Thanks for this report, Thom. While reading this, I was also noting the current news about how the largest union in Israel was calling for walkouts. Embassies around the world have now closed down.
I had a flash back to Scott Walker as captured in a short video in 2011. In the video, Walker was chatting with his biggest funder Diane Hendricks. He causally describes how he is using 'divide and conquer' to destroy unions as a first step to make Wisconsin a red-state. I recall at the time how shocked I was at their strategy being completely open for all to see.
Add Mexico to your list at the beginning of your article -- Obrador is working to cut back on fair elections also. Can't help but be concerned for your country -- Trump chooses Waco to campaign at. Hope that sensible Americans see the signs -- Waco (Wacko?) is where the demons go to rebel. When Trump was pressed about his wrongdoings around the Stormy Daniels case, he replied "WE have done nothing wrong". That tells me that he as an individual is no longer in control of himself. He was always an egoist, but now the demons have taken over -- the man has become deranged. Some Americans have a history of being gullible, so off they tred to Wacko to support one of their own.
"A Nishma poll taken in January 2020 showed some 56% of the ultra-Orthodox and 29% of the Modern Orthodox voted for Trump in 2016, and his approval rating had risen to 68% among the ultra-Orthodox and 36% amongst the modern Orthodox earlier this year."
"And Donald Trump and the GOP have made their choice: they’re doing everything they can to end democracy and install a permanent oligarchy that can never be excised from our bodies politic and economic." Just add Biden and the whole democratic wing of government, too. Do you really think Biden would have issued those drilling leases in AK if he wasn't counting on several hundred million from the oil industry to run a billion-dollar campaign? They all go to the highest bidder. Rather than destroy a monarchy, they are trying to create one. BOTH SIDES. This really is the end of all discussion; there's nothing substantive going on here. It's all about the Emperor and his new clothes. BOTH SIDES. But, if that's it, what else is there to rant and rave about?
This essay as usual lays out the current scene very well, but there is one aspect you should make more explicit. For 50 years the CIA followed each country's GINI Index - a measure of income inequality. Their rule of thumb was that when it was over 40 there was a substantial risk of civil unrest. For about 10 years the USA has been hovering in this range (depending on how you calculate it). Current political and cultural turmoil reflects this underlying factor. In fact the USA GINI was surreptitiously and uniquely lowered by Obama's ACA and exploded by DJT's tax bill. The GINI predicts unrest but not what form it will take - we are in the midst of learning that. Hopefully "The Second Golden Age" will not be followed by another Great Depression or a fascist revolution.
Make no mistake. The GOP does not want to rule our democracy. They want to destroy it.
They have done nothing constructive to fix the economy. Instead they are relishing the political advantage of sitting back and letting banks implode when the cure for runaway inflation is simply restoring taxation of the super-rich. Instead, the GOP Congress has refused to raise the debt ceiling that will lead to a stock market and banking crash that will wipe out the wealth of the entire middle class while drying up funds small businesses need to compete with billionaire monopolies.
I can no longer stand to watch journalists interviewing MAGAs at Trump rallies. MAGAs are clueless that, like fascist movements in the past, they are being conned and manipulated to bring down their own livelihoods – even when repentant jailed insurrectionists regularly express regret that their support of Trump has ruined their lives – even when prominent antivaxxers express regret as they were dying from COVID. When the Italians finally got Woke about fascist Mussolini, they strung him up by his heels in the square, but by then their country was in shambles. Fascist Hitler committed suicide taking Germany down with him rather than surrender and save lives.
I have no doubt that Trump views 2024 as a battle to the death. He either wins or commits suicide taking the GOP down with him. Our inability to hold not merely Trump, but the entire enabling Republican party accountable is society’s dilemma. We have just become too comfortable. We do not even notice that the US poverty line is the average middle-class income in many East European countries, and the upper class of many 3rd world countries. Maybe that is our Achilles heel. I hope not.
Great job cutting through the nonsense of both parties being the same, Thom. I see some of the commenters have not quite given up on equivocation.
All I can repeat to anyone listening is that everything that has made my life livable during my work-life and retirement as an American woman has been won by Democrats who fought Republicans and their repressive ideas.
Republicans and responsible both begin with "re", and those letters are the ONLY thing they share. Many Republicans like the idea of accountability concerning their religion, and with the way they treat people, I too hope Jesus comes back soon.
This lies on the raw edge of human nature and politics, how the "morbidly rich" actually think in their heart of hearts, their destructive delusions of what they have determined life should be — for themselves foremost, then everyone else as necessary baggage — failing forever to satisfy their ever-expanding, unquenchable desires. Violent authoritarianism by the powerful and greedy living among us is an ugly fact of human existence from time immemorial, impossible to hide from the abundance of evidence produced by their own selfish actions throughout society, throughout history.
It's just who they are, who they want to be. Trump is the paragon of their twisted egos, their damaged souls. But a deep, black fear of emptiness is at the heart of their extreme selfishness, and their all-consuming desire to fill that horrible emptiness within, which, unfortunately, all their riches and power can never fill.
Yet, seeing is acting. For people to witness the simple, though still shocking truth of things on their little planet, this truly insane consolidation of wealth and power playing out in the real world — the obvious correlation between acute wealth disparity and the forces of anti-democracy — is the first and most critical step if we are to survive on this godforsaken rock whirling around in the void.
If not ripped out by the roots through our collective action of nonviolent, choiceless intelligence (whatever that is) by we the people ourselves (whoever we are), uncompromising fascism, a hideous infection of the mind and soul, will only erode society and nature even further than it already has, far down a deadend road. Selfishness and greed equal violence — in all its many physical and mental expressions, on distant battlefields, but also in our streets, in our schools, in our churches, at work, at play, at home, against each other, against nature, everywhere, constantly. A violent world has produced violent beings who must see themselves for what they truly are, in all their glory and in all their horror, to effect real change for the better.
An anonymous quote I once copied down from somewhere (paraphrased): "The truth is not something far away; it is very close, under every leaf, in every smile, in every tear, in the words, in the feelings and thoughts that one has. But it is so covered up that we have to work hard to uncover it. And see. To uncover is to discover what is false. And the moment you know what is false, when that drops away, the truth is there."
The gop/repub DESTROYERS are rigging everything they can, from "elections" only open to goppers so they can win to "laws" that can remove all power from prosecutors to hold any gop/repub from accountability. (See Georgia, USA, legislature.) All the judiciary will be in their fist soon, like SCOTUS is already. (See what Netanyahu in Israel is trying to do.) The MASSIVE protests in Israel (and Tbilisi, Georgia) seem to be making a difference in those countries. Could America produce MASSIVE protests to save ourselves? Will we? Would it work? Will the gop/repubs and their handler superrich oligarchs win to turn America into a fascist Mordor? We MUST protest in work and deed, any way we are able. Ruthie B
Thom, I think the best way to fight the fascist autocratic theocracy movement, is just by telling the truth to the Trump supporters. The truth that they will lose their standard of living and be thown away as soon as they can't make money for the rich. I predict there are about 80 million Americans that could be called useless eaters and replaced with healthy young fertile religious immigrants from other nations.
The poor right wing white males, also will have their organs harvested, turned into slaves, tortured, starved and die from lack of healthcare after being poisoned by environmental toxins, just like all the poor black people. The left needs to set up a GoFundMe page for the Lincoln project, so they can run thousands of ads educating the idiots. I have no idea how to get the crazy right wingers in the gop Congress to raise the debt ceiling. That better come from the autocrats themselves if they want to protect the goose that lays the golden eggs. Part of the right wing plan is to cause a great depression and blame the Democrats for it and Biden seems to be going for it also, in my opinion. The dictatorship will be elected.
Thanks for this report, Thom. While reading this, I was also noting the current news about how the largest union in Israel was calling for walkouts. Embassies around the world have now closed down.
I had a flash back to Scott Walker as captured in a short video in 2011. In the video, Walker was chatting with his biggest funder Diane Hendricks. He causally describes how he is using 'divide and conquer' to destroy unions as a first step to make Wisconsin a red-state. I recall at the time how shocked I was at their strategy being completely open for all to see.
https://archive.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/in-film-walker-talks-of-divide-and-conquer-strategy-with-unions-8o57h6f-151049555.html/
Add Mexico to your list at the beginning of your article -- Obrador is working to cut back on fair elections also. Can't help but be concerned for your country -- Trump chooses Waco to campaign at. Hope that sensible Americans see the signs -- Waco (Wacko?) is where the demons go to rebel. When Trump was pressed about his wrongdoings around the Stormy Daniels case, he replied "WE have done nothing wrong". That tells me that he as an individual is no longer in control of himself. He was always an egoist, but now the demons have taken over -- the man has become deranged. Some Americans have a history of being gullible, so off they tred to Wacko to support one of their own.
In 2016 Ha'aretz ran the following: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2020-07-09/ty-article/trump-campaign-jewish-billionaires-are-using-their-money-to-try-to-rig-election/0000017f-e629-dc7e-adff-f6adbcb50000
Yet somehow that antisemitic, racist right is completely oblivious to the fact that the biggest donors , lawyers, advisors and supporters of Trump and the GOP are Jews. Such as Rupert Murdoch https://observer.com/2016/03/algemeiner-celebrates-power-jews-at-packed-manhattan-gala/, Steve Wynn, the Addelsons, the Mercers, Weiselberger, Jared Kushner his son in law, Steven Miller, (a racist, white nationalist, xenophobic Jew) and there is this https://www.jta.org/2020/08/28/opinion/many-orthodox-jews-support-president-trump-im-one-of-them-heres-why
"A Nishma poll taken in January 2020 showed some 56% of the ultra-Orthodox and 29% of the Modern Orthodox voted for Trump in 2016, and his approval rating had risen to 68% among the ultra-Orthodox and 36% amongst the modern Orthodox earlier this year."
"And Donald Trump and the GOP have made their choice: they’re doing everything they can to end democracy and install a permanent oligarchy that can never be excised from our bodies politic and economic." Just add Biden and the whole democratic wing of government, too. Do you really think Biden would have issued those drilling leases in AK if he wasn't counting on several hundred million from the oil industry to run a billion-dollar campaign? They all go to the highest bidder. Rather than destroy a monarchy, they are trying to create one. BOTH SIDES. This really is the end of all discussion; there's nothing substantive going on here. It's all about the Emperor and his new clothes. BOTH SIDES. But, if that's it, what else is there to rant and rave about?
This essay as usual lays out the current scene very well, but there is one aspect you should make more explicit. For 50 years the CIA followed each country's GINI Index - a measure of income inequality. Their rule of thumb was that when it was over 40 there was a substantial risk of civil unrest. For about 10 years the USA has been hovering in this range (depending on how you calculate it). Current political and cultural turmoil reflects this underlying factor. In fact the USA GINI was surreptitiously and uniquely lowered by Obama's ACA and exploded by DJT's tax bill. The GINI predicts unrest but not what form it will take - we are in the midst of learning that. Hopefully "The Second Golden Age" will not be followed by another Great Depression or a fascist revolution.
"Woman Interrupts Fox News Broadcast With Passionate Call For Gun Control"
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nashville-school-shooting-fox-news_n_6421d6c2e4b0f6517feb4c6f
Make no mistake. The GOP does not want to rule our democracy. They want to destroy it.
They have done nothing constructive to fix the economy. Instead they are relishing the political advantage of sitting back and letting banks implode when the cure for runaway inflation is simply restoring taxation of the super-rich. Instead, the GOP Congress has refused to raise the debt ceiling that will lead to a stock market and banking crash that will wipe out the wealth of the entire middle class while drying up funds small businesses need to compete with billionaire monopolies.
I can no longer stand to watch journalists interviewing MAGAs at Trump rallies. MAGAs are clueless that, like fascist movements in the past, they are being conned and manipulated to bring down their own livelihoods – even when repentant jailed insurrectionists regularly express regret that their support of Trump has ruined their lives – even when prominent antivaxxers express regret as they were dying from COVID. When the Italians finally got Woke about fascist Mussolini, they strung him up by his heels in the square, but by then their country was in shambles. Fascist Hitler committed suicide taking Germany down with him rather than surrender and save lives.
I have no doubt that Trump views 2024 as a battle to the death. He either wins or commits suicide taking the GOP down with him. Our inability to hold not merely Trump, but the entire enabling Republican party accountable is society’s dilemma. We have just become too comfortable. We do not even notice that the US poverty line is the average middle-class income in many East European countries, and the upper class of many 3rd world countries. Maybe that is our Achilles heel. I hope not.
Great job cutting through the nonsense of both parties being the same, Thom. I see some of the commenters have not quite given up on equivocation.
All I can repeat to anyone listening is that everything that has made my life livable during my work-life and retirement as an American woman has been won by Democrats who fought Republicans and their repressive ideas.
Republicans and responsible both begin with "re", and those letters are the ONLY thing they share. Many Republicans like the idea of accountability concerning their religion, and with the way they treat people, I too hope Jesus comes back soon.
This lies on the raw edge of human nature and politics, how the "morbidly rich" actually think in their heart of hearts, their destructive delusions of what they have determined life should be — for themselves foremost, then everyone else as necessary baggage — failing forever to satisfy their ever-expanding, unquenchable desires. Violent authoritarianism by the powerful and greedy living among us is an ugly fact of human existence from time immemorial, impossible to hide from the abundance of evidence produced by their own selfish actions throughout society, throughout history.
It's just who they are, who they want to be. Trump is the paragon of their twisted egos, their damaged souls. But a deep, black fear of emptiness is at the heart of their extreme selfishness, and their all-consuming desire to fill that horrible emptiness within, which, unfortunately, all their riches and power can never fill.
Yet, seeing is acting. For people to witness the simple, though still shocking truth of things on their little planet, this truly insane consolidation of wealth and power playing out in the real world — the obvious correlation between acute wealth disparity and the forces of anti-democracy — is the first and most critical step if we are to survive on this godforsaken rock whirling around in the void.
If not ripped out by the roots through our collective action of nonviolent, choiceless intelligence (whatever that is) by we the people ourselves (whoever we are), uncompromising fascism, a hideous infection of the mind and soul, will only erode society and nature even further than it already has, far down a deadend road. Selfishness and greed equal violence — in all its many physical and mental expressions, on distant battlefields, but also in our streets, in our schools, in our churches, at work, at play, at home, against each other, against nature, everywhere, constantly. A violent world has produced violent beings who must see themselves for what they truly are, in all their glory and in all their horror, to effect real change for the better.
An anonymous quote I once copied down from somewhere (paraphrased): "The truth is not something far away; it is very close, under every leaf, in every smile, in every tear, in the words, in the feelings and thoughts that one has. But it is so covered up that we have to work hard to uncover it. And see. To uncover is to discover what is false. And the moment you know what is false, when that drops away, the truth is there."
Wow, this is so on point! Thank you again Thom for bringing powerful clarity to the issues we are struggling with today!!
The gop/repub DESTROYERS are rigging everything they can, from "elections" only open to goppers so they can win to "laws" that can remove all power from prosecutors to hold any gop/repub from accountability. (See Georgia, USA, legislature.) All the judiciary will be in their fist soon, like SCOTUS is already. (See what Netanyahu in Israel is trying to do.) The MASSIVE protests in Israel (and Tbilisi, Georgia) seem to be making a difference in those countries. Could America produce MASSIVE protests to save ourselves? Will we? Would it work? Will the gop/repubs and their handler superrich oligarchs win to turn America into a fascist Mordor? We MUST protest in work and deed, any way we are able. Ruthie B
Thom, I think the best way to fight the fascist autocratic theocracy movement, is just by telling the truth to the Trump supporters. The truth that they will lose their standard of living and be thown away as soon as they can't make money for the rich. I predict there are about 80 million Americans that could be called useless eaters and replaced with healthy young fertile religious immigrants from other nations.
The poor right wing white males, also will have their organs harvested, turned into slaves, tortured, starved and die from lack of healthcare after being poisoned by environmental toxins, just like all the poor black people. The left needs to set up a GoFundMe page for the Lincoln project, so they can run thousands of ads educating the idiots. I have no idea how to get the crazy right wingers in the gop Congress to raise the debt ceiling. That better come from the autocrats themselves if they want to protect the goose that lays the golden eggs. Part of the right wing plan is to cause a great depression and blame the Democrats for it and Biden seems to be going for it also, in my opinion. The dictatorship will be elected.