Rick - great piece. The main question I have is: What is being down NOW to prepare for the day of Trump's departure and a Democratic majority in the House and (perhaps) the Senate. What is the Democratic leadership (writ large) doing now to move quickly to break down and expunge what Trump and his cronies have wrought? Who is preparing indictments? Who is developing the legal strategy? What is the plan for building and deploying a financial forensic capability (ala FINCEN pre-Trump). What are the Dem-majority plans for clawing back mis-directed allocation of public money. I could go on - but I think I've made my point.
“But for the sake of the American republic, we need to end this one politically. We need to defeat the apparatus of Trump, Trumpism, and their financial sponsors so soundly at the ballot box that the ideology itself becomes toxic.” Keep working everyone!!!
Amen to all of this, it's kind of like an octopus with all it's arms. You cut one off it grows back! TRUTH "THEY" ALL HAVE TO GO! NOT just HIM on top but every single one of them below. I hope Congress is up to the task because they are going to be very busy for a very long time getting this mess of an administration straightened out. Ironically it just had to fall on the year 2026 on the 250th Anniversary of the Founding! We truly have to bind together and get this ship righted and moving in the right direction no matter what it takes.
This "young, center-right coalition" in Hungary -- "meet the new boss," an apparently kinder, gentler version of the old boss? Hungary's history is very different from that of the U.S., but Trump didn't come out of nowhere any more than Orbán did. It's just that the "where" was different: for convenience let's start with the Reagan administration, though it didn't come out of nowhere either. The gutting of unions, the demonization of "welfare queens" and Black people in general, the dealing with Iran to suppress popular movements in Latin America . . . Clinton kept the ball rolling with the repeal of most of Glass-Steagall, Bush II/Cheney policies helped crash the economy, Republican SCOTUS appointees gave us Citizens United, and in the same year white outrage at having a Black president spawned the Tea Party election ("dark money" was certainly a contributing factor). Then the Republican majority, led by Mitch McConnell, in the Senate packed the Supreme Court, the gift that kept on giving to the incoming Trump administration.
"This isn't what we had in mind," the Republicans sidelined (and possibly horrified) by Trump may be saying, but it's what happened. And Republicans who were fine with Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II had plenty of time to see it coming. All that said, I share your fear that "the Democrats" -- especially the current congressional leaders -- will think it's enough to go back to the same old same-old, even though it's the same old same-old that got us here in the first place. So I'm hoping for leaders comparable in vision to FDR, but this time the likes of Eugene Debs and Martin Luther King Jr. will be whispering in their ears.
Wow Rick ! I was with you until how terrified you are about Dems winning and screwing this up, Are you auditioning to be Tucker Carlson’s campaign manager? Let’s not screw up the midterms by the old “they’re all the same, it doesn’t matter who we vote for”.Maybe encourage everyone that we will still have to be continuing No Kings especially after the blue wave! Not only to fight for the newly electeds to rightfully take their seats ( remember Jan 6?) but to make sure that accountability for lawless DT , DOJ , ICE , War etc. are achieved! When We Fight We Win!💪
How the left/dems got here has to do with blue colllar workers becoming part of the middle class. Their upward social mobillity after WW2 made then reprioritice their interests. The right/employers and their political reps were smart enough to use this shift in interests and slowly but shirly became able to retake what they previously lost, control over their workers both in the workplace and in society. By playing into the selfishness of human beings. That universal evolutionary desire.
Democrats are on the brink of being handed a great gift - a total repudiation of MAGA and the Republican Party as a whole. They need to use that gift to pass real reform, even if it makes their own donors and the useless DC consultants upset. A wealth tax on every dime over something like $100M, a return to pre-Reagan marginal tax rates, real universal healthcare, etc. And at the same time, a massive cut to Pentagon spending. When you have only funded a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Let's hope the failing and unpopular Democratic establishment doesn't blow it...again.
Rick - great piece. The main question I have is: What is being down NOW to prepare for the day of Trump's departure and a Democratic majority in the House and (perhaps) the Senate. What is the Democratic leadership (writ large) doing now to move quickly to break down and expunge what Trump and his cronies have wrought? Who is preparing indictments? Who is developing the legal strategy? What is the plan for building and deploying a financial forensic capability (ala FINCEN pre-Trump). What are the Dem-majority plans for clawing back mis-directed allocation of public money. I could go on - but I think I've made my point.
“But for the sake of the American republic, we need to end this one politically. We need to defeat the apparatus of Trump, Trumpism, and their financial sponsors so soundly at the ballot box that the ideology itself becomes toxic.” Keep working everyone!!!
Amen to all of this, it's kind of like an octopus with all it's arms. You cut one off it grows back! TRUTH "THEY" ALL HAVE TO GO! NOT just HIM on top but every single one of them below. I hope Congress is up to the task because they are going to be very busy for a very long time getting this mess of an administration straightened out. Ironically it just had to fall on the year 2026 on the 250th Anniversary of the Founding! We truly have to bind together and get this ship righted and moving in the right direction no matter what it takes.
Time for them to go, Rick.
This "young, center-right coalition" in Hungary -- "meet the new boss," an apparently kinder, gentler version of the old boss? Hungary's history is very different from that of the U.S., but Trump didn't come out of nowhere any more than Orbán did. It's just that the "where" was different: for convenience let's start with the Reagan administration, though it didn't come out of nowhere either. The gutting of unions, the demonization of "welfare queens" and Black people in general, the dealing with Iran to suppress popular movements in Latin America . . . Clinton kept the ball rolling with the repeal of most of Glass-Steagall, Bush II/Cheney policies helped crash the economy, Republican SCOTUS appointees gave us Citizens United, and in the same year white outrage at having a Black president spawned the Tea Party election ("dark money" was certainly a contributing factor). Then the Republican majority, led by Mitch McConnell, in the Senate packed the Supreme Court, the gift that kept on giving to the incoming Trump administration.
"This isn't what we had in mind," the Republicans sidelined (and possibly horrified) by Trump may be saying, but it's what happened. And Republicans who were fine with Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II had plenty of time to see it coming. All that said, I share your fear that "the Democrats" -- especially the current congressional leaders -- will think it's enough to go back to the same old same-old, even though it's the same old same-old that got us here in the first place. So I'm hoping for leaders comparable in vision to FDR, but this time the likes of Eugene Debs and Martin Luther King Jr. will be whispering in their ears.
Wow Rick ! I was with you until how terrified you are about Dems winning and screwing this up, Are you auditioning to be Tucker Carlson’s campaign manager? Let’s not screw up the midterms by the old “they’re all the same, it doesn’t matter who we vote for”.Maybe encourage everyone that we will still have to be continuing No Kings especially after the blue wave! Not only to fight for the newly electeds to rightfully take their seats ( remember Jan 6?) but to make sure that accountability for lawless DT , DOJ , ICE , War etc. are achieved! When We Fight We Win!💪
Pretty much "ditto" but (as noted elsewhere) we do have to pay serious attention to how and why we got here in the first place.
How the left/dems got here has to do with blue colllar workers becoming part of the middle class. Their upward social mobillity after WW2 made then reprioritice their interests. The right/employers and their political reps were smart enough to use this shift in interests and slowly but shirly became able to retake what they previously lost, control over their workers both in the workplace and in society. By playing into the selfishness of human beings. That universal evolutionary desire.
Democrats are on the brink of being handed a great gift - a total repudiation of MAGA and the Republican Party as a whole. They need to use that gift to pass real reform, even if it makes their own donors and the useless DC consultants upset. A wealth tax on every dime over something like $100M, a return to pre-Reagan marginal tax rates, real universal healthcare, etc. And at the same time, a massive cut to Pentagon spending. When you have only funded a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Let's hope the failing and unpopular Democratic establishment doesn't blow it...again.
Exactly.