What a beautiful and eloquent essay, Steven. I am feeling the rage and righteous anger even as the shadow of hopelessness follows me each and every day. The thought of JD Vance taking over the White House is that shadow personified.
The thought of an entire country of good and decent people succumbing to the evil of this regime (as it must properly be called) feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone. I am hoping to wake up from this nightmare and find that the power they thought they had to do harm to others was just an illusion.
Where there is no rule of law, there is no justice. Where there is no justice, there is no peace. Where there is no peace, there is no joy. Where there is no joy, there is no hope. This is the incantation of our time, of a citizenry oppressed; of a citizenry that, joining hands, can rise with truth on our side and hope still in our hearts.
If we really want to drive them crazy and out the door, a national strike will do the trick. Don’t buy. Don’t go to work or school. Stay home and off the internet (read a book or listen to one.) All unions to walk off the job. This strategy works. Even the oligarchs will feel it. Marching feels good and mostly sends a message to our allies that democracy is still alive in the USA. But a general strike would send the message that we won’t take their oppression any more. It worked for Jimmy Kimmel. It can work for all of us. Shut the country down!
Anyone who sees the felon these days can see a few facts that cannot be denied.
First, the felon is in failing health, both physically and psychologically.
Second, he is panicking, his bluster is no longer working to keep even his own party in line.
Third, he is chasing the maga base away with his tariffs, and cutting of healthcare.
Fourth, prices for every day products continue to rise. Ground beef is close to $7/pound. Housing costs have skyrocketed too.
There is every reason to see the end of his power approaching, and the rise of citizens who are angered by his destruction of values most of us hold dear.
MAGA is shrinking. MTG and others are trying to carve a way forward without Dear Leader. She said out loud she is ‘America First’ and maga is a political policy thing created by DJT that is not putting America first. Turning Point USA held their first big conference since Charlie Kirk was killed. Basically it was a bunch of rightwingers vying for the limelight &/or top of the ticket by attacking one another. Vance took a different approach. He asserted that “If you love America, you're welcome in the movement”; that DJT did not create maga movement by using a “purity tests” and we will always be a Christian nation. Nothing about accountability or affordability.
General Mills in an earnings call noted profits were but up it saw “consumer weakness, particularly for those earners under $100,000 … the kind of middle and lower income range.” Another example of higher earners holding up the economy. Meals eaten out remain at 14% - Covid era levels. (That pushes under $100K income buyers to GM products now priced slightly below other name brands but above bargain brands. Another example of how prices were pumped up beyond inflation.)
BTW, one of our major grocery chains has put signs (large on frozen food doors, small on shelves re: individual products). They say some products are not available due to supplier issues & realize it impacts customer options.
This saving our democracy looks like chemotherapy on a systemic cancer. We appear sicker than we were at present as the democratic body is attacked and then counterattacked by our attempted cures. Still, every act of resistance is helping. When we defeat this current manifestation of evil, this bent regime, we must rebuild and strengthen the government of the people, by the people and for the people.
I don’t believe anyone is giving up. I think we re all exhausted and depressed. I have been a political activist since the 70tys, I just can’t read or listen to the insanity on a daily basis. I have suggested to other substack writers that they stop repeating the same thing day after day about the destruction of our country by Trump and his enablers.
Please start writing to encourage people to start vetting the new house members we will vote for and hope we will all support younger people. Please advise your readers with useful information, that can help us rebuild our country.
Everyone knew the files would be redacted and useless, stop repeating it. Talk about how the new congress can expose all of these when they take over.
Explain how article 2 section 4 of the constitution can help us after the midterms, to impeach and indict all of his administration and federal judges. Give people hope instead of the daily influx of dread and doom.
You’ve given me my 2026 objectives: standing up for those four Roosevelt freedoms for myself and others. I won’t be a pill-bug that rolls up and rolls over in hopes that the regime will go away on its own.
Steven, this is the most succinct summary of our American world today. I just subscribed to your post because this next year will be challenging and I want you to be able to continue writing your brilliance. I wish the people who have fallen under T’s spell could wake up. I don’t know how that will I happen. I know many of them in my circle of friends and family. It’s discouraging. But with people like you writing, I will remain encouraged. I e been to the last two No Kings protests and will continue to engage. Thank you for you:)
One of the helpful things I live by is that there are things that happen in my life that I have no control over. What I do control is how I choose to let them affect me. I feel the anger and outrage as well...and then ask myself, "what am I going to do about it?" We The People are not alone. We are finding ways to fight back.
Thank you, Steven, for continuing to be a beacon of hope for the ultimate triumph of decency in the US. I truly hope that you are proven right! Nonetheless, as you said so eloquently, it is up to those who do value decency to do our utmost to try to restore the country back to its ideals, in spite of the current Federal administration. Thanks again for all you do
Thank you sincerely again for this important stark realism and a rallying cry for action
Excerpts;
“We are learning how sadistically cruel and hateful people like Pamt Bondi, Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth can be when drunk with power and convinced of their invincibility”
“Demand what’s right”
“We must become more demanding for what’s right,”
“We must keep the pressure on”
“There are more of us”
“Stay engaged and drive the lawless regime from power.”
“Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere.”
“Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear”
“We should seize this as an opportunity to stand up and speak out loudly about the values and ideals that have sustained American democracy”
“Proving the regime wrong”
“They want us to become overwhelmed…”
“It’s our job over the coming year to prove how wrong they are.”
//-
End excerpts
(We must heed and exhibit these necessary and inspiring rallying cries identified above in Steven’s article)
Here's wishing you and your family, Steven, as happy a time as you can possibly have during this Holiday Season. May faith and hope buoy all of us in our resolve to pursue truth and justice throughout the turbulence of the coming year.
I believe that we will rid ourselves of trump in less than three years. It will be by ill health, either physical or mental. Truthfully I don’t care which. Whichever happens the quickest.
Vance, Johnson and the other seditious christofascists will take a different path to being gotten rid of.
Until then we must continue fighting. The protests have to continue and get louder. We have to maintain our sense of community. Organized boycotts are necessary. Not just stores and web based businesses but media companies. CBS, The New York Times for example.
We will beat them if we work together to make it happen.
Steven, a reader's cancer metaphor is powerful - but it also serves as a warning. We can treat the cancer in the White House, but the underlying causes will persist if we don't address them. And part of the cause is the ongoing failure to understand that R's are not the sole problem. D's contribute to this cancer by not exercising what freedom means, or not taking doses of courage. Three thoughts on this as a long battle:
1. The infrastructure outlasts the individual. Removing Trump won't dismantle the billionaire funding networks, disinformation ecosystems, and weakened guardrails that enabled him. 2026 and 2028 are battles, not the war. Failure to strengthen opposition- from faith, business, elected officials, and candidates- will only help further weaken guardrails.
2. democratic backsliding requires sustained vigilance. Each normalized abuse, each uncontested power grab, each moment we grow numb creates precedent. The fatigue is part of their strategy. The incompetence and Cowardice of elected officials and candidates only aids and abets backsliding.
3. The causes run deeper. Decades of inequality, Citizens United, the collapse of local journalism, voter suppression infrastructure - these are the carcinogens that will keep producing tumors unless addressed systemically.
And yes: FDR, for all his eloquence about freedom, refused to integrate the armed forces and turned away the St. Louis, sending Jewish refugees back toward the Holocaust. Even our greatest leaders were imperfect. The work is never finished.
I trust that the grammarians out there realize that the wording of the actual sign on the Kennedy Center also makes it a "memorial" to trump. Does he know something we don't?
Those who feel good about not having to apologize about being white are only those who put "white" as the first and most important thing about their identity. All reading this who do so, raise their hands?
My first descriptor is often ‘privileged’ because I know I am … and it’s an accident of birth. I never forget how fortunate I have been and try to make things better for others, whomever they are. In my 78 years I have disappointed myself often with our lack of progress to real equality but we keep trying! Onward, by all means. Happy holidays to everyone!
I’d agree, when talking in that context. Privileged is WHY we don't have to identify by race. Context determines all, —sometimes it’s 81 year old, sometimes retired lawyer, sometimes female, sometimes grandma. But “white” doesn’t occur to me unless I’m curling my lip at JD.
What a beautiful and eloquent essay, Steven. I am feeling the rage and righteous anger even as the shadow of hopelessness follows me each and every day. The thought of JD Vance taking over the White House is that shadow personified.
The thought of an entire country of good and decent people succumbing to the evil of this regime (as it must properly be called) feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone. I am hoping to wake up from this nightmare and find that the power they thought they had to do harm to others was just an illusion.
Where there is no rule of law, there is no justice. Where there is no justice, there is no peace. Where there is no peace, there is no joy. Where there is no joy, there is no hope. This is the incantation of our time, of a citizenry oppressed; of a citizenry that, joining hands, can rise with truth on our side and hope still in our hearts.
Thank you, Ellen, particularly for your thoughtfully expressed comments.
Thank YOU, Steven…and enjoy your restorative time. We’ll all be waiting when you return!
If we really want to drive them crazy and out the door, a national strike will do the trick. Don’t buy. Don’t go to work or school. Stay home and off the internet (read a book or listen to one.) All unions to walk off the job. This strategy works. Even the oligarchs will feel it. Marching feels good and mostly sends a message to our allies that democracy is still alive in the USA. But a general strike would send the message that we won’t take their oppression any more. It worked for Jimmy Kimmel. It can work for all of us. Shut the country down!
January 20 at 2 pm is a walkout. Check with 50501 posts
Will do!
Anyone who sees the felon these days can see a few facts that cannot be denied.
First, the felon is in failing health, both physically and psychologically.
Second, he is panicking, his bluster is no longer working to keep even his own party in line.
Third, he is chasing the maga base away with his tariffs, and cutting of healthcare.
Fourth, prices for every day products continue to rise. Ground beef is close to $7/pound. Housing costs have skyrocketed too.
There is every reason to see the end of his power approaching, and the rise of citizens who are angered by his destruction of values most of us hold dear.
Very true.
MAGA is shrinking. MTG and others are trying to carve a way forward without Dear Leader. She said out loud she is ‘America First’ and maga is a political policy thing created by DJT that is not putting America first. Turning Point USA held their first big conference since Charlie Kirk was killed. Basically it was a bunch of rightwingers vying for the limelight &/or top of the ticket by attacking one another. Vance took a different approach. He asserted that “If you love America, you're welcome in the movement”; that DJT did not create maga movement by using a “purity tests” and we will always be a Christian nation. Nothing about accountability or affordability.
General Mills in an earnings call noted profits were but up it saw “consumer weakness, particularly for those earners under $100,000 … the kind of middle and lower income range.” Another example of higher earners holding up the economy. Meals eaten out remain at 14% - Covid era levels. (That pushes under $100K income buyers to GM products now priced slightly below other name brands but above bargain brands. Another example of how prices were pumped up beyond inflation.)
BTW, one of our major grocery chains has put signs (large on frozen food doors, small on shelves re: individual products). They say some products are not available due to supplier issues & realize it impacts customer options.
“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.” - Rumi
Keep going. 🖖
This saving our democracy looks like chemotherapy on a systemic cancer. We appear sicker than we were at present as the democratic body is attacked and then counterattacked by our attempted cures. Still, every act of resistance is helping. When we defeat this current manifestation of evil, this bent regime, we must rebuild and strengthen the government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Rebuild and repair. Yes.
I don’t believe anyone is giving up. I think we re all exhausted and depressed. I have been a political activist since the 70tys, I just can’t read or listen to the insanity on a daily basis. I have suggested to other substack writers that they stop repeating the same thing day after day about the destruction of our country by Trump and his enablers.
Please start writing to encourage people to start vetting the new house members we will vote for and hope we will all support younger people. Please advise your readers with useful information, that can help us rebuild our country.
Everyone knew the files would be redacted and useless, stop repeating it. Talk about how the new congress can expose all of these when they take over.
Explain how article 2 section 4 of the constitution can help us after the midterms, to impeach and indict all of his administration and federal judges. Give people hope instead of the daily influx of dread and doom.
It's not a matter of age of House members but of effectiveness.
You’ve given me my 2026 objectives: standing up for those four Roosevelt freedoms for myself and others. I won’t be a pill-bug that rolls up and rolls over in hopes that the regime will go away on its own.
Steven, this is the most succinct summary of our American world today. I just subscribed to your post because this next year will be challenging and I want you to be able to continue writing your brilliance. I wish the people who have fallen under T’s spell could wake up. I don’t know how that will I happen. I know many of them in my circle of friends and family. It’s discouraging. But with people like you writing, I will remain encouraged. I e been to the last two No Kings protests and will continue to engage. Thank you for you:)
That's very kind, Susan. Thank you. Glad to hear you will continue to engage.
One of the helpful things I live by is that there are things that happen in my life that I have no control over. What I do control is how I choose to let them affect me. I feel the anger and outrage as well...and then ask myself, "what am I going to do about it?" We The People are not alone. We are finding ways to fight back.
Thank you, Steven, for continuing to be a beacon of hope for the ultimate triumph of decency in the US. I truly hope that you are proven right! Nonetheless, as you said so eloquently, it is up to those who do value decency to do our utmost to try to restore the country back to its ideals, in spite of the current Federal administration. Thanks again for all you do
Thx, Andy.
Thank you sincerely again for this important stark realism and a rallying cry for action
Excerpts;
“We are learning how sadistically cruel and hateful people like Pamt Bondi, Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth can be when drunk with power and convinced of their invincibility”
“Demand what’s right”
“We must become more demanding for what’s right,”
“We must keep the pressure on”
“There are more of us”
“Stay engaged and drive the lawless regime from power.”
“Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere.”
“Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear”
“We should seize this as an opportunity to stand up and speak out loudly about the values and ideals that have sustained American democracy”
“Proving the regime wrong”
“They want us to become overwhelmed…”
“It’s our job over the coming year to prove how wrong they are.”
//-
End excerpts
(We must heed and exhibit these necessary and inspiring rallying cries identified above in Steven’s article)
Steven
Rest well
Enjoy your family
Blessings to you all
Thank you kindly.
Thank you for your calm Reason. See you next year.
Here's wishing you and your family, Steven, as happy a time as you can possibly have during this Holiday Season. May faith and hope buoy all of us in our resolve to pursue truth and justice throughout the turbulence of the coming year.
Thx, Homi. And to you and yours.
I believe that we will rid ourselves of trump in less than three years. It will be by ill health, either physical or mental. Truthfully I don’t care which. Whichever happens the quickest.
Vance, Johnson and the other seditious christofascists will take a different path to being gotten rid of.
Until then we must continue fighting. The protests have to continue and get louder. We have to maintain our sense of community. Organized boycotts are necessary. Not just stores and web based businesses but media companies. CBS, The New York Times for example.
We will beat them if we work together to make it happen.
Steven, a reader's cancer metaphor is powerful - but it also serves as a warning. We can treat the cancer in the White House, but the underlying causes will persist if we don't address them. And part of the cause is the ongoing failure to understand that R's are not the sole problem. D's contribute to this cancer by not exercising what freedom means, or not taking doses of courage. Three thoughts on this as a long battle:
1. The infrastructure outlasts the individual. Removing Trump won't dismantle the billionaire funding networks, disinformation ecosystems, and weakened guardrails that enabled him. 2026 and 2028 are battles, not the war. Failure to strengthen opposition- from faith, business, elected officials, and candidates- will only help further weaken guardrails.
2. democratic backsliding requires sustained vigilance. Each normalized abuse, each uncontested power grab, each moment we grow numb creates precedent. The fatigue is part of their strategy. The incompetence and Cowardice of elected officials and candidates only aids and abets backsliding.
3. The causes run deeper. Decades of inequality, Citizens United, the collapse of local journalism, voter suppression infrastructure - these are the carcinogens that will keep producing tumors unless addressed systemically.
And yes: FDR, for all his eloquence about freedom, refused to integrate the armed forces and turned away the St. Louis, sending Jewish refugees back toward the Holocaust. Even our greatest leaders were imperfect. The work is never finished.
I trust that the grammarians out there realize that the wording of the actual sign on the Kennedy Center also makes it a "memorial" to trump. Does he know something we don't?
Those who feel good about not having to apologize about being white are only those who put "white" as the first and most important thing about their identity. All reading this who do so, raise their hands?
My first descriptor is often ‘privileged’ because I know I am … and it’s an accident of birth. I never forget how fortunate I have been and try to make things better for others, whomever they are. In my 78 years I have disappointed myself often with our lack of progress to real equality but we keep trying! Onward, by all means. Happy holidays to everyone!
I’d agree, when talking in that context. Privileged is WHY we don't have to identify by race. Context determines all, —sometimes it’s 81 year old, sometimes retired lawyer, sometimes female, sometimes grandma. But “white” doesn’t occur to me unless I’m curling my lip at JD.
Thanks Susan, appreciate your viewpoint.