While billionaires warm their hands over tax breaks, Dwayne LaBrecque — a diabetic father of five in Maine — wonders how he’ll survive the winter without toes, heat, or help…
A subset indeed... a minority of Americans- 23%- approve of what Trump is doing; an even smaller group cheers when they see videos of human suffering at CECOT. These are the same people who used to enjoy public lynchings; before that, they agitated for public stonings, crucifixions, and witch burnings. Thousands of years before that, they attended and ate snacks at Caligula’s amphitheater of torture.
Like bacteria or malignant cells, this ugly, bloodthirsty minority will always be with us. They were the catalysts to the rule of law that will, eventually, defeat them.
Bloodthirsty minority. Thus the "entertainment" horror genre as a substiutue for public execution, etc.
Most of the incarcerated Lizard People outgrow their predisposition. Usually men mature later than women and most of the Lizard People started as juvienile delinquents. By age 35 there are few of them left in the system.
In my 'ol pappy's day, they didn't have tools like the MMPI and reliable lie detectors. These days, schools can spot them early on and provide thearapy.
AI. The maturation of criminals, or "aging out of crime," is a phenomenon where individuals, particularly in late adolescence and early adulthood, tend to reduce their criminal activity as they grow older. This decline in crime is often attributed to psychological and physiological changes that occur during this period, leading to a shift in priorities and a greater emphasis on prosocial behaviors.
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Some experts say that societies structured around male dominance and capitalism tend to reinforce sadomasochistic dynamics, creating a culture where power imbalances are normalized. I think this may be baked in: Jungian collective subsconscious. Some research suggests that a significant portion of the population engages in some form of sadomasochistic behavior, either consciously or unconsciously.
However, I don't think that 23% of the population has it. Other factors, like peer pressure are at play.
It can have negative consequences, including increased stress, anxiety, and depression, and can even lead to the development of mental health issues like PTSD.
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The most important symbol of the 2024 election was the 6'7" male participating in girls' basketball.
Trans athletes have proven to be a convenient scapegoat, for the patriarchal prerogative. It masks a deeper problem, one that our world does not wish to address or even acknowledge
Here is an example: Michael Phelps holds all of those gold medal simply because he has a height advantage. it take an average swimmer one and 1/4 to 1 and 1/2 strokes to match Michael's one stroke.. Swimmers should compete with others of their own stature.
It is most certainly not politically correct to mention that there are racial and ethnic differences that give one person or a group an advantage.
Mention that, suggest that athletes be segregated and compete by stature, race, ethnicity and the world explodes, but do the same with sex and the world applauds.
That is telling, very telling.
Incidentally, there is a world of difference between a pre op transsexual and a postop transexual.
A preop transsexual has been on a regimen of hormones, either estrogen which is feminizing or testosterone which is masculinizing.
It takes 4 to 5 years living in one's preferred gender, taking hormones, living in that gender, obtaining psychiatric and psychological care and certification, before they are eligible for surgery..
In that period of time the hormones work their magic. For transmen, there voice deepens, they buff up, grow body and facial hair. For transwomen, they lose muscle and bone mass.
A post op transwoman has lost that source of testosterone, the testes, and thus accelerated the loss of muscle and bone mass.
For those really interested and not just titillated over a 6'4 transwoman on women's basketball, here is a list of trans athletes, notice that quite a few of them are transmen.
See transmen also have a biological advantage. They have a lower center of gravity, greater endurance then men, and are better able to tolerate cold and pain (ask any woman who has given birth)
To know and understand this, requires not only empathy, but exposure, like living in Santa Cruz, CA with a very diverse and open community
More like 37 - 43% of Americans approve of Trump, maybe more, and despite the fact that his insanity is hurting them, such as the case of with farmers and even government employees, they still stand by him.
By the way, it only takes a united 17% of a population to take over a nation and it's culture.
I took the 23% from the last survey on pbs; that's who gave him an 'A.' I figure, anyone who gives him a B has at least some reservations about what he's doing. Example, the donor class may applaud his tax/regulation cuts but abhor his attacks on the judiciary. I doubt most of them share his bloodlust for revenge, either; CEOs know that legal stability is essential to healthy commerce and that the rule of law must prevail to attract investors. Think about it- would you invest in a city run by drug cartels? or the mob? Crooked CEOs may be another story, they are less adverse to our crooked president as well.
Sabrina: The donor class may be concerned about stability, and tariff's but they are more concerned about regulations and tax cuts. They and the corporations which are the source of their wealth and power,live in the moment. The short term, the next quarterly Profit and Earnings report. So does Wall Street, that is the way the system is constructed.
I had to give some thought to your Sophie's choice between drug cartels and the mafia. The mafia lays it's heavy hand on everybody, especially small business,
Drug cartels are ruthless, but they only take out each other, the competition,. The way I see it, if you don't do drugs and aren't in the business, they leave you alone.
I don't do drugs, so am totally unaffected by the WOD, and the drug trade. Whereas the mafia intrudes into every sector of life, from unions to mom and pop stores, if anything they cause prices to go up, especially in construction.
As regards the 17% figure. I don't know if you can find it on google. I am 86, well read, my knowledge is eclectic. I stopped reading fiction when I was 17, and have read thousands of books. The 17% is something I came across aeons ago, but your question made me think, in this new age of google and AI, we have generations which believe everything they read on the internet, and if they can't find it via google, then it doesn't exist. What a world, no wonder we are in the shit bowl, and it is only going to get worse.
The totalitarians wet dream. The Chinese are already living in it.
Evangelicals see the world as a binary “cosmic drama” in which the state has become an atheist adversary to conquer. A coalition was formed with tech oligarchs who wanted low taxes and no regulation. The angry white working class that was left behind joined in. Trump picked up his MAGA flag, and everyone followed. What was lost is the social contract between each other. The common good is now grievance and greed. Welcome to the new America.
Yeah, what ever happened to the DI's "we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor?" What sacred honor? The pursuit of the dollar and one's own personal welfare are now the calling card of The American Dream - at least for Republicans.
Thom Hartmann, you have effectively characterized the narcissistic personality disorder that Trump suffers. Trump has gathered cohorts with the same affliction. These are all narcissists and psychopaths, as opposed to sociopaths. They all lack empathy.
As soon as one comes to that realization, one knows the underlying truth of Trump’s actions. Don’t listen to Liar Trump, immediately turn and look at what is in it for Trump. Then it becomes clear. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/white-house-psychopathy?r=3m1bs
It is puzzling to me how Trump has managed to assemble an entire government administration run by and for psychopaths. Staff like JD Vance, Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, Blondy Bondi and Lying Leavitt haven't an empathetic bone in their bodies. They are ruthless and hateful people who try to manipulate the entire country - especially gullible adults - into signing on to their con while they lie, cheat, and steal from all of us.
While the majority of Americans are capable of empathy, it is obviously not the case that we are willing to act to stop the brutality. Our Speaker of the house asserts he is a steadfast Christian, yet he is actively enabling Trump's fascist regime. It is easy to notice that these "Trump Christians" justify their brutality by citing not the Bible of Jesus but the Old Testament, which documents centuries of brutality justified by mythology attributing it to God's will. Once you justify the residents of Sodom as all sinners, then it justifies exterminating them. Today, justifying a member of a racial minority as an illegal immigrant justifies deporting them to hell without a fair trial. Asking "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" no longer humiliates politicians.
Tom, if the majority of Americans are empathetic, then why is Trump president., Trump is a mirror image, a reflection of those that voted for him, and those that didn't vote but sat out the election, showed that they have no empathy, care or concern., that or just plain stupid, gullible and lazy.
My theory is grooming. US public school civics classes, unintentionally perhaps, promote capitalism as the fuel of democracy. The vast majority of Americans believe that "If you're richer than me, you must be smarter than me." In addition, the myth that government is more efficient (and less costly) when run as a business. Thus many independents lean toward wealthy businessmen when voting.
Of course, both notions are nonsense. People who are richer than me are in the majority of cases more ruthless and greedy than me. They do not pay their employees a decent wage - they keep the extra wage money instead to become billionaires unless forced to pay more due to union extortion (which is why rich people loathe unions).
The notion that government is rife with waste, fraud, and abuse has been nicely invalidated by Elon Musk and DOGE whose 'savings so far are pocket change, but their run-government-like-a-business destruction of our government will surely reduce the standard of living in America as the next administration has to pay to put post Humpty-Trumpty's government back together again.
Businesses exist to make money, not spend it. Their only metric for efficiency is lowering the cost of agency services, not improving the quality and value of the services to taxpayers for the same cost. Musk could save a fortune by cutting the entire Social Security Administration. Of course, if you think homelessness is a big problem today ...
Cutting social security is a critical step toward cutting Musk's neck. People will take a lot of shit from the power elite but their obeisance is likely to rapidly dieteriorate when the bank forecloses, their three-year old needs an expensive operation to save her from an early death, and the main things in the cupboard are cobwebs and rat turds. Oh, and lest I forget, wet bulb temperature climbing toward 95°.
Very important wet bulb temperatures at 95°.F. That is the end of mammalian life, it actually reached 95°. last year in some parts of the world, mostly in Saudi Arabia,
Homeless ness, poverty, starvation, child hood deaths, maternity deaths all are unjustified, and America leads the world , or at least the developed world, in those statistics as well as imprisonment.
You are correct, we are fed bullshit, and we believe it, Bullshit like the revolution was fought over taxes (it wasn't it was fought because the Crown gave the East India company a monopoly. and that forced merchants, particularly Boston Merchants into smuggling and smuggling was a hanging offense, not just hanging but hanging in chains
The government can never be put together again. Trump and Musk has thoroughly destroyed it. the institutional memory
Our only hope is the Deep State, of which I was a proud member even before Trump labeled it and made it a pejorative. The Deep State are mostly 14s, 15s, and an SES now and then. I already had my DS creds before making CDR.
while still technically in uniform. I wore a suit most of the time unless at the Pentagon for meetings. We were the people who knew the system and how to make it work better because we knew Deep Staters all over DC who enabled us to coordinate successful changes so there were no surprises.
I have faith that they will enable putting the government back together because Musk and Trump are clueless about governing, and leadership, and managing. So they will almost surely have failed to cause too much permanent damage. Nevertheless, the longer the 4th Reich exists, the harder it will be to right the ship of state. I am hoping that greedy billionaires will soon have had enough and find a way to eliminate their tariff problem much as they did in Dallas.
I understand and agree, with the exception Tom, That Trusk has already disembowled the institutional memory of the professional civil service with their firiings and resignations.
You said that the longer it exists the harder it will be to put it back together again. Departments like USAID, NLRB, Dept of Education have already been destroyed, and Hegseth is hard at it to do the same to the DoD., and this is only the first 100 days, there is still 1300 days to go, imagine the damage that they will do in 1300 days.
Apologies for the hopeless gloom and doom outlook, but we are already at the situation of Germany after Hindenburg appointed him chancellor all we are waiting for is a Reichstag moment, and the moment when Mussolini became El duce., if we have learned anything from history, fascist governments can only be taken down from outside.
Bill, I might just be being biased to assert that the military should be Trump's impossible guardrail. It sure was when I was still working. Neither Trump nor Hegseth (a reservist failed officer - not a real soldier) ever got into the warrior culture. Trump views the military as lowclass suckers and losers - he has said so. Hegseth loathes authority figures like the ones who terminated his career. Both want to limit generals and admirals but for different reasons (revenge vs power grabbing). They both underestimate loyalty to their oath of allegiance to the Constitution, not some draft-dodging billionaire conman.
The military always has a percentage of members insecure in their masculinity. Like Hegseth, they often ink themselves up macho-style, lift weights, play with guns, bully and brag a lot. Richer, Trump gilds up vs inks up. We shall see.
One of. the primary reasons why Trump is president is because the Democratic Party stopped being the party of the People. With few exceptions, it is devoid of passion, its beliefs ambiguous at best, and a recent history of making promises never kept.
The Republicans, on the other hand, offer independents membership in a cult and like all "good" cults is fully armored against outside critique, regardless of how damning the evidence against it might be. Indeed, any perceived attack further serves to unify the cult and make it more willing to commit horrendous acts. Think Jonestown. Gullible yes, but neither stupid nor lazy.
Assuming we ever have free and fair elections again the Democratic Party needs to awaken from its torpor and manifest no small amount of empathy toward all but the oligarchs.
I agree Robert, but I don't hold out hope. The Democratic party is locked in the arms of the establishment. The likes of David Hogg, AOC and Bernie Sanders, scares the shit out of them.
Hope is a bitter thing to cling to and in this case I don't hold out much of it either. The ruling Democratic Party hierarchy is not going to willingly surrender power and frankly they are too damned stupid to realize that THEY are the reason they/we (kinda sorta "we") keep losing elections.. Any changes they are likely to offer are going to be little more than window dressing. I would hope (there's that word again) that a new party could be formed but at this time everything comes down to the size of one's bank account. Citizens United was probably the last brick in the wall protecting democracy.
Before LBJ signed the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Act,the Democratic party were blue collar workers and neo confederate and racists, In the senate it was they( racists) that wrapped their cloaks around, protected and mentored a young senator name Joseph R Biden.. While it took a few years, the racists, the neo confederates, except Senators who were entrenched) fled to the open and welcoming arms of the Republican party.
The Democratic party no longer had a support base,then Clinton killed what remained of the base,the blue collar vote,when he signed NAFTA and GATT and Great Lakes Manufacturing fled to Mexico where labor was cheaper.
The Democratic party realized that it no longer could exercise any power, but it was a career and the only career for a great number of professional politicians, like Begala, Biggs, Carville, McAulifee, Clinton, Perez, Schumer, Pelosi.
Survival requires resources and political resources are money, and the only money that they can see as being within reach is from the Chamber of Commerce, financial institutions,Wall Street.
Obama chose Biden as VP,because he was known in the Senate as the Senator from Wall Street. Delaware is the home of over 600 corporations, and most of the insurance and financial corporations.,because of it's very lenient charter laws
I quit voting after the 64 election because I saw both parties as two sides of the same coin. I didn't vote for Reagan, but I championed him, because I was a fervent anti communist, and he promised not to appoint members of the Trilateral commisionand Council on Foreign Relations to is cabinet, and promised to protect the Air Traffic Controllers Union (PATCO) all of which he betrayed almost as soon as he finished the oath.
When Trump came down the golden escalator and opened his filthy mouth, I rushed to the courthouse and registered as a Democrat, held my nose and voted for the wife of the man that created the rust belt/swing states.
I hear the shade of Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats (sounds like a band) rustling the underbrush. And then there's George Wallace and I don't want to forget Bull Connor. Shades of the Civil War...
Reagan and PATCO makes me wonder what the percentage is of presidents actually trying to get through legislation that they campaigned on. If it's over 50% I'll be surprised.
Just to be fair, I'm one of those Marxist Communist Fascist Socialists that Trump warned the nation about, though a non-ideological one. However, I am (usually) a nice guy who believes that the only hope for our democracy is the right and the left (I'm not sure there actually is a left in this country) grounding their squabbles by recognizing shared commonalities. If the oligarchs allow it, that is.
Thank you for this great article. It expresses exactly how I have been feeling about the current state of our country. Empathy has driven my entire life through a looking glass from an abused child to the abuses being waged towards others by this administration. I hope we can turn this around.
A Danish couple saw my sign at the last rally. It read NO TRUMP NO PUTIN NO MUSK and they stopped to take a pic. We discussed their visit to the states. We didn't talk about Greenland---we talked about this. The wife said "They call us Socialists". I told her most humans are "socialists" and that we didn't get to 8 billion on this planet without cooperating.
They lucked out at the border and did not have to give-up their phone or computers for inspection, but they did know it was a possibility. The trip here was to visit friends and had been planned or they would not have come. They were very happy to see folks at the rally fighting back.
Historian Jon Meacham recently said there is going to be a pendulum effect with the result being a big swing back to the left.
This syndicate of broken, crazy people do not know when to quit. Inflicting pain is giving them pleasure. It also EXPOSES them. We have to use that. The pendulum swinging back to the left will come.
We KNOW each other through the prism of our empathy, and it will guide us. Thanks, Thom.
Thanks Thom for a well timed essay. "Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness" MLK I am editing my remarks to include a great read, an article in the Guardian April 8, 2025 Titled 'Loath they neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy'
I googled "Neoliberalism" and "Dog-eat-dog" together and the AI overview came up with this:
The phrase "dog-eat-dog" is often used to describe a situation where individuals or entities are intensely competitive and ruthless, prioritizing their own survival and success above all else, including the well-being of others. This sentiment is frequently associated with neoliberalism due to its emphasis on individual freedom, free markets, and deregulation, which some argue can lead to a system where individuals are left to fend for themselves in a fiercely competitive environment.
From whence comes fear? From the empty terror of the void. What is the primal reaction to terror? Endocrine rage.
What is the void? Separation from the energetic of life. Existence without substance, without connection. TFG is filled with terror of germs, yet its corpus is literally a bacterial penal colony.
It rejects sensitivity but craves all types of attention. Its only true connection is from parasitic sycophants sucking on its fingers and toes. Then it despises and punishes them, sneers at their addiction to itself.
Self-hatred is driving the human artifact we know as TFG. Its acolytes are wallowing in self-hatred. This must be transferred and projected, or else the hosts will die. They contaminate all forms of virtuous life, which is nothing more than lives lived without malice aforethought.
Virtue lives without excess, needs nothing from anything without gifting first.
Parasites are two-dimensional caricatures - they eat, they defecate. They are the contra of expansive existence, which shares all things but possesses nothing.
Practice virtue. With strength and honor. Courage will be waiting to assist you.
He's not unlike a raccoon inside a full trash can: The more gluttonous he is, the less he leaves for his brethren [including on the Supreme Court and in Congress,] the better for him.
His ideal? Leave a 100% empty [sparkling, even] can interior — just as he left Atlantic City [AC.]
His and his boss, Vlad's, joint aim is to make the USA the new AC.
An empty "Blade Runner-esque" void, where the streets have no name.
I would agree with all of the article’s tenets except that America was ‘built on empathy.’ In my opinion, it was built on the belief that America’s lands and riches were free for the taking. Zero empathy was shown to the pre-existing people from whom colonizers took land and timber and game and minerals.
We’ve had ample evidence that countries with empathy are the happiest in the world. Not perfect of course but far superior to the USA. Look at all of the Scandinavian countries, they all have social contracts that provide for all of their citizens. Psychopathic countries usually go down in flames. Greed kills not only the victim but also the aggressor.
Christianity, a religion of pity? Hmm, what universe did Nietzsche live in.
You can visit Christian churches and families and find empathy, but it is selective, only for their own kind "Love thy neighbor as thyself", well that depends on the race, ethnicity, religion, nationality of your neighbor.
Self proclaimed Christians, who believe "if you don' t work, you don't eat", and why should their money go to someone else.
What Nietzsche, didn't understand, that Christianity, and indeed all religions, are subjective manifestations of the believer. Each person fashions their god in their own image, they interpret their religion, scriptures, teachings in a manner which fulfills their needs and assuages their fears.
Where one sees a loving god, another sees a vengeful, vindictive god.
Just wrote about this myself Thom. It's interesting to see this headline from you as you have not had a single story regarding the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Nor did you discuss Biden and Harris's inhumane treatment of migrants at the southern border. You spoke against the abolition of ICE, which is now the Gestapo for Trump. So I wonder what your definition of "empathy" is and if its selective application to the inhumanity that only the Republicans and Trump inflict qualifies as empathy or political expediency. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/youre-next-the-blowback-for-the-spiritual
A subset indeed... a minority of Americans- 23%- approve of what Trump is doing; an even smaller group cheers when they see videos of human suffering at CECOT. These are the same people who used to enjoy public lynchings; before that, they agitated for public stonings, crucifixions, and witch burnings. Thousands of years before that, they attended and ate snacks at Caligula’s amphitheater of torture.
Like bacteria or malignant cells, this ugly, bloodthirsty minority will always be with us. They were the catalysts to the rule of law that will, eventually, defeat them.
Bloodthirsty minority. Thus the "entertainment" horror genre as a substiutue for public execution, etc.
Most of the incarcerated Lizard People outgrow their predisposition. Usually men mature later than women and most of the Lizard People started as juvienile delinquents. By age 35 there are few of them left in the system.
In my 'ol pappy's day, they didn't have tools like the MMPI and reliable lie detectors. These days, schools can spot them early on and provide thearapy.
AI. The maturation of criminals, or "aging out of crime," is a phenomenon where individuals, particularly in late adolescence and early adulthood, tend to reduce their criminal activity as they grow older. This decline in crime is often attributed to psychological and physiological changes that occur during this period, leading to a shift in priorities and a greater emphasis on prosocial behaviors.
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Some experts say that societies structured around male dominance and capitalism tend to reinforce sadomasochistic dynamics, creating a culture where power imbalances are normalized. I think this may be baked in: Jungian collective subsconscious. Some research suggests that a significant portion of the population engages in some form of sadomasochistic behavior, either consciously or unconsciously.
However, I don't think that 23% of the population has it. Other factors, like peer pressure are at play.
If you want to see where the lizard people have congregated, come to Florida. After all, WTF stands for Welcome to Florida!
I live in Florida.....
I should add that psy ops is like gasoline to the flame.
We teach it. https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/special-ops/psychological-operations
It can have negative consequences, including increased stress, anxiety, and depression, and can even lead to the development of mental health issues like PTSD.
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The most important symbol of the 2024 election was the 6'7" male participating in girls' basketball.
Trans athletes have proven to be a convenient scapegoat, for the patriarchal prerogative. It masks a deeper problem, one that our world does not wish to address or even acknowledge
Here is an example: Michael Phelps holds all of those gold medal simply because he has a height advantage. it take an average swimmer one and 1/4 to 1 and 1/2 strokes to match Michael's one stroke.. Swimmers should compete with others of their own stature.
It is most certainly not politically correct to mention that there are racial and ethnic differences that give one person or a group an advantage.
Mention that, suggest that athletes be segregated and compete by stature, race, ethnicity and the world explodes, but do the same with sex and the world applauds.
That is telling, very telling.
Incidentally, there is a world of difference between a pre op transsexual and a postop transexual.
A preop transsexual has been on a regimen of hormones, either estrogen which is feminizing or testosterone which is masculinizing.
It takes 4 to 5 years living in one's preferred gender, taking hormones, living in that gender, obtaining psychiatric and psychological care and certification, before they are eligible for surgery..
In that period of time the hormones work their magic. For transmen, there voice deepens, they buff up, grow body and facial hair. For transwomen, they lose muscle and bone mass.
A post op transwoman has lost that source of testosterone, the testes, and thus accelerated the loss of muscle and bone mass.
For those really interested and not just titillated over a 6'4 transwoman on women's basketball, here is a list of trans athletes, notice that quite a few of them are transmen.
See transmen also have a biological advantage. They have a lower center of gravity, greater endurance then men, and are better able to tolerate cold and pain (ask any woman who has given birth)
To know and understand this, requires not only empathy, but exposure, like living in Santa Cruz, CA with a very diverse and open community
This is profound! We'll be able to bring back the midget races!!!
Facts from Sabrina and Thom are exactly what we need. Once educated, let's get past our empathy for their broken brains and prosecute them.
More like 37 - 43% of Americans approve of Trump, maybe more, and despite the fact that his insanity is hurting them, such as the case of with farmers and even government employees, they still stand by him.
By the way, it only takes a united 17% of a population to take over a nation and it's culture.
I took the 23% from the last survey on pbs; that's who gave him an 'A.' I figure, anyone who gives him a B has at least some reservations about what he's doing. Example, the donor class may applaud his tax/regulation cuts but abhor his attacks on the judiciary. I doubt most of them share his bloodlust for revenge, either; CEOs know that legal stability is essential to healthy commerce and that the rule of law must prevail to attract investors. Think about it- would you invest in a city run by drug cartels? or the mob? Crooked CEOs may be another story, they are less adverse to our crooked president as well.
Here's the survey link https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-americans-grade-trumps-first-100-days thanks and if you have the source for 17% (scary shit) I'd be grateful.
Sabrina: The donor class may be concerned about stability, and tariff's but they are more concerned about regulations and tax cuts. They and the corporations which are the source of their wealth and power,live in the moment. The short term, the next quarterly Profit and Earnings report. So does Wall Street, that is the way the system is constructed.
I had to give some thought to your Sophie's choice between drug cartels and the mafia. The mafia lays it's heavy hand on everybody, especially small business,
Drug cartels are ruthless, but they only take out each other, the competition,. The way I see it, if you don't do drugs and aren't in the business, they leave you alone.
I don't do drugs, so am totally unaffected by the WOD, and the drug trade. Whereas the mafia intrudes into every sector of life, from unions to mom and pop stores, if anything they cause prices to go up, especially in construction.
As regards the 17% figure. I don't know if you can find it on google. I am 86, well read, my knowledge is eclectic. I stopped reading fiction when I was 17, and have read thousands of books. The 17% is something I came across aeons ago, but your question made me think, in this new age of google and AI, we have generations which believe everything they read on the internet, and if they can't find it via google, then it doesn't exist. What a world, no wonder we are in the shit bowl, and it is only going to get worse.
The totalitarians wet dream. The Chinese are already living in it.
Evangelicals see the world as a binary “cosmic drama” in which the state has become an atheist adversary to conquer. A coalition was formed with tech oligarchs who wanted low taxes and no regulation. The angry white working class that was left behind joined in. Trump picked up his MAGA flag, and everyone followed. What was lost is the social contract between each other. The common good is now grievance and greed. Welcome to the new America.
Yeah, what ever happened to the DI's "we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor?" What sacred honor? The pursuit of the dollar and one's own personal welfare are now the calling card of The American Dream - at least for Republicans.
Thom Hartmann, you have effectively characterized the narcissistic personality disorder that Trump suffers. Trump has gathered cohorts with the same affliction. These are all narcissists and psychopaths, as opposed to sociopaths. They all lack empathy.
As soon as one comes to that realization, one knows the underlying truth of Trump’s actions. Don’t listen to Liar Trump, immediately turn and look at what is in it for Trump. Then it becomes clear. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/white-house-psychopathy?r=3m1bs
Trump, co-dependents and camp followers.
It is puzzling to me how Trump has managed to assemble an entire government administration run by and for psychopaths. Staff like JD Vance, Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, Blondy Bondi and Lying Leavitt haven't an empathetic bone in their bodies. They are ruthless and hateful people who try to manipulate the entire country - especially gullible adults - into signing on to their con while they lie, cheat, and steal from all of us.
While the majority of Americans are capable of empathy, it is obviously not the case that we are willing to act to stop the brutality. Our Speaker of the house asserts he is a steadfast Christian, yet he is actively enabling Trump's fascist regime. It is easy to notice that these "Trump Christians" justify their brutality by citing not the Bible of Jesus but the Old Testament, which documents centuries of brutality justified by mythology attributing it to God's will. Once you justify the residents of Sodom as all sinners, then it justifies exterminating them. Today, justifying a member of a racial minority as an illegal immigrant justifies deporting them to hell without a fair trial. Asking "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" no longer humiliates politicians.
Tom, if the majority of Americans are empathetic, then why is Trump president., Trump is a mirror image, a reflection of those that voted for him, and those that didn't vote but sat out the election, showed that they have no empathy, care or concern., that or just plain stupid, gullible and lazy.
My theory is grooming. US public school civics classes, unintentionally perhaps, promote capitalism as the fuel of democracy. The vast majority of Americans believe that "If you're richer than me, you must be smarter than me." In addition, the myth that government is more efficient (and less costly) when run as a business. Thus many independents lean toward wealthy businessmen when voting.
Of course, both notions are nonsense. People who are richer than me are in the majority of cases more ruthless and greedy than me. They do not pay their employees a decent wage - they keep the extra wage money instead to become billionaires unless forced to pay more due to union extortion (which is why rich people loathe unions).
The notion that government is rife with waste, fraud, and abuse has been nicely invalidated by Elon Musk and DOGE whose 'savings so far are pocket change, but their run-government-like-a-business destruction of our government will surely reduce the standard of living in America as the next administration has to pay to put post Humpty-Trumpty's government back together again.
Businesses exist to make money, not spend it. Their only metric for efficiency is lowering the cost of agency services, not improving the quality and value of the services to taxpayers for the same cost. Musk could save a fortune by cutting the entire Social Security Administration. Of course, if you think homelessness is a big problem today ...
Cutting social security is a critical step toward cutting Musk's neck. People will take a lot of shit from the power elite but their obeisance is likely to rapidly dieteriorate when the bank forecloses, their three-year old needs an expensive operation to save her from an early death, and the main things in the cupboard are cobwebs and rat turds. Oh, and lest I forget, wet bulb temperature climbing toward 95°.
Very important wet bulb temperatures at 95°.F. That is the end of mammalian life, it actually reached 95°. last year in some parts of the world, mostly in Saudi Arabia,
Two songs come to mind right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kisr3daNRx0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kisr3daNRx0
Homeless ness, poverty, starvation, child hood deaths, maternity deaths all are unjustified, and America leads the world , or at least the developed world, in those statistics as well as imprisonment.
You are correct, we are fed bullshit, and we believe it, Bullshit like the revolution was fought over taxes (it wasn't it was fought because the Crown gave the East India company a monopoly. and that forced merchants, particularly Boston Merchants into smuggling and smuggling was a hanging offense, not just hanging but hanging in chains
The government can never be put together again. Trump and Musk has thoroughly destroyed it. the institutional memory
Our only hope is the Deep State, of which I was a proud member even before Trump labeled it and made it a pejorative. The Deep State are mostly 14s, 15s, and an SES now and then. I already had my DS creds before making CDR.
while still technically in uniform. I wore a suit most of the time unless at the Pentagon for meetings. We were the people who knew the system and how to make it work better because we knew Deep Staters all over DC who enabled us to coordinate successful changes so there were no surprises.
I have faith that they will enable putting the government back together because Musk and Trump are clueless about governing, and leadership, and managing. So they will almost surely have failed to cause too much permanent damage. Nevertheless, the longer the 4th Reich exists, the harder it will be to right the ship of state. I am hoping that greedy billionaires will soon have had enough and find a way to eliminate their tariff problem much as they did in Dallas.
I understand and agree, with the exception Tom, That Trusk has already disembowled the institutional memory of the professional civil service with their firiings and resignations.
You said that the longer it exists the harder it will be to put it back together again. Departments like USAID, NLRB, Dept of Education have already been destroyed, and Hegseth is hard at it to do the same to the DoD., and this is only the first 100 days, there is still 1300 days to go, imagine the damage that they will do in 1300 days.
Apologies for the hopeless gloom and doom outlook, but we are already at the situation of Germany after Hindenburg appointed him chancellor all we are waiting for is a Reichstag moment, and the moment when Mussolini became El duce., if we have learned anything from history, fascist governments can only be taken down from outside.
Bill, I might just be being biased to assert that the military should be Trump's impossible guardrail. It sure was when I was still working. Neither Trump nor Hegseth (a reservist failed officer - not a real soldier) ever got into the warrior culture. Trump views the military as lowclass suckers and losers - he has said so. Hegseth loathes authority figures like the ones who terminated his career. Both want to limit generals and admirals but for different reasons (revenge vs power grabbing). They both underestimate loyalty to their oath of allegiance to the Constitution, not some draft-dodging billionaire conman.
The military always has a percentage of members insecure in their masculinity. Like Hegseth, they often ink themselves up macho-style, lift weights, play with guns, bully and brag a lot. Richer, Trump gilds up vs inks up. We shall see.
One of. the primary reasons why Trump is president is because the Democratic Party stopped being the party of the People. With few exceptions, it is devoid of passion, its beliefs ambiguous at best, and a recent history of making promises never kept.
The Republicans, on the other hand, offer independents membership in a cult and like all "good" cults is fully armored against outside critique, regardless of how damning the evidence against it might be. Indeed, any perceived attack further serves to unify the cult and make it more willing to commit horrendous acts. Think Jonestown. Gullible yes, but neither stupid nor lazy.
Assuming we ever have free and fair elections again the Democratic Party needs to awaken from its torpor and manifest no small amount of empathy toward all but the oligarchs.
I agree Robert, but I don't hold out hope. The Democratic party is locked in the arms of the establishment. The likes of David Hogg, AOC and Bernie Sanders, scares the shit out of them.
Hope is a bitter thing to cling to and in this case I don't hold out much of it either. The ruling Democratic Party hierarchy is not going to willingly surrender power and frankly they are too damned stupid to realize that THEY are the reason they/we (kinda sorta "we") keep losing elections.. Any changes they are likely to offer are going to be little more than window dressing. I would hope (there's that word again) that a new party could be formed but at this time everything comes down to the size of one's bank account. Citizens United was probably the last brick in the wall protecting democracy.
Before LBJ signed the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Act,the Democratic party were blue collar workers and neo confederate and racists, In the senate it was they( racists) that wrapped their cloaks around, protected and mentored a young senator name Joseph R Biden.. While it took a few years, the racists, the neo confederates, except Senators who were entrenched) fled to the open and welcoming arms of the Republican party.
The Democratic party no longer had a support base,then Clinton killed what remained of the base,the blue collar vote,when he signed NAFTA and GATT and Great Lakes Manufacturing fled to Mexico where labor was cheaper.
The Democratic party realized that it no longer could exercise any power, but it was a career and the only career for a great number of professional politicians, like Begala, Biggs, Carville, McAulifee, Clinton, Perez, Schumer, Pelosi.
Survival requires resources and political resources are money, and the only money that they can see as being within reach is from the Chamber of Commerce, financial institutions,Wall Street.
Obama chose Biden as VP,because he was known in the Senate as the Senator from Wall Street. Delaware is the home of over 600 corporations, and most of the insurance and financial corporations.,because of it's very lenient charter laws
I quit voting after the 64 election because I saw both parties as two sides of the same coin. I didn't vote for Reagan, but I championed him, because I was a fervent anti communist, and he promised not to appoint members of the Trilateral commisionand Council on Foreign Relations to is cabinet, and promised to protect the Air Traffic Controllers Union (PATCO) all of which he betrayed almost as soon as he finished the oath.
When Trump came down the golden escalator and opened his filthy mouth, I rushed to the courthouse and registered as a Democrat, held my nose and voted for the wife of the man that created the rust belt/swing states.
I am done now, back where I was in 1965
I hear the shade of Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats (sounds like a band) rustling the underbrush. And then there's George Wallace and I don't want to forget Bull Connor. Shades of the Civil War...
Reagan and PATCO makes me wonder what the percentage is of presidents actually trying to get through legislation that they campaigned on. If it's over 50% I'll be surprised.
Just to be fair, I'm one of those Marxist Communist Fascist Socialists that Trump warned the nation about, though a non-ideological one. However, I am (usually) a nice guy who believes that the only hope for our democracy is the right and the left (I'm not sure there actually is a left in this country) grounding their squabbles by recognizing shared commonalities. If the oligarchs allow it, that is.
Good luck to us all.
Nailed it, Tom. The "Shrinking Trump" podcast folks just mentioned Bondi is a psychopath. It's pretty bad when even these psychologists are amazed.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Thank you for this great article. It expresses exactly how I have been feeling about the current state of our country. Empathy has driven my entire life through a looking glass from an abused child to the abuses being waged towards others by this administration. I hope we can turn this around.
I totally relate! Went to an Indian Boarding School, nuf said?
And yet, you are the one that is a whole person, Bruce. I believe we can because we are equipped.
Sad reality. Only our being awake (dismissed as “stupid” by sociopaths) and acting with gusto,
can this tide of reptilian brain behavior be held at bay. Otherwise we are doomed.
A Danish couple saw my sign at the last rally. It read NO TRUMP NO PUTIN NO MUSK and they stopped to take a pic. We discussed their visit to the states. We didn't talk about Greenland---we talked about this. The wife said "They call us Socialists". I told her most humans are "socialists" and that we didn't get to 8 billion on this planet without cooperating.
They lucked out at the border and did not have to give-up their phone or computers for inspection, but they did know it was a possibility. The trip here was to visit friends and had been planned or they would not have come. They were very happy to see folks at the rally fighting back.
Historian Jon Meacham recently said there is going to be a pendulum effect with the result being a big swing back to the left.
This syndicate of broken, crazy people do not know when to quit. Inflicting pain is giving them pleasure. It also EXPOSES them. We have to use that. The pendulum swinging back to the left will come.
We KNOW each other through the prism of our empathy, and it will guide us. Thanks, Thom.
Thanks Thom for a well timed essay. "Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness" MLK I am editing my remarks to include a great read, an article in the Guardian April 8, 2025 Titled 'Loath they neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy'
I googled "Neoliberalism" and "Dog-eat-dog" together and the AI overview came up with this:
The phrase "dog-eat-dog" is often used to describe a situation where individuals or entities are intensely competitive and ruthless, prioritizing their own survival and success above all else, including the well-being of others. This sentiment is frequently associated with neoliberalism due to its emphasis on individual freedom, free markets, and deregulation, which some argue can lead to a system where individuals are left to fend for themselves in a fiercely competitive environment.
The contra of love is indifference.
The contra of empathy is fear.
From whence comes fear? From the empty terror of the void. What is the primal reaction to terror? Endocrine rage.
What is the void? Separation from the energetic of life. Existence without substance, without connection. TFG is filled with terror of germs, yet its corpus is literally a bacterial penal colony.
It rejects sensitivity but craves all types of attention. Its only true connection is from parasitic sycophants sucking on its fingers and toes. Then it despises and punishes them, sneers at their addiction to itself.
Self-hatred is driving the human artifact we know as TFG. Its acolytes are wallowing in self-hatred. This must be transferred and projected, or else the hosts will die. They contaminate all forms of virtuous life, which is nothing more than lives lived without malice aforethought.
Virtue lives without excess, needs nothing from anything without gifting first.
Parasites are two-dimensional caricatures - they eat, they defecate. They are the contra of expansive existence, which shares all things but possesses nothing.
Practice virtue. With strength and honor. Courage will be waiting to assist you.
Fear. The amygdala.
More Donald = Less empathy.
He's not unlike a raccoon inside a full trash can: The more gluttonous he is, the less he leaves for his brethren [including on the Supreme Court and in Congress,] the better for him.
His ideal? Leave a 100% empty [sparkling, even] can interior — just as he left Atlantic City [AC.]
His and his boss, Vlad's, joint aim is to make the USA the new AC.
An empty "Blade Runner-esque" void, where the streets have no name.
The Technostate of America, aka American Federation in alliance with the Russian Federation.
I would agree with all of the article’s tenets except that America was ‘built on empathy.’ In my opinion, it was built on the belief that America’s lands and riches were free for the taking. Zero empathy was shown to the pre-existing people from whom colonizers took land and timber and game and minerals.
My thoughts exactly
We’ve had ample evidence that countries with empathy are the happiest in the world. Not perfect of course but far superior to the USA. Look at all of the Scandinavian countries, they all have social contracts that provide for all of their citizens. Psychopathic countries usually go down in flames. Greed kills not only the victim but also the aggressor.
Christianity, a religion of pity? Hmm, what universe did Nietzsche live in.
You can visit Christian churches and families and find empathy, but it is selective, only for their own kind "Love thy neighbor as thyself", well that depends on the race, ethnicity, religion, nationality of your neighbor.
Self proclaimed Christians, who believe "if you don' t work, you don't eat", and why should their money go to someone else.
What Nietzsche, didn't understand, that Christianity, and indeed all religions, are subjective manifestations of the believer. Each person fashions their god in their own image, they interpret their religion, scriptures, teachings in a manner which fulfills their needs and assuages their fears.
Where one sees a loving god, another sees a vengeful, vindictive god.
"A Nation Without Empathy Is Just a Crime Syndicate With a Flag"
I hope we all tattoo this truth upon our souls, and never - ever - forget.
Just wrote about this myself Thom. It's interesting to see this headline from you as you have not had a single story regarding the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Nor did you discuss Biden and Harris's inhumane treatment of migrants at the southern border. You spoke against the abolition of ICE, which is now the Gestapo for Trump. So I wonder what your definition of "empathy" is and if its selective application to the inhumanity that only the Republicans and Trump inflict qualifies as empathy or political expediency. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/youre-next-the-blowback-for-the-spiritual