I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the apparent fact that Americans are okay with dictatorship and the end of due process and all that provided inflation is manageable.
If you are white, and native born, most of what's going on will not affect you. Especially if you are male. Women have to watch out for further incursions on their healthcare - Plan B, birth control etc.
I'm an old white lady but climate change will impact my kids, the type of gov't cuts happening will impact them, my daughter's health care (as you noted), will impact them. And I really don't want to live under Nazi rule.
You are one of the 40% of white Americans who are decent human beings. The other 60% aren’t, and that’s why we have a mob-boss pretender in the White House.
You're thinking he's a "pretender"? No, he's the real thing: it's an extranational mob. Billionaires and their bootlickers. America's just another country on the game board.
Just because DJT's the fool at the table (of his fellow capos) doesn't mean it's pretend.
Rex, I really think the decent % is about 65% and MAGAS, comprised of Christo-Fascist and Fascists at large are about 30%. The other 5% are just brain dead.
What they do is projection of lies that Non-MAGAs stole the election, which is in reality that MAGA operatives w/ Putin’s support gamed the election. The Gerrymandering and suppression is how they narrow margins to win. The machine tampering is never audited because the margins of victory are within the range of avoiding audit of actual ballots.
Fascist have long known that when you can’t win you cheat. The have been at this since Jim Crow...
I take it as axiomatic that no decent human being voted for Trump. Roughly 60% of white voters, 70% of white working class voters, and 80% of white evangelical voters cast their votes for Trump. Those people have no decency in my judgment. Among non-voting white Americans, it’s probably even worse because low-information voters lean R.
Your interpretations differ, so we disagree on the numbers but agree more or less on the underlying ideas. I agree that the same class of people have been at this since Jim Crow. Actually, I’d put it back at least to Reconstruction and back 400 years or so in a broader sense. The good news is that white supremacist faction comprised about 90% of white Americans until the roughly the mid-1960s, so there has been some progress. We made good progress with young people while K-12 schools were integrated in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, after which the white supremacists managed to shut down school integration, nationwide. So, we may have gotten half a generation or so of white Americans in which the fraction of white supremacists dropped under 50%. Since then, we have regressed, but not back to the 90% days, fortunately. Unfortunately, the 77 million Trump voters (roughly 60% of white voters and almost nobody else) have now taken full control and have put a mob don in charge and backed him up with a compliant mob of capos in the legisture and six corrupt, white supremacist “justices” on the Supreme Court. None of these people give a damn about the law or the Constitution. It is conceivable that we might begin to wrest control from them in November, 2026, but it will take a monumental effort together with a lot of good luck to do it. I am hopeful but not optimistic.
I would agree the data is depressing. I trust PRRI for the insights they provide on Evangelical and Catholic views that directly link to Red and Blue political preferences..
This basicaly confirms your data:
White working-class Americans have consistently played a pivotal role in U.S. elections, increasingly aligning with the Republican Party. PRRI research from the 2016 presidential election, for instance, shows that 64% of white working-class voters backed President Donald Trump. Trump’s support among this key demographic remains high, with two in three white working-class voters once again backing him in 2024, according to PRRI’s Post-Election Survey.
I grew up in a small town in Appalachian and I know that health care coverage or having to pay far more for it and having your local hospital close will damage rural white communities even more than urban areas which will at least have hospitals and more choice of jobs. Increased prices from tariffs will also hurt those people badly. And those communities are more likely to be hurt by RFK Jrs crackpot policies although they might not admit it.
Nope. Inflation from tariffs will hit everyone - poor White males as well as Blacks and Women. Ditto gutting healthcare, science research, labor shortages from insane immigration policies, and just about anything else done by Trump and his GOP lackeys. It's just that the full impact of all this has yet to work its way through the economy. Once it does, even White males will feel the pain. They'll probably blame it on Democrats, elites, women or sunspot activity rather than Trump; but they'll feel it notwithstanding.
We’ll see. Last night reports began circulating that more ICE agents are pouring into one of the whitest native-born major metropolitan areas (Portland Oregon), and the regime has been making noise about sending in the National Guard. Extremists eventually go after their own demographic. It’s a shame more people don’t know this history.
Here's what comes up when you search it out online:
"Portland's homicide rate has seen a significant decline compared to other cities. In the first half of 2025, Portland recorded 17 homicides, a decrease from 35 in the same period last year. This represents a 51% drop in homicides year-to-date, making it the city with the largest homicide decrease among major U.S. cities".
Since homicide might be considered a flagship statistic, the Trumpists' decision to occupy it with federal troops is based upon political, not security, issues. That's no surprise. Trumpists are occupying key Democratic cities. We are kidding ourselves that this is anything other than a naked military-assisted coup d'etat.
Except Oregon is not Trump/Republican territory. The Trump regime is trying to show to MAÙGA trumpkins that they will hunt immigrants where-ever they might be found (preferably in "Blue" areas).
If you count Portland, you're right. But outside Portland, especially in Eastern Oregon, as in Eastern Washington, rightwingers hold sway. If Trumpists can booger the Portland vote, they could swing the state. And the absurdity of the need for the National Guard in one of the safest cities in America is such a ridiculous, flatulent lie, such a big lie, that it will be believed by many. That's the way it works.
They're choosing cities where they have a chance to make gains statewide. Chicago. Los Angeles. They've threatened Baltimore, but that's a chancy place to mess with. Likewise Seattle. I doubt they'll try it there. They're concentrating on urban areas they can control to swing the states and yielding where they have no chance. Chances are that the brains behind the useful idiot occupying the White House are calculating things down to the gnat's ass, just like 2016.
That is plausible and interesting take. I think he is just looking for the next BLM type civil disturbance (which in reality was the 97% peaceful) to declare a EMERGENCY that he can then elevate to a national level by inciting riot across the country…
Only massive peaceful and daytime only protest that is well organized can show the reality. Trump’s Goon agent provocateurs will be out there embedded in the peaceful marchers. So screening and reporting of the Goons must be done immediately in any march they show up for… Just look for the mouth breathing and dragging knuckles
I see the point. But isn't most of the population on the coast ? So the Trumpists taking Oregon would be a bit like the tail wagging the dog, wouldn't it ?
Sorry but it will affect everyone from climate change to rise in violence. Yes women will be in the firing line for sure & futures of children in for a very grim future worldwide . only ones spared will be the oligarchs in their bolt holes.
Ignorance, division, racism and hate over-ride any thoughts of democracy and due process. Just listen to a MAGAt and they're filled with hate. The concepts of democracy and due process are too abstract for these ignorant peasants who are largely controlled by the relatively new disinformation empire.
This is nothing new. Plato's Allegory of the Cave clearly explains this tragedy, where the masses are controlled by a ruling class of manipulators who largely create a fictitious world of fear and hate and do so to such an extent that the ignorant eventually rule those within their own tribe. And anyone in this group who deviates from the prescribed hate would be risking their own life.
It appears to be close to impossible to get a MAGAt to think that "due process" is important. And it's definitely impossible to get them to believe it applies to non-citizens or people in boats off the coast of Venezuela.
I remember a conversation I had with a policeman on the Atlanta strip in late '72. He - "If I want you, I'll get you." Me - "How so?" He - "What are you going to do with that cigarette when you're done?" Me - "Throw it down." He - "That's littering." Me - "What if I toss it in the trash can over there?" He - "That's a good one. That's attempted arson." Me - "What if I walk into the Krystal here and put it in an ash tray?" He - "Well, if you don't buy anything, that's trespassing." Me- "What if I buy something?" He - "I'll get you next time."
Excellent. Recall also that the individual who escaped the restraints forcing him to see only the shadows cast by the "manipulators" on the wall of the cave, and made it to the entrance to the cave where the light of day was shining, was "blinded" by the light of reality.
I’m not sure I’d say Americans are OK with dictatorship, but that they don’t comprehend what authoritarianism is. Look up the “reverse flynn effect”: we’re getting _measurably_ dumber. We have technology (smartphones and social media) mostly to blame for that, and I don’t really see that changing soon.
I believe the cause of that is the fact that intelligent people in the US don't have many children any more. They expect to provide a good education, and doing that for more than two or three kids is expensive. The bumper stickers read "My child and my money go to NC State."
I don't thunk that we can blame technology for our getting dumber. The Romans had too much lead(water pipes, eating/ drinking utensils), which is one theory for the fall of the Roman Empire. We have all kinds of ecological damage to our systems- water soil,air. It's genetic degradation
The introduction of the iPhone app store was in mid-2008, and mobile versions of social media apps (like Facebook) were introduced. I can't think of another source of impact that was as widespread in such a short time period.
Actually there is no scientific consensus. Both environmental pollution and over use of technology affect the intelligence level. Technology can aid in learning if used properly
Bread and circuses…… Memorial weekend 2004 i was lunching off Madison. I had my back to the door when there was a frisson of excitement from the packed restaurant. I asked who it was, “Donald Trump” to which I replied rather too loudly “oh, I thought it was someone really important”. I did get some angry feedback. The restaurant clientele were youngish, intelligent - the prices suggested so - metropolitan people, and they were excited at the visitor, who I gather was doing a walk on for the new show The Apprentice. Whether these same people voted Republican we will never know. If entertainment is one of the criteria for electing a president, then heaven help us.
The GOP favors running entertainers and coaches who have well established brands in their target markets and understand they are there to read someone else’s lines or run someone else’s plays. (I think heaven is sitting this one out.)
Politics in the USA has long been a form of entertainment with many long-time. politicians being feted as though they were movie stars. I recall a similar frisson when I was passed by Dan Rostenkowski surrounded by a throng of hangers-on.
I’m not okay with any of it - at all. But I’m steeped in reading the news, watching the news, and Substack. My wife, an intelligent woman, is as I write this sitting 15 feet away playing games on her iPad. She works, while I’m retired, so I don’t begrudge her the down time, but I feel it’s an obligation to stay informed.
We’ve been lulled into complacency, believing that Democracy is like the air around us, always there, and that the only obligations we have to it are to vote and attend jury duty every couple of years. We’re learning the hard way that those are bare minimums. Thirty-five percent of eligible voters declined to bother voting in 2024. Who doesn’t
If young men can voluntarily join the military to protect us, put their lives on the line, we should be able to show them that they’re fighting for a worthy cause.
The thing politically inclined types (like myself, Paul and G Eliot, and I'm guessing you) categorically underestimate is the number of people who would ideally not think about politics, ever, because politics are inherently stressful and uncomfortable. American values are a way to feel good about yourself for belonging to an in-group. Democracy and due process are fun vague smart people terms that you vaguely know are good. Prices are a thing that the world forces you to confront every damn day, and that will be enough to rile you up. And what the Republican party is better at than anything else is collapsing every argument to the simplest, dumbest, "you will absorb everything we're directly trying to say with as little thought as possible," which makes politics something you can check off and move along with.
This is an unscientific handicapping off the top of my head, but - there's a solid 20-25% of people in the nation who care a lot about politics, and are generally progressive aligned. There's a solid 20-25% of people in the nation who care a lot about politics, and are generally conservative aligned. That leaves 50-60% of the nation who want to think about politics as little as possible. They aren't some great swath of moderates, or swing voters, the vast majority of them are aligned to one of the two major parties. They just want politics to be something they care about once every four years, at most, and for their life to be okay otherwise. Republicans have activated a good amount of their share of this group with the power of their emotional messaging - I'd argue more true MAGAts belong to this group than to the conservative 20-25%, which itself contains the highest % of Never Trumpers. Meanwhile, Democrats are always trying to give you the thinking, smart reason you should vote for them (the policy details! the authoritarianism! the rule of law!), which really does not do much activation of the 50-60%. And that's the ballgame.
You mean “some Americans”! We always have had strident discriminatory right-wingers of about 25-33% of the general public, haven’t we? Trump’s personal appeal as a rich entertaining Strong Man upped those perceptions significantly. But he has exaggerated his appeal significantly with stupidity, intolerance, and irrationality so he’s on the way down significantly!
Trump, like Nixon, will remain as vastly entertaining on the way down as he was on the way up. Even though it's only a grade-C made-for-TV movie script, it has its appeal.
Interesting also is your impression of the percentage of proto-nazis in the general public. The new Chancellor of Germany in 1933 was the result of just that percentage of the vote.
Maybe the distribution of authoritarian-leaning and liberal-leaning people is just a bell curve, with a lot of people who are either non-ideological or confused occupying the center. (Yes, I tend to think that people who claim to be middle of the road are actually confused.)
Yes, it is a normal distribution curve, but of course the shape of it and its skewness depends on a lot of things. That 33% you mention is probably right now getting skewed towards authoritarianism. Benjamin Hett's book "The Death of Democracy" outlines events from 1930 or so to 1933 in Germany. Lots of parallels to today in America.
Your writing and the people you present continue to be thoughtful and dynamic but this one falls a little short. Morris, however knowledgeable doesn’t put racism (the Southern Strategy was openly discussed in 1968) or misogyny (anti ERA became part of the Republican brand in the 1970s) in the forefront even though Trump and Vance ran a decidedly racist and misogynistic campaign. Another thing never discussed is why the Democratic candidate has won the popular vote in 7 of the last 9 elections. Finally, maybe it’s not a good idea, electorally, to poll everything. Just speak out loudly, often and with conviction and try to convince the electorate of your position. To the extent that’s happening now, it’s working.
Fox "News" relentlessly promotes extreme-right political positions that we who have other sources of information know to be wrong. It simplifies every issue, every political position, as a choice between Good and Bad, between Us and Them. The Republicans in Congress have succeeded in defunding public television--a goal that conservatives have had for years--so in many regions, especially rural and red regions, there is no objective news at all. This two factors have or will have a tremendous influence on the outcome of elections.
Fox’s simplistic & hate-based ‘news’ hijacks the brain’s emotional response centre and gives a dopamine rush — it becomes addictive, emotionally & physically.
News from varied sources that make them *think - feels more like work, so they have a negative response, which in turn tells them that news must be ‘wrong’ according to their ‘gut feeling’.
— Trump & Fox understand these basics & cash in on them.
While we're at it, the "conventional wisdom" is that Trumpkopf won the election decisively and fair and square - when there's a very real possibility that the election was rigged:
Reminding Americans that they live in a racist society is counterproductive. Bigots have somehow concluded they are acting in their own best interests, so they don't feel guilty for the way they vote or treat other people. The sooner red state voters realize they have a lot more in common with other working-class Americans, regardless of their race, sex, or religion, than they have with billionaires, the better off we'll all be.
Racism and sexism is a large partof what sunk Harris. The country as a whole could not fathom a black woman president. I don't think they can now. I don't even think a white woman could get past the finish line. Really unfortunate this is where we are at.
Hillary Clinton in 2016 suggests your penultimate sentence is correct. Regardless of her personality, she certainly had more relevant experience for the job than Trump. Imagine any hiring situation you’ve been through and try to imagine the employer passing over everyone with relevant experience. Unless nepotism is at play, it’s impossible to conceive an employer would deep six all experienced applicants in favor of the least qualified applicant.
That is a subject the media refuses to address because Comey is a media fave. This bogus lawsuit against him is at heart about Comey’s refusal to stop the Trump loving FBI agents in the NYC office from leaking to Rudy G, James Kallstrom and the media in order to hurt Hillary’s campaign. Michael Horowitz, the DOJ Inspector General, made that clear in his report about the FBI’s mishandling of their investigation into Hillary’s emails that agents in the NY FBI office had pressured both McCabe and Comey into doing things that would damage Hillary.
In Comey’s case he responded to that pressure by being insubordinate by making two unauthorized public statements about Hillary’s emails, the last one right before the election. The IG report made it clear that Comey did nothing to control those NY agents who repeatedly broke DOJ/FBI rules by leaking to the media which I find deeply disturbing and even more disturbing that the media buried that fact. I suspect the media protected those agents because they were sources which was a betrayal of the public’s need to know.
Pressure from those same agents about his wife’s Va campaign for Va state senate was the reason that McCabe authorized that leak to the WSJ that the Clinton Foundation was under investigation by the FBI. That investigation was conducted by the NY FBI opposed strongly by their bosses at DOJ who had refused to authorize it — because the “evidence” against the CF was from Steve Bannon’s henchman Peter Schweizer’s book “Clinton Cash”.
That leak McCabe authorized also happened right before the election and was badly damaging to Hillary. In contrast McCabe sat on the fact that the FBI was also investigating the Trump campaign for its multiple ties to Russian operatives.
Republicans and Trump are accusing Comey of lying when he denied having given McCabe permission to authorize leaking about the investigation into the Clinton Foundation. There is strong evidence that McCabe had acted alone then lied about having authorization in order to protect his own job.
This indictment is bogus and political but it would never have happened had Comey and McCabe done their jobs and controlled the Trump-loving NY FBI agents. They should have been publicly outed, disciplined and probably indicted for violating the Hatch Act. We now know that in October 2016 Russian asset Charles McGonigal was a top agent in the NY FBI field office but the media could not care less.
Sara, obvious now as it should have been prior to Nov 2024. The historical odds said DO NOT run a black woman, esp. against a fascist when the risks are so great. Okay I'll say it---you run an election with the electorate you have, not the one you wish you had.
I know people are busy and life in the US is hard without a social safety net, but I will never understand people who don’t take the time to read and understand the news. It’s your duty as a citizen to keep informed. Yes we have to get rid of the Fox Newses of the world, but it’s not hard to find decent information these days. “But I’m not political” isn’t an excuse. Everything is political. Take a few moments each day and learn something.
Amen! I've been fighting this battle for 50+ years.
It used to be LGBTQ+ folks knew this immediately after their realization. In most states, just having sex was a felony. Now, only trans people know it for sure. "Social acceptance" meant (in part) that "politics" didn't matter any more. EVERY act is political.
It's like the Leopard Eating Faces Party -- until it happens to them personally, they're fine with "it" (whatever "it" means). Suddenly, it dawns on people that what they approve for others is going to be used against them, too.
My Civics & Government classes in high school emphasized this & explained that a society REQUIRED an informed populace. Like so many other educational values, the GOP chipped away at this one as they promoted unbridled consumerism. "It's not important." "If I'm not affected, then it's a waste of time." Now here we are.
When the cycle comes back around, I hope educators will go back to stressing the importance of politics.
Part of the problem is the elimination of Civics as a graduation requirement in many states during the 1970s. This means 3+ generations (late Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z) have not been required to know anything about their government. Now with extreme partisanship it’s hard to reinstate the requirement. After January 6, my state’s legislature tried to reinstate Civics as a requirement but the political parties couldn’t agree on what the curriculum should be. Republicans even rejected the basic curriculum used between the 1920s and 1960s.
Civics is still taught, just not as one separate course. My grandkids go to urban public schools in NC and they are taught about it repeatedly over the years. The state uses the Common Core standards as do 46 others. Civics is embedded in the social studies curriculum throughout elementary and high school.
For example my 2nd grade grand child was telling me they were learning about the branches of government and she gave decent explanation of what each one does. The 4th grader was studying the same thing about our state government. The high schooler has alreadly taken US government classes and studied American history.
Why would anyone pine for the good old days when we baby boomers had a civics course? The boomers are the biggest group MAGA has. Clearly their civics lessons were a flop
This gets to the second part of my comment, which is the curriculum my for my grandparents in the 1920s and my parents in the 1940s was considered erroneous by our Republican legislators. They objected to references to democracy.
Actually Missouri has adopted the Common Core standards so, like my state of NC, civics is integrated throughout the social studies curriculum across grade school and high school. See my comment above. I have been impressed by what even my youngest grandkids have learned about government and US history.
Fortunately I live in Massachusetts. As a gen xer I remember everyone in 8th grade social studies humming along to Schoolhouse rock’s tune as we all wrote the preamble to the constitution on the test. But yes, more civics please for everyone.
Sadly and shamefully, a lot of folks in the US can't read, or at least read above third grade level. They can't even read the ingredients list on their cans of Schlitz.
I am an older baby boomer. My generation had much higher drop out rates so many more did not even finish high school, let alone go to college. The poorer, mostly white kids in my Appalachian hometown usually dropped out the minute they turned sixteen and some rarely attended school at all.
Probably so they could escape conscription before reaching the age of dissent. I'm lucky, as a late Boomer, I was too young to draft while the war was on. By the time I hit draft age, there was no more draft - although that !@#$# St. Reagan brought back draft registration. I had to spend my 18 b'day in the !@#$# post office to fill out that damned selective service form. 🤬
A large swath of America is proud of being ignorant. I distinctly remember watching Dumb and Dumber and thinking this mentality was going to hurt us. I saw the phenomenon in young people in the 90s, a glorification of ignorance and a distain for the intellectual. Popular media had/has a constant refrain that the common man has more understanding and sense than educated people.
Bravo, Mr. Morris for being an unabashed partisan for democracy and fair elections! Contrast the Times' managing editor who said his paper had no obligation to support democracy,
That's what he was hired for - to rubberstamp capitulation. His claim that "democracy is a partisan issue" is so blatantly asinine, it would be downright risible if it wasn't so dangerous.
Yeah. They tried cowtowing to DonnyJon and got hit with a ludicrous lawsuit as a result. It seems to have turned them around a bit, but it's only been a week or two.
Dear Dr Paul, All of your Views incl Co-Experts incl video is awesome and as far the video interviews I like most the Transcripts as Way of Spoken English is different from Each country. As an Indian & travelled to USA few times I mostly understand still the Transcripts help a lot .. Thanks.
A critical point is being missed. Listen to what Sanders and AOC are saying to big crowds. The GOP core goal is to move wealth and income from the less wealthy to the very wealthy. The Democratic traditional goal and the Sanders AOC goal is the opposite and the Democratic Party Organization has gotten away from it. All other issues are used by both parties to obscure these fundamental goals.
Yes! Living wage, health care, child care, and tax the rich. If those don’t attract enough votes, Democrats are doomed. Their only alternative to regain power in that case would be to completely abandon fairness in governance and promise to do everything possible to preserve and expand the economic, legal, and political advantages of white Americans, like the Republicans have been doing since1968.
People don't pay attention until there is crisis of some sort. A shutdown will be a crisis. Then the issues whatever they are become universally visible. The issue in this shutdown will be the Republican plan to take healthcare off or increase the price of access for about 30 million people. Pretty easy to understand. Even some Republicans are very nervous about picking a fight over this bread and butter issue.
In particular, they don't pay attention until there's a crisis that hits them personally. A lot of Americans looked at the atrocities inflicted in L.A. and committed at Alligator Auschwitz and just shrugged "well, they're not targeting me, so no biggie".
Then the leopards come to chow down on their faces and they're shocked "this wasn't supposed to happen!" and we say "We tried to tell you but you wouldn't listen. Now will you listen to us?"
"Most" people are trying to get by working for a living: their kids, their spouses, their parents. I remember those days and I barely kept touch with the news. What I don't have and you don't give, are the facts: how many people are going to be affected, when, and what is it? I just read the info yesterday that the cuts the Dems are fighting about are federal subsidies for Oabamacre premiums. Is that correct? If so, how many people are affected? Is that all of it? Please answer this.
Ethnic antagonism. Is that a euphemism for racism or is it an effort to avoid giving any credence to the falsehood of the concept of race? I notice that the leading explanations for election result is Inflation, Immigration, June 2024 debate performance. Is anti-immigration also a stand-in for racism? Most salient, resonant point: Oppose based on principle not on polling.
Morris' comment about 'ethnic antagonism' is a sanitized political science term for *hate.* Hatred of POC and anyone who is not a member of the GOP tribe. This stance is a recipe for even more political violence (with guns). Perhaps, that is the lesson to be extracted from the Charlie Kirk murder.
RE: "Or, I don’t know, find a way to get Fox News off the air..." They should have lost their FCC license years ago; ain't gonna happen in my lifetime. BOYCOT their advertisers AND challenge their BS reporting consistently, like the beat of the drum.
That is true. The FCC has said that the law does not authorize it to regulate "indecent" content on cable TV, and various restrictions on sexually explicit material on cable television have been ruled unconstitutional by US courts. So Turner Classic Movies could, in theory, run the NC-17 rated "Blue Is The Warmest Color" in the middle of the afternoon without running into any trouble from the government, although Comcast and other cable TV providers could certainly decide to stop carrying a channel that did that.
Of course they should have, along with NewsMax and any major outlet advocating overthrow of the government. The public has the right indeed the duty to protect itself from danger via their MOC and the FCC. Are there risks of FCC abuse in that--you bet! But we have now seen the risks from not taking action.
First time I have heard from Mr. Morris, he has a unique perspective which is data driven and clearly states what his opinions are based on that. We don’t have to agree but I find the data helpful. His points about polling on issues to get a better understanding of what the rest of our citizens are thinking is helpful. Will subscribe to his substack to hear more.
Re inflation, please take into account the fact that for most people, "inflation" is simply a synonym for high prices. If hamburger is still $1/lb more than it was last year, then "inflation is bad" even if the actual current rate has dropped to 0.0%.
For policy and messaging, how about we just try to do the right thing? Politicians should identify what THEY see as the biggest issues and THEIR best answer---and then do their best to convince the public. The original iPhone would have been mediocre had Steve Jobs simply triangulated what consumers thought they wanted in a cell phone rather than what he knew would be excellent.
How much do you want to stop His Royal Heinous and the fascist takeover of the country?
Enough that you’re willing to make a small sacrifice? Like altering your spending habits for a month or two or three? That could be all it would take to get the attention of the oligarchs (formerly known as The Robber Barons in the first Gilded Age, also The Fat Cats, The Greedy Bastards).
A brief demonstration of We, the People’s, power of the purse could persuade them to quit supporting HRH and the politicians who enable him.
We quit spending, except on essentials, businesses lose money, stock market goes down, Greedy Bastards pay attention to our demands.
Greedy Bastards own most of the politicians of both major parties. GBs start losing money, tell politicians to change course and do what We, the People want.
We are running out of peaceful options. The legislature and Supreme Court are controlled by HRH. He controls the executive branch, including the Military, Justice Department, FBI, ICE, the IRS. He controls all levers of power.
We, the people, still have the power of the purse. No one can control our spending, or lack of spending. When all else fails we can go on a spending strike until the business community stops supporting HRH and the politicians who enable him.
Economic warfare is the only thing the oligarchs, the business community will understand and act on. Call it a Surreptitious General Strike (Quiet Quitting). Go to work, do as little as possible. Stop spending money except on essentials. Quit feeding the corporate beast that supports the HRH.
Stop participating. Nearly 70% of the U.S. economy is driven by consumer spending. All of us. Hobble the economy and the stock market. Mahatma Gandhi drove the British from India by peaceful civil disobedience. We can stop the fascist takeover in the same way.
We can keep rehashing past and present atrocities until our access to the internet is taken away by the regime, or we can DO something!
Now is the time for this Peaceful Solution.
Why a Spending Strike is the Best Option
TINA: There Is No Alternative. There is no peaceful alternative.
Other peaceful options:
Soft Secession
Federal funds make up 35% of California’s state budget, with $173 billion in federal grants awarded in Fiscal Year 2021 alone, making up a significant portion of state and local budgets for programs like health, education, and infrastructure.
Are they really going to pissoff HRH to the extent that he cuts off their federal funding?
Soft secession? Only to the point when HRH feels threatened.
He will move in with all his resources and stop it.
This soft secession idea is a political ploy by state officials to get their constituents to believe the officials are doing something to stop the takeover.
It’s also another distraction to the resistance in that it keeps us from organizing and uniting around what must be done and what will work. It’s another example of hoping for an easy fix, one that will not take any sacrifice.
In addition, soft secession is divisive, pitting blue states against red states, playing into the narrative of the Rat, who wants to start a civil war. MAGA not only wants to “own the libs”, they’d like to kill as many as possible, to eliminate the opposition.
Targeted boycotts
Why targeted boycotts are ineffective
Boycotts often fail because they require massive, sustained participation to create meaningful financial pressure, lack clear alternatives for consumers, generate insufficient negative media attention, and are easily weathered by companies waiting for the protest to fade. Additionally, the complex nature of modern capitalism and the proliferation of corporate conglomerates can make it difficult for boycotters to effectively target and impact a company's bottom line or reputation, especially when companies have multiple revenue streams, like real estate, that aren't affected by consumer boycotts.
In 2020, Goya Foods praised President Donald Trump on social media, which caused those in opposition to Trump to boycott their products. Trump loyalists simultaneously initated a counter-boycott, where consumers bought mass quantities of their products, in response. The boycott caused Goya profits to increase dramatically because Trump supporters started an opposing campaign.
The midterm election
Will it be free and fair? It won’t be. Will it occur at all? HRH has already said that if we’re at war there’ll be no election. Guess what? If it’s looking bad for him, we’ll be at war to stop the election. The election is important to him because having the majority in the legislature gives the fascist regime the look of legitimacy.
People are putting too much faith in what the midterms will do. They may have a beneficial psychologic effect but in reality the outcome will have little or no practical effect, unless the Dems can get 2/3 majority in the house and senate, which they won’t. They will not be able to undo anything HRH has done or pass new legislation because of his veto power.
SCOTUS members Roberts and Barrett may have an epiphany and save the country from civil war, but it’s doubtful. It’s going to be up to us to stop this.
Time is running out for a Peaceful Solution. Please spread the word.
How to accomplish a Spending Strike
“It’s the economy, stupid” as James Carville famously told Bill Clinton. It was then, and still is, in politics. The reelection of His Royal Heinous is largely attributed to the misperceived state of the economy. That’s what must be attacked, not individual corporations. The overall economy must suffer before the Greedy Bastards will pay attention.
HRH will not destroy the economy on his own (TACO). He will find a way to prop it up (like lower interest rates) because the economy and stock market are his report card and key to keeping power. The key to keeping power, as it is in Russia, China, Hungary, Turkey. They give the people a somewhat decent standard of living, and in exchange, the people have no political power. Only the autocrat has that. Unlimited.
Our best chance of success lies in obtaining high profile, national leadership and spokespersons. Fragmented, unknown groups leading the charge might work but would take much longer, and time is of the essence. Since the Disney boycott there have been more “bigger” names taking up the cause.
There will have to be a great amount of grassroot support before a national “leader” will take up the cause. Most of our supposed leaders are really followers of movements. They’ll get out front after it’s shown to have popular support. So, we recruit more foot soldiers, like ourselves, and spread the word on various Substacks and other social media platforms.
After mustering much grassroots support we can then approach some Substack writers who have many subscribers and appeal to them to take up the cause and spread the word. Writers like Jen Rubin, Steve Schmidt, Robert Reich, Heather Richardson, Paul Krugman. Again, a good amount of grassroots support will have to be demonstrated.
We will need an organized effort to encourage those writers to concentrate on this method of opposition. Possibly coordinated mass emails to them promoting the idea, or coordinated posts to their Substacks.
Then, hopefully, one or more national leaders will take up the cause. Possibly a steering committee composed of left, center and right individuals, but not current office holders. It should be seen as non partisan.
This will be a tough sell. Americans are addicted to buying. We are brainwashed from the cradle by advertising, popular culture, peer pressure, to consume. If you want to be happy and fulfilled, you must have this or that product. To overcome this, our fellow citizens must be convinced that this is the only viable peaceful solution to stop and reverse the fascist takeover. And it is.
Defeating the fascists in WWII did not happen without sacrifice from the citizens of the Allied countries. We will have to sacrifice to stop and reverse the fascist takeover of our country. We can sacrifice a little now or a much greater amount later. What kind of world will our children and grandchildren live in if we allow this to continue? Spending Strike, Spending Freeze, Spending Suspension, Spending Pause, Economic Disengagement, Economic Warfare, Stop Spending!, even Boycott. Choose your favorite but Do It, and Spread the Word!
If a single dollar doubles every day for 30 days, it reaches a total of over $536 million ($536,870,912) at the end of the 30th day.
So, would it follow, that a single voice that doubled everyday would become 536 million voices after 30 days? That seems doable.
You're right, It is a tough sell. Will not happen. Tagetted boycotts can have an impact. Sadly some of these boycotts are not designed to hurt trump/MAGA/GOP financially which is where I think the focus should be.
I am certainly not opposed to spending for Only essentials ,
If this became a thing with active leadership Maybe it could work If you had enough people join in. It’s hard to predict movements And as we are in unprecedented times, perhaps such an unprecedented movement could gain force. So why not try?
I think it unlikely Trump is going to be able to keep the economy humming For the common guy. which is a passive observation. rather, a passive prediction
Re Biden: Yes, debate was quite the fuck up. Promoting it, then showing up jet lagged and sick as a dog, without a good rhetorical strategy, will live in...I.personally foundbit traumatic
Thing is, though, the opening was the worst, and he improved over the course of the debate, enough so that Joe Trippi reported the dial-o-meters of the large audience he was monitoring gave Trump the higher negative score. Biden was ok the next day, and the day after, and the day after that. But what Trippi said he feared would happen did, the media narrative dominated.
An effective rhetorical strategy? "There you go again, talking over reality. But then, that's what you do, isn't it? Reality TV, not reality. But it matters if people actually have jobs and healthcare, it mattered that Covid was killing hundreds of thousands of people." Like that, over and over and over again.
This is very interesting. However, it omits one important point: clarity of positions. Harris rarely said anything that didn't sound focus-group defined to cover the Democratic spectrum, with the result that it sounded like mush. She also purported to campaign on "joy", but the joy that was perceptible was joy that Biden had withdrawn. Not a positive message. The important point for Democrats is to define solid, reasonably centrist positions that are not mush: I would start with climate and vaccines, where any sensible person can see that the Trumpers are going off the deep end. Say straightforward, meaningful, realistic things, and not too many of them: don't burden climate, for example, with every good idea every lefty advocate ever had about anything, as did the Green New Deal. Stay clear and focused.
I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the apparent fact that Americans are okay with dictatorship and the end of due process and all that provided inflation is manageable.
If you are white, and native born, most of what's going on will not affect you. Especially if you are male. Women have to watch out for further incursions on their healthcare - Plan B, birth control etc.
I'm an old white lady but climate change will impact my kids, the type of gov't cuts happening will impact them, my daughter's health care (as you noted), will impact them. And I really don't want to live under Nazi rule.
You are one of the 40% of white Americans who are decent human beings. The other 60% aren’t, and that’s why we have a mob-boss pretender in the White House.
You're thinking he's a "pretender"? No, he's the real thing: it's an extranational mob. Billionaires and their bootlickers. America's just another country on the game board.
Just because DJT's the fool at the table (of his fellow capos) doesn't mean it's pretend.
Yes. I see your point. The don doesn’t have to be competent. Just ruthless.
And highly motivated by anger and greed.
Rex, I really think the decent % is about 65% and MAGAS, comprised of Christo-Fascist and Fascists at large are about 30%. The other 5% are just brain dead.
What they do is projection of lies that Non-MAGAs stole the election, which is in reality that MAGA operatives w/ Putin’s support gamed the election. The Gerrymandering and suppression is how they narrow margins to win. The machine tampering is never audited because the margins of victory are within the range of avoiding audit of actual ballots.
Fascist have long known that when you can’t win you cheat. The have been at this since Jim Crow...
I take it as axiomatic that no decent human being voted for Trump. Roughly 60% of white voters, 70% of white working class voters, and 80% of white evangelical voters cast their votes for Trump. Those people have no decency in my judgment. Among non-voting white Americans, it’s probably even worse because low-information voters lean R.
Your interpretations differ, so we disagree on the numbers but agree more or less on the underlying ideas. I agree that the same class of people have been at this since Jim Crow. Actually, I’d put it back at least to Reconstruction and back 400 years or so in a broader sense. The good news is that white supremacist faction comprised about 90% of white Americans until the roughly the mid-1960s, so there has been some progress. We made good progress with young people while K-12 schools were integrated in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, after which the white supremacists managed to shut down school integration, nationwide. So, we may have gotten half a generation or so of white Americans in which the fraction of white supremacists dropped under 50%. Since then, we have regressed, but not back to the 90% days, fortunately. Unfortunately, the 77 million Trump voters (roughly 60% of white voters and almost nobody else) have now taken full control and have put a mob don in charge and backed him up with a compliant mob of capos in the legisture and six corrupt, white supremacist “justices” on the Supreme Court. None of these people give a damn about the law or the Constitution. It is conceivable that we might begin to wrest control from them in November, 2026, but it will take a monumental effort together with a lot of good luck to do it. I am hopeful but not optimistic.
I would agree the data is depressing. I trust PRRI for the insights they provide on Evangelical and Catholic views that directly link to Red and Blue political preferences..
This basicaly confirms your data:
White working-class Americans have consistently played a pivotal role in U.S. elections, increasingly aligning with the Republican Party. PRRI research from the 2016 presidential election, for instance, shows that 64% of white working-class voters backed President Donald Trump. Trump’s support among this key demographic remains high, with two in three white working-class voters once again backing him in 2024, according to PRRI’s Post-Election Survey.
I grew up in a small town in Appalachian and I know that health care coverage or having to pay far more for it and having your local hospital close will damage rural white communities even more than urban areas which will at least have hospitals and more choice of jobs. Increased prices from tariffs will also hurt those people badly. And those communities are more likely to be hurt by RFK Jrs crackpot policies although they might not admit it.
Nope. Inflation from tariffs will hit everyone - poor White males as well as Blacks and Women. Ditto gutting healthcare, science research, labor shortages from insane immigration policies, and just about anything else done by Trump and his GOP lackeys. It's just that the full impact of all this has yet to work its way through the economy. Once it does, even White males will feel the pain. They'll probably blame it on Democrats, elites, women or sunspot activity rather than Trump; but they'll feel it notwithstanding.
Especially "sunspot activity" :)
But it could be stopped with Jewish space lasers, of course.
We’ll see. Last night reports began circulating that more ICE agents are pouring into one of the whitest native-born major metropolitan areas (Portland Oregon), and the regime has been making noise about sending in the National Guard. Extremists eventually go after their own demographic. It’s a shame more people don’t know this history.
Here's what comes up when you search it out online:
"Portland's homicide rate has seen a significant decline compared to other cities. In the first half of 2025, Portland recorded 17 homicides, a decrease from 35 in the same period last year. This represents a 51% drop in homicides year-to-date, making it the city with the largest homicide decrease among major U.S. cities".
Since homicide might be considered a flagship statistic, the Trumpists' decision to occupy it with federal troops is based upon political, not security, issues. That's no surprise. Trumpists are occupying key Democratic cities. We are kidding ourselves that this is anything other than a naked military-assisted coup d'etat.
Except Oregon is not Trump/Republican territory. The Trump regime is trying to show to MAÙGA trumpkins that they will hunt immigrants where-ever they might be found (preferably in "Blue" areas).
If you count Portland, you're right. But outside Portland, especially in Eastern Oregon, as in Eastern Washington, rightwingers hold sway. If Trumpists can booger the Portland vote, they could swing the state. And the absurdity of the need for the National Guard in one of the safest cities in America is such a ridiculous, flatulent lie, such a big lie, that it will be believed by many. That's the way it works.
They're choosing cities where they have a chance to make gains statewide. Chicago. Los Angeles. They've threatened Baltimore, but that's a chancy place to mess with. Likewise Seattle. I doubt they'll try it there. They're concentrating on urban areas they can control to swing the states and yielding where they have no chance. Chances are that the brains behind the useful idiot occupying the White House are calculating things down to the gnat's ass, just like 2016.
That is plausible and interesting take. I think he is just looking for the next BLM type civil disturbance (which in reality was the 97% peaceful) to declare a EMERGENCY that he can then elevate to a national level by inciting riot across the country…
Only massive peaceful and daytime only protest that is well organized can show the reality. Trump’s Goon agent provocateurs will be out there embedded in the peaceful marchers. So screening and reporting of the Goons must be done immediately in any march they show up for… Just look for the mouth breathing and dragging knuckles
I see the point. But isn't most of the population on the coast ? So the Trumpists taking Oregon would be a bit like the tail wagging the dog, wouldn't it ?
I like "the brains behind the useful idiot".
It would be exactly like the tail wagging the dog.
Their focus is on Governorship and the Senate.
Trump is the tail wagging the American dog at this very moment, in fact.
Dear Meighan, allow me to correct you.
If you are white, native born, male you assume none of this will affect you but it will.
Sorry but it will affect everyone from climate change to rise in violence. Yes women will be in the firing line for sure & futures of children in for a very grim future worldwide . only ones spared will be the oligarchs in their bolt holes.
Ignorance, division, racism and hate over-ride any thoughts of democracy and due process. Just listen to a MAGAt and they're filled with hate. The concepts of democracy and due process are too abstract for these ignorant peasants who are largely controlled by the relatively new disinformation empire.
This is nothing new. Plato's Allegory of the Cave clearly explains this tragedy, where the masses are controlled by a ruling class of manipulators who largely create a fictitious world of fear and hate and do so to such an extent that the ignorant eventually rule those within their own tribe. And anyone in this group who deviates from the prescribed hate would be risking their own life.
It appears to be close to impossible to get a MAGAt to think that "due process" is important. And it's definitely impossible to get them to believe it applies to non-citizens or people in boats off the coast of Venezuela.
They got all flustered claiming 45 didn't get due process during his trials.
Due process isn't important. I've heard many times in my life "He must've done something or they wouldn't have arrested him."
yeah, like having too much melanin.
I remember a conversation I had with a policeman on the Atlanta strip in late '72. He - "If I want you, I'll get you." Me - "How so?" He - "What are you going to do with that cigarette when you're done?" Me - "Throw it down." He - "That's littering." Me - "What if I toss it in the trash can over there?" He - "That's a good one. That's attempted arson." Me - "What if I walk into the Krystal here and put it in an ash tray?" He - "Well, if you don't buy anything, that's trespassing." Me- "What if I buy something?" He - "I'll get you next time."
Excellent. Recall also that the individual who escaped the restraints forcing him to see only the shadows cast by the "manipulators" on the wall of the cave, and made it to the entrance to the cave where the light of day was shining, was "blinded" by the light of reality.
I’m not sure I’d say Americans are OK with dictatorship, but that they don’t comprehend what authoritarianism is. Look up the “reverse flynn effect”: we’re getting _measurably_ dumber. We have technology (smartphones and social media) mostly to blame for that, and I don’t really see that changing soon.
I believe the cause of that is the fact that intelligent people in the US don't have many children any more. They expect to provide a good education, and doing that for more than two or three kids is expensive. The bumper stickers read "My child and my money go to NC State."
I don't thunk that we can blame technology for our getting dumber. The Romans had too much lead(water pipes, eating/ drinking utensils), which is one theory for the fall of the Roman Empire. We have all kinds of ecological damage to our systems- water soil,air. It's genetic degradation
Unfortunately, the reverse flynn effect (measurable degredation in IQ related tests) kicks in noticably around 2010: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289623000156#s0125
The introduction of the iPhone app store was in mid-2008, and mobile versions of social media apps (like Facebook) were introduced. I can't think of another source of impact that was as widespread in such a short time period.
Social media is also directly linked to overstimulated cognitive processes, leading to reduced ability to maintain focus (https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=143508)
I have yet to be convinced anything else has contributed as much to the decline of reasoning ability as social media delivered in everyone's pocket.
Actually there is no scientific consensus. Both environmental pollution and over use of technology affect the intelligence level. Technology can aid in learning if used properly
Bread and circuses…… Memorial weekend 2004 i was lunching off Madison. I had my back to the door when there was a frisson of excitement from the packed restaurant. I asked who it was, “Donald Trump” to which I replied rather too loudly “oh, I thought it was someone really important”. I did get some angry feedback. The restaurant clientele were youngish, intelligent - the prices suggested so - metropolitan people, and they were excited at the visitor, who I gather was doing a walk on for the new show The Apprentice. Whether these same people voted Republican we will never know. If entertainment is one of the criteria for electing a president, then heaven help us.
The GOP favors running entertainers and coaches who have well established brands in their target markets and understand they are there to read someone else’s lines or run someone else’s plays. (I think heaven is sitting this one out.)
Politics in the USA has long been a form of entertainment with many long-time. politicians being feted as though they were movie stars. I recall a similar frisson when I was passed by Dan Rostenkowski surrounded by a throng of hangers-on.
I’m not okay with any of it - at all. But I’m steeped in reading the news, watching the news, and Substack. My wife, an intelligent woman, is as I write this sitting 15 feet away playing games on her iPad. She works, while I’m retired, so I don’t begrudge her the down time, but I feel it’s an obligation to stay informed.
We’ve been lulled into complacency, believing that Democracy is like the air around us, always there, and that the only obligations we have to it are to vote and attend jury duty every couple of years. We’re learning the hard way that those are bare minimums. Thirty-five percent of eligible voters declined to bother voting in 2024. Who doesn’t
If young men can voluntarily join the military to protect us, put their lives on the line, we should be able to show them that they’re fighting for a worthy cause.
The thing politically inclined types (like myself, Paul and G Eliot, and I'm guessing you) categorically underestimate is the number of people who would ideally not think about politics, ever, because politics are inherently stressful and uncomfortable. American values are a way to feel good about yourself for belonging to an in-group. Democracy and due process are fun vague smart people terms that you vaguely know are good. Prices are a thing that the world forces you to confront every damn day, and that will be enough to rile you up. And what the Republican party is better at than anything else is collapsing every argument to the simplest, dumbest, "you will absorb everything we're directly trying to say with as little thought as possible," which makes politics something you can check off and move along with.
This is an unscientific handicapping off the top of my head, but - there's a solid 20-25% of people in the nation who care a lot about politics, and are generally progressive aligned. There's a solid 20-25% of people in the nation who care a lot about politics, and are generally conservative aligned. That leaves 50-60% of the nation who want to think about politics as little as possible. They aren't some great swath of moderates, or swing voters, the vast majority of them are aligned to one of the two major parties. They just want politics to be something they care about once every four years, at most, and for their life to be okay otherwise. Republicans have activated a good amount of their share of this group with the power of their emotional messaging - I'd argue more true MAGAts belong to this group than to the conservative 20-25%, which itself contains the highest % of Never Trumpers. Meanwhile, Democrats are always trying to give you the thinking, smart reason you should vote for them (the policy details! the authoritarianism! the rule of law!), which really does not do much activation of the 50-60%. And that's the ballgame.
you’re right.
“I don’t think about politics” is something I hear an awful lot when I’m registering voters.
You mean “some Americans”! We always have had strident discriminatory right-wingers of about 25-33% of the general public, haven’t we? Trump’s personal appeal as a rich entertaining Strong Man upped those perceptions significantly. But he has exaggerated his appeal significantly with stupidity, intolerance, and irrationality so he’s on the way down significantly!
Trump, like Nixon, will remain as vastly entertaining on the way down as he was on the way up. Even though it's only a grade-C made-for-TV movie script, it has its appeal.
Interesting also is your impression of the percentage of proto-nazis in the general public. The new Chancellor of Germany in 1933 was the result of just that percentage of the vote.
Maybe the distribution of authoritarian-leaning and liberal-leaning people is just a bell curve, with a lot of people who are either non-ideological or confused occupying the center. (Yes, I tend to think that people who claim to be middle of the road are actually confused.)
Yes, it is a normal distribution curve, but of course the shape of it and its skewness depends on a lot of things. That 33% you mention is probably right now getting skewed towards authoritarianism. Benjamin Hett's book "The Death of Democracy" outlines events from 1930 or so to 1933 in Germany. Lots of parallels to today in America.
Indeed. With 33%, and manipulation, Hitler managed to get rid of the other parties, to create his dictatorship.
Oh god, please let it be true.
Yeah, that was in my head pretty much the whole time I was reading this...
Your writing and the people you present continue to be thoughtful and dynamic but this one falls a little short. Morris, however knowledgeable doesn’t put racism (the Southern Strategy was openly discussed in 1968) or misogyny (anti ERA became part of the Republican brand in the 1970s) in the forefront even though Trump and Vance ran a decidedly racist and misogynistic campaign. Another thing never discussed is why the Democratic candidate has won the popular vote in 7 of the last 9 elections. Finally, maybe it’s not a good idea, electorally, to poll everything. Just speak out loudly, often and with conviction and try to convince the electorate of your position. To the extent that’s happening now, it’s working.
IF the only news they receive is from Fox...well it explains a lot, They don't get it.
Or, perhaps they do. There are plenty of choices on the dial.
Fox News brand is based on racism and misogyny with homophobia thrown in and a lot of people like that.
It is my understanding that in some rural communities imFox News is the ONLY game in town.
Remember that PBS has hbeen shuttered in many places.
Right. It’s their choice to watch it and that’s why.
Fox "News" relentlessly promotes extreme-right political positions that we who have other sources of information know to be wrong. It simplifies every issue, every political position, as a choice between Good and Bad, between Us and Them. The Republicans in Congress have succeeded in defunding public television--a goal that conservatives have had for years--so in many regions, especially rural and red regions, there is no objective news at all. This two factors have or will have a tremendous influence on the outcome of elections.
Fox’s simplistic & hate-based ‘news’ hijacks the brain’s emotional response centre and gives a dopamine rush — it becomes addictive, emotionally & physically.
News from varied sources that make them *think - feels more like work, so they have a negative response, which in turn tells them that news must be ‘wrong’ according to their ‘gut feeling’.
— Trump & Fox understand these basics & cash in on them.
While we're at it, the "conventional wisdom" is that Trumpkopf won the election decisively and fair and square - when there's a very real possibility that the election was rigged:
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/second-whistleblower-receipts-attached
Reminding Americans that they live in a racist society is counterproductive. Bigots have somehow concluded they are acting in their own best interests, so they don't feel guilty for the way they vote or treat other people. The sooner red state voters realize they have a lot more in common with other working-class Americans, regardless of their race, sex, or religion, than they have with billionaires, the better off we'll all be.
Racism and sexism is a large partof what sunk Harris. The country as a whole could not fathom a black woman president. I don't think they can now. I don't even think a white woman could get past the finish line. Really unfortunate this is where we are at.
Hillary Clinton in 2016 suggests your penultimate sentence is correct. Regardless of her personality, she certainly had more relevant experience for the job than Trump. Imagine any hiring situation you’ve been through and try to imagine the employer passing over everyone with relevant experience. Unless nepotism is at play, it’s impossible to conceive an employer would deep six all experienced applicants in favor of the least qualified applicant.
But how might 2016 have panned out had James Comey just kept his mouth shut?
That is a subject the media refuses to address because Comey is a media fave. This bogus lawsuit against him is at heart about Comey’s refusal to stop the Trump loving FBI agents in the NYC office from leaking to Rudy G, James Kallstrom and the media in order to hurt Hillary’s campaign. Michael Horowitz, the DOJ Inspector General, made that clear in his report about the FBI’s mishandling of their investigation into Hillary’s emails that agents in the NY FBI office had pressured both McCabe and Comey into doing things that would damage Hillary.
In Comey’s case he responded to that pressure by being insubordinate by making two unauthorized public statements about Hillary’s emails, the last one right before the election. The IG report made it clear that Comey did nothing to control those NY agents who repeatedly broke DOJ/FBI rules by leaking to the media which I find deeply disturbing and even more disturbing that the media buried that fact. I suspect the media protected those agents because they were sources which was a betrayal of the public’s need to know.
Pressure from those same agents about his wife’s Va campaign for Va state senate was the reason that McCabe authorized that leak to the WSJ that the Clinton Foundation was under investigation by the FBI. That investigation was conducted by the NY FBI opposed strongly by their bosses at DOJ who had refused to authorize it — because the “evidence” against the CF was from Steve Bannon’s henchman Peter Schweizer’s book “Clinton Cash”.
That leak McCabe authorized also happened right before the election and was badly damaging to Hillary. In contrast McCabe sat on the fact that the FBI was also investigating the Trump campaign for its multiple ties to Russian operatives.
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-long-story-behind-the-indictment-of-james-comey/
Republicans and Trump are accusing Comey of lying when he denied having given McCabe permission to authorize leaking about the investigation into the Clinton Foundation. There is strong evidence that McCabe had acted alone then lied about having authorization in order to protect his own job.
This indictment is bogus and political but it would never have happened had Comey and McCabe done their jobs and controlled the Trump-loving NY FBI agents. They should have been publicly outed, disciplined and probably indicted for violating the Hatch Act. We now know that in October 2016 Russian asset Charles McGonigal was a top agent in the NY FBI field office but the media could not care less.
This is what happens when an acolyte outlives his usefulness.
People, especially white males were not going to vote for a woman of color.
White male voters: 37 percent Harris – 60 percent Trump; one poll
45% of women all races combined voted for trump, 55% of men (all races combined)
for trump.
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/blog/gender-differences-2024-presidential-vote
Sara, obvious now as it should have been prior to Nov 2024. The historical odds said DO NOT run a black woman, esp. against a fascist when the risks are so great. Okay I'll say it---you run an election with the electorate you have, not the one you wish you had.
Another large part of it is Elon MuskRat:
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/second-whistleblower-receipts-attached
I know people are busy and life in the US is hard without a social safety net, but I will never understand people who don’t take the time to read and understand the news. It’s your duty as a citizen to keep informed. Yes we have to get rid of the Fox Newses of the world, but it’s not hard to find decent information these days. “But I’m not political” isn’t an excuse. Everything is political. Take a few moments each day and learn something.
Amen! I've been fighting this battle for 50+ years.
It used to be LGBTQ+ folks knew this immediately after their realization. In most states, just having sex was a felony. Now, only trans people know it for sure. "Social acceptance" meant (in part) that "politics" didn't matter any more. EVERY act is political.
It's like the Leopard Eating Faces Party -- until it happens to them personally, they're fine with "it" (whatever "it" means). Suddenly, it dawns on people that what they approve for others is going to be used against them, too.
My Civics & Government classes in high school emphasized this & explained that a society REQUIRED an informed populace. Like so many other educational values, the GOP chipped away at this one as they promoted unbridled consumerism. "It's not important." "If I'm not affected, then it's a waste of time." Now here we are.
When the cycle comes back around, I hope educators will go back to stressing the importance of politics.
Part of the problem is the elimination of Civics as a graduation requirement in many states during the 1970s. This means 3+ generations (late Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z) have not been required to know anything about their government. Now with extreme partisanship it’s hard to reinstate the requirement. After January 6, my state’s legislature tried to reinstate Civics as a requirement but the political parties couldn’t agree on what the curriculum should be. Republicans even rejected the basic curriculum used between the 1920s and 1960s.
Civics is still taught, just not as one separate course. My grandkids go to urban public schools in NC and they are taught about it repeatedly over the years. The state uses the Common Core standards as do 46 others. Civics is embedded in the social studies curriculum throughout elementary and high school.
For example my 2nd grade grand child was telling me they were learning about the branches of government and she gave decent explanation of what each one does. The 4th grader was studying the same thing about our state government. The high schooler has alreadly taken US government classes and studied American history.
Why would anyone pine for the good old days when we baby boomers had a civics course? The boomers are the biggest group MAGA has. Clearly their civics lessons were a flop
MO has civics as a HS requirement. And we're a laboratory for autocracy. Just sayin.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/statereform/tab6_1_1-2020.asp
This gets to the second part of my comment, which is the curriculum my for my grandparents in the 1920s and my parents in the 1940s was considered erroneous by our Republican legislators. They objected to references to democracy.
Actually Missouri has adopted the Common Core standards so, like my state of NC, civics is integrated throughout the social studies curriculum across grade school and high school. See my comment above. I have been impressed by what even my youngest grandkids have learned about government and US history.
Fortunately I live in Massachusetts. As a gen xer I remember everyone in 8th grade social studies humming along to Schoolhouse rock’s tune as we all wrote the preamble to the constitution on the test. But yes, more civics please for everyone.
CAT at nearly 92 I can still hum Schoolhouse Rock. Should be required in every school!
Sadly and shamefully, a lot of folks in the US can't read, or at least read above third grade level. They can't even read the ingredients list on their cans of Schlitz.
I am an older baby boomer. My generation had much higher drop out rates so many more did not even finish high school, let alone go to college. The poorer, mostly white kids in my Appalachian hometown usually dropped out the minute they turned sixteen and some rarely attended school at all.
Probably so they could escape conscription before reaching the age of dissent. I'm lucky, as a late Boomer, I was too young to draft while the war was on. By the time I hit draft age, there was no more draft - although that !@#$# St. Reagan brought back draft registration. I had to spend my 18 b'day in the !@#$# post office to fill out that damned selective service form. 🤬
A large swath of America is proud of being ignorant. I distinctly remember watching Dumb and Dumber and thinking this mentality was going to hurt us. I saw the phenomenon in young people in the 90s, a glorification of ignorance and a distain for the intellectual. Popular media had/has a constant refrain that the common man has more understanding and sense than educated people.
Bravo, Mr. Morris for being an unabashed partisan for democracy and fair elections! Contrast the Times' managing editor who said his paper had no obligation to support democracy,
That's what he was hired for - to rubberstamp capitulation. His claim that "democracy is a partisan issue" is so blatantly asinine, it would be downright risible if it wasn't so dangerous.
But the front page of the Times now every day says it straight and informative… it’s the first thing I read after Krugman!
Yeah. They tried cowtowing to DonnyJon and got hit with a ludicrous lawsuit as a result. It seems to have turned them around a bit, but it's only been a week or two.
Dear Dr Paul, All of your Views incl Co-Experts incl video is awesome and as far the video interviews I like most the Transcripts as Way of Spoken English is different from Each country. As an Indian & travelled to USA few times I mostly understand still the Transcripts help a lot .. Thanks.
Sivaswami India
I love the transcripts - native English speaker here, but it's so much faster to read the interviews than it is to listen.
A critical point is being missed. Listen to what Sanders and AOC are saying to big crowds. The GOP core goal is to move wealth and income from the less wealthy to the very wealthy. The Democratic traditional goal and the Sanders AOC goal is the opposite and the Democratic Party Organization has gotten away from it. All other issues are used by both parties to obscure these fundamental goals.
Yes! Living wage, health care, child care, and tax the rich. If those don’t attract enough votes, Democrats are doomed. Their only alternative to regain power in that case would be to completely abandon fairness in governance and promise to do everything possible to preserve and expand the economic, legal, and political advantages of white Americans, like the Republicans have been doing since1968.
People don't pay attention until there is crisis of some sort. A shutdown will be a crisis. Then the issues whatever they are become universally visible. The issue in this shutdown will be the Republican plan to take healthcare off or increase the price of access for about 30 million people. Pretty easy to understand. Even some Republicans are very nervous about picking a fight over this bread and butter issue.
In particular, they don't pay attention until there's a crisis that hits them personally. A lot of Americans looked at the atrocities inflicted in L.A. and committed at Alligator Auschwitz and just shrugged "well, they're not targeting me, so no biggie".
Then the leopards come to chow down on their faces and they're shocked "this wasn't supposed to happen!" and we say "We tried to tell you but you wouldn't listen. Now will you listen to us?"
"Most" people are trying to get by working for a living: their kids, their spouses, their parents. I remember those days and I barely kept touch with the news. What I don't have and you don't give, are the facts: how many people are going to be affected, when, and what is it? I just read the info yesterday that the cuts the Dems are fighting about are federal subsidies for Oabamacre premiums. Is that correct? If so, how many people are affected? Is that all of it? Please answer this.
It's not just cuts to subsidies, it's also massive cuts to Medicaid. More information can be found here:
https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/a-look-at-aca-coverage-through-the-marketplaces-and-medicaid-expansion-ahead-of-potential-policy-changes/
Ethnic antagonism. Is that a euphemism for racism or is it an effort to avoid giving any credence to the falsehood of the concept of race? I notice that the leading explanations for election result is Inflation, Immigration, June 2024 debate performance. Is anti-immigration also a stand-in for racism? Most salient, resonant point: Oppose based on principle not on polling.
Yes, racism and misogyny. Or, more simply, hatred finding people to hate.
Ethnic - "being a member of an ethnic group, especially of a group that is a minority within a larger society."
Antagonism - "actively expressed opposition or hostility."
It's racist hatred.
Morris' comment about 'ethnic antagonism' is a sanitized political science term for *hate.* Hatred of POC and anyone who is not a member of the GOP tribe. This stance is a recipe for even more political violence (with guns). Perhaps, that is the lesson to be extracted from the Charlie Kirk murder.
RE: "Or, I don’t know, find a way to get Fox News off the air..." They should have lost their FCC license years ago; ain't gonna happen in my lifetime. BOYCOT their advertisers AND challenge their BS reporting consistently, like the beat of the drum.
Do they have an FCC license? I thought FCC licensing only applied to broadcasters using the air waves, not cable channels.
That is true. The FCC has said that the law does not authorize it to regulate "indecent" content on cable TV, and various restrictions on sexually explicit material on cable television have been ruled unconstitutional by US courts. So Turner Classic Movies could, in theory, run the NC-17 rated "Blue Is The Warmest Color" in the middle of the afternoon without running into any trouble from the government, although Comcast and other cable TV providers could certainly decide to stop carrying a channel that did that.
You are correct.
Of course they should have, along with NewsMax and any major outlet advocating overthrow of the government. The public has the right indeed the duty to protect itself from danger via their MOC and the FCC. Are there risks of FCC abuse in that--you bet! But we have now seen the risks from not taking action.
First time I have heard from Mr. Morris, he has a unique perspective which is data driven and clearly states what his opinions are based on that. We don’t have to agree but I find the data helpful. His points about polling on issues to get a better understanding of what the rest of our citizens are thinking is helpful. Will subscribe to his substack to hear more.
Re inflation, please take into account the fact that for most people, "inflation" is simply a synonym for high prices. If hamburger is still $1/lb more than it was last year, then "inflation is bad" even if the actual current rate has dropped to 0.0%.
For policy and messaging, how about we just try to do the right thing? Politicians should identify what THEY see as the biggest issues and THEIR best answer---and then do their best to convince the public. The original iPhone would have been mediocre had Steve Jobs simply triangulated what consumers thought they wanted in a cell phone rather than what he knew would be excellent.
How much do you want to stop His Royal Heinous and the fascist takeover of the country?
Enough that you’re willing to make a small sacrifice? Like altering your spending habits for a month or two or three? That could be all it would take to get the attention of the oligarchs (formerly known as The Robber Barons in the first Gilded Age, also The Fat Cats, The Greedy Bastards).
A brief demonstration of We, the People’s, power of the purse could persuade them to quit supporting HRH and the politicians who enable him.
We quit spending, except on essentials, businesses lose money, stock market goes down, Greedy Bastards pay attention to our demands.
Greedy Bastards own most of the politicians of both major parties. GBs start losing money, tell politicians to change course and do what We, the People want.
We are running out of peaceful options. The legislature and Supreme Court are controlled by HRH. He controls the executive branch, including the Military, Justice Department, FBI, ICE, the IRS. He controls all levers of power.
We, the people, still have the power of the purse. No one can control our spending, or lack of spending. When all else fails we can go on a spending strike until the business community stops supporting HRH and the politicians who enable him.
Economic warfare is the only thing the oligarchs, the business community will understand and act on. Call it a Surreptitious General Strike (Quiet Quitting). Go to work, do as little as possible. Stop spending money except on essentials. Quit feeding the corporate beast that supports the HRH.
Stop participating. Nearly 70% of the U.S. economy is driven by consumer spending. All of us. Hobble the economy and the stock market. Mahatma Gandhi drove the British from India by peaceful civil disobedience. We can stop the fascist takeover in the same way.
We can keep rehashing past and present atrocities until our access to the internet is taken away by the regime, or we can DO something!
Now is the time for this Peaceful Solution.
Why a Spending Strike is the Best Option
TINA: There Is No Alternative. There is no peaceful alternative.
Other peaceful options:
Soft Secession
Federal funds make up 35% of California’s state budget, with $173 billion in federal grants awarded in Fiscal Year 2021 alone, making up a significant portion of state and local budgets for programs like health, education, and infrastructure.
Are they really going to pissoff HRH to the extent that he cuts off their federal funding?
Soft secession? Only to the point when HRH feels threatened.
He will move in with all his resources and stop it.
This soft secession idea is a political ploy by state officials to get their constituents to believe the officials are doing something to stop the takeover.
It’s also another distraction to the resistance in that it keeps us from organizing and uniting around what must be done and what will work. It’s another example of hoping for an easy fix, one that will not take any sacrifice.
In addition, soft secession is divisive, pitting blue states against red states, playing into the narrative of the Rat, who wants to start a civil war. MAGA not only wants to “own the libs”, they’d like to kill as many as possible, to eliminate the opposition.
Targeted boycotts
Why targeted boycotts are ineffective
Boycotts often fail because they require massive, sustained participation to create meaningful financial pressure, lack clear alternatives for consumers, generate insufficient negative media attention, and are easily weathered by companies waiting for the protest to fade. Additionally, the complex nature of modern capitalism and the proliferation of corporate conglomerates can make it difficult for boycotters to effectively target and impact a company's bottom line or reputation, especially when companies have multiple revenue streams, like real estate, that aren't affected by consumer boycotts.
In 2020, Goya Foods praised President Donald Trump on social media, which caused those in opposition to Trump to boycott their products. Trump loyalists simultaneously initated a counter-boycott, where consumers bought mass quantities of their products, in response. The boycott caused Goya profits to increase dramatically because Trump supporters started an opposing campaign.
The midterm election
Will it be free and fair? It won’t be. Will it occur at all? HRH has already said that if we’re at war there’ll be no election. Guess what? If it’s looking bad for him, we’ll be at war to stop the election. The election is important to him because having the majority in the legislature gives the fascist regime the look of legitimacy.
People are putting too much faith in what the midterms will do. They may have a beneficial psychologic effect but in reality the outcome will have little or no practical effect, unless the Dems can get 2/3 majority in the house and senate, which they won’t. They will not be able to undo anything HRH has done or pass new legislation because of his veto power.
SCOTUS members Roberts and Barrett may have an epiphany and save the country from civil war, but it’s doubtful. It’s going to be up to us to stop this.
Time is running out for a Peaceful Solution. Please spread the word.
How to accomplish a Spending Strike
“It’s the economy, stupid” as James Carville famously told Bill Clinton. It was then, and still is, in politics. The reelection of His Royal Heinous is largely attributed to the misperceived state of the economy. That’s what must be attacked, not individual corporations. The overall economy must suffer before the Greedy Bastards will pay attention.
HRH will not destroy the economy on his own (TACO). He will find a way to prop it up (like lower interest rates) because the economy and stock market are his report card and key to keeping power. The key to keeping power, as it is in Russia, China, Hungary, Turkey. They give the people a somewhat decent standard of living, and in exchange, the people have no political power. Only the autocrat has that. Unlimited.
Our best chance of success lies in obtaining high profile, national leadership and spokespersons. Fragmented, unknown groups leading the charge might work but would take much longer, and time is of the essence. Since the Disney boycott there have been more “bigger” names taking up the cause.
There will have to be a great amount of grassroot support before a national “leader” will take up the cause. Most of our supposed leaders are really followers of movements. They’ll get out front after it’s shown to have popular support. So, we recruit more foot soldiers, like ourselves, and spread the word on various Substacks and other social media platforms.
After mustering much grassroots support we can then approach some Substack writers who have many subscribers and appeal to them to take up the cause and spread the word. Writers like Jen Rubin, Steve Schmidt, Robert Reich, Heather Richardson, Paul Krugman. Again, a good amount of grassroots support will have to be demonstrated.
We will need an organized effort to encourage those writers to concentrate on this method of opposition. Possibly coordinated mass emails to them promoting the idea, or coordinated posts to their Substacks.
Then, hopefully, one or more national leaders will take up the cause. Possibly a steering committee composed of left, center and right individuals, but not current office holders. It should be seen as non partisan.
This will be a tough sell. Americans are addicted to buying. We are brainwashed from the cradle by advertising, popular culture, peer pressure, to consume. If you want to be happy and fulfilled, you must have this or that product. To overcome this, our fellow citizens must be convinced that this is the only viable peaceful solution to stop and reverse the fascist takeover. And it is.
Defeating the fascists in WWII did not happen without sacrifice from the citizens of the Allied countries. We will have to sacrifice to stop and reverse the fascist takeover of our country. We can sacrifice a little now or a much greater amount later. What kind of world will our children and grandchildren live in if we allow this to continue? Spending Strike, Spending Freeze, Spending Suspension, Spending Pause, Economic Disengagement, Economic Warfare, Stop Spending!, even Boycott. Choose your favorite but Do It, and Spread the Word!
If a single dollar doubles every day for 30 days, it reaches a total of over $536 million ($536,870,912) at the end of the 30th day.
So, would it follow, that a single voice that doubled everyday would become 536 million voices after 30 days? That seems doable.
You're right, It is a tough sell. Will not happen. Tagetted boycotts can have an impact. Sadly some of these boycotts are not designed to hurt trump/MAGA/GOP financially which is where I think the focus should be.
Please read my post more carefully.
I am certainly not opposed to spending for Only essentials ,
If this became a thing with active leadership Maybe it could work If you had enough people join in. It’s hard to predict movements And as we are in unprecedented times, perhaps such an unprecedented movement could gain force. So why not try?
I think it unlikely Trump is going to be able to keep the economy humming For the common guy. which is a passive observation. rather, a passive prediction
Re Biden: Yes, debate was quite the fuck up. Promoting it, then showing up jet lagged and sick as a dog, without a good rhetorical strategy, will live in...I.personally foundbit traumatic
Thing is, though, the opening was the worst, and he improved over the course of the debate, enough so that Joe Trippi reported the dial-o-meters of the large audience he was monitoring gave Trump the higher negative score. Biden was ok the next day, and the day after, and the day after that. But what Trippi said he feared would happen did, the media narrative dominated.
An effective rhetorical strategy? "There you go again, talking over reality. But then, that's what you do, isn't it? Reality TV, not reality. But it matters if people actually have jobs and healthcare, it mattered that Covid was killing hundreds of thousands of people." Like that, over and over and over again.
Reagan was too old in 1984. He won 49 states.
This is very interesting. However, it omits one important point: clarity of positions. Harris rarely said anything that didn't sound focus-group defined to cover the Democratic spectrum, with the result that it sounded like mush. She also purported to campaign on "joy", but the joy that was perceptible was joy that Biden had withdrawn. Not a positive message. The important point for Democrats is to define solid, reasonably centrist positions that are not mush: I would start with climate and vaccines, where any sensible person can see that the Trumpers are going off the deep end. Say straightforward, meaningful, realistic things, and not too many of them: don't burden climate, for example, with every good idea every lefty advocate ever had about anything, as did the Green New Deal. Stay clear and focused.