Still Trump's approval rating is 45%. Almost half of the Americans see Trump as a good leader rather than as a horrible person. This raises the question: "How does one defend democracy against stupidity?". I have no answer.
We've gotten too good, what with circuit breakers, regulations and guardrails, at protecting people from themselves. But all that is Deep State, and gets in the way of the magical thinking of MAGA and T&Co, so it must go....hang onto your hat.
Well, “things fall down and not upwards” is not an established view of gravity among physicists (among whom gravity is considered a force accelerating bodies towards one another without regard for any frame in which there’s a ‘down’ or an ‘up.’). But naive physics aside, there’s always stupidity so long as there’re incentives to forego thinking, and our politics gives us plenty of these incentives… plus plenty of misinformation too. Once people embrace stupid they can’t be informed, and then they don’t want to be informed—that imperviousness is exactly what “stupid” is!
The media reporting, or lack of, have a lot to do with that. Magats are going about their lives believing that their genius businessman is fixing the imaginary problems of the last administration
agree, and if the majority of maga is watching Fox, they are certainly not seeing any of this reporting. In fact, I saw an article which said (in one broadcast or night, not sure) Fox mentioned Biden 39 times and Medicaid once!
Yes. Very few of them are stupid, but almost all of them are willfully ignorant, which is worse than stupid. Besides, 99% of them are getting what they voted for: a president who will persecute people they don’t like. Trump delivers on that promise.
the persecution of others seems to be all they care about. They're willing to trash the economy, shred the social safety net, all to either "own the libs" or to see people dragged out of their homes or workplaces to be deported. When deporting people is a larger part of the budget than taking care of people, you're running a country based on resentment and grievance of perceived injuries. Not even real injuries! Anger and resentment are powerful drugs, and the MAGAts are addicts. As long as they are being fed their drugs, they won't be able to see they aren't "owning the libs" as much as they are the ones being manipulated into their own descruction.
Even if you read the NYT you wouldn't know anything about Democrats and their (big) achievements under Biden.
I will never forget their utterly shocking treatment of Harris last summer.
Example: Harris held a rally during which she revealed some detailed economic policies. I watched the live stream of the rally. If you wanted to sum up the very essence when it came to her tax plan, things were crystal clear: she proposed a TAX INCREASE FOR THE WEALTHIEST.
What headline did the NYT write? HARRIS LOWERS TAXES FOR THE WEALTHIEST.
How could they do something SO stupid? The article explained that her policies would increase them a little less than Biden's 2025 proposal.
What did you see in the comment section? A majority of comments criticized Harris for siding with the wealthiest, betraying the Democratic base and the American people, etc., etc. Because many people only read headlines and not the fine print...
And it went on like this, day after day, month after month. Until finally, in September, her poll numbers started going down.
And this is what a newspaper whose editorial board ENDORSED Harris did to America. We're not even talking about the neofascist GOP propaganda machine yet, indeed.
Yes. I can’t defend the Times. The bothsiderism is appalling. It damages public discourse to pretend that flat-earthers, young-earthers, and the like have points of view worth serious attention. Same goes for today’s Republicans.
That was not the upper management's desire. They wanted Tangerini back because Biden was competent, and readership went down, because we all stopped doom-scrolling. They were in a snit because Biden did not give them an interview that they felt entitled to. So they spent so much ink on slagging him and running "Joe is OLD" stories.
"nepo-publisher Arthur Gregg Sulzberger’s panties are in a permanent twist because Joe Biden continues to refuse to sit down for the interview that Sulz imagines is his newspaper’s “birthright” — and so he’s declared war on Biden. his own staffers are admitting that Sulz told them to go after Biden relentlessly.
One unnamed Times reporter suggested to Politico that “tough reporting” on Biden’s advanced age and lagging poll numbers is “quietly” encouraged by Sulzberger in retaliation for Biden’s unwillingness to sit for an interview.
so fuck off, Joe Kahn. stop trying to gaslight us that the Times’ coverage is “impartial.”
I agree with most of your comments, but if reading the NYT, one must use discernment....it can afford to have journalists stationed all over the world & between reading books by others not mentioned in NYT (i.e.: Norwegian girl Erika Fatman? traveling to NK & USSR's former satellite nations surrounding Russia) and reading the foreign articles in NYT with few comments--some by foreigners paying attention to what is being said about their part of the world...it is worth the subscription still. US population is dumb & will have to get its attitude adjustment, which unfortunately includes everyone and not just dumb asses who don't read between the lines--&, of course, a lot of that comes from worldly experience, which younger populations don't have
I've come to the conclusion that anything in the recent future willr slap a good big chunk of them to awareness of at least some of what's going on, it'll be the tariffs. Bless They're irrevocably associated with his name more. Those willing or even eager to ignore the cruelty, criminality and corruption of Trump's regime *won't* accept serious economic pain.
As a result I find myself forced to hope Trump either wins his appeal about the legality of the tariffs, or decides to ignore yet another ruling against him and just keep doing what he wants to do.
I'm beginning to think Trump is attacking everything he doesn't understand or care about in an effort to make himself look like the smartest guy in the room. I think deep down he knows he's stupid and this is his way of dealing with it. He doesn't have to talk or care about things that have been dumbed down or that he causes to cease to exist.
Yes he is deeply insecure and can’t say the very powerful phrase..”I don’t know “ saying I don’t know isn’t weakness it shows strength- especially if it’s followed by learning from those who do. Trump is incapable of doing any of that. He thinks that shows how strong he is… having to be the smartest person in the room isn’t strength. It’s weakness and insecurity. I think MAGA aligns with this because that is how they feel. They have been made to feel deeply insecure, or raised to believe you never admit you don’t know. They are incapable of seeing how limiting that is for themselves.
You'll see whole pieces of what was once the US become theocratic states where the #1 priority is Bible studies. As for the rest they will go their own way as DC implodes from the debt.
Yeah, I looked up this psuedo-intellectual society based upon John & Abigail Adams near--but not associated--with Harvard and there is NO history of Dom....with the Russian-sounding name of someone 48 y/o in charge of it. Return to feudalism with a tech twist, thanks to Palantir & DOGE.
Of course, if just 2% of registered Democrats in three key swing states could have been bothered to do the right thing and vote for a promotion for the vice president, it would have had the same effect as Republicans engaging in willful self-harm.
It's sure tempting to blame it all on stupidity. But doing that would mean to give up, because, as they say, "you can't fix stupid."
And it disregards the myriad reasons to be extremely frustrated with the Democrats and feeling the irresistible urge to kick them in the face somehow, even if it's with a vote for a sociopathic bully that they think goes against The Establishment.
Why would they want to do that? That's what I think needs to looked at.
My blue collar proto-MAGA coworkers in the 1980s were nihilists who wanted to be entertained (hence Reagan) as they awaited the end of their short lives. The MAGA reaction to COVID, their willingness to give up health care and FDA agricultural safety, and the recent performance by Senator Joni Ernst suggest nihilism tinged with millennialist Christianity continues to underpin their voting.
You left out one of the drivers of this nation, from its inception to the present: bigotry--the entrenched belief that they're superior to those unlike them, who can be treated as animals and worse (or perhaps that's part and parcel of the "millennialist Christianity" they profess).
Is it that Trump represents everyman in his supporters' eyes? Might he give meaning (no pun intended) to their lives beyond politics? Is this a religious movement not a political one?
I think she means opposition as controlled by said robber barons. They allow some opposition so people think they have a choice, that an alternative exists. While there is not.
Yes it’s an authoritarian strategy of co-opting, corrupting, or compromising enough members of any opposition in order to neutralize them. The dems have been controlled opposition since at least the 80’s
We might ask how magats become incensed over a trans high school athlete in CA? A person they will never meet or even know much about. Even after CA sport officials broadened the medal winning such that a non-trans student always has a chance to be rewarded as a first place competitor.
The same dynamic is at work as when "wokeness" is attacked. Haters gonna hate. Fox, Trump, Russel Vaught and Miller tap into this psychosis.
"We might ask how magats become incensed over a trans high school athlete in CA?"
I don't know the answer, obviously, but my conjecture would be: Envy. I imagine a chicken farmer in flyover country, trying to survive on less than 20k$ net income per year, drowning in debt, with his corporate customers having him over a barrel because he doesn't have the resources to market his product himself, while the Democrats argue about trans rights and gender-affirming care.
I'm not overly surprised that people in this position fall for the lie that "Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you."
Less stupid than deeply fearful and highly manipulated, I'd say. The MAGA 'coalition' is the end result of government malfeasance and a virtual takeover by shadowy forces who have come together with the intention to hobble this country so they can move ahead with a plan to reestablish and extend their power in a tsunami of rapid, often bewildering technical, social, economic and environmental change.
I don’t think it’s stupidity. I think people are genuinely confused. Journalists do a very good job of reporting the news and doing investigative work, but the opinion pages can be very misleading. The need to be seen as balanced means that ideas are given an equivalence that is often undeserved. We have been inundated with low tax leading to unparalleled prosperity propaganda for decades. Most people don’t have the time to do the research to determine whether what they are being told is reasonable or true, or who is paying for the research behind that opinion piece, if there is any research at all.
I believe we're finally reaching a point where American's are starting to realize that "trickle down" actually means "trickle on", and are finally fed up with Fat Cats getting their Golden Parachutes while everyone else gets the Golden Shower.
I said it with cautious optimism. I could be wrong, but from what I've been seeing - especially those GOP town halls - we could finally be seeing some light at the end of this tunnel.
No need to waste perfectly good gold, plain old lead has about the same weight. Gold is too valuable to waste on these critters. Unless the parachutes get hit by lightning - gold is the best conductor of all, so there is that.
Only some journalists are still in a position, are given opportunities, to investigate and write. They usually write for magazines, these do not have to adhere to the short daily cycle. But the MAGA crowd probably does not read these publications. With a limited budget you cannot spurge on subscriptions. When you work an 8-9 hour day and also have a commute, it leaves little time for extensive reading.
When it comes to the majority of a population, print will always lose from television. "I saw it for myself!" is more powerful than "I read it somewhere". And with FOX"News" television became first of all a center of profit, as much profit as possible.
I am reading Left Behind by Paul Collier. A lot of the people who are drawn to the MAGA movement live in left behind places that no longer have local news coverage and where civic institutions have broken down, along with the economy. Their only news source is probably Fox and extremist content that is so easy to find on social media. Collier provides a guide for how these places can spiral up. Focusing on facilitating and building the capacity for good governance in left behind places, and any community would be a good way to counter the democratic backsliding that is happening in lots of places. One good thing is that the internet and platforms like Substack, Beehive and Ghost have made it possible to start a local news site inexpensively and charge a small fee for an annual subscription. Collier’s book has some great ideas and examples of how places, from small developing countries to advanced economies like Denmark and Norway, have built the foundations of good governance and used them to spiral up. The examples of the places that fail are also instructive. Corruption is a killer of good governance.
The NYT does a good job reporting on Trump and the GOP, these days (although they still silence the fact that this is a neofascist power grab), but when it comes to Democrats? They're still SILENCING them actively. You only find key facts about the (fantastic) job they're doing in the op-ed section. And unfortunately, that has been the case for years now, including during last summer's campaign.
Democracy contains the seeds of its own destruction. If a leader, no matter how vile and corrupt, can convince enough voters to choose him or her and their policies, he or she gets to head the government. If the voters likewise chose a Congress a majority of whose members support the leader, democracy becomes more precarious. If both institutions select judges who tolerate and encourage the behaviors of the executive and legislative branches, the game is up.
You're equating democracy with our system of government which as you point out is fatally flawed. This is why no other country uses it. A number of South American countries modeled their constitutions after ours but ended up in dictatorship for the reasons you cite. We only made it this far because both parties consisted of mostly of people who acted in good faith and followed the spirit of the Constitution. No more.
Our system won't change, the only thing we have going is that Trump and his minions are so ignorant, stupid, and arrogant that after running everything into the ground they will get thrown out. Not sure if anything will be left.
"[Species] Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception" is attributed to Carl Sagan. Equally true of empires. Although I can't cite an 'exception.'
You think it's stupidity? If it is it's not just stupidity. But stupidity alone would not get us here so fast? Maybe its a correct analysis ( not stupid) of how far they can get with their very ill intentions.
In real life, Democrats are fighting back like hell! The problem is the fact that the entire GOP has become neofascist, which by definition means handing over the power of the legislative branch of government to the executive branch. This is not just a matter of fear, it's also a matter of ideological conversion.
We don't need people in Congress who are quite willing to sacrifice the lives and well-being of millions to wishfully protect themselves and families. Cowards who will eventually share the results of their cowardliness and aren't smart enough to realize that.
Yes, stupidity is in the air, but I think people are actively and purposely mislead. Fox News and the like are ubiquitous. But we hate to admit someone is pulling our leg.
I’ve wondered the same about Trump’s approval rating. The best I can come up with is that MAGA is a cult and that Americans are essentially anti-government.
Depends on where you shop. My wife pays a bit over $3 a dozen for brown eggs at Trader Joe's (white eggs are more). About a week ago, one of the clerks at Lowes told me that she had just paid $6 for a dozen.
I don't trust polls and haven't for a long time. They're too easily gamed by leading or confusing questions, among other tactics. Just flat out lying (looking at you, Faux Noise) isn't that hard, either.
The iron law of history is that all empires fall when they overextend militarily and ignore other domestic needs.
During my lifetime I've seen the European empires fall culminating with the collapse of the USSR. We're just next on the list. I sadly believe that the US will break into pieces the same way the USSR did. Maybe Mark Carney will pick up a couple pieces and add them as Canadian provinces. The rest will continue their decline.
That would be an improvement. Canada++ (Canada + West Coast + Mexico, operating under the Canadian political and legal system) is my fantasy. Not sure they’d want us, though.
If everyone had to go to public schools, it would instantly result in better funding, full staffing and better facilities as the wealthy realized that their precious babies had to sit in those buildings and play on those ball fields and listen to those teachers. Imagine cafeteria food if all students had to eat it, and everyone's kids were students?
Credentials are obviously good things, but a better approach would be that home schooled students, and all high school students, need to pass an exam to receive a diploma.
Passing the NY Regents exams to receive a diploma is unfortunately being phased out over the next 2-3 years, but they do serve an important purpose.
I think competent, well-informed teaching is more important. Besides, standardized testing constrains teachers to meet exam expectations, which, I think would lead to less inspiring and less sound education.
Teacher competency and effectiveness are very difficult to measure. Over a broad spectrum of schools, you can't beat the Bell Curve for teachers or students. There is however, a basic tool set that students need to acquire that can be tested for to be considered 'educated.'
The rest of the world began to doubt that the US was serious once Trump was chosen as a candidate again after the disastrous first term. We all knew it for sure when he was reelected. The distorted media coverage is a contributor but it is the decline of critical thinking capacity that is a root cause. The US is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the world because of the choices that have been made. It may never recover in our lifetime.
I think the talk of "century bonds" is having far more impact on the international investment scene than is generally recognized. Sure, all the tariff nonsense is unsettling and makes it impossible to plan or predict how any given investment in the U.S. will perform.
But the "century bond" talk is Trump et al. saying pretty directly that there's a very good chance the United States will "borrow" your money and never pay it back. As an individual, I don't care WHAT interest rate you're offering me because I won't be alive in 100 years to collect it even if your descendants honor that debt. I'm sure corporate and foreign finance ministers look at it the same way--there's no point in buying America's debt because there's a reasonable chance you're going to get stiffed (whether by outright default or by forcible conversion to 100-year bonds doesn't really matter, does it?).
I’m non-US citizen living outside the USA. I sold all my US stocks in February this year, having decided the US is no longer a reliable place to do business, nor a reliable debtor.
Just remember, many US companies are global so don't short change your portfolio out of spite. After the inauguration I reduced my asset allocation on equities (from 60% to 40%) because the market had gone up so much over the post few years. I am increasingly concerned about bonds. Who knows!? I do think once the shit hits the fan and the bond markets begin to really quake some responsible senators and GOP reps will step in and stop this madness. Although Trump has 45% approval (I think lower), it is not in positive territory and more of us are really outraged about him than there are MAGA folks.
A post by the Jacobin that I shared & then was no longer allowed to log into FB without full credit card info about a week before the November '24 election: German companies that did biz with the Nazis had a market drop of 60% immediately after WW II, but holders of German government debt were completely wiped out. Of course, I know that the term "In the long run, we're all dead" applies to when those German companies (ALL modern companies) market value turns around after such a collapse....was it 15? 20? 50? years before they were offering profitable returns again?
As mentioned I live outside the USA; how could I possibly fail to notice some US companies are global. Indeed the biggest ones avoid paying tax in countries like mine. They’re parasites here.
US stocks do seem to be on a roller coaster at the moment. I expect they will fall a lot if DonnyJon quits pausing tariffs. Once TACO ceases to be true, the market will probably decline.
Look at the college majors that the US News and other college rating outlets recommend. They recommended areas of study that exclude traditional studies and areas where critical thinking skills are taught and required.
College education has become preparation for corporate employment and adaptation to corporate norms of job performance. Most corporations do not require critical thinking for most of the jobs offered. Do your job and mind your own business.
Education for Democracy, as John Dewey preached, is dead. Yes, that's K-12 plus higher education. Of course, there are causes for this outcome. Reversing our turn from educating for democracy to educating for high-income won't come easily or quickly. Still, it will come, and Secretaries of Homeland Security will know what habeas corpus and due process are. They might even know what the 5th and 14th Amendments say. Until then, let's fasten our seat belts and prepare for the ride ahead.
Meanwhile, let's elect a Congress that shows up for Article I responsibilities and performs them. This worries me more than everything else. We need three functioning branches of government and two or more functioning political parties. We are in a heap of trouble until that happens.
One of the smartest gentlemen I see making comments on this blog Winston? Oceania? claims he is poor. Would one rather be intuitive or affluent? He also seems to have a heavy dose of paranoia, which may affect his affluence for such a seemingly high IQ.
Why thank you. I'd rather be affluent. Alas it isn't in the cards for me. Or as the Orange Scourge puts it, I don't have the cards. Witnessing the insanity around me, how could I be anything but paranoid?
Well, people who sit and let Faux Snooze pack their brains with conspiracy theories all day are kept so busy with today's talking points they are left unable to look at yesterday's. Hence the whole 'Flood the Zone' strategy. Keep 'em busy and keep 'em exhausted to keep 'em in line.
Sorry ma’am. Those people Dump and Co. put in charge never had a “critical thinking” capacity. Only a critical one to trash anyone and anything that opposes their beliefs.
My apologies....maybe it is Thomas Crane? You two are some of the sharpest intellects commenting on this blog, imo, however I think it is the other guy who exhibits paranoia at times....based upon life experience?
I have the uneasy suspicion that the sanewashing by e.g. the New York Times was the best business decision they ever made for themselves: "Let the US burn to the ground, it makes good copy."
It is questioned whether this quote is authentic. However:
"During the Spanish-American War, newspapers like Hearst's New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's New York World used sensationalist reporting to fuel public outrage and support for intervention in Cuba." This sounds eerily familiar.
Actually it was in 2017 if my experience is indicative. In early February I had a conversation with a taxi driver in Tromsꬾ Norway, who asked without promoting how the Democrats could have chosen the only possible candidate who could not beat the (expletive) who won. In the intervening years I've been to 7 or 8 European countries, around 20 trips in all, and never heard a kind word about him. Of course selection bias is in play, but nonetheless thinking Europeans had his number from day one.
They had decades of him cheating everyone to go by. Like the Player piano guy he bankrupted, word eventually got out that he never paid his contractors.
“it may never recover in our lifetime”. . .You can count on it. My personal opinion is that it will NEVER recover. The wheel of history is turning, the trajectory of America along with it.
That might apply to those that think the election was fair, but the rest of us wonder why there was no investigation into the many bomb threats, ballot collection boxes on fire, voter suppression, Elon buying votes, and all the anomalies you find when you study the details. See https://electiontruthalliance.org/ and be sure to request the audit.
We don't make the mistake of thinking that there is a big group of MAGA clamoring for all these stupid things, or a large group of lazy people who newly registered to vote and then didn't. Americans are not truly represented by their government, especially since the population is still growing but the representation is not.
Nobody’s serious. We have oncoming disaster in myriad forms—nuclear war, ecological destruction, pandemics—and we keep flying to Europe for fun. We are on track to kill off ourselves and most of the rest of the planet’s biota and I see absolutely no reaction of the requisite size or force because we are almost all selfish delusional sociopaths.
Sorry. That’s what I see because that’s what there is to be seen.
I hear you. I find it positively eerie to find, e.g., travel recommendations for flying to Europe for 36 hours (https://www.nytimes.com/column/36-hours) and I only want to scream ARE YOU PEOPLE FUCKING INSANE?!?!?
And of course, if you criticize the very insanity, the denialists descend on you like a pack of wolves, accusing you of virtue signalling and what not.
I would, however, prefer if you refrained from accusing the whole of humankind. There is no "we" that keeps flying to Europe for fun.
Thanks, Doug, you hit the nail on the head without really saying it. When did either party seriously discuss nuclear disarmament? You may argue the Democrats are more serious about the climate crisis, but Joe Biden expanded oil production to record levels. I'm not defending Trump, the man is a lunatic, but with respect to the long term threats you mention the Democrats are simply Republican Lite. It's like having to choose between a rattlesnake and a black widow. Where is the real alternative for the voter?
Sadly Doug, I agree. Adam McKay's "Don't Look Up" offered the perfect metaphor for our delusions. I fear we're an invasive species, destined to fight among -- and consume -- ourselves until we are no more.
Sorry, your delusion is born out of subservience to pervasive capitalism. And, yes, naked capitalism is a snake that will eat itself. However, instead of insuring that every endeavor makes money to justify itself, education should be about education, healthcare should be about healthcare, government should be about the consent of the governed, not who can raise the most money. Parents should be about the best society for their children to live in, not about their child first. Nations should be about the best world to be a nation in, not in being first. Survival has never been a game, it's always been a deadly serious endeavor.
We have five different Republican party groups and six different Democratic party groups competing in the primary election next week. My basic policy is never to vote for a candidate whose party branch slogan contains the word "first" or the word "great."
That will go against their grain. USers always remind me that this is the best, the greatest, etc. country in the world, in every regard. I sometimes counter, but their argument is then: "well, you came here too didn't you?"
It is laughable when folks salute Trump as a "businessman," a perception based on reality television and a ghostwritten book and not corroborated by his actual record in business at all. What he is/was, is a genuinely remarkable "salesman" and grifter...indeed world class. He brilliantly turned the least mellifluous last name into a lifestyle brand that somehow came to stand for opulence and achievement. That licensing business is the only one at which he every really succeeded; nearly all his other endeavors ended in failure. Sadly, it appears that America is next in line in his succession of disasters.
That seems to be the peculiar pathology of Turnip supporters. They'll say "Listen to what he SAYS, don't look at what he's done repeatedly, publicly, for his whole entire stinking life!" And then when he says something completely wackadoodle and they immediately switch to, "He didn't really mean THAT. It was a joke you didn't understand. You're always twisting his words." But I suppose that's what makes it a Cult. Dear Leader is NEVER wrong, no matter what.
When and where did roughly a third of this country get sufficiently indoctrinated to become susceptible to falling prey to a Cult?
It's only some of the people that live in an area within 30 miles of Manhattan that are aware of his business antics. Even many of the voters in Atlantic City (where he opened and bankrupted several casinos) voted for him. The rest of the country see him as the TV star of "The Apprentice", in which he played a successful businessman.
👆🎯Fundamentalist religion requires gullibility, and early indoctrination to crazy stories, so they are ripe for propaganda, and very slow to realize the conman is picking their pockets.
I have read that the easiest person to cheat is the greedy person. Tell them that you and I can get together to cheat someone else; of course, the one I plan to cheat is you.
Donald is a master at his craft of the con and grift. And he in impervious to shame and guilt.
It would have been great to have a Clinton style tax raising. If we had reasonable tax rates and the tax laws were enforced fairly, the government could raise plenty of money. The religious/republican right-wing had decimated the IRS so that now the system really focuses on wage earners and people who receive pensions and social security. I am retired and all of my income is recorded on Form 1099, and these are reported directly to the IRS. The people who are skipping taxes big time are businesses and self-employed people who can fudge on expenses and income which they report IRS. And the IRS now does not have the staff to do audits.
Yes, elections have consequences, and they might not be good ones.
The US keeps forgetting (?) how much money the most recent wars cost. The wars that accomplished nothing except make the situation worse, the US/the West more hated, caused so much dead and destroyed lives, forced streams of migrants towards Europe. Those, in every regard costly, wars. They added to the US debt enormously.
Paul Krugman’s column hits painfully close to home. The United States, long seen as the anchor of global financial stability, now increasingly resembles an unstable emerging market — not economically per se, but institutional and mental.
What stuns me most, beyond the reckless economic decrees and bizarre policymaking, is the systemic erosion of constitutional checks and balances. The U.S. Congress — once the sober counterweight to presidential impulsiveness — has largely abandoned its legislative duty. The balance of power is no longer balanced. Trump's decrees have become the main engine of policy, bypassing the normal democratic process with disturbing ease.
This isn’t just dysfunction — it’s decay.
And tragically, a large part of the electorate either doesn’t understand the implications or simply doesn’t care. Many MAGA voters appear indifferent to institutional collapse, as long as their strongman delivers the illusion of victory or vengeance. It’s not just populism anymore; it’s the early-stage dismantling of democracy.
The idea that the U.S. would weaponize economic policy to punish foreign investors, or consider converting debt into 100-year bonds by fiat — it would have been laughed off as paranoid fantasy just years ago. Now, these ideas are casually floated by presidential advisers, and markets can no longer afford to shrug them off.
As a European observer — and someone who has long respected America’s economic leadership — this is deeply worrying. Trust, once broken, is hard to repair. And make no mistake: trust is bleeding out of the American system, drop by drop, headline by headline.
The world is noticing. And unless something changes, the next step might not just be economic instability — but a full-blown legitimacy crisis.
A large part of the electorate doesn't care. They've come to view life as a zero-sum game (no "win-win" deals). If somebody else gets a decent break, THEY must've been hurt by it. They believe that they will come out on top if they stomp down on others.
The NY Times had a very good discussion of this with three of their columnists yesterday. They were much more lucid than I. Any subscriber should take a look at that.
A quibble to something I otherwise agree with whole heartedly, Congress has abdicated it's legislative duty wholesale. They are complicit, waiting hands out to see what falls into them from the raging Kleptocracy they have permitted.
Hemingway, the famous economist, has described the proces the US is going through pretty well. The US is going bankrupt first slowly, then suddenly. Of course, technically the US can't go bankrupt, as the government can always print money to pay off the debt, or simply refuse to pay foreigners interest on bonds. (Think Argentina.) It's likely, given the total dysfunction of the government, that they will do both. The US is now at 4 strikes. GW Bush and the Gulf Wars, which caused the refugee crisis in Europe. The 2008 world financial crisis, due to corrupt US banking practices nearly brough down the world economy. Then Trump administration number one, and now Trump administration number 2. It will be quite astonishing if foreigners don't start connecting the dots, and taking measures to distance themselves from the chaos.
Bush's war in Iraq was arguably the worst foreign policy decision in US history. The US and the world are suffering ever-worsening consequences of that awful decision.
Yes, and the fact that the administration refused to raise taxes to pay for the Mideast wars compounded the error. It's bad enough that the wars destabilized the entire region, but to then refuse to pay for the folly, burdening literally generations of taxpayers with trillions of dollars in debt, is criminal.
I was born shortly after WW2. As a child I asked my mother "how could this happen?" My mother would sigh and say "it just did".
P.S. You forget the interventions and later the war in Afghanistan. Do not tell me that one was "justified".
EDIT: I realized later it is not completely true. My mother was involved in making care packages for Dutch young men fighting in Spain in the International Brigades. She helped a family member who hid a Jewish couple - that were betrayed when they needed medical assistance. My mom tried to fight, she was more courageous than me. RIP Mom.
Any country that can't recognize the new reality are going to get burned badly by either the inevitable betrayal of this completely unreliable regime, or by losing their investment in the inevitable crash that he's driving us to.
What do expect from a 34x felon who stole top secret documents and “stored” them in a public toilet at Mara Lardo. There is no doubt in my mind that Russia and China have copies of all those top secret documents! The craziness of defaulting on our current debt and issuing century bonds that will never be paid back is as ludicrous as the Orange Idiot declaring that Biden was executed in 2020 and replaced with a cyborg!!! To hell with the 45% of the stupid American public that believes the bullshit emanating from the insane Orange Idiot or his “cabinet” members such as RFK, Junior!!!
"Are we a mature republic with a normal head of state, or are we being ruled by Kim Jong Un in orange makeup?" I would say the latter - who operates purely on A. impulse, and B. whatever the last person he spoke with said to him (and then goes back to A.). A recipe for certain, eventual disaster, sorry to say.
A serious national does not announce radical policy decisions via social media, reverse & reinstate said policies, or generate a video showing their President lounging at a resort on land where a genocide is taking place. QED.
The inability of tens of millions of Americans to either recognize, or believe, that Trump and his Administration are a clear and present danger to the U.S. is because more than tens of millions of his supporters only listen to the lying, warped media sources that never present any critical evaluation of his actions. That media doesn't even present his unedited words or actions in their coverage. Trump's "back" is also covered by the "mainstream" media, that paints his words and actions in a dignified, reasonable tone. The leaders of the Western Democracies know the behavior and words of this Administration are not only a clear and present danger to the strength and stability of the U.S., but, also to their Nations. They see the danger of what is coming, and, hopefully, they are taking care to insulate their Nations, as best as possible. This MAGA POTUS is Nero, playing his demented fiddle, while he and his Administration set the "stage" for the conflagration.
Paul, when is the last time we were a serious country? We have long been an addled country with serious leaders. I would propose that for the last 150 years Americans have been much more focused on personal career and technology, rather than political theory and rumination. The average American of the 50s and 60s knew a lot more about automobiles than about his state legislature.
Lincoln managed people— he didn't bring them up to his level of thought. Witness his struggles to get even his cabinet to understand his thinking.
Americans are terrific at a lot of things, but deep strategic thought isn't one of them.
I recall an article in the Atlantic a number of years ago about how our system of government is very flawed and worked in the past despite this, but now has stopped working. The only way our government worked is through norms and enough people doing the right thing. Congress for years had been run by party bosses who kept their members in line and while partisan were serious about running a government.
Furthermore, the Constitution is not sufficient to guarantee democracy and many governments modeled after it have failed and fallen into dictatorship because the executive and legislature are controlled by one party who only cares about power and not democracy or responsible government. Sounds like where we are headed.
Kathleen, You are correct, Americans had absolute trust in their government and the media, so they focused on their careers and family. When our leaders began to change with Nixon and Reagan, too many of us failed to pay enough attention and to understand that the wealthy were quietly working to undermine our government to enrich themselves. The policies the wealthy were able to implement created a great inequality. After the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United, the Democrats were also captured by big money interests. It will be difficult to change these circumstances. Most of all, we must get rid of Trumpism and their nihilistic policies.
That's what you get when you elect a mentally unfit, remorseless, greedy, ignorant mess of a barely sentient human to the most powerful office in the land, proceed to allow him to amass even more power in clear violation of law and precedent. The USA is rapidly becoming something approximating a carnival house of mirrors. Woe is us.
French Canadian here: If the world survives the next 1,327 days… God forbid a major catalyst forces these fools to make decisions with global consequences, what outsiders like me truly dread is: who’s next?
The Democrats seem old, out of touch, disorganized, and lacking any real leadership. As for the GOP, they all suffer from the Rubio syndrome, possessing fewer morals and standards than a Thai brothel.
So, we (the world) follow the news closely, waiting to see which direction the wind blows next in the U.S. Meanwhile, more and more people are afraid to speak candidly, increasingly resorting to language that feels straight out of North Korea or Russia, masking their true thoughts out of fear of being overheard or used against them.
The wind direction is bad… and so, I guess, goes the dollar. That’s our new proxy.
Thanks for these comments, which are as usual enlightening. However you are preaching to 'the converted' I guess, and I don't mean it in a bad way. How do we (can you) disseminate the word to those who have no clue and continue to believe whatever Trump says? I have the vague hope that if more people were really aware of what is happening, if we could get them out of their bubble, things could possibly go back on track, or improve?.. Possibly a bit of naivety here, but, well, who knows!...
Still Trump's approval rating is 45%. Almost half of the Americans see Trump as a good leader rather than as a horrible person. This raises the question: "How does one defend democracy against stupidity?". I have no answer.
Remember the quote by Friedrich Schiller: "The very Gods themselves contend in vain against stupidity."
Or Sophocles: "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad"
Or, "Stupid is, as stupid does."
And the article should be retitled to something like, "The GOP is no longer a Serious party, and is leading us to ruin."
All to ensure that people like Elon and Jeffie can buy new mega-yachts. At the expense of everyone else.
Elon does his sailing indoors.
Ridin' that ketamine wave...
This is probably due to the strong resilience of the U.S. economy.
The latest Bank of Atlanta's GDPNow forecasting an astonishing 4.6% GDP growth.
https://i.imgur.com/WdSsC1h.png
If the GDP growth rate exceeds 4% and the inflation rate stays between 2% and 3%, most voters won't feel the need to change their choice.
We've gotten too good, what with circuit breakers, regulations and guardrails, at protecting people from themselves. But all that is Deep State, and gets in the way of the magical thinking of MAGA and T&Co, so it must go....hang onto your hat.
Mr. Musk for starters.
Fortunately we're not gods but human beings. So we can inform ourselves, inform others, and eradicate stupidity once and for all.
Let me know how that goes for you.
Very well, thanks for asking.
Not so well for you, I presume? What makes it difficult, you think?
Unchecked sources of misinformation.
What do yu mean by that?
There is no "once and for all "in this world.
There are. Things fall down and not upwards. That's established, once and for all. For instance.
Well, “things fall down and not upwards” is not an established view of gravity among physicists (among whom gravity is considered a force accelerating bodies towards one another without regard for any frame in which there’s a ‘down’ or an ‘up.’). But naive physics aside, there’s always stupidity so long as there’re incentives to forego thinking, and our politics gives us plenty of these incentives… plus plenty of misinformation too. Once people embrace stupid they can’t be informed, and then they don’t want to be informed—that imperviousness is exactly what “stupid” is!
Very good, right.
But even with gravity it's not always the case.
You remember having seen something falling upwards... ?
Oh, yeah, that always works.
Who's more the fool: The fool or the fool who belives him?
- Trad. yiddish
The media reporting, or lack of, have a lot to do with that. Magats are going about their lives believing that their genius businessman is fixing the imaginary problems of the last administration
agree, and if the majority of maga is watching Fox, they are certainly not seeing any of this reporting. In fact, I saw an article which said (in one broadcast or night, not sure) Fox mentioned Biden 39 times and Medicaid once!
Yes. Very few of them are stupid, but almost all of them are willfully ignorant, which is worse than stupid. Besides, 99% of them are getting what they voted for: a president who will persecute people they don’t like. Trump delivers on that promise.
the persecution of others seems to be all they care about. They're willing to trash the economy, shred the social safety net, all to either "own the libs" or to see people dragged out of their homes or workplaces to be deported. When deporting people is a larger part of the budget than taking care of people, you're running a country based on resentment and grievance of perceived injuries. Not even real injuries! Anger and resentment are powerful drugs, and the MAGAts are addicts. As long as they are being fed their drugs, they won't be able to see they aren't "owning the libs" as much as they are the ones being manipulated into their own descruction.
Indeed. MAGA's pied piper is succeeding for the moment with MAGAs, but not with everyone else.
Even if you read the NYT you wouldn't know anything about Democrats and their (big) achievements under Biden.
I will never forget their utterly shocking treatment of Harris last summer.
Example: Harris held a rally during which she revealed some detailed economic policies. I watched the live stream of the rally. If you wanted to sum up the very essence when it came to her tax plan, things were crystal clear: she proposed a TAX INCREASE FOR THE WEALTHIEST.
What headline did the NYT write? HARRIS LOWERS TAXES FOR THE WEALTHIEST.
How could they do something SO stupid? The article explained that her policies would increase them a little less than Biden's 2025 proposal.
What did you see in the comment section? A majority of comments criticized Harris for siding with the wealthiest, betraying the Democratic base and the American people, etc., etc. Because many people only read headlines and not the fine print...
And it went on like this, day after day, month after month. Until finally, in September, her poll numbers started going down.
And this is what a newspaper whose editorial board ENDORSED Harris did to America. We're not even talking about the neofascist GOP propaganda machine yet, indeed.
Yes. I can’t defend the Times. The bothsiderism is appalling. It damages public discourse to pretend that flat-earthers, young-earthers, and the like have points of view worth serious attention. Same goes for today’s Republicans.
If at least they'd spend as much time and space and big headlines getting the truth out, that would still have made a huge difference...
That was not the upper management's desire. They wanted Tangerini back because Biden was competent, and readership went down, because we all stopped doom-scrolling. They were in a snit because Biden did not give them an interview that they felt entitled to. So they spent so much ink on slagging him and running "Joe is OLD" stories.
"nepo-publisher Arthur Gregg Sulzberger’s panties are in a permanent twist because Joe Biden continues to refuse to sit down for the interview that Sulz imagines is his newspaper’s “birthright” — and so he’s declared war on Biden. his own staffers are admitting that Sulz told them to go after Biden relentlessly.
One unnamed Times reporter suggested to Politico that “tough reporting” on Biden’s advanced age and lagging poll numbers is “quietly” encouraged by Sulzberger in retaliation for Biden’s unwillingness to sit for an interview.
so fuck off, Joe Kahn. stop trying to gaslight us that the Times’ coverage is “impartial.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/something-wrong-york-times-140102338.html
https://substack.com/home/post/p-146467746?source=queue&autoPlay=false
https://substack.com/@jefftiedrich/p-146399983
I agree with most of your comments, but if reading the NYT, one must use discernment....it can afford to have journalists stationed all over the world & between reading books by others not mentioned in NYT (i.e.: Norwegian girl Erika Fatman? traveling to NK & USSR's former satellite nations surrounding Russia) and reading the foreign articles in NYT with few comments--some by foreigners paying attention to what is being said about their part of the world...it is worth the subscription still. US population is dumb & will have to get its attitude adjustment, which unfortunately includes everyone and not just dumb asses who don't read between the lines--&, of course, a lot of that comes from worldly experience, which younger populations don't have
Yes. I think you’re right on all counts.
I believe that was one show.
I've come to the conclusion that anything in the recent future willr slap a good big chunk of them to awareness of at least some of what's going on, it'll be the tariffs. Bless They're irrevocably associated with his name more. Those willing or even eager to ignore the cruelty, criminality and corruption of Trump's regime *won't* accept serious economic pain.
As a result I find myself forced to hope Trump either wins his appeal about the legality of the tariffs, or decides to ignore yet another ruling against him and just keep doing what he wants to do.
Explains the push to cancel research, reduce universities to be pliant organizations, and treat independent thinking as a “woke” concept
I'm beginning to think Trump is attacking everything he doesn't understand or care about in an effort to make himself look like the smartest guy in the room. I think deep down he knows he's stupid and this is his way of dealing with it. He doesn't have to talk or care about things that have been dumbed down or that he causes to cease to exist.
Yes he is deeply insecure and can’t say the very powerful phrase..”I don’t know “ saying I don’t know isn’t weakness it shows strength- especially if it’s followed by learning from those who do. Trump is incapable of doing any of that. He thinks that shows how strong he is… having to be the smartest person in the room isn’t strength. It’s weakness and insecurity. I think MAGA aligns with this because that is how they feel. They have been made to feel deeply insecure, or raised to believe you never admit you don’t know. They are incapable of seeing how limiting that is for themselves.
You'll see whole pieces of what was once the US become theocratic states where the #1 priority is Bible studies. As for the rest they will go their own way as DC implodes from the debt.
Yeah, I looked up this psuedo-intellectual society based upon John & Abigail Adams near--but not associated--with Harvard and there is NO history of Dom....with the Russian-sounding name of someone 48 y/o in charge of it. Return to feudalism with a tech twist, thanks to Palantir & DOGE.
Kamala would have won the election if MAGA people followed Trump suggestion to inject Clorox to fight covid. Maybe they are not THAT stupid :)
Of course, if just 2% of registered Democrats in three key swing states could have been bothered to do the right thing and vote for a promotion for the vice president, it would have had the same effect as Republicans engaging in willful self-harm.
Enough horse dewormer would have worked, too.
One of the essential questions of our time.
It's sure tempting to blame it all on stupidity. But doing that would mean to give up, because, as they say, "you can't fix stupid."
And it disregards the myriad reasons to be extremely frustrated with the Democrats and feeling the irresistible urge to kick them in the face somehow, even if it's with a vote for a sociopathic bully that they think goes against The Establishment.
Why would they want to do that? That's what I think needs to looked at.
My blue collar proto-MAGA coworkers in the 1980s were nihilists who wanted to be entertained (hence Reagan) as they awaited the end of their short lives. The MAGA reaction to COVID, their willingness to give up health care and FDA agricultural safety, and the recent performance by Senator Joni Ernst suggest nihilism tinged with millennialist Christianity continues to underpin their voting.
You left out one of the drivers of this nation, from its inception to the present: bigotry--the entrenched belief that they're superior to those unlike them, who can be treated as animals and worse (or perhaps that's part and parcel of the "millennialist Christianity" they profess).
Do they not remember Palin's "Death Panels"? Maybe you need to remind them.
Why, indeed. We need to get very serious about this question.
Is it that Trump represents everyman in his supporters' eyes? Might he give meaning (no pun intended) to their lives beyond politics? Is this a religious movement not a political one?
Let's ask David Pecker.
That's one way to look at it, and true in many instances, but mainly in the sense that anxiety is a great driver of behavior across the board.
Existential angst?
Situational angst.
Complicity - all along. Time to wake up and see our political parties for what they have always been: the robber barons and the controlled opposition.
Who is the controlled opposition? I see no control. I see anarchy.
I think she means opposition as controlled by said robber barons. They allow some opposition so people think they have a choice, that an alternative exists. While there is not.
Yes it’s an authoritarian strategy of co-opting, corrupting, or compromising enough members of any opposition in order to neutralize them. The dems have been controlled opposition since at least the 80’s
We might ask how magats become incensed over a trans high school athlete in CA? A person they will never meet or even know much about. Even after CA sport officials broadened the medal winning such that a non-trans student always has a chance to be rewarded as a first place competitor.
The same dynamic is at work as when "wokeness" is attacked. Haters gonna hate. Fox, Trump, Russel Vaught and Miller tap into this psychosis.
"We might ask how magats become incensed over a trans high school athlete in CA?"
I don't know the answer, obviously, but my conjecture would be: Envy. I imagine a chicken farmer in flyover country, trying to survive on less than 20k$ net income per year, drowning in debt, with his corporate customers having him over a barrel because he doesn't have the resources to market his product himself, while the Democrats argue about trans rights and gender-affirming care.
I'm not overly surprised that people in this position fall for the lie that "Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you."
There are many voices out there who have been left at the end of hope and are still not being heard.
Any concrete evidence? Why are you so frustrated with the Democrats?
Aside from that: I agree, just calling half of the country "stupid" doesn't help, quite the contrary.
Less stupid than deeply fearful and highly manipulated, I'd say. The MAGA 'coalition' is the end result of government malfeasance and a virtual takeover by shadowy forces who have come together with the intention to hobble this country so they can move ahead with a plan to reestablish and extend their power in a tsunami of rapid, often bewildering technical, social, economic and environmental change.
I don’t think it’s stupidity. I think people are genuinely confused. Journalists do a very good job of reporting the news and doing investigative work, but the opinion pages can be very misleading. The need to be seen as balanced means that ideas are given an equivalence that is often undeserved. We have been inundated with low tax leading to unparalleled prosperity propaganda for decades. Most people don’t have the time to do the research to determine whether what they are being told is reasonable or true, or who is paying for the research behind that opinion piece, if there is any research at all.
I believe we're finally reaching a point where American's are starting to realize that "trickle down" actually means "trickle on", and are finally fed up with Fat Cats getting their Golden Parachutes while everyone else gets the Golden Shower.
I wish you were right, but I'm skeptical.
I said it with cautious optimism. I could be wrong, but from what I've been seeing - especially those GOP town halls - we could finally be seeing some light at the end of this tunnel.
If only "Golden Parachutes" were literally golden parachutes, it would probably solve a lot of problems.
No need to waste perfectly good gold, plain old lead has about the same weight. Gold is too valuable to waste on these critters. Unless the parachutes get hit by lightning - gold is the best conductor of all, so there is that.
Let them have gold. Once it hits, anyone can recover it, hose it off and recycle it.
Only some journalists are still in a position, are given opportunities, to investigate and write. They usually write for magazines, these do not have to adhere to the short daily cycle. But the MAGA crowd probably does not read these publications. With a limited budget you cannot spurge on subscriptions. When you work an 8-9 hour day and also have a commute, it leaves little time for extensive reading.
When it comes to the majority of a population, print will always lose from television. "I saw it for myself!" is more powerful than "I read it somewhere". And with FOX"News" television became first of all a center of profit, as much profit as possible.
I am reading Left Behind by Paul Collier. A lot of the people who are drawn to the MAGA movement live in left behind places that no longer have local news coverage and where civic institutions have broken down, along with the economy. Their only news source is probably Fox and extremist content that is so easy to find on social media. Collier provides a guide for how these places can spiral up. Focusing on facilitating and building the capacity for good governance in left behind places, and any community would be a good way to counter the democratic backsliding that is happening in lots of places. One good thing is that the internet and platforms like Substack, Beehive and Ghost have made it possible to start a local news site inexpensively and charge a small fee for an annual subscription. Collier’s book has some great ideas and examples of how places, from small developing countries to advanced economies like Denmark and Norway, have built the foundations of good governance and used them to spiral up. The examples of the places that fail are also instructive. Corruption is a killer of good governance.
The NYT does a good job reporting on Trump and the GOP, these days (although they still silence the fact that this is a neofascist power grab), but when it comes to Democrats? They're still SILENCING them actively. You only find key facts about the (fantastic) job they're doing in the op-ed section. And unfortunately, that has been the case for years now, including during last summer's campaign.
Democracy contains the seeds of its own destruction. If a leader, no matter how vile and corrupt, can convince enough voters to choose him or her and their policies, he or she gets to head the government. If the voters likewise chose a Congress a majority of whose members support the leader, democracy becomes more precarious. If both institutions select judges who tolerate and encourage the behaviors of the executive and legislative branches, the game is up.
You're equating democracy with our system of government which as you point out is fatally flawed. This is why no other country uses it. A number of South American countries modeled their constitutions after ours but ended up in dictatorship for the reasons you cite. We only made it this far because both parties consisted of mostly of people who acted in good faith and followed the spirit of the Constitution. No more.
Our system won't change, the only thing we have going is that Trump and his minions are so ignorant, stupid, and arrogant that after running everything into the ground they will get thrown out. Not sure if anything will be left.
"[Species] Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception" is attributed to Carl Sagan. Equally true of empires. Although I can't cite an 'exception.'
You think it's stupidity? If it is it's not just stupidity. But stupidity alone would not get us here so fast? Maybe its a correct analysis ( not stupid) of how far they can get with their very ill intentions.
also read last night's https://contrarian.substack.com/p/trump-and-his-crew-are-nuts
This is also about us all.
Thanks for the link. It's a great post. The Kings Kourt is a who's who of scum.
stupidity and hate?
Ultimately stupid mega. For *their* immediate goals they have been clever and yes taking advantage of people's need to hate.
A strong Congres that would take responsibility but they are all afraid to loose their jobs in next election
In real life, Democrats are fighting back like hell! The problem is the fact that the entire GOP has become neofascist, which by definition means handing over the power of the legislative branch of government to the executive branch. This is not just a matter of fear, it's also a matter of ideological conversion.
Some of them are afraid that their families will get attacked. At least one Republican has said so.
We don't need people in Congress who are quite willing to sacrifice the lives and well-being of millions to wishfully protect themselves and families. Cowards who will eventually share the results of their cowardliness and aren't smart enough to realize that.
As they should!
You just touched upon the reason why TACO and his sycophant are destroying education.
TACO said he loves the poorly educated.
Yes, stupidity is in the air, but I think people are actively and purposely mislead. Fox News and the like are ubiquitous. But we hate to admit someone is pulling our leg.
I’ve wondered the same about Trump’s approval rating. The best I can come up with is that MAGA is a cult and that Americans are essentially anti-government.
maybe it's because egg prices seem to be coming down :)
Depends on where you shop. My wife pays a bit over $3 a dozen for brown eggs at Trader Joe's (white eggs are more). About a week ago, one of the clerks at Lowes told me that she had just paid $6 for a dozen.
I don't trust polls and haven't for a long time. They're too easily gamed by leading or confusing questions, among other tactics. Just flat out lying (looking at you, Faux Noise) isn't that hard, either.
The iron law of history is that all empires fall when they overextend militarily and ignore other domestic needs.
During my lifetime I've seen the European empires fall culminating with the collapse of the USSR. We're just next on the list. I sadly believe that the US will break into pieces the same way the USSR did. Maybe Mark Carney will pick up a couple pieces and add them as Canadian provinces. The rest will continue their decline.
That would be an improvement. Canada++ (Canada + West Coast + Mexico, operating under the Canadian political and legal system) is my fantasy. Not sure they’d want us, though.
At least we will have to Gulf of America to remember a once great country.
By massively funding public education. It’s really that simple.
And requiring teachers at private schools, including home “schools,” to meet the same credentialing requirements as public school teachers.
I have few sympathy towards private education. An unnecessary evil.
If everyone had to go to public schools, it would instantly result in better funding, full staffing and better facilities as the wealthy realized that their precious babies had to sit in those buildings and play on those ball fields and listen to those teachers. Imagine cafeteria food if all students had to eat it, and everyone's kids were students?
Credentials are obviously good things, but a better approach would be that home schooled students, and all high school students, need to pass an exam to receive a diploma.
Passing the NY Regents exams to receive a diploma is unfortunately being phased out over the next 2-3 years, but they do serve an important purpose.
I think competent, well-informed teaching is more important. Besides, standardized testing constrains teachers to meet exam expectations, which, I think would lead to less inspiring and less sound education.
Teacher competency and effectiveness are very difficult to measure. Over a broad spectrum of schools, you can't beat the Bell Curve for teachers or students. There is however, a basic tool set that students need to acquire that can be tested for to be considered 'educated.'
What a shame.
The call of The Uber Monster to the little monsters in each MAGA heart is strong.
The rest of the world began to doubt that the US was serious once Trump was chosen as a candidate again after the disastrous first term. We all knew it for sure when he was reelected. The distorted media coverage is a contributor but it is the decline of critical thinking capacity that is a root cause. The US is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the world because of the choices that have been made. It may never recover in our lifetime.
I think the talk of "century bonds" is having far more impact on the international investment scene than is generally recognized. Sure, all the tariff nonsense is unsettling and makes it impossible to plan or predict how any given investment in the U.S. will perform.
But the "century bond" talk is Trump et al. saying pretty directly that there's a very good chance the United States will "borrow" your money and never pay it back. As an individual, I don't care WHAT interest rate you're offering me because I won't be alive in 100 years to collect it even if your descendants honor that debt. I'm sure corporate and foreign finance ministers look at it the same way--there's no point in buying America's debt because there's a reasonable chance you're going to get stiffed (whether by outright default or by forcible conversion to 100-year bonds doesn't really matter, does it?).
Stiffing contractors and creditors is the tRump modus operandi.
I think you mean creditors.
I saw that. I’ve had a lot of distractions the past few days. Thanks!
I’m non-US citizen living outside the USA. I sold all my US stocks in February this year, having decided the US is no longer a reliable place to do business, nor a reliable debtor.
Just remember, many US companies are global so don't short change your portfolio out of spite. After the inauguration I reduced my asset allocation on equities (from 60% to 40%) because the market had gone up so much over the post few years. I am increasingly concerned about bonds. Who knows!? I do think once the shit hits the fan and the bond markets begin to really quake some responsible senators and GOP reps will step in and stop this madness. Although Trump has 45% approval (I think lower), it is not in positive territory and more of us are really outraged about him than there are MAGA folks.
If there were responsible Republican legislators, they would have already stepped in.
A post by the Jacobin that I shared & then was no longer allowed to log into FB without full credit card info about a week before the November '24 election: German companies that did biz with the Nazis had a market drop of 60% immediately after WW II, but holders of German government debt were completely wiped out. Of course, I know that the term "In the long run, we're all dead" applies to when those German companies (ALL modern companies) market value turns around after such a collapse....was it 15? 20? 50? years before they were offering profitable returns again?
As mentioned I live outside the USA; how could I possibly fail to notice some US companies are global. Indeed the biggest ones avoid paying tax in countries like mine. They’re parasites here.
They're parasites here, there, everywhere.
US stocks do seem to be on a roller coaster at the moment. I expect they will fall a lot if DonnyJon quits pausing tariffs. Once TACO ceases to be true, the market will probably decline.
TACO will only cease to be true when TACO ceases to exist.
We appear to have lost the capacity for critical thinking.
Look at the college majors that the US News and other college rating outlets recommend. They recommended areas of study that exclude traditional studies and areas where critical thinking skills are taught and required.
College education has become preparation for corporate employment and adaptation to corporate norms of job performance. Most corporations do not require critical thinking for most of the jobs offered. Do your job and mind your own business.
Education for Democracy, as John Dewey preached, is dead. Yes, that's K-12 plus higher education. Of course, there are causes for this outcome. Reversing our turn from educating for democracy to educating for high-income won't come easily or quickly. Still, it will come, and Secretaries of Homeland Security will know what habeas corpus and due process are. They might even know what the 5th and 14th Amendments say. Until then, let's fasten our seat belts and prepare for the ride ahead.
Meanwhile, let's elect a Congress that shows up for Article I responsibilities and performs them. This worries me more than everything else. We need three functioning branches of government and two or more functioning political parties. We are in a heap of trouble until that happens.
One of the smartest gentlemen I see making comments on this blog Winston? Oceania? claims he is poor. Would one rather be intuitive or affluent? He also seems to have a heavy dose of paranoia, which may affect his affluence for such a seemingly high IQ.
Why thank you. I'd rather be affluent. Alas it isn't in the cards for me. Or as the Orange Scourge puts it, I don't have the cards. Witnessing the insanity around me, how could I be anything but paranoid?
Well, people who sit and let Faux Snooze pack their brains with conspiracy theories all day are kept so busy with today's talking points they are left unable to look at yesterday's. Hence the whole 'Flood the Zone' strategy. Keep 'em busy and keep 'em exhausted to keep 'em in line.
Bread and Circuses - only without the bread part.
Sorry ma’am. Those people Dump and Co. put in charge never had a “critical thinking” capacity. Only a critical one to trash anyone and anything that opposes their beliefs.
If any thinking at all.
My apologies....maybe it is Thomas Crane? You two are some of the sharpest intellects commenting on this blog, imo, however I think it is the other guy who exhibits paranoia at times....based upon life experience?
Very likely a result of experience. Experience can be a form of trauma. That would make >anyone< paranoid.
I have the uneasy suspicion that the sanewashing by e.g. the New York Times was the best business decision they ever made for themselves: "Let the US burn to the ground, it makes good copy."
As WR Hearst said, “ you get the pictures; I’ll make the war.”
It is questioned whether this quote is authentic. However:
"During the Spanish-American War, newspapers like Hearst's New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's New York World used sensationalist reporting to fuel public outrage and support for intervention in Cuba." This sounds eerily familiar.
Actually it was in 2017 if my experience is indicative. In early February I had a conversation with a taxi driver in Tromsꬾ Norway, who asked without promoting how the Democrats could have chosen the only possible candidate who could not beat the (expletive) who won. In the intervening years I've been to 7 or 8 European countries, around 20 trips in all, and never heard a kind word about him. Of course selection bias is in play, but nonetheless thinking Europeans had his number from day one.
Canadians too.🇨🇦
New Yorkers did too.
They had decades of him cheating everyone to go by. Like the Player piano guy he bankrupted, word eventually got out that he never paid his contractors.
Or his banks
"Actually it was in 2017 if my experience is indicative."
Not to nitpick, but I think it was already late 2016. Here is a true gem from German TV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZc8tBtIDhI (a rock music video with a song named "Grab them by the pussy", English lyrics with subtitles)
"Europeans had his number from day one."
Most did, some didn't.
. . er, that would be "prompting", not "promoting", although with that question he did promote a bigger tip.
EVERYONE KNEW. Except enough people to win him the election.
How that is possible is some future investigative forensic reporter's career project.
Pogo was right.
Walt Kelly knew.
Yes the US is now the man in the barrel going over Niagara Falls. Look out below!
“it may never recover in our lifetime”. . .You can count on it. My personal opinion is that it will NEVER recover. The wheel of history is turning, the trajectory of America along with it.
That might apply to those that think the election was fair, but the rest of us wonder why there was no investigation into the many bomb threats, ballot collection boxes on fire, voter suppression, Elon buying votes, and all the anomalies you find when you study the details. See https://electiontruthalliance.org/ and be sure to request the audit.
We don't make the mistake of thinking that there is a big group of MAGA clamoring for all these stupid things, or a large group of lazy people who newly registered to vote and then didn't. Americans are not truly represented by their government, especially since the population is still growing but the representation is not.
All of us outside the US wish the US could become irrelevant. But most cannot ignore King Kong.
Especially when he's acting like a drug addled... never mind.
Stunning isn’t it?
Nobody’s serious. We have oncoming disaster in myriad forms—nuclear war, ecological destruction, pandemics—and we keep flying to Europe for fun. We are on track to kill off ourselves and most of the rest of the planet’s biota and I see absolutely no reaction of the requisite size or force because we are almost all selfish delusional sociopaths.
Sorry. That’s what I see because that’s what there is to be seen.
I hear you. I find it positively eerie to find, e.g., travel recommendations for flying to Europe for 36 hours (https://www.nytimes.com/column/36-hours) and I only want to scream ARE YOU PEOPLE FUCKING INSANE?!?!?
And of course, if you criticize the very insanity, the denialists descend on you like a pack of wolves, accusing you of virtue signalling and what not.
I would, however, prefer if you refrained from accusing the whole of humankind. There is no "we" that keeps flying to Europe for fun.
How else can you live in this age of cognitive dissonance? “It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine…” REM song comes to mind.
Thanks, Doug, you hit the nail on the head without really saying it. When did either party seriously discuss nuclear disarmament? You may argue the Democrats are more serious about the climate crisis, but Joe Biden expanded oil production to record levels. I'm not defending Trump, the man is a lunatic, but with respect to the long term threats you mention the Democrats are simply Republican Lite. It's like having to choose between a rattlesnake and a black widow. Where is the real alternative for the voter?
We need more than a 2-party system to represent our country’s diversity. We need a coalition government.
Sadly Doug, I agree. Adam McKay's "Don't Look Up" offered the perfect metaphor for our delusions. I fear we're an invasive species, destined to fight among -- and consume -- ourselves until we are no more.
Sorry, your delusion is born out of subservience to pervasive capitalism. And, yes, naked capitalism is a snake that will eat itself. However, instead of insuring that every endeavor makes money to justify itself, education should be about education, healthcare should be about healthcare, government should be about the consent of the governed, not who can raise the most money. Parents should be about the best society for their children to live in, not about their child first. Nations should be about the best world to be a nation in, not in being first. Survival has never been a game, it's always been a deadly serious endeavor.
We have five different Republican party groups and six different Democratic party groups competing in the primary election next week. My basic policy is never to vote for a candidate whose party branch slogan contains the word "first" or the word "great."
Ranked choice--no primaries, nor parties.
That will go against their grain. USers always remind me that this is the best, the greatest, etc. country in the world, in every regard. I sometimes counter, but their argument is then: "well, you came here too didn't you?"
We all make mistakes.
Yes, sir, we do.
Trump's great skill is convincing people they can get something for nothing.
Our Oligarchs took that bait hook, line and sinker.
A Clinton style tax raising approach that aimed for 20% of GDP could have fixed this.
But such would have required a well funded IRS.
Our path out of this dilemma will be painful.
As many have said - elections have consequences.
Another proof of their utter stupidity: accepting the word of a man who’s profited from stiffing others his entire life.
It is laughable when folks salute Trump as a "businessman," a perception based on reality television and a ghostwritten book and not corroborated by his actual record in business at all. What he is/was, is a genuinely remarkable "salesman" and grifter...indeed world class. He brilliantly turned the least mellifluous last name into a lifestyle brand that somehow came to stand for opulence and achievement. That licensing business is the only one at which he every really succeeded; nearly all his other endeavors ended in failure. Sadly, it appears that America is next in line in his succession of disasters.
That seems to be the peculiar pathology of Turnip supporters. They'll say "Listen to what he SAYS, don't look at what he's done repeatedly, publicly, for his whole entire stinking life!" And then when he says something completely wackadoodle and they immediately switch to, "He didn't really mean THAT. It was a joke you didn't understand. You're always twisting his words." But I suppose that's what makes it a Cult. Dear Leader is NEVER wrong, no matter what.
When and where did roughly a third of this country get sufficiently indoctrinated to become susceptible to falling prey to a Cult?
It's only some of the people that live in an area within 30 miles of Manhattan that are aware of his business antics. Even many of the voters in Atlantic City (where he opened and bankrupted several casinos) voted for him. The rest of the country see him as the TV star of "The Apprentice", in which he played a successful businessman.
He was President for 4 years, mismanaged Covid AND committed a coup on our Government.
He lied non stop. He lied so much CNN hired a guy to keep track of it.
He was re-elected because a critical mass of people preferred the lie to the truth.
He managed to convince people he was listening to them.
👆🎯Fundamentalist religion requires gullibility, and early indoctrination to crazy stories, so they are ripe for propaganda, and very slow to realize the conman is picking their pockets.
That's a good point, and that is a significant percentage of his Cultists.
I wish it were not so. I have always been a tad cynical.
That is the most confounding of all!
To paraphrase Warren Buffett, it's only when the tide goes out that you discover who believed in something for nothing.
And your chicks for free.
(Snapping fingers)
I have read that the easiest person to cheat is the greedy person. Tell them that you and I can get together to cheat someone else; of course, the one I plan to cheat is you.
Donald is a master at his craft of the con and grift. And he in impervious to shame and guilt.
It would have been great to have a Clinton style tax raising. If we had reasonable tax rates and the tax laws were enforced fairly, the government could raise plenty of money. The religious/republican right-wing had decimated the IRS so that now the system really focuses on wage earners and people who receive pensions and social security. I am retired and all of my income is recorded on Form 1099, and these are reported directly to the IRS. The people who are skipping taxes big time are businesses and self-employed people who can fudge on expenses and income which they report IRS. And the IRS now does not have the staff to do audits.
Yes, elections have consequences, and they might not be good ones.
The US keeps forgetting (?) how much money the most recent wars cost. The wars that accomplished nothing except make the situation worse, the US/the West more hated, caused so much dead and destroyed lives, forced streams of migrants towards Europe. Those, in every regard costly, wars. They added to the US debt enormously.
Paul Krugman’s column hits painfully close to home. The United States, long seen as the anchor of global financial stability, now increasingly resembles an unstable emerging market — not economically per se, but institutional and mental.
What stuns me most, beyond the reckless economic decrees and bizarre policymaking, is the systemic erosion of constitutional checks and balances. The U.S. Congress — once the sober counterweight to presidential impulsiveness — has largely abandoned its legislative duty. The balance of power is no longer balanced. Trump's decrees have become the main engine of policy, bypassing the normal democratic process with disturbing ease.
This isn’t just dysfunction — it’s decay.
And tragically, a large part of the electorate either doesn’t understand the implications or simply doesn’t care. Many MAGA voters appear indifferent to institutional collapse, as long as their strongman delivers the illusion of victory or vengeance. It’s not just populism anymore; it’s the early-stage dismantling of democracy.
The idea that the U.S. would weaponize economic policy to punish foreign investors, or consider converting debt into 100-year bonds by fiat — it would have been laughed off as paranoid fantasy just years ago. Now, these ideas are casually floated by presidential advisers, and markets can no longer afford to shrug them off.
As a European observer — and someone who has long respected America’s economic leadership — this is deeply worrying. Trust, once broken, is hard to repair. And make no mistake: trust is bleeding out of the American system, drop by drop, headline by headline.
The world is noticing. And unless something changes, the next step might not just be economic instability — but a full-blown legitimacy crisis.
A large part of the electorate doesn't care. They've come to view life as a zero-sum game (no "win-win" deals). If somebody else gets a decent break, THEY must've been hurt by it. They believe that they will come out on top if they stomp down on others.
The NY Times had a very good discussion of this with three of their columnists yesterday. They were much more lucid than I. Any subscriber should take a look at that.
A quibble to something I otherwise agree with whole heartedly, Congress has abdicated it's legislative duty wholesale. They are complicit, waiting hands out to see what falls into them from the raging Kleptocracy they have permitted.
Hemingway, the famous economist, has described the proces the US is going through pretty well. The US is going bankrupt first slowly, then suddenly. Of course, technically the US can't go bankrupt, as the government can always print money to pay off the debt, or simply refuse to pay foreigners interest on bonds. (Think Argentina.) It's likely, given the total dysfunction of the government, that they will do both. The US is now at 4 strikes. GW Bush and the Gulf Wars, which caused the refugee crisis in Europe. The 2008 world financial crisis, due to corrupt US banking practices nearly brough down the world economy. Then Trump administration number one, and now Trump administration number 2. It will be quite astonishing if foreigners don't start connecting the dots, and taking measures to distance themselves from the chaos.
Bush's war in Iraq was arguably the worst foreign policy decision in US history. The US and the world are suffering ever-worsening consequences of that awful decision.
Yes, and the fact that the administration refused to raise taxes to pay for the Mideast wars compounded the error. It's bad enough that the wars destabilized the entire region, but to then refuse to pay for the folly, burdening literally generations of taxpayers with trillions of dollars in debt, is criminal.
I was born shortly after WW2. As a child I asked my mother "how could this happen?" My mother would sigh and say "it just did".
P.S. You forget the interventions and later the war in Afghanistan. Do not tell me that one was "justified".
EDIT: I realized later it is not completely true. My mother was involved in making care packages for Dutch young men fighting in Spain in the International Brigades. She helped a family member who hid a Jewish couple - that were betrayed when they needed medical assistance. My mom tried to fight, she was more courageous than me. RIP Mom.
Any country that can't recognize the new reality are going to get burned badly by either the inevitable betrayal of this completely unreliable regime, or by losing their investment in the inevitable crash that he's driving us to.
What do expect from a 34x felon who stole top secret documents and “stored” them in a public toilet at Mara Lardo. There is no doubt in my mind that Russia and China have copies of all those top secret documents! The craziness of defaulting on our current debt and issuing century bonds that will never be paid back is as ludicrous as the Orange Idiot declaring that Biden was executed in 2020 and replaced with a cyborg!!! To hell with the 45% of the stupid American public that believes the bullshit emanating from the insane Orange Idiot or his “cabinet” members such as RFK, Junior!!!
"Are we a mature republic with a normal head of state, or are we being ruled by Kim Jong Un in orange makeup?" I would say the latter - who operates purely on A. impulse, and B. whatever the last person he spoke with said to him (and then goes back to A.). A recipe for certain, eventual disaster, sorry to say.
I think Kim Jong Un is much more rational than DonnyJon.
A serious national does not announce radical policy decisions via social media, reverse & reinstate said policies, or generate a video showing their President lounging at a resort on land where a genocide is taking place. QED.
Trump loves bankruptcy. It’s his go to move. It keeps the churn going. Of course the U.S. is going to default!
He's got US all teed up for it. And it will be everyone else's fault.
I need a sad emoji for this. I agree and it's going to be tragic.
The inability of tens of millions of Americans to either recognize, or believe, that Trump and his Administration are a clear and present danger to the U.S. is because more than tens of millions of his supporters only listen to the lying, warped media sources that never present any critical evaluation of his actions. That media doesn't even present his unedited words or actions in their coverage. Trump's "back" is also covered by the "mainstream" media, that paints his words and actions in a dignified, reasonable tone. The leaders of the Western Democracies know the behavior and words of this Administration are not only a clear and present danger to the strength and stability of the U.S., but, also to their Nations. They see the danger of what is coming, and, hopefully, they are taking care to insulate their Nations, as best as possible. This MAGA POTUS is Nero, playing his demented fiddle, while he and his Administration set the "stage" for the conflagration.
Paul, when is the last time we were a serious country? We have long been an addled country with serious leaders. I would propose that for the last 150 years Americans have been much more focused on personal career and technology, rather than political theory and rumination. The average American of the 50s and 60s knew a lot more about automobiles than about his state legislature.
Lincoln managed people— he didn't bring them up to his level of thought. Witness his struggles to get even his cabinet to understand his thinking.
Americans are terrific at a lot of things, but deep strategic thought isn't one of them.
I recall an article in the Atlantic a number of years ago about how our system of government is very flawed and worked in the past despite this, but now has stopped working. The only way our government worked is through norms and enough people doing the right thing. Congress for years had been run by party bosses who kept their members in line and while partisan were serious about running a government.
Furthermore, the Constitution is not sufficient to guarantee democracy and many governments modeled after it have failed and fallen into dictatorship because the executive and legislature are controlled by one party who only cares about power and not democracy or responsible government. Sounds like where we are headed.
Kathleen, you have said the quiet part out loud. Without serious leaders, we are adrift.
They are also quite stupid ethically.
Kathleen, You are correct, Americans had absolute trust in their government and the media, so they focused on their careers and family. When our leaders began to change with Nixon and Reagan, too many of us failed to pay enough attention and to understand that the wealthy were quietly working to undermine our government to enrich themselves. The policies the wealthy were able to implement created a great inequality. After the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United, the Democrats were also captured by big money interests. It will be difficult to change these circumstances. Most of all, we must get rid of Trumpism and their nihilistic policies.
This is downright scary!!
Ya think?
That's what you get when you elect a mentally unfit, remorseless, greedy, ignorant mess of a barely sentient human to the most powerful office in the land, proceed to allow him to amass even more power in clear violation of law and precedent. The USA is rapidly becoming something approximating a carnival house of mirrors. Woe is us.
French Canadian here: If the world survives the next 1,327 days… God forbid a major catalyst forces these fools to make decisions with global consequences, what outsiders like me truly dread is: who’s next?
The Democrats seem old, out of touch, disorganized, and lacking any real leadership. As for the GOP, they all suffer from the Rubio syndrome, possessing fewer morals and standards than a Thai brothel.
So, we (the world) follow the news closely, waiting to see which direction the wind blows next in the U.S. Meanwhile, more and more people are afraid to speak candidly, increasingly resorting to language that feels straight out of North Korea or Russia, masking their true thoughts out of fear of being overheard or used against them.
The wind direction is bad… and so, I guess, goes the dollar. That’s our new proxy.
Thanks for these comments, which are as usual enlightening. However you are preaching to 'the converted' I guess, and I don't mean it in a bad way. How do we (can you) disseminate the word to those who have no clue and continue to believe whatever Trump says? I have the vague hope that if more people were really aware of what is happening, if we could get them out of their bubble, things could possibly go back on track, or improve?.. Possibly a bit of naivety here, but, well, who knows!...
Just do your bit to spread the word in every way available to you. Multiply that by several million little people like us and it has its effect.