Thanks Thom for bringing the Reichstag fire to the forefront of public discourse, at least among the few who chose enlightenment and facts. As Trump is working from the dictators playbook, I fear that something will happen that he will use as an excuse to declare, (permanent) martial law.
We are in for it. The very notion that there will be elections, at least honest ones, is a fantasy. Trump cannot afford, ever to be Citizen Trump again. so there will be a "Reichstag fire".
I want people to take notice that certain posters who had an affection for calling President Biden, genocide Joe and posting obfuscating screeds in favor of Putin, No longer comment,Trump won the election and they went away,.
William, sad to say but I think your are correct. Permanent martial law, yes, looks like no one would stop him. So far the courts have failed to stop him, he owns more than half of the congress and the Supreme Court is part of the MAGA team.
Trump has observed the dictum that there is no law throughout his career as a shameless cheat in business, a many-times-accused sexual predator in personal life and a pathological fabricator of sadistic lies in politics.
And he has never been punished, He hasn't even paid the judgements against him.
People who file suit, either don't win, because they can't afford the legal fees, or if they win he ignores the judgement. He defaulted on payments to the Poles who worked on his casino.
As Musk is teaching, even the hard headed,if you have enough money you can do anything.
SCOTUS is either bought and paid for and/or hard bound ideologues ( religion is an ideology, sectarian, not secular, but an ideology none the less)
A Reichstag fire type of event staged by Trump to stop midterms wouldn't surprise me. I'll never again underestimate the gullibility of a large portion of the 77 million who voted for him. They will believe whatever they are told by their beloved radical media. When they are personally negatively effected by Trump GOP actions maybe a few of them might vote for a democrat. Yeah maybe.
These are the scariest times I have ever lived through in this country and my family survived f'ing Joe McCarthy. The Republicans have bee working on this for decades and we have been somnolent. Hope it's not too late. Thom really and logically details what I am hopefully not quite sure is going to happen. Assholes all.
Lord help us,as trump's poll numbers are going down, he'll be more embolden to behave in a radical manner, and no one is around him, this second term,to tell him No. Whether or not Congress would do Anything to block him, so far I don't have confidence that the Republicans will stand up to trump,no matter what he tries to pull. Dark time's this morning ☕ and will reStack ASAP 🙏💯👍
Byrne said: “When I wrote the lyrics in 1982, the title phrase was a metaphor for destroying something safe that entrapped you."
The voters may have already started the fire by doing just that. Some wanted to be financially secure with a big strong man in charge. Instead they got childish, rich front-men with a foreign dictator in charge of them. Putin is planning our complete destruction but not before he sees us dance to his tune.
Yes, indeed the fire started on election day. Rise up people! We have to be the firefighters. There were 235 folks at our recent rally in a rural town of 25,000.
I really think we need to message this not as a blue or red issue. This is a war declared on the citizens of this country by elected Republicans. By our own leaders. Democrats have to go to red state town halls and talk to these folks. They need to feel listened to and validated. This isn't a time to pick fly shit out of pepper. That's the fucking problem with messaging. They need to talk to the broke ass working class. Stay on topic. Housing, health care, education, etc. We can't afford to live in the United States.
Who in fuck are Republicans fighting? Us, they are fighting us!! Break down the walls of bullshit and misinformation. We all hate oligarchs and corporate overlords. Look how two white Christian Nationalists billionaires bought the Texas Republican party. They're owned.
The important thing about this history is that it needs to be gotten out to people who aren't aware of it. We have to find away to get information to people who may not have absorbed it from schooling or who don't seek out historical information from independent media. Everyone at this time must have this information in order to understand and prepare for what is happening. A method that comes to mind is leafleting.
A ten-alarm fire, Ds. So, maybe, just Maybe, it's time to break the friggin' glass?!!!
If there's a wolf in wolf's clothing, it's time to Cry WOLF, for cryin' out loud !!!
I'd say that Agent Orange may pardon . . . Derek "Take-a-Knee" Chauvin.
Then (if he can remove the quart bottle of off-brand gin from his mouth long enough) Hegseth can domestically release the dogs of war, when the cities are ablaze.
Sir Okie. You raise an issue in your last sentence. I can't help but think of all of the substack readers who had faith (hope) that the Military would rescue us.
I said that Trump will fire all generals who aren't loyal to him, and the rest of the Armed Forces will do as they always do, fall in line and follow orders.
My experience was that many foreigners enlisted on the promise they would obtain citizenship.
I heard Defense Base Act and War Hazards Act cases where the employees were often foreigners, mostly from the middle east, Africa, South America. The situs of claim was ususually in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Isn't some of this just what happens when you don't have the draft? To simplify, you get the underprivileged, who tend to be other than white. (Not exclusively, of course: plenty of underprivileged white.) Of course we all know the top social scions get out of it.
Yes, according to Alexander Vindman when you start firing top military lawyers, that means you are getting ready to order the military to do unlawful things.
I have been trying to tell people that, back in 2020, but those who insisted on believing that the institutions would prevail wouldn't listen, they never do
This has been obvious even before the election. As an individual very interested in WWII I am very familiar with what happened in Germany post WWI. The similarities are frightening. They are already sending people out of the US to camps where legal rights are ignored & no monitoring is taking place.
When Hitler decided to implement the Final Solution the camps chosen were outside of Germany because he didn't want any residual support of the Jews to protest against what was happening. 'Relocation' didn't sound so bad. So the people didn't rise up.
Who knows what people will do if this obvious thuggery continues to include people like us on this platform.
There will absolutely be a crisis in which Trump is going to seize more power. It’s coming. Who knows what it will be it could be a number of things. He will declare a state of emergency. We are watching in our lifetime in real time American autocracy.
I felt sure he would cook up some disaster for the people in order to cement his power as #45. I was holding my breath and very worried, but he wasn’t quite as organized and backed then as he is now.
I predicted before the installation of the current regime that an "incident" either spontaneous or more than likely "manufactured" by the maga militias would be used as an excuse to declare martial law and a "temporary suspension" of the Bill of Rights all in the name of protecting "order and domestic tranquility. The blueprint for destroying a constitutional democracy was written in Germany in 1933 and is being used today!
Trump has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator without elections,” while his top diplomats over the weekend refused to cast blame at Putin, a stance that has also sewed a growing rift with traditionally hawkish Republicans, when it comes to Moscow’s international aggression.
Thom - do you even read these comments? I appreciate your POV, but “stand back and stand by” is hardly a way to “be ready”. Do you have any concrete ways to prepare?
I do read them, and the best way to prepare is to become politically active, reach out to elected officials, and join with people in national protests and other actions.
Great - thanks. I’m personally very engaged, I lead a large active Democrat club. It would be good to give these exhortations in the letters, even if it’s repetitive.
Here's a list of other possible actions which I think could help:
A series of general strikes rallying support for massive tax resistance: income taxes would be withheld or diverted until the President and his appointees begin to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress. Legal support teams for tax resisters could be funded as nonprofit protectors of “Conscientious defense of the Constitution,” since it is one of the implicit though unenumerated rights reserved to the people by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Create a secure distributed network for organizing acts of resistance, recruiting ex-federal workers for grassroots organizing, establishing a consolidated independent news outlet to distribute suppressed information, and gaining access to back-channel communications of the Team Trump.
Lobby State and local government agencies until they back up and secure public databases, especially those related to federal programs and payments.
Get serious about publicly shaming the six rogue Justices of Trump v. US until they are forced to resign: sue them for judicial incoherence, mock their every sophistry, taunt them with having expectations of a gratuity for every ruling, etc; and then block every one of Trump's attempts to replace them. Meanwhile, the remnant Court of Three can get on with reversing the judicial linchpins of oligarchic power (eg. Trump, Citizens United etc.).
Commit to doing whatever it takes to defeat every MAGA toady up for election in 2026. In particular, by ensuring that every vote cast can be recounted by hand (especially in swing states), supporting only challengers who endorse impeaching those six judicial “kingmakers,” and who pledge to work for a massive economic shift of corporate wealth into the hands of wage earners, students and small businesses.
As a matter of conscience, launch a campaign to boycott every enterprise profiting those billionaires who flaunted their influence on the inaugural dais (eg. by abandoning X for Blue Sky, Facebook for Diaspora, Amazon for eBay, Google for Startpage, etc.).
As a matter of strategy, facilitate a cadre of online activists who maintain minimal profiles on X, Truth Social, etc. in order to flood those echo-chambers with posts that correct widely circulating errors of fact and reason, but without engaging with adversarial responders or provocateurs.
You're not alone in these thoughts. If you have read Applebaum and Snyder, this fits their histories and profiles! As this government's popularity declines, the chances of such a thing increase. When it happens, a military coup may result, or perhaps a "Maidan." Congress has shown no desire to resolve this problem. With a congressional approval rating between 17 and 29%, we are already operating as a failed state. We have not been existing as an "Enlightened State" for years. When we represented 80% of the world's GDP it was easy to be a democracy; it is much harder at 24%. There is much less to give and much less to steal! We become very ugly humans.
Thom raises a distinct, and serious, possibility. I recall the afternoon of 9/11 various news outlets and TV reporters were commenting upon W's dazed look upon learning of the attack. The news cycle was just starting to attack him as weak, etc when a blizzard of counter-messaging hit the wires and TV screens, backing the Bush Admin's response, and focusing upon America attacked.
The solution: I suggest organized, one-message/one-voice preparedness in advance. For example: Instead of spending money on poorly framed, silly billboards trying to annoy Trump, MOVE ON, should be working on a single voice, message on hold, touching all responsible news outlets: Print, social media, TV, radio.
The message should shout out "see, he crippled the government, firing people who were protecting us, and now look what happened." Proper positioning slots for Specifics, depending upon where, how, who and when, can be prepared.
Remember, we are in a knife fight, here.
US History, much of it recent, is filled with "remember the Maine", 9-11, Tonkin Bay, phony Kuwaiti hospital horror, yellow cake uranium reasons for war and repression. the key is to be ready with a counter before the bad guys' machinery gets up to speed.
It is not as if one could not see the trends Thom and the rest of us have been watching. Our press has been too busy ki$$ing up to the MAGA world to take the Musk threat seriously. Reckless dork Musk has been acting for months like he is high on drugs. Trump has been acting like a crabby old man sinking into senility while ignoring warnings about tariffs as he tries to extort all our allies by kissing Putin's ass. Meanwhile, the sabotage of our government continues unabated to the cheers of fools in red ballcaps.
The past week I have read nothing but speculation of a market crash in the economics news. I mused all weekend over whether I should liquidate my investments. People are sensing that some doom is pending. MAGA governors are ignoring their state deficits and other indicators that their party is shooting itself in the economic foot.
When I read that Trump had just purged DOD, it signaled that the only federal guardrail left was the voters. Trump has already released his fascist militia from prison, so they are ready to burn down whatever he asks in revenge. I had already moved half of my IRA into T-bills two weeks ago. This morning, by 11AM the NASDAQ was already red and approaching -1%, again, the S&P was also red. So I felt justified in liquidating my non-IRA holdings for a month or two just for the peace of mind, regardless of whether the market goes green again. Sadly, like Thom, I fear the end is nigher than most voters think.
A little peace of mind in these volatile times is good. DOW and S&P are hanging In there for now, but you can always reinvest. I agree time to lay low.
The reason I bailed is that I dilly-dallied as the Great Recession loomed, and then the market crashed out from under me almost overnight, and I lost an arm and half a leg so-to-speak. I am hoping this time to just lose a few toes. :-). Also, by 3ish today, it looks like the MSM all read Thom's substack - it is like doom and gloom even from my EU news sources as well as most US mainstream outlets.
Thank you, sir, for your very serious and well-researched and well-supported heads up. Nothing these people do will surprise me at this stage, disgust me yes, but surprise me no, but thanks for the warning. I really appreciate your very knowledgeable perspective.
Thanks Thom for bringing the Reichstag fire to the forefront of public discourse, at least among the few who chose enlightenment and facts. As Trump is working from the dictators playbook, I fear that something will happen that he will use as an excuse to declare, (permanent) martial law.
We are in for it. The very notion that there will be elections, at least honest ones, is a fantasy. Trump cannot afford, ever to be Citizen Trump again. so there will be a "Reichstag fire".
I want people to take notice that certain posters who had an affection for calling President Biden, genocide Joe and posting obfuscating screeds in favor of Putin, No longer comment,Trump won the election and they went away,.
William, sad to say but I think your are correct. Permanent martial law, yes, looks like no one would stop him. So far the courts have failed to stop him, he owns more than half of the congress and the Supreme Court is part of the MAGA team.
https://www.salon.com/2025/02/23/donald-first-law-there-is-no-law/?lh_aid=112154&lh_cid=ry79k8nyek&lh_em=myocicats%40gmail.com&di=4345ea36a49db6b89d1faf90c7855e6b
Trump has observed the dictum that there is no law throughout his career as a shameless cheat in business, a many-times-accused sexual predator in personal life and a pathological fabricator of sadistic lies in politics.
And he has never been punished, He hasn't even paid the judgements against him.
People who file suit, either don't win, because they can't afford the legal fees, or if they win he ignores the judgement. He defaulted on payments to the Poles who worked on his casino.
As Musk is teaching, even the hard headed,if you have enough money you can do anything.
SCOTUS is either bought and paid for and/or hard bound ideologues ( religion is an ideology, sectarian, not secular, but an ideology none the less)
A Reichstag fire type of event staged by Trump to stop midterms wouldn't surprise me. I'll never again underestimate the gullibility of a large portion of the 77 million who voted for him. They will believe whatever they are told by their beloved radical media. When they are personally negatively effected by Trump GOP actions maybe a few of them might vote for a democrat. Yeah maybe.
Trump falesely alleged that the border issue was a national emergency as #45 but at that time, SCOTUS rejected it.
He alleged the same asking for a full court press rounding up immigrants on Jan 21. However, he is overreaching, asking to eliminate asylum citizenship. https://immigrantjustice.org/timeline-trump-administrations-efforts-end-asylum
These are the scariest times I have ever lived through in this country and my family survived f'ing Joe McCarthy. The Republicans have bee working on this for decades and we have been somnolent. Hope it's not too late. Thom really and logically details what I am hopefully not quite sure is going to happen. Assholes all.
Lord help us,as trump's poll numbers are going down, he'll be more embolden to behave in a radical manner, and no one is around him, this second term,to tell him No. Whether or not Congress would do Anything to block him, so far I don't have confidence that the Republicans will stand up to trump,no matter what he tries to pull. Dark time's this morning ☕ and will reStack ASAP 🙏💯👍
The Repugnants are scared little sheep. If they defy Trump, he threatens to primary them.
Or, his rabid followers might go after them and their families, which for some is a greater concern.
It’s all so unsettling.
Cue the lyrics for "Burning Down the House".
Byrne said: “When I wrote the lyrics in 1982, the title phrase was a metaphor for destroying something safe that entrapped you."
The voters may have already started the fire by doing just that. Some wanted to be financially secure with a big strong man in charge. Instead they got childish, rich front-men with a foreign dictator in charge of them. Putin is planning our complete destruction but not before he sees us dance to his tune.
Yes, indeed the fire started on election day. Rise up people! We have to be the firefighters. There were 235 folks at our recent rally in a rural town of 25,000.
Keep teaching, Thom. Thank you.
I really think we need to message this not as a blue or red issue. This is a war declared on the citizens of this country by elected Republicans. By our own leaders. Democrats have to go to red state town halls and talk to these folks. They need to feel listened to and validated. This isn't a time to pick fly shit out of pepper. That's the fucking problem with messaging. They need to talk to the broke ass working class. Stay on topic. Housing, health care, education, etc. We can't afford to live in the United States.
Who in fuck are Republicans fighting? Us, they are fighting us!! Break down the walls of bullshit and misinformation. We all hate oligarchs and corporate overlords. Look how two white Christian Nationalists billionaires bought the Texas Republican party. They're owned.
In 1968 we literally were burning down the house.
The important thing about this history is that it needs to be gotten out to people who aren't aware of it. We have to find away to get information to people who may not have absorbed it from schooling or who don't seek out historical information from independent media. Everyone at this time must have this information in order to understand and prepare for what is happening. A method that comes to mind is leafleting.
A ten-alarm fire, Ds. So, maybe, just Maybe, it's time to break the friggin' glass?!!!
If there's a wolf in wolf's clothing, it's time to Cry WOLF, for cryin' out loud !!!
I'd say that Agent Orange may pardon . . . Derek "Take-a-Knee" Chauvin.
Then (if he can remove the quart bottle of off-brand gin from his mouth long enough) Hegseth can domestically release the dogs of war, when the cities are ablaze.
Sir Okie. You raise an issue in your last sentence. I can't help but think of all of the substack readers who had faith (hope) that the Military would rescue us.
I said that Trump will fire all generals who aren't loyal to him, and the rest of the Armed Forces will do as they always do, fall in line and follow orders.
And so it is coming to pass.
Yep. And he did say that the military would be focused on internal issues... I guess he meant us.
According to AI the military is becoming more diverse, with a growing share of Black, Hispanic, and Asian service members.
Race
In 2023, 68.8% of active-duty service members identified as White, while 31.2% identified as a racial minority.
Black or African American service members make up a sizable and growing share of the military.
The US Navy is the most racially diverse branch of the military.
Ethnicity
In 2023, 18.4% of active-duty service members identified as Hispanic or Latino.
The Space Force is the only branch with a higher proportion of Asian Americans than the US population.
Other demographics
The US military has an increasing share of female service members.
The military's active-duty population is located throughout the world, with the majority in the United States and its territories.
History
President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 in 1948, which mandated equal treatment and opportunity for everyone in the armed services.
However, representation varies depending on the service branch and career field.
My experience was that many foreigners enlisted on the promise they would obtain citizenship.
I heard Defense Base Act and War Hazards Act cases where the employees were often foreigners, mostly from the middle east, Africa, South America. The situs of claim was ususually in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Isn't some of this just what happens when you don't have the draft? To simplify, you get the underprivileged, who tend to be other than white. (Not exclusively, of course: plenty of underprivileged white.) Of course we all know the top social scions get out of it.
Yes, according to Alexander Vindman when you start firing top military lawyers, that means you are getting ready to order the military to do unlawful things.
I get his newsletter as well, but as a retired officer I knew that, alas people have this need to believe in institutions and the Constitution
I fear you are right, as he is replacing Generals loyal to the Constitution, with generals loyal to him. He's setting up the rest of the coup.
I have been trying to tell people that, back in 2020, but those who insisted on believing that the institutions would prevail wouldn't listen, they never do
Yep
This has been obvious even before the election. As an individual very interested in WWII I am very familiar with what happened in Germany post WWI. The similarities are frightening. They are already sending people out of the US to camps where legal rights are ignored & no monitoring is taking place.
When Hitler decided to implement the Final Solution the camps chosen were outside of Germany because he didn't want any residual support of the Jews to protest against what was happening. 'Relocation' didn't sound so bad. So the people didn't rise up.
Who knows what people will do if this obvious thuggery continues to include people like us on this platform.
Be ready is right!
There will absolutely be a crisis in which Trump is going to seize more power. It’s coming. Who knows what it will be it could be a number of things. He will declare a state of emergency. We are watching in our lifetime in real time American autocracy.
I felt sure he would cook up some disaster for the people in order to cement his power as #45. I was holding my breath and very worried, but he wasn’t quite as organized and backed then as he is now.
I predicted before the installation of the current regime that an "incident" either spontaneous or more than likely "manufactured" by the maga militias would be used as an excuse to declare martial law and a "temporary suspension" of the Bill of Rights all in the name of protecting "order and domestic tranquility. The blueprint for destroying a constitutional democracy was written in Germany in 1933 and is being used today!
I'm hoping that Trump's overreach -- and acquescence/conmspiracy with Putin will split his base.
He tried to say that his arrest in Hotlanta was a call to arms. Same in Miami arraignment. His two trials in NY. I noted above, he tried the same in the DACA regs, but was rejected by SCOTUS. https://immigrationforum.org/article/u-s-supreme-court-allows-daca-to-survive/
Wicker on TV. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sTQ_J-Vvwo
https://www.wftv.com/news/video-sen-rick-scott-says-us-needs-stand-up-putin-after-russian-invasion-ukraine/5bbf198e-dedf-4eab-941b-9d53e429fa3c/
Trump has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator without elections,” while his top diplomats over the weekend refused to cast blame at Putin, a stance that has also sewed a growing rift with traditionally hawkish Republicans, when it comes to Moscow’s international aggression.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5161197-us-votes-against-resolution-condemning-russia/
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article300757999.html#campaignName=miami_afternoon_newsletter
Trump is Hitler 2.0.
Thom - do you even read these comments? I appreciate your POV, but “stand back and stand by” is hardly a way to “be ready”. Do you have any concrete ways to prepare?
I do read them, and the best way to prepare is to become politically active, reach out to elected officials, and join with people in national protests and other actions.
Great - thanks. I’m personally very engaged, I lead a large active Democrat club. It would be good to give these exhortations in the letters, even if it’s repetitive.
Here's a list of other possible actions which I think could help:
A series of general strikes rallying support for massive tax resistance: income taxes would be withheld or diverted until the President and his appointees begin to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress. Legal support teams for tax resisters could be funded as nonprofit protectors of “Conscientious defense of the Constitution,” since it is one of the implicit though unenumerated rights reserved to the people by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Create a secure distributed network for organizing acts of resistance, recruiting ex-federal workers for grassroots organizing, establishing a consolidated independent news outlet to distribute suppressed information, and gaining access to back-channel communications of the Team Trump.
Lobby State and local government agencies until they back up and secure public databases, especially those related to federal programs and payments.
Get serious about publicly shaming the six rogue Justices of Trump v. US until they are forced to resign: sue them for judicial incoherence, mock their every sophistry, taunt them with having expectations of a gratuity for every ruling, etc; and then block every one of Trump's attempts to replace them. Meanwhile, the remnant Court of Three can get on with reversing the judicial linchpins of oligarchic power (eg. Trump, Citizens United etc.).
Commit to doing whatever it takes to defeat every MAGA toady up for election in 2026. In particular, by ensuring that every vote cast can be recounted by hand (especially in swing states), supporting only challengers who endorse impeaching those six judicial “kingmakers,” and who pledge to work for a massive economic shift of corporate wealth into the hands of wage earners, students and small businesses.
As a matter of conscience, launch a campaign to boycott every enterprise profiting those billionaires who flaunted their influence on the inaugural dais (eg. by abandoning X for Blue Sky, Facebook for Diaspora, Amazon for eBay, Google for Startpage, etc.).
As a matter of strategy, facilitate a cadre of online activists who maintain minimal profiles on X, Truth Social, etc. in order to flood those echo-chambers with posts that correct widely circulating errors of fact and reason, but without engaging with adversarial responders or provocateurs.
And finally, whatever else comes to mind.
You're not alone in these thoughts. If you have read Applebaum and Snyder, this fits their histories and profiles! As this government's popularity declines, the chances of such a thing increase. When it happens, a military coup may result, or perhaps a "Maidan." Congress has shown no desire to resolve this problem. With a congressional approval rating between 17 and 29%, we are already operating as a failed state. We have not been existing as an "Enlightened State" for years. When we represented 80% of the world's GDP it was easy to be a democracy; it is much harder at 24%. There is much less to give and much less to steal! We become very ugly humans.
Thom raises a distinct, and serious, possibility. I recall the afternoon of 9/11 various news outlets and TV reporters were commenting upon W's dazed look upon learning of the attack. The news cycle was just starting to attack him as weak, etc when a blizzard of counter-messaging hit the wires and TV screens, backing the Bush Admin's response, and focusing upon America attacked.
The solution: I suggest organized, one-message/one-voice preparedness in advance. For example: Instead of spending money on poorly framed, silly billboards trying to annoy Trump, MOVE ON, should be working on a single voice, message on hold, touching all responsible news outlets: Print, social media, TV, radio.
The message should shout out "see, he crippled the government, firing people who were protecting us, and now look what happened." Proper positioning slots for Specifics, depending upon where, how, who and when, can be prepared.
Remember, we are in a knife fight, here.
US History, much of it recent, is filled with "remember the Maine", 9-11, Tonkin Bay, phony Kuwaiti hospital horror, yellow cake uranium reasons for war and repression. the key is to be ready with a counter before the bad guys' machinery gets up to speed.
I can help, but I cannot organize it...
D.
It is not as if one could not see the trends Thom and the rest of us have been watching. Our press has been too busy ki$$ing up to the MAGA world to take the Musk threat seriously. Reckless dork Musk has been acting for months like he is high on drugs. Trump has been acting like a crabby old man sinking into senility while ignoring warnings about tariffs as he tries to extort all our allies by kissing Putin's ass. Meanwhile, the sabotage of our government continues unabated to the cheers of fools in red ballcaps.
The past week I have read nothing but speculation of a market crash in the economics news. I mused all weekend over whether I should liquidate my investments. People are sensing that some doom is pending. MAGA governors are ignoring their state deficits and other indicators that their party is shooting itself in the economic foot.
When I read that Trump had just purged DOD, it signaled that the only federal guardrail left was the voters. Trump has already released his fascist militia from prison, so they are ready to burn down whatever he asks in revenge. I had already moved half of my IRA into T-bills two weeks ago. This morning, by 11AM the NASDAQ was already red and approaching -1%, again, the S&P was also red. So I felt justified in liquidating my non-IRA holdings for a month or two just for the peace of mind, regardless of whether the market goes green again. Sadly, like Thom, I fear the end is nigher than most voters think.
A little peace of mind in these volatile times is good. DOW and S&P are hanging In there for now, but you can always reinvest. I agree time to lay low.
The reason I bailed is that I dilly-dallied as the Great Recession loomed, and then the market crashed out from under me almost overnight, and I lost an arm and half a leg so-to-speak. I am hoping this time to just lose a few toes. :-). Also, by 3ish today, it looks like the MSM all read Thom's substack - it is like doom and gloom even from my EU news sources as well as most US mainstream outlets.
Thank you, sir, for your very serious and well-researched and well-supported heads up. Nothing these people do will surprise me at this stage, disgust me yes, but surprise me no, but thanks for the warning. I really appreciate your very knowledgeable perspective.