Heather explains in her Politics Chat of Sept. 9 that 46% strongly disapproval rate is a very big deal. There will always be extremes at either ends. She wants us to remember this is a profoundly unpopular president. One way, she says to tell how the administration knows how unpopular it is, is the extreme work they are putting in to rig the 2026 elections. If they were popular, they would not have to rig the elections.
Undoubtedly correct, but you still wonder — how is it possible to keep fooling 40% of the population 647 times in a row like this? It’s not exactly the debauched criminal-moron faker’s first time at the rodeo, to put it mildly.
Heather is saying that besides the "strongly disapprove" there is also a big percentage that just "disapprove" Anyway - his huge unpopularity is a strong point for us. Never ignore a possible advantage - especially when it comes to fighting authoritarianism!!! Heather also refers to Timothy Snyder saying, "Do not obey in advance." We need to hang in there!
Not only do we not obey in advance, we must turn the tables and render the gerrymandering useless by beating them at their own game. We must regain the majority in Congress and stop the carnage before there is no stopping it at all.
Yes,"turn the tables". Pulte & his smear Gang are open to legal Counter-attack for 1 of the many species of active fraud. Fraud on Lisa Cook, fraud on all of us.
Litigation & trial work is something like 4 dimensional chess. It is not that difficult to get way, way ahead of the Perps. In CA, on 11/4/25, Vote YES on Proposition 50.
Use similar strategies swiftly in other states stat to "render the gerrymandering useless".
yeah that's not how this works. Its not how any of this works. When your government takes away your right of self determination, you don't protest by going meekly to the slaughter, you take it back.
Does anyone know if it’s possible to turn out enuf voters that even though gerrymandered, the D’s still win? Just curious. I think by Nov next year there will be HUGE numbers of us against this administration! Just sayin
Agree, Celeste, but right now after drilling down to the third layer in these comments, I feel the moving train is too close. When I read “Professor Heather” today I feel The vastness of the malignancy that S. Miller is unleashing. The MSM refuses to tell Americans how others are fighting back. Voters need to know that this energy is real. People are drawn to visible examples and it influences their vote. This and seeing Democratic lawmakers fight “tooth and nail”
Laura Loomer was the one who criticized Kirk and inspired the assassin to kill him. After which she deleted all her posts but the evidence remains. It was her doing. And that’s the truth, Ruth.
Notice something about her, Bill, and all her criminal Donald peers?
Look at them (alphabetical order): Lauren Boebert, Pam Bondi, Katie Britt, Susan Collins, Joni Ernst, Tulsi Gabbard, Laura Loomer, Ana Paulina Luna, Nancy Mace, Kristi Noem.
I'm now not included Marjorie Taylor G., as at least she's had the fortitude to stand up to criminal Donald's and his pals' underage girl victims.
Add them all up. For their lies. Cult sycophancy. Their total illiteracy in any humanities. Don't they rather perfectly justify criminal Donald's (and too many other MAGA males') deep misogyny?
And now she's a target. They're playing a game of Russian roulette. The whole administration is fearful and the more lies they tell the more dangerous it is for them. FAFO.
Is "Loomer" a made-up name, perhaps to revel in the fact she looms over humanitarian life as if she were the head of the extermination staff at Auschwitz?
Thank you....It is vital. Lately, I feel like I should be shouting it from the rooftops. The other day posting I felt that discouraged energy from people, and I just wanted to figure out a way to encourage people to not give up... This has been a hard week for everyone.And there are more challenges to come. I really appreciate your words! I would urge everyone to read Purobi Phillips post today - it is real and honest and she doesn't give up - her post is like looking at a rainbow...
Timothy Snyder and his wife were at Yale, but when they saw how Columbia handled political attacks, they took jobs in Toronto. Timothy is back and forth to U.S., as he often speaks on MSNBC..The truth sometimes is "couched" in shades of grey?!
Unfortunately, even institutions that you’d expect to oppose a vicious autocrat are obeying in advance. UC Berkeley turned over a list of “suspects,” including both professors and students. The university administrators named names, just like the cowards and rightwing fanatics who cooperated with Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Eventually, the McCarthyites collapsed under their own weight, but not before teaching Republicans how to use outrageous lies to get the votes of rubes and boobies, a lesson they have never forgotten because it has served them so well. Now, the Republicans have parlayed it all the way to a presidency unconstrained by laws (unconstrained officially, by the authority of the Supreme Court, no less). Will that collapse under its own weight? Maybe, but according to the approval figures cited in today’s Letter, roughly half of Americans think outrageous lies are a fine way to run the government.
I think that is what happened in WWII Germany. Hitler's henchmen to the initiative to expand the concentration camps and their brutality because they thought that Hitler would like that.
A big part of not obeying is to not believe anything from these Nazis. Beware the power of these Joseph R. McCarthy style lies by Miller, “In recent days we have learned just how many Americans in positions of authority—child services, law clerks, hospital nurses, teachers, gov[ernmen]t workers, even [Department of Defense] employees—have been deeply and violently radicalized. The consequence of a vast, organized ecosystem of indoctrination.” McCarthy intensified the Second Red Scare based on such unsubstantiated accusations including, "While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205." At the next campaign stop he had forgotten the number he made up and so made up a different number, and so on. But the Republicans who are always full of fear ate it up, hook, line and sinker.
Lies are bad but buyer beware is part of free speech. People should not be killed for speaking out. And as for these people getting fired and other attacks, Thomas Jefferson stated in the preamble of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom; “Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion,...” Although the Statute is focused upon religious freedom it applies to freedom of thought thus the expression thereof. Jefferson concluded, “...truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.” Trump and his Nazi party cannot allow truth to flow freely and that is why they cannot stand for Charlie Kirk being exposed for who and what he was.
My youngest daughter bought me a t-shirt that says those exact words. My oldest daughter found a perfectly good t-shirt at a thrift store that says those exact”We The People Have Had Enough”. I wear both of them frequently.
I like both daughters' t-shirts! "We the people Have had Enough" and "Never Obey in Advance" Both of those would make great protest signs for Indivisible nationwide protest or on Sat., OCT 18. Maybe your daughters would protest too? We need huge crowds! Thank you for sharing that with me. You have very thoughtful daughters !!!
They do, when they can. In 2019, I took them to the Women’s March in DC. They loved it! We attended Congress also. When we were in the Senate, my youngest said, look at all the white cotton pinheads. She was referring to the old Repubs with gray hair!
We need to remember that we are no longer talking about a political party. MAGA is a cult, and true believers often do not, as Heather points out, share a fact-based reality.
Hello Betsy... A Cult makes its own Reality... There are Purification Rituals.... There are Cleansing Ceremonies... Seems that Stephen Miller is an Evil Mind behind DJT...
This morning I saw a clip of some interview he was giving. His unrestrained rage was eye popping. In a brief exchange on FB with friends from high school I saw that same rage from one of the participants. He didn’t seem to realize the shooter was far right. Where are these people getting so wound up? There seems to be more out there than the usual suspects of Daily Wire, Fox, etc. They all make me feel a need for a shower.
“There is an ideology ... which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful ... an ideology whose one unifying thread is the insatiable thirst for destruction.”
Apparently, projection is a psychological disorder that has overtaken all of MAGA. When I read the above quote of Miller's post, I was struck by its eloquence, and how adroitly he had described himself.
Betsy: In the late '70s, with the Jim Jones/Guyana affair, there was a lot of focus on cults and why people join them, and even why they stay with them when forced. Deprogramming was discussed and then, slowly, the horror of what happened and how to deal with it died down. In the last decade, what FOTUS was creating brought the term cult into consciousness even by MSM. What will cause this development to die down is beyond me. Those who adhere to this unreality seem to crave intense emotional connection, and a sense of belongingness feeding personal insecurity. Other than therapy (yeah, right!) what seems to give the cultists pause seems to be when they are PERSONALLY affected.
People are looking for someone who can fix everything that is lacking in their lives. When someone steps up and claims to be the one who can, through his magic, wave his wand and give them everything that they're missing, the need to believe is strong. How long will it take before people realize that those were just wild promises with no substance behind them? I hope that as prices continue to rise, as people are personally affected as you wrote, they will distance themselves from the man behind the curtain (my local cinema recently did its annual anniversary showing of The Wizard of Oz, which premiered there). The sooner the better...
I think we also need to remember that a massive number of posters on social media are bots and trolls with the express purpose of inciting hatred and violence. They pile vile comments onto every good comment and the few real people take them as all knowing and parrot them. Musk is one of the biggest feeders of these hateful messengers. Laura Loomer, like Nancy Mace, is unbalanced and will do anything for attention and adoration. Too many people fall for influencers and never think for themselves.
Back in October, 1941, Winston Churchill said, "Never give in, never, never, never, never." Yes, five nevers! Worked for him (with a little help from his friends). Here we are again, back to never. I think you have calibrated our situation quite accurately, Sky Blue.
I listened to a researcher discussing his work. He found that around one third of Americans have authoritarian tendencies that are triggered when they feel threatened. Many MAGAs do seem to be people who are feeling deeply insecure.
I also read a journalist's report of a visit to a town where some people believe that all the ICE stuff is simply untrue and others believe that somehow Trump is unaware of what is happening in the US at the moment and he would turn things around if only he knew.
If you are really interested in such things, its noteworthy that a simple medical test can determine political affiliation for more than 95% of participants. The test is called a functional MRI, and that several of the associations for political content could be determined by linking self identified conservatives with people who's brain showed strong fear based signalling and deficiencies in empathy and higher reasoning in real time.
Interesting. I’ve seen research that self-identified conservatives make decisions from the amygdala while self-identified liberals access the prefrontal cortex for those decisions
I would be remiss in my "mission" if I didn't point out that evangelicals are perfect candidates for conservative politics and to the extreme, MAGA, because they are born into a culture of fear.
From the moment they can be taught anything, evangelicals are indoctrinated with fear: fear of a jealous, vindictive deity, fear of "Satan," fear of falling into "sin," fear of dying and going to "hell," fear of "evil people" who would lead them to "sin," fear of people who don't follow the same religion as they do. These are just some highlights. Evangelicals are taught to fear literally everything and everyone not a part of evangelical culture.
And part and parcel of this fear culture is not flight, but fight. Evangelicals refer to the Bible as "the sword of the Lord." Evangelical youth are required to memorize the Bible. Many participate in competitions where they must recite a Bible verse when the moderator calls out a reference address; these are called "sword drills." A favorite anthem sung repeatedly at VBS (Vacation Bible School) is "Onward Christian Soldiers." The lyrics represent nothing of peace, love and mercy. https://lyricsandverses.com/song/onward-christian-soldiers/
I've noticed over the years that they seem to be extremely gullible. Remember back in the 90s when we had the Satanic Panic, P&G and Starbucks logos were satanic, "recovered" memories of satanic ritual abuse, ad nauseum? All those and many more came from the Evangelicals. It's only gotten worse since then.
A Episcopal Church upbringing, Baptist Bible School back in the day when the three Protestant churches in my VA farming community looked out for each other. Collaboration for the War Effort of WWII and before and afterwards.
If that proves out through more study, it would be reassuring, because it might be predictive of an overall inability of the super conservative overtaking the rest of the population (provided it is a more recessive factor). While circumstances might propel them into dominance for a time period, it cannot sustain. Especially under vigorous opposition.
That study is three years old, its been repeatedly cited, and backed up by plenty of further evidence back when we still had a government that backed the sciences and didn't censor information that didn't support their worldview, and universities that weren't terrified of conservative donors and MAGA terrorists.
More and more of that is going away every day though, and has been since 2023.
Teri Kanefield (terikanefield.com) had an essay last weekend about how people sort into those who welcome change and those whose natural tendency is toward authoritarians.
I just spent time reading the comments section to a Time article trying to suss out Tyler Robinson’s ideology & motive. Reading those would help (sadly) understand how so many people are fooled into supporting Trump. The lack of critical thinking is stunning, as is the rush to judge. Word salad regurgitation of “leftist”, “Antifa”, “trans”, etc and a rejection of meme culture messaging, while spouting memes themselves. Very disturbing what has been done to the brains of our fellow citizens by Rupert Murdoch & his ilk, followed closely by online bots unleashed by those who would like to see our efforts at self government fail. Also learning too much about groypers and alt right in fighting that likely played a role in Robinson’s radicalization. Wondering if our trad media is too cowed by threats of violence to even raise the prospect???
Because they only watch Fox "News," Newsmax, et al, and are followers on "Truth" Social. And otherwise put their hands over their eyes and ears. And the GOP-controlled Congress is mute and complicit.
Exactly! Republicans fear or greed or disinterest that keeps them rubber stamping every idiotic thing that potus does has given us the craziest, scariest, worst, most evil administration in history. They are to blame for this fine kettle of fish.
Fox "News" drums the propaganda and false narratives into them constantly, 24/7/365. For many on the right, Fox is their only media source. That goes a long way to explaining how 40% of Americans can still approve of trump.
On YT the Presidential Library of JFK posted his speech in June of 1963 at American University. I might have heard about it but never read. It is utterly brilliant and oh my I thought as Ivwas listening oh my. And now we are here.
I am hoping that if all libraries and presidential ones as well as private collection start posting and maybe other ways the waters of hatred will break. It feels like the boy with his finger in the file that saved a town. There actually is a statue of a perhaps apocryphal tale there in the Netherlands. Humans have only so much storage and capacity for anger. I am surprised at the continuation unless my fear is that they are using substances to continue to fuel the rage.
In military history this was scene as from the word berserk. And then yes substances were used so nothing new just there has to be an end somehow there has to be end. June 1963 before so much happened but also so so much hidden and submerged so maybe we all can walk out of the shadows of human civilization and into the light of knowledge and understanding and perhaps work together all of us.
Largely, I suspect, because a good many if not nearly all of that 40% either aren’t paying any attention to anything that doesn’t directly impact them (yet), don’t really understand where Trump and his myrmidons are leading them, or agree it with even when it does impact them, believing that it is impacting the ‘libs’ even more.I believe the proper phrase for that is, cutting off your nose to spite their face.
This is nothing new. Republicans have been singing versions of this same song for well over a century now. Dr. Richardson’s own book, To Set Men Free details that in marvelously grim detail.
Because it’s easier. I do think deep down people know that Black guy has a lot less to do with the lack of upward mobility they are experiencing or the fact they aren’t doing as well as their parents who are also not doing so great than the guy they are listening to rocket around the universe but they like they idea of power.
Changing the state of the tax codes to benefit all not only sounds exhausting and impossible, they have been told for decades that democrats actually don’t want to tax the rich to make things more equitable for all. They are told that Democrats only want to tax the middle class to give to deviants and immigrants and blacks. That because there’s so much money in politics NOTH parties serve the rich and only MAGA wants to give the money back to good, God fearing White Christian’s who are the chosen ones for America.
And they get away with it because people seee MAGA….99.9 percent white and then they see democrats and it is a broad spectrum of races with women. What is overlooked is that the majority of Hod Tearing White Christians are in the same economic bracket as all the other people Dems are fighting for.
This is only going to turn around ina few ways…- either we finally become an authoritarian country where nobody has a say
- we get institutions, business and the law to reverse course
- or THEY turn on each other. And I’m guessing it will be turning on each other. He’s sent all paranoid because he thought another dork was badmouthing him to the BMOC. wanted a fist fight. and when Reump dies or is voted out, incapacitated, we will almost certainly see men who have no loayalty or moral compass backbiting.
And maybe a new generation who is starting to really not like social media will start looking to truth and make a change
Follow the money. Cheap labor. Before the Civil War these people had a bonanza. Southerners didn't have to pay a salary to black people. No health care, no SNAP, no retirement benefits, no holidays off etc. That's why 42 % still support tRump.
It's clearly a flaw in human nature, but one we should be well wise to by now. I don't count myself as entirely immune to cult dynamics, but I was also taught to cross-examine my beliefs, and look for testable logic and evidence, which I think offers a measure of protection. One also needs a capacity to admit error, which is not always easy, and, as they say, "to err is human". HCR has highlighted the words and character of Eisenhower:
But after cheering his men on, he went back to his headquarters and wrote another letter. Designed to blame himself alone if Operation Overlord failed, it read:
“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”
Such a contrast to the malignant narcissist now hired for our most sensitive position. It's time to put away childish things. Our survival may depend on it.
The right’s inflammatory and misleading rhetoric is what is leading to the violence. With incensing hyperbole, the right is enraging its following so much they are now killing each other. The entire out of control cult can no longer separate fact from fiction. Let no one gloss over the inflammatory Charlie Kirk’s years of fueling culture wars, his amplifying white nationalist talking points, and his pointedly vitriolic, extreme racism and antisemitism.
Charlie Kirk wasn’t felled by any leftist enemy. He was taken down by a right-wing soul misguided by the toxic virtual reality cesspool that Kirk himself helped to create. Kirk fed and stroked the extreme right-wing cult.
From age 19 on, that is the business Charlie Kirk left college early to pursue. He took up and fed that business, and he profited from that greatly. His estate has grown to $12 million in value, excluding the value in Turning Point USA. There is good money in hate, if you can stomach it.
Carl... I'm back now to speak to your post. In April, Richard Reich had breakfast with John Shattuck, who as Pres. of Central Univ. in Budapest, saw firsthand how Viktor Orban took over Hungary's democracy and turned it into an authoritarian state. John believes Trump is emulating Orban's playbook. There are 10 parts. I'm going to list them, because I feel some of things you are speaking to might be understood as part of this authoritarian strategy. You can tell me if I'm batshit crazy or if this might speak to some of what is going on...
1) Take over your party and enforce internal party discipline by using political threats and intimidation to stamp out all party dissent.
2) Build your base by appealing to fear and hate, branding immigrants and cultural minorities as dangers to society, and demonizing your opponents as enemies of the people.
3) Use disinformation and lies to justify what you are doing.
4) Use your election victory to claim A sweeping mandate - especially if you don't win a majority.
5) Centralize your power by destroying the civil service.
6) Redefine the rule of law as rule by executive decree. Weaponize the state against all democratic opponents. Demonize anyone who doesn't support the leader as an "enemy of the people".
7) Eliminate checks and balances and separation of powers by taking over the legislature, the courts, the media, and civil society.( talks about penalties)
8) Rely on your oligarchs - hugely wealthy businessmen and financial leaders - to supervise the economy and reward them with special access to state resources, tax cuts, and subsidies.
9) Ally yourself with other authoritarians like Vladimir Putin and support his effort to undermine European democracies and attack sovereign countries like Ukraine.
That speaks to some of your talking points, but maybe not all?? It gives you something to think about. If you want to talk more after you read this, let me know.
10) Get the public to believe that all this is necessary, and that resistance is futile.
Agree on the tactics but also think anyone who reads history and has the time to stay engaged to follow all the massive amounts of alternate reality propaganda already is aware of this. The fact we are here on HCR site indicates we are very concerned. As others have said we've identified the problem issues however we can't seems to coalesce in sufficient numbers or decide how to effectively counteract what's happening. Most of the majority of people who comprise the biggest numbers just don't know what to do to make this authoritarian regime stop. Organize at local etc. But people are scared. I guess since I am 79 with significant disability from years of both work former OR RN who had work injury and got more education and transition into vaccine research but more injuries have now left me one social security check away from being homeless I got nothing left except my home of 50 years to loose. So all I can do is write social media posts to keep fighting. Sure doesn't feel like it will make a difference. Sorry about the length. These are complex issues and lots of people just don't have time or understanding to feel their actions will help. Let's keep up the resistence is the only answer I have. Seems a weak offering.
Please refer to Heather's Politics Chat of Sept 9... She is talking about the Strongly Disapprove category. Here is her direct quote: "So to have 46% of Americans say they strongly disagree with the president is a really big deal." I hope that helps. She takes some of her info. from G. Elliott Morris' "Strength in Numbers"...
You are probably right. I think of Sisyphus rolling a rock uphill and for how long?!# However, the immediate problem at hand is to defeat authoritarianism and try to get to an election... We need all minds at work... I need to sleep and dream of rolling rocks uphill. We can continue this later...
To be sure that this is the case. If the Texas electorate would wake up to these shenanigans, they would be able to shut down the legislators clearly unconstitutional vote to redraw the districts in their favor. Unfortunately, since 1836 and beyond, Texas has not only been drinking the Kool Aid but also drinking big oil's influence in their body politics. Lyndon Johnson, regardless of what some (including me) may have thought of him, he was the last chance, as of today, to help Texas see a change for the better. And when John Connally, as a democratic governor turned to the republican party, it didn't help Texas shake off the Kool Aid effect. It simply multiplied it (you choose the degree of multiplication.)
I wonder how so many people are not able to see reality. What percentage have dementia? I ask because Trump seems to be popular with older people. Many may have had life events that make them not think clearly like a stroke. My mom has dementia and I can see the confusion. Also, when I was studying drug education we were told that Crystal meth makes the brain look like it has Parkinson's disease. I don't know whether crystal meth addicts vote at all, given that they probably don't care a whole lot about anything.
Finding out about Groypers being anti Trump has me stumped. There is a whole group of people who do not find Trump sufficiently right wing and would go after him as well as the rest of us. That young men are being radicalized so easily by these evil people acting as role models.
The Trump regime is based on lies, and turning the truth upside down. The Democrats have allowed Republicans to define terms for so long they cannot undo it, and are not trying. They need to be spending a lot of time countering Republicans messaging.
Here in rural Maine, I am surrounded my lifelong Republicans. They vote straight Republican and always will. Most of them have had Trump signs in their yards for months before the last three elections. They are party loyalists, not Trump loyalists. In fact, most of them don't follow politics, but believe that ALL Republicans are doing a good job even though they have no idea what is going on in local, state or national politics.
My 76 year old neighbor is one of these people. We have worked together on many projects always goes out of his way to introduce me to his friends and relatives. But, he knows I am not a Republican we never talk about politics. He just retired because of his health because he's never saved a nickel. He has at least a dozen guns that he keeps in his truck and in his living room. I doubt he has ever owned a gun safe even though his young grandkids have often frequented his house.
Our best hope with these voters is they die off and the younger generation doesn't replace them as MAGA's. This is why it matters that Charilie Kirk is no longer around to blather on about white supremacy and faux Christianity at Colleges and Universities across the country.
I agree that the right wing older people are unlikely to change. However, in Germany a friend of mine got his mom to vote for SPD instead of CDU in this past election, so people who are older can change if encouraged by people they trust.
During Covid there was a population shift in lifestyle because kids who might have been on sports teams or in after school clubs were instead at home with almost unfettered time on the internet as most parents lacked the ability to tell what was legitimate school use, and not, and also what to entertain their friendship starved children with besides their computers. It seems like this helped radicalize a lot of youth by them discovering things like 4chan. The internet that was supposed to bring so much advance has been coopted by a lot of really awful people, and they are having outsized influence on some of our youth. We need to do something about that in the world we create after we get past this regime.
In the 20th century, in the USA, we polluted our waterways with impunity, not connecting our societal, physical health with their health. The same is happening now, with our communications’ arteries in the USA. The streams of information have been polluted - often intentionally- and we are diseased because of it. “Things” will not change until the majority of our population realizes this and demands better. Urban sewer systems clean up water in most American cities, (Unless you are Flint Michigan under GOP Governor Snyder, then too bad for being in the wrong zip code). The historic Clean Water, and Clean Air policies of the 1970’s led to the creation of the EPA and many clean-ups of our polluted environment. (Unfortunately now, foolishly, being rolled back). We need a sewer systems for social/media communication. Unfortunately, in the USA, shareholders won’t allow this. Polluting our minds makes them toooooooo much $$$$$$.
I do not know that the majority being aware is all that is needed. The ownership needs to change. That is something we should be insisting on, and not until we get a better leadership. If we let the oligarchs know that we are coming for their media and social media platforms to make them public broadcasting with a fee paid by every household like they do in Germany, than they will make sure our candidates do not win. Stealth campaigns are needed. People should be using more media and platforms outside the USA, although according to the Intercept, Proton Mail, whom many people I know use because it is Swiss based, just suspended some journalists from the platform, who were investigating corruption. People want to know how that happened. We need to be looking for better platforms.
My dad was the chief lobbyist for the Chemical Manufacturing Association, working directly with Anne Gorsuch ("her young son Neil is so nice!") and Rita Lavelle to get realistic standards set up along with buy in from all the companies that would be required to finance the fund. Dow was (believe it or not) a leader in funding their own polution control, the cost of which cut into their profits. Requiring other companies to do the same, plus all contributing to the Super Fund, created the level playing field capitalism is supposed to require. As for Flint, a totally preventable tragedy.
I am printing the LFAA for my sister (74 y/o) as she was a Trump voter concerned about eggs. Now, she is very frightened by inflation and this administration. She has a smartphone "for emergencies" when outside the home. I FINALLY got her to let me teach her how to download the local grocery store app and clip coupons. It took me a YEAR of talking. Now, she has to tell me each week how she's saving money!! (I won't get into data tracking, and anyhow, she gets paper coupons mailed to her monthly based on the items she purchases.) Little by little, I am educating/reeducating her. She was a very uniformed voter. She's learning who Miller is, and what unconsitutional things the GOP are pulling.
That is it Miselle. Good on you. I was withholding comment today but you hit the go button. It is how we do it. We help each other to help ourselves. We rise together or not at all. Thank you for lighting the way. You are the candle in the window today.
Thanks, Pat, but I'm getting absolutely no headway with my eldest sister (84) who told me last election "I know you think otherwise, but I just don't think a woman is capable of being president." She didn't vote, because she didn't want to get between her husband (who is early/moderate Alzheimers' btw) Trump voter, and her son who hates Trump but wrote in a candidate.
As I wrote previously to you, these cell devices have done humanity in. I don’t much like people anymore although I just organized a block party on my street for next Saturday so I can’t be too far gone, lol.
Keep it up Bill, my wife and I sold our house and are moving to a 55+ apartment community in a couple of weeks. We have been doing a meet and greet with the new signee’s for over a year now and have made a lot of new friends, we are anxious to move, downsize, and keep active mentally and physically. I can usually discern a persons political leaning after a few conversations and my radar is always on. I’ll keep spreading the word on how fucked up our people in power are and I know you will as well. Have a great block party next week.
When I was a little girl, I used to think that a "hypocrite" must be yet another outwardly respectable religious leader, like the scribes and pharisees with which they were invariably bracketed. That's sort of come true.
On my street in AZ, it's the older people (my age) who are the Democrats and the younger generation Republicans.....how do I know....signs in front of houses and as we've aged and older ones are gone, younger have moved in and support Republicans!......So don't blame 'Older ones'!!!! But, I will say that where I grew up.....rural MI, those classmates tend to be Republicans.
I am not part of the 60% but part of the 52%, but I do know that a lot of White men voted for Trump. In fact, gender might have been a bigger factor in voting for Trump.
Still, because I am here in the US with one reason being to get my mother with dementia into a safer living situation, I am really aware of dementia, and lots of people are undiagnosed and may be voting. Wondering if that is impacting people believing his messages.
Wonderful!!! Any of them in our U.P. /Northern Michigan district. We've GOT to get Rep. Jack Enron Bergman OUT! His opponent, Democrat CAllie Barr is terrific!!
I too have lived in rural America. I know these folks. Some will vote Repub until the end of their time on earth and know nothing about what is happening in the world beyond their door yard and church yard. These are the MAGA voters.
I’m FAR more concerned with the radicalized youth of today. My Gen Z nephew said that Charlie Kirk is his generation’s MLK Jr. I mean… WOW. The delusional, warped, loony bin thinking one has to be in to think THAT. The young men of today - and a lot of young women - are insecure as all hell, don’t know how to date normally, are consumed by their stupid phones or playing video games all day long. It’s a very, very weird time. And I don’t have much faith in the youth to make things better, sadly.
In the 2016 election, I asked my 96 year old mother who she was voting for. She kind of shrugged and told me that my then 68 year old brother told her to vote for trump. She wasn’t demented nor either was he. He was a staunch Republican and told me he watched both Fox News and CNN to “hear both sides”. Later, my mother was in ICU and being moved to hospice right before the election. My older sister, age 69 at the time, got an absentee ballot for my mother and got her to vote before she died. My sister in law took a photo and posted it on Facebook with the caption “ voting to make America Great Again”. I was sickened they did this to my mother on her deathbed! Interestingly the “younger generations “ of my brothers and my younger sister are all Trump supporters. I don’t know about the other one.
Right-wingers have been saturated and marinating in radical right-wing propaganda, especially since Rush Limbaugh and fox "news" launched in the 1990's. Most of them have no respect for science and choose to be manipulated by people who use their religious beliefs to convince them that we can't all have equal rights and that treating fellow human beings with respect is woke and that DEI is evil. The only thing that will awaken them is epic failure by the trump regime.
The mainstream media still has not reported on how the messages on the bullet casings point to the far-right-wing groyper movement.
I said something about the assassination and someone here began accusing me of being pro violence and he became the 2nd person I permanently blocked. The first was Rick Sender. Is he still around? I get nothing from him anymore. The block works quite well.
I have a question. Rick Sender has fol!owed me around before. When exactly do you collapse him? After he specifically makes a remark to you. How does the bot put out so many different posts at the same time... I don't get it. Did anyone else get a reply from Keanu Reeves or Barak Obama.. . People keep asking me to follow them... And I just am nervous about that, but how do you let people know it's not them... It just is a choice for now... I feel bad...
Michele2, I collapse him randomly. I do not open posts where he has responded to something I said anymore. He is a waste of my time. If he has some response to something and am scrolling through I might collapse it. It just depends. If I see he has responded to me in email I just delete it.
I blocked him long ago. I tend to forget about him unless someone mentions him. He's the internet equivalent of the old man yelling at the clouds that everyone ignores! 🤣
My father, a lifelong republican, always taught me that it was most important to support the party, even when I disagreed with individual candidates. He would never have voted for a Democrat, even when his common sense told him that the alternative was worse. I suspect that many of the older republican voters are following the same mantra: Support the party over anything else. Vote row a all the way. The Republican Party they are supporting is not the party of my father‘s generation, unfortunately. It has been deeply corrupted by the influence of People like Donald Trump. But I don’t see any of these Republican voters ever veering away from the party, sadly. What will it take to get them to rethink the values of the current Republican Party?
My 97 year old mother in law was the same, a lifelong Republican, ultra conservative Christian. But when Drumpf came along that changed. She left the box for President blank in 2016 because she couldn’t bring herself to vote for Hillary Clinton, but in 2020 she did vote for Biden. When the Time Magazine cover came out with Drumpf in the Oval Office going under water we talked about it and she said wryly, “I’ll help hold him down.” I haven’t asked her whether she voted for Kamala because I don’t want to feel the disappointment if she left it blank again. But all to say, those older lifelong Republicans are not all completely beyond reach.
As another rural Mainer, I agree with your words about life-long Republicans, and their signs. I never see most of these folks at local elections or planning board meetings, but their faded signs supporting Trump stay up for years. It will be interesting to see what happens when he’s not on the ballot.
GJ, the ones to really watch out for are those completely disconnected from reality. Yes, all of District 2 but I refer to those who still have Trump/Pence signs up.
Linda, the cell device mixed with social media is killing human behavior. I don’t like being around most people anymore because most are addicted to cells. You can’t hardly talk to anyone before they get a signal to pick up the cell as you are mid sentence. But it goes beyond that. People simply walk around holding them. I was flabbergasted when I visited Italy inMay and everyone strode around holding onto their devises. I thought only Americans have this proclivity but it has infected the globe.
Bill that is has, but I think it is an age thing too. My daughter always has it with her, although we do not have tech at our dinner table, but otherwise. However, my phone is either in my backpack, or on a table. Same with my husband. I might be in a different room from it and not make it to a call. Still, in Germany on public I see people middle aged and younger on their phones, even moms have their babies on aged 2 to 4 years in strollers looking at stuff that I know is going to ruin their brains for paying attention in school, and yet, older people on the public are never on their phones, and do not have them in their hands and are just sitting there having a ride.
Often I do to but it remains in my front pocket but I don’t frequently take it out. I watched at an open mic once a young brother and sister glued to a cell while performers were on stage and their parents thought nothing of it. Parents are oblivious to this ongoing damaging of human behavior.
My daughter went to a school where that was not supposed to be allowed and they did their own filming of events, but at the end they let parents take pictures. In Germany more and more school districts are saying no phones in school. Children managed to get to and from school without phones before. My expectation was that when my daughter had a phone I could reach her, but that has not proven true. She rarely if ever answers when one calls. Even texting may take a while for response. Her phone is largely used to consume music, although now that she lives in a major city on her own, she might call while going home at night on public just to have someone to get help from if there is a problem. Being at any children's performance is just filled with children on phones, and also parents and grandparents filming the performance. If one is unfortunate enough to sit behind someone doing this, one is forced to see the performance through a screen.
Bill, I’m an old lady, Democrat, of sane mind, and I carry my phone nearly everywhere I go… I don’t have a smart watch and my cell phone tracks my fail step count.
Linda, the question that we democrats [and independents] need to ask ourselves is how long are we going to allow ourselves to be “swift boated”…we need to set the narrative and also set the record straight as to where the radical right and those from the other side [the dark side] of the political divide or aisle is trying to or wants to lead us…and the undecided voters!
Groypers aren’t anti TACO, but they would be happy with someone more evil if they could have it. Kinda like Stewart Rhodes “getting the band back together”.
They would be in the David Duke for President camp. Or not if he got corporate funding. That they are groomed to kill others and perhaps themselves is very disturbing. One could see these as sort of homocide/suicide websites, and as such, should be illegal.
This! The dems have allowed the retrumpians to define terms - and tell outright lies for so long it can't be undone. My brother unfortunately went down the Q hole maga hole and he's gone - unreachable, no rational thoughts anymore, just spouting right wing propaganda insistently...very sad
They need to be speaking at colleges-sending people like AOC and Mayor Pete and other younger people and decide on a few key points of truth. Getting some “influencers” to talk to people. IDK, there needs to be something done—
Diane, I am sorry that you think that. I do not really follow your thinking though. I did not generalize, I wondered. I did not say all people who voted for Trump must have dementia, or that all people who have dementia must have been tricked by Trump.
My mom has dementia and she is not able to think clearly about many things any more, and she appears to be on a list of people who can be duped in certain ways. There is a specific scam that has happened to her several times where they pretend to be amazon and then get her to give them access to her computer.
Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat of the Substack Lucid told us on Friday that her mom has dementia and got caught up in ideas she got from watching Russian television. She lives in England. Even though she no longer watches it Ruth says she cannot get off those ideas. I am describing dementia, and wondering whether it affects so many older people not being able to identify the truth. If you are Republican and have dementia you might not be able to identify that Trump is harming you.
By the way, I am someone who was not bothered by Biden's age, I felt that the age thing was not a real concern because I have a woman in one of my art groups who is 93 and she drives or takes public, is fit as a fiddle and has interesting incisive things to say about art. My mom's best childhood friend also lives in my city in Germany. She and her younger partner go to demonstrations all the time and protest each Saturday in our marketplace, or in his when they are in his city, which they go back and forth between every 6 weeks. She is 91 like my mom. I am not speaking about all people who are older, I am talking about people who have dementia who tend to be older. The NIH says 42% of people 55 or older might get dementia. That would put my husband and me in that category. We might get it, but we don't have it now.
Hello Linda.... Good Observations... Seeing the Crowd at the January 6, 2021 Insurrection, and the Red-Hats, around here they indeed are 65+ for the most part... This MAGA Cult gives them Meaning....
And what truths do they seem to be united in? Anything human uniting them that any number of them can agree on, stand on, stand up for -- together, with coherence, with human passion?
Or have our schools so voided us in the human that we can't reasonably expect Dems to be any better? And all their neutered and neutering tests, tests, tests.
Been thinking about this and have postulated it has to do with our federal government gridlock. Nothing seems to move and this man and his cronies are moving things. Not legally, not ethically, not morally, but moving things while profiting from it. They seem something being done where nothing was being done before. I think that it why the approval number does not shrink.
You mean they are breaking the law and if the SCOTUS approves Trump gets to do it whatever he did to break the law. Whatever he is moving it is not benefitting most people, except for him and his billionaire buddies. However I read yesterday that young men are leaving the Trump camp. That is a relief. Nothing but awful role models in that group.
Lots of people are seeing how much he is hurting our economy and the tariffs have not brought back jobs yet. For one, if you arrest 300 working in a Hyundai plant that they are developing, than the 20,000 jobs they were going to provide are now gone. No more foreign car factories will be built so those factory jobs are not returning, and the American car industry was not employing that many people.
Working for Musk is not great because he is anti-union, anti-Blacks, Browns, women. Women are there for him to breed with by artificial insemination and who knows what else. Yeech. He only allows male his embryos to grow.
Investing in combustible engine cars is not the way to go. People do not want the air pollution or the cost. We shall see how many are willing to have Whiteness and maleness elevated in order to pay more for everything.
There is no real reason for Democrats to sully themselves in trying to correct the lies of Republicans, when members of their own tribe are so well readied and prepared to do it for us, with the skills with which they excel. That doesn't mean its right for the Democrats to be abdicating their jobs and their other executive functions, as they have done for decades now, but it does mean that they don't need to be wading in Republican bullshit as part of their job duties.
Yes there is Clayton. Democrats are not "Socialists" or "The Left." Democrats are not fiscally irresponsible. They are not the party of crime. These are misconceptions that should be addressed after far too long of letting it slide. The part of the Democratic party that is Social Democrats should embrace that side of itself, because that appears to be the winning part of the party right now, since it is the only part that has solutions to real human suffering. The mainstream part of the party is more concerned with helping out the middle class. A group that is shrinking as the Trumpian policies go into effect.
In fact, Schumer and Jeffries as "the Left" is laughable. They are not the '"radical Left" either. Someone needs to explain that Putin is the radical fascist left.
Everyone who can be reached through reason has been reached through reason. But you aren't going to be able to reason someone out of a position they never reasoned themselves into. Nor are you going to be able to reason MAGA cultists out of their cult, all you can do is destroy the cult and invite them to find a new hobby. They'll still hate you, and they will always hate you, but at least they won't be a threat to everyone else.
Those who living in a reality where the only thing that matters is their fears, their beliefs, and whatever they hear from FOX news, has already proven that they don't matter. Their only purpose is fuel for the fire, and the only question is who burns them.
What you CAN do with those people is make them so afraid of the negative effects of expressing their lies, their hate, and the rest of their bullshit that they go back under their sheets and hoods where they belong. Its not even a hard thing to do, we just haven't done it because some people want to win a moral victory in a gun fight.
There are no moral or ethical victories in a gun fight, there is only whoever is still standing at the end. I hope its us, but I'm starting to seriously doubt it will be, but its important to remember that the Germans who just went along with the Nazi uprising because it was easier than fighting back ended up with their lives just as torn apart and their homes just as destroyed and their families just as hungry as the ones who went along with the Nazis.
I get that there are people one cannot reason with. I was sheltered from that in my career as a teacher. I taught people who were young enough to be reasoned with.
Margaret, many years ago, I was in TX on business during an election. I was watching the results come in and the talking heads were interviewing people to get their reaction to some Republican getting re-election.
One of the interviewees was an elderly woman and when they asked her for her reaction her reply was, "Of course he was re-elected. We will never elect a Democrats here." Her tone was very hateful, and this was before Trump.
The media especially, generates clicks and views by playing this garbage. And it makes us realize that they are never going to leave the cult. You can take away their medicaid, price them out of their homes and make them choose between eating or heating and they will still be Republicans. It doesn't matter if they are 18 or 98 years old.
And this is why I think that it's important for David Hobbs and his supporters to keep doing what their doing to bring young people into the fold before they become too brain washed and lifetime members of the Trump Fascist cult.
I think GJ may have meant DAVID HOGG (not Hobbs)? David Hogg is a Parkland shooting survivor who is an active leader on gun control and the founder of the Leaders We Deserve PAC that is working to get younger people elected. The DNC, of course, is working hard to thwart any progress he makes.
I wish there was a way to donate to Dems without going through the DNC. I too was so hopeful when Hogg became an officer. Time for the new generation to take over except for Bernie who is very young at heart. He and AOC make a great team and have huge rallies.
Margaret-Rose, I am not young myself, but just started the day with the long term care insurance nurse assessing my mother, who has dementia after having several strokes. She has vascular dementia. She is 91. Where she lives there are people who are in their mid 90s who are mentally fit, but then again in the country, particularly for people who are not well off, and may have poor diets, I can imagine that there are many people with dementia. The NIH researchers estimate that 42% of the people age 55 and older will get dementia.
Having a mother with dementia, as did my mother- and father-in-law, and my mom's older sister, I feel that I can get a sense of how one can be confused and duped. Also, Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat was telling us in her weekly Zoom meeting that her mom, who lives in England, has dementia. She apparently was watching a lot of a Russian television station before it was not available and that got her embracing Russian talking points. I was connecting the dots.
I am perhaps wasting your time on this kind of wondering, but I like to think about these sorts of things, particularly since I noticed how much my mom gets duped by people.
Linda,there is some hope for those with dementia….We cared 24/7 for my dad in his 90’s.Yes, he was often confused although when 😡 was on the television (back when we actually watched the news) he said…”I do not like that guy.”
Thanks Kathy. I notice that my mom is confused and her short term and working active memory don't work. Her long term works better, so it is my opportunity to learn about the past from her. That is why when she was getting out of her building in the independent living section and going to my aunts on a whim, she did find it once, while she had no idea where I lived even though our house is closer because her sister has lived in her house since the beginning of the 60s. Still, most of the time she would get confused. Yes she was still slipping out when people at the front desk where occupied. So now she is living in a section of her building where she cannot just go on her own outside except to their enclosed gardens.
I was discussing that perhaps elsewhere in Substack and someone was telling me that they help their parents with dementia to mail-in-vote.
Some people with dementia are not diagnosed and people do not know they have dementia. I think it depends on how far along they are. People suspect Trump might have dementia, but I don't know. He does not seem like my mom. She could not do things he can do. Although remember his gait when he was walking the red carpet waiting for Putin? He was not walking straight.
Margaret-Rose, My mom has been talking of dying of late. I am wondering if I will have dementia. My mom's mother lived to be 99.5 without dementia.
However, my mom had strokes, and clapped for help, and her neighbor came and called the ambulance. Since then she has been in an independent living senior apartment in a lovely community near where I live and her sister as well, meaning we can easily walk there. She is around 6 blocks from me and 8 from my aunt when I am in Chicago, which I will not be for much longer. We started looking into moving her to Germany, but she did not want that, and her doctor was not thinking it would be a good idea, and in Germany the dementia people in my city did not think so either. She is not always remembering German.Just recently when I started to say something to her in German she said, "I don't understand."
I hope you are not drifting in that direction either.
Thank you, Margaret-Rose. I am 81, do not have dementia, and consider myseld well educated and reasonably intelligent. I raised my children without their father's help, worked as an RN for close to 40 years in many different roles including manadgement, education, and case management. I have many friends both from work and non-work circles who are like me and not a single one of us would ever DREAM of supporting djt for anything. Ever.
Diane, you can fix typos. Click on the ellipsis at the top-right of the "offending comment." From the drop-down that appears, click on "Edit." Your comment will be moved to an edit box where you can correct errors or modify your comment any way you want. When you're finished editing, click on the "Save" button on the bottom-right. Your corrected comment will be returned to the thread exactly where it was.
I use the "Edit" function all the time, because there's always one unruly typo that eludes me when proofreading my comments.
J L, I know you know, why it's only 42%. Our "media" has tragically been co-opted and now may be referred to as a "they" , because there are a heckuva lot of 'them' who are treading carefully so as not to engage the wrath of 'our leader' OR to be seen by his minders as "lacking sincerity". Speak to some Viet Nam era POW's.., I have.., they'll tell ya about "lack of sincerity" and the 'retribution' inflicted upon them by their captors. At the present stage of things, ICE represents our "captors", but that job is being taken over by the Kirk-sters as they inflict "retribution" upon those (of us) who on their view are not penitent enough. Thanks JL, for providing a sort-of opening for me to express this.
The Reverend Al Sharpton hit the nail on the head. Democrats need to show the voters that Trump and the Republicans have done nothing to make their lives more affordable.
Trump hammered affordability home every day at every rally with his lies. And he's still lying and the media is easily distracted by Trump's daily BS.
It's home economics not macro economics. Most people don't give a damn about the inflation rate or the unemployment numbers. They care about the price of groceries and fast food and electricity and insurance and gasoline.
Most of HCR's follower's understand the harm the administration is doing, but when you're on a fixed income having to choose between paying for your prescriptions or your electric bill, what' happen in Israel or Ukraine doesn't really matter.
But I think that the other stuff matters too (it has a significant bearing on the cost of living, whether the US military gets drawn in to foreign war, and so on). Domestic politics, excuse the use of the word, always trumps foreign policy, and the US electorate clearly chose ‘bread and meat’ over ‘high-flying-ideals’. But the weight of the US in the wider world also matters, and the Democrats cannot afford to ignore that.
We will wake them up in our own families, neighborhoods, and work places one conversation at a time. This will require courage, determination, and the ability to listen (which is a bit of a challenge for progressives.)
We will have to stop telling Democrats what THEY need to do, and start focusing on what WE need to do. My local Indivisible group developed a presentation for our members called How to Talk with a Trump Voter Without Cowering or Arguing. It has been very popular. More and more of our members are putting these skills into practice and finding it fun and interesting.
It takes work to break the spell of a demagogue, but it has been done before and we can do it again if we stop pointing our finger at others and step up to the plate ourselves.
Thank you Riversong Pond for taking the time to reply. Ea
I offer a sign of both my thumbs up (👍👍) in support for what you are doing. At this side of the Atlantic, I will now look for similar groups to yours because we have also list the art of talking, listening, and negotiating too. It is hard work, because our society seems to be very fractured and very fractious but it’s what we CAN do, and we HAVE TO do to move anyways forward.
True, Trump's disapproval numbers should be in the 90's, but they aren't. Why? We aren't paying enough attention, for one, and two, most don't have the analytical skills to understand what is happening. HCR reports: "Where that kind of rhetoric takes a society showed on the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends Friday, when host Brian Kilmeade suggested the way to address homelessness was through “involuntary lethal injection. Or something. Just kill them.” When asked “why did we have to get to this point,” he answered: “we’re not voting for the right people.”
Where does this thinking lead us? Voting is so unpredictable and unnecessary. We need to admit that Donald Trump does not intend to relinquish power in his lifetime. We are already in a slow-rolling civil war. We need to recognize that fact. Donald Trump told a group of white Christian nationalists in late July, 2024, that if he won they wouldn't have to vote again. The civil war is on, right now. We need to anticipate and prepare to thwart his next anti-democratic act. Sending troops to the cities, killing people at sea, rounding up and sending people off to strange lands and prisons are acts to condition us to his ultimate totalitarian move.
A lot of people have swallowed so much of Trump's Kool-aid he could now walk down 5th Avenue in NYC and shoot people. The ignorance level in the US is phenomenal.
Some Americans have too much to eat. Hunger has a way of reinforcing a pragmatic mindset. When one's day is consumed with the work of feeding oneself and family there is little energy left for much of the nonsense we see coming our of the right wing.
Louis L'mour, popular author of "wild West" fiction, wrote some 60 years ago that 2 out of 5 people are no good. 40%. Notice the "sticking power" of that number in modern human affairs.
Eat carrots and string beans. Good for you. I prefer my carrots raw and string beans canned with their bit of added salt.
Ed, I was with you until you mentioned your preference for canned string beans. Nope! Canned string beans taste like socks that have been worn in Army boots all day. Fresh, frozen or none at all!
Reading posts of people like my neighbor who seems to post against the liberals all day, , the bad people are Pelosi, Clinton, AOC, etc. She is one of the uneducated. I've tried to tell her that my cousin (now deceased) started NewsMax (paper edition) to see how gullible people are. Needless there is no talking politics with her.
What I’ve learned the past few days is that MAGAts do not get the same news we do; when I pointed out the discrepancy between ffpotus lowering the flag for Kirk but not Minnesota representative Hortman, I had a handful of replies that said “I never heard about that”.
That struck me too. I'm thinking of the nearly half who approve of the hate, lies, and cruelty. The greed, hypocrisy, and bullying. Magical thinking twisted and unhinged. It makes me sick in the heart.
Yes sir! One of my favorite themes. How can this be? Well look around. What does the average American look like? Way too many Americans are not unlike the bullies and have-nots and other unruly kids who were gleefully disrupting class rooms whom I saw in high school decades ago. Willfully ignorant, anti-intellectual, jealous of those who are getting ahead by being good citizens and good workers, violently angry with a system that is not rewarding them who do not deserve rewards. It is easy to forget just how many Americans fit into this mold. They are everywhere. And guess what - none vote Democratic. They are almost invariably MAGA.
Yes Jay! I have never been able to understand the willfully ignorant. And now it's been weaponized and profitized and hidden in silos. And it's not just the violence but it's the rhetoric and the dog whistles that keep this 💩 going.
I do remember and that is one of are biggest problems hiding in plain sight. If government of the people, by the people, for the people is to be more than an empty slogan, we get a share of responsibility for societal outcomes as well as a share of choice, and it's a responsibility because many more than just us suffers if we make the wrong choice, which can include making no choice. That responsibility includes ensuring "unalienable rights" to the most vulnerable among us, including due process of law, which the current regime frequently withholds.
As long as I can remember, I have heard voting framed in terms of personal expression, far more so than a required responsibility for self governance to succeed. To consider the fate of the forest as well as the trees.
It just feels like 90% because we too are “tribal” and see mostly our own tribe. There are still lots of MAGAs around, just not wearing hats. We’re getting stronger and continuing to grow as they get more desperate to control. Keep fighting, protesting, writing, calling…do SOMETHING, everything helps. Just wait until “The Epstein Affair” blows up as it will in time. Trump’s failing….we all know it. Hang tough and together.
I believe it's because Trump's "base" is heavily swung by the Stephen Miller narrative. As Heather explains early in this column, by the time voters figure out what the truth really is, Miller's poisonous narrative will have taken hold of their wavering, and often even thought-less minds. Let's hope the other 5% care enough about Democracy - that they show up to vote for it.
I agree. I’d say it’s in low teens but books get cooked , fire any accurate compilation keeper and read and weep. Just the best wrap I’ve ever read! Thanks Heather, WOW!
The nuances of "approval" resist precise quantification, and yet it is my personal sense that many fewer people see the current regime as a clear and present danger to our health and safety, let alone world peace, than I would expect. Great that Trump's approval numbers are low compared to past presidents, but that's not an "apples to apples" comparison.
It’s the whole administration ‘barrel’, I believe, JL. Never seen such the like.America was relatively blessed though a lot sacrificed the most for others.
“War, what good is it?”…kills a lot of innocents and makes a few wealthy... that’s a precise quantification.
Heather, here’s an example of how the right is targeting people. From Alt National Park Service FB page tonight:
“We need your help. There is a new doxxing site circulating. A domain just registered through Namecheap (on Sept 10, 2025) and hosted on Squarespace is being used to publish private personal information. We have more information on who registered the domain and contacted the host and registrar with details. This is a direct violation of both companies’ Terms of Service, which prohibit harassment, doxxing, and threats.
Why it matters:
- Doxxing puts people at real risk of violence and harassment.
- The site is brand new, which is a red flag for abuse.
- Registrars and hosts will take these sites down when notified.
- A short explanation: “This site is publishing private personal information (doxxing) in violation of your abuse policy.”
Both Namecheap and Squarespace have acted quickly in the past when alerted. The more reports they receive, the faster this domain can be taken offline.”
UPDATE from ANPS:
“A win!!! We want to thank you all and celebrate this victory. Because you spoke out and made your voices heard, a harmful website that was doxxing individuals has been removed. A big thank-you as well to Namecheap for their quick response in taking it down. The operators have created a new URL, but it currently has no content. For now, there’s nothing more to act on, but we’ll keep monitoring and keep you updated.”
Sorry Kathleen, I wasn't clear. I was referring to Charlie Kirk whose widow yesterday described him as a martyr and whose death is now being exploited by Trump and his followers.
See my clarification above to Kathleen Weber. The ordinary folk who are protesting against Trump's policies have no need of a martyr, unlike the far right who yearn for a civil war.
I’m just sharing what I found from a source. If you check the comments on Bluesky or Facebook you may find additional information that answers your question.
Its is very frightening that our nation has come to this. Let’s keep our conversations going!
Stephen Miller's infuriating diatribe about "the ideology destroying the country" is a PERFECT example of both right-wing projection and massive, unrepentant gaslighting. All that he says in that paragraph is exactly what the right-wing is doing; trying to destroy everything that is beautiful and good. And they Goddamned well know that they are gaslighting the rest of us. It's all about power. May they rot in hell.
Perhaps it's because there really is no God. He needs to be shamed and belittled in public by someone with broad credibility. Or maybe there is no heaven either.
Police forces here have arrested nearly 1,000 people protesting against the ban. In the US, you could find yourself detained in Louisiana or deported to some Latin American hellhole.
A very high proportion of folks at US political protests carry rather large signs. When the groups are quite large as they often are now, it may be difficult to determine what is occurring at a periphery. As at the Democrat Convention in Chicago, so very long ago, or at the Pentagon, tear gas may be deployed. Today there are also rubber bullets. It is too easy to find oneself caught in the press of a crowd because one fails to react in time. I prefer to have hands free, wear appropriate street-style clothing and appropriate footgear. I like to know where I am and where and how I might go. I try to shepherd anyone I came with. A large kerchief in a pocket is useful. Have your national ID. Mind your manners. Don’t wear legally offensive slogans. Be polite. Do the job, be disciplined. Then go home.
When you can and if you can, say nice things to police and especially guardsmen. They are not necessarily your enemy and they are not ICE. They don’t get a choice to be there. Show verbal consideration. Ask decent non-antagonistic questions. The idea is to subtly and emotionally recruit. Questions linger in the mind for a long time. If you are unfamiliar with political protests, ofter local training is available. Normally it’s mercifully brief. If you know you’re prone to panic or hysteria, consider not going where there will be a large crowd. There are always a hundred ways to participate. Use everything you have. You’ll always be glad you did. Go in solidarity, and always, keep the peace.
That, and I’m wondering if Charlie Kirk’s wife knows that she’s essentially declaring war on the far far far right. It seems that she’s speaking to the same people (us) who Stephen Miller is accusing of being the people who are committing all of these atrocities that he and his ilk are committing. My sentence is even confused!
My husband and I are in a tiny village, in a farm cooperative in Iceland this morning. HCR's post is resembling the sky here today. Dark clouds but I know, this afternoon the rain will stop and the Sun will shine once again and all the rays of truth that Heather wrote in this post will bring more truth for us to fight the fight of our life for the future generations. Onward we go. Never give up.
Thanks ! We needed that, I needed that. All this super dark talk again makes the average person feel hopeless, scared and paralized to leave ones house. That is exactly what the Authoritarians want. It will not further the cause. We don't need pontification we need positivity and resolve we will do what we must to gain more disapproval of the direction we are headed. Little by little it IS working.
Of course it’s working, otherwise they wouldn’t keep trying to throw squirrels and change the subject all the time. Winter is indeed coming for them. They are not prepared and they know it.
It’s been a long time since our country was really threatened, especially when the threat came mostly from within. People are understandably ill prepared for the moment. No time like the present for figuring out how to meet a crisis without losing your mind. Maybe I speak only for myself, but the “dark talk” doesn’t prompt resignation and withdrawal (though I understand the feelings), it prompts anger and action.
Support strong, center-left people committed to run against the madness. Find a cause and help it grow. (Money to keep suing the bastards doesn’t grow on trees.) Don’t be silent when they lie. Sign up to be a poll-watcher (now more than ever). Come up with something original that speaks to you by way of resistance.
At the next mass rally in Washington, my hand-written sign will simply say:
This "dark talk" is merely the truth. And the longer the majority of citizens fail to show up and demand a return to the values of the Bill of Rights, the future will only get darker.
My point is this. Of course, the dark talk is real, lack of the dark talk got us into this.
If we had engaged a year ago, presented clearly and plainly to the people what exactly Authoritarianism / Fascism looks like at town hall meetings we may have awakened earlier. I say may, who knows really at this point. We got a slow start everyone can agree on that. The more fatalistic talk that ensues the more the average person retreats. I see it in my own group . After last Thursday and the POTUS LITTLE HATE SPEECH, I saw many scared faces. All I'm saying is we do not need to beat people over the head with scary truth. The people out there now are committed, they know what's at stake, they realize the COUP is over and it's time to fight. My point, now is the time to recruit full on. That will be done by instilling resolve, it will take every American that wants to save our Democracy,save our way of life to come together and speak out and fight, engage. It won't be easy and we need EVERYONE. We have done it before. The Regime is using the sad event of last Thursday to scare, intimidate and immobilize the Left. Anybody see the rant by Steven Miller? Hateful, vile and threatening. The truth is the truth, present it. Scaring people with the truth will not promote engagement.
"It is an ideology that leads, always, inevitably and willfully, to violence—violence against those [who] uphold order, who uphold faith, who uphold family, who uphold all that is noble and virtuous in this world. It is an ideology whose one unifying thread is the insatiable thirst for destruction.”
Many people are saying that "every 'Republican' condemnation is a confession". So it would seem.
When Donald Trump tried to oust Fed governor Lisa Cook over a made-up mortgage scandal, it was not about ethics, it was about power dressed up as paperwork. Cook’s “fraud” evaporated the moment someone read the forms, but the smear lived on, echoing the MAGA mantra: why check facts when fiction works faster?
This is the same carnival trick used after Charlie Kirk’s murder. Before police could file a report, right-wing influencers were already blaming “the Left,” inventing villains like kids inventing monsters under the bed. The shooter turned out to be a hard-right fan angry Kirk was not extreme enough, but truth is no match for a viral lie.
Control the story, control the crowd. That is the lesson from McCarthy to Musk: flood the zone, punish dissenters, declare enemies, repeat. When narratives outrun evidence, democracy starts gasping for air. Today it is Cook’s reputation and teachers losing jobs; tomorrow it could be anyone who prefers reality over the empire of make-believe.
Christopher, if that's not a call to normalize extreme violence I don't know what it is. And this guy from whom this words emanates is keeping his job. Also every statement or accusation coming from this regime like those from Stephen Miller and Bill Pulte, it's a confession.
I believe there are openings. Cushy job especially since the main task assigned is now to do as close to nothing as can be achieved. It’s a skillset in high demand in this administration.
Thanks for LISTENING, researching and informing the rest of us. Most of all, thank you for staying grounded and not instantly reacting like a raving lunatic.
There's always a "they," menacing, threatening pious "us" -- who thus need vicious police state.
Ali Velshi today nailed another aspect of this on the most recent attack on our Constitution’s 4th amendment.
That’s where it mandates authorities’ need for probable cause to arrest people or seize their property.
So the Clarence court – Long Dong Clarence and his police state ideologues – have junked that bit of the Constitution. Just as earlier they ruled their obscene Donald as immune to law, and before that pooh-poohed the insurrection clause – again bowing to their police state criminal Donald.
Ali Velshi quotes Tom Nichols from the Sept. 9 Atlantic on this worsening far right vulgarity: “It is about the administration’s attempt to inflame racial tensions and divide Americans and to acclimate them to the militarization of their streets and the stripping away of their constitutional protections.”
This latest betrayal came under “the shadow docket,” where the court holds no hearings, allows defense lawyers no speech, and issues no court reasoning.
Heather sees them for keeping to the narrative all police state and ideologue autocracies crave, with the far-right elites of the highest court in the land doing their bit to keep killing all pesky law.
Hello Phil... DJT, and his Puppet-Masters want Civil War... They will get more Desperate as DJT continues to Spiral Down... Pray For Divine Intervention...
Yes, Apache -- but in their diseased minds, they're already overtaken by their fantasies.
It's a madness, this linear-only, unrelenting logic of theirs
They could temper it with memoirs, histories, and novels where nuance gets play. But as the vulgarities of money and power also float them, they can't admit scripts other than their rape-filled, violence-strewn, ever-full-of-lies demented. (Nor can they allow schools to do so.)
Hello Phil... I suspect, fear, that You are Right... DJT is only a Symptom of a Deep American Social Disease.... DJT is just the Conductor of a Demonic, Infernal Collection of Demons that want to Hate, and Destroy...
Trump has claimed Divine Intervention at Butler, Pennsylvania in July when he narrowly avoided being fatally wounded. However, it seems strange to me that if the Divine Presence was really so considerate of the welfare of his charge He should not have intervened just a tad earlier - Ah well, the ways of the Almighty are mysterious indeed!
Yo Apache.., which one (Divinity) took out Kirk? How's about the holey cross? No no no.., it was a MAGAnut. Strangely enough, I had posted (somewhere) right after that occurred, that it was probably a "MAGA nutjob" that did it. LO and behold.., we have now been so-informed, that a member of a MAGA-card-carrying family was involved. Well.., I'll be. Gag me!!
Hello MadRussian.... On the Day of the Shooting I Speculated here on this SubStack, that it was a local Gamer with a Scoped Bolt-Action Rifle... Let Tyler Robinson speak for himself...
“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.”
Trump has lived a life of indulgence of his vices without a care for the injury he causes to others. He's also fortunate that he hasn't been called to account for his many transgressions. However, my impression of him is that he is an unhappy man. He's in a miserably bad marriage, largely his own fault. He doesn't appear to care much for his own children who are as avaricious and immoral as he is. He frets about his legacy in office - he's surely aware that he's considered the worst president in US history. It's why he feels the need to lie about his achievements and yearns for recognition from others (or example, his obsessive pursuit of the Nobel Peace prize). He will never be satisfied and he he expresses his frustration with vindictive actions against those who criticise him or oppose him. And yet he doesn't deserve our pity, only our scorn.
Ohhh ho Russell..., clearly, as expressed in your statement implying that "Divine Presence" missed the opportunity to take our dear leader out..., you' sir are most likely not "sincere" in the eyes of The Dear Leader. So, welcome to the shit-list with the rest of us. Apache, suggested that we ask for some "divine intervention". Lets ponder that, for whatever 'that' might be, because it's gonna happen some way or another.
As far as the idea that empires now “create their own reality,” that this represents some kind of new, trendy reality displacing literally everything we know about history…well, you just gotta laugh.
Never once have I felt the Weird World of Dump and his Cult of Dumpness represented something fundamentally new, something not already described in detail by Hans Christian Andersen in ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ by Shakespeare in any of his tragedies or histories, by George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Huxley’s Brave New World, by the Holocaust and the Nazi rise to power that preceded it— and yes, by the moment when Joseph Welch confronted Joseph McCarthy with his famous ‘have you no decency, sir?’ accusation, and it all came tumbling down.
Evil always presents itself as being powerful, everlasting, “new” and impregnable — right up until the very moment everything falls to pieces. It has always been like this, it never really varies. Macbeth finally met his fate after Birnham Wood came to Dunsinane. Through tremendous loss of life and the sacrifices of others, Hitler finally blew his own brains out. One day, East German border guards simply abandoned their posts at the Berlin Wall. The Soviet flag over the Kremlin got lowered on Christmas Day, 1991, never to be raised again.
One day, this terminally stupid, arrogant cult of moronism will be a memory inside history’s famous dustbin. Perhaps not without much more cruelty, absurdity and maybe blood — who can say. But it will come crashing down. Let’s be confident of that, and continue to do everything we can peacefully to hasten that day!
Welp.. Good post "It's come to this". And you cdrtainly don't imply that doing nothing is the answer. However, blowing each others brains out for some ill-defined reason makes no sense at all, and we need to remember we'll get more flies with sugar than with salt. Newsom has set the tone: Embarrass them to death. "They" are so fucking stupid. More people read the funny-papers. We are in a Mad Magazine moment in our history. Our country consists of 350 million pixels. They are far from being all red. Plenty of intelligent pixels out here.
Newsom is the smartest thing to happen to us since crunchy peanut butter. Laugh at them to death. Colbert is a saint. Mayor Pete goes on ‘bro-casts’ and these weird, disaffected, threatened, straight boys start eating out of his hand. And when Jasmine Crockett calls Ms. Traylor-Trash “baby girl” she’s onto something.
How about now? Could it happen now? Today? Because every day it seems there is yet another atrocity, another rip in the Constitution, another heinous act against decency, law and order. When will it stop? Not soon enough for me.
"Embracing the serial criminal with tender warmth," from Miller, sounds like an apt description of MAGA's embrace of Trump's fascism. As usual, they're projecting their worst crimes onto their enemies.
Welcome to the 1930s Germany. The one difference is that Hitler was a strongman dictator whereas Trump is a TACO dictator. Trump is surrounded by the most inept group of fools and sycophants ever to be employed in the history of our country. The division he has created and exacerbated in our country is chilling and so dangerous to our physical and emotional health.
Well, EcstaticRationalist, there's reality and there's reality.
One of them -- criminal Donald's, his abetting Clarence court's, Project 2025's, and all MAGA world's chief actors' -- hold dear the reality of abstracted life. There, they needn't be hemmed in at all by facts, evidence, or any truth other than their rationally consistent fantasyland.
The other reality highly includes stories of characters living in complicated contexts. We see these in anecdotes of real people, memoirs citing real people, in histories also tracing real people, other arts, and especially novels weaving today's real-life contradictions, complexities, multiple layering of related issues, serendipity, the pull of related memory, and anticipations all also have.
My vote isn't at all for Donald and crew's consistent if fake reality -- it's for, instead, the messier ones involving real humanity.
"Across the country, educators have been suspended or fired for posting opinions on social media that commented on Kirk’s death in ways officials deemed inappropriate."
"Fox host sets off uproar with 'just kill them' comment about mentally ill homeless people
… After [co-host Lawrence Jones] later adding, “They have given billions of dollars to mental health and the homeless population. A lot of them don't want to take the programs, a lot of them don't want to get the help that is necessary. You can't give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we're going to give you and — or you decide that you are going to be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now,” Kilmeade interjected, “Or involuntary lethal injection.”
With Jones agreeing, Kilmeade added, “Or something. Just kill them.”
Undisturbed by the suggestion, Earhardt chimed in with, “Yeah, Brian, why did it have to get to this point?”
You lock evil up in a round room and soon the babbling morons convince themselves that’s the way God intended it to be, too.
I’ve never watched Fox News. It literally repulses me. One-third the country — if not more — drinks its dumb poison every day for breakfast, then smacks its lips with pleasure afterward.
I have encountered Fox "News" in a number of business waiting rooms and had a relative by marriage that watched it constantly. I also watched, for a while, out of curiosity, English language "Russia Today" (RT). They seemed pretty similar in content and style. Coarse propaganda.
Fox might claim that their causal calls for violence are "just talk", but that's what a number of people told me who were voting for Trump, and now he's really doing the stuff they claimed was exaggeration. And if you look at the entire impact of what Trump and "Republicans" are actually doing, I am already seeing casualties.
TVs showing Faux Noise have been known to shut off, turn all the way down, or mysteriously become unplugged when I'm in the room. 🤔 😉 I'm still looking for a universal TV remote app for my phone...
But I am a Christian..DEFINITELY NOT A Christian Nationalist... there is a world of different. If you want a good tutorial on what's really behind their so-called christian agenda, just read about NAR ( New Apostolic Reformation) on even just, Wikipedia. That'll give you just some keywords like violence and some key names like Mike Johnson and a little Looney Tuney MTG and quite a few others. I'm one of Millions of Christians who are completely against this so-called christian nationalist/ fascist. My big problem is they can do what they want but don't attach the name of Christ to it because if they are any kind of Christians at all at all at all, they should know the people Jesus had the most trouble with were the hypocrites and the horribly religious leaders demanding things of followers
I'm all too familiar with CN, Dominionism, and their other heresies. I'm stuck in a Red state where I hear it constantly. I don't even bother talking to them anymore.
No that's no problem. I wasn't really suggesting you were I was more suggesting that as a Christian I don't understand how anything they have done.. (maybe him saying there are two sexes and maybe him saying he would write an EO letting kids to pray in school)... have any semblance at all to Jesus teachings. I don't think most people realize how serious they are about doing anything it takes to accomplish their.... self-imagined mandate. If you are in a red State and know all about Dominionism and all of that and you understand how much they depend on their prophets... so my question would be since there are thousands of these NAR prohets all over the world... why didn't God speak to one of them and tell them to tell Charlie Kirk not to go to Utah? They act like they have God on speed dial so how do they explain not being told by God to warn Charlie Kirk? 🤔🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸😪😪😪
Bullies define "fitness" as the ability to bully. Yet human societies have drawn their historical resilience from concerted diversity of ideas and talents and innovation. Alas, we always seem to war between an order based on violence and one based on cooperation. Amplified by resource waste and technological power to do, the violence side threatens to end us as a species.
Quite. Even Darwin said that it wasn't survival of the strongest, but survival of the most adaptable to change. Humans have always prospered when cooperating with one another.
To be honest, I'd be surprised if our technological civilization lasts until 2100. I won't be around to see if though.
And it was not the endurance of a person or civilization that mattered from a survival standpoint, it was the species. Dinosaurs enjoyed quite a long run on the planet, but in the end could not keep up with change. We are just noobs, and already we are tempting fate.
Dear Heather: I am astonished at the clarity and great intelligence and steadfastness that you show as you gaze into the trumpian abyss of lies and horror. I do not understand how you can endure all of that and still thrive. I stand in awe of your ability to carry on in spite of how horrible all that you observe actually is. We all owe you a great debt.
I’ve been reading HCR’s daily Substack for years now and there used to be an underlying optimism and hope, despite the often terrible rhetoric and actions of the MAGA movement and this president.
That the undertone of optimism, in these letters and in all the commentators I read, is now a rare occurrence
Barrie, the shift here has been the Professor’s stated intent that LFAA document the day’s events and trends for some future historian’s reference work.
To find the optimism, watch her Politics Chat and her feature with Joanne Freeman “What The Hell Just Happened?” Much more hope/optimism there.
"Trump’s job approval rating is just 42.3% with 53.6% disapproving,"
Something is very wrong in the fact that his disapproval rate is not in the nineties.
Heather explains in her Politics Chat of Sept. 9 that 46% strongly disapproval rate is a very big deal. There will always be extremes at either ends. She wants us to remember this is a profoundly unpopular president. One way, she says to tell how the administration knows how unpopular it is, is the extreme work they are putting in to rig the 2026 elections. If they were popular, they would not have to rig the elections.
Undoubtedly correct, but you still wonder — how is it possible to keep fooling 40% of the population 647 times in a row like this? It’s not exactly the debauched criminal-moron faker’s first time at the rodeo, to put it mildly.
Heather is saying that besides the "strongly disapprove" there is also a big percentage that just "disapprove" Anyway - his huge unpopularity is a strong point for us. Never ignore a possible advantage - especially when it comes to fighting authoritarianism!!! Heather also refers to Timothy Snyder saying, "Do not obey in advance." We need to hang in there!
Vitally important, do not obey in advance.
Not only do we not obey in advance, we must turn the tables and render the gerrymandering useless by beating them at their own game. We must regain the majority in Congress and stop the carnage before there is no stopping it at all.
Once again, you are on-point celeste k.
Yes,"turn the tables". Pulte & his smear Gang are open to legal Counter-attack for 1 of the many species of active fraud. Fraud on Lisa Cook, fraud on all of us.
Litigation & trial work is something like 4 dimensional chess. It is not that difficult to get way, way ahead of the Perps. In CA, on 11/4/25, Vote YES on Proposition 50.
Use similar strategies swiftly in other states stat to "render the gerrymandering useless".
yeah that's not how this works. Its not how any of this works. When your government takes away your right of self determination, you don't protest by going meekly to the slaughter, you take it back.
Does anyone know if it’s possible to turn out enuf voters that even though gerrymandered, the D’s still win? Just curious. I think by Nov next year there will be HUGE numbers of us against this administration! Just sayin
And rub their nose in their own perfidy.
Agree, Celeste, but right now after drilling down to the third layer in these comments, I feel the moving train is too close. When I read “Professor Heather” today I feel The vastness of the malignancy that S. Miller is unleashing. The MSM refuses to tell Americans how others are fighting back. Voters need to know that this energy is real. People are drawn to visible examples and it influences their vote. This and seeing Democratic lawmakers fight “tooth and nail”
Laura Loomer was the one who criticized Kirk and inspired the assassin to kill him. After which she deleted all her posts but the evidence remains. It was her doing. And that’s the truth, Ruth.
Notice something about her, Bill, and all her criminal Donald peers?
Look at them (alphabetical order): Lauren Boebert, Pam Bondi, Katie Britt, Susan Collins, Joni Ernst, Tulsi Gabbard, Laura Loomer, Ana Paulina Luna, Nancy Mace, Kristi Noem.
I'm now not included Marjorie Taylor G., as at least she's had the fortitude to stand up to criminal Donald's and his pals' underage girl victims.
Add them all up. For their lies. Cult sycophancy. Their total illiteracy in any humanities. Don't they rather perfectly justify criminal Donald's (and too many other MAGA males') deep misogyny?
And now she's a target. They're playing a game of Russian roulette. The whole administration is fearful and the more lies they tell the more dangerous it is for them. FAFO.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
Is "Loomer" a made-up name, perhaps to revel in the fact she looms over humanitarian life as if she were the head of the extermination staff at Auschwitz?
Can you provide evidence of this? What did Loomer write and how did this support the shooter’s actions?
Documentation of accused killer "disliking Kirk for being insufficiently radical."?
Please provide documentation that Robinson was a right-winger and Killed Kirk because he was not "right" enough. This is what NYTs has to say about this https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/us/kirk-shooting-suspect-ideology-partner.html Let's not get out ahead of our skis!!
Before the facts, Bill.
Ad the internet remembers despite her deleting.
Thank you....It is vital. Lately, I feel like I should be shouting it from the rooftops. The other day posting I felt that discouraged energy from people, and I just wanted to figure out a way to encourage people to not give up... This has been a hard week for everyone.And there are more challenges to come. I really appreciate your words! I would urge everyone to read Purobi Phillips post today - it is real and honest and she doesn't give up - her post is like looking at a rainbow...
Great advice from Timothy Snyder, who moved to Toronto.
Timothy Snyder and his wife were at Yale, but when they saw how Columbia handled political attacks, they took jobs in Toronto. Timothy is back and forth to U.S., as he often speaks on MSNBC..The truth sometimes is "couched" in shades of grey?!
Unfortunately, even institutions that you’d expect to oppose a vicious autocrat are obeying in advance. UC Berkeley turned over a list of “suspects,” including both professors and students. The university administrators named names, just like the cowards and rightwing fanatics who cooperated with Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Eventually, the McCarthyites collapsed under their own weight, but not before teaching Republicans how to use outrageous lies to get the votes of rubes and boobies, a lesson they have never forgotten because it has served them so well. Now, the Republicans have parlayed it all the way to a presidency unconstrained by laws (unconstrained officially, by the authority of the Supreme Court, no less). Will that collapse under its own weight? Maybe, but according to the approval figures cited in today’s Letter, roughly half of Americans think outrageous lies are a fine way to run the government.
I think that is what happened in WWII Germany. Hitler's henchmen to the initiative to expand the concentration camps and their brutality because they thought that Hitler would like that.
Oh, I got it, alright! 👍
A big part of not obeying is to not believe anything from these Nazis. Beware the power of these Joseph R. McCarthy style lies by Miller, “In recent days we have learned just how many Americans in positions of authority—child services, law clerks, hospital nurses, teachers, gov[ernmen]t workers, even [Department of Defense] employees—have been deeply and violently radicalized. The consequence of a vast, organized ecosystem of indoctrination.” McCarthy intensified the Second Red Scare based on such unsubstantiated accusations including, "While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205." At the next campaign stop he had forgotten the number he made up and so made up a different number, and so on. But the Republicans who are always full of fear ate it up, hook, line and sinker.
Lies are bad but buyer beware is part of free speech. People should not be killed for speaking out. And as for these people getting fired and other attacks, Thomas Jefferson stated in the preamble of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom; “Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion,...” Although the Statute is focused upon religious freedom it applies to freedom of thought thus the expression thereof. Jefferson concluded, “...truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.” Trump and his Nazi party cannot allow truth to flow freely and that is why they cannot stand for Charlie Kirk being exposed for who and what he was.
https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/virginia-statute-religious-freedom/
🎯
I must be tired. Now I see which comment. I appreciate who you are... Thanks...
All of your points but, trial attorney here -- so I like "never ignore a possible advantage".
My youngest daughter bought me a t-shirt that says those exact words. My oldest daughter found a perfectly good t-shirt at a thrift store that says those exact”We The People Have Had Enough”. I wear both of them frequently.
I like both daughters' t-shirts! "We the people Have had Enough" and "Never Obey in Advance" Both of those would make great protest signs for Indivisible nationwide protest or on Sat., OCT 18. Maybe your daughters would protest too? We need huge crowds! Thank you for sharing that with me. You have very thoughtful daughters !!!
They do, when they can. In 2019, I took them to the Women’s March in DC. They loved it! We attended Congress also. When we were in the Senate, my youngest said, look at all the white cotton pinheads. She was referring to the old Repubs with gray hair!
I read that book. It was great and not difficult to understand. It was short enough that I read it twice!
We need to remember that we are no longer talking about a political party. MAGA is a cult, and true believers often do not, as Heather points out, share a fact-based reality.
Hello Betsy... A Cult makes its own Reality... There are Purification Rituals.... There are Cleansing Ceremonies... Seems that Stephen Miller is an Evil Mind behind DJT...
Stephen Miller is a rage-fueled psychopath with a lot of power. Very scary.
This morning I saw a clip of some interview he was giving. His unrestrained rage was eye popping. In a brief exchange on FB with friends from high school I saw that same rage from one of the participants. He didn’t seem to realize the shooter was far right. Where are these people getting so wound up? There seems to be more out there than the usual suspects of Daily Wire, Fox, etc. They all make me feel a need for a shower.
“There is an ideology ... which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful ... an ideology whose one unifying thread is the insatiable thirst for destruction.”
Apparently, projection is a psychological disorder that has overtaken all of MAGA. When I read the above quote of Miller's post, I was struck by its eloquence, and how adroitly he had described himself.
If this was Germany 1943, he’s be the head of the Gestapo. And reveling in it.
Satan incarnate....
Evil men never have a problem attracting minds like their own.
Reading Heather's quote of Miller's social media post - he described perfectly the viewpoint/behaviors of himself and all of Trump's lackeys.
Pay attention to Peter Thiel - he is the puppet master.
he is the master or sugar daddy over JD Vance.
Betsy: In the late '70s, with the Jim Jones/Guyana affair, there was a lot of focus on cults and why people join them, and even why they stay with them when forced. Deprogramming was discussed and then, slowly, the horror of what happened and how to deal with it died down. In the last decade, what FOTUS was creating brought the term cult into consciousness even by MSM. What will cause this development to die down is beyond me. Those who adhere to this unreality seem to crave intense emotional connection, and a sense of belongingness feeding personal insecurity. Other than therapy (yeah, right!) what seems to give the cultists pause seems to be when they are PERSONALLY affected.
People are looking for someone who can fix everything that is lacking in their lives. When someone steps up and claims to be the one who can, through his magic, wave his wand and give them everything that they're missing, the need to believe is strong. How long will it take before people realize that those were just wild promises with no substance behind them? I hope that as prices continue to rise, as people are personally affected as you wrote, they will distance themselves from the man behind the curtain (my local cinema recently did its annual anniversary showing of The Wizard of Oz, which premiered there). The sooner the better...
I think we also need to remember that a massive number of posters on social media are bots and trolls with the express purpose of inciting hatred and violence. They pile vile comments onto every good comment and the few real people take them as all knowing and parrot them. Musk is one of the biggest feeders of these hateful messengers. Laura Loomer, like Nancy Mace, is unbalanced and will do anything for attention and adoration. Too many people fall for influencers and never think for themselves.
How true. Cults deny facts when those facts go against what they want to believe.
REAL COURAGE is about being afraid of something but doing it anyway!
We ALL need REAL COURAGE NOW MORE THAN EVER BEFORE!
And so do our politicians!!!
When you give up HOPE... you quit FIGHTING BACK!
And that is EXACTLY what the maga regime wants us to do!
THAT is how they defeat us!
So that is EXACTLY what we cannot do!
NEVER EVER BACK DOWN TO A BULLY or they will continue to chase you forever!
And NEVER EVER TRUST A BULLY because they are so insecure and paranoid that sooner than later EVERYONE becomes one of their targets!
Thank you, Sky Blue!
Back in October, 1941, Winston Churchill said, "Never give in, never, never, never, never." Yes, five nevers! Worked for him (with a little help from his friends). Here we are again, back to never. I think you have calibrated our situation quite accurately, Sky Blue.
I listened to a researcher discussing his work. He found that around one third of Americans have authoritarian tendencies that are triggered when they feel threatened. Many MAGAs do seem to be people who are feeling deeply insecure.
I also read a journalist's report of a visit to a town where some people believe that all the ICE stuff is simply untrue and others believe that somehow Trump is unaware of what is happening in the US at the moment and he would turn things around if only he knew.
If you are really interested in such things, its noteworthy that a simple medical test can determine political affiliation for more than 95% of participants. The test is called a functional MRI, and that several of the associations for political content could be determined by linking self identified conservatives with people who's brain showed strong fear based signalling and deficiencies in empathy and higher reasoning in real time.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1828689/
Interesting. I’ve seen research that self-identified conservatives make decisions from the amygdala while self-identified liberals access the prefrontal cortex for those decisions
Yep -- emotional overriding the rational.
I would be remiss in my "mission" if I didn't point out that evangelicals are perfect candidates for conservative politics and to the extreme, MAGA, because they are born into a culture of fear.
From the moment they can be taught anything, evangelicals are indoctrinated with fear: fear of a jealous, vindictive deity, fear of "Satan," fear of falling into "sin," fear of dying and going to "hell," fear of "evil people" who would lead them to "sin," fear of people who don't follow the same religion as they do. These are just some highlights. Evangelicals are taught to fear literally everything and everyone not a part of evangelical culture.
And part and parcel of this fear culture is not flight, but fight. Evangelicals refer to the Bible as "the sword of the Lord." Evangelical youth are required to memorize the Bible. Many participate in competitions where they must recite a Bible verse when the moderator calls out a reference address; these are called "sword drills." A favorite anthem sung repeatedly at VBS (Vacation Bible School) is "Onward Christian Soldiers." The lyrics represent nothing of peace, love and mercy. https://lyricsandverses.com/song/onward-christian-soldiers/
Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.
I've noticed over the years that they seem to be extremely gullible. Remember back in the 90s when we had the Satanic Panic, P&G and Starbucks logos were satanic, "recovered" memories of satanic ritual abuse, ad nauseum? All those and many more came from the Evangelicals. It's only gotten worse since then.
A Episcopal Church upbringing, Baptist Bible School back in the day when the three Protestant churches in my VA farming community looked out for each other. Collaboration for the War Effort of WWII and before and afterwards.
If that proves out through more study, it would be reassuring, because it might be predictive of an overall inability of the super conservative overtaking the rest of the population (provided it is a more recessive factor). While circumstances might propel them into dominance for a time period, it cannot sustain. Especially under vigorous opposition.
That study is three years old, its been repeatedly cited, and backed up by plenty of further evidence back when we still had a government that backed the sciences and didn't censor information that didn't support their worldview, and universities that weren't terrified of conservative donors and MAGA terrorists.
More and more of that is going away every day though, and has been since 2023.
Thank-you, I'll have a look.
Teri Kanefield (terikanefield.com) had an essay last weekend about how people sort into those who welcome change and those whose natural tendency is toward authoritarians.
That’s crazy thinking!!!
The “crazy thinking” comment is attached to the small town and how people don’t think Trump knows what’s going on…
I just spent time reading the comments section to a Time article trying to suss out Tyler Robinson’s ideology & motive. Reading those would help (sadly) understand how so many people are fooled into supporting Trump. The lack of critical thinking is stunning, as is the rush to judge. Word salad regurgitation of “leftist”, “Antifa”, “trans”, etc and a rejection of meme culture messaging, while spouting memes themselves. Very disturbing what has been done to the brains of our fellow citizens by Rupert Murdoch & his ilk, followed closely by online bots unleashed by those who would like to see our efforts at self government fail. Also learning too much about groypers and alt right in fighting that likely played a role in Robinson’s radicalization. Wondering if our trad media is too cowed by threats of violence to even raise the prospect???
Thanks, Mike.
Because they only watch Fox "News," Newsmax, et al, and are followers on "Truth" Social. And otherwise put their hands over their eyes and ears. And the GOP-controlled Congress is mute and complicit.
Exactly! Republicans fear or greed or disinterest that keeps them rubber stamping every idiotic thing that potus does has given us the craziest, scariest, worst, most evil administration in history. They are to blame for this fine kettle of fish.
"how is it possible to keep fooling 40% of the population"
They want to be fooled.
Fox "News" drums the propaganda and false narratives into them constantly, 24/7/365. For many on the right, Fox is their only media source. That goes a long way to explaining how 40% of Americans can still approve of trump.
On YT the Presidential Library of JFK posted his speech in June of 1963 at American University. I might have heard about it but never read. It is utterly brilliant and oh my I thought as Ivwas listening oh my. And now we are here.
I am hoping that if all libraries and presidential ones as well as private collection start posting and maybe other ways the waters of hatred will break. It feels like the boy with his finger in the file that saved a town. There actually is a statue of a perhaps apocryphal tale there in the Netherlands. Humans have only so much storage and capacity for anger. I am surprised at the continuation unless my fear is that they are using substances to continue to fuel the rage.
In military history this was scene as from the word berserk. And then yes substances were used so nothing new just there has to be an end somehow there has to be end. June 1963 before so much happened but also so so much hidden and submerged so maybe we all can walk out of the shadows of human civilization and into the light of knowledge and understanding and perhaps work together all of us.
The 40% are not fooled. They want this.
I’m guessing that it’s a split between those who want and those who do not have all the information, probably 20% each way.
"You can fool some of the people all of the time..." ~Abe
It’s the Miller and Musk quotes that we need to spread. Why? Because they are even more deadly than the Pink Balloon can get his “mind” around.
Largely, I suspect, because a good many if not nearly all of that 40% either aren’t paying any attention to anything that doesn’t directly impact them (yet), don’t really understand where Trump and his myrmidons are leading them, or agree it with even when it does impact them, believing that it is impacting the ‘libs’ even more.I believe the proper phrase for that is, cutting off your nose to spite their face.
This is nothing new. Republicans have been singing versions of this same song for well over a century now. Dr. Richardson’s own book, To Set Men Free details that in marvelously grim detail.
Because it’s easier. I do think deep down people know that Black guy has a lot less to do with the lack of upward mobility they are experiencing or the fact they aren’t doing as well as their parents who are also not doing so great than the guy they are listening to rocket around the universe but they like they idea of power.
Changing the state of the tax codes to benefit all not only sounds exhausting and impossible, they have been told for decades that democrats actually don’t want to tax the rich to make things more equitable for all. They are told that Democrats only want to tax the middle class to give to deviants and immigrants and blacks. That because there’s so much money in politics NOTH parties serve the rich and only MAGA wants to give the money back to good, God fearing White Christian’s who are the chosen ones for America.
And they get away with it because people seee MAGA….99.9 percent white and then they see democrats and it is a broad spectrum of races with women. What is overlooked is that the majority of Hod Tearing White Christians are in the same economic bracket as all the other people Dems are fighting for.
This is only going to turn around ina few ways…- either we finally become an authoritarian country where nobody has a say
- we get institutions, business and the law to reverse course
- or THEY turn on each other. And I’m guessing it will be turning on each other. He’s sent all paranoid because he thought another dork was badmouthing him to the BMOC. wanted a fist fight. and when Reump dies or is voted out, incapacitated, we will almost certainly see men who have no loayalty or moral compass backbiting.
And maybe a new generation who is starting to really not like social media will start looking to truth and make a change
Follow the money. Cheap labor. Before the Civil War these people had a bonanza. Southerners didn't have to pay a salary to black people. No health care, no SNAP, no retirement benefits, no holidays off etc. That's why 42 % still support tRump.
You cannot overestimate the general stupidity of the American people. Sorry to say, but demonstrably true.
It's clearly a flaw in human nature, but one we should be well wise to by now. I don't count myself as entirely immune to cult dynamics, but I was also taught to cross-examine my beliefs, and look for testable logic and evidence, which I think offers a measure of protection. One also needs a capacity to admit error, which is not always easy, and, as they say, "to err is human". HCR has highlighted the words and character of Eisenhower:
But after cheering his men on, he went back to his headquarters and wrote another letter. Designed to blame himself alone if Operation Overlord failed, it read:
“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”
Such a contrast to the malignant narcissist now hired for our most sensitive position. It's time to put away childish things. Our survival may depend on it.
The right’s inflammatory and misleading rhetoric is what is leading to the violence. With incensing hyperbole, the right is enraging its following so much they are now killing each other. The entire out of control cult can no longer separate fact from fiction. Let no one gloss over the inflammatory Charlie Kirk’s years of fueling culture wars, his amplifying white nationalist talking points, and his pointedly vitriolic, extreme racism and antisemitism.
Charlie Kirk wasn’t felled by any leftist enemy. He was taken down by a right-wing soul misguided by the toxic virtual reality cesspool that Kirk himself helped to create. Kirk fed and stroked the extreme right-wing cult.
From age 19 on, that is the business Charlie Kirk left college early to pursue. He took up and fed that business, and he profited from that greatly. His estate has grown to $12 million in value, excluding the value in Turning Point USA. There is good money in hate, if you can stomach it.
https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/bilious-hate-mongering?r=3m1bs
Carl... I'm back now to speak to your post. In April, Richard Reich had breakfast with John Shattuck, who as Pres. of Central Univ. in Budapest, saw firsthand how Viktor Orban took over Hungary's democracy and turned it into an authoritarian state. John believes Trump is emulating Orban's playbook. There are 10 parts. I'm going to list them, because I feel some of things you are speaking to might be understood as part of this authoritarian strategy. You can tell me if I'm batshit crazy or if this might speak to some of what is going on...
1) Take over your party and enforce internal party discipline by using political threats and intimidation to stamp out all party dissent.
2) Build your base by appealing to fear and hate, branding immigrants and cultural minorities as dangers to society, and demonizing your opponents as enemies of the people.
3) Use disinformation and lies to justify what you are doing.
4) Use your election victory to claim A sweeping mandate - especially if you don't win a majority.
5) Centralize your power by destroying the civil service.
6) Redefine the rule of law as rule by executive decree. Weaponize the state against all democratic opponents. Demonize anyone who doesn't support the leader as an "enemy of the people".
7) Eliminate checks and balances and separation of powers by taking over the legislature, the courts, the media, and civil society.( talks about penalties)
8) Rely on your oligarchs - hugely wealthy businessmen and financial leaders - to supervise the economy and reward them with special access to state resources, tax cuts, and subsidies.
9) Ally yourself with other authoritarians like Vladimir Putin and support his effort to undermine European democracies and attack sovereign countries like Ukraine.
That speaks to some of your talking points, but maybe not all?? It gives you something to think about. If you want to talk more after you read this, let me know.
10) Get the public to believe that all this is necessary, and that resistance is futile.
Agree on the tactics but also think anyone who reads history and has the time to stay engaged to follow all the massive amounts of alternate reality propaganda already is aware of this. The fact we are here on HCR site indicates we are very concerned. As others have said we've identified the problem issues however we can't seems to coalesce in sufficient numbers or decide how to effectively counteract what's happening. Most of the majority of people who comprise the biggest numbers just don't know what to do to make this authoritarian regime stop. Organize at local etc. But people are scared. I guess since I am 79 with significant disability from years of both work former OR RN who had work injury and got more education and transition into vaccine research but more injuries have now left me one social security check away from being homeless I got nothing left except my home of 50 years to loose. So all I can do is write social media posts to keep fighting. Sure doesn't feel like it will make a difference. Sorry about the length. These are complex issues and lots of people just don't have time or understanding to feel their actions will help. Let's keep up the resistence is the only answer I have. Seems a weak offering.
It's 53 % disapproval, 46% approval
Please refer to Heather's Politics Chat of Sept 9... She is talking about the Strongly Disapprove category. Here is her direct quote: "So to have 46% of Americans say they strongly disagree with the president is a really big deal." I hope that helps. She takes some of her info. from G. Elliott Morris' "Strength in Numbers"...
Understood. But those numbers still reflect an extremely deeply divided country; something it will take decades, at least, to remedy.
You are probably right. I think of Sisyphus rolling a rock uphill and for how long?!# However, the immediate problem at hand is to defeat authoritarianism and try to get to an election... We need all minds at work... I need to sleep and dream of rolling rocks uphill. We can continue this later...
One has to thinking it in terms of how close to the lowest approval rating possible for Trump. Lowest possible may be 40%, perhaps 35%.
Then it's high time the Dems fight fire with fire and do some heavy-duty redistricting of their own!
I am all for that! I am not sure if you are referring to a comment of mine?
Thank you for that reminder. Helpful.
To be sure that this is the case. If the Texas electorate would wake up to these shenanigans, they would be able to shut down the legislators clearly unconstitutional vote to redraw the districts in their favor. Unfortunately, since 1836 and beyond, Texas has not only been drinking the Kool Aid but also drinking big oil's influence in their body politics. Lyndon Johnson, regardless of what some (including me) may have thought of him, he was the last chance, as of today, to help Texas see a change for the better. And when John Connally, as a democratic governor turned to the republican party, it didn't help Texas shake off the Kool Aid effect. It simply multiplied it (you choose the degree of multiplication.)
I wonder how so many people are not able to see reality. What percentage have dementia? I ask because Trump seems to be popular with older people. Many may have had life events that make them not think clearly like a stroke. My mom has dementia and I can see the confusion. Also, when I was studying drug education we were told that Crystal meth makes the brain look like it has Parkinson's disease. I don't know whether crystal meth addicts vote at all, given that they probably don't care a whole lot about anything.
Finding out about Groypers being anti Trump has me stumped. There is a whole group of people who do not find Trump sufficiently right wing and would go after him as well as the rest of us. That young men are being radicalized so easily by these evil people acting as role models.
The Trump regime is based on lies, and turning the truth upside down. The Democrats have allowed Republicans to define terms for so long they cannot undo it, and are not trying. They need to be spending a lot of time countering Republicans messaging.
Here in rural Maine, I am surrounded my lifelong Republicans. They vote straight Republican and always will. Most of them have had Trump signs in their yards for months before the last three elections. They are party loyalists, not Trump loyalists. In fact, most of them don't follow politics, but believe that ALL Republicans are doing a good job even though they have no idea what is going on in local, state or national politics.
My 76 year old neighbor is one of these people. We have worked together on many projects always goes out of his way to introduce me to his friends and relatives. But, he knows I am not a Republican we never talk about politics. He just retired because of his health because he's never saved a nickel. He has at least a dozen guns that he keeps in his truck and in his living room. I doubt he has ever owned a gun safe even though his young grandkids have often frequented his house.
Our best hope with these voters is they die off and the younger generation doesn't replace them as MAGA's. This is why it matters that Charilie Kirk is no longer around to blather on about white supremacy and faux Christianity at Colleges and Universities across the country.
GJ, I am concerned with the Groyper's though. They are more radical than the Charlie Kirk faction is what I am reading.
Urban Hermit shared this article discussing them and the reasons they did not like Kirk.
https://open.substack.com/pub/generik/p/a-casualty-of-the-groyper-war?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=18auiy
I agree that the right wing older people are unlikely to change. However, in Germany a friend of mine got his mom to vote for SPD instead of CDU in this past election, so people who are older can change if encouraged by people they trust.
During Covid there was a population shift in lifestyle because kids who might have been on sports teams or in after school clubs were instead at home with almost unfettered time on the internet as most parents lacked the ability to tell what was legitimate school use, and not, and also what to entertain their friendship starved children with besides their computers. It seems like this helped radicalize a lot of youth by them discovering things like 4chan. The internet that was supposed to bring so much advance has been coopted by a lot of really awful people, and they are having outsized influence on some of our youth. We need to do something about that in the world we create after we get past this regime.
In the 20th century, in the USA, we polluted our waterways with impunity, not connecting our societal, physical health with their health. The same is happening now, with our communications’ arteries in the USA. The streams of information have been polluted - often intentionally- and we are diseased because of it. “Things” will not change until the majority of our population realizes this and demands better. Urban sewer systems clean up water in most American cities, (Unless you are Flint Michigan under GOP Governor Snyder, then too bad for being in the wrong zip code). The historic Clean Water, and Clean Air policies of the 1970’s led to the creation of the EPA and many clean-ups of our polluted environment. (Unfortunately now, foolishly, being rolled back). We need a sewer systems for social/media communication. Unfortunately, in the USA, shareholders won’t allow this. Polluting our minds makes them toooooooo much $$$$$$.
Nice analogy!
I do not know that the majority being aware is all that is needed. The ownership needs to change. That is something we should be insisting on, and not until we get a better leadership. If we let the oligarchs know that we are coming for their media and social media platforms to make them public broadcasting with a fee paid by every household like they do in Germany, than they will make sure our candidates do not win. Stealth campaigns are needed. People should be using more media and platforms outside the USA, although according to the Intercept, Proton Mail, whom many people I know use because it is Swiss based, just suspended some journalists from the platform, who were investigating corruption. People want to know how that happened. We need to be looking for better platforms.
https://theintercept.com/2025/09/12/proton-mail-journalist-accounts-suspended/
I don't recall the exact town or state, but perhaps 8?10? years ago, 60 Minutes had a story about a town that had no sewer systems at all.
My dad was the chief lobbyist for the Chemical Manufacturing Association, working directly with Anne Gorsuch ("her young son Neil is so nice!") and Rita Lavelle to get realistic standards set up along with buy in from all the companies that would be required to finance the fund. Dow was (believe it or not) a leader in funding their own polution control, the cost of which cut into their profits. Requiring other companies to do the same, plus all contributing to the Super Fund, created the level playing field capitalism is supposed to require. As for Flint, a totally preventable tragedy.
I am printing the LFAA for my sister (74 y/o) as she was a Trump voter concerned about eggs. Now, she is very frightened by inflation and this administration. She has a smartphone "for emergencies" when outside the home. I FINALLY got her to let me teach her how to download the local grocery store app and clip coupons. It took me a YEAR of talking. Now, she has to tell me each week how she's saving money!! (I won't get into data tracking, and anyhow, she gets paper coupons mailed to her monthly based on the items she purchases.) Little by little, I am educating/reeducating her. She was a very uniformed voter. She's learning who Miller is, and what unconsitutional things the GOP are pulling.
That is it Miselle. Good on you. I was withholding comment today but you hit the go button. It is how we do it. We help each other to help ourselves. We rise together or not at all. Thank you for lighting the way. You are the candle in the window today.
Thanks, Pat, but I'm getting absolutely no headway with my eldest sister (84) who told me last election "I know you think otherwise, but I just don't think a woman is capable of being president." She didn't vote, because she didn't want to get between her husband (who is early/moderate Alzheimers' btw) Trump voter, and her son who hates Trump but wrote in a candidate.
I could scream, but I carry on instead.
Miselle, that is great!
Imagine what I deal with, with the 84 year old one. OMG. She's not so much a Trumper as she is stuck in about 1950. She wants that world back.
As I wrote previously to you, these cell devices have done humanity in. I don’t much like people anymore although I just organized a block party on my street for next Saturday so I can’t be too far gone, lol.
Thanks, Bill! I think building community is always important - and especially so now.
YES!!
Keep it up Bill, my wife and I sold our house and are moving to a 55+ apartment community in a couple of weeks. We have been doing a meet and greet with the new signee’s for over a year now and have made a lot of new friends, we are anxious to move, downsize, and keep active mentally and physically. I can usually discern a persons political leaning after a few conversations and my radar is always on. I’ll keep spreading the word on how fucked up our people in power are and I know you will as well. Have a great block party next week.
The faux Christianity makes my blood curdle. It's like a whole bottle of syrup on the pancakes, sweetens everything it touches.
Hypocrisy was Jesus' biggest pet peeve....
When I was a little girl, I used to think that a "hypocrite" must be yet another outwardly respectable religious leader, like the scribes and pharisees with which they were invariably bracketed. That's sort of come true.
PERFECT......LOVE your comparison!!💖💖
The older people I know are definitely not Trumpers, and many are on the front lines of protests here in mostly red West Michigan.
On my street in AZ, it's the older people (my age) who are the Democrats and the younger generation Republicans.....how do I know....signs in front of houses and as we've aged and older ones are gone, younger have moved in and support Republicans!......So don't blame 'Older ones'!!!! But, I will say that where I grew up.....rural MI, those classmates tend to be Republicans.
Not blaming older ones, just looking at the data. It says that 60% of Trump voters were 50 and older, while 52% of Harris's were.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/demographic-profiles-of-trump-and-harris-voters-in-2024/
I am not part of the 60% but part of the 52%, but I do know that a lot of White men voted for Trump. In fact, gender might have been a bigger factor in voting for Trump.
https://navigatorresearch.org/2024-post-election-survey-gender-and-age-analysis-of-2024-election-results/
Still, because I am here in the US with one reason being to get my mother with dementia into a safer living situation, I am really aware of dementia, and lots of people are undiagnosed and may be voting. Wondering if that is impacting people believing his messages.
Northern Michigan and the U.P. need support for Callie Barr to oust Enron's U.S. Rep Jack Bergman!
https://callieforcongress.com/
Wonderful!!! Any of them in our U.P. /Northern Michigan district. We've GOT to get Rep. Jack Enron Bergman OUT! His opponent, Democrat CAllie Barr is terrific!!
https://callieforcongress.com/
I too have lived in rural America. I know these folks. Some will vote Repub until the end of their time on earth and know nothing about what is happening in the world beyond their door yard and church yard. These are the MAGA voters.
And thats why we aren't replacing farmers with robots yet. And why Europe is.
Have you watched this Sunday morning's Borowitz Report. It's a "revelation" :)
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/mike-johnsons-worst-nightmare
This is a tantalizing clip, but for paid subscribers only. If you or anyone else has another think or a transcipt, please let the forum know!
Oops. I was afraid of that. I have it on my substack today. Titled “Better Than Church”. See if that works…
I’m FAR more concerned with the radicalized youth of today. My Gen Z nephew said that Charlie Kirk is his generation’s MLK Jr. I mean… WOW. The delusional, warped, loony bin thinking one has to be in to think THAT. The young men of today - and a lot of young women - are insecure as all hell, don’t know how to date normally, are consumed by their stupid phones or playing video games all day long. It’s a very, very weird time. And I don’t have much faith in the youth to make things better, sadly.
In the 2016 election, I asked my 96 year old mother who she was voting for. She kind of shrugged and told me that my then 68 year old brother told her to vote for trump. She wasn’t demented nor either was he. He was a staunch Republican and told me he watched both Fox News and CNN to “hear both sides”. Later, my mother was in ICU and being moved to hospice right before the election. My older sister, age 69 at the time, got an absentee ballot for my mother and got her to vote before she died. My sister in law took a photo and posted it on Facebook with the caption “ voting to make America Great Again”. I was sickened they did this to my mother on her deathbed! Interestingly the “younger generations “ of my brothers and my younger sister are all Trump supporters. I don’t know about the other one.
Their time will come. Jobs lost, bankruptcies, shortages, inflation. We can keep speaking the truth, but reality is a harsh teacher.
Dang.
Right-wingers have been saturated and marinating in radical right-wing propaganda, especially since Rush Limbaugh and fox "news" launched in the 1990's. Most of them have no respect for science and choose to be manipulated by people who use their religious beliefs to convince them that we can't all have equal rights and that treating fellow human beings with respect is woke and that DEI is evil. The only thing that will awaken them is epic failure by the trump regime.
The mainstream media still has not reported on how the messages on the bullet casings point to the far-right-wing groyper movement.
How can we help get the word out?
I said something about the assassination and someone here began accusing me of being pro violence and he became the 2nd person I permanently blocked. The first was Rick Sender. Is he still around? I get nothing from him anymore. The block works quite well.
Rick Sender is still around but I either collapse or delete him. I do not read him.
I have a question. Rick Sender has fol!owed me around before. When exactly do you collapse him? After he specifically makes a remark to you. How does the bot put out so many different posts at the same time... I don't get it. Did anyone else get a reply from Keanu Reeves or Barak Obama.. . People keep asking me to follow them... And I just am nervous about that, but how do you let people know it's not them... It just is a choice for now... I feel bad...
Michele2, I collapse him randomly. I do not open posts where he has responded to something I said anymore. He is a waste of my time. If he has some response to something and am scrolling through I might collapse it. It just depends. If I see he has responded to me in email I just delete it.
Thank you Margaret-Rose, I would love to know how. It was from someone in the chat that I learned how to collapse.
I blocked him long ago. I tend to forget about him unless someone mentions him. He's the internet equivalent of the old man yelling at the clouds that everyone ignores! 🤣
My father, a lifelong republican, always taught me that it was most important to support the party, even when I disagreed with individual candidates. He would never have voted for a Democrat, even when his common sense told him that the alternative was worse. I suspect that many of the older republican voters are following the same mantra: Support the party over anything else. Vote row a all the way. The Republican Party they are supporting is not the party of my father‘s generation, unfortunately. It has been deeply corrupted by the influence of People like Donald Trump. But I don’t see any of these Republican voters ever veering away from the party, sadly. What will it take to get them to rethink the values of the current Republican Party?
My 97 year old mother in law was the same, a lifelong Republican, ultra conservative Christian. But when Drumpf came along that changed. She left the box for President blank in 2016 because she couldn’t bring herself to vote for Hillary Clinton, but in 2020 she did vote for Biden. When the Time Magazine cover came out with Drumpf in the Oval Office going under water we talked about it and she said wryly, “I’ll help hold him down.” I haven’t asked her whether she voted for Kamala because I don’t want to feel the disappointment if she left it blank again. But all to say, those older lifelong Republicans are not all completely beyond reach.
As another rural Mainer, I agree with your words about life-long Republicans, and their signs. I never see most of these folks at local elections or planning board meetings, but their faded signs supporting Trump stay up for years. It will be interesting to see what happens when he’s not on the ballot.
GJ, the ones to really watch out for are those completely disconnected from reality. Yes, all of District 2 but I refer to those who still have Trump/Pence signs up.
Linda, the cell device mixed with social media is killing human behavior. I don’t like being around most people anymore because most are addicted to cells. You can’t hardly talk to anyone before they get a signal to pick up the cell as you are mid sentence. But it goes beyond that. People simply walk around holding them. I was flabbergasted when I visited Italy inMay and everyone strode around holding onto their devises. I thought only Americans have this proclivity but it has infected the globe.
Bill that is has, but I think it is an age thing too. My daughter always has it with her, although we do not have tech at our dinner table, but otherwise. However, my phone is either in my backpack, or on a table. Same with my husband. I might be in a different room from it and not make it to a call. Still, in Germany on public I see people middle aged and younger on their phones, even moms have their babies on aged 2 to 4 years in strollers looking at stuff that I know is going to ruin their brains for paying attention in school, and yet, older people on the public are never on their phones, and do not have them in their hands and are just sitting there having a ride.
Often I do to but it remains in my front pocket but I don’t frequently take it out. I watched at an open mic once a young brother and sister glued to a cell while performers were on stage and their parents thought nothing of it. Parents are oblivious to this ongoing damaging of human behavior.
My daughter went to a school where that was not supposed to be allowed and they did their own filming of events, but at the end they let parents take pictures. In Germany more and more school districts are saying no phones in school. Children managed to get to and from school without phones before. My expectation was that when my daughter had a phone I could reach her, but that has not proven true. She rarely if ever answers when one calls. Even texting may take a while for response. Her phone is largely used to consume music, although now that she lives in a major city on her own, she might call while going home at night on public just to have someone to get help from if there is a problem. Being at any children's performance is just filled with children on phones, and also parents and grandparents filming the performance. If one is unfortunate enough to sit behind someone doing this, one is forced to see the performance through a screen.
Bill, I’m an old lady, Democrat, of sane mind, and I carry my phone nearly everywhere I go… I don’t have a smart watch and my cell phone tracks my fail step count.
So we are not alone in this phone clinging.
Here's a Substack article you may find interesting about those who believe Kirk was betraying MAGA and the possible reason he was assassinated.
https://open.substack.com/pub/generik/p/a-casualty-of-the-groyper-war?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=18auiy
Thank you. Very well expressed.
Illuminating. Thank you Urban Hermit for posting it.
Linda, the question that we democrats [and independents] need to ask ourselves is how long are we going to allow ourselves to be “swift boated”…we need to set the narrative and also set the record straight as to where the radical right and those from the other side [the dark side] of the political divide or aisle is trying to or wants to lead us…and the undecided voters!
Groypers aren’t anti TACO, but they would be happy with someone more evil if they could have it. Kinda like Stewart Rhodes “getting the band back together”.
They would be in the David Duke for President camp. Or not if he got corporate funding. That they are groomed to kill others and perhaps themselves is very disturbing. One could see these as sort of homocide/suicide websites, and as such, should be illegal.
This! The dems have allowed the retrumpians to define terms - and tell outright lies for so long it can't be undone. My brother unfortunately went down the Q hole maga hole and he's gone - unreachable, no rational thoughts anymore, just spouting right wing propaganda insistently...very sad
How awful for you.
They need to be speaking at colleges-sending people like AOC and Mayor Pete and other younger people and decide on a few key points of truth. Getting some “influencers” to talk to people. IDK, there needs to be something done—
I agree.
Linda, your speculation about dementia is an insult to all of us "older people" whether we have dementia or not. Generalizations NEVER work.
Diane, I am sorry that you think that. I do not really follow your thinking though. I did not generalize, I wondered. I did not say all people who voted for Trump must have dementia, or that all people who have dementia must have been tricked by Trump.
My mom has dementia and she is not able to think clearly about many things any more, and she appears to be on a list of people who can be duped in certain ways. There is a specific scam that has happened to her several times where they pretend to be amazon and then get her to give them access to her computer.
Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat of the Substack Lucid told us on Friday that her mom has dementia and got caught up in ideas she got from watching Russian television. She lives in England. Even though she no longer watches it Ruth says she cannot get off those ideas. I am describing dementia, and wondering whether it affects so many older people not being able to identify the truth. If you are Republican and have dementia you might not be able to identify that Trump is harming you.
By the way, I am someone who was not bothered by Biden's age, I felt that the age thing was not a real concern because I have a woman in one of my art groups who is 93 and she drives or takes public, is fit as a fiddle and has interesting incisive things to say about art. My mom's best childhood friend also lives in my city in Germany. She and her younger partner go to demonstrations all the time and protest each Saturday in our marketplace, or in his when they are in his city, which they go back and forth between every 6 weeks. She is 91 like my mom. I am not speaking about all people who are older, I am talking about people who have dementia who tend to be older. The NIH says 42% of people 55 or older might get dementia. That would put my husband and me in that category. We might get it, but we don't have it now.
Hello Linda.... Good Observations... Seeing the Crowd at the January 6, 2021 Insurrection, and the Red-Hats, around here they indeed are 65+ for the most part... This MAGA Cult gives them Meaning....
It justifies their uneducated ignorance for them.
It’s the Groypers that will take their place.
Interesting thoughts Linda.
I’m always blown away at the trumped up hatred of “liberals”. What are we doing besides being here?
Dems, Linda.
And what truths do they seem to be united in? Anything human uniting them that any number of them can agree on, stand on, stand up for -- together, with coherence, with human passion?
Or have our schools so voided us in the human that we can't reasonably expect Dems to be any better? And all their neutered and neutering tests, tests, tests.
Been thinking about this and have postulated it has to do with our federal government gridlock. Nothing seems to move and this man and his cronies are moving things. Not legally, not ethically, not morally, but moving things while profiting from it. They seem something being done where nothing was being done before. I think that it why the approval number does not shrink.
You mean they are breaking the law and if the SCOTUS approves Trump gets to do it whatever he did to break the law. Whatever he is moving it is not benefitting most people, except for him and his billionaire buddies. However I read yesterday that young men are leaving the Trump camp. That is a relief. Nothing but awful role models in that group.
Lots of people are seeing how much he is hurting our economy and the tariffs have not brought back jobs yet. For one, if you arrest 300 working in a Hyundai plant that they are developing, than the 20,000 jobs they were going to provide are now gone. No more foreign car factories will be built so those factory jobs are not returning, and the American car industry was not employing that many people.
Working for Musk is not great because he is anti-union, anti-Blacks, Browns, women. Women are there for him to breed with by artificial insemination and who knows what else. Yeech. He only allows male his embryos to grow.
Investing in combustible engine cars is not the way to go. People do not want the air pollution or the cost. We shall see how many are willing to have Whiteness and maleness elevated in order to pay more for everything.
There is no real reason for Democrats to sully themselves in trying to correct the lies of Republicans, when members of their own tribe are so well readied and prepared to do it for us, with the skills with which they excel. That doesn't mean its right for the Democrats to be abdicating their jobs and their other executive functions, as they have done for decades now, but it does mean that they don't need to be wading in Republican bullshit as part of their job duties.
Yes there is Clayton. Democrats are not "Socialists" or "The Left." Democrats are not fiscally irresponsible. They are not the party of crime. These are misconceptions that should be addressed after far too long of letting it slide. The part of the Democratic party that is Social Democrats should embrace that side of itself, because that appears to be the winning part of the party right now, since it is the only part that has solutions to real human suffering. The mainstream part of the party is more concerned with helping out the middle class. A group that is shrinking as the Trumpian policies go into effect.
In fact, Schumer and Jeffries as "the Left" is laughable. They are not the '"radical Left" either. Someone needs to explain that Putin is the radical fascist left.
Everyone who can be reached through reason has been reached through reason. But you aren't going to be able to reason someone out of a position they never reasoned themselves into. Nor are you going to be able to reason MAGA cultists out of their cult, all you can do is destroy the cult and invite them to find a new hobby. They'll still hate you, and they will always hate you, but at least they won't be a threat to everyone else.
Those who living in a reality where the only thing that matters is their fears, their beliefs, and whatever they hear from FOX news, has already proven that they don't matter. Their only purpose is fuel for the fire, and the only question is who burns them.
What you CAN do with those people is make them so afraid of the negative effects of expressing their lies, their hate, and the rest of their bullshit that they go back under their sheets and hoods where they belong. Its not even a hard thing to do, we just haven't done it because some people want to win a moral victory in a gun fight.
There are no moral or ethical victories in a gun fight, there is only whoever is still standing at the end. I hope its us, but I'm starting to seriously doubt it will be, but its important to remember that the Germans who just went along with the Nazi uprising because it was easier than fighting back ended up with their lives just as torn apart and their homes just as destroyed and their families just as hungry as the ones who went along with the Nazis.
I get that there are people one cannot reason with. I was sheltered from that in my career as a teacher. I taught people who were young enough to be reasoned with.
Margaret, many years ago, I was in TX on business during an election. I was watching the results come in and the talking heads were interviewing people to get their reaction to some Republican getting re-election.
One of the interviewees was an elderly woman and when they asked her for her reaction her reply was, "Of course he was re-elected. We will never elect a Democrats here." Her tone was very hateful, and this was before Trump.
The media especially, generates clicks and views by playing this garbage. And it makes us realize that they are never going to leave the cult. You can take away their medicaid, price them out of their homes and make them choose between eating or heating and they will still be Republicans. It doesn't matter if they are 18 or 98 years old.
And this is why I think that it's important for David Hobbs and his supporters to keep doing what their doing to bring young people into the fold before they become too brain washed and lifetime members of the Trump Fascist cult.
I think GJ may have meant DAVID HOGG (not Hobbs)? David Hogg is a Parkland shooting survivor who is an active leader on gun control and the founder of the Leaders We Deserve PAC that is working to get younger people elected. The DNC, of course, is working hard to thwart any progress he makes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hogg
I wish there was a way to donate to Dems without going through the DNC. I too was so hopeful when Hogg became an officer. Time for the new generation to take over except for Bernie who is very young at heart. He and AOC make a great team and have huge rallies.
Yes, thank you Donna. My bad.
Margaret-Rose, I am not young myself, but just started the day with the long term care insurance nurse assessing my mother, who has dementia after having several strokes. She has vascular dementia. She is 91. Where she lives there are people who are in their mid 90s who are mentally fit, but then again in the country, particularly for people who are not well off, and may have poor diets, I can imagine that there are many people with dementia. The NIH researchers estimate that 42% of the people age 55 and older will get dementia.
Having a mother with dementia, as did my mother- and father-in-law, and my mom's older sister, I feel that I can get a sense of how one can be confused and duped. Also, Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat was telling us in her weekly Zoom meeting that her mom, who lives in England, has dementia. She apparently was watching a lot of a Russian television station before it was not available and that got her embracing Russian talking points. I was connecting the dots.
I am perhaps wasting your time on this kind of wondering, but I like to think about these sorts of things, particularly since I noticed how much my mom gets duped by people.
Linda,there is some hope for those with dementia….We cared 24/7 for my dad in his 90’s.Yes, he was often confused although when 😡 was on the television (back when we actually watched the news) he said…”I do not like that guy.”
Take care….I always appreciate your posts.
Thanks Kathy. I notice that my mom is confused and her short term and working active memory don't work. Her long term works better, so it is my opportunity to learn about the past from her. That is why when she was getting out of her building in the independent living section and going to my aunts on a whim, she did find it once, while she had no idea where I lived even though our house is closer because her sister has lived in her house since the beginning of the 60s. Still, most of the time she would get confused. Yes she was still slipping out when people at the front desk where occupied. So now she is living in a section of her building where she cannot just go on her own outside except to their enclosed gardens.
Thank you for expanding your comments. Silly question (maybe) how many people w dementia vote?
I was discussing that perhaps elsewhere in Substack and someone was telling me that they help their parents with dementia to mail-in-vote.
Some people with dementia are not diagnosed and people do not know they have dementia. I think it depends on how far along they are. People suspect Trump might have dementia, but I don't know. He does not seem like my mom. She could not do things he can do. Although remember his gait when he was walking the red carpet waiting for Putin? He was not walking straight.
Margaret-Rose, My mom has been talking of dying of late. I am wondering if I will have dementia. My mom's mother lived to be 99.5 without dementia.
However, my mom had strokes, and clapped for help, and her neighbor came and called the ambulance. Since then she has been in an independent living senior apartment in a lovely community near where I live and her sister as well, meaning we can easily walk there. She is around 6 blocks from me and 8 from my aunt when I am in Chicago, which I will not be for much longer. We started looking into moving her to Germany, but she did not want that, and her doctor was not thinking it would be a good idea, and in Germany the dementia people in my city did not think so either. She is not always remembering German.Just recently when I started to say something to her in German she said, "I don't understand."
I hope you are not drifting in that direction either.
Thank you, Margaret-Rose. I am 81, do not have dementia, and consider myseld well educated and reasonably intelligent. I raised my children without their father's help, worked as an RN for close to 40 years in many different roles including manadgement, education, and case management. I have many friends both from work and non-work circles who are like me and not a single one of us would ever DREAM of supporting djt for anything. Ever.
I wish I could fix the typos in this - I should have read it before posting. Sorry.
Diane, you can fix typos. Click on the ellipsis at the top-right of the "offending comment." From the drop-down that appears, click on "Edit." Your comment will be moved to an edit box where you can correct errors or modify your comment any way you want. When you're finished editing, click on the "Save" button on the bottom-right. Your corrected comment will be returned to the thread exactly where it was.
I use the "Edit" function all the time, because there's always one unruly typo that eludes me when proofreading my comments.
😂 I’ve never even tried crystal meth!
J L, I know you know, why it's only 42%. Our "media" has tragically been co-opted and now may be referred to as a "they" , because there are a heckuva lot of 'them' who are treading carefully so as not to engage the wrath of 'our leader' OR to be seen by his minders as "lacking sincerity". Speak to some Viet Nam era POW's.., I have.., they'll tell ya about "lack of sincerity" and the 'retribution' inflicted upon them by their captors. At the present stage of things, ICE represents our "captors", but that job is being taken over by the Kirk-sters as they inflict "retribution" upon those (of us) who on their view are not penitent enough. Thanks JL, for providing a sort-of opening for me to express this.
I agree. When will the other 42% wake up and recognise that his actions will come after them too?!
The Reverend Al Sharpton hit the nail on the head. Democrats need to show the voters that Trump and the Republicans have done nothing to make their lives more affordable.
Trump hammered affordability home every day at every rally with his lies. And he's still lying and the media is easily distracted by Trump's daily BS.
It's home economics not macro economics. Most people don't give a damn about the inflation rate or the unemployment numbers. They care about the price of groceries and fast food and electricity and insurance and gasoline.
Most of HCR's follower's understand the harm the administration is doing, but when you're on a fixed income having to choose between paying for your prescriptions or your electric bill, what' happen in Israel or Ukraine doesn't really matter.
Thanks GJ Loft. Agreed.
But I think that the other stuff matters too (it has a significant bearing on the cost of living, whether the US military gets drawn in to foreign war, and so on). Domestic politics, excuse the use of the word, always trumps foreign policy, and the US electorate clearly chose ‘bread and meat’ over ‘high-flying-ideals’. But the weight of the US in the wider world also matters, and the Democrats cannot afford to ignore that.
We will wake them up in our own families, neighborhoods, and work places one conversation at a time. This will require courage, determination, and the ability to listen (which is a bit of a challenge for progressives.)
We will have to stop telling Democrats what THEY need to do, and start focusing on what WE need to do. My local Indivisible group developed a presentation for our members called How to Talk with a Trump Voter Without Cowering or Arguing. It has been very popular. More and more of our members are putting these skills into practice and finding it fun and interesting.
It takes work to break the spell of a demagogue, but it has been done before and we can do it again if we stop pointing our finger at others and step up to the plate ourselves.
Thank you Riversong Pond for taking the time to reply. Ea
I offer a sign of both my thumbs up (👍👍) in support for what you are doing. At this side of the Atlantic, I will now look for similar groups to yours because we have also list the art of talking, listening, and negotiating too. It is hard work, because our society seems to be very fractured and very fractious but it’s what we CAN do, and we HAVE TO do to move anyways forward.
Thanks for your effort, and for sharing.
True, Trump's disapproval numbers should be in the 90's, but they aren't. Why? We aren't paying enough attention, for one, and two, most don't have the analytical skills to understand what is happening. HCR reports: "Where that kind of rhetoric takes a society showed on the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends Friday, when host Brian Kilmeade suggested the way to address homelessness was through “involuntary lethal injection. Or something. Just kill them.” When asked “why did we have to get to this point,” he answered: “we’re not voting for the right people.”
Where does this thinking lead us? Voting is so unpredictable and unnecessary. We need to admit that Donald Trump does not intend to relinquish power in his lifetime. We are already in a slow-rolling civil war. We need to recognize that fact. Donald Trump told a group of white Christian nationalists in late July, 2024, that if he won they wouldn't have to vote again. The civil war is on, right now. We need to anticipate and prepare to thwart his next anti-democratic act. Sending troops to the cities, killing people at sea, rounding up and sending people off to strange lands and prisons are acts to condition us to his ultimate totalitarian move.
A lot of people have swallowed so much of Trump's Kool-aid he could now walk down 5th Avenue in NYC and shoot people. The ignorance level in the US is phenomenal.
Some Americans have too much to eat. Hunger has a way of reinforcing a pragmatic mindset. When one's day is consumed with the work of feeding oneself and family there is little energy left for much of the nonsense we see coming our of the right wing.
Louis L'mour, popular author of "wild West" fiction, wrote some 60 years ago that 2 out of 5 people are no good. 40%. Notice the "sticking power" of that number in modern human affairs.
Eat carrots and string beans. Good for you. I prefer my carrots raw and string beans canned with their bit of added salt.
Ed, I was with you until you mentioned your preference for canned string beans. Nope! Canned string beans taste like socks that have been worn in Army boots all day. Fresh, frozen or none at all!
Heather’s analysis is chilling.
Reading posts of people like my neighbor who seems to post against the liberals all day, , the bad people are Pelosi, Clinton, AOC, etc. She is one of the uneducated. I've tried to tell her that my cousin (now deceased) started NewsMax (paper edition) to see how gullible people are. Needless there is no talking politics with her.
It stuns me that so many still support him.
What I’ve learned the past few days is that MAGAts do not get the same news we do; when I pointed out the discrepancy between ffpotus lowering the flag for Kirk but not Minnesota representative Hortman, I had a handful of replies that said “I never heard about that”.
His approval rating should be less than 10%.
That struck me too. I'm thinking of the nearly half who approve of the hate, lies, and cruelty. The greed, hypocrisy, and bullying. Magical thinking twisted and unhinged. It makes me sick in the heart.
Yes sir! One of my favorite themes. How can this be? Well look around. What does the average American look like? Way too many Americans are not unlike the bullies and have-nots and other unruly kids who were gleefully disrupting class rooms whom I saw in high school decades ago. Willfully ignorant, anti-intellectual, jealous of those who are getting ahead by being good citizens and good workers, violently angry with a system that is not rewarding them who do not deserve rewards. It is easy to forget just how many Americans fit into this mold. They are everywhere. And guess what - none vote Democratic. They are almost invariably MAGA.
Yes Jay! I have never been able to understand the willfully ignorant. And now it's been weaponized and profitized and hidden in silos. And it's not just the violence but it's the rhetoric and the dog whistles that keep this 💩 going.
Remember, J L Graham, 90 million people did not vote.
I do remember and that is one of are biggest problems hiding in plain sight. If government of the people, by the people, for the people is to be more than an empty slogan, we get a share of responsibility for societal outcomes as well as a share of choice, and it's a responsibility because many more than just us suffers if we make the wrong choice, which can include making no choice. That responsibility includes ensuring "unalienable rights" to the most vulnerable among us, including due process of law, which the current regime frequently withholds.
As long as I can remember, I have heard voting framed in terms of personal expression, far more so than a required responsibility for self governance to succeed. To consider the fate of the forest as well as the trees.
Again well said.
It just feels like 90% because we too are “tribal” and see mostly our own tribe. There are still lots of MAGAs around, just not wearing hats. We’re getting stronger and continuing to grow as they get more desperate to control. Keep fighting, protesting, writing, calling…do SOMETHING, everything helps. Just wait until “The Epstein Affair” blows up as it will in time. Trump’s failing….we all know it. Hang tough and together.
I believe it's because Trump's "base" is heavily swung by the Stephen Miller narrative. As Heather explains early in this column, by the time voters figure out what the truth really is, Miller's poisonous narrative will have taken hold of their wavering, and often even thought-less minds. Let's hope the other 5% care enough about Democracy - that they show up to vote for it.
TIME FOR PULTE TO BE FIRED, & CHARGED WITH DEFAMATION!
I agree. I’d say it’s in low teens but books get cooked , fire any accurate compilation keeper and read and weep. Just the best wrap I’ve ever read! Thanks Heather, WOW!
The nuances of "approval" resist precise quantification, and yet it is my personal sense that many fewer people see the current regime as a clear and present danger to our health and safety, let alone world peace, than I would expect. Great that Trump's approval numbers are low compared to past presidents, but that's not an "apples to apples" comparison.
It’s the whole administration ‘barrel’, I believe, JL. Never seen such the like.America was relatively blessed though a lot sacrificed the most for others.
“War, what good is it?”…kills a lot of innocents and makes a few wealthy... that’s a precise quantification.
Heather, here’s an example of how the right is targeting people. From Alt National Park Service FB page tonight:
“We need your help. There is a new doxxing site circulating. A domain just registered through Namecheap (on Sept 10, 2025) and hosted on Squarespace is being used to publish private personal information. We have more information on who registered the domain and contacted the host and registrar with details. This is a direct violation of both companies’ Terms of Service, which prohibit harassment, doxxing, and threats.
Why it matters:
- Doxxing puts people at real risk of violence and harassment.
- The site is brand new, which is a red flag for abuse.
- Registrars and hosts will take these sites down when notified.
Here’s how to report it:
- To Namecheap (Registrar):
Email: abuse@namecheap.com
- To Squarespace (Host): Email: abuse@squarespace.com
What to include in your report:
- The URL of the doxxing site
- Screenshots showing the doxxing content
- A short explanation: “This site is publishing private personal information (doxxing) in violation of your abuse policy.”
Both Namecheap and Squarespace have acted quickly in the past when alerted. The more reports they receive, the faster this domain can be taken offline.”
UPDATE from ANPS:
“A win!!! We want to thank you all and celebrate this victory. Because you spoke out and made your voices heard, a harmful website that was doxxing individuals has been removed. A big thank-you as well to Namecheap for their quick response in taking it down. The operators have created a new URL, but it currently has no content. For now, there’s nothing more to act on, but we’ll keep monitoring and keep you updated.”
There will be a No Kings demonstration on October 18. Spread the word! 👑👑👑👑👑
To find a location, follow this link!
https://www.nokings.org/
Perhaps you should now rename it 'No Kings and No Martyrs Either'.
There was no violence at the last No King's Demonstration, and I expect none on October 18.
Sorry Kathleen, I wasn't clear. I was referring to Charlie Kirk whose widow yesterday described him as a martyr and whose death is now being exploited by Trump and his followers.
Russel, just to say thank you. I think you have a point!
See my clarification above to Kathleen Weber. The ordinary folk who are protesting against Trump's policies have no need of a martyr, unlike the far right who yearn for a civil war.
I'm an Anglo-Indian and a British citizen who really should have made the point more clearly and I apologise for any offence caused.
I understood your first comment.
Just a suggestion - repost the info about No Kings in a separate thread; not hooked to the doxing alert.
In the meantime there are protests—or ‘protects—almost daily in many areas.
I don’t see any mention of that on their website.
If you scroll down, you will find a map. If you click on the dot closest to your home, you will find a location of a No Kings event.
https://www.mobilize.us will show you a list of local activities. nokings actions near you should be listed.
It should be named no fascists march. There can only be one king at a time.
We are threatened by many fascists.
If we had a credible DOJ and FBI these sites would be removed in minutes.
So repulsive. Thanks for noting.
Thank you for that resource info!
It seems that you didn’t name the url of the doxing site.
Good morning, Robert! Please check their Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/177AVL7ovY/?mibextid=wwXIfr
I did. If the site is named, I can't see it. Exact same post is on Bluesky, and I don't see the offending site identified there either.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xgiwtxbtt6xc7low5vdz7dq4/post/3lyrizevomc26
Getting close to blocking you, Kari.
Good morning Kats,
I’m just sharing what I found from a source. If you check the comments on Bluesky or Facebook you may find additional information that answers your question.
Its is very frightening that our nation has come to this. Let’s keep our conversations going!
For more information please check Alt National Park Service Facebook page or Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/altnps.bsky.social/post/3lyrizevomc26
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/177AVL7ovY/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Thank you. Just what / we need to be doing.
Let's hope they don't move on to "swatting."
What’s the name of the doxing site that we should report?
From Alt National Park Service (Facebook)
“Domain to report is charliesmurderers .com”
Stephen Miller's infuriating diatribe about "the ideology destroying the country" is a PERFECT example of both right-wing projection and massive, unrepentant gaslighting. All that he says in that paragraph is exactly what the right-wing is doing; trying to destroy everything that is beautiful and good. And they Goddamned well know that they are gaslighting the rest of us. It's all about power. May they rot in hell.
I still can't figure out how this guy doesn't burst into flames any time he appears during daylight hours.
He is so filled with anger and resentment.
At times he is almost a caricature of himself. I doubt even the intrepid writers at South Park could successfully lampoon him.
Perhaps it's because there really is no God. He needs to be shamed and belittled in public by someone with broad credibility. Or maybe there is no heaven either.
The deepest circle of hell is all ice. (Dante)
I think that Stephen Miller might find the icy frigidity of Dante's Ninth Circle amenable.
Yet, ice burns.
Do you know the Frost poem 'Fire and Ice'?
I do. Especially now that you’ve reminded me of it. Before, I was thinking of more personal experiences. :-D
Please, let’s make a t-shirt and use proceeds to fund good causes
In the current climate it might be unwise to go about wearing such apparel.
Well a t-shirt for rallies is practical. And in the event you’re taken into custody, I’d rather be wearing that.
Well, a man was arrested in Leeds for holding up a placard showing a joke from the Private Eye about the UK government's ban of Palestine Action.
https://api.thejc.atexcloud.io/image-service/view/acePublic/alias/contentid/1kqtl201pkym9ow2qal/0/media-3-jpeg.webp?f=16%3A9&w=1080&q=0.6
Police forces here have arrested nearly 1,000 people protesting against the ban. In the US, you could find yourself detained in Louisiana or deported to some Latin American hellhole.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLuyjcjpRYg
A very high proportion of folks at US political protests carry rather large signs. When the groups are quite large as they often are now, it may be difficult to determine what is occurring at a periphery. As at the Democrat Convention in Chicago, so very long ago, or at the Pentagon, tear gas may be deployed. Today there are also rubber bullets. It is too easy to find oneself caught in the press of a crowd because one fails to react in time. I prefer to have hands free, wear appropriate street-style clothing and appropriate footgear. I like to know where I am and where and how I might go. I try to shepherd anyone I came with. A large kerchief in a pocket is useful. Have your national ID. Mind your manners. Don’t wear legally offensive slogans. Be polite. Do the job, be disciplined. Then go home.
When you can and if you can, say nice things to police and especially guardsmen. They are not necessarily your enemy and they are not ICE. They don’t get a choice to be there. Show verbal consideration. Ask decent non-antagonistic questions. The idea is to subtly and emotionally recruit. Questions linger in the mind for a long time. If you are unfamiliar with political protests, ofter local training is available. Normally it’s mercifully brief. If you know you’re prone to panic or hysteria, consider not going where there will be a large crowd. There are always a hundred ways to participate. Use everything you have. You’ll always be glad you did. Go in solidarity, and always, keep the peace.
A case of the the outside reflecting the inside.
I can't look at him without thinking I'm looking at someone's big toe....
That, and I’m wondering if Charlie Kirk’s wife knows that she’s essentially declaring war on the far far far right. It seems that she’s speaking to the same people (us) who Stephen Miller is accusing of being the people who are committing all of these atrocities that he and his ilk are committing. My sentence is even confused!
And, is “the left” now anything to the left of Charlie Kirk and Stephen Miller?
My husband and I are in a tiny village, in a farm cooperative in Iceland this morning. HCR's post is resembling the sky here today. Dark clouds but I know, this afternoon the rain will stop and the Sun will shine once again and all the rays of truth that Heather wrote in this post will bring more truth for us to fight the fight of our life for the future generations. Onward we go. Never give up.
Thanks ! We needed that, I needed that. All this super dark talk again makes the average person feel hopeless, scared and paralized to leave ones house. That is exactly what the Authoritarians want. It will not further the cause. We don't need pontification we need positivity and resolve we will do what we must to gain more disapproval of the direction we are headed. Little by little it IS working.
Of course it’s working, otherwise they wouldn’t keep trying to throw squirrels and change the subject all the time. Winter is indeed coming for them. They are not prepared and they know it.
It’s been a long time since our country was really threatened, especially when the threat came mostly from within. People are understandably ill prepared for the moment. No time like the present for figuring out how to meet a crisis without losing your mind. Maybe I speak only for myself, but the “dark talk” doesn’t prompt resignation and withdrawal (though I understand the feelings), it prompts anger and action.
Support strong, center-left people committed to run against the madness. Find a cause and help it grow. (Money to keep suing the bastards doesn’t grow on trees.) Don’t be silent when they lie. Sign up to be a poll-watcher (now more than ever). Come up with something original that speaks to you by way of resistance.
At the next mass rally in Washington, my hand-written sign will simply say:
NOT in my name!
NOT through me!
NOT with my consent!
NOT on my goddamn watch!
Good luck.
It just angers me. My dad didn't get drafted in 1944 and sent to Germany to have it crop up here.
This "dark talk" is merely the truth. And the longer the majority of citizens fail to show up and demand a return to the values of the Bill of Rights, the future will only get darker.
Beautiful...
My point is this. Of course, the dark talk is real, lack of the dark talk got us into this.
If we had engaged a year ago, presented clearly and plainly to the people what exactly Authoritarianism / Fascism looks like at town hall meetings we may have awakened earlier. I say may, who knows really at this point. We got a slow start everyone can agree on that. The more fatalistic talk that ensues the more the average person retreats. I see it in my own group . After last Thursday and the POTUS LITTLE HATE SPEECH, I saw many scared faces. All I'm saying is we do not need to beat people over the head with scary truth. The people out there now are committed, they know what's at stake, they realize the COUP is over and it's time to fight. My point, now is the time to recruit full on. That will be done by instilling resolve, it will take every American that wants to save our Democracy,save our way of life to come together and speak out and fight, engage. It won't be easy and we need EVERYONE. We have done it before. The Regime is using the sad event of last Thursday to scare, intimidate and immobilize the Left. Anybody see the rant by Steven Miller? Hateful, vile and threatening. The truth is the truth, present it. Scaring people with the truth will not promote engagement.
Nicely said.
My in-laws are touring Iceland right now as well. Enjoy!
"It is an ideology that leads, always, inevitably and willfully, to violence—violence against those [who] uphold order, who uphold faith, who uphold family, who uphold all that is noble and virtuous in this world. It is an ideology whose one unifying thread is the insatiable thirst for destruction.”
Many people are saying that "every 'Republican' condemnation is a confession". So it would seem.
REALITY SOLD SEPARATELY
When Donald Trump tried to oust Fed governor Lisa Cook over a made-up mortgage scandal, it was not about ethics, it was about power dressed up as paperwork. Cook’s “fraud” evaporated the moment someone read the forms, but the smear lived on, echoing the MAGA mantra: why check facts when fiction works faster?
This is the same carnival trick used after Charlie Kirk’s murder. Before police could file a report, right-wing influencers were already blaming “the Left,” inventing villains like kids inventing monsters under the bed. The shooter turned out to be a hard-right fan angry Kirk was not extreme enough, but truth is no match for a viral lie.
Control the story, control the crowd. That is the lesson from McCarthy to Musk: flood the zone, punish dissenters, declare enemies, repeat. When narratives outrun evidence, democracy starts gasping for air. Today it is Cook’s reputation and teachers losing jobs; tomorrow it could be anyone who prefers reality over the empire of make-believe.
Brilliant weave today, although a very scary pattern is revealed. Thanks so much HCR.
Scary pattern indeed.
I remember when "build a wall to keep out the murderers" was deeply shocking.
Now it's "Let's just kill all the homeless people".
Please, let's not normalise that one.
Christopher, if that's not a call to normalize extreme violence I don't know what it is. And this guy from whom this words emanates is keeping his job. Also every statement or accusation coming from this regime like those from Stephen Miller and Bill Pulte, it's a confession.
HCR,
One of your best…you would get my vote”Presidential Medal of Freedom “ for your body of work.
Kilmeade's comment is frightening.
And yet, he is still employed.
And Matt Dowd was fired from MSNBC for remarks that were critical of, but true, about Charlie Kirk. What the heck?!?
Such hypocrisy!
I think he’s working on a promotion.
Probably wants to be named head of HUD.
I believe there are openings. Cushy job especially since the main task assigned is now to do as close to nothing as can be achieved. It’s a skillset in high demand in this administration.
Thanks for LISTENING, researching and informing the rest of us. Most of all, thank you for staying grounded and not instantly reacting like a raving lunatic.
I'm new to this forum, I'm impressed!
Welcome aboard!
Yes, welcome aboard. HCR is indeed a grounding stabilizing force. The keel AND the rudder.
🤔though I suppose “grounding force” doesn’t really fit with the sailing metaphor! 🫤
…are all over the map.
But generally, a pretty decent lot.
There's always a "they," menacing, threatening pious "us" -- who thus need vicious police state.
Ali Velshi today nailed another aspect of this on the most recent attack on our Constitution’s 4th amendment.
That’s where it mandates authorities’ need for probable cause to arrest people or seize their property.
So the Clarence court – Long Dong Clarence and his police state ideologues – have junked that bit of the Constitution. Just as earlier they ruled their obscene Donald as immune to law, and before that pooh-poohed the insurrection clause – again bowing to their police state criminal Donald.
Ali Velshi quotes Tom Nichols from the Sept. 9 Atlantic on this worsening far right vulgarity: “It is about the administration’s attempt to inflame racial tensions and divide Americans and to acclimate them to the militarization of their streets and the stripping away of their constitutional protections.”
This latest betrayal came under “the shadow docket,” where the court holds no hearings, allows defense lawyers no speech, and issues no court reasoning.
Heather sees them for keeping to the narrative all police state and ideologue autocracies crave, with the far-right elites of the highest court in the land doing their bit to keep killing all pesky law.
Hello Phil... DJT, and his Puppet-Masters want Civil War... They will get more Desperate as DJT continues to Spiral Down... Pray For Divine Intervention...
Yes, Apache -- but in their diseased minds, they're already overtaken by their fantasies.
It's a madness, this linear-only, unrelenting logic of theirs
They could temper it with memoirs, histories, and novels where nuance gets play. But as the vulgarities of money and power also float them, they can't admit scripts other than their rape-filled, violence-strewn, ever-full-of-lies demented. (Nor can they allow schools to do so.)
Hello Phil... I suspect, fear, that You are Right... DJT is only a Symptom of a Deep American Social Disease.... DJT is just the Conductor of a Demonic, Infernal Collection of Demons that want to Hate, and Destroy...
Trump has claimed Divine Intervention at Butler, Pennsylvania in July when he narrowly avoided being fatally wounded. However, it seems strange to me that if the Divine Presence was really so considerate of the welfare of his charge He should not have intervened just a tad earlier - Ah well, the ways of the Almighty are mysterious indeed!
Hello RJN... Which Divinity?....
Yo Apache.., which one (Divinity) took out Kirk? How's about the holey cross? No no no.., it was a MAGAnut. Strangely enough, I had posted (somewhere) right after that occurred, that it was probably a "MAGA nutjob" that did it. LO and behold.., we have now been so-informed, that a member of a MAGA-card-carrying family was involved. Well.., I'll be. Gag me!!
Hello MadRussian.... On the Day of the Shooting I Speculated here on this SubStack, that it was a local Gamer with a Scoped Bolt-Action Rifle... Let Tyler Robinson speak for himself...
Yeah.., maybe give him a cabinet position' next to Whitkoff? Obviously, it must have been a mis-understanding.
Does it matter? It was Trump making the claim, not me. I was merely drawing attention to the illogicality of his claim.
Hello RJN.... No Offense Intended.... I've always said that DJT has the Devils-Luck...
James Baldwin once wrote that:
“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.”
Trump has lived a life of indulgence of his vices without a care for the injury he causes to others. He's also fortunate that he hasn't been called to account for his many transgressions. However, my impression of him is that he is an unhappy man. He's in a miserably bad marriage, largely his own fault. He doesn't appear to care much for his own children who are as avaricious and immoral as he is. He frets about his legacy in office - he's surely aware that he's considered the worst president in US history. It's why he feels the need to lie about his achievements and yearns for recognition from others (or example, his obsessive pursuit of the Nobel Peace prize). He will never be satisfied and he he expresses his frustration with vindictive actions against those who criticise him or oppose him. And yet he doesn't deserve our pity, only our scorn.
Ohhh ho Russell..., clearly, as expressed in your statement implying that "Divine Presence" missed the opportunity to take our dear leader out..., you' sir are most likely not "sincere" in the eyes of The Dear Leader. So, welcome to the shit-list with the rest of us. Apache, suggested that we ask for some "divine intervention". Lets ponder that, for whatever 'that' might be, because it's gonna happen some way or another.
No, actually I don't see agency here (apart from the shooter himself).
I'm not sure what you mean, Margaret-Rose.
I wonder whether it matters for these purposes whether or not it was intentional. It was a close shave, either way.
Why should God lift a finger when he has given us free will? All of this is man-made....
As far as the idea that empires now “create their own reality,” that this represents some kind of new, trendy reality displacing literally everything we know about history…well, you just gotta laugh.
Never once have I felt the Weird World of Dump and his Cult of Dumpness represented something fundamentally new, something not already described in detail by Hans Christian Andersen in ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ by Shakespeare in any of his tragedies or histories, by George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Huxley’s Brave New World, by the Holocaust and the Nazi rise to power that preceded it— and yes, by the moment when Joseph Welch confronted Joseph McCarthy with his famous ‘have you no decency, sir?’ accusation, and it all came tumbling down.
Evil always presents itself as being powerful, everlasting, “new” and impregnable — right up until the very moment everything falls to pieces. It has always been like this, it never really varies. Macbeth finally met his fate after Birnham Wood came to Dunsinane. Through tremendous loss of life and the sacrifices of others, Hitler finally blew his own brains out. One day, East German border guards simply abandoned their posts at the Berlin Wall. The Soviet flag over the Kremlin got lowered on Christmas Day, 1991, never to be raised again.
One day, this terminally stupid, arrogant cult of moronism will be a memory inside history’s famous dustbin. Perhaps not without much more cruelty, absurdity and maybe blood — who can say. But it will come crashing down. Let’s be confident of that, and continue to do everything we can peacefully to hasten that day!
Welp.. Good post "It's come to this". And you cdrtainly don't imply that doing nothing is the answer. However, blowing each others brains out for some ill-defined reason makes no sense at all, and we need to remember we'll get more flies with sugar than with salt. Newsom has set the tone: Embarrass them to death. "They" are so fucking stupid. More people read the funny-papers. We are in a Mad Magazine moment in our history. Our country consists of 350 million pixels. They are far from being all red. Plenty of intelligent pixels out here.
Newsom is the smartest thing to happen to us since crunchy peanut butter. Laugh at them to death. Colbert is a saint. Mayor Pete goes on ‘bro-casts’ and these weird, disaffected, threatened, straight boys start eating out of his hand. And when Jasmine Crockett calls Ms. Traylor-Trash “baby girl” she’s onto something.
Yeah.., You know it!!
The roll call of 'history's actors' is not one that any sensible person would wish to join.
I feel like it will happen sooner than we might think. Color me an optimist…
How about now? Could it happen now? Today? Because every day it seems there is yet another atrocity, another rip in the Constitution, another heinous act against decency, law and order. When will it stop? Not soon enough for me.
Thanks ICTT. It’s chilling to contemplate just what the inflection point(s) may be, but I too remain optimistic.
"Embracing the serial criminal with tender warmth," from Miller, sounds like an apt description of MAGA's embrace of Trump's fascism. As usual, they're projecting their worst crimes onto their enemies.
Just remember the speaker. Put his portrait up next to that of Joseph Göbbels. Black eyes, dead eyes, lifeless eyes, like a doll’s eyes…
I’ve always thought so, even years ago. A creepy reincarnation.
Like a shark or a snake.
Welcome to the 1930s Germany. The one difference is that Hitler was a strongman dictator whereas Trump is a TACO dictator. Trump is surrounded by the most inept group of fools and sycophants ever to be employed in the history of our country. The division he has created and exacerbated in our country is chilling and so dangerous to our physical and emotional health.
They are cornered by reality and will strike viciously at anyone who opposes them.
So.much.projection!
Well, EcstaticRationalist, there's reality and there's reality.
One of them -- criminal Donald's, his abetting Clarence court's, Project 2025's, and all MAGA world's chief actors' -- hold dear the reality of abstracted life. There, they needn't be hemmed in at all by facts, evidence, or any truth other than their rationally consistent fantasyland.
The other reality highly includes stories of characters living in complicated contexts. We see these in anecdotes of real people, memoirs citing real people, in histories also tracing real people, other arts, and especially novels weaving today's real-life contradictions, complexities, multiple layering of related issues, serendipity, the pull of related memory, and anticipations all also have.
My vote isn't at all for Donald and crew's consistent if fake reality -- it's for, instead, the messier ones involving real humanity.
"Across the country, educators have been suspended or fired for posting opinions on social media that commented on Kirk’s death in ways officials deemed inappropriate."
From Rawstory.com via Daily Kos:
"Fox host sets off uproar with 'just kill them' comment about mentally ill homeless people
… After [co-host Lawrence Jones] later adding, “They have given billions of dollars to mental health and the homeless population. A lot of them don't want to take the programs, a lot of them don't want to get the help that is necessary. You can't give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we're going to give you and — or you decide that you are going to be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now,” Kilmeade interjected, “Or involuntary lethal injection.”
With Jones agreeing, Kilmeade added, “Or something. Just kill them.”
Undisturbed by the suggestion, Earhardt chimed in with, “Yeah, Brian, why did it have to get to this point?”
You lock evil up in a round room and soon the babbling morons convince themselves that’s the way God intended it to be, too.
I’ve never watched Fox News. It literally repulses me. One-third the country — if not more — drinks its dumb poison every day for breakfast, then smacks its lips with pleasure afterward.
That’s what we’re up against.
I have encountered Fox "News" in a number of business waiting rooms and had a relative by marriage that watched it constantly. I also watched, for a while, out of curiosity, English language "Russia Today" (RT). They seemed pretty similar in content and style. Coarse propaganda.
Fox might claim that their causal calls for violence are "just talk", but that's what a number of people told me who were voting for Trump, and now he's really doing the stuff they claimed was exaggeration. And if you look at the entire impact of what Trump and "Republicans" are actually doing, I am already seeing casualties.
TVs showing Faux Noise have been known to shut off, turn all the way down, or mysteriously become unplugged when I'm in the room. 🤔 😉 I'm still looking for a universal TV remote app for my phone...
Thanks JL for binging us back to this: ‘cleansing’ of the US is precisely where their line of argument is heading.
No!, no!, no!, to this.
So....murder.... from the people who are claiming their goal is a Christian country 🤔🤔🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲😪😪😪
Yup. They're really not much different than the Taliban.
But I am a Christian..DEFINITELY NOT A Christian Nationalist... there is a world of different. If you want a good tutorial on what's really behind their so-called christian agenda, just read about NAR ( New Apostolic Reformation) on even just, Wikipedia. That'll give you just some keywords like violence and some key names like Mike Johnson and a little Looney Tuney MTG and quite a few others. I'm one of Millions of Christians who are completely against this so-called christian nationalist/ fascist. My big problem is they can do what they want but don't attach the name of Christ to it because if they are any kind of Christians at all at all at all, they should know the people Jesus had the most trouble with were the hypocrites and the horribly religious leaders demanding things of followers
I wasn't addressing Christians like you, Linda.
I'm all too familiar with CN, Dominionism, and their other heresies. I'm stuck in a Red state where I hear it constantly. I don't even bother talking to them anymore.
No that's no problem. I wasn't really suggesting you were I was more suggesting that as a Christian I don't understand how anything they have done.. (maybe him saying there are two sexes and maybe him saying he would write an EO letting kids to pray in school)... have any semblance at all to Jesus teachings. I don't think most people realize how serious they are about doing anything it takes to accomplish their.... self-imagined mandate. If you are in a red State and know all about Dominionism and all of that and you understand how much they depend on their prophets... so my question would be since there are thousands of these NAR prohets all over the world... why didn't God speak to one of them and tell them to tell Charlie Kirk not to go to Utah? They act like they have God on speed dial so how do they explain not being told by God to warn Charlie Kirk? 🤔🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸😪😪😪
Eugenics. Eliminate the "unfit." They change the definition of the "unfit" as time goes on. The elderly, the ill, the disabled...
Will they start from the top down?
Heh.
Bullies define "fitness" as the ability to bully. Yet human societies have drawn their historical resilience from concerted diversity of ideas and talents and innovation. Alas, we always seem to war between an order based on violence and one based on cooperation. Amplified by resource waste and technological power to do, the violence side threatens to end us as a species.
Quite. Even Darwin said that it wasn't survival of the strongest, but survival of the most adaptable to change. Humans have always prospered when cooperating with one another.
To be honest, I'd be surprised if our technological civilization lasts until 2100. I won't be around to see if though.
And it was not the endurance of a person or civilization that mattered from a survival standpoint, it was the species. Dinosaurs enjoyed quite a long run on the planet, but in the end could not keep up with change. We are just noobs, and already we are tempting fate.
Well, realistically Fox can employ only so many of the mentally ill.
DEI? 😆
☺️From what I have heard/seen of the Fox crew, they have fully met their quota.
Being a nation of pixels.., we've got a dumb one in charge. It's built to fail.
Dear Heather: I am astonished at the clarity and great intelligence and steadfastness that you show as you gaze into the trumpian abyss of lies and horror. I do not understand how you can endure all of that and still thrive. I stand in awe of your ability to carry on in spite of how horrible all that you observe actually is. We all owe you a great debt.
Well put Peggy.
Myself and many others are with you in this.
Thank you, Anthony. I appreciate your kind words. Heather is an astonishing human being!
Fabulous Substack by HCR!
I’ve been reading HCR’s daily Substack for years now and there used to be an underlying optimism and hope, despite the often terrible rhetoric and actions of the MAGA movement and this president.
That the undertone of optimism, in these letters and in all the commentators I read, is now a rare occurrence
is terrifying.
Barrie, the shift here has been the Professor’s stated intent that LFAA document the day’s events and trends for some future historian’s reference work.
To find the optimism, watch her Politics Chat and her feature with Joanne Freeman “What The Hell Just Happened?” Much more hope/optimism there.
Thank you.