There is nothing more dangerous than society "doing nothing". Whether it's the Supreme Court or the retired gentleman who doesn't watch the news because "it's too upsetting and there's nothing I can do about it". To quote Edmund Burke "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". The Supreme Court needs to act, to enforce the constitution and the rest of us need to rally behind that constitutional determination. To do otherwise is to give up. And having given up once you will give up always. I give you the US Republican Senate as the perfect example.
Long term issue for you Americans with Musk getting young lackies to mess around with the software infrastructure of your government. You can bet part of the 'upgrades' will include an installed backdoor for Musk & his ilk to access once this clown show is evicted. That of course is assuming enough of you Americans wise up to what is happening to boot these clowns out of office the first chance you get lol.
Nah scratch that, it seems that Trumpelstiltskin's approval ratings are the highest they've ever been, so it appears you really did want all this! How are egg prices over there this week? Nice and cheap here in Oz lol.
There was a time not too long ago, when imagining the worst that could happen under Trump 2.0 seemed like being too reactionary. We felt we should calm down and not runaround with our hair on fire. No longer. We are firmly on a path toward making Viktor Orban seem tame.
What to do?
-pick them off one at a time (no, not literally). Identify the worst of his team, and find their vulnerability. Expose their action so that they will make Trump look bad. He will then fire him for us. One could argue that this has already happened with Vivek and Gaetz.
-Similar to the above. Find and exploit a wedge between Trump and Musk. We can utilize Steve Bannon to help publicize this issue. If we can get Trump to break up with Musk, that will buy us time to work on the others. Musk is an urgent threat that can do irreversible damage to the country.
- get a party spokesperson who can have regular news conferences where can do a few things (see below). These person needs to be able to speak in a calm common sense manner. No hyperbole. Be able to go on podcasts and Fox news
- Clear up the lies that Trump spoke that week.
- Lay out that what Trump is doing, is the Project 2025 playbook
- Make the case that when when said Trump was a fascist, we didn't mean Hitler, we meant Viktor Orban. Then show the parallels. Keep doing this until it sinks in.
"-pick them off one at a time (no, not literally). Identify the worst of his team, and find their vulnerability. Expose their action so that they will make Trump look bad"
" Musk is an urgent threat that can do irreversible damage to the country."
Well "Big Balls", one of Musk's DOGE boys, was just picked off. Thanks to 'Wired'
"These person needs to be able to speak in a calm common sense manner. No hyperbole. Be able to go on podcasts and Fox news"
I nominate Pete Buttigieg. He would be perfect for this.
All of your ideas are great. I've also been saying that the people who voted for Trump will have to suffer -- a lot -- before they (might) change their minds about voting for neo-fascists -- Trump or anyone else.
Since Democrats for the time being have very little power to stop the Trump insanity (Trump has the WH, Congress, and the courts), they need to communicate clearly, regularly, and effectively about what Trump is doing (as you say, link it to Project 2025 and how he lied about knowing anything about it) and who it's bad for: farmers, workers, women, middle class, etc.
As you point out, podcasts, social media, and Fox News are where these messages might break through. Effective communication may be our only hope.
What I am really looking for is that the portion of self-declared evangelical Christians who supported Trump because they disagreed with the alternative now start realizing what they contributed to. Mr Ts goals and actions are in my book deeply against any notions of a Christian worldview.
Don't hold your breath. Don't expect conservative women to rebel against the sexism either. They have justified it all and there is no cognitive dissonance
Ok, if that is the case, then it is good to know that I am on the opposite side of the fence to those folks, and I have less in common with them than with many others.
He learned through Jared during his prior term he can make over $100 million in profits each time what he pontificates will move markets
800000 puts were bought last Friday. Some for under $10 that went to $1000
No way he missed partaking.
And after his phone call with Mexico his first call was to Jared’s guy to buy a few thousand calls. Then announced the phone call and made a quick $20 million
This is getting more chilling by the hour: just saw story that El Salvador has offered to house U.S. prisoners - INCLUDING U.S. CITIZENS - in its prisons; and T**** & co. are ecstatic.
Mr. Musk's 6 employee hackers were given the keys to the US Treasury and now control the government checkbook. Wow! Not a shot was fired and they took over the whole thing. They now control the pursestrings of the US Government. Great job guys. Forget the old notion of governmental checks and balances. The 6 now control both the cheques and the remaining balances. Control of the pursestrings was formerly the job of the US House of Representatives. No more. The duly elected Representatives just gave that job over to the 6 hackers. Representatives, you might as well go home now because you're no longer needed. And forget about running a campaign to be re-elected. It won't be necessary. Remember? Donald Trump averred "if you elect me you will never have to vote again". The 6 hackers can do the whole thing at 1/100th the cost. The Senate? Advise and consent? Its members are about to approve all of Mr. Trump's appointees and in so doing will surrender to the Executive Branch all responsibility and authority which the Senators formerly held. In times past there was an individual's internal conflict between honoring integrity and the quest for power. No longer a problem for members of the US Senate. They will have neither. The rest of the voting citizenry will have an authoritarian monarch.
I am so sorry for what is happening to the US from Australia. Those of us who are politically aware are absolutely horrified although we have our share of right wing crazy.
It must be awful waking up thinking you are on earth 2.0. When the other half of your country just blissfully carry on thinking it will be all ok.
It sounds like the handmaids tale except it's less the Christian nationalists and more power hungry dangerous tech rich people.
Surely at some point buyers remorse will kick in for those trump voting everyday citizens.... betrayal even?
Nope....after watching the J6th attack on Congress and the Law all of them were reprogrammed. In the end very few Republicans stayed home or voted for Kamala Harris. They are more interested in demolishing the Democrat enemy. I believe the US is headed to a "cold" civil war like Northern Ireland had in the Troubles 1960's through 1990's only we are a nation with 10's of millions of military style weapons in private possession.
The Christian nationalists are playing a big part in the purges and impounding of funds, the sabotaging of medical & scientific research, the performative deportations, the efforts to bring the media to heel, and the obsessive hostility to LGBT people. Their numbers are greater than the tech bros, and they've got more of the MAGA base with them, but the tech billionaires have other advantages. If the two factions start squabbling, that will be good for the rest of us.
Over at the UnPopulist, people calling themselves classical liberals or libertarians are claiming that 1) Musk is fully entitled to do whatever he's doing as long as Trump says he can; and 2) he is heroically finding waste & fraud so we can get back to a proper constitutional system; and 3) how dare anyone accuse him of doing anything illegal or dishonorable.
And that's apparently not from super-MAGAs who think everything Trump does is awesome.
Many people who know more about the law than I do say that what Musk is doing is, in fact, unlawful and dangerous. And I think a person has to be naive or willfully self-deluding to be confident of his good intentions or respect for law. But unfortunately, a lot of Americans - not all of them MAGA rubes - see the villains in our current situation as heroes.
This is the last paragraph of my Substack tomorrow: "With more than half the country that didn’t vote for Trump plus more and more of the people who supported him becoming disaffected from him, I’m watching for some moment when there’s a dramatic incident and virtually everyone turns on him. Law-abiders are at a disadvantage dealing with someone who has no regard for the law and has power, but I even wonder about a coup. Not a bloody one. Does acting lawfully and losing our country make sense? I’m just asking…"
This is not going to end well. People are not going to tolerate it. There will be violence. Maybe there should be. This is a coup. Actions like this require an appropriate response. Americans are the most armed to the teeth people on earth. I know that may not be a popular view - at least for now - but it's understandable if people do take severe and serious action. President Musk, Trump and their minions are ignoring the law, the courts, and any pretense to the contrary is useless and ineffectual. So, what other options are there?
I love The Bulwark because your politics mostly align with mine. I love it even more because you strive to get facts right, even when they don't help your arguments. The news about ABC's settlement with Trump is fading from our consciousness, but I still hear it mentioned on various Bulwark podcasts, and I think you are getting it wrong - and in a way that really hurts the anti-Trump movement.
As I'm writing this, I must acknowledge that while there is some room for opinion, there are some stubborn facts about this story. One fact - perhaps the most important/stubborn of them all, is that Stephanopoulos lied - many times - when he said that Trump was found liable for rape by a jury. This is demonstrably true. And while it is not known with certainty whether Stephanopoulos knew of its falsity, it would be interesting to hear the cross-examination of him if he denied knowing this - a well-respected journalist who is undoubtedly required to abide by ABC's standards. There is also, of course, a good argument that he acted with reckless disregard of its falsity, at a minimum.
And I've heard the argument that Trump could not prove harm, given his reputation, etc. I think this too is probably short-sighted. A decent attorney, it seems to me, should have an easy time getting a jury to believe that a false accusation of rape, by a well-respected journalist, during a presedential campaign, did inflict at least some harm.
In case you've read this far, here is my point: This is not a story about ABC capitulating to Trump, or an ominous story about how the media is going to think twice about reporting negative stories about Trump. Perhaps, if the media keeps reporting the story this way, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the media will be reluctant to post unfavorable stories about Trump.
But what if the news reported that for some unknown reason, George Stephanopolous lied about Trump on the air, and because of that, they were likely to lose at trial, and they wisely decided that 15 million was a pretty cheap way to avoid all the negative publicity of a trial when they were likely to lose anyway. THIS, it seems to me, is the real story. Perhaps more importantly, if it were told this way - honestly, from my perspective - it would not seem as ominous and would not advance the perception that Trump has more power than he has. Further, what most people would take from it, is that the rule of law matters, and it is a very bad idea to defame anyone - even someone as broadly reviled as Trump.
I don't understand why it has not been reported this way. It makes me cringe a bit that those I go to that help me understand what is going on in the world are misreporting this story. Or - and I acknowledge this is possible - maybe my take is wrong. That could be - but I've yet to hear anyone address the issues I raised about in a manner that made me rethink my position.
"... for some unknown reason, George Stephanopolous lied about Trump on the air, and because of that, they were likely to lose at trial"
It was almost impossible for them to lose. Long ago I got a degree in journalism. The part you're missing is the landmark Supreme Court case New York Times vs. Sullivan.
I don't have time here and now to explain it all in detail but, in a nutshell, as a result of that decision public figures* have almost no chance of winning a libel case against a media outlet, unless they can prove actual malice, which is practically impossible (unless you're Fox News encouraging their "journalists" and on-air guests to lie about Dominion Voting Systems, which is why they settled. It's also not clear that Dominion was a "public figure".)
That's at least part of the reason ABC paying off Trump is capitulation, at least in my view.
* Being a public figure is the key here. The rules are different for regular people like us.
Trump was found liable - guilty - of sexual assault by a jury. That is true, even if the charge was not rape. It was however adjudicated to be rape by the judge. It seems to me you're splitting hairs here. Trump is a well known serial sexual assaulter, by his own admission. There is evidence he's guilty of statutory rape at Jeffrey Epstein's private island enclave.
What is the objective of your comment? To tear down and discredit Stephanopoulos? Sure seems that way. It also seems you're attempting to absolve Trump in some way. And here is another unassailable fact; Trump and his minions are targeting the press, journalists and independent media, to silence them and censor all critical reportage and criticism they don't like, as all authoritarian regimes do. To silence dissent. Frankly, you sound like an apologist for that project, which is substantiated by your assertion regarding ABC's capitulation.
Is there a distinction in the legal system between sexual assault and rape? Language has been degraded to such an extent that we miscommunicate regularly. Precise use of words and terms lend clarity to communication, everyday speech and the media.
"It figures. It all happened too sudden. People gotta talk themselves into law and order before they do anything about it; maybe because, down deep, they don't care. They just don't care." -- Martin Howe (Lon Chaney, Jr.) in 1952's HIGH NOON. (Link to vid clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYrHnxfGivg&t=85s )
By the way, I highly recommend y'all re-watch that classic western. It's the perfect analog to our current predicament: a pardoned bad guy and his gang return to terrorize a frontier town, and the hapless townsfolk offer nothing but excuses to the sheriff who needs their help to form a posse. The depiction of cowardice and rationalization is spot-on.
There is nothing more dangerous than society "doing nothing". Whether it's the Supreme Court or the retired gentleman who doesn't watch the news because "it's too upsetting and there's nothing I can do about it". To quote Edmund Burke "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". The Supreme Court needs to act, to enforce the constitution and the rest of us need to rally behind that constitutional determination. To do otherwise is to give up. And having given up once you will give up always. I give you the US Republican Senate as the perfect example.
Long term issue for you Americans with Musk getting young lackies to mess around with the software infrastructure of your government. You can bet part of the 'upgrades' will include an installed backdoor for Musk & his ilk to access once this clown show is evicted. That of course is assuming enough of you Americans wise up to what is happening to boot these clowns out of office the first chance you get lol.
Nah scratch that, it seems that Trumpelstiltskin's approval ratings are the highest they've ever been, so it appears you really did want all this! How are egg prices over there this week? Nice and cheap here in Oz lol.
There was a time not too long ago, when imagining the worst that could happen under Trump 2.0 seemed like being too reactionary. We felt we should calm down and not runaround with our hair on fire. No longer. We are firmly on a path toward making Viktor Orban seem tame.
What to do?
-pick them off one at a time (no, not literally). Identify the worst of his team, and find their vulnerability. Expose their action so that they will make Trump look bad. He will then fire him for us. One could argue that this has already happened with Vivek and Gaetz.
-Similar to the above. Find and exploit a wedge between Trump and Musk. We can utilize Steve Bannon to help publicize this issue. If we can get Trump to break up with Musk, that will buy us time to work on the others. Musk is an urgent threat that can do irreversible damage to the country.
- get a party spokesperson who can have regular news conferences where can do a few things (see below). These person needs to be able to speak in a calm common sense manner. No hyperbole. Be able to go on podcasts and Fox news
- Clear up the lies that Trump spoke that week.
- Lay out that what Trump is doing, is the Project 2025 playbook
- Make the case that when when said Trump was a fascist, we didn't mean Hitler, we meant Viktor Orban. Then show the parallels. Keep doing this until it sinks in.
"-pick them off one at a time (no, not literally). Identify the worst of his team, and find their vulnerability. Expose their action so that they will make Trump look bad"
" Musk is an urgent threat that can do irreversible damage to the country."
Well "Big Balls", one of Musk's DOGE boys, was just picked off. Thanks to 'Wired'
"These person needs to be able to speak in a calm common sense manner. No hyperbole. Be able to go on podcasts and Fox news"
I nominate Pete Buttigieg. He would be perfect for this.
All of your ideas are great. I've also been saying that the people who voted for Trump will have to suffer -- a lot -- before they (might) change their minds about voting for neo-fascists -- Trump or anyone else.
Since Democrats for the time being have very little power to stop the Trump insanity (Trump has the WH, Congress, and the courts), they need to communicate clearly, regularly, and effectively about what Trump is doing (as you say, link it to Project 2025 and how he lied about knowing anything about it) and who it's bad for: farmers, workers, women, middle class, etc.
As you point out, podcasts, social media, and Fox News are where these messages might break through. Effective communication may be our only hope.
What I am really looking for is that the portion of self-declared evangelical Christians who supported Trump because they disagreed with the alternative now start realizing what they contributed to. Mr Ts goals and actions are in my book deeply against any notions of a Christian worldview.
Don't hold your breath. Don't expect conservative women to rebel against the sexism either. They have justified it all and there is no cognitive dissonance
Ok, if that is the case, then it is good to know that I am on the opposite side of the fence to those folks, and I have less in common with them than with many others.
You forget the real reason he does this
He learned through Jared during his prior term he can make over $100 million in profits each time what he pontificates will move markets
800000 puts were bought last Friday. Some for under $10 that went to $1000
No way he missed partaking.
And after his phone call with Mexico his first call was to Jared’s guy to buy a few thousand calls. Then announced the phone call and made a quick $20 million
Better than selling Trump coins.
You will have 4 years of this insider scam
This is getting more chilling by the hour: just saw story that El Salvador has offered to house U.S. prisoners - INCLUDING U.S. CITIZENS - in its prisons; and T**** & co. are ecstatic.
Jeff's meme is taking over Bluesky.
Mr. Musk's 6 employee hackers were given the keys to the US Treasury and now control the government checkbook. Wow! Not a shot was fired and they took over the whole thing. They now control the pursestrings of the US Government. Great job guys. Forget the old notion of governmental checks and balances. The 6 now control both the cheques and the remaining balances. Control of the pursestrings was formerly the job of the US House of Representatives. No more. The duly elected Representatives just gave that job over to the 6 hackers. Representatives, you might as well go home now because you're no longer needed. And forget about running a campaign to be re-elected. It won't be necessary. Remember? Donald Trump averred "if you elect me you will never have to vote again". The 6 hackers can do the whole thing at 1/100th the cost. The Senate? Advise and consent? Its members are about to approve all of Mr. Trump's appointees and in so doing will surrender to the Executive Branch all responsibility and authority which the Senators formerly held. In times past there was an individual's internal conflict between honoring integrity and the quest for power. No longer a problem for members of the US Senate. They will have neither. The rest of the voting citizenry will have an authoritarian monarch.
And we will pay the price.
I am so sorry for what is happening to the US from Australia. Those of us who are politically aware are absolutely horrified although we have our share of right wing crazy.
It must be awful waking up thinking you are on earth 2.0. When the other half of your country just blissfully carry on thinking it will be all ok.
It sounds like the handmaids tale except it's less the Christian nationalists and more power hungry dangerous tech rich people.
Surely at some point buyers remorse will kick in for those trump voting everyday citizens.... betrayal even?
Nope....after watching the J6th attack on Congress and the Law all of them were reprogrammed. In the end very few Republicans stayed home or voted for Kamala Harris. They are more interested in demolishing the Democrat enemy. I believe the US is headed to a "cold" civil war like Northern Ireland had in the Troubles 1960's through 1990's only we are a nation with 10's of millions of military style weapons in private possession.
The Christian nationalists are playing a big part in the purges and impounding of funds, the sabotaging of medical & scientific research, the performative deportations, the efforts to bring the media to heel, and the obsessive hostility to LGBT people. Their numbers are greater than the tech bros, and they've got more of the MAGA base with them, but the tech billionaires have other advantages. If the two factions start squabbling, that will be good for the rest of us.
Over at the UnPopulist, people calling themselves classical liberals or libertarians are claiming that 1) Musk is fully entitled to do whatever he's doing as long as Trump says he can; and 2) he is heroically finding waste & fraud so we can get back to a proper constitutional system; and 3) how dare anyone accuse him of doing anything illegal or dishonorable.
And that's apparently not from super-MAGAs who think everything Trump does is awesome.
Many people who know more about the law than I do say that what Musk is doing is, in fact, unlawful and dangerous. And I think a person has to be naive or willfully self-deluding to be confident of his good intentions or respect for law. But unfortunately, a lot of Americans - not all of them MAGA rubes - see the villains in our current situation as heroes.
This is the last paragraph of my Substack tomorrow: "With more than half the country that didn’t vote for Trump plus more and more of the people who supported him becoming disaffected from him, I’m watching for some moment when there’s a dramatic incident and virtually everyone turns on him. Law-abiders are at a disadvantage dealing with someone who has no regard for the law and has power, but I even wonder about a coup. Not a bloody one. Does acting lawfully and losing our country make sense? I’m just asking…"
This is not going to end well. People are not going to tolerate it. There will be violence. Maybe there should be. This is a coup. Actions like this require an appropriate response. Americans are the most armed to the teeth people on earth. I know that may not be a popular view - at least for now - but it's understandable if people do take severe and serious action. President Musk, Trump and their minions are ignoring the law, the courts, and any pretense to the contrary is useless and ineffectual. So, what other options are there?
Finally, they said it, and in Congress, no less. That effin' monkey's name is KASHYAP PATEL.
I love The Bulwark because your politics mostly align with mine. I love it even more because you strive to get facts right, even when they don't help your arguments. The news about ABC's settlement with Trump is fading from our consciousness, but I still hear it mentioned on various Bulwark podcasts, and I think you are getting it wrong - and in a way that really hurts the anti-Trump movement.
As I'm writing this, I must acknowledge that while there is some room for opinion, there are some stubborn facts about this story. One fact - perhaps the most important/stubborn of them all, is that Stephanopoulos lied - many times - when he said that Trump was found liable for rape by a jury. This is demonstrably true. And while it is not known with certainty whether Stephanopoulos knew of its falsity, it would be interesting to hear the cross-examination of him if he denied knowing this - a well-respected journalist who is undoubtedly required to abide by ABC's standards. There is also, of course, a good argument that he acted with reckless disregard of its falsity, at a minimum.
And I've heard the argument that Trump could not prove harm, given his reputation, etc. I think this too is probably short-sighted. A decent attorney, it seems to me, should have an easy time getting a jury to believe that a false accusation of rape, by a well-respected journalist, during a presedential campaign, did inflict at least some harm.
In case you've read this far, here is my point: This is not a story about ABC capitulating to Trump, or an ominous story about how the media is going to think twice about reporting negative stories about Trump. Perhaps, if the media keeps reporting the story this way, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the media will be reluctant to post unfavorable stories about Trump.
But what if the news reported that for some unknown reason, George Stephanopolous lied about Trump on the air, and because of that, they were likely to lose at trial, and they wisely decided that 15 million was a pretty cheap way to avoid all the negative publicity of a trial when they were likely to lose anyway. THIS, it seems to me, is the real story. Perhaps more importantly, if it were told this way - honestly, from my perspective - it would not seem as ominous and would not advance the perception that Trump has more power than he has. Further, what most people would take from it, is that the rule of law matters, and it is a very bad idea to defame anyone - even someone as broadly reviled as Trump.
I don't understand why it has not been reported this way. It makes me cringe a bit that those I go to that help me understand what is going on in the world are misreporting this story. Or - and I acknowledge this is possible - maybe my take is wrong. That could be - but I've yet to hear anyone address the issues I raised about in a manner that made me rethink my position.
A HUGE fan,
Phillip in Sacramento
"... for some unknown reason, George Stephanopolous lied about Trump on the air, and because of that, they were likely to lose at trial"
It was almost impossible for them to lose. Long ago I got a degree in journalism. The part you're missing is the landmark Supreme Court case New York Times vs. Sullivan.
I don't have time here and now to explain it all in detail but, in a nutshell, as a result of that decision public figures* have almost no chance of winning a libel case against a media outlet, unless they can prove actual malice, which is practically impossible (unless you're Fox News encouraging their "journalists" and on-air guests to lie about Dominion Voting Systems, which is why they settled. It's also not clear that Dominion was a "public figure".)
That's at least part of the reason ABC paying off Trump is capitulation, at least in my view.
* Being a public figure is the key here. The rules are different for regular people like us.
Trump was found liable - guilty - of sexual assault by a jury. That is true, even if the charge was not rape. It was however adjudicated to be rape by the judge. It seems to me you're splitting hairs here. Trump is a well known serial sexual assaulter, by his own admission. There is evidence he's guilty of statutory rape at Jeffrey Epstein's private island enclave.
What is the objective of your comment? To tear down and discredit Stephanopoulos? Sure seems that way. It also seems you're attempting to absolve Trump in some way. And here is another unassailable fact; Trump and his minions are targeting the press, journalists and independent media, to silence them and censor all critical reportage and criticism they don't like, as all authoritarian regimes do. To silence dissent. Frankly, you sound like an apologist for that project, which is substantiated by your assertion regarding ABC's capitulation.
Is there a distinction in the legal system between sexual assault and rape? Language has been degraded to such an extent that we miscommunicate regularly. Precise use of words and terms lend clarity to communication, everyday speech and the media.
“Poor Mexico, So Far From God, So Close to the United States.”
-- Porfirio Diaz
I guess most Canadians are sharing that sentiment today.
"It figures. It all happened too sudden. People gotta talk themselves into law and order before they do anything about it; maybe because, down deep, they don't care. They just don't care." -- Martin Howe (Lon Chaney, Jr.) in 1952's HIGH NOON. (Link to vid clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYrHnxfGivg&t=85s )
By the way, I highly recommend y'all re-watch that classic western. It's the perfect analog to our current predicament: a pardoned bad guy and his gang return to terrorize a frontier town, and the hapless townsfolk offer nothing but excuses to the sheriff who needs their help to form a posse. The depiction of cowardice and rationalization is spot-on.
'Do not forsake me, Oh my Democrats!'