Now that we’ve entered an election year, there is a lot of speculation about what America could look like if Donald Trump gets another term, by hook or by crook. As Trump uses a crisis he created in the Middle East to distract us from impeachment, increases his chances of reelection, and boosts the fortunes of his buddies in the Military-Industrial Complex, it’s important to understand how other demagogic leaders consolidate their power.

I was oblivious to the real significance of Facebook in everyday life until the company disabled my personal, private thomhartmann account. The list of “possible” reasons they posted for doing this included “impersonating a celebrity,” so maybe they shut me down because they thought I pretending to be that guy who’s a talk show host and author. (Facebook, if you’re reading this, I am that guy.)

The current issue of the Atlantic magazine founded itself in the years just before the Civil War, is ominously titled, “How to Stop a Civil War.”

People being killed by wildfires in California and people dying because they can't afford their insulin are the same thing. Both represent the capture of government by corporations-in other words, both are symptoms of democracy in the United States being replaced by a corporate state with little regard for morality, life or the law.