The general idea that the Democratic Party was perceived by many working class voters as a group of elitist, pointy headed intellectuals feathering their own urban nests and enforcing politically correct language while disregarding pocketbook issues is not wholly incorrect. But I said "perceived". Because the actual truth is not that simple. Compromised as they have been by corporate donors since the death of Labor, the Dems have underperformed as the champions of the common man FDR made them out to be. But please, the subtleties are quite important. FDR was successful because he accommodated the rabidly bigoted white Southern racists in his coalition. Do we want that deal with thev devil? Is Sherrod Brown, whom you mentioned, indistinguishable from Michael Bloomberg? Please. His loss to freaking Bernie Moreno ought to tell you something. There's more than policy stuff going on here. As righteously indignant as Bernie is, and I side with him almost always, I think Pelosi is seeing this better. The choice was clear, and Harris/Walz did a good enough job making their case. Trump and his oligarchy have massively brainwashed America, just as Reagan had with stupid voodoo economics. Explain to me why Trump, a demonstrably anti-veteran candidate who spit on them repeatedly, crushed Harris with the veteran vote. Don't see the parallel? Then, I'm sorry you can't.
Absolutely. The relentless and well-funded disinformation campaign from reactionaries this year was insurmountable.
I watched ads in my own state blaming Harris for people's income taxes being too high. The attention and recall of many voters is so poor that they didn't remember that the last few tax bracket gifts to the rich were set by Republicans. Those include 2 tax cuts from Bush 43 and another massive one by Trump on 2017.
Democrats need an effective counterweight to right-wing disinformation campaigns but haven't found an answer. The wipeout from this election, combined with all branches commandeered by Republicans may mean they never get the chance to do so again.
Kerry, people are lazy, preoccupied and ill informed. Vets get their misinformation from Fox, Newsmax, Newsnation, OANN, the Blaze, and from Joe Rogan and AM hate radio.
You, I and others on this substack and Robert Reichs and similar live in an information bubble, an echo chamber, .
As an example: You aid "I think Pelosi is better". Better at what. She, in the house, Rahm Emanuel in the White House single handedly killed Berni'es Single Payor (MEDICARE FOR ALL).
Rahm then call us "fucking retards" the DNC supported him in his bid for Mayor of Chicago, as Mayor he did the bidding of Betsy DeVos and scrapped public education for charter schools, turned on the black community,and in some way was irresponsible for the success of Trump' spresidency.
His reward,Trump is selecting him for Ambassador to Japan. Ambassador ships are golden plums, handed out to those people who have especially helped the president in his bid for office.
The political pros' i n the Democratic party will,of course,make of that selection as Trump being open handed, fair and not so bad as he is made out to be, they will further normalize Trump.
IMO, we are the aucience and victims of Kabuki theater, we have been played, and the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris were not the Lone Ranger comingto the rescue.
Especially since Kamala couldn't wait to concede 5 hrs after the polls opened and before all of the votes were counted.
You might notice she never attacked Trump with negativity,her campaign of positivity did nothing,positivity has never won an election (exception Obama securing the almost total black vote, they turned out in numbers that they never turned out for HRC or Kamala.
It was the white Christian nationalist vote for Trump and the Muslim black vote if not for Trump, though there was a lot of that, but their quiescence, their rebellion their flipping Harris the bird because of Gaza that elected Trump.
“When Orban was re-elected, he carried out what Magyar calls an ‘autocratic breakthrough,’ changing laws and practices so that he could not be dislodged again."
More likely Putin will clandestinely martyr Trump and Vance the Terrible will Russify America.
Talk of curling your toes. Todays mail from The Intercept Top Democrats just voted to let Trump unilaterally silence the resistance
Trump has selected the man that killed Single Payor, who killed public education in Chicago and called Progressives fucking retard, Rahm Emanuel, as Ambassador to Japan.
Ambassador appointments are handed out as rewards, usually to contributors. The professional Dems will say that this evidence that Trump won't be so bad,and that it is all bluff and bluster.
They are of course scared shitless because they know he will take revenge, and now they are scrambling to get aboard the Trump train, less they wind up on the Auschwitz train.
Of course former officials who turned on Trump are planning to leave the country, they know he means what he says. The weak kneed politicians, pundits, TV hosts that are hanging around are hanging around hope that if they back pedal, change their tune, quietly kiss the ring, then Trump will not take his revenge.
There is ample evidence in the behavior of the likes of Marco Rubio that you can say anything so long as you retract, humilate yourself, fall to your knees and fellate Trump.
Keep your eyes on MSNBC hosts the first to cave is Chis Hayes, Ari Melber, then Donald O'Donnell and Ali Velshi, those two are in the early stages already. Jimmy Falon has been protecting himself by not ridiculing Trump , too much, even Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert's are donning velvet gloves, it's easy to talk about exit, but when you have investments, Money Market Funds, property, family and friends people hang on until they are shunted off to a rail road siding and forced at bayonet point to climb aboard cattle cars.
I am having that discussion with my wife at the moment. I'm ready to ditch it all and flee to Panama, she was weeks ago, but not so eager now. she wants to try and weather the storm, and she might.
I know that I won't but hey, I'm 85 and a cancer survivor,so what's the chance and I have already lived a good, full and great lie, She is only 71
Yes, I saw it during the McCarthy HUAC era--cowards jumping ship like rats from a leaky barge. We can probably expect loyalty oaths to be imposed on teachers and other professions. Don't use any words over the phone that could be picked up and interpreted as treasonable by phone tapping devices. "Undesirables" will be paraded around in the public and ruined in order to scare the population into compliance. But most of all, Trump's private militia, the Proud Oath Keeper Boys (who are standing by), will be sent to attack Left and Woke targets. Our only defense will be non violence because otherwise Trump will be able to declare Martial Law to enforce the peace and use that to arrest his enemies in droves. As Hitler did.
Are hand-recounts after elections mandated in some states, as a matter of SOP? They should be in all states — at least spot check counts, but total recounts would be nice. Lengthy for sure, but nice.
Hand recounts are a waste of time and money, Kamala conceded 5 hours after the polls opened. She in fact sanctified Trumps win. Legally she could walk it back, but won't her concession was a way of saying any other vote counting is proforma.
Thank you, Thom, for being a voice to the public. I feel the public opinion has been manipulated, like the public was during the Hubert Hoover Presidential campaign. When Edward Bernays advised Hoover- to create a disunity within your opposition and present yourself as an invincible leader. Have ever read Edward L Bernays book (Propaganda)? His philosophy for manipulating public opinion is even more prevalent today. Wikipedia has a great biography of Bernays.
I agree with much of what you are saying and will continue listening.
However, I would ask that the Democrats PLEASE do not try to "re-invent" yourselves: Just present your arguments and proposals openly and honestly to the American people and LET US DECIDE what WE WANT! Don't FORCE US to pay for anything we don't believe in!
It is my understanding that Texas is NOT trying to control any ones' "speech." Rather, they are threatening to prosecute any one who aids and abets a "crime" -- their crime of "abortion."
We, on the left, the progressives, the liberals are not in, never have been in a positin to force anyone to do anything,
On the other hand the force is with the right, the hobnailed jackboot of tyranny is poised to come down on all of us, even you Time.
You believe that your beliefs will keep you safe,snug and secure. tens of millions of Germans that vote yes in the 1934 plebscite which confirmed Adolph as Der Fuhrer, soon claimed all Germans as the victims of their own stupidity, because it soon became apparent that any demur, any complaint was cause for a visit from the Gestapo.
Hitler create labor battalions, and the workers were brutalized and mistreated, any who wrote Dear Fuhrer Letters" (Dear Fuhrer, if only you knew how starved and mistreated we are) were soon visited by the Gestapo, and never heard from again. Welcome to the 4th Reich of the Rich.
Do they not promise to use my taxes to pay for abortions, here and abroad? And to promote agendas that I disagree with. Do they not try to force doctors and nurses to participate in abortions? And force bakers and printers and pharmacists to assist in activities against their conscience?
Trump and Co, will do all that -- over my dead body. If he even takes ONE unconstitutional step, WE will call him into account!
I am done with you. A parting shot, that is what government does, it promotes and funds agendas which many in a population disagree with, and sometimes they coalesce gather steam and come to a head. We saw that in 1776, 1789, 1917 and 2023, very often the results are not we expect. Kevin Roberts told us that it will be a second revolution, bloodless if the left will allow it, the problem is the anti abortion faction are not going to like what their anger and angst has created a Golum, a Frankenstein monster, which will turn on them.
The first victims of Hitler were the Strumabeitlung, Brown shirts, he killed the leadersip in the night of the long knives in 1938. First he comes for the trans, then the days, then thefeminazis, the immigrants, then all who don't pledge allegiance to him.
From Heather Cox Richardson ---When Texas senator John Cornyn said he would like to see the Gaetz report, Trump loyalist Steve Bannon said: “You either get with the program, brother, or you're going to finish third in your primary.” A member of Trump’s transition team said that Trump wants to bend Republican senators to his will “until they snap in half.”
All of this authoritarianism sounds really ugly and scary. It makes me think about the experience of Siegfried & Roy who performed with the exotic big cats for many years in shows on the las Vegas strip until one of the animals attacked and nearly killed Roy. Authority is tamed under certain conditions and it is useful to maintain control, until it is turned on you and you become its victim. Everyone wrongly believes that authority is somehow beneficial and essential for children who cannot learn without being controlled. It is a great tool for keeping the kids in line and quiet. They have logically concluded it must be a good thing and that authority will bring order, peace, and prosperity. Now, the wild thing has turned on us. Too bad. Too late now. For over five years here I could never get any discussion of the insidious danger of arbitrary authority in schools emanating from the power of laws and the power necessarily given to authorities and officials for the implementation of those unconstitutional and paternalistic laws. Now, "the people" (graduates of those schools have decided we should all just fall into line because the only way we will learn our lessons is to obey in subjective silence. Welcome to school (as long as you do what you are told when you are told to do it). Otherwise, you will be shamed and expelled.
Robert, what happened at that show was the flash of lights from cell phones and cameras startled the tiger and scared her and like cats do when threatened they pick their kits up by the scruff of the neck and carry them to safet
That she tiger was not attacking Roy, but trying to protect him, he argued and pleaded not to kill her. The tiger did not turn on Roy, but was tryingto protect him.
I understand your motivation for using the analogy,but try one that is more accurate and not misleading.
Good point. I'll grant you that. I'm turning blue now holding my breath for an argument, any argument, on the merits. When will I see a coherent or science-based argument in defense of arbitrary authority being used in schools for the edification or education of students or in favor of compulsory attendance laws and their attendant necessity for a hierarchical/authoritarian structure to assure a definition of relationships and compliance with the laws subjugating students and confining them while they are being spoon-fed white/Christian nationalistic propaganda and sterilized Pablum? There were arguments 150 years ago. They were BS then and they are BS now. Any decent psychologist knows that extrinsic learning and reward, and coercion in an educational enterprise are counterproductive, insulting, and unscientific. The school-to-prison pipeline is just the most extreme manifestation of the principle. Or, maybe it is 70 million people voting multiple times to usher a fascist into power for their own abuse and degradation.
I don't have an argument, I share your concern about Christian, not necessarily white now, brainwashing in today's schooling. Florida is example of how public education has been, manipulated like education was redesigned to facilitate and reinforce the fascist state in Germany, Italy and Japan.
I go back further than that when education was designed to facilitate the control of church and state.
I know what is wrong, I know where it is headed, but I don't know the cure, and how to affect the curer.
Researchers have been spelling out the parameters and the optimal conditions for schooling and education for generations. There is no one ideal or perfect formula, solution, alternative, or methodology. However, the one thing which has consistently been shown over and over to be a major impediment to a healthy and functional environment and to effective policies for training, socialization, education, etc., is an authoritarian milieu and the negative effects of coercion and a top-down hierarchy. The only way those things will ever be meaningfully rectified is to eradicate attendance laws.
Just because the damned libertarians also want to eliminate attendance laws does not make me a libertarian or a reactionary malcontent. And just because getting it done is seen as an impossible undertaking does not mean that we must forever continue to harm children, mass-mis-educate them, and fatally undermine democracy. Because something is extremely hard and opposed by nearly everyone is NOT justification to keep doing stupid things and making it all but impossible for students to develop critical thinking and confidence in their own intellectual resources.
One more time: Government should fund schooling and protect students. It has no damned business dictating or even recommending curricular content or using behavior modification and social engineering to determine how citizens will think and behave. That’s what they do in dictatorships.
Weill I can agree with that. You know my story, but I will repeat it
My 1st day of School was June 1946, Marine Base, Quantico.
Mom, Dad split the sheets re enrolled in Philadelphia, PA.
I could read before I started school.
All was well until High School, boring as hell, teachers were incompetent.
Probably ADD, probably still, managed.
My teachers were the 4F's and the spinsters who took the teachers place, while they went off to fight the war..
English teacher was literally, an old lady in tennis shoes. Algebra teacher was literally bonkers, World history teacher required us to take notes as she scribbled on three walls of blackboards, talking to them and her flabby arms jiggling. I got writers crap and from then on didn't take notes, got an A on the exams,but failed the class because I didn't copy her notes..
After a couple months I just gave up, the only class I attended was gym class and wound up on the gym team, the rest of the time I played truant and walked to the public library, a mile away, and there I got my education,under the tutelage of the librarian, Read hundreds of books, mostly the classics, but she didn't teach algebra
Basically I am an autodidact.
On 17th birthday I got called into the principles office, given a choice of showing up the next day and being sent to Daniel Boone, a reform school in South Phillie for incorrigibles, or quitting.
I made the school look bad, I tested the highest IQ, behind Barbara Singer, but had the worst attendance and scholastic record (three years in 9th grade), I caused problems for the principal, I had already caused the firing of two school counselors.
Dec 57 I passed HS GED, 2 weeks later the AA GED, they had such a thing then.
The public school system in the 1940's and 1950's in Phillie sucked, incompetent and boring teachers. While they yammered I looked out the window and day dreamed, finally stopped going to class, except gym.
American History was, on reflection, pure brainwashing, I was taught myths as facts., World History as Voltaire said was no more than commonly accepted myths.
But people do need to learn reading, riting and rithmetic, and you can only get that, for the masses, via public schooling. most parents don't have the time or money to teach them their selves or hire a tutor.
My sister was infected with the Christian virus, and with her youngest child, tutored her at home, thus saving her from exposure to the immoral heathens that she would have met and of course the satanic education of public schooling.
Scholasticly she did a good job, she had a Christian upbringing and won a scholarship, upon graduation at age 21 she got a job teaching H.S., in WVA to her peers, but she had never been socialized, and when cloistered Megan met the real world, she consistently made bad choices and ruined her life.
Her mother realized that she fucked up and regretted hr actions before she died of brain cancer. Her mother also alienated her oldest daughter, because she went against the bible, and married another woman.
How else will people become literate? Should schools teach history and civics?
Not if they are like Florida and the confederate states.
These are issues that need to be considered.
Shit even college and university are brainwashing factories. Econ 101 was Milton Friedman and Fee, Econ 102 was Paul Samuelson. A management professor had us study the Communist Manifesto.
The only class I liked, the only professor I respected was in Statistics, a bearded hippy who had us read How to Lie With Statistics.
And he even led a charge on protesting students that wanted to take over the University , saying not in my university. He was against the war, but wasn't gong to put up with that shit, disturbing the academic environment. and taking over the university.
They wanted to turn it into another Kent State, he, I and Alpha Kappa Psi stopped that plan in it's tracks., and we did it by using the tactics of communists.
Your personal story is interesting and revealing. But you still do not understand what I am saying, from all indications. You express concern about how the masses will become literate. First of all, if they are going to become destructive or self-destructive and tear down civilization once they become "literate", maybe it is better that they are not taught anything in a school at all. But I have NEVER said that we should not have public schooling. You got that idea from your own imagination or prejudices. Secondly, literacy is at an all-time low among the middle-class and poor and the number of people who are semi-literate and ignorant and reading-averse or suffering from panic attacks and self-loathing is staggering thanks to the damage done in schools. Thirdly, everyone is in reality an autodidact. There is a need for certain help in cases of children with bona fide disabilities (most who are labelled as learning disabled are disabled by their school experience and school failures) and technical help in various sciences and areas is essential. However, no one is arguing against any of that. ALL I AM SAYING IS THAT BAD LAWS CREATE BAD CONDITIONS AND AN AUTHORITARIAN SYSTEM DOMINATED BY PEOPLE WHOSE PRIORITIES ARE NOT THE EDUCATION OR THE BEST INTERESTS OF STUDENTS AND WHICH HARM CHILDREN, TEACHERS, AND UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY. Teachers without autonomy and students without autonomy cannot grow a society with autonomous citizens capable of free thought, critical thinking, and self-knowledge, let alone any other kind of knowledge.
Here is a post from Quora which makes some good points about why rural voters felt left behind.....
Chris Everett
Why do so many rural people believe that President Trump is acting in their best interests?
1. The Obama administration really wasn’t great for people in rural areas. Economically speaking. There’s some research on this (which I can’t find at the moment) that showed that job creation under Obama was almost all in cities, at least for the first six years. So a lot of rural people’s lived experience wasn’t nearly that of urban people who tended to see their economic outlooks improve. By contrast, the last four years have been pretty good for a lot of them.
2. COVID-19 hasn’t had nearly the sort of impact for most rural people that it had for urban ones. New York and New Jersey bore the brunt of COVID-19, especially in the first wave.
3. Illegal immigration is a problem in rural communities in a way that it just isn’t in cities. Long term jobs that have supported people in rural areas can, and often are, taken by illegal immigrants, in ways that do not tend to happen with urban careers… Immigrants in cities open up interesting restaurants and mow your yard, and the homeless guy who harasses you is an American citizen. Immigrants in small towns eliminate sources of wealth, while driving up taxes. It’s a problem.
4. Firearms. Working class white men vote Republican on guns. And while Trump’s record here sucks, his platform is certainly more pro-gun than Biden’s or Clinton’s.
5. Environmental concerns. A lot of Democratic administrations view of environmental protection acts in ways that causes real issues for rural communities. It closes off recreation, and is often enough to push economic activity over the edge. People in cities don’t feel these effects the same ways.
6. Regulations. Regulations in cities are needed because when people live in a dense space, you have to have it or you’ll go insane. Cities require regulation. Excessive regulation in rural areas isn’t nearly as welcome. Applying the same rules to both (as the federal government does) tends to lead to frustrated rural residents.
7. Rural people on the whole are more religious, and the pro-choice and (sometimes) undercurrent of dislike of those values is evident.
8. Trump, specifically, didn’t talk down to them in the way that politicians from both parties tend to.
9. Trump’s war with the media plays well in rural areas who often feel that the media either misrepresents them, or is simply deliberately clueless about them.
10. China and agriculture. While a lot of people aren’t thrilled with the Trump administration, they welcomed the fact that he at least talked about China and some of the previous practices that were really hurting agriculture.
It doesn't matter much if we believe this or not - this is what they voted on in this election. Look at the result and take these comments under consideration.....
Thanks Thom for sticking with us. I will do everything in my power - however limited it may be - to help you if needed.
The general idea that the Democratic Party was perceived by many working class voters as a group of elitist, pointy headed intellectuals feathering their own urban nests and enforcing politically correct language while disregarding pocketbook issues is not wholly incorrect. But I said "perceived". Because the actual truth is not that simple. Compromised as they have been by corporate donors since the death of Labor, the Dems have underperformed as the champions of the common man FDR made them out to be. But please, the subtleties are quite important. FDR was successful because he accommodated the rabidly bigoted white Southern racists in his coalition. Do we want that deal with thev devil? Is Sherrod Brown, whom you mentioned, indistinguishable from Michael Bloomberg? Please. His loss to freaking Bernie Moreno ought to tell you something. There's more than policy stuff going on here. As righteously indignant as Bernie is, and I side with him almost always, I think Pelosi is seeing this better. The choice was clear, and Harris/Walz did a good enough job making their case. Trump and his oligarchy have massively brainwashed America, just as Reagan had with stupid voodoo economics. Explain to me why Trump, a demonstrably anti-veteran candidate who spit on them repeatedly, crushed Harris with the veteran vote. Don't see the parallel? Then, I'm sorry you can't.
One more time. But for Russian interference, we wudda won.
As to the veteran vote....I don't think that's true. We flipped tens of thousands of former Trump supporters nationally....mostly Yankees.
We did not move visceral voters ... regardless how they registered.
Absolutely. The relentless and well-funded disinformation campaign from reactionaries this year was insurmountable.
I watched ads in my own state blaming Harris for people's income taxes being too high. The attention and recall of many voters is so poor that they didn't remember that the last few tax bracket gifts to the rich were set by Republicans. Those include 2 tax cuts from Bush 43 and another massive one by Trump on 2017.
Democrats need an effective counterweight to right-wing disinformation campaigns but haven't found an answer. The wipeout from this election, combined with all branches commandeered by Republicans may mean they never get the chance to do so again.
Kerry, people are lazy, preoccupied and ill informed. Vets get their misinformation from Fox, Newsmax, Newsnation, OANN, the Blaze, and from Joe Rogan and AM hate radio.
You, I and others on this substack and Robert Reichs and similar live in an information bubble, an echo chamber, .
As an example: You aid "I think Pelosi is better". Better at what. She, in the house, Rahm Emanuel in the White House single handedly killed Berni'es Single Payor (MEDICARE FOR ALL).
Rahm then call us "fucking retards" the DNC supported him in his bid for Mayor of Chicago, as Mayor he did the bidding of Betsy DeVos and scrapped public education for charter schools, turned on the black community,and in some way was irresponsible for the success of Trump' spresidency.
His reward,Trump is selecting him for Ambassador to Japan. Ambassador ships are golden plums, handed out to those people who have especially helped the president in his bid for office.
The political pros' i n the Democratic party will,of course,make of that selection as Trump being open handed, fair and not so bad as he is made out to be, they will further normalize Trump.
IMO, we are the aucience and victims of Kabuki theater, we have been played, and the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris were not the Lone Ranger comingto the rescue.
Especially since Kamala couldn't wait to concede 5 hrs after the polls opened and before all of the votes were counted.
You might notice she never attacked Trump with negativity,her campaign of positivity did nothing,positivity has never won an election (exception Obama securing the almost total black vote, they turned out in numbers that they never turned out for HRC or Kamala.
It was the white Christian nationalist vote for Trump and the Muslim black vote if not for Trump, though there was a lot of that, but their quiescence, their rebellion their flipping Harris the bird because of Gaza that elected Trump.
And now they and we will be paying the price.
“When Orban was re-elected, he carried out what Magyar calls an ‘autocratic breakthrough,’ changing laws and practices so that he could not be dislodged again."
More likely Putin will clandestinely martyr Trump and Vance the Terrible will Russify America.
This is all so scary! We need to share this with all our friends and urge them to share with all their friends!😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫
It's the "other" team that needs to be educated.
Not calm any more. Nauseously scared, particularly for my adult children.
Talk of curling your toes. Todays mail from The Intercept Top Democrats just voted to let Trump unilaterally silence the resistance
Trump has selected the man that killed Single Payor, who killed public education in Chicago and called Progressives fucking retard, Rahm Emanuel, as Ambassador to Japan.
Ambassador appointments are handed out as rewards, usually to contributors. The professional Dems will say that this evidence that Trump won't be so bad,and that it is all bluff and bluster.
They are of course scared shitless because they know he will take revenge, and now they are scrambling to get aboard the Trump train, less they wind up on the Auschwitz train.
Of course former officials who turned on Trump are planning to leave the country, they know he means what he says. The weak kneed politicians, pundits, TV hosts that are hanging around are hanging around hope that if they back pedal, change their tune, quietly kiss the ring, then Trump will not take his revenge.
There is ample evidence in the behavior of the likes of Marco Rubio that you can say anything so long as you retract, humilate yourself, fall to your knees and fellate Trump.
Keep your eyes on MSNBC hosts the first to cave is Chis Hayes, Ari Melber, then Donald O'Donnell and Ali Velshi, those two are in the early stages already. Jimmy Falon has been protecting himself by not ridiculing Trump , too much, even Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert's are donning velvet gloves, it's easy to talk about exit, but when you have investments, Money Market Funds, property, family and friends people hang on until they are shunted off to a rail road siding and forced at bayonet point to climb aboard cattle cars.
I am having that discussion with my wife at the moment. I'm ready to ditch it all and flee to Panama, she was weeks ago, but not so eager now. she wants to try and weather the storm, and she might.
I know that I won't but hey, I'm 85 and a cancer survivor,so what's the chance and I have already lived a good, full and great lie, She is only 71
Thom, welcome to TrumpAStan. Wow!
Yes, I saw it during the McCarthy HUAC era--cowards jumping ship like rats from a leaky barge. We can probably expect loyalty oaths to be imposed on teachers and other professions. Don't use any words over the phone that could be picked up and interpreted as treasonable by phone tapping devices. "Undesirables" will be paraded around in the public and ruined in order to scare the population into compliance. But most of all, Trump's private militia, the Proud Oath Keeper Boys (who are standing by), will be sent to attack Left and Woke targets. Our only defense will be non violence because otherwise Trump will be able to declare Martial Law to enforce the peace and use that to arrest his enemies in droves. As Hitler did.
Are hand-recounts after elections mandated in some states, as a matter of SOP? They should be in all states — at least spot check counts, but total recounts would be nice. Lengthy for sure, but nice.
That report is chilling!
Hand recounts are a waste of time and money, Kamala conceded 5 hours after the polls opened. She in fact sanctified Trumps win. Legally she could walk it back, but won't her concession was a way of saying any other vote counting is proforma.
Maybe, maybe not …
I don't see how they can overturn her concession, I can see how that info is squelched.
if she wants to rescind her concession, she can.
If someone has DEFINITIVE evidence of miscounts, that’s just facts.
I want to have access to facts.
No need to get snarky Pat, no need t get snarky.
Thank you, Thom, for being a voice to the public. I feel the public opinion has been manipulated, like the public was during the Hubert Hoover Presidential campaign. When Edward Bernays advised Hoover- to create a disunity within your opposition and present yourself as an invincible leader. Have ever read Edward L Bernays book (Propaganda)? His philosophy for manipulating public opinion is even more prevalent today. Wikipedia has a great biography of Bernays.
I agree with much of what you are saying and will continue listening.
However, I would ask that the Democrats PLEASE do not try to "re-invent" yourselves: Just present your arguments and proposals openly and honestly to the American people and LET US DECIDE what WE WANT! Don't FORCE US to pay for anything we don't believe in!
It is my understanding that Texas is NOT trying to control any ones' "speech." Rather, they are threatening to prosecute any one who aids and abets a "crime" -- their crime of "abortion."
We, on the left, the progressives, the liberals are not in, never have been in a positin to force anyone to do anything,
On the other hand the force is with the right, the hobnailed jackboot of tyranny is poised to come down on all of us, even you Time.
You believe that your beliefs will keep you safe,snug and secure. tens of millions of Germans that vote yes in the 1934 plebscite which confirmed Adolph as Der Fuhrer, soon claimed all Germans as the victims of their own stupidity, because it soon became apparent that any demur, any complaint was cause for a visit from the Gestapo.
Hitler create labor battalions, and the workers were brutalized and mistreated, any who wrote Dear Fuhrer Letters" (Dear Fuhrer, if only you knew how starved and mistreated we are) were soon visited by the Gestapo, and never heard from again. Welcome to the 4th Reich of the Rich.
Do they not promise to use my taxes to pay for abortions, here and abroad? And to promote agendas that I disagree with. Do they not try to force doctors and nurses to participate in abortions? And force bakers and printers and pharmacists to assist in activities against their conscience?
Trump and Co, will do all that -- over my dead body. If he even takes ONE unconstitutional step, WE will call him into account!
I am done with you. A parting shot, that is what government does, it promotes and funds agendas which many in a population disagree with, and sometimes they coalesce gather steam and come to a head. We saw that in 1776, 1789, 1917 and 2023, very often the results are not we expect. Kevin Roberts told us that it will be a second revolution, bloodless if the left will allow it, the problem is the anti abortion faction are not going to like what their anger and angst has created a Golum, a Frankenstein monster, which will turn on them.
The first victims of Hitler were the Strumabeitlung, Brown shirts, he killed the leadersip in the night of the long knives in 1938. First he comes for the trans, then the days, then thefeminazis, the immigrants, then all who don't pledge allegiance to him.
The link to the Stephen Spoonamore article doesn’t work.
I just fixed it. Interestingly, there was a post about him over on Daily Kos that's now blocked to users (it's on Democratic Underground right now).
I got through
Same here
From Heather Cox Richardson ---When Texas senator John Cornyn said he would like to see the Gaetz report, Trump loyalist Steve Bannon said: “You either get with the program, brother, or you're going to finish third in your primary.” A member of Trump’s transition team said that Trump wants to bend Republican senators to his will “until they snap in half.”
All of this authoritarianism sounds really ugly and scary. It makes me think about the experience of Siegfried & Roy who performed with the exotic big cats for many years in shows on the las Vegas strip until one of the animals attacked and nearly killed Roy. Authority is tamed under certain conditions and it is useful to maintain control, until it is turned on you and you become its victim. Everyone wrongly believes that authority is somehow beneficial and essential for children who cannot learn without being controlled. It is a great tool for keeping the kids in line and quiet. They have logically concluded it must be a good thing and that authority will bring order, peace, and prosperity. Now, the wild thing has turned on us. Too bad. Too late now. For over five years here I could never get any discussion of the insidious danger of arbitrary authority in schools emanating from the power of laws and the power necessarily given to authorities and officials for the implementation of those unconstitutional and paternalistic laws. Now, "the people" (graduates of those schools have decided we should all just fall into line because the only way we will learn our lessons is to obey in subjective silence. Welcome to school (as long as you do what you are told when you are told to do it). Otherwise, you will be shamed and expelled.
Robert, what happened at that show was the flash of lights from cell phones and cameras startled the tiger and scared her and like cats do when threatened they pick their kits up by the scruff of the neck and carry them to safet
That she tiger was not attacking Roy, but trying to protect him, he argued and pleaded not to kill her. The tiger did not turn on Roy, but was tryingto protect him.
I understand your motivation for using the analogy,but try one that is more accurate and not misleading.
Good point. I'll grant you that. I'm turning blue now holding my breath for an argument, any argument, on the merits. When will I see a coherent or science-based argument in defense of arbitrary authority being used in schools for the edification or education of students or in favor of compulsory attendance laws and their attendant necessity for a hierarchical/authoritarian structure to assure a definition of relationships and compliance with the laws subjugating students and confining them while they are being spoon-fed white/Christian nationalistic propaganda and sterilized Pablum? There were arguments 150 years ago. They were BS then and they are BS now. Any decent psychologist knows that extrinsic learning and reward, and coercion in an educational enterprise are counterproductive, insulting, and unscientific. The school-to-prison pipeline is just the most extreme manifestation of the principle. Or, maybe it is 70 million people voting multiple times to usher a fascist into power for their own abuse and degradation.
I don't have an argument, I share your concern about Christian, not necessarily white now, brainwashing in today's schooling. Florida is example of how public education has been, manipulated like education was redesigned to facilitate and reinforce the fascist state in Germany, Italy and Japan.
I go back further than that when education was designed to facilitate the control of church and state.
I know what is wrong, I know where it is headed, but I don't know the cure, and how to affect the curer.
Do you?
Researchers have been spelling out the parameters and the optimal conditions for schooling and education for generations. There is no one ideal or perfect formula, solution, alternative, or methodology. However, the one thing which has consistently been shown over and over to be a major impediment to a healthy and functional environment and to effective policies for training, socialization, education, etc., is an authoritarian milieu and the negative effects of coercion and a top-down hierarchy. The only way those things will ever be meaningfully rectified is to eradicate attendance laws.
Just because the damned libertarians also want to eliminate attendance laws does not make me a libertarian or a reactionary malcontent. And just because getting it done is seen as an impossible undertaking does not mean that we must forever continue to harm children, mass-mis-educate them, and fatally undermine democracy. Because something is extremely hard and opposed by nearly everyone is NOT justification to keep doing stupid things and making it all but impossible for students to develop critical thinking and confidence in their own intellectual resources.
One more time: Government should fund schooling and protect students. It has no damned business dictating or even recommending curricular content or using behavior modification and social engineering to determine how citizens will think and behave. That’s what they do in dictatorships.
Weill I can agree with that. You know my story, but I will repeat it
My 1st day of School was June 1946, Marine Base, Quantico.
Mom, Dad split the sheets re enrolled in Philadelphia, PA.
I could read before I started school.
All was well until High School, boring as hell, teachers were incompetent.
Probably ADD, probably still, managed.
My teachers were the 4F's and the spinsters who took the teachers place, while they went off to fight the war..
English teacher was literally, an old lady in tennis shoes. Algebra teacher was literally bonkers, World history teacher required us to take notes as she scribbled on three walls of blackboards, talking to them and her flabby arms jiggling. I got writers crap and from then on didn't take notes, got an A on the exams,but failed the class because I didn't copy her notes..
After a couple months I just gave up, the only class I attended was gym class and wound up on the gym team, the rest of the time I played truant and walked to the public library, a mile away, and there I got my education,under the tutelage of the librarian, Read hundreds of books, mostly the classics, but she didn't teach algebra
Basically I am an autodidact.
On 17th birthday I got called into the principles office, given a choice of showing up the next day and being sent to Daniel Boone, a reform school in South Phillie for incorrigibles, or quitting.
I made the school look bad, I tested the highest IQ, behind Barbara Singer, but had the worst attendance and scholastic record (three years in 9th grade), I caused problems for the principal, I had already caused the firing of two school counselors.
Dec 57 I passed HS GED, 2 weeks later the AA GED, they had such a thing then.
The public school system in the 1940's and 1950's in Phillie sucked, incompetent and boring teachers. While they yammered I looked out the window and day dreamed, finally stopped going to class, except gym.
American History was, on reflection, pure brainwashing, I was taught myths as facts., World History as Voltaire said was no more than commonly accepted myths.
But people do need to learn reading, riting and rithmetic, and you can only get that, for the masses, via public schooling. most parents don't have the time or money to teach them their selves or hire a tutor.
My sister was infected with the Christian virus, and with her youngest child, tutored her at home, thus saving her from exposure to the immoral heathens that she would have met and of course the satanic education of public schooling.
Scholasticly she did a good job, she had a Christian upbringing and won a scholarship, upon graduation at age 21 she got a job teaching H.S., in WVA to her peers, but she had never been socialized, and when cloistered Megan met the real world, she consistently made bad choices and ruined her life.
Her mother realized that she fucked up and regretted hr actions before she died of brain cancer. Her mother also alienated her oldest daughter, because she went against the bible, and married another woman.
How else will people become literate? Should schools teach history and civics?
Not if they are like Florida and the confederate states.
These are issues that need to be considered.
Shit even college and university are brainwashing factories. Econ 101 was Milton Friedman and Fee, Econ 102 was Paul Samuelson. A management professor had us study the Communist Manifesto.
The only class I liked, the only professor I respected was in Statistics, a bearded hippy who had us read How to Lie With Statistics.
And he even led a charge on protesting students that wanted to take over the University , saying not in my university. He was against the war, but wasn't gong to put up with that shit, disturbing the academic environment. and taking over the university.
They wanted to turn it into another Kent State, he, I and Alpha Kappa Psi stopped that plan in it's tracks., and we did it by using the tactics of communists.
Your personal story is interesting and revealing. But you still do not understand what I am saying, from all indications. You express concern about how the masses will become literate. First of all, if they are going to become destructive or self-destructive and tear down civilization once they become "literate", maybe it is better that they are not taught anything in a school at all. But I have NEVER said that we should not have public schooling. You got that idea from your own imagination or prejudices. Secondly, literacy is at an all-time low among the middle-class and poor and the number of people who are semi-literate and ignorant and reading-averse or suffering from panic attacks and self-loathing is staggering thanks to the damage done in schools. Thirdly, everyone is in reality an autodidact. There is a need for certain help in cases of children with bona fide disabilities (most who are labelled as learning disabled are disabled by their school experience and school failures) and technical help in various sciences and areas is essential. However, no one is arguing against any of that. ALL I AM SAYING IS THAT BAD LAWS CREATE BAD CONDITIONS AND AN AUTHORITARIAN SYSTEM DOMINATED BY PEOPLE WHOSE PRIORITIES ARE NOT THE EDUCATION OR THE BEST INTERESTS OF STUDENTS AND WHICH HARM CHILDREN, TEACHERS, AND UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY. Teachers without autonomy and students without autonomy cannot grow a society with autonomous citizens capable of free thought, critical thinking, and self-knowledge, let alone any other kind of knowledge.
About those missing Kamala votes: ask Elon Musk.
Here is a post from Quora which makes some good points about why rural voters felt left behind.....
Chris Everett
Why do so many rural people believe that President Trump is acting in their best interests?
1. The Obama administration really wasn’t great for people in rural areas. Economically speaking. There’s some research on this (which I can’t find at the moment) that showed that job creation under Obama was almost all in cities, at least for the first six years. So a lot of rural people’s lived experience wasn’t nearly that of urban people who tended to see their economic outlooks improve. By contrast, the last four years have been pretty good for a lot of them.
2. COVID-19 hasn’t had nearly the sort of impact for most rural people that it had for urban ones. New York and New Jersey bore the brunt of COVID-19, especially in the first wave.
3. Illegal immigration is a problem in rural communities in a way that it just isn’t in cities. Long term jobs that have supported people in rural areas can, and often are, taken by illegal immigrants, in ways that do not tend to happen with urban careers… Immigrants in cities open up interesting restaurants and mow your yard, and the homeless guy who harasses you is an American citizen. Immigrants in small towns eliminate sources of wealth, while driving up taxes. It’s a problem.
4. Firearms. Working class white men vote Republican on guns. And while Trump’s record here sucks, his platform is certainly more pro-gun than Biden’s or Clinton’s.
5. Environmental concerns. A lot of Democratic administrations view of environmental protection acts in ways that causes real issues for rural communities. It closes off recreation, and is often enough to push economic activity over the edge. People in cities don’t feel these effects the same ways.
6. Regulations. Regulations in cities are needed because when people live in a dense space, you have to have it or you’ll go insane. Cities require regulation. Excessive regulation in rural areas isn’t nearly as welcome. Applying the same rules to both (as the federal government does) tends to lead to frustrated rural residents.
7. Rural people on the whole are more religious, and the pro-choice and (sometimes) undercurrent of dislike of those values is evident.
8. Trump, specifically, didn’t talk down to them in the way that politicians from both parties tend to.
9. Trump’s war with the media plays well in rural areas who often feel that the media either misrepresents them, or is simply deliberately clueless about them.
10. China and agriculture. While a lot of people aren’t thrilled with the Trump administration, they welcomed the fact that he at least talked about China and some of the previous practices that were really hurting agriculture.
It doesn't matter much if we believe this or not - this is what they voted on in this election. Look at the result and take these comments under consideration.....