Thanks so much for your optimism and inspiration. I still worry about the 77 million ignorant voters who cast their ballots for the mango mussolini in 2024 and the 36% of ignorant registered voters that did not even go to the polls. I do wish Dems were more vocal in calling out the obvious lies of this administration, which continues to claim that they won in a landslide and had a mandate. The truth is: In the 2024 presidential election, approximately 50.19% of voters cast a ballot for a candidate other than the mango; he received less than 50% of the popular vote at 49.81%. NOT A LANDSLIDE NOT A MANDATE - we need to keep calling out the damn lies!
Well, considering Trump says 80% of the people love him, he would win by 20% if running again, any polls to the contrary are FAKE NEWS lies, and they'd never let Congress flip to the Democrats, even if that meant cheating like hell... there are no thinkable wins formerly unthinkable; because, sadly, everything MAGA does is unthinkable, and unethical.
Yes, “unthinkable” losses can be followed by unthinkable wins. But there is nothing automatic or inevitable about recovery, repair and rebuilding. Impatience and idiocy led to our crisis. Lazy apathy too.
But persistent effort alone can lead us out. Electing a functioning Congress is a first step. And it too can fail. Americans let all this happen. Those who voted and those who did not vote caused our current crises.
We the people — or at least a commanding majority of us — will repair, recover and rebuild, or not.
We choose by showing up (or not), by voting (or not), by demanding honest and honorable public servants, who will put the common good and lawful justice ahead of lawless pursuit of narrow private interests, seeking to satisfy unjust greed. Or not.
As I have noted elsewhere in the blogosphere, anything can happen. We are witnessing nothing less than the strong possibility of a third American Revolution, courtesy of Donald Trump, his cohort of governmental and legislative lickspittles, and the nearly half of all Americans who so misunderstood (deliberately or otherwise) his character and agenda as to have chosen him over Kamala Harris two Novembers ago.
I am at best only a journeyman.American historian, but to my mind Trump has almost single-handedly aroused an increasing number of Americans (including many of his original supporters) to the fragility of our Republic in a way never before seen in our history, but at the same time IM (not so) H opinion in a way we badly needed.
I am halfway to 82, so my lifetime has exactly paralleled our slow and sporadic descent from being the Arsenal of Democracy which, together with our allies defeated the greatest evil in human history to the present social, political, and religious morass in which we now find ourselves - a moment in which a man who would have fit comfortably into both the Nazi hierarchy and the American slavocracy of the pre-Civil War era now occupies the Oval Office for the second time. This would never have happened had the way for it not been opened by We the People over that 80 year span.
As Americans, we are both the inheritors of and the participants in the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted. Our journey as that experiment has been quite varied, replete with both glory and horror and a whole lot in between. But we have never managed to put into the presidency anyone who so openly, blatantly, and utterly disdained, disavowed, and opposed ou electoral process, our Constitution, and the rule of law. That did not happen by accident.
In just over a month, we will discover if we are about to take the first step on the road to recovery, and thus to begin to learn if that recovery will prove adequate to the historical moment or to be merely another swing of an old and inadequate pendulum.
Yes, it does look good for Democrats but it’s not a vote for Democrats at all. It’s a vote against Republicans. If we want to end the cycle of winning by default, Democrats have to fix the institution that left so many lacking critical thinking that they could think Trump was a good idea—our K-12 education system.
History will record that Trump derangement syndrome was actually citizens applying critical thinking that less than half of us have because of our schools.
I know education is the last thing on most minds given what we’ve been through, but it was the first thing on our forefathers’ minds when they planned how to maintain a democracy. Our giving up on our schools has made us an unstable nation, and that refers to home schoolers who literally gave up and those who offer their blind trust rather than time to look deeper.
We have to stop living on the edge of democracy with so many of our schools letting us down. Please let me, a former award-winning teacher, teach you what’s going on in our schools so you’ll know there’s a better way. The lessons are at ActivistKarenHorwitz.com.
The party that fixes our schools with solutions available to us—solutions which those in power want to avoid—will take us far from the cliff’s edge.
And a bonus will be the end of school shootings; they are a direct result of our allowing those running our schools to do so without investigation.
Until we think critically about democracy, our elections will be, at best, the lesser of two evils. We can change that if we take the time to learn about the institution that hollowed out and left us vulnerable so we can demand it be repaired.
We don’t have to go through this torment that evolved from living in a nation with so many underdeveloped minds. We can restore authentic schools.
Polls are not votes. People who answer pollsters - many of them - don’t vote (as we saw in 2024 when 89 million sat at home). Sanguinity is too dangerous one month out. If you’re not helping to get people to vote, then you’re going to bear the brunt of blame if our Orange Caligula gets the Congress he needs.
I’m not sure that “things” were unthinkable. There were just strict and strong societal safeguards and codes that kept them from being acted out on, except by psychopaths and sociopaths.
Dr. Annie Andrews winning the SC senate seat is going to be the best surprise of the night!
Inspirational Steven.🤞 fingers crossed.
This is great news but we cannot be complacent! The work continues.
Thanks so much for your optimism and inspiration. I still worry about the 77 million ignorant voters who cast their ballots for the mango mussolini in 2024 and the 36% of ignorant registered voters that did not even go to the polls. I do wish Dems were more vocal in calling out the obvious lies of this administration, which continues to claim that they won in a landslide and had a mandate. The truth is: In the 2024 presidential election, approximately 50.19% of voters cast a ballot for a candidate other than the mango; he received less than 50% of the popular vote at 49.81%. NOT A LANDSLIDE NOT A MANDATE - we need to keep calling out the damn lies!
“It was a time when the unthinkable became the thinkable and the impossible really happened.”
~ Arundhati Roy, "The God of Small Things"
Well, considering Trump says 80% of the people love him, he would win by 20% if running again, any polls to the contrary are FAKE NEWS lies, and they'd never let Congress flip to the Democrats, even if that meant cheating like hell... there are no thinkable wins formerly unthinkable; because, sadly, everything MAGA does is unthinkable, and unethical.
Yes, “unthinkable” losses can be followed by unthinkable wins. But there is nothing automatic or inevitable about recovery, repair and rebuilding. Impatience and idiocy led to our crisis. Lazy apathy too.
But persistent effort alone can lead us out. Electing a functioning Congress is a first step. And it too can fail. Americans let all this happen. Those who voted and those who did not vote caused our current crises.
We the people — or at least a commanding majority of us — will repair, recover and rebuild, or not.
We choose by showing up (or not), by voting (or not), by demanding honest and honorable public servants, who will put the common good and lawful justice ahead of lawless pursuit of narrow private interests, seeking to satisfy unjust greed. Or not.
I support Sherrod Brown. It’s not much, but I give him $5 a month.
As I have noted elsewhere in the blogosphere, anything can happen. We are witnessing nothing less than the strong possibility of a third American Revolution, courtesy of Donald Trump, his cohort of governmental and legislative lickspittles, and the nearly half of all Americans who so misunderstood (deliberately or otherwise) his character and agenda as to have chosen him over Kamala Harris two Novembers ago.
I am at best only a journeyman.American historian, but to my mind Trump has almost single-handedly aroused an increasing number of Americans (including many of his original supporters) to the fragility of our Republic in a way never before seen in our history, but at the same time IM (not so) H opinion in a way we badly needed.
I am halfway to 82, so my lifetime has exactly paralleled our slow and sporadic descent from being the Arsenal of Democracy which, together with our allies defeated the greatest evil in human history to the present social, political, and religious morass in which we now find ourselves - a moment in which a man who would have fit comfortably into both the Nazi hierarchy and the American slavocracy of the pre-Civil War era now occupies the Oval Office for the second time. This would never have happened had the way for it not been opened by We the People over that 80 year span.
As Americans, we are both the inheritors of and the participants in the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted. Our journey as that experiment has been quite varied, replete with both glory and horror and a whole lot in between. But we have never managed to put into the presidency anyone who so openly, blatantly, and utterly disdained, disavowed, and opposed ou electoral process, our Constitution, and the rule of law. That did not happen by accident.
In just over a month, we will discover if we are about to take the first step on the road to recovery, and thus to begin to learn if that recovery will prove adequate to the historical moment or to be merely another swing of an old and inadequate pendulum.
Thanks Steven. Encouraging words keep us sane in these times. Yoiur discussion with Timothy Snyder was fantastic and a repeat is required.
Yes, it does look good for Democrats but it’s not a vote for Democrats at all. It’s a vote against Republicans. If we want to end the cycle of winning by default, Democrats have to fix the institution that left so many lacking critical thinking that they could think Trump was a good idea—our K-12 education system.
History will record that Trump derangement syndrome was actually citizens applying critical thinking that less than half of us have because of our schools.
I know education is the last thing on most minds given what we’ve been through, but it was the first thing on our forefathers’ minds when they planned how to maintain a democracy. Our giving up on our schools has made us an unstable nation, and that refers to home schoolers who literally gave up and those who offer their blind trust rather than time to look deeper.
We have to stop living on the edge of democracy with so many of our schools letting us down. Please let me, a former award-winning teacher, teach you what’s going on in our schools so you’ll know there’s a better way. The lessons are at ActivistKarenHorwitz.com.
The party that fixes our schools with solutions available to us—solutions which those in power want to avoid—will take us far from the cliff’s edge.
And a bonus will be the end of school shootings; they are a direct result of our allowing those running our schools to do so without investigation.
Until we think critically about democracy, our elections will be, at best, the lesser of two evils. We can change that if we take the time to learn about the institution that hollowed out and left us vulnerable so we can demand it be repaired.
We don’t have to go through this torment that evolved from living in a nation with so many underdeveloped minds. We can restore authentic schools.
Polls are not votes. People who answer pollsters - many of them - don’t vote (as we saw in 2024 when 89 million sat at home). Sanguinity is too dangerous one month out. If you’re not helping to get people to vote, then you’re going to bear the brunt of blame if our Orange Caligula gets the Congress he needs.
I’m not sure that “things” were unthinkable. There were just strict and strong societal safeguards and codes that kept them from being acted out on, except by psychopaths and sociopaths.
And that’s where we are. In the midsts of both.