From soaring tariffs to ICE's violence, the economic and moral costs of Trump's second term are clear. And that's alienating the very independent voters who delivered him the White House.
Major media did not explain to the voters that inflation was world wide and in response to supply not meeting demand after the pandemic eased. They did not report on Biden's successful bills to reclaim citizen's rights or fix the infrastructure. Instead they kept reporting on Trump's insane pronouncements. Trump has not been out of the headlines since 2015 and he was reported on quite a bit before that. Major media has a lot of guilt for what is happening in the country today and our becoming a pariah among free nations.
One basic value that Cheeto holds as number one importance is not to be a loser This underscores the Big Lie and all of the political machinations to try to reverse history as if it’s a time machine to go after anything that would state the obvious: he lost the 2020 election
Cheeto was so obsessed with the 2020 election loss that he even rigged the 2024(bit.ly/41UelTx) election with the help of vigilante challenges and with the help of his Nazi allies who love Der Fuhrer’s bravado But like almost everything Cheeto says, the use of the term “rigged” is nothing but a projection of what he himself has and wants to do in the future: Rig elections and his Nazi allies are complicit so that America never has a free and fair election again So once again the Nazi Republicans are experimenting like they did with the fallacious “trickle down economics”
Cheeto has tried to politically engineer mid decade gerrymandering but that become a bust The Nazis have been trying to get voter information so they can nationalize the vigilante challenge theme They created the SAVE act (and yet to pass) to disenfranchise the feminine vote Then he sent Gabbard to Georgia to confiscate 2020 ballots The Cheeto suggested that he’ll get control of voting equipment but his latest gambit is to have 15 GOP states(https://bit.ly/3NRxC4V) take over elections so that it will guarantee that the Nazi Republicans will never lose future elections
Why bother running on policy when you can just assure yourself that the Nazis will not have to worry about election losses? All because Cheeto has held a longstanding belief from his days with his mentor Roy Cohn that he should NEVER BE A LOSER Unfortunately for Cheeto he is and always will be a loser and the polls show it
I want to feel sympathy for those who now feel regret. I won’t be snarky, but I am stunned. How could anyone have not known who he is? He has shown us nothing but vengeance, corruption and selfishness since the day he entered adulthood.
“Trust but verify” the phrase Reagan used when dealing with Gorbachev . . .
Too many times I have heard “but HE said”
The world’s most prolific liar . . .
When he said he would bring prices down on day one; did anyone ask him HOW?
One of this country’s biggest problems is too many voters “marry the 2am booty call”
This is particularly true on the left, “he is too center.; I am voting for Ralph Nader” - “she is too Wall Street, I will waste my vote on the Green Party” these are examples of the 2 am booty call.
Instead voting should be cast based on generational changes, you marry the person who best fits your vision for the future “kids, no kids” etc.
While neither Gore or Ms Clinton were “perfect” they both would have steered this country to the left, instead we now are looking at 3 decades of at best stagnation. At worst we just might lose any opportunity to change the $hit storm we are currently experiencing.
Nice article, Andrew, I hope and pray America stands strong in March as winter ends and spring begins, spring forward on your clocks. I am tired of this weather. My car Tuxedo man is sleeping in the top of my closet. I hope DHS bill is defeated in two weeks. The testimony of these witnesses has been very helpful in stopping ice behavior in injuring severely and killing of Renee Nichole Good and Mr. Pertti. Every person should apply the pressure to Senator Schumer, shut it down. I listened to Mr. Parnas and Judy Rudd late last night, the way they treat women is disgraceful and disgusting. Especially since they are trying to become border patrol agents. Have a nice day everyone.
As your father has noted, everything trump touches dies, and now that includes trump's own poll numbers. While the demented trump can't claim he has lowered prices, he can certainly claim that measles cases have increased dramatically. Maybe the pro measles, pro childhood disease crowd will endorse GOP come November. And then there is th epro Epstein voters...
First HE was responsible for the first "inflation" when COVID (yes I remember this) hit and our economy upended the first time around. Oh he blamed Biden for that but Biden at least tried to get things up and running again even with the inflation. Now it's tariffs, I will say I'm no economist but I DO realize that Tariffs are Taxes that we are paying not the country of origin that sends said products to our country. Inflation is back but of course the answer is Lies and more lies and our leader again saying that we are reaping benefits from Tariffs which isn't true once again! Now ICE NEEDS reform they are too violent, they are too invasive of privacy (churches and schools) and don't seem to take their jobs seriously! And in Minnesota there are way too many of them. I heard a bunch of the victims yesterday telling their stories heartbreaking. I truly believe our leader's second term has been pretty much a bust. Thanks Andrew for all you do!
While “I am no economist” you did a pretty good job of hitting the nail on the head.
The real cause of inflation was, one the “supply chain issue” (the infomercial are still using it) and two it was “Biden’s fault” that his administration got the vaccine out so efficiently that created the “supply and demand” imbalance that drove inflation up, (too many freed consumers chasing too few goods and services. And three, the people in charge of setting prices, the C suite types, are typically Republicans; thus they had absolutely no incentive to reduce prices, and 3a, republicans in the senate killed the anti gouging bill.
A third of our population happily traded away our freedom to get a latter-day Mussolini. The problem arose *only* because the new knock-off version couldn't make the trains run on time. They care not a whit about the democracy that made their lives the best in the world. It's that stupidity and fecklessness that cannot be 'educated' into people. It's just character. They are worthless excuses for human beings, they don't even have the inner resources to protect their own children. We have no choice but to sideline them and leave them behind.
I wrote this on another site this morning about ICE/DHS... ...."actually ICE & DHS....they were let loose like rabid animals ... how we fix this is beyond me ..when the courts have to "play by the rules" and the animals know it, so delay delay delay, as more people get tortured and die in the countries and prisons they are sent to...any politician stating "elect me and I will get things done" is lying... the system, judicial included, must be "level headed" but it is sadly glacial.... if your sick, poor or starving you could be dead before any bills or laws are passed to save you... the r's knowingly run on this and get elected and now making it worse .. FEMA anyone? ...the d's always try to "explain" and we get labeled "woke uppity & elitist"....shadow dockets and judicial delays do not keep anyone alive... they just feed the rabid animals... how do we change this? Sorry I'm just so fed up with this BS.."
I really believe rot gut trump got in again because republicans are much better at the game. Dems want to be classy, don’t speak out and refuse to fight dirty which needed to be done. They never stood up for President Biden who was cleaning up trumps 1st term, nothing. And sadly young voters seem to still be with the trump propaganda and Dems do nothing to change it.
The other side of the coin - Democrats aren't popular either. Hope they don't blow this opportunity. Also share concerns about the election - Trump knows no bounds.
The numbers tell A story of Trump's second term, but the human devastation is THE story. The murder of Renee Good and Alex Pretti was an awakening. Terrible that it took murder to awaken people to this authoritarian regime's purpose. The hearing in Congress where the victims of ICE spoke to the criminal ICE behavior---a hearing that only the democrats attend--shame on the Republicans for not attending--tells the full ruthless story of ICE on the streets. This is a human story. There story is our story. This is our country to have and to hold for all. Thanks for the showing the numbers Andrew. It does reflect an awakening. And now we all must be on the alert for the danger of what will come next from this regime. Take care all.
What could go wrong is the same thing that could go wrong with the 'Trump' Kennedy Center demolition plan. Voting for a government is a construct, created and sustained by us. It's not something occurring in nature. It's a proxy for violence, an alternative that goes a lot easier on the populous and the infrastructure. Trump is going for the tail because he is terrified of the dog.
All that 'oh we're doomed because we'll just get normalized to all this fascism'? It's not turning out that way, is it? People are recovering faster than ever from the 'flood the zone' tactics, they're getting better and more efficient at filtering out the noisy shit, and their mental toughness is increasing by the minute.
Historians and Germans of a certain age have been pretty much in agreement: comparing 2026 America to Weimar Germany is lazy bullshit. There was nothing in Germany remotely like the resistance that the American population is giving to this flawed and brittle regime.
Agreed, this is not the same as Weimar Germany. However, Hitler was not in power from 1919 until early 1933. Trump is in power now, and a lot can still go wrong. Well, I think a lot will continue to go wrong before it goes right again. I am still optimistic enough to believe that American democracy and its institutions can survive this wretched period, thanks to the majority of Americans who still oppose Trump. No thanks to Democratic leadership or the Supreme Court, by the way. But it won't be easy, and democracy surviving here is not guaranteed. Trump's level of narcissism is so great, and his cruelty (and stupidity) so bottomless, that he would take down the entire country before risking accountability post-presidency. That said, I agree with your analysis of people not normalizing fascism here. Minneapolis is proof of that.
Every coin here has two sides. Hitler did not 'rise to power' until Hindenburg's 'official' action naming him chancellor in 1933. Before that, Hitler was the plucky underdog, the hero of the volk, and it was that social pressure that forced Hindenburg's hand (or so he thought). Mussolini's story went exactly the same way.
Trump's story is the inverse of that. With a very short run-up, he went straight to 'chancellor' and immediately began shitting the bed for all to see. With a four-year banishment to the wilderness, the volk desired another round of bed-shitting. And boy, have they gotten it, good and hard.
American institutions have been destroyed, weakened, and discredited by Trump's reign of terror. All of those institutions are constructs *we* put in place. Our 'leaders' have been cowardly and feckless. All of those 'leaders' are proxies *we* put in place. The idea that this all comes down to the people to save themselves has stopped being a truism. It's very real.
Book recommendation: "Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual For Keeping A Democracy" by Joyce Vance, recently published. She addresses the current state of our institutions, making the argument that they are still stronger than many fatalists may think.
"Among independents and Republicans, 71% and 19%, respectively, say ICE has gone too far." So 81% of Republican voters think ICE has NOT "gone too far." That's just great. The question that comes to mind for me, regarding this 81% is "What does it take?" What does it take for these people to realize who Donald Trump is, and what he's all about? But then I remember, that's the same question I've been asking for the last ten years.
You're answering your own question, and making it rhetorical. "These people" realized from the git what Donald Trump is, and they like it. They want it. They need the spectacle of suffering to feel powerful and victorious, because they know they can't be in real life. What they *want* are *feelings*. They are so fundamentally broken that, to get mere feelings, they willingly traded away their freedom, country, and futures of their children.
By their own words and actions, they have declared to us that they are of no consequence. When we move ahead, we should take them at their word and leave them behind.
Major media did not explain to the voters that inflation was world wide and in response to supply not meeting demand after the pandemic eased. They did not report on Biden's successful bills to reclaim citizen's rights or fix the infrastructure. Instead they kept reporting on Trump's insane pronouncements. Trump has not been out of the headlines since 2015 and he was reported on quite a bit before that. Major media has a lot of guilt for what is happening in the country today and our becoming a pariah among free nations.
Cheeto’s Nazi Republicans Subverting Elections
One basic value that Cheeto holds as number one importance is not to be a loser This underscores the Big Lie and all of the political machinations to try to reverse history as if it’s a time machine to go after anything that would state the obvious: he lost the 2020 election
Cheeto was so obsessed with the 2020 election loss that he even rigged the 2024(bit.ly/41UelTx) election with the help of vigilante challenges and with the help of his Nazi allies who love Der Fuhrer’s bravado But like almost everything Cheeto says, the use of the term “rigged” is nothing but a projection of what he himself has and wants to do in the future: Rig elections and his Nazi allies are complicit so that America never has a free and fair election again So once again the Nazi Republicans are experimenting like they did with the fallacious “trickle down economics”
Cheeto has tried to politically engineer mid decade gerrymandering but that become a bust The Nazis have been trying to get voter information so they can nationalize the vigilante challenge theme They created the SAVE act (and yet to pass) to disenfranchise the feminine vote Then he sent Gabbard to Georgia to confiscate 2020 ballots The Cheeto suggested that he’ll get control of voting equipment but his latest gambit is to have 15 GOP states(https://bit.ly/3NRxC4V) take over elections so that it will guarantee that the Nazi Republicans will never lose future elections
Why bother running on policy when you can just assure yourself that the Nazis will not have to worry about election losses? All because Cheeto has held a longstanding belief from his days with his mentor Roy Cohn that he should NEVER BE A LOSER Unfortunately for Cheeto he is and always will be a loser and the polls show it
I want to feel sympathy for those who now feel regret. I won’t be snarky, but I am stunned. How could anyone have not known who he is? He has shown us nothing but vengeance, corruption and selfishness since the day he entered adulthood.
“Trust but verify” the phrase Reagan used when dealing with Gorbachev . . .
Too many times I have heard “but HE said”
The world’s most prolific liar . . .
When he said he would bring prices down on day one; did anyone ask him HOW?
One of this country’s biggest problems is too many voters “marry the 2am booty call”
This is particularly true on the left, “he is too center.; I am voting for Ralph Nader” - “she is too Wall Street, I will waste my vote on the Green Party” these are examples of the 2 am booty call.
Instead voting should be cast based on generational changes, you marry the person who best fits your vision for the future “kids, no kids” etc.
While neither Gore or Ms Clinton were “perfect” they both would have steered this country to the left, instead we now are looking at 3 decades of at best stagnation. At worst we just might lose any opportunity to change the $hit storm we are currently experiencing.
Nice article, Andrew, I hope and pray America stands strong in March as winter ends and spring begins, spring forward on your clocks. I am tired of this weather. My car Tuxedo man is sleeping in the top of my closet. I hope DHS bill is defeated in two weeks. The testimony of these witnesses has been very helpful in stopping ice behavior in injuring severely and killing of Renee Nichole Good and Mr. Pertti. Every person should apply the pressure to Senator Schumer, shut it down. I listened to Mr. Parnas and Judy Rudd late last night, the way they treat women is disgraceful and disgusting. Especially since they are trying to become border patrol agents. Have a nice day everyone.
As your father has noted, everything trump touches dies, and now that includes trump's own poll numbers. While the demented trump can't claim he has lowered prices, he can certainly claim that measles cases have increased dramatically. Maybe the pro measles, pro childhood disease crowd will endorse GOP come November. And then there is th epro Epstein voters...
First HE was responsible for the first "inflation" when COVID (yes I remember this) hit and our economy upended the first time around. Oh he blamed Biden for that but Biden at least tried to get things up and running again even with the inflation. Now it's tariffs, I will say I'm no economist but I DO realize that Tariffs are Taxes that we are paying not the country of origin that sends said products to our country. Inflation is back but of course the answer is Lies and more lies and our leader again saying that we are reaping benefits from Tariffs which isn't true once again! Now ICE NEEDS reform they are too violent, they are too invasive of privacy (churches and schools) and don't seem to take their jobs seriously! And in Minnesota there are way too many of them. I heard a bunch of the victims yesterday telling their stories heartbreaking. I truly believe our leader's second term has been pretty much a bust. Thanks Andrew for all you do!
While “I am no economist” you did a pretty good job of hitting the nail on the head.
The real cause of inflation was, one the “supply chain issue” (the infomercial are still using it) and two it was “Biden’s fault” that his administration got the vaccine out so efficiently that created the “supply and demand” imbalance that drove inflation up, (too many freed consumers chasing too few goods and services. And three, the people in charge of setting prices, the C suite types, are typically Republicans; thus they had absolutely no incentive to reduce prices, and 3a, republicans in the senate killed the anti gouging bill.
A third of our population happily traded away our freedom to get a latter-day Mussolini. The problem arose *only* because the new knock-off version couldn't make the trains run on time. They care not a whit about the democracy that made their lives the best in the world. It's that stupidity and fecklessness that cannot be 'educated' into people. It's just character. They are worthless excuses for human beings, they don't even have the inner resources to protect their own children. We have no choice but to sideline them and leave them behind.
I wrote this on another site this morning about ICE/DHS... ...."actually ICE & DHS....they were let loose like rabid animals ... how we fix this is beyond me ..when the courts have to "play by the rules" and the animals know it, so delay delay delay, as more people get tortured and die in the countries and prisons they are sent to...any politician stating "elect me and I will get things done" is lying... the system, judicial included, must be "level headed" but it is sadly glacial.... if your sick, poor or starving you could be dead before any bills or laws are passed to save you... the r's knowingly run on this and get elected and now making it worse .. FEMA anyone? ...the d's always try to "explain" and we get labeled "woke uppity & elitist"....shadow dockets and judicial delays do not keep anyone alive... they just feed the rabid animals... how do we change this? Sorry I'm just so fed up with this BS.."
I really believe rot gut trump got in again because republicans are much better at the game. Dems want to be classy, don’t speak out and refuse to fight dirty which needed to be done. They never stood up for President Biden who was cleaning up trumps 1st term, nothing. And sadly young voters seem to still be with the trump propaganda and Dems do nothing to change it.
Read my substake that I wrote this morning!
The other side of the coin - Democrats aren't popular either. Hope they don't blow this opportunity. Also share concerns about the election - Trump knows no bounds.
The numbers tell A story of Trump's second term, but the human devastation is THE story. The murder of Renee Good and Alex Pretti was an awakening. Terrible that it took murder to awaken people to this authoritarian regime's purpose. The hearing in Congress where the victims of ICE spoke to the criminal ICE behavior---a hearing that only the democrats attend--shame on the Republicans for not attending--tells the full ruthless story of ICE on the streets. This is a human story. There story is our story. This is our country to have and to hold for all. Thanks for the showing the numbers Andrew. It does reflect an awakening. And now we all must be on the alert for the danger of what will come next from this regime. Take care all.
Trump will try to destroy voting. That’s his solution. He has a Supreme Court without honor and a supine Republican Party. What could go wrong ?
What could go wrong is the same thing that could go wrong with the 'Trump' Kennedy Center demolition plan. Voting for a government is a construct, created and sustained by us. It's not something occurring in nature. It's a proxy for violence, an alternative that goes a lot easier on the populous and the infrastructure. Trump is going for the tail because he is terrified of the dog.
All that 'oh we're doomed because we'll just get normalized to all this fascism'? It's not turning out that way, is it? People are recovering faster than ever from the 'flood the zone' tactics, they're getting better and more efficient at filtering out the noisy shit, and their mental toughness is increasing by the minute.
Historians and Germans of a certain age have been pretty much in agreement: comparing 2026 America to Weimar Germany is lazy bullshit. There was nothing in Germany remotely like the resistance that the American population is giving to this flawed and brittle regime.
Agreed, this is not the same as Weimar Germany. However, Hitler was not in power from 1919 until early 1933. Trump is in power now, and a lot can still go wrong. Well, I think a lot will continue to go wrong before it goes right again. I am still optimistic enough to believe that American democracy and its institutions can survive this wretched period, thanks to the majority of Americans who still oppose Trump. No thanks to Democratic leadership or the Supreme Court, by the way. But it won't be easy, and democracy surviving here is not guaranteed. Trump's level of narcissism is so great, and his cruelty (and stupidity) so bottomless, that he would take down the entire country before risking accountability post-presidency. That said, I agree with your analysis of people not normalizing fascism here. Minneapolis is proof of that.
Every coin here has two sides. Hitler did not 'rise to power' until Hindenburg's 'official' action naming him chancellor in 1933. Before that, Hitler was the plucky underdog, the hero of the volk, and it was that social pressure that forced Hindenburg's hand (or so he thought). Mussolini's story went exactly the same way.
Trump's story is the inverse of that. With a very short run-up, he went straight to 'chancellor' and immediately began shitting the bed for all to see. With a four-year banishment to the wilderness, the volk desired another round of bed-shitting. And boy, have they gotten it, good and hard.
American institutions have been destroyed, weakened, and discredited by Trump's reign of terror. All of those institutions are constructs *we* put in place. Our 'leaders' have been cowardly and feckless. All of those 'leaders' are proxies *we* put in place. The idea that this all comes down to the people to save themselves has stopped being a truism. It's very real.
Book recommendation: "Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual For Keeping A Democracy" by Joyce Vance, recently published. She addresses the current state of our institutions, making the argument that they are still stronger than many fatalists may think.
Very good, thanks.
"Among independents and Republicans, 71% and 19%, respectively, say ICE has gone too far." So 81% of Republican voters think ICE has NOT "gone too far." That's just great. The question that comes to mind for me, regarding this 81% is "What does it take?" What does it take for these people to realize who Donald Trump is, and what he's all about? But then I remember, that's the same question I've been asking for the last ten years.
You're answering your own question, and making it rhetorical. "These people" realized from the git what Donald Trump is, and they like it. They want it. They need the spectacle of suffering to feel powerful and victorious, because they know they can't be in real life. What they *want* are *feelings*. They are so fundamentally broken that, to get mere feelings, they willingly traded away their freedom, country, and futures of their children.
By their own words and actions, they have declared to us that they are of no consequence. When we move ahead, we should take them at their word and leave them behind.