choose to reject this information, because it threatens their world view. This is why Fox lost viewership when they broadcast the actual election results, and regained those viewers when they began broadcasting Trump’s big lie. This is why Tucker Carlson is going to selectively edit all that footage, to make it look like Jan 6th was peaceful and patriotic. The Republican base knows what it wants to hear, and rejects anything that doesn’t fit.
Thanks for this. It really brings to life the tribalism and mistrust on the right, especially the old white men.
The answers of those Republican focus group are a tribute to the power of confirmation bias. They are also a tour of every shortcoming of our public education system. These people have no clue about how to think critically, how to take in and analyze complex information, how evaluate and distinguish between credible information sources and purveyors of bullshit who are deliberately manipulating them by playing on their emotions. They cannot grasp the complexity of our economy, and especially how long it takes for government policies that affect the macro economy (ex. inflation) to be visible at the grassroots level, or how factors external to government policy like the Covid pandemic can be shaped by good and bad policy decisions (Trump’s months of public Covid denial sabotaging the country’s chance to crush Covid early, and causing hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths because his inaction turbocharged the spread.) Attributing the good economy under Trump to Trump, instead of recognizing that Obama set up that success and Trump just coasted on taking credit for conditions created by his predecessor. It would take too long to describe the rest of the ways they are ignorant and missing higher thinking skills. I’ll stop there.
Elizabeth, I’m a high school teacher. Public education didn’t fail these people. They received the same education on civics, history and critical thinking that the rest of us did. They reject that education because they’ve joined the MAGA cult and it doesn’t fit the MAGA worldview. MAGA voters aren’t accidentally ignorant, they are intentionally, belligerently ignorant. Too many of us look at how ignorant they are and think, “it’s somebody’s - the schools, media, politicians’ - fault.” It’s not! MAGA voters choose ignorance, and do everything they can to support it. Don’t make public education a scape goat.
John, you're right and I apologize. I did not mean to make our _current_ public education system a scapegoat and I should have clarified. The millenials and Gen Z are showing in their politics that our education system recently is doing a much better job. I'm talking about mostly my generation, Baby Boomers. I went to high school in a suburb of Boston, but civics was not required, the history textbooks were still the kind that glorified what's good about our history and mostly whitewashed or omitted the parts of our past we should be ashamed about. There were only minimal references back then to massacres of Native Americans, to the way white settlers and the U.S. government pushed them off their land and effectively banished them to the least valuable and productive land available, and the government broke treaty after treaty with tribes. Minimal references to the full scope of the brutality of slavery and almost nothing about how the gains of Blacks during Reconstruction were systematically rolled back in Southern states to institute a new form of forced labor and subjugation called Jim Crow. And definitely nothing about slavery in the North. They did teach the injustice of the Salem witch trials and the evils of Senator McCarthy and the Committee on Un-American Activities, I'll give them that. And so forth. I think schools these days do a much better job teaching students everything they need to know to have a balanced view of our history, and critical thinking skills they can apply to current news and events, although Republicans in red states are now trying hard to return public education to the patriotism indoctrination of the 1950s and 1960s. I agree that you can only teach students what they are willing to learn and internalize. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, you can lead fools to culture but you can't make them think.
You're not contradicting me. My point: minds are made up. I don't believe there are large groups of voters on the fence about Jan. 6.
McCarthy and Carlson are doing a good job of keeping those who believe in the rule of law engaged and motivated. Their endeavor keeps Jan. 6 front and center when Republicans should want it to fade away in order to win back the power they so crave.
Good point, Michael.
Thanks for the link, BK!
Michael, thanks for anchoring this subject in logic.
Any amount of video, statements of fact or lies will make little difference. What will matter is turnout on election days. Yesterday, I was very excited by a post that led me to https://www.turnup.us/
Consider this: "The generational makeup of the United States is shifting dramatically. In 2024, Millennials and Gen Z will account for almost 45% of the electorate."
I say forget Fox and the aging, dying off soon Fox Fools. Concentrate on youth and the future. Cable TV is on a death march. More and more people are cutting the cord. We had dinner last night with some family. A young couple in their late 20s quietly listened as we elders talked about all the TV shows we have enjoyed. They revealed that they don't watch TV. They live on their phones or laptops. He is a mechanical engineer. She is a health care administrator. They are more than the future. They are the now.
It's all about who we can convince to vote. Let's focus on the generations that we can motivate to make a difference. That's what "turnup.us" is doing. It's brilliant.
Bill that is the problem. Young folk aren't watching television on their televisions, they are watching it on their phones. Young voters or even potential voters have zoned out current issues. If they can control what they watch, it's not going to be the C-Span daily recap or the daily press conference from the White House. It's going to be what's hot on their streaming services.
I listened to a talk last week about "How to get the Youth to the voting booth". It was interesting and chilling.
One of the biggest talking points was if the Supreme Court tanks Bidens plans for college fund reimbursements, so will it do the same for his re election. He will lose the vote of the parents, students who parrot their parents vote and much more. It is a far reaching problem that will point to him, not the source of the problem (bought and paid for Supreme Court).
The wave from the last election has aged out many of the participants. Strength in numbers worked phenomenally last go around. Those same folks don't necessarily have that same social structure. They moved on about their lives. As they should.
That said, turnup.us is a fantastic organization. They were mentioned in the talk I attended last week.
It is the youth that needs to be educated. They will inherent this horribly chaotic world we live in.
Good points. Accurate observations. But I am buoyed by the fact that in the long run the "American Melting Pot" is happening. Younger generations have grown up with diversity and differences as more normal than not.
I am optimistic that tolerance will prevail in the long run. This backward slide into bigotry and autocracy will not hold. Call me naive. But that's how I get through the day :)
Linda - wish I could disagree with you, but I cannot. I think that there was some political calculation in the student loan forgiveness plan. A decent idea with decent reasons, but also a political choice to help get out the vote. Same can be said for climate change promises. Issues that ought to be of interest to today's young adults. The Supreme Court, the McCarthy House, the Senate filibuster, and Fox News are doing their best to neuter these efforts entirely. And it is working for the most part. The average young voting age person - I have seen this first hand - will roll their eyes, declare that their government has once again failed them, and call it quits. Move on to something else instead of political awareness and activity. This new generation cannot be accused of being patient or persistent. More likely too many will throw their collective hands up in despair, act like ostriches, and tune out. An act of entitlement, or better yet a failure to act. I now personally think that the student loan forgiveness promise was a miscalculation that is backfiring, a miscalculation that will only better assure more gen Z'ers stay away from the polls on 2024. God I hope I'm wrong.
Jay, I'm with you 100% .
The demographics you describe should frighten the right. But they're too busy believing the endless lies and misinformation. Or as was often said at a large tech company where I once worked, they breathing their own fumes.
Michael, Carlson will have to do some creative editing to turn a riot into sightseeing.
There is plenty of video, in that illegally released set, of dumb white guys walking around inside the Capital looking dumbstruck.
That is what Carlson will feed to the bottom feeders in America.
Interesting that Carlson released these videos of protesters “reverently” walking though our Capitol building when he did. Last week, we know, he and other talking heads were exposed as never believing that Trump won 2020, but lying about it to the public. In case anyone on the right believes that Carlson lied, Carlson can drag them back in to the fold with these videos.
Repubs seem to have short memories, a demented connection with truth. Murdoch and friends admitting they lied, must come down to money. And he and the repubs, the party (cult?) and the followers seem to have an endless supply when it comes to buying “truth.”
True!
I live in a Red state & a county that is headquarters for the Freedom Caucus. The spin on the Jan 6th attack is strong with all sorts of variations. I choose not to ignore that too many believe spin over visual facts.
The "American consciousness" is no more monolithic than the American electorate is. It may be etched into your consciousness and mine, and we certainly believe it's true. Tucker's video isn't going to sway either of us, but it's likely to confirm millions upon millions of USians in what they already believe to be true.
Good point. The numbers, though, are on our side.
This is true -- but gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression are doing a pretty good job of making majorities look like minorities at the ballot box.
The erosion is indeed steady. Texas has now joined other states trying to bar voting on college campuses.
And here in blue Massachusetts, same-day voter registration got dropped from the VOTES Act passed and signed into law last year. Why? It was strenuously opposed by a member of the state house leadership who represents a Boston district with many, many college students. Our state primary is held in early September, and he was afraid of being primaried by newly registered student voters.
But which “truth” is etched in? The true truth or the “alternate truth”? More likely than not, both.
I couldn’t agree more - with your first sentence. To wit: he is also not changing the minds of tens of millions of Trump supporters. He is merely strengthening a narrative they clutch to without reserve, and providing video documentation. This will be used, incredibly I might add, to continue to prop up America’s most powerful and despicable lie. Carlson is amplifying a view that will coax from willing martyrs a terroristic response at some point when the fuse has been lit by some other relatively insignificant action.
How this got from the government to the media this easily is a total shock to me. The comparison may be inapt and I apologize if it is. But, on the one hand the law allows lengthy stays of justice based on the most specious, absurd grounds (I’m thinking at the moment of Pence’s “I’ll have it both ways” challenge in order not to testify). On the other hand, a government official can simply hand over raw American history unchecked by any rule to a single entity which is now probably the most corrupt media outlet of power America has ever been subjected to.
The legal system is fast becoming a dangerous joke for its inability to avoid twisting itself into knots allowing appeal after appeal after appeal. Justice delayed through too clever by half appeals to the nooks and crannies of the laws is justice denied.
I am reminded of Ernest Wilde’s play Salome grossly orgiastic and profane written in the depths of his libertinism being banned from Germany at the turn of the 20th century. When public demand for this spectacle became intense, the Kaiserin managed to get the authorities to evade the ban by the simple expedient of insisting that the Star of the Magi appear at the end of each performance, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil. Two hours of blood-soaked orgiastic wallowing was redeemed by a one minute appearance of the star. This is the kind of hypocrisy American law now excels in.
I have blamed and continue to blame Merrick Garland for his tortured waste of time at the beginning of his term, using valuable effort and resources to try to convince those whose ears are stopped to him that he really was an even-handed good guy who would apply the law equally to both sides. It was a cowardly failure. And now we are reaping the results as Trump promises to run if indicted. *Of course* he will. What does he have to lose. Rachel Maddie’s utterly lame comparison of Trump to Spiro Agnew last night was a joke. These are far far more turbulent times - the zeitgeist is completely different.
Professor Cox Richardson’s piece seemed a bit overblown to me until I thought for two seconds. It is one of her darkest warnings yet, in a quiet but unmistakeable tone that she rarely uses. From her vast experience and knowledge, she sees a probability that is deeply unsettling. Best we listen.
Apologize for length.
I have posted this elsewhere as a specific reply to Michael Bates’ comment that Carlson is not changing any minds. With whatever logic Substack applies, it did not appear here so did not look the least relevant. I am reposting in a second effort to place it properly. I apologize to those who notice it twice if this is considered bad form.
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I couldn’t agree more - with your first sentence. To wit: he is also not changing the minds of tens of millions of Trump supporters. He is merely strengthening a narrative they clutch to without reserve, and providing video documentation. This will be used, incredibly I might add, to continue to prop up America’s most powerful and despicable lie. Carlson is amplifying a view that will coax from willing martyrs a terroristic response at some point when the fuse has been lit by some other relatively insignificant action.
How this got from the government to the media this easily is a total shock to me. The comparison may be inapt and I apologize if it is. But, on the one hand the law allows lengthy stays of justice based on the most specious, absurd grounds (I’m thinking at the moment of Pence’s “I’ll have it both ways” challenge in order not to testify). On the other hand, a government official can simply hand over raw American history unchecked by any rule to a single entity which is now probably the most corrupt media outlet of power America has ever been subjected to.
The legal system is fast becoming a dangerous joke for its inability to avoid twisting itself into knots allowing appeal after appeal after appeal. Justice delayed through too clever by half appeals to the nooks and crannies of the laws is justice denied.
I am reminded of Ernest Wilde’s play Salome grossly orgiastic and profane written in the depths of his libertinism being banned from Germany at the turn of the 20th century. When public demand for this spectacle became intense, the Kaiserin managed to get the authorities to evade the ban by the simple expedient of insisting that the Star of the Magi appear at the end of each performance, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil. Two hours of blood-soaked orgiastic wallowing was redeemed by a one minute appearance of the star. This is the kind of hypocrisy American law now excels in.
I have blamed and continue to blame Merrick Garland for his tortured waste of time at the beginning of his term, using valuable effort and resources to try to convince those whose ears are stopped to him that he really was an even-handed good guy who would apply the law equally to both sides. It was a cowardly failure. And now we are reaping the results as Trump promises to run if indicted. *Of course* he will. What does he have to lose. Rachel Maddie’s utterly lame comparison of Trump to Spiro Agnew last night was a joke. These are far far more turbulent times - the zeitgeist is completely different.
Professor Cox Richardson’s piece seemed a bit overblown to me until I thought for two seconds. It is one of her darkest warnings yet, in a quiet but unmistakeable tone that she rarely uses. From her vast experience and knowledge, she sees a probability that is deeply unsettling. Best we listen.
Apologize for length.
Democratic members of Congress are doing the right thing, calling out the lies and confronting Republicans in Committee rooms and in the press.
We need this righteous chorus, unrelentingly and directly in the faces of those who spread not just lies, but the fascist rhetoric of Trump and his spawn DeSantis – as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than Trump himself.
Cracks are showing in the Republican façade – it is time to break it up.
Hand me the wedge.
I’ll bring hammers to pound in the wedges.
I agree that the Dems should point out the lies but I don't think it matters for a lot of these MAGA folks. They've drunk the kool-aid and are high on their entitlement and anger. It's like they're getting high on it. Addicts, can't wait for the next high with no cares for anything but that high, even if it kills them.
It matters less that it impacts all who might be aware of any particular exchange, but it matters a great deal that more exchanges take place where Republican members are caught in the act of lying.
My comment referenced Congress, in which the Republicans now control House Committees. These hearings are often televised, covered widely by the media, and provide an unusually rich opportunity to confront misinformation.
Incremental victories are still victories.
"High on their entitlement and anger" describes it very well -- in fact, it describes 1/6/21 very well.
I wouldn't call myself optimistic exactly, but I have been encouraged in the last year by the resistance to the right's attempts to ban abortion. The vote in the Kansas referendum blew almost everyone out of the water, and while that victory was pretty spectacular, there have been others. And more and more people are waking up to the real-life, on-the-ground implications of those particular laws.
Thanks for writing Susanna, and reminding us of those moments that give us hope.
They're not adding water to the kool-aid, they're snorting it dry out of the package.
Chris, what an image on this Wednesday morning in India….
I agree, Kim. Let's not give oxygen to their craziness.
Problem here, Kim, is their “high” is going to kill us too!
Yes, Elisabeth, I am concerned about that too.
The excerpts from Trump’s speech are eerily like Hitler’s appeals in Germany. Chilling to read.
According to 1st wife Ivana he kept a copy of Hitler's speeches next to his bed.
Trump is not stupid. He is a master practitioner of the grifter's art and the power of persuasion. Hitler may be one of the few books he would read but it would be for a purpose.
https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1550283560380145664?lang=en
💯💯💯💯💯exactly I wish people would stop calling him an idiot or stupid. He is intentionally ignorant on everything except his craft of deceit, stealing, grift, etc. which he has honed to perfection
Christy, those of us who grew up in New York City during his real estate slash and burn, know all too well he was never stupid. But like all mob bosses, he has gotten away with murder. I think his karma is coming around to bite him in the ass.....
🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼It’s about time!!!
I can only hope!!!
Yes, Christy, I do agree. Dumb is dumb. He is not that. Stupid is a choice. He is that. I am extremely cautious of stupid people.
🗽
He kept a copy of Mein Kampf at his bedside.
🗽
Seems like his speech writer relied rather heavily on a thesaurus.
Anyone dumb enough to work for Trump couldn't spell thesaurus, let alone know what it was used for.
In rebuttal, TC: Cassidy Hutchinson. Bolton. Pompeo. Eastman. The last three named are indescribably evil; the first one naive. There are buttloads of mentally agile folks supporting T💩p. It’s best not to ignore that fact, and give support to the mentally agile on our side with scruples instead of greed, honesty without prevarication, and empathy without sociopathy.
It is absolutely astounding to me what people will ignore in order to hold on to their "principles."
When l consider what people can believe if it's presented as religious truth, I am not even surprised. Long, long ago I learned the aphorism "A fanatic is someone who's lost sight of his purpose." There's a lot of truth in that.
Fascists are morons. It's why they were defeated in World War II. That doesn't mean they're not dangerous.
Sizzlin’, TC. Sizzlin’.
🗽
Just a side issue, TC, having just read your last personal piece on Trump at CPAC including the subject of Mussolini. You might also like to read Paul Corner's recent book entitled "Mussolini in Myth and Memory". He looks at the recent myth-making, what people actually remember against reality and how it is being shaped to serve today's purpose....for some!
Or AI?
I'd like to complete his speech with: "I am your delusion, your demon, your destruction."
KEM, I didn't listen to him, but read some of the BS he was spewing. I got a strong impression he was trying to resurrect his role as their messiah again.
His remarks that Heather quoted reminded me of the religious right and their rhetoric.
The redeemer theme is crazy Hitler speak.
Whoaaa... this gives me some hope for humanity, in that maybe there aren't as many soulless MAGA Rethugs as there appeared to be...
"News broke today that an Israeli tech firm has uncovered a vast network of as many as hundreds of thousands of fake Twitter accounts designed to promote Trump and his vision, creating the illusion that he is more popular than he is. The analysts at the firm, Cyabra, believe the system was created within the U.S. “One account will say, ‘Biden is trying to take our guns; Trump was the best,’ and another will say, ‘Jan. 6 was a lie and Trump was innocent,’” said the engineer who discovered the network, Jules Gross. “Those voices are not people. For the sake of democracy I want people to know this is happening.”"
YayJules Gross. Thanks to HCR and this forum. I am grateful for several recent links given by fellow readers. Rock on y’all.
Sane, responsible people are rarely considered "news".
Sad 😔 but true 😔
That they've found a home?
While lies upon lies may never bother the MAGAT base; we have all had the opportunity to see the subterfuge first hand and unmodified. The real question remains, "How much money does it take to steal/buy an election?"
What did Elon Musk have to say about the fake 🤔 accounts?
Nothing, too busy screwing up Twitter and hanging with Scott Adams.
Elon bought Twitter to let loose fake accounts clamoring to bring on fascism. He is a cog in the wheel
Yes, remember that when you shop for an EV!
Probably sad 😔 but true 😔
Look, this is not the time to sit on our laurels! Tonight, Rachel reported that the Republican party in both the Georgia State House and Senate are sending a bill to Kemp, their governor, to disallow any prosecutors from investigating Trump and others regarding the J6 insurrection/election deniers. This means Fani Willis will NOT be able to proceed with her case. Democracy is seriously at stake here! How the hell do they think they can away with anything like this? How is it they are so many steps ahead of the Dems in invoking their evil scenarios? Are our reps merely asleep at the wheel, all of the effing time?!! Do we have any loopholes to hold onto and make them stick?
The only good thing I saw today was that Indivisible is creating something new having to do with reaching out to the populations in rural areas. That is where we lack decent representation. And Heather, CA will take Hakeem Jeffries any time!
The bill once signed will not take effect before the end of the year. Fani Willis will have proceeded with her case long before that. If they want to obviously interfere in the middle of a trial, let them.
Can you document that important distinction? A reporter for the Atlanta paper on Rachel tonight said it would be a matter only of two weeks or so before it woukd be effective? Many thanks for more information as this is very dangerous territory for our democracy to survive?
Every other report says it will be signed in a few weeks, but bills in Georgia once signed don't immediately become laws till the end of the term.
I'll hang on to that .
TC,
If Fani Willis is smart, she will drop the case against Trump.
She is a black woman in Georgia prosecuting one of the most popular white supremacists in history.
IF the state passes a law against arresting Trump and she goes ahead and arrests him anyway, regardless of the onset date, her life will be in constant danger.
Trump is not worth a dead Fani Willis TC.
“Ain’t nobody here but us chickens”? As you’ve pointed out, (and where is Sandy Lewis?) black women are the strength in this battle. Willis is a woman of courage. Had others not preceded her she’d not hold the position she does. She does this for our daughters and our future.
Gail, wow---you are correct, I haven't see Sandy post anything in weeks if not months!
Sandy Lewis, where are you? I've also noticed his absence, and missed his reminding, consistant, dedicated message. Dr. Richardson may be picking it up with a different style.
Liz, I was just thinking about him the other day. I miss his banter, however I don't miss his misogynistic views about Heather. Nope, not one bit.
Seen too many John Lewis, MLK’s, Medgar Evers, etc to imagine Fani Willis acting like a lily livered white person
Hey hey hey !
She shows Courage and should proceed what is right...I am sure she is aware of any possible danger...
I disagree with you, Mike. Believe me, from Day One, Fani has herself surrounded by law enforcement she can trust. Her life has been threatened many times while she has been gathering evidence. These people can’t stand the fact that she’s a very smart black woman in a powerful position that could bring their “god” down. A big FU would be if she could file a lawsuit against those members in the State and House legislatures who want her to quiver and squirm. Nothing like turnabout is fair play!
We're going to have to agree to disagree.
How is that possible? They can pass a bill to stop prosecutions of people just because they want to? That is crazy.
“States rights” trumps everything for the Rs. They’re effectively using the levers of government to support their agenda which the majority of Americans are against.
They’re so hypocritical. For a party that says they want “small government” and government to stay out of our lives, they’re doing way too much damage.
I agree that the Ds need to be more proactive and strategic-especially in red states.
My question exactly! Will have to watch that Rachel episode.
Marlene- Robert Hubble addresses this bill in his latest Substack. His explanation on timeline of the bill will put your mind at ease ( at least until 2024).
I will read it this morning. Thanks!
Creating a pre-emptive law that makes it illegal to charge anyone engaging in constitutionally protected free speech with criminal acts is dictatorial. If your charge is found to have no merit or be intentionally so you can be countersued or charged with abusing the legal system with intent to cause injury. The GOP, Kemp, Fox and many other creeps are flooding America with opportunities for just that.
Marlene, do you think we could trade McCarthy for Jeffries? (:-)
Oh, Fay…in a hot minute!
What’s the shortest amount of time the new grand jury can take to indict? Please can we “get ‘er done”
And please MSM shine a bright light on this grab for power to cover up crimes and steal our equal justice for all (such that it is)
The MT legislature had a bill SB372 to give the legislature authority to appoint district judges & state Supreme Court judges. The bill barely died in committee 5-6 vote. The Freedom Caucus will try again in MT. The Congress in Mt is a super majority of people who call themselves Republicans .
My heartfelt condolences, Carole. Apparently they want the same pro corporate legal system in Montana that we have at the Federal level.
We have to go back to “1984” to see what the GOP is becoming. It makes my blood run cold.
“There is nothing subtle about Trump’s behavior. He lies, he repeats the lie, and his listeners either cower in fear, stammer in disbelief, or try to see how they can turn the lie to their own benefit. Trump’s lies are pure Big Brother crude. The blind, blatant disregard for truth is offered in an ancient tone of rage, vanity, and vengeance. Trump is pure raging authoritarian id.And so, rereading Orwell, one is reminded of what Orwell got right about this kind of brute authoritarianism—and that was essentially that it rests on lies told so often, and so repeatedly, that fighting the lie becomes not simply more dangerous but more exhausting than repeating it.”
Orwell’s “1984” and Trump’s America | The New Yorker (2017)
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/orwells-1984-and-trumps-america
Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024 - BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57122120
Some fact checkers discovered more than 25 blatant lies in tfg's CPAC rant, adding to the 31,000 or so false statements that another person has counted since tfg appeared on the big stage. And after all the lies and chaos at FNC with tucker c and his teammates, including the Boss, Rupert, even admitting to peddling lies, they continue to manipulate their audience with more lies. How braindead are those viewers that they still believe anything that is being broadcast on that channel?
Part of what goes wrong when former democracies sink into despotism is that the sheer volume of lies becomes so overwhelming that they become hard to highlight, challenge and hold accountable; similar to what happens when invading bacteria overwhelm a body's immune system and produce sepsis. We surely need to hold the line.
"Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people." -John Adams
Much squealing, distress and righteous indignation.
Meanwhile it is human lives that are being nipped in the bud.
Lives, liberty, sanity. Worldwide -- especially in Ukraine. So far.
And it is arbitrary power that is out there, among us, nipping life in the bud.
I believe that the wealthy, technologically advanced US still leads the world (or did) in per capita COVID deaths, just for starters.
With all due respect to one of our founders, since when does a maxim do anything? Even if it’s a good maxim it just sits there until it’s taken to heart and moved on by we the people.
The same with the Constitution; and isolated quotations prove little except that, in many cases, Republicans are misrepresenting the history and the earlier historical mindset of the founders,. The anti-authoritarianism of our founding philosophies was applied shockingly unevenly, yet those Enlightenment Era principles have tacked against the wind into some of the more Woke streams of consciousness that now circulate in our society (End of explicit slavery and "Jim Crow" laws, women's suffrage, rights of workers, responsible sexual freedoms, etc.) that contrast with the authoritarian dark ages Republicans seem eager to restore.
And some strings of words provide a useful shorthand when they seem to hit the nail on the head.
Amen!
I stole your line when I posted this LFAA on my FB page. I hope you don’t mind.
Every word out of his mouth is a lie, including "and" and "the."
And “comma” and “period”....
And I think that actions based on lies, individually or as a national policy, are rather like flying in a fog with totally bad instruments. Maybe you'll luck out, but the odds of disaster are over the top. We as a society have become far too inured to significant lies, and it is literally killing us. Truth can be illusive but lies are deliberate, and often provable. We need to make lies and liars a far more visible issue and demand verifiable chains of evident in matters that matter, of which there are many. Some kinds of provable lies, especially from a position of entrusted authority, should be a matter of law, others a matter of decisive social rejection.
VERY. Marli.
I keep wondering, was the golden statue of trump on display again?
Yes!
I keep wondering if the trump golden boy wasn't clever snark from some shadowy social commentary artist, like Banksy, but with a far less subtle "slapstick" style.
No, he's a full-on Trumpmoron.
Right on, Kristin, Orwell's 'Animal Farm' also showcases trumps authoritarian behavior.
Kristin, I included a reference to Orwell’s 1984 in my comment, too. Thank you for expanding with links to articles about the dangers of “Trump’s America.” The fact that the repub lies are not challenged supports how effective the repub campaign and party are: lying, banning books, ignoring security risks, and essentially not governing. It’s the Wild West.
"rereading Orwell, one is reminded of what Orwell got right about this kind of brute authoritarianism—and that was essentially that it rests on lies told so often, and so repeatedly, that fighting the lie becomes not simply more dangerous but more exhausting than repeating it.”
I think that big lies and big liars have been part of the human condition so long as out species has existed, but big lies in our society on a national scale have ebbed and flowed, simultaneously, with the balance shifting now and again. I think that the endlessly repeat big lies, no matter what, became a central strategy to the former Republican Party with Reagan, and that big lies, inadequately called out and concertedly resisted, have become increasingly dangerous over time. Perhaps the sheer transparency of the cultivated social psychosis is now enough to energize sufficient and widespread resistance. If not, we'll be in a hell of a fix.
So many good arguments for how and why the Republican party, and especially the MAGA wing of the party, has become so corrupt and dangerous to the Republic.
The problem is that we're all preaching to the choir. We're all patting ourselves on the back in own own little self-righteous echo chamber. MAGA Republicans don't read any of this. And they wouldn't trust it if they did. They've already decided who and what they want to believe, and by God they're sticking to it. Rational arguments do not change minds that have been seduced by the demagogue. Have you talked to any of them lately? Regardless of the devil they choose in the next election, they haven't budged an inch.
I wouldn't get too comfortable.
The time for preaching and for rage is over. If Trump, himself, should disappear from the stage of our current history, the fascism in the Republican party that he made overt and acceptable will not die with him. At this point Trump is close to irrelevant. Cruz, DeSantis, Hawley and a host of other Trump acolytes are young, well educated and consumed by obscessive ambition to rule this nation. They seek , by any means necessary, nothing less than a One Party State.Unlike Trump, they wish to be feared not loved. A chain of serial election defeats in national and state elections--in purple states--over perhaps 20 years will be necessary but insufficient by itself to drive the fascist contagion back into the dormant “spore” stage of its life cycle. Italy in the 1980s and France today prove that. Like anthrax, the spores of fascist politics are always there. The most effective antidote to MAGA fascism in the corrupted Republican Party is massive turnout at the polls, contribution by ordinary citizens of time and money , sustained activism and high turnout of all those who understand the threat but do not vote. Can we be an effective Democracy when since the 1984 election turnout in National and State elections has never exceed 55% of those eligible to vote. As Franklin said, “We have a Republic, if we can keep it”. If fascism wins, it will be because of the political indifference of the American voters.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises. - Lincoln
True and yet while such assuring one another that it's awful is only palliative, clarity is potent weapon against dishonesty. That part of how a skilled and ethical prosecutor works. And democracy is dead in the water without conversation. Successful social movements highlight things society is reluctant to tackle, or even acknowledge. They keep a spotlight trained on an injustice until it becomes hard to ignore. Progress is rarely comfortable.
"The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol had arranged to transfer the films to the National Archives,"
Why was this not done before the Republican takeover?
Whose legal property are those "films"? By what right are they transferred to whomever? Could someone in the government pass out other historical documents to Putin or their grandson if they so chose?
Underneath the facade of every Republican politician spouting white Christian heterosexual values is a closeted drag queen such as Ron DeSantis, who performs under the name Rhonda Santis and is the lead singer for the conservative drag queen band Rhonda Santis and the White Noise.
Love your pun on Ron's drag queen name. I saw a drag show in San Francisco decades ago at Finocchio's. It closed in 1999. It was a lot of good, clean fun and entertainment. I don't understand why people can't just live and let live. Straight white men seem to think being gay is contagious and that makes them afraid of it. Makes me consider who is the weaker sex in all this.
Perhaps it makes them question their own manhood because of a deep seated fear that…just maybe…they could be a little gay themselves.
I’ve also enjoyed every drag show I’ve been to. So much harmless fun.
I think that they're more worried that another man could treat them the way they have treated women.
Seems that the weaker sex is the one most threatened by it, for whatever reason. Apparently their masculinity and manhood is so fragile, that a drag queen could topple it?
Gerald: my name is Ira Lechner; you have an extra “i” in yours. Question: by any chance is your family originally from Romania and is Jewish as is mine? If so, “cousin”, let’s talk? Thanks
It must be true. I read it online! ;)
LOL
The GOP has been based on lies ever since Reagan declared that the government is the problem and that trickle down is the basis for a fair economy. He knew, as do all who have come since, that government is the only effective tool to rein in out of control capitalism. What we are seeing now is the true trickle down of Reagan. Once the American people bought those lies, they were primed to believe anything, especially as amplified by Gingrich, Limbaugh, the Tea Party, Fox News, and the Freedom Caucus. Reality left the building a long time ago.
I think it is clear from what what Reagan actually did, and his acolytes since, that "Government" has become an obfuscating label for what Republicans are really attacking; democracy and the common good. And yes, Reagan's candy-coated alternative is updated forms of feudalism under the veneer.
<snip>But in the years since Trump took office, previously uninterested Americans have seen what it means when those who believe in that vision take power.
Those who believe in equality before the law are standing up for that principle. <unsnip>
A more personal example is my daughter, 19. Last week, she joined me on the couch watching KET coverage of the Kentucky legislature. This 80% GOP body has passed recent incinderary bills including some nasty hate rhetoric speeches (aka crap).
Her comment was: 'Guess I had better join you watching this crap, I to see what I need to fight back against next.'
May her spirit metastasize around the land
The repub grift is never ending and the party has no shame. K. McCarthy is playing out a repub script where the chances of accountability are remote. Giving exclusive access to 44,000 hours of Jan 6 video to Tucker Carlson and Fox. Can’t believe with all the trouble Fox is in that they would touch the video with a ten foot pole. In his favor are distraction and a following of voters and nonvoters who look only for R to guide them. “Carlson’s coverage of the videos started tonight, with him depicting the rioters as “sightseers” and claiming that other media outlets have lied about the violence on January 6.” What do viewers see with their own eyes? George Orwell’s 1984 is a lesson in lies and doublespeak. That should be required reading. The repubs are masters of both.
“virtual political reality”
Technologically Amplified Lies.
Thank you for this post showing the disgusting work of FNC in the hands of Tucker. Finally, it was great to read how others are stepping forward to call out and demonstrate the lies that falsely offer a fake account of what we all saw on January 6, 2021. We will overcome.
I am reading Jon Meacham's biography of Abraham Lincoln, and I am just at the point of finishing the passages in Chapter 14 that describe the goings-on at the Democratic Presidential Convention that was held in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1860. Your description of the CPAC circus this past weekend in Washington DC is redolent of Jon Meacham's depiction of the 1860 Democratic convention , except that MAGAhats were nowhere in sight, but sideburns and hoop skirts were apparently well represented, along with overweening pride, arrogance, and attitude. As to the Democratic Party platform of 1860, it was indistinguishable from the popcorn antics that Trump boosters were braying about during the weekend's proceedings. The same sort of apocalyptic atmosphere prevailed at both events; except that delegations from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Texas withdrew early in disagreement with Northern Democrats, soon to be followed by delegations from Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia. Not to put a fine point on things, the Southern Democrats also lost the vote on the party platform by a vote of 165 to 138, in a battle that was all about preserving and advancing the cause of slavery. The Democrats' champion, Stephen Douglas, was unable to get the two thirds majority vote needed for him to become the Democratic Party's nominee at the Charleston convention. Without the radical Southerners to oppose them, the Regular Democrats soon reconvened in Baltimore, where Douglas secured his nomination, for what little it was worth. This was a pyrrhic victory, as the Democratic Party was by then irrevocably split, with one dissident faction opting to nominate the then Vice President John C Breckinridge, a Kentuckian, to represent what was left of the Democratic Party. A fourth candidate for president in the person of John Bell of Tennessee represented a group calling itself the Constitutional Union Party, which hope to preserve the Union while trying to downplay the slavery issue. John Bell was a relative moderate who embodied the ethos of the remnant of what used to be the historic Whig Party under the great Henry Clay. Most Whigs opted to affiliate with the up-and-coming Republican Party on its platform of funding internal improvements that promote interstate commerce.
Metaphorically speaking, from an astronomical perspective, what the nation saw was the equivalent of a dying star that was overtaken by its own heat and gravity until it blew itself to smithereens. What was left from the self-immolation of the Democratic Party were shards and pieces of what was once the dominant political party in America, now facing the new, and vital Republican Party, soon to be led by Abraham Lincoln in the race for the White House.
We are seeing echoes of the Democratic Party of 1860's implosion in the CPAC's meeting of today. The pressure and temperature are rising to unsupportable levels, with most Americans looking for peace and harmony. The party of Trump is a minority within the overall politics of America today; but, to carry the metaphor further, like the white dwarf star that survives the star that are formerly was, it is white-hot and infinitely dangerous, and to push the matter for further, it is spinning madly about, spewing deadly radiation in every direction. The question is, can the modern Democratic Party, led by Joe Biden, with his Lincolnesque mien and common decency, survive the radioactive fallout this weekend's grotesque reincarnation of the radical Southern Democrats of 1860. As that group of radicals reside within its own echo chamber, so does the Party of Trump. We can only hope and pray that the Democrats do reach out to the broad middle where nobody is looking to dissolve the Union, because today's radicals are no less anxious to destroy the federal Union than their forebears were in 1860 and 1861. Back then, it was all about preserving and celebrating slavery, today the mantra is somewhat more nuanced, but no less dangerous. And the same evil cast of characters has again appeared in our midst to destroy what the new Republican president would describe as, "the last best hope on earth".
I, too, am reading Meacham's book, and it is chilling in the parallels. (I posted this a few minutes ago before I read your comment.)
👍 on the metaphor of a dying star