This post should be a speech given at the Democratic National Convention, and portions of it should be used in campaign ads and speeches by/for every Democratic candidate. We are in a class war with the corporate mafia, and thus far, Democrats mostly pretend there is no such war. If there is no class war, then why be a political party separate from Republicans?
Too many Corporate Dems are playing the same games under the guise of 'liberalism', while they constantly try to snuff the life out of needed progressive candidates and policies.
Then those Democrats need to be painted with a constant reminder to the voters who they ass-kissing and why to not vote for them. Tell everyone which corporations they are doing work for, and if it's possible, boycott them. There are businesses I don't shop at for good reason. We all need to pay attention to these things.
This column especially, because Thom doesn't mince words, and anyone (who's old enough, like me) remembers these things happening - just the way he said they did. This column is truth (that Republicans can't handle) in its most brutal form, and its points must be repeated loudly and often - until the whole country reverberates with them.
The comment from yesterday by Tomonthebeach is revealing and central to the money in politics problem. He identifies capitalism as an obsession and an "ism" which has been worshipped in the U.S. as sacred and untouchable, and he recognizes that we have made wealth into a glorious good and the only path to happiness. It is heresy to reject those two propositions and Republicans have a monopoly on monopoly as the way to get the most pie for oneself and one's clan. Getting money out of politics requires making people aware that excessive wealth is corrupting and corrosive and that capitalism drives everything in this country and must be seen as only one approach out of many to creating a just and sane society and an economy which serves people, rather than forcing people to serve it. People who have more money are not better because they have more money. This is the brain worm which has infected our consciousness.
Once upon a time . . . we had something caalled the Federal Estate and Gift Tax. It imposed a heavy tax on very large amounts of wealth passing at death. It was never inyended to RAISE TAX MONEY. The STATED reason, as found in the Congressional Record, was to PREVENT the anti democratic accumulation of massive wealth in the hands of rhe few. Republicans got rid of it, because it diminished the political power of their super wealthy donors.
I have a habit of flagging and archiving articles that I think are so well-stated and concise that I'll need them in the future to support some point of discussion or another. I'm impressed that so many of my flagged articles are written by Thomas Hartmann. Keep up the good work!
Because the Republican party is not the party of the working people, and never has been..
If you stop to think about it a Republic is rule by the elite, in Plato's Greece it was the property owners, the rich men, so called rule by the wise men, elected by the common man (not woman), it was the same in Rome, the Senatorial class were the wealthy land owners, and they were elected to the Senate by the common man, not woman.. And that is how the government was formed, but by then even the common man owned some property and thus could vote.
The property requirement to vote changed in 1792 with New Hampshire, it being the first state to drop the property owning requirement, subsequently all other states followed, and soon there was no more requirement to own property to vote, but previous even owning a slave was enough to qualify
Don't get me wrong, I am not engaging in any apologia, but the industrialist opposition to slavery, was that of what they considered free labor, having to compete with hired labor, and it wasn't long before the abolitionist jumped on board, and the abolitionist support was welcomed.
The Republican party has always been the party of wealthy, the oligarchy, the capitalist, the industrialist
However you want to define them, so many descriptors for the same class, the overclass.
The Democratic party was the party of the working man, and the working man was racist opposed to abolition, because abolition meant competition for labor.
All of that changed with LBJ and the Voting and Civil Rights Acts, the Great Society Programs.
The racist democrats fled to the Republican party, the policians that hung on, because changing party would jeopardize their power and position, were called Dixiecrats, and it was the racist Dixiecrats that mentored a young senator named Joseph Biden.
Part of the problem is that the Democratic party has never really successfully shed that old Dixiecrat ethos, or mentality.
That is typical, people are too busy with their own day to day lives, and honestly pay very little , if any, attention to what is going on around them.Jimmy Kimmel occasionally does a bit where has Guillermo or some other person go out on the street and ask people simple questions, some times they make stuff up,and the answers are hilariously ignorant. Most folk don't even know the name of the Capitol of their state or who their elected representatives are, but they can sure tell you everything you didn't want to know about the Kardashians.
A word on that, in Star Trek, the Kardashians were an evil, double crossing race, sneaky.
I really didn't know who the Dixiecrats were and that they exist today in the democratic party. I knew there were racists in the party. I didn't realize they were called Dixiecrats. I should have known better, because I lived in New Orleans and taught with these racists.
I recently saw a piece on a business that is doing just that. The person interviewed was not at liberty to say who his clients are, but indicated that we would know their names.
The boiling point has been reached on every level. These Republican bastards know that. Here's info from Copilot AI: "Income inequality in the U.S. in 2025 remains at historically high levels, with the top 1% controlling nearly one-third of all wealth while the bottom 20% share just 3.1% of total income."
Workers Over Billionaires was one of the No Kings themes. Let's do another. Vote. Impeach. Convict. See you in the streets.
Trump is stealing from the American consumers through higher gas prices. He said America was becoming really rich because we produce a great amount of oil, except it’s Trump’s donors and oil producers who are getting rich from higher oil prices. The American consumers are already paying for this war. It is time for US oil producers to fund this war and end their price windfall. In World War II, the US raised taxes to fund the War and we had excess profit taxes to stop War Profiteers.
Congress needs to do the same thing today: immediately impose excess profit taxes, capture all excess profits on oil production caused by the war. Any increase in the oil price above the price that existed before the US/Israeli attack on Iran should be considered excess profit. A 100% tax on these excess profits should be imposed. These taxes should go directly to fund replacement of US weapons used in the war on Iran, instead of further stressing the American taxpayer.
This will remove any incentive to continue the war against Iran. Also, Congress needs to investigate who purchased oil futures before the attack on Iran began. Congress has to take the lead to eliminate these windfall profits and go after War Profiteers.
Really good piece. As politically engaged as I am I hadn't realized the GOP record was absolutely 0 for working people. Thanks for spelling this out and hitting each point.
This post shouild be repeated non-stop until those DEMS running for office can use this info in an condensed format to drive home these points. What have the " Nazi" party ever done for anyone other than the wealthy? This is class warfare and way over due.
comments One note here however. A while back we had Republicans and we had the GOP.Today We have a FASCIST party. Democrats seem to fear identifying what they see for fear of what they see. FASCISTS. If it walks like a duck and quakes like a ducok what is it my friends? In this case the duck is a fascists. We need to call what we have now "fascists" as a call to political arms and action.
If i am wrong please tell me why.
PS Have you read the book " The Nazi Mind" by Laurance Rees? Give it a read. Its well worth reading, along with Tom's every book, because we are experiencing it right now.
S You are right ,however Trump and his party meet the definition of " Nazi" more than Fascist. It is time they are referred to as the : Nazi" party. Check the definition in Wikipedia.
You are Right. Why didn't I say that then? I guess it is the sane reason people are afraid to say fascist. I worried it might.be too inflamitoey for reader causing them to reject what I have to say.
You are Right. Why didn't I say that then? I guess it is the same reason people are afraid to say fascist. I worried it might be to inflammatory for readers causing them to reject what I have to say. Nazi is correct.
So, why have the self-appointed opposition to this GOP grift -- the Democratic Party -- failed to develop and deliver both message and strategy to pound away on the roots of America's decline -- essentially refurbish and re-energize the NEW DEAL message and policy plan?
Why did the brain-trust, in face of Reagan's poison and treason, turn to a strategy of REPUBLICAN-LITE and push forward the Clintons, et. al., instead of real Progressive Leadership with a workable Progressive vision?
Why didn't Obama, when he had the opportunity, in 2009, to cut these monsters off at the knees simply mumble a few words about the country needing a financial system and then let off the Wall St monsters that destroyed thousands of Americans' lives with a slap on the wrist instead of 20 years in the penn??
Corporate Democrats, while tacitly permitting globalization of American production, have been dazzling people for years with the feel-good mission of DIVERSITY.
And, each time they bring another splinter group to the microphone to get their 15 minutes at the microphone, the Right Wing Echo Chamber salivates with a new opportunity to further drive wedges in between working people, ensuring grievances brew, and Republicans ride the this toxic stew into power.
Thom has rightly pointed out it is all about the money. The ONLY message Democrats or whomever is going to fight to save this country have to deliver is that to make America great again you have to KEEP THE MONEY IN THE MIDDLE.
And we already know how to do that, just review the NEW DEAL policies of the 1930s.
The Dems do not aggressively fight back for two main reasons, as I see it. First, they benefit from the rigged system too. Not too many working-class legislators in DC. Second, it is that the Dems are not as ruthless as the MAGA Republicans. Too often, Dems seem to assume that they have a shared moral code right up until they are Wile E. Coyoted off the political cliff. The Trump administration has shown that they do not share the same moral code as Dems - they just claim to share the same religion to confuse voters.
No doubt the corporate Dem Party has lost touch with its base. Not so the right/GOP... they know what (& who) powers the MAGA clown car and keep feeding them red meat.
As for your second supposition: If you are saying the Dems do not have the stomach for the knife fight we are in, I would agree.
This post should be a speech given at the Democratic National Convention, and portions of it should be used in campaign ads and speeches by/for every Democratic candidate. We are in a class war with the corporate mafia, and thus far, Democrats mostly pretend there is no such war. If there is no class war, then why be a political party separate from Republicans?
Too many Corporate Dems are playing the same games under the guise of 'liberalism', while they constantly try to snuff the life out of needed progressive candidates and policies.
Then those Democrats need to be painted with a constant reminder to the voters who they ass-kissing and why to not vote for them. Tell everyone which corporations they are doing work for, and if it's possible, boycott them. There are businesses I don't shop at for good reason. We all need to pay attention to these things.
This column especially, because Thom doesn't mince words, and anyone (who's old enough, like me) remembers these things happening - just the way he said they did. This column is truth (that Republicans can't handle) in its most brutal form, and its points must be repeated loudly and often - until the whole country reverberates with them.
Jeffrey,you hit it on the head. Please repeat this.
You've missed every convention since JFK. https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/
The entities that pay off the Rs are the "Plantation Owners."
The Rs [including the Inglorious 6 on the U.S. Supreme Brothel] are their "Overseers."
Plain Americans are simply the Owners' wage "Slaves."
Clearly, this is a "Plantation Economy."
Hence, the need for a strong "Slave Patrol."
ICE/CBP for the Browns.
For the rest of us? THIS https://hstf.gov/
True.
Oh, how true!
Yep
The comment from yesterday by Tomonthebeach is revealing and central to the money in politics problem. He identifies capitalism as an obsession and an "ism" which has been worshipped in the U.S. as sacred and untouchable, and he recognizes that we have made wealth into a glorious good and the only path to happiness. It is heresy to reject those two propositions and Republicans have a monopoly on monopoly as the way to get the most pie for oneself and one's clan. Getting money out of politics requires making people aware that excessive wealth is corrupting and corrosive and that capitalism drives everything in this country and must be seen as only one approach out of many to creating a just and sane society and an economy which serves people, rather than forcing people to serve it. People who have more money are not better because they have more money. This is the brain worm which has infected our consciousness.
Once upon a time . . . we had something caalled the Federal Estate and Gift Tax. It imposed a heavy tax on very large amounts of wealth passing at death. It was never inyended to RAISE TAX MONEY. The STATED reason, as found in the Congressional Record, was to PREVENT the anti democratic accumulation of massive wealth in the hands of rhe few. Republicans got rid of it, because it diminished the political power of their super wealthy donors.
Most of us have FOMO. Fear of missing out.
In reality, 90% of MAGATs lose under Republican economic policies.
IMHO the real problem is cultural. They need to be "better" thsn us.
The MAGAs may believe that they control the libs, but the jokes on them because the rich control them both.
Reagan’s core beliefs are still practiced by Republicans today:
* Less government
* Lower taxes, especially for the rich
* Less social programs
* Less restrictions on businesses
* Strong military
* Huge government deficits
Let’s sum up Thom Hartman’s post today. Republicans are on the take. Fill in the blank who they are on the take from.
I have a habit of flagging and archiving articles that I think are so well-stated and concise that I'll need them in the future to support some point of discussion or another. I'm impressed that so many of my flagged articles are written by Thomas Hartmann. Keep up the good work!
I agree. Thom is great every day, but today’s entry is essential reading. A great overview that explains why we are where we are today.
Sam,you've got it.
Because the Republican party is not the party of the working people, and never has been..
If you stop to think about it a Republic is rule by the elite, in Plato's Greece it was the property owners, the rich men, so called rule by the wise men, elected by the common man (not woman), it was the same in Rome, the Senatorial class were the wealthy land owners, and they were elected to the Senate by the common man, not woman.. And that is how the government was formed, but by then even the common man owned some property and thus could vote.
The property requirement to vote changed in 1792 with New Hampshire, it being the first state to drop the property owning requirement, subsequently all other states followed, and soon there was no more requirement to own property to vote, but previous even owning a slave was enough to qualify
Don't get me wrong, I am not engaging in any apologia, but the industrialist opposition to slavery, was that of what they considered free labor, having to compete with hired labor, and it wasn't long before the abolitionist jumped on board, and the abolitionist support was welcomed.
The Republican party has always been the party of wealthy, the oligarchy, the capitalist, the industrialist
However you want to define them, so many descriptors for the same class, the overclass.
The Democratic party was the party of the working man, and the working man was racist opposed to abolition, because abolition meant competition for labor.
All of that changed with LBJ and the Voting and Civil Rights Acts, the Great Society Programs.
The racist democrats fled to the Republican party, the policians that hung on, because changing party would jeopardize their power and position, were called Dixiecrats, and it was the racist Dixiecrats that mentored a young senator named Joseph Biden.
Part of the problem is that the Democratic party has never really successfully shed that old Dixiecrat ethos, or mentality.
WOW! I never thought of it that way.
That is typical, people are too busy with their own day to day lives, and honestly pay very little , if any, attention to what is going on around them.Jimmy Kimmel occasionally does a bit where has Guillermo or some other person go out on the street and ask people simple questions, some times they make stuff up,and the answers are hilariously ignorant. Most folk don't even know the name of the Capitol of their state or who their elected representatives are, but they can sure tell you everything you didn't want to know about the Kardashians.
A word on that, in Star Trek, the Kardashians were an evil, double crossing race, sneaky.
I really didn't know who the Dixiecrats were and that they exist today in the democratic party. I knew there were racists in the party. I didn't realize they were called Dixiecrats. I should have known better, because I lived in New Orleans and taught with these racists.
That explains it. You lived among them and they didn't use the word to describe themselves
Those of us, who spend our lives on the ground, don't realize that we are living in an ocean of air
Build a bunker and they will come.....
I recently saw a piece on a business that is doing just that. The person interviewed was not at liberty to say who his clients are, but indicated that we would know their names.
The boiling point has been reached on every level. These Republican bastards know that. Here's info from Copilot AI: "Income inequality in the U.S. in 2025 remains at historically high levels, with the top 1% controlling nearly one-third of all wealth while the bottom 20% share just 3.1% of total income."
Workers Over Billionaires was one of the No Kings themes. Let's do another. Vote. Impeach. Convict. See you in the streets.
Trump is Stealing from You
Trump is stealing from the American consumers through higher gas prices. He said America was becoming really rich because we produce a great amount of oil, except it’s Trump’s donors and oil producers who are getting rich from higher oil prices. The American consumers are already paying for this war. It is time for US oil producers to fund this war and end their price windfall. In World War II, the US raised taxes to fund the War and we had excess profit taxes to stop War Profiteers.
Congress needs to do the same thing today: immediately impose excess profit taxes, capture all excess profits on oil production caused by the war. Any increase in the oil price above the price that existed before the US/Israeli attack on Iran should be considered excess profit. A 100% tax on these excess profits should be imposed. These taxes should go directly to fund replacement of US weapons used in the war on Iran, instead of further stressing the American taxpayer.
This will remove any incentive to continue the war against Iran. Also, Congress needs to investigate who purchased oil futures before the attack on Iran began. Congress has to take the lead to eliminate these windfall profits and go after War Profiteers.
Republicans must help their wealthiest donors accumulate more wealth by changing the laws to their benefit so they can extract whatever we have left.
Really good piece. As politically engaged as I am I hadn't realized the GOP record was absolutely 0 for working people. Thanks for spelling this out and hitting each point.
This post shouild be repeated non-stop until those DEMS running for office can use this info in an condensed format to drive home these points. What have the " Nazi" party ever done for anyone other than the wealthy? This is class warfare and way over due.
WHY?
BECAUSE REPUBLICANS DO NOT, NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL TRY TO REPRESENT ANY GROUP EXCEPT THEIR SUPER RICH DONORS.
REPUBLICANS ARE THE PARTY OF THE RICH, FOR THE RICH AND BY THE RICH
I totally agree with Tom and all of your comments
comments One note here however. A while back we had Republicans and we had the GOP.Today We have a FASCIST party. Democrats seem to fear identifying what they see for fear of what they see. FASCISTS. If it walks like a duck and quakes like a ducok what is it my friends? In this case the duck is a fascists. We need to call what we have now "fascists" as a call to political arms and action.
If i am wrong please tell me why.
PS Have you read the book " The Nazi Mind" by Laurance Rees? Give it a read. Its well worth reading, along with Tom's every book, because we are experiencing it right now.
S You are right ,however Trump and his party meet the definition of " Nazi" more than Fascist. It is time they are referred to as the : Nazi" party. Check the definition in Wikipedia.
You are Right. Why didn't I say that then? I guess it is the sane reason people are afraid to say fascist. I worried it might.be too inflamitoey for reader causing them to reject what I have to say.
Damned AI
Let me try that again.
You are Right. Why didn't I say that then? I guess it is the same reason people are afraid to say fascist. I worried it might be to inflammatory for readers causing them to reject what I have to say. Nazi is correct.
Brilliant!
With respect:
"...a national system would save the country an estimated half-billion dollars a year."
"Billion" should be half-trillion, with a T.
Yes. absolutely true.
So, why have the self-appointed opposition to this GOP grift -- the Democratic Party -- failed to develop and deliver both message and strategy to pound away on the roots of America's decline -- essentially refurbish and re-energize the NEW DEAL message and policy plan?
Why did the brain-trust, in face of Reagan's poison and treason, turn to a strategy of REPUBLICAN-LITE and push forward the Clintons, et. al., instead of real Progressive Leadership with a workable Progressive vision?
Why didn't Obama, when he had the opportunity, in 2009, to cut these monsters off at the knees simply mumble a few words about the country needing a financial system and then let off the Wall St monsters that destroyed thousands of Americans' lives with a slap on the wrist instead of 20 years in the penn??
Corporate Democrats, while tacitly permitting globalization of American production, have been dazzling people for years with the feel-good mission of DIVERSITY.
And, each time they bring another splinter group to the microphone to get their 15 minutes at the microphone, the Right Wing Echo Chamber salivates with a new opportunity to further drive wedges in between working people, ensuring grievances brew, and Republicans ride the this toxic stew into power.
Thom has rightly pointed out it is all about the money. The ONLY message Democrats or whomever is going to fight to save this country have to deliver is that to make America great again you have to KEEP THE MONEY IN THE MIDDLE.
And we already know how to do that, just review the NEW DEAL policies of the 1930s.
D. Laghezza
The Dems do not aggressively fight back for two main reasons, as I see it. First, they benefit from the rigged system too. Not too many working-class legislators in DC. Second, it is that the Dems are not as ruthless as the MAGA Republicans. Too often, Dems seem to assume that they have a shared moral code right up until they are Wile E. Coyoted off the political cliff. The Trump administration has shown that they do not share the same moral code as Dems - they just claim to share the same religion to confuse voters.
Tom,
No doubt the corporate Dem Party has lost touch with its base. Not so the right/GOP... they know what (& who) powers the MAGA clown car and keep feeding them red meat.
As for your second supposition: If you are saying the Dems do not have the stomach for the knife fight we are in, I would agree.
DL