Trump's endorsement graveyard, the danger of presidents who come back for revenge, and what Hungary can teach America about overwhelming the electorate.
This essay is a grounded call to action! I found its wit sharp and incisive. Once again Mr Ealy pulls what seems like exhausted, exhausting strands of chaos into something that fuels purpose and passion- expands energy rather than its contraction (in reiki terms).
I am reading Substack posts from Peter dosas who also chronicles the Hungarian election as a swelling wave pushing towards democracy and he breaks down the winning campaign tactics as an instructional manual for regaining electoral control in this wobbling democracy
He also displays wickedly good humor, as in his roundup of stories through political cartoons (does the link below get to it?).
Let’s not leak despair to throttle resolve; rather, keep sweeping the current political detritus into a new year’s bonfire 🔥 and celebrating what could come next- with perseverance - so we might also enjoy it twice: in anticipation and in reality
Hear, hear Kristoffer .. I love it. Just vote and get them out of office.Don't wait for the perfect candidate. You are right the minute you say you will run Obama or any other guy for a third term you have given them an opening. God knows we don't want to give them an opening. This piece gives me hope. After the Supreme Court wrecking the voting rights act I have been feeling hopeless. If the Hugarians can do it we can. thanks lost in america
We have to come out in droves for this years midterms and then again in 2028 when we elect a "NEW" POTUS. We have to VOTE like our lives depend on this because it does. WE the PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES have to unseat the entire MAGA regime and fill it with qualified people who don't believe in corruption to get what they want and people that believe in the rule of law and Bill of Rights, the Constitution and Democracy. I KNOW we can do this!
It shouldn't be lost on anyone, least of all the Resistance in this country, that what Peter Magyar ran on in Hungary was restoration. Pulling Orban's authoritarian claws out of the government and restoring Hungary's democracy; restoring its relationship with the EU along with its emphatic intention of remaining an ally in good standing; removing every last trace of Orban-ism from government and private institutions; and restoring the power of the people to determine their government.
For sixteen years, the brave, determined people of Hungary watched what was going on under Orban and refused to accept it as inevitable. Because of them, sixteen years of cold, unforgiving winters of despotism and corruption finally gave way to joy and restoration. I applaud those brave souls who endured and fought on. We shouldn't just take a lesson from the Hungarian resistance, we should use their template. We don't need perfection in the next Democratic candidate; hell, we might not need a lifetime Dem. Don't forget that Magyar came out of Orban's Fidesz party. We just need someone as determined as Magyar to restore OUR democracy, our relationships with our allies, to oust and prosecute the corruption of Trump and MAGA, and to restore power to the people who own this government and ensure THEY get to determine their government, not the Red Court. We can do this!
I totally agree that if Hungarians could amass and throw the despot out, then Americans should be able to do so, too!
But I note that after 16 years in power, even a disengaged Hungarian (if there was such a thing) could point to Orban as the problem. In this country, can we say the same for our “I’m sitting out the election because both parties are the same” citizens?
On the corruption front, trump is off the charts; but the right wing did a horribly efficient job of filling the airwaves with the evil tales of “Hunter’s laptop” for years.
On the misuse of the judicial system, the absurd indictments of trump’s enemies are obvious signs of a tiny little man with a thin skin; but the right wing has done a good job muddying the waters with their proclamations that the Biden DOJ made up all those cases against poor, persecuted trump.
On the economy, trump has capriciously destroyed the global economy; but whatabout the Biden inflation, so fresh in the minds of many Americans who didn’t vote in 2024?
My point is that we on the ProDemocracy side will have to work extra hard to make the case to “ignore the GOP lies about 2021 through 2024; those years really were different than the present under trump”.
I call this travesty of an administration, such as it is, (trump and minions finding it difficult to administer a 3 car, 5 tank parade) trump 2.0. It is indeed worse and far different than trump 1.0 where his worst and darkest impulses were somewhat restrained. Now he's just smashing our institutions and grabbing everything he can for himself, his worthless spawn and his co-conspirators. Bull in a china shop is a mild and unworthy comparison. It remains to be seen what might happen as he becomes aware that he's being boxed in electorally and by any other means. IMO trump is more feral, twisted, darker and sicker than Orban, (not to compliment Orban in any way) and he has enmeshed and armed followers that are similarly dark and twisted. I really hope for the overwhelming Hungarian outcome.
Biden had been successfully pulling the U.S. out of the post-Covid inflationary period to the envy of the world according to The Economist. All Dumpty had to do was continue what Biden had started, and he could have claimed that victory. But, no, the vain, vindictive blowhard had to do it his way with idiotic tariffs, and now our country is actually upside down! Our debt is greater than our national income. The U.S.'s collective amnesia about the horrors of Dumpty's first term in electing him again sounds of not well thought out, pie in the sky thinking and self destruction. And my second thought is of frustration with how it seems to always be the Republicans to bring the U.S. to financial disaster (The Great Depression, for example) before Americans wake up and finally vote for the people who fix things.
I think one thing we should consider is that Orban, an authoritarian, still admitted defeat in the recent election. Trump won't. It's impossible for him, something so far removed from the man's character, in a man who has no moral character. I truly believe enough Americans will show up to repudiate Trump/MAGA this November. It's just a question of what Trump and his authoritarian lickspittles will do, how far they will go, to make sure people can't vote, or keep votes from counting. We have to keep learning this lesson over and over: with these creeps, there is no bottom. And there's nothing they won't try to hold on to power.
I agree this is not a search for the perfect candidate, a “one and done” election cycle. We absolutely cannot disassemble the resistance we are building after one or two elections. We face a very well funded and long term organized political opposition that sincerely believes it is their destiny to rule, not participate in a democracy, but to rule. This opposition has been very successful in creating organs of influence and infiltrating the government. The reality of the 250th celebration of America is the potential, like the end of the Roman Republic, to slip into a “facade democracy” ruled by a dictator. I, for one, am not a friend of Caesar.
Nick Corasaniti, a NYTimes reporter who covers politics, has seen Bruce Springsteen in concert so many times he’s lost count. (He’s even written a book, “I Don’t Want to Go Home,” about Springsteen’s most beloved Jersey Shore rock club.) But after seeing the band’s current tour, Nick noted that something was different. In today’s newsletter, he explains.
The promised land
By Nick Corasaniti
Bruce Springsteen has always heralded the alchemy of his E Street Band, that 1+1=3, force-of-nature magic that happens when these bar-band veterans join together at the end of the Boss’s four-count.
And after more than 50 years, Springsteen and the band still deliver that alchemy. The euphoric highs and solemn blues of a Springsteen show evoke a religious revival, albeit in the secular big tent of rock ’n’ roll. For the hardened fans, it’s why they keep coming back, ticket prices be damned.
But his current tour, incessantly and overtly political, is unique in the band’s history.
A pointed political message — anti-authoritarian invective aimed at the Trump administration — defines the set, from Springsteen’s monologues to the song selection. It stands out as an artistic artifact, both in his lengthy career and in the current popular music climate. Few artists of Springsteen’s stature have made a Trump-resistance message as central as Springsteen has since President Trump took office for a second time last year.
“We are no longer the land of the free, the home of the brave,” Springsteen said at a recent stop in his home state, New Jersey, as the opening notes to “My City of Ruins” rang in the background. It’s a line he has repeated night after night on this tour, from Minnesota to California. “To many we are now America the reckless, unpredictable, predatory rogue nation. That is this administration and this president’s legacy.”
Trump has taken notice. He has bullied the rock star on social media, calling him “a total loser” and a “very boring singer” and threatening legal retribution.
In response, Springsteen and the band appear to have only cranked their amps louder. The show begins with a thunderous cover of “War” before Max Weinberg’s rapturous snare drum launches into “Born in the U.S.A.” The purposeful placement of this antiwar anthem, often misappropriated as blindly patriotic with its upbeat synth line and rousing chorus, amounts to a reclamation of its true meaning — and a criticism of the American military offensive in Iran.
But their message remains focused solely on political differences. At his show in Austin, Texas, last Sunday, a night after gunshots rang out at the White House correspondents’ dinner, Springsteen condemned the violence and stressed the importance of peaceful debate.
“We also send out a prayer of thanks that our president, nor anyone in the administration, nor anyone attending, was injured at last night’s incident,” Springsteen said. He added, “We can be critical of those in power, and we can peacefully fight for our beliefs, but there is no place in any way, shape or form for political violence of any kind in our beloved United States.”
Hope, dreams and politics
Springsteen, of course, has never shied from politics. He’s endorsed every Democratic candidate for president since 2004. Early in his career, he joined the “No Nukes” protest concert and rallied at the Stone Pony, the Jersey Shore rock club he often frequented, in support of union workers whose factory was closing.
His 2000 song “American Skin (41 Shots)” invoked the 41 bullets that New York police officers fired in the fatal shooting of Amadou Diallo, a West African immigrant holding only a wallet. The title track of the album “Devils and Dust” explored the brutality of the Iraq war from the eyes of a soldier in 2005. A far less known track on that album, “Matamoros Banks” — a dark portrait of the dangers facing migrants trying to cross the U.S. southern border — perhaps did the most to foreshadow Springsteen’s outrage at immigration agents flooding American cities.
While those songs leaned on imagery and implications, though, “Streets of Minneapolis,” the protest song he wrote after federal agents killed two American citizens in Minnesota earlier this year, is exceptionally explicit. As it reached its climax in Jersey last month, Springsteen urged the crowd to repeat the lyric, “ICE out now.”
And yet, if the underlying cause for the tour is concern about the state of the country, the shows remain distinctively Springsteen. Like his blues-in-the-verse, gospel-in-the-chorus method of songwriting, Springsteen offers a prayer for the country not lodged in solemnity, but in jubilation. That while hard times come, hard times also go. And that while music is transformational, a concert is supposed to be joyful for the performers and, more important, for their fans.
“We never planned this tour, but we came out because I needed to feel your hope, your strength, and I needed to hear your voices,” Springsteen said near the end of the show in Jersey, a line he has used throughout the tour and will likely repeat as he performs in Pennsylvania, New York and Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks. “My wish is that we brought some hope and some strength for you tonight.”
Related: Springsteen made The Times’s list of the 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters.
This essay is a grounded call to action! I found its wit sharp and incisive. Once again Mr Ealy pulls what seems like exhausted, exhausting strands of chaos into something that fuels purpose and passion- expands energy rather than its contraction (in reiki terms).
I am reading Substack posts from Peter dosas who also chronicles the Hungarian election as a swelling wave pushing towards democracy and he breaks down the winning campaign tactics as an instructional manual for regaining electoral control in this wobbling democracy
He also displays wickedly good humor, as in his roundup of stories through political cartoons (does the link below get to it?).
https://cartooningpoliticsweekly.substack.com/p/issue-no-8-the-wire-the-manners-the?r=4521er&utm_medium=ios
Let’s not leak despair to throttle resolve; rather, keep sweeping the current political detritus into a new year’s bonfire 🔥 and celebrating what could come next- with perseverance - so we might also enjoy it twice: in anticipation and in reality
Keep doing the work. Defiance is a superpower. Voting is too.
Hear, hear Kristoffer .. I love it. Just vote and get them out of office.Don't wait for the perfect candidate. You are right the minute you say you will run Obama or any other guy for a third term you have given them an opening. God knows we don't want to give them an opening. This piece gives me hope. After the Supreme Court wrecking the voting rights act I have been feeling hopeless. If the Hugarians can do it we can. thanks lost in america
We have to come out in droves for this years midterms and then again in 2028 when we elect a "NEW" POTUS. We have to VOTE like our lives depend on this because it does. WE the PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES have to unseat the entire MAGA regime and fill it with qualified people who don't believe in corruption to get what they want and people that believe in the rule of law and Bill of Rights, the Constitution and Democracy. I KNOW we can do this!
Hear, Hear!
It shouldn't be lost on anyone, least of all the Resistance in this country, that what Peter Magyar ran on in Hungary was restoration. Pulling Orban's authoritarian claws out of the government and restoring Hungary's democracy; restoring its relationship with the EU along with its emphatic intention of remaining an ally in good standing; removing every last trace of Orban-ism from government and private institutions; and restoring the power of the people to determine their government.
For sixteen years, the brave, determined people of Hungary watched what was going on under Orban and refused to accept it as inevitable. Because of them, sixteen years of cold, unforgiving winters of despotism and corruption finally gave way to joy and restoration. I applaud those brave souls who endured and fought on. We shouldn't just take a lesson from the Hungarian resistance, we should use their template. We don't need perfection in the next Democratic candidate; hell, we might not need a lifetime Dem. Don't forget that Magyar came out of Orban's Fidesz party. We just need someone as determined as Magyar to restore OUR democracy, our relationships with our allies, to oust and prosecute the corruption of Trump and MAGA, and to restore power to the people who own this government and ensure THEY get to determine their government, not the Red Court. We can do this!
I totally agree that if Hungarians could amass and throw the despot out, then Americans should be able to do so, too!
But I note that after 16 years in power, even a disengaged Hungarian (if there was such a thing) could point to Orban as the problem. In this country, can we say the same for our “I’m sitting out the election because both parties are the same” citizens?
On the corruption front, trump is off the charts; but the right wing did a horribly efficient job of filling the airwaves with the evil tales of “Hunter’s laptop” for years.
On the misuse of the judicial system, the absurd indictments of trump’s enemies are obvious signs of a tiny little man with a thin skin; but the right wing has done a good job muddying the waters with their proclamations that the Biden DOJ made up all those cases against poor, persecuted trump.
On the economy, trump has capriciously destroyed the global economy; but whatabout the Biden inflation, so fresh in the minds of many Americans who didn’t vote in 2024?
My point is that we on the ProDemocracy side will have to work extra hard to make the case to “ignore the GOP lies about 2021 through 2024; those years really were different than the present under trump”.
I call this travesty of an administration, such as it is, (trump and minions finding it difficult to administer a 3 car, 5 tank parade) trump 2.0. It is indeed worse and far different than trump 1.0 where his worst and darkest impulses were somewhat restrained. Now he's just smashing our institutions and grabbing everything he can for himself, his worthless spawn and his co-conspirators. Bull in a china shop is a mild and unworthy comparison. It remains to be seen what might happen as he becomes aware that he's being boxed in electorally and by any other means. IMO trump is more feral, twisted, darker and sicker than Orban, (not to compliment Orban in any way) and he has enmeshed and armed followers that are similarly dark and twisted. I really hope for the overwhelming Hungarian outcome.
Biden had been successfully pulling the U.S. out of the post-Covid inflationary period to the envy of the world according to The Economist. All Dumpty had to do was continue what Biden had started, and he could have claimed that victory. But, no, the vain, vindictive blowhard had to do it his way with idiotic tariffs, and now our country is actually upside down! Our debt is greater than our national income. The U.S.'s collective amnesia about the horrors of Dumpty's first term in electing him again sounds of not well thought out, pie in the sky thinking and self destruction. And my second thought is of frustration with how it seems to always be the Republicans to bring the U.S. to financial disaster (The Great Depression, for example) before Americans wake up and finally vote for the people who fix things.
I think one thing we should consider is that Orban, an authoritarian, still admitted defeat in the recent election. Trump won't. It's impossible for him, something so far removed from the man's character, in a man who has no moral character. I truly believe enough Americans will show up to repudiate Trump/MAGA this November. It's just a question of what Trump and his authoritarian lickspittles will do, how far they will go, to make sure people can't vote, or keep votes from counting. We have to keep learning this lesson over and over: with these creeps, there is no bottom. And there's nothing they won't try to hold on to power.
I agree this is not a search for the perfect candidate, a “one and done” election cycle. We absolutely cannot disassemble the resistance we are building after one or two elections. We face a very well funded and long term organized political opposition that sincerely believes it is their destiny to rule, not participate in a democracy, but to rule. This opposition has been very successful in creating organs of influence and infiltrating the government. The reality of the 250th celebration of America is the potential, like the end of the Roman Republic, to slip into a “facade democracy” ruled by a dictator. I, for one, am not a friend of Caesar.
GO BRUCE 🎶!
Good morning.
Nick Corasaniti, a NYTimes reporter who covers politics, has seen Bruce Springsteen in concert so many times he’s lost count. (He’s even written a book, “I Don’t Want to Go Home,” about Springsteen’s most beloved Jersey Shore rock club.) But after seeing the band’s current tour, Nick noted that something was different. In today’s newsletter, he explains.
The promised land
By Nick Corasaniti
Bruce Springsteen has always heralded the alchemy of his E Street Band, that 1+1=3, force-of-nature magic that happens when these bar-band veterans join together at the end of the Boss’s four-count.
And after more than 50 years, Springsteen and the band still deliver that alchemy. The euphoric highs and solemn blues of a Springsteen show evoke a religious revival, albeit in the secular big tent of rock ’n’ roll. For the hardened fans, it’s why they keep coming back, ticket prices be damned.
But his current tour, incessantly and overtly political, is unique in the band’s history.
A pointed political message — anti-authoritarian invective aimed at the Trump administration — defines the set, from Springsteen’s monologues to the song selection. It stands out as an artistic artifact, both in his lengthy career and in the current popular music climate. Few artists of Springsteen’s stature have made a Trump-resistance message as central as Springsteen has since President Trump took office for a second time last year.
“We are no longer the land of the free, the home of the brave,” Springsteen said at a recent stop in his home state, New Jersey, as the opening notes to “My City of Ruins” rang in the background. It’s a line he has repeated night after night on this tour, from Minnesota to California. “To many we are now America the reckless, unpredictable, predatory rogue nation. That is this administration and this president’s legacy.”
Trump has taken notice. He has bullied the rock star on social media, calling him “a total loser” and a “very boring singer” and threatening legal retribution.
In response, Springsteen and the band appear to have only cranked their amps louder. The show begins with a thunderous cover of “War” before Max Weinberg’s rapturous snare drum launches into “Born in the U.S.A.” The purposeful placement of this antiwar anthem, often misappropriated as blindly patriotic with its upbeat synth line and rousing chorus, amounts to a reclamation of its true meaning — and a criticism of the American military offensive in Iran.
But their message remains focused solely on political differences. At his show in Austin, Texas, last Sunday, a night after gunshots rang out at the White House correspondents’ dinner, Springsteen condemned the violence and stressed the importance of peaceful debate.
“We also send out a prayer of thanks that our president, nor anyone in the administration, nor anyone attending, was injured at last night’s incident,” Springsteen said. He added, “We can be critical of those in power, and we can peacefully fight for our beliefs, but there is no place in any way, shape or form for political violence of any kind in our beloved United States.”
Hope, dreams and politics
Springsteen, of course, has never shied from politics. He’s endorsed every Democratic candidate for president since 2004. Early in his career, he joined the “No Nukes” protest concert and rallied at the Stone Pony, the Jersey Shore rock club he often frequented, in support of union workers whose factory was closing.
His 2000 song “American Skin (41 Shots)” invoked the 41 bullets that New York police officers fired in the fatal shooting of Amadou Diallo, a West African immigrant holding only a wallet. The title track of the album “Devils and Dust” explored the brutality of the Iraq war from the eyes of a soldier in 2005. A far less known track on that album, “Matamoros Banks” — a dark portrait of the dangers facing migrants trying to cross the U.S. southern border — perhaps did the most to foreshadow Springsteen’s outrage at immigration agents flooding American cities.
While those songs leaned on imagery and implications, though, “Streets of Minneapolis,” the protest song he wrote after federal agents killed two American citizens in Minnesota earlier this year, is exceptionally explicit. As it reached its climax in Jersey last month, Springsteen urged the crowd to repeat the lyric, “ICE out now.”
And yet, if the underlying cause for the tour is concern about the state of the country, the shows remain distinctively Springsteen. Like his blues-in-the-verse, gospel-in-the-chorus method of songwriting, Springsteen offers a prayer for the country not lodged in solemnity, but in jubilation. That while hard times come, hard times also go. And that while music is transformational, a concert is supposed to be joyful for the performers and, more important, for their fans.
“We never planned this tour, but we came out because I needed to feel your hope, your strength, and I needed to hear your voices,” Springsteen said near the end of the show in Jersey, a line he has used throughout the tour and will likely repeat as he performs in Pennsylvania, New York and Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks. “My wish is that we brought some hope and some strength for you tonight.”
Related: Springsteen made The Times’s list of the 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters.
🤞🙏🇺🇸🌎🌍🌏
Excellent column! I've added "non-consecutive term" to my vocabulary. And insightful analysis of Hungary... Thank you!!!