...and instead make the transition from a white-controlled economic and political system to a truly multiracial, multi-religious pluralistic democracy with a stable middle class?
The first thing I recommend is that Kamala starts running against JD Vance and not Trump! I know it is late in the game but Kamala and Tim need to be flexible. It is very apparent that Trump is losing his mind and that the money people want Vance to be dictator for the next 30 years! The commercials that Kamala runs needs to mention a lot of the instances of Trump's mental health failings and that Vance is part of the New World order deep state globalist that gave us "voodoo economics"! Free trade, deficit spending, immigration, tax breaks for the wealthy, drugs, crime, homelessness, obstruction by the GOP, capitalist healthcare, unfunded wars....
The GOP keeps comparing Kamala to Joe Biden, so it's only fair that Kamala compares JD Vance to Donald Trump!
The cult likes Donald Trump for some weird reason? They don't like JD Vance! Trump will be removed with the 25th amendment immediately after the election, if he makes too big of a spectacle of himself. Or gets too demanding from the rich.
Thom, it makes sense that the rich create most of the civil wars. I always thought it was the poor people revolting thanks to Marie Antoinette "let them eat cake"!
I hope they do indeed invoke the 25th A against him. He'll go down kicking and screaming, and his base may express their displeasure in an interesting manner, but the keys to the nuclear arsenal will be taken away from him.
He'll still be running the show, of course, just as he ran the 118th Congress from the golf course, but he won't have the keys.
Never underestimate the Democratic Party to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. The Democratic Party has allowed the rise of homegrown fascism by either indifference, myopia or complicity.
We've spent so much time diagnosing what radicalizes young jihadists in the Middle East, we've overlooked that the same factors, which you identify here, have radicalized nearly half the U.S. We aren't exceptional, we have the same flaws as everyone else, with the same direct line between economic inequality and civil strife. With Project 2025, the right has already started our next civil war; the question is how far we'll let it go before we fight back.
Good point Sabrina. There are two differences between Islamic Jihadists and Christian Jihadists, one is the name of their god, the other is that Islamic Jihadists will die for their cause, and Christian Jihadists are cowards.
The electorate is becoming more "tolerant" as we speak. Rassenreinheit may exist in a few isolated locations in this country, but they are few and far between. All of the white supremacist groups have been infiltrated by federal agencies.
IMHO all the polls are missing a pending registration deluge. Gen Z trends heavily Democratic and can swamp the election. Meanwhile Harris actually leads in senior voters, which was Trump's biggest demographic. Trump underperformed in the primaries, especially In the blue wall states. Recent data shows that Republican defections are more than 10%. New voting gives Democrats a lead. E.G. Pennsylvania. https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2024?state=PA&view_type=state
A general comment about your fondness for referring to the “morbidly rich”: they’re flourishing, even as they poison the rest of us. They should be labeled the “toxic rich.”
What extraordinary times we're living in, there's so many outside entities bombarding the American people this election. The corporate media is No help in getting the Facts and the Truth out, instead,we get only trump coverage 24/7 since 2017 ! This has been a long hard Kick to Democracy. I'm of the mind that the Civil War that's coming, won't succeed, because, I don't think people want to risk jail, injury or death. True there's the White Supremacy grounds out their, but I feel State and local police with SWAT assistant, could squash any real Threat. Let's hope trump loses and the country can start healing with a Harris Walz/ticket, and a Majority in both the House and Senate. Excellent article this morning ☕ Thom and will reStack ASAP 💯👍🇺🇸💙🌊🌊🌊🌊
There will be violence if Trump steals the election (he can't win, he can only steal) he has said so and has empowered his cult. If by chance his attempt to steal is thwarted, his cult will react violently, they have threatened to so so, but this time it will not be an attack on the Capitol in DC but in the streets, directed against, to start, local officials.
As regards State and Local police and SWATteams, evidently you are unfamiliar with the Constittional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, Oath Keepers and their alliance with Proud Boys and Bugaloo Boyz, not to mention the hundreds of right wing Militias, like the Michigan Militia.
Also the cops are conservative, a liberal or progressive cop is as rare as hens teeth, and even black cops are blue first.
Five black Memphis police officers involved in the deadly beating of Tyre Nichols have been indicted by a federal grand jury,
It boils over into the streets, by that I don't mean riots, but taking revenge on neighbors who they have identified as liberals., or who have the 'wrong' bumper stickers, or signs on the lawn, or maybe who aren't flying an American Flag, which as we know is the "true test of a true patriot".
I agree with your piece. Two things that I think are getting overlooked, that should not be, are:
1. Trump is decompensating mentally rapidly. His narcissism has become quasi-delusional and pathetic. His reason for staying in the race is NOT the reason he got into Presidential politics in 2014. Right now, he wants, more than anything in the world, to stay out of jail. Its that simple.
2. If there is anything like a civil war, it will be between those that value people more than money, and those that value money more than people. Fossil fuels, industrialization, and technologization have created a capitalist economic system that has control of the world's institutions currently, and considers the death of millions (or billions, depending on the whether the biosphere survives) collateral damage. Profit is God, and the capitalist oligarchs have declared war on humanity, at the altar of profit. The creation of corporations, in which investors owned the means of production, freed economic entities to disregard the wellbeing of humans (and the biosphere that sustains human life),
and make profit God, and greed the driving force of human life.
Is the civil war already with us? The weapons of war are that of vicious lies vs truth. The soldiers are the gullible vs reality based. Victory must be ours.
Thom et al: I read the Nick Hanauer article from 2020 that you referenced (last week?). What it points out is what I have known, but only anecdotally, not quotably. As you repeat here, over the last 45-50 years, some $50 Trillion has been shifted from the bottom 90% (mainly the middle classes, I would posit) to the top 1%. I'm sure if you drilled down, you'd find that the vast majority of that went to the top tenth of one percent, right?
This didn't happen by the nefarious evil of corporations., but by deliberate policy of the United States government. The amount of money lost in annual wages to people like me in the middle is staggering. In the aggregate, it seems to me, a huge chunk of the aggrieved 90% no longer believe either party, no matter what they are told, because policy after policy has continued and accelerated that steady flow. The message is clear, and depressing. AND, it explains Trumpism pretty damned well.
I keep looking for the ways to explain it all. but first I need to understand it all. Sometimes pieces come in rushes, as with the article I'm quoting followed by the article I'm writing IN. Once you have lost the trust of people, good luck getting it back, but STILL, you have to TRY. Reading out loud to unhappy people from the Hanauer article the wages lost would telegraph TRUE comprehension of the scope of the problem, and if tied to a commitment to begin the process of disconnecting from what created the problem, and beginning the process of FIXING it, you might gain some grudging respect, if only "Well, let's wait and see".
Because ANOCRACY cannot be allowed to stand as a permanent definition for America. It MUST be turned around. And it is NOT just a Republican phenomenon. Worse with them, absolutely, but one has to be in another cult to believe that Democrats are above all that. If they were, the problem would have been named long ago, BY THEM, and pushed back against MUCH harder.
By the way, do you concur, Thom: No mention made at all in Hanauer's article about the speed of money, nor the flagrant offshoring of taxable shifted monies. OUT of tax-paying pockets, into pockets that have no intention of paying taxes at all, which exacerbates the criminally insane extent of the policies that brought us here, made ON PURPOSE, by design, to enrich the few and force a worse life on the many. THAT'S one of the reasons for the loss of revenues to do anything at all.
I don't share your confidence that the Harris/Walz team gets all this, Thom. They are INFINITELY better than Trump, no question, and they have a lot of my money already. But I haven't heard or seen the signals that tell me what I want to hear/see. I keep hoping, but I haven't heard anything close to this yet.
Lastly, I don't hear anyone in these notes here expressing any nervousness about a Christian Nationalist being elected into the White House with a Project 2025 gameplan to concern ourselves with.
My goodness - the comments on her Ted talk video from right wing idiots are more alarming/depressing than the content of the video itself. The most challenging aspect of this problem is that there is a huge chunk of the population that is unwilling to engage in any fact-based conversation and who have gotten themselves worked up into a righteous lather believing that their fellow citizens, who are equally harmed by the corporatocracy, are the true enemy and the source of all of their perceived problems. We all know that it is no accident that they believe this, and we all know who is responsible, but piercing this shield of animosity may prove to be impossible. Nonetheless, giving up is not an option, so we must vote, vote, vote and advocate incessantly for reason and rationality to win.
A civil war is two organized factions fighting each other. Example: The English Civil war of Parliamentarians vs Royalists (Roundheads vs Cavaliers, Cromwell vs King Charles I, the American Civil War, Union vs Confederacy, North vs South
What is in the offing is a Mixed War. We don't hear the term because it is not well known and unthinkable. It is the people against each other or a nation fights against private individuals, such as the Barbary pirates.
The American revolution was a mixed war. Mixed wars involve a combination of state and non-state actors, and can be more difficult to define and regulate than public wars. Wars between nations are public wars.
This country has been embroiled in a mixed war since the Nebraska Missouri Compromise which led to the succession procession and the firing on Ft Sumter.
The civil war settled nothing, it just put the question in hibernation, just as the Treaty of Versaille settled nothing only the hibernation period was a lot shorter.
As communication technology has advanced, the interregnum between events has diminished.
It is dire to say this, and will be met with objections, but there is no solution to the situation that confronts us and democracy today,
Problems have solutions. There is no solution, to a problem caused by biological imperative, other than an end to the anthropocene, which by all reckoning is on the near horizon.
The problems of racism, classism, inequality, misogyny, homophobia can all be sourced to a biological imperative of domination, control. Control and subordination of the female and offspring at bottom of the pyramid, to the domination and control of the group, then the domination and control of the tribe, then the clan, then the nation, then the world.
And it all starts with the biological need for procreation.. We see it in four legged animals, but deny it in two legged animals.
Stallions, bulls, wolves even solitary animals like cats, fight for mating rights, but males of pack and herd animals (social creatures like humans) fight, to the death for domination of the herd or pack.
We really are no different, though we like to tell ourselves we are superior.
This country has been at war with ourselves since 1820, it foments, gathers steam,pressure is raised until it explodes like it did in 1860, pressure was released at the cost of over 600,000 lives, but the heat on the pressure cooker was still there, only turned down, it rose again until 1917, WWI released the pressure, rose again and Dec 7, 1941 released the pressure, Korea 1950 also released pressure Vietnam would have been a pressure release, had it not been for the development of instant news and battlefield reports. 9/11 had the potential, but was mismanaged by Dubya, because he did not have full control over the media, though he did try by forbidding the coverage of funerals and caskets being unloaded from C-141's at Dover AFB, DE.
The info landscape today is anarchy, everyone with a cell phone is a news reporter, a photographer, and instant communication has resulted in tribal factions. Factions who have gravitated to established organized factions. Namely the Republican and Democratic Party.
The war is between the two factions which constitute the members or alliances within those two parties.
And shots have already been fired. The first shot fired was by Kyle Rittenhouse. I am not ignoring the blue on black violence, or the Stonewall Rios, or Ruby Ridge, or WACO, or the Bundy Standoff's.
Kyle fired the first civilian shot,and got away with it, unpunished and has been made a hero and lionized.
Whether Trump wins or loses, there will be violence. If he wins, he will seek revenge and his cult will do the same on their enemy.. the libs and their coalition. If He loses his cult and he will not accept the results and will take to the streets and do a better job than last time, lessons learned and Jan 6 was a trial run for them.
My fear is that the election interference laws and schemes put in place the last 4 years, will result in Congress deciding with a Contingent Election., each state has one vote and their are more red states than blue.
Our saving grace is that the polls haven't been honest or accurate, and there is a blue tsunami, in which we not only trounce Trump, but also take back control of Congress.
There is always hope in massive blue voting turnout.
There are significant number of Republicans voting for Harris, but I fear that down ticket they will vote Republican.
The closest thing to national hostilities occurred in 1968. Riots from coast to coast, border to border. The George Floyd riots paled by comparison, but many of them were caused by white supremacists manipulating rage.
Trump has called for revenge many times since Jan 6, and so far nobody answered the call. When he made the call at his arraignment here in Baghdad By the Sea, the riot capitol of America, not even the Proud Boys showed up. Same for NYC and Hotlanta.
The term "Civil War" is not what I'm envisioning. Seems like Trump is following Hitler's pattern--the big lie, the same un-analytical, stream of consciousness rhetorical style, the same "strong man will save you" approach, the same ultra-nationalism and scapegoating, just for starters. His ex-wife testified in a deposition that he kept "My New Order" for bedside reading. So, what I expect is that after the election, whether he wins or loses, he will incite his Proud Boys and Oath Keeper (who are standing by) to start attacking Left (and woke) targets. It won't be court houses; they are too well defended. It will be drag shows, gay bars, immigrants, protests, libraries that house the wrong books, school boards that don't comply. Defenseless people. The only way for the Left to win against such attacks is through non violence because that keeps the sympathy of the public on the victim and the blame on the perpetrator. (Remember Martin Luther King?) But could the Left exercise such self-control? If they don't, then there will be mayhem, and, as in Germany, there will be a call for a crackdown. For Hitler, that meant the right to arrest his enemies, which he did, and it was all over. How could he do that if he doesn't win? Mike Johnson is only two bullets away from the White House. For Trump's evil, there is no bottom. Imagine the worst.
Again, why not use the Libertarian slogans in the final days of campaign: NO GOVERNMENT! NO TAXES! NO SERVICES! Think about it. VOTE BLUE (before it's too late)
Mark Twain reminded his audience that there are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics. Most of the angst over the cost of living today is due to inflation - i.e., likely psychological. Statistically, we have a higher standard of living today than yesteryear if we adjust backwards for inflation to gain perspective.
For example, the median annual income in 1950 was about $3,000. Adjusted for inflation that comes to roughly $40,000 today. But today, the median income is about $60,000. Thus, in inflation-adjusted dollars, Americans are earning more today than in 1950. Even if one adjusts for inequality, and eliminates billionaires, the number would likely still be well above $40,000.
A Boomer, I was 3-years-old in 1950. My folks starter home in the Chicago suburbs was a 2BR 1BA 850 sqft new building with a tiny kitchen. Today the average house has 3-4 bedrooms; not just 2. Another sobering fact is that the year I graduated from college in 1970 my annual tuition (which I paid for by working part-time year-round, was $6,000. Again, adjusted for inflation, it had not increased at all - $41,000/yr. Of course, in contrast to $6,000, $41K today sounds outrageous - $160K!
As for 2-income families, by 1956, my mom returned to teaching 1st Grade as dad's career edged along. By 1964 we had 2 cars in the driveway (a Mustang and a Maverick). Our second house was a twice the size of our previous one. It is hard not to speculate that most anger over the economy is perhaps fueled by envy and/or greed seeded all day and night by advertising gushing into our heads from the MSM - our phones, radio, TV, and the internet. I cannot help hearing in the back of my 77-year-old brain Janis Joplin singing "Lord, wontcha buy me a Mercedes Benz. My friends all have Porches - I must make amends."
Good ole days Tom. First car was 53 Merc cost $500 in 58, then a 56 Ford for about the same in 1960, then a 60 Corvair in 63 $700, it tried to kill me so I bought a brand new 65 Mustang in 65, $2,000, automatic and a 289 . traded it in for 66 Ford station wagon, then a 1970 Maverick for $,4500 , my first second car was a 78 Pinto bought in an overseas Base Exchange picked up in Charleston about $3,000.
Assumed a loan on a 3 BR Rambler with car port for $9,000 in 1962, bought a house still being built for $35,000 in 1978.
Cars now cost High $20,000's to $60,000 and the house I paid $35,000 for is now taxed for $240,000.
After 130,000 miles and 13 years I sold my Maverick for $500, one spark plug change, stick shift and used the clutch to hold on hills, one brake change,
The only way to get that kind of mileage these days is to buy a Honda or Toyota.
I had two Chrysler Town and Countries, the transmission doesn't' last 60,000 miles, the second one was bought brand new in 2013 and the transmission went out in less than 10,000 miles
I have a 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser, 22,000 miles, the key fob mother board went out at 20,000 miles, the seat belt indicator will come on when I am belted, the clock sometimes work and sometimes doesn't. A month ago I had to buy new tires,though the tread was like new, because they had delaminated.
Chrysler products are crap. Back in the 1950's - 1970's planned obsolescence was putting out a new model, on the old chassis and motor, every year or two,or adding chrome. Today it is sending the car to the junk yard, while you are still paying off the loan.
On the other hand, virtuously the entire petit bourgeois middle American middle class of shopkeepers was lost starting in the 50's. Main street America was eaten by companies like Walmart, K-Mart, etc. Same for the railroads, once the most important industry in the US. Pennsylvania Railroad, New York Central went from blue chips to bankruptcy in about 2 years. Tens of thousands of small manufacturers were bankrupted by tax policies and by unfair competition by big business. The employees of say, Packard, Crosley, Studebaker, Westinghouse, Frigidaire, Dumont, etc never recovered.
Imagine being the employee of a polluting industry. What was/ is the life expectancy in a given industry.
Lots of other injustices. My patents, my brother and I lost almost everything when Mexico devalued the peso in 1982 and refused to let Americans repatriate more than $500. Thanks in part to El Presidente Reagan.
You know my story Daniel. I love my fathers family, poor white folk, salt of the earth types, not a mean bone in their families, I never detected any racism, except from my Southern Baptist preacher uncle.
But the family were among first settlers of Ashley Co, great grandpa homesteaded 160 acres which he sold, 4 yrs later,to a carpet bagger from Des Moines that built a saw mill, which attracted workers from as far away as Leake Co, MS and that is my grandfather met my grandmother at a Xmas church get together.
Such functions had the primary purpose of bachelors meeting young ladies before they became spinsters.
Well over time the Crossett Lumber Company was sold to Charles and David Koch under the guise of Georgeia Pacific, and commenced to spewing carcinogens into the air and water, and every family that lives in Crossett has had someone died from cancer. In my case and Aunt, three first cousins and more 2nd cousins than I can count. Crossett was once called the Cancer Capital of America, a distinction now claimed by Kentuky.
During the war the Uncle in law and my uncle in fact, moved to Pt Neches,TX to
work in the oil refineries that just came on line to support (and profit from) the war effort.
And again my uncle died from Hodgkins Disease, he worked as a pipe fitter in the Texaco refinery, and all but one of my cousins has died from cancer,mostly brain cancer. The one that didn't moved to Nederland and doesn't work or live near the refinery.
My point is that the need to make a living is so strong, that people will risk a painful death and a short life. Just ask the current residents of cancer alley, and the men of Kentucky and West Virginia to climb into the earth to get black lung disease.
Or how about the jobless camped on San Francisco Bay, while the Golden Gate was being built, just hoping and waiting for some hapless worker to fall to his death
.
Or the people who suffer hunger, deprivation and risk death to migrate north, just for the possibility of a job.
Well, money can buy anyone, even if it means risking death.
So goes the employee of a polluting industry. How about those field hands and tractor drivers who spray Round up.?
You are right that most cars have a 6-year life span until they are ready to retire to Mexico. After grad school in 1980, I started driving used luxury sedans with 3-year warranties (Audis and Lexus's). They were cheaper to own and get fixed for free - using the rigged system to live better; not broker. And, as you point out - that strategy avoided indenturement because I could afford to pay cash.
I have three vehicles the newest is a 2020 F150, bought used and bought with cash.
Had 90,000 miles on it, but mechanical like new, probably a drug seizure. I will drive all of the vehicles until the wheels fall off. We have one credit card, and never carry a balance, it is used primarily for online shipping., and we shop a lot., have to because there is basically nothing local, and the market almost always is out of stock on things we use.
Keeping up with the Jones's seems to be the American Way,not mine though, not at all interested in what the Jones's do or have.
I know this, the more you have the more debt you have, for most, and the more debt you have, the more insecure you are, and you are basically a slave to your income source., you can't afford to change horses, or take a breather.
I never gave the Joneses a second thought. I just worked to be useful to others as an organizational psychologist. Along the way I made some money fixing up my houses to ensure frequent moves would show a little profit vs a loss. I also made some profitable investments besides my IRA. I only have one 4-year-old Mercedes at our Florida house and a 6-year old Traverse in the garage of our house in Europe.
I know what you mean Tomonthebeach. I bought a house for $33,000 and sold it 13 years later for $175,000 used the profit to pay off the mortgage on my other home, and the excess to fix it up, with a Walkin Tub and other embellishments.
Due to your transformation into a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, presumably to "protect democracy" from the ravages of Trump as you and your minions scold anyone who prefers to vote for Jill Stein or anyone but the two monsters on the ballot, your diagnostics are completely off. It is not Trump who is starting the Civil War, but the Democrats (and Republicans of course) who failed to address the needs of the working class and marginalized communities. And if you're going to tell me that a political party that makes excuses for its leadership's warmongering and embrace of Republican neocons and torturers due to the threat of Trump, I will tell you that telling half-truths about history and targeting Trump as the cause of the problem instead of the symptom is why the Democratic Party has a self-serving, vacuous warmonger as its anointed candidate. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/kamala-harris-is-going-to-blow-up
Boris, that is the beauty of democracy. We can change the future if we win the executive, Congress and Senate! The rich know it also! They plan on taking their stolen loot with them up to heaven when they die, somehow? Our only chance and it's a small one is to get Kamala elected, Jill Stein will not be elected and a dictator is not an option!
Barry, you're partly correct that the neoliberals caused the Trump cult. However, Trump, Vance, and other wealthy oligarchs are our immediate and foremost problems. A movement to give power back to the people is less likely to grow under a dictator.
The obstruction of policies to help the Americans formerly called middle class originated inside the Republican Party, which is a coalition of wealthy capitalists who use populist rhetoric and cultural wedge issues to serve their own interests. The long term push to move the SC to the right, combined with automatic resort to the filibuster to block legislation that would serve the interests of the people have now achieved their intended goal…establishing a faux-constitutional basis for a fascist takeover. Thom correctly identified the 2010 Citizens United ruling as a critical step. Others included opening the floodgates for gun ownership, allowing unchecked gerrymandering and voting suppression, and finally immunizing a unitary executive from prosecution for vaguely defines official acts taken in office. The Dobbs decision will hopefully be their fatal misstep, because women can still vote, for now.
How much is trump paying you to infiltrate and attack a site that believes supporting Trump is a descent into hell? Both parties have disappointed us equally until one resorted to Trump. Republicans get the evil prize.
The first thing I recommend is that Kamala starts running against JD Vance and not Trump! I know it is late in the game but Kamala and Tim need to be flexible. It is very apparent that Trump is losing his mind and that the money people want Vance to be dictator for the next 30 years! The commercials that Kamala runs needs to mention a lot of the instances of Trump's mental health failings and that Vance is part of the New World order deep state globalist that gave us "voodoo economics"! Free trade, deficit spending, immigration, tax breaks for the wealthy, drugs, crime, homelessness, obstruction by the GOP, capitalist healthcare, unfunded wars....
The GOP keeps comparing Kamala to Joe Biden, so it's only fair that Kamala compares JD Vance to Donald Trump!
The cult likes Donald Trump for some weird reason? They don't like JD Vance! Trump will be removed with the 25th amendment immediately after the election, if he makes too big of a spectacle of himself. Or gets too demanding from the rich.
Thom, it makes sense that the rich create most of the civil wars. I always thought it was the poor people revolting thanks to Marie Antoinette "let them eat cake"!
I agree Bob, Kamala needs to run against Vance, but in a smart way, it is up to the PACS though, to get down and dirty.
I hope they do indeed invoke the 25th A against him. He'll go down kicking and screaming, and his base may express their displeasure in an interesting manner, but the keys to the nuclear arsenal will be taken away from him.
He'll still be running the show, of course, just as he ran the 118th Congress from the golf course, but he won't have the keys.
Never underestimate the Democratic Party to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. The Democratic Party has allowed the rise of homegrown fascism by either indifference, myopia or complicity.
OK. Now someone get the idea to the Harris Campaign, today.
We've spent so much time diagnosing what radicalizes young jihadists in the Middle East, we've overlooked that the same factors, which you identify here, have radicalized nearly half the U.S. We aren't exceptional, we have the same flaws as everyone else, with the same direct line between economic inequality and civil strife. With Project 2025, the right has already started our next civil war; the question is how far we'll let it go before we fight back.
Good point Sabrina. There are two differences between Islamic Jihadists and Christian Jihadists, one is the name of their god, the other is that Islamic Jihadists will die for their cause, and Christian Jihadists are cowards.
Backwards Christian soldiers.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8-I2nK0qRQ
Ans. Yes.
The electorate is becoming more "tolerant" as we speak. Rassenreinheit may exist in a few isolated locations in this country, but they are few and far between. All of the white supremacist groups have been infiltrated by federal agencies.
We can create a blue tsunami. Just encourage more people to register and vote. Still registering Democrats in selected states. https://www.mobilize.us/ft6/?q=phone%20banks&tag_ids=20038
IMHO all the polls are missing a pending registration deluge. Gen Z trends heavily Democratic and can swamp the election. Meanwhile Harris actually leads in senior voters, which was Trump's biggest demographic. Trump underperformed in the primaries, especially In the blue wall states. Recent data shows that Republican defections are more than 10%. New voting gives Democrats a lead. E.G. Pennsylvania. https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2024?state=PA&view_type=state
More. https://www.mobilize.us/
A general comment about your fondness for referring to the “morbidly rich”: they’re flourishing, even as they poison the rest of us. They should be labeled the “toxic rich.”
What extraordinary times we're living in, there's so many outside entities bombarding the American people this election. The corporate media is No help in getting the Facts and the Truth out, instead,we get only trump coverage 24/7 since 2017 ! This has been a long hard Kick to Democracy. I'm of the mind that the Civil War that's coming, won't succeed, because, I don't think people want to risk jail, injury or death. True there's the White Supremacy grounds out their, but I feel State and local police with SWAT assistant, could squash any real Threat. Let's hope trump loses and the country can start healing with a Harris Walz/ticket, and a Majority in both the House and Senate. Excellent article this morning ☕ Thom and will reStack ASAP 💯👍🇺🇸💙🌊🌊🌊🌊
# See you soon on FStv 👈!
There will be violence if Trump steals the election (he can't win, he can only steal) he has said so and has empowered his cult. If by chance his attempt to steal is thwarted, his cult will react violently, they have threatened to so so, but this time it will not be an attack on the Capitol in DC but in the streets, directed against, to start, local officials.
As regards State and Local police and SWATteams, evidently you are unfamiliar with the Constittional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, Oath Keepers and their alliance with Proud Boys and Bugaloo Boyz, not to mention the hundreds of right wing Militias, like the Michigan Militia.
Also the cops are conservative, a liberal or progressive cop is as rare as hens teeth, and even black cops are blue first.
Five black Memphis police officers involved in the deadly beating of Tyre Nichols have been indicted by a federal grand jury,
Not streets but predictably state capitals.
It boils over into the streets, by that I don't mean riots, but taking revenge on neighbors who they have identified as liberals., or who have the 'wrong' bumper stickers, or signs on the lawn, or maybe who aren't flying an American Flag, which as we know is the "true test of a true patriot".
Yes, by cutting off the Head of the Snake.
Speaking of reptiles.....
https://www.tiktok.com/@debbieforflorida/video/7426243292779597099
Great ad Daniel.
Totally agree !!
I agree with your piece. Two things that I think are getting overlooked, that should not be, are:
1. Trump is decompensating mentally rapidly. His narcissism has become quasi-delusional and pathetic. His reason for staying in the race is NOT the reason he got into Presidential politics in 2014. Right now, he wants, more than anything in the world, to stay out of jail. Its that simple.
2. If there is anything like a civil war, it will be between those that value people more than money, and those that value money more than people. Fossil fuels, industrialization, and technologization have created a capitalist economic system that has control of the world's institutions currently, and considers the death of millions (or billions, depending on the whether the biosphere survives) collateral damage. Profit is God, and the capitalist oligarchs have declared war on humanity, at the altar of profit. The creation of corporations, in which investors owned the means of production, freed economic entities to disregard the wellbeing of humans (and the biosphere that sustains human life),
and make profit God, and greed the driving force of human life.
Outstanding analysis, Thom. Thank you as always!
Is the civil war already with us? The weapons of war are that of vicious lies vs truth. The soldiers are the gullible vs reality based. Victory must be ours.
Thom et al: I read the Nick Hanauer article from 2020 that you referenced (last week?). What it points out is what I have known, but only anecdotally, not quotably. As you repeat here, over the last 45-50 years, some $50 Trillion has been shifted from the bottom 90% (mainly the middle classes, I would posit) to the top 1%. I'm sure if you drilled down, you'd find that the vast majority of that went to the top tenth of one percent, right?
This didn't happen by the nefarious evil of corporations., but by deliberate policy of the United States government. The amount of money lost in annual wages to people like me in the middle is staggering. In the aggregate, it seems to me, a huge chunk of the aggrieved 90% no longer believe either party, no matter what they are told, because policy after policy has continued and accelerated that steady flow. The message is clear, and depressing. AND, it explains Trumpism pretty damned well.
I keep looking for the ways to explain it all. but first I need to understand it all. Sometimes pieces come in rushes, as with the article I'm quoting followed by the article I'm writing IN. Once you have lost the trust of people, good luck getting it back, but STILL, you have to TRY. Reading out loud to unhappy people from the Hanauer article the wages lost would telegraph TRUE comprehension of the scope of the problem, and if tied to a commitment to begin the process of disconnecting from what created the problem, and beginning the process of FIXING it, you might gain some grudging respect, if only "Well, let's wait and see".
Because ANOCRACY cannot be allowed to stand as a permanent definition for America. It MUST be turned around. And it is NOT just a Republican phenomenon. Worse with them, absolutely, but one has to be in another cult to believe that Democrats are above all that. If they were, the problem would have been named long ago, BY THEM, and pushed back against MUCH harder.
By the way, do you concur, Thom: No mention made at all in Hanauer's article about the speed of money, nor the flagrant offshoring of taxable shifted monies. OUT of tax-paying pockets, into pockets that have no intention of paying taxes at all, which exacerbates the criminally insane extent of the policies that brought us here, made ON PURPOSE, by design, to enrich the few and force a worse life on the many. THAT'S one of the reasons for the loss of revenues to do anything at all.
I don't share your confidence that the Harris/Walz team gets all this, Thom. They are INFINITELY better than Trump, no question, and they have a lot of my money already. But I haven't heard or seen the signals that tell me what I want to hear/see. I keep hoping, but I haven't heard anything close to this yet.
Lastly, I don't hear anyone in these notes here expressing any nervousness about a Christian Nationalist being elected into the White House with a Project 2025 gameplan to concern ourselves with.
My goodness - the comments on her Ted talk video from right wing idiots are more alarming/depressing than the content of the video itself. The most challenging aspect of this problem is that there is a huge chunk of the population that is unwilling to engage in any fact-based conversation and who have gotten themselves worked up into a righteous lather believing that their fellow citizens, who are equally harmed by the corporatocracy, are the true enemy and the source of all of their perceived problems. We all know that it is no accident that they believe this, and we all know who is responsible, but piercing this shield of animosity may prove to be impossible. Nonetheless, giving up is not an option, so we must vote, vote, vote and advocate incessantly for reason and rationality to win.
A civil war is two organized factions fighting each other. Example: The English Civil war of Parliamentarians vs Royalists (Roundheads vs Cavaliers, Cromwell vs King Charles I, the American Civil War, Union vs Confederacy, North vs South
What is in the offing is a Mixed War. We don't hear the term because it is not well known and unthinkable. It is the people against each other or a nation fights against private individuals, such as the Barbary pirates.
The American revolution was a mixed war. Mixed wars involve a combination of state and non-state actors, and can be more difficult to define and regulate than public wars. Wars between nations are public wars.
This country has been embroiled in a mixed war since the Nebraska Missouri Compromise which led to the succession procession and the firing on Ft Sumter.
The civil war settled nothing, it just put the question in hibernation, just as the Treaty of Versaille settled nothing only the hibernation period was a lot shorter.
As communication technology has advanced, the interregnum between events has diminished.
It is dire to say this, and will be met with objections, but there is no solution to the situation that confronts us and democracy today,
Problems have solutions. There is no solution, to a problem caused by biological imperative, other than an end to the anthropocene, which by all reckoning is on the near horizon.
The problems of racism, classism, inequality, misogyny, homophobia can all be sourced to a biological imperative of domination, control. Control and subordination of the female and offspring at bottom of the pyramid, to the domination and control of the group, then the domination and control of the tribe, then the clan, then the nation, then the world.
And it all starts with the biological need for procreation.. We see it in four legged animals, but deny it in two legged animals.
Stallions, bulls, wolves even solitary animals like cats, fight for mating rights, but males of pack and herd animals (social creatures like humans) fight, to the death for domination of the herd or pack.
We really are no different, though we like to tell ourselves we are superior.
This country has been at war with ourselves since 1820, it foments, gathers steam,pressure is raised until it explodes like it did in 1860, pressure was released at the cost of over 600,000 lives, but the heat on the pressure cooker was still there, only turned down, it rose again until 1917, WWI released the pressure, rose again and Dec 7, 1941 released the pressure, Korea 1950 also released pressure Vietnam would have been a pressure release, had it not been for the development of instant news and battlefield reports. 9/11 had the potential, but was mismanaged by Dubya, because he did not have full control over the media, though he did try by forbidding the coverage of funerals and caskets being unloaded from C-141's at Dover AFB, DE.
The info landscape today is anarchy, everyone with a cell phone is a news reporter, a photographer, and instant communication has resulted in tribal factions. Factions who have gravitated to established organized factions. Namely the Republican and Democratic Party.
The war is between the two factions which constitute the members or alliances within those two parties.
And shots have already been fired. The first shot fired was by Kyle Rittenhouse. I am not ignoring the blue on black violence, or the Stonewall Rios, or Ruby Ridge, or WACO, or the Bundy Standoff's.
Kyle fired the first civilian shot,and got away with it, unpunished and has been made a hero and lionized.
Whether Trump wins or loses, there will be violence. If he wins, he will seek revenge and his cult will do the same on their enemy.. the libs and their coalition. If He loses his cult and he will not accept the results and will take to the streets and do a better job than last time, lessons learned and Jan 6 was a trial run for them.
My fear is that the election interference laws and schemes put in place the last 4 years, will result in Congress deciding with a Contingent Election., each state has one vote and their are more red states than blue.
Our saving grace is that the polls haven't been honest or accurate, and there is a blue tsunami, in which we not only trounce Trump, but also take back control of Congress.
There is always hope in massive blue voting turnout.
There are significant number of Republicans voting for Harris, but I fear that down ticket they will vote Republican.
The closest thing to national hostilities occurred in 1968. Riots from coast to coast, border to border. The George Floyd riots paled by comparison, but many of them were caused by white supremacists manipulating rage.
Trump has called for revenge many times since Jan 6, and so far nobody answered the call. When he made the call at his arraignment here in Baghdad By the Sea, the riot capitol of America, not even the Proud Boys showed up. Same for NYC and Hotlanta.
The term "Civil War" is not what I'm envisioning. Seems like Trump is following Hitler's pattern--the big lie, the same un-analytical, stream of consciousness rhetorical style, the same "strong man will save you" approach, the same ultra-nationalism and scapegoating, just for starters. His ex-wife testified in a deposition that he kept "My New Order" for bedside reading. So, what I expect is that after the election, whether he wins or loses, he will incite his Proud Boys and Oath Keeper (who are standing by) to start attacking Left (and woke) targets. It won't be court houses; they are too well defended. It will be drag shows, gay bars, immigrants, protests, libraries that house the wrong books, school boards that don't comply. Defenseless people. The only way for the Left to win against such attacks is through non violence because that keeps the sympathy of the public on the victim and the blame on the perpetrator. (Remember Martin Luther King?) But could the Left exercise such self-control? If they don't, then there will be mayhem, and, as in Germany, there will be a call for a crackdown. For Hitler, that meant the right to arrest his enemies, which he did, and it was all over. How could he do that if he doesn't win? Mike Johnson is only two bullets away from the White House. For Trump's evil, there is no bottom. Imagine the worst.
Again, why not use the Libertarian slogans in the final days of campaign: NO GOVERNMENT! NO TAXES! NO SERVICES! Think about it. VOTE BLUE (before it's too late)
Mark Twain reminded his audience that there are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics. Most of the angst over the cost of living today is due to inflation - i.e., likely psychological. Statistically, we have a higher standard of living today than yesteryear if we adjust backwards for inflation to gain perspective.
For example, the median annual income in 1950 was about $3,000. Adjusted for inflation that comes to roughly $40,000 today. But today, the median income is about $60,000. Thus, in inflation-adjusted dollars, Americans are earning more today than in 1950. Even if one adjusts for inequality, and eliminates billionaires, the number would likely still be well above $40,000.
A Boomer, I was 3-years-old in 1950. My folks starter home in the Chicago suburbs was a 2BR 1BA 850 sqft new building with a tiny kitchen. Today the average house has 3-4 bedrooms; not just 2. Another sobering fact is that the year I graduated from college in 1970 my annual tuition (which I paid for by working part-time year-round, was $6,000. Again, adjusted for inflation, it had not increased at all - $41,000/yr. Of course, in contrast to $6,000, $41K today sounds outrageous - $160K!
As for 2-income families, by 1956, my mom returned to teaching 1st Grade as dad's career edged along. By 1964 we had 2 cars in the driveway (a Mustang and a Maverick). Our second house was a twice the size of our previous one. It is hard not to speculate that most anger over the economy is perhaps fueled by envy and/or greed seeded all day and night by advertising gushing into our heads from the MSM - our phones, radio, TV, and the internet. I cannot help hearing in the back of my 77-year-old brain Janis Joplin singing "Lord, wontcha buy me a Mercedes Benz. My friends all have Porches - I must make amends."
Good ole days Tom. First car was 53 Merc cost $500 in 58, then a 56 Ford for about the same in 1960, then a 60 Corvair in 63 $700, it tried to kill me so I bought a brand new 65 Mustang in 65, $2,000, automatic and a 289 . traded it in for 66 Ford station wagon, then a 1970 Maverick for $,4500 , my first second car was a 78 Pinto bought in an overseas Base Exchange picked up in Charleston about $3,000.
Assumed a loan on a 3 BR Rambler with car port for $9,000 in 1962, bought a house still being built for $35,000 in 1978.
Cars now cost High $20,000's to $60,000 and the house I paid $35,000 for is now taxed for $240,000.
After 130,000 miles and 13 years I sold my Maverick for $500, one spark plug change, stick shift and used the clutch to hold on hills, one brake change,
The only way to get that kind of mileage these days is to buy a Honda or Toyota.
I had two Chrysler Town and Countries, the transmission doesn't' last 60,000 miles, the second one was bought brand new in 2013 and the transmission went out in less than 10,000 miles
I have a 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser, 22,000 miles, the key fob mother board went out at 20,000 miles, the seat belt indicator will come on when I am belted, the clock sometimes work and sometimes doesn't. A month ago I had to buy new tires,though the tread was like new, because they had delaminated.
Chrysler products are crap. Back in the 1950's - 1970's planned obsolescence was putting out a new model, on the old chassis and motor, every year or two,or adding chrome. Today it is sending the car to the junk yard, while you are still paying off the loan.
On the other hand, virtuously the entire petit bourgeois middle American middle class of shopkeepers was lost starting in the 50's. Main street America was eaten by companies like Walmart, K-Mart, etc. Same for the railroads, once the most important industry in the US. Pennsylvania Railroad, New York Central went from blue chips to bankruptcy in about 2 years. Tens of thousands of small manufacturers were bankrupted by tax policies and by unfair competition by big business. The employees of say, Packard, Crosley, Studebaker, Westinghouse, Frigidaire, Dumont, etc never recovered.
Imagine being the employee of a polluting industry. What was/ is the life expectancy in a given industry.
Lots of other injustices. My patents, my brother and I lost almost everything when Mexico devalued the peso in 1982 and refused to let Americans repatriate more than $500. Thanks in part to El Presidente Reagan.
You know my story Daniel. I love my fathers family, poor white folk, salt of the earth types, not a mean bone in their families, I never detected any racism, except from my Southern Baptist preacher uncle.
But the family were among first settlers of Ashley Co, great grandpa homesteaded 160 acres which he sold, 4 yrs later,to a carpet bagger from Des Moines that built a saw mill, which attracted workers from as far away as Leake Co, MS and that is my grandfather met my grandmother at a Xmas church get together.
Such functions had the primary purpose of bachelors meeting young ladies before they became spinsters.
Well over time the Crossett Lumber Company was sold to Charles and David Koch under the guise of Georgeia Pacific, and commenced to spewing carcinogens into the air and water, and every family that lives in Crossett has had someone died from cancer. In my case and Aunt, three first cousins and more 2nd cousins than I can count. Crossett was once called the Cancer Capital of America, a distinction now claimed by Kentuky.
During the war the Uncle in law and my uncle in fact, moved to Pt Neches,TX to
work in the oil refineries that just came on line to support (and profit from) the war effort.
And again my uncle died from Hodgkins Disease, he worked as a pipe fitter in the Texaco refinery, and all but one of my cousins has died from cancer,mostly brain cancer. The one that didn't moved to Nederland and doesn't work or live near the refinery.
My point is that the need to make a living is so strong, that people will risk a painful death and a short life. Just ask the current residents of cancer alley, and the men of Kentucky and West Virginia to climb into the earth to get black lung disease.
Or how about the jobless camped on San Francisco Bay, while the Golden Gate was being built, just hoping and waiting for some hapless worker to fall to his death
.
Or the people who suffer hunger, deprivation and risk death to migrate north, just for the possibility of a job.
Well, money can buy anyone, even if it means risking death.
So goes the employee of a polluting industry. How about those field hands and tractor drivers who spray Round up.?
You are right that most cars have a 6-year life span until they are ready to retire to Mexico. After grad school in 1980, I started driving used luxury sedans with 3-year warranties (Audis and Lexus's). They were cheaper to own and get fixed for free - using the rigged system to live better; not broker. And, as you point out - that strategy avoided indenturement because I could afford to pay cash.
I have three vehicles the newest is a 2020 F150, bought used and bought with cash.
Had 90,000 miles on it, but mechanical like new, probably a drug seizure. I will drive all of the vehicles until the wheels fall off. We have one credit card, and never carry a balance, it is used primarily for online shipping., and we shop a lot., have to because there is basically nothing local, and the market almost always is out of stock on things we use.
Keeping up with the Jones's seems to be the American Way,not mine though, not at all interested in what the Jones's do or have.
I know this, the more you have the more debt you have, for most, and the more debt you have, the more insecure you are, and you are basically a slave to your income source., you can't afford to change horses, or take a breather.
I never gave the Joneses a second thought. I just worked to be useful to others as an organizational psychologist. Along the way I made some money fixing up my houses to ensure frequent moves would show a little profit vs a loss. I also made some profitable investments besides my IRA. I only have one 4-year-old Mercedes at our Florida house and a 6-year old Traverse in the garage of our house in Europe.
I know what you mean Tomonthebeach. I bought a house for $33,000 and sold it 13 years later for $175,000 used the profit to pay off the mortgage on my other home, and the excess to fix it up, with a Walkin Tub and other embellishments.
Due to your transformation into a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, presumably to "protect democracy" from the ravages of Trump as you and your minions scold anyone who prefers to vote for Jill Stein or anyone but the two monsters on the ballot, your diagnostics are completely off. It is not Trump who is starting the Civil War, but the Democrats (and Republicans of course) who failed to address the needs of the working class and marginalized communities. And if you're going to tell me that a political party that makes excuses for its leadership's warmongering and embrace of Republican neocons and torturers due to the threat of Trump, I will tell you that telling half-truths about history and targeting Trump as the cause of the problem instead of the symptom is why the Democratic Party has a self-serving, vacuous warmonger as its anointed candidate. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/kamala-harris-is-going-to-blow-up
Boris, that is the beauty of democracy. We can change the future if we win the executive, Congress and Senate! The rich know it also! They plan on taking their stolen loot with them up to heaven when they die, somehow? Our only chance and it's a small one is to get Kamala elected, Jill Stein will not be elected and a dictator is not an option!
Barry, you're partly correct that the neoliberals caused the Trump cult. However, Trump, Vance, and other wealthy oligarchs are our immediate and foremost problems. A movement to give power back to the people is less likely to grow under a dictator.
Pretzel logic from Putin.
Jill Stein and anyone else you may favor is a Putin asset Boris.
Here she is with the traitor MikeFlynn enjoying dinner with Putin and other Russian bigwigs.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-flynn-putin-n742696
Why don't you tell the truth about Putin being a self serving, imperialist war monger.?
William I just got my voters pamphlet in the mail today in Arizona State. Jill Stein and some guy Ware? Is her vice president. I didn't expect that!
Barry,
The obstruction of policies to help the Americans formerly called middle class originated inside the Republican Party, which is a coalition of wealthy capitalists who use populist rhetoric and cultural wedge issues to serve their own interests. The long term push to move the SC to the right, combined with automatic resort to the filibuster to block legislation that would serve the interests of the people have now achieved their intended goal…establishing a faux-constitutional basis for a fascist takeover. Thom correctly identified the 2010 Citizens United ruling as a critical step. Others included opening the floodgates for gun ownership, allowing unchecked gerrymandering and voting suppression, and finally immunizing a unitary executive from prosecution for vaguely defines official acts taken in office. The Dobbs decision will hopefully be their fatal misstep, because women can still vote, for now.
How much is trump paying you to infiltrate and attack a site that believes supporting Trump is a descent into hell? Both parties have disappointed us equally until one resorted to Trump. Republicans get the evil prize.