Thom's chapter is indisputable evidence that DJ Trump is corporate America's "useful idiot." Moreover, today, as we see his aging brain deteriorate on social media posts and babbling remarks on TV and the MSM, it is clear that he is fast becoming a "demented idiot" who will soon need replacing, but with whom? That raises the question of whether the billionaires misjudged, or if that too was part of their plan to replace democracy with a fascist autocracy like Russia's.
Given that the entire cabinet is staffed with incompetent sycophants, it would be easy to replace Trump and his entire administration with people who could straightforwardly transform Washington's management structure into their tool for rule.
In his insanity, he is able to get (via salesmanship and or extortion) many of them to donate to his personal scams and buy his worthless merch...and that includes stuff like $trump....
We used financial ruin as the tool to break-up the USSR. Putin is returning the favor via TRump....
Those who think the oligarchs run Putin are mistaken. He wrangles them and their money. Their fate and their families' fate belong to him.
He owns TRump, because Donold has worked for decades with and for Russians and their money. Putin has "the receipts". There has to be a roomful of evidence of the payments.
The Epstein bank records may be what TRump is most afraid of. They both worked for Putin. They opened their Deutsche Bank accounts the same day with the same banker. The banker committed "suicide".
So far the Project 2025 people's financial interests align with Putin's dream to destroy us/US. It's a marriage made in hell. See you in the streets.
"They opened their Deutsche Bank accounts the same day with the same banker. The banker committed 'suicide'."
I keep askin' about the complaint written by former case prosecutor Marie Villafaña, who had prepared a sex-trafficking indictment against Epstein that was not filed, that was supressed by Alex Acosta.
By inference a money laudering charge was probably discussed. I would expect that every member of Mar a Lago during that period was a potential witness, as Virginia Guiffre worked there while a minor. Multiple her by a factor of maybe another 60 (sixty) victims identified by the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post. All should have given statements to local police.
Thom cited to Justice Anthony Kennedy..... “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” 2020 Citizens' United.
Turns out that Justice Kennedy's son worked for Deutsche Bank. According to several souces no other bank would loan Trump, a six time bankrupt, a dime. Turs out the bank was conviceted in Europe for laudering Russian money.
LIBOR Manipulation: In April 2015, Deutsche Bank's London-based subsidiary, DB Group Services (UK) Limited, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in the U.S. for its role in manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and EURIBOR.
The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined Deutsche Bank a record £227 million (approximately $340 million at the time) for "serious and duration of the breaches" and for misleading the regulator during the investigation.
Overall, the bank paid a combined total of $2.5 billion in penalties to U.S. and UK authorities for the rate-rigging scandal. At least 29 employees, including managers and traders, were involved in the misconduct, primarily in the London office.
Russian Money Laundering: In January 2017, the bank was fined nearly $630 million by U.S. and UK financial authorities (including the FCA) for failing to detect a Russian money laundering scheme involving "mirror trades".
Approximately $10 billion was illegally moved out of Russia between 2011 and 2015 through these sham trades, where clients bought securities in rubles in Moscow and sold them for dollars in London.
I remember the LIBOR collusion. Anyone with eyes could see how corrupt the Russian system was and is, and the banks chose to jump on the gravy train.
When Senator Wyden and Congress get their hands on the records for the 20 banks involved in the Epstein case, it will likely have elements that are similar concerning moving money. I hate to think about HOW this money was made.
I understand your sentiment, alis but WE (or the west) did not use financial ruin to break up the USSR.
They did it to themselves. First by pegging the ruble at .9851 grams fine gold, and only printing enough rubles that they could cover with gold, in other words a 100% reserve base, not a fractional reserve like in the west. The result was constant and serious shortage of money. which is the classic definition of a depression.. In their case a perpetual depression.
The depression was hidden by the cold war, they sold the people that the reason they had to stand in line for meat and bread, was because of the evil capitalists, who were building a vast army, navy and air force to attack them, and they were forced to spend all of the money on armaments and defense.
In 1985 the Bank for International Settlements in Basel , Switzerland, published in their gold covered Annual Report, that the USSR was a failed economic experiment and needed to be reformed,
By 1989 they found the perfect man, Gorbachev, via glasnost and perestroika he set the stage for the reform from a government run and managed economic entity to a privatized government, parading as a free enterprise economy..Instead of the state owning and controlling industries, well connected, through the KGB, err FSB, own and control industries.
Ivan six pack, can tip his toe in the pond, if he has connections and access to money.
The cold war arms race was at the heart of it. Reagan bragged about it after the fact. In essence, WE made sure "they were forced to spend all of the money on armaments and defense.". That is exactly what I was referring to.
Of course the details you provided helped, so thanks for those. The truth is we lost some of our potential to do good things here, but the USSR just plain lost.
Putin is a psychopath, but he is also a spymaster. He played the long game. So here we are, either he will tell the story or we will put the pieces together ourselves. He doesn't have to nuke us---he has the truth and the proof.
The real question is how long can he resist getting the last laugh.
Ukraine was a huge mistake, because "they were forced to spend all of the money on armaments and defense." is biting them in the ass again along with a loss of the young men fighting and fleeing the country.
The cold war arms race was part of it, but Reagan and the MIC sure grabbed the credit, like Trump is grabbing credit shit he didn't do and isn't doing.
I cast serious doubts that the nukes will work, and it applies to the US as well.
I've stated why before but recapping
Corruption in the Russian defense and government
Nukes and missiles require constant maintenance
the Nuclear weapons work only if the plutonium pits work, but they degrade, and need to be replaced.
A cold war dividend is that we stopped maintaining our nuclear weapons, and when Putin started waving his nuclear phallus, the Defense Dept became alarmed, as we had lost the ability, the engineering to build plutonium pits, as a result we had to contract with Lawrence Livermore Labs, to rediscover and rebuilt the capability, if we had a problem imagine the problem Russia has.
Its vaunted tank brigades have been chewed up by Ukraine and FPV drones, and Russia tried to use it's latest and greatest tank, and Ukraine blew it up on the first day, now they are reaching into their cold war stock pile of 50 and 60 year old tanks, and to get them running they have to cannibalize from other tanks
Russsians have abandoned their use of tanks, the west better get a grip, and start innovating in drone warfare. Ukrainians take out multi million ruble weapons systems, and radar with $1,000 drones.
The dust jack art is horrifying enough... then there's the Amazon summary:
From bestselling progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann comes an urgent autopsy of American democracy, showing how plutocrats, political cowardice, and systemic rot built the perfect runway for Trump's authoritarian ascent.
The Last American President rips open America's wounded democracy to expose a terrifying truth: Donald Trump isn't an anomaly—he's the inevitable product of a system engineered to fail. This searing investigation reveals how a man forged by childhood trauma, pathological narcissism, and calculated cruelty didn't hijack democracy—he was handed the keys by those who should have been its guardians.
Hartmann uncovers the unholy alliance between Trump's damaged psyche and America's rotted institutions. From Fred Trump's brutal parenting to Roy Cohn's lessons in shamelessness, from a Republican Party that traded principles for power to billionaire donors who treated democracy as a profit center, this book exposes the assembly line that manufactured an authoritarian.
But this is about more than Trump's past—it's about America's future. As climate catastrophe accelerates and fascism spreads globally, Hartmann reveals the nightmare scenario: a second Trump term that doesn't just end American democracy but also triggers irreversible planetary damage. Through meticulous research and unflinching analysis, he shows how political cowardice and corporate greed created the perfect storm that could extinguish humanity's last chance at survival.
This isn't just political commentary—it's a last-minute alarm sounding before the point of no return.
....
I am desperately afraid that the "last-minute alarm" is coming too late and that we've already reached the point of no return.
I feel the same Hal. I have all kinds of email and I see it on MSNOW all of the time, this peddling that Trump is on his downward slide, and that he is enduring setback after setback (in the lower courts), they omit the rulings by the appellate courts that reverse the lower courts, and the SUPREME Court either via its Shadow or Emergency Docket or it's regular docket, stand with Trump 99.999% of the time, and when it and appellate courts don't, Trump just ignores them and proceeds as if their was no ruling, because the courts like the power by which to enforce their rulings They have no police, and the US Marshalls service works for Pam Bondi, and she has used them to chase down immigrants and escort the acne endowed DOGE teenagers into Federal cabinets.
Let's see what happens in 2026, I am not optimistic. Because of redistricting, voter caging, voter suppression laws, election interference by Russia and Chia, Voter ID laws, restrictions on ballot boxes and mail in voting, and MAGAt election officials, like in San Bernardino Co, CA where the independent official was terrorized into resigning, and now the replacements are MAGA certified., a pattern repeated all of the country, and now Dominion voting machines is owned by a MAGAt
The only way to beat this is a 100% turn out.I hope that the farmers and government employees who voted for Trump, the minorities like Muslims, blacks and Hispanics that voted for Trump have learned their lesson. Muslims thought that they would get a good deal from Trump, but they are getting the shaft, as he is not only deporting them, but continuing his war against Muslims, remember his Muslim ban in #45? And as for Gaza, he and his son in law and the Likkud have plans to turn it into prime real estate, beach front
condo's and all.
Donald Trump's current peace plan for Gaza stipulates that the Rafah crossing should be open in both directions, to expedite migration that it will relieve population pressure that he can build his seaside condos.
Some folk are like the child that pulls the cover over their heads, it is frightening to stare the beast in the face, and if it can't see you then it won't attack.
I've seen a couple of beheading video's, the victim closes their eyes.
I don't see any chance of a military coup, any general or admiral that might do one, was fired, forced to retire, like Admiral Holsey, what is left are the craven, cowardly professionals, and ideologically committed like Dan Caine and Bradley.
Germany's General staff, quickly submitted and became ardent NAZI's,if not ardent then submissive.
Since his war was not defensive, but offensive, that means he had the whole hearted support of the Wehrmacht (the Heer), kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe.
There are no innocents on the side of the aggressor
Sir okie, I fear that the only way we can win the election, if there is a massive turnout, a turnout unlike that never seen before. a 99.999% turnout. I hope the DNC, DCCC, DSCCC and every liberal, progressive non profit or on it. I will do my share,the only way I can, financially.
I just ordered your book, "The Last American President; A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and World on the Brink" and made a donation to FSTV. I really enjoyed Blue Ridge Breakdown interview and subscribed. Still want to fight for Medicare for All. Thank you Thom Hartmann Report for years of education and reminding us of history that got us to this point. I say, Plutocrat wealth Tax is coming! Stop unregulated AI. I say, support the planet and humanity!
My guess is JD Vance was picked to be the billionaire oligarchy's next in line for 2028, courtesy of his personal benefactor, Peter Thiel. I can only imagine how billionaires struggled amongst themselves, arguing who would be best to do their bidding post Trump. Oh how things have changed from the days of the GOP party picking running mates, based primarily on political issues and concerns. Can you say Sarah Palin. How quaint!
I keep sayin' that all those enabling plutocrats are actually seen by Trump '47 as marks.
Will they meet the same fate as Russian oil olighachs did under Putin, Krasnov's master?
Putin's hero used the Great Purge (also known as the Great Terror) of the late 1930s, Stalin had the majority of the "Old Bolsheviks"—original members of the Bolshevik faction before the 1917 October Revolution—removed from power, imprisoned in forced-labor camps (Gulags), or executed.
Putin's critics, political opponents, and former intelligence officers faced imprisonment, exile, and death. The Kremlin routinely denies involvement in these incidents, which have occurred both within Russia and abroad.
Thanks Thom for this profound statement of our situation. TRump isn't the problem - he's just the chump. The Oligarchs now control US. Only a massive 2/3’s revolt by the People can change that. What will it take to make that happen?
RE: "this Second Gilded Age enabled the wholesale capture of our political system itself."
This is exactly why the focus should be beyond hoping a new FDR would ride up on a white horse. Major, systemic change will need to happen or we will see a country slide into the backwater. Underinvestment in the future leads to situations like the UK. Getting out of it will require 21st Century solutions not 18th Century thinking.
Other countries are living in the 21st, we don't even have to figure out how. We just have to kick these hate-filled-asses to the curb and tax them. No more subsidies and contracts.
Breaking news: Trump is setting the stage for a war with Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.
I get the Just Security in my in box daily.
Trump is reorganizing the Pentagon. He is putting U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command by placing them under the control of a new organization known as U.S. International Command
And the U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern command under the U.S. American command, or Americom
He has also signed an EO declaring fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, thus setting the state for an invasion of not just Venezuela, but Colombia and Ecuador. Indeed this the Technate of America https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:34227574
This is serious shit, while we blather about elections and 2028,. Trump has published loud and clear that the White House belongs to him and he is only leaving on a gurney.
The American people have been played with a long-term strategy: Citizens United, Corrupt SCOTUS, the grooming of a malignant narcissist, and even Reaganism, which enabled the decimation of unions and the continual upward transfer of the middle class's wealth
Thom, you have given an articulate voice to a pattern of what I agree lies as a basis of philosophy and way of doing business in America that is quickly spreading all through the world.
A real example of conspiracy, and also a new, much more organized and powerful form of organized crime machine.
Their tentacles seem to be far reaching and possibly unstoppable at this point because of their corruption and seeming temporary cooperation in power and money and common merciless nature of self preservation.
The highest corporate tax rate was quoted as having been at 35 %, but it had been slowly but continuously wheedled down (by big business-oriented {and paid} legislators}) from 91% in the Eisenhower Administration. Ergo, the Treasury lost about two thirds of its biggest money source in that time....requiring middle-class and poor to pay even higher taxes to make up the difference.
That's the tax rate, after exclusions and deductions, in es sense most pay no taxes, but instead get a refund., and not just corporations, recall That Trump only paid $750 and that in one tax year,other years no taxes,possibly refunds. You can bet Bezos, and the Tech Tyrants don't pay taxes.
Thom's chapter is indisputable evidence that DJ Trump is corporate America's "useful idiot." Moreover, today, as we see his aging brain deteriorate on social media posts and babbling remarks on TV and the MSM, it is clear that he is fast becoming a "demented idiot" who will soon need replacing, but with whom? That raises the question of whether the billionaires misjudged, or if that too was part of their plan to replace democracy with a fascist autocracy like Russia's.
Given that the entire cabinet is staffed with incompetent sycophants, it would be easy to replace Trump and his entire administration with people who could straightforwardly transform Washington's management structure into their tool for rule.
In his insanity, he is able to get (via salesmanship and or extortion) many of them to donate to his personal scams and buy his worthless merch...and that includes stuff like $trump....
We used financial ruin as the tool to break-up the USSR. Putin is returning the favor via TRump....
Those who think the oligarchs run Putin are mistaken. He wrangles them and their money. Their fate and their families' fate belong to him.
He owns TRump, because Donold has worked for decades with and for Russians and their money. Putin has "the receipts". There has to be a roomful of evidence of the payments.
The Epstein bank records may be what TRump is most afraid of. They both worked for Putin. They opened their Deutsche Bank accounts the same day with the same banker. The banker committed "suicide".
So far the Project 2025 people's financial interests align with Putin's dream to destroy us/US. It's a marriage made in hell. See you in the streets.
"They opened their Deutsche Bank accounts the same day with the same banker. The banker committed 'suicide'."
I keep askin' about the complaint written by former case prosecutor Marie Villafaña, who had prepared a sex-trafficking indictment against Epstein that was not filed, that was supressed by Alex Acosta.
By inference a money laudering charge was probably discussed. I would expect that every member of Mar a Lago during that period was a potential witness, as Virginia Guiffre worked there while a minor. Multiple her by a factor of maybe another 60 (sixty) victims identified by the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post. All should have given statements to local police.
Thom cited to Justice Anthony Kennedy..... “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” 2020 Citizens' United.
Turns out that Justice Kennedy's son worked for Deutsche Bank. According to several souces no other bank would loan Trump, a six time bankrupt, a dime. Turs out the bank was conviceted in Europe for laudering Russian money.
LIBOR Manipulation: In April 2015, Deutsche Bank's London-based subsidiary, DB Group Services (UK) Limited, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in the U.S. for its role in manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and EURIBOR.
The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined Deutsche Bank a record £227 million (approximately $340 million at the time) for "serious and duration of the breaches" and for misleading the regulator during the investigation.
Overall, the bank paid a combined total of $2.5 billion in penalties to U.S. and UK authorities for the rate-rigging scandal. At least 29 employees, including managers and traders, were involved in the misconduct, primarily in the London office.
Russian Money Laundering: In January 2017, the bank was fined nearly $630 million by U.S. and UK financial authorities (including the FCA) for failing to detect a Russian money laundering scheme involving "mirror trades".
Approximately $10 billion was illegally moved out of Russia between 2011 and 2015 through these sham trades, where clients bought securities in rubles in Moscow and sold them for dollars in London.
Thanks for the history, Daniel.
I remember the LIBOR collusion. Anyone with eyes could see how corrupt the Russian system was and is, and the banks chose to jump on the gravy train.
When Senator Wyden and Congress get their hands on the records for the 20 banks involved in the Epstein case, it will likely have elements that are similar concerning moving money. I hate to think about HOW this money was made.
I understand your sentiment, alis but WE (or the west) did not use financial ruin to break up the USSR.
They did it to themselves. First by pegging the ruble at .9851 grams fine gold, and only printing enough rubles that they could cover with gold, in other words a 100% reserve base, not a fractional reserve like in the west. The result was constant and serious shortage of money. which is the classic definition of a depression.. In their case a perpetual depression.
The depression was hidden by the cold war, they sold the people that the reason they had to stand in line for meat and bread, was because of the evil capitalists, who were building a vast army, navy and air force to attack them, and they were forced to spend all of the money on armaments and defense.
In 1985 the Bank for International Settlements in Basel , Switzerland, published in their gold covered Annual Report, that the USSR was a failed economic experiment and needed to be reformed,
By 1989 they found the perfect man, Gorbachev, via glasnost and perestroika he set the stage for the reform from a government run and managed economic entity to a privatized government, parading as a free enterprise economy..Instead of the state owning and controlling industries, well connected, through the KGB, err FSB, own and control industries.
Ivan six pack, can tip his toe in the pond, if he has connections and access to money.
The cold war arms race was at the heart of it. Reagan bragged about it after the fact. In essence, WE made sure "they were forced to spend all of the money on armaments and defense.". That is exactly what I was referring to.
Of course the details you provided helped, so thanks for those. The truth is we lost some of our potential to do good things here, but the USSR just plain lost.
Putin is a psychopath, but he is also a spymaster. He played the long game. So here we are, either he will tell the story or we will put the pieces together ourselves. He doesn't have to nuke us---he has the truth and the proof.
The real question is how long can he resist getting the last laugh.
Ukraine was a huge mistake, because "they were forced to spend all of the money on armaments and defense." is biting them in the ass again along with a loss of the young men fighting and fleeing the country.
The cold war arms race was part of it, but Reagan and the MIC sure grabbed the credit, like Trump is grabbing credit shit he didn't do and isn't doing.
I cast serious doubts that the nukes will work, and it applies to the US as well.
I've stated why before but recapping
Corruption in the Russian defense and government
Nukes and missiles require constant maintenance
the Nuclear weapons work only if the plutonium pits work, but they degrade, and need to be replaced.
A cold war dividend is that we stopped maintaining our nuclear weapons, and when Putin started waving his nuclear phallus, the Defense Dept became alarmed, as we had lost the ability, the engineering to build plutonium pits, as a result we had to contract with Lawrence Livermore Labs, to rediscover and rebuilt the capability, if we had a problem imagine the problem Russia has.
Its vaunted tank brigades have been chewed up by Ukraine and FPV drones, and Russia tried to use it's latest and greatest tank, and Ukraine blew it up on the first day, now they are reaching into their cold war stock pile of 50 and 60 year old tanks, and to get them running they have to cannibalize from other tanks
Russsians have abandoned their use of tanks, the west better get a grip, and start innovating in drone warfare. Ukrainians take out multi million ruble weapons systems, and radar with $1,000 drones.
Hope you did not miss 60 Minutes from tonight. Drones, cockroaches, new arms and soldiers in Germany.
Just watched it. Warfare has sure changed, except for Putin, he still relies on meat assaults.
The dust jack art is horrifying enough... then there's the Amazon summary:
From bestselling progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann comes an urgent autopsy of American democracy, showing how plutocrats, political cowardice, and systemic rot built the perfect runway for Trump's authoritarian ascent.
The Last American President rips open America's wounded democracy to expose a terrifying truth: Donald Trump isn't an anomaly—he's the inevitable product of a system engineered to fail. This searing investigation reveals how a man forged by childhood trauma, pathological narcissism, and calculated cruelty didn't hijack democracy—he was handed the keys by those who should have been its guardians.
Hartmann uncovers the unholy alliance between Trump's damaged psyche and America's rotted institutions. From Fred Trump's brutal parenting to Roy Cohn's lessons in shamelessness, from a Republican Party that traded principles for power to billionaire donors who treated democracy as a profit center, this book exposes the assembly line that manufactured an authoritarian.
But this is about more than Trump's past—it's about America's future. As climate catastrophe accelerates and fascism spreads globally, Hartmann reveals the nightmare scenario: a second Trump term that doesn't just end American democracy but also triggers irreversible planetary damage. Through meticulous research and unflinching analysis, he shows how political cowardice and corporate greed created the perfect storm that could extinguish humanity's last chance at survival.
This isn't just political commentary—it's a last-minute alarm sounding before the point of no return.
....
I am desperately afraid that the "last-minute alarm" is coming too late and that we've already reached the point of no return.
Whoever did that Amazon review also did a great job.
I feel the same Hal. I have all kinds of email and I see it on MSNOW all of the time, this peddling that Trump is on his downward slide, and that he is enduring setback after setback (in the lower courts), they omit the rulings by the appellate courts that reverse the lower courts, and the SUPREME Court either via its Shadow or Emergency Docket or it's regular docket, stand with Trump 99.999% of the time, and when it and appellate courts don't, Trump just ignores them and proceeds as if their was no ruling, because the courts like the power by which to enforce their rulings They have no police, and the US Marshalls service works for Pam Bondi, and she has used them to chase down immigrants and escort the acne endowed DOGE teenagers into Federal cabinets.
Let's see what happens in 2026, I am not optimistic. Because of redistricting, voter caging, voter suppression laws, election interference by Russia and Chia, Voter ID laws, restrictions on ballot boxes and mail in voting, and MAGAt election officials, like in San Bernardino Co, CA where the independent official was terrorized into resigning, and now the replacements are MAGA certified., a pattern repeated all of the country, and now Dominion voting machines is owned by a MAGAt
The only way to beat this is a 100% turn out.I hope that the farmers and government employees who voted for Trump, the minorities like Muslims, blacks and Hispanics that voted for Trump have learned their lesson. Muslims thought that they would get a good deal from Trump, but they are getting the shaft, as he is not only deporting them, but continuing his war against Muslims, remember his Muslim ban in #45? And as for Gaza, he and his son in law and the Likkud have plans to turn it into prime real estate, beach front
condo's and all.
Donald Trump's current peace plan for Gaza stipulates that the Rafah crossing should be open in both directions, to expedite migration that it will relieve population pressure that he can build his seaside condos.
I think one has to be delusional to be optimistic about democracy surviving
We at best will limp badly wounded for the foreseeable future unless we have a real military coup
Some folk are like the child that pulls the cover over their heads, it is frightening to stare the beast in the face, and if it can't see you then it won't attack.
I've seen a couple of beheading video's, the victim closes their eyes.
I don't see any chance of a military coup, any general or admiral that might do one, was fired, forced to retire, like Admiral Holsey, what is left are the craven, cowardly professionals, and ideologically committed like Dan Caine and Bradley.
Germany's General staff, quickly submitted and became ardent NAZI's,if not ardent then submissive.
Since his war was not defensive, but offensive, that means he had the whole hearted support of the Wehrmacht (the Heer), kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe.
There are no innocents on the side of the aggressor
Trump? He's a "Dancing Bear." A Low-IQ Bozo.
The system's funders include: Russia; China; Iran; Israel; India, and others.
It's a tear-down. Needs a new foundation. One not dependent on voters' racism.
VOTE !!! If you really love the idea, the notion, the concept of America. VOTE !!!
Sir okie, I fear that the only way we can win the election, if there is a massive turnout, a turnout unlike that never seen before. a 99.999% turnout. I hope the DNC, DCCC, DSCCC and every liberal, progressive non profit or on it. I will do my share,the only way I can, financially.
I just ordered your book, "The Last American President; A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and World on the Brink" and made a donation to FSTV. I really enjoyed Blue Ridge Breakdown interview and subscribed. Still want to fight for Medicare for All. Thank you Thom Hartmann Report for years of education and reminding us of history that got us to this point. I say, Plutocrat wealth Tax is coming! Stop unregulated AI. I say, support the planet and humanity!
My guess is JD Vance was picked to be the billionaire oligarchy's next in line for 2028, courtesy of his personal benefactor, Peter Thiel. I can only imagine how billionaires struggled amongst themselves, arguing who would be best to do their bidding post Trump. Oh how things have changed from the days of the GOP party picking running mates, based primarily on political issues and concerns. Can you say Sarah Palin. How quaint!
I keep sayin' that all those enabling plutocrats are actually seen by Trump '47 as marks.
Will they meet the same fate as Russian oil olighachs did under Putin, Krasnov's master?
Putin's hero used the Great Purge (also known as the Great Terror) of the late 1930s, Stalin had the majority of the "Old Bolsheviks"—original members of the Bolshevik faction before the 1917 October Revolution—removed from power, imprisoned in forced-labor camps (Gulags), or executed.
Putin's critics, political opponents, and former intelligence officers faced imprisonment, exile, and death. The Kremlin routinely denies involvement in these incidents, which have occurred both within Russia and abroad.
Thanks Thom for this profound statement of our situation. TRump isn't the problem - he's just the chump. The Oligarchs now control US. Only a massive 2/3’s revolt by the People can change that. What will it take to make that happen?
RE: "this Second Gilded Age enabled the wholesale capture of our political system itself."
This is exactly why the focus should be beyond hoping a new FDR would ride up on a white horse. Major, systemic change will need to happen or we will see a country slide into the backwater. Underinvestment in the future leads to situations like the UK. Getting out of it will require 21st Century solutions not 18th Century thinking.
Other countries are living in the 21st, we don't even have to figure out how. We just have to kick these hate-filled-asses to the curb and tax them. No more subsidies and contracts.
Yes we can!
Breaking news: Trump is setting the stage for a war with Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.
I get the Just Security in my in box daily.
Trump is reorganizing the Pentagon. He is putting U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command by placing them under the control of a new organization known as U.S. International Command
And the U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern command under the U.S. American command, or Americom
He has also signed an EO declaring fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, thus setting the state for an invasion of not just Venezuela, but Colombia and Ecuador. Indeed this the Technate of America https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:34227574
This is serious shit, while we blather about elections and 2028,. Trump has published loud and clear that the White House belongs to him and he is only leaving on a gurney.
The American people have been played with a long-term strategy: Citizens United, Corrupt SCOTUS, the grooming of a malignant narcissist, and even Reaganism, which enabled the decimation of unions and the continual upward transfer of the middle class's wealth
Thom, email me to see how Citizen's United can be undone.
Captain, my, Captain and here we have it. Trump! Thank you.
Thom, you have given an articulate voice to a pattern of what I agree lies as a basis of philosophy and way of doing business in America that is quickly spreading all through the world.
A real example of conspiracy, and also a new, much more organized and powerful form of organized crime machine.
Their tentacles seem to be far reaching and possibly unstoppable at this point because of their corruption and seeming temporary cooperation in power and money and common merciless nature of self preservation.
The highest corporate tax rate was quoted as having been at 35 %, but it had been slowly but continuously wheedled down (by big business-oriented {and paid} legislators}) from 91% in the Eisenhower Administration. Ergo, the Treasury lost about two thirds of its biggest money source in that time....requiring middle-class and poor to pay even higher taxes to make up the difference.
That's the tax rate, after exclusions and deductions, in es sense most pay no taxes, but instead get a refund., and not just corporations, recall That Trump only paid $750 and that in one tax year,other years no taxes,possibly refunds. You can bet Bezos, and the Tech Tyrants don't pay taxes.