Like in 1933, a Democratic President is calling out fatcats and fascists in the GOP while uniting Americans in a great project to rebuild our nation...
Yes, two months before the mid-terms, there is reason for optimism. I will be doing voter outreach until November 8th.
It was good to hear Biden finally tell it like it is on September 1st. I remember in late 2020, even before Jan 6, 2021 happened, wondering whether Biden would speak that way at his inauguration.
He didn't.
Supposedly he was briefed recently by some historians about FDR and the things you just mentioned, and that awoke him to the futility of still seeing the MAGA Republicans as good faith brokers, and that is why his speech finally called them out.
Over Labor Day, another reason for optimism emerged -Ukraine has turned the corner in their war against Russia.
This matters to our domestic politics before the midterms because it keeps the embrace of Russia and Putin and dictators like Orban in Turkey by Trump and the MAGA Republicans in the spotlight. It reminds voters that the strong support of Ukraine by Biden and the Democrats had a lot to do with this "culmination" in Ukraine. And it reminds them that if Republicans rather than Democrats were in control in 2022, that support would not have happened. The MAGA Republicans might even have backed Russia when it invaded on February 24th.
Thank you for reminding anyone listening of the history that has brought us to today, and clarifying the distortions that pervade our nation/world today.
Thank you for this positive view. It can be hard to maintain hope when so many systems have been gamed to keep the *majority* of us effectively locked out of political power. Your reminder of our history is an important contextualization to keep us from collapsing into the gloom.
I've been seeing this coming for years. The minority who really would prefer to be landless serfs owned by nobility so they don't have to make decisions or accept responsibility for their actions have gotten ever more strident, loud, and frankly, laughable in their fantasies as more and more people awoke to the realization that our freedom is being destroyed and our democracy ended.
The gullible low knowledge minority normally stay under their rocks, because they KNOW that the rest of us don't want to be owned by rich people. In recent years, however, the NaziRepublican Party has noticed that only a tiny, truly ignorant, but constantly shrinking minority are still buying the grift.
In response, the NaziRepublican Party has cranked up the propaganda to full volume and is DELUGING these people, in a desperate attempt to overthrow our democracy and install their monarchy. They are losing badly and beginning to panic. The grift is working fine on the gullible fools, but gullible fools aren't much use as soldiers. Thousands of them armed themselves heavily and attempted violent overthrow of our government, with only a hundred or so lightly armed cops opposing them, YET THE COPS WON. If the NaziRepublican brownshirts can't win with 40 times the people and 150 times the weapons, it sure doesn't bode well for future success, particularly since Biden won't hesitate to protect America and Americans from the NaziRepublican monarchists.
Thom, you've been in the media business for a long time. I'd like to get your take on something - we're all aware that mass media is owned by some large corporations. But why, when it's common knowledge that Trump's rhetoric is "fanning the flames" of violence, do we see over and over articles featuring the same story magnifying such rhetoric? Again and again I'm seeing articles - the Guardian is a good example, since they keep repeating the same articles for weeks - where Trump is lambasting Biden for being an enemy of the state. This is no longer news, so why keep them as news stories? Especially considering their toxic nature? Can the media executives really be part of the problem in your nation?
Practically speaking and specifically, the admonition for democratically minded people of all stripes to set aside their normal differences and contentions (expected in a religiously diverse, multiracial, multicultural nation of immigrants) for the time being means to come out en masse to vote, defying conventional midterm wisdom. It means to rally under one flag to beat a common domestic enemy. In essence, politics is war through peaceful means. The weapons are voices and votes.
At long last, give Democrats enough of a healthy (in every meaning of that word) majority in Congress -- especially focusing on House races! It's imperative to overcome with raw numbers the extremely fascist gerrymandering that defeats the House's original constitutional purpose as the most democratic and responsive governing body on the national scale by virtue of conducting elections every two years. In contrast to the Senate (which is equally vital to hold), the U.S. House of Representatives -- as the name implies -- is the closest to the People and THEIR power.
In theory.
Unfortunately, the reality is not so clean. Like most everything else they touch with their regressive and repulsive ideologies, leave it to self-righteous Republicans to get self-governing so wrong. They've wholly perverted the entire concept of a people's democracy, turning healthy debate -- essential for the success of any functioning democracy -- into a fearful, hateful, angry experience that wounds the soul, destroying democracy at its source: in the mind.
Yes, two months before the mid-terms, there is reason for optimism. I will be doing voter outreach until November 8th.
It was good to hear Biden finally tell it like it is on September 1st. I remember in late 2020, even before Jan 6, 2021 happened, wondering whether Biden would speak that way at his inauguration.
He didn't.
Supposedly he was briefed recently by some historians about FDR and the things you just mentioned, and that awoke him to the futility of still seeing the MAGA Republicans as good faith brokers, and that is why his speech finally called them out.
Over Labor Day, another reason for optimism emerged -Ukraine has turned the corner in their war against Russia.
I salute Daily Kos for reporting on this: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/4/2120770/-Ukraine-Update-Russia-culminates-Ukraine-advances-on-all-fronts , https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/5/2120992/-Ukraine-Update-Russia-wants-to-talk-peace-again-but-no-one-is-taking-it-seriously .
This matters to our domestic politics before the midterms because it keeps the embrace of Russia and Putin and dictators like Orban in Turkey by Trump and the MAGA Republicans in the spotlight. It reminds voters that the strong support of Ukraine by Biden and the Democrats had a lot to do with this "culmination" in Ukraine. And it reminds them that if Republicans rather than Democrats were in control in 2022, that support would not have happened. The MAGA Republicans might even have backed Russia when it invaded on February 24th.
Thank you for reminding anyone listening of the history that has brought us to today, and clarifying the distortions that pervade our nation/world today.
Thank you for this positive view. It can be hard to maintain hope when so many systems have been gamed to keep the *majority* of us effectively locked out of political power. Your reminder of our history is an important contextualization to keep us from collapsing into the gloom.
I've been seeing this coming for years. The minority who really would prefer to be landless serfs owned by nobility so they don't have to make decisions or accept responsibility for their actions have gotten ever more strident, loud, and frankly, laughable in their fantasies as more and more people awoke to the realization that our freedom is being destroyed and our democracy ended.
The gullible low knowledge minority normally stay under their rocks, because they KNOW that the rest of us don't want to be owned by rich people. In recent years, however, the NaziRepublican Party has noticed that only a tiny, truly ignorant, but constantly shrinking minority are still buying the grift.
In response, the NaziRepublican Party has cranked up the propaganda to full volume and is DELUGING these people, in a desperate attempt to overthrow our democracy and install their monarchy. They are losing badly and beginning to panic. The grift is working fine on the gullible fools, but gullible fools aren't much use as soldiers. Thousands of them armed themselves heavily and attempted violent overthrow of our government, with only a hundred or so lightly armed cops opposing them, YET THE COPS WON. If the NaziRepublican brownshirts can't win with 40 times the people and 150 times the weapons, it sure doesn't bode well for future success, particularly since Biden won't hesitate to protect America and Americans from the NaziRepublican monarchists.
Thom, you've been in the media business for a long time. I'd like to get your take on something - we're all aware that mass media is owned by some large corporations. But why, when it's common knowledge that Trump's rhetoric is "fanning the flames" of violence, do we see over and over articles featuring the same story magnifying such rhetoric? Again and again I'm seeing articles - the Guardian is a good example, since they keep repeating the same articles for weeks - where Trump is lambasting Biden for being an enemy of the state. This is no longer news, so why keep them as news stories? Especially considering their toxic nature? Can the media executives really be part of the problem in your nation?
Practically speaking and specifically, the admonition for democratically minded people of all stripes to set aside their normal differences and contentions (expected in a religiously diverse, multiracial, multicultural nation of immigrants) for the time being means to come out en masse to vote, defying conventional midterm wisdom. It means to rally under one flag to beat a common domestic enemy. In essence, politics is war through peaceful means. The weapons are voices and votes.
At long last, give Democrats enough of a healthy (in every meaning of that word) majority in Congress -- especially focusing on House races! It's imperative to overcome with raw numbers the extremely fascist gerrymandering that defeats the House's original constitutional purpose as the most democratic and responsive governing body on the national scale by virtue of conducting elections every two years. In contrast to the Senate (which is equally vital to hold), the U.S. House of Representatives -- as the name implies -- is the closest to the People and THEIR power.
In theory.
Unfortunately, the reality is not so clean. Like most everything else they touch with their regressive and repulsive ideologies, leave it to self-righteous Republicans to get self-governing so wrong. They've wholly perverted the entire concept of a people's democracy, turning healthy debate -- essential for the success of any functioning democracy -- into a fearful, hateful, angry experience that wounds the soul, destroying democracy at its source: in the mind.