Can we now assume that the only remaining Trump supporters are a combination of “true believers” Q Anon and conspiracy freaks, wannabe alpha males, militias and street brawlers, Christian nationalists, and the most uneducated, hateful and racist amongst us? Hitler had similar a similar mix of hard core supporters and freaks before he shot himself in his bunker.
No wonder Trump is rushing the construct his new bunker to be buried like the “Pharos of old” with the wealth of Egypt, but this time the United States . Trump’s sons no doubt will want the rest.
Paul Krugman published an excellent analysis yesterday of the US citizens who still support Trump on the economy. He dissected the numbers to show that it is only about 20% of the population, and they are almost entirely diehard MAGAts. It's on Krugman's substack and is well worth a read.
There are some concerning observations that can be gleaned from Paul Krugman's recent post that are not at all optimistic.
The percentage of US adult citizens who identify as MAGA supporters has been steadily increasing since September 2022, rising from 11% to 19%. In other words, it grew from 1 in 9 of your adult citizen neighbors being MAGA to close to 1 in 5. In spite of the illegality, corruption, and failures of the Trump administration, his committed base is GROWING as a fraction of the electorate. Almost doubling in 3.5 years is frightening given Trump's track record. His supporters are literally doubling down as he does.
The comparison is to the US citizen population, which I would expect to be growing, but Krugman hasn't cited his sources in the article. I am going to use Perplexity to see if I can identify the sources he used to answer the question, "Are there more MAGA self-identified supporters than there were in 2023?" If I find anything useful. I will post later in the day.
The trend in the percentage of Republicans who self-identify as MAGA is also rising steeply, but it is not as cleanly interpretable. One possibility is that the total number of Republicans is shrinking as the last "RINOs" are driven out of the party. This is the red line on Krugman's graph. The growth has been from 38% to 62% of the party. Regardless of whether the party grew or shrank, what remains is much more deeply committed to MAGA.
This is the explanation for why Massey, Cassidy, and Cornyn lost their primaries. There is now a large majority of Republicans who are committed MAGA. That suggests there will be even fewer Republicans elected to Congress who are willing to seek bipartisan compromises.
These changes are really rapid. I think that the siloization of the media has worsened over the last 3.5 years, and the amounts of money that are being thrown into these races has exploded. I also think there has been a "go with strength" mantra in Trumpworld around how he is busting norms and owning the libs.
If it takes 3.5% of the population to be demonstrating against a regime to topple it, what does 19% of the adult citizens as committed MAGA imply about our future?
If you study social sciences and communication, you know that the bottom 20% of almost any population is pretty horrible. I don't think the percentage of people who are racist, sexist, frightened and stupid has changed. It is just that they have found a cult leader they can coalesce around.
Another lesson from social sciences and communication is that many people who have publicly stated a position will rather die, literally, than retreat from that position.
We cannot be afraid of the worst 20% among us, nor can we let them guide our path or the path of the United States into the future.
I would be less concerned if the percentage of the electorate that is hard MAGA had remained constant. The fact that it has nearly doubled over 4 years is what shocks me.
Democrats misread the situation in 2024. We cannot afford to misread it a second time. Trump is actively trying to incentivize and mobilize the MAGA base with the slush fund. If it is deemed unconstitutional, he will sell it to his base as the liberal elites thwarting his (and their) just cause. So whether he can reward them or not, they will be motivated to come to his defense. Trump’s messaging to his base remains adroit.
The Trump family's $250 bili is really a discount coupon for 1 gallon of Trumpgas...available exclusively at the new bunkerballroom in DC.
Buy 5 gallons and get a free maGAS hat!.....but wait, there's more...fill up your pick up and one of our loyal SCOTUS team members will wash your windshield too......that's SCOTUS with a smile!
Much of the MAGA support is due to the election. Several of my neighbors think that MAGA is the same as the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan. And yes, Reagan did get us headed down the path of huge tax cuts for the rich and cutting the Federal budget, but this also led us to deficits and a recession.
My MAGA neighbors are all over 70 years old and aren't really paying attention to what is happening in DC or even in their own state capital. They have and always will vote straight ticket Republican. Their parents were Republican and their grandparents as well. They are part of the deaf, dumb and blind Republican cult which has been smothered out by the MAGAs.
It's not worth wasted our breath over them. We just continue to love them for the great friends and neighbors. What's our option?
I’m 73. During the Reagan years I was a Republican, born of Republican parents descended from Great Grandparents that despised unions and FDR’s New Deal
I believed that being Republican meant being fiscally responsible, and concerned about protecting the Constitution but “The Party” no longer represents these beliefs. These are just labels. I have grown more aware of social injustice and as the GOP now embraces injustice, I stay put in my beliefs as MAGA Repubs move to the edge of the cliff
There are many people of my generation undressing from the Costume of Party and coalescing under the banner of what Jesus called “the lesser of these”
Its the Protection of Humanity Party now, vs The Protection of Ungodly Wealth Party; 99% vs 1%
I am well over 70 and the first president I cast a vote for was Eisenhower. I was, as you rightly stated, a Republican because that is what my mother was. As a much younger person I paid little to no attention to politics or parties. As I grew up, graduated from college and entered the "adult" world I began to think for myself. I became a Democrat because that is the party that seemed to have the better values if not always the best ideas of how to implement them. There was another thing though, and that was that I began to think for myself and at times I voted for the republican candidate because that person was the better choice--and in that vane I was dropped from the local democratic party because I refused to publicly support their candidate because he was totally unacceptable. My final revelation was when the Republican that I had voted for many years ago became a Democrat in order to subvert all the misery being committed on the least fortunate and do good for all.
Reagan and his policies are responsible for starting the long road to today's fascist Oligarchy and nationalist Evangelical Christian theocracy that we are having to deal with today. MAGA wouldn't have happened without the history of the GOP from the Reagan administration until today's fascist GOP.
I'm tired of so many people lumping every member of my generation as responsible for everything bad in the world. In fact it was a majority of all white voters, including women who voted for trump.
I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people who subscribe to this site and comment here are boomers who don't support the GOP and voted against trump and the Oligarchs.
Georgia ... I suggest that people will be less concerned if we all focus less on how fast the metaphorical bull needs to run at the metaphorical cape, and focused more on what needs to change in the bulls thinking to the point where the metaphorical matador starts realizing he's in a world of hurt. That is the point I was making in my post this morning. The post got buried too deep so the link isn't working so here's a copy of my comment:
200 + 50 (inspired by and sung to the tune of Stephen Still’s 4 + 20):
A different kind of poverty now upsets our soul;
Night after sleepless night;
We walk the floor and we want to know;
Why are we so alone?
Where is truth? Can we bring her home?
Have they driven her away?
Is she gone?
Two hundred and 50 years ago;
She came into this life;
Then from men and women who live in strife she was torn;
And now she’s into selling door to door;
That she’s tryin’ like the devil to be born.
Two parties in an unfamiliar context draw conflicting conclusions while observing the same evidence because the probability that two parties in an unfamiliar context will use the same logic is virtually zero.
Ideally, they’re doing the right thing by practicing politics like three musketeers (all for one and one for all), but not because they’re expecting irrefutable evidence to magically change. Instead, the testable logic is tested to identify its flaws. Then the flaw is corrected. Then the process repeats.
In the end, both parties in a now-familiar context draw harmonious conclusions while observing the same evidence because the probability that, if they know they are human and not some other (frog or scorpion) species, they are serving the common interest and both sides are winning.
We don’t need faith that right makes might. We know that right makes might. And it’s déjà vu all over again.
Democracy is fragile. Joe Biden was convinced by the Clintons not to run in 2015 when he should have so he took it in 2020 and his age became an issue in 2024. He was too selfish to be a one termer I’m sure the thought of being president for the 250th loomed large. Many revenge votes and they voted trump into office. It’s as simple as that.
I honestly don't believe Biden was being selfish. Ill-advised, yes; but not selfish. I think he truly thought "the job isn't finished" and he was right. He was doing a lot of great things for the US, increasing job development and a host of other positives.
Georgia, do you believe it is actually Trump managing these adroit moves? I cannot conceive that. His dementia is at a point where he exhibits tangential thinking to an alarming degree. His inability to control his emotions also suggests a weakening prefrontal cortex - which also affects his ability to make or carry out plans — or to change plans when new information is available. Our Executive has deteriorating executive function.
My theory is that the Uber-Capitalists and Nazis behind the curtain are doing the plotting and then whispering just the right combination of flattery and incitement to make their puppet dance.
I think an important point here is that the worst effects of Trump’s policies are yet to be evident. I have always maintained that MAGA will not be taken to the cleaners until they can be made to feel the fullest possible effects of his policies.
What is most crucial to MAGA is the belief that Trump ‘has their backs’. This has always been the key to the success of his con. The fact is, of course that he never had their backs, and if they can be brought to understand that, they will turn on him. To paraphrase an old saw, Hell hath no fury like a MAGA scorned.
The good news is that Trump is constitutionally unable to alter course except for brief moments when, for example, some stock market drop temporarily shudders him. But soon enough, he returns to his self-destructive path.
I don’t for a moment deny the danger we are in - perhaps the greatest since 1861 - but at the same time that he’s the proximate cause if that danger, Trump, by his stubborn intransigence and yet utter incompetence, is also the lesson we needed in the essential fragility of our Republic.
The only question remains to see if enough of us are willing to learn it without overblowing it.
“ I would be less concerned if the percentage of the electorate that is hard MAGA had remained constant.”. I may be reading the post above, but I read it that the growing percent of MAGA is within a shrinking Republican party.
So the Republicans are narrowing their coalition while shrinking it.
In business, you learn to count on the behaviors of the 20% you mention. Reliably 20 % refuse to quit tobacco use, will drive while impaired, pay their loans late (or not at all), and a host of other asocial behaviors. While these aren’t always the same people from category to category, this is pretty reliable.
If one were a presidential candidate, one might be tempted to use the word… deplorable?
@Estatic Rationalist. You are propably right that MAGA is a cult. Most of them were net losers under Trump tax "cuts." I estimate that 90% did better under Biden.
In this country the bottom 20% is protected by a safety net, and more thasn 20% of the general population is eligible to recieve some form of government assistance.
During the past 2 election cycles I begged our candidates to find those on SSI, assistance, etc. who were registered Republicans to show them they were voting against themselves.
". . . nor can we let them guide our path . . . into the future."
Sorry, Ecstatic, they have been "guiding our path" for more than a decade now.
Dems who have no humanities -- no abilities to access them, to align them with current reality of millions -- these Dems ensure that the forces of bitterness, anger, paranoia, hatred, and suspicion all rule. Continue to rule. Exploited by criminal Donald echoing their lives' experience of having been, being "treated so unfairly by . . .."
Phil, I have been noticing evidence that our citizenry (of both parties) have been experiencing significant, long-term, uncontrollable stress for some years now. This is the exact kind of stress that weakens executive function: memory; ability to make, carry out, and adapt plans; and ability to control emotions (resulting in fear, anger, and/or freezing).
I see this in many friends and total strangers - that “deer in the headlights” look that means an inability to understand and absorb new information or reconsider their position.
I find it frightening. This is the kind of non-thinking that leads to impulsivity and general combativeness. It’s the fuel of MAGA as well as an inability to effectively fight MAGA. Obviously many of us are resilient enough to work through the stress. But we see the others who are not. And they are escalating.
I've seen that exemplified with a MAGA friend I recently had lunch with. I said she's a unicorn: everything about her SHOULD deem her a liberal Dem, but she is MAGA. She is a single woman who was a successful businesswoman who earned an IT degree decades ago. She supports reproductive rights, and LGBTQ+ community. She is complaining about gas/grocery prices. She has middle eastern immigrant neighbors who she likes. She had a sibling who has been on disability since she was in her early 20s and who now relies on Medicaid. She votes split ticket, and while she only "likes" Rubio of the entire Cabinet, she is 100% a Trumper. When she complained that it's only bad stuff reported about Trump and "they never say good things he does" I asked point blank tell me the good things. She was caught off guard and said never mind. Shame on me for not holding her feet to the fire, but I believe that she can somehow be swayed. I hope so.
I blame the MAGA on FOX news constantly on in her home where it entertains her family member, whom she financially supports and who lives with her.
The core is consolidating. So what? The Republican Party got formally loonified and lobotomized years ago. Did you really expect Cassidy, Cornyn and Massie to keep their seats? I didn’t. Did you need Paul Krugman to formally notify you that the core is hardening? Did you really expect it to dissolve first, before its outer layers did?
The nebulous blob known as Trumpism is shrinking. Its outer core of electrons seem to be liberating themselves from its nucleus at lightning speeds. The blob isn’t growing. Why do you think Democrats keep winning by-elections, or very nearly in districts the GOP easily carried by double digits in 2024? In Texas, GOP voter turnout for the run-off was so dismal there were counties and districts with virtually no Hispanic votes cast at all. Even during the first primary, Democrats enthusiastically outvoted Republicans by about 160,000 votes. I can’t even think when that last happened.
You post paragraph, after paragraph, after paragraph, filled with an alarmism — about what, I can’t really even figure out. The core is consolidating. Check. Cornered animals don’t compromise. Check. But you ignore the rest — and the best.
Here’s a hint for all of us. If they really believed they were going to win the midterms, why would they be trying so desperately to fiddle with election processes and gerrymandering? (Remembering Glinda’s advice to Dorothy — “keep tight inside those ruby slippers! If their magic wasn’t very powerful, she wouldn’t want them so badly…!”)
I do think it is worth saying when there are reports that there are now 6 Republican Senators who may be willing to buck Trump, including Cornyn, so we can breathe a sigh of relief, because MAGA is fracturing.
Cornyn, in his concession speech, said he would support Paxton. I am not sighing in relief. Every Republican that moves into the hard MAGA column and out of the “lean Republican” column is a potential vote lost. And we will need as many votes as we can get now to solidify a base for 2028.
Every vote the core loses is clearly a potential vote won. Did you really expect Cornyn to suddenly burst out of the closet and declare himself a Talafreako?
Sighs of relief are not what anybody, including me, is suggesting. Paying attention to voting trends, rather than to the stars as Paul Krugman sees them, however, is.
What I wonder is why none of the 3 senators who just lost a primary don’t announce they’ll do a Lisa Murkowski and run as a write-in? I don’t think they’d win the election (unlike Lisa) but I do think they’d help the Democrat win, which could wake up (ha! As if! ) the person who harmed them and who believes in his own omnipotence.
Republican voter turnout since January, 2025 has been awful. I'm sure a few states and districts will have good turnout when there are important governor, senate or other consequential races. But overall, will even the 20% hard core MAGAs vote? They haven't been so far, even in TX.
Good points, ICTT, but rather than focusing on the population of the MAGA movement these days, I’m hoping and praying for the emergence of a new John Dean. Will it be John Cornyn?
We need someone who has been on the inside who is willing to expose the corruption. But, we need to remember that John Dean exposed Richard Nixon, went to prison, got disbarred….Not a glorious role to strive for - by doing the Right Thing.
The Eternal Question (for all of us?): What’s in it for me?
Magats are dedicated and delusional. In Texas, I have noticed a slight shift but have no data. The Cornyn wipe out keeps me from any optimism although primaries are notoriously skewed by the dedicated few.
I think we need to look at the demographics of the MAGAs.
First of all, millions of the 2016 MAGAs are dead or cray-cray having been replaced by mostly 18-30 year olds most of whom are not MAGA.
Are there really more MAGAs now than in 2020? Maybe, but I haven't seen a Trump flag or bumper sticker since the 2024 election around here. Whereas before, during Trump's entire first term dozens of hardcore MAGAs kept their signage and flags up.
I’ve been actually been saying IRL that I haven’t been seeing *any* bumper stickers in recent years (a bit of hyperbole but you get my point). Where did all the bumper stickers go? I want a bumper sticker that says this. I think it’s a symptom of fascism. Or maybe it’s just a symptom of such a viciously divided society that people don’t want to confront their neighbors with differing opinions? I guess that would explain the outlier of anti-Elon stickers on Teslas—the car itself made a statement and the sticker serves to say “woops, made a mistake.” Either way, people are hesitating to put any opinion out there. Flock cameras aren’t going to help that.
I have stickers all over the back of my car supporting Dems and diversity.. I often get stopped in the parking lot of my local grocery store - thanking me for the stickers. And our front yard hosts signs for each of our Dem. candidates.
Agree LM on the lack of bumper stickers.Although I live in a very red district in FL and have had bumper stickers on my car for several years without any problems.One is a Register To Vote with UPC code and the others are for Dem candidates.I’ve also worn messaging/candidate t’s with not a single negative interaction and we have yard signs in my MAGA-hood.🚙👚🪧
Georgia resident in a very red county here. I can also say that with only a few exceptions, the Trump yard signs, bumper stickers and banners are gone.
I don't agree that MAGA has doubled. I believe it has shrunk, but we'll see won't we?
Good points, GJ! Are there more MAGAs these days? All I can see are those houses and pickup trucks with Trump flags not necessarily disappearing, but their flags are getting old and soiled and ripped and torn. To me, that’s the current picture not only MAGA, but the MAGA Chief.
The original article was about Republicans re-labelling themselves as MAGA. So the % of the party who identifies as MAGA has doubled, not the raw numbers.
A cross-check on this: if MAGA numbers had really doubled, Trump’s approval numbers in every category would be climbing, not precipitously dropping.
The symbolism of the dirty, torn maga flags…. I am seeing some Trump signs/flags being taken down and almost all of the ones left up are falling apart. I’m sure many of the people who have taken theirs down are still probably in the cult, but they just don’t want to be publicly associated with it.
The US population may be growing by births but in other ways it is shrinking. Last year had a net negative growth in that more people left than came to the US. I think that is a trend that we will continue seeing under Trump. I would also point out that if we look at a state like Texas, which has a really low voting rate, which someone pointed out is because they successfully disenfranchise black and brown voters, then we cannot tell who people are for based on their voting.
I still think that the growth in numbers of Trump supporters is concerning and we are seeing the same growth in numbers of people supporting the AfD in Germany. I really believe that Russian disinformation is helping this trend in all countries, because I have been studying how it works. In Europe at least there is some awareness of Russian disinformation and what it looks like. I feel like there is little to no awareness in the US. The US social media platforms are pretty much allowed to do what they want under Trump, which is amplify right wing talking points. Europe is trying to stave off these businesses. Currently the question is whether it is a matter of trying to regulate the US tech companies (who ignore regulations and go to court and pay some money and continue doing what they do) or getting rid of them and getting alternatives that are better considered. I think more and more are leaning to the latter.
I don’t doubt that the US resident population declined because of the anti-immigrant policies. I am more concerned about the trends in registered voters, but I haven’t found it yet. I think the percentage of registered voters who are hard MAGA is coming from self-reporting in the yougov surveys.
There are anecdotal reports that voting in the Republican primary run-off was light because it was not well-advertised. It might also be that once Trump endorsed Paxton, Cronyn supporters didn’t bother to show up.
Disenfranchisement due to gerrymandering in the general elections may be a factor, but it should affect only House seats and local elections, not statewide elections. If it is having a big effect on suppressing Black and brown voters due to discouragement rather than actual disenfranchisement due to restrictions on registration, it is a Democratic messaging problem. That is a problem that can be worked—legislative interference is a much tougher issue.
Look at Texas from 1970 to now. Super interesting. Look how low the percentages drop of registered voters, let alone those who are eligible to vote. Dismal in many years.
Thanks for the link—I am surprised that the percentage of registered voters is as high as it is compared to the voting-age population since it is diluted by non-citizens and felons. There are models that are being used to calculate the voter eligible population at least nationally.
The abysmal numbers are for primaries, which suffer from being at weird times, and voters have to actually do some work to distinguish between candidates.
Here in NJ, there are 4 remaining Democratic candidates for my congressional district, and my mailbox is inundated with literature, some of which is being pumped out by a Republican PAC that is masquerading as a Democratic PAC to sink the Democratic front-runner, according to Judd Legum. I am home to the mysteriously absent unopposed Republican congressman To Kean, Jr. Cory Booker is running unopposed for Senator, so that may reduce the primary voting.
But what are the demographics of the MAGAs and where are they?
Some of them are the power brokers like Musk, Thiel, Trump and Bezos, but most of them are crusty old farts many of whom will die before they can vote in November.
If their mommy and daddy were Republicans and so were their grandparents and they are umpteenth generation wherever they live, they will never ever vote Democrat or Independent.
I don't know. I do not personally know any Trump voters. That is, not in my family and friends. I believe there are people I worked with who voted for Trump, but I don't know, am just guessing.
The coastal county we live in has hundreds of miles of shoreline owned mostly by well-to-do people many of whom only come here for 4-6 months a year. Most other shoreline properties have been owned by families for generations and most have been cut up into smaller and smaller pieces over the past 250 years.
Off the water, many of the homes are manufactured housing and smaller homes than those on the water in contrast to the homes on the ocean.
The voting roles of the county are divided roughly into thirds-- Democrats, Republicans and non-affiliated. The wealthiest communities, like Bar Harbor skew Democratic while the poorest ones, which tend to be miles from the ocean, skew Republican. And like Donald famously said, "there are good people on both sides."
Well, there are crusty old farts on both sides of the aisle. I’m hoping to survive long enough to vote in 2028 to help restore sanity to our country. That door swings both ways.
GJ, just the other day, I had occasion to think about all of my extended family, which is not nearly as large as some. Some members have died, including both my parents. I am estranged from all my remaining family, including my one sister. I keep tabs on them by checking their Facebook pages, although we are not Facebook "friends."
Here are some interesting demographics: To a person, including me, every one was born into an evangelical family. Every grandparent of every family member was evangelical. With a handful of exceptions, all members of my extended family are practicing evangelicals. That is, they attend worship at an evangelical church EVERY Sunday, and are active in other church activities. They do not smoke, drink alcohol or use coarse language. Those who are not practicing evangelicals drink alcohol and use coarse language and attend church only on Christmas and Easter, but still consider themselves to be Christians. I am the only exception, as a non-deist who drinks alcohol on rare occasions and swears when appropriate. (I quit smoking years ago.)
Based on my Facebook observations, every single member of my extended family is a MAGA christian nationalist. Their Facebook timelines are caustic stews of religious "thoughts and prayers," puppies and kittens, anti-immigrant, anti-tax, anti-Democrat, anti-abortion, conspiracy-theory, pro-Trump postings. Being "christians," they couch their racism in posts that oppose any kind of publicly funded financial relief.
Obviously, they all vote Republican, as their parents and grandparents did. All of the adults have college educations, although many attended "Bible colleges," which are not equivalent to secular colleges. In all cases, there was no emphasis on humanities in their education. Almost all are or were employed at a professional level, such as teachers, architects or corporate managers.
This personal experience informs my thinking about the attachment of evangelicalism to trumpism. Blind, irrational faith is required to accept one or the other.
The ones in my corner of the world are primarily from my former work cohort (both my agency and neighboring agencies) of retired cops, their families, and their friends. Most of the ones I engage with (and of course this does not include the number of folks who have unfriended and blocked me) are my window into what issue they are being told is the "issue de jure".
". . . what does 19% of the adult citizens as committed MAGA imply about our future?"
It implies, Georgia, that the leaders of finance and the U.S. corporate heads (as I term some of our elites) who did the mass offshoring of tens of millions of working-class jobs now turn their attention to next profit cycles for themselves from data centers and AI.
It means the billionaires of standardized testing will still rule our schools.
And it means the millions of Dems without any access to humanities have zero base, zero human perspective to see the human damages from elite predation.
Inflation is up, unemployment rate is up, wages are down, interest rates are up, consumer sentiment is way down. GDP for the last six months is up an abysmal 1%. Most of the states are technically in a recession, but small sectors of the economy are booming.
We're lucky here in ME because there are any billionaires here although many of them come here to play.
The bane of psephologists are the closet supporters - those who do not openly identify as MAGA in polls but nevertheless end up voting for Trump. I suspect that a great many Hispanic voters at the last election fell into that category. Nixon famously spoke to the "silent majority" and Trump similarly profits from widespread disillusionment with politics. There's an iron law of populism that to be successful you have to continue to be popular and Trump seems to have lost control of the narrative of a new Golden Age of American prosperity and power that so enthused voters at the lest election.
The recent run-off in the Republican primary in Texas may give an indication of where these diffident voters now stand. Cornyn himself ruefully pointed out that only 8% of registered Republican voters bothered to turn out to vote and nowhere was this more clear than in Starr County.
My answer to that, from looking at the data, is no--they are doubling down in support. The MAGA core is 97% behind him--extreme loyalists and growing in number. If grievance is the driver for their loyalty, his messaging is right on the money to push those buttons. Welfare cheats and fraud, weaponization of the Biden DoJ against the J6 patriots, criminal immigrants murdering vulnerable US citizens...
I say yes and no. History shows us that it doesn’t take a majority to take over a government and with a select group turn it into an authoritarian structure. People obey. Which is why the congressional group stated that it’s illegal to violate the constitution. God knows if the military obeys illegal orders we are finished. I’m beginning to feel that we have a chance a growing chance but we are not out of that place which could set us back. I’m just wondering when 2 more justices will come to their senses and not surrender completely to a fascist like state.
I think it is a state with low voter registration and turnout. However, in this Rick Wilson interview, there are several Latino/as interviewed that were Trump voters They did not seem to hide it.
It was surprising to the Dems, but seems to be tied to certain issues. Abortion is one. Catholic or Pentecostal, which more and more seemingly are, they are voting on issues like that. It seems it will change though because they were naive in interpreting Trump's immigration rhetoric. Just plain Naive.
I wish there were more coverage on liberal media of the role of big, highly organized, highly funded churches. People trust their pastors and a church community is a powerful force. Maybe that could be a source of increasing numbers of people self- identifying as MAGA.
Georgia...As always, thank you for the excellent work. What Mr. Krugman's numbers "imply about our future" is the correctness of my conclusion that our only (rational) hope of Liberation is creation of an overseas shadow government; mobilization of a partisan Resistance as determined as that which hamstrung the Original Nazis in France, the Netherlands and especially the Soviet Union; and a massive, four-pronged D-Day-II invasion by an international humanitarian alliance (preferably a quadruple envelopment: simultaneous offensives from Canada and all three coastlines). The data about NSDAP membership in the following links is entirely supportive of this analysis:
My only suggestion is that -- if data on MAGA is available in genuinely reliable form (and it probably isn't) -- you add comparable socioeconomic profiles of the ChristoNazi rabble.
Even so, the apocalyptic fly that contaminates this ointment of potential rescue is that Trump, like every USian president since Kennedy, is credibly reported to be pledged to follow the "Better Dead than Red" recommendation of Adolf Hitler to destroy the world if faced by the prospect of defeat. As I have said before, the only possible counter-measure to this policy is a scientific impossibility: the alleged ability of UFOs to paralyze the entire USian war machine.
Meanwhile, as our attackers' ecogenocidal hatred skyrockets to ever-more-obscenely sadistic fanaticism***, I would not be a bit surprised were the "Republican" (sic) ChristoNazi/Neoconfederate Party to officially change its name to something more factually descriptive.
(Sorry for the dead links; my utterly mortified gratitude to whomever brought them to life; I had just discovered I could not do it myself, as it seems there is no way to open this thread and the links simultaneously as is necessary for recopying the links in live form. Having now proven myself a total moron and therefore discredited myself irremediably, I'll depart, certainly for the night, possibly forever. I have never before despised an inanimate object, but there is absolutely nothing in existence I hate more than computers. Plus of course the goddamned dyslexic idiocy that makes it utterly impossible -- as just publicly proven -- for me to [ever] master one of these incomprehensibly alien machines.)
Again thanks, Georgia. You are fast becoming my go-to analyst.
Look folks, we all know Dump is a personal and political shit. The urgent question is how do we get him out of office before he starts any more wars or betrays any more of our allies. Do we march on DC with pitchforks, tar and feathers?
A better alternative is the hard work of political organization: making sure we and our neighbors are registered to vote and get to the polls; making sure everyone knows the need to save 'democracy in America,' and making sure we vote against the dementia and depracity of Dump and company.
After we speak for America, we can bring on the tar and feathers. And then perhaps name sewage treatment plants after Dump and the sycophants who make him possible.
It seems to me (looking at my little window of the world) that what my recent MAGA convert work cohort are sucking up to is based on a couple of factors, with the Christian Nationalism being towards the top but only slightly ahead of the "anti DEI" component. MAGA is giving them what they want: A cisgendered, heteronormative, white male dominated, Evangelical Christian focused culture where BIPOOC and LGBTQ+ are marginalized and they are on the top of the heap. This foundational shift has been made by the "information" silos where they are fed the utter propaganda that passes for "truth", and no counter argument will ever be tolerated.
So the Republican party is aggressively intensifying its coalition, but also shrinking it.
It seems that is going to drive turnout up in deep red areas. It’s also going to result in more polarizing candidates whose first loyalty is to Trump.
But in states where persuasion still matters as much or more than turnout, that is to our advantage. Take GA, where the Republicans have two MAGA candidates in a runoff for governor. Intensifying MAGA turnout in a purple state, while promoting a candidate with no general appeal beyond the base may be a losing proposition.
Because increasing MAGA turnout (in the sense of percent) also drives Dem turnout. Stirring a larger percentage of a shrinking base is a tactic that limits you ultimately.
What we are trying to do differently is broaden the Dem coalition AND juice turnout. The added challenge is that we need great candidate quality with broader general appeal. The MAGA crowd does not—they’re voting based on fealty to Trump.
Bryan, it is as simple to use Perplexity as this...click the following link and type in a question. Keep chatting 'til you have your answer. Keep in mind AI makes mistakes. Check the data. Have fun!
Absolutely makes sense Georgia. And it's terrible. It won't end up well. Your numbers are solid as I was posting for a long time that even when the percentage of people supporting the regime was slowly falling, there were still too many millions of them. Now you are presenting a picture of a dissection of that group into growing subgroups even more dangerous and growing like a cancer.
One factor to remember is the small number of people who voted in the primaries that Massey, Cassidy, and Coryn lost. I guess I am just looking for any slivers of hope.
I understand the need for hope to keep going. In my life experience, hope is best found by understanding what we are facing squarely, and identifying and working on the real underlying problems, so our effort is most effective.
It is the same whether you are dealing with a sick body or a politically sick country. You need an accurate diagnosis to treat it properly. Dissatisfaction with Trump is not turning into warm fuzzy feelings for the Democratic Party while the MAGA core is growing. Those are symptoms, not a diagnosis.
Pritzker is my glimmer of hope on the horizon as the diagnostician.
Georgia, I think you are right to temper your alarm with a measure of skepticism. Krugman identified sources for his graphics except for the one most crucial graphic that concerns you. That graphic is almost useless because it doesn't reference the total numbers of Republicans over the time period.
If you have a fruit basket full of 4 oranges and 6 apples, it's obvious that 40% of your fruits are oranges. Today, you eat an apple. Tomorrow, you give an apple to a friend. In only two days, the orange percentage of fruits increases to 50%. A graphic depicting this change could be dramatic if the viewer didn't know about the overall reduction of fruits in the basket.
Numerous reports indicate that Republicans are either checking out of political interest or defecting and becoming Independents, but Krugman doesn't mention this in his article. Possibly, that fact wasn't germane to the point he was making.
Does he include Trump's billionaire supporters - the Ellisons, Musks etc.? They may well be fairweather friends who will abandon him when the tide eventually turns against him but their support to him has always been critical.
Ezra Klein has recently opined in the NYT that Trump really no longer cares about the midterms but instead is seeking to secure his hold on the Republican party so that he still be able to continue to exert his baleful influence on US politics after he has left office. I wonder myself if this actually a new strategy or just a powerful compulsion he has to self-destruct out of pent-up resentment against those who have opposed or defied him.
He suffered three damaging reversals yesterday. Judges have blocked his slush fund, required him to remove his name from the Kennedy Center and unsealed documents showing the DoJ's failed attempt to get search warrants against two journalists.
He is still nowhere near reaching a lasting peace agreement with Iran and Israel continues to hinder any progress with those negotiations by its unlawful policies of collective punishment and ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon and Gaza.
It's little wonder then that he seems more inclined to spend time on his vanity projects rather than government. Rolling Stone last year reported that Trump has shared with others his regret that during his first term he was stupid enough to "leave a ton of money on the table". Of course, we all remember the numerous conflicts of interest and ethical violations of that first term, but even if that were true he's certainly making up for it this term. The New Yorker's David Kirkpatrick calculates that he has so far made over $4bn from the presidency. And so we have a second Trump term where he has been obsessed with two things: retribution and self-enrichment - to the great detriment of the interests of the American people.
This is indeed the larger point. “I don’t care about the midterms at all” said NO President ever, in the history of the Republic itself — save for Marie Antoinette Trumpina, stuffing herself with birthday cake and vanity projects as fast as she can, before the Tribunals come for her.
This is not the behavior of a party and program poised to win victories, take home well-deserved prizes, or sign peace treaties — to put it mildly.
I subscribe to Rolling Stone, but I have to say, I was disappointed in the list of greatest guitar solos of all time. To leave out Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, Alvin Lee, and Nancy Wilson and giving 4 spots to Jimmy Hendrix?? Come on man.
And perhaps his greatest delusion is that he is going to live long enough to enjoy all those billions. Revisions to inheritance taxes should make sure that his various spawn never sees a nickel of the ill gotten money.
200 + 50 (inspired by and sung to the tune of Stephen Still’s 4 + 20):
A different kind of poverty now upsets our soul;
Night after sleepless night;
We walk the floor and we want to know;
Why are we so alone?
Where is truth? Can we bring her home?
Have they driven her away?
Is she gone?
Two hundred and 50 years ago;
She came into this life;
Then from men and women who live in strife she was torn;
And now she’s into selling door to door;
That she’s tryin’ like the devil to be born.
Two parties in an unfamiliar context draw conflicting conclusions while observing the same evidence because the probability that two parties in an unfamiliar context will use the same logic is virtually zero.
Ideally, they’re doing the right thing by practicing politics like three musketeers (all for one and one for all), but not because they’re expecting irrefutable evidence to magically change. Instead, the testable logic is tested to identify its flaws. Then one flaw is corrected. Then the process repeats.
In the end, both parties in a now-familiar context draw harmonious conclusions while observing the same evidence because the probability that, if they know they are human and not some other (frog or scorpion) species, they are serving the common interest and both sides are winning.
We don’t need faith that right makes might. We know that right makes might. And it’s déjà vu all over again.
Paul Krugman warned US about Trump in December 2016. I had the good luck to be at the New York Public Library for his scheduled lecture to a dispirited audience almost a month to the day after the vote. Finishing his prepared remarks he stepped away from the podium, looked at the audience and said “We may be doomed. Resist.” Indivisible was forming in Chicago and all over America. Thinking of it as a start to all the signs. But how to get past yesterday in NJ. Last night’s news from the “camp” there was horrible. What’s with the local police? Have they joined ICE?
Not approving of the Trump economy is a long way from casting a vote for a Democrat. The election in November is a chance to slow them down, and with a monumental effort plus some luck we may do that. But these lawless bastards will still have plenty of shovels to spread shit with, so we’re still a long way from good governance, even if we succeed beyond all expectations in November.
What I don’t understand is how, despite the plummeting poll numbers we’ve been seeing for weeks (if not months), Trump nevertheless successfully primaried Massie, Cassidy, and Cornyn.
Don't forget the grifters and opportunists. There's a sizable group around him who seem to just be tapped in for the money and will spout whatever principles they think the grifter-in-chief wants to hear.
Where would you put the billionaires who gave millions to Trump's campaign, inauguration, etc.,and align themselves with him? They don't generally seem to be conspiracy freaks, christian nationalists, the most uneducated, hateful and racist among us, or wannabe alpha males? Maybe Bezos and Musk are wannabe alpha males, but I think they and their fellow "business leaders" support America's uber corrupt president because of the benefit to their businesses. There's money to be made and profit to protect. BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, the Opel division of America's General Motors, IBM, Siemens, Hugo Boss, and many other corporations did not let Nazism interfere with making money in Hitler's Germany.
The richest and most powerful of Trump's supporters -- business leaders -- largely escape any blame for enabling our seriously incapacitated and corrupt president.
Hello Judy.... Mary Trump had a Good Posting today in her Substack about how DJT has actually been a Business Failure that has always Grifted his way out of personal Bankruptcy... An example of his actual Negotiating Skills are the current Iran Negotiations...
he hasn't been directly involved in those negotiations except to phone round various leaders of Gulf states to reassure, cajole and threaten them. Otherwise, he has confined his involvement to a series of bizarrely optimistic announcements of a peace deal being only weeks away (aimed mostly at the markets) intercolated with dark warnings of destruction, on Truth Social.
When identifying the remaining Trump supporters, please do not forget the purity test Left wingers who helped elect Trump twice - by refusing to vote for Democratic candidates. Voting party not person is the path to power.
You will never be able to resolve the deep divisions in American society and politics, which largely pre-date Trump, if you remain satisfied with such a shallow explanation for his present dominance.
Red Idaho. 77 votes for democrats/1200 for red backs. In my district primary. Those figures are close but at this time in the mourning up only to take painkillers I am not inclined to search out exact data until morning lite.
Can we also assume that the Postal Service will be challenged in court, and told it cannot only send people who are federally registered ballots. Also, I think it is time to make ballots unobtrusive. A new envelop design would be helpful. How about a format that make it look like a bill. I hope that Blue State governments get control of their federal services like mail, aviation, education, health care payments. I once again propose that Blue States get together with willing Red states to propose that we no longer pay Federal Taxes, only State Taxes, and state pay the Federal government a fee for services they need like Military, etc... When I first proposed it everyone was saying but then we won't get this that and the other services, but honestly, we are not getting them now.
I think it's a good idea to make the ballots look unobtrusive - but then some people would undoubtedly toss them out, thinking them junk mail. I've had to vote absentee in the last few elections while caring for my husband -- but I always took our ballots straight to the post office, thinking it the safest place. Now that my husband has passed, I will return to voting in person.
When I voted by mail in my US city, I always too my ballots to the ballot box to drop it in. There were big ones outside the polling places. Now that I vote from abroad I receive my ballot by email, and mail it to the Board of elections on my own dime, or rather 7€ and put it in a regular envelop. I do not expect US mail personnel to censor it, but who knows. It is like Russia or China to do this.
With Oregon's 100% vote by mail, I have not mailed a ballot in years. There is a drop box outside the courthouse, as well as one at the elections office. My friend (that I often travel with) goes inside the County Clerk's office to drop her ballots off.
The more Trump loses in Federal Courts, in Iran, in the Court of Public opinion, the more he lashes out with even more extreme demonstrations of authoritarian acts
He is flailing about in the belief that he actually holds the powers he is usurping He does not
He demonizes even his most ardent supporters in loyalty tests that are impossible for all but the group of shrinking extremists that think he won’t turn on him
Eventually even they will suffer the scorpion’s sting
Hitler didn’t have the illusion of grandeur of receiving 400 mil from his daddy. For him his failure was real. His end was the final solution. Trumps propulsion mechanism is slime which I imagine he will try to slip away with. If we get out our salt shakers we can thwart the Slug. (Something my Oregon coastal time learned me.)
I think Trump supporters still include people who appear to be rational,but who stick with Trump because Trump is going to "protect " girls and women from the hordes of trans women who want to take over women's sports and restroom.
Oh, I am not laughing. That is the "bugaboo" that identifies, for me, what a true MAGAt is. If you cannot understand that you're being fed utter garbage, you cease being a reasonable person.
$670,000,000 of tax payers fund diverted to put into minerals company that one of his sons owns stake in...and there's more, but i want to have a good weekend my mind is going to crash down with all this going on.
Have a good weekend Mike and anyone reading this. See you back on Monday!
Or are they the people who come to visit the Old Man making a promise of loyalty to him because a beautiful paradise awaits them with banquets and orgiastic parties with beautiful women - which are the only kind the Old Man likes? While the Old Man sends the young men into rival territories to kill the Old Man's rivals, plunder their riches and often sacrificing themselves in the process. Regretfully, the country has wandered off its route distracted by stories of making America great by a priapic leader. So these supporters wandered off course, led astray, sidetracked with false promises and fell into a dazed stupor of utter pliancey. And the rest of us - we'll have to endure a wrestling game on the White House lawn where wild wolves are brought in to fight for sport and profit.
My local Northern San Diego Escondido Times-Advocate, author, David Ross) reports the Maga Owner of the gaudily dressed "Trump House" was murdered by a 20-something.
The Perp has already been charged with cold blooded targeted M1 as he should be.
But we can simplify it. Just note: Two Americas. Two stories.
In one America – that of money, where the rich occupy the bigger and growing side of the wealth gap – the stock market booms. The rich fatten on more and more shares of techie stock, especially that of data centers and AI. These are the most cynical of Americans, the most dehumanized, all seeing life as nothing more than abstractions, numbers, quantities.
In the other America decent citizens fight the ICE and CBP thug police. And many others defend their neighbors of color being arrested and thrown into black hole concentration camps, where the purpose of remorselessly bad food, overcrowding, and zero medical attention is just part of criminal Donald’s torture campaign of white supremacists pushing return to Jim Crow America.
Trump has not forgotten the activists opposing the Republican regime. The Trump administration has proposed an initiative to identify, track, and categorize protestors as domestic terrorists.
Right here in Bar Harbor, Maine, members of an antidemocratic chat group have already targeted local activists. And pressured town officials and police to take steps. Town government has diverted town resources to suppressing legal protest. No doubt these 'patriots' will happily up their game from brandishing social media pitchforks and AI generated death threats - to serving informer for the Republican regime.
the brutality of the ICE agents beating protesters at New Jersey's Delaney Hall concentration camp is horrendous -- with apparently no one to stop them. They would not even let the governor inside to view the cruel and unsanitary conditions. How can this be?
It's no surprise that Trump's DoJ is now using conspiracy charges against protesters when it cannot successfully bring specific charges against individuals. The case of the so-called Spokane Three is a case in point. Conspiracy charges were successfully levelled against a number of January 6 rioters (who actually conspired against the government).
"Right here in Bar Harbor, Maine, members of an antidemocratic chat group have already targeted local activists."
Well... s@#&.
I was hoping the issues in Bar Harbor were being pushed by the Lenard Leo crowd rather than the 'locals'. I guess I was too optimistic. I guess I need to stuff that little bit of hope I was nurturing back in the bag.
Three Americas. Three stories. You forgot the sleepwalkers who aren’t participating, aren’t paying attention, and just trying to go about their lives acting like we are living in normal times. That’s a pretty large group.
The Republic, Now Available in Commemorative Denominations
America has reached the elegant stage of imperial decline where the president appears to believe the federal government is just a lifestyle brand with subpoenas.
Families are getting squeezed by prices, institutions are groaning under strain, and the administration’s grand governing vision appears to be: put Trump’s face on a $250 bill, rename the Kennedy Center for him, stage UFC fights at the White House, and use uniformed troops as patriotic fight-night wallpaper.
Nothing says “stable republic” like asking soldiers to meet height and weight requirements so they can stand around while democracy gets a folding chair to the head.
The courts, still clinging to the quaint idea that laws are not decorative throw pillows, told the Kennedy Center to remove Trump’s name and blocked the administration’s plan to close it for two years. Congress, showing faint signs of oxygen, has not rushed to approve the Trump money bill, perhaps because Americans paying too much for groceries are not emotionally ready for vanity currency honoring the man presiding over the mess.
Meanwhile, the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” was paused by a judge, which is rude, because how is a president supposed to reward people convicted of helping him overturn an election if courts keep insisting on laws?
The whole spectacle feels less like governance than a clearance sale at Authoritarian Bed Bath & Beyond: commemorative bills, branded buildings, loyalist payouts, and White House cage fights.
Democracy is bruised, but apparently the gift shop is thriving.
"how is a president supposed to reward people convicted of helping him overturn an election if courts keep insisting on laws?"
We should be grateful that he is too greedy to use some of the billions his corrupt grifts have raked in for himself and his family. That might be even more frightening. There may be no laws that could be used to constrain him from self-financing his private army.
And what a sad commentary, Phil Bslla, that although you probably commented second, you are now the first comment that is back at the left margin after hundreds of replies, some up to 6+ vertical bars from the margin
This comment section got lost in a discussion about Krugman’s post and is full of repeat commenters back-and-forths. (But at least I don’t see anything from Rick Sender any more.)
Am I alone in wishing Substack would put a word limit an ld a number of comments limit on readers? Let them take their comments over to their owns Substacks so that the conversation can be about what HCR (or any other deservedly popular writers) has written.
Phil that’s not fully true. I’m investing according to what Trump is investing in. There is no reason to not do the obvious and capitalize on the corruption. I can then spen my money on worthy causes.
Trump is manipulating the markets. By following his lead, you are only facilitating his illicit behaviors, so regardless of how you spend your profits, it's still unethically obtained money.
Let me get this straight. Human rights abuses? Fine. Billions in taxpayer money disappearing into grifts and vanity projects? Fine. Attacks on the rule of law? Fine. But threaten a senator's own career and—presto!—a conscience appears. It's amazing how quickly Cornyn and Cassedy et al, have rediscovered democracy now they're the ones being thrown under the bus.
Yep, it’s an amazing coincidence that both Cassidy and Cornyn found spines that were formed by styrofoam simultaneously.. think they found it somewhere in a box on a thrift shop shelf.. Can’t wait to hear Collins say “she’s been concerned for a long while”..
Poetic no ? The same fates lurk for all those who've thought this creature was some useful tool to their ends. Scorpion's always gonna' be a scorpion -
"Today the United States Postal Service has proposed that it will send mail-in ballots only to voters who are registered with the federal government." Huh?
So the Postal Service (which doesn't *send* ballots -- it *delivers* them) will not deliver mail sent by state and county voting offices. What kind of "democracy" is this??
Robin, I got called out for referring to our concentration camps as “gulags.” Mere technicality now that local police are part of the problem. Yes, DT’s love of Papa Putin brings US closer to him every day.
I want CBS to live-broadcast the moment his name gets pried off the Kennedy Center and falls down to a waiting detonation below — much the same as when the US Third Army blew up the swastika over the Nuremberg Stadium in 1945.
I'm not watching See BS anymore, no need now that Colbert Show has been taken off the air. Being remade into something like state run propaganda media while continuing to censor and destroy once great investigative journalism and editorial independence of reporting like 60 Minutes.
But I will gladly watch the dismantling, demolition and destruction of this Trumpian reich and removal of Donold's vandalism, vanity projects, and gaudiness on another network or other independent media.
ICTT, if the arch gets built (Heaven forbid) can we please have a ceremony for blowing off Liberty’s wings? I know Trump wants her to fly away, but not even a Swastika can elicit in me the aesthetic sickness of Liberty with wings. The political response is clear. The aesthetic is simple nausea. It’s MBS’s Trump.
Once upon a time, the leftover Confederate racists like Govs. Faubus, Wallace, and Maddox argued for states’ rights over federalism. Now Trump’s Confederacy argues for federalism over states’rights. Yet that old argument has always been about keeping the people enslaved to serve the wealthy.
Brian: Register with the federal government in order to vote? Now where in diddlydumb’s mind did that come from? How do we go about registering with the federal government, pray tell.😂
Trump announced today that political pressure won’t sway him in negotiations, “I don’t care about the midterms” (NYTimes 5/27/26). He obviously cares about the midterms—Trump spend lots of money and effort to cajole states into gerrymandering maps to avoid losing the house. So who was he talking to? Although it seemed that he to addressed these remarks to Iran they were really to Republican right-wing hawks’ opposition to the proposed peace deal. Trump can’t acknowledge looking weak. So, what does he do?
Time to face facts Trump. Iran offered you the best deal you can hope for you to get out of your disastrous war of choice—open the strait, lift the sanctions, talk about nuclear resolution later. Over Memorial Day weekend (5/25) it looked like Trump would accept Iran’s terms to get out of the disaster. Trump made a big deal of skipping Jr’s wedding because he had important war work. Then word leaked on the terms of the agreement and Garham, Wicker, Pompieo, and other hawks attacked.
Trump’s fragile ego can’t acknowledge weakness so he can’t take the deal. Now what? Frozen in terror about looking weak he does nothing. This is 5/29 and Trump delayed another “final decision”. The stalemate drags on as people are killed and the world economic situation deteriorates.
Congress help Trump out! Use the War Resolution act to force a peace agreement on this weak man. We can’t wait until after the midterms
Patience, patience. Trump is negotiating a 33% cut from Iran of the $300 billion we are going to unfreeze and give back to them. His argument will center on the indisputable fact that none of this wealth would have been created without him. Therefore, he, sorry, I mean us, the USA, should get a 33% fee upfront as per the final terms of the Peace Plan.
When this regime implodes, we need to work on a constitutional amendment that gives "us the folks" a power button to check the Executive when the Article 1 people won't do their job. And that should include allowing "we the people" the power to impeach and remove the President when he has become a total fruitcake!
Think about our electorate (I'm not talking about us here in this room!) electing a president by popular vote. I'm not confident we wouldn't elect a well known game show or reality TV host.
Congratulations, mfmatusky! You're using the very argument that slave-state representatives used to justify creation of the Electoral College. They argued that a committee of elites "with good judgment" was needed to name the president as "a check against the public which could easily be misled." (i.e., Black folks)
Donald was elected by a few folks who happened to live in the right "swing states" with the necessary number of Electoral College delegates. There's no way of knowing how many citizens would vote if they believed their votes wouldn't be cancelled by gerrymandering and the Electoral College.
What you are suggesting sounds a lot like a parliamentary system. That makes a lot more sense to me than our current system, with the electoral college. But I think that we have a lot of work to do to get people to a point where their votes would be sane, and not based on victimhood, bigotry, racism and misogyny.
That is the closest I've heard anyone come to a rational argument for having / keeping the electoral college. But whether we F***up by selecting compromised electors, or F***up by allowing the electorate to just become stupid I have limited confidence in either the popular vote (by stupid people) or the electoral college (with compromised people).
I share your lack of confidence in both the popular vote and the electoral college. I have been stunned by the high percentage of stupid people in our country, who aren't smart enough to recognize an obvious con game, or see when politicians want them to be in favor of things that go against their best interests.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what I'm referring to, Phil. I hadn't thought about it in those terms, but you are spot on. When education is about performing on standardized tests rather than practical things like learning to think through important issues, we're probably doomed to repeat trump et al. I think that standardized testing as we use it, is another aspect of valuing the superficial more than substance.
Pete Hegseth has said today that the US is quite capable of resuming the war if necessary after Trump scuppered the latest version of the ceasefire deal. The oil price continues to bounce up and down with every announcement from the White House/Pentagon contradicting what was said the previous day.
The Iranians themselves seem bewildered by the vacillations from the US side and say they do not trust word that comes out of Trump's mouth.
In 1978, at the height of the Cold War, Harvard invited Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to give a commencement speech. They expected Solzhenitsyn to praise the hallmarks, achievements, and wonders of Western Civilization as the global enemies of communism. Instead, Solzhenitsyn gave the most controversial speech of modern Western Civilization in the 20th century, a scathing, but prophetic, critique of the West, and a mournful promise that it was doomed to fall if it didn’t change course. Solzhenitsyn begins by noting a decline in courage. He blamed the horrors of USSR communism on spiritual immorality and lying above all. Solzhenitsyn stressed that the West enjoys a false sense of security, blind to an impending civilizational doom.
But it fell on deaf ears. Can heed his warning today?
Whether the West can rediscover and fix this mistake, or not, determines whether or not the civilization will survive.
Forgive me for posting something that has nothing to do with Heather's important message, but a friend who is a scientist just sent me this, and I find it alarming and appalling. Please take a few minutes to read it, and to tell me what you think. It seems to me like the most egregious and dangerous attack on science that I've seen so far. I'm going to write a comment tomorrow, and I'm going to share it with many people, and I'm going to ask my members of Congress to speak out against it and to publicize the threats to science. Thank you for reading this, thinking about it, and replying with your thoughts.
Thank you for the link. And I think your comment is responsive to what Heather has written today; she refers to new federal laws proposed by the OMB. which sound like what your link refers to. You're right many times over: this is alarming and appalling.
Another dangerous, illegal move which no doubt "our" attorneys will be responding to. And lately our side is doing well in the courts.
The impacts on science are growing- not only are fewer graduate students being trained (future scientists), but fewer grants also reduces the support for undergraduate research, training faculty to be better instructors (because most of that training comes AFTER they land their first teaching position), and higher attrition as junior faculty fail to get the grant support for their research and then fail to get tenure. This will take decades to repair. And faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students from historically marginalized groups are the most vulnerable.
"An additional example is provided by a 2024 report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation regarding the growing failure of objectivity at the National Science Foundation (NSF) during the previous administration.[14]
That report found that out of a sample of over three thousand grants, more than ten percent—totaling over two billion dollars in Federal funding—went to “questionable projects that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) tenets or pushed onto science neo-Marxist perspectives about enduring class struggle.” "
So much of their destructive work is buried in complexity (federal rules) that need to be parsed and then challenged by lawsuits comprised of equally complex language and logic. We the people are definitely up against it.
The attack on science is an octopus with toxic arms. It is the thing that will keep chipping away at all aspects of our society doing the most damage for the longest time with the most widespread repercussions. Most of which we can’t even contemplate. Greg Olear wrote that it’s “trump’s almost single-minded mission to destroy and ruin every single last thing that’s good about the country.” He was talking about the Dark Sky Reserve. The P2025 people are on the job and he is the means by which the destruction is accomplished. Infrastructure is the target it seems, as it relates to revenge and greed. They are creative beyond what most of us can contemplate.
What I always wonder when I read about, for example, attacks on science or Trump itching to use nukes, is don’t congress and bureaucrats have families they love, like we do? They are willing to sacrifice their (presumably) loved ones to support trump’s and their cray-cray. Or do they somehow think the diseases our science community has been good at vanquishing, or the nuke cloud, will somehow pass them by?
If they engage in such magical thinking, like pre-schoolers, they don’t belong in leadership.
“Funding for scientific research should not be controlled by a small group of highly paid and unaccountable insiders at the NIH, many of whom stay in power for decades. The NIH monopoly on directing research should be broken. Term limits should be imposed on top career leaders at the NIH.
This shouldn't come as a surprise. Trump has already boasted about removing SNAP benefits for over 4 million Americans claiming that they have been moved onto the American Dream!
Undeterred by the utter failure of the DOGE initiative to find or eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, Trump is now set up an Anti-Fraud Task Force deployed almost exclusively in Democrat-controlled states under the supervision of the hapless Vance.
Betsy, this proposal is outrageous! A direct quote from the rule:
“The White House Fact Sheet of August 7, 2025, describes examples of the types of wasteful spending that occurred as a result of such policies. For example, Federal grants funded unlawful DEI practices,[6]
various anti-American ideologies in American education,[7]
non-replicable and highly misleading studies,[8]
labs engaged in gain-of-function research,[9]
and AI-powered social media censorship tools.[10]
More recently, another White House Fact Sheet of January 8, 2026 provided examples of the rampant and pervasive problem of fraud in the United States, including under assistance programs in Minnesota.[11]
Another example of wasteful spending is provided by a 2023 report from Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). That report found that recipients of Federal awards from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) potentially misused funds to provide services for illegal immigrants.[12]
Such potential abuse of taxpayer funds highlights the need for proper oversight of taxpayer dollars.
In another prominent example, prior to this administration, far-left activists hijacked the critical work done by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which was established to respond to the AIDS crisis in Africa. Due to wasteful spending, PEPFAR became a left-wing foreign aid entitlement that attempted to promote abortion and gender ideology. Additionally, an August 2025 report from the Heritage Foundation noted that, according to the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, billions of dollars in overhead and program charges flow to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and contractors in Washington, DC rather than providing direct humanitarian aid; and insufficient oversight has resulted in significant waste of taxpayer resources.[13]
An additional example is provided by a 2024 report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation regarding the growing failure of objectivity at the National Science Foundation (NSF) during the previous administration.[14]
That report found that out of a sample of over three thousand grants, more than ten percent—totaling over two billion dollars in Federal funding—went to “questionable projects that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) tenets or pushed onto science neo-Marxist perspectives about enduring class struggle.” The report also found that, by 2024, over a quarter of new grants made by NSF (27 percent) directed funding to DEI initiatives and other far-left perspectives. This marked a huge proportional increase over the course of only three years from the 0.29 percent of new grants made by NSF with a similar focus in 2021.[15]
This is just a small sample of many examples across the Federal Government of wasteful spending and other misuse and mismanagement of Federal funds.
Scarce Federal taxpayer dollars should be directed exclusively to achieving results for the American people. Wasteful and divisive activities unrelated to core purposes of Federal grant programs should not be subsidized with taxpayer dollars. Grantmaking practices resulting in wasteful spending that became prevalent during the previous administration can only be stopped through adherence to strong internal controls at Federal agencies and enhanced oversight regarding how Federal dollars are spent.”
“Judge Reopens Trump’s I.R.S. Suit and Questions His ‘Weaponization’ Fund
The ruling was a blow to both President Trump, who had voluntarily dismissed the suit last week, and to the Justice Department, which used the suit to establish a fund likely intended for Trump allies.”
Anyone with a working brain (or even half of a working brain) knows that Trump and Blanche colluded and committed FRAUD!
They should both be charged with criminal fraud, be tried, be convicted and be put in PRISON.
So Repub Senators want 47 to drop his slush fund. He won’t because a) it’s the ultimate grift and b) he will never do what they want because they’re weak subordinates and he’s just showed them who’s boss. But will they continue to do his bidding?
The super-rich ‘preppers’ are planning to save themselves from the apocalypse. Never before have our society’s most powerful players assumed that the primary impact of their own conquests would be to render the world itself unliveable for everyone else. Nor have they ever before had the technologies through which to programme their sensibilities into the very fabric of our society. The landscape is alive with algorithms and intelligences actively encouraging these selfish and isolationist outlooks. Those sociopathic enough to embrace them are rewarded with cash and control over the rest of us. It’s a self-reinforcing feedback loop. This is new.
Instead of just lording over us for ever, however, the billionaires at the top of these virtual pyramids actively seek the endgame. Everything must resolve to a one or a zero, a winner or loser, the saved or the damned. The faith-based Silicon Valley gang are certain that they can develop a technology that will somehow break the laws of physics, economics and morality to offer them something even better than a way of saving the world: a means of escape from the apocalypse of their own making.
The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse
Quite obviously they do not understand anything about the human cost of their fantasies and power reaches, including their own selves. How very stupid.
Exactly. Profiteer Peter Thiel (also huge GOP donor) has now relocated himself and his family primarily to Argentina, since he didn't want to pay the new CA billionaires tax, and he apparently believes the US is circling the drain, largely due to people like him propping up a con man to lead our nation into destruction.
Can we now assume that the only remaining Trump supporters are a combination of “true believers” Q Anon and conspiracy freaks, wannabe alpha males, militias and street brawlers, Christian nationalists, and the most uneducated, hateful and racist amongst us? Hitler had similar a similar mix of hard core supporters and freaks before he shot himself in his bunker.
No wonder Trump is rushing the construct his new bunker to be buried like the “Pharos of old” with the wealth of Egypt, but this time the United States . Trump’s sons no doubt will want the rest.
Paul Krugman published an excellent analysis yesterday of the US citizens who still support Trump on the economy. He dissected the numbers to show that it is only about 20% of the population, and they are almost entirely diehard MAGAts. It's on Krugman's substack and is well worth a read.
There are some concerning observations that can be gleaned from Paul Krugman's recent post that are not at all optimistic.
The percentage of US adult citizens who identify as MAGA supporters has been steadily increasing since September 2022, rising from 11% to 19%. In other words, it grew from 1 in 9 of your adult citizen neighbors being MAGA to close to 1 in 5. In spite of the illegality, corruption, and failures of the Trump administration, his committed base is GROWING as a fraction of the electorate. Almost doubling in 3.5 years is frightening given Trump's track record. His supporters are literally doubling down as he does.
The comparison is to the US citizen population, which I would expect to be growing, but Krugman hasn't cited his sources in the article. I am going to use Perplexity to see if I can identify the sources he used to answer the question, "Are there more MAGA self-identified supporters than there were in 2023?" If I find anything useful. I will post later in the day.
The trend in the percentage of Republicans who self-identify as MAGA is also rising steeply, but it is not as cleanly interpretable. One possibility is that the total number of Republicans is shrinking as the last "RINOs" are driven out of the party. This is the red line on Krugman's graph. The growth has been from 38% to 62% of the party. Regardless of whether the party grew or shrank, what remains is much more deeply committed to MAGA.
This is the explanation for why Massey, Cassidy, and Cornyn lost their primaries. There is now a large majority of Republicans who are committed MAGA. That suggests there will be even fewer Republicans elected to Congress who are willing to seek bipartisan compromises.
These changes are really rapid. I think that the siloization of the media has worsened over the last 3.5 years, and the amounts of money that are being thrown into these races has exploded. I also think there has been a "go with strength" mantra in Trumpworld around how he is busting norms and owning the libs.
If it takes 3.5% of the population to be demonstrating against a regime to topple it, what does 19% of the adult citizens as committed MAGA imply about our future?
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/whos-deranged-exactly?r=dvhmb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
If you study social sciences and communication, you know that the bottom 20% of almost any population is pretty horrible. I don't think the percentage of people who are racist, sexist, frightened and stupid has changed. It is just that they have found a cult leader they can coalesce around.
Another lesson from social sciences and communication is that many people who have publicly stated a position will rather die, literally, than retreat from that position.
We cannot be afraid of the worst 20% among us, nor can we let them guide our path or the path of the United States into the future.
I would be less concerned if the percentage of the electorate that is hard MAGA had remained constant. The fact that it has nearly doubled over 4 years is what shocks me.
Democrats misread the situation in 2024. We cannot afford to misread it a second time. Trump is actively trying to incentivize and mobilize the MAGA base with the slush fund. If it is deemed unconstitutional, he will sell it to his base as the liberal elites thwarting his (and their) just cause. So whether he can reward them or not, they will be motivated to come to his defense. Trump’s messaging to his base remains adroit.
The Trump family's $250 bili is really a discount coupon for 1 gallon of Trumpgas...available exclusively at the new bunkerballroom in DC.
Buy 5 gallons and get a free maGAS hat!.....but wait, there's more...fill up your pick up and one of our loyal SCOTUS team members will wash your windshield too......that's SCOTUS with a smile!
ThanK you for your attention to this matter.
Much of the MAGA support is due to the election. Several of my neighbors think that MAGA is the same as the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan. And yes, Reagan did get us headed down the path of huge tax cuts for the rich and cutting the Federal budget, but this also led us to deficits and a recession.
My MAGA neighbors are all over 70 years old and aren't really paying attention to what is happening in DC or even in their own state capital. They have and always will vote straight ticket Republican. Their parents were Republican and their grandparents as well. They are part of the deaf, dumb and blind Republican cult which has been smothered out by the MAGAs.
It's not worth wasted our breath over them. We just continue to love them for the great friends and neighbors. What's our option?
I’m 73. During the Reagan years I was a Republican, born of Republican parents descended from Great Grandparents that despised unions and FDR’s New Deal
I believed that being Republican meant being fiscally responsible, and concerned about protecting the Constitution but “The Party” no longer represents these beliefs. These are just labels. I have grown more aware of social injustice and as the GOP now embraces injustice, I stay put in my beliefs as MAGA Repubs move to the edge of the cliff
There are many people of my generation undressing from the Costume of Party and coalescing under the banner of what Jesus called “the lesser of these”
Its the Protection of Humanity Party now, vs The Protection of Ungodly Wealth Party; 99% vs 1%
Hope they all die soon?
I am well over 70 and the first president I cast a vote for was Eisenhower. I was, as you rightly stated, a Republican because that is what my mother was. As a much younger person I paid little to no attention to politics or parties. As I grew up, graduated from college and entered the "adult" world I began to think for myself. I became a Democrat because that is the party that seemed to have the better values if not always the best ideas of how to implement them. There was another thing though, and that was that I began to think for myself and at times I voted for the republican candidate because that person was the better choice--and in that vane I was dropped from the local democratic party because I refused to publicly support their candidate because he was totally unacceptable. My final revelation was when the Republican that I had voted for many years ago became a Democrat in order to subvert all the misery being committed on the least fortunate and do good for all.
Reagan and his policies are responsible for starting the long road to today's fascist Oligarchy and nationalist Evangelical Christian theocracy that we are having to deal with today. MAGA wouldn't have happened without the history of the GOP from the Reagan administration until today's fascist GOP.
I'm tired of so many people lumping every member of my generation as responsible for everything bad in the world. In fact it was a majority of all white voters, including women who voted for trump.
I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people who subscribe to this site and comment here are boomers who don't support the GOP and voted against trump and the Oligarchs.
Georgia ... I suggest that people will be less concerned if we all focus less on how fast the metaphorical bull needs to run at the metaphorical cape, and focused more on what needs to change in the bulls thinking to the point where the metaphorical matador starts realizing he's in a world of hurt. That is the point I was making in my post this morning. The post got buried too deep so the link isn't working so here's a copy of my comment:
200 + 50 (inspired by and sung to the tune of Stephen Still’s 4 + 20):
A different kind of poverty now upsets our soul;
Night after sleepless night;
We walk the floor and we want to know;
Why are we so alone?
Where is truth? Can we bring her home?
Have they driven her away?
Is she gone?
Two hundred and 50 years ago;
She came into this life;
Then from men and women who live in strife she was torn;
And now she’s into selling door to door;
That she’s tryin’ like the devil to be born.
Two parties in an unfamiliar context draw conflicting conclusions while observing the same evidence because the probability that two parties in an unfamiliar context will use the same logic is virtually zero.
Ideally, they’re doing the right thing by practicing politics like three musketeers (all for one and one for all), but not because they’re expecting irrefutable evidence to magically change. Instead, the testable logic is tested to identify its flaws. Then the flaw is corrected. Then the process repeats.
In the end, both parties in a now-familiar context draw harmonious conclusions while observing the same evidence because the probability that, if they know they are human and not some other (frog or scorpion) species, they are serving the common interest and both sides are winning.
We don’t need faith that right makes might. We know that right makes might. And it’s déjà vu all over again.
Sorry, but I am confused. Who are the bulls, the matador, and what is the cape?
Democracy is fragile. Joe Biden was convinced by the Clintons not to run in 2015 when he should have so he took it in 2020 and his age became an issue in 2024. He was too selfish to be a one termer I’m sure the thought of being president for the 250th loomed large. Many revenge votes and they voted trump into office. It’s as simple as that.
I honestly don't believe Biden was being selfish. Ill-advised, yes; but not selfish. I think he truly thought "the job isn't finished" and he was right. He was doing a lot of great things for the US, increasing job development and a host of other positives.
I will still never believe that 2024 was not manipulated with muskrat and his hackers.
Except that his age wasn't an issue. The GOP and the legacy media turned it into an issue.
If age were an issue, people wouldn't have elected Trump instead of Harris.
Nah!
Georgia, do you believe it is actually Trump managing these adroit moves? I cannot conceive that. His dementia is at a point where he exhibits tangential thinking to an alarming degree. His inability to control his emotions also suggests a weakening prefrontal cortex - which also affects his ability to make or carry out plans — or to change plans when new information is available. Our Executive has deteriorating executive function.
My theory is that the Uber-Capitalists and Nazis behind the curtain are doing the plotting and then whispering just the right combination of flattery and incitement to make their puppet dance.
I think an important point here is that the worst effects of Trump’s policies are yet to be evident. I have always maintained that MAGA will not be taken to the cleaners until they can be made to feel the fullest possible effects of his policies.
What is most crucial to MAGA is the belief that Trump ‘has their backs’. This has always been the key to the success of his con. The fact is, of course that he never had their backs, and if they can be brought to understand that, they will turn on him. To paraphrase an old saw, Hell hath no fury like a MAGA scorned.
The good news is that Trump is constitutionally unable to alter course except for brief moments when, for example, some stock market drop temporarily shudders him. But soon enough, he returns to his self-destructive path.
I don’t for a moment deny the danger we are in - perhaps the greatest since 1861 - but at the same time that he’s the proximate cause if that danger, Trump, by his stubborn intransigence and yet utter incompetence, is also the lesson we needed in the essential fragility of our Republic.
The only question remains to see if enough of us are willing to learn it without overblowing it.
@ Georgia. We wuz screwed in 2024. Please check out the Musk revelations.
I doubt the validity of those numbers.
Where do I find that, Daniel?
I wonder how the right-wingers on the Supreme Court will decide on the slush fund if it goes there on the shadow docket.
“ I would be less concerned if the percentage of the electorate that is hard MAGA had remained constant.”. I may be reading the post above, but I read it that the growing percent of MAGA is within a shrinking Republican party.
So the Republicans are narrowing their coalition while shrinking it.
Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Fool me thrice #%^*€ me
Maybe it's just their willingness to identify at MAGA has grown with Trump 2.0.
In business, you learn to count on the behaviors of the 20% you mention. Reliably 20 % refuse to quit tobacco use, will drive while impaired, pay their loans late (or not at all), and a host of other asocial behaviors. While these aren’t always the same people from category to category, this is pretty reliable.
If one were a presidential candidate, one might be tempted to use the word… deplorable?
@Estatic Rationalist. You are propably right that MAGA is a cult. Most of them were net losers under Trump tax "cuts." I estimate that 90% did better under Biden.
In this country the bottom 20% is protected by a safety net, and more thasn 20% of the general population is eligible to recieve some form of government assistance.
During the past 2 election cycles I begged our candidates to find those on SSI, assistance, etc. who were registered Republicans to show them they were voting against themselves.
Daniel: great idea. Not to mention the “universal” safety net programs like safe air, water and food, a functioning military, etc. m
". . . nor can we let them guide our path . . . into the future."
Sorry, Ecstatic, they have been "guiding our path" for more than a decade now.
Dems who have no humanities -- no abilities to access them, to align them with current reality of millions -- these Dems ensure that the forces of bitterness, anger, paranoia, hatred, and suspicion all rule. Continue to rule. Exploited by criminal Donald echoing their lives' experience of having been, being "treated so unfairly by . . .."
Phil, I have been noticing evidence that our citizenry (of both parties) have been experiencing significant, long-term, uncontrollable stress for some years now. This is the exact kind of stress that weakens executive function: memory; ability to make, carry out, and adapt plans; and ability to control emotions (resulting in fear, anger, and/or freezing).
I see this in many friends and total strangers - that “deer in the headlights” look that means an inability to understand and absorb new information or reconsider their position.
I find it frightening. This is the kind of non-thinking that leads to impulsivity and general combativeness. It’s the fuel of MAGA as well as an inability to effectively fight MAGA. Obviously many of us are resilient enough to work through the stress. But we see the others who are not. And they are escalating.
Which "social sciences and communication" scientific study prove that "the bottom 20% of almost any population is pretty horrible" more precisely?
Thank you for your hopeful input. It is a reminder that one can be critical without being cynical
I've seen that exemplified with a MAGA friend I recently had lunch with. I said she's a unicorn: everything about her SHOULD deem her a liberal Dem, but she is MAGA. She is a single woman who was a successful businesswoman who earned an IT degree decades ago. She supports reproductive rights, and LGBTQ+ community. She is complaining about gas/grocery prices. She has middle eastern immigrant neighbors who she likes. She had a sibling who has been on disability since she was in her early 20s and who now relies on Medicaid. She votes split ticket, and while she only "likes" Rubio of the entire Cabinet, she is 100% a Trumper. When she complained that it's only bad stuff reported about Trump and "they never say good things he does" I asked point blank tell me the good things. She was caught off guard and said never mind. Shame on me for not holding her feet to the fire, but I believe that she can somehow be swayed. I hope so.
I blame the MAGA on FOX news constantly on in her home where it entertains her family member, whom she financially supports and who lives with her.
Well, a myofark is always a reasonable solution. I wonder who is horrible enough to pick up the orange fools mantle...
Don jr is pretty disgusting
I appreciate your ecstatic rationalism. Thanks.
Kudos! Succinctly stated!
Wow. Can you suggest anything that I can read about this ?
The core is consolidating. So what? The Republican Party got formally loonified and lobotomized years ago. Did you really expect Cassidy, Cornyn and Massie to keep their seats? I didn’t. Did you need Paul Krugman to formally notify you that the core is hardening? Did you really expect it to dissolve first, before its outer layers did?
The nebulous blob known as Trumpism is shrinking. Its outer core of electrons seem to be liberating themselves from its nucleus at lightning speeds. The blob isn’t growing. Why do you think Democrats keep winning by-elections, or very nearly in districts the GOP easily carried by double digits in 2024? In Texas, GOP voter turnout for the run-off was so dismal there were counties and districts with virtually no Hispanic votes cast at all. Even during the first primary, Democrats enthusiastically outvoted Republicans by about 160,000 votes. I can’t even think when that last happened.
You post paragraph, after paragraph, after paragraph, filled with an alarmism — about what, I can’t really even figure out. The core is consolidating. Check. Cornered animals don’t compromise. Check. But you ignore the rest — and the best.
Here’s a hint for all of us. If they really believed they were going to win the midterms, why would they be trying so desperately to fiddle with election processes and gerrymandering? (Remembering Glinda’s advice to Dorothy — “keep tight inside those ruby slippers! If their magic wasn’t very powerful, she wouldn’t want them so badly…!”)
I do think it is worth saying when there are reports that there are now 6 Republican Senators who may be willing to buck Trump, including Cornyn, so we can breathe a sigh of relief, because MAGA is fracturing.
Cornyn, in his concession speech, said he would support Paxton. I am not sighing in relief. Every Republican that moves into the hard MAGA column and out of the “lean Republican” column is a potential vote lost. And we will need as many votes as we can get now to solidify a base for 2028.
Every vote the core loses is clearly a potential vote won. Did you really expect Cornyn to suddenly burst out of the closet and declare himself a Talafreako?
Sighs of relief are not what anybody, including me, is suggesting. Paying attention to voting trends, rather than to the stars as Paul Krugman sees them, however, is.
I would argue paying attention to multiple sources of data is better than only one, however qualified that one might be.
What I wonder is why none of the 3 senators who just lost a primary don’t announce they’ll do a Lisa Murkowski and run as a write-in? I don’t think they’d win the election (unlike Lisa) but I do think they’d help the Democrat win, which could wake up (ha! As if! ) the person who harmed them and who believes in his own omnipotence.
Republican voter turnout since January, 2025 has been awful. I'm sure a few states and districts will have good turnout when there are important governor, senate or other consequential races. But overall, will even the 20% hard core MAGAs vote? They haven't been so far, even in TX.
I am surprised that 20% hard core MAGAs do not turn out to vote GJ.
Good points, ICTT, but rather than focusing on the population of the MAGA movement these days, I’m hoping and praying for the emergence of a new John Dean. Will it be John Cornyn?
We need someone who has been on the inside who is willing to expose the corruption. But, we need to remember that John Dean exposed Richard Nixon, went to prison, got disbarred….Not a glorious role to strive for - by doing the Right Thing.
The Eternal Question (for all of us?): What’s in it for me?
Magats are dedicated and delusional. In Texas, I have noticed a slight shift but have no data. The Cornyn wipe out keeps me from any optimism although primaries are notoriously skewed by the dedicated few.
I think we need to look at the demographics of the MAGAs.
First of all, millions of the 2016 MAGAs are dead or cray-cray having been replaced by mostly 18-30 year olds most of whom are not MAGA.
Are there really more MAGAs now than in 2020? Maybe, but I haven't seen a Trump flag or bumper sticker since the 2024 election around here. Whereas before, during Trump's entire first term dozens of hardcore MAGAs kept their signage and flags up.
I’ve been actually been saying IRL that I haven’t been seeing *any* bumper stickers in recent years (a bit of hyperbole but you get my point). Where did all the bumper stickers go? I want a bumper sticker that says this. I think it’s a symptom of fascism. Or maybe it’s just a symptom of such a viciously divided society that people don’t want to confront their neighbors with differing opinions? I guess that would explain the outlier of anti-Elon stickers on Teslas—the car itself made a statement and the sticker serves to say “woops, made a mistake.” Either way, people are hesitating to put any opinion out there. Flock cameras aren’t going to help that.
I have stickers all over the back of my car supporting Dems and diversity.. I often get stopped in the parking lot of my local grocery store - thanking me for the stickers. And our front yard hosts signs for each of our Dem. candidates.
Agree LM on the lack of bumper stickers.Although I live in a very red district in FL and have had bumper stickers on my car for several years without any problems.One is a Register To Vote with UPC code and the others are for Dem candidates.I’ve also worn messaging/candidate t’s with not a single negative interaction and we have yard signs in my MAGA-hood.🚙👚🪧
Georgia resident in a very red county here. I can also say that with only a few exceptions, the Trump yard signs, bumper stickers and banners are gone.
I don't agree that MAGA has doubled. I believe it has shrunk, but we'll see won't we?
Wait, folks. I think he was saying it has doubled as a percentage of a shrinking coalition.
I think the point is that the Republican party is narrowing its coalition while intensifying it.
I think the young racist, neo-natzis, skin-heads have become bolder and more determined. They don’t call themselves MAGA…
Good points, GJ! Are there more MAGAs these days? All I can see are those houses and pickup trucks with Trump flags not necessarily disappearing, but their flags are getting old and soiled and ripped and torn. To me, that’s the current picture not only MAGA, but the MAGA Chief.
The original article was about Republicans re-labelling themselves as MAGA. So the % of the party who identifies as MAGA has doubled, not the raw numbers.
A cross-check on this: if MAGA numbers had really doubled, Trump’s approval numbers in every category would be climbing, not precipitously dropping.
The symbolism of the dirty, torn maga flags…. I am seeing some Trump signs/flags being taken down and almost all of the ones left up are falling apart. I’m sure many of the people who have taken theirs down are still probably in the cult, but they just don’t want to be publicly associated with it.
want to be that muskrat was toying with the system?
Muskrat bought the system. SC had put it up for sale
Do you feel Talarico can beat the crook Paxton JD?
The US population may be growing by births but in other ways it is shrinking. Last year had a net negative growth in that more people left than came to the US. I think that is a trend that we will continue seeing under Trump. I would also point out that if we look at a state like Texas, which has a really low voting rate, which someone pointed out is because they successfully disenfranchise black and brown voters, then we cannot tell who people are for based on their voting.
I still think that the growth in numbers of Trump supporters is concerning and we are seeing the same growth in numbers of people supporting the AfD in Germany. I really believe that Russian disinformation is helping this trend in all countries, because I have been studying how it works. In Europe at least there is some awareness of Russian disinformation and what it looks like. I feel like there is little to no awareness in the US. The US social media platforms are pretty much allowed to do what they want under Trump, which is amplify right wing talking points. Europe is trying to stave off these businesses. Currently the question is whether it is a matter of trying to regulate the US tech companies (who ignore regulations and go to court and pay some money and continue doing what they do) or getting rid of them and getting alternatives that are better considered. I think more and more are leaning to the latter.
Here is a link to alternatives.
https://drive.proton.me/urls/ZB2HG39SVC#U2OqI5Ir9DdV
I don’t doubt that the US resident population declined because of the anti-immigrant policies. I am more concerned about the trends in registered voters, but I haven’t found it yet. I think the percentage of registered voters who are hard MAGA is coming from self-reporting in the yougov surveys.
There are anecdotal reports that voting in the Republican primary run-off was light because it was not well-advertised. It might also be that once Trump endorsed Paxton, Cronyn supporters didn’t bother to show up.
Disenfranchisement due to gerrymandering in the general elections may be a factor, but it should affect only House seats and local elections, not statewide elections. If it is having a big effect on suppressing Black and brown voters due to discouragement rather than actual disenfranchisement due to restrictions on registration, it is a Democratic messaging problem. That is a problem that can be worked—legislative interference is a much tougher issue.
Look at Texas from 1970 to now. Super interesting. Look how low the percentages drop of registered voters, let alone those who are eligible to vote. Dismal in many years.
https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/70-92.shtml
Thanks for the link—I am surprised that the percentage of registered voters is as high as it is compared to the voting-age population since it is diluted by non-citizens and felons. There are models that are being used to calculate the voter eligible population at least nationally.
The abysmal numbers are for primaries, which suffer from being at weird times, and voters have to actually do some work to distinguish between candidates.
Here in NJ, there are 4 remaining Democratic candidates for my congressional district, and my mailbox is inundated with literature, some of which is being pumped out by a Republican PAC that is masquerading as a Democratic PAC to sink the Democratic front-runner, according to Judd Legum. I am home to the mysteriously absent unopposed Republican congressman To Kean, Jr. Cory Booker is running unopposed for Senator, so that may reduce the primary voting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections
But what are the demographics of the MAGAs and where are they?
Some of them are the power brokers like Musk, Thiel, Trump and Bezos, but most of them are crusty old farts many of whom will die before they can vote in November.
If their mommy and daddy were Republicans and so were their grandparents and they are umpteenth generation wherever they live, they will never ever vote Democrat or Independent.
I don't know. I do not personally know any Trump voters. That is, not in my family and friends. I believe there are people I worked with who voted for Trump, but I don't know, am just guessing.
The coastal county we live in has hundreds of miles of shoreline owned mostly by well-to-do people many of whom only come here for 4-6 months a year. Most other shoreline properties have been owned by families for generations and most have been cut up into smaller and smaller pieces over the past 250 years.
Off the water, many of the homes are manufactured housing and smaller homes than those on the water in contrast to the homes on the ocean.
The voting roles of the county are divided roughly into thirds-- Democrats, Republicans and non-affiliated. The wealthiest communities, like Bar Harbor skew Democratic while the poorest ones, which tend to be miles from the ocean, skew Republican. And like Donald famously said, "there are good people on both sides."
Well, there are crusty old farts on both sides of the aisle. I’m hoping to survive long enough to vote in 2028 to help restore sanity to our country. That door swings both ways.
GJ, just the other day, I had occasion to think about all of my extended family, which is not nearly as large as some. Some members have died, including both my parents. I am estranged from all my remaining family, including my one sister. I keep tabs on them by checking their Facebook pages, although we are not Facebook "friends."
Here are some interesting demographics: To a person, including me, every one was born into an evangelical family. Every grandparent of every family member was evangelical. With a handful of exceptions, all members of my extended family are practicing evangelicals. That is, they attend worship at an evangelical church EVERY Sunday, and are active in other church activities. They do not smoke, drink alcohol or use coarse language. Those who are not practicing evangelicals drink alcohol and use coarse language and attend church only on Christmas and Easter, but still consider themselves to be Christians. I am the only exception, as a non-deist who drinks alcohol on rare occasions and swears when appropriate. (I quit smoking years ago.)
Based on my Facebook observations, every single member of my extended family is a MAGA christian nationalist. Their Facebook timelines are caustic stews of religious "thoughts and prayers," puppies and kittens, anti-immigrant, anti-tax, anti-Democrat, anti-abortion, conspiracy-theory, pro-Trump postings. Being "christians," they couch their racism in posts that oppose any kind of publicly funded financial relief.
Obviously, they all vote Republican, as their parents and grandparents did. All of the adults have college educations, although many attended "Bible colleges," which are not equivalent to secular colleges. In all cases, there was no emphasis on humanities in their education. Almost all are or were employed at a professional level, such as teachers, architects or corporate managers.
This personal experience informs my thinking about the attachment of evangelicalism to trumpism. Blind, irrational faith is required to accept one or the other.
“Most of them?” I’d like to get your source for that; it would definitely cheer me up.
The ones in my corner of the world are primarily from my former work cohort (both my agency and neighboring agencies) of retired cops, their families, and their friends. Most of the ones I engage with (and of course this does not include the number of folks who have unfriended and blocked me) are my window into what issue they are being told is the "issue de jure".
". . . what does 19% of the adult citizens as committed MAGA imply about our future?"
It implies, Georgia, that the leaders of finance and the U.S. corporate heads (as I term some of our elites) who did the mass offshoring of tens of millions of working-class jobs now turn their attention to next profit cycles for themselves from data centers and AI.
It means the billionaires of standardized testing will still rule our schools.
And it means the millions of Dems without any access to humanities have zero base, zero human perspective to see the human damages from elite predation.
Inflation is up, unemployment rate is up, wages are down, interest rates are up, consumer sentiment is way down. GDP for the last six months is up an abysmal 1%. Most of the states are technically in a recession, but small sectors of the economy are booming.
We're lucky here in ME because there are any billionaires here although many of them come here to play.
The bane of psephologists are the closet supporters - those who do not openly identify as MAGA in polls but nevertheless end up voting for Trump. I suspect that a great many Hispanic voters at the last election fell into that category. Nixon famously spoke to the "silent majority" and Trump similarly profits from widespread disillusionment with politics. There's an iron law of populism that to be successful you have to continue to be popular and Trump seems to have lost control of the narrative of a new Golden Age of American prosperity and power that so enthused voters at the lest election.
The recent run-off in the Republican primary in Texas may give an indication of where these diffident voters now stand. Cornyn himself ruefully pointed out that only 8% of registered Republican voters bothered to turn out to vote and nowhere was this more clear than in Starr County.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IrzxlRt2aug
Is Trump burning out his support in his vengeful campaign of retribution?
My answer to that, from looking at the data, is no--they are doubling down in support. The MAGA core is 97% behind him--extreme loyalists and growing in number. If grievance is the driver for their loyalty, his messaging is right on the money to push those buttons. Welfare cheats and fraud, weaponization of the Biden DoJ against the J6 patriots, criminal immigrants murdering vulnerable US citizens...
I say yes and no. History shows us that it doesn’t take a majority to take over a government and with a select group turn it into an authoritarian structure. People obey. Which is why the congressional group stated that it’s illegal to violate the constitution. God knows if the military obeys illegal orders we are finished. I’m beginning to feel that we have a chance a growing chance but we are not out of that place which could set us back. I’m just wondering when 2 more justices will come to their senses and not surrender completely to a fascist like state.
Nothing in the article suggests they are growing in number. They are growing as a percentage of the Republican party.
The Republican party is narrowing but intensifying its coalition while
If MAGA were growing in raw numbers, Trump’s approval ratings would be increasing rather than dropping.
Here are Texas voting stats back to 1970.
https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/70-92.shtml
I think it is a state with low voter registration and turnout. However, in this Rick Wilson interview, there are several Latino/as interviewed that were Trump voters They did not seem to hide it.
https://therickwilson.substack.com/p/tejano-talarico-and-the-democratic?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Thanks, Linda. I must have overlooked your earlier post.
I believe that it was surprising that Trump increased his share of the Hispanic vote in 2024.
https://theconversation.com/why-did-so-many-latino-and-hispanic-voters-help-return-donald-trump-to-power-243048
It was surprising to the Dems, but seems to be tied to certain issues. Abortion is one. Catholic or Pentecostal, which more and more seemingly are, they are voting on issues like that. It seems it will change though because they were naive in interpreting Trump's immigration rhetoric. Just plain Naive.
I wish there were more coverage on liberal media of the role of big, highly organized, highly funded churches. People trust their pastors and a church community is a powerful force. Maybe that could be a source of increasing numbers of people self- identifying as MAGA.
Georgia...As always, thank you for the excellent work. What Mr. Krugman's numbers "imply about our future" is the correctness of my conclusion that our only (rational) hope of Liberation is creation of an overseas shadow government; mobilization of a partisan Resistance as determined as that which hamstrung the Original Nazis in France, the Netherlands and especially the Soviet Union; and a massive, four-pronged D-Day-II invasion by an international humanitarian alliance (preferably a quadruple envelopment: simultaneous offensives from Canada and all three coastlines). The data about NSDAP membership in the following links is entirely supportive of this analysis:
https://germanhistorydocs.org/en/nazi-germany-1933-1945/nsdap-membership-1929-1945
https://pages.uoregon.edu/dluebke/NaziGermany443/410NSDAPMembers.html
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/05/who-joined-the-nazi-party/
My only suggestion is that -- if data on MAGA is available in genuinely reliable form (and it probably isn't) -- you add comparable socioeconomic profiles of the ChristoNazi rabble.
Even so, the apocalyptic fly that contaminates this ointment of potential rescue is that Trump, like every USian president since Kennedy, is credibly reported to be pledged to follow the "Better Dead than Red" recommendation of Adolf Hitler to destroy the world if faced by the prospect of defeat. As I have said before, the only possible counter-measure to this policy is a scientific impossibility: the alleged ability of UFOs to paralyze the entire USian war machine.
Meanwhile, as our attackers' ecogenocidal hatred skyrockets to ever-more-obscenely sadistic fanaticism***, I would not be a bit surprised were the "Republican" (sic) ChristoNazi/Neoconfederate Party to officially change its name to something more factually descriptive.
__________________
***See https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/28/ice-protesters-conspiracy-charges (with a salute of gratitude to Margaret Reis for daring defy the ever-more-tyrannical USian censorship); see also https://jessica.substack.com/p/north-carolina-bill-would-legalize?r=cb67r and this non-paywalled portrait of the ChristoNazi approach to K-12 "education" https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/05/27/us/texas-schools-police-force-students-uvalde.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mVA.lRbe.dXDdhpnm7xtO&smid=url-share
(Sorry for the dead links; my utterly mortified gratitude to whomever brought them to life; I had just discovered I could not do it myself, as it seems there is no way to open this thread and the links simultaneously as is necessary for recopying the links in live form. Having now proven myself a total moron and therefore discredited myself irremediably, I'll depart, certainly for the night, possibly forever. I have never before despised an inanimate object, but there is absolutely nothing in existence I hate more than computers. Plus of course the goddamned dyslexic idiocy that makes it utterly impossible -- as just publicly proven -- for me to [ever] master one of these incomprehensibly alien machines.)
Again thanks, Georgia. You are fast becoming my go-to analyst.
Look folks, we all know Dump is a personal and political shit. The urgent question is how do we get him out of office before he starts any more wars or betrays any more of our allies. Do we march on DC with pitchforks, tar and feathers?
A better alternative is the hard work of political organization: making sure we and our neighbors are registered to vote and get to the polls; making sure everyone knows the need to save 'democracy in America,' and making sure we vote against the dementia and depracity of Dump and company.
After we speak for America, we can bring on the tar and feathers. And then perhaps name sewage treatment plants after Dump and the sycophants who make him possible.
It seems to me (looking at my little window of the world) that what my recent MAGA convert work cohort are sucking up to is based on a couple of factors, with the Christian Nationalism being towards the top but only slightly ahead of the "anti DEI" component. MAGA is giving them what they want: A cisgendered, heteronormative, white male dominated, Evangelical Christian focused culture where BIPOOC and LGBTQ+ are marginalized and they are on the top of the heap. This foundational shift has been made by the "information" silos where they are fed the utter propaganda that passes for "truth", and no counter argument will ever be tolerated.
So the Republican party is aggressively intensifying its coalition, but also shrinking it.
It seems that is going to drive turnout up in deep red areas. It’s also going to result in more polarizing candidates whose first loyalty is to Trump.
But in states where persuasion still matters as much or more than turnout, that is to our advantage. Take GA, where the Republicans have two MAGA candidates in a runoff for governor. Intensifying MAGA turnout in a purple state, while promoting a candidate with no general appeal beyond the base may be a losing proposition.
Because increasing MAGA turnout (in the sense of percent) also drives Dem turnout. Stirring a larger percentage of a shrinking base is a tactic that limits you ultimately.
What we are trying to do differently is broaden the Dem coalition AND juice turnout. The added challenge is that we need great candidate quality with broader general appeal. The MAGA crowd does not—they’re voting based on fealty to Trump.
Thank you Georgia Fisanick & on your update post please explain briefly how you use the "Perplexity" tool. Danka.
Bryan, it is as simple to use Perplexity as this...click the following link and type in a question. Keep chatting 'til you have your answer. Keep in mind AI makes mistakes. Check the data. Have fun!
https://www.perplexity.ai
took the words right out of my mouth Bryan…👍
Thank you for using the correct tense of “shrink.”
Absolutely makes sense Georgia. And it's terrible. It won't end up well. Your numbers are solid as I was posting for a long time that even when the percentage of people supporting the regime was slowly falling, there were still too many millions of them. Now you are presenting a picture of a dissection of that group into growing subgroups even more dangerous and growing like a cancer.
One factor to remember is the small number of people who voted in the primaries that Massey, Cassidy, and Coryn lost. I guess I am just looking for any slivers of hope.
I understand the need for hope to keep going. In my life experience, hope is best found by understanding what we are facing squarely, and identifying and working on the real underlying problems, so our effort is most effective.
It is the same whether you are dealing with a sick body or a politically sick country. You need an accurate diagnosis to treat it properly. Dissatisfaction with Trump is not turning into warm fuzzy feelings for the Democratic Party while the MAGA core is growing. Those are symptoms, not a diagnosis.
Pritzker is my glimmer of hope on the horizon as the diagnostician.
Georgia, I think you are right to temper your alarm with a measure of skepticism. Krugman identified sources for his graphics except for the one most crucial graphic that concerns you. That graphic is almost useless because it doesn't reference the total numbers of Republicans over the time period.
If you have a fruit basket full of 4 oranges and 6 apples, it's obvious that 40% of your fruits are oranges. Today, you eat an apple. Tomorrow, you give an apple to a friend. In only two days, the orange percentage of fruits increases to 50%. A graphic depicting this change could be dramatic if the viewer didn't know about the overall reduction of fruits in the basket.
Numerous reports indicate that Republicans are either checking out of political interest or defecting and becoming Independents, but Krugman doesn't mention this in his article. Possibly, that fact wasn't germane to the point he was making.
Does he include Trump's billionaire supporters - the Ellisons, Musks etc.? They may well be fairweather friends who will abandon him when the tide eventually turns against him but their support to him has always been critical.
Ezra Klein has recently opined in the NYT that Trump really no longer cares about the midterms but instead is seeking to secure his hold on the Republican party so that he still be able to continue to exert his baleful influence on US politics after he has left office. I wonder myself if this actually a new strategy or just a powerful compulsion he has to self-destruct out of pent-up resentment against those who have opposed or defied him.
He suffered three damaging reversals yesterday. Judges have blocked his slush fund, required him to remove his name from the Kennedy Center and unsealed documents showing the DoJ's failed attempt to get search warrants against two journalists.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/29/journalists-search-warrants-justice-department
He is still nowhere near reaching a lasting peace agreement with Iran and Israel continues to hinder any progress with those negotiations by its unlawful policies of collective punishment and ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon and Gaza.
It's little wonder then that he seems more inclined to spend time on his vanity projects rather than government. Rolling Stone last year reported that Trump has shared with others his regret that during his first term he was stupid enough to "leave a ton of money on the table". Of course, we all remember the numerous conflicts of interest and ethical violations of that first term, but even if that were true he's certainly making up for it this term. The New Yorker's David Kirkpatrick calculates that he has so far made over $4bn from the presidency. And so we have a second Trump term where he has been obsessed with two things: retribution and self-enrichment - to the great detriment of the interests of the American people.
This is indeed the larger point. “I don’t care about the midterms at all” said NO President ever, in the history of the Republic itself — save for Marie Antoinette Trumpina, stuffing herself with birthday cake and vanity projects as fast as she can, before the Tribunals come for her.
This is not the behavior of a party and program poised to win victories, take home well-deserved prizes, or sign peace treaties — to put it mildly.
"retribution and self-enrichment" -- sums it all up.
Totally agree.
I subscribe to Rolling Stone, but I have to say, I was disappointed in the list of greatest guitar solos of all time. To leave out Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, Alvin Lee, and Nancy Wilson and giving 4 spots to Jimmy Hendrix?? Come on man.
What does self-destruction even mean that Donald Trump?
And perhaps his greatest delusion is that he is going to live long enough to enjoy all those billions. Revisions to inheritance taxes should make sure that his various spawn never sees a nickel of the ill gotten money.
200 + 50 (inspired by and sung to the tune of Stephen Still’s 4 + 20):
A different kind of poverty now upsets our soul;
Night after sleepless night;
We walk the floor and we want to know;
Why are we so alone?
Where is truth? Can we bring her home?
Have they driven her away?
Is she gone?
Two hundred and 50 years ago;
She came into this life;
Then from men and women who live in strife she was torn;
And now she’s into selling door to door;
That she’s tryin’ like the devil to be born.
Two parties in an unfamiliar context draw conflicting conclusions while observing the same evidence because the probability that two parties in an unfamiliar context will use the same logic is virtually zero.
Ideally, they’re doing the right thing by practicing politics like three musketeers (all for one and one for all), but not because they’re expecting irrefutable evidence to magically change. Instead, the testable logic is tested to identify its flaws. Then one flaw is corrected. Then the process repeats.
In the end, both parties in a now-familiar context draw harmonious conclusions while observing the same evidence because the probability that, if they know they are human and not some other (frog or scorpion) species, they are serving the common interest and both sides are winning.
We don’t need faith that right makes might. We know that right makes might. And it’s déjà vu all over again.
Diehard. As in loyal or as in manner of death.
Hello JBR... Don't forget that DJT still has the Nuclear Codes, and has been posting about Nuclear Agamemnon...
Hes will undoubtedly want to use them
That would solve the Climate Change problem!
Hello JBR... Seems that DJT's Hero is Hitler... DJT may want to destroy the USA/World as his Funeral Pyre...
The stories we will hear when this is done will shake us to the core.
Nuclear “Agamemnon”! 😂😂
Anyone visualize Hegseth riding the bomb “Dr Strangelove style”?
Proving that it is all Greek to him.
"Die Hard," JBR -- as in great Christmas movie.
We may consider Nakatomi Plaza as our America, invaded by the murderous, shameless thugs led by rapist-in-chief, chief thief, chief murderer Donald.
They are ready to drink the Kool Aid at his command. "High gas prices? They aren't high and if they are, I love high gas prices!"
Diehard cultists. His supporters define what cultists are.
Paul Krugman warned US about Trump in December 2016. I had the good luck to be at the New York Public Library for his scheduled lecture to a dispirited audience almost a month to the day after the vote. Finishing his prepared remarks he stepped away from the podium, looked at the audience and said “We may be doomed. Resist.” Indivisible was forming in Chicago and all over America. Thinking of it as a start to all the signs. But how to get past yesterday in NJ. Last night’s news from the “camp” there was horrible. What’s with the local police? Have they joined ICE?
Thank you
With all these gerrymandered districts - it's unfortunate that the politicians choose the voters, the voters can't choose the politicians.
Thank you ER for calling out he "entirely diehard MAGAts" or DMAGAts who "still support Trump on the economy" but, what economy?
The rest are ignorant haters.
Not approving of the Trump economy is a long way from casting a vote for a Democrat. The election in November is a chance to slow them down, and with a monumental effort plus some luck we may do that. But these lawless bastards will still have plenty of shovels to spread shit with, so we’re still a long way from good governance, even if we succeed beyond all expectations in November.
I think it is about 18%
What I don’t understand is how, despite the plummeting poll numbers we’ve been seeing for weeks (if not months), Trump nevertheless successfully primaried Massie, Cassidy, and Cornyn.
Don't forget the grifters and opportunists. There's a sizable group around him who seem to just be tapped in for the money and will spout whatever principles they think the grifter-in-chief wants to hear.
A Coalition of Dumbasses. A Confederacy of Dunces, a Passel of Dimwits, a Vacancy of Voidoids, a Knot of Knumbskulls…
Hard to believe there are people out there who somehow haven’t yet figured out the scam.
Cults are the scam
A murder of crows.
In other words, the same mob of louts it has always been.
Exactly but now we can better quantify them, thereby limiting their negative impact on our existence.
I've always felt that you were one those who has paid attention Rex; Yes 'those' deplorable louts.
Where would you put the billionaires who gave millions to Trump's campaign, inauguration, etc.,and align themselves with him? They don't generally seem to be conspiracy freaks, christian nationalists, the most uneducated, hateful and racist among us, or wannabe alpha males? Maybe Bezos and Musk are wannabe alpha males, but I think they and their fellow "business leaders" support America's uber corrupt president because of the benefit to their businesses. There's money to be made and profit to protect. BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, the Opel division of America's General Motors, IBM, Siemens, Hugo Boss, and many other corporations did not let Nazism interfere with making money in Hitler's Germany.
The richest and most powerful of Trump's supporters -- business leaders -- largely escape any blame for enabling our seriously incapacitated and corrupt president.
Hello Judy.... Mary Trump had a Good Posting today in her Substack about how DJT has actually been a Business Failure that has always Grifted his way out of personal Bankruptcy... An example of his actual Negotiating Skills are the current Iran Negotiations...
he hasn't been directly involved in those negotiations except to phone round various leaders of Gulf states to reassure, cajole and threaten them. Otherwise, he has confined his involvement to a series of bizarrely optimistic announcements of a peace deal being only weeks away (aimed mostly at the markets) intercolated with dark warnings of destruction, on Truth Social.
Historically Trump has gotten his way through intimidation which usually causes his foe to cower--not this time.
Statistically, billionaires aren't a population. They are a very long, if powerful, tail.
Those people shoulder a large proportion of blame for the economic woes Trump has inflicted on ordinary Americans.
They are merely opportunists who will quickly change their allegiance when it is convenient.
Comfort and convenience and greed.
Wow! How could I forget!
When identifying the remaining Trump supporters, please do not forget the purity test Left wingers who helped elect Trump twice - by refusing to vote for Democratic candidates. Voting party not person is the path to power.
I have said repeatedly that Trump is in office because of Joe Biden. Period end of story.
You will never be able to resolve the deep divisions in American society and politics, which largely pre-date Trump, if you remain satisfied with such a shallow explanation for his present dominance.
You don’t understand that a large voter group revenge votes instead of voting for the better candidate. And the revenge voted trump into office.
They also cook the shells with the clams and shit blood, requiring proctological exploration.
Whatever
Red Idaho. 77 votes for democrats/1200 for red backs. In my district primary. Those figures are close but at this time in the mourning up only to take painkillers I am not inclined to search out exact data until morning lite.
I don’t talk about them as it causes my blood pressure to spike.
Can we also assume that the Postal Service will be challenged in court, and told it cannot only send people who are federally registered ballots. Also, I think it is time to make ballots unobtrusive. A new envelop design would be helpful. How about a format that make it look like a bill. I hope that Blue State governments get control of their federal services like mail, aviation, education, health care payments. I once again propose that Blue States get together with willing Red states to propose that we no longer pay Federal Taxes, only State Taxes, and state pay the Federal government a fee for services they need like Military, etc... When I first proposed it everyone was saying but then we won't get this that and the other services, but honestly, we are not getting them now.
If you are a US citizen or have US residency, would you please read my piece explaining the Free Speech for People campaign to impeach Trump AND his cabinet and help them get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
If you can't find the link to the petition in the above piece, here it is. Just scroll down and you will find it. https://www.impeachtrumpagain.org/
I think it's a good idea to make the ballots look unobtrusive - but then some people would undoubtedly toss them out, thinking them junk mail. I've had to vote absentee in the last few elections while caring for my husband -- but I always took our ballots straight to the post office, thinking it the safest place. Now that my husband has passed, I will return to voting in person.
When I voted by mail in my US city, I always too my ballots to the ballot box to drop it in. There were big ones outside the polling places. Now that I vote from abroad I receive my ballot by email, and mail it to the Board of elections on my own dime, or rather 7€ and put it in a regular envelop. I do not expect US mail personnel to censor it, but who knows. It is like Russia or China to do this.
With Oregon's 100% vote by mail, I have not mailed a ballot in years. There is a drop box outside the courthouse, as well as one at the elections office. My friend (that I often travel with) goes inside the County Clerk's office to drop her ballots off.
The more Trump loses in Federal Courts, in Iran, in the Court of Public opinion, the more he lashes out with even more extreme demonstrations of authoritarian acts
He is flailing about in the belief that he actually holds the powers he is usurping He does not
He demonizes even his most ardent supporters in loyalty tests that are impossible for all but the group of shrinking extremists that think he won’t turn on him
Eventually even they will suffer the scorpion’s sting
Let the Great Unraveling Begin
Will the trump boys and girls join him in the bunker?
Unlikely, I think. They were raised in as transactional manner as the old man. Still, not impossible.
Linked to his coat-tales only in prosperity.
Only Ivanka.
Melania will be taking Baby Huey to Slovenia, safely away from the torches and pitchforks.
Only if there’s cocaine and young girls.
Don’t forget the carnage and the millions of deaths before Hitler finally used his gun for a noble purpose.
Hitler didn’t have the illusion of grandeur of receiving 400 mil from his daddy. For him his failure was real. His end was the final solution. Trumps propulsion mechanism is slime which I imagine he will try to slip away with. If we get out our salt shakers we can thwart the Slug. (Something my Oregon coastal time learned me.)
And the scorpion.
And the snake!
I think Trump supporters still include people who appear to be rational,but who stick with Trump because Trump is going to "protect " girls and women from the hordes of trans women who want to take over women's sports and restroom.
Don't laugh.
That is the most underrated reason for where we are. Trump supporters believe that because they are too stupid to know how stupid they are.
Oh, I am not laughing. That is the "bugaboo" that identifies, for me, what a true MAGAt is. If you cannot understand that you're being fed utter garbage, you cease being a reasonable person.
And let's not forget the hordes of trans women who are illegal immigrants, bringing drugs with them.
And a bunch of GOP Congressional spineless cowards.
highly likely, Mike.
$670,000,000 of tax payers fund diverted to put into minerals company that one of his sons owns stake in...and there's more, but i want to have a good weekend my mind is going to crash down with all this going on.
Have a good weekend Mike and anyone reading this. See you back on Monday!
Good weekend to you as well Vee. I do know about Trump Jr’s investments in drone manufacturing and government contracts 🤬🤬🤬
Or are they the people who come to visit the Old Man making a promise of loyalty to him because a beautiful paradise awaits them with banquets and orgiastic parties with beautiful women - which are the only kind the Old Man likes? While the Old Man sends the young men into rival territories to kill the Old Man's rivals, plunder their riches and often sacrificing themselves in the process. Regretfully, the country has wandered off its route distracted by stories of making America great by a priapic leader. So these supporters wandered off course, led astray, sidetracked with false promises and fell into a dazed stupor of utter pliancey. And the rest of us - we'll have to endure a wrestling game on the White House lawn where wild wolves are brought in to fight for sport and profit.
My local Northern San Diego Escondido Times-Advocate, author, David Ross) reports the Maga Owner of the gaudily dressed "Trump House" was murdered by a 20-something.
The Perp has already been charged with cold blooded targeted M1 as he should be.
Thanks for the reference!
What a sh"t show Heather chronicles today.
But we can simplify it. Just note: Two Americas. Two stories.
In one America – that of money, where the rich occupy the bigger and growing side of the wealth gap – the stock market booms. The rich fatten on more and more shares of techie stock, especially that of data centers and AI. These are the most cynical of Americans, the most dehumanized, all seeing life as nothing more than abstractions, numbers, quantities.
In the other America decent citizens fight the ICE and CBP thug police. And many others defend their neighbors of color being arrested and thrown into black hole concentration camps, where the purpose of remorselessly bad food, overcrowding, and zero medical attention is just part of criminal Donald’s torture campaign of white supremacists pushing return to Jim Crow America.
Trump has not forgotten the activists opposing the Republican regime. The Trump administration has proposed an initiative to identify, track, and categorize protestors as domestic terrorists.
Right here in Bar Harbor, Maine, members of an antidemocratic chat group have already targeted local activists. And pressured town officials and police to take steps. Town government has diverted town resources to suppressing legal protest. No doubt these 'patriots' will happily up their game from brandishing social media pitchforks and AI generated death threats - to serving informer for the Republican regime.
the brutality of the ICE agents beating protesters at New Jersey's Delaney Hall concentration camp is horrendous -- with apparently no one to stop them. They would not even let the governor inside to view the cruel and unsanitary conditions. How can this be?
It's no surprise that Trump's DoJ is now using conspiracy charges against protesters when it cannot successfully bring specific charges against individuals. The case of the so-called Spokane Three is a case in point. Conspiracy charges were successfully levelled against a number of January 6 rioters (who actually conspired against the government).
lin- Horrified for you. It’s America 1930’s-early ‘40’s with Nazis (racists).
"Right here in Bar Harbor, Maine, members of an antidemocratic chat group have already targeted local activists."
Well... s@#&.
I was hoping the issues in Bar Harbor were being pushed by the Lenard Leo crowd rather than the 'locals'. I guess I was too optimistic. I guess I need to stuff that little bit of hope I was nurturing back in the bag.
Three Americas. Three stories. You forgot the sleepwalkers who aren’t participating, aren’t paying attention, and just trying to go about their lives acting like we are living in normal times. That’s a pretty large group.
When these nihilists and arsonists get to work , everything goes straight to hell. Burning things down is the easy part.
The recent disclosures about Florida's Alligator Alcatraz aptly illustrate the depravity and inhumanity of Trump's immigration policies.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/24/alligator-alcatraz-ron-desantis
Same with Delaney Hall in New Jersey. Inhumane doesn't begin to describe it.
The Republic, Now Available in Commemorative Denominations
America has reached the elegant stage of imperial decline where the president appears to believe the federal government is just a lifestyle brand with subpoenas.
Families are getting squeezed by prices, institutions are groaning under strain, and the administration’s grand governing vision appears to be: put Trump’s face on a $250 bill, rename the Kennedy Center for him, stage UFC fights at the White House, and use uniformed troops as patriotic fight-night wallpaper.
Nothing says “stable republic” like asking soldiers to meet height and weight requirements so they can stand around while democracy gets a folding chair to the head.
The courts, still clinging to the quaint idea that laws are not decorative throw pillows, told the Kennedy Center to remove Trump’s name and blocked the administration’s plan to close it for two years. Congress, showing faint signs of oxygen, has not rushed to approve the Trump money bill, perhaps because Americans paying too much for groceries are not emotionally ready for vanity currency honoring the man presiding over the mess.
Meanwhile, the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” was paused by a judge, which is rude, because how is a president supposed to reward people convicted of helping him overturn an election if courts keep insisting on laws?
The whole spectacle feels less like governance than a clearance sale at Authoritarian Bed Bath & Beyond: commemorative bills, branded buildings, loyalist payouts, and White House cage fights.
Democracy is bruised, but apparently the gift shop is thriving.
"how is a president supposed to reward people convicted of helping him overturn an election if courts keep insisting on laws?"
We should be grateful that he is too greedy to use some of the billions his corrupt grifts have raked in for himself and his family. That might be even more frightening. There may be no laws that could be used to constrain him from self-financing his private army.
So true, we tolerate so far but the money has a loud voice
This description sounds a lot like genocide to me.
And what a sad commentary, Phil Bslla, that although you probably commented second, you are now the first comment that is back at the left margin after hundreds of replies, some up to 6+ vertical bars from the margin
This comment section got lost in a discussion about Krugman’s post and is full of repeat commenters back-and-forths. (But at least I don’t see anything from Rick Sender any more.)
Am I alone in wishing Substack would put a word limit an ld a number of comments limit on readers? Let them take their comments over to their owns Substacks so that the conversation can be about what HCR (or any other deservedly popular writers) has written.
Phil that’s not fully true. I’m investing according to what Trump is investing in. There is no reason to not do the obvious and capitalize on the corruption. I can then spen my money on worthy causes.
I frankly do not see how such behaviour is "obvious" at all.
Trump is manipulating the markets. By following his lead, you are only facilitating his illicit behaviors, so regardless of how you spend your profits, it's still unethically obtained money.
MAGA (and DJT) do appear to be in free fall. But, like any cornered animals they are most dangerous now.
The outcome is still unknown, but for the first time the odds for liberation are becoming more even.
Let me get this straight. Human rights abuses? Fine. Billions in taxpayer money disappearing into grifts and vanity projects? Fine. Attacks on the rule of law? Fine. But threaten a senator's own career and—presto!—a conscience appears. It's amazing how quickly Cornyn and Cassedy et al, have rediscovered democracy now they're the ones being thrown under the bus.
Come closer to see the absence of a single tear running down my face for the fate of either of these two pathetic schlemiels.
Exactly
Yep, it’s an amazing coincidence that both Cassidy and Cornyn found spines that were formed by styrofoam simultaneously.. think they found it somewhere in a box on a thrift shop shelf.. Can’t wait to hear Collins say “she’s been concerned for a long while”..
I think Cornyn’s parable will open the eyes of other Republicans in power, and that is one thing to celebrate!
Poetic no ? The same fates lurk for all those who've thought this creature was some useful tool to their ends. Scorpion's always gonna' be a scorpion -
Tool being the operative word.
Yep.
I had a neighbor once whose favorite saying was "Well, ya lay down wit the dogs, ya git up with their fleas".
The underbussing of Cassedy and Cornyn are simply the next phase.
💯
"Today the United States Postal Service has proposed that it will send mail-in ballots only to voters who are registered with the federal government." Huh?
So the Postal Service (which doesn't *send* ballots -- it *delivers* them) will not deliver mail sent by state and county voting offices. What kind of "democracy" is this??
Where does USPS get the information to sort mail OUT of circulation? Then they could stop anyone’s mail from being delivered.
These dotards are proving that some people are not worthy of living in a democracy. Siberia anyone?
Robin, I got called out for referring to our concentration camps as “gulags.” Mere technicality now that local police are part of the problem. Yes, DT’s love of Papa Putin brings US closer to him every day.
I want CBS to live-broadcast the moment his name gets pried off the Kennedy Center and falls down to a waiting detonation below — much the same as when the US Third Army blew up the swastika over the Nuremberg Stadium in 1945.
I'm not watching See BS anymore, no need now that Colbert Show has been taken off the air. Being remade into something like state run propaganda media while continuing to censor and destroy once great investigative journalism and editorial independence of reporting like 60 Minutes.
But I will gladly watch the dismantling, demolition and destruction of this Trumpian reich and removal of Donold's vandalism, vanity projects, and gaudiness on another network or other independent media.
C_Bs doesn't have the ethical backbone to do much anymore ICTT.
That was my point…🙄
ICTT, if the arch gets built (Heaven forbid) can we please have a ceremony for blowing off Liberty’s wings? I know Trump wants her to fly away, but not even a Swastika can elicit in me the aesthetic sickness of Liberty with wings. The political response is clear. The aesthetic is simple nausea. It’s MBS’s Trump.
Once upon a time, the leftover Confederate racists like Govs. Faubus, Wallace, and Maddox argued for states’ rights over federalism. Now Trump’s Confederacy argues for federalism over states’rights. Yet that old argument has always been about keeping the people enslaved to serve the wealthy.
To the USPS: your sole function is to deliver the mail; you have no right to decide who gets it. Stay in your lane.
And, just who registered to vote with “the federal government?”
Brian: Register with the federal government in order to vote? Now where in diddlydumb’s mind did that come from? How do we go about registering with the federal government, pray tell.😂
IRAN WAR
Trump announced today that political pressure won’t sway him in negotiations, “I don’t care about the midterms” (NYTimes 5/27/26). He obviously cares about the midterms—Trump spend lots of money and effort to cajole states into gerrymandering maps to avoid losing the house. So who was he talking to? Although it seemed that he to addressed these remarks to Iran they were really to Republican right-wing hawks’ opposition to the proposed peace deal. Trump can’t acknowledge looking weak. So, what does he do?
Time to face facts Trump. Iran offered you the best deal you can hope for you to get out of your disastrous war of choice—open the strait, lift the sanctions, talk about nuclear resolution later. Over Memorial Day weekend (5/25) it looked like Trump would accept Iran’s terms to get out of the disaster. Trump made a big deal of skipping Jr’s wedding because he had important war work. Then word leaked on the terms of the agreement and Garham, Wicker, Pompieo, and other hawks attacked.
Trump’s fragile ego can’t acknowledge weakness so he can’t take the deal. Now what? Frozen in terror about looking weak he does nothing. This is 5/29 and Trump delayed another “final decision”. The stalemate drags on as people are killed and the world economic situation deteriorates.
Congress help Trump out! Use the War Resolution act to force a peace agreement on this weak man. We can’t wait until after the midterms
Patience, patience. Trump is negotiating a 33% cut from Iran of the $300 billion we are going to unfreeze and give back to them. His argument will center on the indisputable fact that none of this wealth would have been created without him. Therefore, he, sorry, I mean us, the USA, should get a 33% fee upfront as per the final terms of the Peace Plan.
When this regime implodes, we need to work on a constitutional amendment that gives "us the folks" a power button to check the Executive when the Article 1 people won't do their job. And that should include allowing "we the people" the power to impeach and remove the President when he has become a total fruitcake!
A shortcut is to abolish the Electoral College and elect the president directly. It's so obviously needed and yet so difficult. One day perhaps?
Think about our electorate (I'm not talking about us here in this room!) electing a president by popular vote. I'm not confident we wouldn't elect a well known game show or reality TV host.
We already have!
Congratulations, mfmatusky! You're using the very argument that slave-state representatives used to justify creation of the Electoral College. They argued that a committee of elites "with good judgment" was needed to name the president as "a check against the public which could easily be misled." (i.e., Black folks)
Donald was elected by a few folks who happened to live in the right "swing states" with the necessary number of Electoral College delegates. There's no way of knowing how many citizens would vote if they believed their votes wouldn't be cancelled by gerrymandering and the Electoral College.
What you are suggesting sounds a lot like a parliamentary system. That makes a lot more sense to me than our current system, with the electoral college. But I think that we have a lot of work to do to get people to a point where their votes would be sane, and not based on victimhood, bigotry, racism and misogyny.
That is the closest I've heard anyone come to a rational argument for having / keeping the electoral college. But whether we F***up by selecting compromised electors, or F***up by allowing the electorate to just become stupid I have limited confidence in either the popular vote (by stupid people) or the electoral college (with compromised people).
I share your lack of confidence in both the popular vote and the electoral college. I have been stunned by the high percentage of stupid people in our country, who aren't smart enough to recognize an obvious con game, or see when politicians want them to be in favor of things that go against their best interests.
". . . their votes would be sane, and not based on victimhood, bigotry, racism and misogyny"?
Susan, are you referring to a country whose schools are still limited to the A)-B)-C)-D) of standardized testing?
Unfortunately, that is exactly what I'm referring to, Phil. I hadn't thought about it in those terms, but you are spot on. When education is about performing on standardized tests rather than practical things like learning to think through important issues, we're probably doomed to repeat trump et al. I think that standardized testing as we use it, is another aspect of valuing the superficial more than substance.
We need to follow our own rules, with lawmakers who aren’t on the take.
Pete Hegseth has said today that the US is quite capable of resuming the war if necessary after Trump scuppered the latest version of the ceasefire deal. The oil price continues to bounce up and down with every announcement from the White House/Pentagon contradicting what was said the previous day.
The Iranians themselves seem bewildered by the vacillations from the US side and say they do not trust word that comes out of Trump's mouth.
Neither do I. I check what the Iranians are saying because they are more likely to be accurate.
Thanks Professor Richardson - a better recap of the ''good news'' of the day, is hard to imagine.
Solzhenitsyn and the Death of the West.
In 1978, at the height of the Cold War, Harvard invited Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to give a commencement speech. They expected Solzhenitsyn to praise the hallmarks, achievements, and wonders of Western Civilization as the global enemies of communism. Instead, Solzhenitsyn gave the most controversial speech of modern Western Civilization in the 20th century, a scathing, but prophetic, critique of the West, and a mournful promise that it was doomed to fall if it didn’t change course. Solzhenitsyn begins by noting a decline in courage. He blamed the horrors of USSR communism on spiritual immorality and lying above all. Solzhenitsyn stressed that the West enjoys a false sense of security, blind to an impending civilizational doom.
But it fell on deaf ears. Can heed his warning today?
Whether the West can rediscover and fix this mistake, or not, determines whether or not the civilization will survive.
https://athenaeumbooks.com/p/solzhenitsyn-and-the-death-of-the
You are right, Kristin … Solzhenitsyn’s prophetic words fell largely on deaf ears
Thank you for this, so many don’t have functional ears
Wow, he could read the signs beginning with Nixon I imagine.
Forgive me for posting something that has nothing to do with Heather's important message, but a friend who is a scientist just sent me this, and I find it alarming and appalling. Please take a few minutes to read it, and to tell me what you think. It seems to me like the most egregious and dangerous attack on science that I've seen so far. I'm going to write a comment tomorrow, and I'm going to share it with many people, and I'm going to ask my members of Congress to speak out against it and to publicize the threats to science. Thank you for reading this, thinking about it, and replying with your thoughts.
OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule [https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance]
Thank you for the link. And I think your comment is responsive to what Heather has written today; she refers to new federal laws proposed by the OMB. which sound like what your link refers to. You're right many times over: this is alarming and appalling.
Another dangerous, illegal move which no doubt "our" attorneys will be responding to. And lately our side is doing well in the courts.
The impacts on science are growing- not only are fewer graduate students being trained (future scientists), but fewer grants also reduces the support for undergraduate research, training faculty to be better instructors (because most of that training comes AFTER they land their first teaching position), and higher attrition as junior faculty fail to get the grant support for their research and then fail to get tenure. This will take decades to repair. And faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students from historically marginalized groups are the most vulnerable.
Thanks for the link. If you scroll down to the executive summary, paragraph 4, it becomes crystal clear. A Trojan horse if there ever was one.
Here's a quick readout of your link above:
"An additional example is provided by a 2024 report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation regarding the growing failure of objectivity at the National Science Foundation (NSF) during the previous administration.[14]
That report found that out of a sample of over three thousand grants, more than ten percent—totaling over two billion dollars in Federal funding—went to “questionable projects that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) tenets or pushed onto science neo-Marxist perspectives about enduring class struggle.” "
So much of their destructive work is buried in complexity (federal rules) that need to be parsed and then challenged by lawsuits comprised of equally complex language and logic. We the people are definitely up against it.
The attack on science is an octopus with toxic arms. It is the thing that will keep chipping away at all aspects of our society doing the most damage for the longest time with the most widespread repercussions. Most of which we can’t even contemplate. Greg Olear wrote that it’s “trump’s almost single-minded mission to destroy and ruin every single last thing that’s good about the country.” He was talking about the Dark Sky Reserve. The P2025 people are on the job and he is the means by which the destruction is accomplished. Infrastructure is the target it seems, as it relates to revenge and greed. They are creative beyond what most of us can contemplate.
What I always wonder when I read about, for example, attacks on science or Trump itching to use nukes, is don’t congress and bureaucrats have families they love, like we do? They are willing to sacrifice their (presumably) loved ones to support trump’s and their cray-cray. Or do they somehow think the diseases our science community has been good at vanquishing, or the nuke cloud, will somehow pass them by?
If they engage in such magical thinking, like pre-schoolers, they don’t belong in leadership.
“Funding for scientific research should not be controlled by a small group of highly paid and unaccountable insiders at the NIH, many of whom stay in power for decades. The NIH monopoly on directing research should be broken. Term limits should be imposed on top career leaders at the NIH.
Project 2025, page 462”
https://andrawatkins.substack.com/p/what-do-various-nih-freezes-mean?
This shouldn't come as a surprise. Trump has already boasted about removing SNAP benefits for over 4 million Americans claiming that they have been moved onto the American Dream!
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-snap-food-stamps-fraud-rollins-1a964909ae5cb808813a6478bbfa5f65
Undeterred by the utter failure of the DOGE initiative to find or eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, Trump is now set up an Anti-Fraud Task Force deployed almost exclusively in Democrat-controlled states under the supervision of the hapless Vance.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/27/democrats-cut-from-jd-vance-fraud-event
Betsy, this proposal is outrageous! A direct quote from the rule:
“The White House Fact Sheet of August 7, 2025, describes examples of the types of wasteful spending that occurred as a result of such policies. For example, Federal grants funded unlawful DEI practices,[6]
various anti-American ideologies in American education,[7]
non-replicable and highly misleading studies,[8]
labs engaged in gain-of-function research,[9]
and AI-powered social media censorship tools.[10]
More recently, another White House Fact Sheet of January 8, 2026 provided examples of the rampant and pervasive problem of fraud in the United States, including under assistance programs in Minnesota.[11]
Another example of wasteful spending is provided by a 2023 report from Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). That report found that recipients of Federal awards from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) potentially misused funds to provide services for illegal immigrants.[12]
Such potential abuse of taxpayer funds highlights the need for proper oversight of taxpayer dollars.
In another prominent example, prior to this administration, far-left activists hijacked the critical work done by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which was established to respond to the AIDS crisis in Africa. Due to wasteful spending, PEPFAR became a left-wing foreign aid entitlement that attempted to promote abortion and gender ideology. Additionally, an August 2025 report from the Heritage Foundation noted that, according to the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, billions of dollars in overhead and program charges flow to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and contractors in Washington, DC rather than providing direct humanitarian aid; and insufficient oversight has resulted in significant waste of taxpayer resources.[13]
An additional example is provided by a 2024 report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation regarding the growing failure of objectivity at the National Science Foundation (NSF) during the previous administration.[14]
That report found that out of a sample of over three thousand grants, more than ten percent—totaling over two billion dollars in Federal funding—went to “questionable projects that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) tenets or pushed onto science neo-Marxist perspectives about enduring class struggle.” The report also found that, by 2024, over a quarter of new grants made by NSF (27 percent) directed funding to DEI initiatives and other far-left perspectives. This marked a huge proportional increase over the course of only three years from the 0.29 percent of new grants made by NSF with a similar focus in 2021.[15]
This is just a small sample of many examples across the Federal Government of wasteful spending and other misuse and mismanagement of Federal funds.
Scarce Federal taxpayer dollars should be directed exclusively to achieving results for the American people. Wasteful and divisive activities unrelated to core purposes of Federal grant programs should not be subsidized with taxpayer dollars. Grantmaking practices resulting in wasteful spending that became prevalent during the previous administration can only be stopped through adherence to strong internal controls at Federal agencies and enhanced oversight regarding how Federal dollars are spent.”
Public comments can be submitted here: https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/OMB-2026-0034-0001
I just did.
Isn't that something that can be used to go after the TRump administration and the TRump crime family?
Journey to the Bottom of John Cornyn’s Brain…
Everything Trump touches dies. Everyone who professes loyalty to him ends up under the wheels of a speeding bus.
Dumbass meet Scorpion.
“Judge Reopens Trump’s I.R.S. Suit and Questions His ‘Weaponization’ Fund
The ruling was a blow to both President Trump, who had voluntarily dismissed the suit last week, and to the Justice Department, which used the suit to establish a fund likely intended for Trump allies.”
Anyone with a working brain (or even half of a working brain) knows that Trump and Blanche colluded and committed FRAUD!
They should both be charged with criminal fraud, be tried, be convicted and be put in PRISON.
No one is above the law!!!
Mrs.Fox: Twelve fox years ago, you made a promise to me…that… you would never steal another chicken…and I believed you…why did you lie to me?
Mr. Fox: Because I am a fox
Fantastic Mr. Fox by Ronald Dahl
So Repub Senators want 47 to drop his slush fund. He won’t because a) it’s the ultimate grift and b) he will never do what they want because they’re weak subordinates and he’s just showed them who’s boss. But will they continue to do his bidding?
The super-rich ‘preppers’ are planning to save themselves from the apocalypse. Never before have our society’s most powerful players assumed that the primary impact of their own conquests would be to render the world itself unliveable for everyone else. Nor have they ever before had the technologies through which to programme their sensibilities into the very fabric of our society. The landscape is alive with algorithms and intelligences actively encouraging these selfish and isolationist outlooks. Those sociopathic enough to embrace them are rewarded with cash and control over the rest of us. It’s a self-reinforcing feedback loop. This is new.
Instead of just lording over us for ever, however, the billionaires at the top of these virtual pyramids actively seek the endgame. Everything must resolve to a one or a zero, a winner or loser, the saved or the damned. The faith-based Silicon Valley gang are certain that they can develop a technology that will somehow break the laws of physics, economics and morality to offer them something even better than a way of saving the world: a means of escape from the apocalypse of their own making.
The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Quite obviously they do not understand anything about the human cost of their fantasies and power reaches, including their own selves. How very stupid.
Exactly. Profiteer Peter Thiel (also huge GOP donor) has now relocated himself and his family primarily to Argentina, since he didn't want to pay the new CA billionaires tax, and he apparently believes the US is circling the drain, largely due to people like him propping up a con man to lead our nation into destruction.
There is something very profound and apocalyptic in these words. Pay attention, America.