“They’re convinced that the post-1933 New Deal America is a mistake and, along with their allies on the Supreme Court, are dedicated to “deconstructing the administrative state” that came out of FDR’s reforms and the 20th century reinvention of the American system.”
This is why studying history is important and why it is constantly manipulated.
Thanks Daniel, you are correct and that scares the hell out of me. the fact that
Dominionism, New Apostolic Reformation, Opus Dei, they are all the same and interconnected has not gotten enough play, even among the left. It is all about politics, Israel Gaza, Ukraine and we have taken our eyes off the ball. It isn't sexy enough
Dominionism is an ecumenical ideology founded by R J Rushdoony and Rafel Cruz (Ted's Daddy), it wants to replace "laws of man" with Mosaic laws, the laws found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy (613 of them, minus of course laws that are inconvenient like dietary and sumptuary laws.
The penalty for violation is death, and the method of death is stoning, because stones are free. Death for adultery, death for less than faithful Christians, death to infidels, death to heretics, death to juvenile delinquents.
The Royal Race of the Redeemed. https://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/royal_race.htm it operates through the Chalcedon society, at the time of the creation of the website I link to, Gary North was it's public face, Gary North was the man behind the Y2K hysteria.
A copy and paste from the above link
Christian Reconstructionism promotes, genocide, slavery, anti-Semitism, racism, and just out-right terror to obtain a political goal. Christian Reconstructionism is only two things - power and hate. It is evil cloaked in religion whose only equal today is Islam.
What does Cornelius Van Til think of his former student Rushdoony and his son-in-law Gary North on their perversion of the Gospel?
Then too I am frankly a little concerned about the political views of Mr. Rushdoony and Mr. North and particularly if I am correctly informed about some of the views Gary North has with respect to the application of Old Testament principles to our day. My only point is that I would hope and expect that they would not claim that such views are inherent in the principles I hold.
From a letter to Gregg Singer, May 11, 1972, in Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989), p. 133n.
There is plenty of reason why Mr. van Til should be concerned. Christian Reconstructionism considers democracy/freedom a heresy. Its distortion/reconstruction of American Christian traditions is used to justify its evil. Its social and religious dogma promotes genocide, enslavement, and terror to promote the delusions of a self-chosen royal race to dominion over the earth. They see themselves in religious terms as a new "master religion" whose destiny is to crush all others in the name of God.
Because by now, we should all have that pictured in our minds. Yes, I am aware of the agenda to come, but I am not willing to give in to vicious intends for my life or that of my descendants or any of yours.
It's galling that the most irresponsible individuals preach to us about "individual responsibility". In a previous incarnation of oligarch hubris, they labeled us takers and themselves makers, when it is us who make goods and services, while they take most of the profits. No working or retired person should take this guff from them!
Trump’s Project 2025 Mass Deportation Scheme mapped.
How big an impact would mass deportations have on your state? How many families would be torn apart because one family member was undocumented? What happened when the U.S. rounded up Americans of Japanese descent during World War II? Check this map.
It will get really ugly, very fast. You can be sure that they will include black & brown American citizens in this purge.
We need to spread the word far and fast. Most real people don't want to live in a Christofascist authoritarian country.
The extremists who devised Project 2025 have been behind the far right for a very long time, and they are close to their goal. Vote blue up and down, or you won't recognize America by 2026.
Be aware that the mass deportations may lead to something much more sinister and dark. For a deportation to work, other countries have to accept the deported persons. When such mass deportations do not work (and they won't), look for a repeat of the German 1933-42 timeline but on a much accelerated basis.
As a reminder
Jan. 1933: Hitler named Chancellor of Germany
Feb. 1933: Enabling Act allows Hitler to rule by decree
Apr. 1933: First anti-Jewish legislation expels most Jews from civil service jobs, some professions, limits number of Jews in schools and universities
Sep. 1935: Nuremberg laws deprive Jews of German citizenship.
Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht
Aug.1939: beginning of euthanasia program in Germany, in which severely handicapped and mentally ill children and adults are gassed to death.
May 1941: Einsatzgruppen (special squads) formed to carry out killings of Jews in the USSR after start of invasion of Soviet Union.
Oct. 1941: Probable date of decision to implement Final Solution
November 1941: Start of gassings of Polish Jews at Chelmno
January 1942: Wannsee Conference in Berlin, to plan details of Final Solution.
1942: Death camps opened at Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz.
Hungary has about the same population now as it had in 1960. Hungry has been shrinking in population growth since about 1980. The right wing plan economically does not include providing jobs for the people they deny birth control to.
America's population has gone up about 120 million people in the last 60 years. Using a right-wing economic model of either Hungary or Russia, America would only have about 210 million people. The current population of America is about 330 million.
The right wing trickle down theory does not create jobs, it just burns through humans as fuel for the rich.
Will the religious leaders ever tell their flock to use birth control if it is legal? Or will the religious leaders have their worshipers be slaves, and starve or be exterminated, when they can no longer work long hours.
The GOP want an economic system that resembles, the time when the laborers who built the pyramids were worked to death by about the age of 35 (2500 BC), and were replaced by the new borns. It did not matter what color of skin they had. Modern day right wing billionaires are not racist either. Just their cult members are.
Instead of America globally fighting against this oppression, America has embraced the trickle down theory the last 40 years.
Orban came to power because of Muslim migration, And it is Muslim migration that is responsible for the rise of the right in Europe.
Orban promised to build a wall and evict Muslims, and he followed through on his promise.
The situation in Europe is cultural, there is racism of course, but not like the racism in America, and it does not have the same origin (slavery and the same base - the former slave owning states)
The situation in America is not cultural, its is racist and manufactured by right wing demagogues.
The people seeking to come in from the south, are 99% Catholic, Evangelical, Pentecostal and thus Christian conservative, very conservative, and one safely ensconsed as citizens they become Republicans sharing conservative values. Sheriff Arpaio, Nick Fuentes, Enrique Tarrio come to mind, as does the recently naturalized right wing extremist Trump humper, Mayra Flores , Republican 14th district Texas
Henry Cuellar, D- 28th Texas is anti abortion and is conservative Democrat.
Peter Thiel and the billionaires behind this, are going to wake up with a hangover. They do not realize that that which has made America prosperous and themselves rich and powerful is it's diversity.
By electing Trump, they will in essence kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The dog catches the car and the car runs over the dog.
America has made them rich, and Americans comfortable, because it is motivated. Trump and the Heritage foundation it's billonaires, will demoralize America and stifle if not kill it's productivity.
Pushing LGBT back into the closet, disempowering women and people of color, rounding up immigrants are not actions without negative, extremely negative consequences on the productivity and economic well being of this country.
The Stock market will crumble, maybe even a depression. The newly marginalized, persecuted, excluded demographics won't be buying the bullshit made in China or Asia. Millions will be unemployed, the Yen will replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency. America will become a 2nd world country., a developed nation on the decline.
Thank you, Thom, for another thoughtful article. You are always spot on.
It is no accident that the time the right wants us to return is before the Internet. The Internet is where religious fundamentalism goes to die. It is where propaganda thrives. It is also where the corruption is on full display, with countering narratives that spin either right or left.
I don't disagree with the right that our government is corrupt. It has been so since the beginning, going into overdrive after the Civil War,, as Thom's books and other writings have shown. As an analyst I worked on integrating the Bureau of Land Management computer systems into one coherent system, rather than a collection of resource fiefdoms. This effort met with tremendous resistance because, often with personal attacks. I suspected there was all sorts of hanky-panky going on between government land managers and oligarchs, especially in the field of fossil fuels mined on public lands. Honest to God, the government "feather merchants" argued endlessly about what time/date format should be used in tagging activities. This and other meaningless arguments were meant to delay if not outright tank the move towards efficiency and transparency. I doubt other agencies are any "cleaner." Thus it has always been.
But people didn't see the corruption so they think, for example, the 50's were much better. Ignorance is bliss, of course. "Let's go back to a time when things were better," is code for "Let's go back to a time when I didn't know about the corruption and so didn't get outraged about it." Three channels controlled the TV news and each community had a newspaper that selectively reported. Women knew their place and families with five kids or more were the norm. Yes, things were better when women were in the home, caring lovingly for their families and building community. That’s the mythology, but was mostly only afforded to upper middle class or wealthy families. It wasn’t better for women who wanted other roles. The oligarchs on the right have created a situation where women MUST work outside the home for their families to live and their children to be educated. This is blamed on feminists and the left, but it has been created whole-cloth by the right. I doubt the woman standing 10 hours a day, plucking chickens for Tysons feels she prefers that work to being home with the kids. The right doesn't really want us in the home; they want us working menial jobs, not professional endeavors,
So the right sees the corruption, but the "solutions" they propose are based on mythology and only further the corruption in the worst ways imaginable. And, as per the usual, relies on repression.
SuZie, very well said. I've lived through the so called Golden Age. Yes. I knew nothing of what you ably explained. I, on the other hand, remember a time when Blue Cross was a life saver. No waiting on the phone through endless robotic messages. No fear that the bills would not be paid. No fear that you would only be able to see a specialist once a year or young doctors would have a maximum of 40 minutes with you. No fear that our brightest students would shy away from going into medicine, because of reimbursement and a receptionist interfering with the care they provided. I also remember a time when AT&T was a utility that served the public. When it was broken up into the BABY BELLS, peoples bills skyrocketed. XFINITY is a a racket that should have been investigated long ago. Basic cable costs over $200 per mo. Promises made and promises broken. I could go on but you get my drift. I am sure you're correct about how our news was filtered, but now it is hard to separate propaganda from good journalism, unless, of course, you subscribe to a newsletter like this.
There's always a certain amount of "This costs what?" amongst my age group (70.) But we have two generations who never experienced what a fair and equitable economy looks like. I really feel for my millennial kids. My late husband liked Pendleton wool shirts because they lasted forever, but last time we tried to buy one, he went ballistic at the price. My grandparents house had a $60 per month mortgage - about $700 now. Nobody can get a home for that kind of money any more. I remember my mother being in awe when a lawyer friend paid $40K for a home. "OMG! It's a mansion! You should see it." As a fraction of the man's income, it was about 15%.
Are you saying America can't afford what I experienced in my youth? Could it be that corporate billionaires who have bought up all these homes you're talking about and resold them at outrageous prices are absolved? How did we allow Walmart to displace small business owners? Pendleton can't compete with Walmart or Amazon. Our laws regarding monopolies have been ignored. Since FDR's policies went into effect, corporatists have been trying to revitalize the Robber Barron era. They have eliminated competition, bribed judges and congress to achieve their ends. Citizen's United has put these people in power. Elon Musk took full advantage the gov't gave him to build businesses that can now dictate economic and political policy to gov't. The Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation didn't just arrive overnight. They have been organizing and mobilizing for decades. People have been asleep at the switch. We are in the present fix, because of our own making.
I grew up in that idealic time where my Father became permanently invalid from his job at Lockead and couldn't collect disability because the doctors said he could work one day a week (and was in excruciating pain afterwards) so my Mother had to support the family instead. She worked for the University of CA System and was at the top of her professional skills when they asked her to train a young guy who she found out was making more money than she was. She complained to management and the Union. They replied he needed to make more to support a family. She said he was single and she was actually supporting a family. Nothing changed. The 1950s were crap.
My dad was a non-functioning alcoholic. He'd work from time to time in sales and when young, chased the oil well dream, doing the "Double Shuffle 'Round the 10 Inch Hole." As they say, "a man takes a drink and the drink takes the man." I don't know how mom fed us. We were repeatedly evicted and moved from place to place. In those days there was no way to track deadbeat renters, which we were. We'd move in, not pay any rent other than that required to get into a place and then wait for eviction. There were no jobs for a woman with five kids - no day care....no way out. And we were white; the black people had it even worse. Sometimes the church would bring a couple bags of groceries (things others didn't want.) These groceries were always accompanied by a stern lecture exhorting her stay with her drunk of a husband. We were grateful for the food, though. Dad was theoretically capable of working, so no social services support. The 50's did indeed suck for most of us.
The unleashed corporations you spoke of, with CEOs earnings at the highest levels in 2024, would find those profits dwindling. People who earn less, spend less. We would adjust how we purchase food and other items. The middle class would slump into near poverty, and those who are now barely holding on, would be left on the street starving. All of this would be, sooner than later, felt at the top 1%. Although they would sit around their swimming pools, drinking in-home purified water, giving little thought to what the people “out there” are struggling with.
I have read some of Project 2025. It describes what Trump calls “a hellhole” country. It should be an airhorn level, reverberating roar, to everyone, right and left, to get out the vote on November 5, 2024 and make sure that Project 2025-Trump/Vance does not make it into the White House.
Seems the trains keep dropping people off at the camps, yet the concentration camps never fill up.
And all of those "A. Macht Frei" industrial bakeries that began to appear near Trump's camps; what, precisely, are they baking? Also, what's with all that weird ash landing upon the surrounding rooftops, anyway?
Project 2025 is a bold new vision for America (it stinks). Where is the Democrat’s bold new vision for America? If they have one, I have not seen it. JFK had a bold vision for America, Martin Luther King had a bold vision for America but what do the Democrats have for a bold new vision for America to motivate its base? All I hear from the Democrats and President Biden is that “we will keep on keeping on.” Personally, I don’t find that very motivating.
I agree Marc, except a little from Obama it has been decades since any national politician expressed a vision to make America a truly better country that lived up to its ideals for all. All you hear, election after election, are promises to hold on to what people have. (Or in the case of Trump, a "return" to a vague and mythical past.)
But maybe elected people have to be pushed to stand up and develop such a vision. Years ago I moved to a Congressional district with a liberal, popular and supposedly forward thinking Representative. I called his office and asked for a sheet on his core beliefs and values, and what he stood for. "We don't have that," his aide told me. "Nobody ever asked for such a thing before."
Agree! Braying fear of what Trump brings if he wins, while all certainly true enough, is not a winning game plan. Defense with no offense. Democrat leaders need to reconnect with large swaths of voters disenchanted with the drum beat of heat. Everyone outside of the MAGA zone knows the litany of Democrat and Republican( Cheney,et al) denunciations of Trump. Sadly, that rhetoric has become the proverbial rain on the roof.
Let’s get this torch passed, then talk boldly about our future.
I interpret that to mean, that if you vote for me, I will give you more rights and more money and we will steal it from the liberals? And of course the Meganuts, are all on board with screwing the liberals over! Even after we got them the minimum wage and a 40-hour work week and social security... What an ungrateful lot they are!
The leftists, since the 1960s like me have opposed immigration until the time when religious leaders supported birth control, and they never have! The rich have prospered off of the legal and illegal immigrants and now want to blame the leftists like me, while Europe is going to the right because they are blaming the leftists also for immigration while the rich right wingers bust unions and are prospering. The left have been marginalized since at least Ronald Reagan, it either started with Nixon or the JFK assassination! Now we got Republicans running the Democratic party! The right lit the fire and blame the left for its consequences! While they loot the American Treasury and take us back to the dark ages.
Thom Hartmann, you are absolutely right! I read Vance's book and from what his story was, I did not expect how he has turned out. As for Felon 45, and his comrades (all felons), no surprised there.
So, Felon 45 found his clone in Vance. A truly dangerous combination. So, you know, that I and many others are not willing to lay down and die. We feel that President Biden can get to the finish line, and if afterwards he feels that he should call it quit, that is why VICE PRESIDENTS EXIST.
You do realize, Thom, that your clearly correct observations will ultimately lead to only one out for those of us appalled by the faux orange felon and his cult. That is to take them at their word and employ our “sacred” Second Amendment “rights” to rectify things. That we thereby become them in many ways won’t matter to the falsely accused, the wrongly imprisoned, the victims of tainted food and drinking water, no affordable medical care, slave wages and no financial support in their retirement years. We will be left to exercise freedom defined as Janis Joplin did: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
Tell me I’m wrong, and what the alternative would be. I’ll be waiting.
Very sobering. Unbelievable that these concepts are even a consideration much less a reality unless Trump is stopped. A grifter ruining the USA. Never in a million years would I have thought that my long haired "Peace, Love, Dope" contemporaries from the '60's have evolved to this madness.
Peace, Love and Understanding hippies didn't go anywhere. They ended up passing on their values, Dudley. These folks that you see today fighting for peace and justice came from US, just like we came from the generations of fighters for suffrage and abolition! We did evolve, just not like you are thinking. The 60's and 70's were filled with two sides, maybe more than today. The conservative side from then, are the OLD damn conservatives we are dealing with now. I'm here, you are here, we are in tact. We are still those PEOPLE. Be proud and be loud.
What boggles my mind is that no one has seemed to be interested in doing a projection for say, 8-12 years ahead, which will without doubt show how such policies will totally crash the economy and destroy our culture. While a key concern of the climate crisis is over-population, Republicans are advocating a wave of unwanted childbirths in the thousands. Or millions? Hello? Taxpayers are going to be paying for the fallout of mental illness that comes from such scenarios. And during a time when more and more Boomers are needing healthcare--which is already in crisis? Oh, and the numbers of women who will leave the workforce when we already have jobs that are not filled. Look at, for example, at the dysfunction in our postal and transportation systems. Or in agriculture, where immigrants are doing a large percentage of the work but who instead will be in concentration camps--or doing slave labor? And what if most of the unwanted babies are not white? Which is likely, due to the rate of rape in southern states. Horrors! Now there's an interesting challenge to the white supremacy wet dream.
Probably the most Oops! argument though, is to cost out what such comic-book thinking is going to cost the tax-payer. I imagine then that Trump can put bankrupting the country on his list of achievements as the worst president in history (actually, he's already won that ranking two years in a row, according to The NY Times).
Bible says slavery is ok. Either the former immigrants or debtors will be used. They already are ok with human trafficking and Billionaires always like a new way to profit. Trump did good with Epstein.
“They’re convinced that the post-1933 New Deal America is a mistake and, along with their allies on the Supreme Court, are dedicated to “deconstructing the administrative state” that came out of FDR’s reforms and the 20th century reinvention of the American system.”
This is why studying history is important and why it is constantly manipulated.
As lucid as Thom's description is, it doesn't include the white supremacist/dominionist "final solution" for "heretics."...
Only the "elect" will be able to vote, hold office or to engage in commerce......
Women as chattel....
Thanks Daniel, you are correct and that scares the hell out of me. the fact that
Dominionism, New Apostolic Reformation, Opus Dei, they are all the same and interconnected has not gotten enough play, even among the left. It is all about politics, Israel Gaza, Ukraine and we have taken our eyes off the ball. It isn't sexy enough
Dominionism is an ecumenical ideology founded by R J Rushdoony and Rafel Cruz (Ted's Daddy), it wants to replace "laws of man" with Mosaic laws, the laws found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy (613 of them, minus of course laws that are inconvenient like dietary and sumptuary laws.
The penalty for violation is death, and the method of death is stoning, because stones are free. Death for adultery, death for less than faithful Christians, death to infidels, death to heretics, death to juvenile delinquents.
The Royal Race of the Redeemed. https://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/royal_race.htm it operates through the Chalcedon society, at the time of the creation of the website I link to, Gary North was it's public face, Gary North was the man behind the Y2K hysteria.
A copy and paste from the above link
Christian Reconstructionism promotes, genocide, slavery, anti-Semitism, racism, and just out-right terror to obtain a political goal. Christian Reconstructionism is only two things - power and hate. It is evil cloaked in religion whose only equal today is Islam.
What does Cornelius Van Til think of his former student Rushdoony and his son-in-law Gary North on their perversion of the Gospel?
Then too I am frankly a little concerned about the political views of Mr. Rushdoony and Mr. North and particularly if I am correctly informed about some of the views Gary North has with respect to the application of Old Testament principles to our day. My only point is that I would hope and expect that they would not claim that such views are inherent in the principles I hold.
From a letter to Gregg Singer, May 11, 1972, in Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989), p. 133n.
There is plenty of reason why Mr. van Til should be concerned. Christian Reconstructionism considers democracy/freedom a heresy. Its distortion/reconstruction of American Christian traditions is used to justify its evil. Its social and religious dogma promotes genocide, enslavement, and terror to promote the delusions of a self-chosen royal race to dominion over the earth. They see themselves in religious terms as a new "master religion" whose destiny is to crush all others in the name of God.
FIGHT BACK. Register new Democrats' to beat them. https://www.fieldteam6.org/
Yesterday, we sent out over 46K texts and today sending more #textbanking https://www.fieldteam6.org/fund-the-mission
Thanks for the direct link to funding, made another donation this morning.
Because by now, we should all have that pictured in our minds. Yes, I am aware of the agenda to come, but I am not willing to give in to vicious intends for my life or that of my descendants or any of yours.
It's galling that the most irresponsible individuals preach to us about "individual responsibility". In a previous incarnation of oligarch hubris, they labeled us takers and themselves makers, when it is us who make goods and services, while they take most of the profits. No working or retired person should take this guff from them!
Trump’s Project 2025 Mass Deportation Scheme mapped.
How big an impact would mass deportations have on your state? How many families would be torn apart because one family member was undocumented? What happened when the U.S. rounded up Americans of Japanese descent during World War II? Check this map.
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/07/19/trumps-project-2025-mass-deportation-scheme-mapped/
It will get really ugly, very fast. You can be sure that they will include black & brown American citizens in this purge.
We need to spread the word far and fast. Most real people don't want to live in a Christofascist authoritarian country.
The extremists who devised Project 2025 have been behind the far right for a very long time, and they are close to their goal. Vote blue up and down, or you won't recognize America by 2026.
Project 2025 is Dominionism embodied.
Be aware that the mass deportations may lead to something much more sinister and dark. For a deportation to work, other countries have to accept the deported persons. When such mass deportations do not work (and they won't), look for a repeat of the German 1933-42 timeline but on a much accelerated basis.
As a reminder
Jan. 1933: Hitler named Chancellor of Germany
Feb. 1933: Enabling Act allows Hitler to rule by decree
Apr. 1933: First anti-Jewish legislation expels most Jews from civil service jobs, some professions, limits number of Jews in schools and universities
Sep. 1935: Nuremberg laws deprive Jews of German citizenship.
Nov. 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht
Aug.1939: beginning of euthanasia program in Germany, in which severely handicapped and mentally ill children and adults are gassed to death.
May 1941: Einsatzgruppen (special squads) formed to carry out killings of Jews in the USSR after start of invasion of Soviet Union.
Oct. 1941: Probable date of decision to implement Final Solution
November 1941: Start of gassings of Polish Jews at Chelmno
January 1942: Wannsee Conference in Berlin, to plan details of Final Solution.
1942: Death camps opened at Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz.
Hungary has about the same population now as it had in 1960. Hungry has been shrinking in population growth since about 1980. The right wing plan economically does not include providing jobs for the people they deny birth control to.
America's population has gone up about 120 million people in the last 60 years. Using a right-wing economic model of either Hungary or Russia, America would only have about 210 million people. The current population of America is about 330 million.
The right wing trickle down theory does not create jobs, it just burns through humans as fuel for the rich.
Will the religious leaders ever tell their flock to use birth control if it is legal? Or will the religious leaders have their worshipers be slaves, and starve or be exterminated, when they can no longer work long hours.
The GOP want an economic system that resembles, the time when the laborers who built the pyramids were worked to death by about the age of 35 (2500 BC), and were replaced by the new borns. It did not matter what color of skin they had. Modern day right wing billionaires are not racist either. Just their cult members are.
Instead of America globally fighting against this oppression, America has embraced the trickle down theory the last 40 years.
Orban came to power because of Muslim migration, And it is Muslim migration that is responsible for the rise of the right in Europe.
Orban promised to build a wall and evict Muslims, and he followed through on his promise.
The situation in Europe is cultural, there is racism of course, but not like the racism in America, and it does not have the same origin (slavery and the same base - the former slave owning states)
The situation in America is not cultural, its is racist and manufactured by right wing demagogues.
The people seeking to come in from the south, are 99% Catholic, Evangelical, Pentecostal and thus Christian conservative, very conservative, and one safely ensconsed as citizens they become Republicans sharing conservative values. Sheriff Arpaio, Nick Fuentes, Enrique Tarrio come to mind, as does the recently naturalized right wing extremist Trump humper, Mayra Flores , Republican 14th district Texas
Henry Cuellar, D- 28th Texas is anti abortion and is conservative Democrat.
Peter Thiel and the billionaires behind this, are going to wake up with a hangover. They do not realize that that which has made America prosperous and themselves rich and powerful is it's diversity.
By electing Trump, they will in essence kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The dog catches the car and the car runs over the dog.
America has made them rich, and Americans comfortable, because it is motivated. Trump and the Heritage foundation it's billonaires, will demoralize America and stifle if not kill it's productivity.
Pushing LGBT back into the closet, disempowering women and people of color, rounding up immigrants are not actions without negative, extremely negative consequences on the productivity and economic well being of this country.
The Stock market will crumble, maybe even a depression. The newly marginalized, persecuted, excluded demographics won't be buying the bullshit made in China or Asia. Millions will be unemployed, the Yen will replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency. America will become a 2nd world country., a developed nation on the decline.
Yen?, I am thinking yuan?
Yen, Yuan I get them mixed up. Yuan is Chinese, so you are correct.
Thank you, Thom, for another thoughtful article. You are always spot on.
It is no accident that the time the right wants us to return is before the Internet. The Internet is where religious fundamentalism goes to die. It is where propaganda thrives. It is also where the corruption is on full display, with countering narratives that spin either right or left.
I don't disagree with the right that our government is corrupt. It has been so since the beginning, going into overdrive after the Civil War,, as Thom's books and other writings have shown. As an analyst I worked on integrating the Bureau of Land Management computer systems into one coherent system, rather than a collection of resource fiefdoms. This effort met with tremendous resistance because, often with personal attacks. I suspected there was all sorts of hanky-panky going on between government land managers and oligarchs, especially in the field of fossil fuels mined on public lands. Honest to God, the government "feather merchants" argued endlessly about what time/date format should be used in tagging activities. This and other meaningless arguments were meant to delay if not outright tank the move towards efficiency and transparency. I doubt other agencies are any "cleaner." Thus it has always been.
But people didn't see the corruption so they think, for example, the 50's were much better. Ignorance is bliss, of course. "Let's go back to a time when things were better," is code for "Let's go back to a time when I didn't know about the corruption and so didn't get outraged about it." Three channels controlled the TV news and each community had a newspaper that selectively reported. Women knew their place and families with five kids or more were the norm. Yes, things were better when women were in the home, caring lovingly for their families and building community. That’s the mythology, but was mostly only afforded to upper middle class or wealthy families. It wasn’t better for women who wanted other roles. The oligarchs on the right have created a situation where women MUST work outside the home for their families to live and their children to be educated. This is blamed on feminists and the left, but it has been created whole-cloth by the right. I doubt the woman standing 10 hours a day, plucking chickens for Tysons feels she prefers that work to being home with the kids. The right doesn't really want us in the home; they want us working menial jobs, not professional endeavors,
So the right sees the corruption, but the "solutions" they propose are based on mythology and only further the corruption in the worst ways imaginable. And, as per the usual, relies on repression.
SuZie, very well said. I've lived through the so called Golden Age. Yes. I knew nothing of what you ably explained. I, on the other hand, remember a time when Blue Cross was a life saver. No waiting on the phone through endless robotic messages. No fear that the bills would not be paid. No fear that you would only be able to see a specialist once a year or young doctors would have a maximum of 40 minutes with you. No fear that our brightest students would shy away from going into medicine, because of reimbursement and a receptionist interfering with the care they provided. I also remember a time when AT&T was a utility that served the public. When it was broken up into the BABY BELLS, peoples bills skyrocketed. XFINITY is a a racket that should have been investigated long ago. Basic cable costs over $200 per mo. Promises made and promises broken. I could go on but you get my drift. I am sure you're correct about how our news was filtered, but now it is hard to separate propaganda from good journalism, unless, of course, you subscribe to a newsletter like this.
There's always a certain amount of "This costs what?" amongst my age group (70.) But we have two generations who never experienced what a fair and equitable economy looks like. I really feel for my millennial kids. My late husband liked Pendleton wool shirts because they lasted forever, but last time we tried to buy one, he went ballistic at the price. My grandparents house had a $60 per month mortgage - about $700 now. Nobody can get a home for that kind of money any more. I remember my mother being in awe when a lawyer friend paid $40K for a home. "OMG! It's a mansion! You should see it." As a fraction of the man's income, it was about 15%.
Are you saying America can't afford what I experienced in my youth? Could it be that corporate billionaires who have bought up all these homes you're talking about and resold them at outrageous prices are absolved? How did we allow Walmart to displace small business owners? Pendleton can't compete with Walmart or Amazon. Our laws regarding monopolies have been ignored. Since FDR's policies went into effect, corporatists have been trying to revitalize the Robber Barron era. They have eliminated competition, bribed judges and congress to achieve their ends. Citizen's United has put these people in power. Elon Musk took full advantage the gov't gave him to build businesses that can now dictate economic and political policy to gov't. The Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation didn't just arrive overnight. They have been organizing and mobilizing for decades. People have been asleep at the switch. We are in the present fix, because of our own making.
I grew up in that idealic time where my Father became permanently invalid from his job at Lockead and couldn't collect disability because the doctors said he could work one day a week (and was in excruciating pain afterwards) so my Mother had to support the family instead. She worked for the University of CA System and was at the top of her professional skills when they asked her to train a young guy who she found out was making more money than she was. She complained to management and the Union. They replied he needed to make more to support a family. She said he was single and she was actually supporting a family. Nothing changed. The 1950s were crap.
My dad was a non-functioning alcoholic. He'd work from time to time in sales and when young, chased the oil well dream, doing the "Double Shuffle 'Round the 10 Inch Hole." As they say, "a man takes a drink and the drink takes the man." I don't know how mom fed us. We were repeatedly evicted and moved from place to place. In those days there was no way to track deadbeat renters, which we were. We'd move in, not pay any rent other than that required to get into a place and then wait for eviction. There were no jobs for a woman with five kids - no day care....no way out. And we were white; the black people had it even worse. Sometimes the church would bring a couple bags of groceries (things others didn't want.) These groceries were always accompanied by a stern lecture exhorting her stay with her drunk of a husband. We were grateful for the food, though. Dad was theoretically capable of working, so no social services support. The 50's did indeed suck for most of us.
The unleashed corporations you spoke of, with CEOs earnings at the highest levels in 2024, would find those profits dwindling. People who earn less, spend less. We would adjust how we purchase food and other items. The middle class would slump into near poverty, and those who are now barely holding on, would be left on the street starving. All of this would be, sooner than later, felt at the top 1%. Although they would sit around their swimming pools, drinking in-home purified water, giving little thought to what the people “out there” are struggling with.
I have read some of Project 2025. It describes what Trump calls “a hellhole” country. It should be an airhorn level, reverberating roar, to everyone, right and left, to get out the vote on November 5, 2024 and make sure that Project 2025-Trump/Vance does not make it into the White House.
Seems the trains keep dropping people off at the camps, yet the concentration camps never fill up.
And all of those "A. Macht Frei" industrial bakeries that began to appear near Trump's camps; what, precisely, are they baking? Also, what's with all that weird ash landing upon the surrounding rooftops, anyway?
Project 2025 is a bold new vision for America (it stinks). Where is the Democrat’s bold new vision for America? If they have one, I have not seen it. JFK had a bold vision for America, Martin Luther King had a bold vision for America but what do the Democrats have for a bold new vision for America to motivate its base? All I hear from the Democrats and President Biden is that “we will keep on keeping on.” Personally, I don’t find that very motivating.
I agree Marc, except a little from Obama it has been decades since any national politician expressed a vision to make America a truly better country that lived up to its ideals for all. All you hear, election after election, are promises to hold on to what people have. (Or in the case of Trump, a "return" to a vague and mythical past.)
But maybe elected people have to be pushed to stand up and develop such a vision. Years ago I moved to a Congressional district with a liberal, popular and supposedly forward thinking Representative. I called his office and asked for a sheet on his core beliefs and values, and what he stood for. "We don't have that," his aide told me. "Nobody ever asked for such a thing before."
Agree! Braying fear of what Trump brings if he wins, while all certainly true enough, is not a winning game plan. Defense with no offense. Democrat leaders need to reconnect with large swaths of voters disenchanted with the drum beat of heat. Everyone outside of the MAGA zone knows the litany of Democrat and Republican( Cheney,et al) denunciations of Trump. Sadly, that rhetoric has become the proverbial rain on the roof.
Let’s get this torch passed, then talk boldly about our future.
At the risk of pushback for all the reasons it's strange she would run, Marianne Williamson has a vision: https://marianne2024.com!
if only they had a dream. sigh
Read and read and read this Report by Thom Hartmann. I don't know what else or how else to say it.
At the Republican convention, Trump literally said, "I am trying to BUY your vote." Isn’t it ILLEGAL to “BUY” a person’s vote??
I interpret that to mean, that if you vote for me, I will give you more rights and more money and we will steal it from the liberals? And of course the Meganuts, are all on board with screwing the liberals over! Even after we got them the minimum wage and a 40-hour work week and social security... What an ungrateful lot they are!
The leftists, since the 1960s like me have opposed immigration until the time when religious leaders supported birth control, and they never have! The rich have prospered off of the legal and illegal immigrants and now want to blame the leftists like me, while Europe is going to the right because they are blaming the leftists also for immigration while the rich right wingers bust unions and are prospering. The left have been marginalized since at least Ronald Reagan, it either started with Nixon or the JFK assassination! Now we got Republicans running the Democratic party! The right lit the fire and blame the left for its consequences! While they loot the American Treasury and take us back to the dark ages.
Thom Hartmann, you are absolutely right! I read Vance's book and from what his story was, I did not expect how he has turned out. As for Felon 45, and his comrades (all felons), no surprised there.
So, Felon 45 found his clone in Vance. A truly dangerous combination. So, you know, that I and many others are not willing to lay down and die. We feel that President Biden can get to the finish line, and if afterwards he feels that he should call it quit, that is why VICE PRESIDENTS EXIST.
Thanks Thom, for a splendid piece.
Very nice synopsis of Project 2025.
You've given us a great overview of the what the plan entails in part.
Sparing us from the detailed grievances of Trump, littered throughout, upon which the plan relies as a need for change argument.
An arduous task at the least.. You have retained essential talking points we all can use to explain the pain to others.
Bravo
You do realize, Thom, that your clearly correct observations will ultimately lead to only one out for those of us appalled by the faux orange felon and his cult. That is to take them at their word and employ our “sacred” Second Amendment “rights” to rectify things. That we thereby become them in many ways won’t matter to the falsely accused, the wrongly imprisoned, the victims of tainted food and drinking water, no affordable medical care, slave wages and no financial support in their retirement years. We will be left to exercise freedom defined as Janis Joplin did: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
Tell me I’m wrong, and what the alternative would be. I’ll be waiting.
Very sobering. Unbelievable that these concepts are even a consideration much less a reality unless Trump is stopped. A grifter ruining the USA. Never in a million years would I have thought that my long haired "Peace, Love, Dope" contemporaries from the '60's have evolved to this madness.
Peace, Love and Understanding hippies didn't go anywhere. They ended up passing on their values, Dudley. These folks that you see today fighting for peace and justice came from US, just like we came from the generations of fighters for suffrage and abolition! We did evolve, just not like you are thinking. The 60's and 70's were filled with two sides, maybe more than today. The conservative side from then, are the OLD damn conservatives we are dealing with now. I'm here, you are here, we are in tact. We are still those PEOPLE. Be proud and be loud.
What boggles my mind is that no one has seemed to be interested in doing a projection for say, 8-12 years ahead, which will without doubt show how such policies will totally crash the economy and destroy our culture. While a key concern of the climate crisis is over-population, Republicans are advocating a wave of unwanted childbirths in the thousands. Or millions? Hello? Taxpayers are going to be paying for the fallout of mental illness that comes from such scenarios. And during a time when more and more Boomers are needing healthcare--which is already in crisis? Oh, and the numbers of women who will leave the workforce when we already have jobs that are not filled. Look at, for example, at the dysfunction in our postal and transportation systems. Or in agriculture, where immigrants are doing a large percentage of the work but who instead will be in concentration camps--or doing slave labor? And what if most of the unwanted babies are not white? Which is likely, due to the rate of rape in southern states. Horrors! Now there's an interesting challenge to the white supremacy wet dream.
Probably the most Oops! argument though, is to cost out what such comic-book thinking is going to cost the tax-payer. I imagine then that Trump can put bankrupting the country on his list of achievements as the worst president in history (actually, he's already won that ranking two years in a row, according to The NY Times).
Bible says slavery is ok. Either the former immigrants or debtors will be used. They already are ok with human trafficking and Billionaires always like a new way to profit. Trump did good with Epstein.