I blame you in art for the state of the Republican Party and the fact that ALL of the founders of the Lincoln project feed and encouraged the monster that eventually expelled you from the party. At
The time when each of you had a chance to turn away from divisive politics, each of the founders plunged forward. (The time after 9/11 would have been one moment and Bush threw it away and lied to the American people, which accelerated and exacerbated the chance that has consumed the Republican Party. It’s a shameful political legacy to be sure.
In 1971 Nixon took America off the gold standard because of the run on the Treasury to exchange dollars for the country’s gold(you might remember France’s Charles DeGaulle running that effort?) In 1973 the dollar crashed and viola the price of gold by the Fed’s slight of hand was revalued to prevent debasement of the currency Since that time the purchasing power of the dollar has lost 98% of its value since 1973 due to both Nazi and Democratic overspending Since the purchasing power of the currency is tied to inflation, this is the real reason Americans are having trouble making ends meet And this is the Fed and many administration’s dirty little secret that it has been keeping from the American people for 50 years of spendthrift government policies
Now the Fed, Cheeto, and Bessent are getting ready for another debasement of the currency to keep the government afloat But since the government is in a debt trap, any raising of bond yields to entice foreign investors to buy American debt will in essence force Cheeto into another bankruptcy….his fifth and this one is a doozie since it involves a whole country
And our adversaries, Russia and China, are sitting on large gold reserves, multiples of what the US has If Cheeto debases the currency by raising the price of gold, they win Fiat money(currency not tethered to a gold standard) is doomed and the 50 year old ride is over The dollar is on its last leg and lesson learned…..get out of dollars and into gold or silver and stay away from bitcoin
Thanks Stuart for all your insight into the Republican Party. But the important question is the outright blatant power seizure and grab to disenfranchise voters of color, veterans and all classes except the “desired” majority.
Thank you for the historical journey, Stuart. Sadly, the republican message to Black voters went from an empty 'meaningful jobs' to trump's what do you have to lose. As Blaxk and all voters are learning quite quickly, we all have a lot to lose.
It's striking in re-reading this excerpt [I bought the book as soon as it came out], that although republicans have been knocking Democrats for playing 'identity politics' for years, it's actually republicans who invented it, developed a PR campaign around it, and have continued to run on it since the Civil Rights Era. The only difference is that republicans' identity politics is aimed at white voters, while Democrats' focus on all communities of voters, and beyond race, include LGBTQ and non-religious voters.
Over the years the republican project has distilled down to appealing primarily to straight, white, male, christians with a chip on their shoulders and a sugar-coated worldview that dates from the 1950s. What republicans view as 'the golden age of America.' Before women, POC, and non-straight Americans fought for and won protection of their equal rights under law. It's no accident, I think, why republicans have been trying to repeal voting rights, civil rights, and are now targeting equal marriage rights.
Thanks for sharing your story, Stuart, and for the insider's take on how the republicans devolved into what they are today. Every step led them directly to Trump's white American authoritarianism where our museums and libraries are being stripped of the stories and the very memory of non-white Americans' lives.
Plantation politics will never go away in this country: it is built on race exploitation and the appropriation of the value of the sweat of another person’s brow. It is now mutating to include more and more people in its grasp. Witness the broligarch push to create a tech feudal underclass. MAGA whites still vote against their best interests for the same reasons poor whites always voted against their interests in the Old South: “at least I ain’t black.” And women are doubly impounded by their sex and their race: service and silence, producing the next generation of masters or exploited workers. We have a long fight ahead of us. I appreciate your witness and desire to set things straight.
Another book I read years ago.... The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.. she broke it down in ways that were chilling and disturbing... I always ignore " forwards/introductions" don't want to read someone's paid opinion ... The book is powerful and I have never forgotten reading the ugly stages this country ( legally? ) and cunningly devised to smother the rightful freedom of people they disliked because of their skin color ...
And today, the GOP philosophy doesn’t seem to be to appeal to or attract AA voters, quite the opposite; but to work hard to either physically disenfranchise them back to pre 1964 or make them think that the Dems aren’t their friends and alienate them from the party. Seems to be working, sadly,
For those of us who supported so many who lost to the Southern Strategy and Atwater efforts these articles make me smile at our naiveté and pounding of chests disappointments for failure to overcome the lock race has had and continues to have in all our lives.
Thanks for posting this. I read "It Was All a Lie" when I first discovered the Lincoln Project and Stuart Stevens. I immediately got the book on inter-library loan. Whew I couldn't put it down. Opened my eyes to not only "the southern strategy" but also the thoughtfulness and insight into the pollical world that we now have. In the book, what struck me and has stuck with me, was how Stuart pointed out the use of "words" which cloaked the meaning of what was really meant. I suggest that if you haven't read this book---find a copy and read it.
And do you understand, Stuart, the broader than political implications of what you write? Pardon me for saying this, but after reading post after post from ex-Republican operatives for months on end, I am starting to wonder if any of you have penetrated to the bone, the heart, the soul--the incredibly critical nature of the times we're in. Throughout history, black human beings, brown human beings, Asian human beings, non-heterosexual human beings, and most pervasively of all, female human beings of all races have lived with a boot on their necks. Oh to be sure sometimes it was a well-polished and soft-soled boot, but it served to keep us, even if ever so 'gently,' in our place and at the service of males (here in the US and Europe, white males). I'll just close with this vignette: There is a young woman, of perhaps high school or college age. She is bright, articulate, well-read, clever and ambitious. And she is told in any number of ways that despite the wide-ranging interests typically held by people of that sort, she will never be successful unless she focuses her hopes and dreams on 'catching' a man, along with whatever sort of second tier jobs she might aspire to. A man, she's been taught, is a prize, a brass ring, proof of her desirability and social acceptability--the gold medal of a personal Olympics. So she marries young and for the rest of her life contorts herself into any number of uncomfortable clothes, domestic responsibilities, parenting responsibilities and responsibilities to support and please 'her man' (or else). She has a part time job she hopes to parlay into something with more scope once the kids are grown. And she fears she will be abandoned for a more sexually appealing, younger version of herself before she gets the chance to do so. And this is the story of a nice, conventional middle class woman, which is many times better than that of those born into the working class. Would you, could you, accept such a life (a common, common life, and not one of 'slavery,' exactly) for yourself or your sons?
I blame you in art for the state of the Republican Party and the fact that ALL of the founders of the Lincoln project feed and encouraged the monster that eventually expelled you from the party. At
The time when each of you had a chance to turn away from divisive politics, each of the founders plunged forward. (The time after 9/11 would have been one moment and Bush threw it away and lied to the American people, which accelerated and exacerbated the chance that has consumed the Republican Party. It’s a shameful political legacy to be sure.
This is so good, open hearted and fine. Thank you for saying what so many white commentators ignore.
Cheeto Pretends That America Is Not Broke (https://bit.ly/4mCI1xJ)
In 1971 Nixon took America off the gold standard because of the run on the Treasury to exchange dollars for the country’s gold(you might remember France’s Charles DeGaulle running that effort?) In 1973 the dollar crashed and viola the price of gold by the Fed’s slight of hand was revalued to prevent debasement of the currency Since that time the purchasing power of the dollar has lost 98% of its value since 1973 due to both Nazi and Democratic overspending Since the purchasing power of the currency is tied to inflation, this is the real reason Americans are having trouble making ends meet And this is the Fed and many administration’s dirty little secret that it has been keeping from the American people for 50 years of spendthrift government policies
Now the Fed, Cheeto, and Bessent are getting ready for another debasement of the currency to keep the government afloat But since the government is in a debt trap, any raising of bond yields to entice foreign investors to buy American debt will in essence force Cheeto into another bankruptcy….his fifth and this one is a doozie since it involves a whole country
And our adversaries, Russia and China, are sitting on large gold reserves, multiples of what the US has If Cheeto debases the currency by raising the price of gold, they win Fiat money(currency not tethered to a gold standard) is doomed and the 50 year old ride is over The dollar is on its last leg and lesson learned…..get out of dollars and into gold or silver and stay away from bitcoin
Thanks Stuart for all your insight into the Republican Party. But the important question is the outright blatant power seizure and grab to disenfranchise voters of color, veterans and all classes except the “desired” majority.
Thank you for the historical journey, Stuart. Sadly, the republican message to Black voters went from an empty 'meaningful jobs' to trump's what do you have to lose. As Blaxk and all voters are learning quite quickly, we all have a lot to lose.
It's striking in re-reading this excerpt [I bought the book as soon as it came out], that although republicans have been knocking Democrats for playing 'identity politics' for years, it's actually republicans who invented it, developed a PR campaign around it, and have continued to run on it since the Civil Rights Era. The only difference is that republicans' identity politics is aimed at white voters, while Democrats' focus on all communities of voters, and beyond race, include LGBTQ and non-religious voters.
Over the years the republican project has distilled down to appealing primarily to straight, white, male, christians with a chip on their shoulders and a sugar-coated worldview that dates from the 1950s. What republicans view as 'the golden age of America.' Before women, POC, and non-straight Americans fought for and won protection of their equal rights under law. It's no accident, I think, why republicans have been trying to repeal voting rights, civil rights, and are now targeting equal marriage rights.
Thanks for sharing your story, Stuart, and for the insider's take on how the republicans devolved into what they are today. Every step led them directly to Trump's white American authoritarianism where our museums and libraries are being stripped of the stories and the very memory of non-white Americans' lives.
Plantation politics will never go away in this country: it is built on race exploitation and the appropriation of the value of the sweat of another person’s brow. It is now mutating to include more and more people in its grasp. Witness the broligarch push to create a tech feudal underclass. MAGA whites still vote against their best interests for the same reasons poor whites always voted against their interests in the Old South: “at least I ain’t black.” And women are doubly impounded by their sex and their race: service and silence, producing the next generation of masters or exploited workers. We have a long fight ahead of us. I appreciate your witness and desire to set things straight.
Another book I read years ago.... The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.. she broke it down in ways that were chilling and disturbing... I always ignore " forwards/introductions" don't want to read someone's paid opinion ... The book is powerful and I have never forgotten reading the ugly stages this country ( legally? ) and cunningly devised to smother the rightful freedom of people they disliked because of their skin color ...
And today, the GOP philosophy doesn’t seem to be to appeal to or attract AA voters, quite the opposite; but to work hard to either physically disenfranchise them back to pre 1964 or make them think that the Dems aren’t their friends and alienate them from the party. Seems to be working, sadly,
For those of us who supported so many who lost to the Southern Strategy and Atwater efforts these articles make me smile at our naiveté and pounding of chests disappointments for failure to overcome the lock race has had and continues to have in all our lives.
Thanks for posting this. I read "It Was All a Lie" when I first discovered the Lincoln Project and Stuart Stevens. I immediately got the book on inter-library loan. Whew I couldn't put it down. Opened my eyes to not only "the southern strategy" but also the thoughtfulness and insight into the pollical world that we now have. In the book, what struck me and has stuck with me, was how Stuart pointed out the use of "words" which cloaked the meaning of what was really meant. I suggest that if you haven't read this book---find a copy and read it.
And do you understand, Stuart, the broader than political implications of what you write? Pardon me for saying this, but after reading post after post from ex-Republican operatives for months on end, I am starting to wonder if any of you have penetrated to the bone, the heart, the soul--the incredibly critical nature of the times we're in. Throughout history, black human beings, brown human beings, Asian human beings, non-heterosexual human beings, and most pervasively of all, female human beings of all races have lived with a boot on their necks. Oh to be sure sometimes it was a well-polished and soft-soled boot, but it served to keep us, even if ever so 'gently,' in our place and at the service of males (here in the US and Europe, white males). I'll just close with this vignette: There is a young woman, of perhaps high school or college age. She is bright, articulate, well-read, clever and ambitious. And she is told in any number of ways that despite the wide-ranging interests typically held by people of that sort, she will never be successful unless she focuses her hopes and dreams on 'catching' a man, along with whatever sort of second tier jobs she might aspire to. A man, she's been taught, is a prize, a brass ring, proof of her desirability and social acceptability--the gold medal of a personal Olympics. So she marries young and for the rest of her life contorts herself into any number of uncomfortable clothes, domestic responsibilities, parenting responsibilities and responsibilities to support and please 'her man' (or else). She has a part time job she hopes to parlay into something with more scope once the kids are grown. And she fears she will be abandoned for a more sexually appealing, younger version of herself before she gets the chance to do so. And this is the story of a nice, conventional middle class woman, which is many times better than that of those born into the working class. Would you, could you, accept such a life (a common, common life, and not one of 'slavery,' exactly) for yourself or your sons?