I commented, but it disappeared, or I didn't do it right. Since I agree with you so often, I want you to know I felt the same. Here is what I said and posted as a note on my Substack: "I hoped the election was going to go her way and in a big way. Americans are less informed and more gullible than I gave them credit. I've committed mentally to her slogan, “we're not going back”, to the slogan of my state, “Forward”, and my own belief from the song sung by Sam Cook and others, “Change is Going Come” and knowing when it does, it'll feel good." We can't give up, there's too much at stake. Thank you for your writing and your activism.
Just saw this reply you wrote to my post on the sixth. French is my second language, and I'm familiar with many immigration regulations. Are they still open to US refugees, do you know? I would have sent a DM on Twitter, but I'm kind of new to Substack . . .
Don't beat yourself up David. I was wondering how you were doing though. If you need an out, there are rooms here in New Zealand for you. (I left after 2006!) However we too just got our very own Atlas network aligned government too. I think we will still have elections though.
Thank you for your columns, David. The outcome of the 2024 election produced a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” by a majority of the popular vote and the electoral college and Donald Trump will give them what they asked for good and hard.
This is a National Security Emergency (everything else is window dressing). Russia attacked 40 polling places with bomb threats. It is an act of War. I hope the Deep State is acting accordingly. Trump should not be given real National Security briefings. Just brief him in believable BS to keep Putin in the dark. If Putin has a mole in the NSA, drop him out a window.
And a media that downplayed just how great our economy is compared to all others and will continue to be until Trump wrecks it with his tariffs and other crackpot ideas. By refusing to make it clear that the US economy has bounced back from the world-wide economic collapse caused by covid, the media did what they always accuse (rightly) the left for doing making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Just looked at the WaPo and the “blame the Democrats” game is already starting. You can bet we won’t see any self-examination since the Post has gotten rid of columnists like Margaret Sullivan, Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman who all had the courage to call the WaPo out for biased coverage. (The exception is Jennifer Rubin.)
God forbid we blame the voters who willfully chose this horrible human to be the most powerful man in the world — again. This time there is no way they did not know how racist, misogynist, unstable and perverted he really is but they chose him anyway.
The mainstream media is always lecturing us about not reaching out and understanding these MAGA people. I bet most of them don’t have family members or close friends who have completely changed after years of immersing themselves in rightwing media. I have seen this up close and it really is like losing people to a cult. It is an incredibly helpless feeling that millions of us rank and file Dems are living with.
From the Guardian, as an introduction from one who now suffers from unexpected mental COPD (can't think of the medical term) induced by my career in Public Defender DP trials at New Orleans during the 1980s"
"If Donald Trump wins the election, he is expected to pursue a spree of executions that could fast-track the cases of people on federal death row, and threaten the life of a man with a longstanding innocence claim.
"Advocates for people on death row fear a second Trump term could be worse than his first, which saw an unprecedented 13 federal executions. Under Trump, more people incarcerated in the federal system were put to death than under the previous 10 presidents combined, a staggering number that raised grave human rights concerns.
"Among those who were executed were people with intellectual disabilities. Defendants were deprived of opportunities to present new evidence. Some were killed after lawyers said the execution method was “tortuous”. In some cases, executions occurred over the objections of both victims and prosecutors.
"Since his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Trump’s pro-death penalty rhetoric, which dates back to his 1989 campaign against the Central Park Five, has only escalated. He’s recently called for executions of “everyone who gets caught selling drugs” and has reportedly suggested government leakers should be executed for treason. Last year, Rolling Stone reported, Trump allegedly floated bringing back firing squads and hangings and pursuing group executions and televised killings."
Absolutely to all of this. I do wonder though, if voter suppression, gerrymandering and Russian interference is a major contributing factor and that a majority of us still don’t support him. I can’t believe he won the popular vote and wonder about the veracity of that too.
I am disgusted, concerned and definitely about my ability to even live due to worries about my Social Security. But I did sleep and I wrote out my own manifesto to be fleshed out later, that is to keep me occupied and bettering my position physically, mentally and financially. It is all I can do at the moment.
I think perhaps the education system has a lot to answer for. Is civics even taught anymore? How could Trump have even been allowed to run? Will we have a country to fix after we have let a convicted rapist destroy everything good about America? Even the weather is upset today. I can’t process this.
The biggest Trump supporters are baby boomers who are always bragging about being taught civics back in the good ol’ days. Clearly that didn’t prevent them from turning to fascism even though their fathers, like mine, risked their lives to defeat it.
And yes civics is taught, just not in a single course. I have four grandkids in public schools in NC. The state’s mandated curriculum (common core based) has civics embedded throughout their social studies curriculum. For example I recently asked my second grader what they were learning and she proudly told me about the three branches of government and gave a decent explanation of responsibilities of each one. That subject is repeated in more depth in fourth grade along with learning about our state government. I know we boomers didn’t learn things like that until we were older. My middle school grandsons have been learning about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. These topics and more are revisited in high school.
Theodora30, thanks for your post. I found it encouraging at a time when it’s hard to find anything encouraging about what is being said in the daily public conversation always going on in America and around the world; the one carried on in government, by intellectuals and academics, in the media and on social websites and the like and includes both honest and dishonest people. If I let myself, I could continue this barely relevant tangent past anyone’s ability to tolerate it. Thinking I may have already done that, I’ll just thank you again.
He will not leave office. That is the fact that this morning's Pollyannas fail to see. When he won in 2016, I ticked off the corrupt things I expected him to do. My husband, a retired USN 06, told me I was "overreacting," that those around him would stop him. Ha! Trump did every single thing I anticipated he would do. But, even I did not imagine January 6th. So, don't tell me "when Trump leaves office." Vance will take over before Trump’s term is complete. The House and Senate, the "Supreme" Court will be complicit. We will be ruled by autocrats who will shut down balanced and liberal media. Sycophants will be installed to run departments and agencies. The Civil Service will be gutted. Senior military officers who cannot support illegal orders will retire. Social programs will be gutted. And, the idiotic economic policies Trump espouses will ruin our economy. 1929 will look like picnic. So, don't tell us dreams of "when he leaves office." Only nightmares are ahead.
I am betting the 25th Amendment with be invoked. The powers/money behind this are tech bros fascists like Peter Thiel and far right theocrats like the Heritage Foundation people. They want the far more malleable, less erratic Vance as president and Putin likely agrees.
Thank you. It is not going to be easy, not the work or the ability to stay focused and hopeful. But I agree we must find a way, and it must start now. Kamala Harris showed us how to work together, and how to work joyfully even though the work is hard. We can do this. Peace.
Hi-rez, data driven Psycho/Cultivation is new. It’s proven successful now. I’m truly daunted, dispossessed and, I gotta say, despondent. I’ll not be silenced until I’m literally silenced. I trust—hope—pray that neither will you, David. Thank you for being so thoughtfully and willingly there for us.
A major factor in Trump's election is the extreme inequality of income and wealth in the US. The beneficiaries of I & W inequality -- the rich -- voted for Trump to continue and increase I & W inequality. The middle class and working class, who are dissatisfied because they haven't gotten a fair share of the success of the economy (it is all going to the rich), voted for Trump because they mistakenly believed that Biden hadn't done anything to address I&W inequality and even more foolishly believed that Trump would be their champion against I&W inequality.
Well, voting for Trump will make that far worse. The dolts who voted for him, wear his Chinese-made gear, attend his rallies, and post filthy remarks on social media will be hurt badly in trump's economy. The deportations alone will cost us billions, and losing migrant workers will send inflation through the roof, not to mention his asinine tariffs and tax plans. If the MAGAts cannot make it in THIS economy, they'll never make it.
I commented, but it disappeared, or I didn't do it right. Since I agree with you so often, I want you to know I felt the same. Here is what I said and posted as a note on my Substack: "I hoped the election was going to go her way and in a big way. Americans are less informed and more gullible than I gave them credit. I've committed mentally to her slogan, “we're not going back”, to the slogan of my state, “Forward”, and my own belief from the song sung by Sam Cook and others, “Change is Going Come” and knowing when it does, it'll feel good." We can't give up, there's too much at stake. Thank you for your writing and your activism.
Just saw this reply you wrote to my post on the sixth. French is my second language, and I'm familiar with many immigration regulations. Are they still open to US refugees, do you know? I would have sent a DM on Twitter, but I'm kind of new to Substack . . .
Don't beat yourself up David. I was wondering how you were doing though. If you need an out, there are rooms here in New Zealand for you. (I left after 2006!) However we too just got our very own Atlas network aligned government too. I think we will still have elections though.
Thank you for your columns, David. The outcome of the 2024 election produced a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” by a majority of the popular vote and the electoral college and Donald Trump will give them what they asked for good and hard.
This is a National Security Emergency (everything else is window dressing). Russia attacked 40 polling places with bomb threats. It is an act of War. I hope the Deep State is acting accordingly. Trump should not be given real National Security briefings. Just brief him in believable BS to keep Putin in the dark. If Putin has a mole in the NSA, drop him out a window.
Probably all boils down to anger at inflation.
And a media that downplayed just how great our economy is compared to all others and will continue to be until Trump wrecks it with his tariffs and other crackpot ideas. By refusing to make it clear that the US economy has bounced back from the world-wide economic collapse caused by covid, the media did what they always accuse (rightly) the left for doing making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Just looked at the WaPo and the “blame the Democrats” game is already starting. You can bet we won’t see any self-examination since the Post has gotten rid of columnists like Margaret Sullivan, Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman who all had the courage to call the WaPo out for biased coverage. (The exception is Jennifer Rubin.)
God forbid we blame the voters who willfully chose this horrible human to be the most powerful man in the world — again. This time there is no way they did not know how racist, misogynist, unstable and perverted he really is but they chose him anyway.
The mainstream media is always lecturing us about not reaching out and understanding these MAGA people. I bet most of them don’t have family members or close friends who have completely changed after years of immersing themselves in rightwing media. I have seen this up close and it really is like losing people to a cult. It is an incredibly helpless feeling that millions of us rank and file Dems are living with.
From the Guardian, as an introduction from one who now suffers from unexpected mental COPD (can't think of the medical term) induced by my career in Public Defender DP trials at New Orleans during the 1980s"
"If Donald Trump wins the election, he is expected to pursue a spree of executions that could fast-track the cases of people on federal death row, and threaten the life of a man with a longstanding innocence claim.
"Advocates for people on death row fear a second Trump term could be worse than his first, which saw an unprecedented 13 federal executions. Under Trump, more people incarcerated in the federal system were put to death than under the previous 10 presidents combined, a staggering number that raised grave human rights concerns.
"Among those who were executed were people with intellectual disabilities. Defendants were deprived of opportunities to present new evidence. Some were killed after lawyers said the execution method was “tortuous”. In some cases, executions occurred over the objections of both victims and prosecutors.
"Since his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Trump’s pro-death penalty rhetoric, which dates back to his 1989 campaign against the Central Park Five, has only escalated. He’s recently called for executions of “everyone who gets caught selling drugs” and has reportedly suggested government leakers should be executed for treason. Last year, Rolling Stone reported, Trump allegedly floated bringing back firing squads and hangings and pursuing group executions and televised killings."
Need I say more?
OK, back to work... and pray that
God help us all.
Another substack and comments that don't even mention anything about the climate crisis, or as Trump refers to it, as the "climate hoax."
Absolutely to all of this. I do wonder though, if voter suppression, gerrymandering and Russian interference is a major contributing factor and that a majority of us still don’t support him. I can’t believe he won the popular vote and wonder about the veracity of that too.
I am disgusted, concerned and definitely about my ability to even live due to worries about my Social Security. But I did sleep and I wrote out my own manifesto to be fleshed out later, that is to keep me occupied and bettering my position physically, mentally and financially. It is all I can do at the moment.
I think perhaps the education system has a lot to answer for. Is civics even taught anymore? How could Trump have even been allowed to run? Will we have a country to fix after we have let a convicted rapist destroy everything good about America? Even the weather is upset today. I can’t process this.
The biggest Trump supporters are baby boomers who are always bragging about being taught civics back in the good ol’ days. Clearly that didn’t prevent them from turning to fascism even though their fathers, like mine, risked their lives to defeat it.
And yes civics is taught, just not in a single course. I have four grandkids in public schools in NC. The state’s mandated curriculum (common core based) has civics embedded throughout their social studies curriculum. For example I recently asked my second grader what they were learning and she proudly told me about the three branches of government and gave a decent explanation of responsibilities of each one. That subject is repeated in more depth in fourth grade along with learning about our state government. I know we boomers didn’t learn things like that until we were older. My middle school grandsons have been learning about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. These topics and more are revisited in high school.
Theodora30, thanks for your post. I found it encouraging at a time when it’s hard to find anything encouraging about what is being said in the daily public conversation always going on in America and around the world; the one carried on in government, by intellectuals and academics, in the media and on social websites and the like and includes both honest and dishonest people. If I let myself, I could continue this barely relevant tangent past anyone’s ability to tolerate it. Thinking I may have already done that, I’ll just thank you again.
That's good to know, actually. How about the home schooled or religious schooled kids though?
He will not leave office. That is the fact that this morning's Pollyannas fail to see. When he won in 2016, I ticked off the corrupt things I expected him to do. My husband, a retired USN 06, told me I was "overreacting," that those around him would stop him. Ha! Trump did every single thing I anticipated he would do. But, even I did not imagine January 6th. So, don't tell me "when Trump leaves office." Vance will take over before Trump’s term is complete. The House and Senate, the "Supreme" Court will be complicit. We will be ruled by autocrats who will shut down balanced and liberal media. Sycophants will be installed to run departments and agencies. The Civil Service will be gutted. Senior military officers who cannot support illegal orders will retire. Social programs will be gutted. And, the idiotic economic policies Trump espouses will ruin our economy. 1929 will look like picnic. So, don't tell us dreams of "when he leaves office." Only nightmares are ahead.
I worry about all of that too.
I am betting the 25th Amendment with be invoked. The powers/money behind this are tech bros fascists like Peter Thiel and far right theocrats like the Heritage Foundation people. They want the far more malleable, less erratic Vance as president and Putin likely agrees.
Thank you. It is not going to be easy, not the work or the ability to stay focused and hopeful. But I agree we must find a way, and it must start now. Kamala Harris showed us how to work together, and how to work joyfully even though the work is hard. We can do this. Peace.
Hi-rez, data driven Psycho/Cultivation is new. It’s proven successful now. I’m truly daunted, dispossessed and, I gotta say, despondent. I’ll not be silenced until I’m literally silenced. I trust—hope—pray that neither will you, David. Thank you for being so thoughtfully and willingly there for us.
I found your work in the wake of 2016. Will keep on following. Thanks.
A major factor in Trump's election is the extreme inequality of income and wealth in the US. The beneficiaries of I & W inequality -- the rich -- voted for Trump to continue and increase I & W inequality. The middle class and working class, who are dissatisfied because they haven't gotten a fair share of the success of the economy (it is all going to the rich), voted for Trump because they mistakenly believed that Biden hadn't done anything to address I&W inequality and even more foolishly believed that Trump would be their champion against I&W inequality.
Well, voting for Trump will make that far worse. The dolts who voted for him, wear his Chinese-made gear, attend his rallies, and post filthy remarks on social media will be hurt badly in trump's economy. The deportations alone will cost us billions, and losing migrant workers will send inflation through the roof, not to mention his asinine tariffs and tax plans. If the MAGAts cannot make it in THIS economy, they'll never make it.