We can’t lose sight of the big picture though. Yes, trump is the face of the drive towards an authoritarian regime, but he is not doing it alone. Cutting off the head of this snake is not going to kill it. We must act against all those that act in solidarity with him.
A Democratic House and Senate in 2026 will have the power to impeach most of the Cabinet of Clowns and their even less qualified staffs, to sequester the BBB funds until Trump starts obeying the courts and the Congress, and to hold hearings that will lead to indictments in a Dem presidency (which I predict in 2028) of all of their crimes against humanity. Given all of Trump's blatant grift--the Qatari airplane, the meme coins, the massive construction of Trump hotels and golf resorts in the Middle East and Vietnam--I'm sure most courts would find that those actions were not part of his official duties, and thus he'd be liable under criminal law. That should take care of the snake problem.
Impeachment is not the removal from office. It is equivalent to a grand jury indictment. While a simple majority in the House can impeach a president, or cabinet member or supreme court justice, it requires 2/3 of the Senate, or 67 votes, to convict and remove from office. I don’t see any republicans crossing over and I don’t think it likely that Democrats and independents will control 67 seats anytime soon. I see impeachment right now as merely performative.
Sequestration of the BBB funds is a good idea if doable. A House and Senate majority might be able to undo the tax breaks that were made permanent in the bill would be a major step in the right direction.
I understand about removal from office needing 67 Senators, but I live in hope. Things may have gotten so far gone by 2026 that the Republicans will be swept out to sea. There certainly are roads to a Senate majority...but then you never know.
It’s okay to not give up hope. It has to be mixed with reality in my opinion. I don’t believe counting on change through Congress is realistic. Congress and the federal judiciary are broken. We can not rely on them for our survival as a democracy.
Nope. The snake still exists on the left. People don't want to acknowledge that part of it. miller/musk/orange/vance johnson, etc. could be tried at the Hague and I'd be happy. At the same time? Ya still gotta bring down the others who are guilty of working for putin/xi on the left.
I don't know about bringing them down so much as schooling them in hardball politics. They can't all compete for a shaky pie and yet they persist in purity tests and the like. Part of fashioning a new Democratic leadership team and platform is to get "the groups" to come to Jesus. It's basic: it's about the power to curb/stop Trump and maybe even remove him. Can't do that with a splintered tent.
Agreed. And the orange thing isn't the one in charge. Look at the hierarchy.
putin/xi are holding the strings. Under them are the folowing marionettes. And remember they are playing BOTH sides of the same coin. It's not just the extreme right. I tend to think yang is working for putin too.
thiel
miller/musk are at the same level
THEN you have orange under all of them.
After that? vance and johnson.
It's important not to lose sight of the bigger picture-losing democracy with so many different stories each day. I won't say epstein isn't important. But there are bigger stories to be told. Worse stories. The concentration camp in Florida/wherever else they are building them. And rosie o'donnell could fall off the planet as far as I'm concerned. But miller is threatening others with a lack of citizenship. It's not the orange thing.
No one should get too distracted by any of the stories. I hate to break it to people, but WW3 is here. We’re past Kristallnacht. People don’t realize it. They need to wake up.
Thank you, Steven, for reading the things that I cannot and synthesizing for me the implications. Yes, these are frightening times and I have but one life to offer. You make me think of my Irish grandfather who died when I was 2 so I don't know him. His story is instructive in some measure, so please indulge me. His parents emigrated from Ireland and he grew up in Ilion, NY. In 1912, a graduate of Cornell, he married my grandmother, also a child of Irish emigrants. They got on a train to San Francisco, then a ship to Shanghai where he was to become the North China division manager of Standard Oil. I guess selling oil for the lamps of China. Eventually, he was elected to the civic council of the multi-national city of Shanghai. During his term of service, the Japanese invaded Manchuria, so the State Department ordered American citizens to leave China. Grandpa Joe thought his service to the Shanghai government was important so he stayed to fulfill his term of office and his wife, took their 4 daughters to wait for him. They went to Germany in 1936 where Hitler was on the ascendancy. Apparently my mother and aunts had acquired American habits of speaking out and Nana was frightened for their outspokenness during Hitler's rise to power so she took them to Italy where she discovered Mussolini was no different than Hitler. They all came back to the US, but they were forever changed and they changed me as I came to understand what it means to be an American. We are fearless and that requires courage. This is where your writing becomes essential as you write to help me stay grounded, doing what I can as an old lady (80 this year) to keep Democracy alive and vibrant. We cannot give up. This is too important and I celebrate your voice which is why I support your community. Thank you for reading my family history. Everyone of your followers has a family history into which you touch. Blessings on you. I hope you inspire many to plumb their histories, too. We are making history.
Thank you for this necessary re-emphasis, though stark and realistically revelatory, we must utilize this current state of affairs to continue to strengthen our need to resist. We must NOT weaken and we must NOT give up EVER as that will serve no purpose.
Stephen, when I earlier wrote of my Irish grandfather in China whose girls returned to the States during the ascendency of Hitler, I neglected to mention that one of those girls who who became adept, went on to become an editor for Time Life and is credited in Life's Pictural History of WWII which may well have been a coffee table book of your childhood perhaps sparking your own interest in history. Another aunt went on to be a personal assistant to Fred Friendly in the early days of television. And another became a nurse to serve in the "war effort" as it was known. She also was my mother. Thanks for providing a platform for me to share this history.
Yes, we can bring this monstrous regime to a grinding halt if we take to the streets in number too large for the fascists to subjugate.
But, as Robert Kagan and you ask, Steven, do we have the collective will to do so? Or will we choose to remain slumped over on our couches in order to stuff our faces with popcorn while watching news footage, between ads for laxatives and lubricants, of masked and jackbooted thugs snatching innocent people off our streets?
the puppet is the handmaiden for project 2025, Heritage & Federalist.... what is their primary goal here? Devastation destruction death? Because that's what they are doing...
I go back and reread by articles about Trump since he came down the golden escalator to announce his candidacy in 2025. Like yours they were warnings of what was to come. Thank you for sharing this.
Sobering to say the least. But, surprisingly, I'm not surprised by our march towards authoritarianism. We all need to observe and read the faces of our antagonists. We are among them every day...neighbors, coworkers, (in my case) pickleball partners. Trump has a hold on too many, something we here, perhaps,can not fully grasp. This is why the threat goes even beyond Trump and his sycophants. How do we reprogram this cult?
A good question. A portion will never want to change their minds but there are the others. It’s not like there won’t be opportunities. Half of Medicaid recipients identify as Republican. The Secretary of Agriculture has suggested able-bodied Medicaid recipients should replace the farm workers being ‘strategically’ deported despite 2/3 being employed. Costs are going to be increasing more than they have.
No one joins with or listens to people they don’t trust. That’s the first obstacle. Then there is the anger. I think too often we make it safer for them to stay where they are. Too often what they say they wanted or believed is dismissed. There is the whole ‘this is what they knew’; ‘this is what they think’. All that spills out even when we see Independents or Republicans are changing their minds about what they see with their own eyes. How many of us want to know how to reach out?
Interesting. What is currently worrying me- (I'll always find something)- is Trump and Co. are buying time. Medicaid and SNAP are not cut yet. Probably not until 2026-27? Inflation has not really gone out of control, yet. Where I live in Fl. gas prices are the lowest they've been in a few years. So I'm not seeing any changing of minds, yet. Buying time, until it's too late.
There is always something from them to worry about. Yes, they are trying to buy time. Work requirements go into effect in December 2026, right after the election. I think the question close to the election could be: Why not before the election if it is such a good idea?
Bigger than that, states, hospitals, insurers have to adjust their projections, budgets, costs & revenue in advance. For instance, now is when insurers apply to have their new rates approved for 2026. According to CNBC reporting, one tax break not extended will affect about 22M — 92% of people getting coverage through the ACA. Almost nothing has been said about their rates potentially rising 75%. That’s a big increase for a lot of people. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/11/aca-health-insurance-premiums-increase.html
No I don’t think inflation is spiking right now. There are a few signs that the economy is soft under the big numbers. GDP had a little decrease. A few more prices are up: coffee about 20%. There’s a new tariff on MX tomatoes, 17%. MX supplies 70% of the tomatoes sold in the US. The infamous egg prices are volatile, expected to rise 33.2% percent in 2025 then come down some in 2026 but who knows?
Meanwhile, despite the best efforts of Fox and DJT to distract from the Epstein problem, it is not going away. Big mistake was to make a clear simple commitment & then after years say ‘oh, never mind.’ This is conspiracy theory the hardcore really cares about. It was at the juncture of qanon, maga & followers who see themselves as part of a righteous cause - protecting children against predators, otherwise known as a global cabal of leftists.
It is emotional more than political. MAGA podcaster are having a field day. The backlash is bad. MAGA has trust issues. Bannon says it could cost them 10% of maga voters; enough to lose biggly in the House & lose the Senate. After all why vote if everyone is part of the deep state. (He was also the one who told them a lot of maga uses Medicaid.)
Sadly, I'm stiill not hearing the necessary call for a national uprising to modernize the Constitution so that WE THE GOVERNED can directly IMPEACH or RECALL the leaders of these anti-denocracy forces and put our democracy back on track with a stronger MORE PERFECT DEMOCRACY and CONSTITUTION. With better known people than I am participating in organizing,raising the \funds and convincing Constitutional Experts and open minded citizens participating such a process could take place and a state by state plebiscite could occur by mail in ballot within a matter of months, not years, followed by a national mail in vote RECALL and REMOVAL of the tyrants. America could reawaken from its nightmare and return to its place of leadership toward its prominence as the leader of an international movement return to democracy, internation (UN) enforcement of ending the unjust wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, the Middle East, Taiwan, Korea and the crazy trade wars initiated by our want-to-be dictator, South African ally turned enemy and Russian gangster cartel denying the nRussian people an honest chance to try real democracy. Difficult? Extremely. Impossible? Never. But the powerful, famous and devoted progressive AND conservative forces must join forces to reinstate sanity in government and social contract morality and the rule of law to human governance and policy NOW.
Let those who want to leave and form their own hellish dictatorships or monarchies peacefully do so, wish them good luck and good riddance.
When was this written? It seems to be talking about the future 'nomination' of Donald Trump and the resulting predictable mayhem. That was a prediction of Nostradamusous fulfillment, but does not in any way help us to overcome what did happen. That was then, this is now. Let's talk about what we can do with the monstrous hand we have been dealt.
Can you die if you never had a heart/soul? Can you die if your brain is already gone from Dementia? In that sense, he's already gone. Remember-it's putin/thiel/miller's playbook. Orange is their marionette.
We can’t lose sight of the big picture though. Yes, trump is the face of the drive towards an authoritarian regime, but he is not doing it alone. Cutting off the head of this snake is not going to kill it. We must act against all those that act in solidarity with him.
A Democratic House and Senate in 2026 will have the power to impeach most of the Cabinet of Clowns and their even less qualified staffs, to sequester the BBB funds until Trump starts obeying the courts and the Congress, and to hold hearings that will lead to indictments in a Dem presidency (which I predict in 2028) of all of their crimes against humanity. Given all of Trump's blatant grift--the Qatari airplane, the meme coins, the massive construction of Trump hotels and golf resorts in the Middle East and Vietnam--I'm sure most courts would find that those actions were not part of his official duties, and thus he'd be liable under criminal law. That should take care of the snake problem.
Impeachment is not the removal from office. It is equivalent to a grand jury indictment. While a simple majority in the House can impeach a president, or cabinet member or supreme court justice, it requires 2/3 of the Senate, or 67 votes, to convict and remove from office. I don’t see any republicans crossing over and I don’t think it likely that Democrats and independents will control 67 seats anytime soon. I see impeachment right now as merely performative.
Sequestration of the BBB funds is a good idea if doable. A House and Senate majority might be able to undo the tax breaks that were made permanent in the bill would be a major step in the right direction.
I understand about removal from office needing 67 Senators, but I live in hope. Things may have gotten so far gone by 2026 that the Republicans will be swept out to sea. There certainly are roads to a Senate majority...but then you never know.
It’s okay to not give up hope. It has to be mixed with reality in my opinion. I don’t believe counting on change through Congress is realistic. Congress and the federal judiciary are broken. We can not rely on them for our survival as a democracy.
Agree. Impeachment is a dream. It ain't 1975 any more. No Rep senators like Howard Baker around anymore.
Or John McCain.
Nope. The snake still exists on the left. People don't want to acknowledge that part of it. miller/musk/orange/vance johnson, etc. could be tried at the Hague and I'd be happy. At the same time? Ya still gotta bring down the others who are guilty of working for putin/xi on the left.
I don't know about bringing them down so much as schooling them in hardball politics. They can't all compete for a shaky pie and yet they persist in purity tests and the like. Part of fashioning a new Democratic leadership team and platform is to get "the groups" to come to Jesus. It's basic: it's about the power to curb/stop Trump and maybe even remove him. Can't do that with a splintered tent.
Agreed. And the orange thing isn't the one in charge. Look at the hierarchy.
putin/xi are holding the strings. Under them are the folowing marionettes. And remember they are playing BOTH sides of the same coin. It's not just the extreme right. I tend to think yang is working for putin too.
thiel
miller/musk are at the same level
THEN you have orange under all of them.
After that? vance and johnson.
It's important not to lose sight of the bigger picture-losing democracy with so many different stories each day. I won't say epstein isn't important. But there are bigger stories to be told. Worse stories. The concentration camp in Florida/wherever else they are building them. And rosie o'donnell could fall off the planet as far as I'm concerned. But miller is threatening others with a lack of citizenship. It's not the orange thing.
I agree. Epstein is important, but is being used as a distraction. The tariffs are a distraction. We have to keep our eyes on the ball.
No one should get too distracted by any of the stories. I hate to break it to people, but WW3 is here. We’re past Kristallnacht. People don’t realize it. They need to wake up.
Thank you, Steven, for reading the things that I cannot and synthesizing for me the implications. Yes, these are frightening times and I have but one life to offer. You make me think of my Irish grandfather who died when I was 2 so I don't know him. His story is instructive in some measure, so please indulge me. His parents emigrated from Ireland and he grew up in Ilion, NY. In 1912, a graduate of Cornell, he married my grandmother, also a child of Irish emigrants. They got on a train to San Francisco, then a ship to Shanghai where he was to become the North China division manager of Standard Oil. I guess selling oil for the lamps of China. Eventually, he was elected to the civic council of the multi-national city of Shanghai. During his term of service, the Japanese invaded Manchuria, so the State Department ordered American citizens to leave China. Grandpa Joe thought his service to the Shanghai government was important so he stayed to fulfill his term of office and his wife, took their 4 daughters to wait for him. They went to Germany in 1936 where Hitler was on the ascendancy. Apparently my mother and aunts had acquired American habits of speaking out and Nana was frightened for their outspokenness during Hitler's rise to power so she took them to Italy where she discovered Mussolini was no different than Hitler. They all came back to the US, but they were forever changed and they changed me as I came to understand what it means to be an American. We are fearless and that requires courage. This is where your writing becomes essential as you write to help me stay grounded, doing what I can as an old lady (80 this year) to keep Democracy alive and vibrant. We cannot give up. This is too important and I celebrate your voice which is why I support your community. Thank you for reading my family history. Everyone of your followers has a family history into which you touch. Blessings on you. I hope you inspire many to plumb their histories, too. We are making history.
It is depressing…how many people…politicians…who WANT this destruction of our country.
Sobering! We may well be living in the fall of America, much like great Empires and Countries before us. A new World Order indeed.
Thank you for this necessary re-emphasis, though stark and realistically revelatory, we must utilize this current state of affairs to continue to strengthen our need to resist. We must NOT weaken and we must NOT give up EVER as that will serve no purpose.
Bless you
💙💙🇺🇸💙💙
Stephen, when I earlier wrote of my Irish grandfather in China whose girls returned to the States during the ascendency of Hitler, I neglected to mention that one of those girls who who became adept, went on to become an editor for Time Life and is credited in Life's Pictural History of WWII which may well have been a coffee table book of your childhood perhaps sparking your own interest in history. Another aunt went on to be a personal assistant to Fred Friendly in the early days of television. And another became a nurse to serve in the "war effort" as it was known. She also was my mother. Thanks for providing a platform for me to share this history.
Yes, we can bring this monstrous regime to a grinding halt if we take to the streets in number too large for the fascists to subjugate.
But, as Robert Kagan and you ask, Steven, do we have the collective will to do so? Or will we choose to remain slumped over on our couches in order to stuff our faces with popcorn while watching news footage, between ads for laxatives and lubricants, of masked and jackbooted thugs snatching innocent people off our streets?
the puppet is the handmaiden for project 2025, Heritage & Federalist.... what is their primary goal here? Devastation destruction death? Because that's what they are doing...
Steven,
I go back and reread by articles about Trump since he came down the golden escalator to announce his candidacy in 2025. Like yours they were warnings of what was to come. Thank you for sharing this.
All the best and watch your six.
Steve Dundas
Horror, we live in times after that prophetic article…
Sobering to say the least. But, surprisingly, I'm not surprised by our march towards authoritarianism. We all need to observe and read the faces of our antagonists. We are among them every day...neighbors, coworkers, (in my case) pickleball partners. Trump has a hold on too many, something we here, perhaps,can not fully grasp. This is why the threat goes even beyond Trump and his sycophants. How do we reprogram this cult?
A good question. A portion will never want to change their minds but there are the others. It’s not like there won’t be opportunities. Half of Medicaid recipients identify as Republican. The Secretary of Agriculture has suggested able-bodied Medicaid recipients should replace the farm workers being ‘strategically’ deported despite 2/3 being employed. Costs are going to be increasing more than they have.
No one joins with or listens to people they don’t trust. That’s the first obstacle. Then there is the anger. I think too often we make it safer for them to stay where they are. Too often what they say they wanted or believed is dismissed. There is the whole ‘this is what they knew’; ‘this is what they think’. All that spills out even when we see Independents or Republicans are changing their minds about what they see with their own eyes. How many of us want to know how to reach out?
Interesting. What is currently worrying me- (I'll always find something)- is Trump and Co. are buying time. Medicaid and SNAP are not cut yet. Probably not until 2026-27? Inflation has not really gone out of control, yet. Where I live in Fl. gas prices are the lowest they've been in a few years. So I'm not seeing any changing of minds, yet. Buying time, until it's too late.
There is always something from them to worry about. Yes, they are trying to buy time. Work requirements go into effect in December 2026, right after the election. I think the question close to the election could be: Why not before the election if it is such a good idea?
Bigger than that, states, hospitals, insurers have to adjust their projections, budgets, costs & revenue in advance. For instance, now is when insurers apply to have their new rates approved for 2026. According to CNBC reporting, one tax break not extended will affect about 22M — 92% of people getting coverage through the ACA. Almost nothing has been said about their rates potentially rising 75%. That’s a big increase for a lot of people. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/11/aca-health-insurance-premiums-increase.html
No I don’t think inflation is spiking right now. There are a few signs that the economy is soft under the big numbers. GDP had a little decrease. A few more prices are up: coffee about 20%. There’s a new tariff on MX tomatoes, 17%. MX supplies 70% of the tomatoes sold in the US. The infamous egg prices are volatile, expected to rise 33.2% percent in 2025 then come down some in 2026 but who knows?
Meanwhile, despite the best efforts of Fox and DJT to distract from the Epstein problem, it is not going away. Big mistake was to make a clear simple commitment & then after years say ‘oh, never mind.’ This is conspiracy theory the hardcore really cares about. It was at the juncture of qanon, maga & followers who see themselves as part of a righteous cause - protecting children against predators, otherwise known as a global cabal of leftists.
It is emotional more than political. MAGA podcaster are having a field day. The backlash is bad. MAGA has trust issues. Bannon says it could cost them 10% of maga voters; enough to lose biggly in the House & lose the Senate. After all why vote if everyone is part of the deep state. (He was also the one who told them a lot of maga uses Medicaid.)
Sadly, I'm stiill not hearing the necessary call for a national uprising to modernize the Constitution so that WE THE GOVERNED can directly IMPEACH or RECALL the leaders of these anti-denocracy forces and put our democracy back on track with a stronger MORE PERFECT DEMOCRACY and CONSTITUTION. With better known people than I am participating in organizing,raising the \funds and convincing Constitutional Experts and open minded citizens participating such a process could take place and a state by state plebiscite could occur by mail in ballot within a matter of months, not years, followed by a national mail in vote RECALL and REMOVAL of the tyrants. America could reawaken from its nightmare and return to its place of leadership toward its prominence as the leader of an international movement return to democracy, internation (UN) enforcement of ending the unjust wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, the Middle East, Taiwan, Korea and the crazy trade wars initiated by our want-to-be dictator, South African ally turned enemy and Russian gangster cartel denying the nRussian people an honest chance to try real democracy. Difficult? Extremely. Impossible? Never. But the powerful, famous and devoted progressive AND conservative forces must join forces to reinstate sanity in government and social contract morality and the rule of law to human governance and policy NOW.
Let those who want to leave and form their own hellish dictatorships or monarchies peacefully do so, wish them good luck and good riddance.
This was confusing, transitioning from today to the earlier essays.
It was confusing to me also. Is this an old article?
When was this written? It seems to be talking about the future 'nomination' of Donald Trump and the resulting predictable mayhem. That was a prediction of Nostradamusous fulfillment, but does not in any way help us to overcome what did happen. That was then, this is now. Let's talk about what we can do with the monstrous hand we have been dealt.
The face of a dying man.
Can you die if you never had a heart/soul? Can you die if your brain is already gone from Dementia? In that sense, he's already gone. Remember-it's putin/thiel/miller's playbook. Orange is their marionette.
It will be too late by the midterms.