Iām beginning to better understand why your writing is so moving, Stephen. You write about the most difficult and challenging subjects, but with such pervasive and heartfelt love for America and Americans, that you get right to our hearts and minds from your very first sentences. š
By starting a DOJ investigation on others just now........the DOJ could decide to hold back some files until those investigations have been completed? Is that the plot to not having to publish everything and continue to protect him? Why else would he suddenly change his mind? This battel ain't over yet...
My intense dislike of DJT began in the late 80ās and early 90ās and was never political - itās always been a moral issue for me. His lack of morals, character and dignity have been my personal redlines. Heāll cheat anyone and everyone to put $ in his own pocket.
The answer to the headline question is "No." It's already happened. We elected this monster ourselves. Twice. All the "Epstein files" are never going to come all the way out as long as he's in office. He's got two backup plans - the Senate vote and the fake FBI investigation. It's long past 25th Amendment time, but that's not going to happen either. And he's not going to resign on his own. Two things worry me now. One is that this thoroughly corrupt and rotten administration will find some reason, with the complicity of the Supine Six, to postpone or cancel the national election next year. And the excuse will be a pointless war in Venezuela ("1944 be damned. We make our own history. This time it's different") which will be pursued without a formal Congressional declaration. Are we going to place our Armed Forces in harm's way with a plausibly legal order? It's been done before. Who's going to tell him "No?" Will we be headed to a military coup followed by a civil war? Late night babbling, I know, but I'm worried sick.
On the mark James! Regarding being worried sick, as well as, being deathly afraid what the future holdsā¦we all should be trembling in our boots! Regarding tRump et alā¦he has to be removed sooner NOT later! We all have at one time or another heard aboutā¦āThe the danger from, or desperation of, a trapped Rat!!ā
We need to stop trembling and do something. But what? Kyle Bickel lays out the problem better than I did. Whoās going to make him go? Especially if the MAGAts block or otherwise hinder the mid-term election.
Frankly I donāt have a clue! Unfortunately I donāt think many Americans feel we are really in the trouble we are! They feel āThings will just work out!ā I donāt! Apathy reigns supreme. We will never have an honest election againā¦if at all! Although people think Iām an āalarmist!ā That said, A simple Google search reveals Trump actually is building his forces. He has approximately 20k ICE thugs under arms. Iāve read he seeks 10k more by yearās end. So 30K+ (+ could be any number of the lunatic fringe). Something to keep in mind, the US Army considers 10 to 20k a Division. Trump already has a strong presence in several US Cities. Has our Military been compromised? They certainly have lost quite a few highly skilled Senior Officers.
Is the premise too much to accept? Rememberā¦he tried this before with an undisciplined Rabble.
The expansion and transformation of ICE into Trump's Secret State Police (Gestapo, literally) is what worries me most domestically. And the culture (which should properly be retained only in a Petri dish) permeates the entire administration. Check out these posters, reportedly from the Department of Labor.
Steven, I share your revulsion, your concern about the corrosive danger of allowing crimes and wholly immoral actions to go unchecked in our society, and the imperative for people to come together to demand change. It is long past time for this dangerous despot and his band of opportunistic sycophants to face accountability. Our democracy and our standing as a just society depend on it.
But, there are practical issues, as well as broader cultural problems, I see with your prescription that we āthrow the bums outā to paraphrase. First, no matter how many good and patriotic citizens rise in protest to demand change, the takeover of all three branches of power in our government by a wholly corrupted and subservient Republican Party means the constitutionally designed mechanism for removing a dangerous and corrupt president becomes moot. Second, and this is even more troubling, there are far too many people in our society who actually enjoy the spectacles Trump creates and who donāt care about such quaint notions as justice and morality. They consume and are in fact the reason for a broad diet of grotesque ārealityā tv, shock jock radio, and clickbait social media, and this is nothing more than validation that their distorted values and sense of reality are acceptable; āeven the president does it so I can do it tooā is their comforting rationalization. And to the degree that he controls the narrative and his enablers and hangers-on control the media, they are correct. It is in both of these conundrums that we find the truth of the realization that Trump is as much a symptom as a cause of our malaise.
Given both of these sobering realities, I donāt see how anything other than a massive electoral shift next November can hope to succeed in purging our country of this malign MAGA cancer, no matter how many of us see the dangers and protest with all our energy in the streets every day before then. Even a prolonged national strike, which has theoretical merit in starving the beast (the untouchable and increasingly unconcerned billionaire class) of its sustenance, has practical limitations. Because the truth is they have the capacity to ride out the hardships that would induce and require for far longer than the people demanding change via the purse. After all, whatās a few billion to a trillionaire?
I agree, the damage - both real and spiritual - Trump and MAGA can do to our nation, its people, the people of the rest of the world, and the planet in another yearās time is terrifying and heartbreaking. And we have to hope for something better. I just wish I saw a clearer path before Nov. 2026 to realizing it.
Excellent post, Kyle. You said it better than I did. If the election is held as it normally would be, there is real potential for that massive electoral shift. But I fear the machinations of this utterly vile administration, its enablers and its adherents.
āOnce a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.ā - Harry S. Truman
Hereās the thing: if Trump is so interested in Epstein transparency, why not just have Bondi/Patel release them? There is no need for the Congress to compel that action. I suspect the FBI minions have redacted every mention of Trump by now. Maybe some investigative genius will be able to string Trumpās obvious participation and complicity in raping young girls, but I wouldnāt count on it. Impeaching and removing Trump as soon as possible would take a Congress/Republican party with backbone. Heās trying to give them a political chit by ālettingā them vote on the matter, some cover that these craven excuses for The Peopleās representatives can tout for the midterms. You are right, Stephen, that there is a putrid rot in the land. Even giving the Epstein survivors the grace of finally knowing and understanding what happened to them, who is responsible, and a hope that justice will, at last, be served doesnāt guarantee sweet winds of change will come. But just as the heartbreak of seeing the flag crumpled and dirty makes me cry, the will to fight, to march, to demand this nightmare end is the least we can do to help those women, the nation and the flag to heal.
If we look at our "moral collapse", we must go back to the failures of congressional leadership. Mitch McConnell gave a pass to Trump, allowing Trump to avoid impeachment. Charles Schumer has been the dabbler using cautious rhetoric meant to soothe or placate; never to reconcile. Mike Johnson has played the role of Trump's paladin. Failure of leadership in its authentic, pure sense leads to moral collapse. But first we must have leaders. The people, then, are caught up in a whirlwind of disgrace and dishonor.
The stench-filled debauchery created by Trump, his cabinet and a host of others has exposed a crude, putrid and cruel vein running through the body of America. No matter how resilient the people, the moral collapse can occur only when the benefactors are halted and the people as beneficiaries can reclaim the moral high ground. Sadly, the return to that moral high ground will demand a campaign of extraordinary force because those benefactors of sludge and filth will not go quietly away. Our battle will be apocalyptic.
This was such an excellent piece, Steven. I love the way you separate Trumpās America from our America; not because I like the idea of separating us along party lines, but because the America that is fighting to right itself against the scourge of Trump and Trumpism is certainly the America most of us yearn for. We yearn deeply and profoundly for the return of our American idealsā¦justice, mercy, compassion and freedom for ALL. We remember these things and as long as we can remember what it felt like to strive for them we can recreate a country with boundless energy that moves us ever closer to them. We can extinguish the mortal evil whose shadow hangs over us like a terrible storm cloud, threatening we know not what. May we all seek to understand how profoundly important this moment in history is for each and every one of us!
We can say, not my president, but to the rest of the world he is. What he says and does reflects on all of us. Therefore we can not take solace in saying not my president. We need to remain united in fighting back against the damage being inflicted by his regime. His regime extends beyond the executive branch and into the legislative and judicial branches.
Too many of us are focusing on 2026 and 2028. We can not wait till then. His regime is working to alter the makeup of districts in states to give a majority to their sycophants. The rot as it is being referred to has crept into the states. The longer we wait the deeper the rot will get and harder to remove.
Steven, Iāve plagiarized(?) in part, a Comment (mine) I sent to another respected Substack Contributor (HCR). It seemed appropriate to use it to respond to your very dire comments today, āCan America Avoid Moral Collapse?ā Unfortunately, it seems utterly impossible to avoid. Our great society is going to hellā¦double time! Led by the daily onslaught of blatantly despicable deeds of a seemingly untouchable low life, convicted criminal and his gang of sycophants. Sadly, we seem helpless to save our selves, except for a very, very few we are like the poor Frog in the pot of water thatās getting warmer by the day! Such a shame!
"Moral collapse"? My initial reaction was "WTF?" Collapses are sudden, I thought -- then it dawned on me that they usually don't come out of nowhere. Often they are preceded by long periods of neglect and/or denial. Whatever is collapsing in the U.S. has been rickety for a long time, at least since the Reagan administration and more likely since the founding of the Republic. Racism is an obvious faultline, and economic power is right up there. (Check out the funders for Trump's monstrous ballroom. See what I mean?)
The "moral" part is trickier. Morality seems to float above the workaday world, an abstraction detached from our physical needs for food, warmth, and shelter. Until those physical needs are satisfied, it's easy to put morality on a back burner or in the closet (if we have one). Morality also evolves over time. Once upon a time, many white Americans considered slavery and the subjugation of women moral, even divinely justified. The rise of Reagan and the ongoing appeal of Trump suggests that these convictions haven't gone away.
The big problem with that headline, come to think of it, is the word "avoid." We can't *avoid* moral collapse because moral collapse is ongoing. Fortunately, so is the struggle to prevent and reverse it. Racism and misogyny have been with us from the beginning, but so have the struggles against them. Which is why I don't believe that Trump and his enablers (among whom I include the 77 million USians who voted for him) have "damaged our nation beyond repair." The Civil War, Jim Crow, and the plutocrats couldn't do it, though they all came close -- and though each time we defeat them, they manage to come back. So now we've got another chance. Let's get it done this time.
It's difficult to imagine that we haven't had our own Storm the Castille moment, latched onto Trump, and dragged him physically out of the White House by now. Truthfully, it may take exactly that to end this tyranny, this nightmare.
With that said, I personally do not think he'll survive another year in office. One, his health is horrible and getting worse. And two, if you read todays Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson, you'll find out that there are plans in place for MAGA after Trump. It's looking clearer to me that Trump is approaching the end of his usefulness with the Project 2025 crowd, to put a label on them, and associate oligarch adherents. They already have ample justification to remove him via the 25th Amendment. Then it's more of the same but with Vance at the top. And that's where the mid-terms come into play.
I have no doubt that by this time Pam Bondi and Trumpās other grotesque toadies have removed the most incriminating documents. What else have they been doing all this time? Trump could have directed the DOJ to release all the files immediately, months ago. They probably gave Trump the all-clear signal, which is the ONLY reason he is now calling for their release. It is naiive to think he would do it otherwise, no matter what congress votes on. And he would have no compunction about vetoing it. Just watch. There wonāt be any āthereā there.
Trumpās mock DOJ announced mock investigations of Clinton and Somers in connection with Epsteinās misdeeds just a few days before he told the desperate Publicans to go ahead and vote to subpoena the Files. This wasnāt a coincidence, it was a plan. The investigations will go on for the rest of Trumpās term. As long as they do, DOJ will respond āSorry, canāt release documents in an ongoing investigationā to any subpoena.
Iām beginning to better understand why your writing is so moving, Stephen. You write about the most difficult and challenging subjects, but with such pervasive and heartfelt love for America and Americans, that you get right to our hearts and minds from your very first sentences. š
Thank you, Genevieve. I appreciate that.
By starting a DOJ investigation on others just now........the DOJ could decide to hold back some files until those investigations have been completed? Is that the plot to not having to publish everything and continue to protect him? Why else would he suddenly change his mind? This battel ain't over yet...
My reaction too. When a liar offers to show his hand, cards are up his sleeve.
My intense dislike of DJT began in the late 80ās and early 90ās and was never political - itās always been a moral issue for me. His lack of morals, character and dignity have been my personal redlines. Heāll cheat anyone and everyone to put $ in his own pocket.
Seems like someone warned him and let him save face.
The answer to the headline question is "No." It's already happened. We elected this monster ourselves. Twice. All the "Epstein files" are never going to come all the way out as long as he's in office. He's got two backup plans - the Senate vote and the fake FBI investigation. It's long past 25th Amendment time, but that's not going to happen either. And he's not going to resign on his own. Two things worry me now. One is that this thoroughly corrupt and rotten administration will find some reason, with the complicity of the Supine Six, to postpone or cancel the national election next year. And the excuse will be a pointless war in Venezuela ("1944 be damned. We make our own history. This time it's different") which will be pursued without a formal Congressional declaration. Are we going to place our Armed Forces in harm's way with a plausibly legal order? It's been done before. Who's going to tell him "No?" Will we be headed to a military coup followed by a civil war? Late night babbling, I know, but I'm worried sick.
James, many of us share your worry!
On the mark James! Regarding being worried sick, as well as, being deathly afraid what the future holdsā¦we all should be trembling in our boots! Regarding tRump et alā¦he has to be removed sooner NOT later! We all have at one time or another heard aboutā¦āThe the danger from, or desperation of, a trapped Rat!!ā
We need to stop trembling and do something. But what? Kyle Bickel lays out the problem better than I did. Whoās going to make him go? Especially if the MAGAts block or otherwise hinder the mid-term election.
Frankly I donāt have a clue! Unfortunately I donāt think many Americans feel we are really in the trouble we are! They feel āThings will just work out!ā I donāt! Apathy reigns supreme. We will never have an honest election againā¦if at all! Although people think Iām an āalarmist!ā That said, A simple Google search reveals Trump actually is building his forces. He has approximately 20k ICE thugs under arms. Iāve read he seeks 10k more by yearās end. So 30K+ (+ could be any number of the lunatic fringe). Something to keep in mind, the US Army considers 10 to 20k a Division. Trump already has a strong presence in several US Cities. Has our Military been compromised? They certainly have lost quite a few highly skilled Senior Officers.
Is the premise too much to accept? Rememberā¦he tried this before with an undisciplined Rabble.
The expansion and transformation of ICE into Trump's Secret State Police (Gestapo, literally) is what worries me most domestically. And the culture (which should properly be retained only in a Petri dish) permeates the entire administration. Check out these posters, reportedly from the Department of Labor.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQWCpt4zzyPW_LNB6XCsaYrr4_Fkwa1YfHbUhwsXTImtmscG6RPd_JUPYsD6Bd07MSLl3E&usqp=CAU
(This collage is copied from a FB post, but I verified the individual posters on the DOL site. I wish I were making this up)
If these don't get you singing "Die fahne hoch......" I don't know what will.
The exact Wag the Dog scenario we've all been waiting for.
Steven, I share your revulsion, your concern about the corrosive danger of allowing crimes and wholly immoral actions to go unchecked in our society, and the imperative for people to come together to demand change. It is long past time for this dangerous despot and his band of opportunistic sycophants to face accountability. Our democracy and our standing as a just society depend on it.
But, there are practical issues, as well as broader cultural problems, I see with your prescription that we āthrow the bums outā to paraphrase. First, no matter how many good and patriotic citizens rise in protest to demand change, the takeover of all three branches of power in our government by a wholly corrupted and subservient Republican Party means the constitutionally designed mechanism for removing a dangerous and corrupt president becomes moot. Second, and this is even more troubling, there are far too many people in our society who actually enjoy the spectacles Trump creates and who donāt care about such quaint notions as justice and morality. They consume and are in fact the reason for a broad diet of grotesque ārealityā tv, shock jock radio, and clickbait social media, and this is nothing more than validation that their distorted values and sense of reality are acceptable; āeven the president does it so I can do it tooā is their comforting rationalization. And to the degree that he controls the narrative and his enablers and hangers-on control the media, they are correct. It is in both of these conundrums that we find the truth of the realization that Trump is as much a symptom as a cause of our malaise.
Given both of these sobering realities, I donāt see how anything other than a massive electoral shift next November can hope to succeed in purging our country of this malign MAGA cancer, no matter how many of us see the dangers and protest with all our energy in the streets every day before then. Even a prolonged national strike, which has theoretical merit in starving the beast (the untouchable and increasingly unconcerned billionaire class) of its sustenance, has practical limitations. Because the truth is they have the capacity to ride out the hardships that would induce and require for far longer than the people demanding change via the purse. After all, whatās a few billion to a trillionaire?
I agree, the damage - both real and spiritual - Trump and MAGA can do to our nation, its people, the people of the rest of the world, and the planet in another yearās time is terrifying and heartbreaking. And we have to hope for something better. I just wish I saw a clearer path before Nov. 2026 to realizing it.
Excellent post, Kyle. You said it better than I did. If the election is held as it normally would be, there is real potential for that massive electoral shift. But I fear the machinations of this utterly vile administration, its enablers and its adherents.
Thanks James. I share your fear.
āOnce a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.ā - Harry S. Truman
The terror will not stop until morale improves.
I worry that if he is encouraging their release, it might be because he has had some of the evidence destroyed.
A reasonable worry.
Hereās the thing: if Trump is so interested in Epstein transparency, why not just have Bondi/Patel release them? There is no need for the Congress to compel that action. I suspect the FBI minions have redacted every mention of Trump by now. Maybe some investigative genius will be able to string Trumpās obvious participation and complicity in raping young girls, but I wouldnāt count on it. Impeaching and removing Trump as soon as possible would take a Congress/Republican party with backbone. Heās trying to give them a political chit by ālettingā them vote on the matter, some cover that these craven excuses for The Peopleās representatives can tout for the midterms. You are right, Stephen, that there is a putrid rot in the land. Even giving the Epstein survivors the grace of finally knowing and understanding what happened to them, who is responsible, and a hope that justice will, at last, be served doesnāt guarantee sweet winds of change will come. But just as the heartbreak of seeing the flag crumpled and dirty makes me cry, the will to fight, to march, to demand this nightmare end is the least we can do to help those women, the nation and the flag to heal.
If we look at our "moral collapse", we must go back to the failures of congressional leadership. Mitch McConnell gave a pass to Trump, allowing Trump to avoid impeachment. Charles Schumer has been the dabbler using cautious rhetoric meant to soothe or placate; never to reconcile. Mike Johnson has played the role of Trump's paladin. Failure of leadership in its authentic, pure sense leads to moral collapse. But first we must have leaders. The people, then, are caught up in a whirlwind of disgrace and dishonor.
The stench-filled debauchery created by Trump, his cabinet and a host of others has exposed a crude, putrid and cruel vein running through the body of America. No matter how resilient the people, the moral collapse can occur only when the benefactors are halted and the people as beneficiaries can reclaim the moral high ground. Sadly, the return to that moral high ground will demand a campaign of extraordinary force because those benefactors of sludge and filth will not go quietly away. Our battle will be apocalyptic.
This was such an excellent piece, Steven. I love the way you separate Trumpās America from our America; not because I like the idea of separating us along party lines, but because the America that is fighting to right itself against the scourge of Trump and Trumpism is certainly the America most of us yearn for. We yearn deeply and profoundly for the return of our American idealsā¦justice, mercy, compassion and freedom for ALL. We remember these things and as long as we can remember what it felt like to strive for them we can recreate a country with boundless energy that moves us ever closer to them. We can extinguish the mortal evil whose shadow hangs over us like a terrible storm cloud, threatening we know not what. May we all seek to understand how profoundly important this moment in history is for each and every one of us!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Ellen.
We can say, not my president, but to the rest of the world he is. What he says and does reflects on all of us. Therefore we can not take solace in saying not my president. We need to remain united in fighting back against the damage being inflicted by his regime. His regime extends beyond the executive branch and into the legislative and judicial branches.
Too many of us are focusing on 2026 and 2028. We can not wait till then. His regime is working to alter the makeup of districts in states to give a majority to their sycophants. The rot as it is being referred to has crept into the states. The longer we wait the deeper the rot will get and harder to remove.
I would add that the damage being inflicted by his regime is rending our social fabric too.
The result of endless us vs. them rhetoric.
Steven, Iāve plagiarized(?) in part, a Comment (mine) I sent to another respected Substack Contributor (HCR). It seemed appropriate to use it to respond to your very dire comments today, āCan America Avoid Moral Collapse?ā Unfortunately, it seems utterly impossible to avoid. Our great society is going to hellā¦double time! Led by the daily onslaught of blatantly despicable deeds of a seemingly untouchable low life, convicted criminal and his gang of sycophants. Sadly, we seem helpless to save our selves, except for a very, very few we are like the poor Frog in the pot of water thatās getting warmer by the day! Such a shame!
"Moral collapse"? My initial reaction was "WTF?" Collapses are sudden, I thought -- then it dawned on me that they usually don't come out of nowhere. Often they are preceded by long periods of neglect and/or denial. Whatever is collapsing in the U.S. has been rickety for a long time, at least since the Reagan administration and more likely since the founding of the Republic. Racism is an obvious faultline, and economic power is right up there. (Check out the funders for Trump's monstrous ballroom. See what I mean?)
The "moral" part is trickier. Morality seems to float above the workaday world, an abstraction detached from our physical needs for food, warmth, and shelter. Until those physical needs are satisfied, it's easy to put morality on a back burner or in the closet (if we have one). Morality also evolves over time. Once upon a time, many white Americans considered slavery and the subjugation of women moral, even divinely justified. The rise of Reagan and the ongoing appeal of Trump suggests that these convictions haven't gone away.
The big problem with that headline, come to think of it, is the word "avoid." We can't *avoid* moral collapse because moral collapse is ongoing. Fortunately, so is the struggle to prevent and reverse it. Racism and misogyny have been with us from the beginning, but so have the struggles against them. Which is why I don't believe that Trump and his enablers (among whom I include the 77 million USians who voted for him) have "damaged our nation beyond repair." The Civil War, Jim Crow, and the plutocrats couldn't do it, though they all came close -- and though each time we defeat them, they manage to come back. So now we've got another chance. Let's get it done this time.
If you have ever wondered what you would have done in 1930 Germany, now you have your answer.
It's difficult to imagine that we haven't had our own Storm the Castille moment, latched onto Trump, and dragged him physically out of the White House by now. Truthfully, it may take exactly that to end this tyranny, this nightmare.
With that said, I personally do not think he'll survive another year in office. One, his health is horrible and getting worse. And two, if you read todays Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson, you'll find out that there are plans in place for MAGA after Trump. It's looking clearer to me that Trump is approaching the end of his usefulness with the Project 2025 crowd, to put a label on them, and associate oligarch adherents. They already have ample justification to remove him via the 25th Amendment. Then it's more of the same but with Vance at the top. And that's where the mid-terms come into play.
I have no doubt that by this time Pam Bondi and Trumpās other grotesque toadies have removed the most incriminating documents. What else have they been doing all this time? Trump could have directed the DOJ to release all the files immediately, months ago. They probably gave Trump the all-clear signal, which is the ONLY reason he is now calling for their release. It is naiive to think he would do it otherwise, no matter what congress votes on. And he would have no compunction about vetoing it. Just watch. There wonāt be any āthereā there.
Trumpās mock DOJ announced mock investigations of Clinton and Somers in connection with Epsteinās misdeeds just a few days before he told the desperate Publicans to go ahead and vote to subpoena the Files. This wasnāt a coincidence, it was a plan. The investigations will go on for the rest of Trumpās term. As long as they do, DOJ will respond āSorry, canāt release documents in an ongoing investigationā to any subpoena.