People all over the world used to admire this country. After Obama was elected I had people call to congratulate us as a country, people from all over the world were applauding.
Now, while visiting Europe, I have heard nothing but “what in the world is going on over there?!?” People are absolutely stunned that trump gets to run again, and that DeSantis is a trump on steroids that is absolutely insane.
If financially able, an excellent way to help spread Robert Reich's insights is to contribute to Inequality Media Civic Action. This group produces excellent Internet videos of Mr. Reich discussing progressive causes in his usual outstanding manner. https://www.inequalitymediacivicaction.org/
But does the public see them? We need EVERYONE to hear his valuable messages. We need to get this to Biden’s campaign people and have it aired on National TV.
A sampling of his videos on YouTube show 200K to 500K views with plenty of reactions in the comments for videos that are only a few months old. One video that just came out had 62K views. IMHO, Mr. Reich is getting a good return on his efforts!
The problem with "National TV" is that it no longer exists except for the Super Bowl and a very few other events. Most of us have hundreds of TV channels to choose from, and each channel is lucky to have a few million viewers at any time. "Faux News", one of the most viewed channels, has a typical audience of a couple of million viewers at most.
I agree with you to an extent. People believe what they will believe. Trump and the rest of the extremist white right believe the lies they are told, and they continue to spread their hate.
It doesn't matter what Mr. Reich's and Ms. Richardson's comments are. You can't educate people who continue to believe that that these two excellent people are the ones lying.
Marlo, I suspect it will require us all to do a lot of educating and confronting our media to do a better job of presenting fair coverage that is not slanted with the cute little digs I have heard when covering Biden that folks like DeSantis don't receive. DeSantis is an appalling human being whose "near photographic memory" lets him memorize how he should act and what he should say to hook the vulnerable and the media acts as though this is normal candidate behavior. I only see his ignorance and mess-ups when I read Democratic writers and sometimes on MSNBC. We can't defeat the Republican wall of shame unless we can do more and better.
I agree. The news doesn’t tell all. I have called the stations and complained. We need to get the word out. I have posted lots on Nextdoor on the political platforms. The people see the first part of my posts. And can then go on the platform if interested.
NOBODY in government forced us to get a shot, but protecting public health is an absolutely legitimate function of government, so not letting millions of Typhoid Marys walk around spreading a virus was a responsible thing to do!
The world WAS hit by a virulent pandemic in the form of a corona virus for which a vaccine WAS rapidly developed {using a development model that has been in use for quite a while and that was able to create a vaccine in far less time than older models did — which is lucky for us, but has led some ignorant people to think the vaccine was rushed out untested and unknown …]. If you wanted to take your chances with a virus that was KILLING record numbers of people in its first form, that’s your privilege, ts1213. But you were never entitled to spread it willy nilly to the rest of us!
All the rest of what you laid out there is equally as twisted and ludicrous. None of it is accurate.
Yes. What about MY safety? It's a question that should be asked w/re to both pandemic denial and deregulation of guns. The sentiment extending one's personal "liberty" to 100% is just not relatable in a collaborative democracy. It reflects an extremist libertarian philosophy that's bound to end in madness and destruction.
The Canadian expert on authoritarianism, Bob Altemeyer, did conclude that those with an authoritarian bent lacked insight -- about themselves, others, and for the future.
Yes, if one wants to see the ultimate epitome of abject IRONY, look at some of the t-shirts worn by the loyal brown shirts attending their putrid orange fuehrer's NAZI BUND MEETING stating, "Once Liberty is lost...".
Yeah, right(wing), lots of F**KING laughs.
Not to mention of course the ubiquitous Magda T Goebbels fan club Moms For Fascism shirts in bountiful aBUNDance there, as well.
Americans (big generalization there, I know) are a dangerous combination of ignorant, hostile to education and the educated, and combative. Tuberculosis used to be a major killer, one that terrified the population. (Literature is full of characters with "consumption" which is TB). Into the mid-20th century, people with TB were sent to TB sanitariums, required to stay there until deemed no longer a danger to the public. If they left without release, they would be rounded up by the police and returned to the PUBLICLY operated sanitarium. Well into the late 20th century, after at least one drug had been developed, people with TB were required to take the drug and report on a schedule to public health authorities and if they failed to keep to those schedules, they would be located by authorities, including police, and incarcerated because they were a danger to the public AND because strict compliance with the drug regimen was necessary to reduce likelihood of the only effective treatment, the drug isoniazid, becoming INeffective and making a drug-resistant TB. Like the requirement that school children have proven, up to date complete vaccinations to attend school, there was at least annual TB testing for all kids in every public school. If a kid (K-12) tested positive, they were sent to the public health department for x-rays to determine the presence of TB in the lungs.
And with the recent COVID-19 plague, people objected to a shot.
By the way, drug resistant TB has developed and you can easily figure out why. To be fair, it has always been said that the drug is very unpleasant, but to do what one can to benefit for the public good? Well, compare it to running onto Omaha Beach under barrage of weapons!
Where, when and how this country went off the rails is an intriguing and somewhat depressing question. To become so thoroughly distrusting of one's own government requires a history of causes for becoming distrustful, cynical, bitter and antagonistic. We desperately need clean government, clean, honest leaders, honest information and a national rededication to the public good based on an educated foundation for what this country is about!
Annie, that was a really good summary of TB and the reason the COVID vaccine process was not the "overreach" Republicans that guy on this thread spewed that it was. One of the things America is missing is the need to take care of each other. When "we" became a nation where individualism reigned above all other ways of being in community, it set us back and began letting our leaders and our Supreme Court think it is alright to set people against each other instead of getting people to work together for the good of all. In our case, the ones who should be at the top according to those we have allowed to be in power on the Republican side, they have decided rich, white, straight, pseudo-christian men should be deciding for all of us since their individualism and all their other isms are so well developed. We don't have to go along with their BS and we can help people to see their fascist targeting people to hate is really unamerican as is the money and power-grubbing by rich etc. white men. We do need to start defying their ridiculous laws passed by a minority of the people to control the majority. That is not democracy!
You SHOULD have secreted yourself away and died horribly of COVID-19 so as to spare your loved ones the consequences of your profound ignorance of basic medicine.
Be careful what you are considering "basic medicine." If you take the time to plow through RFK Jr.'s 800 page book, "The Real Dr. Faucci," with over 2,500, footnotes, you will have an eye opening view of what we have all been led to believe is "medicine" and what Big Pharma has done to make a mockery of the scientific method.
“Mr. Kennedy, a Democrat who plans to kick off his campaign this week, says he wants to make vaccines safer, but he is spreading misinformation by twisting facts out of context.” (N.Y.T., 4/17/23, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg)
“RFK Jr. Is Our Brother and Uncle. He’s Tragically Wrong About Vaccines.” (Politico.com,
By KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, JOSEPH P. KENNEDY II and MAEVE KENNEDY MCKEAN, May 08, 2019)
“...list the numerous conspiracies that RFK Jr has peddled, including his anti-vaccine stance and claims that 5G and Wi-Fi are “controlling our mind”, that AIDs is not caused by HIV, that boys are becoming transgender due to chemicals in the drinking water,...” (independent.co.uk, 7/4/23, by
Bevan Hurley)
“Mr Kennedy told the publication he had “always been aligned with libertarians on most issues”, and that he would consider appointing Tulsi Gabbard as his secretary of state.” (independent.co.uk, 7/4/23, by Bevan Hurley) PS--libertarianism is about as anti-
thetical to Democracy as it gets.
“We love Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but he is part of a misinformation campaign that's having heartbreaking—and deadly—consequences.(Politico,
5/8/19, By KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, JOSEPH P. KENNEDY II and MAEVE KENNEDY MCKEAN)
“How Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Distorted Vaccine Science,” (1/11/17, By Seth Mnookin, pub.Scientific
“Democratic party State Senator Will Brownsberger described the book as promoting a conspiracy. Medical doctor Theodore Dalrymple accused Kennedy of paranoia, and criticized his writing for containing contradictions, absurdity, falsehoods, needless exaggerations, and seeing "conspiracy everywhere" while lacking objectivity. Dalrymple's fact checking of five scientific papers cited in the book led him to conclude that Kennedy had interpreted each of them incorrectly and therefore misled readers.” (Wikipedia)
Infectious disease specialist Michael Osterholm says that Kennedy's anti-vaccine disinformation is effective “because it’s portrayed to the public with graphs and figures and what appears to be scientific data. He has perfected the art of illusion of fact.”
Alden, I don't think it a very good idea to read anything from RFK Jr. This is not a man running on all cylinders as they say. It is true Big Pharma has done some cheating, making up data and some other bad stuff, but they are not the enemy; I don't care what any book by RFK, Jr. wrote. He is a conspiracy theorist and makes his life about trying to prove those theories. He is a Republican at heart no matter his name. I think Republicans will find your plot idea more interesting than we here do, but alas, they wouldn't be interested in reading 800 pages even if it is filled with conspiracy theories about a really good guy, Dr. Fauci, one who did a lot to help this nation become healthier. That is something I can definitely not say about RFK, Jr. '.
Have you heard of ODD, oppositional defiance disorder? Some people find they don't get along, "uncooperative, defiant, and hostile toward peers and authority figures. They are more troubling to others than they are to themselves." Suggestion is that current GOP, particularly MAGA, particularly individuals that are anti-experts, e.g. anti vaccination, fit the diagnosis. You come on Robert Reich's Substack site, that you can read, full of information and persuasive (aka true). And you figure waiving a finger will produce anything but shaking of heads. You are not well if you believe the things you wrote are true. PS Elected and un-elected elites, e.g. Trump, his family and influencer friends, made decisions that were responsible for 1.1 million American deaths during pandemic. Those failed to listen to (R) George W. Bush's pandemic plan, that cost $7.1 billion, drafted in 2005 after reading a book (about pandemic of 1918) summer 2004, published in 2003--and handed his pandemic plan on to Obama (D). Now THAT is leadership. Trump, MAGAs, current GOP, do not resemble thinkers, planners, visionaries. Some European countries asked for the plan and implemented it and succeeded in keeping the death rate down. To be an elected official is to stick-your-neck-out and work, 24/7, and everyone either on-side or arguing with you for their own vision, as life's work. Your rant is pure crap and you know it. Find another way. Persuade people to join in happiness and not growly-bear distain, for helping others instead of discarding people. Get yourself elected and participate in the 24/7 endurance test that is a lifetime of service. Trump and company will spend their days in prison for touting ignorant made-up notions that bankrupted or resulted in deaths. Find yourself another way.
Grimes, you are mistaken! Give credit where credit is due. The “Playbook” was CREATED by President OBAMA and given to Trump who DID NOT read it when the pandemic hit. Remember he told us the sun and BLEACH would kill it.
“Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents.”
The “Playbook” was a 69 page National Security Council guidebook developed with the goal of assisting leaders “in coordinating a complex U.S. Government response to a high-consequence emerging disease threat anywhere in the world.” It outlined questions to ask, who should be asked to get the answers and what key decisions should be made.”
A whole-of-society plan (borders, travel, commerce) was Bush, no lie. It was John Barry’s 2004 book, that secretary Dept Health and Human Services (Mike Leavitt) told Bush to read, The Great Influenza [this was after H5N1, a flu strain, 2003, jumped from migratory birds to humans (60 of 120 people that got the virus died); and after, 2003, coronavirus from masked palm covet (an animal) infected 8,000 killing 800].
Researched book, Premonition, Michael Lewis (Norton 2021), and article, journalist Paul Biasco, (May 31, 2020).
“2005, President George W. Bush, Congress granted $7.1 billion for plan to get America ready for a possible pandemic. Bush … plan called for early detection, international cooperation, stockpiling of vaccines and medical equipment, and public education about pandemic prevention.
“President Trump ignored or contradicted suggestions, resulting in delayed, chaotic response to the coronavirus crisis.”
“In granular detail, Bush called for increased epidemiological research, improved vaccine technology, detailed quarantine plans, and more stockpiling of everything from vaccines to personal protective gear.” “Bush requested $251 million from Congress to help foreign nations train local medical personnel, expand their surveillance and testing capabilities, and detect and contain outbreaks.
“In September 2019, Trump administration stopped funding PREDICT, an initiative under US Agency for International Development (USAID) that worked with dozens of foreign laboratories including the one in Wuhan, China, that identified the novel coronavirus.”
“Bush administration launched National Bio-surveillance Initiative, 2005, to increase government's ability to rapidly detect and respond to outbreaks in humans and animals. And set up systems to quickly share data between local, state, national, and international public health officials.”
“Trump’s White House eliminated $30 million Complex Crises Fund, which secretary of state can access to deploy disease experts.“
“2003 Bush asked for $1.2 billion for enough avian flu vaccine to inoculate 20 million Americans and $1 billion to stockpile antivirals like Tamiflu.
“The Obama administration utilized the stockpile during the 2009 H1N1 and 2016 Zika outbreaks” “Bush asked for more than $500 million for pandemic preparedness, including $100 million to help states develop and test out pandemic exercises before a health crisis hit. And he tasked HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt to work with state and local public health officials on coordinating their contingency plans.
“During first months of pandemic, Trump put the burden on states and local governments to scale up their testing plans and pandemic responses.
“In 2017, outgoing members of the Obama administration briefed Trump's team on dealing with a pandemic, though some staffers were dismissive of the simulated exercises.” “The Trump White House also declined to use Obama's 69-page pandemic preparedness playbook because it was "dated," Politico reported.”
Agree. Bush was BAD for our country in many ways and was led by the nose by Cheney.
It was OBAMA that created the pandemic manual, called “The Playbook “ and gave it to Trump. It should have been entitled “Playbook For Dummies; Step By Step Instructions of What To Do In a Pandemic” .
The vaccine "mandate" for larger companies was never a true mandate. Anyone who did not wish to get the vaccine was only required to be tested for covid twice a week--a nuisance, to be sure, but if you really did have strong objections to getting the covid vaccine, you did have an alternative.
Were YOU forced to get the shot? Were YOU forced to have an abortion? Were YOU forced to lock yourself in your house? If so, I would say you are responding from communist China, because none of that happened here.
As far as workplace or school mandates for vaccines go, the US has had them for well over a century now. Suddenly, people propagandized you that the public good in that scheme is stealing something from you, some fake freedom. Learn to live in a civil society, please.
Our behavior should be guided by actions that support the greater good of all humankind. Your anger is palpable and unproductive in striving to uphold the basic tenants of democracy.
What is it like going through life when everything that you believe to be true is unsupportable by verifiable evidence? I would guess that in some ways it might be freeing, if it didn't invariably lead one down ever darker and more paranoid rabbit holes. You have spiraled quite far.
You make a point that you aim at Biden but I think should be aimed at the general direction our government - whether under Democrat or Republican control- has been taking in the last several decades. Except for your fear of a world court, which no US government has ever paid any attention to, and which, I believe, we damn well should have, I agree with everything you said. We are allowing the government to become far too strong. I believe in a strong government which regulates and controls the excesses of free market capitalism, but I fear, as you do, the tendency of our leaders to make decisions which no elected government has the right to do. How can we continue to persecute and threaten Julian Assange for publishing facts that are classified but which we have the right to know? How can put up with Obama's prosecuting more whistleblowers than all previous presidents combined? How can we allow ourselves to be brainwashed by the corporate media into paying the Pentagon 850 billion dollars a. year to make the industrial complex even richer? And to start a war with China? I think the problem lies in an arrogance and a sense of infallibility that has permeated the civilian and military Federal employees that live in and around DC. It's a sort of Federal hubris that is possibly more dangerous to the planet than Putin is.
I've visited the old Gestapo prison in Berlin where the 1944 anti-Hitler coup plotters were hung from meathooks. The meathooks were still there. That's what Tя☭mp has in mind for us if he regains power.
" How can we continue to persecute and threaten Julian Assange for publishing facts that are classified but which we have the right to know?"
"We have the right to know?"
We have the right to know when our Intel agencies, including NARA, decide to release facts, when it it safe, for us to see them, often many many years after facts are generated, because to release them may cause irrepairable harm and/or death, to our assets in the field. These people risk their lives, every day, in order to keep our country safe. We NEED them ! Alive!
So we the people have no choice but to wait until certain facts can be released, because this is a very dangerous world we are living in. We have no idea what exactly our intel people are working on on a day to day basis, and we should'nt, beause the mere publication of their work, spread to the general public, could start WWIII. So we need to simply wait, until our government decides when we can access certain info, or, as you might suggest, just pass it all out to MAGA like people, instantly, who would probably use it to destroy our democracy. Also, if that data was simply, instanly released, that would mean that all of our enemies, world wide, would have tremendous leverage over us, as they keep their data secret, and that just might be the end, of the USA.
I do agree. Theoreticaly, we should have access to any info our democratic government generates, but in many cases, that would simply be unwise until many years have passed. Lives, and our country, are at stake.
You have been duly brainwashed. Everything you say is false. Get out of your RWNJ bubble and experience some truth and facts. You'll be a better patriot. What you are now is nothing less than a detriment to progress and freedom.
Reader of all things Biden here. Nothing you said has any familiarity to my reading. Had a friend who willfully refused to get his vaccine. He died of covid, but he made his point succinctly. Personally I was hoping more anti vaxxers would perish but not the people I knew and loved. Only because we have to many people living lives that are destructive to the environment.
Sadly, so very true. TRump has brought America, the country I thought I knew, and still love, down to his base level. History will show tRump was the worst, most evil, dictator to rise to power, even worse than Hitler. He brought a beautiful country ruin & shame. Beware!!
First he'll have to surpass his own puppetmaster Putin, who has caused more harm worldwide than anyone since at least Hitler. If Trump never returns to the presidency, which he shouldn't by anything that is rational & just, he will simply be the most destructive, traitorous American in history.
Please, worse than Hitler? He is not sitting the the Oval Office right now as we do respect elections. I am GOP and Biden won. President Joe Biden is my president until he retires or loses in 2024. Stop your naked lies.
We ought to remember that Hitler did not rise to power overnight. His deadly coup took several years while he and his minions worked to pull the rug of reality from under Germany's feet and slowly hollowed out a democratic government from within. When a cancer metastasizes and dominates from within, hope eventually surrenders. That's a dictator's wet dream.
Hitler wrote "Mein Kaempf" while serving time in the can after being busted over his involvement in "The Beer Hall Putsch" - vaguely equivalent to 1/6. Indeed, he even wrote it personally, without a team of paid ghost writers.
He was let out of prison early and was in total control in 10 years.
So just because tRump has to do a little time doesn’t mean he’s out of the picture forever. Very likely the next Repooplickin president will pardon him.
I see you took my meaning. They really >do< need to put ol' Tweety out of the picture for as long as possible, and even then he'll likely exercise some kind of influence. Imagine him in the pen surrounded by a white supremacist prison gang sporting swastika tattoos. Manson had one tattooed on his forehead! And unless they disenfranchise ol' Tweety of all assets, he'll have plenty of cash to spend on the ones that get released. Odd jobs, you know. He could conceivably become a real mafia king. I don't think anything short of permanent solitary confinement can prevent >that< kind of fiddle.
I'm not saying he shouldn't be sent to penitentiary for the rest of his natural life. I'm suggesting the penitentiary he's sent to be Ft. Leavenworth, or better yet, Guantanamo. Something like Riker's Island would only serve to expand his social circle of like-minded convicts.
No one ever accused Herr Hitler of being stupid. He was clever but for all the wrong reasons. If whoever denigrated his early artworks lived long enough, he/she surely must have regretted that decision. If his creative desires has been nourished early on, the world might have been a very different place.
Actually, I kind'a agree with you. Having at one time in life moved in artistic circles, I was never overly impressed with the virtue of artists, even though many extol their purity and think it would be a good idea to have artists as leaders. Consider Hitler's Reichsminister of Music, Herr Richard Strauss, who among other things brought us the opening credits for 2001, a Space Odyssey. (Unlike his contemporary Paul Hindemith, who finally concluded the whole thing was bullshit and emigrated to Britain. As of my last info, the Turks still adore Hindemith as founder of their music education system, his job at the time. That's open to update or revision, if warranted. At that, he was reputedly - I never knew the man personally - still a bit of an insufferable prat, although among my favorite 20th Century composers.) Better they all remain artists than presume to the purple! Look at ol' Ronald McReagan!
The additionally disturbing fact about the rise of the Third Reich is that Hitler was elected. Yes, there were machinations and deceptions to make that happen, but sometimes people INVITE evil into power. (See America 2016).
Albeit SCUMp and it's minions are not YET <-(operative word here) to the level of genocidal evil that it's mentor reached and surpassed, it certainly has the potential to be worse IF it ever regains the power it seeks, FOR LIFE (elections would be OVER if it is EVER installed into power again!).
Of course, the very same goes for DeathSATAN, and a few others IF allowed into power.
So far, our supposed effing 'guardrails and safeguards of democracy' against autocracy/fascism/despotism did NOT seem all that strong when subjected to even very feeble, disorganized attempts to overrun them. :( :( :(
Biden is President after a DEADLY, TRAUMATIC, DAMAGING planned insurrection by TRUMP was successfully fought. How much worse would our country be if they HAD overtaken the Capitol and killed Pence and Pelosi as their intent?
You support that lying CRIMINAL and the party that supports him? You are no better and should be ashamed to say you are Republican.
If they killed Pelosi and Pence, they would be in jail. It may have been the intent of a few. Why did BLM burn down cities across the nation? Bad protests or a few evil individuals?
First, off try to debate honestly since BLM did not burn down cities across the US. Hyperbolic much? Y'all post pictures of that which have been proven to be FAKE, from other cities in other parts of the world. When you have to lie to try and land some fake point, you are already losing the battle.
Second, were the 2020 protesters protesting to try and stop a duly elected president from taking his seat, in other words, seditious activity? No, they were not. That was the FIRST time that ever happened Mr.. MAGA, all premised on a lie promulgated by your cult leader. And THEY were rioting, not protesting.
Sad what's happened to what probably were formerly, good, patriotic Americans. You no longer are because you chose to worship a conman and follow a false ideology. If you cannot see the fascistic parallels, you are blind, period. You have been radicalized by y'all queda.
He's been radicalized. Probably formerly a sane person, but it is easy to draw people into a cult as we've learned. And it's funny, because they always use terms like "intelligence", "logic" and "patriotism" in their profiles, which they seem to fully lack.
A large portion of the riots & looting were instigated by members of terrorist groups like the Boogaloo Bois, Identity Evropa, Patriot's Prayer, Proud Boys & QAnon sent to the protests for the specific purpose of causing trouble, starting a race war or civil war while scapegoating BLM & Antifa.
However, Hitler was a bona fide war hero from The Great War, 1st edition. (Iron Cross, 1st degree, a decoration normally reserved for officer grades. Hitler was a corporal.)
On the other hand, ol' Tweety had bone spurs! You could argue validly that ol' Tweety's worse than Hitler based on that alone! LOL!
Nonetheless, I salute you for at least recognizing Biden's legitimacy, and by extension, the whole electoral process as it stood in '20. (Jury's out on what it'll be in '24, or even in the intervening state and local elections.)
Plus, tfg did not do this all by himself. He had a very skillful puppet master, along with many in the US Senate & House (not to mention his VP, AG, and others) who either purposely or spinelessly aided, abetted and otherwise enabled him. They gladly put party and/or self interests over country and the Constitution when they should have been acting as the "checks and balances" they were responsible for being. (AND THEY ARE STILL THERE.)
My perspective is that the greatest threat to our democracy is our own domestic rich-folks and their brand of aggressive capitalism.
They have been successfully clawing back power ever since Regan’s administration trickle-down theory got implemented. Wealth and income inequality have been growing since then. Tax cuts to the rich and corporations have impacted debt levels as their fair share stays in their pockets. Unions have been declining as working people’s
Jobs were shipped abroad and minimum wages have not kept up with inflation.
And with the citizens united fiasco handed down by SCOTUS the rich can legally take advantage of their wealth in elections, cementing their political dominance by electing politicians who are happy to do their bidding. Nobody who’s been paying attention should be surprised that “democracy” itself is on the menu because more and more Americans believe in money more than community apparently.
The GOP has swallowed the cool aid and have descended into a nihilism whose only guiding principle is political power. So alternate facts and other rational nonsense becomes the light attracting the discontented to their base.
Look beyond your particular political boogeyman and follow the money to realize that the middle class’s demise will be at the hand of the upper class.
Meanwhile, the biosphere is submerged in the 6th great extinction and global warming threatens the survival of humanity while our partisan divided government has only recently squeezed out legislation to begin to address the fossil fuel problem. An ascendant GOP Administration could easily derail that effort should it control both the house and senate or the Whitehouse.
Business will have to forego their “GROWTH“ mantra and rethink the GDP to fit the resources available on a shrinking resource constrained globe and allow women to control their fertility to remove the productive burden of a burgeoning population. These future demands will require a fully functioning democracy both here and abroad.
Or we can take the “Business as Usual” track and hope that Elon Musk can successfully colonize the subzero Martian desert before it’s Death Valley everyday, everywhere on Mother Earth!
It would require quite a lot to out evil, Hitler. Vianna’s hyperbole is likely fueled by the anxiety that the constant divisiveness and lies issuing from civilian Trump evokes in people who value sincerity and respect for the common good!
Vianna, I wonder if we're incorrectly crediting TFG with supplying the materials for explosion, when he's merely the catalyst.
It seemed to me that the xenophobia, racism, misogyny and fascistic leanings were already there, burbling under the surface but unclaimed. He was just more willing than others to blatantly court that resentment. All he seemed to do was give those, who felt sheepish about claiming such feelings before, what they felt was permission to say it out loud and in a crowd. The ingredients for ruin were already there and armed; 45 just gleefully lit the fuse for his own selfish benefit.
These MAGAt NAZIS have ruined and totally co-opted way, way too much in their brief reign.
But, I guess that they were ALWAYS there, maybe even siding with the actual 3rd Reich during WW2, but were just way too sheepish then to stand up for their love of fascism??
They were most likely part of 'Father' Coughlin's devoted radio show audience , as well as the original "America First" isolationist movement, which they knew could only help out (S)Hitler in it's evil dominance and genocide.
But, I would really like to know, ACCURATELY, just how much of our current populace IS actually admitted NAZI fascist?!?
Yup, and SWEARING a defense of that town's name for the 'sanctity of the Confederacy' against us 'leftist, Marxist commie libtards', for all of it's foaming a the mouth, wildly cheering, loyal brown shirt MAGAtz there. :(
9 definitely jives with my comment but lots of them hit home. Flags, sense of peace, SCOTUS, there were many things on that list that have been hijacked and we all need to hijack them back. Check out a post by @D. Earl Stephens about taking back the flag. I totally feel that one.
That's a good point that seems to get lost in the discussion. I think I made a remark months ago that ol' Tweety served a useful purpose in disabusing us of euphoria over Obama having been elected. It wasn't the end of bigotry - just the critical mass of the illusion.
All of the many horrors that tRump's invasion of our government and institutions wrought also carried with them so many revelations of flaws, shortcomings and holes in our governing documents, policies and practices; just a few:
A sitting President can't be indicted. (It is not a LAW! It was a policy memo! Any President since Gerald Ford could have ended it. So END IT!)
The definition of treason is related to war. (tRump & Co. compel a broadening of that definition.)
The Electoral College. (No further comment needed)
There are SO MANY more. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted by thinking about tRump and the wake behind him that spreads such poison.
The more important issue now is: what to do to demand reform!
I think you are absolutely correct and the conditions in which tRump found his launching pad are actually more disturbing than his presence. His time will inevitably come to an end as it does to us all, but his cult, his followers, those who gave him the pedestal? They are still among us. You see them at the bund-rallies with their children there with them, listening to the tRump filth. That is another generation being "home-schooled"!
Annie, this is a chilling prospect I hadn't considered: the high percentage of QANuts who home school. I'm not wholesale against home schooling. It can be beneficial when done thoughtfully. Many in this crowd, however, seem to do so especially to promote division and ensure their children are inculcated with the same hatreds they have. They also seem to be owners of their own personal armories and training their kids to be crack shots. Not a good cocktail for this nation's future if we don't want a crazed, warped theocratic cult running things.
Hitler had 12 years in power. tRump caused at least 300,000 excess COVID deaths in a year. 300,000 x 12 would be 3,600,000 deaths without firing a shot. He's right up there in terms of kills per year.
The bodies? Many were cremated... I wonder where they got that idea.
I saw an older respected documentary just last week that talked about when it was obvious that the Nazis were losing the war, they actually dug up some of the bodies they'd buried in mass graves and burned them, to destroy the evidence.
I've seen estimates that Trump was responsible for as many as 700,000 or more COVID deaths with his recklessness & negligence.
I suspect that another term headed by Trump would be a reign of terror. Even worse with DeSantis. And almost as bad with just about any other Republican (not Hurd & maybe not Hutchinson, but what chance does either of them have?). And it would be permanent. The next Republican President will refuse to leave power.
Some posters are baiting us. Someone needs to block them/report them. I’m not sure who this would be, but this isn’t Facebook, nor is it a free-for-all. I come here for a reason and intelligent discourse. Let others go elsewhere to spew their lies and ignorance. If anyone knows who to contact, please do so. Thanks.
How could you not remember the children separated from their parents and kept in cages? Toddlers attempting to care for infants? Where have you been? How could you not notice nazis chanting “you will not replace us “ as they murdered Americans in our streets? Where the hell have you been while this national nightmare has been going on? Bedminster?
Oh dear, not “worse than Hitler”. Think about it: as horrible a person Trump may be, an anti-Semitic, a raging racist, he has not caused the annihilation of more than 6,000,000 people, nor be directly involved in any person’s death--at least that is commonly known.
We still have the wherewithal and structures to turn it around — at least we do NOW, if we don’t let a Trumpist into the White House to further destroy our democracy ….
We desperately need to use our system to repair our system, while we still have it!!!
Just as we love our children even when they go astray, and we try to teach them to be better people, we need to hold onto what we love about our country, face it’s real history and what has been done wrong, and vow to do better. And then go and DO it!!
Agree! Sadly, my one vote lacks its previous worth since I live in the gerrymandered State oh Ohio led by a majority of misguided, law-defying representatives.
It’s tough to turn it around, but they worked for decades to gain the power to gerrymander, and we have to work hard to take it back. Countrywide, we do need to keep the pressure on to undo the damage that’s already been done.
Yes, one vote is small, but it’s the aggregate that counts. It has always been the aggregate that counts. We need to grow and grow and grow the aggregate … I hope w can.
Like Pat said already, your vote isn't arriving alone. Cast it and others like it can combine to drive the change sought. If we don't try, we've already lost. VOTE!
Actually, I think Ohio can come back. Make sure youth realize they have the power to make the difference & vote. Democracy depends so much on the young now.
There once were Bund Rallies here .. one in Madison Square Garden. .while Hitler was taking over Europe. . .just a territorial dispute really none of our business. # the space takes . .
Her earlier podcast on the history of it IN the U.S. was excellent, collaborated with and based on the book by Bradley Hart (I do hope I have his correct name to give him credit due).
I live in Canada and sadly some of the authoritarian ideas and conspiracy theories have infiltrated some of our media and politicians. But so far “peace, good governance and the rule of law “ have prevailed. I don’t recognize the country that is the United States now. You are right about the incredulity expressed by Europeans about the political situation where a convicted felon gets to run for president and is supported by around 30% of the population. I read about mass shootings every week and am horrified. Worst of all is the
Governing from the bench by a corrupt majority on the Supreme Court. Who has the political will to challenge them?
Only voting is left to right the wrongs being perpetrated by a rogue Republican Party.
I've noticed that from the Canadian news. So sorry that it went viral. But I do wonder if, on a larger scale, Trump really is just a symptom of mass social change on a planetary scale puffing up into political extremism and reflected in religion. Population density can magnify it, because it points out the discrepancies between the insular areas that lag behind. The former diverse areas are forced to find ways to get along, while the latter consolidate culturally. So uneven.
Bernie Sanders is right: it really IS all about the money and financial inequality. That inequity lies below so much societal unrest. And when it pops, it can bring out the ugliness as well as glory in human nature. Always, always, follow the money.
I completely agree with your assessment. Globalization has increased inequality worldwide and more people feel left behind and angry. These people are then receptive to the authoritarian message.
The Christians have their “Antichrist”, the nation has its “anti-partriots” — both posing as a savior while embodying the very opposite. The far Right agenda is essentially to destroy governance, so the rich and powerful can really do anything they want without consequence.
Where in Europe did you go? Italy elected a far right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. Britain has had a conservative government for decades. Hungary has been a far right nation for year run by Viktor Orbán, who's the darling of the Republican party and Trump. In France Marine Le Pen is gaining in polls and it's very possible that she could win the next general election. In Sweden the right wing Sweden Democrats, who have ties to neo-nazi groups, is gaining popularity and are the second largest party in Sweden's parliament. In Finland the conservative National Coalition (NCP), winner of April's parliamentary election, has reached agreement to form a majority government with the eurosceptic, anti-immigration Finns Party. Finland has now shifted towards the right.
In just about every country far right political parties are gaining ground. When people go on about Europe I feel they are just not really paying attention to what's going on. The anti-immigration sentiment is high in a lot of European countries and in some Scandinavian countries there is also a rise of an anti-tax movement. The Danish People’s Party is an anti-Islam, anti-immigration, anti-tax party. The good news there is the majority of Danes don't support this far right party.
My point is what's happening in this country is also happening in some European countries. That said, there is still a difference between the British Conservative Party and Republican Party. In Europe the Republican Party would be considered a far right wing party in line with the Danish People's Party.
I'm sure most Europeans are aghast at the level of gun violence we have and how our government does nothing to stop it.
Good post. Yes, I too have noticed what is happening there. I just read about Sweden the other day. To me, it's absolutely shocking it is happening in Scandinavia, but the nativist, anti-immigrant sentiment there has grown large.
I will say that it seems that the Muslim population that immigrated to many parts of Europe have isolated themselves in their communities and that has led to radical terrorist cells building and creating terrorist incidents. Nothing will help build anti-immigrant hate like that, so the state, which likely is partially to blame for isolating them in poverty, needs to deal with that. While I empathize with the plight of immigrants, both here and abroad, no one wants to feel unsafe in their own country because of immigrants that bring in terrorism. That has not happened in the US though, i personally have no fear of immigrants and we need them to do the jobs we now refuse to do, yet the same anti-immigrant sentiment exists here. Climate change is one of the root causes of this and the people that hate immigrants also think climate change isn't real. It's maddening.
It's troubling that much of the conversation here has been sidetracked. Because Dr. Reich has laid out an alarming scenario through Trump's alt-right dialogue that condones, maybe even encourages, domestic terrorism. We must say it boldly, because other societies that have become tracked by such trickery have descended into social madness. Nazi-era Germany comes to mind, and we're still picking up the pieces of THAT.
I'd like to know if ~50,000 people actually were at this dreadful event, because the Trump crew usually inflates their crowds. I'd also like to know if those "Christian" churches will preach the same foul garbage next Sunday. "Love your neighbor" indeed!
I'd like to know the actual number at this NAZI BUND MEETING as well as the actual, accurate number NATIONALLY who still support this megalomaniacal, fascist despot.
IS it really as many as their foaming at the mouth, screaming LOUDLY, SHITler cheering, loyal brown shirts suggest??
We can't forget that many attendees are like groupies, traveling anywhere to worship at the orange feet of their "savior". Plus, I wonder if he's still paying people to attend. (I used to see ads on craigslist for this but haven't checked lately, and he may be using a less obvious way to recruit..)
Yes, friends currently in Mexico City having a ball (friends from Tucson). No worries but they are cautious of course. The Trumpster of course would have you believe all Mexicans are rapists and terrible people. Tucsonans, so many of Hispanic heritage, know the truth about their people and culture--to be celebrated not criticized.
I’m late but nevertheless want to contribute. I referee college soccer and have to stand in the center circle when they play the Star Spangled Banner before high school or college games. I used to stand tall and sing the words just as my father, (who served in Patton’s Third Army during WWII) and used to do at Yankee Stadium when I was a child. After Trump was elected, I could only hang my head in shame - eyes focused on the ground wondering how far this country has fallen. Since Biden was elected, I hold my head a little higher realizing that the America I know and love, the patriotism described in Robert Reich’s essay will overcome the hate, racism and greed of those who support trump or autocratic power. I look forward to the day when we take back our flag and wave it proudly to demonstrate that the American experiment in a multi-racial democratic society prospers.
Your article was amazing and should appear in prime time as an ad on Fox News. It needs to be part of the message that will go out to the American people during the coming election.
I’m not sure if an ad on Fox news is optimal, but I do love the way that you (Robert Reich) have put Trump’s self-serving claims in sharp relief with what genuine accountability, strength and community involvement can be. I also believe that the more that the Democratic Party genuinely owns up to ways that working-class folks have had their needs and best interests undermined by big money (by efforts of members of both parties) might help restore credibility for Democrats in upcoming elections.
No, Al, are you serious? Do you think the "American people" are paying attention? Whom do you consider the "American people?" I've got news for you if you think anyone is going to be influenced to change his/her mind. New tactics needed.
I agree that it is hard to change minds, but in the meantime Democrats can do good communication of facts and ideals so that we get Dem voters to vote in every election. Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Gavin Newsome, Raphael Warnock and of course Robert Reich do outstanding jobs of communicating. Consistent messaging that can be taught to average Americans is needed. We can be influential with our neighbors, but message needs to be concise.
The job of Democrats right now is to pass AN OVERABUNDANCE of legislation that HELPS Americans. THEN the IMPORTANT next step is to COMMUNICATE those messages EVERYWHERE. I think purchasing airtime on FOX "news" and OAN and . . . the third one might be helpful.
I am receiving unusual texts from someone who says he is Robert Reich. What can be done? This one was from today:
“I updated my community lately on Biden’s stimulus bill packages utility bill help reduction and monthly Medicare and filibuster changes on voting bills right.We are specifically talking about $40-$60k fourth stimulus check as it pertains to low income and fixed income beneficiaries who receive social security SSDI SSI and other low benefits as well as seniors and people with disabilities.monthly income do you wish to apply?”
“New tactics” in what form? If we value our system and think it can work, then we need to make it WORK. We can’t save it by throwing it over! What our opposition party is doing is UNDOING our right to a competent and comprehensive eduction, and our right to a press than will tell us the truth about what is going on, and our right to THE VOTE.
If our education system is being perverted, if our press is being drowned out, if our VOTE is being repressed, we need to work harder and speak louder to get the truth and the VOTE to people. If we throw over the system to save the system, that way lies chaos and a new dictator will rise to power.
What are we trying to save? And how to we plan to SAVE it, not further destroy it?
Interesting. I commented elsewhere today on the ongoing debate concerning >who< exactly are the "WE" in "we the people." I continually find myself not being one of 'em among those screaming it the loudest! LOL!
Upon reflection, they don't need to co-opt it. They insinuate themselves among those who >are< co-opting it. Republicans aren't MAGAs or Nazis, but MAGAs and Nazis >are< Republicans. They haven't coopted a word; they've coopted a whole damn party - that was begging for being coopted to win!
Its called being responsible and not wanting to live from hand outs. Dems want people to be relying on the government to take care of them: Reps want you to get a job and pay your own way. We use government to provide the framework for that idea; not be the master.
The Left want the government to work for all the people, not just the ones with enough money to make a lot of noise in the press and buy influence in legislatures.
Who do you think is raking off the big bucks from all those contracts with for military supplies, guns, ammo, ships, planes … !!??
That is OUR tax money going to pay outrageous dollars that are scooped up by the guys at the top to the tune of BILLIONS, and the millions of people doing the work to keep the country functioning are paid squat.
The PEOPLE are the ones who create jobs in this country, buy creating demand for things like food, like houses, likee cars, like furniture, like schools, like clothes… If we earn decent money to buy those things, there are decent jobs for so many more people.
If the already wealthy scarf up all the dough and put it in banks {too often offshore}, or invest it in goldmines in some faraway country, how does that help US?
Rubbish. I don’t know any Democrats who believe such things. But I know several Republicans that game the system, cheat on taxes, and take every freebie they can get. The demagogic ideology has blinded you.
Next, she'll be citing 'welfare queens' driving new Bimmers, even AFTER HER effing POS fascist 'get a job' (that THEY will then MAKE SURE disappears!) party totally obliterates any/ALL OF the safety nets in existence.
Now we have the 'Moms For Fascism' bots on here as well as all of the effing Putiebots!
C'mon, Lynn . . . you can do better than that. My professors used to call those statements "glittering generalities." They make absolutely no sense, and are usually fed to people to convince them that "the others" are bad people, and stupid.
They reflect no nuance, no complexity, and both those qualities are necessary to run a democratic system. But they do reflect emotion and anger, I'll grant you that.
Unfortunately, ZERO amount of "sOuNd LoGiC" will penetrate Dear Leader's bubble of willful ignorance. These people need to be DEPROGRAMMED like those poor souls stuck in abusive relationships.
Also unfortunately, I am not the man to be able to help with that. I do not possess the special skillset necessary to not lose my mind.
“And he declared America’s most dangerous opponents not to be Russia, China, or North Korea but ‘enemies within’ America.
“Rubbish.”
No, Trump’s exactly right about this — BUT HE is the enemy within America, seeking to enlist all the other, lesser enemies into his own insurrectionist army. We can hardly expect him to point that finger at himself, but we can and must.
TUMP is so darn stupid and ignorant, all he knows how to do it PROJECT and accuse his enemies of doing what that dumb idiot is doing himself... i am sick of that SOB and fed up with his antics.
The Bulwark has started running a serial podcast: "The Corruption of Lindsey Graham." It follows Graham through the Trump years as he tries to conform to a relentless system that eventually swallows him. But it's meant to reflect and describe the process that so many Republican leaders have been forced to go through to accommodate their party's growing extremism under Trump, or deny their party altogether. Most choose the former.
It is funny how almost all of these brown shirt, SCUMp worshiping BUND Meeting attendees so ferociously booed ol' Lindsey for not being 'strong' enough, or loyal enough to their orange POS fuehrer.
As effing brain dead as they all are, I guess that they have not forgotten his flip-flopping duplicity of the past as concerns their 'sacred, infallible' SHITler??
Of course, the scummy mango turd would not defend his golfing buddy to it's 4th Reich crowd, and promised the good little NAZIs that he would 'whip him into shape' so that they could support him next Senatorial cycle. LOFL
Yes, too many people underestimate his intelligence. He is cunning, crafty & shrewd in the ways of evil & cruelty. How else could this sadonarcissist, who behaves like a mob boss, have skirted the law his whole life without ever seeing the inside of a jail cell?
And many have said he has dementia. Yes, he is demented, but his depravity emanates from some psychological disorder, which may be getting more extreme as time goes on, but doesn't appear to be in danger of imminent implosion as many have been predicting.
Avie Hern ; This is his playbook ; Projection on his opponents of what HE is! The Radical 'Right' uses this tactic across the board. They say that the 'liberal media' is evil, while Fox 'news' and other extremist media actually misinform and openly lie. He has been doing this since day one of his time as a politician. He wasn't very ethical before that, either. We need better vetting of our candidates!
What does God have to do with it? Voting is our responsibility. Developing a pool of people who qualify for candidacy takes time, talent, and organizing skills. And money which is a problem as long as money equals free speech, and the money keeps flowing into the pockets of the oligarchs. Put campaign reform on the list of priorities along with dumping the electoral college and taking a hard line against gerrymandering. Don’t know how to avoid skanks like Krysten Sinema lying their way into the hearts of campaign supporters and then turning into a self serving hypocrite. Congress is a magnet for grifters and there will always be a few who sliver their way in.
Yes Avie.....The MAGAts accusations of others are actually admissions of themselves. It a classic Russian disinformation tactic....and Nazi propogandist Josef Goebbels said..'Accuse the other of that which you are guilty'
At The Faith and Freedom conference. This is some of the disinformation Trump was spewing “Whatever documents the President decides to take with him, he has the absolute right to take them, he has the absolute right to keep them, or he can give them back to NARA if he wants.”
The Presidential Records Act was enacted in 1978 after President Richard Nixon sought to destroy records relating to his presidential tenure upon his resignation in 1974. The law superseded the policy in effect during Nixon’s tenure that a president’s records were considered private property, making clear that presidential records are owned by the public. The PRA requires the President to ensure preservation of records documenting the performance of his official duties (44 U.S.C. § 2203(a)), provides for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to take custody and control of the records (44 U.S.C. § 2203(g)), and sets forth a schedule of staged public access to such records (44 U.S.C. § 2204). Records covered by the PRA encompass documentary materials relating to the political activities of the President or members of the President’s staff if they concern or have an effect upon the carrying out of “constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President” (44 U.S.C. § 2201(2)).
News Flash: The documents belong to the American People. He has absolutely no right to take Classified documents when he leaves the White House! Mad Dog Jack Smith can and will prove beyond a reasonable doubt Trump’s guilt!
Another lie he told was that “I’m proud to be the most pro-life President in American history!”
News Flash: On October 24, 1999 on NBC with Tim Russert Trump said “I am Very Pro-Choice”
He is nothing but a con-man and a con-man lies and cheats others.
In addition to all you noted about the PRA, although it isn't discussed much anymore, he also violated those laws by not keeping records and turning them over when he was IN office; he forbade others from making and keeping records. He never records anything, we were told. No written records. No tape recordings. Mob boss filth in every way. That's who Americans elected? That's who, a poster here wrote, 50,000 people in South Carolina showed up to cheer? Cheering a mobster, a con-man, a criminal, an amoral adulterer, an environmental destroyer, a cruel, sadistic monster? THAT'S who any number of Americans think should be America's President??!! God help us.
This time around, he would be America's Dictator. Too many people in the Southeastern United States worship that pathetic bag of rot Donald TUMP. I have got to move from here. I am fed up with this.
Jaime Ramirez ; Yes, remember the old song "The air, the air is everywhere! Breathe deep while you sleep"... France has sent firefighters to help Canada fight the enormous wild fires that pollute the air and filter the sun; affecting huge swaths of air, land and water, from Chicago to Europe. there is no escaping bad governing, wherever it happens. The world is 'shrinking' with the scale of environmental damage, that 'the "Right" denies! Meanwhile, they teach children to fear and loathe LGBTQ+ folks!
SADLY, as well as those other governments in the whole world turning to outright fascism themselves, as Jeff above has pointed out. :( :(
I plan to stay and fight to my last dying breath, as even if there WAS a 'safe democratically governed harbor nation' to flee to, I could not afford to so so anyway!
Here in MD we have a Black governor, an Asian woman lt. gov., and a White woman Comptroller, all elected in 2022. And we just put the right to abortion and recreational cannabis in the State Constitution. Not bad for one year. And we are on the ocean in case you need to make a quick getaway, LOL.
Admittedly, housing is too expensive, and the capitalists are still ruining the environment. We're working on those....
Yes, the countries which are not yet full-on fascist themselves might be worried that they will catch 'contact fascism' just from any of us entering their lands, even if we are far from being fascists ourselves. LOL
Of course, he wouldn't want to record his meetings & phone calls with Putin, during which Trump passed state secrets to Putin, outed our spies & secret agents, & asked him what steps to take to hold onto power after all legal steps are exhausted.
Annie Cross ; Fear is dangerous, along with its twin; Ignorance! If one is indoctrinated against 'others', those who are different can seem scary. It's sad. It goes against the highest ideals of our country, to fear diversity and actual freedom! We are enriched with a diverse population!
We are in the majority and must vote and protect the votes of others. We must do what we can and let the shameless idiots have their ridiculous rallies. They are not sane. Don’t waste time with them. I’m disgusted that it has come this far, but at least it’s clear that we have to act.
Regarding God, it sickens me to see those nut jobs muttering the Lord’s Prayer to Satan himself at their rallies. They are anything but devout. You should not hope for them to change. We have to take responsibility and leave them in the dustbin of history. We will handle it.
Trump has changed his party affiliation five times according to his needs. He has no loyalty to anyone or anything other than himself. This is from Wikipedia: Donald Trump registered as a Republican in Manhattan in 1987; since that time, he has changed his party affiliation five times. In 1999, Trump changed his party affiliation to the Independence Party of New York. In August 2001, Trump changed his party affiliation to Democratic. In September 2009, Trump changed his party affiliation back to the Republican Party. In December 2011, Trump changed to "no party affiliation" (independent). In April 2012, Trump again returned to the Republican Party.
And then he created The Party of Trump, a whole new party based on age-old ideas: crime pays and in America, crime pays big; braggadocio is Italian for b.s., spread it liberally, the crowds love it and don't even mind the stink; violence sells, like corruption and graft, but make sure you get others to do the dirty deeds and keep your own hands clean, using the preferred soap, Lady MacBeth's Out Damn Spot; use people like paper towels, get 'em dirty, bind them to you with greed and appeals to their basest impulses, watch them soil themselves for you and then toss them out if they don't hold up.
That's Trump . . . he loves loyalty, but only in others. His followers are oblivious, or great rationalizers. They'd follow him off the proverbial cliff, and in fact did on Jan. 6.
They are soooo effing brain dead, and faithful to their SHITler that they will scream it's praises while plummeting to their deaths and seeing their putrid orange fuehrer standing on the cliff edge mocking and belittling/ridiculing them for sacrificing THEIR lives for him. ;)
It only takes one true believer (i.e.cultist) to hang a jury. Remember that Trump is only part of the problem, with the larger problem being that millions of people willingly choose to worship this con man.
Someone (wannabe Goebbels Bannon maybe??) made sure that he included the fascist requisite memes against 'commies and Marxists' in there.
With the 'Marxist' part also serving as coded ANTI-SEMITIC language as well, although it's foaming at the mouth knuckle dragging brown shirts are most likely too uneducated and ignorant to 'get' that connection.
They 'get' the Soros coded ANTI-SEMITIC messages because they ARE 'educated' in Q'aNAZI. ;)
I totally agree with you, Prof. Reich! It's about time that liberals, progressives, Democrates reclaim the term "patriotism". That word, as well as the American flag, has been hijacked by the regressive, revisionist right for far too long.
I no longer see the American flag as a sign of patriotism. Every time I see one on the back of a pickup truck the first thing I think is “another Trump fan.” Most times there’s also a trump flag flying next to the American flag. It’s disgusting and sad.
Way back, when the SHITler was first installed into power by the effing racist/fascist Electoral College, i had a "DUMP TRUMP" sticker on a magnetic sheet backing so that I could remove it from my car when going deep into 'enemy territory', and save the insurance hike from the damage that the 'property respectin'<-LOFL! MAGAt cretins would inflict upon my ride.
I do have a Ukraine sticker on my car, but in in this vast majority blue progressive area, that is about all I will chance full time.
As it is, these MAGAtz (even when, and though fully outnumbered!) are just so apoplectically and reactionarily violent towards anything that they consider anti; SCUMp, Putin, or their 'blessed' fascism at this point, I am surprised my ride is not attacked for just that ONE small sticker on it!
Hear, hear. And it's just wrong that when I put my flag out this morning I was concerned whether someone would misinterpret my intentions. When trump was in office I was tempted to hang it upside down.
Ken, same here. My immediate family (husband, son, and I) have a total of 33 years of military service to this country. It makes me really mad, and sad, that our patriotism in flying the flag might be interpreted as supporting the “great patriots” who try to destroy our democracy!
I DID have my U.S. flag magnet upside down on my car once when going into a supermarket in Pennsyltucky where I used to live, during the SHITler's reign.
When I came back out it was turned right side up, and I suspect it was from the SCUMper with the huge Expedition covered in orange turd stickers/slogans parked there when I entered the store.
Of course, when I was still there the first year or two of Biden's presidency that same shithead had HIS U.S. flag sticker mounted upside down.
To give you a clue, he had a big sticker across the back window with "FINALLY, someone with BALLS!" emblazoned on it, and also had a Vietnam Veterans sticker on there.
The pickup trucks with the flags often don't have mufflers so they can get more attention and disturb the neighborhood. The police used to give tickets for loud or no mufflers.
There's a house in our neighborhood that is having work done by construction workers. One truck arrives every morning with 4 various pro-trump flags flying. My husband and I say that if we were the homeowners having that work done the guy can either remove the flags, or work elsewhere.
I no longer see the US flag as a symbol of patriotism because that word has been co-opted by people who have no idea what it means to be a patriot. Those folks were the Greatest Generation who suffered through the Depression and fought the Nazis in WWII. My parents would roll over in their graves to see the horrible state of this country since the orange rancidness came to 24/7 prominence.
As well as a co-opted Gadsden Flag, and those single blue stripe (pro-cop) U.S. Flags.
Of course, that is only reserved for when those said supported cops butcher 'others' in cold blood, and it is most definitely NOT for the Capitol Police force at all.
The "F**K Biden" flag is another popular item flying from their pickup truck beds with the MAGAtz around the far rightwingnutter parts.
I saw one of those flags on a truck last weekend, and I don’t know why - but I was shocked. I shouldn’t have been, given the atmosphere today, but I was. I also saw a trump flag that said at the bottom “F**K Your Feelings”. The guy was with his wife and daughter, whom I’m sure is old enough to read.
Yes, but of course THEIR 'sensitive snowflake feelings' are not allowed to be hurt when it comes to calling out THEIR putrid orange fuehrer, or their fascist, White Supremacist Christian Nationalist propaganda/agenda/'movement'.
They will NEVER see, or realize the irony of that being on a publicly displayed flag/sign while railing and ranting about the 'libtard caused moral rot and decay' in our society.
Patriotism is my uncle who landed on Omaha Beach on D Day and also fought in The Battle of the Bulge. Never said a word about it. He fought for other people’s freedom. Put the medals in a drawer.
And what would your uncle, or my relatives, or any of our forebears who fought against fascism, fought and died to stop Nazis and fascists from advancing, what would they say about the likes of tRump and his followers who spout that same kind of garbage at their bund-"rallies" and carry swastika flags and cheer for violence and bullying, just like the "brown shirts" of 1930s Germany? What has this country become?!
Prior to Pearl Harbor, you might have heard of the America First movement, which was very pro-Nazi. Donald's father, Fred Trump, attended some of their rallies. There are file photos of a massive rally in Madison Square Garden with a giant backdrop of George Washington with American flags and swastikas.
I'm hoping to read some comments on white Christian nationalism -- and their "7M." (Seven mountain mandate.) These are some really dangerous people (In Germany, PLENTY of Christians were all onboard with the Nazis.)
It's tragic that so many of those older gents have become converted to the tabloid terrorism preached by Fox nuts. It's a phenomenon that should be studied more closely by psychologists. Jen Senko observed it in her dad's transformation: "The Brainwashing of My Dad."
I am once again thankful, Mr. Reich, for your clear and articulate explanation of true patriotism. I am saddened at what is happening to our country. As an American of 71 years, I look back fondly on the years that my mom and pop taught me the importance of loving and taking care of my country. The horrors that others have endured simply because they were born in a country that does not allow them any freedoms like the ones we have here. I fear for my children and grandchildren if the far right continue their march toward authoritarianism. The freedoms so many take for granted will be gone but by then it will be too late.
The largest majority of people coming across the southern border are running from governmental corruption and aggression in their countries. They are risking personal safety and sometimes death to come to the United States in hopes of having a better life. The majority of these people are willing to work hard for a chance at the American dream. I’ve witnessed many of them over the years doing manual labor jobs that most Americans wouldn’t do!
On the other hand there are many radical right Republicans who would like to overthrow our democratic government. These people are not and will never be happy with our form of government. These are not patriots! They want a country like [Gilead]
When a mother walks thousands of miles with toddlers to find safety for them , she is not just an immigrant, she and her family are assets to our country.
Why not train and support these heroes to care for American elders in their own homes rather than displacing them to 'convalescent ' centers. America would be stronger incorporating their family values .
Besides which, unemployment has gotten so low, red states are now instituting child labor. I think we'd be better off having immigrants doing that work rather than children.
My city was saved by brown immigrants from all over the world taking labor jobs, then starting small businesses. Dead neighborhoods came to life, crime in those areas dropped. Africans are filling home care positions since it is a most honorable job in some of their cultures, while some of them prepare to be nurses and technicians. There is a network for support, and several Orthodox churches grew.
I just read that so many immigrants have decided to leave Florida because of DeSantis' new laws that the state may be in a labor crisis. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Literally.
Absolutely on the spot. This how I would consider a true patriot too. Trump is not spreading patriotism he’s spewing white nationalism like Hitler. One can deny it as much as they like but there’s always existed elements of extremists white nationalism in America. After the Second World War many Nazis moved under pseudonyms to America and they’ve stayed hidden quietly spreading white extremism and hate but when Trump was seeking to be President they recognised his greed for money and power and racism was already in his genes so they anointed him as their leader to achieve their white nationalistic goals. He needed them to win the election with the support of Russia. The path for the destruction of democracy was set when Trump finally won. In the process they have managed successfully to manipulate and turn many more who in their ignorance thought he could be their saviour from the evils and lies they were falsely spreading that were blamed on minorities and immigrants. This was the manifesto of Hitler when he converted millions of Germans to his cause to cleanse Germany of Jews and minorities who he blamed for economic plight that Germany was going through at that time. The real reason for their plight was like today a combination of worldwide economic failures and greed of few for wealth and power. It’s easy to make intellectuals and those that achieve their success through diligence and hard work despite economic setbacks their escape goats while millions more are not thriving. This is how they manipulated the ignorant by blaming others instead of helping them to thrive through wise economic and political decisions. Hitler’s greed for fame and power was achieved by manipulating the ignorance and the economic instability of the majority. Extremists white nationalism survives by inculcating fear, hate and envy of minorities through lies, misinformation and conspiracy theories. This is exactly what’s done today by white extremists media and their propaganda appeals especially to the weak, ignorant, helpless and religious fanatics. Trump feeds of them. We are living in dangerous times when the world is facing several tumultuous problems like climate change, economic setbacks, wealth inequality, wars and growing number of greed for power by dictators and the accumulation of tremendous wealth by only 1% of the population thereby alienating the masses who are feeling oppressed by them. These are the few major problems that are conducive to failing democracy and the uprising of extremists nationalism. It’s time to save democracy by addressing these issues. Fascism, racism and dictatorship is never the answer.
Excellent piece! Please keep calling out Trump on his White Evangelical Nationalist “rubbish”!
Trump defending Civil War secessionists and advocating the white-washing of history is no surprise, but deeply disappointing. His desire to actively slide backwards toward the Jim Crow days of the South with anti-voting laws is appalling. His continued hate speech through misrepresentation of immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community is reprehensible.
William Pitt , yes that William Pitt of Pittsburg fame ! once said “PATRIOTISM IS THE LAST REFUGE OF SCOUNDRELS” to the British Parliament . What do you think Pitt would say about tRUMP who is so fond of dry humping the STARS AND STRIPES and vomiting 🤮 pseudo patriotic verbal diarrhea when he is not leering incestuously at his daughter Ivanka 🤮🙄🤮
On the evening of 7 April 1775, he made a famous statement: "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." The line was not, as is widely believed, about patriotism in general but rather what Johnson saw as the false use of the term "patriotism" by William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (the patriot minister)
“Patriotism having become one of our topicks, “Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.’ But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest.”
Since we are quoting old English politicians, hereare a couple of my favorites:
"I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable."
-- Gonzalo, in William Shakespeare, The Tempest.
“Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? For, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
- Sir John Harington (inventor of the flush toilet)
I agree with you. And that's the problem. I think the vast majority of us here agree with you. And then what? You've said it. We've heard it. And what changes?
Messaging certainly needs to be proactive and not reactive. That has not been the practice of progressives and it needs to change. We need to be out there, on message, with the important accomplishments of the Biden Administration. The response to the Russian Agent Orange has to be “so what have you done?”.
Could also be seen as an (un)intended logical extreme consequence of the corporatizing of religion as duly noted by Kevin Kruse in his book "One Nation, Under God".
If it's Biden vs. Trump, you have 2 comparable records of the same length of time at the same job. Unless we have a great depression or major war directly involving us between now & the election, comparisons will favor Biden by a huge margin.
Right on, Robert. Brilliant article! I would add one thing. True patriots need to spend considerable time to investigate what's going on in politics and society and understand the root cause of our problems. They need to communicate with others about the important issues in a civil manner.
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” – Buddha
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei
“When the truth stops mattering, that is the precise moment at which a society gives away not just its mind, but its soul.” – George Orwell
I don’t even recognize America as it is today.
It’s shameful. Embarrassing. Ridiculous.
People all over the world used to admire this country. After Obama was elected I had people call to congratulate us as a country, people from all over the world were applauding.
Now, while visiting Europe, I have heard nothing but “what in the world is going on over there?!?” People are absolutely stunned that trump gets to run again, and that DeSantis is a trump on steroids that is absolutely insane.
They are bewildered.
Me..... I’m disgusted and embarrassed.
And we should be fearful and vote, vote, vote
And spread Robert Reich’s and Heather Cox Richardson’s insightful comments to educate people so they don’t vote for Trump.
If financially able, an excellent way to help spread Robert Reich's insights is to contribute to Inequality Media Civic Action. This group produces excellent Internet videos of Mr. Reich discussing progressive causes in his usual outstanding manner. https://www.inequalitymediacivicaction.org/
But does the public see them? We need EVERYONE to hear his valuable messages. We need to get this to Biden’s campaign people and have it aired on National TV.
Does anyone have connections?
A sampling of his videos on YouTube show 200K to 500K views with plenty of reactions in the comments for videos that are only a few months old. One video that just came out had 62K views. IMHO, Mr. Reich is getting a good return on his efforts!
The problem with "National TV" is that it no longer exists except for the Super Bowl and a very few other events. Most of us have hundreds of TV channels to choose from, and each channel is lucky to have a few million viewers at any time. "Faux News", one of the most viewed channels, has a typical audience of a couple of million viewers at most.
Thanks for sharing. Will look into it.
See Southern Poverty Law Center’s “The Year in Hate &Extremism” for the full report of what we are fighting against in our country.
I am one of those who would vote for Dr. Reich in a heartbeat should he run.
We should get Mr. Reich circulating on the talk shows. Actually, he should have his OWN talk show! An anti -Tucker Carlson show!
But he's too smart to run.
That's a problem, if that is so.. and why we get who we get.
Yes..thanks!
Will do.
Inspiring to read. Trump is a maniacal danger to the “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness “. Why hasn’t he been put in a strait jacket?
You got that right!!
I agree with you to an extent. People believe what they will believe. Trump and the rest of the extremist white right believe the lies they are told, and they continue to spread their hate.
It doesn't matter what Mr. Reich's and Ms. Richardson's comments are. You can't educate people who continue to believe that that these two excellent people are the ones lying.
Two great commentators and need to be shared.
Marlo, I suspect it will require us all to do a lot of educating and confronting our media to do a better job of presenting fair coverage that is not slanted with the cute little digs I have heard when covering Biden that folks like DeSantis don't receive. DeSantis is an appalling human being whose "near photographic memory" lets him memorize how he should act and what he should say to hook the vulnerable and the media acts as though this is normal candidate behavior. I only see his ignorance and mess-ups when I read Democratic writers and sometimes on MSNBC. We can't defeat the Republican wall of shame unless we can do more and better.
I agree. The news doesn’t tell all. I have called the stations and complained. We need to get the word out. I have posted lots on Nextdoor on the political platforms. The people see the first part of my posts. And can then go on the platform if interested.
So many would prefer to watch movies.
You need to get out of your "bubble". Your comment is filled with nonsense!
Best thing to do: report it (bottom flag)
NOBODY in government forced us to get a shot, but protecting public health is an absolutely legitimate function of government, so not letting millions of Typhoid Marys walk around spreading a virus was a responsible thing to do!
The world WAS hit by a virulent pandemic in the form of a corona virus for which a vaccine WAS rapidly developed {using a development model that has been in use for quite a while and that was able to create a vaccine in far less time than older models did — which is lucky for us, but has led some ignorant people to think the vaccine was rushed out untested and unknown …]. If you wanted to take your chances with a virus that was KILLING record numbers of people in its first form, that’s your privilege, ts1213. But you were never entitled to spread it willy nilly to the rest of us!
All the rest of what you laid out there is equally as twisted and ludicrous. None of it is accurate.
Yes. What about MY safety? It's a question that should be asked w/re to both pandemic denial and deregulation of guns. The sentiment extending one's personal "liberty" to 100% is just not relatable in a collaborative democracy. It reflects an extremist libertarian philosophy that's bound to end in madness and destruction.
The Canadian expert on authoritarianism, Bob Altemeyer, did conclude that those with an authoritarian bent lacked insight -- about themselves, others, and for the future.
Yes, if one wants to see the ultimate epitome of abject IRONY, look at some of the t-shirts worn by the loyal brown shirts attending their putrid orange fuehrer's NAZI BUND MEETING stating, "Once Liberty is lost...".
Yeah, right(wing), lots of F**KING laughs.
Not to mention of course the ubiquitous Magda T Goebbels fan club Moms For Fascism shirts in bountiful aBUNDance there, as well.
I do not know Bob Altemeyer or his work. Clue me in.
Americans (big generalization there, I know) are a dangerous combination of ignorant, hostile to education and the educated, and combative. Tuberculosis used to be a major killer, one that terrified the population. (Literature is full of characters with "consumption" which is TB). Into the mid-20th century, people with TB were sent to TB sanitariums, required to stay there until deemed no longer a danger to the public. If they left without release, they would be rounded up by the police and returned to the PUBLICLY operated sanitarium. Well into the late 20th century, after at least one drug had been developed, people with TB were required to take the drug and report on a schedule to public health authorities and if they failed to keep to those schedules, they would be located by authorities, including police, and incarcerated because they were a danger to the public AND because strict compliance with the drug regimen was necessary to reduce likelihood of the only effective treatment, the drug isoniazid, becoming INeffective and making a drug-resistant TB. Like the requirement that school children have proven, up to date complete vaccinations to attend school, there was at least annual TB testing for all kids in every public school. If a kid (K-12) tested positive, they were sent to the public health department for x-rays to determine the presence of TB in the lungs.
And with the recent COVID-19 plague, people objected to a shot.
By the way, drug resistant TB has developed and you can easily figure out why. To be fair, it has always been said that the drug is very unpleasant, but to do what one can to benefit for the public good? Well, compare it to running onto Omaha Beach under barrage of weapons!
Where, when and how this country went off the rails is an intriguing and somewhat depressing question. To become so thoroughly distrusting of one's own government requires a history of causes for becoming distrustful, cynical, bitter and antagonistic. We desperately need clean government, clean, honest leaders, honest information and a national rededication to the public good based on an educated foundation for what this country is about!
I should clarify that "walk-aways" from TB sanitariums were rounded up by public health authorities as well as police.
Annie, that was a really good summary of TB and the reason the COVID vaccine process was not the "overreach" Republicans that guy on this thread spewed that it was. One of the things America is missing is the need to take care of each other. When "we" became a nation where individualism reigned above all other ways of being in community, it set us back and began letting our leaders and our Supreme Court think it is alright to set people against each other instead of getting people to work together for the good of all. In our case, the ones who should be at the top according to those we have allowed to be in power on the Republican side, they have decided rich, white, straight, pseudo-christian men should be deciding for all of us since their individualism and all their other isms are so well developed. We don't have to go along with their BS and we can help people to see their fascist targeting people to hate is really unamerican as is the money and power-grubbing by rich etc. white men. We do need to start defying their ridiculous laws passed by a minority of the people to control the majority. That is not democracy!
No of course not.
You SHOULD have secreted yourself away and died horribly of COVID-19 so as to spare your loved ones the consequences of your profound ignorance of basic medicine.
Be careful what you are considering "basic medicine." If you take the time to plow through RFK Jr.'s 800 page book, "The Real Dr. Faucci," with over 2,500, footnotes, you will have an eye opening view of what we have all been led to believe is "medicine" and what Big Pharma has done to make a mockery of the scientific method.
John F Kennedy PROMOTED the vaccine. Even RFK’s own family has disavowed him for the LIES he is spreading. RFK is an IGNORANT, DANGEROUS man!
BTW, wasn’t he a drug addict?
As I thought. RFK ignorantly promotes quackery by invoking citations of debunked and discredited sources not recognized by the AMA.
“Mr. Kennedy, a Democrat who plans to kick off his campaign this week, says he wants to make vaccines safer, but he is spreading misinformation by twisting facts out of context.” (N.Y.T., 4/17/23, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg)
“RFK Jr. Is Our Brother and Uncle. He’s Tragically Wrong About Vaccines.” (Politico.com,
By KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, JOSEPH P. KENNEDY II and MAEVE KENNEDY MCKEAN, May 08, 2019)
“...list the numerous conspiracies that RFK Jr has peddled, including his anti-vaccine stance and claims that 5G and Wi-Fi are “controlling our mind”, that AIDs is not caused by HIV, that boys are becoming transgender due to chemicals in the drinking water,...” (independent.co.uk, 7/4/23, by
Bevan Hurley)
“Mr Kennedy told the publication he had “always been aligned with libertarians on most issues”, and that he would consider appointing Tulsi Gabbard as his secretary of state.” (independent.co.uk, 7/4/23, by Bevan Hurley) PS--libertarianism is about as anti-
thetical to Democracy as it gets.
“We love Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but he is part of a misinformation campaign that's having heartbreaking—and deadly—consequences.(Politico,
5/8/19, By KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, JOSEPH P. KENNEDY II and MAEVE KENNEDY MCKEAN)
“How Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Distorted Vaccine Science,” (1/11/17, By Seth Mnookin, pub.Scientific
American.com)
“Democratic party State Senator Will Brownsberger described the book as promoting a conspiracy. Medical doctor Theodore Dalrymple accused Kennedy of paranoia, and criticized his writing for containing contradictions, absurdity, falsehoods, needless exaggerations, and seeing "conspiracy everywhere" while lacking objectivity. Dalrymple's fact checking of five scientific papers cited in the book led him to conclude that Kennedy had interpreted each of them incorrectly and therefore misled readers.” (Wikipedia)
Infectious disease specialist Michael Osterholm says that Kennedy's anti-vaccine disinformation is effective “because it’s portrayed to the public with graphs and figures and what appears to be scientific data. He has perfected the art of illusion of fact.”
(Wikipedia)
No worries. RFK Jr. will take us back to good old traditional Western medicine: leeches and the "corrosive sublimate of mercury."
Those footnotes are laughable. Clearly written by somebody w no understanding of scholarship or investigative techniques.,
Alden, I don't think it a very good idea to read anything from RFK Jr. This is not a man running on all cylinders as they say. It is true Big Pharma has done some cheating, making up data and some other bad stuff, but they are not the enemy; I don't care what any book by RFK, Jr. wrote. He is a conspiracy theorist and makes his life about trying to prove those theories. He is a Republican at heart no matter his name. I think Republicans will find your plot idea more interesting than we here do, but alas, they wouldn't be interested in reading 800 pages even if it is filled with conspiracy theories about a really good guy, Dr. Fauci, one who did a lot to help this nation become healthier. That is something I can definitely not say about RFK, Jr. '.
My Gid that’s ignorant!
Be careful of the "authorities" you are relying on.
Have you heard of ODD, oppositional defiance disorder? Some people find they don't get along, "uncooperative, defiant, and hostile toward peers and authority figures. They are more troubling to others than they are to themselves." Suggestion is that current GOP, particularly MAGA, particularly individuals that are anti-experts, e.g. anti vaccination, fit the diagnosis. You come on Robert Reich's Substack site, that you can read, full of information and persuasive (aka true). And you figure waiving a finger will produce anything but shaking of heads. You are not well if you believe the things you wrote are true. PS Elected and un-elected elites, e.g. Trump, his family and influencer friends, made decisions that were responsible for 1.1 million American deaths during pandemic. Those failed to listen to (R) George W. Bush's pandemic plan, that cost $7.1 billion, drafted in 2005 after reading a book (about pandemic of 1918) summer 2004, published in 2003--and handed his pandemic plan on to Obama (D). Now THAT is leadership. Trump, MAGAs, current GOP, do not resemble thinkers, planners, visionaries. Some European countries asked for the plan and implemented it and succeeded in keeping the death rate down. To be an elected official is to stick-your-neck-out and work, 24/7, and everyone either on-side or arguing with you for their own vision, as life's work. Your rant is pure crap and you know it. Find another way. Persuade people to join in happiness and not growly-bear distain, for helping others instead of discarding people. Get yourself elected and participate in the 24/7 endurance test that is a lifetime of service. Trump and company will spend their days in prison for touting ignorant made-up notions that bankrupted or resulted in deaths. Find yourself another way.
Grimes, you are mistaken! Give credit where credit is due. The “Playbook” was CREATED by President OBAMA and given to Trump who DID NOT read it when the pandemic hit. Remember he told us the sun and BLEACH would kill it.
“Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents.”
The “Playbook” was a 69 page National Security Council guidebook developed with the goal of assisting leaders “in coordinating a complex U.S. Government response to a high-consequence emerging disease threat anywhere in the world.” It outlined questions to ask, who should be asked to get the answers and what key decisions should be made.”
A whole-of-society plan (borders, travel, commerce) was Bush, no lie. It was John Barry’s 2004 book, that secretary Dept Health and Human Services (Mike Leavitt) told Bush to read, The Great Influenza [this was after H5N1, a flu strain, 2003, jumped from migratory birds to humans (60 of 120 people that got the virus died); and after, 2003, coronavirus from masked palm covet (an animal) infected 8,000 killing 800].
Researched book, Premonition, Michael Lewis (Norton 2021), and article, journalist Paul Biasco, (May 31, 2020).
“2005, President George W. Bush, Congress granted $7.1 billion for plan to get America ready for a possible pandemic. Bush … plan called for early detection, international cooperation, stockpiling of vaccines and medical equipment, and public education about pandemic prevention.
“President Trump ignored or contradicted suggestions, resulting in delayed, chaotic response to the coronavirus crisis.”
“In granular detail, Bush called for increased epidemiological research, improved vaccine technology, detailed quarantine plans, and more stockpiling of everything from vaccines to personal protective gear.” “Bush requested $251 million from Congress to help foreign nations train local medical personnel, expand their surveillance and testing capabilities, and detect and contain outbreaks.
“In September 2019, Trump administration stopped funding PREDICT, an initiative under US Agency for International Development (USAID) that worked with dozens of foreign laboratories including the one in Wuhan, China, that identified the novel coronavirus.”
“Bush administration launched National Bio-surveillance Initiative, 2005, to increase government's ability to rapidly detect and respond to outbreaks in humans and animals. And set up systems to quickly share data between local, state, national, and international public health officials.”
“Trump’s White House eliminated $30 million Complex Crises Fund, which secretary of state can access to deploy disease experts.“
“2003 Bush asked for $1.2 billion for enough avian flu vaccine to inoculate 20 million Americans and $1 billion to stockpile antivirals like Tamiflu.
“The Obama administration utilized the stockpile during the 2009 H1N1 and 2016 Zika outbreaks” “Bush asked for more than $500 million for pandemic preparedness, including $100 million to help states develop and test out pandemic exercises before a health crisis hit. And he tasked HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt to work with state and local public health officials on coordinating their contingency plans.
“During first months of pandemic, Trump put the burden on states and local governments to scale up their testing plans and pandemic responses.
“In 2017, outgoing members of the Obama administration briefed Trump's team on dealing with a pandemic, though some staffers were dismissive of the simulated exercises.” “The Trump White House also declined to use Obama's 69-page pandemic preparedness playbook because it was "dated," Politico reported.”
VJ: I don't know that I would use W and "leadership" in the same paragraph, but I take your point.
Agree. Bush was BAD for our country in many ways and was led by the nose by Cheney.
It was OBAMA that created the pandemic manual, called “The Playbook “ and gave it to Trump. It should have been entitled “Playbook For Dummies; Step By Step Instructions of What To Do In a Pandemic” .
Bush was 9/11 and Katrina. He learned, anything might happen, and took some advice.
Well said, and eloquent, VJ.
The vaccine "mandate" for larger companies was never a true mandate. Anyone who did not wish to get the vaccine was only required to be tested for covid twice a week--a nuisance, to be sure, but if you really did have strong objections to getting the covid vaccine, you did have an alternative.
Were YOU forced to get the shot? Were YOU forced to have an abortion? Were YOU forced to lock yourself in your house? If so, I would say you are responding from communist China, because none of that happened here.
As far as workplace or school mandates for vaccines go, the US has had them for well over a century now. Suddenly, people propagandized you that the public good in that scheme is stealing something from you, some fake freedom. Learn to live in a civil society, please.
NAZI fascists will use ANYTHING/EVERYTHING as propaganda for their purposes of; division, derision, dissention, and violent turning on the 'others'.
Just inject some bleach in your butt next time around. You'll be fine.
I think TFG was advocating intravenous or inhaled bleach “like a cleaning,” not intramuscular injection. Great idea, huh? 👀
Our behavior should be guided by actions that support the greater good of all humankind. Your anger is palpable and unproductive in striving to uphold the basic tenants of democracy.
Who are the tenants of democracy?
The word you mean is “tenets”.
Those who believe in a democratic form of government: “We, the people…” Do you agree?
What is it like going through life when everything that you believe to be true is unsupportable by verifiable evidence? I would guess that in some ways it might be freeing, if it didn't invariably lead one down ever darker and more paranoid rabbit holes. You have spiraled quite far.
What's that old, totally cliched adage?
Something or the other is "bliss"?
Your comment is filled with allegations. Show factual proof of one of your statements.
No. You should vote for Biden because he is sane and knows how to govern. He is not a racist narcissistic sociopath. Period. Educate yourself!
You make a point that you aim at Biden but I think should be aimed at the general direction our government - whether under Democrat or Republican control- has been taking in the last several decades. Except for your fear of a world court, which no US government has ever paid any attention to, and which, I believe, we damn well should have, I agree with everything you said. We are allowing the government to become far too strong. I believe in a strong government which regulates and controls the excesses of free market capitalism, but I fear, as you do, the tendency of our leaders to make decisions which no elected government has the right to do. How can we continue to persecute and threaten Julian Assange for publishing facts that are classified but which we have the right to know? How can put up with Obama's prosecuting more whistleblowers than all previous presidents combined? How can we allow ourselves to be brainwashed by the corporate media into paying the Pentagon 850 billion dollars a. year to make the industrial complex even richer? And to start a war with China? I think the problem lies in an arrogance and a sense of infallibility that has permeated the civilian and military Federal employees that live in and around DC. It's a sort of Federal hubris that is possibly more dangerous to the planet than Putin is.
Why don’t you go live in China or Russia and see how you like it? If Frumpf is elected President, that’s what we are headed for!
I've visited the old Gestapo prison in Berlin where the 1944 anti-Hitler coup plotters were hung from meathooks. The meathooks were still there. That's what Tя☭mp has in mind for us if he regains power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch?wprov=sfti1
History repeating itself? Share the link.
" How can we continue to persecute and threaten Julian Assange for publishing facts that are classified but which we have the right to know?"
"We have the right to know?"
We have the right to know when our Intel agencies, including NARA, decide to release facts, when it it safe, for us to see them, often many many years after facts are generated, because to release them may cause irrepairable harm and/or death, to our assets in the field. These people risk their lives, every day, in order to keep our country safe. We NEED them ! Alive!
So we the people have no choice but to wait until certain facts can be released, because this is a very dangerous world we are living in. We have no idea what exactly our intel people are working on on a day to day basis, and we should'nt, beause the mere publication of their work, spread to the general public, could start WWIII. So we need to simply wait, until our government decides when we can access certain info, or, as you might suggest, just pass it all out to MAGA like people, instantly, who would probably use it to destroy our democracy. Also, if that data was simply, instanly released, that would mean that all of our enemies, world wide, would have tremendous leverage over us, as they keep their data secret, and that just might be the end, of the USA.
I do agree. Theoreticaly, we should have access to any info our democratic government generates, but in many cases, that would simply be unwise until many years have passed. Lives, and our country, are at stake.
Are you from Russia ts? I ask because most Americans who don’t agree with vaccines don’t
publicly spread rampant, untrue, long-ago debunked
paranoid conspiracy theories because they know they won’t be taken seriously about the current
conspiracy theories.
He won't be the first FSB Putinbot to appear on here, that's for sure. ;) :(
You have been duly brainwashed. Everything you say is false. Get out of your RWNJ bubble and experience some truth and facts. You'll be a better patriot. What you are now is nothing less than a detriment to progress and freedom.
Reader of all things Biden here. Nothing you said has any familiarity to my reading. Had a friend who willfully refused to get his vaccine. He died of covid, but he made his point succinctly. Personally I was hoping more anti vaxxers would perish but not the people I knew and loved. Only because we have to many people living lives that are destructive to the environment.
👎👎👎💙💙💙
Sadly, so very true. TRump has brought America, the country I thought I knew, and still love, down to his base level. History will show tRump was the worst, most evil, dictator to rise to power, even worse than Hitler. He brought a beautiful country ruin & shame. Beware!!
First he'll have to surpass his own puppetmaster Putin, who has caused more harm worldwide than anyone since at least Hitler. If Trump never returns to the presidency, which he shouldn't by anything that is rational & just, he will simply be the most destructive, traitorous American in history.
Please, worse than Hitler? He is not sitting the the Oval Office right now as we do respect elections. I am GOP and Biden won. President Joe Biden is my president until he retires or loses in 2024. Stop your naked lies.
We ought to remember that Hitler did not rise to power overnight. His deadly coup took several years while he and his minions worked to pull the rug of reality from under Germany's feet and slowly hollowed out a democratic government from within. When a cancer metastasizes and dominates from within, hope eventually surrenders. That's a dictator's wet dream.
Hitler wrote "Mein Kaempf" while serving time in the can after being busted over his involvement in "The Beer Hall Putsch" - vaguely equivalent to 1/6. Indeed, he even wrote it personally, without a team of paid ghost writers.
He was let out of prison early and was in total control in 10 years.
So just because tRump has to do a little time doesn’t mean he’s out of the picture forever. Very likely the next Repooplickin president will pardon him.
I see you took my meaning. They really >do< need to put ol' Tweety out of the picture for as long as possible, and even then he'll likely exercise some kind of influence. Imagine him in the pen surrounded by a white supremacist prison gang sporting swastika tattoos. Manson had one tattooed on his forehead! And unless they disenfranchise ol' Tweety of all assets, he'll have plenty of cash to spend on the ones that get released. Odd jobs, you know. He could conceivably become a real mafia king. I don't think anything short of permanent solitary confinement can prevent >that< kind of fiddle.
I'm not saying he shouldn't be sent to penitentiary for the rest of his natural life. I'm suggesting the penitentiary he's sent to be Ft. Leavenworth, or better yet, Guantanamo. Something like Riker's Island would only serve to expand his social circle of like-minded convicts.
No one ever accused Herr Hitler of being stupid. He was clever but for all the wrong reasons. If whoever denigrated his early artworks lived long enough, he/she surely must have regretted that decision. If his creative desires has been nourished early on, the world might have been a very different place.
Actually, I kind'a agree with you. Having at one time in life moved in artistic circles, I was never overly impressed with the virtue of artists, even though many extol their purity and think it would be a good idea to have artists as leaders. Consider Hitler's Reichsminister of Music, Herr Richard Strauss, who among other things brought us the opening credits for 2001, a Space Odyssey. (Unlike his contemporary Paul Hindemith, who finally concluded the whole thing was bullshit and emigrated to Britain. As of my last info, the Turks still adore Hindemith as founder of their music education system, his job at the time. That's open to update or revision, if warranted. At that, he was reputedly - I never knew the man personally - still a bit of an insufferable prat, although among my favorite 20th Century composers.) Better they all remain artists than presume to the purple! Look at ol' Ronald McReagan!
The additionally disturbing fact about the rise of the Third Reich is that Hitler was elected. Yes, there were machinations and deceptions to make that happen, but sometimes people INVITE evil into power. (See America 2016).
Yes, THIS!
Albeit SCUMp and it's minions are not YET <-(operative word here) to the level of genocidal evil that it's mentor reached and surpassed, it certainly has the potential to be worse IF it ever regains the power it seeks, FOR LIFE (elections would be OVER if it is EVER installed into power again!).
Of course, the very same goes for DeathSATAN, and a few others IF allowed into power.
So far, our supposed effing 'guardrails and safeguards of democracy' against autocracy/fascism/despotism did NOT seem all that strong when subjected to even very feeble, disorganized attempts to overrun them. :( :( :(
Biden is President after a DEADLY, TRAUMATIC, DAMAGING planned insurrection by TRUMP was successfully fought. How much worse would our country be if they HAD overtaken the Capitol and killed Pence and Pelosi as their intent?
You support that lying CRIMINAL and the party that supports him? You are no better and should be ashamed to say you are Republican.
If they killed Pelosi and Pence, they would be in jail. It may have been the intent of a few. Why did BLM burn down cities across the nation? Bad protests or a few evil individuals?
First, off try to debate honestly since BLM did not burn down cities across the US. Hyperbolic much? Y'all post pictures of that which have been proven to be FAKE, from other cities in other parts of the world. When you have to lie to try and land some fake point, you are already losing the battle.
Second, were the 2020 protesters protesting to try and stop a duly elected president from taking his seat, in other words, seditious activity? No, they were not. That was the FIRST time that ever happened Mr.. MAGA, all premised on a lie promulgated by your cult leader. And THEY were rioting, not protesting.
Sad what's happened to what probably were formerly, good, patriotic Americans. You no longer are because you chose to worship a conman and follow a false ideology. If you cannot see the fascistic parallels, you are blind, period. You have been radicalized by y'all queda.
They peacefully protested. But we are not here to talk about BLM. You must be a pro Trumping deflector
He's been radicalized. Probably formerly a sane person, but it is easy to draw people into a cult as we've learned. And it's funny, because they always use terms like "intelligence", "logic" and "patriotism" in their profiles, which they seem to fully lack.
That’s nonsense. BLM didn’t “burn down cities across the nation.” And Antifa raccoons didn’t start the Oregon wildfires.
I’m still waiting for confirmation on the Jewish space lasers. But in the meantime you might consider some factual fact-checking.
A large portion of the riots & looting were instigated by members of terrorist groups like the Boogaloo Bois, Identity Evropa, Patriot's Prayer, Proud Boys & QAnon sent to the protests for the specific purpose of causing trouble, starting a race war or civil war while scapegoating BLM & Antifa.
I salute you.
However, Hitler was a bona fide war hero from The Great War, 1st edition. (Iron Cross, 1st degree, a decoration normally reserved for officer grades. Hitler was a corporal.)
On the other hand, ol' Tweety had bone spurs! You could argue validly that ol' Tweety's worse than Hitler based on that alone! LOL!
Nonetheless, I salute you for at least recognizing Biden's legitimacy, and by extension, the whole electoral process as it stood in '20. (Jury's out on what it'll be in '24, or even in the intervening state and local elections.)
Yes, please put some clothes on your lies... maybe an SS uniform?
Maybe even Mengele's uniform?
Plus, tfg did not do this all by himself. He had a very skillful puppet master, along with many in the US Senate & House (not to mention his VP, AG, and others) who either purposely or spinelessly aided, abetted and otherwise enabled him. They gladly put party and/or self interests over country and the Constitution when they should have been acting as the "checks and balances" they were responsible for being. (AND THEY ARE STILL THERE.)
My perspective is that the greatest threat to our democracy is our own domestic rich-folks and their brand of aggressive capitalism.
They have been successfully clawing back power ever since Regan’s administration trickle-down theory got implemented. Wealth and income inequality have been growing since then. Tax cuts to the rich and corporations have impacted debt levels as their fair share stays in their pockets. Unions have been declining as working people’s
Jobs were shipped abroad and minimum wages have not kept up with inflation.
And with the citizens united fiasco handed down by SCOTUS the rich can legally take advantage of their wealth in elections, cementing their political dominance by electing politicians who are happy to do their bidding. Nobody who’s been paying attention should be surprised that “democracy” itself is on the menu because more and more Americans believe in money more than community apparently.
The GOP has swallowed the cool aid and have descended into a nihilism whose only guiding principle is political power. So alternate facts and other rational nonsense becomes the light attracting the discontented to their base.
Look beyond your particular political boogeyman and follow the money to realize that the middle class’s demise will be at the hand of the upper class.
Meanwhile, the biosphere is submerged in the 6th great extinction and global warming threatens the survival of humanity while our partisan divided government has only recently squeezed out legislation to begin to address the fossil fuel problem. An ascendant GOP Administration could easily derail that effort should it control both the house and senate or the Whitehouse.
Business will have to forego their “GROWTH“ mantra and rethink the GDP to fit the resources available on a shrinking resource constrained globe and allow women to control their fertility to remove the productive burden of a burgeoning population. These future demands will require a fully functioning democracy both here and abroad.
Or we can take the “Business as Usual” track and hope that Elon Musk can successfully colonize the subzero Martian desert before it’s Death Valley everyday, everywhere on Mother Earth!
It would require quite a lot to out evil, Hitler. Vianna’s hyperbole is likely fueled by the anxiety that the constant divisiveness and lies issuing from civilian Trump evokes in people who value sincerity and respect for the common good!
Without the traces on him (whoa horsey) he would be absolutely horrible. Thank heavens for The Constitution!
Vianna, I wonder if we're incorrectly crediting TFG with supplying the materials for explosion, when he's merely the catalyst.
It seemed to me that the xenophobia, racism, misogyny and fascistic leanings were already there, burbling under the surface but unclaimed. He was just more willing than others to blatantly court that resentment. All he seemed to do was give those, who felt sheepish about claiming such feelings before, what they felt was permission to say it out loud and in a crowd. The ingredients for ruin were already there and armed; 45 just gleefully lit the fuse for his own selfish benefit.
Pay special attention to item 9 in the slideshow at this link:
- 27 Things MAGA People Ruined For Others Forever:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/27-things-maga-people-ruined-for-others-forever/ss-AA1dpdub
These MAGAt NAZIS have ruined and totally co-opted way, way too much in their brief reign.
But, I guess that they were ALWAYS there, maybe even siding with the actual 3rd Reich during WW2, but were just way too sheepish then to stand up for their love of fascism??
They were most likely part of 'Father' Coughlin's devoted radio show audience , as well as the original "America First" isolationist movement, which they knew could only help out (S)Hitler in it's evil dominance and genocide.
But, I would really like to know, ACCURATELY, just how much of our current populace IS actually admitted NAZI fascist?!?
All the way back to the Confederacy. Did you happen to notice where ol' Tweety just had his latest rally and what he was a'preachin'?
Yup, and SWEARING a defense of that town's name for the 'sanctity of the Confederacy' against us 'leftist, Marxist commie libtards', for all of it's foaming a the mouth, wildly cheering, loyal brown shirt MAGAtz there. :(
9 definitely jives with my comment but lots of them hit home. Flags, sense of peace, SCOTUS, there were many things on that list that have been hijacked and we all need to hijack them back. Check out a post by @D. Earl Stephens about taking back the flag. I totally feel that one.
That's a good point that seems to get lost in the discussion. I think I made a remark months ago that ol' Tweety served a useful purpose in disabusing us of euphoria over Obama having been elected. It wasn't the end of bigotry - just the critical mass of the illusion.
All of the many horrors that tRump's invasion of our government and institutions wrought also carried with them so many revelations of flaws, shortcomings and holes in our governing documents, policies and practices; just a few:
A sitting President can't be indicted. (It is not a LAW! It was a policy memo! Any President since Gerald Ford could have ended it. So END IT!)
The definition of treason is related to war. (tRump & Co. compel a broadening of that definition.)
The Electoral College. (No further comment needed)
There are SO MANY more. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted by thinking about tRump and the wake behind him that spreads such poison.
The more important issue now is: what to do to demand reform!
I think you are absolutely correct and the conditions in which tRump found his launching pad are actually more disturbing than his presence. His time will inevitably come to an end as it does to us all, but his cult, his followers, those who gave him the pedestal? They are still among us. You see them at the bund-rallies with their children there with them, listening to the tRump filth. That is another generation being "home-schooled"!
Annie, this is a chilling prospect I hadn't considered: the high percentage of QANuts who home school. I'm not wholesale against home schooling. It can be beneficial when done thoughtfully. Many in this crowd, however, seem to do so especially to promote division and ensure their children are inculcated with the same hatreds they have. They also seem to be owners of their own personal armories and training their kids to be crack shots. Not a good cocktail for this nation's future if we don't want a crazed, warped theocratic cult running things.
1 of many, including many in the right-wing media funded by corporate executives & other billionaires.
💯
Right. So he's massacred 6 million people so far? At least - it would have to be a higher number to be worse. Where are the bodies and the camps?
Hitler had 12 years in power. tRump caused at least 300,000 excess COVID deaths in a year. 300,000 x 12 would be 3,600,000 deaths without firing a shot. He's right up there in terms of kills per year.
The bodies? Many were cremated... I wonder where they got that idea.
I saw an older respected documentary just last week that talked about when it was obvious that the Nazis were losing the war, they actually dug up some of the bodies they'd buried in mass graves and burned them, to destroy the evidence.
I've seen estimates that Trump was responsible for as many as 700,000 or more COVID deaths with his recklessness & negligence.
I suspect that another term headed by Trump would be a reign of terror. Even worse with DeSantis. And almost as bad with just about any other Republican (not Hurd & maybe not Hutchinson, but what chance does either of them have?). And it would be permanent. The next Republican President will refuse to leave power.
Give it, (or Death SATAN for that matter) time, or BETTER YET, DON'T!!! ;)
Some posters are baiting us. Someone needs to block them/report them. I’m not sure who this would be, but this isn’t Facebook, nor is it a free-for-all. I come here for a reason and intelligent discourse. Let others go elsewhere to spew their lies and ignorance. If anyone knows who to contact, please do so. Thanks.
How could you not remember the children separated from their parents and kept in cages? Toddlers attempting to care for infants? Where have you been? How could you not notice nazis chanting “you will not replace us “ as they murdered Americans in our streets? Where the hell have you been while this national nightmare has been going on? Bedminster?
Did you come on this site to deflect, cause divisions and hate as Trump does?
Oh dear, not “worse than Hitler”. Think about it: as horrible a person Trump may be, an anti-Semitic, a raging racist, he has not caused the annihilation of more than 6,000,000 people, nor be directly involved in any person’s death--at least that is commonly known.
Pay special attention to item 16 of the slide show at this link:
- 27 Things MAGA People Ruined For Others Forever:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/27-things-maga-people-ruined-for-others-forever/ss-AA1dpdub
Same here, I am also disgusted and embarrassed.
I am too!
We still have the wherewithal and structures to turn it around — at least we do NOW, if we don’t let a Trumpist into the White House to further destroy our democracy ….
We desperately need to use our system to repair our system, while we still have it!!!
Just as we love our children even when they go astray, and we try to teach them to be better people, we need to hold onto what we love about our country, face it’s real history and what has been done wrong, and vow to do better. And then go and DO it!!
Agree! Sadly, my one vote lacks its previous worth since I live in the gerrymandered State oh Ohio led by a majority of misguided, law-defying representatives.
It’s tough to turn it around, but they worked for decades to gain the power to gerrymander, and we have to work hard to take it back. Countrywide, we do need to keep the pressure on to undo the damage that’s already been done.
Yes, one vote is small, but it’s the aggregate that counts. It has always been the aggregate that counts. We need to grow and grow and grow the aggregate … I hope w can.
Like Pat said already, your vote isn't arriving alone. Cast it and others like it can combine to drive the change sought. If we don't try, we've already lost. VOTE!
Actually, I think Ohio can come back. Make sure youth realize they have the power to make the difference & vote. Democracy depends so much on the young now.
God, I hope so.
There once were Bund Rallies here .. one in Madison Square Garden. .while Hitler was taking over Europe. . .just a territorial dispute really none of our business. # the space takes . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU1IVW6uqM0
or Rachel Maddow, who's been pursuing our fascist strain in depth. . .
Her earlier podcast on the history of it IN the U.S. was excellent, collaborated with and based on the book by Bradley Hart (I do hope I have his correct name to give him credit due).
Would like to see her Run for Office . in the tradition of The Brightest and Best ..
I live in Canada and sadly some of the authoritarian ideas and conspiracy theories have infiltrated some of our media and politicians. But so far “peace, good governance and the rule of law “ have prevailed. I don’t recognize the country that is the United States now. You are right about the incredulity expressed by Europeans about the political situation where a convicted felon gets to run for president and is supported by around 30% of the population. I read about mass shootings every week and am horrified. Worst of all is the
Governing from the bench by a corrupt majority on the Supreme Court. Who has the political will to challenge them?
Only voting is left to right the wrongs being perpetrated by a rogue Republican Party.
I've noticed that from the Canadian news. So sorry that it went viral. But I do wonder if, on a larger scale, Trump really is just a symptom of mass social change on a planetary scale puffing up into political extremism and reflected in religion. Population density can magnify it, because it points out the discrepancies between the insular areas that lag behind. The former diverse areas are forced to find ways to get along, while the latter consolidate culturally. So uneven.
Bernie Sanders is right: it really IS all about the money and financial inequality. That inequity lies below so much societal unrest. And when it pops, it can bring out the ugliness as well as glory in human nature. Always, always, follow the money.
I completely agree with your assessment. Globalization has increased inequality worldwide and more people feel left behind and angry. These people are then receptive to the authoritarian message.
Your not the only one! The Insurrectionest is an Embarrassment to the U.S. and the world! Lock his ass up if he can fit in the cell!👍☮️🇺🇲
I would add "confused." HOW can SO MANY be SO STUPI-Ohhhhhh, right. Bunkerboy created a Deathcult. Sorry, I forgot for a second.
Oh that it could only meet the same ends as it's Berlin Bunkerboy mentor did 78 years ago. ;)
The Christians have their “Antichrist”, the nation has its “anti-partriots” — both posing as a savior while embodying the very opposite. The far Right agenda is essentially to destroy governance, so the rich and powerful can really do anything they want without consequence.
When George W Bush was elected, we traveled to Spain and were confronted by the same reaction.
Where in Europe did you go? Italy elected a far right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. Britain has had a conservative government for decades. Hungary has been a far right nation for year run by Viktor Orbán, who's the darling of the Republican party and Trump. In France Marine Le Pen is gaining in polls and it's very possible that she could win the next general election. In Sweden the right wing Sweden Democrats, who have ties to neo-nazi groups, is gaining popularity and are the second largest party in Sweden's parliament. In Finland the conservative National Coalition (NCP), winner of April's parliamentary election, has reached agreement to form a majority government with the eurosceptic, anti-immigration Finns Party. Finland has now shifted towards the right.
In just about every country far right political parties are gaining ground. When people go on about Europe I feel they are just not really paying attention to what's going on. The anti-immigration sentiment is high in a lot of European countries and in some Scandinavian countries there is also a rise of an anti-tax movement. The Danish People’s Party is an anti-Islam, anti-immigration, anti-tax party. The good news there is the majority of Danes don't support this far right party.
My point is what's happening in this country is also happening in some European countries. That said, there is still a difference between the British Conservative Party and Republican Party. In Europe the Republican Party would be considered a far right wing party in line with the Danish People's Party.
I'm sure most Europeans are aghast at the level of gun violence we have and how our government does nothing to stop it.
Good post. Yes, I too have noticed what is happening there. I just read about Sweden the other day. To me, it's absolutely shocking it is happening in Scandinavia, but the nativist, anti-immigrant sentiment there has grown large.
I will say that it seems that the Muslim population that immigrated to many parts of Europe have isolated themselves in their communities and that has led to radical terrorist cells building and creating terrorist incidents. Nothing will help build anti-immigrant hate like that, so the state, which likely is partially to blame for isolating them in poverty, needs to deal with that. While I empathize with the plight of immigrants, both here and abroad, no one wants to feel unsafe in their own country because of immigrants that bring in terrorism. That has not happened in the US though, i personally have no fear of immigrants and we need them to do the jobs we now refuse to do, yet the same anti-immigrant sentiment exists here. Climate change is one of the root causes of this and the people that hate immigrants also think climate change isn't real. It's maddening.
Pay special attention to item 12 in the slide show at this link:
- 27 Things MAGA People Ruined For Others Forever:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/27-things-maga-people-ruined-for-others-forever/ss-AA1dpdub
are you the Bruce Reed who graduated from Emerson College?
Nope.
It's troubling that much of the conversation here has been sidetracked. Because Dr. Reich has laid out an alarming scenario through Trump's alt-right dialogue that condones, maybe even encourages, domestic terrorism. We must say it boldly, because other societies that have become tracked by such trickery have descended into social madness. Nazi-era Germany comes to mind, and we're still picking up the pieces of THAT.
I'd like to know if ~50,000 people actually were at this dreadful event, because the Trump crew usually inflates their crowds. I'd also like to know if those "Christian" churches will preach the same foul garbage next Sunday. "Love your neighbor" indeed!
No one should believe anything Trump says, ever.
Trickery = manipulation. Every word he utters is a manipulation.
I'd like to know the actual number at this NAZI BUND MEETING as well as the actual, accurate number NATIONALLY who still support this megalomaniacal, fascist despot.
IS it really as many as their foaming at the mouth, screaming LOUDLY, SHITler cheering, loyal brown shirts suggest??
We can't forget that many attendees are like groupies, traveling anywhere to worship at the orange feet of their "savior". Plus, I wonder if he's still paying people to attend. (I used to see ads on craigslist for this but haven't checked lately, and he may be using a less obvious way to recruit..)
Ditto!
Yes, friends currently in Mexico City having a ball (friends from Tucson). No worries but they are cautious of course. The Trumpster of course would have you believe all Mexicans are rapists and terrible people. Tucsonans, so many of Hispanic heritage, know the truth about their people and culture--to be celebrated not criticized.
I’m late but nevertheless want to contribute. I referee college soccer and have to stand in the center circle when they play the Star Spangled Banner before high school or college games. I used to stand tall and sing the words just as my father, (who served in Patton’s Third Army during WWII) and used to do at Yankee Stadium when I was a child. After Trump was elected, I could only hang my head in shame - eyes focused on the ground wondering how far this country has fallen. Since Biden was elected, I hold my head a little higher realizing that the America I know and love, the patriotism described in Robert Reich’s essay will overcome the hate, racism and greed of those who support trump or autocratic power. I look forward to the day when we take back our flag and wave it proudly to demonstrate that the American experiment in a multi-racial democratic society prospers.
Your article was amazing and should appear in prime time as an ad on Fox News. It needs to be part of the message that will go out to the American people during the coming election.
I’m not sure if an ad on Fox news is optimal, but I do love the way that you (Robert Reich) have put Trump’s self-serving claims in sharp relief with what genuine accountability, strength and community involvement can be. I also believe that the more that the Democratic Party genuinely owns up to ways that working-class folks have had their needs and best interests undermined by big money (by efforts of members of both parties) might help restore credibility for Democrats in upcoming elections.
Here’s the problem. Trump is not the president. Focus on the president now who is overseeing this.
No, Al, are you serious? Do you think the "American people" are paying attention? Whom do you consider the "American people?" I've got news for you if you think anyone is going to be influenced to change his/her mind. New tactics needed.
I agree that it is hard to change minds, but in the meantime Democrats can do good communication of facts and ideals so that we get Dem voters to vote in every election. Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Gavin Newsome, Raphael Warnock and of course Robert Reich do outstanding jobs of communicating. Consistent messaging that can be taught to average Americans is needed. We can be influential with our neighbors, but message needs to be concise.
The job of Democrats right now is to pass AN OVERABUNDANCE of legislation that HELPS Americans. THEN the IMPORTANT next step is to COMMUNICATE those messages EVERYWHERE. I think purchasing airtime on FOX "news" and OAN and . . . the third one might be helpful.
Every once and a while I see the other side's hard core, extremist RIGHTWINGNUTTER BS, and SCUMp ads on MSNBC, so why TF not??
Hear! Hear!
I am receiving unusual texts from someone who says he is Robert Reich. What can be done? This one was from today:
“I updated my community lately on Biden’s stimulus bill packages utility bill help reduction and monthly Medicare and filibuster changes on voting bills right.We are specifically talking about $40-$60k fourth stimulus check as it pertains to low income and fixed income beneficiaries who receive social security SSDI SSI and other low benefits as well as seniors and people with disabilities.monthly income do you wish to apply?”
Robert Reich, someone is impersonating you!
“New tactics” in what form? If we value our system and think it can work, then we need to make it WORK. We can’t save it by throwing it over! What our opposition party is doing is UNDOING our right to a competent and comprehensive eduction, and our right to a press than will tell us the truth about what is going on, and our right to THE VOTE.
If our education system is being perverted, if our press is being drowned out, if our VOTE is being repressed, we need to work harder and speak louder to get the truth and the VOTE to people. If we throw over the system to save the system, that way lies chaos and a new dictator will rise to power.
What are we trying to save? And how to we plan to SAVE it, not further destroy it?
Interesting. I commented elsewhere today on the ongoing debate concerning >who< exactly are the "WE" in "we the people." I continually find myself not being one of 'em among those screaming it the loudest! LOL!
I see BOTH sides saying, and using on signage, etc. the "We The People" term.
At least the Nazis and fascists have not TOTALLY co-opted that one, yet. ;)
Upon reflection, they don't need to co-opt it. They insinuate themselves among those who >are< co-opting it. Republicans aren't MAGAs or Nazis, but MAGAs and Nazis >are< Republicans. They haven't coopted a word; they've coopted a whole damn party - that was begging for being coopted to win!
Ever heard the term: "weasel words?" In this case, a WEasel word.
Great idea! We’ll have to work hard to change the minds of the US citizens who drank tRump’s kool-aid. I’ll never figure out WHY???!!
What about the ones STILL drinking it, even as they are dying from it?!?
Its called being responsible and not wanting to live from hand outs. Dems want people to be relying on the government to take care of them: Reps want you to get a job and pay your own way. We use government to provide the framework for that idea; not be the master.
Fossil fuels are subsidized at 11 million dollars per minute. Petroleum socialism.
The Greedy Oil Party supports the top 0.001%. Not enough votes so they pander using social issues they don’t care about and can barely define.
The last republican administration to run in the black was Eisenhower.
Trump suffers from narcissistic personality disorder and sociopathy but is great at pandering.
Biden’s administration is actually improving the environment for middle and lower class jobs.
That democrática want people to be dependent upon government is not supported by an analysis of history.
Pardon the frank response, but bullsh***.
The Left want the government to work for all the people, not just the ones with enough money to make a lot of noise in the press and buy influence in legislatures.
Who do you think is raking off the big bucks from all those contracts with for military supplies, guns, ammo, ships, planes … !!??
That is OUR tax money going to pay outrageous dollars that are scooped up by the guys at the top to the tune of BILLIONS, and the millions of people doing the work to keep the country functioning are paid squat.
The PEOPLE are the ones who create jobs in this country, buy creating demand for things like food, like houses, likee cars, like furniture, like schools, like clothes… If we earn decent money to buy those things, there are decent jobs for so many more people.
If the already wealthy scarf up all the dough and put it in banks {too often offshore}, or invest it in goldmines in some faraway country, how does that help US?
Get real. Seriously, get real.
Rubbish. I don’t know any Democrats who believe such things. But I know several Republicans that game the system, cheat on taxes, and take every freebie they can get. The demagogic ideology has blinded you.
Then why are the Repooplickins (and corporate DINOs!) doing their best to kill jobs, reduce workers' pay, and take away our rights?
Next, she'll be citing 'welfare queens' driving new Bimmers, even AFTER HER effing POS fascist 'get a job' (that THEY will then MAKE SURE disappears!) party totally obliterates any/ALL OF the safety nets in existence.
Now we have the 'Moms For Fascism' bots on here as well as all of the effing Putiebots!
C'mon, Lynn . . . you can do better than that. My professors used to call those statements "glittering generalities." They make absolutely no sense, and are usually fed to people to convince them that "the others" are bad people, and stupid.
They reflect no nuance, no complexity, and both those qualities are necessary to run a democratic system. But they do reflect emotion and anger, I'll grant you that.
But that would require giving money to Fox.
Unfortunately, ZERO amount of "sOuNd LoGiC" will penetrate Dear Leader's bubble of willful ignorance. These people need to be DEPROGRAMMED like those poor souls stuck in abusive relationships.
Also unfortunately, I am not the man to be able to help with that. I do not possess the special skillset necessary to not lose my mind.
Great idea!! Let’s send it to the head of Biden’s campaign! Anyone know the contact information?
It needs to be THE MESSAGE of every Democratic candidate!!!
Fox News would not air it in the past...would they now? To redeem themselves?
“And he declared America’s most dangerous opponents not to be Russia, China, or North Korea but ‘enemies within’ America.
“Rubbish.”
No, Trump’s exactly right about this — BUT HE is the enemy within America, seeking to enlist all the other, lesser enemies into his own insurrectionist army. We can hardly expect him to point that finger at himself, but we can and must.
TUMP is so darn stupid and ignorant, all he knows how to do it PROJECT and accuse his enemies of doing what that dumb idiot is doing himself... i am sick of that SOB and fed up with his antics.
Virtually all Republicans are now doing the same: projecting, deflecting & gaslighting.
Jaime Ramirez ; They are all liars! Most of them are traitors! How could anyone who supported the insurrection still be in office?
Ans. Garland, FBI, asleep at the switch.
Laurie:
Because Biden, Schumer, Jeffries, and the other corporate Dems don't have the stones to do anything about it... or else they are on the take too.
Precisely Jaime!
They are also quite PROUD about their projection, AND outright blatant hypocrisy, and yes 'shiny disco ball' deflection/distractions.
The Bulwark has started running a serial podcast: "The Corruption of Lindsey Graham." It follows Graham through the Trump years as he tries to conform to a relentless system that eventually swallows him. But it's meant to reflect and describe the process that so many Republican leaders have been forced to go through to accommodate their party's growing extremism under Trump, or deny their party altogether. Most choose the former.
Highly recommended!
It is funny how almost all of these brown shirt, SCUMp worshiping BUND Meeting attendees so ferociously booed ol' Lindsey for not being 'strong' enough, or loyal enough to their orange POS fuehrer.
As effing brain dead as they all are, I guess that they have not forgotten his flip-flopping duplicity of the past as concerns their 'sacred, infallible' SHITler??
Of course, the scummy mango turd would not defend his golfing buddy to it's 4th Reich crowd, and promised the good little NAZIs that he would 'whip him into shape' so that they could support him next Senatorial cycle. LOFL
I agree, and that's all they have. They are the most worthless cretins on the face of the earth. I despise all of them..
tRump is not an idiot but playing one so that his idiotic statements get repeated over and over again by our media, and then repeat.
He floods the networks with his lies and propaganda.
tRump is scary AF.
Yes, too many people underestimate his intelligence. He is cunning, crafty & shrewd in the ways of evil & cruelty. How else could this sadonarcissist, who behaves like a mob boss, have skirted the law his whole life without ever seeing the inside of a jail cell?
And many have said he has dementia. Yes, he is demented, but his depravity emanates from some psychological disorder, which may be getting more extreme as time goes on, but doesn't appear to be in danger of imminent implosion as many have been predicting.
Avie Hern ; This is his playbook ; Projection on his opponents of what HE is! The Radical 'Right' uses this tactic across the board. They say that the 'liberal media' is evil, while Fox 'news' and other extremist media actually misinform and openly lie. He has been doing this since day one of his time as a politician. He wasn't very ethical before that, either. We need better vetting of our candidates!
"If God had wanted us to vote, She would have given us candidates." (Terry Leonino)
What does God have to do with it? Voting is our responsibility. Developing a pool of people who qualify for candidacy takes time, talent, and organizing skills. And money which is a problem as long as money equals free speech, and the money keeps flowing into the pockets of the oligarchs. Put campaign reform on the list of priorities along with dumping the electoral college and taking a hard line against gerrymandering. Don’t know how to avoid skanks like Krysten Sinema lying their way into the hearts of campaign supporters and then turning into a self serving hypocrite. Congress is a magnet for grifters and there will always be a few who sliver their way in.
Oh, if only God would send us angels to do the tiresome work of government, and to pay for it. But, he/she doesn't. Bummer.
Yes Avie.....The MAGAts accusations of others are actually admissions of themselves. It a classic Russian disinformation tactic....and Nazi propogandist Josef Goebbels said..'Accuse the other of that which you are guilty'
...as well as; 'Repeat a LIE often enough, and it becomes a truth that the masses believe'...
At The Faith and Freedom conference. This is some of the disinformation Trump was spewing “Whatever documents the President decides to take with him, he has the absolute right to take them, he has the absolute right to keep them, or he can give them back to NARA if he wants.”
The Presidential Records Act was enacted in 1978 after President Richard Nixon sought to destroy records relating to his presidential tenure upon his resignation in 1974. The law superseded the policy in effect during Nixon’s tenure that a president’s records were considered private property, making clear that presidential records are owned by the public. The PRA requires the President to ensure preservation of records documenting the performance of his official duties (44 U.S.C. § 2203(a)), provides for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to take custody and control of the records (44 U.S.C. § 2203(g)), and sets forth a schedule of staged public access to such records (44 U.S.C. § 2204). Records covered by the PRA encompass documentary materials relating to the political activities of the President or members of the President’s staff if they concern or have an effect upon the carrying out of “constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President” (44 U.S.C. § 2201(2)).
News Flash: The documents belong to the American People. He has absolutely no right to take Classified documents when he leaves the White House! Mad Dog Jack Smith can and will prove beyond a reasonable doubt Trump’s guilt!
Another lie he told was that “I’m proud to be the most pro-life President in American history!”
News Flash: On October 24, 1999 on NBC with Tim Russert Trump said “I am Very Pro-Choice”
He is nothing but a con-man and a con-man lies and cheats others.
In addition to all you noted about the PRA, although it isn't discussed much anymore, he also violated those laws by not keeping records and turning them over when he was IN office; he forbade others from making and keeping records. He never records anything, we were told. No written records. No tape recordings. Mob boss filth in every way. That's who Americans elected? That's who, a poster here wrote, 50,000 people in South Carolina showed up to cheer? Cheering a mobster, a con-man, a criminal, an amoral adulterer, an environmental destroyer, a cruel, sadistic monster? THAT'S who any number of Americans think should be America's President??!! God help us.
This time around, he would be America's Dictator. Too many people in the Southeastern United States worship that pathetic bag of rot Donald TUMP. I have got to move from here. I am fed up with this.
Ah, but where will you go these days?
The conundrum, since what happens to our government has repercussions on the whole world.
Jaime Ramirez ; Yes, remember the old song "The air, the air is everywhere! Breathe deep while you sleep"... France has sent firefighters to help Canada fight the enormous wild fires that pollute the air and filter the sun; affecting huge swaths of air, land and water, from Chicago to Europe. there is no escaping bad governing, wherever it happens. The world is 'shrinking' with the scale of environmental damage, that 'the "Right" denies! Meanwhile, they teach children to fear and loathe LGBTQ+ folks!
At the moment, the wildfires in France may be bigger than the ones in Canada.
Although the AQI here was in the 200s Saturday.
SADLY, as well as those other governments in the whole world turning to outright fascism themselves, as Jeff above has pointed out. :( :(
I plan to stay and fight to my last dying breath, as even if there WAS a 'safe democratically governed harbor nation' to flee to, I could not afford to so so anyway!
Here in MD we have a Black governor, an Asian woman lt. gov., and a White woman Comptroller, all elected in 2022. And we just put the right to abortion and recreational cannabis in the State Constitution. Not bad for one year. And we are on the ocean in case you need to make a quick getaway, LOL.
Admittedly, housing is too expensive, and the capitalists are still ruining the environment. We're working on those....
Some possibilities: New Zealand, Catalonia, Canada.
Like COVID carriers, we may become anathema to the civilized world, or what's left of it.
Yes, the countries which are not yet full-on fascist themselves might be worried that they will catch 'contact fascism' just from any of us entering their lands, even if we are far from being fascists ourselves. LOL
Of course, he wouldn't want to record his meetings & phone calls with Putin, during which Trump passed state secrets to Putin, outed our spies & secret agents, & asked him what steps to take to hold onto power after all legal steps are exhausted.
I wonder just how much (or what?) boyfriend Vlad The Impaler promised SCUMp for all of those stolen top secret documents?
Annie Cross ; Fear is dangerous, along with its twin; Ignorance! If one is indoctrinated against 'others', those who are different can seem scary. It's sad. It goes against the highest ideals of our country, to fear diversity and actual freedom! We are enriched with a diverse population!
And we must also do our part.
We are in the majority and must vote and protect the votes of others. We must do what we can and let the shameless idiots have their ridiculous rallies. They are not sane. Don’t waste time with them. I’m disgusted that it has come this far, but at least it’s clear that we have to act.
Regarding God, it sickens me to see those nut jobs muttering the Lord’s Prayer to Satan himself at their rallies. They are anything but devout. You should not hope for them to change. We have to take responsibility and leave them in the dustbin of history. We will handle it.
Well, he was a protege of Roy Cohn... what did you expect?
Truly!!
Trump has changed his party affiliation five times according to his needs. He has no loyalty to anyone or anything other than himself. This is from Wikipedia: Donald Trump registered as a Republican in Manhattan in 1987; since that time, he has changed his party affiliation five times. In 1999, Trump changed his party affiliation to the Independence Party of New York. In August 2001, Trump changed his party affiliation to Democratic. In September 2009, Trump changed his party affiliation back to the Republican Party. In December 2011, Trump changed to "no party affiliation" (independent). In April 2012, Trump again returned to the Republican Party.
And then he created The Party of Trump, a whole new party based on age-old ideas: crime pays and in America, crime pays big; braggadocio is Italian for b.s., spread it liberally, the crowds love it and don't even mind the stink; violence sells, like corruption and graft, but make sure you get others to do the dirty deeds and keep your own hands clean, using the preferred soap, Lady MacBeth's Out Damn Spot; use people like paper towels, get 'em dirty, bind them to you with greed and appeals to their basest impulses, watch them soil themselves for you and then toss them out if they don't hold up.
That's Trump . . . he loves loyalty, but only in others. His followers are oblivious, or great rationalizers. They'd follow him off the proverbial cliff, and in fact did on Jan. 6.
They are soooo effing brain dead, and faithful to their SHITler that they will scream it's praises while plummeting to their deaths and seeing their putrid orange fuehrer standing on the cliff edge mocking and belittling/ridiculing them for sacrificing THEIR lives for him. ;)
Keith Olson ; That's like Elon Musk calling himself a 'free speech absolutist'!
Keith, why would you expect Frumpf to know the Presidential Record’s Act? He doesn’t read!
Obama had a playbook ready for the next epidemic. He didn’t read it!
It only takes one true believer (i.e.cultist) to hang a jury. Remember that Trump is only part of the problem, with the larger problem being that millions of people willingly choose to worship this con man.
Stand up to tRump’s lies!!!
Trump's speech is straight-up Hitler Nazi shit.
Someone (wannabe Goebbels Bannon maybe??) made sure that he included the fascist requisite memes against 'commies and Marxists' in there.
With the 'Marxist' part also serving as coded ANTI-SEMITIC language as well, although it's foaming at the mouth knuckle dragging brown shirts are most likely too uneducated and ignorant to 'get' that connection.
They 'get' the Soros coded ANTI-SEMITIC messages because they ARE 'educated' in Q'aNAZI. ;)
I totally agree with you, Prof. Reich! It's about time that liberals, progressives, Democrates reclaim the term "patriotism". That word, as well as the American flag, has been hijacked by the regressive, revisionist right for far too long.
I no longer see the American flag as a sign of patriotism. Every time I see one on the back of a pickup truck the first thing I think is “another Trump fan.” Most times there’s also a trump flag flying next to the American flag. It’s disgusting and sad.
Or a Confederate flag or Nazi swastika flag.
In the Southwest, it's the Trump flag or the American flag with the blue stripe for police. We still fly our American flag correctly.
It’s the same here in the Northeast. Usually both on the back of a truck.
For my part, my truck has a Jolly Roger and "14.3" on the tailgate.
I'm still afraid to put on my "Tuck Frump" sticker, even in blue Maryland..
Way back, when the SHITler was first installed into power by the effing racist/fascist Electoral College, i had a "DUMP TRUMP" sticker on a magnetic sheet backing so that I could remove it from my car when going deep into 'enemy territory', and save the insurance hike from the damage that the 'property respectin'<-LOFL! MAGAt cretins would inflict upon my ride.
Great idea! I might try that. I still worry about the cops, though. They could be anywhere.
I have “Puck Futin” on my water bottle. Putin khuylo!
I do have a Ukraine sticker on my car, but in in this vast majority blue progressive area, that is about all I will chance full time.
As it is, these MAGAtz (even when, and though fully outnumbered!) are just so apoplectically and reactionarily violent towards anything that they consider anti; SCUMp, Putin, or their 'blessed' fascism at this point, I am surprised my ride is not attacked for just that ONE small sticker on it!
That anti-Putie one is good though! :)
Hear, hear. And it's just wrong that when I put my flag out this morning I was concerned whether someone would misinterpret my intentions. When trump was in office I was tempted to hang it upside down.
Ken, same here. My immediate family (husband, son, and I) have a total of 33 years of military service to this country. It makes me really mad, and sad, that our patriotism in flying the flag might be interpreted as supporting the “great patriots” who try to destroy our democracy!
I DID have my U.S. flag magnet upside down on my car once when going into a supermarket in Pennsyltucky where I used to live, during the SHITler's reign.
When I came back out it was turned right side up, and I suspect it was from the SCUMper with the huge Expedition covered in orange turd stickers/slogans parked there when I entered the store.
Of course, when I was still there the first year or two of Biden's presidency that same shithead had HIS U.S. flag sticker mounted upside down.
To give you a clue, he had a big sticker across the back window with "FINALLY, someone with BALLS!" emblazoned on it, and also had a Vietnam Veterans sticker on there.
Yeah, a real 'Mensa member' there. /s ;)
The pickup trucks with the flags often don't have mufflers so they can get more attention and disturb the neighborhood. The police used to give tickets for loud or no mufflers.
There's a house in our neighborhood that is having work done by construction workers. One truck arrives every morning with 4 various pro-trump flags flying. My husband and I say that if we were the homeowners having that work done the guy can either remove the flags, or work elsewhere.
Or NO DEF filters, and overly rich tunes if they are diesels, so that they can 'roll coal' all over us 'libtards', to 'own/burn them'.
Yup, MAGAt pieces of shit, and PROUD about it as well. :(
Y’all Queda
I no longer see the US flag as a symbol of patriotism because that word has been co-opted by people who have no idea what it means to be a patriot. Those folks were the Greatest Generation who suffered through the Depression and fought the Nazis in WWII. My parents would roll over in their graves to see the horrible state of this country since the orange rancidness came to 24/7 prominence.
As well as a co-opted Gadsden Flag, and those single blue stripe (pro-cop) U.S. Flags.
Of course, that is only reserved for when those said supported cops butcher 'others' in cold blood, and it is most definitely NOT for the Capitol Police force at all.
The "F**K Biden" flag is another popular item flying from their pickup truck beds with the MAGAtz around the far rightwingnutter parts.
I saw one of those flags on a truck last weekend, and I don’t know why - but I was shocked. I shouldn’t have been, given the atmosphere today, but I was. I also saw a trump flag that said at the bottom “F**K Your Feelings”. The guy was with his wife and daughter, whom I’m sure is old enough to read.
Yes, but of course THEIR 'sensitive snowflake feelings' are not allowed to be hurt when it comes to calling out THEIR putrid orange fuehrer, or their fascist, White Supremacist Christian Nationalist propaganda/agenda/'movement'.
They will NEVER see, or realize the irony of that being on a publicly displayed flag/sign while railing and ranting about the 'libtard caused moral rot and decay' in our society.
Along with the Gadsden Flag, albeit I am starting to see some of our own using it against the NAZIS and fascists at some of our protests, lately. :)
Patriotism is my uncle who landed on Omaha Beach on D Day and also fought in The Battle of the Bulge. Never said a word about it. He fought for other people’s freedom. Put the medals in a drawer.
And what would your uncle, or my relatives, or any of our forebears who fought against fascism, fought and died to stop Nazis and fascists from advancing, what would they say about the likes of tRump and his followers who spout that same kind of garbage at their bund-"rallies" and carry swastika flags and cheer for violence and bullying, just like the "brown shirts" of 1930s Germany? What has this country become?!
Excellent comment, i have been thinking the very same thing for quite a while now.
Prior to Pearl Harbor, you might have heard of the America First movement, which was very pro-Nazi. Donald's father, Fred Trump, attended some of their rallies. There are file photos of a massive rally in Madison Square Garden with a giant backdrop of George Washington with American flags and swastikas.
I'm hoping to read some comments on white Christian nationalism -- and their "7M." (Seven mountain mandate.) These are some really dangerous people (In Germany, PLENTY of Christians were all onboard with the Nazis.)
It's tragic that so many of those older gents have become converted to the tabloid terrorism preached by Fox nuts. It's a phenomenon that should be studied more closely by psychologists. Jen Senko observed it in her dad's transformation: "The Brainwashing of My Dad."
The American and Allied servicepeople in WWII were the real antifascists. (I hate to mention this, but many of them had guns.)
I've been saying this for YEARS NOW, and was labeled 'hyperbolic' for it (in the past at least). ;)
I am once again thankful, Mr. Reich, for your clear and articulate explanation of true patriotism. I am saddened at what is happening to our country. As an American of 71 years, I look back fondly on the years that my mom and pop taught me the importance of loving and taking care of my country. The horrors that others have endured simply because they were born in a country that does not allow them any freedoms like the ones we have here. I fear for my children and grandchildren if the far right continue their march toward authoritarianism. The freedoms so many take for granted will be gone but by then it will be too late.
If Trump is a Christian I’m Virgin Mary.
... so stop riding my ass!
Here is my opinion on immigration.
The largest majority of people coming across the southern border are running from governmental corruption and aggression in their countries. They are risking personal safety and sometimes death to come to the United States in hopes of having a better life. The majority of these people are willing to work hard for a chance at the American dream. I’ve witnessed many of them over the years doing manual labor jobs that most Americans wouldn’t do!
On the other hand there are many radical right Republicans who would like to overthrow our democratic government. These people are not and will never be happy with our form of government. These are not patriots! They want a country like [Gilead]
the country in the “Handmaid’s Tale”.
When a mother walks thousands of miles with toddlers to find safety for them , she is not just an immigrant, she and her family are assets to our country.
Why not train and support these heroes to care for American elders in their own homes rather than displacing them to 'convalescent ' centers. America would be stronger incorporating their family values .
Besides which, unemployment has gotten so low, red states are now instituting child labor. I think we'd be better off having immigrants doing that work rather than children.
Thats a Really good point !
My city was saved by brown immigrants from all over the world taking labor jobs, then starting small businesses. Dead neighborhoods came to life, crime in those areas dropped. Africans are filling home care positions since it is a most honorable job in some of their cultures, while some of them prepare to be nurses and technicians. There is a network for support, and several Orthodox churches grew.
I just read that so many immigrants have decided to leave Florida because of DeSantis' new laws that the state may be in a labor crisis. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Literally.
Oh , what good news. Thank you for posting this. Where would I look for research about this?
Is ther an organization you would recommend? It would solve so many problems here in America.
This is the second such city that I've lived in, and I have read of diverse towns benefitting from an influx of new people. Here is an article that showcases this: https://www.axios.com/2022/12/08/immigrants-moving-top-us-cities
Actually, some of them are sooo ferociously, radically fascist that The Handmaid's Tale's Gilead would be way too 'liberal' for them!
Yeah, YIKES!!
If only we could switch & replace those MAGA traitors with immigrant workers & refugees!
100% correct.
My comment never changes. TUCK FRUMP.
QUON JIST: I'm with you, buddy.
Ha!
Absolutely on the spot. This how I would consider a true patriot too. Trump is not spreading patriotism he’s spewing white nationalism like Hitler. One can deny it as much as they like but there’s always existed elements of extremists white nationalism in America. After the Second World War many Nazis moved under pseudonyms to America and they’ve stayed hidden quietly spreading white extremism and hate but when Trump was seeking to be President they recognised his greed for money and power and racism was already in his genes so they anointed him as their leader to achieve their white nationalistic goals. He needed them to win the election with the support of Russia. The path for the destruction of democracy was set when Trump finally won. In the process they have managed successfully to manipulate and turn many more who in their ignorance thought he could be their saviour from the evils and lies they were falsely spreading that were blamed on minorities and immigrants. This was the manifesto of Hitler when he converted millions of Germans to his cause to cleanse Germany of Jews and minorities who he blamed for economic plight that Germany was going through at that time. The real reason for their plight was like today a combination of worldwide economic failures and greed of few for wealth and power. It’s easy to make intellectuals and those that achieve their success through diligence and hard work despite economic setbacks their escape goats while millions more are not thriving. This is how they manipulated the ignorant by blaming others instead of helping them to thrive through wise economic and political decisions. Hitler’s greed for fame and power was achieved by manipulating the ignorance and the economic instability of the majority. Extremists white nationalism survives by inculcating fear, hate and envy of minorities through lies, misinformation and conspiracy theories. This is exactly what’s done today by white extremists media and their propaganda appeals especially to the weak, ignorant, helpless and religious fanatics. Trump feeds of them. We are living in dangerous times when the world is facing several tumultuous problems like climate change, economic setbacks, wealth inequality, wars and growing number of greed for power by dictators and the accumulation of tremendous wealth by only 1% of the population thereby alienating the masses who are feeling oppressed by them. These are the few major problems that are conducive to failing democracy and the uprising of extremists nationalism. It’s time to save democracy by addressing these issues. Fascism, racism and dictatorship is never the answer.
Is this really you? Someone was giving out a phone number. Was that you also?
Excellent piece! Please keep calling out Trump on his White Evangelical Nationalist “rubbish”!
Trump defending Civil War secessionists and advocating the white-washing of history is no surprise, but deeply disappointing. His desire to actively slide backwards toward the Jim Crow days of the South with anti-voting laws is appalling. His continued hate speech through misrepresentation of immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community is reprehensible.
William Pitt , yes that William Pitt of Pittsburg fame ! once said “PATRIOTISM IS THE LAST REFUGE OF SCOUNDRELS” to the British Parliament . What do you think Pitt would say about tRUMP who is so fond of dry humping the STARS AND STRIPES and vomiting 🤮 pseudo patriotic verbal diarrhea when he is not leering incestuously at his daughter Ivanka 🤮🙄🤮
Samuel Johnson said it.
From Wikipedia:
On the evening of 7 April 1775, he made a famous statement: "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." The line was not, as is widely believed, about patriotism in general but rather what Johnson saw as the false use of the term "patriotism" by William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (the patriot minister)
(This Pitt was English not USA.)
"Hail to Pitt"
Hail to Pitt, Hail to Pitt, every loyal son
Hail to Pitt, Hail to Pitt, till the victory's won
The Gold and Blue shall wave forever
On high thro' fair and stormy weather
We'll sing her praises far and wide until the end of time
Hoop hurray, Hoop hurray for dear old uni..
Give her a grand old ALLEGENEE GENAC GENAC GENAC
We'll wave and cheer for many a year
And sing her songs out loud and clear
For our University.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o3-Pmnrq5A
“Patriotism having become one of our topicks, “Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.’ But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest.”
https://interestingliterature.com/2021/05/patriotism-is-the-last-refuge-of-the-scoundrel-meaning-origins/
Since we are quoting old English politicians, hereare a couple of my favorites:
"I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable."
-- Gonzalo, in William Shakespeare, The Tempest.
“Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? For, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
- Sir John Harington (inventor of the flush toilet)
Good one. Maybe we ought to bring good Sir Harington back . . . it would be simpler and easier than all these Trump trials.
Aye. Right now there's just too much shit that won't flush.
Ivanka demands to speak to the manager.
Dear Prof Reich -
(Dear Robert? Not sure how I should address you.)
I agree with you. And that's the problem. I think the vast majority of us here agree with you. And then what? You've said it. We've heard it. And what changes?
Big sigh here.
There are many of us out here in the tRump Nederland that are fortified when reading Prof Reich's article and comments like yours.
Thank you, Braveheart.
Messaging certainly needs to be proactive and not reactive. That has not been the practice of progressives and it needs to change. We need to be out there, on message, with the important accomplishments of the Biden Administration. The response to the Russian Agent Orange has to be “so what have you done?”.
Blame the churches of America for letting white supremacists abuse and coopt their religion.
Need to oppose any denomination that does not call them out.
Could also be seen as an (un)intended logical extreme consequence of the corporatizing of religion as duly noted by Kevin Kruse in his book "One Nation, Under God".
If it's Biden vs. Trump, you have 2 comparable records of the same length of time at the same job. Unless we have a great depression or major war directly involving us between now & the election, comparisons will favor Biden by a huge margin.
Exactly!!
Hear! Hear! Doug Gilbert!
Right on, Robert. Brilliant article! I would add one thing. True patriots need to spend considerable time to investigate what's going on in politics and society and understand the root cause of our problems. They need to communicate with others about the important issues in a civil manner.
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” – Buddha
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei
“When the truth stops mattering, that is the precise moment at which a society gives away not just its mind, but its soul.” – George Orwell
Great quotes! I'm going to steal them for my internet signature file.
Thanks