So, Donald Trump won Iowa. A crazed billionaire who wants to “suspend the constitution“ and claims the right to a murder his political enemies. It doesn’t have to be this way.
The other evening a group of several friends and acquaintances of mine were talking about the reign of the wealthiest over the rest of the population , formerly middle class but now on Social Security retirement .
Several people in discussing this outrage kept saying they’ve realized ‘ that this is the way it is’, and they’ve accepted it . Accepted it.
Needless to say I would be surprised if they didn’t notice the fact that this quiet conversation became rather aggravated when my eyes popped out and fell on the floor.
This attitude speaks to the biggest problem we have in our country and the world, right now .
We’ve been beaten into submission by the wealthiest super-corporate club in the history of our country .
I know we’re older ( senior) citizens of this nation. But JMJ , give me a break . The fact that the corrupt Supreme Court has been going along with this is a dismal commentary on the possibility of change.
I know, I’m tired too of the constant violent crazy of Trump and his followers, but I’m not willing to sit on my old butt and just watch it happen .
So today I’m going to find a group of progressive Democrats and find out what else I can do to fight the scourge that is Trump and his new ( used to be ) Republican s.
They should be renamed the Destroyers. Because they are, of hopes and dreams , of education being the great equalizer. Of Diversity , of inclusion.
The Native Americans who were plundered by the great white armies that were the leaders of our early country made serious errors and threatened a group of people who believed in the land the air and protecting nature were plowed out of the way hundreds of years ago and are still fighting to take or retake their rightful place in this society.
We can do better and we must. African American leaders are right we’ve gone backwards in equality and any attempt at stronger together .
The trashing of LGBTQ folks is abhorrent .
We can do better . And we must. Thank you Tom Hartmann for bringing the truth and dragging it into the light . We must do better.
I still think he's a flight risk. He faces 32 felony counts in NY March 25. 90% odds he will lose the immunity appeal. He has a 50/50 chance he will lose the Colorado ballot case. He has at most a 4% chance to win if he is tried in DC.
He's back in NY today. His civil exposure is huge, and at a minimum he'll have to post a supersedeas bond of 120% of the amount of judgment.
So far nobody has waged a character campaign, which could finish him off politically.
If von trump is out of the race and finally go to jail, his replacement will NOT be much better I fear. Billionaires will not bow to the will of the people, unless we start taxing them adequately. More fund for IRIS. Less money for the merchants of death. Jail for the cheaters. And I am no communist btw. Lol
I fear the "Nikki Haley seems rational" reaction. Especially since, bless her, Kamala Harris is as charmless and hard to listen to as a right-minded lady could be. I have been peeping about Amy Klobuchar, but apparently this is her re-election cycle, so understandable she's standing pat. The inability for wider consciousness to "get it" that Joe Biden has done pretty darn well is perplexing.
The Democratic party lives in a never never land, and like Peter Pan has never grown up. This not Dwight David Eisenhower's America, and hasn't been since Nixon, and yet the Democratic Party acts like it is.
You would think that with the stats Thom posted above, that America would be bending over backwards to elect Democrats, but it is all tied up in a culture war, fomented by Incels (white Christian males and their camp followers) and Democrats have not a clue.
The way to win a war is to take the fight to the enemy, not by playing nice, or on your enemies grounds and rules.
Democrats can't really fight, because they are beholden to the same wealthy donors as the Republicans. What we really have is a uni-party. Each side has a different story they tell their voters, but at the end of it all, they serve the money. It's all about the SCOTUS. Look at the corruption of Thomas. It is so very blatant. He gets luxuries from the wealthy oligarchs and he gives them favorable decisions in return. The idea that he could be given millions in grift and that grift would not affect his voting is absurd. People like Harlan Crowe would not give Thomas a penny unless he was getting something in return - this goes for Alito, Kavenaugh and Roberts, as well.
I reluctantly agree Suzie, the only difference I see is which side of the culture war each part is on. Republicans are on the patriarchal, theocratic, misogynistic, racist, homophobic side, and some Democrats are on the DEI side.
And that is the only reason I care anymore
I discovered back in the 1960's that Dems and Pubs were two sides of the same coin, humpty and dumpty.
After the 1964 election I stopped voting,until 2016 when I watched the orange cretic come down the elevator and declare Mexicans were rapists and drug mules, then I registered to vote, and to be honest I voted against Trump in 2016 and again in 2020, and will do so again this year. My vote is not for anyone,but against Trump.
The Progressive causus had my attention and even voted for Pramila Jayapal, but she disappoints turning against Biden for bring the war the Houti's want, to the Houti's.
That did with the progressive Caucus, Ro Kahana, Mark Pocan, but I am not in their district.
The Democrats have had over 50 years to ensure reproductive rights of women. We elect them to office and then they do nothing. Obama ran on and promised to protect our rights. After we elected he said reproductive rights weren't "a priority" and he was unwilling spend political capital to protect half the population. This is what they all do, I assume because it keeps getting them votes. TBH, I am at the point of not voting. That the Democrats will take care of the citizenry is mostly a lie at this point. They are marginally better than the Republicans, but just marginally. They are selling the same fear as the other side, just in the opposite direction. I am beyond tired of hearing I MUST vote Democrat or else it's the end of the country. Democrats are mealy-mouth and impotent with a learned sense of helplessness.
I don't think it's fair to blame failure "to ensure reproductive rights" on the Dems. After all, Roe was "settled law," right? No Dem. lied in our faces about that. Other betrayals weigh heavy, surely: Joe Biden crushing Anita Hill; Hillary C. voting for "shock and awe" on Iraq; Obama's economics boys Goldman Sachs Tweedle Dee Larry Summers and Tweedle Dum Tim Geithner: so much for HOPE! and CHANGE!. "Pander" is the name of the game. Now the biggest pander wave I know of ever has utterly possessed the Republican (remnant) Party.
I don't disagree about the other betrayals you have mentioned, but it does support my assertion. I have watched 50 years of helplessness on the part of Democrats. "We can't" seems to be their motto. I DO blame dems for our current position; they had many years to get it right and all of the sudden, NOW they care? Before it was always lip service.
I totally agree with you Suzie, in my opinion it is the elite, the billionaires, executives, that run the show. And as I said, I did't vote from 1965 to 2016, and the only reason I do is because I know for a fact, yes I am prescient, a tea leaf reader, a fortune teller that if Trump wins it is game over for not just Democracy but for you and me.
As regards the country, patriotism, society, abstract concepts that mean different things to different people, and they are not the sum of their parts, for if they are then the body politic is cancer ridden.
If people don't care about themselves and their own lives and well being, then why should I care about them? Almost half the country and the narcissistic psychopath,, whom they worship have declared war on me, and you.
And I can't just lay down and roll over without fighting. I have a survival instinct.
I don't disagree William. But survival cannot be guaranteed when the party that is suppose to support us is merely right-wing light and hampered by whining, learned helplessness and constant excuses. They think adhering to the status quo will save us. It will not. I don't advocate for our country falling apart, but that is what is going to happen because the Democrats have no spine. They are not doing their jobs in confronting and containing the MAGA/NeoConfederacy. Personally, I think the red states should secede and we should let them go. They will collapse without blue state money.
Your lights are on. Reading the posts on several forums the last few months, I worry for the fight that's coming. The key word is fight, but the emphasis on the liberal left vacillates between 'hope' and 'faith'. Cheerleaders are good, but the game is fought and won by the players, not the cheerleaders. As I see it, there is not much of a team on the floor. Reading the posts, minding the 'like' button, there is a massive surplus of likes for posts that are mostly sis-boom-bah, with very little hits calling for meaningful participation, active local articipation, knives needed for a knife fight--not boxes of tissue passed for weeping. More than a few posters criticized posts that were "depressing" which may speak for the many--that feelings are more important than an active response to the very real threat, an end to American Democracy via fascist coup. Currently, I watch for posts daring to speak of corporations, of corporate malfeasance, corporate mendacity, the real criminality of today's capitalism, and generally outing of who the real, largely still unhidden, powers behind the coup are, beyond the decoy of Trump, who is more than a pawn, more a useful tool. The redneckery of Trumps thugs is real enough, but the meat of that is mainly threat. A fight taken to corporate beings can be waged, their vulnerabilty the bottom line.
I have always stated that Trump is the 'catalyst.' You can change BUT I think it is too late.
Education in the US is so BACKWARD and yet you spend more money on it than any other country.
Why are the so-called 'rednecks' so illiterate/hate welfare etc?
I posit:
America has never been able to 'genuinely' been able to have a conversation with these people. (I know this only because I have read enough literature to know how they view the US)
I actually 'feel' for them. Out in Appalachia women were 'ostracized' by the American intelligentsia, they did not have a voice. They were ostracized by men (head of the families) and thought of as useful chattel, not much different from slaves.They had to make a living.
100's of women (who managed to get out) did this on their own with NO help from any party or family. They simply ran away from: incest/rape/misogynist sheriffs etc.
Why is it that the middle class 'so called' intellectuals did not go into these places and explain. MY only answer is because they were in fear.
Trump (as much as I dislike the man) figured this out.
My last point is: YOU have never had a democracy because it was easier to forget these people.
I'm tired of hearing about the poor, put-upon MAGA. We get endless articles about this. Why don't we hear about the poor, put-opon liberals? They are out there and we never hear about how they've been ignored. MAGA are pursuing policies out of grievance and hatred and those policies harm me and my children. My GAS for them is at zero. They saw change coming and refused to ready themselves. The rest of us have had to compromise and learn different ways of being and living to meet modern times. Often, we have had to move to find work. There is no law of nature that says people don't have to change and that their previous lifestyles need to be protected. Appalatian women don't need to control everyone else's lives.
Economist Paul Samuelson said "Science advances one funeral at a time." Same can be said of societal change. We are entering the first post-Covid and large group of Gen Z.
The corporate press drives while looking the rear view mirror. We may well be surprised this time around. Countering the constant barrage of flooding the zone stuff out of St. Petersburg and Moscow will be a significant challenge.
I remember Samuelson, econ 102, Econon 101 was Friedman quite the contrast
Where does GenZ and Millenials get their info from? Not the TV. TV watchers are old farts like me, the Silents and Boomers
Which propaganda floods the social media Zone? Right Wing (Trump) or Liberal (Democrat)
I don't have a social media account, my wife does, and what she sees mostly is right wing propaganda.
You are correct about the press, and I will ad, there life blood is advertising, and who has the money to advertise? The very people that want tax cuts for the rich and to do with the "administrative state" that regulates them.
You know the saying" If it bleeds it leads", The media would be nothing without the horse race, and where none exists they create it, with the help of their partners in crime, the polling agencies, both depend on the horse race for revenue.
Remember the media and polling companies are owned by corporations, who own corporations, who own corporations, you really have to drill down deep tot find who owns who and get to real people, and even then you don't you get o trusts, and private equity fund.
I am going to mention what I mention to Mmerose below. The Democrats have won every popular vote since Bill Clinton, with the except of Duby'as second term (because he was a war time president), it is the electoral college that votes for president, and the Republicans have
pushed through over 300 voter suppression laws, and chased out independent electoral commissioners and vote counters, and jerry mandering will keep Congress Republican.
You are right about Flooding the Zone from Russia. They are popping their heads up, even on substack, and they know how to tailor their message to "liberals"
Trenchant, and again. I wonder, at this moment, is the worst in human nature actually the return to the mean? Covid is underestimated as a watershed in culture. I am repeatedly confronted with reckless driving as an aftermath. The "rear view mirror" is doubly distorted by the plague and the new media helpless against malicious propaganda, as you refer to.
Here is a thought. Consider the Earth as a living being. Call her Gaia. The species have named themselves Homo Sapiens or Wise Man) although that designation is arrogant and narcississtic, because it is the only species that is destroying the very environment in which it lives and needs to survive. dig holes in Gaia, we pollute the environment which pollutes the food on which we and other species dependents, we pollute the water we drink, the air we breathe, we destroy the food chain which nourishes other creatures, about one million species per year go extinct.
We have flooded the atmosphere with heavy gases, that will cause mammalian species to go extinct, and we can't stop, we won't stop, because we live for today and to hell with the morrow.
We thrust ourselves headlong into belief systems (secular and sectarian), and believe that those that are not with us are against us, or at least a threat to our hegemony and/or existence.
And we slay each other over these systems,and for land and the property of others.
This is not going to end well.
Meanwhile Gaia cooks up her own ways to hasten human extinction, we call them virus and bacteria. Virus are not life, not living organisms as we define them, but they multiply an d mutate, no sooner than we identify and immunize against one strain, than it mutates and becomes another strain.
You can't kill an idea, nor can you kill a virus.
And if the virus doesn't kill you. Mankind is committing suicide, not just suicide but the extinction of life on Earth, at least the so called "lower" life forms.,life will survive, at least until the sun dies, but not in the form we recognize without an electron microscope
Myself I have 84 trips around the sun, and precious few left. I do intend to spend the remaining few as comfortable as I possible can. Like the song said "I didn't start the fire" and I certainly can't put it out.
You know, ol' Jimmy Carville was on Ari today, pointing out that America HAS been electing Democrats. A lot, for quite some time. At time of broadcast, results of a state leg. election in Florida not in. Later, confirmation Dem. won. Special election to replace Santos in NY next month. What I fear is the gerrymandering, disenfranchisement, and other voter suppression manipulations.
Overall, the number of states that enacted restrictive or election interference legislation — 12 — was the same number that enacted expansive legislation — 12. By and large, those were different states, as some states continue to make it easier to vote, while others continue to make it harder to vote and easier to interfere in elections. In the four states (Arizona, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina) that enacted laws with both restrictive and expansive provisions, the restrictive measures outweighed the expansive ones. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-december-2022
It is going to be a slog.
The Swing states are really in play, and that includes OH and NC which leans Red. and abortion is the issue that the Democrats should be hammering, it could turn around even the Red states, like MO, in fact I would say it is the issue that will save this country.
I wish all that were having an impact — or maybe “hope” it is , ‘cause maybe it is.
I also wish he were a flight risk … I’d love to see him run away! I seriously doubt his Secret Service protection cadre would go with him. He’d be out in the world trying to survive with no one but his privately hired security people … Maybe some American private militia guys would try to fill the bill. I could see them getting tired of it and going home …
Yeah, if Donnie tried to run, that would be a sh*t show worth seeing…..
Convictions, though … those could do it. If we can break through the Green Screen Reality of people who only see what is projected and not what is really there.
I don’t see us reaching his loyal base — that cult following is just about a lost cause — but they are not as numerous as the noise he and they make might suggest.
We need to reach the disaffected people in our country.
Democrats have to make a case for what they're selling. A good case!
Sorry but that's naive. Mar a Lago is 12 miles from international water. He knows that if he loses in NY, he could be sentenced by June. If a court determines that he is a flight risk, he could be detained immediately and he knows it.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea are many "spooks" who have made people disappear, only to pop up later in a jurisdiction that does not have extradition. In my novel Miami '90, I extricate a prisoner from a Cuban prison. Based on fact. It's also within the realm of possibilities that the Secret Service has been compromised.
OK I'm probably in the "politically incorrect" zone, but Mormons are born and bred authoritarian followers, and down through the years I have accumulated an impression that Mormans are overrepresented in government security agencies including the Secret Service, and like you say....
Wow, Daniel, I’m trying NOT to think that far down on the scale …. Not that I could argue with you, though … Please stop triggering my stress. Lie to me. I need to head off another bout of adrenaline-induced A-fib …
MSNBC has been noting that there is an indication that even among die-hard Trump caucusers in Iowa, about a third WOULD consider him unfit to serve if CONVICTED. I won't tell you to hold your breath about what case is actually going to make it to trial before the election, but how's this shaping up for SUSPENSE!
It's a broken record: Trump's kid gloves treatment. What felony defendant in multiple cases WITH HIS OWN PLANE and very nice habitations abroad would not have had his passport confiscated? Of course, if he told you: "I turned over all my passports," yeah, right.....
There’s a problem of “perception” vs. “reality” going on, too.
People remember hearing us tell them that the elections of the past twenty-five years — especially the past twenty-five years — have been critical for holding onto our democracy. CRITICAL for holding onto it!!
And the cry has been, “The Supreme Court, people!! We must not lose the Supreme Court!”
That was accurate — and a real danger, capable of putting us on the path to autocracy.
So, we DID lose the Supreme Court anyway {in part because we NEVER thought someone would be as outrageous and brazen as Mitch McConnell, who trampled on our first Black president’s right to name someone to the court, and we let McConnell get away with it.}
Now, we are saying again that the coming election can be a make-or-break event for our entire democracy. Some folks still hear us asking them to vote defensively, and they are tired of it. But they have to do it anyway!!!!!
This has the potential to be the final vote that matters in our democracy, if they don’t vote defensively!!! Republicans want to usher in the age of The Unitary Presidency and relegate our constitution to the status of “quaint and irrelevant.”
THIS ELECTION IS THE ONE!
We can’t elect a Republican — ANY Republican — to the presidency.
We shouldn’t elect them to anything else this year, either, but the fewer who are elected the better.
If we manage to undo the autocrats and hold onto our government, maybe some in the Republican Party will grab it back from the crazies.
We can only hope.
But the reality is, we don’t have the luxury of being tired of voting pragmatically instead of ideally. Pragmatism is what works.
We can’t afford a Republican president in 2024. We can’t afford a Republican Senate. We can’t afford a Republican House.
Thom, it’s good to hear that Poland is making a positive change towards actually representing it’s people and that it has done so through an election. Thank you for your chart regarding the percentages of Americans who basically agree on certain key issues in this country. I have found the same thing talking to people - most of whom are Republicans. It’s the lies and manipulation by the bought and paid for right wing media in this country which is driving such a wedge between Americans.
Unfortunately, the American system with two senators from every state, the electoral college, and the ability to gerrymander, put a man in the White House, who did not win a majority of the vote, who then placed on the Supreme Court ideological partisans that took away women’s rights. The founding fathers were afraid of democracy. This is the system they gave us.
People might not want to hear it but it is true BillyN. The founders were afraid of Democracy, but left us a democratic Republic. And folk are unaware of what a Republic entails. It is rule by the nations wise men, meaning the elite, at the time of the founding that was property owning men, most of whom were white, though there were some property owning free blacks, but that all ended, in the south, in 1832 with the Nat Turner Rebellion and the re enslavement of free, often slave owning planter, blacks.
As I commented previously, Thomas Jefferson visited a Baptist business meeting in Danville, Pittsylvania Co., VA and came away disabused of pure democracy. the compromise was democracy for the entitled, the property owning male. It took 3 Amendments, the 15th, 19th and 26th to make America a full Democracy, almost, except the 13th did permit enslavement of persons convicted of a crime.
Re "Since those five corrupt Republicans on the Court also ruled in Citizens United that corporations are “persons” with nearly-full access to the Bill of Rights — including the right to use money to pay off politicians (the Republicans on the Court call it First Amendment-protected “free speech”). . . ."
Why has no one pointed out that corporations cannot "speak" and so do not merit free speech rights. Yes, I know that corporation executives "speak" for the corporations but they already have free speech rights for themselves. Are they to get a double dose of speech? Soon to be followed by a double dose of voting? Even if the Board of Governors votes on what speech those corporations are to "share," those governors already have free speech rights, so why is that doubled by allowing them rights through their corporations?
Corporations have no minds, no thoughts, no ability to speak, so why would a business fiction (claiming rights of individuals to die and be reborn?) be extended to areas in which corporations cannot participate?
Another well-researched and presented essay, Thom. Thank you so much.
“[W]e believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.”
I believe we have never really been a democratic society; we've had the illusion that our votes would matter, but clearly they do not. Gerrymandering is a crime against the citizens and the county in this regard - so blatantly corrupt, yet SCOTUS has deemed this not only constitutional, but has opened the floodgates to corruption via political bribery. SCOTUS itself is the criminal element in all this and how the oligarchs have seized control. They are a wholly-owned arm of the Federalists, who see the ideal as rule by oligarchy and an army of barely-existing peasants to do their will. .
This is where capitalism always goes - all resources aggregated in fewer and fewer hands. It must be some sort of law of nature, as we see it repeatedly in history. This continues until collapse.
The more I read in Mr. Hartmann’s reports, the more I see in the morbidly-rich owned and controlled big media, the more I am coming to the conclusion TFG and his minions, allies and posterior puckerers are going to win in November. Ifear change will come only when things get truly desperate for enough people. When it does, it will be neither via the ballot box or the law. And its aftermath may be no better, if there is an aftermath. I could never be a Communist, because it presumes a basic goodness in humanity that isn’t there, but Marx may have been right in saying a revolution only happens when things get so bad they are unbearable. I do not relish the prospect. Not so much out of concern for myself, as my health problems are sufficiently bad and annoying that leaving this life will be a relief for me, but for those I will leave behind, especially my adored kindergarten grandson. I want to be optimistic. But in the face of the virtually unfettered power of the morbidly rich, I simply cannot be.
"...presumes a basic goodness in humanity..." I happen to have posted somewhere above a reflection of this: "Is the worst in human nature actually return to the mean?" Gaza is challenging our (who is we?) threshold of what is "unbearable."
We must donate money to help the Lincoln project air anti dictatorship commercials, if we are to have any chance at all since Garland and Biden did not prosecute the traitors. I would support a democratically run media blitz, but so far don't see any? American people are in a fight for their lives, with both hands tied behind their back! Is there still time for Joe Biden to step down?
A dictatorship can take your guns, harvest your organs, chop you up in a bathroom, rape you, make you into a slave, steal your children, send you off to war, send you to a concentration camp, exterminate you, end the minimum wage, end social security, end food stamps, while feeding you toxic food, air and water!
"If this sounds good to you, vote Republican!" ?
All in 30 seconds, while asking for more donations, in writing on the screen. Have the commercials advertised on the cheaper antenna TV Western, sports and old TV channels. More bang for the buck!
Better hitting is replaying his comments of “suckers and losers” overlaid on pictures of trump in Arlington with General Kelly. Also, another ad with Trump’s comment about keeping wounded soldiers off camera “because they were depressing” or whatever he said. The losers and suckers one is the best because trump is running for President for narcissistic reasons he has no sense of personal responsibility.
Something like 80% of veterans support Trump, so it's a hard sell.
I am a Vietnam veteran. I'm in a DNC veteran's discussion group. That stuff works for us but 2/3 of households have pets and IMHO identify with the kid first.
If you're a veteran sign up for Coffee Talk - Veterans and Military Families for Biden/Harris 2024.
Great to see that Poland has joined the strong democracy club. I work a lot in the Baltics and am amazed at how committed the countries are to democracy. The memories of brutal Soviet repression are still within living memory and it clearly makes a difference.
There are billionaires all over Europe---many of them in Scandinavia. Democratic socialism does not seem to be an impairment to getting filthy stinking rich. We need to learn how to use these stats as well as the ones in this Report. We know what the majority wants, and it's time to pound that home. When the right talks about what is patriotic and "American", we need to whip out the statistics listed and then proceed to further explain how rich people live in countries with health care and adequate social services. We could point out that if people in these other countries can have pretty things, we can figure-out how to do it even better.
We KNOW the rhetoric the right is vulnerable to, and it's time to use it. They want to be morbidly rich, so why not point out that no one has stopped that from happening anywhere in the world? Time to convince them they and their kids can get rich faster if they have some health care and an education.
OR, we can just tell them F-U. We will move on without them, eventually. I just hate to think of the pain involved waiting for the demographics to change.
Two things popped into mind. First, post-Iowa, the EU appears to be taking seriously the threat of Trump dumping them and NATO thinking he will make America rich again (almost surely the opposite is likely). That could, as Putin hopes, open the back door to the USSR. Second, if we ever do start acting like adults and neuter Citizens United, we risk becoming reactionary if we go overboard trying to replace MAGAland with a real democracy.
If we lose our focus on 3 or 4 economic issues to campaign on and repeat the message over and over and over again, the Dem low information base voters will not come out same as 2022. Biden needs to lead the party with getting the issues of the campaign and do the repeating until election day. Do that and no problem.
The question is valid but again you use your bully pulpit as propaganda favoring a president who is working for the wrong people. His student debt relief program is a sham., a means-tested nightmare of beauraucracy requiring an application process which already guaranteed that all who were eligible would not receive benefits (trick #1). Then it took two months to get the application process online from the time the program was "rolled out" allowing sufficient time for legal challenges (trick #3). Then Biden gets press for relieving a tiny sliver of debt by correcting a clerical error which was being legally challenged (trick #3). Even if the program were not challenged in the courts, which the administration knew it would be, Biden's program as written would have addressed less than 15% of all student loan debt, bringing the burden from $1.7 trillion to more than $1.5 trillion. If Bernie Sanders or even Elizabeth Warren were president, they would have wiped it all out with their pen which would have been virtually impossible to challenge legally. The reason you have Trump who terrifies you so is that Democrats are phonies and are working for the morbidly rich themselves while throwing scraps to us peasants.
The other evening a group of several friends and acquaintances of mine were talking about the reign of the wealthiest over the rest of the population , formerly middle class but now on Social Security retirement .
Several people in discussing this outrage kept saying they’ve realized ‘ that this is the way it is’, and they’ve accepted it . Accepted it.
Needless to say I would be surprised if they didn’t notice the fact that this quiet conversation became rather aggravated when my eyes popped out and fell on the floor.
This attitude speaks to the biggest problem we have in our country and the world, right now .
We’ve been beaten into submission by the wealthiest super-corporate club in the history of our country .
I know we’re older ( senior) citizens of this nation. But JMJ , give me a break . The fact that the corrupt Supreme Court has been going along with this is a dismal commentary on the possibility of change.
I know, I’m tired too of the constant violent crazy of Trump and his followers, but I’m not willing to sit on my old butt and just watch it happen .
So today I’m going to find a group of progressive Democrats and find out what else I can do to fight the scourge that is Trump and his new ( used to be ) Republican s.
They should be renamed the Destroyers. Because they are, of hopes and dreams , of education being the great equalizer. Of Diversity , of inclusion.
The Native Americans who were plundered by the great white armies that were the leaders of our early country made serious errors and threatened a group of people who believed in the land the air and protecting nature were plowed out of the way hundreds of years ago and are still fighting to take or retake their rightful place in this society.
We can do better and we must. African American leaders are right we’ve gone backwards in equality and any attempt at stronger together .
The trashing of LGBTQ folks is abhorrent .
We can do better . And we must. Thank you Tom Hartmann for bringing the truth and dragging it into the light . We must do better.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
I agree. It doesn’t have to be this way, but so many of us are caught up in the daily need to survive that we don’t have time to do much else.
Well then.........expect a dictatorship!
That concerns me.
Then DO something!
I still think he's a flight risk. He faces 32 felony counts in NY March 25. 90% odds he will lose the immunity appeal. He has a 50/50 chance he will lose the Colorado ballot case. He has at most a 4% chance to win if he is tried in DC.
He's back in NY today. His civil exposure is huge, and at a minimum he'll have to post a supersedeas bond of 120% of the amount of judgment.
So far nobody has waged a character campaign, which could finish him off politically.
If von trump is out of the race and finally go to jail, his replacement will NOT be much better I fear. Billionaires will not bow to the will of the people, unless we start taxing them adequately. More fund for IRIS. Less money for the merchants of death. Jail for the cheaters. And I am no communist btw. Lol
Unions are the answer.
I have watched the US for years with regard to Unionis. Oh my god they are Socialists!!!
IF you want corporations to pay Unions are the answer. Forget congress etc.
What if:
He runs from jail? or
He runs from Abu Dhabi?
Divided party!
I fear the "Nikki Haley seems rational" reaction. Especially since, bless her, Kamala Harris is as charmless and hard to listen to as a right-minded lady could be. I have been peeping about Amy Klobuchar, but apparently this is her re-election cycle, so understandable she's standing pat. The inability for wider consciousness to "get it" that Joe Biden has done pretty darn well is perplexing.
The Democratic party lives in a never never land, and like Peter Pan has never grown up. This not Dwight David Eisenhower's America, and hasn't been since Nixon, and yet the Democratic Party acts like it is.
You would think that with the stats Thom posted above, that America would be bending over backwards to elect Democrats, but it is all tied up in a culture war, fomented by Incels (white Christian males and their camp followers) and Democrats have not a clue.
The way to win a war is to take the fight to the enemy, not by playing nice, or on your enemies grounds and rules.
Democrats can't really fight, because they are beholden to the same wealthy donors as the Republicans. What we really have is a uni-party. Each side has a different story they tell their voters, but at the end of it all, they serve the money. It's all about the SCOTUS. Look at the corruption of Thomas. It is so very blatant. He gets luxuries from the wealthy oligarchs and he gives them favorable decisions in return. The idea that he could be given millions in grift and that grift would not affect his voting is absurd. People like Harlan Crowe would not give Thomas a penny unless he was getting something in return - this goes for Alito, Kavenaugh and Roberts, as well.
I reluctantly agree Suzie, the only difference I see is which side of the culture war each part is on. Republicans are on the patriarchal, theocratic, misogynistic, racist, homophobic side, and some Democrats are on the DEI side.
And that is the only reason I care anymore
I discovered back in the 1960's that Dems and Pubs were two sides of the same coin, humpty and dumpty.
After the 1964 election I stopped voting,until 2016 when I watched the orange cretic come down the elevator and declare Mexicans were rapists and drug mules, then I registered to vote, and to be honest I voted against Trump in 2016 and again in 2020, and will do so again this year. My vote is not for anyone,but against Trump.
The Progressive causus had my attention and even voted for Pramila Jayapal, but she disappoints turning against Biden for bring the war the Houti's want, to the Houti's.
That did with the progressive Caucus, Ro Kahana, Mark Pocan, but I am not in their district.
The Democrats have had over 50 years to ensure reproductive rights of women. We elect them to office and then they do nothing. Obama ran on and promised to protect our rights. After we elected he said reproductive rights weren't "a priority" and he was unwilling spend political capital to protect half the population. This is what they all do, I assume because it keeps getting them votes. TBH, I am at the point of not voting. That the Democrats will take care of the citizenry is mostly a lie at this point. They are marginally better than the Republicans, but just marginally. They are selling the same fear as the other side, just in the opposite direction. I am beyond tired of hearing I MUST vote Democrat or else it's the end of the country. Democrats are mealy-mouth and impotent with a learned sense of helplessness.
I don't think it's fair to blame failure "to ensure reproductive rights" on the Dems. After all, Roe was "settled law," right? No Dem. lied in our faces about that. Other betrayals weigh heavy, surely: Joe Biden crushing Anita Hill; Hillary C. voting for "shock and awe" on Iraq; Obama's economics boys Goldman Sachs Tweedle Dee Larry Summers and Tweedle Dum Tim Geithner: so much for HOPE! and CHANGE!. "Pander" is the name of the game. Now the biggest pander wave I know of ever has utterly possessed the Republican (remnant) Party.
I don't disagree about the other betrayals you have mentioned, but it does support my assertion. I have watched 50 years of helplessness on the part of Democrats. "We can't" seems to be their motto. I DO blame dems for our current position; they had many years to get it right and all of the sudden, NOW they care? Before it was always lip service.
I totally agree with you Suzie, in my opinion it is the elite, the billionaires, executives, that run the show. And as I said, I did't vote from 1965 to 2016, and the only reason I do is because I know for a fact, yes I am prescient, a tea leaf reader, a fortune teller that if Trump wins it is game over for not just Democracy but for you and me.
As regards the country, patriotism, society, abstract concepts that mean different things to different people, and they are not the sum of their parts, for if they are then the body politic is cancer ridden.
If people don't care about themselves and their own lives and well being, then why should I care about them? Almost half the country and the narcissistic psychopath,, whom they worship have declared war on me, and you.
And I can't just lay down and roll over without fighting. I have a survival instinct.
I don't disagree William. But survival cannot be guaranteed when the party that is suppose to support us is merely right-wing light and hampered by whining, learned helplessness and constant excuses. They think adhering to the status quo will save us. It will not. I don't advocate for our country falling apart, but that is what is going to happen because the Democrats have no spine. They are not doing their jobs in confronting and containing the MAGA/NeoConfederacy. Personally, I think the red states should secede and we should let them go. They will collapse without blue state money.
Your lights are on. Reading the posts on several forums the last few months, I worry for the fight that's coming. The key word is fight, but the emphasis on the liberal left vacillates between 'hope' and 'faith'. Cheerleaders are good, but the game is fought and won by the players, not the cheerleaders. As I see it, there is not much of a team on the floor. Reading the posts, minding the 'like' button, there is a massive surplus of likes for posts that are mostly sis-boom-bah, with very little hits calling for meaningful participation, active local articipation, knives needed for a knife fight--not boxes of tissue passed for weeping. More than a few posters criticized posts that were "depressing" which may speak for the many--that feelings are more important than an active response to the very real threat, an end to American Democracy via fascist coup. Currently, I watch for posts daring to speak of corporations, of corporate malfeasance, corporate mendacity, the real criminality of today's capitalism, and generally outing of who the real, largely still unhidden, powers behind the coup are, beyond the decoy of Trump, who is more than a pawn, more a useful tool. The redneckery of Trumps thugs is real enough, but the meat of that is mainly threat. A fight taken to corporate beings can be waged, their vulnerabilty the bottom line.
Greg Palast? Stacy Abrams? Democracydocket.com? Some noses to the grindstone are out there.
Tell that to the DNC.
I have always stated that Trump is the 'catalyst.' You can change BUT I think it is too late.
Education in the US is so BACKWARD and yet you spend more money on it than any other country.
Why are the so-called 'rednecks' so illiterate/hate welfare etc?
I posit:
America has never been able to 'genuinely' been able to have a conversation with these people. (I know this only because I have read enough literature to know how they view the US)
I actually 'feel' for them. Out in Appalachia women were 'ostracized' by the American intelligentsia, they did not have a voice. They were ostracized by men (head of the families) and thought of as useful chattel, not much different from slaves.They had to make a living.
100's of women (who managed to get out) did this on their own with NO help from any party or family. They simply ran away from: incest/rape/misogynist sheriffs etc.
Why is it that the middle class 'so called' intellectuals did not go into these places and explain. MY only answer is because they were in fear.
Trump (as much as I dislike the man) figured this out.
My last point is: YOU have never had a democracy because it was easier to forget these people.
I'm tired of hearing about the poor, put-upon MAGA. We get endless articles about this. Why don't we hear about the poor, put-opon liberals? They are out there and we never hear about how they've been ignored. MAGA are pursuing policies out of grievance and hatred and those policies harm me and my children. My GAS for them is at zero. They saw change coming and refused to ready themselves. The rest of us have had to compromise and learn different ways of being and living to meet modern times. Often, we have had to move to find work. There is no law of nature that says people don't have to change and that their previous lifestyles need to be protected. Appalatian women don't need to control everyone else's lives.
Economist Paul Samuelson said "Science advances one funeral at a time." Same can be said of societal change. We are entering the first post-Covid and large group of Gen Z.
The corporate press drives while looking the rear view mirror. We may well be surprised this time around. Countering the constant barrage of flooding the zone stuff out of St. Petersburg and Moscow will be a significant challenge.
Here is the comment I was referring to https://hartmannreport.com/p/can-democracy-survive-the-morbidly-204/comment/47481550?r=9q8rt
I remember Samuelson, econ 102, Econon 101 was Friedman quite the contrast
Where does GenZ and Millenials get their info from? Not the TV. TV watchers are old farts like me, the Silents and Boomers
Which propaganda floods the social media Zone? Right Wing (Trump) or Liberal (Democrat)
I don't have a social media account, my wife does, and what she sees mostly is right wing propaganda.
You are correct about the press, and I will ad, there life blood is advertising, and who has the money to advertise? The very people that want tax cuts for the rich and to do with the "administrative state" that regulates them.
You know the saying" If it bleeds it leads", The media would be nothing without the horse race, and where none exists they create it, with the help of their partners in crime, the polling agencies, both depend on the horse race for revenue.
Remember the media and polling companies are owned by corporations, who own corporations, who own corporations, you really have to drill down deep tot find who owns who and get to real people, and even then you don't you get o trusts, and private equity fund.
I am going to mention what I mention to Mmerose below. The Democrats have won every popular vote since Bill Clinton, with the except of Duby'as second term (because he was a war time president), it is the electoral college that votes for president, and the Republicans have
pushed through over 300 voter suppression laws, and chased out independent electoral commissioners and vote counters, and jerry mandering will keep Congress Republican.
You are right about Flooding the Zone from Russia. They are popping their heads up, even on substack, and they know how to tailor their message to "liberals"
Trenchant, and again. I wonder, at this moment, is the worst in human nature actually the return to the mean? Covid is underestimated as a watershed in culture. I am repeatedly confronted with reckless driving as an aftermath. The "rear view mirror" is doubly distorted by the plague and the new media helpless against malicious propaganda, as you refer to.
Here is a thought. Consider the Earth as a living being. Call her Gaia. The species have named themselves Homo Sapiens or Wise Man) although that designation is arrogant and narcississtic, because it is the only species that is destroying the very environment in which it lives and needs to survive. dig holes in Gaia, we pollute the environment which pollutes the food on which we and other species dependents, we pollute the water we drink, the air we breathe, we destroy the food chain which nourishes other creatures, about one million species per year go extinct.
We have flooded the atmosphere with heavy gases, that will cause mammalian species to go extinct, and we can't stop, we won't stop, because we live for today and to hell with the morrow.
We thrust ourselves headlong into belief systems (secular and sectarian), and believe that those that are not with us are against us, or at least a threat to our hegemony and/or existence.
And we slay each other over these systems,and for land and the property of others.
This is not going to end well.
Meanwhile Gaia cooks up her own ways to hasten human extinction, we call them virus and bacteria. Virus are not life, not living organisms as we define them, but they multiply an d mutate, no sooner than we identify and immunize against one strain, than it mutates and becomes another strain.
You can't kill an idea, nor can you kill a virus.
And if the virus doesn't kill you. Mankind is committing suicide, not just suicide but the extinction of life on Earth, at least the so called "lower" life forms.,life will survive, at least until the sun dies, but not in the form we recognize without an electron microscope
Myself I have 84 trips around the sun, and precious few left. I do intend to spend the remaining few as comfortable as I possible can. Like the song said "I didn't start the fire" and I certainly can't put it out.
.
You know, ol' Jimmy Carville was on Ari today, pointing out that America HAS been electing Democrats. A lot, for quite some time. At time of broadcast, results of a state leg. election in Florida not in. Later, confirmation Dem. won. Special election to replace Santos in NY next month. What I fear is the gerrymandering, disenfranchisement, and other voter suppression manipulations.
https://www.270towin.com/
Dem's have 226 Electoral votes, Repubs 235, it takes 270 to win. 6 States are independent
GA,PA, MI,WI, NV, AZ and all states have been the subject of voter suppression laws.
Democrats need to pick up 44 electoral votes and Republicans 35.
AZ and GA have Republican legislatures
PA and MI are split
WI is blue,, so is Nevada
Republicans only need 35 votes. GA has sixteen and AZ 11, GA has a RepuGov, AZ a Democrat
AZ and GA have enacted Voter Restrictive and Voter interference laws, More details here:
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-december-2022
Overall, the number of states that enacted restrictive or election interference legislation — 12 — was the same number that enacted expansive legislation — 12. By and large, those were different states, as some states continue to make it easier to vote, while others continue to make it harder to vote and easier to interfere in elections. In the four states (Arizona, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina) that enacted laws with both restrictive and expansive provisions, the restrictive measures outweighed the expansive ones. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-december-2022
It is going to be a slog.
The Swing states are really in play, and that includes OH and NC which leans Red. and abortion is the issue that the Democrats should be hammering, it could turn around even the Red states, like MO, in fact I would say it is the issue that will save this country.
Democrats are NO different than the Repubs. ALL owned by corporations.
You should know this William.
Just look at the 'circus' now being played out in the MSM
Personally I don't believe you can get Democracy back if there was one after Reagan.
I wish all that were having an impact — or maybe “hope” it is , ‘cause maybe it is.
I also wish he were a flight risk … I’d love to see him run away! I seriously doubt his Secret Service protection cadre would go with him. He’d be out in the world trying to survive with no one but his privately hired security people … Maybe some American private militia guys would try to fill the bill. I could see them getting tired of it and going home …
Yeah, if Donnie tried to run, that would be a sh*t show worth seeing…..
Convictions, though … those could do it. If we can break through the Green Screen Reality of people who only see what is projected and not what is really there.
I don’t see us reaching his loyal base — that cult following is just about a lost cause — but they are not as numerous as the noise he and they make might suggest.
We need to reach the disaffected people in our country.
Democrats have to make a case for what they're selling. A good case!
Sorry but that's naive. Mar a Lago is 12 miles from international water. He knows that if he loses in NY, he could be sentenced by June. If a court determines that he is a flight risk, he could be detained immediately and he knows it.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea are many "spooks" who have made people disappear, only to pop up later in a jurisdiction that does not have extradition. In my novel Miami '90, I extricate a prisoner from a Cuban prison. Based on fact. It's also within the realm of possibilities that the Secret Service has been compromised.
OK I'm probably in the "politically incorrect" zone, but Mormons are born and bred authoritarian followers, and down through the years I have accumulated an impression that Mormans are overrepresented in government security agencies including the Secret Service, and like you say....
[wait…there’s dognapping AND abstract and symbolic cultural art in your book?]
Wow, Daniel, I’m trying NOT to think that far down on the scale …. Not that I could argue with you, though … Please stop triggering my stress. Lie to me. I need to head off another bout of adrenaline-induced A-fib …
[Just kidding — clarity is good. Thanks. Sigh.]
MSNBC has been noting that there is an indication that even among die-hard Trump caucusers in Iowa, about a third WOULD consider him unfit to serve if CONVICTED. I won't tell you to hold your breath about what case is actually going to make it to trial before the election, but how's this shaping up for SUSPENSE!
Eeek
It's a broken record: Trump's kid gloves treatment. What felony defendant in multiple cases WITH HIS OWN PLANE and very nice habitations abroad would not have had his passport confiscated? Of course, if he told you: "I turned over all my passports," yeah, right.....
"Supersedeas" what does this mean?
A cash bond.
Thank you.
There’s a problem of “perception” vs. “reality” going on, too.
People remember hearing us tell them that the elections of the past twenty-five years — especially the past twenty-five years — have been critical for holding onto our democracy. CRITICAL for holding onto it!!
And the cry has been, “The Supreme Court, people!! We must not lose the Supreme Court!”
That was accurate — and a real danger, capable of putting us on the path to autocracy.
So, we DID lose the Supreme Court anyway {in part because we NEVER thought someone would be as outrageous and brazen as Mitch McConnell, who trampled on our first Black president’s right to name someone to the court, and we let McConnell get away with it.}
Now, we are saying again that the coming election can be a make-or-break event for our entire democracy. Some folks still hear us asking them to vote defensively, and they are tired of it. But they have to do it anyway!!!!!
This has the potential to be the final vote that matters in our democracy, if they don’t vote defensively!!! Republicans want to usher in the age of The Unitary Presidency and relegate our constitution to the status of “quaint and irrelevant.”
THIS ELECTION IS THE ONE!
We can’t elect a Republican — ANY Republican — to the presidency.
We shouldn’t elect them to anything else this year, either, but the fewer who are elected the better.
If we manage to undo the autocrats and hold onto our government, maybe some in the Republican Party will grab it back from the crazies.
We can only hope.
But the reality is, we don’t have the luxury of being tired of voting pragmatically instead of ideally. Pragmatism is what works.
We can’t afford a Republican president in 2024. We can’t afford a Republican Senate. We can’t afford a Republican House.
That’s just the real of it.
Thom, it’s good to hear that Poland is making a positive change towards actually representing it’s people and that it has done so through an election. Thank you for your chart regarding the percentages of Americans who basically agree on certain key issues in this country. I have found the same thing talking to people - most of whom are Republicans. It’s the lies and manipulation by the bought and paid for right wing media in this country which is driving such a wedge between Americans.
IF Trusk can shut down a right wing media.......so can you.
Unfortunately, the American system with two senators from every state, the electoral college, and the ability to gerrymander, put a man in the White House, who did not win a majority of the vote, who then placed on the Supreme Court ideological partisans that took away women’s rights. The founding fathers were afraid of democracy. This is the system they gave us.
People might not want to hear it but it is true BillyN. The founders were afraid of Democracy, but left us a democratic Republic. And folk are unaware of what a Republic entails. It is rule by the nations wise men, meaning the elite, at the time of the founding that was property owning men, most of whom were white, though there were some property owning free blacks, but that all ended, in the south, in 1832 with the Nat Turner Rebellion and the re enslavement of free, often slave owning planter, blacks.
As I commented previously, Thomas Jefferson visited a Baptist business meeting in Danville, Pittsylvania Co., VA and came away disabused of pure democracy. the compromise was democracy for the entitled, the property owning male. It took 3 Amendments, the 15th, 19th and 26th to make America a full Democracy, almost, except the 13th did permit enslavement of persons convicted of a crime.
Re "Since those five corrupt Republicans on the Court also ruled in Citizens United that corporations are “persons” with nearly-full access to the Bill of Rights — including the right to use money to pay off politicians (the Republicans on the Court call it First Amendment-protected “free speech”). . . ."
Why has no one pointed out that corporations cannot "speak" and so do not merit free speech rights. Yes, I know that corporation executives "speak" for the corporations but they already have free speech rights for themselves. Are they to get a double dose of speech? Soon to be followed by a double dose of voting? Even if the Board of Governors votes on what speech those corporations are to "share," those governors already have free speech rights, so why is that doubled by allowing them rights through their corporations?
Corporations have no minds, no thoughts, no ability to speak, so why would a business fiction (claiming rights of individuals to die and be reborn?) be extended to areas in which corporations cannot participate?
NO mention of Unions who could be really useful in destroying some of the big money!
Another well-researched and presented essay, Thom. Thank you so much.
“[W]e believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.”
I believe we have never really been a democratic society; we've had the illusion that our votes would matter, but clearly they do not. Gerrymandering is a crime against the citizens and the county in this regard - so blatantly corrupt, yet SCOTUS has deemed this not only constitutional, but has opened the floodgates to corruption via political bribery. SCOTUS itself is the criminal element in all this and how the oligarchs have seized control. They are a wholly-owned arm of the Federalists, who see the ideal as rule by oligarchy and an army of barely-existing peasants to do their will. .
This is where capitalism always goes - all resources aggregated in fewer and fewer hands. It must be some sort of law of nature, as we see it repeatedly in history. This continues until collapse.
The more I read in Mr. Hartmann’s reports, the more I see in the morbidly-rich owned and controlled big media, the more I am coming to the conclusion TFG and his minions, allies and posterior puckerers are going to win in November. Ifear change will come only when things get truly desperate for enough people. When it does, it will be neither via the ballot box or the law. And its aftermath may be no better, if there is an aftermath. I could never be a Communist, because it presumes a basic goodness in humanity that isn’t there, but Marx may have been right in saying a revolution only happens when things get so bad they are unbearable. I do not relish the prospect. Not so much out of concern for myself, as my health problems are sufficiently bad and annoying that leaving this life will be a relief for me, but for those I will leave behind, especially my adored kindergarten grandson. I want to be optimistic. But in the face of the virtually unfettered power of the morbidly rich, I simply cannot be.
"...presumes a basic goodness in humanity..." I happen to have posted somewhere above a reflection of this: "Is the worst in human nature actually return to the mean?" Gaza is challenging our (who is we?) threshold of what is "unbearable."
We must donate money to help the Lincoln project air anti dictatorship commercials, if we are to have any chance at all since Garland and Biden did not prosecute the traitors. I would support a democratically run media blitz, but so far don't see any? American people are in a fight for their lives, with both hands tied behind their back! Is there still time for Joe Biden to step down?
Commercial.
Disabled veteran playing with a puppy.
Announcer, tearful child's voice: "Trump hates dogs."
Actor: "And disabled veterans."
Commercial.
A dictatorship can take your guns, harvest your organs, chop you up in a bathroom, rape you, make you into a slave, steal your children, send you off to war, send you to a concentration camp, exterminate you, end the minimum wage, end social security, end food stamps, while feeding you toxic food, air and water!
"If this sounds good to you, vote Republican!" ?
All in 30 seconds, while asking for more donations, in writing on the screen. Have the commercials advertised on the cheaper antenna TV Western, sports and old TV channels. More bang for the buck!
Better hitting is replaying his comments of “suckers and losers” overlaid on pictures of trump in Arlington with General Kelly. Also, another ad with Trump’s comment about keeping wounded soldiers off camera “because they were depressing” or whatever he said. The losers and suckers one is the best because trump is running for President for narcissistic reasons he has no sense of personal responsibility.
Something like 80% of veterans support Trump, so it's a hard sell.
I am a Vietnam veteran. I'm in a DNC veteran's discussion group. That stuff works for us but 2/3 of households have pets and IMHO identify with the kid first.
If you're a veteran sign up for Coffee Talk - Veterans and Military Families for Biden/Harris 2024.
Thursday, Jan 18, 2024
9:30am - 10:30am EST
https://join.mobilize.us/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paidsearch&utm_campaign=pol-mobilize_na_br_core&utm_adgroup=M%20-%20Branded%20-%20General&utm_term=mobilize%20events&utm_content=get-started&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA75itBhA6EiwAkho9e9G4wD4vXIUptXF7p9lKVu6__rUGwma7VlZDwqAhs9v2U5scvKZFdRoCEGEQAvD_BwE
I've been asking our group to contact veterans' groups like the American Legion, VFW, AmVets, Inc.
Great to see that Poland has joined the strong democracy club. I work a lot in the Baltics and am amazed at how committed the countries are to democracy. The memories of brutal Soviet repression are still within living memory and it clearly makes a difference.
There are billionaires all over Europe---many of them in Scandinavia. Democratic socialism does not seem to be an impairment to getting filthy stinking rich. We need to learn how to use these stats as well as the ones in this Report. We know what the majority wants, and it's time to pound that home. When the right talks about what is patriotic and "American", we need to whip out the statistics listed and then proceed to further explain how rich people live in countries with health care and adequate social services. We could point out that if people in these other countries can have pretty things, we can figure-out how to do it even better.
We KNOW the rhetoric the right is vulnerable to, and it's time to use it. They want to be morbidly rich, so why not point out that no one has stopped that from happening anywhere in the world? Time to convince them they and their kids can get rich faster if they have some health care and an education.
OR, we can just tell them F-U. We will move on without them, eventually. I just hate to think of the pain involved waiting for the demographics to change.
Two things popped into mind. First, post-Iowa, the EU appears to be taking seriously the threat of Trump dumping them and NATO thinking he will make America rich again (almost surely the opposite is likely). That could, as Putin hopes, open the back door to the USSR. Second, if we ever do start acting like adults and neuter Citizens United, we risk becoming reactionary if we go overboard trying to replace MAGAland with a real democracy.
If we lose our focus on 3 or 4 economic issues to campaign on and repeat the message over and over and over again, the Dem low information base voters will not come out same as 2022. Biden needs to lead the party with getting the issues of the campaign and do the repeating until election day. Do that and no problem.
The question is valid but again you use your bully pulpit as propaganda favoring a president who is working for the wrong people. His student debt relief program is a sham., a means-tested nightmare of beauraucracy requiring an application process which already guaranteed that all who were eligible would not receive benefits (trick #1). Then it took two months to get the application process online from the time the program was "rolled out" allowing sufficient time for legal challenges (trick #3). Then Biden gets press for relieving a tiny sliver of debt by correcting a clerical error which was being legally challenged (trick #3). Even if the program were not challenged in the courts, which the administration knew it would be, Biden's program as written would have addressed less than 15% of all student loan debt, bringing the burden from $1.7 trillion to more than $1.5 trillion. If Bernie Sanders or even Elizabeth Warren were president, they would have wiped it all out with their pen which would have been virtually impossible to challenge legally. The reason you have Trump who terrifies you so is that Democrats are phonies and are working for the morbidly rich themselves while throwing scraps to us peasants.
So Boris it is Putin then? Huh.
Two things occur to me after reading: 1. CI seemed to also opened floodgates in $$laundering! 2. Why would these oligarchs have so fukn much $$$