Steven, you open with "Decades from now, scholars and interested citizens will be studying this period to try and understand how and why so many Americans were willing to toss away the democratic experiment—the promise of 250 years."
Decades from now? What about today? This minute? Us "interested citizens" are perplexed every day on how/why Trump has lasted so long. You, me, and everyone but Trump's followers wonder how voters have "twice elected a man so buffoonish, depraved and hateful to the highest office in the land legitimately?" Perhaps its time to dig into "legitimately." How can we assume that? Trump is still harping on the contest he lost. We should be focusing on how the hell did this ignorant, brain damaged, narcisistic, bully atain the office twice! At age 88, I'm too old to await scholars thumbing through aged newspapers to find who (whom) to blame for Trump's two stints in office. Not me. Not you. Not your readers. There are so many people to nominate for blame. The uber wealthy who fear disapproval will not allow their riches to grow? Republicans in office who stupidly believe Trump has weight (not pounds, influence) to affect votes? You? Me? Your readers? Nope. Not us.
I agree it’s not us, Elaine. But if they’re not overwhelmingly defeated, I believe over time the opposition will be seen as minor—lost in the nightmare that was put in place and sustained by American voters.
I’m compelled to point out that much of Trump’s success depended on deliberate deception. Many of us saw through the deliberate deception from the beginning,
so we tend to think of Trump’s proclivities
as an ongoing debasement of democracy
since 2016. But the majority of people who voted for Trump saw only the TV personality
he cultivated. FoxNews and right-wing talk radio reinforced that persona on a daily basis.
He and the republican party got away with it until he was a couple of months into his 2nd term. What people are seeing now is Trump’s true self—the issues we warned about from the very beginning. Trump’s gloves are off so to speak, and many who voted for him are more than appalled at who he really is, his rampant destruction and his in-your-face corruption
on a scale few of us could even have imagined. The apparently one-third of voters who still support Trump is composed of wealthy individuals taking advantage of his obvious bias toward wealth to the detriment of everyone else, wannabe wealthy hangers-on, criminals, the grievance-oriented mentally
ill to whom he can relate and incompetents
who’ve been elevated by his ignorance to jobs they could only have dreamed of prior to his presidency. To them he is some kind of hero and always will be. None of these categories
of voters can be talked out of their nearly feverish, purely self-interested support for him —not even with facts and figures supporting the case for abandoning him. We have to accept that reality. We must also accept that
he will do everything in his power to create chaos around the upcoming elections. He knows his presidency depends on making
the outcome of this election genuinely questionable and he has control over the levers of power necessary to achieve that goal. The crucible or reckoning is what we do in that post-election aftermath.
Yes, there is a hardcore that is with him no matter what. However the others are falling away. You know the regime is worried when the Pentagon is hiring social media “special federal employees” to push out propaganda and hide their connection to the federal government. And when they don’t credential reporters for the G20 from major news outlets like Bloomberg or choose to credential only NYT’s Berlin Bureau Chief not the reporter for that beat. And so on. More worrisome for them are GOP candidates trying to distance themselves now that the primary is over.
Speaking of ‘Opinions’ left & right … Trump is working against himself again:
CTV: Just 🔻14 per cent of Americans in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they 🔻supported changing the name of 🔹Lake Ontario, which has gone by that name for more than 400 years. Sixty-three per cent of poll respondents opposed the name change and the rest were unsure or didn’t answer the question.
While 3 more Carney Liberals handily won the seats in their ridings and Mr. Carney suggested that American politicians halt their memes etc, and become more serious about the trade issues.
My first thought was, Yes, they WILL blame us all. I think of the easiest example of similar situation is what much later people thought of Nazi Germany (me included!). But, those who condemn ALL Germans forget that after the war, we spent years and funds with the Marshall Plan trying to rebuild not just the Allies' nations, but also W. Germany. So, please God, let there be a reckoning NOW, an effort NOW to understand the "how did we get here" and better yet, "how do we heal" questions future generations will be studying.
This has been my contention all along. The longer we spend time going to court to demand what is constitutionally right, the less time is spent on dealing with our real issues. In fact the opposite is true; the longer he stays in power the less the citizens of this country have any say about our future.
We need a massive win in November for democracy. Let’s do it, America!
Per usual, you’ve set a fine table before us in an attempt to order, once again, the disorder that has us at once horrified, frightened and deeply angry, but I fear that our well-founded reaction to the inanity and corruption of this administration points to something far more insidious. I have been wondering for some time why this man would want to destroy the country we all love? Why would he want to break everything and weaken us both at home and abroad? I’m afraid my attempt to ‘name the elephant’ is, at best, a feeble one, but having read for years about Trump’s connection to Russia I’m left wondering if this is not the culmination of years of efforts by Russia to dissolve our democracy through the conduit of Trump and his narcissistic pathology. All of these other shenanigans are a side show. They point the way and the ‘way’ is sobering. We are in real trouble..as Spencer Tracy’s character says in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, “We are in a situation here, Monsignor, where we are in terrible, terrible trouble. And I don’t think we’re going to get out of it by playing 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' on a harmonica."
Yes Ellen, I too have felt Russia/Putin has attached and pulled some seriously connected puppet strings to/of Trump… the “useful idiot” (blackmail mixed with bribes and favors) - and I am unsuccessful at dispelling the thought of organizations similar to the highly function sinister Heritage Foundation ( Project 2025) - are funded by other countries and wealthy enterprises to bring the US to our knees… ending our leadership in fighting against their non- humanitarian profitable in search of dominance actions.
I have followed Craig Unger’s reporting on and off ever since I read his book, “House of Trump, House of Putin”. I can’t shake the thought that there are forces behind this, either. “From ghoulies and ghosties, long-leggity beasties and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us!” Ack
You’re too kind, AVee! Did you see the NYT article that JUST came out that the US invited a Russian finance minister to the G20 meeting amid howls of protest from the Europeans? Just sayin’. It’s all borscht to me…
US journalists are not so welcome but Russia is on his guest list. Well, he’s wanted to get Russia back into the G-7 (making it the G-8 again) and remains foiled. In NC he gets a 2fer: payback for them shunning Russia and a gift to Putin. I doubt Putin is as impressed as he would like. It merely highlights how Drumpf’s servile behavior toward Putin. 🤮
You’re too kind, AVee! Did you see the NYT article that JUST came out that the US invited a Russian finance minister to the G20 meeting amid howls of protest from the Europeans? Just sayin’. It’s all borscht to me…ack ack
We must start today to make the changes we wish to see for tomorrow and our future. I was one perplexed by Nazi Germany and the hows and whys. Yet, we are living that again today. Yes, I believe the blame will be always placed on us, or at least the boomers. I read that more than once daily. It seems all issues are the ‘boomers’. It is exhausting and not factual. There are plenty who heard the word from the buffoon and said, ‘Yes, that guy speaks for me.’ They love the power and being power adjacent, even though he holds none for anyone who is not white, male, and a sycophant. This administration is all about the grift, self-enrichment, and being in the media. So, work for today what you want to reap tomorrow. My hope is more will fall away from this tyrant as the scales fall off and the curtain reveals that he is truly a weak and pathetic human being who confuses wealth with power. Countries around the world are now seeing the truth and no longer cower. Well done, Steven!
Steven, I believe the study and explanation of how we got to this point must start now. Please, if you can, review my book The Age of Understanding at ageofunderstandingbook.com. It is written in the hopes that we will wake up now to the conditions that got us here, and it is written in the style of Thomas Paine who believed in the everyday man’s ability to make decisions about his own destiny, when properly informed.
Jerusalem wailing wall expanded to include American democracy section. And section for lindsey graham sister when she learns what Judaism is. And where israel is.
We? No. Not we. We did not ask for any of this. We knew better. We warned about it, protested against it, and continued to call it out, despite the futility of our efforts. We have been mad as hell since 2016, and we haven’t just been taking it. It is they you need to talk to. They you need to warn. They you need to convince of the destructive consequences of their slavish devotion to a criminally corrupt lunatic. They you need to convert and to rally to vote for the changes we have been calling for, working toward, and supporting for decades. I refuse to be erroneously associated in any way with these malicious cretins and greedy oligarchs who have destroyed our democracy, our reputation, and our future.
I agree. I refuse to carry his shame or any guilt for him being elected. I did my part. I don’t believe in collective guilt for others — So why for myself? Collective guilt is only good for breeding resentment and anger. To some extend, I’m used to assumptions & attempts to pin it on me. I live in KY.
There were many groups who voted for him. Almost half of Independents / Unaffiliated. PACs funded efforts to get folks to the polls - Voters who seldom voted; young folks who maybe never voted before or maybe once & others who they got to register. These folks began falling away when tariffs became real. It picked up speed when he started bombing. The corruption is breaking through; people all over the country are protesting immigration detention centers & data centers. Data centers controversies have the GOP very very very worried. (Axios, 8/19/26: Exclusive: GOP issues stark warning to AI companies — https://www.axios.com/2026/08/19/gop-data-center-memo-ai-election)
We don’t need to waste a lot of energy on anyone ‘slavishly devoted’. We need the persuadables. Drumpf is doing a lot of the convincing for us, along with his inner circle. Dems flipped about 30 GOP seats in special elections since Drumpf came into office. GOP has a goose egg, 0. For some time it’s been apparent that he is under 50% approval in many states. These days he is only ‘above water’ in THREE states. One is Wyoming which gave him his biggest % of the 2024 vote in any state (71%).
What happened this week? Looks like DOJ tested their election monitor program in a surprise WY visit. Governor has asked the state AG to investigate the disruptions & chaos. “I feel very strongly about the federal government coming in and taking our guns — I don’t like that,” the governor said at a meeting with state elections officials. “And I don’t like the federal government coming in and taking our votes, either.” https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/wyoming-gop-governor-decries-aggressive-election-monitoring-by-trump-doj
In KY the 6th Congressional District - gerrymandered to make it red - is so competitive the Dems are putting in resources. The GOP candidate has pushed the picture of Drumpf - who endorsed him - from the front page to the media page; changed his political theme from “America First Fighter” to “Independent Leadership”. There’s more but I think the picture is coming into focus.
Yes but ... cannot let what seems futile now get in the way of continued effort. Read Kafka's The Trial; there is a pretty decent movie available on YouTube, the one with Anthony Hopkins.
Oh, good. I think the people looking in the window are there to get us to think about how we might be observers, just watching, but complicit. I talk about this briefly in my latest posting on my (free) substack. I would greatly appreciate your comments.
But… it’s crystal clear that the Republicans won’t respect the outcome of any election they don’t win, and they’ll do literally anything to subvert it. He doesn’t care if he’s popular. He doesn’t even care if he loses. He only cares about power, and he’ll do anything to keep it. As will his party and his corrupt SCOTUS. We are about to see Soviet style “elections” in the USA.
Thanks, Steven: When I think of the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime, I think of the Treaty of Versailles. How the world held the Germans totally responsible and decimated their nation, leaving them destitute, a perfect recipe for a derelict leader to come forth and hoodwink the folks. When I think of the rise of Trump 45 and 47. He had the folks thinking he could fix things- things that were not broken. He had a way of dividing a nation; he used the border problems, the immigrants, the economy, just about everything that concerns the average Joe. There is always a sector of the populace that feels left out, and they were ripe for the picking. Hence, you have the birth of a modern-day tyrant. If anything, he has lit a firestorm, causing folks to get engaged with the political realm and wake up from their slumber. My dime is on a massive voter turnout. Hope I'm right.
Steven, we need to create a massive time capsule of all of our thoughts about this time period for generations to explore. I think they will come to the conclusion that Americans were nuts. They will scratch their heads when they learn that people in this country elected an adjudicated rapist and 30 count felon not once but twice! I mean, who knew that we live amongst the most ignorant but hateful humans around us?
If history and studies have shown us anything it is that given the right environment many if not most people will respond by being hateful or following someone who is. If we don’t want ignorance to rule the day then we should find a way to stop gutting education and letting fake information compete with facts. Maybe begin by seriously attacking the multigenerational issue of low literacy in the US.
It just breaks my heart to read this because it is so true. What a waste of the vast resources we have to make peoples lives better instead of this idiocy! I am actually very scared that we could be hit with a terrible attack or that our economy could seriously fail. Forget all the corruption and self dealing - look who is running the agencies there to protect us. Kash? Pete? RFK jr? SCOTUS? etc etc etc. And add to that we are losing the respect and loyalty of our allies - possibly for a generation or more! Just such a waste...
Of course they will. I can make a remark in front of my 13-year-old granddaughter and the response is, "Ok, Boomer." It starts young and is ongoing. My generation has messed up a fair amount, but also produced some good. My generation will not be remembered for the good produced, just for the president who has annihilated our democracy and walked off with the cash.
Brilliant thoughts written masterfully, Steven. Too much money and greed is just nasty. Power given to cruel criminals is worse. Strength is still alive in our communities. We are joined with young people. Let's do this.
I blame us now - our complacency, our failure to be persuasive to the people who chose not to vote because they didn't like the alternative candidate, our failure to require the news media to report the facts, and our failure to elect people who could put the orange menace in check. I blame myself for not speaking out more forcefully against him. I knew what he was capable of doing, what he planned to do based on Project 2025, and I failed to warn others adequately. It is a personal and national failure. We deserve the blame.
It wasn't merely complacency. Biden should have quietly walked off the stage in plenty of time for Harris to have been established as a viable candidate. That was a serious mistake. And now we have a Democratic Party that cannot make up its mind from day to day as to just who, or what, it is.
By the way, people failed to vote not only because they didn’t like the alternative but they felt disappointed by both parties. That is a bigger hill to climb.
Will future generations blame us all, or will they recognize that most of us were mad as hell and refused to take it?
It depends, on what we do with our anger.
It depends, if we can appreciate that the founding fathers didn’t trust democracy, and created our current political system with a few modifications along the way.
It depends, if the next batch of Democrats can shut down Project 2025 which is being executed by the President with the help of the Republicans.
It depends, if the Democrats are willing to abandon the oligarchs and represent the people.
Middle-of-the-road democrats really don’t represent their voters.
No other democracy, operates the way we have, for so long. It is not surprising that the wheels have come off. The white Christian conservative middle class is not going to be in the majority for much longer, and this is the Republican response to this upcoming condition.
The white Christian nationalism is obvious in the National Security Strategy posted on WH website. There are a couple references to “culture” as a national security issue.
If you really want to know what they think search for Europe. There are many mentions that reveal a lot behind how the regime is treating our allies (and by default how it “governs”). I’m sure our allies are well aware. Was Europe on voters’ bingo cards?
• Re-instilling a culture of competence, rooting out so-called “DEI” and other discriminatory and anti-competitive practices that degrade our institutions and hold us back
• President Trump signed major agreements during his October 2025 travels that
further deepen our powerful ties of commerce, culture, technology, and defense,
and reaffirm our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.
• Yet Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States.
• We want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of
Europe, while restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity
• We will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies.
I can’t stop thinking about the 77 million who put us in this fix. What are they thinking now? Will they vote again this November? Are they at all educable?
Some may be discouraged. But the bigger key is the 89 million who didn't show up. They are the apathetic ones that may have more opportunities to mobilize.
Yes, I wonder too, but I cannot just ignore all those people and write them off as stupid. There must be something they are hearing that is different from what I am hearing. Although the outright corruption is beyond me to ignore.
With the number of books written on how to survive this regime, beginning with “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyder, and many, many others, there is proof that a large group of U S citizens denied his lawless takeover of the country. In Germany, we don’t have that so much, with the exception of Martin Niemoller’s poem, “First They Came…”.
There are also multitudes of lawsuits against the abuses of power, and the fight to hold them back from too many excesses. I don’t know about those types of things in Germany and the third reich. There are no real records of Germans fighting back in the courts.
Steven, you open with "Decades from now, scholars and interested citizens will be studying this period to try and understand how and why so many Americans were willing to toss away the democratic experiment—the promise of 250 years."
Decades from now? What about today? This minute? Us "interested citizens" are perplexed every day on how/why Trump has lasted so long. You, me, and everyone but Trump's followers wonder how voters have "twice elected a man so buffoonish, depraved and hateful to the highest office in the land legitimately?" Perhaps its time to dig into "legitimately." How can we assume that? Trump is still harping on the contest he lost. We should be focusing on how the hell did this ignorant, brain damaged, narcisistic, bully atain the office twice! At age 88, I'm too old to await scholars thumbing through aged newspapers to find who (whom) to blame for Trump's two stints in office. Not me. Not you. Not your readers. There are so many people to nominate for blame. The uber wealthy who fear disapproval will not allow their riches to grow? Republicans in office who stupidly believe Trump has weight (not pounds, influence) to affect votes? You? Me? Your readers? Nope. Not us.
I agree it’s not us, Elaine. But if they’re not overwhelmingly defeated, I believe over time the opposition will be seen as minor—lost in the nightmare that was put in place and sustained by American voters.
I’m compelled to point out that much of Trump’s success depended on deliberate deception. Many of us saw through the deliberate deception from the beginning,
so we tend to think of Trump’s proclivities
as an ongoing debasement of democracy
since 2016. But the majority of people who voted for Trump saw only the TV personality
he cultivated. FoxNews and right-wing talk radio reinforced that persona on a daily basis.
He and the republican party got away with it until he was a couple of months into his 2nd term. What people are seeing now is Trump’s true self—the issues we warned about from the very beginning. Trump’s gloves are off so to speak, and many who voted for him are more than appalled at who he really is, his rampant destruction and his in-your-face corruption
on a scale few of us could even have imagined. The apparently one-third of voters who still support Trump is composed of wealthy individuals taking advantage of his obvious bias toward wealth to the detriment of everyone else, wannabe wealthy hangers-on, criminals, the grievance-oriented mentally
ill to whom he can relate and incompetents
who’ve been elevated by his ignorance to jobs they could only have dreamed of prior to his presidency. To them he is some kind of hero and always will be. None of these categories
of voters can be talked out of their nearly feverish, purely self-interested support for him —not even with facts and figures supporting the case for abandoning him. We have to accept that reality. We must also accept that
he will do everything in his power to create chaos around the upcoming elections. He knows his presidency depends on making
the outcome of this election genuinely questionable and he has control over the levers of power necessary to achieve that goal. The crucible or reckoning is what we do in that post-election aftermath.
Yes, there is a hardcore that is with him no matter what. However the others are falling away. You know the regime is worried when the Pentagon is hiring social media “special federal employees” to push out propaganda and hide their connection to the federal government. And when they don’t credential reporters for the G20 from major news outlets like Bloomberg or choose to credential only NYT’s Berlin Bureau Chief not the reporter for that beat. And so on. More worrisome for them are GOP candidates trying to distance themselves now that the primary is over.
Weeping.
Speaking of ‘Opinions’ left & right … Trump is working against himself again:
CTV: Just 🔻14 per cent of Americans in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they 🔻supported changing the name of 🔹Lake Ontario, which has gone by that name for more than 400 years. Sixty-three per cent of poll respondents opposed the name change and the rest were unsure or didn’t answer the question.
https://apple.news/AgcfmvfpOQmetpLmjVMfJjg
While 3 more Carney Liberals handily won the seats in their ridings and Mr. Carney suggested that American politicians halt their memes etc, and become more serious about the trade issues.
My first thought was, Yes, they WILL blame us all. I think of the easiest example of similar situation is what much later people thought of Nazi Germany (me included!). But, those who condemn ALL Germans forget that after the war, we spent years and funds with the Marshall Plan trying to rebuild not just the Allies' nations, but also W. Germany. So, please God, let there be a reckoning NOW, an effort NOW to understand the "how did we get here" and better yet, "how do we heal" questions future generations will be studying.
This has been my contention all along. The longer we spend time going to court to demand what is constitutionally right, the less time is spent on dealing with our real issues. In fact the opposite is true; the longer he stays in power the less the citizens of this country have any say about our future.
We need a massive win in November for democracy. Let’s do it, America!
Yes, we do, Louise.
Per usual, you’ve set a fine table before us in an attempt to order, once again, the disorder that has us at once horrified, frightened and deeply angry, but I fear that our well-founded reaction to the inanity and corruption of this administration points to something far more insidious. I have been wondering for some time why this man would want to destroy the country we all love? Why would he want to break everything and weaken us both at home and abroad? I’m afraid my attempt to ‘name the elephant’ is, at best, a feeble one, but having read for years about Trump’s connection to Russia I’m left wondering if this is not the culmination of years of efforts by Russia to dissolve our democracy through the conduit of Trump and his narcissistic pathology. All of these other shenanigans are a side show. They point the way and the ‘way’ is sobering. We are in real trouble..as Spencer Tracy’s character says in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, “We are in a situation here, Monsignor, where we are in terrible, terrible trouble. And I don’t think we’re going to get out of it by playing 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' on a harmonica."
Yes Ellen, I too have felt Russia/Putin has attached and pulled some seriously connected puppet strings to/of Trump… the “useful idiot” (blackmail mixed with bribes and favors) - and I am unsuccessful at dispelling the thought of organizations similar to the highly function sinister Heritage Foundation ( Project 2025) - are funded by other countries and wealthy enterprises to bring the US to our knees… ending our leadership in fighting against their non- humanitarian profitable in search of dominance actions.
Sinister is right.
I have followed Craig Unger’s reporting on and off ever since I read his book, “House of Trump, House of Putin”. I can’t shake the thought that there are forces behind this, either. “From ghoulies and ghosties, long-leggity beasties and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us!” Ack
You’re too kind, AVee! Did you see the NYT article that JUST came out that the US invited a Russian finance minister to the G20 meeting amid howls of protest from the Europeans? Just sayin’. It’s all borscht to me…
US journalists are not so welcome but Russia is on his guest list. Well, he’s wanted to get Russia back into the G-7 (making it the G-8 again) and remains foiled. In NC he gets a 2fer: payback for them shunning Russia and a gift to Putin. I doubt Putin is as impressed as he would like. It merely highlights how Drumpf’s servile behavior toward Putin. 🤮
Got it thanks!! 💙🇺🇸💙
Yuck
And here’s the link if anyone else is curious..
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/08/31/us/trump-news?smid=nytcore-ios-share
You write so well!!
👏
You’re too kind, AVee! Did you see the NYT article that JUST came out that the US invited a Russian finance minister to the G20 meeting amid howls of protest from the Europeans? Just sayin’. It’s all borscht to me…ack ack
No not yet! Thank you for revealing - I shall check “ forthwith” !!
We must start today to make the changes we wish to see for tomorrow and our future. I was one perplexed by Nazi Germany and the hows and whys. Yet, we are living that again today. Yes, I believe the blame will be always placed on us, or at least the boomers. I read that more than once daily. It seems all issues are the ‘boomers’. It is exhausting and not factual. There are plenty who heard the word from the buffoon and said, ‘Yes, that guy speaks for me.’ They love the power and being power adjacent, even though he holds none for anyone who is not white, male, and a sycophant. This administration is all about the grift, self-enrichment, and being in the media. So, work for today what you want to reap tomorrow. My hope is more will fall away from this tyrant as the scales fall off and the curtain reveals that he is truly a weak and pathetic human being who confuses wealth with power. Countries around the world are now seeing the truth and no longer cower. Well done, Steven!
Steven, I believe the study and explanation of how we got to this point must start now. Please, if you can, review my book The Age of Understanding at ageofunderstandingbook.com. It is written in the hopes that we will wake up now to the conditions that got us here, and it is written in the style of Thomas Paine who believed in the everyday man’s ability to make decisions about his own destiny, when properly informed.
Jerusalem wailing wall expanded to include American democracy section. And section for lindsey graham sister when she learns what Judaism is. And where israel is.
We? No. Not we. We did not ask for any of this. We knew better. We warned about it, protested against it, and continued to call it out, despite the futility of our efforts. We have been mad as hell since 2016, and we haven’t just been taking it. It is they you need to talk to. They you need to warn. They you need to convince of the destructive consequences of their slavish devotion to a criminally corrupt lunatic. They you need to convert and to rally to vote for the changes we have been calling for, working toward, and supporting for decades. I refuse to be erroneously associated in any way with these malicious cretins and greedy oligarchs who have destroyed our democracy, our reputation, and our future.
I agree. I refuse to carry his shame or any guilt for him being elected. I did my part. I don’t believe in collective guilt for others — So why for myself? Collective guilt is only good for breeding resentment and anger. To some extend, I’m used to assumptions & attempts to pin it on me. I live in KY.
There were many groups who voted for him. Almost half of Independents / Unaffiliated. PACs funded efforts to get folks to the polls - Voters who seldom voted; young folks who maybe never voted before or maybe once & others who they got to register. These folks began falling away when tariffs became real. It picked up speed when he started bombing. The corruption is breaking through; people all over the country are protesting immigration detention centers & data centers. Data centers controversies have the GOP very very very worried. (Axios, 8/19/26: Exclusive: GOP issues stark warning to AI companies — https://www.axios.com/2026/08/19/gop-data-center-memo-ai-election)
We don’t need to waste a lot of energy on anyone ‘slavishly devoted’. We need the persuadables. Drumpf is doing a lot of the convincing for us, along with his inner circle. Dems flipped about 30 GOP seats in special elections since Drumpf came into office. GOP has a goose egg, 0. For some time it’s been apparent that he is under 50% approval in many states. These days he is only ‘above water’ in THREE states. One is Wyoming which gave him his biggest % of the 2024 vote in any state (71%).
What happened this week? Looks like DOJ tested their election monitor program in a surprise WY visit. Governor has asked the state AG to investigate the disruptions & chaos. “I feel very strongly about the federal government coming in and taking our guns — I don’t like that,” the governor said at a meeting with state elections officials. “And I don’t like the federal government coming in and taking our votes, either.” https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/wyoming-gop-governor-decries-aggressive-election-monitoring-by-trump-doj
In KY the 6th Congressional District - gerrymandered to make it red - is so competitive the Dems are putting in resources. The GOP candidate has pushed the picture of Drumpf - who endorsed him - from the front page to the media page; changed his political theme from “America First Fighter” to “Independent Leadership”. There’s more but I think the picture is coming into focus.
Yes but ... cannot let what seems futile now get in the way of continued effort. Read Kafka's The Trial; there is a pretty decent movie available on YouTube, the one with Anthony Hopkins.
I’ve read it.
Oh, good. I think the people looking in the window are there to get us to think about how we might be observers, just watching, but complicit. I talk about this briefly in my latest posting on my (free) substack. I would greatly appreciate your comments.
But… it’s crystal clear that the Republicans won’t respect the outcome of any election they don’t win, and they’ll do literally anything to subvert it. He doesn’t care if he’s popular. He doesn’t even care if he loses. He only cares about power, and he’ll do anything to keep it. As will his party and his corrupt SCOTUS. We are about to see Soviet style “elections” in the USA.
Thanks, Steven: When I think of the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime, I think of the Treaty of Versailles. How the world held the Germans totally responsible and decimated their nation, leaving them destitute, a perfect recipe for a derelict leader to come forth and hoodwink the folks. When I think of the rise of Trump 45 and 47. He had the folks thinking he could fix things- things that were not broken. He had a way of dividing a nation; he used the border problems, the immigrants, the economy, just about everything that concerns the average Joe. There is always a sector of the populace that feels left out, and they were ripe for the picking. Hence, you have the birth of a modern-day tyrant. If anything, he has lit a firestorm, causing folks to get engaged with the political realm and wake up from their slumber. My dime is on a massive voter turnout. Hope I'm right.
Steven, we need to create a massive time capsule of all of our thoughts about this time period for generations to explore. I think they will come to the conclusion that Americans were nuts. They will scratch their heads when they learn that people in this country elected an adjudicated rapist and 30 count felon not once but twice! I mean, who knew that we live amongst the most ignorant but hateful humans around us?
If history and studies have shown us anything it is that given the right environment many if not most people will respond by being hateful or following someone who is. If we don’t want ignorance to rule the day then we should find a way to stop gutting education and letting fake information compete with facts. Maybe begin by seriously attacking the multigenerational issue of low literacy in the US.
It just breaks my heart to read this because it is so true. What a waste of the vast resources we have to make peoples lives better instead of this idiocy! I am actually very scared that we could be hit with a terrible attack or that our economy could seriously fail. Forget all the corruption and self dealing - look who is running the agencies there to protect us. Kash? Pete? RFK jr? SCOTUS? etc etc etc. And add to that we are losing the respect and loyalty of our allies - possibly for a generation or more! Just such a waste...
Of course they will. I can make a remark in front of my 13-year-old granddaughter and the response is, "Ok, Boomer." It starts young and is ongoing. My generation has messed up a fair amount, but also produced some good. My generation will not be remembered for the good produced, just for the president who has annihilated our democracy and walked off with the cash.
Brilliant thoughts written masterfully, Steven. Too much money and greed is just nasty. Power given to cruel criminals is worse. Strength is still alive in our communities. We are joined with young people. Let's do this.
I blame us now - our complacency, our failure to be persuasive to the people who chose not to vote because they didn't like the alternative candidate, our failure to require the news media to report the facts, and our failure to elect people who could put the orange menace in check. I blame myself for not speaking out more forcefully against him. I knew what he was capable of doing, what he planned to do based on Project 2025, and I failed to warn others adequately. It is a personal and national failure. We deserve the blame.
It wasn't merely complacency. Biden should have quietly walked off the stage in plenty of time for Harris to have been established as a viable candidate. That was a serious mistake. And now we have a Democratic Party that cannot make up its mind from day to day as to just who, or what, it is.
I understand your points but I disagree.
By the way, people failed to vote not only because they didn’t like the alternative but they felt disappointed by both parties. That is a bigger hill to climb.
Will future generations blame us all, or will they recognize that most of us were mad as hell and refused to take it?
It depends, on what we do with our anger.
It depends, if we can appreciate that the founding fathers didn’t trust democracy, and created our current political system with a few modifications along the way.
It depends, if the next batch of Democrats can shut down Project 2025 which is being executed by the President with the help of the Republicans.
It depends, if the Democrats are willing to abandon the oligarchs and represent the people.
Middle-of-the-road democrats really don’t represent their voters.
No other democracy, operates the way we have, for so long. It is not surprising that the wheels have come off. The white Christian conservative middle class is not going to be in the majority for much longer, and this is the Republican response to this upcoming condition.
The white Christian nationalism is obvious in the National Security Strategy posted on WH website. There are a couple references to “culture” as a national security issue.
If you really want to know what they think search for Europe. There are many mentions that reveal a lot behind how the regime is treating our allies (and by default how it “governs”). I’m sure our allies are well aware. Was Europe on voters’ bingo cards?
• Re-instilling a culture of competence, rooting out so-called “DEI” and other discriminatory and anti-competitive practices that degrade our institutions and hold us back
• President Trump signed major agreements during his October 2025 travels that
further deepen our powerful ties of commerce, culture, technology, and defense,
and reaffirm our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.
• Yet Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States.
• We want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of
Europe, while restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity
• We will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies.
• [Re: Europe] 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗽𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf
I can’t stop thinking about the 77 million who put us in this fix. What are they thinking now? Will they vote again this November? Are they at all educable?
Some may be discouraged. But the bigger key is the 89 million who didn't show up. They are the apathetic ones that may have more opportunities to mobilize.
Yes, I wonder too, but I cannot just ignore all those people and write them off as stupid. There must be something they are hearing that is different from what I am hearing. Although the outright corruption is beyond me to ignore.
With the number of books written on how to survive this regime, beginning with “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyder, and many, many others, there is proof that a large group of U S citizens denied his lawless takeover of the country. In Germany, we don’t have that so much, with the exception of Martin Niemoller’s poem, “First They Came…”.
There are also multitudes of lawsuits against the abuses of power, and the fight to hold them back from too many excesses. I don’t know about those types of things in Germany and the third reich. There are no real records of Germans fighting back in the courts.
No fighting back in the courts because the legal system was made part of the Party. There was no independent judiciary.
That’s one thing we do have, an independent judiciary. They, with few exceptions, are holding strong for democracy.
I follow Marc Elias. He's always out there fighting. You might enjoy the satire in my Trump v. United States.
Marc Elias is one of my must read columns. He is a hero for standing for democracy against the attack on voter’s rights.